Cait Kincaid (miss_mercury) wrote in age_of_miracles, @ 2008-03-12 02:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | avalanche, mercury |
Log: Avalanche and Mercury
Who: Dominic Petros and Cait Kincaid
When: Backdated to February 28th, afternoon
Where: Outside, near the Lair
What: Dominic wanted to hit something. Cait wanted to hit Dominic. So ... their relationship's pretty much getting nicely back on track.
"It's fucking cold."
It really was. Dominic was standing outside, rubbing his shoulders to better illustrate his point as he scowled at his companion. When he'd mentioned that he wanted to hit something, he didn't think it'd end up with him standing outside in the middle of nowhere in winter work-out attire. Although they were close enough to the Lair in case of emergency. Not that there would be one unless one of them killed and/or maimed the other. There was no one around for miles. It was good enough to discourage any visitors. The worst they ever got were some fucking pot-smoking hippie kids that tried to pry their way into the garage entrance every now and again.
Why had he agreed to this again? Because Mercury had invited herself into his room and dragged him outside. That's why. And he'd rather face her aggression somewhere that he could defend himself rather than in his bedroom where there were a few (not many, given his sparse decorating style) breakable things he didn't want to go without. And, truth be known, he was looking forward to a little old fashioned violence himself. Cait always put up a pretty good fight when it came down to it. He wouldn't admit to missing their matches, because that would be giving in. But somehow, he hadn't found himself protesting too much when she'd come to drag him out.
It still didn't mean he wanted much to do with her outside of that. Really.
It should have come as some sort of consolation to Dominic that if he had to come out in his standard work-out gear, Cait had to go outside in a basic tank top and shorts. Of course, chances were that it wouldn't help - both because Dominic was a dick, and also because she didn't really feel the cold the same way that other people did, and therefore probably wasn't really suffering as much anyway. Still, she was entirely unapologetic for having selectively interpreted his journal entry, and for having pulled him outside; truth was they were long overdue for some sort of talk, and besides -- sparring with Rogue the night before might have gotten Cait past wanting to murder something, but she still wasn't happy, and letting off steam with a good old fashioned fight was one of the best ways to fix that.
"Fuckin' pussy," she retorted lightly, shaking her head. The other point to all of this, beyond the really fucking annoying temperature - which would be irrelevant once they'd worked up a sweat anyway - was that outside, Dominic actually had a chance to do something with his abilities. Not that Cait was particularly in the mood to get her ass handed to her for the second day in a row, but hey. It would be new and interesting, and it wasn't like she didn't have a trick or two of her own. Fair being fair and all that jazz.
"You said you wanted to hit somethin'." Cait gave an open-handed shrug. "So hit me!"
"Bitch," he replied, scowl deepening just a little. She was already trash-talking. Great.
Dominic didn't want to talk. He didn't want to discuss what she'd been doing the last nine months or so. Or wherever the hell she'd gone. Or what he'd been doing during that amount of time either. It was going to end up being really fucking pointless, emo bullshit. He was not a fan.
Shoving his hair back out of his eyes, Dominic hit her. The ground behind her surged upwards at a slant, making an odd earthen ramp aimed directly at her lower back. There was enough force behind the wave to knock her off balanced, or perhaps even off her feet. He wasn't in the mood to pull punches and doubted she was either. She wanted to fight. Fine, he'd fucking fight. It wasn't his fault if she got pissed about it later.
It was kind of odd to talk about 'rules' with two terrorists about to pummel each other - but in all of their sparring matches, Cait and Dominic had established some sort of unspoken code of conduct; conventional combat first, low-level, then actual fighting, then the tricks begin. The fact that they'd followed it every time without ever talking about it only made the convention that much more stable ... in Cait's mind. Apparently, it didn't necessarily go both ways, which left her completely unprepared when the ground behind her suddenly reared up to take her out.
