slightlyoffchilt | - IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

Entry tags:

ic contact

- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

"Hello.

You've reached the direct line of Doctor Frederick Chilton. As I am not available at the moment, you might assume I'm quite busy with something pressing. State your name and business, and I will return your call."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It had started out innocently enough. A physical thank you. But an additional housemate who had issues with Chilton, his odd behavior towards the young Hannibal Lecter...that innocence could be ruined. Marlin wars. If ever there was a slippery fish, they'd be a good one to start that slide with.

Abigail, of course that's what me means. Low blow. But lures. He can't know what Will reads that as. He just can't. Will wouldn't share that with anyone, and Hannibal couldn't without getting into serious trouble himself.]

I never mentioned her age as a factor. It's not. I told her what happened as I saw and experienced it. Mentioned you. Run the Baltimore State Home for the Criminally Insane, would have been my doctor there. If you didn't see me as a danger, that cemented my innocence. Freddie told me privately, explicitly, that I'd been released. Assume a psychiatrist who has such a facility under his belt holds more sway on countering anything else I said than a reporter. I can fight any fish I come across as long as I need to, but I can also walk away if it turns into too much. Can't do that with people. Don't want a tug-of-war he said she said involving someone who couldn't expect this sort of shit. [How he saw it, had he shared that with anyone else, how he viewed it all? He's not aiming for flattery in regards to Chilton's job, just fact, though reporter is an attempt to be nice.] There's no reason for her to be suspicious as of now, with what I've told her. It'd be great to keep it that way. There's no reason for you to be suspicious. I eat my catches, don't have them mounted. [He can say that in context. Nothing "ironic" needs to be pointed out.] It was an educational experience for me. Got to learn about the process behind mounting vs. making replicas. I'll be sending you pictures later to prove it's real, not fiberglass. I'm glad you appreciate it.

[Once more, Chilton is saved by their disrupted timeline. While during the trial, Will Graham appeared to be a sophisticated psychopath, one who was capable of imitating the motions of love exactly. He appeared to care deeply about Abigail Hobbs, until that stark moment when he murdered the girl -- after taking her ear.

That persona, of course, was never Will's. It had always been Hannibal.

So Will Graham had always cared about Abigail Hobbs. How lucky for the girl, to have so many father figures, thought a wry Chilton. How tragic that none of them could have saved her in the end.]

Freddie Lounds says a lot of things.

[And all for the price. Through her, Chilton had pieced together some of what his destiny will manifest.]

I don't mean to imply ill intent, Will. I know you're not of that persuasion.

[Now he knows, anyway, now that he sees how his accurate profile accurately fit Hannibal. Never Will.]

If this is a tangible peace offering, an additional truce, a bonding against newly coming reporters -- I accept that, too.

[There are sore subjects for Will that immediately put him on the defensive, have immature retorts coming out of his mouth like a barking dog that won't be soothed. Then there's the subject, the topic, the person that is (was) Abigail Hobbs. There's hostility and then there's indignation. He's yet to speak her name, to write it or see it written. He's heard it from her mouth, but there was context there. It still stung and burned and hurt, just her name, the fact that she was dead and he still had no clue who did it or why. It came without the side bout of betrayal, and even then?

He'd be willing to discuss anything in the world that wasn't her. Cared deeply? Putting it mildly.]

Caught it before Freddie was here, Dr. Chilton. It has nothing to do with her or my persuasion or truces or peace offerings or bonding. Didn't she threaten you? "Abel Gideon is a murderer and Frederick Chilton is hardly a picture of ethics. People need to know what you and those men have done." Exact words. Wouldn't worry too much. Shot that one in the foot. All you need's a name. She won't ever forget him. Not sure how much of that one got out to the general public. Don't keep up with it. You know the one I'm talking about, don't you?

["No need to start a war within this mismatched Baltimore quartet we've got here," he wants to say, but there doesn't have to be a need for it. It's just there. Like gossip, like information, like lack of information, like his assumption the other three feel a similar queasiness when faced with a young Hannibal Lecter (though he has no idea to what extent, not just yet, holes in information being what they are). There like information about a serial killer named Eldon Stammets he wasn't sure if Chilton was aware of or not, or what anyone outside Freddie Lounds and the Bureau had been told. He wasn't sure if Chilton cared about Freddie's lack of ethics (perhaps they could drink wine and compare and Will could sit on the other end of the state with a beer and ignore his own), but if they could be used against her...vultures and shrikes and starlings and hawks and all those nasty predatory birds could be such magpies in the end, couldn't they.]

