Setting up a system.

Who: Charlotte, Dean, Herbert, Joshua, Isaac, Peyton, Sammy, Stacey, and Thom.
When: Lunchtime.
Where: Side lawn at school.

Charlotte would have felt much better about this if Kaysen was there. She hadn't been nervous about this until she woke up this morning and realized she had no freaking idea what she was doing. Or maybe everyone would think she was crazy, or that it was a waste of time. They won't. she kept telling herself. If they agreed to show up in the first place, they must think it's a good idea. She just kept telling herself that.

She was the first to the lawn, and she took a deep breath as she sat down and pulled out her notebook. She could do this.

Thom was bang on time, the way he generally was, his bag over one shoulder, his guitar case over the other, since he'd decided that if he was going to be making a concerted effort to be 'normal' then he needed to start acting it. Of course, he was heading to a meeting about setting up a system to deal with supernatural events, which meant that possibly he wasn't getting off to the best start, but he wasn't going to not be there. Anyway, the people who were going to be there would all know he knew things, so that was fine. He just didn't want to have to explain his shit to anyone else - that was too dangerous, too risky.

Isaac was right behind him, in that way that they tended to gravitate together anyway. He'd spent the better part of the day completely distracted, as he had found a blurb on Protectors in one of the books Lullaby had given him back when. Exactly what he was wanting to know, condensed into a few paragraphs. And it didn't take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out who Thom's ... person was. It made perfect sense, but he was also really not sure how to feel about it. And was promised into silence -- well, for everybody else, talking to Thom about it would be much more detrimental as far as consequences went -- so it was up to him to work it the hell out, seeing as how it wasn't going to change. He showed up, hands in his pockets, and gave Charlotte a faint smile. He plunked down on the grass near Thom but didn't quite look at him yet. "I tried to convince her to come," he told Charlotte while it was still just the three of them, and shrugged a shoulder.

Though Herbert had very much intended to be early, for moral support for Charlie, he also very much intended to arrive with Sammy, and the two didn't exactly coincide. Not that they were late, mind, but they wasn't early, either. He led his much smaller friend around the building to the side lawn, and waved when he caught sight of Charlie. It looked like they weren't even near the last of the group to show. Oh, good! "That's Charlie," he said quietly to Sammy as they approached, pointing her out. "Or Charlotte, if you like that better, she goes by both. And that's Thom, and that's Isaac." He could name the others for him as they showed.

As Herbert was pointing and naming, Sammy was falling back to walk a little in the taller boy’s shadow, but not completely. Part of him was excited – ‘cause, hey! New people who he hadn’t met yet – but another part was nervous – because, yes, new people. When Herbert introduced the sole girl – with the little bit about either name working – he filed away the two boys’ names so he would remember them and asked Herbert a question about her. Even though it meant moving forward a bit so Herbert could see his notebook. “Which does she prefer, though? Like, does she want someone to know her better before they call her Charlie?” And was he supposed to wave, too? Like Herbert did?

Dean noted that there was already a group collected at the meeting point, which he was glad about. It meant that he could head over and sit himself down where he was most likely to be able to see people talking. He anticipated that there'd be at least some time where people were talking over each other and with the background noise of the other students, he was going to have hearing problems today. So, that meant he was going to lip reading more than listening. He just hoped he didn't miss too much. He nodded to the people he knew there - which, he realised, was everyone - including the mute guy he'd met just after Thia's death. That was... nice actually. It had been a while since he'd been surrounded by a group of people all of whom he recognised. Even if he couldn't remember all their names, but then again, he'd always been shit at names.

Running a bit behind, Peyton had hurried from her locker to the side lawn where Isaac had told her people would be meeting. It still felt weird to think they were just going to sit around and openly discuss the stuff that still creeped her out, but she felt better just being involved. Spotting Isaac, she smiled and headed toward the small group of people, wondering whether or not everyone sitting there was... something. She knew Thom did magic... and there was Herbert and Sammy. She recognized Charlie, but had no idea who the other guy was. Oh well, she was sure introductions were to be made. Waving at Herbert and Sammy, she moved to sit next to Isaac, dumping her bag beside her and shifting to get comfortable enough on the grass. She didn't know who else they were waiting on, but she was sure someone was in charge and would begin speaking when everyone was accounted for.

