|: 008. Spam/Video : See Me, Hear Me, But Don't Touch Me :|

[andyougoleft]

     [ Spam for Hannibal Lecter ]

     [Slevin has been working for several months to get to this day.  This is the point of no return, the first domino, the peak of the track before the drop - once he's passed this, once he's pushed this piece, all he can do is commit to the fall and accept where it goes. 

    Well.  Unless he doesn't. 

    He's taken care to come across as mostly under the radar, or if he accidentally ends up above the wire, harmless.  He runs his mouth but he never does anything.  In the Barge environment, that has been especially easy to do.  Now, though, he checks that the Glock he picked up in Los Angeles is still loaded (it is) and clean (it is), and slides it away into his waistband; a knife, too, tucked into his pocket, also from Los Angeles, his favorite black hoodie - roomie and bulky and chosen precisely for these qualities - settled comfortably over both.  He'd have liked to have the glasses, but they were traded away for another point in his favor in this long game.  It's all about to pay off, or flop.

    He closes the door behind him on his way out of his cabin, and moves for the dining hall to locate his target.  He doesn't even hesitate.

    Hannibal hasn't been out and about much, but when he does he keeps to a routine that would be difficult enough to process through the breaks unless one were watching for exactly that; Slevin has been.  It's simple, when he spots him in the dining hall, to know where he'll be if he's going to be out later tonight.  Slevin finishes his own dinner, and then leaves to intercept him in the hallway.

    Level 2 is risky - it's busier than the deeper levels, and the infirmary being so near could save Hannibal if Slevin is interrupted - but that's never really bothered him, and it is objectively the emptiest level anyway.  It will, regardless, be quick.]



     [ Private to Chris D'Amico : Video : Later ]

     [Chris has seen Slevin go distant and detached a few times now; this is slightly different, but related.  He looks confused as well when he comes on the screen, and he's staring at something out of frame, something on the floor, expectantly; he's in a dark room that is not his.  A few moments of stillness, of silence, and then Slevin speaks in a voice matching his expression, still without looking.]

     Chris, I.

     I think I may have made a mistake.



     [ Zero Spam : OPEN ]

     [Slevin was expecting to be spending some time in a cell in Zero when he started this.  It's a price he's willing to pay, for what he'd expected to gain from it.

     Maybe he was right.  Maybe he was wrong.  It's difficult to tell from where he's settled on the cot in the cell, leaned back against the bars, feet crossed on the bed and arms folded over his chest, sitting quietly in thought.  It is, now, a waiting game.]

Comments

[Private; Video]

[mistconduct]

[Chris comes on, expecting a joke or two at his expense and is prepared to roll his eyes and say something snarky back. But one look at Slevin's face has him drop the clowning act. He frowns, grabbing his side table to pull himself up to his feet]

What's up? You okay?

[Private; Video]

[andyougoleft]

Yeah.

[His eyebrows pull together, mouth opening to continue, but he pauses. A moment later he lifts his other hand to rub at his eye with the heel of it: it's holding a gun, and there's something dark smeared all over his fingers. A smudge is left behind above his eyebrow when he drops it away again.]

Yeah, I'm okay. I'm not...

He deserved it.

[Private; Video]

[mistconduct]

[Okay, great. Slevin has a gun and there's blood and he's in a room where Chris can't see. He grimaces, and leans over to hook up Lassie's harness. Once he's all set, he begins using his warden's item to track Slevin's location]

Fuck. You're not hurt?

Who was it? They go for you?

[Private; Video]

[andyougoleft]

No. Not this time.

[He's on the second floor, stationary, in an empty cabin. Well, mostly stationary. He switches his attention to the gun and, mouth tugging in a strange smile, reaches to put it down on the floor. The smile slips back into confusion, a dissatisfied expression as he finally looks at the screen.]

You could say that. It's Hannibal.

[Private; Video]

[mistconduct]

[Chris won't make it in time to get to Slevin before Hannibal's warden, but he still makes a valiant effort, limping his way along on the bottom level towards the elevators]

Oh.

[This is a revenge thing? He's not sure]

Fuck that guy.

I'm coming up. Hang tight, yeah? We'll sort this shit out, figure out what's going on.

You said you might've made a mistake..?

spam

[deshabille]

[The ribbon blanches to gray. It's probably meant to be some kind of joke about complexion, but mostly, it just irritates her.]

