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For all his smugness, Ezekiel always knew there was something different about him.
“Hey, Jones,” Jacob called as he walked into the annex.
He always boasted about all the ways he was different from people but this was a different kind of different.
“What’s up, mate?” He nodded at Stone and made his way closer to see what it was the man wanted.
The kind of different that you could feel but not see, the kind of different where you weren’t sure if it was a bad thing or not.
The kind of different that left a weight in your chest.
“You remember that really pretty girl you were flirting with last mission?” Jacob smirked.
Ezekiel never really felt that pull towards another that he always heard he was supposed to.
The kind that drew people to their true love, or at least their next hookup.
“Yeah?” He answered, unsure of where this was going.
Ezekiel hit on people, sure, but only because it was a good way to get into their pockets.
Flirting only served as a means to an end, a way to fill his pockets, and lately, a way to complete the mission.
Nothing more, nothing less.
“Well, I got you a date with her tonight,” The cowboy looked proud of himself, “You’re welcome.”
Oh.
Oh no.
It took a lot for Ezekiel to not make a face.
“Well?” Mr Oklahoma crossed his arms, “You’re really not gonna say anything after I got you a date with a girl that out of your league?” Ezekiel was too distracted to tell if he was being serious or playful.
“Right, yeah…” Ezekiel swallowed down the feelings bubbling in his chest and carefully placed his mask back on his face, “Thanks, mate, but Ezekiel Jones can get his own dates.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s why you haven’t been on one even once since we’ve met,” Jacob rose an eyebrow, “Just give her a chance, man, she’s really nice and really really pretty, what more could The Ezekiel Jones want?”
Ezekiel knew there’d be no getting out of this without a fight or at least a long uncomfortable fight.
“Fine,” He rolled his eyes, “I’ll go.”
He could manage one date, it’s not like he’d have to marry her.
Jacob gave him a time and place. He thought about ditching but when Cassie heard, she’d been so happy for him and genuinely excited that she practically dragged him out the door.
Vanessa was in fact nice and even if he didn’t feel anything special about her, even he knew she was pretty.
But the only part of her he was “attracted to” was her jewelry.
Ezekiel might have actually found this date worth his time if he got some nice expensive jewelry from it but since that wasn’t going to happen this would truly just be grueling.
“Hi, Ezekiel, right?” She smiled at him as they met at the door to some restaurant.
“Yeah, that’s right,” He smiled back, “Great to see you again, Vanessa,” In truth, it was anything but. He really didn’t want to be here right now.
The restaurant was nice enough but knowing he was here for a date kind of ruined all of it for him.
A waitress brought them to a table near the back with a clear view of the door, Ezekiel pulled out a chair for his date (barf) and skillfully took the chair facing the door for himself without making it obvious that he was getting the seat with a better vantage point.
It was a quaint restaurant, nothing fancy but by no means was it bad.
“So, Ezekiel,” The girl across from him smiled at him with hooded eyelids, “What do you do for fun?”
Ezekiel pulled his eyes from the door and tried to sound interested in talking to her even a tiny bit.
He had very little success.
Something about not wanting to be there even a little bit must have been making it just a little hard to be engaged in the date, who would have thought.
He leaned his head onto his arm and sighed.
This was going to turn out to be a long day.
Okay, look.
Cassandra knew that dates were supposed to be private…. but…
Oh, come on!
Ezekiel hadn't gone on a single date since they got the job, not one! She counted herself.
Yeah, she didn’t need to be math girl to handle that one.
So, okay, sure, maybe it was wrong to sneak her way into the restaurant Ezekiel was at so she could see for herself how the date was going, but could it be so wrong if she was able to get Jacob to agree to go with her?
So, there they sat, just a few tables away from Ezekiel and his date.
Wearing disguises straight out of a romcom.
If Cassandra had learned anything from movies, it’s that big hats and even bigger newspapers were all you needed to spy on someone.
Maybe it was poetic in a sense to be using movie tactics like this against the libraries’ favorite cinephile.
And maybe it was even more poetic to think about how poetic that is while sitting across from the libraries’ favorite poet.
And maybe- No, wait, she was getting side tracked.
The point is, her and Jacob snuck into the restaurant Ezekiel was in (even if it was probably wrong, jury was still out on that one, though!) and were now watching as Ezekiel totally bombed the date!
“What the hell is he doing?!” Jacob whisper-exclaimed to Cassandra.
Jacob had been so sure that this chick was the kind of girl Ezekiel would like, yet here he was, staring at the door through the whole date and giving the blandest answers to questions he’d ever heard in his life!
