Purple Haze (Aliens in New York Book 2)

by Kelly Jensen

  They didn’t talk.

  They needed to talk.

  On Wednesday afternoon, two and a half days before Elder Vagnan’s deadline, Lang informed his office that he would be out of touch for the afternoon and cabbed across town to the Upper West Side. He stopped at Uncommon Grounds for coffee and a bag of donuts and then walked the two blocks to Park Arts, pausing before he rounded the corner to 86th Street to check for roaming paparazzi. He’d managed to avoid the reporters stalking the apartment building and the office by having his drivers use the garage entrances. The number of reporters had diminished by the day, however, and he’d only noted one diehard on Fifth Avenue that morning.

  When none appeared to be lurking outside Park Arts, Lang rounded the corner and bounded up the front steps, only to have to flatten against the wall as the door flew open to emit a stream of senior citizens—who all seemed to want to pause on the stoop to chat. Given that the top of the steps had been designed to hold two people, maximum, the press of bodies fast became uncomfortable. Then, as if a plug had been pulled, the retirees drained onto 86th Street. Lang shuffled the cup holder and donut bag into one hand and caught the closing door with the other, his gloved fingers only just grasping the edge before it snicked shut. Lang slipped inside and came face-to-face with Josh.

  “Lang!” Josh grabbed his hand in a brief shake before turning to yell up the stairs. “Dillon! Lang’s here.” Facing him again, he lowered her voice. “Tell me if this is none of my business, but is everything okay with you two? Dillon’s been, um… quiet? He’s not the loudest guy, usually, but he’s definitely not talking about something. I hope it’s okay that I’m asking. I know we’re not the sort of friends who have deep and meaningfuls, but Dillon is usually the one who spreads happiness and cheer, you know? I miss his hugs and smiles.”

  Lang felt his entire face form familiar lines. Frown lines. “I… we…” Apparently Dillon hadn’t told Josh anything. What could he say? Lang scrambled for an excuse. “Ah, Dillon might have to head out of town for a while.”

  Josh’s eyebrows crunched together. “Really? He didn’t say anything. What’s up?”

  “His mo—grandmother.” Lying was not a skill Lang practiced often. Prevarication, yes. But outright untruth? “She is… unwell.”

  “Oh, God. That would explain it.”

  Dillon appeared at the top of the stairs, then, his somber expression giving truth to Lang’s lies. As he slowly descended toward the main level, he made an obvious effort to smile, especially when he saw the coffee cups and bag. “You brought donuts.”

  Lang returned his watery smile. “I did. Take a walk with me?”

  Dillon paused on the last step, half smile fixing in place. “Um, sure. I just need to—”

  “Here.” Josh plucked Dillon’s coat off the hook by the door and thrust it at him. “Penny and I can finish cleaning up. If you need to take some time, let me know. Whenever, for however long you need. I’m so sorry, Dillon.”

  Dillon gave him a blank look before wrapping his arms around the coat and hugging it to his chest.

  Josh tugged him off the bottom step and pushed him toward Lang. “Go. Go!” He shot Lang an expression of sympathy and mouthed, “Take care,” before hustling up the stairs to disappear around the corner.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That you grandmother was ill.”

  “What am I going to tell my mom and grandmother?”

  That Josh was ill? “I don’t know, Dillon. Which is why we need to talk.”

  “I really, really don’t want to talk.”

  Lang held out the coffee and donuts. “Then let’s just walk. We’ll go visit the sea lions.”

  “You want to walk all the way to the zoo? Is it above freezing out there?”

  “The temperature is relatively mild for January.”

  The hint of a smile cornered Dillon’s lips. “Only you would think that.” He shoved his arms into his coat and started pulling gloves from the pockets. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  The walk to Central Park passed in silence, both of them trudging with their heads down, fingers wrapped around their warm coffee cups. The donuts remained in their bag, dangling from Lang’s free hand. At the sound of children playing in the park at the corner of Central Park West and 86th, Dillon became more animated. He paused by the fence to watch them for a moment before heading wordlessly into the park for the twenty-block trek southward. Lang followed.

