[Closed] This Weight Upon My Shoulders

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Early Evening, 18 Bethas 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe raised her eyebrows. “Sell it?” It was a remarkably practical suggestion. She glanced down at the long hank of hair in Charlie’s hand, trying to think. He was holding it out at her, somewhat impatiently; Chrysanthe looked down at her hands, holding the brush and the cigarette. She took a last drag on the cigarette and followed Charlie’s lead in stubbing it out, though she rather wished for a proper ashtray. She smiled at him once more, a little less easily now, when he asked if she was having fun.

Then, gingerly, Chrysanthe took hold of her hair.

It was very strange, she decided. She was immediately more conscious of the weight of it; her scalp prickled slightly at the feel. She tried to envision herself carrying the lot of it solemnly through the Rose and pitching it into the Mahogany; it seemed absurd. She tried, too, to think of leaving it in the garbage outside Charlie’s apartment; that, too, seemed rather odd.

“I don’t think it’s long enough to sell, really,” Chrysanthe said after a moment. “Perhaps if I’d gone from the scalp. May I use your bucket?”

Chrysanthe settled the coil of hair into it, filthy though it was. It was not, she thought ruefully, as if it mattered much. “Perhaps I shall...” Chrysanthe trailed off. She had thought of burning it, but she had a vague sense that burning hair smelled rather awful. She shifted, looking down at the bucket.

Chrysanthe raised her hands to her newly short hair; she began to drag the brush through, the other holding it down. It was startling, the first time, for it to stop so suddenly. She held very still; she smiled again.

Chrysanthe set about brushing her hair more steadily. “I shall throw it out,” she said, looking down at the bucket, and then back at Charlie with a smile. “Though the picture of me mournfully releasing locks into the Mahogany is very sorrowful, like something from a novel.” She found she was outright grinning now, unfamiliar and likely inappropriate. She wound the brush through her hair again.

“We had best finish cutting first,” Chrysanthe said, steadily taming the now much shorter hair. Good lady, but it really was uneven. “It shall make a mess. We can spread something out, if you like, beneath...?” She glanced around, as if a tarp might appear, or a drop cloth. Surely a man who worked on such things in his apartment would have... Chrysanthe thought better of the supposition. “And throw it out all together.”

Chrysanthe paused, looking at Charlie. “I shall go to a hairdresser,” she promised him, “to take the last of it off. If we can just get it,” her fingertips rested on two strands, feeling the half-inch length difference between them. She raised her eyebrows, “passable. Perhaps enough for a drink...? I should say I rather owe you one.”

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 18, 2720 - Early Evening
Charlie's Flat

The smile might have been a "yes", if it hadn't looked so uneasy. He had meant it kind of sarcastically anyway. Just with the way Chrysanthe was swishing her hair about and smiling, it had seemed a reasonable question. Maybe not, maybe this was stressful. Charlie didn't know. She'd seemed gung-ho enough about the notion in the first place. She had to be, right? Coming all the way to Charlie to ask him to do it was some kind of commitment.

Or, she thought he'd say no and was having second thoughts. Too late for that now, if so, because he'd done it. She could always grow it back out again if she hated it. Somehow he didn't think she would.

Charlie shrugged when she finally took the hank from him. "How should I know? Perhaps there's a great call for it." The suggestion had not be serious; he wasn't even sure it was actually a thing that one did. Apparently so, in that she seemed to think it practical enough to be worth consideration. How very strange, the world of women and their hair.

Charlie thought about this mysterious world as he got the bucket, which was somehow even less clean now than it had been last week. He wasn't quite sure how that had happened; he certainly hadn't used it for anything. He mostly had it for things that were likely to catch fire, in which case it was filled with water. Certainly it was clean enough to place some... removed... hair inside of it. For wherever it was going to end up after all of this. Charlie sort of stared at it a moment when Chrysanthe did, and they both contemplated the fate of the blonde locks in solemn silence.

