Work Text:
Ayda Aguefort lives above the Compass Points Library in the town of Leviathan on the third floor of the building with her guardian, Garthy O’Brien.
Garthy had taken her in when she was young after they noticed she would come off of the school bus and stay in the library well into the evening, seemingly without a guardian to care for her. So she moved into the third-floor apartment with them, their child to care for and love as their own.
Her bedroom overlooks the ocean. Ayda loves the ocean, the sounds of the waves crashing against the dock and the land lulls her to sleep every night. She loves living by the port, admiring the ships that come in and out of the harbor. Her desk sits right by the window, and it’s covered in books and messy papers. Homework is no joke, especially when you live right above the library you work at where all the students get their books as well. Ayda considers it an advantage she has to take books as she pleases and check them out for her own schooling needs.
Ayda’s been homeschooled since Garthy gained custody of her, and by “homeschooled”, it meant they taught her using library books, and Ayda ran with it. She’d taught herself the entire Dewey decimal system by the time she was nine, and her choice in after-schooling enrichment time was shelving returned books and categorizing new shipments.
“She has a very analytical mind,” Garthy would tell patrons who asked why a nine-year-old was shelving books in the philosophy section, “She finds it soothing to categorize and shelve the books, and someone’s got to do it.”
She works the desk during the day now, using the big library computer for big library tasks, and her small laptop for her online curriculum. She does high school online, finding it much more manageable from the comfort of her home, Compass Points, than in a fluorescently-lit building with too much stimulation to intervene with her thoughts and her mind. There’s a mirror across from her desk, so Ayda tends to catch a glimpse at herself throughout the day.
Her brown hair has some dark red streaks and it is curly, very curly. It always sits right around chin level and she doesn’t like having it any other length. Her teeth are a little crooked, Garthy said she didn’t need to worry about braces, and Ayda would’ve rather died than sit in an orthodontist chair, so she likes the gap between her teeth and the one on the bottom left that is shifted behind two of her other teeth. She always wears flowy pants and a comfortable shirt with a cardigan, very much so like the librarians of her youth who took care of her when she wasn’t living with Garthy, which she hardly remembers now.
She notices some newcomers, a group of friends, and she notes them coming almost every day. Only two of them seem to actually do any sort of work. A blonde girl is always studying, actually using their little study room for its intended purpose, and a boy with thick black glasses is knee-deep in mystery novels and solving them using the whiteboard wall Garthy had gotten installed. The rest of them kind of goof off for a few hours. One of them has jet black hair and is always incessnatly drumming on the table with pencils. She’s very pretty. Ayda cannot help but stare at her always.
The blonde girl always thanks her on their way out. Ayda cannot help but look forward to seeing them every day. The girl with the black hair always winks at Ayda on her way out before skipping to catch up to her friends and talk in hushed whispers.
One Saturday morning, the black-haired girl comes in by herself. She walks her way up to the desk with a cup of hot coffee. Ayda takes her coffee with two hazelnut flavoring and oat milk. She hates regular cow’s milk and always has.
“Hey, so,” She starts, her voice much too loud for a library setting, but the gesture is taking Ayda a moment to process, “My friends, um, we wanted to say thank you for always letting us use that study room, so we figured out your coffee order and got you a cup today.” Ayda opens the cup and peers in. Exactly the right color. Perfect.
“Thank you,” She says, scrambling to find the right words in her brain, “It’s exactly right. Two hazelnut flavorings and oat milk.” She takes a sip. “Where did you get it from?” There’s a cafe between here and Elmville that Ayda frequents. The cup looks eerily similar to Portside’s to-go cups.
“Oh,” The pretty girl smiles, “Portside Cafe.” That’s the cafe Ayda frequents. “It’s, like, between here and Elmville, that’s where we’re all from.” She’s fidgeting with a guitar earring hanging from her ear. “I’m Fig Faeth.” She leans on the desk. She’s got a red crop top and black jeans on with a leather jacket over her shirt.
“I go to Portside every day,” Ayda says, pouring the coffee into the mug sitting next to her computer with the Compass Points insignia, “I’m Ayda Aguefort. Adopted daughter of the owner, Garthy O’Brien.” She points behind her to the picture of a small 7-year-old Ayda, missing teeth and red dress with striped tights and all, and Garthy holding her hand in front of the renovated Compass Points. They look nothing alike, but she is their daughter and they’ve made sure she knows that.
“Your dad owns this place?” Fig asks, looking outside. “So cool.” Her friends are all sitting outside, chatting among themselves. “We all go to Aguefort. Where do you go?”
“I do school online,” Ayda explains patiently, “It’s easier for me that way.” Her free hand, that isn’t typing ISBNs into the library computer, is fidgeting with a fidget cube a child gave her a couple weeks prior as a birthday gift. Fig nods.
“I wish I did that,” She shrugs, “Can we get the study room today? And, um, if you want to join us, you can come in.” Ayda is taken aback. In her 10 years of living at the Compass Points and operating as a “staff member”, she’s never been asked by patrons her age to join them for something.
“I’ve never been asked this before,” She blurts out, “Let me ask Garthy.” She stands from her desk, smoothing her pants, “And yes, you can have the room until 4.”
Garthy is more than happy, they even seem a little too happy, to let Ayda spend some time with the self-proclaimed “Bad Kids” for a few hours.
She decides that she likes them. They’re rambunctious and lively, but not too loud because the one with the thick glasses – Riz, she learns – also hates the loud noises. The blonde one, Adaine, is cozied up with a girl with a tie-dye t-shirt on, Kristen, and she’s reading something about werewolves and Kristen’s making silly jokes that are making Adaine roll her eyes. The boys are debating over the answer to a mystery Riz has mapped out, and Fig is sitting with Ayda, excitedly explaining music theory to the receptionist.
