infomodder | IC contact [Mask or Menace]

[He opens his mouth, then closes it. Twice. He takes a moment to reply, not because he doesn't know what to say but because he's actually confused for a second. Finally:]

Well, that was my bad then. I took it as a personal offense. If you didn't think you'd be able to help you could just have said so.

[Which sounds better than saying 'if you just don't feel like it'.]

[It's not that Will doesn't think he's able to help. Will is very capable of helping, if and when he puts his mind to it. And honestly, if he were called out on the fact of the matter that he's stepping out just because he doesn't feel like it, Clark would get a little boost in his book. Because it's true. Here, now, he's quite firmly in the boat opposite helping out. A lot. Passing on basic information is good and well, but when it gets into territory that's both personal and, as he sees it, potentially disastrous?

Nah. No reason to help out, no point in it. The horse he has in this race is one that doesn't take off, hangs back comfortably in the gates with the jockey petting it for its good work at standing around so uselessly while everyone else lose their shit running around the track. He'll stick to hanging out in a tacky bait shop and feigning ignorance and being an uninteresting stick in the mud if that means he gets to stay in a world where Abigail Hobbs is alive, he's alive, and Hannibal Lecter is nowhere to be found. He's more motivated to stay away from all that than he is to jump right in anything to do with the government.

Bye old world Baltimore, bye old world Wolf Trap, bye Felicia.]

I don't think I'll be able to help out in a way that anyone else can't. [Hi I'm Will Graham and I'm a lying liar who lies, how are you?] None of the powers I've been granted here would be helpful, either. [Well, okay. That's...mostly true. He scoffs, tries to inject some humor into this. End on as high a note as possible. Clark tolerate Freddie. Seems...kind to her, even. It wouldn't be good to risk doing anything to upset that when Freddie needs all the support she can get other than Baltimore, other than Will barking to others in private. No, be nice. Be nice, Graham.] Unless he's being held in a facility underwater, but that seems...unlikely.

[Totally unable to help at all, look at him accepting that. Look at him trying to make everyone else accept that. If he can just be boring and useless, maybe people will leave him alone??

Maybe???? People.]

Mr Graham... [For a second, he wants to ask if he can call him Will. With a few exceptions (Luthor, Bruce Wayne for a long while...) he likes calling people by their name. His father never liked to be called Mr Kent, and neither does he. But Will's heart sounds like it's in the weirdest roller coaster ride ever and Clark doesn't really get why someone asking for help would put him on edge but he doesn't want to make the man any more nervous.]

I have no doubt that if there was any way you thought you could help, either us or Holiday, you would. [The closest he'll get to telling him he's being a little shit about it, tbh. He knows something is up, he just doesn't know what and he isn't going to accuse someone without proof or force them to help. He'll get there without Will's help, that's fine. He just wonders if Freddie was expecting this conversation to go differently, maybe Clark ruined things by not being honest from the beginning.]

And honestly I didn't use powers to get my journalism done back at home, so I expect I'll have no use for the ones I've gotten here.

[Not a lie, not really. He never in his life used anything that he didn't get using good old journalism in his articles, and he isn't going to start now. Even when he'd eavesdropped Dr Holt's location he used Annie's help as an excuse to visit him. Once, when he was young, he'd gotten information about a certain corrupt information making illegal weapons- and thinking Clark Kent couldn't do a damn thing about it, he busted in as Superman. It gave them the perfect excuse to stall, hide the weapons, and they walked away from it with their hands clean. If Clark had written that article there would have been an investigation and eventually they would have gotten them.

From then on, Superman sticks to his job and Clark to his own.]

I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you. I was sticking to Freddie's list, really.

Edited (missing words what) 2015-01-04 18:48 (UTC)

[Will's no different, in that regard. He's not overly fond of Mister Graham. His students used it, of course they did. They were students, it was different. But when that ended up being used to insult, to drive in a point, to remind—no, he was comfortable with Will, just Will. No need for honorifics.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Is that Clark calling him a little shit as nicely as possible or a sincere idea, that everyone stuck in the situation wants to be out of it, to work towards meeting the same end goal of going "home" or attempting it? It's...endearing, even as it's laughable.]

No need to apologize. It's—slow day at work. [No inconvenience other than mental screaming a healthy adult can deal with on his own, no harm no foul.] Who else is on Freddie's list?

[Blurted, almost, that one. He doesn't expect a full rundown if the list is long, but if she put on the names of anyone else from Baltimore, well. Always good to know where he stands in the company of his own "pack," isn't it?]

[He takes a second to reply.

