{"id":10769,"date":"2014-05-03T02:55:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T02:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/05\/03\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-43\/"},"modified":"2014-05-03T02:55:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T02:55:04","slug":"skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/05\/03\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-43\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\n

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

\n

Summer just nods, acknowledging everything he\u2019s just said. \u201cYeah. Okay. Just \u2014 one thing, okay? You don\u2019t get to decide if you make me uncomfortable. You\u2019re a \u2014 you\u2019re a \/kindred spirit\/. I\u2019m \u2014 I can tell things like that; you know, sometimes you meet someone and you just \/know\/. Sometimes you don\u2019t even have to meet them in person. All my real friends are like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She glances at him from under the arc of red hair shaped from the way her braid hangs over one shoulder, almost to the floor. \u201cI understand about \u2026 people not being interested. Jesse is \u2014 was the only boyfriend I\u2019ve ever had. Nobody else ever \u2026 I\u2019m not \u2026 \u201d She shrugs, somehow embodying embarrassment and acknowledgement and frustation in one motion. \u201cI\u2019m \/me\/. And he\u2019s right, anyway, nobody is ever going to want me. I\u2019m used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve both used those words now, and she wonders how close his \u2018used to it\u2019 is to her own, that long knowledge of being different. His difference probably isn\u2019t anything like hers, though. In a way she hopes it really isn\u2019t; she honestly wouldn\u2019t wish her ability on anyone. So to deflect the topic a little, she smiles, something bright and inviting, and says, \u201cIf you want to get to know me, you can ask me anything, I don\u2019t mind.\u201d She leaves him there to ponder that while she takes her turn.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Stiles gives a breathy half-laugh through his teeth. \u201cOkay. Fair enough. I don\u2019t get to decide when you\u2019re uncomfortable. K\u2014yeah, sure. Kindred spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a flicker of a look to the side, as Stiles keeps his hands pressed between his knees, his voice suddenly gone wry. It seems like being in that mode\u2014the wryness and sarcasm\u2014is the fastest way to cool his normal stammering \u00a0speech patterns. \u201cDude, no offense<\/em> or anything, but Jesse was a huge douche. Like I am pretty sure Summer Eve factories have less douche in them than he does. I wouldn\u2019t exactly judge my self-worth based on his bullcrap because he\u00a0definitely<\/em> seems like the kind of aye-whole who\u2019d say that kind of stuff about a perfectly nice girl just because she shut him down. Which, not asking, but hey, if that\u2019s what happened,\u00a0good for you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

His eyes narrow, just faintly, when she tells him that he can ask\u00a0anything<\/em>, like he doesn\u2019t believe that entirely means\u00a0anything.\u00a0<\/em>Still, he doesn\u2019t do anything to interrupt her turn, watching as she bowls with his fingertips tapping out some erratic rhythm against the insides of his knees.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She wants to defend Jesse, to explain somehow the goodness inside him — the rainy days when they just laid in bed together and talked, sick days when he brought her soup, the guitar, the bicycles — but there’s no point. It’s impossible to explain what she sees, how easy it can be to look past the bad when the good is so clear.<\/p>\n

So Summer just bowls, managing to knock down all the pins, and points out that Phoenix is Marvel when she looks up to see Zenobia’s changed her name to that, and that Batman is DC, so they don’t match. She sits quietly, watching, with her chin on her hand, while Stiles takes his turn, and doesn’t say anything when he comes back, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

skinnydefenselessheroism: iamthefirechild: Summer just nods, acknowledging everything he\u2019s just said. \u201cYeah. Okay. Just \u2014 one thing, okay? You don\u2019t get to decide if you make me uncomfortable. You\u2019re a \u2014 you\u2019re a \/kindred spirit\/. I\u2019m \u2014 I can tell things like that; you know, sometimes you meet someone and you just \/know\/. Sometimes you don\u2019t … 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\/10769"}],"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=10769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}