She was fully aware that it had been months since she had spoken with her best friend at any length. She'd stopped going to classes and therefore didn't need help getting to school anymore. Didn't need any help with homework, either. She'd also taken to replying rarely to his texts and only stopping by to eat the wonderful food he made when he caught her in person and she was too slow to think up a good excuse to leave. 

Her recent run in with death and talking with Saph had put some stuff into perspective for her, though... so she kinda wanted to change it. 

But... how?

It wasn't like she could just jump back into his life after ghosting him, right?

Then again... she had just bought that $600 stylish Banjo and was dying to show it to him. Also, she was part of a hastily thrown together band with a hot guy who was kinda into like, emo punk? Those things were news worthy enough to crash whatever he had going on over there, right?

Sure!

Slinging her new instrument on she ditched her shoes and took a full running leap at the wall they shared, phased through it, and landed remarkably well for someone without much balance normally. 

"Xavier! I bought a Banjo!" 

She plucked a few twangy strings just because, and grinned a grin that didn't quite meet her eyes. 

Now, what was the easiest way to say 'I'm sorry for being a distant jerk to you'...?

He was hitting the heavy bag. It was the time of day that he did so, and he was certainly a creature of habit. He'd found that laundry time was the best time to get some heavy bag in. After that he would reply to some fan mail, and then go out on patrol for a couple of hours before dinner, studying, and the bed time!

He'd planned out every day to make time for everything, as cosidering everyone all of the time took... well, all of the time. He stepped to the right, and threw a hard left that shook the whole hanging back violently before ducking down and sending a right in followup that rocked it even more.

It was a good combo, he stepped back after a few jabs and grabbed his hand towel, wiping himself down turing to placed the towl to the side just as Juniper suddenly flung herself through the wall to announce that she... bought a banjo.

So... It had been a while since she'd popped over, and... well... he'd taken to an old practice.

He'd been boxing naked. What? Nothing breathed better than nothing! He quickly grabbed up the little towel and covered himself. "Oh, yeah, cool Banjo! I, um, gotta get dressed real quick. Sorry."

He backed into the bathroom, and was soon out with a fresh set of clothes.

"Okay! There we go. So, uh, long time no see?"

Because he was her best buff friend forever, she gave him the courtesy of covering her face with the round body of her instrument. Of course, that didn't stop the barely muffled giggling from babbling out.

She'd, uh, forgotten he had a habit of doing that...

Juniper waited patiently for him to dress and come back out, before fully lowering her Banjo and standing there awkwardly on the cushions of his couch.

"Yeah... Um."

... Well, this was awkward. It had gone a lot smoother when she ran through it in her head.

"...Sorry."

And she was, really. The Phaser shifted her gaze off to the side and fidgeted. Had she told him that Clyde died? She couldn't remember. He probably would have pestered her more if she had.

"I didn't mean to, um... be away so long. But, like, stuff happened and I dunno... I guess I thought it was better if I stayed away?"

She hid behind the Banjo a bit, face scrunched up and waiting for a reply.

Fully clothed, and smiling widely. She stood there and wavered in the wind like a soiled flag on a pole for a bit as he stood there trying to figure out why.

She apologised, and his hands popped out and waved a bit as she did so, and started explaining herself. "Hey, Juni, don't worry! I get it. It's good to see you!" He smiled and walked over to his sink to get a glass of water. The workout in the room had kicked up the humidity a bit, so he needed a cooldown.

"Want anything while I'm over here?"

That all said and done, he would lean back on the kitchen counter and look her way. The counter looked really small in comparison to him; he could practically sit on the darn thing.

"How've you been? I see you got the Banjo, so that's neat. You'd talked about it before a bit." He smiled and crossed his arms, awaiting a response. It had been a little quiet the last month or so around here, though he always found people to talk to, it just wasn't the same without Juni popping in.

He.... did?

...

Just like that?

She was a little thrown off, to be honest. She'd kinda expected him to, like... press more? Well, she'd been wrong about him before so it wasn't exactly a new phenomenon.

She offered a small smile and plopped herself down on the cushions cross legged, plucking away a slow, meandering tune gently.

"No thanks."

Was it weird that this felt normal? Or was that a normal thing? She'd felt so guilty about trying to distance herself that she had expected there to be more of an issue just trying to hope right back in... Maybe her Anxiety had blown it all out of proportion.

"I-"

She started to respond casually like she normally would have, but... that wouldn't quite be honest, would it? "Well.. a lot happened." It had been a while since she had played the Banjo like this. At least a year? It was hard to forget it after she learned, but it did take a bit for her fingers to get back into a smooth hooked motion without cramping all the time.

"Clyde died," She offered another smile, one that warbled at the edges and didn't really do much other than show she was trying, "Got old, I guess. We drove up into the woods so I could bury him and I guess I checked out for a bit."

