Cat's in the cradle (Melia and Taliesin)

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Matt's hand was starting to throb a bit now that some of the initial drugs were wearing off. He'd been prescribed a pain medication as well under strict direction to not drive while taking it, which was laughable. Knowing Matt he probably wouldn't take it at all, because he was a stubborn thing that liked to think he could handle pain just fine, and also because he was somewhat paranoid of the pharmaceutical companies giving the public drugs to keep them dumbed down to the wrong doings of the government. He was the last candidate to be in danger of that, obviously, but every conspiracy theorist also comes with quite high levels of paranoia to back their conspiracies.

It took him a moment to realize that they were not going back to his place, and so presumed they were going to Kristie's instead. Well that was fair. Now he would get to see the inside of her place and they could call it even. He would have to request to borrow her computer, however. He'd gone two whole days now with very low surveillance on his systems. And it was quite crucial that he check them.
 
As it turned out the cab driver did pull up in front of Kristie's shop, where she slide out and reluctantly left Matt to get out of the car himself. She wasn't too sure where the line between mothering and being a friend were so she was erring on the side of caution and trying not to annoy him. Instead she unlocked the door, punched in the code for the secondary lock and quickly hurried inside to turn off the alarm. She then hurried back out to hold the door open for Matt, because surely that was more on the friend side of things right?

Once he was inside she locked everything up again and gave Matt a bit of an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid I live upstairs so we're going to have to navigate that first, they aren't terrible small ones though so it should be fine."
 
Matt breathed a sigh of relief as he slid out of the car, which was a little more of a struggle with only one arm. "You live above the shop?" He hadn't really expected that. "I can handle stairs though. Promise. My legs work fine. Can I use your computer?"
 
Kristie was a bit doubtful of his assurance about his legs but she wasn't actually going to do anything about it until he was on the fast course to meeting the floor so for the moment she didn't argue. She felt an automatic twinge at the idea of letting him on her computer but she had been all over his so there was no way she was going to say no. "Uhm sure." She moved over behind the wall of monitors and wiggled the mouse. "Just let me take down the dummy sys-" She paused as she realized she had never put up the dummy system and in fact still had the remote access on his computer up. She flushed faintly and stepped back to gesture him towards the chair. "Er well it's already connected to your computer at the moment so you might as well use that…"
 
Matt snorted as he sat down at her computer and saw that she had already remoted in to his system. One of his systems, anyway. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "You are a naughty girl, aren't you?" But he immediately got to work, first checking the security of the remote access and then snooping a bit on her computer just to make sure she wasn't up to no good with his information. It appeared that she was merely monitoring him though and so he began his real work. He was already incredibly frustrated with how very difficult it was for him to use the mouse with his left hand, and decided that surely a trackpad on a laptop must be a better route to take. And by the time he had gotten through as much of his checklist as he had memorized he was trying desperately to use the hand that he shouldn't be using at all. He'd yanked it out of the sling and was jabbing at the buttons on the mouse with half numbed fingers. This was not going to be a pleasant next couple of weeks of recovery, and his hand was starting to hurt quite a lot now and he was becoming quite the cranky pants because of it.

He could, in all reality, actually leave his systems for a few weeks and he'd probably be just fine. His profits might not be top tier, but it wasn't really absolutely necessary that he be in such close attendance of his systems as he felt was necessary. Very rarely was there ever anything to be concerned about. He'd been very thorough that way. The biggest thing had been Kristie and now that he knew her and understood her a little more, he felt much less threatened. By the time he had finished, he was pouting like a three year old who needed a nap.
 
Kristie chuckled sheepishly. "Well you ran off in a panic so I kind of panicked myself." It probably didn't really explain why she had remoted into his systems but it was about all the explanation he was going to get on that point. She forced herself to step away from the computer lest she give in to her anxiousness at letting anyone other than Tessa touch it. Perhaps in time, when they were both more comfortable with each other, she wouldn't mind it but for now it was an exercise in her self-control.

She wandered upstairs to make something to eat real quick, constantly reminding herself that she was trusting him at the moment and there was definitely no reason to freak out or hover. She had no hints to her secret on her computer and he hardly needed any of her money.

