Gail
I'm gonna start in a sec

"Therapy" Had taught Mattias Gates a great many things. The first, that they were, to some degree, safe at Newton's Cradle. The second, that they were a person. A life independent of their inglorious purpose, a consciousness, a choice, a (para)human. The third was that there were people who cared about them. And that those people could be trusted and treasured. 

It was the third reason they'd come here, why they remained after near seven hours standing in front of a closed door. They'd been watching ""Owen Edris"" For a while, even before they'd been taken to be interrogated, and come to the conclusion that he was strange. He could manifest fire. He was clumsy to a degree that should almost be impossible for an actual human being. And he was close to Uriel, a proximity and insidious trust-building that could only mean he intended to hurt them. Matti had meant what they'd said down in the room, to Blazer. Any threat to Uriel was a threat to themself. A threat to be obliterated with extreme prejudice. 

They figured if they intended to kill ""Owen"", or even just to scare him into rethinking whatever plans he had for their friend, they should start early. Psychological warfare was efficient, and would lend credibility to later threats. They'd sit outside his dorm, wait for him to exit, and tell him in no uncertain terms that should he hurt Uriel, his head would fall to the weight of their flashlight. The plan was simple and clean within the confines of their mind, with a neatness that should have been a warning sign in itself. 

After hours— *Many* Hours, not risking to sit or move or take a break for fear that they'd miss his departure, Mattias was tired. They swayed slightly on their feet, their vision fuzzed from behind the dark tint of their glasses. *Maybe another day,* They reasoned. Yes, that was a good idea. If ""Owen"" Didn't come out soon, they'd leave and try again later.
Charles
Owen was about as awake as he could be before breakfast. Last night's rain gave way to a pleasantly chilled wind through his open window; it kissed his back ever so sweetly as he lay on his carpet before deciding to get up. The best sleeps, he thought, were the ones that he awoke from in a disgruntled but well-rested heap on the ground. *It's a wonder that that doesn't happen when Uriel's over. Hah, even they might run out of patience for me if I dragged them out of their beauty rest like this.* A wonder indeed.

Throwing on a black *Motörhead* Shirt with the sleeves hacked off, thrice-repaired cargo pants, his bullet belt, and his favourite studded bracelet did nicely for today. Ares had once called this outfit his "Karate Kid Villain Fit," And he couldn't *Disagree*... 

A cursory glance at the mirror hung at eye-level, and he was off to the bathroom with his hairbrush to tame this mane of overgrown copper. Just the routine click of the door opening, and he *JUMPED OUT OF HIS SKIN-*

"**AaAAA?!!**"

This kid was *Way* Too close, and *Not moving*- the boy who hadn't wiped enough sleep from his eyes for this gripped the hairbrush white-knuckle tight in front of him, a familiar shell of heat shooting out from his arms and chest and resting over his clothes. Its glasslike, almost-liquid facets shifted and zipped, crackling in surprise. His face, frozen in an expression of shock, seemed to.. Not know what to say here. Owen's eyes, cracked wide, tried to take in the sight before him, but getting sucked into the dark glasses somehow boring holes into his skull. *Gulp.*
Gail
*Oh thank god*. ""Owen"" Had finally woken up and moved outside. The startled scream he'd let out had been slightly startling, but Matti wasn't sure they had the capacity to move or flinch. A side effect from standing stock still for the better part of a good night's rest. Rapidly gathering themself into some form of competence, Mattias glared from under their glasses. Their blue, slightly discolored flashlight was gripped in their left hand. 

"'Owen Edris'," They spoke, voice flat and low as to not betray any of their thoughts (still racing and half fallen into sleeping). "Soon, I am going to kill you." 

Well, it was kill or lightly maim, but it wasn't like Mattias could add that after the fact. If they could have a do over, be slightly more alert when ""Owen"" Finally opened the door, they would have put something about the maiming. A good threat was *Specific*, they'd learned. Though upon first glance (this was technically the first time they'd spoken, and thus the first time Matti was able to observe ""Owen"" Up close), ""Owen"" Had seemed suitably frightened by their presence alone. It made the long wait worth it, and internally they preened. 

After a dramatically long pause, they spoke again. "Your evil machinations against Uriel have not gone unnoticed. Cease your manipulations of ill intent, or be judged." 

