Dreams and Nightmares

Who: Billy and Lullaby, then Dean and Lullaby
Where: Texts, then dreams, then England
When: Overnight

Lullaby found some time away a little after dinner, mostly guised as time to take a bath. Which she did. But she also texted Billy. The conversation with Dean's mom really stuck with her on certain things. Heavy things. Things that jabbed at the most raw, hollow places in her psyche. And...she could talk to Dean, and maybe she would sometime--just not right now. He was still making life decisions on things, he was still dealing. She had gone in and given him a serious hug and told him she loved him, but...that wasn't necessarily different than any other day lately. Still, though.

After writing and rewriting the text, she finally sent it, vaguely wondering what time it was back home. Probably a little late. Maybe he was sleeping. She'd feel bad for waking him if that was the case. But it wasn't as if her phone kept accurate time. It was over a day behind now.

Billy I deserve a future don't I? Even if I'm different? I can have a future with someone? <3thia

It wasn't that late, given that Billy was behind her anyway, and he picked up the text shortly after it was sent, frowning as he read it and getting back to her straight away. Course you do - everyone does. What's wrong? Do I need to come visit? he wrote, before sending.

Lullaby really had to think about that. She bit her lip, and stared at her screen, before typing back. Do you have to work tomorrow? I don't want you to come if you can't because of things to do tomorrow. That was more important than her little crisis. Or, that was her story and she was sticking to it.

Billy read the message, figuring that that was a 'yes' then. He typed back, Am working for Oz right now. Think he'd prefer you were okay than I put in a full day! That much was very definitely true, he'd win no favours from his friend for putting house rennovations above the needs of someone he considered pack.

Not really having to consider that for longer than a few moments, Lullaby conceded the point. Yeah, Oz would probably be pissy if he thought that. Then I'd appreciate it. Some things just don't get translated through text.<3thia plus there was the character limit. Sometimes you just needed to talk to someone, and this area was where her hearing got in the way. She simply could not hear over the phone.

I'll see you later on tonight then. Promise Billy replied. Time didn't really matter, it wouldn't mean anything once she was asleep anyway. He'd just go in, they'd talk and he'd find out what was wrong - much simpler that painstakingly typing in short bursts of words.

See you then. Thank you. <3thia she sent back. It wouldn't be long before bedtime would be feasible. And going to bed a little early wouldn't really raise too much suspicion either. They did have things to do the following night and everything. Setting her phone back down, she finished her bath, and after snuggling down with Dean, she dropped off to sleep. She might have helped herself out a little bit by taking some sleep medication as well.

When she fell asleep, she was dreaming of walking down wide city streets, where the buildings rose up on either side, streaking up impossibly high, blocking out most of the sky. It was an oppressive feeling, and it wasn't helped by the crowd. The crowd around her that was made up of people all taller than she was, all pressing in against one another, all seeming to be going in the same direction--only that wasn't the direction she was trying to head. She was trying to go against the stream, and kept getting caught and propelled back with the surge of the crowd. Every time she tried to talk to anyone, she was ignored--it was like no one could see her. Like she didn't really exist.

Billy feel in step with the crowd, force of habit and instinct making him blend in to what was clearly an anxiety dream until he could take control of it. He looked for Thia - something which wasn't easy, knowing how small she was, and how tall the people in the crowds were, but he kept looking, going with the flow, but moving in between the people with ease, slipping into gaps and covering as much area as possible.

She was most easily marked in the dream by being brighter than the others. Most of the people didn't really have faces so much as vague features, and they were all wearing dark greys and blacks. She was wearing red, her old hoodie that she used to wear before it had gotten shredded during the shadow monster attacks. She kept calling out for people to stop, to let her through, that she was late, and couldn't they hear her? But no one reacted.

Billy heard her before he saw her and he turned, going with the crowd in the direction of her voice until he caught sight of the flash of red, then the smaller girl. He slowed as he reached her, aware that he hadn't yet found the key to this dream and uncertain enough that he didn't want to risk things too much before he had that. Some dreams, he was alright in whether he had control or not. Oz' dreams were so consistent that he didn't need to worry about that - they were no threat to him. He didn't know Thia's dreams well enough to take that chance, so he stayed back, still searching for the key, standing where she could see him if she hunted, but where she may overlook him.

Caught up in the dream, Thia didn't notice Billy, she just kept struggling against the crowd, shouting but being ignored. She was getting more agitated by the moment, until finally she burst into tears, and sat down in the middle of the sidewalk. The crowd kept moving like nothing had happened.

Billy had a choice to make - he could either move witht he flow and remain an unnoticed part of the dream, coming back when he'd found the key, which would be the safe option. Or he could stop with the girl who'd just burst into tears and risk himself, hoping he found the key before anything bad happened. He chose the latter, sitting down across from her, running words through his mind all the time. He knew something was wrong, which gave him a headstart - he knew it was something to do with her having a future, or lack of it. He just needed to get down to specifics.

It still took her a few moments to notice him. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, and then kind of stared at Billy for a long moment. "It's all going to be gone." she said. Her voice was muted. Flat sounding in the dream, the nature of her own hearing making it sound worse than it was.

"Why?" Billy asked, simply, all the time keeping up an awareness of his environment, watching for changes whilst refraining from showing any sense of nervousness or anything save a cool, calmness as though this was exactly where he wanted to be.

"Because I have time and they don't. No one else has the time I do. So it's all going to be gone, and no one will be here but me and I don't want to be here when everything's gone, Billy, I don't want the time. Can I give it back?" she asked. "I don't want it, you can have it, you might want it, right? I don't want it."

"It's not my time," Billy said, though he knew that a year ago, if that had even been possible, he would have jumped at it. But Maddie was alive now and they'd been given the opportunity to grow old together, to have a family. To have all those things he'd resigned himself never to be able to have. "Is that what this is about - your future?" he asked her, refining his thoughts.

"I don't know if I deserve to have one, because of all this time." she said, still caught up in the dream. "I can't do this. There's all this time, and I don't know what to do with it. I'm not important, you know. It's all borrowed. I just didn't mean to borrow it, I'd like to give it back now."

"You can't give it back now - there's no way to do that. All you can do is live that time as best you can," Billy told her, sympathising with her and the situation she was in as he didn't think very many people in this world could. Sure, he came at it from the other side, but he knew the problems that arose when there was someone who was going to live, if not forever, then for a lot longer than any of their peers.

Thia wiped at her eyes as they teared up again, and hung her head. "I don't want to be left all alone, Billy." she said. She sounded miserable, which was how she felt. The whole dream around them pressed in a little closer, threatened to drown her out entirely. She curled up on herself in compensation for it.

"You've got a long time before you even have to think about that, Thia," Billy said, wishing he could tell when he was getting closer to the key, feeling the dream pressing down on him. He didn't want her to get upset - not only for her, but also because it could be dangerous for him.

"No, I don't have time, I thought I had time but I have to have the answers right now, it's important. I have to have the answers. But I don't know and I don't matter and I don't want this." she continued, curling up farther, arms going up over her head protectively, as things pressed in all the more.

Billy sorted through possibilities, moving on from the simple to a more advanced mix of things. The key was always a single thing, but he'd found over the years that a single things could actually be the coalescing of a multitude of different factors. That knowledge was what made him better at this - even if it also meant that these days he rarely actually knew what the key was anymore. He simply ran through endless lists of possibilities until the dream unlocked - and by then he was usually past whatever had worked and onto the next idea. It didn't matter to him, it was the end result which was important, and it was that end result that happened then and there, as the dream changed, the power flooding into him and the crowds melted away, the landscape shrinking and lightening, the oppresive nature of things disappating.

She didn't react right away, she stayed curled up, but slowly she noticed the difference in the feel of the air around her, and she looked around. Focusing on Billy after a few moments, she bit at her lower lip. "I'm not feeling very good today." she said, still a little dream-addled, not fully 'aware' as of yet.

"Well, that much is clear - so... What's going on?" Billy asked her, changing the scene to the living room at his house, placing her in the corner of the couch there so she could curl up if she wanted. He himself took one of the arm chairs, settling himself down as the sun shone lightly in through one of the large windows, giving an almost magical view out over the gardens which sloped gently downwards. That was one of the nicer things about being in Thia's dreams, he decided. It mean he could easily take them to his own house.

She relaxed back against the couch, only sort of vaguely noting that it didn't feel bad here like it usually did. It was distant, though. "I talked to Dean's mom. She thinks I haven't considered things." she said. "She wanted to know if I'd thought about my aging...or not aging. And if I really thought that I had a future with Dean." she explained. Or, that's how it had interpreted itself into her mind.

"...And you listened to her?" Billy asked, sceptically. He really hated it when people pulled that crap, he really did. When people assumed that that wasn't the first thing you thought about when getting involved when time was an issue. Even if it was something you didn't know whether it would last or not anyway, it was always there, always a consideration.

Thia didn't say anything for a few moments, hugging her knees to her chest, resting her chin down on them. She nodded after a moment. "It's his mom. She wants what's best for Dean." she tried to explain. "...I wouldn't feel so bad if I didn't think she was right." she admitted, looking down again, not wanting to make eye contact.

"What she thinks is best for Dean isn't always going to be the same as what's best for Dean," Billy told her. "What she wants is for Dean not to get hurt, right? You can't do that in life - you can want it all you like, but it's not going to happen unless you lock someone up and wrap them up in cotton wool and all that will do is make the person you're trying to protect miserable and stop them from having any life at all. She's not right. The only person who can decide what's right for Dean, is Dean and if he's got any sense at all, he won't listen to anyone who tries to tell him there isn't the potential for a future with you if he wants one. And if you want one," he said, firmly and with a wholehearted belief driven by the fact that this subject was one he felt passionate about.

She listened, the feeling of the conversation familiar. They'd discussed similar things before. Along these same lines. And it was before she'd ever gotten involved with Dean romantically. Yes, she had thought about it. She'd thought about all of it. She was quiet for a long time. "She made me feel like I shouldn't have one. A future. Not just with Dean, with anyone. Because of what I am, and the....the sixteen forever thing. The years thing. Or maybe she didn't add that in and I did. I don't know. It's a little confusing. I just know she took the fears I have deep down and dragged all of them up and dangled them in front of me. Like I'd never considered it. I don't know. I know she's just looking out for him." But that didn't help how she felt. "I didn't know I was meant to have the answers to all of this already. We just started, we're only sixteen, am I supposed to have all of this cut and dried already? Did I miss a step?" she asked.

"You're too forgiving," Billy told her. "Stop adding 'she's just looking out for him' onto everything. You're not helping yourself doing that and it doesn't make her any more or you any less valid. And no, you didn't miss a step. And you're not meant to have this figured out already." He had, at her age. He'd known what he wanted and had stubbornly stuck to that, but that didn't mean that everyone else would and he wasn't going to sit here and tell her she should have done.

"I feel like I need to ask him, but...I can't right now. Not with everything else going on. He's doing a good job, he's making progress and he's doing better, I can't lay this on him. And if he knew where it was coming from, he might get mad. And I don't even know who at. But what if he hasn't thought about it at all? And what if he does, when I ask, and the answer is that we should quit now because it's never going anywhere? Or what if I ask, and he thinks it's all way too much pressure, because we just started being together, and I just...I don't know. It's all really, really confusing and I just...hurt. And don't know what to do. And don't know if she's right, and don't know what that means. And I don't like everything it's brought up for me." she rambled. "Does she really think I haven't stared down eternity? Eternity at sixteen? That I just...skipped that part when I was cut out from my entire life and set aside someplace else? How could I not have considered all of this? I just---" she broke off, stopping herself from adding in again that she knew the woman's intentions were pure.

