Exploring Abilities

Who: Dean and Thia
Where: Journey's house / the orphanage
When: After school into the evening/ night

Lullaby was waiting. She'd been waiting for what felt like ages, and was really only about twenty minutes, give or take. She was watching the rain out the window, eyes avidly searching for the very first sign of Dean. It had been a really quiet day for her, for the morning. She'd written a letter to her parents, and that had helped her deal with some things. She didn't know if they'd ever receive it, but she had it out there, so she felt slightly better. After that, she'd spent a good while messing around with her abilities. Or, namely, trying to see if she could remain visible in shadows if she really tried.

Which she found she could do! But only if she gave it her full concentration, and not for very long. So awesome, she could be seen in shadows, but she couldn't hold a conversation while doing it. She told herself she'd get better. After that, she'd gone up to the attic, and started rooting around. There was a ton of stuff up there. Weird, random stuff along with a load of things from she and Journey's childhood. There were toys up there that she'd forgotten even existed, and a bunch of things from Journey's parents. She'd gone through for a while, thinking she foresaw herself spending a ton of time up there. Then she'd spent time with Joshua, which she was really glad about. She'd had her stupid bout of nerves again, but it had eased up a little while ago, so maybe she was getting better. Or not, she couldn't tell. She knew she really hated feeling like that, especially around Joshua. She wanted to be better for him, damnit. Not an emotional basketcase. She'd have to keep trying, and maybe oneday she'd stop being lame. She could do it for him. It was probably just all wrapped up in her wanting to protect him from things, and at the same time not wanting to hide anything. To say she wasn't making a whole lot of sense would be understating it.

As she waited, she was antsy. She had a hoodie on, though it wasn't her red zipup, it was one of Journey's old ones she'd found in his closet. It was black with skulls on it, and drowned her, but she figured it would keep her slightly drier than her own hoodie. She was actually standing inside the open door in the near-dark, letting the light rainy-wind blow through the screen at her as she bounced on the balls of her feet. The bells around her ankle were the only sound, not that she could hear it.

Dean was soaked and doing a fairly good impression of a drowned rat as he ran up the street, head down, hunched against the rain. He hurtled up Journey's driveway and in through the open door, pushing at the screen as he hardly slowed, his only thought to get out of the damn weather for a while.

Lullaby squeaked when he came in, and she hopped back so he didn't crash into her. "You are drenched!" she noted helpfully. She even laughed a little, even while she was already reaching out to flick his wet hair out of his eyes. "You know I found this little umbrella upstairs you could use...as long as you don't care that it's got like, ducklings all over it." she continued, trying really hard not to giggle at him, but she was failing. She might have kept most of it in, but the amusement factor on her face was totally not being hidden.

"Well - it's raining," he pointed out, shrugging off his jacket, which had thankfully left his t-shirt beneath relatively dry - except for the triangle at the neck. He looked down at himself, at the way the water had turned his jeans a very dark shade of blue and how they were clinging, cold and uncomfortable, to him. He looked back at her. "And I don't do ducklings - I'd rather be wet," he told her. He didn't generally do umbrellas at all, actually, but he didn't mention that as well. "How're you?" he asked, flipping the subject onto her, rather than his own personal state - since she seemed to find it so highly amusing.

"OH my god, is it?" Lullaby asked, mock-shocked at it as she clapped a hand over her mouth, then ran back to the door to look out. "You're right!" she cried, then bounced back over towards him. "I'm okay. I'm...bored out of my tree? And I've been up in the attic all day trawling through stuff people haven't gone through in a good twenty years too, and I've been messing around with my um. Shadow issues. It's possible I'm slightly stir crazy, so if I'm weird and all, just smack me or something, I'm sure I'll snap out of it." she informed him. She looked him over again. "There's a drier downstairs." she said. "And like...some of Journey's clothes here and stuff, they might fit. I'd offer you mine but I'm pretty sure that there's nothing I own that would actually fit you in any capacity, and even if it did, the closest things would be my pajamas, and I don't own any that don't have things worse than duckies on them." Okay! She was suffering from motormouth. She looked slightly sheepish and promptly shut up.

He stared as she seemed to bounce round him, seeming a little shell-shocked. "Erm... Thia?" he said, slowly. He wasn't sure what to think, because yeah, maybe she was stir crazy, cooped up here all day. And he figured that yesterday she'd basically thrown herself at him, tackling him into a hug the moment he walked through the door, so maybe this wasn't that unusual. Possibly he was just getting used to her again. But she was babbling and he was slightly thrown. "There's no point with the drier," he said, making a decision. "Cos I'll only get wet again - especially if we're going out. Can't have you going crazy on me," he told her, really not looking forward to going out into the weather again, but she'd been locked up in here for too long, obviously.

She winded, squinting one eye shut. "Sorry. I'll...stop being..." she made a vague gesture. "I'm being strange, aren't I?" she asked. Then she sighed, and attempted to explain herself. "I think I'm just happy to be going outside. And not to just skulk around and watch people and depress myself either, we're going somewhere, and it's even somewhere I like, and...shutting up again." She paused, then added one bit more. "If you used the ducky umbrella the drier would be useful."

"I'm not using the ducky umbrella," Dean told her, firmly. "But you should - there's no point us both getting wet. And it's not so much that you're being strange, just... very, very bouncy. And yes, we're going out. And with the rain, and the umbrella and the fact that nobody's going to be looking at anybody in this weather anyhow, I think we'll have no problems just wandering down the street." Even if Dean did threaten to squelch with every step. But he was fine with that - anyway, he needed to encourage the drowned rat look for when he finally got home. Because he'd noted the definite lack of Caleb in school today, which meant that there was a problem with his excuse. He didn't know what had happened to the guy, but if he was off sick or something had happened, the 'I'm at Caleb's excuse was going to have even more holes in it than before. So, Dean had decided that fuck it, he was going to give Oz and Sophie a version of the truth - that he'd been with Thia. He was then just going to hope that they assumed he meant he'd been sitting by the girl's grave in the rain and didn't bollock him overly much because he was grieving and grieving people did stupid things. It was as good a plan as he could come up with on the fly anyhow.

Lullaby barely caught the thought that went through her mind. One of us is dead here, dear. If either of us should be worried about being dry, it's you. But! She didn't say it. It did, however, serve to remind her that her humor had been a little blacker than usual in her head. She didn't know if it was a stress reaction or just something that happened when you were resurrected by surprise. "Sure you won't be too cool to be seen with someone with a ducky umbrella?" she asked, giving him a faint half smile. "Oh, I found shoes, too." she added. Or less she'd found real shoes, and she'd found sandals upstairs that would fit her. Which were better than nothing, because she was fairly positive the second Dean realized that the orphanage's floor was Tetnus waiting to happen, he wouldn't be letting her walk around in there. She wanted to cut that particular argument off before it happened.

Dean just gave her a Look for that, rolling his eyes a little. "I can deal with you having an umbrella," he told her. "Even one with ducks on it - you're a girl, you can do these things. It's different - I'd never live it down if someone saw me out with an umbrella with ducks on it." Yet he had absolutely no qualms about being seen out with a dead girl. It was strange how that happened. He looked down at her feet, noting the sandals. Which weren't really shoes, but he figured they were better than nothing.

"You realize you make no sense, right?" Lullaby asked, before she turned to the closet behind the living room door to root around in there to find the umbrella, since she'd put it in there earlier. "Is it gonna make you feel better if I've got it?" she asked, coming back out, and she reached up to yank the hood of the hoodie up. It made her fade some, giving her very lightly translucent look.

"Hey - that makes perfect sense to me!" Dean averred, grimacing as he slipped his wet jacket back on. Leather was only waterproof to a certain extent and the collar was cold against his skin. But, he'd have to deal. He kicked his schoolbag to one side, deciding to leave it here, since he'd be walking her home later - there was no question of that. "Yes," he told her, walking to the door and opening it. "I will feel better if you have it with you. And maybe I'll share it, some of the way." He'd have the girl-excuse then. That made things better.

She grinned at him. "Sold." she said, then she rushed out as he held the door and she was down the porch and onto the sidewalk immediately, umbrella coming up. And yes--it did in fact have duckies all over it. Little cute fuzzy baby duckies. It looked like something a little kid got at Easter. She frowned down at the sandals, which were slightly too big for her, and she reached down to grab them off of her feet, holding them with the fingers of the hand that held the umbrella. She'd put them back on when they got to the orphanage. She did have to pause though, letting the umbrella drift back a little as she turned her face up towards the rain. God that felt nice. She'd stop it in a second, just...yeah. Nice. The wet sidewalk felt nice too beneath her feet.

Dean was on her heels - so much so that he nearly ran into her as she suddenly stopped. He squinted through the rain at her, pulling his jacket closer round his body against the pouring rain as she stopped and enjoyed it - to him it was just cold and wet and he wished he'd bough a jacket with a collar that he could turn up to stop the rivulets running down the back of his neck. "Come on!" he told her in the end, grabbing her hand and tugging her down the street.

She laughed a little, pulling the umbrella up--and if it just happened to cover Dean too, then hey. Purely the way she was holding it. She jingled as they walked, and she kept right up with him, hand kept in his as they went. "Have you even been there before?" she asked. "It's...messy." she said, trying to think of a way to describe the place. "It's got an awful history. I know there was a fire there once, and it's rumored to be really really haunted. There's like six, seven floors of Weird." she rambled. Since they were out walking again that mood swing thing that was happening to her all the fucking time now was threatening to close in. She was thinking about how they were only about three blocks from her house, and her parents would probably be home soon. So...if she kept herself talking, maybe she could stop herself from being stupid and emotional.

"No, never been there," Dean told her. In fact, until yesterday, he hadn't even known where it was - he'd looked it up online after he'd got home and they'd been talking about it, which was the only reason he had them headed in the right direction now, hurrying through the rain. "Weird?" he asked her, huddling under the umbrella (somehow the existence of duckies wasn't so bad from the underneath where it was out of the rain). "Weird how?" he asked.

"Um, well, it's kind of twisted?" Lullaby suggested. "Like, it's been added onto so many times since it was built that it's kinda maze-like. Like there are parts of the building that are only accessible from other parts, even if logically you should be able to get from point a to point b in a straight forward manner. "And that's not mentioning the fact that when you walk inside, it kind of feels like...like you're walking into hell or something. Like this chest-squeezy dread feeling." she explained. Though her voice was a little sheepish--she sounded like she knew that sounded stupid, but she couldn't not explain right.

"Sounds like a bang up great place to spend a rainy afternoon," Dean teased. he didn't sound overly concerned though - that kind of place had never bothered him that much. He wasn't the kind of person to be scared off by the creepy - he never had been. In fact there was a part of him that found them fascinating and was drawn to them. The old, the broken, the derelict. Which was weird, he knew and he was bothered by it if he actually allowed himself to think on it too much - wondering if he was just twisted or something. Between that and his powers, he seemed geared towards destruction.

he smirked at that, and knocked her shoulder against his as they walked, but was sure to keep the umbrella over him. "I didn't say it wasn't, smart ass." she said in return. "I love it. I've been through a few times, kinda just wandering around, there's a lot of really neat rooms, some nifty graffiti, and if you go up high enough, you can see the lake. That's nice too. And it's weird, the higher you go up? The less bad-feeling it feels. Like all the creepy ick is in the first floor and basement. I haven't been down in the basement, though." Which made her think that they could maybe make a point of doing that today.

Dean considered this. "So, what's the plan?" he asked her. "Since we're looking for the bad stuff - we staying on the ground floor? Did you want to explore the basement? Did you want to test the effects, start off on the ground floor and go up to see if you feel any different if the badness lessens? Since I'm still, y'know, completely at your beck and call, it's up to you," he told her, definitely sheltering under the umbrella now.

