Rollercoaster: Part Two

Who: Dean and Lullaby
Where: Their house
When: Evening
NSFW

Thia was in her room, picking out where she wanted the flowers Maddie had made for her were going to go. She had to hang them upside down to dry them and all, but she had to admit, she'd been really touched by the gesture. It had been sweet, especially coming from a woman like Maddie, who spent most of her time being kind of pissy, in one form or another. So, the fact that she'd made her flowers too, along with Sophie's, that just made her all kinds of smiley.

So had the fact that Billy had gotten them someone to sign, so she could still keep up with the ceremony. It had been beyond sweet, and really just said something about Billy. She'd given him a big hug for it, even if he wasn't a huggy kind of guy. Dean hadn't been when she'd first started hugging him either! So there. People could get over it eventually. Eventually, she hung the flowers from a nail she'd put in above her bed, in the corner. Then she'd backed up and flopped backwards, seeing if she liked them there. Yep. That was all good. It looked nice there, along with the few framed pictures she'd put up since she was decorating. One of them was Dean, when he was a little kid, being all criminally adorable. Another was an old photograph of she, her mom and stepdad when she was really little, only maybe three. The last was one she'd printed out on Sophie's computer. It was a photograph that Jen had taken when they were in England, and she'd sent it to her recently in an email. It was cute, neither one of them were looking at the camera, they were looking at each other. It was interesting, because it was just...a different point of view. She got to see how they looked at each other in that shot, and she found she liked it.

Dean had headed upstairs after talking to oz, dragging his feet a little as he was lost in thought. Or, no, not lost in thought - but he couldn't get his mind off Oz' comment, even though he was trying not to think about it. Just like he wasn't thinking about where he was going, but he wasn't at all surprised when he landed up in Thia's room, entering now without knocking and settling down on the bed beside her. He always seemed to end up with her when he had something on his mind, though he made no effort to talk about it, or to show that he had anything he wanted to talk about at all. Instead, he shoved one of her pillows behind his head and looked over at her. "You have a good day?" he asked, giving her a little smile.

She smiled when he sat down, drawing her attention, and she leaned closer to kiss his cheek, and she nodded, nuzzling his cheek while she was at it. "Mmhm." she hummed. "It was a very nice day. See? I hung my flowers up." she said, pointing. "And pictures. You have to look at the one in the middle." she told him, which was the one Jen had sent. She hadn't showed it to him before she'd printed it off, wanting to show him when it was up. So, now was the perfect opportunity.

Dean sat up a little and looked over her at the picture. He gave her a little quizzical look. "That's at the castle, isn't it? Where did you get that?" he asked her. He recognised the setting, but he didn't remember the picture being taken.

She laughed softly. "Yeah, it's at the castle. Jen sent it to me. She took it, I guess. I hadn't even known she'd taken one. But then again, I think it's pretty obvious our attention was elsewhere. She emailed it to me a day or so ago, said that it was her favorite picture of the two of us, and she thought I'd like it. Sweet, isn't it?" she asked. She was paying attention to how he reacted to it. She knew when she'd opened it up, she'd spent some time looking at it. There weren't that many pictures of them together in the first place, and while they'd promised to go picture taking, it hadn't actually happened yet. And of the two of them together...yeah. It was still interesting for her though. She got to appreciate the height difference between them in a different manner. There she was, looking up at him, and he was looking down at her. She had one of his hands held in both of hers as he smiled. From an outside perspective, looking at the way they looked at each other...it most certainly hit a soft little cord in her. Maybe it was silly to think it was sweet, but that was what she thought.

"I... I didn't know she'd taken it," Dean said, glancing back at the picture for a second before he replied to her, as always looking at her when he did so. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the picture. There was no denying that it was a good shot of them, but the shot, as it was - it felt like a very private moment for them, and Dean had this awareness that if Jen had it, then it had probably been passed round everyone she knew back home. And, okay, sure - it was a picture of them in a public place, and people had already seen them like that, but having it there for posterity like that - it raised a possessive little feeling in Dean, one that just wanted to keep Thia for himself, to not share her. But, he couldn't explain any of that - and it probably wasn't an acceptable reaction, and so he pushed it down and went with the 'it’s a nice picture' of it all, giving her a little smile. "It was nice of her to send it to you." He paused, smirking a little and narrowing his eyes. "Definitely better than the one of me as a kid - I don't know why you want that one up..."

As she watched, she thought she caught some lines, but then, he'd kind of had mild ones when he came in. She was just trying not to jump on that every time she saw them, because if they were mild, it might just be something minor. Little tiny irritations could do it, even. Nothing had to be seriously wrong. She liked the little smirk though. "I like it." she said. "I think it's very sweet, and it's interesting to kind of...see us from an outside perspective." she shared. "And hey. I like that picture of you as a kid. Look at you! You're adorable. You're the cutest little boy in the whole wide world. So there." she said, sticking her tongue out at him. "...you okay though?" she asked, because okay, she wasn't very good at letting things lie. If he said he was okay, she'd drop it. Probably. she'd try to.

"Okay, you think it's cute, but - y'know... Isn't it a bit... I mean, when you and I..." Dean asked, filling in his verbal gaps with gestures, taking that tack over an argument about whether he'd been a cute kid or not - that was just personal opinion, after all. Her other question, for now, he didn't answer.

She looked confused for a few moments, trying to figure out what he was getting at, and in the end, wasn't sure. "When you and I...?" she prompted, needing him to fill in the blank there for her. She didn't quite know what he was trying to say there, and while generally good at filling in the blanks Dean often left in his statements, this time she was stumped.

Dean looked at her and wondered how sometimes his girlfriend could be so clueless when he thought he was talking about something pretty obvious. But he knew that what he considered obvious and what she did were often two different things. He shifted, moving himself above her more, resting on his right hand that was placed next to her head as he looked down at her, blocking out her view to the flowers that hung above them. "I just..." he broke off an smiled a little, aware that he was hitting that block again, but also aware that he needed to get round that, especially after their conversation the other day. "That's me. As a little boy. And I get you think it's cute and everything. I just, having it right next to your bed. When you're in bed... I'd prefer you not to be thinking of me as a little boy," he told her, the smile starting to play a little.

There! Hard to miss his meaning on that one. She blushed, red flushing her cheeks as it clicked home. "Oh." she said. "I um...I guess I hadn't considered that so much..." she started, looking up at him. And again thinking that he could be wicked distracting when he wanted to be, and he was in fact, being so right now this very second. "Though I really don't think that I'd have issues with that...when I'm in bed and thinking about you, there are other things on my mind, generally. And they've got nothing to do with you when you were a kid." she promised. Depending on her mood, they could be anywhere from fuzzy, concerned, or not suitable for anyone under the age of consent.

There we go, Dean thought as his meaning hit her. She really did look adorable when she blushed, that was for sure. He liked that, it was soothing in its way. But then he thought that was generally just her, a lot of the time. She took his stress away from him. Some of it, at least. Seemingly it was just one of her very many abilities. He reached out and turned the him-picture away a little, not totally, but just a little. "I'm glad to hear that, or else I would have had to start to get worried," he teased, leaning in to brush a kiss across her lips, resting his forehead against hers for a moment, before he dropped back down beside her again, dropping an arm to rest loosely across her waist, mulling over what Oz had said toward the end of their conversation.

There were times when she really loved how he looked at her. Like she wasn't all marked up, or he didn't see them when he looked at her. Either that or accepted them as part of her. And, she liked when he loomed. Which for him, was easy, considering how much taller he was than her, but when they were lying down, that was less an issue. Still, she liked the feeling. When he kissed her, she kissed him back, and almost protested when he moved again. But his arm was over her and she was good with snugglies. "Well there's no reason for you to get worried." she assured him, absently starting to trace her fingertips up and down his arm. "You going to answer me about whether you're okay or not?" she asked him, since he'd not answered before. It wasn't hard push though, it was toned in a way that let him know she was just asking, and wasn't prodding.

He didn't answer for a moment, thinking over how he was going to answer. "I talked to Oz," he said, eventually. "We kinda cleared the air a bit, but, I dunno. He said something and I'm sure it's nothing I just - he didn't even mean to say anything, but... Yeah, I dunno."

She shifted slightly, so she could watch his lips better. "What did he say?" she asked. Obviously it was something. Though she was glad to hear they'd cleared the air a little. Dean had certainly been upset with the werewolf for a while. She remembered just how mad he'd been when he first came and talked to her about it all, with the issue of her blood, and it's possible uses. So to hear they'd at least cleared some of that was a positive thing in her book. She hoped whatever he'd said didn't have anything to do with that, or her. Thia was well aware of the fact that Dean tended to take things a little personally when it came to her.

Again, Dean didn't answer immediately. He knew that Oz hadn't wanted him to say anything to anybody and whilst he also knew that that wasn't actually what he'd promised the guy, it still gave him pause over talking about it. Pause only though, there was never really a question of him not discussing things with Thia. "We... Were talking about today..." He stopped and looked toward the door, wondering if Oz had come back yet. In the end, he sat up and faced her and finished the sentence off in halting sign. He said that he would have liked for us all to be there when he and Sophie got married. And I said that they could always do it again, with us there. And he said that it didn't mean as much to Sophie as it did to him. He was down about it. I know they fight. He left it at that - his sign wasn't good enough to go into that much more explanation right away.

She saw his glance towards the door, and then there was the switch to sign. Right. Sensitive issues. Well that was one great thing about sign--you could, in fact, have an entire conversation that wasn't going to be overheard. It couldn't be read later either, like notebooks or email, or texts, or anything. She got what he said, then paused to walk over, shut her door, and then head back over to sit down again, indian style where they could easily see each other. Things are tense sometimes, I know. I thought they were better since they got back. Sad though. Wish we could have been there too. Why wouldn't it be important to Sophie? She was thinking about the story Sophie had told her. The lines that rose up from the blonde when she spoke about it, the lines she fairly often saw coming off of her. So much so that she had them permanently dubbed in her head as 'Sophie-Lines'.

Dean shrugged, then started to sign a response back. I don't know. I thought it would be. But Oz doesn't think so. I just worry. I don't know what to do. If I should do anything. he thought that was the sign for 'anything'. Or was it 'something' - maybe they were the same. Or possibly he'd just said something completely different. "Anything," he said, to clarify that. "I don't know if it's any of my business, even," he added, aloud.

Exhaling, Thia gave him a sympathetic sort of look. "...yeah. I know what you mean." she agreed. "Kind of hard to know where the lines are." then she switched to sign again. I wouldn't know where to even start with them. I guess it would need to be with whatever issues are there. I can kind of guess at some of them and all, but I don't know exactly. I remember Sophie telling me what happened with them. Like how things happened, and she went back home.

I don't want them to fight, Dean signed back to her. They're like parents. I know they're not that older than you and me, but they are. I don't like them having problems. For all the times that Dean was given a large amount of freedom and responsibility here, there were times when he was very aware that he was only sixteen still. And this was one of them - Oz and Sophie gave him a stable home life, a base. He didn't want to lose that.

I know. she signed back. She felt the same way about them, really. They were, in fact, like surrogate parents. They stepped into the role, Like Billy and Maddie too, even if she didn't live with them. It was just how things felt, even if she too was aware of the fact that the whole lot of them wasn't much older...well. Except for Maddie. Maybe her age just kind of made up for everyone’s else's. I don't like them having problems either. I don't know if there's anything we can do though. Did you get any more out of Oz other than he wanted us there for his wedding? And that he doesn't think it would mean something to Sophie? Then she paused, frowning a little. Actually, what do we think about that? Do you think that Sophie would have wanted something else?

Dean pulled a confused and slightly panicked face. How should I know? It's not that easy. No, I didn't ask Oz anything more. He said he didn't mean to say anything in the first place. He said that he would have wanted us all there. And that it wasn't as important to Sophie as it was to him. I don't know what Sophie would think about things. I've never talked to her about anything. You don't. I don't. Boys don't, he pointed out. He wouldn't even know where to start with a conversation like that.

She had to smile faintly at the panic look. "Calm down." she said softly. No one's asking you to go ask her. I just kind of realized that I have no idea. Like okay, with Oz, I can see what you're saying. That isn't difficult for me to believe at all, he seems the type that would be bothered by something like that. But with Sophie, I honestly don't know. She's distant. Which she wasn't trying to say was a bad thing, it just made trying to even begin gauging this situation much more difficult.

Dean relaxed as he realised he wasn't about to be given a mission. She's hard to talk to, he agreed. She always has been. Since she came back. I don't really remember what she was like before her family moved the first time. I was too young. But when she came back, she was quiet. "Withdrawn," he added, aloud, since he didn't know the sign for that and the only substitute he could think of was 'quiet' and he'd already said that. But I used to see her at gran's a lot. She would come round and they would talk. They never told me what it was about.

Nodding, Thia recognized that. She mentioned her to me before. I saw a picture of her. She was important to both of you. Thia still wished she could have met the woman. But yeah, she's kind of hard to get to know. She talks to me and everything but it's rare if she gets into anything. Mostly it was the time she told me what had happened with her and Oz, and when she was talking about your grandma. Think she's just alone? That even if she had things she wanted to talk about, she doesn't have anyone to talk with? Something tells me she and Oz don't do a whole lot of that. Which made her make a sad face and wince slightly. She and Dean communicated so well, it was hard to imagine existing in a relationship with someone and not communicating properly. Hell, even now, when her hearing aids weren't there, they still talked. They found a way to do it.

Dean smiled and nodded at Thia's observations about his gran, but didn't interrupt her. Maybe she is. She doesn't go out a lot. I don't hear her talking about friends. Just Billy and Maddie. I don't hear Oz talking about friends. Just Billy and Maddie. They have the same friends. Maybe that doesn't help, he suggested, frustrated with the fact that his communication was stilted and limited in sign. "Maybe," he said, aloud, giving up for a moment. "Sometimes you need to talk to someone who's not involved. If you can't talk to the person you should be talking to."

"I think all four of them sort of gave up the whole outside friends thing." Thia said, switching to aloud as well, even if she still signed. She didn't know how loud she was being, and knew she was trying to keep quieter than usual. "Which...yeah, sometimes you need to be able to talk to someone who isn't involved at all, doesn't have those sort of loyalties questions that'll pop up. They could probably all stand to get out more, though I think it's Oz and Sophie that have more on their minds that doesn't get dealt with." Which reminded her that she was now out people to talk to. Isaac and Joshua both were gone. It had her gaze ticking down for a moment, then back up.

"Maybe - you'd know that better than me," Dean said with a shrug. After all, she'd lived with Billy and Maddie, if only for a while. He really only knew them in passing. Had only been around them for extended periods during the couple of sieges they'd been under - and in them he hadn't exactly been up for sitting round a campfire getting to know people. He'd been on guard duty. or locked in a cage. He was never going to forget being locked in a cage.

"I think Billy and Maddie are fine, for the most part. I think Oz and Sophie have a lot of issues that they haven't actually dealt with, and they've known each other since they were our age, and so...I don't know? Maybe some things can't be worked out. Do you think they'd ever separate?" she asked, not liking thinking about it. She had no clue whatsoever what would happen if they did. Hell, she didn't even want to speculate.

Dean looked uncomfortable just with having that subject specifically raised, though he knew he'd been thinking it. It was just different hearing it said out loud like that. He shifted and shrugged, dropping his eyes to the bed. "Dunno," was his only reply. He knew the idea of the possibility scared him. He didn't want that to happen, and he couldn't rationally think about the possibility that maybe it would, but, conversely, with everything else, he couldn't give the answer he wanted to be true, which was 'no', either.

Reaching out, she snagged one of Dean's hands. It was the one with the ring she'd given him on it, and she slid her fingertips over the edge of it absently, feeling the cut out marks in it, the tribal design in the steel. "How upset did he seem?" she asked. "Like...end of the world upset or just something was bugging upset?" She wished she'd caught a glimpse--she'd be able to tell with just that. Maybe there was practical application of being able to tell when people were stressed out.

"I don't know?" Dean suggested. "I don't know how to tell the difference. He went out for a run. But he does that a lot." he didn't know what else to say about it. He wasn't like her, he didn't see moods. The guy had seemed bothered, but Dean didn't know where bothered finished and end of the world upset began. Unless there were tears involved - but that would have just seemed weird on Oz.

