[ 01 ] Video; Possible Action for housemates?

[kingpawn]

[ The video starts rolling well before Walter's prepared to sit down and talk. What the viewer gets is about twenty minutes of a frail and sickly thin, older white man in his tighty whities, staring blankly into the screen. A bottle of wine is in one hand, continuously pouring the contents into a glass as he drinks them down only to refill it again. It's the alcoholic channel, with a few fascinatingly thoughtful jaw clenches and an unwavering staring competition with the lens. Finally, he clears his throat and speaks up. ]

So this is supposed to connect me to others 'like me?' These so-called imPorts...

[ He studies his empty glass, turning it in his hands. ]

There's one question that never got answered, and maybe you can give me some insight? Clue me in a little because I sure saw a lot of fire and brimstone a few days ago...

[ He looks up, dead eyes focusing on the screen. ]

Is this supposed to be hell?

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

[It was quite the rhetoric. Chilton, keen to observe, kept his lips pressed tightly together -- tighter and tighter, as Walt spoke -- and committed to his skepticism only through a quirking eyebrow.

Fatalism. That's what he was observing in this man, the promise of fatalism unwinding. Life with a chemical author. It wouldn't do to bring that up, to interject the label; Walt seemed to disdain labels, and Chilton was more than content to watch this play out. Despair took fascinating forms, especially with depressives like alcohol.

Beneath those words (drunken as they may be, but angry and precise), Chilton saw (or hoped that he saw) the weight that dragged at Walt's ankles. Guilt? No -- no, not quite. Regret? That had already been expressed by Walt's own tongue. Something, something, something provoked Walt, and Chilton wanted to know it.]

Oh -- [Walt's commentary on Chilton's paycheck caught him off-balance. The accusation of convincing people to be what he wanted them to be was accurate, too accurate, and his impulse was to deflect that.

But Walt was a smart man. Wouldn't he notice?]

You are not the first skeptic I've met, Mr. White. [Better to take it head on.] And for that I'm grateful -- it's the skeptics that took psychiatry from a purely Freudian school to a mix with neurobiology. A marriage of chemistry and cognitive behavioral therapy, if you will.

I convince people to be what I know them to be.

[kingpawn]

[ Something about the way Chilton says that is unsettling -- as though Chilton is assuring him he has some hidden insight into the ways of people that only Chilton could understand and fathom. It almost seems like a promise that no matter how hard Walt tries to hide the blood on his hands, Chilton is going to see it. How accurate any of this is, is anyone's guess. And maybe it's the alcohol that's causing his mind to travel down these paranoid routes, but Walt suddenly decides the less contact he has with this Dr. Chilton, the better. Better safe than sorry. Especially when powers are involved.

His hands are shaking so much that he drops the communicator. Walt is tempted to leave it there; to walk away and blame his drunken state of mind. 'Sorry, Dr. Chilton. I completely forgot we were having a conversation. You can't take the ramblings of a drunk man very seriously after all -- ha ha ha.' But no. He has to face this like a man. He can figure a way out of it, drunk or not. He spent the past couple years figuring his way out of things that should have been life threatening.

Walt bends down, scooping the communicator up in his hands as he gets out of the chair and makes an attempt to walk into the kitchen. ]

Sorry about that. My motor skills seem to be impaired.

[ He manages to get to the kitchen and starts rummaging around in the fridge. There has to be more wine somewhere, right? ]

I would be more than willing to offer you my opinion on these matters. In spite of my skepticism when it comes to psychiatrists, I do have a fascination for psychology and neuroscience. The mind is an incredible organ, and as a chemist, I find it incredible that everything we think, feel and remember is dictated by a set of chemicals and neurological pathways. Perhaps we can combine our backgrounds and have some fascinating conversations over lunch sometime?

[ And Walt will conveniently be busy every time they try to actually make plans... ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

I would greatly enjoy that, Mr. White.

[The slip, motor skill recoil or not, provided a fleshier variable to what Chilton divined as a particularly tense equation. That motion alone was a narrative of its own, and one made valuable for analysis -- but, as Walt discussed the finer philosophy of the mind, Chilton could not help but acknowledge his engagement with this man couldn't be akin to his usual. Even while intoxicated, Walt was capable of observing. Even while visibly shaken, he could converse coherently. That spoke more to a capability of planning under duress.

One of the more important capabilities, as according to Chilton, as anxiety had limitations with some people.]

And no need to apologize for your motor skills, Mr. White. I assure you, when we meet next time, they will not be the focus.

[One of the more ominous goodbyes that Chilton has ever delivered, perhaps.]