scattered

Who: Dean and Thia (guest appearance by Caleb on text)
Where: Osbourne residence
When: after dark

Lullaby had had a kind of busyish day. She'd done the school stuff with Sophie, she'd hung out with Oz for a bit, she'd gone for a walk down by the lake--though she didn't feel good after a while and had gone back to the house to study the homework that Dean had gotten for her before all the badness had started, and catch up on other reading. When she'd realized he was home, she'd sort of almost gone to look for him, but in the end figured that that might be strange. They kinda...lived together now, and that meant he probably had his own stuff to be doing that didn't include her. The rest of her day was endlessly checking her phone to be sure Joshua hadn't tried to contact her, and being disappointed yet unsurprised that he hadn't.

So...she'd left it. She talked herself out of texting Joshua, or going and bothering Dean. At least, she'd left the Dean part until it was full dark outside, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong going on. She'd had an idea before, and wanted to follow through with it. So, she'd gone upstairs, and looked around for a window that would lead out to the roof. Luckily, there was one in the attic, a small, pretty round one, but big enough to get through. After checking to see if it opened, she went, got a few things, then brought it out onto the roof, setting it up before she went back downstairs. She stood outside of Dean's room for a moment, reaching out to try the knob when she stopped herself. ...it was his room. He could be doing...oh, just about anything in there, and quite a lot of it she probably shouldn't just walk in on. So! That meant knocking. Which she did.

As it happened, Dean was still lying on his bed, though at some point he'd obviously got up, because his school books were scattered about, though mostly on the floor. He'd even made a slight attempt to do some homework. Not a lot, but one of the books was open next to him and he'd made half a page of scrawled notes. "Yeah!" he called as someone knocked at the door, before he reminded himself that possibly it was Thia and she wouldn't be able to hear him. He waited a moment and when nobody walked in, he set the book and notes on the nightstand, figuring it was definitely her and headed over, opening the door. "Hi," he said as he saw her standing there. "You come to distract me?"

She beamed at him, bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly. "I did!" she said. "C'mon." she added, reaching out, she latched onto one of his arms, leaning herself back to bodily tug him out of his room, as if he were going to put up a big fight. She'd actually meant to tell him that she hoped she wasn't bothering him or interrupting him and if he was busy that she could come back tomorrow or something, but that didn't actually happen.

Dean had been moping over the way his conversation with Oz had gone all evening, but it was hard to hold onto that when she bounced at him like that and he let her pull him out of his room and down the hallway. "Where we going?" he asked her, though his tone wasn't as lively as it could have been - so, okay, maybe she hadn't totally dragged him out of pissy bitch mode.

"Well, that would be telling." Lullaby said, still tugging him along. "You could close your eyes and stuff, but there's maneuvering to be done, so I can't actually ask you to do that. You could, however, pretend to be slightly less enthusiastic." she said, giving him a little cute face. "I mean you're gushing and all, it's getting embarrassing." She headed them up the stairs. "Homework that depressing?"

He gave her a look at that, then an overly wide and cheesy grin. "Where are we going!" he said, with over-dramatic cheerfulness. "You just have to tell me - pleeeeeeeeeease!!!" he added in the same tone, before rolling his eyes and dropping the expression down to something slightly more normal. He didn't answer her question though, not really wanting to get into the whole thing with her for obvious reasons, since it was very her-orientated.

"Brat." Lullaby accused good naturedly, veering to the steps up to the attic. "Also, you didn't answer my question. How about this one? Are you okay? Is town depressing?" she asked, wondering if there were a lot of empty seats at school or something. It had occurred to her during the day and all. She'd considered texting him to ask, but figured that would be probably really not at all a good thing to do.

"I'm fine - I'm just a miserable bastard and you didn't notice before, that's all," he told her, thinking that what he could really do with right now was a hug and trying to work out what the odds were of him getting one some time soon, since he wasn't going to randomly instigate it just because he, the apparently selfish git (yes, Dean was definitely still in pissy bitch mode) fancied one. He'd have to deal, apparently that was the way to go. "So, what've you been up to today?" he asked her, turning the conversation back round on her.

"I did stuff! And almost texted you during school but figured that wouldn't be wise. What with the school and all. And I talked to Sophie and she's letting me sign up for classes, and it's the best thing in the world. I can take however many I want to and what I want and I won't actually have to stop my education and suffer becoming an uninformed idiot." she informed him, probably far too excited about that. "Oh! And Oz can play the guitar, did you know that? He had a band before, he played a few songs for me, it was great. Annnd then I studied and stuff and you're not a miserable git. I don't really know what a git is? But you're not one." she declared, and she slipped her hand down to his and gave it a squeeze, as she drew them towards the window, then opened it up, ducking down, and she started to climb through the window, having to let go of his hand to do that, but then she was holding the window open for him. "C'mon."

Dean watched, amused as she babbled on and opened his mouth to answer when he saw what she was doing. "Erm, Thi? You're climbing out of a second floor window," he pointed out. "Y'know - long way to the ground and all that..." That seemed kinda relevant right now.

"Technically I'm climbing out of an attic window. Isn't it higher than that? We live on the second floor." she said. "Also, I believe the 'c'mon' was indicative to me wanting you to come out here with me." she added, holding her hand out with a smile. "Trust me." she said. "I won't let you fall."

"No - we live on the first floor, and you want me to follow out of the window?" he asked, but he took her hand anyhow. "It's a good job I trust you, you know that," he told her as he took a step towards the window and looked out.

"Yes, it is. Now come on already!" she said, laughing a bit. Once she actually coaxed him out the window, she got them onto the lower roof that it opened out onto, and then started them up the slant of the roof itself. The slant wasn't that pronounced, which was why she wasn't really fearing for her life or his or anything. Sure, they would have to be careful, but it wasn't so steep they would have to hang on the whole time or anything. She'd laid out a blanket up there, so they didn't have to be laying on rough roofing stuffs, and there was another one in case it got cold. It wasn't exactly a warm day and the like, so yeah. She sat down on the blanket, pulling on his hand, and grabbing his other one to make sure he kept steady and the like. "Okay. Lay down." she instructed.

Dean followed her out onto the roof with mild trepidation - it was one hell of a long way down and he'd never really gone scrambling across a house roof before - the balcony at the orphanage in no way counted, and anyway, he hadn't forgotten that he'd nearly passed out and fallen there. It didn't do much for his head for heights, not that the distance seemed to bother her. Course, she doesn't have to worry about the fall, he thought to himself, bitterly, before looking at his inner mind with disbelief at that particular comment. He shook it off and sat down on the blanket, positioning himself firmly before laying back and looking up at her, all ghostly in the moonlight.

She smiled. "Much better!" she said. Then she promptly laid down with him snuggling her shoulder in close to his and she kept hold of his hand, sort of half hugging his arm as she rested her head in against his. Her eyes, however, were up on the sky. The sky that was clear as a bell, and full of bright, white stars. "It's a nice night." she informed him. "There's nothing horrible going on, and there are stars to look at. And it's dark enough that they look even brighter."

Dean wasn't looking at the stars. As she laid down beside him and snuggled up against him, Dean closed her eyes, leaning his head in towards her, brushing his cheek against her hair and inhaling softly. He let himself just drift for a moment, not saying a word, hardly moving, before he reluctantly opened his eyes and shifted, lying full on his back and looking up. And only then did he truly appreciate what he was seeing.

The sky was a mass of stars, the half moon shining down on them, everything crystal clear and bright. "Wow," he said, his attention actually completely diverted. He looked for something more intelligent to say, but came up blank. "...Just, wow."

Lullaby smiled brightly at that. She was pleased that he didn't oh...say 'so?' or something. So she had a little happy warm moment. "Aren't they beautiful?" she asked, actually rolling her head to the side to watch him for a minute. "It's been a really long time since I've gotten to actually just...take time to look at them and out here, there's a better view, and I wanted to share." And that was probably not really relevant information, but she was happy with the kind of awed look on his face. She'd been banking on the fact that he was from a city, and therefore probably didn't get to see the stars a whole lot.

"I - never realised there were so many," he admitted, still taking in what he could see. Which was a hell of a lot, separate pin pricks and clusters and all sorts against the black backdrop. His eyes constantly moving as he craned his head up a little to see what was up behind them. "I'm sure there's not usually this many."

She laughed a little. "Ohh yes there are, city boy." she said. "You never looked before? Well, good thing you've got me around to show you these things." she added, giving his hand a squeeze. She had to admit it was entertaining, watching his reaction, and she kept watching him as he looked around. "See what trusting me gets you? Awesome views." she concluded, teasing just a touch. She wished she had her telescope, but that was in her bedroom. Or...might be in her bedroom, assuming her parents hadn't cleaned out her room. ...fuck. That was a less-happy thought. So she pushed it aside, and just watched Dean looking around like he'd never seen stars before.

"Course I've looked," he said, his eyes finally settling back on her face - which was mildly unnerving because he could see a couple of particularly bright stars through it, but he was slowly getting used to that. It was still a little trippy though - not that he showed it, he would never do that. "I know some of the constellations. Like whassisname's belt and the bear thingy," he averred - though that probably would have helped if he'd actually known the proper names there. But still!

"Orion's." Lullaby said, giggling. "There's a lot of them. There's always the dippers, those are easy to find. But I just like them. Wish I had my telescope. But...worth the interruption, and climbing out onto the roof to follow your crazy friend's random instructions?" she asked. She thought it was worth it. Just kinda...separate and lacking in trauma. Plus, it was something simple that could be appreciated. She'd always liked that about stars too. It was just...there. Nothing required but sight.

Dean looked back at the stars, then at her again. "Yeah - yes, this was worth it," he told her with a slight smile, a hint of white teeth glowing in the moonlight. He looked at her for a moment, growing used to the ghostliness, and then cocked his head to the side a little, shifting to turn towards her a little more. "You have a telescope?" he asked, sounding interested.

She beamed at him then. She'd gotten a smile. A real one even. She'd seen teeth. Which apparently meant he had them. Amazing, that. So she was proud of herself. "Yeah, or, I used to. It's home, was in my room. I used to sit at my window seat sometimes and just look for hours. Then sometimes in the summer I'd go out onto the roof when I could convince the parents it was not going to get me killed or anything." she explained. "I used to even have those glow in the dark stars? The ones that you put on your ceiling and you can't see them because they blend in until you've had the light on for a while then turn them off. They were lame but I loved them. There was actually a whole star-theme going on in my room." she said. She half-wondered how he'd missed that, but then figured he'd only really been in her room once or twice, and one time was during breaking and entering, which wasn't terribly conducive to noting decor. Plus, he probably didn't really care what a girl decorated her room like. "Occasionally I'd time myself to see how long it would take me to pick out the first satellite of the night."

"Satellites?" he asked, frowning a little at that. "You can see satellites? Like, whizz round the earth sending us TV shows and spying on us, satellites?" he clarified, his gaze turning once more to the sky as though one would be passing right there and then and he'd just see it. "I would have thought they'd be too small. Or dark, far away. Something."

"Yes, those satellites." Lullaby said with another laugh. "And they are. The trick is to look for the stars that are moving. They're hard to pick out...actually, especially tonight, because it's so clear and we're far enough out from Marquette proper and all, but yeah. They move in a straight line across the sky, slowly, and occasionally there's a blink in there. If it's blinking and moving fast, that's a plane. Though there probably aren't that many planes going over right now." She grinned. "Could always challenge to see who spots one first." she said. "Not that I know what the winner would get? But still."

"See - planes in the sky I can spot. We always saw loads of those," Dean told her, still looking for satellites, because that struck him as massively cool. "Though a lot of them were a lot bigger - we didn't live too far from Manchester airport, which meant they were flying in at all hours. My friend's house was fun. He lived even closer and it was well weird, looking out of his window, because the house next door was in the direction of the airport and the way the planes came in, it looked like they were flying into the side of his house. Course they were like five miles on past it, but yeah, still," he told her, glancing over as he did so.

