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TITLE: Haven - The Naked Truth
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: PG13
LENGTH: 6,200 words
SUMMARY: The day started off lousy at the point Jordan realised she was naked in the middle of the grocery store. It went downhill from there.
NOTES: Early season 4. There's so much nudity in my Haven fic, I figured I'd write a fic about nudity. My only excuse is I'd just finished writing something very dark and felt the need for total crack.
DISCLAIMER: Naturists are wonderful, friendly people with a sense of humour who I'm almost totally sure won't hound me like Jordan McKee with a grudge for posting this.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Haven - The Naked Truth
Ever since Nathan had returned to Haven, Jordan had resigned herself to waking up in a foul mood. Also to staying in a foul mood all day and, later, going to bed in a foul mood. It didn't make much sense because Nathan's return did at least offer the possibility that things might eventually get better, rather than a life in Haven that continued Troubled, solution-less and oddly monotonous, in between the threats of death and doom thrown at the townsfolk on any given week. She supposed it was just that Nathan's presence... focused things for her.
She got up on this particular day, showered, fixed her hair, breakfasted on coffee that could eat spoons, and experienced vague puzzlement as she locked her door and made to stash her keys away in her...
The world skewed slightly. Something was wrong, but she couldn't figure what. She re-opened the door, went back inside for a purse, and left the house again with the definite feeling of something still missing. She was colder than she remembered normally being, and sitting in the front of her car she stared at her hands long and hard before starting the engine, certain that there was something wrong with the sight of her fingernails. The pedal felt chill and rough beneath her foot. Missing...
She needed to pick up a few essential groceries, and chances were high that that would get forgotten in whatever crap descended upon them today if she didn't do it now, so she went to the store first.
Something felt different about the people walking around. They nodded and smiled in that normal, polite, local manner of vague recognition, and Jordan couldn't discern what might be amiss. She didn't think she'd ever noticed Mr Freckedy had a tattoo before, but that was about the only oddity of significance she could pin down.
The uncertainty seemed to close in on her as she joined the line at the register. People were too near, and that was a problem. She was Troubled, and she managed it fine for the most part, but today there was something missing, and the thing that was missing...
Her brain couldn't find it, but her panic mounted, inexplicable, amid the press of other people, until the line moved forward and someone jostled against her back.
A scream rent the air. The basket of the old man behind her hit the floor. Eggs and a juice carton burst, and Jordan stumbled away, clutching her own armful of goods. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean -- I'm--"
Naked, the thought finally lodged in her brain. She'd left her house without her gloves. Also without her pants, shirt, jacket, shoes, underwear... But that was fine! a giddy little voice shrilled in the back of her mind. Because so had everyone else!
"Excuse me," Jordan squeaked. She dumped her armful of goods on the counter and, careful not to touch anyone, with their vulnerable expanses of bare, unprotected skin, fled the store.
On the street outside, people walked around looking cold but unabashed. Jordan ran to her car and hunched down in the driver's seat, slamming the door. She shivered and stared. Two bare-assed old people waddled by leaning on sticks, giving her odd glances. This was... insane...
No. This was Haven.
She took several deep breaths. All right. This was a Trouble. So -- police station.
No. Clothes.
She was intending to head home, but passed the clothes store on Main Street first. She pulled up. No-one was close. She could make a run for it. Parked illegally and honestly not giving a shit, she dashed from the car to the shop, slammed the door after her and leaned on it.
Susan Fieldmore was standing bewildered in her store, baring some interesting tattoos, no other customers in sight. She looked up at Jordan in total bafflement and said, "I don't understand it. How could I possibly make a living running a store like this? Why am I even here?"
So there were other people starting to notice that Haven's new reality didn't add up. "Just..." Jordan would have shrugged, but then she would have bounced. "Try not to worry about it today." Because this was going to get fucking fixed before tomorrow.
She reached for one of the garments on the rails, but couldn't make her fingers curl around the material. A noise of frustration formed in the back of her throat. She could see Susan, wide-eyed and judging her, and Jordan could not make herself pick up a shirt and put it on. "...God damn it!" she yelled, and spun around and stamped out of the store again.
So. Not just a matter of blithely-accepted public nudity, but a pathological shame of putting on clothes? What the hell? At least the clothes were still there, so it wasn't a reality-altering Trouble, just a... a mind altering one. Jordan hunched miserably again in her car for a minute before frustration metamorphosed into anger and she grit furiously into the mirror, "Okay. Police station. Now."
She floored it and just fucking dared that cop with a notebook eying her across the street -- hardly in proper uniform, though he did still seem to be wearing his service pistol, no pun intended -- to write her up for anything.
***
Dwight was sitting in his office with his hands gripping the corners of the desk, staring in conflicted paralysis at a bullet proof vest he'd got as far as laying out in front of him. His teeth bared and his eyes wide, he couldn't seem to take the next step. Jordan hesitated on the verge of tapping on the open door, then figured hell with it and took a moment to just look instead. There was a lot of Dwight to look at, so she kind of let her eyes go to town.
Okay, so perhaps there was an upside to this crazy Trouble, too.
He eventually noticed her first. "Jordan," he acknowledged, before going back to his fixed battle with the vest. He struggled a moment, then his eyes returned to her abruptly. "Everyone's... naked. I'm..."
Jordan had stopped trying to cover herself because trying made people stare more. It also seemed this trouble was still making her less concerned about walking around naked than she ought to be. The danger there was that, if she let it, it started to snag her back into the threads of oblivious happy nudity again. But things felt much more awkward if she concentrated and tried to shrug the influence off.
Couldn't. Damn well. Win.
"Everyone," Jordan agreed, nodding slowly. She frowned at him. It was like he was in shock. He was also staring at her breasts, but complaint seemed hypocritical. "This is a Trouble."
"We should... do something about it." His eyes slid back downward. His forehead was sweating, and he didn't move.
"Dwight, forget the vest!" she exclaimed. To be honest, she was a little bit put out that he wasn't making more of the opportunity. "It won't let you put clothes on. I've tried."
He made a groaning noise and stood up, tearing himself away from the desk. Jordan blinked hard. "Alright, we need to get Nathan on this." He was breathing heavily with the effort of trying to fight off the influence. Jordan... fought off the urge to run and find a camera.
"Nathan," she agreed. "Maybe you should lock yourself in your office for the day, huh, chief?" She tipped her head at the vest. Rolling her eyes a bit at the thought of Nathan Wuornos, she grit out reluctantly, "I can work with Nathan to get to the... bottom of this." She wavered on the word 'bottom', as Dwight turned in indecision, scrubbing a hand over his face and giving her an excellent view of his, the two slabs of sculpted muscle rippling as he shifted his legs.
She pasted on an innocent expression as he turned back to her, and self-consciously folded her arms across her chest. They were both resisting the influence, which put them in a different category from the oblivious masses of the townsfolk for whom this was temporarily normal, and unremarkable.
"All right." Dwight nodded, trying to fix his eyes on a spot slightly above her head. He was still sweating, but perhaps for different reasons. "Nathan." With the desperate declaration, he dived for the door.
"Whoa!" Jordan skipped out of his way. " Don't forget who's not just not wearing gloves today." She followed after him, leaving a conscious extra step between them in case he had to stop suddenly.
The door of Nathan's office was closed but Dwight barged straight in. Jordan proceeded less enthusiastically.
"Hey." Nathan sat at his desk next to a bakery bag and a cup of coffee. He greeted them with a tired, forced cheer. It was almost painful, even if he couldn't feel pain. "Dwight. Jordan. Donut?" He offered up the bakery bag. Jordan shook her head, but Dwight took one, a worried crease forming between his brows as he regarded his supposed Anti-Troubles detective.
