[must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm]

[majorlyugh]

WHO: Major Lilywhite
WHERE: All around the village
WHEN: Sept 19/20
OPEN TO: OTA, specific starters for different characters; please feel free to have your character run into Major at any point during his re-clothing.
WARNINGS: Nudity?

---

The Hot Spring. Ever since Major had found out about it, he made a point to stop there a few times a week, if not once a day. Although he didn't rely on them the way some people did, he liked having a few things in his life that were more or less routine, and it didn't take long for him to incorporate the almost-scalding, healing waters into what had now become his daily life in the village.

He'd even made the act of going to the spring a bit of a routine in itself, taking his items of clothing off one by one before folding them up and setting them off to the side - far enough away from the water's edge that they didn't risk getting soaked, but not so far that he couldn't see them if he needed to. It always went pants, shirt, underwear (which he sandwiched between the pants and shirt, to keep some kind of modesty in case someone else were to come meandering by), and today hadn't been any different.

Except for when he had crawled out of the water, letting himself air dry for a few minutes, then went to the retrieve his clothing.

Because when he goes to collect his things, he's met with the very unpleasant sight of them being completely .. gone. Nada. Zilch. Kaput.

"That's .. unfortunate," he mutters to himself, glancing around at the surrounding brush. Maybe he'd put them somewhere else, and hadn't remembered. After scouring the bushes and grass along the perimeter, he comes up just as empty handed - and just as naked - as he'd started. "Crap." Not that Major gets easily embarrassed about being in the wind, but - he usually likes it to be his decision to be wandering around in his birthday suit, rather than having it foisted upon him in some very bad practical joke. "Ha-ha, okay, okay, I get it!" he shouts, thinking that maybe the perpetrator might be nearby, mindfully using both hands to cover his most sensitive areas. "Play a joke on the new guy, right? I set myself up for it, putting my stuff off to the side - but like, c'mon! You can't expect me to walk around the village naked! Can I have my stuff back? .. Please?"

When he's met with silence, he realizes he has no other choice but to try and track down his clothing, one article at a time.

Comments

.for ravi.

[majorlyugh]

The first person who Major would've thought of to have played this kind of practical joke would be Ravi. Pay back for his own promise to do an encore of Princess Sparkles using twigs and berries and pebbles, given the lack of accessibility to glitter, perhaps. So it's straight back to their shared cabin, with Major still using his hands as a cup over his crotch, trying to carefully move from tree to tree, bush to bush, feeling like he's been transplanted straight out of a friggin' Looney Tunes cartoon. He could even come up with his own silly, suspenseful theme music with each step, if he wanted.

Which .. he does. Just to make this a little less embarrassing.

Once at the cabin itself, he manages to sneak in unnoticed. He goes to his own room to see if he can simply grab one of his extra pairs of clothes, but finds that they, too, have been "misplaced." Major lets out a groan as he wanders from room to room, one hand at his crotch, the other being used to open doors.

"Dude, like, I get it, okay? I won't pull a Princess Sparkles if you just give me my stuff back. We could've talked about this like rational adults instead of stealing clothes and making me hum my own theme song in the bushes, but like .. Point taken. Your beard will remain pebble-twig-and-berry-free."

[zomboligist]

Ravi's been at the hospital for the most part lately, trying to figure out how to figure out what's in that specimen room and whether he's somehow been helping to feed into that. Things are going on, but when Major comes back home in the middle of Ravi taking notes and sounds wildly mad, he wonders if there's been a lift in shroom discovery around the village or whether...

Wait, why is Major naked? "If this is some very late in life Chippendale fantasy, I'm not sure I like it under our roof," he says, mildly wary and uncomfortable as he stares at Major and looks at the tip of Major's hair and then up to the ceiling to avoid looking at particular things. "This is never going to be a nudity positive house," he says, "Please don't beg me to let that start."