He totally missed her reaction to his instant acceptance, taking a long drink of his water. Yeesh, he really needed to remember to hydrate better! He'd gone a little hard on the heavy bag today.

He looked over as she said I, and faltered, tilting his head a little bit. Was something wrong? He set his glass of water down.

A long happened. Okay, that made sense. It had been a bit. His expression shifted when she said Clyde died, and he was upon her in seconds with a giant embrace. "Oh, Juni, I'm so sorry..."

He was warm, and a little bit sweaty from his workouts, but a universal truth would become incredibly evident if it hadn't already for her. This man... Gave the best hugs in the universe. It was like being hugged by a nana with a heart of cold and a rough and tumble lumberjack who loved you more than anything at the same time.

"I noticed he hadn't been around... Oh, I'm gonna miss him..." Was he getting sad as well? You bet he was crying. Big dopey tears. Clyde was his buddy. His giant, food stealing buddy.

She stiffened up like he was going to attack her as his arms circled around and closed in for a hug. Like... she wasn't used to that. When she hugged people it was with a purpose and generally meant to end up in the sheets. Just huggig for the sake of hugging, or for comfort were so alien feeling that it was almost painful.

Her chest seized, her arms tightened naturally around the Banjo, which produced very causing strangled sounds in protest. She had to actively remind herself that this was Xavier and that she didn't need to react like something bad was going to happen because this was literally the only place in the world where she was realistically 100% safe.

After a moment she was able to de-petrify herself, but the similar pain she could hear in his voice and the fact that he was crying just absolutely broke all the progress she'd gained on getting past Clyde's passing.

The usual mask of 'everything's fine and I'm okay' snapped in a flat second and she was blubbering just as bad as he was all over again.

She wasn't one for hugging herself, felt awkward even trying, so she just laid a palm on one of the arms he's trapped her in and let herself bask in the feeling of not being alone. ...It... it really hadn't been fair to him when she'd assumed that he just didn't care.

"..D'i ever tell you where I found him?" She doubted she had. Talking about herself and her past was still something she struggled with. She was determined to get better at it from now on, though.

Quietly, between hiccups and pauses, she wandered through the story of how she and Clyde had met. How they had hopped around in her car together through so many cities and states. She let Xavier know that Clyde had never before broken into someone else's apartment in any of the other places she had lived. Xavier had been special in that regard, and she wanted him to know that.

"-put him in this little clearing I found where the trees didn't have branches all up the middle, right? So, like, when it was sunny the light landed right in that spot for him. And, next year all the blackberry bushes will have grown back so nothing will try and dig him up. Plus, there was a big ole crow nest up one of the trees, and he'd always wanted to be able to take one of those suckers down."

She'd calmed down finally. The flare of loss had dulled and with it the flood of tears.

There it was. Sometimes you just needed one more good cry over something. Xavier had found over the years that a good hug could work wonders on breaking the dam of emotions that came with loss. It was like wringing a self filling sponge at times, but it seemed that over time, the sponge filled slower and slower.

He sat her down and wiped his eyes, jetting off to go make tea. It always made him feel a little better to feel the warmth of a steaming cup in his hands. Soon, they were sitting, banjo to the side, and just... talking about clyde.

"No, I don't think so..." He took a sip of his tea, and listened patiently, tearing up a bit when he found out he was Clydes only pilfer buddy. A chuckle came when she mentioned the crows nest.

Little Clyde was living his best bird hunting life on the other side... Or sleeping in a pile of potato chips next to a torn bag. That was a possibility, too.

He smiled and patted her shoulder, looking across the room and zoning out for a second before he got that... familiar feeling. Like... He wasn't prepared. Like he'd left himself vulnerable.

A little orange fuzzball came out of nowhere and clawed up his face, before fading into the shadows. He yelped and held his cheek and nose. "....ow... I... let my guard down... Foolish me..."

"Milli strikes again! Want me to get you some bandaids?"

She watched the small cat zoom off, suppressed a laugh that didn't feel appropriate considering he was bleeding and looked down into the steaming teacup he had given her.

"Never really liked tea a whole lot." Her nose wrinkled slightly, "My mom got heavily into herbal MLM's and there was always tons of the stuff around the house. She said it could cure anything if you just had the right herbs."

She lifted the cup and took a sip. As someone who preferred coffee more, she couldn't say it was great... but she appreciated it all the same and wouldn't waste it.

"... I started seeing my therapist again. I'm trying to be more...open? I guess." It was still hard. And painful. Like trying to rip the bandaid off, but it's superglued to you.

"I kinda got sucked into some weird time-warping power shenanigans and almost died, so I kinda owe it to people to at least try this time around."

