Long and thin. That’s the two words Benjamin would choose if he had to depict his hands to anyone else. They’re long and thin. Simple. Plain.
They’re soft of course, the boy has never worked a hard day in his life, how could his hands be anything but soft? He has callouses on his right hand though, on his forefinger from holding his quills, and his skin is peppered in scars.
He doesn’t always remember how they got there. The scars, that is. One came from the time Eleanor ran over his hand while they were skating (he’d always been better on the ice than his sister, but of course the one time he’d fallen she’d managed to scar him.) Another comes from his time in Borgin and Burkes, the first summer after he’d lost his sight and he couldn’t remember what his hands looked like—(he still doesn’t, couldn’t tell you if he tried, but he can feel the scars this time)—when he ran into the counter and dropped the glass piece he’d been carrying.
He’d insisted he could clean it up himself, but he swiped a piece over his palm while searching, and had ended up with a long scar along the life line of his palm. He still runs his fingers over it from time to time, wondering if it looks as harsh as it feels.
His parents tell him his hands are strong. They come from his grandfather, a man of tall stature and hearty build who’s fingers danced over pianos, and raised wands against enemies. He could play piano if he tried—he learned when he was young, (just another set of skills to add to his resume), but he thinks his shaking fingers would look rather silly trying to play a beautiful song.
Benjamin can’t remember his hands, can’t remember what they look like, doesn’t know if they’re different from when he last saw them. He can feel them though, can feel their softness, feel the way they shake and tremble, how they trail along walls, and spin quills and wands. He knows they’re long and thin, knows they come with a family lineage, but thinks they’re incredibly plain.
❤ describe how they show affection.
Yaxley’s are not affectionate people. They shake hands with firm grasps. Kiss cheeks and foreheads on holidays. Place hands on knees in comfort. They are cold and crass in their emotions. They teach their children to keep their feelings inside, don’t say what you feel, don’t feel what you do.
But Ben is a boy desperate to be loved. He won’t seek affection, he’s been conditioned not to. Not to expect it, not to give it, not to have it. But he’s been loved, and he does love, and when he truly cares for a person he gives them what he can.
He doesn’t have full use of his senses, not like most people do. His heavy reliance on touch leads him to be careful with his hands—but also to give them more importance than some other people. He likes to interlock his fingers with loved ones, likes to run his thumb over the ridges of their knuckles, likes to grab their hands and press his lips to their open palms.
Ben is not known in affection, doesn’t have an affinity for kisses or playing with hair. But he likes to lean on others, place his forehead against their’s and just be, likes to feel their breathing mingle together, likes to run his nose along their cheek, to skim his lips over their cheek, run his thumb along their cheekbones.
He’s not one for wandering hands, up shirts or down pants, but his like to make a home on the tops of hipbones. Thumbs running along their curves and dips. He likes to lie in bed and curl his arms around their waist, to pull them close and bury his nose in their neck.
Yaxley’s by nature are not affectionate people, but Ben is a boy that needs to know what love feels like.