Chrysanthe broke away before he did. To run her hands through her hair, again. Good Lady it must have been bothering her; she just kept doing that. Then she smiled again, and Charlie relaxed a fraction. He didn't realize until he did so that he'd been irrationally concerned that she might have regrets upon actually looking at the cut off bit. Irrational, because it didn't matter to him one way or the other how Chrysanthe Palmifer felt about her hair. She'd asked him to do it, after all--it wasn't like it was his idea. Not entirely, anyway.

"We could put it on a little boat and send it out to sea," Charlie agreed, finding he was grinning too. The image was rather striking. Both of them could wear mourning clothes--or he could try, he wasn't sure he had any. Likely she didn't either. The look on Chrysanthe's face was very strange, but he couldn't say he objected.

A mess--yes he supposed it rather would. He hadn't considered it before, because he had mostly been envisioning the one cut with the large, easily-grasped portion of it. Trying to make it a little less horrific was going to be messier. Charlie looked around. He had a dropcloth, somewhere. He knew he did. He did, after all, sometimes work on rather large projects in the middle of his floor. However shabby, cluttered, and/or flat-out filthy his abode was, he wasn't a total animal. But where was it?

Charlie thought about it, and reached the mournful conclusion that the last time he had needed such a thing he couldn't find it either, and had used a bedsheet instead. It had been entirely ruined, and he had thrown it away. The bed was still made with the same sheets it had been made with last week; he had done very little other than to sort of tidy them up and go back to sleeping on his couch.

"I'm surprised that wasn't option one," Charlie said with a sort of mild peevishness as he crossed the room again. He picked up the quilt spread over the bed and rather violently threw it to a corner to reveal the flat sheet underneath. This he began to tug off of the bed as he continued. "And I certainly won't argue with you there. We may both need it." He pulled the sheet away with a final flourish, then turned back to Chrysanthe.

"Might make more sense if you sit--er. Hmm. Here, just--yes." Charlie spread the sheet out on the floor by his workbench, then directed her to take a seat in front of it. He might as well throw the sheet away, looking at it. He didn't know what some of the marks on it were and he wasn't sure he wanted to. They may or may not have been from Tippy. Charlie looked then to the whice, who was rather happily pecking seeds off of a roll of them. Probably best not to think on that point too deeply.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Early Evening, 18 Bethas 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe grinned wider. “Set it on fire and sail it burning into the night; I read once that they had funerals that way on Vezzea, although I’ve never known whether it was true. It certainly sounds picturesque.”

In a novel, Chrysanthe thought, bemused, she would be cutting off her hair for dramatic purposes. In an adventure book, perhaps to disguise herself as a boy and rescue her beloved or else a smaller and more vulnerable creature; thankfully her beloved would see through her newly short locks, and pledge to love her even before they regrew. In a more serious book, perhaps she would cut it off in mourning, because her husband had always loved her long hair. Either could lead to a dramatic funeral pyre at sea, Chrysanthe supposed, depending on the narrative.

It was heavy and hot and I grew tired of it was not, perhaps, literarily sufficient. Chrysanthe found she was still smiling.

“It was,” Chrysanthe said, mildly, watching Charlie - unmake his bed? Her eyebrows lifted slightly but she thought better of asking. He whipped a rather horrid looking sheet off of it - the worst part was that he had clearly made it since she was last here, and rather neatly up until a few moments ago. She had thought it before and she thought it now, that the whole room was made immeasurably worse by the contrast, rather than redeemed.

“He refused,” Chrysanthe sat, legs propped to the side. After a moment of consideration, she tucked them beneath her and knelt instead. It was painfully awkward, but it was even, at least. Sitting with her legs flat out was uncomfortable; sitting cross-legged modestly in a narrow skirt was impossible. “He said I should regret the loss of my femininity.” He had said other things beside; Chrysanthe did not trouble to repeat them.

