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"Hate to break it to you, kid, but you need new pants for school." Reuben said firmly, marching his charge through the mall. "Your old ones are all worn out and ratty."

Vergil crossed his arms and sighed. He didn't want to be shopping. What he really wanted to be doing was baking, but he had a funny feeling that his dad had smuggled him out of the apartment complex in order to avoid another fiasco. Vergil didn't feel like it was his fault for setting the oven to 600 degrees; it had just seemed logical that it would cook faster that way and he was hungry. But no, the fire alarm had gone off again and Reuben had hied him away as quickly as possible out of the building.

"I like my clothes already, Dad. Can't we just go..." The boy's voice immediately trailed off, as something in a store window caught his eye. "Hey, can we go there?" He asked, pointing aa store front and then heading inside without waiting for a response.

Reuben ran a hand through his hair and followed after his son, shaking his head. When he reached the front of the store, he saw Vergil oogling a leather jacket with belts all over the sleeves that was roughly eight sizes too big for him. Reuben took a look around the interior of the store: trendy stuff, and pricey, too, if his guess was right.

He caught a glimpse of the tag for the jacket. Woah. Yeah, he was sure right on that count. That was roughly his weekly paycheck.

"Can I get this?" Vergil pleaded, looking deep into Reuben's eyes. "Please?"

Reuben considered, weighing his options. "Verge, this store only sells clothes for grown-ups. Let's go--"

"She's so not a grown-up!" Vergil exclaimed, pointing at a small girl at near the back of the store, clutching at the leg of a man. "If she's here, then there's got to be clothes for kids here, too!"

Reuben took a deep breath, knowing that he was going to have to convince Vergil somehow. "Okay. Let's go over and ask to make sure."

No need to check that Vergil was following: the songbird was bounding ahead, narrowly avoiding collisions with clothing racks on his way to the girl.

Reuben noticed that the security guard was waving at them. He fought to keep a smile. Great, just what he needed was to have to explain that he and his pint-size charge weren't shoplifting or being suspicious. He shook himself of the feeling. Hell, the days of needing to watch his back everywhere were gone--he'd gotten out of that crowd long before teaching. So why did this guy pick him out of all the people here to talk to?

Maybe he was just bored. Ah, whatever. Reuben knew he wasn't doing anything wrong, though Vergil's enthusiastic traipsing through the store might be disruptive. Yeah, that might be it.

Reuben waved back as he walked closer, going for the friendly approach rather than the nothing-wrong-here-officer gig. He joked a little. "It's been difficult finding shirts that fit over the wings, but not so different from raising a normal kid." His eyes fell on the little girl and he gave her a smile. "Hello there." He greeted her, before turning his attention back to the guard. "I see you've got your own kiddo; you must know what it's like."

Vergil, meanwhile, had reached the pair before Reuben and was looking at the guard quizzically. "Do you have clothes for kids here, mister?" He asked, eyes still roving over the store. In his haste to find out, he hadn't noticed the little girl with the security guard. "Like, small clothes?"

Reuben looked closer at the guard. Huh, he'd thought that guy looked familiar. "Well, well." He said, cracking a smile and extending his hand for a shake. "Good to see you, Rex. I bet you're putting all that time you spend in Modern History I with me to good use."

Okay, maybe that was a little mean. But, hey, that was how Reuben was: it was a small part of his charm to tease students after they went off into the real world.

He gave him a disbelieving grin. "What, like kids all start out as eggs, hatch, grow wings, and then look normal?" He turned to Vergi."Earmuffs, kiddo."

Vergil rolled his eyes and obediently covered his ears with his hands.

Reuben continued. "Hell no! This more of a subject for biology than my field, but these kids ain't hardly run-of-the-mill. " He patted Vergil on the shoulders to let him know that the coast was clear. Vergil sighed.

"See?" Reuben commented to Vergil sagely. "We can come back once you grow a bit more."

Vergil seemed to mutter something about carrots, but then he noticed the little girl standing behind Rex. "Woah!" He yelped. "You've got bug wings!"

Trying to be more polite than his kid, Reuben considered the request. He usually had former students babysit his kid, not the other way around. But hey, how bad could it be? Besides, Verge needed to do more interaction that wasn't always about food. Some socialization would be good.

