Paperback head, you got carried away

[Justin Biermann]

(ooc: I love posting Justin at work, apparently. I have no plans for this... whoever's passing through?)

Justin quickly wiped down a table in the far corner of The Coffee Bean. Business was winding down for the day; it was late and the big caffeine fix rush had long since died down. Most of the current patrons were people who'd been sat there all day, either quietly reading their books and newspapers or 'working' on unspecified writing projects but mostly staring out windows. That had always been a classic Nathan move... though according to the latest reports from Lillian, since their break-up Nathan had jettisoned The Coffee Bean in favor of Starbucks. That's just like him, Justin thought bitterly while gathering silverware, checking his watch to see how long he had before closing.

[Marcus Wraysford]

((ooc: Thought I’d throw Marcus in so that I finally write something as him. Feel free to pay minimal attention to him and mostly pay attention to other characters anyone else wants to bring in, if you like, he’ll just be… around.))

Marcus finished wiping down the display case containing the food they served, the contents having sold out, as the day winded down in The Coffee Bean and the new customers dwindled entirely. Mostly he spent the last couple of hours of any shift watching people who’d been in there for hours on end nurse their last cup of coffee or tea for what felt like an age, whilst trying to look like he was doing something productive. He shot a glance over at Justin and just let out a soft sigh to his colleague as the boy collected silverware on the other side of the shop. On the pretence of collecting the empties of a couple who’d just left he abandoned the counter and duster he’d been using, moving to the table beside Justin and gathering up the mugs and plates.

“So. Stage-left, that guy is apparently still working on a dystopian novel detailing a 3012 civilization in which we’re all clones who are, essentially, mobile phones in the body of human beings. Though I’m fairly certain he has just spent the last hour staring across at that brunette girl who’s ‘reading’ that Witch Weekly magazine,” he murmured under his breath. They often shared discussions and speculation about their various patrons, especially the regular customers, and this guy had been ‘working on his novel’ for the last few months without making any kind of progress. Odd how often the same girl appeared when he was doing so.

[Justin Biermann]

Justin briefly stopped what he was doing to lean on the table in front of him. "Well, he just has it backwards. The human body is a ticking time bomb made of decaying meat matter. If anything, when the singularity comes and technology takes over, we'll abandon our physical bodies entirely and upload our personalities into a virtual network." He was surprisingly invested in this aspiring sci-fi writer's ideas, and it took him a second to register the brunette with the magazine. In his defense, he'd worked a very long shift today. "Was that... not the point you were trying to make?" he laughed.

Justin shrugged and scooped up his pile of silverware. "Christ. Who keeps telling these hipsters that you're supposed to find love by locking eyes in a coffee shop every day, or reaching for the same used book, or discovering that you have the same Bon Iver song on repeat on your iPod? I mean, I'm sure it's great for business. Don't get me wrong. Just... give it a rest, Zooey Deschanel." He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the pair. Justin had been having a slight identity crisis as of late -- particularly after the whole Auror meltdown -- and 'sassy observer' was just the latest of the more laid-back personae he'd been attempting to cultivate... for better or for worse.

[Marcus Wraysford]

Marcus simply smiled at Justin, "Perhaps you should be writing this novel instead," he suggested lightly before shrugging, "To be perfectly honest, I didn't really have a point, I was just making a casual observation that the guy could at least pretend more convincingly to be actively working on his novel. If I had any point at all I suppose it was that he should just be upfront about it all and go talk to her before she gets suspicious and/or bored of the whole coffee-shop-romance scenario."
​
Using a paper napkin, he swept up the crumbs on the table into it before scrunching it up in his hand as he listened to the other boy. "I say we blame it all on Zooey Deschanel... and possibly on a combination of match.com and John Lewis adverts too," he muttered with an overly exaggerated shudder of disgust at such advertising campaigns. Then he moved back over to the counter carrying the empties and commented, "You feeling particularly ungenerous today then?" he asked curiously since the boy's comment was a little more snarky than usual.

[Justin Biermann]

Justin dropped his rag and leaned against the front counter. "I definitely would not upload my brain to the matrix. Don't even like having a Facebook photo, to be honest," he continued to ramble, half to himself as he peered over at the amateur novelist. "Anyway, I'm not much for writing. Descriptive prose and all that. I'm more... say what you need to say and then get the fuck out."

"I've no issue with match.com ads. Those are people taking matters into their own hands and getting shit done," he noted practically. He was about to ask if Marcus ever did the online thing (since he seemed to have far more luck at meeting guys than Justin did) but he decided against it, uncomfortably shifting around as he let the opportunity pass.

