Pete Wisdom is saving the world...from itself. (mister_wisdom) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-07-06 20:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, moira mactaggert, neena thurman (domino), pete wisdom |
"I can't run about, with burny doom hands."
Who: Domino, codename: Burny Doom Hands Pete Wisdom, Moira MacTaggert
What: Bad dreams, burns, major freak outs, Dommy is awesome, and Moira gets told not to say 'bampot' again.
When: Morning of the 5th, just before and after these text messages to Moira.
Where: Casa de Wisdom
Rating: PG13 for language, a second degree burn (there's no medically based description of the actual burn, other than the moment of ouch bestowal), and Moira smokes. For shame, Moira. Some medical professional, you are.
Status: Complete!Location: Hammer Bay, Genosha.
Mission Synopsis: With assistance from Excalibur, find the source of ammunition being used against mutate population following the civil war. The newly established bipartisan government is struggling to keep control on what’s now become urban warfare between gorilla groups. Wisdom will be acting as liaison and non-combatant, in last acting field mission.
Objective: Bring back sample of anti-mutant ammunition we suspect originated in England and/or any records that can be obtained regarding manufacture of the aforementioned ammunition, shipping, et cetera.
Note: As agreed to upon terms previously discussed, the agent in question will be discharged from Black Air active duty status, upon completion of the objective(s).
Once again, it looked so much simpler on paper. It was the note that Peter Wisdom had particularly been keen about, because he really hadn’t wanted to kill another living being for as long as he lived. He never had, to begin with. Every time it happened, he was locked in a futile battle with his own self, between trying to distance himself like he was watching it all from someone else’s eyes...and knowing that each time it happened, a little piece of his own self felt like it shriveled up and died, too.
Because, in the grand scheme of things, Pete stopped keeping a body count. If he hadn't, he would have long since gone off the deep end. His co-worker, Scratch, liked to brag about it and how easy it was to kill kids, but he didn’t do either of those things. He barely talked about it, at all. In fact, Pete never killed anyone who wasn’t somehow directly involved with illegal activity. He drew the line at killing people’s families, friends, or children. Oh, he’d threaten sometimes if someone was being difficult, and usually it was a very effective threat. But even he would go to Scicluna and flat out tell her he wasn’t about to do any of that, and they had other agents that she could sent. It wasn’t for him.
Even so, he still had a job that needed doing. Duty first, someone has to be the bad guy who does it, better him than someone else, and all that.
Cold Grey in Antarctica had been the pebble that started an steadily moving, downward avalanche. He started that mission off by killing a pilot working with a terrorist group, knowing full well that he had children and a wife. He’d read the files. He knew their ages, their names, and their home address. He wasn’t even a person fully involved. But he was there, and he was operating a potential getaway vehicle. No one was supposed to get away. Orders were to wipe out everyone. And that’s what he did. It wasn’t just blood on ice that he remembered, but entrails steaming in the snow....
Ronsaphan, Tailand was the point where the avalanche changed to a tidal wave and crushed everything under its weight. An old abandoned airstrip and base as a relic from another war, terrorists had moved in and used it as a training base and for drug running. They’d pissed someone off, somewhere, and so he was sent in - alone - to wipe the entire area - and every living thing in it - out. And it’s what he did, burned everything with his hot knives, pure heat from his hands, hot as the sun. He didn’t stop until he stood there with smoldering bodies littering the ground around him, the entire compound was on fire, and he was left trying not to notice that some of the terrorists...were never going to hit age seventeen.
It was only when he’d tried to light a cigarette, off a fingertip, that he noticed his hand was shaking. It was shaking of the uncontrollable tremor variety. So rattled was he, that half of his cigarette incinerated due merely to proximity to his fingertip. It never even touched it.
His hand didn’t stop shaking. He didn’t stop staring at it.
He cried. Silently. Because it occurred to him, finally, that this wasn’t what he ever wanted for himself. Being what he was, with what he could do, he never should’ve joined British Intelligence. No more killing. It felt like he was rotting inside. He was done with it.
And with only one mission left as an expert on mutant affairs and Genosha, Pete had agreed to go as long as he was offered an out. No more killing. He’d hang out with the nutters in their spandex body condoms and let them do the brawling with the roaming bands of heavily armed mutant slaves and humans, compared to the greater number of humans and mutants who didn’t. Naturally, the greater number were left starving in the streets or dying, while the urban warfare raged on around them and put a fair few of them out of their misery.
It was all going pretty well (considering the utterly shit living conditions), up until the point where some well-fed mutate guerrilla toerag was interrupting his cigarette break ongoing supervision of the situation at hand.
“Wot? Look, sunbeam, you don’t want to do this. I’m not fighting you. Go pick on Pryde. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
Only now there was a weapon pointed at him, and he was being accused of being a flat-scan, and not even dangling the mention of him playing cat and mouse keepaway with Pryde was going to stop the guy. The mutate was still coming right for him, like he had locked on what he perceived to be a human target, and there was no other choice.
