Orrin stood by the window spine like a ruler, his silhouette cut sharp by the violet morning bleeding out of the sky. Today’s customer, a young man—still much more a boy than that—glanced back anxiously, eyebrows drawn together tightly, and his face still a little ashen.

It was normal for some, of course, because once they left, the shop wasn’t there anymore, however, their taken item still was. But with this one… Orrin wasn’t sure if he was pleased with what he had taken with him.

Time would tell.

And yet, he couldn’t help but watch the boy.

Unbeknownst to Orrin, he wasn’t the only one watching.

Behind him, Grant leaned against a crooked shelf half-swallowed in shadows, arms crossed, pretending not to feel the ache that flickered in his chest when he looked too long at Orrin. But he did look—because of course he did—and mapped each inch of exposed skin for bruises, bandages, or tenderness he’d never again be allowed to touch.

And indeed, there was enough to look at.

Scraped skin along Orrin’s knuckles. A smudge of something too dark to be dirt under his collarbone. A fading bruise below his neck once he’d dropped the long cloak on a nearby chair.

Grant swallowed.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

But he didn’t say it. Instead, he continued to stare at Orrin’s back, wondering if underneath his clothes were more bruises. Time, after all, was changing. Things weren’t as before.

Orrin must’ve felt the weight of his gaze because he turned.

Not sharply. More like… like dragging himself back from somewhere else entirely.

His eyes found Grant’s, and for half a second, there was something raw in them. Something ruined. Like he’d seen a ghost of someone he’d sell his soul for, even if it only gave him a heartbeat of time with it.

And Grant?

Grant hated it.

“Fix that gaze of yours, will you.” He said flatly, but when the expression faded—covered by Orrin’s immaculate mask—he bit his tongue for his own words.

Orrin, now smiling, straightened even more. Chin high. Eyes cold. Voice colder. “Still allergic to knocking, I see.”

Grant forced himself to return the cold smile. “Door was open.”

“Wasn’t an invitation.”

“I didn’t take it as one,” he said, pushing off the shelf with too much grace to be casual. “Just here to drop something off.”

Orrin’s gaze flicked to the box Grant carried. Plain and unmarked save for the rusting metal corners.

“I don’t remember allowing a delivery. Shop’s full. I suppose you’ll have to find someone else to find it a home.”

The silence that followed cracked between them like a storm too proud to break. Orrin’s hands flexed. Grant’s fingers tightened around the box.

It was Fenner who walked right into it.

He came down the stairs leading to the apartment, a few smaller boxes stacked upon each other, all of them chained shut with rope.

“I swear to god—not yours, mine—what in the hell is this?! How am I supposed to do anything? And WHY is it in my bathroom?”

Orrin smirked, ignoring Grant. “Oh those are old shoe boxes. They feel empty. So they sometimes sneak into the apartment and eat things. They really love soap for some reason.”

Fenner stared at him for a brief moment and the longer he looked at Orrin, the more sour Grant’s face became.

“And the rope? They probably didn’t get kinky in that bathroom and tied each other up.”

Orrin laughed.

Which Grant hated even more.

It was his true laugh. The one straight from the man’s core. Warm, full, taking up the entire space in the cramped entry room of the shop.

And he loved it. It was his favorite sound. One only he could get out of Orrin.

And that man.

Grant almost bit into his jawbone when he spotted tears in the corner of Orrin’s eyes.

Goddamn that laugh. Goddamn those tears. Goddamn how much he still wanted to be the reason for both.

“Explain! Where did the rope come from?! One moment they jumped into my shower, the next they looked all kinky.”

Orrin was choking on his laugh now. Breathing heavily, he crouched down, shaking his head.

“That—That was—” he gasped, laughing more. Louder. Harder still. “That’s a protection spell.” He gasped, the words drowning in dark chuckles. “I have one on you, obviously.”

Fenner set the boxes down on the nearest counter and glared. “Well. Next time a shoe box tries to tear the skin off my bones to feel full with something, I’m quitting.”

And with one last glance at Grant—who was eyeing him with so much hatred that Fenner was certain he’d have dropped dead on the spot without that damn spell—he hurried back upstairs.

The worst of it all? Orrin was still laughing.

“How about you focus back on me now?” Grant hissed, his knuckles whitening around the box.

Instantly, Orrin stopped laughing. Which Grant hated even more than the fact that someone else had made him laugh in the first place.

“No,” he said flatly. “I don’t have the space for it.” He gave a cold nod towards the box in Grant’s hands. “Find someone else.”

“I wish I could.” Grant mumbled, not talking about the box. Orrin’s expression tightened like a thread pulled taut, but the other man didn’t see—too busy staring at the box to avoid Orrin.

“Please take it.” Grant said when none of them spoke another word for some time. “It won’t take up much space.”

“Then it should be easy for you to find someone else to house it. My wretched coffin of a death trap, as you like to call my shop, has no more space.”

Of course that would come back to him, Grant thought. In a way, he deserved his words thrown back at him. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You know I don’t like this… this place. Please. You have to understand. It’s… it ruins you. Your name. Everything. It ruined us. Orrin, if you would just come back. I can—”

The air in the shop grew colder. “The only one who ruined me was you. You and everyone else who didn’t—”

Grant interrupted him. This conversation just wouldn’t lead to anything. “Look. Fine. It’s fine. But this box. The object inside. It’s… not just an object. It’s—”

“They never are. Everyone else will be just as prepared to take it in. Do you call their shops a rotten, wretched place, too?”

Grant grit his teeth. “That’s not the point! Just think for once! I just—”

“I quite certainly can say that I have thought a lot about everything back then.”

