Douglas is ever looking for new specimens for his collection. Why? Because he can, I suppose. He likes to watch things squirm, especially if they make noise, and especially if he has something to show for it afterwards. You can bet he was the kind of child who could spend a happy afternoon frying ants with a magnifying glass and pinning butterflies to cork.

So, that afternoon, when he became aware of the species of the creature trotting aimlessly along in front of him on the sidewalk, well - he couldn't be expected to just let it pass. Not, at least, until he had samples from it (a drop of blood, a tuft of fur, a bit of skin, a scraping from horn and hoof...). Now he could add 'faun' to his collection of strange creature fragments. And it had been a while since he'd had any fun with a specimen, so he... 'played' with Matteo a bit before letting him go. He wasn't going to kill him, oh no. A rare species like that had to be let roam... so that Douglas could capture it again at a later date, if he felt like it.
But before he released the bloodied, pitiful thing, he wiped its memory. Couldn't have it making trouble for him, after all.

And this leads to Matteo, wandering the streets feeling scared and bewildered and hurt. The first two are because of the third, but he doesn't understand how he came to be hurt, or why. Despite an overwhelming urge to find a dark corner and lie down, he persists in wandering, as if he thinks that, maybe around the next corner, he'll find an answer. There's blood showing in patches through his absurdly long coat, but only a little. Most of the blood was soaked up by his shirt (which, for some reason, has been neatly cut open in the front).

Dave is on his motorcycle. He spots Teo and pulls to the curb, flipping up the visor of his helmet and grinning.

"'lo again... Shit. What happened to you?"

Dave is concerned.

It's the blood that alerted him to something wrong, you see. There may not be much of it, but any is too much, so far as he's concerned.

The faun skitters sideways a bit - motorcycles are loud, and he doesn't recognize Dave until he lifts the visor.

"Oh, it's you..." Matteo gives a small sigh of relief, and forces his shaking hands into his pockets. Dave is... not scary, he remembers that. Not-scary edging towards nice, which made him a friend, sort of. "Um. I - I, I don't know."

"... uh huh. Well, that's not good." He frowns.

"C'mon. Let's head back to my apartment and see what we can do about that, huh?"

Of course he can't take Matteo to the hospital. (For one thing, he doesn't remember Alan's name, and also doesn't realize that Alan would help anyone, no matter if he'd met them before or not.)

Blink.

"...O-okay," he nods slowly.
He doesn't have the will to refuse, and wouldn't refuse even if he'd thought to.
"W-where is, um, your ap-p... your apartment?"

"I'll take you. Climb on."

Dave actually climbs off and pulls out his extra helmet.

"You'll want this."

"No."
Matteo shakes his head, looking nervously at the helmet, then at the motorcycle. It's loud, it's a machine - he doesn't trust most machines - and it's.. well, it's loud.
"No," he says again, swallowing hard. "I'll - I'll walk..."

"'s too far to walk. You look like you're gonna fall over."

Frown.

"C'mon, I haven't crashed since I was sixteen."

Actually, his last crash was only a couple months ago. But he's kind of not thinking about stuff that involved Violet, due to the fact that that's a good way to get depressed.

He really did like her, you know.

Gulp.
"If you say so.." He couldn't resist for long. There's a part of his mind that constantly tells him that there's someone out there, always, who knows what's best, and at the moment, the someone is Dave.
He shakily reaches out for the helmet. "Sure I won't fall off...?"

"Sure's sure. Just hold on to my waist, and we're good."

Dave is quite practiced at giving people rides on his motorbike, you know. It's one of those things he's been doing for quite some time.

Matteo put on the helmet, (noting, muzzily, that it smells like Girl) climbs on the bike, and holds on tight.

He's pretty good at doing as he's told, right now.

And Dave guns the motor and heads off along the street. In consideration for his passenger, he does not indulge in anything that could be considered reckless, and so the transit is a bit slower than usual.

Still, he makes it there in good time and parks.

"You can let go now."

The faun lets go, and stumbles off the bike. He quickly pries off the helmet and holds it out to Dave. There's a particularly stunned look on his face, and he looks a little green around the gills.

"Never doing that again," he mumbles, swaying a bit.

Dave chuckles and pulls off his own helmet. His hair's gotten a tad long again, and it's curly and messy.

"Why, did I scare you?"

He grins.

"I didn't even run any lights."

Ahem.

"Yes." Matteo's not afraid to admit he's afraid - it lessens the chance of the frightening things happening again, or so he thinks. He frowns, and points at Dave, his eyelids drooping slightly. "You shouldn't run the lights anyway," he says reproachfully.
The swaying is really quite pronounced now.

"Don't, usually. Just when I'm in a hurry." Which is most of the time, so yes, he does run lights usually.

He's careful about it? If thats possible?

"C'mon, you look like you need to sit down." He leads the way into the complex.

He follows - what else is there to do? - still frowning a little and peering around him. He manages to walk not through but into the doorway, adding a bruise on his cheek to the list of small injuries he's suffered today. Rubbing his face, he totters after Dave again.

And there's Dave's apartment. As has been noted before, it's a bit neater than the average bachelor's place, but not by much.

Dave gestures to the couch and heads to the kitchen.

Huh. Wonder where Wick is, these days. Haven't seen him a while. Not that Dave objects...

"Want something to drink?"

"Um. Yes, thanks..." Matteo nods, suddenly realizing he's thirsty.
He stands and looks strangely at the couch for a moment, then sits down. And then he decides to sit on the floor, instead. He never really got the knack of sitting on chairs, or couches for that matter. He's sure it's probably comfortable if you're human, or fully human-shaped.

