ataraxionlogs | I hear the train a-comin / It's rollin round the bend [ooopen]

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I hear the train a-comin / It's rollin round the bend [ooopen]

CHARACTERS: Edgeworth and the Murderettes
LOCATION: The brig, yar har
WARNINGS: Edgeworth is an emo asshole
SUMMARY: So Edgeworth is in the brig on his own insistence for a murder he didn't commit. Come make fun of him! Throw things! Pay $2 for a bag of peanuts to feed him!
NOTES: Can happen between the 17th and the 20th. If you can't get him to talk, present: badge.

[Edgeworth doesn't look up when people come to see him. He just keeps looking at his hands, quiet and still; he says little. Still, he hasn't put in a request for no visitors, and he won't; it's less from a desire for company than from a desire for people to be able to see he's getting no special treatment. In the brig, like any other criminal, no matter that he was until recently the one guarding it.

He's in his suit still. He looks exhausted.]

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What d'you mean-- don't you remember?

[That is a weird detail, to say the very least, and he stares at Edgeworth a second before he interrupts himself and anything he might answer with--]

You said you had the gun. Right? And then what?

And then I - I confronted him. I tried to pull the trigger, and...I couldn't.

[His lips twist bitterly, miserably.]

I dropped the gun and ran. That's...And then he was murdered by someone else.

[He swallows.]

That's what I remember. And no one could believe that story.

[He stares at Edgeworth and he wants to say-- something of use, something bracing and firm, but there's just... for once words fail him, and he stares hard at him, a ringing in his ears. This is mental, he thinks, more than once, but distantly. Because it's not, is it, because it happened.]

I believe you.

[He says it firmly--quietly, yeah, but--full of conviction, and when he repeats it, it's better still:]

I believe you. So. There you are.

[He looks up, meets Sirius' eyes, his face miserable and unhappy and yet - grateful. Really grateful. His hand comes up in an abortive sort of gesture that, if he hadn't lost his way halfway through, would have been a grateful punch to the shoulder.]

And you don't...I'm not a bad person for having thought about it.

Merlin, Edgeworth--

[This laugh is a little more genuine--still sad and quiet and a little bitter, but it's still a laugh, and he shifts forward to seize hold of Edgeworth's shoulder, gripping at him.]

You're not a bad person. You're the best person I know, nearly-- [James is better, but James is better than everyone, and maybe Remus has ascended some plane just below him, but there's Edgeworth there as well.] People think worse thoughts everyday. Hell, if everyone was arrested for their thoughts--everyone would be in a great deal of trouble.

You didn't do it. You didn't kill anyone. I don't know what the hell happened, but it wasn't you, and thinking about it is just that, thinking about it. And we're going to find out what happened.

[Edgeworth nods, quietly, and reaches out and grasps Sirius back. And then his throat closes and he finds he's crying, suddenly, unrestrained and miserable.]

But I - I don't even know - I thought that I'd done it, that I'd killed Dad, but I was wrong...What if I really did this? I don't - What if I don't even remember, I...

[His fist clenches tightly in his friend's sleeve. Maybe he's crazy. That's the heart of it. He's just - he's been here for so long, for so many months, and he just - he thinks maybe he's crazy.]

[He's never known what to do in situations like this, when there's-- real emotions, when someone is actually-- Merlin, but he's shit at this. All he can do is grab a little harder at Edgeworth's arm, bracingly, like he's got to hold him up or he'll collapse--]

But you didn't-- it's not as if it was the reverse of it, that you thought you were innocent and then it turned out you really had-- [That ought to be good news, really--grimly so, but still good. Congratulations, Edgeworth, you didn't kill your dad! Someone else did!] --that you really had done it. So that's the way it is here, because I know you, Edgeworth. I know what sort of person you are. You're not the sort that just-- murders people, not even over something like this--Merlin, anyone that thinks you would doesn't know you at all!

[And there's such conviction in Sirius' voice. That's not the tone of someone trying to convince himself of something; that's the tone of someone who really believes it. And that calms Edgeworth down. Even if this ends in disaster, even if whoever framed him did such a thorough job of it that no one but Sirius believes him, that he's found guilty of this crime and executed, the mere fact that there's someone who has this faith in him, without doubt, and that it's Sirius, who's been a true friend to him - That assuages some of his misery.

And the fact that he's so certain - that's better. That...makes up for Edgeworth's own uncertainty.

So that ugly rush of crying only lasts a few seconds. He catches a ragged breath a moment later and forces it away.]

I...Right. Right.

[He nods shakily.]

Right.

[And then, a moment later, he explains quietly.]

He...really hated my dad. Dad was the only one who ever scored a penalty against him in court. Aside from that, von Karma's record was flawless, but my dad found out he was using faulty evidence and had him formally reprimanded. That was what happened. Von Karma shot him in revenge.

