nancy from now on

"Fuc— Christ!"

Frank had apparated right into a puddle. Naturally. The splash made its way to his face and he angrily wiped his jaw with the sleeve of his jacket. As usual with Ireland, there was an omnipresent mist of rain that cut the bone-chilling-verging-on-winter air. The acclimation process was slow, Frank took his time to take everything in with a scowl. He never had quite gotten used to it— moving from one place to another in a nasuea-inducing instant— but it was made even less enjoyable when he was taking a trip that he wasn't looking forward to.

The Black Kings Fine Iron Works.

It was a pretty fucking pretentious name, he thought, but then again he was biased. After a night spent in the countryside in the middle of fucking nowhere post security system malfunction at The Deli, he was looking for anywhere to place the blame. And the store where he'd purchased it from was first on the list. It would be a long time before he trusted the recommendation of a regular of whom he didn't know all that well.

"Hello?" He said it less of a question and more of a way of announcing himself as he entered the store. Immediately, the same sinking sensation of being a bull in a china shop that he had when he first picked up the stupid thing hit him. Everything was way too fancy, too delicate, for someone like him. He made his way carefully to the empty counter and hit his wide palm to the oldschool bell as the other shuffled the heavy gold hourglass. The sooner he could get the return over with, the better.

@Nessa Regan

Hearing someone coming into the shop, Nessa barely looked up from the intense looking tome she was studying. Her silky black hair fell over her shoulder, hanging above the Italian words she was trying to decipher, and there was a quill hanging dangerously between her index and middle finger. She'd been working on this custom enchantment for two weeks now, and she was determined to finish it well before the deadline. After all, Nessa was nothing if not irritatingly early for everything.

Her eyes flickered over to where the brute of a man was standing and then back to her book, determined to at least finish the passage she was speed reading before he interrupted her. The fact that he was a customer, and she was technically the employee, mattering very little to her.

"Hello?" She said, her eyes giving him an up and down as she judged whether or not this particular wizard had the means to afford her attention. "Can I help you?" She asked, her sweet but inauthentic voice loud enough to hear over the soothing violin music that coursed through the shop. Dark eyes turned down to the item he had in his hand, and she stood up a little straighter. Merlin, she hated returns.

Nessa placed the quill inside the book, letting the feather stick out of one end and serving as a bookmark before she closed it and tucked it under the counter. She brushed her hands across her neatly ironed dress and ushered for him to place the item he was holding onto the counter. It was either malfunctioning (which meant he was using it wrong, because of course her enchantments were immaculate) or he wasn't satisfied with the product. Either way, she was already a bit annoyed by him.

Could she help him?

No shit, he thought to himself with thick, dripping irony. He hadn't apparated all the way to Ireland and then walked through the rain for fun. Frank eventually allowed his eyes to meet her own as she folded up a quill into her book, pushing her dark hair over her shoulder. For half a second, he paused, wondering if his attitude was the best way to go about it. But then, he was reminded of his experience. "Yeah," He placed the hourglass on the counter at her command.

"This doesn't work," Francis stated plainly, trying to not be distracted by the way that she ironed out the perfectly fitted dress that clung to her. She was decidedly not the pimple-faced kid who had sold the trinket to him. With any luck, she would fix the gadget and he could be on his way. After a stop by the pub he passed on his way over. The rain-soaked chalkboard sign out front said the special was bangers and kidney something and he couldn't turn that down.

"I programmed it just fine and yet, there I am, in the middle of bum fuck—" He took a breath. Egypt, he was going to say. "It doesn't work," He repeated, nudging it over the counter. It had been programmed perfectly, he thought, so that intruders at The Deli (assuming there were any— there had been that run-in with the woman looking for Jesus a few weeks prior) would be penalized. Not the owner.

This doesn't work translated to I don't know how to use it very quickly in Nessa's mind, and her face seemed to reflect that judgment. Frowning a little at the 'returning customer,' she shifted her weight onto the back of her heels and began to look the item over. Nessa refused to think anything that came out of her workshop was faulty; she was a perfectionist, and annoyingly so, but things occasionally happened. Especially with the more potent of charm work. She was still caught up in litigation from the cursed alarm clock that had kept a client from sleeping for a whole week—what a load of nonsense. The wizard had set it wrong and then turned around to sue her for Mental Anguish. If another customer used that excuse, she would surely put them on fire; if she was going to have to pay for a lawyer, she might as well get some Physical Anguish out of the deal.

"I see..." She said slowly, which meant, 'Did you follow the instructions?' One look at him, up and down, and the dark witch assumed not. "Let's take a look then, shall we," Nessa said, her voice a little less bitter now that she was speaking to the device more than the wizard in front of her. Pulling her wand from the little nook in her sleeve, she twisted it in her hands, and magically the alarm system began to tear itself apart. Bits and bobs floated in a slow orbit around the machine, and Nessa scrutinized them. The mechanisms seemed to be in order, but upon further inspection, she noticed the small vials used to indicate which persons were allowed were all empty when at least one of them should have been full.

