WHO: Will Graham and folks WHERE: All over WHEN: Month of December WHAT: catch all for stuff in December WARNINGS: general warning for Hannibal applies; will update if needed
Will changes before he leaves. His pants, anyway, opting for black slacks that have some lines where they've been folded and heinously not ironed out. He's tossed on the typical dark coat as well, but it isn't buttoned up, so his also typical plaid shirt shows through just fine. At least it seems a newer shirt, mostly dark red with no sign of fading. There was a mild effort with the clothes. Not so much with his hair, which has grown over his collar and probably needs a cut. Chilton's seen it at this stage before. Not the beard he has filling out, but the shaggy curly mess atop his head is nothing new.
He shows up to the Palisade on time. He shows up and shows small cues that he is already feeling horribly out of place—the way he looks around more than once, the way he seems inclined to keep a bit further away from waitstaff than generally necessary, a sort of nervousness making its way out in itty bitty doses. Like how he dismisses any help finding his party and instead meanders through the room on his own. Looking, and looking absolutely out of his element. Becoming one with the wallpaper feels righteous and it's not even been a minute.
Frederick better not have been joking about those mimosas.
His gaze flicked upwards just as Will Graham made his entrance. Chilton had already secured himself some coffee, his caffeine intake not yet satisfied. They were lucky the Palisade opened this early -- more breakfast than brunch, although Chilton preferred to overuse the latter term.
Mimosas would come when Will opened his mouth, he decided. Smarter to use the resources one had when he most needed them.
"Good morning," said Chilton, eying Will's attire with skepticism. He had grown accustomed to a skeptical habit; between the incident with Dorian and the sudden bouts of frost from Baelish, Chilton had been forced to take a long, hard look concerning many of his companions.
Ah. Thank God. There Chilton sat, something of a light at the of a long, dark hallway. Relief. Familiarity. A safe harbor in the midst of all the unease—feeling that this wasn't his sort of place was one thing, and fine, but when additions of this is the sort of place Hannibal would love to have shown you crept in, well. Unease was a kind word for the crawling in his skin.
Relief, however muted, was clear on Will's face. Clear to someone who knew him as Chilton did, at any rate. Clearer still was that relief fading as Will approached, vanishing entirely as he took a seat. He sat. He shifted once. He shifted again. He looked down as he moved his coat to make the whole sitting thing less shifty. And there he was, feeling oddly skeptical of his own attire, and thinking only well, it's clean. His entire defense right there: it's not filthy.
Perhaps he should not have set up this meeting so early.
"Morning," he said, delayed, making no move for eye contact. Instead he reached out to pluck one of the decorations in between them as though he'd never seen anything like it. There weren't even ketchup or sugar packets out in the open. Awful. "Do you come here often?"
He asked, genuinely, still turning over the table addition. He was curious if this was a place Chilton frequented or just one he'd heard about and so that came out of his mouth.
"I am not sure what it would matter," he replied. Quick to slice at the small talk, clinical in his bristle. Frederick Chilton, as his demeanor surely indicated, came armed with his own agenda.
"I have," he began -- slowly, deliberately, as if each and every syllable pained him only mildly beneath his skin. "A favor. To ask of you, if I may. Regarding Petyr Baelish." Not Ambassador Baelish, no. Titles were reserved for those who were not beneath the sickly knives of scrutiny.
"So it was really quite convenient that you wanted to meet up, Will. I cannot tell you how relieved I am for the opportunity."
No mention of satisfying his own curiosity; Chilton did not want to appear too eager regarding the mystery that Will had slipped to itch the moment that call had been made. He anticipated a quid pro quo -- and if that was so, then what better place to proceed with such an endeavor than beneath the break of morning, armed with coffee and mimosas? Why not scratch each other's back in public?
"What do you think of him? Quite honestly?" A painful grimace followed, the expression congruent with picking glass out of an open wound. "Regarding... Me, especially."
The tone caught his attention, but a favor had Will finally, slowly setting the decoration back down, eye contact made and held. A favor. There was an agenda here, of course there was. This was familiar, almost too comfortable to be healthy. Not that anyone from Baltimore could be called healthy in the truest sense of the word...
He leaned back in his seat, gaining an easy stillness as he did so. No more fidgeting. No more distractions. Just getting down to business, man to man. Like old times!
