[ It's more than a second. Nearly a minute, because he can't find the right signals that tells him he isn't going to choke harder. But he finds something, fists clenched once again and a new nowhere to look at, the threat looming there in the background, but better than nothing. ]

I'm telling you this... because the whole time, I didn't stop. Not until the end. [ An end he finds he doesn't want to reach, his voice picking up, trying to ignore the closer it comes. ] If I tell you, I want you to know what that's like... and if he means really someone to Silver, what that must've been like for him.

[ Red can only guess--and it was all only guesses in the end, assumptions; maybe they weren't close at all, and Silver had been able to more easily accept what happened and get through it, perhaps even help the man do the same too. It was a possibility that Red had thought of, felt it twist his insides with a foul emotion, and hated himself for feeling it at all.

But there was no way he wouldn't know it was him. That much had to be certain.

It takes another moment though, just to appease the growing welling in his lungs, more there that he had wanted to say but knowing he won't be able to get through it all. He shifts his feet, the fabrics of the rug under them sticking to the bottom of his shoes from the heat, sighs lightly once and then more heavily the second time, before that seems to grant him a shaking voice to work with: ]

Ludger, from the Hearth. He's one of the cooks.

[ ...and maybe standing away from most of the furniture had been a good idea, but it doesn't help the piece still beneath him, the fabric darkening to a black and spreading like catching a fuel to ignite it without a visible flame, bringing the strong smell of melting plastic in the air. It gets him to cough, a hand going up to his mouth and staying there despite a foot nearly stepping back. He can't, he has to calm down first-- ]