"Really?" she asked. "That sounds crazy. And really interesting and probably would have given me weird plane dreams." she added. She turned her attention back up to the sky, trying to find a satellite, eyes skimming over all the bright points of light, trying to find one in the millions that moved. "We used to have more planes around, but that's when the airport was in Negaunee, instead of K.I.. So they're way farther out now. But we still get them. Of course, we got planes from K.I. when it was a base. I remember when I was real little, there was like this...fear we were a target or something because of it. 'Course, now it's gone and all we have are armories at the national guard posts to protect us should zombies invade, but still. I digress." she'd also of course, completely rambled into nonsense, but then, he should be used to her doing that.

Dean shifted onto his side and looked up at her, watching her watching the skies. "What's K.I.?" he asked, his lips upturning slightly at her zombie reference. Which made him think and he pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked down as he typed a quick message to Caleb. So, N.O. zombie guy - you have any books on that? D he sent on a whim, since he was meant to be looking into it.

"K.I. Sawyer. Used to be the air force base, is now the international airport." Lullaby explained. "All the streets are named after like, bomber planes. So, it's interesting." Then she paused as he took out his phone to text someone, and she laid down again next to him, knocking her head against his lightly. "Who ya textin?" she asked, all nosey-like.

Caleb, for his part, was pretty damn confused when he got a random text message from Dean, and texted back. That's probably one of the more random messages I've ever gotten in my life. Are you high? And probably. Depends tho. Hatian Zombies, Brain Eaters, etc?-C

Dean looked up just as she butted heads with him, which brought his face in rather closer proximity to hers than he would allow himself to be comfortable with and he promptly nearly dropped his phone, fumbling a little and using that as an excuse to adjust his position and move away, glad that it was dark and his face was shadowed. "Caleb," he told her, glad when his tone came out relatively normally. Even more glad when he immediately got a message back, which gave him something to do as he sat up to read it, the screen casting a greenish light over his hands. "I asked him about zombies," he explained as he read the message and turned the screen to her so she could read the message.

She kind of half winced as he did all that, and she went to apologize, but he answered her. Then he sat up, and she was mildly disappointed. She arched an eyebrow as she curled on her side, reading the message. "You know, I never get asked if I'm high when I bring up zombies." she remarked. "Is that because for some reason it seems normal coming from me, or people just wouldn't actually stop to ask me a question like that?" she asked, absently curious. Her eyes ticked back and forth between his back and the sky.

Dean looked over and pulled a slight face. "That's probably because your average person couldn't see you getting high," he pointed out, thinking back to Oz' surprise at finding out she'd stabbed her father. But he wasn't going to ruin the moment by bringing that up. Not when they seemed to be having a nice, normal interlude where they could just hang out and be friends again. Maybe later, he had things they needed to talk about, but... later. And zombies didn't count in that. He turned his attention to replying to Caleb. Only physically. Sat on the roof searching for satellites. And grr, arg. There more than one type?D

Lullaby made a face and laughed a touch. "What, am I viewed as too innocent?" she asked. The trouble of course being that really, she never had tried drugs, and hadn't planned to, and really, her death hadn't altered that opinion either. "I think the highest I've ever been is taking benedryl. That stuff makes me loopy." she said. "I was banned from taking it after I sleptwalked after I had taken it and didn't remember anything after that. But then, I every so often sleptwalked anyways." she rambled thoughtfully. She also shut up so he could get his messaging in, falling silent as she watched the stars quietly.

Caleb got the message back and didn't have to think really hard about that one. That can't have been your suggestion. Say hi to her for me. Yes there are more than one type. I guess. I'll find you a book and bring it to school for you. Now fuck off and watch for satellites.-C

Dean had been about to reply to Thia when the message came through and he read it - not actually showing her the response this time, since Caleb had guessed who he was with. Not that she'd probably read anything in to that, because for all she knew, Dean could have told Caleb they were spending time together - but he was paranoid. "Caleb's going to get us a book on zombies," he told her, then paused before continuing, slightly reluctantly. "And - he says hi." Well, he couldn't not pass that on really, could he? It'd be rude. He continued quickly. "Anyway, yes, I'd say you look too innocent - you have this... air about you and - you really get high on cough medicine?" he asked her, smirking slightly at that. "And - do you really sleepwalk? How often? How far? Am I going to have to come get you from somewhere one night?" he asked.

Wiggling her fingers at Dean's phone, she said "Hiiiiii Caleb." Then she brightened again. "Oooh, really? That's awesome! Tell him thank you. And really? I have an innocent look? Too innocent, in fact? Like, are we talking harmless as a baby bunny? Or more like...puppy? Because puppies can bite. Sort of. And ruin your shoes, which in some circles could be considered diabolical." she added. She wasn't doing a good job of keeping a straight face, though she made an effort. "And it was allergy medicine, thank you very much. Which...I think they make meth out of or something. So there." She then paused and thought. "I really sleepwalk. Not real often? Most of the time I'm a pretty sound sleeper, but every once in a while I have. Or fallen out of bed and all that, like your average four year old. But hm. How far? I know I got outside once, in the winter. I didn't get very far, really, since I knocked stuff over on the porch and that woke up my stepdad. And I you never know. You might. I haven't done it in a long time but I also don't know my triggers either." She shrugged. "So it's a mystery!"

Dean decided in that instant that the was no way in hell he could possibly answer the questions there, because, well, her look actually quite appealed to him on a number of levels that were not in any way open for discussion. And so, instead, he turned back to his phone, the screen turned slightly towards her as he very purposefully typed in Thia says Hiiiiiii and waves at you. D before sending it. There, good cover. "Soooo, I need to keep half an ear out for you escaping, do I?" he teased, before catching himself. Too much, mate, far too much. Watch it, he internally admonished.

Lullaby giggled at that and grinned at him. "Weeeeellll you might. Never know. Though really, unfamiliar place? I'm pretty sure you won't actually have to keep half an ear out, you'll hear me trip over something first, then like, smack into the wall. It'll be a big mess. I'll be uncoordinated and lost in my sleepwalkerness, and any escape attempts will be for not, what with me probably not being able to make it out of my room successfully. Therefore, I think you're probably safe from warden duties." she teased, reaching out to poke him in the back by his side. "Bunny or puppy!" she also threw in there, because he'd dodged the question. Then she gave him puppy eyes, for good measure.

Two things occurred to Dean in quick succession at that moment. One that he had a habit of sleeping with his door slightly ajar and two that if she turned right when she sleepwalked, she'd walk straight into his room. Really, concentrating on the stars right now was a really good idea. He looked up, and then pointed. "Hey - is that a satellite?" he asked, thanking whatever gods were out there as he saw something moving across the sky.

Lullaby looked up, then sat up, resting her chin on the back of his shoulder as she sort of half leaned there, trying to follow where he'd pointed out the satellite. She caught it, and smiled. "Ding! You win." she said. "First one of the night." She let her eyes track it's slow movement, it's arc across the sky, falling silent as she did so, a thoughtful sort of look on her face. She had things she wanted to ask him, and she would, but maybe in a minute.

Goal - less the satellite and more that he'd successfully managed to distract her from questions that touched on her inherent cuteness. And the puppy eyes, to which he was never immune - damn puppy eyes. "Go me. Never spotted one before. Do I get a gold star?" he asked her, lying back and lacing his fingers behind his head.

She moved as he laid back down, and propped her arm on the blanket next to him, smirking down at him. "You do. They're imaginary, however, since I lack gold stars to give you. But you definitely got one." she informed him. Then she went to lay back down as well, though it was slightly less snuggle-friendly, because he had his arms like he did, and unless she wanted to be entirely intrusive, and use one of his arms as a pillow, she'd have to be farther apart. Which was fine and all, she just liked it best when they were talking when he talked in her ear. But alas, no. So, she laid back down, but laid on her stomach next to him but not close enough to touch him, propping herself up on her elbows. She could still see stars, on the expanse of sky behind them, or what had been behind them. "I still wanna know if it's bunny-innocent or puppy-innocent." she added with a smirk.

He paused for a moment, then glanced over, glad that she hadn't pushed the distance between them. Because, honestly, lying on a blanket underneath a starry sky, talking with a girl about what kind of cute she was? Could give a guy serious ideas that he had no intention of acting on. Distance was good right now. Even if she still looked ghostly - it was a very cute ghostly. "What's the difference?" he asked her.

"Bunny-innocent is utterly harmless. Puppy-innocent is like...almost potentially harmful. But not really. You said I looked too innocent, so, I'm wondering how far that goes. Like, do I really give off an air of total delicate fragile...I really don't want to say 'flowerdom' but that's the only thing that comes to mind. So let's just stick for now with bunnies versus puppies." Lullaby explained, not really thinking he needed the clarification, but he seemed to be stuck on not answering the question, and of course she needed the answer.

"I said you appeared to innocent for serious drug use - there's a difference. It'd be like you revealing random hidden tattoos..." he said, before deciding that that was something he really didn't need to be dwelling on so moved on really quickly. "Anyway! Given the choice.... I'd say puppy," he told her, mentally scrubbing out his brain.

"Hey. I could have those. You don't know. I might have random hidden tattoos. From...my...stint in prison. That I got put in the clink for failed breaking and entering jobs, which is why I got better at it." Lullaby made up as she went along, trying to make a mean face at him but it was just cute and squinty-eyed. "Actually I always kinda wanted a tattoo, just never knew what I would want. But thank you. Okay. Puppy-innocent. I can live with that. It's slightly better than bunny-innocent." she declared. "You ever wanted a tattoo or anything? Or did that never appeal?" she asked curiously, watching his eyes as she propped her chin on her hand. It reminded her of Joshua's, which she had in fact, really really liked. That made her a little sad, and she glanced away for a moment, but tried to push the thoughts far enough into the back of her mind that she didn't bring things down.

Dean struggled with an answer to that, before he got (thankfully) diverted by the look on her face and frowned somewhat, shifting in his position so that his face was brought into her view again, though it meant he had to skew his body, touching her arm as he did so. "What?" he asked her, obviously referencing her reaction.

She glanced down. "Nothing." she said, giving him a light smile. "Or, well, okay, not nothing, you know that, but I don't really wanna start bringing things down with errant thoughts, y'know?" she said honestly. "I'm okay." she promised.

"Yeah, you don't get to 'nothing' me," he reminded her, resisting the urge to reach up and cup her cheek. He needed to stop thinking like that - he was blaming those thoughts firmly on the blanket and the stars. "I'd prefer to know, if it's bugging. I'm not a fan of pretending everything's shiny and happy when it's not. So, spill - what's up?" he asked again.

She made a face at him. "I gave up trying to say 'nothing' like .2 seconds after I said it." she said. "So, I deserve some credit for at least not even making you go through that part where you tell me I'm not allowed to dodge." she added. Then she sighed. "After I died, Joshua got a tattoo, I just was thinking about that. It was really beautiful. Annnd he probably wishes he'd never done it now, and y'know, never met me, and he'll be looking to get it removed as soon as he can afford it and all." Or maybe that was her own fears talking. That was entirely possible.

"Why?" Dean asked, and only then caught on. "It was something to do with you, wasn't it?" he guessed. Nothing like that had even occurred to him, but he wasn't allowed to wonder if it would have meant something to her if it had. He doubted it would have, and he wouldn't have been able to admit it to her anyhow, so what did it matter?