It sounded like something someone from a movie or a Greek myth might say, which meant it was probably a good warning. Their purpose complete, Mattias' fatigue finally started to catch up to them. Their legs held up by sheer force of will, but their eyesight began to grow fuzzy the longer they stayed standing. "Be judged," They echoed, putting as much spite and vitriol as they could muster (which was, at the moment, not very much) into their tone.
Charles
"*E-EVIL?!*"

Owen's voice cracked, the hot ball of spikes in his stomach spasming as though this strange, obscured accuser had jammed a taser into it. Despite the absurdity of their claim and corresponding demand, the darkly-clad boy's pounding heart sank. He couldn't decide what exactly he thought he was guilty of, but a dozen interactions with his dear friend flashed behind his warm, bright doe eyes, poison staining the edges strange, sickly colours. *Was* He causing them hurt?

And then, it hit him how unbelievable that was. *What in the actual fUCK??* They couldn't be real. This.. Aha. That was it.

"This is a *Weird* Dream, huh," He squeaked, before proceeding to *Thwack* Himself in the side of the head with his hairbrush with minimal hesitation.

...

Nope. Still awake. *Stiilllll awake.* Owen's head now throbbed for a horrible duo of reasons. It was a little difficult to puff out his chest and defend himself when his instinct was- if he were being completely honest- to curl up and sob. That's exactly what they wanted, though, wasn't it? For him to crumble and melt? Owen was a little taller and definitely broader; he could shove them back and make a run for it no problem, scare them off and prove them right, but.. No, no, he didn't want to do that. That wasn't.. No.

One urge reigned supreme, however, one unanswered question to rule them all breaking through his wavering lips.

"And who are *You??*" The pushy visitor's composure was a little wobbly, sure, but Owen's incredulity was painted in clear contours all across his cinnamon-smattered face. "Uri-Uriel didn't s-send you," He asserted, straightening his back. *Crackrckck.* "I've never seen you before. Who-" His voice nearly broke- "*Who* Is *Judging* Me?"
_ _

Truth be told, Owen was sick of being judged. He had been tired of it for ages. People looked at him, him and Uriel especially, and decided that they knew exactly what they saw, and it boiled his magic-thickened blood. Being angry made him feel like shit, but he hesitantly let a little more rush to the surface; the shell of the hand gripping the brush swirled with orange light as he waited on his accuser to tell him who exactly they thought they were.

*Who do you think you see...*
The boy's scleras seemed to be injected with fire, like lighthouse beams frustratedly swiping at fog with intangible hands. *What, pray tell, are you so sure of?*
Gail
"I am—" Mattias Gates faltered as a rush of molten light surged up through ""Owen""'s hand, eyes widening in part fascination and part horror. 

They might have miscalculated, slightly. 

In their defense, it had been very little time since they'd escaped (left) the care of Blazer, and though they'd only discussed their worries superficially, it was enough to stir the silt that usually layered their more complicated emotions. Sleeping had been difficult, and standing up straight for seven hours had hardly helped. Any elements of a plan they *Might* Have had for dealing with ""Owen""'s abilities were very likely lost to the chasm of fog and forgetting that threatened to swallow them the longer they went without rest. So while Matti had known *Logically* That ""Owen"" Could manifest fire, and that fire burned things, and that fire could burn *People*, it may have slipped their mind. Just a little.

Still, made slightly more fearless by adrenaline and impeded brain function, they pressed on. "I am the Ceaseless Watcher. It is my solemn duty to witness the sins of deceit and cruelty mankind will bring, and then return to whence I've come when my obligations are fulfilled." 

Any gravitas or mystique the statements may have had were slightly diminished by the way that Mattias' eyes followed ""Owen""'s glowing hand in much the way a moth follows a flame, or a cat the bead of a laser pointer. 

"And I—" They continued. "I—"

.

In moments of weakness, of vulnerability, of sleep deprivation, humans tend to fall back on what is familiar. Much in the way water flows downstream, how birds follow the same paths of migration, when people are reduced to their base states, they go to what they remember. Mattias Gates, whom had very little experience in social interaction, had no such instincts to build on, nor many experiences to make relevant the little they did know. No, most of the social cues Mattias Gates was familiar with came from one, very dubious source. One they'd spent hours listening to, noting down information and mock introductions and practiced conversations. So when faced with a question as simple and nondescript as *Who are you?*, a staple of many of those faux-interactions, Matti said exactly what they'd been instructed to.

"Hi, whazzaup. I am Mattias Gates, but you can call me Matti. Who are you?"
Charles
"Um."