If he knew for sure Will was refusing to help, and not just honestly convinced there wasn't anything he could do, he'd tell him it was a private thing. Hiding information can go both ways and while it'd probably be innocuous Clark doesn't like being played with.

But thing is, he only has a slight suspicion about it. Because Freddie mentioned him, and because of the job he said he had back home... nothing solid. And he and Freddie have a story together, in some way, so maybe hiding this from him isn't an innocuous as it seems to him.

He bites down a sigh.] I'll send you the file by text.

[And so, he does.]

[He reads it, takes a second, wonders where in the hell he comes to play. He's been around a while, it's true, but not as long as the others. Kate Bishop and Loki are some sort of Wonder Twins duo when it comes to stockpiling information, even if it veers into conjecture. So where does—

—oh.

Son of a bitch. A thought not directed at Freddie, more at himself. Way to assume the worst (don't they all at this point?), just throw him overboard with the rest of the chum, he deserves it. God.]

She's still mad at Gideon. [Spoken quietly because he's more thinking aloud than anything else. It's not disbelief that prompts it. He's amused.] Doctor Frederick Chilton was in an administrative position at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane back where we all come from. Very accomplished. [Among other things that just aren't ever up for discussion nope no thank you goodbye nothing weird here in this universe where in the year of our Lord 2014 and beyond there are still hospitals for the criminally insane featuring dank basement cells and the cannibal mask and just it's based on books that started in the early 1980s give them a break.] He does that line of work here, too. [I don't I have chosen not to why does this keep cropping up please leave me alone.] He'd be better at putting together Captain Holiday's behaviors and how they might have changed than I would.

[Shoves off any and all glory to Chilton while simultaneously avoiding the hell out of him if he possibly can, maybe Clark won't mention Will's endorsement if he ends up talking to him??

Maybe people in this world who aren't from Baltimore don't have loose tongues about anything and everything????? MAYBE THERE IS A GOD SOMEWHERE?]

[Funny thing is: if Will hadn't mentioned Chilton at all Clark would have simply gone up the list, minding his own business and asking his questions that will probably lead to nowhere in the end but someone has to ask. But because Will mentions him, he's probably going to say Mr Graham had some nice words to share about him eventually. Credit where it's due, and why wouldn't anyone like to hear someone they know had complimented them?

(Sorry, Will).]

She seemed more scared than mad, to me. [Was he not supposed to hear that? Superhearing, etc. And to be honest the way she mentioned Gideon made Clark raise an eyebrow. He's still going to talk to him, though. Both because it seems like he could have useful information, and because he's a little bit curious of the man who had some Bad History with Heropa's favorite journalist.

(Sorry, Freddy).]

But it's hard to tell by text. I'll talk to Dr Chilton, though. Is he from the same world as you two?

[Well, it's better for that message to be passed along than anything else, no matter how much that might out Will's true intentions once it hits Chilton's ears. Still, better for Will to provide fact that could be taken as positive than the opposite. Kate Bishop already sniffed out a trail he had to throw to the wind. Better to muck up any others that might be paved out, no matter who is on it. They had a deal, and if there's one thing Will keeps as best he can (attempts to, mostly), it's his word.

Even if his reckoning didn't go so well...it's okay, Clark can't fuck up their relationship any more than it already is. He's blameless.]

Freddie Lounds, Doctor Frederick Chilton, Doctor Abel Gideon, and I all come from the same world. As well as Abigail Hobbs. [Despite the fact of the matter that Will mentions her last, there is definitely a different tone to his voice when it comes to her name, despite any efforts he might put into stamping that out. A connection. She might crop up last on the list of names, but she's first, at least in his mind.] Did she tell you why she would seem scared of Doctor Gideon?

[A little bit curious? Oh, Clark, this is the perfect place for that. Baltimore operates on a sliding scale of curiosity.

None of them are cats but it generally ends up the same way, or nearly so. Life hard.]

Not really, no. She said she didn't want to talk about it and I plan on respecting her wishes.

[Yes, he's curious. No, he isn't going to just jump and try to gather information when Freddie has drawn a line. That's where he and Lois differ (and something Lois and Freddie have in common, as weird as that thought is).]

So that's 3 out of 4 from your world I will meet. [And honestly every person he meets makes him want to know more about their world. Is everyone from Baltimore that intense? Is it something in the water? Is that their superpower? We just don't know, but Clark smells blood and even though it's not, by any stretch of imagination, a priority right now he's going to find out what's behind the Baltimore curtain.

He's already going to talk to Frederick Chilton, and even with all the warnings he's also totally going to talk to Gideon. He guesses Abigail is the next step.]

