Who: Leon and Chase What: Leon catches Chase trying to buy booze underage When: Recently Where: Leon's favourite liquor store Warnings/Ratings: Language? Status: Complete
Leon wasn’t a stranger to this liquor store. He typically stopped in a couple times a week to pick up beer, and once a week to pick up a new bottle of whiskey to keep next to his bed. When he walked in, he waved to the man behind the counter and was greeted by name, and then went to the back of the store where they kept the cold beer.
Leon may have lived near LA his entire life, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t still get excited when he saw a celebrity. Especially when it was a sports celebrity. He recognized Chase Stein almost immediately. It was hard not to recognize the youngest person to ever be drafted to the NFL. He patted his front pocket for his notepad so he could get a signature, when he suddenly remembered where, exactly, he was seeing the seventeen-year-old football player.
“Hey,” he barked, most of his good mood already disappearing. “What are you doing?”
***
Chase generally tried to keep his liquor purchases outside of the immediate area around his house. But the direction his dreams were taking was definitely testing that resolve lately which was why he found himself in this liquor store, stocking up on beer and thinking about picking up another couple bottles of whiskey. He had a fake ID and even though anyone who followed sports would probably know it was complete bullshit - it looked real enough that people could claim they didn’t know. Plausable deniability or something like that.
He sighed at that question, barely looking away from the refrigerated unit as he answered. “What the hell does it look like? I’m buying beer.” He normally tried to be more polite but right now? He really couldn’t care less what people thought of his behavior or attitude. He wanted to get drunk so that if he had another dream maybe he wouldn’t remember it this time.
***
Leon was not appreciating this kids attitude, especially the whole not looking at him while he spoke thing. Leon placed his hand on the door of the refrigerator, and went to slam it shut in Chase’s face.
“Last I checked, it wasn’t legal in this state for a seventeen year old to be buying liquor,” he said firmly.
***
Chase let out a sigh as he debated fighting with the guy over the door or moving on to another cooler. He really didn’t want to deal with this crap today. Some cop who had nothing better to do than harass him over buying some beer? “Chill. I have a fake id. And I hardly think that my buying a case of beer to drink at my apartment is going to really hurt anyone.” He said, looking over at the guy before moving over to another case.
“Don’t you have someone who’s doing something that actually hurts other people to bother?” He asked, unable to stop himself.
***
Leon blinked, wondering exactly what kind of idiot admitted to having a fake ID to a police officer. “A fake ID huh? Better hope it’s a good one. C’mon, cough it up,” Leon said, holding out his hand.
***
Chase let out a bitter laugh when he saw the guy hold out his hand. “I’m not that stupid.” He said, opening the case up to grab his beer. Well his second choice beer since this guy was blocking him from his first choice. It really wouldn’t matter much once he got drunk enough.
***
“Could’ve fooled me,” Leon grumbled. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now. All he wanted was to go home and see Chris and Alex and crack a few beers. He didn’t want to go through all the trouble of finding the kid, and then the liquor store. Hell, this liquor store was on his way home from work. He was in there nearly every day. How awkward would it be buying beer after he slapped them with a fine and had their employee doing community service. Why the hell couldn’t teenagers think of anyone but themselves?
Leon slammed that case closed again, and leaned in. “Listen you little asshole,” Leon said. “If you buy this booze, I am going to charge you, and you are going to lose your driver's license, and then I’m going to have to charge that nice man behind the counter. So how about you save us all the headache and skedaddle?”
***
“What the hell is your problem dude?” Chase said, lashing out just a little bit with his temper. “I’m just trying to buy some beer to survive the fucking Dreams that show me my parents and their friends murdering some kid.” He knew he wasn’t really helping his cause any but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “There’s a hell of a lot worse things I could be doing to numb that.”
***
Leon was a little surprised when Chase started going on about his dreams. Chase Stein got them too? There was part of Leon that found that kind of exciting. The rest of him forced himself to quash that feeling. He had the law to uphold. And he had to do an extra good job of it, especially since he’d given the finger to the law himself when he’d broken Dan out of prison. He was going to have to be extra diligent in his job now that he’d gone and done something stupid like that.
“Yeah, and then you’d be going to prison instead of getting a fine,” Leon snapped, but his tone softened just a touch as he continued. “Sorry about your dreams, kid; they fucking suck and I know that. But the laws the law and I can’t just pick and choose when it applies to people.” At least, not anymore. “Just give it a rest.” He wasn’t going to outright say that Chase could go to literally any other liquor store; he really couldn’t encourage the kid. But if he hadn’t taken too many blows to the head, he could figure that out himself.
***
Chase barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Leon snapping. Was that supposed to scare him? He faced worse than that every practice. He gave an almost laugh at Leon’s comment about the dreams sucking. “Yeah - I traded one shitshow with my parents for another. I guess I should be glad they settled for just stealing my money here instead of my dad using me as a punching bag for his frustrations,” he said a little bitterly.
“Yeah. Whatever.” He’d go to another liquor store to get what he wanted. That was the best part about living in this area - plenty of liquor stores around. And there couldn’t be a cop in all of them. He walked away, leaving the alcohol there as he waved at the clerk on his way out.
***
Leon frowned to himself, watching the kid leave. Part of him wondered if he should have been a little gentler. There was no way he was going to let that kid walk out of here with a case of beer, but from the sounds of it his dreams were giving him a real hard time. Leon couldn’t really imagine needing to deal with these dreams when he’d been a teenager; he, at least, had been 24 when his dreams started.
He shook his head. Whatever, it wasn’t his problem. And his job wasn’t to make friends with every kid with a sob story, his job was to uphold the law. And so he grabbed a case of beer, then a second as an afterthought, and went to pay.