"...maybe I'll try to keep an eye out." she suggested. "If I see blackness before I see him, then there's trouble." Sighing, she reached up to tug her fingers through her hair, and she tucked some behind her ear. "I still don't know what to do though. If it's our place to do or say anything, or if this is best left alone." Biting her lower lip, she considered. "Want me to ask Billy?" she asked. Being it was Dean who wasn't meant to say anything in the first place, she didn't want to go taking it any further than the two of them without express permission.

Dean winced slightly. "I dunno. Oz asked me not to tell anyone. And I - I mean, I only promised not to tell Sophie, but..." He broke off and changed tack slightly. "He told me he trusts me. I want to actually deserve that," he admitted, touching on just how important Oz' opinion of him was to him. That wasn't something he'd really ever talked about, not really considered in depth, but it was there. If Dean had a role model in life - it was Oz.

She smiled at that, a soft expression, and she leaned forward to give him a light brush of a kiss. "You do deserve it." she said. "So, I won't talk to Billy about it. I won't say anything. I guess that leaves us with you either trying to talk to him again, see what else he's got to say and help in that manner, or we try to come up with a different plan that doesn't involve telling anyone anything about what he said." she assessed.

"Or we could decide that it's actually none of our business and there's nothing we could do about it anyway and hope for the best?" Dean suggested, though he knew just from the way she'd put things that that wasn't actually an option. Which left him facing the scariness of either trying to involve Oz in an emotionally-based conversation. Or coming up with something more viable. On which he was blanking, due to the daunting prospect of the other choice - something he had no idea how to accomplish.

"We could, but..." she sighed. "Doesn't feel like the right option. If that's what you want to do, I'll back you on it. But..." she shrugged one shoulder. "You said it. They're like parents. I don't want to see them unhappy, and I don't even really want to think about what might happen if they split up. But I think that whatever is wrong has probably been wrong for a while, too." Which meant it wasn't something small like some minor misunderstanding.

Dean chewed on his top lip a little, before replying. "Maybe you could talk to Sophie?" he suggested, knowing he was passing the buck right now. "Not bring up that there's anything or anything, just... See if you can see how she is at the moment. Whether it's just Oz, or if they're both unhappy or something? Maybe see how she feels about the whole marriage thing - maybe Oz was wrong and she'd be fine for something like that. I mean, isn't it meant to be the girl who gets all gooey over wedding stuff?" he asked, bluntly.

"I can try..." she said, though there was a twinge of doubt in her voice. "I...I know that she's okay with me and everything, but I still sometimes get the feeling that she...I don't know." she admitted, looking away for a moment before she looked back. "But I can try. As for who's meant to get gooey over wedding stuff, it depends on the person. I mean, just cuz Oz is the guy doesn't necessarily mean he shouldn't care. People do. Billy did, that had to have been obvious. It was really important to him. Oz is a werewolf, he's all about pack and everything, I can understand the logic behind it bothering him that we weren't there when something that important happened. Doesn't really have anything to do with what parts people are sporting."

"No - that's... I'm not saying that it shouldn't be important to blokes or anything. Just that, I thought it was all important to girls, like - all girls," Dean amended. "That's... That's kind of the impression that you get. Or I got. Or what I thought. Nevermind. And Sophie - she, what? What don't you know?" He paused and frowned. "Have you had problems? With her? That you're not telling me about?" he asked, only just managing to keep the demand for information out of his tone.

"Oh, I get what you're saying now." She said, latching onto what he'd meant when she'd gone the other direction with it. "I don't know for Sophie. I mean, if we're going by stereotypes, it's usually a guy who'll be the more distant, aloof type, but she's got that down. I don't really get the impression she's ever overly emotional. I mean, that's why I can't even tell you if I think it would matter to her or not." Then she winced a little, giving his hand a squeeze. And this is why you need to think a little before you say things with him. He does this. The defensive thing. "I haven't had any problems with her." she said first, tone serious. "There's nothing I'm not telling you, cuz there's nothing to really say. I just sometimes think I make her uncomfortable." Then she had to pause again, trying to figure out how to put it. "...I don't think it's personal? Like I don't think she's got a problem with me-me. Maybe it's just what I represent."

"What you represent? You represent you and if Sophie's got a problem with that then..." He broke off, his jaw flexing a little as he held the rest back, though his eyes were hard. He didn't really know where he was going with the end of that sentence, only that if she did, then she'd have to come through him, all thoughts of helping any problems gone out the window with the smallest suggestion that something maybe causing his girlfriend to be unhappy.

"Hey--shh." Thia said, shaking her head, and reaching up to put her palms to his cheeks. She gave him a little kiss, seeing the way he did that defensive thing again. At some point, she was going to learn to either thwart that--or the more likely scenario, she'd learn to not say anything ever about even the slightest hint that anyone had anything even mildly against her. "If there's anything going on and it isn't my imagination--which let's be real here for a second and admit is a possibility--like I said, I don't think it's personal. And represent like...well, I'm a Fade. And everything that goes with that. I could understand it." She certainly had problems with being a Fade, she sure as hell could understand someone else taking issue.

Dean kissed her back only belatedly, and it was a perfunctory thing. He clearly wasn't happy, though he listened to what she was saying. He hated - hated - the idea of anyone having a problem with her. It clouded his judgement completely and he just couldn't see past it. "If it's because you're a fade, then it's personal, isn't it? It's not like she knows loads of them or anything. And anyway, she shouldn't be... prejudiced just because of that," he told her, tightly.

"She's never said a word about it." Thia told him, since that apparently needed saying. "And...no, I don't think it is." she continued. "I think if it was personal, it would mean she's got a problem with me as a person. Like who I am, not what I am. But what I am is something else and we all know how something like me gets made, and I still have major problems with it. I can't exactly expect everyone else in the world to just overlook it like it doesn't matter, because it does. And I'm not even sure if that's the case with her. Just I could understand it if it was. But again, this might just be in my head, and I'm not used to dealing with someone as distant as she is. I might just be taking that personally, even if I'm not meaning to, and just reading in."

"You're not a thing, Thia," Dean told her, never missing an opportunity of repeating that. He hated it when she referred to herself as a 'thing'. "What happened to you - you had nothing to do with that. I know - and everyone else who knows you should know - that you would never have chosen that, or even allowed it, if you'd at all had any say in the matter. What happened to you - that has nothing to do with you. And if people want to have a problem with what was done? Then they can have that problem with your father. Not you. I have a problem with your father. Everything he did to you - everything," he told her, his voice hardening and becoming almost dangerous toward the end, as though he hadn't already put a bullet in the man's head. It didn't matter to Dean that the bastard was dead, not when it came to this. Thia would be paying for what her father did to her for the rest of her life - as long as that would inevitably be - and Dean couldn't even forgive the dead for that. And if he ever found that the guy was still hanging round as a ghost? Well, he knew where to get books on exorcism now, didn't he?

She really wished she could hear him there. She could see all of the signs. The kicked up blackness around him, like a black blaze that lit up around his form. It was in the way he tensed, in his eyes, the way he spoke and formed words, even if she didn't get the tone with it. "Not everyone's going to see it like that." she said, voice soft, nearly inaudible, though she didn't realize it. "It's okay, Dean." she said, feeling like that was actually more important, with the reaction he was having. "I'm okay...it's alright."

"No, Thia - it's not alright," he told her. "It's really not - people need to understand. This isn't you - this has nothing to do with you. And they're wrong if they see it that way. They're wrong and them being wrong does not make it okay. Because not all of them are going to just be like Sophie and not say a damn thing if they have issues, okay?"

Lullaby drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She was still watching the blackness spread out. He got so upset about this. And she got why. And she loved him for it, she really did, but it was something that wasn't going to change. And really, their experience with people who knew about it was limited. But she was willing to bet that it wasn't going to get better. People weren't rational enough to separate things out. And whether or not he wanted to believe it--it was going to matter. At the end of the day she was a girl who's time ran out a few months ago. Whether it was fair or not, that was it. Her clock stopped. She'd been meant to move on. She hadn't. Instead, she was this. A Fade. A creature who wasn't really there but was. Who's reflection showed the truth, and who's existence had cost five other people theirs. "I know that. I know people at some point are going to say things. And I just...I know you want things to be fair, and you want things to be right, but that's not going to be how it works. And this isn't about the world at large, either, we were talking about Oz and Sophie. We got sidetracked."

"I know it's not how it works," Dean responded, holding back the thing that sprang to mind. One of those things that he didn't want to think about, but that couldn't be ignored entirely. He tried not to bring it up with her though - his thoughts, and fears, not about what people would say, but of what they might do. Or try to do. She was a fade - that would mean lots of things to lots of different people and not all of them were anything even approaching good. "But the... if the people closest to you are allowed to get away with not really dealing with who you are? If they're not totally okay with that, then when it comes around to that time? Thia, you need people around you who can support you. Not that you're still questioning how they feel about you." Where their loyalties would lie.

God, she really didn't want to have this become something about her. Their issue was dealing with potential troubles with Oz and Sophie. It shouldn't have anything at all to do with herself and Sophie, she'd only even been bringing it up because it came into her point about not knowing Sophie well enough to even guess at where the woman's head might be at. And now it was firmly about her. At least, in Dean's head things were about her right now. She just didn't quite know how to dial that back. "I know that I'm welcome here." she said. "And I think she would support me. She did when they came back from Vegas." What with the murder of it all and everything. Sophie had come in to talk to her about it all. "So again, I don't think it's anything personal. And I don't think that she'd ever do anything to put me in jeopardy or anything of the kind. She's a better person than that." she said, pretty sure that was the case. "Can we acknowledge the fact here that I've been saying that I might be misreading things entirely? That maybe I'm just not used to someone as reserved as she is?"

Dean held her eyes, not backing down, but not immediately saying anything either. "You're too good a person," he told her, eventually, finally retreating, lowering his hackles. He didn't add anything else, any other thoughts or opinions to that. She might have a point - or it could simply be that, when it came to herself, Thia was apt to forgive everyone if she possibly could.

"I know you think so. I think Sophie's a good person too." Then she paused. "...maybe she just needs encouragement in the share department." she suggested. "I keep hearing from everyone else that you're not so open with them, but you have me." She gave him a light smile. "You just know better than to try and not talk to me about things." she said. "Like I know I don't sidestep you either. We communicate very well, it's what our whole relationship got built from. Not everyone has that. Like....okay, Billy and Maddie. I think they communicate well because for a long time, talking was pretty much all they could do. With Oz and Sophie, their relationship started with a huge traumatic mistake, at least for Sophie. Plus I think their communication skills aren't exactly...." she made a bit of a face. "I get the idea they aren't very good at it. Like...either of them."

Dean upnodded, acknowledging what she was saying and actually silently agreeing with it. He was just still brooding, so verbal replies weren't happening for him right now. He knew what she was doing - she was forcing them back on track. Nothing was going to change - but then again, he'd never actually thought it would. It didn't stop him from trying though, when he had the opportunity. He just also knew when to call it quits. Like right now. It would just take him a minute or two to actually be able to properly re-engage in the conversation. It wouldn't take him any longer though, because he knew if he left it longer than that, she would really start calling him on it. There was a definite time limit on what behaviour he could get away with.

"So maybe she needs to either be kinda told there needs to be more communication, or...something. Honestly I don't know. I mean, I imagine if they were recognizing the problem they might have worked at fixing it by now, but apparently not? I feel like I don't know enough about what they've been through together as a couple to make that call or even figure out what's what. It's..." she stopped suddenly, and looked at him. "I appreciate you." she told him. "It's easy for me to talk to you. I don't ever feel like I'm going to get rejected for anything I say, or that it's going to ruin everything, or anything, I just...I appreciate being able to communicate with you as well as we do. It's pretty clear for other people it's not so easy, it's not...just there like it feels like with you. Like it's felt like with you from pretty much the start. I can even see, looking at the bigger picture, that while I've never had major problems with talking to people, it's still been easier with you than with others." she said, giving a little half smile. "So....Just...talking about all of this, I thought I should tell you."

Dean gave her a grateful, smile, though it was one that was edged with some uncertainty. "What, even with our conversation the other day?" he asked her, finding his voice again. "With you telling me that I have an awful habit of just assuming you know things that you really don't?" He paused, then started up again. "I appreciate you too, even with that. I feel the same way."

Thia leaned over to kiss his cheek. "I didn't say things were perfect." she said. "Just that we communicate well. And any glitches we do have, we'll get over. And hey--we even talked about that." she told him. "Already proving that if we do have issues, even about talking about things, we talk about that." Which she thought was one hell of a big distinction. "I have faith in us. In our ability to get through things, even if it takes a while. So far, I'd say we do really well with that." Smiling a little, she righted the ring on her finger. "I'm glad you feel the same way. Makes me feel much less sappy having spouted all that..."

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "Not sappy - just, well, it's true, isn't it?" He fell silent again, turning things over in his mind, calmer now. The storm that had landed on him passing for the most part, clearing his mind so that he could properly think again. "I don't think Sophie ever settled, back in England," he said, thoughtfully, thinking back over what he remembered of his cousin when she'd been home and so had he. "She - to me, she always seemed happier here. When I got here, she... I dunno, maybe it was just time and stuff, maybe she just grew up or something, but she always kinda seemed like a ghost back home."

"Yeah?" Thia asked. "That's interesting." Then she milled that over a little. "I wonder if Oz knows that." she mused. "If he gets what the differences were, or if she told him anything of the kind. She kinda...well, like I've been saying. Reserved. Like she's playing everything really close to the chest, and maybe it's just flat out too close, and maybe she doesn't see it." she suggested. "Maybe it's not deliberate at all, it's just an unawareness?" It felt a little like she was grasping at straws there, but it could be true. "...did you know you were hard to read for other people?" she asked, since they'd run into that. Like he'd been unaware girls were falling all over themselves to be with him and such but that was a lack of awareness of other people's feelings, not how he came off.

Dean blinked as the topic suddenly really focused in on him. "Erm... no?" he suggested, figuring that was the right answer. Honestly, he'd never given it much thought - at most he'd always assumed that nobody would really be all that interested in him and how he presented himself. He went through life never expecting to be noticed, so what people thought of him when they did notice wasn't high in his considerations.

She nodded, taking that information in. "Right. Okay, so, it's possible she hasn't thought about it either. That she just doesn't get it. and maybe no one's told her. Maybe no one's kinda taken her aside and said 'hey, Sophie, I don't know if you know this, but you're really really hard to read. And because you don't share a whole lot, it means no one knows how to take you, or how you feel about things, and we'd all really like to know'." she said. "...or something like that. I dunno. I don't know how she'd take it, though I guess that's part of the main issue in the first place. I don't know who's job it should be to do it, either." Then she paused. "...maybe Maddie, I think she'd be a lot less apt to take anything personally if Sophie decided to get mad about it..." Then Thia made a face. "And on the other hand of that one, Maddie's not got the most tact in the world either. Maybe that'd be a total disaster." Sighing and flopping backwards, she looked up at him, and quirked a faint half smile. "Think other people have to try and work out how to fix relationship issues with their guardians, or are we just special?"

Dean shrugged, trying to keep focus on what she was saying about Sophie, but undeniably distracted by the fact that he was hard to read. Was he? That was bad, wasn't it? God - that probably linked into what she was saying the other day about him and not knowing things he didn't tell her. But, no - he needed to concentrate on what they were talking about and not send them careering off course again. "I don't think it's a 'have to' - I don't think most people would though. It's that parent thing again, really," he offered instead.

She kept her eyes focused on him, watching him mill things over and wondering what he was thinking about. "Yeah. And there's the part where we could just let it go, if we thought we should." she added again, even if it had already been said and neither of them had seemed too on board with that idea. They weren't generally 'sit idly by' types. They planned things, they took action. They didn't just hang out and let thing chips fall where they were going to.

"I don't know what the best thing is to do," Dean admitted. He didn't like the idea of handing things off to Maddie, but then, Dean was the kind of person who didn't do well with letting go of control of a situation. The flipside of that here, though, was that he knew that he wasn't the right person to handle this. He couldn't talk to Sophie - he knew that he wouldn't do well at it. And whilst he would be more comfortable handing over responsibility to Thia, because she was Thia and he had all sorts of confidence in her ability to handle situations, and because he knew that with Thia he'd be shadowing anyway and it wasn't the same as handing it over to anyone else, Maddie was something else. But, he didn't have any better ideas at the moment, which left him in a hovering state of not wanting to make a decision on this one.

