Judith
Oliver had been watching the clock and checking his phone. There really wasn't much else he could do. Somewhere deep down in the pit of his stomach, he wasn't quite feeling well about... Anything. The doubt was stronger than the reasons for it - he found himself doubting everything. Was he wrong to volunteer to handle the detention in the first place? Was he wrong to *Leave?*

The clock hit zero. Detention was over. He took a deep breath, and pressed down the door handle.

Owen and Uriel seemed tense, still, but less so. They'd been playing UNO. Trying to relax. That was good. That would probably help them not freak out *As* Much. He needed Owen and Uriel to not freak out at being in different rooms. If they did, he'd get nothing done.

"Owen, you're free to go. Uriel, stay here a moment."

He gauged the expressions on their faces for a moment before continuing. He couldn't do anything to make things better or worse either way.

"We need to talk."
Mary
Uriel looked over at Owen, standing up to shuffle the cards they had just lost with. 

"Don't wait for me, alright? I won't be long, so I can meet up with you for dinner if you'd like."

It's a bold assumption— one that they'd walk out of this room, and another that they'd be in a good enough condition to warrant eating after. Still, Uriel smiled reassuringly at Owen, even if it didn't reach their eyes. 

Uriel had hope it wouldn't go poorly, but it didn't disqualify the bundle of nerves that were neatly tucked away, the feelings labeled "Not useful" And thrown into a drawer somewhere in their head. 

It'll be alright. Even if it wasn't, *It will be alright.*
Wai
"Um, okay."

Well. No way to drag anything out; Owen had been as much of a stubborn nuisance as he could, but this next bit was out of his hands. 

He surveyed Rask's face back, in the nerve-wracking space between short, to-the-point sentences. He looked.. Awfully tired. The memory of Uriel quivering and gripping him so tightly after their last encounter with this man flashed behind his eyes, too shaken almost to whisper; his guard remained adamantine, restless though he was. 

He didn't make eye contact all that often. People only tended to notice when he *Did*, because the sudden change struck them as stranger than the usual lacking. There was a look in his eyes, hidden in plain sight, that flickered but burned steadily in their deep reddish pools. It wasn't an intimidation attempt; it was merely a look, information tucked away and then disconnected with a pang of healthy fear. 

"O-One of the lights in the back's been flickering," Was all he could really think to say.

Standing and squeezing Uriel's shoulder one last time, Owen strode toward the door in heavy yet hurried steps. Pausing at the door, he drank in the last words he'd get from Uriel until things were (hopefully) resolved.

"Alright. Soup at 7:30, no later. Get it while it's hot." 

The *"Or else"* Didn't need to be said. They heard it just fine.

...

A quick nod and he was off, vanished into the hallway, fidget clicking away and fading into a nervous echo.
Judith
As soon as Owen was gone, Oliver closed the door and sighed. It was just him and Uriel now - the worst possible scenario. He decided to distract himself, and climbed onto a table at the back to unscrew the malfunctioning lightbulb while he talked. It helped ease the tension a little, at least for him. He hoped it would do the same for Uriel.

"We should talk about what happened."

He finished retrieving the lightbulb, and sat on the table. No weapons. No robots. No tools. Nothing. Just Oliver, sitting on a table, alone. It looked a lot less threatening that way. Without his tools, Oliver was just a man. A smart man, granted, but a man. He wouldn't hurt Uriel because he *Couldn't* Hurt Uriel. Maybe that was okay.

Maybe it was good that he couldn't cause any more pain.

"I, uh. I figure I probably owe you an apology." He sighed. "I honestly thought I was better than that. I should've been better than that. Maybe when I sleep I don't think straight. I don't know."

Oliver wasn't emotionally vulnerable with very many people. His fiancée, and not really anyone else. Being vulnerable in front of a child felt *Weird.*

"I hurt you. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."
Mary
As Oliver closed the door, Uriel fell deathly quiet, eyes not moving from Oliver's gaze. They tracked the older man as he walked around the room, saying nothing. 

