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xp_logsPaige and Jono finally get rid of all those photos...and get just a little bit caught in the act.
Paige poked her head in through the front door to XFI’s office to make sure that no one had stuck around to work late. “Ok, we’re clear, come on.” She opened the door fully and waved Jono in. She had told Sam she had accidentally left a book behind in his office that she needed for class tomorrow so she could borrow his key into the office, but the real goal for tonight was to finally hide most of those photos she and Jono had printed and cut out a month ago. “Warren’s office should be just down the hall. The door has his name on it.”
Jono kept the bag of photos, tape, and glue close to his chest as he tiptoed in behind her. His eyes anxiously searched the darkened office, worried that someone had worked late. But still, he nodded and gestured for Paige to lead the way.
Paige, a little less cautious than Jono, led the way to Warren’s office. Testing the door handle, she was surprised to find it open. Perfect. She waved Jono in and closed the door behind them. “So the plan is to hide as many photos as possible, right?”
"In places he'd never anticipate them. I want him to find them for months." Jono confirmed, typing into his light writer.
Paige nodded and grabbed the tape. Moving aside decorations, she taped photos anywhere she could easily lift something and put it exactly back. Hopefully, everything would still look the same when they left. It was also hard not to laugh the longer they kept going, imagining the look on Warren’s face as he kept finding more and more tiny photos.
The sudden, echoing sound of a flat, accentless voice cut in through the silence. "Breaking and entering is a second degree felony," the voice warned ominously as if through a megaphone, "Place your hands on your heads. You have the right to an attorney."
Jono continued gluing his picture down. Worst case scenario he could pretend he couldn’t hear either. But he looked at Paige, wanting to follow her lead- it was her brother’s key card that got them in after all.
“Who said anything about breaking?” Paige turned around to see who had caught them. It didn’t sound like Warren and Sam would have just started chewing her out. “This door was unlocked, and we didn’t break in the front.”
There was a pause. From Paige and Jono's perspective, there was no one immediately in view.
"Huh," came the disembodied voice. But soon after a blond head of hair emerged from beneath one of the nearby desks. It wasn't either of the expected disciplinarians. "Dramatically speaking, I expected that to go differently," Arthur admitted, in his normal accent, with a shrug. "Usually this calls for," and he threw his voice again to a high, more desperate, American pitch, "No, no! We were framed! This isn't what it looks like!" The man shrugged again, exactly zero parts aggressive or confrontational.
"Oh, hi Arthur. Nice to see you." Jono typed, giving the other man a small wave and then held up a small photo of himself. "This is exactly what it looks like. We're terrorizing Worthington because he hates looking at me. Do you work here?"
"Jono! I knew I recognized that light writer voice. How are you? Still not telepathic?" This was delivered with an untroubled and cool demeanor. A question asked with zero expectations or care for this apparent crime. Pulling himself up, Arthur was revealed to be a forty-something man casually dressed in a polo shirt, slacks, and loafers. The only indication that he had been hiding was slightly mused hair. He was all smiles and untroubled ease, and the full effect of that good nature was aimed point blank at Paige. "But you, I don't think we've met. Whatever Jono claims, I'm guilty as charged."
“…I’m sorry, who are you? Does Worthington always keep a ventriloquist on hand under the desks?” Jono had never mentioned…anyone really aside from the cat that showed him the roof. Thinking back, she kind of remembered Sam mentioning he worked with an Arthur, but that didn’t clear up who this was. At least Jono seemed to be on friendly terms with him.
This got Paige a full on Hollywood, blink against the glare from the headlights, smile.
"Man, if that were the case, I'd either be out of a job or have an entirely different job," he said, now leaning against the doorframe to the office. "I'm Arthur, an investigator here, and from that particularly lovely accent and particular nose I'm going to guess that you know Sam." He exchanged exaggerated glances between Jono and Paige. "That really doesn't help, though. There are lots of reasons to terrorize Warren, and I'm sure this'll be character building for him. But what's the plot? Are you two united in your loathing of our billionaire friend?"
"I don't believe he has friends." Jono typed. "And Paige was my friend before I declared unending war on Warren's mental health. The goal is to glue as many of these photographs of me to things he might interact with as possible. I want him to find them for months. Apparently he hates looking at me enough to attempt to publicly shame me. I can avoid him, but can he avoid me?"
