Dori and Vic - Let's Go to the Mall

[x-victor.livejournal.com]

Doreen and Victor go back-to-school shopping at the mall. Slurpees are consumed and amusing t-shirts are found, and along the way they talk about the joys of being obvious mutants.



Doreen was sucking on a purple slushie while she and Vic were at the mall. She could act mindlessly happy around him and as of yet he hadn't caught on. Julian and a lot of other people were getting to know her well enough to know just when she was covering stuff up. And while Vic was in Malibu with them all when her parents divorce was finalized and everything went down, she was hoping she could smooth over everything with a bright smile.

Besides, it was hard not to have fun while shopping. And hard not to have fun with Vic. The three hundred dollars her mom had given her was supplemented with more from her Grandpa, but the five hundred dollars would've been chump change back when Dad was funding these things. Still, Dori could make do.

She giggled and stuck out her tongue at Vic, "Look, it's purple!"

"I bed mide's bwue" he replied, his tongue sticking out halfway to his belt buckle, before retracting his tongue and taking another giant slurp of his blue slushie. After a second, he winced, one hand coming up to his forehead. "Ow. Slurpee headache." He blinked as it eased up. "So. Where are we going now that we're properly fortified?"

Doreen giggled, "That is so awesome," she said as he pulled his tongue back in. She ignored the looks they were getting. She honestly didn't care. This was fun.

"I need new clothes. So Miss Monet can help me get them so I can wear," she said with a shake of her tail. Monkey Joe poked his head out of her bag and looked around, clicking at someone before ducking back in. "I don't have much though so we can go to a consignment store. Ever been to one?" she asked happily.

"Nope," he said around his wide-bore slushie straw. "Just stuff for school, or are you looking for something pretty?"

Dori blushed a bit at the last and shook her head, "I... don't look good in a lot of fancy clothes," her tail meant she had to ruin them to wear them, "So school stuff. Consignment stores are neat because even though the stuff is used it's in really good condition. And occasionally they have vintage stuff. I found the best Star Wars shirt doing this once."

"Awww, I bet we could find something you'd look really nice in," he said kindly as they walked into the store, glancing around. "So it's kind of like a thrift store, right?"

"You really think so?" Doreen asked, turning around to walk backwards. It was hard not to notice some of the other patrons staring at them, but she had to let it roll off of her like water off a duck's back. After all, she was going to deal with this her whole life, "And yep. People bring in old clothes or clear out their attics and the store will fix up and sell what they can and donate the rest to people who need it. I didn't used to shop at places like this, but now I think I really like them."

Vic was so used to the staring that it barely registered on anything but a subconscious level anymore. "Yeah, absolutely. I bet you would totally rock the California girl sundress look."

"You think so?" Dori asked, stopping by a rack of screen printed t-shirts. "I'd be like Asuka in Evagelion!" she squeaked. Except, she'd wear underwear. And she wasn't German/Japanese. And there weren't any oversized flying robots.

She sighed. Life should be more like an anime.

"If I didn't think so, I wouldn't say it," he replied patiently, searching idly through the rack next to her. "What's Evangelion?"

"Oh, it's this anime series about this kid and some giant robots and the end of the world that's actually really good up until the ending which made no sense and the movies suck," Doreen said pulling out a Batman shirt. You couldn't go wrong with Batman! "Maybe it would make more sense if I was Japanese, but I'm not and I was going to ask Nori about it, but I don't want to bother her and not everyone in Japan watches Anime, so you know, that could be stereotyping, but it is really, really confusing."

"I could see that, yeah. Maybe it's easier to understand in Japanese? You could ask her to check the translation, maybe." He pulled out a t-shirt that said "SAVE THE WHALES (collect the whole set)" on it and held it up for her to see. "Whaddya think?"

Doreen giggled, "That's great! You should get it. And it's not even that expensive!"

"Cool." He snagged a cart and dropped the shirt in. "Find anything else?"

"Yeah!" she said, holding up a few more cheap t-shirts. Nothing over five dollars. They all were somehow geeky, "I wish I could try on pants, but it's sort of hard."

"Ooh, yeah, I could see that." Vic frowned, trying to figure out how that would work, exactly, but there really wasn't a good way to hold Dori's tail out of the way--and even if there was, he probably wasn't the person to help her try. "Um. I guess see if Miss Monet would come with you?" he offered lamely.

"I guess...but it will be still hard to do," Doreen said, "Since we can't really do it here, I mean, put a hole in for the tail," she said. "I guess dresses aren't that big of a problem but the skirts always get lifted," she finished lamely.

"Yeah." He took a thoughtful slurp on his slushie. "I suppose we should just look for shirts today, then?"

"Yeah, not a lot of clothing comes pre-made for me," Doreen said sadly.

