Who: Wren Light and Charles Maheu What: An uncle and niece go fishing. Only one knows this as fact. Where: on Seattle coast. When: This last Sunday morning. Warnings: Nothing as far as we know.
Charles Maheu had a rough few nights especially after the debacle of the vigilante night that went wrong. What puzzled him even more than anything else was that this Wren girl whom he really only knew as 'The girl Hal had a good time with and told too much to" seemed overly keen on getting to know everything about him. Charles didn't know, understand or like that. He didn't suspect she was the type to do something as rash as rob them, but she wasn't the girl scout cookies type either. He had no choice but to remain entirely suspicious while pretending everything was entirely normal with her in the hopes she would answer all his questions. Hence why he agreed to go fishing with her. Admittedly, it was also selfish as he missed the nice quiet time that came with standing at a dock, throw his line in and just wait for the sea life to bite.
Sitting inside one of his many cars (this time a truck), Charles waited for Wren to show up with bait and hopefully a better answer than she gave online.
Wren had actually been nervous about this meeting. She hadn't seen Hal since he'd dropped her off in front of Hamartia, or she would have asked him about Charlie, asked what he liked to talk about, what he didn't like to talk about. She wasn't normally the type to worry about impressing someone, but there was something in the possibility of having a family member that made her hopeful and uncertain. Her relationship with her mother had never been conventional, and she wasn't certain how she was supposed to act around family. All she knew was that she wanted him to like her, and she was afraid of messing it all up.
She had dressed down, dressed young, in jeans and a warm, cable-knit sweater of soft cream, and her hair was in two loose ponytails tied near her shoulders. Her face was scrubbed clean, and she smelled of limes and clean cotton, no sign of the hooker on her face or clothes. She was, unbeknown to her, the splitting image of her mother at the age of 19, before she'd left Musings. She didn't know what Charlie knew about her, and she had no idea what Hal had told him. She approached the truck on galoshes, a bait box in her hand and two fishing poles she'd rounded up from a client for the day.
She peered in the passenger's window, and she knocked on the glass.
Charlie was still waiting when he finally noticed the somewhat familiar girl walking toward his truck. Even without the fancier get up, she didn't hesitate to turn heads, even without trying. To him, she was young enough to be a daughter, if he bothered to take the time to have one. However, he had spent too much time needing to take care of himself and his sister to even want to worry about the prospect of a wife and child of his own. Of course, he didn't choose Hal's method either. It worked for his friend, but Charlie was too set in his military ways to enjoy carnal desires. Hence why he liked fishing. It was therapeutic, relaxing and if he was lucky, fruitful enough to earn him dinner for a few days.
Leaning over, he unlocked and opened the door. He was about to greet her, but at the sight of her, he instantly felt fleeting memories of a younger girl helping him boil potatoes for their meager supper. He blinked, then remembered his manners. "Hello," he carefully said.
"Bonjour," she said with a soft smile, and she lifted the tackle box and the poles, stretching across the truck seat to hand them over before climbing up herself. He didn't look like her mother; that was her first thought. He looked rougher, more worn and gruff, but somehow kinder. She closed the passenger's door, and she turned to look at him curiously, slipping one leg under herself as she settled. The truck looked like something he and Hal would own on the inside, while looking unimpressive on the outside, and she ran her hand over the familiar modifications under the front seat, the touch grounding her in familiarity. "You don't look like I expected," she said candidly. "Who do you take after?"
Nodding at her, Charlie started his truck as they drove toward the marina, the soft sounds of a Robert Johnson track playing on the stereo as the young dead man sang of crossroads and begging for mercy. Driving and concentrating on the road, his eyebrow raised at her question. Again with the family. Most people who wanted to know that much about him were usually also trying to kill him. Though she definitely didn't look the type, he refrained on edge. It was the only way for him to remain in control of all the situations he had to encounter with her in it. "Father," he grunted, making a left. "What you been expecting?" he questioned politely with a touch of suspicion.
"For you to look more like your sister," she said openly. Her mother had been all delicate angles, where he was strong and broad. It didn't surprise her that Hal trusted him, actually. Sitting here, across from her, he felt solid and safe in a way she wasn't used to. Calm in a way she hadn't expected. Unlike Hal, who was all emotions and heat on the surface, Charlie was quiet and more than a little distrusting, she suspected. Still, he was here with her, and he'd trusted her enough to come. She smiled warmly, and she toyed with the tackle box with her fingers. "What do you know about me so far?" she asked curiously.
"Mm," he responded. If it wasn't for their last names, people wouldn't have believed the two were related at all. Charlie hesitated to answer her question for five minutes, mostly because they were pulling into the parking lot. That and he wasn't sure how much he could say without earning himself a slap on the face. Parking the truck, he hopped out and reached into the bed of the truck to get his own tackle and reel, assuming Wren could handle herself in something as simple as getting out of a car. "Not much," he said honestly. "Let's go." He began walking toward the pier. No matter what happened today he was going to fish and possibly catch a few trout, take them back and grill them up goddammit. He just hoped there would be no surprises on the way.
