My Dear Shadow [m/m]

Asa sighed as he took the last box out of his car. He set it down on the concrete floor of the underground garage, then checked the interior one more time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Satisfied, he closed the trunk, locked the car, picked up the box, and headed toward the elevator. As always, he felt that familiar ghostly sensation—and, as always, it didn’t bother him.

He pressed the button to call the elevator, braced the box against his hip, and pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. He grimaced at the time but didn’t look up when the elevator doors slid open. He stepped inside with only a glance at the suspicious figure slumped in the corner—a tall man, likely drunk, who eyed his box with interest. Asa sighed and pressed the button for his floor, then returned to checking his email, deliberately turning his back to the stranger.

Asa didn’t consider himself to be a bad person. But he believed that what happened to people who tried to threaten or attack him was their own fault. Instant karma, sort of. And logically speaking, if it were someone else in his place? More often than not, his “shadow” was doing the world a favor.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said without looking up, sensing a shift in the air behind him. His tone was bored—it wasn’t the first time he’d issued that warning. Not that they ever listened.

Soon, he involuntarily smiled at the sound of a resounding crack. Only then did he glance back. The stunned horror on the man’s dirty face was familiar—and funny—a moment before his broken body crumpled into a heap in the corner. The mirrored wall behind him was now webbed with shattered glass.

Asa shook his head with a potent roll of his eyes and returned to reading the lease agreement.

He had no memory of his parents—only a picture of the couple who died in a car accident when he was one year old. According to his files, that accident had been caused by a truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into their car, and bolted, never to be found. The police noted being stunned by the scene, especially by the fact that Asa had miraculously survived.

Now, at twenty-five, he sometimes wondered if that constant feeling of being watched had something to do with the accident. He wasn’t religious, but he couldn’t deny that his life had been anything but ordinary. Somewhere out there, someone obsessed with the supernatural probably had a field day studying the thick files documenting his strange history.

Being found at a safe distance from the wreckage was only the beginning of the puzzle that followed him through the years. The first couple who adopted him—whom he also didn’t remember—had noted something unsettling in their reports. Not in so many words, but Asa, now older, could read between the lines and understand why they gave him up very quickly.

The trail of foster homes and orphanages that followed was filled with similar notes. The most common accusation was that he was antisocial. More disturbing were the reports of him talking to shadows, which unnerved his caregivers.

And above all else, and most often note was that bad things happened when he got upset, but they didn’t even know half of it.

Asa pocketed his phone, tossed one last look at the corpse, and stepped out into the hallway, heading toward the door at the end.

“I almost regret moving,” he muttered dramatically, stopping beside the door and pulling a magnetic card from his jacket. He pressed it to the lock, stepped inside when the door slid open, and set the box beside a pile of others. Unpacking could wait.

He hung his jacket by the door, took out his phone again, and walked deeper into the apartment. A short corridor opened into a spacious living room with a kitchen counter separated by an aisle. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a stunning view of the city’s shimmering lights—despite it being well past midnight.

The building was new and expensive, and the apartment, located high up, reflected that. Still mostly empty, the only furniture was a massive black sofa. Asa dropped onto it, kicked off his boots, and lay down. He read a few more messages, deleted some spam, then placed his phone screen down on the floor and crossed his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

“I like the silence,” he said to the air, then sighed and closed his eyes. “They must’ve done some impressive soundproofing. All I can hear is my heartbeat...”

He grimaced and looked around, then closed his eyes again. For a moment, he bit his lower lip at the emptiness in his chest that matched the apartment.

“I wish...” he whispered, knowing how hopeless and pointless it was. “I wish I knew what you are, my shadow. And why are you doing this? I’m not complaining, but...” He trailed off and sighed again, shifting to his side and using his arms as a pillow while staring numbly at the lights outside.

He closed his eyes and smiled—grinned triumphantly—when, out of nowhere, a heavy, warm weight settled behind him and wrapped around his back. It felt male and distinctly larger than him. From experience, he didn’t try to look. He knew that if he opened his eyes, the shadow would vanish.

Instead, he focused on the sensation—the pressure of a taller, muscular body, hard in all the right places, radiating heat like a furnace. He melted into it with a happy little noise when something that felt like an arm wrapped around his shoulders.