"I'm sure you didn't skip that part. And I know you've thought about it. I know we've talked about it. And I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself," Billy told her, being upfront and honest about that. "Look, if this hadn't happened. If you were still sixteen and at school and everything had stayed the way it had been, would whether you had a long term future with your boyfriend or not ever have even come up?" He almost wanted to ask whether she was one of those girls who spent math class doodling hearts on the back of their books and trying out what Mrs [insert name of latest crush here] looked like written down, maybe practising their new signature. he just didn't know how to put that sensitively.

"No, but that's hardly the point. It's a little different now. I mean...I can't even go outside. I don't even really know what he's gonna say when he gets home. Like...I think he'll say he's got a girlfriend, to people at school and such, but it isn't like he could even have anyone meet me. And y'know, there is that whole age thing. His mom asked what would happen when he was like...forty." she said. Sighing, she dragged her fingers through her hair and settled her gaze on Billy. She gave a humorless little half smile. "I'd ask if meeting people's parents was always this traumatic, but something tells me you didn't get to meet Maddie's."

"I didn't get to meet Maddie's parents - I might have met her great, great granddaughter. She taught at your school," he offered, with a quirky smile. "Look, Thia - it may be a little different now, but it's still the case that you're both sixteen and even with the issues you face... Do you even know whether you'd want to be with Dean at forty? And even then, that's not a question anyone actually expects you to have the answer for either. I say just go with it and what happens, happens. Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't - but just because you're still going to be sixteen when he's an old man doesn't mean that you can't be together. Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't have that."

Her internal answer to his question about whether she'd want to be with Dean when he was older was 'yes'. It just wasn't something she considered so heavy. Definitely not like his mom had been implying, or made her feel like. She knew there were potential issues, and they'd need dealing with but right now? She was happy. And she was happy just dealing with one day at a time with Dean, and not stressing herself out, worrying about a future that well...it was distant. They'd been through situations where they'd wondered if people would survive the night. She'd been shot and killed. She was a girl who very much appreciated the here and now. And she didn't feel the need to start laying the future out and mapping it. What Billy said though--she needed to hear that. She'd really, really needed to hear it. "Thank you." she said. "I needed..." she frowned, sitting up slightly. Was a shadow in the corner?

"Everyone tried to tell me that I should be with Maddie. Everyone - including Maddie..." Billy started, before he felt the change in the dream, the twitch that, even though it was behind him, the control and total awareness he had of the dream told him of an intruder. He stood and turned, the darkened corner lighting up as he did so - revealing a shadow creature standing there. "Fuck," Billy breathed. This wasn't part of the dream - this wasn't part of this dream.

Standing, Lullaby looked around Billy. "....what do we do?" she asked, voice a bare whisper, as if she didn't want to attract it's attention, but that was a moot point, as it started to head for them anyways.

"I'll take care of this," Billy said, changing the dream as he did so. A gunshot echoed around the room. That was possibly the strangest one for a long time, he decided as he didn't even need the gun to punch a hole through the torso of the shadow creature - the oddity of being in the dream of someone who knew what it was to be fatally shot. The creature disappeared, fading into nothingness just as it had done in reality.

Watching it dissolve, die, whatever they did, she frowned, not taking her eyes off of that spot for a long moment. "I've never seen one of them here. Or, not that I remember. I guess I could have dreamed about them and forgotten about it. But...that kinda...that was different, wasn't it." she said, it not really being a question. She couldn't help that her first thought was that they needed Dean if they were going to deal with this. She quickly shoved it away, as first off probably being manifestly untrue, and second, that even if it was true, she wasn't doing that to him. Even in a dream.

"No - that wasn't part of your dream," Billy told her, keeping his eyes rooted to the spot where the shadow had been and turning up the lights on the entire dream. It was all ambient light, sourceless and directionless, banishing all the natural shadows. He also added hearing for her, filtering sounds through his own ears so that he didn't have to worry about what she could and couldn't hear. The Billy here was a lot more prepared and confident that the Billy who had been confronted by shadows in the real world. "I've never seen one of them in dreams before - any dreams," he told her, not looking round.

She twitched a little bit, and reached up to touch her ear, noticing the difference immediately, and at first she had the natural thought that it was her hearing aids, but that wasn't the case. Generally, she really liked when Billy changed her dreams so she could hear properly, but right now she was a little too tense to enjoy it. She was looking around, turning in a slow circle, remaining in close to Billy. Even if there was a massive difference between Billy-out there and Billy-in here, she had that initial kick up of being protective. He'd needed protecting when things went badly. She and Dean had protected people. Stood watch. She'd had a shotgun pointed down the stairs. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that isn't a good sign." she said. "Should you...I mean, do you need to go?" she asked, not sure what might happen otherwise, but she was ever aware of the fact that Billy could get hurt in dreams.

"We always had two hours between them being here," Billy reminded her, though he knew that time didn't mean anything in dreams, it never had done. He wasn't sure how it would work here, or why that thing had appeared. "It doesn't make sense - I've walked before now. After they came. I've never seen them in dreams..." He didn't want to leave Thia here if it was going to be dangerous for her. But, then again, he hadn't heard of shadow things killing people in their own dreams anyway. A dreamer was generally safe in their own dream - it was only what he was there, when he had control, that things got dangerous for them.

"We had two hours because they had to travel, through...mirrors...but...are there even mirrors here?" Lullaby asked, because...well, it was a room, but was the whole house existent here? She didn't think so, but she could be wrong. She stopped as she saw a shadow seeming to draw itself in through the wall. Or through the fabric of the dream, she had no idea what. It just looked to her like it had to pull itself through.

"No there are no.. right," Billy said, abandoning his answer as he saw the shadow appearing. That was a new one - but the fabric of dreams was different to that of reality. He stepped in front of Thia. "You should probably try and wake up now," he advised her.

"Try and wake up? How am I supposed to do that?" Lullaby asked, not sure how to do that in any form. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see another shadow coming out of a wall, and another a little further down. ...she was going to have to learn really fast. "What happens to you if I do?"

"I go away. And I don't know how you do it. Some people can," Billy told her, trying the same trick again. Again, the shadow disappeared, but this time was immediately replaced by another two emerging through the wall. "I don't want to just leave you here."

"Right...um...okay...trying..." she said, but how did you even go about attempting that? Just tell yourself to wake up? She tried that, but it didn't work. Maybe it was because this didn't feel like a dream. More shadows came closer, and she backed into Billy, feeling more surrounded now than she even had earlier in the dream.

Billy abandoned his initial efforts - against a group they were of no use. A shotgun appeared in his hands and he aimed it at the group in front of him, firing off. It was one of those things - in real life, he'd never been able to get the hang of a shotgun. In dreams, it just did exactly what he wanted - which was to take the two before them out.

She was looking around behind them and saw one coming up. "Billy--" she started, pushing him back and reflexively putting her arm up to protect her eyes when claws slashed towards them. They bit in, glancing through the underside of her forearm. Pain fired up bright and immediate, and she went to grab Billy so they could run, or something, but it catapulted her out of her dream as she sat upright, making a short little cry, arm immediately cradled to her chest, hand clapping over where she'd been hurt.

Billy knew nothing more, save that the dream suddenly went away. His sleeping form slept on, dreamless and safe from the things which had attacked them. Dean, however, woke as Thia moved and cried out, immediately alert, sitting up, propping himself behind her. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice muzzy with sleep, but still with an air of concern.

She had to give herself a second to answer, heart threading far too fast in her chest, and she still had her arm held. "Nothing, just a..." she started, but then noticed that the pain hadn't faded, and oh hey look--her hand felt wet. She turned it over and leaned a little to hold it out into the moonlight, where she could see blood there, dark and blackish in that light. She quickly brought her arm back in against her chest--because her first thought there was that she didn't want to get blood on the sheets.

Dean caught sight of the blood and shifted round, in front of her, taking hold of her arm and trying to get her to move it so he could take a better look. He reached behind them and flicked on the bedside light. "Just a what?" he asked, frowning.

She let him, though the angle was awkward, since it was the underside of her left arm. "A dream." she said, frowning. "Don't get blood on the sheets...I wouldn't wanna try explaining to your mom..." she started, realizing that was just a little irrational of her, but she was still kind of waking up. Before when Billy had been in her dreams, she'd kind of talked to him, then her dreams had faded back into being dreamlike. She was having slight trouble this time because when he was there, things didn't feel so much like dreams. They felt real, and this was real, and so she was playing catch-up. She also needed to hear, so she leaned over really awkwardly and tried to grab her hearing aids, and put those in. She managed to snag them.

Dean let her go long enough to pull off his t-shirt and wrap it round her arm. "Don't worry - I'll make sure it gets into the wash without her seeing it," he told her before she could say anything. "And what kind of dream leaves you bleeding?"

"I don't know, Billy came to visit, and we were talking and all of a sudden, the shadow monsters showed up. And they were kind of coming on in force, and one kinda...clipped me I guess." she said, now starting to feel slightly more with it as she let him do whatever he was going to do with her arm. "And I woke up, because it hurt." she explained. "I thought I just woke up because I was scared, and Billy told me to try and wake up. But...I guess not." Obviously. She wondered how messed up it was that she was in pain right now, but she could kind of...not necessarily ignore it? But she wasn't going to burst into tears or anything. When had being injured in some fashion become normal enough to almost blow off?

"Come on," Dean said, pushing the covers back and climbing out of bed, taking her with him. "Let's go to the bathroom, so I can take a look at this for you," he told her, keeping a hold of the t-shirt round her arm. He didn't really like what he was hearing, but Thia and bleeding came before that.

She went with him, keeping quiet as they made their way to the bathroom, and she saved speaking til the door was closed. "I'm okay." she told him, since she didn't know if she'd said so already. Possibly afraid to go back to sleep, but she was physically probably okay. It didn't feel like her muscle had been severed or anything that horrific. She kept her eyes on Dean, feeling bad about things. She was meant to not be putting any kind of stress on him, and now this, totally by accident. God, was Billy okay? He was like God there, right? She'd seen all the things he could do...and he'd said he'd go away, so at least he wouldn't be there anymore and maybe they couldn't follow.

Dean ran some water and waited for it to warm a little before starting to clean her wound. It wasn't as bad as he'd first feared, but he still didn't like this situation. "Why were those shadow things in your dream anyway? And how the hel... How did this end up going all Nightmare on Elm Street on you?" he asked, changing tack and trying not to get all worked up about things. The last thing she needed was him being stressed at her right now.

Lullaby let him do whatever he was going to do, just placing herself wherever was convenient for him to do that. She peered at the scratches too. They looked clean...which, why wouldn't they be, they just magically appeared on her body. They also didn't look really that bad, and she'd had worse. Much much worse. She ticked her eyes back to Dean again, watching him and trying to monitor the line situation. "I don't know why they were there. They haven't been there before that I remember. And if they were, they didn't do this." she said. She was pretty sure she'd have noticed, and all. "We were just talking, I don't know why my dreams went all...what you said. Nightmare on Elmstreet." She paused. "Dean, I'm fine. They're not that bad." she said gently, leaning over to press a kiss to his bare shoulder. She was freaked, and she was fairly positive that she was not going back to sleep tonight by any stretch of the imagination, but...she wasn't gushing. She had all her limbs and everything. It could have been worse. ...and now she was wondering more about worse, and if this was going to leak to him. Did it happen to her because of what she was? Did it come in because of Billy? She couldn't tell if they'd been after anyone specific.