"I've never spoken to him personally." Perhaps he needed to remedy that. "From what I have seen, he talks. A lot. He likes to talk. He's familiar with talking. Power, too. He took to that ambassadorship like a duck to water."
Factual, light, the beginnings of his back scratching a soft affair. Necessary to ease into the less pleasant part of it. Chilton had, after all, asked regarding himself. Will hadn't ever spoken to Baelish, had seen him about the Network and had extensive Something with a certain knight, but Chilton? Oh. Yes. He knew that variable in this equation. Usually.
"I think a man like that needs power. Even if he hadn't become an ambassador, he'd have found power somewhere else. He excels at that and can't stomach a life without it." Will licks his lips, exhaling through flared nostrils. "You're attracted to him because of that. You've always held an attraction to people with a certain type of power, Frederick. I'd imagine he knows that about you. This likely colors every interaction the two of you would ever have."
The hand that reached to help with that glass-infested wound was quick, to the point. Will was of the mind that ripping off the bandage was better in the end—a quick flick of intense, sharp pain instead of a slow, horrible crawl. Always preferable.
"What's he done to you?"
Those five words held more emotion than everything else he'd said, factual and near-dull replaced with curiosity and a pinch of concern.
"Nothing." Yet, he implied. In the way his eyes glanced downwards, in how the corners of his mouth deepened, his implication was already held as fact in Frederick Chilton's mind. Nothing yet. But surely something was to come. Chilton glanced out the window, his eyes full of the rising sun, but he kept his gaze upwards.
Looking for clouds.
"You need not trace your words over me." He hadn't anticipated being analyzed himself. Attracted to a certain type of power; Will was not wrong. But Chilton nevertheless felt a tightness in his chest, an itch beneath his skin. Scrutiny was a morning without overcast.
"I suspect that the man is not fond of me. Do you disagree?" Perspective that Chilton would have denied if not for so many variables adding themselves to this equation. But given his own confusing relationship with Will, given Rincewind's warnings, and -- most importantly -- given how Petyr himself had misconstrued the worst on two separate occasions, Chilton decided to cultivate this nascent instinct. He decided to ask a man who knew how to empathize.
A man he knew would not lie to him, not this time.
Not fond of him. This man who liked to speak. To hear his own ideas and plans, even if he didn't speak them truthfully (or clearly), Will imagined. A man who needed power and functioned within roles that gave him power. Could he be fond of Chilton? Could a man like that be fond of anyone?
He sat before Frederick Chilton yet not really, there and away. He was thinking. Feeling. Detached and attached at all the wrong places. Fortunately there was no brutally displayed corpse, but. He kept coming back to Hannibal—someone of a similar make, anyway, even though he knew daring to consider that possible bordered on blasphemy. No big deal now. There wasn't a Hannibal even in their shared rooms to scold him for his literal imagined slights.
"No." He blinked a few times, leaning back and desperately wishing for those promised mimosas. "I suspect that the man is not fond of many people, if anyone."
Himself included, Will didn't add. Thought it, but there was something inappropriate about even the thought. Something sympathetic. Not what Chilton wanted to hear and not what he needed to hear coming from Will Graham's mouth.
"He's fond of something about you. Something you can do for him. That's all." Will's fingers tapped in the area a mimosa needed to be, seemingly more to avoid idleness than drawing attention to this rude lack of drink. "Is what I'd suspect."
Perhaps a personal meeting was in order, but after the no good very bad cooked from the inside the last time he met up with a stranger because of their impact on Chilton, he wasn't really eager to go down that road again.
Words that pelted against Chilton like a hard rain. Something you can do for him. A hollow friendship, that was what Will had diagnosed it as, a give more than take. A business relationship.
"Well," he spoke at last. "How is that different from most of my relationships?"
A rhetorical question jagged with implication, and Chilton sought no external answer for it. Most of his relationships had done him raw, and this would, he realized, would be no exception. He figured he understood what he had to do, and he was prepared to oil the mechanisms. Petyr Baelish was a problem that needed to be solved, a disease that required preventive treatment.
Chilton already had a remedy in mind.
"But you brought us here for a reason, Will." Chilton inclined his head, acknowledging Will's own agenda. "Let us hear it."
