anewlanguage: (cast away)
[personal profile] anewlanguage
[PRIVATE to DEAN and IRIS]

Bring me up to date on these murders. I was assuming they're like all the other slash and run numbers we get when it's too quiet, but sounds like people are all on edge about this one.

[PUBLIC]

Hey, kitchen staff, I say we get a little festive.

As a globe trotter, I don't really put much meaning to seasons; one hemisphere's fall is another one's scorcher, and all. But hell, maybe it'd help calm down the psychopaths if they had something regimented to focus on. They had some bullshit program like that in the prison I landed myself in back home.

Date: 2013-10-16 07:38 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (devil)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[She presses close, her hands on his ribcage; she's pliant still, moving with him, but this close, the bristling tension under her skin is palpable.]

I usually do. Right now I only wouldn't let you do it for your sake. I told you once, the best revenge is living well; I did mean it. We 'ad a version of Lecter 'ere once before: graduated. So I 'ave to believe this one can.

[She twists her hands, very deliberately, into the fabric of his shirt and pulls, sudden and violently, hard enough to pop buttons loose.]

Oops.

Date: 2013-10-19 12:00 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (iris in black)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[Iris is not feeling humorous, but he can bring laughter out of her even when it's a wrench; it comes up now, sharp-edged. She leans her head on his chest and runs her hands along his waist and the base of his ribcage.]

I'm a force for chaos and destruction by nature, I'm afraid. I can put this anger away. I keep it stashed for emergencies, you know; it's a brain thing. I 'it Victor between the eyes with it once; 'e didn't 'alf howl. I've seen you do summat like it.

[He knows how she works, possibly better than any human she's ever encountered. Definitely better than most - no, than any - Time Lords, and that's both bizarre and excruciatingly precious to her.]

...I saw 'im call you a contradiction. You setting yourself up as bait, are you?
Edited (words mean things) Date: 2013-10-19 01:58 pm (UTC)

Date: 2013-10-21 12:41 am (UTC)
routemistress: (o hai thar)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
You were a bit too curious. Convincing enough; 'e's just on the sharp side.

[It hadn't convinced her either, but it would have if she hadn't known him.

And then she giggles.]


...aye, I don't s'pose 'e'll be working in the kitchen any time soon.

Date: 2013-10-26 06:14 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (devil)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
That's 'cause 'e can't see the wood for the trees. Since when does curious need a reason?

[She's speaking of herself here, more than Cain; but she's recognised the signs. Curiosity, abstract and catholic, has been Iris' lifeblood all her life and she's familiar with all its flavours - the shrewd, investigative Cain she watched speaking to Hannibal is a new one on her and perhaps, she suspects, on him too.
Not that it hasn't always been in him; but she rather thinks it's always been turned to whatever end he had in view. Possibly it's a surprise to him to find that out of all the tools turned to his trade, this one's still ready to his hand.]


...It's one of the few things I don't like so much 'ere. No real scope for investigating. Finding out 'ow people work, though. That's never not fun.

[She laughs too, and runs her fingernails from the base of his ribcage around to his back.]

I like a nice bit of liver meself. I'm rather glad I weren't in the infirmary when 'e did 'is food run.
Edited Date: 2013-10-26 06:14 pm (UTC)

Date: 2013-10-30 08:18 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (face)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[She goes still, in the way she does when she's forgotten to move because something's given her an idea.]

...I could find out. Maybe. People 'ere are funny about being hypnotised; can't blame 'em. But I can see exactly what they saw. If they let me.

...would I? Maybe. I always did think 'e were creepy.

Date: 2013-10-30 10:24 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (black hat)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[She gives him a Look.]

I don't 'ave to ask anyone. But I do. I've been on the wrong end of it too often not to. Any road, I don't mean 'im. I'm not going in there. I were thinking of the people who saw 'im. You know all the things you don't remember you see? Except you do, of course; you just don't think about 'em. They're all still there. Know your way round a mind, you can unreel 'em frame by frame like an old movie.

Date: 2013-11-01 01:54 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (devil)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[She loves that about him, though. Every time Iris takes the ethical option, every time she doesn't override someone's freedom of choice, it's a decision. They've both met people for whom it's not - Ned, for instance, who rarely has to make choices about what kind of person he's going to be, moment to moment.

She doesn't think she envies Ned that. He wears it like an albatross.]


I can ask. Might come in 'andy for 'is warden, when 'e gets one. I bet you there'll be no takers, though.

