{"id":31628,"date":"2012-12-11T02:23:52","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T02:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/12\/11\/a-friend-in-need-summer-8\/"},"modified":"2012-12-11T02:23:52","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T02:23:52","slug":"a-friend-in-need-summer-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/2012\/12\/11\/a-friend-in-need-summer-8\/","title":{"rendered":"A Friend in Need (@Summer)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

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

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

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Summer had been feeling \u2026 off, for hours. That horrible, \u201csomething is wrong but I can\u2019t figure out what\u201d feeling that made her restless and snappish. When she\u2019d gotten Tony\u2019s text, she\u2019d flung herself out the door so fast she was barefoot, loose-locked, and still wearing house-lounging clothes, wrapped up in a big woolen cloak. She dropped to her knees beside Tony, grabbing his hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened? You feel like you just walked through hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tony laughed weakly, letting his head thunk back against the wall.\u00a0 \u201cI, ah,\u201d he cleared his throat, \u201cI had an incident with Dummy.\u00a0 He asked me to marry him.\u00a0 And I freaked the fuck out and left.\u201d\u00a0 He snorted.\u00a0 \u201cSo I went back to talk to him, and everything just kind of locked up once the word polyamory got involved, and he broke up with me.\u00a0 So I left, only to have to run back because he shot himself.\u00a0 So I had to drag him to the workshop to put him back together, and he\u2019s telling me not to the entire way, and when he woke up later he would have started trying to take himself apart if I hadn\u2019t showed up as soon as I did.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He leaned his head to the side to scrub his eyes against his upper arm, since Summer had his hands.\u00a0 \u201cSo I got him calmed down, and I think we got everything figured out and I\u2019m pretty sure we\u2019re okay now, but it\u2019s, uh,\u201d he laughed, short and somewhat hysterical, \u201cit\u2019s been quite a night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lifted his head to look at her again, eyes wide and damp, and there was a tense pause before he managed a somewhat strangled, \u201cShit<\/em>,\u201d and let his head drop to his knee, pulling his hands away from Summer to bring his arms up to hide his head.\u00a0 Because that would magically hide the fact that he was having a break down in the middle of his office floor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With every word, Summer\u2019s heart sank more. \u201cTony, why didn\u2019t you call me?\u201d She put her arms around him, dragging him out of his curl to hold his head to her chest. \u201cShh,\u201d she murmured, rocking a little. \u201cLet it go, love, please let it go.\u201d She laid herself completely open to his emotions, tears dropping from her eyes into his hair, stroking her fingers through it.\u00a0With one hand, she got the shot glass away from him, putting it up on the desk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI was a little busy,\u201d he mumbled in reply, voice unsteady, moving easily as she pulled him closer.\u00a0 For a few long moments, he didn\u2019t move at all, staying limp.\u00a0 Finally, though, he tucked his head against the crook of her shoulder, curling one arm around her shoulders.\u00a0 There was a harsh, bitten off breath that could have been a mangled sob, before he fell silent again, shoulders shaking.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Oh, darling, darling,” Summer crooned, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “You don’t have to carry it all alone, you don’t.” She cupped her hand around the back of his head, stroking gently, holding with all the love she could find. “Just let it all go. I can hold it, I’ll help you. I’m here, I love you. Please cry, darling.” It hurt, carrying his pain, but better her than anyone else. And she resolved to seek out Dummy at the first opportunity after she’d settled Tony.<\/p>\n

Which might be a while, but that was fine. That was just fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

gadgeteerphilanthropist: iamthefirechild: gadgeteerphilanthropist: iamthefirechild: Summer had been feeling \u2026 off, for hours. That horrible, \u201csomething is wrong but I can\u2019t figure out what\u201d feeling that made her restless and snappish. When she\u2019d gotten Tony\u2019s text, she\u2019d flung herself out the door so fast she was barefoot, loose-locked, and still wearing house-lounging clothes, wrapped up in … Continue reading A Friend in Need (@Summer)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,3785,199],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31628"}],"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=31628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firechildren.net\/lightfire\/iamthefirechild\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}