A few months go by and Ayda gets a cup of hot coffee with two hazelnut flavorings and oat milk every Saturday morning from Fig, sometimes with her friends, but sometimes it’s just Fig and her music theory books. She and Ayda take the study room and Fig teaches Ayda music theory – and in return, Ayda teaches Fig about library science and the Dewey decimal system, and sometimes, they sneak up to the loft to hang out in Ayda’s room.
Soon enough, Fig has ulterior motives, and she keeps stealing these glances at Ayda that she can’t comprehend the subtext to. Ayda can see her staring out of the corner of her eye while she’s talking excitedly about the 500s and the 600s, or about the scheduling of new children’s programming, or about the goddamn budget of the library, which would bore anyone else, but Fig is completely captivated.
Adaine talks to Ayda one Friday, the rest of the kids have long gone, it’s just Adaine and her chemistry textbooks while Ayda works on a paper about the history of arsenic and its use in homeopathic medicine, and she just speaks without even thinking.
“Fig looks at me,” Ayda says, “And she is thinking something but I don’t know what.” Adaine barely even looks up from her calculator when she responds.
“It’s because she likes you,” Adaine says. Her voice is gentle. Adaine has the gentlest voice of all the Bad Kids. Ayda’s learned this is because her home wasn’t great, so she learned how to be quiet very quick, but here, Adaine just speaks gently because she’s explaining something to Ayda that Ayda doesn’t exactly know. “She’s liked you since we started coming, actually. She thinks you’re really pretty.”
Ayda’s cheeks heat up and she ducks back behind her laptop. “I think Fig is very pretty too.” Fig has been an inhabitant of Ayda’s dreams, domesticity and softness rearing their heads as she falls asleep every night, “She thinks I’m pretty?”
“Yes,” Adaine says, finally glancing up from her books, “I think you should talk to her about it.”
“How do I do that?” Ayda asks, and Adaine shrugs, not skilled in this topic, but wants to try her best to help.
“I think…” She says softly, “I think you can just tell Fig. She likes that you say what you’re thinking.” She goes back to her work. Ayda nods.
“Can I text Fig?” Ayda asks. She has Fig’s number. She could just text her, ask to go to Portside Cafe and talk tomorrow. Adaine nods.
“That’d probably be a good idea,” She says. “I think you should.”
(18:34) Ayda Aguefort: Hello, Fig. Are you available tomorrow at 8 for coffee at Portside Cafe?
Adaine snorts from across the room.
(18:39) Fig Faeth: sure!
Ayda is an early riser. Fig, it seems, is not. But she’s shown up to Portside in ripped jeans and her leather jacket that Ayda keeps dreaming about being wrapped around her body. Ayda is dressed in her black flowy pants with a white pirate-esque shirt today. Fig looks really excited about this.
They both get coffees, Fig’s iced and Ayda’s hot, and they sit by Ayda’s favorite window facing the harbor much like her bedroom. Fig is captivated by the seaside for most of their time, before Ayda opens her mouth.
“Adaine says that you find me pretty,” She finally says, “And I wanted to tell you that I find you very pretty and I want to be around you a lot.” She takes a deep breath. Fig almost chokes on her coffee.
“I-I do,” Fig says, “I do find you very pretty.” She seems to get antsy, her leg bouncing nervously. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”
They end up in Ayda’s bedroom, cozy in Ayda’s bed, which is more of a nest of blankets and big stuffed animals than an actual bed. Fig is sitting with a red blanket wrapped around her, and Ayda is sitting with a blue one wrapped up around her too.
“It was my idea to bring you coffee,” Fig finally says, her fingers flexing against the fabric of the blanket, “Riz, he used his detective skills to find out your coffee order, and…and I wanted to bring you a coffee, partially because we are thankful you let us use your study room all the time, but they were all just sick of me talking about how pretty you are, and they just wanted me to make a move.” She’s refusing to meet Ayda’s gaze, “And I started teaching you music theory because you kept looking at me like I was the most precious thing in the world every time I started talking about it, and…” She looks up at Ayda, who’s watching her, “You’re doing it now.”
“I love it when you talk,” Ayda bursts out, “I love it when you bring me coffee and I love it when you hang out with me. I…” She takes Adaine’s advice. “I have romantic feelings for you, Fig.”
There it is. Fig’s face breaks into a smile. She leans over and suddenly Ayda and Fig are so close that their noses are touching, and Ayda notices Fig has little freckles on her nose, and she leans up and kisses the tip of her nose. Fig blushes, her cheeks heating up and her ears turning red as she catches Ayda’s hands.
“Have you ever kissed anyone, Miss Aguefort?” Ayda shakes her head no. “Would you like to?”
Ayda nods and suddenly Fig’s lips are on hers, and it’s wonderful and a little gross and a little bit of a negative sensory experience but Ayda would go through it a million times because her heart feels like it’s going to beat out of her chest because Fig Faeth is kissing her and it’s okay and–
“You talk so much,” Fig smiles against her lips. Ayda must’ve been mumbling to herself, “It’s cute. Keep talking. You’re fanning my ego.”
So none of the Bad Kids comment on their next visit why Ayda’s wearing Fig’s leather jacket behind the counter of the library as she waves them into their little study room, and why Fig’s got a permanent stake at the other chair behind the desk now, her music theory workbook propped up in front of her and coffees from Portside sitting next to the two of them.