The entrance to the coffee shop is set down a short flight of stairs, and requires ducking on the way in for anyone over about two meters in height if they don't want a fresh scrape across the head from the doorframe. Inside is a cramped, smoky set of rooms whose main draws are the cheap source of caffeine and the lack of pretension--or corporate logos--in the decor. It's an easy place to get lost, either geographically wandering into a twisted closet-sized room and not being able to figure out which of the various sealed-off doors is actually one that leads back out to the rest of the shop, or in time picking up one of the many tattered books stuffed into shelves and finding it's actually worth reading. There's a single ancient copy of a sordid romance from the 1920s that has been floating from one room to another for years--maybe for decades--as new people pick it up for laughs and realize it's actually good.
     The shop's other small foothold on patronage comes from being located immediately adjacent to a far cleaner, brighter, more reputable music shop. On bulletin board just inside the door has several layers of papers and band flyers advertising events or recruiting new members, a few centimeters thick in places by now. It's here that a young man has found himself, clutching a chipped mug of coffee in one hand as he pokes gingerly through yellowing index cards in search of a call for drummers less than a year old. (This might be easier if anyone bothered to date the ads they put up.) He's skinny and pale enough to fit the usual expectations for young men in London, with black hair that might suit his face better if it were left untidy rather than neatly trimmed in a recent haircut. His blue eyes might even be apparent if it weren't for the pair of reading glasses perched on his nose.

     In comes a knot of college students pretending they're slumming - they'd actually be slumming if they were as good as they think themselves, but as it stands, they're only middle class at best. They pass Loki by, laughing to one another in an almost unintelligible gibberish of their own, loud talk about people and places and things that don't even matter now, let alone two months from now. In the vacuum of their wake appears a young man with absent expression and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles.
     He might be about nineteen or twenty, with brown hair that threatens to fall in his eyes, and he wears a brown-butter leather jacket that hangs limp on his lank frame. He's not terribly tall - only about 5'5, making him look years younger than he probably is, and he's skinny enough that he could wear girl's jeans without wincing. He meanders over to the counter, speaking in a decidedly lower class voice with absolutely no self-consciousness about it. "Yeh - black coffee. Half decaf, if y' don't mind. What? No, black. No - no cake, gotta watch me weight." It'd be funny, except he seems dead serious.

     The man at the bulletin board lifts a stained sheet of paper--don't ask with what, and there's probably no one who could identify the stain without lab equipment by now anyway--with the tip of his thumb and one finger, three layers deep, in an attempt to shed some light on the flyer immediately underneath.
     Strictly speaking, this does work, as a tenuously applied thumbtack abruptly gives way, dropping somewhere near a dozen assorted bits of paper all across the floor. One last, forlorn slip of paper flutters slowly down as he crouches down to pick up the mess, muttering "Fuck fuck fucking fucker's fucked" in a quiet undertone and a distinctly American accent. It's tricky work to collect the mess with only one hand, but he appears determined not to put his coffee cup down on the floor. Anyone who has looked as closely at the floor as he's doing right now would probably feel the same way.

     One eyebrow arches, deadpan, as Thomas collects his coffee. He turns, looking Loki up and down, then offers, "Y' forgot to mention that the fucker's fucking fucked." It comes out a little more like 'fooker's fooking fooked', but the meaning gets through all right. He grins, taking his coffee and heading in an unsteady lolloping gait over to peer at the floor from next to Loki. Judiciously, he adds, "An' so are you, mate, if that gets on you. If I were you, I'd make a break for it - the ooze looks to be starting to move on its own."
     He grins, then, revealing teeth that are only /slightly/ crooked, and offers a hand. "Need help?"

     Loki looks up, torn between irritation at the whole damn world--including anything in eyesight, and yes that's you sir--and gratitude for something that sounds like it might actually improve the day. He settles for a borderline polite, "Yeah, I could use the help," as he stands up with a half dozen flyers in hand. "Do you think anyone would /notice/ if these didn't get back on the board? Because I don't see how one thumbtack had them in place to start with." He adds not entirely under his breath, "The fuckers," as if it might make him feel better. Maybe the repetition does.

     "Nah. Nobody checks the board 'cept pissers and wankers," he answers cheerfully, vulgar and utterly secure in his vulgarity. "Which means that they're sticking it up with their own jizz, see? Might want to wash your hands. Only mind the light in the loo, there isn't one." He steps back to give Loki room to stand, taking a swig of his coffee nonchalantly. "It's a piss-hole, mate, see? Only people who come here either haven't the lolly for anything nicer, or else are here to soak up the ah-embee-ahnce." He mimics a la-de-da accent through his nose on the last word, then sniggers happily. "Thomas. Name, not epithet, though I've been called worse."

     Loki drops the papers again, and scrubs his fingers against his chinos as he stands. From his next glance down at his own hand, he's probably thinking of torching this pair of trousers once he gets home. "Loki," he says, followed immediately by, "Yes, seriously." He moves away from the bulletin board, throwing an arch glance up and down the other man. "So which do you come for, Thomas? You look like an ambience type to me."

     "Sod you," Thomas barks out with a laugh at the end like a seal. He takes a swallow of his coffee again and falls into a seat at Loki's table, uninvited. Under the coat he's wearing a fairly ordinary jersey and a pair of trousers that might be tweed but have seen better days. On his feet are a pair of solid-looking boots of the sort sometimes referred to as shit-kickers. "Came for a cup o' coffee. See?" He hoists his coffee by way of evidence. "That, an' the lass behind the counter's sweet on me, so I get a bit of a discount." He smiles. "What's your excuse?"

