ArchivedLogs:No Pranks or Food in the Lab

No Pranks or Food in the Lab
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Mallory
In Absentia	2013-10-16 Discussions on mischief
Location <XS> Library
Xavier's librarian might hope the library is a quiet place to sit and study, but with a school full of teenagers that is not always the case. Nevertheless, it is certainly a treasure trove of knowledge, well-stocked with a wealth of books on its high shelves. Its reference section is vast, though its fiction is as well (much to the delight of many of its students.) The wide octagonal tables and smaller armchairs are often crowded with students, though the whispered conversations that often take place leave some doubt as to how much work is getting done at any given hour. The birds have not been chirping for long as the sun makes its way over the crest of the horizon when Iolaus comes into the quiet library at Xavier's. He doesn't look like much of a morning person, walking about with bleary eyes, half-kept hair, and bags under his eyes. His clothing is not much better - though his shirt is pristine and unpressed, the collar on his dress shirt is not folded correctly and sticks up at an angry looking angle in the back. Another indication might be the thermos making a light swishing noise in his hands as he walks - though, in respect of the accommodations, it is is closed and capped. Iolaus doesn't exactly look lost, per se - as he looks around the room, eyes dancing across the markers on the shelves, one finger taps against his nose, thoughtfully, and he hums quietly under his breath in a tune without much semblance of rhythm or melody. It may be early, but the relatively new librarian at Xavier's is a bit of a morning person, it would seem, judging by her entrance into the library. The echoing -clack- of hooves, rythmically tapping in a not quite walking pattern, announces Mallory's presence before she appears in the doorway. Dressed sharply for the day in a dove gray sweater and long fluttering black skirt that does not entirely hide her unusual legs or long tapered tail, the librarian appears to be dancing her way into the library with perhaps a bit more bounce and cheer than is entirely sane for this hour of the day. White cables from earbuds extend down to the small bright blue iPod held in one hand, standing out starkly against her dark red skin and curling black horns. Her other hand is occupied by a matte black thermos bearing a 'Got Books?' sticker in the middle. It takes her perhaps a few moments longer than it should to realize that her domain is not entirely empty in the early morning, but once she notices Iolaus's presence, she freezes in place, tugging at the cable from the headphones to dislodge them from her ears - unfortunately, the action also loops the earbuds around the points of her horns several times. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry," her Oxford accented voice is a practiced whisper, as she detangles the wired devices from her horns, "Hello. Can I help you find anything, sir? Or just browsing?" Iolaus takes a moment to realize that he is no longer alone. Even addressing him doesn't break through his deep concenration, or his sleep-addled brain. When it does finally sink in, though, he jumps slightly and turns around quickly to face the librarian. His mouth opens and closes once, trying to speak before his mind has actually come up with any words to say. "--- Oh, hello. Good morning. I'm sorry," Iolaus apologizes, giving the horn-earphones interaction a careful look for a moment. "I'm not quite awake yet," he confesses, redness seeping into his cheeks. "Long night in the lab." A pause, and he blinks a few times. "And I'm babbling." The doctor mutters something softly under his breath in Greek - a string of quiet explatives - and then gives Mallory a smile. "Perhaps, actually, you can. I'm trying to get at a paper published in the African Journal of Infectious Diseases, and I don't have a subscription. I don't suppose one of the library's aggregate subscriptions has it covered?" Mallory startles slightly when Iolaus jumps, blinking dark eyes at him curiously, "My apologies. I did not mean to, ah, sneak up on you. I'm not exactly stealthy, most times." She chuckles lightly and nods, "Lab? Ah. Yes - from what I have seen as an outside observer, laborotories do have a tendency to make time pass in a rather erratic manner, and a strange ability to make scientists vanish almost entirely from normal society." Once detangled from her horns, she tucks the iPod and tangle of cables into the pocket of her skirt, offering a sheepish grin. Mallory returns the smile, although there's a bit of a snort at the string of explatives, "Babbling is certainly. Better than the occasional running away screaming reaction I get." Wine colored lips press together into a line as she thinks on the request, and Mallory nods slowly, "I think Hank may have requested that publication fairly recently, yes. So we should have access to it, yes." She gestures toward one of the banks of reference computers, "I can look it up for you, if you'd like - may take a moment for me to remember which password we set on the group account." There's a momentary pause in her movement towards the computers, and she glances back at Iolaus, "I'm sorry, I know I have seen you around campus before, but I'm afraid I haven't caught your name in passing. I'm Mallory Winthrop." She does offer her hand