Cat's in the cradle (Melia and Taliesin)

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Dominic closed his eyes because Matt's hug was getting awkwardly long, then glanced over at Kristie. "You've got a pretty sensitive nose there, kid." Not that it wasn't a pretty powerful smell. The smell didn't really bother him that much. He was more or less shocked that it was Matt and Matt's house that smelled of the stuff. He hadn't exactly taken Matt for the type. And still he was being hugged.

"I solved the problem the centrifuge. Like... I completely solved it. It just makes so much sense. We can do it, it won't be hard. Dom...Dom... we just have to make sure it's got weights on both sides." It was the first time Matt had referred to Dominic as anything other than Mr. Howard. "And... I had some other ideas but... I can't remember now... Damn... I should have wrote that down... and you... you remembered my birthday..." he was crying now. Apparently happy tears but it was a little hard to tell because he was still hugging Dominic.

"I don't... particularly want to take him to my place...? But I mean... we could... or we could just..." he paused and lowered his voice significantly so that he was barely audible. "leave him here... we don't have to take care of him, do we? He'll be fine."

"What is wrong with my house? I like my house. No one ever wants to spend time at my house," Matt muttered, stepping back from his hugging of Dominic. He held out his hands for the cake, albeit somewhat unsteadily. "Thanks for the cake. I'm really hungry..." he smiled at Kristie, flashing his wonky tooth at her. He did seem a lot more relaxed than he had earlier. "I did like you said," he continued. "I slept a bit and now I'm having some social time with myself. Y'know," he waved his hands in a slowed down version of how he usually was and he talked more slowly too, which made him far easier to understand than he usually was. "Stuff just makes more sense."
 
"It's my curse." Kristie muttered to the nose comment, the subject in question still scrunched up. She was not particularly impressed by him calling her kid. He could call Matt a kid, he was barely not a teenager. Kristie however was 2 years closer to Dominic than she was to Matt and Mr. Engineer could do the math.

"It's...a possibility?" It wasn't like Matt was doing anything particularly dangerous. She was just feeling a bit bad because it was his birthday as well. She didn't really just want to drop the cake off and leave. Kristie let that simmer in the back of her head, along with her irritation at the 'kid' comment and instead pondered putting the cake down to detach Matt. Just as she was about to he finally let go himself and she found herself lifting it up just a bit again, not entirely sure he would not drop it. "Err how about you have Dominic carry this in for you?" As she had said quite vehemently before, she was not going in there. Contact high was a thing and she was just not having it. "I'm glad my advise is working out for you."

She had a thought then that would take care of all their problems in one. "Hey, would you like to hang out with Tessa a bit Matt?" Tessa would probably chew Kristie a new one for not telling her it was Matt's birthday but it wasn't like Kristie had known before either. "She'll probably want to share a bit too." She added in a conspiratorial whisper.
 
Matt grew quiet, poking his toe into another rotting board on his porch, sensing that this wasn't really where they wanted to be right now. "I have a backyard..." he suggested hopefully after a moment. "We could have like... a bonfire or something... It's a private backyard... I've got a fence and stuff..." He was hesitant, but pointed to the gate around the corner of the house that led to his backyard. He shut the door leading into his house, cutting off the lingering presence of the smell of marijuana and teetered down the steps to the gate.

He fiddled with the lock for a long while, his dexterity considerably slower than usual. To anyone who didn't know his usual hyperactivity, he probably would seem completely normal. Finally he got his key in the rusty lock and got it opened. He waved at them and stepped inside. Dominic glanced at Kristie and shrugged.

"If we get axe murdered back there at least we're going to get axe murdered together, right?"

"I can barely lift one!" Matt called. "You forget my hearing is supersonic right now. I can physically hear the different individual sound waves, you asshat." He could be heard giggling as he walked the side of his house. "But don't worry, I'll make sure to plant flowers on your graves. Out of respect. Because you're my friends and stuff." He seemed to think his own joke was quite funny and his laughing drifted all the way from the backyard. "Are you coming or not?" he called.
 
