slightlyoffchilt | - IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

Which leads me to beg the question: why?

[He's suspicious about it; Chilton had even dissuaded Billy from interfacing Kate on his behalf. Compassionate as his patient might be, and while the sentiment was appreciated, Chilton had determined that there was nothing to be done about this friendship. Why stoke a muttering fire? It only briefly occurred to him that Billy had mentioned something to Kate anyway, before he disregarded the possibility.

Billy had Erik to be concerned over, and he notably respected boundaries. Kate's sudden revitalized interest, reasoned Chilton, was likely sparked because of someone else. And if Chilton didn't know that third party (everyone he thought of was unlikely, or improbable), then he could not trust meeting with her. It had ever nuance of a trap.]

Was I not clear enough already? I was wrong, and I want to listen to you, as you asked me to before and I should have done already.

No, why now? What prompted your realization? Why bother doing this in person -- "want" aside.

Edited 2014-06-20 20:29 (UTC)

I came across some information that led me to believe I made a very grave error.

And are you going to hold that information hostage?

It's information relevant to someone you don't know, regarding a situation that you likely aren't familiar with. It's not holding it hostage so much as involving a third party who provided some much needed perspective.

But you've said you were prompted into this very action because of information you've come across that's led you to have made a grave error. If you are indeed referring to a grave error you've made concerning your condemnation of me, how is that not relevant to me? If it is indeed relevant to me, then you appear to be holding such hostage.

If it isn't relevant to me, then it makes no sense what you're saying. Information relevant to me and independent of our mutual situation has caused you to rethink your prior position? Unlikely.

I'm not getting into another situation with you without all the facts, Kate. And I know when you're withholding facts.

Why are you so paranoid, Dr. Chilton? The interesting thing here is between the two of us, you have done something, and I haven't.

I'm not bringing that up as a reminder. Before you think that's some psychological tactic.

The information made me realize I have a grave error. I came upon it independently of you. [Mostly.] And it has nothing to do with you. Unlikely, yeah, I think so, too. I didn't see it coming, but it did.

Lack of action is still an action, Kate, and your lack of action is just as condemning to me as my alleged action is to you. We are of equal esteem with one another.

Moreover, you're not particularly convincing; simply calling someone paranoid does not make them such, and you are nothing if not skittish about the details here. My instinct appears to be well-founded. I would prefer a text conversation for the time being.

My lack of action was spurred by other things. Finding out a glimpse of what you had done, which I've since had confirmed in its entirety, is a part of it.

I'm skittish about the details because it has nothing to do with you directly. You can assume it is indirect, but understand my reasoning for not telling you the direct cause. What you want to do is take ownership over the information, and I'm not going to do that. I have my reasons not to do that.

I'm not going to have a conversation with you over text, so let me know if and when you change your mind.

Confirmed it in its entirety? With whom? Abel Gideon? Did it never occur to you that he would take every advantage of lying to you? That any information you spared him, he would artfully twist? Come on, Kate, really?

[He would laugh at this point -- and he does. Gideon is a manipulator in his own right, though he conveniently adopts an agenda contrast to Chilton more often than not, that doesn't mean that he's incapable of using someone like an eager and young vigilante. Lounds, dear as she is to Chilton's own bias, is a libelous tabloid scribe, and one with followers whom Chilton had already mocked as blind idiots. The fact that he doesn't mention her here, now, to Kate, means he doesn't consider her to be that intellectually lacking, at least. Hannibal was a non-contender, the adult version would prove much more dangerous to Chilton's own history.

That left Will Graham.

Will Graham, whom he had swiftly latched into contract with. Will Graham, who was Kate's best bet at unraveling the depths of Baltimore. If Kate was crafty enough to wrangle out information from Will, this moment would prove it -- and Chilton would abandon his deal with the man with the force of a whirling narcissistic hurricane. If she hadn't spoken with Will, then her threats were fangless, as far as Chilton was concerned.]

Once again, you're wrong about my intentions. "Ownership over the information"? Kate, you've already hurt me. That will never happen again.

[Such were his feelings; Chilton, at least, learned from his mistakes. Adaptability was his survival tactic.]

Ergo, I won't be changing my mind. I trust you will respect my boundaries.

I'm well aware of what information has been twisted.

