"Okay...." Persi was not remotely convinced, and made no effort to pretend he was. If anything, he deliberately looked skeptical. "So why are you freaking out at... I don't know, fire or something? Fire phobia?"

Persi shrugged. "Dunno. It sort of is." Somehow. Persi couldn't actually think how, but there was probably a way. Prettymuch anything was funny, if you looked at it the right way. It could be funny that he'd only gotten around to doing what he was supposed to when he was in a place devoted to doing the exact opposite, maybe. Or that he'd only gotten to it when in a place that would try and succeed in stopping him, instead of all the opportunities he'd had where people would have helped. That could be funny, in a really bitter way.

What was he talking about? Clyde was not afraid of fire. A lot of things weren't making sense. Attempted suicide was never funny, yet he acted like he agreed with him.

“No! I don't think it's funny that you neahly killed yoself!,” Clyde snapped. “You know I'm not some callous-”

Clyde stopped. There he was, arguing with him again. That was the last thing he wanted to do around a potentially suicidal classmate. Maybe he was insensitive after all. “I... really didn't think it was funny,” he mumbled, looking back down.

The brat just kept making less and less sense. Persi was still pretty sure hallucinations were the best answer, if mostly because there was nothing else that might explain why he was acting weird. Or nothing Persi knew of, anyway.

...Maybe he was just arguing with someone imaginary, and not actually talking to Persi at all? That would explain why he cut off like he'd been interrupted when Persi didn't actually say anything. Hallucination-person must be an adult too; the brat didn't shut up and look guilty when anyone younger argued with him, as far as Persi knew. Well, or maybe he had an older brother or something. "Okay... who are you talking to?"

Clyde wasn't sure if it was because he was having troubles thinking in the state he was in, but he still couldn't understand why this guy was acting so strangely.

“Y-you,” Clyde answered, confused. He glanced around the room, just in case there was someone else present that he was unaware of. There wasn't. “Who else would I be talking to? Yo the only one heah.”

Could this guy not understand what he was saying? Paranoia told Clyde that the other teen was just acting that way to irritate him. But, he could be wrong.

Persi shrugged. "Dunno. It's a school full of mutants, there could be invisible people all over the place for all I know.

"So if you're just talking to me, what're you all freaked out about?" Maybe the brat thought Persi was someone else? That shouldn't be difficult for an illusion to do, right? Maybe Persi should start finding people with different mutations and actually figuring out what they could do....

Yes, there could be an invisible mutant lurking in the room, but no, Clyde wasn't talking to one. The other teen was acting like he wasn't talking to him, and Clyde didn't know why. He was freaking out about being a likely factor in the guy's suicide attempt and nothing else.

“Stop messing around like that. I am trying to tell you that I didn't want you to kill yoself,” Clyde growled, frustrated. There wasn't anything he could do to apologize if this guy continued acting that way.

"Oh." O... kay? "That's... nice of you?" Also really, really confusing, but nice? Persi had no idea what was going on. "I wasn't messing around." At least, Persi didn't think he had been. By now he was confused enough, he might have been messing around before and not known it or something. It wasn't like he hadn't thought he was doing something entirely different from what he actually was fairly often before. "...Why did you need to tell me that?"

To Clyde, the other teen appeared confused. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn't trying to pick a fight. As for why was he trying to be nice, Clyde simply felt bad. However, saying something along the lines of “oh hey, I'm just saying sorry because I want to feel better about myself” just didn't seem right.

“I d-don't know.” Really, he didn't know how to respond to that. Common sense stated that he should try to say something. “I... honestly didn't like fighting with you. I don't think you did, eithah,” Clyde admitted. He sighed. “You can call me a brat all you want. Truce?” He extended his hand out to the other teen.

Persi... had no idea what was going on. Which was probably why he was going back to something closer to an automatic smile and nod than criticizing the brat like normal, but the brat hasn't attacked him yet, or attacked himself and blamed Persi, so that was... good? Sort of? Persi was way too confused to tell.

Or maybe the kid was confused too. Maybe there really was an invisible mutant nearby, and they just broadcast an aura of confusion or something instead of talking to the brat. Or... something. Persi's head hurt. "Okay...?" Well, shaking the kid's hand wasn't any more confusing than the last few minutes had been, anyway. "You really don't make any sense."

Persi did, in fact, refrain from attaching Brat to his comment. Permission or not, the kid wasn't being a brat now, and Bewildering Crazy Child didn't fit nearly so well.

Clyde was a little surprised that the guy didn't take the opportunity to call him “brat” that very moment. Still, he was puzzled by his words. “I-I don't make sense? I... don't know what to say.” He was trying to be clear, but the feelings of raw guilt made it hard for him to organize his thoughts.

He tried to think back about what made him hate the teen in the first place. If he wasn't mistaking, it was because the teen thought he was supposed to be in a daycare. Things might have turned out better if he'd simply informed him that he was a mutant, rather than blowing up at him. Damn, it was painfully obvious to him now.

“I think I remembah why I fought with you, but it seems so stupid now,” Clyde sighed, nervously playing with the hem of his jacket.

Well... yeah, Persi could see how that would be hard to respond to. He shrugged; it was still true. "You keep acting like you're upset about something, but there's nothing to be upset about, and then you change the subject." You know... if the kid knew what changing the subject was. Persi had no idea when kids learned that phrase.

"That's like, the most cliche line ever." Not necessarily a wrong one, but cliche. "I'm pretty sure every movie ever uses it at some point." At least, the ones that had characters fight and then stop fighting. The ones where it was at all applicable. "It probably was, though." Persi fought with everyone; some stupid reasons were going to get in there. Many stupid reasons, probably.

Clyde heaved another sigh as he listened to what the teen had to say. This guy still didn't understand why he was upset? He didn't want to directly say his reason for being upset, but if he had to, he had to.

“Dammit, I feel bad. Helping push you to try to kill yoself doesn't make me happy. I doubt you deserve to die.” It was blunt, but sincere. Even while speaking that, Clyde felt his eyes become watery. $#!^, was he going to cry? No, NO. He had to keep things together. Freakin' tears never did anything but make him weak. “And yeah, it's cliché.” The guy was right; those were all stupid overused phrases, and their fights were also stupid. Finding things to say to him that weren't dumb was no easy task.

"...You did what now?" Because Persi did not remember that. At all. His church, his priest, his family could say they'd encouraged him. Maybe Isabel could, with the whole stabbing thing, though that was really more of trying to do it for him. The kid, Persi just had stupid arguments with.

...Arguments in which the kid told him to die, when Persi thought of it. Okay, this all made more sense now. Persi groaned and covered his face with his hand. "That's not--it doesn't matter what you said. I guess it's sort of ironic, but it didn't have anything to do with it."

Even though the guy claimed that the arguments didn't contribute, Clyde still felt sick about what he said. Telling an already suicidal person to die was terrible, no matter who he was. What if this guy had died? Then, Clyde would have been that cold-hearted bastard who had encouraged the death, with no one to say otherwise. If that happened, he'd never be able to live with that on his conscience.

Clyde shook his head. “But, I told you to die when I should've done the opposite.” He paused, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. “Why'd you do it?” Perhaps he had no business asking, but he wanted to know the reason.

"...Uh." Persi really should have seen that question coming, shouldn't he? Kids were always curious. And very bad at knowing when they really shouldn't be asking something. "I don't... really think I should tell you... you're what, eight or something?" Something like that. Persi wasn't the best at guessing ages. He'd have guessed younger, but the kid was acting older than Persi thought he looked. Either way, Persi probably shouldn't be answering.