[Closed] Do You Hold a Heavy Heart

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Late Evening, 10 Bethas, 2720
Charlie's Flat

Charlie had a sort of surprised look on his face, when Chrysanthe thanked him, very wide eyed. What replaced it, when he accepted her offer, was a bit of a frown, followed by the bucket.

Chrysanthe glanced down at it, and grimaced faintly. She glanced back up at Charlie. He’d taken his waistcoat off – and his shoes and socks, one of which was sort of strewn about in the middle of the floor. Chrysanthe hoped rather devoutly he did not plan to take off his shirt, or that at least he should give her some warning before doing so, or perhaps to change in the bathroom or something. It was, of course, his flat, and Chrysanthe resolved not to make a fuss if his manners were less than perfect.

“Charlie,” Chrysanthe repeated. It wasn’t as if it were an unusual or foreign name; it wasn’t as if she were trying to make sure of her pronunciation, as she had done so often in Gior. She didn’t know why she’d said it, really. She nodded, looking about as uncertain as he did, as if she wasn’t in the least sure the request had been wise. She had made it somewhat spur of the moment, which was never a very good way of doing things. Well, Chrysanthe thought, striving to be fair: rarely.

It’s not like I think we’re friends, Chrysanthe felt the absurd urge to say aloud. I know we’re not; don’t think otherwise. It just seemed strange to sleep on a man’s couch while he called me Ms. Palmifer. That’s all. She glanced down at the bucket again; Chrysanthe very much hoped she would not need it.

“Could I – uh – have some water, please?” Chrysanthe asked after a moment. Her mouth felt rather odd and dry; her lips were a bit sensitive still, she realized, which was – really rather embarrassing. Actually, the whole night was really rather embarrassing, including the part where she was about to sleep on the couch of a man she barely knew.

Chrysanthe looked down at her hands, loosely balled in her lap. She didn’t quite like to think back on it, but she couldn’t seem to avoid it. She’d had a rather awful date, once which she’d quite looked forward to it, and she’d left rather abruptly instead of trying to make the best of it. She’d followed a strange man to a stranger bar; she’d danced with humans and wicks, and she’d gone out into the alleyway with a witch like a –

Chrysanthe felt something very tight in her chest. She loosened her hands, a little; she reached up, feeling the wisps of hair about her head. She patted at them, entirely ineffectually, and tried to tuck some of them into the woven braid around her head; it did not take much better. She smoothed her hand over them once more, and settled it down in her lap, giving up her efforts.

The worst part, Chrysanthe thought, was that it really had been fun.

Chrysanthe was still looking down, she realized. She glanced up again, and managed a pale sort of half smile in Ewing’s general direction. Her stomach churned a bit worse, and she closed her eyes, feeling a bit of dampness at the edge of them. No, Chrysanthe thought, no. She would not be sick, and she would not cry either. She took a deep, steadying breath, and when she opened her eyes once more they were clear, and not in the least red.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 10, 2720 - Very Late
Charlie's Flat

Ms. Palmifer--no, he corrected himself, Chrysanthe (and gods if that wasn't strange) repeated his name like she had never heard such a foreign and exotic name as "Charlie". Well, at least that meant this was deeply strange for the pair of them. That was almost comforting, in a way. As if he needed comfort.

For what? That was ridiculous. The terror of having a young woman sit on his sofa and say his name? Absolutely absurd. Charlie shifted, uncomfortable. She looked at the bucket, and he thought that maybe they were united on the front of not wanting her to need it. It was a little filthy, so he wasn't sure if her reasons were the same as his. But it was the results that mattered, as with so many other things.

"Oh. Yes. Sure." All of this "being considerate" business was proving very irritating and also confusing. He wasn't sure why he just went to the kitchen to get a cup and fill it with water. The cup, like much of his furniture, had seen better days. It had been in the flat when he moved in, and he saw no reason not to just use it. (He had washed it, of course. At least once.)

