[oopfsb / darkest timeline] Millman, Session #1

[stilljustandrew]

"So can you bring me up to speed?" is the first thing Dr. Millman asks him, once they're settled in one of the infirmary's consultation rooms. "Nita didn't give me too much of the context."

Previously on Milliways, he thinks (with what he really wishes were more genuine humor), and takes a deep breath. And plunges in.

The first time he met Matt, trying to read auguries in the fragments of a broken teacup. How quickly he'd warmed to him, talking shop about different magic systems; how he'd offered to show Matt the Council Library sometime.

"And that's not something I should have even considered with a guy I just met, you know?" he adds in an aside. "I mean there's sensitive stuff in there, information that could be seriously dangerous in the wrong hands ... I don't think he took anything but the point is I didn't know, I -- god," he groans, "that was so irresponsible."

Comments

[comm_npc_2]

"Did he drug you?" Millman asks, his voice steady.

[stilljustandrew]

"Not ... exactly."

He's stacking and restacking his fingers in his lap, studying the pattern of shadows they make.

"He's ... he does magic."

[comm_npc_2]

A faint frown. "Like wizardry?"

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew shakes his head vehemently. "Not like wizardry. Something else. He can ... he's got a sort of high-powered charisma. He can draw people. Charm them. Make them like him." He swallows. "And under the, the right physical circumstances, he can ... drain people's life-energy. Which is why I was so tired all the time after we, after we started ..."

For god's sake, why is this still so hard to say --

"Sleeping together."

[comm_npc_2]

Millman looks sober, and a little alarmed. "Are you still? Tired all the time?"

[stilljustandrew]

"I got help," he mumbles. "Nita ... I talked to her a little after that. She's the one who noticed how drained I was. She did a spell to work out what was causing it, and ... it was him."

A long beat.

"So I went to talk to him about it. Because he was out of the infirmary by then, he'd been put in the cells for one day for unintentional arson, and ... I knew while he was in there he wouldn't be able to use his power on me."

[comm_npc_2]

"Makes sense," Millman agrees. "So what happened?"

[stilljustandrew]

Another long pause. Andrew bites his lip.

"I asked him why. If, if that was the whole point of ... of picking me up in the first place." The memory isn't any less painful; it's not as difficult to make himself say the words, now, but it hurts more. "He wouldn't answer me. I mean, he, he talked to me, but he wouldn't answer that question. Or ..."

[comm_npc_2]

Beat.


"Or?"

[stilljustandrew]

"He told me I might be dying."

The whisper scrapes his throat coming out.

"From what he did to me. He said he'd done it before and they died. And I asked -- I asked him if he was even a little sorry."

[comm_npc_2]

"And he wouldn't answer that either." Millman's regarding him steadily, compassionately.

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew shakes his head mutely.

[comm_npc_2]

"So what did you do?"

[stilljustandrew]

"I went to find help." Muffled. "And I left a note for Security to tell them he'd confessed to attempted murder. And ... made a bad decision."

[comm_npc_2]

Millman raises his eyebrows.

[stilljustandrew]

"So I'm sort of in charge of the cells? It's separate from being on Security, it ... there's an AI who controls them, and I'm in charge of her. And I told her to, to ignore any release order for him until I okayed it."

God, it sounds so ugly when he says it like that -- "I didn't mean to, like, keep him there without -- I just wanted to make sure he didn't get released before they had a chance to look at the other charge, or ..."

He trails off. Can't look up.

"So that was the first bad call I made. That I knew was a bad call when I made it."

[comm_npc_2]

"... But not the last?"

[stilljustandrew]

"But not the last," he confirms heavily.

[comm_npc_2]

Millman gestures: go on.

[stilljustandrew]

"I ... sometime around here I got some help. I talked to Nita again and she said the, the draining, it wasn't far along enough to kill me. And I got a sort of energy transfusion from this other lady, a healer, so ... I was doing better by this time, I can't blame it on fatigue or anything."

He's watching his hands again, fingers restlessly pleating the edge of his shirt, as he continues: going back to the Security office to leave another note, Baby asking him for assistance on the footage she'd taken from Matt's cell, deciding to watch it. Knowing even as he did that it was a bad idea on several levels, that there were so many reasons why he shouldn't be doing it, and doing it anyway.

Watching Matt talk to a ghost about the man who had used and manipulated and tried to murder him, and getting gutpunched with sudden inexorable empathy.

(The awkward part is explaining about Hannibal Lecter, and how someone fictional could be a real person and connected to somebody here. And avoiding the part about how that's why he trusts Millman, because of his appearance in a certain novel.)

"I felt like I had to tell him, though," he says, low. "Tell him what I saw and what I know, and that he had to get away from Hannibal and stay away. Especially because ..." A sigh. "Doesn't matter. Anyway that was the next bad call. I should have sent him a note, or told X to carry him a message or something. Instead of going and talking to him. Nita said ... every time I talk to him it hurts me."

His eyes are burning again. "And I guess she was right."

[comm_npc_2]

Very quietly, Millman says "What happened?"

[stilljustandrew]

"He said if I saw that conversation, I should already know that he wasn't going to go back. And that he didn't need to hear it from me. And -- whatever I was doing, I wasn't there to help him."

[comm_npc_2]

"And were you?"

[stilljustandrew]

"I thought I was. I ... " Andrew rubs his eyes. "He thought I was there to hurt him. Because that's what he did to me. And I said no, I wasn't, and ... I said he didn't even know what he did to me. And he said maybe you're right, and I said ... something like, well, you could maybe ask."

He's looking down at his clasped hands again, and his voice is low and bruised. "And that's when he said I should leave. That he was trying to work out stuff in his own life, and ... he didn't have time for me."

[comm_npc_2]

A sympathetic grimace. "And how'd that make you feel?"