Who: Lowell and Iolaus What: Lowell gets mugged. Iolaus to the rescue! When: Last week sometime Where: A street/back alley place Warning/Rating: Well, there's a botched mugging, but otherwise none Status: Complete!
Staying at the studio late had it’s drawbacks. Sure, they’d finally managed to finish recording the song that had been giving them so much trouble, but, well, it was late. It was pretty dark too, and Lowell had decided to park a few blocks down from the recording studio. Extra exercise or something. Whatever he’d been thinking, he had been wrong.
Holding his guitar case, he cut through a back alley as a short cut. This, however, proved to be a mistake, when two guys emerged from behind the dumpster. Lowell held his free hand up, while he slowly placed the guitar case on the ground. Once it was safely on the ground, he held up his other hand. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, swallowing heavily.
Iolaus had been on his way home from the local bar-no surprise there. One of his favorite pastimes was going to the bar even if he didn’t drink that night. He’d end up playing darts or pool, cleaning up with a good amount of cash in his pockets at the end of the game, and tonight was no different. Tonight he’d walked away with a hundred bucks in cash betting on games of various sorts. The bar seemed to look away too as long as they got their cut. Iolaus might have been a shiny new teacher, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate good fun when he saw it.
He was content, in a good mood even as he walked his way back to his apartment nearby when he heard the voice around the corner from him. Something about trouble?...Why is it wherever he went he found some? Pocketing his money he turned said corner to see the guy with the guitar case and the two thugs. “Think you should listen to him.” Iolaus sid in the most non threatening way possible.
Lowell turned around nervously as yet another man entered the alley. Was he friends of the two thugs, boxing him into the alley? He started to reach toward his pocket for his wallet. Maybe if he just… tossed it at one of the guys they’d let him leave without things getting too messy.
“Hey, screw you man. This is our mark,” one of the thugs snapped at the newcomer. Okay, maybe they weren’t friends.
Iolaus gave the man an incredulous look and shook his head. “Well okay then, if you’re not gonna play nice we can do this the hard way.” A quick glance around to see what Iolaus had at his disposal really wasn’t terribly promising. There wasn’t a whole lot in that alley. Trash can, few broken things. The broken things might kill though, the blond wasn’t really looking to kill. So with a quick movement he tipped over the trash can near by and sent it barreling into the two goons.
“Run dude!” He said pointed at Lowell.
Well. That was unexpected. But Lowell wasn’t about to look a gifthorse in the mouth. He grabbed his guitar from the alley floor, and booked it back toward the man who’d come to his rescue. Running with a guitar wasn’t exactly easy, but it was worth nearly $3000 and he wasn’t about to leave it for the goons who’d tried to rob it from him. Not if he could just run away.
“Thanks!” he called to the man as he passed him.
Even if he had left the guitar behind, Iolaus wasn’t one to let guys like this get away with whatever they wanted. He had this crazy thing about people taking property that didn’t belong to them. He’d had some of his friends actually tell him he might have made a good cop in another lifetime but indeed that was one away as he had a criminal record. Police needed to be all shiny and spotless. One of the mooks tripped over his projectile while the other one just got red faced with anger. He charged at Iolaus and the blond stepped to the left, putting his arm out to drag the kid with him if he was near by. Sometimes it was better to just lt the angry blind man run full on into a wall if need be on his own. Which he did, and Iolaus grinned. Both of them were pushovers. “Jeeze, didn’t even work up a sweat. Ridiculous.” He shook his head as the new kid toward the end of the alley while these goons regained their bearings. Iolaus made a quick anonymous tip call to the police once they were in the clear.
“You okay kid?” He asked once he put his phone away.
Lowell was a little surprised at everything that went down, allowing the newcomer to nudge him out of the way of the would be robber. “Kid?” Lowell snorted after a moment’s processing. “I’m hardly that,” he said, because it was easier to focus on that than the fact that he’d just witnessed some stranger take down two robbers without hardly batting an eye. After a moment, he realize that he probably owed this guy a debt of gratitude, calling him a kid or not. “Thank you,” he added.
