The heart beneath her palm goes doubletime, a sign Neph doesn't know how to read. She depends so much on context clues for communication, but the darkness strips his expression and body language away, swaddling it all in heavy silence. That leaves only touch and hearing to rely on, and maybe Neph doesn't know exactly why she was such a terrible student, but she knows her ears aren't always that reliable.
Hannibal says That's very selfish of you and she stills. His voice is--strange. His accent's thicker than usual, or maybe that's just the dark amplifying everything. He sounds half-squashed, as though she were leaning heavily on his ribcage, and he called her selfish.
"I...I know--" she starts to say, but then he's pulling his hand away. Neph almost cringes back, but before she can withdraw into an Allomancer armadillo and slink back to her own room, there's a motion she's not sure how to read and a warmth near her jaw.
Oh.
The only time she's ever heard him sound quite that knocked-flat-on-his-ass was when Will allowed him to examine his injuries. The other parallels - vulnerability, a careful hand raised to the face - skate down her synapses. Neph draws a careful breath as his fingers ghost over her cheekbone and his palm presses to skin. She physically can't help turning her face into the touch, the bridge of her nose pressing into the outside of his thumb. The pulse in his wrist seems to shake the air by her mouth.
"I don't mean I'd keep you if you wanted to go," she confesses. This is fucked up, all of it, there is no way to hold onto something tight enough to guarantee the keeping of it, and trying will only bruise. And yet. "It only counts 'cuz you want t'be here."
Hannibal's face, exposed only to the dark but close enough to Neph that he can phantom-feel the expectation of hair grazing against his forehead, is like an open wound. There's nothing blocking it, even if he isn't the most expression person. His mouth is parted slightly, not that he's aware until he reflexively swallows and his jaw closes with an audible click.
Breath smooths across his wrist and lower palm. Hannibal just blinks at the space barely separating them, a blacker smear on black.
Should he say that he'd happily find out that Neph would hurt other people, hurt him even, to keep him around? That being needed in a selfish way is letting bones slot together smoother in his chest, letting him breathe easier than ever before?
Even he's aware he can't quite say that. Even he's aware that he might, someday, be glad she's willing to give him space if he wants it.
But not right now. Right now, his palm flattens against her cheek, his fingers by the soft spot right at her temple, his thumb nearly touching the side of her nose.
"I do want to be here." That's safer to say. That's equally true. Hannibal considers the darkness between them, the way he wants it to disappear like smoke and leave them somehow closer. He moves his free arm to the side, works an elbow into the mattress so he can lean up. His forehead taps the end of Neph's nose, eyes sliding closed to complete the blackness around them.
"I feel just as selfish as you do, Neph. What you want from me doesn't frighten me."
There's a doubt that lives in the back of Neph's head, buried so well in the jumble of all her other fears and what-ifs that finding it would be like looking through her room for a particular hair tie. It's the one that says but he shouldn't have been here at all, so how can he be happy about it? Can Hannibal put together the evidence from Lecter's life, trace its trajectory, and know for sure it isn't what he would've wanted? At least in that one he was guaranteed some security, guaranteed to make it to his 40s. There's no promise of that anymore.
Yet her selfishness, now admitted to, grabs onto his declaration of wanting to be here and runs with it anyway. She can want this for him, can't she? She can want him to have this thing they've got, and his friendship with Will, and dance lessons on Fridays and a fancy work study thing at an important college. She can be relieved that he's got a world where maybe it's still not safe to be a mutant, but at least it's easier to connect with others. She can think, in the pawnshop clutter of her head, that this is better than publication credits and a big house and half a dozen degrees. Those could come in time, or they could both die first, and Neph wouldn't feel too bad either way so long as they had this.
The mattress creaks as Hannibal sits up. The movement rocks her a little, and when she settles forward again it's to his bangs against her nose. She could press a kiss to his forehead easy as thought. Instead she lifts her free hand from his chest to grip the outside of his wrist and breathes out a laugh. "I'm not scared'a you, either."
Scared that he might not understand how far down this clinging, vinelike need in her really goes. Scared that when he says he's equally selfish, he doesn't actually know enough to make that comparison. But not scared of Hannibal Lecter, who threw a pepper grinder at another mutant threatening him with a gun. Not scared of the boy who conceded to leaving the apartment windows unlocked so she could come and go at all hours.
Speaking of...
"Shit, you've got class tomorrow, don't you?" there's an apology in that quiet sigh, but no real regret. That would be...unfair, or even insulting, after he let her under the covers without complaint. Neph tilts her face down so his eyebrow ridge slots into the bridge of her nose, a maneuver that is absolutely not a nuzzle by any definition, and lets some of the weight drop from her hunched shoulders.
There's different kinds of hunger, and the most obvious meaning isn't the only one that gives some people - children and adults - a gaunt, lonely look. A hunger for affection burns acidic in the stomach of thousands, millions of people every day, but it's an invisible illness. It kills just as surely, but the killing is metaphorical and so no one notices. It's harder to campaign against it.
