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[dropkick]

[ When the device knocks on it's on its side, providing first a view of the bubble and the sharp of a knee, then there's some snuffling noises thanks to the corgi trying to...eat it - the device that is - and some sea-sick worthy footage before there's Arthur's voice, ]

Pancake, no! Not food. Bad. Probably lethal. Give me that...


[ Grabbing for the device, he gets it in hand and sighs, arching a brow at the camera seeing it's on, then, bored or whatever, he gives a once-around pan of his environment for the day, his voice equal parts resigned to his 24 hour fate and lazily annoyed. ]

Wonder who came up with this one.

[ Arthur likes his personal space. Really, he does. But...this is going a bit far even for him.

The bubble is sizable - enough so (six feet in diameter give or take) that he hasn't in fact left his room today, which he might not have anyway, not particularly interested in filling the parallel role of hamster-on-wheel. After he turns once in a full circle, he shuts the device off, the last thing transmitted being a slight mumble of, ] Could be worse.


[ooc: tags picked up later ;; last class now lol tests...]

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[dropkick]

[ At that, Arthur laughs and it's something that starts more bemused before moving into fully amused, shaking his head as he continues watching through the bubble. Pancake has started half crawling away but kind of still sitting in Ariadne's lap, the half effort of a dog who's not sure what he prefers to be up to. ]

You're saying he doesn't have a brain, you know.

[boutant]

[ Hauling Pancake back onto her lap and attempting to distract him with scritches, Ariadne simply gives Arthur one of her large, brown-eyed innocent looks before the effect is lost due to her laughing. ]

He wouldn't work as the Tin Man.

[dropkick]

True. Who's left?

[ Thoughtful look? Thoughtful look as he rocks back slightly then forward again, fidgeting in the bubble even while sitting down, hands on his knees before he lifts said hands to begin counting off characters on his fingertips. ]

Let's see - the wizard, wicked witch of the west, monkey henchman creeps, Auntie Em....munchkins...who'm I missing...

[boutant]

The doorman in Oz...

[ And then more laughter. ]

He could be the entire Lollipop Guild.

[dropkick]

Too many options. Guess Scarecrow'll have to do for now.

[ Peering at Pancake who once back on Ariadne's lap has decided to roll on his back, paws in the air in a confused sort of state, as if he's not sure how he got there. ]

[boutant]

[ Oh Pancake. You are so dumb; you're lucky they love you. Ariadne rubs his belly, one hand playfully tweaking one of his ears. ]

Are you working tonight?

[dropkick]

Not tonight, no. Why?

[ Pancake makes a sleepy whuffling sort of noise, and Arthur's brow arches though he makes no actual comment on it. ]

[boutant]

The bubble.

[ And the fact that it seems to make everything Arthur does hilarious to her for some reason. She's still rubbing Pancake's belly, one hand sliding under his head to keep it from slipping down between her legs. ]

[dropkick]

Oh well...yeah. I mean, if I did I still would've called out to be safe - in case it's one of those longer curses.

[ He pauses, rubbing at his nose, an itch there for some reason, which in fact leads into him sneezing and he shakes his head to clear it. ]

He's gonna fall asleep there if you let him. Your legs'll fall asleep too.

[boutant]

[ Ew. She hopes that didn't hit the wall of the bubble and instead passed through it; she can't imagine being trapped inside that with your own germs would be very pleasant. ]

I think I can deal with that.

[ Ariadne leans down to kiss Pancake's nose. ]

He was a good boy during all the commotion the other day.

[dropkick]

[ It was as sanitary as a sneeze can be, gosh! Well, more or less. In any case, Arthur ends up pausing, frowning before he catches onto what Ariadne is referring to; so much happens in this place, day after day. The breaks don't necessarily feel like breaks either so much as strange interludes where less weird things happen, but weird thins still do happen.

But a girl battered and nearly - according to what Ariadne had reported - starved to death, showing up in the architect's bedroom, ranks high even in the City. Not that that's a good thing, though Arthur can't help but think it is lucky she ended up in Ariadne's room. It's not freezing out but it's still cold enough that if the girl had ended up somewhere on the street less occupied or frequented...well he'd rather not complete the thought. He blinks. ]

I figured.

Do you know how she's doing?

