setting up the meet

who: dean and caleb
when: morning
where: phoneland

Showered and dressed, Dean headed out into his bedroom to find that Thia had decided to take herself off elsewhere. Which was nice in a way, as much as he loved being around her, they both needed their space, and to not actually have to come out and tell someone that meant it was working. At least, in his head that was what it meant. He snagged his phone from off the side and hit the speed dial for Caleb as he sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over to look underneath, hunting his boots out - he couldn't remember whether he took them off downstairs last night or not.

Caleb was still crashed out when the call came, and he groaned a little, but grabbed his cell off of his bedside table, flipping it open and putting it to his ear. "What?" he asked in way of greeting, sounding half asleep with a hoarse voice. Mornings were not his friend. Especially mornings where he didn't have to be up for school.

"I keep forgetting you're not a morning person," Dean said, sounding cheerful. Not that he was a morning person either, but waking up with Thia generally put him in a good mood - plus it was fun to wind up his friend.

Groaning, Caleb put the pillow over the top of his head even if he kept the phone to his ear. "You don't have to sound so fucking happy about it." he said. "Sadist." he accused, reaching up to rub his eyes a little. Get the sleep out of them. In the back of his mind, he was glad to hear from Dean. It wasn't like the last time they'd spoke that they parted on the best of terms. Maybe not horrible ones, but not 'hey pal, great to see you, let's catch up soon!' ones. Plus, Caleb was still sort of half waiting for Dean to decide the half-demon thing was a friendship ending thing.

"What? The sun's out - it's not screamingly early or anything. Or were you out all night last night?" Dean asked, giving up on his search for his boots - he must have left them downstairs last night. Eh, he'd get them later - Sophie had the heating going, so it wasn't like it was too cold to wander round in socks or anything anyhow.

"Is it still technically 'a.m.'?" Caleb asked rhetorically. "I'm a p.m. sort of person. I don't do morning. Or sunshine. Plus I don't actually sleep much either, I guess, so, that could be why." he said. "Why, what's up, anyways?" he asked. "I'm assuming nothing dire, with your tone." If it was dire, then that'd be a bit of a jump for Dean.

"It's still technically - and actually - 'a.m.'," Dean agreed. "You should count yourself lucky - technically my body clock's fucked right now, I could have called you a lot earlier," he added. The fact that he hadn't had everything to do with a late night last night and the fact that he was exhausted and had slept right through to a reasonable hour. "No - nothing dire, but I wanted to talk to you about the Nic thing."

Caleb propped himself up on his elbows and frowned lightly, pausing for a moment before he answered. "What about it?" he asked, tone not exactly guarded, but he was unsure what Dean was going to say. And he didn't exactly want to jump the gun and make any assumptions, so he just...waited.

Dean dragged a hand through his hair and tried to think about the best way to approach this. As per usual, he hadn't really planned what he was going to say in advance, though he really should have worked out by now that things always went better when he did that. "Remember yesterday, when I was telling you about what happened with the shadows?" he started off with. "And I told you that... what happened... was because I was needed there. Oz is great, but Sophie, their friends? Not so much. So, Thia and I had been talking in England anyway about how that needed to be remedied at some point. That they should all learn how to properly be able to defend themselves. So - I was talking to her again last night and she suggested that we should just bring you and Nic in on that. Like a group thing," he finished. He was hoping that he could avoid having to blatantly say that doing that would avoid any one on one, or bringing up the issues Caleb had had at all.

Taking a minute to let that sink in, Caleb couldn't help the first thought that went through his head. You're actually considering trusting me with a gun? That wouldn't be helpful. And, he had to admit, deep down, if there were more people there, he might feel mildly better. At least on the Nic front. Himself, not so much. He'd rather not do something like that on his own. He didn't know if he'd be any good at it, and guns just...weren't necessarily his thing. You could run out of bullets easy. Blood you had a better supply of, especially if you didn't need that much. "What about Lullaby? Or is she not going to be there?" he asked. It was bad enough having his heritage hanging over his head that he had to fess up with with Nic, he wasn't so sure explaining the dead classmate was going to at all go well.

