@gntlesoull cont. (whilst screaming)
Silence is not an uncomfortable thing to this family. That doesn't mean the emptiness doesn't hold his attention raptly. Deflection is his usual bait, but Joey is not one of the regular Titans. There's too much under left to roil.
Waiting. Waiting. For what? 'Yelling', maybe. The exaggerated fast type of signing that he can't really read coherently. Is it wrong to hope for more? To have some twisted wish to just be punished for all the fucked up things he doesn't want to talk about.
And of all the things a gentle boy's roil could turn to, the open palmed strike is not what he'd been expecting. So there's no deflection. No, instant strike back. Just silence.
At least until what started as shaking shoulders bubbled into actual laughter. It hurts with all the damage but he couldn't stop if he wanted to. And why does it feel like relief?
"You couldn't make the fist?" There's an easy badgering about how Melvin hits harder but it dies in his sigh. The last of the laughter shaking as he took off the mask and begrudgingly took the arm.
"Kinda wish you would have," he muttered.









