versusnurture | twenty ♢ private & spam

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twenty ♢ private & spam

private/voice } ben

I want to go.

[This quiet but insistent. She wants to go. She hasn't been outside in so long. She wants to go.]

[She doesn't want to go alone, though.]

private/voice } will

[She debates not contacting him. She's still angry at what she considers to be his betrayal, but - well, he's still Will. They were still supposed to be family. And she thinks he will understand her need for quiet, for green, for whatever there is to find out there.]

Did you see what it is yet? Outside.

spam } throughout port

[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]

[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]

[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]

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[From Abigail's perspective, Blight is stomping. Then again, he strikes her as a stompy sort of person. Most of her memories of him have come back now, and they are universally warm and cold at the same time. Warm because she holds him in such high regard, because she respects him in a way she respects so few people anymore; cold because they're both at their cores cold people, standoffish, abrupt in their very different ways. Because coldness is what suits them.]

[This place clearly doesn't suit him. She can tell that the second he settles beneath the tree she's chosen to shimmy up. She pauses in the process of carving arrows in the branch on which she's lying and puts her chin in her hand, watching him . . . yes. Sulk. Sulk is the word for what he's doing.]

[Eventually, she sits up, the branch creaking under her, and leans against the trunk. The woods make her feel freer than she has in ages, and more playful, too; she shakes a branch until a few leaves fall down on his head, tucking the knife into a back loop of her pants for safe-keeping.]

[He would object to being described as sulking, but on principle alone...because the truth is that, yes, there really aren't many other good words to describe what he's currently doing.

When the first leaves to start to fall he scowls and brushes them off his shoulder absently; when they keep falling, he begins to suspect that this cannot possibly be an accident. He stands up swiftly, shoulders drawn and tight, muttering invective under his breath in a scalded tone. Spinning around he looks directly up.

He was anticipating a squirrel, or something similar, or whatever counts as the like on this alien world. When he spots a person his first reaction is to get angrier -- when he thinks he recognizes Abigail, that fades in favor of surprise. He doesn't say anything at first, simply peering in her direction.]

Hi.

[Her chin is on her folded hands, her head nearly upside-down as she looks down at him.]

You don't like it out here, do you?

[She feels sort of sorry about this. She likes it. It makes her feel quieter.]

[He does his best to regain composure, though he still gazes at her in a curious fashion. Drawing his hands together behind his back, he clasps them, lifting his chin to do his best meeting her gaze without straining his neck.

He knew that her father taught her how to hunt, that she must have spent time in the outdoors. It never occurred to him however to think of her as...woodsy.]

No. I don't. It's not my type of environment.

[His bad mood lingers in his tone, but where with most others his words would be a least a little snapped out, for her he explains things rationally.]

I was born in a big city. Raised there, all my life. Went for most of my college schooling there. Married a woman from another big city, and brought her back to live in mine. I've...been around nature before, but only in small amounts. In passing.

It's like a second home for me. But I understand. I don't think I could live in a city.

[She doesn't seem bothered by his mood or his tone; just shimmies back toward the root of the branch and steps onto the next branch down, then the one after, until she lands softly on the ground at his side. She goes into a crouch beside him, her hands hanging in the space between her knees.]

It won't last long. [It would be comforting if she wasn't deliberately trying to make it anything but - pressing a deliberate wistfulness into her tone.] I just like the space, that's all.

To each their own, as they say. [Country mouse, city mouse. Some fables hold true no matter how annoying or preciously cloying they can get through repetition over time.

When she crouches down next to him it doesn't even take a second's consideration to sit down again, so they can be on the same level. In all of his equations on her, Abigail always remains trustworthy - because he needs her to be; and because it is seemingly important to her in some way that she be thought of by him as such.

He's spent much time over the past week fighting within himself over whether people are or are not his friends, whether he should or should not be caring about them. But he finds what to do about her was never in question. Because it was never quite about that sort of thing, with her. He's always seen her as useful, important. Interesting.]

I can't blame you. If it were something I was more familiar with, I would imagine I would feel the same way.

But then that's the nature of the Barge, isn't it. Everything is transitory. [A pause, and he frowns, thoughtful, as he has to add:] Except of course for the few things that aren't.

[It's . . . nice that he stays close. Not too close, but not far enough to tell her that her presence is annoying. And it's not exactly comforting, either, to be near him. Just calming, like squeezing very hard on a stress ball. She knows he understands the way her mind works. It means a lot, being understood.]

The people are transitory. [She knows this because she was, for a while. She left Ben. She left everyone.] What isn't?

[A soft chortle.] That's funny; I was going to say that the people aren't. But no, I suppose you're right about that too. They can be taken, or...they can decide to leave.

