Starring:
Summary: Celestina isn't happy about Dajan bringing home stray animals.
Date It Happened: February 2, 2003
Log Title Woke Up On the Wrong Side Of The Moon
Celestina's Home
The cab took them out of LA, speeding through the night, past the lights of Hollywood. Past the glitz of Beverly Hills, way out into the hills, where a cozy house sits a good way back from the street. It's not a cheap ride by any stretch of the imagination. The meter ticks away, going into the double digits, toward the triple. Dajan doesn't seem troubled.
As they slow down, she turns calmly to Matthew and says, "We're gonna wanna be quiet until the morning. Celestina - that's the boss — is asleep now. And we'll probably want to sneak out for breakfast in the morning just as quietly. Cool?"
To answer her question, Matthew swallows nervously and nods. Then his tongue pokes up out of his mouth to catch a bit of mayo at the corner of his mouth and he swallows again, but this time with a purpose. He was hungry, and didn't wait to start digging into his hard earned dinner. "Quiet I can do." he answers again. "And I promise not to do nuthin' to make your boss mad. Promise" His panic may have died down quite significantly, but he's /really/ needed to go for quite some time and he's still a bit on edge. He hasn't been too talkative on the ride.
"It's okay. She's just a little moody this time of the month." Dajan smirks faintly. "Not so much as you get at yours, but…still. Best to tread lightly. Her patience is thin and her temper short. Still. She's also sort of expecting you, given what you've been through." She pays the cabbie with a generous tip, and leads him to the back door. "Need your shoes off once we get inside the door, okay? She hates shoes on the parquet floors."
"Nuh-uh," Dajan explains, though her expression shows she's more serious than that casual answer might sound. "Nobody was after me," she points out. "Besides which, you can't be easily spooked if you're going to spend more than a few days in LA. Which you found out for yourself." Her voice drops to a whisper. "I'll show you straight to the guest room. You can have a shower and crash. There's even clean pajamas in there if you want to not sleep au naturel. I'm sure you're in need of a little downtime after that."
Shoes in hand, Matt is careful to march slowly and silently on his way to the guest room. "Well, I'm not sure if I'll be staying a few days longer at this rate." He whispers as he settles himself on the side of the door, but before he completely closes it for the night, he manages to slip out one last thanks with his eyes firmly locked on the floor. "Listen, I really appreciate this. Its good to not be completely terrified for one night." A huge dose of shame in his voice, he doesn't wait for a response before he snaps it shut, however.
"No problem, kid," Dajan tells him just as quietly, unsure his ears will pick it up through the door. "Everybody needs that now and again." Dajan parks herself on the sofa down the hall, the better to make sure Matthew doesn't sleepwalk, and to run interference if the kava-kava she gave the Boss wears off early.
Cue the tinkly Final Fantasy "everyone's asleep" music.
Matt cleans up pretty good, honestly. Before werewolves, vampires, fox demons, and other things that want to eat him pre-occupied his mind, he was a teenager worrying about dates, and girls, and… girls. He sure smells a ton better with more than a weeks worth of filth gone down the shower drain, and using nearly half a bar of soap, but that particular odd cologne of his (The one that come in AB- and O+) just won't go away. The clothing, however, did not have the benefit of the shower.
He wakes up early, just a little bit past dawn, and tiptoes back the way he came in just as quietly as he managed to get up them. Like he said earlier, quiet he can do, and quite well. Shoes in hand, he puts an eye out for Dajan. "Hello?" he whispers, and repeats it again. "Good morning?"
Dajan wakes quickly, but not instantly. She levitates over to him, the better not to make any noise. "Here I am," she says in a whisper, coming up the hall, just as quietly. He does clean up okay. Not bad. "Sleep okay?" she asks, still whispering.
Which is where the sound of someone coming through the house can be heard. She's moving through with intent to talk to someone. And not in the happy fun way. Celestina's in a leather miniskirt, and a low-cut red silk top, and a bad attitude. She's stalking as angrily in that direction as a five-foot person can angrily stalk.
Angry stalking feet make Matt's eyes light up when he hears them, and he looks quickly in each direction as if he were about to bolt any second. At the last moment he aborts that plan, rubs the back of his head and quickly stutters out: "Uhm Uhm, uh thanks for letting me use the phone, miss, I'll uhm, uhm… head back to my car and wait for the tow truck."
