You Can't Judge a Book by Its Oddly Specific Call Number (standalone)
Title: You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Oddly Specific Call Number (standalone)
Author: ivesia19 / Sara
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon and Spencer/Jon and Gerard/Frank
POV: 3rd limited
Word Count: ~ 10,000
Summary: Library AU! The one where a cynical Ryan just may want a happy ending with the new Children’s Librarian, Spencer doesn’t want things to change - especially his card catalogue, and Gerard wants more than his books to be checked out.
Disclaimer: The boys belong to themselves (and possibly each other) All lines taken from books belong to the book cited (mostly The Giver)
Author Notes: For the Christmas exchange at SantaattheDisco for silver-etoile who deserves this because she’s amazing. ♥ Oh, and yes, I worked in a library for four years. Sadly, I do still have the Dewy Decimal System memorized. Beta’d by habezweikatzen and 0bamboo-shoots0
Warning: Some spoilers for the following books/plays: Ivanov, The Awakening, The Giver, Pride and Prejudice, Where the Wild Things Are
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Ryan carefully marked his place in the book he was reading by slipping a piece of paper between the pages before closing the collection of plays, turning his attention to the girl standing in front of the desk. He tried to suppress his annoyed groan. Already he could tell that she was the type of person who thought that creasing down the edge of a book page was an acceptable way to treat books that weren’t theirs.
“Can I help you?” Ryan asked. He could see a slight bulge in her pocket, no doubt a cell phone, and Ryan sincerely hoped that she turned it off, or at least turned it on silent. While Ryan was pretty adamant about the treatment of books, it was nothing to how Spencer was with noise violations.
The girl tilted her head to the side and gave Ryan a smile, eyes flickering across Ryan’s features so obviously that Ryan felt like he was physically suppressing the urge to tell her that no, he wasn’t interested. “I was hoping that you could help me find something,” she said, one bright red, well-manicured hand reaching up to push back her hair.
Considering the fact that Ryan was sitting behind a large sign that he knew clearly said “Information Desk”, he didn’t even bother to say anything, prod further, until she continued.
“My friend told me that you guys just got the first season of Gossip Girl in. Do you think you can help me find it?” She leaned slightly forward on the desk, upper arms pushing in against her chest.
There were few things that Ryan hated more than people coming into the library just for dvds - they could at least pretend that they weren’t that vapid and pick up a book too, but Ryan could tell with just one look that the girl standing in front of him wouldn’t even consider wandering through the bookshelves. He sighed, trying to keep his temper under check.
“All the dvds are alphabetized. It should be easy enough to find,” he tersely replied, turning his chair to the side, moving to wrap his long fingers around the cool plastic of the telephone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”
Ryan didn’t wait to see the girl’s reaction, simply turned away from her and busied himself, fingers dialing out his own cell phone number, which was safely turned off under Spencer’s watchful eye, since he didn’t really have to make a phone call to anyone. He waited, listened to his own voice play back on the message, and when the tone beeped, he hung up the phone, grateful that when he turned back the girl was gone.
He picked back up the book sitting on the desk, sighing to himself. Really, Ivanov was just a masochist who needed to get over himself and stop fucking up other people’s lives. Ryan shook his head to himself as he continued reading at Ivanov’s pathetic belief that love could save him. An actual snort came out when he read about ‘fixing someone’s life’ for love.
“Funny book, Ross?” Spencer asked as he sunk into the chair next to Ryan behind the desk. He peered over to see the front of Ryan’s book. “Chekhov? Well, I guess funny’s out of the question then.”
“Don’t diss Chekhov. He’s one of the only writers who actually understands that life isn’t all happily ever afters and that love is really just a bullshit idea that doesn’t exist.” Ryan flipped a page, not looking up, because he knew the exact face that Spencer would be giving him.
Spencer chuckled. “Such a romantic, Ry.” Ryan could hear him flick through some papers, but Ryan stopped reading since he knew that the question was coming soon. Spencer took an audible exhale and said with some amusement in his voice, “So does this mean that I shouldn’t ask about your date with Pete?”
Ryan frowned, looking up from his play to see Spencer staring at him, eyebrow raised. “He wrote me a love poem,” he replied slowly, still a little bit disbelievingly. “Well,” he corrected, “I think it was a love poem. I couldn’t really tell. His metaphors are pretty fucked up and jumbled.”
Grinning, Spencer asked, “Did he compare you to a summer’s day?”
“No,” Ryan responded, his frown growing deeper. “He compared me to a cracked porcelain doll. And there was something in there about spinning tires on black ice. Or maybe it was black ice in his heart.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know. I don’t get how that’s supposed to be romantic.”
“I take it this means that it’s over,” Spencer concluded after musing for a second.
It was over, actually, but Ryan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What makes you say that?”
Spencer shrugged. “You always do this when someone does something ‘romantically cliché,’” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm over the words. “Maybe if you didn’t read so many doom and gloom love stories you would be able to react normally to a gesture.”
Ryan fumbled for a minute, mouth opening and closing, until he reached for his book, making sure to hold it at an angle that blocked Spencer from sight. “Whatever, Spence, things with Pete and I just weren’t working, okay?”
“Sure,” Spencer said. “Of course not. I mean, he did actually make an effort to let you know how much he liked you after all. Even if it was a little strange.”
“Can we not do this now?” Ryan pleaded, absurdly happy when a middle aged man looked over to the Information Desk, but he frowned as the man continued walking past, apparently not requiring his services.
“Fine,” Spencer said, turning his attention back to the order sheets in front of him, and he let out a groan. “Thank God they fired that bimbo down in the Children’s Library. She always forgot to fill out the ISBN numbers.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, more because he never really liked Audrey. But still, he knew how Spencer felt about properly filled out order forms. “Hopefully the new one will be better.”
“Oh, that reminds me. We have a staff meeting today at 3.” He shuffled a little bit more with his papers. “I don’t think it’ll last long, but they’re going to put a page up here just in case someone has questions.”
“I could always stay here and you could go,” Ryan said, but Spencer cut him off with a look.
“Ry,” Spencer said. “It’ll be short. Patrick apparently has news about something and we’re going to say hello to the new Children’s Librarian. You can deal with it.”
Ryan ignored Spencer’s tone, his parental voice as Ryan dubbed it in his head, and turned back to the play. His eyes scanned over the page. Ivanov had brought a gun to his own wedding. Oh, this was going to end well.
---
Ryan slipped into one of the uncomfortable folding chairs set up around the large circular table between Spencer and Gerard.
“Asshole,” Spencer muttered out of the side of his mouth. “I thought you were going to skip. It’s already 3:05.”