She nodded. "Yeah. It was a musical bar? And it had the first sixteen notes of a lullaby on it." she explained. "So...pretty me-specific. I mean, sure, he can explain it away other ways to people in the future or something. But...yeah. Sorry. I'd just really liked it. I like tattoos in general, but yeah. I'm rambling, sorry. I always thought I'd want one on the back of my neck." she said, reaching back to rub along the back of her spine. "But like I said, no idea what I would want. It would have to be something that meant something to me. Like I'd never get something like...some flowers or some symbol I don't understand or a butterfly or anything cheesy and generic like that? I'd need something that really hit home for me."

Wow, that's... The thought wouldn't even finish itself, but Dean could appreciate the feeling behind what Joshua had done and he felt for the guy, he really did. He had no idea what to say to the girl though - what did you say about a wholly wonderful gesture from someone you'd just broken up with? You didn't, was the truth. Or so he thought anyway. "Would it last?" he asked, instead, fairly sure it was a stupid, possibly inappropriate question. "If you had a tattoo - if you died." Oh hell no! "Would it still be there?" Bad thought, stupid thought. Shut the fuck up, Conway!

She paused, and thought about it. "I don't know." she said honestly. "There's still a lot I don't know. Sophie was reading the book today, so I didn't get to study any of it." Plus she was still kind of afraid to on some levels. "So...no idea. I guess I could test the theory, maybe? Like, scar myself or something just normally, and see if when the reset button gets hit if I still have that scar. I mean, I'm picking up new scars like nothing, but they're all stuff from either healing or..." she didn't finish the thought, but touched the choker on her neck. "Then I'd know if I would retain anything? Or it would just be a really kind of painful temporary tattoo. Which would suck. I'd still like one." Though she would have good luck convincing someone to give one to her, considering she was apparently going to be stuck at sixteen forever. Fuck. Yeah this whole thing was depressing. "You didn't answer...what about you?" Please let's talk about you for a few minutes. Pretty pretty please.

"I dunno - I think randomly scarring yourself would be a bad idea," he told her, frowning at that. He officially hated that idea - though that would come as no surprise to, like, anyone who had talked to him recently. "Probably better to get yourself a tattoo and risk it," he mused, half reaching up to trace where she'd said she'd like one, before catching himself and dropping his hand back to his side. "Me? I dunno - not really thought about it. Maybe, some day. It'd have to be something that meant something though - I don't really want art for art's sake, y'know?"

Her eyes had followed the progression of his hand, wondering what he'd been going to do when he aborted the mission. That was...weird. But she didn't say anything about it. "Yeah, I do. It's what I was saying, only you just said it better." she said, quirking a half smile at him. "And yeah, I guess. Maybe I'll find a needle and give myself a baby tattoo all prison style." she said, injecting a little more wry humor into things. "Check it out. Something small and hidden and everything just in case it doesn't go away. Though my art skills aren't very good. Yours are, though. I like yours, which I have in fact, told you before. Oh--one fade thing I did discover today. I guess my natural body temperature is like...I dunno, hovering around 93 point something." she said. "How cold am I? Am I like...weirdly cold? Is it disturbing?"

Dean scowled at that. "Oh no - nonononono - why the prison stylee thing? No, if you're having it done, you need to get one done properly. And yes, I can draw - but I don't know diddly squat about tattoos," he told her, firmly, a few facts coalescing in his brain. "And.... how much is 93 degrees?" he asked, sounding puzzled, because he had no clue - except that that sounded really damn hot to him. And not in that sexy good way that he wasn't thinking about either.

"Well, there's that being dead thing. So I think it would probably freak out the tattoo artists around here if I went in to ask for one. Plus, I'm only sixteen, so I couldn't get one anyways. So it would have to be a prison tattoo. All pen ink and a sewing needle. Don't worry, I wouldn't make you do it or anything, so you can calm down on that." she assured him so he would stop making that face at her. "And oh right. You're on a different temp system. Normal is 98.6. So I'm like...what five degrees off or something. But you didn't answer, can you tell? Am I all cold? Cuz it seems like that would mean I'd feel cold."

"You're a little cold," he allowed, touching her hand to test that, or maybe just because he had the excuse. Either way, it was just a hand touch. "But nothing you'd notice." He paused. "Would it make a difference if you could be eighteen?" he asked, voicing his idea - not that he knew it could be done, but he needed to discuss it with her anyhow.

"You have to be eighteen to get a tattoo around here." Lullaby said. "So...yeah, kinda. If I could find anyplace that was far enough away that I wouldn't get that whole 'hey, didn't I see you on the news for having been killed' thing. Cuz you know what happens when people start seeing the dead? They start wondering where the machetes are, and aiming for the head. So I'd like to avoid that, and just stick with the initial plan of getting a tattoo. Random zombie-age in there we can totally skip." she said with a nod. When he did touch her hand she pressed the back of it against his, trying to feel the difference herself. It was strange knowing that she was probably cold enough to be considered dead, not that she knew how that worked. Maybe not. Her thoughts traveled off on terribly morbid side trips then. Like how long it took a body to cool down that many degrees.

When she pressed back, he decided she'd complain if he let go of her hand, so he caught it, holding it properly, giving her a slight squeeze. "I was talking to Caleb today," he admitted, resisting the urge to use his hold on her hand to tug her into him, into a proper hold. Inappropriate, he firmly reminded himself. "He thinks that - theoretically - he might be able to get you a new identity. I figure that, if he can, there's no reason why we can't age you a couple of years as well, just to make things easier for you."

Lullaby's eyes went wide at that, and she stilled as she stared at him for a long moment. "...really?" she asked. That was...that was major. She opened her mouth then shut it again, trying to get her mind around that. "He could really do that? And would?" she asked. "I ---yes, aging me a few years would help, especially since I doubt I'm going to be able to get another one or anything and really?" She gave his hand a squeeze in return, biting at the little healing cut on her lower lip. "Is...how much is it going to cost?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "On any of that, really. He wasn't sure if he could do it - but he said that he'd look into it. He will if he can, I'm sure of that much, or he wouldn't have offered. And really and as for cost - I have no idea. If we have to get a loan... I'm sure that Oz and Sophie would give it. And we can - it'll get paid back. It'd be worth it," he said, lapsing into 'we' without a thought.

She arched an eyebrow at him. "How will it get paid back? I need...an internet job. Or something. I dunno. I guess I could get one of those when I get a new identity? Then things could get paid back. Though you..." she said, knocking her foot against his absently. "Aren't allowed to start paying back things like that for me. You've already done enough. I still have to pay you back for things too. So it would be silly if you started taking on my debts too."

"You don't owe me anything," he told her, knocking her foot right back again. "See, it's this wonderful thing called 'gifts' - you should try it sometime. And if you try and pay me back, I'll only get offended and refuse," he told her, turning to her and propping himself up on one elbow, so he was above her. "Let's just see what Caleb comes up with before we worry about price - maybe he won't be able to do it at all. Maybe it won't be that unreasonable. But if it means that it gives you freedom, if it means that you can live more than you can right now? I'll pay that for you if I have to and we can work out who owes whom when we're older. Whatever, right now, we're going to have to borrow it anyhow, does it really matter who does that?"

Listening to him, she still thought that she did in fact owe him things, and maybe she'd just give him 'gifts' in return. Someday. When she at all had means to do anything of the kind. For now he just got...randomly dragged to the roof to look at pretty stars and have an evening that didn't involve death of any description. She rested her head down, and looked up at him, shifting onto her back so she could see him better. "When we're older?" she asked. That had her smiling at him, a soft, genuine if slightly amused expression. Out of everything he said, that stood out to her.

"When we're older," he confirmed, looking down at her - she looked more solid like that, against the dark roof of the house, the moonlight shining directly down on her. She was almost totally there, save where his shadow crossed her and he found himself leaning back a little, out of the light, so he could see her properly. "Okay - so you're gonna always look like the world's best ad for woman's face cream stuff, but still - older," he told her, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

She laughed a touch at that. "And you're still going to be hanging around, helping me pay off debts for terribly illegal activities?" she asked. "Hm...okay, you'll be all medical-guy. So you'll be riding around in an ambulance and all that. And I'll be...in a room full of computers and monitors and it'll look far too complicated for anyone to actually understand, and it totally will be? But I'll want it to be like that, just so no one does understand, just in case. And I'll have my crazy internet jobs, and do that all day, and I'll learn computer stuff, so I can become a master hacker and then there'll be more illegal activities." She rambled. "You may have to up my innocence quotient to 'cat' by then though."

"Hmm, cats are, in fact, kinda sneaky. But they have that whole 'who - me?' thing going for them. As long as you ignore the cream..." Dean teased, resting down on one elbow and resisting the urge to lean his other arm across her and shift his weight til he was over her - no reason for that. No reason at all. "And yeah, I'll be hanging around. Don't really have anything better to do, y'know? Plus, you started me in on my life of crime, so you have me now. It's terrible and I have no choice but to submit. After all, I've already said several times I'm at your beck and call," he teased, before calling that to a halt. Again.

"I'm catlike now! I can be sneaky, and plus-bells!" she said, wiggling her foot to make the bells ring. then she giggled and gave him a little wicked grin. "Oh is that right? That's how it is? I see. Well if that's the case, then I guess I'll keep you. And if you're going to be submitting and at my beck and call, then that automatically makes you a minion. Soooo...you'll be my med-tech-minion guy. That...." she paused and eyed him for a moment, as if trying to figure out some grand scheme he could be doing for her. "I'm sure there'll be a plan, I just don't know what it is quite yet. Oh! You could be stealing organs." she said with a firm nod.

"You think too much," he told her, but he looked amused, as much as she could see his face, bathed in shadow as it was in his position. He shifted slightly and looked down at her bells, recalling something as he looked back up at her. "What are they made of?" he asked, seemingly randomly.

"Yes, I do." Lullaby fully backed him up on that assessment. "But it keeps you entertained. Or, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, so if I'm wrong, don't tell me." she said. Then she propped her knee up, and crossed her other ankle over it, to look at the anklet, reaching up to flick some of the bells. "I'm not sure?" she asked. "Silver, I think." She wracked her brain to try and remember if they really were silver, or if they were white gold. "...I think they're silver why ohhhh aaaaand that's probably bad isn't it." she said, sort of half answering her question before she'd even quite got done asking. "Should I get rid of them?"

"Only if you're thinking of making a habit of rubbing your ankle up against.... Let's just not go there, should we?" Dean cringed, hating that idea even before it was fully formed. "But do you have any other silver jewelry you wear? Rings would probably be the biggest problem." Especially for her - she touched so much. Not thinking of her touching me, not thinking of that at all...

Lullaby made a face. "Yes, please, let's not go there ever." she agreed wholeheartedly. "Um...She held her hands up, then looked pained for a minute, before she slid the thumb ring she wore on her left thumb off. "This one is." she said, holding it out to him. "I used to wear a silver necklace, but I never got it back after I died, so that's not a problem. Remember it with the pentacle and the amethyst?" she asked absently. "But yeah, good call there, I hadn't thought about it, thanks for the reminder, I would have felt really bad if I hurt him or anything." Then immediately took that wound.

Dean took the ring, looked at it and immediately gave it back to her for safe keeping, swearing to himself that he'd get her another, in something other than silver - white gold probably, if he ever could. "Thanks," he told her. "Just another thing to remember, right?""

"Could you hold onto it?" she asked. "I don't really have a jewelery box or anything. Unless you don't have anything either, I guess." she said. Otherwise she wouldn't quite know where to put it. "And yeah, another thing to remember. I will. I don't have anything else silver that I know of." Then she paused. "Actually, though..." she said, reaching up and she traced her fingertips from the back of his neck and down, finding the chain of the cross she'd given him, and she tugged it out. She always liked the look of the russian cross. "This is silver." she said, holding it against her palm as she ran her thumb over it. She smiled a bit. She liked that he wore it, even if he never wore it where it could be seen. When he hugged her sometimes and the like she could feel it.

