Not Just a Catch-up

Who: Caleb and Dean
Where: School Corridors
When: Lunchbreak

Although Caleb and Dean had shared art class together that morning, there hadn't been a whole lot of talking being done. Not about anything in particular anyhow - Dean had stopped trying to really get into serious conversation with his friend in class anymore, since the other week when they'd hit a 'we can't talk about this here' block and it'd all turned weird. He'd been meaning to track the guy down yesterday, actually, given that Caleb had turned up at school looking as exhausted as Dean had felt himself, but that very exhaustion had meant that Dean hadn't been much good for anything at all and nothing had come of it. He'd had a better night's sleep last night though - plus he wasn't in major trouble about the state of the house (though he'd been constantly penitent about the damage he'd caused, especially when Sophie had let slip about the cost of replacing everything), which helped. And so it was that when the lunch break bell went, Dean headed off through the marauding hordes of hungry students looking for Caleb.

Caleb didn't generally have anywhere specific he went during lunch, so long as it was 'away from everyone else'. Which meant he often found quiet places in the halls to just sort of sit and draw, or do whatever, attempting to not be bothered by anyone. It was a good system. Currently, he was sat on the second floor, underneath a window where he was sketching out a window on a drawing pad he'd swiped from the art room. Most of his were ash after all, and while he'd gotten some new clothes, he wasn't really that comfortable asking his brother to shell out for art supplies. So petty theft it was. The charcoal stick he was using wasn't his either. When he noticed movement up the hall, he looked up, and noted Dean. Which wasn't a bad thing. They'd kind of quit trying to talk about anything resembling important in class, and he hadn't actually caught up with the guy in what seemed like a long time. Or, what was more likely, he hadn't caught up with him in a few days and those days had been eventful. "Hey." he said with an upnod when Dean was closer.

Dean dropped his back by Caleb's side and followed it down, joining his friend underneath the window and assuming a casual position, his knees drawn up a little, an arm resting atop them as he looked over at what Caleb was drawing. "Window?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Art project or something else?" he added, since it seemed like a random thing to be drawing, all things considered.

"Something else." Caleb admitted after just a moment's hesitation. "...call it fulfilling a promise I was meant to before but skipped out on." he added. Since really, that was kind of closer to the truth. He'd told Leija he'd paint windows on her walls for her and ha! Yeah that hadn't ever happened. Everything had crashed and burned far too fast for him to have even really started.

"To draw windows?" Dean asked, doubtfully. "Well, whatever floats your boat, mate, really," he added with a shrug, leaning his head back against the wall and looking out over the corridor for a moment or two. At least here was far from the madding crowd - Dean was a big fan of peaceful places. or as peaceful as you got during lunchbreak in a place where the student body couldn't actually disperse outside really. "So, how've you been?" he asked, looking over at Caleb again as he spoke.

Caleb had to think about that for a minute before he answered, and that was clear. Finally he glanced over from his drawing for a second. "You want the short, superficial answer, or the more in depth, full of stupid one?" he asked, figuring he could at least be honest and give his friend the option to bow out of something that could turn heavy.

"That second one - I never really was a big fan of superficial," Dean admitted. He preferred to actually know what was going on. He'd left superficial and secret behind in England, when he'd stopped trying to just fit in with everyone else and not be anything different. He'd done superficial there - both from other people and what he gave out as well. And he'd been utterly miserable, deep down inside. He didn't do that anymore.

"My ex girlfriend's gone completely batshit insane--and we're talking the real deal, not just her being a crazy woman. Like I got seriously creeped out then spent the next two days scrambling to try and get her checked into the psych ward because she was talking suicide." Caleb started with. "Got her in, she's got special needs and shit, had to make sure that was covered, which I did, with some help from my brother. I had a really great chat with the guy she dumped to be with me--that was a whole lot of fun. Could have been worse, but...not a conversation I'd ever recommend having. 'So by the way our mutual ex has lost her shit and I checked her into the mental ward, go visit her'. There isn't really much of a tactful way to go about that." Caleb stopped there for the moment, so Dean could digest that first.

"Trust me, mate - I know all about difficult conversations with girls exes," Dean commented, sounding resigned to that. He and Joshua had had their fair share, after all. "But - yeah, that sounds... She really in the hospital? I'm sorry mate - that's gotta be.. really hard. She okay? I mean, clearly not - but, she didn't... you know... she's not hurt or anything, right?" he checked.

"Not hurt, just...creepy." Caleb said, landing on the word that most efficiently summed up his complicated feelings on the matter. "I've never in my life had this happen, but when I was talking to her, the night that I decided that no, she really needed help...it was like she was saying all this shit. Obsessive, weird shit and she didn't even blink over it. I asked her to lay out exactly what she wanted from me, because no matter what I give her it's never been enough? And the shit out of this girl's mouth...seriously it was unsettling. Like...the kind of thing you'd expect someone under a love spell to say. I know I kind of tend to collect crazy girls and some of them have been clingy, but still. This was whole new worlds of fucked. Stopped me being angry about anything. I mean, before I thought it was just her being a completely unreasonable bitch about everything, but now? I think she's seriously just fucked in the head which means it's not really her fault." He paused for a long moment, then finished his thought. "Or mine." Because he did blame himself for quite a lot.

"And here was I thinking that you were meant to be the weird, obsessive one - sorry mate, I know it's not funny," Dean said, apologising immediately and sincerely for his comment. Sometimes he forgot to engage his brain before speaking. "Course it's not your fault - why would it be?" he asked, getting back on track more. He took a bottle of water from his bag and sipped at it, slowly.

Caleb gave a little half smile. "Yeah, well, I'm used to being the creepy obsessive stalker type, the turnaround wasn't pleasant." he said. Because he knew how he was too. It wasn't like he was blind to it. He just didn't carry around a huge mess of emotions equating to 'LOVE ME'! or, possibly 'DO ME!' compounded on top of it after two months of being broken up with someone. Especially considering they'd been together only a handful of days. A week, tops. He didn't so much answer Dean's question about things being his fault. He shrugged, and looked back to his drawing instead.

"You know, I'd prefer it if you'd just tell me to mind my own bloody business directly, than just ignoring me - least then I'd know where the lines were," Dean said, but there was no bite to the comment, it was just an observation. The rules were different with Caleb, at least at the moment. They were fairly good friends, and Dean trusted the guy immensely, but with some things, he was still feeling out the boundaries. Now, with Thia, Dean would just push and push until he got the answer, got it out of her. With Caleb, he was still feeling out the boundaries, so the guy got a little more leeway - the guy got the option to tell him to fuck off, without Dean taking it personally.

"I wasn't ignoring you, I shrugged. It's as good an answer as any. I think I just broke her. I didn't mean to, but I think I did." Caleb said, keeping his eyes on the window. He was adding a storm outside of it. A nasty looking one. "I think she wasn't that stable to begin with, and being with me shoved her right on tumbling over the edge. And whatever grip she did have on shit, it slipped, and slipped hard." He was quiet a second again, shading things in. "She actually came out and asked me if I was glad that I was still here. That I didn't actually manage to kill myself." he said. Which had been really hard to hear, difficult to deal with. It still was. The whole thing was. And he'd thought he'd feel at least a bit better, getting her into the psych ward and everything, but it didn't. Not really. It just meant he could relax slightly. "....there was a reason I offered you the easy superficial answer." he added on the end, with a touch of good humor. Not a lot, but a little.

Dean exhaled, quietly. "Doesn't make it your fault, mate - really," he said. Dean was good at taking blame for things - he'd practically turned it into an artform. But the flipside of that was always that if he could find a way for his friends to be blameless for anything, then he would - regardless of the reality of the situation. Not that that meant that he would have thought that Caleb was to blame in this even if he didn't have those habits, but it merely meant that that opinion, coming from Dean, didn't necessarily mean as much as it might from another party. "And I still don't want the easy, superficial answer. What did you say? When she asked you that?" It reminded him of the time when he'd asked Thia whether she'd wished she could have just died, that night with her father. Whether that would have been better. He knew the situations were entirely different, but that thought just came to mind. Difficult questions - both asking, and answering. And hearing the answer, not matter what it was.

"Well, she was fine and mostly functional and happy before she met me, and even up until things got heavy between us. Then she took a permanent vacation into crazy land, so what does that tell you? And she's the second one to do that, really." Never mind Jamie was a little crazy to start with. He still maintained that he probably had fault there too. After all, there was a common factor, and it was him. "And I told her yes, I was glad." he answered. He hadn't had to think about his answer when he'd given it to Leija, and he didn't have to think about it now. "So...anyways, there's been all that shit to deal with." he said, trying to cut his own thoughts off more than the conversation. "Then my house burned down. How've you been?"
"Maybe you just got to know her better," Dean pushed, not letting things drop, just because Caleb put in a blatant subject change there. Clearly this was bothering the guy - and Dean had laid it out there that he could just tell him to fuck off and mind his own business, which Caleb hadn't said yet, so, he was pushing. "Maybe all this that's showing now was already there, it just took time to show through. She's new to the area, right? So nobody else would be able to say 'oh yeah, this has happened before' or anything. You just don't know. And 'mostly' functional and happy? That's not 'everything was sunshine and rainbows until I came along and pissed on her parade' you know."

"No, it's not." Caleb agreed. "I knew she had issues. Just not issues like these. And trust me, if anyone knew the girl well, it was me. All we did was talk for a good chunk of the time we spent together before things went...sideways. I still don't even honestly know what happened. But it did, and then everything went to hell in record fucking time, and I also know me. And I think what happened to her, with all of this, it's on my head. Even if it wasn't intentional and I didn't even know it was going that way, I can't really see it another way. Especially since the first girl I was with in this town kind of went the same way. Not the same brand of crazy, but crazy either way. It's a trend."

