Epilogue: Stallions

[moonshadows]

"Hey, shadow-sis," Jesse says as he helps me clear the table, "feelin' a bit restless tonight. "D'you mind helping me get some exercise?"

I shake my head. "Not at all. I got no plans tonight, and it would be nice to see how good that tequila I keep buying you actually is," I finish teasingly.

He grins at that. "It's only fair. Hey Dad," he calls, loud enough to be heard in the living room, "I'm taking your youngest daughter to keep me from making a disgrace of myself while I wallow in debauchery!"

"Be back by midnight," Papi yells back. "Or else!"

"Or else what?" I shout, grinning.

When I turn around, he's standing in the doorway, arms crossed, grinning. "Or else you'll turn into a pumpkin. C'mon, hugs before you leave, both of you."

Obediently, we each hug Gabriel in turn. He turns with each of us in his arms before he lets go, freeing us one by one while still blocking the door so the other can't escape without their obligatory hug. Then we wave to 'Rienne on our way past and grab coats because early November in Zurich is not warm, and we're on our way to Jesse's favorite bar.

=

We start with our usual two shots of tequila. The difference is that this time, Jesse's smiling broadly and we toast each other before drinking them simultaneously.

"See any good targets?" he asks quietly as we each scan the bar.

"There's a woman in a sparkly black blouse who's glaring daggers at me."

"Ooh. Hair pulled up, long red nails?"

"That's the one."

"Mm. Ready to start that race already. You'll be okay?"

"You know it."

"Good. I'm goin' for it."

Jesse swaggers off to go reassure the glaring lady that I'm neither his girlfriend nor his wife, and I turn back to the bartender. There's a lot of nice-looking bottles on those shelves, after all, and I'm finally in a position to try them.

About fifteen minutes and half a dozen shots later, I've managed to achieve a pleasant buzz. Then heads all over the bar go up as a cry of "Yeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaw!" cuts through the ambient noise of conversation. My mind immediately concocts several likely images of the moment my brother reached climax. I'm too sober for this.

Luckily, that's something I can change now.

By the time my trash cowboy brother swaggers back down, I've drunk a third of a bottle of good tequila and am most decidedly not sober. I wave the bottle at him and see the afterglow drain away into concern as he hurries over.

"Alé, you okay?" he asks, taking the bottle and setting it aside. "Oh my god, shadow-sis, you're drunk."

"Damn straight, cowboy."

"Okay. Uh. I'm taking you home. The bottle..."

"Bought 'n paid for. 'S mine."

"Okay. Okay." He fumbles the cap back on. "Shit. Dad's gonna kill me. What happened?"

"You happened. Never gonna un-hear that."

My wobbly accusation makes him smirk. "I'm gonna choose to take that as a compliment. Come on, time to get you home."

The quick trip back to the safehouse is a comfortable blur. Only when multiple hands press me firmly down onto the couch do things get clearer.

"...happened?" Papi demands.

"Not doing that again," I announce. "You can go help him pick up chicks, Papi, I'm not doing it anymore."

Gabriel looks torn between affront and amusement. "Why not?"

"Never un-hear that," I mutter darkly, pulling the tequila bottle out of my purse.

"Un-hear what?" he asks Jesse warily as I get the cap off.

"Yee-haw," my brother answers solemnly.

I groan and take a swig.

Papi laughs. "All right, Alé. You stay here. I'll go keep your brother out of trouble."

"Go for it, Papi." Shaky gestures open a few screens, the interior of the bar as seen by their security cameras. "I gotcher back."

Laughing, they both file out.

=

The nanite digestive system is absurdly effective, and I suspect Tante Angela has opinions about drinking because I'm back to being mildly tipsy by the time Papi and Jesse reach the bar. In amusement, I watch as my brother tries to chat up a likely target only to have Papi swoop in and charm her out from under the cowboy's nose. I take another couple mouthfuls of tequila to keep my buzz going. Switch cameras on one screen to follow them, keep watching Jesse as he gets the attention of a redhead, and when they get into the little upstairs rooms, direct the cameras upward so I don't have anything to un-see. It's not until the last third of the bottle that I realize the flaw in my clever plan because now I have two things to try to un-hear, and I close the screens and chug the rest of the tequila and go to bed before the alcohol hits me with all the force of a brick wall to the back of the head.

=

The lack of hangover in the morning is a pleasant surprise. The cinnamon-chocolate-chip pancakes Papi's cooking are an even more pleasant surprise. It takes me about thirty seconds to throw on clean pajamas and slide into my seat at the table.

"Good morning, Alé," Papi says as he sets a plate of steaming pancakes in front of me, next to the glass of orange juice that's already there. "You're looking...alert."

"You mean, I'm not hung over."

"Yeah. How the fuck did you get that drunk? I couldn't even get tipsy."

The disgruntled tone makes me laugh. "We got a super-efficient digestive system. You gotta hit the bottle hard and fast. I did six shots and only got buzzed."

