Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I felt a glare from across the room - another glare, rather. I estimated at least 5, from various tables. Fuck them. If they wanted somewhere quiet, they should have chosen somewhere else to study. The library was a place for literature, for art, for creation. Not for doing homework and talking aloud about capstone projects and cramming and whatever else those fratboys and sorority girls were discussing. If I was the only person here who knew what libraries were for, what business was it of anyone else that I was writing fanfiction on my mechanical keyboard? My smut was art. With every clack of my keys, I felt something primal burn inside. Lust, obviously, and romantic elation, but… above all else… pride. I was proud of my work. It was art, in every conceivable sense of the term. Even if nobody else but that odious, late-to-the-party sycophant Blackwater enjoyed my work, I knew it was unparalleled. The closest to Umriss that had ever been written. A perfect continuation and conclusion, like all the rest I had made. I continued typing.

Another glare. I shot a glance at the offending party - some Chem major, blond hair, circle glasses, massive zit on his nose - and forcefully typed an especially loud period with a flourish, a smug smile on my face. It was only barely louder than the rap beat playing through his earbuds; ticking sounds that were akin to the teeth of a sawblade in how sharp and uniform they were, how they cut through the air and grated on my ears even across the distance between my desk and his. I was better than him. I was better than everyone in here. Uncultured swine.

I glanced at the clock. 10:57 PM. The library closed at 11, and I had no intention of working late. I hit ctrl+s and closed Notepad before unplugging my writing keyboard, folding my laptop screen down, and placing them both into my bookbag. With a clap of my hands, and a practiced voice somewhere between that of Berdly and Martlet from Undertale Yellow, I declared:

"Attention, everyone. We're closing now. Everybody out."

A chorus of groans and exhausted sighs rang out, a hymn of lamentation. A few of them turned to me, eyes pleading and desperate. Not that I cared, of course. They had known when finals would be since the syllabi had been posted literal months ago. They deserved whatever grade they got, and if they hadn't studied until now, they deserved to fail. At least that would be a learning opportunity. That's what they came to college for, right? To learn? To be challenged?

I shooed them all through the door, closing and locking it behind them. The computers had been shut off at 10:45 in keeping with library protocol, and there had been at least 3 people who’d come in since then, saying things like "I just need to print off a cover page. This essay is due in an hour and it's 50% of my grade!" or "I need to revise a citation in my thesis paper!" The computers are shut off 15 minutes before closing, idiots. Always have been, always will be. Outside of the library, I am another student - not just another student like you, mind, as you and I are as comparable as Cheez Whiz and casu marzu, but another student nonetheless - but inside the library, I am your God, a deity unrivaled. If it was so important, you should've done it sooner.

Returning to my desk, I scanned over the checklist of my remaining tasks. I had only to close up for the night, clock out, and return to my dorm to resume writing my newest Umriss ending, Adumbrative. I completed a single lap around the library, searching for any indolent stragglers who had pretended not to hear my command to evacuate. Finding none, I opened my work app, clocked out, and turned off the lights. The room plunged into darkness.

...Ironic, is it not?

A darkened library is but a storehouse of ink and paper, the knowledge contained within inaccessible and thus its purpose deprived. And yet, the darkness only strengthens the mind's eye, where art is made and manifested. Without distractions, and without a rigid model of reality formed by the whispers of wayward photons, our minds may take from the storehouse of schema and knowledge we possess and blur the edges, making a new reality that only we, the individual creators, may truly see. Such is the tragedy of a library, that innovation is replaced with regurgitation. Such is the irony, that such a home of the arts is in best service to them when cast in liminality and unuse. The light breeds unoriginality, an irrational refusal to see the world in any other context, a complacency with consuming only media that already exists and has been retread a thousand times by a thousand minds. A silhouette in the light is merely that, our mind's reconstruction of what the senses insist is real. But in darkness, without the light to dull our senses, a shadow is free to gnash, to claw, to writhe. Darken the outward-facing eyes, and imagination is loosed, free to run rampant. There should be nothing more than a mind, floating in pure chaos of the creation. Amen, Berdly, amen. Maybe those Alvin Knighters were onto somethi-

A thud, followed by a sound like a hiss of pain sucked through clenched teeth. I would have thought someone had gotten themselves hurt somehow, but I had personally confirmed that the place was empty. It must have been a book falling, then a couple of pages settling.

I immediately flipped the lights back on and went to investigate. I didn’t recall seeing any books poking out far enough that they would have dropped, but perhaps my visual cortex had been otherwise occupied at the time by envisioning the sensual embraces of my beloved bluebird and his violet dragoness. If something had fallen, it would have looked like I was slacking. I cared not at all what anyone thought of me, but still, to leave it there would make me no better than any other lazy idiot at this university.

As I turned the corner, I assume that I was promptly knocked on my ass by a mass colliding with me. Assume, of course, because I don’t actually remember that part, but it seems reasonable enough of a conclusion given that I was suddenly on the ground with another girl.

