Stuff100: Children

[lb_lee]

"So what were you like as a kid?"

"I'm still a kid, Thomas."

"You know what I mean. A littler kid."

"I don't remember."

"Oh, come on, you don't expect me to believe that; Raige, man, help me out here..."

"Yeah, come on, M.D., spill. I mean, you can't have been worse than me..."

"What do you mean, 'worse than you'? Man, you're a freaking saint--"

"Not when I was younger, I wasn't. I spent a few years pretty mad at everyone, back when I was little. I was kind of a dickhead."

Laughter. "You're kidding! You're joking!"

"Honest to God, I swear! I was this angry litle geek with long hair and sweater vests, glaring out at people over the top of my Mercedes Lackey novels."

"BAHAHAHA!"

"I mean it! I swore like a sailor back then too--I mean constantly. It was crazy. My dad and I had screaming fights like you wouldn't believe; between the two of us, we probably told the whole neighborhood how we were feeling at any given moment. Where do you think I got the name Raige from? We just couldn't spell great in the third grade, thus the extraneous 'i.' I still get asked if it's Arabic sometimes."

"Wow, you're serious. I had no idea. Then again, I guess I shouldn't talk..."

"What, is it possible that beneath that athletic jock exterior, you were a mouth-breathing nerd like the rest of us?"

"Psh. Babe, I was never a nerd. This boy is pure homegrown normal, always has been. I played every sport you had a ball for."

"But..."

"Well..."

"You sucked at them, didn't you?"

"What? No! I was great! Well, except at tennis, I sucked at tennis."

"Come on, Thomas, I just admitted to being an angry little geek. You can do it."

"...I hated girls."

Silence.

"I thought they had cooties."

Hysterical laughter.

"Hey, shut up, I got over it fast, okay? Like, by the time I was ten, I'd totally seen the light, I swear."

"Oh, my sweet blue heaven, I can imagine Raige as an angry young rich brat without too much trouble, but you not liking girls, I can't even-- I would have tortured you in elementary school..."

"Yup, you would've... wait, were you boy-crazy as a little kid?"

"What? Ew! Don't be repulsive."

"So what's the big secret? Quit holding out on us, babe, cough it up."

With staunch dignity: "I was a ravening hellbeast."

Silence.

"A what?"

"You heard me."

"And that is a change from how you are now, how?"

"Thomas, you have no idea. Compared to my wee babby of a self, I'm frogging tranquil. Think about it. I was a half-baked, poorly trained cannon fodder berserker, turned loose in an American public school. What do you think I was like?"

Wince. "Oh, ouch."

"Yeah, ouch is right. Ravening. Hellbeast."

"You bit people, didn't you?"

Silence.

"Multiple times?"

"Let's just say I went through a lot of schools and totally understand why my teachers loathed me, and let's leave it at that, all right?"

"Aw..."

"No. Seriously. I deserved it. I was frogging Lovecraftian."

"Well, you're better now."

Shrug. "Enh. Eventually I caught on to basic Earthling social mores. It just took a while."

"Don't worry, babe, however bad you were, think on the bright side. You were still probably miles better than Biff was as a kid..."