Thoughts

Who: Dean and Caleb
Where: Walking
when: Lunch hour

Dean was exactly where he always was at lunch times - sitting on the side lawn, his bag by his side, rolling an apple between his hands. He figured that Caleb would show - the guy had said that he would, after all - but Dean hoped he wouldn't be long. He'd been thinking all through his morning classes - which he'd gone to, each and every one, getting the notes for Thia as more then for himself - and by the time lunch rolled around, he kind of wished that he hadn't agreed to mean up with the bloke. He had things he wanted to get done, but he'd offered and he wasn't going to back out. He'd just come up with a covering excuse instead. One that was a little more prepared this time.

Caleb wasn't late, he didn't have anyplace else to be besides 'away from the school building' so he'd headed out right away--he just walked slower than usual at current. Either way when he got to Dean, sitting on the same spot he always did, he stopped. "Hey." he greeted. He wasn't sure if he was still welcome or not, so he didn't sit down.

Dean looked up, and then got up before the guy could sit down, grabbing his bag as he stood. "Hey - wanna get out of here?" he asked, looking towards the exit. "I realised I lost my mobile and Sophie gets massively fucking twitchy if she can't get hold of me, so I told her I'd go get a new one today," he said, fairly sure that this prepared lie was smoother than his earlier efforts.

It was! Caleb nodded. "Sure." he said, shrugging. He didn't mind fucking off for a while, not at all. "Let's go." He had left his bookbag inside, so he didn't have the extra weight to worry about. He started walking, testing his ankle a little bit with walking faster, and while it sucked, he could do it without limping. He'd been babying it for a bit anyways so there was that.

Dean twitched a slight smile, glad that that seemed to have gone over well. He'd originally been planning to go get Thia a phone after school, but he'd bee twitchy about it all morning. He knew he couldn't stay there again tonight, but he wanted to spend as much time as possible with her. And anyway, there'd be less people in the shops at this time of day and no small screaming children, so he'd be more likely to get through it without causing himself a migraine. He didn't want to spend his evening with Thia having to lie down in a darkened room as his head pounded. He was silent as they walked, leaving the school behind and heading down the street, lost in thoughts.

Caleb was quiet for a bit as they walked, not sure what to say or where to start. "You doin alright?" he asked. "I know I keep asking, but..." he trailed off. Death. Dealing. All that bullshit, it was a fairly up and down process, and Dean looked like he had a lot on his mind.

"Feel like I should ask you the same question," Dean told him, carefully sidestepping answering that one. He was more together now than he had been this morning, more prepared for dealing with how people would treat him. He'd been giving a lot of thought to the way he'd have to act and whilst he still wasn't sure he could keep the act up totally successfully, he'd figured a few things out. First and foremost that nobody would push a grieving guy to talk about it if he didn't want to.

That worked out for Dean too. At least for now, anyhow. "So, in theory, we both suck at current. I think that about sums things up." Caleb said, eyes mostly on the sidewalk as they walked, though he was aware of his surroundings. He'd become even more paranoid since he'd gotten out. Shit seemed to be coming from a lot of different sides. Vampires, random gunmen. Yeah. Bullshit, really.

Dean, on the other hand, was walking with his head up, looking from side to side from time to time. Was she watching? Had she crept out - she'd said that she'd done it before, needed to see people. Had she done it today - would he be able to see her if she had done? The idea that maybe he had a stalker was a curiously pleasant one, actually. It gave him a buzz and lead him yet again to the conclusion that he was creepy and weird. He tried to keep it subtle though - and hell, his best friend had been shot by a random gunman last week, who could blame a guy for being overly aware of his surroundings? "Yeah, I guess it does," he agreed. "So, those girls in art class were talking about you..." Dean said, conversationally. They'd also been talking about him as well, but Dean wasn’t going to add that in. Hearing the whispered conversations of the table next to them wasn't always a pleasant thing.

"Unsurprising." Caleb commented. "What're they saying?" he asked, smirking faintly to himself. "Out of incredibly morbid curiosity." Because that's what it was. He didn't particularly care what they said, but he knew rumors ran pretty wild in MSHS and he didn't actually have anyone to hear them from. So, he knew they were there, just not what was said.

"Didn't catch it all," Dean admitted. They'd been whispering, after all. And giggling. And talking ten to the dozen. It had been hard to keep up, especially with the other hushed conversations in the room. And he hadn't really been listening, it just filtered in. "The blonde one fancies you, her mate thinks you're trouble..." He paused, thinking of the rest of what he'd heard, wondering whether to mention it or not. He did so in the end, but he tone was tentative, almost reluctant. "...That you're apparently unstable. And her friend was saying that you got your injuries when you stole some bloke's girlfriend and he came and beat the shit out of you for it. Cos apparently that's your thing." He smiled apologetically. "Sorry," he shrugged.

Caleb chuckled at that. "You've got great ears." he said. "Well, Blondie's friend is probably right. Chick saying I got my injuries from some guy beating me up is bullshit. And depending on your point of view, I could probably be considered a girlfriend stealer. From mine, I'm not." he continued. "This summer there was a girl, Jamie, that me and one of the locals around here, Isaac, apparently both had a thing for. I didn't know about him til after I'd hooked up with Jamie. Who, by the way, was batshit insane, and I had to convince her not to lead the other guy on. But somehow, I don't think he'd really appreciate that."

