Matteo is having one of those days. One of the ones where nothing seems to go right; where everyone he passes gives him weird looks, he stumbles over every little crack in the damn sidewalk, and walks into at least one glass door, thinking it's open.

He's slouching along, minding his own business, when he trips yet again. He's scrambling to get up when a very little girl starts pointing at him and tugging on her mother's sleeve, insisting - no, demanding - that she look at the funny animal man.

Matteo fakes a smile for the mother, who is looking at him strangely. This placates her, and she starts dragging the little girl away, who is now shrieking that she's telling the truth. The tantrum draws attention.

The faun doesn't like this attention one bit, and starts edging away.

Alexander is thinking too hard. He is also driving a car, a large one with leather seats and a big bumper.

This is not a good combination; he's preoccupied.

He's hardly looking at the road.

Someone with the best of intentions, thinking Matteo is frightening the child, claps a hand on his shoulder. This is enough to cause the already spooked faun to bolt. He wrenches himself free of the man's grip, twists, and dashes out along the first clear path he can see - right into the street.

He was surrounded on the sidewalk. On the street, there are no people to catch him, and as he's only looking straight ahead, there don't appear to be any vehicles in his way either...

Alexander looks up in time to see a shape, and then he's slamming on the brakes and swearing--that's gotten more common since he met Keye, oddly enough--and trying not to hit anyone on the sidewalk, or the crazy person who ran out in front of him, and...

There's that horrible squealing sound that forewarns a loss of control. There's an instant where Alexander's mind goes completely blank, or he would have used a spell to keep the faun from being hit.

And then...

Well, it's not pretty.

He hears the telltale squealing noise, looks up, freezes, and has just enough time to give a perfect deer-in-the-headlights look before the car collides with him.

Whump

Matteo bounces off the front of the car like he's a rag doll. He's airborne for a paralyzed fraction of second, then hits the pavement hard, skidding and rolling to a stop. And then, he's completely still.

Alexander stops the car, opens the door, and gets out in almost one motion, still swearing.

This is not at all how he planned to spend his day, dammit.

He kneels next to the prone faun and mutters something along the lines of 'idiot kid, why'd he want to run out in the road like that,' and such.

And then he sees the hooves. His eyebrows go up and he touches the still cheek. And murmurs a spell, and there's an illusion in place.

"Hello?"

After a few moments, Matteo shudders and his eyes flicker open. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) he'd only been stunned and not made unconscious. A series of thin, strangled sounds escape him as he tries to breathe normally - the impact knocked the breath out of him.

"..What...h,..hhh..." he gasps, trying rather pathetically to squirm away.

"Shush. Relax."

His voice is deep, hypnotic.

(Someone has called emergency. This should be interesting.)

"Can you move?"

He doesn't actually want to get dragged to the hospital and deal with explanations of what happened to police. (Again.)

"I..."
Gulp.
"I, I don't..."

Matteo slides his arm out from under his body, and by a bit of an effort, raises himself on his elbows.
And promptly collapses again.

"It hurts," he whimpers.

"Yes, I'm sure it does. Relax. Breathe. Do you think if I help you, you'll be able to get up?"

Alexander isn't sure what to do with 'Teo once he gets him up and about again. Maybe put him in his car and take him home.

Something.

Douglas?

Matteo shudders again, and makes another attempt to pick himself up. His arms shake, and he pales a bit, but he doesn't crumple this time.

"I th, I think s-so, maybe..."
He gives a small nod.
"M-maybe. I don't know."

Alexander slips an arm underneath him. He glances up at the gathering crowd--what is it about humans that makes them flock to the scene of someone else's injury?--and glares.

"Move along."

His expression is sufficiently frightening that about half of them back off. He looks back down at 'Teo and lifts.

"Can you stand?"

"Mm... can try..."

And he does. Try, that is. He succeeds too, after some wobbling and a few near-falls. He has the same kind of sad, pathetic awkwardness in getting up that can be seen in an injured deer trying to leap ahead of a predator.

He doesn't know why this man is helping him, and doesn't think to question it. He's just blindly obeying and doing what the man asks of him. Whether this is due to magic in Alexander's voice, or his own rather stunned state, who knows.

Alexander is more than strong enough to hold Matteo up and help him to his car. He installs him in the front seat and comes around to the driver's seat and gets in.

"I somehow doubt you want to go to the hospital," he comments.

And locks the doors. This is not to keep Matteo contained, it's to keep everyone else out.

He revs the engine in warning that he's going to move out. Hopefully the assumption will be that he's taking the faun to the hospital.

His head lolls onto his shoulder as he settles into the seat, but snaps back up when he hears the doors lock, a panicked look on his face.

"Uh... I, g-guess not..." he replies, breathing somewhat raggedly from trying to suppress his fears. He has just gotten into a car with a stranger, a stranger who had just hit him with said car. He's pretty sure this isn't a good idea, but at the moment, his usual solution (running away) isn't an option.

"Calm down, faun." I have the oddest idea that that will do little good to calm him. Don't know why, though.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

He's not going to do much to help him, either, but he's not going to leave him in the street to die or be discovered? He's doing it mostly for a selfish reason, namely that if it spread around that nonhumans were wandering the streets, people might start thinking about magic too.

He doesn't want it to be no longer a secret, you know. Magic, that is.

Matteo just looks at him for a long moment.
Then he tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and tries to convince himself to slow down his breathing, because breathing quickly is really starting to hurt.

"What... are you going to do?" he asks, trying unsuccessfully to keep the quaver out of his voice.

"I suppose that depends on how badly you're hurt."

Half a glance at 'Teo, but he's paying more attention to the road than he did earlier. Since that was the problem before...

"I can take you home, or I can take you to my apartment and see if I can find a spell or three to mend you."

Yes, he's a mage, Teo. Thanks for asking.

"I, uh..."

He bites the inside of his cheek, looking a bit upset. The thought of going home is very tempting,... but so is the thought of being mended, even if it would be done magically. He turns both options over in his frazzled mind, trying to decide which is best...

"It really hurts," Matteo says finally.
Which isn't much of an answer, either way.

Sigh.

"Where?"

He pulls over to the side of the road, some distance from the scene of the accident, and turns in his seat to face 'Teo.

... this is a familiar situation, n'est-ce pas?

Oh, just a bit.

"Uh,... here, mostly. Where I landed on."
One hand slides out from under the folds of his coat to indicate a section of his side and back, and his arm on that same side. There are other parts of him, nagging at him with what he's fairly sure are going to be some bad bruises, but they don't seem important.

"I, maybe... I think maybe I'd rather go home," he says softly.

Matteo opens one eye to watch Alexander. He doesn't trust him, and he's making it quite obvious.

"Where do you live, then?"

Alexander doesn't care that Matteo doesn't trust him. He would probably be vaguely annoyed if the faun did. The very last thing he needs is to 'pick up another stray' as Douglas might put it.

"Um..."

He really doesn't want to tell Alexander where he lives.

So he names a street that's a block or two over from the street he lives on, figuring he'll walk home from where he gets dropped off.

"Fine."

And Alexander, having been in that end of town rather more often than the last time he was driving around a young injured person, finds the street and stops the car.

"Here?"

"Mm-hm," Matteo nods, and fumbles with the lock for a moment before he can get it to open. He casts Alexander a very faint smile and mumbles a meaningless, "Thank you," before opening the door and stumbling out. He closes the door gently, as if afraid he'll break it, and starts limping towards home.