[Gideon's own fate and involvement with Chilton seemed to be it, but the truth is that her knowledge of the actual circumstance between the two doctors, combined with Gideon's confirmation, seemed to be enough. While her perspective on that has become much more convoluted, she doesn't see Chilton as any less of a predator than Gideon. His approach to others led into that.

The difference is that she does know the feeling of being victimized, but her understanding is that there are many victims in this situation. She had discounted Chilton's own victimhood, and hoped to give him the same level conversation that she had provided Gideon. Neutrality, rather than something else. But she isn't being offered that.

Of course, his own reluctance to speak to her has given her more reason to return to her previous state of mind about him. After all, while there were many victims, there were people who victimized others. That includes Chilton, as far as she's concerned. Kate wasn't being underhanded, but she does prefer a more level understanding with the man—a certain neutrality that she hasn't achieved here because she refuses to play anything that involves sharing one piece of information for another (which she's certain the information about Danger would become—as much as she is now more aware of Danger as an individual, she isn't going to see the woman as an object to discuss for some other greater purpose).

While she will likely return to Chilton's words in the future, she prefers to remain confident in her view here. Chilton's own unwillingness to implicate the birdie, along with his responses to Gideon in a situation that's burned into her memory, provide her enough to at least be very suspicious of him. But she had been harsh when she shouldn't have been. She had been frustrated with him when he deserved kindness, and she should have been as soft with him as she had been with Gideon. That's all.]

And you know my reasons for "hurting" you, Frederick. I'm sorry for that, and I let my emotions get the best of me. I won't apologize for being suspicious of you, because I think my suspicions were founded. The fact that you're worried about my intentions makes you paranoid, or at least edgy enough to be what some might call overly careful.

I think you forget that I found out everything because I wanted to help. I still want to help. [To give him his own chance to answer questions. She's careful not to level direct accusations, even if she's confident in her information. Again, the fact that he claimed that he did something for Gideon, that he didn't play with denial—even if it was under the scalpel, she finds it's still damning.

But she wants to help others, too. The fact that this has, to the public eye, gone to rest is a bad thing.]

Kate, do try to see it from my perspective. You might have wanted to help, and if I were anyone else, you would have kept wanting to help without a lapse. But I think you forget that in allowing your emotions to best you, in fact you allowed your methodology to be crippled. That has consequence. I cannot trust you. I cannot trust you to remain neutral. I cannot trust you to be a friend to me.

[And he is right to believe that, though perhaps not for the right reasons; even now (unknown to him), she misinterprets his reluctance to allow her back into his trust as some tactic to obscure facts. Quite thankfully he isn't aware of that thought process, because that he would certainly clutch onto as vindictive proof. And the way that Chilton clutched things, that would never escape him again.

Within his own mind, he thinks Kate is attempting to entrap him with misconceptions and assumptions once more. Her bias (as he sees it) exhibited to Gideon (a man she didn't even know the base details of) in exchange for something approximating equal benefit of the doubt for Chilton, the man she had once called a friend (lies, he considered them now) was indicative of a pattern. The fact that she wouldn't be fully honest with him even now (which he was aware of) implied long term behavior. He had extended friendship, he had endured her mockery and little cruelties (texting during a dinner he had bought), he had tried to be a normal friend to her (with middling success, granted) -- and she threw it back in his face.

While it was true that Chilton often drove away people, it was likewise true that people sometimes drove away Chilton.]

If you are truly coming to me as a friend [which, granted, he did not believe] then why not respect my wishes to discuss whatever it is you want over this particular medium?

[Not unreasonable, he thought, as he had already offered to speak to her in this manner. True, that he was shutting her off, he was making it harder than he could have; but he was building walls for his own protection from (as he saw it) a betrayer. He wasn't afraid of the information she had taken from Gideon, with the pieces of her own prowess. Chilton was quite sure that Gideon would have screwed her over in some small but crucial way, and that would hurt Kate's credibility as an investigator more than she could hurt him with halfway facts and misconceptions.

Will Graham had not betrayed him. And funnily enough, it was Will who Chilton would begin to fear -- but not for any reason with the Ripper's legacy.]

Accusations of paranoia hardly hide your history as a terrible friend, Kate. You're apologizing for being too reactive, too unthinking, but even now you attempt to invalidate my actual human emotions. "Hurting" indeed.

[And that was all the evidence he needed to illustrate the nature of Kate's apology. As he saw it, she was only acknowledging what she had done to an extent. He considered it bait, a lure.

