TJ and Clarice | Backdated to 06 April
Apr. 6th, 2019 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainTJ convinces Blink to spend some quality time on a beach. Some naked quality time. Clarice is hesitant ... but willing to be persuaded.
TJ took Clarice's open door as an invitation to walk into her friend's room, tail knocking on the door to announce her presence as she did. It was the weekend and she was restless; who better to do something with than Clarice? "Hey!" she greeted her friend. "Am I the only one in dire need of some vitamin D?"
Resting the magazine she'd been idly thumbing through on her chest at the sound of TJ's voice, Clarice shifted onto her side, propped up on one elbow, and gave the furry blue mutant a speculative look. "I 'unno," she said. "You ain' look like you is have rickets too bad yet. Maybe is jus' a outin' you is want, 'ay? Somewhere there is be more sun?"
"It's like you read my mind, Clare," TJ confirmed with a bright, fanged grin. Her tail was swinging restlessly behind her, but it settled before she asked, unsure how this Clarice might feel about the question, "How do you feel about nude sunbathing?"
Clarice's brows rose, but she didn't seem as startled as she might have just a few months ago at the prospect. "It honestly ain' never crossed my mind to the point I would feel any kinda way about it," she admitted with a shrug. "I'm guessin' you is in favor?" And of course she was. Because TJ.
"Well, you can take us to beaches nobody else can even get to," TJ pointed out with a shrug, tail resuming an easy loll. "We wouldn't even have old men staring at us."
"You is say, like that is even bother you," Clarice chuckled. "But I can get us to the best beaches, is true. You feel like any kinda beach, in particular, or you wan' me to surprise you?"
TJ didn't give a shit if old men stared at her, sure. She didn't give a shit if anyone stared at her. But they were still teenagers, and it would be creepy as hell, if they were naked - even if, in her case, it would be legal. "You know I'll always choose the surprise," she pointed out with a grin, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Should we go now? I just need to grab a towel."
"Grab your towel," she said, laughing. "I prob'ly should change, too. Meet me back here in a minute, 'ay? I'll check some locations online, see what seems promisin'. Places I's looked at before. You is might not mind the stares, but I's ga' have to work myself up to it."
"Then let's just go somewhere deserted," TJ told her as she stepped towards the door, a new bounce in her step and in the swing of her tail. "Back in a few!"
* * * * *
After the requisite "few", the two mutants appeared in a swirl of pink energy and a blink upon an expanse of tide-smoothed pebbles which disappeared into clear, sapphire waters ahead, and a sheer cliff of ruddy rock behind. A rough path led along the side of the cliff, wending at a slight, meandering angle in a generally upward direction toward ... whatever larger society might exist on this particular island. But it was rough and narrow, and clearly only seldom traveled. Clarice threw out a towel-draped arm in welcome. "This near to what you is had in mind?"
"This is awesome!" TJ confirmed with a bright, fanged grin. She hurried down the rough path, damn near skipping in her joy. "You know all the best spots!" And the sudden heat and glare of the sun was so welcome.
"Damn right I do," Clarice agreed, blinking from the spot they'd occupied on the path to the water's edge. She backed up a bit to spread out her towel and kick off her shoes, then walked carefully over the unfamiliar, rounded stones to dip her toes in the water.
Well, the beach might not have been the powdery-fine sand she was accustomed to, but the water was just the right kind of warm. Smiling to herself, she went back to her towel, shedding her shirt along the way to reveal the vibrant green bikini top underneath.
TJ joined her soon enough, dropping her towel on the spot instead of laying it out neatly. The sun was glaring, the water looked awesome, the plan was to get out of her (few) clothes and into the ocean ASAP.
Laughing as she finished securing her things either on her towel or in the canvas bag she'd brought along to carry sunscreen, her secondhand mp3 player, snacks, and other beach necessities, Clarice nodded to herself, then blinked to a distance three feet above tranquil mass of water and a dozen or so yards from the shoreline. With a whoop, she dropped, flat on her back, enjoying both the sting of the impact and the familiar salty spray that followed.
