It was like the ballet. He was twinkle-toes. He weighed nothing. He could leap and twirl— erm. He tried to twirl anyway. But his arm was keeping him from completing any kind of good ballet move. He glared at it and jumped a little when he noticed it was kind of attached to someone else. Well, around his arms.

"You are not my type." His type had longer hair and more curves. A sweeter face, for sure. He pursed his lips when they made their way into the bathroom. Didn't he say that he didn't want to throw up? (Pursing his lips ensured nothing would go the wrong way out his mouth.) And he should be out there looking for that sweet faced more curved long-hair girl. He did not expect to find one in here. (He had said that part out loud just a minute ago, right?)

And, more than anything else, what he was not expecting was to walk into a mirror.

>>"You are not my type."

"I am very glad to hear that." Gawain muttered, holding Jude up as he walked into the mirror. Walking around in mirrors alone was one thing; carrying someone else was a whole different matter. He could do it, he knew he could - but that did not mean it was easy. Especially since Jude was turning into more of a dead weight every minute.

Rupert's apartment was quiet and dark. Gawain cursed under his breath as he walked out of the bathroom mirror with Jude; it would have been ten times as much fun if the old man had been at home. But he was not; Gawain carried Jude over to the couch by the time something moved in the shadows.

"Hey Flipsy" he grinned, once his hands were free, and leaned own to pet the happy poodle "Long time no see, princess. We've got a guest too..." he smirked "... Jude, say hi to Flipsy."

He must be asleep. Drunk didn't make you see things that weren't there. He couldn't be sure, though since he hadn't ever gotten this schlonkered before be was eleven. Not even in his ultra-realistic future dream.

Since his thoughts ran full circle and he was now mysteriously in a strange bathroom, Jude concluded that this must be a dream. He briefly wondered if that meant that he could fly.

Somewhere on the way to a couch, a little French poodle came out to greet the little French boy. How appropriate! The dog's name was Flipsy. "Hi. My name is Jude." Is what he meant to say to the fluffy cuddle mongrel. What came out was something closer to "Hu-sblorg!"

The poodle, mouth open, tongue reaching for his face had collided with Jude. Had collided with Jude's mouth. Jude's open and speaking mouth.

The French boy frenched a French poodle.

And that's when the puking started.

Not that he didn't like the taste of dog food, it was still better than the taste of beer. It was the idea that Flipsy licked her butt with that tongue. That it was all slobbery. That it was in his mouth before any human or mutant girl's was.

So he let it all out. And when he was done, he immediately felt better.

Jude threw up on Rupert's poodle.

Gawain let go of the kid after the first few seconds of utter shock, and stepped back, making sure he was not in the way of... stuff. The, he sat down on the floor and shook silently with laughter for long, long minutes. He trusted Jude to get to the couch by himself. And probably puke on it too.

It really was just too much to handle. Not the sight, the idea. Gawain wondered if Rupert was coming home soon, and if he was brining some hot one-night-stand again... because that would have been priceless.
Finding the annoying little half-lesbian cross-dresser in you living room, with a drunk teen who just puked on your poodle.

"Jude, ya can't be serious..." he laughed, gasping for air, when he finally pulled himself together "You just puked on a dog! Poor Flipsy... geez. C'mere, princess. Gosh, she's soaked... ewwww."

Picking the poodle up by the scruff of her neck, Gawain took her to the bathroom. Cleaning the poodle up was first on the to-do list, everything else came after. Just in case Rupert decided to show up soon...

He went straight to the kitchen. Jake Glen had taken the doggy to the bathroom. Jude just really, really wanted to wash out his mouth. Despite the fact that he said said he would no puke, there it was. All over the floor in the other room.

Hot tears prickled in his eyes as he climbed up on the counter and shoved all the disgusting dishes out of his way. He turned the water on and once it was hot slurped some up, swished it around and spit it back down the drain. More went on his face and neck and still he was crying. Why was he crying? Men did not cry.

He tried to rub his eyes dry on his sleeve, but it had some spatter...

His ninja shirt came off over his head and went into the sink and then Jude climbed down and went for the couch leaving the water running over his shirt. He flopped onto the couch and tried not to smell his own breath when he curled up into a little ball.

Gawain left the poodle cheerfully paddling around in the bathtub (with not enought water to drown, or float out of the tub), soaking in shampoo, and returned to the living room to assess the situation. The floor definitely needed cleaning up. The kid was, at the moment, shirtless, curled up on the couch.

"Ya're next" Gawain announced before he followed the trail to the kitchen. Shirt in the sink. God where this kid live, in a cave? Now Gawain really hoped Rup wouldn't show up.

A good twenty minutes later, the disaster was cleaned up, more or less. Floor clean and shiny, shirt washed and drying, Flipsy wet and fuzzy. Gawain walked over to the couch.

"Welcome to the grown-up world, kid. An' don' try to tell me ya're an age shifter cause ya're nor. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up. And stop whinin'. You'll live."

Hopefully. Rupert probably did not appreciate dead kids in his apartment.
Probably...

