[cork] you should see me in a crown | frank

Having been pushed through the revolving door that had just been a bookshelf, Francis stumbled forward into the room that was considerably darker than the one they inhabited prior. A handful of candles around them flickered to life, almost ominously, and illuminated the space just as his own eyes had adjusted. "Christ," He was able to get out just before Nessa who had latched onto him in the process began swatting at his shoulder— as if that was going to teach him.

Almost every adult figure in his life had tried the physical route of discipline with Frank, and none saw any success.

He'd opened his mouth to protest when Nessa began huffing and puffing again, her chest rising and falling to the beat. He was surprised to see that she hadn't yet started stomping her feet. For someone who really didn't want him around, she was suspiciously lacking in the getting-him-the-fuck-out department. A smile crept at Frank's mouth as she went on about the diner, clearly amused by the proclamation.

"I'd never offer to give you a tour," He stated plainly— almost shrugged but thought better of it because he wasn't keen on his own private tour ending too prematurely— and propped back against the arm of an ancient-looking velvet arm chair. Not to mention, she seemed to prefer the delivery option as far as The Deli was concerned, but he kept his mouth shut about that too.

"So what is this?" Dark brown eyes canvassed the room before landing on her again, probably for a fraction of a second too long when he noticed the length of her tanned leg exposed through the slit of her robe. "Look, not touching anything..." He added innocently, hands in the air. The temptation was there, of course, especially when he noticed the suit of armor in the corner.

If there were a more dramatic way to show her displeasure than simply huffing at him, Nessa would have been doing it. She would have continued to smack him too if he hadn't moved away and made her realize she was acting petulant in the first place. After all, she had invited him inside, and she had allowed him to stay long enough to get his nose in her business. So as much as she loathed to admit it, the fact that this near-stranger was now in one of her most sacred places was utterly her own fault. And the witch could not have been more annoyed with herself.

"Well, I wouldn't ask for one," She shot back, knowing she was not getting the better of this argument, and going down with the ship anyway. Frank was easily one of the most irritating wizards she had ever met, even for an American, but he had something about him that kept her from hexing him back to wherever it was he came from. She could have done it, Nessa supposed; it wouldn't;t have even been the first time she was responsible for sending him traveling without warning either, but she didn't.t

"What does it look like?" The words held as much sass as she could muster, and Nessa rolled her eyes for good measure. "This is my study," The dark witch had a house full of projects and a workshop in the back of the Black Kings in Cork, but this room was more important than all of them combined. This room was for the most intellectual pursuits, the less than legal endeavors, and certainly not for people like Frank to happen upon. In the back of her mind, Nessa was already cooking up better ways to secure the room in the future. When Frank put his hands up into the air, she nearly smiled, the corners of her mouth tugging but held it back. Nessa refused to give him the satisfaction.

"You say that, but I can see you are eying everything, like a child in a toy store," She crossed the room to be within range when his fingers began to wander again, not willing to take any chances. "What will it take to get you out of this room?" She bargained, even though she could have (and should have) just magicked him away. As she waited, Nessa flipped her hair over her shoulder, and the sleeve of her dressing gown fell from the motion. The bare shoulder on display, Nessa shivered as the cold air of the drafty haunted house hit her skin, and she lifted the material back up.

"Then you wouldn't be able to put your fingers in much, would you?" Frank used her same tone of voice but really ended up sounding more like himself at fourteen arguing with his siblings. It was satisfying to see her backpedal— less so when he found himself steeping all the same.

"A fucking torture chamber," Was exactly what it looked like, he thought, before Nessa confirmed that it was in reality her study. He didn't know anyone who owned an actual study in their home apart from his parents' friends who had home offices that really just became more of a room store to everything that didn't have a place. As an evil sorceress of magical devices, he supposed her own "study" was far more practical in nature.

"What, can you blame me?" Frank had made it no secret that he was not even a second away from digging into everything around him, starting with that suit of armor her ghoul friend had likely emerged from. No, she most certainly could not.

Deep brown eyes followed Nessa's hand as it pushed back the length of her impossibly and infuriatingly soft-looking hair. The sleeve of her kimono number was compromised in the process and Frank dropped his half-eaten pierogi, certain that his mouth had probably gone with it. "Shit," He bent down awkwardly, long limbs crumbling over themselves to collect it. After standing back up with some difficulty, he cleared his throat. Back to business.

"I'm pretty sure you could if you wanted to?" He answered matter-of-factly. He wasn't one to barter, anyway, and she could just as easily force him out. If that was what she actually wanted. Something in him suspected she might not. Why else would he still be there?

