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Alana Bloom takes a long time to screw up her courage. She tells herself that she's only leaving a note--just an inquiry, really--and eventually gathers her wits and figures out what she wants to say.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Alana Bloom, and I have frequently suffered harassment at the hands of one Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He is from my world and often tortures me about events from there that occur in his timeline--specifically my future. Does this count as outside business?

I appreciate any advice you care to impart on this matter. Thank you for your kind attention and quick response.

Dr. Alana Bloom

After she drops the note off at the bar, Alana takes a seat there. Bar offers her a latte, and she sips at it gratefully while waiting for someone from Security to respond, her knee jiggling.

[OOC: Open to all, and open forever.]

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"I'm sorry you were backhanded in the first place," Alana says, shaking her head. "Responding to someone with violence... I can't condone that."

She sighs through her nose. "I've been very clear about asking him to leave me alone. I doubt anything I say will stop his rudeness."

"Ah, well. He wasn't the most stable relationship. Evidently I broke his heart. I give it three months before he's with someone else."

Ganymede has had far, far worse happen than a little slap.

"In that case, I wish you all the luck in making him do what he doesn't want to do. If I can help, I will."

"And three months more before he's backhanding someone else?" Alana says, furrowing her brow. "I'm sorry you broke his heart, but that's the wrong way to respond. Not that you can do much about it."

Alana crosses her arms over her chest. "How could you help?"

"I doubt he'll be backhanding much of anyone, considering I broke his wrist and at least a few fingers." He also doesn't take being hit lightly.

"I'm not sure," Ganymede replies. "Honestly. But if I can I will. I get the feeling you don't trust me, Alana."

"Oh," Alana says, her eyes wide. "Well. I hope... I hope that he won't. Anymore."

She looks away. "Trust comes to me with difficulty, Ganymede. You gave me an assumed name when we first met, when there was no reason to hide under an alias. And I am a bit surprised that you'd take my side against Dr. Lecter. It doesn't seem like you would take sides publicly, at least not easily."

"I don't take people hitting me without my consent very well," he says. "When I can respond, I will."

He makes no outward motion of acceptance to her list, and merely blinks once, slowly. "There was every reason to give you the name I am known by in my world, to all but a very few. What would you have done had I told you who and what I was in the state you were in, Alana? I was hardly going to chance you shooting me." And despite his calm confidence at the time, he did not know whether she had more ammunition. "I'm not taking a side against anyone. Certainly I hope Hannibal stops bothering you, and that your condition for deciding that comes before he ceases to be who he is."

Alana is stymied. She doesn't know what to say for a long moment, and mulls over her words. Eventually, she straightens her shoulders.

"I have given you my reasoning," she says. "Whether you choose to accept it is not my concern."

She sips at her latte, reorienting herself. "So, do you often deal with people claiming you've broken their hearts?" she says, her tone light.

Edited 2017-07-31 04:19 (UTC)

"It's happened a few times," he says. Not often, but a few. Ganymede tends to gravitate to either one night stands our long term relationships,often lasting years. "Mostly they're men who haven't habitually been with anyone but women, and of those relatively few. So when it turns out that I am not in love with them..." Ganymede lifts one hand,turning it palm up and opening his fingers, and expression for a shrug when his ribs hurt more than he cares to exacerbate.

"If you've found that as a pattern," Alana says, tilting her head, "then why do you engage with such men?"

"Because it doesn't always happen," he says simply.

"So it's worth the risk?" Alana says, furrowing her brow.

"Humanity is always worth the risk," Ganymede says. "No matter what form that humanity may take."

"A younger me would have agreed with you," Alana says, sighing through her nose. "As I am now, I don't think humanity is worth the risk. How do you keep your optimism throughout the years?"

"The alternative is terrible," Ganymede says. "I've abandoned living with people, near people, anything, for years at a time, and it has never given me the respite I hoped."

He shrugs. "I'm not always optimistic. But I'm never going to give up completely, on everyone. I can't live a life as long as mine like that."

"Humans are social creatures at heart," Alana says, shaking her head. "Very few people are happy as hermits. But there's a difference between giving up completely on everyone and putting yourself at risk."

"At risk of what? Being hit? I may not like it but it's not as though anyone I've slept with save one can kill me," he says dryly.

Alana furrows her brow. Ganymede's logic makes no sense to her.

"Hmm," she says, noncommittal, and sips her latte. "I think you and I have different ideas of what forgiveness is good for."

"I think you'd have to tell me who it is I'm supposed to be forgiving before I could tell you what it would be good for."

"Well, you appear to he forgiving the men who hit you," Alana says, tilting her head. "Forgiveness is good for taking the power to harm away from your aggressor. But forgiving and forgetting are two seoarate things. And you seem to be giving people more xhances to hit you."

"I forgive most of them, yes," he says. "Because fundamentally they only thing they're guilty of that would need my forgiveness is anger that gets the better of them. But there will always be the chance for people to do it again whether I like it or not, because I am attracted to sadistic men. I'd rather chance violence coming to me on terms I do not negotiate than having it not come to me at all."

There's only so much modern, wholly peaceful life he can take.

Alana wonders if he expected her to be horrified. "I see," she says, sipping her latte. "And I'm not surprised. Do you know why you're attracted to sadistic men?"

He really doesn't. It's just a fact of life.

"Because I find pain arousing in a way joy isn't. Happiness is gentle and soft and though it twists the heart you stop feeling the sharp edges, the surprises after a while. Pain, you don't. I like people who don't look at me like I'm insane when I ask them to give it to me."

"Of course. No one likes being looked at like that," Alana says, not unkindly. "Is that what you like so much about Dr. Lecter?"

"Among other things," he says, "Yes. He...appreciates what I am and what I know, and doesn't talk to me like I'm a child or an idiot. An awful lot of people manage one or the other. Or both."

"I see," Alana says, noncommittal. "As I'm sure you've been told countless times before, you and I are very different people."