Gawain had not met Maxine for... a very long time.

'Long', of course, being compared to the full amount of time they had known each other, and the fact that it seemed like forever with so many things happening in the Mansion and in NYC in general.

Yup. Long time.
And it was time to pay Maxine a visit.
And that horrible little octoclip of hers.

Gawain slipped into the mirror of Maxine's bathroom, the one he had first seen her from oh so long ago.
The bathroom looked like some post-Katrina news photo.

"What the heck?" the young knight muttered, landing on the bathroom floor and looking around "Maxine?... Rex?..."

He had a magnet in his pocket. Just in case.

In the bathroom, the flood waters had reached a timid few inches up the walls, and merely buckled the tiling. The main apartment hadn’t been so sheltered. The carpeting was grayed and vaguely crusty; the furniture had tide lines. The kitchen had been the fount of the headwaters. On the bright side: new appliances. On the down side: the whole place needed an overhaul. And had, since lasat August. Though it did give her an excuse not to bring boys over.

Not that the boys were exactly climbing over themselves to get in.

From the bedroom, the red head grumbled in a lady-like manner and turned over, her pillow firmly wrapped in her arms. If she hugged it hard enough, maybe it would hug back. ...Without tentacles.

Maxine wiped Rex away without waking up, and rolled over again.

>> “Maxine?... Rex?...”

“Mirror...?” The sleeping red head answered. “Are we going dancing again? You said you’d pick the place...”

The red head was wearing little gym shorts and a tank top; her sheet was somewhere on the floor, being dragged further away by an octoclip who didn’t understand sleeping in. The pillow was locked between her knees and arms in snuggling embrace. And she was a mass of fresh bruises, from head to foot.

Maxine was taking a sick day, damnit.

>>“Mirror...? Are we going dancing again? You said you’d pick the place...”

Gawain grinned and walked towards the source of the sleepy voice.

"Only if you want to. I know a few places where... oh. Whooooah."

Gawain stopped in his tracks in the bedroom door and stared.

All right, so taller and stronger, he was still just eighteen and a half, and a guy in a girl's bedroom. Said girl was snuggling a pillow in a very suggestive manner while the octomonster was dragging the blankets off her.

I have seen enough hentai to know... ah, scratch that.

"Ummm, Maxine? What the hell happened here?..."

Because age-old tide lines did not explain fresh bruises. Or gym shorts. Not that those needed explanation...

“Here?” Maxine murmured. “I don’t know... What do you want to happen here?” She wiggled a leg over the pillow, a smile stretching over her face. One pale green eye lazily blinked opened.

And blinked again.

And lightning-scooted up to the headboard with a little shrill, clutching the pillow in front of her for modesty’s sake. It probably didn’t help, that the pillow was actually bigger than the clothes she was wearing.

“Gawain. My, ah, Knight. I... wasn’t expecting you.” The red head ran a hand through her tangled morning hair, her freckles standing out darkly against her blush. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” She tucked her legs up next to her body; they disappeared behind the pillow, so that she was just a flushed face peering over its fluffy-stuffed top.

On the floor, Rex had discovered the mirror-walkers feet. There seemed to be some recognition, there: pat, pat, scratch, the tentacles greeted the teen’s shoes, before they began methodically entangling the bed sheet with his shoelaces.

>>“Here? I don’t know... What do you want to happen here?”

Gawain's eyes widened. Is she dreaming about me?!
He could feel a not-knightly-at-all blush creeping up his neck, and shook his head back to reality.

"Well, a cleanup would be a good start" he noted, watching Rex creep closer from the corner of his eyes "This place looks like it belongs to New Orleans."

She woke up.
The scurrying was cute, he had to give her that. Also, given the amount of her clothing, more than a bit interesting, from his point of view.

>>“Gawain. My, ah, Knight. I... wasn’t expecting you. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Oh I would have so many answers for that. Most of them out if movies that should not ever cross the Mansion threshold.

To me.

"Erm" he cleared his throat, looking away just to discover Rex was trying to link his shoes to the blanket.

"Here, fetch." he dropped the matchbox-sized magnet on the floor, and stepped over the octoclip as elegantly as his half-untied shoelaces allowed.

