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Lunchtime, which left Ever alone behind the desk -- something that always left him jittery and probably would continue to do so forever. His solution was mostly hiding, but in a way that was subtle and possibly even forgivable: he leaned down below the desk to sort through the books dropped off through the slot out front, set to arranging things to be shelved later. And only sometimes fished one out to read below the line.

The drop of books on the desk made him sigh and shift, more or less caught in the act, which meant he had to straight and turn and blink across the counter with his mouth open to ask how he could help and --

It was Zac.

Instead he grinned, leaning forward a little. He still looked tired, worn out, maybe a little bruised around the eyes, though the worst of his sprawling black eye was faded to green, now. It looked like he was recovering from the flu, or maybe like he hadn't slept in a few days, and perhaps neither explanation was terribly far off.

"You are a huge geek."

"Tony's getting lunch." The frustration and the horror only lit up his eyes more, seemed to wake Ever up properly; he leaned an elbow on the counter and watched Zac flip out, not even giving the books a cursory glance right now.

"He thought I looked hungry, I think, so he hired me on." Oh. Oh, Ever was beaming. Enjoying this far too much. He flicked a quick look around to make sure no one else was within hearing range. "Seems to be working out okay so far..."

If he'd said that out loud, Ever might have protested that at this point it was really more his library than Zac's. He was spending quite a bit of time, there, including some nights hidden out in the stacks, avoiding the last-minute check to make sure the place was empty.

He was still grinning as he reached out to tug the books forward, and definitely spent too long looking them over before he reached for his hand-dandy-checklist. The computer was still a mystery to him, and unless he followed his steps exactly, Ever got hopelessly lost.

"Huh." He actually had read some of of these. Ever paused to blink at the last one, and then raised an eyebrow as he looked up at Zac. "...if you're getting all these, don't you think it'd be wise to toss in, you know, an actual copy of the Bible?"

Grumpy. Ever blinked at that and some of the amusement slipped away. Again he looked back over his shoulder, to make sure Tony wasn't going to come creeping up and overhear anything. He didn't really want trouble here.

"It's not so much 'evangelizing' as it is common sense." Though he had to struggle not to respond with an equal edge of annoyance and frustration. He strummed fingers against the counter. "You have books of quotes from the thing. If you went and got an actual King James translation, you could read it directly, no middleman."

Ever could have caved, given in, and let Zac get out of there but -- perversely, no, he absolutely did not. Maybe he actually liked arguing with the kid, or maybe he was just that contrary, or maybe this was enough of a sensitive issue...

"Well, I mean, we could find you a copy of the Greek version instead. Do you speak Greek?" The taunting was less playful than usual, just a little.

"It's apparently my job to make sure people find everything okay." He blinked at Zac and didn't even try at a smile. Instead of his usual cheerful edge, Ever seemed really annoyed at him. He turned to the computer to start through the list, holding out one hand palm-up. "Card please."

...and then he'd go for a little revenge. The card in hand, he was going to go sorting through Zac's recent checkouts, to get a feel for the kinds of books he usually read. Store away the information for later tauntings.

That was...remarkably boring. Ever made a little face as he went through his checklist. He was slow: much slower than Tony, it might have seemed like another intentional prodding. In reality, he was just still so damned new at this that he had to work through each step at a snail's pace...

He set Zac's ID back down, trying not to grumble as he struggled to swipe the books through. It took him quite a few tries. "Why are you taking all this stuff out anyway? Assignment?"