She was glad, at least, Charlie hadn’t asked her to sit on the sheet. She didn’t feel angry, anymore; it was done, now. Perhaps she did, just a bit; just a bit, though, and no more. She had not wanted to yet every hairdresser in the Rose, to find one who might help - she had come to Charlie instead. It was absurd, but it was the situation which was absurd too, as much as her actions. Absurdity had driven her to absurdity; what could be more fitting?

“Thank you,” Chrysanthe said, quietly. Perhaps it was what she had meant all along.

Chrysanthe held very still as Charlie came up behind her with the shears. This time, she thought, he would have to touch her hair. “I believe a comb is sometimes used to find an even line at the bottom of it,” Chrysanthe offered, practically. She breathed in and out, deeply and steadily, and tried not to think too much about what he was doing.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 18, 2720 - Early Evening
Charlie's Flat

Charlie would never have thought that a barber would simply have refused to do it. The idea was absurd--what did it matter to them if Chrysanthe Palmifer regretted the--what had she said? The "loss of her femininity"? Charlie laughed at that bit. As if one would look at her and think that what she overflowed with was an excess of feminine sensibility. Not, he supposed, that she was particularly masculine either. Just--he dared anyone to look at that suit and declare that the suit of a woman overly concerned with an abundance of womanly qualities.

"Lucky for you then that I don't care a whit for your future regrets." At least he had that going for him in this ridiculous escapade, it had to be admitted. After all, she had asked him to do it. He did not think his joke about her sense of dress would be taken quite as lightly as he meant it, so he kept it to himself. Her loss, really; it was hilarious.

He was in the middle of contemplating how he had managed to get it so very uneven by cutting straight across when the quiet thanks came. Charlie was standing at her back, and felt fortunate. His face couldn't decide what to do on being thanked by Chrysanthe. It wasn't such a burdensome favor that it felt warranted, although it was actually both a burden and an inconvenience. He had been forced to put a shirt on, after all.

Charlie cleared his throat and scratched awkwardly at the side of his face. "Just buy me that drink," he grumbled. That would do. That was all he really needed. He had only agreed because he felt moved to take pity on her and her clear desperation. Possibly he was just bored. Not for any other reason, and he would fight anyone who said otherwise.

Back to the cutting, then. Charlie realized there was no getting around touching her hair now. There was no ribbon to grasp, and he thought he'd have to line it up and so on to get it even. That was fine, he told himself. Nothing strange about it. Just a bit oddly intimate. So, he thought, was having her sitting here in his flat at all--so they were past that, really. Probably. Eugh.

"I'll go fetch a comb then." Charlie set the shears back down and disappeared into the bathroom once more. It did mean he had to cross in front of her line of sight, but he thought he moved swiftly enough she couldn't see his face very well. Even if she had, he was absolutely not embarrassed by any part of this. Not the hair-touching business, and certainly not the thanks.

He returned as swiftly as he had left, and endeavored to move around back behind her with speed as well. The comb he'd retrieved was actually quite nice; he was, after all, a rather vain man. Natural beauty had to be properly cared for. Charlie had rather settled himself in the fetching, and there was no more hesitation about having to touch Chrysanthe's hair. Not much, anyway.

He combed the ends of it out, finding where it had ended up somehow the shortest. That, he thought, was the length the rest would have to end up. It came to just below her shoulders; possibly shorter than she had wanted, but there was nothing to do for that now. Using this as a reference, he cut across as carefully as he could, a little at a time. It was sort of tedious, and he had the distinct impression it was not fully as it should be somehow, but--it should be fine. Good enough, he thought.

"What made you decide today was the day, anyway?" He was mostly asking to fill the silence, which seemed sort of strange when he was standing so close. Charlie was somewhat curious, though, he had to admit. The way she talked about it, it seemed like it had been weighing on her mind for some time. He did hope it wasn't some sort of dreadfully personal story, but even that might be fine. Maybe.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Early Evening, 18 Bethas 2720
Charlie's Flat

Charlie’s search for the comb left Chrysanthe with a few more moments to breathe.