He blinked, taken aback by the question. He shouldn't have been! But he was, mentally sussing out what to expect now with this whole Baelish issue. If there was going to be more past a quick sneak peek, a swift glimpse under the panty girdle of pure empathy. Years ago, this might have felt almost obscene. Now it was almost expected. They both knew a little something about hollow(-ish) friendships.
"I've taken on Crane." Horrible phrasing. "I'm his probation officer. Doctor Crane. Scarecrow."
He held a finely balanced mix of respect and weariness for that name. He understood some folks preferred their other name, of course he did. But he was just so over it, too.
"Sounds almost boring compared to your business with one of our ambassadors."
His smile was small but nonetheless sincere; it was actually refreshing, Will not having the juiciest thing going on in the shadows. Chilton might not see it that way, but. Will did, obviously, consider Chilton's whole reason for breakfast together more worthwhile than his own.
Chilton's initial assessment of the fact, and perhaps his most honest. He rubbed his fingers over his chin, he pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. Taken on Crane. Even in a probational context, it sounded lewd. A raw, moist horror.
"Do not downplay this." Sharp eyes back on Will's face. "I wouldn't call holding the leash to Crane's collar as something boring."
Because Will, more than anyone else knew, didn't he? The entangled depths of a darkened mind, the twisted cravings that were innate to certain people. Even the sort of people who claimed they were good now -- or have always been good, that their doppelganger had ruined those lives, that it had always been the evil twin. A spliced Gemini. There would be those who claimed that truly, honestly, only God could judge them.
But there were no gods in Chilton's world, none in Will's world. They had only devils.
Horror, outrage, absorbed and not reflected on the face that stared back at Chilton. Will wore a look more in line with a teenager being scolded at length for doing something absolutely age appropriate. It wasn't his fault his dad was so behind the times he didn't realize how things had changed since his own childhood...
"Downplay. Upplay." Stern. Had to be stern, he knew. Had to make it so Chilton couldn't see any obvious cracks in the man before him—not in regards to Crane, at least. The usual cracks were impossible to fix and pointless to try. "That's all I'm doing with my hold on his leash. Holding it."
Watching. Getting a front row seat. Making sure someone else who would do differently with Crane's leash didn't have the chance this time around. Will licks his lips, shaking his head a little, visibly coming to a conclusion.
"Are you concerned he isn't safe with me or I'm not safe with him?"
No gods at all, and their devils demanded the worst sorts of relationships that man could be a part of. Of course Will's mind went to a certain phrasing that would sound lewd to anyone outside Baltimore's context.
Chilton did not curb his sneer. Will's stern demeanor was met with petty rebellion, riled and clawing. The give and the take.
"You two enable each other. He is something of your type, regardless if you want to hear it or not." No direct mention of Hannibal's name, Chilton was not entirely without propriety.
"So who, or what, is going to check you, Will? When Crane gnashes his teeth again, when he starts to foam at the mouth. What is your emergency procedure, I do wonder?"
It was concern. His motivation was concern, even if that was hidden beneath brash bramble and thorny words. Even if he shown his teeth to glint as he spoke. Chilton was concerned for Will.
Will didn't intend to be around when that happened. From the looks of it, Crane would play his part, and Will would play his. It would be a wholly dull affair so Crane could be let loose as soon as possible. The best way for things to go, really; Will wouldn't want to be under more eyes than usual for longer than necessary, either. Chilton wasn't wrong. Crane was Will's type in plenty of ways.
He figured Chilton would come to the same conclusion. Right now they weren't just talking about Crane. Right now, sneering and clawed he might have been, that concern leaked through. Like ice water soaking fabric and heading right into his veins, he could absolutely feel it, threatening to stop his heart, harden the thing further. This was genuine, too, and he'd asked for it without being the least bit prepared.
"You worry too much," he said, quietly, less stern than before. Touched, one might think. "He'll want to get this over with no muss no fuss. I'll facilitate that. He won't have a reason to gnash his teeth and I won't have a reason to gnash right back."
Emergency procedure: act as a mirror, except a bit furrier. Chilton could wait for another breakfast to get that update. Possibly.
"But. You should know. Just in case..." In case something happened. In case Crane decided he wanted more surveillance for longer. In case he decided to see how Will changed when push came to shove. "You should know."
