go and stop

who: lily and charlie
where: little haven
when: evening

Charlie had gotten word to Lily, asking her to meet him in Little Haven. It was probably time he should get to looking at the place that had been left to him. And he still didn't want to do it alone. So, he wanted her to come with. Plus, he wanted to see her, just spend some time where his life could feel less overwhelming and confusing. At the moment it seemed like everything was just complicating his existence, but she didn't. So, he was hoping she could keep things nicely un-complicated.

At the very least, she'd put a smile on his face, something that happened when he spotted her. He hadn't told her what was going on over the phone, though. So he'd need to explain himself. But just seeing her arrive, that was enough to make him feel slightly better.

The message waiting for Lily when she’d got back from her afternoon with Emily was a pleasant surprise and once the dress she’d bought for the gala was safely hanging up in her closet, she called a cab. It didn’t take long to get there and seeing Charlie waiting for her put a smile on her face as she paid the driver and climbed out, waving to him as she did so. “Hey,” she said, closing the distance between them and giving him a hug. “How are you?”

Even if they'd sort of officially decided they were 'together', the hug surprised him. He guessed he still wasn't quite used to how affectionate Lily was. But it was always pleasant, that was for sure. He looked at her, and just gave himself a second to do that. "Still figuring that out. Maybe you can help." he said. "I'm here to see an apartment. One that an old friend who...'passed' left me. I haven't seen it yet though. I didn't really want to go there alone."

The lack of certainty in his reply gave her pause for a moment but it was quick to pass in favor of curiosity about the apartment he was talking about. “And you want me to come with you?” she said, touched that he felt he could ask her and smiling. “I’d love to.”

He nodded when she asked if he wanted her to come with. "This way." he said, nodding as he took her arm, starting to lead her to the building. It was just one up, a nice looking place. It looked kept up, at any rate. When they got to the door, he held it open for her. "I have no idea what to really expect." he admitted. "I hadn't thought anything like this would ever happen."

Lily couldn’t help but smile at how much of a gentleman Charlie was when it came to her, the little things like taking her arm only raising her opinion of him further because she knew it wasn’t done out of obligation but because he wanted to. “You said your friend left this place to you?” she asked, stepping through the door and looking back at him.

"Yeah. He was the one who got me sent to prison." Charlie said. "He apparently felt bad about it." He sighed as he started up the stairs, seeing the place was on the third floor. "Wish he would have said something before he died, though." he said, being totally honest there.

“Oh,” she said, smile vanishing to quickly be replaced with a frown. She wanted to point out that an apartment hardly made up for getting sent to prison but there seemed to be no malice in his voice when he talked about him so she kept the opinion to herself as she followed him up. “Had you spoken to him at all since getting out?”

"Yeah, but last time I saw him I threatened to kill him." Charlie told her, stopping in front of the door. He drew a breath, letting it out slowly, before he shoved the key in the lock and turned it. Part of him expected it to be a ruse, some joke. He expected the key not to work. But it did. He pushed the door open, and stood there, not actually even trying to enter the place yet. For some reason he felt rooted to the spot.

“Quite rightly so,” Lily replied, the tone of her voice clearly expressing her feelings towards this so called friend. Her anger dissipated at seeing Charlie’s reluctance to enter the apartment though and stepping up next to him, she slipped her fingers through his. “We don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to Charlie,” she told him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

"I didn't threaten to kill him over what happened to me. It was because of Maddy. But...whatever. Doesn't really matter now, I guess." Charlie said, still just staring into the place. He could see a hall, and what looked like a big room at the end of it. There was an archway to the left. Her squeezing his hand was nice. It helped. "If I don't do it now, it'll just keep sitting here. I've already put this off." he said. Then he looked at her again, before he determinedly led the way inside, still not sure he was ready, but whatever.

Clearly there was a lot more to this whole situation then she realised but if he didn’t want to talk about it then she wasn’t going to make him. She did however give him what she hoped was a supportive smile when he looked at her and followed closely behind as they went inside. The hallway was narrow but it was clear the place had been well looked after and her empty hand trailed along the wall as they walked along.

The archway to the left turned out to be the kitchen. A proper kitchen, not just a kitchen area. At the end of the hall, that was the living room, which was possibly as big as his whole apartment. It had space, that was for sure. More space than he'd had in a long, long time. Possibly ever. He stopped there, just looking around the place. It was furnished, and all of it was nicer than anything he'd ever had. He didn't realize his grip on Lily's hand was tighter than it probably should have been, even if he didn't actually say anything.

