"—run away together? You and me, Edd," Tord sounds so eager and innocent, like you two aren't standing in the hands and mouth of a giant crimson robot, Tord, how did you even fit that in our fucking house? "It'll be perfect."

"And we'll be doing …what?" You ask. Don't look down; you've never been too good with heights, and up here the wind picks up and you're sure you can see birds level with your shoulder. By God, don't look down.

"Taking over the world, of course!" Tord throws his arms wide, and you're scared for a moment that he's going to pull you into an embrace (one you probably would've melted right into, because you're weak and always have been). "What we've both always wanted."

"As ajoke."

And you're waiting for him to break out that smug, crooked grin and tell them to bring out the cameras, instead he quips back, "I wasn't joking. I told you so plenty of times."

"Yeah," your voice is getting higher, so you gulp and try to force it back down. "I remember, but that was supposed to be part of the joke." The same way it's funny when a short person who's never lifted anything heavier than a teddy bear claims they're gonna fist fight God – it's the incongruity, heightened by the late nights struggling together on maths homework, and the arrogance of adolescence.

Has Tord always looked so – so –

The only material difference is his picklhaub, but somehow his face looks so tired. Ages beyond his twenty years, eyes dark and hard. A perfect replica that screams its own falsehood.

"Edd," Tord's voice is edged with steel. "I can't protect you if you don't come with me." A parent giving you one last out before they take their belt off.

The bottom of your stomach drops out, and you can practically hear the hydraulics in your brain hissing, thoughts short and missing pieces. "Why would I need protecting? Tord, none of this makes any sense!"

"I can explain it all later; trust me, you're gonna think it's hilarious." Tord grabs your wrists and starts to yank you forward, off the robot's hand and onto its bulletproof-glass jaw, but your instincts dig your heels in.

"I don't see how," you snap back.

A dismissive rolls of his hand. "With time."

Ah, yes, that old equation, of comedy = tragedy + time, the one in which time has always been ten minutes or less when it's just you and Tord, or however long it took for you to scale his house with a bedsheet rope after his parents divorced, or for you to set aflame the piñata he bought you after you were cheated on for the first time.

No, it's never taken much time at all.

But there are still variables missing – one buried in the rubble of your house, one still on the ground, screaming questions neither of you can really hear. "And why can't you bring Tom and Matt, too?"

"Edd," his grip on your wrists is about to break bones, " elskete , please, we have to leave now."

"I – I can't." You writhe out of his grasp and step back, ankle nearly twisting on sudden pit in the middle of the robot's hand.

Missiles. Those are for missiles. Like the ones that razed your house to the ground.

And you're not naïve, you're no stranger to bloodshed anymore, but this is all suddenly far, far too real and too far away to be real at all.

And the man standing before you is no longer your lover, come back after ten years in the shape of the gaping pinprick hole in your heart that can never seem to fill.

His whole body seems to droop, as though the puppeteer has cut a few strings. Mostly, he looks like he hasn't truly slept in years.

"Can I at least kiss you?" he asks after a moment, voice so low and quiet you almost miss it. A small smile, clearly forced, though it makes your heart skip anyway. "Just this last time?"

Maybe in a week, in a day, you'll look back on this moment and laugh, because he's acting the part in some cheesy harlequin romance as if you two aren't standing atop a mecha straight from his middle school bookshelf. And that's a little funny, maybe, probably (Matt and Tom probably won't agree).

So you force on a smile too, and he holds out his arms for you to walk into. The plasticity melts away from his face, then from yours, and a warmth rushes through your chest. So you step up to him and let him cradle your face in his hand, throw an arm around your neck and pull you in, kissing you so hard your lips are going to spilt. But you giggle and kiss him back harder, and he does, too, a pleasant, goofy sound.

You don't even have the time to wipe the dumb grin from your face before he shoots you through the–