Ax made a noise of shock and dismay, no one in the Order had ever made that kind of comment about Theo, at least not to his face. The thing was, Ax didn't even disagree, and Theo probably wouldn't either, but the comment was made in an attempt to wound, Fabian was pointedly trying to hurt him. Ax knew that was because he was hurt and felt alone, but that didn't make it okay.
"If we're going to be pedantic about it," Ax started, fingertips gripping the rim of his teacup, grounding him, keeping him from darting out of there because he was on the verge of tears, "then we are in exactly the same position, our boyfriends were holding hands. The difference is I can look at it with empathy and kindness and understand my boyfriend's needs, and you can only see it through the selfishness, self-pity, and cruelty that you seem to wear like a badge. That's the difference between us." Ax slid out of the booth seat at the table, which was probably also their bed, and stood. His whole body was trembling, and he wanted very badly to make a grand exit, but the place was small and Fabian was blocking the path to the door. "Martin loves you, so you must have a least one redeeming feature, but I fail to see it." Now he felt like he was going to throw-up, being mean just wasn't natural for him.