[PRP]Cleanliness is next to Hotness (Melvin/Mik) Trig:Bods!

[MoonKitsune]

After dinner had settled and everyone worked to put food away and the tables and not chairs back to their tents, Melvin gathered a small patch of his own things and his wallet and found Mik. The techs knew he had spent most of the day helping with Thanksgiving and weee more than willing to let him go get washed up. There was the warning to not be too long.

He didn't need much and after a walk he managed to get a basic hotel room set to pay for a few hours. Setting his things on the counter (as he knew how hourly hotels worked and wasn't trusting that bed), he checked the bathroom and was glad that the hot water worked.

Drying off his hand on a towel, he pointed at the bathroom. "Hop in and take a shower. I'll go after you and then we can shave."
 

[Baneful]

Mikael was happy to get to go somewhere that wasn't the sweaty and unpleasant jungle, chirpily following Melvin to their destination with wide excited eyes. He smiled keenly the whole time and asked a few awkward questions about the vending machines dotted throughout the building.

When he went for a shower it was extremely brief. He'd never really seen the point of showers, used to baths at home and even then with those being supervised by his more than uncommonly overbearing mother. As such he tended to undress, stand under the hot water for a bit, maybe pat some soap on his chest and then go out again. It wasn't that he wasn't intelligent, he'd just never thought even for a moment to try and apply his intellect to self-care.

He came out again with his hips wrapped in a small hotel towel and nodded to Melvin. He hadn't even touched the shampoo.

 

[MoonKitsune]

Melvin was fliplong through the prepaid channel listings, most titles ending or starting with XXX, when he quickly turned off the TV when Mik popped back out. He was about to ask if anything was wrong, but the nod said he was done.

Melvin checked his Spectre watch and looked up. "You can't be done. You were barely in there. Did you wash your entire body? Shampoo and condition your hair. We've been sweating in the jungle for days now."

Did - did Mik actually need help with this too?

Melvin thought about the toothbrush and swallowed. He hadn't been prepared to help in this way and he could already feel his thoughts and blood flow traveling.

"Do you... want me to show you?"
 

[Baneful]

Mik blushed a little. "Er...I was meant to?" he asked regarding the shampoo. He wasn't even sure what conditioner was or how you went about conditioning your hair in the first place.

A little shyly, he nodded, not shy because of anything other than his lack of knowledge of things which were generally expected to be common knowledge. "Yes please?" he said before apologetically adding. "You only need to once. I'll remember things. I've just..never been shown?'"

 

[MoonKitsune]

He sighed. "And that's not your fault. That's your dad's for not being there for you. But I'm here. We'll take this one step at a time." He passed him and started taking off his shirt. "Get in the shower and now I'll show you how to use everything."

He turned and took a breath. This was no different than the showers in the dorms. He'd just be VERY close to Mik instead. He just needed no to focus on the task.

No toothbrush. No toothbrush. No toothbrush. The mantra worked like a cold shower - for now.

Stripping down and setting his glasses to the side, he got in with him and the new picked up the shampoo. "Shampoo washes your hair. You're hair creates oil and dirt and you need to clean it just like your body." He poured a quarter sized amount in his hand to show him and handed him the bottle. "You need enough to get enough of your hair covered in soap. You're going to work it into your hair for a bit and then rinse the shampoo and all that oil and dirt out. The shampoo helps loosen that dirt and oil so you can rinse it out of your hair. If you don't then your hair just starts looking filthy and if it's one thing I've learned, people love playing with your hair when you get intimate. You don't want them touching your hair and then pullibg away because it's greasy." He felt it was good to explain the importance in terms of attracting someone since that seemed to be Mik's main focus right now.

He started to work the shampoo into a thick lather into his hair keeping his eyes up.  

[Baneful]

Mik nodded and ditched his towel for the time being, showing no body shyness whatsoever, he'd never really had any reason to be ashamed of nudity, simply learning that you should keep clothes on around other people or you'd get in trouble. He'd never really heard of the concept of a body being sinful or unpleasant to look at. For this reason he wasn't actually shy at all about looking Melvin over, taking in the differences between them both and finding them more curious than anything else. Fenrir, in his head didn't have a problem either, feeling constrained by clothing at the best of time and wishing his hunter had fur instead.

In the shower Mikael paid keen attention to the lesson, having never really considered oil and dirt a bad thing and finding that for the most part his hair (like fur) mostly took care of itself. Of course he couldn't lick himself clean either, which was something Fen hadn't really been able to find a solution to. He was all right with this one.

"Oh great!" he said. "So being clean will make people want to be with me?" he said eagerly. Maybe this was it, maybe this was the whole reason he didn't have any friends, maybe he was about to turn a new page in his life where doors would be open and people would love him. He watched Melvin carefully and copied each gesture he made, carefully massaging the shampoo into his hair and trying hard not to get it in his eyes, remembering at least that much from baths as a kid and fearing the sting of it.

