Chapter Text
It’s only ten in the morning, and Tango has already had to run away from a pack of feral slime-cats, avoid a badly timed toaster explosion, and steal a pastry through a shop window without getting caught. He managed this just fine, as per usual, but somehow it was nabbing an apple from the orchard that actually got him in trouble. Why the farmers here care so badly about one or two missing fruit eludes him, honestly.
Either way, it all led him to this: running down the main street, apple in one hand and eating his pastry with the other, his backpack clanging loudly and heralding his arrival at the oddities district. Which is thematically appropriate for him, quite frankly. His pursuers should be thanking him.
They’re certainly not, though. Harry Mt. Rogers, a local farmer with a secret beer business hidden in his stables — and don’t ask Tango how he knows about that — looks as if he’s going to explode from rage. Some of his employees are half-heartedly keeping up the chase as well, though at least they have the decency to not yell as they run.
Tango turns left down a particularly curvy road and then another left into an alleyway right after. With any luck, he’ll find a corner store or a — there!
He throws the door of the bookstore open and rushes inside just as heavy footsteps almost reach the mouth of the alleyway. His pursuers start to make their way up the alleyway and he ducks behind the window set into the door — and by some miracle, it actually works. They run right past like a set of cartoon goons, leaving him relieved that he’s managed to escape Mt. Rogers’ wrath this time around.
“Um. So,” says a voice from a few metres behind him. He startles and spins around. “Are you here to buy anything…?”
The speaker is a person of relatively short stature, eyebrows raised almost all the way up to brown hair and something like a bemused smirk playing on his face. Tango notes the crooked nametag and woolly jumper and realises that this, in fact, is almost definitely the owner of this tiny bookstore.
“Oh!” he manages to remember to reply. “Not… specifically.”
“Right. You were just running away from those guys, then?” They gesture towards the door with their chin.
“If I say yes, will you start chasing me too?”
The person snorts. “Nah. Unless you’re, like, a murderer or something.”
“Only a murderer of this pastry!” Tango says, before immediately wincing at his own joke. “I mean — no. I’m not a murderer.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” they say. They offer out a hand. “I’m Joel, and this is my bookstore. I mean, I’m co-owning it, but that counts enough.”
Tucking the apple into one of his pockets, Tango goes to shake his hand, a little more at ease. “I’m Tango, and this is not my pastry.”
“Ah! I’m starting to see your real crimes now,” Joel grins. “Can I convince you to peruse our wares while you're hiding in here?”
“Sure, I guess,” Tango says. He glances around briefly. “It’s been a while since I last read a book, though, I’ll warn you.”
“Why’s that?”
He winces. “It’s complicated.” Picking up one of the books on display nearby, he’s surprised to find it covered in tiny runes that glow when he brushes a finger over them. “You sell magic books?”
“It’s a magical bookstore,” Joel replies, leaning on the counter to watch. “That’s kind of our thing.”
If he’s honest with himself, Tango could really, really do with a magic book right now. He’ll need to retrace his steps so he can remember how to get back here again; in all his time in this town, he hasn’t seen this shop yet.
“You got anything for angry farmers?” he asks, and Joel’s eyes glint with humour.
“I’m sure I can find you something in the back. Though we do run out of those quickly, so I can’t make any promises. Lots of people battling angry farmers in these parts.”
Despite his words, though, Joel remains where he is, keeping an eye on Tango as he sets down the book and wanders over to the nearest set of shelves. There’s nothing he’s looking for, though he does find a lot of volumes he’d never even imagined could exist. Potions for Postmen, Honey-Based Magical Artefacts, Seducing the Concept of the Apostrophe — he can’t find any sort of rhyme or reason to how they’re being sorted, and half of these books don’t even seem to have authors attributed on the spine.
“Huh,” Tango says to himself. “That’s weird.”
Joel’s still clearly paying attention. He mustn’t get many customers. “What’s weird?”
“You don’t have any kind of order here. Did you just throw them in randomly?”
There’s a moment of silence. Tango realises his own words.
“I mean — um,” he says quickly, spinning around, “not to say that it’s a bad order, it’s just — like, it’s a little weird, or — I mean, I bet you had a method to the madness! Not madness.” He sighs. “Shoot.”
Somehow, Joel only seems mildly amused. “It’s fine, I get what you’re—”
Tango cuts him off. “You know what, actually, I’ll come back tomorrow! And it’ll be way better. No worries! Yep. Okay!” He’s already at the door, and Joel looks somewhat stunned. “See you then! Sorry, uh — I’ll — yep!”
He just about hears a confused goodbye as he launches back out into the alleyway and clatters down towards the main street again. There’s no sign of his pursuers and he can still feel the weight of the apple he’s worked so hard for in his pocket. He’s left the pastry in the bookstore, he realises, but there’s absolutely no way he’s battling his own awkwardness to go back in there today.
With any luck, he’ll be able to avoid any more trouble for the rest of the day and try this again tomorrow.
It’ll be fine, he reminds himself. Joel won’t remember a thing.