milliways_bar | (no subject)

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As entrances to Milliways go, this is one of the more unprepossessing. A man stumbles through the door in slacks and T-shirt (a particular brand of underwear showing above his waistband); despite the fairly well-groomed hair and care with his appearance, he still seems a little crumpled and ungainly. The door swings near someone, and he instantly apologises before standing almost straight and looking around.

(Interesting.)

'...oh. Um.

...oh.'

Well, this is new. Jim likes new.

[OOC: Note on playing with Jim here. If more than one person tags, could we please only have one intro thread? Anything after the first will find him either sitting a little nervously at the bar, or gazing in wonder out of the observation window. Thanks! :D]

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'Oh yeah, of course. I bet.'

Jim from I.T. is relieved.

Jim is thinking it might be fun to test that out. He'll see who's around. He doesn't get his own hands dirty, after all.

'I was told the rules. They seem sensible.'

And are therefore for sensible people.

"Very sensible," Hannibal Lecter agrees. "And very sane. And sometimes, there are little gaps between the letters of those simple rules, and the good-will of the good people who keep them up. That can go against you, or in your favour."

He half-laughs, the sort of noise someone makes when they're surprised to hear something, and don't quite know why they've been told it, and it's also surprisingly inappropriate.

Basically, it's odd that Hannibal Lecter would be so openly helpful, unless he knows something he shouldn't. He gets that 'Jim from I.T.' is already finished with this man, but...well, perhaps it's not so surprising that the doctor makes no bones about cutting through it. Perhaps he feels it's the the quickest route to getting his full name - but then, would it even mean anything to him?

'Reading between the lines, I'd say it's up to me which way it goes.'

He sets his elbow on the counter, and some of the disguise slips away. Just a touch. Enough to make it clear he's choosing to let it go, and it can come back at any time.

'And what do the good people here think of you, if I may ask?'

"Unless they heard your name under the wrong sort of circumstances," Hannibal Lecter says, "and then visibly suppress a flinch when you introduce yourself. Some, of course, very visibly do not flinch."

He smiles at Jim, politely and assuredly. Bones, it seems, are not being made at all.

'Maybe they've never heard of you.'

He's dying to know whether anyone's heard of James Moriarty. Dying.

But he readies the obvious excuse also - he could be from Hannibal's world in the future, quite easily. No one need mention the word story at all.

'It doesn't mean they don't care.'

"Not flinching at recognition, and not knowing me from Adam," Lecter says, "is quite different. And in the former case, it's obvious they do care."

Jim has already been through this with himself. Does he care what Lecter does? Well. It's not his style. It's distasteful - Jim doesn't believe in getting his own hands dirty, and especially not to that degree. But hey, live and live.

In a manner of speaking.

'I expect more people flinch than don't.'

He maintains there is probably more than one reason why people wouldn't.

"Separating the sheeple from the werewolves," Lecter says. "The distinctions are always useful. There are some quite annoying and self-righteous ankle-biters here, I should warn you."

'Oh?'

Well, there are always those.

'Do they have names?'

He could find out the old-fashioned way, but why bother if there's a ready source here?

"DCI Gene Hunt," Lexter says "As rude as he is narrow-minded. Somebody with a strange sense of humour seems to have thought it would be fun to let the man join Security here."

He does not laugh.

But oh God that is gold.

'Anyone else?'

"There's a doctor here who knows everybody, a little Brit working for the NHS as home, with a number of children tagging along, by name of Guppy Sandhu," Lecter says. "Things always happens to him, as if right out of some endless hospital soap opera. He's easily scared and then spreads panic. Inspector Javert, luckily, is just a patron here as he's as unbending as you'd expect him. He comes over like somebody on the spectrum, almost, but it's probably just the deprivation of his early 19th century upbringing in utter poverty that has left him a bit stunted while some important windows of development whizzed on by throughout his childhood. Probably best avoid him as he's only very moderately entertaining for a while."

Endless hospital soap opera? Not outside the realm of possibility, and easy enough to discover.

'Spreads panic?'

How extraordinarily useful. And he chuckles, keeping the awkwardness.

'19th century French people seem to becoming a theme of this conversation. Do they bother you that much?'

Bother. Entertain. Annoy.

"There is rather a lot of them here at the moment," Lecter says. "You can't throw a brick without hitting one. They are definitely a factor at the moment."

So, he'll read the book again. It won't take long, and even if he never ends up meeting any of them, it'll be good to refresh his memory regarding people who are around this bar a lot.

'And you? Did you bring any friends with you?'

"Three other people from my world are here," Dr. Lecter says, "but for all of them, their reality has already forked off."

This is new. He looks carefully blank.

'What does that mean?'

He does hate having to ask that but at the same time, there's a thrill of novelty to it.

"It means that their world already differs from what I remember as my story. One whom I remember having died beyond any doubt, for example, has already crossed beyond her cut-off point with the help of Milliways."

'This place can alter things for each person, and create a whole new-'

It's not a question, it's a statement he's speaking out loud to himself. Well. The thought of changing things has crossed his mind of course, but each person creating a differing alternate based on their reality? He's well familiar with the many-universe theory of course, but to find proof, to see how it can be made to pass...

...well, his thoughts are stretching on and on, and that's usually a dangerous prospect.

'Interesting,' is all he says.

"Quite."

A corner of his mouth twitches. Just for a second, if that.

Then he straightens up, and nods his head at the dodo.

'How do you even know when it's done? Nothing to compare it to, and all that.'

"I do know when a roast of any size or kind is done," Lecter says, smiling. "The rest is a question of scales and thermometers."

'You sound like an expert in food.'

He did not in any way, shape or form, know that already. Nuh uh.

"Probably because I am," Dr. Lecter says, tilting his head in a slightly amused manner.

Jim looks amused too, and tilts his head the other way.

'Are you going to try it?'