Distantly Charlie was aware that his current standards of living were not, precisely, what one might expect from someone of his pedigree. But it didn't matter--all of it was his, and nobody else's. It had to please no one but him. That it did not, precisely, please him was also immaterial. One day all of his work would pan out, and he would return to the comfort to which he was normally accustomed. Eventually.

He brought the cup of water, which was rather tepid in temperature but blessedly clean for once, to where Chrysanthe sat still on the couch. Her eyes were downcast, but she looked up and smiled at him when he came over with the cup. How extremely disturbing. He almost preferred it when she was cross with him; that was less confusing.

"I don't have anything for you to wear," he said abruptly. A practical concern--he had only the vaguest idea of what young women wore under their clothes, but none of it seemed like the sort of thing one slept in. He had a muddied impression of steel being involved somewhere. That she was taller than him, and thus nothing he owned would quite fit even if she were to absurdly want any of it, he did not bother to point out.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Late Evening, 10 Bethas, 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe took the cup from Charlie. The cup was clean and serviceable enough, at least; she had been somewhat afraid he would come back with a flask or a cracked mug leaking all over the place or something which smelled rather more uncertain. She took a sip of water; it was awkwardly room temperature, but palatable enough.

Chrysanthe glanced up at Charlie when he spoke again. It was very awkward, sitting with him sort of hovering above her; she wasn’t in the least used to looking up at him, let alone so far, and it made her feel sort of small and strange. She glanced down at the cup again, and then set it down gingerly on the floor next to the rather dreadful looking bucket, and lifted her chin back up to gaze up at him.

“I should be rather more surprised if you did,” Chrysanthe said, with the same sort of practical tone he had adopted.

Chrysanthe shifted, slightly, and went on. She was, she realized, still wearing her shoes; she wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if she leaned down for a sustained period of time to try and remove them. She did not, for the time being, still sitting upright with her knees together. “I’m not certain how much you know of ladies’ underthings,” Chrysanthe went on; a little smile twitched at her lips, and she quenched it, sternly, doing her best to talk calmly and evenly.

“I can, in fact, sleep in what I’m wearing.” Chrysanthe took a deep breath. “If uh, you shouldn’t – find it too scandalous – it would be rather more comfortable to – remove some of it. I shall remain fully covered,” now she was grinning, just a little, “so you need not worry about your purity of spirit.”

She had certainly, Chrysanthe thought, never discussed her corset with a young man who was not a tailor before. She had come round the bend; a moment ago, the night had seemed unbearably shameful, and yet oddly now she found she was enjoying herself once more. It was probably, she thought, the look on Charlie’s face, which – perversely, made her rather want to continue.

Chrysanthe found she was smiling; she headed directly on into her subject matter with more enthusiasm, and a bit of a laugh in her voice. “The rest of them are simply clothes, you know; just like sleeping your shirt or something similar, I imagine, although I suppose I've never much considered what you might have on beneath. It’s only the corset which really presents an issue,” she leaned on the word, quite cheerfully. “And as I’m not especially well endowed in that – ah – region, there will likely not be much of a difference to notice.” She smiled at him, brightly, and reached down to pick up her glass and take another sip of water.

Oh Good Lady, Chrysanthe thought, she really was drunk. She resolved to enjoy it.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 10, 2720 - Very Late
Charlie's Flat

No. No Charlie did not want to have this discussion. He had mentioned, in a consideration of practical limitations, that he had nothing for Chrysanthe to change into should she want such a thing. He had not intended it to become a discussion of ladies' unmentionables. It wasn't that Charlie was, per se, prudish about it--he just had very little knowledge in this arena.

The conversation swiftly moved to other, related areas that Charlie liked even less. He did his best not to let his discomfort show--his best was not very good, at the moment. He snorted at his "purity of spirit", which made it a little easier to bear the rest of the statement. About getting undressed.

"How kind of you," he said, but he was a little busy also doing his best not to squirm out of his skin. He was only still dressed out of consideration of her delicate feminine sensibilities--he would have appreciated that she do the same. Charlie did not know why she looked so pleased with herself, as it was perfectly normal to not want women he barely knew to sit on his couch and discuss the removal of their underwear.

