Wat up fan-fictioneers, KL21 here to give you guys something to hold you over until I can finish the next chapter of War Games.
This is another that was extracted from Mind of Seddie.
I got this idea when I was thinking of ideas for my other story. I was watching The Great Debaters. When the kid walked in to tell his dad that he made the debate team his father asked some completely random question. "What is man's greatest weakness?" My mind, in all of its insanity took that question and produced the fic you see before you.
I've talked long enough. Please read and enjoy.
Weaknesses and Invincibility
"What is man's greatest weakness?" Freddie asked his blonde friend as she walked through the door of the studio.
"What?" Sam slowed from her regular gait down to cautious steps. Freddie looked up at her from his laptop. "Whatcha workin' on, Fredley?" Freddie smirked, although he did not know why.
"I'm workin' on my homework."
Sam mistook Freddie's mysterious smirk for one of pride in doing his homework. "Whatever, nub."
She strolled over to her normal resting place on a beanbag chair. Freddie watched her as she strolled and leaned her head over the edge. "You never answered my question, Puckett."
When she didn't stir, he resumed working. "That wasn't an accident, Benson." Still she lay still, waiting on her co-star.
Freddie wanted an answer. He didn't feel that his was good enough and he felt that he needed a second opinion. He wanted to finish his paper before rehearsal started. "I think that man's greatest weakness is the inability or unwillingness to understand one another." Just as he thought, her head poked up in some sort of interest.
He couldn't tell whether the interest was feigned or not. However, whether or not her interest was feigned was, for the most part, irrelevant. It was a stepping stone. It was a small stepping stone but it was a stepping stone nonetheless, and however small that stepping stone was, it never took much. "What do you mean, Fredward?" Finally he was getting somewhere. He smiled; this time he knew why.
"I mean that most, if not all, of the problems facing today's society could be solved if people just took the time to understand one another. But, instead, people decide to try to pass judgment." He looked up at Sam and saw that she looked as if she were pondering something. It made him wonder if she was even listening.
He had never really seen her ponder anything before. It was usually a split second decision when it came to her. The only thing she had ever pondered was food choices, which did nothing to increase his confidence that she was listening to him. Still he kind of liked how she stared off into space. There was something intriguing about it. He didn't know what about it intrigued him and he didn't know why it intrigued him so. He reasoned that the simple peculiarity of her actions made him wonder.
While he was lost in his reverie, Sam had apparently come up with a response. This was evident by the shoe that whizzed past his head, thus ending the trance he was in. Neither of the two referenced the hurled shoe that now lay by the door of the studio. "I can see why you would think that." Freddie was stunned for a moment due to the fact that he couldn't tell if it was a jab at him or not. It was usually so clearly defined.
"Oh, really?" he replied trying to sound more indignant than he actually was. He knew, all too well, the length of her attention span. Case in point: the shoe that had been thrown past him not too long ago.
"Yeah. People make fun of you all the time…"
"You make fun of me all the time." Came Freddie's quick correction.
"Not the point." She replied with a roll of her eyes, "The point is that if the persons who make fun of you…"
"You."
"Details…" He was starting to enjoy doing that, "…You feel that if they understood then they would be more inclined to accept you." It was certainly a more concise answer than he expected.
However, the original question had yet to be answered. "So, you're saying that man's weakness is the inability to accept a person."
"Nope." Freddie's face fell. She wasn't going to make this easy. Although, he figured that he shouldn't have expected her to. As he looked up at her he saw her pondering again. He decided to stay out of his mind this time. He had a feeling that the next shoe wouldn't miss. "I'm saying that your desire… everyone's desire to be accepted by everybody is a weakness…" Freddie's surprise subsided and was replaced with an acute attentiveness. "… it's a weakness spawned from an even greater weakness… doubt." she sat up in her beanbag chair.
"Would you care to explain?" She glared at him. He wasn't sure why, but he found it amusing regardless.
"You doubt yourself. You don't think you're good enough the way you are. So you search and search for ways to excuse what everyone says about you." Freddie was a bit taken aback. "You blame your mother for your, almost obsessive, cleanliness. You blame Carly for your inability to tell jokes. You blame the show for your love of tech junk. You find excuses for all of this instead of saying, 'This is who I am, take it or leave it'." Freddie just stood there. He wouldn't exactly call it deep but it was definitely more insightful than he had been expecting. "The thing is… it is a weakness that everybody has. Not like spiders or planes or heights. You won't find a single person who can honestly say 'I've never doubted myself before'. That makes it man's greatest weakness."
"You know? It's not always so easy." Freddie said, now a little down on himself. I suppose that tends to happen when you find out certain things about yourself.
"That's total chiz and you know it." The bite to her words brought him back to attention. "You do it all the time with me and Carly." Freddie opened his mouth to object, but soon realized that she was right. "That's why we're friends, Fredward." The words came with such conviction and certainty that he reasoned that she couldn't be lying.
"Huh?" was all the response that Freddie could muster.
Sam sighs in frustration at having to repeat herself, as she stands up out of the beanbag chair and begins to pace around the studio. Although, absent one shoe, her steps were uneven. She was hobbling around the studio and Freddie had to hide a smile or else Sam would end their conversation with some, random, act of violence. "When we're at school we have to conform to what others want us to be, or be mocked. But here I can show you who I am. You don't mock me for my love of ham. You don't look down on me because of my bad attitude and my, less than savory, people skills. You don't stare at me like I'm crazy when I do crazy things." Freddie doesn't notice the small smile beginning to spread across his face as he watches her walk around the room. "This is the one place where I can go and not have to worry about the judgment of others… where I don't have to explain myself… where I don't have to doubt." She paused as she flops back down into the beanbag chair. Freddie sees her staring at the wall behind him as if she were in a daze. He is about to say something when she begins to speak again, "Here… I'm invincible." She lets her head hang back over the edge of the chair thus signifying the end of the conversation.
Freddie watched her, content to her beanbag chair. Instead of being irritated at the sudden end of the conversation, that he realized he had very little input in, he just smiled. They understood each other, they accepted each other; strengths and weaknesses, highs and lows, virtues and vices; none of it mattered. Freddie accepted her and she accepted him. She made him more confident. He made her invincible. This made him smile, although he didn't really know why?
Well there you have it. Not much to say here. The next of my one shots should come some time next week I believe.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please review if you like (I hope you do). Otherwise I'll see you at the next post.
Deuces
KL21
