fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday [ 02/06 ]

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Library, Wednesday [ 02/06 ]

Adah came in for her day at the library with the distinct conviction that people just weren't worth the trouble it took to deal with them. She felt she could honestly say that, too, as she had been attempting to be social quite a lot this last week, and look where it got her. Waking up fresh from another bizarre dream of Africa and feeling horrible. Books, she figured, were a much better companion; usually, she knew if an author was going to throw a temper tantrum at her, and if she didn't like it, close the book, get a new one. Books were also very good at making barricades around the desk, hiding her from people...and kissing. People, on the other hand, would be much harder to get to cooperate, unless they were dead, and Adah doubted she could ever really kill anyone.

She did, behind her wall of books with just enough space so that if someone really did need help or Bob came around and did not approve, then she could depend on those to defend herself. And she was slowly nursing a warm mug of tea, toh, yerg lrae. Maybe that would make her feel better in not too long.

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Adah was quiet for a long moment, carefully considering. There really wasn't anything he could do to help that she could think of and that didn't make her want to sneer at herself, but she was kind of wishing that there was. One part of her wanted him to just go, the other part of her kind of desperately wanted him to stay, and it was driving her insane.

"I'm sure," she said finally, "that these books can wait for whoever works tomorrow, but if you wanted to help by putting some of them away early, I certainly won't stop you."

It was only until after she said it that she realized that this would mean a dismantling of the wall. It was too late now, though.

"I'm pretty good at shelving books," he said quietly. "Any specific ones you want me to take?"

There was a metaphor here, too, and Adah knew it and it left her looking vaguely irritated at the pages of the books she was looking at and considering. What the hell was wrong with him? He comes in and she's cranky, irritable, and difficult with him, and so what does he do? Offers to do her job for her. How did that make any sense? It didn't; she should just tell him to go and save him from making himself out to be a complete and utter fool...

"Those ones," she said, quietly avoiding his eyes as she pressed the tip of her finger against a stack on the left that she knew wouldn't disturb the construction of the rest of the wall too much when removed.

"Easy," Lee said, scooping up the books and disappearing into the aisles to shelve them.

"Want me to bring you back any?" he called. Shouted. Oh well.

Well, at least the Eel had gone away into the shelves so he wouldn't see how that managed to get a small smirk to slip out of Adah. She paused a moment, biting her lip, as she weighed the advantages and disadvantages of raising her voice. She already had been stubborn and difficult; she decided on staying on that slant and reserving her chastisement of him for when he returned. She'd only ever raised her voice above normal conversation once in her life; she didn't quite care for it, and he could take her silence as answer enough.

"Guess not," he muttered to himself and finished putting the books away. He reappeared a moment later, hands empty. "All done."

"You know," Adah told him as he reappeared, watching him quietly from the moment he'd emerged from the aisles and on his way to the desk, "you shouldn't shout in a library." She pursed her lips slightly, brought an index finger against it. In any other mood, it would have been playful. As it was, it appeared that Adah was trying to at least be a little bit so, but it just wasn't working today.

"I wasn't that loud," he said but lowered his voice anyway. "I could've been much, much louder and then you might have had to throw me out of the library."

"I could still throw you out, you know," Adah responded, her voice equally lowered, her eyes still on him as she leaned, slightly in and toward the new gap in the wall so that she could still see him. "Of course, that wouldn't be very smart of me, considering that if I did that, I'd lose my work mule."

"Ah, but now that I know that you're just using me for your work, what if I wenet on strike?" he asked. "Refused to do anything and just sat here and talked at you."

"I suppose I'd have to bravely face your yammering," Adah reasoned once she got over a touchy bit of annoyed marveling at him. How could he so easily just start breaking her down even at her most stubborn? Where the hell did he get it? "And then later perhaps compose a letter to management about uncooperative co-workers who prevent great works of literature from being made." She gave the manifesto, long since abandoned in her mind, a light, important tapping.

"So, write," he said and reached over to tap the manifesto himself. "And I'll just stand here quietly and take up space. Being quiet. You won't even know I'm here."

"Impossible," Adah declared. "Your mere presence is a distraction; we proved that when you first came in."

"I think you want to be distracted," Lee said boldly.

Adah lifted her eyebrows. "That's quite an accusation," she said, a slightly warning tone in her voice. It was mostly to cover up the fact that the arched eyebrows were just as much surprise as they were indignation. "If I wanted to be distracted, why would I have bothered with this wall?"