As much as she didn’t want to be, Lily was impressed by the apartment; it wasn’t as fancy as where she and Vera lived but it was nice and a good size. Noticing the way his grip on her hand had tightened, she looked at Charlie, concern clear on her face. “Are you okay?”

He blinked at the question, seeming to come back to himself a little bit. "Sorry." he apologized. "Sorry." he repeated. "Just...I don't know. This is a lot." he admitted. "It's more space than I'm used to.

“Nothing to be sorry for Charlie,” she assured him, smiling a little as she squeezed his hand. “Take all the time you need. Like you say, there’s a lot to take in.” Letting go of him she moved further into the room and turned on the spot taking it all in. “I think my first apartment could have fitted in here twice over.” Though calling it an apartment was generous, she and Ruth had a single room with a tiny nook with a sink as their kitchen and the bathroom was a shared one down the hall.

"My current one probably can." he told her, looking around. He saw a door to the right, and walked that way, opening it up. There was a bedroom in there, a spacious one. And a safe. He flipped the light on, and walked in, looking at the big bed. The furnishings were nice. Nothing too lavish or anything, but still, it was a nicer bed than he'd ever slept in in his life. The colors in there were cool, deep blues and greys.

Lily followed him in and couldn’t help but nod approvingly at the bed; having seen more than her fair share of bedrooms she was quite an authority on the matter. “It’s nice,” she said, walking over to the bed and letting her fingers run over the covers, smiling at the quality of the fabric.

He was thankfully distracted just a touch by her behavior. By how she touched the bedspread. The picture of her there was nice. Pale skin against the darker setting, firey red hair contrasting against the duller colors. It helped get him slightly further away from the shock he was going through. "I'll take your word for it." he told her, quirking a smile. "Pretty sure I wouldn't quite know what to do with that much room, though."

She flashed him a smile over her shoulder and dropped herself down on the edge of the bed. “It takes getting used to,” she told him, unaware of his train of thought as her hands continued to sweep back and forth across the bed. “That’s why I live with Vera, I couldn’t fathom having that much space to myself and even then, when we moved to our place I felt like a pea in a drum just rattling around.”

Continuing to watch her, Charlie leaned back against the armoire. It was that or he was going to do something forward, and he had already sort of made a decision on that note. Instead he'd just kick back and enjoy the view. "Yeah?" he asked. "I wouldn't have pictured that. I know sometimes I have odd tendencies. Sometimes I feel like I need to get out. After I got out? I used to just walk around outside for hours, no matter what the weather was like. And other times, I have a hard time settling anywhere there's a lot of space."

“Why not?” she asked, curious as to how exactly he pictured her in his mind. Her hands stilled as he spoke, head automatically bobbing up and down as he did so; Charlie didn’t talk much about himself unless she asked and it was nice to find out more about him. “Well that makes sense, the wanting to be outside part especially.”

He quirked a half smile at her. "Because you never seem really uncomfortable?" he suggested. "You just...you have this air about you, like no matter where you are, you belong there. Like you're comfortable in your own skin, and that applies to anywhere you happen to be. You never look unsure of yourself, really. Or you're just at homewherever. So it's hard for me to imagine you feeling out of sorts like that." he explained.

Lily flushed a little at that and her smile grew. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” she admitted, sweeping her hair to one side and letting her fingers tangle in it. She knew what Charlie was talking about, it was something Eris had remarked upon when she first started at Babylon, that Lily had a knack for fitting with people. “But in private I can fall to pieces like everyone else I promise you.” She laughed a little but the sentiment was true, more so than she possibly willing to admit.

"Well, you'd never know it. You cover really well, if that's the case." Charlie told her, still appreciating the view. The little blush, her fingers in her hair. Yeah, he was sure when she'd been a working girl, she'd been able to get a man to think or feel any way she wanted him to. And these days, with just being a date, same thing, just without the same payoff at the end. He imagined she was a girl who could create fans if she wanted them. People who would just want to be in her presence again. Like he did.