"I know they're not that bad," he said, again trying to control his tone of voice. He finished wiping the scratches with a washcloth and dried her arm off. The bleeding looked like it had stopped. "It's just that it happened at all, Thi," he told her, resisting the urge to pull her into him and not let her go. He was trying to play down how freaked he was about the fact she'd got injured in a dream - no matter how lightly.

She'd been clingy before they'd gone to bed, and kind of ever since she'd talked to his mom, and that kicked up again a bit, though she didn't go with it. At least it was for different reasons this time. She supposed that was something. "I don't know what to say. This hasn't ever happened before. I didn't know it was possible at all. Billy looked like he knew what he was doing? He told me to wake up, he said he'd go away, so I'm guessing he's okay...like my dream must have ended so...sorry I don't know that much about this. Or not enough, I guess. I didn't think this could happen." she rambled, even if her tone was light.

"Did he say where they came from? What they were doing there - if he knew what he was doing, he must have known something," Dean pushed, though he was still reining in from full-on demanding to know everything that had gone on. The jury was still out on whether he was just about to phone Billy and grill the guy on what the hell he thought he was doing.

"He said he'd take care of it--the first one, and he did. And he said that it wasn't part of my dream." Lullaby said, having to kind of dig into her mind to get the information. "...he said he'd never seen one in dreams before either." she added, recalling that. "He was saying it didn't make sense, he'd never run into them before, even after we dealt with them in the real world." she continued. "They weren't coming through mirrors though, like...through the walls instead." Which she just hoped he understood since it didn't make much sense.

Dean wasn't happy about any of this, but he tried not to let that show - even though he knew what a waste of time that was since he was sure he was just exuding dark lines right about now. But he was trying anyway. He'd definitely be talking to Billy at some point. "Well, since we're up now, we should watch a movie or something," he suggested, trying to appear like he was moving on. One thing was for damn sure, he wasn't going back to sleep - if she did, then he was watching her, but he doubted very much that she'd want to sleep either. Not until they figured out what the hell was happening here.

Watching a movie sounded...funnily like avoiding things. She looked down at her arm, then shifted and washed her hands, to get the blood off of her other one. "You really want to watch a movie?" she asked lightly, watching him over her shoulder as she shut the water off. He was as a matter of fact pumping out blackness. She wasn't a fan. And she knew him. He was protective to begin with. What she was feeling was bad. And guilty. She wasn't supposed to be doing anything that stressed him out, and upset him, gave him more to deal with. And sure, alright, she'd had no idea that was a possibility here, but that wasn't the point in Thia-land.

"I don't want to go back to bed," he told her, which was the truth, if not the whole truth. What he wanted was to go and phone Billy. What he wanted was to not have to have that conversation in front of her. What he wanted was to not let her out of his sight in case something happened to her again, or the shadows reappeared - she'd been able to see them before he could the first time round, after all. What if they were coming back? What he wanted was to go check that his parents and his brother were all safe and sleeping soundly, then take a walk round to Andy's house to check the same, then Stu's. What he wanted was to call Caleb adn check on him as well - the list was endless and he knew he couldn't do it all. hell, some of it was entirely contradictory anyhow. He could feel the panic rising and a movie was just a deflection technique, a way of telling himself he was overreacting. But what if he should overreact? What if this was the precusor to something bad?

Lullaby reached over and flicked the light off, mostly because there was a mirror in the room, and while she had developed a talent at avoiding being seen in them, that didn't mean she wanted to chance it. She put her back to it entirely, and she moved to put her arms up around his neck. "I don't either. I wouldn't sleep." She'd want to watch him sleep. But she knew he wasn't going to be doing that. He was tense now. Worried. Possibly a few other things mixed in there that she didn't know how to read, and with the light off, had cut herself off from seeing at current. "What do you want to do?" she asked after a few moments. "Do you need me to do anything?" Like check on people. They'd have gotten calls if Oz and Sophie had noticed shadows...right?

"No, it's the middle of the night, I'll - I'll be right back," he said, pushing off and heading for the door, before coming back for her. "No - come on. Just - quietly," he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the bathroom, heading for Scott's room.

She followed, and caught on pretty fast. She paused, tugging back on his hand a moment. She hoped there was enough light to sign by, and she did so. You want to check, right? I can silently. No waking him up at all. she said. She'd done it when she hadn't wanted to wake him up. She was getting better at it. And sure, she didn't have a good pumped source of energy to tap into just now, but she'd been to the village with Dean, and castles held a charge, and she'd been picking things up here and there. And there was always him, who sustained her. ...and right now he was not in a good mood either way.

Yes, but I don't want to leave you, he signed back, slower than her as always, picking words he knew. He was getting better at sign, but it was always quite frustrating, not being able to say entirely what he meant.

Every so often, Dean did things like that, which just made her want to hug him tight and not let go. That right there qualified. She gave his hand a squeeze. I could be fast, but if you really don't want me to, I won't. They just might get a funny look from a sleepy Scott. Or...something, she didn't know. She was sure that if anything had happened, Dean would have heard it. But...who knew. In the world they existed in...apparently stupid shadow men in your dreams could cut you.

Dean took her hand and led her up to Scott's bedroom door, before turning back to her. Go. Come straight back to me, he told her, biting his lip. He didn't really like it, but it was sensible, a better plan and he shouldn't turn down a good plan just because he was an overprotective wanker who couldn't let go.

She nodded, and leaned closer to him to give him a brush of a kiss. Then she stepped back, and concentrated, fading as she did so. She drifted through the space beneath the door, and reformed herself on the other side of it, looking at the bed for a long moment. Scott was there, and sleeping soundly. She even waited just long enough to watch his chest rise and fall, so she was sure he was breathing, and everything. It wasn't like she could hear it. He looked fine. No signs of trauma or blood. If he was dreaming, it wasn't giving off bad vibes. Dissolving again, she faded back in in the hallway in front of Dean, almost where she'd faded out in the first place.

Dean didn't think he'd breathed all the time she'd been gone, though, really, she wasn't gone that long. He took a half step back as she reappeared, still not used to that, but then swayed straight back in again. Okay? he asked, simply, his heart in his mouth as he waited for the answer.

She felt a pang as he stepped back. She was glad when he stepped back in, but...she noticed it. She just couldn't afford to be feeling a little hurt over it just now. Especially since it was silly of her. She nodded. He's fine. Sound asleep. If he's dreaming, they're good dreams. she assured him. Your parents next? she asked.

He nodded and walked with her to their door, holding her hand all the way, as if that made any difference. He didn't look happy, his eyes downcast as he tried to remind himself that he was probably just overreacting. That Scott had been fine, that there was nothing he could do about the people back in Marquette anyway, even if there was anything wrong. That Billy lived with a witch who had way more abilities in that protective and helpful way than he ever would and sure, just because he'd been more use against the shadows in the first place than any of them then - this line of thought wasn't helping anything.

Thia kissed his cheek before she faded out this time, wanting to get it done fast. She went in the same way, and did the same thing. Both people were sleeping soundly, she waited to be sure they were breathing. No lines, no nothing, everything was about as fine as it could get. Then she was back out into the hall with Dean--though this time she faded back in farther back from him, in hopes of not inducing the same reaction from him this time. Both fine. she signed right away.

He blinked as she faded back in further back this time - he'd expected her to reappear where she'd left again, like she had last time and he'd prepared himself for that this time round. Still, he crossed the short distance, taking her hands again and pulling her into a hug for a moment before making himself let go. He was being far too clingy. He stepped back so he could sign - one thing to be said about that method of communication was that it stopped over-clinginess. Thank you. Downstairs? he suggested.

Any little hurt feelings she'd had kind of melted when he stepped up and hugged her. she hugged him back, and watched him sign, staying in kind of close. She sort of wished that he hadn't let go so soon. But that was probably lame of her. She was just...worried. You're welcome. she signed back. Then she glanced towards the stairs, and back to him. Is there anyone else you want me to check on? You know all you have to do is ask. Might take her longer, but she'd do it. Also, she needed to change her nightgown, because there were some bits of blood on it.

There were, but he wasn't willing to let her go that long, even if he walked right up to the houses with her. He was a twitchy bastard and he knew it. No. I can phone Billy. He needed to do that, he was just debating with himself whether it could wait until the morning though.

She nodded. I'm going to go change. she signed, tugging at her nightgown to indicate she didn't want to be wearing something that had blood spots on it. And actually, as much as she adored seeing Dean without his shirt on, where she could see the necklace against his chest, and...other things, she didn't figure he should be wandering around without one. There was a rather large scar on his back that he wouldn't want to have to explain. C'mon, you need a shirt too. She reached out to take his hands and leaned back, tugging him back towards their room.

She didn't need to pull him - he wasn't going to just let her go, but still, contact was good, and allowed when she initiated it, even when he was feeling he was being a clingy, overprotective bastard. Even now they were together, there were some times when he still held to that belief that more things were okay if and when she initiated them, which wasn't something he would ever be sharing with her, since he'd probably just get a lecture for that. He closed the door behind them as they got into his room and leaned back against it, closing his eyes for a moment, before pushing himself back up again and heading to grab a replacement t-shirt.

Her eyes were on him. She'd taken a few steps into the room when she'd realized that he'd stayed by the door, and she almost went back over, but he hadn't hesitated long enough to warrant it. She pulled her nightgown off, and put it over by her dirty clothes, and she looked for a long sleeved tshirt to wear. And in the end she wound up pulling on one of Dean's, along with some pj pants. Sure, the grey shirt and the little dragonflies didn't exactly match, but she was okay with that. She still liked borrowing his clothes, and right then she kind of wanted that comforted feeling she got from it. It was purely psychological lamery, but whatever. Then she headed back over to him.

The t-shirt Dean grabbed was also long sleeved - he'd been wearing nothing but shirts and long sleeved t's since he got his tattoo, and would be until they left here. He didn't need his parents freaking at him, which he was sure they would. He pulled it on over his head, then ran a hand through his hair, scruffing it back into place as he looked at her, liking she picked his shirt - he liked it when she wore his stuff, and he liked that he could like it now.

She walked over, and reached up to get her own hair back out of her eyes. Since it was long enough to be in her eyes now, at least a little. She would have reached forward and grabbed the cross to tug him forward for a little kiss, but it was harder to do when he had a shirt on. "I ever tell you you look really good just...having literally rolled out of bed?" she asked. It wasn't really an attempt to distract him. She knew right now she'd have to try a lot harder, and he might not be distractable at all. She just liked sharing her thoughts when given the opportunity.

"I need to phone Billy," he told her, never one to be distracted by compliments. In fact, it was his complete and utter tendency to simply ignore them, whatever the circumstances surrounding them.

She nodded. "Okay, let's phone Billy." she said, knowing he wouldn't be happy til he did that. He'd be distracted, mind a million miles away. ...or maybe just an ocean away. She headed for the door, to open it up, tugging him along by the hand so they could get downstairs and call. She would then work on trying to make him relax more. If everything was okay. She was telling herself everything was going to be okay. That right now, Dean couldn't deal with another crisis, so it was just going to have to wait.

He led her down to the kitchen and, having checked Billy's number, he dialled, letting go of her hand as it rang and turning away from her slightly, knowing she wouldn't quite be able to read his lips, but it might not be truly obvious that he was attempting to avoid that. He stood impatiently until the line was picked up, and then spoke at a volume where he was fairly sure she wouldn't properly be able to hear him either, but that wasn't whispering.

Thia wasn't stupid, she knew what he was doing. He didn't want her hearing his end. Which had her wondering if he was yelling at Billy. ...or Dean's version of 'yelling' which extremely rarely involved anything resembling a raised voice. She got herself a glass of ice water while he was doing that, moving to sit up on the countertop, sipping at it. Her eyes kept drifting over towards him, wanting to know how things were. How the lines were, if they changed at all. Got worse, better...any changes.

