Confused by her smile at first, Theodore fiddled uneasily with his cigarette, working his thumbpad across the filter absently until it began to fray. He promptly pressed it between his lips, damping down the edge with his tongue, and exhaled an equally uncertain breath of damp smoke. It didn't seem simple, he thought, her immediate certainty belied by the careful pause while she spoke, and he had a hundred doubts in the span of her hesitation -- perhaps she had no real interest in being his friend, perhaps he was a curiosity, of sorts, like some animal in a menagerie to be mused over and stared at. And then he was struck by how naive -- no, not naive -- how innocent someone could be, in the face of so much destruction and loss. It sat strangely with him, a lump in the pit of his gut, something between yearning and discontent.
Nobody could really be that open-minded, could they? In Theodore's experience, people clung to misfortune, became embittered by it. They certainly didn't spread their arms to someone tinged with a bloody past, didn't invite friendship from someone with a bloodline stained with murder.
He was quite perplexed, and despite her welcoming words, his brow furrowed above licks of smoke trailing from his nose and cigarette. Instinctively, he didn't believe her. Couldn't. She was either a liar or entirely too strange to be real. He wasn't sure which he thought she was.
"Partially." He admitted; an honest answer if ever there was one. "Don't you think you risk being ostracised by being seen with me?"