Scheherazade: Part One

by Alicia McKenzie

Leaving was easier, she thought. When you left the Oasis, you always had your mental armor on. You had to be ready for anything, because you never knew what was waiting for you out in the shifts, beyond Franklin's shields. Anything. Everything. A million different versions of hell.

Coming back was different. Coming back was going from chaos to order, madness to sanity. You stepped back through the shields into the calm of the Oasis and it was like jumping into the eye of the hurricane of all realities, like being on the roller-coaster from hell and coming to a sudden, teeth-rattling stop. You felt drained. Battered, as if you'd just walked off a battlefield.

Sometimes you had. Not today, thankfully. Domino smirked tiredly and dropped the pack full of salvaged machine parts on the ground. "I'm leaving these here," she said. "If Forge wants them, he can come out and carry them himself."

Nathan grunted and kept walking. Domino rolled her eyes at his retreating back. "What's the rush?" she taunted. "You bored of my company already?" He'd been wild-eyed and uncommunicative since he'd had to beat a mass of shift lines off them a day and a half back. She hadn't slept since, just in case he had a 'lapse'. "Nate, wait up," she said in exasperation as he kept going. "Hey!"

"Back off," he growled at her over his shoulder, a flash of heat in his voice. "I want a drink."

"We can go to the bar after we see Franklin," Domino pointed out placidly, pondering options. She could let him drink himself into a stupor and then go get Franklin. Nate tended to make much less of a fuss about having the temporal residue cleaned out of his system when he was unconscious. Or she could try and drag him off to see Franklin.

On second thought, she'd go with door number one. She didn't feel like getting into a wrestling match with him. After all this time, she'd developed an instinct for knowing when he was right on the edge, and that particular instinct had been screaming at her non-stop for the last twenty-four hours. Better to let him unwind a little, even if she did wind up having to drag his ass back to the house after he fell asleep on the bar. She'd done it before, after all.

"Your nose is twitching," she said, catching up to him and arching an eyebrow at his bizarre expression. "You look like a great big grumpy bunny rabbit." He gave her an appalled look, and Domino almost laughed. "What, don't you like the image?" she challenged. "I thought it was appropriate. Kitty's always complaining that we fuck like rabbits."

"Kitty can go screw herself. Or Franklin. Whichever she prefers, I don't care."

"Be nice."

"Fuck off." Nate stomped off, taking the most direct route to the bar. It involved cutting through the 'alley' between one of the bunkhouses and the smaller of the two hydroponics bays. With space in the Oasis being at such a premium, the alley was usually used for storage. Today was no exception. The obstacles in his path only seemed to irritate Nate more, and Domino winced as a pile of hydroponics parts set out for recycling went flying under the impact of a telekinetic push.

"Nate, ease up," she said sharply. "They're not going to be any good for anything if you smash them to pieces."

"I don't care! I'm sick of this!" he snarled at her. "These--things, everywhere!" He'd half-turned to growl at her, but hadn't stopped walking, and wound up running right into the clothesline strung across the alley. Domino stopped, biting her lip as he struggled with it, finally ripping it down and hurling it to the ground. The reddish dust - out here between the buildings where nothing grew, no one bothered with irrigation - rose in a haze, staining the clean clothing. "I hate it," Nate said, his voice sounding choked. Not from the dust, she suspected. "I can't breathe, there's so--much everywhere."

Domino moved forward, reaching out to him, but he flinched away. "We could go sit in the garden for a while," she offered in as neutral a voice as she could manage. The garden was the only spot in the Oasis where you could have even the illusion of real privacy. It sometimes seemed to soothe him when they were fresh in from the shifts.

"Won't help," he rasped, drawing the back of a dirty hand across his eyes. His features twisted, almost in desperation. "Not today."

"And get drunk will?"

Nate hesitated, as if considering the question. "It makes the voices go away," he finally said, and offered her a wan, somewhat lopsided smile.

