Delilah's Samson

Participants:

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and introducing

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Scene Title Delilah's Samson
Synopsis Delilah comes to make a new friend, when Teo runs into an old one, and Joseph brings his best to the vet for a check-up after Alicia's most recent traumatic encounter with homicidal bigot terrorists.
Date August 16, 2009

Somewhere In Brooklyn — Outside A Pet Shelter


Sundays are good for a great many things- church, picnics, a day off, meeting new friends-
-and that is why Delilah is here, at the Brooklyn Animal Care Center. A long time coming, technically, she has finally decided to take that last big step in adding to her family, so to speak. Teo is along for the ride, but somehow has nothing personally to do with this addition. Delilah has commandeered one of the vans that so often shuffle about between the Ferrymen and Phoenix- but only because she is absolutely certain that they do not need it this afternoon. As she climbs down out of the driver's seat, the redhead eyes Teo through the space between seats before he gets out.

"Isn't this exciting?" Come on, be excited! "No surprises this time! Homeland doesn't come here." But they do go to burlesque parlors…

Potted basil, spiders on the corners, pigeons. Teo's always had a weakness for things not soiled by man, and somehow the animal shelter— or the denizens in it— fit comfortably into that category, as far as his understanding of the world goes. He is excited!

Yes, also unavoidably, tired and sore and faintly anemic and still chewing on the waffle in his hand, smothered in peanut butter and condensed milk in a lethal combination of calories that only someone who leads his lifestyle could safely consider a breakfast staple, but excited. When he grins, there's gunk in his teeth, but it's brief before he closes his mouth again, sucks his teeth clean.

"I like this place," he answers, simply, heaving himself out of the passenger seat. He shuts the door solidly with his elbow.

Sundays are also good for taking in your own pet for a check up. Alicia had been trundling along like a slow giant at Joseph's side for the past minute after vacating his parked car, but as they approach the shelter, she seems to get more excited as the concentration of animal smells just starts to hit.

"Alicia— woah, girl— "

It's a bit like talking to a horse, and he kind of is. A bear-horse. There's a sudden scrabble of bony little claws against the cracked sidewalk, and on the end of her bright red leash, Alicia surges forward a couple of feet to bury her nose against the base of a parking meter. Joseph is ruthlessly dragged in her wake, his brown leather shoes scuffing against the pavement in an effort to slow down.

One might wonder which one is being walked, here. As such, the pastor doesn't immediately recognise anyone in the vicinity, trying to gently steer Alicia away from whatever has captured her interest with a few tugs. He gives a sharp whistle, which finally does the trick.

"I stopped in here for a minute this week- just to see the hours. They seemed like nice people here too." Delilah eyes the breakfast-gunk waffle as Teo comes around the van with her, ambling towards the door. "They make these things called pop-tarts…"

"Oh! Pastor Sumter!" Delilah's voice is enough to veer attention, and the bright colored dress helps too. "Strange seeing you here- having a good day?" Her hands go up to make a visor from the sun, so that she does not squint down the walk at Joseph and the Newfoundland trundling about around his legs.

Alicia is more like a moving castle than a dog, generally. Impossible to miss. Teo stares at her benignly, in the docile fashion of one, slightly better-trained pet to the other, his curiosity restrained at his master's sufferance. Or mistress, as the case may be. He hulks around at Delilah's elbow like Alicia does Joseph's ankle, even if— possibly, the inverse is truer, for pastor and Newfoundland, for now.

"Buongiorno, pastor" he greets Joseph, abruptly. He lifts his shaven head, cracks a grin. "You get the memo about your pews yet?"

The greetings are a double-edged sword. Both man and dog turn their attention towards the voices directed their way, and while Joseph only smiles and starts to say something in return, Alicia's response is somewhat more exuberant. Bracing for it this time, however, Joseph manages to not be totally dragged on over, both hands gripping the leash and slowing down the lumbering animal's beeline over.

