{"id":10497,"date":"2014-05-09T05:59:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T05:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/05\/09\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-the\/"},"modified":"2014-05-09T05:59:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T05:59:07","slug":"skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/05\/09\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-the\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

skinnydefenselessheroism<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

iamthefirechild<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The sudden sharp pain of Jesse hitting Stiles\u2019 nose cuts through Summer\u2019s shields the way a shout cuts through earplugs. Her gasp of pain is swallowed by Stiles\u2019 shout and she whips around in time to see the two boys attacking each other. Fury turns her stomach, and she can\u2019t put any effort into \/stopping\/ them; she\u2019s too busy patching her shields.<\/p>\n

By the time Summer can pay attention to what\u2019s going on, Stiles has Jesse on the floor, and a couple of the bowling alley staff are trying to separate them. She clamps her hands together in a futile effort to stop the tears, but it\u2019s too late. She\u2019s not even sure why she\u2019s crying, only that she\u2019s overwhelmed. Too much emotion, half of it her own; too many people, too close.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Stiles is\u00a0pissed<\/em>, but he\u2019s not actually that interested in a physical fight, because he knows he\u2019s not the best at them and eventually his luck will run out where they\u2019re concerned. He lets the bowling alley employees pull him away from Jesse but they can\u2019t stop his mouth, which runs down a long, colorful list of questionable things Jesse\u2019s parentage might have indulged in. Poor Summer\u2019s tears don\u2019t go ignored, they go\u00a0unnoticed<\/em>, mostly because Stiles is half pre-occupied with already trying to formulate a plan on what he\u2019s going to\u00a0tell<\/em> his Dad<\/em>\u00a0about the bloody nose and possible police reports.<\/p>\n

Mostly because he\u2019s in the process of being\u00a0mostly<\/em> politely asked to leave by the alley staff, his real shoes shoved at him hastily. He\u2019s told he can take the alley shoes off at the curb outside.<\/p>\n

So there Stiles sits, surly, trying to unknot the laces on the bowling shoes so that he can jam his feet back into his trusty Converse. It\u2019s dark and quiet outside, which mostly leaves the teenager alone with a whole weight lot of\u00a0well that was stupid of you, Stilinski<\/em> rattling around inside his skull.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He’s not sitting alone for too long before Summer comes out, arms huddled tight to her body and flanked by Zenobia and Beth. They’re carrying her things, and she’s barefoot. Another one of those wordless conversations ensues, mostly \/over\/ Summer’s head, though she doesn’t notice. She’s too caught up in herself, almost frantically trying to find anything to focus on besides what’s going on in her own head and failing. Zenobia leaves Summer’s boots and carries everything else off to a red van, while Beth gently guides Summer to sit on the surb near Stiles.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think it was still this bad,” Summer sobs. “I thought I was okay — I mean, I was, until he … he said those things — what did I do wrong? I don’t even know what I did.” Beth doesn’t really try to stop her talking, just sits with an arm around her and occasionally makes shushing noises, obviously intended to be soothing. Her expression says this scene is something they’ve gone through before.<\/p>\n

When Zenobia comes back, she stops in front of Stiles, regarding him with a slightly jaundiced gaze. “What happened?” she asks. It’s not entirely accusatory, but it’s clear the other two girls are basically forming up to protect their friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

skinnydefenselessheroism: iamthefirechild: The sudden sharp pain of Jesse hitting Stiles\u2019 nose cuts through Summer\u2019s shields the way a shout cuts through earplugs. Her gasp of pain is swallowed by Stiles\u2019 shout and she whips around in time to see the two boys attacking each other. Fury turns her stomach, and she can\u2019t put any effort … Continue reading <\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,867,21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10497"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}