Growing Attached But Not Forgotten

Posted on Fri May 3rd, 2024 @ 8:58 by Phoebe Hunter & Matteo Beneventi

Chapter: Winter's Crest Festival
Location: Matt’s House
Timeline: 9pm - Friday, 11th December
3189 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Phoebe did not let just anyone drive her car but she was surprised that for a man who drove a bike most days, he was pretty good even if the roads were a little slippery from the rain. She offered a smile to him and they both got out of the car and looked at the cottage.

“Thank you.” She said for what felt like the millionth time since she had gotten stitched up and they had escaped the pub with only a couple of words to the landlord who was closing for the night whilst the police took care of everything after Phoebe had given a quick statement. She did not want to get involved but it was hard to avoid when her blood was in several places and the sheer amount of people had seen her.

"I'll probably put in a full garage eventually," Matt mentioned as he made sure the car had fit properly into the small carport structure that would at least do something to protect it from the overnight frost. "Just need the weather to improve so I can get the concrete slab down." He joined her then, a gentle hand pressed between her shoulder-blades seeking to guide without crowding. "The house itself doesn't need much work," the conversation continued, a rambling effort really to compensate for the fact that nothing felt ready, at least not by the standards he had hoped to set for her first overnight stay. "But outside should keep me busy."

Phoebe smiled up at him as he rambled away as they stepped inside and took off coats and, in the teacher's case, a cardigan as well. It was the part of him that she adored more than any other part, the way he rambled and fretted when he really did not need to. “Course it will when summer comes back up here you will have about 3 days to complete.” She teased just a little.

"If you believe the locals, it'll be a scorching, unbearable Hell's Kitchen the minute it hits double digits." Unlocking the door, Matt reached around to flick on a light and then stepped aside to let Phoebe enter first. The front room, never destined to be quite the formal space that it was once designed to be, at least had a couch now and, a little out of place, the small television he'd brought over from the pub. It wasn't the best, he'd picked it up second-hand as it was, but it had been plenty when his priority was finding furniture to fill out the other spaces.

"The folks around here are the type to wear shorts mid-winter to prove a point." She was pretty sure she had seen the postman doing his daily rounds the other week in shorts so it was something that she truly believed. "You have been busy." She pointed out smiling at the fact there was more in the place than the last time she had come inside.

"Just some bits and pieces the second-hand place in town had." Moving towards the fireplace, Matt knelt to poke at the preparation of kindling he'd left in anticipation and groped around on the mantle for the packet of matches to light it. "Once the term's over, it'll take a trip to the city to get what Leo needs more than likely, though he's talking about wanting to stay up at the castle." Moving back, he watched the flames for a moment to make sure they were going to catch and then stretched upwards again to offer Phoebe a half-smile, somewhere between acceptance and disappointment. It was better, he reasoned, that Leo stay where he felt secure, especially with everything currently going on, but it was hard not to feel at least a little sad that his brother preferred his current arrangement. "Apparently the kids who board for the holidays have made it sound like a week-long party."

Phoebe saw the look he was giving and slowly made her way over and knelt next to him. She soothed her shirt down and touched his hand. “I have never been there for holidays properly but if the things I have planned for the students are anything to go by quite possibly.” She laughed just a little trying to lighten the mood.

"It's probably safer for him there," Matt replied quietly, reaching forward to shift the pile of sticks a little with the poker. "And he's having fun with kids his own age for once, can't really blame him for not wanting to get stuck in a house with his boring big brother."

"I have no problem with being stuck with his boring big brother," Phoebe assured. "But he is living his best life at the moment." She added. "He is thriving and that is down to you choosing to come here and giving him the opportunity to have something more than what we did as children."

"It's what we came here for," Matt replied simply and then rose to his feet to offer her a hand. "How's your head?"

“And you are doing a great job.” Phoebe assured as she took the offered hand and got to her feet reluctantly. “Not fallen off yet. But it’s okay the shock I think is wearing off.” Phoebe would do a lot to have a mutant handy who could heal but there was no way she was going to admit to Claire or anyone there and then that anything had happened.

Moving to stand in front of her, Matt took a moment to properly scrutinise her, his gaze lingering on the patched wound before drifting to a piercing evaluation of the size of her pupils. Life had made a natural observer of him and there had never been much need to curb the intensity with which he analysed specific details; in this instance, he would have felt justified even if he had realised how pensive he looked. Eventually convinced, there was the slightest shift in focus to actually connect and he stood a moment in the quiet, just watching her, piecing together thought threads until he arrived at a question that he figured probably pretty much summed up the bulk of Phoebe's nervousness.

