2025-01-13 - Writing Time!

Josh comes trotting down the stairs from the second floor, his id badge dangling back and forth on its lanyard as he does. He's wearing khaki slacks, a T-shirt bearing the logo of the Winding Vine on the front and the word STAFF on the back, and a pair of bright white Adidas sneakers. A MacBook is tucked under one arm and he's carrying a reusable aluminum water bottle. "Hey, Missy, I'm going on break. I left a sign on the counter upstairs."

"Yep," Missy says absently from behind the coffee counter where she is sitting on a stool and reading a book.

He sits down at a table and opens up the computer and starts calling up a file. Next Josh opens the bottle, takes a huge drink, and sets it down, top off.

Lucien is seated at one of the tables toward the interior of the space, away from the windows where one can feel the chill if they sit too close. He has his own laptop open in front of him and a cup of coffee to one side that is about 2/3 of the way full. There's a small plate with crumbs on it there, too, the remnants of what must have been a pastry of some kind.

He's bundled in a dark green cable knit sweater, faded jeans, and a pair of brown lace-up boots. His jacket and scarf hang on the chair behind him. Today, he is doing nothing to conceal the tapered long elfin ears or the prismatic nature of his eyes. He's just minding his own business, tapping away.

There's a brief glance up as someone settles nearby, a faint smile, and then back to whatever it is that he's doing over there.

Josh just now notices Lucien. He pauses, blinking, clearly lost in the moment. "Wow," he says. "Dope ears." His tone is genuine. Nothing about his voice or expression or body language would suggest he's being mocking or teasing in anyway.

He stops for a moment, furrowing his brow in a moment's thought. "Is that...is that okay to say? I've only been here like a month and I don't really know, like, what the rules are about stuff like that." He shrugs. "I just think your ears look really cool. I'm gonna...I'm gonna stop talking now before I put my foot farther into my mouth." He takes another drink of water cuz...embarrassed.

It's not the first time that he's heard comments on his ears or his eyes. He's been purposefully not hiding them so that he can get used to it. And it's working, for the most part. He smiles just a little at the comment and then looks back over to Joshua. "Yeah," he says, "It's okay."

"I mean, this stuff only really started happening a couple of weeks ago since New Year's so I don't think anybody's really got a rulebook on how to react to it. Just don't be a dick, and I think you're probably fine." That is Lucien's sage advice on the topic.

"I'm Luc," he offers. Pronounced Luke, but make it French. "I've only been here since.. around Thanksgiving, myself."

In Josh's head right now it's 'Luke' because that's what he heard and that's how it's pronounced. "Oh, a fellow newbie," Josh says with an easy smile. "Nice t'meet you, Luke. I'm Josh." he reaches up right his right hand and tugs his right ear for a moment. "I just got boring, plain ears. I got here in December, but I was inside at my apartment when that New Year's Eve stuff went down."

Slowly climbing out of the hole he dug, Josh nods in the direction of Lucien's laptop. "You a writer?" he inquires, perhaps a little hopefully.

"Yeah, kinda," Lucien agrees, new enough, in the grand scheme of things. Lucien looks over at Joshua's ears and chuckles. "As most do, yeah." Though when Josh mentions that he was inside at his apartment during that he nods, "So was I. It didn't matter."

Lucien looks back at his laptop where there is a blank white Microsoft Word document with a slowly blinking cursor and no actual words. His smile skews a little wry then as he says, "Aspiring, I guess. I think one would have to actually write anything to be a writer."

Fidgeting a little with the touchpad, Josh shrugs one shoulder. "I dunno. I mean if you write something you're a writer. I think the hard part is becoming an author." His gaze momentarily breaks away from Lucien and focuses upstairs, where the rows upon rows of many books sit. "I'm working on my first novel." He snorts a little. "I say 'first' like there's going to be more. Egotistical much, Josh?"

He gestures toward Lucien's laptop. "What are you working on? What kind of stuff do you like writing?"

