Welcome to Gaia! ::

It takes a significant amount of courage to step through the doorway, and he chooses to take it in liquid form -- gin that clings to his breath, to the tips of his fingers, to clothing that has seen better days anyway. It transforms him from his usual down-and-out to something slightly more sinister. Hair that hasn't been cut in four or five months looks shaggy and ratty, tumbling into his face, obscuring his eyes, curling against the collar of his jacket. Stubble that hasn't been shaved in four or five days leaves him looking ragged and haggard and just the slightest bit dangerous.

The fear behind his eyes, today, is more pronounced. The frustration that clamps his teeth together makes a muscle at his neck hop. And his own embarrassment, instead of making him more invisible, makes him stand out like a sore thumb.

All considered, there is likely only one thing that will successfully get Charlie through the doors of the Swan, and that is the beast standing at his side: one who is a hand or two taller than most of his peers, heavy-set enough to steal some of the delicacy from his shape, and whose own yellow eyes look sharply on anyone thinking to make trouble. He accompanies Charlie, but more than that, he supports him.

Without the bulk of his Guardian's body beneath his shoulder, Charlie would lose his footing and his way both. Even now, standing on the doorstep as someone fetches Higher Help, looking too crazy and too out of luck and, even, too hungry to be a potential customer at the Swan, Charlie's eyes remain fixed down toward his toes...

It takes more than a long moment for the promised Help to arrive--some miscommunication; some doorkeeping girl busy with a customer. And a guest for Maeve, rather than a guest for the girls, doesn't need a rosy-cheeked, bare-bosomed greeter. And so it is that the person who finally arrives to sort out the newcomer's needs is still carrying a broom, still wearing an apron tied around her slight waist.

She yanks the door open with callused hands, and in the few seconds it takes her eyes to sweep Charlie's pathetic figure her lips thin disapprovingly. Her own hair--a strange, dusty white-blonde--is slightly disheveled as well, plastered in sweat-slick coils to the base of her neck, and she reaches up to shove a strand out of her face.

"This," she announces, "will absolutely not do. Maeve will eat you alive. What the ******** were you thinking? Come in." She opens the door wider for him, and now the broom seems threatening, as though she may smack him like a misbehaving tomcat.

The broom scares him less than the sky behind him, and threatening or no, he doesn't wait another moment before he steps over the threshold and into the relative safety of the brothel's walls. These days, Charlie hunches: his shoulders tight, battered blue coat pulled tight to a frame that lacks the muscle it had a few years ago, and his head down. Even so, he is as tall as her, taller, and straightened, he would likely graze six feet.

More than that, in another life, he could be attractive. Clean-cut and sharp-eyed, in a well-tailored suit, the slight pout of his mouth would transform from its current nervous sulk into something appealing. The red would come out, in his hair. He would break hearts, instead of sweeping floors.

He's not likely to have much success with Janet, today; he turns to look at his Guardian, who shifts in the doorway and is likely too large to fit through after them, and then back to the girl. "...there was a flyer..."

"Well of course there was a ********' flyer," she snaps. "I saw the deer and you damn sure don't look like most of our customers, although you certainly smell like one. How drunk are you? He can wait outside if he can't fit," she adds, gesturing at the Guardian, and her voice only softens a little as she adds: "Mine does."

Moving past him towards the kitchens with the domineering certainty of a woman who expects she'll be followed like a mother hen, Janet, keeps talking: "For your own ********' safety I won't send you up to Maeve yet. You need to sober up for a minute, or at least get the gin stink out of your ******** hair, or she'll have you out on your a** and probably send that pretty boy farmhand to do it, and even I lack the cruelty of heart to subject you to that as a punishment. What's your name?" If she's falling prey to his damaged good looks, she isn't showing it. She doesn't seem like the sort of person who notices.

Several times, Charlie's lips part -- the thought of a reply but nothing more, it fades back into silence when she starts to speak again. Even given the time to get words out, he will be uncertain, trailing her in a surprisingly meek fashion. Fingers lift to his hair, to scrape it off his face, and he shoots two or three looks back toward the door, closed with finality on Fury's nose.

"...Charlie. Uh. Charles Harkins." He is, in fact, Charles Harkins the third -- or was. Once upon a time. He doesn't offer that bit at the end of his name anymore. He shifts, fumbles for something to offer her in consolation for his sorry appearance. "Can I duck my head somewhere? Be fine if I can duck my head..."

He will wash himself out literally, and perhaps it will help with the figurative bits, too.

"I'll give you a seat and a bucket," she replies, with more sympathy than her initial greeting would have suggested. And this she does, as she sweeps into the kitchen. She gestures at a low wooden table and its seats, and has an empty pail in his hand within moments and is moving to grab a pitcher of water and a bowl and cloth.

