2019-06-26 - Planning Shenanigans

It's 10pm on a Thursday, which means that Elias closed up the shop not too long ago and wandered his way down to the boardwalk, and eventually to the Shadows of Tomorrow, texting Frankie that he was going to be dropping by. So it shouldn't be any surprise when he turns up and buzzes/knocks/whatever one does to announce one's presence.

However one gets into Frankie's place he eventually ends up upstairs, where things are not any less dripping in the occult than things are downstairs. But at least there are more places to sit around here, and Frankie's got some old movie on the television, "Want a drink?"

"Always," Elias says as he makes his way inside and takes a look around the apartment, perhaps seeing if she's got anything new and interesting for him to poke at. He touches things, like he always does, fiddling with this or that for a moment before setting it back down where it belongs. Then he glances over toward the television. "What are we watching?"

There is a majestic stuffed black rooster with red eyes in the room, but otherwise there doesn't appear to be anything that is strictly new. "Oh. Some mystery...Rear Window?" She shrugs her shoulders faintly, clearly not having paid much attention to it as she heads towards the kitchen to pull down two glasses and a bottle of scotch. "What've you been doing?"

"Is that the one with the guy who broke his leg and thinks he's witnessing someone being murdered or something?" Elias asks, "Hitchcock, right?" He drifts over toward the kitchen to lean up against the counter while she gets down the scotch. "Minding the shop. Eating at the diner. Getting the numbers of hot firefighters." He laughs at the last, pulling a folded receipt from his pocket and showing it to her. On it is scribbled a goofy smiley face and the numbers 9-1-1.

"That's the one." Frankie replies cheerfully as she moves to set the glasses down, twisting the cap off the bottle before she fills them. She twists the cap back onto it before she laughs at the slip of paper, "I can't tell if that was a yes, or like...a brush off. Either way, cute." She pushes one of the glasses over towards him before leaning forward on her elbows, "So how hot was he?"

"Oh, he was the one who told me I forgot to ask for his number, and then gave me that. I thought it was funny, at least," Elias chuckles. "Especially since I didn't ask for it." He takes the glass once it is filled and lifts it, taking a sip before chuckling. "Firefighter hot. All the right muscles in all the right places. Nice smile. Cute blush." He asks "So what about you? What have you been up to?"

"Sounds hot." Frankie agrees before she reaches for the glass, picking it up from the counter to take a small sip from it, then she sets it down, "Nothing actually. Working. Which is mostly just sitting in the parlor downstairs, hoping a random tourist walks in, or handling a few regulars." She shrugs her shoulders, an amused smile crossing her face, "Not meeting hot firefighters, that's for sure."

"You should have come out with me to the Crazy Bear Diner the other night, then. I just went in for a cup of coffee -- ran into Lilith there, and Tyler, the firefighter. We tried to see if we could fluster him into a full on stutter, but apparently didn't scare him off since he turned up at the shop to give me that." He nods at the receipt with an amused smile then picks it up and tucks it back into his wallet. "Been getting many tourists yet? I've noticed that they're starting to pick up a little now that the weather's getting better."

"A few, yeah. The usual cheaply curious." Frankie nods, setting the glass down before she straightens up, "Wandering in, asking for love potions, or how to get their distant aunt's money...or the usual questions of does this work?" She moves towards the cabinets, pulling out a bag of chips before she collects everything, including him, to relocate to the couch. "In another week or so it'll be back up to full swing, and I'll actually have a bit of extra cash again."

Elias is duly collected, and allows himself to be led back over to the couch, where he collapses onto it, sprawling comfortably and crossing one leg over the other. He takes another sip from the scotch and says, "It'll pick up. It always does," he nods in agreement. "So Lilith had another stuffed demon animal at the diner. This one was a raccoon with red eyes. I think she was going to give it to Gina. Demon-eyed taxidermy is apparetly becoming a thing in Gray Harbor. You're a trend-setter."

