Ilia Amitola is color coded for your convenience (amitola) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-04-01 07:54:00 |
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People had clearly lied when they said that it didn’t rain in California and that it was warm. Okay so it probably was and in the months she’d been in the state, the temperature had fluctuated. But the past week it had been raining on and off and it was cold out and Ilia just… was not a fan of it. During the day, she usually found something to do. Libraries to go into, jobs that paid her under the table so she could save up for…. Ilia didn’t know. Honestly she didn’t know what she was doing. She had just needed to get away from it all and start over. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d done so.
Still, the teen was basically able to get money for food, sometimes a night in a hostel, but usually she was more likely to find herself in parks and under freeways. But there had been a territory fight with someone two nights before and so here she was. Trying to stay warm in front of a bookstore.
But the location wasn’t horrible. She’d be up before people really started to show up, and there was a cafe nearby that she could get food in the morning and a local YMCA where she could use the shower. Concrete however wasn’t comfortable and she was tossing and turning as she tried to get warm. Stupid cold. Stupid periodic rain. It wouldn’t last, that much she knew. For now though, she would just have to make due. It wasn’t the worst place she’d been in.
Blake had worked late helping to do inventory. It wasn’t something she always did, but she’d get more money, which was always a good thing. She was saving up so she could get an apartment of her own. She liked living with Logan, it definitely helped to give her a safe place to be while she tried to find her footing in a world that was still kind of really weird to her. Coming from Scientology, sometimes it was like Ruby and Yang didn’t even speak English. Scientology had its own dialect, apparently. But she ultimately wanted to be fully independent, having her own home, her own things, and do what she wanted without anyone telling her what to do or wear or anything of the sort.
Finally finishing up, Blake pulled on her oversized hoodie before she headed out of the bookstore. She was taken a bit by surprise by the fact someone was there, though they seemed to be...trying to sleep? Thanks to that handy night vision of hers, thanks to the faunus genes, she could see them.
“Um, hello? Are you alright?” She asked carefully. Her cat ears were covered by the normal bow she wore in her hair. She hadn’t yet pulled up her hood as she hadn’t stepped off the stoop of the door.
It was never easy to fall asleep on concrete. Or really when you weren't somewhere safe. So that fact, as well as the one that she was a light sleeper to begin with meant that Ilia was easily awakened when she heard a voice. Well okay, she hasn't been asleep anyway. Even so, the teen did jolt upright and looked in the direction of the voice, letting her eyes adjust.
Damnit, she had thought this would be a good spot but clearly she had been wrong.
“Yeah, I'm fine. If I need to move, I will.”
She didn't want to move, but it was better than risking the cops being called on her. Ilia had enough of a record, sealed or not, and she had hitch hiked to California to start over. So if it meant back to the freeway, then she would just have to deal.
Blake looked at the girl, noting that she looked young. And, well, her heart went out to her. After all, not all that long ago Blake hadn’t had a roof over her own head. Logan had found her and given her a place to stay. Was this girl in need of a similar place to stay?
The answer was, obviously, yes. And Blake wasn’t just going to leave her there. She also wasn’t going to call the cops on her. Blake still had an intense distrust of the police thanks to her upbringing in Scientology.
“No, you don’t need to move. If you would prefer a warm bed to concrete, I know a place you could go. If you wanted to.” She left the choice up to the girl. Blake wanted to give her a safe place to go, but she would never make her do so.
Okay… that was unexpected and Ilia wasn’t quite sure what to make of the offer. Because really, who just offered someone a place to stay? There was a catch, there had to be a catch. Because Ilia had joined the gang back in Arkansas for protection, but there had been a cost. Yes, she had done everything to protect them because she owed them her life, but it also made her suspicious.
“In return for what?”
Might as well just get it out with. Because while she wanted a warm and dry place to stay, Ilia couldn’t just shake off her experience and not feel that there was something she would need to do in return.
The question wasn’t unexpected. Blake had also been suspicious of Logan’s offer initially, but she’d come to understand that he just wanted to help for the sake of being a good person. There were good people in the world, something Blake still found herself a bit in awe of after the life she’d had before. But she also knew the value of being kind and generous since she’d been shown both when they’d been least expected.
“Nothing. Not that long ago, I was sleeping on park benches and cement like you. I want to show that same kind of generosity to others that was shown to me when I didn’t expect it.”
Of course, Blake didn’t expect the girl to trust her or her words, but she was hoping that she’d at least agree to it for the time being to get out of the rain. No one deserved to sleep outside in this kind of weather.