"I don't either." Thia admitted, curling one arm beneath her head, propping it up so she could look at him better. "I can see too many angles. There's pretty much pros and cons for absolutely everything, and I don't know what wins out. I'm not sure any option really does." Which was the problem. The other part about taking definitive action with the two of them was they sort of generally saw a clear, 'right' path in their heads. A lot of times those even added up to the same thing, they viewed it the same way. But this? Yeah, who knew.

Dean didn't say anything for a moment, still partially bugging about being told he was hard to read, but doing a better job of concentrating on the actual subject at hand. "Maybe I'll see if I can talk to Oz again," he said, eventually. He didn't know what he'd say, but it was an option that left them in control of the situation, not palming it off on someone who might just make things worse without them being able to do anything about it.
"If you want to, it might give us a better idea what to do." Thia said. Then she paused. "Are you just thinking really really hard about this whole thing, or is something bothering you?" she asked. And like earlier, she was asking, not prodding. She didn't know if she was being paranoid or not, and didn't want to come off like she was nagging or fishing or anything. That wasn't ever a good way to go.

Dean looked down at the bed for a moment, shrugging. There was a pause, then he looked back at her again, an uncertain look on his face. "I'm hard to read?" he asked her, sounding as uncertain as he looked.

Frowning a little, she propped herself up on her elbows, watching his eyes. "...not to me, you're not." she told him. "But...for other people? ....yeah, kinda." she admitted, voice gentle. "Like...the best example I can give you was when we were in England, and it was just so clear when I was talking to the girls that they had no actual concept whatsoever of who you are, were, or anything. They wanted to know everything because they knew pretty much next to nothing. And I know you're shy, and you didn't talk to them at length or anything, but how you came off to them was definitely not how things worked in your head, I don't think. And it's...well, like I said earlier, how people keep telling me that you're quiet, and you don't really talk much to them and all that...I don't see it, it was kinda a shock when I first heard it, because you're not like that with me. But you are with other people, and quiet is something people can't translate very well. All they've got to go on is their own fears about things, or a blind hope for the best, and either way, it's not anything that's easy to read."

Dean followed this, but the expression didn't really change. "I know I'm quiet," he agreed, first and foremost. "I mean, I've worried in the past about how I come across with people sometimes." By which he actually meant that he used to worry about how he came across with girls, but he wasn't going to be that specific right here and now lying on the bed with his girlfriend. "But, like - I just... I thought that mostly I'd come across as boring with new people. I... The girls back in Manchester never really knew me because I, well - I just went along with everyone else, didn't I? I don't do that now." He paused. "Do I?"

"I never thought so." she told him right away and honestly. "I mean, if it was true that you just went along with everyone else, when we were going to do all the stuff at the mine, you wouldn't have said anything about my not being included. That was standing up to an entire group of people, pretty much none of which you knew. It would have been far easier for you to do that than argue the point." she said, because that was definite truth. Also, for him, because he was brand new at school, it could really have worked out worse for him if people in that group had been slightly pettier than they wound up being. "And quiet doesn't translate as boring." she told him. "I mean, maybe? But I mean..." she bit at her lower lip and tried to figure out how to explain it to him properly. "If you're talking to someone and not getting anything back, and you just don't have a clear idea what's going on there, then you're not thinking 'hey this guy's dull' you're thinking 'wow, is he disinterested in this topic' or, if you're going to take things personally, 'wow is he ever disinterested in me'. My first response wouldn't be to think that it was something that was dull about the person I was talking to, I'd be thinking that I was doing something wrong."

Dean shrugged. "You were my friend, they weren't," he pointed out. She was his friend and she'd been unhappy with the situation, so he'd stepped up to do what he could to remedy that. Nobody else's opinion really mattered to him that much. Back home, his friends opinions had, to his mind, always been that they wanted him to fit in, so he had done. "But, so - I should be less quiet then?" he asked, thought that was already something he was aware of, something he'd been trying to work with. Which reminded him of the DVD he had from that girl he'd met on Friday. He'd done better there, he thought.

"That's up to you." she told him. "I'm not going to tell you how to be. I love you just how you are. I'm just telling you that quiet doesn't really translate as boring, since that's what you said you think it does. It's more something that'll come off as disinterest. Which, bringing us back around to Sophie again too, could be part of the issue with her. Like I said...it's possible no one's pointed any of this out to her either. Like you didn't til y'know...just now." She was quiet a moment, then finished up her thought process. "Quiet gives people free licence to fill in the blank with whatever, and unless they know you really well or can judge what that quiet might be, they're probably going to be wrong. And people who don't know you at all don't have anything to base it on, so it'll probably get something tacked onto it that plays off of insecurities."

Dean didn't say anything, but he nodded, taking this on board. He was quiet for a few moments longer, before he finally spoke. "A while back, Oz told me that people think I don't listen to them. That I just ignore what people say to me," he told her, thoughtfully.

She smiled a faint bit. "I know you listen." she said. "You always listen." Drawing in a breath, she pushed herself back to sitting up properly. "But if you're doing the quiet thing with them, they probably think you're not taking it on board. Like you're tuning out? People need feedback, confirmation on things. The whole...'yes I get it, here's a smile and nod' sort of thing you have to give teachers so they know you understood there's a test tomorrow, or when you get in trouble with your parents, and they're doing the obligatory 'I'm disappointed in you' thing." Then she quirked a half smile. "...okay not that I really got that lecture real often or anything..." since she was, at the end of the day, a good girl.

Dean shrugged. "I got it quite a lot," he admitted - which wouldn't be news to her. She had a good overview of what he'd been like, after all. Or, at least, he thought she did. Which just reminded him that what he thought and actual fact weren't always the same thing. "Well, I did up to a stage. Then mostly I just got shouted at. But... Okay, back then I kinda tuned it out. Mostly. I mean, I heard it and everything, but - I don't really do so well with people shouting at me. Makes me concentrate on the sounds more than the words. But - the whole 'smile and nod' thing - I dunno. It kind of always felt false to me. You know, someone there, having a go at you and, like - either they're going to be right, and you deserved it. In which case, the smile and nod thing feels like you're just appeasing them, rather than seriously thinking about what they're saying and the fact that you fucked up. Or they're wrong - in which case, I'm usually far too busy trying not to argue back. Assuming they're someone who I can argue back with. Or that I'm not already arguing back." or that he hadn't punched their lights out. Or that he wasn't trying to stop himself doing just that.

She could very much imagine he'd gotten that speech a lot, and the whole tuning things out thing. "Well, are we just talking about people having a go at you?" she asked. "And I don't really mean smile and nod literally, I just mean people generally need some kind of outward sign that you're not just waiting for them to be finished speaking so you can leave, and you've got them on ignore. Otherwise, that's what it seems like. Like you're not listening, or you're not paying attention, or you're deliberately blowing them off. Like I've been saying...silence means they get to fill in the blank there, and people aren't mind readers. They need some kind of sign from you in order to really get what's going on."

Dean considered this. "Okay - so, I should... Let people know more," he summarised, filing that away along with all the other things he should be doing. "I'll try and do that," he promised her. He wouldn't promise her that he would, but he took her opinion very seriously, and if she thought he needed to make changes to be a better person, then he would try his best.

"Might help sometimes...at least people might understand you better. And you wouldn't get hit up with unfounded accusations on not listening, when I know you do." she said. "I think you're a very good listener. But I think I'm kinda the exception to the rule most of the time with you too. Or I'm just more stubborn than other people." she said with a light smile. "That still doesn't help us with the Sophie question, though." she said with a sigh. "I know you, but I don't know her. I can't even really begin to, the only thing I can do is be a magic 8 ball and tell people if she's feeling bad about something." she said and she made a face.

He shrugged. "I don't know her that well either. All I have that you don't is that I used to know her before she moved here. But I was eleven then," he reminded her. "I only really saw her at gran's. And at Christmas, family do's, that kind of thing. She never really joined in things. You think I'm quiet? You should have seen her back then," he added, pulling a face. "But, I mean - yeah, maybe I should tell Oz that or something. Maybe it'd help. I mean, assuming he doesn't already know." Sophie, after all, might have told him.

"The way I see it, if Oz is worked up over things, and isn't talking to her, and he doesn't think something really important to him would be important to her, then something's not quite connecting right." she said. "I'm pretty sure you'd be able to judge really well what I would and wouldn't find important. Especially if it was something that was important to you. ...hell, that would kind of by default make it important to me." she said. "I think she loves him. So...I would think that would hold true for her. But if it's true, Oz missed that somewhere, or she didn't communicate it somewhere. ...am I making sense?"

"Yeah, you are. And yes - what's important to you is important to me," he confirmed, just in case she'd missed that. If she wanted something, he'd do all that he could to get her that. He'd do whatever she wanted, all she had to do was say. That was just the way it worked, the way he worked. But he was sure she knew that. That was one thing that didn't need to be said. He was comfortable that it didn't need to be said. "I always figured that was kind of the way it went - it's just the way it is. But, I dunno. Maybe, well - she left him, didn't she? I mean, she left the country and everything. And didn't go back for years. I dunno. That's gotta hurt. Way to reject a guy."

"Right, exactly, it should be intuitive that something important to someone you love would be important to you, that's just kinda how it's meant to be...least as far as I'm concerned." she said, thinking that if it wasn't meant to be that way, then she was damn happy to be different. "I figured that was the way it was too, but..." She paused as she thought over the bit about Sophie leaving. "I...guess I can't really imagine doing something like that. But she felt like she had to. I don't know, I think they're both carrying around a whole lot of issues from back then that they haven't actually worked through yet. When she was telling me the story of what happened with them in general, she was putting out these lines...I wish I knew what they represented. She kind of gives them out a lot? Like in my head they're Sophie-lines, that's how much they're connected with her. I mean, I don't have any other lines that have a name connected with them."

"Do you only see them on her?" Dean asked, glancing towards the mural he'd painted on Thia's wall, to where the angel-figure that represented him stood. She'd drawn in the lines that emanated from him then, and whilst he'd incorporated them into the overall design, so they didn't stand out as much, they were still the nearest he had to getting what she saw off people.

She shook her head. "No. Just most often with her. They get really heavy sometimes, like they were when she was telling me what happened. I've seen them on you, sometimes on other people, but yeah, they're crazy bad with Sophie. Kind of...if she's feeling bad, there's a decent chance it's those lines I'm seeing." she explained. Then she moved to sit next to him, and she looked at the mural too. "...second line up from the bottom by your shoulder." she explained, picking out which of them represented the Sophie-lines.

He looked over at her, a little surprised at that. "I get them?" he asked her, before returning his gaze thoughtfully to the mural, staring at it.

She nodded. "Mmhmm." she confirmed. "Sometimes." Then she paused, and thought about things. "Actually? Not nearly as much as a while back." she said, musing over that. "They'd kick up more often before. And--" she broke off, drawing in a breath and she looked like she didn't want to have to continue--but she didn't make him ask her to. "And they were there a lot after the masque. But around then it was really hard to pick out any specific lines, everything was so run together. Now though...I don't see them nearly as much."

Dean tried to piece together all of that. It didn't come easily, but he was thinking it through. Mostly, it was hard because it meant thinking again about that night. But, he was getting used to that now. He could think about it now without falling to pieces. Hell, he'd even talked about her father before without it really affecting him in any way other than what he considered was an acceptable way. "There was a lot of badness, back then," he agreed. "Around then - there was a lot. I - most of my emotions were bad." He looked across at the mural again, confused about that one. He would have kept staring at it, but she needed to see his lips for them to talk right now. "But - not then. When we were drawing that. I mean... You were there. Generally... Well, I don't feel all that bad when you're around," he said, giving her a smile

She smiled. "Sometimes you did." she told him. "And that day we kind of had that stupid thing where you had to tell me about Joshua, and--" she paused. "Actually I think you were kicking up some of them when that was happening." she said, thinking it over. "I mean I can't be absolutely positive or anything, but I think so. And sometimes you would get them when you would...y'know. When you would back off." Back when he'd confuse the living hell out of her because they'd be all fine, and then at seeming random, he'd just feel the need to be as far from her as possible.

"Which stupid thing about Joshua?" Dean asked, realising as he said it that, in his head, there were possibly many. Things with Joshua were, after all, complicated. Or they had been, since the guy wasn't around any longer.

Thia made a face. "You told me he'd got a new girlfriend, and it had been right after he'd asked me out again, and it was just...lame." she explained, since really, it could have been any of a number of things. "And it was kind of a big mess, and I took it badly, because I didn't get what the hell happened there, and I had to go talk to Billy for a while to reaffirm in my head that not all guys were complete callous assholes." she said. "Which was only a momentary wonder anyways but still. Then. I know you didn't really want to tell me, you didn't seem overly gun ho about it. But you were putting out some lines then."

"Oh. Right," Dean said, remembering that very well, wincing because of it. God, he'd been such a shit with that - he still couldn't believe that he'd actually done it. What had he been thinking? Really? He'd told her that her ex had moved on just as a deflection technique against having to admit his own feelings for her. It had been bad at the time, but in retrospect, now they were actually involved with each other, it just felt even worse. He could have absolutely no justification for his appalling behaviour that day, and yet he'd managed to put the memory of that aside, just because it was nicer by far to only remember what it had been like, having her up against the wall like that. "Yeah - right, yeah..."

She sat up straighter, blinking. "Hey! What are you feeling right now?" she asked, eyes tracking something only she could see, because hey, there were those Sophie-lines. "You're doing it. The Sophie-lines, you've got them right now. So...what are they?" she asked, reaching up to play her fingers against the wisps, even if she knew it probably looked weird.

Dean actually looked upwards, though he knew he wouldn't be able to see what she was seeing. And he felt even worse, because he really, really didn't want to tell her. He didn't want her to know what a really shitty thing he'd done that day, how he'd upset her just to get himself out of a corner. How he'd put his own wants before her feelings. He swallowed, not able to meet her eyes. "Awful?" he suggested, dodging around things.

"You're going to need to be more specific than that..." she said, then reached out to turn his face more towards hers again, so she could look him in the eyes. "Whatever happened? Whatever you're feeling bad about? It's past, okay? So if you need ..." she paused. "Is...are you feeling bad about something specific?" she asked. "Clarify for me, please." She was right on the edge of things, thinking about Sophie, and what she'd been through and what kicked up the lines in the first place, and she'd been just about to ask Dean if he needed to be let off the hook for something. Which sort of painted a pretty clear picture, but she needed the confirmation first.

He met her eyes - which really didn't help. She really did deserve someone better than him, than he'd been in the past. He got the feeling that she thought he was wonderful, and she was so wrong in that. "I'm sorry," he apologised, meaning it as an honest apology, rather than an expression of his emotional state right now.

"Don't be sorry, just--" she started, then clicked in that was pretty much exactly what she was looking for there. "You feel...guilty about something. You're sorry for something." she said. "That's got to be what it is. It would make sense, with her, and when she was telling me what happened, and how she left, and how she hadn't realized til it was too late that she'd made a mistake, and all that, that makes sense, right?" she asked, though that was sort of partially rhetorical. "And it would make sense with you, too, and...okay, I get it. I think I have this one figured out!"

Dean watched as she put it all together, but it still left him feeling awful, though he tried to push that away. She wasn't asking him to explain, she wasn't interested in knowing what had gone on to make him feel that bad - she was concerned about Sophie, which meant he was off the hook. Except, he was only off the hook with her. He wasn't off the hook with himself, and Dean had a seemingly endless ability to beat himself up for things. So, he managed to give her a small, encouraging smile, but said nothing.

She kept thinking things over for a minute, putting it all together to reconfirm her suspicion there, but it wasn't like Dean had stopped putting them out, and he hadn't said anything. So, she stopped her mental train for a moment and looked at him. "Dean, whatever it is you think you did, you know I'm not going to hold it against you, right?" she asked. "I'm sure whatever it was is pretty minor in the first place, and it's not something to be upset about now. Are you okay?" she asked.

Dean wasn't so sure about that, about her not holding it against him. Just because she knew that he had a tendency to be harsh on himself, she always assumed that whatever he thought he'd done wrong would be something that was nothing really. And that so wasn't always the case, in his opinion. And he'd been a selfish, self-centred shit. And he'd upset her and she didn't even know that it was his fault, because he'd done it for selfish reasons and he should have known where it would lead. He just didn't think that confessing to that would actually do anything other than upset her again, so he didn't get to offload just to make himself feel better. He hadn't acted in her best interests back then, but he would do so now. "I'm okay - just, yeah. Stupid Joshua stuff. That stuff about Sophie makes sense though," he told her, trying to pull himself back together again.

