Tell Me Its Not True

Who: Dean Oz and Sophie (guest appearance by Lulu's parents)
Where: Their house, Lulu's house
When: Morning

Oz was up...mostly because he hadn't gone to bed. He had started taking to just staying up most of the rest of the night, and crashing during the afternoon for a while so he could have breakfast with Sophie and Dean. Or what passed for breakfast with them. Dean wasn't always that terribly talkative. But he still liked the kind of familyish feeling it had, and really wouldn't own up to. That might bring up questions about his own intentions when it came to family, which would bring up questions about marriage, and Sophie hadn't agreed yet. Therefore...he was sitting on that, an just having breakfast with people, to fill in the blanks. The television was on in the living room, and he rolled his neck to crack it as he was only half listening to it, ghosting up behind Sophie to drop a kiss on the back of her neck.

Dean was picking at his bowl of cereal. Like he always did, much to Sophie's despair. She'd always been under the impression that teenage boys were a bottomless pit when it came to food, but Dean hardly seemed to eat enough to satisfy a small bird. Dean, on the other hand, was aware that he was being watched, and so he actually made a point to take spoonfuls of cereal in between stirring it round his bowl to satisfy her. He'd never been a breakfast person. The noise of the television in the background was bugging him - he hated hearing it when he couldn't see it, especially when it was mostly annoying adverts, which seemed to be most of the time in this country.

Oz was pouring himself a cup of coffee when the sound in the other room changed. Instead of the normal sort of lame chatter of the newscasters, there was a more serious note to it. Frowning slightly and tilting his head to the side as he narrowed his focus in, he listened.

"In somber news this morning, another local area student from Marquette Senior High was shot last night, after leaving the Scherbecks Brother's Carnival. Lullaby Draven was pronounced dead at the scene from a fatal gunshot wound. Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact the police immediately, there are no suspects at this time."

There was a clatter-splash as Dean's spoon full of cereal landed in the bowl. A bang as the chair he'd been sitting in hit the floor as he half tripped over it in his rush to get into the other room, scrambling to keep moving as he straightened up. The news report had moved on by the time he got there. "No - no. Nononononono," Dean exclaimed, flipping through the channels - there were fucking thousands of them in this bloody country - there had to be more news! he had to have heard that wrong - had to have. Hadhadhad... "No..."

Oz winced, having just started putting the name together with the memory of the girl he kinda knew Dean had a bit of a thing for. And oh yeah, he didn't need any more confirmation than that. Shit. Shit shit shit. He of course, immediately went to follow. "Dean--" he started, not that he had even the slightest clue what should come after that. ...pronounced dead...fatal gunshot wound... those words together in the same sentence really didn't bode well. What the hell was there to say?

He couldn't. Fucking. Find. Anything. The lights in the room flickered and then Dean threw the remote control hard against the wall as the TV fizzed and died. There was a shout from the other room and Sophie appeared. "The power just died..." she said, having missing the announcement on the news. She looked between the two men, realising she was really missing something.

Oz was standing still, eyes on Dean, and he held one hand out towards Sophie, but he wasn't sure if it was to beckon her closer, or to stay her where she was. "...they just said on the news that Lullaby's been...shot." He kind of twitched out on the end there and couldn't say the word 'killed'. He didn't know if it would set Dean off, and even so he couldn't blame the kid if it did. Processing this information was kind of proving to be difficult. He had no idea how to even begin dealing with something like this. Hell, he wouldn't know how to deal with it if it had been someone Billy knew, or someone else he was close to. Eesh.

Dean shook his head. No - no, it had to... he had to have been hearing it wrong. He'd been thinking about her. That was it, he'd been thinking about her and then there was another name on the news and he just... It slipped in there and ignoring the fact that Oz heard it to, that couldn't be right. Because she'd won him a goldfish at the carnival last night, which was swimming in a bowl in the kitchen. And he was going to go and buy a tank for it this morning - he hadn't even named it yet! And then he was going to meet her at Nevermore and they were going to research zombies! She couldn't be... No. "No," he murmured again, turning and running out of the room. He grabbed his jacket as he fled the house, pulling it on as he started to jog down the road. How far was it to her house? It didn't matter - he had to go and find her and speak to her and she'd be okay. Just like she'd been after that dream. Only a dream. But today texting wouldn't be enough.

