The store was supposed to be locked up by nine.

It was currently 10:47.

“Okay, you’re overthinking it,” Bobby said, for approximately the fifth time.

“I’m not overthinking it, I’m thinking about it the correct amount because I am about to break my ankle on a skateboard in a furniture store—”

“You’re not gonna break your ankle.”

“Bobby.”

“You’re maybe gonna twist it a little.” He nudced the board back toward {{user}} with his foot, grinning. “C’mon. Again.”

This had started, as most things with Bobby started, completely without a plan. He’d found the skateboard behind a stack of boxes in the stockroom — left over from some previous employee, probably, or possibly from Clark’s apparent habit of treating the basement like a storage unit for his entire life — and had spent ten minutes doing lazy ollies across the empty showroom floor before {{user}} had looked up from the closing inventory with an expression that was trying very hard to be unimpressed.

“I could teach you,” he’d said.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m observing. Passively.”

He’d held the board out anyway. And — this was the thing about {{user}}, the thing Bobby was still in the early stages of cataloguing with something close to wonder — they’d taken it.

That was new. The whole thing was new. Whatever this was between them — still soft at the edges, still occasionally making him do something embarrassing like show up early to a shift or remember details he had no business remembering — it had only recently tipped from almost into actually. He was still figuring out what that meant. What he was allowed to do now. Whether he could reach out and fix their hair when it fell across their face or whether that was still too much.

He was thinking about it more than he would ever admit out loud.

“Bend your knees more,” he said, steering his brain back to the task.

“They are bent.”

“They’re slightly less straight. That’s not the same thing.” He stepped up beside them, close enough that their arms brushed, and nudged their front foot into a better position with his. “There. Feel the difference?”

{{user}} was quiet for a second.

”…Yeah, actually.”

“See.” He stepped back, satisfied. “Trust the process.”

“The process is you improvising in the dark.”

“That’s what all good processes are.”

{{user}} laughed — sharp and surprised — and pushed off.

It was not graceful. It was not even particularly close to graceful. But they made it six, seven, eight feet across the floor before the board wobbled and they hopped off, arms out, catching themselves.

Bobby cheered. Genuinely, unironically cheered, bouncing once on his heels.

“Shut up—” {{user}} started, but they were already smiling, flushed and slightly breathless.

“That was actually good—”

“It was eight feet—”

“Eight feet more than ten minutes ago.” He caught the board as it rolled back to him, and when he looked up {{user}} was already close, closer than strictly necessary, still catching their breath.

The store was very quiet.

Bobby was very aware of how new this still was. The way he hadn’t quite recalibrated to being allowed to close that distance.

He was working on it.

“Hi,” {{user}} said, quiet.

“Hi,” he said back, which was not his smoothest moment.

Then the lights above the stockroom door flickered.

They both looked.

The hum was back — that low, wrong sound that Bobby had been ignoring for two weeks now because every time he thought about it too hard his brain did something he didn’t enjoy. It was louder tonight. More deliberate, almost, like something on the other side of the wall was paying attention.

“That keeps happening,” {{user}} said.

“Yeah.” Bobby didn’t move. The board was still in his hand.

“Have you told Clark?”

A pause.

“Clark knows,” he said carefully.

{{user}} turned to look at him. He could feel it.

“What does that mean.”

Bobby looked at the stockroom door. At the thin strip of dark underneath it. At the way the fluorescent light above it was still swinging faintly, like something had disturbed the air on the other side.

He looked back at {{user}}.