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"Do I take one for each time?"

"Only if you want to," Matt replied with a raised eyebrow. He'd caught a glimpse of a teenage rebel in her somewhere, but he really hadn't expected that. There were no details, only the insinuation that she had been arrested more than once. That was ballsy, really. Matt had never found himself in hand cuffs before, and he had rarely met a person who had done it more than once, and was still on the other side of bars to tell the tale. She clearly had a pretty sordid past of her own.

The next question was an easy one for Matt to admit to. He'd been wearing a t-shirt back at his bar, so she might've caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the back of his arm. He was sitting with a jacket on, though, so there was no easy way to make his body art obvious without removing it. He decided to pick up his shot glass and tip it back wordlessly. Unless she asked for more information, the tattoo would be up to her imagination.

Matt set his glass down on the table with a little more force, beginning to feel the buzz from the vodka. The next question he posed simply. "Never have I ever run away from home." If she was as much of a troublemaker as she'd claimed, then that was bound to be a surefire.

It sounded like his abilities were pretty much just guess and check. Wonderful. Leaning back in the booth, Matt gestured away from the table toward the open floor. “I mean, if you want to tell me when you get that coffee buzz again, then be my guest,” he said. He still didn’t really care that much, but if she wanted to go through and make it clear where the line was, then he wasn’t going to stop her. She honestly seemed more interested in the fact that he was an Adapted than he did, though he figured that might be because she said she felt good in his aura. Probably another reason she hadn’t turned tail the second he started to act differently.

Svetlana was being an excellent sport, though. Never Have I Ever wasn’t Matt’s first thought when it came to drinking games, but he figured he was already deep enough in a hole here. Why not make it worse for himself? He merely smirked at her comment about spinning a bottle, though. Under normal circumstances, she would be interesting company.

She ordered the full bottle, which Matt had to agree with. There were still two shots on the table, but the chances were that they wouldn’t last all that long. Laying his palms flat against the surface of the table, he looked across at the blonde, his mind now concerned with thinking of something he’d never done. Yeah, this was a good distraction technique.

“Never have I ever been to Russia,” he admitted, starting off easy so she would have to drink. There was no way she was getting around that one. He waited for her to drink one of the leftover shots on the table while he accepted the bottle from the waitress coming toward them. He stuck the bottle between them, feeling slightly more calm than before.

Matt had dragged some pretty girl along through his weird trip following the new information he had just been given. She was just some poor woman who had shown up while he was working, and while, yes, she was partially responsible for his current state, she really didn't have anything to do with the way he was acting. She didn't owe him anything, and she definitely didn't need to be the one babysitting him while he entered this state of being out of control. Usually, he was on top of his emotions; he was the one in control, save for his PTSD episodes. In that moment, though, it was almost like he was having an out of body experience. He was out of control, and he felt as though he was on some sort of caffeine high. There was so much inside of him. So much that it felt like he was going to burst.

Still, she was being a good sport, and Matt wasn't ready to be alone yet. Poor girl was just going to have to stick by him for the time being. He nodded, somehow guessing that she was just being nice. He drummed his hands on the table, glancing around to see if he could spot a waiter or a bartender willing to travel over to the far reaches of the booths.

He turned back to Svetlana a second later, having caught the eye of a waiter. Normally, he would have scoffed at the very idea of sharing his past with a total stranger, but that night, all bets were off. If she hadn't been scared off in that moment, then she definitely would be after he got going. Maybe it was good that she was a total stranger, though. What were the chances that he would see her again? Maybe it was a sign that he should just tell her and then be on his way, having shared it. But no, she wasn't a therapist. She was just some poor woman who didn't deserve to be dumped upon.

"Ask me again in a drink or two," he said simply, before turning to the waiter that approached them and ordering a round of vodka shots. Again, not his usual drink, but he figured it was best to keep things on the same track. Svetlana the Russian might appreciate it, anyway.

Did he eat there? Man, she really was Russian. Matt glanced back at her as he quirked an eyebrow and stuck a cigarette between his teeth. He didn’t smoke often anymore, but again, it was a day of allowances. He held the pack out for her for a second in case she wanted to take one. ”It’s a saying. I’m not going to sit and drink in front of my working coworkers,” he explained with a shrug.

"This is not just the adapted aura, huh."

Matt turned back to glance at her with a sigh, his hands busy with his lighter as he pushed the door open with his back, stopping just outside to hold it for her with the side of his foot. Did he go into his past? Scare her more than he probably already was at that point? No, that wasn’t something Matt said to strangers. Ever. They were both going to be vague, it seemed.

