have some candy

Who: Jeri and Thia, and then Dean comes to play
Where: The Chapel
When: Later morning

Jeri thought she was in a state of shock. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to think, considering that there had been a slaughtered teacher, a dead girl brought back to life (though, in retrospect, it explained why Dean had "another" deaf girlfriend...), the broken window, the dragging fighting screaming thing that had happened, the very real and vivid death of a fellow student. Yeah, shock worked for her here. She unwrapped a regular sucker from her stock of such supplies and popped it in her mouth.

It looked apathetic, eating candy while there was death all around her. Like she didn't care, and she supposed that while the image was fine with her, she really really did. What she really wanted to do was throw her sleeping bag over her head and repeat over and over 'if I can't see it, it can't get me'. Which didn't work in any role playing game she'd every been in, let alone real life. And she definitely couldn't smoke a bowl, because the weed slowed down her reaction time. It wouldn't have meant much in gym class, but she wanted everything, as lame as it was, available to her. And she couldn't (God forbid!) neglect her precious sugar.

Jeri glanced around and saw The Dead Girl, and scratched her throat. She wanted to talk to her. Just sort of see if she was real, maybe gauge whether or not everyone should be protecting their brains, that sort of thing. But how did you open a conversation with someone like that. "Hi, are you real?" didn't seem to quite cover it. At all.

Dean. Of course that was the answer to the burning question of how to break the ice. Well, not Dean exactly. Jerilyn didn't know him well enough to use him as an excuse to talk to someone. But, however, she did know the anime series she'd lent him well enough to use it. Feeling much braver than she had a few seconds ago (though she continued to keep well away from any windows she might've passed by), she went up to Lullaby and stood facing her, which she'd read was the polite way to talk to a deaf person, in case they read lips and such. And Jeri couldn't do sign language at all, so she didn't really see a choice. "I lent Dean a DVD series to watch, but he wanted to watch it with someone - I assume you. Have you seen it yet?"

Lullaby was sitting and eyeing the end of her arrow. The one she had out, just in case, and there was the arrowhead, and the shine on the right part of the edge. The edge she was gearing herself up to coat with her own blood. Because if she'd had hesitations before she didn't now. Not after Skye was ripped out of the place and was presumed dead. It had been so fast, and she really needed to just put her reservations aside and look at the reality of the situation which was they were up against fucking demons. And even if help was coming--which was a toss up, she figured--they weren't getting here fast enough. End of story.

So whatever she felt, whatever was going on in her head, whatever moral shady area her blood was? People were dying and that wasn't acceptable. And she had a means to kill whatever was after them, if she could just land a good enough shot. And if it didn't kill it outright? It was sure as hell going to ruin it's day. And maybe that'd be enough for someone else to do their part.

When Jeri walked up, she looked up, and at least caught what the other girl said. "I--no, not yet." she said, giving an attempt at a smile. "We've been a little busy lately. But he told me about it." she added. She was surprised the girl had come to say something, and it wasn't an immediate hop in so 'by the way, there was your funeral and all'. Which Lullaby appreciated, really.

Okay, she was talking instead murmuring 'braaaaains', so Jeri found that encouraging. She offered a smile that felt entirely false under the circumstances, so she let it drop and offered Lullaby her choice between a day-glo orange sucker and a sky blue one. "It's a screwed up series, so when you watch it," Jeri couldn't help but infuse the word 'when' with determination that Lullaby and Dean would have the opportunity to do so, "it might seem really surreal - I don't know if you'll like it. The jury that is the internet seems rather split on it."

Jerilyn wasn't altogether sure what to say next without moving right into the whole dead issue, so she looked at the arrows, and eyed them with open curiousity. "Any good with those?"

Lullaby smiled a little at the offer of the sucker, and she chose the blue one. It had always been her favorite color, after all. "Thanks." she said genuinely. Even if she didn't really eat anymore, it was still nice. "And I'll keep that in mind. But that's okay, surreal is just fine by me." Her whole life had been kinda surreal, really, since she'd died. "Yeah. Kinda, I guess. I can hit a target every time. Though that's inside without wind interference, but I'm not bad." she said. "You um...you want to sit down?" she asked.