[Irritation is probably what it is, anyway. Anything more than frustration would be unwise. Hannibal brought these deaths, this pain, on himself. Each individual humiliation would make him angry, but wouldn't break him; they must be piled on. And he does deserve it. She knows, objectively, that this is true - that he would do worse to her. Or rather, will. This is an inevitability.]

[So she's just irritated.]

[She can smell him from floors away; her nose is sharper than his ever could be, her eyes as clear and attuned to movement as a hawk's, her ears designed to note the rush of blood as well as its cessation. He is on this level. He is down on this end. He is behind this door.]

[She closes her eyes and presses her cheek to it, her ear, listening. Then she knocks, knuckles clenched and pale, barely reddening at the edges. She smiles.]

spam

[andyougoleft]

[Slevin is expecting her. He'd be an idiot not to.

He has never been an idiot.

The gun he finished Hannibal off with is on the floor well away from himself, away from anyone mistaking him for threatening them with it. The knife he used to carve out his eyes is on the floor as well, blood cooling and tacky across his fingers and palms. Goodkat would have some kind of conniption if he saw the mess Slevin had made in here, the stains on his hands, but the object here isn't to get away.

No. There's a different objective, and it begs a messy scene and a confession. One Mal will hear him in the middle of when she arrives. He falls silent - it's not Chris, he knows it's not Chris, he's on the communicator with Chris; it must be Mal. No one else, drawn by a gunshot, would knock.

He stands a moment, undecided, and clicks the communicator off. Slipping it away into his pocket, he debates a moment more; call or answer. Call or open.

The door opens. He doesn't try to move.]

spam

[deshabille]

[Not very long ago, she was taught how to interrogate a prisoner. How to take an enemy soldier into your camp and treat him fairly, no matter how much you hate him, no matter how many of your own he's sure to have killed. You feed him and keep him clothed and clean - warm, if at all you can manage it - treat him better than your own men so no one can turn to you and say you have mistreated a prisoner. This is the new politics of war, taught to her by a very clever man who was both ahead of and entirely behind his time.]

[The thing is, Mal doesn't hate Slevin. The other thing is - well. Jackrum was always a good one for bending the rules until somehow or other they just clean snap.]

[Mal is ready for a good clean snap.]

[She's in his face in a second, looking ready to shout him down for all that he's almost a foot taller than her, but - but - but--]

[She is easy to push. She has simple targets painted on her back, front, sides, there is blood on his hands and there was blood in her eyes well before she actually saw him; she could kill him with a snap of her fingers, easily. He wouldn't stand a chance.]

[Instead, she grabs him by the throat and squeezes.]

spam

[andyougoleft]

[Everyone knows who Hannibal's warden is; Mal and Slevin have never so much as spoken, but he knows who she is, what she is. He combs the networks meticulously even as he strives to stay under the radar. He may not know all the ins and outs, but one rule is common, and when he sees the red in her eyes he is satisfied.

But the murder itself, the vengeance, necessitated the blood around the room as well. His fervor let him get his hands dirty, let him lay hands on the dead best behind him as was done to him. It is unclear at best whether everything here is as intentional as it could be.

Slevin makes it no clearer. He expects to be killed, and when Mal blows through the door and throws herself right up against him, he backs a step but neither flees nor attacks. It's instinct alone that brings his hands up to hers around his throat, fingers trying to wedge into the gaps, choking on the air that can go neither forward nor back through his closed throat.

He swears but it only comes out as a cough, held spine-straight and tense-limbed, unyielding but cowed before her, wondering if she'll apply the last pound of pressure and everything will go dark. He doesn't try to stop it, but paints her skin with the blood on his instead.]

spam

[deshabille]

[She would make him bow. Never mind that if it was her, if she'd been rended limb from limb the way Hannibal did Slevin, she would have done the same thing. Worse. If she were an inmate here - but she's not.]

[Maybe, in this moment, she should be. But she's not sorry, and she won't be sorry. She takes satisfaction in his pain and fear because maybe, maybe he'll learn something, and because it makes her less angry, and because, as he smears blood on her crawling skin, she knows that he set this scene for her. The grand production, that was for Hannibal, but this part - it was for her.]

[It's funny. When he finds out about it (when, not if), Hannibal will probably be pleased.]

[She snarls, lets go, and slaps him hard, leaving a bruising mark in her wake, then pins him to the wall again with her forearm. There are two bloody pools where her eyes should be.]

You called your warden. [This is not a question; she heard.] Where is he?

