I turned back to look at my reflection in the mirror, keeping my expression neutral.
"I don't really shield around you most of the time," I added. "...And I know we're close, but you still shouldn't have been able to see that. Not so clearly."
If Jon noticed my falter in the middle of all that, I couldn't tell. He gave me a dismissive look, taking another, longer draught of his drink.
"...And hey," I said. "Take it easy, okay?"
It took a second for my words to penetrate. Then his eyes met mine in open disbelief.
"Excuse me?" he said. "What?"
"You know what I mean." Casually, I motioned towards his hand holding the drink. "I know what a lightweight you are...don't you think you're downing those a bit fast?"
His expression hardened, holding more anger than I could remember seeing in it, at least since we were kids. Finishing off the rest of his drink in a series of swallows, he plunked the empty glass on the floor, leaning back to peer through the beaded curtain separating us from the rest of the store.
"Hey!" he called out, through the doorway. "Ma'am? Are you there? Can I get another drink? Same thing?"
I winced, but the female seer appeared at the doorway in a blink, smiling at both of us. Even so, I caught her startled look at Jon's tone, and his emptied drink, which she'd only refilled five or maybe ten minutes earlier. I must have had a funny expression on my face, too, because she paused on my eyes for an extra beat before looking back at Jon, and the empty glass he pointed to.
"Please, cousin?" he said, his voice polite that time. "I apologize for shouting."
She glanced at me, and after a look at Jon, I nodded...if reluctantly.
Smiling warmly at Jon, she bent down to retrieve his glass, then disappeared back through the beaded curtain. Once she was gone, Jon let out another snort.
That one had even less humor in it.
"Does everyone here need your permission to get drunk, sis?" he said, his voice biting. "Because you must be awfully busy handing out blessings, if so. Given the bar traffic most nights in this place, it must be close to a part time job for you. I would have thought the Esteemed Bridge would have better things to do..."
I rolled my eyes, but bit back a stab of real annoyance.
"Mr. Maturity," I muttered.
"Bite me, sis."
At that, I turned, staring at him. "Seriously...what is your problem? What did I do?"
"Really?" he said. "You're asking me that? Really, Al?"
"You know what I mean," I said, turning back to the mirror. I bit my lip, adjusting the dress around my ribs. "Do you need to yell at me? Would that make you feel better? Because I can pick a fight with you for real, if you want..."
"Don't bother. I'm sure you can get one of your minions to do it for you..."
Hearing the colder anger sharpening his words, I glanced back at him. His eyes had brightened, but not really with sadness. I saw so much anger in his light that it took me aback. I felt my own aleimi retracting from his, but it took a few seconds longer before I realized that the feelings on my side were a lot closer to guilt. Replaying his words, that feeling only got worse. Hell, if he wanted to take this out on me, he was entitled. He'd been through the wringer the past few years, and pretty much all of that could be traced back to me in some form.
"Bullshit," he said. "I can see that martyr expression on your face, Al, and it's nothing but bullshit. You just do that when you don't want to deal with the fact that maybe this is a problem you and your fucking husband can't fix..."
I felt a whisper of Revik's light, enough to know Jon's anger was carrying.
Is he all right?
No, I responded shortly. But it's okay, I've got this.
Are you sure?
No, I sent with a sigh. But I'll call if I need someone, okay?
I saw Jon's expression harden into more anger, enough to know he'd likely picked up that I'd been talking to someone else. Facing him, I motioned towards myself with one hand.
"Come on, then," I said. "Yell at me. Whose fault is it, if it isn't mine?"
But he only looked away, his eyes cold again, and distant.
"I don't need to yell at you, Al. It's magnanimous of you, to once more make this all about yourself...but I think I can take this one on my own..." Clicking softly with his tongue, he looked back at the mirror, frowning at his own reflection.
I just watched him, not sure what to say.
"You didn't put my name on that fucking list," he added. "At least not that I know of. You didn't order Dorje to kill Vash...and then kill himself...or tell Cass to take off with her pet neanderthal right in the middle of a war zone..."
