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i feel like whitaker just… doesn’t yell. like he can obviously yell when he’s scared or it’s like necessary but he just doesn’t really raise his voice. if he’s frustrated he just grits his teeth, sighs through his nose, and carries on.
santos — because she is the way she is (and i love her for it) — keeps trying to get him to break. it unnerves her how he just doesn’t seem to get mad at her. oh he definitely gets annoyed and exhausted, but he doesn’t raise his voice. when she won’t stop kicking him in the ass when he’s fixing the clogged sink drain he just… lets her do it. if she’s being lazy and wants some ice cream from the freezer but doesn’t want to get up she only has to whine for a few minutes before he groans and gets it for her.
she’s trying to see his boundaries. to see how far she can push until he proves that he’s just like every other man she’s met and the fact that he won’t fold irks the shit out of her. idk i don’t think they’d ever really talk about it, but whitaker is a smart cookie and would probably figure out what she’s trying to do a few months in. he’d probably casually drop that his older brothers yelled at him all the time and then his poor mom would yell herself hoarse trying to get them to quit and oh here comes his dad yelling for everyone to shut the hell up. so he’s just always been quiet. quiet little dennis who once walked on a broken ankle for a few days because he didn’t wanna bother anyone.
and santos learns to live with that. to live comfortably with a guy who won’t scream at her or hurt her even when he gets mad at her. she learns to relax. to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.