Dean didn't enjoy his conversation with Billy. He kept his tone controlled, but the gist of what he was saying was to ask what the hell the dreamwalker thought he was doing and all but threatening what would happen if anything happened to Thia. He didn't go that far, but that was only becasue he wasn't entirely stupid, and anyway, he wanted information out of the guy. Which he got, of a sort. The sort that was the fact there was little to give. Billy had never known anything like this before. He didn't know why it happened now. He didn't know Thia was hurt, and he hadn't wanted her to be hurt and was she okay - which got a very brusque response from Dean that yes she was. And then the parts that made him feel slightly better before he hung up and turned back to Thia to impart the news he'd garnered.

Lullaby listened, and nodded, reaching out for his arm absently as he spoke to her. She slid his sleeve up, and dipped her fingertips in the water she'd gotten, sliding them gently along the outer edge of his healing tattoo. There was the blueish hued flash, which satisfied her that he was safer again. She would have liked to have spent more time touching it, but she would ever only do so as lightly as possible, and if anyone came downstairs...so she carefully tugged his sleeve back into place. At the end she wasn't sure what to say, considering she didn't really know if that meant everything would be okay, or what. So she waited to see what Dean's next move was going to be.

"So, basically - from what Billy said, as long as he's nowhere near your dreams, you shouldn't be able to be hurt at all in them," Dean told her. Which wasn't exactly what Billy had said - but that's what Dean had taken from it. That Billy was Bad News in Thia's dreams and he didn't want the dreamwalker going anywhere near her and he'd said as much - something which Billy had agreed to, which hadn't mollified Dean that much, but it had helped calm him down a little.

Lullaby looked sad at that. It was kind of her best connection to home. He could call if he wanted. Hear people's voices, had the ability to communicate complicated things by picking up the phone. She couldn't. It had been nice to be able to have Billy come to her. Now she wouldn't have that. Or, well, if Billy listened to Dean she wouldn't. But at least Billy hadn't been hurt. So there was something. "Feel any better?" she asked, watching his eyes. The lines had been having a crazy dance party as he'd been on the phone, though they'd toned it down towards the end of the call. Still. Just because she could see it didn't mean she didn't want to hear it from him.

"Less likely to be starting to brew extra-strong coffee," Dean told her with a shrug. He knew he'd still be twitchy about sleeping though, wanting to make sure she was okay. In his usual style, he was less concerned about his own wellbeing.

She tugged him in closer, so she could give him a hug. "That's a start." she said. "I'm sorry I woke you up, and...about everything in general. I know it wasn't my fault, but...still. I know you don't really need the stress." Quiet for a few moments, she tried to figure out what to do next. How to get him to relax some. Normally would be the time she tugged him into the closet. He really needed his damn closet here too. How often had she wished they had access to it?

"Don't do that," Dean told her, pulling back a little and frowning down at her. "Don't say you want to keep things from me like that. And don't be sorry," he told her, his arms still loosely round her, not letting her go entirely. And for all his words were an admonishment, it was a light one.

She looked up into his eyes. "I wouldn't have kept it from you." she promised. She might just have taken care of it herself and told him in the morning. Slightly less traumatic than being woken up and finding someone you're highly overly protective of bleeding. "I'm just--" she stopped herself there, not wanting to get into a ramble or anything. "I wouldn't have kept it from you or wanted to keep it from you. I just know that you don't need another thing to worry about. Especially something like...like this." That they couldn't control, that had wound up with her hurt--which he always hated--and which had happened totally at random. Oh yeah and was supernatural in nature.

"Let me decide what I do and don't need to worry about," he told her, gently. "You know if you hadn't told me straight off I would have just been shitty when I found out. So, I may as well know now, when I don't have to worry about not having been there for you when you might have needed me. And when I know that you're okay. And we've sorted things out a little," he said, reasonably.

"Yes, I know if you'd found out later you wouldn't have been very happy." she agreed. She certainly wouldn't have been if situations were reversed. "And you're always there when I need you." she said. The only time she could really think of that he hadn't been was the night of the new moon, and he hadn't known anything was going on. That and even if he had shown up, she wouldn't have agreed to see him. Other than that, he was very there. It was just how he worked.

"Course I am," Dean told her, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. Which, for him, it was. You were there when people needed you. You were always there.

Internally, Lullaby was thinking that that's what she had been talking about when she'd been talking to Dean's mom. This right here. It wasn't being naive, it was him being Dean. Dean, who just automatically put things in that light. Where as there were in fact people in the world who wouldn't always be there. But that wasn't how it worked with him. This was part of what set him apart. And, thinking about that, she just...smiled at him. It was a soft expression, and she hugged him. Like she had a few times earlier. Yesterday? What time was it, even? She didn't know.

Dean returned the hug, holding her to him for a few minutes, before pulling back. "So, how about that movie?" he suggested, gently. He was less worried about going back to sleep now, but still, he doubted either of them would do so easily.

She felt like they were skipping a step. And again, knew what it was. The going into the closet to curl up and talk about things. A movie really wasn't going to hold her attention, but at the same time, what else could they do? They didn't have any real privacy. They could go back upstairs to talk, but if they were talking, they might wake people up. And she didn't really want to alarm anyone with explanations of crazy dream injuries. "We can." she said. Then she bit her lip. "But you know I want to ask you how you're doing and what's going on in your head, right?" she asked lightly.

"Right," Dean said, agreeing with that. It was totally her, she always wanted to know, he just didn't know what to tell her here. Didn't know how to explain without coming across as an over-protective boyfriend who was stifling her and telling her what she could and couldn't do. He didn't want to be That Guy.

"So...how are you, and what's going on in your head?" she asked softly, looking up at him. She hated that she felt exposed where she was. She'd never felt that way, even when they'd talked about heavy things back at Sophie and Oz's house. Because they had. There was the night that they'd been moving her room around, and looking for sheets, and they'd wound up having a serious talk right out in the hallway. One of those ones where he'd just pulled her down to sit on his lap, and they talked. But here, it just...even behind a shut door it didn't lend the feeling of...safety. Privacy.

He smiled slightly at that. "I'm okay - worried," he told her. "But, y'know - that's nothing new, right? It'll - I'll be fine. We just need to know more about dreams, is all," he added, trying to explain without it being focused on him.

She nodded, watching his eyes as he spoke. "I know you're worried." she agreed. And it wasn't anything new. He did that. "Maybe we can look it up sometime. Maybe it was just a random, freak occurance. Or maybe it's something with me or something...I know I've heard of...what is it. Psychosematic? Maybe it was that. Billy set up a safe place for me in my dreams, maybe I just need to kind of try and concentrate on that before I fall asleep, and I'll be more likely to dream about it, and then I'd be fine." It was a theory, plus, if it helped to think about, she wanted it out there. She would give it a shot. It couldn't hurt anything.

"Or maybe those shadow creatures found a way into your dreams," Dean added, because he couldn't and wouldn't dismiss that as a possibility. "I'm going to ask around, see if anyone else has seen anything weird lately." And the idea that she's somehow hurt herself in dreams, that didn't help at all. If anything, that made him more worried than before, even if she had a safe room to go to.

"Do you want me to check the mirrors?" she asked. Both just the reflection, and inside, though she really didn't want to go there. She hated it there and wanted to avoid it like the plague. But, if it made him feel better, she would. She just didn't think it would make him feel better. She knew he hated it when she was in there just as much as she did. So she was figuring he was going to tell her no on that score. But she had to offer anyways. Because that was where they came from, so if there was a ready source to check, it was there.

"No, I don't," Dean told her, not having to pause to think about that one at all. "It's not going to help anything and..." He fell silent, considering for the first time what would happen if the shadows started to come again. If they started to come out of the mirrors, if they were attacking his family. He closed his eyes against that thought, his chest constricting.

She could see the kind of explosion of black from him, and she reached out to draw him in closer again. "Do you want to go put little cracks in all the mirrors?" she asked. "Or wait? Or...anything you want done here, I'll help you with. I don't think this is the same as what happened before, there was warning before." Days of paranoia. What she was doing, however, was shoving back her own anxieties over it. Because being surrounded and all, that was not a good feeling. And the cuts...while minor, were still there. She just didn't want to give in to panic, and make everything worse.

"Would little cracks even work? How smashed does a mirror have to be for them not to be able to get through it anyway? The ones before - they were pretty damn smashed." A bullet would generally do that. "And yeah, we got notice last time - but they didn't appear in dreams either. Maybe it's different this time, or maybe they've found another way and we don't know what happened to make them go away in the first place." He took a breath. "Or maybe I'm just completely fucking overreacting here."

"You might be a little bit." Lullaby admitted, voice gentle. "We don't have reason to panic yet. It's different, but so far it's just this one incident. I'll check reflections, see if I see them in there. And tomorrow you can talk to people, and see if it happened anywhere else, and if it did, we'll work out how it's related to one another. We'll work it out." She didn't know how broken a mirror had to be to make it unhealthy for them. for that matter, she didn't know if a crack would stop her from moving through a mirror. Maybe it would be the same, either way. Hm. But she didn't suggest it right then, Dean had been pretty clear there.

Dean picked up his phone and quickly typed in a text message, sending it off to the obvious people. He hoped he didn't wake them up - or maybe he hoped that he would. It all depended what was going on, after all. But it made him feel like he was doing something. Doing something, but not overreacting. Overreacting would have been a phonecall. "We'll work it out," he agreed, setting the phone back down again.

She nodded, still monitoring him somewhat. She wanted to make this better somehow, but knew there wasn't anything she could really do. So she was left feeling helpless. It wasn't a good feeling by any stretch of the imagination. She just hoped it wasn't the start of anything major. An isolated incident, that would be good. Of course, this would be a lot easier to deal with if they even knew what the shadow creatures were. Or why they'd been around in the first place, or what they wanted, or why they'd randomly gone away in the first place. But it was a mystery. She wanted to hug him in again but didn't want to cling. So, she didn't, she slid down off of the counter silently instead, not entirely sure what to do next, and still feeling like they were shunted. Stopped from doing the full talk. Or maybe there was just no more to discuss and she was flailing on that score for no reason.

She wasn't the only one feeling helpless. That was the root cause of Dean's current reaction - he felt helpless, and he felt like he was overreacting because of it. Not a good combination. He just didn't know how to react to this. Before, there'd been something he could do. There'd always been something he could do. Here, well, he'd done everything he could do without stepping into total loony territory. "Sorry," he said, eventually, knowing she was worrying about the fact that he was worrying about her. It was a stupid circle to be trapped in, but knowing that didn't help at all.

"It's okay." she told him softly. "I know you're just worried. And it'd be worse if you didn't care or something." she teased, very lightly, nudging his side. "I just keep wishing we could go curl up in your closet. Right now feels like closet-time." she admitted. It was really the most major loss of being here. It kept coming up for her too. Hell, earlier when she'd been upset, she'd kind of wished she could go hide in there herself. She'd done it from time to time.

"Worried and... Back in Marquette I'd be heading for Nevermore. Or Caleb's. Maddie's - trying to find someone or something that could help, y'know? Here - we have nothing." he shrugged and looked at her. "Not even a closet," he agreed. Or a gun, if it was needed. God - it was only the other day he was thinking he'd never pick the thing up again, and now he was faced with a situation where he wanted it there, just in case.