"... and to be frank, now that I think about it, I'm not 100% sure I know who Zooey Deschanel actually is."

"What? No," he said, eyebrows creasing. "Just, you know. Breezy commentary. Pop cultural referencing." Justin crossed his arms. "Real talk, as someone who's known me for a while now... am I bad at delivering jokes? What do I need? More snapping?" He did a sarcastic z-snap, his serious expression never wavering.

[Marcus Wraysford]

Marcus scrunched his nose up in slightly amused bafflement, “Yeah, why is that? The Facebook photo thing?” he asked having noticed the lack of a profile photo himself and wondered about it. “I tried writing once, song-writing, you know? It turns out I’m better restricting my creative output purely to the way I sing other peoples’ songs. Which I am fine with because I don’t think anyone needs to hear my whiny pathetic attempts to write love songs,” he joked easily as he ducked back under the counter and dumped the empty cups he’d just collected with the others, ready to put in the dishwasher at the end of the shift.

“Oh no, no, I’m not saying anything against the concept of match.com. You know whatever avenue you want to go down to find a date is fine, clubbing, bars, websites, whatever floats your boat. But I’m against the advert campaign of match.com, you know the ‘I like… old movies… like the Godfather… three’ one?” he clarified, twisting round from his task of stacking the empty cups and saucers to glance at Justin. “I’m going to admit something here, I’ve been meaning to get it off my chest for a while but I feel too ashamed. I… I quite like ‘New Girl’, alright? I said it,” he let out a sigh of relief as though admitting to something heinous. “That’s the Zooey Deschanel TV show, she lives with like 3 guys in a flat? They have wacky adventures.”

He shook his head, “Mate I just meant… you seem… I don’t know, forget it,” he dismissed it, running a hand awkwardly through his hair before shoving both his hands casually in his apron pocket and leaning back against the counter to look properly at Justin. “Oh, serious conversation now?” he asked, his expression suitably becoming more sobered and solemn, “Biermann, you’re not exactly bad at delivering jokes, you’re just… not practiced enough at it, you’re not a stand-up comedian is my point. And please, lose the snap before I have to gauge my eyes out to pretend I’ve never seen it,” he couldn’t help but grin slightly at the boy’s sarcastic z-snap all the same. “Besides your general… demeanour fits more like… sarcastic, deadpan put-downs. And I mean that in the nicest way possible, really truly, I love hearing that kind of humour personally.”

((ooc: The match.com advert that offends Marcus so much is this cutesy one, jsyk.))

[Justin Biermann]

(ooc: Aaaah, that makes total sense!)

"Eh. I'm not big on pictures. People already know what I look like," he said while waving his hand around. Truthfully, he was a bit of a Luddite when it came to social networking, and had only joined at the persistent urging of his little sister. "Have you stopped to read any popular song lyrics lately? None of those people are Yeats, okay."

Justin furrowed his eyebrows. "Oh, right. Gotcha. I don't really watch TV..." he explained, trying not to sound too insufferable as he did so -- someone who was addicted to as many video games as he was had no right to judge anyone for their television use. He then shrugged. "She's like... white girl brown hair right?" Justin asked while making a hand motion to indicate fringe, as if that in any way narrowed down who he was thinking of. "Well, I'm glad you felt comfortable coming to me with this. Even though I basically have no idea what you're talking about," he said while jokingly patting Marcus on the shoulder. "Also, I live in a flat with three people and there are very few adventures. It's... mostly Assassin's Creed."

Justin ran his hand over his face. Twenty years of taking everything too seriously had basically driven him to the brink of nervous breakdown, but more than that, he was sick of being the weird buzzkill who brought all lighthearted fun to a screeching halt. "So what... stop trying to force a new laid-back personality, embrace my natural talent for severity?" he chuckled quietly.

[Marcus Wraysford]

“Well yeah but… okay so what if someone is trying to find you to add you on Facebook and there just so happens to be two Justin Biermanns in the world? They would require pictorial evidence that they had clicked ‘Add Friend’ on the right one,” Marcus suggested, “Though, don’t get me wrong, the photo-sharing element of Facebook has always baffled me. For example, I don’t want to be tagged in a photo from the night before and so realise what exactly I did to embarrass myself, which oh luckily is now online for the world to see too. Great!” he enthused cheerfully and then shook his head with a slight laugh at this particularly unfortunate feature of the social-networking site. He glanced back at Justin as he talked of song lyrics, “So… you’re a Yeats man? Or just a name pulled out of thin air?” he asked curiously and then shrugged, “I feel like most of what can be said has been said though, there comes a point when the clichés are just too overdone for it to even be ironic.”

