[Closed] Fetch the Bolt Cutters

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Even Later, 7 Bethas, 2720
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, Old Rose Harbor

Chrysanthe breathed in, a short sharp inhale, at the phrase lady in need. She stood very straight and even.

She understood what it was he was about. Chrysanthe was not unfamiliar with bullies; she had faced her fair share of them in Brunnhold, who derived enjoyment from needling her, dipping her hair in ink or various other unpleasant substances, knocking her books down or tripping her. She had learned, in time, to deal with them, though it had not been easy.

This was rather a different situation in some ways – he was a mechanic, in her employ – but not in others. She was unpleasantly at his mercy; he would, Chrysanthe thought, be paid for his time whether he succeeded in his task or not. She was the one who had much staked on this; it had not escaped her that she might, yet, be fired, when she returned to Vienda.

What he wanted, Chrysanthe told herself, was her reaction. She had become perfectly good, in Gior, at ignoring the stares of the albino Giorans at any foreigner; they had not been in the least about her. Neither was this, Chrysanthe understood; he was a thoroughly unpleasant man, and that he was choosing to be repugnant in her direction reflected on her not in the least.

Chrysanthe took another sip of her tea, then set the cup down. She said nothing; she made no objections. That was even worse than the phrasing; that struck her all the more deeply.

Finally, Ewing lit a cigarette and began the work she had hired him for. Chrysanthe watched; she had little else to do. The rollers were large; where he needed it, she would come and – as offered – hold them for his adjustments. The first time she came close to him she flinched, though she very much had not wished to. It grew easier, in time.

The night wore on, steadily; there was more tea, some drunk while hot and some left to grow bitter and cold. There were what seemed rather an endless stream of cigarettes.

It was one of these which caught her attention. Ewing had paused in his adjustments, squinting in an ungraceful way down at the machine, to fetch out another cigarette and light it. The smoke was wretched – awful – and Chrysanthe’s nerves were beyond strained. She had not smoked in some months, but rather abruptly nothing could possibly have smelled as good as the tobacco.

“May I have a cigarette, please?” Chrysanthe asked. She extended a filthy hand to the mechanic, perhaps the closest she had come when not in urgent need; the grease was well onto the cuff of her jacket by now, though she could not bring herself to care. It would come out or else she would replace the cuffs – perhaps the entire arms – in the same color. The skirt, at least, was shielded by the apron.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 7, 2720 - Even Later
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, ORH

Jittery thing, this Ms. Palmifer. Charlie had made the comment about a woman alone at night earlier entirely in jest. He certainly had no interest in doing anything other than irritating her, really. But she flinched the first time he asked her to come over and help him hold something. He almost felt bad, like the joke had convinced her he was going to do anything else. Almost. She really was too easy to needle; it was hard to resist.

She stopped eventually, anyway. The night carried on mostly filled with the work and the idle comment from him. She didn't respond to most of them. He knew that strategy--shit, he employed it often enough in school. It worked fine, as far as schoolyard bullies went. A bit less successful after that. Charlie didn't mind though; half the time he was just speaking to hear his own voice.

Clocking hell this was more irritating a project than he'd thought at first, though. He understood now how it had eluded Ms. Palmifer so thoroughly. He was confident he could do it--he was doing it, in fact, and quite well by his own estimation. But the adjustments were tedious and annoying. Charlie went through most of the cigarettes in his pocket after a while. He had reached a point where he had to decide what to do next, squinting at the machine consideringly. The great hulking thing was stories high. It was absurd.

Ms. Palmifer was nearby, and for once he hadn't been chattering on. So he sort of managed to forget she was even there, until an absolutely disgusting hand extended in his direction.

"What? Oh." Charlie frowned and looked at the tall blonde. His cigarette was in his mouth and he was halfway to striking the match when she had asked. The request surprised him. She'd been glaring at him all night; he thought for sure the smoke bothered her. Not that it made a difference, because he was here to work and the smoking was, as he always insisted, part of the process. Alioe she was filthy though--he had never seen a golly girl let herself get so grubby. He barely let himself get so grubby, really.