Ryan shrugged. “These things never start on time. It’ll probably be ten more minutes before we get going.”
Next to him, Gerard was doodling on a piece of paper. “Hey, did you see a girl earlier, blonde hair, hooker nails, extroverted cleavage?” Ryan asked him.
Gerard took a second, adding a particularly nasty looking cut on one of the ninja bunnies on his paper. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about, why?”
“She didn’t check out a book or anything, did she?”
“Nope,” Gerard answered sardonically. “But she did have me place a hold on The Hills dvd.”
Ryan shook his head. “Can’t we do something about people like that? I don’t know, like blacklist them?”
“I tried educating her about the real purpose of a library,” Gerard said, “but she just stared at me, so I stopped. There wasn’t even a reaction, man. Totally lame.” Ryan hummed. He could totally imagine Gerard lecturing some girl on the importance of literacy. He wished that he had been there to see it, even if the girl had probably just stared vacuously at him.
“You two need to lighten up about that,” Spencer cut in. “You shouldn’t judge people on what they check out.”
Gerard raised an eyebrow up at Spencer, and he grinned at Ryan.
“You totally should,” Ryan said simply. “That’s why I love working here, you already know if people are worth the time to talk to or not.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Spencer said, but Ryan could see the slight nod of Gerard’s head.
Ryan held up his hands, as if defensive, but he was almost laughing. “I’m just saying, I’d rather talk to someone who checks out Milan Kundera than Nora Ephron. Or the straight up Harlequin Romances.”
“Hey, some people find them entertaining,” Gerard objected. “Like in a hipster way. They’re so bad they’re good, you know?”
“You’re just a romantic,” Ryan batted back.
Spencer chuckled. “The way you say the word romantic makes it sound like a disease or something, Ross.”
Ryan was about to respond with something, but Patrick walked into the room, signaling the start of the meeting. Trailing behind him, with a wide and bright, but slightly nervous, smile was a young guy with a ridiculously brightly patterned shirt.
“That has to be the new Children’s Librarian,” Ryan whispered to Spencer, who shushed him. “Seriously, that’s a lot of color.”
Ryan let his eyes wander over the new faculty member, Patrick’s words a mild hum in his ears. The guy was pretty short. Skinny, but somehow he looked soft. Ryan tilted his head a little bit. Curves, he decided. The guy’s body was thrumming with some sort of electricity, excitement maybe. Could be nerves. His hair was a little messy, and when he pushed it out of his face, Ryan was drawn up - to his lips and eyes, and yeah.
Spencer’s sharp elbow into his side brought Ryan out of his daze. “Ow,” he complained.
“Introduce yourself,” Spencer whispered.
Ryan looked around. Okay then, clearly this was introduce-yourself-to-the-new-guy time and not stare-obviously-at-the-new-guy’s-lower-lip time. Ryan cleared his throat.
“Ryan Ross. Information Desk. Fiction.” He assumed that he was just supposed to say his name and position, and thankfully, Gerard picked up right after Ryan’s voice faded out.
The new guy followed each person talking with his eyes, nodding along to everything they said, flashing a bright smile at each finish. When everyone had spoken, he gave another wide smile and waved.
“Hi, I’m Brendon,” he said. Ryan liked the way that his name looked coming out of that mouth. “Obviously, I’m the new Children’s Librarian. Uh,” his smile faltered a little, but came back in seconds full force. “I guess just, hello, and I’m excited to be here.”
He took a seat next to Patrick, and when he looked over at Ryan, who was still staring a little bit, because fuck, stupid hormones (he was 24, for Christ’s sake), Ryan looked down at a sheet of paper that he must have missed being passed around as he was checking out Brendon. His eyes blurred over the words as he shook the idea of Brendon out of his head. Sure, the guy was hot, but Children’s Librarian. Yeah, that basically said everything it needed to.
Ryan tried valiantly to bring his attention back to the meeting, but his mind kept wandering, that is until Spencer made a very loud noise next to him, somewhere between a scoff and a yell.
“That’s stupid, Patrick, we don’t need to update the system. It’s a waste of money,” Spencer objected.
Ryan didn’t really know what Spencer was objecting to, but he couldn’t really barge in and ask right now, not when Spencer was slowly turning red, a clear warning sign that shit was about to go down.
“The card catalogue system works perfectly fine,” Spencer said, voice loud. “Computers just encourage people to be lazy. To not use their heads. I mean, how goddamn hard is it to go over to a drawer and look up your subject matter?! And people even have me! I’ve got the whole thing memorized, for fuck’s sake.”
He really did, Ryan knew. Spencer made him quiz him once.
Patrick didn’t seem fazed by Spencer’s outburst, but next to him, the new guy, Brendon, looked a little taken aback and a little amused. “Spencer, we’re the only library in the county that still uses the card catalogue. Most libraries made this switch ten years ago. It’s time.”
Ryan knew that if Spencer wasn’t so inhibited he would be crossing his arms right now and pouting. Instead, Spencer just took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine,” he said, still sounding supremely pissed off.
Patrick smiled. “Good, a guy is coming by tomorrow to brief you on the new system.”
Spencer looked furious, and even though a mad Spencer was a scary Spencer, Ryan leaned over and said, “You shouldn’t judge people just because they use computers instead of a card catalogue. Gosh, how shallow.”
---
It was a tough afternoon. Sometimes, Ryan wondered if Spencer had good connections, like really good connections, you know, like with God or something, because after the meeting, no less than four teenage girls accosted Ryan at once, looking for books by Ephron and Steel and Sparks.
Ryan grumbled as he returned to the desk, leaving the group of girls happily chattering in the check out line. “I can’t deal with this anymore,” he said, leaning against the desk, opposite of Spencer. “Too much chick lit.”
“Suck it up, Ryan,” Spencer grumbled, obviously still upset over the upgrading.
Not really feeling like dealing with a pissy Spencer or more people with misconceptions about love, Ryan pushed himself off the desk. “I’m going to go read the nonfiction shelves, okay?”
Spencer looked up with a mixture of annoyance and concern on his face. “You don’t have to do that. I’m really not going to have a breakdown or anything. It just pisses me off that we feel like we have to change along with the masses.”
“Dude, seriously, you’ll be doing me a favor if you let me read your shelves. I need the monotony of numbers in my head right now. It’s killing me.”
“Ok.” Spencer shrugged. “Knock yourself out. But remember, you have to make sure they’re in order down to the last decimal. And use the alphabetical coding too.”
