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Clive is sentenced to 15 years in prison for his crimes, much to London's outrage.
Hundreds are dead. Wide scale destruction and property damage lay in the wake of the mobile fortress's short rampage. It will cost millions to fix all of the infrastructure and those lives that were lost will never be returned.
But it's his first offense, he's young and sympathetic, and obviously mentally disturbed.
It certainly doesn't hurt that he's richer than God. And isn't that just funny, how one of the factors keeping Bill Hawks out of prison is also one which helps the man who hates him most?
Sitting in his chair at Crown Court, he looks strangely small and underdeveloped for his age, child-like. His once well-tailored clothes are replaced now with a loose grey jumpsuit that makes him appear even thinner and younger. He gazes to and fro with a smile on his face, the look of one apologetic for grabbing a cookie out of a jar. His eyes are wide and swallow all light.
Having succeeded at his plan of mass murder seems to have rapidly deteriorated his mental state even further than before.
He can only speak in short, whispery sentences now. He doesn't seem to remember that it's wrong to kill people at times. Actually, it's a good thing. He wanted to die too after all. He just wanted everything to start over so everyone could be happy. And society has to be destroyed first to make space for the newer, better version to be born. That makes sense, doesn't it?
The barrister argues that Clive was legally insane at the time of the crime; he knew that it was wrong but was compelled to commit destruction as a result of a mental disorder.
After his traumatic childhood is revealed, it’s clear that the judge pities him dearly, perhaps seeing a son or nephew in him. There’s talk of sending him to a mental hospital, but Clive is sentenced to prison partially for the sake of appeasing the public. He’s given at least the minimum sentence for terrorism. The experts in court agree that what he truly needs is a deep and extensive mental rehabilitation. A lifelong one.
It's understood that he must serve his time, but Layton wonders if a prison environment will not merely stoke the man’s violent tendencies even more or worsen his mental state before it has the chance to begin to heal. Being surrounded by criminals doesn't seem like it bodes well for any sort of rehabilitation, but there's nothing to be done now.
To think that the prime minister will continue to go free after having caused a chain of events destroying so many lives makes Layton feel sick. Clive is so damaged and yet the one who warped him won’t be here in this courtroom any time soon. It’s truly a failure of society. He prays that Inspector Chelmey will find a way to investigate the man and bring him to justice without getting hurt along the way.
Layton had testified as a witness to Clive’s crimes. He didn’t lie but he was of the opinion that Clive had the potential to be a dignified gentleman and that he had squandered it. That belief lay beneath all of the statements he gave the court, in the hope that it might sway them to be merciful.
As Claire had been.
She had saved Clive as much as her part in her research had doomed him, and now he is here to face the consequences of his actions as Layton watches.
Clive… The final thing which Claire has left behind, the cause of both astounding compassion and guilt, and one so important as to risk her life for him.
Perhaps this is why Layton feels the need to visit Clive in prison, at minimum once monthly. That's the plan, at least initially.
For those first few days, Layton visits every day for a week.
In normal circumstances, Clive is a young man fit enough to take care of himself. However, this is prison. This is completely different.
Maybe he shouldn’t feel so worried, especially not for a mass murderer, but he can’t help it.
The first day he visits, Clive is sad and empty and doesn't say much. He worries at his lip and looks around, like a distracted and innocent animal. Layton sits on the other side of the table and looks at him - plainly misses him - though Clive is sitting right there.
They had spent so much time together by now. For a moment, he had truly believed that this man was his apprentice, his pride and joy, that he had known him his entire life. If only he had, then perhaps this would not have been the outcome.
The second and third days are when bruises begin to appear all over him, a black eye, a split lip, and Layton, looking at him, feels like he can't breathe. This man has barely lived a life, so consumed with revenge and hatred, only to be tossed into the trash bin of society and to face more tragedy.
He knows Clive deserves this fate for his actions, that the public is furious enough as it is and without this, they would riot - but still, his hands curl into fists and he shakes with rage at the signs of extreme violence all over the man's body.
Clive weeps but doesn't make a sound.
“What are they doing to you?” Layton asks, keeping his voice down.
He knows it's a useless question. He already knows what it almost certainly is. He can't do anything to stop it.
Clive is young and handsome. He could easily be mistaken as still but a boy.
This is not an advantage in prison.
A sob escapes the other man and he wipes his eyes.