“It’s part of the job,” she said off-handedly and then immediately wished she hadn’t, her smile faltering. Not that it wasn’t true because god knows it was but rather she didn’t want Charlie to think that she felt like that about him, that she had to put aside all her own issues and feelings and become this fantasy woman for him because the reverse was true; with Charlie she felt like she could be more like herself than she had in a long time. “Keeping personal stuff to yourself I mean,” she quickly added. “My clients don’t know the real me, don’t care that I’d prefer going to a diner and watching a movie than visiting the opera, that playing my cello makes me feel something like nothing else. They pay for the woman they want, not the woman I am.” Not like you.

He watched her as her smile faltered, and felt bad for it. He hadn't meant to do that. Then she kept speaking and he listened, getting what she said. "Sounds really lonely." he told her. "I know a little about it. Not in the same context, obviously. But when I was younger, with the gang and all, I was the guy who made other people bleed, if the situation required it. So I had to be the quiet yet intimidating guy standing just close enough that you were going to re-think a bad move. Don't think anyone ever asked if I liked it. Or if that was what I wanted to be doing. It was just what I did, what everyone else required of me."

Lily hadn’t really thought of it that way but Charlie had a point and perhaps that was why she’d be drawn to him so strongly in the first place. It was interesting to hear that he understood a little of hows she felt and she couldn’t stop herself from frowning a little. “You know the more I hear about your old friends, the less and less I like them,” she said pointedly. “And they weren’t exactly in my good books to begin with.” She knew Charlie could handle himself but the thought of the kind, sweet guy she knew being nothing more than a pair of fists to people wasn’t one she appreciated.

"Don't judge them too hard." Charlie told her, though his expression said that he appreciated the sentiment. "We were kids, and we needed to survive. We did what we had to. I had the most...let's call it 'talent' in that area. Dodge, he was the player, the one with most of the plans. Huck...he was the ladies man. I was the enforcer. Guess it bothered me less, or...I don't know. Maybe that's just part of who I am, that fight in me, or whatever. I know I couldn't have done anything like the other guys. Not built that way. Never been all that much of a looker, never been great with people in general. It's what I'm good for. Going to be taking some bouncer shifts at the Round, and I'm 'security' for the agency now. Think it's just my lot in life."

“I’d argue the not being a looker part,” she replied, smile returning with a playful twist to it; yes it hadn’t been the thing that had caught her interest first but she’d have to blind not to notice that he was a handsome man. “But I get it, doing what you’re good at.” After all she’d only done one thing since her father had died and that was being what men wanted; it was only the specifics of what that entailed that had changed.

He colored slightly. "It was always the other guys who were the lookers." he said. "I mean, I'm glad you think I'm handsome. And the other girls seemed to think I was alright too, at least. But in comparison to the other guys..." he shook his head. "Well, you remember them."

Lily shrugged dismissively. “I remember a bunch of guys who wouldn’t let me play with them because I was a girl, even though I was alone and practically starving” she said, time having long worn away the bitterness that she’d once felt to be replaced with matter-of-fact-ness. “And one who helped me when I needed it.”

"You've been around in society though. They got there too. Huck, he's I guess going by Jason these days. But Dodge was always Dodge. You probably saw them around at fancy parties or the like." he said, not sure if she would have recognized them or not. "And I just did the right thing. Lots of people would have." He didn't say 'anyone would have'. That wasn't true. Human nature was an ugly thing, something you learned growing up in the Sprawl. If he even tried to sell that line of bullshit she'd call him on it because she knew the truth.

“It’s possible I’ve seen them around at some point but clearly they didn’t leave an impression, good or bad.” She stood up from the bed and went over to him. “Not like you Charlie,” she said with a smile as she captured his hands between hers. “And don’t saying doing the right thing like it’s common place. I doubt many people would give two shits about a streetwalker getting hassled by a cop. Not in this town.”

He looked at her, liking that she was closer, getting that soft breath of a scent of her. He brought her hands up to his lips to kiss the backs of them lightly. He just smiled, an expression that was at the same time sweet but maybe just a touch amused. "Guess it's a good thing I had an overdeveloped sense of what the right thing was, huh?" he asked.

She smiled when he did that, one that held as much amusement as his did. “I guess it is,” she replied, closing the small distance between them to kiss him. It was gentle but hardly chaste, holding a heat that hadn’t really been there before.

