ONE SIN TOO LATE.

"Okay..." Taking a deep breath and giving it actual focus, which for her was a truly a task of work, Aspen made sure to pick her words carefully, and speak them slowly. "I tried to open a window. The frame went 'crack'. Just a little bit! Enough to be scary. So I came looking for someone to fix it, and open the window. I was told you. Here I am. Please be the caretaker again and help me open my window. I'm sorry I broke it... but you can punish me after. If you want."

Mal takes a deep breath, letting Aspen's words sink in, already trying to figure out what would be necessary to fix it. Used to be that they'd call one of their employees to get it sorted after she's assessed the damage—the Wexley is too large and too old for Mal to be the only person maintaining it, that's what she had a crew for. But there's no crew now; not just that, with Tobias' death, Mal is the only person left—perhaps in the whole of the world—who knows all the peculiarities of the building, what it does and doesn't allow, and all the faults not listed on its blueprints.

The wink doesn't go unnoticed, but Mal just raises an eyebrow at it. "Could've gone to the balcony if you wanted air," Mal counters, but gently pushes Aspen back with a hand splayed in the middle of her chest so they have room to step out of the apartment and close the door firmly shut. "Alright, I'll take a look. If you broke it, you're gonna have to pay for it."

it was honestly having one of the best days it'd had in a while. sitting on the floor of the rats nest, painting neon angry faces on one of the boom devices gray was building. the music loud enough to vibrate in its bones but not too loud to hear gray's little grunts and groans and mumbles while he worked on his next schematic. he'd just sworn under his breath again and pulled a giggle out of it. "geeg is overthunking the process, step back and gaze at the map with wider goggles." it pointed out, making another intricate line to put the finishing touch on a tooth. odie bared it's teeth and growled at the almost finished drawing, followed by a giggle.

she heard her name and the voice attached to it but didn't pay it any attention. monsters were trick, tricky, tricksters that often liked to disguise their voices to pull it's attention away. it was too drawn to the project and music to bother with their nonsense at the moment. that was, until gray moved too far and blocked the good light with his giant tree likeness. she was already getting up to see what the big deal was when the growl sounded. the response to the growl is what piqued its attention to the voice.

"daddy?" dot peaked around her knight in shining scales and her eyes went as wide as saucers. "DADDY!" there was no seconds taken to worm her way around gray and jump to wrap her arms around the older man. she felt like her everything was vibrating with excitement and emotion. "oh my stars and planets! you're here! the hero found dot!" she wound her arms tighter, not willing to let go of him yet. "how???"

Dante has to give it to the lad, the implied threat doesn't make him blink or even shift an inch. He suspects that maybe nothing short of physically removing him would get any manner of reaction from the younger man—but then the light of his life peeks around the wall made man. There's a shift then, and it only takes Dante a second to recognise what it is exactly what he's seeing; but no additional attention is paid to it, because for the first time in a very long time, he has his daughter in his arms again.

"I will always find you, wherever you are, Dottie," he reminds her, just like he has in the past. He'd always make it sound like some sort of father magic, but frankly, Dante has always kept track of her through his vast network of contacts, and even if he lost sight of her whereabouts, he has a brother who is very good at tracking. "Santiago told me you were here."

He kisses her temple, hugging her tight, feeling like every single hurt and ache, doubt and worry, exhaustion and fear melts away. It's okay. She's here. I'm never letting you go again. "I've missed you, sweetheart." Dante's eyes connect with the scowling figure still glaring holes into him, or attempting to anyway. "You're safe now. I'm here now."

He didn't expect an answer to his questioned so civilized, or rather unfazed. That almost gave Ashton pause to release the tension on the lock hold, confused for a second with his initial aggression easing off ever so slightly. Adrenaline was suddenly back in his veins after finally getting a break from it for a week when his body realized it was no longer in danger, and the sudden rush left him with almost a migraine to boot. Gray. That's all Ashton got before he could interrogate the man more, a pain reemerges from his left foot, and Ashton held in it at first, only letting out a soft grunt as a reaction despite it flaring up the blinding pain in his ankle that was just recovering. And then again, and again, and again, pain growing more each time.

His mind flashes to Sada doing the exact same thing before and the trauma of survival began to kick in. He would've kneed the invader to take him down to the ground, but he didn't exactly have the means for that. Instead, with one more slam into his foot, getting directly at his ankle from the struggle, the white hot pain shot up his leg, and with a choked yell, Ashton released his hold only and his good side could no longer keep him standing, his body and face finding the ground quickly. He coughed and wheezed from the impact to his ribs with a groan trying to push himself up again. And instead of continuing to fight, he dragged himself away from Gray, because the first and only desperate thought invading his head then was I'm not fucking going back there, I'd rather die.

Though he held his ankle and hissed through his teeth, his cold gaze while flashed pain, hardened to challenge the other man, "and why the fuck are you here, Gray? Locking me back up? What do you want. What does Sada want?" It was only natural to assume any new faces were Sada's people, and Ashton right now had very little trust in anyone, including his own friends. Not that he didn't trust that they won't have his interest at heart, but everyone has their own priorities and he doesn't see himself very far up theirs. "She already stole or broke everything she could."

Perhaps the reaction could be accounted to the damage Gray had done just seconds before, but there's dots that don't connect, pieces of this puzzle that are left if he is to make that the whole picture. Something that gnaws at him, something not fitting, leftover material with seemingly no place, when he knows they're supposed to go somewhere. The reaction this man gives him makes him frown. He hadn't come here with the intention of hurting anyone; he'll defend himself, but hurting people has never been the goal in anything he does. Well, maybe hurting feelings, when he was younger.

