Steve Harrington (bbsittersclub) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-05-26 21:27:00 |
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It was a typical Monday morning where Steve needed far more caffeine than there was probably humanly possible, which meant a quick trip over to the local coffee shop. Finals had ended last week thankfully, but he was trying to get back in the groove of real life and not having to go to class for a couple months. He was going to start looking for some jobs to keep him occupied during the summer, but he was hoping to at least take a week to be lazy and today that meant rolling out of bed around noonish and now he needed coffee.
After grabbing his order from the barista he made his way out of the coffee shop. The street wasn’t terribly busy and he started down on his way over to a nearby park and meet a couple guys for a pick up basketball game in a bit. Suddenly his attention was taken by a weird noise ahead of him and he headed towards the sound, which seemed to be coming from an alley. A brief thought about horror movies passed through his mind, but he shrugged it off.
It had been an interesting month so far. Between dealing with the Dreams making the death of her parents all the more fresh because of them dying in them as well, in the same way, as they had in the real world, then the Orcs, then her sitting outside of Blake’s room for basically three days until her friend finally came out of hiding and getting her to talk to Ruby...then suddenly Mother’s Day… well, it had been a lot and what that meant was that Ilia decided she needed a change. And what better thing to change than her hair. As much as she liked the pink, she was thinking purple.
Or that was the plan. Because as she’d been heading to the store to pick up some bleach and dye, she’d been recognized by some jerk who…. Oh right. The asshole she had ‘cheated’ out of getting more money because she had made the mistake of coming to the defense of Weiss, not realizing she was helping a Schnee.
“Look asshole, I don’t want to hurt you but I will.”
Just because she was tiny didn’t mean she couldn’t pack a punch. He had backed off before, but clearly he was just itching to fight and well… Ilia had a lot of pent up aggression. Still, she’d already dealt with one racist asshole a few weeks ago and the black eye was all healed now. She really wasn’t looking for a repeat.
The voices grew as he got closer and when he turned the corner he saw the woman and a man and the woman had a very aggressive stance that seemed to be defensive. Steve tried to sort through the situation was quickly as he could in his head and he quietly made his way behind the man, “I think it’s time that you left, man. Obviously this lady doesn’t really need you to be here anymore.” It probably wasn’t his place at all to say something like this and the woman could probably handle herself, but sometime a little extra back up made punks run away.
In an effort to make himself look like he meant business he crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin slightly. He could definitely throw a punch if he had to, hell he could fight dirty if the need arose, but he didn’t want to hurt someone just like the woman didn’t. Hopefully this guy would figure out that he was in a losing battle and just run off.
The drug dealer who Ilia had scared off before just shook his head in disgust. He probably should have left well enough alone but he’d lost out on a major score and didn’t take kindly to that. But he was also smart enough to know that it was better to let something go when one was outnumbered. Even if he wasn’t so sure the guy who had shown up could hold his on.
“Looks like you got lucky, bitch.”
“Looks like you got lucky since now you won’t get your ass kicked by someone a foot smaller than you.”
Was she goading him? Probably but he left and the teen turned her attention to the person who had shown up, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Thanks….”
Steve couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the man claiming that she got lucky, but at least that he was finally leaving. He wasn’t going to judge the woman for what kind of incident got her in this position, but it was the least he could do - helping someone out was an important quality to have. He turned his attention back to the woman once he knew the guy was gone and gave her a smile.
“You’re welcome - I hope you don’t mind me stepping in. He didn’t look like he was going to back down very easily and I’m not going to walk by anyone being threatened.”
Ilia was used to jackasses like the one who was walking away with his once again wounded pride. Which was why she could have handled herself if it had gotten to a point where it turned violent. Racist assholes, punks like the drug dealer? All the same in the end to her. Still, at least he left and she didn’t have to deal with yet another black eye or anything like that.
As for Steve? Well, she wasn’t exactly used to people stepping in and it tended to make her vaguely suspicious. However Blake had helped her for no real reason than to help and so far her decision to stop being paranoid about her (before the Dreams and realizing they knew one another in them) hadn’t led to any catastrophe so it stood to reason this guy was just another person who wanted to help. So she shrugged some.
“I don’t mind. And yeah, he apparently is better at being threatening when it’s one on one. The second someone else shows up, he suddenly has something else to do.”
“That seems to be a thing for most guys like that. I used to get picked on a lot when I was younger and a lot smaller, but you can always tell a bully from a mile away. Especially the ones that are blustery and only talk a big game,” at least he hoped that dude wouldn’t actually do any of it. Steve was at least pleased that he was different from his Dreams though because he didn’t think that the other Steve would even bother to stop and help someone like this woman. However, he didn’t want to just walk off if she wasn’t okay.
“Are you good? Do you want me to help walk you anywhere in case he lurking around? And don’t worry, I’m not expecting anything - just trying to be helpful,” he knew he probably sounded a bit weird, but he didn’t want her to be afraid to ask for anything because she thought he would expect anything from her, “I’m Steve, by the way.”
“Basically.” Ilia had always been a fighter. ‘Anger issues’ as she was labeled by the foster system and constantly moved around. Then she’d joined a gang and had been able to supposedly focus her anger and then...well, life changed. The dreams were similar. Anger, ready to fight anything. Assholes like the one who had just left.
“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine. I was just heading to the store.” Which was close by. It wasn’t a definitive yes but she wouldn’t turn Steve away either. She wasn’t too worried though. She had handled worse. “Ilia.”
“Oh the one just down the street? It’s on my way, so I can walk with you,” Steve suggested with a small smile and turned to head out of the alley. He wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight just yet because that creep made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He didn’t have any siblings, so he felt a weird brotherly protective vibe coming over himself in regards to her, “Nice to meet you, Ilia.”
“That’s the one, but sounds good.” Luckily it wasn’t too far so it wouldn’t get weird or awkward and well… it was on the way to a lot of places anyway so it wasn’t like Ilia would have to feel bad about him going out of his way to walk her somewhere that she was able to get to on her own even with some creep lurking about. Following him out to the main road, she gave a slight smile, “Likewise.”