Ooh, look, a theatre.
Matteo's been in it once, maybe twice before. He enjoyed the shows, but got altogether too many weird looks from people for him to consider coming back very soon. Apparently his manner of dress wasn't entirely appropriate.
(And if it took that little to bother them, he hated to think what strange looks he'd get if they saw what his strange clothes hid).

It's been a while, though, and he's wondering if maybe it's time for another try. So the faun is lingering outside on the sidewalk, just looking up at the old building and trying to decide whether going to another show is worth the risk. Not that there's a show on at the moment - he's seen the ads for it, but it's not due to begin for a week or two yet.

It's not quite tech weekend, but Dave is driving himself to distraction anyway. He does that, as the shows get nearer and nearer and the directors get more and more harried. This of course explains why his hair is ruffled and he looks as if he hasn't been sleeping so well, but there's a kind of tired satisfaction under the 'about to tear his hair out with aggravation' look.

His motorbike is in the alley, but the back door is locked and he can't find the right key, so he's going in the front.

He's also not looking where he's going. And Matteo is in his way, I'm afraid.

"Shit, sorry."

Matteo could blame the ice on the sidewalk or say that Dave had run into him with a lot of force, but the fact is, he's clumsy and it's his own fault that his hooves go right out from under him at the slightest nudge.

He lands heavily, but miraculously his coat doesn't slip or let his lower half show.
"Uh..." He blinks anxiously up at Dave, skittering back from him before getting up. "Oh. Uh,...n-no problem. Really. My fault."

Dave offers him a hand up with a frown, but drops it when Matteo seems to be able to get up on his own.

"Nah, mine. Wasn't watching where I was going. Sorry again." He turns away and unlocks the door--probably he left the back door key at home, and that's the problem--and seems to think nothing further of the encounter.

"No, it's alright," the faun mumbles, brushing dirty snow off the back of his coat and inching slowly away.

And, wouldn't you know it, now he does encounter a patch of ice, and down he goes again.
(Ouch!)

Only this time, there aren't any miracles and both hooves are fully visible.

"Whoa, you o... kay...?"

Dave just turned around and automatically offered Matteo a hand up. His eyes are quite remarkably wide.

"Holy shit," he murmurs. "Holy shit..."

Matteo again refuses the offered help, struggling to his feet (hooves) on his own and limping hurriedly backwards. He stumbles and almost falls once again, but leans on the nearest wall and stops himself just in time.

"Uh - I, ..you,..." he babbles, looking frightened. "It's,... um... w-well, g'bye!"
With that, he turns and dashes - well, quickly hobbles - into the alley, hoping for a good escape route.

Dave follows.

"Hey, 'm not gonna hurt you."

He can't help but be curious. Anyway, that new movie just came out, and wasn't there somebody with hooves...

"Just... well, I guess I can't say I want to make sure I'm not crazy this time..."

He's simultaneously running and looking over his shoulder in case he's being followed. Then he hits the wall that is the end of the alley,...fortunately he wasn't going very fast. A little cry of surprise escapes him as he realizes there's no way out but the way he came in.

"S-stay back."
It's kind of pitiful, someone his age looking so frightened of, of all people, Dave. Being frightened, his hearing becomes somewhat selective and he only picks out the words 'hurt you' and 'crazy' from what the human says.
"I - I mean it! Stay away. Go."

Oh no, oh no, oh no...

"Shit, you're scared of me."

This is a switch, if you can't tell. Usually, when he encounters nonhuman beings, the terror is all on his side. (Except with Wick. Then it's just mutual irritation and often anger. Not hatred anymore, I don't think.)

He spreads his hands and stops where he is.

"'m not going to do anything. Look, see? Empty handed."

Well, he's wearing a leather jacket that could conceivably conceal weaponry, but it's rather unlikely, considering who it is.

The faun flattens himself against the wall, looking like he's on the verge of a panic attack.

"If - if - if you're not going to do anything then, then g-go away."
He fixes his green eyes on Dave, looking pleadingly at him.
"J-just go, alright? Pretend you n-never saw me, and we'll both be b-b-better off."

