Shadow lay on his back on the roof, staring up at the stars. They were disappointing, as always. He still remembered the sky he’d looked up at as a child, the brilliance of countless tiny points of light. There were just too many other lights competing for that glory here.

When Shadow had first expressed those thoughts to Luther, Luther had driven him out far away from city lights and they’d looked up at the stars together. They had been much more visible, but it still hadn’t been the same. Perhaps the real difference was in knowing that they had been the only light there was most of the time. As just one of far, far too many sources of light, they were less impressive.

Shadow got about an hour of quiet roof time in before Finch came outside, obviously looking for him. Shadow considered pushing attention away from himself or, hell, just shutting his eyes. He was pretty sure Finch could hardly see him up here beyond their reflective glow. Sometimes he forgot how completely blind most people were in darkness.

As Finch turned to look up at the roof, though, he let himself be seen. He could live in this house for weeks without any of them realising he was still there if he really wanted to, but, well. He didn’t want to. 

“Ah, there you are.” Finch approached the side of the house and Shadow climbed down to the edge of the roof to meet him. “Dinner’s just about ready. You can creep in and grab leftovers later if you want, but it’s burgers, so, you know. Considerably better fresh.”

Shadow nodded.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

Shadow shrugged. “Acknowledgement.”

“I think it’d be good if you came in and sat down with everyone just for a bit, but I also fucking hate it when people think they know what’s best for me and I hardly know you. I’m going to go back in now, and I hope you come with me, but I’m not going to come out here and nag you again if you don’t.”

Shadow nodded again.

“Acknowledgement. Right. I’m gonna go eat some burgers now.”

Shadow watched Finch as he headed back inside the house.

There was a deep desire in Shadow that he hadn’t felt for years to simply disappear off into the night. That was what felt safe when nothing else did. If you denned up when predators were about, they’d find you. You had to keep moving.

He’d learned young that in this world, that didn’t work as well as his heart told him it should. He didn’t know how to scavenge here and the sun spent half the time being out. There weren’t as many immediate threats, but there didn’t need to be to make it completely unviable.

Besides, what if Luther called again? What if he’d found some solution and he wanted to come and get Shadow? What if he hadn’t, and he wanted to say goodbye? Leaving simply wasn’t an option, no matter how natural it felt.

He’d forgotten quite how out of his element this world made him feel without all of the casual comforts Luther and the home they’d lived in had provided. It had been easy when the lights were dim and the windows covered, when conversation could take place in the lowest of voices. Luther hadn’t been a perfect father but, in many ways, he’d been more perfect for Shadow than a perfect father could have been.

These people weren’t so bad, though. They were already picking up on his needs and trying to accommodate him. No, they weren’t bad at all. Just… different. Everything was.

And he wouldn’t get used to it hiding up here. Shadow climbed down from the roof and entered the house.

Shadow had seen through the glow of the windows that Adin had turned the lights back on to cook, but they were dim again now, the ceiling lights off and the only lighting a lamp on a desk in the corner and a few little battery powered lanterns they probably had on hand in case of power outages on the kitchen table and counters.

Of all of the people here, Shadow had been most unsure about how Adin felt about him, but the smile he gave when Shadow let him notice his entrance looked genuine. “Ah, Shadow! I’m glad you decided to join us. I’ve made burgers. Or, well. Things to put in burgers. We have vegetable and beef patties, cheese, tomato, lettuce, onions, pickles. Anything you could want in a burger. I wasn’t sure what you liked or if you had any dietary restrictions, but I know you’ll eat bread and cheese if nothing else.”

Shadow gave a nod of gratitude, accepted a plate, and started putting together a burger for himself.

When Shadow had first encountered Adin, he had thought his heart didn’t beat, but he was so used to that from Luther that it had hardly even registered. It was actually the first time Adin’s heart did beat that had really caught Shadow’s attention. It only did it a couple of times a minute. It was oddly jarring to have it interrupt the rhythm of the rest of the life in the room.

Of course, it was far from the only, or even the greatest, of the chaos. Everyone was moving around, making constant conversation, and the whole time their attention was clinging to him like a wet shirt. 

He wasn’t incapable of comfortably processing this many people. He’d spent the first nine or so years of his life in a group far larger than this. He was just out of practice, just too unfamiliar with these people to mentally filter out all the unimportant bits. He didn’t know their patterns yet.

He hated how vulnerable it made him feel, hated how everyone around him could see it. Hated how Malyn deliberately spoke more quietly, more gently after Shadow’s eyes cut to him a little too sharply, hated how Adin felt the need to check in and make sure everything was fine when he got distracted from eating his food, hated the way Finch looked at him like maybe pushing him to come in for dinner had been a mistake.

“So,” Malyn said around a mouthful of burger. “I heard you kicked Finch’s ass.”

“I tripped him,” Shadow clarified.