Lucien glances up as well and then back down and says, "Well, I'm definitely not a published author or anything. I'm a figure skater. I just.." he gestures vaguely at his laptop. "Fiddle around, on the side, when I have a break from training and rehearsals."

He swivels his chair a bit though so that he can face Josh more fully. "Yeah? What sort of novel?" he asks, clearly curious.

As for his own project? "Uhm, I have a few half-started short stories and some really random poetry."

Josh sits up straighter and his eyebrows go up in pleasant surprise. "A figure skater? Fire! Do you know Esme? I met her the other day, she's cool a f."

When Lucien inquires about his book Josh runs one hand back through his own hair. He looks like he's not a big fan of talking about himself. "Well, it's called The Memory of Magic. It's about this kid Bodie who visits a playground and finds out it starts giving him magical abilities while he is there. But when he goes home, he starts to forget about everything. He meets a faerie princess who lives under the jungle gym and she asks him for help because her world is being erased." He shrugs a little. "Sort of Neverending Story meets Spellbound."

"There should be a writing club here," Josh intones. "People can get together and share their work and motivate each other."

"Yeah," Lucien says with a little smile when Josh mentions Esme. "She's my skating partner in some of the productions. She's cool. And really talented."

He tilts his head just a little and studies Joshua as he talks about his own novel and says, "Sounds like fun. Definitely art borrowing a little from life. Except that I haven't found any faerie kingdoms under the playground at the park yet." Which, from his expression, doesn't seem to mean that he's ruled it out as a possibility at this point. "How long have you been working on it?"

He doesn't look quite as enthused about the idea of a writing club though. "Yeah.. I don't know. I don't really like people reading my stuff. Not like that, anyway."

A little shrug. "I dunno, maybe like three weeks?" Josh answers. "I started working on it not long after I got here. I had...I dunno...a bunch of problems meeting people and making any friends so it gave me something to do. But now I'm really into it. I got..." He calls up the word count on the Apple Pages document he has going. "...22,488 words." Another shrug. "I dunno, it'll probably never go anywhere. It's just like a personal passion project at this point."

He nods in response to Lucien's displeasure at the writing club idea. "Yeah, I can understand that. Sometimes I feel the same way. It's like your words are a reflection of your thoughts, and your thoughts are the most personal things you have in the world."

"Sounds like you got some momentum going," Lucien says with a bit of a smile, reaching for his cup of coffee and taking a sip from it. "That's what my writing is, too. It's just personal, for me. I haven't decided how much I like anything that I've written or really what format I like best yet. So I'm mostly just messing around with a little of this and a little of that and seeing how it turns out," he explains as he fiddles a little bit with his cup and then sets it back down again.

"It's not that so much as.. I'm training and competing and being judged all the time. I want something that's for me that's not under scrutiny by yet another set of judges, you know?"

"Yep, same!" Josh exclaims. "Honestly, I don't care if I finish it, or if it gets published, or anybody reads. I know people say that, but no jokes I mean it."

He listens, like, really intently as Lucien explains about being under scrutiny and not wanting his writing to be the same. You can always tell when someone is truly focused on your words because they generally sit completely still. No nodding. No 'mmhmm' or 'yeah'. When Lucien finishes the thought, Josh slowly nods his head. "Yeah, that's dope as hell, man. You gotta keep that for yourself, make it your own thing."

He peers downward, continuing to digest the idea. Apparently it really resonated with. Then suddenly: "I gotta write that down." He opens up another document and furiously types for like 20 seconds. "I might use that in something. That is really, really deep."

Lucien nods in agreement. "I don't intend to ever publish anything. I don't even know if I'll end up letting anybody read it. But it sometimes feels good just to sit down and do it." He swivels a little in his chair, "Plus, my therapist said I needed a constructive hobby that would help me wind down and was low stress." He smirks just slightly. "The one I had before I came here."

