Exercise in Futility - OTA - Backdated to April 24 Dawn

[st_arknaked]

He was deep in the jungle when the warm humidity became cool and crisp and the dark earthy smell suddenly held a hint of salt and sea. Midnight became brighter, the sharp sliver of new moon suddenly large and ripe and more than half way to full.

It disoriented him, the wolf immersed in the hunt and the night and the man deep within who registered the shock and then the anger as he shifted back to human form and recognized where he was. The far outskirts of the world of the inn was dry and spare and seemed neverending until you found yourself dumped back where you began and he knew with the awareness of an animal that where he had been was a long way off.

And so were his pants.

He swore viciously, not sure what made him angrier the loss of a pair of pants or that the other world hadn't afforded him a way home. That it had in fact been a sop, from whoever was holding them here, to make them feel less like prisoners. And that for a short while it had worked.

He wandered the emptiness, then the woods as he worked his way back to the inn, the wolf hunting for... what he didn't know. Restless and pacing like a caged animal more than really searching for anything specific.

Then as dawn broke he found his feet on the well manicured lawn of the inn, shifting back to human form as he made his was wearily to his room.

[ooc: When the other world went away at midnight he got dumped back in the little world of the inn and he's annoyed. He also has no pants. He isn't really concerned by his nudity but please feel free to notice.]

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[captaincorsair]

Yasmeen had been in bed with Raleigh when the world-door closed. In fact, she only knew of it now, because she'd risen early intending to go find new work from Sar Peou. When she got to 137, the door was locked and no longer glowing. She could pick the lock of course, but she figured she'd find one of the science types and ask what had happened. Somehow, they always seemed to know.

Kitty, head down over a pile of scrap metal, confirmed for her that access to Songrun had been cut off, and then returned to her work without saying anything else. Yasmeen didn't press; Kitty's reaction to being trapped again was none of her concern. Raleigh's reaction...could wait until she'd processed her own. On the run. As far as she could go, for as long as she could be gone.

She'd barely made it out the door before she found Dyson, buck naked, and looking like she felt. "Songrun steal your pants along with your hope?" she said, a faint growl of fuck-this-place in her tone.

[st_arknaked]

His response was a low, annoyed growl of his own.

"Not usually a hopeful guy, but I did like those pants."

[captaincorsair]

"Bullshit you aren't," Yasmeen snarled back. "The entire time I knew you, you never once stopped believing you'd get back to Bo and Trick and Hale and Kenzi." And every time he'd said it would happen, she'd think about how cruel hope was and focus on her freedom instead.

[st_arknaked]

He resented the fact that this woman who he barely knew, knew him so well. Well enough to strip away any lies he might tell himself anyway.

It was more than a little annoying, not allowing him to preserve his own illusions.

"Well maybe I've stopped this time."

[captaincorsair]

"Sure. That's why you're pacing the walls of your cage. Because you could care less if you get out."

Yasmeen didn't know why it seemed so goddamned important, but somehow it was. Maybe she needed him to hate this as much as she did. Maybe she was taking being trapped out on someone who wasn't going to burst into tears over it. Maybe she wanted to fight someone she knew would give as good as he got. Or maybe part of her just hated him for not being her Dyson.

Whatever it was, the closer she got, the stronger the air of menace around her grew.

[st_arknaked]

His hands flexed into fists and he growled, "Why do you care?"

And what did it matter anyway?

[captaincorsair]

"Maybe I don't."

She did.

Which was why instead of saying anything else, she took a running start and leapt at him, fangs bared and claws out. Better he fight her than someone else. Especially someone else like one of the magic users who would feel perfectly justified in incinerating him.

[st_arknaked]

They could certainly try to incinerate him, the mood he was in at the moment the attempt would be welcome. He met her, fang or fang (so to speak), his eyes flashing yellow and caught her mid leap.

[captaincorsair]

He healed and so did she (if somewhat more slowly), so she didn't retract her claws, but swiped at him with them and snarled. Yet there was something satisfied about the feral, gleaming smile as she bit for his shoulder rather than trying to rip out his throat. She had no intention of killing him. Just fighting.

[st_arknaked]

He fairly roared when she bit him, once upon a time he might have had some scruples about hitting a female, but those days were long past and he backhanded her to get some space.

He followed her momentum though with a growl.

[captaincorsair]

Her vision blurred for a heartbeat, head ringing from the slap, but it cleared as she flew back, and she flipped and twisted cat-like to land on her feet square. She slashed with her claws for his chest once and then again, quite obviously avoiding swiping any lower. That would be unfair.

[st_arknaked]

Very unfair.

He could shift and bring claws and teeth to bear, but he didn't. Maybe he was enjoying the brawl, the physicality of taking and giving as good as he got. Maybe the bloody lip and bite marks helped.

Maybe he was just angry.

And when she slashed at him again he grabbed a wrist, pulled and twisted, and they both went sprawling.