[ spam ]

[youwill]

[Hannibal, while not a man of habit, is a man who lives by a schedule. He doesn't abide tardiness, cannot stand to wait on others or likewise make others wait. It would be rude.

Even here, he keeps a schedule, though perhaps not in the strictest way. His life here is not what it was, after all, and certain adaptions must be made.

He walks tonight, wandering not quite aimlessly through the Barge. He walks with purpose, but without destination, on a mission of observation and exercise. Adaptions.

He does not hear Slevin approach. He cannot smell like his warden, from so far a distance. He is as open to attack as Slevin was when he was attacked.]

[ spam ]

[andyougoleft]

[Slevin has meticulously mapped these levels, checking them daily in random orders for which doors vacate, which fill; it's part sound tactics for knowing his environment, and part sound tactics for not losing his mind from boredom. Something to mark the passage of time.

Level 2 is safe and most people feel safe on it; it has the infirmary, it's close to the deck, a level through which six other levels of occupants must pass on their way to the dining hall, the deck, on their way back to their cabins. It's a bold move, if on a much smaller scale than Hannibal's own bold move months ago.

Slevin watches Hannibal disappear down the stairwell that will take him to the second level; he'll move aft, if he stops at the second level at all. It's not too late to stop, to go back to his own cabin, to forget all of this. To stop it.

The assassin ducks on near-silent feet down the middle stairwell, covers the distance at a dead run, and darts across the corridor into the vacant thirteenth cabin. There are empty rooms on either side, still. He's checked for it.

He listens to the sound of footsteps, casual and confident, gauging their progress. Listens for others. Hears someone go up the staircase he just came down but they don't pause, even hurry a bit more as though they saw the level's mobile occupant.

As soon as Hannibal passes the room, Slevin eases the door open silently, then uses his considerable reach to scruff him, one hand in the collar of his meticulous suit jacket, the other by his expensive belt; he heaves him sideways, part throw and part pull, into the solid frame of the door. Then he knocks them both into the room and closes the door behind them.]

[ spam ]

[youwill]

[He does not hear the movement on the far side of the hall, nor does he see even a glimpse of Slevin as the assassin prepares. Hannibal's gait, while not slow, is unhurried. Confident. At ease.

He does not expect the door to open, already dismissing the thought to turn and see who - what does it matter to him - when he is grabbed. The jacket does not choke him, but it does hinder, same as the hand on his belt: there is a split second before his shoulder and hip hit the frame, his head colliding immediately after. Flashes burst across his vision, illuminating and obfuscating. He tastes blood on his teeth and tongue, and stumbles into the room, hitting the floor hard and rolling.

Not to his feet, immediately: Hannibal is in decent shape, he has managed in a fight with a madman and a garotte, but his experience is limited, negligible compared to the likes of so many aboard. He is a monster, perhaps, but not one of strength.

His head spins as he pushes himself up, backing away. Slevin.]

This is almost poetic.

[ spam ]

[andyougoleft]

[The doors on the vacant cabins don't lock, but they do open inward and Slevin is prepared; while Hannibal is dazed, Slevin pulls a chair over, wedges it beneath the handle just in case.

Reaches to click on a light he brought from his cabin, flexing his fingers restlessly as he half circles the man on the floor, unsmiling. He is fit, and large of frame, and trained; he does not fear Hannibal.

He does hate him.]

That's kind of what I thought. [He doesn't stoop to reach for the man, but he is careful to remain between him and the door when he steps within range and kicks out abruptly, hard, for Hannibal's side.] And then I thought you might appreciate going just a little bit further, seeing as how you gave me such a beautiful opportunity to literally pay back an eye for an eye.

[ spam ]

[youwill]

[Hannibal reaches out to block the kick, but it does little more than crack his fingers under Slevin's force. He grunts quietly as he rolls to the side, already summoning the sound of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. He knows exactly what he did to Slevin: he remembers how delicious those sweetbreads were. If he's to die like that, it will not be to the sounds of his own unavoidable pained noises.

It worked well enough, when Sylvanas dragged out her torture. Bach's Cello Suite still strums through his thoughts, even now. He might as well add variety to the music in his mind.

Rising to his feet, flexing jammed fingers, Hannibal does not back away any further.]

You must have been planning this quite a long time. How long have you been watching me?

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[characterdefect]

[Right and wrong are not really concepts Roderick's familiar with, except in the barest of abstract senses. He is, however, intensely comfortable with people, all their foibles, every bizarre facet of every bizarre person. They're fascinating.]

