Only Colours

When the bell rang to signal the end of the school day they left the nurse's office and Jude allowed Mikey to lead him down to where Mikey's mum was supposed to meet him. When they got there, she was already there waiting for him.

Jude hung back so Mikey's mum didn't realise he was with Mikey at first, but she did notice Mikey looking upset and slightly unkempt.

"What happened, sweetheart?" she asked.

Mikey ducked his head away. He couldn't explain it without breaking his rules. "Nothing."

"Um..." Jude said as he stepped forward, up to Mikey's side. "Maybe I can explain?"

Jude was close and Mikey automatically leant his body towards him so that their shoulders touched. Jude shot Mikey a look of annoyance, but his colours showed he didn't really mind as much as he was pretending.

"You can see him?" Mikey's mum asked Mikey in surprise.

Mikey nodded. "His name's Jude." He couldn't think of anything else to say. He hadn't yet secured Jude as a friend.

Mikey was still clearly unsettled, though, so she let that particular point go for the moment and asked Jude what had happened. The story he told her was much the same as what he'd told the nurse, but when he came to the end he added something he hadn't last time.

"I told everyone to give us some room, and— Well, Mikey was quite close, I guess he gets clingy when he's upset? More clingy... Anyway, his PE teacher suggested the we, uh, get a room."

That explained why Jude had reacted how he had at that point in the day's events.

Mikey had his eyes on the ground, but he heard his mum make a sound of displeasure. "That's a terrible thing to say."

"Guy's a dick," Jude said simply. "But anyway, if I were you I'd want something done about this, and I'd maybe think about bringing that bit up along with everything else. When I was in his class in grade eight there was a boy who was kinda effeminate who that teacher called names and I know that was reported, so he has at least one count of homophobia on his record."

"Thank you, Jude, I'll definitely keep that in mind." Mikey still wasn't looking at either of them, but he could hear in her voice that she was looking forward to doing whatever she could to make sure Mikey's PE teacher was punished. "Would you be willing to repeat all this for the principal, if necessary?"

"Yeah. I can also find you a couple of other witnesses for the later parts of what happened. You'll have to get someone from his class if you want to confirm how it started, though."

"I'm sure my darling son won't be saying anything in his own defence," Mikey's mum said, and a moment later he saw her shadow shift and felt her hand stroke the back of his head affectionately. "Now, I have a problem. I don't really want to leave Mikey to walk home on his own, but if I leave it much longer the staff will start to go home."

"You want me to walk him home?" Jude asked. Mikey glanced up hopefully to assess Jude's colours and was pleased to see they were as free of irritation as his voice had been.

"If you can. If you have to get home you could take him with you if your parents wouldn't mind."

Jude's colours shifted to displeasure at the latter suggestion though his facial expression and tone was unaffected. "Nah, I'll walk him home for you."

"Are your parents going to wonder where you are?" Mikey's mum asked. "I have a phone if you need to call them."

Jude shook his head. "I don't normally come straight home after school." When she looked uncertain, Jude added, "You should hurry if you want to deal with this today."

As she walked away Jude muttered, "Hope he gets fired," then turned to Mikey. "Which way is your house?"

Mikey's house wasn't far from the school, only a fifteen minute walk, but Jude didn't seem to particularly care how far it was because he didn't even ask.

When they reached Mikey's house, Jude just looked up at it and nodded. "Nice."

Mikey quirked his head to the side, examining the house they'd recently moved into. Mikey thought it was pretty average, really. It had two floors, though it only had two bedrooms, and was in fairly good repair. They were renting. Mikey's mum never seemed too attached to the idea of settling down.

"Is your mum going to care if I eat your food?" Jude asked as soon as they were inside.

Mikey shook his head. "No. You can have whatever you like."

Well, Mikey wasn't entirely sure that was true. Mikey, for instance, wouldn't have been allowed to eat an entire packet of biscuits. But Jude was a guest and he was being so nice to Mikey, so perhaps rules like that didn't apply to him.

Jude didn't go for the cookies, though. He started looking through containers of leftovers from meals in the fridge.

"Is this still good?" Jude asked, holding up a microwave bowl half full of pasta.

"Good?"

"Is it old? Is it going to give me food poisoning if I eat it?"

Mikey wrinkled his nose. "Why would we keep food that's off in our fridge?"

Jude shrugged and took the pasta over to the counter. "Some people forget to clean things out. Or can't be bothered. You want some?"

Mikey shook his head. He wasn't weird like Jude, so he was going to have cookies as his afternoon snack.

Jude served himself a bowl of pasta, put the rest back in the fridge, and heated up his food in the microwave. He took a cookie when Mikey offered it.

Now that Mikey had Jude at his house he didn't quite know what to do with him. What did friends do?

"I have some games," Mikey said when they returned to the living room to eat, gesturing towards the console sitting on the floor next to the TV. "Or we could watch a movie or um... play a board game?"

"Or I could eat my food," Jude said. The annoyance was there again, but barely.