Charlie flicked open his cigarette case, taking stock. He had a few left. The question was, did he want to give her one of them? He looked from the metal case to her face, stern and carved into a rather familiar expression. He paused. Then he shrugged his shoulders and handed her one. He almost held the whole case out to her, but the idea of her putting those fingers in it was faintly vile. Not that he would say it, but he thought she had sort of earned it for putting up with him for so long without entirely losing it. It was almost admirable.

"And here I assumed you disapproved of the habit, with the face you've been making at me all night." Charlie struck the match and lit his cigarette. He took a drag and grinned as he let it back out. "You quit or something?"

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Even Later, 7 Bethas, 2720
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, Old Rose Harbor

In the moments before Ewing responded, Chrysanthe weighed the odds.

On one hand, she thought, he could simply refuse. That would not be too bad; she had asked, and she found the craving rather worse now that she had, but she had managed through such cravings before, and would do so again.

On the other hand, he might acquiesce. If he did, she thought, there were decent odds that it would be with one of two different varieties of sexist remarks. The first class was something along the lines of a comment about how woman shouldn’t smoke; these were fairly standard remarks, and something Chrysanthe had come across before, and could deal with quite competently. She did not expect it from him, simply because thus far he had much preferred what she would have called the second class. The second class was much more insidious; it instead resembled something along the lines of ‘happy to assist a lady in need,’ or thinly veiled concern about her being alone in the factory at night.

Instead, after what looked like contemplation, Ewing extended a cigarette to her without comment.

“Thank you,” Chrysanthe said, coolly. She took it, and retreated back to the table, fetching up a match. She was pleased, too, that he had not offered a light.

Chrysanthe settled the cigarette between her lips, struck the match, and cupped her hands, lighting it with the ease of experience. She shook the match out and dropped it into the ashtray, and took a long drag on the cigarette. It was every bit as cheap as she had guessed from the smell, and thoroughly satisfying.

Her good fortune could only last so long. Chrysanthe lifted her gaze back to Charlie, blowing out a soft exhale of smoke. “Last year,” she said with a shrug. She did not make a habit of shrugging any more than she did of smoking, these days, but it was rather an odd night already, her hands were filthy, her head ached fiercely (though, she was pleased to note, somewhat less since she’d started in on the cigarette), and Ewing had not yet finished his machinations. She kept hoping they were at the stage of the project at which things looked to be the absolute worst, which was generally followed by a swift coming together and wrapping up. So far, she had not been right.

She had picked up smoking in Gior, mostly because a number of the other foreign students had smoked, and it had seemed the thing to do. Cigarettes had made long nights of studying and casting considerably more bearable. She had rather intended to set the habit aside once she returned to Anaxas, and she had, just – somewhat later than she had intended.

Chrysanthe took another drag on the cigarette. “Of all your behaviors," she said, too tired for any more of his games or to think better of it, “why should you assume it was the cigarette to which I objected?” She ashed out the cigarette, settled it back in her mouth, did her best to wipe her hands clean once more, and returned her gaze squarely to the bits and pieces in front of him.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 7, 2720 - Even Later
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, ORH

At least she said thank you at all. Cold as ice that one. Well, that was what made it so much fun to try to wind her up really. Not nearly as much fun if she had been even a little friendly. He hadn't offered to light it for her and she didn't ask him to. Which was good, because he didn't want to. Instead she trotted on over to the break table and found a match of her own, sucking on the cheap thing like it was the most satisfying possible experience at that moment. There was a crude joke in there somewhere, but Charlie couldn't workshop it quickly enough to bother saying it.