When she kissed him, he returned it, not trying to change it at all, even if there was a part of him that wanted to. He was all too aware of the bed behind her. It wasn't far. He could just pick her up, take a few steps and they'd be there. But he wasn't going to do that. If they were going to do that, he wanted it to be her choice. While he was okay with her past and all, he was aware that she probably had certain expectations about things. She probably had to deal with men coming at her and expecting a whole lot, all the time. So, in this relationship, he was leaving the ball in her court, so to speak. That didn't mean he didn't want to push things, to take them to another level, he just had self control. Which was a good thing, because the heat that she put into that kiss was something he very keenly felt, and returned, letting himself get lost for a minute in the whole thing. His free hand went to her hip, resting there and gripping just a little bit.

That grip right there spurred Lily on in a way she certainly hadn’t predicted and a small noise blossomed from her throat, muffled slightly by their joined mouths but unmissable in the quiet room and, letting go of his hands, hers went to the back of his neck and pulled him closer. She hadn’t thought about the physical aspect of hers and Charlie’s relationship, hadn’t let herself, the prospect of being genuinely intimate with someone for the first time an intimidating one but she didn’t let that hold her back now, lips parting slightly and her grip on his neck tightening.

Well, the cues she was giving him were hard to misinterpret. That little sound she made seemed to go right through him, something that seemed to make it seem a little too warm in the room. He put both arms around her waist then, pulling her closer as she pulled him in, and he deepened the kiss. Only part of him was aware his thought processes had kind of shut down sooner than expected.

She’d kissed men before back in her Babylon days and it had been pleasant enough, though it varied from customer to customer. This though, this was something else, something new that set things stirring in her stomach and made her feel light headed, a feeling that only increased when Charlie pulled her closer so her body was pressed against his. One of her hands slid up to his hair, dimly noticing how soft it was but the observation was quickly passed over in favour in the way his lips felt against hers and she made another sound, this time it seemed to reverberate around her whole head.

Things were escalating in Charlie's world pretty fast. Though he still didn't make a move for the bed. He really, really wanted to, but he didn't. He did, however, abruptly turn them, so her back was up against the armoire. He pressed against her, not so hard that she couldn't push him away if it was unwelcome, but he didn't break the kiss, either. He hadn't felt like this in...god, he didn't know. Far, far too long.
The move caught her by surprise but the noise she made when he trapped her against the armoire clearly said she didn’t mind. Air was starting to become an issue but she didn’t stop kissing him, wanting it last as long as possible because once it did stop then she’d have to think about what came next and she didn’t want to confront that. Not yet.

Charlie decided he really liked the sounds, and wanted to hear more of them. Often. He only broke the kiss when he had to, though he didn't actually go far. He instead drew in a ragged bit of a breath, and kissed down her neck to her collarbone. Only then did he draw back even a little, resting his forehead against hers for a moment.

The disappointment that came with the kiss ending was quickly mitigated by the little touches that came after and while her grip on Charlie lessened, her hands stayed where they were, fingers drawing small circles against his neck. “That was...um..” She was a loss at how to describe it but the breathlessness of her voice and her tone were testament to how much she’d enjoyed it.

He gave a laugh, something that was still a tiny bit out of breath. "Yeah." he agreed, not needing a pinpointed word there to end her sentence with. "You know, I think right up until then, I was still thinking this was all in my head." he told her, teasing. Though that was actually partially true. Like he'd been waiting for it to not quite work, or for her to pull away, or something. But she hadn't.

Lily giggled, her head still reeling. “I don’t think my head could come up with something like that,” she replied, the hand still in his hair sliding back down to lay next to the other. Part of her wanted to ask if it was always that intense but she felt embarrassed so kept the thought to herself.

"No?" he asked, smirking at her. He leaned closer, giving her another little teasing sort of kiss. "What...no imagination?" he asked, tone light, playful, even. Odd, for Charlie, but she brought out parts of his personality that never tended to surface otherwise.

“No,” she echoed, returning his kiss with a feather light one of her own. “Because nothing I could imagine would make me feel like that just did...” She reached down for one of his hands and slipped it between them to rest against her stomach. “...here.”

He was pretty sure it was cheating for her to put his hand there. Not that he didn’t want it there, it just made him want to slide it elsewhere. He brushed his thumb against her, distracted by everything about her. “How’s it make you feel?” he asked, drifting closer, kissing the side of her neck. He had to do something, so he went with kisses.

“It’s kinda like when I play,” she said, words dissolving into a happy sounding hum at the way he was kissing her and her grip on his hand tightened. “But even more so. I don’t know if I can really describe it...”