A pin could be heard scurrying away from this confrontation in the hall.

Owen dug the heels of his crystalline hands into his eye sockets for a moment as a whole lot of things processed in half-real time. This kid-Mattias- was for real. They (*He?* They, for now) had been watching him and he didn't know, and they knew Uriel, and oh *Shit*, they really did *Come to kill him*. Owen had been all sorts of things to all sorts of people, but *Wanted dead* Was another thing. Someone cared enough, *Hated* Enough, to want him dead on Uriel's behalf. 

Oh yeah, and this Mattias was in way over their head. In *What* Exactly was unclear- was this some sort of episode, a side effect of their powers (something to do with that 'Ceaseless Watcher' business?), driving them batty? They.. Followed the rivers of molten light through his arm like a mesmerized cat, either making their threats less threatening (easily distracted?) or even more so, the signs of someone not grounded enough in reality to veer from their path of.. Well, murdering him. *Could he take this kid in a fight to the death-er, incapacitation?* They seemed to be confident in their ability to hit him with that flashlight.

Something, though, rung strange as he dragged his hands down his face to once again face his visitor; that last piece. Scripted. He used to talk like that a lot. Still did, when he ran out of 'appropriate' things to say. Owen hated to relate to this.. *Overzealous anime nut? Arkham Asylum escapee?*, but he did, in this one way. It was almost comical, how the line was spat in their monotone, fake-scary voice. Taking a deep breath, he released his shield from everywhere but the arm peeking out from behind the door, regarding the swirling colours beneath the glassy surface. He leaned his forearm against the door frame, in clear view; if he could keep this kid *Just* Distracted enough, then maybe... Hell. His other hand fidgeted madly behind the door.
_ _

"Y-you, um." *Fuck, what would he even say here- shit-* One thing at a time. Deep breaths. "You know Uriel?" His organs twisted painfully. "*Ffyc*, w-what on Earth do you think I'm up to th-that you want me *Dead*?!"

Whoops. Shouting that part might have been a mistake, but Owen needed answers. Hopefully real, non-scripted ones.
Gail
In any other time, under any other circumstance, Mattias would have considered the words they'd just spoken and decided promptly to never open their mouth again. But lost in the wonders of poor decisions and self-assurance (the latter very new and therefore intoxicating, the former much more familiar), they harbored no such reservations. 

"I've met Uriel. They are *Sad*," Matti proclaimed, as if their words were a speech meant to move masses. "You're trying to make them trust you, and it will work, because Uriel is foolish for one who is 'not a god'. But *I* Know, and they understand what I know." And in those words there was, more than truth, a seed of honesty. A solemnity not conjured or overblown. A seriousness, a weight.

"You don't understand—" The train of thought tripped abruptly with another movement of soft, glowing orange, and Matti fumbled for words.

"Scissors," They decided on, though the two statements seemed oddly disconnected. "Scissors. You don't understand." They narrowed their eyes, once again cat-like. "I haven't figured out what you're up to yet, but rest assured you won't get away with it. Whatever nefarious purpose you have for lowering their guard will be stopped. Justice never rests." And neither did Matti, apparently. They swayed backwards, away from the door, and blinked their eyes against the sudden static in their vision. 

"You're out to get us. I know it. You have some plan. A scheme. *I know it*. You might have tricked them, but you can't trick me."
Charles
Frantic stars gnawed at the edges of Owen's vision, a thousand white-hot bugs crawling through his chest and over his brain. Fear, disbelief, and *Rage* Ripped through his body hard enough for his hands to shake. Scissors. *Scissors.* **Scissors.** There was only one way Mattias could know about his, or Uriel's, *Thing*S with scissors.

Before he could cry out, the *Indeed* Ceaseless watcher continued with their spiel, shovelling dirt into his grave faster than he could crawl out and ~~knock all their teeth out~~ *Cool down and defend himself*. He gritted his teeth as his power stirred uncomfortably beneath his skin; veins pulsed with new flames, sparks seemingly dancing beneath his face as he held them back for both of their sake.