"Sure." Jeri nodded and found herself a comfortable spot to sit, wedging her spine firmly against the backrest, and put the orange sucker back in her pocket. "What kind of movies do you prefer? I'm sure I could find something in my library that would cover it." Talking about something so normal seemed... weird. But it was oddly soothing, and since Jeri wasn't anywhere near any of the windows, she felt okay with relaxing a little bit all over again. Maybe she could get some sleep if this kept up. "Sci-fi, fantasy...? I have one about a vampire who's also a jerk." She added with a small grin.

A little quirked half smile appeared on Lullaby's lips. "A jerky vampire?" she asked. "Interesting. I'd watch that." she said. Of course, there was the whole undead reference thing there, and mentioning vampires had her reaching up and rubbing at her neck. Thankfully, Dean had gotten the strip of cloth to tie around her neck to hide it, but she knew where it was. "I guess lately I don't know what I watch. Anything that's entertaining, and has a subtitles track." What with her hearing.

"One of the really fun things about anime is that you can set it to English, and then have the English subtitles running? And they won't be the same." Jeri grinned briefly again. "But all of mine definitely have subtitles, anyway. And yeah, the vampire's a jerk. He can turn into a million-eyed shadow dog thing, too. And his butler has, like monofiliment wires in his gloves. He is the awesomest butler of all time." She nodded enthusiastically.

"Sounds interesting." Lullaby said, thinking it also sounded kinda insane, but insane in that ridiculous sort of way that could at least be amusing. "I'll have to see it sometime." So are we going to play the 'pretend there isn't an elephant in the room' game? she wondered, and wondered how often she was going to go through this as long as she was here. trying to make nice and appreciating it, but waiting. Waiting for the axe to drop, to get a question about what the fuck she was even doing there.

If Lullaby had asked the question out loud, the answer would probably have been 'yes'. Because Jeri wasn't sure how to bring it up. It just seemed rude to point out that a person had been quite dead previously and then weren't dead anymore. Sort of like yelling 'oh, you don't have legs!' to the obviously legless guy in the wheelchair going down the street. And Jerilyn wasn't known for being... delicate... in social circumstances. So once the enthusiasm of the previous topic of conversation had ebbed, Jeri was kind of stuck. She looked around, rubbed the back of her neck, and examined the floor with Intense Interest - the kind that required capital letters. "So..." Jer offered hesitantly. "Welcome back?"

Well, at least that was a little relieving. "Thanks." she said. "...if you...y'know. Want to ask me anything, you can. I mean, I know this is a really messed up situation, and I'm sure that it's kinda..." she sighed. "Uncomfortable for people. To kinda put it mildly." Yeah. Uncomfortable. That really didn't cover it and she knew that.

Jeri snorted indelicately. "Between demon cats, vampire biker gangs, whispy mirror shit that wanted to kill me, and werewolves that my dealer referred to as 'wily bears'," Jeri used finger quotations here, "ghosts, half the damn school disappearing including my boyfriend, and then this shit? You are, my dear, one of the more welcome surprises. If it's uncomfortable, it's because people don't know how to respond to good things anymore." Or at least that was Jeri's opinion. Other people might've seen it differently. "...unless you're going to go around eating brains?"

It was odd hearing that. That she was a good surprise. She could also see the point Jeri was making, about people not being able to come up with a response to good things happening anymore. She could most certainly understand that. At the part about eating brains, though, she winced faintly. "...I'm not a zombie." she said. "I'm not...'undead'." Dean had made his opinion on that matter quite clear, and she'd needed to latch onto the idea. She'd needed to have in her own mind that she wasn't in the same category.

"Well, there you go then! You're a pleasant surprise. You're a bit like a superhero coming back from the dead an issue or two early. Except for the zombie DC universe, which I will regret I read until I find some way of bleaching my brain." Jeri mused over the mental image. "Without the godforsaken spandex. And that isn't a question. I don't want to know if you have that in your closet. So... can I ask 'how?' or is that a question you don't want to answer? If it's the latter, feel free to say 'magic' and leave it at that. It's the more genre appropriate of the two answers you can give right now to shut down the subject."

It was a little hard to keep up with Jeri's ramble, but she tried to. In the end, Thia gave a weak little half-smile. "Magic is actually the short answer." she admitted. "It was a spell that was done on me. I didn't know about it at all, and my death triggered it, and the magic brought me back. I'm...different now. But that's what happened." she said. Which was the very watered down, 'nice' version of the story. But really, she didn't want to go into the horrifying details unless she had to.

