versusnurture | fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

private/voice } ben

[She contacts her warden as soon as Hannibal makes his announcement. Last night, when she checked in, she was distant; this morning she seemed more confident. This afternoon, she's shaky, uncertain, every bone in her body trembling, it feels like.]

Ben. I lost time. [This is an excuse, she knows.]

He made me dinner, Ben.

public } voice

[She cuts the feed on, then off. On/off, on/off, in strange but rhythmic patterns like Morse code.]

[She's fishing. Questions, accusations will come - she remembers that much from last time, with her real father, with Garret Hobbs, the Shrike. She wants them now. She doesn't want to wait.]

public } spam

[She doesn't change her routine, not even slightly. Which is not to say she's not afraid: she's terrified. There's no Freddie Lounds here to publicly doctor this story, to minimize her shame. Even if there was, she honestly isn't sure she'd want that anymore.]

[So she walks the halls and accepts what comes, goes to the art room, goes to lunch, visits Ben on his shift. Sometimes she goes to the CES and forgets where she is and how time passes. Hours and hours go by as she sits under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest.]

[This is the only vulnerability she shows, and it is accidental.]

private } zane

I know what he wants from me so I can ask him for information if that's what you want.

[It's about the Emperor, of course; she no longer has the privilege, in her own mind, of contacting Zane for any reason other than business.]

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Don't give me orders.

[She switches to voice anyway, after a moment of thought. She doesn't sound scared anymore. She sounds determined, sharp, if a little frayed.]

He wants me to ascend. If you want to get fancy. He wants me to be above all of this. Awesome and terrible.

And I'm saying this because it's not all my fault but it's part my fault, and I'm the only one who knows both what he wants from me and how not to become it.

I want to help.

You think that I'd just throw you at him? That because I love him that I'd use you?

It's my choice! Not yours!

[She screams before she can stop herself, snarling and furious at how he won't listen. Her voice catches and jumps an octave on the last word, which alerts her to the fact that she needs to breathe.]

[Which she does. Slowly and steadily. She folds her hands in her lap and lets silence stretch as she calms herself.]

[When she speaks again, she's calm, almost affectless.]

I'm sorry. But if you think I'm asking to be used, you're wrong. I don't know how to find people - I can barely protect myself - but I know at least a corner of his mind, and I want. To. Help.

It was my choice to offer. It's your choice to refuse.

[ A choked sound. And then smashing glass. ]

You were my sister! And he. Is a monster.

[ He hates that he is forced into these choices. If he sends her to Hannibal, Hannibal wins. If he doesn't, Hannibal wins. ]

Don't you use me as an excuse to get near him.

You wouldn't be so upset if you didn't see the logic in it

You were my brother. And you protected me from monsters, and I loved you for that. But I have to fight them myself now.

If you go, he wins.

I'm not allowed to go near him. Ben won't let me. But I can still talk to him. If we just talk, it's not as bad.

I won't let him win, Zane.

You always let him win.

There's a difference between love and manipulation.

I want love.

He underestimates me because he thinks that everyone is less than him. That's why he wants me to be like him - he likes me, he wants me to be more. But no one should ever underestimate me again.

And what's different about now than last week? Why should I believe you?

What's different between now and last week is that last week the man I knew was a monster hadn't eaten anyone. He hadn't fed me parts of human beings and used euphemisms that I could see by the end were a lie. I hadn't kept eating because I knew that if I didn't I would be next. I hadn't looked in the eyes of an innocent man and known that if I was told to cut his throat I'd do it in a heartbeat, and some part of me would like it. I hadn't realized that keeping my father's - Hannibal's secret wasn't necessary because people won't treat me like a botched creation, a monstrous copy of a monster here until I choose to do something ugly all for myself. That keeping that secret and allowing people to get hurt wasn't necessary because even after all of that there are people who choose to forgive me and give me the option to be something else no matter whether I deserve it or not.

Last week I was unenlightened. Last week I had no drive.

Last week I didn't feel like I'd betrayed you.

