Joel is slugging another finger of whiskey into his glass when Tess' hands find his shoulders. He thumps the bottle down again and draws his drink to him, the glass scraping along the table's chipped, timeworn surface. He wants to be pissed off at her, not placated. He wants Tess to come up with a better plan than It'll cost what it costs. His nervousness about how they're going to make it through the next hard few months would be easier to chew on if he had a purpose to channel it towards: A lead he and Tess could chase down, an arm he could break, a face he could pummel his rage into for the world constantly trying to screw him over. Anything. Idleness sets his teeth right on edge. He wants... shit, he doesn't know what he wants.

His finger is tapping an agitated rhythm against the side of his glass, and he stares at it while trying to ignore Tess' thumbs digging into a spot in his shoulders that's knotted up just like the rage bunched up inside his chest.

But after a few long testy seconds, his lungs drag in a deep breath, and with Tess safely behind him where she can't his face, he squeezes his eyes shut. Images of the day race behind his eyelids: the baking and bristling pyre; the taste of smoke and death filling his mouth as he shovelled another body from the back of a FEDRA pickup truck into his arms; the pile of dead kids slumped on top of each other on that one truckload that came in towards the end of his shift.

His breath falls out of him, long and slow. Each kneading prod of Tess' thumbs seems to reach into the ugly knot twisted up in his gut, loosening it little by slow little. All his anger is starting to cool into a dull ache, and he finally submits to Tess' placating hands enough to let his head drop forward in silent contrition. Shit, he realises, he didn't mean to take his shitty day out on her.