Dean took a breath. "That's the thing - she'll be there too. So - this isn't going to be happening tomorrow, or anything," Dean told him. He wondered if he had to tell the guy that if this girl was someone who couldn't be trusted enough to learn about Thia, then as far as Dean was concerned she definitely couldn't be trusted enough to be trained to fire an offensive weapon. He wasn't going to be a party to giving that kind of skill to people he didn't trust.

Caleb was silent for a long few moments, exhaling as he thought about it. That was something that he didn't really feel like he could even begin to make a decision about. "Tomorrow or not...is she sure? Are you sure?" he asked first, because that was a lot. He was the one who'd sat there and thought for all of two seconds what the wrong people finding out about Lullaby could mean, so he got the gravity of it. And while Nic wasn't someone who would deliberately put anyone in danger ever, so far as he could tell...that didn't mean she'd deal with it well. She was still new to everything, and a sort of undead classmate....yeah that was a lot.

"I'm sure that if I don't trust her enough to tell her about Thia, then I don't trust her enough to teach her to shoot," Dean said, after a moment or two, seriously, all the lightheartedness of their earlier conversation gone. He knew that Caleb got the seriousness of the situation in regards to Thia, and he appreciated that. "And I'd want to know she knows about you too, first. Same reason," he added. He wasn't going to give her the skills to massively overreact at that kind of thing.

Caleb supposed that not having Nic know how to drop him if she happened to freak out over things could be a positive for himself, though he still wanted her to ultimately know how to deal with things. Deal properly, so he could worry about her less. Or, alright, that probably wasn't going to happen, but he could at the very least feel slightly better about not being there all the time, if he thought she could at least take care of herself in that manner. "Okay." he said eventually, though he felt like it put a lot of pressure on him now to get around to telling her. Like if he wanted her to actually be safe? That had to happen first. But that was his problem, not Dean's.

"Okay," Dean agreed, glad that Caleb appeared to be cool with that. "So - now I just have to meet her," he said, with a smile, letting go of the very serious tone as easily as he'd adopted it.

"Yeah, now you have to meet her." Caleb agreed, smiling faintly. "When do you want to do that?" He didn't know when. Or how, or...under what circumstances. Generally speaking, he didn't specifically set his friends up to meet. He definitely didn't bring one in for approval factors either, but that was what this felt like. It felt 'official' for some stupid reason. But he did want Dean to meet Nic, and Nic to meet Dean, he just half wished it could be done and out of the way already.

"As soon as?" Dean suggested, then quirked a smile. "You wanna be there, or would you prefer me to hunt her out? If so, I can add her to the list - Thia's met a girl we go to school with, so I'm gonna kind of make sure that I bump into her during the week. You tell me where Nic's likely to be and I can try and do the same thing."

"You realize you're sounding remarkably cheerful about stalking, right?" Caleb asked his friend. "I'm sure I could hunt her down at lunch on Monday, unless you wanted to meet her without me there...I half feel like if I'm there, it'll be like bringing a girl home to meet my goddamn parents. Or whatever, I have no idea. I'm not really up on this bullshit. Haven't had the whole friends meeting the potential girlfriend thing before. Though, I guess, in this case, you could possibly just tell me I'm fucking nuts, or tell her that I am so not good enough for her that it isn't even funny, and avert disaster before it starts." Since his love life could only be described as a disaster.

"Well, I accepted my role in life as 'creepy, obsessive weirdo' a while ago, and that seems to be working out for me, so adding 'stalker' in there isn't too much of a leap. Just offering, whichever way you fancy doing it. You there, or not there - probably be less of a stunning coincidence and shit if you were there, but yeah, much more formal that way. So, I'm easy. And, for the record, I'm not going, in any world, to tell her that you're not good enough for her," Dean told him, rolling his eyes at that suggestion.

"Fine, but if you think that you'll tell me, right?" Caleb asked. Since he kind of had that suspicion. But then again, he tended to have a low estimation of himself, and therefore thought most of the female population was far too good for him. Not that Nic was a good girl or anything. And there'd be the bruise on her neck. ...which probably needed freshening up, and he shouldn't be thinking like that. "And I guess I'd rather be there...maybe." Wow, how was that for being an indecisive bitch?

"Mate, I'm not going to think she's too good for you," Dean said with a laugh, sounding confident in that. Caleb was his friend, therefore him thinking that was, well, unthinkable. "And, okay, you'll be there. That'll probably make it simpler. Tomorrow? At lunch?" he suggested. "We can arrange to meet somewhere and if you chicken out, change your mind - you can just not show. And I can bitch about how you just can't be relied on..." he teased, clearly not meaning that since, in Dean's opinion, he could rely on Caleb for absolutely anything.

"I'm not going to bitch out on it." Caleb said, sighing. "But yeah, lunch. And yep. That's me. I'm an unreliable bastard." Unless one needed a body taken care of. Sure. "Just so long as it's not the lunch room..." he added, since he really hated the cafeteria. He rather avoided it like the plague. Too many people, ninety nine percent of who he didn't want anything to do with.

"God, no - not the cafeteria. Somewhere quieter," Dean agreed, practically jumping on that one. He avoided that place whenever he could, and having had a migraine yesterday, it was at the forefront of his mind not to risk another any time soon. If it had been summer, or at least snow-less, he would have suggested the side lawn, but now it'd have to be somewhere inside.

Caleb just sort of wandered most of the time during lunch, or he took off, and went for a walk before classes were back in swing. So he didn't have a usual place he ate. He guessed he'd find one now. "Want to just meet me at my locker at lunch? I can call Nic and tell her the same. We could figure out where to go from there." he suggested, still feeling like this was the weirdest thing ever, but...hey, at least if things went really stunningly badly for some unforseeable reason, there would be a really finite time frame for it to happen in.

Dean, who didn't actually really ever eat lunch at all, was fine with this. "Sure, your locker. Not a problem," he agreed, easily. He figured he'd be nervous about meeting this girl, but that wouldn't kick in until tomorrow. And then he'd have to see whether he ended up being able to hold a conversation or not. He'd been better at that since he'd got together with Thia. Took away that dimension of things, but his tendencies towards idiocy were touch and go at the best of times in his opinion, so he wasn't going to be making any promises.

That worked. Then at the very least, he'd have Dean's opinion. Which he still valued, and he thought Dean wouldn't bullshit him on things. It was still weird for him though. Caleb just...didn't
have anything resembling a group of friends. Not really, though if Dean and Nic got on alright, he might. Leija had never seemed interested in who he was or wasn't friends with. But then Leija was as solitary a creature as he usually was. This felt different, and he just...yeah. There was a difference going on there. He'd try to not fuck it up in the meantime, or during. He just wasn't sure how capable of that he was. At least he was feeling a little better about the state of his friendship with Dean. The phonecall in general did that, as well as his friend's tone.

Dean stood, crossing the room to his computer, loading up him browser to see if he had email. "Well, guess I'll see you tomorrow at lunch then," he said, figuring that was that. He'd called for a reason, that'd been sorted, and he wasn't a girl who could spend hours on the phone. Except... "Mate? Have you ever tried explaining the guy's rule to a girl?" he asked, as an afterthought.

Caleb paused for a moment. "No." he answered. "I--no. Why?" he asked. "Have you? I've never had to...never really had people all that close to me, and generally speaking, I've never been in that position to even have to go by it. And both times that I've been accused of 'stealing' a woman out from under anyone, that wasn't my fault. ...and in the first case I didn't even actually know..."

"Eh, I tried to explain it to Thia this morning. We were talking about Joshua and I was saying that if the guy was gonna be pissed, it'd be him being pissed at me and I could understand that. But she got all offended and said that she felt like property or something. And I ended up feeling like I was trying to dig my way out of a hole," Dean said, cringing slightly. He'd never thought that something as simple as the guy rule would actually cause a problem for anything. Clearly he was wrong there.

Opening his mouth for a moment, Caleb blinked. "...huh?" he asked. "Property? How the hell does that work?" he asked. "Doesn't have anything to do with them, really." he said. Just because he didn't have friends previously where he'd ever had to adhere to said rule didn't mean he didn't know about it.

"Well, yeah - that's kind of where I was at. It's just about respect and friendship, right? But no, according to Thia it means that blokes are saying that women are property that we 'claim' and that that disregards their feelings about anything. I tried to put it to her that she'd do the same thing, but she basically just said that all her friends tend to be guys and she's not into girls, and the one girlfriend she has at the moment has a boyfriend who's a wanker, so she wouldn't be interested anyway. Which was completely missing the point, but... I just needed a sanity check that this wasn't just me, y'know?" Dean said, since he knew he developed rules for just about everything. He just hadn't thought that the guy's rule was just him ever - it was good to know he hadn't imagined that.

"Well, consider yourself sane. She makes no sense." Caleb said. "Maybe it's just a guy thing. i don't know. But I still don't really get the property angle. I mean, I know there are people out there kind of like that..." He had his own tendencies, though nothing so off the rails as to consider anyone actually his as in ownership. "but that's taking it a bit far. Maybe it's a feminist thing or something. No idea, but whatever, I get it, you're sane. Makes sense to me." he confirmed. Women's minds mystified him. "I should say that I gave up ages ago trying to understand women at all." he added.

Dean scanned down the list of emails, deleting the spam and marking the interesting looking ones to read later before closing the browser again. "Yeah, I just... Thia I can normally fathom out, y'know? But this one got me. I got myself out of it, but I kinda thought I might be in trouble there for a moment. Think I'm just going to completely avoid the subject in future," he added, deciding that that was for the best - there was no reason for it to ever really come up again anyhow.

"I back that plan of action." Caleb said. He tended to try and avoid trouble when he could, even if he wasn't very good at it. But with a near miss? Then at least you knew where a trouble spot was, it could be avoided like the fucking plague. "Besides, wouldn't really come up unless you were dropping her for someone else, right? In which case it'd already be a moot point, trying not to get into trouble with her. Can't really see that happening, myself, unless things have really changed, but I think you probably would have mentioned."

"Yeah - unless Joshua decides to add to the pattern over my face, but no - I'm not dropping her for someone else. or even planning anything like that," Dean assured him. "And yeah - I would have mentioned. And then you could have told me what an idiot I was."

Pausing for a moment, Caleb hesitated over saying something, then went ahead anyways. "Do you think he's likely to try and pick a fight?" he asked lightly. He didn't especially like that idea. He tended towards being overly protective in the first place, and that didn't sound like a good thing. He knew Dean was already hurt, he'd seen the guy. So...yeah. He didn't get into the idiot factor, he'd been prodding Dean to hook up with the girl for ages now, and he finally had. He was more concerned over the possible fight angle.

Dean shrugged. "Dunno. Hope not. But these days I tend to expect the worst, y'know?" Which, when he really thought about it - the worst wasn't Joshua. The worst was the possibility of Sean stepping in if Joshua picked a fight and Dean decided to fight back. Possibly it would be best to decide just to take whatever was thrown at him, if anything was. He'd talked about being prepared to go up against Sean if it came down to it before, but that had been in Thia's defence, not his own. And he didn't really fancy his chances against an angel.

"Yeah, I do know, because I tend to too." Caleb said, finally sitting up and he dragged his fingers through his hair. "I don't suppose you could put this off." he said, thinking if he knew Dean, he'd say no, probably not. "Barring that, that you at least choose someplace public, where a fight will get broken up, and I could just happen to be in the vicinity?"

"Don't worry about it - I can handle myself, Caleb," Dean told him. "It probably won't come to anything. But, if it does, I don't want you anywhere near there. Anyway, the guy's cursed - he's more likely to hurt himself than he is me..." Which, again, sounded better than 'protected by a guardian-fucking-angel'. Dean didn't know how half-demons and angels got on and he didn't particularly want to find out.

"You know, telling me someone who might want to kick your ass while you're already hurt is cursed probably isn't the best way to make me feel better about it." Caleb pointed out. "Why don't you want me anywhere near it? You know I wouldn't do anything too harsh..." he said, then had to finish the statement. "...don't you?" he asked, slightly quieter. Maybe he didn't anymore. Shit. That stung.

Dean cringed at Caleb's tone there. "Mate - it's not that..." he started, then sighed. "Look, seriously - if the guy started something, I'd probably just take it. Maybe he'd have a point. But... Fighting back might not be worth it. I dunno. Just... might not be the best decision in the world. And I can't see him just waling on me if I'm not fighting back, so - it'll be fine."

Silent for a minute, Caleb grit his teeth. "Yeah, still not selling me on this." he said. "You saying that a cursed guy who might want to kick your ass you think might have a point, and you might not fight back...I'd rather just be there because I don't especially think you do deserve to get your ass kicked, one way or another, and--" he broke off a minute, then plunged on, going with what he was really thinking, even if it was typical him--worst case scenario. "What if tomorrow the shit hits the fan again, as it seems apt to do, and you're out of commission, because of whatever you've got in your head that says it'll just be fine if he beats on you?"

"If the shit hits the fan, there's a healing pool up at the mine," Dean reminded him. He also knew he had Thia, but he refused to even contemplate that. He wouldn't use her as a handy healing spot, wouldn't plan for emergencies by using her. There were other ways. "And I don't think he'd kick my arse. Honestly, I don't think he's got the balls to do that to a guy who's not fighting back. More likely, he'd thump me, I'd take it, that's the end. Things don't go any further than that. And if I can help it, they won't go that far. I'm not looking for a fight in this." It'd only upset Thia, and he had bruises enough already. He'd like to get rid of them now, not go collecting more.

"I still say that it's bullshit, and I'd rather at least be around. But whatever, I can't make you." Caleb said, sighing. He didn't like the idea of a friend going into anything that could get violent without back up of some description. Even if he thought Dean could handle himself just fine. That wasn't the point. Things got messy and they usually backslid fast if there was any sliding to be done. It just left him all kinds of twitchy.

"It'll be fine," Dean reassured him, feeling like he was going to be able to get through this conversation and have Caleb not be anywhere near the angel, which was his goal. And by the looks of things, he was also going to succeed in getting through this without having to admit that to his friend, which was an added bonus. Caleb wouldn't take it well that Dean was trying to protect him.

Caleb didn't like it. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He didn't like the idea, he didn't like feeling cut out, he in general, just flat out wasn't happy. And he couldn't help but wonder if it was because of what he was. If he wasn't trusted to be backup anymore, even if Dean had said that wasn't it. Because really, obviously he intended to keep up the friendship they had, but that didn't mean that he was still trusted. Caleb couldn't blame him for that. He bit back a few halting starts to responses, then just didn't go with any of them. "Whatever you say." he said instead. "Think I'm going to take off though. See you tomorrow, I'll make sure to tell Nic."

"Sure," Dean said, happy with that - they'd discussed matters, they'd got through things, they'd see each other tomorrow, it was all good. "I'll be on my best behaviour - promise. And I'll sell you up if needed," he added, in case Caleb got twitchy just on the basis of that first promise. God, there it was again - he still felt like he was walking on eggshells. He hated that. Maybe it'd be better if Nic just loathed him on sight.

"I'm pretty sure if you tried that she'd see right through it, and have to grill me later on what the hell I was thinking, having you do that." Caleb said. "She's kind of a sharp one. And fair warning, she's...kind of got a similar temperament to me. She can be just as cynical as I can." he said, still bothered by things, but he wasn't going to be solving that problem right now, and he'd just...have to think it over and deal accordingly. Whatever 'accordingly' might entail.

"Well, we'll just see how it goes. And cynical seems to be the way of the world these days," Dean pointed out, considering himself fairly damn cynical these days, even though he had massive gaps in that, all things considered. "I'll see you tomorrow," he added, before hanging up the phone.