Like a spirit in the night

[foreshadower]

WHO: SHADE and HANNIBAL
WHERE: Shade's mansion
WHEN: Uhhhh a week or so ago??
WARNINGS: Hannibal. Just Hannibal.
SUMMARY: Cooking bros being cooking bros
FORMAT: Quick!



[ Shade had invited Hannibal over to the mansion because he often seemed like the best sort of company Shade could ask for. Hannibal was posh, polished, and made a fantastic conversation partner. The worst part was that he was having trouble remaining human in the City, the same way he'd fallen further and further from it even in his own home, before he'd become even more invested in Opal's well-being. The issue was, he didn't think he would find the same thing happening to the City. It just didn't have the same...well, anything that Opal did.

Sitting in a seat in his parlor, he shfted, pulling a teacup from the sidetable, giving Hannibal a wan smile. Conversation was light, easy, but he found tthat the man was likely suffering from a similar sort of homesickness that Shade was. Having things be not the same as they had been for Shade for quite some time was difficult to handle. He suspected that Hannibal was the same way, used to his luxuries, and annoyed and frustrated that he didn't have what he wanted -- his every fancy not met.

He was used to that, being able to do what he wanted, but here it almost wasn't worth it. ]

Tell me, Hannibal, what have you found enjoyable thus far in the City?

Comments

[foreshadower]

[ Shade sighed, sipping mildly at his tea again. The story about the Ludlows was intwined with his history in a unique way. They may not be immortal, but the family had this way of seeming so. He'd only reconciled with one -- whom he'd thought was the last -- until the Spider appeared in Opal.

Ah, but how well had that turned out for him, hm? Hopefully, he didn't have another bastard lingering somewhere out there, learning to hate him like all of his family had. He was the bogeyman, the creature who would come to take little Ludlow children at night, and he assumed that fear held until the discovered he wasn't a figment, and then the hatred already had time to fester and grow. ]

I thought them innocent of their family's misgivings. It turned out, as I discovered a few years later, that they were no better than the tree they had fell from. They'd sworn revenge, and the boy shot me in the streets.

This was, of course, before I had discovered my immortality. I thought myself bleeding out when I killed him, but I lay there, thinking my life slipping away, until I discovered that perhaps the boy hadn't succeeded, and I wasn't dying a long and painful death.

The boy had made certain to continue this cycle, as well. The sister, he told me, had spent her entire life mothering children.

[ Shade pulled a pipe from his jacket, tapping it gently into an ashtray, before pulling a small jar from his side table. ]

Would this bother you?

[buttpatting]

["The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," he hears, and there's a wealth of psychological reasoning behind the why of it that he has no desire to get into. Shade isn't his patient. They're not in Hannibal's office. There's no one around to hear them who might later ask why he didn't latch onto that line of thought and do something, say, enlightening in regards to it.

He's absorbing every word of the story like a sponge, and when the pipe appears, he finally leans back, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Shade was rapidly becoming the most interesting person in the City, as far as Hannibal was concerned.]

It wouldn't bother me at all. [They were Shade's lungs. Hannibal had no intention of doing anything with them himself, not even before the fact of the matter that he was immortal came into the mix. He'd heard it before, yes, but now that he was openly discussing it...] Does that not impact you? Being immortal, are you also immune to disease?

[Things Hannibal never thought would seriously come out of his mouth: that.]

[foreshadower]

It wouldn't be a very interesting immortality if I could so easily die of cancer, or perhaps something worse, would it?

[ He asked it, but he still lit up. Shade was too old to care about what could happen to him anymore, and despite his exuberance and enjoyment from what he found, the future, it was still something that after some time got a bit old.

What other reason would an old man like him have for becoming a supervillain. ]

I've found no ailment to destroy me. No wound that could kill me. [ He smiled around his pipe, while he inhaled. ] I took a bomb, once.

I'm sure there's something but I'm not quite sure what it is yet.

[buttpatting]

[With each new bit of information, Hannibal's mind turned veered from a dark path to an even darker one. What would the biology of an immortal look like, if all that was true? Could he cut Shade open and remove his organs only for them to grow back? Had his blood changed, could he run tests and never fully understand it because it was no longer human? If he was faced with extreme pain, would he bear it or would he pass out?

Most of those were rude to ask, of course, so they'd never be asked. As far as he was concerned, Shade was not at all rude, so there was no reason for him to ever "wonder" such things aloud, even with all the medical science behind such question. At least, he wouldn't ask them now, and certainly not without thinking them through in the least worrisome of ways.]

I hope you never find what that something is here in the City. [He'd spoken to that crass young man about death's lack of permanence, though apparently sometimes those who passed didn't come back. It wasn't a chance Hannibal wanted to take. Shade had wealth, and with wealth came power.

And a very fine selection of wine.] I would think it a true insult for any of us pulled here to be inhumed or entombed or cremated in this place and not our homes. Rude enough to be taken away, ruder still to take it that far. I have talked to a young man here who said that people can die and return, but sometimes they do not return—perhaps that means they return home, then, and their bodies do not stay here? Do you know?

[foreshadower]

Indeed, I know some of it. Obviously, my experience with death here is much like it is in my home, a casual observer at best. [ Occasionally, the one who brought it on, of course. Shade had been the man to bring a great many deaths, but it was often on his own terms. Nobody elses; as Necron had found out, offering Shade a deal to cause more malice -- and yet with nothing to truly offer in return for that. Shade was hardly power-hungry enough to thirst for that. ]

I have seen many die, and then return, and then some who have never come back after passing, and some who disappear at some time later. Some who die come back much later, or so I am told. I would suspect that if one does not return, they would find themselves back where they come from.

Yet, I'm not quite willing to chance that, as I'm sure you can understand. There is tempting fate, and then there is... [ He waved a hand, gesturing. ] Being rather stupid, don't you agree?