Pete blasted him. There were about twelve smoking holes left on the mutant before he fell over, and Pete had crumpled down onto his knees, staring at his own hands rather than at what he had done.
“Oh no,” he heard himself whispering, “I told you...I told you I didn’t want to hurt anybody, and now look at you....”
Despite his better efforts and best intentions, it didn’t look like he’d ever be able to be a casual observer. The whole time, he could feel the heat moving in his hands, coursing through the palms and rushing to his fingertips, looking for a way to escape.
However, back in the real world, someone was not at all awake. Domino’s well-intentioned efforts to ‘burn the fever off’ had left him with a very restless night’s sleep, lost in fever dreams with bits and pieces replaying from previous nights, and culminating in what happened in Genosha. So under the two blankets she’d piled on them, he had a very feverishly hot cheek pressed against a spot right over her heart, his hair was clinging to his forehead and the nape of his neck, and he was breathing like he’d been out jogging for the first time in...forever, really. Fine, fine...he had a bike, and sometimes he rode it, but it was usually while he had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.Sure, there was that one time when he hit a mugger with it and then hopped off to give them a good punching and kicking at. But half of London rode around on bikes. So that was a legitimate excuse to also use it as a rolling weapon. Then he promptly made an arrest, had the guy carted off after giving a report, and biked his butt directly to the pub afterward. So maybe he was breathing like that...in his own version of a marathon. But we digress....
It was a reasonable conclusion that it was probably a bad idea to sex up and then bundle up a mutant who absorbed ambient heat and solar radiation, and who was currently having fluxuation issues. Of the uncontrollable variety. But, to their misfortune, this wonder duo didn’t know that or realize what was coming.
And what was coming wasn’t going to be all that great of a good morning, wake up call. Pete still had his arm around her and a hand pressed against her. As he shifted against her, the dream still fresh in his mind, his fingers clenched so his fingertips roughly rubbed over bare flesh, along with the beginnings of a hissing sound, like someone pressing meat down in a skillet to get it to char faster.
His hand had drifted down from her breast, where it liked to rest normally, to the place where her hip was just starting to curve. It was there that he grabbed onto when the hissing sound began.
Domino had been in the middle of a dream that, for once, really wasn't so bad. There were people in it she didn't recognize, one of which was named Dani. And Wisdom was there, only in that world she wanted to screw him into the ground and then bash his teeth in angrily. They didn't get along. There was something about an x-force, and ... was he lighting a cigarette with a flame... thing... coming out of his finger? She wasn't really sure, because the dream was interrupted.
It was the smell that got to her first, even before the pain registered. Like flesh was cooking, but in the dream there was nothing on fire. Then came the searing pain, and she chewed her lip to keep from screaming as her eyes popped open.
There was a moment where her spine twitched in that jangly way like it was trying to tell her which way to spring away from the thing causing her injury, but she was half awake and not used to listening to it, and the end result was that she frantically rolled out of bed and landed ungracefully on the floor.
Ow. ow ow ow ow oh hey it's got to be only a second degree burn if we're still feeling it so that's great, right Dom? That's good, yes.
She took a second to breathe, before hopping onto the bed, finding Pete's wrists, and holding them up in the air.
It took a little longer than it usually would have, for Pete to wake up. He was hot, sweaty, and ironically felt some bizarre and indescribable form of relief...so maybe her plan to burn that fever off had worked. He sniffled once, smelling something burning, and that left him wondering if he'd lit a cigarette in his sleep, and maybe even put it out on a sausage or some bacon.
When did someone bring him breakfast? That was nice of them. Even if it smelled like really not appetizing breakfasty meats. The smell was rather repulsive, leaving him nauseated and confused. Enough so that the instant she had moved away and fallen off the bed, he had laid there for a second or two longer to try to calm his stomach, his eyes trying to focus on something...or anything, really.
That was until he looked down and focused on the fact that his hands were smoking against the bed sheets and where the tips of his fingers were, there were steadily blackening marks that looked ready to burst into flame.
To say that he flailed was an understatement. He didn't need to inspect her to realize what had happened, as two and two fit together and added up to a very factual number four. A sharp cry ripped out of his throat as he tried to sit up, eyes widened like a skittish animal, and both hands fumbling in the air, in an obvious attempt to keep himself from touching anything near or on his person.
He hadn't even said a word when she grabbed hold of his wrists, only breathed heavily, interspersed with a rash of smokers coughing, when breathing via hyperventilating didn't seem to want to cooperate. As if he wasn't pale enough before, he was white as paper right then, horrified eyes staring at her face and both hands being held up in the air, where he was afraid to even move his fingers. Not even a twitch.
