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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"Oh no?" Evan peered out from the stacks, his arms finally emptied of the load of magazines that he'd been putting away. He looked at the girl who had just stepped into the library, and then looked in the direction that she was looking. And then he sighed. "Oh nooo. I just put these ones away!"

They were out to get him! Him and his adorable knees!

"There were more?!" Sholeh squeaked. "How many more?"

HOW COULD SHE HAVE OVERLOOKED SO MANY MAGAZINES?

"I swear, I didn't mean to leave them all out! I don't even remember them being there!"

One day on the job and she was going to get fired for leaving everything out.

Oh. Oh my, there was a seriously distressed girl and Evan had no idea what to do about it.

"You didn't leave anything out," he said, holding his hands up and trying to sound reassuring. "The desk was clear when I got in... The place looked great!"

HONEST!

"Are you sure?" Sholeh demanded, looking like she might grab him by his necktie and shake him for answers. "I realized this morning that I hadn't dusted and maybe I should have dusted because I've never been a library's aide before and I want to do it right!"

*Sweetie, ease back just a little bit,* Zhahar suggested. *It's okay. He said the place looked great remember?*

Sholeh took a deep breath, and steadied herself. "You sure you're sure?" she asked, looking up at him with big, green eyes. "If I did it wrong, you can tell me."

Evan's ice blue eyes were looking right back at her, wide open and looking maybe just a touch intimidated.

He had no idea why Uncle Cluster kept telling him to meet more girls his age. Apparently they were all insane.

"I'm absolutely positive," he swore, daring a blink before his eyeballs could dry out. "The only thing I noticed when I walked in was how quiet this place is before anyone gets here. But... books do get moved around during the day, you know? If there are some on the desk during my shift, there are pretty good odds that they showed up there during my shift, too. You don't have to worry."

Or flail! No flailing!

Sholeh sagged with relief, letting herself fall into a chair. "Oh, good," she said, more to herself than him. "I didn't mess it up."

=Except now this gray kid thinks you're crazy,= Zeela pointed out. =Not sayin' he's wrong, though. Crazy.=

A quick expression almost like a pout crossed Sholeh's face, before it was wiped away by an earnest, rather chagrined smile. "Sorry," she said, acutely embarrassed by her behavior. "I just...it's my first job. In a library. I don't want to ruin everything my very first day. Sorry."

"If it helps any, it's my first day?" Evan was smiling, looking maybe a tiny bit uncertain. "And my first job, too. So I really do understand. I'll probably be here way after hours tonight just making certain I leave everything looking good for the next person in here."

And reading things. That too.

"I probably should have done that," Sholeh admitted, looking even more downcast than before. "I kinda, uhh, got distracted."

Her voice trailed off into a mumble. "...Reading."

"Oh? Reading what?" Evan was smiling a little more now as he pulled up a seat nearby. "It's really easy to get sidetracked in here, isn't it? There are so many good books just begging to be read!"

"It's my favorite part of the school!" Sholeh agreed, perking up. "The hardest part about leaving last semester was having to say goodbye to the library!"

...Her friends probably wouldn't appreciate knowing that, but it was true.

"I found a book of myths about gods!" she continued. "All sorts of gods, from many, many places. I think it's actually a little kids' book, because the language and vocaburlary are pretty simple, but I'm from a different Landscape and I've never heard of any of this stuff, so I didn't think it would matter much if I started with a little kid book."

... So help him, she'd managed to catch Evan's attention with that one.

"Oh? I don't think I know that one," he noted. "Do you still have it?"

Not that he had any sort of vested interest in learning more about all sorts of gods or anything. Nope. Not this kid.

"I do!" Sholeh said, with a vigorous nod. "I should have brought it back when I came to check up, but I, ahem, left in such a hurry that I sorta forgot it." Panic wasn't the best of memory aids, you see. "But I finished it last night, so I'm all ready to return it."

Which might also explain why she'd woken up convinced it was the end of the world. Ragnarok was one of those concepts that tended to linger.

