uneasy understanding

who: caleb and dean
where: lullaby's parent's house
when: after dark

Caleb and Dean had parked a little around the block, which was alright, and not that far of a walk to the empty house. The first thing that Caleb noticed as they came up on it though was that the sidewalk wasn't shoveled. The driveway wasn't done either, and sure, maybe the place was pitch fucking black because everyone was asleep, but if they were home? They'd become shut-ins. The porch wasn't any better, and after stopping and assessing the place as they stood and stared at it, Caleb sighed. "...probably our best bet is to trudge through the snow in the back yard. Make it less obvious." he suggested.

The significance of the presence of snow was less immediately obvious to Dean. He was getting used to shoveling snow and seeing it shoveled, but he hadn't reached the point where a blanket coverage shouted to him that there was a problem, and so he nodded, pulling his hat on over his hair against the cold. "Sure, works for me," he agreed, preparing to get out of the car, already on edge and nervous about this whole thing.

Caleb got out of the vehicle, sighing and not thinking that crawling through snow was a keen thing to do just now, but whatever, there wasn't a whole lot of choice to hit up. So, he started them off, figuring he was kind of in charge of this particular mission. It was more his thing, really, he guessed. Dean was more the straight laced type. If one didn't count the whole badass-with-a-firearm thing. And really, he'd only killed the one guy, right? Sure. Whatever. The neighbors had their shit shoveled, so he walked mostly through their drive, then started to veer over a bank to get behind Lullaby's house. It was far more difficult than it had a right to be, which didn't help out his mood at the moment. He just kept telling himself that they were there for a good reason. Getting up to the back door, he thought about kicking it in, but then just tried the knob. Which...well, was open. Right. Well that was easy. He shrugged and headed in, having to struggle with the door for a moment to get it open past the snow built up.

Dean was fine with letting Caleb take the lead. His friend always seemed to give off this air of confidence and assurity that he knew what he was doing, and that he could handle things, and Dean was fine to go with that. It was easier to just follow when you heart was hammering and you were trying to run through your mind all the excuses and explanations you were going to come out with when you were caught. If, Dean told himself. If. But still, it was better to be prepared for the worst. Always better to be prepared.

Once inside, Caleb shut the door, and tugged a glove off and tried to feel if it was as cold inside as it was outside. Which it wasn't, so that was cool. The house felt empty though. He didn't quite know what it was, glancing around in the dim light from outside, but it was just a feeling. One of those gut-things that you couldn't properly explain without sounding like a moron.

Dean shut the door quietly behind them, and hesitated for a moment, telling himself that they'd got this far and he needed to focus now. He'd been to Thia's house a few times when she was alive, and he needed to be focused to remember the layout, or they were going to end up wandering into somewhere they didn't want to be. But, at least the house was dark - which meant her mom was either out, or they were asleep. It was early to be asleep, but that was always a possibility, he knew. He was so busy trying to focus on not getting them caught that he didn't notice the empty feeling of the house. "This way," he told Caleb, quietly, taking the lead as he started to move towards the kitchen door, stepping quietly.

Caleb followed, looking around for other signs of life. There really didn't seem to be much though. Like there weren't dirty dishes in the sink, no real signs of use in the kitchen at all when they got in there. "...Dean I'm not entirely sure anyone's even here...or that anyone's been here for a while." he said. Let's see, a couple months maybe? Would I stick around in a house where my kid who was brutally murdered grew up in? he asked himself. Then abruptly decided he needed to not put himself into the shoes of anyone who actually bred. He wasn't having children. End of story.

Dean had been going to tell Caleb to keep his voice down, when he heard what the guy was saying and stopped instead, turning back to him in the dark. "Maybe they're just out, or went away for the weekend or something," he said, still lowering his voice, just in case. God, if they were out, that would make all this so much easier. So much less risk of getting caught. He really, really didn't want to get caught.

"...who doesn't keep their walk, drive or porch shoveled in the middle of the winter?" Caleb posed. "And look around. Seriously, man. I don't think anyone's around. I think they're gone, and they've been gone." He paused to swipe his fingertips over the counter he was nearest, and it left streaks on the top. "...either Lullaby's parents are going for world dust-records or..." They're not fucking here.

"But, if they'd gone away for a few days..." Dean protested, his gut really not liking the idea that Thia's parents had up and left. There wasn't a whole lot of rational behind that - which was strange for the boy who reasoned out near enough everything he did - but it was there, a branch of his usual defensiveness about anything that involved his girlfriend.

Caleb looked over. "...Maybe, but I don't think shit builds up that fast, does it?" he asked rhetorically. "Maybe--" he started then abruptly stopped, because he caught onto the fact that his next thought was not a pleasant one, and he didn't necessarily want to share it. Maybe at one time he would have, but not anymore. So yeah, he shut the fuck up. "Nevermind. Where are the hearing aids supposed to be?" he asked instead.

Dean shrugged, going with the change of subject because he really didn't want to think any more about the fact that Thia's parents might have just... gone. "Erm - I dunno. We got her spare set before, and they were in her room, so... I dunno. I thought her room again would be a good place to start." He'd hoped that it would just be a case of getting in, finding them immediately, and getting back out again, nice and quick. He hadn't exactly planned any further than that.

"...sure. You want to do that, and I'll kind of...check the rest of the house?" Caleb suggested lightly. Really, what he wanted to do was sweep through really fast just in case there were corpses. Where his mind had gone was maybe her dad hadn't only had her taken out. Maybe he'd come back later to take out Lullaby's mom and stepdad as well. Who knew. But yeah, so not sharing that.

Dean hesitated, still clinging to the idea that maybe they were asleep in bed or something, but though he liked to believe the best, Dean also trusted his friends, and wasn't going to blindly believe something despite of them. It was a tough battle of his priorities, but it was one that allowed him to accept the halfway house of them clearly not being home. He didn't need to think on it any further right now. "'Kay," Dean agreed, after a moment or two. "Her room's this way, so..." he trailed off, indicating one direction.

Caleb nodded, noting it. "Right. I'll...look around." he said, not even sure what the fuck he was going to be looking for. He wasn't well versed in hearing aids, after all. Or, none that he noticed. She hadn't had the ones that went behind her ears before, so really they weren't so much noticeable all the time. Either way, he started off to look through rooms, hoping the lack of the scent of decay was a good thing.

Dean watched Caleb head off, and then turned for Thia's room, leaving doors open as he went. It was easier to listen out for movement that way, and in the silence of the house, he could hear most things. He paused for a moment outside Thia's room, before walking in. In the mostly darkness, it looked different, yet entirely the same as it had done before - both before her death and afterwards, when he'd come here with her. "See," he whispered to himself as he headed for her bedside table. "They've not gone anywhere - they wouldn't have left everything behind if they had done." He took comfort in the thought as he began to carefully and systematically look through her room for any hearing aids.

Caleb wandered the rest of the house, ducking his head into rooms quicklike first just to make sure it was okay, and it turned out it was. "...Clear." he called out for Dean, so he'd know they were alone. Then he started to think about where he'd put spare hearing aids if he was a parent. Which again wasn't easy for him to do, because he flat out didn't know. So he went through the bathroom, and rifled through drawers, noticing when he was in the master bedroom that it looked like people had packed in a hurry then fucked off. Which was a slightly better idea than the scenario of Lullaby's psycho old man showing up and killing them in their beds.

Dean heard the call and cringed somewhat, despite himself. Sure, they were alone, the house was empty, the neighbours wouldn't have been able to hear that call, but still - they'd broken in, and he couldn't shift that guilt and nervousness about being caught, no matter how irrational it had turned out to be. Finding nothing, he moved to her closet to search there, running his hands lightly over clothes he remembered her wearing. Summer seemed so long ago now. Another lifetime, rather than just another season.

Caleb dug through more shit, just kind of trying in a half assed way to keep things in order while not missing anything. He opened up a jewelry box that had a whole lot of jewelry in it, though most of it was junk upon first glance. About the only thing worth anything was a diamond ring, with a ruby-set wedding band. He left that where it was, though. It wasn't what they were looking for, and even if he did steal it, which he'd probably feel a little bad about, he wouldn't know where to fence it. So, whatever.

Dean crouched in the bottom of the closet, looking for anything that might be storage. Old things would be stored, wouldn't they? Towards one side, he found a box which looked promising and he sat down on the floor of the closet - so much different to his closet at home, he couldn't help but make the comparison - and flipped the lid in the semi-darkness. Letters, the box was filled with letters. He pulled one out at random, leaning to angle it towards the light, curious to see who they were from, sure that she wouldn't mind - it wasn't like he had any intention of reading them. He couldn't see though, so he stood and headed for the window, hoping to get enough light to find out.