If Jono still had a mouth he'd be smirking. "Nothing dangerous and nobody actually gets hurt. I just want him to feel like he's losing his mind and maybe have a mental breakdown about it. He needs put on his arse."
Shock flashed through Paige’s eyes when Arthur mentioned her accent. She had been hiding it since none of her siblings were around, and no one had been able to tell she had one when she was masking it. Composing herself, Paige said, “Yeah, Sam’s my big brother. Borrowed his key, so nothing is broken. Just planning a prank.”
She glanced over at Jono. “So, since you two are acquainted and you know my brother, think you could let us off easy?” Paige tried to flash Arthur an equally winning smile and fell a bit short.
All of this gave the older man a concerned look, but Arthur decided to lead with, "Alright. First of all? I'm down for hijinks. Am I down for everything else you just mentioned?" He paused. Mostly for effect. "The ambition's there and Warren will respect that, but I think you need to go harder."
Jono raised an eyebrow. "How much harder? Because I'm still trying to figure out how to break into his suite in the mansion and put these up in a creepy smiley face in his shower. But if you have suggestions, by all means- I'm happy for help."
So maybe Quentin could keep good company. Arthur could stay.
"There's a shower upstairs," Arthur offered automatically as he took a critical look at handywork already started. His eyes were wild and mischievous, and the man bit his lip as he turned his attention to Paige. "How many photos do you have?"
He left the doorframe, then, and found a piece of loose scrap and a pen. "If you want Warren to really notice, you'll have to put these pics where he'll look. One in every file folder. Behind the blinds. Cut out Jono's face and put them over Warren and Bobby in his personal photos. Change his desktop image. Be everywhere." He finished scribbling and held the paper aloft, triumphant. "For that, I gift you wifi and print/scan access."
Paige held up the large ziploc bag full of the photos they had cut out in answer to the how many question. She had no idea how many they had actually made, just that they had more than they knew what to do with.
She took the piece of paper from Arthur. “Excellent, thank you.” Paige turned to Jono. “I can take the computer if you want to start on the files? I think the photo file is still buried somewhere in my email. Or I can finish down here and you can go upstairs? Whatever works best.”
"I'd rather go with you." Jono typed, then turned to look at Arthur. "Would you want to help? Or would you rather avoid culpability if push comes to shove. I crack under pressure but it tends to be worse for the person directly in front of me."
Arthur had parked himself behind Warren's desk setup as the two talked, only half listening as he cracked his fingers and waited for the machine to come to life. Jono's last statement and question, however, earned them both a frown.
"Ground rules, I suppose," he said with a mournful sigh, like the idea of having to explain this killed just a tiny bit of the fun. "We — Q, Hope, Sue, Sam, Inez, even Warren — help people. Messing with Warren's stuff is basically free karma, but not the cases. No messing with that or any of the files, right?"
The older man gestured with one hand at the office as the computer gave a pleasant chirp after booting up. Not even paying attention, he moved his other hand to the keyboard and didn't even look as he hit tab and keyed in a random set of characters. It wasn't a well practiced movement or anything graceful. He might as well have merely swiped his hand over the keyboard.
The exact chance of keying in someone's password correctly on the first try is hard to say — each character can either be a lowercase or upper case letter or a digit from 0 to 9 possibilities, giving each character in a possibly 14 letter sequence 62 possible values, afterall. Arthur's left eye blazed in a starburst of golden light, gleefully ignorant of the math, and the screen cheerfully transitioned to the black and white image of two ringed hands folded against each other in an embrace. Smattered with folders and icons, of course. A desktop free for playful sabotage.
Arthur smiled, folding his hands. The spark of light was gone. "Me? I'm just here to add a little chaos. I'm not worried about blowback." He hadn't even turned to look at the screen.
"Only interested in Worthington's stuff. Don't worry." Jono assured. He doubted that Paige would let him touch anything actually connected to her brother's work anyway.
“Of course we’re not going to mess with the cases. We’re here to freak Worthington out, not mess with the work you do or the people you help.” Paige stated at the now open desktop. “How did you do that? You didn’t even have to look. Did you hack in?”
"Oh," Arthur said like he was commenting on the fact it was mildly cloudy, "I'm lucky."
