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The bag at Jude's feet was battered but stylish: messenger style faux leather that had likely, at one time, passed for the real thing. By the time he'd picked it up at a second hand store, however, it had gone past its golden years, had been abandoned scuffed and faded for eager fingers to snatch up. He'd done his best, however, to give it a second renaissance: the beaten-up exterior, he thought, gave it a well-loved and sophisticated feel to it, like an aging professor. He hadn't touched that. Instead, he'd replaced the strap with brown-and-green argyle, had lined the interion with tidy, matching material, and a blue handkerchief stuck out of one pocket to brighten it up.

Jude was experienced in taking something second-rate and dressing it up as something more.

He was out of his apron at the moment, settled in a quiet corner of the mostly-empty cafe with his jacket draped over the back of his chair and his tie -- daringly green -- loosened just a touch to make it easier to work. His laptop was just as scuffed as his bag, but of considerably lower quality. A jaunty tophat sticker placed at an angle over the light-up logo on its back did nothing to improve speed or performance, unfortunately.

He ground his teeth as all of his open internet tabs ground to a halt, slumping back and scowling at the piece of crap machine. The expression had more comedy than rage. He was too adorable to properly pull it off.

"I need a new computer." A grumble, low, mostly under his breath, it was intended for no one but himself.

"No, it's just a piece of...." It came with a huffing sigh, Jude's eyes flicking up onto Ian as he squeezed by -- and he seemed to click back into place, mouth working and hunting for better words. Something that would fit well with the immaculate suit, the perfect double-windsor in his tie...

"I need to buy a new laptop, I mean. I think. This one's out of date." It wasn't entirely a lie, either: it was just that there was no chance in hell Jude would ever be able to afford a new laptop. Maybe in a year or two, if he saved up all his earnings, if he gave up all the other little hobbies. If he only ate peanut butter and jelly. He made a face at the thought, pushing at the touchpad as if tap-tap-tapping would make things kick back into gear.

"Not enough, uh. Power." He shrugged, looking back up at Xian and forcing himself to come back into focus. "You're a little later than usual? I'm usually behind the counter..."

His machine was still dragging, Jude sitting back with arms folded over his chest in frustration. It was better than slamming fingers against the mouse, click-click-clicking as if that'd fix something, but it wasn't much better -- not when he was so small and young, and the posture just made him look like a pouting kid. Petulant. Sulky.

On the screen, his cursor whirled, refusing to respond or react. Behind it, the Reddit home screen offered up a page of links that Jude could not click. At least he hadn't been doing work...

After a moment, his eyes flashed onto Ian, mouth still set into that not-quite-a-pout, trying to process that. "...claw marks?"

Jude's expression had gone pensive, considering the possibility of three lines down the side of a car, his mind whirling to compare it against the pictures of that self-same weird stuff he'd seen cropping up here and there on the internet. Usually they were blurred, dirty, and at least half of the comments on reddit were simply the word 'photoshopped'. Usually, Jude was inclined to agree. Sometimes, though....

He blinked up at the question, and there was a twenty second delay while he processed, running through what Ian had just said to figure out -- oh. He stood quickly, shaking his head as he reached out to lower the laptop about 45 degrees. Not actually enough to keep anyone from looking, but it made a point, at least.

"Um. I can..." He hesitated. He got drinks when Ian and he worked on math together, but this was different. Was it weird? "If you want something, I can? I have staff discount..."

Another man might have protested the money; if Jude had been anything more than just appearances, he would have shrugged it off. But he wasn't, so instead he shrugged and took it, between two fingers, offering a nervous butterfly of a smile before he stepped back toward the counter. For the moment, he obviously trusted Ian with his things, not to snoop or to let anyone take off with his laptop. Or maybe it hadn't even occurred to him.

At the counter, his hair was tousled as he ducked under the divider, apparently to take up space beside the girl currently working and make the drinks himself. That was probably a health code violation, but no one really seemed to care that he wasn't on shift, that he wasn't wearing an apron. This was not, after all, Starbucks.

Ian could have a good five or six minutes of peace before Jude came back with food, drinks, and change. In that amount of time, God willing, his computer would finally start to respond, too.

Jude didn't just stop at the counter to order; instead he'd ducked behind to make up their drinks properly. Soy latte was a travesty, but if it was what Ian wanted, he could deal at least some. His own beverage of choice involved much more espresso, proper milk, sugar, hot even in the heart of winter. Nothing was quite like hot coffee.

At least the cold drink made it all easier to carry. He set Ian's cup down at his elbow, the cookie propped carefully across the mouth, and stacked the change neatly to one side of it. He radiated heat; it was much warmer behind the counter than on this side, and the coffee clutched in his other hand didn't help much.

He blinked down at the picture on Ian's screen, taking in the familiar reddit layout, and it brought him up short. "...um. Here's the...you're on...uh. That's the one?"

Jude folded slowly down into his own chair, both hands curled around the mug in his hands, staring at the page with his head tipped to the side. To be fair, the picture did look kind of shopped. The claw marks down the sides must have been done by something incredibly sharp, as they left almost no drag in their wake. Had it been a scrape along a wall, or against a fence or a pole, the edges of the 'wound' would have been peeling up. Instead there were just empty spots, sheered straight across, impossibly clean and without a mark on the car otherwise.

"...it looks fake, though." He didn't even really mean to say it. The words fell out of him unbidden, and as soon as they did, Jude's eyes flicked up onto Ian instead. Embarrassed, maybe. "Not saying it is, but it looks it."

Instead of replying immediately, Jude was quiet for a moment -- thinking over his words with a slow look around the room, fingers shifting somewhat uncomfortably against the buttons of his mouse. He tried not to upset, when he could, and it seemed obvious that Ian had some kind of stake in all of this. He seemed bothered by the photoshop comments, by the lack of belief, but on the other hand...

"...even if you brought them out here, I'm not sure they'd believe you." It was a careful, delicate way of putting his own disbelief out there. Sure, he'd seen some wrecked cars, heard rumors, watched shaky video footage. He'd investigated at length. He was curious about the whole thing. But on the other hand...

"I've never seen anything in person." The look he flicked back toward Ian as he said it was nervous. Halfway expecting to get his head bitten off.