Caleb looked through some more drawers, but didn't find anything promising. So, he went to find Dean, pausing in the doorframe of Lullaby's room, feeling kind of oddly like he didn't belong in there. He did see Dean over by the window, though. "Find something?" he asked.

Dean had heard Caleb coming and he looked up almost before the guy started speaking. "No hearing aids so far, just this box of letters," he explained, feeling guilty for being caught with them, for all that he'd decided that Thia wouldn't mind. It was different with an audience. Like being caught reading someone's diary. He pushed the letter back into the box he was still holding. "Just being nosey," he added, cringing a little.

"I don't think I've ever been written to in my entire life." Caleb said, not finding anything weird about what Dean was up to. But then again, they'd both established just a little bit of Stalker in them so whatever. "Definitely not enough to have an entire box full." he still didn't enter the room. "Who're they from?" he asked curiously, not sure if Dean would tell him or not. It wasn't his business, after all.

"Me neither - emails don't count," Dean said. Emails he got all the time, but actual, handwritten letters? No, he'd never got that. He leaned against the wall a little as he pulled the letter back out of the box again. It was slightly crumpled now from where he'd tried to hastily stuff it back in again. "Erm, some bloke called Cyril Dr..." he trailed off as he realised what he was looking at, saw how the letter had been signed, rather than how it had been addressed. He'd never known his name before. He did now and the knowledge made him feel like he couldn't breathe for a moment. "They're from her father," he said, his voice quiet even in the silence of the house.

"I don't even really get Emails." Caleb mumbled, then waited to see who the letters were from. When Dean spoke again, Caleb was initially wracking his brain to recall a Cyril at school--and then the bomb got dropped about it being her dad. Huh. So that was the guy's name. Right. He...really didn't know how to react to that. In any way shape or form. "I--" he started, then stopped. "...you okay?"

Dean put the letter back in the box, then closed the lid. Walking back over to the closet, he bent down and slid the box back into exactly the same place it came from, wordlessly. Then he stood and turned back to Caleb. "Yeah, I'm fine," he told the other guy, his voice almost emotionless. This was what you got, he told himself. This was what you got for sticking your nose in, for wandering off the track of what you were meant to be doing. For not focusing. "We were looking for hearing aids," he added. He needed to focus. He needed to focus on the task at hand, finish it and then leave. Everything else could just... not happen. Not be thought about.

Caleb hesitated, but wasn't sure what the right course of action was. "...sure." he said eventually. "Look, it looks in the other room like they packed up and left. They weren't overly neat about it. I didn't find anything, though. I'll keep looking." he promised. He wanted to ask Dean if he was sure he was alright, but he still didn't know how that would be recieved. How it would be dealt with, or anything. If now was the time, or not. He hated not knowing this shit.

"Thanks," Dean said, hearing what Caleb had to say about her parents, but not responding to it. It hit home rather more this time though - the result of the empty hole that had been opened up from seeing those letters, the space where he was really trying not to think about the fact that that bastard had written to her all those years. Trying to to wonder about whether he'd murdered those five people before or after he'd written them. About whether he'd had blood on his hands when he'd been writing to his little girl. He could feel a depth of anger welling up inside, an anger that he didn't want to acknowledge, didn't want to allow to surface, but it was there, he could feel it as he started looking through her drawers, pushing clothes and belongings aside as he looked, trying to focus on paying attention to what he was doing to deny everything else.

Hesitating a few moments longer, Caleb kept his eyes on Dean. "Tell me to fuck off if you need to, but are you sure you're alright?" he finally asked, not able to let it go and just walk away. He really needed to start getting better at that, but so far he sucked at it. He was only good at bailing in certain circumstances, and this didn't fit the profile.

Dean paused, the turned and slumped back against the dresser, looking over at Caleb. "Ever have a time when you just really need a drink? Getting rat-arsed right now really has a certain appeal." He shook his head and straightened up, turning back to start looking through the drawers again. "Doesn't matter - it's just shit. It's always just shit. I'll deal. This is more important."

Caleb leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, eyes still resting on Dean. "Yes, I know exactly what it feels like to want to say fuck it and find the first substance that'll numb everything out." he said honestly. He did. He didn't usually go for it, but he knew the feeling well. "And we'll either find them or we won't. We're not on a time schedule here, we can look around some more, so your shit I find just as important." he added. It wasn't necessarily a hard push to talk or anything, but he figured he'd give an opinion on the matter.

Dean paused in what he was doing, but he didn't look around. "I hate that bastard," he said, quietly, hanging his head a little, though his voice was rock solid for all its volume. "I fucking hate him. For what he did. Not to me - to her. And he wrote to her. It's... Do you think that he'd killed them? All those people? You think he'd killed them already? And then just sat down and written to his daughter? Like it didn't fucking matter? You know, I think he did - I heard him. I heard what he said, what was 'important' to him. He didn't even fucking care about her life, why would he fucking care about anyone else's?" There was more there, he knew, but he was still trying to keep a leash on his anger.

Dean wasn't usually given to long speeches or anything, so when he went into one, Caleb paid attention. He listened, and could understand a little where the guy was coming from. It was sick, really. He didn't pretend to know when the guy had decided immortality was the way to go for his kid, but he also imagined that wasn't quite the point here. "...it's fucked up if he'd killed them by then or not." he offered.

"Right," Dean replied, taking a moment, then going back to looking some more, closing and opening drawers as he went. he didn't understand her father - Cyril. He didn't understand him, and he didn't want to. He didn't want to get inside a head like that. He didn't want to know. He just knew that he would never, ever, ever forgive him for what he'd done. And everything he found just made him hate the man even more. He had no redeeming qualities at all as far as Dean was concerned, and even though he was dead, Dean just couldn't let that go.

Watching Dean keep looking through drawers, Caleb shifted his weight between this feet, unsure again. "Would it help to know he had a pretty grisly end there, when I took care of his corpse?" he asked. He didn't think he'd ever given Dean the specifics there. He didn't generally talk about Melia. But then again he didn't know if Dean would even want to know.

"Not really," Dean admitted with a shrug. "Doesn't change anything he did." Dean just knew he had a tendency to dwell on things, he couldn't let things go. He knew he'd have that deepseated anger and hatred with him for the rest of his life. Like he would now forever hate Andy. All he could do was cover that, distract with everything else in his life, and get on with things. Like looking for hearing aids, and changing the subject - even if it was onto another topic he didn't want to think about. It was just something that was slightly more acceptable to him than actively dwelling on his thoughts about Cyril. "You said they'd left in a hurry. They gone-gone do you think?"

"Couldn't say." Caleb answered, rolling with that subject change. If Dean initiated it, he wasn't going to push right now. "Maybe they'll be back, but I'd say they've been gone for a while. Couple months, maybe." he suggested. "We could probably guess more accurately if we checked the mail. See if there's any there, when it's from, and if there's anything recent. If there isn't, then they've probably got a change of address and shit." he added, thinking it through as he spoke.

Dean didn't answer that, not wanting to put voice to the thought that rose in his head. Really, it didn't involve Caleb, he didn't want to make it so. It would be almost like an invasion of privacy, giving away something about her. Or so it felt to him. Everyone she had is gone. Everyone but him.

Met with silence, Caleb wasn't sure what to do with that. "Did you want me to check?" he asked. He didn't know if he should or not, or if it mattered. If Dean was going to tell Lullaby or not, or...what. And really? He didn't have any fucking input there. Not even a slight bit. He didn't know how to handle the situation in any form, so he wasn't going to pretend he did and offer up advice.

Dean knew that was a good idea. He knew that it should be done. He knew that he had this information now and he had to decide what to do with it. And he knew, it he was being entirely honest wth himself, that Thia was going to get it out of him in the end. And then he'd have to be there for her to help her deal with it. So - he should get himself armed with as much information as possible. "Please," he said, crouching down as he started on the bottom drawer.

Nodding, Caleb started to head off. "I'll just...be back then." he offered before he disappeared down the hall to start looking for mail. He opened up the front door, and in spilled a whole ton of mail, that had been put in throught he slot in the screen. sitting down, he pulled it over and then shut the door again, angling himself so he could look at the envelopes in the light from the window. This was going to be fun.

Dean felt towards the back of the drawer, ignoring Caleb as he left the room. In the back of his mind, he knew he was being a bad friend. Caleb had been taking a real risk coming here with him - and he'd been willing to risk more. And here was Dean, just ignoring him for the most part. He should be being a better friend. But he was just having issues right now. God, hell - he always seemed to be having issues. Still, that wasn't Caleb's fault and he should remember that. As he lectured himself on the ways and rules of friendship, his hand closed on a fist-sized plastic box. He pulled it out and looked at it - it definitely looked promising. Older, and medical-looking to his eyes in the semi-dark. He flipped it open and, for once, smiled as he saw the hearing aids inside. They didn't look like the ones she'd been wearing - they were big, bulky - the kind you wrapped over the top of your ears. But there was no mistaking what they were. He pushed the drawer closed and, pocketing the box, went to seek out Caleb.

