She kissed him and it was like he wasn't even trying. Like kissing a dead fish maybe. She was tryna mover her lips around a little, elicit some sort of response from him... and nothing.

Or, well, not nothing... but not what she had expected at least.

He put a hand on her shoulder and at first she thought that finally maybe he was getting it, but then he pushed. Like, away. He paused at her to move away.

She did so, immediately, and confusion as plain on her face. What, was he not a kissing kinda guy-

...oh...

Oh @#$% he was full-on crying.

"h-hey! Oh, @#$%, hey, it's okay. Hey, sit down, okay?" She flapped her arms uselessly for a moment without touching him, trying to airplane signal him to take a seat on her couch while she scrambled to figure out what to do. Nobody had ever cried on her before! Kissing someone hadn't ever sent them into hysterics, before!

She'd experienced it herself a few times, years ago, but hadn't ever been on the receiving end.

"Are you okay? I'm not gonna touch you, alright? See, hands totally off! Hook up is over! I'm sorry!"

She was panicking a bit, certain about what to do and trying to think back to what people had done for her in the past. Mason had always just rubbed her back and let her cry it out... and after him, the few other people who had ever witnessed her lose it during romantic relations hadn't stuck around or helped at all.

"I'm sorry, I'm not good at this.. are you sure you don't want some water?!" She hovered, feeling like a useless problem, and waited.

Over eighty years of life and he really didn't have anything figured out, did he? Here he was, humiliating himself infront of this simple girl with a stream of tears that ran unabetted from his eyes. To make things worse, she was supportive of him in this situation.

Amazing, he couldn't even be mad at her. He couldn't think any way toward her. He could only think of Edna. Their first kiss. Her looking at him with those eyes. He clenched up as she guided him to the couch, and he coughed out a short apology again before taking a deep breath, and staring at the floor.

"This... Ahem... This was... a mistake... I am sorry. I just... I can't do this. I..." He shouldn't tell her everything, should he? Well, why not, actually? She was a stranger. The odds of him seeing her again were infinitesimally small, and he did have some things to get off his chest. "I can't do this. I keep thinking about her..."

He waved away the water, peeling his glasses from his eyes so that he could wipe his face on his sweater.

"That's okay. It's not that bigga deal, really." And it wasn't. Plenty of fish in the sea and all that.

She sat and listened to him as she talked and fiddled with her fingers in her lap. Ah.... he'd broken up with someone then? As someone who looked around her age, she could only assume as much.

"...I'm sorry. How long have you been broken up?" A rebound hookup made a lot of sense, especially for how awkward he had been. She'd been there to a degree. Wanting the same old feeling, but lacking the person who had mattered most in the creation of those feelings.

If anything puzzling that out at least made her feel a lot less horrible. It wasn't something she had done, it was just someone trying to heal. Literally, nothing she could do could be nearly as bad as what her mother had said to her when she had lost Mason all those years ago.

"Or, if you don't wanna talk about it that's okay. I've just heard talking about it can help or whatever."

Her supportive thoughts were strangely annoying to him as he opted to look at the ground instead She was wrong. He had not broken up with anyone. "Edna passed away three years ago..." He paused and looked up to her, sniffling loudly.

"I was married to her for sixty years..." He closed his eyes... Remembered their wedding. They'd had to marry in secret; it was a different time. Mixed couples were still frowned upon. But she'd looked so beautiful in her mother's dress.

"I wanted to try and forget her... but I know I can't now..." He sniffled one last time, wiped his eyes, and sat up straight, with dignity, looking to the young woman next to him. "Young lady, I will not use you to try and forget my wonderful marriage." He paused, and looked to her.

She was blinking like a strobe light. "I am 97 years old."

Oh, well crap. Way to go Juniper. Not a breakup, he was in mourning still.

"Sorry." She'd gone and assumed that because of his age he was-

...wait, come again? Had he just said 60.

Her brain full-on bluescreened.

She wasn't agisted or anything, but generally when time tick-tocked along it kind of made of show of it on things. Like... wrinkles, and age spots. Gray hair. Lotsa things!

Indeed, she was blinking at him repeatedly and her eyebrows had shot all the way up to her hairline, too.

97 years old? Didn't that make him like... a catfish? Or did that only apply if you looked different from your tinder picture?

There was a very fine line he was treading. On one side was 'This person is a lunatic' and on the other, 'This seems like another whacky mutation-related shenanigan'. She couldn't figure out which was which and had to remind herself that it probably didn't matter in the end. He felt how he felt and that was the primary concern.

"...that's... totally fine?" She had no idea what to say to someone who's the wife of 60 something years had died. That was a lot of time... she was barely at 20 yet!

Also, now the old man sweaters totally made sense!

He didn't need to patch into her wavelength to know when it dawned on her that this situation wasn't typical. His situation wasn't typical. He could hear her thoughts as he looked her way. The tangents, the... silly notions. He allowed himself to recover quickly from the moment of weakness.

"I never lied to you... It's nothing like catfishing." He'd watched a report on the strange social phenomenah a few weeks back.

He cleaned his glasses quickly with his sweater before placing them back on, and pushing them up with his index finger.

"I assure you I am not insane. Surely you have seen the reports of people suddenly becoming younger. I am a victim of such an attack." He was casually speaking in response to her thoughts, and spoke nothing to explain it.

"Also, these sweaters look great on me."

Oh, had she said that out loud? Jeez! embarrassing. When though-

He went on about not being insane and brought up other things that she was more than certain she had only said in her head. Especially that part about old man sweaters.

She had heard about the de-aging fiasco. One of the biggest thorns in her side had been affected by it as well. But, that wasn't important anymore.

Simon could see inside her head. He was reading her thoughts or something! And, unlike how it was portrayed in movies and comics where the main character was afraid of his or her crush being revealed, or pervy thoughts, or secret military codes...

... There were monsters in her head. Secrets she didn't want anyone knowing, not even some reverse aged nerd who she'd just met.

The phaser stood, putting some distance between herself and Simon, and tried really really hard to think of nothing, Nothing but black, inky darkness. No glimpses of faces, no flashes of memories or words.

Just black.

"You need to go."

She stared at him, eyes wide like he was some frightening predator bent on eating her. She wanted him as far away as possible from her right that moment, and the easiest way to do that was to forcefully eject him from her apartment herself. 

She extended her power through a foot into the floor, and from her hand into the couch, phasing both. The couch didn't budge an inch since she had a grip on it, but the few pillows she had on it started to fall with Simon. Straight through the floor and into the occupied apartment below, who's sole occupant screamed as the body that seemingly materialized in her living room in the middle of tea and her tv soaps.

Once he was gone, Juniper hurried to make sure her door was locked securely, and then went to hide in her room with her cats.