"YOU. YOU WER-WERE WATCHING US. IN THE GARDEN," He managed to squeeze out. "You have been watching me, haven't you! My every word, hhuh, you just know *All* The right spots..."

```TW for intrusive thoughts from here on out-```
Owen's voice shook horribly, eyes darting every which way, invisible pressure tightening around his chest and his throat, his mouth dry as though he were inhaling volcanic ash and spitting it back at Mattias. ||*They knew. They knew one of his deepest secrets, they saw him touch Uriel that way, and saw them touch him, and they were going to cut his hair, they were going to tear out his veins and* **Cuthishair** *They knew how to tear his pride from his chest they saw him fuck he shouldn't have told anyone he shouldn't have dragged sweet Uriel into his infected gash THEY HAD NO RIGHT THEY HAD EVERY RIGHT THEY ARE GOING TO CUT YOUR HAIR THEY ARE GOING TO CUT YOU-*||

The handle of Owen's hairbrush sank into the floor when he dropped it, the boy's eyes cracked wide in horror as he saw his fingers' shapes solidify into the plastic. *They don't know anything they're right they don't know anything they know everything I hate them I hate them I-*
_ _

"Couldn-couldn't I, I-I hav-have-have just f-f-FUCKING* BEEN THEIR FRIEND?"

Owen's attack was garbled through his speech impediment, the floodgates cracking and screaming beneath the force of the wave trying to escape them. His voice still cracked and shook, *Like a child's*, his hands gripped the doorknob and the frame *Hard* As tones usually only reserved for the deepest corners of the forest and the fortified music room clawed their way up his throat.

"O-of-ofcourseI, I couldn't, I'm a, I'm, I'm hurting them, and I don't-t Idon't e-even know it, I," He stammered, his face so hot he barely felt the tears run fast down his cheeks. He dragged his burning hands down his scalp, but it was no good. The heat was everywhere. *He* Was everywhere, burning and warping and melting his world. "You're **Wrong**, *I just want to be their friend, I just want," He gasped through a tremor, cold sweat pricking at his back. "Why can't I just b-b-be *Good* Annn-an-and have f-friends that-that loveme.."
Gail
TWs: Implied child abuse, implied child neglect. Some really, really shitty stuff said to Owen (don't know the word for it). 

Mattias Gates was cruel. 

Maybe unintentionally so (and maybe, sometimes, not), but the fact remained. It was a kind of morbid fascination with the macabre: the secret, almost selfish desire to push and push and *Push* Until they saw someone break. They thought to themself, personally, privately, that it stemmed from the same kind of need to prove the truth. To flay falsehood from flesh, to dig lies from bone. It drove them the way a rabbit drives a hound. Seeking, finding, catching. At the end of it all, Matti was left without blood and gore. Instead, the corpses they created were relationships. Trust. People. It was only the rare, quiet thought that reminded them: the rot is not the tree. The rotting tree is not the forest. 

When Mattias emerged from the wooded path, when they were panting and dry-mouthed from the chase, when their throat burned and their eyes blazed with cruelty, when Owen Edris finally snapped, those rare, quiet thoughts fled. And the same thought rang through the mind of Mattias Gates as ||every other time they'd expected a blow and received one||. 

*I was right.*

It was a sick feeling, to be right. One with a sudden fear, a sobering consciousness. 

.

And yet even through the illness they could *See*. They had spent eight years with nothing but their Sight— they saw the shaking hands, the glistening eyes, the cracking voice. This was not a man who *Wanted* To break, to beat, to burn, not in the way it would be so easy for him to do. This was a man cornered and crying for help, one who desperately needed the kindness that came with silence and solace. Perhaps with any other perpetrator, he would have found it. But Mattias Gates was far more than righteous: Mattias Gates was *Cruel*. 

The moment the melted hairbrush touched the ground, the prey inside Matti's brain *Screamed*. And the predator screamed *Louder*.

"You think you won't hurt them?" They hissed, snake venom hidden behind blunted teeth. "It doesn't matter. You are fire, 'Owen Edris'. You *Burn* Things." 

Sleep warred with survival within them, a battle they could not win for long, but that was alright. Matti was used to having the deck stacked against them.

"I was watching in the garden. I have *Seen*. Uriel is *Kind*. You would reach for the stars? For the sun? How could you *Dare*?"

"You think them an object, a balm to soothe your suffering. You are wrong. They are not *For* You."

.

They weren't talking to Owen, anymore. No, this message was for someone else. A child with darker hair and all-seeing eyes and clips scattered through their hair. ||The one who waited at bus stops long after dark, who hid in cabinets and slept shivering in rain.|| The one who wanted silence. The one who wanted to be kind.