"Oh yeah, I have a jewelery box, of course," he quipped, but he took the ring off her and tucked it into his pocket, the rest of what he might have added dying on his lips as she ran soft fingers around the nape of his neck, sending his vision blurry for a moment. He managed to gather himself by the time she started speaking, looking down slightly at the cross. "He's not going to be touching that. It's under my shirt, and I'm not giving the guy random hugs," he said, sounding just slightly off.

She noticed that he sounded a little strange, and looked up at him wondering why. She also wondered if he would tell her if she asked. It wasn't exactly seeming wrong. She didn't see the stars behind him blotted out by badness being pulled off of him or anything. Maybe he was tired? She had no idea. "Okay, if you two are not the hugging types, then it's safe, I suppose. I just hadn't thought about it in those terms before." She also thought that if he didn't have a jewelery box, he could put the ring on the chain, because she definitely didn't have one. That and she did give people hugs. So that would be dangerous. She didn't mention it though. She paused, still holding onto the cross, and tried for a moment to make herself more there, less transparent. She'd been kind of forgetting to keep doing that during all the vampire stuff, and it occurred to her again. She didn't know if it would work or not, but she figured she ought to get used to it. Seemed as good a time as any to try. "Thanks. For keeping the ring thing."

He would have probably pulled away a little at that, distracted as he had been, except she literally had him held, the way she had hold of his chain, so he had nowhere to go. He swallowed a little, noting that for a moment there she seemed more there, more real, or possibly it was just his imagination filling in detail that he knew so well. "S'no problem," he mumbled, really wishing she'd let him go right about now.

Okay now she was starting to think something was more wrong seeming. She did let him go, and looked at him concern starting to sort of settle onto her features. "...this may be a stupid question, but are you okay?" she asked lightly. Again, she wasn't necessarily seeing badness, just...there was something going on and she didn't know what.

He took a moment, scooting back a little and tucking the chain back under his top, before he looked over at her. "Yeah, yeah - I'm fine," he assured her, hoping she'd buy that. He didn't feel upset or anything and he was working on the principle that he only exuded negative energy when his emotions were, well, negative. Right now didn't qualify, or so he hoped. He didn't feel particularly negative. Just fucking awkward as hell. He considered swiftly changing the subject, but he knew better - nothing got Thia on the scent of something as obviously attempting to avoid it.

She didn't look like she believed him. But at the same time, she hadn't been sure in the first place, because he wasn't giving off obvious signs. She still thought something might be...off, though. It's probably you again. she told herself. You get close and comfortable and he probably has hit his quota. Something like that. Only that logic was a little faulty, because he'd sort of...she hadn't been that touchy, had she? And anyways, he'd sort of put himself back in closer to her, and...her brain was starting to hurt. She just knew she was missing something. Her eyes remained on him for a long, long span of moments, then she moved them to the sky again. In the end, she forgot to say something else, because everything that went through her mind got rejected.

He watched her all that time, waiting for the argument, the pressing of the matter that inevitably came, the minefield he'd have to find his way through. And he couldn't actually believe it when it never came, when she looked back to the sky and left him staring at her, waiting for the blow that just didn't come. Which threw him more than anything else and left him tense and growing tenser by the moment, until long minutes of silence passed and she still hadn't called him on anything and he realised he'd, for some reason, gotten a reprieve. "You okay?" he asked her, a reflection of her earlier question as he looked down at her.

She nodded. "Yeah." she answered. Her voice was off too. Not entirely truthful, but also not exactly lying, either. She still thought she was missing something, but didn't really think that he'd tell her anything if she tried to press it, and she didn't want to argue with him tonight. She really, really didn't. She didn't have the energy for it. In fact, just the thought of it right now felt exhausting. "I was going to ask you to tell me about your grandma." she said after another long silence, and she rolled her head to the side to look at him for a brief moment again before she went back to looking for stars that moved.

Well, that seemed... Like she was really not telling him things. But then, did he really want to get into this? When he'd been waiting for her to call him on his behaviour? Which had been linked into a moment of OMG!tooclose? Probably not, but he didn't like to see her withdrawing from him. The walls between them were maintained by him, not her. That was just the way it went. Those were the rules, even if she didn't seem to know that. But he couldn't tell her that - the first rule was that she couldn't know the rules, after all. So, that meant going with her subject change. "My grandma?" he asked, dropping down to lie on his side, head pillowed on one arm, facing her.

She'd been waiting too, to see if he was going to call her on things or not, and was a little relieved when he didn't. Because what could she say? 'I'm feeling weird because there's something the matter and I don't know what it is but I think it's probably my fault and I don't think you'll tell me anyways' really didn't do a whole lot besides make things worse. When he laid back down, she felt a tiny bit better, though she kept her eyes up on the sky. "Yeah. Sophie mentioned me to her, she said she helped her out a lot and stuff...she said she helped you too. She sounded like a really amazing woman, I just...wanted to know about her." She finally looked over at him for a second. "If you don't mind telling me."

"You just get to know everything, don't you?" Dean asked her, sounding amused. He would never truly understand how she did it, how she got people to open up to her and tell her things. It was a gift, probably - and one he definitely didn't have. "There's not all that much I can tell you, really. She died when I was thirteen. But she was - amazing. Nothing ever seemed to faze her, or surprise her and she was one of those people - she seemed to always have the answers."

Lullaby smiled a little, listening to him. "So what was she like? What would you do when you spent time together?" she asked. Part of her was still trying to concentrate on being more there, but she didn't distract and ask if she was succeeding at all. So she just absently did that, and tried to picture the woman from the photograph as animated and talking to Sophie and Dean.

"When I was a kid, she'd take me down to the local pond to feed the fish. I didn't get to see her that often then. She lives a way away and with school and everything, it was hard. Mostly I remember the walks to see the fish and climbing trees in her back garden as a kid," he told her. "But I saw her more once my abilities kicked in. She was the one who first called me on what I was doing, worked out that it wasn't just a list of random shit that was going on around me and that I was doing it myself. Didn't have that many accidental breakages at first, but I knew damn well what I could do and generally I was a little sod who liked to play. She figured that out and took me to one side, then talked to my parents. You know, until then, I had no idea she knew about anything not-normal. You would never have guessed, but yeah."

"Did you talk to her most about what was going on?" Lullaby asked, picturing little kid Dean playing around. Just in general, at his grandma's house. She wondered what he used to play with, if he had special toys at his grandma's house that he didn't have at home. "And she took it well, huh? I wonder how she knew. About things, I mean. I wonder if your kinda stuff is hereditary." she mused.

Dean shifted a little, feeling less awkward now that they were on a nice, safe subject. "She worked with me on what I could do - helped me a lot. She didn't have any abilities herself, but she knew a lot of stuff. Or I got the feeling she did - she didn't tell me anything about what else was out there, I guess she thought I was too young or something. But I dunno about the hereditary bit, apparently I'm the only person in our family who's shown signs of anything like this. Or, that's what she told me, anyhow."

"So you're just special." Lullaby concluded, and she gave him a sweet little smile for that. She also curled up on her side, facing him, arm curled under her head to pillow it now that she was feeling less tense too. "She sounds great. What was she like though? Like...was she a stern woman or a sweet one or something else or in between?" she asked, curious, definitely. "Did you get all excited to go spend the night at her house and did you get special treatment when you were there? How many other grandkids did she have and did you get to spend time there by yourself with her or were there always other kids running around too?"

Dean gave her a amusedly puzzled look. "She was just a grandma - you know, like all grandma-y and everything," he told her, never having been asked such a wide raft of questions like that before. Not that he minded answering them or anything, it just surprised him a little.

"I didn't have a grandma." Lullaby said. "I have to live vicariously through you." she added. "I didn't really have any family. No siblings, no aunts or uncles, no grandparents. So...I don't really know what it's like, and she sounded really awesome. So...indulge me." she said, reaching out to poke him on the arm, before she took her hand back again. "Pleeeease?" she asked, though it wasn't the sort of cheesy teasing tone he'd used earlier. It was much more honest.

"Oh, right," he said, again sounding surprised. He couldn't imagine not always being surrounded by family, it was something he'd just taken for granted. "Okay, sooo... There's me and my brother; Sophie; and then I have four other cousins, but generally when we went to see gran, it was just me and then me and Scott, though once they realised what I could do, I'd be dropped off there on my own. Gran was - she could be stern, and woe betide you if you decided to play up, but if you behaved yourself, she was a right laugh. She helped me learn to think things through, work things out. Or started to, anyhow. I was still young when she died, kinda just getting to the stage where I could appreciate her as a person."

That sounded sad. "Sounds like she started you off in the right direction." Lullaby said, smiling faintly. "So all your logical skills and rationality stems from her?" she asked, smile getting slightly wider at that. "Bet it was nice. Did they not have Scott go with you after they found out about your abilities because you were working with her specifically on that stuff? Or..." she trailed off. She didn't want to hear a negative connotation, but that didn't mean she wouldn't. She just hoped that it didn't happen. But he'd been shipped off here, too, so...maybe. It could have been that they kind of wanted to separate him out.

"Or kept him away so that their nice normal son didn't have to find out just how weird his older brother was?" Dean finished for her. "Gran always told me that my time with her was special time, but I think what I can do - mum and dad never really got it. Their way of coping was always just to find someone else to deal with the problem," Dean told her, which was actually a little unfair to his parents, who had tried their best, but who had been dealing with something they didn't really understand and had no experience with dealing with anything even vaguely supernatural. "They always said Scott was too young to understand and that it was best I just didn't talk to him about it."

"You're not weird." Lullaby said first, because she didn't think he was. "So you weren't supposed to talk about it at home? Does your brother even know?" she asked, frowning lightly. "Was the only person you could really talk about about this stuff your grandma?" She was in question mode, though there was a light frown on her face while she asked. And that would be because she didn't like the idea of Dean's immediate family sort of...shunning him off. Of course, he was here and that was kind of part of that but it had had better connotations in her head than 'we can't deal, here you have him' which now she was wondering about.

"He knows there's something, but not really what. Anyway, he'd probably blab to everyone if he knew - he never could keep his mouth shut," Dean told her moodily. "He'd probably be all 'wow, that's so cool' and want to go tell all his friends and, yeah, it'd be a fucking disaster. Gran was always the only person who I felt really got me. I know mum and dad tried but, yeah, they didn't get it. Knew that after mum screamed at me last year for breaking the microwave for like the fifth time in a month and wouldn't believe that I hadn't done it on purpose." Which, actually, had had more to do with the fact that he'd been using his abilities a hell of a lot more then, with no apparent reason, and Dean hadn't been willing to talk to his parents about why he was doing what he was doing. The build up in frustrations in that household had been immense and everything had just come to a head. But Dean was sixteen and god forbid that he should be anything other than a completely innocent victim of circumstance.

That got a bit of a dark frown from Lullaby. "Were they just...how could they not understand? Was it just...how were you treated? Were you treated like you were weird? Or like it was something wrong or to be dealt with and not like...a gift?" she asked. She got a little closer to him, though it wasn't anything she was really aware of. It was more an internal protective sort of instinct that kicked in without her recognizing it for what it was. "You just got yelled at for things? Even if it wasn't your fault?" Of which Lullaby was a bit naive about. In her opinion, Dean wouldn't do that.

Dean shrugged a shoulder, half knowing he was letting his current bad mood affect what he was talking about here, carrying on anyway. Wasn't like it wasn't true. "They shipped me off here, didn't they? Didn't even discuss it with me - just told me what was going on a couple of days before my flight. Anyway, it's not a gift, is it? It's stupid and destructive and not good for anything." And they hadn't been able to handle him over the past year as he'd become more and more unhappy and seemingly less and less stable, retreating into his own little world, deciding that nobody else understood him and that they could all just fuck off.

