hypothetically speaking

who: caleb and dean
where: MSHS
when: lunch

As agreed, Caleb headed out to the side lawn when lunchtime came around, to meet Dean. Talking during class wasn't the most adviseable thing to do, especially if you wanted to not talk around shit the entire time. And talking in code got tiring really fucking fast. Therefore, whatever. They'd talk where they'd be less likely to be overheard by the mundanes. He sat down, dropping his bookbag down and leaning back against it. He was tired, and wasn't necessarily that pleased about being back in school. Mostly because everyone seemed like walking wounded to him. Like they were all little shock-zombies. Or a lot of them were. It was just weird.

Dean wasn't far behind Caleb, having headed out straight from class and he joined his friend after a moment or two, glancing round to see if there was anyone else nearby - which, thankfully, there wasn't. School today seemed quieter then usual in any event, everyone fairly subdued, shellshocked, really. It wasn't really surprising. "Hey," Dean greeted, quietly, shifting his backpack to root around in it and pull out of bottle of water, taking a sip.

"Hey." Caleb greeted in return. "The weird air in school today weirding you out as much as it is me?" he asked. Since really, it was. It was just kind of fucked, and reminded him of all the other bullshit happening. And, as he was looking at Dean, his mind was brought to the not-dead girl he apparently had living with him. Who he'd gotten a text from. It was...strange. That was one word for it, anyways.

"I kinda expected it, I think," Dean mused. "I think I'd've been more weirded out if we just got slammed straight back into happy lala high school land, y'know? Like - if it'd seemed like what we saw happening to the entire town had just been forgotten about or something by everyone else. The kind of shit that always seems to happen on TV - the madness goes away and everyone who's not in the main cast or whatever just gets the reset button hit, or gets hit with the stupid stick," he added. "At least this way there's a suggestion that maybe they got that things were incredibly fucked the hell up."

"I think 'massively traumatized' is kind of a better word." Caleb said. "But yeah, I also get what you mean. Maybe people around here aren't quite as stupid as I'd first thought, surprise surprise." He had to quirk a little half smile at the description 'happy lala high school land', however.

"Well, yeah, that too - apparently this town's not used to that kind of thing. Quiet, sleepy, that kind of shit. Then again, I can't exactly talk - you're the one that's been living with this shit all his life, I'm a relative new comer to it. Only with less of the 'relative' and more straight 'newcomer' in there," Dean admitted, knowing that he himself hadn't exactly been coping entirely well lately, but it helped to remove himself from the equation when talking about massive trauma. He was what he was and did what he had to do and he'd cope because he had to - he wasn't going to be going into deep introspection and deconstruction any time soon.

"I'm just from someplace where this is more...usual. Or at the very least, the strange is a lot more accepted, with just the cultural differences going on. So there's less shellshock going on, because people can blame anything they want to. Spirits, voodoo, whatever. Here, there's a lot less readily available excuses." Caleb said. "Other than that, yeah. I'm still someone who's been in the know since day one. But anyways. How're you holding up? How's...everyone?" Meaning your dead friend.

"'Everyone'?" Dean asked, catching the pause before that and giving Caleb an interested look, raising an eyebrow slightly. He knew who they were both talking about. "Not good, actually. But in a relatively normal sense," Dean told him, adding that second onto the end because the conclusions were so easy to jump to. "She broke up with her boyfriend, so she's... devastated would probably be a good term." Not one that she'd actually used and Dean was reading in, but he imagined that she probably would and so he was just going to jump to conclusions about it - he was good at that.

"Well I could ask how your pet zombie is, but I occasionally emply tact." Caleb said drily, smirking. Then he paused and eyed Dean. "That mean you're going to go for her?" he asked. Considering he knew about Dean's crush, he'd had it bad for the girl before, and all. Hell, he was fairly sure that he still had it bad, what with the fucked up of it all, but there he was, dealing with the situation.