"So you are telling me this not as a cry for implicit approval, not for permission, but as your safe word. Your emergency switch -- just in case."
Chilton gave his head just the slightest of tilts, his gaze still locked onto Will's face. Graham was subtle; it was better to maximize the observations of any microscopic twitches. One of the reason as to why people of Chilton's profession prized the man so dearly.
"You see, I am sure, why I might find that worrisome."
Exasperation tinted with a morning mimosa; Chilton was sometimes a parody of himself.
"I suppose it could be worse," he mused. "Your newest interest could have involved someone from back home -- that would give me qualified reason for worry, as even you must admit."
Will twitched, just a bit, at the idea of approval. The sort that moved eyebrow and tightened jaw. Easy to miss but there just the same. The twitch of disapproval. Whether at the idea (permission, too!) or because Chilton had nailed him wasn't obvious. Just that his words did a bit of digging, verbal ticks rooting around.
Someone from back home. Then all tension was gone, replaced with a slight deflating. He sat a centimeter lower in his seat. His lips turned down. Even his eyes dropped. Relaxed but in his own exasperated way. Not grief, but a reminder of what had been lost to them both, quite possibly forever, resting atop his mind once more.
Will sighed, equal parts tired and fond, as if woken up by one of the dogs yet again.
"We've been fortunate in that regard, I will admit. We shouldn't jinx ourselves." Speak not of the beast's disappearance lest the beast appear. Then again, maybe they'd be blessed with someone else...then again, there were plenty of someone elses they'd be better off without. Like playing Russian roulette with half the chambers full. Despite the fact Will had died, he thought they had (had the potential for, perhaps) a good thing going. At least playing emergency switches for each other would never come at the steep costs Hannibal could and would inevitably enact in a world such as this. "I was serious about breakfast, Frederick. Assumed you were serious about mimosas."
There was a lilt of question present, not enough to really hit the ears of anyone who didn't know him but enough that Chilton would surely pick up on it. Especially since he combined hunger and thirst with a raised hand, looking about to signal waitstaff.
Chilton wasn't a superstitious man by nature, and perhaps a bit of personal disdain lingered in his tone. His acceptance of magic in this world came with the evidence that had been provided; imPorts were capable of the impossible. He believed it once he witnessed it. Perhaps in a different setting the doctor would quibble over the terminology, but in this land of enchantment, the word rang true.
Mocking Hannibal's absence, however? Or the absence of their other mutual acquaintances? Even tasteful mocking -- he did not believe he was tempting fate. But then again, Chilton never believed that he was tempting fate.
"Ah."
Chilton took Will's final words as an end to that line of conversation. It wasn't long before a waitstaff took note of Will's pretty face, and came over to assist in any preferences. Only when they were alone again did Chilton nod at his company.
"I won't prod the issue," he said, a statement in of itself meant to ignore any plea for denial.
It was always in those moments one least expected fate to feel a tug of challenge when that happened. Fate, like Hannibal Lecter, could be an extremely petty shit more often than not. Going out for breakfast, just the two of them, could have been tempting fate. Somehow. Maybe fate just craved attention and felt neglected...
Said pretty face was absolutely inclined to let Chilton lead. This was far more his element than hobo chic Will Graham's, he wasn't ashamed to acknowledge that. His preferences were set to mirror. But, like, a very plain and normal mirror of Chilton's, nothing too fancy. Will had a reputation to keep up and a belly that would have been fine with just scrambled eggs and grits.
A statement met with a bit of a smile and a nod, rather warm acceptance on a pretty face that didn't seem quite used to it. To divert from anything else, however, and to get on a track that he believed Chilton himself would enjoy quite a lot, Will began to put a napkin in his lap and asked:
"How was the move? You enjoy it here better than Heropa?"
He asked about Chilton. Normal, simple things. Polite, friendly conversation. Nothing dark or torturous. Like they were two ordinary men who had their ups and downs but certainly no looming concerns about foods, about their bodies, about their devils. Just out for breakfast like regular people.
"I enjoy the privacy more, yes. Fewer opportunities for aggressive individuals breaking into my home," he said, unaware of the dramatic irony looming. It wouldn't be too long before the man in black took a fancy to Doctor Frederick Chilton. "Are you still satisfied with Heropa?"
