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Tommy & TJ | Backdated April 16
Tommy and TJ hang out and catch up after spring break - conversation includes clubbing, love lives, and a couple of philosophical differences.
Working out was a necessity when you were an X-Man, and working out was a requirement when you wanted to keep looking as good as TJ did. That gave TJ two reasons to be in the gym every other day, and today, well. Today she had a third reason to be there, it turned out.
She was doing some crunches on the incline, and every time she lowered herself back down, she had a fantastic, if upside down, view of that guy Grog laying into the heavy punching bag like it had just insulted his mother. It was a very, very nice view, almost hypnotizing, the way certain muscles clenched with each punch, and when she was done with her reps, she just stayed still on the incline for a few seconds, enjoying the view.
Still wet from the pool, Tommy buzzed through the gym with his trunks on and his towel slung over his shoulder. He stopped, looked back and forth between TJ and the oblivious object of her stare, and rolled his eyes. He propped his arms on the high end of the incline and shook his head down at her as he dropped back to normal speed. "Seriously?"
TJ started at the sudden appearance of Tommy, then let out a chuckle, doing another crunch and anchoring her hands on her knees to help her hold the position. It meant losing the view, but it was worth having a conversation right side up. "What? Can't a girl enjoy the view?"
"That muscle-bound mess? Yeah, I'm never going to get the appeal of six-feet-plus of beefsteak brick wall." He snorted at the idea. "For people supposedly related to me, you all have appalling taste in guys." TJ, Billy -- check and check -- Wanda... while Scott didn't technically count, he supposed, he was keeping that on his list anyway. Lance was alright, mind you. "Except Pietro," Tommy allowed generously.
"Come on, that ass is a thing of beauty," TJ retorted, nodding in the direction of the punching bag behind her. She wasn't touching the Pietro thing with a ten foot pole. "I'm not saying I'd date the guy." She liked them muscular, but preferably smarter than a bag of rocks. "What's up? Or did you just stop by to criticize my taste in men?"
Tommy grinned. "Nah, that was pretty much it. Where'd you go last week, anyway? I haven't seen you around. Half-figured you'd bailed after the Montana thing went down."
TJ scoffed. "Please. They're like the baby Brotherhood. That was nothing." She was still glad Wanda and Pietro were okay. But. Whatever. She lowered herself back on the incline, using her momentum to roll and pushing up on her arms. She ended up on her feet after something that looked a lot like a gymnastic move. "No, I went to Germany, to the circus?" she offered, reaching over for her water bottle. "Didn't I say? Sorry."
"If you left a note I missed it," Tommy shrugged, taking the chance to scruff his hair with his damp towel; the action left it sticking up in all different directions, but he ignored it. "That's cool. I still haven't seen Kurt's old haunting grounds. You didn't take a plane looking like that, though... Clarice?" he guessed. Billy would have said something, and as far as he knew Illyana and Pam weren't on TJ's friends list.
"Now you almost make me wish I'd tried to take the plane," TJ stated with a pout, recapping her bottle after taking a drink. Just for the look on everybody's faces. "Clarice, yeah." She smirked, because Kurt deserved it, and she seemed not batshit, and like good people in this world, so yay. "JM came along."
"No shit?" Tommy nodded -- yeah, fine, in approval. Even as cynical as Tommy was, he could appreciate when his friends were happy. "Meet the folks already? Kurt's a smart guy - you don't get much better than Jeanne-Marie."
TJ nodded. "She was awesome in the field, too. And she's a great clubber. Gotta love her." Those were two surefire ways into TJ's heart.
That got Tommy's attention, and not a small pang of jealousy at the same time. "You went clubbing? With Jeanne-Marie?"
"Berlin has an awesome night life," TJ confirmed, and flashed her fangs in a grin. "Speaking of, we should totally find a mutant-friendly club that would let a bunch of underage mutants party. My birthday's coming up, and I wanna dance all night."
Tommy grinned in return. "Sounds like a good time. I'm in, assuming you can find someplace that hits all the criteria. That or I'll swipe an image inducer. Think I can convince Kitty to whip me up a fake ID to go with it?"
"Totally," TJ said without missing a beat. What? She'd never met a Kitty she didn't like, and this one was also awesome. "Or we could just go to Europe again. They don't care as much. We'd just need to account for the timezone issue."
"That's no big deal," Tommy shrugged. Though Illyana was gone, and she was the one who claimed to be able to teleport through time. Not that he'd trust it, but it was an interesting option. "Get a teleporter or two on board and we're good to go. Though there's kind of an interesting irony in you being the one to worry about time zones," he added with a snicker.
"People have got to stop thinking I was time-traveling," TJ retorted with a roll of her eyes. Given that they were stock yellow, her rolling her eyes really didn't look like much. "Wanting to make sure you won't show up when the clubs close instead of when they open is a totally legit worry, bro. Anyway! I'll find something. Clarice will totally help." TJ just wished she'd come clubbing, too. Maybe if it was for her birthday?
"Cool." Tommy nodded. "Lemme know where and when." The segue wasn't much of a segue, considering the subject, at least as far as he was concerned- "Question. Did you know Illyana anywhere else?"
"Um. Yeah," TJ confirmed with a nod, and then gestured for Tommy to come with her. Not much use standing around the gym when she could be hitting the kitchen for some carbs while they chatted. "I knew her in my world - not well, though. And there was another one of her that joined our team. She was a bitch."
TJ started moving, and Tommy zipped off to the lockers to grab his shoes. He was pulling his t-shirt over his head, towel still around his neck, when he rejoined her between one step and the next. "And neither one went Brotherhood." It wasn't a question as much as a confirmation, his thoughts turned inward.