"You know how you expected me to hit you for that comment before and I didn't? I can always change my mind on that, you know," Dean pointed out, his tone dry and light, but there was a seriousness behind his eyes that betrayed that he didn't find Caleb calling Thia a zombie at all funny, he just wasn't enough of a killjoy to make a point of it when he knew the guy was joking. He set the water down and pulled up a strand of grass from the lawn, absently beginning to shred it. "And no, that doesn't mean I'm going to go for her - doesn't work like that," he said, knowing that for sure in his head. Dean's world was full of very defined rules of conduct that only he seemed to know, a structure that had formed around him that he doubted he could ever properly express, innate as it was. He'd thought everyone had it, he was learning he was wrong, but he couldn't help the way he thought.

Caleb suppressed a grin. Dean was sensitive on that, apparently. "Noted." he said. And he'd keep that in mind, of course. but it was interesting. Not that he thought Dean would find it interesting at all, but he thought it was. "How doesn't it work like that?" he asked. "You have a major thing for her, she's single now, I mean sure, wait til-" the body's cold... "-she's slightly less on the devastated side, but that could also be pretty much the perfect opportunity for you. I mean, it's not like anyone else is around, right? Why not go for her?" he asked a touch confused on that score.

"Well, aside from the obvious of just because I like her doesn't mean that the feelings are at all returned, I'm not going to risk fucking things up like that. Plus... No, she's my friend. And I knew her boyfriend, I'm not just going to hang around like some bloody vulture waiting for the moment to make my move," he protested, feeling his skin crawl a little just with the suggestion - that was just Wrong. There was no other way of putting it. It made him feel dirty just thinking about it, like he'd be preying on her.

"It wouldn't be like a vulture. There's nothing wrong with making a move if someone's no longer attached. It's part of the whole not being attached thing." Caleb said, though he wasn't pushing the subject. "just saying. If you're not cool with it, fine, I just don't see why you wouldn't. But anyways, I'm glad she's okay, or that she's not okay but due to things not related to anything hideously traumatic."

"They broke up yesterday," Dean pointed out, looking as uncomfortable as he felt. "I... No, I'm not cool with it, okay. So, moving on? Please?" he asked, shifting. Yes, please, can we please move on from the stunningly inappropriate subject matter. he still felt like he'd be preying on her vulnerability and he wasn't going to do it. "When did you want to start work on your car?" he asked - see, completely different subject altogether.

Caleb had already been moving on, so he was fine with the topic change. "Whenever." he said. "I don't know a whole lot about it, so...really, I'm figuring it'll be a bit of a process. But yeah, whenever you have time and inclination. I'm not exactly signed up for a shit ton of extra curricular activities or anything, so after school or weekends. Works for me. It runs but the passenger side door is kind of fucked up due to slamming it repeatedly onto a vampire, and yeah. There was the whole putting it into the ditch part too."

Dean was already thinking that it would be a good thing to set up anyway - it would give him a reason to be out of the house if he ever needed to be, already aware of the fact that having Thia living there wasn't going to be easy and some times he might need a reason just not to be home, as horrible as that sounded to him. He didn't like the idea that maybe he'd be wanting to avoid his best friend sometimes, like that was some kind of a betrayal of her, but he'd had a taste of what oz had been talking about the other day and he had to be realistic. "Okay - well, maybe I could come round sometime and we could just have a look at it, work out where the hell to start, that kind of thing," he suggested.

"Sure. I'm not out a lot...or, lately I'm not. I used to be out all the time, then there was the hospital, and really, then there was raging insanity in town, so not sure yet that I'll be doing that again any time soon." Not that Caleb was adverse to the trouble, or potential trouble, but he supposed he might be in for a bit. There was Leija to think about, and possibly not stressing his brother out. "That book any good, by the way?" he asked. "I read through, and found one on...the other thing and was looking through it."

"Actually, yeah - the book's just what I was looking for - thanks for that," Dean told him with the barest hint of a smile. "Sort of cleared some stuff up for me. I'm still reading through the rest of it - it's weird, learning things about yourself, reading them in books like someone's studied you and written about you. It's a bit of a trippy experience," he admitted. "And... you did? Who was it by? Or - what did the book look like? We've got one, but it's - the guy's a bigoted twat who needed a good slapping, to be honest. His opinions are stupid and one sided, even I can tell that."