He hadn't intended for it to come out like a plea for company. That was simply how Chilton communicated; loneliness was its own dialect.
"I will admit, it is odd not seeing Jeff on a weekly basis."
Odd. He didn't qualify that statement with any specific negative or positive feelings. A quick look at Will, as if that glance would determine the notoriously-difficult-to-read-man's underflow of emotions. Unsurprisingly, Chilton found himself at a loss. There was a conversation beneath the one they spoke, one full of quiet pauses and twitches and topic changes.
"Has Crane contacted your circle? Your people. Out of curiosity."
Will nodded, pleased with this lighter conversation. He would be satisfied with Heropa until Mitch planted the idea that April might want to be in DC later on. Then he'd just worry if he had missed signs all along, and plan to move in case April really wanted that. But they wouldn't be able to move everyone, at least, not unless they wanted to as well, and the idea of being able to agree with that — odd not to see Jeff on a weekly basis — would strike him like hunger pains. A potential future bit of grief Baltimore could bond over.
Oh no. They were doing so well. Or maybe they weren't. Maybe they were just pretending they could move past blood and breath and bone and be normal. Ish.
"Not that I know of," he said, what smile he had dropping, Will's body language morphing into more of a slump. Legitimately bogged down by all the crazy sons of bitches around them, weren't they? "Unless he's contacted you. Have you been in contact with each other?"
Casual, light, void of any aggression, any demanding. Chilton didn't have to answer this question if he didn't want to, but he must have known that Will could go to the other party and find out either way if he really wanted to, so why come across as any sort of forceful? No point.
Crane had, in fact, been in contact with Chilton. The psychiatrist gave a light shrug in response -- a non-answer that was nearly a shout.
"You consider me to be your people?"
A deflection. Chilton wasn't condescending enough to think that Will wouldn't see right through it; maybe a time ago he would have courted such arrogance concerning the man sitting before him, but not today. Not now.
"I know how to watch myself," he concluded. It was as much of a confession as he was willing to indulge. "You and I have already played his little game, haven't we? So has Raina... But there are others who might not be as equipped to his particular breed of cruelty."
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maskormenacelogs2016-12-04 05:35 pm
matching scars bro;
He shows up to the Palisade on time. He shows up and shows small cues that he is already feeling horribly out of place—the way he looks around more than once, the way he seems inclined to keep a bit further away from waitstaff than generally necessary, a sort of nervousness making its way out in itty bitty doses. Like how he dismisses any help finding his party and instead meanders through the room on his own. Looking, and looking absolutely out of his element. Becoming one with the wallpaper feels righteous and it's not even been a minute.
Frederick better not have been joking about those mimosas.
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Mimosas would come when Will opened his mouth, he decided. Smarter to use the resources one had when he most needed them.
"Good morning," said Chilton, eying Will's attire with skepticism. He had grown accustomed to a skeptical habit; between the incident with Dorian and the sudden bouts of frost from Baelish, Chilton had been forced to take a long, hard look concerning many of his companions.
It was a miracle that he did not flinch away.
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Relief, however muted, was clear on Will's face. Clear to someone who knew him as Chilton did, at any rate. Clearer still was that relief fading as Will approached, vanishing entirely as he took a seat. He sat. He shifted once. He shifted again. He looked down as he moved his coat to make the whole sitting thing less shifty. And there he was, feeling oddly skeptical of his own attire, and thinking only well, it's clean. His entire defense right there: it's not filthy.
Perhaps he should not have set up this meeting so early.
"Morning," he said, delayed, making no move for eye contact. Instead he reached out to pluck one of the decorations in between them as though he'd never seen anything like it. There weren't even ketchup or sugar packets out in the open. Awful. "Do you come here often?"
He asked, genuinely, still turning over the table addition. He was curious if this was a place Chilton frequented or just one he'd heard about and so that came out of his mouth.
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"I have," he began -- slowly, deliberately, as if each and every syllable pained him only mildly beneath his skin. "A favor. To ask of you, if I may. Regarding Petyr Baelish." Not Ambassador Baelish, no. Titles were reserved for those who were not beneath the sickly knives of scrutiny.
"So it was really quite convenient that you wanted to meet up, Will. I cannot tell you how relieved I am for the opportunity."