  The paths were clear, but the patches of ice clinging to the edges sometimes curved toward the middle, making walking an exercise in navigation. Lang tried not to let his thoughts wander down other icy paths while they zigged and zagged through the park, finally reaching the zoo.

  Despite the cold, a good crowd moved through the exhibits. This time, Lang welcomed the press of people. Normally, he didn’t enjoy being surrounded by so much humanity—despite living in Manhattan. He found crowds oppressive. Right then, he welcomed the warmth. Soaked up their delight in the animals. Listening to the innocuous conversations going on around them, he wanted to reach for Dillon’s hand and blend in. Become one of them. Be… human.

  They paused at the sea lion pool and Lang shoved the donut bag into his coat pocket so he could take Dillon’s hand. For a long while, he simply watched the sea lions swim and cavort, seemingly unaffected by the cold. As he always did, Lang marveled at their apparent contentment. If they were bothered by the confines of the pool, they didn’t show it. If they resented a life held in captivity, it wasn’t evident. They just were.

  “Remember the first time we came here?” Dillon’s quiet question floated over the murmur of the crowd.

  Lang turned to him. “That was the day you first met Josh and Micah.”

  “And the day I found out you were dying.”

  And an alien.

  Dillon squeezed his hand, and Lang realized he’d felt that last thought through the connection between their fingers. That the sadness rolling through him was Dillon’s as well as his own. And that it’d been four days—four and a half—since Dillon had last touched him in this way. With feeling.

  Throat bobbing, Dillon seemed to struggle with speech before gazing back toward the pool.

  I’m sorry.

  “Let’s go home,” Lang said.

  Nodding, Dillon turned to go.

  Though visiting the zoo had somehow dragged every sad thought out of the corners of his mind and pulled them into a messy lump in the middle of his throat, Dillon was glad they’d gone. Watching the sea lions play had been a spot of welcome calm in the maelstrom of wretchedness encompassing the past few days. Holding Lang’s hand had been the highlight, though. Feeling his lover, within and without. Knowing he wasn’t alone.

  But in a few days, he would be. Packed and shipped off to who knew where for the purpose of who knew what.

  Back at the apartment, Dillon flopped onto the couch facing Central Park. Lang’s cleaning service had erased all traces of juice from the carpet, but Dillon imagined he could hear the crash of glass and smell the sweetness of pineapple. Instead of yellow, the memory was tinged purple, though.

  Lang sat beside him and placed a crushed bag on the coffee table. “Donuts.”

  Dillon shifted sideways so he could lean into Lang’s side. “I don’t want to go. I know that’s probably the most useless thing I could say right now, but there it is.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “Did you know this might happen?”

  Without pressing into the connection between them, Dillon felt Lang stiffen and then relax, as though he’d lost the urge to stand upright. Even while sitting.

  “I should have,” he said.

  “Is there anything we can do to put this off?”

  “No.”

  The flat denial tripped Dillon’s wires. Anger rolled through him, pulling him upright and off the couch. Fists clenching, he sought a target and found nothing but a coffee table stacked with a tidy pile of magazines and a bowl of brightly co
lored balls—and both seemed so utterly meaningless. They were things. Just things.

  “It’s not fair!”

  Lang was beside him, arm held out hesitantly. “I’m so sorry, Dillon. If I’d had any idea—”

  “I’m not blaming you. I’d never…” Emotion closed his throat. It would be so easy to say all of this was Lang’s fault. Without Lang, he wouldn’t be in this position. Without Lang, he wouldn’t be trying not to have a meltdown. Without Lang he would be…

  He couldn’t imagine an instance of “without Lang” that didn’t hurt. Lang meant so much more to him than this bullshit.

  Willing himself to calm, Dillon sipped at the air until he could take a full breath. “You know what I’ve been thinking about over the past few days?”

  Lang shook his head.