He only says, “Professor,” in that way that he always has, as if trying to mimic Luke but forgetting how.
That at certain angles he almost resembles Luke, that he looks like the child as if he were grown and crying and beaten, only makes it more gut wrenching and wrong.
The gentlemanly desire to protect floods Layton - but with no ability to be acted upon.
All he can do is reach across the dirty, scratched table, take the other man’s hand in his, and squeeze tight.
“It's going to be alright,” he lies. “You're a strong lad and you’ll survive this.”
Clive looks at the brightly lit window across from where they sit. He clenches his mouth shut. The sky is perfectly sheet-white and still. It looks like the fake sky from underground.
“With the cleverness you've shown at puzzle-solving, you’ll find a way to make it through,” Layton continues. “Have no doubt about that.”
Clive’s chapped lips part and he forcibly relaxes his face, still weeping. No doubt, he's dehydrated now.
“You received a light sentence at the very least,” Layton continues, more so musing to himself than holding a conversation at this point. “Once you can finally leave, I will be there for you.”
It's all he can think to say.
“As will Luke and Flora and the others, though I'm not quite sure they will all be as willing to forgive you, to understand, as - well–”
He stops short, also staring out the window, and when he looks back at the other man, Clive is smiling at him. His face stays red and tacky with tear-trails.
“You’ll be there? For me? Professor?”
“Of course.”
He wants to tell Clive not to call him that anymore, to call him Layton instead, that he isn’t his professor, that Clive isn’t really his apprentice, that he should know better– but it all dies on his tongue when the other man swallows another messy sob and tries to smile at him with such effort that it makes him tremble.
“Th– th… thank you,” says Clive.
His voice is weak. Clive’s mannerisms as of late are unsettling to Layton. It seems like everything he does lately takes more out of him than usual, even speaking. Tears trickle down his face, seemingly of gratitude that someone cares about him. He never stops weeping the entire time Layton visits him.
Where is that determination that killed hundreds?
The deceptiveness which created an entire underground world?
The genius intellect which nearly fooled him blind?
He should not want to see such things from the other man but it would be preferable to watching this frightening vulnerability unravel which he has never experienced before. Perhaps when Clive’s rage finally cooled, his resolve was taken with it, like a bulb which burns too bright and breaks.
But perhaps not, he thinks. Maybe the man needs time, needs rest, needs encouragement - and then–
Their entwined hands have grown warm there on the table. When Layton departs, he shrugs off how cold his hands, by their lonesome, suddenly become.
The other man’s smile stays on his mind. Layton feels as accomplished as if he’s solved a puzzle by the time he leaves that day.
If hope is the only thing he can give Clive, then he will do his very best to continue doing so.
The next few days after that, Clive's eyes appear less dull and lifeless, he seems slightly more energetic. He’s even able to speak a few more words than before.
He's still covered in cuts and bruises but his spirit remains unbroken and Layton is more relieved at this than anything.
Clive mentions that his other visitors include Spring and Cogg. They managed to go completely free despite being his servants, due to having no knowledge of Clive’s plans of terrorism while dutifully serving him as their employer.
Layton assumes the hundreds of other people from underground London went free for much the same reason. Most of them were likely just paid actors, what would they have known about the greater plan?
Layton assumes no one else does visit. Besides himself. The actors had not really known their employer or been his friend in any real capacity.
“Would either of you like to come visit Clive with me?” He asks Luke and Flora while adjusting the collar of his shirt.
They look at him, at each other, and back at him.
“It would help to raise his spirits,” he continues, putting on his coat. “He seems in poorer health and state of mind now than when he went in, but that’s to be expected, I suppose.”
“Professor, is it really okay for you to be meeting a criminal like that?” asks Flora. “After everything he put us through…?”
She was kidnapped by Clive and forced into a glass cage. But it wasn’t so bad apparently, according to Flora herself at the time. She looks back and forth between the floor and Layton, frowning.
“The Professor is a gentleman to everyone, Flora, even Don Paulo!” Luke says with something akin to pride. She nods in understanding. “But in this case, I do kind of agree with you… What if he tries to deceive you again, Professor?”
Layton wonders why he ever thought Clive could be the future version of his apprentice. Luke is changing and looking more like his father, Clark, with each passing day while Clive is merely baby-faced forever. One day, they will share very little resemblance.
