xp_logs | Log: Clarice & Kevin

Backdated to about 2 weeks ago. My compy crashed the day I was going to put it up, so better late than never!

Clarice cajoles Kevin into going to Maryland with her for school and knits socks. They bond. There is no glitter.

It wasn't hard to spot Clarice in the rec room at school. She was on the couch with The Man Who Fell To Earth on the TV (an appropriate movie choice given her recent adeventures and David Bowie obsession), her knitting needles clacking. There wasn't a lot she could do and she was still on medical leave from her classes. She'd already emailed her professors about getting work extensions into the Christmas holidays. On the floor next to her sat a basket of various yarns and her crutches.

Kevin was poking around the mansion, mostly trying to avoid people but also visually checking who was injured and how badly. It wasn't that he cared terribly much about them as individuals, he didn't really know most of them as individuals. But he did care because they were people and apparently did something ninja and amazing while they were wherever they went. He spotted Clarice while he was attempting to sneak through the rec room unnoticed. He'd left some scraps of metal in there from when he'd been in the room about four in the morning working. Why did Clarice knitting make his brain tell him he must be hallucinating? Right, because it was Clarice. And knitting.

What was so strange about Clarice knitting? She had knitted everyone holiday presents one year. She wasn't doing that this year though. Right now though, she was working on a new pair of socks. They'd started as knee socks and had progressed passed that and were well on their way to be thigh-highs. "Should I had bows to the backs?" she asked Kevin, spotting him near the door. "Or some sort of decals?"

Kevin jumped a little at being spoken to. He hadn't really unwound yet from having been at Mr. Jones' house. Full of people. All the time. Everywhere. He continued on his path, hoping if he didn't outright stop to reply to her he wouldn't have to stick around too long. "Suppose tha' depends who's gonna get 'em." Decals? He glanced over his shoulder to better look at what she was knitting. Who put decals on...were those going to be like knitted tights?

"Right now, me. If I have to take it easy much longer, I'll make you a pair too. You want thigh high or knee high socks?" Idly, she tossed the finished one at him. She was using fairly low-qualiy synthetics and didn't care if he accidentally touched them. "I promise, not an organic yarn in sight. Except the blue one in the basket. It's cotton." Just a friendly warning.

Well, that was new, no one had ever actually thrown a sock at Kevin before. He turned it over, sort of curious because he'd only ever known grandmothers that knit and Clarice was certainly not a grandmother. Oddly enough, she was actually good it looked like. Well, it was sock-shaped at the very least. "Ah think ya should put pom-poms on 'em if they're fer you." Mostly because it would amuse him, particularly if she wore them under pants, but why wear socks that high if you're wearing pants, right? "Ah don' think Ah got much use fer thigh high socks, Clarice. But, um, thanks?"

Obviously, Kevin had never been around during the infamous sock wars, where sock-catapults were employed as well as pillow-trenches and sock-terfuge. "I can totally do pompoms," she agreed. That was a cute idea, actually. "Oh come on, I know you have a kinky side waiting to get out that craves thigh-high socks!" she giggled, then stopped when it hurt. Ow. Uncool.

"Can you touch yourself?" she asked spontaneously, then blushed when she realized how that sounded. "I mean, that is, you don't decomp yourself."

Kevin stood there staring and just blinked at her. "Any prediliction Ah got regardin' thigh highs mos' certainly don' involve me being tha one wearin' 'em." Thigh highs on a girl? Sure, 'cause that also meant a very short skirt and a nice view. His train of thought, which was only beginning to take on a visual compnent was suddenly halted by her question. Kevin immediately turned five shades of pink and two shades of red before she even managed to clarify. "Ah, um, well, Ah," sure, it was an easy question to answer but he was having trouble after the initial phrasing.

Clearing his throat he managed a quiet, "No, Ah don't decompose mahself."

"That makes sense, but I'd always wondered," Clarice ignored his discomfort. "You're all artsy. Wanna learn to knit? It's actually pretty popular with younger people now, including guys. There are patterns for making knitted bikinis too."

"An' wha' would Ah do with a bikini?" He was probably not sure he really wanted her to answer that after her comment about his thigh high kink. Well, her suspicion of his thigh high kink was more like it. Leaving the sock to hang over his shoulder, Kevin grabbed his abandoned bits of metal, eyed them for a moment and decided they were small enough so he shoved them into his pockets before heading over to give her back her sock.

"To replace your sock fetish," she replied innocently and with a mischevious smile, her needles never losing their rhythm, "I mean, I'd imagine buying women's bkini panties when you're a guy is kinda embarassing."