To be fair, the Magik of TJ's world had had bigger problems than which team to join on this plane of existence, and the other one hadn't had much of an opportunity to, hopping worlds. But the reasoning still sucked. "Well, neither one went for Pyro, either." He wasn't usually a very smart or nice guy, and he didn't seem to be this time around, either. She just hoped, for Illyana's sake, that he was good in bed. "You can't think like what happens in other worlds has any bearing here. At least the Brotherhood are baby villains this time around." She was seriously hoping she would never have to go up against Wanda.
"Yeah, of course," Tommy nodded as though he got it, but the more he turned any of that over in his mind the more he kept crashing up against questions like how much of anything they did was 'fated' and how any of that played in to whatever had happened to produce him and Billy. He'd tabled the question in his head months ago, figuring they'd never solve it, but every once in a while it nagged at him - like a cavity, or a loose tooth. "The whole shakeup had me thinking, that's all. Which is generally a bad idea all around," Tommy cracked, pushing the weird mood away as fast as it had set in.
"Aw, baby bro," TJ told him with a sharp grin, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they walked side by side, "I love your brain." She squeezed him a little, then released him, without breaking her stride. But, seriously, though. "Were you close to her? Illyana."
He nodded, then caught himself. "I guess. Less lately, but she was one of the first people here this summer when Xavier opened up. She came in not long after Kurt and me, and we hung out. She and Billy were BFFs for ages, though -- he's seriously steamed at her now, and so's Kitty. There was a whole thing," he gestured in the air, then waved it off. "Anyway, it's not like she's gone far." At least physically.
"Not yet," TJ answered, thinking not at all physically, tail swishing in the air behind her. "The one in my world - she was always a bit remote from the rest of us. The Limbo thing. But the Brotherhood, they weren't small change. They were big time mutant supremacists - on their better days. I don't think she would've joined them."
Then again, once upon a time, she would never have thought that Scott would... yeah. So, that was that.
"Yeah, that's definitely a difference. I'm guessing your version of Magneto didn't have a mental breakdown on tv, either." he snorted at the memory, and at everything that had happened since then to make that moment feel like so much nothing. He grabbed the ends of his towel to have something to do with the restless energy in his hands. "I dunno what the drinking age is like in the Caribbean, but you should totally ask Clarice if she knows anywhere down her way. Dancehall's awesome."
"That's an amazing idea!" TJ agreed with a grin. Maybe Clarice would feel comfortable enough to join them there? "I mean, the way she knocks back drinks, I'm not sure they really have a drinking age."
"Even better. That and any excuse for actual sun. I can bail out down the coast whenever, but I bet you'll get more takers for a Caribbean stopover this time of year than, like, Amsterdam. Which would also be awesome, but isn't gonna be bikini weather." Because that was, frankly, an important consideration.
"If you ask me, it's kind of always bikini weather," TJ retorted with a sharp grin. Benefit of all that fur, and good thermoregulation. "But yes, I'll ask her. Hopefully she has some ideas."
He laughed, shaking his head. "No offence, Teej, but considering we're running with the whole 'we're related' thing, it's not your clothing choices I'm thinking about."
"Definitely for the best," she confirmed without missing a beat, and pushed her way into the kitchen, tail holding the door for him as she stepped over to the fridge. "What's up with you, anyway?"
Tommy zipped through, grabbed a party-sized bag of chips and flopped into one of the chairs, tearing the bag open. "What's up with me how?"
"Any how," TJ shot back, grabbing a banana, and some jam to eat it with. (There was nothing wrong with that, okay.) "Classes, pranks, girls... or boys?" she added, honestly not sure whether he also liked boys.
"How long'd it take you to get the glitter out?" Tommy asked cheerfully through a mouthful of salt-and-vinegar. "That's the most recent one, anyway. I missed April Fools' last year - obvious reasons - but I like to think this one more than compensated."
"Oh, if you think it's all out already," TJ retorted with a grin. She didn't mind one bit, clearly.
Tommy nodded sagely. "Glitter is the gift that keeps on giving." Otherwise... what was up? "I'm finding it hard to believe that I've actually almost made it through sophomore year without getting expelled," he offered. "Or going insane. Though that one's more likely. You already know why my social life is getting progressively weirder with every new mutant-world disaster."
"Are we talking Brotherhood bullshit, or are we talking Right bullshit?" It wasn't an actual question, but TJ's confirmation as she perched on a chair in an easy crouch, tail setting a can of coke down on the table.
"All of the above," Tommy shrugged, glancing with faintly confused interest at the banana and the jam. Seriously? "I showed up here last summer chucked by the biologicals, and somehow between the Right lab takedowns, meeting the Brotherhood, the other lab rats, Illyana and limbo, whatever the fuck happened to create Billy -" he shrugged expressively.
"I've ended up with more people actually trying to call themselves family than I ever had before. Except now half of them are supposedly bad guys and ones who used to be bad guys are over here, and the whole idea of splitting us off into sides like that is such bullshit." He'd been speeding up as he spoke, but cut himself off and jammed a handful of chips into his mouth to shut himself up. "That and up until recently I’ve either had awful taste in girls - which seems unlikely - or my timing is for shit."
Well, those last words certainly derailed TJ from telling him what really was bullshit, and she made a surprised face. "Okay, now you've got to tell me more."
He rolled his eyes. "Not much to tell. Either they 'aren't looking for anything serious' and stand by it, or they 'aren't looking for anything serious' and immediately get serious with the next guy." A beat. "Or they already have a boyfriend - or not a boyfriend but a long term deeply significant whatever you want to call it - and get weird at me anyway. Girls." he snorted. "Things would be a hell of a lot simpler if they weren't so awesome the majority of the time."
