[rp] naked, shirtless, and katniss

[uncompliant]

When Logan falls through the door of the ship this time, he is wet and naked (though his hair is cut unlike in those gifs). It's been a few months since the last time he was here, and he doesn't appreciate being thrown back in mid-bath that he didn't even want to take in the first place.

...it's a long story. Come say hi to the naked, incredibly muscular man on the deck who is beyond tense. He is truly completely and totally naked. Unf.

James Wilder has been here for days at least. The Hunter's mark has taken over, has taken so much from him over time. He got it ten years ago. The mansion is quiet and empty, but his siblings are there and that's all he can ask for. Maybe the ship finally took pity on him, standing around on its deck, searching for something to hunt or kill only to turn up empty handed every time, because he is now in a gym in the ship. He's been here for hours.

Training with various weapons, crossbows, swords, and the like. He's shirtless and sweaty but focused. Need self defense/hunting classes? Come get trained by a really buff dude... who has a hard time being social or 'normal' or having fun so apologies for that, but he is single and... shirtless. That's a thing that can be appreciated given his... abs.

Finally, there's Katniss Everdeen who went to Chicago and then was sent back into a very au version of her own world where both Peeta and Gale are women and it is totally a thing in that world that gender doesn't matter in romance and that two girls can be chosen for the Hunger Games as well as two boys or a boy and a girl, which is what apparently happened to the Katniss that was there before her. She is currently, standing on the deck of a ship with a bow and arrow pointed outward and a confused expression on her face. She has yet to finish it yet (and has been setting the whole arena on fire due to her Rift change, this is a highly AUed version of her world on every single level really).

Nothing is okay.

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[mynameischristine]

She lets silence stretch between them, marked only by a shift in her smile to something more pleased, more playful.

"Maybe you'll find out."

And then there's another pause to watch him pass--he does have a nice backside, okay. She's not one to rudely ogle a man but if he's going to put it all out there like that, knowingly, then she's sure going to let him walk a few paces ahead of her at first, so she can get a good look.

Then she lengthens her strides to catch up, falling into step beside him. "We can head there together," she says, easily.

[uncompliant]

There's another pause as he tilts his head to the side, catching the pleased, playfulness in her own.

"I should be so lucky, Christine."

He's walking ahead, but he does notice she's fallen suspiciously behind which is why he turns to look back at her, lifting an eyebrow in her direction until she follows after him, falling in step beside him.

"So how's it been?" Yes, having a normal conversation while he is completely naked. He has no shame, and it's not like she seems to mind his complete lack of clothing (quite the opposite).

[mynameischristine]

She smiles at his praise--and it is praise, she can recognize that.

"It's been all right. I've been here for a couple weeks already, this time." She glances over at him. "Only this time, I didn't come alone. When I got pulled through that door again? My captain came too. I don't know if it was an accident, that he was brought because he was near me, or if the ship meant to grab him too. Either way, he's here."

She pauses. "I wouldn't wish this on anyone. But at least now he knows I'm not crazy."

[uncompliant]

Logan looks over at her with a soft expression on his face at her response and that smile on her face. He smirks a tiny bit.

"...right. Must have been strange going back, having to try to tell people about this place, but at least that's something." He'd been alone when he came through the first time. He'd been spending a lot of time alone in the forest, hadn't been much aware of the date either so he had no idea if time had passed while he'd been gone.

It was just the wilderness and him. "Did you go back to the moment you left or had time passed?"

[mynameischristine]

"The moment I left. Or real close to it." She shakes her head a little. "Time hadn't passed--or if it had, not much. Nobody had missed me or noticed I was gone. And they would have."

She falls silent for the space of a few strides. She'd spent so many months back on the Enterprise wondering if she'd ever come back. If she'd see him again, if he was still here. Maybe that's what prompts her confession, the sense that this place could take things away at any moment.

"...First thing I did when I got back here was look for you."

