The week that Pride reveals himself to the Lieutenant, Wrath breaks sixty-five tea cups.
There is no pity lingering in her eyes, no understanding, no nothing. Before, he thinks that there must have been a small part of her that clung to the idea of their family as being his saving grace. His only absolution.
The week that Pride reveals himself to the Lieutenant, she becomes nothing more than a hollow husk of a person. She makes his tea. She writes up reports with the same kind of clinical efficiency that Wrath has found himself to rely upon on more than one occasion, despite the short tenure she has had under his direct command. She does all of this without batting an eyelid, without a change to her gait, without a single sign that anything is amiss.
The fact that he cannot see any discernible sign that she has been changed from this newfound knowledge frustrates him more than he would like to admit. Pride skulks the hallways of Central Command more often now, gloating and jeering about how the Lieutenant twitches just so when she rounds a corner and sees the familiar gleam of white teeth against the walls. It is all such a fun game to him. He gives daily reports about how her head turns a little more to the left when she hears a noise behind her, how sometimes she will pause mid-report and look out the window towards the southern wing of Central Command. Pride calls her weak, baseless. Wrath knows better, and instead bites his tongue and bides his time.
In addition to the sixty-five tea cups, Wrath also snaps seventy-four fountain pens, completely shatters both his practice swords in quick succession, and chips a tooth.
"I need you to organise a dentist appointment for me, Lieutenant Hawkeye," he asks her one afternoon, after trying (and failing miserably) to enjoy his usual afternoon tea. She nods, drawing her notepad from where it sits on the far edge of her desk, quickly jotting it down.
"Do you have any preference for a practice, or is there someone that the family doctor would recommend?"
It is a simple enough question – certainly innocuous – but it throws him for a loop regardless. Despite only having limited advantages over the human body, this is the first time Wrath finds himself in the unlikely position of showing weakness, chipped tooth or not. The family doctor is simply a smokescreen – a man who has limited medical knowledge, enough to always insist to Louisa that their child's heath is wonderful, enough to convince Louisa herself that any significant ailment she suffers from personally deserves to be only seen by the best of the best. Even for a human, she is a hale one. Bradley can only think of a couple of instances in the last decade where she's endured anything more than the common cold.
A chipped tooth signifies a greater problem. He knows he is not infallible, but never has the reality been splayed out before him quite so obviously. It does not bode well for him, sinking low in his gut and coiling uncomfortably. He is showing age, showing wear and tear. A fracture is only the tip of the iceberg, and Wrath wonders if the Lieutenant will file this piece of information away for later, to mull over and consider the ramifications as he is doing.
He wonders if she will share it with him, as she has undoubtedly done with the truth of Selim Bradley. They often sit together at lunch, heads ducked low as they eat whatever the cafeteria has produced. Scuttlebutt is rife about the two of them, and Wrath doesn't know how to approach that particular minefield. There is always an element of truth to whatever rumour is floating around, and he doesn't want to try exploring and dissecting the fact from fiction, let alone understand why he is so bothered with who she spends her limited free time with.
They both know they are being watched.
Wrath wonders if they realise just how intently.