Until We're Home

by Lina Langley

  “I think so. You’re saying you need money.”

  “Not exactly. I’m saying you need money.”

  “Can you give me money?”

  Jesse chuckled dryly. “Taln, honey, you need a job.”

  * * *

  They had been sleeping for a while when someone knocked. Taln woke up before Jesse and held his head. The headaches were getting worse, they seemed to be more frequent and now appeared to be brought on by random noise.

  Being in a realm this loud couldn’t be good for him.

  Someone knocked on the door again.

  He wondered if he should see who was calling in. He didn’t have to wonder for long. Jesse sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. “Christ. What time is it?”

  Taln shrugged. He still hadn’t been able to figure out what a clock was supposed to signify.

  “It’s on my phone,” Jesse said.

  Taln grabbed Jesse’s phone from the nightstand, pressed the button on the side like he had been taught to do and squinted when the bright eye flooded the room. “One five six.”

  “Fifty-six,” Jesse said.

  “Right,” Taln said. “Fifty-six.”

  “It’s Wednesday.”

  “Thursday,” Taln corrected him. “The twenty-four-hour count starts at twelve.”

  Jesse smiled, shaking his head. “Yeah, thanks.”

  The knocking started again. Jesse got to his feet. He was wearing nothing but pajama trousers. Taln liked looking at the way the light from the street lamp coming through the window caught his skin, but he preferred it when Jesse was lying next to him. He didn’t like being interrupted. He didn’t like being awoken, not by Jesse and less so by someone who wasn’t Jesse.

  Worst of all, Jesse appeared concerned.

  He hesitated in front of the bedroom door, his fingers hovering over the door knob. “Taln?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an idea of what this is. I’m probably going to send your sister in here. Unless things sound like they’re really hitting the fan, don’t come out, okay?”

  “Hitting the fan?”

  Jesse looked away from him, swallowing. “Unless you think I’m getting hurt.”

  Taln shook his head. “If you’re in danger of getting hurt, I should be with you.”

  “No,” Jesse said, setting his gaze on Taln’s face. “You’re just at risk if you’re with me. That’s the last thing I want. You stay in here and only come out if you really need to, okay?”

  Taln looked back at him. He didn’t like contradicting Jesse. He didn’t like this, either. If he had to go against his wishes to protect him, he would. He didn’t want to have to break his word.

  “Taln. I’m serious,” Jesse said. “Stay here. Alright?”

  Taln didn't say anything.

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “At least call your sister in.”

  “Fine,” Taln said. “Salisei! Come in here!”

  * * *

  Salisei sat at the bottom of the bed. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her lips were a thin line on her face. She tapped her finger on her arm and every now and then trained her gaze on Taln, her eyes narrowing.

  “I cannot explain,” Taln whispered to her. “I apologize for awakening you.”

  She shook her head.

  “Salisei,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I cannot return with you,” he said. It didn’t feel like enough but at least it was something. She looked at him for a second longer before she looked away.

  “You regret it?”

  Taln licked his teeth. “I regret not being able to be with you.”

  “You have made your choice,” she spat at him. “You’ve chosen him.”

  “You know nothing of what you speak. “I have chosen nothing. This realm has chosen me.”

  Her eyes widened. “This realm has chosen you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brother,” she said, closing her eyes. “I fear you are far more afflicted than I had expected.”

  “Afflicted? No,” he replied. “I’m—”

  “You’re what?”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m happy.”

  “You’re happy. This realm has chosen you,” she repeated. “Can you hear yourself? You sound insane. This place is dirty and too warm. Everyone’s always staring. The magic may be powerful but people are not protected here. You sound like a guard.”

  “What’s wrong with guards? They protect us.”

  “They protect us,” Salisei said. “They die alone in shacks outside the Citadel and are unable to socialize from the moment they reach their middle years. Is that what you want?”

  “That’s not how it works here. You are unable to understand.”

  “I am able to understand, brother,” she scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of understanding. You have made a choice. You abandon your Citadel, you abandon your clan, you choose to stay in this place with him.”

  “I abandoned my Citadel? I was exiled. This was not my choice.”

  “This was your choice,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. “You could have chosen to follow their rules. You could have chosen to heed their warnings. You have done this, Taln.”

  She stretched his name out as she glared at him.

  He looked down. “That’s not fair.”

  “That’s not fair?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You sound exactly like Jesse,” she said. “I thought I could save you but I was mistaken. You’re not salvageable.”

  “There is nothing to save me from.”

  “You must tell yourself that with some frequency.”

  She turned away from him and brought her knees to her chest, hugging them. Taln wondered if she was crying. He was about to put his hand on her shoulder when he heard Jesse shouting right outside the door.

  “Stay here,” he told his sister. He didn’t wait to make sure she would obey before he opened the door to the living room.

  * * *

  Jesse looked pale when he entered the bedroom again.

  He set his gaze on Taln before he turned to face Salisei. “Can you give us a minute?”

