Winning is supposed to feel good. Her throat tightens when he breaks off, because that could be a leave me alone or a redoubling of anger for round two. She never knows until it lands, but there it is, and he's slouched at their kitchen table again.

She's quiet. She lets the silence chew at both of them, ugly and mean, for a minute in which she questions if she went too far. With anyone else, she wouldn't bat an eye. Fuck you, asshole. You don't get to treat me like that. It'd be easy. Thoughtless.

But this is Joel, and he is angry and callous and a broken, broken man, and they have not shared this lousy little apartment for so many years out of obligation. She could yell at him sometimes but she has not checked him over for wounds after a brawl for her own self-interest. She could demand some truths out of him, but she has not retreated after treading too closely to the things he won't talk about because she doesn't care. They will probably starve on and off this winter, but they did last year and the year before that and as long as they've been together. They will probably starve next year, too, if they don't leave before it gets worse, and she will not complain as long as he takes the rations she's picky about. He's the most reliable person in her life, and has been for a long time. He protects her.

It does scare her that she's found many ways to comfort him, to ease him down, but she's never figured out a way to protect him. The world is ugly and it sets men like him off. And what if she can't protect him? How can she do that when her picture of where it comes from is so limited?

She takes a couple steps towards him, slow but not particularly cautious. Her hands find his shoulders, and if he does not shrug her off, her thumbs press into the tension in his traps. She's still quiet.