TJ laughed at the familiar antics, then quickly divested herself of the rest of her clothing to join her friend in the water.
* * * * *
TJ had managed to find a rock large enough and flat enough to lay her towel out and be comfortable on, so there she was, lying on her stomach and soaking in the sun. "This," she told her friend with a grin, "is perfect."
Lying on her own green towel next to TJ's, Clarice returned the grin, if a touch more apprehensively. She wasn't sure exactly how the other girl had convinced her that nude sunbathing was a thing she should try ... but there she was, lavender skin exposed to the world, soaking up the Mediterranean sun. "It ain' all bad," she admitted. "If any pictures is end up on YouTube, though, I'm ne'er leavin' my room again."
"People would have to show up, and they'd have to be pervs," TJ replied, clearly not worried. "How likely is that?" She trusted Clarice's choice of location, so it was definitely a rhetorical question.
"You're not makin' me feel that much better about my decision to be naked out in the open," the island-born mutant admitted, casting a wary eye over the path leading to the top of the cliff. Sure, the chances of people showing up were pretty low--she'd picked this spot for exactly that reason--but it wasn't impossible. The possibility of any other given human being being a perv, though? Well, she had enough boy cousins that she wasn't thrilled about the odds on that one.
Still. "But like I say, it ain' all bad. Makes me wonder if I can tan, or if I just stay this same shade of purple all'a time."
TJ pulled sunglasses out of her bag and put them on her nose, then grinned over at Clarice. "Babe, unless you spent all your time here avoiding the sun, I'm pretty sure you'd have discovered tan lines by now."
"You ain' lie," Clarice laughed, though her expression soon grew a little puzzled--and possibly even more embarrassed than before. "So ... if I can' actually tan, why is I sittin' out in the sun with my ass hangin' out to the world? That is why people is do it, ay'? So they is won' get tan line?"
"You're doing it because it feels free and amazing," TJ replied easily, tail swinging languidly. "Fur doesn't tan, you know."
"I 'unno," Clarice giggled back. "Maybe you is photosynthetic, too, or somethin'. But like I say ... it ain' all bad. Guess maybe I could get used to it. Maybe. If we keep usin' empty beaches, I mean."
"Let's keep doing this on empty beaches, then," TJ offered. She rested her head sideways on her folded arms, towards Clarice. "How've you been? I feel like we haven't properly caught up in ages."
"I don' get to sit still much these days, you ain' lie," the lavender-skinned girly conceded, giving a slight shake of her shoulders. "Between powers trainin' and carryin' my share of the people what is need to go back an' forth from the school to the city, or wherever, I guess I don' have as much free time as I used to." In fact, Clarice probably took on more than her share of the day-to-day teleporting needed by the students and former students currently populating Xavier's. She didn't mind, though; far from it. It was good practice, and she liked being in a position to help out anybody who might need it. Was a nice feeling.
"You're just giving me more reason to insist this becomes a regular thing," TJ remarked happily.
"Semi-regular, maybe," Clarice allowed, still grinning at the other girl. "Regular might have to wait for summer to come back again. Can' leave my regulars high and dry just 'cause I wan' lay off naked on a beach."
TJ laughed. "I don't know, it sounds like the best reason to do that." Her laughter subsided, the smile persisted on her lips. "But hey, I'll take semi-regular. For now."
"I'm sure it'll slow down as people catch theyselves," the other unusually-colored girl nodded. "For now, I's like to feel like I's helpin'. But how 'bout you, Teej? What been goin' on with you and your people them?"
Her people. The phrasing got to TJ, but she didn't let it show, smiling easily. She did have people here - Clarice included - but so much of her heart belonged to people in her home world, or other places. "You're one of my people, babe," she pointed out with raised eyebrows, visible over the rim of the sunglasses. "But yeah, no, things are good. Things have been pretty tough on Kurt and JM, but she's getting the help she needs. That's good."
"Yeah," Clarice agreed with a slow nod; admittedly, she didn't know much about the kind of thing Jeanne-Marie was going through, but she'd always seemed like a nice gal. If she was doing what she needed to do to get better, that was as much as anyone could hope.