The silence was like the sheen surface of a pond— so pristine yet so *Fragile*, completely broken by even the tiniest ripples. Uriel had yet to dare to touch said surface and start the chain of events waiting for them, and so they opted instead to watch. Would Oliver make good on the promise they had made in front of Owen, or was that just a thinly-veiled lie Uriel had desperately grasped onto, feverishly avoiding whatever laid in await?

Oliver opens his mouth, and the first trace of emotion flares up on Uriel's ever-pallid face— *Confusion*. Their shoulders slowly crawl upwards as Oliver talks, and they look back at the man with wide eyes. 

They've been confronted about their appearance in other people's dreams before, back when they couldn't control their powers and the whims of the human mind pulled at Uriel constantly.

They learned one testament during those days, cemented as a corner stone of human behavior: Afraid people became angry people, and angry people hurt things.

This situation wasn't like when they were younger, tasting the edge of concrete and the biting pang of copper in the schoolyard, arms wrapped around their head to protect from the much older schoolchildren looming over them. That reaction was *Human* And expected, but this time Uriel was worse. This time their intrusion was intentional, and so the response received *Justified*.

"But—" Uriel's breath lodges itself in their throat, and they suck in a deep inhale. 

"I did something *Wrong*. I thought— I misunderstood a situation, and did something reprehensible because of my lack of thoroughness."

"It was... Unexpected of a schoolteacher, I suppose, but I can only imagine how terrifying the feeling of being intruded in your own mind is. I— you shouldn't apologize. I shouldn't have— it wasn't your fault."
Judith
Oliver nodded. In a twisted sense, Uriel was right - they had done something wrong, something *Reprehensible,* And they did deserve to be punished for it, but that doesn't justify what Oliver did. Oliver tortured them, then threatened to do the same to their innocent friends. Oliver's privacy had been violated, but Oliver hadn't even been hurt.

He sighed. "Yeah, it was. You're right, you did something wrong. You *Were* Wrong, but-" He cut himself off. Rambling wouldn't do him any good. "Are you familiar with the doctrine of proportional response? It's an idea in foreign policy - when you're attacked by a foreign nation, you can attack them back, and that's allowed, but it has to be proportional to their attack on you. If they shoot down your plane, you get to bomb a few of their bridges and depots. You don't get to carpet bomb their capital city or destroy their entire navy. If you do that, you're going too far, and the international community's gonna condemn you, maybe even go to war to stop you."

He paused.

"What I did wasn't a proportional response. I wronged you more than you wronged me. I'm sorry." What an awful thing to admit to someone, he thought. What an awful thing. But it was true, and it was the right thing to do.

"I just wanna know why. What did you think you'd find in there? Why'd you even want to find it?"
Mary
"Yes, but you're not a nation. Nations make decisions based on facts and statistics. People act based on how they feel, and that's just how people *Are*. Expecting any more would be like expecting a fish to fly, and becoming mad at a fish for not flying is a bit foolish." They force out a tiny, polite laugh at the comparison, as if to emphasize what a vain effort such an affair would be.

The more Oliver apologizes, the more tense Uriel seems to get. The deep, pervasive feeling of something being *Off* Shook them to their core. Uriel knew they were supposed to be grateful for the apology; admitting wrongdoing was difficult for a good amount of people, and it was best to encourage that behavior when displayed. 

But the break from tradition was deep, uncharted waters Uriel had never encountered before. The desire for the familiar whispered tantalizingly into their ear, even though it promised known aches. 

"I... Was told someone was in danger, but after that night I discovered I might have been lied to. It's... Complicated, and I can't elaborate." 

Uriel stifles down whatever train of thought was running through their head, instead changing tracks to focus on balancing the information they could and could not say. 

"I lied about my motivations in the dream, and I feel horrible for conducting myself in such a manner. I felt it prudent to leave other parties out of the actions I was executing, but I could have done so without resorting to lying."