You and I both know that Freddie Lounds has little room to discuss ethical behavior. Any expertise she claims is fraudulent. People will figure that much out.

[But that didn't render her useless. It was probably a good thing, to have Freddie collared in due time, leashed by her own slimy methodology. Especially if she's keen to thrown around threats like street litter.]

Why? Have you discussed much with him? [Hannibal Lecter.] This may be the only disadvantage he suffers that we'll ever witness.

That's essentially what I told her.

[They've all got some sort of dirt on each other, he figures. Only now his dirt's been released in a very public catfight, for lack of a better word—if anything has to come out, Will would look more believable for it, wouldn't he? Why would the guy who publicly discusses that, oh yes, he knows he's going to a hospital for the criminally insane but the people from his home have no fear of him and have told him he didn't do it, what's he got to lie about?

Makes him more believable if things have to happen with the downside that...he's known about some dirt all along, why not confess immediately?

Double-edged blade, that one.

Will's not getting it, hasn't gotten it, hasn't gotten it all worked out in his head and hasn't been told much of anything. The question confuses the hell out of him, because he's not getting it.]

I catch killers and put them away, I do not do follow-up prison visits. Especially not with Eldon Stammets. One of the last things I need to do is show interest in someone who's interested in me because of what Freddie Lounds writes. I have no desire to encourage obsession. We spoke briefly before proper authorities arrived, and that was the end of it. He'll spend the rest of his days behind bars. That's his disadvantage and the advantage of every diabetic he never came across.

[That this reply might confuse Chilton as much as Chilton's confused Will isn't something he considers if how quickly it comes is any indication.]

She would have dismissed you, of course. I should rectify my prior assertion, however, as I've given the masses much too much credit: only intelligent people will figure out that much. The intellectual bottom feeders will eat up her words like the hapless idiots they are.

[Chilton would know. He did, after all, convince a lot of the public to consider Gideon as the authentic Ripper through Freddie Lounds's mouth.]

But I digress. It isn't as if we don't all know each other well enough. [Unconsciously echoing Will's own thoughts.] What are you arguing exactly? [Confusion is right. Gross Mushroom FunGuy was barely on Chilton's radar.] Because I am not accusing you of anything short that you present about yourself.

We've already been through that song and dance.

Edited 2014-06-21 23:54 (UTC)

Bottom feeders can still be predators, snap up the "superior" swimming prey above them without ever being spotted. Don't forget about those stingrays, either. Might be hapless to be stuck on the bottom, but it'd be idiotic to completely dismiss them.

[Will Graham, not-so-subtly sticking up for the ocean's underdogs? Not him. That out of the way, he has to confess: he's a bit confused.]

I'm not arguing anything. [and I don't want to hear about whatever song and dance we might have done is almost sent, but that's a lie. He wants to know some things, doesn't want to know others, and he doesn't know how to ask for specifics without saying something along the lines of, "just tell me what won't screw me over," without giving Chilton more wiggle room than he already has.] Have our wires been crossed? Who were you asking me about if not Eldon Stammets? Has she played a part in getting someone else killed since my incarceration? I don't know about that. I'm getting the feeling we're not on the exact same wavelength here.

[He's having an emotion and sharing that. Confusion about the conversation, of course. Nothing more to read there.]

You're revealing your own idiocy if you think I was dismissing them completely, Graham, but then again I'd hardly be surprised by your lack of focus. It should be evident that I think Freddie Lounds's dieheard readers, the ones too stupid to question a woman who has settled multiple accounts of libel with money rather than risk court exposure, do indeed have their uses. Pawns have their uses, too, on a chessboard.

[Was it possible that Will Graham had never figured out that it was Chilton who manipulated Freddie's audience, with his leaked story about Gideon? Did the infamous bloodhound miss that subtle detail? The thought amused Chilton.]

Though I find it comical that you would champion the very people who would willingly watch you get tarred.

[Chilton considered them less underdogs and more like parasites; bloodthirsty for whatever flesh may fall. He did say intellectual bottomfeeders, after all, not something to be taken too literally.]

It's nothing. We can talk about Stammets.

[Better than discussing Hannibal, isn't it? But it was a quick surrender, a fast diversion. He was hardly going to be caught on any device with a record of Hannibal's name typed by his own fingertips, however. Chilton knew better.]