It didn't matter who they were talking to, though. Once the words had fallen from their lips, boulders on the back of a snail, they had been spoken. No matter how much Matti wished to swallow them up, to lock them back within their stomach, to have the acid burn only themself, they couldn't. 

*Mattias Gates,* Their thoughts echoed bitterly. *You are cruel.*
Charles
Mattias was like a funhouse mirror, one of the ones that frightened Owen when he was little because he didn't understand what was him and what was distortion; he had thought that he had suddenly stretched beyond human proportions, that he was twisted and hideous and jarringly unnatural. His mothers had steered him away from where he stood staring in horror at the mirror, and showed him his real reflection in the deep puddle sitting mercifully on the concrete nearby. He saw himself, boy-shaped and harmless, and dug his head between their soft embraces to sob out the rest of the fear.

This time, however, Owen knew that he was warping to match the mirror. They called him fire, and fire is what pushed out from beneath his skin; they asserted that he burned things, and the smell of the melting brush had yet to dissipate. 

*They're right about me, warped, distorted thing that I'm trying so hard not to be, but they're wrong. They are so very wrong about Uriel.* 

He could take their blows. What other choice did he have? The anger and the heat was blinding, intoxicating, and it sickened him to his stomach, but he had certainly told himself worse. And look where he was now, still standing. This new fury, however, on behalf of his dearest friend, refused to sit in his belly.

"I-*I* Think they're an object??"

His thoughts were so loud that he half expected Mattias to hear them; could they? *They definitely could.* He felt that some things needed to be said aloud anyway.

"OF *FUCKING COURSE* THEY'RE NOT *FOR* ME! They're- *FOR* NOBODY!" Owen's shout rang through the hallway surprisingly clearly, an angry spark being spat from a crackling log that could no longer take the flames eating it. "May-*Be* I do wreck everything I touch. Maybe them touching me *Is* A disaster waiting to happen!" 

There was almost a laugh in his voice, incredulous energy boiling over the top. He wanted to do horrible things, and he wanted to throw up just thinking about them.
_ _

"But-but they're nnnn-not-not- I n-never wanted them to be a 'balm' for anyone. Are they for *You*, is that it? I-I remember your name. They murmured it in their sleep while you were gone. They were-they were looking out for you, and they're worse at caring for themselves than *Me*, and, and-" 

It all flowed too deliciously fast, like he were clawing flakes of volcanic ash from his mouth before they burned through his tongue. A memory; Uriel's hands in his hair as they cried tears he never asked for, his arms wrapped so tightly around their sleep-weighted body, the both of them so weak and tired. *He never asked them to. They did anyway. He clung to them.*

"Will you carry them in your *Pocket*, then, the next time you march to your death without a word, leaving me again to worry about them starving in their sleep, watching you??"

Owen.. Had forgotten the smouldering coal in his stomach reserved for the blurry figure of 'Matti,' the one who went with Margo to the bloody tower, who... *Fuck*, he couldn't blame for Uriel's choices. *Nobody should have done what they did in those four days, even me. No one made them pass out for four days, they did it themselves. I know that. I've gone through this. I know that. Ffyc.* Another sob wracked his body, another wave of tears.

"That's- not what I-"

*Grrrrrr.*

The *Nerve* Of them, though, to think of them the sun, and all the stars, ~~like they were *Special* There,~~ ignoring all the sharp pieces that littered their soft carpet, stinging their feet and tipping them back into bed. Owen was no demon, he reminded himself, and Uriel was no angel.

The taller boy lit in all shades of red and copper and gold took a step forward and shut his door softly behind him with a shaking hand. His scleras burned gold, his irises reflecting red, his pupils furious pinpricks.

"I don't like the way you talk about them."
Gail
Owen's acknowledgement of his own shortcomings felt satisfying for only a short, exhilarating moment before everything else came crashing down.

The blind anger, the soft, still fuzz of almost-sleep, the *Ignorance* Melted away, leaving Matti scrabbling against the closing walls of guilt with little more than an internal *Please, no, come back*. Something new settled in their chest. The fury was cold, not like calm but like frostbite. In the way you think it burns, how you shake like it's too much to keep inside you, how you would douse yourself in kerosene if it would chase away the freeze. It was, in reality, less parts anger and more something else. But anger was easier to hold, a blade simpler to wield than let rust. Matti turned it on Owen's words, tearing them to pieces in their mind.

Uriel was not an object, Matti knew, and *Owen* Was wrong, *He* Was, but—

