InsaneJournal

I never said we was equal, I never wished to be saved
Who: Viola & Samuel.
What: A brief run-in.
Where: Seventh floor stairwell.
When: 4 February.
Warnings: Language, of course.

It had been out of necessity rather than desire that Samuel had informed his superior officer of his injury, and so far the admission had caused him nothing but trouble. Captain Reid had immediately placed him on a less strenuous detail, returning him to regular day shifts after long weeks of late nights, exhilarating emergencies and on-call rotation. It was not desk work, exactly, but it was no less an insult to one of Samuel’s particular temperament. He had argued himself hoarse, cursed so creatively and enthusiastically that at least two rookies expanded their vocabularies by half, and actually shattered a paperweight for which Captain Reid had felt no small affection. His assertions that the wound had not been sustained in some back alley, unauthorized display of aggression did little to help his case, serving only to further his captain’s belief that the stress of the job was at last beginning to weigh on him. It was the threat of suspension pending a psychological evaluation that at last got through to him. Samuel’s jaw had clenched so hard he could hear it creaking in his head, and he felt he yet bore the makings of a tenacious migraine begun at that very moment.

Still, he had accepted the assignment and dodged at least the one humiliating bullet of being trundled off to the department’s favorite head shrinker. It was a small victory, but victory all the same. He reminded himself of this as he slipped out of his apartment Friday morning, the end of week two of his embarrassing reassignment. His stitches pulled in protest of a wrong step, a sharp penalty for his booted foot coming down too hard. He showed not the slightest outward sign of pain, determined not to let the mask slip even with no audience nearby to notice and latch upon a moment of weakness. He told himself he felt nothing. He knew he was healing, and that was all that was required. Nodding to no-one in particular he locked his apartment door, striding toward the stairwell with a sense of confidence and purpose no-one could have questioned. His flattened palm shoved the door open, swinging it so wide it smacked loudly and then ricocheted back so that the entrance was left only partially ajar. His hand rose to his side, idly toying with the holstered pistol, then to the badge nestled snugly against his belt, grateful for the reassurance of their familiar weight.

Although Viola Kirke had never considered herself a clumsy individual, she found herself standing in the stairwell with a vaguely stunned expression after the force of some unexpected impact jolted her out of her thoughts. She couldn't be certain if she had run into the door, or if it had "run" into her. But the very idea that she had been so remiss in taking account of her surroundings that she hadn't noticed it opening left a rather unpleasant taste in her mouth. Viola had always taken strides toward self-awareness, mastery over body, mind, and soul, and this in her opinion included being alert to one's environment, understanding one's place within it and finding a sense of harmony and rhythm while navigating through. It left her unsettled by anything that took her by surprise, and it mattered little that she recognized exactly why she'd been caught off guard. Her mind had been preoccupied with lingering worries from the previous day, an administrative mishap at the medical school that left her paper work incomplete and her starting date in question if she didn't immediately settle the matter. While her course of action was clear, and even a manageable amount of work, it had not smothered any additional anxiety over what else might go wrong and Viola also found herself bothered greatly that this clerical error, which had been no fault of her own, nevertheless might reflect poorly on her in the eyes of her supervisors. A restless night had left her sleep-deprived and fractious, and far too introspective if her attempts to ease her concerns had left her blind to everything else around her.

Viola forced herself in those subsequent seconds after her unfortunate collision to assess her surroundings with a more critical eye, watching as the door lost any remaining momentum and came to a standstill at an angle that cut into the narrow corridor. It obscured a clear view of the man standing behind it, but not enough to prevent Viola from deciphering the exact sequence of events that had left her massaging her shoulder and upper arm. He had at least been partly responsible for her injury, and she frowned slightly at the idea that anyone would so thoughtlessly fling a doorway open in such an inconsiderate manner. But Viola was always determined to be fair, and she knew she'd not been entirely without fault for her own distraction. Instead of falling to the act of passing blame, she slipped into a pattern of what she believed to be the natural exchange dictated by social mores. Viola glanced to him half-expecting an apology for which she could then offer her own for not looking where she'd been going.

