xp_logs | Clarice, Jono, and redecorating during the weekend

Clarice was rummaging around the piles of things in the boiler room when she came across wadded up strands of blue Christmas lights, "Hey, Jono," she said, holding the lights up, "These are cool."

Jono didn't even look up from his book at first. "I'm sure they are," he replied, then dragged his eyes up from the text. "More Christmas lights?"

"Yeah. You have a lot of them. We should put them up, they're neat!" she was already untangling them and tangling herself in them in the process, trying to see if they would stretch all around the room.

"I don't think having lots of them is a reason to use them," Jono was watching her enthused workings over the edge of his book.

"But being neat and cool is a reason," she replied using fifteen-year-old logic, "Are you going to help me or not? Besides, they're just blue, you won't be infected with girly cooties."

"I think I'd already been infected with those if it was possible," he stood up and stretched, tossing the book on his bed. "I think they should go as up on the wall as possible. Or maybe even on the ceiling. In a spiral."

"Oooh! Ceiling spiral! That's awesome!" Clarice tried to stand without crushing the lightbulbs and nearly toppled over. "Um...help?"

Jono rolled his eyes and moved closer, trying to work through the new snarls Clarice had managed in the lights. "I think we'll need something to actually make these stick to the ceiling."

Clarice looked around the room, trying to find something useful, this was after all, her idea. "If you're careful, you can use thumbtacks. Have any?"

"I think the ceiling's actually made out of concrete," Jono cast a doubtful look at it. "I think duct tape would be better, at least we have some here."

"Duct tape is of teh strong," she intoned solemnly from within the lights.

"All right. This is what we'll do," Jono said, and looked around, wondering where he'd seen the tape last. "I'm going to climb on that chair and do the thing because I can actually reach the ceiling, and you'll hand me the lights and bits of tape."

"Make sure it's in a spiral though!" she impatiently held up one end for him to start putting it up, even though he was still putting the chair in the right place.

"Yeah, so I can hypnotize myself at night, staring at it," Jono finally located the duct tape and rescued it from under a pile of PS games. Then he got on the chair, taking the first bit of the lights from Clarice's hands.

"Like you have anything else better to do?" she retorted, "Mr. Brooding-is-a-fine-art. You need more funness."

"Oh, dodging bullets and killer robots isn't fun? My mistake," Jono said dryly, trying to get a piece of tape to stop curling around his fingers and stick to the ceiling.

"No, that's not fun. Hanging out with friends is fun. Going to concerts or jump roping is fun. Duh." she rolled her eyes, thinking that he needed to relax a little. Not that she should talk.

"So what do the clowns who want to eat you look like?" Jono asked, yanking some more lights up. "Just in case I need to go look for them and tell them where to find you."

"You're mean. I shouldn't help you make your room all cool if you're going to be mean," she replied sullenly. She continued to feed the lights up to him though, without leaving.

"Deal," Jono flicked the thought at her without looking down. "You're living in my room, I don't have to like you."

"You barely spoke two words to me since I came here! And I have nothing against you!" Now she was getting mad. "And I don't know about you, but people do not generally attack me in my sleep with guns!"

Now Jono looked at her, wondering what colour she turned when blushing. "What should I have said to you? Welcome to the boiler room, please help yourself to anything you find, and can I be your new best friend?" His sarcasm was biting.

"Well, gee, I came down and met Sarah and she was nice! And Paige likes you so I thought that since they were both nice, you would be too! But fuck you, you're too trying to be James Dean to like anything!" enough of the lights were on the ceiling now that she could disentangle herself without breaking anything. "Fuck you!"

By now she had started crying, but hadn't left the room. "I don't know who hurt you, but you're not the only freak! You're not special! I've been hurt too, I just hide it better! There is more to life than wallowing in self pity and if you'd pull your head out of your ass once in a while, you'd see that!"

At the sound of her tears Jono let the rest of the lights hang unfinished from the ceiling, and stepped down from the chair. He folded his arms across his chest, looking at Clarice apprehensively. He was quite at a loss on how to proceed; most people would have either left at this point or would have been completely unaffected by his attitude. "Are you really that afraid of what happened?" he asked, relatively softly compared to his earlier harsh words. He didn't understand this either. When he was scared, he got angry.

Clarice nodded, wiping her eyes with a corner of her t-shirt. "I don't want to be afraid, but then I think that this is my life. I'm purple. I will always be purple. I can't change that. It's the same as having 'mutie' tattooed on my forehead. I will NEVER be able to pass! And it fucking sucks because even you can claim to be a burn victim!" she crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground. She had never opened herself up like this before. She might mention it in a conversation, laugh it off, but every time she looked in the mirror it hurt. And it made her mad.

"Yeah, a burn victim," Jono's words seemed to come from a long way off. "Listen, kid, obviously I can't tell you you're safe here, but this is the right place for you. Trust me, they'll dropkick acceptance into you even if you don't want to." He toyed with one of the buckles on his containment shirt. "Besides, purple is not a bad colour."

"I'm not worried about accepting everyone else - I'm worried about everyone else accepting me!" she chuckled humourlessly, "Everyone here keeps saying purple's not a bad color. It used to be my favorite color, actually. But it's not a good skin color, nothing really looks good with it. I wouldn't mind keeping the purple hair though, that's kinda cool."

"You'd be a riot with Dane." Jono regarded her oddly, maybe a little sadly. "I did mean acceptance of yourself. On my first night here when I refused to come out of my room because I hated the way I had an enormous hole in my chest, they sent Piotr to come get me. You know, the big one who turns into metal. They know no mercy here," he sounded almost amused by the end of his explanation. Then he reached out and patted Clarice awkwardly on the shoulder. "You know, black looks good with every colour."

"Piotr's cool, his new years party was fun," she wasn't crying anymore, but still sniffled occassionally, "Fashion advice from the Prince of Darkness? What will happen next?," she smiled and began toying with the lights again.

"Black's all the rage," he gave her one last look, then gestured at the chair and the lights. "Can we finish this now so we can see what it looks like?"

"Sure. You think Sarah will like it?"

"If she doesn't, I'm sure she'll rip it down," Jono moved the chair to get better access at the outer rings of the spiral.

"Good point."