  “Whether I should run away. If I even could. I’ve taken every sci-fi movie plot from the past twenty years and run it through my brain looking for how to escape the aliens. Then I always come back to the part where I’m an alien, too, and I remember how cool I thought this was when I figured it out. How much I liked touching people and knowing how they felt. It’s a cheat sheet on communication for awkward individuals. Imagining that I could make a difference as well. Like, Josh wanting kids. I felt as if I was giving him more than a supportive hug, you know? And the joy I get from the toddlers, their fascination with everything. It’s damn cool, Lang. But this…”

  Driving his hands into his hair, Dillon tugged and wrestled until his scalp burned. Then he let go, because the only thing worse than being an alien with a talent that needed training, was being a bald alien and then having to deal with all the rest of it.

  Lang remained where he was, standing silently by, and Dillon gave into another surge of anger. “Why aren’t you saying anything? I need you to talk to me, Lang. I need you to tell me what to do.”

  Throat moving, Lang opened and closed his mouth and shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “I can’t tell you what to do because I don’t know. I have never defied the elders.”

  “Is that what you think I should do?”

  “I would advise against it.”

  “Then… what?”

  “We have two days left. I think it’s time we started…” Lang swallowed audibly. “Constructing a story. The reason for your absence.”

  Dillon took a turn at opening and closing his mouth. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  Lang stiffened again, visibly this time, and then he shattered. His face broke first, his expression wrenching from almost nothing to a grief so extreme, Dillon wondered who had died. Then he rocked forward, bending, swaying, nearly falling. Dillon caught him, breathing out at the impact, and decided they needed to sit back down before they made another mess on the carpet. He guided Lang to the couch and sat beside him. Lang didn’t take back his own weight. Instead, he leaned in harder, his arms snaking around Dillon’s shoulders.

  Wiggling so he could get an arm free, Dillon pulled Lang into a hug that felt all wrong. They didn’t do this: sit and hold each other for comfort. They touched, yes. Lang seemed to delight in holding his hand and squeezing his fingers, as if being able to do so was something he’d never tire of. They made love often. They slept tangled together. But this? Holding on through a storm of emotion intense enough to wash them from the top of a building? Not their usual thing.

  Lang’s pain battered at his senses. This wasn’t the fatigue of a new parent or the uncertainty of someone who wanted to start a family. Lang grieved. He mourned. He felt as though everything he’d been working for was about to be taken away. Anger simmered beneath the misery. Then there was resentment and a bitter sensation that tasted a lot like hate. The sense he would be forever alone rolled through Dillon, shading the mess the sickly green of infected mucus.

  The need to fix that ill pushed Dillon deeper. He sifted through the layers of Lang’s emotions until he came to the wall of warped pride and duty and devotion Lang felt about the clan, who did little to deserve it. Burrowing deeper, Dillon squashed tendrils of panic as though they were ants scuttling along a countertop until he finally glimpsed what he searched for—Lang’s sense of self.

  It should have come as no surprise that Lang kept everything that made him happy tucked into an obscure corner, as if the feelings brought him shame. Or that so much of what made Lang happy was directly connected to his memories of Dillon. All the small things they shared—mundane and wonderful. The warmth of Dillon’s skin, his scent. The color of his hair. Memories of outings together. The sweet keen of Dillon’s voice as they made love.

  The color of their love.

  Dillon marveled at the rich, earthy brown. Who knew love would be brown? But it felt so right. Brown was the color of soil—the nutrient that gave life.

  Lang was purple here, too—in different shades. He was amethysts and orchids, precious gems and rare flowers.

  No, Dillon was amethysts and orchids. He was unique and special and beautiful and—

  With a sickening wrench Dillon was torn free, the loss of Lang’s presence huge and unbearable. He yelled at the pain of it and struck at the hands and arms pulling at him.

  “Stop!” The word echoed between Dillon’s ears a number of times, the tone and shape of it changing until he realized it wasn’t him saying it.

  Dillon stopped, and the world returned.