"I am not trying to put my fingers in anything, Frank," Nessa said, crossing her arms in front of her chest again until she realized the innuendo in her words, and she dropped them. Huffing loudly and rolling her eyes, the dark witch could barely believe the situation she now found herself in. This was the opposite of the quiet, relaxing evening she had in mind when she ordered take out, and Nessa hated when her plans went sideways. She was not at all good with this sort of chaos for a relatively intellectual and prepared witch.

"I'm going to torture you if you don't stop touching things," She threatened, and if Nessa still had a fork in her hand, she would have been waving it at him. Or, quite possibly stabbing him with it. It was good for both of them that she had discarded the utensil. "Yes, I can, and am blaming you. Did I show you this room? Did I say, 'hey stranger, please come into my inner sanctum and touch everything?'. No, no, I did not." Riled up and not at all her normal poised self, it took Nessa longer than it should have to realize what she had just said was worse than what she said before. And the realization made her feel like crawling inside that suit of armor and hiding out for the rest of the night. She hated out of balance she felt around this wizard. It was unlike her, and it was awful.

When her sleeve fell, though, Nessa saw the way Frank looked at her, and she understood it. This man was a complete nuisance, but some conceited part of her hated him a little less because of that look. Nessa loved to be appreciated, and it was something she could, and often did, use to her advantage. "I certainly could, but if I were to make you disappear, then who would make the delicious pierogis?" Purposefully using the non-existent plural of the word Nessa smiled impishly at him and remembered she was also pretty good at being annoying.

"Are you going to eat the one that fell on the floor?" Nessa gave him a dramatically grossed-out look and shook her head. "I suppose what they say about Americans is true, then."

The longer that the witch carried on about how much a nuisance he was, how he had invaded her private fucking property, how he had (in summary) ruined her year, the more entertaining Frank found it. If she truly believed even a fraction of what she was saying she would have hexed him to Timbuktu twice over. "Well you must not be that pressed then," Frank said defiantly as he stood back up to full stature. If was all it took was a plate full of Pierogi, he figured as much was true.

Frank vanished the fallen soldier with a scoff— he wouldn't admit it to her but he was a freak about germs and the thought of eating something from the floor...

He shuddered, then took a step around her to hide it. "If you don't actually want me gone would you stop complaining, then?" His tone, despite what he said, was not unkind as he studied the space around them, handing the plate to her in the process. Payment for her trouble. "If I knew how the hell to get out of your "inner sanctum", trust me, I would," He declared as he turned back to her expectantly, only aware of how strange it sounded out of context after it left his mouth.

"You can show me some of the boring, non-secret torture rooms..." For Frank, that was as close to a truce as he was going to get.

"If you don't actually want me gone, would you stop complaining, then?"  Clicking her tongue with obvious disapproval, Nessa shook her head at Frank, "If I stop complaining, what would we have to talk about?" She asked sarcastically. Nessa probably should have just kicked him out, but despite her ire, he was mildly entertaining, and what else did she have going on. For a beautiful witch, Nessa's social calendar was quite empty.

Frank dropped a plate into her hand, and Nessa caught it solely to keep it from breaking on the floor. "Excuse me?" Finding his behavior quite annoying, she snapped the fingers of her other hand and wished the plate away. Back into the kitchen and straight into the magical contraption of her own design that would wash, dry, and put it away before they made it through the rest of the tour. The disgusted look on her face started to melt as he repeated her words, and somehow, they sounded even sillier coming from him. Nessa bit her lip to keep from laughing, but it was obvious from the crinkle in her eyes that she was almost starting to warm up to him. Any grace he earned would be short-lived, though, surely.

"Well, everything else will probably seem perfectly boring after this room." She told him, the slightest amount of disappointment seeping through her words. As much as she declared that she wanted him to leave, the idea of impressing someone with all of the custom enchantments and creepy additions to her 'haunted house' had been rather excited. "But alright," She began, spinning around quickly so that the kimono swished around her and pulling on the candle sconce fixed to the wall. Instead of the bookshelf spinning around again, the portrait of her great aunt Doireann creaked open to reveal a narrow stone staircase leading up.

"Watch out for spiders." She warned him with an impish smirk as she began to ascend the stairs. They led into the library, a place she was in love with but unsure whether or not he would be interested. The staircase wound upward to an oak door with a silver knob in the center of it; Nessa pushed it open with a bit of strength and stepped out of the way so that Frank could take it in. Rows of bookcases lined the wall, further than should have been physically possible in the size of her house. There was a globe glowing and rotating in the center; little pins stuck to remote areas she wanted to one day visit. A half-finished game of chess in the corner, her ghost uncle was a poor loser. Books magically floated between the shelves, reorganizing themselves quietly.

Merlin, he couldn't win with her. She had been oh-so-fucking-eager to get him as far away from her sanctuary as possible until the moment he suggested that they actually leave it— and then, nowhere else would be as impressive? Francis, as usual, did very little to hide the way it made him feel. His face had pulled up into something of a confused frown, bordering on angry, as he dutifully followed despite himself.