She would, Chrysanthe decided, look after he had finished. It would be better after a hairdresser was through with it; she worried that if she looked now she should lose her resolve, and it was, unfortunately, rather too late for such a thing. She did not look again at the bucket; she had made that mistake once already, and seen the great golden mass lying in it, and wondered both how she could have ever carried such a thing with her at all times and, too, whether there could possibly be much in the way of hair left upon her head.

Chrysanthe glanced up as Charlie came back, relieved as well that he hadn’t taken too long.

It really should not have been any different, having Charlie behind her cutting her hair. After a moment, she found she was able to relax somewhat into it – not quite to forget, but at least to put it aside somewhat. There was, really, no forgetting, not with the state of the apartment all around her. She felt the comb through her hair; she heard the quiet snip of the shears. She did not try to look or guess how high he was cutting it. There was nothing to be gained by it, at this point; it was already rather too late.

“Nothing particular,” Chrysanthe said. Her hands were resting flat on her knees. She kept her chin firmly up; she knew that from many haircuts, that to look down could be ruinous.

“I just…” Chrysanthe did not shrug, either, for fear of what the shears might do with a sudden shift. “Haven’t you ever been tired of waiting for something? It came on rather abruptly, I suppose. I’ve wanted this so long and it was… unbearable, all of a sudden.”

Nothing had happened. Once or twice something nearly had; she’d come dangerous close to open flame more than once, and for all that she wore her hair braided and tied up, she could well have gotten caught or burnt in the factory. Once or twice she had nearly wished for it, some accident which should not harm her terribly, but which would give her an excuse for the cutting off her hair. She had nearly done it anyway, thinking to cite the risk.

But that was cowardice, wasn’t it? She had cut her hair because she wanted it short – because she did not want to carry the weight of it around one day longer. She could, Chrysanthe thought, own it. She, in fact, had very little choice but to own it.

Charlie pulled back when he was done. Chrysanthe rose, carefully; she glanced down at the scatterings of blonde hair on the sheet. If Charlie wanted, she would help him sweep them into the bucket, or else bundle it up, however he liked to dispose of them.

“I ought to look, I think,” Chrysanthe said, evenly, “before we go out.” She took a deep breath. Sensible shoes, gray suit and all, she made her way steadily through Charlie’s apartment to the bathroom.

For a moment, Chrysanthe avoided the mirror. Then, slowly, she lifted her gaze.

It wasn’t, she thought, so different from the front. She turned, slightly, and the edges against her sleeve were a sudden shock; she swallowed, hard, and lifted her hand, combing her fingers through them. She brushed the strands over her shoulders, forward, and ran her fingers through them once more.

Chrysanthe smiled.

She was still smiling when she came back out; she lifted her eyebrows at Charlie, and it became something more like a grin. “Let’s have that beer,” Chrysanthe said, grinning wider. “I trust you know somewhere?”

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 18, 2720 - Early Evening
Charlie's Flat

That prim posture did her a service while Charlie hacked away at the ends of her hair with the shears. If she'd looked down or been prone to moving around--a habit Charlie had, much to the chagrin of every barber he had ever visited--he wasn't confident he wouldn't have had to take off another few inches just in the process of making it even. As it was, the shortest bit he had been using as a guide was somehow not the length it ended up. Little fixes here and there took it another half inch above that.

"Fair enough," he agreed, a mixture of relief and disappointment that there was no inciting incident to tell him about. Charlie was certain it would have been dreadfully personal, if there was one. But quite possibly entertaining. That there was nothing beyond merely being tired of waiting for something seemed to fit rather well with the picture he was forming of her in his mind.

"I don't often try," he added with a grin she couldn't see. "Delayed gratification, that is. Outside of specific circumstances." The joke left his mouth before he could think about it, and he didn't take it back. He'd said worse to other people--and similar to her, before. Just because he'd called her his friend now didn't make it any different, right? Right. If she had a problem, well. Once again he reminded himself that she had come to him, not the other way around.