"Because you like to make things hard," he said, ignoring the warning. "Harder than they have to be. You bothered with this wall for the same reason I slam doors when I'm mad. Maybe I don't want to be bothered but I want someone to know I'm here and I'm pissed. If you didn't want to be distracted, this wall would've been higher and you wouldn't have asked me to take anything away."

True, Adah Price didn't talk much, but she always had something to say. Except, apparently, to that, for a good long moment, as her half-brain seemed to struggle with exactly how it should respond. She blinked, her face paling, her eyes dropping away from him, off to the side. Her jaw shifted, as she thought to open it and say something, but then it settled again, as if the words that barely had a moment to process had already left, abandoning her to stiffen with annoyance at someone just standing there and telling her how she worked. It wouldn't have been nearly as annoying if it weren't for the fact that it was coming from him or the fact that he was so right or the fact that she had to go through something very similar to this with River the other day.

But was it really so bad that he'd understand a little bit of the workings of her brain? Especially since, despite them, he still appeased her on the matter?

...

Yes. Yes it was. "Fine," she assented reluctantly. "So I like things to be difficult. I think I have a right to that, considering I've had to deal with it from before I was even out of the womb..."

"You wanted to be distracted," he said again, nodding. "You making things hard was a random observation that I made because of the wall of books. You wanted to be distracted but you wanted it to be hard for whoever distracted you. There's nothing wrong with that."

He leaned a little more on the counter, hands clasped in front of him. "You asked me to explain the wall in relation to distraction and I did."

Adah let out a small, frustrated sort of grunt, which was mostly so because it wasn't exactly like he was saying anything she could argue with, now was it? He was just standing there, being right about a situation as it was and not even being a smart ass about it, just matter-of-fact, and maybe that was the problem. She didn't know. She drew in a breath.

"Well, good job, you've sufficiently distracted me. Haven't helped at all with my mood, though still, I cannot deny that I'm thoroughly distracted. A fine job, as always..."

Lee raised an eyebrow and pushed himself to stand up straighter. "I didn't know you wanted me to help you with your mood. I've been trying to help but you don't want to let me."

Adah sighed, shoulders sagging, deflated, defeated. "I'm just...not feeling well, okay? I don't know what the hell I want." And that was just the problem, wasn't it? She shook her head slightly, eyes distinctly on the bottom row of books that formed the slightly crumbled wall. Forcing herself through a great deal of hesitation, she said, "Maybe you really should just go. I'm only going to end up pissing you off..."

Isn't that what she wanted, though? A good reason for him to not bother? She thought it was, but it sure as hell looked a lot better on paper than it felt in practice...

"Maybe I should." And, for a second, he almost did, just because he thought he should respect her wishes.

"Then again, maybe I shouldn't," he said and shrugged. "If you piss me off, then I'll tell you so. You haven't. I don't know why you're expecting to but we'll deal with that when it happens. Right now, I'm going to stick around."

Shoulders still slumped, despite the fact that the curve it gave her spine was really starting to ache in a terrible way, Adah turned her wide eyes toward the Eel with a bit of desperation in them (she was loathed to accept the word pleading). At the same time, though, there was something in them battling it, something probably akin to relief. Which just left them very, very confused, and she hated that almost as much as she would have hated if it had been clearly one or the other.

"You're so stubborn," she ended up commenting, quietly, almost a whisper.

He smiled, taking that as a compliment and leaned a little closer. "One of the better traits I get from my father. Listen. I think I'm going to disappoint my father forever. That doesn't mean I want to. You thinking I need to leave doesn't mean you want me to. Right?"

Adah only managed to look at the Eel for a moment before she looked away, back to the books, because she really didn't like the fact that there was far too much going on in her eyes. She bit her lip, her chest tightening in an effort to keep it all down. It didn't make any sense. How come someone who couldn't even read her mind know exactly what she was thinking when someone who could didn't have a clue (or so Adah was feeling hard-pressed to insist)?

She took a moment before she answered; it had nothing to do with a decision of whether to deny it or not. It would be pointless at this juncture, now, wouldn't it? The delay was over deciding whether or not she could actually admit it.

"...right."

For someone so stupid...

Library, Wednesday [ 02/06 ]

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