I swallowed, clenching my hands at my sides. It hadn't really occurred to me that Cass being missing might hit Jon harder than me at this point. After all, they were pretty much the only two humans in the inner circle...at least right now. Neither one of them had seen me in that category for awhile now, and I knew it.
So I just watched him, not speaking.
Jon stared at his own reflection in the mirror, holding up his mutilated hand and looking at it in the glass. "That excuse is pretty thin at this point, anyway, Al...don't you think? I mean, even I can't find some way to blame the Dorje thing on you..."
I was still trying to think of words when the female seer reappeared at the beaded doorway, holding four new dresses in her arms. Without seeming to notice the tension in the room, she explained to me breathlessly how she'd gotten two of the other stores to send over appropriate gowns. I was smiling stiffly and trying to figure out how to tell her nicely to go away, when a male seer appeared behind her at the door, holding Jon's new drink. By the polite way he handed it to Jon and bowed, it was clear that the two staffers were already worried about having committed some offense.
Or maybe they were just worried they'd stumbled inadvertently into the middle of a family argument...which I suppose they sort of had, only I still hadn't figured out if it was anything to do with me and Jon's relationship at all.
Eventually, the two seers left. By then, whatever emotion had been brimming at the surface of Jon's light seemed to have dissipated. He was just sitting there, holding the new drink, and staring at the polished floor.
Somehow, that felt worse to me.
Once the others left, I only glanced at the dresses for a minute. Seeing Jon take another long draught of his new drink, I walked over to him, still wearing the red, sparkling minidress. Sitting next to him on the divan, I plucked the drink out of his fingers before he figured out what I was up to, and right as he was about to bring it back to his lips. I ignored his angry look as I set it on the floor by my feet.
"Fuck you, Al..." He started to reach around me for the glass, but I blocked him with an arm, a leg and most of my body. "Don't play this babysitting shit with me, okay? If you need to hear an apology from me, then fine...I apologize..."
"I don't need an apology, Jon!"
"Then lay off! I'm seriously not in the mood for this..."
"One minute, okay!" I said, holding up my hand in a peace gesture. "Just one minute! No lectures, no babysitting. I'll give it right back to you, I swear..."
"You don't rein in your husband's drinking," Jon growled, probably because he knew it would get to me. "Or were you conveniently unaware of how many nights he spent at the bar while you were dangling sex in front of his face every night before that bank robbery thing you pulled? I'm pretty sure Wreg had to carry him upstairs at least one of those nights. Or did he forget to mention that in all of your honeymooning since my boyfriend murdered Vash...?"
When I looked away, clicking at him angrily that time, he raised his voice.
"You remember, Allie. Vash...nice old guy, wore a robe, laughed a lot? The one I thought was your friend. All of your bank heists and bedroom bullshit can't have made you forget him already? Or was he really just some prop in your entourage...?"
I bit my lip, but only shook my head, once.
"Not going to go there, Jon."
&nb
sp; "What about Wreg's drinking?" he said, making another seer-like gesture with his mutilated hand. "...Or Balidor's? Should we talk about how much drinking 'Dori did that morning when you and Revik had public sex after that week-long nap of yours? You know the one I mean. When all of your supposed friends back home were dying of a killer virus or locked in the kill zone behind quarantine...?" His expression hardened. "But I forgot, they're just a bunch of 'worms' to you now, right? Who cares if we leave them all to die? Unless they're on the gods-almighty list of course. Then they're fucking special. Then they're so damned important we just have to rush in and save them..."
I felt my face reddening, but kept my voice surprisingly calm.
"Jon, I just want to talk to you. Are you going to let me? Or not?"
"Why, Allie? What do you want to say?" Jon was nearly yelling now, and I flinched without meaning to. "Are you going to give me advice, Al? Tell me how it's all cool, that everything is going to be fine...more fish in the sea...?"