[uncompliant]

Logan is quiet as they walk together, and he only stops when they make it to his bedroom. It's-- He supposes it's good that no time passes while they're away. Logan doesn't have anyone to miss him back home so no one would notice. He'd severed all ties and took to living a life alone as he's done multiple times over his incredibly long lifespan.

It's why he turns at what she says when she says that she was looking for him, that that was the first thing she did.

He meets her gaze. His voice is low, gruff with the edges, but there's something almost wondering in the sound of it. "...you did?"

[mynameischristine]

"I did." Her gaze drops a moment, but when it lifts again it holds his steadily. "I was worried you had been here all that time." She'd been back on her ship nearly a year; she wasn't sure how time passed between the two worlds but somehow the thought of him being stranded here without her for months and months bothered her.

"I thought about you a lot while I was gone, too. First thing I did was come look for you, but you weren't here. I was glad--at least you were home."

Or as glad as you can be while you missed someone a lot.

[uncompliant]

Logan has his hand on his door, but he doesn't quite open it up yet as he meets her gaze too. He takes in what she says with a soft, almost smile (which has felt out of place on his face for a long, long time, he's not someone that has reason to smile anymore). He can't remember the last time he had anyone that worried about him at all.

"I thought about you too, Christine."

He went to a place that had an absence of everyone, and it's what he thought he wanted (an empty life where he could keep the world safe from him). He was wrong. Logan opens the door slowly, keeping it open for her. "I was home. Not much at home for me, but I was there."

[mynameischristine]

Christine pauses at the door. In any other case, her hesitation might have risen from the fact of following a naked man into a bedroom but despite what a short time she's actually known Logan for, she trusts him--this isn't about that.

She's surprised, too, that he thought about her while she wasn't there. She smiles. "Did you?"

And then she steps through, coming into the room.

[uncompliant]

Logan nods as he looks back at her with a tiny smile before he nods.

"Been on my own for a long damn, I'd forgotten what it felt like," he says to talk to someone, to talk to someone and have it be an easy thing, have it fill up the parts of his life that had been empty and missing. She has a way of doing that that relaxes him. Most people don't put him at ease like she does.

He's searching around in the dresser for clothes. His last stay, he collected plenty from one of the stores around the ship. Nothing costs money.

[mynameischristine]

She follows him in, perching on the bed.

"Were you on your own by choice, or by circumstance?"

Why yes, Nurse Chapel is getting all up in your business, it's what she does.

[uncompliant]

"Choice after a long life that suddenly got even longer in the span of a few years." He invited people into it after going solo, got wrapped up in a world filled with people, and then killed the woman he loved when she-- well, it wasn't really Jean anymore. "Lived in the forest," Logan says as he slides on a pair of pants, and by forest, he literally lived in a cave.

But those are details that seem unnecessary and hard to explain without understanding that he's not completely human. He's a mutant, and the forest has a certain meaning to him that is hard to put into words.

[mynameischristine]

"I'm sorry life got so long. And hard."

It sounds like the forest was a refuge for him, if he went there when things got so hard. She's not going to pry too much. She may get all up in a person's business, but she also knows when to leave things be and give people space to talk about the difficult stuff in their own time.

"And I'm sorry if this place dragged you away from that but... I'm very glad you're here, too."

[uncompliant]

There's a soft, light smirk on his face at what she says, and Logan shakes his head.

"That's life."

He's hardly the only one who has had a long and hard one even if his ends up being much longer than most. Logan has his pants on now, and he turns to her, leaning against the dresser as he looks at her face, seeing the sincerity of her words in the expression on her face.

"I'm not sorry to be here instead, Christine." Not even slightly.

[mynameischristine]

"Good." If he's not sorry, neither will she be. She can be happy about this.

"When I found you, I was headed to the deck for some sun and air. Would you like to join me?"

[uncompliant]

Logan slides on a shirt from his dresser before he turns to her, considering it for a moment, before there's an almost soft expression on his face. It's a rare thing indeed.

