xp_logs | Gaia, Laura, & Arthur

xp_gaia posting in

Arthur and his enthusiatic sidekick pay a visit to Laura and Gaia's suite.

Arthur knocked with the side of his fist, quick and rhythmic. Felix sat beside him, tail already hammering against the hallway wall like he wanted to announce the two.

"Buddy," Arthur said quietly, glancing down at the pile of golden fluff, "you gotta stop arriving at every emotional situation like you’re the cavalry."

Felix looked up at him happily with a thousand yard stare.

"Yeah, alright. Counterpoint noted."

Arthur knocked again, louder this time. Through the just-luckily-enough open and decidedly narrow crack of the door he could spot movement inside — bags on the floor, clothes half-folded, the unmistakable energy of teens trying to leave without much noise.

Felix noticed it too and stood immediately, ears up.

"Oh, don’t do that," the man muttered. "You look competent now. Ruins the whole casual brand we're cultivating of nonchalance."

He leaned toward the door and pitched his voice louder.

"Laura? Gaia? It’s Arthur." A beat. "I brought a medically irresponsible amount of golden retriever."

Laura came to the door and stood in the frame, she couldn't hide what was going on behind her because of her height but she tried. "Hi Arthur. Gaia, it is Arthur." She called for her roommate.

Her slightly taller roommate manifested behind the feral, succeeding in concealing a little more of the scene. She eyed the pair at their door with her usual mask of stony nothing. "Hello Arthur. And Felix."

Arthur lifted a hand when the door opened, easy smile already halfway there. Gaia might’ve had the height advantage over Laura, sure, but Arthur still had the entire suite beat by a comfortable margin.

"Well," he laughed, glancing down at Felix, "our very subtle undercover operation."

Felix had locked onto Laura completely by now, tail thumping hard.

"I told him we were doing a cool, casual drop-by," Arthur went on. "But apparently he’s heard all about the brave Laura Kinney and mysterious interdimensional roommate situation. I may’ve oversold it just a little."

He shrugged one shoulder. Easy, unhurried.

"Anyway. I figured the two of you could probably use a large fuzzy distraction with no sense of personal space and the survival instincts of wet toast. For, uh," and he pointedly did not glance over their heads at the bags, "absolutely no specific reason whatsoever."

Laura also had her eyes locked on to Felix, "Oh, well we are busy. Could you come back later?"

The dog didn’t care about the request. Egged on by the eye contact, Felix jumped up and gave Laura a big lick on the face, before bounding into the room behind her, sniffing around their bags.

Gaia attempted to push him back through the door, but he didn’t budge. Instead he emerged from one bag happily with a can of Pringles in his mouth, tail wagging.

“Those are not for you,” the pink-haired girl scolded mildly.

Laura was not prepared for the dog to jump on her, he was almost as big as her on his hinde legs. She stumbled backwards and downwards before she was free from his tackle. Rolling over onto her stomach as she watched Felix grab one of her cans. "No! Not my pringles! Come here." Laura quickly got to her feet to give chase to the dog who now thought of it as a game and ran behind the couch and into one of the girls rooms.

Arthur watched Felix vanish after Laura and closed his eyes briefly, though not before leaning just enough to get a better look into the room.

Packed bags. Cleared surfaces. Leaving quiet.

". . . This is humiliating for me personally," he admitted beneath the full force of Gaia's disapproving scowl. "Felix usually waits a bit before escalating from home invasion to petty theft. Standards, you know."

Felix thundered past again with the can still proudly clamped in his mouth. Smoked Custard Ribs & Clove Jam blazed across the label beneath a mascot sporting a deeply questionable horseshoe mustache. Imported, then. The cardboard tube glistened with enthusiastic dog slobber.

Arthur watched him go, then let the joke fall away as he looked back at the pink haired girl still holding their original barricade.

"Nobody's actually talked to you two properly yet, have they?"

Gaia’s frown deepened. If the joke was amusing to her personally, she did not show it. “They have not.” Short and clipped, or more-so than her usual speech. None of the big words and flourishes she liked to throw in.

Laura returned a few moments later with a can of pringles with some teeth marks and slobber and a happy dog trailing behind her. She picked up the bag that originally held the pringles and set it on the counter. "No. No treat for you. Don't give me that look. You know what you did." There was a slight pause and Laura appeared under Gaia's arm. "About what?" Answer Arthur's question. Feral hearing had its perks sometimes.

Arthur nodded slowly, eyes drifting once toward the bags before coming back to Gaia.