"Owie…(>﹏<)"

She was dressed in a ridiculous outfit. The base was reasonable enough, I suppose - white collared shirt, brown sweater vest, circle skirt, buckle shoes. But then my eyes were assaulted by an absurd number of details - frills, ribbons, bows, about a hundred little cross-stitched patterns, minimalist renderings of... Asriel and Burgerpants? on every surface. The entire ensemble was topped off by messy brown pigtails, so long that their ends nearly touched the floor beside her as she sat up.

I barely had a moment to process all of this before she was on her feet and upon me, spouting apologies and concerning herself with my wellbeing.

"O-EM-GEEEE, I’m SO SO SO SO SORRY, bestie! <(_ _)> Are you alright? Are you hurt? You look hurt! Ohmygosh, your nose is bleeding! („ಡωಡ„) I’m so sorry, I’m such a klutz ( ╥ω╥ ) You landed pretty hard, is your back alright? What about your neck? Omigosh, if you slipped a disk or jammed a vertebra because of-"

"I’m fine, no thanks to you."

I should have chewed her out, but I was mostly just surprised at the novelty of the nosebleed she had caused. I had a predisposition to nosebleeds, but they rarely if ever had a discernible cause besides "something about the weather" and "my mom chose to marry the algae floating on top of the gene pool." This was the first time I had experienced one from a sharp impact. It hurt more than I expected. Fortunately, my father’s gift of ill-fitting and threadbare genes meant that I always kept a wad of napkins in my jacket pockets for just such occasions, which I quickly rolled up and stuffed into my nostrils. It would be hard to talk without running out of breath this way, but that worked out well enough; I had little intention of chatting with this freak. Looking at how she dressed, she should have been in second grade over a hundred years ago, not in post-secondary education in the present, and certainly not in the library at 11:01. Speaking of…

"Why are you still here?"

The eyes behind her large, circular lenses looked at me, confused. There was nothing behind those stupid little eyes.

"What are you talking about? Σ(OᵔO) I can’t leave a bestie in need! ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ Especially since I’m the one who-"

"No, not that. Why were you still here? The closing announcement was 5 minutes ago!"

"Oh, THAT’S what you meant! (･ω･) I guess I got too wrapped up in what I was doing, oopsy-doo! I was right in the middle of a chapter, and I must’ve not heard you (｡･･｡) Sorryyyy, bestie."

…Huh. That was new. Usually, even the most engrossed students were snapped out of their musings by the unmistakably pompous and annoying tones of my voice, a fact in which I took some perverted sense of pride. Up until now, my routine had been infallible, not a single soul left in the room by closing time. But, even the most foolproof systems are challenged by a talented fool, and if there was a single thing that this girl was talented in (there was, certainly, only a single thing), it was folly. Clearly there wasn’t a single brain cell under all of that hair. Indeed, the considerable weight of that hair was likely all that was keeping her and her otherwise weightless head from floating off like a balloon.

"Hmph. Guess I should start being louder when I do the announcement. But that doesn’t explain why I didn’t see you when I did the walk-through for stragglers. Where were you, exactly?"

At this, her face flushed with red, and she looked off to the side, touching the ends of her index fingers together in front of her like some sort of anime character. How could someone dressed like that, talking like that, emoting like that, have anything that they were ashamed of? Just how low was the threshold for dignity?

"(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) I was, um… under one of the tables (/ω＼) I-it’s one of the best places to read, although it can be a bit hard to see under there sometimes, eheheh…(˘_˘;)"

"??????????"

How could anyone think sitting under a table, in a crowded library, with poor lighting and a rough carpet under you, was the ideal way to read? Before, I was convinced she needed to be sent off to the madhouse. Now? I was wondering which one she had escaped from, because there’s no way this went unnoticed. How had nobody stepped on her, or kicked her, or just generally noticed her under there? There wasn’t a single seat left unoccupied just 10 minutes ago, the tables packed with morons who didn’t grasp the concept of a library and treated it like a common room. Unable to reconcile her story with basic logic, I was left with no choice but to let the subject be dropped.

"...Well. I suppose it couldn’t be helped this time. But you’d better try to be more attentive to your surroundings next time, or you’re banned from this library. Understood?"

"I-I, um, don’t think you can do that. (ᓀ_ᓀ) Only a member of staff could do that, and even then it’s dubious whether they’d have that power, but you’re just a student here too, right? (・・?"

Damn. I had been called out. It was true; I had taken this position as a way to make ends meet, but until I had my diploma in my hand and a Bachelor's in Architecture on my résumé, I was just another student. I was about to devise a very witty and scathing response - trust me, it would have been a real doozy - when she started picking up her things which she had dropped when we’d collided. Basic stuff: a textbook on anatomy, two on biology, a handful of pencils, and a notebook. What dammed the flow of conversation from my mouth was the sight of what had been written in the notebook. It had landed open on the ground, near the end of the book, and appeared to be filled with…

"(⊙﹏⊙) Eeek! D-don’t look at that! (‘◉⌓◉’) I-I’m sorry, I have to go now! B-Bye! C=C=C=(っ≧ω≦)っ"

In a flurry of ribbons and frills, and with the sound of swishing fabric and forceful footfalls (where was that sound when she had run full-tilt into me?), she was out the door. I sat there for a moment longer, still processing the bizarre encounter. Had I really just been knocked flat on my back by a literal run-in with… an Azzypants shipper?