Bingo--he'd been right on at the guess that she'd quit. Nobody wanted a cigarette quite as bad as someone who had supposedly given up the habit. He'd started smoking relatively young, fifteen or sixteen--cheap shit he bought at bars in the Stacks in his student days. Ah, youth. There had been a time when he quit too, because someone had asked him to. And because he had been young and a fool, he had done it. That hadn't lasted too long; before he graduated Charlie had picked the habit back up with a vengeance. That habit, and a lot of others.

He stayed where he was, contemplating the great hulking machine that had very quickly become the bane of his evening. Night. Morning. Whatever hour it was, Charlie hated it, and he hoped to never look out another window again. The last little comment he'd tossed off just because he felt like it; he hadn't expected her to respond to it any more than he'd expected responses to any of the others.

Evidently though, either she was more tired than he was, or he had finally broken some sort of final straw. She had been so stoic about it, Charlie had been a little afraid his efforts had failed. That would have been disappointing. He had to do something while he scowled at rollers and mechanical specifications in the wee hours of the morning.

"Madame, I will have you know that in many circles, I am a charm and a delight." Charlie ashed his cigarette onto the floor and waggled his eyebrows. "Under the right conditions." Charlie grinned, not in the least bit put off by her scathing remark. Impressed, maybe, but not chastened at all.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Even Later, 7 Bethas, 2720
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, Old Rose Harbor

The main problem with the cigarette, Chrysanthe thought, was that it brought into her view the utter filthiness of her hands on a more regular basis. The chief reason, of course, that she had not cleaned them more thoroughly as that – first of all, the pump was outside, and it was even colder out there. Second, she had been working with the parts, of course, and Ewing’s own hands were a testament to the fact that that alone made rather a mess. Third, Chrysanthe thought, she still held out hope that she would, at some point, need to place the rollers back into the contraption; their removal was what had dirtied her hands to begin with (in addition to leaving her shoulders rather sore). That third point, in fact, might have been sufficient; without that optimism, she very much doubted she could have continued on.

Ewing ashed his cigarette on the ground. The stubbing out of his first cigarette against the floor Chrysanthe had found sufficiently annoying to look meaningfully at the ashtray; by now, a bit more ash on the area where they had worked could do little more damage. None of it was nearly as bad as the dirtying of the floor by the rollers from the machines in the first place, as distasteful as it remained.

It was with this same tired attitude that Chrysanthe raised her eyebrows to Ewing’s latest comments. He did something rather dreadful with his eyebrows, and she grimaced, faintly, though she suspected it would only encourage him.

“Do those conditions include copious amounts of alcohol?” Chrysanthe asked. She took another drag off the cigarette he had given her, and felt not in the least bit guilty for needling him with it. She had almost wanted to say social lubrication, but she understood how utterly inappropriate that would be, and she felt it might encourage him in precisely the very last direction she wished him to go.

She was not sure what sort of response she had expected to her comment. If she had thought it entirely through, she doubted she would have said it. In what thinking she had done, laughter had seemed perhaps most likely, of the sort which had greeted her early comment about mechanics who made unpleasant company. Perhaps she hadn’t really expected a response, nor in the least whatever it was he had done with his eyebrows. His grin had been strange, too; Chrysanthe couldn’t quite say how. She thought perhaps it should have felt like he was laughing at her, but it had not – chiefly because Chrysanthe felt that if he had wished to laugh at her, he should freely have done so.

She was tired; she was rather dreadfully tired. She gazed past Ewing at the rollers and the contraption one more; she rolled her forearm gently against her eyes, pressing at them for a moment without the use of her hands. She lowered her arm again, and propped her hand back against the table; after a moment, carefully, she rested her hip against the sturdy thing, taking some of the weight off sore, aching feet.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 7, 2720 - Even Later
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, ORH

Not even a glare as he ashed his cigarette on the floor! Warming up to him already, he could tell. It couldn't possibly be that the floor was already absolutely vile from the work itself. Honestly, he didn't know why she'd cared when he'd put his cigarette out on the floor when he first arrived--it was a factory, not a dance hall. Seemed like one of those things to just care about on principle when there was no real reason it mattered--Charlie's favorite kind of rule to violate.