"Please restrain your imagination, Ms. P--Chrysanthe." Ugh. His tone had been crisp and a little bit whingy, if he were being honest. He did not need her to consider the state of his own underwear, despite debating just moments before if she would get to bear firsthand witness to it.

She was enjoying this, he thought. Telling him all these things about her delicates. And then she went and decided to make him think about the relative size of her breasts and Charlie might have made a face like he had swallowed a particularly wriggly bug. He made a very dignified choking noise, thinking on it. That, he thought, was simply quite enough.

This is what he got for being so generous and helpful! See? This is why he never bothered--all it got you was strange women sitting on your furniture telling you about which articles of their underclothes they would remove and the effects thereof. Perhaps another man would have found that appealing; Charlie distinctly was not enjoying the experience. Which likely was why she was doing it, he thought sourly.

"You may sleep in the nude for all I care! My purity of spirit will remain intact just fine, thank you so much for your concern." Charlie edged away, slightly, as if she might throw her shirt off right now in a fit of drunken mania. "But if you wish to maintain your dignity, there is another room. You can take off your--things in there."

Dreadful, this was absolutely dreadful. He was never making another friend again. He had hardly even done so now, and look where it had gotten him.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Late Evening, 10 Bethas, 2720
Charlie's Flat

At the word endowed, Charlie looked as if a bug had flown into his mouth and he had swallowed it whole. Chrysanthe couldn’t help it; she giggled.

Charlie edged away as if she had gone mad; perhaps she had. If so, madness was much more fun than she had been led to believe. Chrysanthe giggled again. “Oh, your face!” She said; she covered her mouth with her hand, struggling to stop laughing.

Your things, Charlie had said, eyeing her with the utmost suspicion, face still more than a little pinched. For a man who had gleefully told her about the tattoo on his buttock he really was quite a prude. Chrysanthe giggled a little more; she wiped at her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Of course,” she said, solemnly, and then giggled again.

Undoing her shoes was a struggle. The knots on the laces were unexpectedly - well, perhaps expectedly - complicated, and keeping her head at the height of her shoes did make Chrysanthe rather nauseous. She managed without the use of the bucket, and set the pointy toed shoes to the side, socks tucked delicately into them.

Chrysanthe went into the other room. She was rather grateful she had not worn a dress - not that she often did, of course. It was easy enough, all things considered, to unbutton her shirt and unfasten her corset beneath. There was, as always, a moment in which all the world seemed suddenly infinitely better.

Chrysanthe tucked her shirt back into the waist of her skirt, and did the buttons back up. She came out of the room with her corset carefully tucked into her jacket, draped them together over the edge of the couch, and sat once more.

There was no more of her actually exposed than there had been before; she was glad the blouse was one with long sleeves. All the same, she did feel somewhat exposed; being barefoot in front of him was also oddly unnerving. She glanced over at Charlie, who still looked rather sulky, and picked up her water glass for another sip.

“I don’t have any tattoos,” Chrysanthe said, thoughtfully. “But I suppose I could tell you a story, if you like - if you have any requests.” She wasn’t sure why she had offered; she took another sip of the water, and set the glass back down. She glanced over at Charlie again, back still straight, sitting in the odd nest of his couch as correctly as she knew how, her ankles crossed.

It wasn’t, Chrysanthe thought ruefully, as if she could tell him anything worse than she’d done tonight. She smiled, slightly, thinking of it. He still looked so very sulky; perhaps she did feel just the least bit bad. He had let her stay, after all. Just the tiniest little bit, Chrysanthe decided, and no more than that.

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 10, 2720 - Very Late
Charlie's Flat

The giggling felt a little like an assault on his dignity; Charlie couldn't help but feel his feathers ruffle a bit. He wasn't prudish, he wanted to object, although Chrysanthe hadn't said it. He just didn't want to hear about her underwear. Specifically. If Charlie thought there was anything strange in that, he refused to examine it. Absolutely, firmly refused.