[majorlyugh]

"Okay, first of all?" Major says, almost going to lift a hand in protest but remembering, at the last minute, to keep it secured firmly over his very exposed and very naked crotch. He uses the other one to point an accusatory finger, however. "Don't body shame me and be all weird about nakedness, okay? I think the world would have a lot less problems if people embraced nakedness a little bit more. And it's not like you haven't seen me in a towel or whatever before, this isn't that different. Secondly, I would be an amazing Chippendale's dancer, thanks, and remind me to show you some of my moves once I've got at least one article of clothing to cover up my bits."

Purposefully, because he knows it's making Ravi uncomfortable, he takes a few steps forward. He hides the mischievous smirk that tugs at the corners of his lips.

"Thirdly, I have no idea what happened. I was taking a dip in the hot spring, which I do pretty much every morning, and when I got out, all of my clothes were gone. Underwear included. You're going to tell me you had nothing to do with it? Nothing? Cause this is a classic prank that even you could've come up with on your own, and you're going to have to try harder than that to convince me that you didn't do it."

[zomboligist]

Ravi lets out a pained little sound of protest in the back of his throat when Major lifts the hand the slightest inch, squeezing one eye shut as hard as he can and only breathing out the pinched press of relief from the weight on his chest when he realizes that he's not about to see Major in any compromising situations that might require obscene amounts of vodka to bleach from his mind. "No one could possibly body shame you, you're Michelangelo's dream model," is his heavy, sarcastic reply.

"Not that I want to be the one looking," he adds sharply. "And I am more than content to say that I am blameless in this," he insists, gesturing to the mess of papers around him, not to mention the half-full mug of tea that's lukewarm by now. "See? I haven't moved in the last hour. Also, are you really telling me that I'm the only suspect? Mr. No Body Shame? Maybe some eager female saw an opportunity?" Ravi feels compelled to point out.

[majorlyugh]

"Have you seen the Statue of David? I mean, give me some credit. The dude is tiny." Major holds his fingers up (on his free hand, of course), with only a little gap between his thumb and forefinger. "I mean, you don't have first-hand visual knowledge, but .. trust me. Give me some biological credit where it's due, man." He knows, from the recesses of his Classics classes (or, at least, the ones he can remember and the ones he paid attention in) that small, ahem, packages were considered a sign of beauty back in Ancient Greece, but .. Major can't help but huff a little at the comparison now. Even if he knows what he's getting at, with the muscles and everything.

Major glances at the items in order as Ravi points them out. His story seems to check out, but Major's still not convinced.

"What?" He makes a face. "No, that sort of thing only happens in the movies. I don't know what 'eager females' you're thinking of or have imagined me with, but I don't think that's what happened. I still think you're to blame somehow. This is kind of like, your default state," he says, gesturing vaguely with one hand at the mess of papers and half-cup of tea. "This doesn't prove anything.'

[zomboligist]

"Art, not really my thing," Ravi confesses, because he'd much rather be knee-deep in catacombs and ancient genetics in Italian cities than sitting in art galleries, which does make him a terrible tourist partner, which he absolutely knows about, and accepts. It's why he's very careful to make sure that anyone he dates knows they're not getting Mr. Cultural out of him.

He's still glancing to the side of Major, avoiding eye-contact and other-parts-contact because he wants to be able to look at Major in the future without endless embarrassment.

"I promise, I didn't run off to find where you were bathing just to hide things and then sprint back here. For one, I don't sprint," Ravi clarifies, "so if I had, wouldn't I be sweaty and out of breath and potentially suffering a cardiac arrest? And two, I would pull such a better prank."

[majorlyugh]

"Right, right. The science and all that. I bet if I asked you what the most beautiful thing is that you've ever seen in a petri dish, you'd never shut up, right?" The corner of Major's lips tug into a slight grin. "But hey, at least you know who Michaelangelo is, aside from the Turtle." He can't help but let out a quiet laugh at how utterly consistent Ravi is. It's refreshing. Or .. well, would be, had he been standing there properly clothed.

He won't lie about how amusing it is to see Ravi all squirmy and squeamish at the mere thought of catching a glimpse of his BFF's junk.

