[ic] Contact

[hisheartsdesire]

Tobias may one day learn to change the greeting on his voicemail. Until then, there's only the default.

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[hisheartsdesire]

[His stomach turns as Toby feels control slipping away from him. Normally, he still would be calm and collected, but right now, he is too ill to pretend to be anything but frustrated and sick. Moreover, Edgeworth seems... impatient? pushy? At any rate, Toby's starting to think his responses are coming far too slowly—how is he even to begin explaining things, especially in his current condition?]

How many of them had just returned to life before arriving here? Do you even know how disorienting it is to deal with that, only to experience a change of scenery? [How many of them were nearly three hundred years old? Toby may look young enough, but there's a learning curve for people out of place and time. Lucifer might be older, but he's also the devil, and it's only natural for such a being to take on recent trends and keep with the times to do his work. Toby may not know how old Marceline actually is, but she seems to also have kept up.

Still, Toby is too ill to protest anymore.] But if you want to hold that against me? Fine, so be it; I didn't try hard enough, obviously. No one is perfect, and I made more mistakes than I can count, perhaps more than should really be allowed, when I arrived here.

[If Toby could only collect his thoughts and sort his own emotions from Drew's, then maybe he'd attempt to connect on that point because surely Edgeworth has made mistakes. Maybe he's made some that were also judged far too harshly at some point, too. But Toby can't do anything of the sort, he's not even in a good enough state to answer in thorough detail. No, he just wants to say whatever Edgeworth wants to hear, hoping the torment in his mind and body soon will end.]

[takethestairs]

[The more that Toby tries to appease Edgeworth, the more he winds him up. For all of his apologies, for all of his humility, Edgeworth has yet to see any acknowledgement of the pain or the inconvenience he's caused to those around him. His scowl deepens, and he breathes harshly as Toby tries to deflect his fury]

Dead men are a dime a dozen in this place. You are not unique in this regard, Toby, no matter what you may think. And while no one is perfect, I can think of few people who have made mistakes as disastrous as yours.

[hisheartsdesire]

—! [Everything seems so confusing right now. Why does Edgeworth have this sudden need to judge him? Toby isn't trying to be special or saying his mistakes are better or worse than anyone else's. All he'd tried to do is explain what had affected him at the time of his arrival, and that he's like any other person who'd ever made a mistake before—that's everyone. Yet, Edgeworth has written these things off as excuses, the irony being they were inexcusable and invalid. Toby would apologize if there seemed a point to it, but the last time he'd done so, it was poorly received. An apology here and now is unlikely to do any good.

If his mind weren't swimming, he might have something to say about the disaster of his (un)life... The way things are now, he's at a loss for words.]

...I cannot and will not deny the severity of the mistakes I've made, the misconceptions I've had, the various ways I've wrongly gone about life here and my attempts to make up for the things I've done. [A beat; he swallows, and the taste is as though something had died in his mouth. With another gulp, he barely manages to suppress what feels like the need to vomit, which he hasn't experienced in quite a long time.

But to say anything of his worsening condition is to invent yet another excuse and run from confrontation, so he won't. If he were thinking more clearly, he might ask what justice Edgeworth intends to pursue given these pointed questions and immediate judgment.

Instead, he tries to collect his thoughts and whatever broken pieces of himself remain. Ignoring how incredibly awful everything is both inside and out, he somehow manages to calmly ask,] Have you any other questions?

[takethestairs]

[He continues to stare at Toby, cold and imperious, saying nothing as he speaks. The admittance of guilt does nothing to quench his thirst, but at least he has the decency not to beg for pity. He remains silent for a moment longer before he shakes his head and stands up.]

None at all.

[And unless Toby stops him, he'll turn on his heel and walk out the door]

[hisheartsdesire]

[Toby feels completely stunned. He doesn't know what happened, he doesn't know why Edgeworth seems so completely changed. Everything seemed to have transpired so suddenly, and now Edgeworth is walking out on him without so much as a comment or explanation. It was Edgeworth who wanted to pursue justice and mine for the truth; the least he could do now is tell Toby what all this is about.

Oh, he wants to stop Edgeworth from leaving, wants to demand to know what Edgeworth intends to do given all that information. But his mind is overwhelmed and defeated by the effects of the bond and the confusion of their exchange. So instead, he simply watches as Edgeworth's back soon disappears from sight.]