That earned her a sarcastic expression. "Ah jus' tell 'em they're fer you. Got a picture 'n' everythin'. Those girls at tha' Victoria's Secre' think yer tha luckiest girl ever." He walked up behind Clarice and tied the sock she'd thrown at him around her as a blindfold. Then leaned down and whispered, "Ya got a few o' them see-through lacy ones las' time. Ah particularly liked ya in tha black, Ah tol' 'em, Nice contrast wit' yer skin."

Now the needles stopped and Clarice reached up with one hand, trailing a finger down one sleeved clad arm, "That's caues they know you're hung like a horse," she giggled and pulled the sock blindfold off, "Have you been going through my underwear drawer?" she asked, not really angry if the answer had been yet. The boy had to get his kicks somewhere. And really, if he was, she would probably buy really racy things, just to tease him more.

Backfire. Kevin's breathing stopped suddenly when her finger made contact with his arm. Two layers, there's two layers, it's okay, Kevin, he repeated to himself mentally over and over though his heart was in his throat anyway. Right, touch, playful, not meaning anything, not proper cause to freak out. He was anyway, though he was trying to cover it as well as he could. Her question, however, drew an eyebrow upward and made him breathe again, though only shallowly. "Why would Ah hafta do tha' when clearly mah mind's a'ready on tha righ' track?" Kevin wouldn't violate anyone's space. Ever. His own was too sacred, and too potentially dangerous. Though if anyone would in danger of him breaking that little rule it would be Clarice, Glitter Goddess of Doom.

It was a really good thing Clarice wasn't a klepto. She had absolutely no interest in stealing, not even shoes. "Oh yeah, like an additional 10lbs of plaster cast and crutches are sexy," she rolled her eyes, "regardless of the lingerie underneath. Which isn't black, satin or lace by the way."

Kevin feigned a sigh which came out a bit unevenly due to the renewed tension he had knotting throughout his body thanks to her touch. "Now ya've gone and shattered all mah dreams. Wha'm Ah gonna do now?" He shook his head and tried to wipe the image he now had of a black, lacy clad Clarice from his mind. "Ah dunno, though. Some folk got a fetish fer the helpless types and ye're a fair bit more helples 'n usual now."

"I can still teleport. How do you think I carried my knitting out here?" he didn't know about how she had taken that ninja's hand off that time. She wasn't helpless, she just had kill or avoid and not much in between. Awkwardly, she gestured towards the sofa. "I'm sorry, for touching you a minute ago. Sit down? I won't touch you again. Promise."

That earned an incredibly curious, bordering on suspicious, look from Kevin. She apologized. For touching him. She'd paid enough attention to realize it wasn't quite making his best moments of the day list. That was...new. Not new for her specifically, just new in general. "Why ya wan' me ta stay?" His suspicion laced through his voice when he asked. Perky, bubbly and, he was fairly certain, has friends didn't usually equate to wanting to hang out with Kevin and Fred, his trustly gloom cloud.

"I'm bored," she answered truthfully, "And not really my usual overcaffinated self. I hurt. And my leg itches. I'm just...been thinking a lot too," she smiled wanly, "I'm not such a bubble head you know. It's mostly a front."

Well, there was some merit in being honest, right? For that reason alone, or at least he couldn't think of any other good reason, Kevin came around and sat at the other end of the couch, drawing his legs up so his arms encircled his knees. "Why bother wit' tha' kinda front? Seems sorta...well, 'stupid' comes ta min'." Perhaps not the nicest thing ever to say, but Kevin wasn't really on his best game today in general.

"Because," that wasn't really an answer. She looked at him for a minute and set her knitting down, "It's a coping mechanism and defense. Who's scared of the purple pixie? She doesn't have two brain cells to rub together, no scary mutie there. Just a silly little girl. I have two choices, I live my life or I hide. I want a life. And I'm going to have it."

Clarice pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face, "I don't know how much you know about the X-Men, but we deal with from pretty far out shit. Heavy stuff, like this last mission. If I let everything I see or even do ruin my day or my life, what's the point? I'd never be happy or be able to live my life. What I work so hard for won't matter."