She wished she could pretend he was kidding. "Yeah," Domino muttered, and lingered for a moment to pick up the laundry and try to fold it into some semblance of order as Nate headed off towards the bar. "We can't have the voices getting uppity now, can we?"

After a minute, she gave up and merely piled the clothes on the windowsill of the bunkhouse. Domesticity was not her forte. If anyone had seen -which she doubted, since this was obviously Oasis-'night', judging by the lack of people out and about - she'd just have to apologize. Nate wouldn't. Chances were he wouldn't even remember his little tantrum in the morning.

Shaking her head, Domino walked out of the alley and across to the bar. Someone had been elaborating on the 'World's End' theme. The six-inch high crimson letters spelling out the name were now accompanied by a death's head and a stylized mushroom cloud. If she ever caught that fucking graffiti artist, they were going to find themselves on laundry detail for the next month. Resolving to find some turpentine in the morning, Domino pushed the door open and walked in.

The tension in the air hit her instantly. Nate had stopped just inside the door, and Domino followed his gaze to the three strangers sitting at one of the larger tables. "Problem?" she murmured. Rhetorical question, of course. She could see there was.

"I said I wanted another bottle!" one of the strangers shouted, and threw the empty bottle at the bar. It shattered, glass spraying everywhere. "Where's the dam'ed bartender?" Lanky, raggedly dressed, he had long dark hair pulled back in a surprisingly neat ponytail and a crimson arrow tattooed on his face. From the look of it, he'd had too much to drink already.

The few Oasis-folk in the bar were clustered on the other side of the room, doing their best to ignore the strangers. It was the way people around here customarily dealt with minor problems. So long as no one was actually being hurt, it was easier and often safer to turn a blind eye. Even so, she found herself and Nate the recipients of more than a few relieved looks. Domino responded with a significant 'stay out of it' look, and they all went to what they were doing.

"Get me another bottle! Are you all fucking deaf?" The dark-haired man got up, and promptly tripped over his own two feet. He fell in the lap of the muscular black woman sitting next to him, and she pushed him off, growling. "Don't be such a bitch, Jo," he mumbled from the floor.

"Shut up before I snap your neck, you scrawny little shit," 'Jo' snarled, reaching down to grab him by the collar and give him a good shake, as if for emphasis.

"Both of you shut up," snapped one of the other men. Thin, silver-haired but not old, he was sitting in the corner, where he could see the entrance, and his body language was nowhere near as relaxed as those of his companions. "I've got no desire to sit here and watch the two of you squabble," he went on. He looked towards the door, eyeing Nate for a moment before his gaze settled on Domino and turned appreciative. "Much better things to be doing," he murmured.

Lovely. Not that he was bad-looking, on the whole, but she really wasn't in the mood. Domino ignored him and moved around in front of Nate, blocking his view of the strangers. The link was awash with static - it always was, when they'd been out in the shifts too long - and his expression was--peculiar. Not angry, like she'd half-expected. Almost--quizzical.

"What?" she asked bluntly.

"Pietro," he muttered, trying to edge around her. His hand went to his throat for a moment, as if grasping for something that wasn't there, and Domino frowned. "But he doesn't feel right. Why can't they ever fit when I find them? It's not fair."

"Uh-huh." Domino took his arm and steered him over to one of the smaller tables, pushing him down into a chair. "I'll get us a bottle," she said, pushing away from the table and heading over to the bar. "By the way," she called out to the strangers as she crossed the room, "this is a self-serve kind of place. So get your own and behave yourselves, or you're out of here."

The silver-haired man lifted his glass to her, almost in a salute, but said nothing. Domino could still feel his eyes on her as she selected a bottle of the quasi-Scotch. Persistent bastard. It didn't really bother her, but she didn't want it to set Nate off. Grabbing two glasses, she went back and sat down.

Nate was staring at the strangers again. "He shouldn't be here," he said in the clear, over-loud voice of a child, or someone delirious with fever. "He burned up. I saw him."

Domino gritted her teeth and filled the glasses. "Have a drink, Nate," she said, pushing one towards him. The amber liquid had a greenish tinge, this time. She was almost certain she didn't want to know what had been added to cause that.