Edited 2013-10-16 03:04 (UTC)

And killing you wasn't enough, for you to believe how bad he is?

No. Realizing that the reason he killed me was to push someone more innocent and kind than I could ever be into a corner - that was enough.

Any other questions?

I don't want to do this, Abigail! You're pushing me into a choice I can't make.

Fine. If you don't want the choice, I'll take it.

[ He still doesn't really believe that she's changed. He believes the heartless part of her is larger than the part that would care about him. He believes he is the weaker, because - isn't he always? He viciously hates himself for even contemplating it, and hates her, too, for offering. For always being willing to step back up to Hannibal when the only solution, the only one is escape. Shed that life like a shell and spend all the rest of your years carving the scars out of your flesh.

He doesn't want her to do it, but can't tell her no. He slams his hand down on the communicator, trying to cut it off, but only succeeding in knocking it off the table.

He gropes for the shards of glass scattered from what he broke, earlier, a tall cup. Takes a fistful and squeezes, and only as the pain breaks on him is he able to let out the sob that was building. Another follows, and another, and he can't breathe. ]

[On the other end of the line, her eyes narrow. She hates him, too, for treating her like a child, for acting as though it's about him and not about the Emperor's safety - for acting like she wouldn't respect his wishes regardless of whether they meshed with her goals or not.]

[But she is not, by any means, incapable of empathy. She hears what he's doing and knows it intimately. Security at the hospital was not tight. They let her escape - they allowed other things, too. It really wasn't very good. She knows. She remembers, too, when he'd try it at dinner and Hannibal would smile and reel him in.]

[If he were here, she'd spit at his feet.]

My choice is to stay away.

[And to resent it.]

You really don't know what I'm made of, do you.

I'm trusting the Emperor - to survive. To be intact. No matter what - was - done to him.

I won't - ever - trust that man to speak with you - and not hurt you.

[ He is gritting the sobs back. Forcing them down. Blood drips down his wrist. ]

Letting you be hurt to save him - is wrong. It's wrong. I have to believe in that.

Letting.

[The word crunches out between grit teeth. Letting. She won't be a user - she promised Harvey, Two-Face, too - but that doesn't mean she'll always be used. Like a puppet passed between powerful men. A toy. Potentiality, to peer at through the bars of her own psyche, wondering when she will break free, or if she'll be good.]

[She doesn't say any more. She'll let him treat this as though it's his own sorrow. But the time will come when she has knives - and they won't hurt Zane, but they'll show. She will be an imperfect monster.]

Then I'm sorry for asking you to make one choice that was right and one that was wrong. Because everything is obviously that clear-cut.

I know what you're doing. [Her voice contains no comfort - the barest hint of something exasperatedly sororal, but nothing nice.] Go get someone to fix up whatever you just did to yourself.

Damn you, Abigail! If you don't want me to control you, then don't let me! If you don't want me to decide, then don't ask me! If you want to get him back, then get him back, and tell me to forgive you, because I will.

I know I'm not strong. You don't have to tell me.

[ His hand is still clenched. He would usually call the Emperor. There's one other option, and it forces him into a conversation he doesn't really want to have. Morgana deserves an apology from him. ]

Don't flatter yourself. You don't have the power to control me. I wanted you to decide - which you never did, you just spent this whole conversation talking about how it's unfair for me to give you a choice - but I wanted you to because you've had enough choices taken away yourself. And now that I tell you what my choice is, you talk about letting me be hurt. The only one who can let me be hurt is me.

I don't care if you're not strong. But you don't care enough to listen to what's coming out of my mouth, much less think that I might change. You don't think that seeing other people in pain because of what the man I've been calling my father did might have had an effect. What would have happened, do you think, if your warden had thought you incapable of change and uncaring?

This was about the Emperor's safety and your sadness and you made it, somehow, about my weakness. About letting. I wanted your forgiveness but I don't anymore, not after this, not when it's clear you only think I can only ever be bait.

Go to hell, Zane.

[She hangs up.]

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fifth ♢ private + voice + spam

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