Oh but wasn't Ms. Palmifer a sharp one! He wasn't sure what he thought she'd do with the face he'd made after his statement. Faint dead away from shock, perhaps--but Ms. Palmifer didn't seem like the fainting type. Not caked under that much grease and machine filth, at any rate. She took another drag on that cigarette and he laughed; the woman he'd thought was a wet blanket was turning out to be a bit more fun than he'd bargained for.

"Ms. Palmifer, darlin', there is many a man in this fine city who could tell you my talents are appreciable under a wide variety of circumstances, drunk or sober." Charlie chuckled again; somewhere in it his cigarette went down the wrong pipe and Charlie coughed. Fucking Alioe, like he was some teenager with his first spur. When the coughing fit subsided, though, he smiled again.

"I'm sure it helps though." It probably helped a lot, really. He was drunk half the time himself, after all. That assuredly ran both ways, he thought. Not that he wasn't pretty and charming sober, but usually the kind of company he was after wasn't found at more sober venues to begin with. Charlie liked to think it was more coincidence than cause and effect.

Belatedly, Charlie wondered if she thought he'd been making some kind of bizarre pass at her. It wasn't outside of the realm of possibility, generally speaking--it wasn't like she knew that he was about as interested in flirting with her as he was with flirting with the Fourcault machine. Possibly less. Well, it didn't matter. She could think what she liked, anyway, and probably would no matter what Charlie said or did.

His cigarette was almost finished. He took one final drag, deep and slow. He let the smoke linger in his lungs, then exhaled slowly and a little regretfully. Time to go back to the machine then. Charlie liked working with machines, he really did, but there was always a point in the work that he couldn't help but feel like that love for the mechanical had tilted to loathing. Usually that point was when his shoulders hurt and his hands were so filthy he despaired of ever seeing them again from all the grease. So, now, in essence.

Casually he looked over at Blondie; she seemed tired too. He knew she'd been here longer than him, and likely had a longer day from the start, too. He couldn't find much sympathy in himself for her exhaustion.

"Do you need a break, Ms. Palmifer?" Charlie cocked his head to one side, expression on his pretty pointed face vaguely disdainful.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Even Later, 7 Bethas, 2720
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, Old Rose Harbor

This time, Ewing laughed.

Chrysanthe had considered her tone rather neutral – not quite sharp, chiefly because she was far too tired to summon up the energy for it, and also because his response had not stung as it might. Perhaps that was only, too, how very tired she felt. The laughter didn’t sting either, this time; Chrysanthe took another drag on her cigarette, breathing it deep, and ashed it into the tray once more. She was leaning against the table still; she was, unfortunately, increasingly less sure it helped. It ached, rather, where it dug into her hip, and the lessening of her own weight on her feet and legs only seemed to help them remember how much they hurt.

It was his answer that surprised her, much more so than the laughter. Many a man, he said, clearly and Chrysanthe thought rather deliberately. Chrysanthe watched him through the drifting curl of pale white cigarette smoke through the pale phosphor light of the factory; there was little enough help from the moon so early in the month, but the lanterns cast more than enough to see by, as necessary. She mulled it over as he coughed – she felt more than a little smug at the sight, taking another easy puff of her own. The only real reaction she gave was a shrug, as if to say that that was his and their business, and none of hers. That he credited her insights, after the fact, also surprised her.

It recontextualized things, somewhat. Chrysanthe had not thought him interested, in the sense that she had not thought him attracted to her. But she had thought him – Chrysanthe shifted uncomfortable against the table, finding that the edge of it really no longer suited her; she straightened up – a threat, Chrysanthe decided, was the word for it. He had quite encouraged the impression, and his comments about her nights and how she spent them were no less offensive for this new context but they were – perhaps – less threatening. She was not sure what to make of them; it was a strange time of night when nothing, quite, was as it seemed, with tiredness like a filter which shaded all of it, and lent a strange unreality to the world at large.