Which doesn't mean he's not forced to pick up the pace, and certainly it was her call as to whether or not to approach, but here we are, and Alicia is snuffling her slightly squished black snout around Delilah's shoes. "Afternoon," he greets, keeping the leash taut as the dog strains forward. "I was just takin' Alicia here for a check up— this is where I got her, myself, what're you two up to?"

A glance to Teo, and Joseph's eyebrows raise for a moment before he nods once with a crooked smile. "Oh— yeah, I did. Thanks again for everythin'."

Delilah passes around a dubious look when pews come up, but duly distracts herself with scratching the snuffling dog behind her ears, being familiar enough in passing church visits that she feels confident in doing so.

"This is? Neat. I'm here for a pup, myself." Delilah seems to have all of her ducks in a row. "Teo's along because I got a grip on him for more than a few seconds. I wonder if I should just have gotten a leash for him instead. What do you think, Pastor?"

"She's like thirteen years old," Teo's saying, wryly, falling into step with Alicia rather than their human companions. "It's why she thinks taking the piss—" glory be the Britishisms, "out of me is funny. Or tasteful. Or healthy for our friendship." His nose creases around the size of his grin, not one word of his complaint intended.

He puts his hands in his pockets, his right more tenderly than his left, hunkers his shoulders low over the easy, slinking rhythm of his stride. "Are we after a specific pup you saw on the website, or is this going to be a spontaneous selection?"

Allowing the large dog to get some ear skritches before he's forced to reel her in, Joseph moves with them for the building of the shelter, giving a slight chuckle at the interaction between the two. "I get a feelin' that he knows 'stay' when he hears it," he tells Delilah, pushing open the door and nudging Alicia on through before he's holding it open for the younger man and woman. "At least you know what species of animal you're aimin' to get. I was meant to be getting a cat when I picked this'un up."

Whereas Dee teases Teo about his doggishness, he jibes right back on her sore spot when it comes to age. It earns him a narrowing of her eyes and a follow up smile as she sticks her chin out in front of her as Joseph pries open the door to let them in. "Thanks.

"Hopefully spontaneous. I wanted to look at the site, but I decided that it should all be a surprise. A cat? And you came back with her?" That part seems to only register when they're standing in the lobby, and only for long enough that it gets a laugh. Then it is time to sidle closer to the receptionist, hands perching on the countertop. "Hi, I was here this week. Can I get someone to walk me through? I'm interested in adopting a dog."

All very usual. The woman behind the counter at the desk doesn't seem much older than Dee; she nods once and motions towards the double doors to the far right of the lobby. "Mary should be finishing with a couple's papers now- she's in the first room back there. Just ask her for a tour through."


Still In Brooklyn — Inside The Pet Shelter


"So." Companionably, Teo swings his head over to square his gaze on the good pastor, before bending his neck slightly, dropping his gaze to the giant inversed-and-negatived cotton puff that is what Alicia's head looks like from a bird's eye view. "I think I missed it. What are you two in for?"

It is kind of a joke on the prison thing, but a harmless one, he hopes. The probability that Alicia attacked something worse than a meter and warranted return to the manufacturer seems rather unlikely.

"I'm gettin' a new guard dog, this one's broken," Joseph says with a wry note to his voice, glancing down at the beast who's taken up sitting, front feet sliding just a little on the slick floor. In defiance of dry words, the pastor busily skritches behind one of the Newfie's floppy black ears, fingers tangling in the silky patch of fur there. Enjoyable enough so that she leans his weight into him, and he visibly has to brace against it just a little. "Just a vet check up. I brought her in after the… the thing that happened, when she got tranq'd?"

His voice is a little quieter as he explains. "She weren't eatin' right for a while after. She looks like a bear but she's delicate, ain't that right, Alicia?" A pale pink tongue lolls out the side of the dog's mouth as she rolls her eyes up towards Teo, a soft whine from her cavernous throat, as if beseeching him to disagree with this 'delicate' assessment.

