This story is for Bella (carelesswisdom) from a prompt she gave me about the Seven Deadly Sins. Also thanks to Gabby and Emily with love.


Wrath

Artie was generally a pretty relaxed person. It took a lot to work him into a rage, and he could generally control it when he got angry. But now, he couldn't remember a time in his life when he had been angrier.

It, of course, involved Tina. Or rather, the treatment of Tina. Leaving his last period class after talking to his history teacher, Artie had headed to his locker where he and Tina had agreed to meet. However, when he got there, Tina was nowhere to be seen.

Checking his phone to see if she'd texted him a change of plans, and seeing no new messages, Artie waiting for a few minutes to see if she would show up. It was when he texted her, with no response, that Artie began to get a feeling that something was wrong.

Wheeling through the now-empty corridors, Artie frowned at the feeling in his stomach that he couldn't shake. It was the feeling that he'd gotten many times before in his life, the uneasiness before something bad happened; before little things like his mom's handbag being stolen, to big things, like his accident.

He was right – wheeling around a corner he saw Tina backed up against a wall, dripping in slushie and surrounded by three jocks. One still had a full slushie cup.

To anyone who didn't know her, she would have seemed like she was calm and unafraid, arms crossed and head up, defiant. But Artie could see how scared she was. She was tiny compared to them, and they were all clearly violating her personal space, right up in her face. To someone who could get as claustrophobic as Tina could, and due to how intimidating the jocks could get, she was in a scary situation.

Artie couldn't hear what the jocks were saying to her as he wheeled faster towards them, but it clearly hit a nerve, because he saw her fists clench. He increased his speed, alerting the jocks to his presence behind them.

As they turned to look at him, and Tina's fear-filled eyes met his own, the jock on Tina's right moved towards Artie enough to see the hand placement of the one in front of her. Although she was clearly trying to shrink as far back as she could and away from the jocks, she couldn't get away from the hand of the jock in front of her, and it was gripping her shoulder, pushing her back against the wall and holding her in place.

"Ah, look, it's your knight on shining wheels." The jock Artie recognised as Truscott said, causing the other two to snicker.

"Leave Tina alone. Go away." Artie said, fully expecting the jocks to throw the remaining slushie at him and leave.

"And why should we?" Truscott said, sliding his hand down Tina's arm and then leaving it against her waist.

It was the look in Tina's eyes, strong fear mixed with disgust as Truscott moved his hand back up Tina's arm again that made Artie's blood boil. The fact that he was touching her at all, and in a way that was clearly making her uncomfortable, made his teeth clench together in anger. And it was the little terrified whimper that she let out that caused such a strong reaction from Artie. Something snapped.

"Get your hands off her." He snarled, pushing himself forward again. One of the other jocks attempted to pull him back by the handles of his chair, and spinning, Artie's fist collided almost instantly with the jock's groin, and Artie watched as he doubled over.

Artie was fully prepared to lunge at Truscott. Everything was red, and his fists were clenched so tightly that they were shaking.

Truscott seemed to realise that he had overstepped the line, letting out a mocking laugh and stepping away from Tina.

"Touch her ever again, and it will be the last thing that you ever do." Artie said through his teeth. As they moved away, helping their in-pain companion, Tina remained standing with her back against the wall.

"You okay, Tee?" Artie wheeled up to her and took her hand gently. Tina nodded, shaking red ice from her hair and wiping it off her face. Her small smile, although it was forced and her hands were shaking, made him feel a lot calmer.


But his anger returned later that evening when he and Tina (dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and a T-shirt that were both too big for her) were sitting on his bedroom floor doing their weekly tutoring session. Tina was terrible at Spanish, and so Artie was trying to help her with her essay when she threw her pen down in frustration and said, "I give up."
"No, come on, Tee, it's not that hard." She rolled her eyes and pushed his shoulder jokingly.

"You're so – ow!" Tina didn't finish her sentence as Artie pushed her back. It was a gentle push, so Artie was surprised at the exclamation of pain.

"I-it's okay, you just gave me a fright." Tina tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace as she rubbed her shoulder.

Watching to gauge Tina's reaction, Artie slowly moved his hand towards the shoulder and pulled back the T-shirt to see it.

Artie had never wanted to hurt another person in his life, so the incredibly strong desire to cause pain to Truscott was surprising to him. But as he saw the faint purple bruising, and could make out where the jock's fingers had dug into Tina's skin around her shoulder, he wanted to punch him in the face.

"I will kill him."Artie muttered, and the dark look on his face almost made Tina flinch away from him. Truscott had hurt Tina. He had bruised her, and it made him so angry that it frightened him a little.

"Artie? It's just a bruise."

"Just a bruise? Tina, this is serious." Artie worked to unclench his teeth at the look on Tina's face.

"He gripped you so hard that he bruised you. We have to tell someone about this."

"Artie, they push Kurt and I into lockers all the time. Which bruises us. They slushie all of us. They put Rachel into the dumpster yesterday and Mike eventually had to pull her out because she could reach the top. What makes you think that they'll do anything about this?" Artie had to admit that she had a point. But that wasn't going to stop him from going after Truscott. Tina seemed to read his mind, adding, "And promise me you won't try to punch him, Artie, you'll just get hurt."

"Fine." Artie said, but his brain was already plotting revenge. If he couldn't physically hurt Truscott, he was going to embarrass the hell out of him.

Truscott, with the help of Finn and Puck, was going to pay. And a few days later, when Tina saw him running through the halls in his underwear and covered in red slushie, could only laugh.