Caleb glanced up as Dean showed, still going through mail. "...well, I found a note from the postal service that said that they were going to stop delivering unless the snow was cleaned up." he said. "Other than that, which was dated two weeks ago, mail kept coming, so who knows." He didn't know what that meant. Maybe they'd picked up and left and just...left. Or maybe they were in hiding. He didn't know and couldn't even venture a guess. Hell, he didn't want to venture a guess.

Dean sat down opposite Caleb and randomly picked up a letter, looking at the post mark on it, the date. "Right," he said, nodding slightly. He dropped the letter, picked up another, then let his hand drop into his lap as he looked at Caleb. "Look, mate - I'm sorry for back there. I shouldn't have just... closed down on you," he said, since he knew he had done. He'd ranted, then he'd just shut down. Way to confuse with behaviour.

Caleb looked vaguely surprised. "...It's okay." he said, not sure where the apology had come from. He hadn't felt like he'd needed one, or been owed one. "We're in the house of your departed girlfriend's parents, and you found a box of letters from her old man who killed her--and you killed. It's kind of hitting levels of fucked up that you only get in daytime television. So...you're in the clear."

Dean shrugged. "Still - shouldn't have taken it out on you," he said. He then finally looked at the letter he was still holding. It looked like a bill - and a fairly threatening one at that. All stamped with 'urgent' and other warning messages. "I'm going to have to tell her her parents are gone." And man, did he not sound at all happy about that.

Caleb sat back a little, resting on his hand behind him. "Does she really need to know?" he asked. "I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what will it achieve for her to know that?" It wasn't like they knew where they'd gone. If they were even still alive, or what. And again, the idea that they could have been killed by her dad crossed his mind, he just kept it to himself.

Dean rolled his eyes and chuckled slightly, though there was only the barest hint of humour in that. "Mate - you don't get it. It's not what she 'needs to know' - it's what I'll have to tell her. It's... She's not an easy person to lie to. Especially when something's bugging. I don't want to tell her, but she'll know something's wrong and she won't stop until I do."

"And I don't guess that you could make up something convincing, especially if she knows where you were tonight in the first place." Caleb said. "Technically, you don't know shit beyond the fact that they aren't currently here. Maybe they went someplace else to get away from the reminders or whatever." he said, trying to take the hopeful track for Dean's sake, even if his own mind had gone straight for murder.

Dean shrugged again. "I'm not good at lying to her. And with truth - it's between telling her her parents have left, or blaming it all on finding those letters. I just... It doesn't feel like a great choice, y'know?"

"Maybe tell her both, and she'll be too distracted with them to be overly focusing on one?" Caleb suggested, feeling like that was a little lame of him, but he honestly didn't know what else to suggest. He wasn't good at this sort of thing, and he definitely didn't have a relationship like Dean's to compare it to. The idea that he couldn't just say 'hey, I'm not fucking talking about this, end of story' was a bit on the alien side.

Dean gave Caleb a Look that stated that the other guy really didn't get it. "mate - all that would do would upset her more. Give her a reminder of her dad and tell her her mum and step-dad have gone?" He shook his head. "I'm not that much of a shit. She'll ask about her mum and step-dad anyway. She knows I've been here tonight, so she's going to want to know. And she can see when things are bothering me, so she'll be pushing for that as well. So, this house being empty is going to come up, one way or another. The thing about her dad? That doesn't need to come up. I can just deal with that on my own. It's my issue anyhow. It'll only hurt her knowing it's bugging me. Going back over old ground and dragging that all back up again."

Caleb was quiet for a few moments, watching his friend. "What is your issue right now with that anyways? I mean, I get it. You hate him. And you hate everything that's come to pass and all, but...." he trailed off, leaving it blank there. But he didn't quite get the full implication was the thing. And he wanted to know. Even if he wasn't sure Dean would tell him.

There was another shrug from the teen. "That's not issue enough?" he asked. "I try not to think about it. It's not going to go away, but... She wouldn't like it - that I'm carrying that around. She worries. So - I try not to think about it." Just like he tried not to acknowledge that deep well of anger, that bottomless pit that he knew was there. That darkness. He wouldn't go there if he didn't acknowledge it even existed, stayed away from it that much.

Looking away for a moment, Caleb bit back a statement. Maybe you should stop running your life according to her. went through his mind. As much as Caleb desired having a relationship as devoted as Dean and Thia's, he didn't envy this part. Where apparently, even thought processes had to be considered in the light of the other. He just didn't know if that was Dean doing it to himself, or if it was Thia somehow imposing her will. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, either. And Dean was always stupidly defensive about the girl, so his saying anything was only going to go badly.

Faced with silence, Dean carried on talking to fill it, feeling that need. "And I can't live my life always being angry at someone, when there's nothing I can do about that anyway. But I can't just... I'm not good at letting things go. So I - I don't think about them. Only, sometimes - like the letters, it brought that back. I mean, none of it's gone away. I just don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Get on with my life that way. So, yeah - the issue's what it always has been. It's just... more there right now, that's all."

"What about facing up to it?" Caleb asked. "Burying shit honestly hasn't worked out so well for me. Mostly it just fucks everything up in my life. Can't say that I have the options you do. I don't have many people to talk to about shit, and well....I'm not really given to it. But you have more people around than I do. As stupid as this sounds, of the two of us, you're the people person. I'm just not sure 'coping' is really just burying shit til you don't think about it anymore."

"Facing up to what? There's no way of dealing with this that will make it 'okay', Caleb," Dean told his friend. "I'm never going to get over what he did to her. Or what that means. I don't know how to just stop... I'll never forgive him. Even if the guy's dead, I'll never forgive him. There's no changing that, but I can't live my life with that on my mind constantly, so I don't see what choice I've got but to bury it. Talking to people isn't going to make me stop hating him. It'll just make that worse. It'll just feed it."

Caleb paused for a moment, eyeing Dean. "...so be okay with hating him. This may be the stupid question, but is that not on the table here? Just...accepting that you hate him? That you've got a right to, and it's all valid?" he continued. "Why does it have to be buried if it's justified? Can't you just...own it?"

Dean twitched at that. "Not a good idea," he said, denying that option entirely. "I get sort of... single minded about things. All or nothing? And I don't want that 'all' to be hate. Really don't want to open that door," he said, not really being able to explain himself, but knowing what he meant. It all came down to the things he was afraid of. His fear of what he had the potential to become. What he would never become because he wouldn't allow himself to do certain things.

"It wouldn't have to be on your mind every second of every day, or buried forever. I get the all or nothing thing, I'm kind of like that myself. I just...you've got good reason to hate the son of a bitch, and maybe getting used to that is I don't know. Better for you." He said, stumbling through that because he didn't know, really. He just knew everything he tended to bury came back late to bite him.

"It's not just him though. I have this, like, list," Dean admitted. "He's just the one who deserves to be on it most. So, yeah, it wouldn't just be him. And, really - it's better for everyone if I just... don't. I'm not the most reasonable of people at times. And if I made that okay? It wouldn't help at all. This way, I keep me under control."

"Who else makes the list?" Caleb asked, morbidly curious. "And still, there's a lot of people I could do without too, doesn't mean that I'm going to become some rampaging dick about it. Are you thinking you will? If you just....what, face up to the fact that there are certain people you hate because they're fucking bastards that deserve it? That it would probably be fucked up of you not to hate?"

"Not everyone deserves it," Dean told him. "Doesn't make a difference whether they deserve it or not. Even I know I'm petty as fuck at times. He deserves to be on there. Andy does. The others? Not so much. They've done something, or said something. Like... Herbert. This guy at school? Made some throwaway comment last summer that upset Thia. And I still get pissed every time I think about it. I'll never forgive him for that. It was just a damn comment, he probably didn't even realise what he was saying. And part of me knows that I'm being really unfair about the guy. And the rest of me doesn't give a fuck. Only, I worry about that - that whole not giving a fuck? that whole 'wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire' thing. Because, that's screwed - and I won't be that guy. And I would be, if I let myself be. I really would be a complete and utter rampaging dick, yeah," Dean said, actually believing that about himself, whether it were actually true or not.

