This was a bad thing. Pike was pretty sure of it. He knew himself better than Claire did, and no matter what she thought might happen, no matter what rosy future she was imagining for them, Pike was stone cold certain it wouldn't work. First of all, good things just didn't happen to him. They didn't. Crappy family, lost his only friend, had to give up his first love to protect her, the lonely life of a hunter, and then HelLA. Pike's life could never be a show on Nickelodeon, no matter how much creative editing they did. When you lived that kind of life, you stopped hoping for good things, because no matter what tiny little slivers of happiness you got were gone almost immediately. Happiness and good things, to Pike, was a sand so fine it would always slip through his fingers.
When she came towards him, his posture changed. He stiffened, his chest puffed out, his shoulders went back and his chin lifted. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. His lips pressed into a tight line and he glared at her. Everything about this new posture screamed both defiance and a nonverbal challenge. When she looked up at him, he turned his gaze to meet hers, as if trying to prove to himself that he could. "No. It's not." Technically, it was a lie, but it was buried so deep and he'd convinced himself of it so fully that he believed it was the truth.
The image was ruined a second later when he couldn't quite keep it up. He deflated, looked away from her, and took an almost involuntary step back to create more distance between them. "I have to be afraid of me," he snapped, the snarl of anger ringing false even to his own ears. "Every second of every day, I have to be afraid of myself. I have to be afraid of what I would see in the mirror if I could ever bring myself to look, because if I don't I forget, and if I forget then people are going to die." He took a breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. "So don't tell me I don't have anything to be afraid of," he added darkly.