Hannibal Lecter is a predator. Neph has always known this; she has a rabbit's keen sense of these things, a trait that's kept her alive more than once. She has never, in all the time or times she's known him, felt so certain that he would eat her alive if he could. He may not want to cage her, but the yawning whirlpool of his gaze says he wants to keep her, an undertow drawing inexorably at her ankles.
But Nephele is Mistborn. She's fog. She's a haze. She's the whole sky full of clouds, there's too much of her for even the deepest, angriest sea to contain except for the fragments she rains down at whim. It's not, she realizes, that she has her own deep well of gravity, it's that she's lighter than gravity. He can try to exert it, but she'll only slip through his fingers and envelop him, cool and calm or icy and stinging. She thinks he might know that, too.
A tiny smile shapes her mouth, crinkles her eyes, her only outward response to all that howling intensity. If she's affected by it, and she is, well...isn't that how it works? Ocean and sky, locked together, passing back and forth? Even her eighth-grade education covered the water cycle.
If Hannibal sees what she sees, if she's mirroring anything back at him, it sets him on edge. His mouth flattens out, his arm is extended almost as far as it can go without straining away from her, and she can feel tendons bunching under his skin. For a wild second she thinks he might tear away and storm off, counter to everything he's just said to her, but then he lunges in - 70% leg! - and folds her into a hug.
There's a scuff of sneakers on pavement as Will dodges out of the way, but Neph notices the sudden cold at her back more clearly. It only lasts a second, as she rocks onto her toes to stretch into the hug, her arms wrapping around Hannibal's ribs beneath his jacket. He'd stormed out of the museum without buttoning it up, overheated by nature and anger, and now she tucks herself into it by invitation. His scarf is a warm swath of truly hideous plaid against her cheek.
"I don't think anything could ever cage you again, Nephele," he says against her temple. Neph shivers and curls her hands over his spine as though she could grip it like bars on a window. He never calls her by her full name, not even when he's really pissed. That was always--
Hannibal pulls away as though yanked by force, before she can finish that thought or come up with anything in response. She doubletakes at him anyway, half-expecting to see someone else standing there, a little taller, a lot more plaid. It's only when she doesn't that her heart rate starts to dip towards normal.
He says he'll see her at the apartment (not home, never 'home' with him, which would sting if she didn't know they have totally different concepts of the term) but doesn't let go of her shoulders. His knuckles stand out white in her periphery, and there's still a flicker of it around the edges of his irises. It's an uncertainty of self she hasn't seen in him since he was little, when she'd told him he was a mutant. She does now what she might have done then, if she'd known him better - she rises back up on her toes and presses a quick, dry kiss to his cheek. The cold tip of her nose bumps his cheekbone. "Yeah you will," she says, all cocky certainty as she drops flatfooted again.
The warm to cold ratio flip flops again, her front all chilled but her back shielded from the winter breeze when Will steps in. She's turning even as he touches her wrist, belatedly realizing she had to drop his hand to hug Hannibal. It hadn't even occurred to her, then. Now she opens her mouth to apologize, but finds Will looking at her with an unusual...solidity. She catches his hand, and what falls out of her mouth is: "Thank you, Will. For--saying something, back there." For snarling at Samson for no reason other than he'd set himself up against her and Hannibal. "I'm sorry stuff got all weird."
It's a rueful apology, delivered with a sad and lopsided smile. The Weird is 100% her fault, even if he doesn't know it. Not even Hannibal really knows, for all that Neph's not sure why she's keeping it quiet. It just hasn't come up? There's never been a good time to say I'm one of seven people who can do what we do, whatever that means. Soon, maybe.
She doesn't try to hug Will or lean in to plant one on his cheek, but she squeezes his hand and wrinkles her nose at him and says, "Try not to let him do anything too suicidally stupid?" Because, look, she's not an idiot, she knows Hannibal has a dying man's thirst for revenge and a mind that tends toward elaborate games of Mousetrap. She wants them to get home safe, and that means no unnecessary dramatics. This is an unfair thing to put on Will Graham, but he's driven Hannibal to unusual behavior with the force of his stare alone, so Neph's willing to risk it.
Then she breaks away, not touching either of them for the first time in at least twenty minutes. What a weird thing to suddenly tally up in her head. Neph takes a step backward, toward the museum, a topographic map of Baltimore's rooftops rising in bumps and ridges on her mind. It'll be quicker to doubleback, and she was serious about beating them there. She wants dibs on the shower.
