Re: Mat & Ren || The Docks
The answer to her question, the one he was not supposed to answer, of course, was that his mother didn't. And Ren hadn't even given her his full name, but he also didn't care to go into the story, because it involved all sorts of conversations about things he didn't like to talk about with anyone, but definitely not complete strangers in the middle of a freezing lake.
But then she sidled up next to him, and the first thought, the perhaps very typically male thought, was that she was planning on initiating something a little X-rated, followed by a question of whether that was even possible in frigid water like this, but that thought came and passed. And before she'd even technically said anything about remembering, he was aware of the presence shifting.
The response was automatic, like a trap triggered, mental walls slamming into place, a reflex like pulling back from a hot stove, utterly unconcerned over whether or not anything else is caught in the trap.
The thing about Ren, is that he'd always been good at mental manipulations. Pulling memories from others, or transforming those memories, and over the past few years, that strength had been turned into protecting his own presence, so that he could pull in and slip under the radar of anyone - his mother, his Uncle or otherwise - that might have come looking for him. And yes, he'd loosened them up of recent, but not that much. "Who the fuck are you?" He snapped.