"So ya gotta preten' ta be an airhead ta cope an' have a life? Seems like there'd be better options. Y'know, like ones where ya don't hafta pretend ya don't get it. Why can' ya still be you an' just not let things bug ya? Ah mean, just 'cause stuff happens don' mean ya gotta let it get to ta." Hi, my name is Kevin and I'm a pot. You're a kettle, right? Still, he was pretty sure he had a point and even more sure it was a good one. Sure, he let stuff get to him and he sucked at dealing and instead he had panic attacks when people got too close to him, but that was his choice, right? He didn't see why she had to pretend to be stupid to have a life. Maybe that was just because Kevin really liked smart people. They were interesting to listen to.

She shrugged, "I used to be an airhead. Found a reason not to be and got better," the last two words were said in a bad British accent ala Monty Python. "Besides, anyone who really thinks I'm an airhead doesn't know me. I'm an EMT. Biological anthropology major. I want to go to med school. X-Man," that wasn't counting the fencing club she'd quit and the dance class she was now going to have to drop, "Plus I have an insane amount of energy," part of that was her age, part her powers and the rest from energy bars and powerade. She was addicted.

He felt he should probably point out, "Well, ye're talkin' ta someone who don' know ya very well anyway. Biological anthrpology? Tha's all abou' how humanity evolves, righ'?" Seemed kind of interesting. Kevin wasn't a school person. He hadn't been much of a school person when he was in school. Certainly he was not going to pursue it just for fun now. That didn't make him stupid though, he picked up random knowledge from people all the time. People who liked learning were sort of a bizarre species to him, but he liked them. It sounded like Clarice was doing a lot of things. Lucky her.

She didn't see herself as doing anything special except living her life on her terms. "I can't not be purple. So the world will have to adjust, but I can choose how I present myeslf to the world. Scary or not. And I don't just represent me, but all mutants, in a way," she made no apologies for her life or appearance. "Anyways. whatever. You needed to get glittered though. You are way too cranky sometimes."

He was going to comment on the representing all mutants thing, thinking that was a bit over the mark but then she mentioned the glitter. Kevin's eyes narrowed on her for that. "Ah'm not tha' cranky an' Ah'm not askin' ya ta hang around me when Ah am." The fact that he didn't ask her to hang around him when he wasn't cranky was a fact Kevin conveniently avoided. She would claim it was because he was never not cranky, most likely. He knew that wasn't true.

"I'm not interested in hanging out with you when you're cranky," she retorted, "just in making you un-cranky so you are fun to hang out with again. Like now," normally she would have poked him with her foot, but between her broken leg and his no-touching issues, she settled for sticking his tongue out.

Kevin raised an eyebrow at her. "Who says a little bit o' humor means Ah'm not cranky?" Well, it was a valid point. If the knots of tense up his spine and neck and across his shoulders had anything to say about it he likely would be showing his true gloom cookie colors sooner or later again. "Is this all a grandoise attempt at gettin/ me suitable fer yer company more of'en?" Seemed like an awful lot of trouble for a guy who generally didn't want anything living near him.

"Eh," clarice shrugged, noncommittal. "More like this - I'm always going to be purple, whether I like it or not. You're not touching people, at least for the forseeable future. So are you going to let your powers dictate your life or are you? It's like that serenity prayer 'g-d, grant me the power to change what I can, accept what I can't, and a clue-by-four to smash peoples perceptions' or however it goes," she knew how it went properly. She just changed it suit her purposes.

Well, now there was a bastardization of a prayer Kevin could remember his mother making him memorize as a child. "How 'bout 'Ah'm gonna accep' wha' God did an' assume there was a reason fer it. Ah'm not gonna spit in tha Lord's face so Ah'll stay away from people like He wants me ta'?" Truth be told, it really was the closest thing to truth such a simplication could manage. If he couldn't touch people without hurting them then he wasn't mean to touch them. He could learn that, accept it and move on. Kevin was stalling at acceptance.

That works too, except for one small detail, "Maybe you're meant to touch people in other ways," wow did that sound like she was discussing where the bad man touched litttle jimmy or something, "Through art or something. You never know. That whole 'mysterious ways' thing. And free will."

Kevin shrugged. "Ah can't thin' of a single way Ah'd touch anyone wit' mah art. Maybe Ah'm just not meant ta touch people at all. Maybe Ah'd be better off ou' in tha woods. Me an' a log cabin or something. 'Cept tha part where Ah might melt tha entire thin' down in mah sleep." The word doomed was currently coming to mind.

"It's art. You never know," Clarice didn't get much art. She knew what she thought was cool, but that was about it. "People pay lots of money for it and whatever. It could happen."

