ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

What that really meant was ‘no’. ‘No, this hurts, stop.’ So she stopped, running the discarded necklace through her hands again. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to bring that up for you.” They didn’t look at each other for a moment, avoiding gazes and pasts and thoughts, and then she cleared her throat 

“So, uh, how long have you lived here?”

Ace tried to force down the annoyance building up inside of him.

But no.

That is his pain. It isn’t up for grabs, up to share with anyone else.

Those are his unshed tears, his figurative wounds that would scab over in time but always leave scars that run deep.

Thankful for the distraction, he answered in one quick breath, “Just a few months. Don’t ask where I was before then.”

“You must’ve moved in while I was gone for spring break,” Summer mused. Until the heat wave, she hadn’t actually paid any attention to her neighbors except to notice that they existed. Well, there was that couple weeks when the folks below her were fighting constantly, and she could hear them through the floor — that had sucked. “Do you go to school around here, or what?”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

Summer nodded encouragingly, squeezing a little. Ducking her head, she tried to catch his eyes, but he kept pulling them away. She’d never heard a more unconvincing ‘I’m fine’ in her life. He seemed so prickly, and then it turned out there was this well of pain.

“It has to be more than just lust,” she murmured. She drew in a deep breath, drawing back her hand. “Can you tell me what happened?” Curiosity was her besetting sin.

It seemed like this tin man did have a heart.

But the difference was, at times like this, he didn’t want it.

He didn’t want to feel it tighten at the thought of her, how he let her force down the walls he’s built up for the better of his life, take what she wants, then leave.

Especially not in front of Summer, the ‘new girl’ in his life, per se, because she is new, to him, and a girl.

That he’s currently trying to make heads or tails of his feelings towards her.

“What’s there to tell? You already know the score,” he said, lifting his gaze to meet hers for a moment or so before training them on the coffee table once more.

What that really meant was ‘no’. ‘No, this hurts, stop.’ So she stopped, running the discarded necklace through her hands again. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to bring that up for you.” They didn’t look at each other for a moment, avoiding gazes and pasts and thoughts, and then she cleared her throat 

“So, uh, how long have you lived here?”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

“You too?” Her voice was soft, sympathetic. “I figure I was just born broken, and nobody wants to take the time to figure out how to fix me.” She busied her hands among the beads, but she wasn’t really doing anything with them — the equivalent of playing with her food.

“And as soon as they realise that the things they want to fix aren’t the things I want to fix — that’s the end.” She really can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. She ran the half-finished piece through her hands and asked, in a musing tone, “Do /you/ think it’s bad for two people in a relationship to fight?”

“I think, sometimes people think they’re really up for the job. That they’re ready to find you sitting at your dinner table with nothing but a bottle of scotch and red eyes and… they think they can just take you apart like an engine, examine your deepest, innermost thoughts, and put you back together in one night… and then they realize it takes time, and that’s one thing they can’t offer, because they’re so fucking ready to jump into the deep end…”

The lad’s anger spiked with every word he spit out, laden with venom and hurt he’s bottled up since Allison up and left. He laid it all out unabashedly at first, but soon found himself trying to sweep the whole angsty revelation under the rug.

“I think it’s normal. To fight every once in a while, I mean. Perfect relationships are boring — you need room to change and grow.”

Summer looked up at Ace as his tone intensified, eyes widening a little. Apparently she’d accidentally ripped open a well of pain, and she put the necklace down to reach out a hand and put it on his knee. “I’m sorry,” she offered. She looked down, and back up at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Her own memories didn’t matter in the face of this. Yeah, Jesse had hurt her, expecting a kind of perfection she was never going to attain, but this — if they’d known each other longer than an hour she would have offered to hug him.

In exchange for his words, she said, “That person — that I was with, before — he … believed if you really loved each other you wouldn’t fight. And I’m … kind of a temperamental person.”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

She glanced over at him, and sniffed a couple times, hard. “I’m sorry,” she managed. “I didn’t mean to bring that up for you. It’s just — it’s been months, but I can’t seem to forget. I’m really sorry. I’m not normally like this.”

After a moment she shook herself, smearing her hands across her face, and picked her way back to her nest in the centre of the mess. She’d managed to put Jesse out of her mind, mostly. Every so often something came up, though, that reminded her sharply of the way they’d broken — of how much she’d lost.

Her laugh was a little bitter. “I guess we’re just the unwanted people of the world, huh.”

Ace let her apology go through one ear and out the other. She was sorry for feeling, for being human.

But then again, the lad always found himself doing the same, because he didn’t want to accept that some people just had this… this power over him, and soon became corrupt at having the upper-hand.