Even still, she regretted posing the question as she had as soon as it had come tumbling out of her mouth. TJ made it easy to forget, sometimes, that their friendship now was based, at least in part, on the affection she'd had for a completely different version of Clarice Ferguson. That the one she knew now was more like an awkward imitation of her actual friend.
Not that Clarice honestly believed TJ thought like that … But. It was hard not to feel self-conscious about it, especially when she went and stuck her foot in her mouth like she just had.
"Glad things is good," she added. Then tacked on a hesitant, "You think maybe now that the Right's gone maybe you'll get … carried back? Where you belong, I mean."
TJ frowned thoughtfully; she hadn't figured she was here to take out the Right. Then again, she didn't figure she was here for anything in particular. She didn't have a Tallus, or any mission. "I don't know that there's a place I still belong," she murmured, and then gave Clarice a what-can-you-do sort of wry smile. "I guess if I'm still here, then back home never got sorted out. I wish I had a way of reaching the Timebroker. Or even just the guys."
What she wouldn't give to speak to Blink - her Blink. Clarice was awesome, but their friendship was different.
"Sure there is," said Clarice, replying to TJ's initial assertion first. "And a gal like you? You're the kinda person who can make a place for herself just about anywhere, I think. Is really cool."
She sat for a moment, thoughtful, at the other thing. The thing she couldn't help her with--she could go anywhere on the planet she wanted in a literal bink, but TJ's home? That was so much further away. So far away she had a hard time even conceptualizing it, and that was, she supposed, the key to her ability. Clarice didn't need to have visited a place before to teleport there, but she did need to have some kind of basic idea of it. Didn't she? "We is got some really smart people at the school, though," she said. "Simon and Nolan and Dr. McCoy. I'm sure the Professor mussee know people who is know things about ... dimensions, an' thing. If anybody could figure it out, I bet it would be them."
TJ wrinkled her nose. "They don't really specialize in quantum physics. I'd have an easier time with Brian Braddock or Reed Richards, maybe, but... it doesn't really look like this world's advanced enough in that field. Even my world's not advanced enough, and Aunt Kate was all grown up with decades of science behind her." It wasn't the first time TJ mentioned her to Clarice, so she didn't explain how she meant Kitty Pryde. Her tail flicked restlessly behind her, and she gave Clarice a small smile. "Really, I'm not sure hope is such a good thing, at this stage. Timebroker's clearly dumped me here and forgotten all about me. This is my new home." Hope would make it even more difficult to let go of the old one, to get over the loss of so many people. And she had to, if she wanted to move forward.
It broke Clarice's heart to hear her friend talk like that, to know that when she called this version of the world "home", it was something she'd resigned herself to instead of a choice she had made. That kind of fatalism just didn't suit TJ at all--not the fearless, fun-loving girl she'd gotten to know over these last months. The girl who'd taken her on her first image inducer-free shopping trip and who, more so than anybody except Laura, had helped her to develop her mutation in ways she probably wouldn't even have considered otherwise. The girl who never stopped encouraging and supporting her, even when she was at her lowest. Probably her closest friend, since Tamara had left and Cal had begun spending more time with Clint and Caleb.
The fact that there wasn't anything she could do about it was the most frustrating thing.
"Well," she said, not knowing what else she could say that wouldn't come out sounding brainless or insensitive, "we's happy to have you. And if we do ever come across this 'Timebroker' fella, I promise to 'port him to the most uncomfortable place I can think of."
TJ laughed. "Blink tried that, too. Didn't take. Time construct and all."
With an uncharacteristically-pugnacious set to her jaw, Clarice said, "I'll think of somethin' else, then. Don' you worry 'bout that." Some time construct, stranding TJ here like that. No wonder he'd had to grab people from all different kinds of places--he clearly wasn't very good at whatever his job was. If nothing else, she would tell him that much ... assuming he ever popped into Talia's life again.