Staring for a moment, Caleb wasn't sure where to even start, there. "So, you get pissed about some asshole who said something. Does it mean you hate him? Is he up there with her old man?" he asked, trying to logic his way through this if he possibly could. He wasn't entirely certain that was possible, but he was going to try. "And I don't believe that about you. I think even if you didn't like someone, you wouldn't leave them to rot, just because." That's more me.

Dean shrugged. "I wouldn't," he said, simply. "But that's not the same as not having that urge to, that thought that you would. I just wouldn't let myself go there." He thunked his head back against the wall. "Everyone has this illusion - you all think I'm a good person. And I'm not. Not inside. Maybe I am outside - what you all see, but that's only because I won't let myself be anything else. And no, he isn't up there with her dad. But yeah, I hate him. If I'm being honest, I hated him from that moment."

"Explain to me how you're not a good person." Caleb requested, not buying that. "From what I see, you are, and the thing about surface is that that's all it is. It doesn't hold up under pressure. So if it was just a front, then it would have shattered a long time ago. It hasn't, so it's got to run deeper than that. Also, just thinking shitty thoughts about people...everyone does that. Everyone. Seriously, that's normal."

Dean looked at him. "Caleb - the only time you've seen me react under pressure when there was someone around that made that list? I killed him," he pointed out. "And the last time there was someone around? Thia had to drag me off him." He shook his head, knowing that both those events could be justified. But that was partly the point - he knew just how good he could get at 'justifying' things to himself. "How deep do things have to run? How bad do things have to get? I don't - I don't think about it. I try not to. I just... don't go there. I made decisions, about what I was and wasn't going to be. And I'm going to stick to those." he looked around them in the dark and laughed slightly. "Just... I guess that breaking the law doesn't come into that. That's fucked, isn't it? You know - before I came here, I was screwed up. Lost my way, whatever. Never broke the law though - not, well, yeah, I did - but not in any big big way. Since then? It's like... I'm being a better person. I'm definitely in a better place. But, laws? Not such a big thing anymore." Life was weird like that.

"Yeah, and killing the asshole who cut you down and was going to take your girlfriend against her will really doesn't count as a situation that didn't call for that action." Caleb said, dismissing that. "And...so you got into a fight that you needed to get dragged off of someone. If you're talking about Andy, which I'm assuming you are, then that's justified too. I probably would have done a lot worse to the guy. Maybe now he'll think before he lays a hand on a girl telling him 'no' again. Either way, that makes you justified, not a shitty person." he said firmly. "As for how deep things have to run?" he shrugged one shoulder. "Who knows. I can't say. And we're not here trashing the place or just looking for shit to hawk." Nevermind he'd thought about it for a second with the diamond ring. "We're here because your girlfriend has a disability that she can't get corrected on her own, so, we're helping her out. There's a difference between that and if we were just randomly breaking in to trash shit." Which he'd done earlier in the summer with Leija. They'd trashed Chrissy's place and never got caught for it. He paused for a moment, then continued. "Laws for me are kind of...secondary. Friendly suggestions. They're built for a world that doesn't know about even a quarter of the shit I've seen. They're guidelines for a world I definitely don't live in. So..."

"Yeah, I know those can be justified. But, that's the thing. It's not all physical, or... There are people who I might not actively want to hurt, but, if it came down to it, if I let myself. If I was being... I wouldn't do anything. I'd just stand by." he shook his head. "I can't explain it," he lied. He could explain it, but explaining it would mean facing it. And facing it would mean accepting it, really looking at what he'd always avoided. The words would give it life.

"I always said if I saw Chrissy Chapman dying I wouldn't lift a finger to help her." Caleb shared. "And I know that's true of me. As far as I'm concerned, that bitch got what she deserved. I don't know, though. I don't think that you'd go there. I think there'd be a line. For me...whatever, I'm fucked up, we both know how much. You though, I think you're selling yourself short on shit."

"that's it exactly - there's a line," Dean agreed. "But there's a line because I decided there'd be a line, not because it's naturally there. I work at that line. Some people, it's second nature. Chrissy? I would have helped her because I'd know I should. Because I know it would have been the right thing to do. Some people - not helping would have been something unthinkable for them. And it would have been unthinkable right to their very core. Me? I would have thought it. God, would I have thought it. I just wouldn't have followed through with that thought. So, yeah - that probably makes me a good person. But it also means that I have the abilities not to be. And I want to be a good person. That's why I work at it. But I also know what I'd be if I didn't. And that's what, like, you and Thia and Oz and people can't see. You can't imagine me being that way. But I can, because I know how I can go. I've seen it."

"So you've got a choice what path you take. Everyone's got that choice." Caleb said, even if half the time he didn't feel like he did. Still, that wasn't the case with Dean. Dean wasn't tainted by being a half demon. "When have you seen it?" he asked. "Because if it's still in those times that are justifiable, that doesn't actually count towards your point."

Dean shook his head. "I've seen it because I've lived with me. I know my reactions to things, I know how I feel about things. Hell, mate - you know I'm completely unreasonable at times. I know you notice me doing it. The way I bite your head off about anything to do with Thia. And before you say anything, I know that's not one of those times, I know that. I'm just saying - that's like low level stuff that gets out. And yeah, I get a choice and I've made it. Doesn't mean it's an easy choice though. And doesn't mean I'm not worried that one day that choice'll become too hard to make, y'know? Some days it feels like I'm struggling uphill against my natural instinct. Like it'd just be easier to give that up, stop pretending to be something I'm not, and just turn round and go with it. And I started to. Last couple of years. And, I mean, back in Manchester, there wasn't really any trouble I could get into, 'cept getting kicked out of school, getting into fights, and pissing people off. These days? It's a whole other level."

"These days if you wanted to, you could do real damage." Caleb supplied for him. Which he understood. Having the ability to throw down the hurt was something that you kind of had to keep under wraps, or things wound up very bad, very quickly. "I know about struggling against one's nature." he said after a long silence. He knew because he dealt with it all the time. "I'm predisposed to darkness. Chaos. The only thing I'm truly good at? Tears things up. Literally. My mind automatically finds the worst case and goes with that. Hell. Even when we were coming in here it did. What do you do? Just...not tolerate most people? I know I don't. I just don't have the better nature to want to give a fuck about the masses."

"Only thing I'm truly good at is destroying things as well," Dean pointed out. "That's kinda part of it. Like... If what I'm good at is destruction, and I feel like... the way I feel sometimes. It's not like I want to give a fuck about the masses. It's that I... I wonder what I would be like if I didn't give a fuck about them. So I do. Because I don't want to find out what I'd be like if I didn't," Dean told him, for once being honest, and just hoping that Caleb, with his previous admission, didn't think that Dean was calling him a bad person.

Caleb really didn't take any offense or anything, he just thought about what Dean had to say as he puzzled it out. "Okay. So you're aware you could possibly go darkside, and don't want to. And you do apparently give a fuck about the masses, because you just said you did. The reasoning behind it plays in more to your favor, because it means you've got a less fucked headspace to work from from the start. I think I can get that. I just don't see why you can't subjectively apply things. Like with Lullaby's dad." he said.

Dean fell quiet for a long time, sitting there in the dark, his arms resting loosely on pulled up knees. "...Because I like it," he admitted, eventually. "That feeling. Hating someone that much? And that's fucked up. Really, really fucked up." He'd never admitted that before - never come even close to admitting it. And even then it wasn't all of it. Wasn't an admission that he felt a rush, letting those feelings bubble up. That it made him feel strong, like he could take on anything. That strength of sheer hatred that would carry him through any problem, justify absolutely anything, like the crest of a wave cutting through the world. He wouldn't have to care about anything else if he let that out. And he would have to let it out. He couldn't just limit it to one person, once it was loose.

That shut Caleb up for a few moments, though it wasn't necessarily out of shock or anything--even if he was pretty fucking thrown by the admission. Mostly it was because he was milling that over, trying to see the angles on it. He was getting the impression that Dean's particular brand of 'Dark' was closer to the surface than he'd thought. So that was something to take note of, that was for certain. "...what do you like about it? Just that feeling of hatred and anger in general? Or the focus you can narrow down on one person?" he asked. "What is it in hating someone that much that draws you?"

"It's not narrow," Dean said, feeling like he was losing, just talking about this subject, but yet talking still because, for once, he wasn't immediately being shut down with responses of 'you'd never be like that'. For once, he wasn't being written off. Part of him really wished he was still being written off. "It's... powerful. Like I could do anything. I could just let go. Stop being me. And everything would be easy. I could say anything, and do anything. Just not care." Sometimes, god, sometimes the idea of 'not caring' was so tempting. Not caring about what people thought of him. Not caring about the consequences. Not caring about the reactions. Not caring about anything. He spent so much of his life thinking about angles, that to let that go, to just give up. Yeah, there was a definite attraction there. He just knew better than that.

