TITLE: Grin and Bare It
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: a really mild R? IDEK
LENGTH: ~14,000 words
PAIRING: Audrey/Duke/Nathan
SUMMARY: Nathan's caught a dose of a particularly embarrassing Trouble, Duke wants in on the hilarity, and Haven is just not letting up as Audrey and co struggle to keep a lid on the chaos. Some Troubles, you just have to grin and bare 'em...
NOTES: Written for Chiiyo86 in Holly Poly 2015. This is set in some happier season 1-2 mashup where the Chief is still around and Duke isn't obsessing about a tattooed man.

Grin and Bare It

Duke poked his head around the door of Nathan and Audrey's office furtively, with a care to keep his eyes fixed forward. Audrey looked up and regarded him with some effort toward judging disapproval. But unlike her partner, Audrey Parker was not wholly lacking a sense of humour and there was laughter bubbling under her voice as she said, "I'm guessing you're here because you heard about the Trouble."

"Was it a Trouble, or some kind of frat style prank?" Duke countered. He had not missed the low curse that hit the air over to his right, but he grinned and took his time; swung inside the door and around with a slow, inexorable purpose until he was facing the second desk in the room and its occupant. "Nathan! You... look clothed to me."

He was a little disappointed by that. Still, the sight that greeted him was well worth savouring the build-up in the way he had. Nathan was fully clothed... in a police uniform. He stood up stiffly in response to Duke's arrival, demonstrating how the pale blue shirt and dark blue pants showed off the trim lines of his body very nicely indeed. Duke managed to bite down on any number of comments about the suitability of the outfit for Nate's second career, because Nathan's eyes were already blazing with humiliated fury.

Off that look, Duke presciently filled in, Duke, what are you doing here? Get out of my office/my police station/my town/my universe! He managed to beat Nathan to the punch with, "My commiserations on your demotion, Officer Wuornos."

The muscles at the edge of Nathan's mouth bunched, and for a moment he looked worryingly close to violence, but he settled on a succinct, "Get out."

"Nathan..." Audrey interjected quickly.

"No. He came here, he knows what happened, now he can-"

"Nathan," Audrey tried again, her tone consoling.

"Probably the whole town knows by now-"

"Nathan, it's alright. Even if it does, there's always going to be something weirder tomorrow."

Nathan flicked one hand at shoulder level in a 'hold' gesture and swung his back on her, folding his arms, facing the wall. The tips of his ears reddened. His shoulders were so tense that Duke wanted to put his hands on them and massage all those knots out. Nathan might not feel it, but it would surely have some sort of systemic benefit if his muscles weren't quite so wound up. Maybe Duke felt a little bad, now, about treating the prospect of Nathan's humiliation like a spectator sport.

It was only a few seconds before Nathan abandoned his… cooldown technique...? and turned back, with more of a grip on himself. "Okay, enough," he said, voice very rough. "You can get out of here, or I'll have you in a cell for - that 'special import' brandy you stocked the Gull with? Really? You thought that slipped past?" He cut around the desk, then was oncoming, with one hand reaching for Duke and the other reaching behind him for his cuffs.

Duke wheeled back quickly. "I'll see myself out!"

"Nathan!" The indignation in Audrey's voice changed to shock before the word had finished leaving her lips. "Nathan, look!"

Nathan skidded to a halt, eyes going first to Audrey, then down to his body. "No." When he looked up again, his face was stretched in almost terror. He fell back against the desk, trying to scramble behind it via the shortest route - over it - and he looked wildly at the internal windows around the office. The closed blinds on all sides seemed to provide him little reassurance when his eyes returned to Duke.

Audrey spun her back in almost an echo of Nathan's prior move, only she raised both her hands and said hurriedly, "I'm not looking!"

Duke wasn't particularly looking at her but he was still fairly sure, from out of the corner of his eye, that she peeked.

No, he was staring fixedly at Nathan... who'd fallen back against the desk, clinging with his elbows over the desktop to stay even remotely upright, while his limbs were bucking as if he'd lost control of them. Duke blinked. What even…? Then he saw how Nathan's uniform pants rippled as his legs kicked out... and Duke swallowed hard because it had looked for a moment like he was gyrating his pelvis, which did things to Duke's brain that spiked straight down to his own groin. Nathan slammed onto one elbow on the desktop as one of his feet dragged out from underneath him, and that at least sounded painful.

A shoe passed dangerously close to Duke as it left Nathan's foot and slammed into the wall. "Whoa!" He danced back, and looked to Audrey... definitely peeking. "Is this dangerous? Because, you know, I'd kind of been thinking funny, harmless, stupid..." Also particularly hilarious, given that it had chosen to affect Nathan. But the Troubles, whatever they were, did have a habit of turning dangerous whenever they could.

"Not specifically," Audrey said. "So far."

Nathan's clothes were squirming off him like they couldn't wait to disclaim all acquaintance with his skin. His belt unbuckled and curled like a snake, twitching from his waistband. The legs of his uniform pants were wrinkling, as if they were struggling to push themselves clear. He grabbed for his waistband as his button popped open and his zipper grated down with a harsh scrunch. It unbalanced him enough that he crashed to the floor, not helped by how his arms were jerked above his head as his police issue shirt cuffs wrenched free and his shirt sleeves scraped for freedom, muffling his hands.

On his back, he made a distressed noise as his shirt collar bunched up tightly around his neck before also popping loose. Even Nathan could tell when his air supply was blocked. But his pants had struggled down to his knees, and his shirt was squirming over his head. His second shoe rolled on the floor, suddenly loose, and lost focus and grew aimless. The other, over in the corner, was still, but Duke wasn't convinced it was back to being inanimate, more like frozen and watchful.

Looking away wasn't a thing that was happening. Duke's eyelids were glued open. Haven, crazy shit every other day, blah blah, of course, but he still couldn't quite believe that this was actually happening.

He couldn't see Nathan's face, buried in the escaping shirt, but he apparently wasn't wearing underwear beneath the uniform pants.

The cock bobbing between his legs was partially erect. Duke wondered if it was actually possible some part of Nathan was getting off on this. More likely it was the strain of his effort to fight his clothes' treacherous abandonment. Duke shook his head and… at least thought about looking away. The fact that, perhaps, he really should.

Nathan's shirt slithered off over his head, freeing his eyes and his wrists as well as making his hair stand up all fluffy. He gave a groan when the first thing he saw was Duke leaning close with a no-doubt completely weird expression on his face (hopefully not an outright leer), and rolled and crawled behind his desk, trying to hide from Duke's sight while flashing his ass on the way. The last tug his pants gave, springing loose, sort of face-planted him into the office floor. Duke winced.

Nathan picked himself up and scrambled all the way behind the desk. Left on the floor, his pants shuddered uneasily, as if they didn't know what to do with freedom now they had it, and then they curled up in a tight coil. The shirt skittered behind the filing cabinet in the corner. The aimless boot humped its way behind Audrey's desk and caused her to make a startled noise.

"This is fucking nuts even for this place," Duke offered after a long moment, feeling like he was still in shock, and was possibly going to be for the next week.

Audrey had turned around now that Nathan was behind the desk. She ventured a tentative step closer and looked distinctly relieved when he broke his silence to let out a soft moan.

"Third time lucky," she said grimly. "That was way more violent than the others. Maybe if you didn't fight so-" She pulled a face and looked at Duke. She looked worried, and no, this Trouble wasn't so funny anymore. "Are you all right, Nathan?"

"...How would I know?" the desk grumped.

Duke toed the curled up pants. They twitched and edged away from him.

"It doesn't seem to be possible to put them back on again once they've, uh, declothed," Audrey said. "How, uh, how long was it since last time? Just over an hour?" She added encouragingly, "Maybe if you change often enough the clothes won't be able to... pick this up."

Nathan responded with stony silence and Audrey edged closer, clearly concerned, clearly wanting to go pick him up and dust him down and soothe him and check for injuries. Except Nathan's pride wasn't going to let that happen.

Duke shook himself out of his dazed state and sighed. He caught Audrey's arm. "I got this. Go find him something else to wear."

"No," said Nathan stubbornly from behind the desk.

"Oh, come on, Nate. You don't got anything I don't got. Except a foreskin, anyway." Nathan made a choked hissing noise. "Nate! I swear, I swear, I am not laughing here." He wasn't. The Trouble in action had been more shocking than funny, and it hadn't left Nathan much dignity, and somehow it hurt to see Nathan hurt, even while he couldn't exactly claim he'd say no to seeing more of Nathan. Which this Trouble was obliging with in spades.