While she removed her shoes, Charlie made as if to set about fixing up his bed. Really, he was sort of dubiously prodding it, trying to evaluate if the floor might not be a better option after all. The pillow he had on it was not the most comfortable--that one had migrated to the couch. Maybe he would just sleep on this desk. He did that often enough. Charlie frowned and peered at the sheets, doing his best not to turn around while Chrysanthe got herself arranged. If she chose to do something drastic to get a rise out of him, he didn't want to give her more opportunity than necessary.

He would at least unbutton his shirt, he thought. If she was going to go on and on about her corset and her--nope, not thinking about that--then he at the least could not be strangled in his sleep by buttons. He had a singlet on underneath, anyway, so it wasn't as if great swaths of him was more visible than it had been before. Really, he should just strip down entirely as was his usual custom--see how she liked it. Two could play at this game, Chrysanthe Palmifer! And this was his flat!

The petulant thoughts were satisfying enough that he was less tempted to transform them into equally petulant action. By the time the last of his buttons had been undone, Chrysanthe was back on the couch, sitting as primly as she had been before. Charlie narrowed his eyes at her, waiting to see if she'd do anything else. She didn't appear to be much less dressed than she had been, at least. Perhaps a bit less stiff in the spine. He relaxed, slightly reassured. The suspicion remained--he wouldn't trust this drunken, giggling, taunting version of Chrysanthe just yet.

Charlie blinked at her and frowned, then went to sit at his workbench. He would avoid sitting on the bed itself for as long as possible. No sense in subjecting himself to that sooner than he had to. A story? He tilted his head. Really, he didn't feel as if he knew Chrysanthe well enough to ask. He looked at her and placed a hand to his chin, all theatrical consideration.

"I don't know," he delcared, as if that were something worthy of announcing. "Is this the most ridiculously drunk you have been? I should hope not, you are--" Charlie stopped himself and studied her face again. He had absolutely, completely zero idea how old she was. Older than him. Maybe? Almost assuredly, because he didn't remember her in any of his classes and they would likely have overlapped just a little. He thought perhaps he might remember so very much hair. Although maybe not. "...However old you are. So tell me that. Unless it's boring; then tell me something else."

Everything he said was demanding, but he was smiling a little. He was tired and irritable, but he knew a peace offering when he heard one. And he did deserve one! Really. Talking about her underwear. In his own home! Shabby it might be, and rather filled with junk, and also perhaps could have used a tidying up, but still. He had let her come stay out of the goodness of his heart.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Late Evening, 10 Bethas, 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe raised her eyebrows when Charlie studied her face in an apparent attempt to gauge her age. She couldn’t have said what she thought he would see. She had a sneaking suspicion he was rather young, for all the jaded worldiness he seemed so keen to put on. She had a sneaking suspicion she was rather young, too, as old as she had felt lately.

Chrysanthe tucked a smile behind her hand when he wisely forebear from guessing, cleared her throat, and put her hands back together in her lap. “I don’t think this is the most ridiculously drunk I have been,” she said, thoughtful. “I mean – that is – I can’t imagine you’re interested in tales of adolescent overindulgence at Brunnhold.” Chrysanthe lowered her gaze for a moment, thinking.

He was demanding, she thought, smiling a little to herself. It reminded her of the Hessean classic about the woman entertaining her husband so he wouldn’t cut off her head in the morning, although Charlie was probably likely only to snipe irritably at her and perhaps make a catty comment or too. He had unbuttoned his shirt, at least, and Chrysanthe did her best not to see any glimpses of his chest; it was, she felt, entirely best for the both of them to pretend they were fully clothed still, her earlier teasing notwithstanding.

“After Brunnhold,” Chrysanthe began, glancing over at Charlie, “I had a scholarship to study at the Temple of Qrieth. There are not so many foreigners who come to study in Qrieth – few enough, at least, that I think I knew all who were there for post-graduate studies in Static Conversation, by the end of it, and many who’d come for Physical Conversation as well.”

