Street Surprises -- Trevor, Shade [Complete]

Like his luck is that much better at this point.

After nearly freezing nearly a few nights before he’d caved into the long trip all the way out to the west district. Apparently major liver damage didn’t clear up in a few days even for his abnormal healing rate, he’d feel like he had flue for probably a few more weeks at least and he wasn’t stupid enough to believe a weakened immune system would last in a dirty old building with fall coming soon.

So he spent a couple credits to ride the metro out here and dropped another 10 at a good will store buying two cheap quilts he could use to make a long needed makeshift bed back at the store. He’d had to lie to the grinning sales lady that they were for his sickly mother but he’d survived it.

Anyways, he’s on his way home, a black plastic bag with 2 blankets neatly folded inside slung over his shoulder; taking streets that were not clogged with people when he catches a glimpse of black.

He had approximately 5 seconds to react before the girl crashed into him. “Ow! Fucking-…” His head hit the pavement. Hard. Shit, real good luck he was having here today.

"Trevor! Oh, good! You can help me."

“Hey you-“ Too slow, he barely had time to recover from his head injury and search his memory to remember that this girl was shade before she was dragging him into an alley. God how come every time he had to run into this girl -ok technically it’s only been 2 times now- she literally crashed into him. And it seemed she had a habit for pissing off violent looking guys and dragging him into it.

She pulled them into an alley- what was she thinking, it was a complete dead-end! “What are you-“ in a shocking turn of events she grabbed his face and crashed their lips together. First a random girl shows up shirtless and injured in his store a couple days ago and now a girl he met once is kissing him. His brain is absolutely fried, any cognitive working part of his brain that was previously trying to make sense of the situation had completely burst into flames and he was frantically trying to separate the two of them but her hand was tugging at his hair.

The men who had been chasing her totally bypassed their hiding place and she finally let go of him. In his defense he was not thinking straight when he roughly pushed her off and almost tripped over himself slamming himself against the wall of the opposing building.

His face is needless to say completely red which contrasted strongly with his ice blue eyes and nothing but absolute gibberish and incomplete sentences was coming out of his mouth. And since he was yelling quite loudly there probably was a strong threat that they would catch unwanted attention, not that that thought crossed his mind for an utter second.

There are probably a good if not a large amount of people who would love to be in Trevor’s position right now but in this case; said man in said position is just plain freaking out. The fact she was leaning against him with her hand pressed against his mouth wasn’t helping either.

The urgency in her voice though finally managed to break through his hysteria and into his brain. He forced himself to calm down enough to grab her shoulders and pushed her off firmly. “W-what the hell was that about?” He wasn’t yelling now though obviously still flustered but he knows better now than to scream his lungs out in an alleyway. He got that those guys were bad, probably would’ve attacked them both if they had been caught but was it really necessary to fucking kiss him?

Her reply was almost equally awkward. Even little kids knew what kissing was, Shade was at least in her late teens so how could she just brush it off like that? He groaned and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “L-look you don’t just- it’s not… j-just don’t do that ever again ok?” Seriously he is the probably the worst person to explain things of this nature. It’s probably inviting more trouble in the future not explaining it properly but god knows he’d surely fuck it up trying to do it now in his state of mind.

“C-can you just give me my bag back now?” She was still holding it after all, picked it up for him when she dragged him into this mess.

Granted he is rather shy as a result of a mostly isolated lifestyle for so long but he felt completely justified that anyone would react the same in the same situation.

He… sort of understood her story, as jumbled as it sounded to him. This whole time he’d been keeping his eyes anywhere but Shade’s face and it took him a moment to realize she was leaning closer with a concerned look in her eyes. He didn’t hesitate to reel back his head, blushing more than ever. “Stop that!”
Shit this was the most awkward situation ever; she really had no clue about things like this at all huh? How many others had she given the wrong idea to? Of all fucking people why did he have to be the one to explain this!? “Yes! I mean no.. I mean yeah it’s a bad thing to do…sorta..y-you just don’t kiss people unless you like them a lot and…you just ask them first at least!” Best.Explanation.Ever.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, mentally beating himself up for sounding like a complete utter idiot. Was this how parents felt when they were giving their kids “the talk”?

You could almost say the exact opposite about Trevor, that he got used to having such a large personal bubble that regular conversation was hard to deal with.
At least she was starting to take the hint that she was invading his personal bubble a bit too much. Still innocent curiosity was etched in her features right now. Her questions were just getting more complicated and he didn’t know how to begin explaining it and some he didn’t even know the answer to at all. All that Trevor could think of was ‘why me?’ “I-it’s complicated alright? I’m not the person to explain this stuff…”

Realizing now that she was still holding his bag too, holding it out to him but probably forgot about it during this interrogation. He took it out of her hand. He back sliding down the wall with a deep sigh, the adrenaline had died down and it’s amazing how drained he felt just after a couple of minutes. “J-just don’t ever do that again to me please?”

Dealing with her ignorance felt more draining than just taking a number of injuries.

“It just is…” How many times would he have to say it before she was satisfied? He didn’t know why but he thought of his sister. There was no reason to, it’s been over 10 years no since he last saw her and she had been really little at the time but he could draw certain similarities between her and this girl. Like for one they both never stopped asking questions.

She shrugged, thankfully dropping it for now though the way she ended it sounded like she was expecting this to happen again. He really hoped not. Though watching , the look in her eyes changed; just subtly enough to notice that it switched from curiosity to concern.

He took back what he said about her finally learning to respect his personal space, leaning in closer again he thought for one second that she was going to kiss him again from some crazy conclusion she had formulated in her head. Instead a cool hand was pressed against his forehead; "Are you okay? You look sick."

