"Pretty much everything right now is fucking stupid," he says, and gives Neil's hand a squeeze. Tom's pancakes. The girls chattering and getting food in each other's hair. Before that, waking up tangled and sprawled across each other. He never would have believed that three people could get so comfortable in the same bed.

And watching Tom sleep as the fire died, his face twitching softly as he dreamed. His bare shoulders when the night was too hot to sleep fully clothed. Touching him, waking him for his shift. The one time Tom had reached up, still mostly asleep, and closed a hand over Mike's. Silent touches in the dark.

They'll never really get any of that back.

"I fucking... have to believe that this can work with just the two of us. Because that might be all we get, here." He studies Neil's face, the act momentarily easier without Neil's gaze turned toward him. "It's that or I totally lose my fucking mind."