“What, like generally?” That didn’t exactly answer Paige’s question.
He stood up from the desk chair and stretched. "We all have our thing, right? A power? That's mine." The stretch turned into a comfortable gesture as Arthur rested one hand behind his head, elbow pointed out. "Now," and his smile sharpened roguishly, "what next?"
Jono paused in his mission of removing a photo of Worthington and some woman from a frame on the desk. "I'm open to suggestions beyond the photos. What makes him tick?"
"Warren," Arthur said fondly, "is very sensitive. He expects to be at the center of things, so I think the photos are brilliant. Move the spotlight off him." He paused, considering. "If you want to treat this like a game, though," and he didn't sound thrilled at the prospect, "you have to wait. Let this play out. Unless you want to get the whole office to wear masks of your face, which would probably be pretty easy."
"I can wait." Jono typed. "Good to know my plan will work though. Thank you."
Paige nudged Arthur out of the way so she could log into her email and find the photo. “Could be fun to play the long game.” Finding it, she set the wallpaper to slideshow so Jono’s photo would pop up randomly. “Are we ready to move upstairs?”
Jono glued one last photo down and then turned towards Paige and gave a thumbs up as he started collecting the scraps and putting them in his pocket. Hiding the evidence was important.
Arthur led the couple through the open layout of the office space to a door that led to a hallway, which in turn led to a winding series of stairs. The man hummed something in a major key as they moved throughout and up into the space, and it wasn't long until the three climbed to find another door very similar to the first — only a little nicer, a little fancier, and the last one flight available.
It was also rather locked, and a button interface stood between them and their prize.
With a showman's flourish, Arthur patted his empty pockets and exposed the palms of his hands. No key, no fob, and nothing to see. He didn't stop to dwell on the theatrics past that, however — his left eye alit as he bumped his hip against the keypad, and the lock gave a happy, digital chirp of greeting.
"Welcome to the penthouse," he said as the door swung open to reveal the rather posh area within.
Jono looked around the room, mentally critiquing the design choices as if he himself had literally any money to invest in his own room. "Anything in particular to note here? Things to target?"
“Bedroom and bathroom maybe?” Paige looked around the apartment for new hiding places. At least the fancy decor offered a lot of places to put Jono’s pictures.
Arthur considered. "Well," he offered in a casual, earnest tone, "it's more of a sex penthouse. If that changes anything in your gameplan." Behind him, a sleek security panel reported that all of the cameras were offline due to system updates. Irrelevant details.
"I don't want to think about that." Jono typed. "But we could stuff some in the pillowcases, make them feel weird so when they're used it ruins the mood? What do you think Paige?"
The appeal of digging around in the penthouse for hiding places had suddenly evaporated for Paige. "Maybe. Could glue some to the night stand or the back of the door, too." She very cautiously looked around the room. Sticking to what was already out in plain view was their best option.
"Could put some inside the fridge?" Jono suggested. Then a thought struck him. "Arthur, where would you suggest putting them? Since you're so lucky."
"What?" Arthur blinked blankly in Jono's direction before refocusing. "It doesn't work like — well. Wait. I know." Blue eyes settled on the open coat closet near the door and he found his target.
"You see . . . " Arthur had crossed the room to put on what had to be an emergency blazer, and when he next spoke next his voice was suddenly flatter and more refined. An accent smoothed at the edges by generational wealth — somehow both amused and entirely self-satisfied. He evaluated the apartment with a new swagger. " . . . you simply have to understand how Warren views the world. Get in character," and Arthur's voice had settled into a clear mimicry of Warren's own.
"You," he pointed at Paige, "Not my usual assistant, but you'll do." He waved a hand. "Focus on the bathroom. In the bedroom I'm — he's — focused on being an attentive lover. Have to hit him when he isn't in the zone. In the shower — make him never feel clean again. On the underside of the toilet seat. On the lube like a label."
Finished with that, Arthur turned on Jono. "The kitchen is good, but I want to see real progress — your face on every egg. In the flour. Baking is no longer safe either." He clapped. "Com'on guys. Get to it. Why am I paying you?"