"You two behave," Audrey said, backing out. "Nathan, Duke is just concerned. The way I am concerned. And I am going to get more clothes."

"...Alright," the desk said dully.

"Lock this behind me," Audrey said before she shut the door.

Duke secured it and then went to round the desk, his footfalls as cautious as if he stalked a wounded lion. "Nathan... I'm coming in..."

Nathan was hunched with both hands over his crotch, under the overhang of the desk top. Duke was guessing that was to cover the partial boner, because they'd seen each other naked before, even discounting three minutes ago, even if it was just on the beach as kids or in the gym showers at school.

"Let's get you out of there and check you over," Duke said, trying to sternly quash the part of him that was bouncing up and down with glee at the idea of checking Nathan over. "Come on, big guy. The Nathan Wuornos I know is not hiding from Troubles underneath his desk."

Nathan gave him a seething look and rolled hastily over, keeping his crotch angled away from Duke's sight, and clambered out from the side of the desk opposite from where Duke was crouching. His head slapped audibly against the underside of the desk, and Duke winced, but Nathan had other things on his mind and he just continued scrambling free. Duke managed to get a supporting hand on him as he struggled to his feet. He didn't trust Nathan's balance, as shaky as he seemed, and he thought about how it really had been an all-out battle against the animate clothes, with humiliation the stakes for losing. His arm was too hot and trembling under Duke's grip.

"You're okay, I got you," Duke said.

Nathan grunted, head hanging.

"It's just skin," Duke tried. "I may have had to get naked a time or two myself, in the pursuit of justice and defeating Troubles."

Nathan snorted. He had been told about the time on the Cape Rouge, even if he hadn't been there to witness it. Duke wondered if Nathan would've taken his chance to look his fill.

"Audrey kind of orchestrated that one," Duke said wryly. "Sometimes I wonder if she did it on purpose."

"Yeah? She's seen all of both of us, then," Nathan said. He sounded both exhausted and disgusted. "This is... at least this time it wasn't in public."

Duke experienced a shiver of second hand horror at the thought of reserved Nathan going through that. No, this wasn't nearly so funny a Trouble as advertised. He rubbed little circles on Nathan's shoulder and wished the physical gesture of comfort could be felt.

"I… panicked." Nathan's mouth stretched a humourless smile and he shook his head, still averting his averting his gaze, clearly annoyed with himself more than anything. "Wasn't like before… Just you and Audrey here… Not like I can't cope with being naked in front of you and Audrey."

He apparently mustered enough fortitude to let down his tight physical guard on his nudity and focus on staying upright by clinging to the desk. In doing so he gave Duke a clearer sight of what he'd been hiding behind his hands again and the low whistle came out of Duke's lips pretty much of its own accord. "...Impressive."

Nathan grunted and got a hand back over it. He'd been using two before because one... wasn't nearly enough. "Must have been the friction..." The flush was growing up his neck again, and Duke cursed his mouth. Nathan didn't need that, he'd just been beginning to dig himself out of it.

Then again, Duke's shoulder-devil was hard at work, with the little voice inside him posing the question as to whether Nathan was one of those people who could manage to blush with their whole body, given the rosy colour in his ass cheeks. It didn't help that Duke was kind of oddly psyched to know that Nathan was functional. Since he'd got his Trouble back as an adult, that had been an area of weirdness, and it wasn't like Duke could just ask. Well... Nathan wouldn't answer. It was a particularly poisonous cliché of masculinity to use that as any judge of a man, but Nathan surely bought into a few of those, having been raised by Garland.

Duke patted him on the back and tried to slide something more sympathetic past the gleeful inner voice. "You have to know you've got nothing to be ashamed of. If Audrey got a glimpse, you made her a happy girl, I promise."

"That's just you all over." Nathan gave up the effort to avert his body from Duke, though he left the protective hand in place. Nathan looking him in the face again was an improvement, immensely so, even if Duke's baser preoccupations seemed to be winning the fight. "You think I should revel in this?"

"Nate..." Duke flapped a bit, not really wanting to be touching Nathan when he was already glaring like that and so clearly projecting the sense of do-not-want, but still rather leery that he needed the support. Sure enough, as soon as he withdrew his hands from Nathan, a stumble sent him grabbing urgently again. His hands ended up on Nathan's hips, Nathan's hands ended up on his shoulders.

And the next line prepared on his tongue was already escaping, too late to pull it back with consideration for the moment's unplanned physical intimacy. "You have a nice body. This Trouble is shitty, sure. But if you have to show it off... take comfort in that much?" Duke's voice rose higher with a semi-desperate trace of laughter.

"Don't pep-talk me." Nathan looked down at where their hands were and his forehead furrowed. "Or ask me to dance." He snorted.

It did look kind of like that. "Couch," Duke said, and helped Nathan over to it. The coil of pants skittered out of their path, moving away fast at Nathan's approach. Nathan collapsed back and grabbed a scatter cushion to plant over his crotch. It seemed like he wanted to just leave it there and make some effort toward pretending nonchalance, but the cushion stood up at an angle as Nathan's... pride... refused to be cowed, and he stared down at it in dismay.

"I could help you..." Duke started, waggling a hand and swallowing hard at his own boldness. "Hell, I can give a guy a hand job, especially if I've known him pretty much my whole life…"

"No," Nathan said, panic flitting over his face, followed by a moment of confusion and an intent, searching look that he dragged away with visible difficulty.

Okay... so... No was Nathan's new favourite word anyway, and that hadn't quite been revulsion. Duke wondered if Nathan had ever thought of doing anything with another man, because it hadn't looked like he'd hated the idea just now.

"You'd... I didn't know you..." Nathan struggled for words, coming back around to look at him with an awkward recalcitrance for the new information. So much for Duke trying to be casual. "It's okay," he asserted, stronger, and added, "if I leave it alone, it'll... eventually..."

He shuffled a bit on the couch cushions, but it didn't seem like he was going to have a manly panic at the idea of Duke being of a mind to appreciate his naked state, any more than when it had just been a general matter of Duke seeing him naked. Although, Duke instinctively hadn't expected he'd be a dick about that, even if he was a dick about most things Duke was. Nathan projected too much a sense of fairness for things like homophobia. That sense of fairness being one of the reasons Duke was still inclined to follow him around like a puppy cracking bad jokes no matter how he chose to act toward Duke himself. It was also hard to call Nathan wrong on all counts, given a few packages tied to the outer hull of the Rouge right now that said Duke Crocker was a very bad man indeed.

A careful tapping sounded at the door and Audrey's voice called, "It's me!" Duke went to open it, and she passed a new set of HPD blues through. He pushed the door almost shut again, so Nathan could get dressed, but didn't lock it. Audrey stood outside making plans aloud while Nathan gratefully took the clothing. "We need to take him home and set him up with multiple changes of clothes. Though I don't know if at this point he wouldn't rather stay there..."

Nathan made a noncommittal noise. Duke personally thought that Nathan was committed enough to work naked if he had to, a mental image that made him smile… though other things were also contributing to that. Nathan was flashing a lot as he pulled the new clothes on, wearing the dark blue pants commando. His ass was nice, too.

"You can come in," Nathan said, his pants fastened and starting on the shirt. Audrey entered, visibly relieved to see him up and looking better, even if still a little pink in the cheeks and the ears. Duke caught her checking out Nathan's exposed chest before he could fasten the last of the buttons.

"Hey, you've seen me naked, after all," she said chirpily, catching Nathan's reaction. She told Duke, "He had to cut me out of a cocoon. There wasn't much left of my nightwear."

"I have also seen you naked," Duke threw onto the table, smiling. "So we're three for three, Nathan. And we are all fine."

"Yes, we are." Audrey's eyes smouldered a bit as she focused back on Nathan. It made Duke grin, even though he felt a twinge of disappointment at the same time. As if it wasn't enough that lately he seemed to spend his time fixating on fine-looking cops, it was worse when those fine-looking cops were already focused on each other, taking the possibility of either of them out of his reach.

Nathan put on shoes that were too big for him with a curl of his nose. "I'm going to run out of footwear, first," he said disgustedly. As a way of viewing the problem, it was encouragingly logical, and Duke felt a renewal of purpose. They had to dig Nathan out of his deep humiliation over this Trouble and keep him functional until they could get it fixed.