The advertising campaign of match.com had obviously affected Marcus more than he had ever realised before this moment and it was evident in the fact that he continued on a slightly uncharacteristic rant then, despite the fact that Justin had just admitted he didn’t really watch television much. “Oh! And that advert of theirs with that bloody guy staring at a girl on the opposite train platform, a girl who is just trying to mind her own business and read a book, but nooo he has to come along with his fucking ukulele and start improv-ing a song about her. I mean you know… props to him for not just drunkenly stumbling over to her in a bar and telling her he likes her hair and eyes in an attempt to get her to go home with him but… it’s hardly going to happen like that out in the real world. I just feel sorry for any girl that thinks that signing up to match.com means that they’re going to be involved in some cutesy, hipster-y love story. Because, have I got news for you, it doesn’t.” He exhaled a large breath then and suddenly his expression dropped into a confused frown, “Sorry. I… I didn’t entirely realise I’d been holding onto that one for so long,” he bit his lip and looked apologetically over at the other boy as he anxiously twisted the cleaning cloth he held.

“Yeah. Fringe, that’s practically her identifier,” the boy enthused about Zooey Deschanel, rightly interpreting the motion Justin made to indicate her hairstyle, “I must admit, coming out to you about my love for ‘New Girl’ was pretty redundant, I do realise that now. But it was easier to let it out on someone who wouldn’t immediately judge me for it,” he smiled lightly. “Yes granted, buuuut Assassin’s Creed is an adventure in itself, surely?” he suggested with a short laugh. The laugh was stifled, however, as their topic became a tad more serious. “Mate, you’re… you’re fine the way you are,” Marcus protested with a slightly saddened shake of his head. He could see the guy was confused, having dropped out of Auror training, and perhaps now not quite so sure where his life was going or who he was. “Personally I would love to see you get all severe, ironically it would brighten up my day intensely, but… look whatever makes you happy, don’t force anything, don’t try and be someone you’re not, you’re cool as you are anyway,” he pointed out seriously.

((ooc: I didn’t realise before I mentioned it in the post that I used to watch these ads and think they were cute. Now I look at them like UGH TOO CUTESY. The one Marcus is ranting about is this one if you feel like putting yourself through that as well, haha.))

[Justin Biermann]

"I'm banking on other-Justin having a picture. And being from another part of the world... probably likes fewer boring documentaries. And Tom Hardy films. They'll figure it out eventually," he added. Justin also wouldn't particularly mind having one less person posting inane status updates and sending him endless requests for games he didn't understand, but that seemed a bit rude so he didn't say anything. He didn't mind friending, say, people like Marcus. But he also felt like deleting his account wouldn't be a great loss. "Anyway. Rest assured, I don't take pictures of people when I go out. I just... tend to text. A lot." He didn't elaborate, but his face sort of said it all, really. "Don't read a ton of poetry, just wanted to seem culturally aware. I can't name any of his works, but I can both spell and pronounce Yeats correctly. How impressed are you, scale of one to ten?" he asked self-deprecatingly.

Justin nodded politely at Marcus' rant, even though he had no earthly idea what the guy was talking about. This was probably how other people felt when he talked, he suddenly realized. "Uh... yeah. Preach it, Wraysford," he said supportively, brandishing a fork in solidarity. "Films are full of that stuff, yeah? Behavior that would seem creepy and basically psychotic if anyone attempted it in real life."

"Yeah, well, you know what they call me. Non-Judgemental Biermann," he said with a laugh at the ridiculousness of it. He rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. "Yeah, thanks, man. Sorry for taking that to a weirdly serious therapy place. I don't need constant validation about how awesome I am or anything, I mean, I'm basically fine. Normal early twenties stuff. Don't worry about it." He tried not to think too much about how he didn't have a plan, didn't know who he was or what he wanted, how he'd gone from the prototypical guy who 'had his shit together' to someone who didn't at all.