[And he frowns, thinking of Jack. Frowns a bit harder as he forces himself to not think of Jack.

This place builds its own little community, but then so easily it can be torn asunder. Makes him wonder why he should trust or invest in anything at all.]

You asked when you returned here, how long it had been on the barge. How long was it for you, on the other side of things?

[In the busy silence of her own mind, she imagines Ben leaving and is afraid. She doesn't say anything about it, though. Saying it might be like wishing it into being. She won't. She won't.]

[His question catches her off-guard. She thought he might stay more distant than this. She wonders if he realizes how big the question he's asking really is, what it means to her. How often she's lost time. How uncertain and transitory time is, along with everything else.]

It was just a few months. I don't know . . . exactly how many. It was. [Gnawing her lip, she considers phrasing.] Hard to tell.

I'd ask you what happened, but. ["I don't really care", he wants to say. And it wouldn't be entirely wrong. But he does care if only for how it effected her. What it did to her. What it made her feel. What she's feeling now, as a result.] The significant part is, obviously something did. You wouldn't have come back acting as you were, otherwise.

[He wishes he could stay more distant. But while she's been away, things have happened to him too.]

Acting as I was.

[It isn't a question. She isn't asking for clarification. She knows she was acting strange. She barely even remembers what 'acting normal' looks like anymore, only that she's not doing it. It's more . . . an amused acknowledgment. Acting like a crazy person. Acting abnormal.]

[Obviously, something happened.]

Part of the significant part is - I didn't spend much time outside. So being here is - I know it isn't, but it feels like a gift, one that someone's going to take away really soon.

And they are. In just a couple of days.

I don't know why I'm telling you this.

I don't know why I'm listening. Why I'm interested.

[It could be entirely the wrong thing to say, but he says it anyway. For some reason this seems as good a time for any to go for broke, 'be' in the moment, as much as he is capable.

It's an odd conversation between two odd people at an odd moment on an odd little world. There are times when he feels like nothing that's happening to him could possibly be real; there are times when he feels as if life on the barge has been the most real thing he's ever experienced.

This conversation is somehow managing to be both of them.]

But I am.

So here we both are, then.

Here we both are.

[She looks sideways at him with a spark of her old curiosity. If he doesn't know why he's doing what he's doing, she understands even less. She's not a different person but she's come through the fire with dulled senses, a vastly reduced ability to instinctively understand other people.]

[Why Blight is here, sitting next to her, listening, why he didn't just walk away - she can't say. But she can detect the spark of happiness that grows in her in response to it. She wants to be alone, but she takes comfort in his presence, too. She is not afraid with him, of him or for him.]

[She leans against the trunk and looks up, staring at the shadows the leaves make against the trees.]

If you didn't have to be here, where would you go? [She asks this because she doesn't know the answer for herself. She doesn't have a home anymore. Hannibal became her home at some point, and she knows that isn't good enough - isn't good at all. But she doesn't have an alternative.]

I want to go back to Gotham. But the truth is, I don't know what would be waiting for me there. [The answer is automatic because he purposely doesn't give himself any time to think. She deserves honestly, if only because he's gotten the sense it hasn't always been something other people give her.

(He thinks about Dillon Cole, stressing that Blight and Hannibal are nothing alike; that even if he isn't a good person he's still better for Abigail. He doesn't know why that thought aggravates him so. Shouldn't it be a compliment?)

Making himself more comfortable he rests his right elbow across his knee, splinted fingers in the palm of his left as he looks at them with an idle frown.]

Even with my death removed from the equation, I'd be facing an arrest, an inquisition, likely a very public humiliation. My stake in the company has all been officially, legally transferred to my son...and as for my son himself. [His frown grows tighter, briefly.] I don't know if there's any point left to that. If either of us has anything left to say.

[Paxton for his part made his opinion very clear, with the whole patricide and all. And Derek still has no idea what he would want to say to him anymore.

Except for 'Why?' And what's the point in that?]

[Abigail shifts slightly during this explanation. In truth, she's wondering at it. The details are mostly different, but there's this similarity: their old lives have both been obliterated. His in one way, hers in another.]

[Her lip trembles, but not because she is going to cry. She's just trying to find the words.]

I want to go home, too. But even if I hadn't died, everything's - gone. All of our money divided up as reparations to the families of the girls my father killed. The house, too. I didn't get any of it. And I had an idea how to make money - I was, was going to write a book, but - I don't know if I can anymore.

Everyone knows my face, my name. I wouldn't be able to start over anonymously. And the FBI will catch up with me. You can get out of some things if you have money, or at least run, but I won't have anything.

I don't understand the point of being here if - if there's nowhere to go back to.

It does all seem rather...a pointless exercise then, doesn't it?

