If Looks Could Kill, Staring Would Be My Profession

It was a concept people laughed at. The concept of a girl hitting a guy was always considered funny, a reflection of a guy who was too pathetic to keep his woman happy and in line, so she kicked his ass to train him.

While he wasn't ever inclined to talk about it, JT thought that was bullshit. He had only ever raised a hand against a girl once, and had felt sick with guilt for weeks after. For all the attitude he once carried himself with (Once. Not anymore. Too difficult to really maintain attitude when you're trapped in a sterilized room painted a "calming" shade of pale blue, forced into a pair of hospital-issue pajamas. No dignity left to carry an attitude with.) JT did not really like violence very much. He had seen enough of it. He lost his temper sometimes, occasionally even more often than sometimes, but he didn't like physically fighting. Aside from a handful of incidents (fucking coach deserved to have the soccer ball kicked at his head, who the fuck did he think he was? JT had been a fucking all-star in Illinois, fuck him.) JT had never physically initiated a fight. He did not like fighting. For one, he knew damn well that he was usually too weak to win in the first place. Even before everything had started falling apart, JT had never been the most muscular of guys. Lean was probably the right word. Part of why he played along with the strung-out rock star look was because he knew damn well that it fitted how he naturally looked. A fight would almost always mean getting his ass kicked, and he tended to prefer to keep his dignity a little more intact than that.

And then there were the flashbacks. (Rings. He hated rings. Ryden wore rings. His father wore rings. Bad enough to be bruised and broken, but the stones ripping flesh open along with the impact, stitches through bruises. His mother wore rings too, but she preferred an open palm to a backhand. JT preferred the open palm too and usually thanked her quietly for at least having that decency.)

Audrey knew his line. He had never had to tell her where it was. She had known, and she had always cared enough to keep to the right side of it. She knew he would never strike her back. (Once had been enough, watching her tremble, that hint of fear in her eyes, he would never hurt her like that again. No one would hurt her like that. No one had the right to hurt another person like that.)

Audrey had blatantly crossed the line. Not only crossed it, but had blamed him, told him that it was his fault that she had. (Lines too familiar, he could rehearse the entire general speech. He shouldn't have been so thoughtless. It wasn't a lack of love, but he was just so frustrating sometimes. So sorry, it will never happen again. Yeah, until you lose your temper again or feel the need to reassert your dominance, you sick goddamn fuck. Male or female made no difference. Still a sick goddamn fucker.)

People had tried to warn him. People always tried to warn him. (Until they got too close, anyways. Lost cause. Hopeless case. Too much of a bastard, why should anyone give a fuck about someone that doesn't give a fuck about anyone, even themself?) He had been told that Audrey was psychotic, but he had thought that he knew better. She was temperamental, high maintenance, bossy, but how could the girl that had helped him and given him something resembling a safe home actually be psychotic? He knew better. They had just never been lucky enough to get close enough to her to see that she was human.

He had been wrong. As usual. (A continual life pattern, Krista fucking around with Freddie, parents unwilling and uninterested in understanding their sons, Ryden no less than a sociopath, nothing made any better by achieving his goals, everything always just a build-up to a bigger letdown than before. Why keep climbing up just to get knocked on your ass again? Better to stay at rock bottom.)

He didn't tell the doctor where the gash and bruise in his face had come from. The doctor would have laughed. What kind of pathetic man lets a girl do that to him? Weak little boy, worthless, pathetic. He didn't need the condescencion of a stranger. An accident. Drunk and stumbling, smacked into the shower door. It happens. More than enough alcohol in his blood to make the story perfectly plausible.

When she left, he made certain that the nurse knew she wasn't allowed again. No reason given. It was none of their goddamn business. He wouldn't let her keep him in a sterile cage to visit whenever she felt like doing so. She wanted him locked up, he would keep her locked out.