sixthiterationlogs | [must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm]

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[must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

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."

"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."

"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.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks again!" he calls after her as she disappears to get the shirt. He shoves his hands into his pockets as he stands somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the living room, feeling overly exposed due to his lack of clothing. He eventually finds his way over to the couch and sits on it, perching more on the edge of it as opposed to sinking down into it and making himself comfortable, but he doesn't look overly stiff. No need to be weird about it. Or, at least, weirder than normal.

He absentmindedly begins patting his hands and fingers to some song he can't remember the name of but that has a catchy, steady beat. Something by Dave Matthews, maybe? What he wouldn't give to be able to just chill out to some music. He'd even listen to something excruciatingly terrible, like Rebecca Black. Though being reminded that he has no concept of time, let alone whether he's going to get down on Friday, isn't really all that appealing.

She found the shirt in a pile and considered smelling it, before deciding that was totally weird. "Got it!" she called, tossing it over her shoulder, before walking back into the room like people.

What she wouldn't give to just randomly walk into her room and find shirtless Greek gods there from time to time...

Sam cleared her throat, holding it up and dangling it for him. "How the hell did you guess it would end up here?" she asked, tossing it over.

...trying not to stare.

"Awesome!" Major exclaims in return, lighting up at the sight of the shirt over her shoulder. He reaches out for it, but hesitates when she dangles it out without explicitly handing it over. He lets out a bit of a laugh at her question before finally stretching the final inches, gently taking the shirt from her before slipping both arms through the arm holes. He pauses with it gathered by his shoulders as he sighs.

"Call it a weird hunch? Ravi had my underwear, Wanda had my pants, so .. it just seemed like the shirt might be here. Ravi swears to not pulling a prank, Wanda seems to think it has something to do with mischievous foxes. What's your theory?" he asks before finally slipping it over his head, tugging at the hem to get it down to his waist.

She made the sound of a game show buzzer. "Eeeh. I'm a scientist. I never make a theory without enough data to support one. Although you can always consider the over-arching theory of the fact that there are a bunch of Observers fucking with us."

Apparently, they knew how lonely and horny she'd been lately.

No explanation of Major's issue being tested.

Sam perched herself on the arm of her couch, pulling one knee up against her chest and folding her arms around it. "Have you had any actual run-ins with our foxy friends?"

"Unlike the rest of us, who launch ourselves into unfounded theories on the smallest amount of "evidence" possible and then regretting or not understanding why it doesn't make sense later on," Major jokes, seemingly happier to finally have his clothing all re-assembled on his body. He could go for some normal clothes, the kind he'd wear back home, but looking like a raspberry is better than being naked. At least in most situations. "That's always a very real theory, isn't it? Or I'd say even a fact, at this point. They seem to do that with some regularity."

He glances up at the ceiling, obviously meaning to give a thoughtful gaze at what lies beyond and above, before returning his attention back to Sam.

"I saw them running through the brush and the forest, yeah. But I thought they were just .. normal foxes. Like, The Fox and the Hound kind of foxes, missing their Bloodhound pal."

Sam wrinkled up her nose. "I think we have enough data, at this point, to safely assume that nothing is really 'normal.'" Not that she had a great definition for 'normal' itself, apart from a setting on a washing machine or air conditioner.

Semantics.

"But I may be a bit biased. I tend to live by the motto of 'Hope for the best, expect the worst.'"

"That's ... a good point. Though, what's that saying? 'Normal is relative' or something? So I'd argue that, for this place, all of this irregularity is normal. It's strange for us because our normal isn't what's normal here, but .. you know. It's all relative." If Major revealed everything that'd transpired back home in Seattle, he'd cause a panic and hysteria in most of the people in the village, without a doubt. And yet, all of that had turned into something 'normal,' over time. Even if it was chaotic.

"Spoken like a true realist, which isn't necessarily a bad way to be. I tend to be an optimist and/or idealist, so I always get screwed in the end."

Sam's own normal was...definitely not par for the course. From what she could tell, anyway. But that wasn't a rabbit hole either of them had to descend right now. It would only cause headaches and nightmares.

"I'm sure in the history of the multiverse, there was an optimist or two who actually made out okay." She shrugged. "I mean, I don't know any. But I'm sure there's a mathematical possibility."

"One or two in the history of the multiverse is not a very good statistic," Major says with a laugh, "If you were trying to comfort me or something. If anything, I feel worse about the fact that I'm likely to meet some horribly moronic end. Like, scalding my insides because I didn't wait for the cheese on my pizza to cool down."

Frankly, 'comforting' wasn't really Sam's area of expertise. She'd tried her best with Addie. And with Avery on the rare occasion when he seemed to need it. But in general, she was pretty much a sledgehammer in a world filled with Yadro curios. Nothing but bluster and disaster.

Fortunately, Major had a way of giving her outs.

"Death by pizza?" she said. "There are worse ways to go."

