orderfromchaos | 12. Mea...culpa?

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12. Mea...culpa?

[Public, video]

[They're the kitchen of Dillon's parents' house: relentlessly suburban, a few southwestern touches, from the touristy Navajo-ish vase on the table to the sepia color palette, well-coordinated. There are floral magnets on the fridge, and one Hannibal Lecter humming as he makes what appears to be gourmet tomato soup and fresh-baked bread. He's wearing an open lab coat over his suit that he grabbed while attempting to join an infirmary shift, right before Dillon hurriedly hustled him out.]

I kind of...fixed him.

[Not like you fix a car; Hannibal wasn't broken, he was himself. Like you fix a dog.]

I thought it would wear off but it hasn't, and his room is the same so it doesn't count for graduation but I don't. Actually know how to undo it.

He's not faking, either.

[Voice pitched more deliberately across the room, though he hasn't been been whispering or anything; Hannibal could have heard him before if he was listening.

Hey, Hannibal, say sorry to the nice people.

[Hannibal pauses, sets down the wooden spoon and turns to the comm, contrite, shifting, a little uncertain.]

I'm terribly sorry for what I've done. It seems almost unreal, but I do not mean to belittle anyone's suffering. I apologize.

[Dillon waves him back to the soup.]

[Private to Jean]

I'm pretty sure what you do is more. Versatile, than mine. I know it's a lot to ask, but could you check and see if you can reverse it?

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[If he could see her, he wouldn't read fear, no more than his powers usually inspire in her. Anger and pain and a desire for vengeance, yes, but none of them directed Dillon's way. There's a break in the communication, but she comes back to it some time later to ask another question.]

Did it feel righteous?

It's not freedom from anything.

[Hissed, a little bristling. He doesn't know who Bruce is remembering, exactly - but something about the nebulous shape of it makes him think of Okoya, slick and sweet and poisoned, trying to convince him by rationalizations or bribery or blackmail to bring the whole world into line.]

And it's not a breach of trust to destroy someone who is not going to stop attacking you until they are destroyed. And that's where we were.

It's a violation, I'll cop to that. That's why I'm going to make sure it's undone.

But they're not your patients, they're ours. And he wasn't my patient at the time.

A little. But I think that's mostly because I was so angry, and not because it actually was.

They're all our patients. That's what's part of being a doctor, a healer-- a warden -- is. We can't just-- write them off and say it's not my problem.

[ That's a Bond way of thinking, and it's not one that Bruce engages in. ]

Put him down. That's self-defense. What you did-- to his mind, to his self, to his long-term ramifications of his being-- go far beyond a death toll. I'm so glad I'm not his warden...

[ He can't imagine Mal would be pleased at all. This breaches her right to manage Hannibal, on top of the ethics of it. What a damned mess. ]

[He tilts his head.]

You think you know the only right way to be a healer? Because I'll tell you, there was a time I thought everything was my problem. War, hunger, rape, ethnic violence. That was the main line of the guy trying to get me to do this -

[A jerk of thumb toward Hannibal.]

- to everyone on Earth. I think it's really important that I remember some things are not my damn problem.

I should have killed him. I know that. But it was a little hard to get at something vital when he was in the middle of strangling me, and I lost my temper.

[You wouldn't know anything about that.]

[He leads her over to the kitchen.]

Do you want to - sit down and hold hands or whatever, or just...?

[How do.]

once i tried to go into a church and i couldn't get through the yard bc all the people buried there started coming back in their coffins

it was too much for the human part of me and i passed out but im pretty sure it didn't stop

thats when the admiral pulled me back again last time

[ The problem is he does; it makes it ugly and personal, boiling the mix into a frothing overreaction. He knows how that is, he knows how he's been used just like Dillon has, and it makes him angry at Dillon because the person that makes Bruce angriest is himself. ]

[ He's still angry for Hannibal triggering an incident, of using him as a suicide mechanism for some... unknown purpose. He's angry he was used on the helicarrier, years ago. ]

[ He's angry all the damn time, though-- it's just lately it's become harder an harder to endure. ]

When you have power like we do, you have to learn to be your own master-- or you'll be mastered by someone, something else, at every turn.

You're a warden. We're going to expect better of you.

[ He expects better of himself. ]

there's very little that actually scares me, Dillon, but you do it without even meaning to.

you should work with Rogue. Get what control you can over it, because this can't keep happening.

And you're doing well with Elsa, aren't you? You can get a grip on this one way or another.

that said, part of me really hopes Lecter learns something from this experience.

[The part of him that feels trapped and cornered wants to snarl don't treat me like a child, even though he can see the projection. The part of him that is an arrogant child wants to say there is no we, you don't have power like I do, you only kill people. But he knows that's just cruel, bitter, pointless.