No mention of satisfying his own curiosity; Chilton did not want to appear too eager regarding the mystery that Will had slipped to itch the moment that call had been made. He anticipated a quid pro quo -- and if that was so, then what better place to proceed with such an endeavor than beneath the break of morning, armed with coffee and mimosas? Why not scratch each other's back in public?
"What do you think of him? Quite honestly?" A painful grimace followed, the expression congruent with picking glass out of an open wound. "Regarding... Me, especially."
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He leaned back in his seat, gaining an easy stillness as he did so. No more fidgeting. No more distractions. Just getting down to business, man to man. Like old times!
"I've never spoken to him personally." Perhaps he needed to remedy that. "From what I have seen, he talks. A lot. He likes to talk. He's familiar with talking. Power, too. He took to that ambassadorship like a duck to water."
Factual, light, the beginnings of his back scratching a soft affair. Necessary to ease into the less pleasant part of it. Chilton had, after all, asked regarding himself. Will hadn't ever spoken to Baelish, had seen him about the Network and had extensive Something with a certain knight, but Chilton? Oh. Yes. He knew that variable in this equation. Usually.
"I think a man like that needs power. Even if he hadn't become an ambassador, he'd have found power somewhere else. He excels at that and can't stomach a life without it." Will licks his lips, exhaling through flared nostrils. "You're attracted to him because of that. You've always held an attraction to people with a certain type of power, Frederick. I'd imagine he knows that about you. This likely colors every interaction the two of you would ever have."
The hand that reached to help with that glass-infested wound was quick, to the point. Will was of the mind that ripping off the bandage was better in the end—a quick flick of intense, sharp pain instead of a slow, horrible crawl. Always preferable.
"What's he done to you?"
Those five words held more emotion than everything else he'd said, factual and near-dull replaced with curiosity and a pinch of concern.
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Looking for clouds.
"You need not trace your words over me." He hadn't anticipated being analyzed himself. Attracted to a certain type of power; Will was not wrong. But Chilton nevertheless felt a tightness in his chest, an itch beneath his skin. Scrutiny was a morning without overcast.
"I suspect that the man is not fond of me. Do you disagree?" Perspective that Chilton would have denied if not for so many variables adding themselves to this equation. But given his own confusing relationship with Will, given Rincewind's warnings, and -- most importantly -- given how Petyr himself had misconstrued the worst on two separate occasions, Chilton decided to cultivate this nascent instinct. He decided to ask a man who knew how to empathize.
A man he knew would not lie to him, not this time.
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He sat before Frederick Chilton yet not really, there and away. He was thinking. Feeling. Detached and attached at all the wrong places. Fortunately there was no brutally displayed corpse, but. He kept coming back to Hannibal—someone of a similar make, anyway, even though he knew daring to consider that possible bordered on blasphemy. No big deal now. There wasn't a Hannibal even in their shared rooms to scold him for his literal imagined slights.
"No." He blinked a few times, leaning back and desperately wishing for those promised mimosas. "I suspect that the man is not fond of many people, if anyone."
Himself included, Will didn't add. Thought it, but there was something inappropriate about even the thought. Something sympathetic. Not what Chilton wanted to hear and not what he needed to hear coming from Will Graham's mouth.
"He's fond of something about you. Something you can do for him. That's all." Will's fingers tapped in the area a mimosa needed to be, seemingly more to avoid idleness than drawing attention to this rude lack of drink. "Is what I'd suspect."
Perhaps a personal meeting was in order, but after the no good very bad cooked from the inside the last time he met up with a stranger because of their impact on Chilton, he wasn't really eager to go down that road again.
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"Well," he spoke at last. "How is that different from most of my relationships?"
A rhetorical question jagged with implication, and Chilton sought no external answer for it. Most of his relationships had done him raw, and this would, he realized, would be no exception. He figured he understood what he had to do, and he was prepared to oil the mechanisms. Petyr Baelish was a problem that needed to be solved, a disease that required preventive treatment.
Chilton already had a remedy in mind.
"But you brought us here for a reason, Will." Chilton inclined his head, acknowledging Will's own agenda. "Let us hear it."
