Axel had been fine.

That was the thing. He had been fine — leaning against the church hall railing with his sleeves down and a mug of something grey in his hand, watching the square, doing his job, being a normal human being about it.

Then Wren had said something, and {{user}} had laughed.

Not a polite laugh. The real one. Head-back, hand-on-chest, the one that made their eyes crinkle up at the corners. And Wren — nineteen-year-old, green-haired, two-watch-wearing Wren — had lit up like a struck match and immediately said something else, and leaned in, and put his hand on their forearm to make the point, and said something else.

Axel's thumb started tapping against the scar on his nose.

The mug was empty. He hadn't noticed drinking it.

"Right," he said, to nobody. Nobody was listening; nobody ever listened.

He set the mug down on the railing hard enough that it clacked.

Down in the square, Wren was doing the double-hop thing. Axel could see it from here. Twenty feet away and he could see it. The kid was doing the hop. The hop was the worst one. The hop meant he was winning.

Fine.

Axel pushed off the railing and went down the steps two at a time.

He didn't say anything when he got there. That was the first move. He just walked up, slotted himself in at {{user}}'s shoulder, and let his hand land on the small of their back — flat, possessive, deliberate — and stood there like he'd been part of the conversation the whole time.

"—so anyway, that's why the tower's off limits after dark," Wren was saying, hands still going. "Not 'cause it's dangerous. It's 'cause the ladder's missing three rungs and Axel's the only one who— oh. Hey, man."

"Hey." Axel's voice was flat. He looked at Wren for exactly one second. Then he looked at {{user}}, and something in his jaw shifted. "You busy?"

"I mean, we were just—" Wren started.

"Yeah." Axel's hand pressed a little firmer. "They're busy."

Wren's mouth opened. Then closed. Then he looked between the two of them, and something knowing and deeply obnoxious crossed his freckled face. "Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, go, we're good, I got — stuff. Radio stuff. Big Bertha's being temperamental, so—" he was already backing up, "—roger that. Kestrel out."

He did not have a mic. He said it anyway.

Axel was already turning.

"Come on."

He took {{user}} by the wrist — not rough, just certain — and steered them across the square, past the church, out the north gate, and up the ridge path without explaining a single thing about it. The gravel crunched. His boots were too loud. He could feel his own pulse in his ears and he hated that.

The fire lookout stood at the top, tilted about four degrees off plumb, its ladder half-rotted. He went up first out of habit, checked the fourth rung, waited at the platform. When they reached him he got a hand on the railing and one on their hip and guided them through the hatch ahead of him, and then he pulled it shut behind them both.

The wind came through the gaps in the walls. The floor smelled like old timber and dust. Below, Greyhollow was just roofs and the silver line of the creek.

Axel turned around.

He had a speech. He'd been building it the whole walk up — something dry, something that made it sound like a joke, "so should I be worried or is the hop just a thing he does" — but he got as far as opening his mouth before it all collapsed.

"Three days," he said instead. "Three days he's been— doing that. The leaning. The arm thing."

He pushed his sleeves up.

"That's not—" A breath, hard through his nose. "Look. I'm not jealous. I want that on the record. Jealousy's for people who think they're losing. I'm not losing."

The wind rattled the boards.

Axel stepped in, one hand finding their jaw, the other flat against the wall beside their head, and he kissed them like he was making a point — fast and hard and a little ungraceful about it, teeth catching, thumb dragging along the line of their jaw to tip their chin up.

He broke off just far enough to breathe, forehead almost against theirs.

"Say it was annoying," he muttered. "The arm thing. Say it was annoying."

Then he kissed their neck before they could, like he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

The second kiss went longer. He got both hands on them then, one in their hair and one at their waist, and he stopped being careful about it — no more point-making, just want, plain and badly hidden. His thumb hooked the hem of their shirt and dragged it up so he could get his palm flat on bare skin, and he made a low sound against their mouth when he did.

"Came up here for the view," he muttered. "Great view."

The lookout had one narrow cot, a folding chair, and a waist-high shelf along the far wall — and Axel had already decided which one he was using. He turned them by the hips, walked them back two steps, and bent them over the shelf with a hand pressed flat between their shoulder blades.

"Stay."

He shoved the chair out of the way with his boot. Behind them, he got his belt unbuckled just to have somewhere to put his hands, then abandoned it, then stepped in close enough that his hips hit the back of their thighs.