"Uh sure," he says when Joshua wants to write it down and use it in something, giving a little shrug of his shoulders. "I didn't think it was THAT deep, but if you like it.." It's just his truth.

"So, you should come to the ice show. The new one premieres on Wednesday. Esme'll be in it, too. She's got a bigger role, though, so she'll be on the ice a lot. It's going to be good."

Josh's eyebrows go up a bit. "They have therapists here? Sweet. I should check that out. Does our health care cover it?"

When Lucien mentions going to the ice show, Josh's previously upbeat expression seems to sink a little bit. "Oh. Go to the show," he says, some mild strain in his expression. He glances downward. "Yeah, I mean maybe. I could...I could check out the schedule or something." He grips his aluminum water bottle with the fingers of one hand and nervously spins it slowly in place. "Yeah, maybe."

"Oh, I meant my therapist in Toronto, but yeah, we have therapists here, too. You can see Dr. Adams over at the clinic. He has open office hours to just drop in and talk and decide if you want to get into therapy or whatever," Lucien explains. "And yeah, everything at the clinic here and on Spellbound is covered."

"Or not," Lucien says when he sees Joshua's reaction, offering a little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "No big deal either way." He seems fine with just letting that go and not pushing the topic any further.

"So what do you do here? At the park?" he asks, changing the subject.

Josh reaches to his keyboard on the same document he was taking his notes on previously and types in "Dr Adams clinic".

"What do I do here?" he asks. "I, um, work here," he says, that momentary nervous dourness now dispelled. "Mostly upstairs in the book department, but I sometimes work at the coffee counter too."

"He basically lives here, too," the girl who is reading behind the coffee counter says.

"Missy!" Josh says, his cheeks turning beet red. "I do not. I have an apartment!" He turns to look at Lucien. "I don't...I don't live at the store. I have an apartment. Really." He gives Missy a brief glare.

"Cool," Lucien says as he glances up toward the books and then back down again. Missy's comment gets a little quirk of a smile. But Josh's quick reassurance that he does, in fact, have an apartment gets a little laugh. "I mean, I figured. They don't tend to stow us away on cots at the Ice Arena either. I've got an apartment with a couple of roommates. And half a dozen animals." He pauses. "Not all the animals live in the apartment."

"I have my own place," Josh says with a noncommittal shrug. He doesn't sound like the idea thrills him. "I been thinkin' about maybe trying to find a roommate or two. It gets really isolated living alone. I mean, sometimes it's nice cuz I don't have to worry about somebody eating all my yogurt or whatever, but it can be pretty isolated."

Josh nods in Lucien's direction. "Oh cool. What kind of animals?"

Lucien grins and says, "There are some days where I wouldn't mind having a place of my own, but August and Rowan are alright. August is like a beam of sunshine hyped up on caffeine who is really super enthusiastic about everything. And Rowan is kind of like Eeyore, if Eeyore was in human form, and a goth. They're both like.." he holds out his hands far apart, of a scale that goes from Rowan to August on it. "But they're cool to live with. I have two cats. Rowan has a cat. And Auggie has uh, a heron, an otter, and a bear. But only the otter comes in the house."

Josh suddenly breaks into a wide, pleased, beaming smile. It's an expression that rarely finds its way to his face at that level, which is a shame because his face was made to look like that. It really suits him. "Oh, you're roommates with Auggie? I know him! He's dope as hell. I got to meet Moose the other morning. So cool! Tell him I said hey!"

His smile remains but it de-intensifies a little bit as he peers downward at the floor again. His tone gets a little faltering and nervous now. "I guess I'm an animal sometimes." He shrugs once. "Apparently. Last night...last night I guess I turned into a fox. He holds hand out flat like six or eight inches off the surface of the table at which he's sitting. "A little...a little fox. It really took me by surprise. I was lucky I had a friend over who helped me through it."

Lucien grins crookedly and says, "Yeah. He's pretty cool. He taught me how to fish the other day. We even caught a few. I'll tell him you said hi when I see him back at the apartment." Reaching for his coffee, he wraps both hands around it and enjoys the warmth still radiating from it for a moment or two.