Chrysanthe felt a growing heat on her cheeks; she took a sip of water, and persevered through. “The Giorans have a drink called keleissk, which is a sort of – very bitter, fermented sort of drink which smells really quite dreadful.” Chrysanthe wrinkled her nose. “It’s quite potent in terms of intoxication, and leads one as well to euphoria, heightened - ah - sensations, of a certain variety, and even hallucination. So I was – well.” Chrysanthe glanced down at her hands, and then back at Charlie. She smiled, a bit wryly.

“There was a woman,” Chrysanthe admitted. “She was Bastian, in her second year at Qrieth studying physical conversation, and I’d never…” her cheeks were determinedly red now. “She was always quite clear with me that it wasn’t anything serious, and we had – by that stage – become – rather well-acquainted. I was still very keen to impress her, though, all the same.”

Chrysanthe bit her lower lip; she let it go, and took another sip of water, then set it aside. “One of the places where they drink keleissk is weddings,” Chrysanthe explained. “She – the Bastian – had an invitation to one from a colleague of hers in classes, and she brought me along as her guest midway through my first year. There was quite a bit to drink and at the end of it all, we were offered some keleissk.”

Chrysanthe paused there; she glanced up at Charlie. “Is it too dull?” She asked. The tiniest little teasing smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Perhaps I’d better leave it there.”

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 10, 2720 - Storytime
Charlie's Flat

No, Charlie wasn't the least bit interested in hearing tales of teenaged excess from behind Brunnhold's red walls. He did, in fact, prefer to think about their dear University as little as physically possible. Chrysanthe hadn't answered the question he hadn't really asked about her age, which he thought was fair enough really. He didn't precisely need to know. He didn't both to verbalize his feelings on the subject of adolescent overindulgence, just raised his eyebrows and waited.

Chrysanthe wasn't quite looking at him, now that his shirt was unbuttoned. He felt a bit victorious, and more than a bit smug. See who likes it now! And it was her loss, he told himself. Everyone benefited from the sight of him. Like some kind of godsdamn objet d'art. Graciously he refrained from rubbing this in her face--he was sort of curious what she would tell him about.

He patiently waited through the talk of her post-graduate study location of choice. As if he had not heard of Qrieth--although he had no idea about any of the rest of it, to be fair to Chrysanthe. Post-graduate education had never, even for a moment, been in the cards for Charlie. Not even for Charlie Almond. So naturally the presence or absence of foreigners in Gior's Temple was not something he hadn't considered.

The keleissk sounded more interesting, and he leaned forward a little. A little more at the mention of euphoria. Somewhere he was dimly aware that this story was unlikely to go a direction he really wanted it to. Not from Chrysanthe Palmifer, who he had firmly decided he never wanted to even briefly picture having relations of any kind. Still, he did love this kind of story. They so rarely ended well. He would see where it went; he smiled a wolfish grin when she said there was a woman. Charlie decided that the ending was likely worth how little he wanted to think about Chrysanthe Palmifer's sex life, past or present.

"You will not," Charlie said, pointing his finger firmly in her direction. "You have just gotten to the interesting part. If you stop now I will toss you back out onto the streets." He waved his hand imperiously at her to continue. The smile rather spoiled the effect, but he didn't find that he minded too much.

[Chrysanthe Palmifer]

Late Evening, 10 Bethas, 2720
Charlie's Flat

Chrysanthe’s smile widened, and she laughed, when Charlie threatened to throw her out on the street if she stopped.

“It tasted, somehow, even worse than it smelled,” Chrysanthe said, thoughtfully. “I’d already had a bit of whiskey, so I persevered, but it was awful. The Bastian had gone first, though, and she’d taken quite a mouthful, so I did the same. There was a truly terrible moment where I thought I should spit it out, but I managed to swallow.”