  He was on the rug by the couch; Lang sprawled on his back in front of him. Lang’s eyes were closed, and his face had lost so much color, the fine capillaries beneath his skin formed a spider web of faint blue at his temples and around his eyes.

  Vagnan crouched on the other side of Lang, shaking his head. “This is why we have to take you.”

  Dillon swallowed over a suddenly dry throat. “Where…” He couldn’t get beyond that single word. Couldn’t voice the question he didn’t want to ask.

  Obele was holding Dillon’s arms behind him, and she gripped them a little tighter.

  “Lang?” Oh God, oh God. He wasn’t moving.

  Vagnan said, “Upero, please report on Steilang’s condition.”

  “Steilang has suffered a stroke.”

  “Oh fuck.” Dillon pulled against Obele’s grip. “Help him! Let me—”

  “He will recover, Dillon. Upero alerted us to the situation in time to stop you before you went too far.” Vagnan paused, an unsaid word hovering in the space between them. Just. “His repair cells are already working to minimize the damage. All he requires is rest.”

  “I did this?”

  Vagnan inclined his head.

  Sound crashed through Dillon’s head again, this time the roar of his blood as it raced through his body. Rocking back, he let Obele take all his weight. He dropped his chin to his chest and breathed. Tried to breathe. But the air in the apartment had taken on the scent of ammonia, and the headache that had flirted with the back of his skull for the past few weeks returned with more than a polite knock. “Oh God.”

  In a horribly gentle voice, Vagnan said, “Do you see why we must take you to one of our facilities?”

  Dillon nodded.

  “We will take good care of you, Dillon.”

  He managed another nod before asking, “Can we wait until Lang wakes up?”

  “We cannot.”

  Blinking against the tears burning through his sinuses and around the back of his eyes, Dillon merely nodded. “Can I leave him a note? Can we stay in touch from wherever you take me?”

  “You may leave a note.”

  “You can let me go,” Dillon said to Obele. “I won’t touch him again.” Sudden panic gripped him—sharp and acidic against his already battered psyche. “Will I ever be able to touch him?”

  When Vagnan gave no answer, Dillon swallowed his tears and gathered the strength to stand. It was hard when all he wanted to do was lie next to Lang. But that would invite touch, and he’d already hurt Lang so badly.

  Oh God.

  Chapter Twelve

&nbs
p; Lang regained consciousness slowly, the susurrus of sound against his ears resolving into familiar consonants and vowels, the former clipped a little too precisely, the latter a touch flat.

  Upero was talking to him, and Lang had an idea the AI had been speaking for some time.

  “Wararudoin?” Lang had meant to say, “What are you doing?”

  “Welcome back, Steilang.”

  “Where’ve I been?”

  “In a coma.”

  “Huh.” Lang cracked his eyes open, surprised they weren’t open already, and squinted against the soft lighting of the medical bay. “Huh.”

  The sluggish nature of his thoughts meant that although he recognized the interior of his ship and the implications of being strapped into the diagnostic chair—the overhead apparatus thankfully angled away to one side—panic didn’t immediately take hold. Instead, he simply reveled in the curious feeling of being well rested.

  “Were you talking to me?” he asked.

  “The majority of coma patients respond to voice, particularly the voice of a person close to them,” Upero said. “I have been monitoring your brainwaves and response to certain stimuli. You seemed most at rest when I read from familiar texts.”

  Huh.

  Wait— “Did you say coma patients?”

  “That is correct.”

  Lang’s first attempt to sit up met with resistance—the collar Upero used to immobilize patients in the chair. “Release me, Upero.”

  “As you wish. Please rise with caution. You have been horizontal for several days.”

  Lang sat bolt upright and immediately clutched at the air in front of the recessed diagnostic array as the room spun around him. Upero responded by swinging the array into place in time to stop Lang from rolling to the floor. After bracing himself against the machinery, Lang subsided onto the reclined chair and shuddered. He spent the next minute alternating quick swallows against the watery bile in the back of his throat and taking in ever-deeper breaths of air.