"Maybe you're just attracted to girls who're like that," Dean suggested. "Rather than it being you having a tendency to break them, maybe you're just for some reason attracted to girls who are likely to break. You're not the cause, you're just... You're just got really weird taste?" he suggested, smirking slightly at that. "It'd get the same result - at the end of the day."

"Thanks for trying, but I don't really think so, and I doubt you're going to convince me here today." Caleb said, unpointedly. "I think I've got a price to pay here. So...I'm doing what I can to pay it." Not that he had any idea when he'd be done with that. And as he spoke, he realized that yeah, okay, he'd thought that he was off the hook because she was truly crazy but at the end of the day he was still spinning his wheels on the other thing. That it was his fault. Right. "You going to tell me how you are?" he asked.

"Okay, not today - maybe I'll try again tomorrow. Cos really mate - not your fault. You need any help with her or anything, just let me know." Which reminded him, actually - Dean had to give out another round of cell phone numbers again. He'd get to that. "And no - not until you tell me what the fuck happened to your house," he added, conversationally, since no - that hadn't, in fact, passed him by. Dean was just good at prioritising conversation threads.

Caleb had figured that Dean had figured he was joking when it had slipped on by. "My house burned down. I was out, arranging shit for Leija, and when I went to go home, it was on fire. Burned to the ground, really. Dorian's kind of not taking it well, I think he might fuck off for a while. Math's sticking around, even if he shouldn't. But yeah...Dor said some shit about spirits? But it was kind of in the middle of all the ranting and I wasn't paying that much attention." he confessed.

"Night before last, right?" Dean checked, glad to hear that everyone was okay - which, really, he'd figured, or Caleb wouldn't have been spinning his wheels over his ex being in the psych ward so much. "Spirit tried to flood our basement. And possibly electrocute us. You seen the news? About some terrorist group or some shit - claiming blame, I don't know what, but yeah..."

"I avoid the news. Terrorists are claiming responsibility for ghost attacks?" Caleb asked. "That's...new." he landed on after a hesitation. "And fucked up. Is everyone alright at your house? No one got fried, I'm assuming." He'd seen Dean after dealing with a death, so he was pretty sure no one got seriously hurt or dead. Even if in some cases, that would only slow someone down for a day. "That mean we're both out of a place to live? Though I guess you lot have the apocalypse bunker."

"No one got fried - can't say the same for, well... everything else in the house though," Dean cringed. "We were... well, kinda sorta stuck in 3 inches of water in the cellar and I figured it was better that things didn't start going bang around us. So... Sophie's gone electrical shopping today, Oz and Billy are fixing the basement and the pipes and I have to give you some new phone numbers," Dean explained, hoping Caleb would be able to fill in the blanks there. "And yeah - terrorist group or something. Apparently wanting to highlight that supernatural shit can be dangerous. Like people who aren't in the know aren't already freaked out enough by the ghosts as it is, and people who are... well, it's hardly news to them that there's shit out there that's dangerous now, is it."

"The rest of the house? As in the whole house?" Caleb asked, actually kind of impressed with that. He could deal with new phone numbers and everything, but yeah. Man, killing the whole house, that was something. Then he frowned. "That makes no fucking sense. What, did the ghosts get together and decide this shit or something? Or...yeah. Not connecting this with sense at all."
"The whole house, the car outside, some streetlights - I kinda ended up with overkill," Dean cringed - though part of that he had decided, in retrospect, had been the fact he'd been touching Thia at the time, and whilst he knew that contact with her gave him that extra source of negative energy to draw off, and boosted his abilities somewhat, he'd never tried to do anything really big with her there, and he'd miscalculated. "I also ended up out for the count for a while and with a killer migraine." Or what would have been a killer migraine if it hadn't been for Thia taking some of it anyhow.

"...streetlights." Caleb said, smirking and shaking his head as he tried not to laugh outright, but chuckled a touch. "Jesus, that's definitely impressive." he told his friend, figuring he might as well tell the guy what he thought about it. "Shitty that you knocked yourself out and wound up with a migraine, but still...as far as packing a punch goes..." he trailed off. "You're a walking EMP."

"Basically, yeah," Dean shrugged, not actually sounding impressed about it - he was still overly aware of the fact that so much needed replacing at the house. And whilst he knew that Oz could afford it, and he'd been told innumerable times that what he'd done had been the absolute right thing to do under the circumstances, Dean simply wasn't wired to forgive himself for things. He just wasn't beating himself up quite as much as he could have done. "Took out Thia's hearing aids as well," he added, because that was really, really playing on him. Oz was looking into ordering new ones, and Dean had talked to him about it yesterday, asked if they could get a spare set that could be left up at the bolthole - it made sense to him, but, again, the expense of that was playing on his mind. Less so though - that was for Thia. Things became different, when they were for her.

Caleb winced faintly. "Ouch. I don't guess that she's got spares." he assessed. If she had, would they have been blown too? Probably. He vaguely wondered if that would have harmed her at all. Whether Dean's particular brand of psychic phenomena would have sparked her, or sent feedback, or...well, anything. But he figured if that was the case, Dean would have opened with the fact that he'd accidentally harmed his girlfriend, rather than leave it til later.

"Not really, no - we had to go steal those ones from her room in the first place, so yeah. Oz is sorting something out - it's not even like she can just go get things fitted. I don't - well, I don't really know how this stuff works, but yeah. It's being sorted." He pointed to himself. "Blunt instrument," he explained, which wasn't really true - he could be very specific when he wanted to be, he'd just wanted to get everything down, and down quickly that night, and he'd done just that, sacrificing for the sake of speed.

Nodding, Caleb sat back a little bit, considering. "Did she have spares at home? Think her parents have got rid of her stuff, or..." he said. It wasn't like he'd never broken into somewhere before. Hell, the night he'd met Leija, they'd gone and broken into Chrissy's house to trash her room like the vindictive little delinquents they were. "And hey, if it's everything gets shut down, or people get electrocuted, I'd say you went the right route." I'm uninterested in attending your funeral or anyone else's. He'd been to Lullaby's. That was enough for him.

Dean shrugged. "I think that if there'd been spares anywhere we could have got at them, then she would have taken them in the first place. And I don't - I never knew her mum and step-dad that well, so - I don't know." He imagined they'd kept everything, but he knew that was only because he knew he would have kept everything. He wouldn't have thrown anything away.

"I was just thinking we could go look." Caleb offered. Which might be very, very strange, but he'd do it. He didn't know anything about hearing aids, or what they cost, or if they had to be professionally calibrated or you could just get whatever and pop it in and it worked. He did know if she needed a hearing test or whatever to get new ones that that was going to be an issue for her. At least around here. And really, did they have the time and energy to take her out of state or some shit to get an appointment with...what the fuck were ear doctors called anyways? He was very glad he didn't have anyone legally dead to attempt to look after.

"Maybe - I just... I hadn't even thought about that until after. Didn't really think at all, y'know. Never had to have done that before." He took a breath and added, decisively, "I'll do better, next time." In this, he'd decided he had to plan for a 'next time' - he didn't know how yet, but he would.

"Well, in my experience, when shit starts going to hell, I stop thinking, and I just act." Caleb said. "And hey, I doubt the spirit who was possibly trying to electrocute you and all was going to stop for you to ponder it out, so...and hey honestly I wouldn't even have considered that they could be shorted out at all. That's news to me. I know fuck all about hearing aids." he admitted. "So, unless you're well versed and had time to think shit through, I think you're fine. She's not mad, is she?" he asked. He couldn't really picture it, her being mad at him for something like that. It probably sucked for her, but she seemed like the forgiving sort. "But we could go look. Couldn't hurt. Then maybe there'll be a backup pair regardless if she gets new ones."

Dean shook his head a little. "Nah - I don't really know about hearing aids either. And no, she's not mad. At all. She's... She wasn't mad." Worried about him, yes. Mad, no. She'd been more concerned about him dropping like a stone than being concerned about her hearing aids. "And yeah, I guess we could go have a look," Dean agreed, if cautiously - with all he'd been through during the last few months, he still didn't like the idea of breaking and entering. He'd do it - but he'd be nervous as hell about it.

Caleb smirked faintly. "It's not that hard. And it's for a good cause. So...sometime soon?" he suggested. "I don't have that pressing a social schedule to stick to, so I'm free for misdemeanors." he told Dean. He'd have to see when the people were home and shit. Which led him to thinking about where she lived. Used to live. For the first time he wondered if it was going to be creepy going there. Could be.

Dean nodded, agreeing to that. "Sure - soon," he said, trying to bottle up the nervousness he felt. He hadn't seen Thia's mum, or her step-dad since the funeral. He didn't particularly want to see them again when they caught him breaking into their house.

"...or, if you're too nervous about it, I could just do it." Caleb put in, just because his friend didn't exactly seem to be leaping at the chance. Which, alright, it was bound to be very strange. Strange, possibly creepy, an outside chance of painful, and that was all without counting possible legal repercussions. "I wouldn't mind, I don't really care, per se, just saying." Criminal activity didn't bother Caleb.

"No - no, I can do it," Dean said, treading harder on his psyche. "It's fine - I just... Really, it's fine." Really, he wasn't having horrible thoughts about her mum walking in halfway through them going through her room. Or even just walking into her room - finding out whether it was, in fact, a shrine to her now. Whether they'd just left it the way it had been. Whether they'd ever noticed that Hennabean had gone missing - or whether they'd just figured that one of her friends had come and taken the stuffed toy. Which was almost true, after all.

