Hakkai sets his teacup down much too hard on the counter and starts laughing. There's a wild, harsh edge to the laughter, shuddering just on the edge of becoming a scream.
Your pain is important to me, I was going to let you hurt me--
All of this, everything he's said, and they're still stuck there. Still at the idea that the only thing that matters about Hakkai's pain is whether he's going to hurt Neal about it.
And Neal thinks that constitutes equality--
He presses both hands hard over his face, forcing himself back under control bit by bit, until he trusts himself to speak again.
"As a warden told me when I'd been here for a month," he says through his hands, bitter and suddenly raw, "you're not pushing your weakness onto someone else, Neal. I have no interest in absolving you of what you did by breaking your arm about it.
"Anyway," he adds, deliberately mean, "you don't want me to hurt you. You won't even let me tell you that you did what you did without needing to throw in my face how much you aren't going to feel bad about it."
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Your pain is important to me, I was going to let you hurt me--
All of this, everything he's said, and they're still stuck there. Still at the idea that the only thing that matters about Hakkai's pain is whether he's going to hurt Neal about it.
And Neal thinks that constitutes equality--
He presses both hands hard over his face, forcing himself back under control bit by bit, until he trusts himself to speak again.
"As a warden told me when I'd been here for a month," he says through his hands, bitter and suddenly raw, "you're not pushing your weakness onto someone else, Neal. I have no interest in absolving you of what you did by breaking your arm about it.
"Anyway," he adds, deliberately mean, "you don't want me to hurt you. You won't even let me tell you that you did what you did without needing to throw in my face how much you aren't going to feel bad about it."