It hit her hard, and unbalanced, sent her flying forwards with more force than Cait had imagined Dominic to be able to produce. Apparently this whole outside advantage thing was a bit more than she'd expected, she thought as she tucked automatically into a defensive summersault. No rules, and bigger guns ... well, she hadn't really been in the mood to play nice anyway.
So Cait let the roll take her forwards, ignoring the momentary pain in her back, springing up just shy of actually crashing into Dom. The sun glinted as she straightened, catching on a long straight edge that normally didn't belong on Cait, as she reshaped her right forearm into a long, double-edged blade.
"Fucker," she accused, slashing quickly at Dominic's chest - and the edge of the blade softened just before it touched him, to bruise rather than slice. Fighting dirty was all well and good, but she wasn't exactly looking to kill the guy.
He smirked for a moment as she stumbled forward, clearly enjoying that little aspect. This was his element. He'd always been forced to hold back before. Training indoors meant he spent more time on his hand-to-hand than the big stuff. It was an advantage at times, to be sure. But the chance to let loose was always worth it. He'd been practicing with the destruction he could cause as well, or rather he'd been working to better fine tune it to do what he wanted.
He'd been expecting her to come at him when she regained her balance. Feet planted firmly on the ground, he waited for her inevitable pounce. But as her hand reformed into a blade, Dominic's eyes narrowed. That, he had not been looking for. In the past, it had been much less lethal when they sparred. She was going not just for the pain, but also for the kill. It took him by surprise, stalling his evasive manoeuvre for a few seconds as he just stared at it - a little dumbly.
"What the fuck?" The hesitation caused him dearly and her blade smacked against his chest. He stumbled backwards a pace, baffled at the sensation of pain. Not because it hurt, but because it didn't hurt nearly as much as he thought it was going too. The pain elicited a grunt from him, but he wasn't going to stand around and let her keep swiping at him. He reached to grab the blade arm - high enough so that he'd avoid getting sliced open - and shove her off to put some distance between them. "What the fuck was that?"
The arm he'd been holding turned liquid, melting out of his grasp - which still fucking hurt, though Cait would die before admitting that yesterday's whole fiasco had more of an effect than just a beating. Electricity, Mercury, bad combination, end of story. In the meanwhile, her other arm shifted and hardened, spikes emerging along the outside of her forearm which she promptly used to elbow Dominic in the throat. The glinting points once again melted away before they could do any serious damage - but this was a chance for her to practice against someone who could handle her, and Cait wasn't going to pass up that opportunity.
Smirking, Cait took a step back to kick at him - standard kick to the chest, not very much momentum behind it and no fancy shaping of the foot. She was hardly weak, a normal kick would still do something, and even if he wasn't going to respect the rules of their game, she'd pay token acknowledgment to them.
"Nine fuckin' months, Dom," Cait retorted. "You think I wouldn't've picked up somethin'? Come on."
He jerked his hands away quickly enough, avoiding a rather painful blow to the throat by ducking around it, though the spikes grazed his shoulder. Luckily they were blunt on impact to merely bounce off. Didn't mean there wasn't force behind it, but it was better than ripping through his skin. "Didn't realize you'd learned to be a fucking cunt along the way too."
He caught the hasty kick in one hand, fingers grasping beneath her heel and - before she could take the opportunity to reform the metal flesh - he jerked it forward and upwards in an effort to knock her completely off balance. All but throwing her leg up and away. As she her entire balance was on the other one, he figured it was a safe bet. But, just to help things along, Dominic pushed a bit of energy into the ground beneath her, causing the earth under her foot to ripple at the same time. It wasn't a big vibration, but definitely enough to distract and bewilder.
His hand-to-hand had improved as well, goddamn it. Or, maybe it was just that hers hadn't been helped by nine months of sitting pretty and sparring with her shadow. Either way, Cait was completely thrown off when Dominic grabbed her foot, and the combination of being tossed backwards and having the ground underneath her foot turn to shivers was enough to have her flying again. She landed hard on her back, liquefying after the impact in part out of delayed reflex and partially to heal what felt like a cracked rib.
