Padraig was grateful to Clio for that. "Thank you," he said with a small smile. "I never wanted to hurt her. She's my best friend. I didn't mean for things to get complicated.
When Clio started lecturing him, Padraig's eyes grew wide. She was pretty scary. He held his hands up and shook his head. "Self-flaggelation is a holy rite," he explained. "But I would never do it in someone else's home. I didn't bring it with me." He really didn't want to show them his back. He had bandaged it, but he had also been drunk when he did it, so it was pretty bad.
Patrick's look was a little dark. He had gone to a man who would hurt him when he felt especially guilty too. God, they were so alike sometimes it took him by surprise. He put his plate aside and then he went to take Padraig's too. "You need to show us," he said firmly. And while he almost never told Padraig what to do since he saw himself as the failure and Padraig as the 'real Patrick', he wasn't going to back down on this.
Padraig glanced between them both and then said, "Ella probably doesn't need to see."