"Did you not add your blood to it? So that it would know you were not an intruder?" She asked plainly, turning from the device to meet the man's eyes. It was something that seemed relatively commonplace to Nessa, but perhaps not to him.

Yes-we-fucking-shall-see, Frank thought to himself as the witch pulled the device over the counter.

It wasn't that he was expecting customer service in a place that sold security systems and various other devices of torture, and usually, he would have appreciated nothing more, but presently he was finding it all too smug. Of course, it had everything to do with his inability to be proven wrong, but that was beside the point. Frank planted both hands on the counter and watched curiously as the contraption came undone, floating around the very air between them. His gaze landed on the woman's face, her hands, as she worked.

It was his curse— being exclusively attracted to angry, dark-haired women and his therapists (and that one guy who worked with his mom when he was growing up, with the cut off sleeves).

His blood. Frank visibly shuddered at the thought. "Well, no—" He began with a shake of his head, already falling over his words though showing no sign of resignation in tone. "There's the—" Pulling out the crumpled instructions from the front pocket of his old black jeans, he scanned the words that started to blend together on parchment. "Yes, the hair thing," He indicated toward subsection C where it clearly stated a hair follicle could be used in place of blood, for those were so inclined.

And inclined, he most certainly was. Frank would prick his own finger when hell froze over.

Nessa frowned when the wizard in front of her answered her question, and her pride kept her from attempting to hide her judgment even a little bit. "I see," She began, feeling smug for assessing the situation correctly, and annoyed that her being right (which she thought she always was) had interfered with tonight's work. Disappointed as she was, Nessa was surprised to see him pull out the instructions from his pocket. A man that actually read the instructions? Well, that was certainly a step in the right direction. Now, if only she could get him to follow them too.

"Well, there is your problem," Nessa said with a sharp nod and moved to point out the asterisk that followed subsection c of the pamphlet he was referencing. The witch was careful not actually to touch the crumpled piece of paper; Merlin knew what else had been in this man's pockets alongside it and clicked her tongue. "The.. hair thing, as you put it, only works for Pureblooded individuals. As you can imagine, they are not partial to parting with their blood for any reason." The idea that no one would be keen to prick their fingers for a magical contraption to judge them was lost on Nessa. As usual, the highly intellectual witch had thought of everything except for the obvious.

Nessa raised an eyebrow at the patron, for the first time wondering if he realized what sort of shop he'd ventured into when he came for an alarm system. She assumed not; Americans had a way of believing they belonged anywhere they could get into. With a flick of her wrist, the system began to put itself back together, and the machine let out a little huff as the reassembly finished. "Do you need assistance filling the vial?" The witch hated to offer, but upon looking at the clock on the wall, she really wanted to get this interaction over with.

There was his problem. Yes, there was his problem indeed, Francis thought to himself darkly as he reminisced on his night spent in the middle of nowhere because apparently his blood wasn't pure enough. He knew that they were antiquated across the pond but he didn't think it was that bad. "Oh, right, naturally," Everything in his tone said that there was nothing natural about it, his hand waffling in the air between them.

The witch pulled the machine together in an infuriatingly impressive manner, though Frank tried to mask anything on his face that might give what he was thinking in the depths of his psyche away. With any luck, the lingering disdain for what she said just before would still be painted across his face. "Nope," Frank ran his tongue along the inside of the mouth in thought.

On the one hand, he didn't want to dignify her by accepting the offer (he still wasn't actually sure if it was genuine), but on the other, he didn't want to be left without any system in place. The shoddy magic he'd cast around the deli would only last for so long. "Thanks for the help, great customer service, uh, here," He'd scanned for a sign to remind him of the name but gave up about two seconds in.

"I'll leave this with you," He nodded to the contraption and turned to leave, not bothering to request an exchange. He figured if that product had been any indication, his blood wouldn't serve him well there.

fin

The dark witch observed him quietly, mulling over the many ways she could extract a bit of blood from him should he agree and settling on a less than pain-free method just because she was feeling vindictive tonight. He had stormed in her, claiming her magic was faulty after all, and an accusation like that just had to be answered. Instead, the man surprised her again and declined her less than polite offer quickly. "Very well," She answered, shrugging it off and half expecting him to start in on demanding a refund, but he didn't do that either.

Annoyed as she was, Nessa could help but find this wizard intriguing. He was irritated because he didn't fully read the instructions (the nerve!), but he wasn't easy to figure out. She found him interesting because he was a bit of a mystery, especially because so few wizards were. When she thought he'd do one thing, he did the opposite, it was chaotic, but at least it wasn't boring. "Your welcome," Nessa returned smugly, a smile forming on her deep matte lipstick as she watched him move away from the bar.

Nessa didn't argue when he decided to leave the alarm system and be on his way. Having his payment and the machine was a win; why would she insist he take back one or the other? That wasn't good business. It wasn't good customer service either, but despite her title, Nessa wasn't really in the business of customer satisfaction. "Have a good night," She told him as she followed to the door and locked it the second it closed behind him— just in case he had second thoughts about a return.

[\end]