Seeing The Light

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PunkPrince

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Original poster
"I'm nervous."

Kennedy sighed and gently rubbed Eva's shoulder. They had gotten a call from an adoption agency recently. The pair had made attempts to adopt before, but had always been turned down. But this pair of twins was being entrusted to them. The agency felt they would be able to get through to them, on account of her little rag tag family Eva had grown to love so much, made up of kids from bad homes. She looked over at Kennedy. Kennedy was the smaller of them, at five foot two, and she passed as female better. This was something that left five foot eleven Eva jealous quite often. It wasn't like Kennedy could help it. All the men on her mother's side were small. Her brother had been closer to Eva's size. Made it easier for him to pick on her.

"No reason you shouldn't be," Kennedy said. "Everyone's nervous. You know me. I'm too blunt and not as gentle or patient as you are. They probably need that." The twins had spent their entire lives being abused in a basement by their kidnapper, not even allowed to see the sunlight. Neither Eva nor Kennedy had been raised in such a way, but their lives hadn't been pleasant. But Eva had always been better with kids who'd grown up the same. At least Kennedy thought so.

"You're gentle," Eva insisted. "When you need to be. If you were half as mean as you think you are sometimes Hugo would probably be petrified of you. You're sweet, and I love you. Not mean or any of that other stupid stuff you say you are."

Kennedy opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get a word out, she heard Hugo and Ronan arguing.
"Give that back!"
"I need it!"
"I need to finish putting the sequins on this–Ow! Damn it, Kasha, you burnt me!"
"It's a hot glue gun, what'd you think was gonna happen, idiot?"

Jupiter appeared at the top of the stairs and quickly sprinted down them, and Eva could see that they were struggling to close a bra through their shirt. She stopped them and clipped it closed. "Better?"

Jupiter nodded, flashing the woman an appreciative smile before adjusting the silicone breast forms that rested in the bra. She knew that Jupiter longed for breasts and feminine curves, and they had talked to a few people about getting Jupiter on a low dose of estrogen, but so far, no luck. Eva and Kennedy did what they could for them. Jupiter pushed back their messy blonde hair and looked up the stairs.

"Fighting over a glue gun," they explained. "Kyra was trying to use it to put sequins on a dress, and I guess..." They shrugged. It wasn't unusual for the children to call each other by their drag names.

Kennedy sighed and went back upstairs, presumably to pull the two apart. This left only Jupiter and Eva, and after a few seconds Jupiter looked up at her and spoke.

"See?" they said. "I'm the good child." Eva laughed, and the teenager bounded off to the kitchen, probably about to devour anything they could get their hands on. They ate everything, and somehow managed to stay at a hundred and something pounds of lanky weirdness. Eva smiled and pushed her hair back in in attempt to make herself appear more presentable.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door, and once she pulled it open the social worker she had spoken with on the phone stood in front of her with the two children she had heard so much about. "Hello," Eva said gently, giving each of the twins a smile.
 
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Jay was twitching in the back seat of the social worker's car. He was trying not to. He was trying to be still and quiet, but the confines of the car was enough to get Jay jittery and nervous. It was just the twins in the back, the social worker driving in the front. The woman had turned on the radio to fill the silence, since neither Jay nor Jody spoke much once they got into the car. Still, Jay's constant moving was starting to upset Jody, and about half way to their destination she finally spoke up.

"Can you roll down the windows or something?" Jody requested. The social worker complied, and for a little while it eased Jay's twitching. Jody sighed and dropped her head back onto the seat as Jay practically hung his head out the window like a dog might. He stretched as far as the seat belt would allow him to, looking forward the way the car was traveling and feeling much more at ease. Jody was glad that Jay felt better, because she didn't. She hid her nervousness well through a carefully concealed mask.

Unlike Jay, Jody was not nervous about the car ride. She was nervous about where they were going. She was of the understanding that if she and her brother got along with this family that they might stay there. The parade of foster families they had gone through had not impressed Jody. They all did not understand. They wanted normal children. Easy children, or at least as easy as children could be. Jody and Jay were neither of those things.

