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Clarice and Cal - Backdated
Cal and Clarice run into each other in the kitchen. He finally plucks up the courage to ask her if he can mimic her.
Cal turned up in the kitchen to grab himself a snack, Abs happily trailing behind him. He hadn't expected to find somebody already there, never mind somebody he had been trying to psych himself up to go and talk to. He smiled at the mutant girl, mostly covering up his momentary awkwardness. "Hey. Clarice, right?"
Like he didn't know exactly who she was. Abs was already trotting forward to go smell her shoes, always happy to meet new people.
Shifting her flip-flops slightly as the dog began tickling her feet with its nose, Clarice offered the newcomer a grin. "That's right. Clarice Ferguson, at your service. Ransackin' the kitchen, since teleportin' aroun' all day takes a lot out of a gal. You're Cal, right? I seen you around." The lavender-skinned teen half-stooped to scrub the pup between its ears with her hand. "Who's this, though? I thought the school had a 'no pets allowed' policy, ay'?"
"Xavier made an exception for Abs and Lucky," Cal answered with a slight smile, watching his dog revel in the petting. For Abs and Lucky, and for plenty of other pets, really. "This is Abs. Lucky's Clint's, he's her brother."
"Hey, girl," Clarice singsonged, the familiar feeling of soft fur in her hand reminding her inexplicably of home. The Fergusons had always been dog-people, for as along as she could recall. "Welcome to mutant school. Is not really as crazy as it seems right at first, and most of the kids here is nice." Her voice lowered confidentially, as she added softly into Abs' ear, "I'd stay away from Yuri, though. He's definitely more a cat-person."
Abs, predictably, took advantage of Clarice's proximity to lick her face. Cal chuckled. "Sorry, she's kinda hella friendly. Abs, sit," he told her, his tone changing as authority colored it, and the pup looked back at him, whined, but then sat her ass down. "Good girl," Cal told her warmly, and held a treat out to Clarice. "You wanna give it to her?"
Of course, Abs stood up again, tail wagging, as soon as she saw the treat, and Cal said another sharp, "Sit. Good."
"Is fine," Clarice laughed. "Friendly is definitely the way to be, 'round here." She eyed the treat uncertainly, bright green eyes considering. Finally, she blink-ed it out of Cal's hand and into the air a foot or so above the puppy's nose.
Cal let out an impressed chuckle, and Abs immediately stood and tried to move to her hind legs and jump to get at the treat.
She chuffed a laugh as the puppy tried--and failed--to snag the falling treat out of the air. She was quick to gobble it up off the floor, however. "You two lookin' for somethin' to eat, then? I was just gonna fix myself a snack, but if it's company I guess I could maybe try make somethin' a little more substantial."
"Go and ruin her education, why don't you," Cal playfully accused Clarice, having crouched by Abs to pet her, in her current state of happiness. Clearly, he was ruining it too, positively reinforcing the moment, when she hadn't behaved to get that treat. "You're terrible," he told the dog, very obviously not meaning a word of it. "Awful."
He stood up then, smiling at Clarice. "I was just gonna grab something out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave, honestly."
"Me, too," she admitted. "But it seemed like the thing t'do was offer, ay'? I ain' really much of a cook, and the microwave is way more convenient." Clarice nodded for Cal to go ahead and go first, and settled her back against one of the counters. "You likin' the school so far? It can be a lot to take in, I know, but there's lots of good people, too." And some royal pains, but that seemed unkind to say. Besides, that latter group was definitely the minority.
"I haven't really - mingled much," Cal admitted, as he walked over to the freezer to peruse its contents.
"I wasn' really big on minglin' when I first got here, either," she told him reassuringly. "Took me a while to get used to all the people, all the strange faces. Take your time. I's pretty sure it'll grow on you, if you give it a chance."
"Well, you know, it's a step up on where I came from, so," Cal replied, and grabbed a box of burritos. "Should I microwave some for two?"