"I... thought I'd pay you a visit." he said with a smirk. One does not come up with the favor to ask before some polite conversation.

There was a clink clink clink as Rex thoroughly fetched the magnet. Or the magnet thoroughly fetched Rex...

Back on the bed, Maxine’s face nearly matched her hair. But his smirk... oh, his smirk. Two could play at this game.

A bare leg snaked out from under the pillow, and traced a place on the edge of the bed.

“Why don’t you... sit down? It must be hard, carrying all those muscles around.”

No joke. Since when had he bulked up? Jailbait had got himself some time in the weigh room. Mmm.

>>“Why don’t you... sit down? It must be hard, carrying all those muscles around.”

Gawain grinned and walked over to sit on the endge of the bed, just out of reach of the oh-so-naked leg.

"It's not so bad when it's evenly distributed" he smirked, chancing a glance at the part of the pillow that hid her breasts.

The magnet had been a marvelous idea. Gawain silently congratulated himself.

On a different note.

"Soo, what's up? Haven't heard from you for a while. And what's up with all the bruises? Ya're not a masked vigilante are you?"

Because that would make two of us.

“Evenly distributed, huh? We’ll just see about that.” Gawain was on the edge of her bed. With a bit of tactical scooting, Maxine’s pillow was next to his back. She snaked out an arm, aiming a little squeeze at each of those evenly distributed weights. “Hmm, I don’t know.” She had such a thoughtful look on her face. The impish grin and continuing blush were complementary.

“The bruises, my dear prince,” she sighed, her legs sliding out from under their pillow fortress to brush past his thigh and dangle over the edge of the bed, “are the result of traveling through the dangerous lands of Office Max without a brave knight to defend my honor from roving gangs of paper bandits.” Did he remember that pack of loose leaf she’d asked him to punt down the hall, that first time they met? The one that had mauled his foot? Yeah. Like that. Except in bulk.

“And where have your travels brought you, Sir Gawain? Besides to my bathroom mirror.” She crossed her arms on top of the pillow, and rested her head with the most modest of eyelash flutters.

>>“Evenly distributed, huh? We’ll just see about that.”

Gawain's breath hitched as she scooted over to drape herself around his back. Almost. She was very close... too close for comfort. And definitely a lot closer than pretty and underdressed women should be to eighteen-and-a-half year old boys. Men. Yes.
Gawain's shoulders stiffened.

>>“The bruises, my dear prince, are the result of traveling through the dangerous lands of Office Max without a brave knight to defend my honor from roving gangs of paper bandits.”

That was... one way to put it. She did not sound troubled by the experience. Gawain made his mind focus on her words instead of her tighs.

"What, office stuff attacked you? Aren't you supposed to be controlling them?..."

>>“And where have your travels brought you, Sir Gawain? Besides to my bathroom mirror.”

"That's... umm, that's a long story." I will not swallow nervously "I've been to England... and Germany. Missions, and... stuff. It gets quite busy, once you get into the whole mutants-saving-the-worl business."

Oh great, that sounded like a line.
It was not a line.

With a smirk in the corner of his lips, he chanced a glance back over his shoulder. Topic needed changing.

"Miss me?"

“I’m a supply animator, dear Prince, not a manipulator.” This was clearly a distinction she’d had to explain before. She couldn’t remember if she’d explained it to him, specifically: all the irked explanations tended to blend together, after awhile.

If she were a manipulator, she wouldn’t have any trouble with Rex.

(Rex, meanwhile, was still having magnet troubles. It had gotten one tentacle free… but using that tentacle to peel at its others quickly proved counter-productive.)

As the growing boy listed off his globe-trotting itinerary, the red head carefully gathered together every shred of her jealousy, and shoved it down. Far down. When she was a real reporter, she’d get to travel to England, too. And Germany.

Oooh, that smirk was back. Mirror Mirror didn’t know how close he came to a hair-ruffling, with that one little backwards glance.

She settled, instead, for dramatically swooning against his shoulder.

“Of course. Verily hath I pined away for thee, Sir Gawain, Prince of Orkney.” Bat bat, eyelash bat. “So. What brings you to my tower?”

The teen hadn’t stopped by for months. The red head had little illusions about boys dropping by unannounced: it was always for a reason.