She reformed an instant later, cursing under her breath - and then aloud. "The fuck?" Why was it that every time they were together it turned into swearing within thirty seconds? Probably because she'd abandoned him without a word and they hadn't properly talked since. But that was a moot point, and far less important than the current violence, so Cait pushed it aside, along with the fact that she also now owed him her life. "You fuckin' hit me from behind without any sort of warnin' and say that I'm the one bein' a cunt?" No fucking way. Unfortunately, she was ever so slightly lacking in terms of ways to pay him back - having no walls or ceilings cut down a lot of her normal attacks. Well, she hadn't lost that much skill - so once again the sword reformed, but this time Cait stayed low, directing a sweeping kick at Dominic's feet as she swiped at him.
"Yeah, because outta the two of us, you fit the description," he retorted, giving her a moment to reform. It was still sorta creepy the way she did that - puddle to solid in such a short period of time. Hard to remember she wasn't really flesh anymore, sometimes. "You told me to hit you. Just forget to say how."
The sword was easy to block this time. He was expecting it now, having seen her do it once. But the kick was new and although he tried to move out of her range, she managed to tangle his legs pretty well. He stumbled once again, going to his knees. He did keep his face from smacking against the ground, catching himself with his hands before he toppled over entirely. He was better, but still not perfect. "And you're the one with the fucking sword."
From his half-crouched position, Dominic lunged forward, going for a low blow to her solar plexus - provided she had one - and kept moving, planting another around the area of her kidneys.
It wasn't much, but a small victory was a small victory, and Cait was beginning to realise she'd need every single one of them in this fight, because the circumstances were stacking up against her. Why exactly had she picked outside again? As the set of punches came at her, Cait was hard-pressed to remember her own logic.
She dodged the first easily enough, Dominic slightly unbalanced on the ground and herself in full control. But full control coming up from a kick still limited her mobility, and twisting to avoid the first punch left the second aiming directly for her gut with almost nothing she could do about it. Almost none of her standard tactics worked here, and Cait was really not in the mood to get pushed around for the entirety of this battle - bad enough that he was cussing her out, but to win the fight at the same time?
So she liquefied - just her torso, keeping both her upper and lower body solid as Dominic punched through her stomach. Which felt really fucking strange, granted, but didn't actually hurt, and wasn't doing her any harm. Completely ignoring the arm passing through her, Cait shook out her hand, sword shifting back to normal shape. "Happy now?" she shot back. "I lose the sword, you lose the name callin'?" There was a twist to the last words, something almost like a sneer, an emphasis on how ridiculous his entire verbal attack really was. 'You started it', random insults, fucking second grade. Rolling her eyes, Cait aimed a punch hard just below his windpipe.
"Enhhh." Dom's expression shifted to one of slight distress as his hand went right into her and then through her. He'd forgotten that she did stuff like that on occasion. Moving quickly almost to the point of panic, he withdrew his hand and the rest of his body, flexing his fingers a bit nervously. That wasn't just a little creepy, it was really fucking creepy. The backwards movement saved him from getting jabbed in the throat, though. That was a plus.
He failed to see how he was the problem here, as she was the one that had wanted the fight in the first place. So he just scowled at her in response, looking just as annoyed as she. "Whatever."
He responded by shoving his vibrations into the ground once again, causing a rippling, tidal effect that would knock into Cait sideways, if she didn't see it coming. She was really hard to hit sometimes, as he'd discovered long ago. Her mutation allowed her to bounce back from just about every punch he threw at her physically, so a lot of the time he was just trying to keep her off balance.
Let it never be said that Cait was a slow learner. Sure, something could slip by her once or twice, but she was starting to get a bit of a hang of how Dominic’s powers worked in open space with no limits. So she wasn't entirely surprised when the ground started to move, and Dom skittering backwards had left her enough time to get her feet under herself once more. There was only so much one could do to escape a moving wave of ground, though. Thinking for only a moment, Cait turned and dove just as the wave was about to smash into her, rolling over and onto her feet.