[But even once Edgeworth has got hold of himself a bit better, Sirius still doesn't let go of his shoulder. It seems important to maintain that contact--at least for right now--because he'll have to leave, eventually, and that puts Edgeworth alone again.

And even as he's explaining the whole situation, Sirius still can't make sense of why he's here. Even if he has doubts, even if the evidence seems stacked against him--what little evidence there is, and some of it's got to be coincidence, right?--he's still voluntarily put himself into prison. That's as incriminating as going on the lam. There's something miserable in Edgeworth that would put him here, and Sirius doesn't know what to make of that--but he's willing to fight against it, even to Edgeworth himself.]

I thought-- how did you find out about all of that? Did he tell you?

There were documents from home. I brought them to his attention, and he confirmed what they said.

[There's a miserable sort of amusement he takes in phrasing it like that. Like he was just ensuring the accuracy of a witness statement with a disinterested party. It sounds so absurd.]

Court documents. In three years' time, he was going to have someone murdered and frame me for it. He'd have ensured, even, that it was a murder for which I'd inevitably be put to death. This was the record from that trial.

[Not that he blames Edgeworth, but all of this is very confusing, a whole load of tidbits of information and things that seem a little too impossible to believe.

Not that he disbelieves anything he's being told. It's Edgeworth telling it, after all; Sirius would believe nearly anything he said. His loyalty works like that.]

He-- had all of that planned out? [No-- if it was a record from the trial--] Hang on, no, you're saying-- you had those documents and they were from the future, from your future. Right? What happened to them, where are they now?

I -

[What had happened to them? He - After he'd left that room, he'd gone and done...something. With them. Had he...?]

They were...from the future, yes -

[But he's murmuring that to buy himself time. He thinks he made himself tea after the whole thing, but - ]

I - might have left them there.

[He hesitates.]

I don't remember.

[And then he looks up - ]

Sirius, if you find them, you have to give them to Tyke. All right? They make me look worse, but they cannot be concealed.

If they make you look worse--

[Then he's got to be the one to find them. Reason and instinct and gut feeling are all worth more to him than some bloody documents, especially because he knows the truth of them. He shifts back from Edgeworth, shoves his hand over his mouth as he scowls.]

How do they make you look worse? They prove he's the bastard that killed your dad--and that he'd have killed you too if he had the chance of it. It's got it written out that he was going to kill you.

[No, there, that's it: because of revenge. Because who wouldn't want revenge after that, and Sirius shakes his head impatiently.]

I'll look. What do they look like, how am I going to recognise them when I see them?

They're...in a manila envelope. Stamped State vs. Edgeworth.

[He says that quietly, then looks up.]

Sirius, give me your oath you won't conceal them. And I need you to tell Tyke, too, what I called you and asked you.

[He nods, to that first bit--right, he can find that--but his face darkens nearly immediately when Edgeworth makes that request.]

I'll give her the files, if that's what you want.

[And he's not saying yes or no to the second bit.]

[Edgeworth, though, might be depressed, but he hasn't entirely lost his stubbornness.]

And you'll tell her what I said.

[He narrows his eyes, unimpressed at that insistence.]

I'm not telling her what you said, because it's shit.

It's evidence.

[He closes his eyes.]

If you don't share that, you're obstructing the course of justice.

It's not evidence. It's a five minute conversation, it could have--

[He rubs a hand over his mouth, hard, shutting himself up for a second.]

If I show her that one, then I have to go back and find all the ones where you were a decent human being and-- and where you talked me out of all sorts of stupid shit, and where you were an idiot for the sake of everyone else, selfless git that you are. And half of those aren't even recorded, how can I show those to her?

[He meets Sirius' eyes again halfway though that speech. His mouth is an unsteady line, and his eyes are damp, but he's at least keeping control of himself now. But that it's not no, I won't, but instead talk of him being good, being decent - that Sirius still thinks of him as decent - it's nearly enough to break his heart again.]

That's...Tyke will already be biased towards me. Even if she doesn't like me, she still thinks of me as part of her team, and that biases her in my favor. Making me seem a person of good character won't help the course of justice.

This is fucking unbelievable-- look, it will if you didn't do it. And you didn't. You're--

[He cuts himself off again with an irritated noise, wordless, and he shoves himself to his feet and paces a ways away, too on-edge to really sit still right now.]

You're being bloody ridiculous. That's what this is. You didn't do it, why go on about how we're going to be biased towards you. Of course we are. You didn't do it, and we know you didn't because, as I said, we know you.

[He shakes his head and starts:]

If the evidence indicates that I'm guilty -

If it indicates you're guilty, and you're not guilty--and you aren't, I know that--then what?

[He turns back to glare at Edgeworth, darkly.]

What do you expect me to do then?

[He shakes his head.]

I expect you to...abide by it. That's all that can be done. It's about more than just me, Black.

[He laughs, hollowly, still across the cell from Edgeworth.]

This isn't about you. How the hell is this not about you-- what else could it be about?

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