>>“Of course. Verily hath I pined away for thee, Sir Gawain, Prince of Orkney. So. What brings you to my tower?”

Well, she got the title right. That earned her a grin, a bit more honest than all the others before. She did have a good memory, if nothing else.

He could have had a lot of answers to her last question. Some of them were actually polite enough to say. Glancing down at all the skin she was showing, Gawain struggled with his hormones for a long moment before he turned to look at her.

"Umm... this isn't gonna sound right, just sayin' it like this, but... I need a favor. If you are willing to help me."

“A favor, huh? Judging by the serious face, I’m guessing it doesn’t involve ravishing the available damsel.” Dramatic. Sigh. Joking sigh? Yeah, sure. “In that case: get you to my living room, and close the door behind you. The lady needs to get attired.”

She aimed a pillow-whap at his backside, to send him on his way.

A few minutes later, a slightly more clothed Maxine stepped out of her bedroom. She now had on a flouncy blue skirt and a darker blue tank top.

“All right,” she said, flopping down on her couch. (Yes, the same couch she’d warned him about, months ago. Just for kicks.) “Personal or professional?”

>>“A favor, huh? Judging by the serious face, I’m guessing it doesn’t involve ravishing the available damsel. In that case: get you to my living room, and close the door behind you. The lady needs to get attired.”

Gawain blinked. From the way she was acting, the lady would definitely have benefited from some ravishing. Once again, he reminded himself why he was here. Ravishing was stored for a more appropriate time. To be chosen by the damsel, of course.
He left the room and closed the door, stepping ovel the bundle of annoyance that was Rex and his magnet.
By the time Maxine joined him, he was already sitting on the couch, warning long forgotten.
She was not really much more dressed.

>>“All right. Personal or professional?”

"Both." he shrugged a bit "Personal for me, professional for you, I guess. Umm... Okay here is the thing: my mother went missing five years ago, and a few weeks ago I saw her on TV. In the news. I mean, not on the news. In the background."

He let it sink in. Also, he was not sure where he was going with the whole speech.
About time to think about that...

His mom. Went missing. Five years ago. Maxine had known that Gawain was on his own, but she hadn’t heard any details. This…

>> “…and a few weeks ago I saw her on TV. In the news. I mean, not on the news. In the background."

…Was something she could work from.

“What day, what time, and what station?” She asked, sliding off the couch. Sliding and flouncy skirt aside, her voice was all professionalism. She went to her bookcase, and pushed aside the few books that were on there to uncover the much more plentiful VHS tapes that hid behind them. The sides were hand-labeled; a date, a station, and a post-it note here and there on the cases to mark something of especial interest.

“You should have come sooner,” she muttered to herself. Most of these tapes got recycled back into the stack by her TV, once she’d had time to watch them; the average life-span of a recording in her place was about a week. Not a few weeks. Still: she was a bit behind lately, with interviews and hospital trips. It might still be in here. If it wasn’t… there were other ways. But lord, did she hate searching for specific segments on station websites. The resolution alone was shudder-worthy.

…Yes, Maxine recorded daily news programs. Yes, she recorded on VHS. Yes, she in fact had four VHS players hooked up to her televisions—two in the living room, and two in the bedroom. Maxine was serious about her competitor research. And up until a few weeks ago, she’d been too broke for better equipment. If Mirror Mirror had anything to say to that, now would be the time for him to shove it.

>>“What day, what time, and what station? You should have come sooner,”

I was too busy paying an assassin to find her.

Maxine was shifting through VHS tapes. Gawain blinked. Just how old was she? He didn't even know VHS still existed.
He was smarter than to point that out. Maxine was willing ho help him as soon as he finished the sentence, and that was nice, it even made him smile a little. And she hasn't started asking questions. Yet.

Fishing a piece of paper out of his pocket, he read the details to her. Day (more than a month ago), time (just before midnight), station.

"I was trying to look for her on my own" he admitted as she watched her from the couch. "It's... complicated."

It really was not, after all the times he had to explain this.

"My mother is a human shifter. Showing her own face like that in a crowd... it's rare. And she could have found me at the Mansion easily if she wanted. So, I... was thinking she showed her face like that because she is hoping to be found."