He allows the shove, and the one that comes after, setting his jaw and shifting his weight with each step back, because there's nothing Riku can do to him that's crueler than the things he's done, or say to him that's worse than the things he's said. Or lash out in ways any more selfish ways than all the ways he's lashed out. Or even make him the target of whatever had happened with his hallucinations with a harder head leading the charge.
He's done it all before, and some might arguer with spectacularly worse shows of restraint. Riku couldn't have picked a better opponent to square off with in a battle of heated wills.
But he doesn't heat. He stays almost flinty in his refusal to rise to the bait of an arguement, keeping his stare locked steadily on the other, almost as if the more Riku attemps to provoke him, the more he resists.
"No, you didn't," he counters in the same soft, matter-of-fact manner when Riku parrots his questions and displays them like some kind of nefarious evidence of him holding his secrets at knifepoint. "You haven't said anything in weeks, that's the point. You want an apology for the rest of us not being able to read your mind? Grow up."
He doesn't need to scream, or shout, or even be angry to use the facts to cut to the quick like a knife, even so. Maybe it's appropriate that it's him standing here--he can say what needs saying with the ring of hard truth that personal experience lends him.
"Stop acting like it's a burden they want to help you." He lowers his chin. "When you have no one left because they're dead or you pushed them away, come back and tell me how hard it was people cared enough to notice you went missing and set aside what those hallucinations did to them to check on you. How unfair it was they tried to get to know you. You're hurting, and maybe it feels like that'll never stop or get better, but you're not alone. That's not nothing--that's a lot."
no subject
He's done it all before, and some might arguer with spectacularly worse shows of restraint. Riku couldn't have picked a better opponent to square off with in a battle of heated wills.
But he doesn't heat. He stays almost flinty in his refusal to rise to the bait of an arguement, keeping his stare locked steadily on the other, almost as if the more Riku attemps to provoke him, the more he resists.
"No, you didn't," he counters in the same soft, matter-of-fact manner when Riku parrots his questions and displays them like some kind of nefarious evidence of him holding his secrets at knifepoint. "You haven't said anything in weeks, that's the point. You want an apology for the rest of us not being able to read your mind? Grow up."
He doesn't need to scream, or shout, or even be angry to use the facts to cut to the quick like a knife, even so. Maybe it's appropriate that it's him standing here--he can say what needs saying with the ring of hard truth that personal experience lends him.
"Stop acting like it's a burden they want to help you." He lowers his chin. "When you have no one left because they're dead or you pushed them away, come back and tell me how hard it was people cared enough to notice you went missing and set aside what those hallucinations did to them to check on you. How unfair it was they tried to get to know you. You're hurting, and maybe it feels like that'll never stop or get better, but you're not alone. That's not nothing--that's a lot."