"Okay. Thanks." Delilah dusts an invisible snuff from her skirt, turning around to Teo and Joseph. "Alright. I'm going in. You coming in, Teo? I think there's a puppy room…" The redhead points vaguely to the doors nearby, taking a few hesitant steps towards them. "I bet they'd let you play with them even if you don't want to stay with me." She does look over to the receptionist, who has been watching. The girl gives Dee a vague nod of confirmation.

Releasing Teo to play with his kind seems like a good idea to Teo himself, which could mean anything in anybody else's perspective. His eyes crinkle. "You enjoy your shopping," he tells the girl, with a brief incline of his head, up-chuck, confirmation.

His attention drifts as if shoved by some invisible current of air toward Alicia, next, concern folding neatly into the precreases in his brow like origami. He stoops briefly to scrub blunt fingers through the dog's plushy nape. "You'll show the motherfuc— 'em next time, eh?" he asks, jovially. Joe gets a fair brief, token glance, sheepish, before Teo starts for the swinging doors, pocketing his hands again. They smell like peanut butter. This will make him popular.

"Sure will," Joseph agrees, amusement in his tone for the broken curse word, before he's tugging on the big dog's leash once more. "Try not to take 'em all home. I had that dilemma myself," he tells Delilah with a flash of a smile, before he's moving for the counter with Alicia trotting alongside. Once there, the Newfie tucks her back in a little, flank muscles coiling, so that she might be able to spring up, plant her huge paws upon the counter and award the receptionist with a big doggie grin. She doesn't quite match Joseph's 6' worth of height, but close enough. The pastor only skritches her ears as he asks about an appointment.

And Delilah smells like Teo when he smells like Peanut Butter- it catches on. She holds open the door as he follows her through, wordlessly motioning up towards the end of the hall where a doorframe proclaims 'PUPPY ROOM' in big colorful letters. It's for the real puppies- the ones that are small enough to be separated from mom, but not big enough that they can't fit in the puppy cages. Delilah winds away from Teo at the first door, stepping into it in her quest to find the woman in charge of the walk-through.

She is a short, squat woman, dark-skinned with short auburn hair and glasses. The two pass by the door of Teo and his puppy room, but he will not see either of them again until long after he goes back to wait for Lilah in the lobby.

Delilah, as it goes, has the time of her life back there with Mary, wandering between cages. Once or twice, she is allowed inside of one to meet the little creature there, tails wagging and tongues lolling about happily. There are some faces, however, that are of course not happy to see her. The older dogs or those unfamiliar with everything, mostly, shunted around the little ones. Some canines that will doubtlessly not get back out of here again, and some that may get lucky when a rescue comes calling. Chances are that whatever luck they have is bad luck.

It is roughly an hour or more later when the woman that accompanied Dee back into the cages comes out of the double doors. She is strangely alone, though makes a beeline for behind the desk, regardless of who is in the lobby. A word is spoken down into that young receptionist's ear, and big green eyes bug a little- but she nods and gets up to go fetch something. Delilah finally comes next, both of the doors opening with the added effort of the short woman pulling one open. Thump-thump-thump, click-click-click. The sound of canine paws clatter alongside the soft footfalls of the teenager, and though it is she who comes out of the hallway first, one arm wrapped tightly onto a thick leash- it is the thing beside her that is far more liable to grab the eye.

Dee is tall, yes- and this dog's shoulders come all the way to her thigh. All brown brindle fur and tightly-wound muscle, save for a splash of white over his broad chest. Clipped ears, a long, undocked tail that whips at the air when she comes to a halt. He sits just beside Dee's leg, obedience in the face of so much activity behind the closed doors. The dog's head is easily as big around as he is tall, and he probably weighs as much as she does, if not more. A pair of watchful eyes go from his now future master to the rest of the lobby- almost expectant. There's a clear cut intelligence in there. He has been someone's dog before, that much is obvious. An older dog, with an old name and older manners. Delilah's face is practically aglow at this point, regardless of anything else except the curious stare she gets back from the giant pit-bull/mastiff/monster/what in the hell is that thing sitting beside her. That is, up until she snaps out of it, brown eyes first finding Teodoro like a missile lock.

