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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[The smell of soup and bread has filled the kitchen, and Hannibal has calmly been checking on both, adjusting here, turning there. He looks up when he hears Jean enter, listening in the distracted way of a man focused on a task.

But he knows that all this is about him. He's not deaf, and his own comm has been sitting on the counter beside his ladle.

Satisfied that the soup is simmering, he wanders away from it, wiping his hands unnecessarily on a towel before slipping off the white jacket.]

This really isn't necessary.

[It's mildly said as he folds the lab coat over his arm, smoothing out wrinkles.] Who I was before...does not seem worth remembering.

[He's still so baffled by the memories, knowledge of facts without understanding the whys of any of it. He would never do those things now. He's fixed.]

We can just sit together. [Her voice is quiet, as she follows him, and her steps slow when she sees Hannibal.

She thought she could keep herself distanced from this. She knows that's the best way to do it - stay rational, clinical.

But she can't help but remember how the Black Queen looked at Scott.

It's a bit of the opposite, isn't it? Mastermind pried out everything dark and corrupt in her. Twisted her into the worst thing she could ever be. Dillon - he took all of that away, and left - what? Something safer, surely, but that doesn't make it right.

She realises she's stopped moving. That she's staring.

She attempts a smile. Attempts something warm, and gentle - because however monstrous he is, he still deserves her best, just by virtue of being human.]

Maybe not. But it's who you're meant to be. Changing should be your choice.

He has more right to live than you do.

[No gentleness, no moralizing, just cutting straight to the ultimate and inevitable conclusion of this entire wretched affair. It's not cold, precisely, but flat, blunt, aware of its own horrible and ironic edges. Chief of which is this: when Hannibal accepts Dillon's judgement - and he will - it will be proof of itself, that however pleasant this Hannibal is Dillon's person, and not his own.

If it were different - if a man roughly like this were real, if it were Hannibal and mirror Hannibal each complete in themselves, and only one could live, Dillon would choose the kind one without qualm or hesitation. But that's not the choice they have, and that's not who they're sacrificing in exchange for what they're bringing back.

There's an openness, a pulse - Dillon's energy is always nebulous around him, green and bright, and he lets the bitter human logic of it permeate, diffuse into the parts of him beyond his skin, smoke from the fire, for her to hear and understand.]

[Jean's effort at a smile is returned, a small, close-lipped thing that Hannibal hopes will help put her at ease. He spreads his hands, about to say that it's his choice to accept this change, to be as he is forever--

But then Dillon speaks. And Hannibal's certainty in himself slips away, like he's standing on sand and the tide is rising and soon he will be pulled out to sea. He has less right to live than - a monster.

His brow creases, and his mouth closes, and for a long moment, he says nothing. He can do nothing. They must go through with this, even though the idea makes his chest ache a little.]

Very well, [he finally says, quietly.]

[Her lips curl, just slightly, as she glances at Dillon.]

You're not helping.

[It's more chiding than anything, though, and her expression smooths almost immediately.]

You're not whole, Hannibal. [Was he whole in the first place? No, that's not the point.] You can be like this again - kind, and gentle - but you need to want it. You need to make it happen yourself. And you can.

[She's not sure if it's a lie or not. He wouldn't be here if he couldn't change, but she doesn't know if he'll ever be kind. But right now, she's just trying to make it easier for the man in front of her.]

[For a few seconds, he takes Hannibal's hand, lets his heartbeat resonate through the conch shell of Hannibal's current being, patterned and lovely as a pale pink Fibonacci spiral, brittle and empty and scoured clean.]

I'm sorry.

[Soft, sincere, for the shell and no one else; because he is Dillon's creature, because Dillon has always owed his creatures better than he could give them. Because he feels, even if he doesn't have a human's true complexity or independence. Because Dillon made him apologize, and it - fits.]

I'd have made you better if I knew how.

[Hannibal's hand tightens on Dillon's, and his eyes, when they settle on his maker, are more expressive than they have ever been. He feels battered and broken, but whole, too: he could be made whole again, the spiderweb fractures filled in. But he will not be. Not like this.

He will remember the whys of everything he has done, but he will do those things again.

He lets out a short breath, and nods. The apology must be enough - Dillon is sorry that he will - vanish, disappear, die? Will it be like dying? Being replaced by another, darker entity? Someone else will come to fill his shell.

Hannibal nods.]

Thank you.

12. Mea...culpa?

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