The wrists stayed firmly in Dom's grip as her head rushed through several series of thoughts all at once. It was racing, in fact, like her pulse still was, and she willed herself to calm down and handle this situation like a rational and calm adult.
Any second now she was probably going to hit some level of shock, and she'd be no help to him if she lost her head in the process. Especially the way he was acting. This was bad. He was even paler than usual and if he kept hyperventilating like that he might even pass out.
She could feel that trauma instinct kick in that made her voice want to run away from her throat and never come back, and fought that back, too. It wasn't the time to break down. She'd promised herself yesterday that she'd stop being such a basket case.
So she took a deep breath, and let it out, then looked down at him, "Look at me. Breathe. You're okay. I'm okay. Everyone is okay, so breathe."
The look on his face was a mixture of horror and self-revulsion. It seemed like he hadn't even heard her, or registered what she was saying at first, because he was too busy trying to breathe and not vomit, with all the memories of burning bodies and now he could smell the faint trace of it in the air still, as well as of burning sheets, and it was his fault.
It was always his fault. The only things he could really do was to be a real bastard, drink a lot, smoke like a fiend, and kill people. A whole lot of people. And if he touched her again, then he might burn her again, which was something he simply wasn't going to allow to happen.
So it was with a fight or flight reaction in progress, that he tried to slow his breathing down, and tried to tell her to let go of his hands. He wasn't too successful, though, because it was his turn for words not to work too well.
They started working the moment he happened to glance down and see burn marks. Then it was nothing but "m'sorry, m'sorry, m'sorry" over and over again, with each breath.
Thoughts like his were the ones that she was trying very hard not to think. There'd been something in her dream, something about a flame or ... well it was obviously bright, and hot, and it had come out of his finger. It was obviously something they'd all been USED to in that place, because the only thing that other her had noted was that A: he was a bastard and B: she hated his methods.
Nothing about hating his ... burny... hand... finger... convenient lighter ability. Nothing like that. So this was going to be okay. It was just going to be okay, because she needed it to be okay. She took another deep breath and let it out. It was harder to keep her head when he started murmuring that he was sorry like that. She could hear the horrible frame of mind he was in, just in his voice. It was, frankly, heart breaking.
Tears stung at her eyes, but she still didn't let go. Instead, she inspected his hands for any outward sign that they were still in 'burn things' mode, "It's okay, baby. Shhh. It's not your fault..."
Had she just called him baby? Fuck, she had to wait for a time like this to break out the terms of endearment?
"...m'sorry, m'sorry, I didn't mean to...I wouldn't do that t'you...never t'you..." Despite his best efforts, his breathing hadn't slowed down very much and his heart was pounding like a drum in his ears. At least he stopped repeating the same thing over and over again.
It didn't help that his eyes started to water up, and he had to close his eyes entirely to hide that away, and let her do that inspection. It wasn't too long before his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. There didn't seem to be any heat anymore, at least. Even his body seemed to be back to its same space heater temperature, instead of burning up like he'd been before they went to bed, last night.
"...oh god...please...just let go," he was saying in a raw whisper, wanting very much just to just retreat into his own space, arms folded and hands tucked under his arms, where he was certain he couldn't hurt her or anything else.
Tears were still stinging at Dom's eyes. Some part of her knew that if she started crying again, it would only make the situation worse. Or at least, it suspected that's what would happen. Pete wasn't even looking at her, and maybe he wouldn't even have noticed at this point, so trapped was he in his own trauma of the moment.
She watched his hands clench into fists, noticing that nothing was smoking, hissing, or searing when he did so. It seemed like whatever had prompted the burning had passed for now, but she still didn't let go of his wrists. She didn’t want to. She felt like if she did, it was like she was letting go of all of him at the same time.
What would he have done if the tables were turned? There'd been a few times now where he'd held her while she cried, even when she'd punched his shoulder and fought him on it. Torn between him hating her for not respecting his need for space, or him hating her for letting him retreat, she chose option A. She brought her lips down and kissed the top of each of his hands, then shook her head.
"I'm not letting go. I'm not letting you do that," her tone was more even than she'd thought it would be, "I..." love you, even though this entire thing is fucking terrifying.
"... am a stubborn bitch, who is probably stronger than you right now, so if you fight me on it, I will win."
It was true. He'd tried to pull his hands away and made a choked noise when he felt her lips on his hands. He couldn't even manage that, to pull away. Overall, it was as though he'd had all his energy drained out, and he was only sitting upright, because she held his arms like that and because his freaking out was keeping him locked in place. That was even though everything in him screamed to hit reverse and get away.
The way Dom spoke, though, caused him to open his eyes and stare into her eyes, with the sort of silent pleading one does in a last appeal, when speaking didn't work anymore. It also pretty much said, without a single spoken word, that he'd rather die than to let that happen to her again.
