Forging New Paths

"If we should need you," she assured, though she was sure enough that they wouldn't, not unless Luca developed a very sudden lack of control over himself, "I promise to wake you up. But in the interest of letting you sleep if we don't, why don't you show me how the couch bed works so I don't make a lot of noise later on."

She gave a little smile at that, but it was a legitimate enough concern. If the couch squeaked or made any other sort of loud noise while the other two in the house were sleeping, she didn't want to risk waking them up. She probably wouldn't sleep for a while but no one needed the couch as a place to sit right now.

When the shower turned off, Evelyn glanced in the direction of the bathroom, but didn't quite move away from the counter yet, taking another drink of her tea. "I suppose we should go do that while he dries off. Thank you for the help." She wanted to be done by the time Luca needed to be watched over again. She had a feeling it was going to take hours to get him to sleep.
 
Garrett nodded and made his way to the couch. He glanced briefly towards the bathroom as well, but he was sure Luca knew how to dry off and get changed on his own. Pretty sure, anyway. "All right. So you pull off the three big cushions, and then unfold the mattress, like so . . ." He took a few minutes showing Evelyn how to set up and put away the couch, and then he had her try it to make sure she got the hang of it.

He smiled and nodded. "Nothing to it, right?" he asked with a smile. "All right. You have a good night, Evelyn. Get some good rest." He ambled off down the hallway towards his study, pausing to call quietly to Luca. "Have a good night, Luca! I'll be in the study or my room if either of you need me!"

Then he headed back into the study and sat down. Normally he'd close the door behind him. But he didn't want to seem imposing or closed off to Luca, so he left it open a fair amount. Soon he was back to reviewing case notes, looking them over carefully and adding pins and notes to his cork board when he could.

He would be up until one in the morning, when he finally turned in for bed. He left his bedroom door open as well.
 
Once she was shown how to pull out the bed of the couch, Evelyn was self-sufficient, but she did appreciate Garrett's wanting to be sure before he wandered off. Once everything was set up she wished him goodnight, smiling a little at the way he did the same for Luca on his way past the bathroom. She didn't hear Luca respond, but she was sure they both knew he probably wasn't going to.

A few minutes later, as she was arranging a blanket for herself, Luca did emerge from the bathroom, holding his towel and his old clothes in his arms and looking slowly back and forth down the hall before finally spotting Evelyn waiting for him and moving hesitantly over to her. He didn't know what to do with the laundry, she assumed, so gave his hand a gentle pat and took it all from him, hanging the towel in the bathroom and setting the clothes aside near the bag she'd packed for them both to be washed later - or tossed, if he never wanted to see the clothes he'd worn in that house again.

As predicted, it was difficult to get him to settle down. Evelyn had him watch tv with her for a little while, hoping he would start to nod off, but all she succeeded in was making herself doze for a little while. Luca was still wide awake, come midnight, and she took him back to the guest room purely on principle to try and start him on a halfway decent sleep schedule. She still ended up sitting with him a while, asking if he wanted her to play quiet music for him, or white noise, if he liked to sleep with the window open or closed, whether he needed water or not. When she had finally gone through everything she could think of, she left him to lie down with his eyes closed and see if that worked, with instructions to wake her or Garrett if he needed anything.

An hour or two later, Evelyn was solidly asleep after not sleeping for nearly 40 hours straight, and Luca was still wide awake. He had slept most of the day away, and after Garrett had touched him and made it quiet before he could feel the Shadow's buzz of power beneath his skin once again. It made it impossible to settle in, but Luca was used to it. Late into the night, he got up from his bed and wandered quietly around the room, poking here and there at what was in it, then walked on nearly silent feet out to the living room and kitchen to meander there as well, restless and unoccupied. He was careful not to clink dishes together as he found himself a glass to get a drink of water, and let his eyes wander in the dark. There were no windows, he realized as he looked around. He had never been in a house with no windows before, and if not for small nightlights left on in places he was sure he would have bumped into furniture in the dark by now. With nowhere to sit and watch the stars to keep himself occupied, he would probably just go back and lie awake in bed until someone came to get him in the morning.
 
A few hours before bed, Detective Shiver heard someone up and about in the kitchen, and he ambled over to investigate. He turned a few lights on and yawned widely. "Ah! Luca. You're still up too, I see." He smiled and walked over to get himself some water as well, making sure to give Luca some space. "I . . . I don't suppose as long as you're awake . . . would you like to join me in my study? I'll be up for several hours yet. I could even teach you a bit about my work, if you'd like."

He took a sip of water and leaned against the counter. Either way would be fine with him. But it would be nice to have some one on one time with Luca, both to build his trust and to get to know him better. Evelyn clearly wasn't awake, or he would have heard her moving about elsewhere in the apartment.