"Lilith is the trend-setter, really. It was her that brought me Scratch." Frankie reaches over to where the rooster is, giving him a happy pat, her legs stretching out in front of her, "So far he's been great, although no one really suspects he's real...but I've managed to convince a few that he's got the soul of someone that crossed me trapped in him."

Elias chuckles, "Hell, I'd believe that he has the soul of someone that crossed you trapped in him." He twists and turns and then drops back so that he can lie his head in her lap and look up at her, glass dangling off to the side out of the way where he won't spill it between sips.

"Good....because it's clearly that guy I dated like, never ago." Frankie replies with a smirk of amusement, slouching some in her seat before she lifts her free hand up to start sliding her fingers through his hair, "So are you planning to see your hot firefighter again? I bet we could arrange for an accidental fire."

Elias lets his eyes drift closed as her fingers slide through his hair and then laughs a little bit. "That guy was a dick. He belongs in a cock." Of course, he couldn't resist. Though he raises his brows at the question and says, "Well it's not a big town. I'm sure I'll see him again. He did buy a book from the shop and told me he'd tell me what he thought of it. We'll see if he does."

"But he had a nice dick." Frankie then taps her finger against his nose, "If you want, I can make sure that he drops back by. I've got my ways." She wiggles her fingers in front of his face in that universal I'm-totally-doing-magic way. "What book did he buy, though? That'll tell us everything about if we even want him in our lives or not."

"Sure, pyro. As long as it's not my shop that you burn down to do it," Elias tells her with a grin when she wiggles her fingers in front of his face, leaning up to nip at her fingertips. "He asked me what my favorite book was, and when I told him, he bought it."

"Really?" Frankie looks momentarily impressed by that, then she narrows her eyes, "Clever...Maybe too clever." She leans over, kissing his forehead briefly before she leans back, "I promise that I won't burn your shop down, where would I go to find my own books if I did?"

Elias nods, "Yeah, apparently he's not much of a reader, at all. But he asked which one was my favorite, so I showed him. He said he was going to buy it, and I told him he didn't have to. He said just because he doesn't read doesn't mean he can't, and so he bought it, wrote that on the back of the receipt, and left." He grins with a shrug of his shoulders. He reaches up when she bends down to kiss his forehead and tangles his fingers in her hair, holding her there for a moment to lean up and kiss her lightly, before releasing her. "Good. My family would be pissed."

"I can't have that....who would feed me Christmas dinner if that happened?" Frankie looks perfectly horrified by that, for two seconds, then she resumes sliding her fingers into his hair, "What is your favorite book? I'm sure I've borrowed it and never returned it at least once..." She glances around the room, checking for any lingering thefts that are visible.

"Right?" Elias asks with wide eyes. "Perish the thought." He shakes his head just slightly and says, "I don't think that you have. Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti." It's not a terribly long book, steampunk in genre, and there are always a couple of copies of it at the store.

"Mech...No." Frankie shakes her head, evidently satisfied that she's not borrowed and never returned that book, her nose wrinkling upwards a bit before she runs her fingers down his cheek, "Does anyone get sacrificed to some dark god?" She then glances down, something seeming to tickle at the back of her mind, "I keep running into this new cop in town...I've told him I'm conducting animal sacrifices in the woods. He's yet to arrest me, and I can't tell if he believes me and doesn't care, or thinks he's playing along."

"The ringmaster tears out the bones of the acrobats and replaces them with hollow metallic ones. Does that count?" Elias asks with a raised eyebrow and a bit of an amused smile. He tilts his head into the touch of her fingers and then asks, "Which one? Which cop, that is? He probably doesn't believe you. I wouldn't." He grins amusedly, "If I were a cop, and didn't know how truly evil you really are."

"Michael O'Malley the Alley Cat." Frankie probably automatically adds that last part from too many years watching Aristocats growing up. "New to town...met him one night at the bar around the corner, May was there...she was outside her house again. Haven't seen her since, though, so I'm thinking that she got scared of the outdoors." She then smiles faintly, the expression amused and sly, "I'm also not evil."