Charlie was going to take that as the ultimate compliment. He saw how playing made her feel, she'd shared that with him. So to be even sort of like that had him feeling just a little over the moon. He smiled against her skin, nuzzling there a touch before he kissed again. "Let me know what I did right, so I can do it again." he told her.

A little shiver ran through her then and her head fell back to rest against the armoire as she looked at him through her eyelashes. “You can kiss me again,” she said with a smile, tugging him towards her. Kisses she could handle, kisses were safe and if the first one was anything to go by then she was definitely a fan.

Charlie didn't waste time. She wasn't going to have to ask him twice. He was there in a heartbeat, giving into his desires for that at the very least, and channeling all the others into the kiss. That was safe, right? Or something? Maybe, he didn't know. But he kissed her like he meant it, wanting it to be felt. All the things he couldn't say or do went into it.

And feel it Lily did. Her head swam, her skin tingled and all of a sudden it felt like her legs were going to give out from underneath her. She didn’t stop kissing him though, even as her grip on him became more desperate a practicality now as much as it was anything else. It was all too much but at the same time, she found she desperately wanted more.

With her grip on him tightening, he pressed her more firmly back against the armoire. He put both hands on her hips, and kept her there, wanting to pick her up and pin her there, but he was pretty sure that would be a little too forward. Even if he rather desperately wanted to go with his instincts, he fought them. The channeling it elsewhere thing seemed to be working out for him though, if her responses were any indication.

Him holding on to her like that was just another sensation to add to the list that was threatening to overwhelm her and it seemed far too quickly that the need to breathe became impossible to ignore any longer. Breaking the kiss, her breathing was heavy and echoed loudly around the room, louder than she could have spoken. Her head dropped to his shoulder, hands still gripping him tightly afraid that if she let go of him she really was going to fall over, a notion she found surprisingly amusing and she giggled.

He drew in ragged breaths of his own when the kiss broke, and held on tight when she put her head on his shoulder. When she laughed, he quirked a smile, though there was confusion in it. "What's funny?" he asked, having troubles not going for more already. Kisses...anything, really. He just wanted her. End of story.

“I feel a little drunk,” she whispered conspiratorially as she tried to subdue the giggles, noticing how good Charlie seemed to smell now she was this close and without even thinking she began to kiss his neck.

His eyes started to drift shut when she did that. He smiled, though. "Yeah?" he asked. "How so?" he asked. "You're too warm, and can't see straight?" he teased. He brushed his thumb back and forth against her hip, again thinking that this all just felt good. He felt good. She brought that out in a number of ways, of course, but right now, it seemed a bit like there couldn't possibly be anything amiss in the world. Not with her doing that.

She hummed against his skin, oblivious of the effect it might have on him as she was too caught up in what she was feeling. “Warm yes but I can see fine,” she said between kisses. “But more because my legs are like jelly right now and I feel kinda dizzy.” She did that happy hum again at the small touch to her hip and smiled. “But in a good way.”

Charlie gave a quiet little sound, loving the way she was kissing him. He smiled, giving her hip a squeeze. "Am I going to have to carry you places?" he asked, teasing. Even if he could think of a really close place to carry her to. Super close. Like, less than ten feet away.

Now it was Lily’s turn to be entranced by a noise and she immediately wondered how she could make it happen again. “If you keep kissing me then that’s a distinct possibility,” she told him playfully, her grip on him loose enough now that she could start tracing shapes against him with her fingers, her nails making a light scratching sound against the fabric of his shirt.

“What if I picked you up and kept kissing you?” Charlie asked, smirking. He liked this. It was nice, being in close, with all the good feelings, kisses, and the playful sort of edge to their exchanges. It was a warm feeling, all around. One he wanted to hold onto.

“Now there’s an idea,” she mused, pretending to look thoughtful though the grin she was sporting lessened the effect somewhat. “It sounds risky though,” she pointed out, fingers walking over his torso now so her arms could wind around his neck. “Are you sure you’re up for the challenge? There is quite a lot of me.” Not that she was heavy but she wasn’t a lot shorter than Charlie either.

"Didn't you know?" Charlie asked, grinning. "I can handle anything." Which wasn't the least bit true, but whatever. It was when it came to her, or so he thought. And to prove this, he did pick her up. He did it in one smooth motion, leaning down to slide his hands down her backside to the backs of her thighs, then he picked her up, pulling her to him. That, right as he kissed her when she was there in range.

