Marvel's Osmosian

It'd been a couple of days since my fight with Scott and we hardly saw him. I knew that Jean had tracked him down to check in on him, but he'd shut her down. Danger Room sessions were suspended for the moment, and it seemed like Xavier was trying to deal with whatever mood Scott was in right now.

Sitting at the lunch table with the rest of the X-Men, I idly enjoyed the pasta I'd brought from the institute while listening to them talk about the situation.

"I vote we do an intervention," Kurt offered.

While shaking her head in response Kitty said "It won't work. He just tells us to leave whenever we try to talk to him. Even Jean can't get through, and you know how he is."

"That may be because Casper rather openly commented on that," Jean said, some irritation leaking into her tone.

I shrugged my shoulders, not feeling particularly bad about blowing that whole thing open. "You've known for a while he was doing it, and I know that you know why he's doing it too. How long were you going to keep pretending otherwise?"

"I was figuring it out. It's a delicate situation," Jean replied, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"Out of curiosity, how do you feel about Scott?" Bobby asked her.

Jean looked around the table, seeing the rest of us looking at her with various degrees of interest. "Scott is a good friend, but no I don't see him the same way he sees me. Regardless, it shouldn't affect the team dynamic or how he makes plans."

"Which is why I brought it up," I said, smirking slightly. It'd been petty, but I couldn't say I wasn't enjoying this. "You want to fix the team dynamic? Tell Scott exactly what you just told us."

"And how exactly does that solve the problems between you two?" Jean reminded me.

"It doesn't, but those problems are probably not getting fixed. Realistically, I'll probably end up leaving at some point. The X-Men is Scott's dream, I don't think I want it to be my whole life."

That comment drew looks of surprise from most of the table. Surprisingly, it was Kitty of all people who agreed with me.

"Like, I get what we're working towards, but Casper's right. I don't want it to be my entire life."

"It's not like I'm going to leave this second, but me and Scott probably can't work out our issues. It'll come to a head again even if we patch it up for now." Seeing the distress in Kurt, Bobby, and surprisingly Jean. Laura had been pretty silent this whole time, sitting next to me eating her food, while Kitty got where I was coming from and Evan and Rogue were mostly indifferent.

"It's not like I'm going to go run off and join the Brotherhood you guys told me about," I joked lightly. That had been an interesting thing to note. I'd been around the X-Men for a while now and hadn't seen anything to do with the Brotherhood. The last time any of the X-Men had seen them was a little before I joined. They'd gotten into a big fight between the two groups and then vanished the next day.

That comment got me a light smack on the shoulder from Jean. She'd been acting weird with me, on the one hand, she was mad at me about the whole situation with Scott. On the other, she seemed to be weirdly interested in whatever I was doing.

----

The rest of the day passed by pretty quickly. With Scott being pissy, we had to get picked up by Ororo to get taken back to the institute. I could fly using hard light, but I wanted my own car. I'd been working on getting everything set up, and I had the money to buy one I just hadn't found the time.

Stepping into the institute, I was surprised by Jean asking if she could speak to me. Nodding to Laura, she continued on her way while I followed Jean into her room and took a seat on her desk chair.

"So, what'd you need?" I asked.

"Are you sure you want to leave?" she asked, sounding surprisingly unsure of herself.

Deciding to just be blunt about my confusion, I voiced my thoughts. "Jean, to be honest, I didn't think you liked me all that much. Why do you care if I leave?"

"I don't dislike you, you just tend to frustrate me," she sighed. "Ever since we went to that other universe I knew that things with you and Scott were going to be a problem. You seemed so closed off like none of us mattered to you other than Laura."

I could see where she was coming from. When I first came to the institute I let a lot of Xavier's actions in the comics affect my judgement of his behavior in the present. I pretty much just saw everyone as a power to be absorbed and then I'd leave, so I didn't want to get too close with any of them. I've been here long enough that I know Xavier isn't a bad person, even if I don't completely trust him. And the rest of the students have grown on me a lot, even if I'm not as close to Rogue and Evan as the rest.

"I just needed some time to adjust. I spent most of my life homeless, you tend to not feel comfortable when people start treating you the way Xavier did, basically giving me whatever I wanted."