The way the social worker had spoken made it seem like this was not a regular foster family, that this had the capacity to be something more. Jody didn't think that that would be possible, but she hadn't said so. She just packed up her things, made Jay do the same, and now they were here. Jody couldn't believe she was admitting it to herself, but she was tired of being shuffled around. After a life of almost complete stagnancy, the chance to move from house to house had been almost therapeutic, but it had grown old quickly. Nice people, horrible people, people in-between. No matter what, Jay almost always got upset when they moved, and Jody didn't blame him. They both just wanted some place to settle, but Jody was not optimistic. She was pretty sure that the next place they were going to was just going to be another stop on the long list of places they were going to stay at until... well... Jody wasn't sure until what.

It seemed like forever, and Jay was just starting to get twitchy again, when the social worker finally stopped the car. Both Jay and Jody cast their eyes over the house. It didn't seem much different from the other houses. Jody got out of the car first, and Jay got out right after her. Almost instantly, the twins reached for one another's hands. The two of them had a backpack each on their backs, inside of which were the only things the two of them owned. There was nothing particularly exciting in them. Clothes that had been given to them by someone else, a tooth brush, a hair brush, and once a different kid who had been at the same foster home as they had been had given Jay a tattered stuffed dog. Jody didn't get why Jay liked it, but he did, so he had kept that too.

Stepping up to the house, the social worker knocked at the door. She gently encouraged the twins to stand in front of her, and they shuffled forward. Once the door opened, however, Jay automatically took a step backwards, bumping into the social worker but letting his sister stay between himself and the woman on the other side of the threshold.

"Hi." Jody answered. Jay said nothing. Jody always felt that this was, usually, the most awkward part of being passed around from place to place. This strange, initial meeting where-in nobody knew what more to say besides 'Hi! Come in! How are you?' and the occasional 'How was the trip?' if they'd come from a long way. The twins both used to judge a place and a person on initial meeting, but not anymore. It was always what happened after the social worker left, when they began judgement.

Even so, Jody wasn't quite sure what to make of the person standing in front of them. Jay always steered clear of new people, and now was no different. He remained behind Jody, holding on to his sister's hand but peering silently over his sister's head. He was a little bit taller than Jody, so even from behind his sister he still had a clear view of what was going on.
 
The social worker smiled at Eva. "Hello," she said. "Are you Ms. Robins? Is Ms. Piane here anywhere?" Eva smiled as she spoke, a bit relieved that the woman hadn't used her legal name. She had yet to change everything yet, and being called Eric always left her uncomfortable. Eric, sir, mister. Sometimes it wasn't people's fault. Sometimes they genuinely weren't sure. And then there were the ones who did it maliciously, trying so hard to hurt her. And she tried not to show it, but it really did sting. It left her feeling numb, and depending on who it was coming from, sometimes made her cry. She was glad she wasn't going to hear it today.

"I am," she said with a nod. "My name is Eva. Kennedy is upstairs right now. She should be down soon."
"Nice to meet you," the woman said, reaching out to shake Eva's hand. "I understand you have three sons already."
"I have three children," Eva answered. "Two sons." She knew what the woman would likely assume. If she had two sons then the third must be a daughter. But that was wrong.

"Jody, is it?" Eva asked. "And Jay? It's nice to finally meet both of you. How are you feeling?"

As she spoke, Kennedy came down the stairs, pulling Ronan and Hugo behind her. She both boys a light shove toward the kitchen. "Go eat something and keep out of trouble." She looked at Ronan. "Run your burn under cold water and then hold some ice on it. If it keeps bothering you I'll go out and pick up something for it later." Ronan slipped into the kitchen, and after a small smile toward the twins, Hugo followed. He hadn't meant to hurt his brother.

Kennedy let out a soft, somewhat exhausted sounding sigh, and made her way over to the rest of the group. "Hi," she greeted, and after a small nod to the social worker introduced herself. "Kennedy Piane. I see you've already met my Eva."

The woman nodded. "I have," she said, pulling a stack of papers from her briefcase. "I need both of you to sign a few things and then I'll be out of your hair so that these two can settle in."