She didn't say anything for a few moments, still frowning in that grry, dark sort of manner. Well, she hadn't wanted him to go home before, and it was official now. She didn't want him to ever have to go home to people like that. She moved, sitting up and she crawled up by his head, settling back down again. Sitting forward, she reached out to tug her fingers through his hair lightly, hoping he didn't stop her. It was that or he was getting snuggled, and he'd already spent a lot of tonight sort of running from her in a positional sort of manner. "You didn't get a say at all?" she asked. "They just...decided for you and then you were here?" That sounded awful. Not even lots of time to warn friends and everything. Sort of like with Journey, really. "And it's not stupid, and it's good for things." she added gently.

He didn't stop her as she ran her fingers through his hair and he looked up at her, fighting not to just close his eyes and concentrate on the sensation. Not that looking at her helped at all, he realised and he batted his gaze away to look up at the sky instead. "Yeah, they just decided and told me that I was going and it had to be straight away so that I could get settled in before school began." What Dean didn't mention was the almost regular collapses he'd been having through over-use of his powers, or the fact that he'd been on serious medication for migraines that had been by that time almost constant, or that he'd practically stopped eating altogether. Things had gotten really bad at the end there and his parents had been worried. And they'd also been right - Dean's life, his outlook, his health, his happiness and stability - all had vastly improved almost immediately on his arriving here. Thia would hardly have recognised the guy he'd been towards the end.

She kept playing with his hair since he let her, combing both sets through his hair slowly, pulling it back from his eyes. She'd stopped concentrating on being more there by now, back to her half ghostly self. She didn't have the concentration it would take while being so worried about him. Those two things weren't really mixy things. "And that's been it. They just...decided you were leaving and shipped you off? Have you spoken to them? Do you...talk? Or are you more just here now?" Are they ever coming to visit you? Don't they miss you? If they do come to visit can I kick them in the shins? Though at current, if she had her say she'd say 'no, they don't get to see him'.

He glanced at her, then away again, her movements really soothing, nice. He absently moved his head a little, leaning into her touch. "Yeah, we talk - few times a week. Except not lately. I need to call them actually, but with everything that's been going on here..." How did you tell that to your parents? 'Hi, yeah - my best friend rose from the dead and we're being attacked by vampires'. The answer: you didn't.

"It's a bit much." Lullaby said, nodding. "...what do you even say?" she asked, voice light. She was feeling all sorts of unhappy about his family life and everything and it certainly hadn't helped her disposition. Hadn't helped his either considering she'd seen some of the blackness around him pick up, though it had abated a little bit again when she'd started playing with his hair. Which was an effect she normally would have been kind of geekily happy about, but currently couldn't drum it up.

"Well, obviously, I don't," Dean told her. "No way am I telling mum and dad about what happened last week." No, they might decide that Marquette wasn't a safe place and drag him home again. And he didn't want to go back - he wanted to stay here, he was happier here.

"When they talk to you, do they not even like...ask?" she asked. Are they that disinterested in what their son is up to that they have no idea what you're doing or who you're doing it with? What you might be going through? Did you tell them I'd died? she mentally went on, but didn't want to hit him up with so much at once, as she knew she sometimes tended to do. So...she kept herself quiet, still grinding everything over in her mind as she kept slowly drawing her fingers through his hair, a continuous motion.

Dean frowned a little. "Well, course they do - doesn't mean I'm gonna tell them, does it?" he asked, as it this should be self-evident and lying to one's parents was just a natural part of life. "Come on - mum would throw a fit if she knew I was carrying a gun and fighting vampires..."

"...maybe not that, but...they just buy that your life here is...what, normal? Or something? Do they ask about your abilities? Check in that you're doing okay? And..." she paused as she tried to work something out in her head. "If you shorted out the microwave five times in a month, there had to be symptoms too. For you, since we know it kicks your ass. Aren't they wondering if you're doing better with that too?" She paused, nibbling at her lower lip again. "Did you tell them I'd died? ...if you told them about me in the first place." Since she didn't know, really.

"They buy that I'm going to school and that I'm in a better place than I was and that everything's going on as it should be. Sophie tells them a lot as well - I hear her talking to my mum, and I can tell anyway. Kind of a giveaway when the conversation starts 'so, I hear you're feeling better' or something. We don't talk about my abilities so much - like, I'm not going to be going on about what we've found out. Then again - you can get books about this stuff over here. We never had anything like that at home. All mum and dad, all they really have to go off was what I told them about what I could do. Gran knew a bit more - she'd come across people like me when she was younger and knew a few things, but still." He looked up at her, meeting her eyes for really the first time in five minutes. "Yeah, I told them you'd died. And of course I told them about you," he said, his voice a little quieter at that.

Her fingers stilled in his hair as she looked him in the eyes for a long moment, and she gave him a ghost of a smile. She also leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead, before sitting back up again, basically to pre-empt his inevitable 'time to move away from Lullaby' escape attempt. She also went back to playing with his hair. There was a ton going through her mind right then, but she didn't know how to articulate any of it. Where to start or stop, it just...was a lot. She also didn't know what was her place to say and what wasn't. So for the moment, she was just there, in her ghostly but not dead form.

He stopped breathing and he would swear his heart stopped beating as she looked at him for that moment, then leaned in and he didn't know whether to scramble away before she got to him and risk sliding off the roof to a horrible death on the ground so very far below, or to stay still and... And what? All sorts of 'what's flew through his mind until she kissed him on the forehead and the world crashed in again, time having taken the decision away from him. He did, however, have to cover up his 'startled rabbit' expression quite quickly by doing what he didn't realise she expected him to do - a classic 'escape from Lullaby' move, sitting up and moving to the other side of the rug, sliding down a little in his haste, with a mumbled "What was that for?" which she may not actually have been able to catch.

"Dean--!" she called, seeing him slip, even just a little, and she was back over to him grabbing hold and pulling him back against her holding on pretty much as tight as she possibly could. Her heart had given a terrible startle there, thudding rapidly in her chest. "Be careful." she said in a really really tiny voice, face buried against the back of his shoulder. Again, there was a ton that went through her mind to say and she didn't say any of it, though that was due to the immediate bad reaction as opposed to rational thought. If she did have rational thought available to her, she would have probably opted not to speak either. As it was, she didn't catch what he said at all.

That wasn't the plan - that wasn't the plan at all. The plan was space, not for her to bloody well start clinging to him and it was all he could do not to immediately push her away, just out of reflex. As it was, he didn't cling back, though after a moment or two, he did put a hesitant hand between her should blades. "It's okay," he reassured her as he stopped flailing enough to realise she'd been worried he'd fall.

"No, it's really, really fucking not." Lullaby said, heavy strain in her voice. "Jesus, you could've...and if you want me to just leave you completely alone and never get close to you and everything like that could you just fucking say already and quit the dance you always do where half the time you are close and you're fine and then all of a sudden you're doing everything in your fucking power to be as far away from me as you can?" she blurted, unable to not say that. "Because I never know and I figured if I gave you a hug and everything you'd try to get away so I did that instead because then I wouldn't be so close and it'd only be for a second and it's still a way of telling you that I care and I'm worried and I really hate some of the stuff you've had to go through and I'm sorry and there's sometimes a little too much to say and it's all just words anyways. Sometimes those don't say anything. Or they don't say enough. I'm just--I'm going to go in. Or you do, or...whatever." She felt like crying but by some miracle she hadn't. There was a lump in her throat she was talking around, and she couldn't tell if it was due to the emotions, or still the fact that for a second there she'd thought he was going to fall. "I'm sorry."

"No, no - don't be sorry," he told her as she finished rambling. And god, but he hated that sound in her voice, like she was about to cry. "And... maybe it's best if you -" he knew he should just come out and tell her that it would be best for her to leave him alone, to not get close. It'd be saner, it'd be easier to deal with, he'd be able to think and his imagination wouldn't run away with him so much. And it would make her miserable. And them both awkward. And he'd miss those hugs, those touches. Her. He couldn't do it. "I'm the one that's sorry. And I'll - do you want me to go? You shouldn't - your stars and all..."

maybe it's best if you fill in the blank. I can do that. Maybe it's best if you leave for now. Maybe it's best if you do just that and stay clear. Because those were the choices, right? Right. So...yeah. She got the memo, he didn't actually have to finish the thought. "I've seen them." Lullaby said. "It was more for you anyways." she said, and she stated to pull away, to climb back down towards the window. She didn't actually know where she was going? But it was going to be away. Maybe she'd go for a walk or something. She didn't feel like she should be anywhere even on the premises, at current. She'd just...go for a walk, and...think. About things. And not be there bothering him. I went against so very many of her natural instincts, but at current she couldn't really help it. Her instincts were to be around and be there and give hugs and all that kind of thing and if he was so twitchy that he was going to scramble away so fast that personal safety didn't register first? That was a major, major problem.

Dean caught her arm to stop her, not wanting her to go, not like this. "Thia, don't," he said, pulling her back a little. God, but he felt like he'd really screwed things up now and he didn't at all know how to make them better. All the things he'd wanted to discuss with her flew out of the window, leaving only that overwhelming sense that the worst thing in the world he could possibly do right now was to let her walk away.

"Let go." Lullaby said. She wasn't looking at him, she was looking down and away. She didn't sound angry, there wasn't an edge to her tone or anything, but this was in fact the walking away part of the evening, even if that really wasn't the way they worked. But she didn't know what else to do. The way she was looking at it, he wanted away from her, and he'd even slipped on a roof to do it. So--wow was that ever bad! That was whole worlds of bad that she hardly knew existed. Sticking around didn't seem like the best plan ever. Especially since in the back of her mind, she was thinking the only reason he didn't want her to go was because he wanted to placate her.

"No," Dean told her, loud enough that she'd be able to hear. But he let go of her arm anyway, he wasn't going to force her to stay, but she couldn't stop him from following her if she chose to go anyway.

She thought she was going to have to repeat herself, but then he let her go. So she didn't say anything, and just went towards the window again, still intending to do whatever it was she was doing right now. It was kind of such an alien concept to her that she wasn't fully sure. The big overarching theme was still 'away'. So she got down towards the window, and pulled it open, dropping down inside and she was glad the lights weren't on, because it meant she melted into the shadows immediately. She even knelt down in them to start to take her anklet off. She might be back late, or...whatever, and she didn't especially want to wake him or something, just...yeah.

Dean waited until he heard her drop inside, the little tinkling of bells, giving her a minute to move away from the window before he climbed inside himself, leaving the blanket up there without a thought. He opened his mouth to say something before he realised that she wasn't there. "Thia?" he called, looking round. It was dark and he knew that there was a good chance she wasn't visible, so he spoke loud enough that she'd be able to hear him if she were still in the room. "Can we talk, please?"

She sighed, standing and pocketing the bells. "What do you want to talk about? I--look, you already said it. Okay? So it's said. You didn't exactly have to finish the thought, Dean, and I'm not--" she quite obviously wasn't capable of finishing sentences, that's what she wasn't. "I'm not stupid. And I don't get it, because sometimes things are fine and like when I started playing with your hair? You felt better. I saw it. So I just...I don't want to fight with you. Or make you uncomfortable. And you obviously opted to get away from me as fast as you could, without thinking 'hey, on a roof, probably not the best plan ever' first. And you're not stupid either, so I'm thinking that means it was a pretty hard twitch, and I just--I'm going." A lot of the fact that she was really horribly confused by it all leaked into her tone, even if she didn't mean it to. She'd sort of meant to sound stern, but that didn't quite enter into it.