[He reads all of it several times, takes a moment to breathe and figure out how to put it all out on the chessboard, which of Chilton's words should be the pawns, the rooks, and which he should leave for the checkmate. He recalls it all, even if he'd done his best to ignore what he'd heard, what he'd seen.

If they were going to talk about revealing idiocy and Chilton was going to mock his lack of focus—his mind was on fire, how could he be focused in the face of that?—Will wasn't going to sit in the dunking booth anymore. He didn't have to. Chilton had no means to put him in a cell here and if Will got it into his head, he had no means to shut him up. Sure, Freddie Lounds might have issues with Will, too, but a team-up of the two of them, wouldn't that be a nightmare for public relations?]

Metaphorical devil, of course. His social morphology. I would guess the Ripper was responsible. The Ripper is, of course, something like a supervillain among serial killers. I have the qualities of the Chesapeake Ripper. I ought to teach you myself, just to force you into some accomplishment. What if he hurts me? None of that was my intent. Those are all your words. Recognize them? Does that order unsettle you? You gave me a buffet. You gave me a puzzle. I wasn't hungry and wasn't with it enough to put it together. Am now. Let's not talk about Stammets. Let's talk about a lack of focus that could arguably lead to revealing idiocy if one follows the conversations long enough and pieces them together. Let's talk about your intentions. Why people might be angry at you. Why being surprised at a bloody office with your name on it is as comical as my championing those who would willingly watch me get tarred. Let's talk about Lucifer, perhaps the literal devil, saying you owed him a favor. But then there's the metaphorical devil looming on the horizon. You seemed so eager to talk about him to everyone else. So publicly, too, so ready for anyone who'd listen. Would you rather have a conversation about the Ripper than any of that?

[Mongooses aren't great singers, but those bastards can dance like they're on fire if they have to. Why not start another one?]

[There's a long pause, as he observes this text, absorbing the language. The emotion. He won't feel it himself (Narcissistic Personality Disorder offered constraints on empathy), but he understands it. He dissects it. Chilton's strengths were his mind, his words -- careful, cutting, incisive. They were the scalpels that his fingers could not wield. He was a woeful surgeon, yes, but he was no idiot.

And those who weren't smart enough to realize that soon became this jackal's puppets. Gideon caught on, Alana knew from the offset, both highly intelligent individuals who understood what Chilton was capable of -- but Jack Crawford? The man couldn't even manage a competent background check, and he was played until Hannibal stole that fiddle. Will Graham? Much more debatable.

And as Chilton already suggested, idiots could still be dangerous. They could still stand to be muzzled. Perhaps that time had come.]

Let's not talk about food metaphors, shall we? I find that much more unsettling than anything you could spew out with a quick communicator search. Let's instead discuss the idiocy of you creating another enemy, Will Graham. I may not be short of any myself, but I know how to fight back. I know how to hide.

[Jackals were both predator and scavenger, adaptable as the situation demanded. Chilton was just as apt with offense as he was with defense, and he had been building his defense ever since his return from Baltimore.]

I don't let the worst of potential enemies get close to me. [Hannibal. Lecter.] And I assure you, none of my business is anything near daunting as yours.

You need all the friends you can manage. Try not to alienate everyone capable, won't you?

I have no interest in you as my enemy. None of this has been meant as a threat. That was not my intent. Are you craving a threat? You want me to tell you I'm living in 8 and you're in 9, that the locks on these doors take mere seconds to manipulate, that I've known where your office was before I made my way there? That you'd be easy to spot in a crowd with a cane, far easier than someone with unnaturally colored hair or missing clothes? That what you want to hear? You want to get in a pissing contest of threats with me? Piss on your own floor. Stain it. I'm not here to threaten your career or you. I don't need this thing. Every word you've spoken or written that I can see is in my head, same as it's always been with people's words.

[You're the same as everyone else might be read into that, but it's not what he means. That's just how Will's mind operates. He doesn't need to write anything down when it never goes away. Sure, if he doesn't use something for a while or ignores it, he has to work to get it back (like with Skye and his desire to help her with a GED; he hasn't studied some of that stuff in years, so he needs to brush up on it).]

Not tracking you in an attempt to toss you to the wolves, Frederick. I'm tracking you so if there is an unfortunate next time where you step out of line and someone paints your office with your own damn blood, I'll have a better grasp on who to look at first without having a body to stand over and survey. Is that your idea of an enemy?