Even so, he didn't move. Probably because he knew she was stubborn and that he wasn't going to win, even if he yelled or got angry.
She tried to lock eyes with his when he finally looked at her. She could read the promise clearly, and under normal circumstances that would have been the end of it. If this had been anything else - like the time they'd both woken up shooting. If they'd shot eachother, they'd already be over the anger at eachother and into patching eachother up while laughing about what kind of idiots they were. Those were all accidents that had nothing to do with ... powers? Abilities? That weren't under anyone's control.
Because this had to be a power or ability or something. It was tied to the dreams in any case. She was certain of that. Which made her think of something.
Calmly, she spoke again, while still looking in his eyes, "I'm going to send a text message to Moira. That means I'm going to have to remove my hands from your wrists and get my phone. I'm worried about you. I don't blame you. I think you have... some kind of ... paranormal ... ability or something. Don't laugh. So I'm going to put your wrists down - I was only holding them steady so they didn't burn the mattress anyway - but only if you nod your head at me and promise not to go stark raving nutter butters on me and run away when I do it. Okay?"
They would've been snarking by now. He would've cracked some remark that was sheer sarcasm and black comedy, and they would've had a snicker, either inwardly or outwardly, and gotten over the hurdle. The only thing that was keeping him from reaching for his gun and effectively ending the moment of self-loathing he was having, was that she was holding his wrists and he was listening to what she was saying.
He didn't even laugh at the mention. He didn't do anything but watch her, sort of shaking his head and make a nearly imperceptible face like Moira was icky when she mentioned the Scottish mad scientist.
By then, the flight response had burned itself out. If he tried to make a run for it, she'd probably tackle him and pummel him, or at least thwap him, and he didn't want that, because what if he burned her again? He didn't want to burn anyone. In fact, he could still see their faces when he did it, and that brought him back to now and what they had done last night during the interrogation, enough that a little laugh gurgled up out of his throat, and he looked like he was going to be ill.
Getting queasy would also keep him from running away. That was the reason he nodded and closed his eyes. If there was some sort of paranormal thing going on, it was probably because his sister had hexed him.
"...no running away," he promised, under his breath, sounding a little defeated. She was right this time, after all, and she was keeping it together better than he could at a time like this.
"No running away," Dom whispered and nodded her head, like it was her promise to him, too. She gently rested his hands down on his lap in a way where the palms wouldn't touch his legs at all, just in case.
Sliding off the bed was an exercise in pain, and she thanked all of her unlucky stars that at least right now, the part of her leg that had been shot was mostly healed up. It was simply a bad year for her legs in general. She made a mental note to make sure that next year was a better year for legs. Maybe she'd ask the bad guys not to shoot her there. 'Get the shoulder, it's a shoulder year', she'd say to them, and even point out the places she was allowed to be injured.
Sure, she was totally keeping it together. Long enough to get him in the clear, anyway, and mostly on the outside. She bent over and kissed him on the forehead, before grabbing up her phone and quickly texting Moira.
With her back to him, so he could stare at her ass instead of where he'd burned her.
For a long moment, he was quiet, and trying not to think about what had just happened. In fact, his face was utterly devoid of expression, as he stared directly at one of the finest asses on the planet.
It was to his credit that he could at least recognize that, at a time like this. That was the reason he let a choked little 'heh' noise slip past his lips, and he remained very still, as well as a very shellshocked. It was safe to say that he had a thousand yard stare, but it was directed somewhere past Domino's bum.
The finest ass in the world stayed in his view, while Domino tapped away feverishly to Moira. There were some things revealed to her as text messages beeped away in response. She wasn't sure how much of them she wanted to believe, or why it was Moira had waited this long to tell her about some of them.
Eventually, she rose to her feet and bent her head down to inspect the damage, and tried to tell herself that it really wasn't so bad. It could, in fact, have been much worse. The hand had been extremely hot, and she got a pit in her stomach when she realised how bad it would have been if she hadn't moved away.
She looked back down at her phone and shook her head, then glanced behind her at him, "Moira's coming over. She has something for you that will help. I'm going to go to the bathroom, but you promised not to run away. So just ... don't move, okay?"
Pete didn't move his head. Only his eyes moved, so he could look up at her face and not at the marks he'd left on her. There was the slightest hint of nodding in response and he tried to drag the blanket up over himself, using his elbows. There was no way that he trusted his hands to not burn things just yet, even if they didn't feel hot.
"...m'not moving," he all but repeated, putting his hands up just enough that they wouldn't brush up against anything on accident. "Promise."
Even if he wanted to move, where would he go? At this point, he didn't even trust himself to turn a doorknob. He had no choice but to wait for Moira to show up, as much as that left a sour taste in his mouth. She was probably going to poke him full of needles.