TJ grinned at her friend and the determination glinting in her eyes. Sometimes, she really was just like TJ's Blink. "You know, I completely trust that you will."
TJ took Clarice's open door as an invitation to walk into her friend's room, tail knocking on the door to announce her presence as she did. It was the weekend and she was restless; who better to do something with than Clarice? "Hey!" she greeted her friend. "Am I the only one in dire need of some vitamin D?"
Resting the magazine she'd been idly thumbing through on her chest at the sound of TJ's voice, Clarice shifted onto her side, propped up on one elbow, and gave the furry blue mutant a speculative look. "I 'unno," she said. "You ain' look like you is have rickets too bad yet. Maybe is jus' a outin' you is want, 'ay? Somewhere there is be more sun?"
"It's like you read my mind, Clare," TJ confirmed with a bright, fanged grin. Her tail was swinging restlessly behind her, but it settled before she asked, unsure how this Clarice might feel about the question, "How do you feel about nude sunbathing?"
Clarice's brows rose, but she didn't seem as startled as she might have just a few months ago at the prospect. "It honestly ain' never crossed my mind to the point I would feel any kinda way about it," she admitted with a shrug. "I'm guessin' you is in favor?" And of course she was. Because TJ.
"Well, you can take us to beaches nobody else can even get to," TJ pointed out with a shrug, tail resuming an easy loll. "We wouldn't even have old men staring at us."
"You is say, like that is even bother you," Clarice chuckled. "But I can get us to the best beaches, is true. You feel like any kinda beach, in particular, or you wan' me to surprise you?"
TJ didn't give a shit if old men stared at her, sure. She didn't give a shit if anyone stared at her. But they were still teenagers, and it would be creepy as hell, if they were naked - even if, in her case, it would be legal. "You know I'll always choose the surprise," she pointed out with a grin, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Should we go now? I just need to grab a towel."
"Grab your towel," she said, laughing. "I prob'ly should change, too. Meet me back here in a minute, 'ay? I'll check some locations online, see what seems promisin'. Places I's looked at before. You is might not mind the stares, but I's ga' have to work myself up to it."
"Then let's just go somewhere deserted," TJ told her as she stepped towards the door, a new bounce in her step and in the swing of her tail. "Back in a few!"
* * * * *
After the requisite "few", the two mutants appeared in a swirl of pink energy and a blink upon an expanse of tide-smoothed pebbles which disappeared into clear, sapphire waters ahead, and a sheer cliff of ruddy rock behind. A rough path led along the side of the cliff, wending at a slight, meandering angle in a generally upward direction toward ... whatever larger society might exist on this particular island. But it was rough and narrow, and clearly only seldom traveled. Clarice threw out a towel-draped arm in welcome. "This near to what you is had in mind?"
"This is awesome!" TJ confirmed with a bright, fanged grin. She hurried down the rough path, damn near skipping in her joy. "You know all the best spots!" And the sudden heat and glare of the sun was so welcome.
"Damn right I do," Clarice agreed, blinking from the spot they'd occupied on the path to the water's edge. She backed up a bit to spread out her towel and kick off her shoes, then walked carefully over the unfamiliar, rounded stones to dip her toes in the water.
Well, the beach might not have been the powdery-fine sand she was accustomed to, but the water was just the right kind of warm. Smiling to herself, she went back to her towel, shedding her shirt along the way to reveal the vibrant green bikini top underneath.
TJ joined her soon enough, dropping her towel on the spot instead of laying it out neatly. The sun was glaring, the water looked awesome, the plan was to get out of her (few) clothes and into the ocean ASAP.
Laughing as she finished securing her things either on her towel or in the canvas bag she'd brought along to carry sunscreen, her secondhand mp3 player, snacks, and other beach necessities, Clarice nodded to herself, then blinked to a distance three feet above tranquil mass of water and a dozen or so yards from the shoreline. With a whoop, she dropped, flat on her back, enjoying both the sting of the impact and the familiar salty spray that followed.
TJ laughed at the familiar antics, then quickly divested herself of the rest of her clothing to join her friend in the water.