"Sure," he responded at last, "though I think I'll pass on the discount."

"Daaaad!" Vergil whined.

"At least until you're older, kid."

Reuben felt his hand compressed in the other man's firm grip and was vaguely aware that it was a little stronger than it needed to be. He resisted the urge to shake out his hand after, and instead settled for flexing the fingers a few times by his side. His hand still hurt a little as he waved good-bye to Rex. Man, he needed to get back to the gym. Or something. Hell. Teaching must be making him soft.

"No prob," he said, turning to take his posse of children down to the food court. Verge had been getting a little peckish anyway, so it all worked out. He was a little worried about a guy like Rex taking care of a kid; he hadn't exactly come off as the most responsible guy in any of Reuben's classes, and even having a job, the guy hadn't seemed to have changed much.

Vergil jumped visibly when the girl took his hand. "Dad," he said, worry creeping into his voice, "you're certain that girls don't have cooties, right? Like, really, really certain?"

Reuben rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm sure."

"But you said that that mean lady who's always calling you has cooties and that's why you never see her when she asks."

Sighing, Reuben tried to figured out how to explain a vicious ex-wife with a flailing second marriage to his kid. Hmm, tricky. "That's because Charlotte is just a nasty person," he settled for. "She doesn't actually have cooties."

Aware that Rex's kid hadn't so much as said good-bye to her guardian and had just walked off with a pair of complete strangers, Reuben tried to strike up conversation with her. "Hey there, I'm Reuben and this is Vergil. We're going to take you down to the food court for a bite to eat--there any thing in particular you want to have for lunch?"

"Hmm..." Reuben thought, turning over many things in his mind. Yeah, chances were that Rex wasn't the most adept person at feeding a human healthily, let alone feeding himself, but it was certainly an odd request. Hell, maybe the kid just had a hankering for pancakes. Come to think of it..."I think there's an IHOP around here somewhere. It's pretty new, but they have pancakes."

Hey, if Rex was footing his girl's bill, Reuben would take her out for steak if she wanted it. Only, finding a steak place in a mall, however big, probably wasn't likely.

Vergil felt his hand tug. "Hey, what--?" He halted, and turned toward the display. His eyes widened, and he realized that his cootie-fear had probably been the thing that had prevented him from seeing it. "Oh man, Dad, come here!"

Reuben rolled his eyes, sensing what would come next. "Verge, we don't even have that system. 'Sides, you're too young for that."

"She doesn't seem to young for it." Vergil said, looking pointedly down at Nellie. "Isn't it really cool?" He asked her, his voice taking on a more friendly tenor. "You get to battle your way across the galaxy, make friends with aliens, and then save your home planet! "

Vergil stared harder at the poster. Some things looked a little beyond him, like the features that let you control camera angle, but a screenshot of a garage with a ship in it answering Nellie's question for him. "Yeah, look at that!" He said, pointing at this new picture. "You can either get a pre-made one or you can build your own in the Shuttle Garage!"

Reuben couldn't believe his ears. The only thing that Vergil was excited to build or create were different kinds of food more often than not. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that this was a video game, but that didn't lessen the shock.

Still considering the picture, Vergil hmmed and his eyes roved over all the different ships. "I'd want something that could go fast and be really good at racing, but also pack a punch." He pointed at one that looked like it was shaped like a storm cloud, with trendrils of lightning flashing out from underneath it. "That one looks pretty cool."

Sighing, Reuben decided to appeal to the kids' hunger. "Come on, guys, it's lunchtime! How about we go over to the International House of Pancakes?"

Now if that didn't tempt them, he didn't know what would.

Reuben laughed; Vergil looked a little shocked. "Alright," said Reuben, "looks like we're being bad hosts. Time to get the little lady some pancakes."

Vergil nodded, looking at Nellie quizzically. "You put gummy worms on pancakes?" He asked, wondering to himself if such a thing was possible. "I only do butter, though sometimes jam if I'm really like it."

Sensing that a great culinary debate was coming on, Reuben steered the two of them over to the IHOP in the mall and placed their names down for a table. The waitress in the perky apron at the front informed him that it would be a few minutes and Reuben nodded, giving them his name as the reservation.