Something to do with that damn kimono, he thought.

"Honestly, who is supposed to fit in this?" Frank had to crouch to make his way up the staircase after her. Forget about the spiders. Very clearly, her, he thought as he watched her float up the corridor with ease. Eventually, the room opened up to a library, books quietly fluttering around them as if they were the ones that had interrupted something. Again, he found himself in hesitant awe.

"Impressive," Frank said honestly as he straightened up and wandered in. He knew better than to touch something immediately, but he was drawn to the globe as it turned slowly and methodically in the middle of the room. "And all of this really is yours?" He still couldn't believe it. Hell, he was living with his parents in the midst of a mental breakdown only a few years before— how could he ever relate?

"I take it the pins are where you've murdered before?" He glanced over his shoulder at her with a softer grin than before, having effectively been knocked off his pedestal.

A delicate hand rose to her face as Nessa moved to hide her smile and failed. Laughing gently, she shook her head as Frank struggled to fit up the narrow staircase. Silently, she wondered if being awkward and annoying was something all Americans had in common. "You are taller than a person should be." She teased; it would be impractical for Nessa to keep all of her judgemental thoughts to herself.

"You ask as if that is hard to believe," Nessa countered, the defensive tone clear in her voice. Nessa was young, but she had worked hard, and it didn't hurt that she came from a prominent family. The house had been a part of the Regan family holdings, so naturally, she got an excellent deal, but Nessa had still paid for it with her own sickles. The independent witch would not have had it any other way. "The house has been in my family for centuries, but I own it now. Ghosts, spiders, and all." As she spoke, Nessa's hand trailed over the spines of books that rested on their shelves; she was proud of what she had accomplished. Of what was hers.

As the night wore on, Nessa's indignation with the intruder eased, and she laughed at his assumption. "Where I hid the bodies, actually." The dark witch replied, turning to face him, tongue-in-cheek and smiling. Moving closer to the globe and Frank, she slowed its spinning. Little pins dotted both the Eastern and Western hemispheres, clustered in remote places more so than bustling cities. Merlin, how she hated a crowd.

"The pins are places I intend to visit... when I have some time away from work." In the months leading up to graduation from Hogwarts, Nessa had made big plans, she had mapped out adventures and been consumed with wanderlust, but she had never made it past Ireland. Instead, Nessa had taken a job and became obsessed with professional endeavors. "Eventually..." She said with a sigh, a longing in her voice.

The globe turned slowly on its axis, only a soft whirring sound as evidence otherwise. Intermingled with the sound of book pages turning around them as they magically rearranged themselves on the shelves, the room was magic in and of itself, and Frank was transfixed. All too easily and infuriatingly so.

Strangely, it felt like a safe haven. Even when she was talking about burying bodies. Especially when she was talking about burying bodies, he thought.

"Interesting..." Francis commented thoughtfully. His dark eyes narrowed on the pins as they moved by and without thought, he made mental note of the locations— the places Nessa wanted to see, as she'd confessed. He hadn't put much thought into the places where he wanted to go, the United Kingdom was as far as he'd made it after all his years. Frank knew he was a creature of habit in that sense. He preferred his comforts.

"Thanks for showing me this," There was a sentimentality in his voice that hadn't been there before. In his wildest dreams, he couldn't imagine showing someone his home, let alone anything too personal about himself, and there was (begrudgingly) doing just that. If she were as guarded as she pretended to be, he figured she might not.

"New Orleans?" Suddenly, he fixated on one of the only pins most familiar to him.

"Thanks for showing me this," It was a nice gesture, a simple statement, but somehow left Nessa feeling a conflicting array of emotions. Frank reminded her that it had not strictly been her idea to show him all of this, and that was irritating, but in the same breath, she knew she was glad to have shared it with him. As much as she hated to admit it, it was nice to have someone to talk to other than the half-crazy ghosts that haunted her halls. Despite having about a billion cousins, Nessa lived a rather lonely life. And while she certainly wasn't celibate, it had been a long time since Nessa had someone over just for dinner and conversation. She rarely enjoyed talking to other people, but Frank managed to interest her as much as he aggravated her, and that was a rare feat.

"Your welcome," Nessa replied sweetly, after a bit of a pause, and offered her guest (?) a small smile. There was no use in fighting him being her anymore, not that she had been fighting it all along. She put up a fuss, but Nessa was reasonably sure they both knew if she had truly wanted him gone, he would have been.

Turning back to the globe, it glowed faintly and sent little shadows dancing across the bookshelves beyond them. Nessa loved this room she always had. The rest of the house was spooky and somewhat cramped — not that she minded, Nessa fit perfectly — but this room was spacious and felt far more hopeful. It was a researcher's Nirvana, and she fit here too. "New Orleans?" The witch's dark green eyes darted toward him, "Yes, have you been?" The sphere continued to turn as her mind began to. "I have read about the sorts of magic they practice there, ancient, extremely powerful, it sounds incredible, there is a lot of singing. I'd love to see it one day."

