by K. L. Noone
“I think,” Justin said, wiggling the toes, “I think I want to go home.”
“Oh.” Golden sunshine possibilities popped like soap-bubbles. But he couldn’t protest; not as if he knew what’d be best. “Right, yes, sure, if you—are you feeling well enough to—ah, is that safe?” He tripped over words, despaired, attempted to clarify, “If he knows where you live?”
Of course he himself, unlike the Villainous David, didn’t know Justin’s home address. Never asked. Never sent a holiday card or a birthday gift-basket. The omission swung a fist and smacked him in the face.
“Kris.” Justin’s expression was complicated, but mostly affectionate, or that seemed uppermost, anyway. “I didn’t mean my apartment. I mean I want to go home. Real home, my family…I want to talk to my dad. I want to be someplace that feels—I want to not be alone.”
“Oh,” Kris said again, and hid aching emotions behind a sip of Earl Grey. He wanted Justin to be safe and warm; he wanted to help; he knew that Justin had come to him, but he also knew that he was no one’s best choice for help, and Justin had people to lean on who weren’t him. “Yeah. Of course, yeah, do you need anything? Before you—” He waved a hand. “—magic yourself over there?”
Justin’s smile grew: tentative as a once-kicked sunbeam, but true and hopeful as that sunbeam too, returning in the face of jokes about everyday magic rather than ominous demonic power. “Yes. I was thinking—when I said not alone—I mean if you want, you don’t have to, but I’d like it if you maybe would?”
“If I would…what? Sorry,” Kris added hastily, because this was likely somehow his fault too, not understanding.
Justin made a face. It was an adorable face, aimed at himself, scrunched-up demon-nose and all. The hair fluttered, abashed. “No, sorry, I wasn’t being clear—”
“Don’t apologize—”
“Wait, hang on—”
They stopped. Regarded each other over tea and a fluffy duvet and a guitar, simple and new and bright. The night before’d broken the world open, broken both of them into vulnerable bits, bruises and blood and secrets and love. Today a few pieces found their ways home, drawn by gazes meeting, by French toast and song lyrics.
“I mean,” Justin said carefully, not taking his gaze away from Kris’s, “if you’re not…not busy…if you wanted to…I’d like it if you came with me. I know it’s kind of a lot to ask. But—the thing is, you’ve been here, you’re still here, and if I’m mostly okay it’s because of you, and I—I don’t want to lose that yet. I don’t want to…family is family and I love them but they’ll worry and I can’t—you’ve already seen the worst of this. The worst of me. I know it’s selfish. I know I’m leaning on you. I shouldn’t.”
After a second Kris said, equally carefully, “Hey, I can be a good distraction, scandalous rock star and all,” and got more of that wounded-sunbeam smile. “Anything you want. Decades-old celebrity gossip. Animated holiday specials. More writing together. Or if you want to talk to me, y’know, when they’re not around. You can lean on me. Um. Should I bring tea?”
Justin laughed; paused, surprised, and laughed again. He did look better: not quite balanced yet, but only like a shaken version of himself, not crushed into unrecognizable fragments. “Dad’ll buy every kind of tea in existence once he finds out you’re coming. It’ll be better if I don’t give him too much notice.”
“When d’you want to go?”
“Tonight? I’ll text Kelly, she’s better about answering than Dad is. They’re both technically on Midwinter break, but academics, you know…” That smile did something midway between non-scholarly merriment and pride at being part of the family. “When Dad’s buried in research about international magical statutes you’re not getting him out without an enchanted crowbar. Kells at least checks her phone even if she’s in the lab.”
Tonight. Short notice. No notice. He’d be meeting Justin’s family. He’d be meeting Justin’s father.
Oh fuck, his brain thought, very precisely, while his hands clutched tea and wished it were scotch.
But he was Justin’s friend. Before anything else, before the piercing poignant love, before the impossible desire to be loved in turn, he’d managed to become that in truth over these last tumultuous days.
A friend. Someone Justin ran to when hurting and scared. Someone Justin wanted to lean on.
