Xaviers!

Natalie scowls at the 'boring' label, jerking her head back away from Shari's hand. "It's generally not polite to criticize someone's appearance choices unless they've asked for your opinion... which I haven't," she says coldly.

"Whoa, hey, I'm sorry..." she says, backing off. "I just don't think being different from everybody else is a bad thing. Being a freak is good."

"Not all of us can be the interesting alien girl from another world. My brand of 'interesting' causes people's eyes to glaze over when I start talking."

"Boohoo, you're too smart for most people. Meanwhile my roommate takes every opportunity to tell me how much better they are at shapeshifting than me cause my people suck." she says, her shape almost snapping back to her green-skinned 'real' form with how fast she shifted.

"I don't want to talk about your roommate," Natalie snaps, "And I'm not too smart for people. I don't get people and they don't give a shit about the things I care about."

"Yeah well, sorry I came in here trying to give a shit about you." Shari frowns and gets up from the bed.

"I don't know why people give a shit about me in the first place," Natalie says, opening the door, "I'm still trying to stop giving a shit about me."

"Just cause it's hard for you doesn't mean it's hard for everybody else..." Shari says, something about Natalie's altest comment seems to have taken the wind out of her anger.

"To stop giving a shit about me? Good. I'm glad that's easy for some people." She grits her teeth for a moment, "I fucking died at the Point, Shari, nothing I could bloody do but just stand there and let it happen. Nothing I could do to stop it, nothing I could do but watch the countdown. I'm so fucking helpless without my technology that I might as well be one of them." She gestures in the vague direction of the world outside the school. "But no, I'm a mutant, so they hate me just as much. So, to be safe, I have to be content to be the support. The woman they call in to run communications when they can't find a telepath. And to be happy, I have to be content being the good friend or one of the guys. Well. Fuck. That. Noise. I'm tired of being the 'also-ran'." Shari, or anyone else at the school for that matter, has probably never seen Natalie this upset and angry.

"I didn't... They... they blew up everybody else too. None of the telepathy or the punching helped them a damn bit! You know what they expect people who can punch to do?" she asks, bulking up as if she's trying to prove a point or maybe just because she's not keeping a very good grip on herself right now. "They ask you to hurt people! Whether you want to or not. You don't get to ask questions, you don't get to understand what's going on, you just go out there and hurt people and you hope that they're bad people, but that doesn't really make it feel any better." she sniffs.

"Hurting people sucks. Hurting people doesn't help, it just forces other people to hurt you back until all anybody knows how to do is hurting others. Your power's not great cause it can make cool lights or cause you're great with computers. It's great because it can't hurt anybody. Cause when you solve a problem it'll be the good kinda solving. The kind that'll actually stick... They should always be calling people like you first..." she goes on, staring at the floor looking dejected, shrinking back to her relatively small stature.

"Well, they don't because the world doesn't work that way. You want a problem solved with computers, you call the IT department, not the freak who talks to machines. And now I'm apparently soaking up signals in some way, so I can't even be reliable there. I've slid all the way from useless to active hindrance."

"You're just... figuring it out still. I'm sure you'll do some great stuff one day. Your power's amazing. You're amazing."

Natalie seems to be intently studying her feet. "It doesn't feel that way."

For a moment Shari looks like she's not really sure what to say or do. Then she reaches for Natalie's cheeks to lift up her head and plants a big smooch on her lips.

That certainly startles Natalie. Of all the things she might have expected, a kiss wasn't even googling the list's neighborhood much less being on the list. She seems entirely uncertain how to respond as if her brain's locked up. Which is mirrored by her vocal response after the kiss is over, "I... what?"

"Sorry, I thought..." Shari starts, then seems to realize something. "Is it cause I'm a girl? Because that's totally negotiable..." she says as she starts to shift.

The gears in Natalie's brain grind to a slow sort of life, "What? No. Well, sort of. But not? I just..." Deep breath. "I just didn't realize you felt that way."

"Sort of?" she asks, tilting her head slightly.

"Just... not a thing I've thought about, you know? I just sort of assumed... well, guys. Not that I'm opposed..." She sags against the open door, "I'm shit at this. Always have been shit at this."

"How are you bad at this? Either you like me or you don't, yeah? Would it help if I was less green? What kinda hair do you like?"

"What? No, green's fine. Your hair's fine. I'm just... processing. I do like you. I just wasn't aware that you... *liked me* liked me. I'm always misunderstanding people." She looks up at Shari, "I'm... I'm not misunderstanding you, am I?"

"I don't think you are... Is kissing not obvious enough?" she asks and her tone is oddly genuine. She's neither being sarcastic nor making fun of Natalie, but rather honestly confused about human courtship behavior.

"No. Kissing is fine. I..." Now she seems flustered, but in a good way. "I just... I had a bad experience when I misunderstood someone along these lines. Are... are you sure?" Part of her desperately wants this to be true. Part of her is afraid that Shari's just trying to make 'her friend' feel better.

"Only if you stop trying to talk me out of it." she smirks.

"I'll try?" She says, cracking a small smile. Of course, at that moment, the open door she's sagged against slips away from her. With a cry, she sits down hard on the floor.

Shari winces out of sympathy when Natalie hits the floor. "Still want me to leave?" she asks with a slightly crooked smile as she holds out a hand to Natalie to help her up.

Natalie takes her hand, slowly getting up. "No... I guess you can stay," she says with a soft smile.

"Awesome! We can experiment."

Natalie blinks, "Um... okay... I suppose so." She looks nervous.

"Cause I'm pretty sure you stopped soaking up signals for a bit, so i bet you can control it somehow." she nods, apparently talking about something else entirely.

There's a mental grinding noise as Natalie's brain goes from forward to reverse. "Um... Yeah, maybe? I mean, I didn't even know I was doing it." Cell service seems to be fine at the moment.

"Then we just gotta figure it out. Like, is it an active process or not and the best way to test that is distractions!" she nods. Apparently she has no problem shifting gears back and forth in the slightest.

"Well, you are standing here distracting me from the things I was doing."

"Exactly! Come on, we can watch a movie over the Netflix and if you eat the signal we'll notice right away."

"I suppose we can do that," she says, lifting a hand as one of the screens on the desk switches over to Netflix. "I'm sure we'll find something."

"Awesome!" she says and bounces over to hop on Natalie's bed.

Natalie settles onto the bed next to Shari, still looking a little vacant as the website cycles though options. Finally, she settles on some movie or other and leans back against the wall, her eyes focusing.

Shari sits, back straight and super-attentive. She picked up somewhere that this is what humans do for fun, especially with their partners, so she's ready to take in every awkward minute of it.

"See? It's working just fine." she smiles, sitting close enough to Natalie that their legs are touching, but otherwise being either careful or uncertain about what else to do here.

For her part, Natalie really isn't sure what to do either. She sits somewhat awkwardly next to Shari and at some point, her worries start to cloud her mind again. As they do, the stream starts hiccuping and having fits.

"Hmm..." she goes as she watches the stream sputter, then looks over at Natalie. She doesn't want to just point it out in case feeling bad about it makes it worse, but she wants to do something. So she leans over and puts her head on Natalie's shoulder.