Nathan took a donut himself and bit into it, sagging back in his chair -- completely, unconcernedly, starkers. "I've been thinking," he said tersely, "about Audrey. If someone had found her dead already, we'd have tracked her down by now. That's... a good sign. Whatever else, she's still out there. I know it."
"That's good." Dwight reached over and gave him a pat on the shoulder with a hint of irony. "Think positive. Uh, Nathan."
"I thought so." A hazy look crossed his expression, the one Jordan didn't like. There had been times since his return that Jordan thought him not quite all there. But if the blank space behind his eyes unsettled her, she reasoned that she didn't want him to be damaged because she wanted to inflict the damage herself. "We have to assume there's still hope, or... Well, or there'd be no point."
Staring frankly between them, Nathan stood up.
Jordan's attention wandered. Nathan had lost weight while he'd been gone, but he was starting to fill out again. It was a good view, and standing where she was, between Nathan and Dwight, it did cross her mind that there were aspects of such a situation that could be... workable, under certain circumstances.
Circumstances where Dwight could touch her and she didn't have the urge to garrotte Nathan most of the time.
"Uh-hum." Dwight cleared his throat, covering his mouth with his fist and frowning at Nathan, who rounded his desk and leaned quite casually against the front of it. "There is something else that we need to deal with today."
"What's that?" Nathan set his hands to his hips, gunbelt shifting nonchalantly with the movement, and Jordan lost herself to a coughing fit.
"Well," Dwight took a breath and his tone projected the desire to be elsewhere and not having this conversation, "you're naked."
Nathan cracked a confused, slightly dopey grin. "Really working on that sense of humour, huh, chief?"
"No," said Dwight, emphatically. "You're naked, I'm naked, she's--" His eyes zeroed in on Jordan, and he had to shake himself to remove them again. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. "Everyone's naked, Nathan."
Nathan shrugged. "So do I have a case today or not?"
Dwight made a noise of frustration.
And because it had been that kind of a morning, and there weren't many boundaries left between them and a hell of a lot less than usual at the moment, Jordan lunged in, grabbed Nathan by the balls and the chin and hissed, "Wake the hell up! You're the one who's supposed to fix this!"
Dwight swung away again with a groan of male sympathy, but Nathan just blinked at her and stammered, "A-ah..." sliding his eyes down to the way her tensed fingers had sunk in.
"Focus," Jordan said through her clenched teeth. "Think about it. Was there something missing, when you left home this morning? People on the street looking a bit different from normal? Notice a few scars or tattoos you never saw before? Are we focused now, Nathan?"
Several shades of confusion tumbled over his expression.
Dwight begged, "Please let him go. I'm pretty sure that's a, uh, assault on a police officer."
"He can't feel it." Like she could care less.
"Jesus, Jordan!" Nathan's face cleared and he struck her hands from him. He backed off, stumbling, and his whole body shrunk in dismay. He planted his hands in front of his groin and his jaw tensed like he was going to break something as he jerked his head from one of them to the other, like he didn't know where to look. "Why're we -- why're you--?"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "Why is it ever? But you can stop groping yourself and look lively, hero, because it's your damn job to fix it."
***
Nathan wasn't useless. It shouldn't be a surprise, but he'd been so thoroughly entrenched in the Naked Trouble that it did take her aback when he recovered himself enough to start showing sparks of competence again. In fact, as soon as he'd digested what was afoot, not to mention every other body part in plain view, he wearily got his car keys from his desk drawer and started edging his way for the door, nervously glancing to the station full of naked cops outside the office's internal windows.
"They're naked-zombies," Jordan said caustically, driven to be more dismissive by his extreme reticence. "They won't even notice unless you act... weird."
"You're going somewhere," Dwight picked up. "You've got a theory?" A disbelieving already? hung in his voice.
"Yeah, there's, uh--" Nathan craned his head shiftily for a view up and down the corridor. He shut his eyes and his lips moved, visibly counting to ten, as one of the (normally) uniformed officers went past. "Never wanted to know that about Bill." He rubbed his face and looked back at Dwight somewhat palely. "Rick Rudyers. Lives just outside town. Likes to go naked hiking. Every so often, we get complaints rung in by a screaming tourist or out-of-towner."
"You're kidding," Jordan said flatly. Sometimes the weirdest things about Haven's local population had nothing to do with the supernatural.
Dwight looked mildly aggrieved, newcomer to the force that he was, trumped by the old hand.
"Rudyers is harmless," Nathan said. "Tough as nails, like you'd need to be to practice naturism in Maine, but harmless. If he's got himself a Trouble, we just need to get up there and we can probably resolve this with a chat." He eyed Dwight's bare chest, which might as well have had a target ring painted on it. "I'll take Jordan, in case the effect starts to..." He grimaced and left that hanging. "Best if you stick to the station and hope no-one gets trigger-happy today."
Dwight gave them both a flat scowl and protested, "I don't always wear the vest."
"I could find something to say about that," Jordan scolded him. "Nathan's right." She pulled a face because those were hard words to say, even if it was for the good of Dwight's health. "We'll handle this."
She took a breath before leaving the office and very calmly, with her hands carefully at her sides, walked down the corridor and past rooms of chatting, busy cops and the reception desk, while Nathan scampered behind her exuding discomfort.
"We'll take my car," he said, before he bolted across the street to it. Jordan couldn't really argue with that, since he knew where they were going. She followed with what she hoped was more dignity and watched his ass muscles flex as he ran. Naked passers-by stared at him in puzzlement, but spared little to no attention for her.
...Right.
She climbed in the passenger seat next to him. He was squinting out of the windows and presumably reaching his own conclusions about the mechanics of this Trouble. "Okay," he said, flexing his hands on the wheel and breathing out a long breath, lips pursed into a squashed 'o'. "Okay. I got this."
"At least you don't have to worry about being cold and barefoot," Jordan snapped. They were lucky it was a relatively mild day, for this time of year. "Or about hurting everyone that stumbles into you."
He started the engine and pulled out. They drove past a few gawping clothed people, tourists who must've come into town today and either missed the Trouble kicking in or not been snagged up in it yet. Jordan spotted at least one mobile phone out, and had to wonder if Haven was already making a splash on Facebook or Twitter. She had an unpleasant feeling that this might be difficult to keep under wraps. "This is going to have to be some gas leak," she said, pointing the tourists out to Nathan.
Maybe that just him ideas, because he drove first to the Grey Gull, or at least started giving it assessing looks as they wound along the road that passed it and then, at the last moment, took the turning. "Just a quick call," he mumbled. "See how folks are doing." A touch of amused malice entered his voice. "Take pictures..." He groped for his phone on the dashboard, flipped it open.
What, he chose now to resurrect his sense of humour? Then again, it was Crocker, and the weird relationship between those two followed no rules. "Nathan!" Jordan spluttered. "I do not want to see Crocker naked!"
He gave an evil little smirk and sidled out of the Bronco, making efforts this time to keep more dignity about his posture despite his nudity. Jordan considered staying in the car, but very reluctantly followed him across the gravel and inside.
"Hey, Nathan," Duke greeted from behind the bar. He had a smattering of naked patrons going about late breakfasts and early lunches. "Jordan." Yeah, she noticed that pause, but at least it was her name and not some asshole nickname. "What brings Haven's Troubleshooters to my establishment?"
"Nothing special." Close-mouthed around his smirk, Nathan leaned over the bar and held up his phone. Duke yawned and stretched.
It was probably the first time Jordan had spotted a genuine grin on Nathan's face since he'd returned. He said to Duke with a so-so tone of informative brevity, "You're naked."
"Yeah?" Duke held out his arms and looked himself up and down. "So?"
"Later, Duke." Nathan flipped a wave over his shoulder as he turned, and they left Crocker happily whistling as he prepared coffees for his customers.
