He isn't sure what he's meant to be soothing away. Without details, he can't decide what to present to Neph to best play that part. Is that the point, though? Does she just want...him, without designs or plans? Is that all he can give, will ever be allowed to give her, if she doesn't want to share?
But a wordless brush of memory corrects him - Neph has shared with him before. On purpose, when she had other choices available to her, she'd chosen to come to him. In the morgue? If she'd avoided that conversation up until the moment an Inquisitor had Hannibal pinned up against a wall trying to get to her, he'd have never been the wiser until that moment. He wouldn't have even known then - he'd probably have been dead before she got to explain to him that oh, by the way, she'd met these before and they were fairly deadly.
It would have been gorey, certainly, but it would have happened with or without him being aware prior, and she'd still chosen to give him that warning. That option, that offer for an informed escape or a united front.
Now, like then, Hannibal knows which one he'd choose.
Neph's laughter rattles against his sternum and settles somewhere deeper. Hannibal smiles in the dark above her hair. "You've assured me before that I always talk 'weird'." It's not necessarily like or unlike him to use jokes as a deflection - who has Hannibal ever wanted to distract from their pain? The sample size is too small to make generalizations from that data, but it's starting to suggest that he makes barriers with humor as a default.
'You were hurt' makes objective sense as the skeleton for a bad dream, but Hannibal is still surprised to hear that it's enough for Neph to be so upset over. Just himself? Surely others must have been injured, or more stakes raised? Or is he as important to Neph as she is to him?
Would she kill for him, the way Hannibal knows he'd kill for her?
His far arm stretches across, feels for where Neph's hand is gripping his shirt and wraps his fingers against hers. "I am not going to lose sleep over what you've told me. I can...understand your fear." He can't say he shares it, not when he has the dual conflicting interests of wanting to stay free and healthy and alive but also wanting the challenge of helping Neph take down a religious anti-meta sect centuries in the making. "But if you feel guilt, about pulling me into this, that I do not understand."
no subject
But a wordless brush of memory corrects him - Neph has shared with him before. On purpose, when she had other choices available to her, she'd chosen to come to him. In the morgue? If she'd avoided that conversation up until the moment an Inquisitor had Hannibal pinned up against a wall trying to get to her, he'd have never been the wiser until that moment. He wouldn't have even known then - he'd probably have been dead before she got to explain to him that oh, by the way, she'd met these before and they were fairly deadly.
It would have been gorey, certainly, but it would have happened with or without him being aware prior, and she'd still chosen to give him that warning. That option, that offer for an informed escape or a united front.
Now, like then, Hannibal knows which one he'd choose.
Neph's laughter rattles against his sternum and settles somewhere deeper. Hannibal smiles in the dark above her hair. "You've assured me before that I always talk 'weird'." It's not necessarily like or unlike him to use jokes as a deflection - who has Hannibal ever wanted to distract from their pain? The sample size is too small to make generalizations from that data, but it's starting to suggest that he makes barriers with humor as a default.
'You were hurt' makes objective sense as the skeleton for a bad dream, but Hannibal is still surprised to hear that it's enough for Neph to be so upset over. Just himself? Surely others must have been injured, or more stakes raised? Or is he as important to Neph as she is to him?
Would she kill for him, the way Hannibal knows he'd kill for her?
His far arm stretches across, feels for where Neph's hand is gripping his shirt and wraps his fingers against hers. "I am not going to lose sleep over what you've told me. I can...understand your fear." He can't say he shares it, not when he has the dual conflicting interests of wanting to stay free and healthy and alive but also wanting the challenge of helping Neph take down a religious anti-meta sect centuries in the making. "But if you feel guilt, about pulling me into this, that I do not understand."