"Okay," said Audrey, holding her phone up, on board with the plan already. "I am setting the alarm on this thing for fifty minutes. I have another set of clothes here." She waved her second bundle, although that one was minus shoes. "Though they may not fit so well, we're getting limited for spares. Hopefully we should be better prepared next time, though, and you can nip into a bathroom and change before it happens again. Let's see if we can beat this thing."

Duke caught her eye gratefully, but the phone on Nathan's desk rang and she went to pick it up. Nathan perked up enough to head over, and she handed it straight to him. Duke heard a female voice, but couldn't make out words, except for, "But in the circumstances-" rising high on the end.

"Alright, we'll figure it out," Nathan said, and put down the phone. "Laverne says we got reports of shots fired and something really weird happening on the corner of Laurel Street and Westcliff Road. She's dispatched the nearest officers. I'm lead here, I should at least be on hand for something like this. But-"

"Yeah." Audrey pulled a face. "Your clothes start to bail like that in the middle of a gunfight, then it's a different kind of problem. I'll go. I'll find someone else to take as backup."

Nathan's face flinched at that idea. Worry for his partner, possessiveness, or both, Duke figured. Throw in some good old fashioned shame that he couldn't cut it.

"Duke, can you stay with Nathan?" Audrey was grabbing her stuff up. "He needs some support who knows what's going on. I - I'll get the details from-"

She broke off. It had been noisier in the station for a minute or so, only there was enough going on in this room that Duke hadn't really registered it. Now, as Audrey opened the door and the noise flooded in, something was definitely happening. Exclamations and raised voices were in the process of rising to shouts and shrieks.

"What the hell?" Even at risk of losing all clothes and dignity at any moment, Nathan was still out of the door and blazing past Audrey. She followed on his heels and Duke followed her. Nathan had reached behind him automatically, but he wasn't wearing his gun belt, and Duke hadn't seen that even on his initial ensemble today. Presumably it had fled in the first wave and he'd need to get a spare one if he engaged in any action.

They entered a bullpen in chaos. It was like someone had brought itching powder to an orgy. Or... worse than itching, because some of these people were crying out in pain. There were already a few cops - it was mostly the cops, although one or two cops were looking around incredulously, unaffected, like the smattering of civilian bystanders, and a couple of the civilian bystanders were caught up in it - but there were already a few of them partially clothed, trying to hide behind things, or standing in their birthday suits looking oddly relieved as well as horrified and stunned.

Duke squinted, trying to work out what he was seeing.

It was like they were fighting their clothes. The fabric was writhing, like Nathan's trousers and shirt had, but not to escape. More like it was attacking them. Itching and tickling in the minor cases, the people who weren't trying to strip off yet, just to scratch or pull at their clothing. In the more severe cases, heavy belts were trying to crush, collars squirming to strangle, shoelaces squeezing cruelly. Those people were trying to strip with a will. Some of them were in bad enough straits that their fellows, already naked or otherwise, were trying to help them. Duke blinked hard at some of the visuals.

"What the hell?" Nathan said again, a lot weaker, his voice choked. "This is - this-"

"It's the same Trouble," Audrey said in a hiss. "Or... close enough."

"Maybe you don't notice the clothes starting to try and irritate you and they just give up on your numb ass in disgust," Duke half joked.

"It's contagious," Audrey said.

"I brought it here," Nathan said grimly.

"We don't know that."

"We do. First time it happened to me was in town. Second time in this same damn room."

Duke shuddered at the reminder. Nathan didn't notice, he was diving to help a colleague in danger of being crushed by his pants. The sight of Nathan straddling another frantically writhing, uniformed cop, desperately trying to unfasten his belt, did things to Duke, and he shuddered again for quite different reasons, and his focus couldn't help but go back to Nathan's groin and note that his pants were still tented there.

Laverne and various people who'd also been in their offices were running down to help, and Nathan had got the undamaged officer out of his pants, so Audrey loped across to grab Nathan, gesturing for Duke to help her. "Nathan, we need to take that call. The people here will have to help each other. We have forty five minutes and we already have a handle on this. You have a handle on this. No-one here is in a better state to take this anymore."

Nathan nodded and let them pull him along, before he disengaged and walked on his own. His face was grim. "I don't know if I should go where other people are. If I brought it here..."

"It doesn't matter," Audrey said, "because potentially every other cop in the station is now infected too, and the only way to deal with this is to find and stop the Trouble at its source. But first we need to investigate those shots. The new thing could be far more dangerous than the stupid clothing Trouble."

Nathan looked back toward the fading yells and furore, and an even grimmer cast came over his face with reflection. "Good thing the Chief's out of town..."

Anxiety hummed at the edges of Nathan's thoughts. He was far from happy to be out here, like this... exposed was very much the word for how he felt. Out in the public eye, people walking by... But Laverne was on the radio, back in the dispatch office again, and her patter indicated things were only getting more in need of police intervention.

"...What are the two gangs in Romeo and Juliet? You went to university, Nathan, hon..."

Sociology. He'd done sociology, and an obscure minor in the history of animation. But he bit his lip because contradicting Laverne was seldom a good idea. "I don't know, Laverne." Had there been gangs in Romeo and Juliet?

"...The Montagues and the Capulets, Nathan." He heard a tone of judgement. Had she known that all along? "Well, the latest call said we've got Montagues and Capulets fighting in the street."

"They're the ones with the guns? I'm guessing this is the movie version," Duke said.

"You know Shakespeare?" Audrey asked him, amused.

"Just because I'm a minor felon, I can't appreciate the Bard?" Duke looked vaguely offended.

Nathan couldn't feel, but a few jerks in the upper inner periphery of his vision told him his eyelid was twitching. "What's happening at the station?" he asked the radio, clenching his hands on the wheel. Maybe he shouldn't be driving. The timing of this Trouble seemed to be variable. If it hit before Audrey's alarm sounded...

"No more than bruises, for the most part, but that was quite the show," Laverne responded. "We're still tryin' to clothe everyone. Stan's started the investigation into who brought the itching powder in. Tryin' to figure out if it was a prank or something malicious. Goddamn stupid stunt to pull on a working police force... You okay, Nathan?"

"Mm." He'd brought this Trouble to the station himself. Of course, he hadn't known it would spread, or he'd have gone home. Treating it as a prank wasn't going to help solve this. They needed to get on it and treat it as a Trouble. "Yes, Laverne, I'm fine. Keep us posted." He turned the radio off.

This was about his worst day ever. Bad enough flashing literally everything in front of a whole damn street, let alone that it had happened again when they'd got back to the station, although nobody there was going to be focusing too much on remembering his show, now...

He wondered about those people who'd been around for the first incident. Were they victims now, too? Were they going to create more victims themselves, next time it happened? Or had the fact it was out in the open, and most of them had been further away from him, saved them? It would be uncharitable to hope they'd all got their own good reasons for not particularly remembering his humiliation anymore.

He was guiding the Bronco around the corner into the street where the fighting had been reported taking place now, though, and he needed to focus.

"Holy shit," Duke said, and gave a whistle. Duke, as a point of fact, had been exposed to the Trouble, too, but he hadn't made any mention of it and Nathan wasn't going to. Duke was the one who found nudity so easy to dismiss. Nathan hoped they could fix the Trouble before they had to see if Duke could stand by his words. Although not necessarily for Duke's sake.

Duke naked wasn't something that ought to be on his mind when there were people in costume causing chaos in the street.

Some of the people did have guns, but there seemed to be more of a trend to wave them about dramatically and shout a lot rather than shoot people with them, so perhaps the essence of the drama behind this Trouble was doing everyone a favour. Nathan reached for his own replacement weapon as he kicked the door open.

"We really need more manpower for this," Audrey said, doing the same.

Even so, Nathan turned and said, "Stay in the car," to Duke. More manpower or not, and infernal pest or not, Duke wasn't a police officer, and he wasn't going to get shot by any Shakespearean loon on Nathan's watch.

Audrey nodded. Duke raised his hands and said, "No argument here," as they shut him in.

Nathan looked at Audrey as they stepped away from the relative safety of the Bronco toward the chaos. People were running around, screaming, shouting... two men in one set of colours were dragging past another wearing different colours, hauling him along the ground. Nathan went to them automatically, loping to catch up in three strides and levelling the gun at the two standing men. "Let him go!"