* * * * *
TJ had managed to find a rock large enough and flat enough to lay her towel out and be comfortable on, so there she was, lying on her stomach and soaking in the sun. "This," she told her friend with a grin, "is perfect."
Lying on her own green towel next to TJ's, Clarice returned the grin, if a touch more apprehensively. She wasn't sure exactly how the other girl had convinced her that nude sunbathing was a thing she should try ... but there she was, lavender skin exposed to the world, soaking up the Mediterranean sun. "It ain' all bad," she admitted. "If any pictures is end up on YouTube, though, I'm ne'er leavin' my room again."
"People would have to show up, and they'd have to be pervs," TJ replied, clearly not worried. "How likely is that?" She trusted Clarice's choice of location, so it was definitely a rhetorical question.
"You're not makin' me feel that much better about my decision to be naked out in the open," the island-born mutant admitted, casting a wary eye over the path leading to the top of the cliff. Sure, the chances of people showing up were pretty low--she'd picked this spot for exactly that reason--but it wasn't impossible. The possibility of any other given human being being a perv, though? Well, she had enough boy cousins that she wasn't thrilled about the odds on that one.
Still. "But like I say, it ain' all bad. Makes me wonder if I can tan, or if I just stay this same shade of purple all'a time."
TJ pulled sunglasses out of her bag and put them on her nose, then grinned over at Clarice. "Babe, unless you spent all your time here avoiding the sun, I'm pretty sure you'd have discovered tan lines by now."
"You ain' lie," Clarice laughed, though her expression soon grew a little puzzled--and possibly even more embarrassed than before. "So ... if I can' actually tan, why is I sittin' out in the sun with my ass hangin' out to the world? That is why people is do it, ay'? So they is won' get tan line?"
"You're doing it because it feels free and amazing," TJ replied easily, tail swinging languidly. "Fur doesn't tan, you know."
"I 'unno," Clarice giggled back. "Maybe you is photosynthetic, too, or somethin'. But like I say ... it ain' all bad. Guess maybe I could get used to it. Maybe. If we keep usin' empty beaches, I mean."
"Let's keep doing this on empty beaches, then," TJ offered. She rested her head sideways on her folded arms, towards Clarice. "How've you been? I feel like we haven't properly caught up in ages."
"I don' get to sit still much these days, you ain' lie," the lavender-skinned girly conceded, giving a slight shake of her shoulders. "Between powers trainin' and carryin' my share of the people what is need to go back an' forth from the school to the city, or wherever, I guess I don' have as much free time as I used to." In fact, Clarice probably took on more than her share of the day-to-day teleporting needed by the students and former students currently populating Xavier's. She didn't mind, though; far from it. It was good practice, and she liked being in a position to help out anybody who might need it. Was a nice feeling.
"You're just giving me more reason to insist this becomes a regular thing," TJ remarked happily.
"Semi-regular, maybe," Clarice allowed, still grinning at the other girl. "Regular might have to wait for summer to come back again. Can' leave my regulars high and dry just 'cause I wan' lay off naked on a beach."
TJ laughed. "I don't know, it sounds like the best reason to do that." Her laughter subsided, the smile persisted on her lips. "But hey, I'll take semi-regular. For now."
"I'm sure it'll slow down as people catch theyselves," the other unusually-colored girl nodded. "For now, I's like to feel like I's helpin'. But how 'bout you, Teej? What been goin' on with you and your people them?"
Her people. The phrasing got to TJ, but she didn't let it show, smiling easily. She did have people here - Clarice included - but so much of her heart belonged to people in her home world, or other places. "You're one of my people, babe," she pointed out with raised eyebrows, visible over the rim of the sunglasses. "But yeah, no, things are good. Things have been pretty tough on Kurt and JM, but she's getting the help she needs. That's good."
"Yeah," Clarice agreed with a slow nod; admittedly, she didn't know much about the kind of thing Jeanne-Marie was going through, but she'd always seemed like a nice gal. If she was doing what she needed to do to get better, that was as much as anyone could hope.