Samuel stepped into the close quarters of the stairwell’s seventh floor landing, the door pushed further open by one broad shoulder. The girl standing before him was a wisp of a thing, but she wore an expectant expression he could scarcely ignore. It seemed almost as if she demanded something of him, something he certainly had no intention of providing even before he knew precisely what it was. The door swung shut behind him but he remained solidly in her path. His eyes flicked from her face to her arm, watching her slender fingers work out the sting of a very recent wound. His brow arched. “What?” he asked, his tone plainly combative. The deep cut at his leg throbbed in answer, silently goading him on, encouraging his already foul temper. The corner of his mouth curled upward, a taunting smirk playing on his lips. “You always go skulking around corners like that? You’re lucky it was just your arm and not your fuckin’ head behind that door.”

She felt his words wash over her like ice water, creeping through her veins, cold and harsh and leaving her body rigid with tension in its wake. But it had also awakened all her senses, centered them with sharp precision on the man before her in a fashion that had been lacking in her previous exhaustion and irritability. Nonetheless Viola felt her temper stir, and she clamped down on it hard, refusing to allow the stranger's petty words to provoke her. She could assess the situation fairly, and step outside of herself and her own biases because she was better than this, and she could be better than him. It was possible he was merely having an off-day, the stress of bad news or some other unfortunate incident. She could offer him this concession when Viola herself felt her own patience and composure frayed due to similar circumstances. His future actions would reflect whether this had been the exception or the rule, and she would not act hastily without such evidence. Instead Viola sucked in a breath, slow and carefully timed so that it forced her muscles to relax as she cleared her mind.

She offered him a smile, though her eyes were dark and flat as they bore steadily to meet his own gaze, and two carefully drawn steps directed her back to stand with her shoulder-blades pressed into the hard surface of the wall. Her spine was straight, her chin level, and her gaze never distracted even as she tilted her head and cut her hand with a steady arc before her to gesture that he was free to pass unencumbered by her presence. "I certainly won't attempt to stand in your path again. If you're in such a hurry, by all means, go first." Her reply was polite, painstakingly so when broken down to the pure components of word choice and meaning, but it lacked the warmth and humility that made such statements friendly. Its crisp absence of feeling lent a certain unintentional haughtiness to her tone.

Though he often chose to ignore such cues, his own upbringing and experience had rendered Samuel quite attuned to the nuances of speech and body language. All her gentility could not hide the chill undercurrent to her tone or conceal the unvoiced judgment glinting in her eyes. Her choice to avoid direct confrontation was one he understood well enough. Still, understanding did not curb the sharp-edged grin that curved his lips, and he made no move to stand aside. “I think I should,” he said. “Just be careful you don’t trip me up on my way past.” His shoulder brushed roughly against her in spite of the wide berth she had provided. As his foot hit the first riser, Viola’s slim shape not a pace behind him, he let slip a derisive little snort of laughter. “Nice meetin’ you, Grace. Try not to fall between here and your apartment, okay?”

Air stilled in her lungs, breathing stilted, and she stood frozen in place able to do little else but stare in disbelief. Her state of her mind, however, was in sharp contrast to the reluctant responsiveness of her body. It raced with almost frantic assessment, a touch of cold fury burning the tail end of every thought that sped through it. Viola was not by nature a volatile individual. Her outer calm was typically an accurate reflection of her inner self, and yet, there she stood struggling to keep her temper in check. She had never laid the blame on him for their less than ideal encounter. She'd gone so far as to step politely aside. But there he was, aiming pointed words like bullets, drawing attention to the error she had made while ignoring any fault of his own, and like a brute, bumping into her intentionally. Her cheeks burned in a mix of silent embarrassment and righteous indignation, almost resenting this fracture made in her hard-earned unity of body and mind as much as the unprovoked aggression.

Still she refused to show it. If there existed any visible betrayal of her inner turmoil, it was brief and only in the deeper burn behind her gaze, vanishing behind a few fluttered blinks. He would not get to her. She would not give him that. She could shed those incongruous negative emotions that had no place within her. Viola retained her smile, dimpling slightly as it edged a little wider, and offered him a simple and neighbourly nod. "Thank you for your concern. I hope you have a good morning," she told him, and then turned to make her way up to her penthouse on the upper floors where she was determined to dispel her current tension with a thorough session of yoga.