Unlike the guest room, his study was a bit more organized, and he had no problem showing Lucas things that weren't related to cases - such as magnifying glasses, fingerprint kits, that sort of thing. Garrett had to admit he loved his work, and the prospect of sharing it with someone was nothing less than thrilling.
 
Luca cringed and closed his eyes at the sudden onslaught of light in the kitchen, placing a hand over them as if as an afterthought and standing still to process the shock. He hadn't heard Garrett coming into the room, but he was used to not noticing things and having people appear next to him seemingly at random. The things he felt inside his own body were enough to process, at times, that what went on around him was only background information.

Garrett didn't seem mad at him for being up, so Luca took his time blinking a bit dazedly and letting his eyes get used to the light, hands folding almost nervously around the glass he'd been holding like he wasn't supposed to have it. He hoped the lights hadn't woken Evelyn up. She was tired, and didn't seem to have stirred.

". . . Okay," he said quietly, finally, when he'd had time to try and think over the question, and followed behind Garrett once the man started to walk away. He was as complacent as ever, following where he was led and sitting where he was directed to sit. This was someone's study, not a common area like the kitchen or living room, so he wouldn't touch anything until he'd been given permission.
 
Garrett's eyes lit up. "Wonderful!" he said, cheerfully but quietly. He turned the lights off in the kitchen on the way out, and then returned to his study where they were still on. Then he gestured to both a chair on wheels and a beanbag chair in the corner. "Where would you like to sit?" he asked happily.

Once Lucas had picked a place, he headed towards three long shelves on the wall, pointing towards the middle row. "You see these? Everything on this level, you're more than welcome to investigate. It's declassified cases or tools I use." He pointed at the bottom row. "Those are cases and evidence pieces I'm currently using, so unfortunately I can't share those. And the top shelf is, uh . . . I think mostly receipts and old cases I haven't sorted through? You're welcome to use those as well but they're not nearly as exciting as the second shelf."

He pulled out a magnifying glass from a box on the second shelf and walked over to Lucas with it, holding it out. "This was the first tool I ever bought for myself, when I first started my business. I have very fond memories of using it. Of course, it's a bit cracked now, but still fun to use now and again."
 
Luca was silent as Garrett went on, choosing the chair with wheels and tracking the man with his eyes as he tried to listen, making mental notes. Allowed to touch, not allowed to touch. They were simple labels, but it was different from the last place he lived, where he wasn't supposed to touch most things. He would have to try and remember which shelves were which, and that everything in the house was probably going to come with one label or the other.

When Garrett came over to hand him something, Luca set his glass very carefully aside on a corner of the desk to free his hands up and accepted it, just looking down at it sitting in his palms for a long moment. Eventually, upon noticing that it was making his hand beneath the glass look funny he picked it up a bit and peered at the lines in his skin that the magnifying glass made visible. He was careful, not wanting to break it somehow, and turned his hand slowly this way and that as if inspecting it.

". . . what . . ." He started softly, gradually beginning to gather his curiosity enough to speak, "What did you . . . use it for?" It only made things bigger up close. Trying to look through it at the wall, or even the desk, only made things very blurry.
 
The detective beamed. "Ah, we've got another detective among us! Questions are always the first step to answers." He smiled and pulled out his newer magnifying glass from his pocket. "Magnifying glasses are fantastic for catching small details that might otherwise be missed. For example - fingerprints . . ." He held the glass up against his own hand to show Luca his fingerprints. ". . . or small pieces of jewelry, perhaps scratches on furniture or wood, that sort of thing. Everything tells a story, after all."

He put his new magnifying glass away again and gestured at the shelf. "Now, here's what I'm thinking. You can examine everything on that shelf, if you'd like. And I'll work on some notes and things over here. Then when you have more questions, I'll be right nearby to answer. How does that sound?"

It wasn't a yes or no question exactly, but maybe it was close enough that Luca would still be able to answer it easily.
 
Luca looked up at Garrett without quite moving his head when something like praise came his way. Excitement, at least, or approval. He couldn't tell, but he thought it felt nice to be talked to like that, and only tuned back in to the actual words when the older man showed his hand through the glass. Curious, Luca looked at his own fingertips as Garrett turned away, thinking about prints and how they'd made him wear gloves at first, until they realized his skin never really touched anything, only his Shadow.

Again, all he could manage in response to suggestions was a soft 'Okay'. He wasn't sure if he was being told to do it, but anything was better than sitting still and doing nothing while he laid awake. Still, he waited until Garrett had settled in and only then got up to wander over to the shelf, sitting on his knees to peruse and very gently setting the magnifying glass back in an empty space he thought it belonged in. He was mostly quiet, picking up and carefully examining things one by one, piece by piece. Every now and again he would stop and be very still, not so much looking at the thing he'd chosen aa somewhere in the middle distance between them, lost somewhere in his own head, in the constant thrum of energy in his bones, before he would resume again.

