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Meeting Ma

Speeding Bullet Week, 2024 Day Three - Loud/Quiet

Characters belong to Valve, story belongs to me

“Oh, hey, these are my favorite! Thanks, Ma!”

Scout eagerly leaned forward to take a cookie off the plate that his mother, Dierdre, had set down on the coffee table in front of her son. She smiled, smoothed out the skirt of her blue dress, and sat in an overstuffed chair opposite the couch. She loved it when Jeremy came to visit, but this was a particularly auspicious occasion. It wasn’t every day that he brought home someone special.

Especially someone like this.

If Dierdre were being honest with herself, she would never in a million years have guessed Scout would bring home someone like the unsmiling, serious man who was now seated next t on the sofa across from her. Tall, lanky, with a five o’clock shadow she suspected was a permanent fixture, he’d had the good manners to remove his hat when he’d stepped inside her home. He’d kept on the aviators, however, which made it hard for her to get a good look at his eyes when he’d shook her hand in greeting. Scout, of course, had eagerly wrapped his arms around her in a giant bear hug. He’d always been the affectionate sort, she reflected, which only made his choice of partner … odd.

Dierdre had known for some time that her son liked both men and women, but only once had he ever brought anyone home to meet her. It had been years ago, before he’d become a mercenary, a young brunette named Jenny. Although Dierdre knew he’d dated around since then, he hadn’t actually been serious enough about anyone else to warrant a meeting with his mother. Until now.

Still smiling, she took another look at the taciturn man next to Jeremy, the latter of whom was gabbing away about the spiced molasses cookies he was munching on – how they’d been his favorite as a kid, his mom made them every year at Christmas, and so on. The tall man with the Australian accent, who’d identified himself as Mick, sat next to him quietly, letting Scout jabber on about anything and everything. Dierdre rather got the feeling that this happened a lot.

She cleared her throat, and Scout stopped chattering to look at her.

“So,” she addressed the near-stranger in her home. “Jeremy tells me the two of you work together.”

“S’right,” Mick drawled, with a barely perceptible nod of his head. Dierdre waited patiently for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

“Yeah, Snipes and I – I mean, uh, Mick and me – we’re teammates,” explained Scout. He reached for another cookie. “It’s hard work, but ya know, it pays good.”

“It pays well,’ Dierdre corrected her son gently. With his mouth full, Scout nodded back at her in acknowledgement. Pasting another pleasant smile on her face, Dierdre once again turned to the man her son had just referred to as ‘Snipes.’ He was stone-faced.

“So, Mick … you’re Australian?”

“Actually, Ma, he’s from New Zealand,” Scout interjected. Dierdre shot him a brief look, one that should have told him to keep his mouth shut, but Scout wasn’t paying enough attention to notice. He’d turned to Mick. “Though I guess you were still raised there, huh? In Australia, I mean.”

Mick nodded, but said nothing. Dierdre was beginning to get frustrated. If her son was dating this man, she wanted to get to know him, and neither of them were making it easy on her. She tried one more time.

“So, if Jeremy is the team’s Scout, what’s your job?”

“He’s the Snip – “

Scout’s voice cut off mid-word as he finally caught the look on his mother’s face. Shut up, it said. I love you, but shut up.

Scout shut up.

Mick looked curiously at Scout, who was now biting his lip and looking bashfully down at his lap. He raised an eyebrow as a silent question, wondering why Scout had suddenly stopped. Getting no response, much less a glance thrown his way, the Aussie finally spoke a complete sentence.

“I’m the Sniper.”

Dierdre nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. “And you work with René – I mean, Spy, too, don’t you?”

Startled at hearing Spy’s real name, Mick’s eyes widened for a moment, but he soon resumed his calm demeanor. “That’s right,” he said, his gaze wandering down to the plate of cookies sitting in front of him. Dierdre gently pushed the plate toward him.

“Please,” she entreated him. “Take one. I made them for the both of you.”

