xp_logs | LOG: [Nathan, Haller, Domino] Aren't these two supposed to be friends? (Reply)

After hearing about the incident with Lense, Domino feels compelled to pay Nathan a visit. In a rather questionable move on Nathan's part, Haller is allowed to drink with them. Domino then proceeds to do what Dom is best at: making the situation Awkward for Other People.

"--all I can say is, you're all lucky Ani wasn't in town when this happened," Domino said, tsking loudly as she and Nathan headed down the hall towards his office. "You would have had to tie her up and lock her in a room somewhere to keep her from hitching a ride."

"Alison could have talked her out of it," Nathan said with a certain amount of confidence. "Wouldn't have worked, anyway. We didn't want anyone but me in there with John, and even so, he broke my damned psimitar." He couldn't help a grumble at that.

"Oh, poor baby..."

"Shut up."

Jim poked his head out of his office at just the right time to nearly collide with the oncoming Domino, almost giving himself a heart attack. Mentally kicking himself for being so head-shy he'd dismissed a casual scan in favor of physically checking on the strange voice he'd heard, Jim forced himself to remain at the door rather than his first impulse: hiding behind it. Hoping the guilt wasn't too obvious, Jim quickly skimmed his eyes over the stranger to look askance at Nathan. "Um," he said, trying to turn the mental commentary away from sarcastically marveling at his eloquence, "company?"

"Company," Nathan confirmed wryly, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Dom, this is... David," he said, the hesitation barely noticeable. "Our new guidance counselor."

"Oh God," Domino said, her violet eyes going very wide in feigned horror. She even put a hand to her heart. "You poor man. You poor insane man. Does Charles hold the mortgage on your soul? Is that the reason for the predicament you find yourself in?"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "You'll have to forgive her, David. She gets melodramatic when she's jet-lagged."

Domino aimed an elbow in the direction of his ribs; Nathan sidestepped neatly. "I get violent, too," she declared. "Especially when I'm jetlagged coming back from fucking Mongolia... pardon me, northwest China, and I have no Pete and no drink. Where is my Brit?" The effect of her chastisement was somewhat diminished by the huge grin.

Jim flashed the other man the barest ghost of a relieved smile. "Pete?" he repeated, feeling a noticeable drop in the tension he hadn't been aware he was carrying, "If the counseling thing's going to come up, then my guess is in hiding. Although I actually volunteered." He glanced back at Nathan, quirking an eyebrow in amusement. "So does everyone know about my insanity, or do they just assume?"

"It's the whole guidance counselor thing. And Dom here is a smartass." Nathan eyed her. "Behave."

"Bite me, 'Dad'." Domino folded her arms across her chest, grinning cheerfully at Haller. "I like your hair. You have interesting hair."

The telepath's hand automatically raised to touch the aforementioned hair, then Jim made a face. "Um. Thanks. Yeah, 'interesting' pretty much covers it." He dropped the hand again, feeling a little self-conscious under the scrutiny of what he was belatedly noticing was a rather attractive woman. "It just sort of . . . does that. In every direction. I need a haircut," he added fervently, hoping the verbal assertion would be a better reminder than the wishful thinking had been.

"Hmm. I need a drink. Would you buy me a drink?" Domino's eyes were dancing, and wickedness was possibly too mild a word for the expression in them. "Since there is no Brit in evidence. I mean, if we went down to Harry's and left the Scotch on the table I'm sure he'd appear..."

Oh god, I hope she doesn't notice the squirming. Wait, of course she does. Argh . . . "Um, okay. And Nathan, if he wants to come." The look he gave Nathan held no trace of telepathic communication, yet still contained the remarkably eloquent plea: Please don't leave me alone with her.

Nathan's eyes went distant for a moment, then refocused. "Pete's on the phone," he told Domino. "He says to head down to Harry's and he'll meet us there." #You don't have to come,# he sent to Jim. #She's in something of a mood.#

#It's okay,# Jim replied gratefully. #I'm trying to become less of a hermit. Putting myself into less comfortable social situations. And . . . things.# "I need a break anyway," he said aloud. "I can probably survive a drink or two." Although with this woman it was probably better to err on the side of caution.