Eventually, Luca stopped longer than normal on a small blacklight flashlight, shining it onto a blank space on the bookshelf for a few seconds to see the color before turning it off again. There was a silent pause as he sat and thought for a little while, then finally he turned just enough to look back towards Garrett at his desk, not quite meeting eyes with the man as he held the flashlight out on both hands where it could be seen.

"What . . . do you use this for?" He asked, with a very faint emphasis on 'you'. He had seen lights like these used before, shined on special stamps to identify packages he was never allowed to look inside but he often gathered were full of some sort of drug, or weapon, or money. He wondered if other people used them to find secret markings, too.
 
Garrett glanced up when Luca eventually asked him about one of the tools, and he smiled and nodded. "That's a blacklight. I use those for messier crime scenes when I need to find something specific, or crime scenes where I think there might be secrets hiding. Blacklights reveal anything with fluorescent molecules, so that includes bodily fluids, cleaners, some spray paints and pens, things like that."

He went over to the shelf and pulled out a few boxes, pieces of paper, and books. "Here, do you want to try and find the secrets in these? There's a message hidden in them that I made myself."

He smiled and went back to his seat, relaxing again; Luca seemed more prone to exploring once the detective was involved on puked things, so he made himself look busy.

Within the items he'd given to Lucas, there was indeed a message spelled out, each word written on a different object.

Good job, Detective.
 
Luca listened attentively to the explanation, looking at the flashlight again afterwards when Garrett got up to get some things and thinking about what strange things it could find. He looked up when the man presented him a stack of things, tilting his head at them a bit as he tried to understand what they were for. When he had them spread out between his knees and the bookshelf, he got the hint to shine the light over them and stared at them a while before trying to find all the pieces. So Garrett used the light to find special symbols, too?

It took quite a while, given his penchant for moving slowly and taking his time, but eventually he did figure out that the letters were meant to be arranged into words, and which words they were supposed to be. When he had a small sentence in front of him Luca smiled just a bit to himself. As much as he associated the words with his old handler - a simple 'good job, kid' delivered frequently after he'd been used for his purpose - it was nice to be told he'd done well, even if it was just a puzzle.

". . . Is that it?" He asked finally, turning a little to see Garrett over his shoulder and find out if he'd found the right words or if it was supposed to spell out other things. He liked puzzles.
 
The detective glanced over his shoulder, and smiled when he saw the boxes and papers were indeed in the right order. "That's it," he told Luca happily. "I . . . I made that message for myself, when I first started my work. There wasn't anyone else to tell it to me, most times. So I'd shuffle the boxes and papers and pretend to uncover the secret message." He glanced down and studied the pen in his hand. ". . . Sometimes I still do."

He cleared his throat and smiled again. "In any case, it's good practice for looking at different materials under blacklight. And I'm glad I could give the message to someone else." He paused for a moment. "Say . . . I don't suppose . . . do you know how to use your powers of your own accord?"

He suddenly realized that just because Luca had powers didn't mean the boy knew how to use them on his own. And he didn't want Luca to be afraid of himself. If he could control his own powers, he was sure it would build Luca's confidence exponentially.
 
Luca felt a little wave of satisfaction when told he'd found the right solution, turning back to start carefully stacking the items that had the letters on them so they could be put away, though he didn't exactly know where. He was content with neatly organizing them until Garrett asked about his powers, and his hands went still. After a pause they drew slowly back into his lap, one hand curling around the other wrist and rubbing absentmindedly, fingers flexing in and out. Like the buzz beneath his skin wanted out. Like his joints ached with the urge to let it out.

"She said no one would make me. . ." He said finally, even quieter than normal, and would not turn to face Garrett again. Evelyn had promised him he wouldn't have to hurt anyone anymore, and that no one would make him release the Shadow if he didn't want to. Would it be the same here? He wondered. At least, without Davis around, there would be no one who could tell the Shadow what to do without his own input.
 
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Garrett waved his hands at once. He hadn't considered that Lucas might take the suggestion that way, and the last thing he wanted was to make him feel like he was back in that terrible place. "And no one will," he promised quickly. "You never have to use the shadows again if you don't want to."

He pulled in a breath and tried to explain. "I just thought that if you knew how to use your powers on your own, then you could stop anyone else that tried to use them without your consent." He gave it a bit more thought. ". . . Or, if you prefer . . . we could look into teaching you how to turn it off yourself, the way I can. As far as I know most people with powers can stop using them at any time. There's no reason that you couldn't. Then you wouldn't need me to turn them off, you could do it yourself."
 
