Tess' coldly cut words reach into Joel's simmering anger and pins him still. All at once, he realises he is treading a line he doesn't like. He doesn't like it one bit when Tess' vicious mouth strikes into their arguments with that nasty undercutting tone of hers. It's a side to Tess meant for business dealings, scare tactics, intimidations, fast-thinking threats that work alongside Joel's muscling brutality to make a guy who owes them a debt frantically bargain for his life. He shifts on the spot, hands dropping from his hips as though physically jostled by her passive-aggressive barb.
God, she can be such a goddamn bitch sometimes. He is pissed that she would even suggest he'd shirk her in favour of demeaning quarantine zone labour. Wants to be pissed as all hell that she would take such a low stab at him for taking up soul-sucking jobs in the zone to keep them both afloat.
He holds it back, though, and watches Tess declare herself fine with her indignant presenting show of arms. Tess doesn't scare him, but in moments when her viperous tongue turns on him, it unanchors him a little. Tips the scales towards hostility between them, which terrifies Joel deep down. If things were to ever crumble between them, if he were to ever push it enough with Tess where she pushed back even harder with a stinging death blow that she doesn't need him anymore, it might just be the thing that finally kills what little remaining shred of humanity he has left clinging to him. He's never dared push it that far.
Joel is the first to break eye contact from his staring standoff with her; he tuts an angrily dismissive noise under his breath while throwing a glare off to the side towards their cramped little bedroom. Then he suddenly paces back to the table, snatches the back of the chair he'd been seated on, drags it towards him, drops down onto it. He lunges straight for the half-empty whiskey bottle in front of him and grabs it. Uncaps it, tips a sloshing finger into the glass he'd been drinking from last night. Tess wins; he's surrendered.
no subject
God, she can be such a goddamn bitch sometimes. He is pissed that she would even suggest he'd shirk her in favour of demeaning quarantine zone labour. Wants to be pissed as all hell that she would take such a low stab at him for taking up soul-sucking jobs in the zone to keep them both afloat.
He holds it back, though, and watches Tess declare herself fine with her indignant presenting show of arms. Tess doesn't scare him, but in moments when her viperous tongue turns on him, it unanchors him a little. Tips the scales towards hostility between them, which terrifies Joel deep down. If things were to ever crumble between them, if he were to ever push it enough with Tess where she pushed back even harder with a stinging death blow that she doesn't need him anymore, it might just be the thing that finally kills what little remaining shred of humanity he has left clinging to him. He's never dared push it that far.
Joel is the first to break eye contact from his staring standoff with her; he tuts an angrily dismissive noise under his breath while throwing a glare off to the side towards their cramped little bedroom. Then he suddenly paces back to the table, snatches the back of the chair he'd been seated on, drags it towards him, drops down onto it. He lunges straight for the half-empty whiskey bottle in front of him and grabs it. Uncaps it, tips a sloshing finger into the glass he'd been drinking from last night. Tess wins; he's surrendered.