Cain breaks the news of this morning's decision to Alison, and gets a shave in the process



Cain glared at the mirror, frowning at the uneven patches of hair and stubble on his cheeks. "Four decades," he mumbled, "of not havin' to worry about this crap, and now it's all sorts of troublesome-dammit!" Swearing, he held up the razor before his eyes and glared. Another ruined blade. The stubble would shave off just fine, but the instant the razor's blades brushed his skin, it was like running them against concrete, bending and dulling them nearly instantly.

"Just oughtta get a blowtorch," he groused, running a towel over his face to remove the traces of shaving cream. He frowned at the ragged splotches of red beard and bare skin that gave him the appearance of a mangy dog. "It'd be less trouble."

Looking as he did, of course there was a knock at the door.

Leaning on the side of the doorframe, Alison did the habitual look up and up, which wasn't quite as up as it had used to be - and then blinked at the sight before her. If it had been just the extremely peeved look or only the patches of beard, she likely wouldn't have reacted quite so extremely. As it was, the both combined to a "I dare you to say a single thing woman!" undid her entirely.

Rolling his eyes at Alison's laughter, Cain held the door open for her to come inside. "Laugh all you want, this is a serious pain in the ass." He wandered into the kitchen, pouring two cups of coffee as he talked. "Moira was kind enough to give me a haircut so I stopped looking like a ragged-ass college student, but this?" he ran his hand across his chin. "Apparently whatever makes me invulnerable stops at the skin. And since Doc Moira says I'm aging again, that means I'm gonna need to figure out how to shave, or look like Grizzly frickin' Adams."

Still giggling, Alison followed him in the kitchen, accepting the cup of coffee gratefully. She's stuck to tea while she and the others were talking to MacInnis, and tea was just a lovely concept in general right now. A careful sip later, she winked at him over the rim of the cup. "Well, sounds like me now, with my power." She waited until he was actually drinking some of the coffee to continue, quite serenely. "Means no more waxing for me. I don't tell the other women at the school for fear of being hunted down and slain."

Cain arched an eyebrow curiously, then chuckled. "While I ain't gonna delve into the particulars there..." he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, "not having to worry about cutting yourself to ribbons with them lasers has to be a big plus." He let that hang in the air for a moment, then couldn't stop himself from grinning widely. "Betcha Haroun don't complain, neither."

"That ain't none of your business," Alison informed him with exaggerated primness, turning her nose up though she was laughing at the same time. As soon as she could go about blowing up Haroun's head in all safety, she firmly intended include that little detail as part of things. "And no," she glanced down at her leg, smile fading just a bit. "It's actually nice to know I won't hurt myself again that way. Lasers hurt." She paused, then grinned just bit - it was a scary thought to entertain in some ways, but it did make sense. "Betcha you'd look a lot better without all those really odd patches of hair sticking to your chin, too. Unless you were going for a new boy band type look?"

Cain managed to look offended at the assertion, but nodded. "Ain't never liked not keeping a close shave. Just isn't me, you know? One of those aspects of life I guess I got used to in the Corps. Of course, I *would* have had to stop aging when I'd gone a day without a razor, out in the bush." He scratched at his face absently. "Forgot how much it itches, too."

Waving a hand at him perhaps a bit too gleefully, Alison grinned. "Well then. I think we can both agree that I can guarantee you the closest shave this side of the mansion grounds," she snickered at that, "and probably with more accuracy than anyone on the mansion grounds." She paused. "Betcha I can even do that little grooves thing in the eyebrows too, if you really insist."

"You stay away from my eyebrows and..." Cain paused, "wait, you? With the... and the... hey, that'd be..." He propped his chin on one fist and looked over at her. "You wouldn't mind? Because this really is a pain. Nate's been snickering under his breath all morning, I could hear him."

"I wouldn't mind in the least." And she went for extremely solemn and innocent in her reply, if only to make him worry a little. "I won't even make any squiggly designs or anything too silly to the eyebrows. Really. Promise." Another very solemn nod followed that statement.

"Brat," Cain scowled, downing the last of his coffee. "Suppose it'd be bad to surprise you when you got a laser to my face, so I may as well get this out of the way. You know Nate's planning on taking his friends with him to go take down Mistra once and for all, yeah?" He turned to rinse his mug out in the sink and place it on the rack, before saying casually, "I'm going, too."

"You're going..." she blinked once at that, staring at him for a moment - there was no way, of course, that Cain would make any jokes about it. Not something like that. And if he was going, he had his reasons and Alison knew they would be good ones. "You're going too." Her eyes glazed over, thoughts going into overdrive for the second time that day, trying to chart out how this might nudge the odds further in their favor. "Can we drop you on them from the Blackbird?"

"It's a thought," Cain said with a straight face. "Like I told Nate and the others, even if I didn't owe it to him for saving my life, 's the right thing to do. He's already had to go through losin' one wife and kid, and if these bastards stay around - I ain't about to see anything happen to Moira or their kid or this place. They've taken enough from him," he said with finality.

Sitting back down, he brushed a hand over his cheeks and lifted his chin. "You start singing anything from Sweeney Todd, though, and it's the lake for you. Wouldn't even have to break a window."

"Spoilsport," was the cheerful reply. She waggled her fingers at him cheerfully, light sparking into being - laser the beard tufts away fast enough to keep the smell of burning to become an annoyance, that was the plan. And well, if she hummed or sang under her breath, who could blame her?

"Oh, I am a little barber,
And I go my merry way..."