"I guess Charlotte," Herbert shrugged in answer to Sammy, though she'd pretty much let him call her Charlie from the start. He didn't want to presume, though. "That's Dean, and-- oh, that's Peyton. You know her, right?" He grinned and waved back at Peyton then, as he and Sammy caught up to the group proper, gravitated over to Charlie's side and settled next to her, patting the grass on his other side for Sammy.

Sammy plopped down beside Herbert and flicked two of his fingers at Dean before settling his notebook against his knee. “Yeah, I know Peyton, and,” He shifted a little working a stick out from underneath his thigh where it was poking at him uncomfortably, “I actually met Dean once –” back on the day Lullaby’s funeral was, was that almost two weeks ago now? Time was an odd, odd thing, that was for sure. “– like, back towards the beginning of September, so I know…three people here, now, I think.”

Joshua almost hadn't come. He felt assy, his face and wrist hurt like hell, and he wasn't sure why he was invited to this thing anyway, besides being the boyfriend of the 'dead' girl. Or former boyfriend, anyway. But he'd told Charlotte he would be there, and so he showed, rolling down the sidewalk on his board until he had to hit grass. He walked up, pricklingly self-conscious of the tape and black eyes from his broken nose. He recognized most of the people, but not all, and his stomach twisted a little as he spotted Dean. He didn't look too long, because he knew he'd start staring and trying to judge how Lullaby was just by his body language, and wordlessly took a seat on the grass near the fringes of everything, rubbing at the back of his stubbled head and waiting for it to start.

Stacey crept up as unobtrusively as she could to the group and quietly sat next to Sammy, giving him a quick wave. She wasn't quite sure how the meeting was going to be run, all she really knew was the time and place. Besides, maybe they were still waiting for people to show up.

Charlotte had smiled appreciatively at Isaac and shrugged. "I did too. I understand though. I hope she comes next time." As the group started gathering she gave little smiles and waves or nods to everyone who joined the group, and did a mental tally to see if this was everyone. "Thanks for coming." she said, trying not to sound nervous. She wasn't sure if it worked. "Um, I'm Charlotte - Charlie," she corrected herself, "Thom, Isaac, Herbert, Peyton, Joshua... and Sammy and Stacey, right?" Oh please God let her have the names right. "I guess maybe I should launch right into it. Basically... Kaysen and I were talking about everything that's happened over the past month, and it's not stopping. Stuff keeps happening here and getting worse, and we need to be doing something other than waiting for it. So I guess we need to figure out... um... what we can do as a group, and a system of action and communication for when the, ah... bad stuff happens."

Dean noticed that she'd missed him out of the introductions, but figured that she'd forgotten his name, hell, he'd needed the run down of everyone else to remember them and he was grateful for her doing that. He didn't say anything though - he wasn't much for talking in a group, he found it hard enough to keep up as it was. If there was anything that he thought needed to be said, then he'd say it. In the meantime, he looked around, wanting to catch other people's faces as they talked. Instead what he caught was the sight of Joshua, who looked like he'd been in a fight. He tried to catch the other guy's eye, but he wasn't looking in his direction. What the hell had happened to him?

Isaac's eyes ticked around to everybody as they were listed off. Except the one guy, but he looked familiar from the mine bullshit. D-something. Poor Charlie sounded nervous, and he really couldn't blame her. She seemed to be a shy thing anyway, and Kaysen had kind of left her to do this by herself. Pulling his backpack around, he rummaged and tugged a few sheets of notebook paper free and a pen. "What I was thinking first," he said, looking around at everybody. He wasn't bad at the whole public speaking thing, and he thought he'd help her out a little. "I'm Isaac, by the way, hi. What I was thinking first when I heard about this, as far as communication goes, is kind of getting everybody in groups that live close together? And sort of appointing one person from each to get in contact with the other contact people from each. So that way everybody's not calling everybody else all at once. ... I mean, I know there's not a lot of us, but three messages is easier to manage than nine. So, addresses and contact information?" he suggested, waving the paper a bit. His eyes ticked to Charlie to see if she thought that was maybe a good idea. Not to hijack her meeting or anything, it was just a thought he'd had.

"I think that sounds smart," Herbert agreed, glancing at Charlie, too, for her opinion. He was glad Isaac had an idea, because as much as he'd've liked to do or say something like that to help her out, too, he'd really been kind of blank on the idea front. "The groups could always get in touch with other people and pass on that their group's all okay." Or not okay, but they were thinking positive. Or he was. "It's quicker that way, I think. And address and contact information oughta go out between us, either way, if there was contacting supposed to be going on."