Imagine that! THE Ezekiel Jones getting handed a perfect opportunity to talk about himself on a silver platter and passing it up.
“...He doesn’t really seem to like her,” Cassandra responded, almost wincing.
The awkwardness at the table they were watching was starting to ramp up to extremely uncomfortable levels as Ezekiel answered yet another question with a one word response shut down combo.
“She’s like three tiers out of his league!” Jacob whisper-shouted, “If anything, he’s lucky she came!”
“Well, maybe league isn’t really something Ezekiel looks for in a girl?” She raised an eyebrow at the cowboy.
“Oh, please,” Jacob rolled his eyes, “Look, he may be getting better and all that but he’s still Ezekiel , you really think boosting his ego isn’t a quality he’d look for in a girl?”
Cassandra turned her head in thought for a moment and shot back with a response, “Maybe he doesn’t like girls,” She shrugged casually.
“He liked Cindy well enough,” He countered.
“Cindy? The love potion girl?” She asked, “What makes you say that?”
Jacob gestured wildly, “Well, you know…”
Cassandra gave him an odd look but decided to let it go, turning her attention back to Ezekiel’s date.
“So…have you ever been on a boat?” The girl attempted once again, it was impressive she hadn’t given up yet.
“Yeah, a few times,” Ezekiel gave no further elaboration, he simply looked at his fingernails, then the door, then back at his fingernails again, clearly disinterested.
The girl paused for a moment before seemingly realising he was finished with his sentence, “Oh…? Um, what for?”
“Eh, lots of things, mate.” He was staring out the window behind her instead of looking at her.
Cassandra found herself wondering if he’d looked at her at all this entire date.
She made a mental note to never let Jacob try and set someone up ever again.
Ezekiel and Vanessa clearly had zero chemistry. So little, in fact, that Ezekiel hadn’t even glanced at the expensive looking necklace she was wearing since sitting down.
Though, he and her had seemed to have so much chemistry when they were flirting throughout the whole mission not too long ago.
It was odd.
But when was anything about the librarians not?
Cassandra glanced back at Jake, he looked displeased.
She could see why.
This date wasn’t just bombing, it was jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.
She wished she could at least just figure out why it was bombing, why Ezekiel seemed to be blowing it on purpose, but there was no mathemagics she could do to solve that one.
Maybe it was pride?
Was he upset that Jacob had gotten him a date he hadn’t asked for? Had he noticed them sitting just a few tables away when he sat down and decided to mess with them?
To be honest, she didn’t think it was a pride thing.
Sure, Ezekiel could be hubristic at the worst of times, but she liked to think she knew him pretty well.
While Jacob, Jenkins, and Flynn, and sometimes even Baird, would jump to ego, she saw a little more to it than they did, saw a little more to Ezekiel than they did.
While she wouldn’t claim to be able to see through him entirely, she absolutely would claim to see past his mask even the tiniest bit, maybe more than he saw through it himself.
He wasn’t nothing but an egomaniac, when he self sabotaged, it wasn’t out of hubris most of the time, there was almost always something more to it.
There was almost always more to him.
One of the first missions they went on as LITs, he had told her that he was a worse person than her, but she knew he had been wrong, even if he hadn’t known it himself.
Ezekiel Jones was not and had not ever been a bad person, even if he’d done bad things, and she knew that for a fact because out of every single person in the library, he was the quickest to make her feel at home.
Of course she loved the others as well, they were her family , but Ezekiel had been the first one of them to go out of his way for her, despite being the selfish one.
He always had this empathy about him that she worried went unnoticed by the others.
The truth was that, behind all of the stealing and self flagellating, Ezekiel was a genuinely kind-hearted person who she loved like a brother, she just hoped the others saw it too.
So, that leads back to the current situation.
What the fuck was he doing??
The date somehow dragged on for years and ended early.
As the girl excused herself for a reason Ezekiel surely knew was a lie, Cassandra noticed that as she left the restaurant, all Ezekiel did was check his watch.
He seemed pleased by whatever he saw.
“You guys were spying on me?? ” Ezekiel exclaimed.
“Dude, you totally blew it, what the hell! ” Jacob yelled back.
“Guys, can we not-?” Cassandra tried her best to mediate between the yelling.
They were back at the annex and Ezekiel and Jacob were going at it about the failed date.
In the back of her mind, she went ahead mentally crossed out the idea that he knew they were there and bombed the date on purpose to get back at them somehow.
“Alright,” Baird sighed as she walked in, “What are you kids arguing about?”