Eva took the pen and paper from the woman, signing where she was told to, and as she scribbled her signature, looked toward the twins. "Do the two of you want to share a room?" She asked. "You don't have to, but I thought I should ask. My sons are twins and they share a room because they liked being near one another when they first came here."
 
Jody looked between the social worker and the woman who had been identified both as Ms. Robins and Eva. The social worker had, of course, told the twins their names, but neither Jody or Jay had paid a whole lot of attention. When a question was directed towards the twins Jay looked away and down towards the ground. Jody shrugged.

"Fine." She answered, although this wasn't true. Jody had already gathered that when people asked you how you were, you were supposed to say something positive or at least neutral. The one exception she had gathered from this rule was if hey were a doctor, but even then Jody wasn't really sure what to say. Both of the twins' eyes were drawn away from what was happening, however, when more people came down the stairs. When one of the boys looked towards them and smiled, Jody instantly looked away and back up towards Eva and now Kennedy too. Jay, on the other had, gave a tiny smile back before looking up at Kennedy Piane also.

When another question was given to them, Jody glanced towards Jay as if she wasn't certain of the answer, but they both knew already what they preferred. Jody was the one to speak up again, holding on to her brother's hand just a little tighter as she did so. "We'd like to share a room. We like to be together." All the time. It was unlikely you would see one without the other. In one of the other foster homes the couple had basically forced them into separate rooms. Jay had sobbed, and as soon as Jody had heard that she'd lashed out and hit the woman trying to separate them. Jody had gotten into a lot of trouble, but she'd also managed to get out of her room and into Jay's. They hadn't lasted very long in that household at all.

Jody wondered if that incident was in the papers these women had to sign, or if the things the twins had done and gone through weren't in there at all and it was something else. She was also trying to figure out if these two women were a couple or not. It seemed like it, from the way the second one had called the first 'my Eva'. This was not, in particular, something surprising to Jody. It was only worthy of note to her because it was the first same-sex couple they had been placed with.

Jay's mind, on the other hand, was somewhere else from what was going on in front of him. More often than not, Jay would just kind of zone out. It was a bad habit, one that Jody saw no problems with but everyone else seemed to. Jay was looking out the window, thinking about the grass beyond it and how sunny it was out today. Jay was enthralled with the outside world, and it was what he thought about more often than not. This was confusing to a lot of people because once Jay got outside he didn't do a whole lot. Sometimes he walked around, but most of the time he just sat there. It was clear that he was happier outside though. Sometimes, Jody envied her brother for being able to place himself so far away from whatever it was that was going on. She didn't see how he could do that, since Jody was attentive and alert almost to the extreme. She kept an eye on everything she could because she didn't trust anything or anyone.

"How many rooms do you got?" Jody asked after a moment. She didn't particularly care, it was more that she didn't like having to answer all the questions, so if she asked one of her own occasionally she felt better about things. Even if it was a question she didn't care about the answer to. It was basically the first thing that had popped into Jody's head, largely because of Eva asking if they wanted to share one. This led her to believe that despite the five people already living here, there were still at least two empty ones. This was a pretty big house then.
 
Eva smiled. "Okay," she said. "Sharing it is. I figured you might want to." Hugo and Ronan had been inseparable upon coming to live with them, even though both of them had known the women previously. They were still like that now. Less nervous, but it was still very rare to ever see one without the other. Eva supposed it was because they were the only constant things in one another's lives. Through all the nasty foster homes and abuse, the boys had always had each other, and they clung to one another most of the time as a result. Even when they were fighting, they never seemed to want to be apart for long.

"There are six bedrooms," Eva said. "And part of the basement is one too." She shrugged. "We have extra people over sometimes and they usually end up down there or on the couch. But the basement's a big mess a lot of the time, so usually it's the couch." Apart from the small bedroom area, most of the basement was just cluttered with drag. Costumes and wigs and sequins and such.

Eva finished signing the papers and passed them to Kennedy, who passed them back to the social worker once she'd signed them.
"I'll be going now," the woman said, slipping the papers back into the bag. "Call if you need anything." And with a final goodbye to each of them, she was gone, and the twins were left alone with Eva and Kennedy.