"...do you want to talk about it?" she asked, skipping over the Sophie thing, because she wasn't convinced that things were over. That was the thing about seeing the lines. Even if he'd done a perfect job of feigning okay-ness, she could flat out see that he wasn't exactly past whatever was bothering him in the first place. "You're still putting out those lines. I'm pretty sure you either don't believe me, or....something."

Dean shook his head, then sighed. He reached out and took her hand in his. "Thi - I... I did something. For the wrong reasons. And it didn't turn out well. I shouldn't have done it, but I did. And talking about it - well, it won't help things." Even if it made him feel better, he was fairly sure that it would make her feel worse, and then he'd feel worse and there'd be a messy spiral of worse-ness.

She drew in a breath, and let it out slowly. "I'd rather deal with it head on then just have it hang there." she told him honestly. "And so you did something for the wrong reasons. It happens sometimes." Then she paused. "Actually we even discussed motivations behind things and everything before. You always think that you're doing the wrong thing and half the time you aren't, or you just don't give yourself enough credit for anything...and obviously this is really bothering you, so...maybe we can just talk about it and it can be done."

He swallowed, recognising this for what it was. He'd seen it enough times, after all. This was a friendship moment. One of those moments that defined their relationship with each other. They didn't let things go, they talked about things. They let each other in, no matter what the consequences. The only time he'd broken that was in regards to his feelings for her. He'd kept those back for so long and that had caused all sorts of problems between them. That had caused the problem that he now didn't want to discuss with her. If he told her he didn't want to talk, she'd drop the subject, but it wouldn't go away. Not now that it had seen the light of day.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and dropped his chin to his chest, before taking a deep breath and looking back across at her. "I didn't know how you felt," he reminded her, first and foremost. "I thought that if I let you know how I did, that would be the beginning of the end of our friendship. And, that day... Well, you know about the whole drawing thing, but... You were going on about how I was your hero, and everything I'd done for you and... And we were there, and you had your arms around my neck... And I didn't want to ruin things. But you knew something was wrong and I... I needed a distraction," he admitted, wincing already.

"I remember reminding myself a lot during those times that if I did anything like just...kiss you or something that it was going to be the end of our friendship." she said, because she knew that feeling all too damn well. Of course, his behavior tended to reinforce that with her. When he'd get close, and then abruptly wanted to be far away. God, that had hurt. And that really totally wasn't at all what they were discussing, and it took her a second to put together everything he was saying. "You needed a distraction, and..." she thought back to when he was talking about, and she remembered telling him he was her hero. She'd done that a few times in their relationship, because he seemed to tend towards amnesia when it came to that. And there was that thing he did, where she got so confused, because things were off but not in a way she could see so clearly. The explosions of blackness weren't there, but she could still tell something was wrong. "You needed a distraction, so you told me about Joshua?"

Dean nodded. "I tried to just pull back - for us to go back to the drawing or whatever. But you called me on it all. You knew something was wrong and you wanted to know what it was. And I couldn't think of anything that would explain it all away. And so I told you something I knew would upset you, because I knew that would distract you from anything to do with me. I upset you to save my own arse," Dean told her, not pulling back from taking the blame for anything. It didn't matter that he hadn't needed to react like that, that he could have simply gone with it and it would have worked out just fine. That didn't matter - because he hadn't known that. He'd wilfully acted in a way that he'd known would cause her pain to avoid a situation which he had believed would cause pain to himself.

She looked away for a moment, giving herself a second, then she looked back at him. "Worked." she said. Cuz hey, yeah! She'd definitely been distracted. That had worked like a charm if that had been his goal. She'd even left the room for a while, specifically without him. She'd been angry, though it hadn't been at him. She'd not been happy that he took Joshua's side in things, but still, her anger was more directed at the possibility that she'd always thought that guys weren't really so bad as they got reputations for, and that had really starkly highlighted that yes, in fact they were. And having Dean back that behavior up was something that sent her over the edge into true anger for a bit. That had seemed to her like he was condoning Joshua's action, like it had been okay, when she viewed it as anything but. Then she figured she should probably actually say something about all of the thoughts running through her mind, other than agreeing that his technique certainly had been effective. "I was mostly upset because I really didn't like thinking about what he'd done there. I didn't think it was fair. And then you went and defended him, and it...didn't sit well." she said. "...obviously." What with her angry walk-taking that was really her going to talk to Billy. She was quiet another moment. "You thought if things went in certain directions that it was going to end our friendship. I can't really fault you for coming up with an effective way to stop that from happening. I don't appreciate your method, but I can understand it."

"Yeah, I know it worked," Dean agreed, quietly, not meeting her eyes. he didn't try and explain any further - she'd wanted to know, and now she knew. He wasn't going to make any effort to defend his behaviour, but he wasn't going to argue against her for her last comment. He could think of several things to say about that, but it would be rubbing salt into the wounds.

"...were you really on his side for that?" she asked, noting the whole not keeping up eye contact thing. And why it was important now, she didn't know. Plus she realized she probably shouldn't ask, because he wouldn't have had any reason to lie or anything, but still. Yes, it had bothered her. It wasn't that she expected him to be on her side all the time, or anything, but that had been something that cut deep at the time. "...and yeah, I know that's kind of not the point here, but I just...want to know."

Dean shrugged. "I... wasn't really on anyone's side. I mean..." He broke off and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. He let go of her hand in favour of leaning back a little more, propping himself up on the bed. "I thought it was shitty behaviour," he admitted to her, telling the absolute truth, putting aside his feelings about his own behaviour for a moment. "But - Andy used to do it all the time. And some of the other lads. And - well, we were still friends at that point. So... I don't - I don't really like... I never liked the way Andy behaved. Even before... well, that kind of thing, that they found so normal - I hated. But, they were my friends and you don't - it doesn't sit well with me either to admit that. That people that I call friends are wrong. So... Yeah," he said, hoping she'd grasp something from that.

That made sense to her. Knowing Dean, and how he saw the world, how he lived his life, with all of his rules, and everything he attached to friendship and everything else, that she got. From someone else? Maybe not, but Dean? Well, in Dean-land that made perfect sense. "Okay." she said, tone suggesting that she did, in fact, accept that answer. It made her feel better, at least knowing that he understood that it wasn't quite the way to go with things. That he didn't agree with it. It proved her point that he was a much better person than any of them. "Do you need me to say it out loud that you're forgiven?" she asked.

Dean shrugged. "If you want to," he told her. He'd known that if he told her she'd forgive him, deep inside he had. He'd been worried on the surface that she wouldn't, but he always had that worry. As soon as he'd admitted it, though, then that had gone away and he'd been left only with the knowledge that she'd inevitably forgive him. That didn't mean to say he'd forgive himself as easily. "You know it won't happen again," he added - that was the real consolation. He made mistakes, but he did try to learn from them.

She nodded. "Yeah. I do." she said, having faith in that. He quite clearly got that it wasn't the way to go, and he'd been beating himself up over it. So, yeah, she couldn't see him doing it again. Plus, there wasn't any huge thing that he was trying to avoid with her anymore or anything, so...little cause for something of that nature to begin with. She reached out to give his hand a squeeze, and she leaned closer to give him a light kiss. "You're forgiven. I'm still going to take away from that day the whole raging hormones, wanting you to do interesting things to me thing."

He closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss - except then she was talking again and he pulled back once more, so that he could properly concentrate on the conversation like she needed him to. She was moving the conversation on, he needed to keep up with that, and to make amends where he could in the future. "I... I'd like to take that away from that day as well. I mean - doing interesting things to you was really kinda high on my mind then." At least, until he'd crashed and burned everything and spent most of the rest of his time taking his anger at himself out on the wall.

"It was really, really high on my list that day too. So, I'm going to take that away. I still think about it positively, and every time I look over at them," she said, nodding to the paintings on the wall. "That's what I'm really going to be thinking about. Which could possibly be strange of me, but if it is, I'm unrepentant."

Dean tilted his head to the side slightly and looked at her, a smirk starting to appear on his lips. "What everytime you look at them?" he asked her, wondering at that. "Cos, y'know - that might actually make up for the kiddie pic..."

She laughed at that, grinning at him. "Alright fine." she admitted. "Every time. It's true. I just always think about being pressed up against that wall, and you being right there and you were just touching me a little tiny bit but it was more than enough to drive me absolutely hormone-driven insane. But then you do that to me anyways. I swear before you I was not a girl who was that swayed by such things but then you happened, and....yeah." she said, blushing a faint bit again. "I'm a girl with a vivid imagination and a very good memory. And certain things kick both into gear." Like the skirt she'd been wearing in England when they'd gone to get tattoos, and had gotten sidetracked, which, thinking about the association with that and the incident in question kind of made her blush a tad bit darker.

Okay, so driving her to that kind of admission and reaction mostly took his mind off of feeling guilty. Which, the back of his brain admitted, wasn't probably a good thing - he should probably be feeling properly penitent, but she was distracting. Or something. His smile widened a little and he hesitated before deciding that he could properly incorporate penitence into this situation, in a way, by giving her something that she'd wanted, and that he wasn't entirely at ease with doing. But, he could get through it! It would be part of making it up to her! "So, I was thinking," he said, a slow but determined start. "About... You wanted to know what... I'd like. Or that, I think about. Fantasise about." So far, so good. "Well, I could - we could, that is... I think about all those times. All those places. Where we could have. But we didn't. I mean, for me - that's... Before you - I'd think about the other ways things could have gone. What I could have done. I still think about the ways things could have gone. Like - the lake. Or, the stairs that time." He glanced over at the wall and then back at her. "The wall. I mean - there's... It would take a long time. And, I mean - winter. And, I mean, really - don't know if I have the nerve for some of them, but... I'd like, I think about maybe - going back and making up for lost time."

She was surprised. Quite surprised, really, but pleasantly so. She didn't interrupt him at all, she just listened, and smiled. "I do the same thing." she told him. "Think about how things could have gone...y'know...a little differently." She did! And he went and mentioned the steps. Which were high up there in her memories of being entirely frustrated with not going with her instincts. And that had her wanting to have him meet her out there, which was actually an idea she'd had for quite a while now. She was actually working on a plan for that and everything. It might actually take a little nerve to do, but she had the idea that he'd be good with it. And it in fact, involved those steps. "But, weather aside...I like where your mind's at with that. I think that's a project we can work on." she told him. "...have anywhere you think about more than others?" she asked curiously.

The answer sprang to mind immediately, but it took Dean a moment or two to decide that he was actually going to admit it. "...My closet," he told her, holding his breath as he waited for her response. After all, it was their safe place. The place they went to be five years old and hide from the world and play with Lego and pretend her stuffed toy was a queen. It was hardly the place that was meant to be screaming 'I want to screw you on the blankets' to them. Or, maybe not to her, but there were occasions when Dean had a fairly one track mind, and it had occurred to him more than once, Lego and stuffed toys, or no Lego and stuffed toys.

She blushed, and bit her lower lip for a moment, before she managed to say anything. "...I had some...difficult times in there convincing myself I wasn't allowed to do anything to you." she admitted. She recalled when he'd been looking at the scars on her chest. That had been another time when he'd kind of abruptly had to leave. And, of course, a lot of the time, in the closet, that was when she was on his lap, turned to face him, and sliding that holster off his shoulders, and...she should probably nix that from her memory banks as being one of the more compelling things she got to do that was purely not sexual in nature and yet stupidly hot regardless. He didn't have it anymore, so she wasn't going to get to do that. Still, though, it held a charge for her, even if she'd thought she was a total freak for it at the time.

Dean exhaled with a small laugh, relieved to hear that. "Yeah? Well - I'd like to.. you know, remedy that," he told her, though with what she said, another though occurred to him and the look on his face turned rather more wicked and teasing, the nervousness of his admission gone in the face of her wholehearted acceptance. "And, y'know - we'd have to decide whether just the once would be enough to make up for all of those times, or whether we'd need to make sure we covered each and every one. And how exact we're being..."

Thia hummed a little. "You know I have to admit, I really think it'll take more than once." she told him, nodding as if making this decision in her own head after careful thought. "Because you're right, there were a lot of those times and we can be perfectionists when we want to be. I just wouldn't be happy with anything but full commitment to the endeavor as a whole." she told him.

"Well, you know me - I do kinda give my all to something when it means a lot to me," Dean reminded her. "And this - hell, if we're doing this properly, well, this could take ages. I mean, like the lake? Not doable til spring at the least and then there's some of the other places..." Really, he figured that, probably, some of the other places wouldn't get done at all. But that didn't mean that they couldn't talk about it. He watched her face carefully, especially her eyes as he shrugged a shoulder. "I mean, there's that wall back in Manchester. And then there's all those thoughts I had of you back on the side lawn at school..." Which, really, was the one he really didn't think they'd ever do. Not only because it was hideously public, but because the entire town thought she was dead.

"Hey, the wall in Manchester was already on my mind, thank you." Thia said. "...seriously, I can't actually wear that skirt without thinking about it. Just so you know, so now I don't have to be the only one thinking about it when that comes up in my wardrobe." she said, hoping that was the case. That was a damn good memory. "...we could always make it back there someday." she added, looking innocent. "And the side lawn at school...with your wildly inappropriate fantasies there, hmm?" She grinned at him. "You know there are nights when the entire town is elsewhere, and that can't really be seen from the street." she said, perfectly reasonably, to leave it completely open whether he thought she was serious or not.

"Wildly inappropriate," Dean agreed, in fact very much wondering whether she was serious or not. He sometimes couldn't tell with her - things that he thought she'd never go for, she was all about, and other times, well - he was never sure. But then, he didn't know whether he'd be up for it either. He wasn't exactly an exhibitionist, but, if they wouldn't be seen... He knew what he wanted. He wanted her - and he wanted to be so obsessed and carried away with wanting and needing her that he didn't care about anything else. He wanted them both to be that carried away. Where they were was simply a testament to how in the moment they both were.

She grinned. "Well, I won't take it off the list of possibilities." she told him. She wasn't prepared to take much off of the list of possibilities, really. She liked their sex life, and she was happy to continue with it, and keep adding little things here and there. They were pretty creative, and so yep. She was good with taking fantasies and shifting them more towards reality. "Any other notable fantasies that come to mind?" she asked. There was really only one that came to mind then that she didn't figure either of them would actually be up for, which was the alternate ending to the night of the masque. She'd loved that dress, even if it was ruined now. And he'd looked so good, and...yeah. But that night had ended in blood and murder so really...of things to not go there with, that was it, now that she was thinking about it. She just didn't think about it long, more easily focusing on the active topic.

"What, that not enough for you?" Dean asked, teasing her, definitely much more comfortable with matters post-admission. He could relax more with things now. He shrugged, but only a little, lowering his chin a touch to look at her through his eyebrows, though he was careful to make sure that she could still read his lips. "Well, one you know, but... I spent quite a lot of today wondering if Billy and Maddie were going to be doing the honeymoon thing. Cos, well - alone in that house. Well, still on that whole bathtub thing." Since generally he wasn't a huge fan of spending too much time in that house. It still made him feel generally uncomfortable, but he could get over that if the reward was high enough.

She grinned at him, an impish expression. "You're not the only one." she told him, because yes, that had in fact occurred to her. Because ever since she'd laid eyes on that bathtub, totally besides the fact that she hadn't even been with him at the time, she'd had pretty vivid fantasies about the thing. "I was hoping that they were going someplace that was else tonight too. Someday they've got to go out, right? Because....yeah. I--Yeah." she said, blushing a faint bit, but not a whole lot. "I mentioned the bit where I had that in mind even when we weren't together and I was fairly convinced that you'd want nothing to do with me like that, right?"

"Yeah - and that would make two of us. And, I mean - I dunno. I know the other night that they were home, and Oz and Sophie were around and everything, but somehow I just can't see it really going down too well if we just went round and knocked at the door and asked if we could just use their bath for a while," he joked. "I'd really prefer it if we had the place to ourselves for that." But the couple never went anywhere. Seriously never seemed to go anywhere. Billy went out to work, but Maddie worked from home and the two of them - it really seemed to Dean sometimes that they were tied to that damn house.

"Yeah, I can't really imagine asking them if we could do that either. It'd really have to be something we did if it was just us." she agreed. And while she hadn't given even the slightest bit of a damn that people were home the last time they were there, it was different if it was specific. That had just happened. That had been a natural thing, not something planned out. So...yeah. They'd have to wait. Or one day put in a request for a gigantic claw foot tub in the house somewhere... "But...yeah. Man. That tub was...we need to test it someday." she agreed.