"You seem less than enthused." Caleb pointed out. "But if you insist, alright. We'll go when you're free. I'm sure it'll be fine." he assured Dean. Talking their way out of things was something he was pretty sure could happen and even if it couldn't properly, it could enough to get out of there. And he just liked going the route of not getting caught in the first place, which so far worked well for him.

"What? At the prospect of seeing my supposedly dead girlfriend's grieving mother whilst I'm breaking into her house? Oh no, really, I'm all excited about it - can hardly contain myself," Dean deadpanned, giving Caleb a look. "So, I'm not jumping for joy at the prospect - doesn't mean I won't do it if it's gotta be done. And really, the quicker she gets hearing aids back, the happier I'll be - she's all selfconscious without them." For them, the communication issues were minimal, but there were things they couldn't do, he knew that. What really bothered him though was watching how she interacted with other people, watching how not having her hearing aids changed her. He wanted to be able to give back what he took from her, and the sooner the better.

"Well, that won't happen if we're careful." Caleb said. "And again, technically, it doesn't need doing, if I'm willing to go on my own." he added. "And if I do happen to get caught? Whatever, I'm just another juvenile delinquent, I'll get what...probation, maybe a little community service and some fines?" He shrugged. "They'd have to catch me first. I never got caught in New Orleans." Which, granted, he'd occasionally done just by being faster than whoever was chasing him, but still.

"And if I'm there, I'm just a grieving guy who did the wrong thing and the police probably won't even get called," Dean said, stubbornly. If this was going to be done, he wasn't going to let Caleb do it alone. There was no way he could let his friend risk a criminal record for him and not be there - he just couldn't and that was the end of that.

Caleb was quiet for a minute, then shrugged. "Okay." he relented. He just knew things usually went smoother when the people involved weren't twitching all to hell and back, but whatever. Apparently Dean had done it once before, albeit with the girl in question, but that hardly mattered. "Just call...with whatever your new number is." he said, recalling he'd need Dean's new one. He liked being able to get ahold of people. One never knew when shit was going to get very rocky very fast.

"Yeah - I should have it by tomorrow. You'll get the mass text thing again." That was generally Dean's habit when he broke a phone. He always kept every number he was ever given in a notebook in his desk, then when he got a new phone, he texted everyone with the number. Unfortunately, he was used to this kind of thing by now.

"How many phones have you gone through anyways?" he asked, curiously. He knew he'd had a number or two for Dean. His own phone probably should have been replaced, but hadn't been. the face on it was still cracked and he was willing to bet if he took it apart it would still have dried blood in the cracks somewhere from his suicide attempt. But he didn't need it to be pretty he needed it to work, and like he hadn't asked Math to get him new art supplies, he wouldn't ask Dorian to replace his phone if it still worked at all.

"A few - I think this'll be my... third? Fourth? Since I got here anyway. Mum and dad wouldn't let me have my own phone at home for years because of it, so I only went through a couple back in England," he explained. He didn't do it on purpose - it was a right pain, having to always be giving out new numbers, but there was little he could do about it. It was just one of the things that happened to him.

"I didn't have one til I got here. My parents sure as hell never cared enough to want to be able to get ahold of me, or vice versa. It was Dorian who got me mine, he wanted to be able to reach me whenever." Which led Caleb to thinking about Dorian leaving, and he didn't know how he felt about it. He loved his brother, they just didn't see eye to eye. He'd thought for a long time that he'd kind of just made his brother's life worse, so maybe this was the best call for him. He didn't know. Then that just left Math, who seemed too stubborn to leave. plus there was whatever 'arrangement' he had.

"My parents bought me one for kinda the same reason - I started going out more with my friends back home at night. They wanted to be able to know where I was. Didn't really work," he shrugged. "Told them that if they gave me one, I'd just break it like I broke everything else, or I'd leave it at home so I didn't." That had been an argument or two, that subject. Dean knew now that they'd just been trying to do what was best for him, without smothering him too much. Give him some freedom without having to be too worried. He'd seen that at the time, deep inside, but there'd been so many issues in the way that he'd ignored it and just turned everything around covered in angst and ingratitude. But things had been different then.

"I was gone for a week and my parents didn't notice." Caleb said. It wasn't pointed, just sort of a recognition that the two of them had had massively different lives. Different upbringings, different family dynamics. He had his brothers now. Kind of. He had Math, mostly. Dorian...was Dorian. And just who they were as people kind of made them both twitch, though he guessed he wouldn't say ever that Dorian didn't care about him. Just that they should probably do that from a distance. Unless Dorian got his ass mixed up in stupid bullshit again and needed to be bailed out. He really hoped not.

"My parents would have noticed," Dean shrugged. That made him wonder if they'd thought that's where he would have ended up if they'd left him be - disappearing one day. He wondered if he would have done - just gone, had enough, left to find somewhere where there wasn't everything. He didn't know, he really didn't. Maybe, maybe not - he hadn't really thought there was any alternative, before they'd sent him away. His life was what it was, and that had been getting to him, but he knew he'd never really sat down and thought through the possibility of changing it for anything else. That had been why he'd been so angry when they'd said they were sending him away. It wasn't until he'd got here that he'd realised that there was such a thing as 'better'. He thought about that, here and now, and realise that, yes - here was still better. Even with everything, he was good with the fact that here was better, and that felt like progress.

"I think most parents would. Just...not really mine. But then you know a little about why that might be, and all. Not quite the nurturing type, my mother, and my dad? Well...he's the kind of guy who would fall for someone like her. So what's that say?" he asked rhetorically. "...do you miss home?" he asked. He'd missed his friend while he'd been home, but still, he was curious.

"No," Dean said, pulling himself out of introspection. "No - I went home. I didn't fit there anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I ever actually did. It's really odd - feeling like a stranger in the place you grew up. How about you? I mean, I know not your family, but New Orleans - you ever miss it?"

Caleb thought for a moment, but eventually shook his head. "Not really." he admitted. "I mean, I could do without the snow and cold here, but I suppose I feel less like I could just disappear and it wouldn't have any impact whatsoever on anything. When--" he stopped for a second, wincing faintly, but he continued, figuring Dean wouldn't let him drop it without going on. "When Lullaby died, it was strange for me. I could see how much it had thrown everyone, even people who might not have known her that well. I've never seen that before. New Orleans is a big place. If someone died, if you even heard of it, you probably never heard of them. It didn't cast this shadow over everything, like it does here. I didn't quite get that before? But I get it now. And I guess I appreciate that on some level. Not being able to just...drop off the grid without anyone even noticing."

"Yeah, I know how that goes," Dean agreed. "Well, some of it anyway. The whole big place thing - shit happens and it just gets swallowed up. Not like here, where everything's news." For once, Dean was strangely accepting about the subject of Thia's death coming up. Maybe it was just because it wasn't directly referencing it - just used as an example, and Dean knew that it had impacted on a lot of people. It was either that or he had to wonder if he was becoming more accepting of it. And, if so, what that meant.

Well at least Dean didn't seem to be taking the subject of his girlfriend's funeral badly, so Caleb relaxed a little. "Right. People seem to...I don't know. Give a shit, at least to some extent. It wasn't really like that in New Orleans. Too many people struggling just to make it on their own, they didn't have time to notice what the fuck was going on with anyone else. I mean, I was guilty of it too, I know. I didn't have any friends, I didn't really care about many people at all. And the ones I did were either far away, or fleeting."

"I had friends," Dean said, leaning his head back against the wall. "Or, well, yeah - thought I did." That was unfair, he knew. Tarring the rest of them with Andy's brush. Though, the last he'd heard from back home people had splintered off. They were all taking sides - those with Andy and those against. Like some kind of fucking battleground. It all seemed to be falling apart.

"Yeah, I remember what you said." Caleb said. Though Caleb still maintained if he'd caught someone doing something like that he would probably be working on hiding a corpse soon after. "But you had them, anyhow, and probably still have some. I just...never really did. For reasons you know I've always just felt different, like even if I could see the same shit and experience the same as everyone else, I was just always going to come up with a different conclusion. Or see it differently, or...whatever. I wasn't them. And I wasn't ever going to be. And I knew it, really, really young." Vaguely, Caleb wondered when they'd drifted into being philosophical.

"I just tried to fit in," Dean shrugged. "Even if I was coming to different conclusions, or thinking different things I just... Didn't say it, y'know? Kept it all to myself, just went along with everyone else. Pretended to be just what they were, nothing different at all." His voice sounded a little empty when he talked about that. He'd been miserable, in retrospect. Frustrated, and stressed and absolutely miserable - he just hadn't seen it, he'd thought that being just like everyone else would solve all of his problems, so the more unhappy he became, the harder he'd tried to just fit in. And the worse everything had got.

Caleb watched Dean out of the corner of his eye for a moment. "When did you start recognizing you weren't like everyone else?" he asked. He'd known forever. It had never been any secret whatsoever that he wasn't human. His household was very much of the opinion that they weren't human, they were better. Only not him. Because even if he did have demonic blood? It did fuck all in the way of perks for it. So he'd been worse than human. He was supposed to be special and just wasn't. Or, that was how he'd always figured his mother thought.

Dean shrugged. "Dunno - my abilities started when I was ten. I guess around then. But, I dunno - I've always felt different to everyone else, I guess. Maybe everyone does though, who knows," he added, automatically and unthinkingly discounting the idea that maybe he'd ever considered himself to be different, or special.

"I don't know, I guess. How everyone else feels, that is." Caleb clarified after he answered. "I know that the idea of belonging has to come from somewhere. So I'm imagining that there are in fact, people who feel it. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much high school politics bullshit going on. So it's got to be something, just...not for certain people." He looked back to Dean again. "You always felt different?" he asked.