Charlotte was relieved that Isaac piped in with something right away; her worst nightmare had been everyone just staring at her blankly and quietly. "I think that would be great." she confirmed. "When Kaysen and I were first talking about it the vague idea had been everyone having someone to contact and everyone being linked or something, I don't really remember." She scanned the crowd and realized she'd left Dean out of the introductions and her face went beat red. "Dean!" she blurted out. "I didn't mean to miss you. I'm sorry." Crap. And it had been going well.

Dean shook his head. "N'problem," he muttered, though he was still trying to work out what exactly it was that Herbert had just said. He figured it was an agreement with Isaac, but he wasn't entirely sure. then again, he'd had a low opinion of him altogether since what he'd said about Thia, and Dean had a nasty habit of holding a grudge on the barest of reasons for a long time.

Peyton glanced over at Dean briefly before speaking up as to bypass the mild awkwardness. "I think that's a good idea, but what do we do if we try to contact that appointed person and they're not around? Or something's happened? Or they don't respond? Do we call someone else? Do we send someone off to try and track them down to make sure everything is okay?" She paused briefly, not at all shy about public speaking. Most of the school knew she'd probably talk for hours if you let her. "I'm all for trying to make everything as simple as possible, but it seems like in these kind of situations, things can be unpredictable, and dangerous and who knows what kind of situation you're going to find yourself in. I mean, hopefully there won't be that kind of situation for anyone, but to cover all bases, what happens if someone isn't able to contact anyone else? How do we manage or deal with that?" She thought about Isaac disappearing into WhoknowswhereWorld. A contract pseudo-phone tree wouldn't have helped him then. She looked over at Charlotte. "You also said that you think we should do something instead of just waiting for it. I imagine the contacting comes after it's happened, or has begun to happen, right? Do you think we ought to be pro-active in trying to protect ourselves before something like this happens again?"

Thom spoke up then, glancing round at the group. "I think being pro-active in protecting ourselves is a good idea," he agreed. "And that kind of thing doesn't have to wait until something goes wrong. Basic defenses can be set up at home ahead of time, and we should all make sure that we have safe places to go. Identify and prepare places - not just our own homes - where we know we can run to if needs be."

That point – the one Thom had just made – was a good one. Sammy shifted to sit cross-legged and set his notebook on the ground before glancing at Herbert. The first note read ‘Do you mind acting as translator?’ while the second read ‘On what Thom said – he’s right. You don’t want to be scrambling to be able to protect your family and yourself when something bad happens, you want to be ready. Like, have safeguards and weapons – or some things that work as weapons – and stuff like that.’

Peering down at the notes, Herbert shook his head at Sammy with a smile-- he didn't mind, at all-- and spoke up. "Sammy says Thom's right, so that if something bad does happen, nobody's scrambling to protect themselves or family. Having plans and safeguards and weapons on hand, and all. I know there's some places in town safer than others-- my apartment's got a bunch of wards on it, for one. Peyton's place has a few. I dunno about anybody else's, but that's definitely a start." He cast Peyton a glance, and Stacey-- the latter with a bit of a grin, silent thanks, again, for her help. And, y'know, for showing up.

"We can establish back up contacts, and probably back ups to them," Isaac told Peyton as he scribbled down his name, address, and phone numbers. Then handed it to her to add her own and start to pass it around. "We'll make copies of these and pass them around too, so everybody's got everybody else." He'd listened to the rest, glancing at Thom. He wasn't sure who else around the circle of people had anything to do with magic, but he knew that warding was at least covered, if he didn't mind doing it at other people's places. But he wasn't going to volunteer him, just in case. "Mine and Thom's places are warded too," he added in, glancing at Herbert with a slight nod. "Do we want to come up with a central sort of location? Just in case shit hits the fan, we've got a place to regroup and get organized?"

For his part, Joshua stayed silent, just listening, eyes ticking around the group. There was a faint little pang at Isaac's suggestion, as that had been what Lullaby was wanting to set up before she died and everything got derailed. At least other people were picking up the torch. He didn't have anything really to contribute; his safeguard was short and compact and had black wings and a mean right hook. Who also would probably lock him in a closet the next time anything hugely threatening came through town. So even if there was a meeting place, he doubted he would be there without an escort. Therefore, he just did that whole listening thing, glancing briefly at Dean.

Dean caught it when Joshua looked over and he nodded, then mouthed You okay? reaching up and indicating his own nose with a questioning look, whilst trying to still keep some of his attention on the conversation going on around them.