  “Leave,” he said. She scoffed before she walked outside the bedroom. Taln thought she managed to walk exceptionally slowly, considering how angry she was. Jesse waited until she was outside the door before he practically slammed it behind her.

  Taln creased his brow. “Are you hurt?”

  Jesse scoffed. “Hurt. Am I hurt?”

  Taln nodded. Jesse sat down next to him, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

  “Are you?”

  “No,” Jesse said, biting his lower lip. “I’m not.”

  He threw himself back on the bed and studied the ceiling. Taln grabbed his hand. It was cold and moist with sweat.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Jesse replied. “I don’t know, everything. I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re the smartest person I know.”

  Jesse laughed. “How many people have you ever actually met? Thank you, though. You’re sweet.”

  Taln lay down next to him. Jesse’s eyes were red and his eyelashes wet. “You’ve been crying.”

  “Yep,” Jesse said. “You should’ve seen me. I was so very manly, telling him to please leave and that I was going to call the police if he didn’t. He looked at me and laughed. He laughed. I honestly thought I was going to be sick but no, instead, I just broke down crying. Which turns out to be super amusing, I guess?”

  “He?”

  “He thought it was hilarious,” Jesse said, ignoring his question. “He was super apologetic at first and then when I told him I wanted him to leave—anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s gone now.”

  “The man who hurt you? Is that who you’re referring to?”

  Jesse nodded. “I handled it, don’t worry about it.”

  “You handled it.”

  “Right. I cried until he laughed his way out the door,”
Jesse shook his head. “So, you know, I’m crushing it.”

  Taln sighed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  Jesse turned on his side to face him and tried to smile. “I’m glad you weren’t. I wouldn’t have liked you seeing that.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Just because I wouldn’t have. You seem to, I don’t know, actually like me. I don’t want to put you off.”

  “I don’t think seeing you crying would, um, put me off.”

  Jesse trained his gaze on Taln’s. “So me being a coward wouldn’t put you off?”

  “Jesse,” Taln said, very quietly.

  “Hm?”

  “I don’t think you’re a coward.”

  * * *

  Jesse wished that Taln hadn’t left him alone with his sister. He wasn’t even too far away—Jesse and Salisei were in the kitchen, Taln was in the living room—but it still felt like they he was far too away from him.

  Salisei set her gaze on him, her eyes tiny. Jesse rubbed his temple and took a deep breath.

  “I’m not trying to hurt him,” Jesse quietly said. “I—he’s—I care about him.”

  Salisei cocked her head. She looked so much like Taln, Jesse still wasn’t used to it. Her hair was purple right then, almost black.

  “This is his punishment,” she replied. “You’re his punishment.”

  Jesse sighed, shaking his head. “The last thing that I want to do is hurt him, Salisei.”

  She looked him up and down, as derisively as she could. Jesse couldn’t help but feel a little offended. He hated that he understood how she felt about him. “You put a spell on him.”

  Jesse tried to hold his smile back. “There’s no magic here.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. You put a spell on him. He needs to go home.”

  Jesse shut his eyes tightly. “Yeah.”

  “He doesn’t want to.”

  “He’s free to leave whenever he wants.”

  She walked up to him, her face suddenly really close to his own. “And you would allow for him do that?”

  “It’s not really a matter of allow,” Jesse said, resisting the urge to move back. “Taln’s his own person. I want him to do whatever’s best for him. Whatever makes him happy.”

  Salisei hesitated when he said that. She moved away slightly and cocked her head. “You want him to be happy?”

  “Yeah,” Jesse replied, his heart leaping in his chest. “Taln’s an amazing person. He deserves to be happy.”

  “Even if you weren’t to be around, you would like for him to be happy?” Salisei said, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

  “Of course,” Jesse replied. “I mean, I would like to be around, but it’s absolutely not a requirement. I—like I said, I just want him to be okay. Whether I’m there or not there is irrelevant.”

  He wanted to tell her that Taln could make his own choices, but he thought better of it. He didn’t want it to seem like he was preaching to her, when she was clearly sensitive about her brother.

  She looked him up and down again and nodded. Jesse couldn’t be sure, but he thought that her expression softened after that. He certainly felt relieved.

  He looked at Taln, who was sitting on the couch, watching The Real Housewives of Las Vegas, seemingly enraptured by the petty drama, and smiled, his heart leaping in his chest again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Jesse stood in front of the police station and shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand.

  Rayne put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you ready?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Can we just… not?”

  “He came to your house,” Rayne said. “You need a restraining order.”

  Jesse shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think I need to do anything.”

  Rayne closed her eyes, her nose twitching. She was clearly irritated. “Well, it’s your decision,” she said. “You do need to protect yourself. Like if he contacts you, you could have some legal recourse. There’s also the sister… you don’t know what’s going to happen to her if Jon comes back to your house.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to her. He’s interested in me, not in them.”

  Rayne licked her teeth. “Are you sure?”