TJ couldn't help it; she laughed. "Sorry. I'll let the word spread we should start sucking a whole lot more. Tommy Shepherd likes us too much." Well, not her-her, obviously, because alternate family, but yeah.
He shrugged, more expressively this time. "What can I say? If there was a god, boobs would be his greatest creations."
TJ looked down at her own, considering... and then back up with a small nod. "They are pretty awesome."
"Gaahh." Tommy threw a chip at her for making him go there, even for a split second.
TJ grimaced when she realized where his mind had gone. "Ugh! Don't check me out!"
"You're the one who made this about you," he pointed out, grimacing. "Move the subject along, please and thank you."
"Well I don't really enjoy other people's breasts!" TJ retorted, and finished her banana. "So you've got shit luck with girls so far. Are these all since you got here?" She'd had a crush on James for a couple of years. They clearly didn't move at the same speed. (Ha.)
"I didn't exactly have company in the lab," Tommy pointed out, but then compared to the others he'd gotten off so easy... not a train of thought he wanted to pursue. "There was Lisa in juvie before that, but we weren't exactly able to keep in touch after they sent her back home." And that had been convenience more than anything else, hadn't it? She was lonely and he'd been there?
"But yeah. Illyana, sort of... that wasn't really a thing before she hooked up with Pyro. Tam, who ditched me for Shinobi's billions, can't blame her for that one. Fatale, who's also with Alex-" he didn't want to dwell on that weirdness, either. "And Shen, but that's just 'cause she heard I was easy," he lied, his laugh mostly convincing.
"You've been busy," TJ stated, eyebrows raised. "A Limbo sorceress, Little Miss YouTube, Dagger-Happy McBrotherhood, and the feminazgul. You didn't exactly pick any easy ones."
Tommy's easy-breezy demeanour dropped, and he frowned at her. "What's that supposed to mean? And that was deeply uncool. Not being into me doesn't mean I want to hear them called names."
"Whoa, that wasn't name-calling," TJ assured him, raising her hands in a show of 'no harm meant', even if clearly, harm had been done. "Just - nickname-calling. Sorry."
He nodded, accepting the apology, but didn't entirely relax back to where he'd been before. "It's not like there were bad breakups involved. None of them were even officially "dating," whatever that means anyway. And we're cool. Like I said. My timing just sucks."
"There really aren't enough girls in this school," TJ stated, after going through some other options in her mind. "Or straight guys, for that matter."
"Ain't that the truth." Another fistful of chips, and Tommy's tension ebbed a little more. "Wynonna's fun, and hot. She doesn't put up with bullshit, which is pretty much a baseline requirement for hanging out with me."
"You gonna go for it?" TJ asked curiously.
“It’s a thing.” He grinned cheerfully, declining to go into more detail. There was shooting-the-shit and then there was talking, and he generally preferred to avoid the latter like the plague. "You gonna make a move on muscles back there?"
TJ let out a quiet chuckle, and shook her head. "Just enjoying the view."
"Invite him clubbing, see if he can do anything other than 'do you lift, bro'?" He mocked with an easy grin.
Her smile faded a bit, and she shook her head as her tail curled up behind her. "Nah. I'm not - I'm not over the last guy."
"See, this is where 'not giving a shit' actually comes in handy," Tommy advised. "Get dumped, move on."
"He died," TJ replied simply. There was no hostility to her tone; it was what it was, and Tommy couldn't have known, anyway. She was pretty sure she hadn't said John's name even weeks before she'd been stranded here. He was this private part of her, and sharing anything about him felt painful, but she probably needed to go through that pain, right? Anyway, Tommy was as close to family as she got, along with Kurt and Billy.
Tommy's face fell. "Oh." Oops. Shit. "Well, that makes everything I just said incredibly inappropriate."
TJ shrugged, giving him a small smile. "You couldn't have known."
He eyed her cautiously, weighing his options. On the one hand, there was the thing that was probably The Right Thing To Do. On the other, the fact that he'd rather eat glass. Ahhh, shit. It was TJ. At least she wasn't likely to burst into tears or some other Billy-level shit. "Do you... y'know. Want to talk about it?" he asked dubiously.
"I can tell you he was called John, and his muscles put Grog's to shame?" TJ offered with a small smile. "But, yeah, no. I don't think I'm there yet." Talking about it was different from talking about him. One step at a time, or something. "Thanks, though."
"Oh thank god," Tommy blurted out before he could catch himself. "Not that, you know, I wouldn't listen, but talking to me about emotional shit is about one hundred percent guaranteed to go badly." He frowned down at the bag in his hand, then held it out toward her, shaking it gently. "Chips?"
TJ chuckled, and grabbed a handful. Hey, she was finished with her banana, after all. "Thanks. You're probably giving yourself too little credit, though."
He made a face. "Feelings give me hives. Life's easier when you don't have to deal with all the crap that goes along with it."
"Life would suck without feelings," TJ stated, with, well, feeling. "And you know it too." She bared her fangs in a daring grin. "You pretty much took me in when I got here." Emotionally, or whatever. He could've kept his distance, and she would have respected that. Alternate family could be a mindfuck.
"That's not feelings, that's pragmatism." Tommy shrugged off the weird with a grin and - it wasn't a lie, dammit. At least it shouldn't be. He was making that same old mistake and it would bite him in the ass, just like always. Getting attached always ended badly. "The more people who feel like watching my back the better. You bounce around all over the place; you can't possibly think it's a good idea to get hung up on people you'll never see again."
TJ was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "You never know who you'll see again, or not. That's what I know." She thought of Mariko and MJ, then explained, "A friend and I got stuck on this world, once. I did everything I could to talk her out of pursuing her feelings for this girl, but she didn't listen. She was heartbroken when we had to leave, three months later. But she told me, later, she wouldn't have done any of it differently. She'd rather have had those three months than nothing at all. And I can't - I can't be here and not give a shit about people." Life was lonely enough as it was.
