What a brutal week. Every day he'd been woken up at 3am by Jr. He'd have to wrestle him to sleep, just to wake up a few hours later to get up for his security shift and wrangle the little one to come along with him. From there, putting out every fire in the mansion with a kid in tow, all while changing diapers, feeding, and being attentive to a little human.

So, when Grandpa offered to watch Jr. for the day, he happily took him up on the offer. Bless that man. He was a @#$%in saint for this. Honestly, he didn't know how he'd have made it this far without Shelby's dad helping out. Colin's assistance left him with a security shift, still, but that was pretty much over already. He had the rest of the day to himself.

Part of him wondered if he should pick up a shift for the NYPD, but he opted for another passtime instead. It had been a while, but he was acutely aware of a hidden stash of adult beverages in a certain now young Sam's office. Back in the day he used too pop in there all of the time to grab a drink, and it felt like now was as good a time as any to revisit old habits. Beside, all that beer had to be gathering dust with all of the people who knew about it being away from the mansion or too young to drink anymore. Wouldn't want it all to go to waste, right?

So, Saphirus wandered into Sam's office, casually moved the book that opened the bookcase entrance, keyed in the code, and rolled into the hang out, closing everything up behind him. He stood for a moment, taking a deep breath. Ah, the memories from back here. Good times. With a low hum he opened the fridge, pausing for a moment as he examined the contents.

Emptier than the last time he'd looked. Was young Sam drinking on the down low? He sighed deeply. Well, it was his beer, but he'd have to talk to him about it. Oh well! He grabbed two bottles, and cracked one open, walking to the couch to turn on the TV. The MegaBowl was on Auto Record, and he'd missed it, so yeah, it was a good chance to see how that went. Good stuff! He reached for a bottle to give to JR, and paused. Right, He wasn't here. Huh.

Jesus Christ, Math class had basically reamed her a new one after a few days of not studying or doing any homework. Not to mention all of her other classes and all of the make-up work she'd gotten from them.

Xavier had run off to do his hero thing, or training or whatever. She was honestly too tired to go home yet, and thirsty to boot. Your average sip of water wasn't going to help, either.

Thankfully, Good ole Sam had shown her the perfect haven where she could steal a moment for herself and have that drink she wanted. Well practiced steps by that point led her into is office, and with the help of her power she waltzed right through the secret bookcase door and into the den.

It didn't take long for her to register that she wasn't alone, although she didn't recognize the guy right off the bat. She didn't let that stop her from heading right on over to the fridge, reaching through the door to snag herself a beer. She'd remained almost wholly intangible the whole time, too.

She solidified near the arm of the couch after phasing the lid off of the bottle, took a sip, and nodded at him. It was all very... casual. "Yo. What game?" She really wasn't into sports a whole lot, but occasionally watched.

The teen sipped her drink innocently, squinting at him slightly as it dawned on her who he was. Oh hey! He was the guy who ran some security for the school, and also the Masochist. He usually had a baby strapped to his chest when she spotted him around the halls.

"Much needed break from the kid?"

Was... A pair of feet walking to the bookshelf? What? Wait, what? He barely registered anything as the young woman walked through the wall, but the feeling of her movements stood out to him. He couldn't help but stare wide eyed as she walked through the book case wall and toward the fridge. Was she... not there? His sixth sense only felt part of her. Creepy.

Wait, she was grabbing a beer? Who the #$@^ was this broad? Wait, was it one of Sam's girlfriends? Did Sam have girlfriends? How did she even know about this room?! He had so many questions! He was still staring by the time she had a seat next to him, and asked about the game. When she nodded at him, his eyebrow just rose.

"Eh... The Mega Bowl. Who are you?"

It was strange. He could feel different parts of her popping in an out of existence. Visibly, they were there, but otherwise, they were not. The bottlecap did the same, and she imbibed. Wait. She looked young, didn't she?

"Yeah, What about you? Just done with class?" She was a student, right? If she was, she was probably under age. Bold of her to assume she wasn't about to get into trouble for that. He didn't recognize her, but she seemed to know who he was. Strange.

"Juniper." She replied simply, raising an eyebrow back like it mirrored his own.

Really, she didn't know why Xavier freaked out so much about meeting the X's. Here she was sitting next to one like it was normal as pie. They were just people right? People who sometimes wore spandex and capes.

Uh-oh. Seemed like he was fishing. She smiled a smile that had too many teeth in it and sipped her beer again. "Yeah, my class ended a bit ago. The GED program here has a different schedule than the other classes. Figured i'd stop by and see if Sam was in before I went home."

She turned her attention back to the game, like she wasn't a 19 year old drinking beer and sitting next to what was basically a cop.

Juniper. She casually gave her name. She was good at playing it cool, but it just felt too...

