#mavpunzel

“A little,” Rapunzel laughs, then backtracks as she realizes how that probably sounded. “I just mean he’s not usually people’s first choice. Or their second. It’s pretty cool, actually.”

The girl looks at her, head tilted and eyebrows drawn a bit. After a second, she smiles. “Thanks. My professor actually tried to get me to choose someone else, but Vlad’s pretty important to my family, you know?”

“I get it,” Rapunzel says, thinking of Varian. “My little brother is like that with Leonardo Davinci. I think he’d try to date him if he had a time machine.”

“Well, not quite to that level,” the girl laughs, her eyes shining. Rapunzel smiles.

“I can take you to his books, if you want?” Rapunzel says.

“Leonardo Davinci’s?” The girl asks, eyebrows quirking, mouth still wavering in amusement.

“Vlad the Impaler,” Rapunzel says.

“That’d be nice, thanks,” the girl says and Rapunzel slips from behind the counter to lead her to the biographies.

“So why’s he important?” Rapunzel asks as she scans the stickers on the books for ‘Vlad’. When the girl hums a questioning tone, she clarifies. “You said Vlad was important to your family.”

“Ah, yeah,” the girl chuckles. Rapunzel glances out the corner of her eye to see the girl rub her arm, her cheeks pinkened. “We’re sort of related to him. It’s actually, like, a whole gimmick of our family,–”

“Ah-ha!” Rapunzel grabs the book, brandishing it, then flushes. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

The girl shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Is that the book?”

“What were you saying?” Rapunzel asks as she hands it over.

“Oh, uh, nothing.” The girl shakes her head again, taking the book and tucking it to her chest. Rapunzel has to stop herself from pouting. Curse her overly excited nature. She checks her out back at the counter, the name Mavis Drăculești catching her eye, and then Mavis is out the automatic doors and back into the setting sun.

“Do you have any vampire books that aren’t Twilight or like Twilight?” Mavis asks, leaning her elbows on the divider that rims the edge of the front desk. Rapunzel swivels her chair slightly to be able to see her better, humming an amused note.

“Classical vampires.” Rapunzel nods to herself. “But not Dracula, I’m guessing?”

Mavis shakes her head. “Nah, had it read to me as a bedtime story all the time growing up.”

Rapunzel bites back a laugh and turns to the computer. It’s cute somehow to imagine a small girl, all tucked in, falling asleep while a parent reads her a gothic horror novel. Rapunzel wonders if Mavis ever slept with a stuffed animal, before she mentally shakes the thought from her head. It’s probably not appropriate to wonder that about a patron. It doesn’t stop her from wondering if she ever slept with a nightlight, though. Somehow, Rapunzel gets the feeling she didn’t. Looking at Mavis, Rapunzel thinks she’s always been a friend of the night.

There is a list of books, Twilight included, that she scrolls through, before she stops on one. “Have you considered Draculaura’s book?”

Mavis barks a laugh. The sound is throaty, like it came from the chest, and Rapunzel smiles. “You mean the girl from Monster High?”

“Yeah.” Rapunzel looks up at her, smile full of humour. “It’s currently on shelf if you want to read it.”

“Maybe.” Mavis snorts.

By the time they’re done Mavis is walking out with four vampire books– Draculaura’s diary on top– and possibly a piece of Rapunzel’s heart.

When Rapunzel walks out of the backroom, a paper in her hands and the conversation she’d just had with the page on duty lingering on her tongue, she spots Mavis softly lingering next to the desk like she’s looking for something or someone. Rapunzel stops without meaning to. Mavis’ attention is elsewhere and Rapunzel takes the opportunity to soak the other girl in. She’s wearing a black Metallica t-shirt today, with a black and white striped long sleeve shirt under it. Her thumbs poke out from the thumb holes, and the fingers of her left hand are curled into the sleeve. Her combat boots have blood red laces, something Rapunzel noticed when she first took her to Vlad’s biography. The blue of her eyes shines like turquoise in the midst of all the black.

“I like your shirt,” Rapunzel says, stepping next to her.

“Thanks.” Mavis turns to her without a flinch, smiling. It’s an odd feeling, almost. Rapunzel walks so quietly, she’s grown used to people being surprised at her presence. It’s not a bad odd feeling. “My friend Johnny let me borrow it.”

“He has good taste,” Rapunzel says and Mavis laughs.

“Sometimes,” she says. “You’ve never had a movie night with him.”

“That’s true,” Rapunzel says. “So what can I do you for?”

“Children’s fantasy. Vampires not needed,” Mavis says.

“But appreciated?” Rapunzel asks and Mavis smiles.

“Always.”