Their victim scrambled up as they dropped him, but as Nathan snapped, "Wait!" he only ran back to join the fight, not even looking over his shoulder. The other two had fled in the opposite direction by the time Nathan looked back.

He turned to Audrey. "This is hopeless with so few of us." He could see the other two officers Laverne had been able to dispatch, having about the same amount of luck further down the street amid the disturbance. They probably thought this was some kind of bizarre costume show.

"No," she said grimly. "We need another way."

She leaned back, raising her arm to fire her gun in the air and yelled, "STOOOOOP!" She squeezed off two more shots to make sure she had their attention. "You!" She pointed out a close-by person at random. "What is going on?"

"They're Capulets!" the man raged. "The enemy! Capulet scum!" He brandished his weapon again and Nathan grimaced, took his cue from Audrey, and fired at the ground at his feet. "Aiigh!" the man yelped.

These were clearly people caught up in a Trouble, though, and it was unlikely that he and Audrey were going to get a reasonable answer from them. "Maybe we should bring Duke out," Audrey said. "He knows the source better than we do."

"Who's to say this has anything more to do with Shakespeare than what the average person who's watched the movie knows?" Nathan countered. He looked down, and found his hand clammy with sweat on the grip of his gun. "I'm running out of time before it's all going to become a different kind of public spectacle."

"Deep breaths," she suggested, and offered a lopsided smile. "Come on, at least you don't have anything to be ashamed about."

Nathan flushed furiously and stammered something unintelligible, but that made it two of them who'd said that to him now.

Clothes... "There." He pointed. There was a woman in the midst of all the pantomime outfits who was wearing normal clothes, in the process of intently trying to sneak away and avoid any attention from them. He could see two smaller figures with her who were also dressed in regular T-shirts and jeans. "Hey, stop!"

"Don't even think about it!" Audrey wasn't talking to the fugitive three. She fired her gun at the ground again and turned in a circle, pointing her gun at the Montagues and Capulets nearby. Nathan still had no idea which were which, but two men in one set of colours had been about to bash in the skull of a man dressed in the opposing set. "I'll keep control here. Nathan, go."

Nathan gave chase, grateful she'd thought to allocate him the less exposed role if the clothing Trouble did hit him again sooner than anticipated. The two smaller figures - teenagers - 'were urged onward by the woman, but she gave up any effort to outrun him. He dug his hand into her shoulder, too hard judging by the way she flinched. "Don't move." He turned her around, holding his gun carefully. He noted grey hair in a tight bun, neat little glasses and tidy, respectable appearance. "I didn't mean it!" she cried. "I didn't know I was one of them!"

Nathan lowered the gun, and stared. "You're a teacher at the high school." He couldn't remember her name. The high school was just down the road, but few of these people looked like students, and he couldn't guess quite how she was involved in this, although the two who'd run looked like they could be some of her flock. He turned at movement in the corner of his eye and discovered that the two youngsters hadn't gone very far. They were leaning around the edge of an old fishing hut a few hundred yards down the road. Nathan grimaced, made a decision, and holstered the gun. He waved the kids over and intoned firmly, "Come here."

They started to shuffle back toward him, hand in hand, slow and sullen but obedient.

"I take it we have a... Romeo and Juliet situation," he said to the older woman. Perhaps she was pitching in trying to help them as some kind of mentor or neutral party.

"They're... Millie is Troubled, and Graham attends the Reverend's church. Their families found out they were dating. Everyone was already fighting, you understand... not like this, but... I was trying to stop them, to get through to them!"

"You told them they were fighting like the Montagues and the Capulets," Duke's voice said, "And we all know how that ended." He had a grin in his voice despite its effort in the direction of empathy. "Not a bad comparison, but really, Mrs Dunstable, the movie?"

Nathan turned around to find Duke behind his left shoulder. He eyed the hand that was rested on his left shoulder until Duke removed it.

The woman blushed slightly but said, "I know you, don't I?"

"Er, Mrs Dunstable, yes you do." Duke forced a smile and a nod.

"You were barely in my English classes, and sat at the back flicking spitballs, so it's hardly surprising I have faint memories."

"I caught up in all the intervening years. This is Nathan, though... Detective Nathan, now. The guy I was mostly flicking spitballs at. He sat in the front row. I guess it's true that it's the naughty kids you guys remember."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "How did it end?" he asked, trying to keep focused. "The movie."

Mrs Dunstable shook her head at him disapprovingly. "Dead kids, Detective Wuornos. Dead kids is how it ended."

"Then you need to tell these people that they're not Montagues and Capulets, and get this street back to normal." He cast his eyes back to where Audrey seemed to have things until control, but... well, if they couldn't leave here until they were sure things were back to normal and calmed down, that was a problem. For him, mostly.

"Hm!" Mrs Dunstable raised her voice, which was clearly used to being broadcast, although trembling a little right now. "Juliet was thirteen! And she and Romeo never even kissed until one or other was dead. And this fiasco is definitely not the work of the Bard!"

The kids were blushing, and Nathan narrowed his eyes on the teenagers, trying to gauge their ages now the subject cropped up... and then he decided he wasn't going to insist on pushing further. Mrs Dunstable hadn't confirmed anything definitive and he didn't know how old they were, and they didn't need that on top of anything else. There was going to be little enough he could do to help their situation. Couldn't make a parent agree to let their kid see a boy or girl they disapproved of.

He spun around as the noise level increased. It was working... the polarised colours of the costumes were reverting to ordinary clothes. The people who were being restored to themselves were varying degrees of stunned and outraged, but it had taken the wind out of the sails of their broader conflict.

"I believe I've diverted their attention," Mrs Dunstable murmured to the teenagers, who took that as cue to flee again before Nathan could begin to say anything else.

"Nate," Duke said, intently. "You can't have much more than ten minutes." His hand was on Nathan's elbow.

Mrs Dunstable had apparently decided to face the music. Nathan let Duke tow him away toward the Bronco. He could get changed in the car. He could...

He looked back at the schoolteacher as people started to crowd her, their voices rising in accusation. Audrey was striding that way, but even so... Nathan groaned. "Duke, I can't leave. There are too many of them."

"If it happens right here-" Duke protested.

"Well, then they'll be distracted again! Very distracted!" Nathan pulled away and marched back to help Audrey. "Get away from her!"

Between the two of them, they managed to escort Mrs Dunstable safely home. The faction that had allegiances to the Rev's church - Nathan wasn't sure if they'd been Montagues or Capulets - harried them most of the way. Audrey peeled the last few of them off at the door. "HPD will be checking by later, if this address receives any harassment. This situation is dealt with! Go home!"

An alarm went off and Audrey blinked and her mouth formed an 'o' of surprise as she grabbed at her phone. "Nathan!" She and Duke spoke at the same time. Duke hustled Nathan around - he registered the impact of Duke's hand in the centre of his back, even if he didn't feel it, the way it affected his balance and momentum.

The Bronco was a distant blue dot way down the street. Nathan broke into a sprint for it, Duke on his heels. He was panting hard by the time he got there. He dived into the back of the truck and started squirming out of his clothes, before they started to squirm away from him, kicking off his shoes, hauling his shirt over his head. Duke had piled into the front passenger seat and grabbed the bag there with its fresh change of clothes in it. He hurled the shirt at Nathan while Nathan was squirming out of his pants. Butt naked, he tried not to think about anyone happening by near enough to see - at least he wasn't in a crowded street or station and they wouldn't see everything. Audrey had caught up and was waiting outside the driver's door, her back mostly turned to the car. Nathan pulled the shirt over his head, Duke disentangled the pants and held them out, craning over from the front, and Nathan shoved his legs into them and pulled them up.

"No socks, no shoes," Duke said. "But better than another public strip. I suppose there's no saying whether keeping one item would taint the whole lot."

Nathan groaned and sagged back. He half-heartedly finished zipping himself in and buttoning up. He frowned at his bare feet stretched out in front of him. Duke pulled off his sandals to offer them over.

"You don't have to." Nathan didn't want Duke's charity, and didn't like his footwear choices anyway. He pushed the sandals away.

"Nate. I know when I'm standing on something I shouldn't be, and I've got my socks. Just take the sandals."

Nathan took them. He bent over to put them on and after he'd slipped them over his bare feet, already-twisted toes proudly on display, remained sagged over his knees instead of straightening up, planting his hands over his face. He looked ridiculous, he thought. "At this rate, I could end up in all of your clothes by the end of the day..."

