The way Vegas smiles at the sound of Pete eating, the way he takes comfort in the only way he's ever tried to comfort anyone before.
The way Vegas still threatens, still frowns, still has Pete chained but now has him tucked into a bed, has his head on a pillow, listens to eat with pleasure.
Pete is the one watches Vegas but Vegas is learning to listen to him in return.
Pete offers comfort, shows compassion, never breaks because he is steel beneath a smile, beneath tears, a place to feed endless anger because he is stronger than what happens to him.
Vegas has spent a lifetime trying to live up an abusive father in a place that rewards anger and violence and lying, a place where killing another person was almost always the right choice.
And now he is faced with Pete's honesty, Pete who was raised by an abusive father as well but in a world where violence was controlled, where the answer of violence got him nothing.
Pete has met Vegas' violence with an understanding, with unfamiliar compassion, with an endless well of honesty about his life and honesty about his family and honesty that Vegas has never known or understood.
Vegas is caught in something new, something unfamiliar, something he never thought could happen to him.
And now he is lost. He is lost to the man who smiles despite his injuries, the man who lies handcuffed in a bed and tells him about his childhood and watches him and listens to him and gives him empathy and compassion and holds him in a steel vise grip that is the most comforting thing he's ever known.
Vegas is the one who will break, he is a storm that has met a lighthouse, he is a snake that has met steel. He is breaking on Pete's kindness, falling apart as he exhausts his anger and discovers parts of himself he hasn't seen before.
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