"You know..." Jordan dredged up words as they approached the car, but was pretty sure her eyes were still a few sizes too big for her face. Damn, Crocker was fit. "All right, I give. When you've finished posting that all over the internet or touching it up for your 'private collection', can you send me a copy?"
***
Rick Rudyers lived in a cabin on the very edge of the town boundaries, tucked in woodland and up a steep slope. The place shouted 'eccentric mountain hermit', even if Jordan didn't already know that he regularly braved the Maine climate in his birthday suit. Nathan's knock on the door earned a lazy yell of, "Be right there!" from inside. The door opened a moment later and they were looked up and down by a large, hairy man who was exactly the sort of person Jordan thought should never be seen naked. She'd have seriously advised him not to go hiking naked, due to high chances, particularly in these parts, of being shot as Bigfoot.
His friendly-neutral expression turned into a broad grin as he took in their appearance. "Nathan! Embracing the natural life? And a friend, too. Miss." He touched an imaginary cap.
"Not so much." Nathan screwed up his face and folded his arms, which came off defensive, but Jordan didn't think he realised he was doing it. There were a couple of big steps up to the cabin and Rudyers' crotch was closer to Nathan's face than Jordan would have been comfortable with. "Need a word about that, matter of fact."
"Inside," Jordan asserted, because the wind up here whistled through the trees, not to mention other crevices, and she was freezing.
"Not a problem." Rudyers waved them in to an interior that was rustic to a fault, plus a man-cave of a scary order, full of hunting gear and junk and little in the way of soft furnishings except one big old threadbare armchair, which considering its grime and what she knew had been in direct contact with it, Jordan was never sitting in. Nuh-uh.
"You've heard of the Troubles, Rick? Haven born and bred, right?" Nathan said, wandering around with an interest that wasn't feigned. Well, Jordan had seen his place, too. Though Nathan was a scents guy, with candles, oils, pot-pourri and other crazy New Age-y things, to make up for the physical stringency.
"Um, sure. Nathan, seriously, what's with the show of skin, man? You do know I don't actually demand my visitors turn up in the buff. Not that I get many of them, but if I did that I'd probably get even less."
"But this is what you believe we should all be doing," Nathan said, intently. "All living like we were born to, check? World might be a better place, level the playing field, break down barriers, something like?" He picked up some kind of carved wooden ornament, trailing fingers Jordan knew couldn't feel over the handiwork. Shit, could he build up to this any slower?
"Sure," Rudyers said. "Everyone would have less hang-ups about their body if it was all on display. That and it just feels better, to be freed from the constraints of all that fabric." He gestured emphatically. "Like, you know--"
"Not really," Nathan muttered.
"Just don't," Jordan begged, not wanting to know.
"Well, seeing how you're both here and--" he waved a hand "--taking an interest."
"I am not interested," Jordan said. "For the record, I would really, really like to be wearing clothes right now. Do you even heat this place?"
Nathan shot a warning glance at her. "I think you did this, Rick. Not saying you intended to, but the whole town can't even contemplate wearing clothes."
"...Huh."
That was all he had to offer? It wasn't even a guilty 'huh', and the look on Rudyers' face was of fascinated intrigue, which did not add up to anything like the recalcitrant apology for putting her in this position that Jordan considered she was due. "You disrobed the entire fucking town and 'huh'?"
"Well," said the annoying, naked mountain man, "my pa always did tell me not to get too set in my ways. Said that... habits... could spill over." He shrugged. "I don't get the big. Not like it's doing anyone any harm. In fact, it..."
"Rick," Nathan started, exasperated.
Jordan poked Rudyers in the chest and he howled, leaping back. "Listen, mister. I'm Troubled, too, and until you fix your ridiculous Trouble, mine is a threat to everyone around me. You see? Like this." She poked him again. "So undo whatever you did... and let me cover up!" She shoved him with her whole hand and he yelped and stumbled away, breathing in heavy gasps and almost falling in his scramble for the door.
Nathan grabbed her from behind and yelled to Rudyers, "Rick! I don't want to be an asshole and make this an indecent exposure arrest, but if I have to chase you through the woods... Just hold it, okay?"
"Fine, fine," Rudyers grumbled, leaning against the door with a groan, still recovering. "Keep that bitch away from me."
"She's stressed," Nathan said. "And she has a point."
"Get off." Jordan wrested his hands from her breasts, not much inclined to care in the moment that he probably didn't know what he'd had an armful of. She'd give him a fucking point up under his ribs.
"People are going to be harmed by this," Nathan added. "Lot of people with Troubles of their own need to protect their bodies. That's not even scratching the surface of how we're supposed to explain a whole town in Maine suddenly going naked. Right, Rick?" He let Jordan go but frowned at her and placed himself between her and Rudyers.
"Alright," Rudyers groaned, with pained resignation. Jordan could stand to give him a bit more pain, but Nathan was watching her now. "I'm not an asshole. Just because I live this way. People gotta make their own choice, I know that. I didn't deliberately enforce this on the whole town." He grimaced between his two visitors. "Hey, how come you can touch -- you're Troubled, too, Nathan?"
Nathan gave a curt nod.
"Lucky for some." Rudyers waggled his eyebrows.
"It's really not." Jordan scowled, incensed at the idea he'd taken them for a couple; by the very thought that some ease or intimacy from their past relationship still showed in their body language. "Are you going to fix this? Because if you don't, I can always come back when he's not around."
Rudyers nodded, but there was a glint in his eye. "Just one thing first. Whole town, you say? I need to see this."
***
There were more tourists and out-of-town folks gawking around the streets as Nathan ferried them back in the Bronco: the word had spread. Jordan had willingly surrendered shotgun position to Rudyers in favour of more cover in the back. There was a tartan blanket on the seat next to her, but she still couldn't make herself pick it up and wrap it around her body. She settled for calling Rudyers an asshole and periodically kicking the back of his chair.
"Please don't damage my car," Nathan said, pained.
"Firstly, he's keeping us like this on purpose, and second -- seriously?" She kicked the seat in front harder, really tensing her heel and going for it. She hadn't thought of that before. Maybe she couldn't shoot Nathan, but she could sure as hell key his damn antique truck next time she had opportunity.
"It's not... on purpose, exactly. I don't think I can undo it until I see what's going on, either," Rick Rudyers excused lamely, but couldn't resist adding, "Awe inspiring as it is."
"I will end you," Jordan promised.
"I'll think of something to charge him with if he doesn't come through. Soon," Nathan said, clenching his hands on the wheel while a clothed family at the side of the road -- mom, dad, two bratty boys and a teenage girl -- all leaned out pointing cameras and phones and took pictures as they passed. "And it will stick."
Nathan pulled up outside the police station. Jordan was concerned by the sight of Dwight heavily besieged on the front steps, but the dozen people surrounding him were waving cameras and not guns, so she figured that much as she liked the guy, he could fend for himself. She would stay... in the car. Yes. Where she could hide.
"Alright." Nathan got out and rounded to the passenger door, where he yanked Rudyers out into the street. "You've seen. You're looking. Now make an effort and do something about it before the whole town makes national news. You know we're trying to keep a lid on the Troubles. How do you think the government might react if they found out?"
"It's a point, man," Rudyers agreed. "This is, like... whoa, but I didn't want to expose Haven, you know?"
Jordan saw red and Nathan's eyes narrowed with a nastiness indicative of patience stretched almost to its limit. Rudyers, she thought, with stirrings of glee for the idea, was about to be on the receiving end of Nathan Wuornos' very bad temper.
"Hey, I said don't want to impose my will on people." Rudyers had seen it too and waved his hands placatingly. "I'll fix it, I swear! I wish everyone could stop being naked again: see?" He looked around nervously. "Say, Nathan, do you think Troubles can hear?"
