noteasytobepink | The problem with dangerous people...

Who: Clarice and other students
When: Off and on through her time in Bill's world.
What: Clarice stays sharp. Sort of. It's complicated.

She didn't do much until she was cleared, medically. Only an idiot pushed an injury when there was the option to rest. She even did physical therapy religiously, but given mutant bodies, well, she tended to heal better than expected. She didn't have a healing factor, no, but she did have the heightened metabolism and that tended to help when she had the option of decent nutrition.

She tried to take the down time as a gift, she did. She only ran at first. A lot, on the ground, along the mountains, through the trees, she just ran, keeping up her wind. But a month stretched into a handful of months and she took up climbing and woodland parkour, trying to simulate vectors and angles she encountered in combat.

Then it happened; it was simple, and stupid and it shouldn't have bothered her because she had a good thing here, but she got winded. Doing something simple, for her, was harder than it should have been. It should have been alright because it was a sign, right? That she didn't need the combat skills any more. Not here, there was nothing to keep her sharp...

...but she couldn't really believe that. Working as a florist, hah, dangerous stuff. Stepping up to deputy? A breeze, and...she couldn't let the skills go. Something small, and terrified, and grim deep inside said she couldn't, and that voice had never led her wrong.

That just meant she had to get creative because no one would approve, especially not Bil.

When trapped and unable to train? Go to the source. Go to the people Mr. Creed had lived with for a while that had given him skills to teach her.

...or go to that area of the world anyway and hope to find someone who spoke with fists and feet properly.

She went to Vietnam. Stepping away for a few hours here and there to comb dripping jungles, watching and waiting until she saw the proper style. Perisai Diri was obvious even to her who'd learned it piece meal and adapted to a young, flexible teleporter. She didn't know the language beyond afew polite phrases given as ritual to teachers; she didn't have to.

She did have to stand up to being tested, women, after all, were not known as fighters even in Vietnam. Not hand to hand fighters anyway. She was in shape enough to pass that at least, though no one would call her a master by any means.

She couldn't even dedicate a few hours every day in training over there, just enough to stay sharp. Just enough to know the people coming at her when they lined up in a class or in a brawl session could be better than her. That edge of 'I'm not enough' that was true training. She always managed to scrape through. She was a lot like those she trained with after all, a child of depredation and war. They trained to keep a tradition of holding their land, she trained against them to stay alive, and they taught each other some interesting tricks as snatched weeks bled into months which hemorrhaged into years.

Bill had his alone time to relax and do his own thing; she had hers. It was more relaxing, at times, than even sex because it was confirmation that she could survive. Even in a world such as this there were people who understood, as the man she was growing to love didn't, and so she allowed silence.

She didn't ask where he spent his free time when they didn't have plans; she didn't offer what she did with hers. It was the best she could do some days, even days like this when she slipped in the back door covered in mud along one side and eyes still glowing from power use and high emotion. There had been an honor awarded tonight; it was a good thing...she just...wasn't sure Bill would understand if she offered to share the honor as she'd been invited to.

She wasn't sure how to ask.

One thing was certain though, she'd need a shower before she decided anything, yes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

Bill had fallen into a pattern living with Clarice, and he felt like it was a good one. Enough time had passed that he no longer worried about that other world she'd come from. She was here, and what's more she was with him and that was some kind of damn miracle that he tried very hard not to take for granted.

Even when routines had developed and they'd settled in together, going from house guest to roommates, to actually living together.

A part of not taking things for granted was trying to make sure she was happy, and so when she started leaving out on her own private free time he didn't say anything about it. He worried, but he always worried so that was really nothing new and he mostly managed to keep those worries to himself.

The biggest thing was he knew what a restless spirit she had and that meant he had to let her go sometimes. And it meant he couldn't question where she went, because that was still a way of trying to contain someone who couldn't be.

So he didn't ask, and he never complained. When she was out doing her thing he tried finding his own to pass the time. At first he'd putter around taking care of chores, going fishing or taking a drive, and that was all fine enough, but sometimes restlessness was catching.

And then an idea struck, and a plan formed, and one afternoon his aimless driving turned into a trip that led two counties over to the city where he went, of all things, shopping.

He didn't buy anything, but what he came back with was an idea of the cost of things. A sit in with a travel agent told him what a vacation would cost (from which Bill subtracted the cost of airfare, of course), and a nerve-wracking tour of a jewelry store gave him the price of a ring.

From there on his free time was spent making the money he was going to need.

He picked up shifts and did odd jobs, doing all the things a man could to earn easy money, although the work was hardly ever easy. He fixed things and did small construction projects, he was a spare hand when crops came in season, and a go to for anyone looking to move and needing a truck and a lifter.

On days he was supposed to be up at the lake he was tossing hay bales, and afternoons he was out for a drive he was picking up scrap metal to sell for cash.

