“I know more than the curse words,” Simon protested, trying to look more offended than he felt in hopes of guilting her. It wouldn’t work, if only because Jessica knew him far too well for that by now. Simon could fool a lot of people, but she wasn’t one of them. Not anymore, not for a long time now. “I’m plenty creative! A lot of my cursing is creative cursing, you know. You just don’t know how to appreciate it.” The differences between language and how they used it had always been stark, which wasn’t rare for the two of them. They were so different sometimes, like two opposing sides of a scale. It was why Simon had assumed, in the beginning, that their partnership would never work. And, honestly? It was probably a big part of why the partnership did work. They went well together, balanced each other out. “Okay, first of all, Tony isn’t cool. He’s just an old guy with a beard. He’s not cool.” He was cool. He was really cool. Simon couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t. “And I don’t think that’s how the rings work. You can’t just make them. They’ve gotta choose you.” Even if, sometimes, Simon still felt like the ring had made a mistake with him. Jessica, he thought, was closer to what a Lantern ought to be. She was good without trying. Simon… He always seemed to fall short when it mattered.
Grinning, Simon opened his mouth to let her know that he did, in fact, know that he was insufferable… only for Jessica to jump back in before he could speak and say that she knew he knew. He let out a laugh, shaking his head. “You like hanging out with me anyway.” He was only half teasing with that. It felt kind of good, actually, knowing that Jessica enjoyed hanging out with him even in spite of her irritation. Most of it was fake, anyway. He was sure about that.
Of course, she gave as good as she got, most days. Jessica was as good at finding ways under Simon’s skin as he was at finding ways under hers. “You know what? I’m taking that as a compliment. I am incredibly mature, thank you. I appreciate that.” He hummed thoughtfully, considering for a moment. “I bet with enough willpower, I could manage it. Nothing’s impossible, right?” It was one thing he’d gotten good at since picking up the ring. He’d done things other Lanterns assured him the rings were incapable of already, from waking a braindead man from a coma to curing a Red Lantern of her rage. What was a little reverse aging? “Shut up. I don’t have gray hair. And you’re, like, barely younger than me! If I’m old, you’re old.” He made a face at the threat, deciding to pull out a line that had gotten him far in elementary school with kids who didn’t entirely understand his religion. “That’s haram, actually. No hot dog water for me, sorry. Save it for your next partner.” He actually wasn’t sure if it would be considered haram, and his relationship with things forbidden by his religion had always been a complex one, as marked by the tattoo on his arm or the beers in his fridge, but… When he could use it as an excuse? He was guilty of taking advantage of that.
“Oh, damn, I guess you’ve just gotta take my word for it, then!” He blew out a huff of air, wrinkling his nose. “I’m still waiting for my turn to punch Guy in the face.” His training with Kyle had been fun enough, but… Punching Guy seemed like a really great reward. “You should always trust what Simon says. There’s a whole game about it.”
“Could have fooled me,” Jessica shot back, not blinking at his defensiveness. She knew what he was trying to do here — trying to manipulate her out of her stance on cursing and try to make he feel bad for suggesting he had a very limited vocabulary. But she had been friends with him for years, and she stood by what she said. His favorite words were the kind you didn’t want toddlers to pick up. (It was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t heard Farid repeat any of it yet.) “Creative cursing isn’t creative. It’s still just… cursing. In fact, creative cursing is a waste of creativity. You could use it to make art and instead… that is what you do. It’s not great!” Jessica tipped her head to the side and hummed for a moment. “But his beard is cool. You wish you had a beard like that. I wish I did too — well, I wish I could make my eyebrows look that defined without looking crazy.” He was right about their rings, but Jessica shrugged it off. The Avengers might not have magical rings, but she was pretty sure they could get some really cool looking ones with the logo on them — and that was sort of the same, wasn’t it? Something that made them clearly a team?
“Ugh,” she repeated, loudly. Looking at him as if the sound of her annoyance would be enough to stop him — but the annoyance, frankly, was too close to fondness. Especially for the two of them. “Do I?” she asked, again, a rhetorical question that she knew he’d answer with open arms about how, of course, she did.
Looking at Simon, Jessica opened her mouth again and quickly shut it, a sudden fear he was going to repeat that to his family and they were going to come after her for filling his head with some false ideas of maturity. But they couldn’t hold that against her — right? “Stop. Stop thanking me for that.” If the Lanterns could manipulate their ages with their willpower, there had to be others that had already done that — or tried to, at least. But just as Jessica was about to say that, she realized that if any of them had experimented with that, they sure weren’t going to tell two rookies to it. “Do you think the Guardians extended their life like that?” Was it immortality, or was it just refusal to die? Grinning, Jessica shook her head and nearly skipped while Simon took such deep offense. “Sticks and stones but that tuff of gray hair won’t touch me.” Pulling a face, Jessica huffed. “I’ll as Sira about it, actually.” Though, by her tone, someone might have thought she was going to ask his mother directly instead.
“I’m not falling for that again!” Simon had more experience as a Lantern than Jessica had, but the other members of their group took great pleasure in reminding them both that their time with the corps was a drop in the bucket compared to others. “I didn’t mean to hit him.” Jessica rarely meant to hit anyone. Even the bad guys. (Though, no matter what she claimed now, punching Guy had been very cathartic.) “Yeah. A game. For kids. About following instructions. Simon, how good are you at following directions? Listening?”