"I think it's intent that matters." Nathan said. "Are you absolutely sure you mean it?"
"It... could take a while to take effect?"
Jordan tentatively reached for the blanket again. She got her fingers curled around it, but still couldn't make herself pick it up and cover up. "It is working," she said through the window. "Try harder."
Nathan was squinting with growing alarm toward the police station steps. "I think Dwight needs backup against the news crews. He looks in a bad way."
It was true that Jordan had never seen the big man locked in such wide-eyed panic, but even if it was Nathan, she couldn't stop her sneer of, "You want to end up butt naked on television, too?"
Nathan's mouth twisted. "Maybe not, but someone has to do something. It'll be worse if we end up with Troubles on television."
"I swear, I can fix this--"
"Nathan! Damn it!"
He spun around at Jordan's warning, not quite fast enough to grab Rudyers as the crazy naturist bounded off and up the steps, squeezing unconcernedly between reporters, and pushed in front of Dwight, posing like he was born to do live interviews nude. Jordan couldn't hear what he was saying.
"Crap." Nathan clutched his head and went slightly wild-eyed himself. Jordan was half out of the car, then realised what she was doing and ohhhhh, no. She was fairly sure that getting out of the car was not the wisest response to this situation.
She was about to get back in when Nathan backed into her and she fell against the door, slamming it shut and barely avoiding trapping fingers.
"No, just... play it cool." Nathan gripped her arm. Jordan wanted to pull away, but he was steadying her balance and holding her up. She turned to find the whole circus being led right towards them, with Rudyers gesticulating and excitable at the fore. "It's a cover story. I mean..." Nathan blinked hard and looked extremely sour as he registered the double meaning. "He's giving them a reason for the town to be... like this. I'm thinking we need to go with it."
Nathan had better ears than Jordan did. Unfortunately the news crews were already so close they wouldn't need good ears to hear her heartfelt response of "Fuck that", so she had to bite her lip and do her best to bury it. She also did her best to hide behind Nathan.
"--so here are some of my good friends and fellow Havenites, Nathan Wuornos and Jordan McKee. They are such a darn cute couple, and I gotta tell you folks, it means so much to me that the town banded together today to explore a more natural way of life."
Nathan grinned fixedly and mostly sweated as a microphone was shoved in his face. Backed against the car, effectively cornered, Jordan hunched closer in to Nathan, horribly aware of a lot of hands waving microphones dangerously close to her bare skin, and that Nathan's form offered the only protection.
She was going to kill someone over this. Rudyers caught a look at her face and actually stumbled back.
Nathan found his voice, or a rasping approximation of it. "Yes, we're very pleased to... experience a different kind of lifestyle. But it's just for one day. To raise awareness. Maine winters being what they are. We're not all as... hardy... as Rick there."
Jordan would give him credit for thinking that fast and managing to throw in a joke, even with the flat-as-a-pancake delivery.
"As a police officer, what do you have to say about this mass flaunting of public indecency laws?" one journalist asked.
"That's a -- uh, an interesting question. What's indecency, really? This is what... we all look like." Nathan came very close to choking up, but somehow managed to forge on. "Besides, look at this. We knew from the get-go it was all or nothing. Can't arrest the whole town, can I?" He gave a very fake laugh.
"The human body shouldn't have to be 'indecent'!" Rudyers yelled, thankfully clawing a good deal of the attention back to himself as he proceeded to chew the scenery like a professional. "What a preposterous concept! Walt Whitman said 'It is your thought, your sophistication, your respectability, that is indecent!' We should all tear off the bonds of these clothes right now and claim freedom from such oppressions of society!"
As fiercely and passionately as he gesticulated, that still didn't get a single take-up from the dozen or so journalists.
"...Or not," the naturist added quickly, with a nervous glance toward Nathan. "You know, it's a choice."
And suddenly, it was. Or at least, Jordan was getting the distinct and immediate feeling that she needed to be wearing clothes again. Now.
***
The effects wore off gradually enough that the stampedes induced by abrupt, horrible realisation of public nudity weren't too dangerous, and Dwight and Nathan managed to clear out the journalists, satisfied once they'd gotten their interviews, before the worst of it.
Jordan cornered Rick Rudyers in the foyer of the police station while they were distracted and managed to kick him several times barefoot, scoring the groin-shot at least once before Nathan could be fetched in to drag her away from him.
They donned spare police uniforms and wandered around in a daze, watching everyone else gradually start to emerge from their considerably greater daze. Which wasn't without its amusing moments, but all the same... No.
"I don't know what to even do about the paperwork on this," Dwight admitted. His oversized chest stretched at his borrowed shirt. Jordan had to admit that since Rudyers' powers had waned on Dwight and Nathan, the quality of the view had deteriorated considerably.
"Nothing," Nathan suggested gruffly, his face twisting as another cop at the far end of the office experienced that sudden I'm-at-work-naked moment of realisation and yelped and ran for cover. "I'm thinking this is one of those Troubles everyone will be very quick to helpfully 'forget'. People will be pretending it never happened for all they're worth tomorrow."
"People had better be," Jordan grated.
Nathan's phone chirruped and he picked it up. He frowned at the name on the screen, then raised it to his ear. "What is it, Duke?"
"Nate!" Jordan could hear the excitable shout from where she stood. "You're on CNN, naked, and so's Crazy Town. What the hell's going--"
Nathan lowered the phone and jabbed a finger repeatedly at the television in the far corner of the room. Someone who recognised the danger signs of his twitching eye and the jaw clenched like he was about to break something got up and switched it on.
"--indecency, really? This is what we all look like."
Jordan's fingernails split audibly as she clutched the edge of a table. The fuck? There were strategically hovering blurs superimposed over the crucial parts of both their anatomy, but all the same, there they were. There she was, next to a news logo and a scrolling headline, pressed against the body next to hers to spare the limbs of the reporters, but looking for all the world like she was all over Nathan Wuornos on national fucking TV.
Apparently she'd just made a noise of rage that was making everyone in the room now regard her very, very nervously.
"Rudyer's a dead man," she hissed.
But he already knew that, because the bastard had lit out of there without even waiting for a lift the minute Nathan had pulled her off of him. He'd said he'd walk. Naked hiking fucker.
Nathan very slowly, stiffly, and numbly raised the phone back to his ear. "I see it," he said, voice mechanical.
"Yeah? I gotta ask, buddy, because holy shit, what is that? And they say weird things happen in Haven, huh? Because this, this has got to..."
"Duke," Nathan interrupted flatly. "Your bar full right now? Yeah? Business booming, is it? That's great... You're naked."
Jordan heard the shriek and even Dwight's face twitched. Nathan lowered the phone again and cut the call with a twist of his mouth that wasn't really satisfaction.
"'Naked'..." repeated a nearby officer slowly, before diving into the by-now-familiar meltdown.
Dwight sighed. "On the chance I haven't mentioned it before, I hate Haven."
"Well, the American public at large still don't know about the Troubles." Nathan tried to find a bright side.
"No," Jordan agreed, "but we did just become the naked capital of the world. I swear, I am going to hunt Rudyers down and--"
"Kill him?" Nathan caught up, with a twitch.
"Oh, shut up, Mr. Sensitive," she snapped.
"She's right," Dwight said flatly, putting Nathan in his place, and with a not-quite-smile at Jordan as the televised news story passed over, for about the fifth time, the figure of the big, naked police chief standing flustered in the glare of the cameras on the station steps. "I'm gonna help her."
The camera panned from Rudyers' rant back to the journalist from earlier, who swung her bouncy blonde hair and flashed perfect white teeth to finish on, "And there we have it, viewers. Reporting to you from this small town of Haven, Maine, with... the Naked Truth."