Bruce doesn't know how much he's fought to lock down his temper in the two years since he lost Deanna - nearly three, counting barge time - how much he is his own master and how much he can't be, not over the part of him that's a star. Bruce doesn't know about Helena - but he promised not to tell. And in the end, the important part is that Bruce isn't wrong. He sighs, looks down.]

I know. I'm working on it. I hadn't - I hadn't snapped in almost three years. And I'd never done this on purpose. I don't ever want to again.

I'm going to take a few days, okay? Get my head on straight, make sure he's taken care of and back like he should be, god help us all. David and Ben can cover for me. But I've still got my key, and that means I have a job to do, and shirking it isn't going to make up for anything.

Edited 2014-08-03 23:21 (UTC)

[It scares him too. It always has.]

i am working with her

both of us are

but it's mostly using it sharper and smarter

idk if ill ever be able to hold it all in

its so big, Iris

Edited 2014-08-03 23:18 (UTC)

[Wait what...what just happened here.

There's been shots fired at the way he lives his own life but at the same time he's being complimented for how he is by comparison, and he's always happy to listen to someone tearing down Hannibal but Abigail is a a more complicated issue that twists at him under the vest, and he's not sure what to make of it. Especially now.

It takes him another moment to mentally regroup and respond.]

Hannibal Lecter is the same kind of creature that even I have a marked repugnance for. Inflicting pain and misery on others for naught but it's own sake...a myriad of so-called ethical and moral issues aside, it's just impractical. It's the kind of distraction that can run as detriment to one's own survival.

[Sneering a bit, sardonic.]

And you know me, I'm all about the self-preservation.

[She listens, takes the story in. And then she wonders how many people have actually given him the same chance to speak his piece before shoving their indignation straight down his throat.]

Y'know, this place makes things all twisted up. Ya didn't take a man's life. And that shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. No one should ever get t'a place where killin' is the easy choice, the better choice. It's not. Ah don't care how many times the Admiral will bring us back from the dead, killin' isn't the answer.

Ya had shit options and ya picked the one that was less wrong. We'll fix this. And if people give ya grief, Ah've got yer back.

Edited 2014-08-03 23:32 (UTC)

usually I'd deploy "that's what all the blokes say" at this point but I feel a bit weird slinging penis jokes at someone your age even if you are a complicated spacetime event.

if I were religious I'd say that we aren't given anything beyond our capacity to handle, but that's a platitude and a lie; this boat's full of people who had far more than they could ever hope to have handled.

nevertheless, you are going to handle it because the other option is not to be borne. you could remake the universe like Lecter or that tree. I'm just passionately grateful that you're intelligent enough not to want to.

let me know if you and Jean could use me. you two have more than enough power between you but I might have a useful perspective.

[He turns brick red, hides his face in his hands from no one as he laughs. He hadn't even thought -]

thanks iris

i needed that laugh today

i used to be religious you know. and then i was a religion. idk what i am now. but im working on it.

Edited 2014-08-03 23:48 (UTC)

one day, when you're a little less prone to rewrite reality in your sleep, I should like to take you travelling.

I knew a girl once who started out as human and then got turned into a TARDIS. you remind me a little of her, if she hadn't been a humourless stick. her name was Compassion, and ...it turned out to be appropriate enough.

learning to handle herself was a steep road for her, too, and not without its share of disasters.

C'rizz.

Do you want to go to the CES?

[ Do you want me to help you calm down.

He has sympathy for C'rizz. A little, burgeoning connection. ]

Yes.

Yes, I --

That's a good idea. Thank you, Zane.

[ It's then that Zane realizes the flaw in his plan. He's speaking from his room, where he's been hiding. Where he's stayed, quiet and alone, and untempted by the living people around him. Where he doesn't have to be paranoid or afraid.

He retreats here every time something like this happens, he knows. It's developing into a vicious pattern. And he always has to leave, eventually. ]

Do you want me to come get you, or meet you there?

[ Helping people helps. He clings to that. ]

I can meet -

[No. Maybe it would be better to not wander the halls angry.]

Maybe it would be better if we went together. You know where I am?

[It takes him aback, for a second. It's such - or it seems - such a ubiquitous assumption on the barge, that changing someone's mind is worse than death. Which dovetails with his own fears, his own damage and assumptions. He does feel guilt about not killing a man, and that's all kinds of messed up. Thou shalt not kill. He kills so easily, at home. But he didn't want to kill Hannibal, didn't want to crack his skull open and squirm out from under the mess. He's so tired of killing. He blinks rapidly.]

I...hadn't thought of it that way.

Edited 2014-08-04 00:25 (UTC)

Because you had to. Because he doesn't understand suffering and fear and powerlessness.

God. Really?

Yeah. Guy's a piece of work.

[Or he was.]

you really think I can?

[He's HAVinG a LOt oF FEELINGS.]

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12. Mea...culpa?

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