with the introduction, having to shift the thermos to the other hand to free it up for politenesses sake. "Oh, the babbling isn't from your appearance - it's from the sleep deprevation," Iolaus says with a light laugh and a wide smile. "It's funny - I run all sorts of experiments that take a certain, precise amount of time at each step, and I never have trouble following them exactly. Somehow, though, I never add up the amount of time that each step takes and realize how long it's been since I've left the lab." he says, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Iolaus Saavedro. I help out Hank with some of the care, here." He reaches out to grasp Mallory's hand in a firm handshake, matching her eyes with his own. "And, perhaps he is one step ahead of me, as usual. I wonder if he was looking for the same article that I am. Damn, if he is going down the same path and I've been wasting my time in following, I'm going to..." he trails off, waving a hand in the air while trying to search for a turn of phrase. "Attack him with a pet vaccuum." Threatening. "Pleasure to finally know your name, Iolaus," Mallory says, her handshake firm and feverishly warm, returning his gaze with a polite smile. She chuckles, pulling out one of the computer chairs and spinning it around so she can sit - perhaps not in the most demure way - straddling the back of the chair, letting her tail trail on the floor behind her, and sets to work pulling up the requested journal. "Oh that's often the worst time to run into me unexpectedly - with little sleep. That said - I'm not certain exactly what Hank was looking for - I think occasionally he just sends requests to see what I can or will actually add to our catalog here," she chuckles, dark eyes narrowing against the strong light from the glowing screen. "Oh - Thomas is the same way. I think I see him less now that we work together than I did when we were at different universities," she smirks and chuckles lightly at her twin's expense. She taps away at the keyboard for a few minutes, running through a handful of login and passwords before finally hitting on the correct combination that pulls up the journal access. "Here you go. If you want to double check what Hank was hunting for - the recent access page on there should have what articles. Unfortunately - since it's a group account for the school, there isn't quite as much privacy with regards to what research is done. But - it'll let you know if you need to go snag a furminator or not," she picks up one of the little pieces of scrap paper from the holder beside the monitor, and scribbles out a username and password combination, "Since you're associated with the school you can have the access information, that way you don't need to come all the way out of the lab to get the journal." "He certainly is a mischief maker. I suppose I should be thankful he can't sneak up on me very easily in the lab, or I would be living in a constant state of fear." Iolaus teases, fondly, as he watches her movement with a warm look. The doctor follows Mallory to the computers and plops down, heavily, into an adjacent chair. "Ah, thank you. I'm glad you have it. I was worried I was going to have to call one of my old professors and see if I could beg the paper from one of them. For some reason, I'm not in the best of graces right now, so I don't know how well that would go." His tone is wry, though his smile is still warm. "I'm not sure whether I really want to see if he was looking at it or not. At this point, I've sunk enough time into it that the little more I'm going to add on top isn't a significant portion of the whole, and I'm just going to annoy myself if he already /has/ done all this work." The doctor takes the scrap of paper and looks at it for a moment, lips mouthing the username as he spells it out. The password, he doesn't say, even under his breath. "Should be fine. I can't think of anything that would be confidential with regards to the research I'm doing. Perhaps someone could guess at who the patient is, but... a guess is a guess, and with the amount of research other people are doing, I'm not worried. Perhaps that is also due to the sleep depravation," he jokes. "Ah yes - pranks in the lab... that always seems like it would be a poor idea, sneaking or not," Mallory says with a bright grin, shrugging, "But glad we have access to the right journal for you. Saves you from having to try salvaging somewhat burnt bridges - that's never a fun thing." She crinkles her nose at that thought, "Can't say any of my professors from the past are exactly jumping at the bit to help me out, either. Something about being outed as a pro-mutant protester seems to have soured their opinion of me." Draping her arms across the back of the chair in front of her, she turns slightly to face Iolaus, "Mm, at current, the only people who have access to that login, other than me, are Hank, and now you. Not something the students are particularly excited to be accessing, really." The mention of sleep deprivation gets a curious look, and a glance at one of the numerous 'no food or drink' signs, then a glance at the thermos, "If you need your caffeine of choice, you can drink as long as you aren't flailing an open container around wildly. The signs are mostly just to ward off the more... rambunctious students." "Especally when I'm doing virology research," Iolaus gripes, winking at Mallory. "My advisor still speaks with me, at least - one of