"You ain't pushing me," he murmurs. It'd come out a lot less weak, a lot more angry, if he wasn't talking to Maggie. She is in a select group of people who have seen enough of his pointless, fledgling wrath. In Maggie's shadow, though, he ends up feeling defeated before the fight's even begun.

(He knows what Beth would say, can almost hear her-- stop being an asshole!)

But decades of instinct well up against his own common sense, gumming the works. He takes a few more steps, ignoring the pain, and checks over the deer. "Ain't slowing you down."