It doesn't mean the same thing to him that it does to Hannibal. With a mind already so full of everyone else's impressions - their thoughts, their reflections, their disappointments - it's difficult for anything to keep feeling sacred. Hannibal clings to what he wants, lets all dissenting opinions roll off of him like oil over wings, but Will is soil that everyone else's roots grow through.
If there used to be something inside of him that craved anything better to call 'family', it's been eaten right out of the soil after so many years. Or maybe just the name has, just the audacity to call it what it rightfully is, because Will absolutely feels the pull to help others. To reach out for that connection, no matter how many times he's ended up with bitten fingers over it.
He feels Neph's distracted concern almost like a hand warding him off, but Will thinks...that might just be him. Neph doesn't ask him to stop, or lean away, just breathes surprised and stares like she didn't expect someone to comment on the half-healed wound she's been licking since they walked away from that confrontation. When her fingers squeeze into the side of his hand, Will actually lets his shoulders slope back down into something almost relaxed, because that's so clearly a permission.
'It's not what you're thinking.'
Bile-sour fills Will's mouth, and he only looks away briefly to swallow it back down. His eye contact returns, staring at the blue of Neph's, the way they're blown with guilt and uncertainty and the tremors of something Will actually and truly hasn't ever had to face before.
He's never been more aware of the difference between them - the gendered aspect of it, that is. It suddenly looks like a yawning gap, but when he reaches out across anyway he finds it must've just been a mirage, because he touches the other side and can begin clawing at the base of it. He still can't climb it, but he can scope the shape and size.
"I'm not about to argue-- degrees of trauma here." Will says, and even that hurts coming up, burns like getting sick. Her eye contact isn't by accident - it can't be, they're still relatively new to one another but they both know enough, she knows enough about him - and so Will...makes himself look. "That's not what hurting is about. It's not a comparison with other events that didn't happen."
And maybe his breath's picking up a little. Maybe there's shadows of his own experiences - not the same, but the same underlying narrative of not enough to excuse your reaction - that are what help push him to keep pushing for Neph. "It's about what did happen. And how you-- felt about it." His cheeks burn, self-conscious both to be saying those things out loud and at the thought of what he's going to need to do if Neph refuses this or he's entirely wrong. But he just can't--
He can't see what he thinks he's seeing and not say something. He just can't do it. So he squeezes Neph's hand in return, stomach tight and throat half-closed, and waits.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-01-25 04:32 pm (UTC)It doesn't mean the same thing to him that it does to Hannibal. With a mind already so full of everyone else's impressions - their thoughts, their reflections, their disappointments - it's difficult for anything to keep feeling sacred. Hannibal clings to what he wants, lets all dissenting opinions roll off of him like oil over wings, but Will is soil that everyone else's roots grow through.
If there used to be something inside of him that craved anything better to call 'family', it's been eaten right out of the soil after so many years. Or maybe just the name has, just the audacity to call it what it rightfully is, because Will absolutely feels the pull to help others. To reach out for that connection, no matter how many times he's ended up with bitten fingers over it.
He feels Neph's distracted concern almost like a hand warding him off, but Will thinks...that might just be him. Neph doesn't ask him to stop, or lean away, just breathes surprised and stares like she didn't expect someone to comment on the half-healed wound she's been licking since they walked away from that confrontation. When her fingers squeeze into the side of his hand, Will actually lets his shoulders slope back down into something almost relaxed, because that's so clearly a permission.
'It's not what you're thinking.'
Bile-sour fills Will's mouth, and he only looks away briefly to swallow it back down. His eye contact returns, staring at the blue of Neph's, the way they're blown with guilt and uncertainty and the tremors of something Will actually and truly hasn't ever had to face before.
He's never been more aware of the difference between them - the gendered aspect of it, that is. It suddenly looks like a yawning gap, but when he reaches out across anyway he finds it must've just been a mirage, because he touches the other side and can begin clawing at the base of it. He still can't climb it, but he can scope the shape and size.
"I'm not about to argue-- degrees of trauma here." Will says, and even that hurts coming up, burns like getting sick. Her eye contact isn't by accident - it can't be, they're still relatively new to one another but they both know enough, she knows enough about him - and so Will...makes himself look. "That's not what hurting is about. It's not a comparison with other events that didn't happen."
And maybe his breath's picking up a little. Maybe there's shadows of his own experiences - not the same, but the same underlying narrative of not enough to excuse your reaction - that are what help push him to keep pushing for Neph. "It's about what did happen. And how you-- felt about it." His cheeks burn, self-conscious both to be saying those things out loud and at the thought of what he's going to need to do if Neph refuses this or he's entirely wrong. But he just can't--
He can't see what he thinks he's seeing and not say something. He just can't do it. So he squeezes Neph's hand in return, stomach tight and throat half-closed, and waits.