"Yeah. So, yeah - I want... That kind of thing. I just - I want..." He broke off, really wanting to pull her closer, to put his arms around her and settle her back against him, only he couldn't, because then she wouldn't be able to tell what he was saying. He so needed to go and steal her spare hearing aids tomorrow. "I don't want to plan things too much," he said, getting himself back on track. "I like - I like things to be spontaneous. Like - I want to - I want us to - the whole thing is that , it's like I imagine, when I do - it's like it doesn't matter where we are, we just get carried away, y'know..."

She nodded, understanding what he meant. "Yeah, I understand." she said. "I like spontaneity as well, and the whole getting carried away thing is..." she laughed a little at herself. "I like that." It was a rush if absolutely nothing else. That was one of the only ways she could properly put it. A rush to the system. Which reminded her of just how things had gone when they'd first been talking about it, back in England, and she'd said something that implied that if he'd really, really wanted her then, he could have had her. She thought that had been when he'd exploded the lightbulb in the room. Which had her smirking a little. "...was just thinking about when you blew the lightbulb..."

"Which time?" Dean asked. There had been a few, but he figured he could probably work that one out even if she didn't answer. "You know you do things to me, kitten." They'd known that for a long time, but the realisation of its significance within their sex life had been a newer discovery. "Anyway, that's what candles are for," he added, teasing a little, matching her smirk with one of his own. "Girls like candles, don't they?" he asked, quasi-innocently.

She laughed. "Yes, girls like candles." she said. "So that works out then." she had plans for candles. She really really did. It had to do with the house out on big bay road. There were candles, and...things. Yes. really the more she thought about it the more she really really wanted to get that done. So maybe sometime in the coming week... hm. "And yeah? I do things to you?" she asked, getting a little closer to him. And again, she had a little internal moment of squee because she liked the nickname. "And if you really want to know specifically which time, I believe we were having a discussion about the wall in Manchester."

Dean's tongue flickered out to wet his lips as he got his confirmation that that's what she'd been thinking about as well. God, that was so hot, was the thought that went through his head, just thinking about what she'd said that day. They hadn't even needed to relive want they hadn't done, do it differently, just the knowledge that it could have gone differently had been enough for him. "Yeah - that was... Yeah," he agreed, strongly.

She grinned at that. It was a kind of wicked, untrustworthy expression, and she got closer again. Part of her was thinking she needed hearing aids back. Oz had said that they were coming sometime here, but it was taking a bit. But she'd get them...she just had to wait. But she missed hearing him so badly. And not just what he sounded like when they were intimate, she missed hearing his voice in general. She liked his voice, his tones. It wasn't nice to be without that. "Yeah." she agreed with him. "That was very much..." she paused a moment, eyes ticking up as she thought. "Indescribable?" she suggested. "You'd never done anything like that before, you know. That was the first time when passion just kicked in really hard and there wasn't any time for anything resembling gentle." Which really, had been amazing.

"I haven't?" Dean asked, not entirely surprised like that. he knew he'd basically jumped her that day, and usually he was more involved with making sure that everything was good for her. usually he paid more attention to her, but that day - that day he'd just needed her, right there and right then. "You, erm - you didn't seem to mind too much," he observed, as always, downplaying his assessment of the situation.

"I didn't." she told him, leaning in to nuzzle a little at his ear. Which meant she was going to get to say things to him but he'd have to move to say anything back for a second. "It was all just so...intense." she told him, tone a soft little whisper. She had, he should really probably know that. "I loved it." she finished, just so he'd know in no uncertain terms what her opinion on the subject was.

Knowing he had to move away to speak to her, he went for the non-verbal alternative, grasping her more tightly and pulling her to him, muzzling his cheek against hers and biting gently at her earlobe as he felt a rush go through him at her words. He'd loved it too, and he'd always thought she had, but hearing that confirmed was fabulous.

She drew in a sharp breath at the nip, enjoying that a whole lot. Then she reached up to put her hand to his cheek so she could push his face towards hers so she could kiss him. She liked discussing things with him. Really she did. And then there were the times when they'd start in on a story and things went from there. But words were overrated at times, and at the moment, she was of the opinion that they were. Words could just stop for a moment, and she was good with kissing him like it might be the last time she got to.

Dean was good with abandoning speech for now as well. Sometimes you could talk about things and sometimes, well, that just wasn't going to do it. And, anyway, he was better at showing rather than telling, he always had been, and so he enthusiastically returned the passionate kiss until air became an issue, only then drawing back.

She had to breathe too, even if she considered it overrated, just a little. She smiled at him, cheeks a little flushed. She was thinking she wasn't ever going to get tired of that. Just kissing him. For so long in their relationship, she'd had to nix that impulse, and it had been damn difficult. So occasionally, she reminded herself that things were a lot nicer now. They worked so much better, and she should appreciate that. She gave him another soft little kiss on the heels of that, pondering moving location.

Dean pulled back, enough that he could look at her more, his eyes darker than they had been. "So, erm - you want to... We could start out," he suggested, as per usual unable to finish a sentence talking about intimate matters, but this time sounding more playful than embarrassed and stuttery, something that was mirrored in his face.

She grinned. "You know I'd like that." she told him. "Your closet? That's what I'd been thinking." So he didn't think he was alone in that whole thing. No no no. She'd definitely had it in her own mind, so he was by no means the only one considering taking things up that they'd been discussing.

Dean started to smile, but then it faltered a little and turned a little more doubtful. He hated it when reality killed his buzz, but sometimes it did. Reaching up, he tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, feeling the lack of a hearing aid there. "Maybe we should wait for that until tomorrow," he suggested, knowing that tomorrow was when he and Caleb planned to go getting her her spare set.

She blinked, watching little lines kick up, and she looked a little confused. "...why?" she asked, feeling a little like she'd done something wrong, and that had her looking down. Yeah that was definitely one way to entirely kill a mood. "...did I do something?" she asked, because she felt like she had to. She couldn't imagine what, but maybe it was pushing too fast on something, or too hard, or...she had no idea. Could have been a lot, in her opinion.

Dean blinked, and then panicked slightly. "No! God - no, you..." Shit, he should have explained right off the bat. "I just - there, it's always dark. And I - you... I'm going to get your hearing aids back tomorrow. I don't want you to... miss out." It wouldn't be the same, if they changed the environment so that she could properly see him. But it was that or some kind of sensory deprivation thing for her and Dean worried that there would be something missing from the experience for her with that.

She caught on to what he was saying, and part of her relaxed, and the other part just felt worse. Because that crept right back into the whole her being honestly disabled thing. He shouldn't really have to worry about that. It shouldn't make things less desirable that she wasn't going to be able to hear him. She looked away, which she knew wasn't a good thing, because she needed to look at him to communicate, but she needed a second, and she nodded. "O--okay." she said haltingly. And now she was wondering if the other times since her hearing aids had shorted out hadn't been as good an experience for him with that hanging over things, and god.

That just had Dean really confused as he watched her look away and he pulled back a little more, trying to work out what he'd done. Because he thought he'd just put his own wants on hold in order that he didn't give her something that she couldn't entirely enjoy. So that when they did do something there, that it would be as good for her as it could be. Except - he wasn't getting that vibe off her right now. "We - can, if you wanted," he said, except she was still looking away from him. He reached over and put a hand on her cheek, encouraging her to look at him.

She looked back at him, and tried not to ramble, but it happened anyways. "I'm sorry, is it bad for you? Like, does it impact everything, and make it all worse? I'm sorry that I can't...that without them I'm really that bad off, and I never wanted it to affect things, and I'm really really sorry if it does, and I know that I want them back and I miss hearing you, I really really miss hearing you and not just then like just when you're talking I miss your voice and I'm really sorry I didn't mean to make things worse."

By the end of her ramble, Dean just had a stunned look on his face, his mouth hanging open as his brain tried to catch up where on earth she'd got any of that from. "No, Thia - god, no, I..." He gave up and pulled her in, kissing her deeply and rolling her on the bed so she was under him, putting his all into that for the length of the kiss until he pulled back, hanging over her. "I miss you being able to hear me, I miss being able to sit you on my lap, and pull you back against me and talk into your ear. I miss that little place on the back of your neck I like to kiss when we're like that. I miss being in my closet with you in the dark. And I want you. In that closet, in the dark. I've thought about it so many damn times. And you have too. And if we went there, now - it'd be great for me. But I want it to be great for you. I don't want - I don't want for it to be like, I don't know, like you only know I'm there because I'm touching you. I don't want to take anything more away from you," he explained, he determination that she know that it wasn't that he didn't want her at all lending him an eloquence that he rarely got in this, save for when he stopped overthinking things.

She read the words there on his lips, and there was a part of her that did notice that he was a lot more well spoken right then than he usually was. But she kept up with it, reading everything he had to say there, and some of her tension over it eased. She could understand it when he put it like that. "I..." she bit her lower lip, and she nodded. "Okay, I...I'm sorry I took that wrong, I think I was just twitching on my own issues." she told him. "I miss all of that too." she added. "I really, really do." And she'd tried very very hard not to say anything about her being unhappy that she didn't have her hearing aids anymore. Because she knew he felt guilty about that, even if it wasn't his fault. But right now, it kind of felt like the time to be honest. She just didn't blame him for it. "I like when you talk in my ear. I always have. I do, I miss all of that too."

He leaned in and kissed her once again, this time more softly. "It'll be better tomorrow," he promised. "And then when the new set comes in finally, we'll make sure that the spare set is kept up at the other house, so that even if I - if things go wrong, they're safe and you don't have to go through this again," he added.

She smiled a little, after kissing him back, and nodded. "I wonder if there are any that don't have electricity or...anything like that. If we can find any that'll be immune." She'd have to start scouring the internet. "But either way...okay. Hopefully you'll be able to find some at my house. I don't know honestly, I mean, I had a few sets growing up, they might still be around." She couldn't remember if she'd been buried with her hearing aids or not. She thought she might have asked at one point, but maybe she hadn't. Not that they were going to go grave digging.

Dean smirked a little at that, amused by a thought that occurred as she spoke. "Yes, kitten - we'll find you some clockwork ones. You can wind them up every day," he teased her, lightly, trying to encourage that smile. He turned slightly more serious after a moment, kissing her once more. "I want things to be the best they can be for you," he told her. "I want it to be good for you. Especially this, I don't want it to be a letdown." Not when it had, apparently, been something they'd both fantasised about in the past.

She laughed a little, and kissed him back, then again before she answered, reaching up to draw her fingers through his hair. It was getting longer now, where she could play with it a little better. Like she used to do all the time. "You realize that no matter what, it's never going to be a letdown, right? But I get what you're saying." she told him. "So, we'll save that. And hey you don't know. Maybe there's some steam punk hearing aids out there and we just haven't looked." she said back, amused.

Dean smiled a little at that. "You're so good for my ego, kitten," he observed at her declaration that it would be good, no matter what. Well, if she was going to be like that about it, this was one area where he wasn't going to try and sell himself short. She could say any nice things she wanted about his performance and he would just take them.

She leaned up a little to kiss him again. "Just telling you the truth." she said to him, giving him another little kiss before she laid back again. Though she was happy he didn't try to correct her on it. Then she smirked a little. "You know I would have figured you'd have caught on to that...I mean I know I can't hear you right now, but I'm pretty sure you can still hear me..." And she knew she got loud. She wasn't sure how loud since her hearing aids went dead, but still. She knew she had that tendency. Or they did, as a couple. Sound rated kind of high in both of their lists, for various reasons.

Dean made a show of considering this, rolling his eyes up in a thoughtful pose, before he fixed them back onto her again. "You know, I think I might have noticed, just a couple of times," he teased her. They both tended to get really rather enthusiastic about things, after all. Both of them weren't the kind of people who held back when it came to certain things.

"Yeah? Caught on, did you?" she asked, giggling a touch. "Good. I was really hoping that you'd know that you and I being together...it's amazing. I love the way you touch me. I love everything we do together. I like all the different moods, and everything involved." Even if some things could possibly be considered very weird. At least to other people. She adored all of that. Like their stories. That...she felt was unique. Dressing up for people was something that was common she was sure, but the stories? That was different. That was their own spin.

He nodded a little, knowing that's why he didn't want to sacrifice any of that. Not that her lack of hearing aids had completely put a stop to everything, far from it. And they'd had some amazing times together since everything went down, but, to Dean's mind, this was different, because it was special. And because it was something they'd be purposefully setting up for a reason. And because he had ideas that would only really work if she could hear him. But those he wasn't telling her about - those he was leaving until the time. Partly because he wanted to surprise her, and partly because he didn't have the confidence of his convictions and felt more capable of convincing her physically, rather than verbally. "It's why I want to make up for all that time - do all those things that we didn't do."

She nodded. "Yes. Agreed. I know how you feel there. I really want to as well. I think it'd be..." she trailed off, not sure what kind of word went there. Nice didn't cover it. Awesome did but didn't sound right. "I don't know?" she said with a laugh at herself. "I just am completely on board with the whole thing. I really want to. I really like the idea of it. I think it'll be a lot of fun for us." Only that didn't quite cover it, but still.

Dean raised an eyebrow at that - at her ability to use descriptors that made it sound like they were going on a camping trip or something tame and family-friendly. He didn't say anything, he just took a moment to look amused at her, and then he pulled her towards him a little more. "Yeah, definitely fun," he finally agreed. Fun, and hopefully a lot of other things besides, but he could go with fun.

She eyed him. "Okay what's that look for?" she asked, not protesting being pulled closer. She liked closer. She shifted to get herself more comfortable, propping her head on her arm, and she watched his face. She wanted to watch his eyes, but it was hard to do since she needed to be reading his lips for when he spoke--something else she found irksome about not being able to hear him at the moment. She missed out on more that way. Facial expressions, just the look in his eyes--which generally said a lot. Dean could be a very quiet individual sometimes, and a lot of their communication was non-verbal. But she needed to be able to hear verbal communication to really pick up on the entire package of non-verbal.

Dean smiled slightly and shrugged. "Oh, just... you. And the way you just described that. You make it sound like a family picnic," he teased, highly amused, which was good - relaxing after that moment of almost stressed panic of before. It made him feel back on an even keel, though he knew that they'd lost a moment.

She tsked, and poked him in the stomach. "Nooooo." she said. "Okay how would you describe it? If my way downplays it too much?" she asked. She could see what he meant, when he put it like that, really, but she wanted to know what he would come up with. Particularly considering one of them was pretty open and good about talking about such things, and one of them really wasn't. Generally it was him who had all the trouble getting anything actually said. Most of the time she was meant to infer.

Dean took a breath as he realised that he'd walked right into that one. But he figured he'd been doing okay so far today - plus, penance. He was still making up for things, so - he could do this. He just had to find the words, and then say them. Simple, right? "A massive turn on," he told her, after a moment or two. "Even just thinking about it." He looked at her for a moment before adding, "Sexy as hell." He decided to leave it at that - quit whilst he could form proper sentences.

Thia was impressed. Really, that was pretty damn coherent for Dean, and he'd even done more than the bare minimum! That had been three whole sentences! They fit together nicely, even, and there wasn't any stuttering whatsoever, or even word hesitation. Her being impressed was something that showed in her expression, and she laughed a little bit, "Okay I officially like your description much better and entirely recant mine to go with yours." she said. Then her smile turned into a bit of a smirk, and she reached up to brush her fingertips over his lip. "I like reading those words there." she told him.

He kissed her fingertips as she touched his lips, sucking the end of one finger into his mouth for a moment, before letting it go so he could actually reply to her. "Which ones?" he asked, wanting to know, specifically. He appreciated the laugh, the look, the smile - he took it as all part of him making it up to her.

She bit her lip for a moment, meeting his eyes. "'Turn on'. 'Sexy'. I like those words. Though really all of that together was nice." she said. She was reminded of something else though, when she'd touched his lips, it sparked up a fairly specific memory. One that she wouldn't soon forget, and one that she'd like to add to their list of 'places to revisit'. "I've got one more place that needs to go on our list." she told him, shifting slightly, moving closer as she tipped his chin down a little, to part his lips so when she kissed him, it was deeper than just a brush of a kiss, even if she still kept it light. "It'll have to wait til summer, but..."