He grins at me over his shoulder as he checks the next batch of pancakes. "Did it work to blur the memory of the horror you overheard?"

"It worked enough."

"Good. So now I know that all I have to do next time is..."

"Down a full glass of tequila."

He thinks about that for a minute, then shrugs. "There's worse problems to have."

===

A few days later, as we're clearing the table, Jesse again says, "Hey, shadow-sis..."

"Nope. You want help firing your Colt, you ask Papi."

"It's not that," he says quickly. "I just...I wanna thank you fer puttin' up with me all this time. I wanna make it up to you." He sees my uncertain expression and gives me a puppy-eye look. "Please?"

I sigh. "Okay."

He hugs me, and we finish cleaning up. The night is clear and cold, and the bar is warm and inviting. Jesse points me to a corner table and goes to the bar while I sit down. When he comes back, it's with a bottle of bourbon that the bar had to have ordered specifically for him, a pair of shot glasses, and a glass of water for himself.

"Never thought I'd be the one drinkin' responsibly," he jokes as he pours the first shots and hands one to me. "To my lovely sister, who has sacrificed so much for this family without even bein' able to get drunk."

"I'll drink to that," I say dryly.

We touch the shot glasses together and sip appreciatively.

"So..." Jesse plays with his glass, not looking at me. "I was thinkin'...now that you're equipped, as it were...I can finally repay the favors you've given me and help you find a nice stallion to ride."

Subdirectories open up in a cascade, and I scramble to get them all closed again. I don't realize what that must look like until I see Jesse watching me with horror. He flags down a waitress and practically demands a bottle of cheap, strong tequila and then shoves it into my hands once it arrives. I down a good quarter of the bottle, feeling tears on my cheeks and an arm around my shoulders, and when I come up for air Jesse's sitting next to me, close enough that I can lean against his chest, so I do.

"Alé," he says softly, "you look like you just saw a ghost. What happened?"

"I don't want to ride a stallion," I say in a small voice. "Or a mare. I don't even want to just pet them. I don't want anything to do with anyone past looking."

"But you were the kind of girl that...I'm sorry, shadow-sis, I'm not tryin' to be rude or stir stuff up. I just want to understand. What changed?"

I take another drink of crappy tequila. It burns.

"One of the things my augmentations let me do was ring my own bell. Didn't have to be touching anything anywhere. Just think it and it happened."

"That don't sound so bad," he says cautiously.

"It made going to movies easier because no matter what was happening, how old or ugly or fat or..." More tequila. "All I had to do was think and I didn't have to pretend to be enjoying myself. Sometimes it was bad enough I'd have to do it four, five times to get through."

Jesse hugs me tighter. "Oh, no...Alé..."

I nod. "By the time I was twenty, I didn't even want to ring my bell by myself because..."

"Because you associated it with...shadow-sis, I'm so sorry. I thought that was something like food, where you'd be glad to have it back."

"It was one of the reasons I chose to give up being organic. I liked not having to deal with that. Had Angela take it out as much as possible."

"Shh, it's okay, you don't hafta do anything you don't want. You still like looking, though?"

The burn of the tequila feels like it's searing away the memories trying to bubble up. "Yeah."

"What sort of stallions you like looking at, shadow-sis?"

Words are getting harder to manage. "Like you, but darker. Or just as dark. Just not lighter. I don't like Pillsbury Dough Buns. Put that shit back in the oven, get a little color to it."

Things get blurry.

I wake up in my own bed, the empty bottle of shitty tequila and the almost-full bottle of really good bourbon on the bedside table. My head feels heavy, sandy, but otherwise not too bad. When I try to remember how I got here, all that comes up is an image of Papi frowning and saying, 'She's drunk and you're sober. There better be a damn good explanation for this, boy.' Then I remember what we were talking about before things got blurry and decide that a shower is better than facing my family just now.

=

"Alé," Papi calls sharply from the living room the instant my door opens. "Come in here, hija. We need to talk."

Fuck.

I edge into the living room, brushing that one annoying lock of hair out of my left eye. Again. Makes me want to go back to having the sides of my head shaved. Papi's standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed sternly, while Jesse stands grimly behind him.

"Jesse tells me you got history that means you don't like doing more than looking."

The silence stretches. Eyes down, I nod.

"Get your coat. We're going to a strip club so you can do all the looking you want."

Wait, what?? That was not the reaction I expected! My head comes up and both of them are grinning at my stunned expression.

"Of course, we're also doing breakfast on the way. Or lunch. Brunch?" Papi waves one hand. "Food. Adrienne!"

'Rienne's door opens cautiously. "Oui, Papi?"

"Your brother and I are taking your sister out to a male strip club. Or two. Or three. You want to come watch the sausage party? We're doing food, too."

Her face lights up. "Oh, yes. I would like very much to go. We can go as a family."

Papi beams at us. "Alright, everyone take a good look at themselves and decide if that's what they want to wear for Familia Reyes Hits The Town. Go change if it's not."

We scatter.