"I slipped a little bit, that's all - it's not like I was going to go sailing off the roof or anything," he told her and hearing the tone in her voice he almost blurted out how he felt, just because to stop her sounding so confused like that. But he was sure that would just make things worse, and even more awkward and the last thing she needed right now was him messing things up even more. "You just surprised me, that's all. Look, I'm just - the physical contact thing - it's not something I'm all that used to. It's... taking some adjustment. I don't want to fight with you either, Thi - but I don't want you walking away pissy with me and us tiptoeing round each other because... We've always talked about things. I don't want that to stop now," he said, with absolute honesty even though he knew that he was the one hiding things and making her all confused. Maybe he should have just let her walk away. Why couldn't everything just make sense. Why did it all have to be unfair and complicated?

"Adjustment, Dean?" Lullaby asked, crossing her arms to hug herself, and she walked closer towards the stairs. "And it's a little more than just surprise, okay? Surprise was the rabbit in the headlights look you give me. The running away thing you do all the time, that's something else." What, she didn't know, but it didn't qualify as 'surprise'. "And...it's not like I've missed that when I do get uncomfortable enough from your running thing that I pull away that the only reason you sort of come back over is to placate me or make me feel better or something, and I just...that's not right either. Because you're already uncomfortable, and you know what? You shouldn't have to be." She stopped for a minute. "And you started to say it, I heard, okay? So just...don't backtrack now." she added in a much quieter tone.

"I'm not backtracking - look, there was a reason I didn't finish that sentence. Because I didn't want to. So not backtracking. If you're going to accuse me of something, what you'd be looking for is that I put my mouth in gear before engaging my brain." He followed her, though giving her some room - he didn't think him being close right now would help, given the current subject matter. Things were confusing enough as it was.

She sat down on the landing of the stairs back down, and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she held her hands over her face for a few long, long minutes. She didn't know what else to say. She kind of thought this whole thing was messed up, and she needed to...change. So she'd do that, but she kind of needed a little bit of time to deal first. She got that he wasn't happy about things, but still figured that this entire follow her to talk about it and taking back the not-said thing was still just his way of trying to ensure she wasn't upset with him. Which she still didn't think was right. In the end she didn't say anything because she couldn't come up with a single thing that made sense, or wasn't repeating herself.

Dean passed her to sit on the top step, putting himself between her and the ability for her just to walk off again without really considering what he was doing. He was quiet for a moment, waiting for her to say something, and when she didn't, he figured that either he'd have to, or they were just going to sit here in sullen silence and the whole thing would be a big waste of time. "I don't want you to feel that you've got to stop doing something that comes naturally to you," he told her.

"Well, what comes naturally to me seems to...make you really, really twitchy." Lullaby said, after a few more long moments of silence. She sounded tired, and she was leaned forward, half hugging her knees, chin rested on them. She had noticed he'd put himself between her and the door. Which was actually part of the reason she didn't try to leave again. She didn't really want to find out if he would try to stop her once more. "So...I'll just stop. I'd rather do that than the alternative." she put in there at the end, so she could explain herself at least slightly better.

"Thia - no. Look, that's ridiculous. It doesn't make me 'really really twitchy'," Dean protested. "You said yourself, before - you could see me feeling better. It's just sometimes I get... It's... Just that... Anyway, it'd make you miserable all the time to not go with your nature, so a sometimes against an all the time and logically, the sometimes is better," he said, trying to find a way through it and actually approaching an explanation before stumbling over himself self consciously and backing off again, taking shelter in what could possibly be five year old logic. Maybe.

"No, it's not ridiculous." Lullaby protested. "It does so make you really really twitchy. Because um...please explain to me how that right out there was not just that. Give me a little more credit." she said. "And yeah, i could see you feeling better. And I guess that's why I just never know with you. Sometimes it's fine or it seems to help and other times it's like you'd rather be set on fire than be anywhere near me." And yes, that was dramatic, but she was in a kind of dramatic mindframe. "Like...I don't know. Last time we really got to hang out...for real, pretty much trauma free hang out was when we went to the orphanage, and we spent like...at least an hour sitting on the orphanage, just kind of...sitting together, and it was fine. Nothing weird. And you know it's not even like I haven't given you kisses on the cheek or anything before and I just...you say that I'd be miserable, but..." But that right there makes me really miserable. When you do that. She didn't actually think she could say that though. "I'll be okay, I just...I'll be fine." Or something. That was her story and she was sticking to it.

"Okay, so once in a blue moon I get..." he gestured with his hand. "Look it's just..." He took a breath and decided to go for 'general honesty' and just hope it'd work. "Do you have any idea of the mindset of your average teenage guy? Just... think about it for a moment, Thia. Please. " He could have added more, but he was hoping she'd clue in and then write it off as a 'general guy thing' rather than a 'specifically you and me' thing.

"Dean, do you actually think I miss how often you do that?" she asked. "It's not once in a blue moon. Okay, tonight it was a little more extreme than usual, but..." she shook her head. "I think you think I just...don't notice, but the truth is I just don't call you on it." she added. Then she paused, and tried to figure out what he was getting at. Then she thought she understood maybe, but at the same time, her mind's logical jump was to 'but you don't think about me like that'. Which should make a difference, right? Maybe it didn't. Either way she turned brick red in the dark and tried to think of something to actually say to that. Which she was coming up fantastically blank on. Awesome. "I--" nope. Still didn't have anything.

"It's a guy-thing," he told her when she didn't answer him and he figured that meant she'd realised what he'd been getting at. Again he tried to make it sound like this was a general thing, though he would have preferred not to touch on the subject at all, but he'd always known that sooner or later she'd start to clue in.

She didn't know if that made her feel better or worse. She really, really didn't. She did know that it made her feel kind of like she'd missed a stair going down a flight. Because now she was wondering just how bad that made her. And just how often she'd put him in a position that he just like...hated. And judging from lately, she was thinking 'really often'. "...I'm sorry." she said, because she didn't know what else to say. What she didn't say was she was going to be sticking to her whole no touching decision. Especially now.

He shook his head a little. "Don't be sorry, it's fine, really. What I'm saying is it's - it's not you. And most of the time-" I really like it, please don't stop. "-it's fine. It's just, occasionally, I think that maybe-" I like it far, far, far too much and that leads to bad things. "I just, it's... I'm thinking that I'm doing a really bad job of explaining things here," he ended, dropping his head down into his hands.

"No, you're not." Lullaby said with a exhaled sigh. "I'm just...I'm sorry. And...y'know. Stupid." she added. Because yeah, really, that just hadn't ever actually occurred to her and it probably should have. In fact, she was fairly certain that any other female in the entire world would have figured that shit out by now, or would have known it from the very beginning. Just not her. She wondered if she should explain herself, and didn't know if it would help. And really it wouldn't help the actual problem either, so yeah. It might be pointless. "It never occurred to me. So. I'm just...yeah. Being quiet now."

He got up then and stepped over to her, sitting down right next to her and bumping her shoulder lightly, taking a chance that she wasn't going to have a go at him for that, or move away in some idea that they had a minimum safe distance now or something. "I know it hadn't," he said, looking over at her. "And it's fine, really. If there's times when having a girl drape herself all over me - which, y'know, my friends are all jealous of, by the way - is getting too much, I'll tell you. Simple."

She actually did kind of have that minimum safe distance mentality going on, and did slide a little away. She couldn't help it, and even realized he was trying to make things less...whatever they were, but it was an internal twitch. She didn't move far, but put a few inches more between them. She also wondered if she did hang all over him. Was that what it was like? Probably. She'd never realized it, that was all. But yeah, in retrospect, it probably was exactly like that. She tried to get herself into the conversation though, even if her mind was firmly elsewhere. "...you told your friends I'm..." She couldn't actually say the words 'all over you'.

He noted the move away and sagged a little, bringing his knees up and resting an elbow on one, forehead in hand as he turned his face to look at her. "Not seriously, no. But yeah - it's, again, a guy thing. Sorry," he apologised, because, yeah, he was probably coming across as an idiot right now and was she probably even less enamoured about being talked about like that. He'd meant it lightheartedly, to lift the mood, but in retrospect he thought it was a poor joke.

"Don't be sorry." she said, echoing him from earlier. "Not your fault, and just..yeah. Really not." She was just really dumb. And oblivious. And there was the mention of stupid in there somewhere, she was sure. "...y'know, I'd really just kind of wanted a night were we could avoid trauma. Just kind of...hang out for a while and talk and look at the stars, and not have anything going on. Sorry if I wrecked it." she said honestly. "Seems like a really long time since we've had time to kinda just...whatever. Talk and not have to actually worry about anything? I mean it's not like we haven't talked but...I'm talking in circles now. so I'm gonna try that quiet thing again, and maybe what I said will have made some sense."

"Well, we have managed to have an argument over a perfectly normal subject," Dean said, pulling a slight face. "And you didn't wreck it. I probably did that and... I've been in a shitty mood for most of the evening anyhow. I had a bit of an argument with Oz earlier and it left me kinda wound up, so that's probably leaking over and affecting things. But I was really enjoying the stars. And the talking." He paused. "And yeah, that hair thing," he added, looking away for a fraction of a second as he admitted that, more because he thought she should hear it that because he wanted to admit it.

That made her smile a little bit. It was faint but there. "Yeah, I know. I could see that you were kinda...you weren't happy? But after I started that the black lines kind of dissipated some. Like it calmed down." she explained. "And yeah, I guess. Argument over normal things is better than outside trauma. ...I'm sure that makes more sense when it's not said out loud like that." she added. Then she sighed and dragged her fingers through her hair. "What did you guys argue about? Are you okay?" she asked, because that took precedence over everything else.

"Yeah, it'll be okay - just didn't see eye to eye over a few things, that's all. Nothing to worry about," he assured her. "And he's gonna start teaching me more about weapons. Like more in depth than 'point and shoot' and with all sorts of stuff. We're going to be working on that every evening before tea," he told her, leaning back up again.

"Still, that sucks." she said sympathetically. And hey! Here's where she normally would give him a bit of a hug. Which she didn't do, and instead she sort of wrung her hands together. "Weapons training. That's...interesting." she said. "What are you going to learn? Can I learn anything?" Then she thought about how that sounded. "Not that I'm saying like with you or anything I don't want to like crash in on you guys time or anything like that I just--nevermind." she added, making a face at herself. "What else are you going to be learning besides gun-stuff?"

He noted the hand-wringing that went along with her tone of voice and rolled his eyes, dropping his legs to the floor, straight out in front of him and leaning over. She was only a small thing and light as a feather as he picked her up and lifted her into his lap, sideways on to him, firmly putting his arms around her and settling his chin on her shoulder. "What do you want to learn?" he asked her, his normal sense of 'don't want Thia near anything dangerous' buried under layers of wanting to pander to her and give her whatever she wanted right now for daring to upset her.

It was unexpected, and really caught her off guard. So, there was a squeak as he did that, and then she was suddenly moved around. She didn't quite know what to do. Because it was nice, and she was already kind of relaxing against him and putting her arms back around him too, head resting against the side of his, and at the same time, she had a really sharp pang in her chest. That whole 'he's only doing this to make you feel better' thing felt...hollow. So, she didn't know what to do. It took her a second to answer, since she realized she needed to. "Anything that might help. I know I probably wouldn't be good for a lot of things like...oh...anything hand to hand combat related would really not be useful. If I was carrying a weapon all that would probably do is like...provide whatever might be after me with another weapon, y'know?" she said. "I heard that before. I think it was something about women's self defense, in school. That you shouldn't ever pick up a weapon you don't intend to use, because you'd just be giving it to someone else who might."

"That makes sense," Dean agreed, making no moves at all to let her go. "Okay, so we need to find you something you want to do, you can do and that would help. Oz already mentioned that anything either of us wants to learn, he'll organise. So, all we have to do now is think of something. Anything you're particularly good at? Apart from cat-like sneaky stealth things, of course?" he teased.

