fandomhighdorms | The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

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The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

The temptation to skip his workout today had been strong in Cal, especially since he'd been up fairly early for a Sunday in an effort to put together something for that gallery exhibit. But he knew that skipping it wouldn't do him any good and, by the time afternoon rolled around, he was actually kind of missing it. So he came in, stretched out, and started hitting the weights.

Not literally. Because that would hurt.

[[ open gym is open! ]]

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"Hey stranger," said Hoshi, smiling at Cal as she entered the gym. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Hey, Hoshi." From behind the bar of a weight machine, Cal returned her smile lightly. "And didn't you know? I live here. Have a cot set up in the equipment room."

"Must be fun when people try to get in a late night workout," said Hoshi with a smirk. She grabbed a yoga mat and spread it out on the floor, then started stretching. "I'll be quiet, though, if you want to take a nap."

"Because a nap while dealing with heavy weights," Cal said, as he pushed the bar out away from his chest, "is a great idea."

"I've heard of people zoning out during a particularly good workout," said Hoshi with a smirk. "Then again, I do yoga. It's easy to fall asleep in some of those seated poses."

"I fell asleep all the time doing it," Cal recalled with a faint grin again. "To the point where the person teaching me got fed up and stopped trying to get me to do it."

Hoshi chuckled. "Yeah, that could be a problem," she said. "So, rehearsal seemed to go well last week. I'm just getting nervous about remembering my lines, even though it's not that big a part."

Cal shook his head slightly. "I think I might actually have most of mine. And a good portion of my understudy part." He sent another grin over. "I have way too much time on my hands."

"Wow," said Hoshi. "Is there a trick to memorizing it, besides spending lots of time?"

Cal shrugged slightly, as much as his currently position with the weight machine would allow. "Not really?" he said, his voice ripe with uncertainty. "I've just never had much of a problem remembering things like that. Maybe it's just the drama in my blood."

"Then I think I'll be getting on stage Tuesday and going through lots of practice," said Hoshi. "I should probably get used to that part anyway."

"It's not so bad," Cal offered assuringly. "But I am a seasoned veteran here, so I might be biased."

"You guys all make it look so easy at the last play," said Hoshi.

"Tennant," Cal said, with a reluctance that made it seem almost like it hurt him to admit it, "for all his bizarreness, is actually pretty good at what he does. And, I mean, come on. All I did was die. Dying's easy."

"I wouldn't know. I haven't done that myself yet," said Hoshi, looking slightly nervous.

"Nothing to it, honest," Cal said, finding himself grinning just a bit more at Hoshi's nervousness. "And, if anything, I know one sure-fire, fail-safe method."

"What's that?" asked Hoshi, sitting up to look at Cal.

"Picture the audience naked," Cal offered, obviously enough. He had to bite his lip slightly, though, to keep from smirking, which he passed off as just strained effort in lifting his weights.

"What?" squeaked Hoshi. "You mean... everyone sitting in the audience, and I just picture them without any..."

"...clothes," Cal finished, with a nod. "That's right. Picture them all just stark butt-naked. Does wonders for your nerves."

"Butt n-naked?" repeated Hoshi. Her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head.

"That's right," Cal was far too amused by that reaction, but he managed to nod with the utmost solemnity. "Butt naked. Works every time."

"And you've done this?" asked Hoshi, turning red.

"It is a tried and true method of many great actors," Cal said in response, an answer deftly avoiding the answer to the question.

"I think picturing people naked might not be particularly helpful for me," said Hoshi timidly. "I might get distracted by staring at the audience."

"Your castmates, then," Cal offered. "At least then, you'll be staring somewhere on the stage."

Hoshi laughed nervously. "You do realize that would include you, right?" she asked.

"Hoshi!" Cal gave her a wry grin with a teasingly offended tone in his voice, but, despite himself, he did blush a little. He highly doubted he'd really have to worry about her picturing him accurately, anyway. "Are you saying you'd think about me naked?"

"Oh, no! I've never pictured anyone naked before and I'm not sure I'm about to start doing that," said Hoshi. It was the truth, more or less.

Cal reaction got a little bit, surprisingly, more sincere as he blinked. "...No one?...Really?"

"Almost no one," replied Hoshi.

"Almost?" Cal wasn't letting that slide by. "So you have, at least someone..."

"Not completely naked," said Hoshi, her cheeks turning pink again, "but maybe shirtless."

"Oh, well, shirtless," Cal rolled his eyes slightly. "Shirtless doesn't count because the majority of the student body here goes around shirtless on a regular basis."

"Making it easy to form a mental picture later on," said Hoshi. "I can't picture something I haven't seen before."

"Yeah, but you've heard descriptions of naked bodies before," Cal offered. "You, I assume, have had a naked body before. It's a little thing called imagination. Just because you haven't seen something doesn't mean you can't picture it."

Hoshi pondered this information. There were lots of possibilities running through her mind. "I... I might give it a try," she said.

Cal wondered if this was beautifully evil or something that would come back around to bite him in the ass.

Most likely the second one, knowing his luck, but still, he grinned, and nodded. "Good. Never hurts to try."

Hopefully.

"But not during rehearsals, because then I'm sure I'll forget all my lines or something," she insisted.

Okay, this was most certainly going to come back around and bite him in the ass later; Cal could tell by the fact that he couldn't help chuckling and adding, "And then you can just picture your lines written on their naked bodies."

Hoshi felt all the blood rushing to her face. "On their n-naked bodies?" she stammered.

"Think of all the space for things to be written!"

And, going against his better judgment, Cal felt the need to add, "Shame no one in the female cast has bigger boobs; that'd be perfect for people with bigger parts."

It was very rare for a linguist like Hoshi to be left speechless, but this was one of those moments. She just stared at Cal without saying anything.

The reaction, really, only made Cal chuckle a little more, hoping that look wasn't one of those pissed off looks girls gave you the second before they told you how much they hated you.

"Sorry," he said, and there was at least a little bit of a sincere light in his eyes as he grinned. "Couldn't help that one."

Hoshi wasn't pissed off, just very flustered.

"Please tell me that you don't use that particular, um, technique on stage," she said.

Cal barely bit back the comment about the fact that he couldn't; he part was way too big. The grin helped keep it down, and the light shake of his head, too. "I don't," he assured her. "I'm just messing with you. I do it the good, old-fashioned, read-until-your-eyes-pop-out way. Get a look at my script on Tuesday, you'll see what I mean. The thing's battered all to hell and back again."

That got a chuckle out of Hoshi. "Okay," she said. "I figure that might be what works best for me anyway. Memorization, I mean."

"And that," Cal said, the cloud of impending female scorn passing and leaving behind sunny skies, "I can still help you with. My offer to go over lines definitely stands. But I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else if you're going the body reading way."

"I don't think body reading is going to work for me," Hoshi was quick to point out. "Just safe, regular, old-fashioned memorization."

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The Gym; Sunday Afternoon.

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