•MPHFPC ONE SHOTS•

<=LET'S CALL IT A DAY=>

[Hi, so uh I have to give some context here. This is a little sneak peek of an AU I'm working on (which will hopefully soon be a whole fanfic on its own that I will publish on here.) The plot is still a bit wack, but I'm gonna make it short. It's about Jacob being a librarian at the LoS and all the stuff in the books never really happened. He discovers that Caul and Myron are trapped in there. In this AU, the bros came to Abaton and turned themselves into giants a long time ago and after that librarians needed to watch over the place. Jacob is sent there, cause his grandpa died there under circumstances that are yet unknown and Jacob has to take his place. Wights and hollows might or might not exist in this, either way I think they won't play any role here. But who knows, it's still a work in progress after all.
What you're about to read is just a scene of a day at Jacob's workplace and it's written in his perspective.

                                                   -Finn]

Before I would leave Abaton to go back home for the weekend, I went out the library and into the now softly warm afternoon sun. Pulling the librarian robe back up my upper body and taking off the special glasses, I stored them all in the chest next to the entrance.
Before going anywhere, though, I glanced around for Caul—left, right and especially up—but he was nowhere to be seen. At least not yet.
The coast was clear.

In front of me, the wind carried away a cloud of red sand and when it passed, I saw Mr. Bentham resting between two of Abaton's strange buildings. His back leaning on a rocky wall and his leathery wings splayed loosely on the dry ground.

I ran toward him, ducking my head and covering it with my arms. Probably a funny sight, but it was a reflex I'd picked up in the past two weeks in fear of Caul waiting for me somewhere I wouldn't expect him and scooping me up out of nowhere.
That never happened before, but I dreamed about this very scenario a couple of times already and trust me when I say these dreams always had nightmarish endings. It seemed Caul's words about eating me were really getting to me.

"Mr. Bentham!" I called out and, very slowly, as if making sure he'd really heard something, he opened a few of his many eyes.
"Done for today?" he asked, sitting up and shaking dust off his wings, then folding them close to his body.
"Yeah," I said, pointing behind me. "Done with that room, that is. How many more rooms are there?"
"Oh, many." Mr. Bentham replied and his expression looked almost dreamily. "Filled with great, powerful souls...I'm sure you'll get to those someday."

Behind us, a loud and long satisfied sigh sounded, as if belonging to someone who has woken from a good and long sleep. It was Caul, rising to his full height behind a hill and stretching his arms, then turning around to wave at me and grin at me with teeth like swords.
"If I live that long." I said and frowned.

Mr. Bentham shot him a glare, then raised one of his wings and cut his brother from view. Caul groaned, annoyed.
"You will." Mr. Bentham assured me. "I will make sure of that."

We were quiet for a little while. Mr. Bentham pointed his face toward the sky, as if looking for birds, but of course, there were none. The place was a great expanse of a collection of pointy, red hills, with valleys and buildings carved into the rock between them. The hot afternoon sun was baking the landscape like bread in an oven. But neither civilisation or life existed here—except for the two brothers and plants, that had taken over the abandoned city of Abaton. That's when I realised Mr. Bentham wasn't looking for birds—he was sunbathing, enjoying the last rays of warmth of the day.

"How do you live like this?" I asked and his head turned away from the sunshine, down to me, surprised. I cleared my throat. "I mean...you know, with him. Do you ever think of leaving? I know you can't, but don't you think the ymbrynes will make an exception when it comes to you?"

He laughed, but not in a that was funny!-way. It was more of a forced, hopeless laughter. "No, they would never." he said, bitterly, shaking his head.
"Why not? What did you do?" I said. "Isn't he the problem?"

"Yes, but well, it's not as simple as that." he said and I could see him starting to become nervous, the antennae on his head whipping around. "Sometimes some things better remain unexplained, for the truth is too devastating."

I frowned at him. "Thank you for that wisdom, but I'm sure nothing can shock me anymore after meeting you two for the first time."
Mr. Bentham stood up and I had to take a couple of steps back, feeling a bit intimidated. Red dust rose up into the air as he did and I shielded my eyes until the dust fell back down to where it came from.

Shaking his wings and wiping dust off of himself, he eventually looked down and rested his eyes on me. He looked tired—and there was something else in his expression, which I couldn't quite make out, though. Was it some sort of longing? But then he spoke again. "Even if I could leave, I doubt that'd be a good idea when I look like this." he said and looked down at himself. Then he saluted me and wished me a nice weekend and walked away, probably just to lay down somewhere else. I wondered if I touched a soft spot.

Picking up my bag, I turned for the exit of the loop. But instead of walking forward, I walked up—no, jumped—no, I was being lifted up. Something was pulling me up by the collar of my shirt and someone was laughing, a dark, rough noise. I struggled, panic flooding my mind in milliseconds. I knew who this was without having to see his horrible, haunting face.
But then I did, because he held me right in front of his face and I peered into his dangerously glowing eyes, that entertained my fight and flight response even more. Only that I couldn't do either of them.
"Not so fast..." Caul sang and his mouth curled into an awful grin.

Why hadn't I seen or, better yet, heard him coming? Or why hadn't Mr. Bentham? Questions, that I was too scared to get the answers to at the moment. And answering them wouldn't change anything about my current situation. So I decided to do something even less useful.

"Listen, you don't wanna eat me." I told him. "I don't taste good." Laughable. Everyone would say that.
Caul laughed, the sound of thunder seeming to erupt from inside of him. "I do want to, actually. But not yet." he said and winked, sitting me down on his open hand. "I recently realised you could help us with something."

"Us?" I asked, confused. "Your brother isn't up to anything together with you! And help you with what?"
Suddenly, Caul's face fell. "Ah," he said and sighed. "Myron hasn't told you yet, hm?"
"Told me what?"
He patted my head lightly, then bent down and surprisingly lowered his hand to the rocky ground, allowing me to go free. "I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."

I straightened my clothes and adjusted my bag. "You're letting me go? Just like that?" I asked, looking up at him. Who knew, maybe he put me down just to scoop me up again—a game to him, maybe. A moment of horror to me.
"Just like that." he said and nodded. "Will you be coming back on Monday?" he said and it sounded so nice, that I was taken aback.

"Do I have a choice?" I said, taking another step toward the exit. I just wanted to leave. Very badly.

"You don't." he replied and put on the sweetest of smiles his terrifying face could ever make.