"What'd you like? Water? Milk? Coke?"

Dave doesn't stock alcoholic beverages. That's probably a good thing.

Also, he's rummaging in a drawer for that first aid kit he knows he's got somewhere... Maybe it's in the bathroom.

"Water, please."
Matteo tilts his head back against the armrest of the couch and closes his eyes. Aaah. This is better. He's too out of it to question whether he's safe here, so he lets himself believe that he is and just tries to relax.
He relaxes a little too much, and falls on his side.
He quickly rights himself, blinking in confusion, and promptly tilts his head back against the couch again.

Dave fills a cup with water and brings it into the living room, first aid kit--which he finally unearthed in the same drawer in which he keeps his silverware (don't ask)--in his other hand.

"Let's see what we can do 'bout all that, huh?"

"...Okay." As if he doesn't care one way or the other.
He takes the glass, giving a grateful nod, and downs the water in one gulp.

Without having to be told, Matteo began taking off his coat - couldn't do much of anythng with it still on, after all. There are a lot of buttons for his trembling fingers to undo, so it takes a little while before he has it off. Then there's just his t-shirt, the blood on it still damp. The faun blinks up at Dave.
"How'd this happen and I didn't notice?..."

"No idea. Fuck. You look like you met... God, never mind."

The end of the sentence? Justin. Or perhaps Asher. Both of those two messed him up pretty well.

"I guess you're gonna have to take off your shirt..."

Matteo mumbles an assent, and shrugs off the bloodstained garment. Most of the blood seems to have come from a spot where a small, perfect square of skin is missing midway up his side. Other cuts, deeper ones, have been stitched up so expertly they won't leave scars.

But none of the visible marks explain the achy, bruised feeling he has in, well, everything.

Douglas knows quite a lot of ways to hurt people without using ' normal' means. He's used some of them on Matteo - his favorites are the delayed action sort. They amuse him.

"How did this happen?" the faun repeats, looking more than a little freaked out. "I don't remember any of this mess being here earlier today... if it's still today..."

"Shit, maybe you met Frankenstein."

Matteo does look like he was the victim of a mad experiment or three. There's probably a good reason for that, don't you think?

"Who?" Matteo says absently, twisting to look at the place where a piece of his skin is absent. He prods it experimentally with a fingertip, then winces, a small shiver passing through him.
He probably shouldn't touch that with his bare hands - they're not exactly clean...

He gets a blank stare.

"Y'know, Frankenstein. Made a monster out of dead people and brought it to life with lightning. There's like a billion movies about it."

And Dave fishes out an alcoholic wipe-thing and bats Teo's hand away.

"Probably we have to clean that. Probably this'll hurt."

"Never heard of him, but he sounds creepy," Matteo comments.
He looks faintly hurt at having his hand pushed away, and then he covers the wound with it, and holds out his other hand for the alcohol wipe.
"...Here, let me. I can do it myself."

"Most of 'em are horror movies," Dave concedes and hands Teo the wipe thing.

"Sure. Lessee, what else're you gonna need..."

"Um, I don't know... do you have anything for, like... insides? That's where it mostly hurts."

The faun takes the wrapping off the tissue and begins dabbing gingerly and clumsily at the raw flesh, wincing each time the tissue comes in contact with it. He's not going to do much good at this rate, and- oh, look at that, he's started it bleeding again.
"Shoot," he mutters, hurriedly trying to mop it up.

"Um... aspirin?"

Dave also swears and grabs a handful of gauze from the first aid kit. "Here." He presses it to Matteo's side, trying not to hurt but probably not successfully.

"If it'll work," Matteo shrugs. He doesn't know one kind of medication from another, but if Dave thinks it'll work, then he'll try it.

Having gauze pressed against the wound does hurt, quite a bit in fact. Matteo doesn't even flinch, though. He just winces and, except for a few weak shivers, keeps himself obediently still.

Dave has no idea if it will work or not. It's just what you take when you have a headache or something, and that's inside, isn't it?

"Shit, I'm sorry. Not trying to hurt you..."

Dave's really a sweet boy. He just has a foul mouth and a temper.

"I guess you're gonna need another shirt, too. You can borrow one of mine when we get you cleaned up and shit."

"Mm," he gives a small nod. "Thank you."

He keeps up the unnatural stillness for good few moments more,... and then he doubles over, arms wrapped tightly around himself, head lowered. He doesn't try to get Dave to stop what he's doing, because that's not what's bothering him. It's the previously mentioned 'insides', that feel like they've been set on fire. He's obviously in pain, but he's being extremely quiet about it.

Dave jerks back.

"Hey, 'm I hurting you that much?"

He doesn't want to hurt Teo that much. That probably would mean that he's either doing something wrong, or Teo is hurt much worse than Dave thought.

Or both.

No... it's not you...

He shakes his head, but still doesn't make a sound or look up. The shivers take over again, weak but not in fits like before. He's acting like the room's temperature has suddenly dropped by thirty degrees.
And then he just keels over.

Dave yelps something profane--bet you can guess what it is--and touches Matteo's shoulder.

"Hey. Hey, what gives?"

He's a tad panicked.

Matteo doesn't respond. Considering he's unconscious, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

He's out for, oh, twenty seconds or so, then he opens his eyes. He's still wincing slightly, but more than anything else, he looks confused. His arms shake as he props himself up.
"That... was,... it ... what happened? That hurt..." he whimpers.

"How the fuck should I know? You're the one that fell over!"

Dave is frightened and out of his depth. This, unfortunately, comes across as anger. Most strong emotion comes across as anger, from him, actually. Except perhaps the tender ones.