"Back in Marquette we'd have a lot of options to go through." she agreed lightly. She leaned back against the counter. She could go get him anything he wanted, and she might offer that in a while. Get something from Nevermore, or...anything from Maddie. Maybe she could work up a protection spell they could put on this house. Lullaby wasn't sure they'd have to know about it, if it was just kinda general protection stuff. Then she decided to go back on her decision that she'd say something later. "You know I could go back. See what could be found at Nevermore, and ask Maddie about a protection spell for this house." she said. She didn't especially like the idea of hopping back and forth but she'd do it. She didn't like the idea of leaving Dean alone for a while, even if she knew that was ridiculous.

"I... don't particularly like that idea when what we might be facing are those shadow things again," he told her, honestly, but refusing to allow himself a flat no, which was his gut feeling on the subject. He didn't like her going somewhere that involved mirrors when he couldn't be there with her.

She looked at him a long moment. What she wasn't saying was that she was going to have to go through a mirror to get home anyways. And she didn't say that it meant they didn't have any resources to latch onto. "But if we are, we might need something to help." she said. "And wouldn't you feel better if the house was protected anyways? I mean, we can wait. Maybe Maddie can send something, and other people can go to Nevermore and look things up. It just..." It took things out of their hands, and they weren't very good at that. It flew in the face of their standard mode of operation. She and Dean weren't types who sat back and let other people do things, they tried to do it themselves. Even when there were perfectly capable adults around.

"I know," he confirmed. He knew what she was saying, and he didn't like the idea of sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Though, realistically, that's what he'd be doing if he let her go off without him, wouldn't it? "Do you want to go?" he asked her, turning it round on her, handing her that decision.

She didn't answer him right away, sighing, and reaching up to tug her fingers through her hair. "I don't know. I know it feels weird to not go. It feels weird to leave things for other people to do. But I don't like doing mirror-things unless I have to. I don't like it there, and it..." scares me. That wasn't going to be a good thing to say to Dean. "So I don't know. I can see it both ways, I guess. I don't want to leave you for long either but I'd be gone for however long it took to get things done, then whenever I got back, I'd be out for the count again."

"Having you out for the count for a few hours would be the least of our worries," Dean told her. He could help out a little with that and curling up with her would be something he'd want to do anyhow. And in Marquette, she'd emerge in the orphanage, so she wouldn't feel too bad there. He just didn't like letting her go like that.

Well, if I'm going to be consistently attacked in dreams, being out for the count for too long could be very much a worry. went through Lullaby's mind. Well hey, wasn't that a fucking awful thought. And because she didn't hide things terribly well, it flickered over her expression. "I think right now it'd be best to wait it out." At least til she could sleep again, and see if anything weird happened, or if it was just a one-off, and generally weird but not consistent.

"What?" Dean asked, catching the look which flashed across her face. "You thought of something then - what is it?" if there was something else, some other angle he was missing here, he wanted to know about it now.

She didn't hesitate, because if she did, he'd not be happy about it. She just didn't like where the thought had led her in the first place, and knew he would like it even less. "Worst case scenario, if this is consistent for me, if I'm going to be dealing with shadows in my dreams who can hurt me--being out for the count could be very, very bad for me." she said, voice light.

Dean looked at her and then turned, leaving her as he crossed the kitchen and grabbed the kettle, taking it to the sink and starting to fill it with water, then he switched it on to boil. Opening another cupboard, he started fishing round for a mug, his back to her.

She blinked at that reaction, not having expected it. though, really, she wasn't sure what she had been expecting. So...that confused her. But at least she didn't see a huge change in the blackness around him. Walking up behind him, she lightly touched his back, but didn't say anything just yet, not sure what to say. She almost felt like she'd done something wrong, and couldn't say why. Or what, for that matter.

Dean spooned a couple of heaped teaspoons of instant coffee into a mug and slopped over some boiling water, before turning and handing it to her. "So, we were talking about far too much caffeine then. Does that even work on fades?" he asked, trying to give her a smile, though it wasn't a very big one.

She took the mug, still looking just a little confused. She kind of didn't like how he'd worded that. 'work on fades'. Why, she didn't know. Maybe because usually he didn't refer to her as such, she was her, not a thing, but then again, she was probably just being overly sensitive. "You want me to caffeinate myself?" she asked, wrapping her hands around the mug. "And I don't know if it does or not...I haven't had a lot of it since I became one." she answered him. She didn't really eat or drink a lot of anything, definitely not enough to notice.

"If you think you might be attacked again in your dreams? I'm not a fan of you sleeping right now," he told her. "So, yes - I want you to caffeinate yourself. Either that or we can leave now and start walking until we find a bus going in the direction of the nearest graveyard and we can just stay there til we work this out. Think if I take Scott's laptop I'd be able to get wifi there?" he asked, actually serious about all of this. It'd make research easier if they did. he had a phone, so he could call people as well. Whatever it took, at the end of the day.

"There's my laptop too..." Lullaby said first, because it was the first thing that she could articulate that she didn't have to think about first. She sipped at the coffee anyhow--and had to kind of marvel. Instant coffee in england and instant coffee back home were not members of the same species, because this stuff was actually good. "And I don't know if I would be again, I just know it's a possibility. I didn't say if I thought it was likely or not. And we're not staying in a graveyard. And...Dean, shouldn't we test this first?" she asked, a little bewildered, but trying to keep up. "Like, you stay awake when I fall asleep for a bit, to see if I happen to have any problems? If I didn't and it didn't wake me up, you could. But we won't know at all until then, and..." And he needed to slow down a little, she thought.

Dean gave her a look which looked almost lost, very little boyish in nature. "...What if I can't wake you up?" he asked, his voice quiet, but audible. He was scared - if this was going to happen when she slept, he wasn't going to be able to help her there. And knowing that the worst that could happen is that she'd die and come back the next day? Didn't help anything at all.

He broke her heart sometimes. He really did. Like that look right there did it pretty effectively. She set the mug down on the counter, and put her arms up around his neck, hugging him. She did that for a few long moments before she even tried to come up with a response. Mostly because she didn't have a good answer, beyond logic, and she knew this current situation kind of defied that in the first place. "I woke up this time. It didn't take much. But...if you want me to not sleep, I can not sleep. You know I don't need that much of it anyways and...it'll be okay. I can stay awake until we know more, okay?" she promised, because that lost thing with him just killed her. So she wanted to do absolutely anything to make it go away. So...agreeing to stay up? Yeah. She could do that.

God - how unreasonable did he feel right then, when she put it like that. It had been exactly what he'd been asking for, of course, but to put it that bluntly and openly... "We just need to know more about what happened. If it's just - if it's Billy. If it's him doing the dreamwalking thing, then - that's avoidable. But... Maybe... Isaac said that he saw them in the inbetween, or something like them. Maybe - maybe they got pissed or something when you came here, came this far. I dunno. Maybe it's you they're looking for."

"I have no idea." Lullaby said. "I know that they're in there. Like I said, I could go see. Find out if they're like...waiting or something." she said. "I'd only be in a second, and we'd at least have one piece of that mystery cleared up. Because if they're looking for me, I'm sure they'd know when I came through." she continued. Or, the logic seemed to be sound, anyhow. But I don't think we'd be able to find out if it was just Billy unless he came back." she added. "...and you've already said that he won't be doing that, I'm sure you told him not to." She sighed, reaching up to drift her fingers through his hair. "I hope you weren't too hard on him."

Dean wasn't up for a discussion about what qualified as 'too hard'. He'd given the man a piece of his mind, that was for sure. And he'd made it clear just how unhappy he was. No doubt he'd come down overly hard, he'd probably been unreasonable, he knew he tended toward that, but he could feel bad about it later. "He said he wouldn't be do the dreamwalking thing at all until he'd figured out what the hell was going on," Dean told her, which was, in fact, the truth. Dean had told him not to go anywhere near Thia's dreams, but he knew he hadn't really needed to issue that warning. He'd felt the need to do it all the same, he would have felt cheated if he hadn't.

Lullaby wondered if that didn't just sweep the issue under the rug. If the factor was Billy, then they all probably needed to know. Sure, they didn't rely on Billy's dreamwalking all the time or anything, but she knew he had skills. And hell, just for her? He'd helped her a lot with it. So, they'd have to figure out what the common factor was, if it happened again. which meant they needed time, and to talk to everyone, probably. "Okay, so if it is Billy, then we...might not know until he does it again. If it's me, then...who knows." she noted that he'd skipped over the too hard on Billy thing. Also her talk of peeking in to see. "You didn't say whether or not I should peek into the inbetween really fast and see if they're in there."

"If it is Billy, then he'd be best to try in again in... say Oz' dreams," Dean said, changing his tack away from 'anyone else's dreams but you'. "If things are going to be attacking in dreams then - well, he's a werewolf, right? So he'd probably stand a better chance in defending himself than any of us lot. Makes more sense," he suggested. "As for... You know I don't like it. You in there. But - this isn't about me," he told her.

"Billy can do anything he wants in dreams. He's kinda...well. Like godlike I guess. There, anyways." Lullaby said, but she wasn't actually arguing. "But Oz' dreams would at least point out if it's Billy, or me. Maybe. If it happens. If this wasn't some weird random freak occurrence that we won't ever figure out." Because that was a possibility. She bit her lip and thought about things for a moment. "It might be the difference between worrying that they're after me, and finding out for sure, one way or another." she said. Which wasn't a decision one way or another, just an observation.

"Billy going into Oz' dream would answer that question as well," Dean pointed out.

"But if I just went and looked really fast, I'd be in really tiny, momentary danger. Otherwise, it might be putting Billy and Oz into more danger for longer. I didn't know how to wake up and end the dream. I did by accident because of the pain." she thought, at least. "Maybe Oz knows how or something, I'm not sure." she said honestly. She just knew the concept of 'wake yourself up now' was an alien one, both in and out of dreams. It was like trying to figure out how to make your heart beat, or how to breathe. it just happened normally you didn't actively do it.

Dean took a moment to breathe, then closed his eyes. "Then go," he said, with some effort. He didn't want her to, he woudn't pretend he would, but he wouldn't stop her either. She could make up her own mind, weigh up the risks, after all. He just really didn't like it.

Lullaby didn't say anything immediately. She'd been arguing her point, not necessarily jumping up to go. If he'd been able to fully logic her out of it, she'd have conceded the point but right. She didn't know the mirrors in the house very well though either. "Do you have a full length mirror somewhere?" she asked eventually. In and out. Fast. She'd have to be fast anyways, it was going to drain her and she didn't have a source that wasn't Dean.

Dean shook his head. "I dunno - probably just in mum and dad's room or something?" Dean said, wondering if there was one in his room. There'd never been, but then everything in there was new now, wasn't it? And he hadn't paid that much attention to the layout since he'd been back, other than it wasn't really his room anymore.

"Then we'll wait til later." she said. She didn't really want to crawl through the bathroom mirror. Especially because she didn't want to have to fall back out really fast and land on the counter or the floor heavy. Of course, part of her thought that maybe Dean would be there to catch her, but depending on the circumstances and all, he probably couldn't be that effective with said counter in the way. "Unless we hear from people and find out there's funny business going on elsewhere, and we don't have to." Because while she knew it wasn't a bad idea to do it, that didn't mean she relished the idea at all.

"Okay," Dean agreed, seriously hoping that he could find something out in the intervening hours that would mean she wouldn't have to do that. Miracles happened sometimes, didn't they? But probably only to other people, his brain added.

She gave him a light smile, and hugged him again, giving him a kiss on the cheek. she felt slightly better, slightly more like they'd actually discussed things instead of ignoring, or just glossing over. So that was good. She still was wishing for his closet, but she couldn't have everything, now could she. No. She grabbed up the mug again. "Now do you want to go curl up on the couch with me and watch a movie?" she asked lightly.