"...aw shit..." Oz said, heading first towards the door, then he stopped, and looked back over to Sophie. "What do we do here? I heard it. She's dead. That's the girl who I mentioned that I figured he had a thing for?" he said, knowing he'd talked to Sophie about it one afternoon when they'd been out on the porch and he'd been out...somewhere. Wherever he went.

"Dead?" Sophie stared and then took a breath. "Fuck - okay, well, we go after him, of course," she said, taking what appeared to be the most sensible decision. "I'll get the car - if he's on foot, he's not going to get far." She thought for a moment how she'd deal if it was Oz - but that was a whole other level. Their bond meant that it was highly unlikely that either one of them would survive the death of the other. Whether due to the shock, or just the need to take down whatever it was that caused the death. But even still, Dean shouldn’t have to deal with death at his age.

Oz nodded. "Right." He headed for the door, grabbing the keys as he tossed them in her direction, and he felt slightly better for having a direction. Yeah he really didn't know what to do here. His mind drifted a little towards the death of his cousin, the reason he had a shit ton of money at his age. But yeah he couldn't even say how he'd dealt with that, let alone how anyone helped him through it.

Sophie caught them in one hand as they headed for the door and got into the car. She didn't bother locking the house behind them - even with everything that had been going on in town lately, she'd got out of that habit a while ago when she didn't think they'd be long. "Okay," she said as they started down the road, looking for Dean. "What are we going to do when we find him - I'm assuming he's headed for her house, but do we take him there, or keep him away to let her family have their time?"
Oz was a little torn on that. "Um...honestly I don't know." he said, leaning back in the seat, window rolled down. "I'm sure they need time, but...I'm not sure he'll really accept things til he's got confirmation either. I don't know them, never met them, just her. She was a sweet, friendly little thing. But no clue what her parents are like, or if they'd do anything like call the cops to get rid of Dean or anything. I mean, I think we could probably talk them out of that, but if worst came to worst...erm. I'm not being helpful...sorry. I'm thinking about 'Manda."

Sophie looked at him with sympathy. "Oh, J - I'm sorry," she said, reaching across to touch his arm. She'd been gone when Amanda had died, back to the UK with her parents, trying to forget him. She hated herself for those years now, would give anything to have them back, but what was done, was done. "You okay?" she asked, as the still running Dean came into sight ahead on the road. He didn't seem to ahve slowed any - no, instead, he seemed to have picked up speed from where he'd left the house.

Oz nodded, eyes on Dean. "Yeah, I'll...I'm just trying to think about how I even got through it. But truthfully, I don't even remember half of those first days." He wasn't necessarily actually okay. But for now he was less worried about remembering his own grief, and trying to think of any kind of way to be there and helpful for Dean's. Unfortunately, he'd more or less been alone for all of that, and therefore didn't have any experience to draw off of from the other end of that. He just knew what it was like to lose someone really close to you. So close it was like losing a part of yourself. He didn't know this girl had meant that much to Dean, but he strongly suspected. It had been in the way the kid had looked at the girl when she wasn't looking at him.

Sophie pulled the car up alongside Dean and buzzed down the window. "Come on, love, get in," she told him, even though Dean was still running. It was clear that the teen was tiring, but he seemed insistent on pushing himself onwards, stumbling at times down the street, looking fixedly ahead. Sophie tried again. "Come on - we'll drive you into town. It's far too far to walk, Dean. Get in."

It didn't seem at first as though the boy woudl listen to her, but then he almost fell on a crack in the road and came to a stumbling halt. This wasn't happening - it wasn't. Except he knew it was. He could still hear that news broadcast - and who else had a name like that? It wasn't like it could be easily confused with anything else. He stopped, breathing heavily, then turned and silently climbed into the car, bringing his feet up onto the seat and wrapping his arms around his knees as he stared silently out of the window.

