xp_logs | Amanda, Clarice - Thursday afternoon (Reply)

Clarice drops by with a gift, and manages to distract Amanda from her issues by having some of her own.

Fashion school might have rejected her, twice, but that didn't mean Clarice wasn't creative or always working on something She'd begun this project before she'd had to go to Japan, but she was finished with the first bit now. The bag she carried it in was big and bulky, but not heavy at least. Waving at a startled Mark, she headed straight up the stairs to the apartments and knocked on Amanda's door. It was rude to just teleport straight into Amanda's house.

"'S open!" came the reply - Amanda had gotten used to the Snow Valley people or her friends dropping by, and getting them to let themselves in was easier than levering herself up off the couch or whatever. She did reach for the loose cotton shirt she had taken to wearing over the top of her tanktops, tho'.

"Hey!" Clarice smiled, glad to see Amanda was doing better, but her smile wasn't as big as it usually was, "I brought you the first half of your present. The rest comes in a few more days." Having spent a day being checked by doctors and then resting after being in Japan had meant that she hadn't been able to finish everything like she had wanted.

Amanda blinked. "Present?" she asked, pulling on the shirt and pushing herself up off the couch. She'd been spending so much time on it, she was starting to think she was turning into a part of it. She did note the Purple Pixie was somewhat more subdued than usual. "Thanks, pixie. Come on in, I'll get the kettle on."

"I'll do it, you just relax," Clarice deposited the bag by the coffee table and began rummaging through the kitchen, she didn't know where the tea was, but she remembred everything else. "Or look in the bag. I promise, no apocalypse inside."

Amanda rolled her eyes slightly, but didn't protest - she was getting used to the invalid treatment. "You actually found something to do with my jacket?" she asked curiously, reaching for the bag. A grin crossed her face as she pulled out a throw pillow. The blue floral lips on the front of it were accented with black leather. Familiar black leather, and she laughed out loud. "I don't believe it. This is bloody brilliant!"

"I couldn't quite salvage the jacket itself, but there was enough usable material for lots of other things. Where is your tea?" she asked, hoping to get it before the kettle began to boil, "So anyways. I used as much as I could, grommets, studs and all. There're more coming too."

"Cupboard above the kettle. Cups're in there too," Amanda replied, turning over the cushion, pleased. "So, the apocalypse is a cushion. I approve. And I really appreciate this, pixie. I thought the poor old thing was beyond any use."

Settling two tea bags in to the mugs, Clarice poured the boiling water carefully. "Never." she replied, ala Alfred from the Batman movies, "Monet helped a little too. They've got us in a suite together. It looks like a high fashion boutique had a love child with a sweat shop and then exploded."

"You and Miss Perfect? Things have changed." Amanda patted the cushion almost affectionately, before placing it behind her back as she settled back on the couch. "And I've come to appreciate a good cushion after the past couple of weeks. Thank fuck things are healing up enough that I can actually lean back on things now."

Handing Amanda a mug, Clarice sat on the couch, making sure the other girl had enough room to be comfortable, "Miss Perfect got kicked out of fashion school. We've decided to team up and show them a thing or two."

"Yeah, I remember seeing her whinging about that. She's doing Business now, yeah?" Amanda sipped at the tea. "Ta again. I think more people know their way around my kitchen these days than I do."

Clarice smiled, "Yeah, well...if they're good cooks, milk it for all it's worth. Beats having to cook for yourself and being hurt."

"And it beats eating take out every night," Amanda admitted. "I'll be glad to get back to things, tho'. Going a bit balmy with all this peace and quiet." Not to mention dancing around the precise nature of the injuries so she didn't upset people. Rubbing at her wrist - the bruising was gone, leaving only a pink mark from the chafe marks, she tilted her head at Clarice. "Any way, enough about me. What's up in Pixie-Land these days?"

She shrugged and looked out the window, "Just came back from a mission," she said, not going into detail. "It sucked."

Amanda raised her eyebrow. There was definitely something bothering Clarice. "Anyone hurt?" she asked, sipping at her tea again."

"Just me. Teleported too much and got to spend some quality time bonding with my bed and powerade," it wasn't even an injury per se, although she left out throwing up on the military man's feet, "It's just...I pretend like stuff doesn't bother me, you know? Like I don't notice or don't care. I do notice and I do care...but sometimes, angsting and whatever over everything just doesn't do any good, right? Especially since sometimes, if you do it too much life just passes you by."

Clarice paused to gather her thoughts, "And then sometimes when you're expecting a kick to the gut, life goes and kicks you in the teeth and you end up flat on your back with the shit kicked out of you, metaphorically speaking. And you can't ignore it and you can't do anything about it more than you've already done."