Dean nodded. That was exactly what he wanted to do. He needed something to distract him, to stop him feeling so helpless and stop his tendency to massively overreact. "Yeah, movie would be good," he agreed. "Just... Not horror stuff, okay?" he checked. He couldn't deal with that right now. His imagination didn't need the helping hand.

She tugged him forward and gave him a very light brush of a kiss. "No horror." she agreed. "Let's find something funny, or mindless actiony." she suggested. Something that didn't have major plot to follow, and could easily be watched for either the slapstick visual humor, or the shiny bright explosions and cg effects. She grabbed his hands and leaned back to tug him along, hoping it helped. She knew how hard it was to distract his attention away from things that were worrying him, but hey, now was a good time to start finding out what might do the job. Maybe she could sit behind him and rub his shoulders. That could be something. She liked doing that anyhow, and it had helped back home.

Dean went with her. Comedy or mindless action sounded good. He didn't think he'd be able to follow anything which had a real plot. More than anything it was just an attempt to fill in the time, at least try and distract himself. He was just trying, but he knew that if they'd been back in Marquette he wouldn't even be doing this - he'd be out and trying to work out what the hell was going on, middle of the night or no. But, things worked differently here.

Lullaby tugged them into the living room, and sat herself down at one end, back to the armrest, and she patted the cushion in front of her. "Sit down." she requested, figuring he could find whatever they were going to watch on tv, or put in a movie or whatever he was going to do there. She was aware her concentration wasn't going to be on it so it didn't matter to her what it happened to be.

Dean sat, reaching for the control and flicking the TV on, the picture fuzzing in a burst of static for a few moments before clearing again as he sat back, flipping channels until he got to something that vaguely looked film-like and stupid. That would do. He turned the volume down a little, not wanting to wake anyone up, and flipped the subtitles on for Thia.

She noticed the energy directed from Dean to the set when the picture fuzzed, and she internally sighed. Then she reached out, tugged him back a bit, and started to rub his shoulders. She wouldn't be able to get his whole back while he was leaning back against her, but if he wanted her to, he'd sit up. For right now, she just wanted to work at some of the tension held there, and in his neck, which felt to her like a lot. Her arm twinged a bit with the effort, but the cuts were clean, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Dean had set his phone down by his side as he'd sat down, but as she worked at his shoulders and the film played before them, he fidgeted with it, picking it up and turning it over in his hand, occasionally glancing down at the screen, pushing buttons to get the screen to light up occasionally, checking to see if he'd missed any messages or calls before reminding himself it was even more of the middle of the night in the US right now, and that everyone would be, hopefully safely, asleep and making himself put it down for a moment, before he twitched and started fidgeting all over again.

When he'd gone through the cycle about four times, she finally stopped what she was doing, and hugged him from behind, holding it for a moment. "Dean, they'll call when they get up." she said. "And if you're not going to be able to relax at all, then just call them. I'm sure no one'll be that upset with you for calling, and if they are, they'll get over it." she said calmly, rationally. "You already know that Billy knows something's up, which means Maddie'll know too. And if anything happened with Oz or Sophie, we'd have been told one way or another." she continued. "You need to calm down a little." she finished gently.

The TV started to flicker again and Dean quickly dropped the phone. He knew he was sparking, for want of a better word, and the last thing he wanted to do right now was break his phone - then nobody would be able to get hold of him and he'd be completely in the dark about everything. A trickle of blood ran down from his left nostril and he wiped it away with the back of his hand, hoping that Thia hadn't caught that. "I know I do - I'm sorry," he told her, not turning round, though he spoke loud enough for her to hear.

Of course she noticed. She was touching him. So she caught it when that touch of backlash hit him, even if it was minor. She sighed, and hugged him again, pressing her cheek to his, back towards the edge of his jaw. "Just call people." she said. "You're not going to be able to do anything til you know." she said. Because she knew that. If he was this wound up, that was just it. Dean could be incredibly one-track when things like this happened.

"No," Dean told her, firmly. "No - I just need to get a grip. Look, even if... There's nothing I can do from here anyway. What good would knowing do anyway? If there's is actually anything wrong? I can do fuck all stuck here. I... I just feel so helpless, Thi," he admitted to her, wondering if he'd said that earlier - he knew he'd thought it, but had he said it? "If those shadows are coming back... if they're coming back and they're in Marquette, there's nothing I can do from here. And - what if... What if it's not just Marquette? When they came before, they didn't come here. What if they come here? What if us being here brings them here for some reason? What if I brought that down on my family?" he asked, his voice small as he turned to her. That had been there at the back of his mind since he realised - what if he'd brought trouble down on his family by running here?

She listened to him, and loosed her grip on him when he turned to face her, but she tugged him closer again, or tried to. Not to distract, but just for that physical closeness that they generally had when they were dealing with things. "If they're back and in Marquette, but not anywhere else, then we try and get people out of town. If they won't go, you know I can be there to help them in short order. If for nothing else then just helping set up barricades but they managed it just fine on their own before. They dealt with them before, so they'll be able to more effectively deal with them a second time, because it'll be something they know how to take precautions against from the start, instead of like last time where we had to learn as we went." she started, trying to think through everything reasonably. "If they came here, right now I'd be more inclined to believe that it was because of me, not you. I have connections to where they're from in the first place, and it was me they took a swipe at." she said. "And if they are coming for me, then I leave. It's that simple. I take the danger someplace where it isn't going to touch your family. I can't think of any reason they'd be after you--you were ignored by them entirely save for that last day there, and that might have been just because you killed too many of them or hurt too many so they decided you were a threat. But from the begining there, they didn't care about you. So I can't see why they would have changed their minds on it again and made you a target. We know from their behavior that they're following set patterns, they didn't have real intelligence. So they likely wouldn't even be thinking tactically enough to think that taking you down first was the best course of action." Which wow did she ever hate the sound of that. And that showed on her features for a moment before she went on. "There are things we can do, or courses of action to take depending on what's happening."

"On that last day - they were going after everyone," Dean told her. "Not just us, or me, or people they might conceivably have had a reason for, but everyone in town. What if - you know, my family never had any other connection with supernatural shit, except for me. They've lived normal lives - hell, they're clearly glad to get the weird out of the way. I was obviously not ever meant to come back. Not really. They would have kept my room if they wanted that. And they didn't, so, they're good with normal. And fine, I mean - that's good and I - I understand that and everything and really, considering what we've been through over the last few months, I want that for them as well. I don't want - I don't want them hurt. And the idea that there's even the potential that I - we - might have brought something with us, or brought them to the attention of... If it's not this time, then what about the future? Because, yes, everyone in Marquette, Oz and Sophie, Maddie - hell, even Billy, I know they could have done better last time, but they're more prepared for this, they're aware and they have stocks and supplies and they can react and - mum, dad, Scott - really not. I just - I should have thought. I didn't think. I just - all I thought about was myself and needing to get away. I didn't think about the danger of doing that, of coming here. I didn't think at all."

"Dean--" Lullaby started, and broke off for a second, giving herself a moment to calm down first. Then she started over. "First of all, your family sent you to Marquette because they were worried about you and knew they needed to take drastic measures to try and help you. They didn't just cart you off to be rid of you. I talked to your mom about it earlier. Yesterday...whenever, but we talked. So get that out of your head." she said. "Second, I know you don't want them hurt. But there's absolutely no reason to even start to think that we would have brought anything with us. That's ridiculous. They showed up, it was area specific, because it wasn't as far as I know happening anywhere but Marquette, not even the other close by towns like Harvey or Negaunee. Just Marquette. So it would be silly to think logically that we'd have brought them back here. It's over an ocean, even. You did need to get away, and this was where you needed to go. Don't make this into something to beat yourself up over, I'm not having it. You do enough of that anyways, and this is not your fault and you couldn't have seen it coming." She stopped there for a second, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

"If it was going for anyone specific, I still think that they had something against me, way longer and much more specifically before they had any issue with you. So if there's any idea about the trouble, or target, I'm the one with the slices on my arm. So I'm thinking that's a fairly good indication that it'd be me. So if you really want to go into crisis mode, and prepare for any badness here? I've got to leave, and sooner rather than later. And, decisions have to be made of what your family gets told, because I'm sure they'll notice if we start removing mirrors, and setting up the house for easily put in place barricades." Because those would be the first things to do to make the house safe from them. Ditch the mirrors, and make sure there were things near entrances and windows that could be moved easily and quickly to block them. She couldn't tell if it was sad or not that she was already thinking of ways to do it most effectively, and what rooms upstairs she would want everyone in. But her mind just...worked like that. It had a tactical bent to it whether she liked it or not.

"We're not doing anything until morning," Dean told her, his voice hollow because he knew he was weighing her up against his family. If it came down to it, would he send her away? And if he did, did he go with her? or did her stay to protect his family, even if it was just long enough to make sure they were alright. Up until that moment, he'd thought he would go with her. He'd been clinging so much recently, to not be there with her was unthinkable, even earlier on tonight that had been the case. But now, now that everything else was factoring in, he didn't know. If it was her, if it wasn't him - she could go back to Oz, Oz would make sure she was safe, he could trust Oz. And he could follow on, once he was sure. It just felt like such a huge change of mindset that he couldn't move on it, couldn't do anything with it - not until they knew more.

Thia tried not to feel frustrated, but did in some respects. Mostly because that statement ignored everything she'd said, pretty much. Or just skipped over it. And obviously, there was a lot going on in his head, he just wasn't sharing any of it. "Dean...talk to me." she said, voice light. "Don't just...sit on whatever's going through your mind, okay? I can tell a lot is."

"I just need to be clearer about what's going on before we make any decisions, that's all. And I know it's probably nothing and it's probably me just overreacting. And it's just - everyone's so far away if it's over there and everything's so fucked up if it's over here. But I'm not going to just go get my family out of bed and try and explain on the basis of a dream, because they'd look at me like I was crazy and I'm not going to start tearing the house apart. And if there was active trouble over there, I would have heard by now. From someone. So I need to do what you said, calm down, watch the film and we wait til morning," he told her.

She looked at him for a long time, watching his eyes. She really wished she hadn't already been having a bad day before they'd gone to bed, then woke up to a bad night. It left her feeling less prepared to deal with things than otherwise, and it was especially grating to her because she could do nothing about it. And trying to get him to calm down wasn't working either. So, she was feeling a little beaten down, but knew she needed to get past that so she could at least attempt to keep being there for him and maybe helping him calm down. "Okay." she said after what felt like too long a time to her, but probably wasn't actually all that long. "What can I do?" she asked. Besides going and getting some air, which she kind of wanted to do just then, but didn't figure that would help him out much.

We can't do anything - that's the problem, Dean thought, but saying that wouldn't help anything at all. He shifted, moving away down the sofa, reaching for her to pull her with him so he could slip behind her and lie them both down, his arms around her. "Nothing," he told her, leaning his head against the opposite arm of the couch. "Just - put up with me being shit for a while, that's all."

She went, initially thinking he was just getting some distance, but that wasn't the case. She settled in, still feeling like she should be behind him, holding him, but this felt nice. She was still thinking about everything, about the shadows, what it was like to be surrounded by them again. Actually, what it was like to just be injured again. They'd gotten healed up, and she'd spent the time here injury-free. It had been nice. She wondered what would have happened if it had been more than a glancing blow. What would have happened if they'd caught her wrist, or neck. What would happen if they really were after her. And after her in dreams. Could she just...never sleep again? Was that possible? Would she go crazy? Would they alter target if she didn't sleep, or dream, and they'd go after Dean? There were too many thoughts on it. Too many worries that she couldn't really do anything about, and giving herself time to think about them wasn't helping. "You know I'll always put up with you." she said eventually, lightest touch of affection in her tone, as she stroked her fingertips over his arm lightly a moment. It was easier to do that, to concentrate on him than think of every other angle.