Dajan shakes her head, and holds up a hand, digging in one of her pockets, then another. Where is it? Where is it? Ah. "No. It's cool. I promised you breakfast, and you're gonna get it. After a minute or two of —" she pauses, as tiny, angry, sexily dressed Celestina stalks into view.
Dajan gives the sort of big, cheerful smile usually found on small children in Japanese animation. "Morning, Boss. Sleep well?"
Celestina looks back. "Yes. I slept surprisingly well." She says, her voice annoyed, as she looks at Dajan. "Imagine that. So, I see we have company." Her eyes focus in on Matt, looking him up and down as she practically exudes "angry'.
"Uhm, yes ma'am." Matt answers back as he tries to flash her that wide teenage doe eyed smile of his, the one that says 'I like helping old ladies cross the street, saying the pledge of allegiance, and keeping of people's lawns.' The fact that she's doing nearly as good a job at intimidating him this morning as the vampire last night (well, not quite, but there are parallels) isn't exactly hidden in his features though. "Nice to meet you." The 'Please don't call the cops' part goes unsaid.
"Yep. We do. As you asked a week and a half ago." She holds up a little digicorder, which plays out a bit of Celestina's good hearted instructions to Dajan. "You said you wanted to help. And you said you wanted me to keep you to that. Just followin' orders, boss." She tilts her head at Matthew. "This's Matt. He's one of our lost pups. The mom and kid are okay, but off the grid at the moment."
Celestina looks annoyed. "Oh, yes. Cause I love to help." She takes a few steps closer to Matthew. "So he's one of our little boy fuzzies. You one of the one that decided you wanted filet o' kid, boy?" she asks, looking back at him. She moves a bit closer.
"No, no, no, no…" Matt answers quickly, taking a reflexive step backwards when she steps forward. His hands go up wide by his face, fingers spread to show he means no harm. "I didn't want to eat that girl, that was the crazy guy. I just wanted some pancakes. Honest." His defense comes out fast and quick. He doesn't bother denying the part about being a little bit of a dog inside.
Dajan takes her own turn to look annoyed. "Right. Because I'd bring a babykiller home with me." She folds her arms. "For cryin' in the mud, Boss," she points out, "The idea was to make sure the good ones were safe and the bad ones …taken care of. I would not bring a mangy maneating monster into your house!" Dajan has come to the conclusion that being submissive around Celestina when she's in this frame of mind is potentially quite dangerous, so treating her like close to an equal is probably the safer method. "The nasty one is the baby-eater. Saw him snatch a baby with my own eyes, but I lost him. Matthew here doesn't know anything about him either, but he needed a safe place to stay for the night." A momentary pause before she adds, "Angel and the Demon of Hokkaido are after him, too, so I doubt the Dingo-Ate-My-Baby guy will stay lost long."
Celestina looks back. "Shh." she says to Dajan. It's quiet, but there is distinctly menace. "Well, I suppose it could be useful, having one around." She looks Matthew up and down again. "If nothing else, we might be able to use it to work a tracking spell and find the other." It. Not him.
There are a few things in both their sentences that strike more than a couple of chords inside Matt, guilty tells practically Christmas Lights in his face, eyes and posture. The largest of which is that Matt hides his hands in his pockets when Dajan gets to the 'Mangy Maneating Monster' bit. "What do you mean 'use it'? I've really had enough people threatening to cut parts of me off since I got into town." His voice really isn't quite angry or serious about the point, more confused and intimidated really.
Dajan pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, but remains silent with her lips thinned. This was why she wanted to get Matthew out and fed before The Boss woke up. She holds up the digicorder, pointedly. Is she going to have to replay her own instructions to get Celestina to listen? "C'mon, Boss. He's just a kid." Even if she does cut her eyes dubiously at him given his sudden change of posture when she goes all alliterative on the flaws of lyncanthropic meal plans. "I can describe the big bad, you know. I did get a good look at him." She, on the other hand, continues with the humanizing pronouns.
Celestina smirks a bit. "If I want to cut bits off you, boy, I'll cut bits off you." There doesn't sound to be any doubt in her voice that she could. She looks back to Dajan. "You're becoming more annoying to have around now. Maybe that was a bad idea. What do YOU want to do with it?"
