She stares at him for a second, shocked that he would even consider going over there enough to rule it out. “I don’t want to be anywhere near that thing. I don’t know what it might do to me.” She climbs out, gazing around, then turns west to look at the fading glow of the sunset behind the trees. The last golden light turns her hair flaming red and makes her skin seem almost luminescent. “This is perfect.”
Whirling back around, she flashes a smile at Stiles and opens the back of the Jeep, hauling out the telescope, blanket, and snacks cheerfully. Darkness closes in quickly, and she ensconces herself on the blanket to wait for the stars to come out.
“In my experience, crazy ladies use it to literally kill you.” Stiles says, so cavalier about the statement regardless of how ridiculous is. “Luckily, like being transformed into a newt, I got better.”
There’s a bit of flailing he does when Summer takes everything out of the oft-cramped back of his Jeep, but he doesn’t insist, because Stiles often finds himself caught in a terrible place between chivalry and feminism. Does he offer to help because he wants to be gentlemanly or does he let it do it herself to express his awareness of her agency as an individual?
Well, shortly it doesn’t matter at all, and instead he finds himself fussing around the edge of the blanket, taking it upon himself to at least set the telescope up because, after all, it’s his telescope and one might presume a certain amount of familiarity with it.
Summer is content to wait until the stars come out before setting up the telescope, but Stiles seems to feel differently. She watches him, eyes adjusting to the shadows. When he’s not thinking about it so hard, there’s much less twitch to his motions. He knows what he’s doing with the telescope, and it’s very pleasant to watch him in his competence.
She’s so absorbed in watching him, long limbs and elegant fingers and lithe motions, it surprises her a little when she glances up through the trees and sees the first stars. Pulling out her phone, she finds the sky map app and orients herself. “There. Polaris.”