"...kind of sounds like the one I was reading." Caleb said. "So probably the same one. You really get the feeling that someone wasn't exactly comfortable with the subject matter." he continued. "There seemed to be a shit ton in there though, I didn't get to read too much. Got through the first bit on creation though." Which he'd found out about the fact that you only get Fades through sacrifice. Which didn't surprise him in the slightest.

"Makes you wonder why they wanted to write the book at all - if you find anything else, I'd be interested in getting a copy," Dean told him, before focusing in on that little extra bit of information Caleb had put out there. "She had nothing to do with that," he said, immediately and defensively. "That was her dad - she didn't know, it's not her fault. She feels... She's loaded with all this guilt about what happened and if she could find any way - if she could take it back, she would." He spoke with a passion that made it clear that he would stand between Thia and anyone else who decided to argue differently and dared Caleb to say anything about it.

Caleb just looked at his friend for a long minute. Again he was struck with the whole 'he's got it bad' thing, but didn't say anything about it. "Dean, I didn't say anything." he said. "I just noticed. From the little bit I knew of the girl, I'm pretty positive she wouldn't be capable of something like that. Granted, I could be wrong, but pretty sure I'm not, so...chill." he said. "So...where's her old man now, if he did it to her in the first place?"

Dean shook his head. "She's not capable of anything like that. And I know her - I'm not wrong on that. When she found out... Her father's gone, she made him leave. As far as we know, he's left town, she hasn't heard from him since," Dean said, backing down from his defensive tone. "She didn't really know him in the first place anyhow - her mum and dad split up years ago and though he sent her gifts and stuff, she didn't know him. Then he turned up again this summer. And again after she died. He was there when she resurrected, wanted her to come away with him, start a new life somewhere else - somewhere where she wouldn't have to hide because everyone knew she was dead." he spoke with his tone lowered, listening out as he did so for any suggestion that there were people close enough to hear, but he knew there weren't - not unless there were, say, werewolves in the student body. Which, well, it was possible. Likely even. So, he kept his voice down. "He told her some bits and pieces about what she was and when he got to the part about sacrifices... She ended up stabbing him to make him leave."

Caleb listened to that and frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, then remembered how much he'd felt like shit the other day for giving Dean more to think about and closed it again. "I see." he said instead of what his gut reaction was. Which was that was a situation just waiting to get worse. Yeah. That was probably a whole lot of fucked just begging to explode. Shit. But yeah, he didn't know if he should say a word about it, or just leave it. Was it one more thing that Dean would have to be concerned about but couldn't do shit about? Probably.

Dean eyed him, not buying that reaction at all. He hadn't forgotten the conversation the other day either and he was fairly sure that Caleb had a lot more to say on the subject other than two bland words. "Go on - spit it out. Whatever it is you've got to say, say it," he said, bluntly.

"It's not good." Caleb said, not really wanting to get into it now. "Plus, just paranoid bullshit on my end. So...whatever." Which wasn't an answer, now was it? But yeah. Fuck. He didn't really want to be getting into this shit again. Especially since his first instinct was also to think along the lines of how bad could things possibly get, worse case fucking scenario.

"I know it's not good," Dean told him. "Look - about the other day. What you said - I wasn't just blowing it off, you know. Or maybe you don't, but I'm telling you that now. You just brought it up at a really bad damn time. But I haven't forgotten about it, and you were right - the..." He looked down, pulling up more grass, a couple of strands at a time. "I haven't mentioned it to her, the possibilities, the dangers - she's got enough on her plate right now. But I haven't stopped thinking about it either. Since this all started, I've been focused in on her, on trying to help her cope, on trying to help her deal and the practicalities of getting her sorted. It hasn't left a great deal of time for thinking about the bigger picture." He looked up, thinking that maybe it was time that that changed.