[He's frowning, but not at her. Looking away, not really looking at anything. Abigail is young; she has opportunity, she has time to start over. She didn't make anything for herself yet, not really. A name, a life. Everything was taken from her - but in a way she already had nothing to lose.

Except freedom. Except any means to support herself.

Funny how they both have the same problem...but opposite halves to it.]

I still have money. [The words come out of him slightly hushed, slightly hurried. He hasn't told anyone on the Barge this yet, even if he's not really sure why it'd need to be a secret. It's not as if anyone could do anything about it.

But he's paranoid to his last, when it comes to his power, his security. And this is the last chance he might have, if he really does ever escape.]

Accounts and assets my son will never find, even if he looks for a hundred years. Things I tucked away in private. Just in case. None of it ties back to my name, untraceable in every way. I had a very long time to set it all up. It's not nearly enough to start over on the same scale...but it's enough to start over. Buy a new name, a new share in a business...or enough to simply live comfortably, the rest of my days.

[It'd be hard to just disappear, between the police and Batman and the fact that nowadays he glows in the dark. But. It's not impossible.]

Only that would mean leaving Gotham for good. The city that's always been my home, the city that I had a hand in making over this past generation. [He absently presses a hand to the front of his throat; it feels claustrophobic to even consider, as if he can't breathe. Having that entire world that's always been his taken away from him, having to give up on the fight on it willingly.] Walking away from it, and never looking back.

[She watches him as he speaks. The way he protects his throat, the way he doesn't look at her. The way he acts as though this is all a secret, even though she isn't that surprised. Is she the only one who knows? That can't possibly be.]

[Can it?]

[Frowning sharply, she tucks her hands into her lap and curls up against the tree trunk. While he looks away, she looks at him, steady and unflinching.]

It would mean never coming home again.

[She did this once. But not by choice. It's different when it's by choice. More difficult. Maybe impossible.]

Could you do it? Could you really, for good?

[There's silence again, if only in brief, as he tries to actually think about that answer. With so many things he's in the habit of responding automatically, pursuing lines of thought and patterns of behavior that have been well-worn into him over the years, stubborn and unyielding, resistant to change. Why do it; well because he does, that's why. But with a few people, Abigail included, he sometimes stops first. He actually thinks.

It unnerves him a little every time. Because often the answers change when he does that. He doesn't feel the way that he thought he would, doesn't think the way he should be.

He hates this sense of uncertainly. It always strikes at him as loss of stability, of control. A feeling of powerlessness.]

I don't know. Factually speaking, I could; of course I could. It would be almost crazy not to. Such an attachment to one place, especially one that no longer does me any good: it isn't...practical.

[But this is the cold harsh truth that taunts him: feelings, real feelings, are rarely practical.]

I believe it is entirely possible that given the chance again I could gather my remaining resources and walk away. I just don't know what it would do to me, after. Whether I wouldn't constantly be haunted by the desire to look back again. Whether it wouldn't frustrate me to my very end.

[Would he have the strength and conviction to start over, really start over, and successfully keep himself hidden and safe? Or would he go so bitter with the sense of loss it would drive him completely mad?]

[She stiffens as he speaks. Not because what he's saying about Gotham resonates - she doesn't, honestly, care about Gotham, except that it has a code of criminality, a strict code of black and white with a gaping chasm of gray amorality in the middle, except that she was told once that she'd fit in there, except that so many of the people who come from Gotham seem to resonate with her. No, she doesn't care about Gotham - but what he's saying, it's like he's talking about her.]

[So few people understand the draw she has to Hannibal. It's neither logical nor rational nor, at this point, strictly familial. No, it's more than that, deeper, more dangerous. Hannibal is home. If she tried to leave him - which would be the smart thing, the good plan, the best use of her considerable self-preservation instinct - she would be leaving her home behind, no matter how twisted and dirty and foul home has become. And she can't do that.]

[It would haunt her to the end of her days.]

[A deep, shuddering exhale. Not because she needs to, but to signal to her companion that there is a trade of information to be had here, if he wants it. Otherwise she'll keep it secret. She doesn't particularly want to share, but she knows how their conversations usually work.]

Sometimes even the most practical people aren't very practical.

[He listens to the sound of her exhale. He gets what she's saying there, he thinks. Or not saying, yet. He parses between the lines.

The trading back and forth is getting mildly exhausting, and one of these days he thinks he'll just have to give in and abandon it. But for now, he hangs onto that sense of stability, of familiar ground.

Plus...now he's honestly curious.]

No. But it's all the worse for them, when that happens. What an unfortunate feeling. Being out of your element.

[He keeps it from showing but inwardly he braces himself before turning his head to look at her, meet her gaze directly in the eye. He knows she's been looking at him the whole time, unblinking.]