[She snorts in brief laughter.]


...Babs is always griping about 'ow surveillance cameras don't work 'ere too.

Date: 2013-11-08 12:59 am (UTC)
routemistress: (devil)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
Oh, I'll ask all right. Now you've got me thinking on it, I'm dead interested.

...Come to that, you've got to 'ave seen 'im in the kitchens. Want to fast-forward back over that, see if owt jumps out?

Date: 2013-11-11 12:05 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (snow)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[She laughs, throaty and rich.]

Do I look like a DVD player to you? Don't answer that. Come lie down, let's 'ave a look.

[She's already reaching carefully into his awareness; she's very careful about memories. There's a lot of past that isn't her business to poke into, and the fact that he probably wouldn't object too strenuously is an even better reason not to take it for granted.

Laced into her mental presence are Iris' own surface emotions: the razor exultation at being trusted enough for this. The breathless joy of his eyes set in the frame of his bones and the heat of his skin, and side by side with that, the familiar excitement of a hound on a scent trail.

She drapes herself across him, one hand lightly on his face, her fingers cool on his temple.]

Right. Breathe with me. Find me the first day 'e came to work. Show me that and we can walk forwards from there.
Edited (fucking ellipses) Date: 2013-11-11 12:24 pm (UTC)

Date: 2013-11-12 01:15 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (pic#)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[The common perception of hypnosis involves not remembering, not being consciously aware of the process. Iris is capable of doing that, but she doesn't: this is a journey together. Iris' presence is a formless knot of affectionate commentary coiled behind Cain's eyes as they travel over his recollections.

She doesn't communicate in words at this level; it's more like a second set of thoughts, thinking themselves in parallel with Cain's own. She watches Hannibal's hands, chopping and peeling, unobtrusively competent, and she watches his eyes, impenetrably smooth as river stones. The only people who might have seen anything real from this man had already had their eyes dug out; that, she realises now, is what she found creepy, the too-perfect blandness of his disguise, calculated to the finest degree not to arouse suspicion.

She's impressed without admiring: so much groundwork, so much intelligence, put in service to such a pointless end. Such a tortuous way to pump his ego. No doubt he thinks of that, too, as a gourmet: it needs the equivalent of forcefed geese to satisfy it.

She's aware, too, of the undercurrent of wordless, pitiless curiosity: she shares it, to some extent, because learning what would break this man would be a valuable thing to know. She's not repelled at it; but she wouldn't approach Hannibal that way and she doesn't want Cain to. Zane's words come back to her, and she holds the shining memory of Zane's uncomplicated insight: it would be letting him win, and she knows it for truth. Hannibal wouldn't be the first to accept death and torture as a price for the equal damage done to his torturer. He'd use it to foster an unwanted intimacy. We can do better, Iris thinks, and she doesn't mean that in kindness or compassion; she means they can come up with something far more efficient, that if/when they choose to attack him, they need to choose a different battleground.]

Date: 2013-11-20 03:22 pm (UTC)
routemistress: (Default)
From: [personal profile] routemistress
[This is a large part of why Iris is pursuing this herself. It's perfectly true that her enthusiasm and interest is engaged in the actual objective: Hannibal is fascinating in his own right as a case study and the crime prevention angle is largely a convenient excuse for a bloodless dissection.

But Iris rarely comes at anything with only a single motive, and Cain himself is a stronger one for her. They both know holes in heads can't be the job he does going forward; they both know he's too vital, too sharp to take well to retirement.

And she loves working with him, loves his sharp sense of purpose and his curious intelligence and the clean ruthless energy of his mind. She's no less focused than he; but Iris is never entirely singleminded either, and her pleasure bubbles irrepressibly round the edges of the work, colouring all of it in the scent of champagne and white ginger.

What triggers Hannibal, she wonders - none of Cain's memories cover seeing him with his victims. What mixture of opportunity and desire selected those specific people for him?

She picks up his excitement and echoes it in her own mind. She'll go through the comm records, talk to the Emperor (the most resilient of the targets, and there's a brief sideportrait in her own memories of the complex, fascinating depth of him; he's become dear to her in his own right).

She's excited now, too, and that expresses itself as a shiver of her mind down the nerves of his spine. This is her kind of hunt; it's delightful to discover, as she fully expected to, that Cain's specific skills translate so well to it.]
Edited Date: 2013-11-20 03:30 pm (UTC)

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David Cain

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