Work Text:
Jesse is not what one would call a people person. It's not like he dislikes people or the world – actually, he's rather fond of people and the world, just not too up close. He appreciates a lot of people at a small distance. He's come to the conclusion that it's not just self-preservation, but it makes it easier to recognize the really and truly important stuff, being a little detached. That's how he sees it, anyway.
So working at the library suits Jesse's needs more than well. Books, decent amounts of purposeful contact with people and a naturally calm work environment with none too many distractions. He gets to help people help themselves, with information and knowledge and education and every once in a while, he gets to be a part of kids discovering whole news worlds through books. And sometimes, he just gets to sit and read behind the counter and gets paid for it. There's not much wrong with that.
Jesse always been pretty sure that he wants to stay in New York. Growing up in Queens, going to school and getting his masters in library and information sciences in the area has made it even clearer. He's a certified public librarian working in Manhattan, he lives a bike ride away from his job and things are going smoothly. He loves his job, his books can fit into his apartment and he has his own, if small, group of friends who he is lucky enough to work with. Jesse's comfortable in his life; not many things are out of place.
Wednesday nights at the library are usually pretty quiet. The students are out drinking, people aren't out and about like on Fridays or Saturdays. Jesse reads up on the newest reviews, places a few orders and sorts out the returns before Emma's Reading Aloud session is over. The parents are waiting for their kids and Jesse sees the regular group of three and four year olds sitting in a circle around Emma.
Emma is Jesse's self-appointed confidant at work and probably one of his best friends. Not that he tells Emma that, at least not too often. It'd most likely mean giving up the last remnants of his privacy and ending up in him having to go on blind dates with all of Emma's hair-dressing, club-going gay friends. Not that Jesse has anything against hairdressers that go to clubs. He could be one if he had any interest in hair or clubs. Emma is funny and outrageous and beautiful and so very genuinely cares about the people close to her.
They are a small but efficient team. Joe is a friendly and outgoing guy with the sharpest sense of humor out of everyone Jesse knows. Joe is also completely infatuated with his fiancée, Sara, a sweet, shy girl who used to spend hours in the library, reading her books - Jesse doesn't pride himself with his skills of observation or deduction but truly he has no idea how Joe didn't not believe them, telling him she was there just for him, not the books.
Carey, especially teamed up with Emma, is a powerhouse of foul language in the most sweetest of packages. Their manager, or “fearless leader”, like Carey likes to call her, is Jane, who is in her early fifties. She's almost scary, sometimes, in her drive and intensity and passion for developing their branch and holding on to the funding the system struggles with every year. Jesse's sure they would all be unemployed if Jane didn't care so much about the library and her staff.
Jesse's had his job for a couple of years now and he's gotten to know a few of the people that come there regularly. He enjoys working with them, feels like he gets to do just what he likes to do best. The patrons he knows the best a varied group of people. For example, Justin is a strangely high-strung up-and-coming singer, always seeming a little out of place but coming and going out of the music department. Justin seems to seek him for help a lot of the times, and Jesse suspects it has something to do with Emma usually being somewhere close.
Armie and his wife come in every week. Armie's an off-Broadway actor and his wife Elizabeth works as an TV reporter for the local news. They're charming and sickeningly sweet and have been around a lot lately. Armie looks a little tired and when Armie checks out two bags full of books about pregnancy and child-rearing, Jesse thinks he understands why. He offers his most understanding smile – the one Emma, the friendly and delightful person she is, has described as his Constipation Face – and Armie shrugs, grinning a little, not really saying anything.
Anderson is a silver-haired, serious-looking man in well-tailored suits with a dorky laugh and snarky side a mile wide. He works as a DA and is on the fast-track to congress and bigger and better things. Jesse would be intimidated by Anderson if Anderson wasn't absurdly and completely unashamedly interested in celebrity gossip. Jesse figures Anderson comes from serious money as Jane has hinted that the renovations made a few years back came straight from Anderson's pocket. Regardless of that, Anderson is a modest guy that seems to have his heart in the right place.