"I don't know, I hadn't thought about it all organized-like." Lullaby said, starting to think about it. "I'd like to go in the basement, see if I can track where it's coming from. If I even feel it. It could have just been all in my head, and there's nothing there. But yeah, I dunno. I would like to see what's down there. And I'd also like to try that whole thing with the gaging things as I go up. I kinda wanna see if I can effect it. I haven't tried yet." She hadn't really wanted to by herself, but she didn't say that.

"Then that's what we'll do," Dean said, as if it were just that easy - Thia said,so it happened. Simple. Course, it would be a lot better if it wasn't raining, but at least there would be less people around to see them breaking in to the place. He chuckled a little at that - his second break in in less than a week. Though he was more comfortable with this one. He'd broken into derelict buildings before and it was in no way the same as breaking into someone's home. That had been kind of scary.

"You're scarily accommodating, you know." Lullaby informed him. "Like, way too accommodating. I'm going to start getting used to that then get all lazy and think you'll just let me do whatever I want, and one day I'll be an insufferable bitch." she teased lightly as they walked. She looked up, knowing the place was just up the street now, and she stopped dead in her tracks, yanked forward to stumble a little since it wasn't as if she'd warned Dean first. She stared, wide eyed at the orphanage. "....it wasn't my imagination." she said in a soft voice.

"You'll never be an insufferable bitch," he told her with confidence. "But I can start pushing you around and being demanding, if it'll make you feel any better," he added, prodding her in the shoulder just as she stopped, which added to the stumbled. "Wha..?" he started to ask, before he realised where they were and followed her gaze to the building and back. "Thia?"

She blinked, her name sort of rousing her attention back to Dean, though she ticked her gaze immediately back to the orphanage. She was staring at it like she'd never seen it before. This was largely due to the fact that jesus fucking christ, she may as well not have. There was a blackness coming out of the place, thick, huge tendrils of bad, like living tentacles of black shadows. A raindrop in the eye had her squinting one shut, and she righted the umbrella more, stepping closer to Dean. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again, and this time it was her who started them walking again, moving ahead to pull him along quickly. It looked like something out of a horror movie to her, and if she didn't push herself to do this rightthehellnow, she might back out.

Dean wanted to ask what she'd seen, since something obviously had her. But she was walking ahead of him and she wouldn't hear him past the rain. He took hold of her arm after a few steps, torn between wanting to pull her round and demand to know what the hell was going on and just letting her do whatever she had to while he trailed on behind. Either was a viable option for him. It took him a few more paces, but he made his decision - the third way. He stepped in front of her, out into the rain because the umbrella didn't cover him at that angle, and walked backwards, not stopping her. "Thia?" he asked again. "What is it?"

She almost pulled up short when he did that, and she also very nearly stepped around him to keep going and not answer him, but in the end she didn't. Couldn't. "We're going to get our wish." she said. "That negative energy thing? Remember how I said I knew the perfect place?" she continued, even as they walked, and she tugged his hand to the side a little so he didn't trip on a discarded beer bottle on the edge of the Orphanage's lot. "It's more than perfect. It's...god. I...can see it. And not like with you, with little wispies, no this is like...it's like it's alive, it's got so much and it's all moving, and..." she broke off there, looking around him even as she pulled the umbrella up as she realized he was in the rain again.

For all he'd thought that he wasn't bothered by creepy abandoned places, her saying that? Spooked him out - it all sounded a little too horror-movie for him and his hand on her arm tightened, not quite pulling her back, but not letting her go forward any faster either. Because, such, they'd come looking for the bad vibes - but to find them, like that, and in what sounded like massive numbers? Yeah, that gave him pause.

Lullaby looked up at him, neck twinging a touch, but it'd been doing that all day. She ignored it, keeping her focus on his eyes for a few long moments. "Maybe you should stay here." she said. She didn't think he'd go for it, in fact, she was absolutely positive he wouldn't. In that 'he'd probably rather throw himself in front of a bus as opposed to letting her go in alone' kind of manner. But she couldn't not say it. She was the creepy thing that was like...attracted to that or whatever, right? And while she knew she'd been through enough times and nothing bad had ever happened to her, that didn't stop the irrational fear that something would happen to him, now that she could see just how fucked up the place was.

Dean looked at her for a moment, assessing whether she was actually serious. Or at all thought that he'd go for that suggestion. Hell no, not happening. "Not a hope in hell," he told her, though he didn't ease up on her arm at all. "But put your shoes on - there's broken glass around," he told her, refusing to acknowledge the thought that flitted through his head that broken glass was nothing compared to the building that was apparently alive. Yay, living buildings - great.

She didn't say anything to that, she just hopped on one foot at a time to slide them on, using his arm for leverage so she didn't fall over as they kept going. She turned them onto the yard, as it cut past the actual front of the building, even if that wasn't where they were headed. Looking over at the entrance, she wasn't sure what caught her attention more. The abandoned doll on the steps beneath the tree that had randomly decided to grow up through the concrete steps, or the ropes of blackness that seemed to be sliding out and around, searching for them. Not for us. Damnit, Lullaby, you're not at all going to be freaking out here, okay? Stop it. Just...you've been here before. All that's changed is you can see it now, instead of just feeling it. That's all she told herself firmly, tugging them back behind the building, to a more shielded side of the place, and where the doors that they could get in were located.

"How do you feel?" he asked her, clinging to the fact that that was why they were here, after all. And just because she could see the badness, didn't mean that that badness was actually going to do anything. She saw it off him when he was upset - that didn't mean he was going to become a mass murderer, did it? No. So - it was just a building that gave off bad vibes. Which people seemed to know anyway. It wasn't suddenly going to rise up and eat them like some freaky Stephen King novel. Even if they were headed for the basement. He just had to pull himself together and remember it was just a fucking building.

"You mean besides scared?" Lullaby asked, looking at him, before she started up the steps to the double doors. She put the umbrella down once they were under the overhang, and she stared at them. They were heavy, metal doors. On either side were long strips of windows, but you couldn't see shit in through there even in broad, middle of the day sunlight, it definitely wasn't going to be bright enough now. She reached into her hoodie's pocket, and pulled out two small flashlights. Which were really going to do a whole lot of not much in the place, but it had been all she could find. "I don't know how good these'll work, and I think the battery is dying in one of them but..." she shrugged, trailing off. "I'm going to disappear on you again." she added unnecessarily. He'd know, but she just wanted to put it out there. She reached for the door handle, eyes tracking the tendrils that snaked out even from the cracks around the door. She jiggled her ankle to make the bells ring. She hoped the place didn't echo too badly for him. Though it probably would, at least down here.

"Yeah, I know - I'm going to try and keep you in my beam, okay?" he said as they stepped inside and he switched the torch on - only to have it immediately blow with an audible crackle that he very much recognised. "Okkkkay - I, er, didn't mean to do that," he said, apologetically and sounding surprised. Usually he only mistakenly used his abilities when he was angry or upset. Which he wasn't at the moment - nervous, maybe, but not so much that he should be going haywire. "So - you'll be disappearing then..." he concluded with a sigh as he slipped the torch into his jacket pocket. It'd be totally useless now. He stepped forward and reached blindly for her, finally finding her hand. "And yes - I meant besides scared," he told her, giving her hand a little squeeze - though he felt better knowing he wasn't the only one, and that she wasn't just going to go running off as if this was the best thing ever. Yeah, that really - though possibly weirdly - helped.

Lullaby had been looking back at him when it happened, and she was left standing there and blinking at him. She thought she'd seen something. It was really fast, just whooshflashgone, but yeah. It had her head tilting to the side and she made a face, reaching up to rub at the side of it again as she dropped the umbrella by the wall just inside the entrance. She squeezed his hand in return, before she started forward. It was weird. She kept expecting that cold evil dread feeling to descend upon her, but...this time it wasn't yet. The chill was there, as usual. That heavy feeling. But...it wasn't like normal. She made a soft little sound that she didn't realize she'd made as she started leading a little further. It was like walking into a soft envelope of...she couldn't even describe it. She just knew that it made her feel tingly. Like there was an electric charge in the air and it was crawling over her skin.

He stayed with her, knowing she was in front of him by the feel of her hand in his and the little jingle of bells, only just audible in the hammering rain that he could hear from outside. That was one thing he loved and hated about the rain - that all-encompassing sound that muffled the entire world. Sometimes it was comforting, when he was lying in bed and it drowned out all the other sounds that stopped him from sleeping more nights. Other times he hated it - when he couldn't hear what was going on because of the incessant thunder of the rain. Right now it wasn't so bad - the building was large enough that the roof was a long way off, the noise muffled, a background to everything as they walked.

She kept them going forward, eyes starting to adjust, even though there was very little light to adjust to. Up ahead and to the left, there would be a stairwell. It would lead them up, there would be the open doors to nowhere, and then upstairs again there would be the floor that had the auditorium. However, that wasn't where they were headed. No. They were headed up the way more. Towards where she knew the stairwell to the basement was, even if she hadn't ever braved it. "I can't tell if it's bad that I can't feel that....that icky dread feeling right now, or not." she said, voice slightly shaky. It was scary. The implications, they were just messed up. "But I can't. It's like I can feel it moving around me...over me. Like my skin's crawling, but not in a bad way?" she suggested, knowing he could probably answer her, but he'd have to speak loudly, and the echo might distort anything he'd say. So communication in there in the pitch black might not work so well.

Dean couldn't feel anything - except where he stumbled over the odd bit of debris in the dark. And the icky dread feeling that he was definitely feeling was more to do with the fact that he didn't have the first clue where he was going, though he took comfort in the fact that Thia obviously did. "Right," he said, loudly - limiting his words to the bare minimum, knowing that would help at least. No long complicated sentences when they couldn't communicate properly.

She smiled when he said it, hearing it well enough. "It's up here...the stairs." she said, coming into vague view, but only a pale, barely there ghost of herself as they walked through the patch of dim light from the stairwell on the left. "There's a little short stairway down, and this...this creepy red door. That's the door to the basement." she said, starting to get the flashlight out of her hoodie's pocket. She clicked it on, training it ahead for the stairwell down that was also off to the left. She glanced back at Dean. "You're really trusting." she said, and she sounded appreciative of that. He'd let her lead him through the darkness, anyways. Even knowing she was a weird thing now that might like bad vibes.

"Only for you - and don't let it go to your head," Dean told her, glad it was fairly dark right now because he was sure he looked faintly embarrassed. But he'd always been like this, he knew. He was an 'all or nothing' type of person - those who were important to him he would do anything for. The rest of the world could go jump. And he made his decisions about who was an wasn't important at the drop of a hat. Probably far too quickly, but that was just who he was. His eyes ticked down to the beam of light and he instinctively tried to rein in his abilities - not that he actually knew how to do that. They'd always been something he had to concentrate to use, rather than something he had to hold back. Except when he was overly-emotional, but then holding back was usually the last thing on his mind. Now, well, he could only try, and he watched as the beam of light flickered a little bit, but then returned to normal.

"I won't." she promised. She gave him a gentle smile, even if she wasn't sure if he could see her very well or not. Then she turned back towards the stairwell, and started down it, only about eight feet down. Then there were other halls, but the red door was what they were interested in. She reached out with the hand that held the flashlight to turn the knob, only now stopping to wonder if it would be locked--but it wasn't. The knob squeaked harshly, but turned, and she pulled it back, training the light down the very steep concrete stairwell. She stepped back slightly, towards Dean as she saw the blackness there. God, it really did have to be the source. The blackness was all over, sure, but... "It looks like its on fire." she said softly, almost too softly to be heard.