She was about to counter with ‘Oh can you now?’ but before she had the chance, she found herself being swept of her feet and squeaked with surprise, her grip on his neck tightening instinctively. Then he was kissing her and straight away she relaxed, didn’t get care that her legs were dangling into thin air or that Charlie might drop her and instead she found herself revelling in it, her grip staying steadfast to keep his lips pressed to hers.

He shifted to scoop her up in his arms, cradling her easily enough. He only broke the kiss when he had to, and then he grinned at her. "So, miss 'weak in the knees', where am I taking you?" he asked, that playful sort of demeanor still gripping him.

“Now there’s a question.” Really she wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere, the novelty of being in his arms like that not even beginning to wear off yet but she knew he couldn’t hold her like it indefinitely. “Where would you like to go?”

"Nope, no fair. I asked you first. I'm just the mode of transportation here, it's all up to you, my lady." Charlie told her, swaying her back and forth just a little. He liked this. This was fun for him, he realized. This was all just...nice. His life was better with her in it just in general, but when she was actually there? It was something he enjoyed. Something that was so much less awful than he would have said even a week ago.

Lily would have pouted but then he called her a lady which set her off giggling again. “Oh in that case, to the ends of the world and back again,” she said with a grin. “We might want to pick up sandwiches or something.” Then she kissed him again because she could, loving that they were doing something so silly and light-hearted.

He kissed her back, spinning them around. He wanted to go drop her on the bed, but instead, he brought her back into the living room, setting her carefully down with her feet on the couch. Then he turned around, and put his arms back. "Here, I'll give you a ride, let's check out the rest of the apartment. You keep kissing me like that and it's going to lead to trouble." he explained, though he didn't sound like he minded, so much. He was just in a very good mood now, all around.

She may not have had a piggy-back ride since she was a little girl but she clearly hadn’t forgotten how they worked. She was just grateful the skirt she was wearing had enough fabric to deal with her slipping her legs around him, not so much though that the small tear it had acquired at the park didn’t get bigger. She ignored it though and pressed another kiss to his cheek before grinning. “Heaven forbid we get into any more trouble,” she teased. “We’re both doing so well at being upright members of society.”

"Hey now. We've got respectable jobs...I can hide the slice wound on my arm...we're the epitome of respectable." he teased, bringing them over towards a door they'd not looked into yet. Reaching out, he opened it up then walked inside, waiting for her to flip on the lights.

“Oh yes, the epitome,” she replied with a laugh, their close proximity meaning she didn’t have to push her voice at all and he would still hear her. Leaning for the light switch, she flicked it on and blinked a couple of times as the room was flooded with light. “Oooh, that’s nice,” she said, the sound bouncing off the tiled walls then back towards them.

He looked around, impressed with the bathroom. "This is the biggest bathroom I've ever seen in an apartment." he admitted, waking them a little further inside. The tub was big. It was all nice, too. Good, quality fixtures.

It was in fact bigger then her bathroom but then the apartment she and Vera shared had two of them and the older girl’s one was larger so she kept the observation to herself. “I think you could actually fit a whole family in that bath,” she observed wryly, resting her head lightly against his. “Which would certainly save on water.”

"Yes, it would. But I don't have a family to bathe with. Also? Creepy." he told her, smiling. "But if you ever wanted to..." he trailed off, turning them around to look around at the shelves, and the little linen closet set into one wall. "I guess I could look for my siblings." he commented. "I had a brother and a sister." He didn’t usually talk about that. Ever.

“I said you could, not that anyone should,” Lily countered, the smile she was sporting evident in her voice. “But maybe I’ll take you up on that offer sometime.” Her expression shifted into something more serious at his mention of siblings though and she shifted slightly so she could catch glimpses of his face. “What happened to them?”

"I don't know." he answered, starting to head out of the bathroom, waiting for her to shut off the light before he started off into the apartment again. He found another closet in a hallway leading off the living room, and then saw there was a dining room that connected back to the kitchen. "My dad died when I was little, and our mom couldn't afford us. My brother took off and disappeared on his own. My sister, she was adopted right away. I was at the orphanage for a little while, then left to go join the ranks of Dodge's gang." he explained. "I guess I always figured my sister wouldn't want to know who I was, or anything. If she got adopted, hopefully it was to a good family. So she wouldn't want some stray brother around, especially not one who got sent to prison."

Lily really wasn’t paying attention to what the rest of the apartment had to offer and instead was listening to Charlie talk. “You’re a good man Charlie,” she said when he was finished, shifting the position of her arms a little so she could hug him. “A girl would be lucky to have an older brother like you I’m sure.”