Anderson is friends with Stephen, as well, and Stephen is one of Jesse's favorite patrons. Stephen is a gorgeous man in his mid-forties, hilariously funny man who makes it his business to bring Jesse chocolate at regular intervals. Stephen is the principal at the local public high school; Jesse feels a certain warmth and solidarity with Stephen, like they're working for the same cause as public servants. Stephen comes by often, sometimes dropping by to just chat with him, sometimes sitting down with his newspaper to do the crossword. Occasionally, Stephen comes with his partner Jon, who is handsome and charming and witty and whose face Jesse sees regularly in the papers along with his razor sharp, acerbic columns.
Jesse gets strangely wistful sometimes, watching Stephen and Jon's easy and gentle demeanor with each other. So far Jesse has said no to their offers of coffee and invites to dinner; he's thought about it a lot, knowing he'd have fun and it's not like he thinks Stephen and Jon have some master plan of seducing him and making him their love slave or something. It just feels too personal, too close – he's afraid that Jon will invite Stephen's nephew James whom he keeps talking about to Jesse. James is apparently doctor, doing his residency at a nearby hospital and both Stephen and Jon have gently tried to hint at several occasions that he'd make the perfect boyfriend for James. Jesse sort of finds it the most endearing and the most irritating thing at the same time – he does not need to be set up on almost blind dates by his patrons. They look almost sorry when Jesse tells them this.
And then there's Andrew. Andrew's been around now for a while, since last fall. Andrew's big brown eyes and his ridiculously tall hair and his huge, happy-making smile are by far Jesse's favorite thing about his job. He would never tell that to anyone, obviously, but it's still true. Andrew is the most regular of his patrons, he's at the library almost every night, studying his ass off or just hanging around when he has the time. Andrew's a drama major at Juilliard – top of his class, Jesse's sure, because the way Andrew smiles and everyone around him seems to fall in love with him, he really can't be anything but – and sometimes he's surrounded by artsy types who talk too loudly about Nietzsche and the aesthetics of Scandinavian art design in the 19th century and wear their parents clothes from the 60s, but most of the time, Andrew works on his own, at least for those few hours he's at the library.
Jesse's stopped trying to act cool around Andrew ages ago. He gets unprofessionally excited by the books Andrew picks up sometimes and they get into heated arguments about the classics and it's all he's been taught not to do but it's Andrew, Andrew who is so wonderful and shining and gorgeous Jesse's sure he gives birth to glittering baby unicorns on a regular basis. He thinks Andrew won't tell anyone if Jesse recommends him a book sometimes. Or steals and hides something from his piles of books to be loaned – there needs to be some sort of quality control somewhere.
Jesse's productivity goes down when Andrew's around but he's pretty sure his job performance is much better all around. Andrew's sweet and attentive and talks to Jesse about things he actually cares about and stays behind sometimes to keep Jesse company when he locks up. It's not exactly following the rules but when he tells Jane about it, pseudo-casually, she just looks at him and asks him if he thinks Andrew will rob the register one night and Jesse sort of forgets about the rules after that.
But so it's Wednesday and Andrew is sitting on the check-out counter and reading and talking about his art history class at the same time and Jesse watches him, pretending to be closing things up. It usually takes him twenty minutes but it's been a good half an hour now and Jesse thinks he needs to speed things up because Andrew probably has things to do and places to be, but he still takes another moment to look at Andrew, take note of today's relatively tame hair and the long line of Andrew's legs and his beautiful neck and it makes Jesse ache. Jesse wishes things were different – that he'd be different, maybe, he could ask if Andrew'd like to go have a cup of coffee at the cafe across the street or maybe even his place, to meet his cats and borrow a few books they've talked about. If he was different they could stop and talk in front of the library and Jesse could lean in and kiss Andrew under the street light, soft and slow.
When Jesse snaps back into the moment, Andrew's grinning at him, looking like he's waiting for an answer to something and Jesse blinks. He tries to recover by faking a yawn and saying something about a bad night's sleep because of the druggie neighbors and being exhausted, and the compassion in Andrew's eyes would make Jesse hate him if it wasn't the sweetest thing Jesse has ever seen. Jesse finishes things as fast as possible and leads them out of the library, making sure for the last time that the security system is activated.
There is no kiss goodbye, but Andrew squeezes Jesse's shoulder gently, wishing him a better night, and Jesse thinks he can go for a week on the sense memory alone. Andrew smiles and gives him a tiny, funny-looking wave when Jesse gets on his bike and they go their separate ways.