Dean knew she'd said something, but he had no idea what as he peered down the stairs. into the darkness. "Pardon?" he asked her, wanting to take the torch from her and point it at her face so he could watch her lips move. Or they should go downstairs - that was a toss up actually. Scary blackness of the old abandoned building against the fact that it would be further away from the rain down there and he'd be able to hear her better.

"Fire, it looks like it's on fire." Lullaby repeated herself, louder this time, and she felt bad that she hadn't been loud enough the first time. "Sorry, I'll be clearer." she said. "It's...have you ever seen fire like, licking over things? Even in the movies, how fire looks when it's climbing the walls? That's what it looks like, only black shadowy bits." she told him, staring to push forward. She realized in a belated sort of sense that she was starting to not only feel like there was a charge crackling over her skin, but that she was charged. Like she was soaking it in. Which...kind of made her sick to her stomach at the same time.

Yeah, he'd seen that. Only in films, but he'd seen it - and he'd also seen how usually that led to destruction. There seemed to be an awful lot of that about lately. And he wasn't entirely convinced they should be walking into the 'it's like a burning building' basement. "Thia," he said, pulling her to a stop, his voice cautious. He wanted to make damn sure they knew what they were doing - he couldn't stand losing her again.

She stopped when he pulled, and she turned to look at him again. The light shifted, shining against the wall and it lit them both up, if dimly. Lullaby looked at him, her emotions on her face. Which were...concerned, a little scared, and unsure. She bit at her lower lip for a moment, but didn't look away. She almost suggested again that he stay here. But yeah, she knew that wouldn't happen, and there was another part of her that really really didn't want to go down there alone. Because she was sure she was going to find out that this stuff--this bad, horrible energy, or karma, or whatever the hell it was--was good for her. And she really didn't think she could handle that kind of discovery on her own. She was already believing she was in denial over it. Her whole person was practically humming with it all, and she even felt warmer, even when she knew she should probably be shivering by now. She waited to see if he was going to say anything, before she said anything herself.

He felt better when he could see her, even if she was ghostly, and he realised that he'd actually got used to not seeing her when she was in shadows. Possibly that was simply because it was so damn dark in here that he wouldn't really have been able to see her even if she was normally visible. he didn't know, but he hoped it was the former. This was Thia and she was always going to be like this - he wanted to be able to get used to that. "You sure you want to do this?" he asked her, his face set and serious. There was no suggestion that he would stop her, or wouldn't be right there with her. Just the simple question.

She nodded, eyes not leaving his. "I think I have to." she answered. She gave a weak smile that really didn't hold any humor whatsoever. "Can't stop now, right? We're right here." She sounded less sure of herself than she would have liked, but that didn't mean she was going back on the decision. She gave his hand a squeeze, then turned and started down the steps into magic black fire that didn't burn land.

And so he followed her, feeling each step as he took it, the going fairly slow in the darkness. He tried not to think about what she could see, about the fire. To him it didn't exist, he couldn't see anything, feel anything. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the torchlight flickered again and he took a step back, concentrating, unsure whether it was him that had caused that or the dodgy battery she'd talked about. Either way, he'd really rather not be left without light right now.

The farther down the steps they got, the warmer she felt. The more enveloped in everything. It was disturbing, to say the least, but only emotionally. Physically, it felt good. It felt tingly and electric, like nothing she'd ever felt before. She felt more awake than she had since she'd come back to life, more energetic than she could ever really remember feeling. Even back when she was alive. It was an entirely new sensation, like she was sensing things on levels she'd never knew existed. And really, she probably was.

Dean kept his eyes on the beam of light, scared it was going to flicker and die any minute, concentrating on not doing anything to make that happen, though he had no idea whether what he was doing was helping at all, since all he could do was think about not using his abilities - not the easiest thing to do when he didn't really know how they worked. usually he just thought about something breaking and it did. or, at least, that had been how it had started. He'd learnt slightly more finesse over the years, an ability to think in a more pinpoint way about what he wanted to accomplish and that was the theory he was relying on now - if he could pinpoint what he did want to do, maybe he could pinpoint what he didn't want to do. He didn't know, but it sounded like a theory and the beam of light was still there.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Lullaby swept the light into the cavernous basement. It was cold down there, not that Lullaby was particularly feeling it. She shivered, though it had nothing to do with temperature, it was everything to do with the charged sensation going through her. Like she was pulling it in, absorbing it just by being around it. God, this is bad. This is so...so bad... she thought, even as she was feeling physically so much stronger. Or, she was. As she lead them in a direction--the one that the blackness seemed to be centered from, she started to feel a little light headed with the rush of it all, and she faltered a little, stumbling just a touch and she dropped the flashlight. Luckily, this wasn't a horror movie and didn't reveal any crazy monsters or ghosts, nor did it break instantly and go out. She made a soft muffled noise, and reached up to touch her head by her temple, almost feeling like she'd experienced a drop in bloodpressure.

Dean was immediately by her side - not that he'd been that far away anyway - supporting her at the elbow as he took a breath and reached for the torch. The beam died right down, flickering madly until he concentrated really hard, praying that he hadn't blown it completely and it came back to life again. What the hell was wrong with him today? he didn't have the first clue as he shone the beam up between them, highlighting both of their faces. "You alright - what happened?" he asked her, clearly looking concerned and also holding himself taught and still with concentration.

Her eyes were blinking slowly, and she had to make an effort to focus on him. "...light headed." she mumbled, then frowned, and tried again. "Light headed." she said in a clearer voice, and she made sure she actually enunciated that time too. "Sorry. It's...I think it's kind of centered over this way." she told him, making a vague sort of gesture in the direction they'd been moving. She shivered, goosebumps rising up on her flesh beneath her hoodie. "I can feel all this, it's like I'm..." she tried to think of a word, but couldn't.

"I think we should go back, Thia," he told her, clearly. "If this is affecting you this badly and we're not ever at where it's coming from, I don't think we should go any further - it could be dangerous for you," he said, not letting her move off, holding her steady.

Her face pinched then, and she looked away, off towards that wall of blackness. "Well that's the trouble, Dean." she said, sounding just as miserable as she emotionally felt right then, even if it did seem out of the blue. "It isn't effecting me badly." Which that sick feeling in her stomach got a whole lot worse, and she felt like her heart was starting to beat too fast. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Because there was this pull in her. Some piece of her wanted to go over there. Go there, find the source, and bask for a while. And that was fucking terrifying.

He didn't reply to that straight away, taking a few moments to catch on to what she was saying and the momentary lapse in concentration when he caught on was accompanied by another flickering of the torch beam, that only stopped when he practically thrust the damn thing into Thia's hand and let go of it, not trusting himself. "Take it," he told her as he did so. As to the rest, what she'd said - he had no idea what to say about that. No clue at all.

She fumbled with the flashlight, nearly dropping it again, but she caught it before it hit the floor. She hugged it to her chest with both hands, and the beam was pointed downwards. It would at the very least make her face less visible, and she kind of didn't want to burst into tears here. And if she was going to--the tear thing was happening regardless--she didn't want him to have to see. A million questions went through her mind right then, and she didn't want to ask any of them. Because they were all sort of the same, and all pointed in the same direction. Which was this was horrible. This was bad. This was a whole world of bad. Her breath hitched, and the motion made her neck twitch again. Lullaby was aware that she needed to say something. She really, really did. But there weren't words. 'Hey, I'm pretty sure it's confirmed now that I'm a monster' really didn't want to come out of her mouth.

Dean knew that he needed to say something. Or, well, say something that wasn't just a single word that had nothing at all to do with what she'd just told him. Which appeared to be that this place made her feel good - which raised all kinds of questions, none of which he had the answers to. He really should have gone to Nevermore, but with the rain and everything, he'd cut it out and come straight to her. He should have gone to Nevermore, they might have had information, they could have read up - they might know what they were dealing with now, instead of feeling their way - literally as well as figuratively - in some darkened basement.

She turned away from him, towards the looming darkness, and she started walking. The flashlight was still hugged to her chest, so it didn't do a whole lot of good, and anyhow, if she kept going, pretty soon she was sure she wouldn't be able to see anyhow. It was some masochistic, destructive desire to finish it, to go see where the badness stemmed from, and maybe it would eat her. Which was ridiculous, but that was where her motivations were lying at current. She still hadn't said anything, and she reached up with one hand to wipe at her tears.

He tried to keep up with her in the darkness as she just turned and walked away, but with her back to him and the torch clutched to her chest like that, it all but left him blind. And, of course, there was nothing to see as the darkness literally swallowed her. He walked blindly, his hands outstretched, but finding nothing. "Thia?" he called, loudly, but he knew there was only a slim chance she'd even hear him. "Thia!"

She heard his voice. Not necessarily what he was saying but his voice, yes. Which snapped her out of things immediately, and she tried to reach out for him again, shining the flashlight around until she saw him again. He wasn't far. But it felt like he was far. She took the few steps between them rapidly, arms going up around his neck. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to leave you in the dark, I'm sorry--" she mumbled. And hey! Look there. Speaking pushed that crying thing to the fore and it came fast and hard. She was shaking, sobbing and clinging all at once. She kept repeating she was sorry, and had kind of lost what for. Probably for being whatever the hell she was. Her words were too muddled, though, it wasn't really anything but the idea of words given soft sound.

"Switch the torch off," he told her, his face by her ear as she hugged him. Because he felt her start crying and he wasn't good with crying women and with his ability seemingly on the fritz right now, he didn't want to do anything stupid. Best if they minimise that by getting rid of the power. Not that that was any guarantee - he was fairly sure he could fry something that was switched off, but, yeah. It would minimise the danger, at least as he slipped an arm around her. "It's okay, Thi - really. It's okay," he told her, soothingly. Even though it wasn't really - he'd hated being left in the dark like that, worried about her already as he was. He'd been so afraid he'd just never find her again, that the dark would swallow her and he'd never find her and be wandering around her forever alone and looking for her. That she wouldn't hear him calling, because she couldn't. he'd not even thought in that moment to stop and listen for her bells.

She flipped the flashlight off, and fumbled it into her front pocket, then went back to clinging. Just about any other day she'd probably laugh. Torch. The word conjured images of indiana jones, bit of wood aflame. Today, however, not a snowball's chance in hell. She couldn't even speak for a long time as she cried, and she wondered what this all meant. Because this was it, wasn't it? Proof that she was...that she was fucked up in some fundamental, ground floor way? Good things wouldn't...feed off of this kind of thing. Anything that was good would dispel it, or something. But that wasn't the case for her. Hell, the longer they stayed down there the more she felt like she could take on an army. And yet it was all so terrifying and awful, she didn't know how she'd actually move forward.

He didn't try and say anything more, just held her as she cried, feeling inadequate and totally useless. Joshua would handle this better than he was, he was sure. He would know what to do, or say, here instead of just holding her and waiting for her to cry herself out, getting her wet in the process since he was very aware that he was still soaked. But there was just him here at the moment. And this was all he had to offer her.

She was done eventually, but it was a while in coming. She didn't actually even notice she'd gotten herself wet until much, much later, and it was a dim, dull sort of knowledge that didn't matter whatsoever. At all, in fact. She knew she had to let him go, and step back, and oh...move on with her entire existence, but she didn't know how she could. She felt just as trapped and awful as she had after her father had left. She sniffled, and pulled back enough to wipe at her eyes some more. "I'm sorry." she said again, this time at least, clearer than before, even if her voice was hoarse. She kept one arm up around his neck, not quite prepared to let go, and plus it was still dark. She vowed if they were ever in the dark again she wasn't letting him go unless something chopped her fucking arm off.