[So the fact that this one seems like a very closed book is enough to get him paying attention. And after all, it's not like anyone gave him a goddamn crossword puzzle to work on.]

Y'comfy?

[Which is spoken more or less to Zero as a whole, though his eyes flick slyly to Slevin's face, his posture. What the hell are you waiting for?]

spam

[andyougoleft]

[The question is issued to Zero, but the warden on duty is ignoring them both completely and there's no one else down there. Slevin's first thought is that pretending to speak to anyone else is tedious.

This does not make it to the surface. He rolls his head where he's got it leaned on the bars behind him, and does not otherwise shift positions at all.]

Of course, though I'd have to drop one star for the industrial theme going on in here. They could've done wonders with warmer tones, less repetition.

[Slevin had seen them bring the new guy in, of course, and he had not moved at all; had not let anything show like the relief inherent at the prospect of having someone else to occupy him. It's boring down here. He'd known it would be. That doesn't mean he likes it any better now that he's halfway done with his completely arbitrary sentence.]

In case you hadn't noticed, the wardens get pretty pissed off when you stick one of them. You'd think they'd expect it, with this crowd, but no. Each time is like the first.

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[characterdefect]

Yeah, well. Places that are supposed to be prisons get points for drab, supposedly. Light blue paint on cinderblocks and terrible kitchen fixtures.

[He pauses and sticks his tongue in his cheek, considering the ceiling. Then, decisively:] Warmer tones and better lighting.

["Stick one of them" is an interesting turn of phrase. Dispassionate, almost too much so. But it's better than abject horror, so Roderick turns to look at Slevin again.]

As far as I can tell, most of the inmates I've met are murderers of some kind. And it's still news? I wish I possessed that kind of capacity for surprise.

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[andyougoleft]

[Slevin considers this gravely, and ventures as gravely:] Perhaps it's early onset Alzheimer's. Each day a new day.

[Then he pulls a face, glancing up at the ceiling too, though he can still see Roderick from the corner of his eye. Still see the shape of his expression and how he fidgets, if at all.]

Oh come on. This prison is like any other prison: full of innocent people. It's the system that needs work.

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[characterdefect]

Oh yeah?

[That's the first he's heard of people wanting actual work done to the system, rather than just bitching about how much they hate it. Work is one step closer to actual ideas.]

What would you change, then, and how? [The way he phrases it is almost academic, though unconsciously so.]

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[patheticvillain]

[Cassel brings a stool.]

[He also brings some knitting, tucked in a cloth bag and shoved up under his arm. He's making a sweater, which is revealed when he sets the stool down outside Slevin's cell and pulls the mess of yarn out. It's not going that well, but he's keeping at it doggedly.]

[There is also a tupperware of cookies, which he toes through the bars before settling down into a rhythmic clacking of needles.]

I was gonna ask if you like chocolate chip, but then I realized that would probably send a bad message about getting special treatment after murdering a guy or whatever.

[False. He realized it sent a bad message back when Babs brought him cookies his single trip to Zero. He just doesn't very much care.]

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[andyougoleft]

[Slevin both is and is not surprised to see Cassel walk through those doors.

He's been avoiding him, just like Cassel wanted ever since their conversation before Christmas; this is no mean feat, considering they're neighbors, but Slevin has accomplished far trickier. He only gets caught up by neighbors when he's not expecting them at all, nor they him.

The knitting is more of a surprise and shouldn't be; the cookies aren't and should be. Slevin does not move off the bed, or even turn his head, tracking Cassel's progress with dark, unreadable eyes.]

As far as I can tell, murdering the right guy does get you special treatment. Which I seem to have done.

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[patheticvillain]

What - you think this is about Hannibal?

[Cassel snorts. Purl one, knit two together. This is gonna be a bitching scarf.]

Nah. It's about the fact that cookies are delicious. Besides, you know that saying about idle hands? It applies double to me. Really, you're doing me a favor.

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[andyougoleft]

[But Slevin shrugs.]

You're the one who brought up murder.

[He just watches for several minutes, apparently uninterested in replying. Then:]

So why haven't I gotten cookies before, then?

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[patheticvillain]

I meant general behavior, not specific. Sort of in the category of bad behavior as a whole.

[Cassel raises his eyebrows, like Slevin has just asked literally the dumbest question ever.]

Cookies are for Zero.