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The weekend had finally come around. The usual hustle and bustle of the compound died down as everyone ran off to enjoy the little free time they’d been given.
“Hey, Lt!” You beam at the sight of your superior. “Whatcha got planned for today?” You stood with your fishing rods tucked under your arm and a backpack stuffed to its brim.
“Nothin’.” He sat at the table with his morning tea. He always had such a cold look, with or without his mask, but you were determined to try and break down at least one of his walls. You’d been working for the task force for about three months now, and he was the only one who you still didn’t know a thing about.
“You ‘otta come fishing with me. It’d be a good time, I promise.” You raise your eyebrows at him, waiting for his response.
“Not up my alley.” He swiftly declines, leaving you taken aback.
In all my years, I’ve never heard a military man say no to fishing.
“Wha’d’ya gonna do? Sit here all day?” You say in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Oh c’mon, Lt.! What if I fall in the water and I can’t get out and I’m all by myself!” You clasp your hands in front of you as if you were about to get on your knees and beg. He sighs at what he referred to as your ‘American dramatics’.
“Fine, but keep the talking to a minimum.”
“Yaay!” You celebrate, causing the stern Brit to groan in annoyance.
***
The air nipped at your nose as you and Simon sat on the bank of the river. The mountains off in the distance were topped off with fresh snow. The warm sunlight would occasionally peak out from behind the grey clouds.
“Here ya go,” You hand him a rod and open your tackle box between the two of you. You start tying your hook to the line and reaching into the box to pull out a long black fake worm. You look over to Simon, motioning to the worm, “See this little guy? Bass love this shit.” He snorts lightly but you notice him go still when he looks at the contents of the box.
“So what do I do?” He asks, a little embarrassed. Most boys learned how to fish with their dads, unfortunately, his dad had been set on being a nightmare rather than an angler. You stop dead in your tracks, eyeing the man.
“You ever been fishing before?”
“No.”
You almost drop your worm,
“What?! Really?!”
He shoots you a look that says, ‘Cool it or else’.
“Your dad never took you when you were a kid?” You probe.
“We weren’t very close.” His eyes avoid yours and look out at the bend of the river. Simon wasn’t one to feel embarrassed about his upbringing, he saw it as something that made him the man he was today. It motivated him to be better than what he witnessed and to maybe even eliminate the horrors that many were forced to live with. But it came with a cost and that cost was the simple things other people had gotten to experience that he didn’t.
“I wasn’t close with mine either,” You sigh, hoping that you hadn’t brought up painful memories. His eyes were back on you at the revelation.
“I actually learned how to fish from the locals when I was stationed in Turkey.” You smile, recounting the memories from your time overseas. “I rented a pole out and asked a taxi driver to take me to a fishing store. The taxi driver could barely speak English but it was clear as day that he loved fishing. We talked the whole way to the store and he even went inside with me.” You chuckle, “I’d run into a group of ‘Turkish Uncles’ out fishing and they’d try to show me their tricks.”
You place your rod down on the rocky ground and motion for him to give you his. “I’ll show you,” Your words come out softly. “This part is easy.” You place the rod between your knees and grab a hook out of the box to show him.
“Now, there are all sorts of knots you can do but I use the Y/L/N special.” You put the line through the hole at the top of the hook and wrap the loose end a couple of times around the line coming directly from the rod.
“So you wrap it however many times, then you put it through the loop at the bottom. Pull it and then tie a knot.” He nods at you showing he understands, and his eyes examine the funny-looking knot.
“One time I went fishing with a friend of mine. He was the Bill Dance of trout.” You pause briefly to explain, “Bill Dance is an old man in the States that strikes fear in the hearts of Bass everywhere.” Simon laughs softly at your dramatics. “But, he took one look at my knot and I thought I was gonna die from embarrassment. He was too nice to tell me it looked awful, but it works just like any other.”
You gently clap your hands together, “Moving on, you know what these are?” You point to the contents inside your tackle box. Simon shakes his head, a smirk still playing on his lips. He almost felt like a young boy again, recanting the stories he’d heard in school of the other boys going out on the lake with their dads. Here he finally was.
“These are lures, a.k.a. Fake bait. They come in all shapes: Frogs, worms, little fish. Depending on the fish, some work better than others. Bass like the worm. Snakeheads, those angry demon fish, like the frogs.” You trail off stating the different lures for different fish as you grab a black worm out of the box.
“You can hook however you want, but I think this is what separates boys from men.” Simon’s little smirk grows briefly. He found the way you explained things to him to be endearing.
You grab the hook in one hand and hold the fake worm in the other. “You could do this,” You put the hook through the side of the worm and let it dangle.
“But you’d probably lose your lure on the weeds or from a strong bite.” You pull the worm off. “This is what I do because I’m a big fishing man,” You joke. Simon silently laughs again. He’d hear you constantly calling yourself jacked and joking that you were as big as him. Here you sat, looking about as big as the worm in comparison to him.
You put the hook through the top of the worm’s head, coming through the side. Your now cold fingers slide the worm to the top of the hook and poke through the middle of the squishy lure with the pointy tip nudging back into it. “This way, your hook stays weedless.” You hand him his rod before hooking your lure.
“Now we can rip some lips.” You laugh at your own joke as you stand and walk closer to the water. You point to the button your thumb rests on, looking back at him. “Hold that down when you cast.” You turn back to the water and give your rod a swift jerk. Your hook goes flying out to the middle of the river. Simon follows and casts his line out, the hook barely lands two feet away. He tuts quietly.
“Here,” You place your rod down and come up behind him. You place one hand on his left shoulder and the other over his hand on the base of the rod. “Keep your body facing the water, and swat it like this.” You run through the motion twice before backing away to watch him. This time he casts without a hitch. “Right on.” You smile at him and for the first time, he smiles back.
The two of you sit back down on the log. “Give it a couple of little tugs every once in a while and reel it in little by little. Or how the Turks taught me: Reel, reel, reel, action, action, action.”
“Reel, reel, reel, action, action, action.” He talks himself through the motions.
“Just like that. Now we wait.”
Moments pass of silence. You couldn’t complain, the view was beautiful.
“Is it true that fish can hear you?” Simon asks you, a bit of humor in his voice.
“No, I think that’s something dads made up so their kids would be quiet.” The two of you laugh. You liked this version of Simon. Relaxed, still quiet and reserved, but he wasn’t the same cold person you met as Ghost.
“Thank you… For teaching me.” He said suddenly.
“No problem, I could use a fishing partner.” You nudge him with your elbow. “Just don’t catch more fish than me or we’ll have a problem.”