Frank and Topaz || Reconciliation

[x-topaz.livejournal.com]

Frank returns to the mansion, and goes to patch things up with Topaz. They talk. And then stuff happens.



Why is it I spend so much time in this place standing outside doors? Frank wondered, outside the suite's entrance. I never did it before, I just went places.

It was a stupid line of thought- a distraction from the upcoming conversation. He gritted his teeth, and knocked on the door.

All things considered, it hadn't taken as long to fix the damage to the suite as Topaz had expected. Then again there had only been a hole in their wall. And their door had been destroyed. And there had been some burn marks on the carpets (granted those hadn't been cleaned up yet, but she happened to think they added character to the room). It had probably been a fairly easy fix.

The young witch was currently making her way around the suite, music playing in the background as she cleaned up. There wasn't actually much cleaning to be done, and Molly and Sue would probably be horribly confused when they came back, considering she was also moving stuff. But there was nothing else to do, really.

She looked up as the sound of knuckles against wood echoed through the suite. Knocking. Who knocked? Kurt knocked. Amanda knocked sometimes. But the emotions on the other side of the door were too wound up and anxious to be either Sefton. Nobody knocked. Topaz pursed her lips as she went over to investigate. Needless to say, she was very surprised to find Frank standing on the other side.

"Well." The words were dry and otherwise toneless. "Look who's back."

Frank was on the verge of a particularly biting reply that he would have immediately regretted. What stopped him was the music. His brow furrowed in recognition, eyes unfocused. When he glanced at her again, there was a quirk of amusement hiding at the corner of his mouth. "Is that Arcade Fire?" he asked. "Because if you got the new album before I did, I have to forfeit my hipster cred."

It wasn't the most productive of responses. But considering their history, it could have been worse.

Topaz tilted her head, listening to the song. She hadn't even realized what'd been playing. "You're slipping," she teased, her own lips twitching into the smallest of smiles. She rocked back on her heels for a brief moment before saying, "Wanna come in? I can start it over. You're clearly behind."

"Sure," Frank replied without thinking. It was only as he followed her into the suite that he realised he'd just agreed to hang out in an enclosed space with a girl he'd freaked out at not that long ago. He felt himself tense. Gritted his teeth. Forced himself to relax.

"I hear it's supposed to be pretty good," he said, looking at the CD player. "You got an opinion?"

It wasn't hard for the empath to feel the tension radiating off Frank. Surprisingly, she wasn't nearly as tense as he was. She'd been mad at Frank for a long time, until eventually she'd realized she could keep holding a grudge and just hate him forever, or she could let it go. She'd seen what hatred could do to a person. And she refused to be Taboo. So she let it go.

But Frank had already left by that point.

"It's pretty good all around," Topaz said as she reset the player, and the CD cycled back to the beginning. "Fond of 'Afterlife' myself. And 'Here Comes The Nighttime.'"

"Good to know. Anything as good as Empty Room? They ever manage to equal that song, I'll be..." he stopped. Looked at her. Sighed, and let the tension flow out of him.

"God damnit, Topaz. I don't-" he stopped, and waved his arms, trying to articulate what he was so totally failing at saying. "I'm not... proud of how I freaked out at you. Back in the summer. It was... Look. I was a dick."

That was really as close as he could get to an actual apology.

Topaz was a bit surprised, to say the least, by the sudden outburst. For a moment, the opening notes of Reflektor were the only sound in the room.

"You don't expect me to disagree, do you?" She finally asked, a bit dryly. "But I'm not proud of anythin' that happened then-" And that was a massive understatement, "so I'd say we're just about even. If you wanna be."

Translation: I'm sorry. Can we just put this behind us?

A pause. Eye contact that went on just a little longer then normal. And then Frank's face broke into a crooked grin. "I think I can deal with that, yeah." He sat down on the couch, glanced around. "And now I can ask about the scorch marks. Scorch marks, Topaz. You throw a rave or something while I've been gone?"

She couldn't help but smile when he did, but of course the moment was broken. "Oh yeah, turned into a right party girl. Maddie's a horrible influence," Topaz scoffed. "You must not've seen the library yet. Had a bit of a demon invasion a few weeks back. They did a number on the place. Although...the scorch marks are technically my fault."