"Maybe that's the answer?" Vic tried with a small smile. "You could be the ultimate in designer fashion that way!"

"I don't know. I'm really not good with clothes, I tend to tear them up and wear them hard," Doreen said, "And I don't know how to design around it. I really want to write. I think that'd be great."

"Oh yeah?" Vic asked, trying not to show how relieved he was at the change in topic. "What do you want to write? Comic books, or something else?"

"I dunno. I'd like comic books and science fiction - but I don't know much science - fantasy is kinda cool, but everyone's read and reread all the Lord of the Rings clones there are out there," she mused, finding a Rainbow Brite shirt and adding it to the pile, "So I dunno. I just like to write. I blog. Do you have a blog?"

"Nope." He held up a pair of camoflage shorts critically, trying to decide if they had too much green in them. "I had a MySpace page for a while, but it wasn't really my thing. What do you blog about?"

"Comics and games and being a mutant and stuff, I guess," Doreen said with a shrug, "I had it before I manifested and stuff, I don't know how many people stopped reading it because of what I am now."

"Maybe more people read it because you're a mutant? I bet you get a lot of kids who're mutants or have mutant friends or whatever that read it." Not too green, he decided; the shorts went in the cart.

"I've never asked," she paused, "Do you think I should?" she said, looking at Vic, holding up a Snuffy shirt. Seasme St was awesome.

He nodded yes, both to the shirt and the question. "Absolutely. You could be Doreen Green, Mutant Blogger Extraordinaire," he joked, although there was some truth to it as well. "Seriously, though. I mean, you should be Doreen Green, Xavier's Student Extraordinaire, too, but if your blog can help some kid know he's not the only kid out there who looks funny...Why not?"

"I guess. I kinda like the fact though, that online, no one knows what you look like, you know?" she said, putting the shirt in the cart. So many cheap shirts. This was great.

"Okay, bad choice of words. But you know what I mean. It's hard being the only mutant kid in your town, visible or not." Someone must've finally achieved their lifelong dream of joining the army, because there was a whole rack of camo stuff. Vic dug through it, looking for cargo shorts, coming up with a grey pair to match the green ones. "So, yeah. Harness the power of teh interwebs to, like, change the world or something." He flashed a smile at her. "I think it's awesome."

"You do?" Doreen said brightly, "You really do?" she was a faint shade of red, and slightly giggly, "I mean, I really like it and for the most part people are really nice about it. I get a few flame comments, but yeah. For the most part people are nice. But the mean ones are really mean. And I spent a lot of my time back home in lockers and stuff, so I know what it's like."

He shrugged at that. "The moment I find someplace without stupid, mean people, I'll call you and we can move there. Until then, though, us funny looking kids'll have to stick together."

"Yeah," Dori said, trailing off a bit. She shook her head and then smiled, pulling out a Captain Planet shirt, "I so used to watch this show all the time. You ever notice how there aren't many mutant super heroes in TV and comics and stuff?" she asked. "Everyone's always an alien or an industrial accident."

"Nice. Batman?" he suggested, looking through a rack of button up shirts. He wanted a new pair of jeans, but didn't think trying them on in front of Dori would be very cool. He pulled out a white cowboy shirt with white embroidery on it. "Here, what do you think?"

Doreen giggled, "That would look kinda good on you actually," she said. "I don't know about this Captain Planet shirt," she said, putting it back. I tried watching the show online awhile ago, and it is BAD."

"Awesome. Now all I need is a hat. Not that I could really wear one," he indicated his spikes. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure all of the shows we used to think were awesome when we were kids actually sucked. Have you watched Power Rangers? Because I used to be obsessed with that show, and it was so bad."

"Oh, me too!" Doreen said, "Power Rangers was awesome when we were kids!" she said with a laugh, "I do miss some of the old TV though. I mean, like the old kids stuff they used to have. And I would watch the Japanese and Chinese TV channels a lot."

"You had Japanese and Chinese channels? Wow. I mean, I guess that makes sense." He surveyed the cart's worth of assembled loot. "So, do you think we have enough, or should we look at the hoodies and stuff?"

"Yeah, they broadcast them in Cali," Doreen said, "Oooh, I like hoodies! I could use a new one or two, I mean, it gets cold out here, not like back home."

Vic smiled. "I guess you're not really used to winter, are you?"

Doreen shook her head, "I came over here in April after a social worker told Mom I had to. When I got here it was still kinda cold, but not too bad. I mean, I do know what snow looks like, I ski," she reminded him with a smile.

"Still, seeing snow is one thing. Slogging through winter is another." He stuck his tongue out, then paused, then stuck it out further so he could look at it. "Thtill bwue. Awethome."

Doreen giggled, "Yeah it is," she said and stuck hers out, "Mine still purple?" she managed.

Vic laughed. "Yep. Brilliant."