Ryan nodded, but he was sure that no matter what, Spencer would recheck them later. One of the downfalls of working at a library was reading shelves, making sure that everything was still in order, but Ryan wasn’t lying. Right now some monotony would be good. He didn’t want to think about stupid love poems or Nicholas Spark’s novels or new Children Librarians with nice asses.
He wandered through the shelves, contemplating where to start first. He didn’t want to pick a section where he might find something interesting. He’d get distracted, pull it out, and end up reading it on the floor only to get yelled at by Spencer later. Sighing, Ryan headed over to the 790s. Sports and recreation. Sure, the short stories and poems started up soon afterwards, but by then, Ryan figured he’d deserve a break.
Ryan lowered himself to the ground, starting at the very beginning of the 790s and let the numbers wash over him.
790.001 As
790.001 Gr
790.013 Ca
One of his long fingers dusted over the spines of the books, slipping easily over the laminated tags, and he only briefly looked up once in a while to take in the titles.
He was all the way over to 793.325 Ju when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Ryan looked up, eyes a little unfocused from the small, shiny numbers, to see Brendon grinning down at him.
“Um, hi?” Ryan said, pushing himself up off of his knees to stand up. “Do you need something?” It came out a little bit bitchier than Ryan had intended, but Brendon’s smile didn’t waver.
“I went over to the Information Desk to say hello and Spencer said that you were over here.”
Ryan nodded. “Um, yeah. I’m reading shelves.”
“I can see that,” Brendon said, nodding happily. “Personally, I can’t stand reading shelves. I always get so bored, but, it’s all part of the job.”
“Uh huh,” Ryan answered. Brendon was still smiling at him, and Ryan didn’t really know what else there was to say. “Well, welcome to the library, I guess.” He gave Brendon an attempted smile and sunk back down, turning his attention back to the books, but he could still sense Brendon standing behind him.
“It seems like a lot of fun here,” Brendon said, seemingly unaware that the conversation had ended. “Like, it seems like everyone gets along, which is really cool.”
“Yeah,” Ryan muttered from down on the ground, pulling out a misshelved book. He set it down next to him, shaking his head. He didn’t understand why people didn’t take the time to find the right spot for books, or at least put them in the shelving cart.
Ryan could still feel Brendon behind him, and even though he didn’t turn around, he was almost positive that the other boy was bouncing from foot to foot.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Ryan. I hope to see you around soon,” Brendon finally said, voice still bright, but now there was a hint of something else to it as well.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ryan answered automatically, but when he turned around, Brendon was gone.
---
It wasn’t like Ryan didn’t enjoy their bi-weekly dinners at Gerard’s house, but the thing was, ever since Gerard had discovered the exotic cooking section of the library (‘You mean call number-’ ‘Shut up, Spence’) he had taken to preparing rather odd dishes.
“It’s a French-Indian fusion,” Gerard said, placing something bright green on the table. It smelled a little spicy. It was possible that curry was involved.
“Looks good, Gee,” Spencer said magnanimously, helping himself to a large spoonful of whatever it was they were eating. He took a bite, and either he actually found it appetizing or Spencer was a better actor than Ryan gave him credit for, because he swallowed and said, “It’s good.”
Gerard smiled and took a seat next to his brother. “Mikey, aren’t you going to try some?”
Mikey didn’t look up from his cell phone, where he was texting furiously, and pointed down at his plate, full of Bagel Bites.
Ryan let Spencer dish some food out on his plate and started picking at it.
“I heard you guys are finally getting a computerized card catalogue,” Mikey said, closing his cell phone and putting it away. “About fucking time.”
Gerard made a distressed noise around a forkful of food, apparently trying to convey to Mikey to shut up, and Spencer frowned. “Our system is fine,” he argued.
Mikey shook his head, and was obviously about to tell Spencer exactly how the system wasn’t fine when Gerard cut him off. “Did I tell you that the new Children’s Librarian started today, Mikey?”
“No,” Mikey responded, still holding Spencer’s gaze. “Was he the one who finally got the computer thing running?”
“He seems nice,” Gerard went on, ignoring Mikey’s question and Spencer’s glare. “And Ryan thinks he’s hot.”
He said it so casually, that it took Ryan a second to process it before his mouth dropped open. “What? I never said that.”
Spencer finally broke his silent battle with Mikey to turn and grin at Ryan. “Maybe you didn’t say it, but it was pretty obvious from the way you couldn’t stop eye-fucking him during the meeting.”
Ryan buried his head in his hands, mindful not to get the curry on his sleeves. “Can we please not use the term ‘eye-fucking’? Which I wasn’t, by the way. I was thinking about other things.” He paused, mind racing. “I was thinking about Russian literature.”
“Lies,” Spencer said easily. “And you can’t just pull out shit like ‘I was thinking about Russian literature’ because you think that’ll kill the conversation, jackass. You were eye-fucking him, and everyone noticed.”
“Shut up,” Ryan growled.
Gerard smiled. “I noticed.” Ryan willed himself not to grate his teeth.
“So how hot are we talking?” Mikey asked, leaning forward on the table, and yeah, sometimes Ryan hated his friends.
“Pretty hot,” Spencer put in. “Ryan seemed especially fond of his lips.”
“And ass,” Gerard added. “Can’t forget his ass.”
“Lord knows there’s no way that Ryan did,” Spencer said, grinning.
“Can we talk about something else?” Ryan asked, head pounding just a little bit. He wasn’t eye-fucking the new Children’s Librarian. He really wasn’t. And even if he maybe was, he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Like the new computer systems?” Mikey suggested.
Spencer frowned, and Ryan decided to take action. “How about we talk about Gerard’s crush on the interlibrary loan guy?”
Gerard flushed bright red. “I don’t have a crush on Frank.”
“His name is Frank?” Spencer asked. “I thought his name was Chuck.”
Ryan shook his head. “That was the old guy. They just hired a new driver named Frank. And Gerard wants to have his babies and run in a field of daisies with him and build a white picket fence.”
Spencer gave Ryan a bemused look.
“What,” Ryan defended, “that’s totally what people do in those retarded romance novels.”
“Whatever,” Gerard said. “I think Frank is nice, but there’s no crush there. Really.”
Mikey hummed and leaned forward on his elbows, staring intently at Gerard. After a second he smiled. “Oh, this is too good. I have to meet this guy. You are so far gone.”
“Shut up, Mikey,” Gerard grumbled out of the side of his mouth. He reached for the bowl in front of him. “Anyone want more rice?”
Spencer shook his head good-naturedly. “Well, Ryan, at least you’re not the only one in the library with a hilarious new crush.”
Ryan ignored Spencer, looking to Gerard. They were a team now. United. “More rice would be great.”