Looking through his fingers, he couldn't help but notice that Duke looked quizzically more than amused by that remark. He wondered if Duke's mind was willfully misinterpreting and going back to that offer, earlier. That made Nathan's mind zing back to it. It had been even more humiliating to realise his body had reacted in that situation, but that Duke was... Duke had been prepared to... Nathan's mind reeled even upon revisiting the concept.

Audrey opened the driver's door and poked her head in, casting a searching glance between the two of them. "Everything all right?"

"Seems so." Duke asked, a bit hopefully, "You don't think these people are all going to end up revealing all in a few hours?"

"Sadly, I don't. I'm not sure it spreads unless they're actually right there close by when the striptease happens."

"Stop calling it that," Nathan muttered.

Audrey managed to look apologetic.

"We should get back to the station." Nathan stretched forward for the radio set. "Laverne? Report."

"Disturbances at Rosemary's, at the park, and over by the marina," Laverne said. "We've dispatched people where we can. Are you two free to cover the park?"

"'Disturbances'?" Audrey quoted.

"Clothing related disturbances, Audrey, sugar." Laverne's voice was grimmer than those words really should allow. "People are scared and humiliated."

"We need to get a lid on this," Nathan said. "We'll take the park." He slapped the radio off.

Audrey was resetting the alarm on her phone. "You need another change of clothes. I'm setting forty-five minutes this time, just in case."

"Thrift shop at the end of Main Street," Nathan said curtly. "You can run in and grab something."

"Well, I do know your sizing pretty well by now." She smiled at him. "Swap? Or would you rather not drive in bare feet?" She craned her head up over the top of the seat. "Ooh, nice sandals, Wuornos."

Nathan was feeling easier, and hopeful that Audrey's plan had worked, giving him breathing space until he could expect the next attack. It was weird driving with Duke shotgun, but it had been easier for Audrey to hop out. She climbed into the back again now carrying a bag full of clothes, including a pair of shoes under her arm and another swinging from her fingers, and gasped, "Go!"

He was supplied. He stepped on the gas to take them onward to the park. Audrey hadn't taken much more than sixty seconds to run into the shop and run out again. Nathan felt guilty about delaying their arrival at the scene for the sake of his own crisis, but it wasn't going to help if he just had another incident and became a public spectacle and a part of the problem all over again.

Though at the current rate, no-one in town was going to want to dwell on today ever again, and Nathan could almost certainly cast off any concerns of anyone particularly focusing on the times he'd had to strip off in public today.

"Gimme some shoes," Duke said. "I'll swap with Nathan when we get out."

"We need to think about this," Audrey said from the back. "People's clothes are trying to hurt them, and it's widespread. Which isn't nearly so funny and harmless as you'd think a naked Trouble would be."

"Nathan's clothes are different," Duke pointed out, giving Nathan a sideways look. "They don't try to strangle or squeeze or crush. They just get the hell out of Dodge. Why?"

"I can't feel them," Nathan said gruffly. "Figured that out."

"It's relevant," Audrey said. "It means something in the context of this Trouble... whatever's behind this Trouble."

"Did anyone else not get attacked?" Duke asked.

Nathan hadn't seen anyone at the police station who'd had quite the same reaction to the Trouble. They all exchanged looks, comparing notes silently.

"We're about to get a much wider sample pool," Audrey said, grimly, as Nathan pulled the Bronco in at the side of the road by the park. He could already see people strewn about in various states of undress. There'd been a picnic and bandstand concert happening today, which would have started maybe an hour ago, and there had been a big family crowd present. Children were crying, girls were screaming, people were panicking, and overall it looked like carnage.

Duke scrubbed his hand over his face. "Holy fuck. You'd think there'd been some kind of major attack. Terrorists. Chemical warfare. Bears. Not... attack of the nudity."

The three of them disembarked from the Bronco. Nathan felt a stab of sympathy for every unclad body wandering about and every distraught face. People were covering up with whatever had come to hand, with spare clothes they'd been able to salvage, with uprooted signage and random foliage. Feral pants chased each other around the grass, and skirts and dresses fluttered in the air and from tree branches like exotic birds.

People were hurt. Emergency responders were there already, dealing with minor injuries. Was this going to hit the emergency medical services sometime in the space of the next few hours, now, Nathan thought bleakly, as well as the police?

He sighed and pulled his shirt off to hand to a shivering teenage girl doing her best to cover herself with her hands. "Parker, we need the bags from the car..." He rubbed at his forehead hard. "Keep the shoes."

By the time she came back, Duke had also stripped off everything he could decently afford to lose. Audrey laughed and parted with everything on top bar her bra, with a little bit of flush on her cheeks but general good humour. She side-eyed Nathan and Duke, and Nathan swallowed, dragging his eyes away from her breasts, compact and firm in the cute blue bra with its pattern of little white ships and anchors on it.

"Nice," Duke said, with a nod that somehow managed to be more charmingly polite than lascivious.

"Well, I'm in Maine," she grinned. "And back at you." She tipped her head meaningfully.

Nathan huffed. Duke was... built. Yes. And it was also not unusual to see that displayed, and Nathan was not putting in undue effort to not look too hard in his direction, either, because it wasn't like Duke stripping off at the drop of a hat was anything new, and he wasn't interested. No.

They managed to pack people off home with a modicum of decency to take the trip through town, Audrey advising them to stay home or in a safe environment. "The spray used might cause a few recurrences of the attack and make clothing unbearable to wear. We're still trying to track down the prankster. If you absolutely must go out again today, take a few changes of clothes with you."

No amount of handwaving could adequately explain the wild frolics of the freed-to-roam pants that now populated the park, but Nathan frequently made a point of commenting about how windy it was, despite the still air of the day, and after the first few times, Duke joined in like it was some kind of fun sport to say it in as exaggeratedly innocent a tone as possible.

Eventually, the three of them alone collapsed, exhausted, against the side of the bandstand, as the last of the civilians were trudging or being led away. Support had joined them, belatedly, other cops who'd pitched in and had now gone to escort the citizens who'd caused fights: over being naked, over being attacked by a Trouble, and in one case over the tattoo on someone's ass that spelled their brother's wife's name in the centre of a love-heart...

Audrey's alarm had gone off ages ago, but Nathan hadn't had chance to even think about it. Now, he caught movement low in the periphery of his vision as his pants squirmed and he groaned. He started scrambling at his belt... Get the damn things off, he thought. It was quicker and less humiliating that way than resisting and ending up fighting with his clothes.

He flung the blue uniform pants away and flopped disgustedly back down, naked, on the grass, his legs stretched out in front of him. He put his hands over his genitals and just sat there, sullen, waiting for comment.

Audrey, leaned in a slump against the bandstand beside him, had barely reacted aside from letting her eyes drift down to watch, this time unabashed. She placed her hand on his head and rubbed her fingers through his hair affectionately. He sighed and pushed into the touch.

"We don't have anything left to change into?" Duke checked.

"We do not," Audrey said. "Nathan's down to skin."

"It's alright," Nathan mumbled. "At this point I don't care."

Duke squirmed to his feet and came closer. He put a hand on Nathan's shoulder, causing him to look up at the ghost of pressure. Then he stretched his other arm over the space above Nathan's head and put a hand on Audrey's shoulder, too.

"Oh..." The air hissed out of Nathan in an expulsion of sound that was raw and almost rude. He could still feel Audrey's fingers in his scalp. But now he could also feel Duke's hand on his shoulder.

"Oh!" Duke expelled, with a little squeak of excitement buried in there. And he rubbed his palm over more of Nathan's skin, as Nathan automatically sagged forward to offer his back, luxuriating in the knowledge not only of someone touching him, but oddly, of that someone being Duke.

Then he realised what he was doing and grit his teeth and said, "Do not."

Duke made a strangled sound. A moment later, Nathan realised it wasn't about the rejection. Duke was grabbing at his pants with desperation, and Nathan could see how the material was screwing down around his crotch.

"I thought it was... getting all itchy... abrasive... down there," Duke gasped. "Thought that was just you guys parading all that fine skin in front of me..."

"Well, thank you," Audrey said, even as she was hurrying to help Duke pull at his pants.

"So much," Nathan grit, with less sincerity. He watched them, as Duke fell over on his back and Audrey leaped on top, scrabbling at his waist. He didn't want to get up. The two of them looked ridiculous, and helping them would make him look ridiculous, not to mention putting everything on show to both them and any passers-by, again. But he sighed and got up and moved his hands from his groin in order to go help Audrey.

