Matt was lucky enough to have a handle on his English so that he didn’t lose his speech when he was plastered. Apart from around his family, he mostly spoke English anyway, so it was often better than his Spanish. Even if a slight accent may have been peeking through.

Svetlana, however, seemed to be struggling. Matt leaned forward, covering his mouth with his hand as he chuckled at her trying to get a hold of the word she was searching for. Yeah, they’d worked through quite a bit of the bottle on the table, and it would be a stretch to say that either one of them was sober enough to be able to do much of anything. Even just her stumbling over words was hilarious to Matt.

It did make him wonder where she had gotten the piercings, but he didn’t ask. That was her business, and he figured that having to relive exactly where she had chosen to send a needle through her flesh as a teen wouldn’t be the best experience. Even if they weren’t strangers anymore, it wasn’t necessarily his business to know all the nitty gritty details about her body.

She recovered from the language troubles by asking him another question, which he had to drink to. In his time, he had lost a few fist fights. It wasn’t necessarily the most manly thing to admit to, but he’d already drunk his masculinity away, anyway.

She didn’t seem like the type to be in a fist fight, though. A gorgeous mail order bride. Sure, she was a mutant, but that didn’t really mean that she was bound for trouble, did it? Apparently it did. Matt frowned as he watched her count the number of times that she’d been kidnapped. That was just… not right. To have to think through how many times you’d been taken from your home and escaped? For her to just be walking down the street and sitting in a bar with a strange man was a miracle in and of itself.

“Damn. No wonder you’re a misanthrope,” he commented, taking her in in a new way for the first time that evening. The rest of the sh** she’d told him had been somewhat manageable, but that was just low. If it had been him, he wasn’t sure that he would still want to talk to people at all. Was she as paranoid as he could imagine himself being in that scenario? “Alright, f***. Never have I ever finished a bottle of whisky.” She’d managed to steer him back from the edge when he’d gotten angsty on her, so he hoped to do the same.

The kidnapping admission seemed to have some kind of an effect on Matt. It was, yet again, one of the things Sveta did not mind admitting - with some omissions, obviously. Not that she would have gone even this far, had she been completely sober. But that ship had sailed about half an hour earlier.

>>“Damn. No wonder you’re a misanthrope,”

"What did you just call me?" Sveta blinked. She was not classically educated, and even though her English was very good, some fancy words tended to elude her. She did not feel Matt was mocking her, though. So it could not have been that bad.

>>“Alright, f***. Never have I ever finished a bottle of whisky.”

Sveta wrinkled her nose. "Dis is vodka." she blinked "Oh. Yeah. Me neither. I don't like whisky." which reminded her "You hold your liquor well, though. Experience?"

Not everyone was as well-read or well-versed with some aspects of the English language. Backtracking, Matt muttered silently through his last sentence until he came back to the word that she had been tripped up by. “Oh. Misanthropy - it means you don’t like people,” he said, dumbing it down for her. That was a nice way of putting the word. She wasn’t necessarily a misanthrope at the base definition of the term, but she certainly wasn’t as social as most. She seemed like she’d gotten the short end of the stick enough times to be a little more wary about forming connections than other women were at her age.

They were still going with the game, but Matt was starting to run out of good statements to make. He hadn’t ever sat down and finished an entire bottle of something in one night, though, and they were looking like they had pretty good odds of doing so if they kept going at that rate.

But boy, it was really starting to take its toll on him.

“Sh**. You’re right,” he said, picking up the bottle and blinking at it. Maybe he was more drunk than he’d even thought. “Well, I haven’t done that, either. I don’t drink vodka, usually. I like whisky much better.”

They had disagreed about whether or not whisky was good, but Matt didn’t really mind. On a regular night, she could keep the vodka and he’d be able to stick to something better. “Yeah, I guess you could say I have experience. I uh…” he trailed off and took in a breath before continuing. “After Sophie - my wife - died I spiralled for a while. I was the definition of a waste of space, really. You get good at keeping it together when it’s all you’re doing.”

>>“Oh. Misanthropy - it means you don’t like people,”

Sveta rolled her eyes, but she was too buzzed to argue. It really wasn't like she didn't like people. She did like some people. She just didn't generally like *ssholes, and there were a lot of those running around.
Matt was not one of them. So far, anyway. But he was working his way through a bottle of vodka at an alarming pace, so there was a slight chance that might change.

>>“Sh**. You’re right. Well, I haven’t done that, either. I don’t drink vodka, usually. I like whisky much better.”

"Too late." Sveta grinned. The vodka was almost gone, and she was not sure either of them wanted to start mixing it with something else. They were not that drunk or desperate just yet. He was keeping up like a routine alcoholic.

>>“Yeah, I guess you could say I have experience. I uh… After Sophie - my wife - died I spiralled for a while. I was the definition of a waste of space, really. You get good at keeping it together when it’s all you’re doing.”