Paige chuckled at Arthur’s impression. It was very similar to the man she had met screaming downstairs. She walked into the bathroom and started gluing down photos everywhere she could think of. Shower and toilet seat like Arthur suggested, inside the cabinet doors, under extra bottles, on the bottles and things found in the cabinets (she tried hard not to think about what most of them were for), and one next to the light fixture for when the lightbulbs needed to be changed. Satisfied, she poked her head out and called, “How’s it going out here?”
Jono held up an egg that now bore and striking resemblance to himself and squinted his eyes in a smile along with a thumbs up. His sleeves were still dotted with flour and he'd gotten some on his nose.
Paige stuck a photo on the back of the bathroom door before walking out. “Anything else we should cover before we leave? Stick some in his jacket pockets?”
Arthur had busied himself with swanning the two projects, despite being tempted to stop and move one or two decor pieces in the penthouse himself. "No, no," was delivered with a soundless task, "he's a billionaire. The only pockets he cares about are the deep, metaphorical ones." He padded his borrowed blazer to demonstrate, and the pockets were, in fact, sewn shut. Arthur gestured wide, taking the entire room. "Let's not ruin all this by overthinking."
Jono nodded, securing his picture to the last egg and then pulling his lightwriter back out. "That should do it...for now. Thank you Arthur."
"No," and this was returned with a grin equal parts glee and mischief paired with a shot of chaos, "thank you. I'd feared tonight was going to be boring." Arthur had slipped back to his normal accent. Like shrugging off a coat — which, incidentally, he was now doing with deliberate care. Blazer returned, the man rubbed his hands together as he studied the couple. "Now that we've had our fun, I've got a pup to feed back home. Time to get going. Closing time."
“I should get Sam his key back before he gets suspicious anyway.” Paige smiled at Arthur. “Thanks for your help. And if my brothers ask, I was never here.” Taking Jono by the arm, she walked them both out the door.
Paige poked her head in through the front door to XFI’s office to make sure that no one had stuck around to work late. “Ok, we’re clear, come on.” She opened the door fully and waved Jono in. She had told Sam she had accidentally left a book behind in his office that she needed for class tomorrow so she could borrow his key into the office, but the real goal for tonight was to finally hide most of those photos she and Jono had printed and cut out a month ago. “Warren’s office should be just down the hall. The door has his name on it.”
Jono kept the bag of photos, tape, and glue close to his chest as he tiptoed in behind her. His eyes anxiously searched the darkened office, worried that someone had worked late. But still, he nodded and gestured for Paige to lead the way.
Paige, a little less cautious than Jono, led the way to Warren’s office. Testing the door handle, she was surprised to find it open. Perfect. She waved Jono in and closed the door behind them. “So the plan is to hide as many photos as possible, right?”
"In places he'd never anticipate them. I want him to find them for months." Jono confirmed, typing into his light writer.
Paige nodded and grabbed the tape. Moving aside decorations, she taped photos anywhere she could easily lift something and put it exactly back. Hopefully, everything would still look the same when they left. It was also hard not to laugh the longer they kept going, imagining the look on Warren’s face as he kept finding more and more tiny photos.
The sudden, echoing sound of a flat, accentless voice cut in through the silence. "Breaking and entering is a second degree felony," the voice warned ominously as if through a megaphone, "Place your hands on your heads. You have the right to an attorney."
Jono continued gluing his picture down. Worst case scenario he could pretend he couldn’t hear either. But he looked at Paige, wanting to follow her lead- it was her brother’s key card that got them in after all.
“Who said anything about breaking?” Paige turned around to see who had caught them. It didn’t sound like Warren and Sam would have just started chewing her out. “This door was unlocked, and we didn’t break in the front.”
There was a pause. From Paige and Jono's perspective, there was no one immediately in view.
"Huh," came the disembodied voice. But soon after a blond head of hair emerged from beneath one of the nearby desks. It wasn't either of the expected disciplinarians. "Dramatically speaking, I expected that to go differently," Arthur admitted, in his normal accent, with a shrug. "Usually this calls for," and he threw his voice again to a high, more desperate, American pitch, "No, no! We were framed! This isn't what it looks like!" The man shrugged again, exactly zero parts aggressive or confrontational.
"Oh, hi Arthur. Nice to see you." Jono typed, giving the other man a small wave and then held up a small photo of himself. "This is exactly what it looks like. We're terrorizing Worthington because he hates looking at me. Do you work here?"