"Probably not - but I figured you should know what people were saying. I figured it was mostly bollocks anyhow. At least, I don't listen to what people are saying, gossip-wise - half the time I don't know where they get it from." And he heard a lot of gossip - most of the time in school he almost preferred it when it was all so noisy it just made him deaf. Better than the whispered tendrils coming through - especially the ones that followed him when he walked lately.

"Well, thanks." Caleb said. Not that it helped anything, but it was information he hadn't had before. "I think there are a lot of bored people, just making shit up every day. That's my theory." he added conversationally. He noticed Dean didn't ask him how he'd got his injuries, considering he'd dispelled the one idea he'd had. He didn't know what he'd tell the guy if he did ask, either. Guess he'd find out if it came up.

Dean hadn't asked because of the other rumours he'd picked up - the ones that said that Caleb had attempted suicide. And he couldn't actually figure out a good way of asking about that. Plus, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Thia might not be dead, but he'd been there, he'd had that overwhelming grief to deal with - he didn't want to have any kind of a conversation that even touched on an event that would inflict that on people. "Small town, I suppose - I know there wasn't half this gossip in my old school." Or maybe there had been and he just hadn't heard it, going around in a large group of noisy lads as he had. He never used to spend this much time alone.

"Yeah, small town. Nothing better to do, I guess. I know back home, there were rumors, of course, but this seems excessive to me." Caleb replied. He realized he was skirting around oh...everything. He'd said he would talk about things, when they weren't in art class, but it was in his nature to not do that. He didn't know how to just come out and go 'okay so this is what's going on'. It felt too alien to be that open.

"Agreed," Dean said, then fell quiet, leaving room for Caleb to talk, since that had been the point of getting together. Or maybe the guy had changed his mind. He didn't know. Maybe he was meant to come out and ask, which felt weird to him. He could do but... No, he'd give the guy the silence to fill first. If that didn't work, he'd think of something else.

Caleb walked along next to Dean, turning onto a side road when they got to it. He realized he should probably fill the silence up, but didn't know how to do it. A few things went through his mind, sped through and didn't stay, because he didn't know where to start, even. Or if he should. This morning it had seemed like a good idea to talk, but he was having trouble remembering why. Didn't Dean have enough shit on his mind?

Okay, so silence didn't work. And Dean's indecision meant that it went on until it was nigh-on uncomfortable and it was Dean who felt compelled to fill it with talk, slowing as he did so so that he could look more at Caleb. Before when they were just talking about nothing, he could deal with missing the odd word as a car went past, now, he wasn't so prepared to do that. "So... You said there was shit earlier?" he prompted.

There it was. The opening, he supposed. And he had to make the decision if he was going to go through with it. But, he supposed, he didn't know what else to do. And, if he was trying to make a new friend here, maybe honesty was the way to go. That and he did actually want Dean to be able to ...talk to him or whatever about all the Lullaby shit, so... Yeah. He just had to start talking. Which was far harder than it should have been. "Yeah." he finally answered. "For starters, I guess...I'm stuck in another one of those situations I mentioned earlier about Jamie. Only this one...I'm on the other end of it."

"Leija," Dean supplied - because that didn't exactly take rocket science to figure out. He slowed a little more, unable to watch where he was walking so much now, because he was giving Caleb his full concentration, just occasionally looking forward to make sure he wasn't going to walk into a streetlight or something insane like that.

"Yeah, Leija." Caleb confirmed. "When I was in the hospital...she came to see me, not many people did. I kind of..." Went Creepy Obsessive Stalker on her. "...got attached." he said, looking as uncomfortable as he felt. But he didn't stop. "Anyways, I figured it was all in my head. Entirely, just me and my fucked up wires messing everything up, she was just a nice girl, bla bla fucking bla, right? Only, apparently, that wasn't the case. She had this boyfriend...and so I never made a move. Never even told her anything, or implied anything, because she was my best friend, and I didn't really want my bullshit obsession to ruin that. But the night before I got out, she..." he paused, still a bit fucked up over that whole thing. "She tells me I confuse her and she doesn't know how to feel about me. Asks how I feel about her, and it's not like I could lie."

Why not? I would have done, Dean thought. Then paused. Would he have done? Would he still do - if Thia asked him how he felt about her? Would he do that, just tell her that she was nothing to him but his best friend? yes. He realised on the heels of that, though he also acknowledged that that wasn't an answer that might have always applied. That was because he knew Thia - and to bring that out into the open would be to destroy everything they had, or so he thought. He'd prefer to lie to her, but he could understand why Caleb hadn't done that. "Right," he said, encouraging the guy to go on.

"Long story short, she broke up with her boyfriend now, and...things have rapidly entered fucked up land. I still don't know what the fuck is going on, what she's doing, what's going on with him, or y'know, if one of these days I'm going to get jumped on the way home from school." Couldn't say he'd blame anyone on that score, it would just suck was all. "The most fucked up part though is that she loved him. And she keeps...she keeps telling me that she loves him." And wasn't that the crowning goddamn achievement of Fucked Up.