"Janet, Wood," she introduces, as she does all this. The kitchen is low-ceilinged but warm, bathed in the orange glow of the fire; its close walls make it a bit cavelike, but it is clean and well-kept. "Are you a habitual drunk or has Maeve's reputation got the better of her?"

"H'aint heard a word about Maeve." It seems unlikely, perhaps, in this city -- but judging from the way Charlie is eyeing the place, confused and uncertain. Despite her comments, despite the signs, he might not be entirely clear on what's contained within this building, and the cavelike kitchen doesn't help much.

He sinks down onto the stool slowly, scratching self-consciously at the stubble along his jaw for a moment before he takes the bucket. Slowly, though, within these small confines, he is starting to relax. That knot between his shoulders untangling, he dunks his head thoroughly, and comes up with water dripping down the length of his ponytail, shocked more properly awake.

It will take longer, of course, for him actually to come around. For now he draws in several deep breaths, and looks up at her again, pitifully drowned rat. At least he sounds earnest. "...sorry for the trouble."

"Nothing but trouble here anyway," she tells him, sitting across from him and scrubbing at the tabletop with a brush she'd scooped from the floor. It doesn't look like it needs it, but she looks like the sort of person who has trouble sitting still. She scrubs it like it's personally offended her.

"Maeve runs the place. Thinks she's got some ********' divine calling or something when it comes to people like you and me, and lures them here on promises of ********' glory, but I've yet to see fruit. I didn't tell you none of this," she adds, hesitating in her furious scrubbing to give him a sharp look.

"Wouldn't tell anyway." But he's thinking about it, as he swipes wet hair back out of his face, as he settles back in the seat and looks toward the door. In truth, he wishes Fury had come in with him, a reassuring bulk against his right shoulder. A little shift, a pinch of fingers around his eyes, and Charlie contemplates the value of truth.

When it comes out, the truth seems to hurt him, and he doesn't meet her eyes now. "Haven't been outside in a couple weeks, so I reckon she's done some good, at least."

"What? That drunk, then?"

"No, not drunk." That would be a better reasoning, to Charlie; he winced a little at the question, and gave up on explaining. "Why would she eat me up? She's the one who posted the signs..."

"Because you stink of liquor and she isn't fond of the perceived disrespect of a guest showing up drunk." She resumes her scrubbing. Children have been beaten with less focused wrath than Janet, deploys against some invisible stain. "She's going to ask if you know how to use a ********' sword, and then she's going to ask if you know what the job of a Chosen is, and all that same rigamarole, so be ready with your answers. I'm doin' you a favor."

"...I know how to use a sword." And there is at least that, thank all the Ways. He watches Janet, with his head tilted just a little, out of the corner of his eye. It is a stealthy sort of watching, or is meant to be, except that in truth it's painfully obvious. As obvious as the cloud of alcohol that still clings to the inside of his head, and as obvious as his discomfort.

"And I know the stories. What it's supposed to mean." And as obvious as the fact that Charlie doesn't believe reality and 'supposed to' are completely in line.

"You'll be better off than most then. She'll give you a free thrust with the girls, too, if you ask," she adds generously. There is, perhaps surprisingly, a total lack of judgment in her voice. "Especially if you stay polite and get on well with your folklore and mention the sword thing at length." She pauses again, the scrub brush slowing, becoming less urgent.

"How long've you been... had him? Your Guardian. I'm coming up on a year. They're something, aren't they?" She suddenly smiles--it's not an expression she makes much and it's large and broad and surprisingly unpretty, but direct in a way that most women's smiles aren't in this area of the city. "Lily's as needy as a dog but Maeve's acts like her feet're too good for the carpet. She keeps her inside! She's too ******** big for it. No room in here, all ******** crowded. Had to move her office downstairs to accommodate her when she couldn't get past the first ******** landing any more."

Her goal is obviously not to make him wince, with that language, but he does all the same -- just a bit of a cringe, a hand lifted to swipe hair out of his face. It is an expert little gesture, perfectly hides his expression for long enough that he can regain control. Usually he uses it to hide a tight-jawed grimace of anger, but it works just as well for this.

Charlie draws in a breath as he drops his hand again, looking clearer around the eyes, but not much, now. "...Lily's a nice name."

Inane, and he knows it. He licks his lips. "It's been a couple months with Fury, I...I lose track a bit. But he won't come inside. He's just too big.

Or maybe he just wants me to come out."