"Jono! I knew I recognized that light writer voice. How are you? Still not telepathic?" This was delivered with an untroubled and cool demeanor. A question asked with zero expectations or care for this apparent crime. Pulling himself up, Arthur was revealed to be a forty-something man casually dressed in a polo shirt, slacks, and loafers. The only indication that he had been hiding was slightly mused hair. He was all smiles and untroubled ease, and the full effect of that good nature was aimed point blank at Paige. "But you, I don't think we've met. Whatever Jono claims, I'm guilty as charged."
“…I’m sorry, who are you? Does Worthington always keep a ventriloquist on hand under the desks?” Jono had never mentioned…anyone really aside from the cat that showed him the roof. Thinking back, she kind of remembered Sam mentioning he worked with an Arthur, but that didn’t clear up who this was. At least Jono seemed to be on friendly terms with him.
This got Paige a full on Hollywood, blink against the glare from the headlights, smile.
"Man, if that were the case, I'd either be out of a job or have an entirely different job," he said, now leaning against the doorframe to the office. "I'm Arthur, an investigator here, and from that particularly lovely accent and particular nose I'm going to guess that you know Sam." He exchanged exaggerated glances between Jono and Paige. "That really doesn't help, though. There are lots of reasons to terrorize Warren, and I'm sure this'll be character building for him. But what's the plot? Are you two united in your loathing of our billionaire friend?"
"I don't believe he has friends." Jono typed. "And Paige was my friend before I declared unending war on Warren's mental health. The goal is to glue as many of these photographs of me to things he might interact with as possible. I want him to find them for months. Apparently he hates looking at me enough to attempt to publicly shame me. I can avoid him, but can he avoid me?"
If Jono still had a mouth he'd be smirking. "Nothing dangerous and nobody actually gets hurt. I just want him to feel like he's losing his mind and maybe have a mental breakdown about it. He needs put on his arse."
Shock flashed through Paige’s eyes when Arthur mentioned her accent. She had been hiding it since none of her siblings were around, and no one had been able to tell she had one when she was masking it. Composing herself, Paige said, “Yeah, Sam’s my big brother. Borrowed his key, so nothing is broken. Just planning a prank.”
She glanced over at Jono. “So, since you two are acquainted and you know my brother, think you could let us off easy?” Paige tried to flash Arthur an equally winning smile and fell a bit short.
All of this gave the older man a concerned look, but Arthur decided to lead with, "Alright. First of all? I'm down for hijinks. Am I down for everything else you just mentioned?" He paused. Mostly for effect. "The ambition's there and Warren will respect that, but I think you need to go harder."
Jono raised an eyebrow. "How much harder? Because I'm still trying to figure out how to break into his suite in the mansion and put these up in a creepy smiley face in his shower. But if you have suggestions, by all means- I'm happy for help."
So maybe Quentin could keep good company. Arthur could stay.
"There's a shower upstairs," Arthur offered automatically as he took a critical look at handywork already started. His eyes were wild and mischievous, and the man bit his lip as he turned his attention to Paige. "How many photos do you have?"
He left the doorframe, then, and found a piece of loose scrap and a pen. "If you want Warren to really notice, you'll have to put these pics where he'll look. One in every file folder. Behind the blinds. Cut out Jono's face and put them over Warren and Bobby in his personal photos. Change his desktop image. Be everywhere." He finished scribbling and held the paper aloft, triumphant. "For that, I gift you wifi and print/scan access."
Paige held up the large ziploc bag full of the photos they had cut out in answer to the how many question. She had no idea how many they had actually made, just that they had more than they knew what to do with.
She took the piece of paper from Arthur. “Excellent, thank you.” Paige turned to Jono. “I can take the computer if you want to start on the files? I think the photo file is still buried somewhere in my email. Or I can finish down here and you can go upstairs? Whatever works best.”
"I'd rather go with you." Jono typed, then turned to look at Arthur. "Would you want to help? Or would you rather avoid culpability if push comes to shove. I crack under pressure but it tends to be worse for the person directly in front of me."
Arthur had parked himself behind Warren's desk setup as the two talked, only half listening as he cracked his fingers and waited for the machine to come to life. Jono's last statement and question, however, earned them both a frown.