"Well, that's just awkward." Jeri frowned. "I mean, when you die, you kind of expect to stay that way. Or you used too. Now you're kind of expected to haunt a place. Huh. Well. I don't know anything about magic, so I'm just going to take your word on what happened and what it did." She stretched, popping the bones in her spine in a lazy, cat-like way. "Is this something you want shared or do you want me to keep it quiet?"

Lullaby tried not to feel her guts wrenching. She really did. And she even on some level appreciated that Jeri was talking to her like things were normal and all, but just hearing the way it was said, so flippantly, when she remembered bleeding out, she remembered being so confused, and not knowing what was happening, and being so scared and everything, it was just not something that sat especially well. When she brought up the last question, Lullaby looked off into the distance for a moment, then back to Jeri. "If it's not kept quiet, I could be hunted down and killed, or taken. Imagine what a government might do with someone like me. I really don't want to be locked away in some lab for the rest of my existence."

"Got it. Keep it quiet." Jeri nodded. She hadn't meant to be insensitive. She just wasn't very good at keeping it nice. Her friends understood. Other people didn't. That was one of those facts of life about Jer that sometimes took people by surprise. If she understood a topic was delicate, she could try to be more careful, but that usually ended up like an elephant surrounded by china teacups. But now, she figured, she had to offer up something to show she was serious about not talking about her to anyone. "You can ask me something, too, if it helps to, y'know, seal the deal on keeping it secret."

"Got any secrets to share?" Lullaby asked. Though it was less as something to keep Jeri from telling her own, and more just asking in case the girl had something she wanted to share. Sometimes, people needed excuses. So, if she needed one? She now had one.

Jeri shrugged. "Everyone has secrets. Some are more interesting than others. For example, when I was four I wanted to grow up to be a giraffe."

"Well, I hear giraffe's have pretty sweet lives. Plus, always a great view." Lullaby said, giving Jeri a soft little smile. "You don't have to tell me anything, if you don't want to. If you do, I'll listen, if not, I'll just trust you. Deal?" she asked. She didn't like the idea of holding anything over anyone's head, really. It wasn't her thing. Not her style, as it were. And she didn't want it to become something she did.

"I offered so that you didn't have to feel like you were putting everything on me." Jeri said simply. "Though I won't tell. Besides, I'm a pothead." She didn't feel any real need to hide the fact now that the responsible adults were gone (aka plastering the hallways with gore). "They'll just say I had a weird but interesting trip."

In Thia's opinion, the whole pothead thing didn't make her any more credible, or deniable. Especially considering the amount of people who could back up her story. But she didn't say anything. "Thank you for keeping the secret. I know it's a little unfair to ask but...I didn't exactly intend to crash in here. I just...Dean needed some things." And she'd brought them. At the drop of a hat, because that was what she did.

Jeri blinked. "How is it unfair to ask? You're asking me to not say words about a specific subject. I think I can manage it. If not, then I think I deserve to get my ass kicked twelve ways from Sunday." She thought for a second. "But, since obviously no one - at least no one I know of - knew about you, does that mean you're stuck in where ever you're living all day every day?"

"I guess I thought it'd be unfair to ask because it's a rather big secret. And a lot of people probably can't...well, you seem to be taking it in stride really well, but other people won't." Gabe hadn't. "And kinda. I mean...I'm okay and everything. But I can't go into town so much, I can't go to school. I have really long days sometimes." Then Thia smiled a little. "Occasionally I bother Dean and text him when he's bored in class." Which was all the time, really, since Dean didn't especially like school.

Dean came upon the two girls talking in time to hear his name mentioned, and he sat down in sight of his girlfriend. he would have preferred to sit with her, but that would have meant getting really really close, and he was trying to not be completely in people's faces about things right now. So, opposite her it was. "You talking about me?" he asked, looking from Thia to Jeri and back.

"I'll probably freak out later. Right now, I think if I freak out about one thing, I won't be able to stop." Jeri said, somewhat disgusted with herself. But she grinned at Lullaby and was about to say something, when Dean came over. "Yes. And I was about to suggest that since she doesn't get to go into town so much, and can't go to school, and she bothers you by texting you in class, maybe I could offer a suggestion?"

Thia gave Dean a sweet little grin when he asked if he was being talked about, and she nodded, fully unrepentant about that. She had a little twinge, wanting him closer too, but she got why he wasn't. Then she looked to Jeri, and laughed a touch, wondering what the girl would say. "...um.....suggest away?" she said, sounding a tiny bit unsure, but curious none the less.