END
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: PG13
LENGTH: 6,200 words
SUMMARY: The day started off lousy at the point Jordan realised she was naked in the middle of the grocery store. It went downhill from there.
NOTES: Early season 4. There's so much nudity in my Haven fic, I figured I'd write a fic about nudity. My only excuse is I'd just finished writing something very dark and felt the need for total crack.
DISCLAIMER: Naturists are wonderful, friendly people with a sense of humour who I'm almost totally sure won't hound me like Jordan McKee with a grudge for posting this.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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Haven - The Naked Truth
Ever since Nathan had returned to Haven, Jordan had resigned herself to waking up in a foul mood. Also to staying in a foul mood all day and, later, going to bed in a foul mood. It didn't make much sense because Nathan's return did at least offer the possibility that things might eventually get better, rather than a life in Haven that continued Troubled, solution-less and oddly monotonous, in between the threats of death and doom thrown at the townsfolk on any given week. She supposed it was just that Nathan's presence... focused things for her.
She got up on this particular day, showered, fixed her hair, breakfasted on coffee that could eat spoons, and experienced vague puzzlement as she locked her door and made to stash her keys away in her...
The world skewed slightly. Something was wrong, but she couldn't figure what. She re-opened the door, went back inside for a purse, and left the house again with the definite feeling of something still missing. She was colder than she remembered normally being, and sitting in the front of her car she stared at her hands long and hard before starting the engine, certain that there was something wrong with the sight of her fingernails. The pedal felt chill and rough beneath her foot. Missing...
She needed to pick up a few essential groceries, and chances were high that that would get forgotten in whatever crap descended upon them today if she didn't do it now, so she went to the store first.
Something felt different about the people walking around. They nodded and smiled in that normal, polite, local manner of vague recognition, and Jordan couldn't discern what might be amiss. She didn't think she'd ever noticed Mr Freckedy had a tattoo before, but that was about the only oddity of significance she could pin down.
The uncertainty seemed to close in on her as she joined the line at the register. People were too near, and that was a problem. She was Troubled, and she managed it fine for the most part, but today there was something missing, and the thing that was missing...
Her brain couldn't find it, but her panic mounted, inexplicable, amid the press of other people, until the line moved forward and someone jostled against her back.
A scream rent the air. The basket of the old man behind her hit the floor. Eggs and a juice carton burst, and Jordan stumbled away, clutching her own armful of goods. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean -- I'm--"
Naked, the thought finally lodged in her brain. She'd left her house without her gloves. Also without her pants, shirt, jacket, shoes, underwear... But that was fine! a giddy little voice shrilled in the back of her mind. Because so had everyone else!
"Excuse me," Jordan squeaked. She dumped her armful of goods on the counter and, careful not to touch anyone, with their vulnerable expanses of bare, unprotected skin, fled the store.
On the street outside, people walked around looking cold but unabashed. Jordan ran to her car and hunched down in the driver's seat, slamming the door. She shivered and stared. Two bare-assed old people waddled by leaning on sticks, giving her odd glances. This was... insane...
No. This was Haven.
She took several deep breaths. All right. This was a Trouble. So -- police station.
No. Clothes.
She was intending to head home, but passed the clothes store on Main Street first. She pulled up. No-one was close. She could make a run for it. Parked illegally and honestly not giving a shit, she dashed from the car to the shop, slammed the door after her and leaned on it.
Susan Fieldmore was standing bewildered in her store, baring some interesting tattoos, no other customers in sight. She looked up at Jordan in total bafflement and said, "I don't understand it. How could I possibly make a living running a store like this? Why am I even here?"
So there were other people starting to notice that Haven's new reality didn't add up. "Just..." Jordan would have shrugged, but then she would have bounced. "Try not to worry about it today." Because this was going to get fucking fixed before tomorrow.
She reached for one of the garments on the rails, but couldn't make her fingers curl around the material. A noise of frustration formed in the back of her throat. She could see Susan, wide-eyed and judging her, and Jordan could not make herself pick up a shirt and put it on. "...God damn it!" she yelled, and spun around and stamped out of the store again.
So. Not just a matter of blithely-accepted public nudity, but a pathological shame of putting on clothes? What the hell? At least the clothes were still there, so it wasn't a reality-altering Trouble, just a... a mind altering one. Jordan hunched miserably again in her car for a minute before frustration metamorphosed into anger and she grit furiously into the mirror, "Okay. Police station. Now."
She floored it and just fucking dared that cop with a notebook eying her across the street -- hardly in proper uniform, though he did still seem to be wearing his service pistol, no pun intended -- to write her up for anything.
***
Dwight was sitting in his office with his hands gripping the corners of the desk, staring in conflicted paralysis at a bullet proof vest he'd got as far as laying out in front of him. His teeth bared and his eyes wide, he couldn't seem to take the next step. Jordan hesitated on the verge of tapping on the open door, then figured hell with it and took a moment to just look instead. There was a lot of Dwight to look at, so she kind of let her eyes go to town.
Okay, so perhaps there was an upside to this crazy Trouble, too.
He eventually noticed her first. "Jordan," he acknowledged, before going back to his fixed battle with the vest. He struggled a moment, then his eyes returned to her abruptly. "Everyone's... naked. I'm..."
Jordan had stopped trying to cover herself because trying made people stare more. It also seemed this trouble was still making her less concerned about walking around naked than she ought to be. The danger there was that, if she let it, it started to snag her back into the threads of oblivious happy nudity again. But things felt much more awkward if she concentrated and tried to shrug the influence off.
Couldn't. Damn well. Win.
"Everyone," Jordan agreed, nodding slowly. She frowned at him. It was like he was in shock. He was also staring at her breasts, but complaint seemed hypocritical. "This is a Trouble."
"We should... do something about it." His eyes slid back downward. His forehead was sweating, and he didn't move.
"Dwight, forget the vest!" she exclaimed. To be honest, she was a little bit put out that he wasn't making more of the opportunity. "It won't let you put clothes on. I've tried."
He made a groaning noise and stood up, tearing himself away from the desk. Jordan blinked hard. "Alright, we need to get Nathan on this." He was breathing heavily with the effort of trying to fight off the influence. Jordan... fought off the urge to run and find a camera.
"Nathan," she agreed. "Maybe you should lock yourself in your office for the day, huh, chief?" She tipped her head at the vest. Rolling her eyes a bit at the thought of Nathan Wuornos, she grit out reluctantly, "I can work with Nathan to get to the... bottom of this." She wavered on the word 'bottom', as Dwight turned in indecision, scrubbing a hand over his face and giving her an excellent view of his, the two slabs of sculpted muscle rippling as he shifted his legs.
She pasted on an innocent expression as he turned back to her, and self-consciously folded her arms across her chest. They were both resisting the influence, which put them in a different category from the oblivious masses of the townsfolk for whom this was temporarily normal, and unremarkable.
"All right." Dwight nodded, trying to fix his eyes on a spot slightly above her head. He was still sweating, but perhaps for different reasons. "Nathan." With the desperate declaration, he dived for the door.
"Whoa!" Jordan skipped out of his way. " Don't forget who's not just not wearing gloves today." She followed after him, leaving a conscious extra step between them in case he had to stop suddenly.
The door of Nathan's office was closed but Dwight barged straight in. Jordan proceeded less enthusiastically.
"Hey." Nathan sat at his desk next to a bakery bag and a cup of coffee. He greeted them with a tired, forced cheer. It was almost painful, even if he couldn't feel pain. "Dwight. Jordan. Donut?" He offered up the bakery bag. Jordan shook her head, but Dwight took one, a worried crease forming between his brows as he regarded his supposed Anti-Troubles detective.