"And you feel useless because of it," Amanda supplied quietly. "We've all got our ways of dealing with shite, Clarice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's when it doesn't that we need to try something else." She wrapped her hands around her mug, ignoring the slight sting of heat on her palms. "And it's okay to not be coping - we might have powers, but that doesn't make us super-people. If you want to talk about it, if it'd help, well, I'm not doing anything at the moment." She grinned a little at the end, to lighten things up a bit.

Smiling gratefully, she shook her head, "I can't, but I appreciate the offer. And if nothing else, there are always jaunts to random places and loud music."

Amanda nodded. "No worries, mate. Just don't beat yourself up for having a wiggins - even us big bad superspies have trouble with things. Which is why there's a shrink on staff." She shrugged a little. "And give me another week and I'll probably be up to joining you on your jaunting. Dunno when they'll have me back to work, and I could do with getting out." Not to mention clubbing with Clarice wouldn't involve going places where people knew her.

"Did you meet Kyle's mom?" Clarice asked, changing the topic, "She was all 'why do you have a bike if you can teleport', I was amused. She was so confused, it would have been cute if she hadn't been his mom."

"I heard the horror stories," Amanda replied with another grin, letting the topic change slide. Clarice knew enough not to let things bottle, after seeing the examples of her teammates. "Poor Kyle sounded pretty embarrassed by the whole thing."

"I don't know about the others, but I kinda like her," it was crazy since she also knew how much his mom didn't like mutants, "I mean, she's trying. And that's more than my mom."

"I think it's standard for teenagers to be embarrassed by their mums. Especially boys. And she doesn't sound like she's doing it on purpose - she just sounds ignorant." Not having met the woman gave Amanda a certain distance. "She gave poor Kurt a grilling, tho'."

"Poor Kurt!" Clarice laughed, trying to imagine it, "I think it helped that she'd met me before. And I had just come from work so I was exhausted. Whatever posessed me to work full time and be an X-Man? At least I'm not trying to take classes too."

"Well, your sanity always was in doubt," Amanda teased. "Back to the EMT thing, yeah?"

"Yeah, Jean wants me to try to get paramedic certs, if I Can. And it would be good for when I go to med school," Clarice wasn't sure if she could get the required hours needed, but she was going to try. And if not, the more hours she had the better regardless.

"Be handy for the team, having another field medic," Amanda agreed. "Just no working yourself into the ground - you're no good to anyone that way. And I like it better when you're only normal levels of insane." She grinned suddenly." Besides, we don't have Doc Bartlet around to drug people any more."

That was both a blessing and a curse, "You know, we really need three doctors again. Or four even. Amelia is good, but she's...so distant. And with the way we're always getting knocked around, you'd think two at the school and one or two here would only make sense."

"Well, we've got the clinic Emma sponsors as our medlab," Amanda pointed out. "They don't ask questions, just patch us up and send us home, which works well. But you lot do need another, especially one who can go out in the field. Maybe get a couple more helpers going now Crystal's gone home. Laurie's keen to do more, I know. And her powers are handy for that sort of thing - she gave me a bit of a boost when she visited me in the hospital."

"And you can heal people, or you could," Clarice couldn't remember if that had been affected or not when Amanda's powers had gone wonky, "So that helps too."

Amanda shook her head. "Not any more," she said, before honesty compelled her to add: "Well, not so I want to use it. Spell needs living energy to fuel it, and I won't use people are batteries. Unless it's life or death and I've got volunteers. But the medlab training helps out in the field."

And having been one of those living batteries, Clarice was not going to volunteer unless it was life or death. "Nothing wrong with old-fashioned bandaids and tourniquets."

"Exactly. And once 'Yana starts being able to 'port other people again, we've got evac settled as well."

"IF she joins the leather brigade," Clarice pointed out, she didn't think it was likely. "And if she can stand being a trainee with me as an X-Man. We're like matter and anti-matter. Kaboom!"

"Um, you do know she's working for us now, yeah?" Amanda said, not sure of how much to actually say. "Pete offered her a job."

Clarice blinked, that made sense actually, now that she was thinking about it, "I didn't know, but that makes sense. And prevents the world from imploding. I like it!" and not just because she wouldn't be working with the other girl, either.

"And the world is saved yet again and I didn't even have to get off the couch," Amanda said, raising her mug to Clarice.

"Your powers are truly amazing. Want more tea?" Clarice's was mostly cold now, but that was okay.

"I'm always up for more tea."