Who: Wren and Hal What: Discussing boys and girls Where: Hamartia When: When Hal gets home from the carnival Warnings: None
The kitten let Wren know someone was home.
She was sleeping fitfully when Petti climbed out from under the blankets and onto her shoulder, digging his tiny claws into the softness of blanket and plaid shirt and skin. He sat there for a minute, hissing in the general direction of the door, and Wren sat up sleepily and scooped him up. She’d been living on Charlie’s and Hal’s couch for the better part of a week, and she could see the feet underneath the door easily, even in the stream of moonlight from the dirty living room window. The cat hissed again, and she just tilted her head to the side and waited to see if the feet left, or if they came inside.
She was wearing one of Hal’s shirts, stolen from the laundry that day and long to her knees, and her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and she really didn’t care who was at the door right then. She didn’t reach for her butterfly knife, and she didn’t reach for the phone. She just watched.
A rattle of keys and the familiar brusque scent of cigarettes and leftovers from that morning’s cologne preceded Hal through the door. He was used to Wren in the living room at this point, and both he and Charlie had altered their schedules to reflect a third presence that needed watching. (Charlie may have adapted to the cat, but Hal refused to do so. The two shared a mutual dislike and glared at each other regularly.)
“Evenin’,” he said, kicking the door shut with a heel, though not angrily. “I wake you up, huh? Sorry.” Hal was pleased that Wren was home and not working, since there wasn’t a dearth of customers on Valentine’s Day, but his self-satisfaction faded when he noticed her splotchy face. He moved around the couch and sat on the (newly purchased, long used) coffee table, facing her. “What’s wrong, cher?” He pulled something out of his jean backpocket before he sat and held it in one palm.
Wren just blinked when the door opened. She hadn’t expected Hal or Charlie back from their dates so early, but the jangling of the keys was distinctive enough that she knew it was him, even before he opened the door. “Valentine’s Day,” she said, scooting forward and letting the kitten go attack Hal’s leg (one of the kitten’s new favorite pastimes) and reaching for his hand to see what was in his palm. It was dark enough that it wasn’t easy to make it out, and she climbed off the couch and sat beside him on the coffee table and dragged his hand closer. She pressed her nose to his shoulder, to the plaid fabric there. “You smell a little like someone else,” she said, looking up at him. “And like funnel cake.”
Hal made a half-hearted attempt at scraping the kitten off his jeans, but it clung, so he sighed and let it be. “Oh, dat,” he said, referring to the day. “It’s not so bad. Here.” He turned to look at her and offered her his palm, upon which sat one lone red box of conversation hearts. It had her name written on it in blue permanent ink over the “TO:” spot on the back. He snorted in distaste when she mentioned (obtusely) his date, but he didn’t actually say anything.
She stretched up and kissed his cheek, then the corner of his mouth, and she took the box and opened it, pulling out a pink heart and putting it in his palm. She leaned against his side, letting her head rest on his shoulder easily, and she pulled out a yellow heart and held it up between her fingers to read it. “How do you stop liking someone you can’t have?” she asked, turning the heart over before popping it in her mouth. “And thank you. Tell me why you didn’t have a good time?”
Hal tossed the heart into his mouth, ignoring when the kitten complained and not bothering to see what was written on it. He put an arm comfortably around her, reassuring, and smiled at the soft kisses, but made no further move. “Tell me ‘bout dese beaux you can’t have,” he said, waving at all the questions as if they were butterflies in his face. “Den we talk about de awful date I got stuck wit’.”
“He’s my best friend’s boyfriend,” she said, and then she looked up at him, expecting some information in return for the information she’d just given. The kitten crawled up into her lap, occasionally sharpening his claws on Hal’s jeans, and she smiled down at the tiny fur ball. “He gave me the kitten for Christmas. He’s the one who was kidnapped,” she added, scratching the kitten’s ear. “Does this mean you won’t be getting married anytime soon?” she asked, looking back up at him and giving him a small smile.
Hal grunted. “Brandon’s boy.” He did not sound impressed with poor Luke. Hal was strongly tempted to help the kitten off him with the back of his hand, but he resisted. The kitten glared. “It means Ah’m stayin’ away from women too good lookin’ to be true,” he grumbled. “What’s dis boy’s problem dat he don’ like you?” he asked, all but ignoring the ‘best friend’s boyfriend’ bit.
“So you thought she was pretty?” Wren asked, sounding like she was about to embark on something that might resemble epic matchmaking only previously seen in romance novels. She smiled then, a sad smile. “He’s in love with Quinn. My best friend. You know her. She was the one that was shot at the meeting all those months ago.”
Hal remembered Quinn, but mostly it was just a lot of blood and a lot of being real pissed that these mask-types put little girls in the way of bullets. Very similar to how he felt about Wren’s involvement, actually. “Non. Flowers are pretty. Mustangs are pretty. Dis woman was like...” He frowned and thought about it. “Like de end of a cigarette. You just get burned. So you tol’ dis boy you like him too, or you bein’ noble sacrifice about it?”
