fandomhigh | Library, Thursday All Day

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Library, Thursday All Day

It was probably fair to guess that Evan was excited to be showing up for his first shift as a library aide, what with the way he'd made absolutely certain his hair was a little bit neater than usual before leaving his room. He was also wearing his fanciest clothing... which mostly consisted of his old Jean Grey School uniform, blazer and necktie and shorts and all. The important thing here was that he looked professional, right? His old school's crest wasn't emblazoned on the front or anything, so it would suffice.

Of course, the blazer and shorts combo meant that not ten minutes into his shift, some of the more recent periodicals were sneaking up to his desk and leaving themselves wide open on any section that prominently featured men's fashion. At first, Evan thought maybe somebody was teasing him and just hiding whenever he was looking, but then he actually caught a magazine in the act of scaling the desk, and he sighed.

"It's not that bad, guys."

The library is open! And the aide is wearing shorts whether the periodicals like it or not!

[Open!]

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It was, perhaps, rather early in the morning but Yeul didn't have class until later and she felt confident enough to know exactly how much she didn't know that it rather made sense to check out the library.

She hadn't really expected to see someone she'd talked to there but it wasn't a bad thing.

"Hello Evan," she said, offering him a smile.

"Yeul," Evan greeted, offering her a little smile as he gathered up the last of an armload of magazines of various descriptions. He wasn't sure how the guys in the motorcycle magazines were an improvement on what he was wearing, but... "Hi! Settling in okay?"

"I think so," she said thoughtfully. "Though I've discovered that there's a great deal I do not know, which makes things a bit harder to understand."

Animals were going to give her headaches. All of them.

Yeul looked at the magazines he was gathering. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb your work with idle chatter."

"Oh, I'm fine with idle chatter," Evan replied, smiling faintly. "The magazines are pretty much all there is for me to take care of right now anyway, and I'll stay late to put them away if I have to. I like it in here, you know?"

It was all full of learning. And education. And such.

"What sort of things aren't you familiar with? I remember you were kind of confused about a lot of the food..."

"It does have a certain atmosphere," she said agreeably, looking around the library. "And food, yes, is a big one. Animals are another." Which she suspected was partly why the food left her confused.

It didn't mean she wasn't eating, because Yeul was perfectly capable of eating even if she didn't understand what it was she ate, but it was an added layer of confusion.

"Well... if you have any questions..." Evan tilted his head. "You did come to the right place to get them answered. I mean, there's a whole section on food, and another one on animals, if you'd like me to show you where they are."

Look! Look he was being helpful! At his job! In the library!

HIS JOB IN THE LIBRARY, EVERYONE.

She hesitated. "I wouldn't want to bother you," Yeul said apologetically, "but I would appreciate it. I am not sure where to start figuring out what I should learn first."

At least she knew what horses were now? It was progress!

Horses were totally progress!

"Here," Evan chirped, happy to put down the judgey, judgey magazines and to lead her into the stacks. "Let's start with animals first, maybe working with the ones that are native to the island before moving on to things you're more likely to find on your plate? That way if you see something out there, you'll know to avoid it, like gremlins and... weird invading things."

He smiled over his shoulder at her as he paused and waited for her to catch up.

"The rule of thumb is mostly that if it's trying to bite you, stay away from it."

And catch up she had to do, since between his enthusiasm and her general bewilderment coupled with her limp, it took her a few more steps to get to where he was.

"Ace, my assigned big sibling, mentioned gremlins to me," she shared. "It was confusing because we have gremlins at home but they seem to be quite different."

Also her gremlins were edible. These were... probably not.

"I am well acquainted with the stay out of biting-range rule however."

"It's a pretty good rule to follow," Evan replied, nodding a little. "We have gremlins where I'm from, too, but the Bamfs are blue instead of green, and they have tails, and if they bite... mostly it just hurts. You don't go crazy from it or anything."

Thank goodness.

"I think everyone has stuff they need to get used to when they come here. Just some more than others, you know?"

"That seems to be the general feeling of the school," she said agreeably. "My own observations agree with that as well."

Yeul shrugged a little. "There are many monsters in my world. Everyone knows that rule, I think." Unless they were very, very sheltered. "Gremlins at home are silver and white and yellow. They tend to come in groups and use magic on people."

"Magic gremlins," Evan mused, shaking his head a little bit. "I guess we're pretty fortunate they don't do that here. And if the Bamfs back at my last school could do more than just teleport, we'd be in all kinds of trouble."

He came to a stop and turned to look at the row of books in front of him.

"Animals," he said, sounding pretty proud of himself. "The local ones are here, in this book," he pulled one from the shelf and held it out to her, and then gestured to other sections as he spoke, "and there are some books on the wildlife of America, and then the world."

She took the book he offered her with a smile.

"I would never have found this on my own," Yeul said. "I had not expected so many books to be just on animals. Thank you. Have you been working here long?"

Because as far as she was concerned, he was doing an excellent job.

Evan blushed a little, scuffing his toe sheepishly against the floor.

"Since the library opened this morning," he admitted. "But I spent a lot of time in here over the summer. There are so many books, and I didn't do much but read for the last couple of months. Summer workshops aren't very academic, so I felt like I kind of had to make up for lost time."

Well, that, and he just really liked reading.

"I never would have guessed you were new," she assured him. "So that time in the library this summer paid off."

She glanced down at the book in her hands, then back at the shelves. "It's almost like you'd need that much time to get used to where everything is."

"Almost," Evan replied, smiling a little more. "But there is a system. Fiction is over there, and non-fiction is over here, so that already cuts the library nearly in half, you know? Have you spent much time in a library before?"

"No," she said honestly. "I've been in them a time or two, but most of what I know was taught orally, not through books."

Or she'd lived through it. That helped.

"That makes sense," Evan decided. "Well, I can teach you how to find your way around, if you like. There really is a rhyme and reason to it all, and if you still don't know where to start looking for things, that's what library aides are for!"

"I suppose so," she said smiling. "Though are you sure that wouldn't take up too much time? You were busy when I came in, after all."

"I was just putting away magazines," Evan replied, shaking his head. "And I'm sure there'll be more on the desk by now anyhow. I might as well let them get it out of their system."

This library. This library.

"Besides, it's pretty easy to figure out, once you get the hang of it. See, the books are even sorted alphabetically, by author's name and then by the book's title!"

Putting the good advice after the new Fandom oddity to a newbie meant that clearly...

"Why would there be more magazines on the desk now?" she asked dubiously.

Some questions had to be asked.

"Because I wore shorts today," Evan replied, looking down at his naked knees.

Look, they were adorable knees. It wasn't his fault the library couldn't handle them.

"Books kind of have a mind of their own in here, sometimes. I think the magazines are trying to tell me something."

Excuse her for laughing softly, would you, Evan?

"What's wrong with your knees?" she asked, since she didn't see anything wrong with them. They were very knee-like! "And shorts make sense when it's warm out."

"They do!" Good, someone who understood! "But I guess the books don't like that I'm wearing them with a blazer and a necktie. I thought it was okay!"

It was! Wasn't it? Surely the X-Men wouldn't dress their students up in anything that looked stupid!

... Right?

Er.

Yeul had to step back and survey him more thoroughly for a moment before shrugging.

"It looks alright to me, Evan. I can't imagine what the books don't like about it."

The sad thing was that she was entirely sincere.

Library, Thursday All Day

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