21. ugly truth

"How bad did you fuck up?" Jordyn asked standing over Santo and blocking the sun. He was in the backyard shooting fireballs at bottles of beer across the rosebushes his mother loved so much.

"Badly," he said aiming at the center bottle and shooting with precision. "I think I'm grounded for life."

"Might be longer than that if you burn your mother's roses."

"Mom says that results come from pressure," Santo said and then looked at Jord. She had an eyebrow raised at him. "My other mom."

"Okay, that makes more sense now."

He aimed again and took a deep breath, concentrating on the fire he wanted to build and the direction it had to follow, but when he started the movement to shoot, Jordyn held his wrist making him stop and look at her again.

"San…" she started; something in her posture made him relax.

"I think they even considered the scholarship at BaSSU, but I don't know," Santo shrugged. "They are really passionate at me being top of my class in RCU."

Jordyn chuckled.

"Parents," she said taking a stand and eyeing the bottles on the other side of the bushes. "They have such strong opinions about what we should do with our lives."

"They do," he agreed, mirroring her posture. Santo took a deep breath again at the same time that Jordyn stomped her foot, raising a little chunk of earth, and together they shot at different bottles, knocking them off easily. "I just wish that they would talk to me about Mako, you know? I really wish he wouldn't be a secret."

"Right, but that's not your secret to tell."

Santo straightened again, frowning at Jordyn.

"Meaning?"

"Exactly what I said," she said turning to him. "Chief Mako's part in your mothers… thing is something decided between the three of them. You and Major are consequences, but the secret is your mothers'."

"But what about our place in that secret?" he asked genuinely curious. They did give the option to meet Mako after all, and it wasn't as if he didn't understand all the things they went through in Omashu, his mothers being who they were. It was just that his role should be a little bigger, right?

Jordyn smiled at him.

"Think of it in your moms' point of view, how about that?" she said softly, as if she was preparing him for some hard truth, and she rested a hand on his shoulder. "Chief Mako is more of a sperm donor than your father. He might get to 'father level' eventually, but so far… that's not where he is at all."

Santo's mind went a hundred miles per hour with Jord's words, spiraling in a mess of thoughts until it settled on a truth he'd been aware of for years already, but always managed to ignore: to father both him and Major, Mako had… slept with both their mothers.

Jordyn chuckled when Santo shuddered. He knew it was a fact, of course he knew. He also knew that his moms had dated Mako on different occasions, so that wasn't really a crazy concept, but damn if he could live without that knowledge.

"Gross."

"It's the truth," Jordyn replied making him sigh. Damn Beifongs with their wisdom.