Jessica
*FROM THE TOP NOW-*
Brenda
I'm illiterate what
Thelma
Are you restarting from the Very Very Top or just like.
Brenda
I think the first few messages were fine? .

Might edit a little bit but otherwise good stuff

Welllllllll lemme reread
Jessica
I think the first two or three are good but I don't like what I did after 😭
Brenda
"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. . 

They figured if they intended to kill ""Owen"" (or more likely 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.
Jessica
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.*

...Were they.. Twelve??
Brenda
*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). "Cease, or perish." 

Well, it was perish or be lightly maimed, 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 sinister machinations against Uriel have not gone unnoticed. Withdraw 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.
Jessica
Owen's mouth opened and closed a couple of times before it released anything.. Intelligible. To say he was baffled was a sore understatement. This wasn't the sort of thing that, well, people *Said*. And, certainly, it wasn't what he was expecting from an innocent bond with a classmate (???). *Did they seriously echo that last bit?*

"P-pardon??"

The befuddled boy now planted uncomfortably in the open doorframe had heard their unnerving words perfectly clearly, and certainly hoped he didn't understand them as such, but, *Damn*, he did not have the wherewithal to process them this early. Early as in 'before noon,' really, but still *Early*.

Eyes cracked wider, and hand desperately twirling the hairbrush, Owen got a better-ish look at his accuser. Shorter than him. *Very* Sure of themselves. Wearing a hat indoors. The heavy-lidded look of exhaustion blended too well with the defiant glare of someone evidently at the end of their rope, to the point where Owen couldn't tell which was which, and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't making him a little nervous.

It wasn't rational, of course- some part of Owen knew that, that this ..*Kid* Had more nerve than proof of anything, but the cogs behind the sun-spiced brown eyes darting around the jarringly quiet scene couldn't help but spin themselves a yarn and a half about all the ways they could be right.

The cinnamon-smattered boy's always-pounding heartbeat quickened, and his brows pinched into a haplessly confused scowl as he waited on *Something* To work with.
Brenda
Seeing Owen's obvious confusion was, really, the footnote to a long list of evidence Mattias Gates had been gathering labelled with a largefont title that read "Maybe He's Not So Bad".

Items approximately 1-35 on aforementioned list were general instances of "Dumbassery" (as Gabe called it). Tripping down stairs. Falling out of trees. Going to the same wrong classroom twice, in the span of a few minutes. Putting a metal spoon in the microwave. Forgetting to turn the lights off when leaving a room (which wasn't stupid, just in bad taste).

That wasn't necessarily to say Matti believed Owen to be a fool— on the contrary. They'd witnessed some almost startling moments of wit. It was just. It was kind of difficult to continue suspecting someone of being an evil mastermind out to get your friends when you'd watched them walk straight into a table. Twice. (And that had been *After* The thing with the tree). 

With the very quick and dawning realization that the would-be schemer did not *Have* Any suspicious schemes, Matti was just as suddenly confronted with the fact that they now had no reason to be here. And that they'd already started on the threats and stuff. They let the awkwardness hang in the air for a few minutes and very briefly wished that they could make people fall asleep like Uriel could, so that they could leave and convince Owen that this was all a dream. Instead, they scrambled for something to continue the conversation in a way that made them look any slight bit less strange. 

"You're Uriel's friend," They opened, trying to inject as much confidence as they could (and halfway succeeding). They'd witnessed people (Gabe) get away with a lot under the shade of confidence, and with any luck Owen would just go along with the small change in topic. "Correct?"
Jessica
"Y-es? Yes."

*The fuck??* Owen didn't know this kid at all- *Had he even seen them anywhere before this?*- but it appeared as though.. They were a little confused. But they knew who he was. And who he was friends with. And which dorm was his. *FffffffffFF-*

"Have you- have you been stalking me? Wh-"

A couple of other sentences almost fell from his still sleep-heavy tongue, but the boy's mouth found it could do little more than nervously clamp shut. Owen leaned against the doorframe, coming down hard on his shoulder, still fiddling with the hairbrush. He supposed he might be able to.. What? Knock this kid over? Outrun them? Describe them to the police?? Sweat pricked at the back of his neck.

Exhaling shakily and keeping his bewildered expression trained on the Hat Kid, the metalhead cursed that he wasn't very well-spoken on the fly. Ares could make anyone flustered and aggravated enough to cut the small talk short; Uriel could gently coax a myriad of strange things from a surprising number of people simply by giving them that warm, peaceful smile and offering them some tea, and Fin knew how to ask the right questions, lightning-quick and sharp as a tack. Owen, this soon after waking up, was only adept at being totally and utterly lost less than five minutes into a conversation.

