Hard To Forget Part 1

Posted on Tue Feb 14th, 2023 @ 13:37 by Phoebe Hunter & Matteo Beneventi

Chapter: Prologue: Dawn of Avalon
Location: New Cresthill
Timeline: Monday lunchtime, September 28th, 1992
3074 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

The old-fashioned pub was a warm and cozy establishment that transported Phoebe back in time with its classic, rustic atmosphere. Dark wooden beams, vintage decor, and a fireplace all contribute to the traditional feel. The bar was lined with a variety of beers, ciders, and spirits, and the menu grin the sign near the kitchen was filled with classic pub fare such as fish and chips, shepherd's pie, and bangers and mash.

It was just like Phoebe was in London for a moment instead of 400 miles away in a middle of a mess. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as she waited to be served by the older bar tender still trying to decide what she wanted. Maybe a coke would be a good option as it seemed the simplest as she was driving.

She had never been in to town before but have the robot and all the drama that had happened she wanted to escape for the afternoon before she admitted what she feared about the rangers. She could even see that the pub had live music or sports events playing on the television. It was charming but it was the first place she had stumbled into out of the rain.

The back door pushed open to admit a sack of potatoes currently riding on the shoulder of an otherwise nondescript man, whose features were obscured by the dusty brown paper packaging but who also seemed to be able to move through the space in an entirely functional and purposeful way without really drawing the attention of those he slipped past. The patrons certainly didn't look up, and even the bartender had moved on to serve the newcomer without so much as a glance to validate the produce's arrival. A nudge upwards with a hip flipped up the entrance to behind the bar and the delivery continued onwards through the open door towards the kitchen.

Phoebe watched the the newcomer and glanced around as no one else even battered an eyelid or commented on him. She might not be able to see a face but instantly her abilities lit up like a Christmas tree and made her smile.

“Looks like you got some help for the spuds. Doesn’t even bother him.” She commented as the man turned to take her order. He glanced over surprised to see that he had not been paying attention.

Momentary confusion followed, and the old publican seemed to turn towards the kitchen with mild bafflement before the re-emergence of his hired help forced a recollection. "Oh, yeah, Matt." At the sound of his name, even though it was intended as confirmation and not an attempt to get his attention, the man glanced up, eyes falling first on his boss before flitting over to settle on the man's customer.

He regarded her quietly for a second.

And then, with a nod, offered a non-committal, "Hey", before scooting back through the open hatchway with the intent, one supposed, of heading out to grab more potatoes.

“Hey…” Phoebe offered back before she glanced at the floor and saw the puddle of water. “Might want to mop the floor quickly before you come back through.” She called after him.

With a drink finally poured and coin exchanging hands, the barkeep cast a quick glance around the occupied tables and then shuffled out from behind the bar to approach a man of similar vintage tucked away in a side booth, scrutinising a chess board intently. "Awright ya wee bawbag, get a move on. Some of us got kidney stones move faster 'n'you tryin' t'pretend y'have a hope in hell."

The slam of the back door was more decisive this time, a half turn negotiated to allow the spud-bearer an opportunity to pull the latch over again before finishing up his chore. With a slight grunt, he dropped the sack to catch under his arm, lifted a leg to hitch it up just a little higher, and then leaned to one side to balance out as he retraced his steps to complete his task. A foot straight into the puddle of water made an unpleasant squeaking sound as momentary slipperiness nearly took him by surprise, but he adjusted quickly and opted to heft the potatoes up onto the bar with a thud so that he could lean over and grab a towel to drop onto the wet patch.

Phoebe had not moved from the bar as she was intrigued by the man as he truly sparked the opposite of what Cameron did in her and grinned as her warning was made real. “Really raining out there huh?” She said trying to make conversation now that the man had stopped.

There was a moment where the guy seemed genuinely puzzled by the attempt in conversation, a reaction that gained more clarity as even a sweeping consideration of the pub pointed out the pockets of interaction that really didn't extend beyond the boundaries of each social group. The old men and their chess board were already arguing, there was laughter from a back table, and the repetitive 'thunk' of a dart hitting its mark guaranteed the preoccupation of a group of men who seemed partially moulded into the furniture. The bartender looked up, studied the woman sat alone for the second time, and then cast a glance around with the clear intent of figuring out who she was with.

A foot dragged the towel through the water and was then picked up between thumb and forefinger to dump into the laundry basket behind the bar. Pulling the hatch back down, Matt reached for a clean cloth, wiped off his hands, and slowly made his way over to stand opposite the solitary redhead.