Glaring at me, he leaned back on the divan. His face remained hard as granite as he made a sharp gesture with one hand. Again, I had trouble not staring, if only because even his mannerisms were starting to look a lot more seer than mine.
"...Or do I now warrant one of those famous 'higher calling' speeches?" he said, his voice turning derisive. "I mean, after all, my name magically appeared on the list, right? So I must merit some kind of reminder about how fucking important I am. Since that list means I get front row seats to watch all of the other humans on the planet die...rather than blow my brains out, like any sane person would do..."
Just looking at him for a few seconds, I tried to decide if I should interrupt.
"What?" he snapped. "That's it, isn't it? Well...lay it on me, O Mighty One!"
"No, Jon," I said finally. "I don't have any advice."
"Then what, Allie? What do you want, Esteemed and Most Holiest of Bridges...?"
I hesitated again, just looking at him.
The thing is, I knew what I wanted to do, but it didn't make any sense.
I didn't know why I wanted to do it, or what it was supposed to do...so I also had exactly zero words of explanation if he asked me what the hell was wrong with me. I knew if I just did it anyway, without trying to explain, it was likely going to piss him off...even more than he already was. He would probably just get up and leave, actually, if he didn't accuse me of pulling some seer voodoo crap. He would probably see it as an invasion of his space...well, he almost certainly would see it as an invasion of his space.
Truthfully, I wasn't altogether sure it wasn't an invasion of his space.
I'd wanted to see him all day, though. Looking back on it, it felt more like one of those impulse things that Vash was always encouraging me to follow...not so much because I missed my brother per se. The realization made me feel guilty, but it also felt true. I'd wanted to see him, to be alone with him, pretty much since I got up that morning. Something similar even crossed my mind before, when I woke up that morning after Dorje and Vash had died and I saw Jon sleeping alone on that giant bed, wound around himself and exuding a heavy, gray cloud of grief. Just sitting there, seeing his face tense and full with that childlike depression, it had been incredibly difficult to not touch him. Even unconscious, he just felt like he needed...something.
I wasn't sure if I could give it to him or not...or even if I should...but something really pushed on me to try.
Deciding I didn't care how he reacted, I did what that impulse wanted.
I laid my hand flat on his chest, right in the middle. I pressed there, no warning, no explanation, not even an apologetic glance.
As I touched him, I let go of something in my light.
Whatever that something was, it had been hanging around me and him, waiting, it seemed, pretty much all of that day. Maybe it had been waiting since Vash died...or when Dorje killed himself not long after. I know I'd felt it since I'd first thought about Jon that day, when I'd woken up worried about him, even with everything else going on. I'd been worried about him pretty much nonstop since the thing with Vash had gone down though, ever since I'd known that Dorje really had betrayed us, and that he really was dead. I'd felt that same thing hanging over me, waiting, for the same amount of time. I'd felt it off and on for weeks, every time I thought about Jon and how he must feel...every time someone mentioned his name. I thought about it when they talked about Dorje or what he'd done, even in hushed whispers.
I don't know what Jon thought about what I did.
All I know is, he sucked in a breath, the second my fingers touched his chest.
I half expected him to yell at me, or to shove my hand off him. Hell, I wasn't even sure if I could blame him. It was a little creepy, when I looked at it from the outside. I certainly couldn't explain why it felt so important that I do what I was doing, much less what it was...much less what I expected to happen.
I just knew I wanted to touch him. More than that, I wanted to touch him there, right in the middle of his chest.
So I expected him to freak out, to accuse me of crazy seer mumbo-jumbo. I expected a lot of things, but none of them happened.
He didn't shove me off. He didn't yell at me. He didn't even look angry.
He let out a gasp instead. It had so much grief in it, it clutched my heart.