“That’s a clever strategy, actually,” Tyla said. “Unless you’re very strong, hitting him wouldn’t have done much. Tripping him was probably the only way for you to truly win.”

“Maybe I could have braced myself better, but he was behind me before I even realised what was happening,” Finch said. “Bet there are some things I could learn from you, Shadow.”

“I don’t know how much I could teach you,” Shadow replied. It was still weird, hearing his voice come out of his mouth so loud. It felt wrong, like a normal person might feel if they were talking to someone who was almost deaf and they suddenly found themselves having to shout everything they said.

Finch gestured with a wave of his hand. “I don’t expect you to teach me to flip all over the place or anything. It’s just hard for me to get any good training in without someone who’s a real challenge to practise against, you know? Don’t get me wrong, these guys are great at what they do, but I can’t spar against an arrow to the face.”

Shadow nodded.

“Only if you want to, of course. Not that I think I could make you do anything you didn’t want to, but, well, I try to have manners.”

“I taught him his pleases and thank yous, but I never managed to get him to stop swearing,” Adin said as he finally sat down at the table next to Shadow. Finch was on Shadow’s other side and Tyla and Malyn were across from them.

Finch shrugged. “Never gave me a good reason not to.”

Finch carried with him a tired kind of calm. The beat of his heart was steady and predictable. Even when Luther had been telling him about Katrina, had sprung this whole situation upon him, his pulse hadn’t spiked. 

“We can spar,” Shadow said.

Finch offered him a smile. “Great.”

“So, Shadow,” Malyn said. “Did you go to school? I mean, like, how did that work with the vampire thing and whatever it is your thing is?”

“Tutor,” Shadow explained.

He and Luther had shared one. Luther had been able to speak English by the time Shadow had first encountered him, but mere fluency in spoken language hadn’t been enough for him. He’d wanted to be able to read, write, and speak it perfectly. You had to truly think long term when you were immortal, Luther had always said. There was no simply putting off certain things until you inevitably died, never having truly addressed them. He could have easily spent a hundred years struggling over things a tutor had set him right on in just a few.

“Ohh,” Malyn said. “I had tutors for the catch up program. Didn’t do me much good.”

“That’s because you skipped out on them to come hang out with me,” Finch pointed out.

“Well, it was more educational!” Malyn insisted. “I just can’t learn in a classroom. People talk and talk, and by the time I realise I’ve stopped listening, I have no idea what they’re saying.”

Finch and Adin were like islands, disconnected from everyone else, but Malyn and Tyla were the opposite. They were like two planets locked in orbit. Shadow didn’t think anyone else noticed it, even themselves, but when Malyn got up to get another burger, Tyla leant on the table in the direction he’d gone and then continued following his movements, eventually ending up leaning forward over the table. To anyone else it might have looked like he was just listening to what Finch, who was seated in front of him, was saying, but Shadow had watched the entire motion and it had been perfectly synchronised.

It was hard to follow all of these subtleties and keep up with the conversation, but Shadow reminded himself that it was all part of the adjustment process. Once he understood each dynamic in play, he wouldn’t need to give his attention to all of them. For now, he just had to tolerate feeling distracted and overwhelmed.

“Shadow,” Adin said. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

Shadow had never understood the point of asking if you could ask someone something. Surely it almost always depended on what you wanted to ask, and there was no way to reveal that without essentially just asking the question. Shadow nodded.

“You’ve slipped away right under our noses a couple of times now, and you managed to hide from a vampire. I’m sure the size of Luther’s house helped with that, but even so, I doubt it would have been so simple for most people. Do you have some sort of special ability involving that?”

Shadow nodded. He saw no reason to lie.

“Interesting. I can think of a number of ways that could be achieved. Teleportation. Invisibility. Something to do with altering perception.”

“The last one,” Shadow said.

“Ah. That makes sense. Can you do it now?”

Shadow shook his head. “Doesn’t work when you’re paying attention.”

Conscious awareness of the push also tended to make people uncomfortable. It turned into a mental battle against the compulsion to ignore him, and apparently that wasn’t the best feeling.

Shadow had only eaten half of his burger by the time a moment arose when everyone’s attention was directed away from him. He pushed the moment, deepened and extended the distraction, and slipped out through the back door with the remainder of his burger in hand.

They probably thought he didn’t like them, but that wasn’t it. He just perceived so much more of the world than most people, and it was a lot sometimes. Not even Luther, whose senses were about as sharp as his own and sharper in some ways, fully understood that. Luther didn’t tend to notice, or particularly care about, the more human, emotional elements of things.

Shadow could still hear the conversations going on inside if he bothered to pay attention. It gave him the opportunity to build his understanding of these people without getting quite so overwhelmed. He had fully expected them to talk shit about him as soon as he was gone, and he wouldn’t have even blamed them for it, but they didn’t. Instead, when they realised he had disappeared again, they just sounded concerned for him.

Yeah, these people weren’t so bad.