[Having begun with silence is already telling. Hubert notes it with a clinical mind, doing his best to ignore the all-too-real sensation of his bare fingertips sometimes brushing across Ferdinand’s scalp. The softness of his hair intwined in his touch. He will have to abate it via focus alone, but if Ferdinand gives him absolutely nothing to focus on than this… gesture between them, then it’ll be all for naught, and Hubert will have fallen prey to his own experimentations.

Traitorous body, traitorous mind. He wills control into his veins, pushing aside warmth having coiled in his gut the moment he sat a bit too close, and tries to prod his friend into trying again. He refuses to suffer silently for the other’s lack of effort.]

No. But I would have you say something, unless you want me to sit silently behind you while I tend to your hair like a dread shadow?

[Or a moody, calculating servant.]