A reunion.

[girlverine]

Laura stripped off her uniform top and let it drop to the tile floor, the fabric a wet, sticky mess of blood stains and tears that could barely be called a shirt anymore. After the battle with the would-be goddess, Laura actually felt a little...tired. Almost sore, even. Apparently getting punched by a deity was a bit much even for her healing

Comments

[ex_julianhe]

He didn't care about Utopia either. There was a part of him that thought the whole idea of Utopia was ridiculous, an island where mutants walled themselves off. Once upon a time he'd seen the X-Men in their mansion in Westchester, and they had the life he wanted.

This wasn't the same. That dream had died a long time ago, and Utopia was nothing but a shadow of that. They weren't secret heroes anymore, they were holed up and fighting for survival all the time. That wasn't what he had wanted to be. But these days, he couldn't imagine being anything else. When Laura was around, things were different for him. He liked her in a genuine way. He wanted to spend time around her.

When she asked him to stay he looked up at her, trying to read her face. He failed, as usual. He never knew what she was thinking, could never even guess at it. She gave so little away. And what did she mean, if that would help? Help what? Help him not to miss her? He'd learned that was a given, no matter what else was going on.

"It's not gonna mean I don't want you around," he said, after a minute. "But I'd like that. A lot." He took a step closer to her, slipping off his jacket and moving to put it around her shoulders.

[girlverine]

Laura remained silent, one arm pressed across the front of her chest to keep the towel held in place, as she waited for Julian to sort out his thoughts. She could tell he was thinking...she never knew what, exactly, but she could tell from body language and scent that he was...working through things. So she waited.

"You may stay, then." She echoed her previous offer after he spoke, giving a little unnecessary bob of her head that she probably didn't realize she had done. She didn't react at all when he stepped closer, just watching him, her eyes slightly narrowed. When his jacket wrapped around her shoulders, there was a momentary unconscious shiver at the warm material against wet skin.

"It is going to get wet." She pointed out. Not that she tried to take it off. Her arm shifted slightly to draw it around her some, though it didn't cover enough to make the towel unnecessary.

[ex_julianhe]

He made an amused noise and smiled a little. "Yeah, I guess it will." He very carefully lifted her hair over the jacket. That was a natural thing to do because she was soaked to the skin and looked freezing, even though she probably wasn't. But as soon as he'd done it he was aware of being close to her, much more so than he normally was, and he dropped his hand again.

"Best I can do, I didn't exactly bring a suitcase." He found her eyes, because looking anywhere else was quite frankly dangerous. "You should probably dry off, though. I'll give you space."

He was giving himself space, too. She'd made him think about a lot of things, not all of which he liked. And the part he liked least was that absolutely none of it changed the fact that he didn't want to leave her without--

Without what? Whatever it was he wanted her to understand, he couldn't even name it to himself. Couldn't articulate it. And he was thinking too much. He moved to the door. He'd wait in the hall till she was ready.

[girlverine]

Laura did freeze up for a moment when his hands were in her wet hair, her breath catching as she waited for him to do what he was doing. And then suddenly he was moving away, and she frowned faintly, mentally wondering if she had done something wrong. She didn't think so, but it was so difficult to tell sometimes. She never quite knew what 'right' was in most situations.

She nodded at his comment...she didn't mind the chill but the dampness on her skin was a little irritating. She expected him to back up, or turn away, not...well, it looked like he was leaving.

"You don't have to go outside," she said, surprised at the firmness in her voice. "You may stay." She added, hoping that sounded a little less...edgy. And then she turned back towards the bathroom, stepping inside.

She shrugged out of his jacket, catching it with her free hand and setting it on the sink before she turned towards the door to close it and paused. She still had nothing else to put on. She had intended to sleep naked, and simply remain in bed until Domino showed up with clothing.

But that would be complicated now. So she paused for a moment, considering the door. "Julian." She said suddenly, watching him from where she stood. "Give me your shirt."

[ex_julianhe]

He raised his eyebrows a bit when she told him not to go, but he at least stopped heading for the door. He turned and came back, looking skeptical, but moving to sit on the couch all the same. He tried hard not to let his eyes follow her into the bathroom. That obviously failed, but he managed to look away when she slid the jacket off.

God, what was he doing? Seriously. He hadn't even thought this through properly. He'd come here with no goal in mind other than to just see her. Make sure she was okay. Because he was sick and tired of not doing anything, and he'd heard she'd been in trouble. Now that he knew she was fine, what was he supposed to do? He shouldn't be here. He hated it every single time Cyclops was right.

But it didn't matter. It was done now, and the truth was he was glad. He wanted to be around her. He wanted to see her, it was just that it was...

Complicated. That was a good word.

She called him, and he looked up again. She was still there in the towel, and that would have been disarming, except that she'd taken him by surprise.

"What?" Shirt. Right. He could do that. He got up and pulled it over his head, walking to her at the same time. Weirdly, he didn't care about the shirtless deal. Her having nothing to wear was the more pressing issue, since he literally didn't trust his body not to react to her when she was like that. And he didn't want that. "Sure." He passed it in to her and leaned against the door frame. "Remind me to bring, like, a wardrobe next time I come scouring the country for you. Knew I forgot something."