Justin wanted him to come, and so—despite the stab of having to smile while his heart pretended to want nothing more—he would. He would be a friend. Because he did want that, above all else: Justin protected and heart-whole.
“Sure,” he said, and gulped down half the mug of tea. “Should I pack?”
“Small stuff. A couple days. I can summon anything you’ve forgotten, or anything we end up needing, I normally do that anyway, I always forget a toothbrush or a boot or something.” That hair restyled itself: waving fronds of heatless fire, some emotion Kris didn’t know how to read. “I’ll stop by my apartment for a couple things, but—um, what you said earlier, it’s not—it’ll be safe. I have some protection spells up. Mostly to keep out my aunts, but they’ll work on…humans I don’t want there…too. I’ll be quick, and I’ll come back here. If you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? Unless you’re planning to bring along an elephant or something. One boot? How do you forget one boot?”
“It’s possible, trust me. I’m only organized when I have spreadsheets and tour schedules. I could probably summon you an elephant. A miniature one. African or Asian?”
“When you’re looking out for us, you mean. I don’t think pachyderms’re designed for penthouses, don’t bother, I don’t think it’d be comfortable on that guest bed anyway.” As Justin got up—running a hand through hair, poised to duck out and return with clothing and accessories—he added, “And it’s not selfish, either. I meant to say so.”
“What—oh.” Justin stopped, hand lifted, lips slightly parted. He was still wearing Kris’s pajama pants and shirt; he’d not commented on the disappearance of what he’d arrived in. Neither of them had. “Oh. That’s—thank you. For that.”
“You said you’d be quick,” Kris said, and saluted him with the tea-mug. “Hurry up, so we can bake a Yule Log or buy wine or something, I’ve never been a professor’s house guest, what do we bring, probably not the elephant?”
Justin vanished while smiling. Kris, feeling oddly warm and contented, put tea-mugs and plates in the dishwasher, found an old travel knapsack, tossed some jeans and casual shirts into it. The warm pink feeling remained; satisfaction, perhaps, if he could put a name to it. Something good.
Satisfaction; and that was the title of an old classic rock song, not his, as well as a line in the catchy chorus. He caught himself wanting to sing.
He glanced at his guitars. Electric. Acoustic. The one he’d been playing with Justin at his side.
He played through the new verses of “Sugar and Spice,” and ended up smiling too. Silly, sexy, terrible puns, and a hell of a lot of fun. Yes.
His fingers drifted. Wandered. Imagined. A hell of a lot of fun, and a boy he loved…a boy he could never, never deserve, impossible kindness and heroic strength and a heart too young and good for Kris Starr…too good for someone who’d done everything he’d done, to everyone, with everyone…someone who’d never look his way, and shouldn’t, because that’d be tarnishing all that generous beauty…
He’d discovered a melody without noticing. He found a sequence, a bridge, a refrain.
He paused to grab Justin’s notepad, to flip to a new page, and scribble some words.
He did not think about the fact that he was composing, writing, creating. He simply let himself be caught up in the flow, the strings at his fingertips, the ringing of a tune off his walls, his guitar and his voice occasionally stumbling, catching up, recovering themselves.
Eventually he missed a note, swore, glanced up for a drink that wasn’t there because he’d not poured one. Justin, standing poised behind the sofa with a patch-covered b
lue backpack at his feet, said, “That was seriously amazing.”
This time Kris said something far more impolite, and dismayingly British, out of sheer shock.
“Oh,” Justin said. He’d changed into a leg-hugging pair of black jeans, and a soft-looking violet shirt adorned with a band logo Kris didn’t recognize, and his slim black leather jacket. His hair was doing the mischievous-fire imitation again, bright and restless. “Sorry. I thought you heard me, and then I knew you hadn’t but I didn’t want to disturb you, but then I thought you saw me. At the end. I’ve never heard that one, is it older? Or new?”
“…you’re here,” Kris said. The view was distracting. The jeans were unfair. “New? I mean. Yes.”
“Can I ask what it’s about?”
“It’s about a boy.” Which was absolutely true, bold as rainbows, and consequently safe as houses: Justin would never guess. “It’s about someone who makes you a better person, but someone you know you’ll never have.”