“Don’t worry for me, you two,” Layton says, smiling at them. “If you don’t want to go, I respect your decision. I’m simply checking up on him, making sure he doesn’t get into more trouble.”
He can’t help the weight which sits in his chest at their lackadaisical response, though his smile stays plastered in place as long as they stay looking at him. Yes, Clive was a liar and a killer. But had they not solved puzzles together? Had their adventure not held a grain of truth to it? Clive had even told him that he had unexpectedly had fun when they were together. That he had enjoyed their company. And even if it was unacceptable, he had felt the same way.
The two children watch him as he leaves his office, a bit quizzical and perhaps a bit guilty.
Layton sits down in the visitation room as the guard leads Clive to the table and handcuffs him, then seats him as well.
“How are you doing today–?” Layton almost says ‘dear boy’ here, the words his mouth automatically produces for Luke, but it’s not quite right and he stops himself.
Clive looks at him, his black eye going down somewhat and his bruises and cuts freshly bandaged. Layton is relieved to see that he’s not crying this time, at least.
“I’m okay,” he says. “They assigned me a psychiatrist. She’s helping me.”
He gives a small smile and Layton is filled with relief at hearing him able to speak above a whisper and able to use more complex words than that of a primary school child.
Perhaps having the care and company of a medical specialist is helping him to regain his confidence and control. It certainly must be much better than having no one on your side in this place.
“Oh, thank goodness,” says Layton. “I’m very glad to hear that. You seem to be growing accustomed to your new environment, are you not?”
“As accustomed as I will ever be.”
Clive gives a bitter laugh.
“If you’re wondering why I’m not looking like utter trash today and crying like an infant, it’s because of a recent development. When I get into rows with other inmates, the guards put me in solitary confinement to protect me.”
“Ah. I see.”
Layton stares, not knowing what to say to that.
Solitary confinement, he has heard, is terrible for the brain. It could be counted as a form of torture. How horrible then, to be forced to use a form of anguish in order to find safety.
Perhaps this is why the young man seems so chatty today. He must have been terribly, terribly alone.
“It’s a dank, dirty hole…” Clive remarks, distant. “I don’t like fights but I don’t much like it in there either.”
So alone as to cause brain damage if it goes on for too long.
Layton recalls comforting Clive before, telling him how strong, smart, and capable he is and that he would be able to survive until the day when they let him go free.
Suddenly, he wonders to what extent his assurances had been lies.
It has barely been a week.
“I also asked Spring and Cogg to pay off some of the bigger bullies in here to leave me alone,” Clive says, looking down at the table he is handcuffed to. His finger rubs at some graffiti on it. “They have access to some of my accounts. I’m not sure how they handle it exactly, but they find a way. That’s helped as well.”
“That’s very resourceful of you,” Layton says, not intending the admiration which leaks out into his voice. “But wouldn’t they try to ask for greater and greater quantities of money from you?”
“Well, I also pay multiple inmates to guard me,” says Clive, his eyes meeting Layton’s with some of their former fire. “If someone gets violent, demanding more money, they’ll find it’s not easy to touch me now. It may surprise you, but some of them are loyal and honest.”
The next time Layton visits, he has thought more about the issue of solitary confinement and has decided that he needs to involve himself so as to help prevent the deterioration of Clive’s brain.
The best way to go about doing this?
Puzzles, of course.
He had asked the guards beforehand if it was okay for him to do this and they had agreed, as long as Clive remains handcuffed while performing his actions and as long as they stay within the regular visitation hours.
He brings letter and number blocks with him, playing cards, a pencil and paper, sliding blocks, and various other tools, and asks Clive to do various specific tasks, solve riddles, do basic arithmetic and reading, and use critical thinking to find answers.
“Puzzles…” Clive remarks. “I don’t believe I enjoy them quite as much as yourself or Luke - particularly the tedious ones - but I do find a well-crafted puzzle satisfying to solve.”
“Is that so? But you have such talent for them,” Layton says, aghast. Not enjoying puzzles is anathema to him.
Clive grins, amused at his reaction.
“I sometimes create puzzles myself, as you well know,” he says, playing with the letter blocks Layton has given him. “I rather enjoy creating things… Planning things… Strategizing… I suppose these skills are also involved in solving puzzles though.”
