Shame

Ruiz was finding it very difficult to fall asleep. How does one fall asleep easily after receiving a message such as that? True, he'd never met Cole, but he still felt sorrow. This had been his room. He'd grown up here, become a stallion, then left to help feed his family. Ruiz was little more than a filler for the empty shell Cole had left behind, so there was a certain kinship there, but there was no memory to lock it in with.

It wasn't as though he wanted to stay awake, either. He needed sleep right now; tomorrow, he'd be handling the brunt of the work. If he spent the whole day being tired, what kind of help was he, really? Nothing more than a disappointment.

Just after he rolled over in an attempt to be more comfortable, he saw the doorknob twist, and the door swung open quietly. In came Maria, moving as quietly as she could to avoid waking him as she snuck across the room to Cole's wardrobe, opening the doors and grabbing a box from one of the smaller drawers. She very nearly dropped the box when he struck a match to light the candle beside the bed. "Why are you still up?!" she shout-whispered. "Do you have any idea how late it is?!"

"I could ask you much the same," said Ruiz, his tone normal, but his volume a bit low. "What's in the box?"

Maria sighed and moved over to the bed. She sat down next to Ruiz and placed the box on her lap. "I know you never met my brother, but he dabbled in photography. Not the really good images, but the really simple ones from a hoofheld camera. He took the camera with him, promising to bring back a whole scrapbook for us, but these," she shuffled the box lightly, "are his personal shots. The ones he wanted to keep for himself. He said they were special to him, even if they weren't very good."

"You think there's anything in there that will make you feel better?"

Maria shrugged. "Perhaps not. But I want to see his face again."

Ruiz nodded and brought the candle closer. "You can tell me about them. If you're set on remembering him, it'll help bring you back to those times, and perhaps I may appreciate him a bit more."

Maria lifted off the lid. The inside of the box had a label for "Bear's Best Boot Barn," and was about the right size for a set of four boots, assuming that Cole was of average size. Inside were several rows of lined-up photographs flopping back and forth like cards. Against one side, an envelope pressed against the wall.

Maria pulled out one of the photographs. The first one was just a picture of the back of Jed's legs, if Jed was a much younger stallion. "This was the first photograph he ever took, right in the store. He was trying to figure out what the buttons did. To be fair, he found the most important one."

The next one showed a young colt, presumably Cole, at the same dinner table as was currently in the dining room. Also at the table was a very upset-looking Sadie, and a young Maria with a noodle sticking out of her left nostril. "He was playing around, and he made me laugh while I was eating. I was really mad at the time, but not so much anymore."

In the next one, Maria was a bit older and sporting a ponytail. She looked like she had been running along a track, but just before the picture was taken, she had tripped. She had faceplanted into the dirt and sand, and her neck was the only thing holding her up. "I realize now that a lot of these are going to be embarrassing for me. Maybe I should have looked through these on my own."

Ruiz shook his head. "I don't think less of you because you used to be a filly, señorita. This is all in the past, and not a big deal anymore. You've grown up since then."

Maria blushed. "Let's see if we can find something more recent." She put the photos back and pulled something out of the other side. This was much more recent. Cole had taken a self-portrait of himself as Jed hammered a final plank into the wall of the barn. "This was his last repair before he left," she said. "This wasn't a gryphon attack, just a storm that knocked down a tree. We still have the stump."

She sat there for a minute, just staring at his face. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as she began to tremble. "Do you want to look at another, señorita?"

She sniffled and nodded, putting the picture away. The next one was Cole and another stallion, in a very comfortable-looking bedroom. The other stallion was lying on a bed with a smirk on his face, and Cole looked pretty happy to be there. "That's his best friend, Lace Curtains. Before he headed out, he spent the last day away from the mines with him."

"Is señor Curtains still around?"

"Curt? Yeah, he lives just up the road."

"We should tell him."

Maria rubbed her face. "Yeah, I didn't even think about that. They were pretty close. Cole liked to spend a lot of time over there. At first we thought it was because he had a lot more income than us, but it was actually Curt's parents not wanting him to come out to our place."

As she put the photo back, the box shifted in her lap, and a few photographs slid out of the envelope. She caught them, and was about to put them back, but as soon as she looked at one, her eyes went wide. Cole had his face mashed into Curt's bedspread, his left eye closed, and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He looked to be in absolute bliss. His hips were up in the air, with Curt's hooves wrapped around his waist as their back legs joined together.

After this was a shot of Curt biting down on a pillow, his underside on full display and spraying like a firehose. Cole was only at the bottom of the frame, his belly pressed to Curt's hind end and his hoof clasping Curt's leg.

Maria gathered up these photos and, without a word, slipped them back into the envelope. She closed the box and turned to Ruiz. "This stays between us, okay? Don't tell anyone, not even Mint or my parents what you saw tonight, okay?"

Ruiz raised his eyebrows. "I don't recall seeing anything, señorita. What are you talking about?"

Maria smiled, leaned in, and kissed Ruiz on the cheek. "I'll take these to Curt tomorrow. He should definitely know what happened to his... best friend."

As she put the box away, she looked to be a bit more shaken than when she came in. As she put her hoof on the doorknob, she turned to Ruiz one final time. "Do you..." she shook her head. "Nevermind."

"What is it, señorita?" urged Ruiz. "If there's something I can say that will make you feel better, I'm willing to try."

She paused a moment longer. "Do you... When you saw those pictures, did you feel something? Like, something carnal?"

Ruiz shook his head. "I'm sorry, señorita. I'm not interested in stallions. I prefer mares."

Maria nodded, took a deep breath, and walked out the door.