“Great!” Rapunzel says, reaching for the books she’s been keeping in the bottom drawer of the front desk. “Because I spotted these and thought maybe you might like them.”

The books are from the The Little Vampire series by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg and Mavis’ eyes light up when she sees them. She takes them from Rapunzel, staring at the art on their covers, and Rapunzel feels her chest warm. Somehow she’d managed to do really good.

“I love this series. My dad read it to me all the time as a kid,” Mavis says.

“I thought that was Dracula?” Rapunzel asks.

“That too,” Mavis says, glancing up at her. “But these, too. He read them every October, it was a tradition until I just… got too old, I guess.” Mavis shrugs.

“I’m glad to get them back to you,” Rapunzel says. Mavis looks at her again with a smile that stops her heart then resets it a few seconds later, like restarting a laptop.

“Thank you.”

“What’s your dad like?” Rapunzel asks as she scans through the catalogue for Mavis.

Mavis shrugs. “Pretty cool, I guess, though he’s a bit of a worrier. He owns a hotel, actually.”

“Just one?” Rapunzel asks.

“Yeah, any more and I think he might blow a gasket,” Mavis laughs and Rapunzel laughs with her.

“So what’s it called?” Rapunzel asks, curious.

Mavis looks around them conspiratorially before she leans in. “Hotel Transylvania,” she says like it’s a secret. Rapunzel’s pretty sure it’s not.

“Hotel Transylvania?” Rapunzel repeats, looking at her, and Mavis shrugs again. There’s a sly smile curving her lips.

“Like I said, my family’s really into the being-related-to-Vlad the Impaler thing. Especially my grandfather. He actually named my dad Dracula,” Mavis says, straightening up again.

“My grandfather was really into it, even named my dad Dracula.”

“Wait, doesn’t that mean-”

“My dad is Dracula Drăculești?” Mavis laughs. “Yeah.”

Rapunzel laughs a little, smiling wide, “That’s pretty cool.”

“Don’t let my dad hear you say that,” Mavis says. Her eyes twinkle like stars and Rapunzel finds herself staring at them, trying to see if she can find the constellations she’s memorized in the night air within their depths before she shakes herself from it and returns to the computer screen.

“I have to admit something to you. I’m not much of a reader,” Mavis says and Rapunzel stares at her in surprise.

“But you’re here nearly every week?” She doesn’t add that Mavis also gets books every time she comes in. She figures it’s implied.

“Yeah.” Mavis shifts, looking down at the grey carpet. Rapunzel tilts her head.

“So… why do you come in?” Rapunzel asks. It’s not to use the internet, or do college courses, because Mavis always walks immediately to the front desk, interacts with her, gets a pile of books checked out, and leaves.

“To see you,” Mavis says, cheeks darkening. Rapunzel thinks she feels her own cheeks heat.

“Oh.”

“Sorry if you don’t want that.” Mavis pushes her hair out of her face like Rapunzel has seen her do a number of times.

“No, I do,” Rapunzel is quick to assure Mavis, hands coming up to touch her, before she forces her arms to her sides. Mavis looks up at her through her lashes, eyes glittering with surprise.

“Really?” Mavis asks.

“Yeah,” Rapunzel says. “I love helping you.”

“Oh,” Mavis says, sounding small. It confuses Rapunzel for a moment, before she realizes what she said and what it probably sounds like.

“I mean! I- You-” Rapunzel clears her throat. “I- I like helping you. Specifically, not just cause it’s my job.”

Mavis perks up, eyebrows raising, and Rapunzel feels her heart lift with it. “Oh.”

“Oh.” Rapunzel nods. She has no idea why she repeated Mavis, but it feels right. It’s a confirmation, an understanding. “I close tonight, but if you want to stay…”

“Yes.” Mavis smiles. “I’ll take you out for food, if you want.”

“That’d be great,” Rapunzel says.

Rapunzel spots Mavis outside the library and waves a goodbye to the other librarian, the LAs, and the page she worked with that night before she runs over to meet her, pulling off her sneakers as she goes. The page smiles knowingly at her and Rapunzel nearly flushes.

"Ready to go?" Mavis pushes off the stone wall and Rapunzel nods before glancing around. There are no cars in the parking lot other than the ones she recognizes as her coworker's.

"Did you drive here?" Rapunzel asks, curious now.

"No." Mavis shakes her head. Rapunzel laughs, making Mavis frown.

"I didn't drive here, either. I walk through the woods," Rapunzel says, pointing at the trees behind them, and Mavis laughs as well.

"Come on," Mavis says. "I know a pretty good 24-hr burger place in walking distance." She holds out her hand and Rapunzel takes it gladly, smiling as much as Mavis does if the pull of her cheeks means anything.

