[ it's gone. all of it. any edge of compassion or contrary displeasure melts immediately into something stark and hard, some roiling depth behind it oddly reminiscent of magma beneath a crust.
his voice comes in slow to start, low, but it's unyielding, charged, and gathering dangerous momentum as the train of his thought hurtles towards its end of the line. the tone of it, from start to end, dares Edgeworth to interrupt, dares him - you try it, you speak, you just try. ]
You're walking away to protect. Your plan is to remove yourself as far from the path of anyone you might inflict further pain on as possible, quarantine the danger, isolate the cause. Which is fine, good, yes, except there's nowhere on this planet you can go where the chance of human contact is reduced to an 100% impossibility. There is always a chance. Hide in a cave, disappear into a cabin in the forest, climb a mountain and bury your head in the snow. There's nowhere on this earth you can guarantee someone won't stumble on you, and you cannot guarantee you'll be able to stop yourself from bringing their guilt to the surface if they do. Up until two minutes ago that was the best option of a bad lot, and you were taking it because it was the only right thing you could think to do.
[ he doesn't bother to minimise the stresses of guilt. this isn't about the size and scope and weight of what Miles can do, this is about how it sits in him, how he responds to it, and trying to shrink that and base a point around it's size as defined by any other parameters than the man's own relationship with it would be like trying to persuade a man who hates tennis to watch a match with an argument based on the premise that tennis is the best game known to man.
so instead, he takes Miles' repulsion at what it is he can do and accepts it as the foundation. because it is, after all. it's the entire point. ]
I am offering you a solution. I'm offering you the chance to, at very worst and if at all, hurt one man. One man. A man who is incidentally capable beyond your wildest imagining of bearing any damage you might do to him. And for that, in exchange for the potential of that one, voluntary suffering, you will receive the certainty that you will never inflict that pain unwillingly on another again.
And you are turning it down. Why? Because you're afraid.
[ afraid of what you do. afraid of what you've done. terrified to do it again.
there's a pause here, a space for challenge, for tell me I'm wrong-- only he doesn't actually wait long enough to allow for any protest, if there is indeed one forthcoming, because he isn't finished, not quite, not yet. ]
It's your choice. No is your choice, and you've every right to make it. But if you do, don't delude yourself into thinking that you're making it because it's what's best for everyone. If you go, the choice you're making is best for you and you alone.
[ it's important. it's important, for the Doctor, that he knows that.
finally, all the words wrung out of him, his storm recedes back until it's just a silence, just the unflinching challenge of his stare. ]
no subject
[ it's gone. all of it. any edge of compassion or contrary displeasure melts immediately into something stark and hard, some roiling depth behind it oddly reminiscent of magma beneath a crust.
his voice comes in slow to start, low, but it's unyielding, charged, and gathering dangerous momentum as the train of his thought hurtles towards its end of the line. the tone of it, from start to end, dares Edgeworth to interrupt, dares him - you try it, you speak, you just try. ]
You're walking away to protect. Your plan is to remove yourself as far from the path of anyone you might inflict further pain on as possible, quarantine the danger, isolate the cause. Which is fine, good, yes, except there's nowhere on this planet you can go where the chance of human contact is reduced to an 100% impossibility. There is always a chance. Hide in a cave, disappear into a cabin in the forest, climb a mountain and bury your head in the snow. There's nowhere on this earth you can guarantee someone won't stumble on you, and you cannot guarantee you'll be able to stop yourself from bringing their guilt to the surface if they do. Up until two minutes ago that was the best option of a bad lot, and you were taking it because it was the only right thing you could think to do.
[ he doesn't bother to minimise the stresses of guilt. this isn't about the size and scope and weight of what Miles can do, this is about how it sits in him, how he responds to it, and trying to shrink that and base a point around it's size as defined by any other parameters than the man's own relationship with it would be like trying to persuade a man who hates tennis to watch a match with an argument based on the premise that tennis is the best game known to man.
so instead, he takes Miles' repulsion at what it is he can do and accepts it as the foundation. because it is, after all. it's the entire point. ]
I am offering you a solution. I'm offering you the chance to, at very worst and if at all, hurt one man. One man. A man who is incidentally capable beyond your wildest imagining of bearing any damage you might do to him. And for that, in exchange for the potential of that one, voluntary suffering, you will receive the certainty that you will never inflict that pain unwillingly on another again.
And you are turning it down. Why? Because you're afraid.
[ afraid of what you do. afraid of what you've done. terrified to do it again.
there's a pause here, a space for challenge, for tell me I'm wrong-- only he doesn't actually wait long enough to allow for any protest, if there is indeed one forthcoming, because he isn't finished, not quite, not yet. ]
It's your choice. No is your choice, and you've every right to make it. But if you do, don't delude yourself into thinking that you're making it because it's what's best for everyone. If you go, the choice you're making is best for you and you alone.
[ it's important. it's important, for the Doctor, that he knows that.
finally, all the words wrung out of him, his storm recedes back until it's just a silence, just the unflinching challenge of his stare. ]