"Any idea yet why you didn't see it coming?"

Phoebe winced when he finally came to the conclusion that he had been trying to find as he searched her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and shifted uncomfortably in front of him as she tried to think on the best way of summing it up. “Impulse. If they did not consider the option until the second they did it. I felt something was going to happen which was why I was there as I did not want you to face it alone but the kids didn’t plan to go there and break the window.”

A quirk of his eyebrows expressed not so much surprise as relief. "Lack of premeditation is probably the better outcome, though spontaneous violence isn't going to be a lot of fun to deal with." In typical fashion, his brow creased with the burden of assumed responsibility. "I knew things were pretty tense but this is something else."

“Small town views.” Phoebe said sadly as she leant out and attempted to smooth the frown off his face. “People like us fit in to big cities but a school like this would just not fit in there so it’s a case of trying to balance it all and tonight it over bubbled.” Phoebe shrugged as she decided to step back and sat down on the sofa.

"Doc seems to think The Rose wasn't the only target." Thinking back over the short conversation, Matt folded his arms across his chest and continued to dig into the potential repercussions, an old habit that stemmed from a compulsion to stay one step ahead of the world around him. Being so easily forgotten, dismissed as a barely important background detail, still hadn't meant the mutant could sink into the temptation of ignorance. It was true that it was easy enough to evade those who might seek less positive interactions but it also meant that there was never anyone looking out for him, never anyone to remember that he might need a head's up before the veritable shit in the fan. Hyper-vigilance had been a survival instinct throughout a childhood where even the people who loved him had invariably let him down because they hadn't wound up with any other choice. "Let's hope they catch them before the school opens up to the public."

Phoebe nodded and leant out to him and tugged him gently to wards her. “If they catch them I do not suppose they will do much about it either. The town is divided among those who support and those who think we are … less than desirable for here.” She shrugged a little before taking him in. “Matt… are you okay?” She wondered seeing how tense he looked.

As with every time she proved that he wasn't invisible to her, Matt looked momentarily startled. Experience curbed the reaction almost immediately to a sheepish half-smile, and he moved over to bend low and kiss her undamaged temple. "Guess I'm just all up in my own head again," he admitted, having already confessed in the past to overthinking most situations. "Wasn't that long ago, I'd take a look at something like this and just disappear in the other direction."

“And then came alone hurricane Phoebe and spun it all around.” She teased looking up at him smiling. She caressed his cheek with her thumb. “I do not want you to be a hero. If it gets too much I want you safe.” Phoebe was pretty self assured in her stance in the situation and the world that she existed in.

The tilt of Matt's head gave him time to consider the sentiment, which was an unusual amount of concern on his behalf and far more than he was used to processing, but also represented, to his more logical side, at least a decent amount of hypocrisy. Very gently, he gestured with his chin towards her stitched-up head and teased, but not without a point to make, "I'm not the one trying to stop a projectile with my head." He studied her face earnestly for a moment. "Am I not allowed to want you safe too?"

“Completely but I want you more safe.” She answered wincing as her head touched his chin for a moment. “I can keep myself safe most of the time.” She assured. She had just had some bad luck recently.

"As can I, if the situation calls for it." Finally succumbing to allure of conversation over further hospitality, Matt sank into a seat on the couch and stretched an arm to pull Phoebe in for a moment. It felt an easier way to have the conversation, possibly because it wouldn't involve her trying to look through him to figure out what he was thinking before he even knew. "With everything that's happening, Fee, hiding in the background might sound like an easy choice but I'm not some solitary figure with only himself to care about anymore. If they start passing legislation that makes it legal for them to pull all this bullshit then what good is it going to do Leo if I can stand in a corner and not get noticed? And how is that," he continued, turning to bury his nose in her hair, "going to help you when you've planted yourself in the thick of it all?"

Phoebe sighed inwardly. Damn her attraction to men who got all inspired. She could not deny that his need to help her of all people was attractive to say the least. “I do not think I overly planted myself I just happened upon something that required me to occasionally kick ass.” She stated shifting a little to get more comfortable leaning back against him.

"But not on your own."

His point being made, Matt lapsed into thoughtful silence once again, his distraction playing out as the gentle combing of fingertips through strands of slightly-tangled hair. One of the hardest things to gauge in this unprecedent experience of actually holding down a partially-successful relationship was knowing how to broach issues that he'd already construed as sensitive. In the past, difficult conversations had never been a requirement because there had been no point in trying to cultivate something with any longevity to it. He had existed in the moment until the moment had passed and then stopped trying to mourn the continual loss of possibility because he'd come to believe it didn't exist. Now that it seemed like it did, he was hesitant to ruin it with ineptitude.

