[ Sweeping absolutely isn't the word for it. Claude knows this without even looking at the tracks that definitely aren't just from their skates and from all of a few minutes ago, but the combination laugh-internal groan it gets from Hilda makes it worth it when that warms him as much as his approximately seventy clothing layers.
The smile on his face grows to a grin because of it, one of all fondness as they twirl (mostly) in place with something not quite as seamless as all those dances they'd had together. Something still close to him as much as this, though he catches a flash of Hilda's expression as she goes and nearly pauses. Instead it's relegated to an internal pause as his own expression stays as even as ever in the time she's turned away and then also when she's back facing him again.
Though he hadn't really thought he'd get an answer right away - not when he's every bit as much averse to voicing them the first time he's asked something, if not twenty times as much so - what she prefaces it with is enough to get him to pause completely now. They come to a slow halt as he lets the momentum fade out to slow them to it and he studies her face curiously. Those words are ever so slightly ominous in how they're said when it doesn't seem like this will lead to some of their usual silliness. It doesn't take him longer than a second to find his own answer. ]
Okay, I promise.
[ As he runs gloved thumbs over the backs of her hands in his, the look on his face is still set to something neutral even as a flicker of concern goes through it. But he means it; with whatever she's about to tell him and no matter what it is, if it's something she's reluctant to - chastising her for choosing to share isn't anything he wants to do. ]
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The smile on his face grows to a grin because of it, one of all fondness as they twirl (mostly) in place with something not quite as seamless as all those dances they'd had together. Something still close to him as much as this, though he catches a flash of Hilda's expression as she goes and nearly pauses. Instead it's relegated to an internal pause as his own expression stays as even as ever in the time she's turned away and then also when she's back facing him again.
Though he hadn't really thought he'd get an answer right away - not when he's every bit as much averse to voicing them the first time he's asked something, if not twenty times as much so - what she prefaces it with is enough to get him to pause completely now. They come to a slow halt as he lets the momentum fade out to slow them to it and he studies her face curiously. Those words are ever so slightly ominous in how they're said when it doesn't seem like this will lead to some of their usual silliness. It doesn't take him longer than a second to find his own answer. ]
Okay, I promise.
[ As he runs gloved thumbs over the backs of her hands in his, the look on his face is still set to something neutral even as a flicker of concern goes through it. But he means it; with whatever she's about to tell him and no matter what it is, if it's something she's reluctant to - chastising her for choosing to share isn't anything he wants to do. ]