"I guess." Tommy remained dubious. Look at him, though -- if he had to cut and run, or if Xavier kicked him out on his ass, he'd have regrets. But they'd be practical ones. The school was still the best-supplied and safest base of operations for him at the moment. That was the reason he'd stayed - ask Wanda, they had money issues, maybe even trouble figuring out where groceries were coming from. Xavier's didn't. "Is that why you're sticking around this place instead of doing something more interesting than high school classwork?"
"I'm sticking around this place because it's as close to home as I'm getting, and it's where the X-m- X-Force is," TJ replied, pushing a hand back through her hair, tail flicking behind her. "Might as well do classwork here." The fact that a lot of places would not welcome an obvious mutant in their midst did not even factor into it. Kurt, Tommy and Billy absolutely did. So did Clarice. "Where else would I go?"
"Fair," Tommy admitted. It wasn't like he had any better ideas either - he just imagined that by the time he was older he'd have come up with something. "It's not such a bad deal, relatively speaking. At least until Xavier flips out like dear old Grand-paw," he drawled, heavy on the sarcasm on that one. "And decides to turn us into puppet soldiers after all."
"That's probably not gonna happen," TJ said, with a dubious little pout. What could she say? She'd met a Charles Xavier who led the Brotherhood, so, never say never.
Tommy shrugged. "You said it yourself, every world is different. Magneto said someone took over his brain and made him say all that crazy shit, who's to say it wasn't Xavier? Or Ms. Frost? The moment telepathy became a thing, conspiracy theorists started cheering all around the world."
"I said probably," TJ pointed out. "You don't have to tell me. But, you know. There's also the possibility that Grandpa's full of shit."
That earned a flash of a smile again. "Grownups usually are. W-" He cut himself off before he opened that can of worms again. "Some people believe him."
TJ gave him a really? look. "You can say her name, you know."
"This is me, trying to be considerate. When I pick fights I prefer it to be on purpose." That and he really had no idea how those two felt about each other on any given day.
"Would it have to be a fight?" TJ asked. They disagreed about Wanda. They disagreed about the Brotherhood. It was what it was. She hoped he was right, really. She just - wasn't holding out hope.
"It doesn't, no. But in case you haven't noticed, I tend to inspire irritation." He grinned at that, outwardly unrepentant.
TJ chuckled. "In case you haven't noticed, you don't irritate me much." She'd just spent a couple of years with Morph as a teammate. Tommy was fine.
"The few, the proud, the 'willing to put up with me,'" he cheered, lifting the chip bag in salutation.
"You'll never keep a girl by selling yourself short like that," TJ pointed out, gentle teasing. She was tempted to talk to Wynonna, now. Just to see what she was like! "Anyway, point is, we can talk about Wanda."
"Let the ego run unchecked? Bold move for a seduction technique, but I can always blame you if things go wrong," Tommy grinned back at her. "And so noted. Are you on speaking terms?"
"I don't know that we're not?" TJ offered. "...because we never speak. The one time went pretty horribly, and I don't really see it going any better now, so it's probably best if I don't try and find out."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. She's alright, you know. But there is a heavy level of weird with all of this. I find it a whole lot easier to think of her as a weird new cousin than any kind of mother."
TJ looked skeptical. "Yeah, that's not the issue. I mean, I tell people my alt-dad is my brother." She waved that aside dismissively. "Easy peasy. This is more like unreconcilable differences. She's Brotherhood, and nothing that's happened since I got here makes me think they're headed in a different direction than most Brotherhoods I've met."
"'Headed-in's not the same as 'is,' unless you're giving up," Tommy pointed out, grabbing some more chips. "I was 'headed for' a lifetime of petty crime and three-strikes jail terms, at least according to pretty much every adult in my life. And now look at me - juvenile delinquent to superhero, with a minor detour to fresh meat for Drs. Frankenstein and von Braun."
"Look, she bit my head off when I talked about the Brotherhoods in other worlds," TJ replied with a shrug. "It's not like she even really listened to what I was saying, she was too busy defending against shit I hadn't even said. If she wanted to talk, I've been here a while, and she's been around, too. Shit, there's a lot I could tell her about other Brotherhoods, if she wanted to avoid repeating their many ideological mistakes. But personally, I'm not gonna go out of my way to listen to an alternate version of my mother rant about 'flatscans', especially if she'll fly off the handle the moment I disagree with her. Alt-family's only family if you make it so."
Which, of course, she could've sold better if her tail hadn't been flicking irritably the entire time. The theory was, she could be level-headed about Wanda. The reality? Maybe not so much.
That told him more about where the lines were for TJ than it did about Wanda. Family was family until you didn't want it anymore. That fit more with Tommy's experiences than any of the stuff Billy kept spouting, so why did it taste sour? The flicking movement of her tail caught his eye for a half-second, before he looked back at the rapidly-emptying bag of chips. "Not my circus," he shrugged. "Not my monkeys. I was just curious."
TJ shrugged, and forced her tail to settle down. "Well, you're my monkey. You know. Manner of speaking." It didn't mean Wanda had to be. TJ was pretty sure she'd just fucked up that image, but oops, too late.
"Ook." Tommy stood, balling up the bag and chucking it haphazardly toward the garbage can. "Gonna go shower before the chlorine turns my hair green. Hit me up when you know when and where the clubbing thing's happening."
TJ snorted at his monkey sound, then grinned as she stepped off the stool, grabbing the jam to put it back in the fridge, and the banana peel to trash it. "Will do! Go take care of that fab hair."