But this isn't hurt feelings. This is something that, in some strange, locked away darkness, Gray recognises, and it makes him sick. He doesn't know why he recognises it. No, he doesn't want to know it; somewhere, deep down, he knows exactly why, even if it's only subconscious, and he needs to take a deep, sharp breath to push away the nausea the man's reaction elicits.

You've been there before. On the floor. Begging. Demanding.

Gray could've left, could've run from this, like he always has; just flood his system with an opioid or a benzo or some sort of downer to just hide away from those monsters that this man is now envisioning in him.

"Electrical conductor," Gray answers the why he's here, with the same monotonous tone, though the frown remains on his face. It's something most households should have lying about, especially in kitchens. Could he have asked for it? Sure. But there's a loss of efficiency in that, because people would have questions and demands, and he doesn't care to entertain them; not usually, but certainly not at this time. Most of the time, Gray barely elaborates on anything. Complete sentences are often reserved for Oddity.

Shaking his head slightly in confusion at the follow up questions, Gray moves towards him. "I don't care what the Red Queen wants," he tells him, and this time there's some life in the words he speaks, quiet but sharp, no reverence to be found. Gray looks the man's body over quickly, making minute assessments before grabbing an arm to pull around his neck—one that doesn't have the cues of hurt, of injures upon it—and uses his leg and back muscles to pull him off the ground, wrapping his other arm around to grab a hip.

"You attacked me," Gray says, by way of explanation; the very, very few people who actually knew Gray would know these three words for what they are—as close to an apology as he will ever get.

PLEASE DON’T LET THIS FLOP AHHHH

The offer of snacks shoved aside any offense she may have taken at his words. He could find out later she wasn't stupid. A little off perhaps, but not stupid - immediately seeing the solution to her unsuccessful trip to the bare kitchen in the diner and fully taking advantage of it. "Well then we better fly up there so I can get back before Skank figures out I've escaped my cage," she accepted of his offer. "Lead the way Chaka," she said mischievously with a smirk, stepping aside to let him through.

"That's combustion, not fire," Gray shoots back in a grumble. "Fuel reactin' with oxygen. Chemical. You don't introduce external fire to it." It's all academic, either way, because he isn't in the business of building engines anyway. Nothing in this office would facilitate the building of an engine, he'd be in the garage for that, and Gray knows that she knows that too. At this point she's just being pedantic, and it's worthy of an eye roll.

Regardless of whether or not she is being pedantic, however, her next sentence is the one that takes him aback for a moment, shaking his head slightly almost automatically. "What?" The idea that he'd take her up to the nest is absurd in and of itself; made even moreso by the fact that Odd's up there, sleeping. Even if either of them would allow a stranger into their private space, under no circumstance would Gray let anyone near it when it's sleeping.

"Why would I take you there...?"

Only a glance from the corner of her eye is her first reaction to him, though her face as he joins her at the railing doesn't exactly hide her annoyance at the disruption to her moment of solitude.

Finally, when she was just starting to wonder if he'd come here to just fill space, he spoke, drawing her attention to him and his question. "Finally, when she was just starting to wonder if he'd come here to just fill space, he spoke, drawing her attention to him and his question. "About as alright as anyone can be."

Dev was a confusing figure to Charlie. She knew he was here for JP, but she was also well aware of Sada's favour for him. The kiss to her cheek in the atrium having been whispered gossip for a while immediately after the fall. JP trusted him, and usually that would mean that she would, too... but how could she trust anyone who stood at the right hand of The Devil that destroyed their home? Had aided in it?

"Yeah well..." The bitterness in her voice was hard to hide, despite the care with which she chose her words. "I've done a lot of holding people up since... you know.... fuck-" Unable to help herself, she gave an almost bitter little chuckle as it dawned on her she'd been doing that for far longer than the end of the world.

So much for not stressing the baby. Charlotte Marie Rose felt like she was forged and shaped by stress. Hers. Jeremiah's. JP's. Mal's. Their Grandparents. Her mother's. Society's. The world's. Stress defined and painted every facet of her world long before this even if the stress of now was exacerbated.

Devan watches the youngest Rose as she struggles, whether it's with herself or some sort of realisation, slowly nodding as the final word leaves her mouth. He can see the weight of her life on her shoulders, and has since the moment they met, but Devan isn't sure if the weight was placed there by others, or by herself. Charlie has always struck them as someone whose selflessness refuses to let her let go of things or people, lest she disappoints those around her. High standards for herself, perhaps less so for others. Or perhaps it isn't selflessness. Perhaps it's... needing to be needed.

He lets out a sigh, and almost out of some sort of automatic response, he shifts a bit closer and puts an arm around her, squeezing her shoulder. "I've known people like ya," he starts, eyes on her, free arm leaning on the railing. "My family... s'all a buncha broken people doin' a lotta breakin' people, desperately tryna keep their pieces together." Devan realises that he's never actually spoken to anyone about his family before—not that anyone really asked. "Thing is there, darlin', that... carin' a two-way road, yeah? Or, um... like this thing where ya gotta meet in the middle."

This isn't his wheelhouse. This isn't his wheelhouse, and he hopes that Charlie doesn't realise it. Doesn't figure out that he's not fucking one to talk. Maybe it's the thought that counts, or the fact that they try anyway, despite the discomfort. He's just trying to think of all the things that Clay's said to him the past three months to pull him through the worst shit.

"Sure look, ya got a baby comin' on, yeah?" Devan squeezes her shoulder again. "S'gonna need all a your attention, for quite a while now, and you canna... divide that. I know it's bleedin' shite t'hear, but darlin'... they're all grown fuckin' people. If they canna get their shite together, if it's all gonna be down to you, that kid a yours stands no fuckin' chance. Right?"