infomodder | ic contact 2 mask or menace

Will, ah -- we ought to talk. I got your gifts. Thank you, and Raina thanks you, too. [A beat.] I think it's better if I pass along that message.

I'd rather give you yours in person. And we can talk.

[He listens to the voicemail a couple of times from his new favorite spot, doesn't want to get up (spoilers: he has been in that mood for a while despite how he'll state outright he's grateful they got time together instead of upset she's gone, which is something he'll grumble out even if confronted about the matter while he's holed up in her room), but eventually hauls himself up to change into a fresh pair of clothes and call back. No proper greetings come out; they've passed the need for courtesies commonly granted other people.]

I'm assuming now's a good time. Where would you like to meet?

[His tone is tired but indulgent. No bark, no bite, just agreement.]

Will, yes, hello. My apologies for the early hour of the call. But I'm glad to have caught you. [Is that relief in his voice? It is in fact ample relief. He wasn't sure if Will would return the call.] I'm in De Chima at the moment.

I would prefer if we did not humor Heropa. I -- the Clairvoyant, you know, said something about bad omens or some such. I think you and I could use a little reprieve regardless.

[But why Heropa specifically? Because Raina had insight.]

[To be fair, April had said no Baltimore for the rest of the year. And that had, technically speaking, been last year. So there's no real guilt to be had. He's operating within the confines given.]

I can come to you. [Quick to cut to the chase, though he mumbles, words slow.] Didn't have plans for today anyway. Be nice to get back to Virginia. [Mostly nice just to get out of the house in general, but he's not getting into that particular bout of Baltimore "drama" over the phone.] Where in De Chima did you have in mind?

I'll text you the directions to a coffee house. It isn't anything special -- strategically mundane, in fact. Probably the last place Walter would think to look for me.

[There it is. The name. The box was open, and it now stalked between them, a haunting specter.]

Have... You heard about Jeff? About what happened to him?

[The name gets a fat lot of silence from Will. He doesn't even have it in him to scoff or snort, just lets it whizz on by without remark.]

Who do you think welcomed Jeff home after his murder? [After Jeff had welcomed Will back home not too long before it, even.] Just give me the address and I'll be right over. I could use the coffee.

I didn't want any of this to happen.

[He speaks in a low, soft tone. It might be mistaken for shame, if there was evidence that Chilton could feel such backlash for his own actions.

Still, he dutifully texts the location.]

Do you think that I did?

Edited 2016-01-03 05:24 (UTC)

[So this is going to be a "please put something alcoholic in my first cup of coffee for today" sort of morning, that's perfect, that's Will's ideal beverage.]

What I think doesn't matter. [Stated too confidently to be actual self-deprecation as the noise of getting out of the house passes on by behind him.] You wouldn't want to hear it anyway. Why ask?

In my professional opinion, it does matter. That is why I'm asking, Will, it matters to me.

[Chilton halts before he can say any more, his breathing cutting to a stuttered inhale.]

[Should he sugarcoat it? He wouldn't for Hannibal. Hannibal wouldn't for him. And Chilton had talked of them being equals, he would be insulting him not to treat him as an equal. Will's quiet long enough Chilton can hear the door shut behind him, the songs of those early birds hailing his journey out. His journey to Chilton.]

You wanted something of this magnitude. Yes, Frederick, I fully believe you did want this to happen. You wanted it to impact people outside you. That's the only aspect of this you did not want. Replace Jeff and I with anyone else, with anyone you don't have some connection to...you wouldn't be singing this tune. [For someone discussing his murderer, the murderer of a close friend, and the general pain in the ass Walter's been off and on, he's very good at sounding detached. At discussing this in the same way he would any other profile, which may be more unsettling than anything else, considering who he specializes in profiling. Who Chilton specializes in.] I realize you didn't want this specifically, but it was your design. No matter how it turned out, you aren't blameless.

[Then again...]

Neither am I.

[He didn't contradict Will's statement, about how if only Jeff and Will had been replaced, how Chilton wouldn't have cared about the blood and sacrifice. He didn't contradict because it was true -- Walt had pursued Will specifically because of his relation to Chilton, and the psychiatrist assumed the same of Jeff Winger.

That was caused Chilton distress.]

He was too perfect a patient, I suppose.

[No matter how it turned out, you aren't blameless.]