He had the kind of expression that paraded as calm, neutral and unassuming, but his eyes betrayed an investigator's nous for seeking information beyond the obvious. His colouring, more Mediterranean than local complexion favoured, ought to have made him stand out and yet, somehow, he melded into the backdrop as if nothing more than another minor detail. His smile seemed genuine enough, however, albeit a little on the faint side. Where it touched the corners of his eyes, it left the impression of laughter lines, if one could believe such reserved features capable of it.

"It's Scotland," he pointed out, his accent peppered with as much intrigue as his appearance. "When is it ever not raining?"

Phoebe conceded he did have a point that after a couple of weeks in Scotland she was still forgetting despite her water proofed running gear. “I hear between 1pm and 3:22pm on the first Friday in July.” Phoebe answered with a smile back. If his accent stood out, her accent stood out just as much.

The jest earned her a half-smile, a tugging of one side of his mouth upwards that seemed habitual. "Keeps the ducks happy, or so I'm told." Casting a glance over her shoulder at the locals who had likely espoused such pearls of wisdom, the man previously referred to only as 'Matt' shook his head. "Though I can't quite figure out why that matters."

“I do not know either.” She admitted and held out her hand to him. “Phoebe.” She offered him her name not even looking around. There was no one else else in the pub even close to their age so at least she could get to know someone who at least might have something in common other than sparking her senses.

There was a split second of consideration, which would have counted as hesitation had he not used it to study her face with better focus than he'd managed so far. His eyes dropped to look at her hand and then, wiping his on his pants first and then adding the scrunching of the towel in his hand as a precautionary measure, the bartender reached across to accept the greeting. "Matteo, though just easier to go with Matt. It's what they will call me anyway."

“Matt… do your friends call you Matteo?” She asked as she squeezed his hand before pulling back grinning more. The touch had confirmed what her senses were telling her, why did the reluctant ones have the timelines that intrigued her? Or why more importantly did she have to be attracted to the ones with timelines that intrigued her. It had only gotten her in trouble previously. Why couldn’t she like Cam, who seemed fun if not far too fast for her or someone already in the life that she was was trying to build.

For a moment, he seemed sheepish, on the cusp of flushing slightly though he smiled through it and averted his eyes. "I don't think I've been here long enough to have friends," Matt confessed, gaze traveling quickly around the room before briefly meeting hers and then flitting away to distract himself with polishing the handle of the beer-tap. "But I think they're going to call me what they want regardless. I don't mind," Matt added. "Call me whatever you prefer."

“Me either. Friends are overrated moving somewhere new.” She declared taking a sip of the coke via the plastic straw. It was sweet and perfectly cold. “Well Matt is a nice name. Even though Matteo would be nice too. Not many Matteo’s around here.” She commented as a group of older men came into the pub and made a bee line for the bar.

Matt watched the familiar faces swept up in the day's conversation, almost able to tell the time of day by who walked in the doors. The orders were standard also, and he had poured two of the four pints before the men had even reached him. Their greetings were warm but fleeting, too swept up in their own conversation to afford the bartender more than just a cursory show of manners. In this neck of the woods, were service personnel were considered the salt of the earth and pivotal aspects of the community, it was odd to see one practically ignored but it didn't seem to perturb Matt greatly. With the drinks poured and the money collected, he fussed a moment over wiping clean the remnants of drizzled beer from the bar and slowly gravitated back towards the conversation he'd left. Often, those little breaks in between polite banter were enough to redirect others away from him but a quick glance had confirmed that Phoebe was still watching him expectantly. Matt wasn't sure what to make of it, unnerved a little by scrutiny he wasn't actively encouraging but intrigued enough by it to wander back.

"So, you just passing through?" A hint of vested interest tinged his tone. Finding out if she was liable to keep turning up to throw him off seemed worth the prying.

Phoebe had watched him work without reaching out with her powers to seek out more of what was intriguing her but stopped herself and the threads of time that swirled around her wanting to find out what he was intriguing. “No. I work at a school close by.” She said not giving him an idea of which school. There were two to pick from after all so it gave her the chance to see what he thought of them both.

A fifty percent chance was always going to give that response an opportunity to create a lull in conversation. As he made a show of polishing brass fixtures, Matt slowed enough to convey a hesitancy, the additional consideration of closer scrutiny leading him to study her expression for a good while before committing to a response. It wasn't wariness that pulled him back to a private reverie, however, nothing about the guy's demeanour suggested that fifty percent stood a chance of making anyone instantly less attractive. He was being careful, however. Even his eventual nod was slow and deliberate.

"What do you teach?"