"Ground rules, I suppose," he said with a mournful sigh, like the idea of having to explain this killed just a tiny bit of the fun. "We — Q, Hope, Sue, Sam, Inez, even Warren — help people. Messing with Warren's stuff is basically free karma, but not the cases. No messing with that or any of the files, right?"
The older man gestured with one hand at the office as the computer gave a pleasant chirp after booting up. Not even paying attention, he moved his other hand to the keyboard and didn't even look as he hit tab and keyed in a random set of characters. It wasn't a well practiced movement or anything graceful. He might as well have merely swiped his hand over the keyboard.
The exact chance of keying in someone's password correctly on the first try is hard to say — each character can either be a lowercase or upper case letter or a digit from 0 to 9 possibilities, giving each character in a possibly 14 letter sequence 62 possible values, afterall. Arthur's left eye blazed in a starburst of golden light, gleefully ignorant of the math, and the screen cheerfully transitioned to the black and white image of two ringed hands folded against each other in an embrace. Smattered with folders and icons, of course. A desktop free for playful sabotage.
Arthur smiled, folding his hands. The spark of light was gone. "Me? I'm just here to add a little chaos. I'm not worried about blowback." He hadn't even turned to look at the screen.
"Only interested in Worthington's stuff. Don't worry." Jono assured. He doubted that Paige would let him touch anything actually connected to her brother's work anyway.
“Of course we’re not going to mess with the cases. We’re here to freak Worthington out, not mess with the work you do or the people you help.” Paige stated at the now open desktop. “How did you do that? You didn’t even have to look. Did you hack in?”
"Oh," Arthur said like he was commenting on the fact it was mildly cloudy, "I'm lucky."
“What, like generally?” That didn’t exactly answer Paige’s question.
He stood up from the desk chair and stretched. "We all have our thing, right? A power? That's mine." The stretch turned into a comfortable gesture as Arthur rested one hand behind his head, elbow pointed out. "Now," and his smile sharpened roguishly, "what next?"
Jono paused in his mission of removing a photo of Worthington and some woman from a frame on the desk. "I'm open to suggestions beyond the photos. What makes him tick?"
"Warren," Arthur said fondly, "is very sensitive. He expects to be at the center of things, so I think the photos are brilliant. Move the spotlight off him." He paused, considering. "If you want to treat this like a game, though," and he didn't sound thrilled at the prospect, "you have to wait. Let this play out. Unless you want to get the whole office to wear masks of your face, which would probably be pretty easy."
"I can wait." Jono typed. "Good to know my plan will work though. Thank you."
Paige nudged Arthur out of the way so she could log into her email and find the photo. “Could be fun to play the long game.” Finding it, she set the wallpaper to slideshow so Jono’s photo would pop up randomly. “Are we ready to move upstairs?”
Jono glued one last photo down and then turned towards Paige and gave a thumbs up as he started collecting the scraps and putting them in his pocket. Hiding the evidence was important.
Arthur led the couple through the open layout of the office space to a door that led to a hallway, which in turn led to a winding series of stairs. The man hummed something in a major key as they moved throughout and up into the space, and it wasn't long until the three climbed to find another door very similar to the first — only a little nicer, a little fancier, and the last one flight available.
It was also rather locked, and a button interface stood between them and their prize.
With a showman's flourish, Arthur patted his empty pockets and exposed the palms of his hands. No key, no fob, and nothing to see. He didn't stop to dwell on the theatrics past that, however — his left eye alit as he bumped his hip against the keypad, and the lock gave a happy, digital chirp of greeting.
"Welcome to the penthouse," he said as the door swung open to reveal the rather posh area within.
Jono looked around the room, mentally critiquing the design choices as if he himself had literally any money to invest in his own room. "Anything in particular to note here? Things to target?"
“Bedroom and bathroom maybe?” Paige looked around the apartment for new hiding places. At least the fancy decor offered a lot of places to put Jono’s pictures.
Arthur considered. "Well," he offered in a casual, earnest tone, "it's more of a sex penthouse. If that changes anything in your gameplan." Behind him, a sleek security panel reported that all of the cameras were offline due to system updates. Irrelevant details.
