Meeting Metody

[zippyknowsbest]

It was a busy day at the New York Public Library, as indeed most of them had been since the economy started to tank. Zippy scowled as she worked through a pile of books sitting on the reference desk counter, which some patron had abandoned there without so much as a 'I decided not to get these, could you put them back?' People. Bureaucracy.Library

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[totheb0ne]

Metody had spent the past few weeks haunting Comparative Mythology and edging his way towards something related to a claustrophobic panic. It wasn't just that this world lacked a few things found in his own. There were whole countries gone, entire religions erased, creatures that never existed. A brief sidetrip into the hard sciences had confirmed that even the rocks here were different.

He'd known that Hans' world was nearly barren. He'd never realized how very hollow it was. Or how very different - everything he knew was so alien as to be meaningless in the framework what little he understood about Hans' world.

Metody's original quest had been to find out if there was anything else like him in this place - surely, somewhere in the teeming population of an entire world, there had to be other bone creatures. Cousins, if not brothers. But now he'd found something else he ought to learn about.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" He smiled sheepishly at Zippy. "I'm looking for something on - " Damnit, word, word. " - comparative world

[totheb0ne]

He gave her a sheepish smile, well aware of how bad he was. "My boyfriend lets me practice with him sometimes - he's German - but I think maybe he's a little too kind when it comes to my accent."

"May I have World Philosophies and the comic history, please? That should definitely be enough to keep me occupied through the day."

[zippyknowsbest]

"You certainly may," Zippy said with a smile, and looked back to the computer as she typed in the request. Takka-takka-takka, the process so automatic to her she barely needed to devote any attention to it, leaving her mind free to wander to other things...

German boyfriend. 21 Astor Place. This was twigging something in the "born researcher" part of her brain. Takka-takka-takka and--

She flicked a glance from the screen back to Metody, peered over the tops of her glasses at him.

"...stupid question but your German boyfriend wouldn't be named Hans, would he?"

Even as she said it she was rolling her eyes internally at herself. There were no doubt how many men of German extraction in New York?

[totheb0ne]

He fidgeted while she typed, picking up a paperclip that another patron had left and unbending it. He frowns at it, carefully twisting it into a hoop. He could never get them perfectly round and it always kind of bothered him that-

Metody looked up and smiled happily, bouncing a bit on his toes. "Yes, he is - Hans Varner. Do you guys know each other?"

[zippyknowsbest]

Zippy tapped her chin with her pen, thinking of the German man with his heavy burden of secrets and deserved guilt and unwanted immortality.... who had cleaned her apartment, on occasion...

"Yes," she said with a half-smile. "You could say that. He's mentioned you-- oh, shit, hold on, I can remember it--"

A grimace, Zippy squinting with one eye as she tried to recall details of a conversation some months gone. "...Theody?" she ventured, then frowned apologetically. "No, that's not right, I'm sorry, I give up."

[totheb0ne]

"It's Metody, actually - but you got a lot closer than most people." He grins, delighted that she didn't guess 'Matthew', and that Hans mentioned him. Not that it took much to delight Metody.

"And you must be - " there was a fractional pause as he tried to dredge up her name and didn't come up with anything more helpful than 'Zipper something'. That almost certainly wasn't probably it. " - the lady who's helping him with his volunteering." His smile grew a little uncertain. Volunteering, penance, a kind of rough healing - something like that.

Hans had told him that she'd slapped him. But Hans deserved it, didn't he?

[zippyknowsbest]

"That's right, Metody," Zippy said with rather more vehemence than the revelation deserved, smacking the top of the counter with her palm. Pleased, she added on, "Because he said it was Polish when I asked and there's the tie-in to Saint Methodius. Ha!"

That little issue resolved to her satisfaction, Zippy smiled at the younger man and offered her hand across the counter. "Yes, that'd be me. Mostly I just point him at people happy to take his money and/or give him manual labor to do. Zippy Levine. It's nice to meet you."

[totheb0ne]

He flinched a little at her energy and the slap to the counter, but continued to smile. "Oh, I didn't know there was a saint. My mother told me it means 'methodical'" It was moderately fitting, he supposed.

Oh, gosh! Her name really was Zipper! He'd have to tell Frankie; she had a collection of names worse than her own. Metody shook her hand politely, his hand only slightly warmer than it ought to have been, and trembling just a little.

"We're very grateful for the help. It can be so hard to know where to start, and - it's good for him to do the work."

[zippyknowsbest]

"Well, there was," Zippy said. "Had a brother named Cyril. They came up with an alphabet, and spread Byzantine Christianity to the Slavs."

Apparently the good of alphabets outweighed the bad of the latter statement in her mind, since she rattled this off without any particular distaste.

Zippy cocked her head just a fraction at Metody's words of thanks; could she therefore assume Metody knew all about Hans's... condition? Particular circumstances? History? Mmm.

"Yes, well. I'm happy to help," she said, leaving it neutral for now. "What I do, nu? Guide people to the resources they need." A little laugh.

[totheb0ne]

"Oh, that's a lovely person to be named after. An alphabet is a very clever and useful thing, after all." He looked enormously pleased by this. As for the Christianity thing, he's willing to just let it lay; he practices a brand of Christianity himself. Sometimes. Sort of. Ishish.

"And - thankyou for giving him an outlet for his urge to tidy things. He kind of drives me and the cats crazy at home, sometimes. Though I certainly appreciate him doing it."

[zippyknowsbest]

"Downright essential," Zippy said with a broad smile.

She waved her hand at the continuing thanks. "Pshh, that's doing me a favor as well, I'm going to complain? Though I can only imagine how spotless your place must be, oy."

Zippy propped her elbows on the counter and her chin in both hands and regarded Metody thoughtfully. "Are you-- looking for anything... specific, with all this?" she said, a touch cautiously.

[totheb0ne]

"He washes and vaccuumes the cats. He has a dust buster for them and everything." That is probably all he really needs to say on the topic.

Metody ducked his head a little, his voice dropping as his eyes skittered away and darted back to her. "I was looking stuff up in myths, but I realized that there is less common ground between - between what I know and what's here than I thought. And I realized that it sure is hard to research something when you don't even know the basics. So now I am trying to learn background."

[zippyknowsbest]

"Washes and...." Zippy trails off, an expression on her face that indicates she is trying to imagine how this works.

Her imagination is not up to the task; she shakes her head and dismisses the thought.

Instead she focuses on Metody, her eyes alert and thoughtful, her arms crossed. After several seconds' deliberation she says, carefully, "I think background is definitely a good place to start... if you, ah, require someone to ask questions of whom you can speak-- forthrightly-- to... I'm around."

Because savvy as librarians are as a bunch, most of them will assume you're talking strictly from an anthropological standpoint as opposed to the realities, kiddo, she thought, but did not say.

[totheb0ne]

Metody mimed dust-busting a cat, one hand resting on its shoulders. "They're kind of used to it. That helps a lot, I suspect. They're....they're very clean little kitties." He faltered, growing sheepish under her sustained gaze. She had exactly the same sort of stare as his Mom. It made him worry that she might know his socks weren't matched.

"That's - that's very nice of you to offer. Thankyou, very much." He fidgeted, twisting his fingers together as the imaginary cat ran off. "Um - have you ever heard of a bone-based monster? In stories, I mean. Sort of like skeletal warriors from dragon's teeth, but not just - not like weapons, but actual creatures?"