Oz looked back at Dean for a long moment, and made a decision. "...where's she live, Dean?" he asked quietly. If he needed to go there to get confirmation, Oz would deal with whatever her parents or family had to say. Even if it was 'fuck off, we're grieving here'. He'd rather at least try. Maybe she was sweet because her parents were good people or something. One could hope, right?

Dean was silent for a few minutes, not sure if he could get the words out, but then he told Oz her address, his voice strangely foreign-sounding to his ears. He didn't stop staring out of the window, not for a moment. How could the world still be there? How could it look so normal. he watched a guy walk past, walking his dog, birds flying from tree to tree. Nothing had changed - why had nothing changed, why was it all still there when it felt like his world was cracking and crashing and falling, breaking apart?

Oz nodded, then sort of half looked out the window, half kept looking back at Dean. He really felt for him, honestly. There was a reason he didn't remember a lot after the wake of his cousin's death. It was because she was kind of the last strong, solid relationship he'd had left, after Sophie and Billy had both left. Not that they hadn't for good reason...or. Well. That was a matter of perspective, but that was hardly the point. She'd been it, the last one standing with him, and then she'd just died. When she had, the last bit of color had leeched out of his world. He remembered that much.

It was cold, so cold - why was it so cold when the sun was shining? Had Sophie turned the air con in the car down low? Dean shivered some and pulled his jacket further round him, over his legs as far as it would go. He rested his head against the window as Sophie drove, unfocusing his eyes so he didn't have to acknowledge the world outside, if he focused on anything, it was on the window trim and a little scratch in it. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't be. He'd get to her house and she'd still be in bed - probably asleep and this would all be a big misunderstanding. Or a joke. Some kind of sick, really not funny, joke involving the entire town and the cable news network and, yeah - a joke.

The drive wasn't that long. Which was probably a good thing, though at the same time, when they pulled up on the street, it felt like maybe they should have more time. Everything looked normal. Quiet, average sort of day, all that. Oz looked at the house in question, noting that the curtains were all pulled. Shit. Was he going to have to go knock? He would. Definitely, like, in a heartbeat. Even if he had no clue what he'd say if someone answered. As the car came to a halt, he looked back at Dean, to see what he was going to do.

Dean's eyes had dragged up to her house as soon as it came into sight and, right up until the moment the car had actually stopped, he'd been getting ready to jump out and run up the steps to pound on the door. Except then they were there. And her house was right there. And... what if the news had been right? What if they'd been right and she was dead and she wasn't there and oh god. His hand, which had been resting on the door handle, slipped away and he just stared out of the window up at her house.

Oz frowned lightly at Dean, then glanced to Sophie. "I'll um...go see if anyone's up." he said, figuring action or some such would help. It was better than sitting there doing nothing. Right? Wasn't it? God, he didn't know. He got out, and winced. The morning light was murder on his eye, giving him an instant blinding headache. That was the nice thing about living more in the woods. There were trees that cooperated nicely and provided things like shade. Not that there weren't trees here, but the sun was there, and he squinted his bad eye shut, before heading across the road. It was only when he hopped up onto the sidewalk on the other side that he realized he hadn't actually put any shoes on before leaving the house. He was barefoot. Awesome. I'm not going to look insane. Really.

Sophie didn't know what to say - did she stay with Dean? Did she go with Oz - who, dammit, wasn't wearing shoes. Then again, she realised, she was still in her jammies, so she couldn't exactly talk. But that clinched it - she was staying in the car with.... She heard the back door open and slam shut and looked round to see Dean racing to catch Oz up.

Oz looked back over his shoulder at Dean, just as he was heading up the walk to the short few steps to the door. He waited, to see if Dean was going to go past or not, but he didn't, so Oz kept on going, walking up, and he knocked. He didn't actually give himself time to hesitate on that one, thinking that the sooner this was done, the better. He didn't really need to waste time pussyfooting around. He watched Dean out of the corner of his eye, and kind of held his breath.