Jean nodded, accepting my explanation. "I get that, it's just, I thought maybe you were starting to trust us a little more. You let me into your head, you never would have done that when you first got here."

Ah, now I was starting to get it. Jean didn't exactly have the best control of her telepathy so she tended to read everyone's surface thoughts without wanting to. She couldn't read me, which was nice but it probably felt like I hated her because of her power with how I talked about telepaths. 

"Jean, just to be clear, I don't hate you because you're a telepath. I don't even hate telepaths in general, but I like my privacy. I also know I would probably abuse it way more than you guys do," I said. I had gotten Jean's power by absorbing her, but I couldn't exactly practice it all that much when there were two, much stronger telepaths in my vicinity.

Jean seemed relieved at my response. "Okay, I just wanted to make sure. It was nice having someone choose to let me into their head instead of me accidentally hearing their thoughts."

I stood up from the chair, putting my hands in my pockets. "Well if that was all, I've gotta go find Laura."

"Yeah Casper, that was all I wanted. Just, you don't have to cut us off if you leave you know."

I nodded my head, starting to make my way to the door as I responded. "I think I'm starting to get that."

----

When I made my way back to my room, I found Laura lounging in my bed. When she saw me, she got up and walked up, grabbing my face and sniffing me.

"Well hello to you too," I asked, some confusion in my tone.

"You were alone in Jean's room," she said as if that explained everything.

"She wanted to talk about something, why are you sniffing me?"

Laura took a step back, looking me over before going over to my bed and leaning against the wall.

"Was curious."

Just getting more confused, I grabbed a water bottle from my mini-fridge and made my way over to the bed. Sitting down next to her, I asked "About what?"

"If you slept with her," Laura commented in the same tone she'd been using. That didn't stop me from choking on the water I had just started to take a sip of.

"Agh, Laura timing. Don't say stuff like that when I'm drinking."

She shrugged as I stopped coughing. "I can tell you didn't, so it doesn't matter."

"And why do you care if I sleep with Jean?" I asked, well aware of why she was asking. The problem was, I was pretty sure Laura didn't exactly understand a lot about relationships. I could tell she was pretty attached to me, and more than likely there was something more there, but she wasn't used to dealing with stuff like this. I was content to let her figure it out at her own pace.

Laura's eyebrows furrowed as she considered my question. "I don't know."

Thinking for a moment, a smirk formed on my face as I had an amusing idea. "You should go ask Logan why you feel like that. He's lived a long time, he can probably tell you."

Laura considered my words for a moment, before standing up from the bed and making her way out the door without another word.

'There you go Logan, you have fun talking about the Birds and the Bees with your daughter.'

Grabbing a rubber ball from my desk, I started to throw it up against the opposite wall, letting it bounce back and land in my palm as I tested an idea I'd been having about my powers.

----

I guess I should've expected it when Logan came tearing into my room an hour later and took me outside to the lawn.

"Real funny bub," he said with a grunt as he grabbed a beer from nowhere and began to drink it.

"I thought it was. How'd having 'The Talk' with your daughter go?"

"You know how hard it is to explain shit like that to someone like her? I got the point across in the first thirty minutes, and the next thirty was explaining why she couldn't just go to your room and sleep with you if she liked you," Logan grumbled, downing his beer the second he was done and opening another one.

I busted out laughing when I heard the tail end of his sentence. "Yeah, that sounds like Laura. She's certainly proactive."

Logan turned to me, looking me in the eye as he asked "How are you going to handle this? I don't care if Laura's got a crush, but you know how she is."

I sighed, reaching for a beer from the case he brought over before he smacked my hand away. "I know, which is why I haven't done anything even though I figured it out a while ago. I'm letting her figure things out, but I like Laura."

Logan considered my words for a moment before nodding. "Just try not to hurt her, she's delicate enough as it is." Seeing my look of amusement at his words he amended them. "Emotionally delicate, you knew what I meant."

"So what's this about you going to Red's room alone then?" he asked, some amusement coloring his voice.

"Does everyone actually think anything happened?" I asked raising my eyebrows in surprise.

"No, but that won't stop them-" Logan began before he paused, sniffing the air lightly and standing up abruptly.

"I've gotta handle something, make sure the kids don't leave."

"Kurt, Kitty, and Evan are out right now I think. You sure you don't want help?" I asked, kind of confused for a moment at what could be setting him off. 