"...A bonfire?" Kristie stared after him, looking rather horrified at the thought. Matt was not one to do much maintenance, if they had anything vaguely flame like back there the whole place would probably go down in flames. "I think we can handle it if he comes out with anything sharp." She muttered, ignoring the calls for them to come. She shuffled the cake into one hand before having an idea and shoving it in Dominic's arms without so much as a word as she pulled out her cellphone and quickly typed out a message to Tessa.

"There." She said once she was done, slipping the phone back into her pocket."Right, well let's go see what we've got going on back there." She glanced back at Dominic with a faint smile. "I'm fairly sure the weeds won't rise up and kill us either." She left Dominic to take care of the cake and headed somewhat gingerly towards the backyard.
 
"Wait, we're not going to take this with us back there?" Dominic asked before sighing and heading inside to at least dig around for some plates and forks while Kristie followed Matt. "I'll be out in a moment."

Matt's back yard was fairly well groomed. Most of it was a garden, actually. There was an old shed in the back corner, where he kept slabs of plywood, mostly for patching up the roof or the porch or other parts of his house. There was an old wobbly picnic table which was mostly covered in gardening tools and the windmill produced a constant hum of white noise above them. Matt was digging in his shed for some scrap wood. He had wheeled out an ancient charcoal grill, which was the closest thing he had to a fire pit.

Dominic was out shortly afterwards, carrying some slices of cake on small plates and carrying forks. He set the three pieces of cake on the table and handed Kristie a fork. "For your protection, of course," he said with a small smile.
 
Kristie waved absently at him as he disappeared into the house. Better him than her as far as she was concerned. She was somewhat surprised by what she found in the backyard, wondering vaguely how she had missed that before and remembering that she had been pretty distracted by shenanigans at the time. She eyed the grill dubiously but decided if Matt really wanted some fire on his birthday, well it was his birthday.

"Nice garden." She complimented to Matt as she wandered over to the picnic table, not quite sure where to sit and feeling a little safer standing anyway.

She grinned at Dominic as he finally emerged and took the fork, twirling it absently with her fingers. "Yes, I will defend us all from the garden gnomes with this fork of protection!" She ran into a lot of nerds in her business, it was only to be expected that a DnD reference was going to come up at some point.
 
Matt fiddled with a box of matches, trying to light some of the fire wood he usually used in his fireplace. He was having trouble with the task though. "Thanks," he muttered, pulling out the fifth match. "I kinda... think... rebelling against the government isn't really... about revolutions and screaming and protests... its about self sustainability. Fuck-" he said, accidentally burning his hand. "And when everything goes under and everyone else is helpless cos they're so dependent on technology, I... will probably get murdered in my sleep because I have all the food and people don't think things through. Like the fact that I have the skill and the seeds. But frankly if that's the way it happens the human race deserves to die. Yes!" he cried as he finally got the fire going. He blew on it a few times and added a few more pieces of wood.

"I won't be around for that though cos I'll be..." he pointed at the sky and grinned before eagerly digging into his cake.

Dominic blinked and shook his head slightly and grinned back at Kristie, missing her DnD reference, because it wasn't an area he had any expertise in. "He has a point... But. Matt, I do think you have a gnome problem... or... at least a rabbit problem. Mate, they're living under your house, look," he said, pointing at a hole in the concrete foundation. And they are eating your cabbage."

Matt waved a hand, almost dropping his cake, "That's fine I don't like cabbage anyway. It's a pointless vegetable. This cake is amazing. It's the best cake I've ever had!"
 
