Dr. Frederick Chilton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
slightlyoffchilt) wrote2013-10-01 10:26 pm
slightlyoffchilt) wrote2013-10-01 10:26 pm
Entry tags:
- 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."
text.
[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.]
text.
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.
text.
[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?
text.
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.
text.
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!]
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