He thought leaving me alive was part of my punishment.

[Meanwhile Will, who only took advantage of a murderous orderly with a killer crush (get it) on him in order to have some agency in the world, is not too perfect a patient!? Scandalous. Should've had Matthew murder everyone who testified against him and the opposing lawyer just to make a point, gotta up his game.]

My sacrifice for you, how that would help him leave this world forever was something he called heroic. Him seeing your continued existence as a punishment isn't...surprising. [He doesn't sound bitter, or angry. More of those flat, dull tones, like he's nearly bored.] Is he what you want to talk about today?

[Almost sounds like something a psychiatrist would ask their patient...if he still didn't have such an even monotone going on.]

Why isn't it surprising?

[Chilton knew Walt's rationale -- the chemist had explained it a couple of times, evidently taking glee in the promised brutal sequence. He knew that Chilton was so often lonely, and by robbing him of his few friends (even temporarily), he drove a stake into the heart of those relatively healthy relationships.

But Chilton feared that Will's words had a dual meaning. So often could he be enigmatic, so piercing was his in his perception. While Chilton was years away from Alana analyzing how he "wasn't comfortable in his own skin", Chilton subconsciously knew that even now. And he didn't want Will to know it, too.

And he deeply did not want Walt to know it.]

I won't disagree, that you were heroic. [Chilton spoke quickly, hastening a subject change.] To be sure, I have not seen the, ah, tapped recording.

[Honestly, Will's most prominent answer to that question was Because he's fucking crazy, but the attempted subject change stills his tongue on that (or anything more eloquent). Another branch of the stream is called for here. Something kinder, something warmer, more companionable...]

Because he knew what he was going to do. He knew you'd live through it and past it. You'd be punished in that you'd survived where others had not. You'd be punished with the lingering guilt. If not from yourself, or him, but in those others around you he took out of the picture. Even if we never said it...every time you look at us, you'll know.

[...and more personal, because yes, Will knew how that specific situation felt the same as he knew to breathe or drink water.]

Turning those around you against you, even if it's all in your head, is punishment. You know what that can do to people.

[You know what that did to me.]

[He did know, that was true. He knew the parallel. He knew the shadows that could twist and torment a psyche.]

He marked me. [Chilton wanted to deflect the psychological horror, the implication that he was afflicted by the very things he treated.] He marked me before he had pursued you to -- to kill you. He burned the equilibrium symbol into my flesh.

[Then, quietly, almost abstractly:]

They always seem to leave scars.

[Burning, huh. Will likes this less and less the more Chilton speaks (which says a lot; his liking of this was bottom of the barrel and is now violently sawing a hole in the bottom of said barrel to plunge even further). He wonders if April would heal that, if Chilton would even want her to, if he'd see it as putting him in some sort of debt when April's feelings toward the situation, and Frederick Chilton himself, are what they are.]

Build up better armor for yourself. Scars happen when you're naked. Exposed to that sort of damage. Wouldn't want to end up looking like me. I'm covered with scars, as you know. [A quiet admittance, quieter than the rest of his words. So there is definitely some random passerby in Heropa who caught enough of Will's conversation to wonder about the context, because some guy was just walking down the street talking about being naked and scarred, and so the mental scarring spreads.] Hold that thought. Give me ten or fifteen minutes and I'll be at your strategically mundane coffee house. Go ahead and order me something large, black, and strong.

[It'll be cool enough not to burn the hair off his tongue when he gets there and Will is definitely going to drink, like, two gallons of coffee by the time this day is over. Might as well get that started.]

Edited (redundancy no) 2016-01-04 21:10 (UTC)

I wonder if any of ours match.

[Delivered dryly -- it was an unwitting echo to something he has already said to Will, or rather would have already said, if only Chilton's chronological perspective aligned to Will's own. Then again, perhaps it was lucky that his did not.]

Walt made it clear how he could have done worse to me. Said I ought to be grateful. [Chilton hesitated.] I couldn't deny that I was. [Another hesitation. He realized he was still talking when he needed to be walking, and for a moment he regretted his need to express himself to Will so openly, so blatantly.]

Ten, fifteen minutes. Duly noted.

[AND should we log or continue it here? WHATEVER YOU FAVOR!]

[here u go 8) + ♫]

ic contact 2 mask or menace

01.02.2016 -- voicemail.

call back - 20 minutes later

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