Starring:
Summary: Matt lets Dajan know that her new puppy bites.
Date It Happened: February 14, 2002
Roommate Confessions
Dajan's Appartment
Overall as a roommate, Matt has been pretty well behaved. Almost, too well behaved, honestly. He's gone through extra efforts to walk on eggshells to keep from slighting Dajan in the least. The garbage is always taken out, and while he hasn't exactly kept the kitchen stocked, regular odd jobs around the city manage to contribute a hot meal every few days.
Tonight is not one of those days, however. Sitting on the steps leading up to Dajan's loft, his eyes are fixed strictly upwards at the slowly filling moon, slow and steady breath coming out as his eyes do not blink. He's been out here for over an hour already, his breath fogging as the temperature drops.
Dajan's been working with a guy about a movie. So she's dragging herself home exhausted. She gets halfway up the steps and spots Matt at the top. "Hey, kiddo, how's it?" she asks, voice carrying an affected Hawaiian accent she hasn't managed to shake yet. This from a day working on Surf Samurai vs. Parasailing Pirates. She has picked up dinner this time; Italian from a place on the way home. It smells great.
Matt doesn't hear her when she speaks. No, his ears and mind are lost to the world. Well… not /this/ world right now, but a world. But the smell, this close and with his nose, he can't ignore it. With a deep breath in, his eyes close at least, breaking from the moon, and he returns to earth. Forcing a smile on his lips, he tilts down to see Dajan and scoots aside out of her way. "Hey, welcome home. Everything go alright?!"
"Oh, sure, yeah," Dajan confirms, realizing she still sounds like a surf bunny. She gives a shake of her head, and sounds like herself again, east coast, when she speaks next. "Whatcha doing out here on the steps? Did you lock yourself out?" She got him a key awhile ago now; since he's her roommate and all, however unofficial.
Matthew shakes his head, and pulls the key up out of his shirt, taking off the piece of yard he's fastened this new necklace out of and holds it in his hand. "No, just… just looking up at it. I'm running out of time, I can feel it already." He pats the step next to him, and with a heavy breath he asks: "Sit, I've… I've got to tell you something I really should have told you before. And… after you hear it you might ask for this back."
Dajan handsprings with her free hand onto the bannister, and over Matt's head, so she ends up sitting perpendicular to him, legs dangling off the landing. "So you're gonna tell me at the full moon you go all out of control?" She hands him a couple plastic utensils. And then a tin with a flat lid. Inside: linguini and meatballs. Lots of garlic, too. Whether she asked for it due to concerns of vampires, Dajan does not offer to address.
The flying Dajan (well, not literally this time) surprises Matt, and he ducks down out of instinct. "I still can't believe you light you take this stuff…" he says to her as he reluctantly accepts the food and utensils. This is his guilty face. "Yeah, that's 'bout it, but… its really more what I've done while I was 'out of control' that I'm talking about. Dajan… there was a reason Jack perked up to me that night."
"The way I look at it, Matt," Dajan says, "I can either take it way seriously and spend my days cowering under my bed, or I can live with the knowledge and continue on about my business, only stressing the stuff when there's a reason to stress it. Life is too short to borrow trouble." But she hears him out, and nods. "Mm. You are a werewolf," she confirms. "And it's not like Teen Wolf where you're in control all the time. You shredded somebody or something in the throes of lunacy, I'm guessing." If Matt's expecting her to be horrified and freak out, he has a long wait. "You didn't do it on purpose, and we have plans to get you tucked away someplace safe this full moon, right?"
"Five somebodies." is Matt's answer, her explanation managing to combat the guilt trip to some degree, but he's still not entirely free of it. He raises his first to his nose and takes two brief sniffs. "Including the last person who tried to help me. I can smell 'em. Each one of 'em just like it was the morning before. I keep trying to wash it off… but it doesn't."
Ouch. Five. And their smell stays with him. Dajan doesn't know exactly what to say to that, but her mission is to help, so she tries. "That's harsh, and that's hard," she confirms, nodding to him as she sets her dinner aside. "But you've got a support group now. Friends who will help you ride out the bad part of the month." Dajan herself does have a cache of silver weapons put away under her bed, even. "…do…do their ghosts talk to you or haunt you?" she asks, frowning worriedly.