Kristie muttered a soft curse as Matt once again hurting himself. She was torn between ignoring such a minor thing and having cake, or fussing over him as she was terribly prone to. She still wanted to hug him every time he started talking about how much he hated humanity. As someone who had gone through that phase and moved on she had the utmost sympathy for that point of view but it was hard to remind herself that Matt was a good 8..7? years younger than her now. It took a minute but she finally put down her mothering impulse and thoroughly buried it in cake. "No one likes cabbage, but they'll move on to better vegetables soon." She said, putting her cake down to sort of tug Matt over to the table, shoving some things out of the way and encouraging him to sit down. She would really hate to see any of that cake on the ground.

"Sit and enjoy the cake. It only took forever to get made so you'd better." She grinned teasingly at Dominic. "Speaking of, what's the lucky number today? You're creeping up on Dominic and I now." She emphasized the fact that she and Dominic were much more of age than she and Matt, still a bit irked at Dominic's thoughtless comment earlier.
 
"Oh did it?" Matt asked, taking more time to look at the cake more closely. He giggled. "It's a cat in a Tardis! That's clever! It looks like Ginger!" He giggled again and dug into the cake again. "I can't remember. Twenty four. Or twenty five."

"You're 25," Dominic interjected, coming over for a slice of cake. He took an edge piece so as to preserve the center drawing on the cake.

"Excuse you, and how would you know that, exactly?" Matt asked through a full mouth, accidentally spewing crumbs on Kristie's arm, though he didn't notice it.

"You showed me your non-driver's license id way back when you first visited my office. And I took a copy. Remember? It's also in your passport, which you also showed me. But most importantly you showed me your actual birth certificate."

Matt was quiet for a moment. "Oh... yeah... I forgot that." He grinned at Kristie. "That was because he didn't believe I had money. So even though I brought him a bank check, he still demanded I show him my id and stuff because he still didn't believe me. Even though you can't just... get bank checks..." He leaned closer to Kristie, the picnic table rocking with his movements, and whispered conspiratorially. "He thinks I'm a fraud."

Dominic rolled his eyes. "I may not have your superior high hearing abilities, but you do speak rather loudly when you're high."

At that Matt laughed, and couldn't stop laughing. He was more or less completely lost to the conversation at this point.
 
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Kristie winced at the mention of 'Ginger' but refrained from commenting on how much she absolutely hated that name. "Quarter of a century." She murmured under her breath, wondering if she should start the obligatory teasing. She was briefly distracted by getting crumbs on her arm and scrunched her nose, resisting the urge to hiss at Matt and pointedly moved away from him and closer to Dominic while she wiped the crumbs off, almost dumping her cake in the process.

She muttered a curse as she saved it just before it slid off the plate into the grass and looked up to realize Matt was speaking to her. She frowned at him before glancing towards Dominic with a raised eyebrow. She didn't blame Dominic but at the same time, as Matt said it was a bank check. She was about to make some sort of sarcastic comment when she heard a car pull up in front.

The others probably couldn't hear it over Matt's laughing and thus were probably surprised when Tessa hurried into the back yard, holding a bag of presents. "I'm here! How could you not tell us it was your birth-" Tessa stopped her rant abruptly and looked rather bemused at Matt and tilted her head at the other two. "What's so funny?"

"Everything." Kristie replied with a cheeky grin.
 
Dominic leapt forward as Kristie's cake began to fall. He had grabbed her arm just as quickly as she had rescued her cake and just as easily slid his arm around her shoulder. "Careful there, love," he murmured lowly, turning his head just enough so that Matt couldn't see his smile.

Matt's laughing, however, faded as Dominic made that motion and he squinted at the pair of them for a moment as Tessa approached, but was soon distracted by her presence. And her presents. He barely knew Tessa at all, and she was brining him gifts?

"This is too much...you guys... You don't have to get me presents... I'm too old for that... I haven't gotten presents since I was a kid..."

Matt stood up and went over to hug Tessa, while Dominic couldn't help himself getting a bit handsy with Kristie while Matt wasn't looking. He could hardly think about anything else besides kissing her and he was getting dangerously close to doing so, despite Matt and Tessa's presence.