That thing that had been hovering over me, that light...it expanded outwards, so smoothly and liquidly that I felt my hand vibrate on his skin. I felt that liquid light encapsulate his heart. Not his physical heart, but a throbbing beat in the middle of his chest, what had been hurting him since everything had gone down a few weeks before. I felt him in that, Jon, as much as I felt that light. Jon, who had always been there for me, no matter how bad things got...who'd always been the voice of reason and compassion no matter what was going on, who'd defended Revik in that tank in the mountains when no one else had, who'd helped to keep Revik and Cass sane in that dungeon under the Caucasus Mountains. Who'd befriended Vash, when everyone else was too stuck in that honor and duty thing to get close enough to the ancient seer to even try. Who'd asked to be Vash's student, even after everyone told him that Vash only trained seers.
This huge outpouring of love came from me...and I realized not only from me. I felt Revik in there somewhere, Cass, our mother, our dad, the seers living in the hotel, Vash himself...and Dorje. I felt how much Dorje had loved him, in spite of everything.
The light around us increased, growing so dense I couldn't see anything but Jon's eyes. His eyes shone dark in all of that light, dense hazel rings with flecks of gold that looked suddenly bright to me, and different than I'd ever seen them look before.
Somewhere in all that, I was crying.
I felt Revik with me, consciously that time...along with a huge surge of gratitude towards Jon, a desire to help when he felt my hand on his heart. I felt the others too...Wreg, Balidor, Yumi, Illeg, Poresh, Garensche, Tenzi, Farador...a confusion of faces and lights that wove into mine until we felt like a single being, like we were all merged into one. Somewhere in that, I felt Vash again, too, and then that light turned into a sun. The faucet turned into a waterfall...a torrent of light, so much I could barely hold it. So much my hand shook.
I felt things pouring into Jon's chest, a highway of information and light that permeated every part of his aleimi.
Jon let out another gasp, grabbing my wrist. I felt fear in him, a blank kind of terror as that light grew brighter still. His eyes never left mine, but I felt his panic. For some reason, it only caused me to open that thing up above us more, letting more of it reach him.
"Allie!" He sounded young, like he had when we were kids. "Al...please...!"
I sent him love, more love than I could consciously feel.
I loved him so much. So much more than I let myself think about most of the time. He was my brother, sure. We had all of that shared history together, years where he was my closest friend, my only real confidante, the person I could always count on, no matter what. He'd seen me a
t my worst, and I'd seen him when he was still that skinny guy with coke bottle glasses who got beat up every day at school. We'd gone through Dad's death together...and Mom's after that. He'd risked jail time, just from being related to me.
Jon was more than that, though. He was a part of me. He always had been. He's the one I'd been looking for, when they left me under that overpass. I'd always thought it was my dad, since we were so close when I was young. I thought maybe it was my mom, even, since she needed me so badly after dad died.
Maybe those things were true, too...but I'd gone there looking for Jon.
Jon was the one I needed. Maybe he always had been.
I could see it so clearly now, how important he was. Not just to me, but to all of us. That light shone out of him like a sun, and I realized suddenly that the light was him. I wasn't giving it to him...I was reminding him of who he was. That golden white beam not only resonated with him...it was him. When I realized that, I felt not only him in it, but all of the countless beings that had worked to bring him here, to this exact place and time.
In that, I saw Vash too. Vash had seen him. All along, Vash had known who he was, how important Jon was. He'd known when he put Jon directly into his regular classes, with all of those monks in Seertown. He'd known when he greeted Jon like an old friend when I first brought him and Cass to India.
Vash had seen Jon for what he was, far more than I ever had.
There was another brilliant flash, even brighter than the others had been...so bright I couldn't see him through it.
Then, suddenly, everything winked out.
17
DATE
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, the room still seemed to be filled with golden streamers.
But I could see him again. I also realized that we weren't alone.
A half-circle of seers stood in the dressing room around us...or I should say, knelt around us. I felt a kind of blank, fear reaction take over my light when I saw them there, just staring at us with awe in their faces. They looked like they were kneeling in a church or something...but I ended up feeling more like I'd been caught naked in a public fountain.
Allie's War Season Three Page 45