He supposed he sort of had a *Why*- something to do with Uriel, who he was apparently plotting horrible things against, but everything else about this was just...

*Wow. Weird dream I must be having.*
Brenda
Mattias nodded. Good. Good. This was the right person after all (not that having the *Wrong* Person was a concern they'd had, because that would have been mortifying. More mortifying than the entire interaction already was).

They considered what they would have done had they found the *Wrong* Person for a few minutes before moving on to more important things. Things such as phrasing "Technically yes I stalked you, but it wasn't out of malicious intent, except for it kind of was, and then I saw many, many, *Many* Moments I think you would rather I hadn't, and now I'm less concerned you're evil and more concerned about you as a person". It was a good thought processes. An important internal dialogue. 

"On a technicality, yes," They said externally. "You fell down stairs yesterday, and I think you may have fractured something in your foot. I suggest having it examined by a medical professional." (It probably wasn't fractured, but it could never hurt to check. Especially if Owen was likely to exacerbate the injury by knocking into walls, or low set tables). 

"It's good that you are friends with Uriel," They continued. "They need good friends. Friends that do not have hidden agendas. Friends that will not try to bring harm to their emotional, mental, physical, or metaphysical wellbeing." The words could be construed as a threat, but mostly they were true. *A final test*, they thought abstractly. *To make sure everything is safe*. 

Their head pounded. Every time they blinked it hurt more. They wondered what it was like to be a snake.
Jessica
Owen held out hope, sometimes, that he would one day understand other people without issue. That a person could walk up to him and say something, and it would make a lick of sense, and he would respond with something funny, insightful, *Sane*, at the very least. It seemed, today, that he would need to hang on a little longer. He blinked, and dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Kept them there for a moment, as he thought.

"I. I hope I'm one of them. I mean I'd never- I only want them to be happy, because they deserve nice things.." A heartbeat, and he puffed out his chest a little. 

"I'm their friend."

The groggy boy danced on glaring points of heat- Owen was all too aware that he could promise nothing, that the two of them were definitely capable of hurting each other. The most he could promise, and the least he could hope, was that he would never *Try*. His dear ~~dare he think, *Dearest*~~ friend had had more than enough of people trying to hurt them. They had told him, in their hundred little ways, that he did the opposite- made them happy- and that simply meant too much to discard under a moment of pressure such as this. Owen reminded himself of the feeling of their hand softly squeezing his shoulder, and tried his best.

"Do you, uh, you need to sit down? You're.. Er.. Wavering."

Did cryptic tests from worlds/nerds beyond typically come so... Awkward? Knock-over-by-the-flick-of-a-finger-able? 

Cautiously nudging his door open a crack more, Owen made what was probably a stupid choice (typical of himself, apparently), but a nice one. *Hell. They already know where I live. And that I sprained my bloody foot the other day. Worst comes to worst, window's open, ah?*
Brenda
It was... Strange. Strange, that was the word for it. Not Owen looking like a complete fool declaring the equivalent of his undying affection (friendship, *Friendship*) for Uriel to the mostly abandoned hallway (no, Matti could relate to that, however ineloquently stated). Not the complete change they'd gone through, threatening to feeling almost-calm. Not even the apparent ease with which Owen took the news that they'd been following him. But inviting them in? From anyone else, they'd think it was an unsubtle attempt at manipulation, too crude to dignify a response. Offering them *Comfort*, allowing them an opportunity to attack, after Matti had already proven to be somewhat hostile (or at the very least an unknown). But this was *Owen*. And someway, somehow, that meant something. It made the situation more complicated.

Matti *Hated* When things were complicated.

"You no longer have to prove yourself, Owen Edris," They responded, pushing back at what was very likely a bid to assure Matti that he could be kind. 



"We are on even terms. We are 'good', as Gabriel says. *You* Are good. For Uriel. There is no need for this."

Need. *Need*. They *Needed* To go back. They *Needed* To sleep. The steps back to their room felt impossibly long, stretching the length of the world like a snake. They wavered. Owen's room would be safer. If they passed out in the hallway, if something *Happened*—

"A few minutes, perhaps. Just a few minutes. Enough to rest, then I will leave you be."
Jessica
"Uhh. Yeah! There's a plan."

Well. If Owen was off his rocker for letting this kid come into his room, then said kid (who he really needed to ask the name of, *Shit*) was utterly unhinged for *Agreeing to it*. A tentative, gentle hand tapped between their shoulder blades as the utterly dumbfounded teenager pushed his door open and closed behind them. They had their pick of places to sit; he took the chair in front of the desk beside his bed, and began filling the room with the sound of his foot bouncing on the floor where the carpet ended.