When Clarice was gone he'd slip out, back before she'd returned, or cleaned up already when he got there after her. Dave his deputy and best friend was the only one who knew what Bill was up to, and so the man served as an alibi and provided a place to take a shower should the need arise.

Bill and Clarice didn't talk about their own free time, and that was fine. It meant he didn't have to lie, which he was terrible at, and mostly he assumed she was out running the woods since that seemed to be something she liked doing. The one time he had had to explain was when he threw his back out helping a local farmer load pigs. He'd covered by saying he'd done it moving the couch, and that was embarrassing enough to cover his telltale awkwardness when trying to tell a story. Especially since his fitness level was something Clarice still got after him about.

He was definitely better off than when she'd found him, but he knew he was a ways off from meeting her expectations. She'd tease him about it, and truthfully it bugged him a bit when the teasing bordered on chastising. He was fit enough for his job and what he was doing (wrestling pigs excluded), and wasn't really aspiring to be Superman, so why put forth such an effort? Especially when a lot of days left him tired and feeling damned lazy at the end of them.

There were other things besides running marathons on his mind, and one of them he'd accomplished today.

It was a dinky thing of a ring, but it was pretty. Not too flashy, because he knew Clarice didn't like flash (and honestly it would take him much more than painting living rooms and pulling double-shifts to afford flash), and he even got a chain with it for when she was out doing her mutant ninja thing.

He hoped she'd like it, but more he hoped she'd accept it whenever he finally worked up the courage ask her.

For now it was tucked safely away and he was stepping out of the shower, toweling his hair when he ran into the muddied Clarice.

"Woah, hey, what happened t'you?" He asked, smiling at her broadly.

From:

noteasytobepink

"Unexpected mud puddle!" she admitted, letting her dress drop to the floor and laying her muddy hand on his dress so she could push him back toward the shower. "Lotta mud, enough to share?"

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Hey I just-- " he started to protest, but didn't get very far with it. Tossing his towel aside he backed up back into the shower again, still smiling down at her.

"You're just lucky I like sharin' with you." And that he hadn't used up all of the hot water already.

From:

noteasytobepink

"It gets lonely in here without you..." she teased easily, drawing little muddy patterns on his chest before the spray hit.

And, well, cold showers would be still be fun as long as he was there? Hot water was nice, yes, but not necessary for clean!

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Well wouldn't want you gettin' lonely." Definitely wouldn't want that!

Since she was the muddy one he let her have most of the water, and was even so nice as to lather up a rag and help her get some of the dirt off.

"Lemme get that for you," he said, wiping mud from her shoulder and following through with the rag to her chest.

From:

noteasytobepink

She chuckled and started working shampoo through her hair since she could let him handle the washcloth it seemed! "I do appreciate not being lonely!" she admitted with a grin. "And I kind of have a question to ask you."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

He was careful and thorough with the rag, making sure he took care of all the mud for her.

He lingered a moment on a spot on her hip that looked a little more purple than pink, but held in his question about it in favor of hers.

"Yeah? Well maybe I'll kind of have an answer," he teased.

From:

noteasytobepink

Bruising could look like that but it just been a glancing blow! "I've been taking classes, kind of? And I'll be advancing ranks, a lot of the students have significant other to see them off? It's...the end of the classes, you learn the final forms in one go since they can be dangerous and then you don't return. It'd be about five hours I think? That seems the length for the people before me being away."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

He knew, which was why it had caught his attention, but perhaps her words were explanation.

"Classes? Yeah?" He gave her a curious smile.

"I thought you already knew Karate an' such," he teased, thinking of course that she'd enrolled in something down at the Y or somewhere.

Leaning in he nibbled her shoulder, smiling against her skin. "Be happy t'be your significant other, darlin'. When's it at?"

From:

noteasytobepink

"Karate is too simple," she admitted. "I went to one of the sources for decent hand to hand!" she grinned and kissed his temple.

"Mr. Creed started teaching me Perisai Diri when I was very little. This just finished it out really, the final three forms are called 'The Human' forms and it's a learn first time or never kinda thing. Tomorrow if you're free? It's still my weekend so I can spare the hours without interfering with anything here."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"I have no idea what that is," he confessed with a chuckle. "But it sounds like you could kick someone's ass."

Done with her, he used the rag to wash his own chest, giving her a smile.

"I'm sure I could swing that. Just lemme know the time an' place an' I'll be there."

From:

noteasytobepink

"It's a Vietnamese style of Hand-to-hand, and elbow to head and all those other fun things, or rather it's a Malay Peninsula style and the one I'm trained in is Vietnamese" she admitted, rinsing her hair before snatching the cloth from him. "Hmmm? Here, after Breakfast, it's a bit of a trip."

From:

wheelsy_sheriff

"Didn't know there was Vietnamese karate. Thought that was just a Chinese thing." He chuckled again, surrendering the rag

"Trip, huh? What'd you do, go t'the jungle for trainin'?"

Done in pink

The problem with dangerous people...