*Sholeh,* Zhahar prompted.

::What?::

*No, 'My name is Sholeh.'*

::Zhahar, what are you talking about?::

=Mother's tits, Sholeh!= Zeela said, exasperated. =Introduce yourself before you get so lost in booktalk that you're late for class!=

"Oh!" Sholeh's surprised noise was belatedly turned into a cough. "My name's Sholeh, by the way. Nice to meet you." She went to offer him her hand, but then thought better of it, as that had been the one she'd just pretended to cough into. "Sholeh and I work Wednesdays, but I guess you know that part already."

"Nice to meet you, Sholeh," Evan replied, smiling and offering her his hand, anyway. A pretend cough wasn't enough to scare him off, really. "You can call me Evan. And... I guess this makes us coworkers, huh?"

Well duh, Evan.

Sholeh wiped her hand on her dress before taking it anyway. Just to be polite. "I guess it does," she said, happily. "And you just started, too? I was really excited to hear that I'd get to work here. I figured they'd choose people who were older and had more experience or something."

With...books. Yes.

"I think maybe they just give it to whoever shows that they want the job the most," Evan mused, shaking her hand. "Or maybe the people who'll appreciate what kind of job it is. If we both love books, then we're probably pretty qualified right off the bat. Right?"

"If you didn't love books, why would you even apply?" Sholeh asked, clearly overlooking the draws of easy money, minimal work, and library-as-potential-makeout-place. "I can't believe there are people who can walk into this place and not pause in awe of it."

"There are probably some who just need the work." Evan gave his shoulders a little shrug. It didn't make much sense to him, either, but at least he had a bit of a grasp on the way other teenagers tended to behave. "But I'm sure the library would have them standing in awe of it in no time, even if they didn't care at the start. I mean..."

He gestured around, as if she needed an invitation to take it all in.

"Look at it! Probably anything you could ever want to learn is somewhere in here!"

... Or almost anything.

"I guess that's fair," Sholeh said with a nod. "Though there are lots of places to work on the island, with the town just a little ways away and all."

She was pretty sure she'd be all kinds of resentful if she'd been denied a job at the library just because some other kid had decided it would be a convenient place to draw a paycheck from.

*On the other hand, perhaps that is how the other person discovers just how wonderful books are,* Zhahar pointed out. *Surely that's worth a missed job opportunity.*

Sholeh didn't really have an answer for Zhahar, so she responded to Evan instead. "I wonder how long it must have taken to amass so many volumes. They must have access to every different Landscape ever. I wonder if they have any books about Tryadnea here."

"Oh, they've probably been collecting books here for decades. Maybe even centuries. It's hard to say, since I don't know how old the school is," Evan mused. "The library might even have its own set of rules, and just kind of regurgitate new books whenever it feels like it. I mean, if they can get it in mind to give me fashion advice, reproducing probably isn't much of a stretch."

... It was pretty sound logic, for Fandom.

"Now I'm picturing books reproducing," Sholeh said with a laugh--and a furious blush for good measure. "The, umm, romance novels would help out a lot, I'm sure. But the science textbooks would just make things awkward."

It would be like every Discovery Channel documentary that Evan's parents had frowned upon him watching! Not... that he was going to say that. At all.

"Awkward, but, um... functional?" Yes. Functional. "The Shakespeare would be there, trying to coach them along with sonnets, I'm sure."

"The cookbooks would all be flipping to romantic dinners and candles, and the music section would only play love songs," Sholeh said, looking around to figure out what other sections there were that could help.

"Tourism would have to give them a backdrop of the world's most romantic cities," Evan added merrily. "I'm sure even the self-help books would have a thing or two to contribute."

"The childcare books would all be getting everything ready," Sholeh added. "And the histories would all start talking about 'back in their day, not every book needed to be involved.'"

"Or how back in their day the whole library was involved," Evan offered, "and you didn't have any of this teen romance section running off and thinking that they could take care of it on their own."

Evan's influences back home had mostly come from senior citizens, yes.

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