He liked Big Blue's laugh. It was crazy, chilling, dangerous. Sparrow wanted to hear more of it. A lot more. It washed over him like the ocean at night, too much too cold too black. He was a man incapable of love, but whatever was the nearest version of that for Sparrow, that was how he felt about things like Big Blue's laugh.
When she hit him with the fist, he hadn't quite been prepared. For a struggle, yes. For a closed-fist blow, no. So he absorbed it and staggered back just one step, and then forced himself back before he'd recovered just to not lose that advantage. Sparrow could not afford to lose his advantage.
He brought his left hand up and wrapped it around her throat, letting it be joined by the right a moment later. Squeeze, constrict just enough that it was a struggle to breathe. Not enough to force her unconscious, not yet. "I'm nobody's bitch," he said, and there was an edge of something inhuman, a growl barely voiced, to those words. He got closer, his face less than an inch from hers.
His hands loosened just a bit and he said, "Laugh again."