"You see things in me other people wouldn't." he told her, coming back around to finally enter the kitchen. He set her down on a counter top, then turned around, so he could look her in the eyes. "You see past things other people would get stuck on. If she's got a good life, if she's someplace good, if I turned up that could really ruin things for her."

“Aren’t family supposed to see the best in each other though?” she pointed out, a faintly sad expression on her face that tended to appear whenever she thought too much about the subject of family. She could understand his reservation though, the fact he worried about damaging her life only further proof of the type of guy he was and she grabbed his hand. “But maybe you don’t have to show up out of the blue if you found her, you could write a letter. Let her decide if you in her life is a good thing or not.”

"They are, but I said--I was little when this happened and she's my little sister. She might not even remember me. So I wouldn't be anyone to her. Just...some guy who went to prison who could fuck things up for her." Charlie said. He smiled a little when she grabbed his hand, and mentioned the letter. Reaching out with his free hand, he cupped her cheek, ghosting his thumb across it lightly. "Maybe." he said. "You'd have to help me write it, I wouldn't know what to say."

Lily lent into the touch, her free hand coming up to rest over his. “You do remember me saying that words aren’t really my strong point, right Charlie?” she reminded him gently, returning his smile. Neither was family for that matter but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do this for him if he wanted her too. “But you know I’ll help you as much as I can.” She turned her head a little so she could kiss the heel of his hand.

"You do fine with me." Charlie told her, voice soft as well. "Besides, you're the one of the only people around with a good opinion of me." he added. When she kissed his hand, he brought her in, brushing a kiss across her lips.

Kissing Charlie was rapidly reaching the top of her list of favourite things to do and when he broke away, she was smiling. “Well you did make a very good first impression,” she said, heels drumming lightly against the cabinet behind her as she grinned up at him. “And you’ve never done anything to go against that so I think the opinion’s staying put.”

He laughed a little, resting his forehead against hers for a moment. He wanted to ask her then if she'd live there, in the apartment with him. He wanted to tell her that she made him happy, and now that he had a place that was nice, maybe they could share it. He knew she had a place, and a room mate, and all that, but the urge was nearly overwhelming. It was probably too soon. He knew that. Hell, they'd just decided they were going to be a couple, asking her to move in would be ridiculous. The impulse was there, though. To just...hold onto her with everything he had. He had finally found a good thing in his life and he didn't want to risk losing it. Calm down. Don't ruin this. he told himself. "I'll do my best to live up to it." he promised.

Lily smiled and took hold of his face with both hands, pulling back just enough so she could see his eyes. “I don’t doubt that for a second,” she said, the conviction in her voice and eyes so different to the way she was gently touching him but at the same each emphasising the other. Then she kissed him again, it too sharing the passion with which she’d spoken.

That was when Charlie decided that he might just be in love with her. As stupid as that was, she could look him in the eye and say something like that, and he believed her. She had faith in him, when she really probably shouldn't. But she made him want to believe in himself, too. Made him want to be sure he never disappointed her. It was probably a good thing she kissed him then, because it meant there wasn't any room for him to say anything idiotic. So he just kissed her back and tried to convey things that way. So far that method had been working for him, and he decided to continue the trend.

There was no way for her to know what he was thinking as they kissed but there was no disguising the intensity with which he kissed her back and without even thinking about it, she matched it. Her feet hooked around his legs and her hands left his face to bunch in the front of his shirt, quite happy to get into trouble if this is what trouble felt like.

Being matched with things, the feel of her hands on his shirt, her legs around him...it was all making his resolve to be a little more gentlemanly with her slide. He didn't actually act on anything yet, but he pulled her to the edge of the counter, right up against him and pressed against her. In that moment he just wanted more. More of her.

Lily wanted more too and letting go of his shirt, slid her fingers beneath it and up his back. There was a small voice somewhere in her head telling her to slow down otherwise she was very quickly gonna have to deal with something she wasn’t emotionally prepared for but it was lost beneath everything else her brain was trying to process.

Shivers went up his spine at her touch there, and he really wanted to just take his shirt off. And possibly all of the rest of his clothes. And hers. Really, they didn't even need to go find the bedroom again, he was good right here. But he didn't. He managed to keep himself in check. Or, as in check as someone desperate for someone else could be. Which meant he did push against her, just a little, enough for her to be aware of her effect on him. That, as he only broke the kiss to breathe, and instead trailed them down her neck, drawing in breaths between kisses.