Like he's never seen a penis before.

"You could've taken your time. I was in there for a while. I mean, I know that like, time and whatever doesn't really exist here the way it did back home? But I think I was in there for at least 20 minutes. Maybe 30? I don't know, time is a man-made construct and whatever. But it would've been plenty of time for you to come back at your regular, leisurely pace." Though the second argument makes him pause. "That, however, is true. Huh. So .. any ideas? If you didn't do it? Any idea where my underwear might be?"

[zomboligist]

Ravi keeps up the dubious look the more that Major keeps speaking, because even with a thirty minute head start, he would probably still have a fair sheen of sweat on his face and be panting, because he is not the sort of athletic person that anyone would want on any sports team. It's like his childhood catching up to him.

"I'll have you know that the most beautiful thing I've seen in the morgue happened to be a very artistic shape of a fatal blow to someone's leg," he counters, which probably doesn't make him sound anything but creepy.

"I keep going back to interested women," he says apologetically. "You're sure no one's shown interest in seeing you sans-pants?"

[majorlyugh]

"That's .. not .. reassuring, pal," Major says with a slightly contorted expression. "Like, not at all. That sorta talk might work well for Dr. Magnus and all, but I was a jock, remember? Even though I did the whole .. eating brains thing there for a while, I don't really wanna know or hear about catastrophic deaths any more than the next non-zombie-fied guy." But, that gives him pause. "How does someone die from a blow to the leg?" He shakes his head, like he isn't entirely sure he wants to know the answer to that.

"Uh," Major thinks, glancing up, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He uses his free hand to fiddle with his earlobe. "I don't think so? I mean, I don't know, I don't really pay attention to that sorta stuff. It's not like I'm walking around in a cloud of cologne, demanding women fawn over me."

.for wanda.

[majorlyugh]

Having successfully gotten his underwear, Major can now move about the village a little bit more freely - well, sort of. At least he has both of his hands free, instead of using them to shield the eyes of the fellow villagers from having to get an eyeful of crotch first thing in the morning. It's too bad he can't play it off with a cowboy hat and a guitar, say he's imitating that Naked Cowboy he saw in Times Square when he'd visited New York a number of years ago. Instead, he's just That Weird Guy who's wandering around in his briefs and boots, acting as though nothing's out of the ordinary.

He'd asked a few other people if they happened to have seen a pair of bright magenta pants, but, after the strange, concerned looks they shared, no one had had any information. He eventually finds himself near Wanda's cabin and, with nothing left to lose, decides to ask her if she's seen anything.

Trying to look as comfortable and casual as possible, he lifts his fist and raps his knuckles against her door.

"Wanda?" he calls out, leaning closer to the closed door. "Before you come out, I'm standing in my underwear, but I swear I can explain it, and I swear I'm not trying to be a creep, and please don't have all of your housemates come out and attack me, all right?"

.for wanda.

[scepterschild]

This month had been tense and she looked tired when she answered the door. She leaned against the door frame, her eyebrows raised in a curious arc that was waiting for a detailed explanation of what he was doing. Before he said more she found herself trailing her eyes from head to toe before realizing what she was doing. This was the last thing that Wanda was expecting to see at her front door and it had effectively caught her off guard.

"I thought you said you weren't a muscle head." She stared at him, attempting to make a point not to let her eyes wander.

With a sign Wanda closed the door behind her, though not before the pup manage to slip out after her. She didn't want her roommates to see this. The house would be buzzed with gossip if any of them knew that a man showed up in his underwear to see her.

"No one is going to attack you." There was a pause that suggested that there was a yet that was left unspoken. "What happened?" That or he was being creepy.

[majorlyugh]

"If I remember right," Major retorts, trying to keep his voice light and jovial despite his growing embarrassment, "I do remember trying to casually flex for you while sitting in your living room. I made no promises of not being a muscle head. I just try not to be a jerk about it." He lets out a series of quiet chuckles, though their underlying awkwardness is more than apparent. Or at least they are to Major, and he knows Wanda is astute enough to pick up on it, too.