"There," he declared and was tempted to thump Chrysanthe on the shoulder. He refrained. Finished at last, Charlie stepped back to give it one last critical sweep of his eyes. It was... still not quite right, but it would do. She would have to pay a professional for the rest. She rose and little bits of hair went positively everywhere. He made some kind of noise of distress that was incongruous with the general state of his home. It was good that he was planning on ridding himself of the sheet anyway.

Chrysanthe helped him bundle it all up as neatly as possible. Stray bits of gold were still littered here and there, flying into the air in the process. Best not to worry about it, he thought. He should really dust the whole place, or something. Eventually. He'd get around to it.

"You do that." Part of him was absurdly nervous about her reaction when she saw it at last. It was quite a bit shorter than before. He thought it looked--well, it looked like it needed a professional with a better eye and a steadier hand (and possibly narrower shears) than Charlie Ewing, but overall was fine. It wasn't as if he were a great scholar of female beauty, but the simplicity of it he thought suited her rather well. She disappeared into his bathroom, and he ineffectually shifted things about while he waited.

There was no screaming or crying, at least. He took that as a good sign. She was maybe too shocked to make any noise at all, but Charlie was an optimist. Also, he supposed, as long as she didn't cry she could be shocked and upset if she wanted. It was the crying that he thought would be the most difficult to deal with.

Charlie let his breath out all at once when he saw that Chrysanthe was smiling even after seeing it. At once his usual self-satisfied grin returned to his face. Yes, it looked just fine. Good, in fact--he was a genius after all. Even at this. He straightened and left off his useless fussing about. There were still little bits of hair all down the back of Chrysanthe's suit, he knew. She could figure that out later. There was no help he could offer--he wasn't about to brush them off for her.

"Your trust is not misplaced! I know many somewheres, depending on our fancy. We could," he offered with a smug look, "go back to the Duckling, and see if Gita likes women with short hair." The Duckling was a bit of a walk, and really he'd rather not go there right now unless Chrysanthe truly wished to--but the teasing was worth it if she did.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Early Evening, 18 Bethas 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe was glad to be facing away when Charlie made his little joke. She understood it perfectly well; she supposed she ought not too, but the sound of a smug sort of grin to his voice left it abundantly unclear.

It left her uncomfortable. She was not entirely sure that was fair, and she was able to put it aside well enough. She remembered a frank sort of discussion of her assets, or lack there of, but she had been drunk at the time. As well, this seemed to her rather an escalation, as he could scarcely have missed what she had been discussing (though she hoped he did not linger over long on that region of her, and she was confident that if he did, it was more frank than genuinely lascivious).

All the same, Chrysanthe supposed that by her own laxity she has encouraged the same in him, even if she had been drunk and it had been - very amusing. She resolved not to make such a mistake again, even before she put it aside in contemplation of her new hairstyle.

Chrysanthe did not in the least wish to go back to the Ugly Duckling. “No,” she said, and to her absolute horror she felt the hot warmth of color on her cheeks. “I remember it being a bit far,” she did her best to cover it; she could at least look at him straight on rather than flinch or look away.

Charlie was smirking at her rather awfully, Chrysanthe thought. She had not fully taken into account that he would be cheerfully glad to tease her. She tried to think of something clever and arch to mention about his tattoo, but nothing came to mind. Anyway, she doubted Charlie Ewing was capable of feeling shame.

With one casual remark, Charlie had managed a remarkable amount of damage. She could not be sure if it was intentional; she could only suppose it was, for it would be rather remarkable to have done it accidentally.

Did she want to see Gita again? As she had done consistently for the last week, Chrysanthe firmly put the question aside. She imagined a mental box, and she imagined stuffing the question into it. The question of what Gita would think of her new haircut, Chrysanthe placed squarely beside it. She imagined closing the lid, and securing it with a good deal of string. It was a very effective technique for not thinking about things which did not need to be thought about, which included both of those questions.

