Tim never knew there was so much money in books. Their takings have shot up since Jay's been around, and he's only been in for two Saturdays so far.
Jay's also startlingly dedicated. Like... he really loves books. In an almost unhealthy way. The way Jay practically frolics around after they do a house clearance, resulting in him being absolutely surrounded by Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, is not fucking natural, and he probably needs to see someone about it.
"What do you even study?" Tim asks idly on the third Saturday, sitting on the half cleared table in the book room. "Are you a Lit student, or an English major, or what...?"
"Film," Jay clarifies. He flicks through a battered paperback, then decides to stack it neatly onto the pile he uses for general fiction. "Telecommunications and Film, actually. Mostly I just want to direct stuff. And edit footage. Y'know?"
Tim doesn't know, but this is probably the longest string of words Jay's said to him so far, so he doesn't mind. "How come you know so much about books then?"
"Most of it's the internet. See this?" Jay holds up a green book; it's a cloth hardcover, and looks fairly recently published compared to some of the other books. "September, September, by Shelby Foote. First Edition. Signed."
"How much?"
"About three-seventy, maybe three hundred and eighty dollars."
"Jesus Christ," Tim whistles. "Doesn't look like that much, huh? I'm glad you know what you're talking about..."
There is a brief silence as Jay goes through more books. Tim swings his feet a little from his position on the edge of the table. He's tempted to ask if Jay doesn't have anything better to do with his Saturdays, much like himself, but he figures that would be kind of mean.
The question kind of answers itself, anyway. Jay would rather come here and sort books on Saturdays, with a middle-aged lady and a moody bastard like Tim for company, than do Generic Student Activities.
"What did you do?" Jay asks suddenly. "In school, I mean?"
Tim almost laughs outright at him. "I didn't go to college," he says, amusement tingeing his tone, "I barely made it out of high school. In and out of hospital most of my life, and it got worse when it was most important for my exams... I guess I got unlucky. Or I'm just dumb. Who knows."
Jay looks at him with such an upset look that Tim regrets ever opening his mouth. What on earth did he say to provoke that reaction? "You aren't dumb...!" Jay mumbles, clutching the next novel to his chest.
Then he realises that he's said that out loud and looks kind of embarrassed, choosing to look at the ground instead of Tim. Jay eventually turns back around, and stacks the novel that he'd had in a death grip just moments earlier onto a different pile, gently placing it into a category that Tim would never be able to figure out.
Tim leaves after that. He's got furniture to move around. He can't spend all day in the book room.
"You seem to have taken to Jay fairly quickly," Dot notes later, during the week.
"Yeah, he's okay," Tim shrugs.
"Did I make a good choice?"
"I don't think you ever make bad ones, Dot," he comments.
Brian comes over one evening that week.
"Hey, buddy!" he grins manically. One hand claps Tim on the back; the other has a six pack of booze swinging from it. "How've ya been? I just got back from the leisure centre. You should really come around there sometime, they offer judo classes now-"
And Tim just smiles, and lets him bustle in through his front door, because he's never seen anyone love their job as much as Brian does. Brian's been a good friend to Tim, ever since they first met, and Tim wouldn't trade this in for the entire world. You could offer him power or gold or the Earth on a silver platter, and he'd still take Brian's friendship.
"So how's life?" his friend asks, collapsing into a chair and cracking open a beer. They've settled down to watch the game; it's the Chiefs against the Jaguars. For some reason, Brian really enjoys watching a bunch of guys running around on a field, but he'll always tell Tim what's going on, so Tim doesn't mind so much. Especially when they both get bored in the middle of it and make up narratives for all of the players, instead.
"Life's good, I guess. Same as always, really... Appointment on Thursday, work on Friday, work on Saturday. Nothing else to tell, really..."
"Oh, come off it," Brian says dismissively. "Work's gotta be cool! You always have something new about a crazy customer that's harrassed Dot, or how that Andy guy's been a total prick recently."
"Uh... A new guy started the other week," Tim offers up. It's the only new thing he can think of.
Brian, however, seems to take genuine interest in this. "Oh, really?" he asks, sitting forwards and focusing his attention purely on Tim. "What's he like? Is he a douche? I bet he's a total douche. What does he do?"
"He sorts books. He's... nice," Tim says.
"He's 'nice'? God, Tim, that's the most boring description of anyone I ever heard!" Brian takes a swig of his beer again: "still, if you think he's alright, then he must be, huh."
"College kid," Tim clarifies, and receives a nod of the head and an 'ahh' sound in understanding. "The kind of guy who'd get left out of all the frat parties and would sit in his room all night, alone on the internet."
"You seem to think of him pretty highly, then," Brian jokes.
"He knows what he's doing. That's good enough for me."
They watch the players dash about for a bit, before Brian says: "Tim, you should really come along to work with me someday. Take a course-"
"Brian, I couldn't."
"You need to do something, man! I can teach you rock climbing there-"
Tim interrupts again before Brian can go off on a tangent; his friend has gained a glint in his eyes from the mere mention of the recreational activity. Brian, of course, is right. He needs something to do, other than throwing himself into loading removal vans and staying at home watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
"Um... Didn't you say they did judo now?"
Brian jolts forward in his chair, looking like the happiest guy on the planet. "Yeah, they do all sorts of martial arts classes. Karate, Aikido, Ju-Jitsu... That kind of stuff. You wanna come?" he asks enthusiastically, saying everything in one breath. He really loves being an instructor there.
"Yeah," Tim agrees, nodding. "Yeah, I think I might."
Thank you for reading, my lovelies. If there's any furniture-related vocabulary that I've failed to clarify, don't hesitate to let me know.
(I should also mention that I do not have a Beta reader. If you find any mistakes that bother you - however minor - shoot me a message!)