“Stone made me go on a date!” He said the word like it was some sort of disgusting crime to force someone to do such a thing and that Jacob should be scolded for even considering such a thing.
“What?” Cass wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Baird so genuinely confused by an argument.
“Yeah, with the girl from that mission!” Jacob admitted, “You know, the one you were flirting with the whole damn time!”
“Yeah, so we could get the artifact!” Ezekiel shot back.
“Oh, please, you can’t just fake that kind of chemistry!” Jacob squinted at the aussie, “Admit it, you liked her and you bombed that date for absolutely no reason because you can’t accept help from others!”
“I can accept help from others just fine, mate,” Ezekiel crossed his arms, “And for your information, that ‘chemistry’ is how you steal a necklace right off someone's neck or a hat right off someone’s head, it’s a tactic I’ve been using for years! It doesn’t mean I’m secretly in love with all my targets!?”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough you two,” Baird put a hand on the bridge of her nose, “Jacob, don’t force Ezekiel to go on anymore dates, Ezekiel, uhh, I don’t really know what to say here, I guess try to avoid having…chemistry with people? I’m sorry, what am I scolding you for?”
“Oh, come on! He hasn’t gone out with anyone since we started working here and who knows how long before then, I don’t understand why he won’t just take the help!” Jacob argued, “Are you seriously too much of an egomaniac to just have a nice date with a nice girl that someone else set you up on?” He pointed a finger at Ezekiel.
Ezekiel sneered and then rolled his eyes.
“Oh, come on, Jake, let’s not point fingers,” Cass frowned, “Ezekiel, is there a reason you didn’t like Vanessa? It’s alright if there is, you’re allowed to disagree with Jacob’s opinion of ‘the perfect woman’.”
Ezekiel sighed, “Look, Vanessa is a super nice girl, but I'm just not into her like that! I don’t see the issue!”
Jacob opened his mouth to say something but Cass opened her mouth before things could get nasty.
“Okay, and what kind of girls do you like like that? Maybe if you tell us what you like in a person, Jacob will stop trying to set you up with the wrong person,” She smiled, but the word wrong was very pointed, like she was getting on to Jacob somehow.
Ezekiel always wondered how women could always do that.
“Their wallets,” He snarked back.
Baird sighed, “Look, Ezekiel, Cass is right, you want Stone to stop trying to set you up with the wrong person and then getting upset you didn’t like her? Then just tell him who the right person is and poof, problem solved.”
“There isn’t a right person!” Ezekiel exclaimed.
“What?” Now Cass was thoroughly confused, and by the looks of it, so was everyone else.
“I don’t want to date Vanessa because I don’t like dating, plain and simple, there’s nothing wrong with her or any of the other people I’ve turned down, I just don’t like dating, okay?”
Ezekiel hadn’t planned to just yell it out like that, or…ever, but sometimes pestering works, okay?
It just kind of exploded out of him.
Turns out, maybe Cass was right…maybe he doesn’t like girls.
Jacob stumbled for a moment but regained his composure, “Oh, come on, man! You can’t just wine and dine and dip forever!” He made a face, Cass read it as disgust at the treatment of women as sex objects, but maybe that was just her.
“Wine and dine and-? Oh, are you talking about one-night stands?” Ezekiel made a grossed out face when he realised what Jacob had meant, “Yeah, no thanks, mate, don’t really do that either.”
Jacob was kind of confused.
“You don’t?”
If THE Ezekiel Jones did anything other than stealing in his time traveling the world, he would have thought it would have been that.
A girl on each arm, every new heist coming with a new town to bed a new woman in, that was always how he’d assumed the world class thief had been like.
“No?” Ezekiel frowned, “Honestly, it sounds kind of gross,” he shrugged.
Sure, he knew that to some extent, Ezekiel over-blew a lot of his personality or whatever, but he’d never thought that the hot guy act had been part of it.
Was hitting on girls seriously just a distraction so he could nab their wallets to him?
Suddenly, Jacob found himself feeling really bad for the position he’d seemingly backed Ezekiel into.
‘Look, I-” Jacob grimaced at the thought of how Ezekiel must have felt on that date, uncomfortable? Out of place? He just hoped it didn’t go anywhere past bored. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Nah, it’s fine, mate,” To his credit, Ezekiel always recovered quite quickly, “Hey, you guys wanna see the new computer program I’m working on? I’m trying to see if I can transfer the card catalogue into a digital medium.” He grinned.
He smiled genuinely for what Stone was noticing might have been the first time since the date had been brought up