xp_logs | [Clarice, Paul] Bored, worried and stressed. Just another day at Xavier's. (backdated to Sat. aft.

Delphine isn't the only little girl to be wrapping Paul around her finger sometimes... Clarice comes to Paul to alleviate boredom and nerves and ends up asking him to teach her to drive.

Wandering the halls may have well have been the official pasttime at Xavier's since people did it so often. Today was no exception as everyone waited on more news about Nathan. Waiting or wandering was not something Clarice did well. Which would explain why she had stoppepd wandering when she found Delphine and was now plying the kitty with strings of sequins.

Paul came around the corner with his laundry - recently delivered by the wash service - over one arm and stopped to watch the cat and the girl playing in the hall. "Bored, mes cheres?" he asked.

"Bored, worried and stressed. Just another day at Xavier's," she replied sarcasticly. "And I'm getting sick of it."

"I don't blame you at all," Paul said lightly, stepping around them and unlocking the door to his suite. He went in and left the door open behind him, assuming that the girls would follow him in if they wanted his company.

Obediently, they did. "So how come you're not all worked up too?" Clarice practically demanded, once she had closed the door. Flopping down on his couch, she sighed.

"What's there to get worked up about?" Paul asked from where he was hanging his shirts up in the closet.

"Moira was kidnapped and then they gave her back and took Nathan and then he tried to kill Prof. Xavier....What do you mean 'what is there to get worked up about!?' And that was just this week, we had Asgard last week, Columbia the week before," she sighed. "It's just too much sometimes."

"It's life," Paul said simply. "If it wasn't happening to us, it'd be happening to someone else." He went to the kitchen and rummaged around in the fridge, coming up with a carton of chocolate rice milk. "Yes, there's a lot going on, but that's what happens when you get powerful people occupying the same living space."

"So why can't it happen to someone else then? It's time we got a break!"

It is happening to other people, right now," Paul said. "Did you want some?" He poured himself a glass of chocolate milk. "It's happening all over, just in little pockets here and there. You're in one of them. I used to be in another, now I'm here. I'm sure there are other places to be that you'd be welcome."

"Why do you have to be so damn logical?" she grumbled, heading over to the kitchen. Tentatively she sniffed the milk carton..."Rice milk?"

"Milk's a misnomer. It's rice stuff with sugar and chocolate in it. It's terrible for you, but it's organic. And chocolate. So it can't be that bad." Paul let her have a taste of his. "I'm not being logical, so much as this is my life. I'm used to it."

She took a sip, making a face, "That stuff is gross!! I'll stick to cow thank you," she squinted at him, suspiciously, "You're not like that girl on Amish in the City are you?"

"Pardon?" Paul put the carton away and pulled out a bag of vegan peanut butter cookies he'd bought at the bakery when he was in town.

Clarice took a cookie, after all, cookies made everything better, "Some SoCal ditz on Amish in the City was insisting that milk is cow pus, eggs are chicken abortions and that cows are actually aliens! She's vegan. The Amish thought she was nuckin' futs."

Paul stared at Clarice for a moment and then laughed. "That's appallingly ignorant. I'm vegan, yes, but simply because I can be. Delphine has to be, and it didn't make sense for me to keep things that would make her sick in the house if I didn't have to."

Relief flooded her face, "Oh good. I mean, you seem sanish, but that's not saying much usually. I looked it up though, eggs are actually chicken period."

Paul shook his head, taking a cookie himself and hopping up to sit on the counter. "People get the oddest ideas about things; everything from chickens to mutants, eh?" With his chocolate milk and cookie and slightly rumpled hair, still windblown from the drive in from town earlier, he looked like he might even pass for Clarice's age.

"Yeah. And then they go flapping their gums on national television. Stupid people preaching their stupid messages. And since the truth is so much more boring, no one actually believes it."

"Of course. If the truth doesn't suit them, it must be a lie they haven't uncovered yet." Paul shrugged. "Funny how people are too scared to give up being paranoid."