Ilia nodded slowly. Even with her poor track record of trusting the wrong people - and even then it wasn’t exactly like that despite how she often had to take the blame for things and then been pushed too far - she liked to believe that she could generally read people fairly well. And despite the darkness, to her it seemed as though Blake were being honest. That it was one of those pay it forward type situations. Only instead of with coffees, it was offering someone a warm place to stay dry.
“I guess I can’t argue that.”
Even if part of her wanted to. And she was rather miserable with the rain and cold. And there was nothing saying that this needed to be a long term thing. It probably wouldn’t, not with her track record.
“I guess if you’re sure though.”
Blake was honestly a little surprised that there wasn’t more argument on it, but she wasn’t going to complain. After all, who really wanted to sleep in the rain and cold like this? So she just gave a nod.
“Yes, I’m sure. Just let me text Logan to make sure he’s okay with it. It’s his home.” Blake didn’t exactly make a habit of bringing people in like this, but she felt he wouldn’t have a problem with it. So she shot off a text to him and exchanged a few with him. “He’s the one who took me in. My name’s Blake.”
Perhaps she should’ve introduced herself earlier, but no matter. At least she had now. And she also made a mental note that she’d need to keep her cat ears hidden at all times. She didn’t want to freak this girl out at all by the fact she had cat ears.
All things considered, Ilia probably should have fought more. But being on the streets meant that she’d been sick for the past few months to the point where she had seen embryos floating down from the sky before she’d fallen unconscious. No. Ilia might be suspicious but she was also keen on survival and if she could have a warm place to stay even for a few nights, she’d take it.
Still, she did quirk a brow when this woman, Blake, said that she had to check with someone named Logan. That added suspicion to her, of men who groomed young girls and then sent them out to get others. Well, she could defend herself if she needed to.
“Ilia.”
Might as well give a name in return.
Logan could best be described as a furry teddy bear with claws, at least from how Blake had come to know him. He reminded her a lot of her dad in some ways. Not for the first time, she wondered where her parents were and if they were still alive. However, she quickly put those thoughts out of her mind. She had something else to focus on now.
“It’s nice to meet you Ilia.” She saw the text about food and looked back to Ilia. “Are you hungry? Logan said he’d bring dinner home for us.”
Furry teddy bear with claws or not, Ilia would decide once she knew the man. For now though, she was wary but also cold and wet and not looking to get sick all over again. And if he tried anything, well, she’d fight back and run once again. It wasn’t like she was even known in the area so it wouldn’t be hard to disappear if she needed to.
For now she was going to take a major risk and trust in the kindness of strangers.
“You too…”
And it was. Even with her concerns, it was nice to meet someone who didn’t seem to want anything from her yet was still being kind. As for food, “Um...yeah. Something to eat might be good.” It had been a couple days since she’d eaten since she only had just managed to scrounge up money to get something the following morning.
Blake certainly wasn’t the type to take advantage of others. She knew what it felt like to be taken advantage of and controlled, and she certainly wasn’t going to do it to anyone else. But she also knew actions spoke louder than words, so she’d simply let Ilia take her time to fully trust her in this.
“Do you have any dietary restrictions? Allergies, vegetarian, vegan or anything?” Because that was always important to find out before just giving someone food. Also, it was a choice for Ilia that Blake definitely wasn’t going to make.
Once that was taken care of, Blake stuffed her phone in her pocket. “When you’re ready, we can head off.”
“No restrictions.” Ilia would take what she could get. It was nice that Blake asked and maybe there were some who did have restrictions, allergies or the like. But as Ilia had never had been vegetarian and had no allergies, she wasn’t going to be picky about what she was given. Food was food. Just like somewhere warm and dry was better than this.
So as Blake sent another message to this Logan person, Ilia packed up her makeshift bed to put back into her backpack, standing up with a nod.
“Lead the way.”
Giving people the choice was always a good thing to do. So hopefully that was helping in getting things off to a good start here. Not that she knew how long Ilia would stay, but it was always good to be on good terms with people she was living with.
“This way, it’s not far.” Which was certainly a good thing on a night like tonight.
Blake stayed silent, mostly as she wasn’t one for small talk, and she didn’t want to pry too much into Ilia’s business right now. She walked somewhat quickly so they could get out of the rain as soon as possible. But Logan’s place was a couple blocks away, and she led the way inside.
“Here we are. Logan told me you could borrow a flannel shirt if you wanted to put on something dry right now. You can put your things in here,” she said, leading her to the spare bedroom. “This is your room for however long you stay here.”
Well, Ilia appreciated the choice being given to her. One more sign that at least Blake seemed to be someone she could trust. Well, trust as much as she was willing to trust anyone at present. Maybe there was just part of her that was desperate to form a connection with someone else and that was the reason she hadn’t fought as much even as she pushed that down and focused on the fact that it was cold and raining and just better to get out of it.
So she followed after Blake, not minding the silence. Ilia was bad at small talk. Despite her height, it was easy enough to keep up with Blake’s pace and soon they were at the house that she was being offered to stay in. Stepping inside, the teen looked around some but nodded at Blake’s comment.
“Better than sitting around in wet cloths.” Even the clothing in her backpack would be wet. Oh she could actually do laundry here. So that did mean she would have to wear a strange man’s flannel shirt for the time being but it wasn’t the worst option. So she put her bag into the spare room and nodded some.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a little smile. “I’ll be right back.” Blake went to Logan’s room, feeling weird about going in there, but she had permission. She went over to the closet and grabbed one of his shirts. She did catch a glimpse of the pictures he had in there, but she didn’t linger.
Heading back to Ilia, she handed her the shirt. “Here you go. I can show you where the washer and dryer are if you want to do some laundry. Or, well, just a tour in general of where things are.” Yeah, Blake wasn’t the best at this. Blake was the quiet bookworm, not the social one.
As Blake went to get the shirt, Ilia took a more thorough look around. Nothing seemed to be suspicious and it was definitely better than the stoop outside the bookstore. Looked comfortable enough. Still she took the shirt once it was handed to her nodded.
“A tour would be good. And the washer and dryer.” Because might as well use it while she had access to it. Especially with all the wet clothing. “But first changing.” Since she’d rather not take a tour in her current state of dress.
“Of course. I’ll wait out in the living room.” Blake said before she left and let Ilia change clothes. She took her hoodie off and went to toss it into her own room. She paused in front of a mirror to straighten her bow and make sure it was still covering her cat ears. Really, better to keep those hidden and not make Ilia question anyone’s sanity or anything right now.
Once that was done, she went back to the living room and waited for Ilia.
Once Blake left, Ilia closed the door and peeled out of the wet clothing before putting on the flannel. Which did more or less fit like a dress (and inevitably made her seem younger now). That done, she twisted her hair up into a bun and put her wet clothes to the side until she had gotten the tour of the place. All of that done, she headed to the living room.
“Right then. Tour?”
Blake nodded and took Ilia on a tour. Kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, pointing out her room and Logan’s and other things of interest.
“Logan runs an outreach center here, so he spends a lot of time there. Be warned he’ll probably try to feed you at every turn. He’s been a mother hen to me and trying to get me to gain weight.” Which, yes, Blake was skinny, but she had gained muscle tone since she’d started dreaming. She was just lean muscle, not bulky muscle.
It wasn’t too difficult of a tour, then again most houses weren’t. It wasn’t like it was some riciulous mansion with more rooms than anyone knew what to do with. And oh she had seen some of those houses in her random explorations as Orange County tended to be rather rich. Which usually led to eye rolling on Ilia’s part.
“Spends time at an outreach center and also be prepared for food. Got it.” Again, just as she had told Blake when she asked about food earlier, Ilia wasn’t about to turn that down. Not after months with limited access to it. “Though that sounds annoying.”
“It can be annoying. It’s not my fault I prefer eating fish to having a steak or something.” And of course given Logan had told her he was getting her a tuna sub, that was currently all she could think about. Blake definitely loved her fish.
“Anyways, the place is pretty self-explanatory. The fridge is always stocked, so don’t be shy if you’re hungry or thirsty.” Blake had a moment of wondering if she should warn Ilia about the whole...waking up screaming sometimes. Which she felt she probably should just so Ilia didn’t think she was being murdered or something in the middle of the night. “Um, I do want to warn you. Sometimes I have...really bad nightmares and wake up screaming. So, I’m sorry about that ahead of time if it happens while you’re here.” Blake seriously hoped it wouldn’t, but she couldn’t control her dreams or nightmares.