"Don't be late!" she grins, and then hop pivots and breaks down the sidewalk at a fast clip.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-02-04 07:03 am (UTC)But Nephele is Mistborn. She's fog. She's a haze. She's the whole sky full of clouds, there's too much of her for even the deepest, angriest sea to contain except for the fragments she rains down at whim. It's not, she realizes, that she has her own deep well of gravity, it's that she's lighter than gravity. He can try to exert it, but she'll only slip through his fingers and envelop him, cool and calm or icy and stinging. She thinks he might know that, too.
A tiny smile shapes her mouth, crinkles her eyes, her only outward response to all that howling intensity. If she's affected by it, and she is, well...isn't that how it works? Ocean and sky, locked together, passing back and forth? Even her eighth-grade education covered the water cycle.
If Hannibal sees what she sees, if she's mirroring anything back at him, it sets him on edge. His mouth flattens out, his arm is extended almost as far as it can go without straining away from her, and she can feel tendons bunching under his skin. For a wild second she thinks he might tear away and storm off, counter to everything he's just said to her, but then he lunges in - 70% leg! - and folds her into a hug.
There's a scuff of sneakers on pavement as Will dodges out of the way, but Neph notices the sudden cold at her back more clearly. It only lasts a second, as she rocks onto her toes to stretch into the hug, her arms wrapping around Hannibal's ribs beneath his jacket. He'd stormed out of the museum without buttoning it up, overheated by nature and anger, and now she tucks herself into it by invitation. His scarf is a warm swath of truly hideous plaid against her cheek.
"I don't think anything could ever cage you again, Nephele," he says against her temple. Neph shivers and curls her hands over his spine as though she could grip it like bars on a window. He never calls her by her full name, not even when he's really pissed. That was always--
Hannibal pulls away as though yanked by force, before she can finish that thought or come up with anything in response. She doubletakes at him anyway, half-expecting to see someone else standing there, a little taller, a lot more plaid. It's only when she doesn't that her heart rate starts to dip towards normal.
He says he'll see her at the apartment (not home, never 'home' with him, which would sting if she didn't know they have totally different concepts of the term) but doesn't let go of her shoulders. His knuckles stand out white in her periphery, and there's still a flicker of it around the edges of his irises. It's an uncertainty of self she hasn't seen in him since he was little, when she'd told him he was a mutant. She does now what she might have done then, if she'd known him better - she rises back up on her toes and presses a quick, dry kiss to his cheek. The cold tip of her nose bumps his cheekbone. "Yeah you will," she says, all cocky certainty as she drops flatfooted again.
The warm to cold ratio flip flops again, her front all chilled but her back shielded from the winter breeze when Will steps in. She's turning even as he touches her wrist, belatedly realizing she had to drop his hand to hug Hannibal. It hadn't even occurred to her, then. Now she opens her mouth to apologize, but finds Will looking at her with an unusual...solidity. She catches his hand, and what falls out of her mouth is: "Thank you, Will. For--saying something, back there." For snarling at Samson for no reason other than he'd set himself up against her and Hannibal. "I'm sorry stuff got all weird."
It's a rueful apology, delivered with a sad and lopsided smile. The Weird is 100% her fault, even if he doesn't know it. Not even Hannibal really knows, for all that Neph's not sure why she's keeping it quiet. It just hasn't come up? There's never been a good time to say I'm one of seven people who can do what we do, whatever that means. Soon, maybe.
She doesn't try to hug Will or lean in to plant one on his cheek, but she squeezes his hand and wrinkles her nose at him and says, "Try not to let him do anything too suicidally stupid?" Because, look, she's not an idiot, she knows Hannibal has a dying man's thirst for revenge and a mind that tends toward elaborate games of Mousetrap. She wants them to get home safe, and that means no unnecessary dramatics. This is an unfair thing to put on Will Graham, but he's driven Hannibal to unusual behavior with the force of his stare alone, so Neph's willing to risk it.
Then she breaks away, not touching either of them for the first time in at least twenty minutes. What a weird thing to suddenly tally up in her head. Neph takes a step backward, toward the museum, a topographic map of Baltimore's rooftops rising in bumps and ridges on her mind. It'll be quicker to doubleback, and she was serious about beating them there. She wants dibs on the shower.
"Don't be late!" she grins, and then hop pivots and breaks down the sidewalk at a fast clip.