“Nostalgia?” Justin sat down next to him, kicking off boots. Justin kicking off boots and curling up next to him felt like home, Kris discovered anew; the penthouse took notice and got cozy in a way it’d never been before. “Someone you knew? It sort of has that feel, the tune I mean. Like your older stuff, not polished, more raw but in a good way.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“Can I hear it again?”
“Um. Sure? Of course,” he explained, “it’s not finished or anything, I don’t even—this’s only playing with—it’s rough as—um, yes, okay,” and stared determinedly at the guitar to make himself stop babbling.
He started from the beginning, as much as he’d got worked out; he made edits on the fly, shifts in key, in tempo. His fingers had ideas; the tune spilled out and caught fire and took flight. He knew it did; he felt it, he could feel it, it had a heartbeat.
He didn’t have the lyrics entirely sorted. He sang it anyway, fitting ideas to words, finding some good ones, thinking about feeling rather than precision. “…and I know he’ll never look my way…I knew it that first summer day…”
Justin started humming along, quietly at first, more loudly when Kris started the bridge and chorus over, nodding at him to go ahead and jump in.
“…that boy who’d never look my way, oh no, he’ll never look my way, I know he’ll never look my way…” Justin’s voice joined his, flexible and youthful and a little unsure of exact words but keeping up and experimenting right along with him. Justin was good at anticipating, harmonizing, fitting himself in as backup or matching emphasis.
“He’s happy at her side today—her? Him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Justin said, “keep going.”
“He’s happy on their wedding day…” The characters were turning into themselves now, their own story of unrequited silent love: a step away from his own unspoken desires, and consequently easier to sing. “…and you know it’s gonna be okay, I’ll smile at him anyway, he’s never gonna look my way…everything I couldn’t say…”
“Could never say, I think, you can go up a bit in the middle there…”
“…the words that I could never say…yeah, better, thanks…” The emotion built on itself and redoubled regardless: the bittersweet taste of loneliness, the smile worn to conceal, the determination to stand at a best friend’s side without speaking of a want that would never be returned.
“…all those words that I can never say…but, boy, it’s gonna be okay, and he’s never gonna look my way.”
“And you know it’s gonna be okay…”
“Even though he’ll never look my way.”
They finished together, them and the last plaintive call of the guitar; Kris let the note throb and fade. The afternoon hung suspended in melody.
Justin applauded, and then said, “And I don’t have any tissues—!” and conjured up a travel-sized pack, no doubt in exchange for a randomly appearing gift of money in some nearby shop. “You’re too good.”
“Um. Sorry?”
“No, that was incredible. That was…Kris Starr singing. Making the world feel what you want us to feel.” Their bodies touched: hip, thigh, one of those water-bird legs folded up on the couch so Justin could face him properly. Kris’s thigh, and other parts, crackled with heat. His heart hurt: Justin would, after all, not look his way. Not like that. And certainly shouldn’t be asked to. Not under the circumstances; not ever, not when younger and less cynical and more attractive options existed. “It felt honest. Real. This is real for you, isn’t it? This boy. Someone you knew.”
This was not a guess but an assumption. About a boy in the past, not the present. Kris cleared his throat. Rough. Scoured. “Yeah.”
“He sounds like—” Justin nibbled a lip. “A good person. Of course he would be. You would—you’d fall in love with a good person.”
“Me? You’ve seen my track record, come on—”
“No. I don’t mean the—the one-night stands or backstage hook-ups or—” Justin stopped, shook his head: impatient with himself or with his own emotion. “When you care about someone, when you give your heart to someone—I meant you see the good in people. Like with me. I think anyone you loved like that would have to be good inside.”
“Like—”
“Anyone you still love.” Justin glanced down, adjusted a knee, tucked that leg into a new position. “Because you do, don’t you? Present tense. Even if he got married, and didn’t feel the same about you, and nothing ever happened. You never stopped loving him.”
Pain, exquisite and welcome: Justin saw that much, knew him that deeply; but had not uncovered the heart of that love, or more accurately the love to which his heart belonged. And seemed to think now that here lay some great tragic secret: a romantic years-old sorrow at the core of Kris Starr.