[Frederick. He's been doing the same with a few other people (most obvious should be Freddie Lounds and Abel Gideon), but he leaves that out. Chilton can figure that much out, if he wants to.

Like Will can figure out the puzzle pieces he's vomited all over the place when he sits down to do it, when he wants to.

If he wants to.

(He does not want to.)]

[It's persuasive. Chilton lingers with a response -- it's true, in what Will says, that the psychiatrist is too prone to detect threats. Pattern recognition was one of the most phenomenal accomplishments evolved within the chemical glory of the human frontal lobes; but even that unique triumph had its cost. Paranoia. Phobia. Delusions. Seeing things that aren't necessarily there, only because these things are so similar to those things and damn did those things hurt.

But Chilton knows that Will isn't the psychopath people thought he was, for a duration. He knows that Will isn't leading him on.]

Am I to believe you're watching out for me, in particular?

[Because he wants to believe that. If there was ever an ideal sequence of defense, then Will Graham would be encoded within that. Will Graham, who could catch the killers that no one else could -- it was a solid bet. A promising scheme. He knew that Will would be tracking the others from Baltimore (tracking, he had said, like some hunt), but Chilton was surely observed as more innocent. Chilton, who would be framed (according to Freddie Lounds, taken with a grain of salt). Chilton, who deeply needed someone capable of uncovering the truth, especially if he himself were indisposed.

He wanted to believe that Will could do that for him. Their own complicated past aside, his own tongue-flicked barbs having been noted, Chilton still considered Will Graham a particularly important ally to have allied.

The only trouble was securing that investment from Will. While Chilton thought himself innocent (naturally, he would), he knew what the facts looked like. What he did to Gideon, and what Gideon consequently did to Nurse Shell. What Gideon did to those guards, and all his doctors.

Gideon was the gun loaded by Chilton. His finger had pulled that psychotic trigger.

And because Chilton had been victimized himself, it was easy to masquerade it all as accidental. But Hannibal knew better, he knew what manipulation Chilton invoked, and Will would eventually learn better -- and Chilton would never succumb to confession, as advised by the future of the man he spoke to now. A future that was already sealed in the past, as according to Freddie Lounds. They all entangled each other.

Chilton also needed all the friends he could manage. He had to act now, before Will knew about Chilton's special meetings with Hannibal. Before Chilton would break his word to Will.]

All right. I'll admit it, I am defensive. I, likewise, do not wish us to be enemies, Will.

It would be an accurate assessment to say that I am paying your conversations particular attention. If I can see it, I follow it until I can't. If it's public, I've noted it and compartmentalized them for later reference, should the need ever arise.

[Compartments like "small talk" and "positive interpersonal relationships" (which he has no desire to look into further) followed alongside "related to Baltimore" (oh, Danger) and "potentially disastrous" which echoed folders he'd eventually have on multiple people here.

The people in Will's life have a horrible track record of getting screwed over, but he's yet to realize how major a factor he plays in that. He's yet to realize that the Ripper has been playing him along with Jack Crawford, along with everyone else. He's yet to realize who the Ripper is, but he has all these puzzle pieces left in the wake of public talks he could put together if he wanted to, but why would he?

Abel Gideon and Frederick Chilton and Freddie Lounds are not high on Will's list of people he feels anything positively for. They are, however, the people he knows, and two of them happen to get into quite a bit of trouble. FBI's darling consultant bloodhound keeps his nose down and would like to stay out of their business—to their faces. Food metaphors or not, if it's public and mentions them or comes from them, he consumes it. He might be tempted to scoff or roll his eyes, but the wonderful thing is:]

Let me add that I make no judgment calls. I am not following you because I find your social life of interest or entertaining. I do it on the clock when no one's in the shop. It wouldn't be a lie call it business. I'm getting paid no matter what I'm doing.

[Chilton (and Gideon, and Lounds) didn't have to act to get Will to pay them notice, to be invested. They just had to be them, had to be entangled. Unfortunately, he didn't know what else just being them wrought in the end of things. Whatever shit they pulled on him, didn't matter. He'd always peruse and make note of what he could see, and it had nothing to do with meeting up later and gossiping about it. Even if he was reading mentions of his insanity, he'd trudge right on. Might get a drink, but he'd get all of it he could even if he had to toss back more than usual.]

Your business is yours, mine is mine. Neglected to mention they overlap. You hadn't picked that up already? Notes for future reference. I'd offer to stop, since it could be seen as invasive and rude and bordering on obsessive, but I think you're smart enough to know that's not the case.

