"We'll see." It's an easy, stray remark as he sets the sole of his shoe up against the edge of the coffee table. Ten months isn't that long, but it's long enough that he doesn't look or feel so alien in the sharp lines of a dress shirt and trousers. Not natural, not by a long shot, but not necessarily odd. --A hell of a lot less strange than the look of Frazer with her hair coming down, bare thighs and the sweater slumping around her shoulders anyway.
Charlie props the book up against his leg and flips it open. There are earmarked pages and notes in the margins in his own handwriting but he can't for the life of him recall the circumstances that he made them under. "Planning to lay about all day then, are you?"
She smiles at that. Hollow and practiced as usual, the corners of it not quite landing where they should; lack of sincerity not being the culprit this time so much as years of incessant insincerity to the point that she's forgotten how to properly, in the same way that she's forgotten what it's like to lay out in the mornings, or dirty her fingers up with grease.
"It's been a very, very long time since I last had the chance."
And she doesn't enjoy watching him paw through pages, or the look on his face while he does it.
"You could do the same." Frazer suggests, spitting out the idea at last with little effort to hide how she expects him to do whatever she herself wants to at the time, when buttoning up early is precisely what she's demanded for months.
He makes a low noise, part amused, but doesn't raise his eyes from off the page as he flips through the book. "I've a stack of ciphering to before we hit the Caribbean." He assumes - safely - she'll be toting him along with her. And lazying about in her company isn't really--
It's not that he necessarily dislikes the idea so much as he does distrust it. Something about it seems contrary, too simple.
No, she expected as much. So when disappointment hits it's more the usual sharp pang of frustration that turns her bitter, has her finally glancing over and contemplating whether or not she cares for what she's created. Maybe he ought to stay here when she leaves; Talbot could easily do Cutter the favor of helping him appreciate her company.
Frazer climbs up to her feet a few seconds after. Blankets not being nearly as satisfying as they were this morning, anyway.
"And if I said no." To dragging him along, to letting him work, to anything really.
He should look at her then, some small desperate part of him thinks. Raise his eyes and meet hers, allow himself to be a hard immovable sort of wall. So bloody what if she says no? She may technically be his boss, but after this long of cleaning up the messes she's left he's due a bit of getting his way.
Instead he continues to flip pages, thumb trailing over marks in the margins and washed out black and white photos of lonely deserts. "Suppose I'd cross that bridge when I came to it then."
Call it an attempt at reclaiming something too far gone to be resurrected. Grasping at straws through memories eroded by sessions spent with a needle in her arm. With Talbot's voice no more than a few inches off though it seemed repulsively close and exceedingly distant all at once. Copper and heat and the sting of bright, bright lights.
Charlie's refusal isn't a catalyst or a brick wall, isn't something that ought to be offensive to her.
Still, she takes it personally. As if evidence itself is the cancer, the cause. "Am I so unappealing to you that you'd rather work than sit in with me?"
It's a smile he doesn't see with his head still bowed, still thumbing through the pages of the book. There's loose paper tucked into the pages - notes for something that he can't quite puzzle out and for a moment the niggling itch of something like recognition scratching at the back of his head is more compelling than the question asked through the narrow gap between her top and bottom teeth. T.E. Lawrence is scribbled on a scrap of a photocopy. How absurd.
But he does glance up eventually. And while he means for it to be a brief glance, he finds his gaze settling there.
"Ah, yeah. You're a complete monster. I mean look at you, all next to naked and rumpled. You'll sour the milk in your very tea at this rate."
She rolls her eyes. Drops the smile quickly enough to roll across and drape herself over the back of the couch. Hardly matters if Cutter's tossing out compliments when the man's jamming his nose into a book with every chance he gets.
So for a moment or two he's ignored while she contrasts and compares where he falls short of Talbot regarding the matter of dedication: when he's not chomping at the bit to take her coat while they're dealing with problematic contacts, or how he spends too long mulling over his own drink to notice hers is nearly gone. How she has to empty it entirely and let the glass sit before he's on his feet and working over towards the bar. Habits they can't effectively seem to train out.
And it occurs to her then, belatedly, that for all the frustration it breeds that those differences are, sat alongside his sharpness, part of what keeps him entertaining. Aggravating at times, but entertaining.
Frazer turns back towards him. Cranes her neck and nothing else. "I'll go dress then, shall I?"
He makes a low little noise without looking away, mouth pulling. It makes for a thin edge of teeth - momentary, but nonetheless there. A quirk of his eyebrows.
"Do what you like," he says, as if it's politic and not inflammatory. As if he doesn't know exactly what he's doing.
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no subject
Charlie props the book up against his leg and flips it open. There are earmarked pages and notes in the margins in his own handwriting but he can't for the life of him recall the circumstances that he made them under. "Planning to lay about all day then, are you?"
no subject
"It's been a very, very long time since I last had the chance."
And she doesn't enjoy watching him paw through pages, or the look on his face while he does it.
"You could do the same." Frazer suggests, spitting out the idea at last with little effort to hide how she expects him to do whatever she herself wants to at the time, when buttoning up early is precisely what she's demanded for months.
no subject
It's not that he necessarily dislikes the idea so much as he does distrust it. Something about it seems contrary, too simple.
no subject
Frazer climbs up to her feet a few seconds after. Blankets not being nearly as satisfying as they were this morning, anyway.
"And if I said no." To dragging him along, to letting him work, to anything really.
no subject
Instead he continues to flip pages, thumb trailing over marks in the margins and washed out black and white photos of lonely deserts. "Suppose I'd cross that bridge when I came to it then."
no subject
Charlie's refusal isn't a catalyst or a brick wall, isn't something that ought to be offensive to her.
Still, she takes it personally. As if evidence itself is the cancer, the cause. "Am I so unappealing to you that you'd rather work than sit in with me?"
It's said with a smile.
no subject
But he does glance up eventually. And while he means for it to be a brief glance, he finds his gaze settling there.
"Ah, yeah. You're a complete monster. I mean look at you, all next to naked and rumpled. You'll sour the milk in your very tea at this rate."
no subject
So for a moment or two he's ignored while she contrasts and compares where he falls short of Talbot regarding the matter of dedication: when he's not chomping at the bit to take her coat while they're dealing with problematic contacts, or how he spends too long mulling over his own drink to notice hers is nearly gone. How she has to empty it entirely and let the glass sit before he's on his feet and working over towards the bar. Habits they can't effectively seem to train out.
And it occurs to her then, belatedly, that for all the frustration it breeds that those differences are, sat alongside his sharpness, part of what keeps him entertaining. Aggravating at times, but entertaining.
Frazer turns back towards him. Cranes her neck and nothing else. "I'll go dress then, shall I?"
wow excuse my crap icons sry
"Do what you like," he says, as if it's politic and not inflammatory. As if he doesn't know exactly what he's doing.