"Yeah, well - people keep telling me that I don't see the world the same way as everyone else," he shrugged. "And I always felt... I dunno, separate, but that's probably - that's not like... weird stuff, just... I have this stupid hearing thing, it's nothing, but... Sometimes feel on the edges of things," he explained, incredibly dismissively.

That caught Caleb's attention, and he blinked a little, eyeing Dean. "Hearing thing?" he asked. Because yeah, just like Dean hadn't let him get by on anything else, he wasn't about to let it drop either. This was news. Caleb hadn't had any idea of anything regarding Dean's hearing. The only hearing 'thing' he had experience with was Lullaby's deafness.

Dean shrugged. "It's nothing," he said, playing it down as he always did - he never actually thought that anyone would understand - and he didn't think that he ever did a good job of explaining it, so generally he just didn't even try. "I just don't do well in crowds, that's all. Kinda... It's kind of overwhelming. Like all the sounds all mush together and it's like... white noise. Don't get any of it."

"Okay you kind of half explained that but didn't actually explain." Caleb said. "Just hearing issues and crowds...what is it exactly?" he asked. Again, he was utterly ignoring the whole blow off thing. If he was bothering to mention it, then it was getting talked about, because obviously--it warranted mention in the first place.

Dean pulled a slight face. "I have this... thing," he said, gesturing slightly. "I dunno - it's like... Okay, this sounds stupid to most people, but I hear too well. Like, when it's quiet, I hear great - not like werewolf great, but I can hear a lot. Like if art's quiet, I could always actually hear what Janice and her friends were whispering about. But if lots of people are talking at once, or if it's noisy - like in the dining hall and stuff? Then sometimes Thia could hear things better than I could." Which he wasn't sure was true, but it made for a good comparison. "Makes being in a group kinda hard - and most people just don't get it. Like Thi - she can explain, and people get 'I'm deaf'. You say to people 'I hear too well and that means I can't tell what you're saying' - nah, doesn't really fly."

Caleb listened, and made the attempt to understand. "So there's overload." he assessed. "Too much you're getting and then it's hard to pick shit out?" he suggested, just to be sure he got what his friend was saying. He'd never heard of it before, but he could get the concept. That said he could also understand why people might be mystified by it, and not understand what he was saying.

"Yeah - like everything I hear sounds like the same volume? You could be whispering and it'd sound.. I dunno - I know when people are shouting, but not so much as normal people do? It's stupid, and it's... fine, just... I dunno. Sometimes I weird people out, cos I lip read - so I get called on for staring." And he knew that made him feel self-conscious. But drawing attention to his differences always made him self-conscious anyhow. He'd lived most of his life just wanting to be like everybody else.

"You lip read?" Caleb asked. "Huh. Interesting. I guess somewhere in there I kind of always thought that was really just a stupid plot device for bad television. Guess not." Then he quirked a faint half smile. "So you hear too well that sometimes makes it difficult for you to hear at all, and your girlfriend's almost deaf. How's that work for you guys?" he asked curiously.

"Really well, actually," Dean said, with a little smile. "Cos both of us are used to not being able to hear shit, we both naturally make sure that we get round that. I never had any problems talking to her - that was kind of a first for me," he admitted. He was sure that was part of the reason he'd felt so much more comfortable with her, right from the start. "And no, not a stupid plot device, fact of life."

Caleb smirked a minute then shook his head a bit, noting Dean's smile. He did that when he was talking about his girl. It had been part of why he'd encouraged the guy to go for it with her. It had just taken him forever. "Well I guess that works for both of you then." he said, kind of understanding, but figuring that was also something that you had to be a part of to really get. Like his kinship with Leija over being wholly different and always knowing it. And while Dean was saying he'd felt different as well, Caleb didn't think he'd ever get what it felt like to be a different species. To be that far apart, and in Caleb's case--something most people would probably want dead on the spot. "Guess this would be where I tell you if you need me to do anything specific for you to understand me in situations where I'm not thinking about it, let me know."

Dean shook his head. "It's okay - really? It's not like you and me do a whole lot of being in noisy situations or anything," he shrugged. "So, it's nothing. One of those vaguely weird things is all," he added, a little self-consciously. Generally, he didn't even mention it at all. He'd tried explaining a couple of times and generally people didn't get it. hell, he'd only told Thia really in the beginning because she'd picked up what he was doing and called him on it. Generally speaking, Dean wasn't good at divulging information about himself.

"...did I say it wasn't okay?" Caleb asked, giving Dean a bit of a Look. "Stop being defensive and dismissive at me. I'm not giving you shit over it, and haven't looked at you like you're nuts, either." he pointed out. "So...chill a little." He got being self-conscious, but he didn't think he quite deserved that sort of reaction. Now if he'd given shit--definitely. And he was sure Dean had gotten shit for it because it came off really strangely. But still.

Dean looked across at his friend. "No you didn't - I'm just saying it's nothing that you really need to be looking to do anything specific, is all. It's nothing important," Dean tried to explain, not sure where his friend had got the idea that he was getting worked up about things. "Chilling not needed - I'm cool, really," he added.

"Alright." Caleb said, dropping it. "Good to know, though." he added. "...think the only thing like that that's anywhere near interesting about me is just the pain thing." he said thoughtfully. "Which...I'm not sure if you know or not, but it just kind of doesn't bother me." It hadn't always been like that, but it was now.

Dean frowned slightly. "Pain doesn't bother you?" he asked, wondering if he'd heard that right - and, he had to admit, fairly jealous if that was the case, in an odd kind of a way. He knew that pain definitely bothered him. In fact, Dean was sure that 'a complete baby' could be a moniker assigned to him in that regard.

"No...not anymore. Used to. But when you do the kind of thing I do...either you learn to shut it out or you stop doing it." Caleb explained. He paused, then tugged up his sleeve a little bit just showing the network of scars on his arm a little better. "I don't know really when exactly it kind of just...stopped mattering, but it did." He was thinking about when Dorian had stitched him up in the bathroom sans any painkillers but he didn't want to bring up stitches of any description when Caleb could still quite vividly recall Dean screaming when he'd been stitching up his leg.

Dean eyed the scars, thinking of Thia's - and thinking that Caleb had more than she did. He was very aware of the couple he had - and how he got them, and the aftermath of that. "Lucky you," he said, then realised how that might sound and hurried to catch up with an explanation. "Not - I mean, not for going through all of that and it can't - I know with your magic and everything, right? Because I saw - with the creatures out in the woods, but just - pain's... Not a good thing to go through, so if you don't then, I mean - that's a good thing, right? If... If it doesn't bother you." But there was a little voice in the back of his head that reminded him that just because pain didn't bother him, didn't mean he flat out didn't experience it. Just that he could put up with it. Maybe.

Caleb unwittingly echoed Dean's thoughts. "Doesn't mean I don't feel it. I'm just not floored by it like other people. Which is kind of good and kind of bad. Good, because I can kind of keep going, even if I'm fucked up." he said, tugging his shirt back down to hide the scars. He also picked his sketchbook back up and flipped to a new page and started sketching pretty much nothing that had a real form. "Bad, because I can't always tell when I've gone too far. And if you don't notice you're bleeding out until you're already light headed and feeling cold, that's not exactly the best time to just begin thinking about medical attention."

"No - it's not," Dean agreed, from the unusual position of knowing what that felt like. Which made him want to ask his friend that - and, after a moment or two, actually did so. "You... Have you ever been there?" he asked. "Light headed? Cold? ...That far gone?" It was a tentatively asked question, and clear that Dean wasn't entirely sure that it was one he should be asking at all.

Caleb didn't answer right away, but then decided that since Dean asked...they were doing the friend thing. He hadn't been disowned after the half-demon bomb had been dropped, and while Caleb was occasionally paranoid that it was negatively impacting things, he didn't feel like everything had changed. So...he decided to answer. "I told you before that I'd been in the hospital. That I'd tried to kill myself." he said. Not that they'd had any huge long heart to heart over it or some shit, but it had gotten mentioned. "I didn't exactly do it small. I kind of went and picked a fight with everything I could find, just waiting for something to be big enough to take me down before I took it down. Came close. I know I made it to the beach. I don't actually know how it is I made it to the hospital. I was in the ICU for a few days too. I'm told that I lost vitals or something on the way there." Not that he'd been aware for it. He made a face. "Fuckers stuck me on morphine in the ICU, I kept telling them I didn't want it. I really hate being medicated."

Dean nodded slightly, listening to what Caleb had to say, even if he didn't comment on it. He didn't figure his friend was after pity of any description, and he hadn't asked just so he could give it. "Your arm was in a cast when you came back to school," was all he said - he'd remembered that much. For a time, he'd figured that's where the guy had been for the start of the year - that he'd broken his arm and been in hospital for that. Apparently he wasn't so far off the mark, just in no way getting the whole picture at the time.

"Yeah. Broke my wrist sometime in there. Couldn't tell you when." he said. "But then I was pretty badly fucked up." He'd only gotten the cast off early because of the knife Mathias had given him. "...so, yeah. I know what that feels like." he said eventually, which had been the point of telling the story in the first place. "I know exactly what it feels like when the lights are getting dim."

"Not many people do," Dean mused - though it wasn't entirely clear whether he said that statement to Caleb, or just to himself. He certainly wasn't looking at his friend when he said it, which was unusual in itself for the teen who had a very firm habit of looking at whoever he was speaking to. He rested his head back against the wall, staring out over the corridor, taking a moment before shaking the shadow off. Did they really want to get into all of this again? "So, where you living now? With the fire and everything," he asked, changing the subject back to a topic from a while ago.

