"SSHHHH!" The old woman scowls at the pair. Marshall covers up Gabriel's chuckles with his hand, effectively hiding his own also. Once the fit has died down, he pulls his hand down with a flushed smile.

"Best punch line for a knock-knock joke I've ever heard. On another note though, I've always wondered why you work in a library." Gabriel says. The old woman hastily shushes them again, so he leans in to whisper, "You don't seem like the quiet type."

Marshall goes to speak when she obnoxiously shushes them again. He wasn't even talking that time! Gabriel scoffs loudly, giving her a look filled with so much attitude, Marshall takes a double-take. He motions them to the back admin rooms of the library, access received with the flick of a card. They continue the conversation at the small conference table, spinning in the office chairs.

"Now as I was gonna say", Marshall begins, "How would you know what I like? You've only came here for two weeks."

"You mean every day you worked here for two weeks." He corrects with grin and a raised brow. Marshall looks away with a smile. Gabriel has much more opinion and volume when you get to know him, he finds. And Marshall advances a little further into his personality with every encounter, never looking back.

"Still. I just… I like the calm it gives me. Kinda like meditation of some sort."

"From stacking books?"

He laughs. "Yeah I know, its pretty weird but-"

"No, no." Gabriel stops spinning and leans on the table tabletop with his elbows. "It's not weird. It's…" His blue eyes search silently for the right word. "It's sweet. I understand what you mean. You're a clearly loud and sociable person, so it makes sense to want and get away for a nice calm once in a while." His eyes tint up in the corners, like he's smiling behind his closed hands.

Marshall blows air through his teeth, spinning around again with a flush creeping up his neck. "Pssh. Whatever. At least you got your answer."

Gabriel continues to stare at him with that same look, making him more uncomfortable by the second. Eventually he cracks with an awkward laugh. "So, I gotta get back to work. You wanna check out another Mystery or something?"

The boy blinks out his stare and stands. "Yes please."

Ms. Tuttle calls him over from his station. "Marshall, look over the newly checked in books." She gestures to the ever growing pile. "It looks like a jungle over here." Her sentences come slow and timed, from either age or a natural speech impediment. Nonetheless, he still waits until every syllable she has to say is out before speaking.

"You gotcha." He waits for her to shuffle back into the carding room, before taking the issues. One set of books he notes, were previously Gabriel's. He pauses to open and check the reading card inside, which deems his observations right.

He unconsciously spends an extra beat admiring the precise and smooth cursive of his handwriting before checking it back in. Yet when he moves all the mystery books onto a cart to put away, three book marks flutter lifelessly to the floor.

They're all types of bookmarks: one for recycling, another with a cartoon character saying a witty line, and another with an interesting fact about learning on it. Majority of the words on the front however are scribbled out in black marker, except for one and each and every card. It comes out to:

MY.

LIKE.

SAYS.

He gives them a long pause before shrugging and pocketing them for later. He doesn't even spare them a second thought for the rest of his shift and the next week.

That is, until he finds in another one of Gabriel's returned books another bookmark with black marker upon it.

PUZZLE.

Not long after he checks the drop-in-box every day, heart thundering inside his chest whilst doing so. It's just like before, a race to fix and put together the puzzle.