The sight of the puppy makes Major want to crouch down and pet it, but given his current state of undress, he fights the urge to do so. And it is a tough battle. He might even pout a little as he looks at the puppy, who's giving him a serious case of the ASPCA-eyes.

"Uh, I don't .. I don't really know?" he answers, looking back up at her with a sheepish shrug. "I was at the hot springs, which is where I've been going most mornings. Got into a sort of .. routine, starting my day out there. Relaxes the muscles, you know? Anyway, I usually go in naked, since I don't have any bathing suit trunks, and I always put my clothes off over to the side. When I got out to get my day going, they .. were gone. So I thought maybe Ravi was playing a joke, cause I've been talking about playing pranks on him like we used to do back home, but - when I found him, he .. had my underwear, but he hadn't taken them. It seems like .. my stuff just kind of .. scattered? Around the village? I don't really know how, but .. I figured .. I'd ask you since .. I don't know. It, uh. It made sense in my head before I wound up standing here in my underwear."

[scepterschild]

"Noted." She smiled a little bit. "It's more effective without a shirt." She was going to try and stop teasing him now...except probably not.

Wanda listened while expending a great deal of effort not to stare at his chest... or lower. This was a sight that she probably would never forget and possibly remind Major of later.

"We look for your pants?" She wondered if she had a spare pair of pants that he could use but quickly discarded the idea. She had nothing that would fit him even though she wasn't even wearing her scrubs and she wouldn't borrow clothes from anyone else in the house. Not unless they were here for her to ask, which they weren't.

She exhaled a slow breath while the pup began to sniff around Major's feet. He was clearly expecting to be petted.

Another thought hits Wanda and it's that her traps at the breach stopped working and the foxes have gotten through. She didn't know for sure but she had faced off against them a week or so before. "Have you seen foxes around?" It wasn't a random question, she promises.

[majorlyugh]

"Is it? Remind me to flex again for you sometime, then, when I've gotten at least a little bit of my dignity back," Major muses with a light chuckle. It's not that he isn't used to people - women and men alike - giving him the once over, but he's usually pretty clothed when that happens. Or, at least, unclothed to some degree out of his own volition. It isn't because he's been the victim of some weird prank no one seems to be fessing up to committing.

"Yeah, pants. Pants would be good. I thought about trying to play this off like the Naked Cowboy who makes a living being in his tighty-whities in the middle of Times Square, but I'm missing all of his props. I just look like a perv, walking around in his underwear." He's splitting his attention between Wanda and puppy, who has now taken to letting out the heart-wrenching whimper sound. Major groans before finally relenting, bending his knees under him until they make contact with the porch, allowing the puppy to happily crawl onto his lap. If anything, the puppy can provide a little bit of extra bare-skin-coverage.

Mention of foxes lifts Major's eyes, tucked under furrowed brows.

"Foxes? I thought I saw something moving in the bushes when I was in the spring, but I didn't get a good look at it. Or them. Why? What do foxes have to do with anything?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda was trying not to laugh but Major was making that impossible. She chuckled softly and shook her head. "I'll try to remind you." It would be impossible to forget this event though she didn't want him to think that he had to put on a show for her.

Her tongue pressed briefly to the inside of her cheek. "I have a ukulele." Wanda played the guitar at home, it was an instrument that helped her think when her thoughts were threatening her with grief. Some higher power here had seen fit to give her a ukulele in place of a guitar and she found herself occasionally strumming the handful of songs she knew by the Eagles.

Arado was happy to have Major's attention and climbed onto his lap, not exactly watching where his paws were stepping.

"I saw them in the other village." Wanda was still trying to fight her smile. "They stole someone's backpack." She held out her arms where thin scratches were healing into puffy pink lines. "They're stealing things. I set up traps near the breach but it looks like they got past them." It was more likely than one of the residence stealing his clothing since they all had other options for clothes.

