The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

[wiredweird]

Jughead was processing his first few weeks in Fandom the only way he knew how: by bringing his laptop somewhere where coffee was served and trying to write about it.

He was not having such a good time with it, though. How did you start unpacking Fandom into words? The darkness lurking at the heart of a small town like Riverdale, that was well within his grasp, but there'd been paint raining down from the sky on Friday. People had flaming swords and ears that seemed better suited for Comic-Con and ––

He wasn't sure he had a handle on the right words for Fandom. His hands had started only to immediately still again on the keyboard like three times in the last five minutes, and even now were only just kind of uselessly hovering over the keys while he frowned hard at the screen.

With a quiet huff, he sank back in his chair, and signalled for the barista to bring him another cup of coffee. That'd solve everything.

[ooc: Open!]

Comments

[sharp_man]

And then a man on a bicycle rode through the door, speaking a foreign language to nobody in particular, did circles around a few tables, and rode back out again.

[wiredweird]

Yeah, exactly.

How was Jughead supposed to write about that? He shook his head with an annoyed sigh.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Man, it was a good thing Summer had gotten a job here. Between her weekly visits to the diner and being super addicted to these blended mocha frappe whatever with a mountain of whipped cream and sprinkles, she was going to need the cash. And she was going to probably get fat, too. Whatever.

So she stopped in on her way back to the dorms that day, put in her order, and gave a small nod of solidarity/familiarity to the guy she kind of recognized from here and there and classes while she waited. The one who she realized looked kind of familiar because he reminded her of Frank Palicky, whio had shattered into a million pieces before her eyes when she went to go say hi.

She tried not to think about Frank Palicky.

[wiredweird]

Jughead would also probably prefer not to hear about Frank Palicky. Just a hunch.

He gave her a nod back when she caught his eye. Even a half-hearted little wave – well, more like he barely raised his hand from the edge of the table, but the thought was there.

He wasn't getting anywhere with his writing. Ugh.

[somethingwithturquoise]

And that was good enough for Summer! It was important to branch out, after all, especially when you were trying to balance a super hard galactic jailbreak with being super popular at school.

So, once her caloric bomb of caffine and sugar was prepared, she offered what she figured was a standaed conversational started.

"Hey. Working on something interesting?"

[wiredweird]

'Popular at school' did not really mix well with Jughead, usually. But she was welcome to try!

He shrugged, though just barely. He looked like he hadn't slept in three days – but then again, he always looked like that. It was just his face. "Thought I'd write something about the town. Turns out, it's not as easy as I thought it was going to be."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer's head tilted. "Like, what about it? The scenic vistas? The quaint village shops? The, uh...colorful people?"

And now, the really important question. "And why?"

[wiredweird]

"Why not?" Jughead retorted.

Not defensively or in a combative way. Just, the verbal equivalent of a shrug. He was keeping his frustration to himself on this one.

"I like writing."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Fair enough," said Summer with a sip of her drink. She thought it sounded kind of boring, but who was she to judge? "What have you written so far?"

[wiredweird]

"Not much." Not anything. This was... apparently going to be a longer process than he'd thought, but that was okay, right? He had the time, here. Whole summer's worth.

... No pun intended.

He leaned back, cradled his coffee in both hands. "Think I'm just going to have to be patient with this one."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Well, the Muses are fickle mistresses, or whatever" said Summer with a vague wave of her hand. Then she shrugged and lifted her beverage in a sort of salute. "Good luck, I guess. I should leave you to it, just in case one of them decides to suddenly strike."