"No, this one's mine to handle," Logan said, throwing his beer can away in a nearby trash and making his way to the garage. Listening to his response made it easy to figure out who exactly he'd smelled.

'So Sabertooth is here. The question is, is it just him or are more of the Brotherhood finally gonna show up.'

Making my way inside, I began to search around for everyone else as I heard the roar of Logan's motorcycle as he left. Bobby was easy to find, he was lounging in the sitting room watching a show.

Telling him Logan said not to leave for the moment, I began to make my way through the Institute. Ororo and Xavier were also currently out, so it was only me, Bobby, Laura, Jean, Rogue, and Scott in the building. I let Rogue know the same message, finding her in her room after knocking. I couldn't find Scott as I looked around, but Jean accepted my words as well. Finally, I found Laura where I figured she would be, in my room.

"Hey, Logan says we should stay put for the moment."

Laura nodded her head absentmindedly, still in thought. I was considering how I wanted to deal with this when the building started to shake.

"Laura," I started to say, but she was already on her feet, claws extended as she looked at me.

"Right, let's figure out what's going on."

The two of us made our way out of the room as the building continued to shake. The walls were starting to crack from the force.

'So it wasn't just Sabertooth, the rest of the Brotherhood are running around too.'

Running into the living room, I found Bobby had frozen someone who could only be Toad solid. His green skin and long, extended tongue were a dead giveaway.

"Hey Casper, think these are the Brotherhood they told us about?"

Toad began to struggle, his head still unfrozen. "No, no, no. This was my chance, I can't lose."

We were confused by what he meant before the wall behind Bobby was smashed apart, a large metal sphere floating through the hole. It opened up, extending chords of metal that wrapped around Bobby's arms and legs and pulled him into it, quickly flying out of the room as Laura and I chased after it.

"Bobby," I called out as I ran towards the sphere, but it took off into the sky. I was about to use my hard light to fly after it, but Laura called out to me before I could.

"Casper."

Looking at where she was, I could see a defeated Rogue on the ground, while a silver-haired young man smiled as he willingly walked into another metal orb. Rushing over to Rogue, we found she was just knocked out. Looking into the sky, I saw two more orbs float into the sky.

"Laura, find whoever is left, I'll check the other side of the grounds."

Splitting up from her, I ran around to the basketball court and found a defeated young man with long, brown hair and a tanned complexion. Walking up to him, I grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and hoisted him into the air.

"What's going on? Why are those orbs taking people?"

"Why would I tell you anything? It doesn't matter, I lost my shot is gone," he replied. While he was talking, I used my limited skills with telepathy to read his surface thoughts and get the gist of the situation. It was a natural selection game, the stronger mutants would be taken to meet the leader of the Brotherhood, while the losers would be left behind. This was Avalanche, the guy who was shaking the building and he'd lost to Scott.

"Casper, I found another guy knocked out by Jean I think," Laura said, coming running around the corner towards us.

"Okay, I know what's going on," I started to say, dropping Avalanche as I made my way toward her. My eyes narrowed slightly as I noticed that I could pick up her surface thoughts since I was still using my telepathy. They just confirmed what she'd told me, but I knew Laura always wore the device I'd given her to block out telepathy. Visually, I could see it on her neck still, but it didn't seem to be functioning.

"What's going on?" Laura asked as I got close to her before rapidly coating my body in Adamantium and wrapping my hand around her neck.

"C-Casper what are you doing?" 'Laura' asked while struggling to breathe.

"Nice try, you're not Laura."

She continued to struggle for a moment before her appearance began to shift. She got taller, her skin turning blue and her hair changing to red as Mystique appeared in my grip. 

"Tch, how'd you know," she asked through gasping breaths as I continued to choke her. I tried to scan her surface thoughts, but now they were hidden. It made sense I guess, since she had to be able to sneak around Xavier she'd have learned how to disguise casual scans from telepaths. 

"You showed up just in time, I needed a way up to everyone else and you just gave it to me."

She was trapped in my grip and unable to move my Adamantium hand, so it wasn't long before Mystique passed out and I dropped her to the ground. A metal sphere came flying through the sky towards me as I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to the real Laura.

'Well, beam me up. Time to finally meet Magneto.'