A few minutes after Alfred left, a tall man with a messy blond pony tail sat down beside Arthur. He looked intimidating, but his voice was gentle. 'Hey, Arthur, Alfred asked me to drive you home.' So this must be Matthew, Arthur didn't know Alfred had a brother, even in the present, or past now as it was.
Neither one made any move to get up. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, but Matthew just reclined back on the stairs. 'So who, or what, are you anyways?'
Arthur couldn't meet Matthews eyes, he was a pretty bad liar. 'What do you mean? I'm Arthur, we've met haven't we?'
Matthew laughed. 'Yea, I know Arthur pretty well and you are not him, or at least, not him now.'
'I doubt you will believe me if I told you.'
'Try me.' Matthew pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.
'Well I am Arthur, but I think I, somehow, traveld to the future or something. It was a spell I was trying, I must have read it wrong.' There was a long silence, Arthur was waiting for Matthew to laugh, but he didn't. 'Matthew, what happened? Everyone is so... different.'
Matthew took a long puff of his cigarette. 'Life happened. Come on, let's get you home.'
Matthew stood and walked to his car, Arthur reluctantly followed.
They sat in awkward silence for a while until Arthur spoke up. 'So, if this is my future and, no offense, but, it's a pretty bad future... think I could change it? If I can get back to my time?'
To his surprise, Matthew was smiling. 'I was hoping you would come up with that actually.'
Arthur sat back, a little more relaxed around Matthew now. 'So how do I fix things? I wouldn't even know where to start.'
'Well, we are in this mess because everyone focused too much on their own problems, they weren't there for each other. So I would say, change that.'
Arthur pulled a small notebook and pen from his pocket. He opened the notebook and made his first note. 'Meet Alfred's Brother Matthew, buy him a beer.'