“Anyway, I’m not yet sure how long I shall be in the Rose,” Chrysanthe pointed out. “Surely there’s more than one bar to see?” She raised her eyebrows, grateful to feel her cheeks somewhat cooler. She reached up as if to touch her hair, stopped, and lowered her hand once more, brushing a few strands of hair off her shoulder as if that had been her purpose all along.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 18, 2720 - Early Evening
Charlie's Flat

Oh, good, she didn't want to go to the Duckling after all. While Charlie would have dearly relished the chance to see what happened when she hadn't already had a drink before they'd even arrived, he was not eager to repeat the walk back. Besides, he thought the way her face colored after she gave that sharp refusal was almost as good as that could possibly have been.

To her credit, she did keep looking at him steadily. To her detriment, that only encouraged him to continue on. Chrysanthe hadn't even mustered up a riposte; Charlie's grin got more awful with the knowledge he had scored a direct hit. He wasn't certain that this was the sort of behavior one engaged in with friends; he had very few to reference, especially since graduation. Not proper friends, anyway, which they were not. People happy to see him, out and about, yes. Friends were something else though, and he didn't have many. In fact, Charlie could not name one off the top of his head.

Well wasn't that a grim sort of thought. Entirely too maudlin for the occasion, so he put it aside. Just like he always did when it came up, honestly. He was quite skilled at not thinking about things he didn't want to think about. One of his many charming qualities.

"I'm surprised you remember at all," Charlie said cheerfully. "It is far indeed!" The tilt of his terrible smile assured her that he had not at all missed the fact that she had said nothing on the point of Gita. He would have to remember the next time he saw the witch, although she was not precisely fond of him.

"Back to proper society so soon!" Charlie clutched at his chest in a mockery of sorrow. Truthfully, he thought he might be a little put out--but that, after all, was to be expected. He had just thought that they weren't proper friends, and it was no surprise that they would not be. A couple of nights out and a strange adventure with scissors did not friends make. Probably. Instead of thinking about that, he thought about the question of alternate locations.

"I supposed the question is: high-brow, or low?" Charlie, given his choice, vastly preferred the latter. But he thought he had perhaps tormented Chrysanthe enough for the moment, and since she was buying the question was a little more genuinely worthy of consideration. There were of course plenty of both. One thing the Rose had absolutely no shortage of was places to get drunk. It was one of the city's primary charms by his estimation. Although if she picked the former, he would likely have to change. Ah, vanity.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Early Evening, 18 Bethas 2720
Charlie's Flat

Charlie looked, frankly, delighted by the success of his suggestion. That had not in the least helped with the color in Chrysanthe’s cheeks, but her own trick had helped at least sufficiently. She did, in fact, remember; she remembered at least that the walk had been rather long, and considerably more than she might have wished of what had transpired at the apartment.

Chrysanthe laughed at Charlie’s clutching of his chest. She doubted he cared, really, although she felt sufficiently grateful now for his assistance in the matter of her hair that she could let it go.

She would at least be in Vienda towards the end of next week, to report to Mr. Pargeter. It was not entirely clear what would happen after that. She supposed she looked forward to returning to Vienda, although she did not much care for the thought of facing Howard Pargeter again, let alone working side by side with him in the factory once more. He was the one who should be ashamed, Chrysanthe told herself firmly, not her. He was the one who had disgraced himself.

And yet – even looking directly at Charlie, Chrysanthe could not manage to pretend to herself she hadn’t enjoyed the Rose. Naturally that was due to the satisfaction of her project having gone so well, and the refreshing nature of the sea breeze. The Mahogany was, of course, lovely; she had walked down to the harbor the night before, and passed a pleasant hour on a bench admiring the sunset. That was the sort of thing which she meant; she had found it rather underrated, thus far, and not nearly as dreadful as foretold.

“The Rose has its charms, I suppose,” Chrysanthe said; to her absolute horror, she found herself smiling. She was not sure whether he would think he meant Gita; she almost hoped he did, as that was less embarrassing than the thought of smiling sentimentally at the awful, self-absorbed, irrepressible man in front of her.