"Well, I'm an anime-comic book-science fiction-fantasy fiend." Jeri said, as if no one knew that. Because it wasn't glaringly obvious or anything. "So I go to a lot of conventions. Where people don't ever know me, they just know my costumes. So, what if you went to a con in costume?" Jeri looked at Lullaby curiously. "Especially if you've never been to one before. No one even has to see your face if you don't want them too."

Dean blinked, and his jaw dropped as he looked at the girls. His first thought was very definitely 'oh hell no'. For a whole host of reasons. The masquerade ball, where Thia had supposedly been going to be so far in costume nobody recognised her, and they did. Any number of other reasons. And... He couldn't quite compute all of this right now. So, they got staring instead. Possibly a little spluttering.

Lullaby could almost find Dean's flailing cute and such if she didn't see such a sad angle on Jeri's suggestion. She got kind of why he did, what with the whole...yeah. There were possibly things to flail over, especially considering him. So she just kind of really spoke pretty quickly, to draw attention to Dean's twitching. "If we went to a convention, it'd probably have to be someplace pretty far away, right? They don't have them in town or anything, so we'd need to go downstate or Wisconsin or something, and really, the chances of me being seen and recognized at a place like that would be slim to none anyways, so...I mean, it's a good suggestion," she said not wanting Jeri to feel like she wasn't offering anything helpful. And it was sweet that she was trying to help at all. Let's not go to the part where last time I tried a costume it ended amazingly poorly and wound up in bad places for everyone.

"Detroit, minimum. There's one up in Toronto that I have every intention of going too, and I figure I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands," assuming that she got out of this alive, of course, but Jeri was forcing herself to assume she would because, again, if she started freaking out now she didn't think she'd be able to stop, "so I definitely want to head for the one in San Francisco, personally. New York, too." Those were the three big ones she was planning on attending, anyway. There was a series of smaller ones that Jeri figured she might like to attend if she could, but she'd have to save up her money for those.

When she got talking properly, Dean managed to stop flailing and actually appreciate what she was saying. Enough to get pretty concerned, considering the circumstances. "Jeri - are... You doing okay?" he asked, trying to be kind about that. After all, it wasn't long since she's seen one of her classmates pulled out of a window by demon things and they'd not been able to do anything about it. Dean wouldn't be surprised if this, this talking about going places and doing things, about getting away, was actually some kind of coping mechanism to stop her having a breakdown.

"I'm fine." Jeri smiled - which maybe showed a few too many teeth to be anything less than a grimace, so she toned it down. She pulled another couple of suckers from her pocket, unwrapped one, and gave it to Dean. He didn't get a choice in flavours - she was picking the red one for herself. "I want to help."

From Lullaby's point of view, she got both sides. She understood why Dean was concerned. She also got that Jeri was probably repressing fairly hardcore. At the moment, she didn't know that trying to get the girl to face up to things would do anything but harm. So, she just decided to give Jeri a light smile. "You are." she told her.

"Course you are," Dean backed up, giving her a smile that didn't really quite sit right on his face - it wasn't one of his usual looks, after all. He held the lollipop in his hands, but made no move to eat it. He hardly had an appetite at the best of times, never mind a sweet tooth. "We, er... We need to make sure everyone's okay, that there's nobody with medical conditions..." He clued in. "How you doing with your diabetes? And could you check in on Tad - you're probably the best person to make sure that you're both staying stable. There's people in the kitchen next door, and there'll be food there, I bet, cos they expected us to stay here. If you need someone to go back and forth with you, I can do that - or I bet Caleb would. So... Maybe you could look to making sure that people are fed enough?" Dean suggested, clutching at something 'useful' she could do.

"I could do that." Jeri agreed, almost instantly. The only hesitation involved, really, was the fact that she needed to process what Dean said. "I can cook, even. I'm good at that." And she was. While being forced back to do the survival thing left her with a line of tension in the hunch of her shoulders, it was probably for the best, all things considered. And she didn't need to think about what happened to Sk... the body outside. "I should go find Tad, then."

Lullaby smiled. "See you later." she said, feeling like it was a good thing Dean had given Jeri things to do. It certainly helped Dean when he was flailing. She remembered having to give him points. Step by step sort of points of one thing to do then the next after everything had happened after her father had showed up... "I'll be around if you need anything." she added, pushing herself to her feet. She should find something to do too. They all should, probably. They were in for a long day.