3rd Floor Common Room, Sunday Morning

[bitchprince]

It had been a while since he'd last visited the common room. To be fair, most of the time, the place seemed overloaded with the noise of the television. But room (annoying desert noble and all), salle (annoying, lying blondes and all) and town (ice cream?) had lost their interest for the moment.

Which was why Arthur found himself seated there at a respectable time in the morning, snacking off a plate of cheese that Merlin had brought him earlier. As always, he had things on his mind, but they had settled far enough that he showed no outwardly signs of brooding.

[[ open common room is open! and will hopefully this time not be swallowed by LJ glitch ]]

Comments

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

The ice cream had been perfectly fine, thank you very much.

"There you are," Merlin said, looking over the cheese. He'd probably need to get more...

[bitchprince]

Bad things happened to people who got logic in Arthur's bitch.

"Yes," Arthur agreed, "I am. Thank you, Merlin."

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

Bad things happened in general. Merlin was hardly about to let that stop him.

"Is there a reason you're hiding in here?"

[bitchprince]

Arthur took a bite of cheese. "It's hardly hiding," he said, "Considering the size of this room. Why?"

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

"You're not in your room or anywhere else you normally are," Merlin pointed out helpfully.

[bitchprince]

Arthur just eyed him.

"I continue to admire both your ability to notice things," he said, "and the worsening depths of your mental affliction. Did you come looking for me for a reason, or did you just remember you had a job?"

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

"I do manage to check on you from time to time," Merlin replied, taking a seat on the couch. "Sire."

[bitchprince]

"Do you," he countered, finishing the piece of cheese he was currently handling. "I don't suppose anything interesting happened to you between yesterday and today."

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

"Other than washing your royal socks?"

[bitchprince]

"Which better be clean after the week you spent flapping."

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

"Not a hint of bird droppings," Merlin promised him.

[bitchprince]

"And my armor?"

[bigdamndestiny.livejournal.com]

"You could eat off it."

Ah, the perks of magic.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Morning, yay, and time for food. Dinah wandered down to the Common Room, unwilling to have cookies for breakfast yet again. She didn't notice anyone at first, heading for the fridge like a zombie sleepwalker. Bowl. Cereal. Yawn. Milk. Blink. Double-take.

"Hey, Arthur."

[bitchprince]

Oh, terrific. She was even greeting him.

"Dinah," Arthur said, neutrally. Bordering on the dismissive. He took a piece of cheese and concentrated on that.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah did another quick look around to be sure no intense desert nobles were lurking unseen, then relaxed, going back into the fridge for orange juice. "Want anything? Juice, milk...?" It kind of went against her philosophy to offer Arthur things unasked, but hey. No reason to be rude, right?

[bitchprince]

The girl apparently didn't understand when she was dismissed. Wouldn't be the first time that happened - before Fandom as much as after.

He figured a polite, "No, thank you," would do. He even managed to keep most of the sarcasm out of those words.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed. That was way too polite.

Dinah shrugged. "'kay." She concentrated on her breakfast for a bit, then decided she wanted to watch the television while she ate. She slewed a glance over at Arthur, then smirked to herself. Her Common Room too.

She took her bowl over to the couch, picked up the remote, and started channel-surfing, looking for something decent to watch. Found golf, watched that a second, found dirt-biking, but they were waiting for scores, boring, ooo, stock-car racing!

[bitchprince]

Ask the right people, and it would become terribly clear that Arthur, too, was at his most obnoxious while being... polite.

Oh, lovely times two. He surpressed a grand facial wince with grace and took another bite of his cheese. He didn't have to acknowledge her, and he wasn't about to. He had enough of a guilty conscience without it, thank you.

He missed Camelot.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Any preferences?" Because, look commercial again. Dinah carefully took another spoonful of cereal and kept surfing. Also, there might have been some hope for a response. Or at least irritation. Hey, she'd take what she could get.

Mooses!

[bitchprince]

"No."

Oh, look. A response.

Still entirely dismissive.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah rolled her eyes. Hmm. Serve him right if she stopped on something horrible. But no reason to punish herself either.

Flip flip flip. That WWII movie with the two cute guys. She could stand this for a bit.

Just to be a pain, she said, "World War II. In case you were wondering."

[bitchprince]

"I wasn't," he said. He made a remarkable effort to keep the strain out of his voice. Calm and level was the ticket. "I could tell."

It was perhaps borderline unhealthy for a man to read as many military history books as he had over the past few weeks, but Arthur was uncannily uninterested in hearing any complaints.

"Whatever else you've got, I don't want to hear it."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Okay, yay, back to rude. Dinah stared at him, eating her cereal. Stare. Stare. Kind of like she'd stared at Chuck while she was five.

"So we're watching World War II then?" she checked, when she'd drawn it out as long as she could. Besides, hey, it was on a commercial.

[bitchprince]

Arthur had a great deal of practice ignoring getting stared at; he was employing it now.

"Watch whatever," he said. He'd prefer it if she leave, but he had no authority here (and let's ignore all the times he tended to invoke authority anyway. It was just how he rolled).