He didn't let her go either, in fact it took a moment for him to loosen his hold enough for her to step back, concerned that she'd leave him again. "It's okay," he said, his voice sounding loud in his ears. "Just... Don't do that again. Don't leave me like that," he told her, hoping he didn't sound needy. If they ever came here again, he was bringing a fucking candle.

"I won't. I promise I won't." Lullaby assured him, sounding miserable that she'd done it in the first place. Especially with him saying that, and she could hear tone. It wasn't lost on her. "Dean I'm so sorry. I..." she didn't have a proper excuse. In fact, the only one she did have was the truth, and she didn't think she could say it. She knew how badly he'd take it. if she did. 'I was thinking about going to feed myself to the darkness' really wasn't anything good no matter how one looked at it, and she thought that was probably worse. By a long shot.

"Good," he said, simply, taking her at her word. "Or next time I'm bringing rope," he added, smiling a little in the darkness, because she'd been crying and he couldn't help that part of him that just wanted to make her feel better. "Are we going on, or are we going back?" he asked her, emphasis on the 'we', though he doubted she needed it now.

She made a small sound, one that might have been a reflex bit of a laugh. It was little more than a sharper exhalation, but it was there. She did appreciate his efforts. Taking the flashlight back out, she turned it back on, though was careful not to shine it at her own face. Instead, she turned it towards the blackness, and leaned lightly against him, head tilting as she ignored the pain in her neck to rest against his collarbone for a few moments as she considered. "Part of me wants to go to the source. See what it is, sit there for a while." she said. Her voice was oddly inflectionless. "And the rest of me wishes we'd never set foot in this building."

He left her where he was, lowering his head a little and raising his voice as he spoke, slowly and clearly so she'd hear him without them having to move. Well, it was either that or pointing the torch at his face, after all. "Which part wins?" he asked her, figuring that really one part had already lost, since they were, in fact, here.

"I think we're here, and if I'm ever going to face this stuff, I'd better do it now." Lullaby said. Then she did pull back, moving the light a little better so she could see him, anyways. "And I don't want to do it alone." Which was probably selfish of her. But all of this...it was bad enough. If she'd been alone, it would be so much worse. If I were alone, I'd probably have curled up where the source is, and stayed there. she thought to herself, which was also scary. No one would know where she was, or how to find her. Just that thought had her kind of holding onto him a little tighter, before she made herself stop.

"Which is why I'm here," he pointed out to her. Because, no, there was never any question of him leaving. Not even though he was scared, and worried about her and everything that was going on. Even though he was of the opinion that really they should be leaving now. Even though he was completely thrown at the moment by the weird way his powers were reacting. He wasn't leaving. They couldn't drag him out of here if she wasn't coming with him. "Lead the way," he suggested to her.

She nodded, then drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Um. Can you hold the flashlight?" she asked, biting at her lip again for a moment. "It's thick up there. I think I might not be able to see so well. I'm not sure, but wouldn't do me any good to hold it if I wouldn't even know if I was running into a wall." she said. There was a brief attempt at a smile, but yeah that so didn't work so she abandoned it immediately.

"Er - I might break it," he told her, hesitantly, not taking it. "Like I broke the other one, like I think I've been sending the beam screwy. I don't know what's wrong with me today - I'm all over the place." Not that he felt all over the place, but his ability was up the creek, like he had more power than he could handle right now and it was leaking out of him. "Maybe it's best if you hold it - at least then it'll still work."

She nodded, trying to figure it out. Then she quirked a little half smile that worked a lot better than the last one, even if it was brief. "kay, well, just warn me if I'm going to smack into walls or pipes, or anything else, alright?" she asked, knowing he would. When she moved to point the beam in the direction they were going, she didn't really reach for his hand, she took his arm with hers, hugging it a little to her body to keep him a little better attached. She started walking, and it wasn't far before she was right--she couldn't really see. So she was walking blind. The energy of the place, it seemed to seep into her, work through her, pulse with her heartbeat. It was almost like it was reacting to her just as much as she was reacting to it.

He wasn't sure he really understood what she meant when she said she wouldn't be able to see. The way ahead of them was clear, if dark, but the beam of light cut through that. But obviously she was seeing something that he didn't - he'd gathered that much, he just didn't really understand how it worked. "Is it like walking through mist?" he asked her, loudly, thinking that might be on track, wanting to understand what she was seeing, if not feeling. That was something else, he was sure.

"Yeah, actually. Like really heavy fog, or smoke." she told him. She finally flat out closed her eyes. It didn't matter if she didn't see, she could feel it. She could sense it, and she could follow, even without them. Dean was going to be trusted to keep her safe in her dark now, and that was okay with her. The flashlight beam was kept ahead of them as they entered another dark room, this one with clear signs of fire damage all around.

That made more sense - though it was still weird, being that he couldn't see anything at all unusual. But he took her at her word as they continued to walk, the beam of light starting to pick up charred areas. He hadn't noticed that she'd closed her eyes, but described what he was seeing anyhow. "There's been a fire here," he told her, reaching for her arm to swing the torch round to the right a little.

She moved with him, pausing as she tried to concentrate, to pull her senses in. Actually, with her eyes closed like this, she was feeling more. Drawing in a deep breath, she started noticing that her neck felt slightly less pained than it had earlier. Now that she was kind of...what, drawing it in? Saturated? Did this stuff actually make her physically better, as opposed to just feeling it? It made her wonder about the scratches, and she paused. "Hold on a moment." she said, and she let him go just long enough to hold the flashlight between her legs, then she tugged her hoodie off. Beneath it, she had on a tank top, and she tied the hoodie around her waist, shining the flashlight beam at her chest and arms, where she was trying to get a look at the weird scratches she'd picked up last night for no reason. She looked at a long one on her left shoulder, reaching up with her now free hand to run her thumb over it, pushing lightly against the skin that had looked a lot angrier last night.

Dean looked at her, at the scratches on her skin, then at her face, frowning a little. "What happened?" he asked her, wondering when she'd been hurt - though, honestly, they didn't look too bad, which was good. Still, he wasn't a guy that was okay with seeing people hurt, especially people he cared about.

"I don't know. I was going to tell you about it later..." she said, looking back up at him. "When I went to see Joshua last night, they just kind of...happened, I guess?" she asked. "That and my neck got hurt." She reached up to rub it a little. "It's kind of faded now though, and like, even when we were out in the other room it was still hurting, so I was wondering if this stuff was almost like...helping fix me?" she suggested, sounding like she thought that sounded stupid. "But yeah, I don't know what it was. Everything was okay, then Joshua came over and we were hugging and then owies." she shook her head, biting her lip as she thought. "I um. I was really scared for a minute, I was wondering if I was...um." She didn't know how to say it, and kind of wished she'd not started sharing that thought, being she was now thinking that Dean was going to have not the best of reactions to the idea.

"Your neck got hurt?" he asked her, wondering what the hell she and Joshua had been doing last night for her to get injured just by hugging him. That must have been one hell of a hug, with scratches and neck problems and who knew what else. He remembered his own reaction to first seeing her, when he'd basically tackled her from across the room, but still. He caught the rest of what she said - which didn't serve to make things any better, being that hearing 'I was really scared' coming from Thia was a phrase which would always set him on edge - and raised an eyebrow. "Wondering if you were...?" he asked.

Lullaby made a face. "I was wondering if something was messing up with the spell. I was wondering if my dad could like...cancel it or something. I have no idea." she admitted. Lullaby, learn to shut up. Learn to censor yourself for god's sake. Okay? Because this is just...badness. And Dean's been really awesome about dealing with you being crazy but he probably won't forever, and you don't want to give him high bloodpressure at sixteen. she told herself. Not that that helped much. She wasn't used to editing herself. As a rule, she didn't. She had always been one of those people who was very what you see is what you get, she didn't play around and wasn't good at hiding things even at the best of times. Now though...she was thinking she'd have to learn.

Okay, it was official - tomorrow Dean was going to Nevermore, regardless of anything else going on. "I'll get that book," he promised her - even though they didn't actually know if there was one or not. "And I'll talk to Dorian. We'll find out for sure, okay?" he told her - because it was easier to be reassuring and there for someone else rather than allow the rising panic that he was feeling to surface. That wasn't allowed to happen - he wasn't allowed to undo the spell. She wasn't allowed to go away. He couldn't go through that again, he really couldn't. "And anyway," he added, in a rush. "That wouldn't make any sense - if your dad did what he did to make the spell in the first place, well, that's sorta undoable, isn't it? You can't go back on that shit<" he pointed out, not coming out and saying 'he killed five people, you can't unkill people' - it was easier if you didn't directly reference what had actually happen. Maybe.

"I don't know. It's a spell, if he can...make sure I come back from the dead, wouldn't it stand to reason there's a cancel switch? Some way of undoing it? And I did kinda stab him. I hadn't thought about it then obviously, and even so. I mean, with what he did--I don't know. I just know it crossed my mind, and yeah the books? Good plan. We'll look at it all and come up with something, or...yeah." Or they wouldn't, basically. They'd either find out it couldn't be broken, or they'd find out it could, and she could be living in fear for the next ever. That was going to be great. Absently, she wondered if maybe she should do the research, then keep whatever she found kinda to herself. Again, she wasn't sure all this was fair to land on Dean's shoulders. This was her problem, wasn't it? She was going to have to learn to do all of this on her own, eventually he was gong to drift. That thought had her upset again though, and she shoved it away entirely. She even gave him a weak smile. "Let's not worry about it right now." she said. "I dunno what happened, injuries just kinda sprouted on me, and maybe it's a Fade thing I don't know about. I'm sure there's tons still I have no idea about. Though...can I try something? Do you think you can hold the flashlight again for a minute?"

"I don't know anything about magic," Dean admitted to her. "Really - before I came here, i didn't know it existed. It's been sort of a steep learning curve for me," he admitted. Living with Oz and Sophie helped - they'd been fairly above board on most things, not hiding things, taking the opinion that if he knew what was out there, he'd been less likely to find himself in trouble through being stupid or fooled. "So I don't know whether there'd be likely to be a cancel switch or not." Again, he felt like she'd be better off with someone who knew more about this stuff, but he wasn't going to say that. If she didn't want him around, she'd say. Until then, he wasn't going to voluntarily leave. He tentatively took the torch. "In advance, I'm sorry if I break it," he told her with a little grimace, trying to concentrate once more on not doing that. Which seemed a little easier this time and he thought he'd maybe cottoned on how to do that.

"Okay." she said, drawing in a deep breath. "I'm going to try to not disappear, kay?" she said. "Or...undisappear. Since I think I'm kinda fadey." she said, looking down at herself. "I was trying it earlier, and I could do it, but only with full concentration. I'm hoping if I can get better at it, I'll be able to stop doing it when I don't want to. And since I'm here, and feeling all charged and stuff, maybe it'll work better. So, here's trying." she said, drawing in a deep breath. She let it out slowly, and shut her eyes for a moment, trying to summon up the presence of herself that she knew existed. It was a weird thing to try and concentrate on. Simply being there when she was used to that being the default. There wasn't a much better way she had of trying to think about it, however. She opened her eyes a few moments later, glancing down. "Am I here?"

He held the beam slightly off to one side, so she was definitely in the shadows, but not so much that he wouldn't be able to see her anyway. He watched as she flickered a little and then held steady and then he grinned. "Oh yeah - you're still there," he told her, sounding happy. He reached out and touched her under the chin, then on her shoulder, just lightly. "You're definitely there."

