Second Floor Common Room, Thursday Morning

[arsenicmauls]

After talking all through class, Gert was pretty exhausted, so she returned to the dorms, trekked up to the common room and flopped on the couch, only remembering after several moments had gone by that she actually needed to fumble for the remote in order to get the TV to play anything.

Eventually she settled on a weird, weird animated movie about a bunch of ranch horses that had gotten fed up with their owners riding them around all the time and took off for the wilderness instead to found their own republican government. It was oddly compelling. Probably at least in part because Gert had been really into horses as a child, but no one else needed to know that embarrassing fact, thanks.

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[ultron_junior]

"Horse movie?" Victor checked, squinting at the TV as he paused on his way to the kitchen. He was two floors away from his own common room, but the fourth floor was sadly devoid of Pop-Tarts. "Cartoon horse movie?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Hippie cartoon horse movie," Gert agreed, twisting to face Victor over the back of the couch. "Kinda weird. Doesn't completely suck, though. Even if the plot holes are many and recurring, like why the horses can talk and run a government while all the other animals are just normal animals. Also, how this qualifies as a republic when all of them are representatives."

Don't nitpick the cartoon horse movie, Gert.

[ultron_junior]

"Maybe hippies don't understand what direct democracy is," Victor offered. "But you'd think they would, right? Isn't that how communes work?"

He did not sound like, and was not, the biggest fan of communes. Or hippies. It just seemed messy to him.

[arsenicmauls]

"You'd think," Gert replied; for someone who had wanted to join the socialist club in ninth grade, she didn't know a whole lot about how communes worked either. "I guess you could make the case that maybe the horses just don't know, but... eh. Tenuous."

She shifted on the couch, trying to find a more comfortable position. "Anything good in the cabinets?"

[ultron_junior]

"I mean, they talk," Victor argued. "We have to assume they're smarter than most horses."

He frowned at her question, rummaged a bit more. "Cookie dough Pop Tarts," he said, with some satisfaction. "Want one?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Yeah, gimme." A purple-manicured hand extended over the back of the couch. "Thought the common rooms were out of these."

The second floor common room was the best of all common rooms, apparently.

"And yeah, point," she conceded. "Guess the people who made this weren't sure whether they wanted it to be an educational movie about government or a statement, and it went kind of weird."

But then again, talking horses.

[ultron_junior]

Victor passed over a foil envelope. "Magic cabinet," he said jokingly. "Or someone hid them really well."

In which case, ha ha, anonymous food-hider.

He took a seat on a chair near Gert's. "So what are you up to, besides overanalyzing cartoons?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Now I'm hoping they're that obnoxious lacrosse kid's," Gert mused, claiming the Pop-Tart gratefully. Mmm, cookie dough goodness.

"Basically nothing," she answered in response to his question. "Went to a museum with Bay last week and that's about it. Oh, and I'm thinking of inviting Nico for next weekend. You?"

[ultron_junior]

"Or Loki's," Victor suggested. "And yeah, it's been kind of a quiet semester so far. I keep trying to impress Doom in that science class. That's about it."

He hesitated with the pastry halfway to his mouth. "Nico, right. Have you asked her yet?"

There was maybe still a tiny bit of awkwardness around the idea of seeing a version of his ex who hadn't even met him yet.

[arsenicmauls]

"Doom's here?" Oh, Fandom. "And no, I'm still thinking about it," she confessed. "There's kind of pros and cons to it."

She scrunched up her face for a minute, considering whether she wanted to go on, then decided she might as well. "Want to hear something monumentally stupid?"

[ultron_junior]

"Yeah, I think it's part of Fandom's collect-all-the-villains plan," Victor said, more blase about this than he would have been 18 months before. "If I ignore the stuff about how amazing Doom is, it's not a bad class."

"And," he added, "I always want to hear something stupid. What's up?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Fandom," Gert said after a brief pause, with a begrudging roll of her eyes. That was all she really could say about that.

"Basically, I kind of think if Nico comes here, there's a chance I'll decide to take off with her back to LA and get everyone else back together and, you know, all of that." She gave a vague wave of her hand. "Which is a seriously bad idea right now."

[ultron_junior]

"Right now, or in general?" Victor wondered. "'Cause ... I dunno what happens to other me if the rest of you never team up again. Uh. Not to be totally selfish."

[arsenicmauls]

"Right now," Gert repeated. "Like, no one's been able to get in touch with Chase, and Molly's school's security guards are all psychic, and it wouldn't be that subtle if I just disappeared right after my runaway friend came to see me. Plus, I definitely can't afford the pet carrier fees on a portal home yet." She might have looked into that a few times. "But good luck reminding me of all that when Nico's here."

She shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly. "Stupid, right?"