There’s a pause between them. All of the things he mentioned liking to do were skills that he employed in directing the creation of the false London. It speaks to some great talent - perhaps of the artistic variety? And most certainly, a powerful intellect. (As well as a ridiculous amount of money.) But Clive doesn’t speak of it, and Layton doesn’t need to hear it to understand. It’s an awkward topic to bring up again, and it benefits neither of them.
“Do you perhaps enjoy games of strategy?” Layton asks.
“Mmh, Yes. Much more than games of chance.”
“I do as well.”
Clive smiles at him and then tries to actually solve the puzzle instead of just stacking the little wooden blocks like a child. Doing these activities while handcuffed is a bit irksome, but Clive manages it without complaint.
“...Perhaps we can play such games another day,” continues Layton.
“Yes. I would like that.”
The blocks are switched out with each other, this way and that, and Layton watches the puzzle be steadily reasoned through.
He thinks about Clive admitting that puzzles aren’t actually his favorite thing in the world and realizes that must have been part of the act in passing himself off as the future version of Luke. That wasn’t his actual personality that he showed to Layton and his group, at least, not the whole thing.
In reality, he doesn’t know who the real Clive is. He doesn’t know what he actually enjoys to do, what his likes and dislikes are, what clothing he would choose to wear if he weren’t pretending to be Layton’s apprentice…
Perhaps he can still learn.
The face and the words which Clive shows him in his visits seem to be real and maybe that is why they sometimes elude him. They are idiosyncrasies which he has never seen before, which Clive must have had to suppress or change in order to play the part of an actor the way that he did.
“Do you actually enjoy the color blue?” Layton ends up asking him during another visit.
“Why do you ask?” The question seems to catch Clive off guard.
They are playing a game of chess and Clive is frighteningly talented at it. No match for Layton however, he thinks.
“I would have thought you only wore the blue clothing that you had on our adventure together in order to convince us that you were Luke,” Layton says, surprised at the lack of resentment in his own voice. “Not that it’s what you would normally wear, given the option.”
“Ah, you’re asking me about my fashion sense, then?”
Clive snickers.
“I do actually enjoy the color blue, you know,” he continues. “I believe most people do. And as for my fashion sense,” he says, getting his knight to close in on Layton’s king, “it’s actually quite similar to what I was already wearing.”
Layton looks at the state of the board and thinks rapidly about what move to make next. Clive seems talented but doesn’t move his pieces in a textbook manner. There’s a level of unpredictability to his moves, and they aren’t always the ones best-suited to the situation. It’s apparent that chess isn’t his game of choice or that he doesn’t read books about its strategy. But there’s something refreshing about an opponent like that.
“It’s impossible to lie all the time, Professor,” Clive continues. “Just as it isn’t possible to always be truthful.”
“So you admit some of the things you said and did then were true.”
“Mmh, yes, and you’ll have to figure out which ones were true and which ones were false.”
Layton thinks he’s getting the upper hand when the other king is so close to his bishop but he didn’t notice just where the other queen is.
“That’s your puzzle,” Clive continues with a smirk, and watches Layton as he runs through hundreds of possible outcomes in his mind.
Layton finds himself enjoying his visits to the prison, finds that he enjoys thinking up puzzles and games to stimulate Clive’s mind with.
He thinks often about Clive and these thoughts sometimes lack any intellectual depth to them, much to his own surprise. Thoughts about what Clive’s favorite tea is so that he can serve it when he is released someday. That he perhaps enjoys going bare-headed more than wearing his newsboy cap, and how ungentlemanly that is. The location of his actual home, whether above-ground or beneath it (and how unhealthy it would be to live for an extended period of time in a polluted, fake, underground city).
The weeping, bruised face that he never wants to see again and the smile that he can’t tear his gaze away from.
The desire to protect him and the impotence to do any such thing. The strangest pride at watching him protect himself, using the same teeth he used to rip apart London.
All of this about an odd, criminally insane, young fellow.
“Professor? Hello?”
He startles.
“Yes, Luke? What is it?”
“I wanted to ask you something but, um, I don’t think you heard me, did you?”
The thoughts are at times very distracting. It’s a bit alarming, really.
So when a mystery takes him and Luke on another adventure through a small village in the countryside, he lets himself go and doesn’t bother telling Clive. He seems to be feeling better both mentally and physically, as well as adapting to the new demands prison has placed on him.