"Ah," he said softly. "Okay. I think I see the shape of it."

He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck.

"Laura gets out, gives the adults the intel, and that’s supposed to be the moment the movie changes pace, right?" A small shrug. "Alarms. Sprinting down hallways. Extremely urgent conversations in rooms with bad lighting."

Instead he gestured vaguely around the mansion.

"But everything’s still moving at normal speed."

His mouth twitched faintly.

“And meanwhile every minute starts feeling like a Capital C Choice.”

Arthur’s eyes flicked once toward the bags.

"So now your brains are doing the thing where it becomes: ‘Well, if nobody else is moving yet, maybe it has to be us.' Makes sense."

A few moments of silence stretched between the man and the two girls. Something changed only slightly in her expression. Reevaluation. She glanced towards Laura to seemingly gauge what could be said. Not that Gaia was a mutant of many words anyways.

Finally, she landed on, "If they will not act, then someone must, no?"

Laura sighed and tapped Gaia on the shoulder to signal to let him in. "I know people are working on it." She pulled out a Canadian map and put it on the coffee table. She tapped on a location. "This is where the nice lady was. And here..." She pointed to an area that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. "Is the location of last known facility, the one I escaped from. What we do know, is that Weapon X moves fast and quitely. They try to go under the radar. I know. I've lived with one of their sub departments for 16 year. They have backups and backups to their backups. If I find the trail, then I can track to another facility. Recon."

It wasn't long before Arthur was cross-legged on the floor in front of the map, studying it with low thoughtful hums.

“Look, I’m not saying this is a bad plan,” he admitted. "Honestly? Structurally, it’s already outperforming a concerning percentage of official X-Men operations. I once helped stop an apocalypse using the tactical framework of ‘vibes’ and a satellite, so my standards are flexible."

Felix skidded past again, toenails scrabbling wildly against hardwood.

"I’m just trying to work out the choreography here." Arthur gestured between the two young women. “Because Laura running headfirst into danger for people she couldn’t leave behind? Yeah, that tracks. Strong third act energy.”

His attention shifted to Gaia, curious.

"But you…" he said. "You feel like the person who already knows exactly how badly this could go. And came anyway."

He leaned back on one hand.

"What role are you filling here? There were a lot of 'I's in the plan."

Felix came to nudge Gaia’s leg with his nose. The girl frowned at the wet spot it left on her pants.

“Laura is my friend,” she said simply. A long pause followed as she mentally turned over her reasonings, deciding which she wanted to divulge.

“As is Liam. These people…. have hurt them. Many times now. I am told this is a "safe haven", yet Laura only escaped by her own ability.. It seems they must be dealt with.”

It was stated with utmost certainty. And a tinge of possessiveness. But what Gaia possesed in conviction was let down by the fact that they were, in the end, two teenage girls, one who hadn’t shown any skill of note since she arrived, attempting to go against an enemy this expansive.

"You are selling yourself short Gaia." Laura carefully folded the map. "And yes, they must be dealt with. Or they will come back. If not this branch, another branch. They are like a virus."

Arthur nodded once.

"Yeah," he said simply. "You're right. People like that don't stop."

His eyes drifted briefly toward the map.

"Half the institute's packing bags right now convinced they're the only ones willing to do something about it. I passed one already on my way here. Very dramatic duffel bag, worse snack choices. Nothing as sophisticated as Pringles."

Felix leaned harder against Gaia like emotional support was a full-contact activity. His tongue lolled.

"Which just means nobody's talking. Nobody knows who's doing what."

Arthur glanced down at the dog.

"And the thing about viruses," he said more quietly, "is they don’t need coordination. Panic does half the work for them."

Ever so slowly, a hand reached down to give Felix's head a clumsy pat. The dog's tail thumped against the hardwood.

"We will... take this into consideration."

Laura pressed her lips together tightly. She wanted to do something, more than just wait around for the next move. "Yes. We will."

"Good," Arthur nodded. "Good. I won't tell you not to go. But I'll give you something better than approval."

He leaned in, easy confidence settling.

"You don’t need cover, exactly. Cover is for people who think they might get caught. Instead . . . I can offer some classic misdirection. You leave for Canada, save who you’re saving. I stay here and become loud, charming, memorable enough that nobody sees your departure."

A faint smile. He rose to his full height, already turning toward the exit.

"So no," he said. "Not permission."

Then, lighter:

"And if you stay — Felix is always looking for company."