And found herself, for the first time, in a situation that almost seemed familiar - that is to say, on higher ground. Not quite the same as a wall or a ceiling, granted, but still slightly higher than where Dom was standing ... and moving, but that was kind of a moot point that Cait planned on ignoring. Before Dominic could turn whatever she was standing on into a crater or something equally unsettling, Cait turned to face him and jumped -- nothing fancy, just a tackle, because honestly? They were so goddamned satisfying. Yeah, Dom had the whole ground-powers thing, him on his back wasn't necessarily a bad thing for him. But if she was directly on top of him he could do less to knock her over or smash her or anything else that ended up breaking bones. And that little dismissive reply thing was leaving Cait with a growing desire to punch him in the face.
He hadn't been expecting that. It was such a basic move, and quite unlike Cait. And yet entirely effective.
"Ouf!" The whoosh of air escaped him as Cait barrelled him right of his feet. He smacked against the ground on his back, most of the air gone right out his lungs. And banging his head against the ground. Good thing they were training on ground, although it was cold and somewhat frozen at this point. The grass was still softer than the metal flooring of the Lair, something he couldn't quite appreciate just yet, seeing as how he'd just gotten thoroughly tackled.
Dominic reached up to grab her by the shoulders, mostly just to get a handle on her before she could swipe at him again - thinking ahead to possibly rolling her over and reversing their positions, maybe. It was a reflexive move and might have worked had Mercury been a normal human being composed of normal human fleshy stuff; but her little reforming stunt was fresh on his mind. Perhaps that was where the memory came from. At the last moment, he pulled back, palms outward. Then he pushed with his abilities. The generation of seismic vibrations came too him easily now, it was little more than a single thought that brought them forth. In this case, he channelled the vibrations not into the ground around them, but directly into Mercury herself. In his reactionary move, he put more force behind the seismic waves than he'd ever done previously - shoving it at her with vehemence.
Cait had perhaps a second and a half to enjoy her victory - a real one, this time, as she managed to take Dominic down and apparently not too far from out. The simple things, she had to remember that they were more effective than she remembered them to be.
Or not. As soon as Dominic's hand touched her, with no aggression or grip, Cait froze. Something was decidedly wrong, or at least dangerous, because he should be fighting her now not steadying her, or whatever it felt like he was doing -- which suddenly seemed very familiar. The memory surfaced moments before Avalanche attacked, and Cait had just opened her mouth in a pre-emptive sort of gasp when the vibrations ripped through her. The sound died abruptly, hanging in the cool air as Mercury's form wavered for a moment, and then exploded. Thousands and thousands of miniscule silver droplets splattered out in a shower of shining rain ... and then there was nothing.
The last time he'd done this - the only time he'd done this, they'd been in Dom's room. Cait had separated, but she hadn't really gone very far, collecting on objects and walls and ceilings. There were no walls no, no ceilings, and although Cait wasn't really in much of a position to be analytical, it felt like the force that separated her this time was at least twice what it had been before. Her pieces were tiny, scattered in all directions, and for a long moment the only thought in her mind was just pulling herself together. Tiny droplets ran into each other in the grass, silver specks the size of raindrops forming miniscule puddles until finally Cait could think again.
"Goddamnit!" The sound echoed unnaturally, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once, as the puddles continued to creep silently together. "Seriously. God! Damn! Eugh!"
"Shit." He came out as more of a groan than an actual expletive, seeing as how he'd been covered in a good deal of Mercury when she'd exploded all over him. He wiped a bit from his cheek and flicked it at the general mass of silvery goo that was beginning to puddle. He pushed himself up on his elbows to watch the reformation, not the least bit repentant about his actions. She'd fucking deserved after the stunt with the swords and the tackling and all. What else had she expected?
There had been a split second of worrying about whether or not she'd be able to reform after that. But he really did know better. He'd seen her do it before, although it had not been nearly as explosive the first time around. Last time had been a little more mild with the reaction. Awww, damn it. She wasn't going to be happy when she reformed either.
Cait could reform, that much at least was certain; but it wasn't happening quickly. The puddle at Dominic's feet grew the most quickly, his body having caught more than any other one place, but after a minute it was still only a fraction of its normal size, as Mercury worked to pull the scattered pices from each blade of frozen grass. It was harder work than she'd ever had to do, felt completely unnatural. The only blessing was that for the first time since the attack yesterday, the feeling of electricity was gone.
Still, Cait wasn't happy, and when her voice came again it was louder than before, projected better now that she was beginning to come together. "Okay, you know what, enough of this crap." She was down to ten or twelve pools now, roughly circling Dominic and streaming slowly in to the centre. "What the Hell is your problem with me, Dominic?" It wasn't exactly that this particular attack was unfair - not fun, granted, but honestly, if Cait could have done the same thing to him, she would have, so she couldn't really blame him. No, it was beyond that, the unpleasantness in the air between them ever since she'd got back that was beginning to drive her nuts. And since she couldn't exactly go anywhere, and he didn't seem to be, now seemed like as good a time as any to air grievances.
"What the fuck kind of stupid question is that?" Dominic snorted, watching the puddles warily. She wasn't reformed yet - but he wouldn't put it past her to launch another attack when she was, given her bad mood. He pushed off the ground, rolling upward into a sitting position as he spoke. "What did you expect me to do, Cait? You wanted to fight, so fine, we're fucking fighting. It's not my fault you wanted to do it outside."
He was avoiding the issue, sort of. Dominic knew what she meant. He was angry with her. Really angry. This wasn't a new feeling for him; Dominic spent a lot of his life being angry about things. But one was more than the usual 'people hating' sort of issue. It was more personal than that. "You're the one that fucking left. Stop getting so fucking pissed out it."
Yeah, he'd said it before and he'd probably end up saying it again. But she was the one that kept asking.
"Stop bein' an idiot." The one downside of being a slowly-forming puddle was that it was very hard to gesticulate, and the slight quiver that Cait could manage didn't really feel quite the same. "I'm not talkin' about the fight. The fight's fine, and you know it." This wasn't normally her style, this. Talking things out was for people who didn't have actions, but Cait had tried actions, and they weren't getting anywhere. Every time they intersected, there was something unpleasant in the air, and giving it full reign wasn't giving her any answers.
She was so close to being in one piece - Cait paused, concentrating only on that until a moment later the puddle was one entity. Then she reformed, slowly, until she too was sitting on the ground. Better to have as many limbs touching as possible in case he decided to hurl her somewhere.
"Don't go fuckin' puttin' this on me," Cait shot out. "It was bad enough that I had to leave. I don't need you makin' me feel worse about that, Dom - the goin' was bad enough, thanks. Now I do get to come back and you've got some kinda deal goin' on, which, hey, I can't stop you." Shaking her head, Cait pushed smoothly onto her feet. "Just, for fuck's sake, tell me what your goddamned problem is! I've taken your crap long enough when I don't even know what the Hell's goin' on."
"I'm not making you feel shit," he snorted, shaking his head angrily. He was genuinely baffled at her next statement. "And the Hell are you talking about, 'deal'? What deal?"
Sitting on the ground and scowling, Dominic looked more like a sullen teenager than anything remotely resembling a threat. He stared up at her as she rose and, not about to keep the height difference between them as great, he shambled to his feet as well. "My problem is that you fucking walked out without a single fucking good-bye. Then you come back and I'm not supposed to be fucking pissed off about it? Yeah, you had to leave, what the fuck ever. But you could have called or written or something to let us know you weren't fucking dead or gone or . . . just. . fuck it!"
Exasperated, Dominic threw his hands up and stomped off - all of about four feet to turn his back on her and rant to himself under his breath. This was composed mostly of curse words with the interspersed mutterings about never understanding women.
"No I couldn't." The words were soft, and came after a long pause as Cait stared at Dominic's back and tried to figure out what the fuck she could possibly do. It wasn't, of course, exactly true. There had been rules about who she could contact - practically no one, a year of being kept near prisoner - but technically speaking there weren't very many prisons that could do much against Mercury, and if she'd had her heart set on mailing a letter it probably would have made it out. That wasn't the problem.
"If I'd called, I'd have had to say why I left. I couldn't do that, Dom." Another not-truth, and something that had been driving her nuts ever since she'd come back. Leaving had been essential, or at least felt that way, and a year away was a year of her life she could never get back -- but she couldn't talk about it, couldn't say. No one here would understand it, and that was the best case scenario. "You wouldn't have been able to accept it - fuck, no one here could, Mercury havin' to go off and fuckin' babysit her -- Hell." She shook her head. "And I couldn't lie. Not to you."
Which was, upon reflection, the sappiest thing Cait had ever said in her life. Moderately mortified, she looked up at the sky and wished that melting off and disappearing wouldn't make the situation worse.
"Couldn't lie about what, Cait?" He turned to look at her, brows furrowed sharply in his ire. Instead of making him look older, the wrinkled brow made him look even younger. And even more confused. Her admission had made him pause, although he wasn't sure what to do with it. Dom wasn't the kind of guy who was used to this sort of thing. "You have some huge secret that such a big deal that you have to run away and just not tell me? Then what the Hell is it?"
"That I spent the last year sittin' pretty behind some white picket fence waitin' for my fuckin' father to finally keel over." She couldn't look at him, unreasonably afraid of a reaction. Dominic, out of everyone, might understand somewhat. She had a memory of him having a secret, maybe ... but if not? "We're mutant fuckin' terrorists. We don't just go home when our mothers say 'pretty please', but I had to. They treated me like shit, but I had to go, I don't know why, I just ..." Cait threw her hands in the air.
There was a moment of silence between them as Dominic stared at Cait with her head down.
"That's it?" He snorted in utter disbelief. "That's it? You had to go home because you've got a fucking family and that's your huge secret? "
Cait sighed, frustrated. Put that way, it sounded ridiculous - which it was, but not ... well, it was complicated. "Yeah. They locked me in a fuckin' basement for two years and treated me like some thing, but when they called I went runnin' anyway, did what I was told, pretended I didn't want to slit her throat." Whether or not that was strictly true, even Cait couldn't say. Her mother was alive, she honestly didn't know whether or not she wanted to go back and fix that. She turned to look at Dominic. "You tell me. Who here, of all places, is gonna accept that?"
He opened his mouth and promptly shut it. He knew that it sucked to be a mutant when you're parents were crazy, at least intellectually. He'd never been locked in a basement or burned to beaten for what he was. Not by his parents, at least. The ridicule had come from others, sure. But not from now. "You didn't have to go back."
"And who the fuck cares what people around here think? It's not like they give a real shit about anyone but themselves, anyway?"
She laughed, bitterly. "I had to go back -- it was in his will. What thief in her right mind'll turn down an inheritance?" One who realised before going in how decidedly unpleasant it would be ... but that was a moot point, after the fact. At least he wasn't saying any of the things Cait had been afraid people would say.
"This place is the closest thing I've got to family," she answered finally. "Goin' away was bad enough, havin' people here look down on me when I got back? I couldn't take that. Missed this place too much. Fuck, I missed you."
Nobody missed Dominic. It was like missing a hangover. Or really bad eggs. It didn't happen. Still, he words appeared to flabbergast him for a moment. Cait had missed him?
"You think everyone around here came from anything other than humans? Big fucking deal." Of course, he would say that, given his own ties away from the Brotherhood. "You're not the only person with a fucking family."
