Xaviers!

"You are wrong." He reiterated, obviously bothered by this conversation. He turned his back to the girls, though he did not attempt to go invisible again since he knew it wouldn't work, and began to casually walk away, as if somehow that was going to be allowed.

---------------------


Elsewhere, The Bohemian was starting to get impatient, not that it seemed to take much. He kicked over a random trash can and swore out loud in frustration.

Samantha would get the feeling of another entity barreling towards them as a break-neck pace through buildings and other solid objects.

"Look sharp!" Sam calls to the Bohemian, turning her attention to the approaching entity.

The entity rushing at them rushes through a store front in a cloud of gold, before materializing into a familiar blond with a wispy voice.

"Basil!" She practically sighed once she was fully formed, calling out to the boy as if she were winded, she shifted uncomfortably as if she had something to say.

And then she did.

"Come! Basil!" She demands then whirls around the redheaded psychic, floating above the ground like a phantom, and looking at her as well.

"Come!" She demands of her as well, waiting impatiently to see if they understand.

"Come on, move your arse," she gestures to the Bohemian.

The Bohemian did as he was told, lighting up like a kid at Christmas.

"Whompin' time!" He exclaimed following the vision. The others followed along too, not wanting to be left behind.

"No whomping," she grumbles, working to keep up.

"No bloody whomping until we figure out what's going on."

Colette wasn't going to let the Bailey out of her sight, not after the work that had gone into finding him. Her heels clacked after him despite the unnatural sound-dampening properties of this particular portion of Basil's headspace.

The Bohemian and Sam followed the little blonde muse back to the intended target, past the defaced Woman statue, and right into the library. As they rounded a bookshelf corner in sync, they were greeted by the Bailey nearly slamming into them.

The resemblance was uncanny.

"Fuck!" The other one exclaimed, making a split-second decision to climb up the bookshelves in an attempt to escape his would-be captors.

"Not so bloody fast," she says, reaching out to snag the Bailey's coattails.

The Bailey came crashing down in a very undignified manner as Sam caught the back of his trench and yanked him loose of the furniture he was currently trying to scale.

He laid on his back scowling yup at the foursome, looking a bit like a wet cat.

"What?! Noooo!

He needs to go back into his cupboard under the stairs like a good boy n' let me go back t'my official business of being bloody fantastic!"

The Bailey only remained in his spot on the ground, folding his arms over his chest in defiance.

"Then you never get to talk to girls again," she says to the Bohemian. "You know, real ones."

"And you..." she says, turning to the Bailey, "never get to see the library again. Again, the real one."

"Told you," Haley nodded in agreement, relieved to see Sam here again.

"Don't suppose things are so...metaphorical? here that we could just crush these two together into one person, right?" Haley asked.

Haley looked around, and down at her hands still covered in what was basically pink fairy dust. "Science. Yes...of course," she smirked.

"So, which one of you was in control ze first few times we met?" Colette asked, her arms crossed.

"I-"

"-was." They replied together at the same time.

"No! Me!"

"I am not going to bicker about this again. We've gone over this so many times now I'm getting a headache.

Just... get rid of me. I'm done"

"Good! Great! He agrees! Let's end this whiny little shite!"

"...since both of you seem to think I'm giving you options, let me make things clear."

She reaches out for the Bailey's wrist and yanks it up.

"You figure out how to work things out."

She then yanks the Bohemian over by the loose end of his handcuffs, and claps it around the Bailey's wrist.

"Period."

Colette reached out and booped both their noses in unison. "No, you were boz right ze first time. Ze two of you togezer are what make Basil unique. Ze two of you keep zinking of ze ozer as holding you back, when in fact zey are ze one allowing you to succeed and making up for your shortcomings. YOU alone are an annoying, intolerable, self-indulgent manchild zat I do not wish to mozer. And YOU are an inflexible stick-up-your-ass 'I'm so British I shit crumpets' wanker." She addressed each appropriate facet in turn. "But YOU bring HIM down to earz. And YOU make HIM loosen up and have some fun. So you WILL work togezer, or you will remain a vegetable and never enjoy a single pleasurable or proud moment again in what remains of your life. You will not graduate and get ze job of your dreams. You will never again eat, drink, and be merry. You will never again get to touch a titty. So grow up and shake hands, boys."

And then Sam did the honours, which was good because then goo-girl wasn't the focal point of future subconscious scorn.

The two of them were looking at her in unison, her monologue making an excellent distraction for Sam.

"Wait are you offeri-" The Bohemian was genuinely curious but the thought didn't get it out before Sam made her demands and then her move.

The moment the cuff snapped around the Bailey's wrist, he looked at the Bohemian in horror, and the Bohemian back.

With a violent force and a high pitched scream that started in a pair and ended in a single cry, the two of them were literally forced into each other, not in the fun, light, nice way some multi-bodied mutants might merge back into a single unit, but in a sickening, terrifying way one might see in a horror film.

Eventually, the two forms stabilized into a new one, which stared vacantly for several moments.

It looked enough like Basil... perhaps? It was hard to tell being that none of them had really seen him. The new being looked closely like the old ones, but with a bit of cosmetic damage. He had a deep scar running down the middle of his face, and was the victim of anisocoria. After a moment, it started to breathe heavily, and the breath quickened exponentially.

