Re: The Cat: Matt & Cat
Matt didn't feel strongly about this tiny town. He felt strongly about the facility outside it, and he was beginning to feel something for the people who lived in it, but the town itself held no unique allure. He liked his house, separate from people, but the remoteness itched, felt wrong. At some point, he would try a city. It would be overwhelming, the loud crush, but he thought he might like it. And it would be anonymous.
He still only remembered a small piece of what he knew about Cat, presented back to front and warped with time. It had made an impression, though, and he hadn't seen her since it came to him on the mist, a long, hallucinated night that left him almost speechless entirely for two days.
Her face Do you recognize the woman in this picture wasn't one he would likely forget. Maybe he would remember the name he called her, one day. He wouldn't be able to reach it himself, he was sure. It would need to come on its own.
He took the bottle of whiskey and arched a brow when she called him baby face. "I'm a lot older than you," he said, in a tone that claimed seniority as a result. Russian remained easier than English, in which his progress was painfully, often frustratingly slow. When he became angry, when his concentration faded, English became choppy and empty of meaning. His accentless Russian was perhaps inserted - was maybe not real - but its long and unpunished use made it simpler when his body was remembering things that his mind didn't know. Russian had muscle memory, and English didn't.
He poured a line of nicely measured shots and began passing them to anyone who lifted a hand. "There you go," he said, to a fresh-faced kid whose ID absolutely had to be fake, and there was Brooklyn in his voice, clear as a bell, a New York that had been gone for seventy years. "I'll take pay in drink," he said, smooth Russian again. "With you, when tonight's over.."