This fic is set within the continuity of my 2k7verse and refers to events that occurred in 'Rid of Her'. It can be found on my profile, beneath this one near the top.
This story contains adult material and is not suitable for under-18s. It contains references to or depictions of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, drug use, rape, violence and murder and should be read with caution by those who are sensitive to such material. None of the abuse Angel experiences is enacted by Raphael, rest assured on that.
2007
Angel knows Raphael would never hit her.
She knows even more than that.
Raphael would rather die than hit her. Raphael would rather cut off his own hand and beat himself to death with it rather than hit her. If Raphael so much as pushed her out of the way while he was worked up, he would spend the rest of his life punishing himself for it by breaking the same damn hand over and over again on any thug he could find.
No, she knows Raphael would never hit her.
It's just that sometimes he gets so goddamn angry.
He's like a storm when he gets angry. The building pressure like dark clouds gathering in the horizon, the rising tension, electricity in the air all around him. The first outburst like the clap of thunder… and then the deluge – the raging and the pacing, all the clatter and chaos – he yells and tosses things, slams fists against the doorframe, strides around the room, filling it with his bulk and fury.
And she can't help it. When she sees the warning signs – the dark scowl, the hunching posture, the huffing and snappish replies – her heart begins to skitter, and her hands grow clammy and her throat tightens. She tiptoes around him, staying silent, staying inconspicuous and quiet, letting him pick the movie, getting him a drink, not asking him what's up, not touching him, not even daring to breathe too loud. Sometimes he simmers down on his own. Sometimes he hits the street before he explodes to work it out on whatever hapless thug he happens across.
But sometimes it doesn't matter what she does, or doesn't do – he just flips out.
He's never angry at her. But that doesn't matter either. What does matter is that he's angry, and there's two hundred pounds of densely packed muscle and shell of him and when he's angry he consumes the room and there seems nowhere for her to go. And she can't help it, she's terrified. She shakes and her heart thuds fit to burst and her dinner threatens to come back up, her gut twisting in agonising knots and there's a pressure behind her eyes as though she's going to cry and all she wants to do is hide, make herself as small as possible and squeeze into the tiniest corner, hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing, until it's all over.
And it's not because she thinks Raphael would ever hit her. She knows he wouldn't.
It's because Julio did.