Wren had never fished, but she could handle getting out of a car with a pole and box just fine. The day was cool and bright, and she turned her face up to the sky as she stepped out into the sunlight. By the time she looked back down, he was halfway toward the pier, and she ran to catch him. She fell into an easy pace at his side, and she didn't say anything, didn't break the silence at all. She glanced over at him as they made their way down the salt-soaked wood of the pier, and she breathed in the smell of the ocean with remembered pleasure. When they stopped, she put down the box, and she turned the fishing pole between her fingers, having no real idea how to use it. "It smells like home," she told him. "I was born in New Orleans, but I don't remember it," she admitted. "But the Keys smelled like this, just a little hotter and more humid, but still pretty close. When I was little, I used to open the windows to hear the water lapping on the sand while I slept." She looked up at him, squinted in the sun, and she smiled warmly.
If it wasn't for the sound of Wren walking beside him, Charlie could have closed his eyes and pretended he was back home, getting ready to check the traps in hopes of seeing many crawling crustaceans awaiting to be steamed for dinner. Once they were far enough to catch fish without worrying about getting their lines tangled with others, Charlie set down and opened his tackle box, tacking on neon fish bait putty to a hook while he listened to her story, half smiling yet at the same time cautious. Seeing Wren just fiddle with the fishing rod, he gave her a look that indicated he knew she didn't know what she was doing. But, he held out his hand. "'Ere, let me 'elp you wit dat." Setting up her fishing rod in the same manner as his, Charlie handed it back before flicking his own line into the water.
She watched his hands on the pole, and she took in what he did and how he did it, hungry for the knowledge. Wren loved learning new things, and this was new. It wouldn't help her with clients or in a fight, and that made it even better. Plus, it was something he enjoyed; that mattered too. "You feel safe," she told him, imitating the flick of his wrist and sending her own line splishing into the water. "Will you teach me something, if I ask? I was going to ask Hal, but I haven't spoken to him since the night of the meeting." She looked up at his face, at how much more relaxed he looked here, with that pole in his hand, compared to how he'd looked in the car. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."
He didn't understand exactly what Wren meant by that comment, pausing and looking at her before returning some of his focus to the task at hand. He hadn't even begun to peacefully fish when Wren asked him another question, one that was definitely out of the ordinary considering they were still tentatively working on getting to know each other. Which wasn't necessarily his choice but no turning back now. "What'd it be?" It didn't mean Charlie was going to help her like she wanted, but he was willing to hear her out. For now.
"I need to learn to shoot," she told him with completely blunt candor. She looked back at the water, which was serene, the sun glinting off it in blinding white stripes as the waves rolled toward the shore in the distance. "I know we got off to a strange start, but I promise not to steal your towels or keep you out of your apartment in the future," she added, looking back at him with a smile. She knew Hal didn't fold towels.
Now that got his attention, enough that he looked at her, eyes widened just a tad to indicate surprise. He cared less about what she said after. To him, guns were a big deal, and most people didn't need to learn how to use one at all, especially not someone like Wren. "Why you wanna be learnin' dat?"
She tugged on her fishing line, and she wondered if he was going to end up being Hal's version of protective. It was funny, she was beginning to realize, how the vigilantes saw things differently than other people, how they didn't worry about their own well-being the way others seemed to. It reminded her of Hal's anger, and she was quiet a moment, thoughtful before answering him. "I'm a prostitute," she said with a very simple amount of candor. She held up a hand, and she tucked the end of the pole firmly between the slats on the dock. A moment later, almost too fast to register, she had her butterfly knife out, and she performed an open-close flip without even looking at the blade that was sliding with a sort of silver grace in her hand. The knife she carried had a pearl handle, and it was worn almost to the steel from her fingers. She held it out to him once it was closed, harmless. "I know how to use those, but I was thinking a gun would be a good idea in the apartment, or when I didn't want someone getting too close." She looked young, and she looked earnest and harmless as she watched him.
Well, he wasn't expecting that.
Charlie was never a fan of the prostitution lifestyle, but there was something about a face as innocent as hers and the thought of it standing on a corner, eyes searching for someone to take her away, albeit temporarily all in exchange for money didn't settle right with him. Quashing that feeling down, he took the knife from her, flipping it out and handling it like the pro Wren likely could tell he was. Unsure of how to really feel about the entire situation, he pulled his own folded knife out from his back pocket and handed it to her. "Dat one be in better shape dan dis," he explained, still holding out her worn knife in case it had sentimental value. He eyed her with caution. "If I give you lessons, I be paying for it all. You have a gun?"
She watched his handwork with impressed blue eyes gone wide, and when he handed her his knife her eyes threatened to water. He didn't know he was family, but she did, and she couldn't remember anyone giving her anything without expectations in a very, very long time. She tested it between her fingers, doing an expert Ferris wheel with the blade, which sang through the air with a soft, soft sound. She looked at her knife, the one in his hand, and she pocketed his instead. "You can keep that one," she said. There was sentimental value to it, but she wanted to keep his more. "It belonged to my mother," she told him, because it had. She hoped he'd know to keep it somehow, know it was important somehow.
When he offered to pay for the lessons, she shook her head. "No charity. If it's going to cost something I'll pay," she said, and it was quietly stated, despite the sense of intensity behind the words. "I don't own a gun," she added truthfully, "but I can buy one, if you tell me which one to buy. Or I can pay you to get one for me?" she reached into her pocket, pulling out the 100 dollars Cassidy had paid her for the week, and she held it out to him.
Tucking her knife in his back pocket, he shook his head at her money. "No. How 'bout dis: I pay for lessons, you pay for gun, deal?" The look on his face was enough to indicate he wasn't taking no for an answer.
She'd find a way to get him the money somehow, and so she nodded. In truth, she didn't want to lose the opportunity to spend more time with him.