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Home wasn't much better, as it seemed, under Karma's roof. The house had been very quiet the last span of days, with all of its occupants acting out of sorts. But while most of them were reacting to Youko's sudden death, Arkie had his own reasons for being disoriented.

The kelpie sprawled on the couch, face-down on one of the cushions, snoring into it noisily. The dark pouches under his eyes made him look much older than he was, and told the tale of someone who had not been resting well at all lately.

....which sucked, frankly, because he WAS sleeping plenty, but the godawful nightmares that had been accompanying said sleep made it impossible to get any real rest. The ones that felt so real, in which he died over and over again, hearing and feeling everything. The ones that seemed to go on forever until he was finally able to scream himself awake, possibly just to go back to sleep to do it all over again.

The result was a groggy, unusually-subdued Arkie, and a guardian who was too busy trying to hold herself together to even notice.

The knocking at the door made Arkie flinch, and then groan as he stirred, grabbing for the first thing his hand could close around - the television remote- and flinging it in a random direction.

"Quiieeeet!" he whined blearily, rolling over with a grunt. "St'pid cat..."

....nevermind the fact Karma did not own a cat.

When the tapping persisted, he next jammed a pillow over his head with another petulant groan. He didn't WANT to be awake, thing making the noise!

Ding-dong!

The noise made him bolt upright staring straight ahead of himself as he tried, for one fuzzy minute, to determine whether he'd heard it inside his head or out.

That was...

....oh right, the doorbell.

His head turned in the front door's direction, staring for a long moment before logic dusted itself off enough to tell him, generally, one OPENED the door when the bell rang. ...and when Ma wasn't there to open it herself.

Dragging himself from the couch, he shambled across the room, fumbling with the latch for much longer than he should have before finally succeeding in opening it.

Bleary eyes peered at the dark-haired young woman on the other side of the door for a long moment.

Blink.

Blinkblink.

"Uhm..." he muttered, reaching up to scratch at one ear. Well she knew who HE was so they had to have met sometime, but....

"...hey." he said at last, interrupted by a huge yawn of rude proportions. "How's it goin'?" Surely if he talked to her a little more, her face would rattle around long enough in his memory bank to make a connection with someone he knew.

Arkie, however, did not hear the second set of questions as he was already fixated fully on the matter of sandwiches.

Sandwiches....Sandwiches and Nyoka....

Brown eyes narrowed as if in great concentration as he leaned heavily on the doorframe. Aylana might even wonder if he had fallen asleep standing there for a minute before his head jolted upright on his shoulders again suddenly.

"Oh right! Sure!" he declared. "You ate half my sandwich and I got a kiss!" HA! Score one for the old hamster wheel.

".....You looked different then, though." he added, reaching out to give her belly a poke uninvited, not realizing the very same could be said of him.

"I been okay." he answered, rubbing at one eye with the heel of his hand. "Can't sleep for s**t lately though." The hand traversed down his face, dropping back at his side.

There was a beat of silence.

"Hey, you had babies?" he asked. "I got one of those too!"

For him, the subject of children may as well have been discussing baseball cards.

"Sati." he said, the smile seeming to dim from his face a little, following itself up with a shrug.

Long story. said the gesture.

"You want a beer or something?" he asked suddenly, turning away from the door to pad back into the house, seemingly not going to wait to see if Lana planned to follow him.

The fact of the matter was, HE could use one.