"Would that be what ran you if you did let go?" Caleb asked. "If you decided fuck it, you weren't going to care anymore, would it be everything across the board? I...for me, I don't care about the majority of things. People, places...I just don't care. I don't give a fuck about what anyone says or does, in regards to me or other people. The only things I do give a damn about are select people. My brothers. You. Nic. I'd go out of my way for Thia. But really, beyond that?" he shook his head. "Not really. And I haven't gone off the rails yet. Or, I guess, you could say that I have, it just resulted in my stay in the psych ward, not some great freedom. What it's like is being in a dark place, pretty much all the time, and there ain't shit you can do about it. And nothing gets better. And even when you've got something good? You know it's not going to last."

"If you weren't there yet, but you knew that's where you'd end up - would you try to avoid it?" Dean asked. He sighed slightly and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "No, for me - it wouldn't be like that. I've got select people too. My family, Oz, Thia, you... Couple of other people. And even if the rest of the world could go jump... I couldn't be like you. I couldn't care what anyone else said, or did. Not if it came down to those select people. In regards to me? Sure. But them? No fucking way. You hurt my friends and..." Dean broke off, feeling that rising just talking about it. The one thing he could never do, for all his 'stop caring', would be to stop caring about the people he loved, the people who were important to him. What would change would be the level of his reaction. "I already over react to things. Most things. I don't need to give myself free rein in that."

"I don't think I ever really had a choice." Caleb said honestly. "That's just...how I am. And how I'm going to be. I can work against it better in regards to other people. Like you were saying, the whole...don't fuck with my friends thing. I can dredge up positive sorts of sentiments for them. I just can't quite for myself." Then he was quiet a moment. "Where do you think your over reactions would take you if you stopped caring?"

Dean shook his head again. "I don't want to ever find out," he admitted. "Bad places. Really fucking bad places."

"Seriously, if you had to give me an honest assessment, what are we talking here? How far off the reservation are you thinking?" Caleb asked. "Serious darkside and homicide? Just fucking people up enough that they're never going to cross you again without thinking about pissing blood?"

"Thia and I locked the gun up in a cabinet in the orphanage," Dean admitted, which both was and wasn't an answer to that question. "She's got the key. I don't have one. It's better that way." Really better that way. He wondered if she'd noticed that sometimes he still reached for it. Far too much for his liking, he did that. He was screwed. He was sure he was screwed.

Silence descended for a few long moments as Caleb thought about that. "That's not really an answer." he said. "And so what happens if shit goes bad again? She gets to decide if you get to defend yourself or not? You get it and go off the deep end for some reason, with the way you're currently talking?"

"If shit goes bad, and I need it, then she can get it. And she can get it to me. And if shit doesn't go bad? Then I don't have it. Mate, I know that I needed it that night. But I'd been carrying all the time outside of school before then. And don't give me that whole 'but you never used it' crap. Since I got back? I keep checking for it. Whenever's there anything - and anything that's nothing. It's just... Habit's a dangerous thing. But, okay - honest assessment? Either? Both? Both probably - if we're talking worst case." Dean paused, hating this conversation more and more, wishing he'd just shut himself up, but he was talking now. Miserable, but talking. "I found out that I'm going to be able to kill people - with what I can do? Never mind the gun. Just by thinking it." He couldn't remember if he'd ever told Caleb that.

Caleb realized that in light of the conversation they were having, he really shouldn't have had the immediate reaction of: That's incredibly useful and fucking terrifying. Caleb already had a healthy fear of his friend knowing how goddamn good a shot he was. The whole 'kill people with the force' bullshit added a new dimension. Instead of that, he gave over a comparison. "It's hard for me not to kill shit with what I can do. I don't really know how to not shred things with it. And it doesn't take much." he offered. "So honest assessment, you think you'd start killing people. ...is that just if you let yourself go, or is it connected with the gun?" Because things seemed like they'd gotten connected in there, but he didn't want to assume.

"If I let myself go," Dean told him. Which he wouldn't - he wouldn't let himself go, and Thia wouldn't let him let himself go. She'd never let him fall. She'd promised him that much. Never. This was all just theoretical. It was okay, because it was all just theory. Still, it was theory he'd promised himself he would never say outloud.

"It wouldn't bother you?" Caleb asked. "If you just...started dropping people in your wake because they crossed you? Would your standard remain high for what was a killable offense?" he continued, still thinking it all through, still assessing as he went. He was definitely taking it all seriously. And Dean's place in Caleb's mind was shifting around a bit. It wasn't rising or falling, just shifting.

Dean looked at him as though he was crazy. "Bother me? Of course it would bother me," he exclaimed, almost aghast at the idea that it wouldn't. "Mate, that's why, isn't it? Why I'm not going to go there. Because it 'bothers me'. And it 'bothers' me to think that maybe it wouldn't 'bother' me. If it didn't bother me, then I'd... I'd be half way there already, wouldn't I? Killing people - it didn't bother him, did it?" he asked, meaning Thia's father. He'd been able to kill five people - that they knew of - and arrange the killing of his own daughter. And he'd nearly killed Dean himself, just because the kid had got in the way. And he'd treated it like Dean was just some gnat, some fly to be brushed out of the way. Nothing more than an inconvenience.

The confirmation made Caleb feel a little better. And said a lot about Dean in general. It was in the tone, in the way he looked and sounded at the very idea. "There's your difference." Caleb said. "Even if you let go, and even if you did start pulling Dean-Justice out on everyone's ass, you'd feel bad about it. And you say you're worried that it wouldn't, but you just had a knee-jerk, visceral reaction to the idea. That wasn't something you had to think about, which was your basis for comparison earlier, you said that to be a better person, you had to stop and consider, that it wasn't necessarily natural for you. That was." he explained. "Which says something in itself, and you should keep it in mind. I'm not saying it derails your arguments, or anything, I don't think it does. Just that it's something to consider in there. Until that dies? You're in better shape than you might think you are. I mean, what happened last time? When it was a perfectly fucking legitimate shooting? You up and skipped the country, to get away and deal. And you were gone for a while. I don't think someone having that type of reaction is going to slip without some pretty great force behind it, or a whole lot of them piled on. But do you see what I mean at all there?"

Dean nodded, knowing the truth of that. It didn't completely quell his inner fears, but he could appreciate what Caleb was saying. "People change," he said, not denying what Caleb had said, but offering another path. "What happens, in life - your experiences. They change you. What I did - it changed me. Maybe not that much, but I'm not the bloke I was when I first came here. I just... Some nights I lay there and I can see the road, y'know. Like steps on it, and that's where it leads. You say it'd take a whole lot of them piled on - but look what we've been through, in just a couple of months. if things keep coming like that... Then we've got a pile. I'm not saying it's a given, but I know it's a possibility. I have to know it's a possibility - that way I can stop it. That way I'm not going to wake up one morning in a few years time and not recognise myself." Dean's voice was steady, serious. he meant what he was saying, and he'd clearly thought about it. Probably too much.

"Experience does change you, that's a given. But it doesn't all have to point in that direction." Caleb said. "Like...some things that have happened with me...fuck, just stitching you and Thia up. You know what that taught me? That I'm not capable of torture. That's what I pulled away from that whole experience. Which was something I didn't know about myself until then. And I saw the other end of what...of what my heritage means. What I'm definitely not, and I'm still haunted by it. That taught me that I'm never going to go there. Never going to hit that far down. And while I know I keep slipping, I keep getting further and further away from shit...I'm aware there's stop points. I'm pretty sure you could find some if you looked. Like you? Are never going to be her old man. I don't think you'd ever be able to become him. Hold onto that. You sound like you need something to really latch onto, some clear, harsh reminder. Mine, I couldn't scrub the fuck out of my brain if I tried, and trust me, if I had the option? I'd take it. But still..."

"I have Thia to hold onto," Dean told him. "We're both looking out for each other. She said she won't let me fall that far - though honestly? I don't think she ever believes she'll have to do anything with that." He shrugged. "Then again, I'm watching out for her because she thinks she could fall as well. And I don't think she could. It would be... I know her. She's one of the sweetest people I've ever met. But she's afraid she could go darkside, just because of what she is now. Like it makes her tainted or something."

Caleb glanced away for a moment at Dean mentioning he had Thia for that. His own failsafe on that score failed him. Pretty fucking spectacularly, even. So he didn't know if that was something Dean should rely on. Especially if what he said was true, that she didn't believe Dean would go there. "...do you trust her to really be able to hold up her end of the bargain?" he asked quietly in the end. He didn't make a comment on whether or not he thought she could wind up going all evil on everyone. He knew what it was like to doubt who you were because of what you were.