[However ridiculous it might be for someone, anyone, to say that they intend to respect the wishes of Freddie Lounds, who so often makes bank by doing the opposite, Will doesn't huff or snort or anything that leads to believe he takes it as humorous, amusing. He doesn't. He takes it as good. It's entirely possible Clark is bullshitting on that one for some sort of pretense's sake, sure, but the more people out there who don't see Freddie Lounds as a pest to be squashed out, the better.

Everyone from Baltimore is pretty intense when they're not cracking cannibal puns or trying to figure out how to take and/or respond to them so...]

Then I suppose all you need to know is that while Freddie has her reasons for not wanting to speak to Doctor Gideon or speak of him in any way that could be considered positive, that doesn't mean he can't be of help. [The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the ???? clearer communication his ass just talk to anyone but him and Abigail okay thanks bye] And Abigail was the last of us to come here, wouldn't have much information either way.

[But she does make a great breakfast! But that doesn't mean everyone should talk to her keep your schedule as it is Clark so help him so help him]

[So here we have a) A man who's very obviously trying to avoid giving him any kind of information for some reason Clark can't figure out, even if he respects b) Telling him not to contact someone in particular and c) That someone being from the same mysterious, cryptic world that's picking Clark's curiosity.

Yeah. Will you're really nailing this one.]

I plan on at least trying to contact the man. It's not as if I haven't interviewed my fair share of dangerous people, and he happens to be living with someone I know. [It surprised him to see Bart had been noted as living in the same block, but if Bart never mentioned him Clark assumes it won't be dangerous just to talk to him.

With no comments on the Abigail front because pushing it will end badly, he can tell. He'll just tackle it later, when he's done asking about Holiday and the Porter. He didn't even have her name before you mentioned her Will what have you done.]

[He's not nailed worse things in worse ways, okay. Just. Cut him a break, Goddamn.

Though...aha....ha.............haaaaaaa, the idea of any one of Baltimore's crowd here being considered not dangerous is something he's still surprised by, constantly. Every time it comes up, he has to remind himself. And then promptly grab the counter and take a deep breath as soon as no one else is around to see it. Does this count as an interview???]

Don't see why he wouldn't talk to you if you contacted him. [As long as Clark did not ask or mention Will too much (maybe not at all), Gideon was probably fed up with questions about Will Graham and his soul and whatever the fuck else.] Little reason not to.

[No mention of whoever Clark knows because, hell, if Gideon was up to any in-home tricks, he's sure they would know. The only other thing he can think of has something to do with manners, thanks to Gideon's condition and just.

He's.

Not really in a position to talk about politeness at the moment, is he? Clark's eyeroll might be audible if he did.

Ruined shit as per usual.]

Then I have little reason not to contact the man, do I?

[How about the fact that Freddie, who's known for fearlessly interviewing psychopaths like Lunatic and being unafraid of the risks, is telling him not? Just because Lois's brand of journalism could be summarized with a mix of 'YOLO' and 'You can win a Pulitzer posthumously so might as well' it doesn't mean he has to follow his footsteps.

But he never listens.]

It's been a pleasure talking to you again, Mr Graham. Thank you for all the help, really- and I'm sorry for any missunderstanding I might have caused. [Pls don't tell Freddie I ruined things?]

[Ah, but Freddie is biased. Freddie is very, very biased. It's not too much of a risky thing if he looks at it that way, is it? Will certainly doesn't find it a bad thing, won't make a move to protest. There are worse things to suggest and encourage other than attempted discussion with Abel Gideon, other than not listening to everything Freddie Lounds might or might not say about the Baltimore crowd.

Sometimes it pays not to listen; you go, Clark.

Has it really been a pleasure? Has it really??? Arguing otherwise would only work against him rather than for him. Clark might be doing nothing other than being polite with that one, and who is he to discourage politeness? Rudeness...that's simply not to be tolerated. Now what would Hannibal say?

Wait no.]

You're welcome, Clark, and nothing to apologize for. [Less Hannibal, still polite, usage of first name, permission to use Will, please call him Will. A+, he deserves whiskey.] Good luck with finding what you need, too.

[Ugh he can't hang up with that one why can't he just hang up on that why is it so difficult to just say goodbye, he hasn't—oh God, it's the most wonderful time of the year for ending uncomfortable conversations without being completely awkward, isn't it? IT IS.]

Happy holidays.

[NAILED IT? MAYBE. Maybe he nailed it, but either way: that's all there is to it, click, goodbye, not telling Freddie Lounds shit.]

IC contact [Mask or Menace]

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