"I think everyone around here's tryin' as hard as they fuckin' can to pretend they've got no ties." The more she tried to explain, the more ridiculous it felt. She probably sounded like an idiot. "I don't have anywhere to go back to, Dom, and I'm sorry, I just don't have the balls to be the only person around here who'll admit to bein' at some sapien's beck and call. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe no one'd give a shit, I'm not gonna risk it." Telling Dominic was one thing, explaining it to everyone was something Cait still was never planning on doing. "It's just ... fuck, if I've gotta have you bein' mad at me, might as well at least be for the right reasons." Bad enough having one of the more important people in your life seem to hate you, worse not to know why.
"I'm not fucking pissed off because you have a family." Dominic rolled his eyes. "Or that you hate them or they hate you, apparently. I'm pissed off because - "
Well, that was the question, wasn't it? Why was he upset? So she'd left the Lair and the Brotherhood and basically everything. He didn't care about any of that shit. He didn't care about much of anything, really. Fuck all that and everything else he usually complained about it. So she'd run off and now she was back pretending nothing had changed - only everything had changed. The Lair wasn't what it used to be, even before Magneto's big take-over. But if he really didn't care that she'd left, why the fuck was he so pissed off at her coming back?
"You left me."
It shouldn't really have come as a surprise, but Cait still blinked when Dominic finally answered. Some things went unsaid for way too long, it was just odd to have words put to them. And honestly, there wasn't very much she could say against what was, in the end, the truth.
"I'm sorry." She'd justified it, with some difficulty, when she left; they weren't a demonstrative couple, it probably didn't mean as much to him as it did to her. After enough time, it had sounded true, which added to her reaction now. "I -- God, Dom, I'm sorry." Hard to say what she was feeling now - strangely calm, if anything, to actually be saying things rather than just bickering. Cait took a step forward. "I didn't mean to. I didn't want to, shit. You -" Another sigh, why could words never just magically flow the right way when it was actually convenient? "I would never have left you."
Fuck. Why did he have to go and say shit like that for? Because he had missed her while she was gone and for a while things had been really fucked up and not at all the way they had been. And he was so fucking tired of seeing people leave. Or die. Fuck. He wasn't going to think about that, because Gwen was dead and she wasn't fucking coming back. And nobody about the whole damned place gave a fuck. Except for him.
Dominic was quick to brush off her explanation, trying to salvage his own admission from sounding entirely pathetic. "Doesn't fucking matter. You're here. And it's not a big deal."
"It's a big deal if it's got you pissed at me." This, at least, was familiar territory; something being talked about, Dominic minimizing things because emotions were scary and wimpy. Normally, Cait was in complete and utter agreement on that count, but it seemed like when he was around she turned into the 'don't be afraid to take a step or two' girl. "Look. I know I fucked things up. I shouldn't'a left the way I did, and I wasn't just comin' back thinkin' you and I'd just be the same, whether or not I wanted it." An admission, and a big one, but maybe if it was tucked in the middle it could go unnoticed? "Just that, everything's different. Everyone's changed, or ... gone ... but you're still damned important to me, Rocky. I'm not just gonna call it 'no big deal'." An admission or two might be worth it, if they could save a friendship.
"It's just. . . not worth talking about, Cait." Dominic was stubborn when it came to stuff like this. He didn't like emotions. They got in the way and muddled things up. Life was much more simple without them. He'd already told her more than he wanted to when he'd agreed to this stupid match. Why had he done that in the first place? Apart from that bit that still wanted to see her. They'd been friends before they'd become. . whatever the Hell it was that they were. "Everything's different now. We deal with it and go on."
Dominic not wanting to talk about things went without saying - still, it was something. "Not everything," Cait said, always stubborn. "You ain't gettin' rid of me so easily." No, things weren't the way they were before, and Cait wasn't going to go pretending they were. Yes, she'd missed the relationship she'd had with him, while she was away. But it had been a year, and while she wasn't massively thrilled with whatever Dom and Carmilla seemed to have going on, she'd respect it. It wasn't as though she had any idea where to go from here either. The only thing that was really important was figuring out where she stood, and making the best from there. So Cait cocked her head, and looked at him directly. "Need all the friends we can get."