Still, he heard nothing but the pounding of his own heart.

His hand slowly pulled back from under his cheek and brushed the limb wrapped over him. When it didn’t pull away, his fingers climbed until they reached a hand—man-like, but tipped with razor-sharp claws. He shyly laced his fingers through them.

“Thank you,” he breathed, basking in the warmth, before drifting off to the only new sound in the room—deep, raspy purring that vibrated against his back.

It wasn’t the first time Asa started the day with a detective at his door. This one, at least, had the good sense to check his record beforehand, unlike her predecessor. When he opened the door at dawn, yawning and running his fingers through his blonde hair, the slightly shorter woman in a long dark coat only stared for a moment—between him, as he leaned against the threshold and arched his eyebrows expectantly, and the screen of the tablet in her hands—perhaps trying to connect his appearance to his story or some similar nonsense.

They always do, he sighed internally, making an encouraging gesture with his free hand before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ah,” she finally caught up, cleared her throat, and attempted something she likely believed was her intimidating expression. Her navy-blue eyes narrowed when he smiled at her involuntarily. “Good morning, Mr. Nix. My name is Clair Deveroix, and I work for—”

“Mhmm,” Asa sighed out loud now, rolling his eyes. “Can we, please, hurry it along? I haven’t had coffee yet.”

She blinked, perhaps stunned by his indifference—so maybe she wasn’t as smart as he thought. Or—more likely—perhaps she was one of the skeptical ones, and that idea almost made him cringe. Instead, Asa smiled again, this time in a polite, reassuring way, hoping they would avoid the fate of the last skeptical detective determined to solve the mystery of his shadow.

“You’re here about the body in the elevator, yes?” he asked wryly, then smirked. “I recommend watching the recording from the camera inside, Miss Deveroix. You’ll see I never touched that man.”

“I did watch it, sir,” she replied, as narrowed eyes gave him a completely flat once-over. “And while doing so, I couldn’t resist the thought that you didn’t seem surprised, either. Or particularly concerned that another person was murdered right beside you.”

“Concerned?” He snorted, then slowly shook his head. “Why should I care about an individual who—were I someone else—would try to rob or kill me, Detective?”

“That doesn’t explain...” she started and trailed off, flinching when the wall of windows in the corridor behind her gave a sound that made Asa’s ears hurt. She turned and paled like a sheet at the sight of claw marks that cut into the glass right behind her back.

“What the...?” she gawked, open-mouthed, when the noise ceased, and her tablet dropped from her limp fingers.

“Last time I had this discussion, your predecessor had the bright idea to try to arrest me,” Asa said, frowning as his eyes narrowed slightly toward the marked window over her shoulder. “I suppose it’s your warning to be smarter,” he added flatly.

“So that’s all...” She turned toward him, even paler as she swallowed convulsively and seemed torn between moving away from him and the idea of nearing the windows. “...true?”

“I do need coffee for this,” he muttered, then backed inside the apartment, motioning toward her to follow. “Please, come in. Just stay at least two steps away from me, and you’ll be perfectly safe, Detective.”

Before she made up her mind, he had a steaming mug sitting on the opposite side of the wide aisle. He sipped his own, leaning back against the counter at an appreciative distance when she finally walked in, obviously nervous, but perhaps too intrigued to leave. Asa smiled, motioning toward the free mug with his chin, and the detective hesitantly took that invitation. She was very pale and watched him warily as she climbed on the tall barstool and set her tablet on the aisle. She ignored the coffee, pushing the mug away from herself, then crossed her forearms on the surface before her and leaned toward him.

“I was about ten the first time it happened,” he said softly, setting his mug on the counter beside his hip. Asa looked straight into her eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest again and shrugged. “Daddy of the new foster family I was sent to was a pedophile and made the mistake of going into my room at night. His wife knew but pretended not to see or hear anything. There wasn’t much left of either of them by dawn. He never got to touch me,” he added when Clair opened her mouth, and she snapped them closed, only motioning to continue. “Next was an older boy at school when I was twelve. A bully who liked to torment smaller boys,” he waved toward himself, then crossed his arms again. Before puberty, he used to be short and looked rather delicate. “He survived, with only a few bones broken—quite artistically if I can say so. The first girl I dated wasn’t so lucky, though all was fine until she cheated. That was when police finally caught on and started tailing me, Detective, predictably thinking I killed her and her side piece.”