He was panicking.

------------

Back in the real world with Chase, Basil started into life again, staring blankly at nothing for several moments before blinking out of Chase's vision, back into invisibility. He was breathing in the same fashion he was on the inside with the ladies.

Both the mental image of Basil and the real, now invisible Basil asked the same question.

"What's going on?!"

Chase breathed out a sigh of relief. "You collapsed at the party. Scared the crap out me and Collette."

"Chase?" He asked of both Chase and the ladies.

His mental projection looked at Sam, his Frankenstein brow furrowing for a moment in confusion. The familiar voice seemed to calm him a bit but he seemed not to entirely know where it was coming from, being literally lost in his own thoughts with people stuck up in him.

If Chase looked in the mirror left by the medical staff, he'd see Basil's reflection wasn't looking at him. Or anyone really. Not anyone present.

Both his mental image and his actual voice asked --

"When did you get so ginger? And... female-y? I am not sure how I feel about this new look..."

In his mind, Colette gently placed her hands on the new Basil's cheeks. "Sssh... it is alright Basil. Everyzing will be alright from now on."

Which she couldn't guarantee in the slightest. Telepathy and psychology were not her expertise. If the situation had called for baking, or fashion, or being excessively French, then she would have been in her element. So she thought of the most applicable thing she could when dealing with someone who was the result of the fusing of two beings.

"You are not two people. You are not one person. You are an experience. Make it a good one."

Basil's sweater-vested self stared at Colette for several moments. She sounded like Colette but she didn't look like her.

Both Basils commented-

" Colette looks like galaxy slime and is talking like Yoda. Did someone slip something in my gin? Is this what they mean by tripping balls?"

"It's what they mean by telepathic intervention. I'm guessing you're still mostly under."

The Basil before Colette, Sam, and Haley reacted to the word 'telepathic' negatively, though probably not as badly as some. His brain began to make logical leaps and coming to conclusions as it started tying together the loose ends and then he came to the realization as to why he didn't recognize the blonde or the redhead.

"I don't like this." He stated, again with his voice and in his mind.

Pulling away from Colette's touch, Basil clung the book he'd been carrying against his chest, his arms crossed over it like it was something sacred he didn't want them to touch. Perhaps what the Bailey had been searching for?

He continued to back away from them, but with nowhere to really go, he ended up curled into a ball on the library floor.

In the real world, his body mimicked the same position he took there, curling up into a little ball to make his lanky limbed self as small as possible.

"Please, leave." He pleaded with them in a small voice that was choking back tears.

"This is the only place I have for me anymore." His request didn't carry the demanding nature of the Bailey, nor the heavy emotion of the Bohemian, but an equal and muted mixture of the two combined into something slightly more tolerable.

"I'm... I'm sorry. If we had any other choice..."

"...you just weren't waking up, Basil."

She sighs, starting to withdraw from his mind.

"Let's go, guys."

Haley said nothing, slowly withdrawing as the mindscape clouded in her vision and eventually faded to black. She was suddenly keenly aware of her body--her left leg was almost completely asleep, and she *really* needed to pee.

Her eyes fluttered open, squinting at the bright light.

"Well. That was...interesting."

Basil remained quiet , his visage seen in reflection of the mirror. He wasn't looking straight at it, instead sitting in profile., his face buried into his knees, the side of his head that had longer hair was obscuring the expression on his face. His head tilted slightly upward so he wasn't talking into his own legs.

"Thank you for waking me." He stated, his surface thoughts seemed as if he meant it, but as with most things out of his mouth and as Sam, Haley, and Colette had first hand account now, there were probably other thoughts on the matter floating around in there. He didn't seem to be angry, but scared and confused, probably as anyone would be if strangers were running through their psyche, even well meaning ones.

"Look, we're... we're not going to tell anyone what we saw in there. We're not like that, and we know people's minds can be pretty weird."

Colette took longer than the others to regain her composure. She'd never gone on a headtrip before. During the process her facial features had become more vague, like an unfinished sculpture, though finer details like irises in her eyes and nostrils and such soon reformed.

"I am sorry Basil. I wish I could have been of more help to you."

Basil wasn't sure what Colette meant and as such he focused instead on Sam.

"Thank you.... mum." He replied, not sure of what else to call her.

"I guess I should be more careful the next time.

This hasn't happened before but I guess I should have expected it to eventually. " He commented, trying to rationalize what had happened with his history of passing out.

"I'm Sam," she offers.

"And ah... one more thing. When you passed out you were visible. Is that normal?"

"No..." His head lifted from his knees quickly, his mind now racing with questions.

"How long was I visible for? Was I entirely visible or did I blink in and out? Did you see me Madame?" He asked, directing the question to Colette.

"Who took my clothes off?" He asked, realizing the medical staff had switched out his Halloween costume for a gown.

"Oh Lord, you all weren't in here when whoever stole my clothes was here were you?"

"Of course not. The medical people here aren't huge douchebags...and you were visible for quite a while...I dunno how long we were in there."

"Colette wouldn't have seen it. You were visible until you started waking up," Chase reported.