Caleb didn't mind the subject-hop. It was grim at best, and not something that he felt the driving need to continue spinning his wheels on. He'd done enough of that when he was in the hospital, or at various times since. "At the moment, at the Lamplighter motel. Shitty little place, kinda almost out of town. I think Dorian's bailing, he keeps talking about it. Which just leaves Math and myself, I'm not sure where we're going or what we're doing."

"I can talk to Oz about the bolthole if you need somewhere to stay," Dean offered, leaving the offer at a discussion, because he knew that, if it came to that, he'd feel the need to be completely honest with the guy about who he was letting stay there. And what they were. Which made him, once again, very aware of the fact that whilst he still trusted Caleb, he knew the limits of that trust now, and he knew there were situations where he would hesitate where he wouldn't have hesitated before. He didn't like that - it felt wrong. It made him feel itchy and uncomfortable, like something had gotten under his skin and he couldn't reach it.

Shaking his head, Caleb vetoed that idea before really considering it a lot. "Naw, thank you, but that place is your family's end of the world failsafe, I would probably just feel like I was intruding the entire time." he admitted. "I figure Math's already on the housing thing, I'm sure there are perfectly acceptable apartments in town." Nondescript places that you paid month-to-month and no one looked at too closely. Or, that was what he figured his brother would go for.

"Well, if you don't find anything, the offer's still there," Dean said, not putting conditions on that at all - he didn't want to come out and say 'hey, if you want this place and you're desperate, then fine - but I'd have to tell about the half-demon thing!'. Way to put something over someone's head. Which, sure, that was there anyhow, but he didn't want to come out and say it.

"My brother's good at everything. I'm sure he'll come up with something soon." Caleb said, with the faintest trace of bitterness behind his tone. He wasn't still pissy with Math over things, but he'd lived his whole life in the guy's shadow so every so often it crept up on him. It wasn't something he held onto, but that didn't mean it was completely worked out of his system.

Dean looked across, catching that hint of a tone and smirking, just a little. "You know, I always kinda thought being good at everything was over rated," he offered. "Those types usually know it," he added, stepping away from calling his friend's brother 'an arrogant wanker', which was what he meant by 'know it' - not that he'd really met the guy, but sometimes gross generalisations were helpful.

Caleb let out an exhale that was close to a laugh. "He knows." he put out there, because yes. Math was That Guy. Through and through, he was. There was absolutely no denying it, and while he could come through for you as well, and occasionally Caleb scratched the surface and dug deeper past the 'I'm So Awesome!' persona, that didn't mean it wasn't the predominant feature of the guy. "He knows, and then some." he added. "Occasionally we kind of fritz on things. And most of the time it comes up because I don't think he's got any kind of concept in his mind of not being perfect. Of being overshadowed, or not able to pull off anything that happens to occur. There's a lot about me I don't think he'll ever understand just because he's never in his life been in my position, and truth be told, not even close."

"Perfect and doesn't have to work at it? You know - I think I hate your brother already," Dean joked - and was clearly joking. Dean was a guy who always tried really hard, and always had to try really hard - despite Thia's claims that he could be effortlessly handsome (looks didn't count in Dean's book, and anyway, she was biased). And despite the fact he was a naturally good shot (everyone had one thing that they were flukily good at, he was sure). But generally, Dean always strove for a perfection he knew he could never hope to get anywhere close to. He knew that he would never be good enough, deep in his heart of hearts. He might have said that being good at everything was overrated, but that didn't stop him from attempting it with the things that mattered - but yet he did so from a starting point that he'd never achieve that goal, and he could only hope to be a little less crap than he considered himself to be.

"That's him." Caleb said with a sigh. "He was always the golden boy. Dorian too, but Math was my mother's favorite. He could do no wrong. He's the guy who walks in anywhere like he owns the place and everyone plays along. He gets anything he wants and doesn't actually have to try." He shook his head. "Course occasionally it makes me want to punch him in the throat, but he's faster than me." he paused. "Of course."

"Yeah, really really hate him," Dean decided. "In our family, it was always the other way round - Scott - my younger brother? - anyway, he was the golden boy. Course, he never had weirdness that caused difficulties or anything. Hell, he still doesn't even know about any of that - it's all 'we must protect Scott'. Which, I can see, y'know? Can understand it - sometimes I would really love to not know the things I know, but... Yeah, he was always the better son."

That had Caleb frowning a little bit. "Protect him from what?" he asked. "You're psychic, not some huge dangerous freak or anything." he added. He could see how it might be easy to hide, or not impossible, at any rate, but the why he was massively fuzzy on. That part he definitely didn't get. Especially when one was talking about family. Sure, you didn't tell random strangers, but a brother? In a family that by default had to be less fucked than his own?

Dean shrugged. "From knowing anything about anything that's really out there," he told Caleb. "My parents wanted everything to be 'normal' for him." Normal had been important. Dean knew his parents had had a hard time coming to grips with his abilities, with what he could do. Now that he was out of there, he could appreciate that they'd tried - and he could also understand why they'd wanted to keep that side of things from their other son.

Frown getting darker, Caleb looked away for a minute. "Sounds like bullshit to me." he said, tone low and it was clear there was something about that whole thing that offended him on some level. That was because it did. He didn't agree with that, and figured all they were really doing was breeding ignorance, and when one was close to the supernatural, it almost inevitably spilled over in some fashion, so all they were doing was setting the brother up for a really harsh wake up call which he probably wouldn't appreciate later. Finding out you've been lied to your whole life, that wasn't going to be met with sunshine and roses. Beyond that it could flat out be dangerous.

"It's not bullshit - things aren't like here over there!" Dean said, leaping to his parents' defence. "There's not loads of... It was me. Just me. There weren't loads of people who could do things. There weren't vampires, and werewolves and... It was just me and everyone else just got on with things. He didn't need to know and they didn't want him to know. Don't want him to know. I mean, course - he knows about ghosts now, because everyone does. But, like - he met Thia. They got on okay, I think. But then Thia gets on with most people." Though she had some difficulties with my mum, and dad seemed kinda unsure about her until the whole Andy thing... that little voice supplied again, dragging reality to the fore once more. "He didn't need to know anything but that she was my girlfriend. That was all."

"Yeah, and she's a girl from another continent. She's just your girlfriend to them, you're their son. He's your brother. That's bullshit." Caleb said. "Playing it like that, it's always going to have you alienated, because there's some bullshit secret. You just said you always felt different? Bet that didn't help. Can't even tell your own brother about something that just makes you unique? It's not like he would even have to be told about everything else, because hell, you didn't know until later, right? I'm talking about knowing about you. Who you are and what you're capable of. It's bullshit that you've been treated like you've got something to hide, that your brother had to be 'protected' from the knowledge of. Throw on top of that that when he does find out? It's not like he's going to appreciate it. Would you? If you found out that he had something going on and your whole life you just weren't told? That's a whole lifetime full of issues waiting to happen for the both of you. And that's not even getting into the fact that it could be dangerous for him not to know what's out there. Because I'm sorry, Dean, but Marquette isn't the only place that's got issues with the paranormal. Other places do too. And there's no telling how far this is going to go. Not with the spirits having shown up, and the missing town, and other fucked up shit happening. I bet we're not even hearing about the half of it. But still...just...fucking bullshit."

"They wanted to protect him - he was just a little kid! And it not me - it's not... It's just - if you tell him that, then there's questions. About what else is out there. What else could be out there. And my mum and dad... They couldn't answer that. They were having a hard enough time dealing with me anyway. It was all news to them and Scott - him not knowing, he could just carry on. He could just have a normal life. Like everything else. He didn't need to have to deal with the rest of it. And maybe it gave them a break from it all. Wasn't like dealing with me was such a walk in the park for them. And he doesn't - didn't... God, there was no reason to tell him when... Nothing happens there. It's safe there. Away from this shit. Shit happens there and it's normal. It's people mugging people and gangs getting on at each other. It's not the shit we get over here. It's normal stuff. He doesn't need to know about it - it doesn't happen there." He's safe there. They're all safe there.

"Yeah, well, they say they don't know. They look into it, maybe. Possibly do anything but hide shit, and bury their heads in the sand, then ship you off to another country." Caleb said, which the moment he said it, he recognized it as harsh, but as far as he could see... "Little kids ask questions, big deal. They ask what happens when people die, too, and no one really knows for sure on that score but it gets fielded somehow. No, that's not an excuse. And if he had known when he was a kid? It would be normal for him. Just something about you. Not being told'll just....make it into this thing, and it'll be worse for everyone." he predicted. Worse for his brother, worse for Dean, worse for their parents...no one was going to come out of that unburned. "And he didn't need to deal with what? Just the knowledge of something you could do? I don't really think that rates. Knowing about you isn't going to either make his life off the charts fucked, and not knowing isn't going to guarantee that he'll for some reason live a perfectly normal and happy life like some stupid fairytale." Caleb stopped for a long, long moment, and set his drawing pad aside again. "Dean." he said, tone even. A little too even. "Do you honestly believe that?" he asked. "That England is some magical place where everything is fine and normal and nothing bad will ever happen? Like the rest of the world can spiral into hell and it's going to be untouched?"