"Always," Dean said, without missing a beat, or having to think about that. He contemplated his friend, the way that comment had been said. "You think she wouldn't be able to, if it came down to it?" he asked, figuring that was the reason.

Caleb knew he needed to tread carefully here. So he thought out his answer before he gave it. "Less that so much as I was relying on someone to pull me out of the dark before, and....well. You know how things went with Leija. She got off on it instead. It...went about as sideways as it possibly could, and when that happened, when the rug got pulled out that hard..." he sighed. "That's when I had to be brought to a fucking demon bar to kick me out of it. Not pretty, all said. I don't want to inflict my own trust issues on you, though. And I know you and Thia are far fucking different than Leija and I were." He paused. "If she doesn't believe you'd go that far, do you think she'll be able to stop it either way?"

"No, we're not you and Leija," Dean agreed, keeping his voice even. He'd been talking about how defensive he got, so he was really aware of that right now and could counter his reactions so that things didn't get fucked because of them. There might not be another time he ever talked about this, or ever got someone to take him seriously about it. He wanted that, for all he hated it at the same time. It was a strange duality. "And, we've already talked about it. The whole... getting off on things. And not. And... she doesn't. We talk about things a lot. I know I can rely on her. And she's already shown she can be there. She's already been there for me so much."

Caleb still wasn't sold on the idea, but he could see Dean was. Fighting him on it was only going to equate badness, so he nodded. "Then I'm glad you've got her." he said instead, which was the truth. If things panned out, then good. Maybe Dean had just picked the right one. Gotten the correct person to enter his life to act in that capacity for him. Maybe he was less karmically fucked than Caleb was and therefore that paid off. Who the hell knew.

Dean smiled a little, looking slightly happier and more relaxed with the move. "Yeah, me too," he said, sounding it as well.

Caleb noted the smile, and he'd seen it before. Dean just did that sometimes, when he was thinking about the girl in question. Sometimes, it was the only real times he'd seen the guy smile. Like she really was a bright point that could outshine the shadows. Or maybe you're just getting poetic about shit because you know you don't have it and likely never will. the back of his mind put in. "Is it still there?" he asked, kind of abruptly, not having cleared the question with his mind before he asked it. But once it was out there, he needed to finish. "That devotion between you two. What I saw when I was putting you back together."

Dean chuckled slightly. "Yeah, it's still there. What - did you think it would go away, just because we got together?" he asked, actually curious about that. He knew where Caleb stood with relationships and them turning women crazy.

Hesitating before answering, Caleb glanced away again before looking back. "I didn't know." he said honestly, figuring he might as well tell the truth. "Seems like every time I think I've found what I'm looking for, turns out it's just...not. It all crashes, even if I was so sure." he admitted. "So...I didn't know. Thought I'd ask."

"Well, it didn't crash. It hasn't crashed. Really, not much has changed. Other than, well... you know. But, she's still my best friend. That part's still the same. It would feel really weird if that changed - like we wouldn't be us anymore," Dean explained. It was the reason there'd been so much talking on the night they'd got together. It would have been so very easy to just throw all that to the winds and go with the pure physical, but it wouldn't have been them.

Frowning a touch, Caleb eyed Dean. "She's still your best friend." he repeated. "That's still there? Intact? It hasn't..." he had just been told that things were the same only with the additions there, but it was a difficult concept for him to really grasp. "How does it work?" he asked. "How do you keep it there?" He realized Dean might not have an answer for him there, but he had to try and get one. It was kind of important.

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "We talk. I guess that's the basis of it. We talk, about everything. Mostly. We make time for it. And yeah, okay, sometimes we get distracted, but we don't let things go. We come back to them. I mean - I've never been like that with anyone. It's not something I ever did before. But we kinda - we worked out what worked for us a while ago now, and we kept that."

"...you know I understand what you're saying? And I still can't actually picture it." Caleb told Dean. "Not really. Says something, doesn't it." he concluded. He supposed that was just something he was going to have to deal with in his life, and he didn't think he was way off on the norm there. He was thinking Dean might be the rarer of the two of them, in this case anyways. Or not. Who knew. Caleb knew he was no expert on it.

"Picture it?" Dean asked, smirking slightly. "Basically - picture it that you have something that you probably wouldn't normally talk about, then picture someone who's gonna get that out of you and not let it go until you talk about it. And then picture that it works the other way round as well. Neither of us lets things go. It's not always easy, but it's better in the long run."

The reciprocal aspect of things was put into place as Dean said that, and Caleb felt less like maybe Lullaby was just running Dean's life. If they were both like that, then it was different. He hadn't spent enough time with her to really get as much of a feel for her as he got from Dean. In the end, he did try to think over what was said. "...sometimes I have things I don't want to talk about, but I know they'll have to be dragged out of me. Just...I don't really have anyone who does that." he said in the end.

"It's horrible at times," Dean admitted. "And painful. For both of us. Like... sometimes things get bad before they get better. You just have to keep talking. It's... it's easier now, actually. I'm not always good with words, and sometimes, well - there's better ways of telling someone something," he explained, not coming right out and saying what those better ways were - he figured that Caleb could work that out for himself.

"Yeah, I can imagine that sometimes it sucks." Caleb said, definitely understanding that. "So does it outweigh then? The bad versus the good...and what's the ratio like there?" he asked, curious. He also didn't need a picture drawn of the whole better ways to tell someone something thing. Right.

"Depends where we are," Dean said, not sure he even really knew the answer to that. "After that night on the beach, it was pretty much all bad. Sometimes it's pretty much all good. We're both kinda still dealing with everything, so... Yeah. I don't really keep records. I just know it feels worth it, at the end of the day." he was still happy with her.

Caleb wasn't sure what to take from that answer. So in the end, he just nodded, and didn't say anything further. He didn't comment, or say that if it wasn't actually a more good than bad, that it didn't seem like it would be worth it to him. Just because Dean had curbed getting overprotective earlier didn't mean he would keep doing so, and he wasn't even trying to diss on things. So, it wasn't worth it to share the thought aloud.

Faced once more with silence, Dean again carried on talking. "She knows me - she knows what I'm like. I keep things in, I don't give opinions, I don't talk about things." Which, really, given that he was talking about things right now, was possibly an odd thing to say, but he was getting better at talking having spent so much time doing it. Still, opening up wasn't something he found easy. "But sometimes I need to talk about things. It's what you were saying - sometimes it has to be dragged out of me. And she - she puts other people first. Which means that she'll hold things that are bothering her back. But I don't let her. I know her and I know she does it. So, basically, we both know what each other's like - and we don't let each other get away with it. But, I mean - with everything that's gone on lately, it's not like we're talking about which teacher's given us too much homework, or the prick of a jock that said something in the hallway anymore, is it?"

"I guess I never talked about those kinds of things." Caleb admitted, tone quiet, if thoughtful. "That shit wasn't ever really in the cards for me. It was always life or death, fucked up shit on my mind. But I get what you mean. You're talking about heavy things. If there's something there to discuss that's bugging, it's major, which by definition makes it difficult at best." At least, that was what he was drawing from what Dean was saying. He hoped he had that right.

"Right, exactly. It's like.... I really didn't want to talk about what happened that night. But she made me. She gave me time, and space, but she made it really bloody clear that I only had so much time and space and that I was going to talk to her about it. So, I did. And she listened. And it wasn't easy for me to talk about, and it wasn't easy for her to hear. But she was right - I needed to do it," Dean told him. "But, I mean, it's not always like that. It's not like all our time together is spent sitting round in some kind of mutual therapy session or anything. Sometimes we just talk about really stupid shit, like everyone does."

Caleb was painfully reminded of Leija then. Before everything had gone wrong. When she'd visit in him the ward, and they'd flip between intensely serious to fucking ridiculous and back again. Like there hadn't been a middle ground for the two of them, it was the end of the world, or had no bearing on anything whatsoever. "And you just...trust her. Through everything, and she's there."

"Yes," Dean said, simply. He trusted her implicitly. He had complete faith in her - to not have that simply wouldn't occur to him.

Looking at Dean, Caleb couldn't tell if he envied him intensely, or just felt sorry for the guy. It was a rough call, really. A toss up. On the one hand, if Dean was right? If that blind faith thing he seemed to have going on for the girl panned out? Then he'd be okay. Flat out, he'd probably be fine, or some semblance thereof. And if he wasn't? He'd be fucked. Because he'd never see it coming, and no amount of warning would ever alert him to it either. In the end he nodded, accepting Dean's answer. Right then.

There kept being those silences, after Dean said anything about things with Thia. There were too many to really ignore now, though previous times Dean had filled the silences. This time, he looked at Caleb. "Go on then," he said, pointedly. "What? What's with the quiet?"

