Dillon Cole || Scorpion Shard

[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?

[Dillon arrives precisely at noon sharp, January 1st, bargetime, because....of course he does. He doesn't notice this. The tranquilizers are gone from his system, but he's still trussed up in his full transport rig, immobile, masked, muffled, field of vision restricted by blinders. It's a little more involved than fiberglass cuffs, but it still only takes him a few minutes to wriggle just the right way, and piece by piece, his restraints fall away.

When he flicks the communicator on, he makes an incongruous picture: a young man with effortlessly, immaculately neat hair, wearing a distinctive and equally pristine prison orange jumpsuit. The glimpses of the room behind him lend themselves to a very prosaic early nineties teen, suburban and homey, and from one hand he dangles a particularly distinctive mask, with added eyes-forward style horse blinders.]

Hey, does anybody want a souped up Hannibal Lecter mask? I managed to get it off without breaking it, and it seems like the kind of thing that might come in handy sometimes around here.

...oh, and I'm Dillon. Hi.