Luca's shoulders relaxed a fraction, but he was still confused. If no one was going to tell him to use his Shadow to hurt anyone, then what would he use it for? Were there things that needed to be broken? Davis always spoke into his head, instead of his ears, and when instructed he couldn't say no even if he knew how. As long as there was no one else that could put words in his head, wasn't it okay to just not use it?

"It doesn't . . . turn off," he said, hesitant to try and find the right words to explain when he wasn't used to talking so much at a time. "The Shadow . . . comes out. Or stays in. . . Sometimes its quiet for a while, after. . ." It never fully turned off. When he used it a lot, it felt less like it was building up in his bones, but that was where it lived, somewhere inside him. It only came out when told, or when it needed to keep him safe. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but if he somehow got rid of it how would he stop them from hurting him instead? It made him feel nervous.
 
"Oh, I see," Detective Shiver said slowly, nodding and thinking things over. "It's more of a passive power, like mine. In a manner of speaking." He put his fingers to his lips. "How can I put this . . . I want to make sure you stay safe. Do you think there's a chance someone else may be able to take control of your powers, or was that Lombardi the only one?"

If the Lombardi was the only one, keeping Luca safe long term would be much easier. Then Garrett and Evelyn would only have to focus on helping him reintegrate into society - which would take a while, but shouldn't be too hard.

The detective relaxed in the chair to make himself seem as nonthreatening as possible.
 
Passive sounded wrong. Luca wasn't sure exactly what it meant for someone's power to be passive, but it seemed like a word that wasn't quite right. His power was something that always affected him, he thought, and came to life when he was in danger, even when he didn't tell it to. It felt more active than passive - but then, his knowledge of the world came mostly from books and snippets heard here and there. Maybe he just didn't understand, lIke he didn't understand lots of things.

Luca glanced back at Garrett once, briefly, then fidgeted nervously with the book that had been sitting closest to him, fingers running over the edges of the pages as if to check if any were uneven. "I don't know. . . I only know him. . ." It wasn't something he had ever thought about before. What if there were other people who could tell him to do things, and he had no choice but to do them? It made him feel frayed around the edges, a nervous tension curling around the back of his neck. He wanted to hide and cover his ears, but it had never done any good. The words always got through.
 
"Fair enough," Garrett said quietly. "I do have some good news, though. While we were rescuing you, I did feel a bit of mild power from the Lombardi. My guess is he has some sort of power relating to the mind - and people with powers are rare. So even if there was someone else with a similar ability . . . it's very unlikely they'd be anywhere near here," he added.

The detective pulled out his magnifying glass to fidget with it again. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to worry you. I was just trying to think ahead, and I want to make sure you'll be able to keep yourself safe. That's all. And of course Evelyn and myself will continue protecting you, but it will be an added bonus if you can protect yourself as well."
 
'Unlikely' was supposed to be reassuring, but Luca couldn't get past the idea of meeting someone else who could get inside his head. It had been 'unlikely' that Davis would find him in the first place, that his power would work better on Luca than it had on anyone else, that someone had noticed Luca and sent the man to test him as a child. It didn't mean impossible, and though it was comforting to think that Garrett and Evelyn would protect him, who was to say that someone wouldn't make him hurt them instead?

The panicked tightness in his chest was too much. In an effort to shut out the world around him, Luca closed his eyes and slid his fingers back through his hair, pressed his palms tightly over his ears until all he could hear was the rush of his own pulse. For a long few minutes he sat very still, focusing on taking shaking breaths slowly in and out until his heart didn't beat so hard and fast, until the nerves stopped making his hands feel like they might tremble. Finally, as if nothing had happened, he pulled his hands slowly away and opened his eyes, refocusing gradually on all of the things in front of him and eventually just beginning to pick them up and place them back on the bookshelf where he thought they went. As often as he had been both watched and ignored for the last decade of his life, it didn't strike him as anything strange to do in front of other people.
 
Garrett was mentally kicking himself. Sure, it was an important conversation to have, but he probably should have waited until Luca felt more stable. What had been intended to reassure the boy had clearly sent him into a panic attack. And all at once, the detective realized one of the limits of his own powers.

He couldn't hug Luca when he probably most needed it. He'd resolved only to touch him when absolutely necessary, or when Luca himself requested or allowed it. But he didn't want to wake Evelyn out of a deep sleep, either.

The detective sighed and settled for sitting right beside Luca instead. He was staring at the carpet when Luca finally uncovered his eyes again and started putting supplies away. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I . . . should've waited to bring this up. I wasn't thinking clearly."
 
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