Not filling said silence immediately, Caleb shrugged one shoulder to buy time. Then he spoke, not sure how to word things. "Just thinking about it all, is all." he said. "I've never had anything like that. Or the kind of...well. Faith you seem to have going on. I always figure it'll crash and burn. And with you, you seem to hold that attitude with everything else--just not with her. Like she's the one point you're solid on. I just..." he dragged his fingers through his hair. "If you're wrong? You're fucked." he said simply. "If you're right, I think you've probably got the best deal going. I was trying to figure out if I envy you or not."

Dean rested his head back against the wall, relaxing a little at Caleb's explanation. "Been a long road," he told the other guy. "I never thought I'd have this. You know I thought that. I thought it would crash and burn if I tried, well... anything. And it didn't. And she - she thought I'd leave. After she died. She thought I'd drift away. And I had to, well - she doesn't think that any more. We work, right now. I mean - I'm not saying that this is it, forever, or anything. I don't even - I don't know what that... feels like, I guess. I mean, I'm not - I'm not thinking that far ahead. But, right now - I couldn't imagine not having her in my life."

"I don't usually think about forever. I don't figure I'll be there, so what's the point in thinking about it?" Caleb asked rhetorically, thinking about what Dean said. "Though if she's what's holding you up, keeping you from dropping into darkness and everything, I hope she's still around, unless you learn to do it yourself." Caleb sort of knew what it was like to not not be able to imagine life without someone in it, but he'd learned pretty goddamn fast what that did entail. Which was a whole lot of filling in emotional holes.

Dean didn't say anything to that. It wasn't something he could really compute on proper terms. He couldn't put his mind to the idea of permanency with her, because the idea of that was far too scary to appreciate, given that he was only sixteen. Yet, at the same time, he couldn't imagine a future without her in it. Which meant that he both could sit there and say that he didn't expect it to last forever, but also build his life and foundations upon always having her there. There were massive holes in it, but they weren't ones Dean could actively bring himself to deal with.

Not having really expected an answer to that, Caleb didn't press the point. He still knew better than to do so with anything Thia-related with Dean, and it wasn't like he wanted to poke holes in things for the guy. Whatever his illusions were built on, it wasn't Caleb's job to crack them. So, he just nodded again. "So you got what you came for." he said instead.

"Yeah - found some in her drawer. They look dead old, but as long as they work, they'll do til her new ones come through," Dean said, patting his pocket with the box in it. "Be good for her to have them again - she's not enjoyed not having them," he added, not adding in that he'd had issues from that as well.

"How bad off is she without them?" Caleb asked. He could imagine that going from being able to hear alright to having really really shitty hearing would suck. Really, losing any senses was up there on his list of shit not to try. He wouldn't openly admit it or anything, but he did pity the girl at least a little. In a world where fucked up shit happened, and as regularly as it had, not being able to hear it coming was something that was kinda fucking terrifying, if you thought about it.

"Near enough deaf? Naturally she has around 20%, which really isn't much. She can't pick up tone or anything, hear people coming. We've been relying on lip reading and sign language. She's been spending a lot of time by herself. It's like... She finds it hard to keep up, and she doesn't want to be a burden, or have to keep asking people what's going on, so she just takes herself out of the loop," Dean explained, not sounding happy about that behaviour.

Caleb definitely caught the unhappy vibe there. "Thus finding her something to help out til she can get new ones." he supplied. "I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't hear. If I had to rely on other people to tell me if anything was coming that I couldn't see yet or whatever." he shared. "But I suppose if you're used to it..." And there was fuck all that could be done about it.

"...It doesn't make it any easier. You just learn what you can and can't cope with," Dean supplied for him. "You look more, you're more aware of what's around you when you're in an environment where you can't rely on your hearing. You're more on edge in places like that, because you down a sense. And yes, you rely on other people more. When you're got people you can rely on." he knew what that felt like. Not all the time, but he had times when he knew exactly what that felt like.

"I suppose. I just know how much I'm on edge anyhow, and how I'm always trying to tune in on as many levels as possible. To be down one, and on a permenant basis...that'd...well, it'd not work for me so well, honestly." Then Caleb paused and looked thoughtful. "...come to think of it, I wonder if that's why you two work well together. Just on a fundamental level, that is. I'd hate something like that because I don't trust people, I don't have anyone I'd feel really that cool relying on all the time, but because both you and she have had hearing issues from the start, you know what it's like to have to. So you're more open to it. Just...that idea of actually giving yourself over like that. In any way."

"You remember the mine?" Dean said, after a moment or two. "Were you at the meeting we had on the side lawn before then? Anyway - they didn't want her to go. Because she couldn't hear very well. It was put across that Thia'd be a liability, like written off, straight away." He shrugged. "I knew she needn't be. All she needed was someone who would be there to bring things to her attention if needed. I guess I can appreciate the importance of needing someone there who you can rely on to be there. Someone who's not going to wander off when you need it most. It's like... I'm sure one of the reasons I always felt comfortable with her was because she does all of the things that people don't do. The little things? Like looking at you when she's talking. Most people don't do that, you know? Most people, they talk, and they're looking at the world around them - it makes it really hard to keep up at times. But, anyway, I know it's important to be there. And she knows I know." He was rambling, he knew - and he wasn't sure he was making any real sense.

Caleb shook his head. "No. I was already in the psych ward by then. I just remember Leija going missing because of it." he told Dean, but listened to the rest of his story. "That makes sense, though. And hey, if you automatically stepped up to be there, it's not any mystery that you two sort of got where you are. That you wound up in a place where you can rely on each other. That was pretty early in things, so...set the precedent high from there, and..." Either things fucked up and you didn't continue, or things went up, he guessed. Or it had for them. He still wasn't sure he could really understand what it might feel like, but he could understand it conceptually.

"Really, it should have just been obvious. People just don't think at times. You know - most of those people who went up there didn't know what they were getting themselves in for. Myself included, by the way. We didn't know what to expect. Just because she couldn't hear properly... She wasn't at that much less of a disadvantage than the rest of us. I mean, hell - her boyfriend at the time went and he was bloody cursed and nobody tried to stop him," Dean pointed out.

Caleb quirked a half smile at the way Dean was already getting in those defensive sorts of statements. "I'm sure no one did know what the fuck they were playing at. I think my brothers were there. I know I wanted them to look for Leija, when she went missing and everything. I guess I never really understood what all of that was about. What was up with it?" he asked.

"Yeah - one of your brothers came round to ours one night, looking for her." Not that he'd known the guy was Caleb's brother at the time. Hell, at the time, he hadn't known Caleb. "And - well, up at the mine, there'd been all these passageways, so we split up into groups to go look down them. Leija's group - the passageway disappeared behind them. Like, completely disappeared. It's still gone - I looked last time I was up there."

"You go back?" Caleb asked, wondering about the wisdom of that bullshit. Because seriously now. "And how did anyone even know to go look at the place? Wasn't it out of town?" he asked, trying to remember the sketchy bits and pieces he'd been told at the time, but he'd had quite a lot going on then. Such as recovering from a suicide attempt and all.

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, we go back - we found a healing pool down our path. I told you about that - the reason that the wounds you stitched up got healed so quickly? That's up there. I mean, it's probably all snowed in at the moment, but yeah." He paused before continuing. "Some of us were having dreams about the place. Looking back, I think it was something to do with being psychic. Like, I know the people who were having dreams, some of them at least I know have psychic abilities. Maybe it was something else. I dunno. But - I know I felt a pull to the place. Enough that one day I found myself walking along the highway. That was before I realised just how bloody far away everything is in this country..."

"Oh yeah...sorry, I remember you saying, I just haven't kept it in mind so much. I wasn't there, so..." So it didn't stand out clearly, being he'd not experienced it. Caleb tried to make a point of noting it now though, it was a good thing to have tucked in the back of one's mind. "And whatever, just because you're from some little pocket-sized country..." he added. "But huh. Dreams and being psychic. Weird." he assessed. He liked it better when there were enemies to just kill.

"Yeah, very. You'd wake up every morning with this drive to go somewhere. And the dreams... You know, generally I don't remember my dreams. But those ones I did. They weren't nice. Really, really not nice. So, yeah - don't want to go through that again." He paused and considered that. "Though: possibly better than shadow demons and vampires," he added, musing on that.

"See I'd rather have something to fight." Caleb said. "All that mystical shit? Dreams, feelings, all that, I don't deal so well. Or I wouldn't, generally. But give me something I can actually take down? Or try to, at the very least? That I can get behind. That I can feel more like I have a say in, like I can do something. Maybe that's fucked up of me, but whatever. It's just how I feel on that score."