Matt was still trying to refuse Tessa's presents but was also simultaneously dragging her over to have a bit of cake and to also watch the fire, which though he was still a bit high, he was starting to come down, the fire was still a rather fascinating subject for him.
 
"Love?" Kristie raised an eyebrow and grinned at Dominic. She did not mind the sudden closeness and may have leaned back ever so subtly into the warm body next to her. She was quite happy Tessa arrived when she did because it was pretty obvious that Dominic was getting a little impatient and Kristie was not too far behind herself. In fact she was watching the scene between Matt and Tessa with a speculative interest, wondering if she and Dominic could manage to sneak away now without too much problem.

"Everyone needs presents for their birthday!" Tessa insisted while following Matt. She shoved a few things out of the way of her hastily grabbed presents and set them down perilously on the corner she cleared. She took a moment to peek over at Dominic and Matt and her eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline before she hastily looked back at Matt with a wide smile. "No no, I can get my own cake, you open those presents sir!" She shoved the first present in his arms while moving around the table to get a plate and a slice of cake for herself. She hadn't really known what to get Matt so she had just grabbed the first things that came to mind. He seemed to like computers so she'd gotten him a video game, that's what was in the first box she'd handed him. The other two were a waffle cooker (as Kristie mentioned something about his abysmal cooking habits) and an alarm clock that projected the night sky onto your ceiling. "So, so what do you think?" She asked in nervous excitement.
 
Matt followed Tessa's gaze for a brief moment back to Kristie and Dominic and he shuffled nervously, looking slightly sad, then turned all of his attention to Tessa, and turned his back on the other two. He opened the first present and 'ooh'ed over it. He wasn't much of a gamer, but he did like some of the more space related games, and did sometimes let himself get sucked into them. Most of the time he was too busy for them though. He smiled at Tessa and set it aside after thanking her. Next he opened the waffle maker and gave a bemused snort. "Is that a hint or something?" he giggled. "Someone has to teach me how to make the batter stuff though." Last he opened the alarm clock and that was by far his favorite gift. In fact, he couldn't wait to try it out and hurried into the house, motioning for Tessa to follow so he could plug it in and try it out in his dark bedroom. He was tempted to light up another joint, just to enjoy the clock, but after Kristie and Dom's reaction, he decided against it for now. He had no idea how Tessa felt about such things.

Once Matt had run inside, Dominic turned his full attention on Kristie. "Do we sneak out now or should we at least be polite enough to say goodbye?" He asked, letting his hand start to wander up her shirt, but he didn't start groping yet. "I've been wanting to kiss you all night-" he said breathlessly, letting his lips hover close to hers. "Is that okay?" he asked, waiting for her permission to continue. "Is this okay?"
 
Tessa was overjoyed that her impromptu gifts hadn't gone too badly at all. They seemed semi-effective in distracting him from what was essentially eye-sex going on behind him. She honestly was amazed the two hadn't run off already or just started going at on the lawn. In fact she was having trouble figuring out how they ended up over here with a cake from the way they were practically vibrating. "Aha! I knew you'd love that alarm clock!" She cheered as she followed him inside. She paused and sniffed delicately, looking not at all revolted the way Kristie had. "Oh that's nice, you get some pretty fine stuff huh?" She finished following him into the bedroom and looked around in bemusement. "I see what Kristie means..." She murmured with a soft giggle before turning and looking at Matt slightly hopefully. "I don't suppose you have some more? I bet the clock will look amazing!"

Kristie was fairly sure they should win an award for not jumping each other then and there. She was starting to wonder if it had just been so long she was going crazy. "No point wasting time with pleasantries." She muttered, sounding decidedly out of breath too. "Stop holding yourself back." She added now with a soft growl and grabbed him by the front of his suit, pulling him in closer and engaging him in a hungry kiss. If they hadn't been dancing around each other all day, stirring each other up, there might have been some gentleness. As it was, she was only barely holding herself back as she preferred a bit of privacy for such things. "Kiss me all you want." She purred when she finally broke the kiss, feeling a little less tense now. "But let's get somewhere more comfortable first." She doubted the other two would come out any time soon, but she wasn't inclined to risk it.
 