Tommy zipped away the moment she finished speaking, the door bumping closed behind him.
Working out was a necessity when you were an X-Man, and working out was a requirement when you wanted to keep looking as good as TJ did. That gave TJ two reasons to be in the gym every other day, and today, well. Today she had a third reason to be there, it turned out.
She was doing some crunches on the incline, and every time she lowered herself back down, she had a fantastic, if upside down, view of that guy Grog laying into the heavy punching bag like it had just insulted his mother. It was a very, very nice view, almost hypnotizing, the way certain muscles clenched with each punch, and when she was done with her reps, she just stayed still on the incline for a few seconds, enjoying the view.
Still wet from the pool, Tommy buzzed through the gym with his trunks on and his towel slung over his shoulder. He stopped, looked back and forth between TJ and the oblivious object of her stare, and rolled his eyes. He propped his arms on the high end of the incline and shook his head down at her as he dropped back to normal speed. "Seriously?"
TJ started at the sudden appearance of Tommy, then let out a chuckle, doing another crunch and anchoring her hands on her knees to help her hold the position. It meant losing the view, but it was worth having a conversation right side up. "What? Can't a girl enjoy the view?"
"That muscle-bound mess? Yeah, I'm never going to get the appeal of six-feet-plus of beefsteak brick wall." He snorted at the idea. "For people supposedly related to me, you all have appalling taste in guys." TJ, Billy -- check and check -- Wanda... while Scott didn't technically count, he supposed, he was keeping that on his list anyway. Lance was alright, mind you. "Except Pietro," Tommy allowed generously.
"Come on, that ass is a thing of beauty," TJ retorted, nodding in the direction of the punching bag behind her. She wasn't touching the Pietro thing with a ten foot pole. "I'm not saying I'd date the guy." She liked them muscular, but preferably smarter than a bag of rocks. "What's up? Or did you just stop by to criticize my taste in men?"
Tommy grinned. "Nah, that was pretty much it. Where'd you go last week, anyway? I haven't seen you around. Half-figured you'd bailed after the Montana thing went down."
TJ scoffed. "Please. They're like the baby Brotherhood. That was nothing." She was still glad Wanda and Pietro were okay. But. Whatever. She lowered herself back on the incline, using her momentum to roll and pushing up on her arms. She ended up on her feet after something that looked a lot like a gymnastic move. "No, I went to Germany, to the circus?" she offered, reaching over for her water bottle. "Didn't I say? Sorry."
"If you left a note I missed it," Tommy shrugged, taking the chance to scruff his hair with his damp towel; the action left it sticking up in all different directions, but he ignored it. "That's cool. I still haven't seen Kurt's old haunting grounds. You didn't take a plane looking like that, though... Clarice?" he guessed. Billy would have said something, and as far as he knew Illyana and Pam weren't on TJ's friends list.
"Now you almost make me wish I'd tried to take the plane," TJ stated with a pout, recapping her bottle after taking a drink. Just for the look on everybody's faces. "Clarice, yeah." She smirked, because Kurt deserved it, and she seemed not batshit, and like good people in this world, so yay. "JM came along."
"No shit?" Tommy nodded -- yeah, fine, in approval. Even as cynical as Tommy was, he could appreciate when his friends were happy. "Meet the folks already? Kurt's a smart guy - you don't get much better than Jeanne-Marie."
TJ nodded. "She was awesome in the field, too. And she's a great clubber. Gotta love her." Those were two surefire ways into TJ's heart.
That got Tommy's attention, and not a small pang of jealousy at the same time. "You went clubbing? With Jeanne-Marie?"
"Berlin has an awesome night life," TJ confirmed, and flashed her fangs in a grin. "Speaking of, we should totally find a mutant-friendly club that would let a bunch of underage mutants party. My birthday's coming up, and I wanna dance all night."
Tommy grinned in return. "Sounds like a good time. I'm in, assuming you can find someplace that hits all the criteria. That or I'll swipe an image inducer. Think I can convince Kitty to whip me up a fake ID to go with it?"
"Totally," TJ said without missing a beat. What? She'd never met a Kitty she didn't like, and this one was also awesome. "Or we could just go to Europe again. They don't care as much. We'd just need to account for the timezone issue."
"That's no big deal," Tommy shrugged. Though Illyana was gone, and she was the one who claimed to be able to teleport through time. Not that he'd trust it, but it was an interesting option. "Get a teleporter or two on board and we're good to go. Though there's kind of an interesting irony in you being the one to worry about time zones," he added with a snicker.
"People have got to stop thinking I was time-traveling," TJ retorted with a roll of her eyes. Given that they were stock yellow, her rolling her eyes really didn't look like much. "Wanting to make sure you won't show up when the clubs close instead of when they open is a totally legit worry, bro. Anyway! I'll find something. Clarice will totally help." TJ just wished she'd come clubbing, too. Maybe if it was for her birthday?
"Cool." Tommy nodded. "Lemme know where and when." The segue wasn't much of a segue, considering the subject, at least as far as he was concerned- "Question. Did you know Illyana anywhere else?"
"Um. Yeah," TJ confirmed with a nod, and then gestured for Tommy to come with her. Not much use standing around the gym when she could be hitting the kitchen for some carbs while they chatted. "I knew her in my world - not well, though. And there was another one of her that joined our team. She was a bitch."
TJ started moving, and Tommy zipped off to the lockers to grab his shoes. He was pulling his t-shirt over his head, towel still around his neck, when he rejoined her between one step and the next. "And neither one went Brotherhood." It wasn't a question as much as a confirmation, his thoughts turned inward.
To be fair, the Magik of TJ's world had had bigger problems than which team to join on this plane of existence, and the other one hadn't had much of an opportunity to, hopping worlds. But the reasoning still sucked. "Well, neither one went for Pyro, either." He wasn't usually a very smart or nice guy, and he didn't seem to be this time around, either. She just hoped, for Illyana's sake, that he was good in bed. "You can't think like what happens in other worlds has any bearing here. At least the Brotherhood are baby villains this time around." She was seriously hoping she would never have to go up against Wanda.
"Yeah, of course," Tommy nodded as though he got it, but the more he turned any of that over in his mind the more he kept crashing up against questions like how much of anything they did was 'fated' and how any of that played in to whatever had happened to produce him and Billy. He'd tabled the question in his head months ago, figuring they'd never solve it, but every once in a while it nagged at him - like a cavity, or a loose tooth. "The whole shakeup had me thinking, that's all. Which is generally a bad idea all around," Tommy cracked, pushing the weird mood away as fast as it had set in.
"Aw, baby bro," TJ told him with a sharp grin, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as they walked side by side, "I love your brain." She squeezed him a little, then released him, without breaking her stride. But, seriously, though. "Were you close to her? Illyana."
He nodded, then caught himself. "I guess. Less lately, but she was one of the first people here this summer when Xavier opened up. She came in not long after Kurt and me, and we hung out. She and Billy were BFFs for ages, though -- he's seriously steamed at her now, and so's Kitty. There was a whole thing," he gestured in the air, then waved it off. "Anyway, it's not like she's gone far." At least physically.
"Not yet," TJ answered, thinking not at all physically, tail swishing in the air behind her. "The one in my world - she was always a bit remote from the rest of us. The Limbo thing. But the Brotherhood, they weren't small change. They were big time mutant supremacists - on their better days. I don't think she would've joined them."
Then again, once upon a time, she would never have thought that Scott would... yeah. So, that was that.
"Yeah, that's definitely a difference. I'm guessing your version of Magneto didn't have a mental breakdown on tv, either." he snorted at the memory, and at everything that had happened since then to make that moment feel like so much nothing. He grabbed the ends of his towel to have something to do with the restless energy in his hands. "I dunno what the drinking age is like in the Caribbean, but you should totally ask Clarice if she knows anywhere down her way. Dancehall's awesome."
"That's an amazing idea!" TJ agreed with a grin. Maybe Clarice would feel comfortable enough to join them there? "I mean, the way she knocks back drinks, I'm not sure they really have a drinking age."
"Even better. That and any excuse for actual sun. I can bail out down the coast whenever, but I bet you'll get more takers for a Caribbean stopover this time of year than, like, Amsterdam. Which would also be awesome, but isn't gonna be bikini weather." Because that was, frankly, an important consideration.
"If you ask me, it's kind of always bikini weather," TJ retorted with a sharp grin. Benefit of all that fur, and good thermoregulation. "But yes, I'll ask her. Hopefully she has some ideas."
He laughed, shaking his head. "No offence, Teej, but considering we're running with the whole 'we're related' thing, it's not your clothing choices I'm thinking about."
"Definitely for the best," she confirmed without missing a beat, and pushed her way into the kitchen, tail holding the door for him as she stepped over to the fridge. "What's up with you, anyway?"
Tommy zipped through, grabbed a party-sized bag of chips and flopped into one of the chairs, tearing the bag open. "What's up with me how?"
"Any how," TJ shot back, grabbing a banana, and some jam to eat it with. (There was nothing wrong with that, okay.) "Classes, pranks, girls... or boys?" she added, honestly not sure whether he also liked boys.
"How long'd it take you to get the glitter out?" Tommy asked cheerfully through a mouthful of salt-and-vinegar. "That's the most recent one, anyway. I missed April Fools' last year - obvious reasons - but I like to think this one more than compensated."
"Oh, if you think it's all out already," TJ retorted with a grin. She didn't mind one bit, clearly.
Tommy nodded sagely. "Glitter is the gift that keeps on giving." Otherwise... what was up? "I'm finding it hard to believe that I've actually almost made it through sophomore year without getting expelled," he offered. "Or going insane. Though that one's more likely. You already know why my social life is getting progressively weirder with every new mutant-world disaster."
"Are we talking Brotherhood bullshit, or are we talking Right bullshit?" It wasn't an actual question, but TJ's confirmation as she perched on a chair in an easy crouch, tail setting a can of coke down on the table.
"All of the above," Tommy shrugged, glancing with faintly confused interest at the banana and the jam. Seriously? "I showed up here last summer chucked by the biologicals, and somehow between the Right lab takedowns, meeting the Brotherhood, the other lab rats, Illyana and limbo, whatever the fuck happened to create Billy -" he shrugged expressively.
"I've ended up with more people actually trying to call themselves family than I ever had before. Except now half of them are supposedly bad guys and ones who used to be bad guys are over here, and the whole idea of splitting us off into sides like that is such bullshit." He'd been speeding up as he spoke, but cut himself off and jammed a handful of chips into his mouth to shut himself up. "That and up until recently I’ve either had awful taste in girls - which seems unlikely - or my timing is for shit."
Well, those last words certainly derailed TJ from telling him what really was bullshit, and she made a surprised face. "Okay, now you've got to tell me more."
He rolled his eyes. "Not much to tell. Either they 'aren't looking for anything serious' and stand by it, or they 'aren't looking for anything serious' and immediately get serious with the next guy." A beat. "Or they already have a boyfriend - or not a boyfriend but a long term deeply significant whatever you want to call it - and get weird at me anyway. Girls." he snorted. "Things would be a hell of a lot simpler if they weren't so awesome the majority of the time."
TJ couldn't help it; she laughed. "Sorry. I'll let the word spread we should start sucking a whole lot more. Tommy Shepherd likes us too much." Well, not her-her, obviously, because alternate family, but yeah.
He shrugged, more expressively this time. "What can I say? If there was a god, boobs would be his greatest creations."
TJ looked down at her own, considering... and then back up with a small nod. "They are pretty awesome."
"Gaahh." Tommy threw a chip at her for making him go there, even for a split second.
TJ grimaced when she realized where his mind had gone. "Ugh! Don't check me out!"
"You're the one who made this about you," he pointed out, grimacing. "Move the subject along, please and thank you."
"Well I don't really enjoy other people's breasts!" TJ retorted, and finished her banana. "So you've got shit luck with girls so far. Are these all since you got here?" She'd had a crush on James for a couple of years. They clearly didn't move at the same speed. (Ha.)
"I didn't exactly have company in the lab," Tommy pointed out, but then compared to the others he'd gotten off so easy... not a train of thought he wanted to pursue. "There was Lisa in juvie before that, but we weren't exactly able to keep in touch after they sent her back home." And that had been convenience more than anything else, hadn't it? She was lonely and he'd been there?
"But yeah. Illyana, sort of... that wasn't really a thing before she hooked up with Pyro. Tam, who ditched me for Shinobi's billions, can't blame her for that one. Fatale, who's also with Alex-" he didn't want to dwell on that weirdness, either. "And Shen, but that's just 'cause she heard I was easy," he lied, his laugh mostly convincing.
"You've been busy," TJ stated, eyebrows raised. "A Limbo sorceress, Little Miss YouTube, Dagger-Happy McBrotherhood, and the feminazgul. You didn't exactly pick any easy ones."
Tommy's easy-breezy demeanour dropped, and he frowned at her. "What's that supposed to mean? And that was deeply uncool. Not being into me doesn't mean I want to hear them called names."
"Whoa, that wasn't name-calling," TJ assured him, raising her hands in a show of 'no harm meant', even if clearly, harm had been done. "Just - nickname-calling. Sorry."
He nodded, accepting the apology, but didn't entirely relax back to where he'd been before. "It's not like there were bad breakups involved. None of them were even officially "dating," whatever that means anyway. And we're cool. Like I said. My timing just sucks."
"There really aren't enough girls in this school," TJ stated, after going through some other options in her mind. "Or straight guys, for that matter."
"Ain't that the truth." Another fistful of chips, and Tommy's tension ebbed a little more. "Wynonna's fun, and hot. She doesn't put up with bullshit, which is pretty much a baseline requirement for hanging out with me."
"You gonna go for it?" TJ asked curiously.
“It’s a thing.” He grinned cheerfully, declining to go into more detail. There was shooting-the-shit and then there was talking, and he generally preferred to avoid the latter like the plague. "You gonna make a move on muscles back there?"
TJ let out a quiet chuckle, and shook her head. "Just enjoying the view."
"Invite him clubbing, see if he can do anything other than 'do you lift, bro'?" He mocked with an easy grin.
Her smile faded a bit, and she shook her head as her tail curled up behind her. "Nah. I'm not - I'm not over the last guy."
"See, this is where 'not giving a shit' actually comes in handy," Tommy advised. "Get dumped, move on."
"He died," TJ replied simply. There was no hostility to her tone; it was what it was, and Tommy couldn't have known, anyway. She was pretty sure she hadn't said John's name even weeks before she'd been stranded here. He was this private part of her, and sharing anything about him felt painful, but she probably needed to go through that pain, right? Anyway, Tommy was as close to family as she got, along with Kurt and Billy.
Tommy's face fell. "Oh." Oops. Shit. "Well, that makes everything I just said incredibly inappropriate."
TJ shrugged, giving him a small smile. "You couldn't have known."
He eyed her cautiously, weighing his options. On the one hand, there was the thing that was probably The Right Thing To Do. On the other, the fact that he'd rather eat glass. Ahhh, shit. It was TJ. At least she wasn't likely to burst into tears or some other Billy-level shit. "Do you... y'know. Want to talk about it?" he asked dubiously.
"I can tell you he was called John, and his muscles put Grog's to shame?" TJ offered with a small smile. "But, yeah, no. I don't think I'm there yet." Talking about it was different from talking about him. One step at a time, or something. "Thanks, though."
"Oh thank god," Tommy blurted out before he could catch himself. "Not that, you know, I wouldn't listen, but talking to me about emotional shit is about one hundred percent guaranteed to go badly." He frowned down at the bag in his hand, then held it out toward her, shaking it gently. "Chips?"
TJ chuckled, and grabbed a handful. Hey, she was finished with her banana, after all. "Thanks. You're probably giving yourself too little credit, though."
He made a face. "Feelings give me hives. Life's easier when you don't have to deal with all the crap that goes along with it."
"Life would suck without feelings," TJ stated, with, well, feeling. "And you know it too." She bared her fangs in a daring grin. "You pretty much took me in when I got here." Emotionally, or whatever. He could've kept his distance, and she would have respected that. Alternate family could be a mindfuck.
"That's not feelings, that's pragmatism." Tommy shrugged off the weird with a grin and - it wasn't a lie, dammit. At least it shouldn't be. He was making that same old mistake and it would bite him in the ass, just like always. Getting attached always ended badly. "The more people who feel like watching my back the better. You bounce around all over the place; you can't possibly think it's a good idea to get hung up on people you'll never see again."
TJ was quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "You never know who you'll see again, or not. That's what I know." She thought of Mariko and MJ, then explained, "A friend and I got stuck on this world, once. I did everything I could to talk her out of pursuing her feelings for this girl, but she didn't listen. She was heartbroken when we had to leave, three months later. But she told me, later, she wouldn't have done any of it differently. She'd rather have had those three months than nothing at all. And I can't - I can't be here and not give a shit about people." Life was lonely enough as it was.
"I guess." Tommy remained dubious. Look at him, though -- if he had to cut and run, or if Xavier kicked him out on his ass, he'd have regrets. But they'd be practical ones. The school was still the best-supplied and safest base of operations for him at the moment. That was the reason he'd stayed - ask Wanda, they had money issues, maybe even trouble figuring out where groceries were coming from. Xavier's didn't. "Is that why you're sticking around this place instead of doing something more interesting than high school classwork?"
"I'm sticking around this place because it's as close to home as I'm getting, and it's where the X-m- X-Force is," TJ replied, pushing a hand back through her hair, tail flicking behind her. "Might as well do classwork here." The fact that a lot of places would not welcome an obvious mutant in their midst did not even factor into it. Kurt, Tommy and Billy absolutely did. So did Clarice. "Where else would I go?"
"Fair," Tommy admitted. It wasn't like he had any better ideas either - he just imagined that by the time he was older he'd have come up with something. "It's not such a bad deal, relatively speaking. At least until Xavier flips out like dear old Grand-paw," he drawled, heavy on the sarcasm on that one. "And decides to turn us into puppet soldiers after all."
"That's probably not gonna happen," TJ said, with a dubious little pout. What could she say? She'd met a Charles Xavier who led the Brotherhood, so, never say never.
Tommy shrugged. "You said it yourself, every world is different. Magneto said someone took over his brain and made him say all that crazy shit, who's to say it wasn't Xavier? Or Ms. Frost? The moment telepathy became a thing, conspiracy theorists started cheering all around the world."
"I said probably," TJ pointed out. "You don't have to tell me. But, you know. There's also the possibility that Grandpa's full of shit."
That earned a flash of a smile again. "Grownups usually are. W-" He cut himself off before he opened that can of worms again. "Some people believe him."
TJ gave him a really? look. "You can say her name, you know."
"This is me, trying to be considerate. When I pick fights I prefer it to be on purpose." That and he really had no idea how those two felt about each other on any given day.
"Would it have to be a fight?" TJ asked. They disagreed about Wanda. They disagreed about the Brotherhood. It was what it was. She hoped he was right, really. She just - wasn't holding out hope.
"It doesn't, no. But in case you haven't noticed, I tend to inspire irritation." He grinned at that, outwardly unrepentant.
TJ chuckled. "In case you haven't noticed, you don't irritate me much." She'd just spent a couple of years with Morph as a teammate. Tommy was fine.
"The few, the proud, the 'willing to put up with me,'" he cheered, lifting the chip bag in salutation.
"You'll never keep a girl by selling yourself short like that," TJ pointed out, gentle teasing. She was tempted to talk to Wynonna, now. Just to see what she was like! "Anyway, point is, we can talk about Wanda."
"Let the ego run unchecked? Bold move for a seduction technique, but I can always blame you if things go wrong," Tommy grinned back at her. "And so noted. Are you on speaking terms?"
"I don't know that we're not?" TJ offered. "...because we never speak. The one time went pretty horribly, and I don't really see it going any better now, so it's probably best if I don't try and find out."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself. She's alright, you know. But there is a heavy level of weird with all of this. I find it a whole lot easier to think of her as a weird new cousin than any kind of mother."
TJ looked skeptical. "Yeah, that's not the issue. I mean, I tell people my alt-dad is my brother." She waved that aside dismissively. "Easy peasy. This is more like unreconcilable differences. She's Brotherhood, and nothing that's happened since I got here makes me think they're headed in a different direction than most Brotherhoods I've met."
"'Headed-in's not the same as 'is,' unless you're giving up," Tommy pointed out, grabbing some more chips. "I was 'headed for' a lifetime of petty crime and three-strikes jail terms, at least according to pretty much every adult in my life. And now look at me - juvenile delinquent to superhero, with a minor detour to fresh meat for Drs. Frankenstein and von Braun."
"Look, she bit my head off when I talked about the Brotherhoods in other worlds," TJ replied with a shrug. "It's not like she even really listened to what I was saying, she was too busy defending against shit I hadn't even said. If she wanted to talk, I've been here a while, and she's been around, too. Shit, there's a lot I could tell her about other Brotherhoods, if she wanted to avoid repeating their many ideological mistakes. But personally, I'm not gonna go out of my way to listen to an alternate version of my mother rant about 'flatscans', especially if she'll fly off the handle the moment I disagree with her. Alt-family's only family if you make it so."
Which, of course, she could've sold better if her tail hadn't been flicking irritably the entire time. The theory was, she could be level-headed about Wanda. The reality? Maybe not so much.
That told him more about where the lines were for TJ than it did about Wanda. Family was family until you didn't want it anymore. That fit more with Tommy's experiences than any of the stuff Billy kept spouting, so why did it taste sour? The flicking movement of her tail caught his eye for a half-second, before he looked back at the rapidly-emptying bag of chips. "Not my circus," he shrugged. "Not my monkeys. I was just curious."
TJ shrugged, and forced her tail to settle down. "Well, you're my monkey. You know. Manner of speaking." It didn't mean Wanda had to be. TJ was pretty sure she'd just fucked up that image, but oops, too late.
"Ook." Tommy stood, balling up the bag and chucking it haphazardly toward the garbage can. "Gonna go shower before the chlorine turns my hair green. Hit me up when you know when and where the clubbing thing's happening."
TJ snorted at his monkey sound, then grinned as she stepped off the stool, grabbing the jam to put it back in the fridge, and the banana peel to trash it. "Will do! Go take care of that fab hair."
Tommy zipped away the moment she finished speaking, the door bumping closed behind him.