Clive doesn’t need Layton, he convinces himself. And he–
He loses himself in hundreds of puzzles, as well as in finding out that the ex-husband of the woman who hired him to investigate the disappearance of her daughter is actually still alive, faked his own death, and is using the legend of a forest monster in a nearby town to rob goods and live in the forest with his daughter.
Good lord.
It’s nearly another month when he gets back to visiting the prison again, the passage of time having made it awkward for him to start the habit back up again.
When he sits down, Clive comes in looking thin and tired, as if the progress he had made before had now been reversed during Layton’s time away.
“Hello,” Layton starts. “I realize it’s been some time since my last visit, but I went with Luke to solve a rather convoluted mystery outside of London.”
He thinks Clive would appreciate that. The mystery he created was convoluted as well.
“Oh, so that’s what happened,” Clive says. “I thought… that you had lost interest in visiting me.”
“No, not at all,” Layton says, a bit insulted. “Why would I do such a thing?”
“Why do you continue to visit me anyhow? I– I did so many horrible things, unforgivable things, to so many people. If you don’t want to come here, then no one is obligating you to.”
Layton isn’t completely certain why he does this either.
“Perhaps I visit you out of concern, Clive–”
“I don’t need your concern, Professor. I can take care of myself, as you must have already noticed.”
Clive grits his teeth at him. He looks like a cornered animal.
Layton struggles to understand why.
“Are you upset that I didn’t visit you for so long?” Layton asks. “That I neglected to mention that I would not be able to see you?”
“Maybe I am,” Clive says, clenching a hand over the chain of his handcuffs. “Maybe I thought you finally abandoned me because I don’t deserve anyone visiting me at all, and then you come back here, giving me this blasted hope–!”
Clive breathes heavily and glares.
“Even though eventually, you will grow sick of me and– and disappear.”
Layton stares at him and is amazed at the immense hurt running through the other man.
“Why would you not deserve any visitors?” Layton says slowly. “Contrary to popular belief, you are actually not the single worst person to exist, possibly even in this prison.”
Clive narrows his eyes. They glimmer with unshed tears.
“Damn your logic and reasoning, Professor, just do what you want– Just leave and don’t come back–”
“I want to be here, Clive,” Layton says, a bolt of anger flowing through him until he can stamp it down. It doesn’t matter to him what other people think about Clive or about his relationship with the other man - he will be the one to make those decisions, not the opinions of strangers. “I want to visit you, whether you deserve it or not.”
Clive glares at him and weeps. The way he pouts is so boyish. It’s endearing.
“I won’t grow sick of you and disappear either.”
“How can you say that knowing I’ll be in here for 15 damned years?!” says Clive. “There’s no way you won’t become bored or remember how loathesome my crimes are and leave me. If you’re going to do it, I’d rather you do it now.”
The amount of cursing the other man is committing is very ungentleman-like but he holds his tongue, as Clive is weeping enough as it is. Priorities, priorities.
He sighs and holds Clive’s hand, gentle and patient as he is wont to be.
His thumb rubs up and down very slightly on the back of Clive’s knuckles and it both calms the other man and makes him even more upset.
Tears of rage, of loneliness, of shame, of so many things. Many of which Layton may never be able to fully comprehend.
“I apologize,” says Layton, “for not having told you sooner. I didn’t realize the effect it would have on you, that it would even matter to you that I had paused our visits, really–”
“Your visits are the only puzzles I get these days,” Clive sniffles. “You really thought I wouldn’t care? Maybe I do. Maybe I w-want something to do besides sit in a dark hole or pay people to not scrap me up.”
“I’m sorry,” Layton repeats. “I will try to let you know from now on. And I will visit you. You will just have to believe me– to trust me when I say that.”
His finger rubs at Clive’s hand and it feels as if that hand were within his chest somehow, gripping tightly at the heart inside.
The visit after that is when Layton gets more context on Clive’s anxieties, as the man reveals that he receives letters from the public.
Some are fan letters from terrorists who want to destroy industrialized society or to make a political statement, others from women who fawn over his good looks and wouldn’t mind having a murderer boyfriend in prison, and still others from people who either hate his guts for the destruction he caused or are concerned over his mental health and want to try to help him.
Some of the fans he has accumulated wish to visit him in prison but he has denied them all. They don't know him. They don't know about Bill Hawks and they will never understand Clive because of that. He has no need for such people in his life and these requests could never count as visits in his mind.