"Yeah I know you didn't blow it off." Caleb said. "But it seemed to me like I hit you with far more shit than you can handle right now too, and I don't especially want to add." he admitted. He also paused, and thought about something, but wasn't sure he should bring it up or not. Dean was quite clearly damn sensitive about all things Lullaby and he might want to keep his opinions on any matters directly involving her to himself. But at the same time, it was perspecitve. Still, he didn't say it yet. Maybe later.

Dean considered this for a moment. "At the time? Yeah, you did - I think anything right then and there would have been too much. I was kinda stressed right then and there. But I can't just stick my head under a rock and pretend that the bad stuff in the world will go away. And I'm more of a danger, there's more of a danger, if I do that. Making like a five year old and declaring that if i can't see the shit, it can't see me is only going to mean that if and when it comes, I won't be prepared for it. So, if you can see things I can't - don't do that. Don't 'I see' me. Yeah, I've never had to deal with this stuff before, but the way things are going? i don't see my life changing back towards normal any time soon. I'm on a steep learning curve right now, but protecting me from shit, or whatever, isn't going to help me in the long run."

Caleb sighed heavily, then sat up properly, looking at his friend for a long few moments. "Fine. I won't do that. Just remember that the shit I think about is probably worst case scenario. So keep that in mind, alright? What I took from what you just told me is you have a guy who apparently killed a bunch of people to do something to his kid to keep her alive forever. And even though she never met him, he apparently kept up contact in her life. Then he showed recently, and was there when she came back, planning to cart her off to some fairytale new life somewhere. That says to me this guy's obsessive. That he's never done that letting go bullshit and what with what he did to her? That's whole new levels of not letting go. She ran him off for now, I don't see that lasting. It's not like the man who's history is that is going to just fuck off. Just an 'oh well, guess I'll get on with my life now' sort of deal." He shook his head.

"At least if it's worst case scenario, we're not going to be caught on the hop," Dean pointed out, before attending to what Caleb was saying. he'd already been thinking along potential lines about her father - his comments the other day had shown that, but still, he'd never truly considered the obsessive angle. Which, he figured, he really should have done. "Okay," he mused. So he's likely to be back - and we know he'd a hard ass magic type, at least that's what that book suggested. You can't cast that without seriously knowing your shit - right?" he asked, honestly seeking Caleb's opinion on this, since he knew the guy used magic himself.

"Um, yeah." Caleb said with a very firm tone. "That shit was seriously high level fuckery, I can tell you that. And with the sacrifices, the fact that it had to be human, and as many as there were--that isn't small time. That's major. That's 'I can fuck you up without breaking a sweat'. Though with that, he's probably got an addiction to the magic. Black magic sort of fucks with your head like that, and since you'd have to study hardcore for years to even begin to pull something like that off--and we know beyond a doubt he did and it worked--yeah."

Dean exhaled. "Okay, so, potential major badass with an obsession going on. Anything we can do baseline-wise to stop him? I mean, obviously disappearing off the face of the earth isn't an option and... Can you actually do locator spells on people anyhow?" Dean asked, frowning and trying to dredge up everything he'd ever read about magic - most of which was from TV, films and fantasy novels. Not the most reliable sources of information.

"Yeah, you can." Caleb said. "Which of course means so can he. Which means that disappearing thing won't be working out for you, even if you tried. He'd be able to hunt her down." He paused. "You can do almost anything with certain types of magic, depending on what you want and your know how. And since we're willing to bet here that he's got his know how in spades, let's not put anything past the guy."

"Actually, I meant him anyway. If he can find her anywhere she goes, hiding just isn't really an option worth contemplating - all it'd do is give you a false sense of security," Dean shrugged. "So, let's just assume he knows exactly where she is." Which was a scary prospect and Dean had to stamp down really fucking hard on the instinct to pick up his bag and run the hell home right now. "Is there anything you can't do with magic?" he asked instead, trying to make sure he asked reasonably intelligent questions, quite willing to get a crash course in magical theory here. It'd go with his crash course on fades, on disruptors, on fire arm use - he was thinking he could get the set.