Duke, on his back, howled and arched and let them both seize hold of one side of his pants and work on forcibly yanking them down and free of him, parting them from his reddened and sore legs. He had the imprints of creases from the fabric scored into his skin. Nathan and Audrey threw the vicious pants away and Duke fell back in the grass, breathing heavily in relief.

They knelt either side of him. Audrey still had her jeans and bra and shoes, which left her several items of clothing up on either of their none. Nathan ran his eyes over the three of them wearily. He was so done with this Trouble that he couldn't even be bothered to avoid looking too hard at Duke anymore. He paused and took him in, slightly reddened circumcised cock half-mast between his legs, sculpted abdomen and defined thigh muscles and all. Nathan didn't even care that Duke saw him looking and openly looked back. "So that's you."

"Me," Duke panted. "We're even."

Audrey put her hand on Duke's chest and made a soft hmm through her closed lips. "You do work out."

"Yoga, mostly," Duke said, to the sky. His over-long, tatty hair strewn over the grass even made him look kind of pretty, lying there. Nathan shook his head. "Some Tai Chi. Could teach you both. Any time."

"We need to fix this," Nathan said. "Not just scramble around dealing with the symptoms. We need to fix it. I haven't heard of anyone being affected before I was. It has to be someone I spoke to this morning."

"Unless they were just another link in the chain," Duke said.

"It spreads when you get naked," Audrey said. "He'd have noticed that. Nathan must have encountered the Troubled person themself somewhere."

"This gathering," Nathan said. "It'd been going on for an hour or so. No-one reported another naked incident before the... mass... nudity..." He hated Troubles that made him come out with phrases like that.

"What?" Audrey asked. "Nathan, what are you saying?"

"The only way for so many of the people here to have been infected, all at once, was if the Troubled person had been here, mingling with the crowd, since the event began."

"Which means-" Duke started.

"Which means we just sent them away." Audrey leaped up, and had gone two purposeful strides before she turned back and seemed to remember she had two very naked men to think about as well. Duke and Nathan looked at each other, and Nathan swallowed hard and rose to one knee, then to his feet, and he reached down his hand to Duke to help haul him up. There didn't seem a lot of point anymore in trying to cower or cover.

"Are we doing this?" Audrey said, a bit dubiously, eyes scanning up and down both of them. Nathan watched her bite into her lower lip cutely with one sharp tooth.

"Half the town's been naked today," Duke said.

Nathan grit, "We're doing this."

Audrey wasn't sure how she was supposed to keep it a secret that this Trouble had its benefits. She was sure, as her eyes kept darting to each of the men, that there was no secret there at all.

"Come on, think, Nathan." They were sitting in the Bronco, Nathan with a road map over his lap, Duke sprawled legs-wide and proud. "Who did you see this morning that might have a Trouble like this? Who was also in the park?"

Nathan leaned back against the headrest and planted both hands over his face. His movements were big and loose and relaxed in the kind of way that came from just being too exhausted with everything. Audrey didn't exactly like to say that there was something sexier about seeing him without every muscle tense and wound up, but... there was. "Ngh... Marion's Troubled already... saw the Pattersons, can't be them... and Hilda and Barney..." Whoever they were, the thought of it made him snort with laughter. "Wait... Wait, there was the baby."

"Which baby?" Audrey pounced on that excitedly.

"Toddler... no, maybe older, three or four. Acted younger. Non-verbal. Mother couldn't control him and was getting mad because he... he kept pulling at... kept pulling at his clothes!" Nathan uncovered his eyes and sat up sharply. "They were out in the street... kid in a stroller... as I came up to the station with the coffees this morning."

Audrey thought she remembered that kid, though she hadn't seen him earlier in the morning. "Rebecca tried to put a cardigan on a kid like that, and he tossed it away again, so she gave it to someone else. When we sent them home from the park, that kid was laughing like he was literally the only person who enjoyed being naked." She threw a grin over her shoulder and amended. "Well, there's Duke. He enjoys being naked."

"It's not 'enjoying' so much as I appreciate the natural human condition and I know there's nothing wrong with the sight of skin, Audrey. I prefer it in private... with a bit of mood music... and a good wine... How about you both?"

Audrey raised her eyebrows at him. "Not the time, Duke."

"I prefer it in private," Nathan said.

"And you're both lovely," Duke added, with a wicked gleam. "Though I could stand to see a bit more flesh from you, Audrey Parker."

"Duke," Nathan said warningly.

"I am just pushing for equality and pointing out the inherent unfairness..." He gestured to Nathan's long, nude form, but it seemed Nathan was all tapped out on reacting.

"Okay, well, I'll admit it hasn't been too much of a hardship for me," Audrey said. "Except for the part where it's been running us ragged all day. If not for that, the view... would be allowed to stick around as acceptable."

Duke made a 'you see' gesture at Nathan, who shot her a betrayed glance.

"The kid," Nathan said, with dour focus.

"Yeah..." Audrey winced. "I was not so much taking names and addresses. I don't suppose you have any idea where they might live?"

"I don't know them," Nathan said. "But they left on foot with the stroller not much more than ten minutes ago." He turned back and forth a few times, gauging, then pointed. "That way. If we drive around we might just catch them."

"Alright!" Duke cheered, bouncing his fist off the back of Nathan's seat. "Let's hear it for the Naked Detective!"

Nathan ignored him and turned the key in the engine. He pulled out and headed down the street, careful to avoid any semi-clad stragglers on the way. Audrey tried valiantly to focus on scanning the people on the street and not on the two fine examples of the male body sitting within arm's reach.

They happened across the woman with the too-old child in the stroller after five minutes driving. Nathan drew the Bronco up alongside her for Audrey to lean out of the window and display her badge. "Excuse me! Ma'am!"

The woman looked at the three of them and her face turned even redder. She was wearing a picnic blanket affixed with a safety pin, and had been walking in quick steps with a single-minded purpose. Her happily naked child giggled and squirmed and poked at his toes.

"Oh, no, no," the woman said. "If I need to give a statement about... that..." she shuddered "...back there, then I'll come in to the station to do it later. Can't you see I need to change?" She scowled at Nathan, who tried to cover up further in the driver's seat under the force of her gaze. "And clearly, officer, so do you."

"He's fine," Audrey said, and tried to control her urge to smile at the double meaning. "Let him be. I don't need an official statement, but I do need to know if this is the first time this has happened to you today."

The woman looked horrified. "How could you guess that? It's - I was only glad I'd already been clothes shopping! And then, then the second time, to replace - I was in the changing room, thank goodness. But how... how did you know? I hear what they say about this town! They can do this to you on purpose! Do you know who's doing this?!"

Audrey got out of the car, trying to place her body to shield the view of Nathan. "I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure I've just found Patient Zero." She glanced behind her and with a kind of double-take, left the door open, because Nathan was leaning over rather than hiding away.

"I helped you carry the stroller down the steps outside Maxine's, this morning."

The woman's lips tightened, whatever gratitude she'd had for the assistance clearly having evaporated in this situation. "I remember."

"Yeah?" Duke, leaning out of his window at the back, made it evident he didn't appreciate her lack of appreciation. "Well, Nathan here has been paying for his helpful attitude with guerilla attacks of striptease all day, so you'd better remember."

"I'm not the one doing this." The woman tightened her grip on the handles of the stroller and started to pull off. "My family aren't..."

Audrey stepped on the nearest wheel and halted progress, and pointed wordlessly at the child.

"No." It was almost a moan. "Don't say he's Troubled as well..."

"As well?" Duke asked. He wound the window down further and leaned right out, displaying all his bare chest and making faces at the toddler, who stuck his foot in his mouth a blew a huge raspberry around it, then tried to repeat the sound as hard and loud and long as possible, several times in succession.

"Alfie's autistic... and he doesn't like anything." Her face blanked. "He doesn't like wearing clothes properly. He hates seams. They drive him wild. He screams and scratches and it's... unbelievable. Jack always lets him wear everything inside-out. I tell him and tell him that we need to teach him to act more normal, but I got him back this morning and sure enough, everything was on backwards again. Jack let him have his own way all week." She looked sick, abruptly.

"Lady," Duke said, "I think if you want to wear clothes normally again, you're gonna have to let your kid wear his clothes however the hell he likes."

