The sudden skip between hovering like a shark swimming in circles and deciding to step up so far he's leaning over the bar, and she takes a half step back before she stops. Before retreat is not a gameplay option she's allowing herself, and her jaw grits; her spine snaps back so straight it might crack from the force, but all that registers is the light glint flickers on the glasses and the way they all start shaking on the counter and the shelves. A raining, rattling tinkle that's every bit as wrong.

"Better people than you," Jo grits it out almost at a beat per each second word, leaning into the bar, not away, even as something doesn't feel right.

The righteousness is untainted, maybe even more stubbornly ground for the aggressive directness, but the podium it was around isn't. But at the same time, right a millimeter under that, it feels familiar and right in the way it has so often over the last few weeks. Warmth rising through her spreading, like calling to like, the same affliction from both ends. It's so much easier to lean into the second feeling than care about the first.