"It doesn't work," answers Dave. "The demon didn't go away, Asher didn't go away, Justin didn't stop existing, Wick still hangs around. If I pretend I never met you, I'm going to run into you everywhere."

Dave is still keeping his distance, but he takes one or two steps forward.

"Goddammit, am I that scary?"

He sounds slightly offended. Poor Dave.

Dave's attitude is translating to 'angry' to Matteo, what with the ranting and the cursing...
The faun's picked up on the fact that Dave is aware of the innish world, to some degree, but that doesn't make him less frightened. To the contrary - Dave's said something about a demon, which nullifies any relief Matteo might have felt.

Each of the two steps the human takes, Matteo shrinks back, until he's bent and almost sitting on the ground. He's afraid to answer, in case what he says is the wrong answer, so he keeps quiet.
And watches.
And waits.

Dave is not the most observant of guys. I'm sure we all know this, given past experience. However, even he is not blind enough to mistake Matteo's fear for anything but what it is.

He stops.

"Shit."

Long pause.

"Look, let's start over. Hi. I'm Dave. I work here at the theatre. And you are?"

"...Hello..."
The faun looks at him strangely.
"...Mine's Matteo." And that's all I'm telling you!
He speaks hesitantly, with a hint of defiance,... he's still scared, though. Dave is much too close.

"'kay. Matteo. Right."

Come on, Dave isn't nearly as scary as his distant cousin--which reference I have used far too many times and should stop.

"Look... You were looking at the theatre, right? Want to come in and see how this shit works?"

The cursing earlier meant nothing, 'Teo. He does it all the time.

His eyes brighten, and he momentarily forgets his fear.

I would like to see how -- wait wait wait. No.

"Is this a trap?..." he asks slowly, frowning. As if he'd be told if it were...

"Fuck no. God. Do I look like some kind of psycho to you? It's just a theatre, and 's far as I know, there's only one ghost, and 's long as we stay out of the prop room, we ought to be just fine."

No, you don't want to know the story behind that one. Really, you don't, 'Teo. It's disturbing. In the extreme.

Dave spreads his hands. "I mean, 's your choice."

He thinks it over.
Comng to a decision, he unfolds, looking considerably less frightened.

"I think,... I think I'd like to come in then," he quavers. "If that's alright."

Dave grins.

"C'mon in, then. We have to go back around to the front, 'cause I've got the wrong key for the back." Which is rather annoying, and also pointless to actually say because it's obvious that he was going in the front in the first place. But that's Dave for you.

He leads the way, mostly taking for granted that Matteo is going to follow him. The faun doesn't have any reason not to, doee he?

"So, um, what are you, anyway?"

He could think of plenty of reasons not to follow, but he's trying not to.

Matteo follows at a safe distance (meaning out of arm's reach and then some), still limping a bit. He doesn't quite trust Dave, but his curiosity makes up the difference.
"That's, um,..that's kind of a rude question, isn't it?" he asks, though he's not really sure, "...Anyway. I'm a faun."

"Yeah, I guess it is kinda rude. Sorry." He opens the door and ducks inside. Mm, indoor heating. Always a nice thing.

"But shit, I don't know anything about people who aren't human, so if I don't ask, I don't know. I, uh... met... a werewolf and it was, god, it had to be at least a week before I knew what he was." He shivers and briefly touches his neck, which doesn't really make sense, unless one is aware of the other being he 'met' at that time.

"So. A faun, huh? The hooves make it hard to walk on stairs and shit?"

"Oh."

This new bit of information marks Dave as inexperienced with innishness, but not overly curious about it, thus making him safe(r ).

"Stairs, yes. And ice,..tile,... anything too smooth. Oh, and escalators," he grimaces. "It's all nearly the same in difficulty. I fall a lot."

Dave nods. "Yeah, I'd figure. Catwalks would probably be a bad idea, then. You don't want to fall up there."

So therefore he leads the way into the house instead and starts pointing things out. "That's the booth; I sit up there during the shows and run lights or sound, whichever one they don't have a volunteer for. Dunno if you want to risk the stairs to get up there. Those're the catwalks. I get to climb around 'em and hang lights..." And so on.

It's only interesting if you're actually there.

