There's no hiding Neph's flinch, not with the way the light flickers around her eyelids. She's tried to be better about warning them when her magic (or the world in which it operates) might bite them in the ass. She came clean about the Inquisitors, she explained warding and shielding to Will, she's even explained a little bit about where some of her jobs come from, but...
Was it so wrong to keep her Achilles heel under wraps?
The light dims further when she scowls at Hannibal. It's the kind of deep seated pique only a sibling or an old married person can feel for another. Really, Hannibal? After she hinted and nudged and outright told him to come clean and the mutant thing still blew up in all their faces? After she'd said hey maybe you oughta tell Will about the screaming nightmares now that he lives here and he hadn't done that, either? After it turned out he had an aunt stashed away somewhere in France?
She practically turns to Will out of self defense, 'cuz otherwise she's gonna let gravity win long enough to fall headfirst onto Hannibal's broken nose.
Will does not look annoyed. Will looks...bleak. As though he realized, too late, a trap closing around him. Neph's fever-dry mouth goes even more papery. She strains for the air to say just kidding or it's fine, but her battered ribs refuse to budge. His face is rejection made plain, the agonized embarrassment of someone searching for the least damaging way to say 'no'.
Neph can't run away from this car, so she collapses into herself like a coal. Will--follows after, reaching for the hand she'd settled on the armrest. Like this, with him hanging off the back of her seat, it's almost like a hug from behind. With a carseat in the way. Her shoulders unfurl the tiniest bit. I'll stay, he says.
"You don't--not forever, just--" he promised. He just promised, and she scrambles to give him an out. She hadn't asked for it but he just...threw it out there. "When I wake up I can...I can explain. F'you want."
Once she would've gnawed her own leg off for the chance to explain for a family that never cared to ask. After that, what was the point in sharing with anyone else? Maybe Will won't want to hear it either, why she did what she did. But on the off chance that he'll hear her out, that he'll stay past their recovery, she has to offer.
If offering means he hangs around long enough to say goodbye before he goes. Well. Maybe she'd like to know what that's like. Maybe she deserves that at least once.
Neph drops her head onto the seat shoulder and tilts a smile up at Will. "Don't say that," she wheezes. It was supposed to be a chuckle, but she can't have everything. "He'll pull a Kathy Bates on the both'a us."
It's a measure of her trust in Hannibal that she's actually, honestly, 100% joking.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-08-08 06:55 am (UTC)Was it so wrong to keep her Achilles heel under wraps?
The light dims further when she scowls at Hannibal. It's the kind of deep seated pique only a sibling or an old married person can feel for another. Really, Hannibal? After she hinted and nudged and outright told him to come clean and the mutant thing still blew up in all their faces? After she'd said hey maybe you oughta tell Will about the screaming nightmares now that he lives here and he hadn't done that, either? After it turned out he had an aunt stashed away somewhere in France?
She practically turns to Will out of self defense, 'cuz otherwise she's gonna let gravity win long enough to fall headfirst onto Hannibal's broken nose.
Will does not look annoyed. Will looks...bleak. As though he realized, too late, a trap closing around him. Neph's fever-dry mouth goes even more papery. She strains for the air to say just kidding or it's fine, but her battered ribs refuse to budge. His face is rejection made plain, the agonized embarrassment of someone searching for the least damaging way to say 'no'.
Neph can't run away from this car, so she collapses into herself like a coal. Will--follows after, reaching for the hand she'd settled on the armrest. Like this, with him hanging off the back of her seat, it's almost like a hug from behind. With a carseat in the way. Her shoulders unfurl the tiniest bit. I'll stay, he says.
"You don't--not forever, just--" he promised. He just promised, and she scrambles to give him an out. She hadn't asked for it but he just...threw it out there. "When I wake up I can...I can explain. F'you want."
Once she would've gnawed her own leg off for the chance to explain for a family that never cared to ask. After that, what was the point in sharing with anyone else? Maybe Will won't want to hear it either, why she did what she did. But on the off chance that he'll hear her out, that he'll stay past their recovery, she has to offer.
If offering means he hangs around long enough to say goodbye before he goes. Well. Maybe she'd like to know what that's like. Maybe she deserves that at least once.
Neph drops her head onto the seat shoulder and tilts a smile up at Will. "Don't say that," she wheezes. It was supposed to be a chuckle, but she can't have everything. "He'll pull a Kathy Bates on the both'a us."
It's a measure of her trust in Hannibal that she's actually, honestly, 100% joking.