"No shit?" Lucien asks with a grin. "That's so cool. Have you met Danny? He can do that too, turn into animals. He's an animal shifter. I'm a people shifter. I can make myself look different, but people-shaped. But I get it, when this stuff happens the first time it can be sort of startling since you're not ready for it."

Josh shakes his head. "I don't know anyone named Danny, no." He tips his head to the side curiously, which causes some hair shift over his eyes. He bats it aside absently. "Do you think you could introduce me sometime? It would be cool to meet someone who knows how to do it. I was trying to change this morning before work but all I managed to do was fart." He lets out a small, nervous chuckle.

Then his eyebrows go up. "You can change how you look? No cap? Can I...can I see?" He looks around, suddenly self-conscious. "Is that wrong to ask that?"

"I don't know him real well," Lucien admits. "I met him once at a party and then once under some real weird stressful circumstances so like, if I knew him better, I would? If you guys happen to be in the same place, I definitely will." Then he coughs and holds up the back of his hand to his mouth to unsuccessfully hide that chuckle. "Well I guess.. there are worse things that could have happened."

Lucien shakes his head and says, "Nah. You can ask. I wouldn't have mentioned it." He takes in a little breath and then kind of like Mystique from the x-men, his features shift and change and suddenly he looks like he used to, before the changes, his eyes a crystalline blue, his ears normal, no longer elfin the way that they were a moment ago. It's not a flashy change, but then they're in the middle of the coffee shop and he's not trying to draw attention.

Josh breaks into an easy laugh at the insinuation. "What if that was a condition of the power?" he asks, getting a little silly. "Every time I changed into an animal I shit myself?" That thought just seems to tickle him and he starts a minor giggle fit.

"You're weird," Missy says from behind the counter.

"Oh you're super normal," Josh says as his giggles die down. The two co-workers seem to have an easy vibe between them.

When Lucien does his transformation, Josh completely shuts up. His lips are slightly parted and he lets out a small gasp. "Oh shit, Luke, that is baddASS. Can you make yourself look like anything? Can you be Dracula?"

Lucien grimaces just a little bit at the suggestion, perhaps agreeing with Misty on this particular count. "Yeah, pass." He lifts his coffee and takes another sip from the cup while the coworkers trade back and forth.

"Pretty much anything. Its real hard to exactly copy real people though, and exhausting. So I just stick to imagining the features that I want and going with that rather than like, trying to copy someone else."

Josh's mouth opens wider and he starts smiling as he imagines the possibilities. "Oh bro! You ever see like Undercover Boss? You could totally do that! You could talk to your friends and find out what they really think about you." He snorts a laugh and rocks a little in his seat. "The potential for pranks are endless!"

Missy gives Josh the Secret Look they have that basically means 'calm down, Josh, you're getting over-stimulated again.'

"Yeah, I'm not gonna do that," Lucien says with a shake of his head. "Not really sure that I want to know what people really think of me. Sounds like a recipe for depression." His own expression goes just a little bit more closed off, clearly not finding it quite as funny. "Also feels like deceiving people who are supposed to be your friends isn't a great idea."

Josh shakes his head and sobers. "Yeah. Prolly a shitty idea," Josh agrees. "Sorry."

With a fingertip, he closes his MacBook and lets out a sigh. "Well, it was cool to meet ya, Luke, but my break is over. I gotta get back upstairs." He stands up and grabs his water bottle and tucks the computer under his arm. "If you ever wanna talk writing or whatever, or hang out I'm usually here."

Lucien shrugs his shoulders a little bit and says, "It's fine." And his ears and eyes shift back to the way they were when he entered the shop initially. As Joshua packs up his laptop, he nods and says, "Yeah, was nice to meet you, Josh. Have a good rest of your shift." He closes up his own laptop then and gathers his things, finishing off the remainder of his coffee before heading out.