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He blinked, taken aback by the question. He shouldn't have been! But he was, mentally sussing out what to expect now with this whole Baelish issue. If there was going to be more past a quick sneak peek, a swift glimpse under the panty girdle of pure empathy. Years ago, this might have felt almost obscene. Now it was almost expected. They both knew a little something about hollow(-ish) friendships.
"I've taken on Crane." Horrible phrasing. "I'm his probation officer. Doctor Crane. Scarecrow."
He held a finely balanced mix of respect and weariness for that name. He understood some folks preferred their other name, of course he did. But he was just so over it, too.
"Sounds almost boring compared to your business with one of our ambassadors."
His smile was small but nonetheless sincere; it was actually refreshing, Will not having the juiciest thing going on in the shadows. Chilton might not see it that way, but. Will did, obviously, consider Chilton's whole reason for breakfast together more worthwhile than his own.
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Chilton's initial assessment of the fact, and perhaps his most honest. He rubbed his fingers over his chin, he pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. Taken on Crane. Even in a probational context, it sounded lewd. A raw, moist horror.
"Do not downplay this." Sharp eyes back on Will's face. "I wouldn't call holding the leash to Crane's collar as something boring."
Because Will, more than anyone else knew, didn't he? The entangled depths of a darkened mind, the twisted cravings that were innate to certain people. Even the sort of people who claimed they were good now -- or have always been good, that their doppelganger had ruined those lives, that it had always been the evil twin. A spliced Gemini. There would be those who claimed that truly, honestly, only God could judge them.
But there were no gods in Chilton's world, none in Will's world. They had only devils.
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"Downplay. Upplay." Stern. Had to be stern, he knew. Had to make it so Chilton couldn't see any obvious cracks in the man before him—not in regards to Crane, at least. The usual cracks were impossible to fix and pointless to try. "That's all I'm doing with my hold on his leash. Holding it."
Watching. Getting a front row seat. Making sure someone else who would do differently with Crane's leash didn't have the chance this time around. Will licks his lips, shaking his head a little, visibly coming to a conclusion.
"Are you concerned he isn't safe with me or I'm not safe with him?"
No gods at all, and their devils demanded the worst sorts of relationships that man could be a part of. Of course Will's mind went to a certain phrasing that would sound lewd to anyone outside Baltimore's context.
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Chilton did not curb his sneer. Will's stern demeanor was met with petty rebellion, riled and clawing. The give and the take.
"You two enable each other. He is something of your type, regardless if you want to hear it or not." No direct mention of Hannibal's name, Chilton was not entirely without propriety.
"So who, or what, is going to check you, Will? When Crane gnashes his teeth again, when he starts to foam at the mouth. What is your emergency procedure, I do wonder?"
It was concern. His motivation was concern, even if that was hidden beneath brash bramble and thorny words. Even if he shown his teeth to glint as he spoke. Chilton was concerned for Will.
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He figured Chilton would come to the same conclusion. Right now they weren't just talking about Crane. Right now, sneering and clawed he might have been, that concern leaked through. Like ice water soaking fabric and heading right into his veins, he could absolutely feel it, threatening to stop his heart, harden the thing further. This was genuine, too, and he'd asked for it without being the least bit prepared.
"You worry too much," he said, quietly, less stern than before. Touched, one might think. "He'll want to get this over with no muss no fuss. I'll facilitate that. He won't have a reason to gnash his teeth and I won't have a reason to gnash right back."
Emergency procedure: act as a mirror, except a bit furrier. Chilton could wait for another breakfast to get that update. Possibly.
"But. You should know. Just in case..." In case something happened. In case Crane decided he wanted more surveillance for longer. In case he decided to see how Will changed when push came to shove. "You should know."
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Chilton gave his head just the slightest of tilts, his gaze still locked onto Will's face. Graham was subtle; it was better to maximize the observations of any microscopic twitches. One of the reason as to why people of Chilton's profession prized the man so dearly.
"You see, I am sure, why I might find that worrisome."
Exasperation tinted with a morning mimosa; Chilton was sometimes a parody of himself.
"I suppose it could be worse," he mused. "Your newest interest could have involved someone from back home -- that would give me qualified reason for worry, as even you must admit."
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Someone from back home. Then all tension was gone, replaced with a slight deflating. He sat a centimeter lower in his seat. His lips turned down. Even his eyes dropped. Relaxed but in his own exasperated way. Not grief, but a reminder of what had been lost to them both, quite possibly forever, resting atop his mind once more.