Practiced? Like, who just popped in and sat next to someone like him? He was 240lbs of muscle and mean looks. No one who didn't already know him ever just scooted on up. He eased a bit when she mentioned the GED program. Alright, so she could be any age...

Still, it almost felt like a counter measure to his heat seeking missile. He eyes her suspiciously for a moment.

The mention of Sam was expected, but which Sam did she know? He was willing to bet it was young Sam, which maybe put her in the same age range.

"Well, Juniper. You old enough to be drinking that?" He stated plainly as he set his beer down, and reached up to pat a nonexistent baby before shifting uncomfortably. No baby. Right. No baby.

He wondered what Jr. was up to...

"I'm 23. I've been of age a few years now." She blinked at him as he did a weird motion with one hand, like there was supposed to be something on his chest that just wasn't there any more. The baby? Maybe.

She lifted her beer again as someone on screen went tearing past the goal and everyone erupted into cheering.

It wasn't the first time someone had been rightly suspicious, considering how young she looked. She was used to having to explain it away. It was second nature by that point. Besides, her real age was only a few years off so it wasn't like it was a big leap anyway. She Was much more mature than your average tween trying to get their hands on a beer.

Speaking of... She finished hers off and set it on table with his empty one. He had two, she noticed, and as tempting as it was to go grab another one she didn't wanna push her luck. It was probably better to take off before he started demanding an ID or something.

"Whelp. Better head on out. I'll have to catch Sam another time after class." She stood with practiced ease, not a hint of a nervous air about her.

"Nice chatting with ya! Enjoy your break." She was planing on leaving the same way she had come in. No need to fiddle with codes or books, or whatever mechanical trickery it was that the tall by had used to get inside.

Why yes, he did have the maybe baby blues. Yes indeed. He hid it well enough, though. She hid well enough, too, as her general confidence settled him down quite a bit. Okay, so she was a bit young, but Sam hung out with all types. She was getting her GED, though... He couldn't judge; he didn't get his until he was 29... here, actually.

She quickly finished her beer, placing it down next to his half full one. Huh... She'd finished that quick. And... She was leaving?

No... She was retreating. "Hang on a sec. Mind if I take a look at your ID? I hate to be a bother, but I am now one of the few adults here... Gotta cover my bases, you know?" He held out a hand, waving it in as if to say 'hand it on over'.

She stopped, mid-step, and turned to blink at him. "Oh, no I understand."

And then she made a bit of a show by reaching back and patting for a wallet that was totally there, but phased and only slightly visible if someone were to look for it.

Her expression shifted into one of surprise, and then a bit sheepish as her hands came back empty. She pretended to search her front sweatshirt pocket once, before the sheepish grin was angled the mans way.

"Sorry, I think I forgot my wallet at home today. I must have left it in my other pants."

Well, that should take care of that. Unless he was going to try and frisk her, which she would thoroughly enjoy, there was no way to prove that she did in fact have it on her.

"I can pop on over there and bring it back if you want?"

Oh my god. If he hadn't seen so, so many kids do that exact same thing while trying to bar hop under age he MIGHT have been convinced by her actions. I mean. Point for point, he'd done the EXACT same thing. Back pockets first, oh, check the hoodie, that'll f@#%in sell it.

Jesus. He blinked a few times, and then shrugged. "Hey, no problem. I know, I'll check the student records real quick. Boy am I glad we went electronic. One sec." He pulled out his phone and finger print unlocked it, pressing a little X icon, and waiting for the database to open, all while looking at her with a meek smile on his face.

"Don't you worry, I'll just confirm your age real quick and you can be on your way."

God @#$%ing damnit, the internet was a horrible thing sometimes.

Her eyes might have widened marginally, but otherwise she showed no signs of the internal panic currently invading her system.

She looped her thumbs in her back pockets as he spoke, palming the wallet and pushing it in. "Oh, great idea! I didn't even think of that."

The string of curse words fluttering through her head at that moment would make a well traveled sailor blush.

She pretended to yawn and lifted her arms slowly, dragging her wallet along with a few fingers where it couldn't be seen inside her baggy sweater. It was left wedged snugly in the cup of her bra, and as her arms went over her head in a lazy stretch and she sucked her diaphragm in, the slim wallet dropped straight to the ground at her feet.

She was the perfect picture of surprised, blinking at it like she wasn't expecting it to be there, before stooping to get it.

"Oh! That's right, I had tucked it in my bra to avoid pick pockets. Sorry!"

Flipping it open, she fished her ID, which was a pretty good fake one, out and left the real ID buried deep underneath a slew of gift cards to various places.

"Here you go!" She crossed the space between them to hand him the small card politely, pleasant smile fixed in place.

His head tilted in spite of himself. Something... Appeared... in her. It was a strange feeling. His sense usually tracked fast moving objects, but he definitely picked up... weird, spooky @#$% going on with this girl's body... It was sorta like with Ghost, how he sometimes saw her, but did not feel her.