She eventually wandered back downstairs though because something about the noises downstairs made her quite suspicious he was doing something she wouldn't approve of. As she saw his arm out of the sling and mashing around her keyboard she had to physically restrain herself lest she give into her mothering tendencies and yell at, or at least chide him. She managed until he was obvious done before coming up with a disapproving look on her face. "Well now that you've done your best to ruin all the work the doctors put did, why don't you go upstairs and lay down?" She was already leaning over him to shut everything down and pulling up the dummy system, wanting to make sure he couldn't do anything else even if he tried.
 
Matt was reluctant to comply solely because he was cranky and feeling rebellious, however, he knew at some point she was very right because his hand hurt a lot and he needed to be an adult and also take care of himself so that he could ensure that his hand did not get further damaged. He wanted to go to space and Mr. Howard had already outlined many of the things required of an astronaut and one of them was no disabilities. Well he wasn't intending on needing to pass every single thing that was legally required of astronauts because he wasn't doing this through bloody NASA because they were government run and the rules and regulations and the media coverage and oh the rules and regulations. And them laughing in his face, which... well, everyone did that.

He mumbled and grumbled and got up, fishing around for his pain killers. "Wait... how come we're at your place and not mine? You could have just left me at home and it would have been fine. I'm sure I'm imposing..."
 
Kristie ignored his grumbling because as far as she was concerned he deserved the pain he got for being stubbornly stupid. Or stupidly stubborn, she wasn't entirely sure which worked better and didn't particularly care. "You just now question our location?" She muttered under her breath in exasperation. She didn't respond while she finished setting up the dummy system before turning off the monitor.

"You may have been fine, though with your poor sense of self-preservation I am seriously starting to doubt that." She was trying to keep the disapproval tamped down but was doing a poor job of it. "We are here partly because I may have taken the opportunity to hunt someone down if we had went to your neighborhood, also your house is not the cleanest or the safest and I really wasn't interested in spending another night in your house while keeping you from giving yourself gangrene." She had dropped to mostly muttering in annoyance again towards the end, positioning herself so she was ushering him up the stairs at the same time.
 
"Forgive me for being on drugs...." he said as he popped another pill as Kristie began her lecturing. He rightly deserved it. But he was definitely not accustomed to having drugs in his system, as had been evident with the Benadryl, and now with the pain killers. His observance skills dropped exponentially, and his stubbornness rose accordingly, mostly because he was overcompensating for feeling physically worthless.

"Where will you sleep then?" he asked as they moved upstairs. "I can sleep on the floor, honestly, so you can have your bed I don't want to take your bed... and my house is perfectly fine," he finished firmly, suddenly realizing her early jab at his house. He kept forgetting that she had been in it and from the sounds of it, on multiple occasions. "I like my house."
 
"Yes it's very you, but decidedly not me." After Kristie had gone from living on the streets to living in the lap of luxury and now enjoyed something comfortably in-between, she definitely knew exactly where she wanted to be on that scale. She was a cat type person in a most literal sense, while she may be comfortable anywhere if given the option of finding the softest spot in the house and basking in the sun she would do whatever it took to secure that spot for herself.

Matt would find this out when he slept in her deceptively simple looking but extremely comfortable bed. "And as the person who nearly bled out and is on drugs, you are most definitely taking the bed. I've got 'business' to attend to anyway." She shut the upper stairs door behind them and gestured him towards the dining room table that was not particularly far from the door. Her apartment was very utilitarian, there was not a lot of decoration aside from a couple vases of flowers and a cheerful but muted yellow paintjob. Everything within the apartment was high quality though. The marble counter tops, the fridge, the table, the bedroom furniture and all of the kitchen supplies. Simple but well made. "So, I made some pasta, interested before you pass out?" She was slightly concerned he was going to get sick popping his pills like that without having eaten anything for quite some time.
 
"I love pasta!" Matt cried with such a force of enthusiasm that almost fell backwards and so sat at the table straight away. "Yes!" He took very little notice of her decor, it was something he very rarely paid any attention to, unless he was in a very richly decorated place, and in that case he just felt weird and out of place. In this case he did not feel uncomfortable in the space, and rather liked that it was small.

Of course she had business to attend to. He was probably putting a pretty definite cramp in her lifestyle by being here and being such trouble. Matt felt bad, but definitely appreciated the care, even if he had a hard time admitting it. It spoke volumes that someone who had crept all over his computer systems and house had let him into her own. At least, he thought so. Unless she was doing that whole keep friends close, enemies closer. He couldn't quite see how he might be an enemy to someone who had been a total stranger only days earlier, other than the fact that he was rich and that was her works duty to steal from the rich.