“Aw, ain’t she the best?” Scout beamed proudly, finding his voice again. He looked proudly from his mother to his boyfriend, and back again. “Thanks again, Ma.”

Dierdre nodded at him, and gave a small smile as she watched Mick reach out a slender arm and grab a cookie. He wore a fingerless glove on one hand, she noticed. It looked a little dusty, but she wisely said nothing.

“Are your parents back in Australia, Mick?”

At that, Sniper started and looked at her, as if not knowing what to say. Scout also went quiet, head swiveling back and forth between Sniper and his mother. Dierdre could tell by the tension in the air that she’d made a misstep, that something wasn’t as it should be, except she had no idea what.

It only took a moment, however, for Sniper to clear his throat, and say very quietly, “Me folks are dead.”

“Oh! Oh. Oh, I’m sorry,” Dierdre said, wishing the ground beneath her would open up and swallow her whole. No wonder he’d looked at her like that – he most certainly wasn’t expecting such a question. She turned to Scout, silently willing him to use his constant chatter to get them out of the situation.

She wasn’t disappointed.

“Hey, uh, Snipes, tell her about the time you got into a fight with a kangaroo. That’s a good one! Ma, listen up, you’re gonna love this!”

“A kangaroo?” Dierdre asked, feigning more interest than she felt. She was just glad to be past the awkward moment where she’d stuck her foot in her mouth. She was even more grateful, however, at the chance to finally hear Mick saying more than a few words at a time, as he went into vivid detail about camping in the Outback, and being randomly attacked by a kangaroo. By the end of the story, she was enraptured.

“Do they really fight like that? Kicking and punching?” she asked him, eyes wide.

Mick chuckled. “Oh yeah, they sure do, bloody drongos,” he muttered. “Tough sons of bitches, too – ehm, beggin’ your pardon. Didn’t mean to use such language.”

Dierdre waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, please,” she told him. “I’ve said worse myself just today.”

“Ma!” Scout yelped, eyes wide and mouth agape. Mick just laughed. Dierdre could tell he was warming up to her, and she was glad. In fact, she felt sure of it when he reached forward to take a second cookie off the plate.

“What?” she asked her son innocently. “It’s true!”

Scout just averted his eyes and shook his head, embarrassed, while Dierdre joined Mick in laughing. She turned back to the lanky Australian and asked, “The two of you are staying for dinner, right?”

“Depends. What’re we havin’?” asked Scout, before Mick elbowed him in the side.

“Ow! Snipes! What was that for?”

Sniper didn’t answer him. Instead, his next words were directed to Dierdre.

“We’d love to.”

And then it happened. Mick smiled at her, a small, but sincere smile. Dierdre couldn’t help but return the gesture. After all, with his parents gone, a little mothering couldn’t hurt him, right? And with Jeremy serious about him, maybe she’d end up his mother one day, after all.

“It’s settled then,” she said, rising from her seat. “I’ll make lasagna.” She leaned toward Mick conspiratorially and said in a fake whisper purposefully loud enough for Scout to hear, “It’s Jeremy’s favorite.”

Sure enough, Scout’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Ma, you’re the best!”

Then, to Dierdre’s surprise, Mick rose to his feet, too.

“How can we help?”

Dierdre blinked. Even Scout rarely volunteered to help, and he was her own flesh and blood. She was really beginning to like this guy.

“You know how to chop an onion?” she asked cheekily.

“Ma’am, I got knife skills you wouldn’t believe.”

Diedre laughed heartily at that. Knowing what her son and his co-workers did for a living, she had no doubt the man wasn’t bragging so much as stating fact. She linked her arm in Mick’s and began to lead him towards the kitchen.

“Come on,” she told him warmly. “Let’s get to know each other a little better, hm?”

Now it was Scout’s turn to be silent as he wordlessly watched the two of them disappear into the other room. Then a slow smile began to cross his face. This was going even better than he could have hoped. Still grinning, he hopped up, and followed them into the kitchen to see if he could help, too.

Things were going to be great.