That news had her beaming. She grinned. "Sweet!" she said. Then disappeared entirely, of course. Either way she gave him a big hug. "I don't think I can hold it very long? But if I can do it then awesome! I can probably get better, and I think it was easier cuz we're here, so I can come here, and..." she trailed off. "I think I'm far too excited about that little thing." she noticed. But she couldn't actually dim her enthusiasm for it. Small an accomplishment it may be, but it was one.

"...And now you're gone," he told her, swinging the beam of light round until it caught her directly just as she hugged him in a little jingle of bells. her excitement might have been about a little thing, but it was catching and it was good to see her appearing positive about something to do with what she was now - much better, in Dean's opinion, than her being all convinced she was some kind of evil monster. "You're allowed to be enthusiastic and excited," he told her.

She laughed a touch. "Okay, well if you say so." she said. She'd take it. Letting him go again, but taking his hand, she smiled, and she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I think...I feel slightly better." she said. "I'm going to wait until we research more to keep freaking. For now, anyways." It'd be hard, but she'd do it. Shove it back, push it away, concentrate on now. She looked around at the...weird smokey blackness around them again, and reached out, curling her fingers over a swirl of it. Then she tried to effect it. She didn't actually think she'd manage it, but she tried anyways. She could see it so well, and it seemed to like her, she wanted to know if she could play with it like it did with her. She attempted to push with her mind, or something like that, some inner part of her that really hadn't existed before she'd died. What happened was the smoke seemed to billow backwards from her, just a bit before it closed back into the space. She smiled faintly again. "I think I can effect this stuff a little." she said. She tried drawing it closer, drawing it in? Something.

"Yeah?" he asked, watching the darkness. It was strange, standing in the middle of a darkened basement whilst someone played with something you could neither see nor feel nor even really experience in any way. It made one take a lot on faith, something he was beginning to absently wonder about when the torchlight started to flicker again.

She stopped immediately, looking back at the flashlight, and she reached out to take it from him, giving him a little half smirk. "I'll take that..." she said. She looked around again, then made a decision. "I think we should head upstairs. I don't know where the source is down here, and I think we can hit it up another day. I think...I'm feeling better, kinda..." she paused, and attempted to come up with the correct wording. "Awake. More awake than I have since I um. Came back." she said. "And more here? More..." she tried to think of a better word than 'alive', but one really didn't come to her so she trailed it off and let him fill in the blank however he wanted.

"Sorry," he apologised, but he was very definitely relieved when she took the torch back off him. He didn't trust himself today, this entire place seemed to be throwing him off. He considered that - it was ironically typical that she would feel a draw to this place, feel at home here and he'd feel like he was screwed up. Not that it made him feel any differently, but - for him he was feeling clumsy, like a little kid in a china shop, as though he'd turn around and break something. He was having to concentrate on not doing that, the mental version of watching his every step. Yes, definitely - if he came back here again, he was definitely bringing candles. Something that he didn't have to worry about breaking. And then he could actually engage more with what she was experiencing, rather than having to hold back a piece of himself to stop them being plunged into total darkness. "But awake's good - and it proves the theory. That you take something from this," he told her.

She winced faintly, but nodded. "Yeah." she said. "Let's test that other one. The going higher up and sensing things one." she said. "Plus, I think I'd like to stop being in the total pitch black dark now." she added. She tried to concentrate again on being visible, and flickered before being there again. She tried to hold it, and it was a little like holding her breath. Or, that's what it felt like, anyways. "And the rest of the building is cool, and...yeah let's just shut up and go upstairs." she decided, taking his hand to start leading him back. Only to realize that the visibility wasn't much better. So, she tried that pushing the smoke back thing again, and made a little half excited sound when she got it to work, at least to some extent.

He followed her silently, pulling a confused face as she squeaked at apparently nothing, but sounded pleased with herself. He wondered what she'd done, but talking and walking like this wasn't going to be happening and he was glad to be getting out of the cellar, so he wasn't going to stop her either as they headed across the floor and started to climb the stairs.

Once they were back up out of the basement, she tugged them up the stairs, then made the sharp right to head for the greyer patch up ahead, where the stairs went. She turned off the flashlight and stuffed it into her hip pocket as they got there, and she went up the staircase to the doors that opened up to a straight drop down the building. It was nice though. The rain wasn't coming in, the wind not heavy enough or blowing in the wrong direction, but it was fresh air, and felt better on her skin, anyhow.

Dean hadn't expected there to be a drop at the other side of the doors - that really wasn't the kind of thing you expected. Of course, there seemed to be a lot of things in his life which weren't the kind of thing you expected these days and he stopped and looked out at the rain, before sitting down. Sitting down was good and the day wasn't really cold, just wet, as he shrugged off his jacket, being that that was cold. And wet. Not the best combination.

She looked down at him, then smiled and dropped down next to him, slipping her sandals off so she didn't accidentally lose them, and she leaned back, kicking her legs a little off the ledge. She tilted her head way back, then leaned back, back, until she said fuck it and laid down, staring up. "I can see it like...wisping along the underside of those stairs." she said, pointing above and behind them.

He instinctively looked back, even though he knew he wouldn't see anything. He couldn't not - it was a natural reaction. Someone pointed something out, you looked - that was human nature. All he saw were decrepit stairs and he shrugged, looking back at her. "And it makes you feel better," he stated, no longer a question, just fact.

"Yeah. Guess that means I'll be haunting this place." she said, sighing. Turning her head, she looked at him. Her expression was thoughtful, but she didn't say anything. What was crossing her mind, was more like 'so if we find out I'm an evil, vile thing, will you still be my friend?'. she didn't figure he'd appreciate a question like that, and also figured flat out that she knew what he'd say. The reality might be different, but the more she was thinking about it, the more she was wondering if maybe he just...was for really here. Like he was going to stick it out with her, regardless. Or, well, at least until he drifted. Not thinking about that. she reminded herself.

Dean looked around the abandoned building and the thought struck him that that? Was kind of depressing - the idea of her hanging around here. It shouldn't be like that, she shouldn't have to do that. Not someone like Thia, to have to hang around a building that looked like it should be pulled down, that was boarded up and locked up and kids had thrown rocks through the windows of. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. But none of this was fair, was it? The way her life had changed so much, the way it had been taken from her - even though she wasn't dead, he knew she didn't have her life anymore. He'd spent enough time with her, talked to her, thought about it enough to know that. None of it was fair, but he said nothing, staring out into the rain instead.

"At least I'll know if I start feeling sick or something, where to go." she said thoughtfully, eyes still on him even if he wasn't looking at her, and hadn't said anything. "I'm still thinking it's really really messed up that I'm like this, but I'm trying really hard to not think about it." And she was. She was trying to view it objectively, like information they had come to get, and had gotten. So, technically, mission kinda accomplished. Right? Just because she didn't like the answer, didn't mean...well, whatever.

He'd turned his face towards her as she began to speak, the pouring rain fuzzing up his hearing enough that he didn't trust his ears right now. "Maybe it's not a bad thing," he told her, trying to find something positive in all of this. He wanted it to be positive, damnit. "Maybe... You take in the bad vibes, right? Well maybe with you doing that it means there's less of them in the world," he suggested. "Because you've taken them away, turned them in to energy. So, really, maybe what you're doing is actually good for the world."

Lullaby extended her leg out, letting water drip down onto it from the overhang above the door. "Think so?" she asked, sounding a little hopeful. Not that she really thought that was possible, but it was kinda nice to think about. She had to smirk at him, amused. "Good for the world, huh?" she asked, then she laughed a touch, and poked him. "Thank you for saying." she said. It was just difficult for her to buy that she could be anything remotely good for the world when five people had to die to make her into what she was. She didn't share that, though.

"I think it's a theory," he told her, confidently. It was definitely that - though the thing about theories, he knew, was that they weren't fact. They were just something that was put forward to be disproven. But it was worth it to hear that tinge of hope in her voice, to see her laugh. "Yup, yup - you are environmentally friendly Thia," he teased, poking her right back.

That had her really laughing, something that echoed down the stairwell into the imminent badness that apparently she absorbed. She kicked her other foot out to get it wet, poking him back once more. "Environmentally friendly me. Good to know. Maybe I can start working on pollution...become a big advocate, change my name, be a very young spokesperson....what should I change my name to?" she asked, smiling at him.

"You know, considering I don't actually call you by your given name anyway? I'm probably not a very good person to ask," Dean pointed out. He'd never been able to use Lullaby, or Lulu, or anything that went with that. He thought he'd referred to her as that once. Even the flowers he'd left at the funeral had been addressed to 'Thia'. That was just who she was to him - and the thought of her ever being anyone else, changing her name... No, he couldn't imagine that. Which was probably those obsessive stalker tendencies coming out again.

"Guess I could just switch it up. Go with Amarantha Lullaby. Which...just sounds weird. But then again, I was named by a man who thought doin crazy spells to make their daughters functionally immoral was a bang up good idea. So...right." Lullaby said. Then she ticked her eyes backwards again, up to the staircase leading up. "Want to go see the balcony? Or the auditorium?" she asked. It was starting to get dimmer out, the streetlights would be coming on soon, and she wanted to go out onto the highest balcony to get a look at the lake.

"Thi - you have a weird name. Sorry, you're great and all, but you do have a weird name," he told her, pulling a quasi-sympathetic face that didn't quite hide the smile. "And I want to see the balcony," he told her, standing and offering her his hand to pull her up.

"I know, I know." she said, laughing, and she took the help up, pausing to slip the sandals back on, because bleeding feet she did not need. "I could go with something insanely normal." she said conversationally, as she started to tug him up by the hand she hadn't let go of. They were in the light now, but they'd be drifting in and out of more shadows. Plus, she just felt better keeping hold of him. "Sally, or Jane or something." she said thoughtfully. "Jane the fade. Hrm. Doesn't quite have a good ring to it."

No, you're Thia - you'll always be Thia, never anything else he thought in a rush of... he didn't know what. Something. Something which he knew better than to express outloud, of course. If she wanted to change her name, then who was he to stop her? He didn't have that right. He'd just hate it, he knew. And struggle to go with it. But, he should say something, shouldn't he. "Dunlike either of them," he mumbled.

She laughed. "Dunlike?" she asked, tugging him along without having to stop and figure out where they were. She knew where they were. A few more staircases up, more doors to nowhere as they wound upwards. "Okay then, I won't go with those, I wouldn't want to be anything dunlike. Guess I'll just stick with my own name then." she said with a mock heavy sigh. "No renaming for me. I'll stick with my terribly weird name. And just to check here...weird is better than dunlike?"

"Don't. Like," Dean told her, over-enunciating in the face of her teasing where he'd mumbled a moment before as he gave her a Look. "And yes," he told her. "Weird is better," he added, before concentrating on climbing the stairs. He happened to like weird. A lot. That didn't stop it from being weird though. And her changing her name would be weirder.

"Ah, that makes more sense." she said. Finally, they reached the floor they were getting to, and she tugged him off sharply to the left, past a wicked looking bunch of rusted wires that had probably at one point been a wall frame for the doors that should have been at the top of the stairs, but the doors and the rest of the wall were missing. "It's over this way." she explained. They passed through heavy shadow, her alternately disappearing and reappearing, though by now, when she reappeared, it was as a faint, ghostly figure. Then they were turning past a room that quite randomly had a desk set in the middle of it, up a hallway that had a door half off of it's hinges at the end. When they got there, she started to tug it, but usually it took her a while. "Help." she said, since Dean was bigger and therefore stronger than she was.

He stepped forward to help her pull and the door came open after a moment or two and he automatically stepped back again to let her go first with the politeness that had been drummed into him by his parents, though it occurred to him that when they were in a place that was potentially less than safe, possibly he should be volunteering to go first instead. It was too late now though and, really, she'd been here before and it was just an abandoned building. Creepy, but nothing else as long as you didn't go wandering blindly through the doors that lead to nothing but a sharp drop.

