Tyla

It was nearly two in the afternoon when Tyla finally drifted awake. For a long while, he didn't move, content to just lie back and watch Malyn sleep in the bed across from him. He was so charmingly graceless, light brown hair rumpled, limbs sprawled, blanket kicked almost to the floor. 

If you’d asked Tyla a year ago what kind of person he found attractive, he wouldn't have described a man who snored softly with his mouth open and took up three times the space he actually occupied. But now…

Tyla let out a quiet, private sigh. He really should have seen these feelings coming. For months, he’d hidden behind the excuse that he just found Malyn funny, or that he simply appreciated how the man could pivot from intense, lethal focus with a bow to goofy humour in the blink of an eye. He’d ignored the seeds of attraction until they’d grown into something altogether inconvenient. You couldn’t simply ‘shoot your shot,’ as Malyn would have put it, and then go back to sharing a small room as if nothing had happened if the answer was no.

Eventually Malyn’s eyes pinched shut tight and he brought a hand up to rub at his face. It took a few more minutes of sluggish wriggling before he finally committed to wakefulness

“Oh,” Malyn croaked as he cracked one eye open and spotted Tyla. “Good morning.”

“Afternoon, actually.”

“Figures.” Malyn swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Fuck, I’m hungry. Breakfast?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Malyn slept in a t-shirt and boxers, while Tyla  preferred the long, loose sleep-tunics of his home. Malyn had jokingly called it a ‘nightie’ for the first three months they’d lived together before finally admitting that, on his own world, men had slept in something similar.

Malyn had mostly abandoned his past and his culture beyond the bow he fought with, but that was hardly surprising. He’d arrived here alone, a terrified child thrust into a whole new world. Of course he’d adapted. He’d learnt to speak, dress, and act like a native because survival demanded it.

Tyla’s arrival had been different. He’d been an adult, and an entire city had come with him, occupants and all, ripped from one reality and stitched clumsily into this one. He still found himself wondering what had become of the rest of his world, now presumably missing a city-sized chunk of its heart. He doubted he would ever find out. This was a one-way journey.

“Ah, you’re up,” Adin said as they shuffled into the living room. He was leaning over the counter to wipe the kitchen window, the afternoon sun catching the fresh velvet on his antlers, giving them a soft, golden halo. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d see any daylight at all today.”

Tyla glanced at the closed door to Finch’s room. “Finch might sleep through it if he’s not up soon.”

“Finch ended up seeing dawn, so I’m not sure it would count,” Adin said as he put a pan on the stove. “Luther called him last night, not long after you all went to bed.”

“And he actually convinced Finch to get out of bed?” Malyn asked, leaning his hip against the counter next to Adin.

“He offered him a thousand dollars. Which, to be fair, he did pay.”

“Nice,” Malyn said. “What did Finch have to do? Bury a body?”

“Hm,” Adin said, a small, cryptic smile playing on his lips. “Take a look in the bottom of the linen closet. Be quiet, though.”

For some reason, that had Tyla expecting a kitten or a puppy. He couldn't imagine why Luther would pay them a thousand dollars to look after a baby animal, or why the vampire would even have one, but it was the only thing that fit the idea of something hiding in a closet that might be startled by noise.

He was entirely unprepared for the sight of a grown man.

The stranger was curled up on the floor under the bottom shelf, his back turned to them, perfectly still.

“Uh…” Malyn said as he stared down at the unmoving body. “Is he… alive?”

“Shh,” Adin hissed. “Close the door. Yes, he’s alive. He’s just sleeping.”

“Oh, of course,” Malyn said, clicking the door shut with exaggerated care. “Who is that and what does he have to do with Luther?”

“I can hear Finch moving around now. Sit down while I finish breakfast, and he can explain. I’m afraid I don’t understand the situation very well myself.”

They both took their seats at the kitchen table. Malyn slumped forward, resting his chin on his arms, as Adin busied himself in the kitchen.

When Tyla had first moved in, he’d insisted on helping with the chores—the cooking, the dishes, the constant cleaning. It had felt deeply rude to sit idly while Adin buzzed around, preparing multiple different meals for their varied diets and needs. Eventually, he’d realised that while Adin would accept help with a polite thank you, he didn’t actually want it.  He found peace in the order of the kitchen, in the simple act of caring for his people.

Malyn didn’t move until Adin set a plate of steaming eggs on toast in front of him. He gave a tired, genuine smile. “Thanks, dad.”

“Thank you,” Tyla murmured as a bowl of fruit salad was placed in front of him.

Tyla had been here for six months, and he still didn’t know quite how to treat Adin. The man looked no more than thirty, yet he carried a serene, ancient wisdom that felt completely incongruent with his appearance. Finch treated him with a level of regard he didn't extend to anyone else.

Malyn, for his part, simply didn’t care about that sort of thing. To him, it wasn’t about making any kind of a statement—it just didn’t seem to occur to him that one person should be treated with greater respect than another purely on the merit of age or status. 

Finch emerged from his bedroom, rubbing at his eyes as he headed straight for the bathroom without a word. When he finally came back out, he stopped, put his hands on his hips, and let out a long, weary sigh.

“Hey Finch, why’s there a dude in our linen closet?” Malyn asked around a mouthful of egg and toast.

“He’s in the linen closet?” Finch countered, pulling out a chair.

“He is,” Adin confirmed. “It was strange. He went to sleep under my desk while I was busy elsewhere, and he was still there when I sat back down. I didn’t notice him move, but an hour later, I looked down and he was gone.”