"Are you hungry?" Kennedy asked them. "We were just about to eat breakfast." Eva had been cooking before they'd gone back upstairs, and she was pretty sure the kids were already eating. She led them toward the kitchen. She stepped inside and saw her children sitting at the table already eating, Hugo already having piled his plate with a good amount of the bacon and was scarfing it down.

"Eat slower," Eva said. "You're going to choke."
She looked back at Jody and Jay. "This is Hugo," she said to him. "This is Ronan and this is Jupiter." She motioned to each teenager as she named them. Hugo's mouth was still full of bacon, but he smiled at the new kids, and Jupiter and Ronan greeted them. "Nice to meet you," Jupiter said, piling scrambled eggs on their plate as they spoke.
 
Jody nodded a little to show that she had heard Eva when she responded with the number of bedrooms. She felt Jay stiffen next to her with just the mere mention of a basement. Jody's hand tightened even more on Jay's hand as a result. They weren't going down there, Jody was going to make sure of it. Jody whispered something unintelligible under her breath to Jay and he nodded a little bit. It wasn't that long afterwards that the social worker said goodbye. Jay gave a little wave and Jody said goodbye back.

Both pairs of eyes landed right back on Kennedy and Eva once the worker left. Jay perked up a little at the mention of breakfast and he nodded. "Thank you." Jody spoke up again. She was not entirely without manners. Both of them stopped just inside the kitchen as Eva introduced the kids around the table. Jody looked around the table, but her attention was caught by Jupiter. She wasn't sure why, exactly, just that Jupiter was intriguing. It showed on her face for just a second before she looked away again. "Hi...." She said again, still feeling awkward and out of place. She did not introduce herself or Jay. She wasn't sure they would be here for very long or not, it was all up in the air as far as she was concerned. There was no point in getting attached to people who would leave. Or if they left, rather.

Jody wasn't really sure if she should sit down at the table, and if so where. On top of that, she didn't really want to sit down with a backpack on her back. Jay remained standing beside his sister, taking queues from her. When she sat down he did too, and when she stood up, he did too. It was simple for him, and allowed him to not pay so much attention. He was, however, paying attention now. Jay was eying the bacon, and despite the fact that his sister hadn't moved he was thinking about grabbing it. As if Jody knew what Jay was thinking she pulled him a little closer to her and he shuffled forwards a bit.
 
Jody greeted the children politely, and Kennedy realized that Jay hadn't said a single word the entire time they had been there. She couldn't really blame him. If she had grown up that way she probably would be wary of strangers and new people too. Out of the whole group, Kennedy was the one who had probably had the closest to decent childhood. Her mother had been around. Her brother and other children had treated her poorly, but she knew that was probably paradise compared to what these kids had gone through.

Eva saw Jay eyeing the bacon, and she wondered when the last time the pair had eaten was. "You should sit and eat," she told them, sitting down I her usual seat as she spoke. "You can put your bags down anywhere and we can show you where your room is once you've eaten." She pulled some eggs onto her plate. Kennedy settled into the usual chair across from her.

Hugo looked up as Eva spoke and noticed that Jay was eyeing the bacon. Maybe he didn't need all of it. He could share. He pushed some of the bacon back onto the center plate and moved some of it onto a plate next to him before pushing it toward Jay. He smiled at the other boy and then went back to his own food after saying in a soft voice, "You can have eggs too, if you want. And toast."

Kennedy smiled as she watched the youngest boy. It was actually quite rare to hear him speak, particularly to new people he'd never met before. As welcoming as he was trying to be, she knew that speaking to new people, even ones his own age, was no easy task in his mind. She looked back at the two children, having set a place at the table for them earlier. "Is there anything you want to know about us?" She asked.
 
Once they were told they could sit down, they did. Jody took off her book bag first and Jay followed her lead, the two of them putting them down by the chairs left to them. Hugo took both Jody and Jay by surprise when he pushed some of his bacon back onto the plate, clearly for Jay. It was a good move, because Jody instantly liked Hugo better than anyone else so far. She was careful not to like anyone too much, but Hugo had managed, just by one act, to make it onto Jody's good side. For now.

