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☑ A sleep filled with nightmares that will be carefully put into Bad Thought Jail during waking hours.

☑ Whine to the dogwalker to get fussed over and pampered for the whole morning.

☑ Turn the ac on blast in order to more comfortably bundle up like a frozen orphan in the middle of winter.

☐ Whine to Jaina to try and get fussed over and pampered for the whole afternoon.

The address led to a pristine old Victorian in one of the more upscale, historical neighborhood of DC. Behind the wrought iron and climbing vines of the fence, three little black dogs with pointed ears wagged their curly tails in three blurs of anticipation. Mal had texted that both the gate and front door were open, and when she walked through, Jaina would find the dogs extremely friendly, but also politely refraining from jumping up or crowding her.

Through the front door was the entryway and a pathetic call of, "I'm in here," coming from the sitting room directly beyond.

The house was full of antiques, involving a mismatch of ages and cultures with the common denominators of: looks fancy, looks comfortable, looks flattering as a backdrop. Mirrors abounded. Possibly the oddest part of the decor were the oil paintings, all of them featuring Malory through different stages of growth from small boy to his current near-adult state. Each of them had him in period costuming, and the most recent few also featured the three little dogs.

In the center of the sitting room had a large, overstuffed couch of wood and velvet, with a large cocoon of blankets languishing away on it.

"I don't want to go to the hospital and I only like Dark Mirror senshi now," the cocoon whined.

She did know him well.

He poked his head out, revealing his usual pristine face, though the shadows under his eyes indicated a lack of sleep. But overall they just gave him a further air of a sickly prince and nothing worse. Malory's expression was definitely sulky, though, even as he let his cocoon gradually slough off, clearly careful of his backside.

"Well, at least for now. Those others will have to make it up to me after tonight," he grouched, first lifting the hem of his shirt to show several thin red lines across his ribs. "I met another Dark Mirror named Lete and we were just chatting and eating snacks, it wasn't our fault that the bank nearby exploded." His tone got huffier as he went on. "But then this On Fire General King sent a scary youma after us! And then he tried to mess with this arrow eternal? And she sprouted wings and shot arrows at everyone. And I think magic wolves too..."

His voice trailed off, unsure of what exactly happened to him in that moment, outside of it being very awful and uncalled for.

"They're from the princess's magical arrows so...magical scratches? There's a puncture too, where one struck right in." He gave a sulky, pathetic blush and added, "On my rear."

But he was carefully leaving back, to better show her his chest, like a cat asking for belly rubs. "The general king there had some kind of fire for a torso? I guess the senshi blew up the bank? And then the nega-people came to beat them up for it? And he reached into the arrow eternal's chest, I guess to take her starseed or something? And then she turned out to be a princess. Are there a lot of those running around? Their magic really hurts."

He very notably didn't mention why he was there, though.

"You don't have to," assuring her without telling her not to, ambiguous as always. "The dog walker did his best earlier," Malory sighed. "I think that one may leave a scar."

Looking at Jaina's expression, he took in the odd, brief shift even as he kept up his little pained groans at her ministrations. "I've been really good! Just quietly draining people, only a little!" Sometimes not at all a little. "And taking care of mirrors. I've even started making a little app map for them."

He wriggled a little, clearly waiting for praise. And then hissing as his a** bumping the couch cushion in a regrettable way.

"He's an All-Purpose dog walker," Malory explained, as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Hearing her mention patrolling made him even more sulky. He did want to go out and play with her but also, thoroughly planned on staying out of uniform for awhile first. At least until something got the better of his common sense and lured him out as Hybris.

"Jainaaaaaa..." he whined, tugging and pulling at her until she was on the couch too and he could push his head up against her shoulder, once again, like a needy cat. "Any scars on my butt are a feature, but I don't want to talk about me anymore." He very rarely liked talking too much about himself anyway, at least not beyond the superficial. "What are you doing this summer?"

"I'm going to go to parties and clubs. Just play around, and not think about anything past brunch the next day. And pick a summer production to star in, of course." But he was frowning a little, from her answer. It was hard to tell if she wanted normal things or not. But maybe it was both, thinking about her reaction and advice to him. Lay low. Live normal.

Pushing his head more firmly against her hand, he asked, "Do you want to play around a bit? Just for the night, once in awhile?" He held up a hand, pinching his fingers close, "Just some little morsels of excitement for Jaina?"

"A party or club once in awhile wouldn't be too much, right? I know small ones, quieter ones, too." He adjusted further into her hand. "Or we can go out just the two of us," he compromised, eyes nearly closed at the pressure against his scalp. "Nothing serious," Malory assured her, deciding to be honest about it all, "...I have it on good authority that I'm scumbag, really. But I want you to have more fun, okay? I want you to have...things to get excited about, to look forward to even if you sort of dread them too."

His hand caught at hers and gave her fingers a little squeeze. "Normal and safe aren't bad things to want. But if they're all you have to look forward to, don't they start to weigh you down?"