[if the change in the room hadn't immediately raised her hackles, the tone of Arthur's voice would have. She'd gathered enough to know he hadn't had the luxury she had of her parents' more or less silently letting her slip out of their lives outside of the very rare letter or phone call with none of them openly speaking about why even though they all knew, but she hadn't let herself consider that his remarks about what his father would have done if he'd been seen in makeup were things he had. Even though she'd seen the marks of similar violence on so many other people, she'd refused to consider it happening to Arthur. And she tries to believe eventhen that it had just been like the few shouting matches she'd had with her mother when she left school, when she'd gotten tired of being told she was just 'too friendly' with the other girls and needed to find a nice boy.
But of course it's nothing that compartively gentle. And while she'd seen this violence inflicted on her friends by drunken strangers more times than she'd like to count, it had never been personal the way this is. Which is why it makes her blood boil differently than those encounters had. She was used to stepping between friends reeling from broken noses and the cocky asshole who had done it, startling them with the fact a girl was suddenly in their face and swinging her bag at them. She'd never actually been the witness to what had left some kids hanging near the Sombrero with barely-packed bags slung over their shoulders and fresh bruises, and knowing about it and seeing it were entirely different things.
Her reflex reaction is nearly the same, though, which is good because all her mind is capable of is an inarticulate string of curses she'd really like to scream at this spectre even knowing it wouldn't change a thing. But her body moves on its own, catching Arthur and just barely touching her hand against the back of his head, dropping her voice in a way very few people ever get to hear]
He's wrong. There's nothing you could have possibly done that could have harmed anyone, particularly him, unless he was already that damn insecure in who he is.
no subject
But of course it's nothing that compartively gentle. And while she'd seen this violence inflicted on her friends by drunken strangers more times than she'd like to count, it had never been personal the way this is. Which is why it makes her blood boil differently than those encounters had. She was used to stepping between friends reeling from broken noses and the cocky asshole who had done it, startling them with the fact a girl was suddenly in their face and swinging her bag at them. She'd never actually been the witness to what had left some kids hanging near the Sombrero with barely-packed bags slung over their shoulders and fresh bruises, and knowing about it and seeing it were entirely different things.
Her reflex reaction is nearly the same, though, which is good because all her mind is capable of is an inarticulate string of curses she'd really like to scream at this spectre even knowing it wouldn't change a thing. But her body moves on its own, catching Arthur and just barely touching her hand against the back of his head, dropping her voice in a way very few people ever get to hear]
He's wrong. There's nothing you could have possibly done that could have harmed anyone, particularly him, unless he was already that damn insecure in who he is.