That had Dean blinking as he tried to process all of that. He tried for a moment to put himself in the guy's shoes. But that led to the insertion of Thia and Joshua - and that whole scenario wasn't working for him. Mostly because when he got to 'and Thia and Joshua broke up' the next logical step was 'and Thia cried for a year, broken hearted'. No, there wasn't a parallel he could actually get to work. "Sounds like she's really confused," he said instead.

"I'm sure she is. I just...don't know how to make any fucking sense of it in my head. I mean, if she did? If she does? Then why the fuck tell me at all about any feelings? And why break up with a guy she is in love with? Especially for someone like me? That unstable thing you heard? True. Which I'm sure doesn't really make you want to sign up to be pals, but..." he trailed off. "But it doesn't make sense to me, and I can't help but wonder, if she does finally decide on me...will she drop me too, if someone else came along? Even if..." Caleb couldn't finish that sentence.

"...She fell in love with you too?" Dean suggested, ending the sentence. "Does make you wonder, doesn't it? Kinda, always looking over your shoulder?" Like you actually have any experience to speak of here, right, Conway? "That's bollocks," he sympathised.

"Oh fuck no." Caleb said immediately. "She wouldn't--" he started, then stopped. "I don't really want to kind of...entertain any of that. I know I've got heavy feelings for her, I haven't sat down to categorize them. Beyond 'obsessive'. But yeah, if we did get together, would she do that to me? I do wonder if I wouldn't just be waiting for the axe to drop. It happened pretty fuckin fast with her last guy. I just...yeah. Have no fucking idea. It's as messed up in my head as you can possibly get."

Dean chuckled a little at the reference to 'obsessive' - it was refreshing and strangely liberating to know that he wasn't the only one - though he then reminded himself very firmly that the girl he was obsessing about was officially dead. He wasn't allowed to relate - or else he'd be taking himself to probably a whole new level of creepy in other people's eyes. "Don't have any answers for you, mate. But it sounds fucked up."

"Yeah, I don't think there are answers." Caleb said, sighing. "Oh well." then he chuckled. "And that's only one of my screaming, insane issues." he added. But he didn't go into the others, because he'd done enough bitching for one day, hadn't he? He thought so.

Dean half smiled and raised an eyebrow, still concentrating on Caleb, looking at him as they walked. "There's more? Shit, I'd think that would be enough for anyone to deal with," Dean told him, aware that at least one of the other issues was the suicide thing. And he knew he'd said that he didn't listen to rumours and gossip and generally he didn't, but this time...

"You'd think." Caleb said. "Whatever, though." he added. He was quiet for a long moment, some other things rising to the surface of his mind, mostly along the lines of Math and his vampire trouble. "Hey, Dean." he said. "Look, I know you said you're not going to see that girl again, and it's none of my fucking business, but...be careful, alright? You look like you were out all night last night and I know I have the urge to do the same thing when I've got a head full of bullshit, but...this town..." he trailed off, not sure how much of a warning he should give, but feeling like he had to give it.

"Isn't entirely safe. You think I don't know that?" he asked, pointedly, stopping where he was. He knew it and he still knew it - yesterday didn't change anything. She'd still been shot, she'd still been killed, that still underlay everything. And even before then, he'd known it - it just hadn't been so close to home, so in his face.

When Dean stopped, so did Caleb, and he looked at the guy, feeling bad that he'd said anything, but not actually stopping himself from finishing. "I know you do." he said. "But there are other things out there. Other things that aren't like what happened to Lullaby. And...lately shit seems to be continually spiralling and getting worse, and I wouldn't want to see you caught by it." Which was vague and he knew it and he just hoped he didn't come off as as much of an asshole as he felt like.

he realised what the guy was getting at and one corner of his mouth curled upwards giving his face a sardonically amused expression. "Don't worry about all that - I'm very aware of what's out there," he promised, wondering at that. So, this guy knew about the rest of it. Why was he not surprised? Probably because there seemed to be a lot of people here who knew - then again, that was why he'd been sent here, wasn't it? To be with people who knew.

Well at least he wasn't a crazy asshole. Caleb nodded. "...good then." he said. Which was as good as it was going to get there. He didn't know what else to say on that score. If the guy knew, then he knew, and he wasn't his mother or anything. So...yeah. It did feel kind of nice though, to know someone else who understood things.

Dean paused, then realised they weren't going to have a mass heart to heart about weird shit or anything. Which he was grateful for, because buzzing in the front of his mind about all of that was 'know anything about Fades?' Which, er, no. So he started them walking again, turning the corner and seeing the store they were headed for up ahead.

Caleb followed along, not saying anything either. Talk over, it felt like. They'd get the phone, probably smalltalk a bit more, and go back to school. But, maybe at some other point the could talk again, who knew. It was something, he supposed. And even if he hadn't gotten any closer to figuring anything out, Caleb did feel the tiniest bit better having at least told someone about the Leija thing. So there'd be one person in school that maybe knew the truth on that.