Dean kissed the top of her head, but didn't pull back, leaving his nose half buried in her hair. He liked the sensation of her fingers stroking his skin. He'd always liked those soft touches - they were calming and he needed that right now. "That's cos you're an angel," he told her, though his voice was a little muffled and he didn't know whether he would have heard that properly. He didn't want to move to repeat himself though.

She didn't hear him fully, but caught 'angel'. Or, maybe angel. That's what she took from it, anyways. The kiss and him not moving back from that actually served to settle her a little more, and she didn't feel like she needed air anymore at least. She smiled faintly, and kept up that light little petting of his arm, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I love you." she said, voice soft. "More than anything."

"You too," he told her, feeling that urge to check his phone again, but it was easier to resist now, because he was comfortable, and he was holding her, and checking it would mean moving - that was why he'd moved them like this in the first place. He always had a hard time letting her go.

She was quiet for a few moments, letting her mind drift a little bit, but not far because it tended to want to swing towards things she didn't want to think about. "Your mom gave me some pictures of you to take." she said, random information, certainly, but something Else to think about. Morning was going to be a while in coming, and even longer back in Marquette. So they had some time to kill.

Dean lifted his head slightly, so he could properly answer her with that. "Didn't we have a conversation about pictures?" he asked, fairly sure they had and he'd been firmly on the side of 'no pictures of me as a child'. But then, she was stubborn, wasn't she - there was no telling her things.

She tilted her head slightly, to almost look back over her shoulder but not quite, more turning her ear more towards him as she started doing little swirl patterns on his arm. "We had a conversation about pictures." she agreed. "I didn't ever agree that I wasn't going to take any. I really liked your castle though. The christmas morning castle." she said, having to smile a touch. And your mom doesn't approve of me. Do you know that? Did you two talk at all about me since you just told them I existed and then I was here? She was guessing not. She was pretty sure if that had happened, he would have been brooding over it and she would have noticed.

Dean paused. "...Huh?" he asked, not catching on to what the hell she was talking abou... oh. "God, she didn't show you everything, did she?" he cringed. "Tell me she didn't make you look through both of those bloody albums. And - she got the box out, didn't she?" His bloody mother and her obsession with pictures - though his dad wasn't much better. And, somehow, he didn't think that there was much 'forcing' going on if those were brought out - Thia'd probably been over the moon about it.

She giggled just a tiny bit, a real smile touching her lips for a moment as she snuggled back against him a bit. "The pictures I was allowed to take came from the box." she admitted. "You were the cutest little boy ever." she said. "Which I completely already knew, but now I have proof. And you were such a little blondie!" She reached up and back, to sift her fingers through his hair, letting her hand slide down towards the back of his neck, so she could hold him there a second while she shifted just enough to give him a kiss beneath the jaw. "I liked the pictures with the kite, too. Makes me want to go get one and go kite flying." But then Thia was a fan of simple pleasures.

Dean looked down and away, feeling momentary guilt, talking about things that would just be fun when there could be problems looming. But - weren't there always problems looming? And if you couldn't talk about fun with that, you'd never talk about fun things at all. It wasn't meant to be like this - he'd meant to leave it all behind, but it was looking now like he couldn't, that there wasn't anywhere behind to leave it, that it was just a part of his life. He looked back at her after only a moment, meeting her eyes. "We can go kite flying - we'd need to get a kite though," he told her, not promising anything in the way of a 'when', but it could stand as a 'one day'.

"We can do that. Or you could make one." she said. Because he made things. She was willing to bet he'd put as much effort and concentration into that as a lego castle. "We could find plans online. go get stuff. Paint it up however we wanted." she continued. "Or get a trick kite or make one. Where you can do all the loop-d-loops with it. Not that I know how to do that, so I'd likely just crash our kite and ruin all our hard work, but in my head it's neat seeming." she rambled slightly.

"I've never made a kite," Dean told her. But, if they found plans - and could figure out what was best to make one from, maybe they could do that. "We could look into it," he agreed, though his heart wasn't truly in it. He rested his face back in her hair again.

"I never made one either, but I have faith that you'd figure it out." she told him, giving his arm a squeeze around her. She was quiet for a moment then, because she could tell his mind had drifted again. It was in the tone she could hear. That and they just...knew each other way too well. "You always figure it out." she added onto the end, belatedly, and she was in fact, talking about more than just the kite, or castles, or anything else.

Do I? He wasn't convinced about that, since he was well aware they weren't just talking about kites anymore. He took a long, slow, deep breath, then let it out. "Yeah," he agreed, finally.

"You know...one thing I really wished I could share with your mom, but couldn't, was some of the things I love most about you." she said, after what was actually a fairly long pause. "About how you've just...got the best heart I've ever known. And you always want to do the right thing. Have a drive to, even. How you've really been there, even when things were at their worst." There was so much of their lives together that played in with things she couldn't bring up with the woman. And if she did she'd probably be getting told straight away that she needed to go back to Marquette, and Dean would be staying there with them. She wondered if it had occurred to Dean that if he really wanted to keep them safe, he could just...stay home. Stay home, and have her go somewhere that was else. And then he could keep them protected, and there might not be a trouble magnet curled up next to him.

Dean just listened to her, not saying anything, his face still buried in her hair, his arms around her. He always wanted to do the right thing - who wouldn't? After all, it was the right thing. That was the entire point, surely. It was just that, sometimes, knowing what the right thing to do was wasn't that simple. And sometimes, even when you knew that the right thing was, it was so hard you ended up looking for other things that could possibly be the right thing instead.

"And I couldn't tell her how you made me feel safe, and protected. Or just how much we really take care of each other." Because it was such a huge part of their lives. Just...being there. Taking care of each other, making sure the other was okay. Even if right now she didn't feel like she was doing that good a job. "But I liked looking at the pictures of you." she said. "You were just adorable. And you are now too, of course, haven't lost that." Just his smile. That he'd kind of lost track of, even if she knew she brought it out in him more than other people did. And that made her sad again too, thinking about the later pictures. She hugged his arms around her again.

"You can file 'adorable' away with 'cute," he told her, lifting his head a little as he spoke, so she could hear him, then going right back to the position he'd been in before. The film continued to play in the background, but he'd yet to pay the slightest bit of attention to it.

She was still a little lost in feeling sad about things, like she had earlier, and had to fight not to turn herself around and hug him. Cling just a little. She managed not to, but the urge was there. Very very clearly there. "So what's acceptable then?" she asked lightly, letting her eyes fall shut as she concentrated on feeling him breathing against her back. She could feel where the cross had shifted, and it was down against her shoulderblade, pressed in a little. It reminded her about the ring. The one he was still wearing, and how she really wanted to get him a new one. One he could wear back in Marquette. If they went back. There still wasn't any solid decision there, and with this new badness welling up...it could potentially change everything.

"Dunno," Dean told her, honestly. He'd never been very good with compliments. It wasn't that they made him uncomfortable or anything - he simply didn't know how to deal with them at all. 'Uncomfortable' would at least have been a kind of dealing. Generally, he tended towards entirely ignoring them, especially if they were to do with his physical attractiveness. "I... dunno." It seemed wrong for him to define something like that about himself, somehow. "I - well, cute. Adorable. I... They're terms you could put to BB. Kinda... Like for little, fluffy, cuddly things, y'know?" he told her.

She missed BB. She really missed him. But she'd not said, because she knew Dean. And Dean would latch onto that and use it to feel guilty about. So she didn't share it then, either, though she felt it, and wondered how Oz and her kitten were getting on. And if BB was getting played with enough, and petted when he wanted affection. "I think you're cuddly." Lullaby pointed out. "You're cuddly with me. And you snuggle me and everything. And while you aren't fluffy, you're warm, and..." she trailed off a little, thinking about his skin, and how she liked the feel of it, and his hair, and all sorts of things, but it felt like she couldn't say those things out loud when they were in the living room, and could be overheard. Even if they totally wouldn't be, and Dean would hear it if anyone woke up and came near enough to do that. Still, it was just...not something she wanted anyone else listening in on.

"Warm and...?" he asked, knowing she knew better than to do that, even over little things. Even when the end result would probably just him moving on and not responding to anything she'd said. Not verbally, anyway. It wasn't like he didn't hear her when she talked, he always did. He just wasn't good at reacting to that kind of thing.

She bit her lower lip, cheeks heating up a touch. She glanced behind her, hesitating for a few moments, but well. She did know better than to do that, so she continued--it was just really quietly. Quietly enough that she couldn't hear herself, and she had to speak slightly slower so she could get the pronunciation correct. "Soft. But strong too. I like how your skin feels against mine. I like how your hair feels when I run my fingers through it."

That he liked. That he fully appreciated, though he didn't outwardly show it. When she said things like that, if made him feel warm inside - and it was a successful momentary distraction as he met her eyes, holding her gaze for a moment, softly. "There's nobody else up," he told her instead of saying anything else.

She looked up at him, and noticed a light little change in his expression. It was enough to encourage her, and she felt a little good about herself then. She shifted, just a little so she could look at him more easily, glad at least for what he said. It meant she could talk just a little louder, even if she still wasn't going to be speaking loudly. "I like that you're a lot taller than me, and when you stand behind me and put your arms around me. And I like your scent. I used to want to borrow your shirts a lot because they smelled like you." And that she'd been doing since before she'd 'noticed' him. That was something she just appreciated on a lot of levels. "And I like your hands, because you can be really, really gentle with them and yet move me around wherever you want me with them too." Her voice got quieter again, because the next bit made her blush again too. "I like your weight, when you're over me."

My shirts smell like washing powder, he thought to himself, but he didn't say it. He was learning - he didn't blow things off as much as he used to with her. But she was also right - this was a long list of things that she couldn't have told his mum. Or, possibly, that he was grateful she hadn't tried to tell his mum. There were things he wanted to say, but he didn't know how to. He always worried in situations like this that it'd decend into 'gushy'. or, well, not always - because that would suggest he'd actually got lots of experience of situations like this, which he didn't. But still, the idea and the worry had always been there.

"I like the way you look at me. I like the way you smile when I wake up." Because he did. And here, he was always up before she was. He just stayed now. "I like your breath in my ear, and listening to you talk, and the tones you use. And I like the sounds you make." she said, voice getting quieter again. That actually held a lot of meaning for her. Because it was something that she knew she didn't get the full effect from, so when she did hear him, she greatly appreciated it. And she did like how he sounded. They tended to do a lot for her.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against hers, pulling her in a little more. A moment ago he'd been waiting for the right moment to say something, now it felt like he'd missed it. He didn't even know what he'd say. Or would have said. He only knew that she was saying all of these nice things about him and he should reciprocate. It was only right, and anyway, she needed that - she'd made that perfectly clear in the past. he should be able to lie here and do this - reel off all the things he loved about her. It wasn't as if they weren't there, it was just he felt awkward saying those kind of things - he was no better with giving compliments than he was with receiving them.

She shifted in closer to him, and reached up to drift her fingers through his hair. She did it slowly, taking the time to appreciate how his hair tickled her palm a little because it was shorter now. But it was still soft. And looked good messy as it was. She let her hand continue down, to ghost over the back of his neck, and rest lightly there, fingertips just beneath the collar of his shirt, just beyond the necklace cord.

"I..." wish I was better at this. No, starting this off by making it about him was not the way to go, he told himself, firmly. "You have so much joy in life - in the little things, y'know? Things other peopel would probably find stupid, or not even notice at all. The details, or - just yeah. Like a kite or, just... the little things," he offered, rejecting a few other options for things to say as he went. But concentrating on feeling awkward over this was distracting him from his greater worries, at least.