"The world's not going to spiral into hell," Dean said, stubbornly, feeling his foundations wobbling. "Here? Maybe - but not everywhere. It can't." It couldn't - because he wasn't there. Because he'd come back here in the belief that the best thing he could do for his family was to leave them alone. Alone and unnoticed, with no connections to the supernatural at all. Anonymous and with nothing that attracted trouble. But if the world went to hell, then he would just have left them unguarded. "And they didn't stick their heads in the sand. They didn't - they tried their best with what they had. Not everyone's got a brother who owns and bloody supernatural bookshop and the answers to everything. There weren't any answers - there weren't any handy books or anything else. And this was new. You know - it may be no big thing for you, but you grew up with this shit, with bigger stuff that makes what I can do look like nothing. But where I was? This was a big fucking thing, okay? This was a world view breaking piece of shit. And it was shit he didn't need to know. So he doesn't know," Dean told him, the tension coming off him in waves now.

"It's not just here. What about Rose's town? And Leija, when she was off visiting her aunt, before the spirits showed up, that town was full of ghosts, just hanging around. There are reports of shit other places, Dean, we have it more frequently but that doesn't mean it just doesn't exist anywhere else. And I'm sure you've noticed that it's getting worse. What if the spirits is just the first step? I know that's worldwide. Which means it's there too." Caleb said. "I know I'm a guy for worst case scenario, and I'm taking that into account but I seriously think you're snowing yourself on this and I just--" he broke off for a moment, dragging his fingers through his hair as he looked away, then back. "I'm sure you want to believe what you're telling me but I think it's dangerous for you to do it." he said honestly. "And no. I'm sorry, man, but I can't back up that logic. They didn't do the best with what they had they found out you were different and swept it under the rug, turned it into something to be ashamed of and then shipped you off for other people to deal with. That's not anyone doing their best, that's--" getting rid of a problem. But he couldn't say it. Caleb didn't pull punches often but in that moment he couldn't possibly put that into words out loud. "Just because it's not there from the start doesn't mean you don't learn. And fine, you don't have a brother with a book shop. It's not the only one in the world. I'm sure if they actually tried? If they really threw themselves into it and looked? They could have found something. Because it's out there. Everything's out there. You just have to scratch the surface. Sounds to me like they didn't want their surface mussed."

Dean shook his head. "You don't know what you're talking about - you've... You don't know what it's like. You couldn't. Your family's always known. Mine never did. Just gran. And if there was shit out there to find? Gran would have helped them - she tried to help so much. So, if there'd been something, then - we would have... But there wasn't. So don't tell me what it 'sounds like', okay? Just don't."

Caleb put his pad into his backpack and closed it up, pushing himself to his feet. "I know that it's everywhere. I know that even if people aren't like me and grow up with it, they figure it out. And it isn't like they haven't had time. You said it happened when you were ten, right? Well six years is an awfully long time to get your shit together and find things out. Because it's not just here, Dean. And it's not just the states, and it's not just this continent, it's everywhere. And if you want to tell yourself some little fairytale about how there's nothing there, and nothing to find, and whatever, you do that. But I'm not going to help you with it."

Dean didn't stop him as he stood up. Really, at the moment - if the guy just left, Dean would let him go. Because he didn't want to be doing this. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to hear what was being said to him. Because it couldn't be like that - he'd left his family there because it was safe. And it had to stay safe. Because he couldn't protect them if he was over here, and they couldn't protect themselves. And he didn't want this kind of a life for them. A life full of blood and pain and murder, where people you loved got hurt and died and you had to have first aid kits in every room and learn how to attack and defend yourself. Where having a second home wasn't a status thing, but was about having somewhere to run to when the shit really hit the fan. But more than that - he didn't want to have to go home. He didn't want to have to feel like he had to go back to that place where he didn't belong. But he'd left them there, and if he'd called that wrong, then that was his fault. If he'd neglected his responsibilities, if he could have done something. His parents did what they could, but they weren't strong people - they weren't ready for this. And he didn't think that anything could make them ready for this. And Scott - Scott was just a kid, really. With his friends and his videogames. A kid who lived in a world where the worst thing that could happen really was that he got grounded. Or detention. And he'd just left them there. To come back here - because he belonged here. But that was putting himself first, wasn't it? But he didn't want to go back. He knew that probably said something terrible about him - that he belonged more in this mad world than that peaceful one. But he knew he did. He belonged here.

Caleb didn't walk off, he just kept his gaze on his friend, and the silence wasn't a good one. "I know you probably don't want to think about it, or hear it, but...I'm not going to be around to hold up a lie. You're my friend. I wouldn't do that to you." he said honestly. Even if it meant Dean was very unhappy with him. "My cell was on me and didn't get torched in the fire, if you need anything." he added, because he didn't want to leave and give the impression he was gone-gone. Just that he wasn't pushing the conversation further, and a subject change right now just wasn't going to work.

Dean kept his head down, looking toward the floor around Caleb's boots, no further up than that. "It's never going to end, is it?" he said, eventually, very quietly. "I - I can't do this. All of this. It's too much. There's just too much." Or, rather, there wasn't enough of him to go around. he couldn't do everything - but yet it was in his nature to try to. To make the world his responsibility, no matter what. No matter than he was just a sixteen year old kid. No matter that nobody else expected it of him, he still tried to do far, far too much and then beat himself up over not being able to cope.

Exhaling, Caleb leaned his shoulder against the wall, really hating seeing his friend like that, but...fuck. He'd done it again. He just did this to people. He took everything and crashed it. He did it to girlfriends, he did it to his brothers, and now that was extending to friends, too. He? Was just poison, it seemed. "No, it's not going to end. But you don't have to do everything, either. You don't have to deal with everything ever. Or alone." Because that he knew was true. As far as he could understand, his family back home aside, he had a good support system. ...if one didn't count himself. All he was really good for was disappearing corpses.

Dean finally looked up at Caleb. "I left them there. I came back here. I... I thought they'd be safer there, without me around. Without Thi around. They'd... We attract trouble. Or it feels like that and I thought... I thought that if we weren't there, they'd be safer. But... The way you put it, I just abandoned them, left them there with no protection. You don't know my family, Caleb. They wouldn't be able to deal with this. My mum and dad... They try. They really do... But, this isn't their world. This could never be their world. It'd break them. I know it would. They gave me everything they could. But people have their limits. They'd need me."

"I think you're missing who's the kid in this equation." Caleb said. "And I'm not saying that to be a dick, I just...maybe they're stronger than you think. And maybe the whole world is about to get lessons in adaptation to shit, who knows." He paused for a few moments. "Why would you think that they'd be safer without you or Thia around?" he asked. He knew he thought he attracted trouble, but he attributed that to what he was. He had a penchant for violence and chaos by nature, so yeah, it was going to find him. Dean wasn't really like that. And, after a moment, he decided to share the thought. "I get why I think I attract trouble. With...what you know about me...I attract it because I'm attracted to it. Violence and chaos, it draws me in whether I like it or not. But you and her? Why? Sounds to me like just an extension of the bullshit your parents put on you. The whole hide it all, pretend it isn't there, push you off on--who did you say? Your grandma? Then here. Sounds to me like you'd think that because it's been put in that light to you. Like what you happen to be? That it's something to hide, something you can't talk about, and that automatically puts it in a bad light."

"They didn't 'put' anything on me. They tried. They didn't do so well - but they tried. That's why I know they wouldn't be able to deal with this. They... I've seen it, they just... They can't grasp it, they don't get it. It's like you've told me before that I could never properly understand what it's like to be you? They can't understand me. They try, I know they do - they just don't. And they wouldn't get any of this either. Like - dad knew what happened with Thia, what she is and everything there, and the first thing he wanted to do when I told him about Andy was to ring the police. The police - like that would..." He broke off, shaking his head. He took a breath, then actually approached Caleb's question. Or started to, before stopping and standing up - this wasn't really a conversation he wanted to have with him sitting and Caleb standing, in a school corridor at lunchbreak. "When we went back, one night, Billy - a guy we know, he's a dreamwalker? Anyway, he visited Thia. And they were attacked by those shadow things. In her dream. And we thought for a while that they'd come back, that they'd targeted her, or something - because of what she is. False alarm, but - it made me realise that there would be things that would come after her... Like her father, like god knows what else - we've run worst case on this, you know we have. And here, we can deal with that. But they can't."

Caleb was quiet for a moment. "That I accept." he said. Because yes, they had run worst case on that very issue. Caleb had broke it to Dean that Thia--just for being what she was--would be a target if certain things found out about her. "The only flaw I can see there is wouldn't it be safer for her somewhere else, where there wasn't any chance anyone would see her and know she should be somewhere not above ground?" he asked, voice quiet. "Before you answer that, it's just...it's logic but I think it's a time where it might not hold. Because you talked before about not belonging there, but maybe you do here. I think she does too." He looked away again for a moment then back to Dean. "All I can say is that they may not have the luxury of just sending what they don't understand away for very much longer. If I were you I'd start pushing to make them understand better. Or at the very least give the option. What they do or don't do with it will be their own problem then."

Dean shrugged. "She wants to be here," he told his friend. "And so do I. We belong here - I know it's difficult and it's far from perfect, but... We tried there and neither one of us was happy. I do think about these things you know - all of it. You act sometimes like you think I don't, but I do." He paused, before continuing. "I just want my family to be safe. And I don't want them having to have my life. Even if they can't have that forever. I want them to have that. And I want to stay here, I don't - I don't want to have to leave her here and go home. Back there.""

"You were the one who was just telling me that England is apparently safe and sound with absolutely nothing to worry about." Caleb pointed out. "So no, I don't think you do think about all of this. And probably with good reason. I don't mean to treat you like you don't know anything, but if you're going to be going on like that...I'm trying to look out for you. Even if it probably sucks to hear." He sighed. "I think the safest thing for them is to find out what else is out there, so even if they're not in the middle of it? They're not going to be caught unawares. The only thing not knowing will do for them is let them pretend, and that doesn't give you the slightest idea of what to do if the shit hits the fan. I'll buy the books myself, if you want to send them shit."