Squinting at him a little better when the light hit him more he raised an eyebrow. “So you aren’t. Sorry, auto response. I work with a lot of them.” He didn’t go into detail the dude he’d saved was a stranger, he doubted that he wanted his life story. He shrugged it off easy enough. Two thugs was hardly enough to shake Iolaus these days, His life was taking a weird direction again in that way. “Any time. Headed someplace nearby?” He really didn’t want the guy to get jumped again. You’d think that wouldn’t be a concern, but apparently in this city it was becoming one. Nearly getting jumped twice in one night, almost getting struck by lightning, demigods etc. Weird.
“You’re a teacher?” Lowell asked, raising an eyebrow. He was pretty sure none of the teachers at his boarding school would have been able to take out two muggers with quite as much ease. Then again, maybe they could have. Lowell hadn’t paid much attention to his teachers back when he’d been in school, being more concerned with playing music and partying. “I was just making my way to my car,” he said. “Thought I’d take a shortcut, but evidently that was a poor choice.”
“Yeah.” He could actually say that and have it be true. Strange the way life turned out sometimes. Iolaus shook out another hand and both of them felt as good as new again. “Let me walk you back, make sure they don’t have friends?” He’d at least feel better once the guy got back to his car. “Name’s Iolaus. I teach over at UCI.”
“Lowell,” Lowell said, offering his free hand to shake. “I’m a musician.” There was a pause as he glanced at the guitar case that was still in his hand. “Well, obviously.” He glanced back down the alley. “That might not be such a bad idea. I’m really not the fighting type. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t happened along.” Well, besides hand over all his belongings and hope they didn’t attack him anyway for the hell of it.
Iolaus returned it with his own, a firm grip. He wasn’t the shy type obviously. Even though he looked fairly harmless he did his share of damage on those goons. “Lets just be glad we don’t have to find out.” He offered a kind smile. “No sweat. Creeps like that are pretty easy at least.” He shrugged as he folded his arms casually and let Lowell lead the way where he wanted to go. “This neighborhood isn’t the best, were you playing a gig somewhere around here?” That would explain the guitar, but still-it was better to have someone to talk to rather than to walk in silence in the gang ridden neighborhood.
“Rehearsal actually,” Lowell said, frowning. “I’ve never had trouble before.” But they, they often didn’t stay so late. Pocket Dial were working on a few new songs that they were trying to perfect so they could play them live, which meant that Lowell had been keeping them later than normal. Maybe he should change that.
They made it to his car in short order, and he turned again to Iolaus with another grateful smile. “Thanks again, mate. Can I give you a ride anywhere?”
“Hmm. Well this city is always changing, so just keep an eye out.” He shrugged a bit as he lowered his hand. “Seems like this time of year brings em out more too. Nothing says Holidays like felony assault.” Iolaus said with a grin, obviously teasing.
“Any time. You need me just holler. I tend to hang around these bars a bit.” He pointed at the three on the corners around them. “Nah, I live near by. Don’t worry about me.” Iolaus thanked him for the offer and waited for his lead to find his car.
“Yeah, thanks,” Lowell said. He wondered if it would be too much to ask for for someone to walk him to his car after rehearsal from now on. A security guard or something. At the very least, he could park closer.
“You take care, Iolaus,” Lowell said. “And if you ever need anything, let me know.” He did owe the man, after all. He climbed into his car hastily, locking the door once he had sat inside, and took a breath. Truth be told, he was glad Iolaus hadn’t taken him up on his offer of a ride. Lowell was still feeling a little shaky after everything that had happened, and needed to take a couple of minutes to collect himself. Once he stopped gripping the steering wheel in an iron grip, he put his car into drive and headed on his way home.
The blond nodded as he waved a hand at the guy. “No sweat.” He didn’t help people for the favors it earned him, only because it was the right thing to do. “Just be careful.” He’d never done professional body guarding but after tonight he may well consider. Teaching didn’t pay a whole lot and hey who didn’t enjoy a bit of extra pocket money. He tapped on Lowell’s window before he could drive away and produced a card with his number on it and information. “Don’t be a stranger.” If something was wrong maybe he could do something about it because he believed people deserved it for the most part. With that he headed back down the street in the direction of the apartment he owned.