Jude had digressed into that embarrassing stage of body racking gasps. Beer was officially off his list. And somehow worse, he had been caught in his probably all too obvious lie.

"I am" —sob— "not even a psychic."

But he knew he would be. He knew it. Why did he have to wait? Was there something wrong with him? He was almost 12 and it was around this time that he would start the headaches and hearing voices.

Well, he had a headache, that was for sure, but the only voices he heard were legitimate out-loud ones.

A cold niggling feeling tried to remind him of something important, but he wasn't quite ready to remember it. Something about…

The boy moaned, nearly brought to sickness all over again just from the thought.

"Ghost iz going to kill me dead." Maybe she didn't have to know! The cogs in his brain churned into overtime. He could get back to the Mansion and... somethingsomething. That was the sound of a good form planning!

>>"I am... not even a psychic."

"Thank God for that" Gawain muttered. The buzz of the alcohol he drank left him a long time ago. Boy did he hate taking care of other drunk people. They always had it easier than the onew who did the helping.

He maneuvered Jude over to the bathtub and made him sit, hang his head down over it, and he ran some (moderately) cold water.

>>"Ghost iz going to kill me dead."

"WHAT?!" Gawain almost dropped the kid into the bathtub. "Ya're Maya's kid?!"

Oh sh*t. Holy crap on a cracker. I just got Other Maya's kid drunk.

"Ghost is going to kill me dead..."

Horror filled his eyes and he scrabbled to get a hold of Gawain's shirt. "She really does know everyone in town!" The little Frenchman wailed to words loud enough to make himself flinch at the echo back from teh bathroom walls.

His parents had eyes everywhere. And ears everywhere that didn't have eyes!

"Is it possible for her to not know? We can keep a secret!"

This was more important than any moderately cool water shooting out of the spigot. This was life and death! The world swayed under him despite the fact that he was not moving. At least, he didn't think he was moving...

"I take it to my grave. Zen you and I will not be dead." Forget the whole, he would have to be dead for him to take it to his grave paradox. It made sense to him in his current state.

>>"Is it possible for her to not know? We can keep a secret! I take it to my grave. Zen you and I will not be dead."

"Well, kid, sorry to break it to you" Gawain frowned, pushing Jude's head under the cold water careful not to drown him "but if your mother is anything like mine, we're in deep sh... trouble."

Once the kid was clean and cool, Gawain tossed a towel over his head, and after some rummagins found one of Rupert's t-shirts in a drawer. It was several sizes too big for Jude in every direction, but at least it was clean. Since Jude's clothes right now smelled like alcohol and other suspicious odors, he really was not looking forward to taking the kid home in them.

"You get the couch" he sighed, dropping Jude onto said piece of furniture before he went to find a blanket (and a place for hmself to sleep, because, well, Rupert's bed just did not seem right for the occasion).

"Try to get some sleep and look human tomorrow..."

Jude got a most undignified bathtub swirly. Not that there was much dignity left to the situation in the first place. He sputtered and pulled a curly dog hair from his mouth after his dunk. Oh god. Let it be a dog hair. A towel slopped over his face and that covered his shame and horror. Just don't think about it. That seemed to be a really, really, REALLY good solution right now. For everything.

He scrubbed his tongue clean on the rougher back side of the towel before asking, "Iz your muhzer someone I know?" He thought his tongue could use a bit more freshening so he went right back to it as soon as the words were past his teeth.

Ghost was very... well, she seemed quite... "I sink we could keep her not knowing." But since he was definitely not thinking about it right now, he couldn't be too terribly sure.

Not that it mattered. He got the couch.

And by not thinking about it, some plans had inadvertently formed all on their own. The big shirt went over his head and kept going until it was part of the way down his scrawny shoulders too. The short sleeves hung down past to his elbows and the hem (Yes, thank you Sebastian for teaching him what a hem is.) hit his thighs. The material was soft like the shirt had lived a good life and now was on its way to the next. It did not meet his strict fashion criteria. Dinosaurs did, but this...

He shrugged, the shirt slipping to one side and gaping loose at the neck. His plan was to go to the couch, pretend to be asleep and then make a break for it. He would not look human in the morning. He was aiming for gone in the morning, a much classier state of being.

>>"Iz your muhzer someone I know?"

"No, she's probably not" Gawain muttered, cleaning up the bathroom "Pease don't throw up again."

Mirror had a lot of things to deal with lately; missions, training, school, drunk minors, the like. Sometimes he almost forgot about looking for Mom. Almost. And right now, he definitely did not want to think about that.

>>"I sink we could keep her not knowing."

"Yeah, very likely" he frowned and tossed the blanket at him. Jude went to sleep on the couch. That was one task down.
Gawain finished cleaning up; put Jude's shirt in the washing machine (hell I feel like a mother now, eww), and looked around for a place to sleep. Since sleeping in Rupert's bed would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, he decided to spend the night on the floor, on top of a pile of blankets and rugs. It was as good as any.
Before he went to sleep he made sure the door was locked. Just in case.

Continued for Jude in Father Figure.