[Marcus Wraysford]

Marcus couldn’t help but chuckle then as he Justin described the hypothetical ‘other-Justin’, clapping him on the shoulder, “Tom Hardy, eh? I completely respect the ambition,” he encouraged the other guy. “Well I’m glad to hear that, there’s nothing worse than the person who jumps into a conversation you’re happily having to yell ‘omg let’s take a picture!!!!’,” he waved his arms enthusiastically in the air in an impression of just such people – his friend, Meg, was one of those for example and he loved her to death but, god, could she just leave him alone to attempt to talk to the only other gay guy in the whole place she’d chosen to drag him along to? “Text? Who? Or should I not pry?” he asked, and then faltered having taken in Justin’s expression just a tad too late after he’d already opened his mouth.

“Well, look, spelling and pronouncing Yeats correctly is a start,” Marcus noted enthusiastically, “I think it’s about a 4, currently, you’d be surprised the amount of people who can’t pronounce Yeats. I’m more a Seamus Heaney kinda guy, lot simpler to read,” he shrugged casually, brushing off the literature talk. He smiled then in apology as the other boy supportively raised a fork in solidarity after his rant, “Sorry. I just… I’m sick of the amount of adverts and films with Zooey Deschanel, brown-haired-fringed, perfect skinny girls interested in music and books and art who lock eyes with a generic brown-haired, slight bed-head but crafted hair, skinny jeans, quirky guys. You know the type? It’s definitely taken to the psychotic level, you just accept it because it’s a film or aspirational or whatever,” he rolled his eyes slowly at this. “For all I’m a bit… head-in-the-clouds-dreamer-y, and that is a direct and oh so eloquent quote from my ex, even I draw the line somewhere,” he concluded firmly.

His expression softened and he shook his head sadly, “No, come on, what is a coffee shop for if not therapy?” he tried to lighten the mood with an attempt at a joke before smiling sympathetically, “Look. If it helps… I feel the same ‘what the hell am I doing here?! What is my life?’, I think we all do. It’s a condition of being a graduate, like you suddenly don’t have exams and studying, you’re just here in the real world with no clue as to what you want to do or who you are. I just ignore that nagging feeling by doing the stuff that makes me happy and hope that that’s enough,” Marcus shrugged.

[Justin Biermann]

"Oh, no one important, just ah... my entire contacts list, mostly," Justin said sarcastically while scrunching his nose. "Why, want to get in on this? I don't even think I have your number," he said casually while pulling out his phone, which was thoroughly scuffed up from all the times it had accompanied him on drunken adventures (he barely used it otherwise, so he'd gone with a dirt-cheap prepaid model he liked to call 'the drug dealer's choice') and scrolled through his contacts.

Justin then leaned his elbows on the counter, idly running his hand up and down his arm. "Four? Eh, I can work with that," he nodded before squinting slightly. "Liking the same music and books and stuff is fine, but it doesn't really mean anything, does it? Anyone can sit around and consume things. It doesn't necessarily make a person good, or smart, or interesting in their own right," he spoke, pretty obviously referring to one person in particular. "Dude. What does that even mean? Worst I've ever gotten was 'uptight control freak', and this was after taking me to a 'performance piece' where, much to my horror, innocent people were pulled out of the audience and forced to answer questions about themselves. Which, in my humble opinion, is a just excuse for murder."

"I mean, I know I haven't got much to complain about. I'm fully aware that 99% of my problems are caused by a cocktail of perfectionism and Catholic guilt almost entirely fabricated by my own brain. Feel free to unload your crazy any time you need to, by the way. I'm a barman. I'm used to it." Come to think of it, while Marcus may have joked about coffee shop therapy... he was pretty sure most of his came from the bar.

[Marcus Wraysford]

“Aah, I see,” Marcus nodded sagely before shrugging, “Why not? It’ll make for interesting reading at least, I’m curious whether you drunk text and what that involves,” he commented innocently, not knowing of the previous occasions on which this had happened to Justin. “07925637192,” he recited his number for Justin to add to his phone, digging into his trouser pocket and fishing out his own to do the same, scrolling through his contacts and distractedly murmuring, “If you're bored, text away to your heart’s content.”