"Paranoia, paranoia everybody's coming to get me, you told them all I was crazy," Clarice sang under her breath, "The constitution is wrong, truth is never self-evident."

"If it were, it wouldn't be so important, would it?" Paul sighed, looking at her with an expression that was definitely affectionate.

"Guess not. But you really think Nathan will be okay?" the worry was back.

"Yes," Paul said easily. The answer came without hesitation. "Didn't Charles say he would be? And how tough is Nathan? He's made it this far. He'll be on his feet before classes start."

"Pretty tough," she agreed, smiling again, "Hey, do you know when classes are? I need to sign up for drivers ed."

"I think you've got a few more weeks. But is there any reason you can't start learning now?" Paul offered her another cookie.

Absently, she took the cookie, "Um...no? But I was thinking, can I get a license without an image inducer?"

"Why wouldn't you be able to?" Paul frowned, dipping his own cookie in his milk and then biting it.

"I don't know. Just the whole mutantphobia thing," Clarice didn't mention how badly she wanted a license.

"You think they'll tell you that you can't have one, or just that you'll need to use the inducer and not match your license?" Paul asked. "False papers are easy enough to come by," he said thoughtfully. "What if you go ahead and get the real you a real license and then if it's necessary, we'll make sure you have an alternate for when you're using the inducer?"

"Can one say I'm 18?" Clarice asked, knowing that there was no way anyone would get her a license that said she was 21. "That'd be so cool! But...I was thinking. About the image inducer. I don't want to use it much anymore, I want to be me. And like or not," she gestured to herself, "this is me. I just don't want some bigoted bureaucrat saying I can't get a license as me."

Paul smiled. "We'll talk about it if you need one. I'm glad you don't want to use it much anymore. Sometimes it might be safer but I like you being you. You have a right to it. And if anyone says you can't have a license as you, I have a few lawyers in my little black book if Charles doesn't have a whole crew of them on retainer already."

"Never thought about Prof. X being able to help...guess that was kinda stupid." Clarice was back to playing with her hair, which was a good indicator that she was feeling better.

"Not stupid. You're probably just not used to the grownups around you sticking up for you," Paul said quietly.

"I think it was phrased more like 'picking fights that can be won' as opposed to tilting at windmills," she told him, trying to justify it. "Kinda like Ryan White, but without the death at the end."

The name brought a flicker of a cloud across Paul's face and he nodded. "We'll try and leave that last part out, yes," he said, smiling sadly. "You've got a right to your life, Clarice, all of it."

"Doesn't always seem like it," she told him, "It seems like I can only do what is socially acceptable. And that means turning human."

"It seems that way, because you have the easier option in front of you," Paul pointed out. "That makes it harder to stand up for yourself, because wouldn't it be more convenient for everyone if you'd just stop being a mutant? And aren't we all trained to try and be convenient?"

"How is being a human easier? That's impossible to do. It's genetics."

"You can fake it, with the image inducer, with cosmetics, one way or another," Paul said. "And that's easier on everyone. Except you, really. For most people, it's hard to go against the grain when they have another option."

"But I only get the inducer sometimes and usually only with supervision and makeup sucks. I tried it, all I did was break out and look stupider." Clarice huffed dramatically, "I'm stuck with me."

Paul laughed and shook his head. "Poor thing. Being stuck with you is hardly a burden." He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand briefly. "It's not worth ruining that perfect skin just to fit someone else's standards of what you should look like."

"Duh!" she rolled her eyes, smiling. "I would rather be purple than all zity."

"You've got your priorities straight," Paul said, with no small amount of pride. "Now, we just have to work on making being you as easy as possible. Where to start?"

Clarice considered this for a minute. "Teach me to drive?"

"If Scott doesn't object, we can start next week." Paul handed her another cookie and hopped down off the counter. "For now, though, let's see what the Olympics have to offer."