She walked out onto the balcony, where the stone cross was, and she climbed up onto the ledge to sit on it, leaning one arm on the arm of the cross as she did so. They could see the lake from there, a clear view down to the distant dark water. "I like the balcony the best here." she informed him, smiling a little as she again started kicking her feet restlessly, at the last second remembering to take off the sandals so she didn't lose them. She dropped them down onto the balcony floor.

Dean walked out a few steps and then stopped, looking around at the view. He whistled softly under his breath - even with the rain and low cloud, it was stunning. He could only imagine what it was like on a bright day. He joined Thia, sitting down next to her. "Yeah," he said, still drinking in the view. "Yeah, I can see why you like it." He dropped his jacket down by her sandals, since they were still out of the rain.

Lullaby smiled as she watched him, glad she could show him this. It was always nice to show people something simple but cool, and something you couldn't see anywhere else. This right here was a tiny original part of the world, and she appreciated it, and as pleased he did too. She reached out to take his hand again, looking out and around. She was trying to concentrate on not being ghostly, being there enough to be fully seen, since in the dim light, she was kinda see-through. "So. We've played around with my abilities, or lack thereof." she said, looking at him again. "Think it would make you not feel good if you showed me something?"

He startled away from getting lost in the view as she took his hand and he looked round, deciding that, yes, he was getting used to her looking a little less than there, like she did at the moment. It didn't bother him as much as it had a couple of days ago, at least. That was something. He gave her hand a squeeze. "yeah, I can do that," he told her - hell, for her he'd take the damn migraine, but she didn't need to know that. "You have any requests?" he teased.

She held his hand in both of hers as she quirked an impish little half smile. "Um, no. You pick on that. I don't even know really what all you can do, so...dazzle me." she said, leaving it wide open for him. "Just so long as you don't make yourself sick." she added as a requirement.

He looked at her, then out at the world. He could blow the torch she had in her pocket, he knew, but they might need that to get out of here, plus it wasn't exactly dazzling. The streetlights below them began to flicker into life in the fading light and he smiled. Yeah, they'd do. "Okay," he told her, "Watch the road - the lights down there." He waited until she was doing that, then started with the streetlight at the end of the road, making it flicker, die right down and then blaze back up again, he moved along, doing the same to each one, finding it actually a lot easier than normal as he did so. He moved all the way up the street, then back down again, knowing he was pushing it a little now, showing off, half waiting for the effects to hit - he was never sure where the limits were. What he was doing wasn't particularly hard, but it wasn't the short sharp burst he usually went for either.

Lullaby watched, and laughed, making a little excited sound at the first one. Then she gasped as he kept it up down and up the street, laughing as he got back towards where he'd started. "Wow......" she said genuinely awed. And also because she kept seeing things. Like...like little tendrils of darkness shot out of him, speeding towards his targets. They circled the light, circling the outside of the light, then effecting it. Her jaw was slightly dropped, and she clicked it shut. "Um. Dean?" she asked, looking at him all wide eyed. "Dean, I can see what you're doing." she said, blinking some more. Woah. Just...woah.
xdreamxwalkerx: "Well, yes," he said, not actually stopping what he was doing, switching the pattern round now, since he wasn't feeling in the slightest bit bad and yeah, this was easier than usual. It was fun. "Look, see - I can change it round," he said, playing a pattern with the streetlights below, well and truly showing off now. And of course she could see what he was doing - he was making the streetlights dance!

She watched as more shot out, it was so fast it was almost instantaneous. Like lightning. She leaned a little forward, watching as it all played out in front of her, and she found herself blinking again. "You're using it." she said. "The...the darkness. The energy--that's what's effecting the lights!" she clarified, looking at him again, weirdly excited, though she wasn't sure if she should be or not. But...if he was using that, then maybe it was okay if she did, right? Because there was no way Dean was anything bad. He was Dean.

He stopped then, the final light flaring back to life as he looked round at her. He'd caught most of what she'd said, but he'd been concentrating on the lights, so maybe, possibly, he'd just heard her wrong. "Huh?" he asked, dumbly.

"When you do your thing." Lullaby said, attention more than fully on him. "You're using the...the energy. The dark stuff, the same stuff I've been...I dunno, whatever I'm doing with it." she said. She was kind of attempting to keep herself from being excited, but was doing a bit of a poor job. "It comes from you though. You directly, then zips down to the lights, and then there's whatever you're doing to them. Like you're...ordering it around." That was probably a poor analogy, but hey. It was the best she could do on the fly.

Dean looked thrown, possibly spooked, definitely uncertain. "I..." No, he had no idea what to say to that. To be told that you're making use of something that you could see, or feel, or smell, or in any way experience, but that you could apparently direct and control was, well, unnerving. He'd always just thought that it was him. He'd never thought about the 'how's of it all. And the idea of the darkness she'd described - the thing that made this building look alive, coming into him, was... He didn't know. He wasn't sure. He reminded himself that it made her feel better, but they'd been talking about it as bad vibes. He wasn't sure where that left him, except very confused.

Lullaby winced, and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry." she said immediately. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just--" I just saw it and opened my mouth, and hey, maybe I should work on that. She was thinking again she better start learning to hide things. It was just so...depressing a thought. Like she'd have to become someone else, just to stop being what. A freak? Making people uncomfortable? She'd spent her whole life not playing in everyone else's social pretendy games because she hated them, was she going to have to rearrange her world now to do just that? "I'm sorry." she said again.

He struggled for a few minutes, all the fun and enjoyment of what he'd been doing well and truly gone. He didn't even know where to start - he'd been hvaing trouble enough trying to work out exactly what it was she was experiencing, but to then realise that it affected him as well, it was just a lot to take in. Eventually, though, he took a breath and spoke. "How does it work?" he asked her, hesitantly. "What you... saw... I... What was it?" he asked her.

She wasn't at all sure she should tell him but figured refusing to answer would be worse. Next time, you say nothing. she told herself, in a hollow sort of way. "A little bit of energy, or whatever, comes from you." she said, voice soft and a little slow as she tried to picture it exactly again. "And it zips lightning-fast down to whatever lamp you were targeting. Then it kinda...kinda goes around it? Like envelopes it, swirling and I'm guessing doing whatever effect it is you're trying. Like...like interrupting the power flow to make it flicker, but I don't know if that's what you're doing, or if you're effecting the bulb filament...do streetlights even have those?" Which was an amazingly dumb question in the middle of this. "Nevermind." she added on there. "But um. That's what it looks like."

"Oh," Dean said, thinking about that, trying to actually think about it this time. He was quiet again for a few, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quiet as well, though he did make sure to look at her. "I guess that makes sense," he told her. "Bad vibes to destroy things. Except... It doesn't make sense with what we know about you." He looked fairly distressed at that, wishing he'd not said anything at all. "Maybe... Maybe it works differently for different people. Or something."

Lullaby looked away for a minute, then back at him. "Dean, it's not like I haven't been sitting here thinking that all of this stuff with me is really, really bad." she said. "Don't worry about like...I don't know. Hurting my feelings or anything." She paused thoughtfully, trying to think it through too. "With me, I seem to draw it in. Soak it up? Like I want it or need it. You're moving it around. You're using it in a different way. So I'd definitely say it's different." she said firmly. More firmly, actually, than she quite felt, but she kind of thought Dean might need to hear that or something.

Dean again paused before answering, clearly thinking things through as they went along. "Okay - maybe that's what's been making my abilities sort of skittish today," he said, trying to concentrate on what she saw of the way it worked, rather than what it actually was that he was using. "Because, there's more of that stuff here. It's all around us. I mean, I already knew that I find it easier to do things when I'm pissed off, or annoyed with someone or something. So... that would make sense, right? You said the other day that you saw a dark cloud round me when I got upset? Right? So... Right." He was saying 'right' too much, he knew.

Nodding, she latched onto that argument like a lifeline. "Yes! That does make sense. Because if that's what you're using then it'll automatically be...I don't know. Heightened? There'll be more of it to use if you're putting it out yourself like that." she said. Yes. She was a fan of that logic. She felt something up on her face, and swiped her hand beneath her nose, not thinking about it. It was wet and rainy, she kind of figured it was a raindrop, even if the rain wasn't getting on them. It wasn't, though it was the start of a nosebleed.

He saw the blood running from her nose and stared a little. "Okay, calm down," he told her, figuring all of this had just got her over-excited of something. "You're bleeding," he explained, reaching over and taking the bridge of her nose, pinching it between his fingers. Nosebleeds he could deal with - he'd had enough of them himself over the years. Which made him wonder another thing. "Do you think that's what makes me sick?" he asked her as he leaned over and snagged him jacket with his free hand, wondering if he had a tissue or something.

She wrinkled her nose. "I'm calm." she said, voice sounding mildly weird considering the nose pinching. "Probably the air in there." she said. "Plus, I've been inside for like...a week. My sinuses probably suck right now." she said, absently wiping the blood off the back of her hand onto her jeans, before she tilted her head back. As she did that, she thought about what he'd said. "Yeah, actually." she said. "It would make sense. I mean, you're...well you're mostly-normal. This stuff probably can't be good for you." She, on the other hand was a crazy undead weirdo zombie thing. Which clearly, didn't count. "I bet if it's coming through you and stuff that it could do that. How are you feeling now?" she asked.

"I feel fine," he told her, without hesitation. "Sometimes it happens like that though - sometimes I can do loads of stuff and I don't get any effects at all, sometimes I do a lot less and it knocks me down completely. Maybe it's this place - like with you.  Like... there's so much of it around that I find it easier to channel. or something." Which actually didn't sound right at all - it didn't fit with their suggestion that it was the bad energy stuff that was making him sick. Surely more of it would just mean more sick.

Lullaby frowned as she reached up to pinch her nose herself, and she wiped at it a little to see if she was still bleeding--which hey awesome she was. She could taste it, and she made a face. "Well," she said, taking a moment to clear her throat, and she leaned over the edge to spit down into the trees below. Then she went back to trying to stop the flow. "It could just be easier here because it's massively readily available." she said reasonably. "You wouldn't have to like..try and pull it from the surrounding area? Since here it's like this huge wellspring and all. So, maybe it's like you're just directing what's around, and most of the time you're not in a place that has massive deposits of dark energy, so you've gotta pull harder from around you and am I making any sense?" she asked, interrupting herself. She thought she did but she wasn't exactly sure.

"So... you think that the sickness actually comes from the effort to find the dark stuff, not actually using it? So like, the more there is available, the less effort I have to put in, the less sick I'll get?" he posed - which seemed to make sense, when it was put like that. It sounded rational, anyway. And he hadn't got at all sick this time.

"Yeah, maybe. It could contribute, anyways, since that's got to take something out of you, right?" she asked. She had no idea, but it sounded like a sound theory. "I don't know. But it kinda makes sense. I'm going to say that I'm talking bullshit though until we look it up and read about it. Maybe other people have all this pinned down and figured out and the books'll explain." She checked her nose again and made a little frustrated sound. "Quit it already, nose." she said. Then she glanced at Dean again. "Can I see what the effect looks like if you break something?" she asked. She wanted to see if it was different at all, but also didn't want to make him feel like a performing monkey.

Dean finally found a tissue - though it was a little damp where the water had seeped through into his pocket - and handed it over. "Here, this'll help. And looked back down at the street. Third light along," he said. He waited until she was looking and then, with a little more nerves than normal now he realised how he was doing what he was doing, he blew the streetlight. And blew it in a big way, sparks showering down from the top, the base panel blowing off and rolling on the floor. It didn't feel any different. He knew he'd been watching, that part inside himself, wondering if there was something he'd always missed, some sign that he could now see, but there was nothing - it was just the same as it had always been. Nothing more, nothing less.