"It is - it has been. And I want it to be, yes. Anything else is my nightmare. You're lucky, you know. You don't have to worry about your family." Which really, knowing everything Dean knew about Caleb's family, was saying something - and the teen was of the opinion that this was possibly the only time he'd say that. "Me? I dunno - I don't know what's for the best. Let them be and hope everything's okay. Or push shit on them and watch them crack because they can't deal. Or... I dunno. I know it could be worse. At least my parents tried, y'know? Sophie's mum didn't want to know so much that she's basically disowned her own daughter. Mum and dad wouldn't do that, but... It's a different world, Caleb - it really, really is."

I don't know, Dor always seems on the edge of a breakdown. Caleb thought but didn't share. It wasn't what Dean meant. "Do you really think they'd crack just by reading up on things?" Caleb posed, because he thought that was a bit extreme. Now cracking in the face of say, imminent werewolf attack? Sure. He could see that. Reading up just to be better informed about what's out there? Not so much. "I think if you gave them what they needed just in case, at least they'd be informed, and possibly less likely to crack if anything did happen."

"If I told them that I thought this stuff could one day come to them? yes. And if I didn't tell them that? I don't think it'd seriously get read. I dunno - maybe? I just..." Dean just knew he was trying to protect the innocence of his parents, which he knew wasn't really defensible - he knew that people would say it shouldn't be that way round. "It feels - it feels like if I think it's likely enough that I want them to know this, that books aren't enough. Like if you're right, and all this is coming, that just sending a couple of books... That that would be like pissing in the wind."

"You woke my ass up early in the morning to get into the shop to look shit up." Caleb pointed out. "It's not pointless. Look, just...think about it. Ask Thia or something. Or your cousin that got disowned. She'd know your parents better. I just think that at least making the effort would be worth it, and it'd be better than them suddenly being in the middle of shit and not knowing anything but what they've gotten off of horror movies."

"I use books to fill in the gaps in what I don't already know - it's different. I'm different," Dean added, after a pause. "But - okay, just... You're not buying books for me. I can do that myself," he said, feeling uncomfortable with the idea of taking his friend's money, especially for something like this. "I can't make them tell Scott though. And I won't go behind their backs and tell him that shit if they won't. Not from over here. Not with the crap that would cause all round at home."

"You can't make them do anything. All you can do is try. You can send the books and if they read them they do, and if they don't, it's out of your hands." Which was something Caleb felt Dean often had trouble discerning. What was and wasn't within his power to control.

Dean didn't see it like that - his view was that if he committed to the reality that things were bad enough that they needed to know, and he sent them sources of knowledge, and that didn't get through, then he'd failed. He hadn't tried hard enough. And he knew he wouldn't be able to simply leave it at putting stuff in the post, he'd have to commit to it completely - and deal with any fallout of that. Any less wouldn't be good enough. "Right," he said, non-committally, after a moment or two.

Caleb didn't say anything for a moment, then shook his head. "You know something, Dean? If you don't knock that whole controlling everything complex you have the fuck off? It's going to get you killed." he said, a little more sharply than he intended. He'd heard the doubt there in the tone, and it grated. "And who knows who else it'll get killed too. You aren't responsible for what your parents do or don't do. You can't make them do shit. They're grown adults more than capable of making their own decisions, even if I think their decision making so far hasn't been spot on. But that's not nothing to do with you. You can only give them a direction to go, and that is fucking it. If they don't take it seriously or what the fuck ever then that's on them not you. Jesus, where do you get off thinking you're the end all of everything?"

"I don't think I'm the end all of everything. But if I think - if I honestly think - that shit getting bad enough for me to try and make them do something that I think could make my dad crack and my mum... if I really think that and I'm doing this, then I have a responsibility to make sure that they go through with this. I can't just toss information at them willy-nilly and then wash my hands of it. Yes, they're adults. Yes, they're my parents - but I know more than they do, I've been through more than they have and I have a hell of a better support system than they could ever dream of. I'm not stronger than them - I'm not better than them. Fuck knows that there have been times when I've fucking cracked over the shit I've been through here and the only reason I've not stayed that way is because I've got some fucking great people around me who are just there, whenever I need them. And mum and dad, Scott - they don't have that. So what they'd have? Is me. Even if I'm over here. I can't just push them in to see whether they would sink or swim - because last time? We were all drowning. Me included. It wasn't like I coped and they didn't and they needed to palm me off, you know. I wasn't coping. I might not have been looking for the level of trouble you went looking for, but I really, really wasn't coping. So no - it's not going to be out of my hands. It's never going to be out of my hands. This happens and I need to be there. And if they don't even read them? ...Then I don't know what. Part of me thinks that would be worse. I don't know what I would do if they didn't even read them," he admitted, realising that he'd gone on a bit of a ramble there and possibly got lost in the middle.

"You're contradicting yourself. You just said that you aren't better than them and yet you're still selling it like you've got to lead the whole thing and support them with it all. That's still trying to control it all, and still making yourself the center of it. Other people are responsible for themselves and if your parents are dumbass enough to not even try, even if you go out of your way to help them out? How is that your fault? And you say you've got people around who are there for you when you need them to be. Are you saying that your mom and dad wouldn't be there for each other, and your brother if he needed things? It's all got to be you?" Caleb countered. He sighed. "It just looks to me like you've decided that you're it. And no one else even gets to take responsibility for themselves anymore, because for some reason you've volunteered for it. And that's not good, Dean. That's going to be one fuck of a lot of pressure on you and you've already got a tendency to feel responsible for shit. You won't make it if you keep it up, and if you do take responsibility for people, and they take you up on it? Buy into that idea?" He looked away. "It's not going to work."

"Not just anyone - people there who know. People like Thia and Oz and you - I need you guys, that's the way this works. That's the reason this works. Because we all have people we can turn to. And yeah, they can turn to each other - great, let's leave them with only people who are just as fucking clueless as themselves. That's really gonna work, isn't it? And really? I don't want to be it. You're making it sound like I want this. I don't - but there isn't anything else. Of people they know who know anything about this shit, they know me. Their son, brother. Or they know Thia, who they met for a couple of weeks. oz, who they've, what? Mum and dad have talked to him on the phone. Sophie, who... Sorry, but my cousin? Not the most approachable girl in the world. But yeah, I'd be talking to her about things too, because I think she gets on okay with my mum. But we're still coming back down to the fact that if I start this, and because I'm the closest there, then I have to be there. That's not contradiction. That's not me trying to make myself out to be some allstar superhero or some bollocks like that - that's just fact. They are my family - I have a responsibility towards them, whether I want it or not. If they need me, I need to be there for them. And I know them - I know they won't be able to just take this shit in their stride," Dean told him, trying to explain.

"I don't think you want it. I think you think you have to be it. That it's up to you. Which is what I was talking about in the first place." Caleb said. "And there are people who find out about this shit every day and deal on their own, without anyone to hold their hand. And you never know, with people. You really, really don't. Nic...when shit happened on the full moon I told her to run. she was frozen to the spot for a minute and then she did run--and she came back with my car and ran one of the fuckers down. You just never know what people are actually capable of dealing with until it happens. Don't automatically sell people short. With you..honestly they probably could push shit to the side then send you here. Because it wasn't something like what happened on the moon. But with something else, who knows. The only thing I know is people will surprise you."

"Then they'll surprise me," Dean allowed with a small smile. "And I'll have prepared myself for the worst for nothing. You're the one who's always talking about worst case scenarios. Well, this is my version. But if I'm needed - I'll be there. I don't abandon people. I won't."

"I'm not telling you to." Caleb said. "I'm telling you to let people share in a little responsibility for their own lives. The way you talk, it's like no one has any if they're around you. And that's what I've got the problem with. That's what's going to wind up really fucking people over." As much as Caleb knew he wasn't coming off like it, he was concerned about Dean. Worried, one might say. That's where it all stemmed from. He'd had breakdowns, he didn't really want to see Dean have one, especially a self inflicted one.

"People can take responsibility - they do take responsibility. I'd never want to stop them doing that. I just want to be prepared to be there if I need to be. The world isn't going to end tomorrow - but Sophie's always preparing like it's going to. And you're always thinking about what the worst things that could possibly ever happen could be as well. This is just another version of that," Dean pointed out in his most reasonable tone. "Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best. I guess with this I'd just been putting too much emphasis on hoping for the best," he added, with a small but wry smile. He still really didn't want to ever face a situation where his family had to deal with badness on a day to day basis.

"The difference is when I give a worst case scenario, I don't also follow it up with how I'm the only one who can stop it, and if I don't, everything's going to fall apart." Caleb said, feeling quite a bit like he was talking to a brick wall. Like nothing was actually filtering through to Dean. Which was unfortunate, because it just made him worry all the more. "And tell me this. If your parents got the books, read them, were all prepared, and anything happened, would you actually not blame yourself, and give them that responsibility that you just told me they can do?"

Dean thought about this before answering. "If I'd done what I could. And they were prepared. And things still... happened. I - I wouldn't blame myself," he said, swallowing. It was clearly a hard admission for him to make, but one that he silently promised himself he would stick to. He wouldn't be to blame, if he'd done everything he could. If it was inevitable.

"What constitutes everything you could?" Caleb asked. He was glad to hear the first thing out of Dean, though. If he could manage it. If he could actually pull that off, then it would make him feel better. He just didn't know if he believed him yet.
"I don't know," Dean admitted with complete honesty. "I don't even know what would really be involved yet. That's - that's much too wide a question for me to answer." He gave his friend a slight look though, knowing part of what would probably be hovering there. "Not including hopping a plane back home and standing between them and what's coming at them," he allowed. No, that kind of thing would only come if he really thought that they couldn't protect themselves in any other way. If things got to such a stage where he felt he had no other choice but to permanently move back home.