"Personally, I'd want to find someone who could find him, too. Just to know where the fucker might be." Caleb said, but shrugged. "Paranoid." he added. Then he thought. "...I'm not sure?" Caleb suggested. "I know most things are available in some form. I don't know as much about black or white magic as I do about blood, and really the best thing blood magic is used for is purely offensive. It isn't going to be making your dreams come true, but it's going to make goddamn sure if anything's coming at you that it's not going to be having a good night for it's efforts." he explained. "But I'm pretty sure, with higher levels of shit, that you can do a lot. Especially with black magic. White magic is pretty purely defensive. The sort of shit that's supplementary, like wards and protection spells, anything that doesn't actively really change anything for the worse. ...like a location spell, that would actually qualify as white magic." he explained. "It doesn't do anything. Just finds someone."

Dean nodded, taking all of this in. "Right, okay - I know a white witch," he said, straight away, thinking that he'd be talking to Maddie. Defensive magic sounded like a good place to start, especially since they were talking potential future problems. "Defense seems like a good plan right now. Since we don't know where he is, or what his plans are, seeing if we can get anything put in place in case he suddenly reappears, maybe that'll warn us, or slow him down, or... I don't really know what," Dean admitted, since, yeah, he really didn't. He knew they'd warded the house against vampires - could Maddie do something like that against people as well? He was going to have to talk to her. Which, well - she was intimidating.

"I'd get on that, definitely." Caleb suggested. "I'd be asking for a hell of a lot of wardings, and just...yeah. Anything they can come up with. It'd be prudent, anyways. I still think that there's going to be trouble somewhere along the line--and by the way, just to be official about it, if anything does go down--call me." he said seriously. "I can deal a lot of damage, if absolutely nothing else." He could hand that out like nothing. Particularly now.

Dean looked at him, then nodded. "Thanks - appreciate it," he allowed, again with the barest hint of a smile. "So, doom-sayer, anything else I should be watching out for?" he asked, quirking slightly more of a smile, though he was taking the subject seriously. He wondered if it was fucked that he felt more comfortable discussing Thia in relation to potential badness coming her way than in discussing the fact that he might try it on with her. Yeah, that was probably fucked.

"Besides 'everything'?" Caleb asked. He thought. "I don't know. I still think that she'd be the perfect demonic party favor. I think that just being what she is would make her a target, because there are really sick things out there. Sweet little thing like her? Yeah, I'm sure there's shit out there that would love to play with her for a couple hundred years. There's...potentially a lot that she could be used for, and I don't really want to put things in too fine terms. But she'll need to be careful. And--you said you hadn't talked to her about everything because she has a lot to deal with right now. You told me not to pull punches because you need to know, because you don't want to be caught flat footed. I think you should turn that logic around on her. I think she probably needs to know this shit too." he added, deciding he'd better put it out there sometime.

"She's hardly leaving the house at the moment," Dean said, almost sadly. "And when she is, there's usually someone with her. I just... I don't know if she could handle this right now. I was - If I can... I'd prefer..." he couldn't think of the best way to put it - that if he could cope, prepare, work the angles, then maybe she wouldn't have to deal with this at all. She could just get on with getting herself stable again and Dean could just keep anything and everything bad from getting a look in.

Caleb looked at Dean flatly for a second. "Dean, it's physically impossible for you to actually protect her from everything all the time. And even if she doesn't leave the house, we've already established that that might not actually matter." he stated, voice flat but not harsh. "I get you want to protect her, but if she isn't prepared herself, and honestly, I was skimming some of the rest of that book, she shouldn't be helpless..." he shook his head. "Think about it, alright? You try to do this alone and it'll get you killed. And her. Granted, apparently she won't stay dead but if things like I'm thinking about get ahold of her she'll wish she would."

"It's not just me," Dean protested. "Look, mostly I'm not thinking about me protecting her anyway. At least, not like that. I'm bloody useless," he continued, knowing as he said it that that wasn't entirely true anymore, was it, but still, force of habit made him sell himself short. "But, I live with a werewolf. And one who seems to - she's pack now. He'll protect her," he said with some confidence, wondering if Caleb would actually get the idea of pack - it had always seemed so straight forward to Dean. "And I will, talk to her about it, eventually. But right now, she's - she's fragile. She's been through too much and I won't be the one to heap more on her shoulders."

