fandomtownies | Arms Hotel Lobby, Tuesday

It might take you some time to find him.

"Billy?"

The distinct scent of wet dog made Murdock pause as he strolled through the lobby. He didn't think that Billy could've gotten out of the room, but dogs were sneaky sometimes.

Especially invisible ones.

"Billy?" he called again and began glancing around the lobby. "Hey!" He finally spotted the person behind the counter. "Have you seen a dog around here?"

"Well, yeah," Jeff called, from the other side of the lobby, "You're sort of talking to her."

Nana grinned a little Saint Bernard grin straight upwards.

"Oh!" He finally noticed Nana. Don't ask how could've missed a Saint Bernard. "That explains that then. At least I know Billy didn't get out."

There was a long pause. "At least as far as I know."

"If Billy is a dog then I doubt he got out," Jeff provided helpfully, "Nana's a bit excitable."

"Yah, he's a dog alright. Cutest little thing you ever did see." There was another pause. "Not that you can actually *see* him, since he's invisble."

"Hey Nana!" Murdock called. "Nice lookin' dog," he remarked.

Nana scrambled to her paws, bumped her head against the counter, and then proceeded to scramble in a scrambling kind of way to get to Murdock.

Jeff just nodded in understanding and said, a little warily, "That's alright. Plenty of things are invisible. Like..." He struggled to think of something. Uh. "...socks when you need them."

Murdock grinned as Nana came over to him. And nearly knocked him over as she tried to jump up at him. "Oof! Easy there, girl."

"Oh yeah, definitly on the socks. Why is it," he asked seriously, "you can only ever find one? Where the heck does the other go? Then you're only left with a mess of mis-matched socks."

Jeff digested this. He'd learned a long time ago that it was best just to let Nana maul whatever she wanted to maul because it meant she wasn't mauling him.

So he considered the socks.

"Perhaps there's some sort of magnet," he said, finally.

"Like a powerfully strong sock magnet?" Murdock considered this. "You know, you could have somethin' there. With all the static electricity that builds up in clothes, when a sock becomes overcharged, it gets dragged off by the magnet." He frowned slightly, "But then where is the magnet at? How could everyone miss a giant magnet covered in socks?" This is a very serious matter indeed.

Murdock knelt down and rubbed and scratched at every place he could reach on Nana. Nana responded by licking his face and drooling on him. "Eww."

"Personally, I always thought there was something a bit odd about socks." Jeff felt he had a lot to contribute to this conversation. "They also have this really weird ability to be about right when you don't need them to be. Maybe the magnet's sentient."

"Dude! That's gotta be it! Those missing socks *always* show up after you think you've lost them for good. And by that time, you've already trashed the other one. That magnet has a cruel sense of humor, don't it?"

Jeff nodded. Someone got it.

"Especially when you're naked," he added, as an afterthought.

Murdock looked up from his doggie scritches and gave Jeff a wary look. "Why then...er, I don't really want to know." If someone was running around naked, it seemed like they'd have more to worry about than just a missing sock.

Nana provided a good distraction at that moment by trying to chew on Murdock's jacket sleeve. "Hey!" he gently pried her away. "That's irreplacable, man."

It wasn't the missing socks, really. It was when they weren't missing and you were naked that the issues really came in. "She does that," Jeff offered up, without actually moving to help or anything. "She's eaten most of my clothes already."

Missing socks were annoying, whether one was otherwise clothed or not.

"Really?" he replied dryly, "I couldn't tell. Does she eat your one lonely socks or does she only go after the ones you have both of?" Since having a magnet randomly stealing your socks wasn't enough.

"I'm glad Billy don't eat my clothes. He just likes to sneak out on me."

"Actually, she doesn't like socks," he said, eyeing the dog a little. Of all the clothes... "She likes trousers the best, but she's been known to go for a jacket or two. And there's the time she got into my boxers."

Pause.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, as much as I like her," another slobbery lick gifted the side of his face, "I have to draw the line at my jacket. I'd rather you ate anything but that," he told Nana sternly.

"Oh, and my hat too. And my shoes. I have a feelin' high-top Converse are gonna be hard to find 'round these parts."

"Your boxers? Man, that's gotta suck."

"It was a bit inconvenient," Jeff said lamely, and sort of sagged back in his seat.

Murdock just nodded. Because he really couldn't think of anything else to add to that.

Nana had calmed down a bit, since the human seemed to stop with scratches since she started chewing. She'd rather have scratches than shoves.

"How long you been workin' at the hotel...uh, sorry. I didn't seem to catch your name."

How long had he been working at the hotel?

Jeff stared at him dully for a few moments as his mind struggled to catch up. "...About a year now," he managed to cough up.

Name. What was his name-- "I'm Jeff," he said, with some attempt at enthusiasm, "Jeff Murdock. I work Tuesdays." Pause. "Obviously."

A year. Good. Murdock could possibly gain some intel on that chef dude from Jeff...

Murdock???

He stared for a moment. "You can't be Murdock," he blurted out. "That's just..." He was struggling with this really.

"People just call you Jeff, right? I mean, there can't be two people goin' around being called Murdock all the time. That'd be way too confusing." That all came out in a rush.

"Oh, and I'm...Murdock. HM Murdock." Talk about a small world.