Will sighed, equal parts tired and fond, as if woken up by one of the dogs yet again.
"We've been fortunate in that regard, I will admit. We shouldn't jinx ourselves." Speak not of the beast's disappearance lest the beast appear. Then again, maybe they'd be blessed with someone else...then again, there were plenty of someone elses they'd be better off without. Like playing Russian roulette with half the chambers full. Despite the fact Will had died, he thought they had (had the potential for, perhaps) a good thing going. At least playing emergency switches for each other would never come at the steep costs Hannibal could and would inevitably enact in a world such as this. "I was serious about breakfast, Frederick. Assumed you were serious about mimosas."
There was a lilt of question present, not enough to really hit the ears of anyone who didn't know him but enough that Chilton would surely pick up on it. Especially since he combined hunger and thirst with a raised hand, looking about to signal waitstaff.
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Chilton wasn't a superstitious man by nature, and perhaps a bit of personal disdain lingered in his tone. His acceptance of magic in this world came with the evidence that had been provided; imPorts were capable of the impossible. He believed it once he witnessed it. Perhaps in a different setting the doctor would quibble over the terminology, but in this land of enchantment, the word rang true.
Mocking Hannibal's absence, however? Or the absence of their other mutual acquaintances? Even tasteful mocking -- he did not believe he was tempting fate. But then again, Chilton never believed that he was tempting fate.
"Ah."
Chilton took Will's final words as an end to that line of conversation. It wasn't long before a waitstaff took note of Will's pretty face, and came over to assist in any preferences. Only when they were alone again did Chilton nod at his company.
"I won't prod the issue," he said, a statement in of itself meant to ignore any plea for denial.
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Said pretty face was absolutely inclined to let Chilton lead. This was far more his element than hobo chic Will Graham's, he wasn't ashamed to acknowledge that. His preferences were set to mirror. But, like, a very plain and normal mirror of Chilton's, nothing too fancy. Will had a reputation to keep up and a belly that would have been fine with just scrambled eggs and grits.
A statement met with a bit of a smile and a nod, rather warm acceptance on a pretty face that didn't seem quite used to it. To divert from anything else, however, and to get on a track that he believed Chilton himself would enjoy quite a lot, Will began to put a napkin in his lap and asked:
"How was the move? You enjoy it here better than Heropa?"
He asked about Chilton. Normal, simple things. Polite, friendly conversation. Nothing dark or torturous. Like they were two ordinary men who had their ups and downs but certainly no looming concerns about foods, about their bodies, about their devils. Just out for breakfast like regular people.
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He hadn't intended for it to come out like a plea for company. That was simply how Chilton communicated; loneliness was its own dialect.
"I will admit, it is odd not seeing Jeff on a weekly basis."
Odd. He didn't qualify that statement with any specific negative or positive feelings. A quick look at Will, as if that glance would determine the notoriously-difficult-to-read-man's underflow of emotions. Unsurprisingly, Chilton found himself at a loss. There was a conversation beneath the one they spoke, one full of quiet pauses and twitches and topic changes.
"Has Crane contacted your circle? Your people. Out of curiosity."
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Oh no. They were doing so well. Or maybe they weren't. Maybe they were just pretending they could move past blood and breath and bone and be normal. Ish.
"Not that I know of," he said, what smile he had dropping, Will's body language morphing into more of a slump. Legitimately bogged down by all the crazy sons of bitches around them, weren't they? "Unless he's contacted you. Have you been in contact with each other?"
Casual, light, void of any aggression, any demanding. Chilton didn't have to answer this question if he didn't want to, but he must have known that Will could go to the other party and find out either way if he really wanted to, so why come across as any sort of forceful? No point.
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"You consider me to be your people?"
A deflection. Chilton wasn't condescending enough to think that Will wouldn't see right through it; maybe a time ago he would have courted such arrogance concerning the man sitting before him, but not today. Not now.
"I know how to watch myself," he concluded. It was as much of a confession as he was willing to indulge. "You and I have already played his little game, haven't we? So has Raina... But there are others who might not be as equipped to his particular breed of cruelty."
Chilton meant April, of course he did.