[boutant]

[ Ariadne has been thinking along similar lines. Anna had been in terrible shape, terrible enough that Ariadne hasn't wanted to think about it much and has been instead trying to distract herself however she can, save for when praising Pancake for being a good dog that day. Still -- she could have been gone, could have missed the sound of the chains or Waffle's startled squawk. She could have been cursed that day or could have simply not come home, only to find that Anna had died in her bed. Anna herself could have been injured more, or ended up elsewhere, outside or in the house of someone who wouldn't have helped her.

It could have been worse for her, too. She and Eames put aside their spatting, the Brit distracting her after Anna was taken to the hospital, and Arthur... well, tried to wash her bedding, and ended up buying her two new set of it. She hasn't decided which she likes the most yet; Arthur has good taste. ]

Not really. Just that they've cleaned her up and she seems to be responding to what they've given her so far.

[dropkick]

That's good - I mean, better than...

[ Backtrack. ] Well just...that's good. [ Suddenly he wishes he had something to fidget with other than the splay of his own toes or the knob of his knee, though he recrosses his legs the other over top this time instead, before finally just giving it up and lying down, arms folded lightly across his chest. It had been quite the task, waging a bleach war on the bedding and ultimately losing, deciding to toss them (which he ought to have done in the first place likely) and going out to select new bedding in its place. He'd ended up with two full sets, not sure which one she would like more, but at this point he figures she can keep both, just use the other one for the bed at her other place.

Turning his head so that his cheek is against the floor and he's staring more at Ariadne's shin and the drape of one of Pancake's paws over her leg, he says, ] You gonna go see her?

[boutant]

Yeah.

[ Better than a lot of things. Ariadne has Pancake to fidget with and so she does, stroking his fur. The dog seems to be falling asleep now, snuffling and twitching, and despite the topic of conversation it makes her smile. Arthur stretching out on the floor does as well. If he weren't in the bubble, it'd be tempting to join him, to claim part of him as a pillow the same way she does with Eames at times -- even if, somehow, she and Arthur aren't as close as she and Eames are. It's different than how it was on the job, but then, she and Eames were stuck in the house together for a while when the man was on house arrest and she was unemployed. It's not something she expected to happen, but it did, and she doesn't regret it -- only, perhaps, that she isn't as close with the others. ]

I told her I would. [ A pause, tucking some hair behind an ear before returning her hand to Pancake. ] Someone should go and visit her. I doubt she's had anyone who really cares about what happens to her in a while.

[dropkick]

[ Arthur even now finds this whole arrangement odd though at the beginning it had seemed both logical and safest, to be able to account for each member of the team, to keep mutual eyes on each other. It's disturbingly hard for Arthur to keep track of things here, in a way that means he's begun keeping a lodger of sorts though his shorthand might as well be another language to anyone who tries to read it.

On the job he knew his role, how to function for the sake of it, and he'd taken a shine to Ariadne for her self-reliance and creativity once he'd recognized it in her. His first thought having been something along the lines of seriously? when Dom brought her around and then later glad that he had when her natural knack was clear. But it would be a lie to say he'd thought he might see her again after the Fischer job.

It's impossible to ignore the fact that the person he's spent the last nearly three years running around with is the one person of the obvious set that can't seem to stick around. If this was a dream he'd be inclined to tell his subconscious to knock it off but it's not a dream and that's the other thing isn't it? Not a dream. His focus having slid to the way Pancake's ear keeps perking as if he's hearing something out of sight, Arthur mutes his own sigh.

This whole scenario seems intensely unlikely. Yusuf being a part of it he can at least attribute in many ways to Eames. But if he tries to factor in the sometimes-appearances of Mal things get even more confusing, in a way Arthur's mind, which has still only in relatively recent months come around to the not-a-dream fact, is not ready for - might never be.

Still, some part of him perceives the non-volatile moments as oddly nice, the problem resting somewhere in the part of him still not trusting enough to take a good thing for a good thing minus any fallout.

Listening to Ariadne, his brow furrows then smooths only to end with him in an unintentionally neutral expression, rolled onto his side as he is, a lazy recline if he wasn't only doing it for the boredom of being trapped. ]

Sounded...sounded like she might've been too traumatized to care.