"I want to feed him breakfast and get him on his way. I only agreed to this deal if we were sorting good woofies from bad ones. We can take a little of his hair or his fingernail clippings if you want to do a spell. Or we can even get him to work up a sweat and use that." Rather than a more frightening body fluid, hopefully.
Dajan pats Matthew's shoulder, then turns to him. "You didn't choose to turn into a werewolf, right? You got cursed, bitten, something? You didn't go seeking this out?"
"A few months ago." Matt agrees, flinching his shoulder instinctively when Dajan pats it, defensively, learned response. He's talking to Dajan mostly, trying to avoid eye contact with the Boss Lady. "Camping trip with my pops. He… didn't make it. Then the thing ripped into my arm and chest and… I know it sounds silly, but after that, it just sort of whimpered and ran away." Matt relays the story like a soldier on the history channel, keeping honest to the details but enough distance kept to keep himself detached from the events. As he says the story, he rolls up one of his sleeves to show the scar from the attack.
"If anything will help you find that guy and stop him, its yours as long as it grows back." he agrees. "Its… kinda my fault he went after that girl, and… if I can help I want to. How… do you all know so much 'bout us anyway?"
Celestina makes a vaguely annoyed noise. "Fine. Take some hair, take some saliva, and feed him. And then onward." It's not really her -fault- she's a bitch. Not currently, at least. If anyone can sympathize with moon problems…
Dajan is relieved, but doesn't show it. Matthew's story, as hoped, was significant enough to touch the little bit of her that remains sympathy. "You got it." She grins, and gestures Matthew toward the door. "Your breakfast is already in the oven, by the way," she tells Celestina. Homemade cinnamon buns. And a rare steak is in the fridge, should she want protein to counter all that sugar. "Let's get it handled, Matt, then we'll go eat, cool?"
Matt is more than relieved when he inches towards the door, but is still polite enough (or perhaps just scared enough) to give the Boss Girl a plastered on smile and a "Thanks again." And then he slips out.
Celestina turns, and she stalks back off to her room, slamming the door behind her. (OOC: but will hang to watch, if that's cool.)
Dajan waits until Celestina has gone all the way back up the hall and slammed the door. "Sorry 'bout that," she explains. "She's a lot nicer when the moon's a bit fuller. Let's get your nails clipped, a little spit, and then we'll feed you whatever you feel like." A pointed look indicates within reason, since she is pretty sure he's not really the maneater involved.
"Whatever you've got to spare, more than fine, honestly. Been awhile since I've managed two consecutive meals." Matt almost chuckles out, as he follows a safe distance behind, putting his hand up to his head and cringing as he pulls a bit of hair out. "Sorry to ask again, and hey, I can totally respect not telling me if thats a bad thing, but how do you know so much 'bout us? And why the whole help the 'good' ones part? The other people who figured out what I was… well, one tried to get me to eat a kid and the other one tried to give me lead poisoning the hard way. The 12 gauge hard way. And from what I've seen so far, I really can't blame him." As Matt yammers on, he takes in a long look of his surroundings, being extra careful not to knock something over.
Tina's place is nice, and expensive. Hardwood floors, vaguely new-agey decor. A little old-fashioned; not a lot of high-tech around.
Dajan takes the hair, and finds an empty vial in one of the cupboards outside the kitchen. "Have a spit into that. I'll leave them by her door, and then we can getcha something to eat." While there are leftovers, Dajan doesn't think it's a good idea to let him eat in here. Not with the lady of the house in such high dudgeon. "Besides, I need to get her a big bottle of Dom as a peace offering."
Matthew accepts the vial does as instructed, careful to not dribble off the edges too much. And he finished the little bit of wolf collection by biting the ends off of a couple of his nails before he hands the three items over. At the lack of an answer the second time the question is answered, Matt nods and says nothing further, following her lead from here.
Dajan tucks the three items into an envelope, which she then plucks a swatch of silk from a drawer and rolls up the envelope in it, leaving it in an inbox outside the kitchen. She leads him outside after they've done this, and toward her secondhand Camaro. "How do you think I know so much?" she asks, genuinely, once they're both belted in and she's started the car. She must not have wanted to get into that conversation while still under Celestina's roof.