"Is there any other reason you don't want me involved?"

It had been a question he'd wanted to ask for a while, a gut instinct that told him there was a lot more going on for his girlfriend than she was bringing to their discussions. If anything, Phoebe seemed to treat their time alone as an escape from it all, and whilst Matt could empathise with the appeal, it wasn't the same sort of comfort to him when it too closely resembled every other detached and foundation-less relationship he'd ever had.

The woman closed her eyes trying to avoid the need to look at the future and work out the best outcome for the conversation. She had never felt the draw as powerful as the need to look before even with Robert who had been her only other deep relationship before the potential of her and Matt.

“Because I think I might love you and I do not want you to get scared away.” She said softly searing herself for scaring him away.

Though he wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting, Matt was instantly sure it hadn't been that. Overwhelmed by inexperience, he heard himself sit in silence for far longer than was probably comfortable, paralyzed with the indecision that came from having no reference point, good or bad, to fall back on. This particular sentiment, out of all in a reasonably comprehensive list, was one that he had meticulously avoided even contemplating over the years because the only avenue available seemed to lead to eventual heartache. Growing attached to people who struggled to recall you existed was hard enough when it was a foster father and a surrogate brother; the idea of a romantic interest one day staring right through him with the vacancy of a stranger was enough to discourage even idle speculation.

Phoebe was different. Not since he was a young child had Matt ever been so consistently present in another person's life, to the extent that she had the capacity to recall him and think about him when he wasn't even there. That had been slowly blowing his mind since he'd met her and though he'd been intrigued enough to let his guard down and explore it, a lifetime's worth of unintentional abandonment didn't just evaporate. He had some notion that, maybe, Phoebe had a better chance than any of retaining memories of her time with him but none of that ruled out her choosing to distance herself. That was the problem with all of this; the situation was so uncommon, he had no idea what he was doing most of the time.

He wasn't running away, at least, and having settled his chin on top of her head, was still content to prolong the embrace whilst he thought of something to say. It was probably for best, he tried to reason, to just be honest. There'd been plenty of times when he'd slipped into whatever version of himself seemed to suit the occasion but, this time, there didn't seem any sort of fabrication that would hold up half as well as just plain, boring, forgettable Matt.

"If I was scared," he ventured quietly without confessing directly, "it wouldn't be of you."

Phoebe waited unsure of what he was going to say in response to that. The silence was deafening, to say the least but it was worth it to hear him say it would not be because of her. Well, that was something she surmised in her head unwilling to move to see his face. "Well, that is something." She ventured not at all sure what he was trying to say but she was glad at the very least it was not her that he would be scared of.

"Might not be enough, I know, but...I'm trying." What was it the movies said about these moments? The pivotal point of reciprocation? Matt wasn't sure where he sat with that, he had no idea what being in love felt like or whether the constant motivation to change his entire outlook was purely the result of meeting someone who could actually perceive him with some persistence or whether the political situation would have prompted it anyway. There was a lot about Phoebe he already admired, elements that he found extremely attractive, but he was worried nevertheless that the attachment was selfishly motivated. The more he got to know her, the more he found to like, and it was hard to deny that it didn't create the niggling doubt in the back of his mind that she deserved a lot better than a guy nobody else could really remember.

"New territory for me," he murmured into her hair. "It's going to take me some time to figure out how all the words line up with the way I feel. A lot has changed since I met you, more good than bad and the bad has nothing to do with us. The world's just gone a little crazy."

“New for me too.” She assured shifting a little so she could look up at him. If she could have read his mind and his worries about being the guy no one remembered she would have scoffed that she had loved the man who everyone now knew and it was a lot more peaceful loving him than Robert. “And it is more than enough for now.” She assured quickly not wanting him to be pressured.

The reassurance earned a familiar half-smile, which always went some way to softening the expression in Matt's eyes, even if the constant glimmer of concern was a little too pervasive to be so easily shifted. "I'm not really that used to people being worried about me," he confessed. "Not enough to lose sleep over anyway." That required a more tangible and complex recollection than most were capable of. His foster father had been different, and Leo had his own quirky ways, but that wasn't a particularly exhaustive list.

Phoebe leant up and tugged his chin down so she could give him a soft kiss. She wanted to reassure him and herself that she was not going anywhere. She had come to Scotland and found something she had not been sure that she would ever have again after Robert. “Get used to it.” She assured.