{"id":11499,"date":"2014-04-23T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/04\/23\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-68\/"},"modified":"2014-04-23T07:00:53","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T07:00:53","slug":"skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2014\/04\/23\/skinnydefenselessheroism-iamthefirechild-68\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

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\"image\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a full five seconds \u2014 that feels like five minutes while her brain sputters in overdrive \u2014 after Stiles\u2019 stammered words before Summer realises how she sounded. She\u2019s sure she must be unflatteringly beet red. \u201cI meant \u2014 not for me to help \u2026 just, sharp toes \u2026 you might be bleeding. \u2026 \u201d Nothing she says makes it sound any better.<\/p>\n

Giving up on not sounding prurient, she just repeats, \u201cYou should come inside and make sure he didn\u2019t claw you by accident. Besides, I owe you some kind of reward for going to all this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Stiles feels a little bit like the pair of them are caught in some terrible downward spiral of awkwardness and flailing, and he\u2019s never been able to keep\u00a0himself<\/em> from that kind of thing, much less help anyone\u00a0else<\/em> out of it. He stares up at Summer\u2019s face for a few moments, rubbing both of his kneecaps and thinking maybe she looks like how he feels, which is\u00a0completely discoordinated<\/em>, which is almost a relief because he\u2019s used to being\u00a0alone<\/em> with that feeling.<\/p>\n

He looks back at his knees, down at the tiny little holes in his jeans, and finally finds himself reaching to take the keys out of the ignition of the Jeep before he even really knows what he\u2019s doing. His free hand goes to open the door, provided it won\u2019t bowl poor Summer over when he does. \u201cI don\u2019t need a reward but\u2014yeah, uh. Maybe. Uh. I don\u2019t\u2026I mean my knees, maybe, some ice, I kind of\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

God, how does he makes this sound like he\u00a0isn\u2019t<\/em> trying to accept an offer to \u2018go inside for some coffee\u2019?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s almost disturbing, how hard it is to tell the difference between \/her\/ embarrassment and \/his\/ embarrassment. Summer steps back easily from the car door, though; she’s not clumsy or … well, graceless the way he seems to be. Years of dance does that for a person. Helios protests faintly and she rubs at his ears and murmurs, “Hush, fuzzy man.”<\/p>\n

It helps that she’s long perfected the ability to find the right key and unlock the door one handed, because now that he’s coming inside she’s oddly unwilling to seem any more awkward than she already has. She’s just going to keep going forward and ignore the awkwardness now. Or try to, anyway. “So, uh, you know my name. What’s yours?” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

skinnydefenselessheroism: iamthefirechild: It\u2019s a full five seconds \u2014 that feels like five minutes while her brain sputters in overdrive \u2014 after Stiles\u2019 stammered words before Summer realises how she sounded. She\u2019s sure she must be unflatteringly beet red. \u201cI meant \u2014 not for me to help \u2026 just, sharp toes \u2026 you might be bleeding. … 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\/11499"}],"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=11499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}