slightlyoffchilt | - IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

[Better to be a mathematician than a methmatician LIKE WALTER WHITE.]

You appear to be otherwise communicative with Will. Is there a reason as to why you'd procrastinate informing your husband about this?

[No comment on her body language.]

Because I didn't know I was going to until she posted.

[You're giving her way too much credit in thinking these through. She cannot emphasize how little thought she has given this.]

That you get to pick who's sane enough to protect us from ourselves was a twist post ending.

Why? I'm the most qualified. [He took offense to that nearly immediately.] Or would you prefer Crane terrorizing unwitting RISE candidates?

Yeah. Shades of terrorizing is just the feeling I wanted for the group.

[Because nothing about that sentence made it sound like Fred wouldn't be doing the terrorizing instead. She makes a small, dismissive gesture]

Your kind shouldn't have anything to do with it. But. It forced you in the room so...go horrible choices made by people not me.

You're fairly blasé about a known torturer. Or has Will not... Told you? [Chilton arched an eyebrow, his hostility muted.] Perhaps your communication is more a one-way street?

Psych-wizard, what do you think is wrong with me, that I'd, for like one second, trust you more than the guy I'm going to be having semi-passive aggressive sex with in an hour?

[Her head rolls back so she's looking at the ceiling instead of anything else- Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. Even when they boys were on the outs it was all about trying to wiggle in between the sheets. Of trust. Or whatever.

Not that she wasn't going to check in. This whole conversation was going to get detailed at home. But Crane was from Gotham. And liked libraries. If one of Fred's friends (not Will, it didn't enter her mind it could have been Will) hadn't known what those facts meant and got themselves in trouble...well. This world was filled with evil people. She stayed on the side of angels and all that in the work place. That was the most she could give to that fact. Anyone not willing to joke about murderers here would probably end up spending all day crying. And then how would anyone have time to sass Lucifer on the network? ]

But, look. I didn't- I came here, right? So can we talk for five minutes without you trying to break us up? I will give you a prize. Or something.

I'm not trying to cause a schism, April, I'm only asking a question.

[Which wasn't quite honestly phrased, as Chilton definitely understood how loaded that question was. But he was the psychiatrist of this psych evaluation, he was the one with the pen and the legal pad. That afforded him something of a pedestal.]

Would you prefer me to ask how well you work in groups? What role do you often play when engaged in communal activity? How do you react to extreme emotional stress -- how resilient are you against horror?

[There is a moment of silence as she lets that list sink in. She's still looking at the ceiling, so he may not catch her full look of distaste at the very idea. Was this what psych evals were?

Well. If those are the options.]

How about...why are you hiding stuff from Abby?

I'm... Not? I've already informed her in full.

[Which was true, the last time she had contacted him, Chilton warned her about those scares, bro. But -- true to canon -- no one was going see how right Chilton was until too late.

And as he would be with Alana Bloom, there was a sliver of haughty smugness about his predicted outcome.]

Once Will had betrayed me, I thought the proverbial washing of hands was necessary.

Betrayed.

[That was a strong word. And April's still trying to feel this whole thing out. As much as she needs to make sure Baltimore doesn't wander in and self-destruct in her house, anyway. But betrayed. Really.]

You guys don't wash your hands of each other. Ever. The family thing wasn't really a joke.

[It was a strong word, and undoubtedly melodramatic -- but Chilton believed it. His argument was thus: Will Graham had chosen to engage Crane despite the torture Crane inflicted upon Chilton, despite their mutual awareness of Will's proclivity towards psychopathic men. While it was true that Crane was no where near the league of Hannibal Lecter, Chilton believed he saw a patterned sequence unfolding. Even if Will addressed Crane with contempt and disdain, he would engage. He would empathize.

A prophesied betrayal as much as it was rhetoric.]

It's the only way to truly come clean.

[Family. It was a concept Chilton knew more abstractly, despite Will and April's generosity.]

[She shakes her head and sits up in the chair again at last, elbows braced against her knees and chin cupped in her hands.]

Clean? Leave the sarcasm to this side of the room. It looks better on me.

First of all: no, it does not. Secondly, I'm quite sincere.

[Even though his protests of sincerity came second. Well, everything looked good on April, how was THAT fair??]

You don't like what you're hearing. That I'm not the villain in this. I did what I needed to do, what was asked of me.

There are no villains. You're just both dumb.

[April: fully supporting Abby's labeling of Dumbass #1 and #2 since 2014. They were going to fall back in together one day, the fact every conversation turned about to Will eventually proved it. She'd just love it if they could skip forward to that point and spare her a lot of time sighing when Will went to 'secretly' text in the bathroom.]

But, whatever. Fine. I hate working in groups, that's why I end up making all our projects super efficient so I don't have to work with them anymore. And after, like, a million years here I'm still alive and not trying to write my name in my own tears on the wall. Or make posts rambling about how I sit in judgement of humanity and oooh, watch me burn down a building now. So. I do okay with the other stuff.

[He frowned at that -- but otherwise inclined his head, simply observing her.]

Do you think that as an agent of RISE, you would be able to control Crane? When the time comes.

[Because there were villains, and the harder Chilton could push others against them, the better for him. Such was possible in this room, with its current one antagonist and arguably one antihero.]

I'd need to know what he did first.

[Because Gotham evil covered a whole range when it hit a different dimension. From Calendar Man's aggressive arbor days to Joker's torture porn night. Control was relative.]

And you have a list.

Have you ever hear of a neurotoxin that traumatizes the epinephrine system?

You're not winning points by making words up.

[Liberal arts major and proud,. Do not ask how she got into vet school in the show. It makes literally no sense.]

Those are already established words. They existed before I spoke them.

[Deadpan stare. He assumes she's joking, as always -- a rare benefit of the doubt from Frederick Chilton.]

It's like a toxin. A fear toxin.

[One of the many fringe benefits of a sarcastic life.]

That he's using. On people with superpowers.

And it seems that he is escalating. I'm certainly not the only victim.

[Chilton figured he didn't need to elaborate on that pattern -- she could always ask criminal profiler Will Graham, if she wanted!!]

You?

[She's not dumb, honest. She just figured people like..well, like them, that function more in sarcasm and attacking than honesty, didn't rush to bring up things that happened to them. A co-worker or minion or something. That she'd figured but...]

Did you just, like...think you were in Baltimore again?

It really wasn't something I consented to.

[Dryly, ever so dryly spoken.]

[Oh. Fred was tortured. Fred she was not getting along with, but not...being as terrible as they had the potential to be? That meant this lead to an awkward, terrible moment. For which her shoulders visibly stiffen.

Concern.]

Are you- [breathe in, breathe out.] Okay. Now?

[Concern he was not expecting. Chilton frowned at it, moving his head to the side with his gaze still locked to April's.]

Jonathan isn't as clever as he'd like to be. He never understood his subject to really inflict lasting damage -- quite the novice mistake.

But one he stands a chance to learn from.

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