Frank, Topaz and Tabitha: Silence in the Library!

[x-pinnochio.livejournal.com]

Our three favourite misfits find holi-powder on the books. They don't take it well. Backdated to March 27th.

Frank was used to righteous anger. He'd had a lot of time to experience it, over the course of his life, and he'd come to consider himself something of a connoisseur. This morning, for example, when there'd been no coffee left in the cupboard, had been about a four on his morally-upright-indignation-ometer. Extra homework in maths had been a 3, possibly a 2 considering he'd been late handing up the previous batch. Discovering someone had eaten his leftover muffin from the fridge had been a good solid 5. But this?

This?

This wasn't just a 10. This was the mother and father of all 10s. It may even (in the words of Spinal Tap) have gone up to 11. The wrath that coursed through his veins as he stared into the library was so hot you could use it to etch volcanic granite and so pure you could mistake it for a vestal virgin.

There was coloured powder smeared all over the back bookshelves.

Someone was going to die for this.

Topaz ducked hurriedly into the library, desperate to avoid the color war. She knew for a fact Matt had put a figurative target on her back, but he hadn't quite managed to nail her down yet. She intended to keep that way. She loved Holi as much as the next person, but really, she didn't fancy trying to get the powder out of her clothes. Or hair.

After checking to make sure she was indeed still free of powder, she headed further into the library, thoughts of settling down in her corner and reading and maybe doing some homework-

All driven straight from her mind when she found Frank in the back. Staring in horror at the coloured powder smeared along the back bookshelves. She blinked.

"What the hell?"

Crashing and clamoring sounded from the other end of the library. Tabitha burst through the door to the basement, ShopVac in hand and wrath on her face. She spotted the students with narrowed eyes. She was seconds from unleashing Rightful Librarian Fury when she noticed that they were both clean, and horrified.

"I take it you don't approve of the new decor either?" she asked as she wrestled the giant, ancient, but efficient machine fully into the library.

"No," said Frank tightly. "No I don't." He turned to look at Tabitha. "What happened?" He didn't ask who. That could come later once he'd found somewhere to hide the bodies. "Is it just these shelves?" he added, glancing over his shoulder at the fiction section. If there was even a smudge on that copy of Hell's Angels he'd found last week, he wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do.

"Holi happened," Topaz sighed as she approached the books, frowning as her eyes swept over them. "It's really something that's meant to be celebrated outside. For obvious reasons. Mr. Rook'shir must've organized this." She assumed it was him at least; no one else in the mansion was Indian, after all. There'd probably been something about it at that meeting she'd slept through earlier that day. "Oh no..." She could already see that the Faulkner section had been struck by this disaster. So much for reading through the rest of those.

The ShopVac had lost a wheel, long before Tabitha became librarian, so the trip across the library was slow. "Luckily, it's all dry powder, so the books won't take permanent harm," she said. "It's just a lot of work to clean up." She sighed. "I was fine with the ambush during my morning run, but if I find out who got so enthusiastic, they're going to be shelving books for a year."

Frank gave a non-committal grunt at that. His anger had started to cool a little, but he still wasn't entirely sure what he'd have done in Tabitha's place. After a moment, he glanced across at Topaz, then followed her gaze to the Faulkner. Ouch. That... was an unpleasant discovery. "...maybe they didn't get all of it?" he said, inwardly kicking himself at how lame that sounded.

"It's fine." Topaz looked over at Tabitha. "Do you want any help cleaning up, Ms. Smith?" Obviously she wasn't going to get any reading done, and this seemed like a good way to put off having to go back into the war zone.

Tabitha glanced out the window. "Doesn't look like it's going to rain soon. You two want to start taking books outside to shake them out while I start vacuuming?"

Frank nodded. "Sure. Ain't gonna get much reading done otherwise," he muttered sourly. He started taking books down off the shelf and stacked them in his arms. "Don't suppose there's a box or something we could use to carry them?"

Topaz emptied the contents of her bag on a nearby table and offered it to Frank to unload his stack into. "Might as well make it as easy possible." She could always shake out her bag later.

He took it, nodding his thanks, and packed a few more books on top of the stack before sliding them into the bag. "So how are you for curses?" he asked. "Could there be inflictions of warts or something? Maybe a plague?"

"For a lot of reasons including Amanda would kill me, I'd probably end up killing myself, and I'd probably end up with an angry mob chasing me, I'm gonna have to say that's not a good idea," Topaz said as she shoved a few more books into her bag before declaring it full and zipping it shut again.

"Pity," Frank replied. "Pretty sure an assault on the library counts as grounds for justifiable homicide." He slid his arms underneath the bag and heaved it up, straining a little. "Okay. Let's go save some books. I think normally that also includes PTSD counselling, but we'll make do." He strode (not staggered, seriously, he was more manly then that) towards the door, nodding at Tabitha as he went. "You know the librarian at all?" he asked, as soon as they got out of earshot.

"Like I said - if Amanda didn't kill me, casting the spell probably would." Though she wasn't about to say she disagreed with Frank. Topaz raised an eyebrow at Frank as he "strode" along. "Ms. Smith?" She questioned as they left the library, casting a weary eye around to make sure a certain someone wasn't hovering around waiting to nail her. "I guess. I've talked to her. Sort of. Why?"