Her heart seriously went out to him, and she wasn't sure what she could even do to help him. She knew better than to go fussing over him. That was probably the last thing he needed.
Instead, she caressed his cheek with her hand, then threw a robe on and headed for the bathroom, mainly to apply some lukewarm water to the burn and prevent it from continuing to damage her. Something she probably should have done minutes ago, but she'd been too busy trying to prevent Pete from what she figured was him jumping out the window and running away.
She wouldn't have forgiven him for that. Ironically.
The robe would hide the marks from his eyes for now, too, so she decided to keep it on. And made some coffee, because coffee was normal. Whiskey was added to the coffee, too, because that was also normal.
She brought him a cup of it while waiting for Moira to arrive. Along with an oven mitt. So he could put his hand inside the oven mitt, then drink the coffee like that.
When she came back with an oven mitt and coffee, Pete made a face at her that spoke volumes about not being sure if that would even work. Tentatively, he held his hand out so it was put on. It didn't spontaneously combust and so he deemed it a good thing, and went to drinking his very spiked coffee, which would probably result in calming him and making him jittery at the same.
Hello confusing upper/downer beverage? Meet Pete's stomach.
"...cheers," he said under his breath, sounding a lot more grateful than he'd been for probably...his entire life. The only thing missing was a cigarette, but he wasn't about to go attempting that, right now.
Fortunately for them, Romany was already out, doing a few things to try to find Neena's brother. So when Moira came knocking on the door with her kit, they were the only two home.
That suited Dom just fine, because she didn't want to have to deal with 'your brother's a mutantwhatsit' on top of everything else today. When Moira knocked, Dom went and got the door at a run, inwardly cussing at herself. She opened it and grinned at Moira like absolutely nothing was wrong, "Doctor. Want some coffee? Or Whiskey? Or both?"
Probably a very good thing that Romany was gone since she'd probably have heard all of what transpired, and Pete would've really hated freaking her out on top of him freaking out. Instead, he simply sat up in bed, with a blanket wound around his legs and waist, drinking his coffee with an oven mitt on his right hand. It barely registered that anyone was there.
"Nae, thank ye." First thing Moira did was flip open Neena's robe and get a good look at that burn. She handed her a burn kit, "Jus' follow the intructions. Ye got lucky, I willnae cushion it." Then she walked into the bedroom and tossed him a box of bandaids.
Pete had been in mid-drink, and barely noticed that there was a box of bandaids flying at him, until they were almost going to hit him in the face. Then he raised his free hand, which didn't have a mitt on it, and batted the box away before it smacked him between the eyes.
Everything was temporarily back to normal in an instant, "Wot the feck, you tart! Sadistic Scottish cow, throwing things at people who've been raked through the bloody muck?! SOD OFF!"
He was half tempted to throw his coffee at her, but it'd be a waste of good whiskey. Now he was traumatized and had an eyetwitch developing.
"Well, yuir temperature seems tae be normal again," Moira replied, picking up the box and showing him that no, there were no burns on it.
If there was anything Dom was good at it, it was following the directions on the box. And she hadn't needed Moira to even tell her how lucky she'd gotten. It was going to leave a mark no matter what they did, probably.
Well ... hey. Maybe in a few years they'd call it a love mark or something. Right? Laugh about it, just like they'd laugh about everything else. She was completely oblivious to the bandaid box incident, though she smiled when she heard Pete screaming at Moira.
"...m'going t'kill you," Pete told Moira, but his voice sounded a little distant again, and he was worried about where Dom was and that burn. Enough that he kept trying to look around Moira, leaning to and fro, and then staring back at Moira as though he trusted her and didn't trust her, at the same time. Not if she was going to keep throwing things at him.
"Is she all right?" he asked, finally, shaking the oven mitt off his hand. It probably wouldn't help anyway.
"She'll live, lad. Ye gave her a good burn but I've seen worse on a day t'day basis." The doctor seemed to be vastly unaffected and unperturbed, as if she dealt with mutant related injuries regularly - and in her dreams, she had. One long string of many injuries that had afflicted Excalibur.
The she in question had already finished treating the burn and was on her way into the bedroom with coffee that was more like 1 part coffee and 2 parts Whiskey.
"She's fine, and she can speak for herself. You aren't. What's the story, Moira?"
"...wait, no," he tried to interject, "that burn on her, will it go away?" He pointed at Dom to indicate the obviously burned party in this situation. Because if it was there for good, there was going to be a whole lot of self-loathing going on. Of course, he'd probably just let it sink down into the big pit of self-loathing about everything else, that existed within him.
"Aye, eventually," Moira half-lied. If she TOOK CARE OF IT the marking would be minimal.
Pete kind of looked like maybe he didn't believe what he was being told. He'd be gnawing on that knowledge for a good long while, so it was better to just shove it down and listen to whatever else Moira had to say.