”No, it’s not just the aura,” he replied simply. He could care less about having powers; it was like he always said, actions defined the person. It wasn’t about the fact that he could do something, it was about what he had done with it in the past. He walked down the street, his eyes landing on the bar that was just a few buildings down. He knew full well that he couldn’t smoke inside, so he made quick use of the time that he had. ”I don’t know about you, but I’m up for drinking to forget.”

Mostly good. Well, at least Matt could rest easy in the moment, knowing that he wasn’t hurting anyone now. It wasn’t a ton of comfort, but it was some. He nodded, his eyes unfocused by that point. He was minutes away from getting lost in his memories, but he was managing to hold it together.

The world was messy and private; two very good descriptive words. If he did meet someone else like him, then it was likely that they would both go on their way, never knowing their common trait. Really, it was only when he met a mutant that was aware that their power was being turned off that he would have any issue at all. Or, that’s what it sounded like, anyway. ”There aren’t any other complications with this, are there?” Matt wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted an answer to that, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Matt leaned on the back counter with a sigh, crossing his arms as he cast his eyes up to the clock on the other end of the wall. It was later than he thought it was, actually. That meant that he could go home and get plastered by himself and throw things for a bit. He could lose himself in his mistakes and the things he couldn’t control. He could do that, or...

”So I got a few minutes until my shift change. I think for this, you owe me a drink. A real drink that’s not underneath the counter.” He smirked a little at the blonde woman. She didn’t really owe him anything, but she had just given him information that brought light to old wounds. He didn’t really want to go home alone to drink, since he knew it would send him to even darker places, but with someone else he knew he’d have to keep holding himself together.

Okay, so she was a mutant. Matt had pretty much been expecting that all along, considering her affiliations and the strange way she’d been acting since she’d come in. It all made sense; it fit together like the last piece of some twisted puzzle. But man, he had been hoping for just a smidgen of forgiveness from whatever deity was looking down on him that day. If she wasn’t a mutant, then she wouldn’t have any authority over whether or not he could turn off powers. Of course, he hadn’t been so lucky.

He nodded when she explained her powers, though, rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and his forefinger. No wonder she needed a drink if she was making people hyper all the time. ”Okay, so you get people high when you come close enough to them, then?” he mused, half to her and half to himself. A pretty girl who also felt like caffeine? She must’ve been doing pretty well for herself. Hell, she could market that no problem if she wanted to. Still he had another question. ”And why the gloves, then?” If it was just an aura, then why did she need to bother with them? Maybe it was just a style choice after all?

He was starting to feel a little better after the shot he’d taken under the bar, but his head was still spinning a little. Matt grasped the bridge of his nose with a sigh, trying to ground himself while he was in public. With any luck, the woman would keep answering his questions to take his mind off things.

”How do you know about... what was that word? Adaptable?” he asked. She must’ve had her ear to the ground in the organization she worked for, but he didn’t know how privileged the information she had just given him was. He didn’t doubt her, though - as he thought through his life events, it was like filling in the blanks that kept him up at night. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the one that he’d always sort of known, deep down. But how many of them were there? It didn’t sound like a run of the mill thing.

She just thought he would want to know. Yeah, that sounded about right. Matt had assumed, by that point, that she was a mutant, and that only confirmed things. He could care less if she was a mutant, but the information was what had thrown him off. He ran a hand over his jaw, taking a deep breath as he put a hand on his waist, staring the woman down. God, that was incredibly rude. She had completely thrown him off his game. Usually, there was very little that would actually make Matt angry or concerned, but she'd definitely hit a nerve. "F***..." he muttered under his breath.

He needed a minute. Matt turned around silently, putting the shakers away. They weren't dry yet, but he needed something to keep himself busy. Something to keep his mind from going to the absolute worst places. He could not go there. Not then, maybe not ever. Maybe it was a good idea to give his old therapist another call. Wow, he hadn't expected that, walking into work that morning.

With the shakers away, Matt was out of menial tasks. He closed his eyes and let out a breath as he leaned on the back countertop, taking a minute to compose himself. He had to say something. He had, after all, just been incredibly rude to the woman, who probably thought that he was just being an ass because she just exposed herself as a mutant. As much as she had just said something to him, she'd also just let her own secret out and was trusting him with it.

"Sorry," he said as he turned around. "It's not you. I've got... my own s*** with this stuff," he admitted, casting his eyes down. "Lotta s***, actually. I guess I've had an idea about that for a while." She didn't need to hear his whole life story, and he didn't really want to tell it. He knew that he likely wouldn't even make it all the way through, and then things would get really weird.