"I don't want to think about that." Jono typed. "But we could stuff some in the pillowcases, make them feel weird so when they're used it ruins the mood? What do you think Paige?"
The appeal of digging around in the penthouse for hiding places had suddenly evaporated for Paige. "Maybe. Could glue some to the night stand or the back of the door, too." She very cautiously looked around the room. Sticking to what was already out in plain view was their best option.
"Could put some inside the fridge?" Jono suggested. Then a thought struck him. "Arthur, where would you suggest putting them? Since you're so lucky."
"What?" Arthur blinked blankly in Jono's direction before refocusing. "It doesn't work like — well. Wait. I know." Blue eyes settled on the open coat closet near the door and he found his target.
"You see . . . " Arthur had crossed the room to put on what had to be an emergency blazer, and when he next spoke next his voice was suddenly flatter and more refined. An accent smoothed at the edges by generational wealth — somehow both amused and entirely self-satisfied. He evaluated the apartment with a new swagger. " . . . you simply have to understand how Warren views the world. Get in character," and Arthur's voice had settled into a clear mimicry of Warren's own.
"You," he pointed at Paige, "Not my usual assistant, but you'll do." He waved a hand. "Focus on the bathroom. In the bedroom I'm — he's — focused on being an attentive lover. Have to hit him when he isn't in the zone. In the shower — make him never feel clean again. On the underside of the toilet seat. On the lube like a label."
Finished with that, Arthur turned on Jono. "The kitchen is good, but I want to see real progress — your face on every egg. In the flour. Baking is no longer safe either." He clapped. "Com'on guys. Get to it. Why am I paying you?"
Paige chuckled at Arthur’s impression. It was very similar to the man she had met screaming downstairs. She walked into the bathroom and started gluing down photos everywhere she could think of. Shower and toilet seat like Arthur suggested, inside the cabinet doors, under extra bottles, on the bottles and things found in the cabinets (she tried hard not to think about what most of them were for), and one next to the light fixture for when the lightbulbs needed to be changed. Satisfied, she poked her head out and called, “How’s it going out here?”
Jono held up an egg that now bore and striking resemblance to himself and squinted his eyes in a smile along with a thumbs up. His sleeves were still dotted with flour and he'd gotten some on his nose.
Paige stuck a photo on the back of the bathroom door before walking out. “Anything else we should cover before we leave? Stick some in his jacket pockets?”
Arthur had busied himself with swanning the two projects, despite being tempted to stop and move one or two decor pieces in the penthouse himself. "No, no," was delivered with a soundless task, "he's a billionaire. The only pockets he cares about are the deep, metaphorical ones." He padded his borrowed blazer to demonstrate, and the pockets were, in fact, sewn shut. Arthur gestured wide, taking the entire room. "Let's not ruin all this by overthinking."
Jono nodded, securing his picture to the last egg and then pulling his lightwriter back out. "That should do it...for now. Thank you Arthur."
"No," and this was returned with a grin equal parts glee and mischief paired with a shot of chaos, "thank you. I'd feared tonight was going to be boring." Arthur had slipped back to his normal accent. Like shrugging off a coat — which, incidentally, he was now doing with deliberate care. Blazer returned, the man rubbed his hands together as he studied the couple. "Now that we've had our fun, I've got a pup to feed back home. Time to get going. Closing time."
“I should get Sam his key back before he gets suspicious anyway.” Paige smiled at Arthur. “Thanks for your help. And if my brothers ask, I was never here.” Taking Jono by the arm, she walked them both out the door.
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Date: 2024-04-19 05:03 am (UTC)Paige tried to flash Arthur an equally winning smile and fell a bit short. - I mean . . . she can't help but do better than Jono . . .
(Admittedly, Paige playing a prank but managing to do so in a completely legal way -- that is, no breaking and entering -- is also very unique.)
"But we could stuff some in the pillowcases, make them feel weird so when they're used it ruins the mood? What do you think Paige?"
The appeal of digging around in the penthouse for hiding places had suddenly evaporated for Paige.
She's definitely the only one thinking this all the way through.
"In the shower — make him never feel clean again." - Arthur no (also why were you hiding under that desk, anyway)
Shenanigans!
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Date: 2024-04-19 04:40 pm (UTC)This was great haha
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Date: 2024-04-20 08:55 pm (UTC)