“Hmmm,” Chrysanthe grinned at him, although she supposed she was, once more, encouraging him, and she supposed that she should, really, refrain from doing so. If she supposed that the Kaleidoscope was high-brow and the Ugly Duckling low-brow, that was rather helpful. She could not entirely tame the concern that he would choose somewhere shocking simply for his own amusement, but – all the same.

“Low-brow, I suppose,” Chrysanthe said, with a shrug. She put the shears and the comb back into her purse; she reached up, and ran her fingers through her hair, combing it out towards the front. It ended, still rather unexpectedly, over her front; she smiled at the feeling of it, strange though it was. She glanced down, grimaced faintly, and brushed another little bit of hair off her shoulder.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 18, 2720 - Early Evening
Charlie's Flat

"It certainly does," Charlie agreed with a smile that bordered on a leer. Pretty witches in bars, for example. Other charms besides, he thought. If one liked the views and so on, there certainly were a lot of those. Sea air. Things like that. Charlie might, in his more honest moments, admit he was more comfortable in the Rose for a variety of reasons than he had ever felt in Brunnhold or Vienda. There was a lot of genuine appeal to the city, beyond the nigh-overwhelming variety of venues in which one could get plum guttered. Nobody had ever really asked him about that sort of thing, and he wasn't about to volunteer.

Charlie raised his eyebrows when Chrysanthe picked low-brow and shrugged. He had rather thought she might want to go somewhere respectable. It might be that she thought the Duckling was the lower end of the spectrum of where Charlie would take her. She was right, but not because there was nowhere less reputable that he frequented. Something in him just balked from actually taking her to the seedy sorts of places he went when he wanted to forget his own name, real or assumed, and lose himself for a while.

"They're all over your back, too," he confessed while he thought about where to go. Somewhere not particularly expensive, and close to the flat. Somewhere she might actually like; there were a few institutions in the neighborhood. Bar-hopping was not an entirely unheard of tourist activity, and some of the places nearby were enjoyable even outside of his very niche interests. He had caught her grimace as she brushed hair off her shoulder; he hadn't mentioned it before because he doubted she wanted him to assist, but the opening had presented itself.

Charlie's face lit up when he thought of the place, and fell again into a sort of pout almost as quickly. The place he had finally settled on in his mind was perfect in every regard, except--he still should probably be less covered in engine grease. Not that he never went out like this, and not that he expected to be trying to impress anyone on this particular evening, but it felt like a matter of principle. Or vanity, which was also a kind of principle in the end. To him, anyway.

"I know where we can go, but I'm afraid my high standards won't allow me to go like..." Charlie gestured loftily at his person. "Not that I am not still very fetching in denim, but one must have draw the line somewhere." Charlie hesitated, aware that if he were to change Chrysanthe would have to wait. In his flat. Doing... Something. What did one do with guests? Offer them... tea? He didn't have any. He did have water, at least. The question then became if he had any clean cups, which... seemed less than likely.

Charlie looked up at Chrysanthe, then to his couch. He crossed the room and shoved the collection of pillows and blankets that took up most of it to one side. It did not improve the appearance of the thing in the least. If anything, in the daylight and sober, it presented her with the opportunity to consider the very strange pattern of the upholstery and wonder just where it had come from. Charlie would not enlighten her; he didn't think she would like the answer.

"Just, er, make yourself comfortable." He hovered for a moment, frowning. Then he hastily gathered together a slightly fresher pair of trousers and a shirt that did not seem like it was used primarily as a dustrag and disappeared into the other room once more.

When he re-emerged again for the final (hopefully) time of the night, he looked and felt considerably less shabby than he had before. He hadn't bothered to shave (and even he needed to every few days), but had splashed his face with water at least. While everything he wore was far rougher and more casual than a man of means should be seen in it was all in good repair and suitably flattering. He looked to Chrysanthe and quirked an eyebrow.

"Shall we then?"