The walls of Owen's room were a collage of band posters and string lights, and the floor was clean today. The window was open, letting the mid-morning chill light on the pile of blankets on his bed, his instruments and his amp, a soft, dark blue beanbag chair, and a tower of folded animals on his desk that could not and would not be touched that day. The pile of blankets of the beanbag seemed the best places to sit, but the nervous dweller of this achingly comfortable space wasn't sure if they would make it much farther than the deep red carpet. That was comfortable too, at least.

"I-" *No, no..* "W-what, pray tell, is your name?" Finally, something reasonable out of him. "And-and what's this whole 'you are good' thing, what- what *'terms'*?? Did I do something? Just, *What*..." And he trailed off, his doe-eyed, unintentionally sorrowful gaze like gold-flecked cocoa darting nervously around the glaringly strange presence in his space.
_ _

Owen wasn't necessarily *Complaining* About being told that he was good. In fact, it embarrassed him a little how tantalizingly delicious it felt to hear, before the sheer *What in the actual ffyc-* Of the context sunk in. No, what was really cheerily nibbling away at him was that he had supposedly had to 'prove himself' in the first place. Winning a game he didn't know he was playing, he mused as he awaited their answer, was just as frustrating as losing; he was clueless, more so than he thought, and if this cryptic messenger didn't cough up a nice and clear, reassuring explanation soon, it would nibble at him further still.

All that was certainly plastered across his face clearly enough.
Brenda
In myth and folklore, names were important. The fey (fae, faeries, and a thousand other names) were said to hold them in particular esteem; to them, names had *Power*. Tangible power. They could be components for spells, points of compulsion, or stolen to set hapless mortals adrift. Of course, they had an actualized kind of weight, names. Legal names to serve as both restraint and identifier. Information gleaned from how they introduced themself, from the ways other people called them. If you were smart enough, or too foolish, names didn't have to be *Magic* To hold the same kind of power found in legend. 

Someone might have argued then, knowing all this, that giving your true name to a person you'd briefly threatened to kill and admitted to not-stalking was a poor idea. Matti, at least, could acknowledge that they weren't in the ideal headspace for threat analysis. Still, they'd introduced themself to every stranger they'd ever met with the same words, the same tone, and the same name. 

"Hello, Owen Edris. My name is Mattias Gates." 

Habits, perhaps, were not without their own power.

The words "Pray tell" Could have also had some factor in the speed of their decision, they mused as they settled to the ground on an admittedly very nice carpet. It wasn't often that Matti found someone who'd so instinctually indulge their fondness for well-spun words. Their back itched for a wall, but they settled for slumping sideways, positioned so that they could see most of the room. String lights glowed softly, humming with the soft kind of quietness that tended to elude their paranormally enhanced senses. In fact, everything in the room *Felt* Soft in a way that went deeper than its surface. *Like a bird's nest,* They thought idly, mind dipping its feet into what felt like a pool of sleep. 

They pulled their awareness back to Owen. He'd asked for answers, and for all they'd done over the course of the past (few minutes? It'd felt like an hour), he deserved some clarity.

.

"Everyone is in debt to being good," They explained, eyes drifting between half-shut and open. "To close cases, you have to be a good detective. Everyone is a suspect, until you can confirm they're not." *Checking for snakes in the grass*. It'd only been a few months since they'd arrived at Newton's Cradle, no matter how much it felt like a lifetime. Just because the water seemed calm (calm: vigilante killers and strange conspiracies?), that didn't mean there wasn't anything lurking beneath the surface. 

"Uriel isn't good at checking those things. You're friends with Uriel. So I had to make sure. There are horrible people in the world. *Horrible people.*" It was suddenly important, *Very* Important, that Owen know— "They're all bad, do you understand? Not everyone can see it. Uriel shouldn't be in danger. You shouldn't be in danger. It's like flies to lightbulbs, though. Evil to good people." Matti let their head tip backward, just slightly. It relieved some of the pressure at their temples. "We're on even terms. You're good. Net positive. No debt."
Jessica
Owen wiped sleep from his eyes in quiet disbelief as Mattias sang him their song of debts and caution. He had a big book of myths and legends, as a kid, lines of which were still engraved in the corners of his sight; the boy mused that he had never pictured the beast below the scales with the ostrich feather as wearing sunglasses, nor the sphinx's cliff looking so much like his carpet. It seemed that they made do.

"Um."

The taller of the two leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs- he had thought, for a moment, that he knew how to respond to all that, but any shred of that nonsense left him the moment he opened his mouth. *Better try again, before the lad(?) just passes out...*

"I don't- I don't know about that." *Gently, Owen, this did start out as a murder attempt...* "There's a lot of good in people, I think- I try to see it, at least- mm." A spotted finger tugged at a loose blue thread in the tear at his knee. "Seems awfully lonely, doesn't it? You wouldn't be so.. Comfortable? If you had opened with decking me with the flashlight. Thanks for the, ah, fair trial, I s-suppose..."