“I didn’t tell him, but if he liked me that way he would have said something. He’s had a lot of chances. We’re really good friends, better than Quinn even, really, because he understands more things about me than she does.” She looked up at him, trying to determine how trustworthy he was. Not in general, because she trusted Hal. She just wasn’t sure he wouldn’t put Luke in a headlock. “We were locked away together for days, Hal. He has to know.” She left it at that, though there was definite implication in the words.
She took another candy heart and she popped it into his mouth. “Maybe getting burned is something you like,” she said. “I really don’t know what kind of woman would make you stay awake thinking of her. Tell me?”
This was a bit much for Hal, who could feed himself, thanks, and he waved her off--after stealing a heart for himself. “Dere ain’t a woman like dat,” he said readily, grinning. “Ow, you damn t’ing.” He shook his leg. The kitten clung. Sighing, he went back to the topic he preferred. “You overestimate us menfolk, cher. You say t’ings like ‘he has to know,’ but really, we don’ know much unless you spell it out plain. If he decide to stay wit’ his girl, den you no worse off, hm?”
“There isn’t a woman who could keep you up at night?” she asked, disbelieving, because she thought she knew Hal a little better than that. It might be hard to get him to care, but she didn’t think it was impossible. She picked up the kitten, and she tried to hold him away from Hal’s thigh, but he just kept stretching one paw out to stick his claw in the denim, and she smiled at him fondly. “Quinn was kidnapped for days, and she’s my friend, too. I couldn’t do that to her,” she said. “So I got his Valentine’s Day card for her, and I wrote down what I felt and let her write it inside, like it was from her, and I watched her give it to him. He looked happy,” she admitted.
Hal could not understand what was different about his jeans versus everything else in the apartment. He called the kitten a devil cat in French and it looked quite proud of itself. Then he said, annoyed, “You keep doin’ dis t’ing where you stick yo’self out in front of de bullets. It ain’t no point except gettin’ shot. De damn masks are gettin’ kidnapped all de time. What’s special about dat?” True, that was a little unfair, but Hal was not real giving about the vigilantes’ problems. Everybody had problems, and they were just buying extra. He was unsympathetic.
She went from smiling at his chastisement of the kitten, to tipping her head and looking confused at his anger. “She wasn’t doing anything mask related when she was kidnapped,” she said. “We were at her birthday party, playing paintball. And Luke and I, we were Christmas shopping,” she explained. “I know they do dangerous things, but this wasn’t one of those things,” she clarified, meaning Quinn’s kidnapping and Luke’s. “Quinn liked him before his girlfriend left after the Reavers, and once she left he told me he thought maybe he liked Quinn, too. No matter what you say, if he liked me he would have said something.” She looked down at the box of hearts, concentrating on picking out a pink one. “Someone I met recently, he said that I was nothing but something that was used for other people’s pleasure. I think he’s right, and Quinn isn’t like that.”
“Oh,” Hal said, of the kidnappings, sounding justly chastised. He watched her fiddle around with the candy, frowning at her explanation of how come this other girl was so much better than she was. “I think,” he said, clearly at first and then rapidly disintegrating, “that you’re just used to what other people think of you, and so you think dey right when dey give you dis bullshit line about not bein’ anyt’ing more.” Hal wondered if this was some customer that he and Charlie could break into several pieces. “Quinn ain’t been through what you been through.”
Wren shook her head, but she didn’t argue with him, not verbally, anyway. She picked up the kitten, and she hugged him, burying her nose against fur and purr. “Tell me about your date. It’s a better subject,” she said. “What did she do to make you angry?”
Hal did not agree. “Turn out she got a bone to pick about some job,” he growled, shrugging. “People take dese t’ings personal and start grabbin’ at t’ings dat don’t belong to dem.” He stood up, and it was fortunate the kitten was not on the ground to be ‘accidentally’ booted. “C’mon. I make you somet’ing to eat. No more of dis lyin’ about feelin’ sorry for ourselves. Up.”
“Alright, but I want to know what she grabbed at,” Wren said with a frown, standing and letting the kitten jump onto the coffee table with a hiss in Hal’s direction. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?” she asked, stopping in front of him.
More dismissive hand-waving. “Non, non. Ah’m fine. Jus’ my pride. Stop fussin’. What you want for dinner?” There was old pizza in the refrigerator. There was also... even older pizza. Charlie usually did the grocery shopping, and Hal didn’t notice unless he got hungry or they were out of beer.
She didn’t stop fussing. She fussed the whole way to the kitchen, where she knew there was nothing but old pizza to eat. She reached for the phone, and she pulled a twenty out of the pocket of the plaid shirt she wore, putting it on the counter as she reached for the phone and dialed the pizza place from memory. Valentine’s Day surely merited fresh pizza.