Finch

Finch turned in his chair to talk to Adin where he sat at his desk in the corner—the corner that somehow functioned as a study despite being wedged into a room that was already pulling double duty as a kitchen and living room. Papers and books covered every inch of the desk that Adin's laptop didn't, stacked with the kind of precise disorder that only made sense to the person who'd built it. “Mal just texted me. Turns out there were two dogs. He got a minor bite, but they managed to bag both dogs.”

“Did he send you a picture, or was ‘minor’ his own description?” Adin asked. “He’ll try to walk off any injury if it means he doesn’t have to go to the hospital.”

“Don’t I know it. We have some antibiotics he can take. Which, you know, normally bad to self-prescribe, but I think we can be pretty fucking sure that if he rocked up to a hospital with a bite from a mystery monster, they’d give him some antibiotics.”

“I suppose. I just wish he’d be a little less reckless. He’s only human.”

“He’ll be fine. These days he has Tyla both backing him up and fussing over him if he gets an ouchie. He won’t let him get away with dying from wound infection.”

“That’s true.”

Finch turned to look at the linen closet door where it sat next to the bathroom. “Should we wake Shadow up? Or at least check on him? He’s been sleeping for a long time…”

“I’m not sure how long he’s slept. As I said, he tried sleeping under my desk for a while and only moved to the closet later. But yes, I think it’s been long enough that a check in is warranted.”

Finch approached the linen closet, opened the door, and… Shadow wasn’t in there. The futon mat was crammed in there, the blanket bunched to one side, but Shadow was gone. “Okay, cool.”

Adin ducked down as though to check that he wasn’t just really deep under the shelf. “He was still there just before you got up. Malyn opened the door for a second and he was there.”

“And I’ve been here pretty much the whole time since, and I didn’t see him leave.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start worrying. His belongings are still here, so I don’t think he’s left. He’s probably just hiding somewhere else.”

“He’s not a kitten, Adin. He’s a grown man.”

“A grown man with a history of sneaking into small spaces and hiding himself away.”

Finch sighed. “I’ll go check my wardrobe.”

Shadow was not in Finch’s wardrobe, or the one in Malyn and Tyla’s room, or in the bathroom, or under Adin’s desk, or anywhere in the garage. This wasn’t a big house. There weren't many places to hide, and they'd just burned through all of them in about four minutes flat. So either he'd just… left—walked out while Finch was sitting right there and he hadn't even noticed—or someone had come in and taken him without either of them seeing a thing. Neither option was great.

Finch pushed out the back door into the yard, but there wasn’t really anywhere for Shadow to hide out there. He walked to the back fence anyway, eyes tracing the deeper shadows along its base, then turned around and nearly jumped out of his fucking skin.

Two glowing eyes stared down at him from the roof of the house.

They caught the ambient light and threw it back, bright and flat, like something predatory crouched up there in the darkness. Finch's weight shifted before he thought about it—feet apart, hands loose, the instinctive geometry of someone used to taking a hit. He didn't have his body armour. Didn't have a weapon. Fine. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d fought teeth and claws with nothing but flesh.

The figure shifted and Finch’s eyes caught the shape of pale limbs against the dark rooftop. Oh. “What the fuck, Shadow?”

Shadow hunched down where he sat on the ridge of the roof, pulling in on himself like he was trying to make his silhouette disappear.

Finch sighed, dragging a hand over his face. "Okay. I'm coming up."

Finch planted his foot on the railing of the small deck surrounding the back door and then hauled himself up onto the roof. He climbed carefully as he made his way up to Shadow, mostly because he didn’t want to pay for roof repairs.

“So,” Finch said as he sat next to Shadow. “Is this a safe thing for you to be doing, given whatever your deal is, or are you just being an idiot? That’s the thing with weirdos like us. You never really know. Normal twenty-something dudes do stupid shit all the time and they really might just get themselves killed, so who’s to say that we’re smarter and only do things we know are safe?”

Shadow didn’t respond.

Finch sighed. “So, is Luther actually your dad?”

Shadow glanced at Finch, the glowing circles of his eyes lingering on him uncomfortably. “Actually?”

“Well, obviously not actually actually, but did he raise you?”

Shadow nodded.

“For how long?”

“Ten years.”

“So, since you were ten?”

Shadow nodded again.

“I’m sorry. I mean, I’m guessing he wasn’t a great father.”

Shadow stayed silent.

“Do you think he’s a good dad?”

Shadow shrugged.

“Well, I guess you’d know better than I do. I don’t know jackshit about shit, honestly. Never really had parents, before or after I ended up in this world. Which is fine, honestly. When you’re a kid with a parent, it’s like someone owns you. They get to run your whole life. Kinda weird.”

Shadow lifted his legs so that he was perched precariously on the rooftop, folded his arms on top of them, and watched Finch, as though signalling his willingness to listen.

So Finch kept talking. “Malyn had foster parents. Awful. They were constantly on his ass about his grades. Took his stuff away, shouted at him, grounded him, as though he was doing shitty at school because he just wasn’t trying hard enough. Nah. Man came here when he was twelve, and he didn’t even go to school on his own world. They should’ve just been happy he could read and write and left him alone.”

Shadow nodded.

“Hey, you’re not going to go back to your dad and tell him everything we tell you, are you? All this personal shit?”

Shadow shook his head. “He wouldn’t care anyway.”

"Maybe he's less of a jackass now. Maybe I'm just holding onto a grudge. Haven't heard much from him lately, honestly. But when I was seventeen, his favourite game was trying to bite my throat until I punched him in his, and I find that one a little hard to forgive and forget. He thought it was funny." Finch paused. "He ever bite you?"

Shadow shook his head.

"Good. I'm genuinely relieved. But, you know, that thing I said did happen, so if he was good with you and you were wondering why everyone thinks he fucking sucks… that's why."

Shadow nodded.

“Hey, can we go inside now? Adin’s going to be wondering where we both are at this point, and you could probably do with some… breakfast? Dinner? Well, whatever you want.”

“Okay.”