Ilia had to scoff at that, “I mean, I’m against guys who think they can determine what it is I need more than I do but that’s absurd if you have to fight for the food you like.” At least that was Ilia’s stance. Still, there were things she wouldn’t stand for, people trying to decide things for her. Yes, she wasn’t going to turn down food, but if it was going to be more insistent on specific food when she could make her own…
“That’s good.” And then the comment about nightmares and screaming. Well, that was certain noted though it wasn’t like she was going to judge Blake for it. So she just shrugged, “It’s fine. We all have our demons that come at night.” Yes, Ilia’s were more related to her waking up in tears but there was the odd dream where she’d wake up screaming because she thought she was caught in the mines with her parents.
“Oh no, oh god no I didn’t mean that he chooses what I eat. He just says I need to eat more. I just prefer fish to...pretty much everything else.” Which was probably tied to being a cat faunus, but Blake wasn’t going to deny that she loved fish above everything else. She could easily just pass it off as loving seafood more than anything else. Or let people think she grew up on Japanese cuisine, which...hadn’t completely been the case.
Blake nodded a little. “Okay, I just wanted to warn you for that. Didn’t want you to think I was being murdered or something.” She scratched the back of her head. “But you’re right, we all have our demons, and they don’t all come out in the same way.” Sometimes it was dreams, sometimes it was people and daily interactions. Blake had a lot of demons, and they were all very easily tripped.
“Oh.” And despite the fact that she was still wary, Ilia did flush some given Blake started tripping over words to correct her opinion on Logan choosing food and all. Maybe it just said more about her than anything. “Well that’s good that he doesn’t choose what you eat. That would just be creepy.” More creepy than just taking in stray girls. “But hey, we like what we like. Nothing wrong with that.”
Still, Ilia could appreciate that Blake would want to give her warning and so she nodded some. “Duly noted.” Complete with mock salute. Though depending on how lightly she was sleeping or where she was mentally, it was always possible Ilia would forget that warning and go to fight an imaginary assailant. “Exactly.”
“Yeah, it would be creepy. And I’ve had more than enough of people deciding things for me.” And that was all Blake was going to say on her past for the time being. She didn’t need to dump her life story on Ilia right now. Or ever, if she had anything to say about it. As much as Blake needed to talk about things, she really didn’t like talking about much detail of her past. She preferred getting by with telling enough to give people the picture. Details only came as needed and only to very specific people.
That would be something if Ilia came running to fight an imaginary assailant. But it wouldn’t exactly be something new, either. Logan tended to be on top of things, when he was home, if Blake had a bad night. “Not everyone seems to understand that, but it’s a relief that you do.”
“So have I.” Because even when she was conflicted about the gang, she knew that at the end of the day, they had tried to control her even if she hadn’t seen it at the time. Though Ilia supposed that tended to be the way of it. Still, like Blake, she wasn’t exactly keen on going into all of that. After all, mentioning she used to be in a gang would probably get her kicked out. So leaving it there was good for her.
As for Blake thinking that it was a relief that she understood that everyone had their own demons? The teen shrugged.
“Yeah, well people tend to be dumb about that and have a limited frame of reference to base their opinions on while projecting it on everyone.”
“Yes, they do. They don’t bother to listen, they just fill in the blanks themselves and tell you how you should be.” There were multiple people in Blake’s life that actually filled that role of telling her how she should be, and they all did it in different ways. It hurt, and she didn’t exactly stand up for herself in such situations either, which tended to make it worse. It was also one of the reasons she was slow to make friends and to open up to others.
Blake found it hard to talk about herself, and she didn’t want people filling in the blanks and so forth for her. Still, she at least felt at ease around Ilia. Which, given her dreams, wasn’t all that weird. If this was the same Ilia, of course.
But Blake wasn’t going to say anything about that. Not unless Ilia started dreaming.
“Which is the absolute worst.” Hey, even if Ilia were still getting her feel about Blake, she was pretty blunt in her assessment of people. Which meant that she was blunt in her feelings about people pigeonholing others for whatever purpose. Sure, they probably didn’t mean to and were trying to help. But it was annoying and not helpful.
Nice to know she wasn’t the only one who thought that though.
“It really is.” Blake hated it, but there wasn’t all that much she could do aside from actually talking about it. But she wasn’t quite in the place to breach the subject when needed, so she simply went along with her life as best as she could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t easy to begin with.
“Anyways, Logan should be home soon with food. I should let you settle in, if you want. I don’t want to take up all of your time or anything.” Plus Ilia probably wanted to get some laundry started.
“I don’t mind. But I should probably start my laundry anyway.” Since she had the option and well…. No one wanted to leave wet clothing on the floor for too long. “But thanks. Again.”