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When Autor steps through the door today, his clothes remain the same: white pants, oversized gray sweater, and glasses. What changes are the ears. Not his, necessarily--those still remain human--but he sprouts fuzzy, gray, and pointed kitten ears on top of his head with a soft, "Oh!" The tail is also new, and telegraphs his body language as the tip curves upward in agitation.

"Really?" he calls up to the ceiling. "Come on!"

Experimentally, he brushes his fingers against one of his fuzzy new appendages--and tears his hand away, blushing. They point in different directions, moving independently of one another to show his ambivalence with the costume.

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"'Here' being the key word," Autor says, his ears flattening against his head. He tucks his tail between his legs again, and then reaches down to wrangle it. "I can't believe you asked to touch my ears. Did you honestly think the answer would be anything but no?"

"A good test to see how much of a feline nature you've actually gained, along with those," Dr. Lecter says.

Autor hmphs at him, adjusting his glasses. "Well, for the record, they do feel good when touched. Other than that your curiosity will have to go unappeased today."

"My curiosity has already been fed," Hannibal assures him. "Another small tessera in my ever-growing map of the world on a scale of 1:1."

"Good luck with that," Autor says flatly, folding his arms again. His ears press against his head. "It's a fool's errand, if you ask me."

"I will never know everything," Dr. Lecter says, "but I will never not want to know about anything."

"That is... probably the only way we're alike," Autor says quietly, unable to look at the man.

"A very important and fundamental way," Hannibal says.

"Not that important," Autor says, shaking himself out as if shedding something. His ears lay flat on his head, and his tail points downward. "Honestly, Dr. Lecter, curiosity is such a common state of affairs. Why, nearly everyone I know is curious once in a while."

"But not to the extent you and I are," Dr. Lecter points out.

Autor hesitates for a while. "All right, I concede that point," he says eventually, his ears swiveling back. "But that's the only way in which we are alike."

"Isn't it the most important part of our personalities?" Hannibal says.

"It's... It's the most flagrant part, perhaps, but not the most important," Autor says, his ears flattening on his head again. His tail points downward while the tip curves up, twitching. "In my case, I'd think that'd be the capacity for kindness or some such fiddle faddle."

"You really try to pretend you believe you have that?" Dr. Lecter says, shaking his head.

Autor shrugs, his ears swiveling about as his tail wraps around his hips. "Kindness is very important. I suspect I've got the capacity for it, same as you."

"A capacity that we both exercise when we see fit," Hannibal says. "To counterbalance the equal capacity for cruelty we share with everybody else as well."

Beat.

"But don't try to tell me you prefer it, or that it gives you a feeling as warm and fuzzy as your ears, beyond a pleasure in moral rectitude."

"I prefer kindness when it's shown to me," Autor says, stiffening. His ears lay flat on his head again. "Why shouldn't I prefer granting the same?"

"That's magical thinking," Dr. Lecter says. "Equivalent to spitting into the sky to make the rain fall. That's not actual kindness."

"You apparently don't see as well as you think you do, Dr. Lecter. I'm not like you. I like being kind to people. What I don't like is some murderer calling me a liar," Autor says, adjusting his glasses. "And insisting on talking to me and then trying to contradict everything I say. It's really tiresome."

"You like being kind to people in the hope they're kind back at you," Hannibal says. "I enjoy feeding people and pampering them to the best of my skills, but while that makes them happy in many different ways, I don't deceive myself that I'm doing it out of kindness. I'm doing it because their contentment, happiness, pleasure, bliss, satisfaction shows me that I am good at it."

Edited 2015-11-01 23:12 (UTC)

"Reciprocal kindness is nice, but it's not why I do it," Autor says, his ears swiveling about. "You and I have different motivations. While I admit to some selfishness, since nobody's truly free of it, I don't care for people like you do just because it shows off my own talents. I actually do it because I want them to be happy, not because I necessarily want to be the one to whom they owe their happiness."

Edited 2015-11-01 23:24 (UTC)

"You don't enjoy being good at what you do?"

"Of course I do, but that's not the basis for how I treat other people," Autor says, shrugging. His ears point forward and slightly to the side, relaxed.

Edited 2015-11-01 23:46 (UTC)

"It means you give them your best -- isn't that better than kindness?"

"What? No," Autor says, squinting at him. His ears roll backward, flattening against his head. "That's such a selfish way to look at it. I see genuine kindness as my best."