Nathan made a thoughtful noise, but raised an eyebrow. It was the last actual response from him until they got to Harry's. Domino filled the brief walk with a running chatter-logue about just how miserable northwestern China was, and how Nathan was cruel and heartless to send her back there after that nasty incident the summer before last with the Russian mafia, and how she hadn't even been able to find any decent yak cheese. By the time they sat down in the usual booth at Harry's, Nathan fancied that Jim looked somewhat frazzled.

"Your life sounds . . . eventful," Jim said, telling himself it was paranoid to feel intimidated simply because he was seated across from both Nathan and Domino. He reminded himself that it could have been worse: she could have been sitting next to him. "Um. How do you know what yak cheese is decent, anyway?"

"It's the right kind of pungent," Domino said merrily. She knew precisely what she was doing to this total stranger, and she was rather enjoying herself. Urumqi had been a headache and a half, and she was due some relaxing and enjoying herself. "I think it has to do with what the yaks eat."

"You and your unhealthy fascination with yak cheese," Nathan murmured, sipping at his beer. "Ignore her, David. She's eccentric."

"Considering what my job is, I can't really throw stones." Jim took a tentative drink of his own. He'd eaten not too long ago, so hopefully this wasn't going to be as bad as that first time with Scott. He had a tendency to get sloppy when he was buzzed, and the jetlag hadn't helped. --Scott. Why was that ringing a bell? Oh, right. "Are you the probability-warper?" Jim hazarded, keeping his voice low. He'd known the name had seemed familiar.

"Been telling tales?" Domino asked, eyeing Nathan, who shrugged. "Well. There are so many to tell. Yes, I am the probability-warper," she went on, turning back to the other man. "But Wanda's powers are cooler."

Jim coughed and tried hard not to think about ducks in helicopter blades. "Wanda's sound . . . interesting," he conceded. "What's the difference? And just in case we get randomly attacked, does 'chaos' feature anywhere in yours? I like to check who it's safe to stand behind."

"Wanda's are more active," Domino said. "I've rarely got much in the way of conscious control over mine. And mine are a combination of short-term precog and probability-warping."

"She does things like run through crossfire and not get shot," Nathan offered. "And her hunches are scary things. We always follow her hunches."

"Occasionally buildings will collapse," Domino added.

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Lots of precogs around here," he noted with some surprise. "Or rather, lots of functional precogs. It does not seem to be a sanity-inducing mutation," he added, a touch wryly.

"I'm not insane," Domino protested. "Well, not by most standards..."

Nathan shook his head, trying not to laugh. "By most sane standards, you are." He grinned at Jim. "Dom here is my not-quite surrogate daughter. There's a long, complicated story that involves Hong Kong, underground fighting circuits, and nuns."

"Oh." Jim pondered this. "I didn't know you'd been to Hong Kong."

"A number of times, actually," Nathan said. "There aren't many places in the non-Western world I haven't been."

"You've never been to Bhutan," Domino pointed out.

"Not much call for blowing things up in Bhutan."

Jim frowned. "Um, where's Bhutan?"

"Between India and China," Nathan said. "Very isolated. Pretty, from the pictures I've seen... then, all that part of the world is pretty." He got a definitely wistful look, and Domino laughed softly.

"He's pining for the Himalayas again," she explained wisely.

"Ah." Jim smiled at Nathan. "Well, I wouldn't worry. From what I've heard, you'll probably find your way there eventually. And then blow up a huge chunk of it."

"I don't want to blow up the Himalayas," Nathan protested immediately. "I want to climb them." He smiled. "I've climbed Everest."

"So your goal is to climb every mountain in the non-Western world?" Jim grinned. "Okay, I guess that's better than blowing them up. Although I've been told about the quarry, so I'll be factoring that into the odds later."

Nathan stuck his tongue out at him, and Domino giggled. "Oh, he doesn't stick to the non-Western mountains," she pointed out. "He took me up the north face of the Eiger when I was sixteen years old. And then he took me to K2 two years later and started hallucinating halfway up the mountains. It was an entertaining trip."