She quirked a half smile and gave a short laugh. "I think that's the full run of my skills." she admitted. Oh wait I can make you really uncomfortable by mere proximity. I'm good at that. her brain put in too, but she didn't say. "It's kind of weird to think about. I never really had to think 'hey, what would I need to be able to do to hurt things' before. Even when I got attacked by that stupid demon thing, and I found out about most of this other stuff, I wasn't necessarily thinking offensive?" she explained. "I was thinking 'what can I do to protect people?'. So it's a different mindset. But in light of what just happened in town and everything, I don't think being purely defensive is really going to work long term. I can't really just sit back and see if I can hold back the darkness, I want to see if I can...I don't know my analogies are kind of lacking right now. Go out and push the darkness back, I guess is what I was kinda gonna say." Even if she was part of that darkness.

"Well, maybe that's what we should be looking at then," Dean suggested, focusing on that first bit. "Defensive things, protection. I can be offense, you can be defense and between us we can be a crack team of... offense-y-defense-y things. You know, I should have thought of the ending to that sentence before I started it, really, shouldn't I? But... You did magic before, right? Could you pick that back up again? Or you could get to making emergency plans, working out what's out there, what we could be facing, what we'd need to do in various situations. You could be Emergency Plan girl." Which had the added benefit of keeping her away from the fights - he couldn't see a flaw in this plan.

"Yeah but I don't think the defensey things are good enough." Lullaby said. "And besides, I know you're good and all and you've got the badass points and everything way more than I do but I..." she trailed off a minute, trying to think about how to word it. "I don't think there'd be anything quite so scary as thinking of you on the front lines of messed up fightyness with the supernatural, and doing it without me. I mean I get the logistics of what you're saying and everything but I don't know if I could actually do that. Not really. Especially because if anything happened to you..." If she was off being Plan Girl, she wouldn't be able to save him. Which wasn't a workable plan in any fashion. "I'd want to be doing something more useful than holding down the fort. I probably wouldn't be good at it anyways, I had just started looking into the whole magic thing in the first place, an don't know if any of the spells I did even worked. Or if I could still do them now that I'm...y'know. Not human anymore."

That whole 'not human anymore' thing made him twitch a little and he held her tighter, but said nothing since it was just the flat truth. "Okay, defense-y things might not be good enough, but they'd be a good place to start. And if we have plans ahead of time, there's less likelihood that I'll do something insanely stupid in the spur of the moment, right?" he pointed out. "And, well, most of what I'm going to be learning sounds like ranged stuff anyhow - guns, archery, things that can be lobbed from a distance. So you can build me a wall to stand behind where nothing can get at me. Job's a goodun."

She laughed a little. "Build you a wall? And archery? Like...indians and feathers and warpaint and bows and arrows archery? You're really gonna learn that?" she asked, that for some reason amusing her. Then a stray thought entered her mind, and she decided to share it, because it was more light hearted and called back to earlier in their conversation before things had gotten messy. "Well if nothing else, arrows would be good for zombie killing. No big bang to attract the horde." It was a sound theory.

He caught the amusement in her tone. "Yeah, that's what I thought as well, but Oz pointed out that a wooden arrow through the heart'll kill a vampire in the way that a bullet won't. But with less warpaint and feathers. I'm English, remember. And no - no tights either, before you say that!" he declared, hurriedly, thinking further down the Robin Hood route. "And there's nothing wrong with a good wall - one day you'll have to come back home with me and I'll teach you about the defensive qualities of a decent castle. And yes, with arrows. and spiral staircases - brilliant bit of defensive architecture, right there."

He got a little faint giggle out of her. "I didn't say anything about tights! You would lose every single badass point you've earned in your entire life if you did that. It would happen in a landslide event, they'd just all be gone in one fell swoop. Besides, you've got more of the antihero look down, as opposed to the superhero tights look too. Y'know...leather jacket, attitude, the ability to brood and scowl. Only cooler because you can do it in a British accent too. So that just makes that bit better. Which would also negate that warpaint and feathers thing." then she was smirking, and she shook her head, thunking it against his lightly. "Sounds like you should be the one building this wall thing. Mr. Schematics and everything. And...y'know, you have real castles and stuff over there. I've never seen anything like that, I bet they're awesome and beautiful and generally insanely cool."

"A lot of the time they're tumbled down and ruined - there've been plenty of kings in the past who've thought 'hmm, see, we don't have any wars going on right now, we're not under attack, do I really want my lords hanging around in these huge, defensible castles, plotting my downfall, or should I just, like, have them demolished...', but there are a few really cool ones - school trips to look round castles happened on a fairly regular basis," he told her. "But we can build the wall together, if it'll make you feel better. And a moat - always gotta have a moat," he told her.

"Smart kings." she remarked. "But shitty for us, because I would want to see a castle." she added. "Lucky. We would get field trips to see like...the few tiny bitty bitty museums around here, and that's about all. There's nothing really to do here anyways, so yeah. No cool abandoned things that you don't risk trespassing charges if you go tromping through." Then she smirked faintly again. "And yes, actually, that would make me feel better. If you and I are both behind this nice shiny wall, that's a lot less dangerous and means I won't be sitting back sort of just...having a heart attack the whole time if you're fighting. I can just...provide tea or something. And make sure your ammunition is stocked well." This was of course, not going to deter her from figuring out how to be offensive herself, but she'd have to learn more about her fadelyness on that score anyways. Seriously, maybe there was more to her, and she just had to find out. She'd hold onto that.

Dean laughed a little at that. "Oh hell no - generally they're not free and you would be trespassing if you just wandered in. They usually belong to the National Trust or something that keeps most of them kinda behind ropes and shit, though a good few you can wander around for a fee and in opening hours and stuff. But you'll see a castle one day - I'll show you. When we're older and you have your shiny new fake identity and we're absolutely bloody sure that it'll get you through international airport security and not, like, arrested for being an international terrorist or something," he told her. "And I can bore you to death going on about merlons and murderholes and all sorts of things you're probably not at all interested in."

"I'm interested in a great many things, Dean." Lullaby said. "And really who wouldn't be interested in something referred to as 'murderholes'? Because that sounds like some hardcore stuff. So yeah. I'd love to hear. And see and stuff." Then she was thinking about the fake identity again. "So. Fake identity. With me being eighteen, maybe. Do I get to pick my name? Or like...is it going to be something nondescript and something randomly chosen by...whoever?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "I can honestly and truly say that I have no idea how the whole 'fake identity' thing works - and whether you'd be able to choose your name, or whether you'd just have to be good with whatever comes. And hey, maybe you have to choose a new birthday and stuff - and you're gonna have to remember that you were actually born in 1989 now..." he pointed out, his chin still resting on her shoulder, showing no signs of moving.

Lullaby made a face. "Shit. You're right. Okay. ...this is gonna be complicated. I'll have to remember I'm supposed to be eighteen, and gah. Okay. Okay. Thinking. If I get to pick this stuff...what should I go with for a name? Something common and totally mundane that won't ever stand out? And if so does that mean I should start going by it? Because it'll be weird if I don't remember to answer to a name. And I'll have to remember the birthday thing too. When should I do my birthday?" Morbidly, she wondered if it shouldn't be the day she came back from the dead. Or the day she died.

"Well, if you get a choice, you could always stick with Thia," Dean pointed out. "You said before that I was really the only person who called you that anyhow, 'cept for sometimes Journey, right? So for everyone else, it'd be a new name and it wouldn't be that hard for you to remember. As for your birthday.... Okay, first of all - when is your birthday?" he asked, realising that he didn't have a clue.

"I would want to do that." Lullaby agreed. She could, it would be easiest for her, and not many people did actively use it. It after all, had had nothing to do with her real first name. "December 21st." she answered. "When's yours?" Because she didn't know his either, actually. It seemed insanely weird to her that they didn't know this shit. They knew so much else about each other, so incredibly much, and that had slipped the mind? That was just...yeah. Bizarre. Her tone sort of articulated that too, her weird surprise that they didn't know something so simple.

"13th June," Dean told her. "So ages to go yet. Did you ever mind having a birthday so close to Christmas? Would you have preferred a spring or summer birthday when you were a kid? If you did, you could always make a childhood wish come true..." he suggested to her, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards a little at her surprise.

"June thirteenth, yeah, that's a while." she agreed. "So I missed it, crap. Not that I'd know what to get you anyways? Or y'know...have the means to get it, but still. And it was sometimes annoying. Though mostly because we were usually on christmas vacation by then and so that meant I didn't see many people on my birthday, and parties were a little weird to fit in. Then there was the people who would forget and stuff but yeah. I guess now I could. Hmm. I'd have to make it something not around any major holidays." How did one do a nondescript birthday?

"Missed it? I'd like to point out that you didn't even know me then," Dean pointed out. "Which means that you're forgiven - just this once. But, okay - no major holidays. Er. When are your holidays?" he asked, realising that he didn't have a clue. Anyway, how did you go about choosing a birthday? "You know, we're going to end up on 'think of a number between one and thirty', I just know it."

That got her to giggle a little again. "Either that or just...randomly draw a month and number out of a hat and go with that. Leave it entirely to chance. And yeah, I didn't know you yet but still. Not the point." Not that she had a point. "The holidays are...randomly dispersed throughout the year?" she suggested. "And a lot of them are christian based so they're the same over there, I'd guess. And there's the fourth of July and stuff where we blow things up to celebrate our breaking free from you oppressive English types." she added with a grin and a poke to the back of his shoulder.

"Yeah, we're bastards," Dean deadpanned. "We should all be taken out and shot - however can you even stand to talk to me?" he asked, giving her a little squeeze. "Okay, so, no Christmas, Easter... What'd your favourite month?" he asked her. "And, cos I'm nosy - why?"

"Yeah, you bastards. Lucky for you I'm so damn tolerant." she commented. She kind of got the urge to absently play with his hair again, but curbed it. "My favorite month? October." she said, not having to think about it. "It's the month where fall is the prettiest, because all the colors are out by then? So walks in the woods is just stupidly beautiful. And it smells good. Plus there's Halloween, and usually by the end of the month we have snow, too. So it's kind of got everything."

"Then, assuming you get a choice, have a birthday in October - plus, that means that we'd get to have a party for you next month," he pointed out, quite liking this idea. "You'd get to be a very young eighteen, things'll be great. And god, that means that summer's kinda really over then, doesn't it? If we're going to have snow in a month and a half? When do the leaves start turning?" he asked her.

"Soon, probably." Lullaby said. "They're gorgeous though. We'll have to go walking and maybe camping or something. Too pretty not to." she continued. "But okay. Birthday in October. What day? Should that be random? And you know it'd probably be strange to have a random un-birthday party for me. But I do demand a balloon." she said with a little half smirk. She was allowed to be random. She also didn't say what she was thinking which was there wouldn't be enough people to invite to a party. But yeah. "Also, if there was the whole birthday thing going on, you aren't permitted to get me anything."

"Apart from a balloon, right?" Dean asked, thinking that if she was having a birthday, then she'd get a present and have to deal with it. There was no way he was missing that shit.

"Okay-apart from the balloon." Lullaby conceded. "But other than that--nada. That's it. Just 'happy not-birthday, Thia!' and nothing else." She narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a stern look. "Am I making myself perfectly clear, Dean? ...Dean that I don't know what your middle name is, and I should, so when you're really in trouble or serious I can use it." she informed him. "...so what's your middle name?" Then she paused, and decided to share her thought from earlier. "And how is it I know so much about you, down to what truly scares you, but didn't know your birthday, or your middle name?"

"James, my middle name's James," he shrugged. "You know about my family and everything, hmmm... My dad's name is Keith, mum's Vicky. You already know my brother's called Scott. Is there any other obviously vital facts you're missing about me?" he asked, ignoring her insistence about her non-birthday.

She thought about it for a few minutes, actually pondering that. "What's your favorite color, what music do you listen to, what's your favorite entertainment genre, did you have a security blanket as a baby-dean, what did you want to be when you grew up when you were a little kid, what do you miss most about home, and what's the best thing about being here?" she rattled off. Apparently, there was a lot.