“Yet... You were never interrogated or arrested?” she asked, absentmindedly touching the screen of her tablet to turn it on. He wasn’t surprised to see a miniature image of his face on it, but Asa only shrugged again.

“I don’t go anywhere I don’t want to go, Miss Deveroix,” he remarked coldly. “I don’t get touched if I don’t want to be touched, and I answer only to the questions I wish to answer. I learned that trying to accommodate others tends to have tragic consequences—for them. Making me uncomfortable, upset, or anxious—as I’m certain stands somewhere in that file—can be lethal. And—opposite to what your predecessors sometimes thought—no, I don’t control it. I don’t know what it is, why it picked me, or how it works. I can touch it only when it lets me, it provides for me anything I might want, and it protects me—to extremes.”

“But... Why?” she asked, getting paler than snow when he shrugged again. “I mean, why here?”

“I have to live somewhere,” Asa deadpanned with another shrug and frowned darkly. “In our previous location, your counterpart refused to acknowledge the idea of a paranormal being standing behind the trail of bodies that tends to follow me. Not that I blamed him, but I thought it prudent to leave before his prodding grew aggravating.”

She sat there for a moment, immobile and with skepticism written all over her face. Asa smiled wryly, picking up his coffee again.

“You can try to arrest me and see what happens,” he said, sipping his drink and then holding the mug between both hands. He arched his eyebrows expectantly. “I honestly don’t care, Detective, if I would dislike being forced to call a cleaning crew on my first day here.”

“Is that a threat?” Her back snapped straight, and navy eyes narrowed while he rolled his and sighed.

“It’s a statement of fact, Miss Deveroix,” he drawled. “My shadow never leaves me, and the first time a cop tried to cuff me, every bone in both of his arms was broken in two. In an instant. Getting within arm’s reach of me with unpleasant intentions turns quite spectacularly deadly. I was desensitized to it by sixteen, okay?”

Detective Deveroix mulled it over, then exhaled deeply and pulled back that mug, staring into it as she spoke up next.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?” she asked. “Or how to get rid of...?”

“Pff,” Asa snorted in his drink, then chuckled sheepishly, wiping his mouth as he set the cup aside. “Don’t be ridiculous... Sorry,” he sighed and shook his head when she sharply looked up. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve had this conversation already. No,” he said firmly, crossing his arms again. “Would I like to know what it is and why it attached itself to me? Yes, I would love to. Would I want it gone? No,” he added and shook his head again when an incredulous expression filled her face. “It was with me as long as I can remember, Detective. It gives me freedom that very few people can claim. It protects me from all harm. He is my friend, confidante...” And more, if he only weren’t so skittish.

“He?” she repeated, and her eyes narrowed intently. “You kept calling it ‘it’ until now, and now it’s a ‘he’?”

Asa swore in thought as his face heated when he looked away from her and awkwardly cleared his throat.

“And you said it ‘lets’ you touch it,” she continued, and he cringed, cursing again at his big mouth, especially when his face grew hotter. “Do you...? Are you in a sexual relationship with it?” she snapped, and it was his turn to toss her an incredulous glare.

“No,” he replied clearly. *I wish,* he added only in thought. “I only know it’s... He’s a male and a big one... but it’s a new development,” he admitted reluctantly, begging his stupid blush to go away.

“New...?” Clair muttered under her breath, watching him, while Asa tightened his jaw and glared in return. He did not plan to tell her—or anyone else, for that matter—that only lately his shadow would sometimes accommodate his craving for physical comfort.

“Mister...?”

“We’re done,” he announced and sent her a harder stare. “You’re free to think or do whatever you want, Detective, as long as you do it away from here. I have plans, so...” he lied, then motioned toward the corridor and exit, putting his mug in the sink before going around the aisle and heading toward the still-empty bedroom. On the way, he decided to take a shower before heading out to order the missing furniture. “Have a good day,” he tossed over his shoulder, hearing the shriek of the barstool over the tiles.

“Wait, Mister...” she started, but Asa ignored her and snapped the door of the bedroom behind him, hoping—for her sake—she was clever enough to be gone by the time he was out of the shower.