Obviously he was still working on convincing himself on whether she was telling the truth or not. He had yet to really perform the proper research on her to really determine how truthful she was, however his early life working through the foster system did instill in him some 'gut feelings' about people, particularly the shady ones. Shady adults. He could generally spot a lie from a long ways away and Kristie was not emitting any kinds of suspicious signals in that area. Certainly she was holding back some information, but she was not a liar. Though what she was holding back did have him curious...

He found he wanted to believe her though. Despite him not wanting the motherly treatment, a part of him deep inside and very much suppressed craved it quite a lot, though he was far from realizing that. Yet he patiently sat at the table, happily accepting the food that she made for him.

"So do you get pretty busy with the computer stuff here?" he asked conversationally. Mainly because it was clear her shop was a small business, and he knew how difficult it was for small private businesses like hers to compete with the big box corporate businesses that existed in the more commercial parts of town. Which was why he chose her shop in the first place. Rebellion against the government existed in far less obvious ways and was not always what was expected.
 
Kristie was momentarily stunned by his enthusiasm, though once she recovered she couldn't help a fond smile. It was good he liked pasta then, as she tended to make it a lot. She served up a plate of her Alfredo broccoli penne with chicken and snagged a fork before setting in down in front of him. She made up a plate for herself, feeling relieved that he was interested in eating. That was a good sign he wasn't going to be sick all over her floor.

She sat down at the table across from him and chewed absently on a piece of chicken while she thought about his question. "Well, it varies." She said with a shrug. "Some days it can be quite busy. This shop pretty much rests on my reputation of being very good at my job and having prices almost as low as the big companies. There were a few times though, especially in the first couple of years, that if it were not for my other job this place probably would have gone out of business." Of course it could be said that the fact her energy was spread in 3 different places might have been part of the problem, but it was in the past now and who could say if the store being her only focus really would have helped.
 
Matt dug into his food eagerly. He rarely made himself such luxuries as this, keeping his food very simple since he couldn't really be bothered with learning to cook anything terribly complex. "You are very good at your job, both of them," he complimented her as he chewed. "Also very good at cooking." But of course she was good at her job. She had managed to sneak into his place with him none the wiser. It suddenly made so much sense to him that surely the cat must have helped with that and that was why his window had been opened. Of course. And she had managed to get into his system as well as remote into his computer. Not that he thought his systems to be invincible. He was too much of an amateur for that. Or at least he still considered himself one.

"Every new business is a risk. You have to invest outside money to start. You are a success if you can eventually run the business on its own funds. And even more successful if it brings in profit."
 
Kristie was briefly caught off guard by the compliment, flushing just faintly at so much praise in such a short amount of time. Her master had always been stingy with his praise and usually followed up with what she could be doing better. And while her 'children' adored her she hadn't gotten many compliments from one she might regard as an equal. "Erm..thanks." She shifted somewhat uncomfortably in her chair, tell her flustered self to just stuff it thank you very much.

Instead she tried to give her cheeks an inconspicuous brush, as if that would make the tint of pink go away. Then she responded to his comment as calmly as she could with this terrible expression on his face. "The shop is doing quite good these days; I just needed to build a sufficiently large word of mouth base. Most people come now because they have been referred by someone else rather than seeing an advertisement." Which she did not use much of anyway. It was hard for her to both get her shop out enough to get the business it needed without making her too much in the public eye.
 
"So what did you do before the shop, then? Just the stealing gig? Or?" He continued eating, the pasta making him feel deliciously full and content, and helped a bit with disorientation of the medicine the doctors had used to put him under. He felt much more clear headed, however the pain killer was making him drowsy. It was a strange combination and he was quickly becoming a less engaged member of the conversation as his eyelids began to get heavy.
 
"Just stealing." She confirmed, making a point to not add that it was for her master before she had decided she had enough of that. She took a few bites of pasta and tried not to think about it too much. "I started the shop just a bit after I reached my majority, kind of like you did with your house." Except her leaving was a bit more messy than his she suspected. "Before that my m-father kept me provided for." It was rather annoying to talk truthfully about her past, but not quite. Considering what else he knew about her she wasn't sure why she didn't share more about the situation with her master with him. Perhaps the situation would pique his interest enough that he would start asking those harder to answer questions again.

