OOM: Concert, part 2

[electro_kinetic]

The stage itself is backed by a huge screen, big enough to nearly be an IMAX presentation, and the orchestra is in front, chairs empty. They're fashionably close to the starting time, because Noriko hates being late, and she didn't want to be too early: tucking her free hand in her coat pocket she walks with Hannibal, trying to keep her heels from clicking too loudly on the floor.

The seats printed on both tickets are quite good, being the center of the closest balcony, where the sound will blend and amplify without too much distortion, and a clear view to both the screen and the plalyers, but before they see any of that, there's the lobby to get through.

"Wow," Nori says, looking up at the starburst lights. "This place is pretty huge."

Comments

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal looks at her as if she had just sprouted tusks.

"Because he attacked you and dragged you into a dark alley," he says, shrugging. "I would have thought that was obvious."

[electro_kinetic]

"Is it because of that, or because he was rude?" she asks, bending down to brush her knees off and hissing when it gushes a little bit of blood again, with a fresh sting.

"I actually was looking forward to dinner." Maybe--obviously--not like this, but she was hoping for a nice night.

[cook_the_rude]

"We can still have it," Hannibal says, getting a very small first aid kit from his coat pocket.

Hannibal Lecter, apparently, comes prepared.

"Just let me see to your scrapes first, and then maybe get some emergency stocking at a, what are they called here, bodega?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah," Noriko says, nodding. "Bodega. Not that I care about my tights right this second."

She sighs, and is beyond even trying to be surprised that he's that prepared for things. She wants to know how deep the pockets on that coat are, though. "It kinda sucks that they closed the Four Seasons, it would have been really close," she murmurs, apropros of really nothing, but it was in her head. "I'd never been in there."

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal kneels down and starts cleaning her scratches and bruises. "For the Four Seasons, you would have had to have tights," he says. "Definitely. Why did they close it?"

[electro_kinetic]

"I think they'd have had more of a problem with the hair than the lack of tights," Noriko says, with a hiss as he pulls out a bit of broken glass. It stings.

"Too many bad reviews. They had a bunch of them that said--ow--that they were selling overpriced and underwhelming food to pretentious businessmen and tourists," she says. "So the guy that owns the building didn't let them renew their lease. It only closed like...two or three days ago."

[cook_the_rude]

"We have a kitchen, then," Hannibal says, concentrating on a larger scrape near her knee.

[electro_kinetic]

"What do we need a kitchen for, Hannibal?" Noriko asked, looking down at him.

The corpse behind him was the obvious answer, but she remained in the hope that he wouldn't actually follow through on the cannibalism thing in her world. The thought doesn't exactly hold up, given she knows he's fine it elsewhere.

"What if I don't want to eat...him? That?" she asks, unsure of what reaction tip expect from the man kneeling in front of her.

[cook_the_rude]

"We can find ourselves something else to cook," Hannibal says. "But it would be fun to cook in a professional kitchen."

[electro_kinetic]

"...Isn't Milliways a professional kitchen?" she asks.

And belatedly: "Aren't you a little bit concerned that you just slit a man's throat?"

[cook_the_rude]

"No," Hannibal says. "I'm not done yet."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko gives him a look.

"...With what?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Dealing with this sorry excuse for a human," Hannibal says. He bends down, turns the corpse over, and divests the corpse of its jacket and shirt, and gets out his scalpel again.

[electro_kinetic]

She says nothing for a minute, protractedly silent as if wanting to speak up and not sure if she should or what she should say if she didn't.

"Hannibal, what are you doing?" Noriko asks. It's a stupid and pointless question, she knows what he's doing, but she still has to ask. "I don't want to have to lie about what happened here, and if you leave a mutilated body here I will be." She's not exactly someone people don't notice.

[cook_the_rude]

"For a given value of mutilated," Hannibal says. The corpse's back is bare, and he carves open the skin along the spine, going for the back fillet.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko takes a breath, and against her better judgement speaks up; it just isn't the words she thought she'd say.

"Hannibal. Do you need help?"

[cook_the_rude]

"Can you clear a gap in the rubble over there?" Hannibal says. "When I am done, I'm going to hide the body there and encourage the rats to make a start on him. Then there will be no talk of mutilation, just of animal bites."

[electro_kinetic]

Her nerves are jangling like a cacophony of bells in her head, but Noriko moves steadily towards the broken bits of asphalt and concrete and brick forming a pile at the end of the alley, tidy enough for what it is, but still a pile of rocks.

She can't really believe she's doing this, but she is.

[cook_the_rude]

Hannibal is rather quick and deft about carving up his kill, as if he had done this many times before.

[electro_kinetic]

Nori doesn't flinch, seeing him cut up a person. She's seen them cut up in very many ways, what with knowing Laura and Logan, but this is somehow different.

"What now?" she asks, as if someone only just learning how to speak, halting and unsure.

[cook_the_rude]

"We put him under the garbage, and then we get ourselves to the kitchen of the Four Seasons," Hannibal says.

[electro_kinetic]

"I don't know if I can eat after this," she says quietly, swallowing though it's less to keep herself from throwing up and more a nervous motion; she feels like she can't really keep the knot in her throat down.

The body is easy to move; Noriko has done that before, cleaning up dead people. It doesn't feel any different to her, and she expected it would. "I wonder why he hated us."

[cook_the_rude]

"Why do people hate mutants?" Hannibal asks. "Gays? Muslims?"

Pause.

"Whatever their personal story, there is no justification for giving oneself carte blanche on hating an entire subset of humanity. I don't hate all Russians, either, or all communists."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko fixes him with a slant look. "But you do hate all rude people. Evidently enough to kill them."

She isn't sure how to feel about that, especially given her personality and that she knows she's been rude to Hannibal directly, but she also knows that she'll be able to defend herself against him should he try something. Or so she hopes. Noriko goes to push her fingers through her hair, and aborts the gesture at the last minute, wrapping her arms around her waist instead.

"I want to get out of this alley."

[cook_the_rude]

"So do I," Hannibal says. "Let's move this, and then get going."