Writing meme

[brigdh]

Stealing a meme from tumlbr, because I think I like doing such things better over here. I can't quite decide! Tumblr is more active, but writing thoughts of more than a sentence or two is so much easier on LJ. I dunno.

Anyway! Meme: Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and stick that selection in my ask/fan mail. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

My fic on AO3
My fic on LJ
(It's the same stories at either site, it's just a matter of where one prefers to look.)

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

(I SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID THIS MUCH.)

Benjamin blinked, as though he hadn't been prepared for mild pleasantries. "Thank you." His hands released their grip on the bowl and he rested them against the table. "I was hired to play at the ball tonight, at the Salle d’Orléans."
"So was I." Hannibal grinned, and was rewarded by Benjamin's gaze softening and focusing on him. "I look forward to hearing you play."
Benjamin smiled; it was a very small expression, no more than a minuscule rise at the corners of his lips, but it gave Hannibal pleasure to see it. Benjamin picked up his spoon and took a bite of the gumbo.
Again through all of this scene, Hannibal is very aware of every single tiny piece of evidence (where Ben's hands are, where he's looking, etc) of Ben's first discomfort and then growing relaxation and trust, but he doesn't consciously acknowledge the reasons behind it. And because he's not thinking about it, he equally can't come out and say anything directly reassuring; rather by behaving as though they're already friends he's trying to make it happen without having to deal with any of the difficulties caused by race, grief, awkward mornings-after, etc. He generally tends to avoid problems (or if he can't avoid them, get drunk/drugged so he doesn't have to think about it) instead of admitting that they're there, so this is just more of that.
On Ben's part, Hannibal is pretty clearly demonstrating that a) Hannibal is not about to tell everyone they almost slept together, and b) Hannibal is not talking down to him, but treating him as a respected friend, in his choice of language and topics and manner: Hannibal asks him to sit rather than telling him to, Hannibal acts like sharing is the polite, customary thing instead of the opposite (which maybe is a very subtle comment on Hannibal's part at New Orleans's customs? Because in most places of course it is polite to share). So he takes Hannibal at his word - that he is okay with sharing a table – and starts eating.

"I’m looking forward to being paid. For a while there, I'd nearly given up hope of finding employment."
"In New Orleans? O insensata cura de' mortali – this town would never turn away a good musician. Witness my own presence here."
Benjamin's smile turned wry. "That's only true if you have the right connections."
"Speak no such falsehoods. Polite society absorbed by their own self-serving opinions? – I will not hear such scandal, my good sir."
And then all of this is just them making friendly conversation, co-worker type conversation. It doesn't really matter what exactly it's about, because my main point here was just to show them having relaxed enough to shift from subtext-heavy feeling each other out to a normal chat.