them, anyway - but that's about it. And the emails have become very professional. It used to be Iolaus - now it's Doctor Saavedro, and they sound like they're to a grant committee." A long pause, and then the doctor shrugs and lets his hands fall into his lap, thermos making an angry splorching sound as the liquid is shaken up. Leaning backwards slightly in his chair, Iolaus nods. "Well, that's fine, then. I'm very happy with that level of security." His eyes light up when she mentions caffeine, and he quickly says, "I'm not going to be moving it like I just was a minute ago, I promise." He grins as he unscrews the lid and depresses the center button, carefully pouring a small cup of tea into the lid. A smokey smell rises into the air, and Iolaus sighs, happily, clicking the button down and causing it to pop up and seal the thermos back off. Mallory winces, a smiling grimace on her lips, "Ouch. Worst that's happened when someone startled me while I was doing research was dropping a reference tome on my tail. Unpleasant, but thankfully not potentially deadly." She laughs lightly, shaking her head, "At least you still get professional correspondance. Damn near every contact I had over nearly a decade of school stopped responding to me in any way. Not quite as essential in my feild, thankfully, but means I wasn't even able to shop my applications around for a doctorate." When Iolaus shakes his tea, she looks a bit startled, but grins at his reassurance, "No problem. Is that lapsang souchong?" She tilts her head curiously at the smokey scent, before popping the lid off her own thermos to take a sip - the aroma from within undeniably Early Gray or a related tea. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of my mail these days is hate mail and death threats." Iolaus winks and shakes his head. "Depending on the reference tome, that might very well be injurious. Deadly, probably not, but it'd certainly not be fun!" The doctor takes a long sip of tea and nods, smiling at her over the edge of his cup. "Very good. Yes, it is lapsang souchong. I drink it a lot, when I'm in the lab - less danger of me mixing it up with something else. Not that I'm particularly putting it anywhere near the lab bench, of course, but it never hurts to take precautions when you're breaking the golden rule of 'no food or drink in the lab.'" "Ah - I imagine in relation to your soon-to-open clinic, yes?" Mallory asks quietly, slightly hesitantly, but interest visible on her features. "Not the worst thing that has happened to it over my lifetime - god knows I've stepped on it enough, or shut it in doors. A volume of the Encyclopedia Brittanica wasn't enough to do much more than bruise, thankfully," she lets out a self depricating laugh at that. "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a stereotype - Earl Grey, for me, almost always. My twin however," she says, pausing to take a sip of her tea, "Is more adventurous with his tea choices. That one is a fair common choice for him." She snorts slightly, "Oh, the number of times I saw my science major friends sneaking food into the lab after hours was rediculous. Granted - the library science professors were apparently harsher about punishing infractions on the 'no food or drink' than some of the chemistry faculty. Menacing old bats weilding yard sticks and large books." "Yes, very much so." Iolaus says, lips slanting into a smile. "I used to be a favorite student. Now, I think they wish they had never passed me from their classes. Most of them, anyway. A couple are so removed from anything but research, I doubt they've even /heard/ of my ventures into the new clinic. Labs, as you were saying." The doctor smiles and shrugs his shoulders, taking a sip of his tea. "I can imagine. I have the healthiest respect for librarians, half because of the extremely important work that you do, and half because of the kind of professors that you all had. The medical school head librarian was a woman to fear if you tried to borrow one of the reference tomes for too long." A warm smile, as he turns to type a search into the computer. 'Advances in the Diagnosis, Treatment and Control of HIV Associated Tuberculosis', apparently, is his search. Mallory lets loose with a hearty, but controledly quiet, laugh, smiling, "The Scary Face. Something they actually addressed in a few of my classes. I swear, they may has well have had a course entitled "how to intimidate and shame" - seriously, they went over it more than once." She shakes her head, standing up carefully to avoid treading on her tail, and then smoothing out her skirt, "I'll let you get to your work, in that case. I should be preparing for classes anyway. Best of luck in your research, Iolaus. Let me know if there's anything else I can help out with." A bright smile is flashed to the doctor as Mallory pushes her chair back in, "Have a pleasant day, Iolaus. If you need help with anything - my assistant is around here somewhere." "Perhaps they were grading you on it, and you didn't even know." Iolaus says, flashing her an equally brght smile. "Thank you for your help, Mallory. I hope that I'm not running down wild geese. Either way, I'm sure I'll have need of your help in the future, sometime, when I'm flitting about campus." A warm, rakish smile, and he takes a sip of tea. "Have a good morning, Mallory. Enjoy your Earl Grey." With that, the doctor turns to his reading, smile fading to a look of concentration within seconds.