#2 Double Agents (Librarians Fanfic)

Just Like High-School

God I hate sequins. Sequins are itchy. No human being should ever be forced to wear sequins, ever. 

Stone was just starting to realise why so many of the well-dressed woman in the room looked irritable. All the woman with sparkly dresses had a resting annoyance on their faces, and now he understood why. It was the sequins. He didn't even know why they itched, his suit was fully lined with an awful shade of pink, but the blasted things itched through the satin fabric too! He'd tried talking to some of the woman on the way to the bar, but they'd all snubbed him like he was a child. He hoped Cassandra was having more luck than he was. He hoped she wasn't having a hard time with the stuck-up, manipulative women too.

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"Well, obviously her earrings aren't real emeralds, i mean, you can see the backs rusting from here," Cassandra said, peering over at a middle-aged woman with massive fake eyelashes and a crumpled cheap suit. She felt terrible for being so shallow, but she wanted to make sure she was maintaining her character. The tall, dark haired woman was watching Cassandra intently, before gesturing to a woman sitting at the bar wearing a slim red dress. "Of course her earrings are fake, she can't afford real emeralds when her husbands' paying for his secretary's dress," she remarked.

Cassandra gasped quietly. She didn't know how, or why, but it seemed that every woman in the room knew everything about the other women in the room. The woman who was sitting with her seemed to just throw details into the air, personal details mixed with rumours. Well, she hoped that some of them were just rumours. Her thoughts drifted to Jacob. She tried to scan the room to look for him, but bathed in a red glow blended him in with the furniture. She hoped he wasn't hiding from her because of how she'd spoken to him.

"Darling, I have to ask," the woman said, placing a hand on Cassandra's. Cassandra jumped a little, the woman's touch bringing her out of her thoughts. The woman smiled, almost sympathetically before continuing. "Your... boy...companion, why does he look so lost?" she asked. Cassandra noticed the woman's gaze drifting to a point in the back of the room. Cassandra turned to the direction, catching sight of Stone attempting to talk to a stern looking blonde woman. And she wasn't Baird.

Cassandra frowned before turning to the woman with a more contented expression. "Enough about him, tell me about yourself! I don't even believe i caught your name?" she asked, watching the woman and trying to stop worrying about Jacob. He was a Librarian afterall, he could look after himself. Mostly.

"My name is Angelina Poloskanov. I'm the representative of the Queen," she replied, smiling at Cassandra as if she understood her reasons to change the subject.

"The Queen? Of England?" Cassandra asked, notably impressed.

"Yes," said Angelina, sitting up straight, "unfortunately her Majesty couldn't make it to the meeting this time, so she asked me to cover for her. To be honest I wasn't sure whether I was going to fit in, but I realised that all the women here I was already familiar with. Well, at least from what Her Majesty had told me," she said, smiling politely to Cassandra, who was still clearly impressed.

"What is she doing that she has to miss this meeting?" Cassandra asked, not really thinking that it might have sounded suspicious of her.

"Oh, just a bit of magic darling, nothing serious," Angelina replied casually, making Cassandra sit alert. Angelina made eye-contact with Cassandra before laughing. "Oh darling, you are a funny one. So young, direct, and willing to believe anything," Angelina laughed. Cassandra felt her cheeks flush slightly, she wasn't used to being so gullible, like Angelina had done something to her to stop her from thinking. It was confusing, and Cassandra hated it when someone could do something to her without her noticing.

"Cass- uh, Miss Killian, you wanted a reminder of your schedule tomorrow," a deep, cowboy accent came towards her. Cassandra looked up, clearly relieved at seeing Jacob in front of her. She smiled warmly at him, before getting up from her seat. "Will you excuse me Angelina?" she asked, watching the other woman sit back, gesturing offhandedly to her. "I'll be here darling, watching Ms. Spencer gamble her second husband's inheritance away," she said calmly, gazing steadily at a hook-nosed, broad-shouldered woman to the left of them.

Cassandra looped arms with Jacob anxiously, keeping herself steady by fixing a stare at a point on the wall as they gravitated towards a small, secluded looking table. Stone looked down at her arm looped with his, noticing how her arm was heavy, like she needed his support. Stones' ears were still pricked up just in case he caught word of the artefact, but he wanted to check in with Cassandra first. She seemed drained, and he wanted to make sure she was alright.

"Jacob, I don't like this place," Cassandra started, her grip on him tightening slightly, "it's all too 'high-school gossipy' to me," she said, letting go of him to sit down. Stone sat opposite her, noticing she looked small and enclosed. "Cass, did you have much trouble with that stuff in highschool?" He asked, getting a little off topic, though he knew that she wasn't in the frame of mind yet to talk about their mission.

"Well, I was a nerd at first, then I went through that goth phase that everyone goes through, it was a hard couple of years, especially when I got sick. People would avoid me because I was either super friendly or super quiet. I used to, to sit at the back of the class and mutter equations under my breath while rapping my foot under the table. There was so much in my head I just didn't know why people were so mean to me," Cassandra said, getting deeper into her old memories, practically caving in with the loneliness of it all.

Stone felt himself warm up, like he would fight anyone if they came up to him at that point, and he protectively grasped Cassandra's hands. The contact brought them both out of their thoughts for a moment, making Stone calm down as he noticed the tears in Cassandra's eyes. "Cassie, it's okay, you know they all just didn't understand what was going on. You're such a warm, intelligent person they probably were just all jealous of you," he said, his voice quiet. Cassandra smiled, a tear running slowly down her face. "I'm sorry," she began, feeling grounded again.

"Oh, sorry," Stone suddenly said, letting go of her hands before remembering their mission, "the Mermaid's Tear, right. Have you seen anything?" He asked, nervously looking around the room.

"No," Cassandra answered, glancing around for Baird and Ezekiel, "maybe Baird's found something though. I was talking to Angelina and she was saying that many of the woman in this room have been slowly declining. She said that none of them seem like the 'world power' type, which is weird because that's why they're all here," she said, a little distracted. Her hands could still feel Jacob's hold of them. If he hadn't been there for her, she didn't know how deep she would have gotten into her nightmares. Maybe too deep this time.

"Hey, where's Ezekiel?" She suddenly frowned, glancing around the room again.