orderfromchaos | 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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I didn't have to. I could have figured out a way to just kill him, probably. Or I could have died.

[He sighs. That would have been more complicated. In some ways. But he won't pretend he didn't have a choice.]

He doesn't, really. Which is why I let myself at all.

Yes. Because however big it is, you have free will and you will master yourself. That's what sentience is for.

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

You try to be, anyway.

You don't have to put them aside, you know.

I have no idea what you're talking about. [Liar.]

No, come on, saying it's impractical is a cop-out, go make a moral judgement. It's fun!

Don't worry about being a hypocrite, everyone is occasionally, you can work out that part later.

I don't know what kind of a joke it is you're trying to make, but I can guarantee you that I am not laughing.

[She says sentience; but he hears that's what souls are for. He might be damned, but - he's still got that. And so does Hannibal, as it happens. So many people have believed in things they made up for him to be, but so few people have believed in him - the other shards turning away from him at Hearst castle still stings, even though he knows they were manipulated by Okoya as much as he was, worse. Even though he failed them first.]

thanks, iris. it means a lot.

Edited 2014-08-04 00:35 (UTC)

I don't think I have anything to add. On any of this.

Honey, Ah honestly don't think most folks on this boat do.

[And that's a problem. It's been there all this time and it's only now that it's been shoved right under her face. She's never killed anyone here. Not even when her brain was scrambled by Alpha. Not even when Victor would have each time they faced off. But how many here could say the same? And how many just weren't paying attention to this mentality because it's so glossed over into normality? Even she is guilty on that count.]

The joke is that you'll say he's the kind you have a repugnance for, but you won't come out and say Hannibal Lecter is a horrible person, because if you did that you might have to say why, and then you might have to think about how you treated your son.

The joke is that you're almost nothing like him.

Edited 2014-08-04 00:51 (UTC)

No - which one is your cabin?

Maybe he'll learn.

It's so easy, at home. When I bring people back they don't even have the toll.

But I always hated it. The killing, not - anyway.

Level 8, cabin two. Thank you.

[He audibly sucks in his breath the second Dillon brings up Paxton. When he speaks again it's in a tight, heated hiss.]

What is it that you think that you know, about me and my son?

[She hums low in the back of her throat. There's the phantom memory of her hand on the knife going into a woman's stomach, the blood seeping between her fingers, running down her arm. The relief - the release - of all that rage. Had that been righteous? It had felt like it at the time.]

Do you like what you can do?

Dr. Lecter?

[Esther doesn't have words. If she swore, she would now out of pure astonishment.]

What did you do?

Sometimes. Not very often.

[Bucky still looks like shit - the bruises under his eyes have faded a little, but they're still purple and smudged and he looks tired and almost petulant when he asks the question.

He doesn't give a shit about what Dillon did to Hannibal, because it doesn't rub up against his own agency issues the way it might have if Dillon was a different person and he'd gone after someone who wasn't Hannibal. So he's only got one question.]

Did he attack anyone else?

Not after. I don't know how many other people he got to before.

[All technically true. Helena told him not to tell, and he promised.]

I found Helena with most of her face ripped off. She says she doesn't know who did it.

[And he doesn't really believe her.]

I know you treated him differently than Abigail.

The way your shoulders tightened when I clarified about you and her. It was pretty clear.

[ He can do this. He can leave.

He stares at the door for a long moment, irrationally terrified of what is on the other side. Until he thinks - no, he's not terrified of that. He's terrified of what's on this side.

He can be calm about Dillon and about Hannibal, and he can try to be calm about himself.

Soon, he's there, tapping on the door. ]

Welcome to the ship.

[Ha. Ha.]

This kind of thing is - actually less common than the carnival stuff, to be honest.

Here's hoping.

[Dillon is - not holding his breath.]

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12. Mea...culpa?

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