“I’m not sure I should recommend it,” Chrysanthe said, ruefully. “I giggled a solid ten minutes at the sight of the empty glass. I can’t remember why, of course, but I remember that it seemed like the most amusing thing I had ever seen. We – that is – ” Chrysanthe’s cheeks pinked.

“That was close to the end of the night,” Chrysanthe explained, “and the Bastian had invited me to come and – ah – to walk her home,” she said, seeing Charlie shift slightly on his bench. “I could barely stand – she wasn’t much better – and we ended up in a part of the caverns we had neither of us ever seen before, all lit by glowworms. That, too, seemed very funny at the time; it was, I think, the way they were wriggling.” Chrysanthe grinned.

“We, ah – sort of – managed to turn around, eventually, and at least made our way back to the festival hall,” Chrysanthe said, thoughtful. “By that time I was hallucinating just – a bit. I sort of knew them for hallucinations; I kept seeing glowworms following me, floating at the edge of my vision or glowing in the footsteps behind me.”

“One of the administrators from the Temple was just leaving,” Chrysanthe went on, “and she offered to escort us home. We all walked together; the Bastian lived a bit closer than I did, and so – there we were – standing outside her place, and the administrator, Aakami, is trying to get me to leave and go with her, and I found myself trying to say that I should like to – ah – stay, without quite saying it.”

“Finally,” Chrysanthe said with a little smile, “the Bastian said quite firmly that I was staying the night, and grabbed my hand and pulled me inside. I thought I should combust from embarrassment, and at the same time I couldn’t stop laughing. It was,” Chrysanthe’s face reddened a bit more, and she looked away from Charlie now, “a very pleasant night,” she said, with a slight widening of her smile and a glance back.

“But I don’t think I have ever been so drunk,” Chrysanthe grinned, “and I don’t think I should want to be again, though it was rather fun. I couldn’t look Aakami in the face for months, honestly. We were also so sensitive to light the next day we spent the entire thing in bed with the lights off but – that was,” Chrysanthe’s smile grew a little more, “not so bad either.”

[Charlie Ewing]

Bethas 10, 2720 - Post-Storytime
Charlie's Flat

At the mention of the taste, Charlie nodded sagely like he completely understood. In a way, he sort of did--many of the more interesting substances he'd come across in his thus far brief period of debauchery were like this. Sometimes he thought it was a law of the universe; the more interesting the effects, the less pleasant it was to take.

There was a joke that floated up somewhere from the depths of Charlie's now rather tired mind at the mention of spitting things out. He didn't think it would be prudent to share it. For one thing, because if she had proven anything to him today it was that this joke was unlikely to make much sense. And for another, he feared reprisal. Charlie politely kept the comment to himself.

Charlie did his best to imagine Chrysanthe Palmifer and some mysterious Bastian woman giggling through glowworm-filled caverns after a wedding. The picture was not as difficult as it might have been that morning, but it was still not the easiest. He might have, he admitted, not really formed his initial impression of her character under the best of circumstances. She hadn't met him at his full glory either, but he was always charming no matter the time or environment.

Politely and rather drunkenly attempting to avoid saying that she was staying with the other woman for purposes he preferred not to linger on overlong, though, he could picture just fine. He grinned at the deepening of her blush, finding it easy to set aside his initial distaste for the implications of the subject matter after all. This drunk, talkative Chrysanthe was at least better at stories than the sober, tired version from the factory had been.

"There are worse ways to spend a day," Charlie agreed, with only a slight wrinkling of his nose as the thought lingered. This was fine, he told himself. He said worse things on a regular basis. Chrysanthe was more circumspect than he ever bothered to be, certainly. "Someday, I should tell you of my first experience with cocawine. Not now, but sometime."

Charlie punctuated the last with a yawn he did very little to disguise. It was exhausting, saving Chrysanthe from what he still firmly believed would have been a mediocre date. Also everything he had done all the day before, but it was mostly the last. He didn't draw attention to the assumption that there would be a "someday", and he didn't think on it much either.