Nathan took a donut himself and bit into it, sagging back in his chair -- completely, unconcernedly, starkers. "I've been thinking," he said tersely, "about Audrey. If someone had found her dead already, we'd have tracked her down by now. That's... a good sign. Whatever else, she's still out there. I know it."
"That's good." Dwight reached over and gave him a pat on the shoulder with a hint of irony. "Think positive. Uh, Nathan."
"I thought so." A hazy look crossed his expression, the one Jordan didn't like. There had been times since his return that Jordan thought him not quite all there. But if the blank space behind his eyes unsettled her, she reasoned that she didn't want him to be damaged because she wanted to inflict the damage herself. "We have to assume there's still hope, or... Well, or there'd be no point."
Staring frankly between them, Nathan stood up.
Jordan's attention wandered. Nathan had lost weight while he'd been gone, but he was starting to fill out again. It was a good view, and standing where she was, between Nathan and Dwight, it did cross her mind that there were aspects of such a situation that could be... workable, under certain circumstances.
Circumstances where Dwight could touch her and she didn't have the urge to garrotte Nathan most of the time.
"Uh-hum." Dwight cleared his throat, covering his mouth with his fist and frowning at Nathan, who rounded his desk and leaned quite casually against the front of it. "There is something else that we need to deal with today."
"What's that?" Nathan set his hands to his hips, gunbelt shifting nonchalantly with the movement, and Jordan lost herself to a coughing fit.
"Well," Dwight took a breath and his tone projected the desire to be elsewhere and not having this conversation, "you're naked."
Nathan cracked a confused, slightly dopey grin. "Really working on that sense of humour, huh, chief?"
"No," said Dwight, emphatically. "You're naked, I'm naked, she's--" His eyes zeroed in on Jordan, and he had to shake himself to remove them again. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. "Everyone's naked, Nathan."
Nathan shrugged. "So do I have a case today or not?"
Dwight made a noise of frustration.
And because it had been that kind of a morning, and there weren't many boundaries left between them and a hell of a lot less than usual at the moment, Jordan lunged in, grabbed Nathan by the balls and the chin and hissed, "Wake the hell up! You're the one who's supposed to fix this!"
Dwight swung away again with a groan of male sympathy, but Nathan just blinked at her and stammered, "A-ah..." sliding his eyes down to the way her tensed fingers had sunk in.
"Focus," Jordan said through her clenched teeth. "Think about it. Was there something missing, when you left home this morning? People on the street looking a bit different from normal? Notice a few scars or tattoos you never saw before? Are we focused now, Nathan?"
Several shades of confusion tumbled over his expression.
Dwight begged, "Please let him go. I'm pretty sure that's a, uh, assault on a police officer."
"He can't feel it." Like she could care less.
"Jesus, Jordan!" Nathan's face cleared and he struck her hands from him. He backed off, stumbling, and his whole body shrunk in dismay. He planted his hands in front of his groin and his jaw tensed like he was going to break something as he jerked his head from one of them to the other, like he didn't know where to look. "Why're we -- why're you--?"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "Why is it ever? But you can stop groping yourself and look lively, hero, because it's your damn job to fix it."
***
Nathan wasn't useless. It shouldn't be a surprise, but he'd been so thoroughly entrenched in the Naked Trouble that it did take her aback when he recovered himself enough to start showing sparks of competence again. In fact, as soon as he'd digested what was afoot, not to mention every other body part in plain view, he wearily got his car keys from his desk drawer and started edging his way for the door, nervously glancing to the station full of naked cops outside the office's internal windows.
"They're naked-zombies," Jordan said caustically, driven to be more dismissive by his extreme reticence. "They won't even notice unless you act... weird."
"You're going somewhere," Dwight picked up. "You've got a theory?" A disbelieving already? hung in his voice.
"Yeah, there's, uh--" Nathan craned his head shiftily for a view up and down the corridor. He shut his eyes and his lips moved, visibly counting to ten, as one of the (normally) uniformed officers went past. "Never wanted to know that about Bill." He rubbed his face and looked back at Dwight somewhat palely. "Rick Rudyers. Lives just outside town. Likes to go naked hiking. Every so often, we get complaints rung in by a screaming tourist or out-of-towner."
"You're kidding," Jordan said flatly. Sometimes the weirdest things about Haven's local population had nothing to do with the supernatural.
Dwight looked mildly aggrieved, newcomer to the force that he was, trumped by the old hand.
"Rudyers is harmless," Nathan said. "Tough as nails, like you'd need to be to practice naturism in Maine, but harmless. If he's got himself a Trouble, we just need to get up there and we can probably resolve this with a chat." He eyed Dwight's bare chest, which might as well have had a target ring painted on it. "I'll take Jordan, in case the effect starts to..." He grimaced and left that hanging. "Best if you stick to the station and hope no-one gets trigger-happy today."
Dwight gave them both a flat scowl and protested, "I don't always wear the vest."
"I could find something to say about that," Jordan scolded him. "Nathan's right." She pulled a face because those were hard words to say, even if it was for the good of Dwight's health. "We'll handle this."
She took a breath before leaving the office and very calmly, with her hands carefully at her sides, walked down the corridor and past rooms of chatting, busy cops and the reception desk, while Nathan scampered behind her exuding discomfort.
"We'll take my car," he said, before he bolted across the street to it. Jordan couldn't really argue with that, since he knew where they were going. She followed with what she hoped was more dignity and watched his ass muscles flex as he ran. Naked passers-by stared at him in puzzlement, but spared little to no attention for her.
...Right.
She climbed in the passenger seat next to him. He was squinting out of the windows and presumably reaching his own conclusions about the mechanics of this Trouble. "Okay," he said, flexing his hands on the wheel and breathing out a long breath, lips pursed into a squashed 'o'. "Okay. I got this."
"At least you don't have to worry about being cold and barefoot," Jordan snapped. They were lucky it was a relatively mild day, for this time of year. "Or about hurting everyone that stumbles into you."
He started the engine and pulled out. They drove past a few gawping clothed people, tourists who must've come into town today and either missed the Trouble kicking in or not been snagged up in it yet. Jordan spotted at least one mobile phone out, and had to wonder if Haven was already making a splash on Facebook or Twitter. She had an unpleasant feeling that this might be difficult to keep under wraps. "This is going to have to be some gas leak," she said, pointing the tourists out to Nathan.
Maybe that just him ideas, because he drove first to the Grey Gull, or at least started giving it assessing looks as they wound along the road that passed it and then, at the last moment, took the turning. "Just a quick call," he mumbled. "See how folks are doing." A touch of amused malice entered his voice. "Take pictures..." He groped for his phone on the dashboard, flipped it open.
What, he chose now to resurrect his sense of humour? Then again, it was Crocker, and the weird relationship between those two followed no rules. "Nathan!" Jordan spluttered. "I do not want to see Crocker naked!"
He gave an evil little smirk and sidled out of the Bronco, making efforts this time to keep more dignity about his posture despite his nudity. Jordan considered staying in the car, but very reluctantly followed him across the gravel and inside.
"Hey, Nathan," Duke greeted from behind the bar. He had a smattering of naked patrons going about late breakfasts and early lunches. "Jordan." Yeah, she noticed that pause, but at least it was her name and not some asshole nickname. "What brings Haven's Troubleshooters to my establishment?"
"Nothing special." Close-mouthed around his smirk, Nathan leaned over the bar and held up his phone. Duke yawned and stretched.
It was probably the first time Jordan had spotted a genuine grin on Nathan's face since he'd returned. He said to Duke with a so-so tone of informative brevity, "You're naked."
"Yeah?" Duke held out his arms and looked himself up and down. "So?"
"Later, Duke." Nathan flipped a wave over his shoulder as he turned, and they left Crocker happily whistling as he prepared coffees for his customers.