Fishing analogies had been on his mind lately, thanks to Will's marlin.]

Answer this: do you expect blind faith and understanding from all your friends, even if you do bad things to others? Because one of my friends does do some of the things you do, and I take him to task the same way I do you. But you're failing to see that.

You have behaved in a way that is worthy of condemnation. You got hurt, and I went to help because I assumed that while you were a bit of an ass to others on occasion, you weren't all around bad. You just focused on your interests. [For her, it's similar to when Clint asked her to be his get-away. She called him an ass, thought his behavior was reprehensible, but she hadn't abandoned him.

It took a little while longer for her to step away. Her frustration didn't happen immediately.

Chilton's situation is different. When she saw Loki on the battlefield against Lucifer, her thought there hadn't been worry. It had been anger, as it was very apparent that he hadn't been interested in playing hero. Her frustration had boiled over.

That he's accusing her of holding him to some unseen standards frustrates her, but she doesn't wish to bring others in as points of comparison.]

My mistake is one based on a misunderstanding. My true mistake was in condemning you harshly instead of listening. My tone wasn't sympathetic. That was my mistake, and I hoped to understand.

I'm not hiding anything, Frederick. But I am pulling punches here when it comes to talks of feelings and what you might wish.

Failing to see what? Evidence of potentially fabricated hints of information? Material you won't elaborate upon? Things you want me to take at face value, despite your deceit? Failure to see whatever nonsense you'd love me to buy into? I'd rather fail to see that than do as you're doing; you're failing to understand. Failing to understand why you coming out of the blue, like this, without rhyme or reason and armed with a belated apology. You've been an ass to me, Kate, well before you played a round of blame the victim. Do you think you're immune to the standards that you hold others? Should I base my expectation on that which you expect from others? Do you know comprehend that this has only been building, that I authentically thought that was simply how you behaved amidst your friends -- much like an ass -- until it became apparent that someone you honestly considered a friend would have been treated like a human being?

[He imagines what she would have done if Billy had been tortured and nearly killed, if she had come across unflattering one-sided material and condemned him immediately for it, without consideration for his health, even if he might have deserved questioning later. It was a painful hypothetical -- Chilton enjoyed Billy's company. The young man had appeared invested in Chilton, and while the psychiatrist savored that with all the abandon of a narcissist, it was an emotion fueled by a need to connect to people, raw and craving. Those whom Chilton himself considered interesting, worthwhile, he appreciated those connections. Too often had he been shunned by people (not without some effort on his own part, usually), and that bred a distrust in the human condition. Kate, it seemed to him, was more like the snubbing high society her elocution revealed than at first blush. Hiding bias behind hypocritical morals, as if others wouldn't notice.]

You never liked me. I had thought you did, and yes, laugh all you want about that. Laugh that you only went to dinner with me for a free meal -- that was it, wasn't it? Laugh that I never had the ballroom training your parents could afford you. You never conversed with me without some underhanded motive, isn't that so? And it's insulting that you think you can convince me that now things are different. You want to know what is different, Kate Bishop? I'm seeing you for what you had done to me.

[The agony lies within the repetition; Chilton, upon his return and the puzzle pieces of information that fell from the fingertips of his Baltimore brethren, had realized that Hannibal had done the same thing to him. Chilton mistook interest and company for friendship, when all along he had been served ulterior motives. A graver mistake with Hannibal, who had been actively manipulative; something that Kate Bishop was not. A less provoked Chilton would have accepted that the degrees were uneven, that much of a the parallel was only in his own perception, but in this moment he felt the sting of humiliation, of lies and smiles. Of empty friendships. Of Alana Bloom, whom he could not trust. Of Hannibal Lecter, whom he would continue to be tormented by. And still, he disdained so many people -- and still, he needed human connectivity.

He was a starved man.]

How can you dare demand openness and honesty when you won't return even that much?

The difference between us is that I don't believe the world is an ugly place like you do. To think I only approached you so I could make fun of you means that you're twisting motivations to feed into your own negativity. Is that what you've been stewing in? I don't care about the fact that my parents trained me as a debutante. The more important part is that you (underline that) know that as well. But is this some way of creating a truth, which is separate from the clear knowledge of what I have?