So he’d gone from beet red to pale. He brushed off her hand with his own in a seemingly careless motion, “I’m fine, it’s just from a job I took earlier.” His tone suddenly distant, dismissive. No need to get her concerned over nothing. He’s fine. Really.

He flinched maybe a little too obviously at her touch. His hand went up to cover the spot where the sensation still tingled. It didn’t hurt at all , that wasn’t it. It was just… an extremely unfamiliar and over all motherly type of gesture and it gave him the strange sensation that he was 10 years old and in trouble.

His scowl could’ve easily been classified as a pout if it weren’t for the fact he is obviously too old and mature for that type of behavior. “I’m fine. And there’s nothing you can do about it anyways.” Half of that was true. He’s not fine, but there is really nothing Shade could do to help him. He would heal just fine, all he needed was time and unless her harbinger power could magically fast forward time or something, she’s powerless.

Her analogy is pretty spot on though. He keeps his heart firmly locked up behind a scowl and isolation. He’s soft, he’s way too gentle to be living in the world he does now with the lowest of the low so he keeps himself as far away from anything that could hurt him.

His head feels better than it did earlier, when he had hit it and then had to deal with the most awkward situation of his life. He pushed himself off the ground into a standing, bag in hand. “If all you needed me for was to escape those guys I’ll be going now.” He took a step out of the alleyway, he knew he was being really cold but then she might just brush him off as a jerk and go care about someone who needs it more.

He got about 5 steps out into the street before she caught him again. And he knows it’s on purpose this time when she entwines their hands together and is practically hugging his arm, acting like she’s his fucking girlfriend. He knew she was doing it purposely to be stubborn but the action still couldn’t kill the flush rising up his neck. “Get off me!” I told you I’m fine…” He tried to tug his arm away but it’s pretty much a futile attempt. He would literally pry her off but they’re in a crowd of people so he can’t do that for well, obvious reasons.

Her description was basically hitting the nail on the head with him and he was a terrible liar anyways so there was no rebuking. He sighed and looked down at her, “If I let you tag along, will you let go of my arm?” If you can’t beat them, join them.

Once he was free he started walking, it wasn’t like she was going to stop following him now. “I don’t really know how I’m supposed to be any different.” Needless to say he isn’t going to be the best at small talk either. If she was going to follow him all the way to the south though he hoped she would be able to pay for her own ride on the metro, it would be the obligatory and chivalrous thing to do but he just wasn’t sure if he had enough money left to pay for them both.

She wasn’t clinging to him anymore but the sight of a girl and boy together was enough to make plenty of idiots get the wrong idea automatically. He shrugged, what was the point in even asking a pointless question like that for the sake of sounding polite?

Things were quiet until they had to buy their tickets. He was correct from his assumption earlier, wouldn’t be able to afford them both. Just as he was stepping up to order his own though, the girl pushed forward ordering for them both. He wasn’t pleased that she had paid for both but he’d already tried challenging that stubbornness earlier and it completely backfired.

They managed to find seats, the orange glow filtering through the windows said it was probably close to sunset. He kept the bag between the two of them, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. Well, it had probably been too much to ask for the silence to last all the way back. Though strange question, it actually took him a moment before he could respond, it’s not like he didn’t know his own age, just keeping track of the days could become hard sometimes and it’s not like his birthday was anything special either. “20. Why?”

He raised an eyebrow, “May 7th.” He was getting a sense of foreboding as she shifted into a position where she could look at him more directly.

"So, what's your favorite color? What kind of foods do you like? Are there any you don't? What kind of hobbies do you have? What kind of weather do you like? What's your favorite animal?" The barrage of questions just kept coming, Trevor visibly started to lean away from her as if that could somehow help him get away from the completely random questions coming at him.

She finally stopped, waiting expectantly for answers that he had no idea how to answer. “Er…” Real eloquent. Everything he was supposed to answer sounded like it could have come from a 7 year old. Did he even have an answer to any of them? He’s sure he would’ve been able to answer no problem if he’d been barraged by the same questions a decade ago but he usually was more concerned with more serious matters to even think about such trivial matters.

“I don’t really…know… Why are you asking all these things anyways?” He didn’t try to hide the bit of irritation in his voice, maybe it would be enough of a hint to make her stop.

Oh god she was upset at him. She was the one trailing him around this whole time and then attacking him with an onslaught of random questions and she was the one upset? Times like this just confirms the fact that he will probably never understand women.

He should probably apologize. “Who asked you to be my friend?” That came out perfectly, He’s terrible with words, which means he can’t even tell her that he really didn’t mean to hurt her feelings he just is even more socially awkward than her.

Things were silent for awhile, most of the time spent switching between mentally beating himself up for obviously upsetting her and how the hell was he supposed to make it up. Train rides don’t last forever though, they reached south district before he could think of a suitable apology or otherwise. The train slowly came to a halt and he stood up, picking up his bag with one hand and holding out the other down towards Shade.

“You coming or not?” He had softened his tone, blue eyes averting to the side though. He wasn’t…used to this. But he was trying.

Shade had probably misunderstood the meaning of the question which didn’t help at all, but it wouldn’t exactly be a good time to explain either.

He let a internal sigh of relief she had not been stubborn enough to reject his hand. She stood up and he returned the hand to his pocket while they walked off the train. Hey, it’s not like he’s going to hold her hand or anything but she probably got the message it was a more symbolic gesture of trying to be more gentle. He knew he had a hot temper, one of his many faults and thought he had probably a butt load of good reasons to be pissed at her earlier, he wasn’t good at staying mad when the other party got upset.

As they walked though he possibly started to regret telling her to shut up earlier. It’s not like he wasn't comfortable in the silence it just felt awkward. Like she was purposely holding back about talking about anything and it was his fault. “S-so… don’t you have like…some people who are going to worry about you if you follow me home this late?” Did I mention how bad he was at conversation?