milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

(OOC: Following this bit of Canonpuncture and breakage ...)

Clarice is hunched up in a chair by the fire, still wearing her sundress. She has not changed clothes. She has not slept. She reads her copy of "Silence of the Lambs" with a kind of desperate attention, but every so often she has to set it down.

[Summary: Clarice is broken, broken, broken. Meg and Angua give her practical advice, she confesses some things to Barry, she ~~therapizes~~ talks to Ron about Harry and being fictional, the Opera Ghost serenades her creepily, and Aziraphael is at a loss for advice.]

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"But how?" the policeman insists. "How did the person who wrote the book know your thoughts and feelings? That sounds like something not even a wizard would want to do."

Clarice shrugs helplessly.

"I don't know. I've never heard of this man in my life, the man who wrote it down. But I've read it-- most of it-- and it's right. It's all exactly right."

Angua stares.

"That's awful!" she declares finally. "And this man that read it, he's a criminal from your world, I take it?"

Clarice nods, tight-lipped.

"He was once a psychiatrist," she says. "I'm sure he found it a fascinating study."

Angua's eyes narrow and she growls softly.

"Bastard. I'm really sorry, Clarice."

Clarice feels a bizarre urge to defend Lecter from that particular insult, and that just makes her angry.

"Thanks," she growls.

Angua watches Clarice for a few seconds.

"So, what are you going to do now?"

Clarice doesn't answer for a minute.

"What can I do?"

Angua considers this carefully.

"That depends what kind of secrets were in the book that he knows about now," she says.

Clarice sighs, raking her fingers through her hair.

"My past. My feelings, my thoughts ... my dreams. But he knew about my dreams already."

"Does it affect the way you work with him?" Does it involves secrets like, "oh, by the way, every months I grow a tail"?

"Sorry, of course it does. I mean, what I think you'd have to do is reassess what he knows about you and change your investigation appropriately. Be as unpredictable as you can."

"What if he's expecting that?" Clarice asks, faintly wry.

"Then you just have to do your best," Angua says.

Clarice nods tiredly.

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I just ... when someone can get inside your head-- I mean, has that ever happened to you?"

"Never," Angua admits. "But I'd hate it to. I have some pretty dark secrets I wouldn't want airing. Especially not to the criminals of the city. It would make my job almost impossible."

"That's how I feel," Clarice replies with more energy than she's displayed thus far in the conversation. "I have ... I guess you could call him a patient-- and there are people I want to help. Now I don't know if I can do that."

As long as it doesn't mean he's shooting at you with silver bolts.

"Help them how? And why can't you?"

"There are a few people," Clarice says, gesturing vaguely. "A man who's had some kind of breakdown. A boy whose friend is harassed. A ... man who has violent episodes. And I feel like if I got myself into this, who am I to try and help anybody? What are my qualifications?"

Angua frowns.

"You didn't get yourself into anything. Some sick sort of wizard wrote a book about your feelings. That doesn't make your qualification any less. You're still you."

Clarice sighs.

"It gets a little more complicated than that," she says. "I knew that he knew something. I could have stopped going to him, and I should have ... but I thought I knew how to handle it. I was stupid."

Angua frowns, having completely lost the thread of the conversation.

"Going to him?"

"He's in jail here," Clarice explains. "I was hired to talk to him ... try and integrate him back into the bar community."

"Oh," Angua pauses. Integrating people back into the community is something Carrot's introduced to Ankh-Morpork, but not for dangerous psychopaths.

"You think someone like that can be integrated?"

"Here he can," Clarice says, "because of the unique capabilities of so many of the patrons. Back in my world? I'd say not."

"Unique capabilities in what way?" Angua's still fairly new to the bar.