xp_logs | backdated log: Liam and Hope

xp_liono posting in

Liam and Hope formally meet after he's done working for the day. They're both hopeless with old media. No one is threatened or bullied. Sorry, Sharon.

Freshly showered after working on pulling gutters, Liam was half watching some holiday movie on TV as he carefully worked a fine tooth comb through his tail fur. He hadn't washed that (he had a plastic cover) because it took forever to dry, but that didn't mean it hadn't gotten wet and tangled while working outside earlier.

Hope wasn't afraid to meet people in the mansion - not really, not afraid-afraid. But after trying to apologize to Sharon and Match, she was feeling uneasy about it, which explained why she started when she saw Liam in the common room. "Oh," she said. "You're Liam. Um - I, uh, I'm Hope?" Her expression was complicated by the anxiety.

Turning, Liam's ears and tail quickly flattened, showing his apprehension. He had maintained that it was important to know why Hope had attacked before holding grudges, but that didn't mean ignoring what she'd done. After all, he was cleaning himself up after working on the cleanup. Sharon and Shatterstar hadn't agreed. "I am," he agreed, willing to see how things went. "And you....I scratched you," it looked like it was healing at least.

"Oh, that was you!" Hope looked a little relieved to be able to place someone more concretely in her memory, and she certainly didn't seem to hold a grudge over the scratch. "Um, I'm sorry about TK-ing you outside. I thought, um, well, I was trying to - I wasn't really thinking that well, I guess. I hope you didn't get hurt. I tried to make sure nobody did."

"You got me wet," he complained, ignoring that she also made him cold. He warmed up, but he hated getting his ears and tail wet when he didn't control it. Or choose it. "Why'd you do it?"

She looked down, her shoulders shrugging a little bit - not dismissively, but almost to defend herself. "Um, my dad? He went missing when we got here. And I thought you guys would have Cerebro - which you don't, actually, but it's a machine that the X-Men in most dimensions use to find mutants, and Dad's a mutant, so I just wanted to use it to find him." The lack of Cerebro was still a clear sore point for, but one she didn't pursue further. "So I was just trying to sneak in, and that, um . . . didn't work."

Liam blinked. "Isn't that the plot to The Matrix?" it certainly sounded like a sci-fi movie anyways.

"What's the matrix?" Hope asked. "Like . . . the math thing?"

"It's a movie," Liam answered. "It's got cool special effects. But seriously, what you're talking about is next level sci-fi."

"It's not!" Hope said. "My X-Men have it. But you guys have the Danger Room - that's way better. Did you know you can program it to do pretty much anything?"

"Yeah?" Liam used it, "Mr. K and I do training there. Because we have similar mutations," and it was so much fun! He'd always thought climbing trees and playing in them was great, but this was seriously next level! "Is like the world's best jungle gym!"

"I wanna try!" Hope joined in Liam's enthusiasm. "We have to kind of make our own stuff at home. It's okay, but you can make the Danger Room anything. You can have a battle with aliens, you can ride a horse, you can go to the moon - anything. At least, that's what Grandma said."

"We don't battle," Liam fully assumed the X-Men did, but he certainly didn't. "We do self defense training though. And powers stuff. You could probably ride a horse, but it's probably more fun to actually do that and not just use the DR."

"Have you ridden a horse? I've never ridden one. I saw some, though, when we went to trade supplies." Hope, a stymied horse girl, sighed. "You guys really don't do battle training? We do, a lot. Plus our own individual stuff. What kind of powers do you have? Or is it rude to ask?"

"Yeah...?" was that a trick question? "We don't own horses, but they're not that uncommon?" the more they chatted, the more he thought she was adorable, but very, very weird. "I'm a cat..." wasn't that obvious? "You wanna go riding sometime?'

"Yes!" Hope got a certain starry-eyed look, thinking about it. "It'd have to be before my dad comes to get me, though. Can you ride horses in winter? Or - um, would they get cold?"

"Sure, it's fine," he waved away the concern, "They have blankets. Anyways I'll find something. And if you can, great and if not, well... sucks for you." But maybe not if that meant she was going home.

Hope nodded seriously. "I'll let you know if my dad gets here," she said. She grinned, excited. "Thank you. This is so nice of you."