"No." Matt answers, shaking his head "I mean, no more than normal I guess. Whatever is normal for something like this?" He's nursing the warmth of the food he's accepted, but he hasn't opened it to start eating. "But no… not really ghost. I don't… I didn't believe in them, to be honest. Now? I'll believe in just about anything."
"Well, that's a relief, at least," Dajan says solemnly. She doesn't know any Ghostbusters who aren't just guys in a movie. And kicking out restive spirits wanting unfinished business finished would feel — odd, to say the least, especially since Matt wasn't in control at the time. "You're the first werewolf I've known outside Hollywood, Matt. And Hollywood gets as much wrong as we get right. So we're both flying by the seat of our pants. But it's healthy to believe just about anything these days, because you never know what might turn up."
She kicks her feet out in front of her, then lets them drop to dangle again. "But I'm not gonna toss you for what happened. From what I can tell, the wolf part is savage when the moon is full, and there's no Matt thinking going on until the sun comes up the next morning…at least, I'm guessing that's how it goes." If he tells her different, she may have to reoconsider. But not so far.
Matt cracks open his food and puts his fork in it. Oddly enough, this conversation is making him… hungry, not the opposite. "Yeah, well, sometimes I get flashes of what happened when I'm sleeping some nights… but no, I don't have any idea what it does when it happens." And then he has to clarify: "Each time, I've tried to stop it, tried to lock myself up or get away from people, chain myself down, one time I even took a bottle of sleeping pills I… I stole from a pharmacy." there is a bit of a hesitation when he admits to the theft. "I'm… I'm really glad for your help, I really am. I just… wanted you to know before it was time. While I still had time to leave town if I had to."
Dajan nods. "So you're concerned that one way or another you're gonna get out, and something is going to happen again." She opens her own plate now that he's opened his. "Okay. There are things we can do to handle that, too, particularly given the Boss is in better spirits now than she was last time you saw her. And she'll be more likely to help."
"I don't think…" Matt answers honestly with a touch of a better mood in his voice. "I don't think I'll get out this time. I think that Oz guy you introduced me to knows what he's doing." A few bites are taken and the look on Matt's face gives away that he's enjoying it. "And yeah, I'm just hoping her idea of helping isn't turning me into a poodle… but at this point? I'm really ready to do whatever it takes to stop it."
"This time of the month, I think she'd probably have something kinder and gentler in mind," Dajan assures. "But I'm sure things will work out. If Cordy says Oz knows his stuff, then he knows his stuff. And if you're worried, I'll watch the Hyperion on the night of the full moon, and keep you out of trouble." Which means stabbing him with a silver blade if need be, though she doesn't say that — there's a certain seriousness in her face and voice that implies she is willing to go to drastic measures if the situation calls for it.
And that? That puts a sobering blanket on the whole affair. Matt does not miss the tells of that sentence in the least, though, he has been seeing those particular tells even where they don't exists. He pokes his food a bit more, eating a bite or two. "Nights." he corrects. "Three of 'em. Not just the one. Day before, Day of, Day after." And though he doesn't address that particular possible circumstance in which he doesn't wake up the next morning… he looks up to Dajan, eye to eye so there isn't any doubt, and accepts it, if necessary.
"Three nights, then," Dajan confirms. "I'll clear my schedule. And don't worry, okay?" She reaches over to clasp his shoulder. She's the helpful one, the one who tries to make people feel better. Even if she does have to keep an eye on him, taking a drastic measure, a final, fatal measure — won't be her first choice but her last resort.
"But nothing's gonna happen right?" Matt says after the hand lands on him, and shakes his head as he puts his attention back on the food. "I'm gonna go down there and get locked up like a good little pup, wake up in the morning, and try and get back to normal. Only thing we need to worry 'bout is Jack." He puts a smile back on his face, though it is as fake as a $3 bill.
