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?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't trust psychics.

We'll see.

Death is basically just another way of kicking to the admiral. My resurrections generally - contributed. To pulling people into my sway.

And I think most of us would trust her more than him.

You mean if it hadn't gotten him killed? If he'd gotten away with it, if it hadn't ever - pardon the pun - come back to bite him?

Yeah. If that.

Well. He would have never gotten his brains scrambled by you and your rampant uncontrolled star fragment powers, now would he?

If he hasn't graduated Lecter, he doesn't approve. Death is a reset. I've trusted that much dozens of times.

I'm not going to spend much time convincing you. You should be nowhere near the resurrection.

[He shakes his head.]

You don't have to convince me. That's a good - you're right.

Well, he still would have died someday. Even if he were never caught.

And what, that means he would have automatically come to this ship, and therefore to you?

I hardly think that that's so...absolutely predestined.

I'm going to go out on a crazy limb and say the admiral is probably harder to get away from than the police.

And good try, way to turn it around, but I'm not really concerned about me.

If he never gets caught, do you still find him repugnant? For cracking people open physically and emotionally, ruining their lives and minds and eating them, all for the pleasure of it. Or do you respect him for living as he wished and using his intellect to succeed in his chosen goals?

Edited 2014-08-04 06:27 (UTC)

I made him...helpful. And less complicated.

It's pretty messed up and English doesn't really have great words for it. I'm sorry.

I find the manner in which he chooses to live his life disgusting. [Flat, frank.] There is no other word for it than that. Killing and eating people as a hobby, honestly. Manipulating them simply to prove a point.

[That part of it winds him up more than it would have before; the Joker toyed with him, used him, in a method similar to Hannibal's little games.]

I think his "success" is a waste of perfectly good passion and intellect. But if this is the part where you're waiting for me to agree that somebody needed to stop him -- no, that's not going to happen.

I do not take moral stances, Mr. Cole. As a rule I don't get involved with tawdry concepts of morality at all.

It would be dangerous to like it too much, I think.

Dillon, man, I love you, but...

That is the creepiest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life.

Don't.

Don't - talk to me like that.

Like I know you, or like I don't give a damn?

Yeah, I know.

I mean, like, really fucking creepy.

Like cut off your skin and wear it around for an apron creepy.

[He thinks of Lourdes, chokes up a little.]

Yeah. You're right, it is.

Okay, thank you, I get it.

No, no, I don't think you do.

This is like if you were suddenly pregnant and laid an egg and instead of a baby, what burst forth was millions of tiny spiders, all with tiny Christopher Walken heads.

[Okay, now he's laughing. Possibly he shouldn't be, but.]

Duly noted.

Hooks in me.

[ He is angry. He is furious, his heartbeat coming fast and his vision blurring. He hangs up here. ]

sorry

Why tawdry?

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12. Mea...culpa?

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