You can't throw money at it and solve it. Lecter, will all his degrees and wealth and investments and knowledge, had still lacked something so basic that most people wouldn't have even given thought to what he'd been missing. Who wants to acknowledge that one of a person's most simple, integral needs can be so subjective, unmeasurable, nontransferable? If you can't take it and redistribute it until equity is reached, how do you even campaign to solve that sort of problem? And how can a single isolated person ever be expected to climb out of that pit themselves?
It's not glamorous to admit to. It's uncomfortable to notice.
But it feels wonderful to have the antidote suddenly delivered. Neph touches his wrist, lets him stay so close he can feel her breath against his closed eyes, and he floats along with the reminder that he has someone dedicated to him, who doesn't mind his own possessive dedication being latched back onto her.
By the time Hannibal has processed what Neph says, he's smiling, lips pulled away from teeth in the dark. "I would say I don't care, but you know that isn't true." Hannibal is fastidious about his grades, but much less so about his actual attendance - when skipping is possible. Practicums, however, mean one absolutely needs to be present for any credit. "But given the choice, I would rather you woke me up than resisted the urge."
She leans into him more heavily, and Hannibal has a second to decide - prop himself up more sturdy, or let himself drift back to his mattress? He chooses the latter, elbow easing out so he can slide vertebra-by-vertebra into a more horizontal position. Hopefully she takes the cue and follows him back to laying down. If not, one of his hands finds its helpful way to the back of her head, cupping it and coaxing.
Had Hannibal reassured her that no, no, it was all fine really, some certainty that it was not fine at all would've burrowed into the junkpile of Neph's brain. He dredges up a wry one liner somehow, at 3am, and her answering laugh is loud and bright and shatters that doubt to smithereens.
If they can come through murmured midnight confessions and end on a joke, then maybe it's not fucked up to want to stick so close to him after all. She may not have the words for this yet, for what exactly she wants from Hannibal or why she wants it; up til now it's been easier to define this relationship by what she doesn't want - his money, sex, for either of them to be merely obligated to the other - than to try and label it. For once it's not just her lack of education getting in the way of finding the right word. Nothing pings back when she searches her vocabulary. Not from books, movies, tv, chatter from friends, nothing.
They can't possibly be the first people to do whatever it is they're doing, but it may not be something that's commonly talked about. Wouldn't that just be the story of her life?
"Yeah," Neph says, lowering her voice back to a more acceptable volume for a pitch black bedroom in the no-mans-land hours of the morning. "I'm...I'm glad I did." She's surprised at how intensely she means that, even if she doesn't know if she'd want to come to him every time. Just having the option available is a talisman against the dark.
The hand at the back of her head tugs her from her thoughts, and also down to the mattress. Neph obliges by tucking her supporting arm under her side and wriggling back under the covers. Hannibal guides her head to his shoulder, fingers lacing through her hair, and Neph settles her cheek there with a sigh. Her topside arm curls over his chest in, not at all shaking or desperate. She'll just have to consider herself cured of the nightmare for now.
"Can we do fancy pancakes tomorrow?" she mumbles, because it's only funny to say 'crepes' when she can watch his soul leave his body at her horrible pronunciation. It's longstanding tradition to smother her bad dreams in sugary carbs, so really, she deserves props for upgrading her choice of junkfood.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-04-06 04:51 am (UTC)Hannibal says That's very selfish of you and she stills. His voice is--strange. His accent's thicker than usual, or maybe that's just the dark amplifying everything. He sounds half-squashed, as though she were leaning heavily on his ribcage, and he called her selfish.
"I...I know--" she starts to say, but then he's pulling his hand away. Neph almost cringes back, but before she can withdraw into an Allomancer armadillo and slink back to her own room, there's a motion she's not sure how to read and a warmth near her jaw.
Oh.
The only time she's ever heard him sound quite that knocked-flat-on-his-ass was when Will allowed him to examine his injuries. The other parallels - vulnerability, a careful hand raised to the face - skate down her synapses. Neph draws a careful breath as his fingers ghost over her cheekbone and his palm presses to skin. She physically can't help turning her face into the touch, the bridge of her nose pressing into the outside of his thumb. The pulse in his wrist seems to shake the air by her mouth.
"I don't mean I'd keep you if you wanted to go," she confesses. This is fucked up, all of it, there is no way to hold onto something tight enough to guarantee the keeping of it, and trying will only bruise. And yet. "It only counts 'cuz you want t'be here."
no subject
Date: 2017-04-08 11:46 pm (UTC)Breath smooths across his wrist and lower palm. Hannibal just blinks at the space barely separating them, a blacker smear on black.
Should he say that he'd happily find out that Neph would hurt other people, hurt him even, to keep him around? That being needed in a selfish way is letting bones slot together smoother in his chest, letting him breathe easier than ever before?
Even he's aware he can't quite say that. Even he's aware that he might, someday, be glad she's willing to give him space if he wants it.
But not right now. Right now, his palm flattens against her cheek, his fingers by the soft spot right at her temple, his thumb nearly touching the side of her nose.
