[He sits quietly for a moment, looking wearily at the bowl in front of him. It's easy to feel the curdling of his food in his stomach, easy to feel a quiet swelling of frustration, of — something else he can't quite place, but claws up his throat like daggered hands.]
... Are you going to give every person here this high and mighty speech, Itachi?
[Low and brittle.]
Yourself and everyone else? All of us here, working to undo things that'll have huge impacts on our world? On who lives and dies? Are you gonna stop us from collecting orbs and vastly changing the future all these planets we visit? Are you gonna make sure everyone else's changes aren't too big? Aren't too small? Just right for you?
Oh, that guy over there, he's trying to bring back his dead family; his dead family doesn't care, right? Or — oh no, that lady over there, her world gets blown into smithereens! But ah, life finds a way, and something else will totally come of it. Mmm, can't let so-and-so accomplish their regret, because if they save that one friend they super love, it'll change which babies are born in the next billion years. Someone regrets not making some life-changing cure...? That's no good! What about the people who would have married the poor bastards that didn't die from it? Oh, hers over there is fine, because hers prevents a world-ending psychopath from being born in a hundred years.
But you're here, and you want to use the orbs to fix something you apparently have no right to fix, but yours is just the right amount of okay. Tell yourself, "Oh, I can wield me some what-ifs like big fucking swords at people who have nothing but what-ifs pushing them them forward!"
Oh, but Newt's not allowed to erase the pain that won't happen if he fixes things.
That'd be too wrong. The people on that train died for a reason! The cycle of fucking life, right?
[He still can't look at Itachi, but he's not really looking at anything in the room with him right now. His eyes are staring straight through his food, and as he sits there, sweat prickles his neck, and the air becomes stagnant and thin and hard to take in.]
... Do you know what happens to the planets they consume? You haven't seen it. You don't know what happens. There's no — there's no desolate worlds left. There's nothing. [His tingling fingers tremble around the chopsticks.] They eat the bones, too. There's nothing. Not a sound. Do you know what that looks like? When there's nothing?
no subject
... Are you going to give every person here this high and mighty speech, Itachi?
[Low and brittle.]
Yourself and everyone else? All of us here, working to undo things that'll have huge impacts on our world? On who lives and dies? Are you gonna stop us from collecting orbs and vastly changing the future all these planets we visit? Are you gonna make sure everyone else's changes aren't too big? Aren't too small? Just right for you?
Oh, that guy over there, he's trying to bring back his dead family; his dead family doesn't care, right? Or — oh no, that lady over there, her world gets blown into smithereens! But ah, life finds a way, and something else will totally come of it. Mmm, can't let so-and-so accomplish their regret, because if they save that one friend they super love, it'll change which babies are born in the next billion years. Someone regrets not making some life-changing cure...? That's no good! What about the people who would have married the poor bastards that didn't die from it? Oh, hers over there is fine, because hers prevents a world-ending psychopath from being born in a hundred years.
But you're here, and you want to use the orbs to fix something you apparently have no right to fix, but yours is just the right amount of okay. Tell yourself, "Oh, I can wield me some what-ifs like big fucking swords at people who have nothing but what-ifs pushing them them forward!"
Oh, but Newt's not allowed to erase the pain that won't happen if he fixes things.
That'd be too wrong. The people on that train died for a reason! The cycle of fucking life, right?
[He still can't look at Itachi, but he's not really looking at anything in the room with him right now. His eyes are staring straight through his food, and as he sits there, sweat prickles his neck, and the air becomes stagnant and thin and hard to take in.]
... Do you know what happens to the planets they consume? You haven't seen it. You don't know what happens. There's no — there's no desolate worlds left. There's nothing. [His tingling fingers tremble around the chopsticks.] They eat the bones, too. There's nothing. Not a sound. Do you know what that looks like? When there's nothing?