( his meaning is loud and clear, and clarke's eyes drag from the framed painting of a tree back onto hannibal with the mild annoyance of a child denied. the tendency to speak in such carefully curated sentences that could never be construed for anything but exceedingly polite has to be something of an artform too, but it is nowhere near as enjoyable to bear witness to as brush strokes on canvas. if it would have taken him a few moments longer to shuck off his jacket and make off down the hallway, she might have objected. dug her feet in, lofted a casual just a second his way just to prove a point.
the careful distance she'd kept while walking the city lengthens here, clarke is several steps behind and her head is on a swivel — taking in everything from the wallpaper to the woodwork to the stiff but luxurious choices in furniture and the distant smell of mint. every room they pass she peers into, at least until catching sight of a few too many antler motifs and barely suppressing a shudder. they make it to the kitchen, and she's decidedly seen enough of them (two, literally just two kitchens in her entire life) to know this one is different. it straddles the line between fancy and ominous, elegantly arranged but no one who'd ever woken up in a morgue could look at the doors of that fridge and not imagine being locked behind them. the island is reminiscent of an overlarge surgery table, the cutting board akin to a beheading block. but it's so clean and sterile and neat; so obviously just a place to prepare food that she has to banish any negative connotations, write them off as a lacking familiarity.
the gestured invitation towards the corner chair is wordlessly declined as clarke lingers by the doorway for a long while. if she drifts anywhere closer, it's towards the standing cutting board — something tangible to place between herself and hannibal as he works within his domain and she watches.
sometimes people do this really weird thing where they accept anything that's handed to them, despite not necessarily wanting it. and sometimes people is just clarke with this decanted orange juice because what. the pulp floats to the top, fresh individual juice sacs preserved and she can feel the gradual chill through the thick glass. what had he just said? something about eggs? )
Oh, I'm — ( so uncomfortably out of place ) — not picky.
( when she eats, which is not incredibly often and absolutely does not follow the traditional breakfast-lunch-dinner pipeline, it's for sustenance. because she has to, not because she wants to. the same could be said for sleeping, and just like clarke would never complain about waking up with a crick in her neck from slumping over a desktop, she doesn't have much to say about the way beef jerky and prepackaged peanuts get stuck in her teeth, or milkshakes make her feel a little ill. )
no subject
the careful distance she'd kept while walking the city lengthens here, clarke is several steps behind and her head is on a swivel — taking in everything from the wallpaper to the woodwork to the stiff but luxurious choices in furniture and the distant smell of mint. every room they pass she peers into, at least until catching sight of a few too many antler motifs and barely suppressing a shudder. they make it to the kitchen, and she's decidedly seen enough of them (two, literally just two kitchens in her entire life) to know this one is different. it straddles the line between fancy and ominous, elegantly arranged but no one who'd ever woken up in a morgue could look at the doors of that fridge and not imagine being locked behind them. the island is reminiscent of an overlarge surgery table, the cutting board akin to a beheading block. but it's so clean and sterile and neat; so obviously just a place to prepare food that she has to banish any negative connotations, write them off as a lacking familiarity.
the gestured invitation towards the corner chair is wordlessly declined as clarke lingers by the doorway for a long while. if she drifts anywhere closer, it's towards the standing cutting board — something tangible to place between herself and hannibal as he works within his domain and she watches.
sometimes people do this really weird thing where they accept anything that's handed to them, despite not necessarily wanting it. and sometimes people is just clarke with this decanted orange juice because what. the pulp floats to the top, fresh individual juice sacs preserved and she can feel the gradual chill through the thick glass. what had he just said? something about eggs? )
Oh, I'm — ( so uncomfortably out of place ) — not picky.
( when she eats, which is not incredibly often and absolutely does not follow the traditional breakfast-lunch-dinner pipeline, it's for sustenance. because she has to, not because she wants to. the same could be said for sleeping, and just like clarke would never complain about waking up with a crick in her neck from slumping over a desktop, she doesn't have much to say about the way beef jerky and prepackaged peanuts get stuck in her teeth, or milkshakes make her feel a little ill. )