Who: Ilia and Veronica What: First meeting When: Today Where: Grocery store Warnings: Low Status: Log | Complete
It seemed like Veronica was always going to the grocery store. She was always running out of one thing or another. Specifically diapers. She couldn’t wait until Liam was potty trained. Veronica was over charging diapers, buying diapers, basically anything to do with diapers. But for right now she just had to grin and bear it.
After placing a few packs of diapers in her cart Veronica figured she might as well pick up some more things she was bound to run out of soon enough. Veronica made her way down the aisle turning at the end when she almost hit someone with her cart. “Sorry,” the blonde apologized giving a polite smile.
The one issue with the colors Ilia used on her hair was that they tended to fade quickly. But it also meant she could switch up her colors as well. With the blue from the previous month gone, it was back to the grocery store to look through the different colors she could use.
Purple? Well, she’d been kidnapped by the Red Room while she had purple hair and Ilia wasn’t completely sure she was ready to try that color again even if she really had liked it. There was always pink which was her usual go-to.
Maybe she should text someone for an opinion. Or….she could nearly be run into by a blonde woman with a cart. Nearly. It was kinda creepy how she managed to step out of the way without realizing it. Was it White Fang training? Red Room training? Whatever it was, Ilia pushed it to the side and just nodded some.
“Uh. It’s okay.”
“Who knew grocery stores could be so dangerous,” she quipped. Although Veronica was well aware. Aisles were barely big enough for two carts to go down them. And when it came to the end? You couldn’t exactly see around the corner. Which is precisely why she had almost run into the young woman in front of her.
Oh. They were doing this? Okay. Ilia never really knew how to respond to these sorts of things. Usually she was angry. She was almost always angry and she had reason to be. But she was also really trying to suppress her automatic responses of anger, especially in situations that didn’t require it. Either way, it left her feeling awkward though she supposed it was better than annoyed as usually happened when she first met people.
“Yeah well, anywhere can be dangerous. People clearly don’t know how to set things up. Or they want to cause collisions.”
“Yeah,” Veronica agreed. She was going to say more like how the person who designed grocery stores had some sort of twisted mind. However before she could her phone dinged with a text. Glancing at her phone she saw it was from Leon and figured she might as well look at it. Only to see some ludacris meme of a bunny. “Seriously, Orcot?” Veronica muttered. She had no idea what the hell went on in that guy’s brain sometimes like why he felt the need to text her ridiculous things.
IIia had figured the conversation would end there, because really. Small talk, it was awkward and they both had their own lives and all. But then she said Orcot and honestly it wasn’t exactly a common name. But it was a name she recognized from when she’d needed to look Leon up to find out where he lived to check on him like Alex asked.
“Wait, you know him?”
Okay, the world was suddenly a lot smaller.
Veronica rose a brow at the woman’s question. It wasn’t like Leon was the most social guy around. He was a bit of a grump. And that was saying a lot coming from her. It wasn’t exactly like she was sunshine and rainbows herself. “Leon? Yeah,” Veronica replied slipping her phone back in her pocket. “Why? He do something to piss you off?” Which again wouldn’t be unlike Leon.
Ilia herself wasn’t known for being sunshine and rainbows so that wouldn’t have been such an issue for her. She did blink some in confusion at the question on him doing something to piss her off. That was...well, okay. Interesting but hey. Whatever.
“No. I’m friends with Alex so when all of...that… was going on, Alex had me go check on him to make sure he was okay.”
No need to mention him offering her beer given the whole 18 years old thing. He’d been in a bad place and she didn’t hold it against him and she’d had enough presence of mind to figure he’d probably get mad at himself and her if she had gone along with it after the fact.
Ah. That made sense. It was sweet of Alex to have Leon checked up on. Leon had been a mess the whole time Alex was in jail. Not that Veronica could really blame him. If someone she cared about went to jail for something that happened in the dreams she’d probably be a mess too. Well, for about ten minutes at least, before she focussed all her energy on getting them out. It was how she dealt with things.
“Yeah, not really the best time for Orcot,” Veronica replied stating the obvious. She was about to make a comment about how dreams could be a real bitch but held back. She had no idea if the woman before her would understand what she meant.
Ilia couldn’t blame him either. After all, her initial reaction had been to try and find the cop who arrested Alex and fuck him up, but had only managed to talk herself out of it because she knew it would just make the situation worse. She was protective of those she considered her own.
“No kidding.”
And oh, Ilia would understand. While her own dreams had basically impacted her concerns on who she was if she was always just being used by some group to do their dirty work or take the fall…. They hadn’t been as traumatizing for her as they had for others. Mostly. It was all just reminders of the past and anger. The only reason she wasn’t in clothing one might wear in the winter was because she had the bracelet Ruby made on that helped her maintain her body heat.
But like Veronica, she didn’t know if the older woman would understand any references to the dreams, so she said nothing on it at that moment.
“At least that’s all sorted out now.” Though Veronica didn’t exactly have the best feeling about the whole thing. Like the fact that the guy suspected of shooting Leon turned up dead. And why there was even a new suspect in the first place when no one in this world actually shot Leon. But she wasn’t about to share all that with the young woman before her.
“Well, if you know Leon and Alex I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“Exactly.” Ilia wasn’t sure what to make of it but she wasn’t going to ask questions. She just knew that Alex was out of jail and no longer suspected of shooting his boyfriend and that was good enough for her. Maybe it shouldn’t be good enough, maybe she should care more about the specifics but there was so much she was already dealing with that it was easier not to.
So instead she gave a small nod.
“Yeah, most likely.”
“Have a good day,” Veronica said and with that she walked off to finish her shopping.
“Yeah, you too.” And as Veronica went back to her shopping, Ilia went back to figuring out which color of dye to get.