Well, that was something. "I'll give you that." Caleb said, relenting just a little. He still didn't think things were on the level, but at least he felt less like he was being ignored. Or less ignored and more wilfully tuned out. There was a huge, huge difference. Caleb knew exactly what being ignored was like. Dean didn't do that. He just let things go in one ear and seemingly right back out the other.

"Gee, thanks," Dean quipped, but he was clearly joking there. He was almost used to it by now - he'd had much the same things from Thia and even Oz in the past, after all. "See, this is that other part of feeling different I told you about? You know - where I said that people don't think the same way as me? Trust me when I say that this all makes sense in my head - and it's not about me doing everything for everyone else, or any of that. I would never take away someone's right, or ability, to do for themselves. I just... am going to stop there, because I feel like I'm going over old ground and you either get it and trust me. Or you don't and you're going to queue up with everyone else to give me Looks."

Caleb just looked at Dean for a moment. "...you don't see it, do you." he said. "If there's a line, of people who're saying the same thing to you? Then maybe you should fucking take two seconds and listen. Maybe we have a point. And the fact that you're just ignoring everyone is kind of fucked up." he told his friend. "Just because something makes sense in your head doesn't mean it's right. I'm pretty sure the shit Hitler pulled made perfect sense to him."

Dean just stared at Caleb for that. "Great - compare me to fucking Hitler. Thanks," he said, without a trace of humour - because that really, really fucking stung.

"It was a point. Not a comparison." Caleb said. "Which you're skipping over, to jump right on that instead of the actual point, which is just--seriously. If you've got a few people who are close to you and care about you telling you the same thing, why exactly are you blowing off everyone?" he asked. "Where does that make sense to you?" he asked honestly. "Because if I had that going on, if I had people all kind of giving me the same song and dance, I'd have to at least give what was being said serious thought. I know the way I look at shit is cracked sometimes."

"I give it thought!" Dean told him. He didn't know whether Caleb would believe that, but he did. "I don't just blow people off - just because I'm not jumping up and down to agree with you and decide that everything I ever do is wrong and I have to change everything immediately and oh hell, how can I have been doing it so wrong all these years, doesn't mean I don't take it on board. Unless you would prefer me to be a pod person and change overnight," he suggested, raising an eyebrow. As far as he was concerned, he'd do one hell of a lot of changing since he'd got here - all he ever seemed to do was think about things, work things out, learn how things actually worked. He didn't think it would help his case much to say that, even as little as a month ago, he wouldn't have been able to agree to the terms of fault that he just had moments ago.

"Doesn't exactly seem like it when you just invited me to stand alongside other people who were giving you looks, because obviously there's cause to." Caleb said. "That and you've just spent the last ten minutes going on about the same things so not, it doesn't actually seem like you listen or give it thought. You seem pretty content with everything as-is. Like this shit isn't even giving you pause." He didn't really raise his voice at all, or even sound upset, that having died back a bit. His motivation was still based in concern for Dean so he wasn't going to be getting pissed. Just...persistent. "I wouldn't prefer you to be a pod person, but then I'm pretty sure you're not capable of that, period. What I'm saying is I think you're blowing me off, and apparently I'm not the only one. That's what it feels like. Especially when all you do is argue back and don't even seem to ponder it, you just shut it down."

"No - I said that there was a line if you didn't understand. That doesn't mean I don't listen to you. And it doesn't mean I'm blowing you off. It means - Look, I just don't think I'm capable of making people happy, no matter what I do. I'm sorry if you feel like I never listen to a word you say. I do - even if I don't react to it there and then." But clearly that was another thing about him that wasn't good enough, to add to the growing list of other things - Dean didn't say that though. In no world would that go down well, and him feeling like he wasn't good enough was nothing new, after all. "Sorry," he apologised instead.

"You don't have to be sorry, I'm not looking for an apology for anything." Caleb said, because he wasn't. "What really just gets me on the whole thing is just that you just said I'm not the only one saying this shit to you, and you said it like...like it was a bother, that people were going on about the same thing. Like by now, that's what it is to you. Just whatever, something to roll your eyes at, not think about. And that's a problem if we're all saying things along the same line."

"That's because some of the things that I've had said to me, I think come down to the fact that people don't get where I'm coming from on some things - like my motivations and stuff. And no, on everything, I don't believe it's a case of 'you're right and I'm wrong'. I can't just... completely abandon the way I see things, but that doesn't mean that I don't listen to what you guys say and try and work things out. I do try - I don't... Like, I try to be aware of myself more. Like the standards I hold myself to? And not do that as much. Because of things people have said to me. Directly because of that. And yeah, I have to work at that, but I know now that some of the ways I'd been looking at things - they were out the other side, y'know? Impossible goals and shit. But... Look, okay, like the standards things, like making everything my responsibility. For me, that should be across the board. Not just me - everyone. For me, that should just be the way it is. I want to be there for my friends and family. I want to be there for whatever's needed, and I try and live up to that every day. But - I'd like to think that in return, I'd get that back from them, y'know? And if everyone's doing that, then that hugely high level of responsibility? That top there? That would never be reached, because everyone's doing their bit. Supporting each other, not actually leaning too hard on anyone, but safe and secure in the knowledge that if the shit hits the fan, there's that safety net there. For me, that's just how it should be," Dean tried to explain. "And I'm learning, from everyone else, from everything else, that that's just not how it is. And that seems so wrong to me. It's just not fair that the world doesn't work like that. But it does - and so I'm trying to change, to let go of that. I'm working at it - but in the meantime... I just get told the same things time and time again."

"And you roll your eyes at it." Caleb said. "And still behave like that's how shit works. The world isn't like that, I'm glad you're learning. It's a shitty lesson but one that you definitely need to know if you're going to make it. People don't do the right thing, they're out for themselves, they forget what's important and if they can push someone down beneath the surface so they don't drown, they will. Maybe not everyone, but the majority. People aren't going to shoulder their own shit, and you can't shoulder it for them. You try to save everyone and you'll wind up not saving anyone. Ugly truth, but truth none the less. If most people are out for themselves, then they need to be responsible for themselves."

"Look - I know, okay? I know that the world is a fucking shitty place and I know that some people in it are about as bad as it gets. My best friend tried to almost fucking rape my girlfriend - trust me when I say I know!" Dean exclaimed, before taking a step back and a breath, pulling himself back together again. He didn't need to be taking that out on Caleb. "I know that," he continued, in a quieter, more reasonable tone. "But I can't just give it all up - I can't just suddenly decide 'screw the world, and everyone in it' and abandon them. I don't work like that - I can't. I just need to work out a balance." One that would keep everyone happy.

Caleb didn't take offense. He was a little surprised at word usage, though. Even when he'd told him the story about what had happened to Thia when they'd been in England, he hadn't used the word 'rape' anywhere. It had all been sort of talked around, and the point was clear, but that term hadn't ever been said aloud. That said to him that Dean was upset, and that he was at least hearing what was being said. That was also probably the first time he'd ever heard Dean raise his voice, which was odd. "Work on one that's less about you." Caleb said, after giving a few long moments of silence. "I honestly think that's where the main issue is, and what I'm worried about."

"Work on one what?" Dean asked, still trying to gather the pieces after his momentary crack that made him want to go and hide in a dark room somewhere for a few hours, shut the world away and just take some time. It wasn't going to happen, he knew, but that's what he wanted right now. Somewhere he could get his head straight and his focus back.

"A balance. That's what you said you needed to work out. Well, maybe you can't balance shit because you're the center." Caleb said. He really hoped some of this was sinking in, but didn't have a lot of hope for it. But then it usually took a lot to get Caleb thinking on the optimistic side of anything. "So...I don't know...try things from a different angle. Can't suggest what, or anything, and right now I'd rather not even try to figure anything out because this is a you-thing. It's got to be something you get or can work with." And he and Dean didn't think alike, so anything that was come up with would be vastly different.

Dean smiled a little at that. "You've just stood there telling me that everyone's only looking out for themselves, never for other people and now you're telling me that I should not decide to rely on myself for things I think need to be done?" he asked, just posing the question, not toning it to suggest any kind of decision or judgement there. He took a moment, then added, almost formally, "I'll give it some thought."

"No, just that you can't be held responsible for people who should be responsible for themselves." Caleb said. Then also mirrored the half smile. "I also never claimed to make perfect sense." he added, since he knew he quite often could make absolutely none. Or pull a one-eighty with little to no notice. "And good. That's all I ask." he added at the end.

Dean could have added to that comment, but he deemed it best to just let the subject drop, all things considered. "Nobody's perfect," he said, instead, almost jokingly, hoping to move the spirit of the conversation onto lighter matters.

"Except my brother." Caleb said, going around full circle in their conversation. He was happy to let the subject drop now. He could brood on it later. And he knew he was very likely to do just that but he could at least drop it for now. Besides, lunch was probably damn near over, they'd been talking for quite a while.

Dean shrugged a shoulder as the bell went. "Oh, I'm sure that he's got his flaws somewhere or other - knowing he's that good, for one," he offered. He didn't believe in perfection, and in his book thinking that you were perfect was a flaw all of its own.

"He does. Just not so's you'd notice." Caleb said, sighing. "Talk to you soon. I'll let you know when I get settled with say, a place to live and all." he added, pushing off of the wall and heading towards his next class. He really didn't know why he still bothered with school. But then, maybe this was it. Dean was here, Nic was here, Leija had been, even if he hadn't so much been talking to her. It just wasn't for the classes.