"Nobody got hurt with the dreams. Leija's group went missing from the mines, but nobody actually got hurt. I know what you mean about being able to fight things, but there's always that," Dean pointed out.

And Thia died again, if I'm remembering right. Caleb thought, thinking he probably should have thought about that before he'd expressed his opinion on the matter, but it was too late, and Dean hadn't flown off the handle. "That's true. I'm not saying I'd prefer it for the population at large. Just for me, if I had to choose what type of a situation to deal with, it'd be something that I could physically fight off." he clarified.

"I'd prefer just to be left alone - but somehow, I doubt that's an option," Dean observed. "As it's not - I don't know what I prefer. I mean, yeah - when I can actually be doing something. That's better. But weighed up against something where nobody gets hurt? I kinda... I'd feel like a right shit trading that in, y'know? Just to make me feel better."

Caleb chuckled a little. "And there's another little piece that says being a better person isn't always a fight for you." he pointed out absently. "Not me, I just...yeah. Give me something I can fight. I hate the other bullshit. I hate feeling helpless, and I'm not good for anything but tearing things apart." he admitted. Because really, that was the truth as far as he was concerned.

"I hate feeling helpless as well. Just... ask anyone who's ever seen me when there's shit going down and I'm a fucking mess when there's nothing I can do. Didn't say I wouldn't hate it - just that I kinda... It's not all about me, about what I want. I try and make sure I always remember that." In truth, Dean tended to remember it a little too much. He'd make himself miserable if he thought it would do someone he cared about some good. And he didn't even need proof that it would work to go ahead and do that anyway.

"I understand the mentality, I just know I certainly don't share it. I probably should, but..." Caleb sighed. "I don't. I'd say that's the demon half talking but who knows. There are shitty people out there too. Guess I'm one of them. I'd protect people, if I could, I know. I've done it before, just not on a larger scale. When the vamps were here, I just went out with my brother. I just...love the fight. There's something about it that's like nothing else."

Dean knew he didn't feel that way about it. He didn't love the fight just for its own sake - it was something that needed to be done. "I... For me, there's a difference. Like - when we went out that time, took out that nest. There was a difference. When they were attacking us - that was different to the one I sent out to kill. I don't enjoy the fight just because it's a fight, but, if someone brings it to me? If someone, something deserves it? Then they'll get what's coming to them."

Nodding, that didn't surprise Caleb. "No, you didn't look like you enjoyed the fight." he agreed. "I don't know, man. That's something else to keep hold of. You're not there. You're not going to have a good time with it. That's another piece that makes you better than what you were talking about earlier. It's a bigger picture. Because there's a huge difference. You're right, on that. There's a massive difference between enjoying the fight, and just doing something because you have to. It's like night and day. Different animals."

"Yeah, but it's like you said before, isn't it? Like - what you decide needs to be done. Where those lines are, what's justifiable. I know me - I'm pretty bloody good at justifying things to myself once I get going. But yeah, I wouldn't enjoy things." He paused and sighed slightly. "I talked to Thi about that kind of thing and she said that going down that kind of path would destroy me. And if I did it, I'd do it because I thought it was the right thing to do." He shrugged. "She's right - if it needed to be done, I know I'd do it. I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it anyway."

Caleb was quiet for a moment. "There was a reason when you came to me to discuss first degree murder of the girl's dad that I told you I'd just do it and be done with it. That you didn't need to have a hand in it." he said, tone light. "That's what I thought too. That it'd just...break you. Or break something in you, at the very least." I'm not sure yet it hasn't.

"Even if you had, I still would have had a hand in it," Dean told him. Even if he hadn't been there, he would have been the driving force behind it, if they'd done that. "But... I even chickened out of that, didn't I? Shied away from it. And look where that got me. Absolutely fucking nowhere, and nearly killed into the bargain."

Caleb looked at Dean for a long moment. "Dean." he said. "You're a fucking teenager." This, coming from another one, but still. "You're sixteen, in a different country from home, you've got a girlfriend-slash-bestfriend who died on you, and then hung around for you to pick up the pieces for her. Don't even cop to bullshit with 'chickening out'. That's bullshit. People aren't built to deal with this fucked up shit, not unless you're something like me. You aren't. If you seriously were just cut throat 'sure, whatever' about it? Then something would be the matter with you. Seriously the matter. Of course you shied the fuck away from it. It was the idea of actually plotting out another person's demise. You don't exactly learn that shit watching after school specials, now do you?"

Caleb lost Dean on the third sentence there as Dean's face set and he pushed himself up from the sitting position, not really listening to the rest of what Caleb had to say, even though he probably needed to hear it. "We should get going, before one of the neighbours hears something," he said, tightly.

Dean, not a master of sublety. So Caleb really caught the change there, and looked up at his friend as he stood. "What did I say?" he asked. Because he wasn't sure. He just knew he'd fucked something up. Clearly. He just didn't want his point lost because of it.

Dean had to force himself not to just blow it off and leave. To actually turn back to Caleb. "She didn't 'hang round for me to pick up the pieces for her'," he said, his voice strained and very controlled. "You make it sound like... Like she just handed me a whole load of shit and told me to get on with it. Like she offloaded everything onto me. That's bullshit."

"It's also not what I meant." Caleb said. "What I meant, was whether it was her fault or not--and we both know it wasn't--she was a mess and you picked up the pieces. It was a lot of responsibility that you signed up for. That was my point. Did you miss everything I said there, just because you want to take everything to do with her in the worst way possible, or did any of it sink in?" he asked, frowning at Dean.

"It wasn't just me - it wasn't just me there," Dean said, still obsessing on that point. Even though it had, in fact, been mostly him. It shouldn't have been, but that was the way it worked out.

"Still not what I meant, and entirely not the fucking point." Caleb said pushing to his feet. "What I was talking about was you. And how you shouldn't beat yourself up over not plotting out the guy's death because there's no way in hell you should have been prepared to do that in the first place and if you were, then it'd be fucked up. Catch up."

Dean tried to bring himself back round to the conversation again, which he managed, but his hackles were still up and that sounded in his response. "Fine, I shouldn't have known then. Live and learn," he managed, his voice still full of that highly controlled emotion.

Caleb kept his eyes on Dean. "Want to take a swing?" he asked. "Would that make you feel better?" There it was, he supposed. That controlled rage thing. Over an imagined slight, no less. But who the hell knew, maybe Dean would feel better if he got it out of his system. Or maybe it would just make him feel worse. But he said it anyhow, not even sure what he thought Dean might do.

"No," Dean said, taking a step back. It wouldn't make him feel better, and anyway - it wasn't good for him to get into fights. It wouldn't be good for either of them. And he never wanted to have to fight Caleb - though he trusted the guy to keep the fight fair, unless there was a real reason for it. And if there was a real reason for the two of them to fight, then they were both screwed. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, before exhaling slowly, trying to come down from it again. "Sorry," he told his friend, internally lecturing himself on the dangers of over-reacting. He sounded a little more like himself again.

Caleb glanced away, then back again. "Free shot." he invited, though it lacked a vicious edge. He wasn't really trying to bait his friend, he just wanted to know how this was going to play. He wanted to know what he was dealing with, on a grander scale. It was always prudent to be aware of shit like this.

Dean took another deep breath and let it out. "I'm not going to hit you, Caleb. I said I was sorry, I over-reacted. I shouldn't have. So, unless you've got it in for me, just leave it, okay?" he requested, wishing his friend would just drop the subject. Not that Dean could deny that he probably deserved Caleb being pissed at him over this. He should know better. He should trust his friends more. But he tended to see red where Thia was concerned. Always overly defensive.

"I heard you." Caleb said. "And apology accepted. I just can't help but wonder if you'd do better if you just acted on that. Tested that. It might show you where your own lines were." he said, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. And it would show Caleb where Dean's lines were. Where they really were, since he wasn't sure anymore, and that was something he really kind of needed to know.

"This is where my lines are," Dean told him, gesturing at nothing in particular, just showing his hands. "Right here. I'm not going to hit you over something that's just me over-reacting. That's my problem - not yours. I know where my lines are - they're right where I put them. And they're staying there," he said, with steely determination. Instinct didn't matter, he had to be head over heart - that was the way he'd lived his life.

Caleb looked at Dean for a minute, then nodded, and stepped past him. "Alright then." he accepted, figuring now was the time to leave. This had been interesting. He really hadn't expected to go on an errand for Thia and find out his definitions of Dean needed reworking.

Dean didn't have anything else to say to that, and so they walked through the house in silence, back toward the kitchen. They'd gotten what they came for - Dean just wasn't sure what else he'd got on top of that. He felt like someone finally understood him a little better. He just wasn't entirely convinced that that was a good thing.