"I hate to break it to you," Audrey said, not hating it at all, but managing to keep the grin from her face, "but I think Duke's right. I think once Alfie realises he's not going to be put back into things that itch and hurt and that..." She raised her eyebrows at Duke and Nathan. "That he feels are attacking him all the time. Well, then this problem will clear up completely."

"Can I suggest you go home and demonstrate that with some haste," Nathan added, with a particularly heartfelt lack of any humour whatsoever.

Audrey took the woman's name and address before they parted ways, then Nathan drove them back to the police station. He parked, but didn't move from the driver's seat, just looked across at the steps up to the entrance and declared, "I'm not going back in."

Audrey looked them both over - any excuse - and nodded. The thrift shop had been closed due to a stock crisis and they had not passed anywhere else they could pick up spare clothes. "I'll go. You both stay here." She couldn't really inflict this on the rest of the police station, she thought. Women - and a few men - would have meltdowns. It was far safer if she handled it herself.

She went in and checked in with Laverne, catching up on the rest of the crisis. No-one had been seriously hurt in the Great Undressing, and the incidents around town seemed to have lulled. It was anyone's guess whether that was just a lull in the pattern or if Liz Graves had somehow made it home and managed to calm down her child already. But Audrey thought it more likely the former because Liz Graves had not been very calming.

Probably the station could still use their presence, but on balance, Nathan's day had been particularly straining and he was just as much a victim of this as the people they'd been sending home with warnings to stay in. Anyway, now it was just a matter of mopping up the tail end of things until the Trouble was fixed at source. Audrey made a decision. "I'm going to take Nathan home. Call us if anyone starts shooting or dying, but I think leave the non-urgent stuff in other hands?" She smiled a winning smile.

"Okay, poppet," Laverne said. "You go see that boy's okay. He always was a shy one." There was a bit of a knowing gleam in her eye.

"I," Audrey said, with a great emphasis on her purely altruistic commitment in this course of action, "will do that. Yes."

Laverne snorted, and Audrey turned and walked briskly out of the station, smiling to herself.

They went to the Gull.

"Why are we here first?" Nathan implored - at least somewhat half-hearted given he had already caved to pressure and driven them there. "You're covered. Duke or I could at least lend each other clothes, and you a shirt."

"I wasn't planning on doing much that involved needing a change of clothes," Audrey mused. "In fact, I was considering granting Duke his wish... behind closed doors." She shifted her eyes back to garner the reactions of both of them, in turn. "You know... even out the situation?" She presumed that she had not read that scene wrong, in the park, but then they were probably all in a rather surreal brain-space by now and it could be that the giddy, chanting voice in the back of her brain telling her she could simply take both of these different men without the agony of choice (and they could have each other) was a voice that Should Not Be Listened To.

If the whispering doubts were the voice of common sense, though, she had little use for it.

"Strictly speaking, that would still not be even," Duke said, like he doggedly pursued a gross injustice, "because we - in public - aaand I have just caught up and let me rephrase that to 'You have no argument from me, Officer Parker.'"

Nathan looked like he might strangle on his indignation, and she had not, after all, been overly worried on the question of where Duke would stand. When she reached for Nathan, concerned, he made a sharp noise and moved away from her touch. "Not while we're-!"

"He can feel you," Duke leaned between the seats. "I saw that much earlier. Because you're immune to the Troubles, right? Hey, Nathan, exactly how... intense... is it, when you feel her?"

Nathan glared and his complexion glowed.

Audrey hid her mirth behind a cough. She'd only thought she'd already seen every possible shade of red Nathan Wuornos could turn. "You are going to come in and at least... talk... about this? I've seen you both checking each other out today." She tried to stare them into an admission.

"I - no. What? No."

"You weren't doing that good a job of covering it up," Duke leaned forward and stage-whispered that with his mouth pressed next to Nathan's ear, making him jump and causing a weird squeaky noise to escape his throat. "On either count."

Audrey volunteered with laughing commiseration, "I might have peeked, too. Sorry, Wuornos. For all I knew that was a one time opportunity that I could not possibly allow to slide by."

"You didn't know you'd be bringing him home like a stray... naked... cat," Duke said, smirking and, Audrey thought, no, no, not at all trying to cover up for the fear behind his own eyes by deflecting the attention onto Nathan.

"Two naked strays here, Crocker," Nathan said, sounding like the rejoinder was powered by habit. He shifted uneasily. "Parker. I'll come in and talk," he established with fierce emphasis.

"Well, good. That only leaves the question of whether the two of you naked strays are going to sit in the car and wait for me to come back with blankets, or we all just go for it and streak across the lot on a count of three?"

"Blankets," Nathan said.

Duke was already hauling bare ass out of the car. "Hell with it, it's my parking lot."

"...Screw it," Nathan said, and followed.

The boys were faster, and that meant that Audrey got to watch their butts bounce pleasingly in sync as they sprinted ahead of her, and also that they had to wait quivering in the sea breeze outside on her balcony while she caught up with the keys to unlock the door.

They fell inside, Duke laughing along with Audrey's giggles, and Nathan's expression of shock was so endearing that Audrey caught his shoulder and hugged onto him along with Duke on her other arm, still near-incoherent from laughing, forgetting he'd asked her not to. He sort of melted under her touch, and that was so weird and adorable that the temptation there was to do it more.

"Hey." Duke peeled Nathan from her, though, and picked up his face in both palms. "Stay with us. In all seriousness, we should have the conversation, and not just end up doing this because you're drunk on her touch and high on all the fucked-up-ed-ness of today."

Nathan's face settled back into a scowl as he caught Duke's hands and moved to shove them away. "I'm not compromised or insensible, Duke, I-" He looked at the wrists in the circles of his hands, the closeness of the other man, and the large lump of his Adam's apple made a jump.

"See?" Duke said. "Talk."

Nathan bared his teeth. "I am perfectly able-"

Audrey turned back to them and heaved a steadying breath. The door was shut, and now that she had gone around and closed the drapes, turning on soft lights, the outside could no longer intrude. No more danger of being left naked before the world for any one of them: they had that priviledge all to themselves. "Okay, so we need to talk. We've seen a lot of each other, today, but on the one hand, that was just skin. Intimacy isn't the same as being... stripped, but... we can't say we didn't learn a few things."

"I was looking," Duke said, pushing in closer to Nathan again. "I know you know that much. Were you looking? Or, when I thought that you were looking, was that just for comparison purposes?"

"About that," Nathan said, and even if his cheeks found yet another new shade of red, Audrey grinned, because Nathan Wuornos was actually stepping up to the my-dick-is-bigger debate.

Duke put a finger on his lips. "It's how you use it, Nate. You been using it much at all lately?"

Nathan's face went thunderous.

"You two have been dancing around this forever," Audrey said, pressing up between them, sliding her hand onto Duke's breastbone, but this time remembering to respect the unique sensitivity of Nathan's skin. "You've always wanted him looking at you. I bet that's why you stole his lunches and pulled his hair in school." She flexed her fingernails lightly over Duke's chest, making him shudder. "Isn't it, Mister Crocker?" For the first time that day, Duke pulled out a blush. "Jostle him in the gym showers? Make up excuses to fight, just to get your hands on that booty? Write love poetry under the desk?"

Nathan spluttered.

"Come on," Audrey urged, delighted by the confirmation in both their guilty reactions. "After a day spent around you guys in various stages of undress, you have to know I am a boiling mass of sexual frustration, and my suggestion for the two of you is that we all fix that together. What I need to know is the acceptability of this as a plan?"

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut with a tortured noise. "Trouble. This is a Trouble. Or a... a side effect of... of the naked Trouble."

"If it hadn't been a kid behind the naked Trouble, I might be wondering that." Duke grinned. "But the Trouble was non-sexual, and so, astounding as this may seem, I do believe you stand on the brink of a three-way by virtue of your own peculiar charm, Detective Wuornos." He made a show of shaking his head as if stumped. "How did that happen?"

Nathan said, "Excuse me, Parker. Need to sit down." Before she could say anything, he'd stumbled across to deposit himself on her couch, pulling a throw blanket to cover himself from shoulder to thigh.

Duke threw a shrug back at Audrey, disappointment assailing the edges of his own expression, and went to flop next to Nathan. Audrey felt her hopes dwindling. Duke was game, but she could not... would not... do this without Nathan. And this was not fair, to push upon a Nathan who had already been stripped down and left vulnerable enough by the events of the day.