Jay smiled back at Hugo and nodded to him. Jody reached to put some eggs and toast on her plate, and Jay ate all of his bacon before he did the same. He basically scarfed the food down as fast as he could before he got eggs and toast and did the same thing. Jody was a fast eater too, but not nearly as fast as Jay.

When Kennedy asked if there was anything she wanted to know, Jody hesitated. There were lots of things she wanted to know, but she wasn't just going to ask. She would wait, and she would listen and observe. She used her fork to toy with her remaining eggs before she answered her question with a question. "Is there anything we should know about you?"

Jody was in no way trying to get smart with Kennedy. She meant it genuinely, and didn't realize that it might sound snarky. She just felt that it was more important to listen than to ask. That was how she learned pretty much everything that she knew. She paid attention, and she listened. If there was something she should know, she might not know to ask it. So she left it up to Kennedy, or Eva, or whoever else cared to answer.

Finished with his food, Jay glanced at Kennedy now also. It seemed food held his attention, but so did his sister's question. His wide blue eyes blinked at her curiously, waiting for the answer.
 
Kennedy watched Jay eat, and it surprised her how similar he seemed to be to Hugo. Like Jay, Hugo also scarfed down everything he ate fairly quickly--in many of his foster homes he hadn't been properly fed, which led him to be severely underweight and hungry almost constantly, even though he was now perfectly healthy. He also hardly spoke outside the house, outside of the familiarity of his family. He was more open now, less terrified than he had once been. Happier. At least he seemed to be happy. She hoped that maybe at some point, Jay could open up a bit too. Become a happier person than he had been in that basement. Maybe have some sort of normalcy in his life.

When Jody spoke, Kennedy wasn't exactly sure what to say. Eva decided to give the basics. "Well," Eva said. "I could give the basics. Kennedy and I have been together for ten years. Married for seven." The two had gone up to Canada to get married since at the time, they couldn't get married. Legally they were both gay men. Their state wouldn't allow them to change their gender markers, no matter what surgeries they had. Kennedy had had reassignment surgery about a year ago, and while she was much happier with her body, it almost always presented an issue with paperwork, or travel. Sometimes people were cruel to her. People were cruel to both of them.

"We're both transgender women, if you know what that means. Jupiter is genderless and uses neutral pronouns--"
"Or she, if you have trouble adjusting to 'they.' Sometimes people do."
Eva nodded and continued. "Most of our money comes from performing. We own a bar that has drag shows every night--sometimes we go, sometimes we dont--but we both perform pretty often and sometimes host shows. All our kids are adopted, we first met all of them at that bar and wound up taking them in eventually."

The bar had not always belonged to them. It had originally been owned by another woman called Shelly, who had eventually desired to sell the place. Of course, nobody from the bar wanted to see the place close, so the pair bought it in order to keep it open. Eva was glad they had. It kept everyone happy, and was fairly popular, which helped to keep it open. Eva looked up at Jody. "Any questions after that?" she asked, having finished her eggs. She got up and took her dish to the sink.
 
Both Jody and Jay looked towards Evan when she attempted to tackle what they should know. This wasn't what either twin had been expecting, and half the words that Eva used neither of them really knew what that meant. Jay didn't seem bothered by the fact that he had no idea what Eva was saying. Jody, on the other hand, wanted clarification. She sat back in her chair and then slid her plate over to Jay without looking at what she was doing. Jay instantly ate the leftover eggs she had given him.

For a few moments, Jody was silent. She was attempting to work out what this meant on her own, but eventually she just gave up on it. "I basically don't know anything you just said." She said bluntly, sitting back in her chair and then crossing her arms. She understood the married part, of course, but all the rest of that she had no idea. Transgender, genderless, neutral pronouns... she was familiar with what a bar was but she didn't know what drag shows were or what kind of preforming they were doing. Were they in a movie at a bar?

She looked around the table again. All of these other kids were adopted. She wondered for how long, and if they liked it here. She was more willing to talk to other kids like her than adults, but her eyes quickly flicked back up to Eva again.