“Not in the least, Mr. Ewing,” Chrysanthe said. She took a last drag of her cigarette. “I supposed we were waiting for you to gather your wits, and thought only to leave you the necessary time.”

There was a pause, then, and – the tiniest fraction of a smile, somewhat unwitting. Chrysanthe wasn’t entirely sure of herself, but she leaned into it, and it curled across her face, albeit crookedly. She stubbed out her cigarette, and came back to the bits and pieces on the floor. She crouched once more through the dull, rather unpleasant aches all through her feet and legs, and raised her eyebrows at Ewing.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 7, 2720 - Even Later
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, ORH

For a moment Ms. Palmifer just watched him, cigarette smoke obscuring her disapproving face. He had sort of expected her to say something about the coughing fit--he would have, in her position--but she didn't say anything at all. She just shrugged and kept smoking. How completely odd.

He scratched the back of his neck as she straightened, then realized what he had done and scowled. There was grease in his hair now, he could feel it. His scalp already itched. For a mechanic he was oddly fastidious, although it didn't stop him from getting himself elbows-deep into the guts of some engine or another. There was a difference, he always felt, between being unafraid of this sort of wretchedness and being comfortable with it.

Charlie honestly just couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a knock about how he wasn't particularly bright. That possibility seemed fairly likely, considering they had spent all night sniping at each other. Well, that wasn't true. He had spent all night trying to get a rise out of her, and every once in a blue moon she had said something back that usually proved to be entertainingly arch and slightly barbed.

"Was that a smile, Ms. Palmifer? Consider my heart a-flutter." He tried to maintain as stony a face as he could while he said it. It was sort of hard when the stupidest shit kept leaving his mouth. Charlie gave up and grinned in his crooked way back, then turned to the machine once more. "But yes, I don't think this will get any less frustrating if I bat my eyelashes at it, no matter how beautiful they are."

After that it was back to work, of course, because his feet hurt and he wanted to go home and wash himself. His little flat might not be much, but it had both hot and cold running water. Charlie thought of it with a longing that verged on romantic pining. Alas, he could not be reunited with his tap until this business with the rollers was complete. He pushed his sleeve back up, as it had started to slip down past his elbow, and got back to work.

For a while he was content to go on in silence. Mostly silence, anyway--there was an awful lot of swearing from his mouth, which was basically the same as silence as far as he was concerned. Eventually he got kind of itchy and bored, though, so he thought to venture a question.

"So this is your design, huh? Or partly? What's it supposed to do, anyway? And why's it you down here rolling around in the grease with me and not whoever did the other part?" Charlie didn't look at her; he was focused on the machine in front of him. He had very little desire to turn away and drop any part of this clocking thing on some tender body part or another. The question was in earnest, though he wasn't sure if she'd take it that way considering he'd been spending most of the night trying to drive her up a wall.

Which, of course, he could very well go back to if she didn't answer the question. He had to do something.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Even Later, 7 Bethas, 2720
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, Old Rose Harbor

Chrysanthe had found his words doused her smile, rather quickly, as if it had never been. She fixed her gaze solidly on the machine once more; there was no redness to her face, no blush; she was not in the least flattered.

In fact, Chrysanthe found she was almost angry. It was a game to him, she thought. If her judgments were correct, and he was not the least inclined in her direction, then there was nothing behind such comments – nothing but a man amusing himself without bothering to think even for a moment about how such jokes might be received. The alternative – that her discomfort added to the amusement for him – would only have been worse. He was then, she supposed, either oblivious or outright cruel.

She said nothing; he said nothing more, or at least nothing worth responding to. Chrysanthe, thankfully, had become accustomed to such coarse language at her time at the factory; it was very unlikely that he could shock her even were he attempting to do so, relative to how some of the humans in Vienda spoke on a regular basis. In fact, she had come to take their swears as something of a very odd compliment; generally, she had noticed, they did not employ such language around all galdori.