"... Damn it. I shouldn't have mentioned pizza," Major pouts and whines a bit, absentmindedly rubbing at his stomach. What he would give to have one slice of good pizza. Just one. Even scalding hot, forced to eat it in such a state under penalty of death. He'd deal with a burnt tongue for weeks afterwards, just for that first taste. "I don't suppose anyone's been able to figure out how to recreate pizza here, have they?"

Sam sighed and shook her head. "Nope. Anyway, even if they did, they'd just make it wrong. Probably with a pansy-ass New York crust."

Once a Chicago girl, always a Chicago girl.

She was glad she hadn't had to endure what passed for pizza in LA.

Although, in retrospect, she would have gladly taken it, if she could trade in the whole Apocalypse portion of the program.

"I'm at a point where I literally do not care what kind of crust it's made with, so long as it's pizza. I've never really had a preference for the style. I just wanted it in my belly," Major says, giving his abdomen a few pats. "We had a pretty good mix of styles in Portland, though we mostly had the New York-style. Big push for farm-to-table pizza, too. God, okay, I can't keep talking about it because I'm going to eat my arm off soon."

Spoken like a man who'd never tried to choke down a slice of matzo pizza.

But he was right. They had to stop thinking about it. Or else they'd probably start chewing each other.

...not that Sam would mind...that much.

It had been awhile since anyone wanted to nibble at her.

Ugh! Stop being horny!

"You should get Ravi on the case," she said. "He was the one who managed to make ice cream appear. Maybe he as some kind of hoo doo that summons food. Like Beetlejuice or Bloody Mary."

"Hoo doo?" Major asks, smirking through lifted brows. "Isn't that what the bunnies called cars in Watership Down?" He glances off, trying to remember before snapping his fingers as the thought suddenly barrels into his consciousness. "Hrududu! Nice recall, Major. It's too bad that skill didn't really serve me all that well in high school and college." He gives his head a quick shake to bring him back to the conversation at-hand. "Ravi summoned the ice cream? That gorgeous, British bastard! What a jerk. If he does have food-summoning powers and has been holding out on me, I'm gonna be piiiiiissed."

Sam stared at Major. A full-on, cartoonish stare. For what must have been at least thirty seconds, after he figured out his 'Hrududu' thing.

So, so, so pretty.

Also apparently as dense as flour-less chocolate cake.

"Uh, yeah," she said, playing with a piece of hair. "Yeah, he summoned up a bunch of gallons of ice cream. A few weeks before you got here. There is, literally, nothing as gross as watching that guy eat."

"... What? Hey, c'mon, give me credit for that! I read Watership Down when I was like, thirteen, and I was able to remember a random word from it a crap ton of years later! With no Google or Internet or book to assist me! I'm going to personally pat myself on the back for that one," Major protests, reaching over his shoulder to literally give himself a pat on the back with a bit of a pout and a stare in her direction. "Of course it would be a few weeks before I got here. That's how it would happen. Because ice cream is one of my favorite things in the world."

He can't help but laugh while holding up a finger to continue:

"No, no. I could definitely give him a run for his money. When I turned human again for the .. uh, second time? I think it was? I went on an ice cream and other-human-food binge, and Ravi had to watch me just .. gorge myself. I'm surprised he even wants to eat ice cream after the show I put on."

It was telling, the way Major handled being able to eat food again, versus how Sam had handled it. She'd been desperately afraid. Convinced there was some kind of trick That if she let herself give in and indulge, it would just end with bloody vomit and regret.

Major just...went for things. Like a fucking Gryffindor.

She needed to get herself back into that habit.

"Yeah," she said. "But you don't have the crumbcatcher beard to increase the ick factor."

"I didn't, you're right, but instead of having a Princess Sparkles beard to sort of conceal some of the disaster, I instead had it smeared all over my face like that Vine of the baby covered in peanut butter, patting his naked body with that alarming slapping sound. I'm honestly surprised I didn't just throw up everywhere with how much I ate. It was a great feeling, though. Like .. really great." Major sighs wistfully, remembering the taste of ice cream. The thought of it makes his mouth water, and he hates himself for thinking of food.

Again.

She wasn't familiar with the Vine in question, but she could visualize it just fine on her own.

And yeah. Ew.

But seriously. "We really need to stop talking about food," she said. "No matter how gross the presentation. Not that I have a better topic in mind, because, it's like, as soon as you try to get something out of your fucking brain, it never goes away. And there are only so many vices available to serve as distraction here."

"Yeah, let's, um. Let's not talk about it anymore, especially about the stuff we can't get unless the Box Gods decide to put us on their nice list," Major says with a soft sigh. He pats down his clothes and stands from the couch. "Well, listen, I don't wanna keep taking up space but ... thanks for finding my raspberry shirt and helping make the transformation complete. I'm a real boy now."

[must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm]

LOL

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totally meant to say seattle not portland whoops

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