Maybe she's more perceptive than he realizes, or maybe she just misinterprets the gesture as one of bashfulness. She monitors her words. "Fury's a nice name too, probably more what Maeve wants out of a Chosen then a flower, right? I've realized that's it a good f--... a good idea to, to, to--" she clearly has trouble organizing her thoughts when she's censoring herself "--listen to what they have to say, sometimes. Lily's led me out of a bad situation more than once. Animal instincts, I guess?"

She eyes him through the hair that's fallen over her own face, one hand still on the motionless brush. "What's stopping you from listening to him?"

The idea alone makes Charlie's breath catch a little, makes him settle forward to lean on his knees, fingers still caught up in his hair. Janet, is watching him: she can watch the slow bunching of muscles under his jacket, can witness the color drain from his face, his eye fall closed. He is thinking about the sky swallowing him up, as unreasonable as he knows that is, and he can't even begin to hide it.

"...I'm out. I was out. I came out." He'd just had to get rip-roaring drunk to pull it off. His eyes are closed now.

That's not a proper answer. and he knows it. The words come out halting, one at a time, sneaking a glance up at her through his fingers. "Because I'm scared and he can't make me not scared."

She puts the brush down beside her seat. If he is expecting derision, he will be surprised to find that he receives none. Her face softens, her eyes searching him over before drifting off to the fire. She doesn't understand why he's scared, of course--he hasn't told her, and if he did she wouldn't grasp it. But Janet,, perhaps more than most, knows what it is to be afraid to be outdoors. She knows the rib-crushing panic of irrational terror, and of a desire to go about in a closed coach, even if their reasons differ.

"Maybe he can't," she says after a moment. "I don't know what works to make a person not scared. Lily can't make me not scared, either. But he made you come here, right? Maybe he doesn't have to make you not fuc--not scared, maybe he just has to make you... I don't know. Figure out how to do things even though you're still scared." She rests her elbows on the table, props her chin in her hands. "I wouldn't tell Maeve any of this if I were you. What would make it easier for you to go home after?" She isn't sure if he wants help, so she doesn't offer it. She just asks.

Walk with me; his mouth even parts to say it, but the words come out as nothing but air. Charlie lacks all kinds of courage, these days, even that limited strength it takes to ask a pretty blonde to walk with him. The initial reaction fades and he has time to think better of it, the impropriety of a young woman walking alone with a young man, what it could do to her reputation te be seen with him, the potential hassle it could cause him at work.

He has been relaxing, her voice reassuring enough to even make him confess his fear. Now, though, that fades away and he bunches, tenses, tipping his own face down into his hands, overwhelmed for a moment by the fact that he's going to have to walk back. With the sky swimming above him. With other people on the streets.

"...couple shots of gin?" And he'd stolen from the bar. Surely they'll notice. He draws in a shaky breath. "It's alright. What does Maeve want of me? I'll try to be what she needs."

She lifts an eyebrow. "I'll negotiate the gin with you after," she says flatly. Clearly she doesn't think he needs it.

"She needs you to not be afraid. Can you fake it?" She doesn't ask him to genuinely set aside his fear. Janet, understands the sort of terror that can't be set aside.

He can dredge up anger, at the least, and anger will mask the fear -- worse in many situations, but perhaps in this one it will serve its purpose. Maeve might like the anger, might see the frustration as potential, might view it as strength. Or she might see the truth, that it takes him over as much as his terror does, and once it comes over him...

He licks his lips and nods, attention sliding up onto the ceiling. His face will still, at least, even if the tension stays in his shoulders. They are inside, anyway, so he can view the situation with a more objective eye. It will not be hard for a spark to grow to a fire inside of him.

"Go on," she says, gesturing at the door. "It's on the bottom floor now, first one down the hall on the right hand side. "Fake it, best you can. Answer the questions the way you think she wants to hear them and you'll be fine. She'll have you write your name in a big book but she won't do a fu-- won't do a thing with it. And then come back here, and we'll talk about the gin." She pauses, and adds: "And I'll be here. I'll wait for you." The unspoken words remain: "If you want me to be here."

She stands, dropping the scrub brush in the bucket, and dusts her hands on her filthy apron. "I could," she says, "do with a bit of a walk. So don't take too long, if you can help it."

It's good she waits: Charlie comes out hot-faced, eyes swimming with anger, a healthy mix of humiliation in the mix. It's not any one thing Maeve said that makes him feel this way, it's not her fault, but he leaves her presence feeling stupid, incompetent, all the little uncertainties welling up. He feels sick. And his eyes fix on Janet, like an oasis in the desert.

"I don't. I don't remember. Which way out." He sounds like an idiot, and it only feeds the insecurity. For a moment, he just closes his eyes and breathes out. At least his Guardian will be waiting for him.