The hard-earned cynicism in him wanted to laugh. That ancient romantic core, not extinguished, might’ve wept.
He said, “It’s about that, I suppose. The song. Loving someone. Want tea? Or should we be going?”
“The song. Oh. Yes.” Justin came back from faraway thoughts, shook himself, summoned a smile. “I think—I think it’ll be everything you want it to be. Once you’re finished. My opinion as, um, a retired punk-rock kid journalist. We can go now if you want, if you’re ready.”
“Sure.” He got up, put his guitar away, turned as Justin said, “I mean, if you are sure—if you still want to—you don’t have to keep me company if—”
“Said I would, didn’t I?” He hoisted a bag, cut off that last-minute flustered escape-offer. “Zap us over there. Transport us. Enchant us.”
“Transport,” Justin said meaningfully. “As if. I’m not a Star Voyager engineer.”
“Terrible eighties fantasy film. One with demon magic. Wrath of the Sorcerer. Krall the Dragon Hunter.”
“Bad romantic comedy,” Justin answered, half-absently, around an unvoiced thought. “Meet the Family meets My Night With An Incubus. Only if it’s me and you those nights haven’t been exactly—I suppose that’s the comedy part. Ready?”
“I am meeting your family,” Kris pointed out, and his demon looked happier at this playing along.
Justin put a hand on his arm. The apartment, without fanfare, faded and dissolved.
Chapter 4
A swirl of crimson and a clearing of vision and a taste of bonfires later, a living room materialized.
Kris hadn’t been envisioning anything in particular—no time to form expectations, no clue regarding the domestic arrangements of a family with a half-demon oldest son and two professor-parents—but the living room looked as exactly ordinary-extraordinary as he’d’ve guessed. Walls lined with bookshelves and Midwinter decorations, snowglobes and spruce-and-silver drapery. Giant squashable sofas. Big fireplace and big television and some sort of video game system that he was too old to decode. Artwork, abstract and signed, on walls, and scattered books-with-bookmarks on tables plus a mysterious mechanical half-built something on a chair, a something with spidery legs and
wires poking out. A few of the books had titles like Dealing with Demons: Alexandrian Political Theory and the Making of the Modern Magical World.
He eyeballed that one for a second. It eyed him right back and kept mum about any influence on Justin’s parentage.
“Dad,” Justin shouted in the direction of the hallway, “surprise!” He’d kicked off boots again; Kris noticed other shoes in the entryway, and did the same. Justin said, “You don’t have to, you’re a guest,” and Kris shrugged.
He didn’t mind. He wanted to make this easier. He wanted Justin’s family to like him.
He wanted that for at least two reasons. The one that had to do with being a guest and being considerate, and the sneaky guilty other one that had to do with his heart.
At this point, interrupting his guilt, the personification of academia emerged from a downstairs study and stopped to blink at his son. “When did you get here?—not that I’m not thrilled you are, of course, come here—” Hugging happened; Justin said to his father, entertained, “Kelly didn’t tell you we were coming?”
“Oh…well, I think she did, now that you say so, but I might’ve been knee-deep in Steel’s analysis of American weather-worker policies of the thirties, sorry…” A second later: “We?”
“I did say surprise. I didn’t just mean me showing up. Kris, come meet my dad. Dad, Kris Starr.”
Justin’s father precisely resembled Kris’s mental conception of historian: tall and thin, salt-and-pepper hair, a bespectacled heron in, yes, a tweed jacket. He lit up when setting eyes on a rock legend. Kris offered a hand and, “Professor Moore,” and got a hearty shake that turned into a handclasp.
“Bill, please, any friend of my son’s, but this is such an honor, I have your whole discography, I took Justin to the very last reunion show, when it rained so much and nobody cared because it was so brilliant, oh you know it rained, of course you know, you were there, and we were—”
“Dad,” Justin said, for a moment every child throughout the universe ever embarrassed by parental enthusiasm.
“Oh…yes, sorry…” They wandered toward the kitchen, where other family members stopped mid-sentence and perked up in fascination.