Daniel paces, restless, because he doesn't know what to do. He's been unwavering in his commitment to help Seth through this, just as he was steadfast in finding a way to get him out. It's what he is, someone who wears away the edges of grief and ache and takes them into himself and talks things through with sympathy and automatic compassion and all of it is instinctual, compulsory, necessary, and yet.
It bothers him. No, understatement - it distresses him, viscerally, because however much Seth might treat it with tired anger or disgust, it will always be there, a physical mark of the dehumanization and mental torture and whatever else was done to him. It's inked into his skin, for god's sake, taking all his mental scarring and making it tangible, physical, real, unhidden, baring it for the world.
And Daniel doesn't know what to do about it. He stopped talking to psych years ago; he doesn't know what the professional take on this would be.
So he paces, boiling with self-righteous anger and anxiety and frustration, taking off his glasses and turning them over and over in restive hands, and only stops when the excessive movement starts making him dizzy.
"What did they do to you?" he asks, a knee-jerk question, then quickly shuts his eyes and raises a hand in protest. "No, no don't - answer that. You don't have to, I'm sorry, I just -" His voice is shaking and he swallows to get a better grasp of it. "They did that to you."
no subject
It bothers him. No, understatement - it distresses him, viscerally, because however much Seth might treat it with tired anger or disgust, it will always be there, a physical mark of the dehumanization and mental torture and whatever else was done to him. It's inked into his skin, for god's sake, taking all his mental scarring and making it tangible, physical, real, unhidden, baring it for the world.
And Daniel doesn't know what to do about it. He stopped talking to psych years ago; he doesn't know what the professional take on this would be.
So he paces, boiling with self-righteous anger and anxiety and frustration, taking off his glasses and turning them over and over in restive hands, and only stops when the excessive movement starts making him dizzy.
"What did they do to you?" he asks, a knee-jerk question, then quickly shuts his eyes and raises a hand in protest. "No, no don't - answer that. You don't have to, I'm sorry, I just -" His voice is shaking and he swallows to get a better grasp of it. "They did that to you."