"Teo, Samson. Samson, Teo."

By now, Teo is leaning on the counter and hitting on a volunteer. Except, you know, 'hitting on' is constituted more by mumbling sheepishly into his collar and examining the photographs she has arrayed on her clipboard with fascination uneven in his eyebrows than any expert manipulation of proximity and clever words. He likes the puffy one. The chinchilla. Birds, also. He has a pet bir—

"Holy shit, that is the biggest Goddamn dog I've ever seen," he says, straightening so abruptly he almost catches his hipbone on the underside of the desk's notched corner to bruising effect. Dodging this like a ninja, Teo instead unfolds to relative grace. Stands upright, grinning down at the size of the creature who stands sentinel to Delilah now, studying its demeanor with the curiosity of one who's already noticed something odd about it. "His turds are gonna be like the size of toilet paper r—"

"Cool," he finishes, benignly.

Teo is watched dutifully by those watery brown doggie-eyes, and if a dog could ever look dubious- well. Samson has it. One hand comes down from up above to rub at the space above his eyes, fingertips kneading at his big forehead. Delilah's smile is beaming, even past the majority of the sentence that Teo gets out before changing the rest. "Yeah, I know. He's probably going to eat more than you, too. I'll have to find out how to bake dog treats, huh?" The redhead leans forward a little to look down at the molosser's face. A big pink tongue slips out to lick at his muzzle, almost on cue.

"He had an appointment with a needle at the end of the day." She says this with a slightly strained tone, fingers finding the curves of his stubby ears and looking around to make sure that the shelter woman isn't listening in. "She didn't want me to go in the back. Granted, it had a lot of the angry ones- the mean ones- but I don't know why he was there too. Maybe just because he doesn't fit the family dog profile, I dunno. He's trained, though. And already neutered, has his shots… somebody loved him, once upon a time." Dee fidgets the leash around for a few seconds, palm moving down to scratch between brindle shoulders before she tugs him closer to the front desk, eyes bouncing up to Teo as she does so, laughing now. "I barely took one look at his nametag. Icing on the cake, innit?"

The girl the behind the desk is back, leaning over the edge to look at Samson after putting out what looks like the final papers for Delilah to sign.

WHAT A PECULIAR LOOKING CAKE. Delilah's two mountainous friends regard one another with the bleak stoicity of stone for a protracted moment, while her voice twitters by, presiding over the air like music. It's Teo who blinks first, though it's another second or two before the smile's tugging back, crooked, up the right side of his face. After a moment, he steps forward, casts a blunt-fingered hand down to the great dome of the creature's head.

Pat pat. Nothing that involves a whole lot of scuffing the grain or baby-talk, of course. There is the distinct sense that there are two alpha males meeting in the middle of the lobby this fine afternoon. "Abby should've gotten a dog," he says, after a moment. "Cats, you leave at home, or else they require more pampering and taking care of than anything like they're willing to give back.

"No offense to cats." What he's scowling about has nothing in particular to do with cats, and everything in the world about Abigail's recent appearance— though that crisis has since been averted. He takes his hand back, curling fingers against themselves, making tactile remembrance out of the feel of soft, short hairs and the throbbing verve of dogstar heat underneath. The corners of Teo's mouth turn up, wryly. "He does us quite the unconventional fucking gentleman." And not the only one~

Samson's tongue rolls out of his mouth again, jaw now ajar and panting lightly; he watches Teo now with a less wary air, seeming to shrug off the doubt that he had before. It doesn't take much for the 'Alpha Males' that Delilah associates with to fall into line with one another. Lucky break? Maybe. Sammy does has some delightful manners.

"Maybe she should have. All that cat does anytime I go over is stare at me and curl its lip, I swear to God. I'm such a dog person. Obviously." What she has sitting at her heels is a lot of dog. Not to mention Teo himself, right? "No offense to cats." Delilah mimics, smiling to her two boys in turn and shifting to pick up a pen from the desk to fill out the papers there. Delilah Russell Trafford, signing once, twice, three times.


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