"You're a little bit evil," Elias says with a grin. "It's one of your many charming qualities." He flashes her a grin then and leans up just enough to take a sip from his scotch without spilling it on himself or her before letting his head rest back down. "Michael O'Malley. Now if that isn't a cop sounding name..." He grins and then asks, "Oh yeah? I haven't seen May.. in.. " He trails off. He has no idea when the last time he saw May was.

"It was honestly the first time I'd run into her in...forever. I wonder if she'd feel better if I gave her a charm." Frankie takes a small sip from her drink before she leans forward to set the glass down on the table, returning to half-watching the movie as she slides her fingers into his hair, twisting strands of it around, "I think..." She drifts off for a moment, then nods, "I bet that I could put together something appropriate for her."

"Something for courage for coming out in the daytime with the rest of the daywalkers? Are you sure she's not just a vampire?" Elias grins a little amusedly. He turns his head just a little, enough so that he can glance over at the screen and half-watch the movie, but his attention is more on the conversation and her fingers in his hair, which make his eyelids droop and close. "I'm sure you could."

"I don't remember seeing her in the day light since high school. She might have become a vampire." Frankie nods faintly, fingers picking up strands of his hair to start working little braids into it, "She has maintained the goth look in a way that the rest of us didn't, not even Gina did."

"I can totally do goth," Elias says with a little smirk. "I'm just too lazy to do all the makeup and whatnot. But I still wear black like it was the new black." He glances up at her putting little braids in his hair and says, "The braids are definitely not goth, though."

"The braids are adorable." Frankie points out, giving one a light, playful tug, "I wear plenty of...." She pauses, then shakes her head, "I sometimes wear black, but I wear a lot of occult stuff. That counts the same right?"

"Sure, I'll give you credit," Elias says and then chuckles about the braids. "I'm fucking adorable all the time." He gives her a wink, and glances back over toward the television, watching a bit of the movie while she puts more little braids in his hair.

"I need all the credit I can get." Frankie agrees, finishing her pre-occupation with the braiding, her hand then moving down to settle on his shoulder, "You'll have good luck, you know. With your firefighter...I feel that he might not need to be put into a stuffed chicken right away."

"I fully give you all the credit that you deserve, and some that you don't," Elias says with a mischievous smile. When she finishes with the braids, he glances back up to her and studies her features, smiling a little amusedly. "Oh, he's my firefighter now? I somehow doubt that. I half think he's fucking with me, since we tried to make him blush at the diner."

"Might be, but the fact that he didn't run away isn't a bad thing. We messed with this other guy one night, and he sort of flounced away. It was distressingly anti-climatic. No blushing, no rejoinders. Just him getting his order and running away." She pets her hand slowly against his shoulder, smiling amusedly at him, "And why not yours?"

"Who flounced off?" Elias asks curiously, "So that I can mock them appropriately in the future, of course." Because that's likely to be a thing. He shakes his head. "People with no sense of humor make me sad." He even makes a sad-clown face to punctuate it. He reaches up and gives her hand a squeeze with a chuckle, "I don't think one meeting and a book constitute possession."

"I never caught his name. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person." Frankie shifts her hand, moving to lace her fingers through his, "It might actually....I've seen people become possessed much faster than one meeting and a book." It's spoken in a cheerful way, and she probably doesn't mean the same kind of possession.

"Not that kind of possession," Elias chuckles. "He asked how the store stayed in business. I told him some were tourists, some were repeat locals who support local business, and the rest were enchanted and bewitched by the Weber Witches." He slips his fingers through hers and gives her hand a little squeeze, brushing his thumb along the side of her hand. "Well, you'll have to point him out to me sometime, for mockery, nice person or not."

