closed ! - @rightreaction
hammered nails and hardy laughter were tricks that lived, nestled, up frank’s rolled up sleeve, comfortably. both came easy, both were part of the job, and he could fish them out without a moments notice to fix up a bathroom and sweet talk his way to an increased rate and a cup of tea. and whilst he sat now waist-deep in a dive-bar stage with a queen feeding him their best, not the best, lines, he flexed both. easy. his charm was trickery, perhaps, but it was genuine, sincere trickery, like a street magician pulling a quarter from behind the ear of a passing child and handing it off as a souvenir. it passed the time. it made people smile. it meant his ego was as hard as rock and in his ‘line of work’, it helped. “ wrench, sweetheart, if you could. no it’s- yeah, nah, that’s a screwdriver. to the right. your right, not my right. “ he’d been entertaining the entertainer who’d been keeping him company, but when bustling skirts settled beside the very tool he needed with a rustle, the pencil tucked behind his ear lifted with the curve of his smiling cheeks, warmth spreading like lace trim across his face. fanned out, all-encompassing, a little fragile, if you were to take a pin to the holes in it. he’d found himself staring at a pin in the hem of the stranger’s whispering dress, and felt like that very same street magician, only caught having had the quarter up his sleeve the whole time. " darlin’, on me’ mother’s life, please tell me you know what a wrench is. “ the darling in question was so darling once his eyes adjusted, that he thought he’d be quite happy to reveal every secret in his toolbox. that of all thoughts made him grin a little wider, askew, earnest.
