Young Writers Society

Paul watched as the bullet's moved through the air from Sebastian's hand and back into the ridges on Carter's gun belt. He wasn't as good as feeling the energy in the room as his husband - and he certainly couldn't manipulate energy in the same ways Carter could. But even an energy blind person could sense the issues in this room.

There was a slight amount of discourse.

While listening to their slight discussion of magical theory, Paul slowly got frustrated enough to enter the conversations.
"As others have mentioned, magic does not belong to humans nor does it belong to any living being. There are some who are born with full fledged powers, some who need comprehensive training, some who are born with the spark, and some who let it exist within their lives but pay it absolutely no mind."

He could feel his voice rising in his chest as he walked around the room, ready to launch into a lecture at any moment, and waited for Carter to stop him from shouting.

He was unconvinced.

"Magic belongs to those from the Other Place," he insisted. He failed to offer more of an explanation. If Sebastian had been more aware of his surroundings, or had understood the significance of interacting with the Ghostbusters, he might have asked more questions.

But, instead, he simply saw himself in the library, surrounded by people who would only be moderately helpful in what he was trying to do.

He turned back to the shelves and began to scan them for any book that could be remotely useful.

Carter was holding onto Paul's shoulders as the little librarian nearly shouted, "Magic belongs to whoever damn well wants to use it."

The deputy stepped in front of his husband and said, "Clearly my husband has strong opinions about magic - what can you really expect from a magician?"

Sebastian turned, finger on the spine of a book as he stared at the two with mostly blank and somewhat curious eyes. "Magic belongs to those from the Other Place," he said again - starting to sound like a broken record. Not that he knew what one of those was; he hadn't even heard the expression before.

He studied the two.

"You sound upset," he observed, looking at the one who had almost yelled at him. He tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, hand still on the edge of the book. "Why?"

Ezra threw her hands up, unsure what to do.

"Listen, all I wanted to know was what I could do to help," She explained, painfully aware of her uselessness in such a situation. "You all seem so well-versed in magic, and I'm just some chick with a gun."

She was hoping that someone would come up with a plan to get them out of this mess. Her eyes scanned over the people again before pressing her hands to her face.

"What do we do?" The question was posed for anyone to respond. "What do I do?"

Harper reached out with one hand, not quite touching Ezra as she tried to figure out why she was freaking out.

"It's alright?" It sounded more like a question. "I'm sorry, it's just magic, I don't know what the big deal is."

Ezra scowled at her hands, dropping them from her face to look at the other girl. "The big deal is that all of this-" She waved her hands around her, "This isn't normal for me."

She hadn't ever seen or heard of 'real' magic; it was all fictitiously portrayed in books and movies, or just sleight-of-hand tricks.

Of course, those books and movies had to get inspiration from somewhere . Maybe the idea of magic wasn't so far-fetched, and she felt herself breathe deeply a few times to soothe her nerves.

"Somebody please tell me what the heck we're supposed to do."

Harper shrugged, "I don't know. We could find the ghostbuster's headquarters or whatever? Does that exist at this point in the movie? I can never remember, I don't watch films that often and I'm more inclined toward, like, Ghibli films and horror flicks and stuff. I actually only saw Ghostbuster's once because my friend, Caleb, wanted me to." She shrugged again and swung her backpack back around to the front of her to stuff the tome back in.

"Well, seeing as this is just at the beginning of the movie, not really." Ezra replied after a moment. "It's after their encounter at the library that they're fired and subsequently form the Ghostbusters . An ex of mine's mother was obsessed with the movie and our 'quality time' together was pretty much watching this movie repeatedly over the course of four years." She turned her eyes upwards, taking in the vaulted ceiling. "I've had to have seen this movie over a hundred times. But really, they manage to save the city in the end... Can't any of you like, magic up a way out of here?"

His gaze shifted from the two men to Ezra.

There was a look to his eyes. It wasn't exactly disbelief, but it was clear he found her comment a little funny - his lips even twitched like he wanted to give a smile. "My magic is limited," he said. He glanced around the library, and then turned back to the assembled group. He tilted his head again. "...What's a movie?"

Carter hated whenever they came across beings that had absolutely no clue about what was going on in the somewhat modern world. He had gone to the future and gone to the past and gone to many parts of the multiverse. But those experiences didn’t mean that he wasn’t allowed to be pissed off.

“No we can’t just magic our way out of here. We’re trapped in here by some asshat that I thought I had offed years ago.”

He still didn't know what a movie was, but he temporarily put that inquiry to rest so he could focus on the more important issue. Head still tilted ever so slightly to the side, Sebastian asked, "Why would they trap us in a library?"

Paul leaned against the book case, taking the cigarette case from his husband's pocket, and quickly lighting one up for himself. Time was passing by so slowly in their trap as he noted, "I can think of a lot worse places to be trapped in, including some of the places where Carter has tied me up."