"If I ever see him again, I will." Just so that Elias can mock to his dark little hearts content. She leans her head back against the couch, her eyes starting to close very faintly, "Did he believe you? About the Weber Witches I mean...if not then he might not be worth keeping. Can't have someone disbelieving the truth."

Elias does have a dark little heart. He chuckles, "He asked if that was why he was there. I asked him if he felt enchanted. He said I wasn't a very good witch if he could feel it. I told him then he must not be enchanted, and that he'd come to find me all on his own -- and that I thought perhaps I liked that idea better." He chuckles, "Does he believe me? I have no idea. Most likely not."

"Well....I don't think he was just fucking with you." Frankie decides after a little while, an amused smile passing across her lips, "Unless he's more of a con artist than some other person we know, it sounds like he might actually like you."

"No one could be a better con artist than that other person we know," Elias says with a quiet laugh. "None shall unseat the queen from her throne." He glances over toward the television as the movie ends and reaches for his glass and takes a sip from it before setting it off to one side once more. "Maybe. We'll see. If he comes back again, then perhaps he does."

"He'd be stupid if he doesn't, in which case glad we figured out how terrible he was early on." Frankie points out with a snort, pulling her hand out of his, but only so that she can finger walk her hand down his side, "You know that queen has a very lonely throne, I bet that she really, desperately needs a good night out with her subjects."

Elias smiles in amusement, and says, "Or wise, possibly wise. Nothing good ever came out of coming back for more of me." He then chuckles as her fingers walk along her side "Is that your suble way of saying that you want to go out?"

"Is that your subtle way of saying nothing good has come from me coming back for more?" Frankie counters, her fingers tugging his shirt upwards a bit, enough that she can get her bare hand down against his side, "But yes, that was my subtle way of saying we should try and go out sometime."

"That's my way of saying that I'm trouble, but then, you like trouble, so I suppose it's debatable whether I'm a good or a bad thing," Elias muses as she tugs at his shirt and it slides upward, exposing his lean frame. "Sometime? We can go out whenever you like."

"Sometime. I'd suggest tonight, but..." Frankie doesn't look like she's in any eager mood to get out of the apartment tonight. Despite what she had claimed, that whole needing of a night out thing. Instead she just rubs her hand against his side, "You're probably less trouble than me, but I really do like trouble. Way more interesting than boring stuff."

Elias doesn't look like he's getting up, either, as comfortably sprawled as he is right where he is. He asks after a moment or two, "Is that a challenge? Challenge accepted." He sighs contentedly as she rubs her hand against his side, and he idly traces a pattern along her arm with a fingertip. "Tomorrow night, then, maybe. We should go out among your subjects so that they can pay proper homage."

"Proper homage, yes. Yes...brilliant!" Frankie lifts her other arm upwards, her voice raising as she gets behind this idea, overly dramatically, for laughs, "My subjects will bow and grovel at my feet!"

Then she laughs, dropping her hand to her side once more, shifting on the couch so that she can face him a little better, without actually dislodging his head, and her other hand can find his hair as she rubs his side, "But tomorrow night sounds like a plan, either way."

"Or at least buy you a few rounds at the Pourhouse," Elias adds, "One of the two." He flashes her a grin with her triumphant arm waving. He shifts a little as she does so that there is room for her. It's not hard. He doesn't take up a lot of room, really. He wraps one arm around her lightly and says, "Then tomorrow night it is. We'll go out on the town. Should I dress up? Or are we going casual? What does the queen desire?"

"The queen desires...." Frankie has to think about that, because clearly she hasn't already planned that far ahead in things, so she just pets him while she thinks. It's a great tactic to distract him from her lack of pre-planning, right? "I think we should dress up, get fancy and go do silly things in fancy clothes."

"Very well, silly things in fancy clothes it is," Elias agrees. "I have just the top hat for the occasion." No doubt, he does. He doesn't seem to mind whether she's pre-planned or not. The decision seems good enough, and he stretches a little bit and makes a contented sound, enjoying the petting as well, like a lanky cat.