She held the tissue to her nose, and blinked, gasping as he pretty spectacularly blew the light. "Wow!" she said, unable to stop the reaction, even when she knew it was coming. "Holy shit, Dean." she said, shaking her head. Then she grinned. "It was different." she said, getting over her moment of geeky 'wow that was so cool' she went through. Though it was still there. She was clearly impressed. "It didn't go around n stuff, it kind of zapped inside?" she suggested. "I lost track of it once it went in, but then that's when the explodies started."

He looked at her and that was when the world swam and his vision completely blurred. He swayed and instinctively leaned back - no leaning forward, not with the drop in front of them. He put a hand out behind him, feeling for the ledge, not wanting to fall backwards either. He found it as his vision cleared again, the dizzy spell passing. he exhaled, sharply. "Okay, so - this place doesn't completely take away the side effects then," he said, shaking his head a little to clear it. So much for that theory. He looked back at her a grinned. "But it was cool, wasn't it?" he asked, because he'd always quite liked that one It took more effort to blow something up than it did simply to break it, but it looked particularly impressive. he thought about what she'd said though, just before the effects had hit him. "It's different?"

"Dean!" she cried when he swayed, and she automatically reached out to steady him, arm going behind his back and she gripped his shoulder, moving closer automatically, and worry rose up to blot out the world for a few moments there. Then he was talking, and that distracted her for a moment. "Yes. It was...probably one of the cooler things I've ever seen." she admitted. She also gave him a smile, a little kind of sheepishly geeky one. To make it blow like that, jesus. He had firepower. If it hadn't messed him up, she would have wanted to see it again. And with that thought, she slid down off of the ledge behind him to put both arms around him tugging him back. "Off of the ledge for you." she insisted. "And yeah, different. Different like, instead of going around it, it went into it." she re-explained.

Dean let her pull him back, scrambling down off the ledge and sitting on the floor. His head felt clearer now - sometimes the effects were just fleeting - though if he'd pitched forward, it wouldn't have mattered so much - what with the vertical plunge down to the incredibly hard ground some distance below them. He should learn to think about positioning more, really. He leaned against her, a little tired now from that, which would pass, he knew, once his head had totally cleared. "Well, that makes sense," he said, thinking about the mechanics of it all. "It would work better from the inside - with the effect I wanted. And I wanted to affect the whole lamppost, not just the light, so I was thinking more towards the wiring inside - that's usually found in the base, so blow the base, that travels up to the light - but it's done really quickly, so it looks like it's all happening at once," Dean told her. Yes, he'd actually figured a lot of this stuff out in the last few years. He'd always been fascinated with how things worked anyway, it was only one step further to figuring out the best way to take them down. Once he'd discovered what he could do, he'd spent a lot of time with circuit diagrams and wiring, figuring out what did what. He'd found that the more he knew, the more pin-point accurate he could be.

She sat down with him, kind of sticking to where she was, and she didn't actually remove her arms from around him. And he was still leaning back against her, so hey. It worked. She listened to him as he said all of that, and she had to quirk a smile at him over his shoulder. "You've thought about all of this." she said. "Which is probably good. I wonder if you researched more of how other things work if you could narrow down how to effect them specifically, in ways you definitely want it to. Like...like if you wanted to just blow the sound on a television. Or just the speakers in a stereo." she said thoughtfully. "But I still don't think you should do it a lot cuz it's not good for you. I think we should look for a way around that." Because he should have his abilities, and get to hone them well, she just was not at all keen on the idea that it made him not feel well. Nope, witness her totally being uncool with that detail.

He looked back at her. "Course I have," he told her with a smile. "I've been doing this since I was ten years old. I didn't know about the... bad vibey shit, but I've been able to work out how it works to a greater or lesser extent. What I can and can't do, honing and expanding - I didn't just wake up one day when I was a kid and think 'today I think I'll blow up a lamppost in a shower of sparks'. Back then I could hardly do anything. I'm better at it now. And, yes, I can just blow the speakers in a stereo. I haven't tried the TV, but... For me, what I can do is often related to how much I know about how something works. I used to study circuit diagrams and schematics for things - if I knew how they worked, how they went together, what bit did what. It's just easier to get a certain effect when you know what you're doing already. There's no magic to it. Course, if I don't know how something works already, like at all, I can still kill it, I just generally can't be as specific - it'd be like taking a sledgehammer to a door instead of using the key to get it open."

She was listening, avidly, even. She'd never heard any of this. Dean generally speaking didn't talk about his talents at all. Mostly it was just the one time when he mentioned he'd had them, then the other day at the house. So, if he wanted to talk about it now? She sooooo wasn't going to be doing anything but encouraging it. "You started when you were ten?" she asked, smiling at that, trying to picture little bitty Dean. Little bitty Dean shorting out the electricity in his room or something. "And I get the analogy. It's neat that you studied up on things. Are you still studying things? Do you keep up with it? How often to you try messing around with it to see what else you can do?" she asked curiously, letting her natural want to hear about the topic rise to the surface now that they were chatting about it.

He nodded. "Yeah - Scott had got this fucking annoying as hell CD that he listened to on repeat for hours on end. Wound me up like nobody's business. Anyway, I wanted it to stop - so badly. It didn't, of course, but I managed to make the CD player skip. Enough that Scott thought it was broken and mum took it back to the shop. But I knew that I'd done it and, yeah, kinda went from there," he told her, his lips turning up at the edges as he remembered that. "As for the rest - yeah, I still study sometimes, though that's mostly because I love to know how things work, which probably makes me a complete geek, but..." He shrugged, happy to admit that to her - not that he'd tell anyone else, but he had a passion for knowing what made things tick that had been pre-existing when he'd discovered his abilities. "Yeah, I'm a geek, I guess. I know how most common things work. Kitchen appliances, anything you'll find around the house, public speaker systems, cars, motorbikes - if I could get information about it, I'd read it. If I can actually get something that I can take apart and really look at? I'm there. S'why I'm fairly sure I can mend Journey's clock, or at least give it a go. I don't know how badly I broke it. As for practicing - not often these days, actually. I figure I'm at my limit now. The bigger effects take me down, I don't think I'm strong enough to start, I dunno... Actually, I don't know. I mean, I guess the next stage would be to be able to take out bigger things, but then you're on to like, cars and planes and... I don't really want to be a weapon, y'know?" he said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable as that realisation hit.

It was a little fascinating, watching Dean talk about it all. Like that little smile he got when he admitted that he'd known he'd done it. She wondered if he realized how much he didn't tell people. Like all this stuff? She didn't know. And granted, she hadn't known him that long, but...well. He really didn't open up a lot. It took til after she'd died to learn such basic things about him. So yeah. She was hanging off of every damn word. She also noticed how he kinda...what, lit up? Not quite, but something similar. Something very similar, when he mentioned how he loved to find out how things worked. And then he got to the last bit. "Dean, you wouldn't be a weapon." she said. "If nothing else? Seriously, with the way things are around here lately? It might be a defense system. A damn good one." she said immediately. Her voice held conviction, because she did believe that, and she gave him a little squeeze. "You're only a weapon if that's what you choose to use it for. And nothing else could make you into one." she believe that too. Funny, how she could come up with something like that no problem when it came to him, but had massive problems applying it to herself. They weren't talking about her, though. Lullaby gave him a little smile. "And you're not a geek. You're awesome, and if you know how everything works, that's cool. Everyone's got to have a passion about something. And yours is way better than a lot of people's." She grinned at him. "Specially males of the species our age." Who's passions were probably more geared towards 'what porn can I download without getting caught'. Which hey, Dean might do in his downtime, but if so she never actually wanted to know about it, and that was different anyways.

He poked her in the side a little at that. "You know, we blokes aren't totally single minded," he teased. If they were, his mind would be completely elsewhere right now, considering she had her arms around him at the moment. Which was becoming less and less of an issue for him, he realised. Another thing he was getting used to as his body caught up with his mind on the whole 'Thia is out of bounds' thing. It was a relief, quite frankly, since the last thing they needed right now was complications. It didn't mean that he felt any less towards her, he was just able to express it in a more friends-acceptable manner and able to relax more around her. It was nice, in its own way. "And I guess... It's like you were worried the other day. If people found out what you were now, whether they'd take you away. Maybe they'd do that with me - I know I've always wondered that. If people knew... Could I be made to... You know, like the army would probably love to get their hands on someone who could drop a nuclear warhead or something out of the sky with a thought. Or crash a plane, blow up a tank. Not that I can do any of those things, but - maybe I could, with practice. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to find out," he admitted.

She laughed a little. "Yeah, but see, it's so nice to hear every now and then." she said with a grin at him, then quieted again cuz he was still talking. She started tuning half of her attention to making herself more solid. More there, though it was absent. Most of her thought and attention was totally centered on Dean. When he went on about people taking him away, she held onto him tighter, concentration completely slipping as she narrowed her focus again. She'd actually been accomplishing it, but whoosh, she was back to being ghostly. "No one'd be able to take you away." she promised. There was kind of an unspoken 'they'd have to go through me', that she didn't think she needed to quite say. But it was the truth. And hey. She would even keep coming back if they did something like kill her. "I understand how you feel though. Now, anyways. I wouldn't quite have before, I think, but now that I'm...different, it scares me to death. Thinking about it, wondering what they could do. I mean, for you? Definite applications that I'm sure someone would want to use you for. You're like a walking EMP if you wanna be, I bet. And with me...well, who wouldn't want someone who could be sent into a situation and wouldn't matter if she got killed? Cuz she'd just come back the next day anyways, so...no biggie? Plus, stealth and...stopping there. I just think I get you there. Is that why you don't talk about it much?"

"You almost had it there," Dean told her. Even when he was lost in his own issues, he'd been watching her, noting absently that she was working on trying to stay solid. "I'm not going anywhere, Thia," he added as she gripped him and faded. "But, yes, that's why I don't talk about it much. Didn't talk about it at all at home, except with family. Then again, at home... They probably would have carted me off to the loony bin before they'd believed me anyhow. You just... Whatever the reasons, you know you're different and just just... don't talk about it." He dropped his eyes. "Which was easier to do when I couldn't do much, but the past couple of years, it was different. I dunno, mum would probably say it was just me being a moody teenager, but... Maybe it was, but I felt different - I wasn't the same as everybody else. I guess I grew apart from people." Which made it slightly ironic, he recognised, that he'd come here and immediately fallen into a friendship with a stunningly normal person.

She sort of tried again, putting that small part of her concentration on trying to solidify again, but it was only marginally successful. She was thinking, mind ticking over everything. "I can understand how that would happen." she said, after a few long minutes. "I guess...like, Journey, I knew he was cursed. I didn't know everything about him, besides he was protective, and if he punched a kid in the playground for picking on me when we were little, he'd pay for it later. Um. He...if he ever hurt anyone? It backlashed, worse than whatever he dealt out. It landed him in the hospital more than once, at least, before I started threatening him if he ever pulled that bullshit again doing something silly like defending my feelings. He was different, but he kinda always had me?" she suggested. She propped her chin on his shoulder and thought about that some more. "Wasn't til more recently that I found out about everything else. But even then, god. It really did make me feel like an outsider too. Like, I had this big secret, and I couldn't tell anyone. Not even people I cared about, who should know, because of the screaming crazy they'd think I was. It really is something...separating. Like this big glass wall. You didn't know anyone back home you could really share it with?"