"I do want to be here." That's safer to say. That's equally true. Hannibal considers the darkness between them, the way he wants it to disappear like smoke and leave them somehow closer. He moves his free arm to the side, works an elbow into the mattress so he can lean up. His forehead taps the end of Neph's nose, eyes sliding closed to complete the blackness around them.
"I feel just as selfish as you do, Neph. What you want from me doesn't frighten me."
no subject
Date: 2017-04-09 09:52 pm (UTC)Yet her selfishness, now admitted to, grabs onto his declaration of wanting to be here and runs with it anyway. She can want this for him, can't she? She can want him to have this thing they've got, and his friendship with Will, and dance lessons on Fridays and a fancy work study thing at an important college. She can be relieved that he's got a world where maybe it's still not safe to be a mutant, but at least it's easier to connect with others. She can think, in the pawnshop clutter of her head, that this is better than publication credits and a big house and half a dozen degrees. Those could come in time, or they could both die first, and Neph wouldn't feel too bad either way so long as they had this.
The mattress creaks as Hannibal sits up. The movement rocks her a little, and when she settles forward again it's to his bangs against her nose. She could press a kiss to his forehead easy as thought. Instead she lifts her free hand from his chest to grip the outside of his wrist and breathes out a laugh. "I'm not scared'a you, either."
Scared that he might not understand how far down this clinging, vinelike need in her really goes. Scared that when he says he's equally selfish, he doesn't actually know enough to make that comparison. But not scared of Hannibal Lecter, who threw a pepper grinder at another mutant threatening him with a gun. Not scared of the boy who conceded to leaving the apartment windows unlocked so she could come and go at all hours.
Speaking of...
"Shit, you've got class tomorrow, don't you?" there's an apology in that quiet sigh, but no real regret. That would be...unfair, or even insulting, after he let her under the covers without complaint. Neph tilts her face down so his eyebrow ridge slots into the bridge of her nose, a maneuver that is absolutely not a nuzzle by any definition, and lets some of the weight drop from her hunched shoulders.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-10 11:21 pm (UTC)You can't throw money at it and solve it. Lecter, will all his degrees and wealth and investments and knowledge, had still lacked something so basic that most people wouldn't have even given thought to what he'd been missing. Who wants to acknowledge that one of a person's most simple, integral needs can be so subjective, unmeasurable, nontransferable? If you can't take it and redistribute it until equity is reached, how do you even campaign to solve that sort of problem? And how can a single isolated person ever be expected to climb out of that pit themselves?
It's not glamorous to admit to. It's uncomfortable to notice.
But it feels wonderful to have the antidote suddenly delivered. Neph touches his wrist, lets him stay so close he can feel her breath against his closed eyes, and he floats along with the reminder that he has someone dedicated to him, who doesn't mind his own possessive dedication being latched back onto her.
By the time Hannibal has processed what Neph says, he's smiling, lips pulled away from teeth in the dark. "I would say I don't care, but you know that isn't true." Hannibal is fastidious about his grades, but much less so about his actual attendance - when skipping is possible. Practicums, however, mean one absolutely needs to be present for any credit. "But given the choice, I would rather you woke me up than resisted the urge."
She leans into him more heavily, and Hannibal has a second to decide - prop himself up more sturdy, or let himself drift back to his mattress? He chooses the latter, elbow easing out so he can slide vertebra-by-vertebra into a more horizontal position. Hopefully she takes the cue and follows him back to laying down. If not, one of his hands finds its helpful way to the back of her head, cupping it and coaxing.
Aaaand scene?
Date: 2017-04-11 01:17 am (UTC)If they can come through murmured midnight confessions and end on a joke, then maybe it's not fucked up to want to stick so close to him after all. She may not have the words for this yet, for what exactly she wants from Hannibal or why she wants it; up til now it's been easier to define this relationship by what she doesn't want - his money, sex, for either of them to be merely obligated to the other - than to try and label it. For once it's not just her lack of education getting in the way of finding the right word. Nothing pings back when she searches her vocabulary. Not from books, movies, tv, chatter from friends, nothing.
They can't possibly be the first people to do whatever it is they're doing, but it may not be something that's commonly talked about. Wouldn't that just be the story of her life?
"Yeah," Neph says, lowering her voice back to a more acceptable volume for a pitch black bedroom in the no-mans-land hours of the morning. "I'm...I'm glad I did." She's surprised at how intensely she means that, even if she doesn't know if she'd want to come to him every time. Just having the option available is a talisman against the dark.
The hand at the back of her head tugs her from her thoughts, and also down to the mattress. Neph obliges by tucking her supporting arm under her side and wriggling back under the covers. Hannibal guides her head to his shoulder, fingers lacing through her hair, and Neph settles her cheek there with a sigh. Her topside arm curls over his chest in, not at all shaking or desperate. She'll just have to consider herself cured of the nightmare for now.
"Can we do fancy pancakes tomorrow?" she mumbles, because it's only funny to say 'crepes' when she can watch his soul leave his body at her horrible pronunciation. It's longstanding tradition to smother her bad dreams in sugary carbs, so really, she deserves props for upgrading her choice of junkfood.