Mavis walks her to a place she already knows and holds the door open for her like a gentleman, a move that would've made Rapunzel smile if she ever stopped smiling practically from the moment Mavis asked her out. Instead Rapunzel just thanks her as she steps inside. Mavis shoves her hands into her pockets as soon as they're both in the building, looking up at the menu.

"Do you usually get the same thing or do you try new things whenever you come?" Rapunzel asks. Mavis shrugs.

"It really depends. The first time I came to one of these places I actually tried to order everything on the menu. Johnny stopped me before I could," Mavis says, snorting. Rapunzel laughs, too, imagining an eager Mavis at the counter, nearly overwhelming the server before Johnny steps in.

"Will I ever meet him?"

"Johnny?" Mavis questions. "Yeah, of course."

"Awesome. He sounds pretty fun," Rapunzel says.

"He is," Mavis says.

Mavis stretches her arms, trying to tie the apron’s ribbon around her waist into a neat bow at the small despite the discomfort in her joints. She’s untied and retied the bow multiple times at this point. Her arms are tired.

“I can get that!” She hears a voice chirp and nearly cries when she turns to Rapunzel walking towards her.

“Please,” Mavis says, dropping her arms to her sides. The bow for Rapunzel’s apron is always so neat. It’s straight, with each part of it perfectly symmetrical, and Mavis is half-convinced she’s a witch because of it. No ordinary human can tie a bow that looks ripped straight from a Christmas ad on their own back.

Rapunzel smiles at her and moves to fix the bow, asking Mavis if it’s too tight as she ties it. She says other things as she ties it, rambles here and there about random stuff, her voice calming as it ever is. Mavis smiles to herself. This girl almost makes her not want to leave, but she’ll have to eventually. The maid cafe is only supposed to be a summer job.

“Thanks, Rapunzel.” Mavis takes a step away from her when she’s done, brushing down her apron and the dress with it.

“Sure thing,” Rapunzel says, smile still sunny. It’s always so sunny. Like nothing can hold her down.

It’s busy this time of year, but Rapunzel flits around talking to everybody like they’re regulars— even the people Mavis is fairly certain have never come in before. The people who are actually regulars she talks to like she remembers every little thing they’ve ever told her. (Mavis isn’t actually sure if she doesn’t.) She asks questions, smiles at the good news and frowns at the bad, laughs at jokes, and wishes people well, all with genuine care. Heartachingly genuine. Mavis wishes she could be like Rapunzel is, because that’s the one thing that makes her nervous about taking over the hotel one day.

“Only two more weeks,” Rapunzel says as they’re cleaning up and Mavis jolts, eyes whipping toward the calendar. It can’t be already. But it is. On a wednesday fourteen days from now, summer will end, and that friday will be Mavis’ last day. Something crawls into her chest and squeezes tight around her heart. No more Rapunzel. No more sunny smiles and excited chatter. Mavis grips the broomhandle until it feels like the wood might snap in her hands.

“That was fast,” Mavis says with what she hopes is a smile.

“Yeah!” Rapunzel laughs. Her eyes crinkle at the corners with it, the green of her irises shining. “But you know what they say, time goes fast when you’re having fun.”

Mavis blinks. Her grip slackens, revealing the long crack she put in the wood. “You have fun with me?”

“Of course!” Rapunzel looks over at her, smiling with the weight of the sun, and Mavis feels warm in its rays.

“Quit with me.”

“What?” Rapunzel’s eyebrows lower in confusion.

“Qu- quit with me,” Mavis repeats, a bit more hesitantly now that she’s saying it with purpose instead of the words suddenly bursting out of her. “Come work at the hotel. I think you’ll do great there.”

Rapunzel’s lips part slightly in surprise, her eyes wide as she stares at Mavis. Mavis swallows hard. Suddenly she is a lot more nervous. “I- Sure,” Rapunzel says. Mavis’ heart stops.

“What?” Mavis asks, because she can’t have possibly heard correctly.

“I like working with you.” When Rapunzel shrugs, she does it with her whole body. Her shoulders lift up to her ears, her weight rocks from her toes to her heels, and her arms splay out before they come back to dangle by her sides, her hands swaying gently. “It’s fun. More fun than any other shift. So, yeah. I’d like to come with you, if you still mean it.”

“Of course,” Mavis finds herself answering, her head nodding on its own until it catches up to her and she smiles wide, walking quickly between the tables to grab Rapunzel in a hug and twirl them in her excitement. “This is great!”

“It is?” Rapunzel smiles, hands on the arms still around her. Mavis drops them, stepping away to brush her hair back behind her ear.

“Yeah, I really didn’t want to leave you,” Mavis admits.