"Yeah tell me about it." Sveta smirked, leaning back in her seat. "After my last kidnapping, I did a round of dat. And even when I finally left the apartment, I tended to punch anyone on reflex who walked too close or looked at me funny." it was a PTSD thing, clear and simple. At least she was owning up to it. "I still do sometimes. Dat's why I went to your bar. To get out of de crowd before I clocked some teenage girl."

Neither of them had keeled over yet, which was a sign that neither of them were strangers to drinking a little more than average. For Matt, it had been a while, but he was still around alcohol every night. He was reaching his limit, without a doubt, and feeling it, but he was still sitting upright. God, would he regret it in the morning, but he was doing alright for the time being.

Svetlana, too, seemed to be doing just fine. She didn't seem like an alcoholic, but then again, they came in all forms, didn't they? There was a very good chance that that was how she chose to deal with all the sh** in her life. It wasn't exactly uncommon, and it would make sense as to why it had taken her so much to get drunk.

Still, it was out of practice for him to sit down and drink that much, especially if it was something like vodka. He'd been through some rough stuff that night, and the numbness of it all was helping him get through. Svetlana was helping him get through, too, really. She was a good distraction, and she was good at keeping up conversation once she was going. Neither of them were holding back by that point, and it was a nice change of pace.

After three kidnappings, it was no surprise that she also suffered from PTSD. Most of Matt's responses were turned inwards, but from the sounds of it, hers were turned outwards. "Damn," he mused, imagining the young blonde woman as some sort of punching vigilante. He had no doubt that she would be able to punch with some power, too, especially if she had never lost one. "So I guess I should count myself as lucky since I haven't been punched yet?" In all fairness, he had dragged her to a different bar and had been pretty rude at the first one. He wouldn't be all that surprised if she said that he deserved it.

"Thanks, by the way. Y'know, for this," he said, gesturing with the empty shot glass in his hand. He was drunk enough to be numb for the night, and he already knew that his hangover was going to suck enough in the morning as it was. He was okay stopping there, without ever finishing a bottle of vodka.

Sveta had issues to work through. A lot of them. She was in a good place now; she could take on the responsibilities of being part of the IE, and she was at least facing her problems in a constructive way that did not involve punching people. Even tonight's drinking binge was more for amusement, and a little bit to help out the guy whose world she accidentally shattered. She was not drinking to forget anything anymore.

>>"Damn. So I guess I should count myself as lucky since I haven't been punched yet?"

"Dat's as lucky as you're gonna get" she grinned back. He didn't do anything to deserve a punch. And even drunk, he was an all right guy, really.

>>"Thanks, by the way. Y'know, for this,"

"You're welcome" Sveta nodded "I kinda felt responsible for ruining your night. And besides... don't know about you, but I don't get to talk to people often who don't get... freaked out by this stuff. You know like normal people do." she added with a smirk.

She was more dangerous than she looked, that was for sure. Matt had made the joke that he was lucky he hadn’t gotten punched, and she took it a step further. That was as lucky he was going to get, apparently. Matt leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes with his first finger and his thumb as he chuckled. Sure, she was gorgeous, but for him to think that he was getting anything other than a drinking buddy that evening, then he would’ve needed to be even stupider than he was.

Or drunker.

”F***, how often do guys expect that from you?” he asked, leaning forward in a quick motion again. He’d blown any chance that he would’ve had with her hours ago; he knew that. Maybe under different circumstances, but definitely not that night.

She had responded to his thank-you by saying that she felt bad, which was somewhat fair. He’d been completely caught off guard by what she’d told him. He might’ve dragged her down the rabbit hole, but she’d given him the push in the first place. [collar=407184]”I guess that’s true. I’m not really ‘normal people’ anymore, am I?”[/color] There would be no more hiding; no pretending or playing dumb.

It was a good f***ing thing that he was drunk.

”Yeah, well thanks. You’ve got the patience of a f***ing saint, Svetlana.”

Matt was definitely drunk. Sveta was not exactly sober either. Even if he had been less drunk, and less messed up in the head, the blonde knew that she had passed the mark of being comfortably buzzed for doing... other things with the guy. Not the time, not the mood. Not the guy. Not that he was bad to look at.

>>”F***, how often do guys expect that from you?”

Sveta snorted in an unladylike manner, and didn't answer the question. He could figure that one out for himself. She knew he did not hope to get lucky that was; he was too angsty and too drunk and they already knew too much about each other for a fling to be comfortable. So she chuckled along with him, and drank some more.

>>”Yeah, well thanks. You’ve got the patience of a f***ing saint, Svetlana.”

"Well, dat's something no one called me before" she grinned, and drank her last shot for the night. It was time to go home, and get ready to be hung over in the morning.

She'd exchange numbers with Matt, though. Just in case.