Finch frowned. “You’ve got sharper senses than that.”

“So I thought,” Adin said, serving Finch his own plate of egg on toast. “It took me half an hour to find him. The only reason I wasn’t worried enough to wake you was that his things were still here, so I assumed he hadn’t actually left.”

“Interesting,” Malyn said. “Hey Finch, who is the guy in our linen closet?”

“According to Luther, his son,” Finch said.

There was a beat of silence as that processed. “Okay…” Malyn said slowly. “So is he human, or…?”

Finch swallowed a bite of toast. “Well, who’s really human these days?”

“It might surprise you with the circles we run in, but most people, Finch,” Malyn said.

“By whose definition? There isn’t a legal one. I’ve seen definitions that include all of us and definitions that include none of us.”

“Even Malyn?” Tyla asked. “Surely he would be human by any standard.”

“You’d think, right?” Malyn said. “But to some people, anyone who wasn’t born on this world isn’t human, because who really knows what could be going on? But then of course that gets weird, because this world has been permeable, like, always, so who would actually know for sure that they don’t have a single person from another world in their family tree? Also, none of this is the point. The point is, do we or do we not have a vampire in our linen closet?”

“We do not,” Finch confirmed. “He was eating bread when I met him, so he’s definitely not that. He has some weird pale blue eyes, but I wouldn't assume that means magic. If you’d seen someone with eyes like that on your world, Mal, you would’ve just thought he was a guy with strange eyes, right?”

“Oh, hell no,” Malyn said cheerfully. “We would have one hundred percent thought he was a witch. Just because there was no magic doesn't mean we didn't think there was. We weren’t exactly the most advanced society. When you don’t know shit about shit, everything becomes magic. Severe storm? Magic. Deformed calf? Magic. Identical twins? You better believe those fuckers are magical. Never saw a single thing I don’t now have a really boring explanation for.”

Adin paused his cleaning to join them near the table. “From a certain perspective, Malyn, those things were magic in your world. What is magic other than the things we don’t yet understand? Is Finch magical because he’s stronger than most? So is a chimpanzee. If a man could regrow a limb, we would call it magic, yet no one considers a gecko magical for doing the same. Even Tyla’s abilities, unambiguously magical as they are, must work in a way that could potentially be studied. If we understood them fully, would they stop being magic?”

“What if geckos are magic?” Malyn suggested, waving a piece of toast. “Discuss.”

“Why do we have Luther’s son?” Tyla asked, gently steering the conversation back on track.

“Right. That,” Finch said, rubbing his temples. “Apparently another vampire named Katrina has shown up. She’s the one who made Luther into a vampire in the first place, and she seems to think he belongs to her. He isn’t down with that, so she’s pissed. Normally I’d tell him to sort out his own life, but she’s targeting our little closet gremlin, Shadow. He didn't seem like a bad person, so I grudgingly agreed to take him in until things are safe. It felt wrong to refuse just because I hate Luther. Also Luther offered me a thousand dollars. Mostly I agreed because of the thousand dollars.”

“And Shadow seems… alright?” Malyn asked.

“He’s nothing like Luther, that’s for sure. Very quiet. Hard to know much more because I barely got a word out of him. Did he say anything to you, Adin?”

Adin shook his head. “Not a single word. He nodded and shook his head a few times, but that was it.”

“Well, if nothing else, he probably won’t be much trouble,” Finch said.

“What do you think Luther meant when he said Shadow was his son?” Malyn asked. “Like, do you think he actually raised him?”

“No idea,” Finch said. “Shadow said he was twenty and Luther hasn't been here that long, so he definitely didn't raise him from birth.”

“I certainly hope not,” Tyla commented. “From what you’ve told me of Luther’s history, he’s always been a… troubled individual. I don’t know what kind of influence he would have been on a young child.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Malyn said, passing his empty plate to Adin. “We have anything on tonight?”

“Someone called in a sighting of one of those dogs we lost track of,” Adin said, his tone shifting into business mode.

“The ones with the burny acid bites?”

“Mm. Apparently it’s been hiding out in the woods and it’s already killed a couple of dogs. No people yet, but the locals have been staying inside. There’s a five hundred dollar bounty on it, so make sure you stop in at the town after you're done and show them the body.”

“Those things are Class Three, too,” Malyn noted. “Actual okay government compensation on top of the bounty.”

“Do you guys want me to come too, or have you got it?” Finch asked.

Malyn waved him away. “Team Glass Cannon can handle one dog. We took out two on our own last week, so one should be easy.”

Tyla nodded his agreement.

“Okay,” Finch said. “I’ll be on standby here. Maybe I’ll see if I can get any more information out of our houseguest.”

“Yeah, do that,” Malyn agreed. “Partly because it might be a good idea to get to know him if he’s going to be staying here, but mostly just because I’m so goddamn curious.”

“Me too,” Finch admitted, “though I’m not sure how many of the answers I’m going to like if Luther is involved.”

“Yeah, I gotta agree with that,” Malyn said. “Anyway, Tyla, want to get ready to head out? We may as well make the most of the daylight we have left.”

“Sure,” Tyla said.

“I’ll get the file,” Adin said, piling the last of the dishes in the sink. “It’s about a forty minute drive, which should still leave you with a few hours of light once you arrive.”

They got dressed and then waited near the garage door until Adin brought them the file. 

Malyn took the folder and bopped Tyla gently on the top of the head with it. “Ready?”

Tyla nodded, a small smile touching his lips. “Let’s go.”