"You know..." Jordan dredged up words as they approached the car, but was pretty sure her eyes were still a few sizes too big for her face. Damn, Crocker was fit. "All right, I give. When you've finished posting that all over the internet or touching it up for your 'private collection', can you send me a copy?"
***
Rick Rudyers lived in a cabin on the very edge of the town boundaries, tucked in woodland and up a steep slope. The place shouted 'eccentric mountain hermit', even if Jordan didn't already know that he regularly braved the Maine climate in his birthday suit. Nathan's knock on the door earned a lazy yell of, "Be right there!" from inside. The door opened a moment later and they were looked up and down by a large, hairy man who was exactly the sort of person Jordan thought should never be seen naked. She'd have seriously advised him not to go hiking naked, due to high chances, particularly in these parts, of being shot as Bigfoot.
His friendly-neutral expression turned into a broad grin as he took in their appearance. "Nathan! Embracing the natural life? And a friend, too. Miss." He touched an imaginary cap.
"Not so much." Nathan screwed up his face and folded his arms, which came off defensive, but Jordan didn't think he realised he was doing it. There were a couple of big steps up to the cabin and Rudyers' crotch was closer to Nathan's face than Jordan would have been comfortable with. "Need a word about that, matter of fact."
"Inside," Jordan asserted, because the wind up here whistled through the trees, not to mention other crevices, and she was freezing.
"Not a problem." Rudyers waved them in to an interior that was rustic to a fault, plus a man-cave of a scary order, full of hunting gear and junk and little in the way of soft furnishings except one big old threadbare armchair, which considering its grime and what she knew had been in direct contact with it, Jordan was never sitting in. Nuh-uh.
"You've heard of the Troubles, Rick? Haven born and bred, right?" Nathan said, wandering around with an interest that wasn't feigned. Well, Jordan had seen his place, too. Though Nathan was a scents guy, with candles, oils, pot-pourri and other crazy New Age-y things, to make up for the physical stringency.
"Um, sure. Nathan, seriously, what's with the show of skin, man? You do know I don't actually demand my visitors turn up in the buff. Not that I get many of them, but if I did that I'd probably get even less."
"But this is what you believe we should all be doing," Nathan said, intently. "All living like we were born to, check? World might be a better place, level the playing field, break down barriers, something like?" He picked up some kind of carved wooden ornament, trailing fingers Jordan knew couldn't feel over the handiwork. Shit, could he build up to this any slower?
"Sure," Rudyers said. "Everyone would have less hang-ups about their body if it was all on display. That and it just feels better, to be freed from the constraints of all that fabric." He gestured emphatically. "Like, you know--"
"Not really," Nathan muttered.
"Just don't," Jordan begged, not wanting to know.
"Well, seeing how you're both here and--" he waved a hand "--taking an interest."
"I am not interested," Jordan said. "For the record, I would really, really like to be wearing clothes right now. Do you even heat this place?"
Nathan shot a warning glance at her. "I think you did this, Rick. Not saying you intended to, but the whole town can't even contemplate wearing clothes."
"...Huh."
That was all he had to offer? It wasn't even a guilty 'huh', and the look on Rudyers' face was of fascinated intrigue, which did not add up to anything like the recalcitrant apology for putting her in this position that Jordan considered she was due. "You disrobed the entire fucking town and 'huh'?"
"Well," said the annoying, naked mountain man, "my pa always did tell me not to get too set in my ways. Said that... habits... could spill over." He shrugged. "I don't get the big. Not like it's doing anyone any harm. In fact, it..."
"Rick," Nathan started, exasperated.
Jordan poked Rudyers in the chest and he howled, leaping back. "Listen, mister. I'm Troubled, too, and until you fix your ridiculous Trouble, mine is a threat to everyone around me. You see? Like this." She poked him again. "So undo whatever you did... and let me cover up!" She shoved him with her whole hand and he yelped and stumbled away, breathing in heavy gasps and almost falling in his scramble for the door.
Nathan grabbed her from behind and yelled to Rudyers, "Rick! I don't want to be an asshole and make this an indecent exposure arrest, but if I have to chase you through the woods... Just hold it, okay?"
"Fine, fine," Rudyers grumbled, leaning against the door with a groan, still recovering. "Keep that bitch away from me."
"She's stressed," Nathan said. "And she has a point."
"Get off." Jordan wrested his hands from her breasts, not much inclined to care in the moment that he probably didn't know what he'd had an armful of. She'd give him a fucking point up under his ribs.
"People are going to be harmed by this," Nathan added. "Lot of people with Troubles of their own need to protect their bodies. That's not even scratching the surface of how we're supposed to explain a whole town in Maine suddenly going naked. Right, Rick?" He let Jordan go but frowned at her and placed himself between her and Rudyers.
"Alright," Rudyers groaned, with pained resignation. Jordan could stand to give him a bit more pain, but Nathan was watching her now. "I'm not an asshole. Just because I live this way. People gotta make their own choice, I know that. I didn't deliberately enforce this on the whole town." He grimaced between his two visitors. "Hey, how come you can touch -- you're Troubled, too, Nathan?"
Nathan gave a curt nod.
"Lucky for some." Rudyers waggled his eyebrows.
"It's really not." Jordan scowled, incensed at the idea he'd taken them for a couple; by the very thought that some ease or intimacy from their past relationship still showed in their body language. "Are you going to fix this? Because if you don't, I can always come back when he's not around."
Rudyers nodded, but there was a glint in his eye. "Just one thing first. Whole town, you say? I need to see this."
***
There were more tourists and out-of-town folks gawking around the streets as Nathan ferried them back in the Bronco: the word had spread. Jordan had willingly surrendered shotgun position to Rudyers in favour of more cover in the back. There was a tartan blanket on the seat next to her, but she still couldn't make herself pick it up and wrap it around her body. She settled for calling Rudyers an asshole and periodically kicking the back of his chair.
"Please don't damage my car," Nathan said, pained.
"Firstly, he's keeping us like this on purpose, and second -- seriously?" She kicked the seat in front harder, really tensing her heel and going for it. She hadn't thought of that before. Maybe she couldn't shoot Nathan, but she could sure as hell key his damn antique truck next time she had opportunity.
"It's not... on purpose, exactly. I don't think I can undo it until I see what's going on, either," Rick Rudyers excused lamely, but couldn't resist adding, "Awe inspiring as it is."
"I will end you," Jordan promised.
"I'll think of something to charge him with if he doesn't come through. Soon," Nathan said, clenching his hands on the wheel while a clothed family at the side of the road -- mom, dad, two bratty boys and a teenage girl -- all leaned out pointing cameras and phones and took pictures as they passed. "And it will stick."
Nathan pulled up outside the police station. Jordan was concerned by the sight of Dwight heavily besieged on the front steps, but the dozen people surrounding him were waving cameras and not guns, so she figured that much as she liked the guy, he could fend for himself. She would stay... in the car. Yes. Where she could hide.
"Alright." Nathan got out and rounded to the passenger door, where he yanked Rudyers out into the street. "You've seen. You're looking. Now make an effort and do something about it before the whole town makes national news. You know we're trying to keep a lid on the Troubles. How do you think the government might react if they found out?"
"It's a point, man," Rudyers agreed. "This is, like... whoa, but I didn't want to expose Haven, you know?"
Jordan saw red and Nathan's eyes narrowed with a nastiness indicative of patience stretched almost to its limit. Rudyers, she thought, with stirrings of glee for the idea, was about to be on the receiving end of Nathan Wuornos' very bad temper.
"Hey, I said don't want to impose my will on people." Rudyers had seen it too and waved his hands placatingly. "I'll fix it, I swear! I wish everyone could stop being naked again: see?" He looked around nervously. "Say, Nathan, do you think Troubles can hear?"