"You and Maddie? Hanging out? Have I missed the apocalypse or something?" He smirked as he said it. Oh, it was nice to have someone who could actually keep up with him to talk to. Then the part about the library hit him. "Wait. Wait wait wait. Demons? Library? Demons in the library? Please tell me it's not on fire. Is it on fire? It's on fire, isn't it."

He stood as he spoke, standing just slightly closer to her then he had for a while. Subtext: Are you okay?

"Yeah, but it was a very peaceful apocalypse. The bunnies took over." His reaction to the library was almost funny. If only because it was fairly similar to what Topaz's had been when she'd seen Ms. Smith's email. "Yes, demons. Yes demons in the library. No, the library's not on a fire. Some books were ruined and there's a giant hole in the wall - not quite sure how, but from what I gathered it's Mr Gibney's fault."

The slight invasion of personal space would have normally had Topaz stepping back. But it wasn't like this was a first for Frank. And anyways it wasn't so bad.

"Kyle?" He stared at her. "Our English teacher. Is responsible for setting the library on fire." He took a moment to assimilate this particular piece of information. "Okay. So when are we killing him? I assume you have some plan for vengeance here." He hadn't stepped away. After a moment, he looked at her again, slightly differently this time. "And... they got in here too," he said eventually. "You... okay?"

"Not on fire. For the giant hole in the wall. I think he actually stopped the library from being set on fire. But still, the irony." She couldn't help but smirk a bit. "Haven't really thought about vengeance, honestly. Things were a bit mad that night-" And they'd only gotten worse from there, "so I think he gets pass." She tilted her head a bit as the look in his eyes shifted to something she couldn't quite read. "Oh, uh...yeah. Yeah, no, I'm fine. I wasn't alone, Sue was here too, we managed to...to keep them off us. No big deal." She'd forgotten about the height difference. She had to actually crane her neck back to look up and meet his gaze completely. Or she could have just stepped back.

She didn't.

There was a moment of silence. Then Frank realised how close he was standing. He should step back, give her space. It wasn't wise to crowd people like this. But at the same time, he really didn't want to. "Good. That you dealt with it. It... it would have sucked for you to be...."

her eyes are so brown. Why have I never noticed that before?

"...Hurt."

Oh.

Later, he'd say that it was her eyes that did it. But at that moment, he couldn't think of anything at all. He closed the last few inches between their lips and kissed her.

"Yeah, I-"

Topaz wasn't really sure what she planned on saying. She was a bit distracted by the rather intense look he was giving her - what did it mean? - so honestly, it was no big loss when he interrupted.

Really, really no big loss.

For the briefest moment, Topaz had no idea how to react. Her mind was racing. Was she dreaming? Her dreams weren't this nice. Definitely not this nice. Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe Billy had accidentally cast some kind of spell. That made sense, right? Right?

Or maybe he was really kissing her.

All of this passed through the girl's mind in the span of about five seconds, and then she was kissing him back, eyes slipping shut. This was happening. This was actually happening.

Oh. Oh, that was nice. He didn't quite realise he'd stepped into her, wrapping his hands around her waist until he'd done it. In his defence, his mind was on more important things.

Topaz certainly wasn't complaining. She pushed up onto her tiptoes (stupid height difference), fingers curling around his shirt to balance herself. Her mind was still going a mile a minute, trying to rationalize all the reasons why this could be happening. But at this point, she was ignoring it.

She was going to enjoy a moment. Just for once.

"It took 3 different restaurants, and it kinda sounded like they had to go out and buy a goat especially for us but I found it," a grinning blonde entered the room holding a large bag out take out aloft triumphantly, "This had better be the best curry I..." Sue's voice trailed off as she realized she and Topaz weren't alone in the suite, and her suite-mate was slightly distracted, "But it kinda looks like you went straight to dessert." she noted with a wicked grin.

Reality was cruel and - ironically enough - smelt of Indian food.

Topaz yanked back from Frank, eyes flying open as she whipped around to look at Sue. Somehow it had slipped her mind that the blonde had only gone out for food. Oh. Oh. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to find words to explain, but it wasn't happening. She could only stare, wide-eyed as her chest heaved. There had been a certain amount of oxygen deprivation, after all.

