#osmosxs

When Reyna’s mum had told her she was pregnant with her new husband’s child, Reyna had felt sick. She didn’t want a sibling, not from him. It had taken her just nine months to decide otherwise. When Darcy came home, so small and defenceless, Reyna knew in her six year old heart that she had to protect her new sister.

For sixteen years, she’d protected her. She’d taken the fall for her where she could, she’d shielded her from harm. She’d been parent and sibling in one, making lunches and straightening her hair.

For sixteen years, she’d kept her safe. Darcy wanted independence, and Reyna was reluctant to let go. Now she wishes she never had.

When she sees her sister’s body, lying too still without a trace of the energy that Darcy exuded, she can’t move. She feels Ophelia’s hand, tentative on her arm, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. 

Shadows pool at her feet, gather around her hands. The pain was too much to handle. People had told her she’d end up in an early grave, and she’d believed them. Never for Darcy. She’d do anything to trade places with her, to let Darcy smile again. To let her live.

It wasn’t fair. She’d never had a chance at a normal life, no matter how hard Reyna tried. Just as it was within reach, it’s snatched away again. 

Charles had to hold up his hand to stop Scott from going on. “I have no doubt you can handle whatever he throws at you, but don’t forget he’s only human and you could hurt him very easily. I’ve already called Anna Marie and Kitty to my office, they should be here soon to be briefed as well.” He was green, but Charles had no doubt Scott could handle the lead on this. He already selected the best people for the job and gave plausible reasons for their being on the team, not that it was necessary. As they waited for the women to arrive, Charles looked Scott over. He stood tall, shoulders back and radiating confidence despite the thoughts swirling around in his head.

He’s careful to not let her know what he was doing. A difficult task to say the least, given that Jean could read minds, but he keeps it on the DL the best he could. He guesses it’s a little weird and invasive, to do diagnostics on his friends without their permission or knowledge. But he does them anyway. If he detects any abnormalities, a single white blood cell out of count or the vaguest signs of a cold, he fixes it. He eventually came to find out that he could do this from afar, but touch made the whole thing simpler. And lucky for him, Jean made this part easy.

They were on the couch watching a rerun of a ghost show, something that had become a ritual in its own right. She sidles up to his side, red hair spilling onto his shoulder and tickling his neck. He had always been a very physical person, feeling his most loved and wanted when touched. He’d never known how to tell her how much her affection meant to him. And it meant a hell of a lot. With her arm pressed against him, he’s able to get a full medical work-up in his head. He makes sure to think of a variety of inane things while doing this (Yankees scores. What he’s going to have for dinner. The hot girl in his math class), just in case she happened to be poking around his mind. He’s happy to find nothing of concern, no pathogens to impede the body’s homeostasis, not a single microbe or harmful bacteria in sight. Every organ was in perfect working order. Sometimes he thinks he does these check-ups more for himself than her, for every time he gives her a squeaky clean bill of health he is filled with an enormous and instant sense of relief. Jean definitely didn’t need him looking after her; she was one of the strongest people he’d ever known. And yet he still felt like he was, in his own little way, keeping her safe.

For a second he almost doesn’t notice that she’s speaking to him. Making some crude comment about the show’s host, as it were. And though he caught only half of what she’d said, he’s still smiling at her like a big goofball. Just happy, really. Happy to be there with her. Happy for good health. Jean’s narrowing her eyes at him, evidently catching on that he hadn’t been listening to a word she’d said, and the next thing he knows she’s pushing him off the couch. 

“I’m fine, it doesn’t matter.”

Klara was helping to patch Pietro up after he’d gotten himself hurt fighting another mutant. But when he says that, she pauses what she’s doing. For a moment, she’s still, and then in a blink she hits him. He hisses, narrowing his eyes.

“It does matter. You matter. To me. You matter to me.”

Game

“Hey, you’re cheating!” Josh pouts. He turns, framed by the neon arcade lights. He doesn’t know if there’s any truth to this accusation, but he’s out of ideas. He’s losing. Big time. Going in, Josh had been confident in his air hockey skills. So confident in fact that he had proposed a wager. If he won, Jean would share her most lurid and embarrassing story. And if Jean won, well… “You wouldn’t!” Josh had gasped, beyond appalled. The redhead just laughed, a sound wickeder than anything he’d ever heard. He tried to change his own wager, to match hers in barbarity and contempt, but his request was met with indifference. After all, she had said, eyes like a wild fire, it wasn’t her fault that he lacked in imagination. Grumbling, he grabbed the plastic striker, positive he could get himself out of this one. 

He was wrong. 

Three games in and the boy had lost all of them. He pulls out the black puck from the metal lip, throwing it down on the table. “Another game!” he insists. “Same terms.” But Jean was shaking her head, coming around to clap him on the shoulder. His fate was sealed. “Jean, please,” He begs, as she’s pushing him out of the arcade and back into the mall. “I’ll do anything. Anything else. Just name it.” But she was not taking the bait. Before he knew it they were at Greg’s Sporting Goods and Jean was plucking out a Red Sox jersey from the rack, in Josh’s size. “Evil,” he shivers at the sight of it, “You are an EVIL woman.” Was she really going to make him wear it? For an entire week? She was laughing again, and that was answer enough.