Like she was lighter than air.

What was odd, though, was the sudden feeling of parts of her body come into existence, and blinking out again... And things on her sort of stood out at odd moments because of it... Like the Wallet that suddenly appeared in her bra.

Yup. This was fishy as @#$%.

He leaned back in the chair as she leaned down to pick up her freshly dropped wallet. Yup. Gotta make sure them pick pockets don't steal the wallet that you can pop in and out of existence. For sure.

She produced an ID, and he looked slightly surprised. Huh... She did have an ID. He grabbed it and looked it over for a moment. Juniper Brown... Date of birth... Yep... She was 23. Yep... Slowly a smile started to spread over his face.

"Wow... Allen still makes these, huh?" He spun it about in his fingers looking it over front to back, and holding it up to the light. "Wow... He's gotten even better." Saphirus looked over to her. "Always puts a little tiny signature where people usually put their thumbs, though. He's proud of his work. Thinks he's an artist." The experienced X-Man looked back to her, and slowly folded the ID's corners together.

It snapped right in half. "He still can't get the flexibility right, though. Dang. Same thing happened to mine when I was your age."

He picked up his beer again, looking over to her. "Got a real ID, kid?"

She let herself stew in a little bit of smug satisfaction for a bit at the look of surprise on his face. Yep! She had one and it was a damn perfect dupe for the real-...

... why was he smiling?

The teen might have gone as white as a sheet as it dawned on her that he knew. Apparently he knew a fricken lot, like the effing guy she had even purchased it from. All of that smugness seemed to be in his corner of the ring now, as he was pointing out facts about her ID that even she hadn't known about.

And then he snapped it.

Her soul pretty much left her body, and if she were a weaker person she might had fricken fainted on the spot. Instead, she was sweating up a storm and inching away slightly. This was it! She was done for! She was going to get expelled and then Xavier would revoke her BFF privileges and she would need to find a new city to start all over again in.

She snapped out of her lucid nightmare and blinked at him, her face taking on a few shades of red as she fished out her old, totally expired Ohio state temporary permit, which was in surprisingly good condition for being made out of paper and over 4 years old.

She handed it over without a word, unable to form any coherent sentences at the moment as she stared forlornly at the bisected remnants of her pass to freedom.

"I never should have stuck up for how nice your butt looked in spandex, you're an assassin of joy." If it hadn't sounded so hollow, it might had come across as mean. Maybe it was just petty instead.

The reaction when he snapped the ID was priceless. Heh, these kids. Not that he didn't remember a time when pretty much everyone in the mansion other than him had a fake ID. Hell, most of the X-Men where under age by the time he'd joined.

He held out his hand to receive her well kept permit, looking at it with a raised eyebrow. Yep. That made a lot more sense. She wasn't exactly a baby, but she wasn't old enough to drink.

As he reached to hand back the permit, she spoke, and he stared at her for a beat.

And then he burst out laughing. "Hehehehehe! Assassin of joy! That's the best thing I've ever heard!" He clutched his gut, chuckling heartily for a good moment before looking up at her. "Well, there we have it. You lied, you got caught, you have no fake ID." He stretched, dropped the snapped ID pieces on the floor, and sat back down to watch the game.

"We're even. Have a good one, Juniper."

What an absolute asshat.

No, they were not even. Not by a long shot. He'd just destroyed one of the best parts of her life and then had the audacity to laugh in her face about it. Revenge would be had!

She watched mutely as the big, buff man sat his tush back on the comfy couch to watch his game. He thought this was over. He dismissed her without so much as a backward glance. Juniper could feel her face heating up in tandem with her temper and struggled momentarily with what to do. It would be assault if she harmed him in some way, and that would get her kicked out of the school. Fusing him with that stupid couch cushion of his was probably also out of the question.

She could practically feel steam coming out of her ears by the time she settled on something to do, and hoped Sam would be able to forgive her in the long run. Heck, she'd just offer to buy him a new couch if he ended up pissed about it.

Her fingers toughed the back of the couch as she stepped forward and without much effort the whole thing vanished right out from under the man's pompous, well sculpted ass. She wasn't done yet though, oooh no. Sam had told her she could make herself comfortable in his secret room, so so that is what she was going to do.

... Even if it involved leaving his secret man cave entirely.

With the large piece of furniture still completely phased, and barely a few second after she had decided to enact her bout of immature revenge, she hefted the weightless, phased couch above her head and turned on her heels to run straight through the bookcase wall with it.

That's right. It was her couch now. If he wanted to watch his stupid game he could do it from the floor!

If he came after her he'd find her gone once he got to the other side, but the couch would be left neatly wedged in the middle of the hallway waiting for him

Have fun getting it back inside, d@#$bag!