"Please," she said with a nod. Hesitating only briefly, she added, "You's ... from one of those labs, ay'? The ones where they's do tests on mutants." Clarice flushed, turning a darker shade of purple. "I guess that ain' the kind of question you's supposed to ask people you just met. I just ... I wanted to say I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through anythin' like that, and I wish we'd been able to find you sooner."
Cal gave her a quick half-smile, as he went through the motions of getting the burritos out of the box, and setting them up on a plate to put into the microwave. "But you did find us. And that's..." When he'd had conversations with the kids who had rescued him, and Goodnight and Billy, he hadn't been in any kind of place to thank them. Now he was stumbling over his own words, trying to do it. "I mean, thank you. I heard you got Clint and Caleb out."
She studied him curiously for a moment, then offered a shrug. "It wasn' anythin' any decent kinda person woulda done, if they'd had a chance," Clarice said. "Anyway, I hardly did anythin' at all. I was mostly transportation." Which, she supposed, was probably pretty important, even when it didn't seem like much to her.
"Transportation out of there is sort of everything," Cal replied, realized how intense he'd just sounded, and tried to mitigate that with a small smile. He stuck the plate of burritos into the microwave and turned it on. "Can I - I know you don't know me, but I wanted to ask you a favor. If you don't mind." What if she said no. What would he do then. Try Billy? Who would he turn to when he said no?
"You can always ask," she reassured him. "Worst I can do is say 'no'. An' people around here seem to think I's pretty accommadatin', so your chances is pretty good. Besides, you's feeding me. That can only improve your odds."
Cal gave her a quick, brief smile; sticking frozen food into the microwave for both of them didn't seem to him like it was worth much, but he wouldn't try to talk her out of it. "I'm a mimic. I copy mutations. I was wondering if you might let me copy yours, so I could... keep it." 100% transparency; that was the only way to go. "You wouldn't even notice I'm doing anything. I'd just need to hang around you for 20 minutes or so, you won't feel a thing, and it'll be done."
Please don't say no, please don't say no, please don't say no.
That had Clarice blinking, then fixing Calvin with a much harder look that she had previously. "Mimic, ay'? That's somethin' else. You musssee pretty spoiled for choice, around here." A portal blinked into existence a safe distance from Calvin and his puppy, and she nodded toward it. "Before I's say yes or no, I wanna show you somethin' first. Somethin' I'd rather not do in the kitchen. Don' worry," she grinned suddenly, "we'll be back before the burritos is done."
Clarice could smile all she wanted; it meant very little to Cal. He resisted the urge to brush his opposite hand on the silver bracelet wrapped around his right wrist. "Where is that going, and do you mind if I psi-check if you're telling me the truth?" Abs, who had been curious of portals ever since he had known her, stepped towards this pink one, but Cal scooped her up in his arms before she could get too close.
"That," she nodded toward the portal, "is goin' to the back yard. You can rummage around in my head to your heart's content, or just look through and see. Be my guest."
"No rummaging needed," Cal said after a couple of seconds, trusting his telepathy more than his sight (especially with such a generic landscape) and having checked on the veracity of her statement and gotten the fuck back out of her head ASAP. Now, he could try and get Abs to stay behind, but it was unlikely he'd manage, and he'd rather she didn't wander through another portal without knowing when it would close. So he stepped over to the portal, said, "Okay," and stepped through, pup still in his arms.
Clarice followed a step behind them, and in a fraction of a second they were in the mansion's expansive back yard, some distance from the school itself. It was fairly dark, at that time of day, but there was light enough from the Academy for her purposes. "Watch," she told him, forming a portal at the point where a particularly thick branch joined the trunk of a tree on the outskirts of the forest that bordered the grounds. The limb immediately tumbled loose from its former purchase, but before it could even reach the ground, Clarice swallowed it in another portal, and opened over a dozen smaller blink-apertures in the air some distance from where they stood. Those portals belched out a fine, powdery sawdust, like snow in August, for several minutes before she closed them again.