Frank was not entirely sure what had happened. There had been Topaz- lots and lots of Topaz, which was lovely- and now there wasn't, and he seemed to have bitten his own tongue. And Now Sue was making jokes about dessert, and oh God she'd seen them. Oh God. This was going to get worse before it got better.

"Sue. Hi." Oh God. "Um... I'm back."

"I see that." the blonde replied struggling to contain her amusement, "Hi. Hey Topaz, did you notice, Frank's back." Sue's eye's flicked back and forth between the two other teenagers, "Did you miss us? Well the rest of us, you apparently missed some of us...a lot. Ok I'm done, I'm done. For now anyway," she noted grinning brightly, " I gotta say about time."

Topaz was practically shaking as she tried to figure out what to do. Sue had seen them. Sue had seen them. Bad bad bad. "I...what?" Her accent, which always got a bit stronger when she was upset or stressed, was more than noticeable right now then. Sue had seen them. Sue had seen them and Topaz didn't even know what it had all meant. All the questions from before were crashing back down. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe Frank had been confused. Thinking he felt something he really didn't. He was a very emotional person (she knew that from experience), maybe he was just getting things...mixed up.

Frank wasn't fairing much better- especially since Topaz was still breathing really deeply, which did interesting things to her chest, which- no. NO. Oh God. He stared directly at Sue, desperately trying to figure out exactly what to say to let him go back in time about ten minutes and lock the fucking door. "I... uh... I should... go. Go! Yes. Okay."

Except that required leaving Topaz on her own with Sue, and confused as he was Frank wasn't a total idiot. He glanced back at her. "If... do you..."

There was no way in hell to finish that sentence with anything resembling dignity.

"Oh no you don't," Sue interjected, "You just got back, you can't just go running off that quickly. grab a set," the teen held up the bag of take-out, "I'm sure I've got enough for three in here, it definitely feels like it. Stick around and we can catch up,you know talk, that other thing you do with your mouth." She knew she said she'd stop but it was just so cute how flustered the two of them were.

At that, Topaz finally found words. Or one, at least! "No! No no no no. I'm sure Frank needs to...to unpack, get settled in, he was gone for a while, he doesn't have time to hang around here..."

"Yes!" Frank nodded frantically. Okay. Topaz was saying go. That was EXACTLY the kind of direction he needed right now. "Yes. There are bags to empty and I have to go see Angelo and oh look at the time goodbye!" He darted for the door.

Then wondered why this was proving difficult. Then realised he seemed to have caught Topaz's hand and was still holding it and this time they were actually right in FRONT of Sue oh God what the hell...

"Bye," he muttered, dropping her hand. He should go. He should really-

He kissed her briefly again.

-GO.

Sue arched an eyebrow, "Obviously all he wants to do is rush off to unpack. How could i have missed that?" she teased. Besides is unpacking really more important than dinner? I mean we have Indian food, delightful company, unpacking in your room has being cold, lonely and perhaps pizza? Not saying you have to stay but it's not like your bags are going to run away." the blonde offered as she disappeared into the kitchenette to retrieve plates before sticking her head around the corner, "Your bags aren't going to walk away are they? I mean you never know in this place."

"Just go," Topaz muttered, her face burning. She wasn't hungry. She actually felt a bit sick. This was what happened when she let go, wasn't it? It would have been so convenient if the floor would open up and just swallow her.

She wondered if she could actually make that happen...

The look on Topaz's face was enough. Frank was making the situation worse just by being here. "Right," he muttered, feeling his own face flush. "Bye." He went straight for the door, pushing through without looking back. He didn't stop walking until he was halfway down the hall- where he sank against the wall and buried his face in his hands.

Fuck.

Sue blinked in confusion at the sound of the door slamming as Frank made his hasty exit from the suite. "Where did Frank..." she started before the look on Topaz's face stopped her short. Vanishing back into the kitchen for a second Sue reappeared with the plates which she put down next to Topaz. "I'm sorry, she said quietly, "I really did think it would be nice to catch up with him. I didn't even mean to tease you so much." she told Topaz before turning to head back to her room with a sigh. Suddenly Sue didn't really have much of an appetite left.

Topaz felt as if everything was standing still - well, everything about her, at least. The rest of the world was moving quite fast. Frank was running out, the door was slamming, Sue was saying something and walking away.

And Topaz could only stare at the floor.

"What?"