For obvious reasons, Jody and Jay just didn't know much of anything. Jody was hardly on a first grade reading level, and not even Jody was sure if Jay could read or not. If what they were talking about wasn't found in a basement, it was unlikely the twins would know a lot about it. It had only been a few months that they'd gotten out of there, and while they were learning a lot of new things very quickly, they still had a long way to go. This frustrated Jody a lot, because it wasn't as if she was unintelligent or not willing to learn. She wanted to know everything, she was thirsty for knowledge, but she didn't know how to get it and when she did she was annoyed with how hard things were for her. It was all too much too fast, and on top of that Jody didn't like people to know how much she didn't know, and how much she struggled to keep up. The fact that she'd answered so straight-forward that she didn't know was out of character, but it was also the first time she'd run into something she didn't even have a clue on. This topic was completely outside of her realm of knowledge, and if Jay knew anything he wasn't saying anything to her about it.
 
When Jody admitted to not knowing, Eva nodded. She figured that the twins probably wouldn't know what she was talking about. A lot of the stuff was hard for people to grasp, probably even more so to a pair of children who had spent their lives in a basement. She couldn't blame them for not knowing. Eva herself hadn't known much, if anything, about the community she now spent her life in until she was nearly twenty. She made her way back over to the table and thought about how to best explain things.

"Drag is the type of performance Kennedy and I do. Our kids do it too from time to time. Usually it's boys dressing up and performing as girls, or girls doing boys, but there are female drag queens and male kings. Drag is basically an exaggerated performance of gender. Some people who do drag sing, some dance, some lipsync, some do comedy," she shrugged. "It depends on the person. I have a friend who's most popular part of her performances is fire eating. She puts a lit torch in her mouth and somehow doesn't light herself on fire. Don't ask me how." She laughed. "She won't teach me. I don't trust myself not to end up in flames." She paused. "You'll probably find random sequins in odd places. It happens in here, just go with it." Kennedy laughed and took over for the next part of the explanation.

"Transgender people are people who are a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. Like with Eva and myself, the common thing to hear is that we were born boys." She shrugged. "I don't like the way that sounds. Nobody ever asked what I was. I was only a boy because somebody looked at me and decided it for me before I could say anything."

"And with Jupiter, they were assigned male but don't feel like they're a boy or a girl. They use the pronouns they and them or she and her instead of he and him."
Jupiter nodded as the woman spoke. "People ask if I'm a boy or a girl all the time and I just say no and walk away. The reactions are never not hilarious to me."

Eva laughed softly and looked at Jody again. "Does that make sense to you?" she asked.
 
Jody was quiet as she listened. Her eyes got a little wide when Eva mentioned someone eating fire. That sounded like it would hurt and not taste good, and Jody wondered why anyone would ever do something like that to themselves. Maybe someone was making them do it. Jody had been forced to do lots of things she didn't want to before. Maybe if she saw that person eating fire she would just ask them out right, and then maybe they would be taken away and given to different families too.

When they started talking about gender though, Jody felt a little overwhelmed, but not in a bad way. At least she could grasp and understand this, even if it was a lot to take in. More than she was expecting when she'd admitted she had no idea what they were talking about. She was tripped up for a few moments on what pronouns were again, but she was able to infer based on what else was said she thought she had a good idea of what pronouns were, exactly.

When she was asked if this made sense to her, Jody nodded. "Okay." It was so simple for her to accept. She didn't know any better before, so she didn't see any issues with it. She wasn't so sure still, on the whole drag thing that Eva had explained, but she was also still thinking about the fire eating and how scary that sounded which was kind of just getting in the way of the whole picture for her. Still, it didn't sound like any of the people here ate fire while they preformed, so she supposed it was okay until she could figure out better what went on.