Fen, in spite of being all right with all of this in theory decided when they were in the shower that he didn't like it, that it was too confined and noisy. He stopped commenting and fell silent, the way he always did when he was stressed by a situation too close to a trap.
 

[MoonKitsune]

"Yes. See you have the youth and looks but if someone gets close to you, wants to talk to yo my and possibly sleep with you, they are going to stop the moment they smell you and see that you aren't taking care of yourself. If you don't even care for your body and take care of it, then other people won't and will think you'll care just as little about theirs. We are sensory animals. Smell. Sight. Taste. Touch. If those don't appear healthy and good, then we are programmed to avoid it. It's like looking at a steak. You want the steak that looks and smells the best. Not a dirty one that smells rotten ."

Usually he would spend a great deal of time in a shower, even longer with company, but he only felt tense abs his heart raced with a familiar scenario Melvin couldn't act upon.

"Once it's good and lathered, go rinse you're hair out. Work your hands into your hair until you don't feel any shampoo left. It feels like your hair could squeak clean because the slippery lubrication of the shampoo is gone." He tried not to focus on what he just said.

After Mik was rinsed, he asked to pass by him and also rinsed his own hair, his golden curls now a wavy mound of dark wheat.

"Since you rinse out all the dirt and oil, you want to feed your hair nutrients. It keeps your hair feeling soft and looking healthy. Looking good. That's why we use conditioner after." He poured a little more than before into husband palm. "The more hair you have, the more you need and your hair is a bit long. You want to run the conditioner through your hair and to the tips. It won't be like shampoo where you lather up. Instead you let it sit in your hair a while while you wash the rest of you."

To this he glanced but quickly.

He instantly regretted submitting to that second of temptation.  

[Baneful]

Mikael was very hopeful that the lessons he was learning were going to solve so many of his problems and for that reason his enthusiasm, always at a high ebb only spiked higher and higher. "I'll take care of my body then." he said. "I really appreciate you helping me know how to do it. Most other people would be too embarrassed or upset." America had helped him once, but he'd been too daunted to take what he'd learned in the bath and transfer it to the shower. This was safer and nicer. "I won't be a smelly steak when I'm done."

He carefully rinsed his hair out, the sensation of it all once the months of grease and grime were washed out completely alien to him. It seemed to flow under the water, cascading sleekly across his shoulders and down his back almost to his tailbone where it had grown unchecked since his arrival on the island. "It DOES get squeaky!" he said, genuinely surprised by this fact now that he was paying attention to it. Even darkened by the water, it was apparent his hair was much lighter than it had looked lately, matching his father's near-white blonde almost exactly.

He applied the conditioner, moving out from under the water a little to do it. "It doesn't lather." he confirmed, no matter how much he rubbed it in with his fingers finding the texture slick and slippery without the rich foam of the shampoo.

"Okay, done!" he announced proudly. "What next?" and he followed Melvin's gaze. "The rest of me? What, even my back?"

 

[MoonKitsune]

It was like having a gray stray take a bath to see their ciatvwas actually white with spots. He shuddered at the thought Mik had walked around in a layer of his own filth without recognizing how bad it was for him. However, there was a satisfaction in watching the grime visibly melt off him.

As he paid such keen interest, he noticed much too late how Mik matched Lawr's own hair when it was wet, now flat and sleek than it's usually volume that differentiated him from his father. It was hard to ignore and the place they were at became so pronounced in his thoughts that he had to look away a moment and rub his eyes under the excuse he got some conditioner in them.

Once he felt he was back to not wanting to go R rated, he took the body wash and held it up. "Everything. You sweat more as a man now. Your entire body sweats and when you sweat bacteria collects and then it produces a strong smell called body odor. One wiff of that will send people running away from you. So wash every day but also wash after you train or work out because you sweat more during no those times. You can use a bar of soap but I prefer body wash. All these products come in different smells so you can pick the smells you like when you go shopping. I'll go shopping with you next time if you want."

"I usually have a body loofa with me but I didn't pack it so just use your hands. The only place you don't want to get soap into is...well, your d**k. It will burn. Just make sure you keep it clean with warm water."

He poured some into his own hand and not began washing his own body. As he did, he noticed something. "You get kinda hairy all over, don't you? If you ever feel inclined you can shave your body too. It won't keep people from sleeping with you but some people find it nice. Up to you if you want to try it."

 

[Baneful]

Mik took the bodywash and very sniffed it carefully, it was nice. "Do they do vanilla?" he asked. "Or chocolate. I like chocolates. I'd like to try all of the different smells. " He wondered if you could mix them up or if that would make them toxic somehow. Chemicals. "But no soap there. Ok got it." He didn't mention he'd never really thought you had to wash down there at all, that it all just sort of took care of itself with the water. He watched Melvin and copied his gestures on himself, following each place that needed cleaned in turn.