"I think it's intent that matters." Nathan said. "Are you absolutely sure you mean it?"
"It... could take a while to take effect?"
Jordan tentatively reached for the blanket again. She got her fingers curled around it, but still couldn't make herself pick it up and cover up. "It is working," she said through the window. "Try harder."
Nathan was squinting with growing alarm toward the police station steps. "I think Dwight needs backup against the news crews. He looks in a bad way."
It was true that Jordan had never seen the big man locked in such wide-eyed panic, but even if it was Nathan, she couldn't stop her sneer of, "You want to end up butt naked on television, too?"
Nathan's mouth twisted. "Maybe not, but someone has to do something. It'll be worse if we end up with Troubles on television."
"I swear, I can fix this--"
"Nathan! Damn it!"
He spun around at Jordan's warning, not quite fast enough to grab Rudyers as the crazy naturist bounded off and up the steps, squeezing unconcernedly between reporters, and pushed in front of Dwight, posing like he was born to do live interviews nude. Jordan couldn't hear what he was saying.
"Crap." Nathan clutched his head and went slightly wild-eyed himself. Jordan was half out of the car, then realised what she was doing and ohhhhh, no. She was fairly sure that getting out of the car was not the wisest response to this situation.
She was about to get back in when Nathan backed into her and she fell against the door, slamming it shut and barely avoiding trapping fingers.
"No, just... play it cool." Nathan gripped her arm. Jordan wanted to pull away, but he was steadying her balance and holding her up. She turned to find the whole circus being led right towards them, with Rudyers gesticulating and excitable at the fore. "It's a cover story. I mean..." Nathan blinked hard and looked extremely sour as he registered the double meaning. "He's giving them a reason for the town to be... like this. I'm thinking we need to go with it."
Nathan had better ears than Jordan did. Unfortunately the news crews were already so close they wouldn't need good ears to hear her heartfelt response of "Fuck that", so she had to bite her lip and do her best to bury it. She also did her best to hide behind Nathan.
"--so here are some of my good friends and fellow Havenites, Nathan Wuornos and Jordan McKee. They are such a darn cute couple, and I gotta tell you folks, it means so much to me that the town banded together today to explore a more natural way of life."
Nathan grinned fixedly and mostly sweated as a microphone was shoved in his face. Backed against the car, effectively cornered, Jordan hunched closer in to Nathan, horribly aware of a lot of hands waving microphones dangerously close to her bare skin, and that Nathan's form offered the only protection.
She was going to kill someone over this. Rudyers caught a look at her face and actually stumbled back.
Nathan found his voice, or a rasping approximation of it. "Yes, we're very pleased to... experience a different kind of lifestyle. But it's just for one day. To raise awareness. Maine winters being what they are. We're not all as... hardy... as Rick there."
Jordan would give him credit for thinking that fast and managing to throw in a joke, even with the flat-as-a-pancake delivery.
"As a police officer, what do you have to say about this mass flaunting of public indecency laws?" one journalist asked.
"That's a -- uh, an interesting question. What's indecency, really? This is what... we all look like." Nathan came very close to choking up, but somehow managed to forge on. "Besides, look at this. We knew from the get-go it was all or nothing. Can't arrest the whole town, can I?" He gave a very fake laugh.
"The human body shouldn't have to be 'indecent'!" Rudyers yelled, thankfully clawing a good deal of the attention back to himself as he proceeded to chew the scenery like a professional. "What a preposterous concept! Walt Whitman said 'It is your thought, your sophistication, your respectability, that is indecent!' We should all tear off the bonds of these clothes right now and claim freedom from such oppressions of society!"
As fiercely and passionately as he gesticulated, that still didn't get a single take-up from the dozen or so journalists.
"...Or not," the naturist added quickly, with a nervous glance toward Nathan. "You know, it's a choice."
And suddenly, it was. Or at least, Jordan was getting the distinct and immediate feeling that she needed to be wearing clothes again. Now.
***
The effects wore off gradually enough that the stampedes induced by abrupt, horrible realisation of public nudity weren't too dangerous, and Dwight and Nathan managed to clear out the journalists, satisfied once they'd gotten their interviews, before the worst of it.
Jordan cornered Rick Rudyers in the foyer of the police station while they were distracted and managed to kick him several times barefoot, scoring the groin-shot at least once before Nathan could be fetched in to drag her away from him.
They donned spare police uniforms and wandered around in a daze, watching everyone else gradually start to emerge from their considerably greater daze. Which wasn't without its amusing moments, but all the same... No.
"I don't know what to even do about the paperwork on this," Dwight admitted. His oversized chest stretched at his borrowed shirt. Jordan had to admit that since Rudyers' powers had waned on Dwight and Nathan, the quality of the view had deteriorated considerably.
"Nothing," Nathan suggested gruffly, his face twisting as another cop at the far end of the office experienced that sudden I'm-at-work-naked moment of realisation and yelped and ran for cover. "I'm thinking this is one of those Troubles everyone will be very quick to helpfully 'forget'. People will be pretending it never happened for all they're worth tomorrow."
"People had better be," Jordan grated.
Nathan's phone chirruped and he picked it up. He frowned at the name on the screen, then raised it to his ear. "What is it, Duke?"
"Nate!" Jordan could hear the excitable shout from where she stood. "You're on CNN, naked, and so's Crazy Town. What the hell's going--"
Nathan lowered the phone and jabbed a finger repeatedly at the television in the far corner of the room. Someone who recognised the danger signs of his twitching eye and the jaw clenched like he was about to break something got up and switched it on.
"--indecency, really? This is what we all look like."
Jordan's fingernails split audibly as she clutched the edge of a table. The fuck? There were strategically hovering blurs superimposed over the crucial parts of both their anatomy, but all the same, there they were. There she was, next to a news logo and a scrolling headline, pressed against the body next to hers to spare the limbs of the reporters, but looking for all the world like she was all over Nathan Wuornos on national fucking TV.
Apparently she'd just made a noise of rage that was making everyone in the room now regard her very, very nervously.
"Rudyer's a dead man," she hissed.
But he already knew that, because the bastard had lit out of there without even waiting for a lift the minute Nathan had pulled her off of him. He'd said he'd walk. Naked hiking fucker.
Nathan very slowly, stiffly, and numbly raised the phone back to his ear. "I see it," he said, voice mechanical.
"Yeah? I gotta ask, buddy, because holy shit, what is that? And they say weird things happen in Haven, huh? Because this, this has got to..."
"Duke," Nathan interrupted flatly. "Your bar full right now? Yeah? Business booming, is it? That's great... You're naked."
Jordan heard the shriek and even Dwight's face twitched. Nathan lowered the phone again and cut the call with a twist of his mouth that wasn't really satisfaction.
"'Naked'..." repeated a nearby officer slowly, before diving into the by-now-familiar meltdown.
Dwight sighed. "On the chance I haven't mentioned it before, I hate Haven."
"Well, the American public at large still don't know about the Troubles." Nathan tried to find a bright side.
"No," Jordan agreed, "but we did just become the naked capital of the world. I swear, I am going to hunt Rudyers down and--"
"Kill him?" Nathan caught up, with a twitch.
"Oh, shut up, Mr. Sensitive," she snapped.
"She's right," Dwight said flatly, putting Nathan in his place, and with a not-quite-smile at Jordan as the televised news story passed over, for about the fifth time, the figure of the big, naked police chief standing flustered in the glare of the cameras on the station steps. "I'm gonna help her."
The camera panned from Rudyers' rant back to the journalist from earlier, who swung her bouncy blonde hair and flashed perfect white teeth to finish on, "And there we have it, viewers. Reporting to you from this small town of Haven, Maine, with... the Naked Truth."
END