She listened, sort of half wondering if that was a compliment. Because so far, it was an observation. She smiled, though. a soft, light expression, and she started to trace little swirls on the back of his neck and shoulder, fingers still beneath the collar of his shirt so she could do it on his bare skin. "I always thought life was about the little things." she said, voice very soft. Not interrupting him, though she didn't know if he was done or not, either.

"I like it when you do that," he added. "The... soft touches. I - I like it when you touch me like that. All... delicate and stuff. It's... nice," he finished, thinking that wasn't quite what he'd wanted to say, that as always it had sounded rather better and rather less lame in his head.

As a girl who had dealt with Dean being awkward for quite a while now, and was fairly adept at dealing with it, she took it for what it was. Something that was probably hard for him to say, but that didn't necessarily mean he didn't mean it. She smiled softly, and shifted enough to nuzzle under his jaw. Lightly, since he'd just told her he liked that. She also moved her hand, sliding it down his back, to duck under the hem of his shirt so she could trace a bigger area, little swirls, patterns only she could follow.

He exhaled softly as she did that, taking a moment to appreciate it. He wanted to tell her that he liked this, that this, that everything - that she took care of him and he liked that, except he knew he wouldn't. he didn't want to be the boyfriend who needed taking care of, he didn't want to go the way of Joshua and no matter what she said, it wasn't a risk he was ever willing to run. So, he just wouldn't ever use those words. "You make the world a better place. My world, anyway. Better - with you in it. Easier," he told her, instead.

That...was kind of amazing to hear. Just put like that, that she made his world a better place. That she made his life easier. Especially in light of the photographs she'd seen of him before he'd met her. When he'd still been here, where his smile had gotten rarer and rarer and there was that heavy shadow over him. If she helped with that? If she made things better? That she took as probably the best compliment ever. It was right up there with knowing he was in love with her. That he had loved her for a long time. Loved her through everything, even if he really probably had chances to stop that. Or reasons to. Her hand flattened against his skin, and she shut her eyes for a moment, smile lightly pressed into the skin of his throat. "I really do that?" she asked, voice light. a whisper. That, with a brush of a kiss.

Dean frowned slightly, at the change in her voice. "Yes," he told her, sounding like this shouldn't have been such big news. See, this was the thing he couldn't wrap his head around with the whole complimenting thing - what was a good thing to say and what wasn't. And how important different things were. It just felt like it was stating the obvious - things which should have been self-evident. But, people seemed to put importance on their being said outload. Voicing something had a power all of its own, he knew that. He just didn't entirely comprehend the rhyme or reason behind it.

She drew back enough to look up at him, watch his eyes. She ticked her gaze back and forth between his, reaching up to put her palm against his cheek. She didn't say anything straight away. She just looked at him. "That's a good thing to know." she said quietly. There was still that light bit of a smile on her lips. Because it did just feel good to know. And after today, and dealing with his mother, and what she thought about things, and all...it was something that she'd really needed to hear. There was something like relief in her eyes. Some little bit of a burden that seemed to be lifted, just with that said.

"...Did you think you didn't?" he asked her, still frowning slightly, especially so at that change in her eyes, though he realised that maybe she didn't. But could she really imagine that she made his life harder? or she didn't have an impact on it at all? She was always there for him, no matter what, he could rely on her, he could fall back on her and she would be there, holding him up. He could depend on her in so many ways, and yet did she not think she made his life better?

"I still wonder, sometimes." she admitted in a quiet whisper--again, quieter than she would have been able to hear, the words that automatically slower she had to use when that happened. "Wonder if I don't complicate everything. From an outside perspective...it could look that way." Like it probably did to his mom. Who kept saying that she wanted him to be happy. But that was kind of something you said when you were conceding a point, not when you were pleased with a situation.

"I'm coming to the conclusion that my life stopped being simple the day I realised I could make Scott's CD player skip," Dean told her, maintaining eye contact with her. "And anyway, some complications are more than worth it," he added, leaning in to brush a kiss over her lips.

That made her smile, as she kissed him back. Then she gave him another one. And a third, just a little deeper than the others, drawn out a little further. She kept it soft, and slow, but she wanted to put how she felt about things into it. "I'm glad I'm worth it." she murmured, wanting to kiss him again, but almost hesitant to do so, because she didn't want to push anything.

She didn't push anything, and he didn't either. He would never have admitted it in a million years to any of his male friends, but right now, he was fine just where he was. There were times when he just didn't need anymore. And when he was stressed and worried, he didn't particularly want any more either. And if that made him a complete and utter pussy, then that was between himself and his girlfriend. "You're always worth it," he told her, meaning every word of that - which was a lot, considering everything that encompassed for them.

She shifted slightly to hug him. A proper hug, which required her to shift fully around, but she did it, and held it for a few long moments. She did get what he meant there. and it was a hell of a lot. She'd died on him. Several times over, and it never got easier for him. So she appreciated that. The thought that she was always worth it, even with the bad parts that cropped up. That stayed there, even with everything going insane around them. Or what she might bring with her, or what problems occurred. And her dad. What happened with him. If he'd ever had a reason to trade her in because he couldn't deal anymore, that was the time. But instead of pushing her away...he'd wanted to not be apart from her. Kind of at all.

He smiled slightly and reached up to brush her hair back from her face, noting that it was still growing. He liked that - that it was growing, he liked watching it change. He left his hand buried in her hair, at the back of her head, twisting the strands between his fingers.

She smiled at that. She knew he'd said things before about her hair, and wanting to see it long, and she wanted it to get there. She was glad it was at least noticeable for her at this point, that it was getting longer. And he probably noticed to. He'd actually been doing quite a lot with her hair tonight. Resting his face in against it quite a bit, now playing with it a touch. "I like when you do that." she told him. She knew she had a mild obsession with his hair, that she'd been harboring since before she'd even started truly admitting to a thing for him.

"Do what?" he asked. He didn't really think he'd been doing anything. Which, of course, made him stop doing everything, stilling though he didn't draw back at all.

She laughed just a little because he stopped. "I like when you pay attention to my hair." she told him. "Like earlier you had your face buried in it for a while, and every so often you do that." she said, gesturing to his hand. "I like that." Well at least one thing could be said for her. She wasn't shy about telling him the things that he did that she appreciated. She'd started that out when she'd told him she liked when he spoke in her ear.

"I like your hair," he told her, cottoning on with her explanation. "I always have. I kinda... When I couldn't, I always wanted to touch it, but I knew I couldn't. And now... I can." Did that sound stalkery and obsessive? He wasn't sure. "It's soft, and it smells nice," he added, trying to tone that down slightly, though he knew it wasn't really about that.

"Now you can, and I like when you do." she said, still smiling at him. "'Course, I didn't actually stop myself from doing that with you." she said thoughtfully. She started thinking about the evolution there, and decided to share the thoughts instead of just letting them go through her mind. "It was something I could get away with." she said. "Playing with your hair, and it had a good effect on you. I might possibly have just had the slightest, eensiest bit of an over-focus on your hair sometimes...." she said, a guilty sort of turn to her lips.

"It's different for girls," he told her, starting to run a hand softly through her hair, experimentally. "Anyway, you playing with my hair sends me to sleep, you know that..." he added. He liked it when she did, he enjoyed it, but yeah - it was hypnotic and a sure fire way of getting him under.

She grinned. "Yeah, I know that." she said. She'd used it more than once to do just that when he really desperately needed sleep. It was a good thing to be able to do to someone, honestly. Especially Dean, who never fully shut off his 'worry' mode. "I still like doing it and I could still get away with it. And why's it different for girls?" she asked curiously. This ought to be good. Dean and the rules he lived by, and he had rules for just about everything. His entire existence was built on them. There was always a rule somewhere to abide by.

"Well, girl's are always playing with each other's hair, aren't they?" he explained, twirling a shortish strand of hers round his index finger. "And girls are much more touchy like that in the first place. Blokes aren't - look, guy starts playing with your hair. That's kinda... Intimate, like that, isn't it?" he suggested. Somehow that seemed more intimate than curling up together - but that curling up had always had a reason driving it.

"If girls do play with each other's hair more, I wouldn't know so well. I didn't hang out with girls and braid hair, i was climbing trees and playing in mud puddles." Lullaby said, amused. "But I'll concede that guys don't generally play with other people's hair. Maybe the acceptable thing is why I figured I could get away with it. That and just the effect it had on you. And you didn't complain, per se. So once I had done it a couple of times, and realized you weren't going to stop me...I might have looked for excuses to do that now and then. Maybe. Just a little." Or she knew she had. She'd just liked doing it. It was close, and just...nice. It didn't set off the invisible timer.

"So - I wasn't the only one looking for excuses then?" he asked, slightly amused by that. "I always kinda figured you just... did what you wanted. Didn't worry about things like that. But then again, I always kind of figured that I didn't really register as 'male' to you anyway, so you wouldn't even have thought about it that way."

"I did a lot of what I wanted...but see there was the invisible timer to worry about. And I was never quite sure what set it off. So I had to be really really careful all the time, so I didn't set it off." Lullaby said. "So if I had excuses, I was definitely taking them." she explained, starting to do the light little pattern thing again down on his chest and sliding down towards his ribs, just at a really slow rate. "You registered as male. I've told you from the start that you're incredibly attractive. If you didn't register as male, I couldn't actually appreciate that. Or at least, not in the 'why yes, he is really pleasant to look at' fashion. Which you are. But yes, you weren't the only one looking for excuses for things." She'd always really hated when the timer went off.

"Yes, but that's like... I know that girls find, say, Orlando Bloom attractive, but that doesn't mean I'd ever fancy him myself," Dean pointed out. "Though - for the record, that doesn't mean I'd be good to play with the bloke's hair either..." he added, hastily, and with humour behind his eyes.

Thia giggled softly, and nuzzled her nose against his neck for a moment, really more of an affectionate gesture than anything more than that. "You know, I think I'm okay with you not suddenly feeling the desire to play with other guys' hair." she said. "And if you happened to graduate that across and leave out the rest of the human race but me? I'd be cool with that." she added. "Cuz it's really nice..." In a really soothing, really just flat out nice sort of manner.

"This you showing your possessive streak?" he asked her, teasing a little. He felt more relaxed now than he had earlier, less entirely fucking stressed out, though he knew it was only an illusion, only him being momentarily distracted - it just happened to be a very long moment, and he'd make it last as long as he could.

"Mmhmm." she confirmed. "I reserve the right to veto you playing with other people's hair. I only want you to play with mine. I know, it's unreasonable, and you'll probably have a lot of trouble curbing your natural urge to run up to people and mess up their hair, but as your possessive girlfriend, I've got to draw the line somewhere." she teased in return.

"It'll be so hard, curbing my inner hairdresser," Dean deadpanned. "But, for you - just for you, mind you - I'll manage," he promised her, shifting his hands and turning her over so he could snuggle back up against her back once more. "But, if I've only got your hair, I expect to be able to monopolise it," he warned, before burying his face back into it again.

She turned and snuggled back against him comfortably, smiling a bit at that. "Okay, I definitely concede that point. My hair is yours to do with what you will. It's at your disposal." she assured him. She liked when he did that too, kind of buried his face into it. She could feel him breathing there. She let her eyes drift shut, and just concentrated on feeling him there. Being there with him. Hopefully, she was exuding calm. But he was distracted for now, so that was a good thing. He wasn't completely freaking out anymore, she'd gotten smiles out of him and all they had to do now was keep up the distraction until someone called with some updates. She hoped people got up early.