[majorlyugh]

"Oh, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, watch your paws there, little one, watch the cl-- AH!" Major yelps while carefully maneuvering said puppy away from his more delicate areas, though the creature itself is none the wiser about what it might've done or what it might've - ahem - stepped on. He strokes down the puppy's head while cooing, "No, no, it's okay, it's not like I ever wanted to have kids or anything, I'm sure I'll be fine. It'll be okay. I'll just have to explain to my future wife that I'm sterile because a puppy got a little too rambunctious and clawed its way around my groin, it's okay."

He sits down on the porch properly, scooping the puppy up in his arms to avoid any future damage below the belt.

"A ukulele, huh? That was one talent I never really got an iota of, I'm sad to say. I always admired people who were musical, though," Major says with a smile. He scratches under the puppy's chin before listening to Wanda's explanation of the foxes, eyes skimming the lingering wounds of a battle hard-fought. "Mischievous foxes. Who would've guessed? Although I feel like none of us should be surprised, if that's what's going on. Given .. you know .. everything else that's been happening?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda winces when Arado beings to paw at a particularly unfortunate area. She can't imagine that it's very comfortable. She waited for him to have the pup under control before replying. "You'll be fine." She would offer him his for his groin but she didn't have any.

Arado began to lick his face, not at all realizing that he did anything to possibly effect Major's future of having a family.

"It isn't to hard." Though Wanda didn't think as much as she just played. It was a feeling and one of the few creative things that she actively pursued. "I can show you." She paused. "After we find your pants." She hadn't forgotten that he was sitting on her porch in his underwear, however, she had no idea where to start looking for his pants.

Her eyes rose to Arado giving her an idea.

"It isn't that unusual." Wanda agreed as she moved to sit next to Major. She reached forward and scratched Arado under the ear. "He might be able to find your pants." He wasn't exactly a hound dog but it was something.

.for sam.

[majorlyugh]

This, this whole 'underwear, pants, and boots without a shirt' look, is one that Major can at least work with, unlike the looks he'd had before he'd acquired the other articles of clothing. At least he seems halfway normal walking around with a shirt, even though the temperature isn't quite warm enough to warrant the look. Given that he'd found the other two pieces of clothing from people he'd consider friends, there's only one other person he can think of to - hopefully - find his shirt.

Sam.

At her door, he reaches up and knocks, suddenly feeling strangely .. exposed, standing there on a teenage girl's stoop with no shirt on. Christ on a cracker, he looks like a total creep. There's some kind of joke to be made here, something involving Pedobear, but it's territory even Major doesn't feel comfortable exploring. So he makes a good show of pretending he's simply overheated, unable to locate his shirt, and is innocently trying to locate where he might've left it.

Until he realizes, this makes it look worse. He left his shirt at Sam's cabin? .. Why, Major? Why did you have it off in the first place?

"Uh, Sam? You there? Seems my stuff got misplaced all around the village somehow," he's speaking louder than normal, in case anyone's within ear shot, "And I was wondering if you've seen it."

That's better. Right?

[thegreatexperiment]

As it happened, Sam had just gotten back after yet another fucking useless aimless walk. She was getting to be pretty good at taking those. It didn't do much for her patience or her mood, but damn, at least she was getting good exercise. Her legs looked great.

Not that there was anyone to appreciate them, of course.

This time, she'd done a little scavenging, including picking up a random shirt. Not her style, really. But she'd figured she might be able to cut it up in some artful way to make it wearable.

Of course, that was the farthest thing from her mind when she heard the knock and the...really fucking weird shouting from Major.

Closing her notebook with a snap, she got up from her bed and walked to the door. She didn't open it, but she put a hand on it, leaning up to the crack in the doorframe. "That better not be your polite way of accusing me of robbing you," she said. "Because I have a lot of problems, but being a klepto isn't one of them."

The word was 'scavenger.'