He returned the kiss enthusiastically, reluctantly ending it when she spoke, but not actually drawing back at all until he needed to. He could hear her just fine, after all. "I think I have several more places that need to go on the list, but - I'm good for waiting until summer. Where did you have in mind?" he asked her, thinking it had to be pretty specific for her to bring it up like that, and he wanted to know what she was thinking.

Thia drew back enough to look him in the eyes again, watching, really wanting to gauge his reaction because she knew what the memory was like for her, and she was pretty sure he was right there with her at the time, even if she hadn't known it. They'd discussed it before at some point, but still. "The cave at the mine. By the spring." she told him. What had brought it to mind was touching his lips. She quite vividly remembered brushing her thumb over his lower lip, healing it for him, because for some utterly insane reason she'd opted to heal him the less efficient, if stupidly compelling manner of rubbing the water over his skin by hand. Which in retrospect, she had to wonder how the hell that logic had actually passed inspection at the time.

The edges of Dean's mouth curled upwards into a slow smile. "Oh hell yes," he agreed, definitely. "That's on my list - really on my list," he added. Because that - he still didn't know how he'd got through that day without making a move on her. And looking back, it really should have been stunningly obvious there and then that he was getting the green light. Except, well, he knew that it had been, mostly. That had been around the time that he'd begun to think that any advances made by him at least stood a chance of being accepted, he was just traumatised and terrified to have anything else go wrong in his life, and she'd been his rock and he hadn't wanted to risk that. Idiot that he was, because holy hell she'd been compelling that day.

That got a bright smile out of her. "Yeah?" she asked. "Good. Because that's....that's very high on my list." she admitted. High up like the wall in Manchester high. Like the continued fantasy about the tub at Billy and Maddie's house high. Way up there. "That day...yeah I just don't even know how I managed to not push you back down and kiss you. I remember it was all I could do not to. That that was more or less the only thing on my mind at all. I was very...one track at that point in time..." She gave a little half smirk. "You do that to me though." she told him. It was true. He had the ability to entirely derail rational thought patterns and turn her into a girl who was really only interested in one thing. Where everything else dropped away and he was the center of the universe for a bit.

"I wanted you to," Dean admitted to her, though he doubted that would be news. "I really, really wanted you to. When - when you started touching me like that..." He laughed a little, smiling. "You asked me if I wouldn't prefer to go for a swim," he reminded her. He'd never felt less like swimming in his entire life. "I was all, 'well, let's see - I can either have her run her hands over me, or I can go swimming...'." He shrugged. "So I left the decision up to you."

She laughed softly. "And I opted for running my hands over you. I'm kind of wondering how I managed to accept my own logic there. I really couldn't tell you. I just...guess that's what I really wanted, and that won out. And I remember kind of messing up towards the end there, because I really sort of ran my hand down your chest more towards your stomach and that really really didn't have any injuries at all, I just wanted to keep touching you." And he hadn't seemed to notice and all, so that had been at the time her saving grace, but now... "What would you have done if you'd noticed I did that?" she asked curiously.

"What would you have done if you'd noticed that I kissed your fingers when you were doing my lips?" Lips that hadn't really needed to be done. Sure, there'd been a small cut there, but it had just been an excuse. He'd not been on his best behaviour that day, not really. "As for what I'd've done? Probably finally failed in stopping making it really bloody obvious that you were seriously getting to me." After all, the whole thing had happened with him just wearing a pair of boxers.

She blinked a moment, then blushed a bit. "You know I thought that was my imagination. That I wanted that so damn bad that I was just making it up in my own head." she told him. "I was very aware of the fact that what I wanted was wildly inappropriate, especially considering you were all injured, and I was positive that I was just really really strange for finding any of that attractive in the first place. So...yeah. I just....I thought it was my imagination kicking in hardcore, because it really was all I could do not to take really overt, unexplainable action." Then she paused and a bright grin lit up her features. "Yeah? Think at that point I might've noticed things?" she asked lightly.

"Inappropriate?" Dean asked, looking amused. "Try 'I decided that getting beat up was worth it if it led to you doing this to me' as being inappropriate." Since he'd decided exactly that. Never acted on it, but lying there with her - yeah, he'd decided that the injuries were definitely worth it. "But no, it wasn't your imagination. And yeah, I think you might have noticed. And it wouldn't have been something you could put down to your imagination..."

Thia gave a little half-gasp, half-laugh at that, eyes wide for a moment. "Seriously?"she asked. "You really decided that getting beat up was worth it?" Not that she considered him to have really gotten beat up. He'd definitely taken damage, but...she'd seen Dean fight. Dean was much more a guy who took damage because he couldn't be bothered to block a punch while he was handing out his own, and less just not being capable of defending himself or handling a fight. As a matter of fact, Dean could probably be considered just a little scary when he got into a fight. Or, he had been with Andy. But she wasn't thinking about that right now. "Still think that?" she asked curiously, arching a brow at him. "And hm. Evidence that was noticeable and not able to be chalked up to my imagination. Yeah I think I would have had to have kissed you then." she decided. "You know the thing in my mind was just pushing you back and climbing over you..."

He nodded. "I really decided that getting beat up was worth it. And you almost got kissed several times that day. Lots of times. It was kinda at the front of my mind. And, really - if you'd pushed me back and climbed on... I think you probably would have definitely got kissed," he teased her.

"Probably definitely?" she asked, laughing again. "Interesting phrasing. And yeah? Several times that day? I had a lot of days like those. The ones where--remember I said you tend to make me one-track? That. I had days where it was so heavy on my mind that it was almost all I could think about, and I had to either put distance between us, or had to remind myself that if you had any feelings of that nature towards me at all, that you would have made a move already. God that confused me. Because I was damn sure that you'd had opportunities, if you'd actually wanted me. Including all those times in the closet."

"I'm a coward," Dean told her, lightly. "Or, I was - always coming up with reasons why not to do what I wanted. And I know I confused you - I could see it sometimes. But I was sure that you didn't want me - because I was sure that if you did then I would have known. Though, in the cave, I guess that I did. I was just too afraid to do anything about it."

"I think what confused me most was sometimes you'd react like something was wrong? But I couldn't see any lines. So I didn't know what happened, and I just assumed that I'd done something really off base, and had to get cracking on fixing it. But you think you knew then? You were a little ahead of me then. I mean, there were times...you just confused the hell out of me so much because there'd be those moments, y'know? The ones where it... 'and then, we kissed'. Those kind. Where it felt like the natural thing to do. Where kissing you just seemed like the thing I was meant to be doing, and yet I knew I probably wasn't supposed to. They started happening here and there, and then later they happened like all the time."

"Something was, wrong - but it wasn't you, it was me," Dean told her, rolling his eyes at the classic 'it's not you, it's me' line revamped for a different scenario. "And yeah, I know those moments - I got them all the time as well. That was kind of what changed it for me. Cos, like, early days they'd come up and it'd be clear that it was just me. Like... We'd be sitting talking and I'd have this moment of 'you know, I could just lean in right now...', and meanwhile you'd be oblivious and just rabbiting about something and I'd suddenly realise that I was spacing on the conversation and I'd have to try and play catch-up. Only, later on, that changed. Like, in the cave, when we were leaving and we were talking. And you stopped me and put your arms around me, and you were looking up and I was looking down... It was like before, I'd imagine things, but eventually it felt more like you were putting yourself more in places where those moments would come up. But I'd had these fantasies about moments for so long that I wasn't sure if I wasn't just imagining the whole thing."

She laughed a little, reaching up to play with his hair a bit. "Well you did a good job of catching up with the conversations then, because I don't really recall any bad space-outs." she told him. The only times she remembered those were when something else was going on, and that clearly was what he'd been thinking about. Like say, vampires and her dying and such. Those were good causes to space out. "I get what you mean. I did a little of the same thing. Just kind of chalked things up to me imagining things because I wanted it so bad. But you're right about one thing. I definitely was putting myself in those positions. It just...felt right." she said, going with that again, because it was the truth. "The lines with things got all blurry somewhere and then I just didn't want there to be lines."

"That terrified me," Dean admitted with an honesty that he would only reveal to her. "I... I have lines. I know we've had that conversation about the way I deal with my life. And I knew where the lines were. And you put them there - I mean, you didn't. Not really, not actively. But, the way you behaved, I could take those and make them into lines. And then you weren't - well, you were, but..." Dean flailed slightly as he realised he'd dug himself a hole and he needed to try and get out of it without making it sound like he was blaming her for anything. "I think too much, sometimes. I should have just gone with it, but... But then when I think like that, I realise that, well, if I take that back, then we get back to a time when you were with someone else, so... I didn't know when things had changed. And I needed to be sure that they had." he broke off, not knowing whether he was actually making any sense anymore.

She was following along, wishing she could hear tone with his words. Fucking hearing aids. "I understand what you're getting at." she said. "I kept feeling like things were different but didn't know if they were either and like I said, I figured if you'd ever actually had inklings towards me, you would have taken the opportunity to let me know. There were enough times when things just felt so..." she paused, biting at her lower lip a tiny bit as she gazed at him through her eyelashes. "...intense." she finally chose for wording. One moment came to mind vividly, and she opted to share. "Like when we were in your closet, and I was letting you look at the scars on my chest." she explained. "But things got really really intense...and then something happened and you had to go." And she still wasn't sure if there was an out there he'd taken because he could or what.

"You were nervous - your heart was racing," Dean agreed, remembering how he'd felt the little heartbeat against his wrist from the pendant he had strapped there. "I know I was staring..." And then they'd been interrupted by the shadows attacking again. And he hadn't known whether he was disappointed or relieved at the tension-break. Neither, he decided - he'd simply been catapulted back into 'protective' gear once more, which was a feeling that had him rolling his shoulders slightly, suddenly aware of missing the weight of the holster against his shoulder.

"....is that why my heart was racing." she said, in a tone that suggested that might not actually have been the case. Sure, there'd been some nerves. She'd been fairly terrified during that stretch of days that the scars she'd picked up were going to make her hideous to him. That all he'd see when he looked at her were the scars. But when she'd made herself show him the ones on her chest, things had slid from being nervous to being inappropriate in her own mind fairly quickly. She still wasn't exactly sure why, but they had. Probably because of the way he'd been looking at them. Her. "You were staring. You'd never...I guess looked at me like that before. So...yeah, my heart was racing, but...not nerves, Dean."

"I wouldn't have blamed you if that had been the reason. I just... Maybe had an unhealthy fascination, but all bundled up with everything else. I wanted to touch you." He stopped and smiled slightly. "And you'd started talking about my chest and whether I'd seen it. And I just... had these fantasies about you coming over and taking my t-shirt off and... Yeah. What would you have done - if we hadn't been interrupted?" he asked her.

She liked the little slight smile he had there. It was cute. "I don't know. I might have done that. I've done it before." she said. Little things like that she considered her job from time to time. Or, at least, the holster. That was. That was always her job, and she told herself again she wasn't allowed to miss it. Or miss sliding it down his shoulders and kissing him like she had had heavy fantasies about ever since she'd first looked at him and been utterly blindsided by the fact that her best friend was amazingly damn attractive when he was in the middle of all that. That good lord there was just something about him that was undeniably compelling. So much so that when that realization hit, she hadn't been able to dial it back. It was like everything clicked into place then, and there was no altering its course. "I wanted you to touch me. And I thought that was probably really very very strange of me, but that was what I wanted. Hell, I think if we hadn't been interrupted, I might have taken your hand to do that." she admitted. "Things were...did I mention the intense?"

"I wanted to touch you as well," Dean agreed, his voice lowering somewhat, even if she couldn't hear it. He remembered when he'd finally got to do that, what it had been like. Those scars, they were linked in to everything else for him, but at the same time, they existed in a different place. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to explain it if he ever had to. "And yes, you mentioned the intense, though - I was there as well, you know," he pointed out.

She laughed a little at herself. "Yeah. But it's still news to me occasionally that we were in the same boat and I wasn't just suffering all by myself with wild, intense, brain derailing fantasies at seemingly random times." she said. "So...yeah. Deal with it. I like knowing I could have the same effect on you as you had on me. I don't always have the best confidence in the world." Which she knew he didn't either. But that was Dean. Dean who was spectacularly freaking capable so long as he didn't have to stop and over think things. If it was something that needed taking care of? He just did it. No matter what it was, he just got it done. The only times he didn't were when they were too emotionally overwhelming. Like when he'd been told he might be getting sent back home because Sophie hadn't continued school like she'd been meant to. Or of course, after he'd shot her father. But even then, in the middle of it--he'd acted. He'd done exactly what he had to do, and he hadn't jumped it too fast, or anything. In fact, he'd waited until it was clear that it was the only option, proving he wasn't just trigger happy. And yet somehow Dean managed to not have amazing amounts of confidence in himself, even if he could do all that. She knew he saw her as being a more confident type, and she was in certain areas, but she fell short sometimes too.

"I know you don't - but I don't know why," Dean told her. he knew the areas she had problems with - herself and her self-image. He knew she'd been surprised to even find that he'd noticed that she was at all girl-shaped. He knew she needed to hear that she was beautiful still - which made him wonder if she'd known she was beautiful before the scars. If the scars were the problem, or if she'd always been like this, though he knew that she'd been a lot more confident and outgoing before she'd been killed.

She thought about how to explain herself, and she absently reached down to tug his shirt up a little bit, so she could trace her fingertips back and forth along his skin. Nothing overt or anything, she just wanted to be touching him in some manner, and that was how she chose to do it. In the end she wound up making a face, and looking apologetic. "...I could probably hazard guesses...but you wouldn't like them." she told him honestly.

It was his fault - her issues were his fault, they came from him. It didn't take much for Dean to shoulder blame, and from her wording there, that was the conclusion he jumped to, sure and certain immediately that he was right. "I'm sorry," he apologised, immediately, not hesitating on that, not needing for her to go any further.

Thia blinked, the light tracing back and forth she was doing stopping abruptly. "What are you sorry about?" she asked, mystified. Then she squeezed her eyes shut again. "Please tell me you didn't just jump to blaming yourself for this." she said, opening her eyes back up again. She drew in a breath, let it out, and pulled him closer to give him a light kiss. "Dean, baby, I love you, but you really need to learn the difference between what could even remotely possibly be your fault and what is absolutely impossible." He already had massive trouble with taking blame for absolutely everything. She continually worked against that. Maybe she should start smaller. Try and get him to see the difference between what could even relate to him and what couldn't. "It's not you. It's nothing to do with you at all." she promised, going forward because now she definitely needed to. "Before..." she sighed. "Sometimes I don't know how well I've come back. Like I know after...everything happened, I was a huge mess for a while there. And you put up with it so amazingly well, and I know I haven't said it in a while--but I never would have made it through all of that if it hadn't been for you. You were there for me, and...it was you. You pulled me through that. But sometimes, I don't know how much I lost just with dying, or how much I've bounced back. What's missing still. I mean, I know one thing was very clear when we were in England. I'm not nearly as social as I used to be. I mean I had a ton of people I could talk to and hang out with and everything else and you know what my biggest twitch was?" she asked rhetorically. "I didn't get enough alone time with you. Every day practically we had things planned with different people, and sometimes...all I wanted was you." And she wondered how that sounded. Was that bad? Creepy? Too clingy? D, all of the above?

It wasn't absolutely impossible. He didn't tell her she was beautiful enough, he didn't praise her and pamper her and do all the things she deserved. And before they were together, there'd been times when he knew that he could have said things, complimented her, but he hadn't and he knew he hadn't. And that could have had impact. he wasn't as wonderful as she tried to make him out to be. No, he wasn't convinced it was nothing to do with him at all, but he wasn't going to start trying to make it about him now. "In England - well, we'd just got together. And before that, well, we were just getting together. I think us wanting to be alone together was pretty understandable," he said, instead.

"...I still like my alone time with you." she told him. That hadn't gone away, she just hadn't had to twitch about it because they lived together, and she got to see him all the time. If she wanted alone time, she could have it, even if they didn't necessarily spend every waking second with one another. They still spent one hell of a lot of time together. "And I don't..." she sighed. "Isaac's gone. Joshua's gone. I don't..." there was no way to say it without sounding awful, so she made a face. "I miss them but it's not a huge crippling deal that they're not here anymore. And I wonder if that's me and there just being something a little wrong with me, or how I've dealt since coming back. So I wonder about my head. I wonder about how I am as a person still. And I know that I'm not the mess I used to be or anything, but...I don't know. I don't know how to define myself anymore?" she suggested. "I don't know how I come off to people." England had confused her more on that. Because even knowing Andy was a dick and a manipulative fuckhead and none of it had been about her, there was some tiny shred of her that wondered if she'd done something wrong. If she couldn't have made things clearer, and none of that mess would have happened. Hearing from Jen, updates on the situation there, their little visit had split the group down the middle. There were people who were on Andy's side, who cursed Dean's name and 'that bitch' he was with, and then there was Jen and Stu, and a few others who were firmly against Andy and everything he stood for. She didn't like knowing events had gone down like that when maybe she just should have not gotten caught alone with Andy in the first place. "And that's not even touching on how I look."

