Swathed in Vulnerability (Phira)

[dustyn james harrison]

When Dusty left Dunkin Donuts, he was determined to lose the address that Phira had given him at the first possible opportunity. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a beggar. He’d never taken a hand-out in his life, no matter what his circumstances were. He hesitated outside the trashcan, his hand wrapped around the piece of paper she had given him. He wanted to just toss it in and be done with the situation, but he couldn’t bring himself to, and after a while he moved on.

There was no harm in keeping the address, he thought to himself. Maybe it would even help him to have it, in some silly way. It would be a reminder of what Phira had taught him; it was possible to live the good life, despite his current circumstances. He could work up to something good.

That night, as he was wandering through the streets of Trenton, he had a thought. It wouldn’t hurt to go look at Phira’s apartment. Just the outside. He’d kind of like to see where she lived and what she had built up for herself. It wouldn’t hurt at all to go take a look.

He pulled the crumpled address out of his pocket, squinted at it, and then, slinging his backpack up on his shoulders a bit, he set off for it. When he got there, though, he was surprised. He had expected the apartment to be a low-class one on the bad part of town. This one was… Well, it was kind of nice, actually. It looked sturdy, and safe, and… warm. He sniffed lightly and leaned hard on his cane, just looking at the apartment.

He’d be an idiot to refuse, he realized with sudden clarity. For years he had kept his status a secret, but he knew all the time that he was wishing someone would notice, take an interest in him, and do something to help him. Now that someone had, he couldn’t even really tell what it was that was holding him back.

Fear, of course, he thought, frowning. The second he stepped into that apartment—her apartment—then he was playing by her rules. He wasn’t real good at playing by another person’s rules. He never had been. That’s why Cessford had been so hard on him as a kid. But now, he’d been living on his own, without Cessford’s guidance… He didn’t know if he could live by another’s rules after so long.

He could always leave, though, he told himself as he climbed the stairs. He could always walk out if it got to be too much. And, with that thought in his mind, he raised a hand and knocked on the middle of the door.

[sephiran mckenzie kain]

Sephiran was a book. And you could never judge a book by it’s cover, though it was often a small taste of what was to come. That was Sephiran for sure. On the outside she was this thin pale girl with long blonde hair and her own view of the world. But she was much more than that. She looked like someone who worked out a lot and was very up tight, but she really wasn’t. She had done ballet as a child, but besides that she hated excessive exercise.

Phira was a movie buff, she had built up quite a collection from corner street pawn shops and garage sales. If Sephiran had to choose her favorite it would have to be the Jim Henson movies. She had two of them but still need the third in the set. The only problem was that she had no idea what it was called. The only thing that she knew was that it stared a young girl. Then again, which of Jim Henson’s movies weren’t about a young girl. Labyrinth was about a fifteen year old girl, Sarah, who needed to save her brother from a goblin. And in Mirrormask, it was about sixteen year old Helena, who gets trapped in her own imagination.

After her little run in this morning, as much as she wouldn’t admit it she was kind of excited. Phira was headstrong and could be kind but she didn’t really have very many friends outside of school. If he stopped by, she would be almost happy. She had saved up to get herself a nice apartment and when she came here there had no one bedroom ones open. Bust this was sixty dollars more and it came with a free flat screen, if she rented it that day. She did. That was a good thing.

Phira spent the day at her place, like she did every weekend. She cleaned up the place, put on Hancock and then started on dinner. She looked through the fridge, she had just gone shopping last week so it was still pretty full. She had no idea what to cook, spaghetti or maybe potato soup and dumplings. When she was nine her grandparents actually flew her to Maryland for two weeks during the summer and luckily she learned a few meals that didn’t need a microwave. She was just about to look in the cupboards when she heard a knock on the door.

She never had visitors, and then she remembered earlier. A smile spread across her face but she quickly pushed it off, she didn’t want him to think she was some sort of creeper. Phira walked over to the door and opened it with a small smile, “Oh hey Dusty, ” she said softly, “Come on inside if you want” she offered.

[dustyn james harrison]

Dusty blinked when the door opened. He almost hadn't expected it to, and when it did, he found that he was surprised to see that Phira was actually on the other side. He hadn't realized it until that moment, but he hadn't actually trusted that she'd given him the address to her real house. Not only that, but she remembered his name, he thought, and he shyly returned her smile.

"Thanks," Dusty said, stepping into her apartment and kicking off his shoes. He might be a street kid, now, but he'd grown up in a militaristic household. He had manners. He certainly wasn't going to offend her this early on by tracking mud through her apartment, and even went so far as to wipe off the bottom of his cane on the hem of his shirt.

"This place is really nice," Dusty said quietly, looking around and trying not to show his surprise on his face. It was a well-kept apartment, and it even had a flat-screen TV. It was nicer than the place he'd grown up in with Hailey, which had been a run-down house built on a trailer frame. His grandfather had owned the place, but that didn't mean that the man kept it up. When Dusty and Hailey moved in, the place had been crawling with bugs and rats and absolutely filthy. Dusty had cleaned it the best he could at three years old, and as he grew older he grew more adept at keeping the house clean, but it was still falling apart.

"I'm not a bum," Dusty said, looking at Phira in the eyes, "or a freeloader. I'll pay you rent for letting me stay here. I intend to pay my way. I'll give you what I can and save up, and when I'm old enough to get a real job, I'll pay you more for the money I missed."

[sephiran mckenzie kain]

Sephiran closed the door softly after making sure that he was inside. She was rather surprised when he was polite and took off his shoes. It wasn’t that she was surprised seeing Dusty himself, just the fact that people younger than her still did that. She herself didn’t even do that, but it really told her something about Dustyn. He was sweet and was trying to make a good impression. That really just made her fall for him right there. Not in a romantic way, but like an older sister proud because her younger brother had found a wallet and turned it in.

“No problem” Sephiran replied. “And thanks, I just cleaned up. I‘m not the most tidy person” she said with a chuckle. When she first got home from school, she wasn’t the type of person to care about being tidy, though when she got back the lost energy from spending six hours a day cooped in classrooms. Though after a good session of solitaire and maybe a few episodes of Glee re-runs she was relaxed enough maybe pick up.

Phira looked at him at his statement, and caught his eye. She listened as he spoke, he talked about how he wasn’t a freeloader and he wanted to repay her. But she could care less about him repaying her. “I understand how you feel, like if I tell you not to you would feel like you were free loading but I’m just glad to have the company. Feel free to not be worried about paying me back until we find you decent job. And if you really want to, I’m sure we could use that to put into some foods that you like.” She told him.

“Oh, ” she said shaking her head slightly, “That reminds me, ” She beckoned him towards the kitchen which was only separated by an island. “This is the kitchen, and its dinner time. What are you hungry for? I‘m a decent cook”