In this case it was one of those things she'd probably take care of more than other wounds she'd received in her lifetime. If only to spare him.
"IF she takes care of it." She shot Neena a look, "Ye got away in the nick o'time, tae avoid t'need for a hospital stay." She knew Pete would probably guilt trip on that, but she had to tell them that much, "Now, I wasnae expectin' somethin' quite like this, tae happen sae fast, or I would have given ye a heads up. Not that ye bampot would have listened."
"I really wish you'd stop using that word." Dom sighed, and sipped at her coffee.
"Seriously, if I ne'er hear that word again, I'd be a happy bastard." Or, rather, it would take a lot of things to make him a happy bastard. Like if he believed reincarnation existed and he got a second or third chance to do things over, from birth. That'd work. "Maybe not happy. Maybe marginally pleased, but that's really pushing it. Wot is this bloody mess, now that you've got our attention?"
"Yuir superheros." Moira took out a pack of cigarettes and actually lit one up. What? It had been a stressful week. Conversationally, she replied, "Sort of. I know Wisdom was part o'agroup called Excalibur for a wee bit, with Pryde an' Wagner an' some others. None of me dreams have told me about ye, Neena, other than I've seen ye around. Might be some others that could tell ye more, like what yuir power sets are."
Pete's eyebrows promptly went into a upward climb, like he couldn't believe she was: a.) smoking or b.) serious.
"Pull the other one, it's got bells on," he finally said, still staring at her like she was off her crazy scottish rocker.
"... Pfft, I don't have any powers unless a propensity to get my ass into trouble counts," Dom snorted, and finished her coffee. The dreams about the other white-skinned her in the white rooms were officially creeping her out now.
She rustled around the room for a cigarette for herself, at that point.
"... actually I had a dream that ... well, my group came to you, Wisdom. And you were lighting cigarettes with your finger like it was sunday tea."
"OH," Dom added, "And we hated eachother. You kept training that group, but me and some native american chick named Dani left."
"...dead handy, that," he admitted about the lighting of ciggies, while knowing he had no way to control anything, at this juncture. It was gone now, thank god, and he was going to agree that sleep might be a very bad idea, for a while. He did give Dommy a staring at like he now couldn't believe she was serious. "I don't remember any of that. M'not saying you're liars. Just that...why the bloody hell would you hate me? Wot the feck did I do to you?"
"It's a mutation. Evolution. Ye - an' others - are t'next link in t'chain. I know yuir intimately acquainted with a lass that can pass through solid objects. Ye all share t'same gene..." Moira trailed off and stared at Neena, "Did ye say Dani. Dani Moonstar?"
"Dani Moonstar. That's the one..." Dom trailed off and tried to recall the dream again, "... she didn't like his methods and neither did I. I find that hysterical. Other-me was a pussy. Anyway, I think she had some kind of ... making people see hallucinations or something going for her. And arrows. But I don't ever remember me being anything special. ... well except for dodging bullets like I just knew their trajectory."
That was a lot better than killing people, Pete thought to himself as he lit a cigarette. No way was he going to be the odd man out, by not smoking. He was also kind of filing all this talk away, as he listened.
"Actually my spine did that twitchy thing again this morning when I woke up," Dom mumbled around her cigarette, "I thought it was going to wrench itself right out of my skin."
"She can talk tae animals as well. An' she's friends with me wee bairn in that world. With t'New Mutants. She went out on a sort o'date with her and an' actress recently." Moira tilted her head, "Like ye knew...." She snorted, "An yuir worried about shocks down ye spine! Lass, that's probably related! Early warnin' system!"
"All right, ooo yay, that didn't stop her from being burned by me, god damn it all!" Now he was snappish and loud and abrasive again, and very, very angry at himself. "Tell me how t'turn this shite off. Immediately. B'sides shooting meself in the bloody head t'make it stop."
"I swear to god if you do that I will follow you to Hell and then kill you." Dom frowned.
"...if I'm dead, I can't really protest, can I?" he pointed out, and began to suck on that cigarette like he meant to inhale it, in one single drag.
"Yesterday at the fireworks his hands were so hot on my neck that I actually thought they were going to burn it if they stayed there too long," Dom admitted, suddenly. She should have... realised something somehow.
"I thought it was just the fever flaring up," he grumbled sullenly, each word spoken with a complimentary puffle of exhaled smoke.
Moira sighed, "Ye'll learn control eventually." She pulled something out of her labcoat, "But this ye can use, only in emergencies. It's designed tae emit a signal that shuts down ye X-gene temporarily. Ye dunnae want tae wear it for longer than a few hours at a time, or ye'll burn yuirself out."
"Wot do you mean...burn yerself out," he asked, with the sort of squint one gets on their face, when they're getting ideas and formulating plans.