"You look beautiful," Dean said, jumping on that. He reached out for her free hand. "I know I don't tell you as much as I should, I know I don't do well in that - I've never done well in that, but you're beautiful, lovely. Everything about you... And there's nothing wrong with you, you're just trying to find your place again and... Everything's been changing so fast, but it'll settle down eventually. We'll find our place - it'll just take some time."

He told her sometimes. Like when the subject came up, and it did upon rare occasion. It was just kind of in his personality. She remembered having to deal with that in pretty hard ways now and then. Where she'd really desperately needed to hear something nice about herself from him and it wouldn't happen. And she got that it was unintentional on his part. It was that thing he had. Where he sometimes thought that she ought to automatically know things, without it ever getting mentioned. And while a damn close thing to a mind reader when it came to him she was, she wasn't in actuality and things slipped through the cracks. And she remembered him telling her to assume the best, but some things...assumptions didn't hold the weight they needed to. And now she was thinking about things she didn't want to be thinking about, that she hadn't thought about in a while. Well. At least since the new moon. "Thank you. Though sometimes I still wonder what you see when you look at me." she said. It wasn't phrased as a question, because she wasn't asking him to explain to her. She was making a statement about her state of mind. "We'll find our place?" We. We, which for a while she'd had such trouble accepting, because that was him accepting a whole hell of a lot of responsibility for her. But she's started thinking in 'we's after a while herself. That hadn't backslid at all, either. They were together. She felt very confident and solid in that. Really, she felt as confident in their relationship as she did in Dean himself. Which was unwavering. She wondered in the back of her mind if that should be scary when she didn't find it scary at all.

It might not have been phrased as a question, but Dean answered it anyway. "I see the girl I love," he told her. "I see the girl who just fits with me and who is and has been the best friend I've ever had. I see a girl who's strong and beautiful and who's still strong and beautiful, despite what she's been through. A girl who's stronger than I will ever be. Who just... knows her own mind and isn't afraid to fight her corner, or for what she believes in. Who knows what she wants, even if, right now, she's having to redefine that because the world went so badly sideways on her. But she's a girl who can figure it out, because she'd strong enough to roll with the punches." He paused and gave her hand a little squeeze. "And I also see a girl who's got more faith in other people right now than she has in herself. So I have to have faith in her for her. And I see a girl who doesn't see how beautiful she is still, so I have to try and make her see that. And I know I don't always do a great job of that, but nobody's perfect - not me, and not her. But I was never looking for perfection anyway. And yes, we'll find our place. Because I don't really know where I belong in the world either. I get scared - about who I am, and about what I'm going to do, about so many different things. And you're always there for me. Whenever I need you. Like I always want to be there for you." He finished and fell quiet, looking at her. It was strange, he knew, for all he had problems getting things out, sometimes the words were just there. And he knew it was when she needed him, really needed him. Everything else went quiet, it didn't seem as important. He could just be there. He just wished he knew the trick of it, so he could do that all the time. Life would be easier if he could just work out how to do it all the time.

God, part of her ached that she couldn't hear his voice for any of that. Not even tones, it was all read, all there in his expression as he spoke, in his eyes, everything, but she didn't think he'd ever laid everything out quite like that before, and he probably never would again, and she wasn't going to get to remember what he sounded like when he said it. How his voice would have probably been soft, but with that conviction he could call upon when he needed to. Sometimes when he spoke, he stated things like they were facts and she wondered if he was doing that now, or not. It really gave her a hollow feeling in her chest that she didn't know. Couldn't hear it. Especially when he was saying more or less everything she needed to hear. And it would be so nice if she could close her eyes, and just remember the words and how they'd come through in his voice. Sound had always been important to the both of them, due to their differing issues with hearing, and one thing he'd always paid extra special attention to--more so than anyone she'd ever met before--what she could and couldn't hear. She never had to ask him to repeat himself. He always spoke loud enough, he knew how loud he had to be depending on how far away he was. He knew how to speak into her ear, and tell her everything that was on his mind, when they were curled up together in the dark in the closet. And at the moment, she would give absolutely anything to just not be so disabled.

She was feeling it again. How she was so hamstrung like this. He shouldn't have said all of that, and have her not know exactly what kind of tone was put with it. It didn't seem fair. She knew this was why she'd been spending more time alone since they'd been shorted out. Not only because of how others reacted to her, but because of what she understood she was missing. People who spoke in sign knew they had to put tone into gestures. When all you had were motions and facial expressions, you made the most of that, and you really learned to put it in there, even if the person you were speaking to could hear your tone. And while Dean knew sign, he didn't really know to do that. And he shouldn't have to, because it was a hell of a lot to ask, to learn, and Dean was by nature an understated guy. It would really go against who he was. Her eyes stung a little, though tears didn't well or anything. She just had to blink a few times. She moved, so she could hug him. She curled up close, and put her arms around his neck, and hugged him for a good few long moments. "Sometimes, you know exactly what to say, Dean." she told him. Her tone was grateful, if a little overwhelmed. "I love you." she told him, a whole lot of feeling in there. She was really, really telling him again. Even if she told him a lot, it held more weight in the moment.

He smiled as she came to him, feeling that mix of relief and happiness well up as she said that. He'd just told her the truth, but clearly it had been truth she'd needed to hear. He pulled her up into his lap, sitting up a little more as he did so, and buried his face in towards her neck, holding her tightly. He wanted to say more, but he knew he couldn't - right now, it was either hold her, or talk to her. he couldn't do both and as frustrating as that was, he was going for just holding her right now.

She shifted, and curled up on his lap, realizing as she did so that she missed it. It was just one of the things they did. He'd started doing it pretty early in the course of things after she'd died. He just moved her around, put her where he wanted her, and a lot of times that was his lap. So she was used to it. She liked it. It was comfortable and familiar for them, comforting, even. And since her hearing aids had gotten broken, they couldn't really do it, because that was a position where Dean held her and spoke into her ear, and they had intimate conversations. Quiet, just for their ears conversations, and yeah. Even if it hadn't been a ridiculously long time or anything, it felt like a long time, especially settling against him again, feeling like she belonged there and she'd missed something so simple without realizing the full impact of it. She snuggled him, nuzzling a touch at his collarbone, and she missed that too. She tended towards that a lot when he had her on his lap. If I said I miss you, would that be absolutely fucking ridiculous? she wondered, but didn't say.

She wasn't the only one who'd missed the closeness and Dean decided that he was just going to abandon talking for now in favour of the more physical as he pulled her closer and reached a hand up to undo her choker from round her neck, a habit that he'd got into when they were alone together, assuming they weren't going to be spending their time talking.

She tilted her head to make it easier for him, feeling the air cooler on her throat when he took it off. That actually served to make her feel better still, even belatedly. It revealed a fairly nasty scar. But she'd never really felt the need to hide that from him, and there he was, revealing it anyhow. She liked feeling is breath against her skin, even in simple ways like that. With she and Dean, they were very physical people, and while they tended towards a whole lot of enthusiastic intimacy...it wasn't always connected to sex at all. A lot of it was just being close, like this. They'd spent a lot of nights curled up together and that had been because they'd needed each other, not anything else. The foundation of their relationship wasn't that baser level acceptable mate recognition. It went deeper than that. Which was something that Thia sometimes found herself re-examining and appreciating every time she did.

He dropped the strop of material onto the bed behind her and nuzzled at her throat, placing dotted kisses over her skin in a random pattern. he didn't push anything - he wasn't pushing anything. He might have been going to earlier, but that ship had sailed and the mood had changed. He wasn't denying that if it changed back, he could definitely go with that, though fantasies could wait for tomorrow, but right now, the mood was much more geared towards being together, and that was where he was.

She giggled a little bit and she tilted her head so he could give her all the little kisses he wanted to. It made her feel loved, and a little pampered, and generally she really liked it. She was feeling that little wave of overwhelming affection for him again. "That feels nice." she told him, smiling. She looked happy--she sounded happy. Thia had never been a girl that was difficult to please, and now wasn't an exception to the rule. It was the little things. She'd always been a big believer in the little things, and this counted. Snuggling with Dean, the boy she loved dearly, and being affectionate and close. It made her happy. It eased her mind, even if issues she'd thought were buried got kicked up again. They were settling back where they belonged, and possibly they were slightly less heavy than before.

Dean could take encouragement, and now was no different as he shifted her slightly, moving his hands on her position to cradle her back a little so that he could carry on round to the other side of her neck, kissing over the scar that lay there. Usually he made a point of giving it special attention, but today he just carried on as though it simply didn't exist. He didn't know whether she'd understand the intent, the message that he didn't see her scars, not like she did. Sure, he did really - he saw them, he knew they were there. He knew where she'd got each and every one of them. But he didn't see them like she did. They didn't diminish her to him, not at all. They were simply a part of her.

Thia did notice that he didn't pause over the vampire bite scar. He did a lot of the time. For her, it helped. He couldn't be that repulsed if he paid special attention to it. But she didn't feel off for him not doing so either. And with their topic of conversation before they'd given up speaking, she could understand why he might not pause at it too overly long. Mostly she was just enjoying the attention. It felt nice, like she'd told him. When he got a little closer to her ear, he got a little bit of a shiver out of her, and she smiled.

Dean went to whisper something in her ear at that little shiver, only remembered that she wouldn't be able to hear him if he did and changed it at the last minute to bite lightly at her earlobe once more, sucking the fleshy part into his mouth a little and holding it for a second before letting it go and resting his head against the side of hers. He wanted it to be tomorrow already, he wanted her to be able to hear him again.

She liked the bite. It had her tilting her head that little bit towards him. She was still missing hearing him at the moment, but she was feeling pretty good otherwise. Reaching up, she turned his face towards hers so she could kiss him, a soft, gentle if a little deeper than just a brush sort of kiss. It was meant to help convey how she was feeling, without her having to pull back and say it.

Dean returned the kiss, letting her lead it, with her, but not seeking to deepen it. He was on board with communicating through the physical, and he thought he got what she meant with this. He knew what he was taking from it, at the very least and he drew it out, not trying to pull back, not wanting to break it at all.

Since he didn't seem to want to break it off, she didn't. She drew a breath, staying in close, and then kissed him again, a little more substantial. She deepened it, just a tiny bit, kind of starting to feel a sparked up heat that went with it, even if it wasn't a frantic sort of tone to things. It didn't have to be, to build things, and she was thinking that was a good way to go at the moment. See where that went, what he did with it. So long as they didn't actually have to back off, and she could appreciate the continued closeness.

He slid one hand down her spine as he continued the kiss, until he reached the bottom of her shirt. Slipping a hand underneath, he rested his palm against her skin, as always a little cooler to the touch than one might expect. He was used to that by now, however. It was simply a part of who she was, and Dean didn't exactly have a whole lot to compare her to in any event, so he rarely even thought about it.

Being a little cooler than the average person...about five degrees cooler, even, one thing was Dean always felt warm to her. Which helped a lot with wanting to snuggle with him, especially with the winter in full swing outside. Still, it was an interesting feeling in general, his hand against her skin all warm, the air cooler since now there was air against her skin instead of her shirt. She shifted a little, turning more to face him on his lap, settling again comfortably as she slid her arms up around his neck.

He broke off then, for air, but also to draw back and finally say something. "You did that," he told her, softly, not worrying about the level of his voice since he knew the important thing was the movement of his lips. "That day, up at the mine. You stood there and put your arms around my neck. You looked up at me and all I wanted to do was kiss you." And so he did, he did what he'd wanted to do that day, and he kissed her, more deeply this time, bringing up what he'd felt back then.

She might have answered him. That she knew she'd done that. That really, at some point in their relationship she'd started that, and once she had, she hadn't quit. Sure, from the beginning, she'd been affectionate, giving out frequent hugs--or at least as frequent as she could get away with--but somewhere along the line it had changed a little. It was one of those things that seemed to have incorporated itself without her being fully aware of it. It had certainly felt natural enough. Like holding his hand. After a while they just...held hands. No matter where they were going. Even if it was in the same damn house, just down a floor, or something of that nature, they held hands on the way. She'd started wanting to stand there, when they were talking, or something important came up, she wanted to have her arms up around his neck, looking up at him. He tended to rest his hands on her sides, or her waist when they stood like that. It really was perfect kissing position. And so yes, she might've shared that, but she didn't, instead, he was kissing her again, and she was happy to fall into it. Kissing him like she had always wanted to, back when she didn't think she could.

He pushed against her, bringing her close, but also pushing her back, lowering her back down towards the bed as he shifted their positions, simply moving her where he wanted her to go. His little, highly portable, girlfriend. He deepened the kiss, putting everything he had into it as he laid her down, kneeling now, above her and over her, pressing her downwards.

She was happy to go with where he moved her. She'd always liked when he did that, from the very start. She'd never been moved around like that before, and for Dean, it was just how he did things. When he wanted her someplace he put her there, and while she couldn't necessarily place what it was about that that she appreciated? She did. So she didn't question it too hard either, she just smiled just a little, in the kiss before she kissed him back again, making a soft little sound as he pressed her down. There was a little something about his weight against her that she liked too.

He slid his hand back up her spine, but underneath her shirt this time, pushing the material up before him as he went, more confident in his movements now that they were that much more familiar with each other. He knew her body now, all of it. He was getting a much better idea of what she wanted, what she liked and he'd been trying his best to be a quick learner. It helped that he really enjoyed the topic.

She moved enough to make it easier for him, but not too much, because she liked him taking the lead here. He seemed to have a clear idea what he wanted to be doing, so she was glad to let him go with that. She supposed with them, between them, there wasn't generally a clear winner of the 'who's in charge' thing. They tended to just go with things, and it would shift back and forth a lot, a fluid sort of transference. Hell, it tended to when they were doing things like telling stories, which were by nature a shared event, back and forth. But every so often, one of them would take the initiative on something, and it stayed there. At the moment, she was happy for it to stay with Dean.

The mood of the room was changing again, he knew, swinging more back to where it had been earlier, but this time he wasn't rushing things and he wasn't pushing them too much either. He knew he was suggesting a certain direction and leading the way there, but he didn't want to ruin things again, so he was taking them slowly as he broke off the kiss in favour of kissing down her cheek and back to her neck again, lowering his head as he pushed her shirt upwards further, making it quite clear what he wanted here.

She was aware of the mood change too, and wondered just how many they'd been through since he'd come in. A lot, she knew, not that that was unusual. They tended to do that anyways, probably because they talked about everything, and drifted from subject to subject. Like they'd talked about her choice of pictures on the wall, Oz and Sophie's relationship and communication issues, Dean's communication issues at times, then their fantasies, and desires, then her issues and...yeah they'd covered a hell of a lot of ground, and that was pretty par for the course with them. Tilting her head so he could have the access to her neck he wanted, she internally was appreciating the pace at current. She also shifted, helping him tug her shirt of entirely, thinking about times in the past where she would very much have liked him to do that.

Once her shirt was out of the way, he continued lower, kissing down the column of her neck, round the scar there, taking in the edges this time before he continued down, this time pausing on the scars they'd been talking about earlier. His scars, as he considered them. The three parallel slashes that had been ripped into his chest by one of the shadow fiends and which she'd taken from him. Part of him would always be with her, and they would always hold a special fascination for him.

Since she'd been thinking about them earlier, she was even more aware of them than she usually was. Generally speaking, she was a little hyperly aware of the scars she had. She knew where they were, where she'd gotten them, and in her own mind, she knew just how much they detracted from her. The ones on her chest she generally hid, though there were some shirts she had that were low enough that if you knew what you were looking for, you could see them. But one saving grace, she supposed, she was paler than she had been in life, and so the white scars blended in slightly better than they would have say, on him, if she hadn't taken them. The ones on her chest though...those were very much his. They belonged to him. Like she thought of the ones on their backs and thighs as theirs. Maybe the ones on her chest meant as much as they did because she'd died that time. Died specifically to save everyone, but mostly him. Deep down, it had been about him. She was just never, ever going to admit that. When he got to them, paid special attention, she let out a breath that was unsteady, fingers drifting into his hair as she held him to her.