Just thinking about the pain he used to feel drove flashes of anger through him, and his eyes dropped to his lap, digits curling into a fist so his nails dug into the heels of his palms.

“You get used to it after a while. You’re their Jesse, and you tell them you don’t want to wind up in the box again, and for a while, they listen, but… in the end I guess my place really is on the Island of Misfit Toys, huh?”

“You too?” Her voice was soft, sympathetic. “I figure I was just born broken, and nobody wants to take the time to figure out how to fix me.” She busied her hands among the beads, but she wasn’t really doing anything with them — the equivalent of playing with her food.

“And as soon as they realise that the things they want to fix aren’t the things I want to fix — that’s the end.” She really can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. She ran the half-finished piece through her hands and asked, in a musing tone, “Do /you/ think it’s bad for two people in a relationship to fight?”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

“It’s — I — ” She put her hands over her face, feeling hot and upset, and that song was still playing, bringing back memories she didn’t want to face. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I don’t want to remember that relationship,” she replied, equally stiffly. Steadying herself with one hand on the desk, she finally turned the music off, and sagged a bit with relief.

It took another few deep breaths before she no longer felt like she might cry in the next minute. “It was /our/ song. The one that — ” Her throat closed up again. After another minute, she managed gruffly, “I don’t want to be reminded that he hates me now.”

Ace watched the girl slowly begin to crack and crumble before him, thinking back to his own nasty break-up with Allison.

She was his whole world and then some, and having to go on as if it still spun perfectly without a speck of chaos to be located, hurt.

And it still hurts.

And watching Summer hurt, makes it… hurt. Even more, because he can relate, and that’s not something he can say often.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looked down at the box set in front of him once again, not wishing to intrude on such a private moment for her. It was her pain, and it wasn’t meant to be shared for the likes of him, he knew this.

He respected this.

“Allison and I had a song. She really, really loved Miley Cyrus. She just insisted our little anthem was When I Look at You,” he whispered more to himself than to her.

She glanced over at him, and sniffed a couple times, hard. “I’m sorry,” she managed. “I didn’t mean to bring that up for you. It’s just — it’s been months, but I can’t seem to forget. I’m really sorry. I’m not normally like this.”

After a moment she shook herself, smearing her hands across her face, and picked her way back to her nest in the centre of the mess. She’d managed to put Jesse out of her mind, mostly. Every so often something came up, though, that reminded her sharply of the way they’d broken — how of how much she’d lost.

Her laugh was a little bitter. “I guess we’re just the unwanted people of the world, huh.”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

Summer carefully pretended that she didn’t notice the way Ace’s expression changed, briefly, while she sang. It was faintly amusing that the way to get him to open up was to wait; it was foreign to her nature but it seemed to be working. Finishing that pattern, she dug out the box of larger beads with larger holes, putting it by his knee, and the spindle of tigertail wire.

And then the next song began, and her heart twisted. She thought she’d deleted all the copies of that song, but apparently she’d missed one, and she lurched to her feet, scrabbling at the computer. She tripped, trying not to step on Helios, and reeled hard into Ace’s shoulder.

Ace lifted his knee after cocking his eyebrow to observe what she set just beyond it.

He never felt comfortable trying new things in front of strangers and acquaintances. The way he nervously stumbled, fingers shook, how he leant in and held it up for them to see, asking them for confirmation that he’s doing it right.

The lad’s every move just screamed God damn it, stop making me feel so inadequate!

When the song changed, as did her demeanor, a different strand of guarded curiosity rose in the deep bits of Ace that didn’t want to be reserved and passive.

Whatever memories it triggered, it seemed painful, so painful to the point where the lass scrambled to change it, only to end up barreling into Ace.

He used one hand to attempt at steadying her easily by the waist, falling back with an ‘oomph!‘ as both hands flew to keep him from ramming into the floor beneath them, staring up at her, eyes wide with shock.

“What’s so bad about this song?” he inquired stiffly.

“It’s — I — ” She put her hands over her face, feeling hot and upset, and that song was still playing, bringing back memories she didn’t want to face. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I don’t want to remember that relationship,” she replied, equally stiffly. Steadying herself with one hand on the desk, she finally turned the music off, and sagged a bit with relief.

It took another few deep breaths before she no longer felt like she might cry in the next minute. “It was /our/ song. The one that — ” Her throat closed up again. After another minute, she managed gruffly, “I don’t want to be reminded that he hates me now.”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

She glanced up at him, eyes dancing. “I hardly think you can mess up stringing some beads. I’ve got plenty.” She shrugged, though. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.” Humming softly along with the music, she held up the one she was working on, contemplating its length, and went back to adding another pattern to it.