"Burned up. He caught fire while he was running." Nate raised his glass in a shaking hand and gulped at it desperately, like a dying man who'd just found water in the desert. "Went up like a torch," he rasped, setting it back down. Nearly dropping it, he was trembling so badly. "And then the air caught fire, and everyone was screaming."

"Nate. Stop it."

"And Luna cried and cried." He trailed off, blinking rapidly. Blinking back tears, she thought for a moment--but no, his eyes were dry. "All her hair was gone, you know."

"Her--" Domino swallowed the rest of the question. She wasn't going to encourage him. "Just drink, Nate," she said more roughly, and topped up his glass.

"She had such pretty hair," he said very softly, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.

Domino took a shuddering breath. "Drink your Scotch," she murmured, fighting the desolation that came rolling up the link like fog, static or no static.

Nate finally settled down and started to work on getting drunk in earnest. Domino was only too happy to join him. Time crept along by, and she actually began to think they would be able to drink in peace. The atmosphere was settling, as if the Oasis-folk thought it was safe to relax now. Right. Add her and a raving lunatic, and suddenly everything was all right.

She was about to fill Nate's glass for the fifth time when glass shattered behind her, shattering the tenuous calm. Domino turned, scowling as she saw the dark-haired stranger behind the bar, making a mess.

"No bartender," he muttered, picking up another bottle, turning up his nose at it, and then throwing it to the floor. "No desh-decent liquor, either. Wha' the hell kind o'bar is this?"

"The end of the world, Milan," Jo smirked. "Didn't you see the sign?" She was all but sitting on - Pietro? -the silver-haired man's lap, curled against him like some great cat. She was so much bigger and more muscular than he was that it made a strange picture. "End of the fucking world." She leaned forward and murmured something in the silver-haired man's ear, and did something with her hand beneath the table. He smiled lazily and put his hand on her breast.

"Fucking until the end of the world," he murmured, and Jo laughed, a strange edge of hysteria to the sound.

Milan scowled at them, and then picked up another bottle, flinging it at them. It fell well short. "Slut!" he snarled at Jo. "Always--all over him. Always HIM."

"Pietro appreciates me," Jo said almost menacingly, a wild look in her eyes. "Not like you. Can't even call yourself a man anymore, you sad sack of shit."

"Shut up!" Milan howled at her, and threw another bottle.

Domino glared at him. "Knock it the fuck off," she growled. She didn't care what Pietro and Jo did. There were no children in the room, and she and Nate had certainly done worse in their time. But she wasn't going to sit here and let him smash up the place. "What did I tell you?"

Milan raised an eyebrow at her. "I don' know you, bitch," he said, his words slurred. "Know y're not my mother, though. Fuck off." He raised another bottle to eye level, and then dropped it, smiling broadly at her.

Domino sighed, and looked at Nate for a moment, sternly. "Stay put," she muttered at him, and then rose, forcing a smile to her lips. "Now," she said pleasantly, ambling towards the bar. "Listen to me carefully, little man. The foul mouth and the drunkenness is one thing. Wasting good alcohol is another."

Jo was suddenly off the bench and across the room to intercept her, faster than Domino would've expected. "Don't you touch him!" she said angrily, grabbing her arm in a crushing hold. "He's not hurting anyone!"

Contemptuously, Domino broke her grip in a single, practiced move. Jo cursed, catching herself and drawing her fist back. Domino started to dodge, only to freeze as a surge of anger shot up the static-choked link.

Her hesitation didn't matter; Jo's blow never connected. The air crackled with telekinetic energy, and Jo staggered backwards, blood pouring from her nose. Her head snapped backwards, as if under another blow, and she reeled back, falling heavily against a table.

Domino opened his mouth to shout at Nate to stay out of it, but didn't get the chance. Milan howled Jo's name and vaulted the bar, displaying a surprising amount of coordination as he slammed into her.