"My family. My parents found out pretty quickly and gran was great at first. But she died when I was thirteen and that was before I could really do any big things anyway. Mum and dad never really understood what I could do and it all - really it all became a big mess. Which was totally my fault. I can see that now, from here. I withdrew from everyone, I wasn't happy, I overused my abilities all the time, and that made me sick all the time, which made me pissed off more, which got me annoyed with my environment more, which made me use my abilities more to make everything go away, which made me sicker and... Yeah. I couldn't see it at the time, but looking back I can see it now. It's why they sent me here - to hopefully get myself under control. To be with people I could talk to, who might understand, to be in an environment where I might meet other people who could understand. I hated mum and dad for sending me away, hated them, but they were right." Which still irked him from time to time, actually. "It's strange, isn't it? You said you found out about things and you felt that wall go up, between you and everyone else here. For me, I came to this town and I felt that wall come down. Not completely, but some. there's more freedom to be me here."

She listened, nodding a touch as he spoke. "I think it makes sense for you though." she said. "You're kind of...from the other end?" she suggested. "You come from an environment where it was just you. Just you and your family who didn't quite get it, and didn't share in it. And here, there's other people? Like um. Oz. A werewolf n stuff, that's something totally Else. I think I slowly sort of started realizing that most of the people around me had something special to them but me." she said. She didn't sound like she was saying it in a self pitying way, it was merely an observation. "But not everyone. Then I was attacked by this demon, and suddenly bang. By the way, Lullaby, the world is full of dark, bad things that can and do want to hurt you." she intoned. "So everything changed for me? But everyone else was still the same. Then there were the dreams and everything, and I found out even more how much other people are aware of the weird and might be part of that." She paused. "Though that was still the first time in years that I'd felt disabled." Then she went on. "So anyways, you came from a different environment. One where you didn't have the kind of community you belong in?" she suggested. "And now you do. Therefore...excellent for you. Healthy, probably. If y'know. We don't count the suck that's hit town recently."

"I guess - though that dark stuff? I didn't know any of that before I came here either," he told her, the hands that were resting on her arms tightening slightly as she spoke about the demon, but he didn't address it. They'd been there before and nothing was going to make that any better. "I'd been warned about Oz being a werewolf a couple of days before I left and that came as a complete shock. Cos, er werewolf? Yeeaaaaah. Then I got here and got the supernatural equivalent of the birds and bees talk. And I went from there. To be honest, I think I took the rest of it okay - mostly because I was too busy worrying about the whole 'I'm living with a creature from a horror movie' about it all. Which, well, you've met Oz. I've got a lot of time for the bloke now, but there was a while there..." He shrugged. "It passed pretty quickly though. Oz isn't a guy you can dislike really." He paused and looked more closely at her. "What was it that made you feel disabled about that?" he asked her. "Was it that people didn't want you to come along? Because you realise that was stupid, right? That wasn't you - that was them jumping to conclusions and not thinking things through."

She nodded. "It was that. I just...god, I can't even tell you how long it'd been since someone had actually wanted to disclude me because of that." she said. "I guess I got used to people not caring? Or knowing how to compensate for what I can't do, and not having misconceptions about what I can." she tried to explain. "And I know, it was just jarring. And I had this time, for a while, where I felt really useless. And I decided not to be, y'know? Because just because I was normal didn't mean I had to sit back and do nothing. So I looked up everything I could, and I studied up on white magic and warded the house--not that I know if it worked or not. But yeah, it was weird for me. Because the world went slidey crash bang sideways, yet I was kind of the only one who was thrown?" she suggested. Then she made a bit of a face. "And now. Well." Now she was different. On a wholly fundamental level. It was a realization that rose up in her slowly. "...I'm one of them now, aren't I?" she asked, looking mildly confused.

"One of them?" Dean asked, not particularly liking the way she put that, but wanting to clarify before he said anything more about it.

She nodded. "Yeah." she said, frown still there. "One of them. A...a something else." she said, not sure how else to put it. She knew she'd been spinning her wheels on the whole not being human anymore thing, but this was the first time it was truly seeming to sink in on a different, more practical level. One that she understood better. It was like looking at it from another angle. The one she'd used to have, and now there was everything else, and it was all different for her now.

"You know," Dean said, slowly, looking back at her ghostly image. "There are some people who would say that I'm something else as well. With what I can do. So maybe it'd be better to think about it as being one of us now. Not one of them. You're just different - you're special. But you're still you. That hasn't changed at all," he told her, watching her eyes, which was a weird sensation when she wasn't entirely there.

Lullaby bit her lower lip as he said that, trying to think of it that way. Though, she couldn't get over her first impulse. "It's different, you're still human, you happen to be more special than everyone else. I'm...not even sure what I am. I mean...look at me." she said, holding her arm out, which was all ghostyfied. "Not to mention I'm dead. Kinda. And everything else. I guess I feel like...I dunno. It sounds stupid. Because I know that even other people who aren't totally human are cool too and I don't think about them like monsters. Like you were saying with Oz. It was really really hard to picture him as anything but like...snuggly and protective n stuff. I just don't know if I can quite see myself like that. I feel like I'm something worse." She was saying it not in a way that sounded like she was feeling sorry for herself, more like she was trying hard to explain herself when she wasn't sure how to do it.

Dean moved then, twisting round to face her, pulling back because he had to as he did that. "Thia," he said, seriously. "You're not something worse. If you can't believe that yourself, believe it because I know that and I wouldn't lie to you about this. Yes, you died. Yes, you're something else now. But you're still Thia - you're still you. That hasn't changed. The inside part of you hasn't changed at all. So you go all ghostly in the shadows, and so you gain energy from darkness. But you - what drives you, your personality, your heart, the important things that make you you? They're all still the same. You're still the girl that - you're still the girl that's my best friend," he told her firmly.

She looked at him, watching his eyes as he said it all, because she really did want to believe what he was saying. Was it that easy? To just kinda...believe that? Think to herself that she was still her and that was what was important? That her spirit was intact or something? Her mind, heart and soul? Did she even have one of those anymore? In the end, he was talking so much like he believed in her, and that whatever was going on didn't matter, that it was swaying her a little. "You really think that? That this stuff doesn't really matter?" she asked. "That I'm just still me and that's what counts?"

"Yes," he said, simply. Because he did, he really, really did. So much so that he couldn't actually see how she could think any differently. There'd been exactly no indication that she was any kind of bad, or evil. There'd been nothing to suggest that she was suddenly going to turn on the world. She was just her - just more worried. And it was that worry, that distress that she could be something bad that really confirmed it for him. And it was possible she needed to hear that. "Thia - you've spent the past few days worrying. Worrying about what you are, what that means, thinking you're something bad, or evil, or wrong somehow. Do you really think that someone... Someone who is any of those things wouldn't be worrying about it. Because it would be who they are. It would be normal and natural, it would feel right. Like... We have a cage in the basement at home. Every full moon, Oz locks himself in it. Sophie told me that he's actually no danger, no risk to anyone. He's not one of those werewolves that lose it on the full moon. But he does it anyway. Just in case. You'd be like that - I know you would be. There's no way that you'd let yourself be anything bad. That's who you are, and if you weren't that person any more? You wouldn't be you and I could tell."

That...made sense, she supposed. She really hadn't thought about it that way, and while it was taking her a few to really wrap her head around it now too, she could understand and follow the logic. She nodded, looking away for a minute. Then, she ticked her eyes back up to his. "Promise me, if you ever do see me changing, and it's...it's not a way you know I'd want to be? --you'll say something. Or...I don't know." Stop me. She couldn't really put that on him though. Even if she really wished she had a failsafe here, some cancel button that could be hit before she dropped down into darkness. Even if she didn't know if Dean could do it, even if she did ask. She knew he cared about her just as much as she cared about him, and she really didn't know if she could pull anything like that off. She'd run herself into the ground trying to pull him back from whatever darkness took hold. But even thinking someone was going to be paying attention besides her, so it wouldn't all rest on her own judgment, that would make her feel a tiny bit better.

"I promise. And so will Joshua if you ask him, I'm sure. Not gonna lose you, Thia," Dean told her, taking her hand. "Promise, cross my heart and all of that stuff."

It made her smile. "Don't worry, I wouldn't put it all on you." she said. "But it makes me feel better." she added. Lullaby gave his hand a squeeze, then leaned forward to give him a hug. "Thank you." she said, when she was hugging him. Some of the tension in her eased then, a knot in her stomach giving a bit that she hadn't even really realized was there until it unclenched. But hey--she wasn't feeling like crying her eyes out again yet, so maybe it was improvement? Maybe she was getting more stable? She even laughed a touch at that thought.

He hugged her back, then let her go. "You want to get out of here?" he asked her. "It's going to be totally dark soon and I can't guarantee I won't blow that other torch," he pointed out. He wasn't sure that he was ready to leave her yet, though he knew he'd been due home over an hour ago - he'd turned his phone off so that Sophie couldn't get hold of him and demand to know where he was - but leaving here before it was fully dark was probably a plan. "I was thinking that next time I'd bring candles," he added.

She nodded. "Yeah, I think we covered everything. Plus, you're totally going to get sick, if you don't get dry." she said, reaching over for his jacket, which she handed to him. She untied the hoodie around her waist and tugged it on again as well. It was belatedly that she realized she probably should have felt a lot colder than she did. No matter. Standing up, she held her hands out to him to help him up. "Candles is a fantastic idea." she said, really liking that one. That was damn near brilliant. "I think I'm gonna try and monitor how I feel." she said. "Like...maybe how long it takes me to feel like I need to come back." she clarified, realizing he could not in fact, read her mind and wouldn't know straight off what she meant.

Dean raised an eyebrow at her enthusiasm for his idea. He didn't think it was all that great, just sensible, and he wondered about her being all encouraging like that. But then again, it was just her really. he brushed it off, letting it go and instead concentrated on what else she'd said. "Okay, that sounds sensible," he agreed. "As long as you're not intending to take it to the limit or anything, to see what happens if you avoid it," he added. Because he didn't want her collapsing from lack of energy or anything. That would be Bad.

She had kind of been wondering about that, but could understand how that might not be the most intelligent of decisions. Still, she'd have to test it out sometime, right? Maybe? Books. Books could probably fill in those answers. Or...something. That was her theory and she was sticking to it. "We can find out more when we research." she said firmly, grabbing his hand again to start leading him back through the orphanage, taking out the flashlight to light their way once more. She was figuring she'd be getting to know this place well. Like the back of her hand well. She'd know the ins and outs in no time, if she spent a lot of time here. She figured she'd probably have the opportunity. Lots of long nights with nothing better to do, or long days where she couldn't go to school. Having someplace to go where she could practice things, and probably not get caught was giving her a little bit of an optimistic frame of mind, however.

"Thia?" Dean asked, drawing the name out in a questioning tone of voice. "Thi - tell me that's not what you're planning on doing," he told her as they walked, loud enough that she'd be able to hear him anyway. He didn't like the way she'd sidestepped that whole thing - like it wasn't off the agenda.

"Well...I should probably know what happens if I don't have it, shouldn't I?" Lullaby asked, terribly reasonably. "I should know my limits and how long they take to reach, and the consequences. It's practical. Then I can know what to avoid, and when I should watch to recharge and everything." Yep. Totally reasonable. Absolutely stunningly practical.

Dean stopped her and turned her to face him. "Thi - you realise that's as sensible as me saying 'you know, this week I think I'm going to starve myself, just to see what happens - that's okay with you, isn't it?'," he told her, the sarcasm in his tone contrasting as well as complimenting the sunny and highly sarcastic overly-wide smile he beamed at her in the semi-darkness.

Lullaby made a face at him. "No, because it's not the same. We don't even know if I will like...starve, or whatever. It might not have any effe