"That thing isn't lethal, is it?" Dom added, with a bit of concern in her tone.
"I dunnae know t'full side effects. But I do know ye cannae wear it continuously. It's more of a stopgap. We've only got three, as well. One went with a girl tae London so she dunnae shoot fireworks during her Gymnastics display, an' the other I am, tae quote Katherine, tae 'Keep under glass in case of Phoenix." Moira shrugged her shoulder, like she wasn't sure what a "Phoenix" was. Oh, she knew, hence her offering to help Jean, but it was best not to set Domino and Wisdom up on the idea that they needed to 'take care' of her.
Dom would have been hurt by that insinuation. For about 30 seconds.
Which is precisely what would've happened, had it been mentioned and explained to them. Pete would hate himself even more for doing it, but if it was one of those 'things that need doing' situations...he'd probably look around, see no one else willing to do it, and reluctantly volunteer so no one else had to. Even if it was a case of him being obliterated in the process.
"I could test out that side effects shite. See how long until things just up an' stopped, rather than burning summat...or someone...else." He had to offer. It didn't sound like she'd tested it out quite yet. So what the hell? Why not.
"Nae. Use only when sleepin' for feck's sake!" Or feckin' for that matter.
"I can't run about, with burny doom hands," he protested, looking very angry all of a sudden. "I don't want it."
"They aren't burning anything right now, though." Dom pointed out, with her finger even. She pointed right at them, "They're fine right now."
"They might not be fine, later. You don't know. I don't know." He winced, horribly, because he didn't want to burn her again. Or anyone else he knew, for that matter. He'd happily get by just shooting bad guys with guns, thank you very much.
"I know a man who'll be unable tae look another man in t'eyes before long," Moira snapped. "For fear of shootin' people in the face with eye lasers! So I dunnae want tae hear it. Ye can control it." She waggled the bracelet, "UNTIL then, ye can wear this when ye feel like a pansy, goin' tae bed an' the like."
Oh, she did not just go there with him. The glaring at she was getting was on a scale that could only be called epic. That is when mister temper had a flare up and became mister obstinate, with a lean toward just simply not touching anything again, so he wasn't deemed to be a PANSY.
"Maybe you should have him use it, then," mister obstinate pointed out.
Dom rubbed at her face with her palm at that point, and sank to a seat on the bed, "We're all dealing with a lot of stuff that isn't under our control right now, Pete. But the other you knew how to turn it on and shut it off. Maybe you'll learn it from your dreams."
"Och, ye never need a lighter again."
"Oh, m'sorry. I'm being a pansy right now. Get out," he said, pointing toward the door like...the exit? Moira could find it, herself.
He was also going to need a lot more coffee to stay awake. Dom's original plan of no sleeping? It was a go. Damn good idea.
Moira folded her arms, then pulled out a bottle, "Take this if ye feel tae much anxiety come on. An' try tae get some sleep, both of ye. Ye cannae hide from the dreams." She sounded momentarily....shaken, "None of us can."
Dom frowned, and eyed her, "... that sounded kind of foreboding there..."
"Yeah, it did, and yer a fine one t'talk. You look like the walking bloody dead, MacTaggert," decreed Pete, with a momentary air of authority. At least the obstinate had gone down...a single notch. "Sod off, m'not sleeping. Not unless my hands are...cuffed...in an upright position to...this headboard, here. Then maybe I'll sleep. You can take yer bracelet with you."
"I'm sleepin'! 6 hours a bloody night." Sometimes three or four. But usually six. Sometimes. She pulled out a pair of cuffs and tossed them to Neena, "I thought it might come tae that."
The frown she'd been wearing deepened, and she paled a bit as she took them. Then she shook her head, "Leave the bracelet for the next few days please. And thank you for coming out of your way to help us, even if our patient is being an ass. He's very good at that in both lives, so it's really no surprise."
Moira shrugged a shoulder. She..wanted to tell them. What she'd been through. What she'd done, but the words weren't coming to her.
"... and hey. You can talk about it sometime if you want. I'll trade you horror story for horror story." Dom added, while she set the cuffs down on the dresser.
Pete scrunched his face up in a profoundly assish way, but he was also on the verge of just yelling in gibberish, since that's how worried he was, it made him feel like he was going to burst. Kind of like if someone had put a grenade in his mouth and pulled the pin.
"Right, cheers...but you know...if there's summat else yer not saying, MacTaggert, you should simply spit it the hell out an' be done with it."
“M'just glad I never married here," was all Moira would say.
"... it all ends up the same either way you know," Dom's voice was a whisper, and she shook her head, "Coffee for the road?"
"Bloody well right, not to. Marriage is the feckin' devil," Pete immediately let the words shoot out of his mouth. "Have some coffee. It's not that shite you made on the island. Feckin' wretched swill, that was."