  Jesse closed his eyes. “I don’t want to have legal recourse, Rayne. I just want to forget about all this.”

  “What about your dental work? If you don’t file a police report, you’re never going to get that money back.”

  Jesse sighed. “I just—I don’t want to see him again, okay? I don’t want to think about him.”

  Rayne squeezed his shoulder and nodded. “Of course. Let’s just forget about it, then. Do you want to go for a walk?”

  “Yeah,” Jesse smiled at her. “A walk sounds good.”

  * * *

  Rayne eyes were cloudy.

  “Stop that,” Jesse said, looking down at his beer. “Seriously. Your pity upsets me.”

  Rayne smiled and took a swig of her own beer. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I don’t pity you, Jesse. I am worried about you, though.”

  Jesse laughed. “So like, do your patients or whatever you call them believe that shit?”

  “Clients. And yes, sometimes.”

  “How often?”

  She laughed. “Not often.”

  “Right. So don’t pull that shit on me.”

  Her expression sobered. “I am worried, Jesse. Have you talked to anyone about it?”

  “I’ve talked to Taln about it,” he said, playing with his now empty glass. “He cheered me up a bit.”

  “Right. And I mean, it’s great that you have a support system with your boyfriend—”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Okay, it’s great that you have a support system with your not-boyfriend, but have you actually talked about it? Not just a little bit, but actually talked about it?”

  Jesse shrugged. “What is there to talk about? I was lonely and drunk and things got out of control.”

  “Things got out of control? He beat you up.”

  “That’s what I meant when I said things got out of control,” Jesse said, rubbing his temple. He really didn’t want to talk about it. He liked spending time with Rayne, but he knew that spending the day with her was contingent on opening up about the attack. For a couple of days, he thought he may have been excited to actually get it off his chest. That feeling had basically evaporated the moment that Jon had arrived at his door.

  He hated that the first thing he thought when he saw Jon’s face wasn’t punch him or tell him to go away. No, the first response, his first thought, had been he’s so good-looking. Jon had seen it too. He knew Jesse better than anyone else had ever known him and he knew exactly what the look Jesse had given him meant.

  That was probably the reason he had found Jesse’s breakdown so amusing. Jesse didn’t trust himself to talk about it without breaking down. His effort to keep himself together in front of Taln had been monumental. The last thing Taln had said had made Jesse feel nauseous. He’d ended up kissing him just to shut him up.

  The sex had been okay. It had been a distraction. Taln had been a distraction.

  After everything he had tried to do to ensure that he wasn’t taking advantage of Taln, after the shower where Taln had come on to him, that was exactly what he had ended up doing.

  He took a deep breath before he spoke. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes,” Rayne replied. “Anything.”

  “Do you think I’m like him?”

  “Like Taln?” She laughed. “No one’s like that.”

  Jesse smiled. “No. Like Jon.”

  “Do I think you’re like Jon? No. Of course not.”

  “I mean, but, how can you be sure? Like, I could just snap, right? I could just hurt someone,” Jesse said. “It’s not like I don’t use—like I haven’t used people before.”

  “Well, you have a conscie
nce. You’re talking about it right now. Do you think Jon talks about it?”

  Jesse shrugged.

  “No, don’t just dismiss that. Answer it.”

  “I don’t think so. I also don’t think it matters.”

  Rayne nodded and smiled at him, cocking her head.

  “What? What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing.”

  “What is it? This isn’t a funny conversation.”

  “No. It’s not that it’s funny. It’s just that I’ve just realized something I don’t think you’ve realized yet.”

  “What? Stop smirking, oh my God,” he said, smiling despite himself.

  “This is about Taln.”

  “No, it’s not. This is about me,” Jesse replied, a little too quickly. For a second, he wondered if he was offended by what she just said. He decided that he wasn’t.

  “Sure. This is about how you feel about him.”

  “How I feel about him?”

  “Yes,” Rayne said. “Just face it, Jesse. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “No, I don’t,” Jesse replied. “Don’t say it.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” Rayne said, her smile widening. “Love is beautiful.”

  “Love?”

  “Love, Jesse. For the first time since I’ve known you, it seems like you’re in love,” Rayne said with a wink.

  Jesse put his head in his hands. “Fuck.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “So how was your day?”

  “Fine,” Taln said, smiling at a very drunk Jesse. “Would you like some assistance?”

  Jesse giggled. He was sitting on the bed and trying, unsuccessfully, to take off his shirt. “Yes. Assistance.”

  “Raise your arms,” Taln said. “Try to keep them there.”

  Jesse nodded and waited until Taln was done removing his shirt before he laughed again. Taln wondered what was amusing but decided it was wise not to ask. Jesse had been talking all night since he had arrived home and Taln had barely been able to discern the words that what Jesse was saying.

  Rayne had assured Taln, before leaving, that Jesse wasn’t hurt. She told him to turn him on his side if he vomited and to try and put him to bed before the car she was in sped away.