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Hmm… Bathe the dog, or hit the streets with Raina? Decisions, decisions. Rupert’s hand tingled where she’d held it—like her lips, her hands were cold. Much better than his, which currently felt like heat sinks. He was blushing just a little too—yeah, blushing. He was admitting it to himself. They definitely had a little love-at-first-broccoli-battle thing going on. Part of his brain found that really funny, part of it was thinking cynical thoughts about him not being in high school anymore, and a very large chunk towards the front was concentrating on forming coherent thoughts from its happy little infatuated-fog.

“You know, I don’t think Flipsy minds being green.” The poodle mutt’s merry little prancing between their legs was proof enough of that. “Shall we?” He said, taking a step towards the door and offering her his hand. To which the parts of his brain were thinking, take it!, …if this gets any cuter, I swear…, and wow, she looks beautiful.

((ooc: Continued after Raina's next post in "The Jazz Club".))

((ooc: lol! I was a little worried about the drunken posting. But you proved my fears wrong! *teasing grin*))

Rupert returned her half-smile with a non-nervous grin. A completely non-nervous grin. One that didn’t say exactly what he thought of her standing there, making a fashion statement in his own clothes, with that hair of hers tied back.

“Hmm, so a guy can finally use his bathroom, huh?” He teased, giving Flipsy a scratch behind the ears on his way past her. He shut the bathroom door, looked in the mirror, and air-punched. His reflection in the mirror did the same. What could they say? Raina was hot.

He put the toilet seat down, and piled his own hastily grabbed clothes upon it. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds seemed to be a good complement to her Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, and he’d picked out his least scrubby scrub pants. They were perfectly clean, perfectly respectable black sweatpants.

He showered quickly, slapped on the clothes, and came out toweling his hair dry. “So, what time’s this band of yours going to be on?”

((ooc: *grin* Pretty good for a rushed post, lol. Que Rupert's obliviousness!))

Rupert hadn't so much been parking his bum, as promised, but quietly tip-toeing all over the apartment, trying to make the place as clean as it should have been in the first place. The clothes got shoved into his hamper, and his hamper got shoved into his closet; the case notes and files got stacked together and moved to a coffee table, under a newspaper; the kitchen stove got hastily wiped down, and the unwashed plates and cups got shoved into the dishwasher. His gun got put into a desk drawer in his room, and locked up--frankly, that's how it should have been, anyway. That was just careless of him. A cop should never just leave his gun lying around, even if it was in his own apartment. He listened to Raina's door-muffled song as he worked, feeling like a little boy standing outside of daddy's office, hearing things he wasn't supposed to. She wasn't allowed to sing anymore, right? Well, then... he wasn't hearing this. Nope. But what he wasn't hearing was beautiful.

He'd just gotten things to the point where he could stand back and nod approvingly when the air conditioner broke again. The temperature took a sudden plunge. He'd been arguing with his landlord for the better part of the month over that thing. Up until the repairman came yesterday, it had been practically blowing hot air on him. Now, less than twenty-four hours after it had been fixed, it was trying to freeze him out. Great. He went into his room and started twirling hopelessly at the thermostat—some mechanical background would have been useful, right about now. He finally just unplugged the thing—hopefully the temperature would climb back up by the time Raina was done, and she wouldn’t add “cheap” and “crappy” to the list of adjectives that could be used on his apartment. He could think of quite a few adjectives himself, right now…

((ooc: Continued from “A great start”.))

Rupert’s apartment was close—only two blocks from the diner. And while it wasn’t either big or glamorous, the closeness to Central Park more than made up for it, in Rupert’s mind. The closeness to the Central Park Precinct of the NYPD was another happy bonus. The building was gray-bricked and non-descript; his place was on the third floor. Normally, he’d take the stairs up at a run, with Flispy madly jumping steps to keep up with him. But considering that even walking sedately up those stairs would have left him sounding like a winded old man, he tastefully opted to lead Raina to the elevator. It was either that, or explain about a certain green-ribboned mutie and the biggest reason he had to hate mutants. He just as tastefully opted against that. Not first date material.

He unlocked the door and held it open with a flourish. “Welcome to my humble home,” he said cheerfully.

It was a small place. There was a kitchen to the right and a living room to the left as you walked in, separated by a long countertop. Straight ahead was a hallway, dead-ending in a window that looked out over the fire escape. To the left was the tiny bathroom, and to the right was his dorm-room sized bedroom.

And on the ground right inside of the door was a pair of white smiley face boxers. Rupert dodged around Raina, scooped them up, and hid them behind his back. He wasn’t blushing. He was just, ahh, hot. They were in the middle of a New York summer, after all. “So, umm,” he stammered, walking backwards to keep the boxers hidden. He kicked a pair of sweatpants and a balled-up T-shirt under the kitchen counter as he went. He even managed to keep a straight face while he did it. “Would you like to pick out some clothes? I’m afraid I don’t have anything in punk, but I’ve got everything from Queen to Springsteen. I’m pretty sure I saw Warren Zevon and Blues Traveler hiding in the back, too. And if you want to rinse off quick, I’m sure I’ve got a clean towel lying around somewhere.” Flipsy was sniffing at a discarded tie on the floor down the hall. Bad Flipsy, bad. Rupert stood in the middle of his bachelor pad, and tried to look presentable.

Besides the stray clothes, there were a few other tell-tale items lying about. On the kitchen counter, for instance, on top of a pile of unopened mail, was this week’s Church of Humanity newsletter. Flipsy had an obnoxiously fluffy and blindingly pastel pink doggy bed in the corner of the living room. He had a couch and a chair in there, both facing the TV, and both covered in notes about recent cases. A few photos were visible: the wolf girl Emerald posing with her motocross bike, a security camera photo of a big red mutant and his six identical friends holding up a jewelry store, and the newly minted Twins statue in Central Park, among them. Flipsy’s pink-and-gold “Princess” water bowl and food dish were on the kitchen floor. And his gun was slung across the back of a kitchen chair in its holster.

((ooc: You have to admit, "Hey Rupie, I'm a mutie" would have been fun. I could have so dropped your fainting mutie bum on the concrete. ))

Rupert looked back and forth between Micheal and Raina, feeling quite distinctly like he was missing something here.

"I know you're a cop and all, but maybe you'll look over the fact that my visa has expired.."

...And the truth came out. Rupert sighed, and adjusted his grip, holding Raina more securely. He really wished she hadn't told him that. "...Not my department," he finally said; and felt dirty for saying it. Rupert's job was his life--he was a cop, to the core. Why he'd ignore something like that for some woman he'd met earlier that day... But that was exactly what he was going to do. He tried to losen up some of his tension with a joke: "I'm with Mutant Affairs, remember? Not Immigration." No one said it was a good joke. "Okay, no hospitals. You can-" he swallowed suddenly, and realized that sick feeling in his stomach was butterflies, "-sleep on my couch. Sure. Unless you get worse--and I don't care if it's tomorrow or not. Visa or not, I'm taking you to the hospital if that happens. Agreed?"

Rupert watched her struggle to get up with quickly escalating concern. She hadn't answered the history question--which probably meant 'no'. She was shaking. She could barely even lift herself into a sitting position. A minute wasn't going to cut it. "Let's take that minute to get to my car, all right? There's a hospital nearby. I think it might be a good idea for you to get checked out." This wasn't something he was giving her an option on. Rupert deftly slid one arm around her back and one under her knees, and lifted her up, cradling her to his chest. His car was right down the street, and the hospital was only a few blocks away. This was quicker than an ambulance.