It works. The spiel cuts off in what can only be taken as a spoken keysmash before ducking down out of his reach. There's a kneejerk reaction again - sorry, thank you - but it comes out as swatting his hand off.

"Black is a shade, not a color. Is what I'm saying."

The important thing to take away from this. Even though the tense still rolls off with a sigh. It's only with Gabe, a loyalty he can't shake off easily, but it's easy to worry too much about him. It's not like the foster family is bad, but neither of them will listen to them any more than necessary. That leads to Gabe making dumb decisions and he's still bad at anger management and no one will be there to worry about the idiot once he's deDon't think about it.

"I'm proud of you. I know how hard it must be not smacking people's heads together every ten seconds," meant in the most loving way possible. "Give it a couple more years of good behavior and you can get it expunged. Then you can work on getting the rest of your paperwork together-"

Wait.

Motherfucker.

"Hey! I'm not a brat!"