"Is it that dove gray one? Or the black one?" Frankie has no doubt she has a good chance of guessing color right, but she might also have seen it. Maybe. She does tend to barge into peoples closets when they let her, afterall. She smooths his hair back from his face, her other hand sliding up against his chest, beneath his t-shirt still.

"I mean, I could go either way. If we're going standard tux, probably the black one, though if we're going victorian chic, then perhaps the grey one, though that's more for a daytime sort of to-do rather than eveningwear," Elias observes with a chuckle. There's no doubt that Frankie has seen everything that Elias owns at one point or another since she has access to his bedroom and everything in it, and has no doubt rifled through his things more than once.

Probably stolen her fair share of things, too.

"So if we're wearing fancy clothes to go do silly things, might as well break the rules and wear day time tux at night, right?" Frankie wonders, the fingers of one hand moving to rub against his nipple, teasing him for a few seconds before she starts to get up off the couch carefully, "I know just the dress....Stay here." Then she's hurrying towards her room, a bounce in her step.

"Sure, why not," Elias says on the topic of daytime tux at night to do silly things, "I'll wear the grey one then, with the hat, and the violet vest or the green?" He trails his fingertips along her forearm as she teases his nipple, which responds to her touch, and a sly smile crosses his lips as he arches his back just slightly. But then she's bouncing off to get the dress and he settles back onto the couch, sprawling on it and tugging his shirt back down, waiting for her inevitable return.

The return is a fairly quick one, and she wanders back with a dress in hand that looks like something Stevie Nicks would wear, black lace and fringe, and an underdress silk, and a shawl in blues and greens, "How about this?" She wonders, pulling it up in front of her so that she can model it for him, moving so that she can give the fringe a shake.

"If you're going with that, then I'm going with the green vest, so we can at least be coordinated," Elias says, because that is clearly important when dressing in formalwear to do ridiculous things. "It's perfect. Do it. We'll look fantastic." She gets a thumbs up before he reaches for his scotch and finishes off the drink.

"Perfect!" Frankie replies, spinning herself around in place twice before she turns to start back towards her room, but then she just hangs the dress from the door instead of putting it back in the closet. "Now, the question is....where shall we go?" She moves back towards the couch, dropping herself onto it with a sigh, "That's the really tough question."

Elias grins as he watches her spin around a couple of times, fringe flying in a circle. "That is the question, is it not?" he asks as she goes to hang the dress on the door. "Where we go every night, Pinky? Off to save the world? We could go down to the boardwalk, or perhaps out to Firefly woods, or... break into the high school.. or.."

"Breaking into the high school might be fun." Frankie reaches for her glass, picking it up so that she can take a quick swallow from it before setting it back down, "I've not done that since....I don't know, high school maybe."

"Probably not since high school," Elias agrees with a grin. "Or we could go find a roof to dance on, or something. I'm sure we can figure something out in the moment. Drinks first, though. Maybe we can find some other people to drag out with us, make a royal entourage of whoever we run into."

"Now we're doing a royal entourage?" Frankie wonders with a laugh, her empty hand returning to his hair, sliding her fingers slowly against it, then through it, "Maybe, but if we do they need to be fancy too...so maybe we bring extra scarves and hats."

"I don't know, maybe? Maybe not.. it all depends on what we decide in the moment. You don't want to plan these things out too much or they lose some of their appeal," Elias opines as he stretches a bit and then settles, yawning a bit as her fingers slip through his hair once more. "I don't want to carry around extra scarves and hats. If they want to join the royal entourage then they need to prove themselves by coming up with their own spontaneous finery."

"That is a very good plan." Frankie replies with a laugh, reaching for the remote on the table to pick it up and start flipping through the channels, all which appear to be what can be gotten with an antenna and nothing more. "So high school, after finding drinks somewhere, or maybe the roof. For dancing."