There was a shift in the air. It felt lighter in some way. Frank didn't quite allow himself to relax, though. There was still the ever-present threat of murder— he suspected Nessa's method would be strangulation by silk fucking robe tie. He eyed it suspiciously then eventually traveled up to her eyes, narrowing again and more agreeably. It was nice to see her just having a normal conversation, no threats, no god-awful sass.

Forget the fact that the same could very easily be said about him.

"I have," Frank answered, his voice bordering on wistful (for him). New Orleans was one of his favorite places in America; a close second to New York, that loved and hated in equal measure. "Voodoo magic," He wiggled his long fingers, hand slightly raised and casting an interesting shadow on the ground. He watched it for a moment, moved his hand once more, then dropped it to his side like a kid with a toy that had stopped being fun.

"You would like it," He ventured. It was a forward assumption but, as usual, he was brazenly confident. For someone riddled with anxiety, Frank certainly had a penchant for that. "Very murdery..." He added with raised brows, stopping short of smiling. "That should be your first stop," He declared as if Nessa had asked.

Nessa didn't bother to hide the interest she felt when Frank mentioned he had been to New Orleans. Instead, she listened carefully and watched his fingers as they danced shadows across the room. Voodoo, even the name of the magic was something special, and Nessa felt another surge of wanderlust as he spoke again. Though, his words made her laugh more than anything. "Murdery?" She asked; the dark witch's eyebrows rose before she laughed again. "Exactly what sort of witch do you think I am?" Nessa wasn't oblivious to the sort of image she projected. She was a bossy, know-it-all witch with black pointed fingernails living in a literal haunted house, but still, she found Frank's assertion amusing.

"Probably shouldn't answer that," She added quickly, nodding once, "You know, in case the murdery mood happens to strike." Nessa moved away from the globe and back toward the stairs that led to the main level. She had never intended to let Frank in the front door, let alone show him around her house and tell him about her dreams of traveling. It was quite irritating the way he had weaseled in, but it'd be a lie to say she wasn't impressed by how easily he seemed to have done it.

The dark witch (dark, not murdery.... mostly) chalked it up to the fact that she was just hungry. No one made good decisions on an empty stomach. The sleeve of her silk robe billowed under her arm as she motioned for Frank to follow her back down the narrow staircase. "Time to go then?" She said, but it wasn't a question. Nessa figured it'd take at least half as long to get him back to the front door as it had taken him to rampage through her house.

"If my food is cold, I will be expecting a full refund."

"Oh, uh, yeah the murdering kind," Frank replied simply as if it was just that obvious, entirely disregarding the afterthought that back-pedalled for her. "I'm not wrong?" Though his tone raised at the end of the statement, he was far from actually asking the question. There was no way he was wrong and he knew it. No one lived in a house like hers and wandered around on a fucking Tuesday wearing a silk robe.

Unless she was a member of a crime family— which, upon thinking about it, might very well also be the case given the nature of the 'family business'.

Frank followed dutifully like a god damn lap dog at Nessa's simple gesture before leading the way down the stairs. His time there had expired and for the first time, he had accepted it. The proposition no longer felt like an argument, which automatically made it easier for him to simply agree. "That's what magic is for, isn't it?" He quirked sarcastically, already anticipating her look back up at him from over her shoulder. In fact, he was daring it.

fin

"Remember that next time you do a delivery." She warned, but there wasn't a lot of weight to it, and Nessa's smile reached her eyes. Frank's response to her question had not been what Nessa expected; in fact, nothing about Frank was what the witch had expected. He stayed when he ought to go, he touched things he shouldn't, and even though she should have forced him out, she'd rather enjoyed his company. The whole night had turned into some bizarre tour of her home, and she felt energetic from how different it had been from ordinary. Nessa was in love with her routines, she lived for them, but Frank was certainly unexpected. He'd bulldozed her plan for the night, but she was far less irritated than she had been half an hour ago.

He followed her as she glided effortlessly down the stairs, the length of her silk robe billowing behind her. Turning her head sharply as he said it, her eyes narrowing. "I would never," She said pointedly, brushing the hair off of her shoulders with a huff and shaking her head. Nessa Regan did not reheat her food; if it got cold, she threw it away and yelled at the rubbish bin. "Reheating charms would ruin it."

Nessa led him toward the front of the house and held the door open, her long arm against the wood and fingers curled around the edge. "No bother, you can reimburse me with free dessert next time you make a delivery." One eyebrow perked as she spoke. Nessa watched him leave before shutting the door and reaching for her wand to put all of the enchantments back up.

/end