If you have nothing left to run from, then I wonder what lack of practicality it is that's plaguing you.

[She smiles, humorless, grim, thin. It's moments like these when she looks paler than life should allow, almost anemic, when her appearance reflects all the sun she hasn't seen these past few months. The ugly things she's seen and heard and done. She saw Alana's head crack on the concrete, and she sees it again now, and she feels regret but she also . . . doesn't. Both at once, the strangest cognitive dissonance.]

[She still doesn't blink. Her gaze is steady. Someone who didn't know her well might find no fear behind her eyes. No remorse. Maybe he will.]

Not something. Someone.

[Someones, really. All her fathers. But the last clings hardest, like a burr that digs itself in deliberately deep, until ripping it away would rip away part of her for good and forever.]

[He thinks he sees something in those eyes, all right. He keeps looking deep, piercing. Trying to sort it out enough to bring some sense of stability to the surface. Never mind what he likely knows already: the answer, any answer, is complicated.

He sees that pale, grim, grinning look to her face. He thinks she wants to share something, even if the act of doing it is hurting her. Maybe more accurately, she needs to share. She needs to be asked.

So he gives it to her, all flat and deep intonation:]

Go on.

[It's key that he is emotionally uninvested - or at least seems that way. It means both that she's being less of a burden on someone outside herself and that she can focus on what she is feeling, where she is hurting. It means she can be selfish without harming anyone else, and that, though she isn't consciously aware of it, is crucial to becoming exactly the monster she most wants to be. A sympathetic monster. Something utterly divorced from what Hannibal wants for her.]

[Even now she doesn't look away. Her grin fades, replaced by something that has been noticeably absent from her face since she returned, something that grows from the inside and leaches outward until it's strong enough the whole world can see: determination. She's dead-set on telling the truth, just this one time, and then she can go back to hiding for a while.]

Leaving Hannibal means leaving home. He made himself my home. He's the last connection to - everything I had before. And I love him. Like family.

He told me to kill people and I did. He told me to die and I did. If he told me to kill you, I'd try, even though--

Do you understand what I'm saying? I should walk away. I should never talk to him again. But it would kill me.

[He sees that determination. It rivets him, fixes him in place. If she didn't already have his attention, well, she would certainly have it now. He thinks this may be the underlying thread that first drew him to her in the first place, giving her his tacit approval: that ability to do whatever it takes to keep going, a hungry and driving need for survival that's more second nature that truly willed into being.

He knows what that's like. He knows how a great a strength it can be, even as times it feels like it's destroying you.

He wouldn't be Blight if not for the refusal of something within him to simply die when he probably should.]

I understand.

[He's cringing, a bit; it's not so much in his actual expression, as it is in his voice, his posture. He dislikes strongly that of all people she would be so anchored to, it would have to be Hannibal Lecter. He thinks she is so much better than that. But he won't try to tell her what to do - because that is after all what Hannibal himself would do.

And while he hates that he can even admit it, he does have more than an inkling, what she might feel like.]

Anyone else who would ever betray me, even dare to think of trying to defy me...they would get nothing but my disdain, my disgust, and then I would destroy them. I have no use for such. Fallacies.

[His mouth twists into a sneer, then relaxes back into a frown proper.]

I think that I tried to kill my son, right before I died. My memories aren't all that clear. But I was acting out of rage and self-defense, all instinct. Now, that I can think on it, even if I were given the chance...I couldn't do that, to him. I couldn't.

I should. I doubt that he would spare me in return, were he to have another shot. But I can't make myself want him dead. And I can't make myself learn to hate him. He's disappointed me, disrespected me, and our relationship was never one of love.

But...he is still my son. No matter what.

He sounds like he deserves death.

[She is quiet, contemplative. Probably if Paxton were here, she wouldn't try to harm him, out of respect for his father. But she'd want to, that's the difference. Where Blight can't, she could, and would, easily, if asked to. It might be a relief.]

[Just the same, she knows Hannibal would be dead so many more times over if people didn't respect her and hold off for her sake. For just a moment, a series of seconds strung together, that makes her feel powerful. Then it just makes her feel hollow.]

But you probably think the same thing about Hannibal, right? That he deserves it. That he doesn't deserve me.

I think . . . if people were truly individualistic, it would be easier for each of us. But then I guess if we didn't protect each other even when it didn't make sense, we'd all be dead.

Deader.

[If Paxton came here and tried to kill Blight, though, she'd kill him. That's where her instinct to preserve those close to her pushes past her instinct to allow them to make her own decisions. She will never say this, wonders if Blight knows it's true. Wonders if it's hypocritical. Decides she doesn't care much.]

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