"So this werewolf is just going to watch her 24 hours a day and he's going to be looking out for all this shit too? Sorry, man, but a werewolf might be badass--honestly, even I try not to fuck with shifters as much as humanly possible--but one werewolf against the demonic isn't going to cut it." Caleb didn't necessarily get the pack thing, but could sort of see what Dean might be trying to imply. "It's still her being in the dark about things where maybe there could be some kind of plan in place if anything does go wrong. I don't know, I just think that keeping her in the dark isn't the wisest idea in the world. ...fuck if you don't want to talk to her about shit, I can, if she'll talk to me, but seriously. I think it's asking for trouble if she's just wandering through life without knowing what might be coming for her."

"No - look, I'll talk to her, but I'll talk to her when i think she can handle this. Right now is not that time," Dean told him, firmly. He wasn't backing down on this one - Thia had had enough lately. She was going to get some time where the crap didn't touch her, even if it was only a couple of days. If it was at all in Dean's power to give her that, he'd bend over backwards to do it. "I can see where you're coming from on this one, Caleb, but no. Not yet, not now. There's no point planning for the worst if you have to break someone to do it."

Caleb opened his mouth, then shut it again, knowing he wasn't going to win this one. Well, he'd made his point. And if Dean wasn't willing to see reason, he couldn't do anything about that. It wasn't like he even knew Lullaby well enough to get all gun ho overprotective on the girl--and besides it looked like Dean had that shit more than covered. "Have you thought at all about an identity for her?" he asked, which was still on the subject of the girl, but quite clearly a departure from what they'd been going on about.

"Not in any more than passing," Dean told him, glad that Caleb had chosen to drop the matter - Dean had had no intention of backing down on that one. Caleb didn't know Thia and he didn't know the situation - he only knew what Dean had told him and what he'd read in a book. His suggestions were sensible, but not when you actually added the people factor in. Caleb was looking at this objectively, clinically, dryly. Dean was closer, more involved - his view point, he knew, was subjective, but that meant that he could judge the feel of the situation that much better. Weigh up the options, tailor what needed to be done to Thia specifically. "Especially since, well, so many people know here here in town, it's going to be severely limiting even if we can give her a new name." Plus, he had no idea how to go about doing that kind of thing.

"Say, hypothetically, I could possibly come up with something like that." Caleb said. "Would you want me to look into it?" It was a simple question. And technically, he couldn't do anything like that himself. His brother, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. He didn't know if Math would do it or not but it didn't hurt to ask.

"Hypothetically?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. "Just how 'hypothetical' are we talking here?" he asked, taking another sip of his water. It was all he'd taken so far today - he'd yet to eat anything at all and even the bottle was mostly full. The idea of eating or drinking anything had turned his stomach all morning, but he'd finally settled in the last half hour. All the same, the sips were small and infrequent as he tried to balance thirst against his ever out of balance system.

"Hypothetically like hypothetically." Caleb answered. "Just...would you want me to look into it? Or would you rather I didn't?" He wasn't getting into the specifics. For all he knew, Matias would tell him to fuck off, that that shit didn't come cheap or it drew attention or something. He really didn't know how hard it was to come by that shit.

"Hypothetically I'd be interested," Dean allowed. "I know it's not something I know shit about." Which wasn't surprising - Dean was learning that there was a hell of a lot out there he knew nothing about. Most things, in fact. He'd always considered himself to be fairly clued in and apparently? He'd been entirely wrong there. He was learning as fast as he could, but it was still disorientating at times.

"Okay then." Caleb said. "I'll look into it." he finished. "Which means if you get a phonecall asking for details, I'll need them. Or if you could possibly get some for me beforehand, that would be good too. Height, weight, eye color...I remember she's a brunette, I'd need a picture probably, though. Name. Shit like that. If she's got any other disabilities besides being deaf." Since he really didn't know. He'd only really met her once, he knew her more through Journey and things he'd said than through actual interaction with the girl.