Even still, she regretted posing the question as she had as soon as it had come tumbling out of her mouth. TJ made it easy to forget, sometimes, that their friendship now was based, at least in part, on the affection she'd had for a completely different version of Clarice Ferguson. That the one she knew now was more like an awkward imitation of her actual friend.
Not that Clarice honestly believed TJ thought like that … But. It was hard not to feel self-conscious about it, especially when she went and stuck her foot in her mouth like she just had.
"Glad things is good," she added. Then tacked on a hesitant, "You think maybe now that the Right's gone maybe you'll get … carried back? Where you belong, I mean."
TJ frowned thoughtfully; she hadn't figured she was here to take out the Right. Then again, she didn't figure she was here for anything in particular. She didn't have a Tallus, or any mission. "I don't know that there's a place I still belong," she murmured, and then gave Clarice a what-can-you-do sort of wry smile. "I guess if I'm still here, then back home never got sorted out. I wish I had a way of reaching the Timebroker. Or even just the guys."
What she wouldn't give to speak to Blink - her Blink. Clarice was awesome, but their friendship was different.
"Sure there is," said Clarice, replying to TJ's initial assertion first. "And a gal like you? You're the kinda person who can make a place for herself just about anywhere, I think. Is really cool."
She sat for a moment, thoughtful, at the other thing. The thing she couldn't help her with--she could go anywhere on the planet she wanted in a literal bink, but TJ's home? That was so much further away. So far away she had a hard time even conceptualizing it, and that was, she supposed, the key to her ability. Clarice didn't need to have visited a place before to teleport there, but she did need to have some kind of basic idea of it. Didn't she? "We is got some really smart people at the school, though," she said. "Simon and Nolan and Dr. McCoy. I'm sure the Professor mussee know people who is know things about ... dimensions, an' thing. If anybody could figure it out, I bet it would be them."
TJ wrinkled her nose. "They don't really specialize in quantum physics. I'd have an easier time with Brian Braddock or Reed Richards, maybe, but... it doesn't really look like this world's advanced enough in that field. Even my world's not advanced enough, and Aunt Kate was all grown up with decades of science behind her." It wasn't the first time TJ mentioned her to Clarice, so she didn't explain how she meant Kitty Pryde. Her tail flicked restlessly behind her, and she gave Clarice a small smile. "Really, I'm not sure hope is such a good thing, at this stage. Timebroker's clearly dumped me here and forgotten all about me. This is my new home." Hope would make it even more difficult to let go of the old one, to get over the loss of so many people. And she had to, if she wanted to move forward.
It broke Clarice's heart to hear her friend talk like that, to know that when she called this version of the world "home", it was something she'd resigned herself to instead of a choice she had made. That kind of fatalism just didn't suit TJ at all--not the fearless, fun-loving girl she'd gotten to know over these last months. The girl who'd taken her on her first image inducer-free shopping trip and who, more so than anybody except Laura, had helped her to develop her mutation in ways she probably wouldn't even have considered otherwise. The girl who never stopped encouraging and supporting her, even when she was at her lowest. Probably her closest friend, since Tamara had left and Cal had begun spending more time with Clint and Caleb.
The fact that there wasn't anything she could do about it was the most frustrating thing.
"Well," she said, not knowing what else she could say that wouldn't come out sounding brainless or insensitive, "we's happy to have you. And if we do ever come across this 'Timebroker' fella, I promise to 'port him to the most uncomfortable place I can think of."
TJ laughed. "Blink tried that, too. Didn't take. Time construct and all."
With an uncharacteristically-pugnacious set to her jaw, Clarice said, "I'll think of somethin' else, then. Don' you worry 'bout that." Some time construct, stranding TJ here like that. No wonder he'd had to grab people from all different kinds of places--he clearly wasn't very good at whatever his job was. If nothing else, she would tell him that much ... assuming he ever popped into Talia's life again.
TJ grinned at her friend and the determination glinting in her eyes. Sometimes, she really was just like TJ's Blink. "You know, I completely trust that you will."
