deshabille | thirteen ☼ spam & voice

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thirteen ☼ spam & voice

spam } hannibal, backdated

[She does not sit by his bed until he wakes up. Instead, she watches him until she hears his breathing begin again and then leaves the infirmary. She knows he won't stay for long.]

[It's only later that she goes to find him in his room. This time, she knocks. Of course, if he doesn't respond, she'll just go in. But she can pretend at respect for bare moments.]

[It's the little things.]

private } dean, polly, arya, shortly after the above

I need to start it now. Right now.

[Theoretically this is all very dramatic but she's mostly anticipating a lot of boredom, which shows in her voice. Snore. This again.]

[She's fine it's fine.]

private } aeryn

Timetable has obviously been pushed back, but you should know I'll be out of commission for, mm. A while.

private } spock

Something you might be interested in.

private } ben

I have information of relevance to your inmate, and you by extension. No detail, but you should know anyway.

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There's nothing to talk about. I'm already dealing with it.

[There's plenty to talk about, and no good way of dealing with it.]

Mal.

Dean.

Mal.

Gods, what?

I don't know what kinda friends you've had before? But I'm not that kind.

You don't get to call me to help you clean your inmate up off the floor - again - and then tell me you're starting this spectacular shitty thing that might hurt you or someone else or worse, and I'll just be all "Hey, cool, good luck with that, call me when it gets bad."

I'd be sorry, but I'm not, so deal with it. If that's the kind of friend you're looking for, you messaged the wrong asshole.

[The answer, Dean, is no friends. She has had zero.]

I don't think you're sorry at all.

[She sighs. This, all of this, is so exhausting. And she doesn't even get tired. It's not how she's meant to be made.]

Talking about it won't make any of it be happening any less. Anyway, you already know it. It's very predictable.

[He knows. If he knew how to actually use the word, he would say he was being facetious. He would be sorry to be her first, because he isn't really a very good friend for several reasons; and he certainly isn't normal.

Not that he would think that was, necessarily, a bad thing. Not that he would think she would. It's just a thing.]

You know, funny thing: it's not predictable, which is part of the problem. If it were predictable, you wouldn't need a backup plan like me'n Polly because we'd already know what to expect. So yeah, maybe I already know it, and yeah, maybe talking won't make it not happen.

But if talking didn't help anything, we'd still be using grunts and hitting each other. And you know I hate talking.

I'm not predictable. Predators that survive never are. But these particular patterns of behavior--

[She makes a noise of frustration and gives up.]

It's good that I'm doing this now. It'll provide space; I'm getting too close. It's a critical error in a situation like this. All of which you know.

[Lately, Dean just feels like an idiot all around. He's kind of mad about it; things were so much easier when he could get away in his own mind at least with just punching things or shooting things and not thinking about it. React, don't consider.

If all it means is ever feeling lacking, fuck it. Seriously.]

Getting too close to what? Space for what?

[Dean. Stop overthinking things.]

[He doesn't know, she thinks; all the more reason not to tell him. He'll just think you're a sentimental idiot. He won't help. He won't kill you. He's got plenty of other things to do - his own sorrows, his own plans, his own people.]

[It would be easier just to run from him.]

Hannibal, [she says instead, quiet and resigned. Disappointed at the similarities that have brought her to this point - the lack of humanity, or some overabundance of it.]

[Dean knows she's not a sentimental idiot, or if she is, so is he; not that this is a safeguard against it, but the point stands. He will help. He will kill if necessary, and far too many people know this.

She is one of his people, one of his sorrows, one of his plans. He would chase after her if she ran.

At the name, he raises an eyebrow.]

What?

I don't pity him. But I regret his deaths, as much as I think they're necessary.

It doesn't do to feel for monsters. It makes you weak.

[Even if you were a monster once - even if you understand the impulses. More so, then.]

[Hannibal is a hard subject for Dean; he's threatened the man himself, and it wasn't idle. If he tried to harm Ned again, Dean doesn't know what he would do. He knows they'd all find out, though. He wouldn't do nothing.

But Dean has never been cruel, either. He can admit that some people are evil and deserve whatever's coming to them, but actually considering the reality of that? He would probably protect Hannibal, too, if he was in a position to do so; even without Mal's relation to him now making Hannibal something for Dean to concern himself with.

He shakes his head.]

No.