"I'm all for being proactive now. Setting things up, figuring what's in our capability, designating a safe spot... and with that will come some sort of guidelines to follow if you can't contact someone when you need to." Charlotte chimed back in. "We could also look into trying to ward our own homes... I'm guessing someone in this group knows how to do that." she added with a small smile. "As for a safe spot... we could all figure out which of all of us lives in the safest location, or use something public. Or we may figure out that the best thing to do is stay put and hide if it's not safe to leave where you are. I don't know." But she was glad this was going so well.

"I can ward," Thom offered, since he didn't know whether anyone else would be able to do so. "And I can also offer my house up as a bolt hole - I've been adding extra protection onto it for that kind of thing lately anyhow," he added. And if everyone knew to run there, that everyone would include Kaysen. He could deal with a whole group of people if it meant that she was safe.

This time Sammy looked to over at Stacey, tipping his notepad her way since what he had written concerned her more than the whole group - at least at the moment it did, anyhow. That was probably subject to change with her response, of course. "You can ward houses too, right? You warded Herbert's?"

Stacey nodded and dug into her purse for a pen and leaned over to scribble something on Sammy's notebook. "Yeah, but I don't know all these people." Stacey speak up in a crowd? Nope. She continued writing, "I'm pretty sure their parents wouldn't like my poking around their place, and warding the place behind their backs is bad in the long run. What you build with your magic comes back to you, kinda like a karma thing. Sure in theory the house is safe, but in practice you went behind someone's back and changed their own home. That lack of trust can karmicly build up if you're not careful. Besides, if you're not aware of the complete situation you can end up making things worse." A good example would be Eben's stitches. If she had healed him he'd be in pain later when it came time to taking them out, since his healed skin would have grown over the stitches. Another good example would have been the stone disk she gave Herbert. It was enchanted so that earth would do no harm within ten feet of it: no slipping on the stone floor, no cave ins, not even a rock tossed its way would hurt. The problem is that Stacey has never heard of elementals, so she's not able to say whether an earth elemental would be able to harm anything within the disk's range.

Herbert had been about to give Stacey a look in askance as to whether she was going to offer her own services, to ward things, but he caught a glimpse of the written conversation and frowned as he leaned back a little to read over it. Awww.... Most of that went right over Herbert's poor head, but at least it made it clear he'd better not be bringing up her witchiness in present company. Instead he took the paper as it passed around and set about writing his own name, address, and number on it. "Once I've got everybody's addresses, I can map things out and see who's closest to what," he offered, being rather a fan of maps and geography in that sense, already kind of piecing it together in his head from the couple addresses already on it. "Whether Thom's house or someplace else." He was already pretty sure it wouldn't be his own apartment, wards or not; nobody else really lived in or near Tourville. He was tempted to offer himself as a bodyguard, if someone got in trouble and needed to call somebody else, but he wasn't sure if anybody but the people who knew he was actually a bear would go for that. Or even them, actually. Still, it was a thought, maybe for later. He offered the contact-info paper to Sammy.

Sammy accepted the paper when Herbert offered it to him and scrawled his name and address on it carefully, making sure it was legible. ‘cause wouldn’t that be something? They took all this time to get everyone’s info and set up safeguards, only to have it turn out that no one could read his information and so he never got contacted. Only that probably wouldn’t happen, because Herbert had his info and stuff, and if it did turn out that they couldn’t read it, they could contact him. It would take longer, sure – something he didn’t want to happen, since he didn’t want to be causing problems for them all because of crappy handwriting – but they’d be able to get a hold of him eventually. He finished up his info and passed the paper on before focusing his attention back onto the rest of the group.

Joshua was faintly surprised by the concern in Dean's expression, though he probably shouldn't have been. He was kind of getting used to his emotions being all over the damn place, however. Keeping an ear on what was being said, he shook his head ever so slightly, and made the sign for 'later'. Just in case the guy didn't know what that meant, he mouthed it too. Then looked away and went back to listening. If he wanted to know, they could talk or something when more important shit wasn't going on.

Isaac nodded, taking it all in and giving the madly-writing people a glance. He didn't know them, but neither one had said a word and he wondered a little. "I'm sure we can figure out what the best place is," he agreed. He just hoped they wouldn't have to know like ... tomorrow or anything. For his part, he was so hoping that things were quiet for a while. "Me and Thom -- at least, I dunno about the rest of you -- can drive, too, so ... if people need to be transported or something ... a lot of it will probably depend on situation, but we can do what we can do to get ready for whatever."