Up went the other eyebrow. "Wow - yeah, sounds really bloody hypothetical to me. I'll get the information together, but... Okay, it's not my choice. I will talk to Thia about it, see how she feels about things," he allowed, changing tacks mid-flow. He was fairly sure she'd rip him a new one if she found out he was being all protective and he knew she'd be pissed again if she heard him making decisions for her. Though he would still argue that he'd never actually meant to not talk to her about the whole moving-in thing. He'd just learnt that obviously she needed things like that to be made blatantly obvious to her. Fine.

"Alright." Caleb said. "Take your time, just let me know." he said. This meant he'd be asking his brother tonight about this shit. "And if I can't actually make any of this happen, I'll let you know that too." he added in there. "Since I might not. But I was kind of doubting that you had any connections that could hook you up with anything like that...so...."

"Yeah, I doubt it as well," Dean agreed readily - somehow he didn't see Oz and Sophie as being the kind of people who'd be able to get hold of that kind of thing. Course, if he was thinking about it like that... "So - how come you might have those kinds of connections?" he asked Caleb.

Caleb hesitated, and quirked a little half smirk, looking at the ground for a second, then back to Dean. "There's a lot of shit about me people don't know." he said. Wasn't that putting it mildly. Insanely mildly. "I've had an interesting life. Not all of it has been on the level." And my family's is about as off the level as you can get, really. Did I mention my mother was a demon?

"Okkkkay - this a subject you want me to drop, or one I can ask about?" Dean asked him, carefully, because he didn't want to go sticking his nose in where it wasn't wanted, so he'd give him an out if he needed it. And, since his mind was on blatant. yeah - see, it near as damnit had big flashy lights and arrows on it screaming 'this is the out'.

Caleb took it, though he gave Dean a rueful little expression. "That'd be something you should probably drop." he said. "I really can't talk about some things." And really, his heritage wasn't essential for Dean to know. All it would do is probably jade Dean towards him, and that wasn unnecessary. He knew the important things. He could do blood magic, he may have some shady connections that could get things that might be necessary for oh, say, living dead girls. But the whys of it weren't vital. "Sorry." he added.

That had Dean even more intrigued, but he nodded. "'Kay - look, don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't something that's gonna get me and mine burned for not knowing, right?" he asked, since they were on that kind of a subject anyhow.

"No." Caleb said, and that he said with full confidence. It could just get me and my brothers burned. he silently added. He didn't know if he should put it like that though, because he didn't want to give Dean too much to think about with it. "It won't. You have my word." And if everyone around kept not-knowing what he was, then that promise would be kept. The only backlash he could really see Dean getting from it would be if he decided to take up arms against him if he did find out, but people rarely killed by association. If they really went half demon hunting, they weren't caring about the people they hung with, they just wanted to take out the evil nasty things. Or something like that.

"Fine, then I won't ask," Dean said, putting trust in his friend, never stopping to wonder whether that was a wise thing to do. Possibly some people would say that he was far too trusting, but that didn't even occur to Dean.

It occurred to Caleb. Which kind of made him a little sad, gave him a twitch. Because Dean sounded like he trusted him, and really--he probably shouldn't. And just because Caleb wasn't going to do anything stupid didn't mean other people wouldn't. Yeah...Dean was naive. Shit. He had the feeling he was going to be spending time watching out for him. And with the shit that could potentially be headed Dean's way...oi. Things could be a fucking mess, really.

As it was, the school bell chose that moment to ring and people started moving off towards their afternoon classes. Dean flipped the cap back onto his now half-empty waterbottle and shoved it back into his bag. "Well, let me know on the hypothetical, if you get anything. And give me a call about the car," he said, standing.

Caleb got up too, shouldering his bookbag. "I will." he said. "Good luck with...fuck, everything." he said. Since Dean had a whole lot more to deal with right now than he did. Maybe eventually they could get back to a place where they weren't discussing trauma on some level or another. Since things had changed with Leija, and he hadn't really told him about that shit yet. But...another time.