"Well…" Matt begins to take a guess. "At first I thought you were all like me, and that other guy peed on the wrong hydrant or something. But when you said your boss wasn't… and now you are talking about spells and stuff…" Matt rubs his face, but when he does his nose twitches uncomfortably and he abandons that itch for the moment at least. "I'm guessing broomsticks?"
"Good guess. And for the Boss, you'd be right. Though I've never seen her do the Quidditch thing. Or even the sexy on a broom thing. So maybe best not to bring it up." Dajan smiles, pulling smoothly out to traffic. "Me, though? No broomsticks. Just inherited enough weirdness that when I left the small town I grew up in, I pretty much got immersed in the weird soon as I got out of college. And since I took this job, the weird's been pretty much twenty four seven."
"So what exactly is the job?" Matt asks, though there is a question he's holding back on in his voice, this one taking its place at the last minute. He leans his head towards the passenger window as they drive, really really resisting the urge to stick his head outside. "From what I heard in there, you were expecting what happened the other day?"
"I'm kinda her gal Friday, I guess you could say," Dajan explains. "I keep track of her appointments, do the grocery shopping, make sure her books are in order, pay the bills, that kind of thing." And she nods at him, glancing sidelong. "Yeah. When The Boss was in a better frame of mind, she really wanted to stop this from getting out of hand. Because we could end up with a crazy city full of werewolves if this doesn't get handled right quick."
Matt chuckles as he hears it. "Well, I guess I'm not helping much there. One more fleabag mucking things up." Matthew does not have a healthy respect of Lycanthropy or feel the brotherhood of wolf kind, it seems. His voice gets kinda low as his eyes focus on the white line on the side of the road, its steady variations as it swirls by. "The bad ones, what did you mean taken care of?"
"Well, if we can't rehabilitate them or keep them out of LA, and the Boss thinks the so-called 'great Champion Angel' " she takes one hand off the wheel to make ironic air quotes " can't handle it, she may take drastic measures and end up needing to sell some fur coats on the supernatural underground version of eBay." Though the phrasing is lighthearted, Dajan's expression is serious. "I mean, there aren't a whole lot of things you can do to stop raging monster werewolves in the long term. Maybe she knows a spell that'll turn them into cute, fluffy samoyeds. Trick is, getting her to use that spell in this moonphase."
That explanation sobers Matt up quite a bit, and he holds his reaction to it as a stone statue. He doesn't ask any more questions for quite a while, just watching cars go by and people's faces in them. "After, uhm, after breakfast can you drop me off on Warren Street, if it isn't too much trouble? There's a shelter there and I might be able to get in line early enough tonight."
"Yeah, of course," Dajan says. "I know, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, Matthew. The supernatural world is full of things that are bigger than us and plan to eat us. And regular old human people, too, because they'd rather not believe there are things that actually do go bump in the night. I have a busted up old futon you can sleep on at my place. It's nowhere near ritzy as the Boss' digs, but at least you don't have to sleep in a cardboard box if the shelter doesn't work out." Dajan takes a right, and pulls into the lot of a 24 hour diner. "My mom's last wish was for me to help people whenever I can. And you're people as far as I'm concerned." Ooh, is Cordelia going to get an earful about the Great Champion Angel when Dajan sees her next.
"I was… lying about the shelter." Matthew admits with a heavy head after a long moment of calculation and thinking. His better judgment is against it, but this is the first bit of real answers he's managed to get so far. "Just didn't want ya to think you were dumping me on the street. But if you really mean the bit about the futon, I would really appreciate it." At the sign of diner, Matt unbuckles his safety belt and perks up quite a bit. "Pancakes… awesome!"
"Were you now?" Dajan asks, mildly. Whether she suspected he was lying or not is left unanswered. "Yes, I really mean it. My apartment's not huge, and it's not swank, but it's better than being in a cardboard box, especially with a big nasty still running around. I get the idea you don't have a pack, or even an alpha to look to. Which means, in supernatural parlance, you'd be a morsel for any big nasty that got a mind to do anything to you. I'm no major power, but at least you have a place to stay when the sun goes down. When the moon gets full…that we'll have to find some other way to work out. By that time, though, the Boss will be a lot friendlier." She smiles, though, as he seems to be pleased about the pancakes. "Let's eat." She claps him on the shoulder after making sure the Camaro's locked up.