She pepped up in a flat second though, upon remembering the Banjo and how she'd gotten it and why she'd wanted to show it off to Xavier in the first place.

"Oh! Right! I got a Banjo! And it's almost exactly like my old one. Like, nearly perfect except for the weird bug on the back, but whatever." She set her half drank cup of tea down and snatched up the instrument again.

"I missed playing a lot since my last one got stolen and I just moved on with my old guitar."

He nodded quickly at the offer for bandaids. She knew where the first aid kit he kept in the bathroom was. In the meantime he kept pressure on his new cuts and looked up at the ceiling. "Heh... That Milli... Always... Playin so rough..." He looked around for the deadly little assassin, but couldn't spot her.

He looked over after the patch job was complete and smiled. "I like tea. It's nice to feel warm inside, and I don't do a whole lot of caffiene myself, so herbal teas are nice." He had a seat against his table as they talked. Tilting his head a bit as she mentioned going to her therapist again... He hadn't been aware that she'd stopped. Maybe he should have tried harder to make sure she was okay...

He raised an eyebrow at her time warping statement. "Uhm... Tell me more about that, because, what?"

She changed subjects quickly, and he looked down at the Banjo, smiling. "It looks pretty neat to me... Never learned to play... Seems like it'd be a whole lotta fun!" He nodded and had a seat as she picked it up.

"So... What're you up to today? Making the rounds and showing off your new toy?"

Juniper blinked at him, looked down at her Banjo as if she were torn between gushing about it more or answering his question about her near-death experience. After a moment she sighed and shifted back to the boring stuff.

"Well, I went to go check in with him, Mr. Therapy, after I got home from Clyde's funeral. I had to wait to change out of the clothes the bear ruined and wash all the mud off first, but anyway, I made an appointment and was gonna go but-"

She paused, suddenly remembering who it was she had stumbled on during that time and inadvertently gotten trapped with. He... probably wouldn't appreciate her gabbing about it. "-Buuuut he was with someone else already so I left for a while. I was gonna go back, but I bumped into some guy on the street and then this weird thing happened and suddenly we were in a forest? He said it looked like we'd been thrown back into Dinosaur times, which made sense because actually, dinosaurs tried to eat us."

She took a breath and then continued, "So anyway, were trapped there and didn't have a way back. Had to survive off the land for like, weeks? And somma those things don't taste very good. But anyway, everything got really hot and it was hard to breathe and the forest was on fire so we hid in a cave, but we only had so much water between us."

Going through this a second time, if perhaps in a little more depth, was... awkward. Anyone else other than Xavier would have gotten the shortened version, or a bald-faced lie instead.

"So there were, dyin' when this light kicks up all the sudden and we had to haul ass back to the patch of concrete she came in on. And then in a flash we were back, and I passed out. Woke up in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of iv's, and I've lost like... 20 pounds, but I'm still kicking."

She paused again, blinking at him, and then hefted her instrument up again. "So anyway, this Banjo-!"

For the majority of what she was saying his mouth hung open in shock, still managing to smile somehow. "Oh... Rewind about the bear?" He blinked.

"D-Dinosaur times... and... dinosaurs tried to eat you..." He blinked again. Eyebrows were through the roof as she explained that she was gone for weeks in... what even were dinosaur times.

"I... wow." He looked her up and down. Yeah, she'd certainly lost weight. Insane. This was all insane. She didn't even have a lot of meat on her bones to begin with." He looked a the ceiling for a second before standing up, walking over to his water, drinking the rest of it, and staring at her for a long moment.

"Yeah, you know, it's New York. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. As long as you are okay... That's what matters." He paused for a second and started to fill his glass for a second. "So, who is this guy you were trapped with?" I was asked innocently enough. Someone had helped her through a tough experience... Or she'd helped them, that was also possible. Maybe he could make them a... gift bag or something?

"So, I'll have to adjust the dinner plan to aim for weight gain for a bit..."

For someone who'd known her for almost a whole year, he seemed awfully shocked at how bat-sh*t crazy her life could be.

"The bear? A bear tried to dig up Clyde, so I have to scare it off. Got a swipe in at me before I realized what was going on." Totally normal shenanigans for her. She'd encountered lots of bears over her years camping out in the woods!

Back to the Dinosaurs though. "Yeah. It was pretty crazy. Giant friggen things anyway. I panicked and pushed a tree over on a T-rex, I think.... kinda tasted like Gator. The Giant Rat things don't taste very good."

She went back to softly strumming and watched him move around. "Weirdest thing was getting back here and realizing that only a few minutes had actually passed, I guess. I would have figured it was some wacky metal trip or a nightmare, but I was all beat up still so..." She shrugged. There wasn't any sense in being all worked up about it now. It had happened, she was alive still, and that was that.