"Here's hoping we won't need to actually use this stuff for awhile," Peyton replied, sort of echoing Isaac's thoughts. "But I think it might be good with the warding for everyone to do it." She glanced down at the bracelet Isaac had given her that Thom made. She wondered if he'd be willing to make those for everyone else. "And I think if people are willing to learn more effective ways to stay safe, that's a plus too, and maybe they can share with the others... magic, or whatever else there might be. So if there's a next time, we'll be more prepared and maybe it won't be so bad." If might be wishful thinking, but she preferred that over just automatically expecting horrible badness. She glanced around and then back to Charlotte, wondering if there was really anything else to go over. Everyone seemed to be fairly agreeable to what had been discussed so far.

"Okay, so, we thinking of doing this on a regular basis or something?" Thom asked, since the meeting seemed to have accomplished everything they'd wanted. "Meet up here again this time next week?" he suggested.

"Sounds like a good idea, to me," Herbert nodded. "We can talk what protections and ideas and things we've come up with, and whether we can share them with each other." And he'd figure out which places were closest to which other places, in the meantime. "More heads thinking on the same problem, and all, y'know? We'll probably all come up with different stuff." And he was still thinking on the whole "call me if there's trouble" idea, whether it'd be a good idea to say it or not. If there was a next time, he'd have time to think on it.

Once people started to get up and disperse, Joshua's first impulses were to just head out and leave. He felt kind of weird and uncomfortable now that there wasn't anybody talking to really focus on, only those splitting off into splinter groups. But Dean had looked questioning, and he guessed the best thing to do was hang around for a minute to see if the guy wanted to actually talk or not. So that was what he did, good hand tucking into his pocket, eyes on the English kid.

Dean headed over the moment people started walking off, primed to go after Joshua if needs be, but grateful to see that wouldn't be necessary. He shouldered his bag as he approached and upnodded a welcome. "You okay?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll live," he said, kind of attempting a little smirk and failing mostly. He knew he looked like he'd been in a wicked fight, and while part of him really wouldn't mind if that was what Dean thought, that'd be kind of fucked up to say. "Just broke a fall with my face." How is she?

"Ouch," Dean winced in sympathy. "If it helps, it looks like you've been in one hell of a fight..." He knew that sounded better to him for a cause of injury than 'I fell over', which wasn't particularly good for the ego.

Joshua chuckled a bit. "Yeah, that was kinda what I was gonna leave it up to people to think," he said, hand leaving his pocket to rub at the back of his neck a bit. It was quite possible that he felt weird. He kind of wanted to know what Dean had been told about the breakup, but what did it really matter in the end? There was a moment's hesitation, and then he asked. "How is she?"

Dean wasn't at all surprised at the question, but he took his time over answering. "So so," he admitted, in the end. "Confused, kinda all over the place. It's just... Yeah, she's getting it from all sides," he finished, after a moment of thinking whether that was a good thing to say to Joshua, all things considered.

There wasn't really a way to take that at the moment that didn't include him, so he just nodded, eyes ticking off briefly. And therefore? He shouldn't add to it, if he could help it. The 'delete' button on his phone had been getting a work out, and that was probably for the best. He didn't say anything, even though he probably should've come up with something. But 'take care of her' wouldn't get out of his throat, and 'tell her I said hi' sounded moronic.

Dean slowly exhaled, thinking that, now they were past the 'you okay's of it all, this was kind of awkward. He had no real clue what to say to the guy. It wasn't like they'd ever been the best of friends, after all. They'd just had Thia in common, though that was enough for Dean. He shifted his weight to his other foot and needlessly hefted his bag again. "So..."

"So I'll see you around," Joshua said, perhaps a little bit too abruptly. It wasn't sharp, just a tiny bit blurted. Which wasn't fair, because as insecure as he'd been -- which he knew had been part of The Problem -- it wasn't Dean's fault. Not really, he was pretty sure of that. He had his own shoulders to carry the blame. He looked up at him again, a little apologetically. "Take it easy, yeah?"

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "Yeah, you too - see you around, right?" he asked, even though this was awkward. It was still there. "Take care of yourself," he added, because, really, here? That was something that needed to be said.

He stared for a beat, then nodded. It definitely needed to be said. "You too," he said, picking up his skateboard with his good hand. "Both of you." Because god knew that even if she didn't want to be with him, he didn't want anything else to ever happen to her. With another little nod of parting, Joshua turned and headed off.