Moira threw up her hands, then nodded her head, "It was damn good coffee!"
"...damn good as its own form of suicide," Pete grumbled, like one taste was all it took to make him think it was toxic waste.
"I'll just go get you some," Dom mumbled, and headed out to pour Moira a cup she could take in the car.
While she was gone, Moira put a hand on Pete's shoulder, "She'll be fine. Both of ye will. Neither of ye are uncontrollably dangerous. Ye'll learn control. I swear that tae ye."
Some of the sheer...pissiness...kind of melted away a little bit at that, as though the air went out of his hot air balloon and it deflated enough to land back on terra firma again.
"Right. Sure. O'course I will. In the meantime, if I burn her again...m'going t'go out o' me fucking mind. Be different if it was me, but...why'm I telling you this?"
"Ye care about her, an' I'm t'only one around tae listen tae ye." Moira patted his cheek, and added cheerfully, "Yuir cute when yuir in love. Hurt her an' I'll dae unspeakable experiments tae ye!"
"...and another thing, wot the feck was up Pryde's arse? Knickers in a twist is an understatement. If I stuck around, then that must have been fun," commented Pete, in such a way, that made it known he was irritated in the extreme. And nothing else.
He was ignoring that in love bit. He's ignoring that. He was, however, glaring at her.
Look, now his eyes got squinty. And there was more glaring.
"Och? Well ye tae got along like oil an' water at first. Then ye came back from some mission taegether attached at the hip." Moira shrugged.
"....wot?" The glare faded into one of those oh god no expressions.
Moira tilted her head, "I think Britain had tae clean out t'midnight runner with bleach."
"....wot?" One eyebrow quirked up higher than the other.
"Brian Braddock. Captain Britain. Big blonde bloke."
"Oh, the bastard who looked like he played entirely too much rugby? I don't care about him. M'saying wot about the parts involving Pryde. Actually," he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, looking away, "it's probably best if I don't know. So don't tell me anything else.”
"T'lass probably knows more anyway." Moira shrugged. It really wasn't her place to say, she only had glimpses and fragments of that part. The great bleaching she had a distinct image of, though.
"Not exactly on speaking terms with Kitty, but cheers for the information," was all he could say about that. He stared into his empty coffee cup, lit another cigarette, and sat there in tense silence, smoking.
Moira awkwardly patted his shoulder and eyedarted.
"Wot're you doing? Stop that. Why're you patting on me?" Pete eyed her hand as if it might turn into a tentacle at any moment. She did, after all, work in a lab. "Sod off, it's not like it matters. That was then, this is now. Obviously. It's not like we're attached at any hips, is it?"
He was just going to wait for Dom to come back and try to...not let his day go to hell, because sleeping last night was a restless experience. And then...stuff.
Dom had been about to step into the room 5 times now, but the subject kept going back to things she couldn't even listen to right now without feeling raw about it. She gave up at that point, and just took a seat at the kitchen table.
Moira would really like that coffee right about now.
It was taking a while. And that's why Pete went ahead and called out, like he was not going to discuss anyone who had any names related to cats, at all. "Thurman, did you slip an' fall or summat?!"
Because? Romance - He dunnit has it.
Oh good, it was safe. She got back up and headed into the bedroom, handing Moira her now ... probably a little lukewarm coffee.
"Well. Cheers, MacTaggert. For coming o'er. I owe you more than one," Pete said, in a way that made it known he meant it, and he wasn't in the least bit sarcastic.
Moira sipped at it and made a face, "Nae strong enough, but it'll do. An' yuir welcome, lad."
Dom shrugged, "Take it up with the Keurig."
"I mean it. You need anything, you let me know. I'll see wot I can do." He didn't make it sound like anything more than a flat statement, though he did mean that. Even if she annoyed him...if she ended up neck deep in trouble, he'd go dig her out. With only minor grouching and sarcastic comments about it. "And her coffee's normal. Yers is shite."
Moira gave him a dirty look, then smiled, "Fine. I'll try not tae call on ye tae often." She winked, "I should get goin'."
"Thanks for coming over, seriously." Dom nodded her head.
"Right. Don't explode or summat," said Pete with a wave, while puffing on a cigarette.
"I'll try not tae!" Moira collected her kit. Then tossed the bandaids at Wisdom's head again. To test his reflexes.
He batted both hands in the air, managed to fumble grab onto the box and hauled off, throwing it right back at her. All done with the dirtiest glare in his arsenal of glares.
"Still nae burnin'!" And with that, she skedaddled, chased by a flying box of bandaids!
"Sod off! Next time it'll be a lit cigarette!" he bellowed after her, followed by a fine smoker's cough of massive proportions, from the bellowing.
Dom locked the door behind her and leaned against it for a bit. One of these days she'd go a week without needing a Doctor. She put it on her mental to do list.