Dean thought about the list of questions - which was typical Thia, in his opinion. Always wanting to know stuff. "Hmm - I don't think I have a favourite colour. I listen to all sorts, you should go through my music collection sometime. I'd say a lot of it you won't have heard before, cos you have different bands over here from what I listened to back home. Well, okay, the bigger stuff's the same, but still, you probably won't have heard of my favourites. I've told you about what I wanted to be before," he pointed out, pulling a slight face. "But when I was a little little kid? I wanted to build things - I was obsessed with lego, was always building stuff," he told her, omitting to tell her that he still had a couple of boxes of the stuff in his closet that he'd had shipped over with him. "My favourite entertainment genre? How do you mean? Erm... Sci-fi I guess." What had come next... "No, I never had a security blanket. I miss... ribena, Dr Who, erm... standing any chance of going to the pub any time in the next millennium. Best thing about being here? Learning to drive. The quiet. I have to say you, right?" he teased, thinking he'd covered everything.

She listened, smiling a touch as he spoke. "Do you have headphones I could turn up loud enough to hear your music?" she asked. She didn't want to disturb anyone. "And y'know. A stereo where I can listen to them and all. And yes, I remember, just wanted to know if there was a silly one when you were really little like 'I wanna grow up to be a fireman' or something. Unless you're so steady that you never had that and all. Sci-fi, nice. What the hell is a ribena? And you don't have to say me." she finished, grinning. "I mean, if I'm in there, that's cool, but it isn't required."

"I have a headset for my computer and you can listen on that, or, y'know, we could be obnoxious teenagers and just turn everything up really loud," he offered, knowing that he'd likely end up with a migraine, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her - quite literally in this case since if she did find out, she'd probably try and take it from him. "And no, I never wanted to be a fireman, or a policeman, or an astronaut, or anything like that. And ribena's a drink - blackcurrant stuff, it's really nice, but I've not seen it over here. In fact, you don't seem to do that kind of stuff at all really, which took a bit of getting used to. And, okay, I don't have to say you, but I will anyway."

"Yeah but see if I'm an obnoxious teenager, then there could be trouble." Lullaby pointed out. "I'll stick to headphones. I don't have a proper gauge on what's too loud." she informed him. "No mundane dreams for you, hmm? Well cool." she said firmly. Then she tried to even picture what he was talking about. "I...have no concept of what you're going on about with the drink thing. Maybe you should have some sent to you or something." She gave him a squeeze. "And now you're just being overly sweet." she finished.

"What? Wanting to be an astronaut is mundane, but wanting to be a builder isn't?" Dean asked, poking her in the side. "What about you? What did you want to be when you were a kid?" he asked her, directing the conversation firmly away from himself and the issue of his sweetness.

"They're fundamentally different. Astronauts, policemen and firemen, or the odd 'army men' dreams are heroes. It's like little girls want to be princesses or ballerinas because they're pretty and adored. But being a builder is different, because it doesn't have the back up of having glory attached to it in any way. You wanted to create. ...in some fashion, anyways. And I'm really rambling, and I can be told to shut up at any time." Then she paused and thought. "Well, I didn't have the ballerina dream, because I couldn't hear the music so well. A lot of that music is really high and pretty...I guess...but doesn't have the heavy bass I could feel or hear properly. I do have to admit, occasionally I would have the errant fantasy of being a princess, because what little girl doesn't want a tiara at some point in her life? However, I was one of those little girls who used to kind of not have a proper answer for that question. Always had that waffling little 'well I'll figure it out' thing going on. I did want to travel though." Which wouldn't be happening anymore. What she didn't say was that she'd also wanted to be a mom and have a family with a lot of kids and everything. That...really wasn't doable anymore and they'd already kind of had enough to do with more depressing topics.

"I've never really much been into glory - I don't know if you might have, y'know, noticed that. I realise it's subtle - you might not have noticed..." Dean teased, laughing a little as he pictured mini-Thia playing dress up and pretending to be a princess. "Where did you want to travel to?" he asked her, shifting her slightly as his left leg started to go to sleep.

"You know, I totally did notice that about you. What with the...everything about you ever part of the equation." Lullaby said. When he shifted, she sort of slid off of his lap, and back down onto the step next to him, letting him go. "I dunno. Everywhere. Places my dad would send me letters from. He always sent me such neat stuff, I wanted to see where he got it. And I liked looking at pictures of ruins and stuff too. Like...temples or other things, I dunno. When I was a slightly older little kid, and could get over occasionally seeing nudity in National Geographic, I considered for a little while being like...an archeologist or something, but that was more just because I thought what was being found was cool."

He let her go then, shaking his legs out, figuring he'd proved his point, though he made sure he was still sitting right up next to her. He figured he'd be making a point of that for a while - and whilst she was being reluctant to get all up close and personal, he was betting it'd be easier to deal with, so he could probably manage that. "Hmm, see, I could see you going all Indiana Jones with the hat and everything," he joked.

She didn't move away again immediately, though it was actually more just her thinking he'd notice if she did than a desire to stay there. She stared down the stairwell and propped her elbows on her thighs, chin on her hands. "Yeah?" she asked. "I guess I never figured I'd ever do anything that grand. Like discovering anything new, or unraveling some ancient mystery. Finding something no one else found before. Plus, I'm pretty sure the hat might not do anything for me, and I'm not entirely certain me and whips are friends. I mean, I'm pretty short. I'm small and stuff and I'm not confident in my ability to do proper archeological work ala Jones." She might have added in that one would also require a rugged sex appeal, but didn't actually want to say anything right now that even related to the subject.

"Yeah, but being small, you could get into small places, like tombs and caves and all sorts of things that other people couldn't get to," Dean pointed out. "But, okay, neither of us are destined for grand things. We'll just have to stay boring, mundane zombie hunters and vampire slayers. I should probably get a knife and whittle stakes on the back porch or something. And you can spend hours coming up with new and ever more effective weapons and everything. Since we appear to be continually be redefining 'normal' and everything."

"That's Short Round work, not Jones work." Lullaby put in first. "And yeah, alright. I can live with that. Zombie hunters and vampire slayers. Works for me. I can pretend I'm Q or something and try to come up with brilliant ideas for inventive and compelling ways to kill monsters. Though really I think that's probably your area, and I should stick to the whittling thing, because that requires no head for design. Making sticks pointy? I'm your girl. Coming up with like...something really neat? Like an honest to god invention or something? Yep. That's totally you. So can we trade?"

"Yeah, but it's only Short Round work cos Jones is too tall - you could have the best of both worlds, you wouldn't need a side kick so much. And why would I be better at inventing stuff?" he asked, not really getting where she was coming on that one and figuring she was just selling herself short.

"...you're the one who wanted to design things in the first place? Also--you build models, and have read god knows how many schematics. You know how things work, it's in your head. So, you'd be the logical choice for actually inventing anything that could work. I could probably think tactics or something, but an actual design for anything I would not be the one to go to. It just makes sense. I'm a smart girl but you're the one who..." she made a vague gesture in his direction. "You get things." she said, thinking that probably didn't do an accurate job of explaining what she meant.

He had to admit that she had a point on that. And logic and everything. "Okay - see, now, when you put it like that..." he told her, accepting if now that it was clear that it wasn't necessarily that she was bad, just that he'd be better. Which he probably would be. "Okay, so I'll have to come up with things, you can whittle," he agreed.

"Thank you." She said firmly. "I will do grunt work. I will whittle and be cheerful and sidekick like. I'd be better at that anyways. I'm short and occasionally cute, and am far more cheerful than you anyways, so you could still do the antihero thing, but have that balance of me so the plot doesn't get too dark or depressing for your average audience." Then she paused. "..y'know. If we were characters in a movie or something." Since they'd been going on about jones and antiheroes and the like in a vague sort of manner. "So...I'm good with that."

"Hey - I can be cheerful!" Dean averred. "But, okay - mostly I'm a miserable bastard, I can live with that. If we had an audience, of course. Which we don't - for which I will always be grateful, actually. That's the one thing I never wanted to be - an actor."

"You can be." Lullaby agreed. "In fact, I find your company very enjoyable, and I don't think you're a miserable bastard at all. I think sometimes you can get a little moody, but who doesn't? However, I have in fact, heard that you can be downright sullen, apparently. I dunno. I don't really see it. But sullen, and all quiet...yep. Can't say I see that stuff." Then she paused in thought, turning her eyes back onto him as she tilted her head to the side, resting her cheek on her hand instead. "I never wanted to either. But that was hearing related and stuff, so it was kind of just not one of those things that was that available to me. I'd miss cues or something and those stage whispered lines and crap? Tooootally lost on me."

"Would you have wanted to, if you didn't have hearing problems?" he asked her, wondering about that, if there were things she would have liked to have done, but discounted because of it.

"I have no idea?" Lullaby said honestly. "Because it's always been there. So it's...it's not like I had it then like...lost out on dreams because of it, it's been there forever so my world just incorporated that kind of stuff naturally. So I guess I don't really have a concept of what you're asking. If I would have wanted something if I hadn't had the limitations I do. I don't really know. I mean...if you're asking if I'm bitter about not thinking I could be an actor because of my hearing no, that's not it. But I'm not really bitter about much when it comes to that in the first place? I mean, I know a lot of people let things like that get them down, but I don't think that my life is any more messed up or hard or anything than anyone else's just because I don't hear the same things other people do. That I'm picking up on less of the world than they are. Everyone's got strengths and weaknesses, mine just happens to be manifested physically. Other people are closed minded lamers, they're not getting the full spectrum of the world either, they're just not given a seat in the front of the classroom because of it, y'know?" She stopped and gave a little half smile. "And that was my ramble for this evening. You should stop me when I do that."

"No I shouldn't," Dean told her with a funny little almost smile. He'd tilted his head slightly to watch her as she rambled and he held the position even after she stopped, just for a few moments. "That's a really great way of looking at it," he told her as he leaned back a little, shaking off the long look. "You're a really together person, you know that? Like, you know who you are and everything, you're right there, you have it sorted out."

She kind of wondered what the look was for, and her head tilted a tiny bit to the side as he was looking at her. "Do most people not have that going on?" she asked. "I guess...I mean, I do know I know who I am. I'm not sure I was ever confused on the matter, though I know sometimes people are. I never really had an identity crisis where I sat back and had to puzzle out 'well who the hell am I, and what does that mean?'" Then she paused. "...well. Until recently. Now all that knowledge is sort of gone, I think. Like it's cracked. And I know a lot of the puzzle's still there, and probably still vaguely in the right order, but there's other broken bits that have just gotten lost or something. So I'm still figuring out what's happening, or who I might be now. Does that blow the 'together person' idea?" she asked, making a little bit of a face. She also was a little sad, with mixed feelings of unsure and other things in there. Though one thing she was glad about. That sort of explained how she was feeling lately better than almost anything else she could have come up with. Her self image wasn't the same. Maybe that's all it really came down to.

"I don't think most people could put it into words so that it made sense like that," Dean told her. "I don't think most people - especially not most people our age - have thought it through like that, or at all. And yeah, I know everything that you've been through has changed things - I'd be really fucking surprised if you told me it hadn't. But you've got a dead solid basis for building that all up again. Foundations - they're important, you know," he told her, leaning in and giving her an actual, unasked for, voluntary hug.

She was a little surprised at the hug. First of all because Dean didn't usually hug her on his own unless there was major trauma going on. Like, it wasn't that he never had, just that it took something major. Such as when he'd found her. Or when he pulled her back to hug her the other day when they were thinking about separation. ...actually were those the only times he'd hugged her without her initiating it? Probably. God, everything is so one sided. went through her mind. Which was not at all a good thought. No, really, really not. She shut