He took his time there, his hand moving to unhook her bra - a skill he'd acquired over the last few weeks, though he still fumbled from time to time. He slid the material down and off her arms, abandoning it somewhere along with her choker and shirt. His concentration was much more on her skin, on his scars, on what he would never be able to properly explain to her.

She watched him as well as she could, even if it was a little difficult to do, and eventually she shut her eyes, down two senses. But she could feel him and that was the important part. His breath against her skin, his lips. She drifted her fingers through his hair now and then, liking the feel of that too. She was feeling him mapping the scars back out. Where they started and finished for him, and that was something she was enjoying the feel of. Especially since they were defined differently in her head than they were his, in more ways than one.

He left off when he got to the base of the last one, rocking back up onto his heels as he looked down at her, taking in her form, the way her head was held, her closed eyes. He stripped off his shirt, dropping it onto the floor before going back in to kiss her once again, pressing his lips to hers.

She really loved that. She felt him move, the bed shifting with his weight, and then he was back to her, kissing her. She kissed him back, arms sliding up around his shoulders again, fingertips trailing down his back a little ways, now that she had bare skin she could trace on. She'd always liked his back. It was a nice one. And even if it wasn't perfect anymore, the scar there breaking up the landscape so to speak, she didn't think it took away from him at all. That was something they shared. And, as her mind considered that, she shifted her arm just slightly enough so she could drift her hand down his side, and she curved it back so she could trace along that scar. Thia knew exactly where it was, where it started and ended, so she didn't even have to feel around for the raised edge. It was a smooth motion, fingertips ghosting along the imperfect, slightly messy scar.

He closed his eyes as she touched what he considered to be their scar on his body. It was hard not to think about it that way, when they both had largely the same scar. He'd seen hers, and he'd looked at his as best he could in the bathroom mirror. They were almost identical. And so they should be - they came from the same injury after all. He knew there were some differences, the way the stitches had lain, the pull of the skin, minor things. But, mostly, they were identical. Dean drifted his hand down her side, not going for her matching scar, because it would mean lifting her up off the bed, and he happened to like the position they were in right now. So, he just ghosted his hand down to her waist as he kissed her, feeling her explore his body.

She made a soft little sound into the kiss as she exhaled, drawing away only to breathe a little, before she opened her eyes again to look up at him, fingertips finding the end of the scar, and she slid her hand back up to cover it. To rest her palm over the arc, even if she couldn't quite cover it fully. It was longer than the span of her hand, and definitely at the angle she was at. But she put her hand over it anyhow, feeling it across her palm. She watched his eyes, and decided she'd caught enough breath, before she buried her free hand in his hair at the back of his head, and she pulled him in again to kiss him, maybe a little more heatedly than a second ago. Not enough to utterly change tone, she didn't want to take that away from him, but more like she'd had her second to catch up with the oxygen thing, and now she was more than ready to go back to the much more important activities they were engaged in.

Dean almost breathed into the kiss as she did that, liking the intensity there as it happened. It helped him feel like she was right there with him, all those little things. Especially at this time, when sound couldn't factor in as much, and he knew that he was being quiet, much quieter than he would normally be. Normally he was aware of the sounds he made, normally he intensified them, aware that she needed to be able to hear them, wanted her to be able to hear them. He loved the sounds she made, they did all sorts of things to him, and he wanted to do the same to her. but not today, today, he was being quiet. Silent even as he popped the button on her jeans and slid his hand further down.

There was a little flood of butterflies in her stomach, something she usually got when he got to that part of the de-clothing her thing. She always wondered if it was going to go away at some point? But it didn't. It was just something that was there, a fixture in her life. When he got there, she got a rush, and her stomach did pleasant little things. She shifted enough to make things easy for him, not wanting to draw away to help overly much, though. She liked when he did things like that on his own. Probably like she liked taking things off of him, it was just the other way around.

He lifted her up slightly with the hand he had beneath her and lowered her jeans with his other hand, knowing he wanted them out of the way, not wanting to fumble around with them still up around her hips. Off was best and he pushed them down her legs as best he could whilst still kissing her. Eventually, though, he had to break off, sitting back up on his heels again to undress her properly, his gaze running up and down her body as he did so, finally meeting hers.

She looked back at him, cheeks a little flushed, and that came from the kissing, as well as a faint blush that hit her with him looking down at her like that. Every once in a while she did that, and she never knew why. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her before, didn't know her whole person by now, but once in a while she got hit with a little touch of shy. Not embarrassed, just shy. She didn't reach to cover herself up though, she just kept her eyes on his, and then smiled, a light but genuine expression.

He returned the smile, taking probably longer than he should do, kneeling there, looking down at her. It was times like this that he had to remind himself that this was, in fact, really real. That he was allowed to be here, that he wasn't going to suddenly wake up. It was at times like this that he couldn't believe his luck at actually ending up with her, when he wondered how it happened and just had to be so grateful that it did. It always stunned him for a moment, before he got hold of himself enough to lean back in and kiss her once more as he ran a hand between her legs.

When he started to lean back down towards her, she reached up, drifting her fingers into his hair and she kept him held as she kissed him back, giving the impression that she didn't want to let him go--which was an accurate description of her feelings at the moment. When he touched her, she pushed up against him, rising up off the bed for a moment. Her breath wasn't steady then either, and she made a soft noise in the back of her throat that she didn't quite realize she made.

He loved those little noises, all of them. He remembered the first time he got one out of her - which had been before they were dating, from something he'd done following his instincts rather than through any design. At the time, he'd noted it, but thought it had been just one of those things, now - now he wondered if she hadn't been trying to tell him something. But, even then, he'd wanted to make her make those sounds again and again. Now though, he was allowed to do just that, and that was where his focus went.

Thia didn't disappoint with the sounds. They were quiet, still ones that were helpless, not anything she had a say in at all. Just involuntary vocal reactions to the way he touched her. She kept kissing him, until her breath was more ragged than before, and she needed to breathe. It was hard to do with him touching her, like it was hard to stay still, too. That she didn't quite succeed with so much though.

He broke the kiss and pulled back, not far, just a few inches, just enough that he could watch her as well, watch the expressions across her face, the way she looked, the colour rising in her cheeks, all of it. He wanted to see - he loved to watch her, especially at times like this. He loved to see what he did to her, to hear what he did to her, that heady feeling of being able to do that to someone, to give that to her. To have her helpless beneath him in that way.

She lost herself in it all. She had quit thinking a bit back, and that still hadn't returned again. She allowed herself to totally be lost in the moment, her world made up of the two of them, and what he was doing to her. Her eyes were only open the slightest bit, but enough that she saw him looking down at her, watching her. That was something. The look in his eyes then, she half slid her hand down his chest, a halting sort of motion that didn't have as clear purpose as it might have at some other, much less distracted point, and she finally grabbed one of his belt loops and pulled him in closer against her hip.

He went with that, flexing his hips as he was pressed up against her, showing her his own need, though he wasn't stopping at all what he was doing to her for that. For all they had been talking about moments earlier on, her movements reminded him of that time at Billy and Maddie's house, when she'd done just that. And her admission since then, that that night she'd wanted to just push him back onto the bed and kiss him. It was a memory which made him smile and go in to kiss her again, hungrily, passionately, like he'd wanted to that night. Like she'd wanted to.

Everything was building, she could feel it there, a little more each time, and she could feel him against her. Which had been what she wanted. Then he was kissing her like that, that all consuming, passionate, hard kissing that made her heart thud in her chest at a crazy pace. She had just enough presence of mind to undo the button on his jeans and partially get his zipper down before she reached inside to touch him. She wanted him. Like....five minutes ago with the urgency that hit really hard right then.

Dean finally broke his own silence, moaning into the kiss and pushing towards her touch. He stopped what he was doing, pulling back to look at her for a moment, before moving to push his own jeans down with an almost frantic urgency that stemmed from the kiss and from her touch. The pendant he wore on his right wrist flicked down, pressing against his skin and he knew that he heart was racing just as much as his own was.

Thia liked that. She liked knowing she could have that kind of an immediate reaction, just from a single touch. How it could just kick everything into high gear, and all of a sudden they just needed each other. She helped him as much as she could, even if he was doing a nicely fast job of getting rid of the rest of his clothes nicely, and she reached up to grab ahold of the chain around his neck, pulling him back to her by that. It was probably a good thing the chain was a pretty sturdy one. She didn't often do that, but every once in a while, it was almost an automatic reaction. Just...she wanted him back and she wanted him back right now so she was yanking him over. It was just a convenient way to do that.

He liked it when she did that - she didn't very often. usually, it was him moving her around, but sometimes, occasionally, she returned the favour - usually the chain, sometimes his belt loops. He didn't much mind how she did it, he just liked that she did it. That sometimes she just needed him to be elsewhere. And so he went, pressing himself against her as he slipped down between her legs, both of them naked now. She didn't feel cool to his touch any more, if he even noticed that kind of thing, as focused down as he was right now.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized that at some point they'd kind of decided to wait on this, but hi! Yeah, that wasn't actually happening. Things had been up and down and all over the place and now they were here. She kissed him, arms going up around his neck and she slid both knees up alongside his hips. This time when she slid her hand farther down his back she let her nails scratch along lightly, just enough so he'd feel them.

He arched his back as she scratched lightly along it, the pressure sending sparks along his skin as he pushed upwards, drawing out the kiss and then pulling back so that he could watch her, so that she could see him. His lips were parted, his eyes dark and needy and he tried to convey in them everything she wouldn't be able to hear as he started to move.

She looked up at him, and could figure out what he was doing. They were missing an element--and it wouldn't be that far off the mark to say it was a rather large one. Hell, they'd discussed it earlier, she'd spent her time lamenting the lost of hearing, but him looking at her like that? That she could appreciate. That she could venture a guess into saying it could make up for it. Sometimes...everything was in the way he looked at her. Right now that was exactly what she needed. She was making sounds. She didn't know how loud they were, she was even only aware of some of them, and she was keeping her eyes up on his, not wanting to break the eye contact. Occasionally she had to, when a shudder went through her, when he moved exactly right, and for a moment, she had to squeeze her eyes shut.

It took a certain level of concentration - not to mention a strain on his arms - to keep up the rhythm in that way, holding himself above her. His instinct was to collapse down, to hold her tightly, to bury his face by her ear, but he didn't. Even now, Dean's stubborn willpower won out over his instincts, the way it always did. When he decided that something was The Right Thing To Do, nothing could change him from that. But still, he shifted her a little, resting his weight on one hand as he used the other to pull her leg up, wrapping it round his back, changing the angle and pushing in deeper, feeling the difference there with the move and it send sparks shooting behind his eyes, or so it felt to him.

When he did that, he got a sharp, entirely unexpected little cry from her. See that was why she wanted to play around with things. That was why she liked to experiment, and think of other things to do. Because that right there? Just that position change, even if it was only a little one? Just an angle, really? God. Yes. Jesus. Which possibly were things she said, too, even if she wasn't paying attention to what might have come out of her mouth, since she couldn't hear it anyhow. She did realize she had one hand on his arm, and her nails dug in a tiny bit.

She did, in fact, say it out loud - which got a shuddered grin from Dean and spurred him on all the more, pulling her leg up a little further as he increased the pace. his own breath coming harder now as he felt thing begin to build. He loved to get that kind of reaction out of her, god he loved it so much.

There was that thing where she was lost in the moment again. When she wasn't thinking about anything, when she was just feeling it all. Him, everything. She managed to look up at him again, and she caught the grin. Yeah, he had the right to look like that right now. He really, really did. He'd earned that. It was all building up, and fast. He'd already been in the process of it before he'd gotten himself involved there and now, especially with the angle, and it was even better when he pulled her leg up further and started going faster. She wanted to kiss him but knew she wouldn't have the breath for it right now, she felt like she couldn't breathe, even if she was aware she was still saying little things when she could. Little exhaled words that may or may not have been coherently connected. She knew his name was in there, particularly when she got closer to the edge.

He knew that she was saying things that didn't entirely make sense. And he knew he was saying nothing at all. Even though the world had mostly gone away for him now, so that all that was left were feelings and the physical, he was still keeping quiet. he didn't even consciously think about it, he just was. It just wouldn't feel right to do anything else today and god did it feel right right now. Everything was getting better and more intense and he knew it wouldn't be long now.

It definitely wasn't long til Thia crashed. It seemed to blindside her, even if she knew it was coming and all, felt it building, it still hit hard, and even she knew she had a kind of loud cry there. She just couldn't help it, it just went with how she felt at the moment, which was only termed in her head as 'fucking amazing'. If she'd had the presence of mind to, she might have clapped a hand over her mouth--but she didn't.

He followed her over a few moments later, seeing her being what tipped him over as he felt the world explode and collapsed down, finally, on top of her, searching out her mouth seemingly blindly and kissing her deeply as if his life depended on it, his hand roaming over her body with no real fixed intention other than to touch her.

She kissed him back, drawing it out, kissing with just as much feeling attached. Like she was making up for not having gotten to kiss him during all of that. Even if...god. Right. Yeah. She wouldn't be trading in that experience. Her arms were up around his neck, her fingers in his hair, holding onto him like she was afraid he was going to try and leave.

Dean was exhausted, feeling very much like he'd never have any energy again, and he pulled back from the kiss in favour of gasping in some breathes, his heart thundering in his chest, his body feeling slick with a fine sheen of sweat. He rested his forehead against hers as he breathed, not making any move to go anywhere at all. He couldn't, and he didn't want to.

She laughed a little, a gasped little sound. It was a happy sound, most certainly, and she was reaching up to run her hand over his shoulder, lightly down his back, doing much the same as he'd been doing, just touching. Kind of petting him, in a way as she remembered how to breathe normally and all that.

He needed to move, he was aware of that. He was bigger than her - and heavier. And he was probably crushing her. He was sure that he'd be crushing her. Except he didn't really want to move away right now. In the end, he simply rolled them to one side, so that she was sitting on him and he was lying flat against the bed. Better - he never need move again now, and right now, that seemed like the best position to be in.

She moved when he moved them, even if she hadn't really been complaining about being beneath him. She laughed softly and looked down at him, shifting then settling herself, reaching up to absently get his hair off of his forehead. It wasn't long enough to be in his eyes yet, but it was getting there. "I tell you I love you in the past...like ten, twenty minutes?" she asked.

Dean gave her a lazily happy look. "Dunno," he suggested, though he didn't much sound like he cared either way. He didn't care about anything right now. The world was a fabulous place and everything was wonderful. Of course she loved him, he knew that, whether she'd told him or not.

"Mm. I tell you that you're amazing, then?" she asked. "That the things you do to me are just...totally indescribable without coming up with vocabulary that would probably make us both blush ourselves to death?" she continued, still absently playing with his hair. Whatever rollercoasters they'd been on emotionally this evening, she was all kinds of good now. Pleasantly exhausted, and she was thinking it was a good plan to just have them both sleep here in her bed tonight. No leaving it at all. Noooo no.

"Mmmm, okay," Dean told her, not really concentrating on what she was saying at all, other than he liked the sound of her voice and she was saying nice things about him - and that he was tired, and that she was playing with his hair, which was spacing him out even further. He didn't mind so much, he didn't mind at all.

She giggled again, and gave him a few soft, little drawn out kisses. "Sleepytime?" she suggested, cutting down what she was saying to a single word. Granted it was a word she made up, but she used it in a sentence, so she called it good. He looked so damn cute right then. All...sleepy and content. She liked that look on him. She appreciated it in all sorts of ways.

He kind of returned the kisses, but not with any real depth as he wrapped a lazy arm around her and pulled her down and to his side, snuggling in against her. "Mmm, yeah - s'good," he muttered, not even really connecting with the fact that she probably wouldn't be able to understand the mumble there.

Yep. Dean was wiped. And adorable, and he wasn't seeming to be going anywhere, so she was taking it as a positive that yes, it was sleepytime. Pleasantly exhausted herself, she was on board with sleepytime. She paused to lean over and turn the lamp off, then she tugged the blankets up over them, snuggling in against him immediately. "Night, love." she told him, a light little murmur. He'd be able to hear her. Then she settled, so she could let sleep claim her, which wasn't at all going to take long. Not when she was satisfied, warm and content with a Dean to curl up with.