Charlotte sighed. It was more of a scoff. How could he think that that shelf would go with her antique sofa? She could imagine the look on Lia’s face if she stepped into their living room and saw the combination; she could see Melanthe’s cool, quirked brow and pretty smirk. Even Julian might blink, and Julian was a teenage boy who probably cared as much about furniture as he did about color-coordinating his tie with his date’s lipstick. (Granted, Julian was a special boy with very chic taste, much thanks to his wise Aunt Charlotte.) She looked from one man to the other, trying to make the designer-slash-salesman join her side.

As it turned out, there were bigger headaches than planning social events for the national Wizarding chess champions: furniture shopping with one’s boyfriend was near the very top of that list.

She hadn’t thought it would be this hard. Charlotte loved to shop. And Felix had good taste. He had her! So why was he being so impossible? She lifted her chin a little, pouted her lips together in tiny o-shape. “Why don’t we put this one in your study?” She tried to sound reasonable, enticing. Her eyes flickered from the salesman to Felix. Charlotte had already dreamed of a woody, masculine study in rich wines and cherry accents, perhaps a leather chair where Felix could sit with a glass of whiskey while Charlotte modeled her coy elf cheeky maid demure costumes. Unfortunately, she hand’t run this past Felix, who was not a middle-aged alcoholic banker living in the 1950s. She was also hoping one of the spare rooms might be an extension of her (already extended) closet, though she had also kept her penthouse. It would be a drag having to apparate back and forth, but it was a sacrifice one had to make when one decided to move in with a lover.

“Or, what about that one?” She asked, hand slipping gingerly over his arm as she pointed toward another piece. “It would be perfect with this coffee table.” She gestured toward a third piece, and offered a smile, hoping to lure a yes, you’re absolutely brilliant, Charlotte St. James past his lips.

There was little more that Felix hated more than having to rise before ten in the morning, but this day was the day for discovering something the astronomer would newly abhor; rising before ten in the morning to go shopping. Felix felt his lips tweak in disgust at even the thought, but it didn't detract from the fact that here he was, in a stuck-up furniture store, watching as the love of his life listed off the furniture they would need to kit out a new house, while all the while trying to hide the price tags from the wandering eyes of the young man she was with.

“Why don’t we put this one in your study?”

Felix resisted the urge to mimic Charlotte in an annoyingly high voice. The whole concept of shopping for these things was to him a ridiculous one, and one that he felt he could rather do without. Being out of his comfort zone was leading the young man to be stroppy and spoilt. Shopping had never been his forté, something that had much irked his mother when he was a child.

Felix blinked. "No." His statement was blunt and finite. He let his eyes move swiftly around the showroom, until they stopped at a barbarically large bookcase finished in rich oak hues. He pointed at it and grinned. "That is going in my study. I need somewhere to display my quidditch figurines and my comic books." Felix's grin faltered as he saw the salesman offer a sympathetic expression in Charlottes direction, and - like a petulant child - Felix folded his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“Or, what about that one?”

Charlotte carried on talking, something to do with a coffee table, as she slipped her arm through his and led him towards the offending piece of wood. Felix looked at it as though it was something to be discovered, some far-off constellation to be understood and pulled apart. Lifting the price tag between two fingers cautiously, he felt his eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. "Charlotte," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth whilst keeping an eye on the salesman who seemed to be growing increasingly uncomfortable, "This is almost two weeks wages for me, and I'm in a well paid job! That just proves how expensive this is! I could make one of these for a fraction of the cost!" He eyed the disobliging chunk of trunk with suspicion, before adding "Besides, I thought cherry was a fruit not a type of wood. I don't trust anything that's not oak or pine!"

Her own penthouse had been bathed in whites and off-whites and very muted gray tones, lighter wash woods. Charlotte had the mind to do much the same for their new place, but she thought Felix should have his own space. That she decorated. So she was surprised that he wasn't thrilled she was going to let him have some dark, woody, cherry-toned man haven.

No. He had told her no. And it wasn't over some silly thing, like no, you can't riffle through my family photographs and find something with which to blackmail the Marren men. He was telling her ‘no’ about her personal aesthetic! He was telling her should couldn’t have what she wanted. She pouted. If that didn't work, they Felix was doomed.

"Absolutely not oak. We’d have to paint it.”

But it was too late. He was enamored of some silly, low-key thing... and it wasn’t even the sort of subtlety Charlotte could get behind. “Don’t listen to him,” she said urgently to the salesman, as if Felix had uttered some terrible expletive in front of him. She turned back to her partner; simpler days of daring each other’s clothes off in a train lavatory were far off from this very adult benchmark. “If you like pine and oak, why are you picking the one's that clash with what I've already planned? Why not a nice white pine?" They could compromise.

But even better?

Beech or maple.

“Maybe cherry is a bad idea... it will clash too much with the other rooms. That’s not good real estate.” Charlotte scoured the showroom and found something that look good with leather-bound books (the quidditch figurines would have to go in a cabinet, she thought, but Felix was a delicate man. That would have to be revealed later, when she could stroke his brow and ego and murmur things to him that would make his mother blush. “We could stain this one to make it look more rustic,” she suggested, still intent on owning the table. And, naturally, by rustic, she meant chic.