Duke reached a hand to pat Nathan's knee. Nathan caught it before it could connect and put it down on the cushion between them. The effect was to leaving them holding hands rather than Duke holding Nathan's knee and was... rather surreal. Nathan frowned down at the fingers twined between his.

"We don't have to do anything now," Duke said. "Okay, yeah. Weird place at the moment. It's okay if you're... still feeling a bit... exposed."

"Duke," Nathan said, still looking at their hands with judgment. He shook it off and made a noise through his teeth and pressed-together lips. "If I'm going to be exposed, I guess you might as well be the ones to see it, but... I can't think like this." He pressed his knuckles to his forehead.

"Maybe this is a situation better approached without too much thinking," Audrey suggested, sinking to her knees between them. She rested her elbows on Nathan's blanket, and Duke's thigh, and propped her head on her arms, gazing up at them. "Do you want it, Nathan?"

She could see the indecision and reticence churned in him. She'd seen him stumble helplessly over the prospect of dating one person, and now he was being asked to take on two. "You want this?" he retaliated by asking instead.

"Very much." She swallowed a glib answer. "Maybe it's not... conventional... but what part of our lives is?" She eyed that hand, between them, still connecting the two men.

Nathan said slowly. "It's not... not dull to keep going as we are. As friends. I'm not being-"

Duke moved his hand further up Nathan's arm soothingly. "No, friends is great, Nathan."

Audrey knew that Duke had given up all hope of friends until she had appeared on the scene and re-opened the possibility.

"Friends is great, but I'll take more." She rose up, reaching behind her back, and unclipped her bra and let it fall to the floor. Then she unfastened and dropped her jeans. "Also, I believe I made a promise, and promises should be kept." She stepped out of the jeans, pouting as she had to put some effort into kicking off her shoes.

"Audrey." The protest was mildly shocking, because it came from Duke. Pretty ironic that now she was naked, Duke and Nathan were practically clinging to each other with anxiety. She surely hadn't anticipated complaints from Duke Crocker when she actually embraced his suggestion to level the playing field.

"Guys, chill." She frowned and asked, "Are you afraid that this will just be a one-time event, after all the stresses of today? Or are you afraid that it won't be?"

Duke flinched - from the first question - and to her surprise, Nathan answered. "Both. Things - we're - it's-" He looked at Duke and his face took on such perplexity. Yet it was Duke he was clinging to, and not her. He grit his teeth and mechanically forced out, as if reluctantly accepting the fact that he did need words, could only do this by coaxing and employing those unfamiliar tools, "Everything will change and the Chief will have apoplexy."

"Considering your relationship with your dad, I'd have thought that counted as a plus," Duke commented.

"Duke's a petty crook, besides."

Duke opened his mouth to object to that, but Nathan shook his head firmly. "No. Too fast. It's not okay, it's not simple, it'll never be just about- Too much happened today, and Duke's right. I'm sort of high off it in some weird way. I already almost..." He ground his teeth together and said, starkly, "It wouldn't happen in a normal situation. It won't happen if we leave it until tomorrow. I know that."

Audrey winced at the declaration, unadorned and naked.

She nodded and set her hands on her naked hips, dropping her head in resignation. "All right. All right, Nathan." She gave her pile of clothes a nudge with her foot, and felt slightly silly standing in front of them like this now. Still, fair was fair, and this was nothing like what Nathan, in particular, had endured. She let herself accept the idea that nothing was going to happen. They were all just silly and naked and ridiculous together in her apartment, and alcohol hadn't even been involved yet.

Nathan's face relaxed as he fell back, letting tiredness taking over and his body ease now the pressure was off. He'd removed his hands from Duke - or Duke's hands from him - but they were still much in each other's space, the way they always seemed comfortable even when they were at odds.

Audrey handed Duke another throw-blanket from her armchair, and padded over to pick her dressing gown up from the bed. She pulled it over her shoulders as she went to the kitchen area. "I'll put on some coffee,"and then we can talk about what we're going to do for dinner, unless you'd rather head home, in which case... I have to go find you something from somewhere to wear."

"Chef's whites, in the kitchens of the Gull," Duke called back. "Whenever they're needed. Don't worry about it."

"I can manage dinner," Nathan said, his voice lighter, cracking with relief. "I go home now, all I'll be thinking about is being in the middle of the police station naked. Or being in the middle of the street naked."

"But you wouldn't be worrying about being with us, naked," Audrey prompted, intently, "would you? Because you'd never have to worry about that with us. You can be yourself with us. You can be... without defences. And it's okay."

"Nothing to worry about on the rest. You're gorgeous, Nathan, and all those people will have been thinking today is 'damn'..." Duke's laugh had a small bitter edge to it, for all that he was trying hard to be comforting, but it was a small one, as he too assimilated how things were going to be, and from the new hope in his eyes, he was far more inclined to value that Nathan had accepted the description of him as friend, unchallenged.

When Audrey turned aside to attend to the coffee, Duke's hand was on Nathan's shoulder again, and she allowed herself to smile. Nathan thought that if it didn't happen now, it wouldn't ever happen. But given he'd specified 'in a normal situation', and this was Haven she hardly thought all their chances were at an end.

...When she turned back, Duke and Nathan were kissing on her couch, and she couldn't help but give a little startled yelp and drop the cup that she was holding. It bounced rather than broke, inasmuch as she cared to notice that as she watched the two men pull apart.

"Okay," Nathan said, rough, with new vigour. "If today is the only time this will happen, maybe I can get behind this happening today." His blanket had mostly deserted, leaving him naked again. Duke's fingers spread stars against his hips and groped further back to cup his ass.

"Nathan," Duke said, clinging like he'd been offered a lifeline. And she'd thought he'd been okay seconds ago. What comfort had been in his eyes then was nothing to the need there now. Widened and dark, they drifted over her, then back to Nathan. "We can take this for a spin tonight, and if it doesn't fit, we will still be us in the morning. All the Trouble-related crap we've all been through together, everything we've seen of each other... Sex is not going to change us in some way we can never come back from. You've seen me aged almost to death. Seen me dying. I've seen you crazy. There are worse ways to be naked than just being unclothed."

"A pact," said Audrey. "If this is the product of tired minds and a stressful day, we can still go back." She saw contradiction in his eyes as he angled his head, and maybe he was right, maybe it never would be the same, but... "Even if I'm wrong, maybe it's worth the risk."

Duke had never bothered to cover up with the blanket she'd given him, and Nathan's blanket wasn't actually doing a lot any more, but Duke watched the reaction in Nathan's eyes as he curled his fingers in it and slowly cast it aside. "No need for this, not with us..."

Nathan rolled up from the couch onto his feet in a smooth, keen move, hands on Duke's arm and elbow and shoulder, taking Duke to lead him to Audrey's bed. Duke seemed to have lost words. He lifted a hand and wove it into Nathan's hair. Audrey drew in breath as Nathan moved in closer to her and his hand and his lips hovered over her skin without touching. His throat jumped. There was liquid in his eyes as he raised them.

She understood. Touching her, he'd be more naked before the two of them than he had been at any stage during the day. His reactions couldn't be expected to be normal, after years spent unfeeling. "This makes you vulnerable," she whispered, "and we'll see it. But that's okay."

Audrey curled her fingers just shy of his, in invitation. Waiting for him to take her hand, Duke took it instead. "Remember in the park, earlier, before I was savagely attacked by my pants? Touch her, Nate. Don't tell me it isn't worth it."

Nathan, of course, never, ever did what Duke told him to.

"...Oh." The low, low groan from him was the sexiest thing Audrey had ever heard, and Duke's hand between their bodies did something that made it lower still. Audrey transferred her grip, stretching her arms to hold them both, and Duke made a noise almost as needful as Nathan's, as he realised that he could and then rose up to kiss Nathan again. Audrey witnessed them feel it and moved in. Nathan fell into the kiss clumsy with the lack of practice and the fact that he still couldn't feel, could only feel her - and, when they were all three of them touching, apparently Duke.

She moved back; turning, caught up Duke's lips with her own, and Duke Crocker had never had any doubts about his body or his ability to apply it. Audrey asked, "It's what you do with it, huh?" as they finally parted and her lips and belly and toes all tingled from the aftermath of the kiss. It was no wonder Nathan looked so stoned.

"Just tell me what you want me to do with it," Duke purred, and gently tucked a stray strand of her hair back behind her ear. Duke beckoned Nathan in from where he had backed off to recover himself away from the intensity of touch. "How about we have the most fun we can figuring out which parts of this are going to work?"

END