stupetballs | penance } { ic inbox

[She spends four days in solitary, one night getting very, very drunk, and the next day trying to adjust to school shenanigans before she winds up on Aiden and Ray's doorstep.

Should she have made herself known sooner? Probably.

Is texting a thing? Yes.

Did we mention that she was very, very drunk?

Either way, she doesn't think they'll begrudge her for it, and she wants to see for herself that they're okay. So after adjusting her dumb school uniform - the worst - she knocks on the door to the suite and hopes that they're both actually there.]

[Ray has no intention of begrudging anybody anything during this bullshit, honestly. It takes him a moment to get to the door, but then there's the sound of the lock turning, and he pulls it open.]

Hey.

[He takes a moment to look her over, taking in how tired she looks - and then steps back to let her in.]

Come on in.

[Ray himself looks tired - but in a secondhand sort of way. He's been sitting with Aiden through his own spate of nightmares after dealing with his own days of lashes and isolation.]

[Aiden, meanwhile, looks fucking exhausted already. it's only been a day or two, as he got his owe stay in the Casa del Solitary, but -- well, not sleeping and only eating what Ray and Natalia can sneak away for him is already wearing on him.

[at least he's not hallucinating? yet. again? whatever]

[anyway. he leans forward on the couch, when Ray opens the door, trying to see around him, and when he steps back and he sees Waverly, he blows out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. she looks like shit, too, but at least she's not dead -- or more demons, come to drag them off for torture again]

Hey.

[She makes her way inside, glancing between the two of them. She's sure that there are better, more eloquent things she could say. In fact, she finds herself struggling to drum up her usual cheer, so she opts for something more tired, that's closer to how she feels.]

So. That really sucked.

[Ray snorts softly as he finds a place to perch and nods slowly.]

Which part?

[It really doesn't narrow it down considering all of this sucks.]

[Aiden just huffs out a breath of a laugh in response, though the sound is entirely without humor. all of it. all of it sucked. he'll let Waverly actually answer that question before supplying his own, though, if only because he wants to know what they did to her. he wants to know how pissed off he needs to be]

[if Barbas had just fucked with him, fine, but the fact that he hurt his friends, too? yeah, that's not going to fly]

All of it?

[She glances over with a half-smirk. Between the isolation, the lashings and the nightmares? Yeah, all of it sounds about right.]

Isolation was probably the worst of it as of right now.

[Ray immediately looks haunted.] Not gonna get an argument from me on that one.

[He can handle physical shit, but being forced to deal with his own ghosts and how his brain runs on overdrive more often than not was a lot harder.]

Yeah, same.

[he'll probably change his mind, when the nightmares start, when he's not sleeping, but right now, he doesn't know that's a thing, and the shadows of his own ghosts are still fresh, again]

[to that end, though (and speaking of her having been drunk, at some point not too recently), he asks:] You want something to drink? [God knows he could use one]

Sure.

[She's probably going to need it, given the grand scheme of things.]

But you guys are both okay? All things considered?

[There's never a time Ray doesn't want a drink. Which, speaking of...]

You're gonna deserve a medal or two before this is over, keeping all us sots from shriveling up.

[He gives a little considering shrug to her question.]

I've been worse, believe it or not.

[That time a DJ tried to gas him to death comes to mind.]

[Aiden's not sure he has. he's seen a lot of shit, especially in the last year, back home, but usually, he's the torturer, not the tortured. he held his own, didn't give Barbas the pleasure of hearing him scream, didn't give up any of their people, but -- ]

[yeah, he's not okay. he just makes a small sound, rather than say that, though, and gets up to go grab a trio of beers for them. sure, yeah, he's fine. this is fine]

We'll do our best. But I have a feeling he's going to be watching Hella Shorty's a lot more closely.

[Especially given that Waverly's on his hit list now. She takes one of the beers from Aiden and sighs.]

But I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out.

[Ray pulls a face as he takes one of the beers and takes a drink.] Y'all gonna be alright out there? Anything we can do to help other than the obvious?

[Taking out Barbas, he means.]

Wonder if there's somewhere else we could use as a club house.

[since all of the people that participated in the first rebellion hanging around at Hella Shorty's might get suspicious. he doesn't want them to get caught again -- or for Barbas to shut them down, too. either way, not good]

I've been thinking about that. Moving the research.

[It's not her favorite idea, because there's only so many places they can stash things. Barbas seems to be watching everywhere.]

Also Castiel's been teaching me some Enochian. I might be able to hide it? The room, not the bar.

[This is stuff that's a fair bit above Ray's pay grade - but he's been trying to figure it out, to figure out how they can use it, and considering how fast he can write a code, he doesn't see why it would be so hard to learn how to put together a spell of some kind.]

Probably not a bad idea. Getting a smoke screen up between all that and Barbara, I mean. Still a little worried about what happens if he decides to come down on this place, though.

[For the sake of Waverly and her friends, he means. He doesn't want anybody else to get hurt in all this nonsense.]

[Aiden hums something that sounds like a yeah. a pause follows, then almost abruptly, he asks:] Anyone know what happened to Lilith? [he's sorry for changing the subject that little bit, but]

As far as I know she just went back to being Barbas' secretary. I don't think he made any announcements making a further example out of her.

[For better or for worse, that is.]

[Ray swears under his breath, grumbling as he sighs.] Fuck. I was hoping since he hadn't been all braggy about it that she'd managed to sneak off somewhere.

[Aiden's fingers tighten around his bottle, because yeah, he'd had the same hope. he'd hoped that anything they'd done had amounted to something. he'd hoped they'd be able to count that one as a win, in entirety, even if the rest of it went spectacularly sideways. so much for that idea]

[blowing out a breath, he forces himself to relax, and mutters:] Damn it.

I don't know for sure. I haven't seen her.

[But that's also equally concerning, because given how much power Barbas has, who says that they didn't just take Lilith off the map entirely.

But she doesn't want to put that into the universe, so she doesn't say it.]

[Ray frowns, because if Barbas hasn't been parading her around as evidence of their failure, maybe he was wrong in his assumption. He sits up a little, adjusting his hold on his beer so he can dig his phone out of his pocket. Once he has it in hand, he sets his beer on the arm of the couch and sets to typing.]

[He's going to be busy for a second, guys, don't mind him.]

[Aiden leans into Ray a little, part of the contact, part because he's a nosy asshole. he needs to know. they need the fucking win]

You checking on the truck?

[Her brow furrows as she gets up to join them, peering over Ray's shoulder.]

You think she's still in there?

during be good children | you'll never get free, lamb to the slaughter

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