But Felix had found a price tag-- the very last thing Charlotte wanted to happen. She had told the man to hide the prices for their appointment, that she could take care of their joint expenditures. She winced as he mentioned (in alarming perspective) how pricy her taste was. They'd been together for months now; he knew her as well as any did. Did he really she was going to drag him to the Wizarding equivalent of IKEA?

“Love,” she tried, eyes bright, biting her lip with practiced precariousness, timidity. She was positively demure. “Don’t you want me to make you another calendar you can put on your desk? You know oak doesn’t compliment my complexion.” She stood on her tippy toes, touching his cheek. “Maybe I’ll just have to wear more clothes.”

He had it all wrong. Cherries were a fruit, but cherry was also a handsome wood. He should have left it a coffee table connoisseur, like Charlotte. Maybe shopping together was not the best idea. And while she had conceded that they didn’t need cherry, now that he wanted to argue the point, she would, too. Charlotte could champion cherrywood.

“How do you not trust a piece of furniture?” She asked, snapping out of the careful seemliness in a matched whisper that was nevertheless loud in its restrain. A mean smile came to her lips, humor danced down her throat. “Is it a horcrux, Felix? I would be wary of trusting something we buy just because it’s affordable. This is an investment!”

The idea of Felix making their furniture-- while delicious in some far-off daydream-- was laughable. There were a plethora of other woods they could pick, ready-made, sanded and polished furniture in beech, maple, butternut, mahogany, lauan, hickory, rosewood, walnut, even elm. All they had to do was buy it (and maybe paint it).

She let go of his arm and looked away, moody. When she collected herself, she turned to the salesman. “Give us a moment?” She asked soberly. It wasn’t so much a question; the man understand, had certainly been through this on several occasions (perhaps this week alone).

“We should both love what we chose,” she said more soberly, looking at Felix. “Should we go to another store? Don’t worry about the price tag, just pick what you love.” Minus that shelf. His practicality was going to be the death of her. She was still a little stubborn about agreeing to the shelf, too, even if it wasn’t terrible. Even if this was their place, and it was for his belongings. It was a matter of control. Charlotte wasn’t quite ready to compromise, even if she insisted they should.

Why not white pine? There was a question that Felix was all-too happy to answer. "Because," he started matter-of-factly, "Almost all of the furniture in your place is white, and it just reminds me of...girly things!" He screwed his face up in an expression that suggested 'girly things' were not admirable in his eyes. Felix didn't want a girly house! That was the kind of thing that everyone would expect of Derek, not Felix.

But Charlotte was away again, persuading herself that cherry wasn't a good idea afterall. Then came the soothing voice, the lips brushing against the cheek, and as per usual, Felix felt his knees begin to turn to jelly. She wasn't-- was she?? Oh Merlin, she did! Felix breathed a little heavily as his mind was focussed on the calendar sitting on his desk, a scantily clad Charlotte draping herself this way and that. It was a wonder he ever got any work done!

Shaking his head violently, Felix tried to focus his thoughts on the matters at hand. Charlotte was very good at turning his thoughts to however she intended, but it wasn't going to work this time! But it seemed that Charlotte had predicted that the Unspeakable was snapping himself out of it, and she had beaten him to it. She was mocking him. Felix's eyes narrowed as she poked fun at him, asking if the coffee table was a horcrux. "No Charlotte," Felix hissed angrily, "The house is the investment, not the goddam coffee table!" This was why Felix hated shopping! Nothing good ever came of a man shopping with his other half!

Charlotte seemed slightly strained as she asked the salesman to give them a moment. The salesman was all-too-happy to oblige, and quickly scuttled off towards the back of the store like a dirty rat towards the sewers. Felix was starting to feel uncomfortable now. He knew that no good would come of today, especially when Charlotte's mood turned from animated to reserved in a matter of seconds. He'd done bad, and there was no way of going back now. Felix looked down at the floor sheepishly and scuffed the toe of his shoe along the ground.

It was easy enough for Charlotte to say 'just pick what you love, forget about the cost, blah blah blah', but for a man who had to work for every penny he owned, it just wasn't something that was feasible. Felix shook his head. "I'll only pick what I can afford to pay for. Nothing more, no matter how much I - we - love it. Charlotte, we're supposed to be kitting out this house together. I don't want you to be buying everything just because you can. I want to feel like I'm contributing too, and if that means shopping at Wizkea for some stuff, then so be it." This was something he wasn't budging on.

It was a pouting contest, and there was no telling who was winning. Even if their expressions ranged from grumpy to scandalized, both had pretty (or handsome) faces which undoubtedly invited shallow sympathy from the exasperated employee who looked as if he wanted nothing more than to edge away from becoming the unofficial referee.

