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abrightboy

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From:

abrightboy

[He pushes off the railing.]

Nevermind.

From:

cactusy

[A muscle in her face twitches, and exasperated, she reaches out and puts a hand on his arm.]

Bright. I'm trying; try with me.

From:

abrightboy

It was a joke when I said it. And I get it, okay? Reid’s a decent guy who’s trying to do the right thing and swinging wide and hitting the best thing for just his inmate instead. I guess that has to be good enough around here. He still did more than Rogers did about his Inmate hitting me in the face.

From:

cactusy

[And here Shaw hesitates - torn between two lines of conversation, both of which she wants to follow up on. After a moment's pause, she picks one, and sounding genuinely surprised, she says:]

Are you pissed about the punch?

From:

abrightboy

No. I'm pissed that Rogers had nothing to say to me about it but had plenty to imply after my inmate hit his in the face with a pint of beer.

From:

cactusy

Plenty to imply like what?

From:

abrightboy

For one thing? That I should just trust that he would ‘handle’ what Laura did but should explain how I was dealing with what Kikimora did. How is he the boss of me the second time we ever spoke? The first time we ever spoke directly. And I don’t think he did anything about Laura. Whatever justifications she gave for walking up to someone who was minding his own business and hitting him? Maybe he bought them, I don’t know. Do you know why he even contacted me at all? I called Laura thinking she’d cooled off and maybe we could talk about what happened. She told me what Kikimora did to her - that’s how I found out - and when I asked questions about that so I knew the whole story so I could deal with Kikimora? She told him to call me off. He called me specifically to tell me to leave her alone. Like I ever did anything to her. AND HE DID IT. Someone has someone under control in that pairing, anyway.

From:

cactusy

She was pissed about being equated with Kikimora, since the damage Kikimora did was worse. Sounds like she thought you were being condescending to her, too.

From:

abrightboy

Condescending? Oh no! Maybe she should hit me again. [He takes a breath.]

Look, she hit me unprovoked. She didn’t know I signed up for healing. In fact, she lamented it. She wanted to damage me. I don’t condone Kikimora damaging her back, but she started it and then got mad about there being consequences because there are other inmates on board that tend to resort to violence and she didn’t know any of them liked me. She can consider it ‘condescension’ that I invited her to Kikimora’s very thorough lecture on the ramifications of meeting violence with violence, but the offer was sincere.

From:

cactusy

[Shaw pauses, squinting a little as she looks Malcolm over again.]

I didn't know you signed up for healing; I thought it was just a mild enough punch that it didn't really do much damage. How bad was it before you healed?

From:

abrightboy

Remember the Sweeney punch? The bruise began to bloom before it started to heal. It knocked me back.

From:

cactusy

But still just a bruise. Okay.

[She relaxes a little.]

I'd feel condescended to too, for the record, if you invited me to sit in on a lecture on violence. Especially if you sounded friendly and sincere. You know that thing where my, uh-- demeanor makes everyone think I'm pissed off and hateful all the time, even when I'm not? That's you and condescension.

From:

abrightboy

She did only use her fist, as opposed to the last person that assaulted me for almost nothing. [He presses his lips together.] So do you think being condescending is a good enough reason for violent assault?

From:

cactusy

Nope. But--

[She blows out a breath.]

A punch isn't really violent assault by my book, either. You know what kind of world I'm from.

From:

abrightboy

So… let me get this straight: In your world, if someone walks up to someone at a party and hits them for no reason, that’s fine. But reprisal - the natural escalation of violence - is not okay?

From:

cactusy

Okay, one, I thought she hit you because of something you said; which is it? And two, there's a difference between a punch and breaking someone's face.

From:

abrightboy

One: I never said a word to her; she walked up to me at the party and just punched me in the face without so much as a howdy-doo, so I don't know where you got that impression. And two: she wanted and tried to break my face, I just got the Gaius healing like Will because if I don't almost die from people taking violent offence to attempts to help them graduate, then Will won't have to kill them.

From:

cactusy

For god's sake--

[She mutters it under her breath, leaning forward far enough that both arms dangle over the railing, and her forehead presses to the metal of the topmost bar.]

If Graham kills anybody, that's on me, not you. You don't have to take on that job, or that blame.

From:

abrightboy

It’s not a job. When you care about someone, you try to make their life better. Anyway. We both thought it was a good idea after Lestat. Reid never took it seriously enough for either of us and I think Will feels people inclined to lash out on this ship think that lashing out at me is somehow acceptable, so. Healing. And that’s exactly what happened and it worked as designed and it still shouldn’t be okay that she did it, but it was and now I’m a wolf.