Jim laughed. "With anyone else, I'd be wondering about that," he said, taking another drink. As awkward as things had started off, he was actually enjoying himself. He still wasn't quite sure how to react to Dom, but she was strangely disarming. And it was amusing to hear to her talk about Nathan. And if I'm making fun of him I must be more comfortable around him than I thought.

Domino rested her chin on her hands and peered wistfully at the door. Nathan carefully repressed a smile, his eyes flickering to Jim. #Remember the John Steed/Emma Peel comment I made?#

Jim almost choked on his beer. #I wasn't thinking that!# he protested, beating himself on the chest. He was glad an abrupt coughing fit presented no barrier for a telepath. Now all he had to do was avoid looking at Domino until he could breathe again. He shot Nathan an accusing look as he wiped his mouth. #I'm just not good around attractive women. And . . . people in general. That's all.#

#Just having a little fun with you,# Nathan sent back innocently, then poked Domino in the ribs. She jumped, yelping. "I'm going to carry you back, aren't you? You're going to crash on us..."

"American beer is not going to make me crash, thank you very much," she said severely.

"It might make me," Jim admitted, regarding his glass reluctantly. "You'd think the European stuff would have given me immunity, but no. Telepathy gets a little" he made a vague waffling motion "fuzzy."

"Telepaths are funny when they're drunk," Domino said. "At least, I speak from experience with this point." She poked Nathan in the arm. "Remember the time you decided that the whole bar in Kathmandu needed to know that the Sherpas on that Australian expedition were swapping their wives?"

"I've tried getting drunk before," Jim admitted. "It was bad." Or at least incoherent. He eyed Nathan dubiously. "So I take it your judgement gets . . . questionable."

"Oh, no, my judgement's fine. It's just that I forget to think about what I'm saying before I say it. Or forget the difference between what people say and what they think," Nathan amended. "It can be very, very awkward."

"Sherpa dogpile," Domino giggled.

Jim shuddered. "Thank you for that horrible mental image of a pile of wooly hats. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that sort of thing. As far as mine goes, it's more like we temporarily misplaced the keys. I'm lucky if I can find a mind four times in ten."

"I have a Sherpa hat," Domino volunteered chirpily. "Or did... I think I left it in a safehouse somewhere. Which was a pity, because I was very cute in it if I do say so myself."

"The pigtails were cuter," Nathan said inadvisedly, and then choked on his beer as Domino elbowed him.

"We agreed we would never speak of the pigtails again."

Jim stared at Domino for a moment, then looked back at his beer. "Maybe I could use another drink."

"I was fifteen!" Domino protested. "It was the nuns' fault!"

"If I had a penny for every time I'd heard that," Nathan murmured wryly.

"And yet 'the nuns made me do it' still isn't the worst excuse I've ever heard," Jim said, half-raising his glass in an ironic toast to Domino.

"I have even better ones," Domino said with a grin. "GW used to-" She stopped, biting her lip, then smiled again, a bit wanly. "Well, there was the camel excuse. We got a lot of mileage out of that while we were in North Africa. The camel ate the map. The camel ran away with the extra ammunition."

"Bad camel," Jim nodded, deadpan.

"It was a very bad camel!" Domino giggled, bringing her hand down on the table with a thump. "Temperamental and bitchy and... those two are the same thing, really, aren't they?"

"You are so jet-lagged," was Nathan's observation.

Jim grinned. "Never underestimate the powers of jet-lag. You should have seen me with Charles when I first got here. I swear, he poured a cup of tea and I fell apart." Then he remembered who he was talking to. #Um, I still maintain that is not a normal reaction from me. Really.#

Nathan gave him a long, faintly amused look, and then glanced sideways at Domino, who was blinking a bit sleepily, her chin resting in her hands again. "If you're going to nod off-"

"I'm not," she insisted, straightening. "So what do you think of the mansion, David?"

"It's good to be back," Jim smiled, recognizing the look of stubbornly maintained sobriety. "It's nice change of pace, staying in the mansion without breaking or setting fire to parts of it. Or the professor, for that matter." The smile turned sheepish. "I used to have some control problems."