[captaincorsair]

Mid-air, she shifted and landed on hands and knees over him. Fangs stained with his blood flashed in her snarling-hiss. The last time she'd been in this position with him, he'd clawed her out of her clothes and she him out of his and the rolling and biting had gone a good four hours after this.

Her body remembered and for the space of several heartbeats it probably looked to anyone watching like she would kiss him. Instead, she hauled off with her free hand and punched him in the face.

[st_oh_honestly]

It was early, but not so early that Dot wasn't up and about. She had to be to make fresh bread and muffins for breakfast. Not that she minded, the good lord knew she worked in far better conditions now than she ever had before Miss Phryne. Early morning baking was easier than early mass, not that Dot would ever admit that to her mother.

Walking toward the main building she found herself face to.. uh face with one very naked man.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, hand going to her averted eyes, though not so quickly that she hadn't gotten a good look. The man growled at her, GROWLED, and stalked past and an extremely scandalized Miss William's took to her feet to go find Phryne.

[st_illunsmeared]

Despite it being very early, Phryne was decidedly awake, if not precisely alert. Jack had spent the night (a new thing and one she quite enjoyed), and she'd woken to the delightful awareness of his presence from the way he pressed, rather insistently, against her derriere. Not that she'd remained in that position long (that would be a new thing many months from now and she would doubtless enjoy it, as well); instead she'd rolled to face him and begun the equally delightful process of waking him.

"Good morning, Jack," she purred when he finally relented and opened his eyes.

[st_illunsung]

"So far, it is." His voice wasn't exactly a purr in return, but only because there was a groan buried somewhere in it. Of all the ways to wake up, being coaxed by a nude Phryne Fisher was doubtless among the best. (The more so, of course, by the smug little idea that this was part of the intimacy granted to him and no other.)

[st_oh_honestly]

She knew it was too early to wake Miss Phryne, but the sight of a naked man on the lawn had sort of pushed that knowledge right out of her normally sensible head.

"Miss," Dot called as she came into Phryne's room. Her voice was high and urgent, shocked really, as she made her way to the bedroom. "Miss..."

When she popped through the door and a quick count of heads in the bed had her registering that Phryne wasn't alone - then who it was. "Oh, oh I am sorry." And then she hurried back out. A man in her employers bed was one thing. The Inspector in her bed was, well. Dot blushed and then started to make coffee.

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne stifled a laugh against Jack's chest. "Mmm, it seems you'll have to hold that thought, darling." Because if she laughed in Jack's arms, she still knew the sound of Dot in distress well enough to immediately deliver a kiss and then rise.

She grabbed the silk dressing gown that lay over the end of the bed and quickly slipped into it. She was still wrapping it around her waist when she murmured, "Fortune willing, I'll be back before you can miss me," in Jack's direction as she slipped out through the door.

[st_illunsung]

"Take care of Miss Williams," was Jack's response. He, too, had heard the distress in the young woman's voice, and that meant that even if fortune didn't will a swift return to bed for Phryne, he wasn't inclined to fuss.

[st_oh_honestly]

"I'm sorry Miss," Dot said as soon as Phryne came into the room, without looking up from the coffee until it had brewed and she could offer it to Phryne. "Too early by half to come busting in."

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne smoothed the mess out of her hair with a quick shake and hand-combing and finished tying her robe, then parked herself on the couch. "Don't give it another thought, Dot. Come and sit." She patted the couch. This level of bustling almost always meant Dot had seen or done something she didn't approve of. "Tell me what's happened."

[st_oh_honestly]

She had her own cup when she sat, "It was nothing really I shouldn't have come, just.."

She sipped at the hot dark brew and burned her tongue.

"There is a man walking around out there naked as the day he was born. A full grown man Miss." Her voice rose slightly at the last bit. Heaven help them both being brought to this place where people just walked around naked.

[st_illunsmeared]

Her coffee cup met her lips barely in time to stifle a laugh, but it could do nothing to hide the merriment in her bright eyes. "If you were suggesting I should go after him, I have a full grown man in my bed at present." And one she had no interest in leaving in favor of the specter in the yard, no matter how fully grown and how naked.

[st_oh_honestly]

"That's not what I meant Miss!" Not exclaimed quickly, shaking her head. Phryne might have a different set of scruples and morals than Dot herself, but there was no harm in her. And she wasn't indiscriminate. Not really.

"I would have thought well... now that the Inspector is..." Well Dot didn't figure him for a man who shared.

[st_illunsmeared]

"Jack would never ask me to be someone I wasn't, Dot," Phryne chided gently but a smile curled about her lips for how protective she sounded. "But you're correct that I'm disinclined to exercise my freedom. The man in my bed is the one I want, and others pale terribly by comparison."

She did rather hope Jack was listening. As affectionate as she was, she didn't always possess the emotional wherewithal to tell him the things that came so easily in speaking to Dot.

"I assume we're not talking about a repeat of the Valentine's Day experience? He didn't try anything, or fondle himself in your presence?"