He casually shrugged, “Well it’s a respectable score but room for improvement still if you feel the need to delve deeply into some Irish poetry at some point,” he noted, eyeing Justin in confusion for a moment as he began to talk of liking the same stuff and that not really meaning anything. Then, the penny dropped and he smiled tightly at the other boy, “I guess not. Besides you don’t want to like all the same stuff or you’d have nothing to talk about, you’d just both agree on anything and everything. It’s a good starting point, I suppose, you know like a go-to if you meet someone and have nothing to talk about? But other than that, I don’t place a lot of importance on it.” He quickly shook his head in confusion, eyes wide in surprise, “Mate, I have no bloody clue. I didn’t ask for elaboration since it wasn’t exactly intended as a compliment. I just eloquently called him an arse and left,” he snorted softly at the memory, brushing it off quickly and turning instead to Justin. “Ouch. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that reaction to a performance piece equals ‘uptight control freak’, I think it equals ‘normal, functioning, sane human-being’. Not all of us feel the need to showcase their every thought, feeling, and aspect of their life to an audience of complete strangers. I can’t argue that all the way for myself, personally, because I choose to sing so… slight exhibitionist tendency? I don’t know-” he trailed off with a short laugh.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from perfectionism, religious guilt, parental expectation, really-early-mid-life-crisis, it’s all still relevant,” Marcus suggested reasonably and then grinned at the other guy’s offer to unload his issues on him if he so felt like it, “Meh, I appreciate that offer but maybe later. There’s nothing else bubbling underneath the surface today, especially now I’ve had my match.com rant.” A generally placid and harmless person by nature, there were very few times when Marcus actually owned up to having any kind of issues or problems with people or stuff that had went on in his life; he didn’t like to complain and kept his shit to himself, generally, which wasn’t that great for him, really. It would all come out one day, he was sure.

[Justin Biermann]

"Cooool cool cool," Justin mumbled quietly, entering the name 'Coffee Marcus' before punching the digits into his phone. Part of him felt like it was a bad idea, maybe, opening up the opportunity for more rash drunken decisions... but he chose to ignore it. "I'll text you so you can add me?" He (slowly) managed to type the message 'I lovv erryone in this bar!!!!!!!' before hitting send and looking up, grinning.

Justin rubbed his forehead lightly. "I... forgot to mention how I refused to speak and awkwardly walked out of the theater," he admitted. Nathan didn't seem to understand that Justin's actions stemmed from a genuine discomfort, not some sort of sanctimonious grandstanding -- it was just another instance of how despite everything they had in common, they were always slightly out of sync. "I mean, I get it, the whole Type A thing. I'm self-aware enough to know that it's not entirely inaccurate... and apparently people don't love me constantly telling them what to do, so. I guess it's something I have to work on," he laughed dryly.

Realizing that he didn't know what else to say, Justin stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment before jumping behind the counter. "Okay, I can't listen to this song for the five hundredth time today. Are you sick of this song? I'm turning it off before I'm forced to shove my skull in the coffee grinder."

[Lillian Turner]

Running to The Coffee Bean, Lillian grabbed the handle & wrenched the door open forcefully before tumbling in to the cafe, not caring how many hipsters she managed to piss off whilst doing so and headed straight for the counter where she saw Justin changing music, she knew he'd be here because she'd phoned his boss and asked, pretending to be his long lost aunt who wanted to surprise him.

"LAGERDUDE!" she shouted, clapping her hands together excitedly as she awaited him noticing her, though with the noise she had made just entering the building, she didnt have to wait for very long. "Lagerdude! Guess who I was drinking with?! Guess!" she asked him with wide eyes, before looking to his colleague and smiling, "Cant remember your name....so I'll call you Boris. Alright Boris?" she asked with her head tilted to the left slightly, "Can I have cake? For free? Im skint, I dont have a job. Can I work here? Hey Boris, guess who I was drinking with!?" she rambled on, not really letting anyone answer her questions, looking around the cafe before pointing at a customer, "You're still writing that bloody book?! Hurry up man! Who are you? George R Martin?! Jeez!" she threw her arms in the air before turning back to Justin & 'Boris', "Guessed yet? You'll never guess! Cake?" she asked, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet as she awaited a guess....and cake.

(ooc, figured it's been a while since Lil stalked Justin!)

[Justin Biermann]

Luckily, there would be no skulls in coffee grinders today -- despite his limited choices, Justin managed to find some fairly unobtrusive (if indecipherable) indie mumbling by a band he'd never heard of. He turned his head at the sound from the door (though obviously he already knew who it was) and waved at Lillian. "Kofi Annan?" he guessed sarcastically, bending down to look at the cake they hadn't managed to sell over the course of the day and kindly leaving all of her questions up to 'Boris'.

"There's lemon cake... we're supposed to throw it out at the end of the day anyway... might be kinda stale..." he mumbled intermittently from below the counter as she continued to talk to people, not exactly selling the praises of this lemon cake. Justin then popped back up with all of the desserts on a small tray and turned to point at his coworker. "Yeah. GUESS, BORIS!" he demanded while prodding him several times on the arm -- hanging out with Lillian so frequently had apparently worn off on him.