"Money fer art Ah've gotten. It's really no' all tha' hard ta convince someone tha' somethin's the mos' beautiful thin' in tha world an' if they don' realize it they ain't got no taste." He shrugged, people were easy to puppet when you felt like putting in the effort to do it. "They jus' go 'Ooooh pretty' all distracted like a cat with shiny thin's. Don't mean nothin' to 'em, even if it should."

"You never know," Clarice held out hope if only to disagree with him. "Hey, can you help me with something tomorrow?" He'd hate this idea, she was sure, but he probably had the time.

The moment she asked for help with something his expression closed down to suspicion. She was going to have him modelling a pink tutu for her or something, wasn't she? "Possibly. Whacha need?" Suspicion mingled with curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat. He wasn't a cat, but he also didn't have nine lives either.

She had the gall to fidget slightly and look embarassed, "I have a group project meeting tomorrow for class. I've missed two already, I can't miss another. If I teleport us to Maryland, will you carry my book bag? It's heavy and awkward with my crutches, especially since I'm supposed to be 'taking it easy'. I will totally pay for you coffee or tea or whatever at Starbucks."

He made a small face at the mention of Starbucks, but he couldn't really argue that he had better things to do. He had stuff he planned to do, but nothing that needed doing, specifically. And it wasn't anything that couldn't wait. He sighed. "Damsel in distress, huh?" He shook his head. "Ah think ya need ta get an official okay from either Miss Munroe or Mister Summers first. Technically Ah don't thin' Ah can go tha' far from tha school withou' official permission. But seein' as ta how you're a bit incapacitated Ah wouldn' have any problem helpin' ya out." Stupid manners. He was going to end up covered in glitter for this, he just knew it.

She wouldn't glitter him for this. Other things perhaps, but never for being nice. "Oh right. That whole arrested thing. I don't want to get you in trouble..." she was giving him an out. She had other options, but she had gotten into the habit of not using her powers at school. It was rude and drew unnecessarry attention to herself that she didn't need to compound. At least she wouldn't be using them frivolously if she did. "Yeah, they set it at Starbucks near campus without asking me. I'd've picked somewhere less...whorish."

He shrugged casually. Sure, he could take the out, but that wasn't the sort of person Kevin was, nor was it the sort of person he wished to be. "Like Ah said, jus' gotta get an official okay from someone in charge. That done an' it'll be fine. Ah won't get in trouble. Seems silly ta me anyway. Bein' with a teleporter, who'd ever fin' out?" He grinned a little. He did have a point, he knew. "Wha', no longer fond o' whores? Mah, you really are growin' up, ain't ya?" Grinng again, this time Kevin actually laughed. He was so going to hell and every reason was coming out of talking to Clarice.

If hell existed, Clarice would teleport there, just to say she had. Grinning, unrepentantly, she picked her knitting back up, "Awesome," belatedly she hoped they didn't run into any MONSTERites. Well, if they did, they'd deal with it. "My room then, tomorrow at 2:45. And wear your coolest body condom."

He sort of blinked at her. "If Ah ever own anything tha' can be described as a 'body condom' Ah really hope someone shoots me before Ah gotta wear it, thanks. Ah'll try not ta dress fer winter, though." Granted, his warm weather clothing and his cold weather clothing didn't actually look much different, just the material changed.

Rolling her eyes, she wondered what she was going to do with him, "I was referring to your oh-so-revealing wardrobe of long sleeved turtlenecks and jeans."

"None of it's latex so Ah think' ya need a better term." Hey, he only wore turtlenecks half the time! With a slight sulking look Kevin glared at her. "Ah could always flash some skin fer ya if ya wanna risk Starbucks go poof." Actually, valid plot there.

"Marie came to homecoming weekend last year. You don't scare me," because really, there was nothing worse than being separated from Marie after they had lost the homecoming game and being saved by the MONSTERS in the ensuing riot. "And if nothing else, we call the MONSTERs and they'll come running. They love mutants."

Kevin raised an eyebrow. "Marie blacks ya out if she stops short, Ah mummify ya. Differen' level there. Though, ya could always take Yvette. No one wit' half a brain gonna mess with her." His confusion actually deepened. "Mons'ers love mutan's? Clearly Ah been missin' somethin', huh?"

"Mutants Only Need Sensitivity, Tolerance, and Equal Rights," Clarice recited from memory. It was actually a cute acronym, "A fairly unorganized, grass roots pro-mutant group on campus. They want me to join or be their mascot. I'm the coolest of the cool."

Kevin gave her a look. He was going to poke fun at that coolest of the cool part but the retribution may have been too much. "Nah, all we need is a blow torch and somethin' ta glue tha bodies to," he said with a grin.