Topaz & Clint | Saturday Afternoon (backdated)

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

The first official day of winter break sees Clint nearly running Topaz over in his rush to get back to his suite, but he pauses long enough to make a vague offering of friendship.

Having too much time on one's hands was never a good thing.

Day one of winter break, and Topaz was already going out of her mind. Since coming to Xavier's, she'd occupied herself with classes and schoolwork and managed to more or less keep herself from going utterly mad. But classes were over now, and she was spectacularly bored. Bored enough to have resumed her new favorite pastime - walking up and down the halls of the mansion and letting her mind wander with itself.

Clint wasn't running late per se, but he wasn't exactly on time, either. He'd gotten caught up with an astronomy book he'd gotten for his birthday and completely forgotten that Steve and Andre were picking him up in just a few hours. He was rushing up to his shared suite, a sandwich held between his teeth and a bottle of water in each hand, when he caught sight of Topaz and paused. Words mangled because of the sandwich, he still asked, "You okay? You look lost. Or something."

Topaz quirked an eyebrow at Clint. She barely managed to make out what he was saying. "I'm fine. Just out of curiosity, is running around with food in your mouth a common American thing?" She'd seen more than one person running around here in a similar state.

Shifting one of the bottles over to the other hand, Clint took the sandwich from his mouth and quirked a bit of a smile. "I don't know about everybody else, but it saves time when I'm trying to get back to my suite fast. I haven't finished packing and I gotta leave in a couple hours. Don't want to spend the whole break wearing only two shirts or something, you know?" His foster fathers would never let him live that down - and they'd probably tell Maddie and Billy, which would make it even worse. "But you sure you're alright? I mean. I dunno. Are you staying here at the mansion over break?"

"S'pose everyone's just in a rush." Topaz shrugged, shoving her hands into her pockets. "I'm fine, honest. And yeah, I'll be here over break." It was hard to spend the holidays with dead people, after all. "You're going home, I take it?"

"Yeah, my foster dads live in the city, so I'll be spending Christmas with them. It's more fun when there're more people around - I usually drag Maddie and Billy with me, but they've got family stuff, too." Clint shrugged. "There's that ski trip thing - are you going on that?"

"No," Topaz replied at once. "Definitely not. Cold and ice and dangerous - I'll pass. Knowing my luck I'd probably end up breaking my neck or something."

"I don't think I'd mind all the cold and ice," Clint said, smiling despite himself. "I mean, I've lived in New York my whole life. It kind of goes with the territory. But I've never actually learned to ski, so that sort of seems to defeat the purpose of going on a ski trip, y'know?"

"English," Topaz said, as if it needed to be pointed out that she was, in fact, from Britain. "We don't really care for extreme weather over there. If it's anything but mild, we'll hide inside until it evens out and drink tea." She paused before adding, "And I don't know how to ski either."

Clint smiled and held out his hand so Topaz could fistbump it. "Non-skiers unite."

Topaz hesitated for a moment, feeling incredibly daft as she carefully bumped her fist against Clint's. "Think there's a support group for us?" She asked dryly.

"Why would we need a support group? It's not like either of us want to learn how to ski, right? We're so much better than people who ski, obviously," Clint deadpanned.

"Oh of course, I forgot, we're far above all those silly skiing people," Topaz returned with a faint smirk. "My mistake."

"Good thing you have me around to remind you," Clint said, nodding sagely. "But hey, if you're bored over break, you could come into the city. I could show you around if you want. Not the touristy stuff, but the cool stuff. Billy and I'll probably be hanging out some - I can't remember if he's going on the ski trip or not. If he is, we'll have to give him a hard time about it."

Topaz was halfway to saying no when she realized she hadn't left the mansion once since she'd arrived. Not that she minded being a hermit, but she was going to be in this country for at least the next two years. She was going to have to get to know the city eventually. "Sure," she agreed, with a shrug. "Why not? Sounds like fun."

"Cool," Clint said, nodding. "I gotta go finish packing, but I'll shoot you an email over break and we can coordinate."

An honest to god smile pulled at Topaz's lips. "Sounds brilliant. Good luck with the packing. And the eating."

Turning to walk backward as he headed down the hall, Clint grinned and said, "I can totally multitask, you should be impressed."

"Very impressed," Topaz agreed, pressing her lips together. "Just don't trip."

"Pssh. Tripping. Tripping is for amateurs." Clint waved the hand holding his sandwich, then shoved it back in his mouth, waved, and continued on toward his suite with a muffled, "Later!"