[girlverine]

Laura paused there in the doorway as Julian approached, just...watching him. She'd seen him without his shirt on before, but her mind couldn't help but think it was a nice enough view. Which made sense, considering his training, so she didn't know what she felt the need to think about it.

Well, that wasn't true. She did know, she just wasn't particularly thrilled with herself. But it was a normal reaction, so maybe she should focus on that. Which she tried to do.

"Thank you."She pressed her free hand into her towel to make sure it was dry before she took the offered shirt and stepped back into the bathroom. "Carrying a wardrobe would be inefficient, even with your powers." She stated as she pushed the door most of the way closed, leaving a crack for speaking through (and peaking of Julian was that sort of lout!). "But considering how often my uniform gets torn, perhaps you should carry mine."

In the bathroom she shed her towel and grabbed another, drying herself off quickly and then stretching before she turned towards her wrecked clothing. Her underwear had been torn along the side by a particularly unpleasant injury during the battle, but she carefully knotted the strap closed and pulled them on. It was tighter now, but she could deal with that.

And then she tugged his shirt on as well, shaking out her wet hair, and it dropped down to cover up her entire torso and almost the underwear as well. She'd forgotten how much bigger Julian was than her...

[ex_julianhe]

He had his back against the doorframe and his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his pants. He was very resolutely looking up, as if the ceiling was the most interesting thing in the world, but he couldn't help looking round when she talked. The door was mostly closed, but he kept catching glimpses of her. The shape of her arm, her skin, her hair. Every time it happened he looked up again.

Laura looked good. Any guy would think so. That he was dwelling on it was not only natural, it was basically expected. And had she been another girl, he'd have been trying to see more than that. He'd probably be trying to be in that bathroom with her.

But it wasn't some other girl. It was Laura, and that made a difference to how much of a womanizing lout he was. The thing making that difference was very simple. It was that he cared about her. She was one of the few people left on this God forsaken planet that he still did care about. That was why he'd sneaked off in the night to make sure she was okay, and it was why he didn't want to leer at her now. She meant something to him. And much as those feelings confused him, and bothered him, they meant he didn't want to treat her any way he thought was wrong. He'd hate himself for that.

"Maybe you should get sliced up less, that'd save on uniforms," he suggested. No matter what she said about not wanting him on X-Force, he hated the thought that she was getting hurt on a constant basis. "Just, you know, something to think about."

He glanced round again and saw the flash of red that indicated she'd put his shirt on. He pushed the door open just a little to make sure. Satisfied that she was decent, he pushed the door open further. His shirt was big on her - of course it was, she was tiny - but it still left most of her legs bare, and he couldn't help that his eyes flicked down to them. He brought them back up to her face quickly, though. He'd never have admitted it to anyone, but Laura's green eyes held his attention easier than any other part of her, no matter how hot the rest of her was. And she was. But she was beautiful too, and her eyes were that most of all.

Still. The sight of her in his shirt wasn't one he'd be forgetting too easily. He liked that way more than he should.

"That looks good." Understatement.

[girlverine]

"It's better if I get sliced up than someone who cannot heal," was all Laura had to say to his advice, as she finished drying off.

Then she considered herself in the mirror after the shirt was on. It felt bulky, heavy, so much different from what she usually wore. She wore tight clothes because they were efficient, they stayed out of the way, but she had to admit she preferred them sometimes just because they clung.

Not that she thought about it often.

When the door creaked she turned to peer at Julian, saying nothing as he pushed it the rest of the way, her arms hanging at her sides. The sleeves were long enough to make her whole arms disappear but she had bunched them up so her hands were visible, and her fingers curled absently into her palms.

"Thank you," she said at his compliment, though she wasn't entirely sure why. It didn't actually look good. It looked bulky and felt silly. And it smelled like Julian, which was...disorienting. She was used to using scents to determine where people were, and this threw her a little.

After a few seconds of just standing there watching him she moved to slip past him, brushing against him lightly before she was done and out into the hotel room. Bare feet carried her to the far side, closing the blinds, an automatic instinct against observation, before she turned back to him.

Seeing him shirtless kept surprising her, she found as she paused in her motion to watch him. She knew he was, and yet she hesitated each time she happened to 'notice' again. "You are going to be cold."

[ex_julianhe]

Oddly enough, being cold was not a problem Julian was having right now. He hadn't had that problem since he came into the room and saw Laura. Actually he had no idea what temperature the room even was, but he had a tendency to get hot under the collar when he was around her, and this was no exception.

He briefly wondered when he'd last given anyone his shirt. He couldn't remember, because he didn't do that. He wouldn't even normally give a girl his jacket the way he'd done with Laura, unless he was trying to charm her or something. That kind of sharing had an associated intimacy which he tended to avoid.

But on Laura, he liked how it looked. And his eyes were very much on her, even though he knew he should look away. He moved to the couch again and leaned back on it, running a hand through his hair to feign a nonchalance that he didn't feel.

"I can deal. I don't care about the cold." Lie. He was from California. He hated the cold. "Anyway you wear about this much on missions. Doesn't bother you."