"Oh-ho. No wonder you two get along," Domino said wisely, looking at Nathan. "A history of property damage."

"More or less," Jim agreed, glancing at Nathan. #Now even complete strangers are comparing us. This can't be healthy.#

#Speak for yourself. It tickles me, oddly enough.# Nathan raised his beer to take another sip.

"The two of you are talking, aren't you?" Domino said knowingly, tapping her temple. "It better not be about me."

"He started it," Jim replied promptly. The thought of their conversation being caught out had occurred to him a while ago (Domino had clearly known Nathan for some time, after all), and he didn't mind admitting to it. He was vaguely concerned that his inner ten-year-old was showing again, but Charles would probably claim this was Progress. "Don't worry," he added with a slight smile, "mostly we're making fun of ourselves. And each other."

"Ah, telepaths," Domino said whimsically. "Whatever would we do without them?" She lifted her glass again, taking a noticeably measured sip. "Actually, I could have used a telepath in Urumqi." Nathan eyed her and she shrugged.

Jim looked between the two of them. "I sense a horrible story. Is there going to be a horrible story?"

"Nah," Domino said lightly. "Wasn't that bad. Just miserable weather and worse food, and let's not even talk about the accommodations. Could have gotten done and out a lot faster if I'd had the old man here along..."

"You got what you needed," Nathan said with a faint smile. "That was the important part."

"Is this a time to seek clarification, or a time to live in blissful ignorance?" Jim asked, giving them a look of mock-trepidation. Well . . . mostly mock.

"Does he know?" Domino asked, raising an eyebrow at Nathan. She didn't need to clarify; Nathan nodded.

"More than he probably wants to know, yes," he said quietly. "He's seen the mess Gideon left in here." He tapped his temple lightly.

"Well," Domino said, looking back at Jim, "I brought back a whole thumb drive full of wonderfully incriminating documents that prove that Eris - that would be his psychotic uncle's company, by the way - consulted on a highly questionable Chinese genetics research project that happens to be headquartered outside of Urumqi."

Jim nodded slowly. "Good," he said, inwardly surprised by the absence of vindictiveness in the tone. He probably had the previous part of the conversation to thank for the evenness -- he wasn't feeling as raw. "Wonderfully incriminating is good."

"One more piece," Nathan said, the look in his eyes unreadable, briefly, as he sipped at his own beer. "It'll all add up eventually."

Domino gazed at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes, just a little. "You've gotten very annoying since you gave up on the time-honored direct approach," she said, but didn't sound like she meant it.

Jim gave her a lopsided smile. "The direct approach can get counterproductive after a while," he said, then quickly dropped his eyes back to his drink, embarrassed. "Um. In my experience, I mean."

"You're very interesting, I think," Domino said, smiling, but her violet eyes very keen as she studied him. "On top of having neat hair." Nathan covered a laugh with a cough.

"Uh . . . thank you." #Killing you,# Jim sent to Nathan, all efforts to control the blush failing miserably. #Killing you and getting Moira to help.#

#Oh, dream on. Knowing Moira, she's liable to think that this is very good for you,# Nathan sent back mischievously. #Besides, Dom's just playing.#

#But it's bad playing,# Jim protested, acutely aware Dom would notice (and likely interpret) an evil look. #Bad for my brain.# He wasn't going to follow up on the remark about Moira, in part because he had the sinking suspicion Nathan was right. #And if she breaks that, Moira will be upset. She and Charles spent a lot of time trying to put it back together.#

Nathan coughed again, and Domino gave him a patient look. "Should I stop? Am I unsettling the new counselor? I wouldn't want to do that..."

"No, I'm . . . it's okay," Jim said. He wouldn't have believed it was possible for his skin to feel this hot without actually bursting into flame. "I'm okay. I, uh, just don't get out a lot." And am also an idiot, apparently. Argh.

Nathan wondered if he should give a telepathic nudge to Pete to get down here, before Jim died of embarrassment. "Let's have a second round, shall we?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I'll buy for you two again, but I'm done." Jim suppressed the urge to bang his head on the table. Oh, yeah. We're very, very done.