Clive hands an envelope to Layton wordlessly, staring down at the table.
His expression is stony and hard when he is in prison with his peers, but alone with Layton, he is, all of a sudden, an open wound. He is ready to weep at any moment. He wants to be touched and for it to be gentle and to not hurt, as Layton does with his hands. He wants to have fun and to think for pleasure’s sake and not for survival, as with his games and puzzles. He is a different beast altogether in this room than he is normally, and it is both an honor and a responsibility for Layton to shoulder.
Layton takes the envelope in hand, pulls out the letter within and reads it.
His stomach drops.
How many letters like this has Clive received?
How many times has he re-read this?
How many times has he thought about this until the small hours of the morning without being able to sleep?
It’s absolutely gruesome. The deaths detailed in this letter must be incredibly triggering to Clive, even though he is the one who caused them.
The writer of the letter is a boy who lost his parents underneath the foot of Clive’s mobile fortress as it was walking around London and shooting missiles.
The child finds himself now in an orphanage.
He blames Clive and for good reason.
But the ending of the letter surprises Layton.
‘I heard on the news that your parents died in an explosion,’ it reads. ‘So why did you make explosions to kill other people if you knew it would hurt them too? I wondered what was wrong with you. I thought about it a lot! And I think that you did that because you were lonely. You wanted people to know what you felt. You wanted other people to be sad and angry like you. You wanted other people to know what it’s like to lose their parents. I used to hate you so much but now I just feel bad for you. Your life must have been miserable. I’m not going to grow up and be like you, I’m going to be happy and make other people happy.'
The child has a good head on his shoulders, Layton thinks, and he also won't pose a danger to society the way Clive has. In a way, Clive really has no excuse for what he did when comparing his life story with every other orphan who didn't turn out to be a murderer.
But even still, Layton is here and visiting him.
Excusable or not. Redeemable or not. Worthy or not.
He hands the letter back to Clive, who tucks it back into his jumpsuit.
For once, Layton has no words.
The mobile fortress’ carnage had been detached and indiscriminate but accounts such as this one brought the chaos down to a personal level. They put faces and names to the human beings Clive had killed, whose lives he had destroyed in much the same way his own had been. There could perhaps be no more brutal demonstration of the fact that Clive has become that which he hated most. His is a horrible fate.
“It's all my fault, I know,” says Clive. “I– I made children into orphans like myself, hurt them like I was hurt. And the worst thing is that this boy is almost certainly right. On some level, I wanted to hurt others. I wanted…”
He grasps at his head.
“I hated the people of London because they approved of the man who killed my parents. I thought they should pay too.”
“But how would they have known?” Says Layton. “The truth has been heavily suppressed and will continue to be, so long as Hawks continues to use his money and influence.”
“They couldn't have known,” says Clive. He sighs. “God, I was stupid. Stupid and… and angry. This boy is completely right.”
Layton watches his face.
Perhaps he should tell the staff to put Clive on suicide watch.
If the man were to kill himself over the guilt of murdering and orphaning then.
Well, he isn't sure what he will do.
Clive has done unforgivable things.
But he doesn't want him to die.
He wants Clive to atone and for himself to keep visiting him and that's all.
Clive sniffles and scratches at the table.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to die,” he says. “Ever since I was a boy, so I could see my parents again. Sometimes I thought dying was a blessing so we wouldn't have to– to stay in this cruel world for too long. That my parents got a good deal dying young and not dying of some disease. So I tried. And– I couldn't do it.” Clive laughs. “As you can well see, since I– I’m still alive.”
“Please don’t cry,” says Layton.
“What am I… even alive for? Why was I born? Just to suffer? Just to kill and hurt other people?”
Clive weeps. He can't seem to hold back the pressure in his chest which has bottled up for so long and low howls of agony escape him.
Layton stands up, pushing his chair away, and comes up to Clive on the other side of the table. He grips him by the hair and buries Clive's face into his chest, holds him like he must have when the man was once but a boy wanting to dive back into the fire.
Clive sobs.
“Don't ask why you're alive, my boy, just make the most of it while you’re here,” says Layton. He rubs the other man's back, trying to soothe him. “It does no one any good for you to die. But the world will be a better place if you change your ways. Do you understand?”
It's obvious that Clive wants to grip onto the professor’s back but his hands are shackled to the table. He shakes with the force of his sobbing.
Layton holds him tightly.