Don't get me wrong, I see you on that whole necessary payback thing; I wouldn't've stopped Cass from doing anything to Cain if she'd had a mind to. But I wasn't about to let anyone else do it, either, and not just because he was my inmate. [Although that was a large part of it; Dean never loved Cain like he loved Kon, but he takes his responsibilities more seriously than most.]

It's okay to not like it when he dies. It's... it's okay.

[Humbling him is necessary. Cruel, but necessary; she knows this. She has a plan, though from the outside she doubts it looks like one. What other people think of her matters so little - for the most part - that she never intended to speak of it publicly, for all that the repercussions for Hannibal's actions are relevant to everyone on board. It's a matter of privacy, but more so of security.]

[She will break him. The trouble is not breaking first, herself. She's tapping into something ugly out of necessity, dealing with Hannibal; worse than blood smeared and drying on the small hairs of her forearms.]

[It's hard to believe Dean when he says it's okay. Harder to think he's lying, so she compromises by not looking at him and not thinking about it.]

It's just an awful mess. [She cracks an unfocused smile. Paper over it.] You'd know better than I would this time.

Mal.

[It's a reflex to say her name, and he gives in to it without knowing why when he sees that smile; it is, of course, a variation on what got them this far, a request for her to stay with him rather than pushing him away. A kind of reprimand.

He doesn't follow up for several moments, though. He didn't have a plan, he never does, going into anything he's done here; he assembles an array of options and he picks up whichever one works best at the time. Other than that, he simply doesn't think things through to the end.

But it is a awful mess. He breathes out, looks away as well, but then back.]

You weren't here when Cain and I were paired. Did you ever get to meet Cass?

[Her eyes flicker up to meet his, focused and unfocused and focused again; in the end, she settles on attending, because he won't let her get away with not. Unconsciously, she pulls herself to attention, posture straight and eyes forward, hands at her sides. She shakes her head.]

Not to know her. No.

This whole fucking ship loved her. Loved. Myself included.

[He misses her still, and he's pretty sure he always will. He hopes again, as he always does when he thinks of her, that wherever she is she's okay. As okay as people like them ever are.]

And they all knew what he did to her. She couldn't even talk. He never spoke to her. He beat her and he shot her and he made her into a weapon and he didn't even speak to her. He crippled her by making her into a living, breathing, killing machine, and somehow she was still happy. She still loved, so people loved her.

And then I drew the fucking pairing. I was so pissed I would've left if it weren't my entire world on the goddamn line, rather than deal with that shitbag.

[There are differences here, Mal knows. She resents them. The biggest difference being that for Dean, it was personal. For Mal, it was merely obsessive. She was particularly close to none of the people who were tortured and killed, but she was close to Hannibal even if only in the abstract. She understands the impulse; was never cruel, but knows the temptation to cruelty, knows the hunger.]

[That is the difference. But she listens anyway, because Dean is her friend, even if she can't quite meet his eyes. She's not human. She wonders sometimes if he remembers that.]

What did you do?

My job.

[He does and he doesn't; he knows it and he's oblivious. She's Mal, and he accepts that at face value without accounting for the fact that sometimes the face she shows is human and sometimes it's not.

Dean has to be hurt, deeply and irreparably, before he understands the urge to cruelty; even then it doesn't last. He patches it back up and lets the new skin grow over, thicker and desensitized and less flexible than the old, but serviceable.

He shakes his head.]

I'm still not sure what really happened. Just... once he became my responsibility, I jumped the rail, even though I'd've gladly beaten the shit outta him before given half a reason. I didn't want anyone else beating on him, though.

Not... [He sighs.] I mean I guess I'm not really all that objective the other way, either.

You were possessive.

[At least that's how she understands it - and that is something she understands. If punishment is to be meted out, it ought to be by her hand, now that eye for an eye is over. The trouble is getting punishment to stick.]

[She isn't human, which helps. She doesn't have to play by the ordinary rules - except for how she does, and how she does even more than anyone else, because of how inhuman she is.]

[It's complicated.]

Is anyone objective about their inmate, really?

I am the wrong damn person to ask.

Anyway, the point is, it's okay. And I'll do whatever you need me to do.

Whether you ask me to or not.

I know that.

I just - don't like asking. Sometimes.

[No matter who she's asking. It feels like weakness.]

Preaching to the choir, dumpling.

That's why the second part.

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thirteen ☼ spam & voice

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