Welcome to Gaia! ::

He had been shunning just about all of his duties to some degree or another, and he wasn't proud of it - Joy might have been - but this one he had been shunning more than most of the rest.

So it had been a while since he'd last gone and stretched his legs in the guise of Maus purely for the purpose of stretching his legs and attempting to put a little fear of God (or whatever) into things that went bump in the night.

Not that he'd run into any of those. It was almost suspiciously quiet, and when he finally felt that mental tickle that denoted someone nearby, it was not an enemy, but a friend.

He turned himself towards it, ambling at his leisure in the vague direction of potential companionship, until he reckoned himself within earshot and indulged, not for the first time, a childish impulse that he always felt in these types of situations.

"Marco," he called out.

"Wonderfully, as always," he said, the picture of good cheer as he leaned on his stick. "I won't say that it's a quiet night because that always dooms us to sudden noise, but I will ask you how quiet the night has been so far."

"That's a mouthful," he said cheerfully. "Maus." He had a firm, surprisingly businesslike handshake, which paired with the smile and mustache had the occasional effect of making him seem like a used car salesman. At least all three were sincere, which very little about him was. "I hope when you say cats you mean the normal kind, and not that you've been breaking up Mauvian spats. God only knows what those might look like," he added drily.

He made the kind of face one might make on thinking of a nest of spiders being found under their pillow. "Not worth thinking about," he agreed.

He paused. "Not met a Mauvian yet," he repeated. "Fresh face, or just lucky so far?"

It had to be the second one, of course. The energy signature told him so. But still, some people truly rocketed quickly through the ranks, and it was the right thing to do, to check.

And maybe, maybe...

Another person might have been almost embarrassed by the little leap of joy that accompanied this casual statement of hers. But he barely even registered it.

"Fresh and also very lucky," he said with enthusiasm, suddenly putting out his hand to her as if to shake her hand again, this time in fervent congratulations, as if the previous handshake hadn't been adequately prepared for. "Very lucky. I'm so glad you came over. It's easier over here - it is - you'll get used to it sooner than you think." This was a lie, of course. But it was a good lie. "How are you settling in? Do you need anything?"

"Oh, that's lucky. No, no. Not lucky," he corrected himself. "It was good thinking. I had to scramble my way into the first situation I could. It's worked out, but it was - I should have been a little more careful, probably."

He hesitated, clearly about to say something else but taking a moment to sort out his thoughts.

"I've been - well - calling it trying is giving me too much credit but I've been trying to kick around ideas for - like." He paused.

"Well, you know - I had a surprising amount of safety net ready to catch me and get me on my feet, but after that it felt like all the stuff for helping me was for helping Maus, not for helping - you know - like - who I am when I'm not Maus. I still don't know what to do about that. I feel like we need to be able to - to network, or something - but it's not safe. I know it isn't safe. But I wanna start working on it. Have you," he said, with sudden boyish earnestness, searching her face, "run into anything that like - that you wish you'd had something like in place? Like some sort of - oh - not a support group, that sounds awful - but some way that we can sort of... like... let our guards down and not have to be fake people just to hang out. You know? I'm probably not making sense."

"I hadn't even thought of a place," he said, apparently turning this over in his head. "I was thinking more like - like get-togethers. Would a place be more dangerous? I don't know. But it'd be easier to get to. But like - like a speakeasy, yeah, sort of. A party. Anything. To hang out like we are when we're not - like this. So we don't have to fake it."

He paused. "Is it just me?" he asked, frank, searching. "Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this kinda thing would help."