     "Not knowing better," Loki says archly, like it's some kind of unassailable justification for his presence. He sits across from Thomas almost primly, the fussy image ruined a moment later by a long slurp of his coffee. "And I was going to start cussing out random strangers if I didn't find coffee soon. This was the first place I saw." He huddles a little in his coat, a sharp-elbowed mass of dark grays and blacks despite the warmer air inside the shop. Another wipe of his fingers along his trousers, and the reading glasses vanish back into a coat pocket.

     "Well, the coffee's not bad," Thomas answers cheerfully, "but the girls are strictly no-play, so it's a bit of a wash, yeh? But," he shrugs, "when I'm in London, it's as good as it's likely to get. Much better out by Sandsdown and whatnot. So what's a Yank like you doing here? In London," he clarifies cheekily, "as we've already established the coffee urge." He takes another swig of his own for good measure, seeming entirely relaxed.

     Loki slurps in more coffee before he bothers to answer. He's looking more relaxed and animated both as the first waves of caffeine begin to take hold in his bloodstream. "Living here a while. My father doesn't mind if I take over his flat while he's out, and he's out most of the time. The climate's lousy, the music scene's better than back in L.A." He pronounces the city name as El Ay in brisk slur. "Bit of a wash there, too."

     "Nuffing wrong with the climate, your blood's just a bit washed out, that's all," Thomas grins. He seems permanently 'up'. "So you're couch-surfing, yeh? Well, good rent if you can get it. A musician, hey? So you're no stranger to competition, 'en."

     "I'll surf couches over waves any day," Loki says. "The sport's overrated." He shrugs, drinks more coffee. Nicotine addicts cling to their cigarettes less possessively than he is his coffee. "Competition's to be expected. No way to tell if you're any good except by knowing if you're better than other people, right?"

     Thomas gives a look of mock-outrage. "Do I look like a surfer t' you? Thanks, but no bloody thanks. I've me own races to run, and let me tell you, what I do takes a lot more fookin' skill than some berk on a slab of wood." He nods vigorously. "A-bloody-men to that. Anyone afraid of a little competition's in desperate need of waking up."
     He smirks, swallowing some more coffee. "So how're you going to get your foot in the door, Yank? To look at you, profanity - but there's plenty o' that here already. We've got our own, Yank! No need to bring more in past customs. So." He leans forward. "Let's hear it. The cunning plan."

     Loki says dryly, "I'm going to be so good at what I do people will be asking me to join their bands, instead of the other way around." He knocks back the rest of his cup in a long guzzle of sweet, sweet caffeine. "There you have it. So simple, they'll never see it coming. The very model of a cunning plan." He looks into his empty cup. "I'm going to need at least one more of these if I'm not going to fall asleep on the tube when I head home," he comments, standing up for another go at the counter.

     Thomas crows in delight. "Brrrrilliant," he rolls the r dramatically. "Only one little problem - how'll they've heard of you? Better get some flyers of your own made up, wot? But I'd say use duct tape to stick them up. Save yourself a bit of seed." He smirks, knocking back the rest of his own coffee and standing up. "Tell you what, Yank. I like you. If you want, I can get your foot in the door. I know people what know people, y'see?"

     Loki holds up a hand, and navigates his way through the process of acquiring more coffee before returning to the conversation. This round's in a paper cup with a lid, suitable for carrying out into the not all that bitter cold of the dreadful outdoors. "I'll take any introductions you want to throw around," he says. "After that, it's my problem to impress anyone worth impressing. What kind of people is it that the people you know know?"

     "The people I know know all sorts o' people. Entertainment people. Flash people. Mobster people," Thomas answers airily. "All depends on who y'ask. I know a wide variety of people, from all sorts o' walks o' life. Only thing they have in common is me - well. And my job." He smirks, seeming darkly amused by it. "You are over eighteen, yeh?" He sticks his hands into his pockets, seeming not to want or need more coffee as he wanders for the door with ambling, lopsided gait.

     Loki says without any offense taken, "Old enough to drink in the benighted You-Ess-of-Ay, even. So over eighteen." He trails along in the same direction, doing up the buttons on his jacket awkwardly with one hand. "You want my number, or should I start moping around in here hoping to run into you again?"

     "Yeh, gimme. Don't know when I'll be free, exactly. Got a doctor's appo in Bleak in the arvo," Thomas agrees. "My freedom then depends on if he says I'm clean and clear or not. If I'm balled up still, I'll call y' after the appo, otherwise when my infernal masters stop yanking my chains long enough to do." He grins cheekily, delighted with his own rudeness at his 'infernal masters', whoever they might be. A hand comes out, held palm up. "Though wouldn't be the first time I've had dollies moping over me, we'll try t' leave you off the hook, mate. Give."

     Loki digs a pen out of a pocket, and no paper. One quick glance around, and he pries an index card advertising the sale of a drum set (almost new, just needs new heads!) for an unreasonable asking price off the board, and scribbles a number across the back. He offers the card over between thumb and index finger, again as if he's handling a rag that's just been dragged through toxic waste. "Sorry," he says, not sounding all that sorry. "I don't exactly have business cards."

     Thomas smirks again, taking the card without seeming too fussed. "Sure thing, mate. Well, cheers." He offers a rude gesture by way of cheerful farewell, turning to stroll down the street. He sings as he vanishes round the corner, "Peter Peter pumpkin eater had a wife, loved to beat her smacked 'er twice across the head, fucked her arse and went to bed!" The last sight of him is him laughing like a lunatic at a gawking, horrified, ashen-faced little old lady who for one moment looks as if she might bean him with her umbrella - but then he's gone.

     There's a slim spark of a smile on Loki's face at the sight. And then he hunches his shoulders against the cold and climbs up to the street himself, heading towards the nearest place to catch a train back home and be warned about minding the gap.

Posted by rowan at February 12, 2009 06:35 PM