Dominic pulled Kristie close and kissed her again with passion, not ready to end it when she did. Under her shirt, he gave one breast a squeeze before slipping his arm around her back and leading her back out the gate to his car, just as impatient as she was to get busy. He was tempted to get started in the car but contained himself, putting the car in drive and heading decidedly to his house.

"Jesus Christ that was painful," he murmured of their visit to Matt's, but he glanced at Kristie. "Thank fuck you feel the same way as I do. I think Matt was a little pissed. Oops," he laughed nervously. "Shit we left the fire going in his backyard...should we be concerned?" Dominic had absolutely no desire to go back at this point in time, and shrugged and kept driving. "Tessa's there to watch over him hopefully. How old is she anyway?" He asked. "She seems young." But was she too young for Matt? He wasn't sure. Matt looked younger than he was and he remembered being shocked when he found out that he was over twenty. Not to mention he didn't exactly act like he was twenty five.

It took a good ten minutes for them to get to Dominic's house. It was modest in size, but not in decor. The house was all brick and the interior was quite modern, everything more or less brand new with the sleekest steel appliances. He decorated on a gray and muted reds scale, with some cobalt blue accents as well. He didn't bother giving Kristie the tour though, and immediately lead her to the living room couch, not even remotely interested to wait any longer to show her to the bedroom.

Back at Matt's house he had eagerly pulled out his stash to share with Tessa. He'd been relatively surprised that she was even interested in it, because she seemed like a good kid, but he wasn't going to complain. "I didn't know you liked this," he said, once again realizing that he barely knew Tessa, but she obviously considered him a friend, despite their few interactions. He kindly made up a joint for her and passed her a lighter while he plugged in the alarm clock and let it sit in the middle of the room. He never bothered to open his room darkening curtains so he simply turned off the lights and shut the door, letting the clock do it's thing. He stood fascinated by it for a moment, but was ready to boost up his high again to get the full effect. He made himself a joint as well and sat on the floor with his back against the edge of the bed, making himself comfortable.
 
Kristie was quite pleased that at least Dominic was in as bad of state as she was. She too had seriously considered just pulling him over in the car but decided it would probably be best to wait. The last time she'd done it in a car that was not a limo she'd ended up with bruises in interesting places. "Going to his house like this was probably a really bad idea on our part." Kristie said, breathing slowly so as to not be quite as distracted by the now concentrated scent of arousal. "But it did make me think of bringing Tessa over so that's alright." She kept her gaze firmly outside the car and not in his direction.

"Tessa is 21." Kristie shrugged. "She went through my program when it was much smaller. Considering how Matt acts, I think they'll be fine." She finally gave in and slanted a glance in his direction with a sly grin. "As a bonus, she likes the green stuff. I told him when I offered to call her over but he was so high he probably missed it entirely. Thankfully, Tessa isn't shy." Considering her reaction to Matt's house before it might sound odd that she tolerates that habit in her second in command, but she doubted Dominic much cared at this point. A theory that was proven out as they went straight for the couch, which was fine with her.

Another sly smile crossed her face, knowing that this round was likely to be rough and fast. She half turned and pulled him into another hungry kiss, pulling him down onto the couch on top of her. From that point on there was not much thinking about Matt or anything that was not their mutual need.

Tessa smirked, having heard that line a lot. "Yeah well, I got into it when I was on the streets and it's a great way to relax." She settled on the end of his bed and happily busied herself with the joint for a bit before exhaling deeply and making a happy hum. "As good as it smelled. Nice." She tilted her head. "Ah yes, right so yeah. Everyone tends to get all worked up over it but honestly it's less dangerous for you than alcohol, which is you know, legal and all. The only reason anyone has a problem with it at all is because some president thought it would be a good publicity stunt." She waved her hand in irritation. This was obviously a subject she ranted on periodically.
 