"Matt?" She pulled herself out of her thoughts as she realized he was noticeably silent. "I think it's time you should lay down." She said taking one last bite of pasta before standing up. "Can you make it over there or are the pills hitting you pretty hard?" She was fairly sure he would force himself to walk the entire way regardless of what she said so she went ahead and said something that was sure to encourage him to do so.
 
Matt scrunched his forehead in effort to focus his attention. "I thought you said you never knew your parents?" He was getting too tired now and stood up with unsure footing. "I think I will lay down, but we're coming back to that conversation okay?"

He slid his plate further onto the table, wanting to at least help by carrying his bowl to the sink but for some reason that seemed like a very difficult task at the moment, so he just pushed it away instead. He teetered toward the bed and when he found its plushy surface he let out a content sigh. "Wow..." he murmured, completely in awe with such a comfort that he had never experienced in his life. He was almost instantly asleep.
 
Kristie frowned, she was sure she had briefly mentioned her master as her 'father' before, but perhaps she had not been specific enough. Well it would be no problem to fix later. Assuming he remembered a damn thing from tonight with all the blood loss and drugs. "Just rest for now." She responded with a sigh. She followed him to the bed to make sure he didn't fall and hurt himself more before covering him up with a fond smile. She was glad he appreciated the bed.

Once he was settled she turned and prepared for the next morning. She left a note for him on the table telling him to help himself to the leftover pasta she put in the fridge before she headed into the closet. It wasn't really a walk in closet but it would do for now. She just couldn't leave clothes randomly lying around with Matt in the apartment. She dropped the clothes she was wearing in the hamper since they were a bit sweaty and smelled faintly of blood and hospital. She then shrunk down and strutted out of the closet in her cat form. At which point she hopped up on the bed, which didn't so much as vibrate a little at her weight, and curled up next to Matt's head, now quite ready to sleep off the exhausting day as well.
 
Matt's sleep was restful because of the cozy bed and he woke up experiencing the feeling of not wanting to get out of bed because he was so comfortable. He very rarely experienced that feeling, considering his bed at home was a saggy squeaky single mattress in an equally saggy, squeaky metal bed frame.

He stretched and gagged a bit because he definitely smelled like he needed a shower, he still smelled of blood, abandoned warehouse and sweat from his panicked running. Yuck. Sorry Kristie.

He awoke to find Kristie in her cat formed curled up near him. He pet her softly and then got up. He found her note about the left over food, and though he felt guilty about eating her food, he didn't feel so guilty that he wouldn't take her up on the offer and so he heated it up in the microwave, finding the task somewhat difficult with only one hand.

The one he really didn't look forward to was showering, however, hers which he borrowed after he had finished eating. Then he carefully scribbled a barely legible note with his left hand, thanking her for her hospitality and that he had gone home to do his work.

Everything was taking him so much longer with only one hand and he was quite frustrated with it. And because the walk would have taken him the rest of the day he called a cab for what he hoped to be the very last time in a long time.

He was happy to see his bike was there waiting for him in all it's red glory and what appeared in perfect working order. He was so happy to see it.

He immediately unlocked it and turned it towards Howard Enterprise and made his way, albeit, a bit on the wobbly side, to visit Mr. Howard. He didn't even bother going inside.
 
Kristie cracked open an eye when he pet her but didn't seem particularly inclined to move. She didn't have much she could do until he left anyway. She dozed while he wandered around the apartment, occasionally opening one eye to follow his movement but refusing to even uncurl from her ball until he left.

Once he was gone she changed back into her usual form, took a shower herself and then turned the shower cleaner to sanitize. She opened up shop as usual but felt a little extra cheerful. It seemed like she and Matt had finally somewhat resolved this little incident and she was looking forward to building a solid friendship with him in the upcoming weeks.

With that thought in mind, she did actually deign to go back into Matt's neighborhood a few times to visit and more importantly make sure he was doing alright (i.e., taking care of himself). A couple weeks in she even made some time to show up on one of his visits to Mr. Howard. She finally felt comfortable enough to perhaps ask the big question that had been nagging on her mind pretty much since he had first spilled the beans about his big plans.

So, in her typical fashion she was leaning casually against the wall next to the door Matt usually went through as he was pumping up. "Hey." She smiled and waved cheerfully at him.
 
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