"Yeah, I would," he says, heading for the door again, holding it open for her. "So what's this captain of yours like?"

[mynameischristine]

She waits for him in the hall, taking his arm once he's locked his door.

"My Captain? He's a brash pain the ass. I have a feeling you'd like him, if you didn't want to punch him out."

She smiles. "But he's a good man, too. And a good captain. Kinda balances out most of the wanting to smack him. Most of it."

[uncompliant]

Logan smiles a tiny bit when she takes his arm and then he smirks at her response, lifting up an eyebrow at that last part.

"I tend to want to punch a lot of people or make 'em want to punch me so I can see that," he says with a smirk at the admittance. "...so have you smacked him?"

He is her Captain, but he wonders if that would stop her if the person seriously needed to be smacked whether that's smacking sense into them or smacking them when they're too much of a pain in the ass.

[mynameischristine]

"No! Oh, my goodness, no." It's a firm protest but she's smiling as she makes it. "He's my commanding officer. They could bring me up on charges."

And she's clearly one who toes the line. That being said...

"Not that I haven't been sorely tempted a few times. But I respect him as a person as well as his rank."

[uncompliant]

Logan smirks in amusement at that Oh, my goodness. Most people would not genuinely say Oh, my goodness, but most people aren't Christine Chapel. He learned that awhile ago now.

"Thought you had to be at least tempted, but you seem like you have the kind of strong will to keep from being brought up on charges." He's not so good at following orders in general, but this is why he doesn't have a captain (no, just a professor, Logan). "I'd have a real tough time listening to someone I didn't respect."

Not that he respects people easily, not that he listens all that well even when he does respect despite being a soldier for so many years of his life. That time has passed.

[mynameischristine]

"I do respect him. He's brash and impulsive but he's also brilliant."

They've moved back into the corridor by now; she links her arm through his (she's sure he would have offered). They start heading back the way they came, she was on her way to the deck for some sun and air before she was so delightfully interrupted.

"So he's on the ship somewhere." She hasn't exactly been tracking him lately; they're not on their own ship, according to him, there's no need to stand on ceremony. They just check in every couple of days.

It'd almost be like a vacation if not for the not being able to contact or return to their proper home.

[uncompliant]

"Brash and impulsive."

That sounds like Logan himself though it tends to annoy him when some young person's doing it instead, and everyone is young in comparison to him. He smirks softly when she links her arm through his. She's a straight forward woman in that way, and he can appreciate that.

"Still don't trust this place."

The ship. Anything that can take people's control away like that isn't to be trusted, but he also hasn't figured out what makes it all work, what makes it all run. He gets the feeling this place won't be calm for long.

[mynameischristine]

"No, me either." Any place that's going to take a person away without permission isn't trustworthy. She's learned that much while she's been out there among the stars. There's some power behind this. They need to find out what it is. What it wants. And how to make this all stop.

The place may not be worthy of their trust. But she gives his arm a gentle squeeze, offering a faint smile.

"The people in it, though... some of them are worth trusting."

[uncompliant]

"Does that mean me?"

Logan lifts his eyebrow as he looks back at her. There is part of him that is surprised. They have talked a lot, but there's so much about him that she doesn't know. There are the claws inside of his knuckles. The metal that runs the length of his skeleton.

He stops lightly mid their walking and turns to her even as her hand remains against his arm. "How can you be so sure?"

[mynameischristine]

"I just am."

She stops too, turning to face him, leaving her hand where it is. "I get it, Logan. You don't think yourself worthy of that trust. I can't pretend to know why. I don't know what it is that's gone on in your life that makes you think that. I can only go on how you've treated me."

Her eyes search his face, earnest. "All you've done is go out of your way to help, to be kind, to listen. You've had me alone, you've had more than enough opportunity to act up, and you haven't. I trust you not to, with me."

A pause, and then:

"...That is not a challenge to try, by the way."