Owen had no idea where he was going with any of this. Every word felt simultaneously overwrought and underbaked, dancing around the pieces of their sleep-deprived logic he couldn't help but admit to himself he agreed with. Kind of.

"Uriel.. We've both got the same affliction, don't we, but I'd say they've got it worse," He mused, rocking this way and that in his chair. "I really wonder how they extend half the hands that they do, but.. They pleasantly surprise me sometimes, with the good they do. It comes so easy, and goes so freely- kindness- they remind me how, um, how good it feels."

Would it be too much to say that they inspired him? That they scared the hell out of him, time and time again, but that watching them made him want to be more outwardly kind, that it meant the world to have someone else beside him who still so stubbornly believed in magic?
_ _

Probably, yeah.

The redhead fidgeted on, and picked a spot in the corner to direct his hidden lopsided grin toward.
Brenda
***CW// talking about starvation and hunger, in kind of depth ***

Matti sat on the floor of the dorm, half-tired and much further to sleep than coherency. Words were letters and sounds, meaning nothing. They lost themself in the quiet buzz of the string lights.

At some point the words "Seems awfully lonely, doesn't it" Tripped out of the mouth of Owen Edris and (as he was prone to doing) fell flat into the cracked concrete structure of Things Not to Talk (or Think) About. 

Loneliness was not a stranger to Mattias Gates. It wasn't a friend, either. It would have been antithetical otherwise. No, loneliness and Mattias Gates coexisted in some strange, liminal space between mirrors and empty hallways, like a stranger you see occasionally on the subway and nod to. ||Like this:||





This was the way Mattias Gates wore loneliness. Tighter than skin. Inseparable. 

.

Matti shook off their thoughts of loneliness and focused again on what Owen was saying. They caught the words "Affliction", "Good", and "Kindness", and a small part of them wanted to rip open a hole in reality and push Owen into a dimension where things were better. They opened their mouth to say something to that affect, probably about kindness being weakness, but weakness not meaning certain death (at least, not while Matti was around), but something in their overactive mind scratched at Owen's expression, at his gaze, at the way he was talking.

It was, is, and will continue to be an undisputed fact among those who knew them that Matti wasn't the best at picking up on social cues. If conversations could be counted as road trips and facial expressions, tone, and sarcasm the street signs, they'd still be fucking lost. They'd never learned to drive. Still, there was a difference between an exit number and the glaring, neon lit indicator. Face and eyes and tone— Owen cared for Uriel. To an almost nauseatingly sweet degree. 

They blinked twice, slow in an attempt to push away both the looming realization and unconsciousness. Both were a losing battle. They started to slump against the nearest vertical surface— the wall, possibly.

"Kindness is good for you," They tried to say, forcing the words out in the few seconds before the world turned black, and they finally fell asleep.
Jessica
And, just like that, Owen's would-be angel of death passed out, slumped against the wall near the corner of his room. Just past the carpet. They wouldn't even allow themselves that.

The sight ached to linger on, like a sour memory turning its gaunt, nearly-forgotten face to stare back at him after so long without being summoned. Its eyes weren't cold, dead, and pried wide open in unblinking judgement like many others, or even half of them- this particular frayed string of prisoners in the back of the boy's mind looked just like this. Asleep, nearly peaceful, save for the bags under their eyes and the insistence of their smaller frame on curling inwards, to the corners where they felt smaller still; dust was a friend, but it wasn't a kind one. It was familiar, though- Owen couldn't recall the last time his fingers had turned blue, but even the warmest parts of him could quietly remember what it felt like. The way it gnawed, even when he was sat by the fire. His fingers brushed the back of his neck, distantly relieved to brush against sweat.

*You could have sat on the chair, or even the carpet. It would have been more comfortable. It would have been fine. Why didn't you??*

He supposed he knew why, well enough.

"I'm so sorry, *Bach*."

The words were more difficult to conjure from his chest than they had been before, but it felt right to *Say* Them, even just to be eaten up by the chill blowing through the window. *Someone in this poor kid's life has to mean it.*

Uriel likely did. Owen sighed heavily, and moved to.. Figure out how to pick them up. What on earth was he going to do now? Phone Uriel? Carry them to their room, wake them up in an hour or three, ask them where it even was? At the very least, they deserved a nicer spot to sleep in the meantime. Owen himself had certainly taken some convincing, worlds away, so many gentle touches and shared bouts of laughter ago.

"It'll get warmer. We have to believe that."
_ _

Owen tilted his head back and breathed deep, wanting to say more.