"Oh! Oh! Yes!" he said, interrupting himself by latching onto the offer of lessons in shaving from Melvin. If there was anything that made him self concious it was the hair. It had just shown up gradually and for a while he'd been anxious that he was turning into a werewolf. It didn't feel like part of him, different from the way he remembered himself looking and how he felt he was supposed to look. He'd been told it was natural but to him it didn't feel that way, almost itchy to him at times and underneath his clothes. It just made smells worse too frankly, in places. "I'd like to do that, try it anyway. If I don't like it, it would grow back anyway right?"

 

[MoonKitsune]

"Yup. It's called Cocoa butter and isnactualky good for your skin. You can smell the products before buying them most times." He was happy for Mik's level of comfort and enthusiasm in all these hygiene lessons. It utterly delighted Melvin and made him just as excited to help and see Mik transform into a healthier, cleaner person.

"Actually we can try now. Yes, all hair grows back. The only way it won't Ian if you pay for laser removal so ignore you feel like you don't like shaving you can stop and your body will just grow it back. However you still want to trip your hair a bit so it doesn't get too long down there. Keeps things tidy."

He opened the shower curtain and grabbed 2 fresh, disposable razors from a pack and handed him one. "Don't shave without anything to serve as lubrication. If you just use water the razor will catch and nick you more often. The soap helps it glide or you can use shaving cream. Don't shave too quickly either or around sensitive areas. Don't shave across your nipples or else you'll cut them."

"Let's do your body here and we can do your face in the mirror."

His heart was thudding rapidly in his ears. Maybe he could - just this once?

No..he just had to calm down.

Melvin lathered his armpit and then dragged the razor down, removing some of the hair that had grown there. He rinsed out the soap and hair and went again.

"You are already looking and smelling a lot better by the way. Your hair isn't the same shade when it isn't clean." To this he reached out to move just a small bit of hair that was sticking to his brow.
 

[Baneful]

Mik felt a lot better, it was as if the water had somehow reached deeper than it usually did and his skin felt happier and his hair even lighter than it had before. There'd been a grimy feeling he'd kind of resigned himself to which was now lifted. "I'm excited." he said. "I really hate hair. I mean, other than on my head. I'm not an animal. I don't want to look like one."

<> his weapon said. He tried to ignore it.

He tried to copy Melvin's sweeps through the soap but found it much harder to do than it looked, quickly growing frustrated. "It doesn't look the same when I do it." he said. "It's not working. Maybe there's too much. Maybe I'm broken." The angle was difficult and he couldn't get a proper look at what he was doing.

He gave the other man a pleading sort of look. "Can you help me, just this once? I'll remember, I swear."

 

[MoonKitsune]

"Mik, just because you are learning something and it's not working doesn't mean you are broken. It just means you are still learning. Don't ever think you are broken and need fixing. Don't let other people tell you that either."

He stepped closer and slipped his hand around Mik's arm, the skin warm from the running water. Everything went in a drumming beat of his heart that it felt like the earth was shaking with him.

"I'll show you and appologize if I nick you. Armpits are a hard angle." He lathered the hair a bit and moved the razor enough to be careful but not too slow and started stripping it swipe by swipe revealing smooth skin. Without even asking, he moved and took the other arm, his blue eyes bright and focused as he did the same treatment. Each drag down of the blade taking away more and more. The body was trailing down the ripple of Mik's ribs with the steady stream of water.

"You'll need to apply deodorant each day to keep your armpits dry and smelling good." He managed, feeling faint as he cleaned the razor under the water behind Mik.

Taking a few deep breathes, he ran a hand across Mik's chest and lathered that up as well. "You don't have to rush this. Take your time."

But he didn't give the razor back, moving it now across his chest.
 

[Baneful]

True to his word the blonde man paid very close attention to what Melvin was doing and tried to file away all the ways he'd be able to do the same thing himself when he had to. He made it all look so very easy, and it probably would be, after he'd done it many many times. At least now he had a point to start from and was extremely grateful even for that much, having been left on his own and locked up with fear. He was getting the tools to do what he needed to do to be likeable and that was the most worthy cause in the world.

"There's so much work involved." he said. "Do you need to do this all the time, do all people?" He'd thought there was something wrong with him but apparently most people had just been removing or balancing the things he didn't understand.

The touches felt good as always and he indulgently encouraged Melvin to keep at his task, watching him with absolute fascination. "It just looks so much /neater/." he remarked, reaching over to stroke Melvin's skin. "Is that how you always look so tidy?" he asked.

 

[MoonKitsune]

"Everyone does. The shaving is optional. Don't think of it a small a chore. You might grow to enjoy the time. It's a quiet place to reflect on things and melt away your worries and grime from the day. Just a peaceful place to feel refresh and taken care of with just focusing on yourself for a while."

His breath caught when Mik touched him, not hesitating at all to follow his lead the moment he touched him. There was no hiding how he felt now.

He continued slowly, following after with his hand. "I'm particular. People might call me a clean freak. I like being trimmed and clean. I find it very.." And to this he glanced to look at Mik. "...appealing."