"After you eat, obviously."

Jude made a face, clearly not overjoyed by the options. "I guess we can watch a movie or whatever."

Mikey quickly crammed the rest of his second cookie down his throat and then went and fished out his DVDs from the cabinet the TV was on. "What do you want to watch?"

Jude swallowed a mouthful of food. "Don't care."

Mikey liked family movies, but Jude probably wouldn't, would he? Mikey had to be considerate of what Jude would want, even if he did claim not to care. That was what you did when someone was your guest, wasn't it?

What would Jude like? An action movie? Mikey doubted he'd like kiddy stuff or romance or anything too emotional and he seemed too grumpy for comedy. Action was it by default.

"Iron Man?" Mikey offered, holding up the DVD case for Jude to see.

"Still don't care," Jude said, but his colours showed that he at least didn't disapprove. That was probably the best Mikey would get. He put the DVD on.

Jude found the DVD interesting for a while, but after he'd eaten the fatigue that was a constant undertone in Jude's colours began to take over. When Mikey's mum came home, Jude was curled up asleep on the couch.

Mikey focussed his attention on her and she morphed from colours into person in front of his eyes. She waited until she was sure he could see her before speaking quietly so as not to wake Jude. "Well, I've done everything I can for now. They seemed to take me seriously, anyway."

Mikey wouldn't talk about the incident. She knew that and didn't expect a response.

She frowned at Jude's sleeping form. "I really hate to wake him, but I don't want to start things out with his mum being mad at us for kidnapping her son."

"I don't think she'd mind," Mikey told her. "I don't think she's like you."

"Well, maybe she's not quite as overbearing as me, but all mums worry about their kids when they don't know where they are." She leant over Jude and shook his shoulder. "Wake up, sleepy head."

Jude hadn't even stirred while Mikey and his mum had been talking, but as soon as he was touched he jolted and fear churned up in his colours. He glanced around, and as soon as he recognised where he was the fear faded.

Mikey's mum smiled at him. "Thank you for staying with Mikey. We'd better get you home now before your mum worries."

Jude stroked a hand over the back of his hair to flatten it, though it was too short to really get messed up. "She wouldn't, but okay."

Jude gave Mikey's mum directions to his house, and as she drove she explained to him what had happened at the school in more detail than she had with Mikey. Jude was mostly silent, nodding along and contributing the occasional snide comment. His colours were anxiety laced fatigue.

"Okay, thanks," Jude said as soon as Mikey's mum pulled up outside of his house and quickly got out of the car. Mikey and his mum got out too. Anxiety overwhelmed the fatigue in Jude's colours. "You don't have to walk me in or anything."

"I'd like to talk to your mum and explain why you're home late," Mikey's mum said, and before Jude could protest she began walking towards Jude's house.

Jude glared at Mikey as if this was somehow all his fault. "Stay there."

Jude had sounded very firm and there had been anger in his colours, so Mikey stayed. He wished he could see what was going on, but the front door to Jude's house was around the side of it. Was it really a front door, then? Wasn't it a side door, and then there was no front door?

The neighbourhood Jude lived in wasn't very nice, Mikey had to admit. All the houses were small and in poor repair. Jude's house had a low fence with chipped paint that had lost several of its planks. Even the road was cracked.

It wasn't long before Mikey's mum returned, and she had Jude with her. None of her colours were good ones. Anger, sadness, pity, disgust.

"Jude's going to stay over at our house tonight," Mikey's mum told him. She had made an effort at making that sound like it was just a thing, a good thing, like nothing was wrong. That was clearly not true.

Mikey's mum tried to keep conversation going as they drove back to Mikey's house, but Jude only gave the bare minimum of responses. He stared out the window, determinedly avoiding looking at either of them.

There was anger in his colours, a lot of it, but shame overwhelmed it. Mikey wanted to hug him, to comfort him, but Jude was like a nervous dog. Touching might get Mikey bit, though probably not literally. Probably.

Jude curled up on the couch again when they got back to Mikey's house and pretended to be asleep while he stewed in his emotions. Mikey stopped his mum from trying to wake Jude up when it was dinner time. Jude had already eaten, and if he wanted to take part in dinner he could wake up on his own since he wasn't even really asleep. He didn't. Instead he kept pretending until finally he really did fall asleep.

When Mikey and his mum went to put their dishes in the sink she tapped on his shoulder and he focussed on her until she solidified. He could tell from the look on her face and the swirl of her colours that whatever she was going to say was serious. "I don't want you going over to Jude's house. If you want to spend time with him he can come over here. Any time he wants, okay? You tell him that."

"I don't think Jude would want me to go over to his house anyway," Mikey said.

"No... no, probably not."

Jude stayed the night, and while his colours had calmed a bit by morning he was still in a bad mood by the time they headed off to school. Mikey wanted to be happy that Jude had agreed to stay the night like a friend would, but how could he be happy when Jude was so sad? He wished he could find a way to make Jude happy. To give him a cookie or a hug and make things at least a little better.