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Oct. 9th, 2013 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
[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.
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.
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Date: 2013-10-16 07:38 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2013-10-19 05:24 am (UTC)You are the real reason I thank God and my old sergeant I know how to sew.
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Date: 2013-10-19 12:00 pm (UTC)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?
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Date: 2013-10-21 12:28 am (UTC)I can't wrap my head around which contradictions he spotted. But no. He wants to take a swing at me I'll cut his arms off, but otherwise I doubt we'll share space anywhere.
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Date: 2013-10-21 12:41 am (UTC)[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.
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Date: 2013-10-26 03:31 pm (UTC)[Maybe that's the contradiction, then: Cain is bored, is sick to death, of serial killers, of people to fight. But on the other hand he's curious about their unique skillsets and characteristics--and he's not entirely sure why. Sadism, perhaps; there is a part of him that wants to use everything he finds against Hannibal and people like him.
It always simmers back down, though. He's done more than enough to fuck with people in his sixty-odd years. He has no real intention of doing anything to Hannibal, unless the man is stupid enough to go after Cain or someone Cain protects.
...And leave it to Iris to break him out of his thoughts with a joke, especially a sick one. He, of course, laughs with her, and means it.]
Not while I'm there. Lord knows I already can't stand organ meat, let alone whatever he throws on the grill as penance.
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Date: 2013-10-26 06:14 pm (UTC)[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.
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Date: 2013-10-30 08:10 pm (UTC)On the Barge it's not about that. He could protect people, yes; but he can't necessarily stop Hannibal. He's accepted that. It's how the Barge works, and it makes all of this feel very new, like it's his first serial killer.]
Hah! I wonder if you would've seen through him. I bet he had some significant tells, handing out those dinner trays.
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Date: 2013-10-30 08:18 pm (UTC)...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.
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Date: 2013-10-30 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-30 10:24 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2013-11-01 02:51 am (UTC)I can't see them turning down some help if it'd mean keeping this from happening again.
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Date: 2013-11-01 01:54 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2013-11-08 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-08 12:59 am (UTC)...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?
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Date: 2013-11-11 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 12:05 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2013-11-12 04:43 am (UTC)He had looked Hannibal over, and found him to be about as bland as paste. Which was odd, in its own way, because Cain could always find a little fear, a little insecurity or frustration, to latch onto and exploit. Hannibal, though, was quiet and attentive and he worked well with others.
Even later there were no signs of threat because Hannibal never attacked anyone in front of an audience, and so over time Cain had pushed Hannibal to the back of his mind.
Instead of guilt over perhaps having glossed over a serial killer, Cain is fascinated to fit into new context.]
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Date: 2013-11-12 01:15 pm (UTC)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.]
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Date: 2013-11-20 06:29 am (UTC)He reaches much the same conclusion. Hannibal has been doing this a very long time. Probably, in Cain's expert opinion, his whole life. Children aren't so innocent, and given the right combination of chemicals and environment they can become violent criminals before they even understand mathematics.
Yes. We can.
Frankly, the challenge excites him in a way his work once had.]
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Date: 2013-11-20 03:22 pm (UTC)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.]
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Date: 2013-11-25 02:54 am (UTC)Think he gets real pissed off sometimes? I wonder when he's happiest.]