"It's-" he stopped, put the bag down, and looked at Topaz. "We live in that library," he started. "I mean, when you're not there, I am, and vice versa. And that's not including the times we're both there. So how is it we barely even know her? I didn't even know her name before you said it just there. I get giving people space. God knows this place is too touchy-feely most of the time. But... I don't know. Seems like she's someone we should know." He paused. "And no, that was not an excuse to put the bag down."

It totally was. He picked it up again, managing not to grunt.

"You want help with that?" Topaz asked, raising an eyebrow, as they started along again. "I guess she just believes in letting us be? I dunno, she's a bit mad but there's nothing really wrong with her, I don't think. Honestly, I think it's nice." Having a place to be alone, not having to worry about having to act for anyone...it was nice.

"Nah, I got it," Frank muttered. After a moment, his body seemed to almost twitch. A moment later he was made of solid wood, and carrying the bag wasn't causing anywhere near as much trouble. "I guess," he muttered. He could understand wanting a little solitude. "She's a graduate too, right?"

"Right then." Topaz shrugged as they continued to walk. "I dunno, I guess so. Probably. Seems like just about everyone around here who isn't a student is a graduate."

"Place is a freakin' cult like that," agreed Frank. They pushed through the doors out to the drive, and Frank put the bag down again. His skin flickered back into flesh. "You think that's gonna happen to us?"

"Not happenin' to me," Topaz said as she knelt down, opening the bag and pulling out a couple of books to shake out. She was getting out as soon as she graduated. Maybe she'd go back to England. Or India. Either way, she wasn't staying here.

Frank crouched down opposite her, taking out a few more of the books and getting to work. "Nah, didn't figure you for the X-Men type," he replied, not looking at her. "Some of the other gigs don't sound so bad. Red X or X-Corps or something. Still have to stay here, though."

"All the power to ya if you want to," Topaz murmured as she worked. If she was entirely honest, she could see the draw of being here, staying here. It was home, for most people. Just not for her.

"Didn't say I was gonna," said Frank. He paused, shook out one of the books. "I don't know. Come back to me in two years. Maybe we'll be splitting bus fare."

He didn't want to talk about this. "We're gonna have to hunt someone down for this," he said, gesturing at the books. "It's sacrilegious, man."

"More like plane fare." But Topaz recognized a diversion tactic when she saw one. And she wasn't going to push. "Well not everyone is as careful about taking care of good books as we are. Which is no excuse for hurting them, of course."

"Your problem, miss Ashdown, is an inability to enjoy a good ass-whupping," Frank replied, smiling crookedly. "I'm not gonna hurt anyone. May possibly toilet paper their room or something. Or maybe just yell at 'em to be more careful next year. But I won't hurt them." A beat. "Angel already said she'd tie me down and lecture me till my brain melted if I hit anything."

Topaz cringed a bit at the sound of her last name. "Or maybe I'm just incredibly merciful," she returned with a small smirk of her own before she rolled her eyes. "Have you ever listened to Ms. Jones talk? That'll only take five minutes. What'd you do to deserve that, anyways?"

Frank looked away. "Got in a fight with a wall," he said, tone light but still avoiding eye contact. "Don't worry. I won." He glanced back at her. "I'm guessing I'm not the first to go for a little property damage around this place anyway. School full of hormonal mutant teenagers?"

"Probably not," Topaz said with a shrug. He wasn't looking at her, but she'd turned her focus to him. "I try not to pay too much attention, hormonal mutant teenagers are hell on empaths." A brief moment of silence. "Why'd you get in a fight with a wall?"

"Wasn't in a good mood. Thought it best I express it." That sounded lame, even to him. After a moment he met her eyes again. "I get... angry, sometimes. Nothing unusual- just..." he laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. "Well, hormonal mutant teenager. Mister Espinosa and me had been talking about stuff."

"Worse ways to express anger, I suppose." She'd certainly seen worse. "Don't hurt yourself." The words slipped off her lips before she'd quite thought about them.

Frank glanced up, a little surprised. Then he grinned cockily at her. "Who, me? I'm a god-damn treeman, Topaz. I don't get hurt." He went back to cleaning the books, and the two worked in silence for a while. "I think that's the last of them," said Frank, wiping purple powder from his hands. "You want to bring them back in, get some more?"

"Oh of course. Silly me, how could I forget." She wasn't smiling. Really she wasn't. Well, she wasn't much, at least. She packed the rest of the books back in the bag and dusted her own hands off, hoisting the bag over her shoulders. It was heavy, for sure. But she liked to think she was stronger than her barely-five-foot form made her seem. "Yeah. Sure."

Tabitha found the crevice tool just as the students returned. "The beautiful minions return. Can I call you beautiful minions? That won't get me in trouble with the school board, will it? Wait! Do we even have a school board?" She pointed to the two other vacuum cleaners she scrounged from other parts of the house. "I'll take the giant beast, you can use those if you'd like."

"Cool," said Frank, carefully not answering her previous questions. Or making eye contact with Topaz. He considered himself a decent man, and laughing at the crazy librarian lady seemed unfair. Instead, he went to collect one of the two hoovers and plugged it in. "You take that half, I'll take this one?" He said, glancing over at Topaz.

"Sounds good," Topaz agreed, collecting the second vacuum. She was rather impartial to the idea of being minion. She'd completely missed the fact that Tabitha was babbling.

Tabs clapped her hands smartly, like on a Clapper commercial. She bet the kids didn't even know what a Clapper was. "Okay! Fly! Fly my minions!"