The current song playing ended, and as the next one began, she smiled a crooked sideways smile at her hands, before starting to sing along. “~o I fall in love too easily / I fall in love too fast / I fall in love too terribly hard / For love to ever last.”

The thought of what he was missing out became too much to bear. What if it became a more productive outlet for him? Like his writing, or doodles — minus the cramp in your hand, once he gets used to the way his fingers will grace the thread of course.

“Can I?” He asked with a moment of hesitation, looking up at her after peering into the box once more.

“I mean… can you teach me first?”

He’s never used the very little manners he’s been taught courtesy of his mother before she effectively tapped-out; the most he gave people were curt nods of acknowledgments and grunts when he was terribly in the zone and barely ever gave such an action a second-thought.

When she began to sing, a small smile tickled against his lips despite himself. Still, he managed to wipe it clear away as he hung off of every word that came out of her mouth, how she even managed to sing the back vocals and imitate the beat or tempo with a bounce of her leg.

Summer carefully pretended that she didn’t notice the way Ace’s expression changed, briefly, while she sang. It was faintly amusing that the way to get him to open up was to wait; it was foreign to her nature but it seemed to be working. Finishing that pattern, she dug out the box of larger beads with larger holes, putting it by his knee, and the spindle of tigertail wire.

And then the next song began, and her heart twisted. She thought she’d deleted all the copies of that song, but apparently she’d missed one, and she lurched to her feet, scrabbling at the computer. She tripped, trying not to step on Helios, and reeled hard into Ace’s shoulder.

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

Summer looked down at her hands, thinking for a moment. “I used to string pony beads, or the crystal-like ones, when I was little with my mom,” she began. “You know, the fat round plastic ones that teachers pretend are indian beads. They aren’t, of course. And, I don’t know, I just got fascinated with all the different possibilities, and different rocks and gems, and I started looking up tips on the internet, and designs, and here I am.”

The box just behind her was large and filled to the brim with little boxes and various containers, each one filled to the top with beads or gem chips or strangely-shaped shiny bits. “Do you want to try?” she offered.

Ace listened with hooded attentiveness as he again ran his hands across the many textures of the different gems and stones, keeping a sequence on their respective threads.

The lad couldn’t think back on doing something special with his mother; she betrayed his father at so young. Warmth didn’t fill his home, but tension. He found himself avoiding the cute little brownstone townhouse more than he spent time inside of it.

“No…” He objected quickly, eyes falling on her current piece of work. “I’d probably mess it up. I like watching.”

She glanced up at him, eyes dancing. “I hardly think you can mess up stringing some beads. I’ve got plenty.” She shrugged, though. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.” Humming softly along with the music, she held up the one she was working on, contemplating its length, and went back to adding another pattern to it.

The current song playing ended, and as the next one began, she smiled a crooked sideways smile at her hands, before starting to sing along. “~o I fall in love too easily / I fall in love too fast / I fall in love too terribly hard / For love to ever last.”

ace-omalley:

iamthefirechild:

The wry smile flashed again, though she kept her eyes mostly on what she was doing. He tried to hard to seem prickly and standoffish, but the way he looked as he lifted out some of her finished pieces told her how much more to him there could be.

In all honesty, she was restraining herself from pushing — there were lots of questions she wanted to ask, and a /lot/ more she could say to him about what she was doing. It wasn’t so much that she was naturally outgoing — she wasn’t. But here was an interesting new person, and there was no one else around to make her feel shy.

But she bit her tongue, just watching him, fingers sliding chip after chip onto the wire. Hopefully, if she was patient, he would open up to her.

Ace’s gaze drifted from the jewelry in his hands, to the way her fingers worked nimbly in a matter of minutes, not at all feeling awkward by the silence.

He was a listener. Not a talker, and for this, people thought he simply did not understand; he was a one-dimensional, heap of muscle, all-brawn, no-brain.

Not true. He saw things, and he understood, he just couldn’t put it in words or voice his observations.

“Where did you learn?” The question was innocent enough, he was still trying to get a feel for this unique soul just a few steps across from him.

Summer looked down at her hands, thinking for a moment. “I used to string pony beads, or the crystal-like ones, when I was little with my mom,” she began. “You know, the fat round plastic ones that teachers pretend are indian beads. They aren’t, of course. And, I don’t know, I just got fascinated with all the different possibilities, and different rocks and gems, and I started looking up tips on the internet, and designs, and here I am.”

The box just behind her was large and filled to the brim with little boxes and various containers, each one filled to the top with beads or gem chips or strangely-shaped shiny bits. “Do you want to try?” she offered.