---
Spencer was helping an older woman find some books on European History (940s, just down there to the left) when Ryan saw the man come in. He had a good-looking beard going on, much better than anything that Ryan could grow, was wearing flip-flops, and had a lazy smile stretched across his face.
“Hey,” he said, addressing Ryan. “I’m Jon Walker.” He held his hand out for Ryan to shake. It was warm and dry. Good grip. “I’m supposed to talk to a Spencer Smith about updating the card catalogue, you him?”
Ryan shook his head, all ready to tell Jon that no, he wasn’t Spencer, and maybe he was thinking about warning Jon about Spencer’s impending warpath, but just then Spencer snapped his head around, forgetting about the lady still standing at the desk.
“I’m Spencer,” he practically spat out. He took a second to size Jon up. “So, how long is destroying the independently thinking mind going to take?”
Ryan stifled an eye roll, but Jon just chuckled, a low, deep sound. “Yeah, they told me that you had objections to this.”
“I think it’s unnecessary,” Spencer said haughtily. “It’s not difficult to find a card.”
Jon shrugged. “No, it’s not. But considering it’s my job to help you, I’m going to have to point out that it’s much faster and cuts down on paper products. Plus, with the new system, people can put their own holds on books and find out if their selection is checked out or at another library. So, it’s really easier on you guys.”
Ryan knew that Spencer wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but Spencer didn’t throw anything back in Jon’s face. “I guess I don’t really have a choice,” he said, but his voice sounded more angry than resigned.
“I’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” Jon said, and the easy smile was back. “I’ll just install the software to your computer, show you how to put in the call numbers and such, and then in about a week you guys will be up and running.”
Spencer blanched. “I have to type in all the call numbers. Of every book here?” Spencer had his indignant face on, Ryan knew it well.
“We have a couple of guys working on it,” Jon answered. “I’m just going to show you how to put call numbers in so you can add to the collection in the future.”
“Oh,” Spencer said. “Okay then.”
Jon nodded and walked around the desk, pulling up an extra chair to sit next to Spencer. Ryan watched as Jon crowded Spencer’s space a little bit, and was surprised to see that Spencer didn’t slap him or something.
“By the way,” Jon commented. “I like your shirt. It really brings out your eyes.”
Spencer’s face colored, just slightly, but he didn’t smile or send a compliment back. “Well, are you going to show me how this system works or not?” he asked in his bitchiest voice.
---
Somehow Ryan had lasted the two hours left until his lunch break listening to Jon’s soothing, very complimentary instructions to Spencer and Spencer’s terse, bitchy replies back. It was like a Jane Austen novel or something.
Ryan pulled his sandwich out of the refrigerator and sat down at the table, book open next to him. He had moved on from Ivanov to The Awakening. His last girlfriend, Keltie, had suggested it. Ryan sincerely hoped that it wasn’t an insult to him. He didn’t think he was anything like the guys in the novel, and Keltie certainly wasn’t anything like Edna.
He was so concentrated on the novel, wondering how exactly Edna thought it was a good idea to flirt around with a twenty year old when she had a husband and children, that he didn’t hear Brendon come in or open the freezer or put his frozen meal into the microwave. In fact, it wasn’t until the microwave made that obnoxious beeping noise that Ryan even looked up at all.
“Oh,” Ryan said, startling a little as he noticed Brendon standing there, small smile playing at his lips. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt. You seemed really into your book,” Brendon responded, sitting down across from Ryan at the table. “What are you reading?”
“The Awakening by Kate Chopin,” Ryan answered. “It was one of the first feminist novels and is about this woman-”
“I know what it’s about,” Brendon interrupted. “I’ve read it. Good book,” he commented, taking a bite of his lasagna.
“Um, yeah,” Ryan said, a little embarrassed that he automatically assumed that Brendon hadn’t read it. It was just that he was so used to explaining to other people plot lines. “So far I like it.”
Brendon nodded, taking another bite of his food, and when the fork disappeared into his mouth, it left a little streak of marinara sauce at the corner of his lip. Ryan’s finger twitched by his side.
“So, I have a favor to ask you,” Brendon said, taking another bite, tongue flicking out to lick his lips, but the sauce was still there.
“Eh,” Ryan started.
“I’d really appreciate if you helped me out,” Brendon continued. “Plus, then you can feel better about assuming I haven’t read a relatively obscure novel just because I work in the Children’s Library.”
“I don’t - I didn’t - what?”
“It’s okay,” Brendon assured. “But it’ll be even more okay if you do me this favor.” The sauce was still there, goddamnit, and to make it worse, Brendon’s little pink tongue kept just missing it, smoothing along the surface of his lower lip, making his mouth shiny.
Ryan pulled his thoughts away from Brendon’s lips. “What’s the favor?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as monotone as possible. He was pretty good at doing that, actually.
“Well see, the thing is,” Brendon started, using his hands while he spoke, but he paused a second when he realized there was sauce on his finger. Ryan silently cursed God or Spencer Smith or whoever the fuck it was when Brendon sucked his finger in his mouth, humming briefly at the taste. “Greta is sick and can’t watch the desk for me while I do story time. And our page can’t really handle it. Apparently she has anxiety problems or something, so I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind manning the desk.”
Ryan mulled it over in his mind. The desk of the Children’s Library. Meaning there would be children, though Ryan figured that it’d be unlikely that a small, snot-nosed child would ask him a question. It’d probably just be parents, which, to be honest, were usually brattier than their children. The idea didn’t seem very appealing, but Brendon was looking over at him with big, bright eyes and smiling so hopefully, the stupid sauce spreading as his lips spread.
“Yeah, I guess,” Ryan said. “Spencer can handle the desk by himself for a little while.”
“Thank you so much,” Brendon responded. “Really, I owe you. How about I take you out for coffee after work? And story time is just an hour. Probably less, I try to keep it short so the kids don’t get too antsy.”
Ryan was still stuck on the coffee thing. “It’s okay, you don’t have to buy me coffee or anything. I mean, it’s no big deal. Just helping out.”
Brendon shook his head. “No, I insist. Plus, then you and I can get to know each other.” He took another bite of his lasagna, finishing the tiny black tray, and he brought his finger up to wipe at the corners of his mouth, wiping away the sauce. “So, when you’re finished we’ll just head out then.”
“Oh, you mean it’s right now?” Ryan asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Yep. Well, in ten minutes, but that’s not a really big sandwich so I’m sure we’ll be fine.” He smiled and leaned across the table, finger brushing against the side of Ryan’s lip. “You had a little bit of peanut butter there.”
“Um, thanks.”
Part Two
Author: ivesia19 / Sara
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ryan/Brendon and Spencer/Jon and Gerard/Frank
POV: 3rd limited
Word Count: ~ 10,000
Summary: Library AU! The one where a cynical Ryan just may want a happy ending with the new Children’s Librarian, Spencer doesn’t want things to change - especially his card catalogue, and Gerard wants more than his books to be checked out.
Disclaimer: The boys belong to themselves (and possibly each other) All lines taken from books belong to the book cited (mostly The Giver)
Author Notes: For the Christmas exchange at SantaattheDisco for silver-etoile who deserves this because she’s amazing. ♥ Oh, and yes, I worked in a library for four years. Sadly, I do still have the Dewy Decimal System memorized. Beta’d by habezweikatzen and 0bamboo-shoots0
Warning: Some spoilers for the following books/plays: Ivanov, The Awakening, The Giver, Pride and Prejudice, Where the Wild Things Are
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Ryan carefully marked his place in the book he was reading by slipping a piece of paper between the pages before closing the collection of plays, turning his attention to the girl standing in front of the desk. He tried to suppress his annoyed groan. Already he could tell that she was the type of person who thought that creasing down the edge of a book page was an acceptable way to treat books that weren’t theirs.
“Can I help you?” Ryan asked. He could see a slight bulge in her pocket, no doubt a cell phone, and Ryan sincerely hoped that she turned it off, or at least turned it on silent. While Ryan was pretty adamant about the treatment of books, it was nothing to how Spencer was with noise violations.
The girl tilted her head to the side and gave Ryan a smile, eyes flickering across Ryan’s features so obviously that Ryan felt like he was physically suppressing the urge to tell her that no, he wasn’t interested. “I was hoping that you could help me find something,” she said, one bright red, well-manicured hand reaching up to push back her hair.
Considering the fact that Ryan was sitting behind a large sign that he knew clearly said “Information Desk”, he didn’t even bother to say anything, prod further, until she continued.
“My friend told me that you guys just got the first season of Gossip Girl in. Do you think you can help me find it?” She leaned slightly forward on the desk, upper arms pushing in against her chest.
There were few things that Ryan hated more than people coming into the library just for dvds - they could at least pretend that they weren’t that vapid and pick up a book too, but Ryan could tell with just one look that the girl standing in front of him wouldn’t even consider wandering through the bookshelves. He sighed, trying to keep his temper under check.
“All the dvds are alphabetized. It should be easy enough to find,” he tersely replied, turning his chair to the side, moving to wrap his long fingers around the cool plastic of the telephone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”
Ryan didn’t wait to see the girl’s reaction, simply turned away from her and busied himself, fingers dialing out his own cell phone number, which was safely turned off under Spencer’s watchful eye, since he didn’t really have to make a phone call to anyone. He waited, listened to his own voice play back on the message, and when the tone beeped, he hung up the phone, grateful that when he turned back the girl was gone.
He picked back up the book sitting on the desk, sighing to himself. Really, Ivanov was just a masochist who needed to get over himself and stop fucking up other people’s lives. Ryan shook his head to himself as he continued reading at Ivanov’s pathetic belief that love could save him. An actual snort came out when he read about ‘fixing someone’s life’ for love.
“Funny book, Ross?” Spencer asked as he sunk into the chair next to Ryan behind the desk. He peered over to see the front of Ryan’s book. “Chekhov? Well, I guess funny’s out of the question then.”
“Don’t diss Chekhov. He’s one of the only writers who actually understands that life isn’t all happily ever afters and that love is really just a bullshit idea that doesn’t exist.” Ryan flipped a page, not looking up, because he knew the exact face that Spencer would be giving him.
Spencer chuckled. “Such a romantic, Ry.” Ryan could hear him flick through some papers, but Ryan stopped reading since he knew that the question was coming soon. Spencer took an audible exhale and said with some amusement in his voice, “So does this mean that I shouldn’t ask about your date with Pete?”
Ryan frowned, looking up from his play to see Spencer staring at him, eyebrow raised. “He wrote me a love poem,” he replied slowly, still a little bit disbelievingly. “Well,” he corrected, “I think it was a love poem. I couldn’t really tell. His metaphors are pretty fucked up and jumbled.”
Grinning, Spencer asked, “Did he compare you to a summer’s day?”
“No,” Ryan responded, his frown growing deeper. “He compared me to a cracked porcelain doll. And there was something in there about spinning tires on black ice. Or maybe it was black ice in his heart.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know. I don’t get how that’s supposed to be romantic.”
“I take it this means that it’s over,” Spencer concluded after musing for a second.
It was over, actually, but Ryan crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What makes you say that?”
Spencer shrugged. “You always do this when someone does something ‘romantically cliché,’” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm over the words. “Maybe if you didn’t read so many doom and gloom love stories you would be able to react normally to a gesture.”
Ryan fumbled for a minute, mouth opening and closing, until he reached for his book, making sure to hold it at an angle that blocked Spencer from sight. “Whatever, Spence, things with Pete and I just weren’t working, okay?”
“Sure,” Spencer said. “Of course not. I mean, he did actually make an effort to let you know how much he liked you after all. Even if it was a little strange.”
“Can we not do this now?” Ryan pleaded, absurdly happy when a middle aged man looked over to the Information Desk, but he frowned as the man continued walking past, apparently not requiring his services.
“Fine,” Spencer said, turning his attention back to the order sheets in front of him, and he let out a groan. “Thank God they fired that bimbo down in the Children’s Library. She always forgot to fill out the ISBN numbers.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, more because he never really liked Audrey. But still, he knew how Spencer felt about properly filled out order forms. “Hopefully the new one will be better.”
“Oh, that reminds me. We have a staff meeting today at 3.” He shuffled a little bit more with his papers. “I don’t think it’ll last long, but they’re going to put a page up here just in case someone has questions.”
“I could always stay here and you could go,” Ryan said, but Spencer cut him off with a look.
“Ry,” Spencer said. “It’ll be short. Patrick apparently has news about something and we’re going to say hello to the new Children’s Librarian. You can deal with it.”
Ryan ignored Spencer’s tone, his parental voice as Ryan dubbed it in his head, and turned back to the play. His eyes scanned over the page. Ivanov had brought a gun to his own wedding. Oh, this was going to end well.
---
Ryan slipped into one of the uncomfortable folding chairs set up around the large circular table between Spencer and Gerard.
“Asshole,” Spencer muttered out of the side of his mouth. “I thought you were going to skip. It’s already 3:05.”
Ryan shrugged. “These things never start on time. It’ll probably be ten more minutes before we get going.”
Next to him, Gerard was doodling on a piece of paper. “Hey, did you see a girl earlier, blonde hair, hooker nails, extroverted cleavage?” Ryan asked him.
Gerard took a second, adding a particularly nasty looking cut on one of the ninja bunnies on his paper. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about, why?”
“She didn’t check out a book or anything, did she?”
“Nope,” Gerard answered sardonically. “But she did have me place a hold on The Hills dvd.”
Ryan shook his head. “Can’t we do something about people like that? I don’t know, like blacklist them?”
“I tried educating her about the real purpose of a library,” Gerard said, “but she just stared at me, so I stopped. There wasn’t even a reaction, man. Totally lame.” Ryan hummed. He could totally imagine Gerard lecturing some girl on the importance of literacy. He wished that he had been there to see it, even if the girl had probably just stared vacuously at him.
“You two need to lighten up about that,” Spencer cut in. “You shouldn’t judge people on what they check out.”
Gerard raised an eyebrow up at Spencer, and he grinned at Ryan.
“You totally should,” Ryan said simply. “That’s why I love working here, you already know if people are worth the time to talk to or not.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Spencer said, but Ryan could see the slight nod of Gerard’s head.
Ryan held up his hands, as if defensive, but he was almost laughing. “I’m just saying, I’d rather talk to someone who checks out Milan Kundera than Nora Ephron. Or the straight up Harlequin Romances.”
“Hey, some people find them entertaining,” Gerard objected. “Like in a hipster way. They’re so bad they’re good, you know?”
“You’re just a romantic,” Ryan batted back.
Spencer chuckled. “The way you say the word romantic makes it sound like a disease or something, Ross.”
Ryan was about to respond with something, but Patrick walked into the room, signaling the start of the meeting. Trailing behind him, with a wide and bright, but slightly nervous, smile was a young guy with a ridiculously brightly patterned shirt.
“That has to be the new Children’s Librarian,” Ryan whispered to Spencer, who shushed him. “Seriously, that’s a lot of color.”
Ryan let his eyes wander over the new faculty member, Patrick’s words a mild hum in his ears. The guy was pretty short. Skinny, but somehow he looked soft. Ryan tilted his head a little bit. Curves, he decided. The guy’s body was thrumming with some sort of electricity, excitement maybe. Could be nerves. His hair was a little messy, and when he pushed it out of his face, Ryan was drawn up - to his lips and eyes, and yeah.
Spencer’s sharp elbow into his side brought Ryan out of his daze. “Ow,” he complained.
“Introduce yourself,” Spencer whispered.
Ryan looked around. Okay then, clearly this was introduce-yourself-to-the-new-guy time and not stare-obviously-at-the-new-guy’s-lower-lip time. Ryan cleared his throat.
“Ryan Ross. Information Desk. Fiction.” He assumed that he was just supposed to say his name and position, and thankfully, Gerard picked up right after Ryan’s voice faded out.
The new guy followed each person talking with his eyes, nodding along to everything they said, flashing a bright smile at each finish. When everyone had spoken, he gave another wide smile and waved.
“Hi, I’m Brendon,” he said. Ryan liked the way that his name looked coming out of that mouth. “Obviously, I’m the new Children’s Librarian. Uh,” his smile faltered a little, but came back in seconds full force. “I guess just, hello, and I’m excited to be here.”
He took a seat next to Patrick, and when he looked over at Ryan, who was still staring a little bit, because fuck, stupid hormones (he was 24, for Christ’s sake), Ryan looked down at a sheet of paper that he must have missed being passed around as he was checking out Brendon. His eyes blurred over the words as he shook the idea of Brendon out of his head. Sure, the guy was hot, but Children’s Librarian. Yeah, that basically said everything it needed to.
Ryan tried valiantly to bring his attention back to the meeting, but his mind kept wandering, that is until Spencer made a very loud noise next to him, somewhere between a scoff and a yell.
“That’s stupid, Patrick, we don’t need to update the system. It’s a waste of money,” Spencer objected.
Ryan didn’t really know what Spencer was objecting to, but he couldn’t really barge in and ask right now, not when Spencer was slowly turning red, a clear warning sign that shit was about to go down.
“The card catalogue system works perfectly fine,” Spencer said, voice loud. “Computers just encourage people to be lazy. To not use their heads. I mean, how goddamn hard is it to go over to a drawer and look up your subject matter?! And people even have me! I’ve got the whole thing memorized, for fuck’s sake.”
He really did, Ryan knew. Spencer made him quiz him once.
Patrick didn’t seem fazed by Spencer’s outburst, but next to him, the new guy, Brendon, looked a little taken aback and a little amused. “Spencer, we’re the only library in the county that still uses the card catalogue. Most libraries made this switch ten years ago. It’s time.”
Ryan knew that if Spencer wasn’t so inhibited he would be crossing his arms right now and pouting. Instead, Spencer just took a deep breath and nodded. “Fine,” he said, still sounding supremely pissed off.
Patrick smiled. “Good, a guy is coming by tomorrow to brief you on the new system.”
Spencer looked furious, and even though a mad Spencer was a scary Spencer, Ryan leaned over and said, “You shouldn’t judge people just because they use computers instead of a card catalogue. Gosh, how shallow.”
---
It was a tough afternoon. Sometimes, Ryan wondered if Spencer had good connections, like really good connections, you know, like with God or something, because after the meeting, no less than four teenage girls accosted Ryan at once, looking for books by Ephron and Steel and Sparks.
Ryan grumbled as he returned to the desk, leaving the group of girls happily chattering in the check out line. “I can’t deal with this anymore,” he said, leaning against the desk, opposite of Spencer. “Too much chick lit.”
“Suck it up, Ryan,” Spencer grumbled, obviously still upset over the upgrading.
Not really feeling like dealing with a pissy Spencer or more people with misconceptions about love, Ryan pushed himself off the desk. “I’m going to go read the nonfiction shelves, okay?”
Spencer looked up with a mixture of annoyance and concern on his face. “You don’t have to do that. I’m really not going to have a breakdown or anything. It just pisses me off that we feel like we have to change along with the masses.”
“Dude, seriously, you’ll be doing me a favor if you let me read your shelves. I need the monotony of numbers in my head right now. It’s killing me.”
“Ok.” Spencer shrugged. “Knock yourself out. But remember, you have to make sure they’re in order down to the last decimal. And use the alphabetical coding too.”
Ryan nodded, but he was sure that no matter what, Spencer would recheck them later. One of the downfalls of working at a library was reading shelves, making sure that everything was still in order, but Ryan wasn’t lying. Right now some monotony would be good. He didn’t want to think about stupid love poems or Nicholas Spark’s novels or new Children Librarians with nice asses.
He wandered through the shelves, contemplating where to start first. He didn’t want to pick a section where he might find something interesting. He’d get distracted, pull it out, and end up reading it on the floor only to get yelled at by Spencer later. Sighing, Ryan headed over to the 790s. Sports and recreation. Sure, the short stories and poems started up soon afterwards, but by then, Ryan figured he’d deserve a break.
Ryan lowered himself to the ground, starting at the very beginning of the 790s and let the numbers wash over him.
790.001 As
790.001 Gr
790.013 Ca
One of his long fingers dusted over the spines of the books, slipping easily over the laminated tags, and he only briefly looked up once in a while to take in the titles.
He was all the way over to 793.325 Ju when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Ryan looked up, eyes a little unfocused from the small, shiny numbers, to see Brendon grinning down at him.
“Um, hi?” Ryan said, pushing himself up off of his knees to stand up. “Do you need something?” It came out a little bit bitchier than Ryan had intended, but Brendon’s smile didn’t waver.
“I went over to the Information Desk to say hello and Spencer said that you were over here.”
Ryan nodded. “Um, yeah. I’m reading shelves.”
“I can see that,” Brendon said, nodding happily. “Personally, I can’t stand reading shelves. I always get so bored, but, it’s all part of the job.”
“Uh huh,” Ryan answered. Brendon was still smiling at him, and Ryan didn’t really know what else there was to say. “Well, welcome to the library, I guess.” He gave Brendon an attempted smile and sunk back down, turning his attention back to the books, but he could still sense Brendon standing behind him.
“It seems like a lot of fun here,” Brendon said, seemingly unaware that the conversation had ended. “Like, it seems like everyone gets along, which is really cool.”
“Yeah,” Ryan muttered from down on the ground, pulling out a misshelved book. He set it down next to him, shaking his head. He didn’t understand why people didn’t take the time to find the right spot for books, or at least put them in the shelving cart.
Ryan could still feel Brendon behind him, and even though he didn’t turn around, he was almost positive that the other boy was bouncing from foot to foot.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Ryan. I hope to see you around soon,” Brendon finally said, voice still bright, but now there was a hint of something else to it as well.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ryan answered automatically, but when he turned around, Brendon was gone.
---
It wasn’t like Ryan didn’t enjoy their bi-weekly dinners at Gerard’s house, but the thing was, ever since Gerard had discovered the exotic cooking section of the library (‘You mean call number-’ ‘Shut up, Spence’) he had taken to preparing rather odd dishes.
“It’s a French-Indian fusion,” Gerard said, placing something bright green on the table. It smelled a little spicy. It was possible that curry was involved.
“Looks good, Gee,” Spencer said magnanimously, helping himself to a large spoonful of whatever it was they were eating. He took a bite, and either he actually found it appetizing or Spencer was a better actor than Ryan gave him credit for, because he swallowed and said, “It’s good.”
Gerard smiled and took a seat next to his brother. “Mikey, aren’t you going to try some?”
Mikey didn’t look up from his cell phone, where he was texting furiously, and pointed down at his plate, full of Bagel Bites.
Ryan let Spencer dish some food out on his plate and started picking at it.
“I heard you guys are finally getting a computerized card catalogue,” Mikey said, closing his cell phone and putting it away. “About fucking time.”
Gerard made a distressed noise around a forkful of food, apparently trying to convey to Mikey to shut up, and Spencer frowned. “Our system is fine,” he argued.
Mikey shook his head, and was obviously about to tell Spencer exactly how the system wasn’t fine when Gerard cut him off. “Did I tell you that the new Children’s Librarian started today, Mikey?”
“No,” Mikey responded, still holding Spencer’s gaze. “Was he the one who finally got the computer thing running?”
“He seems nice,” Gerard went on, ignoring Mikey’s question and Spencer’s glare. “And Ryan thinks he’s hot.”
He said it so casually, that it took Ryan a second to process it before his mouth dropped open. “What? I never said that.”
Spencer finally broke his silent battle with Mikey to turn and grin at Ryan. “Maybe you didn’t say it, but it was pretty obvious from the way you couldn’t stop eye-fucking him during the meeting.”
Ryan buried his head in his hands, mindful not to get the curry on his sleeves. “Can we please not use the term ‘eye-fucking’? Which I wasn’t, by the way. I was thinking about other things.” He paused, mind racing. “I was thinking about Russian literature.”
“Lies,” Spencer said easily. “And you can’t just pull out shit like ‘I was thinking about Russian literature’ because you think that’ll kill the conversation, jackass. You were eye-fucking him, and everyone noticed.”
“Shut up,” Ryan growled.
Gerard smiled. “I noticed.” Ryan willed himself not to grate his teeth.
“So how hot are we talking?” Mikey asked, leaning forward on the table, and yeah, sometimes Ryan hated his friends.
“Pretty hot,” Spencer put in. “Ryan seemed especially fond of his lips.”
“And ass,” Gerard added. “Can’t forget his ass.”
“Lord knows there’s no way that Ryan did,” Spencer said, grinning.
“Can we talk about something else?” Ryan asked, head pounding just a little bit. He wasn’t eye-fucking the new Children’s Librarian. He really wasn’t. And even if he maybe was, he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Like the new computer systems?” Mikey suggested.
Spencer frowned, and Ryan decided to take action. “How about we talk about Gerard’s crush on the interlibrary loan guy?”
Gerard flushed bright red. “I don’t have a crush on Frank.”
“His name is Frank?” Spencer asked. “I thought his name was Chuck.”
Ryan shook his head. “That was the old guy. They just hired a new driver named Frank. And Gerard wants to have his babies and run in a field of daisies with him and build a white picket fence.”
Spencer gave Ryan a bemused look.
“What,” Ryan defended, “that’s totally what people do in those retarded romance novels.”
“Whatever,” Gerard said. “I think Frank is nice, but there’s no crush there. Really.”
Mikey hummed and leaned forward on his elbows, staring intently at Gerard. After a second he smiled. “Oh, this is too good. I have to meet this guy. You are so far gone.”
“Shut up, Mikey,” Gerard grumbled out of the side of his mouth. He reached for the bowl in front of him. “Anyone want more rice?”
Spencer shook his head good-naturedly. “Well, Ryan, at least you’re not the only one in the library with a hilarious new crush.”
Ryan ignored Spencer, looking to Gerard. They were a team now. United. “More rice would be great.”
---
Spencer was helping an older woman find some books on European History (940s, just down there to the left) when Ryan saw the man come in. He had a good-looking beard going on, much better than anything that Ryan could grow, was wearing flip-flops, and had a lazy smile stretched across his face.
“Hey,” he said, addressing Ryan. “I’m Jon Walker.” He held his hand out for Ryan to shake. It was warm and dry. Good grip. “I’m supposed to talk to a Spencer Smith about updating the card catalogue, you him?”
Ryan shook his head, all ready to tell Jon that no, he wasn’t Spencer, and maybe he was thinking about warning Jon about Spencer’s impending warpath, but just then Spencer snapped his head around, forgetting about the lady still standing at the desk.
“I’m Spencer,” he practically spat out. He took a second to size Jon up. “So, how long is destroying the independently thinking mind going to take?”
Ryan stifled an eye roll, but Jon just chuckled, a low, deep sound. “Yeah, they told me that you had objections to this.”
“I think it’s unnecessary,” Spencer said haughtily. “It’s not difficult to find a card.”
Jon shrugged. “No, it’s not. But considering it’s my job to help you, I’m going to have to point out that it’s much faster and cuts down on paper products. Plus, with the new system, people can put their own holds on books and find out if their selection is checked out or at another library. So, it’s really easier on you guys.”
Ryan knew that Spencer wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but Spencer didn’t throw anything back in Jon’s face. “I guess I don’t really have a choice,” he said, but his voice sounded more angry than resigned.
“I’ll try to make this as painless as possible,” Jon said, and the easy smile was back. “I’ll just install the software to your computer, show you how to put in the call numbers and such, and then in about a week you guys will be up and running.”
Spencer blanched. “I have to type in all the call numbers. Of every book here?” Spencer had his indignant face on, Ryan knew it well.
“We have a couple of guys working on it,” Jon answered. “I’m just going to show you how to put call numbers in so you can add to the collection in the future.”
“Oh,” Spencer said. “Okay then.”
Jon nodded and walked around the desk, pulling up an extra chair to sit next to Spencer. Ryan watched as Jon crowded Spencer’s space a little bit, and was surprised to see that Spencer didn’t slap him or something.
“By the way,” Jon commented. “I like your shirt. It really brings out your eyes.”
Spencer’s face colored, just slightly, but he didn’t smile or send a compliment back. “Well, are you going to show me how this system works or not?” he asked in his bitchiest voice.
---
Somehow Ryan had lasted the two hours left until his lunch break listening to Jon’s soothing, very complimentary instructions to Spencer and Spencer’s terse, bitchy replies back. It was like a Jane Austen novel or something.
Ryan pulled his sandwich out of the refrigerator and sat down at the table, book open next to him. He had moved on from Ivanov to The Awakening. His last girlfriend, Keltie, had suggested it. Ryan sincerely hoped that it wasn’t an insult to him. He didn’t think he was anything like the guys in the novel, and Keltie certainly wasn’t anything like Edna.
He was so concentrated on the novel, wondering how exactly Edna thought it was a good idea to flirt around with a twenty year old when she had a husband and children, that he didn’t hear Brendon come in or open the freezer or put his frozen meal into the microwave. In fact, it wasn’t until the microwave made that obnoxious beeping noise that Ryan even looked up at all.
“Oh,” Ryan said, startling a little as he noticed Brendon standing there, small smile playing at his lips. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt. You seemed really into your book,” Brendon responded, sitting down across from Ryan at the table. “What are you reading?”
“The Awakening by Kate Chopin,” Ryan answered. “It was one of the first feminist novels and is about this woman-”
“I know what it’s about,” Brendon interrupted. “I’ve read it. Good book,” he commented, taking a bite of his lasagna.
“Um, yeah,” Ryan said, a little embarrassed that he automatically assumed that Brendon hadn’t read it. It was just that he was so used to explaining to other people plot lines. “So far I like it.”
Brendon nodded, taking another bite of his food, and when the fork disappeared into his mouth, it left a little streak of marinara sauce at the corner of his lip. Ryan’s finger twitched by his side.
“So, I have a favor to ask you,” Brendon said, taking another bite, tongue flicking out to lick his lips, but the sauce was still there.
“Eh,” Ryan started.
“I’d really appreciate if you helped me out,” Brendon continued. “Plus, then you can feel better about assuming I haven’t read a relatively obscure novel just because I work in the Children’s Library.”
“I don’t - I didn’t - what?”
“It’s okay,” Brendon assured. “But it’ll be even more okay if you do me this favor.” The sauce was still there, goddamnit, and to make it worse, Brendon’s little pink tongue kept just missing it, smoothing along the surface of his lower lip, making his mouth shiny.
Ryan pulled his thoughts away from Brendon’s lips. “What’s the favor?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as monotone as possible. He was pretty good at doing that, actually.
“Well see, the thing is,” Brendon started, using his hands while he spoke, but he paused a second when he realized there was sauce on his finger. Ryan silently cursed God or Spencer Smith or whoever the fuck it was when Brendon sucked his finger in his mouth, humming briefly at the taste. “Greta is sick and can’t watch the desk for me while I do story time. And our page can’t really handle it. Apparently she has anxiety problems or something, so I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind manning the desk.”
Ryan mulled it over in his mind. The desk of the Children’s Library. Meaning there would be children, though Ryan figured that it’d be unlikely that a small, snot-nosed child would ask him a question. It’d probably just be parents, which, to be honest, were usually brattier than their children. The idea didn’t seem very appealing, but Brendon was looking over at him with big, bright eyes and smiling so hopefully, the stupid sauce spreading as his lips spread.
“Yeah, I guess,” Ryan said. “Spencer can handle the desk by himself for a little while.”
“Thank you so much,” Brendon responded. “Really, I owe you. How about I take you out for coffee after work? And story time is just an hour. Probably less, I try to keep it short so the kids don’t get too antsy.”
Ryan was still stuck on the coffee thing. “It’s okay, you don’t have to buy me coffee or anything. I mean, it’s no big deal. Just helping out.”
Brendon shook his head. “No, I insist. Plus, then you and I can get to know each other.” He took another bite of his lasagna, finishing the tiny black tray, and he brought his finger up to wipe at the corners of his mouth, wiping away the sauce. “So, when you’re finished we’ll just head out then.”
“Oh, you mean it’s right now?” Ryan asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Yep. Well, in ten minutes, but that’s not a really big sandwich so I’m sure we’ll be fine.” He smiled and leaned across the table, finger brushing against the side of Ryan’s lip. “You had a little bit of peanut butter there.”
“Um, thanks.”
Part Two