Jeff was having the oddest feeling he was being slighted, here.

"Well, yeah, people call me Jeff," he said, glancing down at the floor and then back up at Murdock, "But I'm still a Murdock, I'm fairly certain, it says so on my birth records, mum showed me."

He could dig that. As long as he went with Jeff, Murdock could definitly live with that. He was still having problems wrapping his head around the idea of someone else having his name, though.

"I believe you, dude. I was just...surprised, you know. First time I've ever encountered someone else with the same name as me. And most people just call *me* Murdock. Hence all the confusion, if you went by that too. Otherwise, every time someone talked about 'Murdock', they'd have to guess which one of us they were talkin' about."

"I think they call me the one who with the breasts," Jeff said, helpfully, "So all things considered it shouldn't really have been that difficult one way or another."

Somewhere, there, that made sense. Jeff just wasn't completely sure where it was, but then again he tended to veg out a little as the work day plodded on.

Hey, as long as people called him Murdock, he was cool with it. "Cool beans, man." And at least his brain wasn't trying to go all breaky on him any more.

"Just tryin' to save everyone some confusion." Mainly his own. Having two Murdocks running around? Probably wouldn't have been good for him.

"So. Uh. What were we talkin' about again?" The whole name thing really threw him.

There was really only one answer to that.

"Socks."

Socks. Right. And the sock magnet. Got it.

"I like socks," he replied. "What color socks do you prefer? Are green socks really better than blue?" Yes, it was an important question, dangit.

Turtle was out running errands, and so she couldn't imagine not stopping in at the hotel today.

"Jeff!"

He might notice that she had bags. The kind that customarily held sandwiches.

Jeff's head shot up from his seat in the corner. "Turtle!" he declared, craning his neck a little so she could see him.

"Oh! There you are!" Turtle said, smiling a little more when she spotted him and went bouncing over. "I brought something. Guess what it is."

Jeff's mind made a few loops.

"Extra strength dog repellant."

Turtle's eyes shifted to the side a bit. Dang. That would have been a good one.

"Um, no," she said, wincing slightly as she added, "sorry. Guess again."

He tilted his head a little more. "Er," Jeff ventured, "Er... You?"

Turtle rolled her eyes, but they were rolled with utter adoration, really. "No, Jeff. Do I look like I could fit in this bag? What do we always bring each other at work, Jeff? They're very tasty and good and..."

She sighed, reluctantly to use the word but almost positive it would ring a few bells, "non-compartmentalized."

"Oh!" Suddenly, the words all connected in his head, and Jeff sat up, grinning. "You brought me sandwiches!"

Sure, non-compartmentalized was a Trip word, but Trip was sort of somewhere else where he wasn't dangerously trying to ac-something islands or whatever.

A bright smile instantly blossomed on Turtle's face. "Yup! Sandwiches! Good ones, too, and I brought enough for us to share and then I even brought a questionable one that maybe we could throw across the lobby and Nana would go chase and leave us alone for a little bit."

"...Could you?"

Jeff managed upbeat, hopeful, and a little bit sedated all in two words. Sometimes, he was a true master of multitasking.

Which was all part of the reason why Turtle liked the guy so darn much. She nodded, fishing through the bag a little bit until she found the questionable sandwich, and then turned toward Nana and waggled it at her a little. "Nana!" she called. "Look what I brought! A treat, a treat, and gooooo..." She gave it her best launch across the lobby, "get it!"

Nana stared at her. One moment two moments three moments--

The availability of the sandwich hit her smack in the head (not literally) and she turned tail (literally), dashing after the sandwich. Into the restaurant.

There were German expletives some time later, but Jeff didn't notice.

He just grinned at Turtle. "C'mere."

Turtle was in the midsts of letting out an evil little chuckle at how well that worked out (for her and Jeff, that was; not so much for Gunther, but that was what made it so magical) when Jeff grinned at her and it caught her a little bit. She grinned back, a grin underneath a slight bit of her lip, as did, in face , c'mere.

"Yeeeees?"

With courage Jeff didn't quite realise he had, he continued grinning as he said, "I owe you a kiss now, I think. Payment of good and all that."

"I didn't realize that we had a rate for sandwiches," Turtle commented, finding herself blushing a little bit. "In fact, I know we don't. However, I'll take a kiss anyway, just 'cause."

"Not just sandwiches but also dog-avoidance," Jeff said, smartly, and one of his hands was reaching for her. "It adds up a bit."

He did have an excellent point there. "But," Turtle argued lightly as she moved into Jeff's reach, to wrap an arm around his neck a little and sit on his lap. She figured he wouldn't mind. "I like all that stuff. I benefit, too. If you give me kisses for that, then it just upsets the balance way too much."

Jeff really, really didn't mind. "Timeshare?" he offered, randomly groping for words in his vocabulary, and then his hand was sort of randomly groping for her shoulder and he pushed a little closer for that whole kiss affair.

Timesharing!

Well, timeshares were generally a scam, in Turtle's opinion, but if it was a scam that got her kisses, she could be okay with them for the moment. They could work out the details later. Later, when she wasn't kissing her boyfriend and enjoying it very much.

But face dealing with the wet Saint Bernard, instead.

Headache and school work = haaate.

Arms Hotel Lobby, Tuesday

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Avoid Jeff

OOC