Things went right downhill from that point. The Oasis folk jumped in to help her with commendable enthusiasm, but for all their greater numbers, they weren't doing so well, she realized as she grappled with Milan. Mostly because the strangers were too damned good at this. Despite the telekinetic drubbing she'd taken, Jo was back on her feet and fighting, and Pietro seemed to be everywhere, moving at a speed she knew wasn't natural. But she had her hands full with Milan, who was alarmingly strong for someone so drunk, and couldn't go to anyone else's assistance.

She didn't see Nate. Seizing an opening, Domino finally managed to kick Milan's feet out from under him. But as he fell, he grabbed her by the hair, pulling her down with him.

"Bitch," he wheezed, rolling on top of her. "Can't sleep through the night, can't find anything good t'drink--what's the point of living?"

Any other time, she would have happily debated those particular existential questions with him, but not when he was trying to choke her. Domino gritted her teeth and kneed him hard in the crotch. He rolled off her, retching, and she sprang back to her feet, looking around for Nate.

She saw him hauling Jo off Patrick, a burly former steelworker and one of the best hunters in the Oasis. Domino opened her mouth to shout at Nate to get out of the middle of this. She didn't trust his reflexes, not when he was this far gone.

"Na--"

In the time that it took her to get the first syllable of his name out, someone moved in a blur to Nate's side. Nate jerked, a look of surprise descending over his features.

The blur resolved into Pietro. Who smiled, and drove the knife he was holding a little farther into Nate's gut.

Someone shrieked. Domino suspected that it was her, but she was already lunging at Pietro, ready to take him apart with her bare hands if she had to. Speedster or no speedster, she was going to kick this bastard's ass up between his ears--

"All right, that's enough!" Franklin shouted from the door, and Domino stopped short, more on instinct than anything else. All the Oasis-folk froze, as if God himself had just poked His nose out of heaven and ordered them to make like lawn furniture.

His arrival didn't have quite the same effect on the strangers, but what it did have was good enough. Milan was on the floor still, groaning softly, but Jo stopped pummeling Patrick and straightened, her eyes wide and wary, locked on Franklin's face.

Franklin didn't spare her a glance. He looked at Pietro, his eyes narrowing. "I don't like people using knives like that," he said, very mildly. The look in his eyes said it all. Pietro paled and yanked the knife out of Nate's body, backing away quickly. Nate stumbled backwards, starting to crumple.

Ignoring Pietro, Domino dashed to Nate's side and threw her arms around him, easing him to the ground. "Stupid son of a bitch," she hissed at him, barely hearing Franklin's calm voice as he tried to sort things out. Franklin had it under control. He could disassemble them down to their component atoms if they so much as talked back to him. "I told you to stay put!"

"Hurts," he muttered, sounding almost bewildered. His breathing was shallow, and she could feel pain trying to push its way through the static on the link.

"Really? Fancy that." Domino grimaced as she put pressure on the wound and Nate groaned softly, the rest of the color draining from his face as he slumped against her. "Stupid," she gritted, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. This was too much blood, her hands were covered with it already. The knife must have hit something important. "Really, really stupid, Nate."

"He burned up," Nate murmured faintly, almost in a whisper. "But--it's so cold. Why is it so cold?"

"Shut up," Domino growled shakily. "Dumb bastard." She'd told him to stay put, knowing how disoriented he was. Why had he gotten into the middle of it? "You couldn't have left it alone, could you?" she snarled softly at him, willing his eyes to stay open. Even if he was giving her that dazed, piteous look. "I can take care of myself, you fucking idiot!"

Franklin was there suddenly, kneeling down beside them. He didn't bother asking her how Nate was, just pulled her hand away and scowled at all the blood. "I can fix this," he muttered. The little furrow between his eyebrows deepened for a moment, then vanished. "It's not that bad."

"Bad enough," she rasped.

"Fixable." Franklin's hand replaced hers, and he gave her a warm, reassuring smile. Nothing in his expression suggested that he was lying.

Domino watched him work, reminding herself to breathe. Wondering why she was the one who felt so cold, now.

[next part]

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