[If Chilton wants him to stop, too fucking bad; Will's not going to quit sniffing everyone out until they stop getting themselves gutted and abducted and paralyzed. What he doesn't know.]

Don't expect me to shoot anyone else in the head. Seems my aim up close isn't something to count on.

[Not even a bit of brain damage. How shitty a shot was he?

Will wasn't doing this solely for Chilton or Gideon or Lounds. Will was doing this because he felt obligated (guilt even worlds away) to them for one underlying reason and multiple others unique to what relationships he knew they had.

He's purposefully leaving out that dirty, dirty f-word.]

Yes, obviously our business overlaps.

[That's why he had surged in, to broker that deal with Will. The social contract. He wondered if Will had misunderstood his intent and the implication of what Chilton had already known, or if he was being obnoxious on purpose. The latter, likely -- it wasn't as if Chilton had been a gentleman to Will, during this exchange.

All part of how their entanglements got thorny.]

Isn't it remarkable, how he's recovered? [Ah, the discussion of Abel Gideon. An irresistible topic. If Chilton couldn't stop Will's focus on the Baltimore three (with Will, of course, rounding them to four -- oddly young Hannibal was but a fraction in this count), he could at least refocus the lens onto one of the other two.] Pity about the leg.

That wasn't me, you know. I don't know how he managed to lose it. I suspect it was taken from him.

[Will's not the one who would take Chilton being the opposite of a gentleman as such a grave insult. Hannibal surely found him obnoxious at times, as he's sure Chilton did if he's ridden out the gravy train of being Will Graham's secretary.]

If he hadn't been talking about killing Alana Bloom in the style of the Ripper, he wouldn't have had to recover from anything. [This is a big fat lie. He would have shot him no matter what he said, seeing Garret Jacob Hobbs and all. The bit about being him was too much, but seeing that face saying anything? It wouldn't have mattered what Gideon said. Will's fortunate that Gideon's tongue-pulling spree afforded him a free pass when it came to having shot him in the head. Which he has, of course, lied about since coming here.] More remarkable that you feel you have to defend your lack of action. Anyone who thinks you'd be capable of wielding whatever was used to saw a leg clean off is a blind moron. Of course I "know" that, Frederick. I'd say we could argue that you'd helped wield whatever sawed Miriam Lass' arm clean off, but that wouldn't be an argument. We both had a part in that one.

[Freddie Lounds had her uses after all. And, ah, since the man who'd be discomforted isn't around, why not?]

You might say I have as much of a leg to stand on as you would if we tried to get into that one.

[Problems with taste indeed.]

[Needless to say, Hannibal isn't the best of measurements to determine much of anything by. He's probably the only person who sent Will anything, since the only other person invested in Will's well-being was already WORKING THERE (Matthew Brown). The gravy was more like water.

Chilton was likely highly disappointed by the dry detail. "Will come". BARELY salacious. Hannibal, you shame your cobalt blue walls with a lacking purple prose.]

Well, you definitely just called a couple of your acquaintances "blind morons".

[He doesn't illuminate, wondering if Will can figure it out. HE'S NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE FBI AND THEIR FAILURES, even though everyone knows Zeller fits that description.]

Miriam Lass could ONLY me even partially on me if you're suggesting that I have manipulative sway over the Ripper.

[Which, actually, he did to an extent. He wanted the Ripper to return to business, so he could be considered the copycat -- thus blooming Gideon's fame once more. He was counting on that much.

I read all those fucking scripts.]

If you think "blind morons" is the worst I've called anyone and is something I should feel bad about, I don't think we got to know each other very well at all.

[Feeling badly about things. Words words words, none of them poetic enough to suit Hannibal's tastes. Zeller fits a lot of descriptions. Will slotted him in one while Jack stood there and watched, slotted him into the spot of a lousy politician due to his status as a middle child after having his lack of personality insulted.

Not to mention the way he insulted his entire class. Details.]

You helped create a fake Ripper. Of course that would hit news. Of course he'd read it and be insulted. Of course everyone knew Abel Gideon wasn't the Ripper. He doesn't just kill in threes or fours. He was active while Dr. Gideon was locked away. That much didn't hit the news. Looking back at it later, we probably should have let you know. You probably wouldn't have believed it, but we could have tried. Should I feel bad we didn't try?

["Sorry you got gutted because we didn't care - Cocktail"

He doesn't feel bad Chilton should have read the scripts more carefully]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject