So Near and Yet So Far

who: dean and thia
where: over the wire
when: evening

Thia had been watching the calendar. She knew when the new moon was coming up again. She was absolutely dreading it with every fiber of her being, but she was making damn sure she was prepared. That she wasn't going to get seen by anyone. She needed not to be seen. God, she hated all of this. Hated it so very much. She felt like a monster. Which was probably playing into why she wanted to be hiding in the attic. That was where people kept their teenage crazy undead monster adopted children, right? Okay. Maybe most people would keep those types in the basement, but their basement was really rather homey. If you ignored the cage.

The one thing that was kind of helping keep her sane was when she'd gotten up she'd seen a note had been pushed under her door. It was from Dean, and he explained a set up he wanted to try, so they could stay in contact. It was one of the sweetest things she'd ever seen, and if she could have hunted him down to tell him how much it meant to her then, she would have--but no. He was out, for one, and for two, well. She was practicing the Art of Not Being Seen. Hopefully with less explosions.

She'd locked the attic door and even shoved things in front of it, just in case, and all of the lights were off. Only the glow of the laptop screen was visible in the dark. She was sitting on the steps, playing a stupid little strategy map game online as she waited for Dean to get back. She missed him, even if her whole isolation was self-imposed.

Dean had spent the afternoon at Tad's, starting work on the mammoth project that they'd been given in history class. Or, well, that had been the basis for him going over at least, the amount of actually work that had gotten done was arguable, but then it always was in Dean's world.

He'd made sure that he was home not long after dark though - he decided that, next month, he'd find out what time moon rise was. He figured that things had to do with the moon actually being out - he thought it was that way for Oz, at least. He should probably check that specifically, actually. Currently he was mostly going off what he knew from monster werewolf movies and that was bad on so many levels, especially when he could just ask.

But, not right now. No, tonight he headed straight upstairs to his room, closing the door behind him, shutting out the world as he headed over to the computer. He still wanted to be with her, to show that he didn't care, that it didn't matter how she was. To prove that to both of them. But, she'd refused that, point blank, and he wasn't pushing it - not yet. So he'd come up with what he considered to be the next best thing. He had a webcam, and a headset. He could call her. She'd be able to see him. He'd be able to hear her. It would be so much better than texting - it would be better than nothing at all.

Sitting down at his desk, he switched everything on, loaded programmes up and sent her a quick message to check she was actually there.

She ticked her gaze and read over the message, smiling a little. It was a sad expression, but hey, at least he couldn't see it. She immediately exited her game, having no interest in continuing it now that he was there, and she messaged him back before starting up the call session. "Hello?" she asked, hoping he could hear her as the black window started to boot up the feed from his camera.

Dean shifted in his seat and checked the little picture display on his screen that showed how he was positioned in the cam feed. He leaned in to angle it a little better, so she could properly see him. It was weird doing this without a return picture. He was used to video calls with people back in England, but actually doing this with Thia, yeah, very odd. Hopefully he'd get over that soon enough though. "Hey, kitten - how're you?" he asked, giving her a little smile.

That got a better smile from her. She liked the nickname, and she could see his smile, so...it helped. She hit the button that made the picture full screen for her, and tried to make herself comfortable on the steps, crossing her arms and propping her head on them as she gazed at the screen. She thought it was going to work okay. She turned up the volume on the computer as loud as it could go, even if she didn't expect to catch a lot from it. Even muffled tones would be nice, though. "Okay." she said. "Bored. Twitchy. But okay. You?" she asked.

"Missing you," he told her, the closest he was going to allow himself to come to saying he wanted to be there with her. He'd promised himself he wasn't going to push things. It was just his own issues clouding everything and he was going to respect what she wanted. That was the way it worked. "So - take it you didn't go up there with a pack of cards and a heap of board games then?" he teased, moving straight on and trying to set a lighter atmosphere.

"Miss you too." she said genuinely, sort of wondering what it was like to him. To hear her but not see her. Like a proper phone call, even if she was nearby. She laughed a little though at his other statement. "No, didn't do that. I have solitaire on my computer so I was covered with dull little games, plus I don't have to pick anything up. And board games are always so dull when you're playing against yourself. It's far too easy to give way to turning dice so you can get to Candy Land faster, and no one ever lands on Park Place when it's just you against you."

"Candy Lane?" Dean asked with a laugh, keeping his eyes on the screen in front of him, watching himself to make sure that she would be able to see him properly. That was still strange - talking to her like this, his natural reaction would be to relax back, not pay too much attention to himself and what he was doing, lose himself in the actual phonecall, or on a video call, watch the other person. But, instead, he was here watching him. It was a trippy experience, watching yourself, especially for someone like Dean who never really paid that much attention to his own physical appearance and mannerisms. "I have no idea what that's from - probably some weird American game, right?"

She laughed. "Yeah, a little kid's game. Candy Land. It's...silly. And I'm pretty sure it isn't here in this house anyways. But I had to come up with quick references, don't judge me." she teased. She kept her eyes on him, watching him. She could tell it was a little weird for him, mostly because she watched him all the time, and he usually relaxed when they were talking. But his posture hadn't dropped back or anything, which was probably the whole 'on camera' of it all.

"Sorry, already judged," Dean told her, mock-sternly, shaking his head a little and making a show of scowling, purposely putting more than he normally would into his expressions to make up for everything they didn't have right now. That was easier when he could see what he looked like - which, he decided, was 'a little silly', but if it entertained her, he was okay with that. "You just have to deal with the fact that I've taken your choice of Candy Land and, er, whatever the other one was and totally judged you on them."

The face he made had her giggling a touch. "God you're cute." she told him, a sort of un-thought-through statement that slipped out. She sat up better and tilted the monitor so she still had the best view she could. "Even on a slightly grainy camera." she added. "...and I don't believe you missed out on a Monopoly reference. Hasn't everyone in the entire world been forced to play that game at one time or another? And been bored out of their skulls?"

"That was a Monopoly reference?" Dean asked, surprised - he hadn't recognised the street name. "And it's not that boring - I never really minded it myself. Though Scott always cheated..." he told her. The 'cute' reference didn't bother him so much anymore. She was his girlfriend, she could think he was cute all she wanted - he knew she'd mean it in that way.

"Yeah, Park Place...that and Boardwalk. Those are the big ones you need to get together then stick hotels on and bankrupt people." Thia said, smiling. "And yeah, I can imagine Scott cheating. I would always just get stuck in games that lasted for hours and hours and by the end of it me and my parents were pretty much done. Like trying to find ways to make anyone win by the end, just so it could be over." she explained.

Dean listened and then his face cleared and brightened a little. "Oh! You must have different names for them over here then - cos those two were always Mayfair and Park Lane - the two horrible ones just before Go, right?" he checked. "Games going on for hours I never minded - but that's probably just me." It had always appealed to Dean's sense of structure, and he liked any games that had a clear set of rules to play by.

She laughed. "You know, I have absolutely no trouble at all picturing you being just fine playing a long game of Monopoly. I was always a scrabble fan." she said. "And they had different names? That's cool, I didn't know that!" she said. "I wonder what they are in like...japan and such. I'm sure they're different there, too." she added thoughtfully. "I'd play Monopoly with you though." she added. "I'm sure I could put up with it even for the long haul."

"Yeah - all the places were streets in London," he told her, then considered it. "Probably they're different all over the world.... Hold on," he said, then leaned forward to bring up a window and find that out - since he was all here and everything and she wanted to know. "Aaaaaaparently in Japan there's two differen versions," he told her after a moment or two. "There's a Tokyo version and the streets and stations are districts and railways of Tokyo. And then there's a Japan version where the streets are Japanese cities and the stations are, well, stations around Japan. And I'd give you some of the names, but I can't pronounce them," he admitted, eyeing some of the ones listed. He shook his head - no, he'd never be able to manage that one. "Scrabble I was never so good at - but my spelling sucks really badly."

Thia grinned at that, shaking her head some. "Yeah, it does." she agreed good naturedly. "I've been doing your homework, remember?" she asked, giggling a little. "I just liked showing off my fabulous vocabulary. Or, y'know, sitting there complaining that you can't do more than three letter words anyways when you have all consonants or all vowels. I was playing a little like...make a map against each other game before you got in." she said. "Hey, how were the snow sculptures, anyways? I saw a thing about it on the news the other night."

"Making a map against each other? Sounds like fun," Dean said, though he didn't suggest playing at all - she'd need to be able to see him for this to work, and he didn't want to give up talking to her. "And the snow sculptures were good - kinda interesting, some of them. Saw this one weird one on my way home - a mermaid sitting outside a cave of bones. Freaky. Very freaky."

"We should play sometime. Just not tonight." she said, thinking along the same lines. "It's fun, kinda distracting. I'm easily amused." she said. She was also finding herself watching him, making a study of him. It was different when she wasn't there with him, because he couldn't see her at all, he could only react to her voice. Right around now she could do with snuggling in the closet, but no. No no and no. She made a face at the description. "Really? That's...yeah. I'm going to go with you on this one. Freaky." she agreed, shuddering a little. That sounded weird. "Let's not make anything freaky when we do snowmen." she said. Somehow the Calvin-esque ones didn't seem quite so weird as that.

He liked the 'when' there, just that assumption that they were going to do something. He was aware they'd talked about it in the past, but still, it made him smile a little to hear her say it like that. "Okay, we won't. Dunno how good I'd be at that whole thing anyhow. Don't have much experience with snow. Or sculpture for that matter," he told her, in case she decided that because he could draw some, he must be the whole range of arty. He didn't want her to be disappointed - best she didn't have any expectations of him in the first place.

"I know! That's okay. There is always time to learn and get creative with building random things from snow. Besides. Little kids do it all the time, I have faith in your ability to pick things up even faster than your average third grader." she teased. "Maybe we'll start small. Make little baby snowpeople." she suggested. "Bitty snowpeople and then the next thing you know, we're building crazy dragons in the back yard."

"Yeah, but little kids end up with Frosty the Snowman with a battered top hat - though, really, have you ever actually seen a snowman with a battered top hat on? When I was a kid, they always ended up with a woolly hat or something - and a carrot for the nose and stones for the eyes cos nobody has coal anymore. But mini snow people could be good. An army of snow people..." he suggested, rambling a little there.

That had her gasping a little in delight. "Ooh, an army of little tiny snow people?!" she asked. "That'd be the best thing ever! I can just see it!" she said, giggling as she shifted again, crawling up onto the main floor of the attic, and she curled up on her side. "It'd be the most adorable army ever." she said. "And the eyes and mouth were always done with stones here too. No coal. Hats and scarves were whatever we had in the house--I have not in fact ever seen a battered tophat, either on a snowman or off, really. Oh! There was a year in there where I took bits of yarn and used that to make the faces on my snow-things. Like the family of snowbunnies. They had blue yarn eyes and pink yarn noses. They lacked mouthes. Poor, starving snowbunnies."

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to picture the face that went with that giggle - until he remembered that whilst he couldn't see her, she could see him and she'd be watching him sitting there with his eyes closed and that slight smile on his face and suddenly he felt all self-conscious. He opened his eyes and shifted, ducking his head a little and running his hand up over the back of his hair, and along his neck. "Kay, so we'll make an army of snow people in the back garden then - we've got the room for it," he told her. He wondered if she'd normally have joined in the snow sculpture. He knew she didn't consider herself to be arty, but that didn't seem to have stopped some of the creations he'd seen around - not all of them were brilliant.

Lullaby had been watching him and wondered what that was about. Even if she thought it was cute. She just figured he was picturing things. Like a cute army of snowpeople. He always looked cute when he looked mildly bashful, though. "An army of snowpeople it is. I'm all for it." she told him. "And we do have room for it back there. We have a ton of room. We could do some along the back wall? So they could be everywhere." Nevermind this was a huge sounding project. It wasn't like they had a ton of things to do, and she liked the idea of them doing something active that was going to take a while. She could only help so much with the mural in her room.

"We can do them wherever you like, kitten," he promised her. "Would you be good to do that tomorrow?" he asked her, because he was missing her, he wanted to plan for them to do something together the next day. He didn't really care what it was. He knew he was probably being clingy, but he couldn't not be.

She found herself being a total sappy dummy and reaching out and touching his face on the computer screen for a moment. "I'd like that." she told him, voice softer for a moment. "Tomorrow. I don't know when..." I go back to normal. Did she really want to put it like that? She still didn't know if that was normal, since that's what her reflection looked like and such. Or if it got worse. Like one day was she going to look like some crazy bad extra from a zombie flick? All rotted and full of Bad? Or was she constant, and she just looked like her reflection did?

"Yeah," Dean agreed, knowing where the end of that sentence went. He fell silent for a moment, thinking about her up there alone, before he made himself snap out of it - he refused to mope about things. "So, right, yes - tomorrow, whenever you feel like it. I'm putting myself at your beck and call again," he told her, smiling a little. It'd been a while since he'd used that one.

She kept watching him, seeing his expression as he was quiet and she wondered what was going through his mind in those moments. But she didn't ask. Not just now, not when there was the current circumstance going on. "At my beck and call again, hmm?" she asked, skipping the first part, and there was amusement in her tone. "So does that mean if I wanted to go jump in your bed at like five in the morning and drag you out into the freezing cold to make snow people with me, that'd actually work?" she asked. "And is this just in regards to snow people making, or do I have other amounts of leeway as well?"

Dean rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, as if it thought. "Now, see - if you jumped into my bed at five am it'd depend how determined you were. Because I'd be all warm. And snuggly. And I wouldn't necessarily be a fan of letting you get back out of the bed again. So, really, it'd all depend on just how much to wanted to go make snowmen and whether I could convince you that staying in bed and being warm and snuggly with me was a better plan, all things considered." He flipped his eyes back to the camera again. "But yes, you get other amounts of leeway. Just generally all over really."

That had her laughing a little. Mostly because she was kind of thinking the same thing. If she went crawling into bed with him, leaving bed was going to be a little ways off. "Well, see, I was thinking maybe if I showed up that early that we'd have to wait until the sun was out anyways, which is a couple hours this time of year." she told him, unable to keep the smile out of her tone. "Being warm and snuggly with out I'm thinking would win out so I would just be preparing for that. It'd be like a trap. Warm, snuggly, all comfy with lots of blankets and of course you. It'd be impossible to resist falling into that for a while." Or, depending on how clingy she was feeling--and really she knew herself well enough to count that as 'very', a long while might be more the accurate term. "What kind of leeway? There's got to be some things that you would refuse to do. Like...try to find me a camel in the middle of winter here at four in the morning."

He laughed a little at that. "What the hell would you want a camel for at four in the morning in the middle of winter? But... I could try and see if there was an all night store. Maybe they'd have some little toy camels. Or...." He reached off camera and snagged his art pad, quickly sketching a cartoon camel. He held it up to the camera, against his chest so she'd still be able to see him. "I realise I'm early with that - but this do you?" he asked her with a cheeky grin, again overemphasising expression now he could actually see what he looked like, so it actually came out as a proper-looking cheeky grin.

That got a big giggle out of her. "It does!!" she said. "See, this is why I love you." she told him warmly, affection clear in her tone as she curled back up properly again, appreciating the look on his face there. "You humor me." she said. "Hey while you're drawing random things for me, you could always get on that rocketship and pony I wanted..." she teased, wishing she could latch onto him at the moment and shower him with affection. That was really what she wanted to do. give him tons of little kisses and snuggle him a lot.

"One rocketship and pony coming right up!" he told her, bringing a knee up so that he could rest the pad on it while he drew a quick and blocky sketch of a pony sitting on a rocketship that was blasting off into space - he even added a few stars around it and a distant planet earth for good measure. His very cartoon-like default style was good for this kind of thing, and showed a deep-seated sense of the ridiculous that he didn't often outwardly show. He turned it round to show her. "There, something like that? Anything else while I'm taking requests...?" he asked her, loving to hear her laugh.

That got another one as she looked at it, propping herself up again and she moved to look more closely at the screen. "That's far too awesome." she told him. "What's the pony's name? It's got to have a great name, since he's also a space-pony! Plus, horses are routinely named really weird things. And it's kinda a horse. Actually are they they same? I know the pony rides at the fair and all were sort of like, little stocky ponies. Not proper horses. Though that's what I'd need, I don't know if you caught this in our time together but I'm short." she told him. "Ummmmm...what do angel and fallen angel think of this weird rocket-riding-pony situation?" she asked, for suggetions on things to draw.

"Hey, I'm just the drawing-guy-" 'artist' sounded too pretentious and anyway, he figured you really needed to be better at it than he was to call yourself that. "-you get to do the naming. He's your space-pony-horse-thing," he told her. "And yes, I caught the fact that you're a handy pocket-size. I have no issues with this fact. Means you're nice and light for me," he told her - it made her easier to move around. "Aaaaaand, the angels are currently unaware of the space-pony, but let's see, shall we..." he said, turning the paper round and starting to draw again as he waited to see what she'd say on names.

She grinned, and hummed to indicate she was thinking about it. She watched him drawing, wondering in the back of her mind if he was less self conscious of being watched because he couldn't see her watching him. "I think the pony needs to be called Star Gliders Are Silly Conceptual Failures But Space Ponies Are Perfectly Reasonable." she said after a moment. "Think it has a ring to it?"

Dean flicked his eyes up from the page and glanced at the camera, then properly raised his head before speaking so she'd be able to read his lips. "I think it could possibly be a little more snappy," he told her, as if handing out particularly sage advice. "You could always go for 'George'. Or 'Dobbin', though that's not particularly original."

"But horses are meant to have ridiculous, stupid names! I've seen it!" she protested, grinning even if he couldn't see her. "Dobbin?" she asked. "Is that common over in England? I've never really heard it. Unless you're just making things up as you go along." she added. Which he could be. George she'd heard, obviously, but Dobbin, no. "I mean, you could be, and I'd not know the difference."

"Nope, not making it up," Dean assured her, lifting his head from the drawing again. "Dobbin's like a name they always used to give to donkeys or something, I think. Anyway, it's like one of those names that nobody ever gives to anything any more because it's the over-used name, which means nothing's ever actually called the thing that people think they're always called." He wondered if that actually made any sense and decided not to over think it, instead finishing his picture and turning it round to show the angel and fallen angels ducking, just under where the rocket-and-pony combo were, as though they'd nearly been hit by it.

"Like Rover, for dogs." Lullaby said, actually perfectly understanding and following along with Dean's logic. "Well fine then, if the other name is too long, he'll just go by Dobbin for short." she said. Then she laughed. "...apparently Dobbin is a piss poor driver, though." she said. "That's it, he'll have to be grounded. He can't go running around, nearly rocketing over little fallen angels and angels all willy nilly like that. Has he been drinking? Did anyone check his license before he hopped on that rocket?" she asked.

"I think that it's actually that the guidance system on the rocket is borked," Dean told her, seriously, pursing his lips a little and shaking his head. "Really, Dobbin here's a hero cos he jumped on the rocket at the last minute and is risking his life to try and save the thousands of innocent civilians who would otherwise be at risk, cos he's pulling it up to take it out into space - only he didn't know there'd be angels flying around up there. Damn low flying angels..."

"Ooooh." Lullaby said, just barely holding in giggles over that. "Well in that case, he deserves a medal. Little did anyone know, mild mannered Dobbin here was secretly toiling his free time away learning all about rockets and how to pilot them by sticking ponies to the outsides of them. It must have always been his dream, and then disaster struck! And he was their only hope!" she cried dramatically. "And it probably would have been fine, without those low flying angels. But in their defense, I imagine that they weren't at all expecting their little jaunt to be busted up by runaway rockets and ponies."

"Well, yeah - I can't think that there's that much rocket-pony traffic. No real highways for angels in space, y'know. But betcha now they're rushing through some signs warning of rockets and low flying angels," he said, rolling with the story they'd fallen into telling each other. They had a habit of doing that, and whilst he was aware that it was really rather silly, they both enjoyed the hell out of it.

"Well they've got to. It's a rule. Anyone who does anything stupid or ridiculous needs to have a warning somewhere. It's why capes have that stupid label that says 'does not enable wearer to fly' and such." Lullaby said reasonably. "So of course there'll need to be new signs. Like that silhouette one that's a pony stuck to the outside of a rocket. Like the deer crossings, only that. They'll need to be stuck out there on sattelites, just in case. And low flying angel signs will need printing too, same thing. It's only fair." she said, thinking she should probably have remembered a blanket when she came up there. But she'd been feeling a little too rushed to think of things like that at the time.

"The trick'll be getting them to stay up in space," Dean agreed, matching her reasonable tone, as if this were a serious conversation. "They'll have to put out orbiting satellites with the warnings stuck to the side of them, maybe in big flashing lights, just to make sure they really really stand out."

"Bright yellow ones, to keep up with the caution warning." she agreed wholeheartedly. "Can't be too careful, and no one wants to be paying out a huge settlement. Think Dobbin'll wind up going around from school to school, doing assemblys and talking to kids about reading, and how small dreams can turn into big realities?" she asked. "And who'll play him in the movie?" she asked. "Ben Affleck?" she suggested. "Kevin Smith assures the world that he would cast him as the shark in Jaws, so I don't think it'd be a huge stretch."

"Huh?" Dean asked, thrown completely by that last comment, so much so that he fell out of the story. "...As the shark in Jaws? Really?" he asked, clearly confused by that fact and not sure whether she was joking or what there.

That got her laughing, as she watched the confusion hit him. "Kevin Smith did this big thing on Ben Affleck. Was teasing and said that he thought Affleck could play anyone. Including the shark in Jaws." she explained. "It was pretty funny, really. So he was my natural first choice for the role of Dobbin. But I guess if we wanted to please the female population of the world, Brad Pitt, or Johnny Depp could do it..."

"Ben Affleck? God, I would have thought that he'd play the shark because he's shit, not because he's good," Dean told her, derisively. "And if you're picking a guy to please the female population, then you're going to have to pick the guy. I don't know about that kind of thing. Now, if there was a female lead, maybe some love interest who needs casting, I could probably do that..." he teased, flashing her a grin.

"See, I've never understood why guys can't do that." she said thoughtfully. "Like, I can see women and say who's beautiful and such. But guys have this big block in the way where apparently they can't even look at another guy objectively and say 'you know, that's a good looking dude'." Then she tsked. "Oh sure, go ahead and pick out the love interest! But okay, smart guy. Who's going to play the love interest while Hollywood does their usual stretching of the definition of 'based on a true story'?" she asked.

"Hmmm, Angelina Jolie - but I can't see her really fitting the role of love interest to a space-pony. Really you'd need someone who's a little more... quirky, not straight down the middle Hollywood gorgeous, I think," he told her, musingly, as though he was really giving it serious thought.

"Ug, over-used and over-hyped." Thia said, rolling her eyes. "I mean I think she's competant and all? But nothing special. Or maybe she's just played 'Hi I'm The Hot Chick Everyone Drools Over' too many times for me to truly appreciate here." she added, also with serious tones. "So middle Hollywood gorgeous....this is your pick, honey, so you have to do it. I'm not even giving suggestions. You step up to the plate now that you already said you could offer your services!"

"Hey - nobody said anything about her acting ability, I was just going for eye-candy to please the masses here," Dean protested. "And you have to admit - there's a reason the girl gets picked to be the hot chick everyone drools over. Okay, okay, let's seeeeeeee - girlie, girlie... See, maybe go for someone like Natalie Portman or Keira Knightley," he suggested, picking names out of the air, feeling self-conscious about having to actually give his opinion on something like that.

"See I think they're both very very pretty, not middle-pretty." she said. "But it's your pick, and if we're going for crowd pleasers, they'd work, most certainly." she agreed. "Okay, so pretty people, some weird, plot-dominating romance that never really happened because Hollywood and 'true story' don't really mix. There's got to be a doin-it scene somewhere, so they need that plotline. So, that just leaves angel and fallen angel for casting call." she said. "At least, for the names that'll appear on the poster and in the trailer."

"Isn't everyone in Hollywood overly pretty anyhow?" Dean asked. He always generally thought they were. "So even if you're going for 'not so pretty', you only have a pool of already gorgeous people to choose from. And usually 'overly gorgeous but could do with putting on a few pounds' if we're talking women. And now, see, the angels and the fallen angel, that's more difficult," he told her - mostly because they were them, or they always had been in his head. "Probably some newcomers there, someone nobody's ever heard of."

"I think I'd have to insist on that." she agreed, considering it was the same for her. Angel and Fallen Angel were them. Which was almost like asking that stupid question of 'so who would play you in the movie of your life?' Which made her think that hers wouldn't be worth it. It'd be very, very short. Or a horror film. That was a depressing thought though, and she pushed it aside. "Can I cast you?" she asked in a teasing tone.

"Me?" Dean asked, surprised at that. "What? As Fallen Angel? Do you want this movie to be shit or something?" He was no actor, after all. The idea of doing that was so alien to him - plus, scared him shitless as well. No, he'd never want to be anything like that.

She watched his features as he said that, and she didn't answer immediately. "Baby," she said patiently, "It's a movie about a pony who latches itself onto the outside of a rocket that's lost it's navigation and such. And Hollywood is going to be putting a love interest in there for the pony." she paused. "This movie couldn't possibly be shit." she assured him, grinning again.

"Could if I go anywhere near it," Dean grinned right back. He pulled a slight face. "Hell, if I go anywhere near it, if I get all nervous I'm likely to make the cameras explode anyhow - kiss of death to electrics, me," he reminded her, which was massively exaggerating things - good job, really, or else he wouldn't be able to talk to her at the moment, after all. Still, he could imagine it.

She laughed. "Well, Fallen Angel could be the quiet, brooding type who just hangs back around Angel to give dark glares at anyone who starts impeding in on her sunshine." she said. "That way you could just stand there, be effortlessly hot, and you'd probably go home at the end of the day with an Oscar for best supporting actor." she told him. "You'd completely steal the show from the main storyline, without even trying."

"...Or we could just not cast me," Dean added in, giving her a Look at her saying all that about him, though he did quite like it when she called him effortlessly hot. That came up from time to time, and it was always nice to know that your girlfriend appreciated you. "Would you want to be Angel?" he asked her, flipping the conversation away from him as its subject.

"What, you don't want to start being a teenage heart throb?" she asked. "Where girls are squeeing over you all the time, and there are whole websites dedicated to you and what your favorite things are speculated to be?" she asked. Another little twitch went through her as the whole her being angel thing. Since well. With the dead of it all, that couldn't happen. But this wasn't a real conversation, this was a them conversation. Which meant that could be ignored. "Would you want to cast me as Angel?" she asked. "I don't know that I'm Hollywood material. See you can stand there, and do absolutely nothing, and completely derail me. So I would definitely say that you have a quality that would very much fit in in such an epic, serious film. I don't think I'd quite work out in that crowd though." she said, humming as she thought it over. "They'd want to cast whoever wasn't cast as the love interest as her. So like Kiera Knightly or Natalie Portman."

"I dunno - you manage to derail me pretty effectively at times..." Dean mused, completely passing on any reaction to her suggestion of him being a teenage heart throb, something which possibly ranked up there in both mental lists of 'never happen' and 'oh my god no worst nightmare ever'. "But, still - I don't think I'm ready to lose you to Hollywood. I mean, you might meet some fit, rich bloke who'd sweep you off your feet and I'd just be that guy you used to know back home. And, like, in ten years time, when you're all over the glossies, I'd be like, 'I dated her once' down the pub to my mates and they'd never believe me," he added, also aware that this wasn't a reality-based conversation.

"Yeah, but when I effectively derail you, it's because I've tried to derail you. I have to put effort into it. You just lean back against various objects and look relaxed and deep in thought, and you're going to have girls swooning. And if you give that evil little smirk you have at times? Then you're going to completely have an entire generation at your feet." she told him, watching his expression closely as she said it. "Glossies? Like tabloids?" she asked, picking the word out because she didn't know it. "And I wouldn't get all swept up by some cheesy Hollywood dude. They're all insecure weirdos. So even if one tried, I'd have to tell them very politely that I'm quite taken. I have a collar that says so and everything. I could always show them. They could call up the number..."

"Tabloids? Nah - that's something entirely different. Glossies are like, well - magazines. Like, the shiny paper type? Hence 'glossies'," he explained, used by now to the language divide and never minding explaining. "Like all celebrity gossip and real life stories and usually shit about how some female celebrity lost weight and put it on and how both was terrible all in the same issue? My mum gets them sometimes," he explained, figuring that he really should explain why he knew what was in what were generally considered women's mags. "And see, I'd say that them being insecure would be the reason they'd want you. You're good at making a guy feel good about himself, you know," he added, smiling a little to himself as she reaffirmed just how very much his she was. And at the thought of that collar, though he knew he'd never actually ask her to wear it again, not when there could be such negative connotations put to it.

She smiled at that, watching him smiling to himself. "Maybe I'm just good at it with you, because there's so much awesome to tell you about." She told him. "So it's terribly easy. You just continue being you, and there's always something cool to bring up and tell you about." she told him, tone very reasonable. "Plus you have my attention all the time, so I'm always noticing all the awesome things, it's a cycle, really. So everyone would fall into that. And I'd just not have any time for some fake lame ass who just wanted me around so I could tell him that his last movie didn't seem phoned in, that really, the bomb at the box office was because American audiences are just too stupid to appreciate his genius."

Dean wasn't so convinced of his innate coolness as she always seemed to be, but hey, she was used to him completely ignoring her attempts to compliment him by now, so he didn't worry too much about it and instead continued to focus on her. "I dunno - maybe you'd inspire him to be better. Maybe he'd want to not phone it in and actually do a decent job to make you happy," he said, in the tones of someone who knew that he'd do exactly that. Or, would hope he would - though it didn't seem to have worked on his school work lately.

She laughed a little. "To make me happy, huh?" she asked. "Naw. See cuz those guys constantly have tons of people around them paid to tell them they're made of awesome too. Like agents. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't actually impact things with them. How did we get on this topic again?" she asked, then mentally traced it back. "Oh right! Us being supporting actors as Angel and Fallen Angel." she said. "I think we'd look good together." she told him, swtiching tracks just a little. "Y'know, on magazine covers and everything? We'd totally look good."

"If you don't impact on him, then he's not good enough for you," Dean said, firmly, even though he was sitting there as her boyfriend and, hello, other guys? Not happening as far as both of them were concerned right now. Still, anyway, he still felt that, that hackles-raised suggestion that someone would ever treat her that badly as he saw it. It was a feeling that harked back to the days when she was just his best friend and what he wanted more than anything was for her to be happy, refusing to let it be at all about him.

She smiled. "Some rich, likely widely considered handsome all the girls in the world want him imaginary guy wouldn't be good enough for me?" she asked, amused. "Hm. Good thing I would tell him to kindly fuck off, that I'm taken then. So we wouldn't have to deal with any of that at all. Well, except for the fallout in the tabloids. Everyone would paint me as this huge bitch to have broken his heart and who am I to pass up such an aesthetically pleasing piece of man-meat?" she continued. "So we'd have to duck the paparazzi. But only long enough for them to totally change their minds again because everyone will remember that oh yeah--Dean..." she dropped a breathy tone into her voice for his name and even if he couldn't see her, she put her hand to her forehead for the dramatics. "Mmmm....He's so dreamy....."

Dean wasn't amused and he made a point of looking determined unamused, narrowing his eyes at the screen - though he really wished he could see her right now. But, at least she sounded like she was having an okay time of it, which was the best he could hope for from this. "Hey, no turning me into some celebrity heart throb. I mean, really, could you imagine me, doing that? You know there's a reason that the only pictures mum had of me after I was, like, eight years old was the ones they forced you to have at school." Though he still would never forgive his mother for offering her up the photo box to take what she wanted. That was just unfair. And she'd showed her loads - including the school ones where he was all shirt and tie uniform and looking like an utter idiot.

She paused for a moment, because she knew that wasn't actually true. There were pictures of him. She'd seen them. She had one or two, actually, of him when he was older than that. More recent ones of him before he'd left for Marquette. Where she could see the clear, intense change. There was him before, and him now, and it was like night and day to her. But she kept them because it was a reminder. That maybe he was where he belonged now, that she'd played a part in the improvement in his life. That maybe she hadn't actually just crashed and burned the whole thing, like she thought in her darker moments. "I could imagine you being a very, very reluctant celebrity heart throb. You'd scowl at the jerks hiding in the bushes waiting to take your picture, and someone would wind up with a black eye, I'm sure. But the press would probably only love you more for it, because then you'd be a bad boy, and everyone loves a bad boy, you know." she told him. "You'd only be making the teenieboppers pine for you more!"

Dean shifted, uncomfortable even with the thought of that. "Never happen," he mumbled, for once actually not ensuring that when he spoke, she'd definitely be able to tell what he was saying one way or another. "I... Anyway, it's all pretend, I'm here, with you and there's not going to be anything like that ever anyhow," he said, trying to claw his way out of the pit of dispair which was the possibility of ever being that much of the centre of attention.

She paused again, then bit at her lower lip. "I didn't mean to make you twitch." she said. She'd just been teasing, but it had now hit a point where it wasn't fun anymore, obviously. So, that meant she stopped, and apologized for taking things farther than she meant to. And if she were there, she would have given him a big hug.

Dean shrugged. "S'okay, I just... I don't know what would make anyone want to live like that, y'know? It just... I don't see it, and I definitely wouldn't want it. S'just me, I guess. I - I didn't mean to derail things. Guess I'm good at that though, right? And not always in a good way..." he added, twitching a lopsided smile at her, hoping he hadn't made her feel bad about things.

"Most of the time it's in a good way." she told him. Granted, yes, sometimes he would randomly take things too seriously, and she had to hop around and try to adjust, but that was just what happened when you were with someone. Everyone did it in their own ways, she knew she did. Sometimes things hit her and that was it. "I don't know why anyone would want to live like that either." she continued, curling back up on her side. "I always wanted a quiet life. Like, I never had any huge, grand dreams of being famous." Of course, all those dreams were shot to hell now, but she was trying not to think about that.

"I don't know what I really ever wanted," Dean said, thinking that through. "But yeah, a quiet life, I guess. For the world to leave me alone to get on with it. But, I mean - I'm... I'm happy with what I've got," he added, hastily, in case she thought that maybe he wasn't. Neither of them could be said to have a quiet life, not really. Okay, so they weren't all celebrity and famous, but their lives weren't normal and average and boring either. Tonight being case in point there. Most guys didn't have to spend the evening on a one way video conference with their girlfriend because she literally looked like death and couldn't stand to be in the same room as you.

"I don't think a lot of guys have their lives figured out early. My experience with them is more like...they're doing what they're doing and they'll get somewhere else eventually, and things fall into place around them. I guess I've always seen guys as more chaotic like that, even if women are more the stereotypical 'erratic' ones." Then she made a face. "I even read once that guys never actually find 'mrs. right'. It's just whoever they happen to be with when they decide they want to settle down now. Like it could be anyone at any time. That always kinda bugged me. Like I can't actually tell if that makes sense to me or if I think it's a huge load of crap."

Dean felt that inner 'warning: relationship issues' flashing light go off in his mind. He wasn't sure that he was brave enough to tred the potential minefield of giving an opinion on that right now. Or any time in the foreseeable future, in fact. Just in case, really. He liked where they were right now, he didn't want to complicate things. And it was entirely possible that this could get twisted into some conversation their long term future - even if last time the subject had come up they'd both agreed they didn't want to think about it. Girls could be weird like that, or so he'd heard and whilst he liked to think that Thia was more sensible than most, still, he was genetically disposed towards caution in talking about relationships. "Maybe - I dunno. And, okay, so I don't have to have it figured out. Good to know," he said, trying to keep his tone light.

His tone was light, which was what caught her attention. Then she sort of frowned, and mentally rewound her own statement, and then sighed a little and propped her cheek on her hand. She didn't really know why it was she was hitting twitch points tonight, without trying. "Your turn." she said. "Pick a subject." Maybe then she'd not hit things that made him get all careful with wording, and very obviously so. At least to her.

Dean winced, feeling like he was really screwing things up here. He slouched a little more and ran a hand through his hair, before pulling his legs up to his chest, trying to fit the whole of himself on his desk chair - which it wasn't really big enough for, but he always felt that urge to ball up when he felt like he was failing at something which was important to him. He shifted again, uncomfortably, sitting up more and pushing himself back into the chair, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees. He looked up at the ceiling, then back at the camera. "Where are you?" he asked her. "I mean, in relation to here - what end of the house are you at?"

She watched him shifting around and felt bad. Note to self. Segway. "You should go lie down." she told him. "Your chair is only really that comfy when I'm sitting on your lap on it, and you don't have that luxury." she said. Then she glanced around. "I dunno...the attic, and I'm right at the top of the stairs. So...above two floors and to your...left?" she suggested, trying to work it out in her head as she did a mental walk through of the house. Which she wasn't at all sure was right. It did remind her that she'd found something out today though, and it was another point that she was thinking about not saying, knowing full well they'd talked about it, and she was meant to not be doing that anymore.

"Yeah, but if I lie down, you won't be able to see me anymore," Dean pointed out to her. She had the laptop, he just had his desktop computer, and the bed was over the other side of the room. "But, you're right - my chair's only comfy when you're with me in it. But then again, everything's more comfy with a Thia," he said, hoping that didn't sound too soppy - but he didn't really care so much right now, he missed her.

"You could move things, and tug the camera over." she said. "You really totally can't sit there all night, you'll be all sore in the morning." she pointed out in her reasonable, practical sort of tone. "Then you can snuggle up in your bed and with your blankies and you can be nice and warm and not all uncomfortable, since I'm...indisposed. Though if it's any consolation, it'd be way more comfortable up here with you." she added, voice softer at the end.

Dean bit the edge of his bottom lip, knowing it was tempting just to slip in there the suggestion that if she'd be more comfortable with him there, then he could just head upstairs. BUt he didn't - he was already screwing things up by being him, he didn't need to add to that with making her uncomfortable, pressing for something he knew she didn't want. "I - I guess I could. Furniture moving," he agreed. It'd be a bitch to drag his bed over, but he couldn't deny that if he could get things set up, he'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable that way.

"I can wait." she said. "In the meantime, I can....play you a song or something." she said, not sure what to do when their communication was kind of cut off, due to her issues. Which sometimes? Just sucked. Sometimes she just hated it more than anything. "I'd hum but I have no pitch. And we've established that I can't actually sing." she added, absently playing with the ends of her hair, which was getting longer. It was longer than it had been in years, she was still getting used to it, and it was really strange to know your appearance had gone and changed, and you just had no idea what that change looked like.

Dean chuckled slightly and unfolded from his chair, leaning in to unplug the headset, so that he could move around and if she said anything, it'd come out from the speakers and he'd still be able to hear her. He angled the webcam toward his bed as well, so she could watch him struggle with furniture moving. "Back in a bit," he promised her, then moved off to start lugging the bed across the room, pulling at it to twist it round as best he could.

She smiled a little as he altered the view, even if he kind of faded into darkness, occasionally lighting up as he moved in front of the monitor light. "You know you're going to wake up, and be very very confused." she said. "I hope you don't fall out of bed, or knock your head or something. That wouldn't be very good at all." she noted, just deciding to fill the silence with rambling. "The attic smells kind of different. I like the basement, because it sort of smells like clean laundry? But up here it smells...I don't know. Older. And I think some of the things up here were here when they moved in. I was looking through some of the boxes up here earlier, and found interesting things. Like an old jewelry box? That had a ton of gaudy, plastic eighties jewelry in it. we're talking day-glo colors, most of it. It was pretty hilarious."

Dean heaved at the bed a few more times until he figured that he could get things set up, as long as he was willing to lie out sideways at the bottom. Which he was, and he pulled off the blankets to turn them round a bit, and threw a couple of pillows down. Then he headed back over again, looking into the webcam for a moment. "Somehow, I don't see them being Sophie's - and I really hope they don't belong to Oz," he joked. "They must have been here when they moved in," he added, before disappearing out of camera and starting to push the desk out from the wall - it was easier to move than the bed was, so he was doing a meeting half way jobbie, though he knew it'd make the picture really shake for her.

She giggled. "Oz with bangly plastic eyebleed green earrings...not sure I wanted to picture that, thanks a lot, Dean." she said, grinning at the moniter. When the image went touretts, she laughed. "Aaaaahhhh! It's an earthquake! Duck and cover, Dean! Get under the covers! Quick! Your blankies will protect you! And possibly Henna, she's in there somewhere." Because she did in fact leave her bunny for him before she'd disappeared upstairs. It had been one of the key things she'd remembered to do. Unfortunately she'd done that, but hadn't remembered blankets. But Henna for Dean...her priorities were fairly clear.

Unfortunately for Thia, Dean didn't know 'earthquake drill', and so he just carried on moving things around until he had the desk where he wanted, and he could point the camera right at on end of the bed, and then he finally turned his attention to what she'd been saying, and noticed the rabbit sticking out from under the covers. He laughed a little and sat himself down on the edge of the bed, snagging said bunny and holding it up. "Shouldn't she be upstairs with you?" he asked, amused - remembering the days when Henna'd been playing room swapsies almost every night.

"We had a long talk about it, and she very firmly came down on the side of being with you tonight." Thia said with a nod he couldn't see, a smile on her lips. "Something about not wanting you to be lonely, she had a long winded explanation or something, you know how the royals get and all, so she went on and on and I'm sure it was all a very reasonable argument, so I just gave up and let her stay with you. Besides, I didn't want you to get lonely either." she told him. Sadly, the other bit of company she could have had with her was also absent. She was still wary about BB and he still needed to be declawed. She knew the had and appointment at the vet for it--she'd asked if it could be done and no one asked questions. But still. Even if he'd been perfectly fine up til now...she didn't want to take the chance.

"I'm not lonely - I've got you for company," Dean pointed out, very aware of the fact that he wasn't the one locked away in a room by themselves and if anyone was going to be lonely, it was her. Plus, really - he didn't like to say, but it was a teddybear. Rabbit. Stuffed toy. And okay, he'd maybe curled up asleep with it a few times, but he was a guy and guys didn't admit to that kind of thing and it had only been because it had been there and it reminded him of her and he wouldn't normally given a rational reaction and... yeah.

"I know. But sleep will have to happen at some point. You could be lonely when you go to sleep." she said reasonably. She didn't figure she'd be getting any sleep. Not up there, and she wasn't really that good at sleeping in the first place. For the most part it was sketchy, unless she was sleeping in the same bed as Dean. Then it was easier and longer, but...yeah. Otherwise? It wasn't going to be happening for her much, and up in the attic worried about looking like a corpse wasn't conducive to sleep.

Dean shrugged, climbing onto the bed and lying down on his stomach, facing the computer, using Henna very much like a balled up pillow to prop himself up on without overly thinking about it too much. "I dunno," he said, easily. "I was thinking that I might just leave the camera on, and unplug my headset," Dean told her. He didn't reckon he'd be getting much sleep anyhow, so hearing her moving around through the speakers wasn't overly concerning him.

"What if I decide to start running lines from Monty Python, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show to entertain myself?" she asked, thinking he looked very cute like that. "Then I'd just be waking you up, and in a very awful way. What with the no pitch, bad singing thing, and I can't even start trying to fake an accent."

"But I wouldn't be lonely," Dean pointed out, smirking slightly. "And I'd have to get back at you by saying 'Ni!' a lot, until you told me to shut up. But at least we'd be able to talk to each other in our mutual not-sleepiness."

She laughed. "While true, you still need sleep at some point." she told him. "You're better at it than I am, anyways." And she was still aware that he'd gotten little sleep the entire time they'd been in England. The natural noise level of the place was a lot higher than it was here where basically they were off by themselves in the woods. So really, as far as background noise went, there was little.

Dean laughed at that, pushing up a little and stuffing Henna a little more into his chest as he did so - not being at all careful with the toy. "You think I'm better than you at sleeping?" he asked, clearly amused at this. "God, I'm like the world's lightest sleeper most of the time - you might have noticed. You know, with that whole 'watching you when you're asleep' thing I've had going on." Though mostly that had been in England, back here now he'd been sleeping a whole lot better.

She noticed he was squishing Henna, but it was fine. It wasn't like the bunny hadn't gone through a ton of things in it's time. "You are! If I'm left to my own devices, I don't sleep much, or long, and you're just generally better at it. And you can't spend all your time watching me while I sleep! I can't possibly be that interesting. See you...you're just adorable when you sleep. You're that cute. Absolutely sweet. Cutest boy ever." Plus when he slept he looked so much less burdened then a lot of the time.

"What - and you're not adorable?" Dean asked, not believing that at all. "But you're all tiny and cute and everything. What's not adorable about that. Nope - I say you're adorable and you sleep. I've seen it and everything!"

She smiled. "I'm tiny all the time. And okay, I tend to curl up in a ball when I sleep and such, so I might be slightly more compact." What had he called her? Pocket sized? She thought of herself as portable. Which he proved all the time with the whole moving her around thing he liked to do. "But okay, if I concede. We're both very cute when we sleep. It's a good thing to be. It makes people get all warm and fuzzy and go 'awwww'."

"If people start watching us when we're sleeping, I reserve the right to get royally freaked out," Dean told her, teasingly - and not getting as freaked about having an audience as he'd sounded earlier. "And yes, you're tiny all the time - so, you're adorable all the time. That bit never actually goes away, you know."

"I'm with you on that. You can watch me sleep all you want, but if other people start it, then I think it's time we start thinking about restraining orders." Thia said. "But until then, I think we're good." Then she smiled again, shifting around once more to try and get comfortable. "So my size is linked to my cuteness? Like if I was taller, then I'd totally not be so cute? And am I adorable even when I wake up in the morning and have messy hair and have to blink a lot to get myself awake enough to understand what I'm seeing?" she asked.

"I've already told you before that you're gorgeous first thing in the morning," Dean told her, warming to his subject. "You get all mussy and your voice gets this little hoarseness to it and when you're all sleepy and stuff... It's nice," he explained, his face softening a little as he imagined her like that, all lying there just waking up. "And I dunno, if you were taller. Cos you're not - you're Thia-sized. It's a good size for you to be."

She smiled, both at the things he was saying and the expression he had there. He was so cute. And that was an expression she didn't get to see that often. Definitely not often enough. "Then I suppose I'll just stay Thia-sized. Since you like it so much and all." she told him. "I'll cancel that appointment I have to have a horrible radiation experiment go wrong by me to see how I mutated." she teased lightly. "But you like me all mussed up and sleepy? And scratchy-voiced?" she asked. "...you're absolutely adorable like that. I think you're the cutest ever in the mornings. I love waking up with you." She did. She was stupidly glad she got to now. That he didn't bail on her before she woke up when they shared a bed.

"See, that kind of thing never ends well. Radiation experiments. You're either gonna end up the fifty foot woman, or some superhero - which, come on, that means you have to live a life of isolation and emotional trauma so that the bad guys don't go after that one person who really means something to you," he said, sagely. "Cos, y'know, in superhero world, that one person can never actually stand up for themselves - that's probably in there in superhero lore as well or something."

She grinned, laughing. "Well that's already out, because that'd be you. And you? Are a very capable person. I think in this scenario, it'd wind up being the opposite way around. Where you, the non-super-hero would actually wind up rescuing the super hero, and then everyone's entire world would be turned on it's ear. So, I suppose we shouldn't do that to the world, and stick with our normalish lives." Normalish. Because they were never going to be truly normal.

"Nah, I'd be hit with the same radiation blast and it'd completely cripple me or something - you get super powers, I get turned into wet lettuce or something," he said, as if imparting undeniable knowledge. "But yeah, I'm good with normalish lives," he agreed. Normalish lives where they both had powers that were pretty useless in a day-today sense, at least in a day-to-day superhero sense. And normalish lives where the love interest shot the bad guy through the head before anyone had a chance to blink. Right, yeah.

"So you'd be with me when I went searching for it and all?" she asked. "And you're not allowed to turn into anything that's not dean-shaped. I like dean-shaped and so that's got to stay." she said firmly. "But okay, it's a moot point, because we're going to not go that route." Again she sort of half wondered how they'd gotten on the topic to begin with.

"Well yeah, of course," Dean told her, as if this was something she clearly should have taken for granted. "The only question over that would be whether you would have let me come, or whether I would have been following you secretly after you'd told me I wasn't allowed to come with you to investigate the potentially dangerous radiation bunker. Either way, I would have been there, because I wouldn't have wanted you to go alone and, as you said, I'm a capable type and I would have thought that I might have been needed. But yeah, moot point." He added that last belatedly as he realised he'd run with something she possibly didn't want to discuss.

She smiled at him, watching him on the monitor. "So you'd be stalking me for my own good?" she suggested. "I could see you doing that." Oz did it, apparently. "So then I'll even more so have to nix that plan, because I wouldn't want you hurt. Damnit, I'll have to cancel my plans for world domination too, huh? That never ends well for anyone." Though really, she could see him following her if he thought he had to. Or it would be Oz again because she imagined it was easier for the werewolf who could just track her even if she got a head start.

"If I had to? Yeah, probably - dunno what that says though. Other that you have a stalker for a boyfriend. Weirdly obsessive, right?" he joked. Though, really, with everything they'd been through, he didn't think it was quite as off the board as maybe it would be for most people. More like 'potentially necessary in certain given situations'.

"You're not weirdly obsessive." she said automatically. "You're concerned for my wellbeing. There's a difference! And you're not a stalker unless you're like...hiding outside my window watching me with binoculars or something. Though that might make you a peeping tom, too. And really it's been established that if you really wanted to watch me change, that can be arranged." she continued along the line, thinking it through. "I'd just be twitchy if you decided to follow other people too. Then we'd need to talk about a twelve step program."

"Nah - to watch you with binoculars through your window I'd have to go outside especially, and it's cold outside," Dean teased, ignoring the whole 'and you don't want to be seen' of it all - he was talking in generalities. "But, you can be happy in the knowledge that it's just you - you're special. I don't follow anyone else." Actually, he'd never actually followed her. Though he had asked Oz to do it for him at times.

"Well alright then. So long as it's not becoming a huge habit you have to feed, where you'll be gone all the time, stalking people, then I'd never get to see you, and that's just not acceptable in Lullaby-land." she said. "So I think we're good on that score in general." She decided.

"Thank you for your permission in that," Dean deadpanned, reaching across to pull the covers over himself in a lacksidasical manner, still using Henna as a pillow-substitute. "So, you have any plans for entertaining yourself if and when I go to sleep?" he asked her.

"You should go to sleep." she told him first. "You're a growing boy and you need all your rest!" she said, a light teasing tone in her voice. Even if she did think he needed sleep. "But I think so far the plan is playing that dumb game I told you about earlier, and maybe coming up with interesting ways to get you extra credit in some of your classes. Like an essay or something on things. Maybe go through and see what other treasures I can find in the boxes up here. Nothing that exciting."

"An essay is interesting?" Dean asked, very doubtfully. Though, that was typical of Thia: she liked school. Only she could think that an essay would be interesting - he, personally, couldn't think of anything more boring to be doing. "If you say so kitten - I'm not convinced about that. And anyway, I have this whole history assignment thing going."

"Essays are interesting because they're personal points of view on things, but about a subject you can get behind. Or, that's how I think of them anyways. I know you don't like them, but I do." she said. "So, just smile, and nod, and be thankful you have a girlfriend happy and willing to put in this time and effort for your scholastic well being. I'm awesome like that." she said. Then paused. "What history project?" she asked curiously.

"That's where I was this afternoon," Dean explained to her. "We got paired off the other day and I got put together with this guy, Tad? Anyway, we've got this whole list of things we've got to cover and by Christmas we've got to produce this project on local history. So, went round to his house today to start work on it." See, for once in his life he was being a good student.

"Oh! Well, that's cool. And at least not as boring because you're working on it with someone else." she said. She'd always liked group projects. Her only issue with them was often times she'd be the one who got stuck with all the actual work. "Local history as in general local history, or are you doing something specific? Like shipwrecks...or mines..." she said thinking about it. "Why in Negaunee there are two empty memorials because they were cannons and had been made of iron or something and they got used during world war two..."

"Just general local history, we get to choose what we want," Dean told her. "I mean, I guess they've give us a lot of leeway to do stuff, just there's a list of points we have to consider that's as long as my arm. I think they're more interested in us covering aspects of work than what we actually do as the focus of the topic, y'know? And empty memorials, really?"

"Yeah there were two cannons. But they got melted down during the war." she said. But then she was a local, so she was just full of little tidbits of history. "Oh and the center line was invented here." she said. "One of the back roads in Marquette, on the way towards Negaunee? The line in the middle of roads to keep people on their own sides in their own lanes was first made up here." she continued thoughtfully. "There was a corner that people kept crashing around. So someone put the line down."

"Well, of all the things to have a claim to fame to..." Dean teased, his expression highly amused at that. "Really: nothing much happens round here of, y'know, 'historical significance', does it? Be honest now..."

She laughed. "Well if you're putting it that way...not really. Nothing that's y'know, anything more than something you'd get four hundred bucks for on a Jeopardy question. But just think! If you ever find yourself on a trivia game show? You will be set. ...just so long as they stick to things that happened in Manchester, or Marquette."

"Right, I'll remember that - weird bits of Marquette-based information that always come up on quiz shows, check," Dean joked, avoiding going back to that whole subject about not liking being in the spotlight and that meaning that he'd never be volunteering for a show like that in the first place. "So, you gonna be helping me out with this project?" he asked her, hoping that the answer would be 'yes'.

She grinned. "I dunno, I mean, I could be, but there's your education to think about." she teased. Because of course she would help him. It was a project that was fairly suited to her in the first place, it would just be far easier than anything else. "Last time I agreed to do things for you, I was rather well repaid for the efforts...." she added, thinking about the locker room now. God. Yeah. Right. Back on task. But she was paying attention to his expression right then, just to see if he had just as fond memories as she did.

Dean's expression deepened and grew more serious in a 'hell yes I'm remembering that as well and holy shit' kind of a way, and the edges of a smile appeared on his lips. "Well, you know, that doesn't have to be always connected to school work..." he told her, drawing just a little, dragging that out.

"True! I think we've experimented with that sort of thing when it wasn't at all connected in any way to school work." She agreed, grinning as she kept watching him avidly. "I was just thinking since there'd be this project thing...and that'll probably take work. Plus I'd be the silent-partner in the endevor, and you know I have so much else to do with my days. My calendar is entirely booked, so I'd have to clear time just for this in it and everything...y'know, that maybe you could make it up to me."

His smile grew a little, and then he purposefully turned it into a smirk for the camera - since she'd said several times that she liked that look on him. "I think that could be arranged," he agreed. "I'd have to show you just how much I appreciated your efforts for me. Give in to your every whim and demand, of course," he suggested.

She noticed his expression, of course, because of all his expressions, that one looked the best on him. That was the kind of look that if he knew what he could do with it? The female population of MSHS would be in trouble. Possibly every girl he came across. So it was probably a good thing he was oblivious. "I see that look!" she told him. "...annnd I'm going to take a minute to stop being distracted by it. And the thought of the whole giving in to my every whim and demand thing." Because that was distracting too. actually, in general, Dean was doing an absolutely spectacular job of distracting her. "....I might have to come up with whims and demands."

"I know you'd have to find time to do that. What with your busy schedule and all," Dean agreed, not dropping the look because he was enjoying the tone of her voice right now. It was a rush knowing that you could do that to someone just with an expression and a few words. That concept was new to him, and he quite liked it, all things considered. He liked being able to affect her.

And he was still giving that look. That look that if she was in the same room as him... grr. Because she wasn't. And she wasn't going to be, either. Still, it was nice to see. She'd rather this than anything else, say, discussing the fact that they were in separate rooms talking over computers for a reason. "I'll give that some effort when I can drag my mind out of the gutter for longer than three seconds. But that's really really hard to do when you've got that look on your face you know." she informed him. "Which I know you know, and now you're just being a very effective tease." she added, though she sounded quite amused by that fact.

"Hey - if you want to come up with gutter-based whims and demands, I'm all for that!" Dean teased her, very much enjoying this - as long as he just kept on ignoring the fact that she was just upstairs and she'd locked herself away and everything. And, really, as much as he wanted to be okay with being there with her on nights like this, in his wildest dreams he only meant that in a being able to deal and being okay with it - he never for even a moment expected that it would stretch to anything vaguely erotic. he'd be really, really worried about himself if he found seeing her as a dead thing a turn on. No, he just wanted it not to be this wall between them.

"Yeah, I'm sure you would be." Thia said, laughing a little and shaking her head at herself. "I just might have some for you when it comes time for that. You might have to get creative though. But I have faith in your ability to do that. After all you took the whole wall demand and took that a step farther, and that worked out very well." she noted. And now she was back to thinking about that experience again. Which, to be fair, was difficult to forget, and she had no wish to.

Dean chuckled a little at that. "You enjoyed that, huh?" he asked, as if he was unsure about that. Which he wasn't - he could be oblivious at times, but there were some things which it was absolutely impossible to miss. Hell, Caleb knew she'd liked that. Which, yeah. "Erm - so... We might just have been overheard that time, by the way," he told her, colouring very slightly.

"Yes I enjoyed that. I dream about that." she assured him. The quality of the video wasn't good enough to catch the blush, but she did blink, and her head came up from where she'd been resting it, as she propped herself on her elbows. "I um--we were?" she asked. of course, she'd known it was possible. Likely, even. But she'd also thought that unless a teacher had been waiting outside to give Dean detention for the rest of his natural life, which hadn't happened, that people probably wouldn't have said much. So now she was flushing dark red herself, and wondering what had happened and who had heard.

"You do?" Dean asked, sounding surprised at that. He'd not realised that she'd dream about that. "What, daydream, or dream-dream, proper dream?" he asked her, curiously. "And... Caleb. I'd kinda woken him up before we met up, so that he could make sure nobody tried to come looking for me or anything. And apparently he didn't go back to sleep."

"Yeah, I do." she confirmed. "And kinda...bothish. Sometimes I daydream about it. And sometimes it kind of sneaks into my dreams, but then you're always in my dreams anyways, and...I mean...is that weird?" she asked, suddenly not actually knowing if it was or not. She hadn't thought so, but then again... "I mean the daydreaming thing...cuz...well, I can't help what my brain does when I'm asleep, but the daydreaming thing is far more conscious, and Caleb heard us?" she asked, cutting into her own ramble. "Oh god, I'm never going to be able to look him in the eye again!" Not that she saw the guy much, but still!

"I dunno - I think about it too. I mean, it's kinda... It's a lot more interesting to think about you than maths, y'know?" Dean said, realising as he finished that statement that he'd just admitted to thinking about sex in the middle of class and wondering if that was weird. He shifted, ducking his head a little, then looking back at the camera. "Yeah, urm - yeah, Caleb and don't worry, I mean, I don't think the guy minded too much or - not that, I mean, that is.. I just... Well... Yeah. It's all good, really."

She covered her face even if no one could see it. She gave herself a minute to stop feeling absolutely mortified. "Still! We were...that was loud, even to me." she said. She knew it. She'd heard it all loud and damn clear. Oh the clear. And that had been what was so amazing about it all, and she wouldn't trade it, she just...Caleb shouldn't know what she sounded like when...and Dean too. Caleb just didn't need to know what either one of them sounded like when that was going on. Then she paused, and looked at the screen again. "So I rate above Algebra..."

"Yes, you rate above algebra, kitten," Dean told her, a little more softly, since he could tell that he probably should have just kept the information about Caleb to himself. He'd really thought she would have preferred to know though. That probably meant that he shouldn't add in any information about how Caleb'd been after details of what they'd been doing then.

She drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh. "You're sure he wasn't really weird about it?" she asked. She was still going to be massively embarrassed whenever she saw him next, but she couldn't help that now. ...though weirdly she still didn't at all regret the experience that was going to lead to her whole blushing herself to death next time she saw Dean's friend.

Not unless you count wanting to know minute detail as being weird, Dean thought to himself. "Nope - he wasn't weird about it. Just made a snarky comment about needing earplugs, that's all," he told her. "And as far as I know, Nic didn't wake up at all. At least, I think Caleb would have said if she had, so I'm assuming not."

That was a bit of a relief. Then if anyone else had heard, they'd never know about it. So that was okay. Plus, she was less likely to see anyone else. Caleb, there was a better than even chance she would at some point. "Okay." she said, exhaling again and letting the subject drop. She lowered her head back down to her arms, and got comfy again. "So...you do daydream about me sometimes?" That was a better subject. Plus, because Dean tended to be so focused and such around her, she found it just a little bit hard to picture him actively daydreaming.

Dean shifted, moving around ninety degrees, so that he was lying sideways on the bed, on his side now, facing the camera, rather than on his stomach. He propped his head up on his hand, raised up on his elbow. "Yeah, I daydream about you sometimes," he told her, but didn't go on to really give details about that.

She appreciated that he didn't say anything until he was settled again. Even if she had the volume on her computer turned up all the way, she heard exceedingly little. She barely caught tone, and only sometimes. "How often is sometimes?" she asked, curious. She didn't get to ask him about what he really dreamed about with her, since he didn't generally remember his dreams at all. So, she was curious on this score since she could be.

He gave her a little bit of a look at that, but a light one. "A fair amount. A lot," he admitted to her, knowing that as with everything else, he felt strangely self-conscious when faced with having to talk about matters of himself. Even if it was how often he thought of her. Details would come in fits and starts.

She smiled at him, wishing they were in the same room so he could see it. But then, if they were in the same room, her smiling at him might be bad. In fact, him seeing her at all would be fantastically bad. So, no. "Don't give me that look." she told him, amused. "I find it terribly unfair that you never remember your dreams after you wake up. So I can't ask you for crazy details about what you dream about if I happen to make appearances in them. So humor me!" she told him. "It's only fair." she added with a sage sort of tone she couldn't entirely edit the humor out of.

Dean shrugged the shoulder he wasn't leaning on. "I dunno - just... Y'know... Us," he said, pulling his knees up to curl up a little - though that was off camera. He had that balling instinct when he was feeling self-conscious like this. "Kinda... About you. And... I dunno. Usual things..."

Thia didn't say anything for a few moments. "Something tells me if you were just daydreaming about hanging out or going for a walk or something, you wouldn't look like I was asking you to do something really really squicky." she noted. He was doing it again. That whole draw back and in thing whenever the subject of intimacy really came up. And it was like it usually was. Endearing in some ways, on some levels, and frustrating on others. Vaguely, she wondered if he'd ever get over it. And she still thought it was slightly strange that she was more comfortable talking about it than he was. Wasn't it meant to be a boy-oriented thing?

"Well... yeah," Dean admitted, giving her that much. "I... I think about that time in the lake a lot," he told her, after a long hesitation. It wasn't that he didn't want to share with her, he just didn't like being the focus of anything. He didn't like making admissions about things about him, just in case they were unacceptable. He worried so much about her finding him weird, or there being something she didn't like about him. He just wasn't good at being able to say with any confidence 'this is me, this is how I am'.

She was a little surprised he'd given her that much. She was glad, though. It made her feel less bad about asking in the first place. "We'll need to go back there sometime." she said. When it was warmer out. When he wouldn't freeze to death and such. "Then maybe this time you can catch me." she said. Since they'd been playing around. And then there'd been the whole him trapping her back against the wall there. "I think about the mine cave, the spring?" she said. "And like...everything else, but that features what might be considered often." But then she also thought about other things. Like a scenario where when they'd both had the urge to say hell with socialization, let's just stay home they'd actually stayed home. Or something she wanted to do sometime that involved the other house and her collar. There were other things that would drift across her mind from time to time too. She had an active imagination, and a lot of time to fill.

Dean thought about the mine as well - even if right now the scenario was a little spoiled, since the last time he'd thought about the mine, he'd actually been thinking about how that spring would be good for Tad and his bruises. Kind of took the edge off it as a purely private scenario, but he could try his best. "You ever think about what it'd sound like there?" he asked her, brushing all thoughts of Tad away, firmly.

She nodded, then sort of half caught herself. Not in the same room, and she could see him, he could not see her. "Yeah. I'm thinking the echoes would be really crazy. Probably really nice." she said. "You ever think about it?" she asked. Then she wondered if he thought about what other places would sound like. And if it was strange that they were both focused on sound, or if it was just them, and they both had hearing issues, so it was actually normal. Just specific to them, due to the way things worked with them. How communication was such a big thing, that they did so very well, and that extended itself into other things.

Dean smirked slightly. "Kitten, if I hadn't thought about it at all, I wouldn't have thought to ask, would I?" he pointed out, teasing slightly. "Yeah, I've - I've thought about it. At the time - and since then, I just... Maybe it's all bound up in being hurt. Like, one of us would need to be to go there? So... I mean, I think about it, but - I don't, like I don't think-think, like want... It always feels a bit... I dunno, like I want it, but then that feels kinda... fucked up, cos of why we'd be there. I just... But - I liked what you did to me there and, like, sometimes.. I think about where that could have gone. Or where I would have liked for it to go," he told her. He hadn't really intended to come out with all of that. He'd more intended just to say that he thought about it sometimes, about being there with her, about the potential for being there with her. And he'd thought about it a lot. He'd run through scenarios about what they could do there, in quite a stunning amount of detail in his head, really. But then his brain had got derailed onto the fact that no matter what they ended up doing up there, the starting point was always that he - in his head it was always him, she was never hurt in his head - was injured somehow. And that, he decided, was probably some kind of sick.

She laughed a little at the first bit, because okay, he had her there. No, he wouldn't have thought to ask if it hadn't crossed his mind at some point. She watched him as he spoke, thinking about it all as he did so. She wished she was there, she wanted to be able to read his tone, not just his words. She wanted to hear him. That was one thing that she'd always appreciated about Dean--from the very begining. He'd learned very quickly what volumes he had to speak at to be heard, how close he had to be, everything. And he made sure she could hear him. It meant a lot to her. More than he probably knew, since she was sure for him, it was just something he would consider common courtesy, and nothing that deserved special amounts of appreciation for. But to her it was different. Hell, even Journey had sort of not managed that in their entire lives. But she so rarely had to compensate for Dean, where she'd spent most of her life doing just that for everyone around her. Compensating for the fact that she couldn't hear them, and they failed to remember that, or couldn't communicate in other ways to ensure she didn't miss things. That had nothing to do with the fact that she loved him, it was purely something about Dean as a human being that she couldn't stop being thankful for. And right now, since he couldn't be doing it...she really felt it. Especially with their current topic.

She was silent for a moment as she thought about her response, and eventually gave one, tone thoughtful. "I guess in my own mind, I never really...I didn't equate it to having to be there due to something bad. I just liked the place in general? It was...private. It feels different. And it's not like the orphanage, which while also private, is also all kinds of strange. That place didn't feel like that. It felt more positive, if that makes sense. That said, I liked what I did to you there too. That was the hardest time I've had I think, not giving in. Just chucking caution to the wind and seeing what happened if I say, pushed you down and kissed you. So I think about that. Not the injury part, just that part. So I guess...I don't know. I don't think it's fucked up. I don't think anything's fucked up unless that's the spin you put on it." She paused a moment. "It didn't feel fucked up at the time. Not to me, anyways. So I wouldn't view wanting to recapture it again fucked up either." she said, sort of walking herself through it as she went.

"I dunno, maybe it's just cos - I mean, a lot of the thinking I did about it was before we got together. And kinda... fantasising... about being able to get you doing that again. And how different maybe things could be if I did. Which - to think about things like that it always started with me getting messed up somehow, and you having to take care of me. So, maybe it's just the way I used to think about it. I just - I mean, that's not to say that I wouldn't... But... Yeah."

She followed, seeing where the logic was, even if she didn't know if she still put the kind of connotation on it he did. She tried thinking back to when they'd been there, in the cave, and think past the whole hormone thing. "I kind of thought I was all kinds of crazy for...well. For where my mind was taking everything." she admitted. "But a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was fairly convinced that you wanted nothing to do with me in that capacity, and it was me being insane and crazy and a bad friend for thinking it." she added, thinking back. "Which...y'know. Didn't actually do anything for the whole wanting you like crazy thing. But then it didn't when I was patching you up on your bed, either. ...or most times I've patched you up, it's just kinda there." Then she was quiet for a moment. "Do you think I'm fucked up because of that?" she asked, honestly wanting to know. Maybe he was trying to tell her something.

"NO - I don't think you're fucked up at all, Thi," Dean told her, honestly. "No because of anything, no reason, you're just not. I - I guess there's just something about being close like that. It's... I mean... for me... Having your attention on me like that..." he started, not quite able to come right out and say that he enjoyed that. he knew he could be considered to be a mass of contradictions. he was fairly sure he made no sense at all. If he was verbally put on the spot, asked his opinions on something, he fell to pieces. If he was physically put on the spot, if there was a crisis and he was needed, if there wasn't time for his brain to get in the way, then Dean was your guy and he excelled every time. At least, he did until the spotlight passed from him and then he fell to pieces. But if he was made the centre of someone's attention, if he was quietly and without ceremony made to feel special, he basked in it. He loved it. He could never ask for it, and he found it almost impossible to express gratitude for it, or any other sentiment that would draw attention to him or it, but he loved to be made to feel special.

Reading that on his lips made her feel a little better on that. So maybe he wasn't trying to tell her something. That was probably a good thing because she didn't know how she'd go about changing that about herself. She didn't think that was within the realm of possibility. She sort of half waited to see if he was going to finish his statement, but knew him well enough by now to figure he wasn't going to. That didn't mean she didn't want to know where that sentence ended. "You like it?" she suggested. "I like being able to. I have a prefectly valid excuse to complete focus all of my attention on you and baby you and I like getting to do that. You spend so much time taking care of me...I like being able to give back, even if it's just in little ways." Because she considered that little. Making sure he took aspirin and putting anteseptic on his cuts hardly counted as major in comparison to all he'd done for her, for as much as he'd been there. She still felt like she wasn't ever really going to make it up to him. But she'd sure as hell keep trying. After a moment's hesitation, she continued. "Plus, I...god I don't even know if I can describe it. I just like it. I enjoy it. and I hate seeing you hurt, so it doesn't make any sense on that score, but I still...there's something about it. Like you said. Maybe it is something to do with being close like that. When you're less guarded, when you're letting me..." she trailed off there, just thinking it all over.

Dean frowned a little. "I don't mean to be guarded. I'm guarded?" he asked her, latching onto that. He knew he was sometimes, but only when there was a reason to be, surely. And less with her - he wasn't so much with her, especailly not now. Or, he didn't think so anyhow. Was he? Did she think he was? Was that awful? God - did she think he shut her out?

"Don't look like that." she told him first, seeing the frown. "You are sometimes. You...you have levels." she said. "When we're around strangers, they're up high. When we're around aquaintances, they're lower, when we're just around like...Oz and company, they're lower, and when you're just with me, they're barely there at all. But you still have points? Where they pop up. And I think it's not that they come up when the subject does, just that they're there all the time, we just don't hit them because we don't talk about the same things all the time. But they're there. And I know where some of them are." she attempted to explain, and she hoped she wasn't doing too abysmal a job. "But when you're like that, when that's happening, when that's what we're doing, it's almost like everything gets let go. Like there's this tension in you that goes away for a little while. Like you let yourself relax for that little while." Biting at her lower lip for a moment, she paused, not sure if she was done explaining yet. Then she knew she wasn't because she went on. "I know you're different around me. I didn't quite know how much different until we went to England and stuff, but it was pretty clear then." she said. "I think it makes me feel like you trust me. Like you know that I'm going to take care of you, so you know you can quit for a while. You can just be there, with me, and it'll be okay." God did she not know if this was making sense or not. "It feels...intimate."

"You know I trust you," Dean said, his expression clearing as she told him not to do that, and as her words put him more at ease. "More than anyone. I'd trust you with anything," he told her. "I always have - you just... You inspire trust, I guess. And - I've always felt comfortable around you. Like I can just be me, if that makes any sense. Like you're not judging me." Like the only person who was judging him when they were together was him.

"Of course I'm not judging you." she said. "I try not to judge people anyways. My opinion...it's not exactly world renowned or anything. But you..." she gave herself a second to put her thoughts together. "There's nothing negative in there to judge?" she suggested. "You're always looking for the right thing to do. You're always doing what you think is right. You've got your rules, and you follow them, and...You're genuine. Like I would probably bat someone across the head if they suggested you were doing it for attention, or praise, or anything. You're doing it because you think it's right. So there's that too, it's...you're a good person. A genuinely good person, and I can see that, and I can see it so clearly. So there's never been anything to judge. I'm the same way with you, I just...I trust you." she told him. Which at this stage of their relationship might be ridiculous to tell him, but it went with their conversation. "You'd trust me with anything...I'd trust you with anything." She smiled to herself, a soft expression. "I still like when I can feel when you let go, though. Like when I'm patching you up. Or we're in the closet. When it's just us."

"There other ways of judging people than just right or wrong," Dean reminded her. "Like whether you're 'their' sort of person. Some people are like that. Whether you fit." He'd constantly been surprised growing up that his friends had continued to think that he fitted, but now - now he wondered whether that was just Andy. Andy wanting someone around who he could screw over time and again for kicks. Or maybe Andy wondering just how long Dean would keep up the act for. Keep trying to pretend that he fitted, keep trying to be something he really wasn't. "I never felt that with you. With you, I always felt the worst thing I could do was to not be myself." He paused, then quirked a small smile. "Or, well - once upon a time maybe I thought the worst thing I could do was to try and kiss you on the side lawn at school, but..."

That made her smile, and she laughed a bit, liking that little smile on his lips. "Well, being yourself was a good call, being how much I like you." she told him. And it was always something for her to be reminded that he'd liked her way back when. That he'd been carrying a torch for her since before she'd died. That maybe he'd even loved her before then. "Did you think about kissing me a lot when we were on the side lawn?" she asked. "...between me continually stealing your apple and such?" Since she'd done that. Steal it, take a bite, give it back, steal it again...

"Quite a bit," Dean admitted, pointing to himself. "Teenage guy, remember? So, yeah, there were definite moments. I'd say you must have noticed, but I know you didn't - I always thought you would, I mean, looking back - you must have noticed now. I mean, you know that I - sometimes - I lose the ability to really string sentences together. So - most of those times I was thinking about you in one way or another that I knew I wasn't meant to be."

"So the stutter and vocabulary failure wasn't you just being shy and absolutely adorable, that was you wondering if my lipgloss tasted like cherry or strawberry?" she asked, again, laughing a little as she smiled. What she didn't say but crossed her mind was that for playing the teenage guy card, he certainly had troubles discussing sex. Almost to the point where she wondered vaguely if she was the one of them that was more preoccupied with it. Which she might actually ask him one day, but it was going to have to be at a time when she was physically with him.

"Something like that, yeah." He had spent quite a bit of time wondering if lipgloss did actually taste of things, or whether that was just a handy thing to throw into songs, but mostly he'd just wanted to kiss her. All that sqishy romantic crap aside, he'd just bluntly wanted to be the one who could kiss her, that she'd let do that. She'd be there and all of a sudden, for no rational reason, he'd be distracted by thinking of the things he wasn't allowed to do with her and imagining doing them. "So, see - you did always used to derail me without trying," he said with a small laugh of realisation.

Thia was thinking she needed to make a point of getting lipgloss that tasted good, like nab dr. pepper stuff again sometime. But then at the same time, she wondered if that might ruin it for Dean, considering his food-issues. Hm. Was it worth a shot? She'd have to carefully consider that. She gasped a tiny bit at that. Then she laughed, an amused, delighted sort of sound. "Did I?" she asked. "Just got you all distracted with racy thoughts of...I'm not sure how far you got from just wanting to kiss me on the side lawn..." she said, completely leaving it open for him just in case he happened to want to fill in that particular blank.

"I was scarily easy to distract - I'm surprised we ever actually held an entire conversation," Dean told her. Though lots of times, they just didn't - lots of times his walls had got thrown up and she'd been left wondering what she'd done. She'd even told him that was the case. But those had been the extreme examples, when he hadn't had his usual control over himself, when he'd let idle thoughts slip until they pressed and wanted to become unacceptable actions. "When I was with you, usually I'd only let myself... Kissing was as far as it went," he said, rewording things as he went. "Anyway, when we were on the side lawn, actually kissing a girl was a big thing for me," he reminded her after a moment or two. He would have been embarrassed to admit that to anyone else - hell, the first time round, when she'd first found out he'd never even kissed a girl, he'd been embarrassed then, but they'd been through a lot together since then, in more ways than one.

"I still think that it's an absolute crying tragedy that you didn't kiss a girl until Janice, and then that it was her." Thia said, humor still in her tone. "I would have been a much better choice. You know it made me twitch that you were going out with her, right?" she asked, thinking back on that. She'd really thought that the girl wasn't even close to good enough for him. But then again, someone would kind of have to be saintly to be good enough for him in her eyes. She wasn't even sure all the time that she made the grade. And sometimes? She flat out knew she didn't. That she had lucked the hell out with Dean.

"I still hold I didn't 'go out' with her," Dean averred. "I went on one date with her. That's it. It was just that the girl wouldn't go away after that." At least she seemed to have got distracted by something shiny whilst he was away though. The rumours about him seemed to have died a death and whatever she and her little friends were whispering about in art class these days, it wasn't him. he'd actually caught her eye by mistake the other day and she'd given him a withering, like-I-care glance and then looked away, which he'd take as a success. He didn't want to mean anything to her so if he didn't, that was just find by him.

"One date was way too much in my book. I twitched. A lot." she admitted. "Though I liked getting to de-glitter you. That was fun. And brushing your hair...for like, way longer than I ever actually needed to." she said. Because she had. And she'd even known it at the time, been fully aware of it. She just hadn't stopped herself. "But that girl was not good enough for you. By a long shot. Seriously..." she shook her head even if he couldn't see it. "I twitched. I was a twitchy little Thia."

"Yeah, you mentioned the hair thing," Dean said, smiling a little at that. Strangely, he'd been the opposite of twitchy about the whole thing. Sure, he'd been absolutely convinced of the massive mistake he'd made, but when it came to Thia, that night he'd been a lot more relaxed than he'd been around her in a while. To the extent that he'd been comfortable enough to lounge around on her bed and give her a foot massage - something that he would never normally have dreamed of doing. He knew it was a terrible thing to admit, but he'd taken out a lot of his tensions on Janice. he knew he'd used her, and he knew he couldn't do that again, that that woudln't be right (of course, it helped in the decision not to repeat the date that he couldn't actually stand to be around her), but that didn't negate the fact that he'd well and truly used her - not one of his finer moments.

"I like your hair. I liked it then, and I like it now, and...it's a thing, leave me alone." She said, sounding amused about it all. "But then I think it's been well established that I like all bits of you." she said. "I told you that from the start." she said. "And I always had a thing for your jacket. Which I eventually owned up to. Really, Dean, you're just..." She gave him a sweet little sigh. "Yeah." she ended that statement with. That covered it. "Occasionally I wonder what a guy as hot as you is doing with a girl who looks like me, considering it'd take you little to no effort to get some drop dead gorgeous girl to probably drop down on her knees and cling to your leg all romance novel cover style..." Which she was now picturing. And then she giggled, because even in her mental imagery, Dean just looked annoyed by someone clinging to his leg like that.

"What do you mean 'a girl who looks like you'?" Dean asked, honestly thrown by that and a little worried in case they'd finally touched on the subject of her current appearance. He'd been hoping that he could keep her mind off that tonight, talking about anything else. "You are drop dead gorgeous - plus, you have brain enough to never actually do that. Well, not romance-style anyhow," he amended, thinking that if she ever wanted to drop down on her knees before him in any other way, he could probably think of a few things that would work with that. Things that definitely brought a thoughtful little smile to his face.

She watched him say that, then the smile hit, and she laughed again, grinning. "What, thinking of other things I could be doing on my knees?" she asked. "I can think of a few things." she added thoughtfully, though the amusement was still heavy in her tone. "...things that could and should definitely be arranged at some point." she continued. "And I meant...I'm cute. I'm aware of the cute factor. But I'm never going to be that girl. That model girl or whatever, that beautiful, millions of curves woman that y'know. Appears on romance novel covers, magazine covers, penthouse covers...whatever. You get what I mean." she said. "You could get one of those girls. I'm sure there are cheerleaders that would swear off the basketball team forever if you gave them the time of day. Of course, I'd have to start becoming all psycho-thia, because you're all mine and all, but just saying. You? Are ridiculously good looking."

"And you? Are very good for a guy's ego, but really..." Dean said, dismissively, but it was possibly a slight improvement in the reaction stakes than he generally had towards her offering a compliment - at least he acknowledged the existence of one in the first place, even if he then rejected it. "And I've had my fill of cheerleaders for my entire life. Really have, if they're all like Janice was," he said with a shudder, though he was thinking that Thia dressed up as a cheerleader was something he'd be willing to make an exception for.

She did take the acknowledgement of the compliment. "I'm good for your ego." she said. And she knew he'd said that to her before, once. Back when he'd first found her? Sometime around then. "Smile and nod. Accept that I'm just right, and that's all." She was smiling, thinking along the same lines. That she hoped he'd make an exception for her, because she planned on that at some point. After all, Madison had been a cheerleader. "What if I decided I wanted to be a cheerleader?" she asked, tone deliberately nonchalant. In fact it might have been pointedly nonchalant.

"Well, that would depend on whether you were trading your brain in for glitter and giggles," Dean said, purposefully speaking before he had a chance to think about the words and trip over himself.

That got a full laugh out of her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to quiet herself down a little. But it took her a second to recover, still laughing. "I giggle all the time!" she said. "I still have my brains! But no glitter, never glitter! Just maybeeeee.....the look." she worded carefully. She kept her eyes on him, waiting to see how he'd react.

He kept his eyes on the camera, lowering his head slightly to look at her through his brows a little, his mouth slightly ajar, which, considering his expression, was an answer in itself. He swallowed. "...That could work," he said, after a moment or two. He wouldn't come right out and say it - his experiences with Janice had left him very careful of actually admitting to her that there was something hardwired that liked the whole little skirted uniform thing, in case she thought that Janice had actually been his type or that she had to be jealous or anything like that, but he couldn't deny that, well, there was that hardwiring there about the short skirted uniform thing.

Ooh. Thia liked that reaction. That was a good reaction right there. It had her giving an evil little grin, and she wished he could see it. "You'd be getting an evil smile right now." she told him, since he couldn't see. "I'd pretty much had that idea for a while now...just had to be sure that you'd actually like that..." she trailed off, tone back to that too-nonchalant that just edged into playful. "But I can see now, from the look on your face that that could in fact, be a good idea, and so I'll have to keep it in mind." And by in mind, she meant definitely she was doing it now.

He swallowed again, and the end of his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. "Kitten, I'm pretty much sure that, well - anything you do I'd like," he told her. She had carte blanch there, he was just a fan, right across the board. "...You and your evil smile."

"Do you like it?" she asked. She was still liking seeing his expressions, and caught the little lick to his lips. He usually did that before he kissed her. Or maybe when he was thinking about it. She wasn't sure. Both? Maybe. She was also getting a big kick out of the fact that she was getting her nickname a lot tonight. It was appreciated. "And that's a good thing to know. I have other ideas too, ya know. And I am still open to full suggestion as well, should anything happen to spring to mind for you..." Since she would be more than happy to accomodate as well.

"I'll bear that in mind," he told her, reaching down and starting to play absently with one of Henna's ears. "Though, I mean, I might just..." he closed his eyes for a moment. He really wished he was better at expressing himself at times. It was ridiculous, he knew - he could talk to her about anything, he'd never communicated so well with anyone in his entire life. They worked so damn well like that, and yet, when it came to talking about anything specific in regards to their sex life, all of a sudden, he was tripping over his words like a guilty school boy. He didn't care why he did it, he just wished he could stop, it was completely irrational. "I'm... I'll see what I can do," he said, in the end.

She watched him fussing with Hennabean, and smiled, shaking her head. He was just...cute. And at the moment, after the reaction she'd gotten from the suggestion of the cheerleader thing, she was much less prone to being frustrated. "You might just..." she prompted. "Would it be easier if I just said you have absolutely no time and you have to say the first thing that comes to mind in regards to me and possibly dressing up just for you?" she asked.

That collar, he thought, immediately, without hesitation. but he couldn't say that - not with all the connations it probably had with her. And fine, she'd intimated that she'd wear it again, but he wouldn't allow himself to push for that. After what had happened, and what could possibly have happened, that night, he wasn't going to push for anything related to it. If anything happened with that, it would come from her, when she was ready for it. "Maybe," he said, instead.

"Okay, you have no time to think on this, you just have to say the first thing that comes to mind. What would you like to see me dressed up as, if I was dressing up just for you?" she asked. "One, two, three--answer!"

Dean looked down and to the left, feeling a wave of guilt as he couldn't think of anything else to replace his initial thought. Not that they hadn't already discussed. Not that he could sell with any belivablity as his real-and-actual-answer-and-not-a-hastily-thought-up-lie-honest. "I, I don't know," he said, quietly - too quiet for her actually to be able to hear. It wasn't what she wanted him to say anyhow, so what did it matter?

Thia didn't say anything for a minute, the urge to reach out and touch him incredibly strong in that moment. To drift her fingers through his hair, turn his face back towards hers. Do all the little things she always did when they were together and he did that, or something like it. She gave him a second, trying to figure out how to answer him. "...is something the matter that I don't know what it is? Or do you not want to tell me what actually went through your mind?" she asked. If there was a third option, she wasn't sure what it might be.

She felt so incredibly far away right now. He closed his eyes for a second, not wanting to look at the camera, even though he couldn't see her anyway. "Can we talk about this when we're together?" he asked, after a moment or two. He didn't want to talk about this in a phone call, when he couldn't hold her, when he couldn't judge how things were, how she was reacting to things. When all she had to go off with him was his words and he couldn't hold her and let her know that he loved her.

She really hadn't expected that response, but it was a fair one. "Of course." she said. "I'm sorry if I've...pushed things, or...I didn't mean to step on anything." she said. which she hadn't. But then she'd done it before, with the same subject, hadn't she? Apparently, she hadn't learned her lesson. Right. "Sorry, I...it's dropped." she promised, feeling bad. She wracked her brain for a filler subject, but she wasn't so good at that. They generally didn't do the whole drop something then move forward thing. They kept at things until it was discussed and things reached a conclusion point, no matter what that was. "...help me with the moving forward and not bothering you on this thing. I'm trying." she said, honestly. Because she couldn't be there right now, and he'd asked, so she was going to respect that entirely.

"I'm sorry," Dean told her, honestly, looking back at the camera. "I just - I don't want to get into things that might be... difficult... without you here with me. I'm - you know how I am sometimes. I don't always explain myself right first time round, not in words, and I just... I want to be able to hold you," he finally admitted, both specifically about when they talked and, he realised, just generally. He felt lonely right now. He shouldn't, he told himself. It wasn't like they always spent every night together, they didn't. But there was something different about knowing that, even if he wanted, he couldn't be with her.

With the way he put that, she wondered what it was that was going to be difficult. Either she was missing something, or she'd very clearly messed up, and she didn't know how. Which was of course, going to prey on her mind heavily. She nodded anyways, then reminded herself again that he couldn't see her. "I understand." she told him. "If we're getting into difficult things, I'd rather that too." It would be better. That just didn't help her mental state right now.

"Maybe difficult things, I just, I..." He didn't want to risk bringing things up that would upset her, or make her feel pressured or anything like that. He was aware of what Caleb and Oz had both intimated: that he needed to be careful with her, that he needed to look after her, that after what she'd been through, she'd need time and he didn't know what was the right and wrong way of giving her that, so he was groping around in the dark, trying not to put a foot wrong. "I miss you, Thi." He hadn't meant to come right out and say that, but it was there, on his mind, and with his inner flailing growing, it just slipped out.

That made her flinch, and feel warm inside at the same time. It was a weird mix to be feeling all at once, especially on top of the fact that she still felt bad for whatever it was she'd stepped on there. That was eating at her, and she was really having a difficult time not asking him to tell her what it was. What was wrong, what was happening, what she'd said so she could try and make it better, or clarify, or something. But she definitely got what he meant with wanting to do things together, too. They were people who communicated on a whole host of levels, not just through words, and that was basically all they had at the moment. And while she had the aid of having the visual, she couldn't hear him. And he could only hear her, so it was just messed up for them both. Add onto that the whole physical communication thing they both did, and yeah. Now wasn't the time to have this conversation. They were just also spectacularly shit at letting things go. The last time they'd attempted communication of a serious sort without actually being together, it hadn't worked out so well either. "I miss you too." she said, her voice soft, quiet, a little sad and there was an undercurrent of longing there. She was aware it was probably ridiculous as well. Because they weren't that couple. As clingy as they tended to be, they weren't overwhelmingly so, and they lived together. What she was feeling was the difference, though. Because she was up here, and she couldn't go down there. And he couldn't come up here. It was that idea that they couldn't be together, when things were wrong, that was the rub. That was where it made things harder to bear, where missing each other was a valid sort of thing regardless of time spent apart or physical proximity.

He was quiet for a few long minutes, refusing to speak his mind, refusing to let himself ask if he could come up there. He knew the answer already, he knew she didn't want him to - and things were already edgy right now without him adding something like that on, something that would just frustrate both of them. He had to respect her opinion in this and now wasn't the time. He just couldn't think of anything else to say at first that would come out sounding genuine, so he continued to play with Henna's ear. "So - we're going to be basing our history project on local lores and legends," he told her, eventually. "Since we can do basically any aspect. Figured that maybe it could be useful."

Even though she knew they were doing the whole moving forward with the conversation thing, it was just the most jarring thing in the world to hear it happen. It was such a departure for them that it even took her a second to catch up--again, even fully knowing what was coming. She gave herself a second to recover, then really tried hard to put her attention into what he'd said. To pull back from everything else. It wasn't like she couldn't see that this was just as hard on him. So, she wasn't going to make it harder. "Are you going to try and look into the cave stuff?" she asked. "Weren't there...I don't know. Cave paintings or something? Or are you thinking more like...the dogman stuff from downstate? Which now that I've said it, I'm sure you don't know about in the first place because you're not from Michigan, but there's this legend downstate somewhere about a dogman which is like a werewolf that shows up every ten years on the seventh year, and I don't think we have things like that but there's hauntings like the Forest Robert's Theater..." she rambled.

"Hey, hey - slow down, or I'm gonna have to actually get out of bed and get a pen or something," Dean said, trying to get on board with the conversation he'd started and stop feeling all weird about just abandoning a topic because it had been uncomfortable. "So far, I dunno - I have to talk to Caleb about whether Nevermore has anything, and Tad's gran's lived here forever or something, so he's going to talk to her about stories, and clearly you know loads as well, so... I can pin you down and get you to tell me everything you know," he said, trying to add lightness into there. Really, he could stop feeling off balance any time now.

She was right there with him, unfortunately, on the whole off balance thing. She completely felt it, and she wondered if she was speaking as disjointedly as she felt. Probably not, really, but still. "Sorry." she said. "Um...there's a lot of shipwreck stuff. Haunting stuff. The Paulding Light." she said, attempting to think through things more slowly. "The orphanage, of course. And you know I'm all for you pinning me down for anything, so..." she said, also making her attempt to go towards lighter things as well.

Dean listened to her, not really hearing what she was saying, his attention not on the subject at all. He opened his mouth to reply once she was done, but what he ended up saying was less what he'd intended to, and more where his mind was at right now. "If I sleep, once dawn comes, once you're sure everything's okay - will you come and down here? As soon as you can. I - I'd like to wake up with you," he told her. She'd already said she didn't expect to sleep. And, really, neither did he, but one thing that he thought would encourage that was the idea of waking up with her. The thought she'd be there.

It was actually easier for her to follow the total departure from the other conversation than it would have been if he'd kept on the subject. She looked down, then back up at the screen. There was a soft little smile on her lips, even if it was a sad smile. "'Course." she said. "I'll be there as soon as...as soon as I can." she promised. She'd feel better for that too. If she could let herself out of her self imposed little prison, and just go curl up with him, that would help her state of mind. She'd feel less alone, and probably just better on all counts. She'd feel less like she was a million miles away. She wondered if he'd be awake or not, or if she'd wake him when she came in, even if she tried to be quiet. If he'd feel it when she climbed onto the bed and slipped beneath the covers. If she'd be all cold because she was cold now, and if that would wake him up, because that wasn't conducive to sleep. "Promise." she added quietly.

He closed his eyes for a moment as she spoke, opening them as a thought occurred to him that he really didn't like. "I wish it was summer - the nights are shorter in the summer," he said, realising that this night was only going to stretch on longer for the next month or so - that next new moon would be probably the longest one of the year. He hated that idea with a passion. Or was that even the case. "I - how does this work, Thi? Is it linked to the night, or the moon itself? I mean, during the summer, you see the moon by day as well, so - I..." I want to know how long I lose you for.

"I don't know." she said honestly. "Chance just said that it was normal, it happened, he didn't get into specifics, and I kind of am under the impression that he doesn't know a whole lot about it to begin with." she said as she exhaled, unhappy. "...and since it's the new moon, I doubt being able to see the moon during the day in the summer'll change things. I mean, we probably would have noticed by now, y'know? So far it's just...it's just the one night. I'm not sure when it starts exactly, or when it ends. I was thinking after daybreak, it would be safe. Or...it better be." Because if it wasn't, she was going to be so unhappy it wasn't even funny. And the fact that she was worried about it was clear in her tone. yes, this whole things scared her on a lot of levels. She didn't know if it would go away, she didn't know if that was what she 'really' looked like, she didn't know if it matched up with how her actual body was decomposing, which was a really disturbing thought--there were a lot of things in her head that twisted around and around itself with this.

"Well, we'll figure it out," Dean told her, trying to be reassuring - finding that easier with her sounding unhappy. That was a simple one - if Thia was unhappy, he did whatever it took to make her happy. It gave him firm footing - at least, unless he was faced with a situation where he couldn't make her happy, and then he started to panic. "And as for Chance: he's a fucking idiot. I wouldn't trust him to be able to find his arse with his hands," he added, dismissively. "Just because he doesn't know shit, doesn't mean that there's not shit to know. We'll figure that stuff out - it might just take us a little whle, right?"

"Right." she said. Unfortunately, she thought the only way they'd actually know was if she let someone see her and they clocked the change, looking for the factors that played in. Timed things. Figured it out in a practical sort of manner, which was of course, the most logical thing to do. She knew that. But at the same time, she just couldn't get her head to really agree that logic was the way to go here. She was too emotionally messy over the whole thing, so it wasn't really something her brain was fully going for by any stretch of the imagination. Then she wondered if a camera would pick it up. But then she'd been worried that any camera that showed her tonight would in the first place, or she'd have a web cam going. She paused as she thought it over. "...you can take still frames with webcams, right?" she asked lightly. There was one built into the laptop.

"Yes, you can," Dean told her, his mind already goingto what she probably meant with that. On any other day, a camera picked up exactly what he saw, not what she saw in the mirror. They'd used that a number of times to get round the fact that her reflection wasn't something she ever wanted to see. "I thin it's under the settings - I'm not sure," he added.

She started to look for the settings for the thing, and was really hoping that it didn't start the video on skype. She didn't think it would? But she wasn't sure, and she turned the eye of it aside just to be sure. "Well...we'll see how this works then. What the camera sees." And if it was a picture of her looking all dead, was she ever not going to want to see that. But, it would help her gauge. If it picked up the monster there, the dead girl, then she'd know when she reverted. She could take a snap, or if the video picked up the ick, she could just pull it up now and then and look. It was better than trying to test out the theory and being wrong. That she couldn't hack.

Dean stayed quiet, giving her the time she needed to do what she needed to do. He made sure that he stayed in the camera frame though, so she'd know he was still there. Even if he couldn't really be there. He would understand why she didn't want him to be there, he would. He did - he just didn't like it.

She appreciated the time he gave her, so she could futz around with the settings, and eventually she got it running. She winced bad when her image came up, after she turned the camera back towards herself. Well, that answered that question. She didn't really realize she made a soft little sound, that was not at all a good one. She snapped a shot, just to be sure that it looked the same, and oh look, it did. So, that was just fabulous. God she hated this. hated it. "...I suppose in a sense, it works. I can see...what I look like now." she explained. And now that she could see it, and she had the still frame there, she kept looking at it. It was like a train wreck, she couldn't look away. Yeah, he just...he never needed to see her like this. No one needed to see her like this.

"Thia..." the name escaped his mouth, his tone one of sympathy and support, when he heard the little noise, jumping to the correction conclusion about what that meant. He'd assumed as much - which was why he'd set up a one way camera feed in the first place and not pushed for anything more.

She didn't catch it when he said something, her eyes were on the photograph. And how she looked like a monster out of a zombie movie. Fresh corpse, sure, but...still. She didn't think she'd gotten worse, she thought she looked like her reflection, but still. "I think I still look like my reflection. I'd wondered if I was going to keep getting worse." she found herself saying, though it was absent. Like she wasn't fully paying attention to what she might be saying aloud.

Dean wasn't sure what to say about that - there was no upbeat, positive, cheering-up answer to that, he knew. "Maybe - maybe you could keep a record. If you wanted to know, I mean. Like, one photo a month." He paused, before continuing. "You - you could keep them in a password-protected file. So nobody else could see them," he added, wanting her to know that he was going to respect her decision there, that she didn't have to worry about him pressing her to change her mind.

At least she'd looked back to him for his statement. "Dean, I know you wouldn't go looking at anything on my computer unless you asked." she said. "I don't think anyone else would either. I don't...I don't know if I want a record." she said. With that she deleted the still frame. "...My hair's getting long...huh." she said, tone still not quite on par. But she'd noticed it. It was still so hard for her to think about. She had no self image. She just didn't know what she looked like, and this wasn't helping, but she had noticed that her hair just looked different. Far different than it had looked in years. Would one day it be different enough, that people wouldn't recognize her? If she dyed it, would that make a difference? Would she ever even know what she looked like then?

Dean nodded - if she didn't want to keep a record, then she didn't want to. And he felt a little better as she expressed her confidence in him, even though he knew he'd be tempted. He wouldn't - but he'd be tempted. "Yeah, you're hair's getting long. I like it - it's pretty, the way it curls a little at the ends," he told her instead. He wondered what she'd look like when it was longer. Softer in some ways, he thought. Would she wear it up, or let it down? And which would he prefer?

That made her smile a little bit, and she shifted to lie down properly again. She curled on her side, and wished she was down there with him. "You think so?" she asked, sounding a little surprised, but pleased. "I'm glad you like it." she told him. "And I guess it does kind of curl at the ends, huh?" she asked, tugging a lock out to look at it, which she could do now. "I hadn't noticed."

Dean smiled slightly as he heard the change in her tone. That was better. "Yeah, I like it - it's different, but a good-different. You look less like a pixie though," he teased, not sure whether her looking like a pixie was actually a good thing or not. It was just a thing - she had a little, with her short hair and mostly boyish clothes.

She quirked a little half smile, and eyed him on the screen. "I looked like a pixie?" she asked. Then, her mind went exactly where his had. "Was that a good thing or a bad thing?" she continued. "And does not looking like that mean it's a bad thing? Or...?" she trailed off there, kind of feeling like she was grilling him. But then again, Dean still didn't really offer up that kind of information. He didn't really just randomly tell her she was pretty or anything. Usually just...well, when they were in a position where he was looking at her through probably very heavily lust tinted lenses, so it was possible that biased his opinion just a little.

"Really it was just a thing, I mean - with the short hair and... everything. Doesn't matter really, just - an observation. It's not, I mean - you looked good before and you still look good now just... Different good," Dean told her, practically falling over himself to try and phrase that in a way that she wasn't going to find offensive either for the past or the present.

She watched him kinda flailing. "Does it bother you to try and say nice things about how I look?" she asked, though there wasn't any venom in her tone at all. "You don't do it very often. And...well. Like now, you kinda seem like you're trying really hard not to say something wrong, when...I guess I wouldn't imagine that that was anything that hard to have to do?" she said, trying to feel her way through it in the first place. She was thinking back to the time or two when he'd massively hurt her feelings, because he couldn't spit out anything nice about her, or just blew it all off. She didn't think about them often, they weren't close to the surface or anything, but she remembered. Clearly.

"I just don't want you to think that I didn't like the way you looked when you had short hair. or that I don't like it now," he told her. "It's not that - it doesn't bother me, but - I like both, just kind of... it's - different. And - I keep wondering what you'll look like with it longer. I like the idea of you with long hair, I just... I never know the right things to say. Or the right time to say them. And we both know that I over think things." He just got trapped between not wanting to dent her terrible self-image on one hand and not wanting to sound like some extract from a bad romance novel that would just have him rolling his eyes at himself on the other.

She was quiet for a moment, mind turning on a few different things as she thought about it. "I know you do." she said eventually, because she knew that she needed to say something, it wasn't good to just leave him hanging. I just need to hear it sometimes. And you don't really say it. And because you only really get round to it when we're in the middle of intimacy, it kind of makes me wonder if you think it at all. And I don't know what I look like. I just don't. And any time I look, all I see is me dead. So for all I know, you aren't attracted to me like I am to you. Because you know perfectly goddamn well that I am. That I find you incredibly attractive, and I let you know it. Maybe I'm just 'good enough', or maybe my personality makes up for things, or I just don't know, Dean. Because you don't tell me. And you told me to assume, but that isn't good enough. It's like asking me to just assume you love me, without you ever saying so, but you don't have problems telling me that. went through her mind, she just...didn't know if she could have that conversation with him. It wasn't like she hadn't talked with him about it before. Maybe not quite so blatantly, but...she'd mentioned it. It just didn't sink in. And it felt like she was fishing if she had to tell him to tell her. So it got twisted all around and then turned into something worse.

Dean shifted, getting up and sitting on the end of the bed. He didn't want to be lying down anymore. It didn't feel right, lying down. So, he sat up, and then fiddled with the little camera so that the screen was pointing at his face again, instead of at his chest. Only then did he start talking again, still not at all sure about what he was going to say. "I get worried," he started, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, staring into the camera. "About lots of things. I get worried about saying the wrong things, because I know you - I know you worry about how you appear. Like right now, and your reflection, and all of that. And I don't want to make things worse by saying the wrong things. Like, just now - I didn't want you to think that just because I prefer your hair longer like it is now, that I didn't like it when it was short. Because, I did. But, then... It's like I know that you have self-image issues, and I know that I should tell you more that you're beautiful, and I really think you are, but - I don't want that to just sound like words. Like it's something I'm saying just because I said I'd say it. I want you to know that I mean it when I say it. And I worry that maybe if I just started telling you like at regular intervals or something, then it'd just become words, and that it'd sound empty, hollow - or something. But then I get tied up about how much is too much, and I get tangled up in my own head about whether this moment's the right time, or whether that's just an excuse, or whether I should wait and - and then by the time I get through that, if there'd been a moment, it's passed. And then it seems like the only time that it's there, and it's clear and it's obvious is when... When we're in bed together. And you're there and there's nothing else going on around us. And it's just you, and me, and I can touch you and hold you and you're right there and there is nothing more beautiful in the entire world. And I just... I guess - I don't have problems with saying nice things about how you look. Not in here," he told her, tapping his temple. "Just, somewhere between here and here-" he pointed at his lips "-it gets screwed up somehow." Which sounded like a lame excuse, all of it, when he said it outloud. It wasn't good enough. It was the truth, but it just sounded to him like an excuse.

She read it all, and cursed her hearing again. She didn't do it all that often, but sometimes? It really, really hurt. Like nowish, when she really needed to be able to hear his tone. Even if she couldn't hear the words perfectly, she wanted to be able to hear what was behind it. But...the volume was up to it's fullest, and laptop speakers weren't exactly awesome. so she couldn't. It just wasn't there. She followed the long speech there, though, not even trying to interrupt anywhere, just letting him have his say. She was quiet for a long time afterwards, part because she was waiting to see if he was done, which eventually she recognized he was, part because she needed the time to form her own statement. When she started to speak, her voice was soft, but even. "Does it sound like just words when I tell you?" she asked first. "It's not. And I know you...you blow me off on it. And that bothers me, because it's truth. And I feel like you're dismissing me or my opinion just because it has to do with you, and you're not your favorite subject. Like maybe it doesn't matter that I think that, because you don't see it." she said, not at all having meant to say that, but that's what came out.

"And with me? If I don't hear it? I don't know it. Honestly sometimes I just wonder if I'm just not hard enough on the eyes for it to be a problem. And I've--I've never been that girl. Y'know? I've never been the one who stands in front of the mirror for hours, and picks and prods and layers on makeup or anything because I've never been that obsessed with my appearance, and I never felt ugly. But I don't know anymore. I'm now a girl who has to actively think before I even get dressed in the morning, if the clothes I have are going to cover up the scars, and if they don't fully, if I'm going to see anyone but you, and if I am, how I can cover them up in the event of contact with other people. And even if I wanted to look in a mirror and reaffirm I'm not as disfigured as I feel? I can't. Because I look even worse in a reflection. So that does nothing but make me feel worse about it all, and I just...I don't have any gauge anymore. It's gone. But you never say anything one way or another. Just when we're together like that, and..." she trailed off for a moment, because as she spoke, she was getting emotional, and the last thing in the entire world she wanted to do right now was get teary when he was down there.

Dean never dealt with any tears of her in any sort of way that would be considered 'well' and she had no idea how badly it would throw him if she started crying when he also couldn't come upstairs and try to fix it. Since...that was pretty much his main course of action if she ever shed a tear. Go into flail mode until he could make it stop. So that'd be downright horrible to do to him and so she refused to do it. Though she was incredibly glad he couldn't see her right then. In the back of her mind, she wondered if that was why she liked the idea of dressing up for him so much. She could pretend she wasn't her, and she was someone who could stop him dead in his tracks, like he did so often to her, but she didn't think she did to him, unless there was something like that involved. Even tonight, she'd given him pause, but it wasn't because of her, it was the thought of the cheerleader thing. And she was never in a million fucking years ever breathing a word of that to anyone.

Dean swallowed and looked down for a moment, before looking back at the camera, wishing he could see her right now, that this was any other night than tonight, that they were having this conversation together. But, with what she'd just said, maybe that wouldn't count to her, maybe that would just be another example of him saying something when they were together. He bit back an apology, knowing she wasn't after one. But he felt like he'd failed her all the same. "I don't dismiss you - or your opinion. I just - I don't know what to do with it when you say things. I - Andy was always good at things like that. Basking in compliments. He used to get lots of them and it always used to bug me, the way he played them up. I just - I've never - I never wanted to do that. It always seemed wrong. I guess I - I probably go too far the other way, but I don't know what else to do," he tried to explain, his voice muted. "I don't mean to make you think your opinions don't matter though. They do matter - to me. I just..." He took a breath and tried to order his thoughts. "I know I'm not always good at showing what I'm thinking. Or feeling. That's one thing I've always really appreciated about us. Because we talk so much and I can get out what I mean more with you, because you won't let things drop, and you stay with me if I can't get things out right the first time round. But - I do always hear what you say and you're right - it doesn't sound like words. And I do like hearing it. Even if I can't say anything about it. And that's me and I know that it shouldn't be like that. And I know that I should kind of take that on board and know that you'd like hearing things back, but I just... These all sound like excuses to me. You don't deserve excuses. You deserve a boyfriend who'd... And that sounds like bollocks as well," Dean said, breaking off so that sentence didn't end in something that would make it sound like he was asking her to tell him he was fine and everything was okay.

He ran a hand through his hair. "You know, for the last few days you've taken to telling me that I could have any girl I wanted. I don't want just any girl - I want you, Thia. I don't want some supermodel, or some page three girl. Even if I'd never met you, I wouldn't want that. But I have met you, and everything else aside, you're just my 'type'. I've fancied you from the day we met and nothing has happened to make me fancy you any less. Yes, you have scars - and they don't detract from you. Not to me. They're not ugly - yes, they make me a little sad, because I know how you got each of them, but... I - I - they-" he closed his eyes for a moment as he forced out the admission, knowing he'd touched on it before, but not come out and directly said it. "-they fascinate me." He opened his eyes again as he hurried on. "Which I know is weird and I hope - I hope it's not too weird. But they're a part of you, Thia and I know why you feel like you can't show them to anyone else and I've probably never told you how special you make me feel that you relax that around me. Because you do. But then, you're always making me feel special. Right from the moment that I realised that someone like you would give me the time of day. And every moment you did that ever since," he said, finally giving up completely on his avoidance of risking sounding like a bad romance novel.

She watched him move, watched his mannerisms, or those she could see, watched his lips move, forming words, in that way that was uniquely his. She could tell even if he wasn't tripping over his words that he was having trouble with it. So she gave him time, paid strict attention. She was glad he'd cut himself off from following the 'boyfriend she deserved' track, because she'd immediately wanted to cut that off herself. But she didn't have to, he did, so she was grateful on that score.

It was after that that hit the major 'this is news to me' level. She blinked, leaning closer to the screen, to the computer, lowering her hear down in the vain hopes of catching even the slightest bit of tone--even if that didn't work for her. Everything he was putting behind his words was lost on her, and there was a bright stab of bitterness towards her disability that she reserved only for moments like these. But she didn't dwell on it, she kept reading the words there, reading what he was saying.

It helped. What he said, even if it did delve into the indulgent, it helped. It was a lot of things that she needed to be told. Needed to know, not just wonder at. She was almost oddly relieved that she made him feel special. Because he was special so very very special, and she knew he didn't see it and so she did her best to show him that even if he couldn't manage to see it on a grander scheme, maybe he'd see that he was special to her. That her world was still a bright place because he was in it. And she knew. She understood if he hadn't been there that it would have become a very black place to be. Sometimes she even felt like she was slipping, but never for very long. She didn't quite know what to address first. It was like she had a whole lot to say and yet couldn't think of a thing at the same time. So when she started talking, it was a completely unplanned ramble. "Dean, you're--" she started, then continued. "You're special. I'm glad that's how I make you feel, because you are, and I've thought so since we met, and you just keep proving over and over that you are. In little ways, in big ones, it's all over the place, in the things you do. Like even--this. Setting this up? Thinking about it enough so that we could still communicate? God...I don't even know if I could really express how much it means to me. Because it does, it means everything and I appreciate it so much, and you, and sometimes I just wish you could look at you, just for a minute, from here. How I see you, how the experience of you feels to me." Yep. Rambling, and she didn't even know where things were heading. "And I--I don't think it's weird, the scar thing, I, do you remember when we were in your room, and you'd got back from the fight with Gabe, and I couldn't quite stop myself from touching yours? I get it, I...just thought it was me. Except when you touch them sometimes, like you know where each one of them starts and stops, like you just know, because you've paid attention, and somehow that makes me feel special, and less...less..." she didn't have a proper word she wanted to say out loud just then, so she skipped over it. "It's always been okay with you, I...I don't want to hide from you. Even right now I don't want to hide, I just, the only time you've flinched with me, the only time was when you saw my reflection, and I..." She needed to stop talking. "I'm sorry."

He knew exactly when she was talking about when she said that. "That day - that day had been a bad, bad day," he told her. "I - we were having that thing, where I didn't want to tell you things? I didn't want to tell you that I'd been talking to Caleb, and that we'd basically had a fight because he'd been going on about how there were worse things that could happen to you than death, and that I needed to make sure that you knew that. And I... All that was going through my mind was all the ways that it could be worse. And you were just being you," he said, his lips curving round into a soft smile at how she was, that took the edge off the memory of those thoughts. "And you knew something was wrong - it was fairly bloody obvious, anyway. But, you wouldn't let it go. And I didn't want to talk about it, because I didn't think you'd deal and I was just getting more and more stressed and there were these thoughts about what could happen to you. And then I caught sight of you in the window - and it was that. That backdrop, that specific situation. I've seen your reflection before, Thia. I've seen it since. It was just that one time. And that's why. And I know you don't want me up there tonight, and that's your choice and if that's your decision I'm not going to push you on it. I'll just be right here. Every new moon, right here, loving you just as much as I do every other day or night." He could have said more, he knew. He could have told her that she was right about her scars - he knew where every one of them began and ended. And more than that, he knew what had caused each of them, and when. He knew where she'd been, and where he'd been when they'd happened and why they'd happened. He knew everything about each and every one - he could have told her a million things, but he didn't. "Don't be sorry, kitten, please - never be sorry."

She frowned a little as he explained. Mostly because she'd stopped him. He'd not wanted to say and she'd pushed, and then he'd been going to say and she just...couldn't stand seeing what it was doing to him. So she'd let it drop, even if she could call up the memory in stark clarity. Even beyond the fact that he'd flinched at her reflection. It was one of the worst outputs of negative energy she'd seen on him. There were a few times that stood out in her mind, when he blotted out the light around him it rose up so high and thick, like he was on fire, only it was black flames. She understood what he was saying, and part of her could accept it, and understand it, and was still vaguely surprised he was telling her now. She wondered just how much detail Caleb had given, what kind of things he'd said to upset Dean that much. And...she wasn't asking.

"I feel like I should be." she said. "I...I don't know. I'm scared." she told him, voice reflecting that. "I'm glad that it was...it was more the situation that you explained there, than it was me, but I'm still scared. Because...when it's my reflection, you can look back at me, and I don't look like that for real, and you can just not look at anything I'm reflected in. I sure as hell do, and I know I go out of my way to make sure no one else can catch me in a reflection either. But what if it's different? If you look, and you can't look away, that I'm still just this...dead looking thing, and I just...I have no idea what that would do. I know what it does to me, and I don't want to do that to you, and you shouldn't have to, and what if it ruined everything? What if that was how you pictured me when you closed your eyes? Or if I do show up in your dreams? What if it's like that?" She was quiet a moment, trying to get herself back under control. "I am terrified of what could happen."

Dean didn't have an answer to that. He'd never had an answer to that and he knew it terrified him as well. That was why he wanted to do it - he wanted to prove to himself, to both of them, that those fears were unfounded, but he wanted that based on no solid knowledge that they would be. Nothing more than a wish to be perfect for her - but he knew better than anyone that he was far from perfect. "I'm not asking for anything, Thia," he told her first and foremost. "I get why I'm down here and you're up there, and if that's the way it's got to be then I'm not going anywhere. And - and I... Because I know that anything else, it would be a risk. And I don't want... I don't want it to be like that either." but he didn't want this night to be a block between them either. He didn't want it to be left to be an issue that grew, a part of her that he never even attempted to accept. He didn't want her to think that there was a part of her he couldn't accept, or love. He didn't want there to be a part of her she withheld from him, for any reason. He felt like there was this huge risk in going for it, but if they didn't, eventually there would be a risk in not going for it as well. But there was that 'eventually' there. that eventually which meant that he wasn't going to push to do anything near something like heading upstairs now. But he had a window to offer a suggestion of something less. Something that would be hard for both of them, but wouldn't be that whole way. "Thia, maybe... Maybe we should just try a mirror sometime," he suggested to her. "Like on purpose and talk, or something. And, if we need to, either of us could look away. Or walk away. And then, afterwards..." We could go hide in the closet and talk about it. Did that sound terribly five years old? Probably, but everything to do with that closet stemmed from there, it seemed. Well, almost everything. "Afterwards we could go talk about things."

She thought about that. It was something she never would have thought of. But...he might have a point with it. "You don't...you don't think that it would have the same chance of ruining things?" she asked carefully. Not agreeing straight away or anything, but considering the idea. She hated it, of course, but there was a practicality to it that she could relate to and understand. And Thia was nothing if not practical and reasonable. In fact, that's kind of what it sounded like to her. That he was being a little Reasonable at her. That thought actually made her smile a little bit. "...are you doing that thing that I do, where I'm Reasonable at someone until they can't argue logically with me anymore?" she asked, tone light, and there was the hint of humor there, so he'd know she was at least amused somewhat by the thought.

Was he? He wasn't sure - maybe Reasonable was catching. "I don't know if that's what I'm doing," he told her, honestly - he hadn't intended to do that, but maybe he was just trying to find a way. "I just thought - that maybe it would be a half way step. I mean, really, it's not anything we haven't actually done before, right? Only, this time, it would be on purpose. And we'd talk about it. It just... We don't do this, Thia. We don't avoid things and when we do, they... I don't know about you, but I think you're the same as me and I know it eats at me. Even if it's something small, it becomes bigger and bigger and I can't ignore it. Even if we're ignoring it for a bloody good reason, it just spirals out of all proportion because we're ignoring it," he explained to her.

She knew what he meant. She knew exactly what he meant. Biting at her lip, she exhaled, still hating the idea of it. But he was right. "I know." she said, voice soft. "You're right, I know you're right." she said. "I...you're going to have to be pushy on this." she told him. "Because I'm not going to want to. And I'm not going to want to stay there long, and I just...you're going to have to help with this." she told him honestly. "Don't let me cut out on it entirely." Because she'd probably try.

"Not long," he agreed, before adding. "At first." They could work up to something else, as and when they were ready. He didn't add that he doubted he'd be up to 'long' right off the mark either. She didn't need to know that. If it became an issue that needed to be talked about, then they'd talk about it. If it was just his inner fear, she didn't need to know. "And we can use my bathroom - then we can go straight to the closet. And we can take things from there," he promised.

She gave a soft little sound, that might have been the ghost of a laugh, but was little more than an exhale with a light sound to it, that sounded like relief, too. "I like that idea." she told him genuinely. "Please, yes. If we're doing that at all, your bathroom, then the closet." Because they could shut the doors and she could disappear entirely in there. It was the Just Them land, where everything else was suspended, and no matter what was going on...it was just a safe place. Their safe place. So having that in such ready availability...that definitely would help.

"Okay," Dean agreed, smiling at that, feeling like he'd just won a little victory, even if he had a doubtful Caleb in the back of his mind wondering at him whether this was even a good idea. Good idea or not: it was just how they worked, and to ignore that would be to ignore them. "And no pressure - we take this slowly. For both of us. I - I'm not out for ruining things between us. I don't ever want to make you do something you're uncomfortable with. or that's going to make you upset, or unhappy."

She smiled a little, and it was sad. She reached out again, and did the stupid silly thing of touching his face on the screen. she'd done it before, no one was looking, she was letting herself be that much of a sap. "Good, that would be a bad thing. Though...fair warning, that's what this is going to do. Regardless of it being a better-in-the-long-run deal, I'm not going to be doing when during." And probably for a while after. Just thinking about it kicked up anxieties in her she knew would only get worse when she was faced with actually having to contemplate doing it. It went against everything she'd ingrained in herself. She avoided her reflection, and she knew where everything that reflected was. She knew the house up and down, and learned fast anywhere else she went. She knew reflections incredibly well now, and how to stand to avoid being seen, or where to stand, or how to position herself so even if someone else looked over, they wouldn't see her. It was going to grind against the grain to actively work against those instincts.

"And I'll be there with you," Dean said, reassuringly, stepping on all his fears about the whole thing, stepping on even the possibility that he'd have a negative reaction. He wouldn't - she needed him not to have that. And so he simply wouldn't. And he knew, this way, he just wouldn't. Not there and then - and they'd set it up so they would talk about it afterwards, and he could slowly get used to everything, and work through anything that might come up and she would never ever ever have to know that there was ever even the barest hint of a possibility that he once worried that he might not be able to deal with anything. "I'll be right there with you. I promise."

He looked sure of himself. Which also served to ease the anxiety a little. "Okay." she said, conceding. "I...I'm just going to apologize in advance for anything I do or say." she said. "I can't say I'll be rational in the slightest sense, so...yeah. I'm sorry if I royally fuck up, or something." She could see it happening even if she didn't have any examples that leapt to mind. Probably due to the horror at the idea that still sort of spoke up louder than anything else when she thought of it.

"I forgive you for any fuck up if you forgive me for any fuck ups too," he told her, smiling very slightly. That was the closest he would come to admitting that he wasn't sure how this was going to go. No nearer. At all. "Short time, then we talk. Okay? In the closet, just us. Nothing we haven't done before. Nothing we didn't already even do right back then at Journey's house - remember? Before we'd gone and got your hearing aids. Before you introduced me to the wonderful world of breaking and entering. Before we slept together for the first time and I had a damn hard time leaving you the next morning," he told her, adding in the details to ground her in the fact they'd been through this before. To ground both of them in that fact.

She did think about that, and a light smile was on her lips. "I remember." she said, voice soft. Then she wondered how well the mic picked things up, and she cleared her throat a little and tried again. "I remember." she repeated herself. "you...did I ever--" she stopped a moment, shaking her head. "No, I don't think that it's possible for me to even start explaining to you what that night meant to me." she said, cutting herself off before she even attempted. "But I remember. You told me I didn't look like that. You saw." She remembered liking being in the bathroom because without her hearing aids, she was able to catch some tone in the small space. And she was back to thinking about how dark her world would have gotten if he hadn't been there. Hadn't shown up. Hadn't investigated upstairs. Then she was thinking about the whole them sleeping together for the first time that night. "You were there, and I actually slept. I couldn't before then, I just...but then you were there, and I could."

Dean looked at the camera as she spoke as though he doubted her sanity for a moment. "Thia - do you have any idea how much that night meant to me?" he asked her. "You were alive. My world stopped falling apart that night. I couldn't have left you if I'd tried."

The smile remained as she watched him. "Good thing, I can't say I wouldn't have dropped down in my knees and clung to your leg all romance-novel style myself if you'd tried. Your world stopped falling apart...mine suddenly had a ground again. Up until then, I was so...disjointed. And most of the time I thought I wasn't real, or I was a ghost, and it was so messy, and then...it's like the fog cleared." Then she watched him closely, and said something to him that he'd said to her before. "It was like the sun came out." and up til then she'd been utterly lost in the dark.

His smile widened to a real grin as she said that and he had a moment of wonder that there'd ever been a time when they weren't together. How had that made sense, exactly? He wasn't sure - it seemed a mystery right now, when they so clearly fit in every way. "It does that," he agreed with her, rather belatedly.

She loved seeing that expression on his face. She even hit the print screen button so she could keep it, even if it was fabulously rotten quality. It didn't matter. It was him, with a genuine smile, and...she liked that. She didn't see it enough. "I love you, Dean." she told him, the sentiment so strong in that moment that she couldn't say anything else. She just needed to tell him, and that was it. She wondered if she'd always loved him. Probably, at least on some levels. Granted it was a sliding scale, and now she was definitely locked onto the romantic kind, but she'd loved him before then. She'd loved him before she'd told him she did. And it felt good to be able to now, when she knew just how often it had popped up into her mind to say, and she'd had to bite it back.

"I love you too, kitten," he told her, relaxing into a sitting slump, less tense than he had been for the last ten or so minutes. It felt a little strange, saying that to a camera, but he knew she could see him, even if he could only hear her. It worked for them, really - both losing a sense, when they usually strove so hard to overcome their individual problems in that respect.

She was quiet for a few moments, just watching him. "It'll be okay." she said. She didn't quite know why she needed to share that sentiment at that moment, but she did. It felt like she needed to. Like she had to have some confidence in them. And she did. She was just scared. Logic and this didn't go hand in hand. Like, logically, they had been through so much. They'd been through worse, and this should be something that they could really consider minor. Something that would suck, yes, but in the grand scheme? But her fears didn't buy into that. Still, she needed to give them as a couple the benefit of the doubt...right?

"It will be," he agreed, still in full on supportive mode. He had no idea why he found things easier to cope with when the people around him were coping less well. It was probably screwed up that he did - that he seemed to get strength from their weakness, but that was just the way it was. She needed him to step up, and he could do that. And he would do that, every time. He'd be there for her - like she was always there for him whenever he needed it, only they'd swapped again now, which - about bloody time. He'd leaned on her for far too long. It wasn't that he wanted her to have concerns, or stresses, he was just aware that he didn't want to become overly dependant. He didn't like where that may lead.

She kept watching him, thinking that she really wished they could do the closet thing right now. Which, technically, they probably could do, but she wasn't ready for it. not even in a space where she was going to disappear anyways, she wasn't ready. "You tired yet?" she asked, voice soft. She wasn't, but then again, she rarely was truly tired, and with as anxious as she was over everything, she was willing to bet the only time she'd drop off was when she went and crawled into Dean's bed after daybreak.

"A little," Dean admitted. It was getting late, after all. "But I don't have anywhere to be tomorrow - especially not if you're coming down here in the morning," he added with a small smile at the camera. That he was looking forward to, curling up with her. That he was really, really looking forward to.

That got a little laugh out of her. "I'm coming down there in the morning. And good. I'm probably going to be very very clingy, just so you know. I'm already feeling clingy, so it'll just build up, and by the time I actually get to cling there'll be this overload of extra cling going on. So...just so you're prepared and all." she warned, not that she thought he'd mind. They tended not to, when one of them was being especially clingy over things.

He raised an eyebrow and pulled an almost amusedly-evil face - not an expression he generally used at all, but one specifically for her and the camera. "Careful now - Henna might get jealous," he teased her. "Or should I make sure that she's gone by the time you get here?"

Thia gasped, and her jaw dropped as she watched that--and she had to admit she absolutely adored that expression on his features. "You better make sure she's gone. Because I had you first, thank you very much, and she's jut going to have to get over things. When I get down there you're going to have to settle for being all mine, or there might be a cat fight or something. Which, I'm not sure I'd win out against Henna. But I'd damn sure try." she told him, just barely holding in a laugh.

"A cat fight between a girl and a bunny, eh? That might actually be worth watching," Dean teased, encouraged by the gasp and the sound of suppressed laughter. He could imagine that she was smiling with that as well. "At least for a while, before I decided that I had to take sides and kicked Henna out of bed," he added.

"But you would want to see it for a while before you decided that I was the more worthy of bed-time with you?" she asked, still grinning to herself and she propped her chin on her hand. "Good to know that I'd win, either way. That you would eventually come down on my side of things. I think I'm better for you anyways, I'm much more suited to you." she said sagely.

"Oh, there'd be no decision to make - I just would want to see it," Dean told her, pulling another almost evil face for her - being much more expressive than he normally would now that he could see what he looked like on the screen, and because he wanted to amuse her. He liked making her laugh.

It worked out for him, really. "Well, I suppose that calls back to the conversation we had about possessiveness and liking the idea of me getting all 'bitch, get offa my man!' about it and such." she said, smiling, and her amusement was very clear in her tone. "Course if I wanted to do it properly and everything I'm going to have to start adding new phrases to my vocabulary. Liiiiiiike...." she paused in thought. "You best be steppin offa this here situation, or we's about to have a confrontation!" she made up off the top of her head. She threw a very white trash sort of accent onto it as well.

That had him laughing - at the accent as well as the words. "You just make that up, or did you get it from somewhere?" he asked her, since it flowed pretty well. "And yeah, well - you know I don't have any kind of a problem with you being all like that," he added, though it made him think of Katie and what would have happened if Thia had been right there that night, able to do something. And what he would have done if she had have done. Though, he knew that if she had had been there, it would never have come to anything.

She delighted at the sight of him laughing. "I just made it up. I don't watch near enough daytime television to have picked it up from there. Though I think Oz secretly watches General Hospital." she added with a smirk. "But I'd have to get sucked into seedy talk shows to really brush up on the 'get off of my kool-aid' talk." she admitted. "I mean, I can always try, if you really want me to brush up on my 'trailer park woman from middle america' speak."

"I don't think I want to lose you to daytime TV, so maybe I'll pass on that once in a lifetime opportunity," Dean said, as if seriously considering this. "I quite like you as you, and I don't really think you're going to have to be fighting that hard to keep me ever."

"Well, if you think you're not going to need me to get all big talker on you and all to defend what's mine, then alright. I guess I could just stick to doing things my own way, it's worked out for me so far." she said. It had led her to him. Or he'd just gone to her, or...something. Either way it had worked out, even if it had taken them quite a damn long time to get there. It felt like they'd been through it all together solidly from the begining, though. And, much like he had earlier, she sort of wondered about them. About how they'd not been together sooner. Or maybe they had been, and just didn't make it official, or...something. They'd graduated to physicality with one another, but their relationship, who they were as people, and who they were together she didn't actually think had changed. At least, not that much.

"I don't think you need to worry, Thi," he agreed. It wasn't like the girls were queueing up or anything - thank god. He wasn't sure that he could stand something like that, and he was just fine with them all ignoring him in favour of the basketball team, or the football team or anything male that wasn't him. He was good with being ignored.

She wasn't necessarily of that opinion, but she guessed so far, in the states, anyways, he wasn't quite so sought after. Back home...she was actually pretty sure there would be a lot of that going on. Especially after handing Andy's ass to him. Which...actually had her wondering how that was playing out. She'd emailed Jen not too long ago, and she'd mentioned that things had changed around there, but she hadn't gone into great detail about it, Thia was guessing because she didn't want to talk that much about a subject that wasn't a nice one for her. "You know...honestly? Even if I had to worry about random women trying to jump you at all hours of the day, I trust you." she said.

Dean just smiled at that. He knew she did - and she had reason to - but still, it was nice to hear it all the same. He tried to be trustworthy, to deserve that, but with Thia it wasn't hard at all. He just loved her, nobody else could hold a candle to that.

There was the smile again. She kept her eyes on it, the curve of his lips. She wondered just how much more often he smiled around her than anyone else. She was also thinking back, to how Andy had told her that bullshit line about 'encouragment' with the Katie situation and everything, and that was the big kicker for her. The huge 'oh PLEASE' moment. Because that just wasn't him. And it wasn't ever going to be. "Can it be daybreak already?"

"Would be nice," Dean agreed, stifling a yawn. He knew that morning would come quicker for him if he just gave in and got some sleep, but then he'd be leaving her there alone, and she'd already said that she didn't think she was going to sleep tonight, so he felt that he should stay up with her, all through the night if he had to - though, he knew that that was probably not going to happen. Sooner or later, he'd fall asleep. Hell, knowing her, sooner or later, she'd insist that he got some sleep and then she'd get all stubborn about it.

That moment was coming sooner than later, considering she caught the yawn. She smiled. "You should sleep." she told him. "Get all curled up, and make sure the bed's all nice and warm and snuggly for when I get there. I forgot to grab a blanket so I'm gonna be all cold, and I shall need the body heat." she told him. "Plus, you need more sleep than I do anyways. And I have gaudy eighties jewelry to go through..." so he didn't think he'd be falling asleep and leaving her to nothing.

Dean frowned at that and turned around to grab a couple of blankets off his bed. "I'm coming up," he told her, in a tone that suggested she didn't have a choice about this. "I'll leave them outside the door, then come right back down again - but I'm not having you freezing all night," he added, standing and walking out of the room before she even had a chance to reply. he jogged up the stairs to the attic and knocked loudly on the door - something which he didn't know whether she'd hear or not, but still, he left the blankets on the top step and did as he'd promised - he turned around and went right back down again, not letting himself linger even for a moment. Back in his room, he settled down once more in front of the camera, so she would know that way that he was no longer upstairs.

She opened her mouth to tell him not to, but then he was gone, and she did hear it when he banged on the door. She was looking down the stariwell in the first place, saw his shadow underneath it. she was nervous when he did that, but...then he was gone again. When she saw him back in his room, she looked at him a long moment. "Thank you." she told him. "...gimme a second." she added, and she headed down the steps to quickly reach out and grab them, before she shut the door and locked it once more. Which was stupid, but it made her feel better. Then she was back up to the computer, curling up with the blankets all wrapped around her. "Much better." she said, her tone indicating how nice it was. And that she appreciated it.

"You should have said something in the first place - I could have brought you them up hours ago," Dean admonished. "Now - is there anything else you need? Anything at all?" he asked her, since it was clear that unless he asked, she was just going to suffer through it and not mention anything.

"I'm fine." she promised. "And you got all comfortable, and everything else, and I just...thank you." she said, cutting off any reasons she'd had for not saying anything. "It's appreciated. I just forgot in my rush to get up here. The computer set up was more important to me than blankets." Which was why she'd totally forgotten them in the first place. She'd been more preoccupied with that. "But promise, I don't need anything else." Then she paused. "Unless we count 'you' but that'll be later."

"Yeah, well - you need the little card games and whatever else you were playing before I turned up, right?" he teased, knowing full well that she actually meant the conversation they were currently having. He was glad that she liked it. He was glad he'd thought of it - though it wasn't exactly a huge thing. But little things were important, people so often forgot the little things and they could make such a difference.

She laughed softly. "Yes, the little card games were vital." she teased in return. "It wasn't at all the promise of you, and not being totally shut off from you for a whole night or anything." she added. "Nossiree, it was the card games. And the dumb little map castle game. And watching funny youtube videos where I can make up the dialogue." she told him. Since she couldn't quite hear it properly.

"I know my importance in the scheme of things - and it's way behind card games and castles," he nodded, but he stretched as he yawned again - this time not able to even pretend to hold it in. "You sure you're gonna be okay if I go to sleep?" he asked.

Thia gave the screen a Look, even if he couldn't see it. So she told him. "You're getting a look." she said. "Go. Sleep. Have sweet dreams. Be there in the morning when I come to curl up with you. Keep the bed warm." she told him. She almost wished he would leave the camera going, so she could just...check in on him now and then. Watch, maybe, but then she wondered if that was creepy of her. Probably. It was, wasn't it? He'd mentioned it earlier and she'd sort of naysayed it, but she didn't think they'd come to a real conclusion. But if she was moving around, he'd hear her...damnit. She didn't know if there was a win there.

"So - want me to leave the camera on?" he asked her, not realising he was echoing her thoughts. He said it lightly, as if it was no big thing. Really: who wanted to just watch him sleep? She'd probably have better things to do than that, and would it seem some kind of arrogance, that he was assuming that she'd want to do that? he didn't think she'd think that about him - he was fairly sure that she would take it the right way, but Dean worried about everything, whether it was founded or not.

"Please." she found herself saying. Because really, now that she knew he was going to bed, and there was hours yet before she'd be able to steal downstairs and crawl in with him...she wanted that connection there. She'd just need to be quiet, so he didn't hear her, so she didn't keep him up by moving around and such. But she was fine with that. "If I bother you with sound or something, just tell me? Or turn your speakers off, but...yeah. I'd like you to."

"I can turn the sound off," Dean assured her, though he wondered if he'd be able to pick up the creaks of the floorboards upstairs anyhow. He hoped not - generally, this house was a fairly quiet one when it came to creaky floorboard type noises.

"Okay." That made her feel better. She'd be much less likely to wake him up. That was, if she even went to do anything else. At the moment she didn't want to. "Thank you." she added. I'm assuming this means you don't think it's creepy. she thought at him. "Sweet dreams, Dean." she said. "I'll see you soon." she promised.

"You better do," Dean told her, giving the camera one last direct smile. "Night kitten," he said, before leaning forward and reluctantly turning off the sound. he left it a moment, then stood, fiddling the camera so that it would pick him up as he slept then, that done, he started to get ready for bed, stripping down to his boxers and climbing under what were left of the blankets.

Lullaby watched him, wishing she could be down there now. But she was glad that she'd get to see. That she was kinda in the room, or at least had a window into it. It would do, for the night. And maybe eventually she'd not have to spend nights up here. Things could be okay. ....but probably not for a long long time, so she could get her own shit together over it. But for now...it was comforting for her. And considering her circumstances, that was saying a lot. That was a little thing that meant the world.