Chapter Text
After the events in Volsinii, Texas' return to her old-new life Lungmen felt more like a working vacation than a return home. Like trying to put on a favorite jacket that no longer fit.
Lungmen hadn't changed; she had.
Making deliveries by car and by foot, navigating underworld hostilities and public niceties, crushing mobsters and dodging cops... It still kept her busy, kept her distracted.
But she no longer needed distraction. She wasn't running from her past, anymore; she'd buried it. She wasn't waiting for the bill to come due, anymore; she'd paid it.
She'd made a pleasant life for herself in the past seven years, but she'd also deliberately put certain needs on hold. She wasn't her own woman, and she could barely bring herself to care whether she lived or died.
She'd allowed herself to have friends, and to be a friend, but could never give a certain one of those friends anything more than that.
But now, Cellinia Texas was finally free.
That actually made her feel a little afraid, but more than afraid...
Hungry.
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"Croissant, when are you going to stake a claim on Bison?"
Texas' out-of-blue question shocked Croissant into choking on her beer. The lupo nonchalantly took a sip of water while she waited for her friend to recover. Texas had made sure it was just the two of them for this conversation.
"Where'd that come from?!"
"You must have considered it. He's a good kid, and smart, tough, wealthy, connected. He's a business man, you're a business woman, and you're both forte from Minos living in Lungmen."
Croissant mumbled something unintelligible down to the table.
"You don't have time to be indecisive. We aren't young forever and we're not getting younger. That's leaving aside how many women are looking to jump ahead of us in line."
"Wait, 'us'?"
Texas kept her face unreadable by habit, but she stared directly into Croissant's eyes. "If you're not going to take him, I will."
Croissant's only reason to suspect the admission embarrassed Texas was her certainty that the Siracusan wasn't bluffing. Texas never bluffed about starting a fight, and she knew her friend saw this as a kind of fight.
"What about Sora?"
Croissant watched... 'something' flash across Texas' face for a moment; a nervous shifting of weight, increased tension in her shoulders.
"I want children, Croissant. My own children. I want to have a family that doesn't kill each other and a home I don't set on fire."
Croissant winced, but her faced cleared up with an expression of enlightenment. "That's what this's about. Yer deal with Zaaro and Bellone is done, and ye seem to have finally settled matters with Lappland, Giovanna, and Sicilia. You had a sword hanging over yer head all this time, but now yer a free woman."
"Free, but running out of time."
"But why keep Sora waiting around that long fer nothing?"
Texas' lupo ears flicked towards the back of her head for a moment, and Croissant briefly wondered if she regretted making those her last words. The moment passed and she realized the former assassin's ire wasn't meant for her, but she decided to not press the issue any farther.
"You let me worry about Sora. Right now, it would be a bit of a moot point if Bison isn't fair game."
Croissant appreciated that Texas valued their friendship enough to let her have the right of first refusal. But she wasn't ready to confront the question, and she had her own ideas. "I'll be honest, I would have thought you'd consider that Leon guy."
"No," Texas said instantly. "The famiglie would think we're starting a new famiglia, and between the two of us we accidentally just might. I'm not giving up on Nuova Volsinii, but I still want out. A clean break. Bison can get me out of the familigie and still let me stay in contact with the new Siracusa."
Croissant couldn't argue with that, but remained silent as she tapped her finger on the table. Texas recognized it as one of Croissant's Poker tells; her friend felt stuck in a losing position.
The forte sighed. "Yer right, I ain't getting any younger. And I've thought about it. He's a tasty meal and a whole package deal. But in a way, it's also too easy."
"Since when have you ever thought sealing a deal was too easy?"
"I'm not talking about taking him by the horns. I'm talking about marrying into money.
"I know you grew up in money, even if you threw it away. I know yer comfortable with having nothing for yerself, and ye'd make it work one way or the other. But ye'd prefer to raise yer kids up with money, too, yeah?"
Texas leaned back slightly in her seat. Croissant knew her friend's Poker tells, too; she'd actually surprised the lupo with an insight into her own motives.
"But I came from smaller means, and I've worked and fought fer everything I've got. It's not much compared to Mountain Dash, but it's mine. I know how to make it, how to lose it, and how to make it back.
"Iffin I have mah own kids…" She stopped, and corrected herself. "When I have mah own kids, I'll know how to raise them like that. Wheeling and dealing on the street, in the warehouses, and on the road."
She rocked back in her chair. "Hah! Besides, I don't think I could stand all of those fancy rich-people parties, or the politics."
Texas smiled in her own show of humor. "Yeah, those suck. But like you said, I grew up with that, so it's 'whatever' to me."
"Well, more power to ya." Croissant lifted her beer in a toast. "At least as far as Bison goes, you have mah blessing."
Texas answered the toast with her own glass of water, downed the rest of it in one gulp, and turned to leave.
"Whoa, that fast?"
"No; Sora first."
Texas was already moving too fast, too far away to hear, but Croissant wished them both luck regardless.
"Wait. Wouldn't this mean losing one of our own to our biggest competition?"