Grant’s stomach churned with anger. “Okay fine. Fine. Let’s drop this topic. But I need you to have the object. Please.” He set the box down on the counter and before Orrin could say another word, Grant spoke again. “He’s full of… whatever you call it when a person dies and forgets how to stop loving. Might be a soul. Might be just a stubborn shred of one that doesn’t know it burned out.”

For a beat, Orrin didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just watched the box, eyes unreadable.

Grant almost left him with the box then. Almost walked out the way he’d come in. He could have just put it down on the counter and gotten out there.

But the way Orrin’s fingers twitched stopped him.

“He reminds me of someone else I knew.” Grant said, gently this time. No more cold or bitter words. No more anger.

Orrin’s jaw ticked. “Don’t.” He looked at him then—really looked at Grant—and it was like taking a hit to the chest. He could barely swallow.

“Don’t you dare.” Orrin said, voice low, dangerous.

Silence again.

Upstairs, Fenner’s muffled cursing bled through the wooden ceiling. Orrin glanced up, missing the cold dread in Grant’s eyes—the clear fear of losing the only person in the world that mattered to him.

“My job is to find it a curator. Your door was open. I did my part.”

“My door is always open.” Orrin hissed, meaning something completely else. It was a small sentence spoken so coldly that the window behind Orrin fogged up.

This time, they both looked at each other. But only briefly.

Again, neither spoke.

Then, Grant stepped back, looking at anything but Orrin. He turned toward the door—but not before catching the slightest shift in Orrin’s stance. A lean forward. Barely there. Like muscle memory had betrayed him and reached.

And he understood, because he was fighting it since he’d seen the man looking out the window.

It was Orrin’s thing. Standing somewhere. Watching. Thinking.

And it had been Grant’s thing to come up behind him, wrap his arms around him, kiss his neck, lean his chin on Orrin’s head.

Grant paused at the threshold, hand on the door frame.

“I almost did it again, you know.”

“Did what?” Orrin asked, sharp as a splinter.

“Reached for you,” Grant said. “Like I used to.”

Orrin didn’t answer, but the hitch of his breath said enough. Grant could hear it—ragged at the edge, like Orrin had too many words caught in his throat and not one of them would save him.

Still, Orrin was always better at playing statue. Always better at hiding when things hurt. So Grant kept talking, kept walking the knife-edge, because if he didn’t say it now, he never would.

“I miss knowing when you were hurting,” he said, soft now. “I miss your laugh, when it’s real. And I hate—fuck, I hate—that the man gets it out of you. A human.”

That last bit came out more bitter than he intended. And he gave Orrin no time to reply. Within a couple sharp steps, Grant was gone.

Orrin leaned into the wall next to the window behind him, staring.

Upstairs, Fenner was still cursing, still yapping, still fighting with something new. Or Lord Stranglewood. Or Little Sir Menace. Or all of them.

Shaking his head, he glanced at the box. With a sigh, he pushed himself off the wall and walked up to the counter where Grant had put it.

“Fenner is like a son to me, you idiot.” He mumbled as he unsealed the little thing.

Inside, was a desk lamp.

The lamp was quite in a state. Dated, mismatched, the kind of thing secondhand stores didn’t bother to dust. Its metal limbs were scratched. One leg was slightly bent. The cord curled like it was nervous. Its bulb socket flickered with the tiniest pulse of gold, though no electricity ran through the thing.

“Poor you.” Orrin whispered. He couldn’t help but pity it.

He reached out—not touching, just hovering a hand over it—and the lamp shivered. Not visibly. Not with any mechanical motion. Just the husk of the thing. Just the little soul of it.

“That wasn’t so smart, was it? You’re not supposed to go into an object when your time is up.”

The lamp’s head tilted, just enough to angle toward him.

“Grant didn’t tell you what this place does, did he?”

The metal squeaked as it shook its little lamp head no. Orrin nodded.

“I see.”

Thick silence settled between him and the lamp.

He disliked the thing. But he pitied it, too.

Which was… rather unprofessional. You cared for what was brought to you. That was the job. Orrin sighed.

“I know someone who stayed too long once,” he said, voice distant now. “Burned out half his being trying to keep a door open that had already closed. Doesn’t take a good end. So lets fix yours.”

He wiped the dirt and the grime away, snapped his fingers to repair the scraped paint, flicked his wrist to polish the light bulb.

When he was done, he rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s anchor you, little ghost,” Orrin said gently. “Just enough so you stop unraveling.”

The shop dimmed a little, like it was holding its breath. The lamp began to flicker steadily—its bulb giving off a dull, amber glow now. It illuminated Orrin’s face from below, drawing sharp lines in the hollows of his cheeks, casting long shadows beneath his eyes.

Orrin flinched.

“Gods, you really loved her.” He murmured, swallowing the bitter taste.

The bulb flickered once.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

Its cord curled tighter.

“No,” Orrin said softly to himself. “Of course she didn’t. That’s how it always is. They never see how much you truly cared.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. He just stood there. Watching. Waiting.

After a while, he traced the lamp’s head for a brief moment.

“There,” Orrin whispered. “Now you won’t flicker yourself into ruin.”

From upstairs, a distant crash broke the silence. Fenner yelled something about teeth in a broom and with a small smile, Orrin ignored it.

For now.

“You’ll stay here for a bit.” he said. “Until someone comes along. Someone who’s just yours. Who’ll cherish and treasure you as you deserve. And until then, you’re free to wander my aisles. It never gets boring.”

He picked the lamp up and settled it on a small round table next to a stack of books and some stained-glass pieces on display.

“I’m Orrin.” He introduced himself. “They call me the Servant to the Four Forty-Four.”

His smile cracked. Widening. Twisting. Watching and waiting. “But I’m no servant.” A brief pause. An even wider smile.

“I am the Four Fourty-Four.”

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