[majorlyugh]

"What? No! I wasn't saying -" Major exhales a bit of an exasperated sigh, shifting his weight on his feet. The more he stands here, arguing through the door the way he'd done on a couple of occasions after having pissed off a girlfriend, the more the creep factor seems to multiply. "I didn't mean to say that - I don't think that you're -" A pause. Let's try that again, Major, shall we? "It's kind of a weird story, and it's not one I totally understand, but if you let me in, I can explain." Yeah, this definitely echoes that bizarre, 'don't put me in the doghouse' nonsense he had to pull when he was a dumb teenager who'd just started dating.

"Oh, uh, also - full disclosure? I'm currently shirtless because I can't seem to find it anywhere, and it's been a really long, bizarre day. But I swear, I'm not trying to like, be weird about this. I was at the hot spring, then my clothes went missing .."

[thegreatexperiment]

If he'd said he was shirtless from the beginning, Sam would have opened the door at approximately the speed of light. It wasn't...it wasn't a crush exactly. Mostly because she knew exactly how a guy like him would see a girl like her. But all the same, he basically looked like he'd been sculpted by Michelangelo. Every last part of him, except for the hair.

And as an art lover, Sam was happy to take note of...every last part of him.

Except for the hair.

In any case, she pulled the door open and took a step back, both to let him inside and to admire the view.

Because...damn.

"You, uh...have my attention."

LOL

[majorlyugh]

In previous scenarios that echoed something like this, Major was able to turn the charm on like a light switch. He might've leaned casually against the door way, arms folded across his chest or thumbs tucked into the waistband of his pants as though he had nothing better to do with his time, as though he could've spent all day waiting for the woman on the other side of the door to open it. But this wasn't like those other scenarios, and there was no need for the Charm Bomb to explode, as Tina Belcher had once said.

If anything, Major looks like an interesting combination between sheepish, embarrassed, and like he was the cat who swallowed the bird.

"So, Ravi had my underwear - which, you'd figure, being room mates for so long before we wound up here, wouldn't have been weird or anything anymore, but it was. Then Wanda helped me find my pants, and .. all that's left is .. well." He motions to himself and his bare chest. "The shirt. Don't suppose you've seen it?"

[thegreatexperiment]

For a brief second or two, Sam really hated Ravi and Wanda. No, not hated. Just insanely jealous. But she got over it. All things considered, male junk was actually pretty ugly. And their legs weren't much better. Seeing his shirtless was more than she could ever have hoped for.

Although why his clothing had ended up with Ravi and Wanda was...a different story.

And how he'd managed to guess that she'd found a random shirt in town today was...well, it was kind of eerie, actually.

Entropy wasn't supposed to have patterns like that.

"As a matter of fact," she said with a little sigh, "I found a shirt in the middle of a path this afternoon. Come in. I'll grab it for you."

[majorlyugh]

"You .. you have?" Major's entire face lights up with a grin. He tosses both arms up in the air as though to signal a touchdown in a game of football only he's playing (and refereeing, for that matter), before following her into the cabin. "It's bizarre, you know?" he says, closing the door behind him, "Wanda had mentioned something about these .. foxes? Like, going around and stealing people's stuff. It all sounds really familiar, like a story I heard once but can't remember for the life of me. It would only make sense that they'd bring the stuff to you three. They wouldn't have made it easy to have only brought the stuff to Ravi."

[thegreatexperiment]

"I don't think anyone or anything here is in the habit of making things fucking easy for us," Sam pointed out. "Just chill here a second. I'll grab the shirt."

And she trotted into the bathroom.

Sam's room was...well. It was more of a work of art than anything else. It was all about the walls. She'd gotten her hands on some charcoal and ended up putting it to less than practical use, decorating the room with sweeping, panoramic scenes. One wall was a jungle. Another a cityscape. The third was some sort of underwater scene. The fourth remained blank, at the moment. Sam had been thinking about doing some kind of starscape, but was wondering if she had ambition enough to put that on the ceiling instead.

Her artistic integrity was at war with her current sloth.

As for the rest? It pretty much looked like a messy dorm room. Sam didn't really have a lot in the way of possessions, but what she did have had already managed to metastasize all over the floor and what little furniture she had.