He asked about who she had been with and she plucked a string wrong, sending a sharp shrill of notes into the air.

"Oh.. uh... heh, about that..." She supposed it was okay if she told him who she had been with since she had made it sound like the person she went with and the one seeing her therapist had been different people, right? His girlfriend would probably find out and tell him anyway... right?

"The guy I bumped into was your girlfriend's dad. It was a very long, awkward few weeks."

As she thought about it though, the more she reflected back on the sad last moments the two of them had in what they thought was the end.

"He's not all bad, actually. Kinda thought he was a super jerk for a while, but... he really missed his family when we thought it was over. Heck, kinda saved my life too, I guess. I didn't think I was gonna make it back in time and he dragged me along with."

She hummed absently in response to his comment about food and potions. "Nah, don't worry about it. I've been skinny before, it'll all come back eventually."

To be fair, fighting dinosairs in the triassic period was insane even for her. He blinked at the bear. How was a bear attack a normal part of her day? He looked up, imagining it for himself... Honestly, he wouldn't be too freaked out if a bear attacked him, but he would still talk about it!

Dinosaurs on the other hand... He wouldn't have been able to stop talking about it. "Those are our early descendants, then... wow... You ate some of the first mammals..." He creased his brow when she added that it had all wrapped up in a few minutes modern time. His little hamster gave up on the wheel, and he just... finished his second glass of water.

He froze up when he heard she'd been trapped there with none other than the Masochist. "... I'll be right back." He walked into the bathroom... Too much water.

A flush and a thorough wash later, he was out, staring at her. "So... You, uh... spent several weeks with my girlfriend's dad?" He walked over, and listened to her explain with some skepticism. He just... couldn't see that guy acting softly. But, she was saying it, and he trusted her, so he turned and walked over to the heavy bag, staring at it pensively. "I'll have to thank him, I guess... I'm glad you made it back, either way. You're my best friend, and I don't want to lose you..." He looked back, frowning a bit, before shaking it off. "Oh, you'll gain it back! You're about to get a crash course in healthy weight gain!"

He grinned widely, and hopped over to his cupboards to start digging before pausing. "Oh, um... Did you have a plan already when you popped over, or just saying hi?"

Eye eyes nearly popped out. "Wait, does that mean I'm like some kinda cannibal now?!"

Juniper wasn't quite aware of how deep X's dislike for the Xman went. She knew he had opinions him and that some of them were no doubt colored by the screaming fest that had gone down in Xavier's apartment when the frilly naked apron incident had happened, but other than that she had specifically chosen not to snoop. It was bad enough she had punched his soon-to-be girlfriend in the face and started a war between Lucifer and herself.

"Yeah. Honestly, I wasn't too jazzed about it at first. I wasn't exactly stanning him at that moment and we basically just tried to get by with as little interaction as possible. The guys still a big ole turd in a lot of ways, just... not as much of one as I had assumed I guess."

Him telling her that he would have missed her and going so far as planning to thank Saph did funny things to her. Like her heart thumped weirdly for a moment and a shadow of horrible, overwhelming guilt populated overhead.

... She hadn't even really wanted to come back. Not really... She'd just figured that everyone would be fine off without her.

His determination on feeding her helped to lessen the feelings she didn't wanna feel, but couldn't make it go away outright.

"I'm, um, I'm sorry about being kinda a jerk to your girlfriend. Her dad kinda laid into me about being snarky about her and told me some stuff about her and why she is the way she is, and I dunno... I guess I'm sorry if I was out of line or anything."

Apologies were the. absolute. Worst.

"I guess I was still kinda mad at her for stabbing you that one time and she seems pretty mean to you a lot... I guess it made me worry about you. Like... are you happy? I don't know why ya like her as much as you seem to, but if you're happy I'm happy for you."

She was full-on cringing now. Words just kinda spilling out like rice from a torn bag, and she couldn't patch it up quick enough.

"So, I, well, to say Hi, yes, but also to like, apologize for up and vanishing on you. I dunno, I just felt like I needed to stay away a bit more because you're dating now and I didn't want her getting mad at you for me poping in and bothering you or whatever." Relationships, and all of the wacky intrinsic rules that came with them, would probably always be out of her grasp of understanding. Why had she willfully chosen to be in one again? Who know!

"I also did wanna see if you'd be interested in coming to a show that I and a few other people are putting together a few nights from now. It's at a bar, but like one of those all-ages bars where they have bands play a lot?" Her whole face turned a bit red and she fiddled with tuning the strings on the banjo, which were already well-tuned.

"I've never played on like, a stage before. In parks and small groups and stuff, but... I dunno. A-anyway, if you wanna come I have freebie tickets and... you could bring your girlfriend, too."

Why did saying the word girlfriend always leave a sour taste in her mouth?