At some point while Dave was talking, Matteo took a small plastic container out of his pocket, of the kind children have in their lunchboxes. It contains a few crackers and some peanut butter. Matteo's dunking the crackers in the peanut butter and quietly munching on them, as if they're popcorn and he's watching a movie.

"I'd like to go see, um,.. anywhere I can?" Matteo asks timidly, his mouth half-full of peanut-buttered crackers. "I mean, places I wouldn't see if I'd just come in for a show or something... prob'ly won't get another chance."

"Sure, but get rid of the food." Dave grins. "The tech up there's my baby, and if you get crumbs in it, I'm going to throw you out." Hopefully the grin will convey the intended impression that he's not angry.

"Anyway, you're not supposed to have food in here." Here being the theatre in general and the house in particular.

"C'mon, we'll go backstage."

"Oh. Right." Back comes the spooked look, and he hurriedly folds up the container and stuffs it back in his pocket before following Dave again. It really doesn't take much to unnerve Matteo. Threaten him with confrontation, and he'll do anything to get away from it.

Matteo ought to grow a spine, don't you think? It would be good for him.

Dave leads him up the stairs and pauses at the top, just to make sure that Matteo doesn't have difficulties. (Read: To make sure he doesn't fall down and cause trouble.)

"Can't take you to the dressing rooms, 'cause the actors'd kill me, but I can show you the green room and shit." And he's going to skip the prop room, also. He only ever goes there alone, these days.

If he's alone, Rose can't take over the body of his companion and attempt seduction.

He's got perfectly good reasons to avoid confrontation (read:people) the way he does... a spine might not be the best thing for him. A dose of common sense would help, though.

Matteo has to cling to the banister, but he makes it up the stairs without any serious mishaps. The faun is nodding mutely at everything Dave says - he's the one leading this little tour, after all, so he'd know what there was to see.

Having a spine doesn't necessarily mean seeking out trouble, but you have a point.

And Dave shows Matteo around the set--which he probably built half of--and explains bits and pieces about where such and such will go at such and such a point in the show.

You know, the tech crew often knows the show better than the actors, because they have to pay attention to the whole thing. In some of the more complicated shows, there are as many as ten light cues in a scene.

Dave is practically glowing with pride; this is his baby.

Matteo listens attentively - half out of politeness, and half because he's actually interested. Sometimes he actually asks questions (mostly along the lines of, "What's that thing?" and "How does this work?").

"Wow," he murmurs finally, when he realizes the tour's coming to an end.

"It's pretty awesome, isn't it."

Dave loves his theatre.

"You ever get into anything like this before?"

I think he's actually forgotten that Matteo is very different from anyone he's shown around the theatre before, caught up in what he's saying and doing.

He shakes his head, meanwhile looking at his surroundings as if trying to commit every detail to memory.

"No, never." There's a trace of wistfulness in his expression. "I came to a show here once, though. Well, twice, but I left halfway through the second time. So I guess it doesn't count."

Dave frowns.

"Why'd you leave?"

He's insulted! Well, only mildly. If he took it personally every time someone didn't like a show, or left, or whatever, he'd be in a constant state of certainty that everyone in the world hated him.

He cringes, but imperceptibly.
"Um. Well. The woman sitting next to me at that showing, she - well, I think she noticed, my, um,..not being human," his voice fades a little. "She kept staring at me and after a while looked like she was going to talk to me, and that's when I left."

"Oh. Guess that makes sense."

He nods a little, and the frown disappears. Mostly.

"Kind of a shame you can't go to a show without having to run away, though."

"Yes,.. Most things are the same way. You get used to it," he says (without a hint of regret), and shrugs a shoulder. Matteo's unspoken message is 'That's just the way it is - why fight it?'

"Well. Anyway," he sighs, and offers a timid smile. "Thanks for showing me around."

"Welcome."

Dave is now at a loss, because most of the things he usually does at this point seem to be out of the question.

Pause.

"You're not scared of me now, right?"

"Hm?..."

He thinks it over, which he shouldn't have to do. Dave's been pretty good about all of this. What's to be scared of?

"...No. No, I... don't think I am. Scared, that is."

"Good, 'cause I'm pretty sure that there's no reason to be scared of me."

He's not that violent, after all. And only when provoked.