Before Jody could say anything else, Jay was tugging at her sleeve. Jody looked at Jay and Jay, who had been looking at Jody, looked away and towards the door. Jody sighed. "Jay wants to go outside...." She mumbled. She hated asking for anything, even just to go outside. She'd have rather stayed inside, and maybe asked some more questions about how Jupiter seemed to not be anything or how someone went about deciding what they were in general, but she would do what her brother wanted first. She also wanted to see their room, but Jay came first. That was how she always operated. Jay came first, and then her. Sometimes she couldn't always do that, but she did as much as she could.
 
Eva smiled. Jody seemed to have no issue with the things she had just learned, which was good. Eva had figured she would probably be fine. She hadn't had the life most had had. It meant that she hadn't been exposed to the hateful opinions people had about people like herself. Jay however, hadn't said a word the entire time, not even giving a sign that he had heard any of their conversation. If he felt anything toward them, be it positive or negative, he showed none of it.

"You can go out of you want," Kennedy said, clearing the table of the now empty dishes. "You don't have to ask unless you decide to leave the yard. Then we should probably know. Someone can show you around the town later if you want. And when you come in we can show you where your room is and you can get yourselves situated."

She decided to leave them to go out alone. She figured they might prefer to be left alone for a while. Being around so many new people was likely exhausting for them, and having someone go out with them would likely overwhelm them even more than they probably already were.

Ronan watched the twins for a moment and then got up to clear the table. They were probably scared. But he knew better than to tell them not to be scared. The words "I won't hurt you," were useless to kids who had grown up like that. They had been useless to himself and his brother when they had been moving from home to home. If anything, it had only made him more afraid.
 
As soon as they had permission, Jay stood up, the motion quick from Jay's eagerness to go out. Jody shook her head a little. "We don't need to know the town." She answered quietly. Jay was happy just being one step outside the house, and Jody didn't think that an town would hold something interesting for her. If it did she didn't want to know about it, because she didn't know for how long she would be there for. Jody stood up then too and Jay took her hand to tug her towards the door. It was the only time Jay would try to take charge of things. When they were going outside.

Jody followed Jay out the door, and once they were outside Jay looked around. Usually he would just sit down in the first patch of grass he saw, so Jody was curious what Jay was doing now. Maybe he wanted to walk around. Sometimes he did that too, but not usually. Instead, Jay took in his surroundings, and then started off with purpose towards a large tree near the edge of the yard. Jody followed Jay, once they got under the shade of the tree Jay sat down and then leaned back until he was lying down. He spread his arms and legs and looked up at the branches of the tree.

Jody stood above him for a few moments and then sighed. She moved just a little further towards the tree and then sat down too, putting her back against the trunk and then pulling her knees up to her chest. She rested her chin on top of her knees and then stared at Jay and the house and the grass. She couldn't help but to wonder how long they might be here for. The social worker made it seem like this time would be different, but Jody kept cautioning herself not to think that way.

It was both quiet and noisy outside. There wasn't anyone talking, but there were bugs chirping and buzzing. Sometimes when a breeze picked up, the leaves would rattle and shake in the tree. Each time that happened Jody would look up at it. She liked that noise. It was calming, and then sun was very warm which was even more calming. Jay had, eventually, closed his eyes. Jody didn't know how he could, despite how nice it was out here. What if someone snuck up on them? Then again, she reasoned that Jay probably knew she wouldn't close her eyes, so if someone did sneak up on them she would know about it, which just went to show how much Jay trusted his sister to keep him safe.

That thought made Jody upset, and instead of resting her chin on her knees she moved so that her forehead was on her knees instead. She thought about other things instead. Like the people in the house in front of them. So far, they seemed nice. They'd let her and Jay go outside pretty much right away after they had eaten, which was certainly a better start than most of the other homes. Sometimes it was the good homes that were the most disappointing though. Jody would just start to want to actually stay there when they inevitably ended up moving again. At least the homes that weren't so nice were easy to leave.

With her mind off of her brother and their dynamics, Jody brought her head up again to put her chin down on her knees. She wondered how long they would be able to stay out here. If someone didn't call them in, Jay would stay out here for the whole day. Even if Jody did want to go inside before then, it was hard for her to make her brother move from a place he liked when that happened to him too often. She looked at the house again. She was bored, but she was so used to being bored that she didn't know that she was bored.
 
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