I wasn't acting out of deceit, no matter how much you can claim otherwise. But your fragile ego was what was hurt. And to act as if I hurt you in the first place, when you had pushed me away before (again, underline) any of that had happened. You created the negative situation between the two of us. Not me. Or are you so quick to forget that? Am I supposed to write off your behavior, your extensive behavior, because it suits you? At least I apologized. Are you given to being free from that kind of behavior because you were tortured? Because in two worlds, you tried to shape a man into what you needed him to be for your own notoriety? I don't like what Dr. Gideon to you. I don't like what you did to him. Where do we balance that?

At our dinner, since you so kindly brought it up, you indicated that you'd like to "offer psychiatry" to Lucifer. I suggested that this would be a bad idea, and worried that your own interest in someone like that would come to hurt you. Little did I know that you had already attracted the wrong attention. Did you think I'd forget this? You're interested in "offering psychiatry" to those who can interest you and bolster your reputation. Or that's my impression. And it's great that as a result, you're offering psychiatry to a great deal of imPorts. [People who are her friends. And if they aren't her friends, they're people like Curt Connors, who's had a wealth of problems. That she had seen both Violet and Connors in there, combined with the new information, hadn't helped in the least.]

But maybe you're so confident in challenging what I'm saying because you know I won't corroborate what I've learned. There's no chance of that, right? If you're going to call me the ass, Frederick, make sure you're confident in what aspects of yourself you can cover up.

Oh, Kate, how did it come to this? Have you simply adapted to living with the hypocrisy? You've managed to lie even to yourself; you contradict your very logic in this polar spectrum fabrication you insist upon. You know nothing about me, much less my "world perspective" -- can you recollect anything about me, outside my name? Any personal preference? Anything? Do you know where I was born? Touting your inaccuracies demeans what you preen yourself to be, and here I am to witness it. Here you are, insisting upon my prickly attitude, then blaming me for enacting -- goodness -- a prickly attitude.

Why couldn't you get over yourself for that singular moment? Look, you even misunderstand this, right now. The context of all that I've explained, citing your treatment of me, the true tone of your intent was clarified within a moment. The moment, when you betrayed me, which you've apologized for. Your undesirable behavior would be otherwise forgivable, something that could be attributed to personality quirks, except for the fact that you failed me when I needed you most.

And here you go -- implying that you're absolved of indiscreet cruelties because of some latent concern. Your mention of Lucifer, which was a case of Chicken Little if there ever was one. You make the mistake to assume I haven't had a pristine record with handling my highly dangerous patients here and back home, with one infamous exception. [Gideon was always exceptional.] No, Kate, the worst of people, the most insidious acts, usually come from hypocrites suckling on their rancid ideology. At least the criminally insane are capable of accepting themselves for what they truly are. You were communicating with outside individuals before that even came up within dinner conversation, you were uncaring before my practice was even invoked. And even now, you are quite obviously much more interested in my practice than dealing with the damage you have inflicted. I have little doubt that you'll expose this very conversation to outside parties, without my consent, because consent means to little to you unless it is that of your own. Did I consent to your interrogation at that crucial moment? Do I consent to converse with you in person? Feel free to prove me wrong about that, and leave me be.

You won't soak in a word of what I'm saying to you. It takes two individuals to create a negative situation, Kate, and your sizable ego won't allow you to reconcile your minds with the facts. And you damn well have already misunderstood the facts at hand -- "shape" Gideon twice? When? In the City, when he was not my patient whatsoever? In Heropa? When he had come to me for help -- a ruse that is excruciatingly obvious in retrospect. Well. Obvious to most people. I'm surprised your investigation hasn't yielded such obvious facts already.

The only thing you'll discover is that you have lost the trust of a man. [Which is true, in Heropa business. Baltimore poses a different story, and a nastier, blonder antagonist.] It's something that you appear to have hardly valued anyway.

There's no reason for you to seek my attention, unless it's something you were hired or persuaded to do. And when you're willing to admit you didn't come here on your own accord, as I have already accused you of multiple times now, I would be happy to continue our clearly fruitful conversation.

Until then.

[And he hangs up! How would that work in text, you ask? TEMPORARILY BLOCKS HER NUMBER. The drama! The intrigue!]

Edited 2014-06-25 00:58 (UTC)

[Her attempted return text was actually short. It was "this is why I didn't want to talk to you via text." But when it fails to send, she rolls her eyes, and chooses to take a different action.]

[If she thought this was dramatic, any in person confrontation would have been a hundred times worse! COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, KATE.]

- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

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