Well, Cal hadn't waited for her to think about the potentially very lethal application of teleportation, so he watched without much outward reaction. "I know what it can do," he said, once Clarice was done with her demonstration. "That's not why I want it. I just..." Fuck, admitting this didn't feel right, and his gaze cut to the side. Abs wriggled in his arms, and he stroked her head, getting her to settle down, then set her down on the ground, remaining crouched after he had, so he had to look up at Clarice as he finally said, "I just wanna be able to get away." There, he'd said it, and he stood up, looking away again.
"I just wanted you to be sure you understood how dangerous my particular form of teleportin' is," she told him. "Far as I know, Pam's and Kurt's don't do anything like that. And Illyana's can be dangerous, but in a diff'rent kind of way. My way," she waved a hand vaguely, "it can mince a person, quick as you could think it." She very deliberately, but very carefully, stepped back into his field of view. "If you can appreciate an' respect that, if you can tell me you'll be careful with it ... well, yeah. You can have it. Every mutant should be able to get away, when they's need to."
Cal wasn't sure about Kurt's kind of teleporting, or even Illyana's, for all that he'd used it once, but he knew what he could have done with Pam's. Anything with portals that could cut someone halfway through was a fucking danger, when wielded appropriately. "I'll be careful with it," he told Clarice, holding her gaze now. Please. Fucking please.
"Good," she said. "I'mma hold you to that." Clarice crouched down to pet the puppy again. Another portal blink-ed into place not far from where they stood, leading back to the kitchen.
"You can have it, then. C'mon. Let's go eat some burritos and kill some time, an' then maybe test out your new amazing powers. I maybe could give you some pointers, too, if you think you might need 'em."
He wouldn't, Cal knew, but it made people feel all the warier when he told them that. Like he was cheating them out of something, by knowing how to use their mutation. So when Clarice stood back up, Cal scooped up Abs again. "That would be nice, yeah," he said, because it probably would be, whether he needed them or not. He looked back at Clarice. "Thank you." He meant the words more than he could say. And with that, and a whispered, "Okay," he stepped through her portal, and back into the kitchen.
Cal turned up in the kitchen to grab himself a snack, Abs happily trailing behind him. He hadn't expected to find somebody already there, never mind somebody he had been trying to psych himself up to go and talk to. He smiled at the mutant girl, mostly covering up his momentary awkwardness. "Hey. Clarice, right?"
Like he didn't know exactly who she was. Abs was already trotting forward to go smell her shoes, always happy to meet new people.
Shifting her flip-flops slightly as the dog began tickling her feet with its nose, Clarice offered the newcomer a grin. "That's right. Clarice Ferguson, at your service. Ransackin' the kitchen, since teleportin' aroun' all day takes a lot out of a gal. You're Cal, right? I seen you around." The lavender-skinned teen half-stooped to scrub the pup between its ears with her hand. "Who's this, though? I thought the school had a 'no pets allowed' policy, ay'?"
"Xavier made an exception for Abs and Lucky," Cal answered with a slight smile, watching his dog revel in the petting. For Abs and Lucky, and for plenty of other pets, really. "This is Abs. Lucky's Clint's, he's her brother."
"Hey, girl," Clarice singsonged, the familiar feeling of soft fur in her hand reminding her inexplicably of home. The Fergusons had always been dog-people, for as along as she could recall. "Welcome to mutant school. Is not really as crazy as it seems right at first, and most of the kids here is nice." Her voice lowered confidentially, as she added softly into Abs' ear, "I'd stay away from Yuri, though. He's definitely more a cat-person."
Abs, predictably, took advantage of Clarice's proximity to lick her face. Cal chuckled. "Sorry, she's kinda hella friendly. Abs, sit," he told her, his tone changing as authority colored it, and the pup looked back at him, whined, but then sat her ass down. "Good girl," Cal told her warmly, and held a treat out to Clarice. "You wanna give it to her?"
Of course, Abs stood up again, tail wagging, as soon as she saw the treat, and Cal said another sharp, "Sit. Good."
"Is fine," Clarice laughed. "Friendly is definitely the way to be, 'round here." She eyed the treat uncertainly, bright green eyes considering. Finally, she blink-ed it out of Cal's hand and into the air a foot or so above the puppy's nose.
Cal let out an impressed chuckle, and Abs immediately stood and tried to move to her hind legs and jump to get at the treat.
She chuffed a laugh as the puppy tried--and failed--to snag the falling treat out of the air. She was quick to gobble it up off the floor, however. "You two lookin' for somethin' to eat, then? I was just gonna fix myself a snack, but if it's company I guess I could maybe try make somethin' a little more substantial."
"Go and ruin her education, why don't you," Cal playfully accused Clarice, having crouched by Abs to pet her, in her current state of happiness. Clearly, he was ruining it too, positively reinforcing the moment, when she hadn't behaved to get that treat. "You're terrible," he told the dog, very obviously not meaning a word of it. "Awful."
He stood up then, smiling at Clarice. "I was just gonna grab something out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave, honestly."
"Me, too," she admitted. "But it seemed like the thing t'do was offer, ay'? I ain' really much of a cook, and the microwave is way more convenient." Clarice nodded for Cal to go ahead and go first, and settled her back against one of the counters. "You likin' the school so far? It can be a lot to take in, I know, but there's lots of good people, too." And some royal pains, but that seemed unkind to say. Besides, that latter group was definitely the minority.
"I haven't really - mingled much," Cal admitted, as he walked over to the freezer to peruse its contents.
"I wasn' really big on minglin' when I first got here, either," she told him reassuringly. "Took me a while to get used to all the people, all the strange faces. Take your time. I's pretty sure it'll grow on you, if you give it a chance."
"Well, you know, it's a step up on where I came from, so," Cal replied, and grabbed a box of burritos. "Should I microwave some for two?"
"Please," she said with a nod. Hesitating only briefly, she added, "You's ... from one of those labs, ay'? The ones where they's do tests on mutants." Clarice flushed, turning a darker shade of purple. "I guess that ain' the kind of question you's supposed to ask people you just met. I just ... I wanted to say I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through anythin' like that, and I wish we'd been able to find you sooner."
Cal gave her a quick half-smile, as he went through the motions of getting the burritos out of the box, and setting them up on a plate to put into the microwave. "But you did find us. And that's..." When he'd had conversations with the kids who had rescued him, and Goodnight and Billy, he hadn't been in any kind of place to thank them. Now he was stumbling over his own words, trying to do it. "I mean, thank you. I heard you got Clint and Caleb out."
She studied him curiously for a moment, then offered a shrug. "It wasn' anythin' any decent kinda person woulda done, if they'd had a chance," Clarice said. "Anyway, I hardly did anythin' at all. I was mostly transportation." Which, she supposed, was probably pretty important, even when it didn't seem like much to her.
"Transportation out of there is sort of everything," Cal replied, realized how intense he'd just sounded, and tried to mitigate that with a small smile. He stuck the plate of burritos into the microwave and turned it on. "Can I - I know you don't know me, but I wanted to ask you a favor. If you don't mind." What if she said no. What would he do then. Try Billy? Who would he turn to when he said no?
"You can always ask," she reassured him. "Worst I can do is say 'no'. An' people around here seem to think I's pretty accommadatin', so your chances is pretty good. Besides, you's feeding me. That can only improve your odds."
Cal gave her a quick, brief smile; sticking frozen food into the microwave for both of them didn't seem to him like it was worth much, but he wouldn't try to talk her out of it. "I'm a mimic. I copy mutations. I was wondering if you might let me copy yours, so I could... keep it." 100% transparency; that was the only way to go. "You wouldn't even notice I'm doing anything. I'd just need to hang around you for 20 minutes or so, you won't feel a thing, and it'll be done."
Please don't say no, please don't say no, please don't say no.
That had Clarice blinking, then fixing Calvin with a much harder look that she had previously. "Mimic, ay'? That's somethin' else. You musssee pretty spoiled for choice, around here." A portal blinked into existence a safe distance from Calvin and his puppy, and she nodded toward it. "Before I's say yes or no, I wanna show you somethin' first. Somethin' I'd rather not do in the kitchen. Don' worry," she grinned suddenly, "we'll be back before the burritos is done."
Clarice could smile all she wanted; it meant very little to Cal. He resisted the urge to brush his opposite hand on the silver bracelet wrapped around his right wrist. "Where is that going, and do you mind if I psi-check if you're telling me the truth?" Abs, who had been curious of portals ever since he had known her, stepped towards this pink one, but Cal scooped her up in his arms before she could get too close.
"That," she nodded toward the portal, "is goin' to the back yard. You can rummage around in my head to your heart's content, or just look through and see. Be my guest."
"No rummaging needed," Cal said after a couple of seconds, trusting his telepathy more than his sight (especially with such a generic landscape) and having checked on the veracity of her statement and gotten the fuck back out of her head ASAP. Now, he could try and get Abs to stay behind, but it was unlikely he'd manage, and he'd rather she didn't wander through another portal without knowing when it would close. So he stepped over to the portal, said, "Okay," and stepped through, pup still in his arms.
Clarice followed a step behind them, and in a fraction of a second they were in the mansion's expansive back yard, some distance from the school itself. It was fairly dark, at that time of day, but there was light enough from the Academy for her purposes. "Watch," she told him, forming a portal at the point where a particularly thick branch joined the trunk of a tree on the outskirts of the forest that bordered the grounds. The limb immediately tumbled loose from its former purchase, but before it could even reach the ground, Clarice swallowed it in another portal, and opened over a dozen smaller blink-apertures in the air some distance from where they stood. Those portals belched out a fine, powdery sawdust, like snow in August, for several minutes before she closed them again.
Well, Cal hadn't waited for her to think about the potentially very lethal application of teleportation, so he watched without much outward reaction. "I know what it can do," he said, once Clarice was done with her demonstration. "That's not why I want it. I just..." Fuck, admitting this didn't feel right, and his gaze cut to the side. Abs wriggled in his arms, and he stroked her head, getting her to settle down, then set her down on the ground, remaining crouched after he had, so he had to look up at Clarice as he finally said, "I just wanna be able to get away." There, he'd said it, and he stood up, looking away again.
"I just wanted you to be sure you understood how dangerous my particular form of teleportin' is," she told him. "Far as I know, Pam's and Kurt's don't do anything like that. And Illyana's can be dangerous, but in a diff'rent kind of way. My way," she waved a hand vaguely, "it can mince a person, quick as you could think it." She very deliberately, but very carefully, stepped back into his field of view. "If you can appreciate an' respect that, if you can tell me you'll be careful with it ... well, yeah. You can have it. Every mutant should be able to get away, when they's need to."
Cal wasn't sure about Kurt's kind of teleporting, or even Illyana's, for all that he'd used it once, but he knew what he could have done with Pam's. Anything with portals that could cut someone halfway through was a fucking danger, when wielded appropriately. "I'll be careful with it," he told Clarice, holding her gaze now. Please. Fucking please.
"Good," she said. "I'mma hold you to that." Clarice crouched down to pet the puppy again. Another portal blink-ed into place not far from where they stood, leading back to the kitchen.
"You can have it, then. C'mon. Let's go eat some burritos and kill some time, an' then maybe test out your new amazing powers. I maybe could give you some pointers, too, if you think you might need 'em."
He wouldn't, Cal knew, but it made people feel all the warier when he told them that. Like he was cheating them out of something, by knowing how to use their mutation. So when Clarice stood back up, Cal scooped up Abs again. "That would be nice, yeah," he said, because it probably would be, whether he needed them or not. He looked back at Clarice. "Thank you." He meant the words more than he could say. And with that, and a whispered, "Okay," he stepped through her portal, and back into the kitchen.