The door was opened a few long moments later, long enough that Oz thought he might have to knock again, but no. He heard someone approaching, and then the door was being pulled open. Standing there was a woman who had lost a child. There was no other description for her. Her eyes were red rimmed and she looked like she hadn't slept in a month. She was pale, moving like everything hurt, and she looked out at the two of them, blankly for a moment. Then her eyes stayed on Dean, and they cleared, even as the swam. "...Dean." she said, voice shaking a touch. "We would've...called, but-" she didn't actually get to finish her sentence, as she was already starting to break down again.

The world span and right there and then the migraine hit. He hadn't even thought about it before, when he'd shorted the entire house, but it came on hard and fast and unbelievably painful. But all of that was eclipsed by the fact that Thia was dead. She was dead and her mother was crying and she was dead. Shot, he mind supplied through the pain. Migraines always made thinking hard for him adn right now he'd take that - to not be able to think. But what was getting through was just that. Thia had been shot and killed. Last night. He stared at her tears. She was crying - he should be crying. Why wasn't he crying? She was dead, there should be crying, shouldn't there?

Oz was stuck in a horrible position of practically feeling the waves of grief coming off of the woman, and the mixed signals he was getting from Dean. Which wasn't surprising, what with finding out his friend(best friend? Crush?) was dead. He reached out to put a hand on Dean's shoulder, not sure what else he could do, and looked between him and the girl's mom. Yeah, words really sucked right now. There wasn't ever really going to be any that could help. They were utterly useless.

Drawing in a shakey breath, Lullaby's mother clutched at her chest, trying to steady herself. "D-do you want to come inside? You could...it's okay. I..." she started, but her face dissolved again, and she made a pained sound, sinking against the doorframe. She reached up to cover her face, and Lullaby's stepfather appeared behind her, looking just as wrecked as his wife. He didn't retract the invite, opening the door somewhat wider even if he didn't say they were welcome. Mostly, he looked at Dean, ignoring Oz, and he gave the faintest of nods. What that meant, who knew.

Dean shook his head and took a step back. "No - no, I..." He looked down, then to Oz, then back to her parents. Mother, step-father his disjointed mind provided. His head was pounding now, sharp stabbing pains and all he wanted to do was go and lie down somewhere dark. And die. Dying could feature in there - could you just give up? That felt like the right choice right about now. "I'm sorry," he said, taking another step back. Sorry, was that all he had? It was such a small word - useless. She was dead.

Oz was kind of thinking this might be something contained in the nightmares of most parents. From like...all sides. Jesus. It was almost staggering, all the conflicting everythings coming at him from all sides. Heartbeats offkey, everything else. "We're very sorry for your loss. Thank you for your time." Oz said to the couple in the door, Lullaby's mother now turned and clinging to her husband, as he held her. The man, who's eyes were shining themselves nodded, and moved to shut the door. Oz didn't wait to see it shut, he was looking back at Dean, not sure what the kid was going to do now, only that he really hoped it didn't involve anything that might mean he had to be chased down. "Dean?" he asked, wishing he had a better mind for this stuff. But then, who did? Who would really know what to do here?

Dean watched as the door shut in front of him and then turned to Oz, his face blank, though there was pain behind his eyes. "I want to go home," he said, simply. That was all. Just home, to his room. And just... stay there. He didn't know what then. He had nothing. No plans - just home.

Nodding immediately, Oz half sort of directed Dean back around towards the car. "C'mon, we'll get you home then." he promised. He still felt like he wasn't doing enough. Like he was ineffectual, and he really hated that. He wasn't really a stand back and do nothing sort. So to have to kind of play this by ear and know full well that there really wasn't shit he could do...that wasn't sitting well.

Dean wasn't helping in that at all. He did nothing to encourage either Oz, or Sophie to do anything more than leave him alone as he climbed back into the car and resumed his curled up position. Sophie gave Oz a questioning look , but she'd seen the exchange on the porch and she didn't need to have been close enough to hear to read the faces there. Dean's friend was dead. "Let's get you home," she said, quietly, pulling away. She wasn't at all surprised when her cousin ignored her completely.