“Girly? I know plenty of men would love my help decorating their places.” She did not add that approximately half of them were lifelong bachelors, male socialites whose passions included such things as Scandinavian minimalism and turn-of-the-century Parisian chic. Both on and off the catwalk. The other half wanted to see what was under her clothes. If that took praising curtains that they hardly noticed, it was a small price. But Charlotte was also sure there were men who genuinely appreciated her skill. Felix had always thought her place lovely! Or so Charlotte had assumed. He had not, at any rate, ever complained about her bedroom or her kitchen. Her bathroom, couch, or balcony. They had fond memories of each... “Am I too girly for you?” She dared, indignant and daring with childish, dolly eyes, turned unreasonably cold and dangerous, like some trick warned about in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

She thought she was winning, though. She calmed in this little interlude. But Felix had apparently built up a resistance to her charms.

“Why should we even buy a new house if we’re not going to decorate it with care?” She put her hands on her hips. If Felix was doing just that-- decorating with care-- she seemed to ignore it. “You could just go on leaving your pants on my floor at this rate. We can hire a new elf to do all of your laundry and and call it a day.” The elf would be cheaper than the coffee table. There was a certain bit of venom in her voice. If she was going to settle down with anyone, and seriously, there would have to be terms he agreed to-- like letting Charlotte have her dreamy doll house.

He was looking at the floor, dejected. She crossed her arms, trying not to feel bad. He had a way of making her feel things, invoking sympathies she wouldn’t extend to other people. Perhaps, in part, it was because he stood up to her. Their cat and mouse game had lasted years and years, and they had finally both won. And now Charlotte was a bit lost, a bit nervous. Fidgety about the next step. It had never gotten this far, not with anyone, whether or not she’d been engaged once upon a time ago. But Charlotte could not imagine living in a house full of furniture she didn’t want. She just couldn’t.

She pressed her lips together again, making an angry sort of kiss. “Felix, you are contributing. We’re both here, aren’t we?” Fighting over furniture, a war of taste. “It’s-- this is important to me.” How could she make him understand? She wasn’t a Wizkea girl. He’d known that when he obliged her and had her to dinner at his mother’s house. Surely he’d known that in the Ministry elevator, where she’d confessed that she thought they should live together. Officially. Or all the years before that, when she’d prickled his Prefect’s badge, and then had grown up and become a woman, someone whose attention he wanted. Her lips parted. She shook her head. “We aren’t going there,” she said, as if afraid. “I’ve never been in there-- well, once. I wouldn’t even know where to start.” She thought about it, a vaguely unpleasant feeling in her stomach. “You buy me plenty. You provide me for plenty. My half and your half don’t both have to be about money-- you can give me other things.” Just let me have my damn couch. Her eyes brightened a little. “If I leave your office alone...” She trailed off, waiting for him to take the bait.

Felix sighed. He sensed that this argument was becoming less about the furniture. "No, you're not too girly. Just...girly." He paused and examined her expression. "I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Just...I grew up with only brothers, though one of them did have his very girly moments. And I'm not talking about Derek. And now...well, I've grown so used to living on my own that it might take a while to grow accustomed to sharing with a...well, a girl." Felix blinked and quickly corrected himself, "I mean a woman."

Charlotte pressed on him how important it was to her to have the furniture she wanted, and Felix could see this was one battle he was not going to win. "Fine!" He threw his arms up in the air in exasperation. "Fine, have your own way as usual! Have the bleeding white furniture, force me to do my work at a flipping cherry wood desk! But don't expect me to contribute to these things, because I think they're ridiculous, absurd and totally out of our price range! I shall stick to purchasing the more important things in our life, like the food that will keep us sustained, and paying my fair share for the roof over our head, because as far as I'm concerned nothing else will matter!" He turned abruptly to face away from Charlotte and childishly pouted as he scoured the furniture that would inevitably be part of his everyday life.

Though she looked rather like a child, standing there with poutier-than-thou lips, while he was acting like one, Charlotte was more than ready to jump to the defense of her womanhood. Her mouth opened... But Felix got there first, seeming to have sensed his mistake within a breath of making it.

At least he was admitting that he was the one who needed to get used to things.

He’d certainly gotten used to Charlotte hosting every-night-of-the-week overly-friendly two-person sleepovers, though. (They both had.)

And then, the flood gates.

Though she’d only just closed it, she opened her mouth again, this time with a slightly immobile disbelief that was almost never visible on Charlotte’s face. He was telling her she could have everything her way-- that wasn’t the shocking part, she was used to it, people giving her what she wanted-- but the way he said it made it sound like he wanted nothing to do with her. And the rest of it... was scathing.

She felt her stomach twist into pretty little bows, and knew part of it was out of guilt. That part she quickly buried, lest the knots become worse. The hurt and anger, though, she let him have those. “Oh, listen to you! What a sacrificial lamb, giving up your ugly shelves to make me happy. And when I’m hosting your friends and family in our house, where I’ll be all day, making it a home-- awful of me, I know-- you’ll be slaving away at work to make sure I eat and sleep. You certainly got the short end of the wand, Felix. But how did I ever do anything without you?” She asked harshly, annoyed at his back, stung by the fact that he was turned away from her.

Nothing else would matter? Did that mean he thought Charlotte shallow for thinking wood grain mattered, or that he only cared about her-- and thus, by default, she was shallow?

The salesman surely had a crisis on his shoulders, but continuing to ignore them seemed the best-- and safest-- option.