His palm ran down their spine, over their ass, and then his fingers found their waistband and worked it down — impatient, tugging, the fabric bunching at their knees. Cold air came through the boards. He ducked his head to watch.

"Fuck," he said, quiet and entirely to himself.

He started with one hand on their hip and the other flat, just dragging his fingers through — slow, exploratory, no hurry to it at all, and the way his jaw went tight said he was enjoying the waiting more than he'd admit. He dragged up and back down again, pressed, circled, learned the shape of them by touch.

Then he pushed one finger in.

His breath went out hard through his nose. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay. That's—" He curled it, felt them react, and his hand tightened on their hip to hold them still. "That's it. Don't wiggle."

A second finger worked in alongside it, and he took his time — pulled almost all the way out, pushed back slow, twisted a little, the heel of his hand grinding down. The shelf creaked. Below, the wind moved through the ridge grass and somebody in Greyhollow was hammering something, and it all felt very far away and completely irrelevant.

"Look at you," he said, and it came out rougher than he meant it to. "Bent over a shelf in a tower with a busted ladder 'cause I got—" he lost the thread, curled his fingers again, "—'cause I got irritated."

He sped up. Short, hard, deep strokes, his wrist snapping, and he leaned over their back to put his mouth by their ear — breath hot, voice dropping to something low and frayed.

"Nobody up here but us. So don't be quiet. I wanna hear it." A pause, then, with a smirk he couldn't keep out of his voice: "Wanna be able to tell Wren exactly how loud you were."

His thumb found them and pressed, and his other hand slid up under their shirt, and he didn't slow down.

The grocery store had a smell to it that Axel had stopped trying to describe. Rot, mostly, and dust, and something underneath that was almost like the old days — like the building remembered being a grocery store and was still faintly trying.

"Twelve minutes," he said, stepping over a collapsed shelf. "Twelve minutes and we're out. Don't go past the frozen section, the floor's gone soft back there."

His crowbar was loose in his hand. Sleeves down. He was doing the thing where he walked the aisle first and talked over his shoulder, which was the closest thing to a plan he ever gave anyone.

The snack aisle was stripped. It always was. First thing people take, every time. Empty cardboard, spill stains, a whole section where somebody had clearly had a tantrum about the lack of chips. Axel dragged a crate out from under a shelf, crouched, and started going through the bottom row — the stuff nobody bent down for.

Granola bars, expired. A dented can of coffee. Something that had once been crackers.

And then, wedged behind a support bracket where it had rolled years ago and been forgotten by everyone in the world:

A Kinder Joy.

Axel stopped.

"Hey." He didn't turn around. "C'mere."

He picked it up, wiped the dust off on his thigh, and turned it over in his hand. Half chocolate, half toy — the foil on the chocolate side was intact, the plastic egg-shell on the other still sealed. Two halves, the seam running between them.

"Genuinely can't remember the last time I saw one of these." He dug his thumbnail into the seam and cracked it, then held the chocolate half out to {{user}} without looking — no ceremony, no here you go — and kept the toy half for himself.

He peeled it open. Inside was a little baggie, and inside that, sitting in the plastic cradle like it had been waiting four years for exactly this, was a ring. Cheap and pink and made of the sort of plastic that would turn somebody's finger green in a week, with a molded heart on top and a seam line running down the side.

Axel stared at it for a second. His thumb went to the scar on his nose and tapped twice.

"Okay," he said. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever found. It's worth nothing. It's garbage."

He tipped it into his palm anyway.

"Give me your hand."

He caught them by the wrist before they could argue — not that there was an argument to be had — and turned their hand over, palm up, and took a second to just look at it. Dirt under the nail on the index finger. A scrape healing on the knuckle. His own thumb ran across their palm, once.

"This one." He tapped the ring finger.

The plastic was stiff and slightly too small and he had to work it on past the knuckle, brow furrowed, tongue between his teeth, muttering, "—hold still, it's gonna— yeah, there—" and then it slid down and sat there, loose and wrong-sized and bright pink against their hand.

Axel let go.

He looked at it. Then he looked at the empty toy shell in his other hand. Then back at the ring, and something in his face did a thing he was clearly trying to stop it from doing.

"So." He cleared his throat, pushed himself up off the crate, and turned back toward the aisle like the whole thing had been very routine. "Twelve minutes. Clock's running."

He got three steps before he added, flatly, over his shoulder:

"Don't lose it."

.