She did not quite feeling the same about Ewing’s, of course, but she could tune them out well enough. There was work aplenty, at least, and it was a better distraction from the bone-deep tiredness than their conversation had been.

He spoke; Chrysanthe glanced up at him from where she had been tightening bolts on one of the rollers, her hand already badly cramped. She set the wrench down with a sigh, rubbing the muscles of her thumb and across her palm with her other hand, grimacing faintly at the ache in them. After a moment, Chrysanthe bent her head over the machine once more, picked up the wrench and kept at it.

“The contraption,” she said, shooting a glare at it, “is meant to deliver sulfur dioxide to the surface of the glass as it is pulled up out of the reservoir during the annealing – cooling – process. Tests in the laboratory suggest it will enhance the quality of the glass, and make it more durable; airship manufacturers, as an example, care a good deal about the quality of the glass they purchase.”

Chrysanthe kept at it, grimacing; her hand shook, and she pulled the wrench the last of the way, and let go, sighing. She loosened it from the bolt, and set it to the next, grimacing; she did not dare to rub her shoulder beneath the apron, for fear of what her hands would do to the fabric of her clothing.

“As for why me,” Chrysanthe went on, “Mr. Grangerton, my collaborator in this research endeavor, has no interest in traveling to the Rose, and I doubt,” she was too tired for this; she was too tired to curb the bitterness in her voice, her gaze fixed solidly on the roller, “very much, that Mr. Pargeter would have dared to make the suggestion to him.” She found a surge of strength; she turned the wrench, and sat back, her hands shaking. She breathed in deeply, and exhaled calmly out, and wiped her hands on her apron; she loosened the wrench once more, and set it firmly down on the factory floor, and did not look at Mr. Ewing.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 7, 2720 - Even Later
Pargeter and Sons Flat Glass Factory, ORH

Alioe's tits, Ms. Palmifer was touchy. Here they'd been getting along, sort of, and Charlie made one stupid joke about her smiling and she was back to staring with that fixed and stern attention at the godsdamn Fourcault machine. What she could possibly have found to get quite so worked up about, he did not know. Maybe she took exception to his mention of his lovely eyelashes--though they were just that, and if she disagreed that was her own poor taste.

Whatever. If she wanted to get agitated even when he wasn't trying to needle her, she was more than welcome to do so. Circle save him from uptight sticks in the mud like Ms. Palmifer.

As she answered his question he kept watch on her from the corner of one eye. She was wrecking her hand, not taking breaks like she was doing. Not that it was any of his concern, if she wanted to give herself problems by not stretching when her body begged her to, she could do that too. Somehow he didn't think she'd take his warning in the spirit it was intended.

Charlie didn't know shit about glass chemistry; Charlie barely knew shit about any kind of chemistry at all. He was much better with things he could get his hands on, which was why he liked mechanism over theory. Solid and clean. Romantically un-romantic. And much less prone to getting mad at you if you swore at them. The theory didn't matter a whit to him, but he was interested in the result.

The question of "why was she here" was the part Charlie had least expected her to answer. Especially not when she looked like she wanted to throw him from the top of the Fourcault machine as soon as he'd finished fixing it for her. She did answer, and she sounded bitter as hell about it too. So it hadn't been her choice to come here to this fair city any more than it had been her choice to be sitting here with him at this gods-cursed hour.

"Your Mr. Grangerton sounds like a real laugh," Charlie commented, tightening a bolt of his own with a grunt. Like, even more of a laugh than Ms. Palmifer was. He had meant to leave off being such a prick, but sometimes it was too tempting. "Works for me though; if he's more a mechanic than you are, I'd be down a job. And spared the pleasure of your shining company."

He glanced at her when she set the wrench on the floor. Not looking at him, huh. Damn. You'd think he'd poured something unpleasant into her shitty tea, not just dazzled her with sparkling conversation. He was good at what he put his mind to, but really. He hardly even had to work at it.