Movie

The two mutants had staked their claim on the T.V. in the commons. They had even constructed a blanket fort, of which Josh had named “Chilladelphia” and made himself the mayor of. Though it was Jean who was doing most of the work, surveilling their snacks and shooing intruders, for Josh had the menace-factor of a goldendoodle. “You can be the sheriff,” he says, after she catches another student trying to make off with their Fritos, “I guess.” Some old B-flick was on, one with a giant tarantula, but Josh was only paying attention long enough to point out ugly extras and say to Jean, “That’s you,” before stuffing his face with popcorn. Soon he’s gesturing to the screen again, where a grad student had become hideously deformed from exposure to a strange chemical. “That’s your boyfriend.” The insult was unusual for Josh, who had to be coaxed into saying a mean word about anyone. “What?” He says, when he feels Jean’s eyes on him. “It’s what Poppy would have wanted.”

Josh had fallen asleep well before the napalm attack ever took care of the tarantula. It didn’t take long for him to crash, not when Jean had slipped a hand in his hair. Whether she was doing it just to shut him up was beyond Josh, though he didn’t particularly care.

Beach

Poppy snapped open a Diet Coke. The two mutants were stretched out in their bikinis, taking in the rays and summery weather on Croton Park beach. Jean’s sudden grunt of annoyance had Poppy following her line of sight. She squinted through the lenses of her Ray Bans. Immediately she noticed the two guys sauntering toward them, real beef-heads with overdeveloped muscles and phony tans. Being from Santa Carla, Poppy had seen plenty of these California gym dudes, but since this was a New York suburb, and not, say, Laguna beach, the sight was a startling one. “Oh, great,” said Poppy, with an eye-roll, “Here approacheth our one true loves.” The boys walked up to their towels, blotting out the sun. “Hey,” said the blond one, no doubt bleached, “We thought you ladies might want some company.” The smaller one, not to be forgotten, added in a voice as dumb as the rest of him, “Or, you know, someone to rub sun lotion on your backs.” With a sigh, Poppy removed her shades and took hold of Jean’s slender hand, a calculated and tender gesture. She flashed the boys a fanged smile. “Hi, yeah, we’re married. Officiated by the church of Satan and currently on our honeymoon. It’s awful nice of the High Wizard to let us leave the commune, don’t you think Jeanie? We only had to sacrifice, like, two more goats in Satan’s divine and holy name, and, wow, that was fun! I only wish…. Oh, they’re gone.” The girls exchanged a look. Poppy took a sip of Diet Coke, parched from the monologue. “Balls, I’m just dying to get to the part about the orgy in the abortion clinic… but they did last longer than the other two.” Happy with her work, she laid back down, enjoying the sun pouring over them.

Shop

“God,” Poppy said. “That’s so you. Really. Scott’s going to flip.” Lowering herself into the hard plastic chair in the fitting room, she scanned the outfit she had goaded Jean into trying on. “Not that he deserves you,” she can’t help pointing out, “He’s, like, white bread with a face. I mean, I know you’re totally nutsy about each other, but, Jean, honey. Come on.” Her best friend was making that face again, hands on her leather mini-clad hips. Poppy raised her palms in a gesture of half-hearted resignation. “I’m just saying. You’re too good for him.” She took another long look at her work. “In that skirt especially. I really do have a gift.” 

Poppy had taken it upon herself to coordinate her friend’s summer wardrobe. Jean hadn’t asked her to, of course, but that was beside the point. She thumbed through the pile of clothes she’d brought for Jean to try on, and thrusted a lovely green dress into her arms. “This is going to bring out all those nice cool tones in your skin. I’m telling you, it’ll look deadly. Accentuating on greatness.” Before Jean can open her mouth to protest, she held up a finger. “Excuse me, who dressed you the night you and Scott played tonsil honkey at that party, hmmm? That’s right. Me. Now try on the fucking dress.”

“Toad and Toadette are twins, right?” asked Pietro, flipping through the character menu.

“I think maybe they’re dating, but I’m not sure,” Billy replied, selecting his old standby and favorite character, Princess Rosalina, “I mean, they might be twins, I dunno.”

“Are Mario and Wario twins?” Pietro asked.

“Kind of? Like from an alternate mirror-verse universe or something.”

“Luigi and Waluigi?”

“Same thing.”

“Princess Peach and Princess Daisy?”

“I don’t think they’re even related. They just kinda sorta look alike.”

“I’ll be Toad,” said Pietro.

--

“Are you kidding me! This is so slow!” Pietro complained, smashing buttons so quickly that his hands were a blur, “why isn’t going faster? This is even slower than a regular car.”

“Think of it this way,” Billy replied calmly “being fast isn’t nessecarily the best thing. After all, if you’re up front before you’re close enough to cross the finish line, I can just throw this blue shell and...”

A string of cuss words too quick for Billy to comprehend burst from Pietro’s mouth as the blue shell made contact with Toad’s car.

“Stupid girl! Look what you’ve done!”