They hadn't known that. They hadn't *Known*. 

It was easy enough to picture, too easy. They'd seen the distraught desperateness before, and the feeling fit Uriel like an iron maiden. It was a feeling more selfless than selfish, the sort of kindness that got people killed. Their mind drowned them in imagined grief, smothered cold flame with tears and numbness. That single moment of empathy was so strong Mattias could almost ignore the voice rising from the shadowed darkness of a kitchen cupboard. Almost. Not entirely.

*Your fault*, it hissed, a hundred strong, all forms familiar. *It's all your fault*. 

They clutched to anger like a rope from a ship, hauling their body from a tumultuous and bloodthirsty sea. Tried, once more, for the bite of fanged teeth and the snap of accusation. "***You—***" They forced out, a word a thousand shades of crimson and malice. Casting a desperate hand up to the deck. Searching for a foothold.

The rope frayed. They fell.

.

Waves crashed around their ears, concrete like a tsunami, locking lungs. Panic in a rising tide well past the threat of overflow.

In desperation they searched for Gabe's steady presence at their back, for Margo's grin at their side, for Uriel's outstretched hand in front of them. Instead, they found nothing. Instead, they found themself alone. 



It was a small movement, that did it. Something likely not even conscious. A panicked shifting of weight. An inching *Forward*. The slip of the hand from a doorway. Something small. That was all it took, until the hallway looked familiar, like a dozen others, waiting to be stained with the blood of violence. They'd thought this place was different. They'd thought this place was *Safe*. They'd been stupid. It wasn't. It could never be. 

And so Mattias broke the second rule they'd ever set for themself, one that had haunted dreaming days and waking nights for over eight years. 

They moved. 

They *Flinched*.

Backwards, with a force so strong it bent their spine forward, their arms up, their body against the opposite wall of the narrow hallway. 

*Protect your eyes*, is what they thought when they hit drywall. Not their head. Not their brain. *Protect your eyes*.
Charles
[TW/CW uH, implied violence, semi-detailed descriptions of open wounds (burns specifically), traumatic memories resurfacing]

Anger, Owen had realized a longer time ago than he wanted to admit, had a shadow. It was the crash after the high, the lost voice after the war cry, the cold blowing in through the charred skeleton of the house after it burns down, gloriously and completely. The flinch, that comes after the cathartic expulsion.

Mattias didn't need to call him anything, or accuse him of any bullshit crime; '*You*' was damning enough.



The doctors had told him a little over a year ago that healing burns was a process. Essentially, one bandages it up, unwraps it in the morning, removes the dead tissue, rinse and repeat until it's all gone. It was a delicate process, and it hurt like being flayed alive, but Owen's skin had closed and grown new tissue (the best it could, anyway). It had been such a relief, to no longer be peeled open, naked and raw and cracked beneath the rain and the thin hospital gown and the moon peeking through his window; he had healed, stubborn bastard that he always was, twisted and thick and never-the-same but whole again, ready to face the sky once more, clean and new.
_ _

He only wished he could say the same about his mind, and his heart. Therapy felt like a similar process, he had noted; he peeled back the bandages, scraped off the rotting stuff, cried, rubbed things that stung and things that soothed into his wounds and put the bandages back on until the next appointment. That also felt like being flayed alive at times, but this time it just kept coming *Back*. More dead tissue, sticking to the raw new growth.

Owen had nearly forgiven himself for something. He had long come to terms with it, the fact that it happened, but he couldn't shake the dead eyes that stared him down during and since, cold and rotting tissue chafing against the old bandages. He had been *Close*, though, almost at peace, ready to remove his wrappings, to finally see-

Mattias' face, contorted in horror, stumbling back; his own closed fist flooded with fire. Cold light on his back. *Right where he started*.

Owen hated this feeling, that followed the catharsis. His blinding light's shadow, the smoke that followed the fire, the lesson he never learned.



Owen didn't register his trip downward, just the scrape of the floor against the holes in the knees of his pants.

"I-I-*STOP IT*", was all that he could force out as the unbearable heat suddenly ripped itself from his skin. A screen of transparent red, fever-hot but solid, painted itself in the air around his frozen form; it resembled a flower closing, curling back into a bud. Pitiful few sounds escaped it, and even fewer movements.
_ _

"Sss-s-ss-stop say-ying horrible th-things to me," He whimpered. It was as simple a request as they got. "*Please*." Surely, *Surely* This had been enough?