“History.” She said honestly. “Why I came into town, I wanted to see the local history and see if there was enough here for me to create history trips and work on the paper work.” She said with a shrug. She was partially lying there as she just needed to escape the Institute and the robot attack.

Again, it took a moment of direct inspection before the bartender spoke again. "Couldn't help you there, I've only been here a few weeks myself." There was a much longer pause, loaded with the tension of possible disclosures, and in some iterations of the same moment, Matt didn't say anything more than that. But there was a situation within this town that had to be accounted for and, though he wasn't very big on disclosing personal information, that fifty percent chance was holding him accountable for certain disclosures too. "Turned out a little more exciting than I expected." A giant robot turning up would do that.

Exciting was not the word she would use to describe it all. “Me too.” She said in a slightly darker tone that she expected looking at him for a moment before looking away. It had not been what she had been expecting herself but nothing could be changed. The greater world was changing and they had to face it or be crushed by it.

"Probably been kind of stressful for teachers, added a few extra drills to your workload." He was probing, to such an extent that it was almost obvious. The fact that he was measuring his comments might have at least seemed like restraint, some sort of consideration for the fact that his comment was likely correct. Dark eyes sought hers, and for a split second, it seemed unlikely that their intensity could have been so easily overlooked. Matteo, wherever he had come from, seemed to carry the world within the confines of each pupil. "Though I did hear nobody got hurt in the end, right?"

"No one got hurt." She said in a tone that was approaching she knew full well no one got really badly hurt. Well, no one got physically hurt but the emotional damage was an enormous toil on the kids and some of the adults as things now felt super real. "But we deal... our students are boarding after all." She finally revealed which location she worked at. It was the end of her drink so she could leave if it went wrong.

In an instant, the inky darkness of his pupils seemed to flare outwards to consume his iris as well, a split second that rendered Matt far more than a simple bartender bumming his way through a working holiday. There was a ripple in the air, one that went unnoticed by all but the most specifically sensitive, but then it dissipated before whatever had caused it had an opportunity to take hold. Control. Regulation. Choice. He dipped his head just once in understanding, glancing behind her to the oblivious patrons beyond, and didn't re-establish eye contact as he quietly replied, "Wasn't quite what we expected when we saw robotics on the syllabus."

He seemed to stare then for a long minute at nothing distinct, his eyes having returned to their typical chocolate brown without regaining proper focus. Further explanation was warranted but the time it took for him to muster the words indicated some sort of internal debate about the merits of taking the woman into his confidence. There was another ripple, far gentler, and then he blinked as he looked back at Phoebe.

"Brought my brother up, figured I'd stay local while he settled in." He dropped the towel in his hand onto the bar. "Guess I'll be staying a bit longer now."

Phoebe did not even glance around to see if anyone else noticed. They would not notice but Phoebe did and she smiled more at the realisation that her hunch and the whole vibe of things had been correct. It was harder for mutants to trust and even more so for Phoebe too after Robert but she was refusing to run away right then and then when someone sparked her abilities so much. "Nice to hear." She said when it dawned on her that this man was one of her student's guardians.

A very faint smile took care of some of the unassuming man's pensiveness, though whatever had been roused did not fully abate. Matt turned to crane his head up in search of the time, leaning back to get a better look at the clock as he remarked, "Good luck trying to get him to focus on history though. If it's before the microchip was invented, he's not interested."

"I have ways..." She assured.

Turning back, Matt spared a glance for the chess players, and then a very quick scan of the rest of the seated tables before his gaze finally settled back on Phoebe. "Lunch break." A pause followed, another choice made. "You hungry?" At the very least, this wasn't the best place to talk about the topic they'd arrived at and, given the obvious connection, he felt some curiosity for further exploration. Several minutes earlier, it would have been an invitation based on appearances if he'd decided to continue the interaction at all. Now there was an opportunity to spare the charade of shallowness just for the sake of faking a normal existence.

"Rain stops in five minutes and there is a Greggs up the road." She offered with a smile as a counter to his question. They could be outside and talk properly without the confines of the pub and several old men who were now glancing in their direction as they continued to speak.

Attention that Matt put down to the presence of a pretty redhead and not because anything they were talking about was of particular interest to the seniors. He would have defended that opinion with a great deal of confidence, though reluctant to fully explain how he'd arrived at that certainty. Patting his back pocket for his wallet, the bartender then flipped up the bar hatch again, called out to the publican who merely lifted a hand to acknowledge whilst the bulk of his attention was fixated on his next chess move, and then Matt ushered Phoebe towards the back door he'd used earlier. A more private route through the side alleys would keep them dryer, but it also meant they didn't have to navigate the lunch crowds as they spoke.