Matt was more than pleased to find someone who agreed with him and he slid from his sitting position to completely lying down and staring up at the ceiling as his high started to take slowly, and then all at once. He giggled a bit and then some more. "Yeah, it's good for the mind," he started to say, but his thought as quickly as it came, trailed off into a different direction. "Everything just makes sense all of a sudden. I get how my head works and my psychological processes just make sense. It's a filing system, but usually its so fast I don't know why things are getting filed where they're getting filed, or where they're getting filed at all. You know how computers sometimes do that? It files somewhere and you're like 'fuck i don't know where i filed that' so you just download it again and its somewhere on your computer elsewhere but it's hidden away and you don't know where it went? its just there taking up space?" Another giggle. "And then its like, you have some good weed and you open up your little file cabinet brain and there it all is and you suddenly understand it. And like... your emotions just... make sense. You just... connect emotions with thoughts and i- i'm really good at naming exactly how i'm feeling when i'm feeling it... but i dont know why i feel it. and i get weally stuck on trying to figure out why i have to understand everything i can't just not understand it, y'know? i dont like not knowing," he rambled. His words tumbled and stumbled, his tongue working slower than his mind was moving. "That's fucking brilliant," he muttered, staring at the lights.
 
Tessa listened to him ramble raptly. Matt's mind worked so differently than hers she couldn't help but be fascinated. She'd heard Kristie talk about how amazed she was by his mind on a regular basis and only now was Tessa starting to understand what she meant. Even accounting for the fact that he was high and it was only inevitable that some strange things were going to be said (that was half the fun of it) obviously he was working on a different level than her. "It's funny." She said to nothing in particularly and giggled softly herself. "You get all kinds of answers when you get high but I tend to get questions. Like why do we call a crush, 'crush'? It's inane stuff like that I can help but think about..." She paused and snickered. "And of course who can be bothered to actually look stuff like that up?" She raised a hand and tried to reach out for the stars, letting herself ease and bumping into Matt with a giggled apology before finally finding a comfortable position that wasn't on top of the other person on the bed. All the squirming she had to do made her think of Kristie's first stay at this house. "I wish I could turn into a cat." She suddenly mused out loud. "It does make space saving...uh...finding space?" She squinted at the ceiling and tried to put together what she was trying to say. "Err makes it easier to fit?" She finally finished in a hopeful tone.
 
"I struggle with that..." Matt replied. "Feeling like I'm taking up space. Feeling like I should take up less space. And stay out of the way if others. Between that and convincing myself I have as much right to my space as anyone else does. Uh. Sharing space." He growled in frustration, feeling like he wasn't eloquently expressing himself. "No. But really. I feel small. I- feel really aware of the space around me, even when I'm not high." Even now, as a response to the thought he sort of curled up and pulled his arms in close and scooted over so Tessa could have more room.

As weed tended to do, it let his emotions flow freely and so he cried openly. "I think it's from being carted around so much. You share rooms with other kids who don't know you and are selfish for their space and you're just grateful you have a bloody bed. And you don't keep a lot of stuff. I don't have a lot of stuff. It's okay. Too much stuff starts to own you instead of the other way around.." He trailed off, staring at the stars, the tears slowing and finally drying on his cheeks.

"This is pretty cool," he said after a long while. "But it still doesn't quite beat the real thing."
 
Tesse rolled onto her side so she could see Matt as he spoke, her face warm and understanding as he spoke. She wasn't quite as good as Kristie at the comforting posturing, but she was learning. She also understood too well. By the sounds of it being in foster care was only a bit of a step up from being on the streets and the sentiments he expressed were entirely unfamiliar to her. She cried a bit herself, watching and listening to him, simply because she was high too and it was too much work to try and hide it.

"It doesn't." Tessa agreed softly. "But you're brilliant, so I know you'll get up there someday." She might have been taking a leap of logic there, but this was Matt she was talking to.
 
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