That shiver quickly went on the things she really liked about Charlie and hoping to get the same reaction again, she dragged her nails lightly downwards, barely hard enough to leave a mark, let alone break the skin, but just a little something to test the waters. Then she felt him press against her and it was a good thing he broke the kiss when he did as it caught her by surprise and a small gasp escaped her lips. It shouldn’t have caught her off guard, after all she had more then enough experience in that regard, but it did and with it reality swept back over her with a crash. “Charlie...,” she said, loathe to stop him kissing her when it felt so good but knowing if they didn’t now, she might not be able to.

Her nails got a full on moan out of him. It had been unexpected, but he could deal with that. And the gasp he heard was nice, but then she was saying his name, and it didn't sound like a 'do that again' tone. And when it registered, he froze, just for a second, before he very abruptly pulled back. "I'm sorry." he said, that instinct immediate. To apologize for his behavior.

“No, no Charlie, it’s okay,” she said quickly, trying to reassure him while already missing the feel of him against her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just...” She trailed off, unsure of how to tell him that a former prostitute was scared about having sex with him.

He shook his head. "No, I..." he trailed off too, then sighed, stepping back farther so he could lean against the counters across the room from her. "...we haven't talked about this." he said. "I know for me, I've wanted to be careful about things. I don't want you thinking that's all I want out of you, or anything like that. And with your history, I wanted things to sort of...I wanted you to decide if anything happens. I was getting carried away, and I'm sorry."

Lily hated seeing him put distance between them but given how even now that small voice in her head had developed into a full blown shout, she still wanted to touch him it was probably a good idea. “I got carried away too,” she told him, touched to hear how he’d already thought about things, how he wanted her to dictate how things progressed between them. It was that which convinced her to be honest with him, embarrassment be damned though it didn’t stop the colour from coming to her cheeks. “You know I told you I’d never been anyone’s girl?”

Charlie nodded. "yeah, you said that." he said, not sure what it might have to do with this. So, he just stayed quiet, and let her continue.

She sighed, the red in her face darkening. “Well the fact is I ain’t ever been with someone who wasn’t paying for it,” she said not quite meeting his eye, her old Sprawl accent creeping back into her voice as was so often the case when she was wound up about something. “You’re the first guy I’ve actually wanted to be with that way.”

He watched her, then quirked a smile. "So it's special, in a way." he said. "I understand. Or, I think I do. How about we just go with what I was saying? When you decide it's time, then it's time." he said, easily offering that since it had been his plan to start with. He was happy to do it. It was fine by him entirely.

“Yeah it’s special,” Lily told him, lips curling into a small smile. It was also terrifying but she had no idea how to tell him that without it upsetting him. He wasn’t angry now though and that was something to hold on to, everything else she could go talk to someone about. “You realise the slight flaw in your plan though don’t you,” she said, sliding off the counter and crossing over to him. “It relies on me having to stop myself around you when I really don’t want to.”

He watched her get closer, and really wanted to reach out and pull her in, but he didn't. In fact, he shifted slightly so he was actively leaning on his hands, trapping them between himself and the counter. "We could always not do things like we were just doing." he told her. Even if he absolutely hated that idea.

Her smile grew wider at that and held a myriad of emotions though disbelief and fondness were the easiest to see. “Charlie, you really are one in a million,” she said warmly, unable to stop herself from touching him, even if it was an innocent hand resting against his arm. And a much better person than you ever give yourself credit for. “Seriously, you amaze me.”

"I didn't say I'd like it." he told her, with a light smile. "And it might entail you sort of...not touching me all the time. But it could be done." he said. Because he'd tough it out, if that was what she wanted. He was still completely taken with her. He still had a very firm idea in his mind that he wanted to keep her, and he'd do that whatever it took. So, if it meant being a perfect gentleman for a while? Sure. He could do that. “Whatever you want.”

“What I want is the problem,” she said with a small laugh as she took a step back and crossed her arms in front of her. “But when I figure out how to stop worrying about it, you’ll be the first to know about it.”

Charlie smiled. "I'll be waiting." he promised. Probably aching for her while he waited, but he'd do it. He was happy, with her. And he wanted to continue to be. So he'd make whatever sacrifices he needed to. It would be worth it. He was sure of that.