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Virgil's got a pretty good gig going.
He's technically an archival assistant in the depths of the library, but since the actual archival experts don't trust him to do actual, important, time-consuming work, and people so rarely need the archives of the library, most of the time, he gets paid to sit there and do homework and frown disapprovingly at people who come down into the depths of the library for an excuse to talk noisily, as if it's not still a library. That doesn't happen very often, though.
Virgil watches dispassionately as the latest gaggle of shouting college students sprint away, leaving behind the book that had suddenly flown off the table and hit one of the display skeletons hard enough to decapitate it. Virgil waits until the screaming's and the loud thumping of fleeing footsteps has quieted.
"Did you have to take the skeleton's head off his shoulders?"
The familiar, silvery, translucent form appeared, sending the pages of open books ruffling in the breeze, and a chill down Virgil's spine, and goosebumps sprouting over his skin. Really, he's used to it at this point, his body just hasn’t gotten used to the regular appearances from the paranormal yet, somehow.
"I thought it fittingly dramatic," Logan says, adjusting his tie—old-fashioned and way too thick, to Virgil, but probably quite fashionable when Logan was alive.
"Was it, ah. Overkill?"
"Maybe a bit," Virgil says.
"I used the phrase correctly?"
"You sure did, Lo, good job," Virgil says, and moves to reattach the skeleton's head.
Really, the fact that the library's haunted was half the reason that he'd applied to work in the library in the first place. And sure, the first time Logan had appeared, Virgil nearly had a heart attack and ran out of the library and had one of the worst panic attacks he'd had in years, but, well. The pay was nice, and he got free coffee from the much-less-haunted café upstairs, and the ghosts really weren't very troublesome at all, after Logan had appeared and apologized for making a fuss and that they hadn't known he'd worked there—apparently they didn't bother the librarians. Logan's pretty boring, ghost-wise.
"Was that a pun?" Patton asks brightly, poking his colorless, curly head around a corner. Patton's pretty cheery, ghost-wise.
"Absolutely not!"
"It kinda sounded like a pun, Logan," Virgil says, trying to stifle his smile—he ends up pretending like he's making sure that the skeleton's head is soundly attached, so that Logan won't see him smiling.
"It was my turn to scare off the noisy ones," Roman sulks. Roman's pretty... surprisingly normal, ghost-wise. Which is a weird way to describe not only a ghost, and also specifically Roman. Like, yeah, sure, he's definitely overdramatic and kind of annoying sometimes, but he's the most recent ghost, and therefore much more like Virgil in terms of, like, ability to understand pop culture references. The fact that he'd been murdered in a prince costume on his way back from a drama rehearsal kind of highlights that.
"Now, kids," Patton says, despite the fact that he's technically the youngest, in terms of how long he'd been alive, but he is the oldest, in terms of ghost-ness, so. "There'll be plenty of noisy people, you don't have to fight over scaring them."
Roman and Logan begin grumbling at each other, but quietly enough that Patton won’t lecture them again—Virgil can get how tensions will probably rise when you’re stuck in the same place for basically forever or until your soul moves on to the next plane, so they tend to pick their battles.
“So,” Patton says, propping his head on his hand, leaning forward. “How was your weekend? Didya do anything fun?”
Virgil’s weekend of being an absolute cave gremlin and not leaving his room until he needed to eat—watching Netflix, curling up under too-big blankets, eating probably way too much pasta than was good for him—and timing his ventures out into the kitchen so that he didn’t see any people flash through his head.
“Uh,” Virgil says. “Not really.”
And then Virgil feels bad, because Patton slumps, just for a moment, before he brightens again—the librarians are really the ghosts’ only source of outside world news, since they can’t leave the library—or, at least, they haven’t been able to figure out how to get them to leave yet.
“But I’m going out to dinner with some friends tomorrow,” Virgil says hastily, and Patton brightens again.
Well, he can. He’ll text some people and get together for dinner so it won’t be like he’s lied to Patton.
“Oh, tell me how it goes!” Patton says eagerly. “You work on Wednesday, right?”
Virgil nods, and Logan glances over.
“You mentioned you had a quiz today, last time, how did it go?”
“Pretty okay, I think,” Virgil says cautiously. “The formula thing you taught me helped a ton, that was, like, half the quiz.”
“Good,” Logan says. “Did you bring the paper you mentioned?”
“Yeah,” Virgil says, and digs around in his backpack. Logan had been studying to be a professor, before he died, so that means he’s basically set study-wise for sciences for life. Logan takes the paper eagerly, ready to edit.
“And the—” Roman starts.
“On it,” Virgil says, unlocking his phone and accessing the latest single that Roman’s been counting down the days for the start of. “Ready?”
“Everyone shut up!” Roman declares passionately, and Logan glowers at him briefly over his glasses frames before he turns his attention back to Virgil’s paper. “Okay, now you can hit play.”
Virgil does, and Roman sits with his eyes closed, listening closely, and by the time it loops back around, Patton’s already wiggling awkwardly along—he’d died before dancing outside of waltzes and foxtrots were popular, but he’s learned enough from Roman, who’s already rocking along, arms in the air, swaying happily.
“Logan, the paper can wait!” Roman commands. “Dance party! It’s dance party time!”
“Oh, no,” both Virgil and Logan chorus.
“Yes yes yes!” Patton says happily, clapping his hands. “C’mon, V, let’s dance!”
Patton takes his hand, which kind of feels like his hand got doused in ice water, and Virgil sighs, standing, as if Patton could actually pull him to his feet.
“Fine,” he grumbles, “fine,” and then starts to awkwardly sway along as Roman manages to distract Logan from the paper at last, already singing absently, missing most of the words that he’ll probably memorize as the single loops throughout the entirety of Virgil’s shift.
Like he said—it’s a pretty good gig.