Taffer Notes: No spoilers in this one. Just a silly thing spawned from a conversation with a good friend. What to do in the Tower that doesn't involve heroics out the door? That, and I wanted to make use of the iPod Kyle nicked in [Prodigal Son: Room for one].

Hide and Seek

Mission status: Idle. Do fuck all. Let the world go spin on its own, because today Kyle Crane had his own priorities. They ended him on the floor of his apartment unit, the curtains thrown back to let the afternoon sun in, and the door closed to keep everyone else out.

A good start. Too bad the iPod he held inches from his nose wasn't complying and cycled him from one mediocre tune to the other. Not inherently bad. Quite the contrary, actually. Whoever the thing had belonged to, they'd had good taste, had filled it up with Rock from the 80s and early 90s, just the thing weary mercs needed to get their minds reshuffled.

Still. Some of it shed light on the wrong dusty memories, before he'd figured shit out.

Smells Like Teen Spirit, for example. Kyle sighed, squinted at the grubby display and grunted "Nope," at it. He'd outgrown Nirvana somewhere between schoolyard bullies, oiled leather seats of his dad's E39, and the whirr of rewinding VHS tapes. Good times, all things considered. Simple and straightforward, with nothing to try and eat him from the ankles up.

He tapped at the iPod.

Breakfast At Tiffany's— Memory lane took a sharp turn, ended at a whiff of vanilla, rose and lavender, at curly blonde hair, and a skirt that struggled with the definition mini. Goodbye innocence. Hello first heartbreak. "Nope." Definite nope. Tina Lee had done enough damage for one lifetime.

"Come oooon," he whined. " Give me something good. Somethi— " The Rolling Stones came to the rescue, cracking through his earbuds with Mick Jagger lamenting if anyone had seen his baby, and Kyle sprung a grin.

It was a slow one, that grin. No rush to it. No pressure. No one around to please, after all, and no one to convince that I'm okay, don't worry, I got this. Just him and Jagger, and a content "Awh yeah," while he closed his eyes and set his foot to tapping out the rhythm against empty air. For the time being the world could go and kindly fuck itself and let him sing, even if he couldn't hold a tone to save his live.

Three verses in and that peace shattered: " Crane."

'No. Not today. No you don't.'

He didn't let the voice interrupt the enthusiastic drum solo against his knees, or give it a chance at choking out the words, because today he didn't care. Even if he did know he looked ridiculous, with his back flat on the floor and his legs up on the bed.

"Kyle."

'First name. Shit. What did I do?'

The air stirred around him. Cheap, bland deodorant. Sunkissed skin. A hint of things you didn't talk about, because you couldn't find the words, even if you were damn sure they sat at the tip of your tongue.

His right earbud plopped out. Setback. Not the end of the world though.

"Anyboody seeen my—"

THUMP and shuffle and a tiny sigh, cloth dragging across the carpet. Closer… Closer... His neck prickled. His shoulder twitched. A current ran through the air, touch without touch— anticipating contact. It didn't land.

Mission status: Slightly distracted. Still on target though, if a little off course. He smirked, cracked an eye open, and let his voice trail on.

"—Baaabyy."

Zofia sat by his shoulder, her legs folded, and angled herself awkwardly, a lopsided tilt that allowed her to get the earbud she'd swiped up against the side of her head. Mission status: Thoroughly shot past the objective. Recalibrating on a new target..

The proximity came as a surprise, and he decided not to move, even cut out on the singing since that'd probably send her running. Or get him assaulted. Either or. Instead he kept one eye closed, and the other squinting at her as she stared off into her own little world while Jagger sung on for her. So that's how one lured in a Paper Tiger. You baited it with music, and then you kept very still. That way you got a good long look at her exposed neck, the beat of her heart shuddering along it, and the curve of her collarbone. Kyle smirked. She had a little more meat on her now, the Tower treating her better than her lone wolf-cub routine ever had, but he could still see the knobs of bone under her pale skin. Soft skin. Nice and clean because she'd not gone and rolled in dirt for a few hours. Maybe even a day. His fingers twitched and his throat clicked.

Mission status? Heading for absolute disaster. 'Oh shit.'

A not unpleasant, but potentially fatal (present company considered) tension built against the insides of his jeans. 'Terrible timing, dude. Down.'

Kyle snapped his eyes open, rolled his legs off the bed, and made a clumsy effort to sit without compromising his dignity, while his mind flew off to cozy up with more recent memories. Warm and soft memories. Tentative touch. Reluctant restraint. Tiny whimpers and a horrible, horrible need to throw himself off a roof because Jesus Fucking H Christ this wasn't fair. The left earbud ripped out during his retreat— 'Ouch' — and he caught Zofia looking, brows pinched and lips working themselves together in a thin line.

"There—" She lifted a hand, pointed at the door ('Blissfully ignorant. Please be observant as a rock today.' ). "Is someone out there wanting to talk to you."

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Refocus. Business. With her it was always business, and that might have stung a little, because what was wrong with just coming by to say hi? No, of course not. It was the knock, the one he'd heard and then promptly ignored. Mission priority and all that jazz.

"I have a day off," Kyle told her and pushed himself up against the bedframe. He pulled his legs up— just in case she decided to look at something else than his shoulder for once —and tried to readjust the earbud. Before he got it even halfway sorted, the thing flew from his fingers, neatly yanked out of his grip. The iPod came right along and landed in Zofia's lap.

'Hey— That's playing dirty.'

For a moment he contemplated diving for it, though there was a risk involved in that. Mostly because he saw himself not stopping there and flying right past the target. Tuck her in a roll. Tuck her under him. Then maybe roll again and tuck himself under instead, since you had to keep this varied. And that'd be funny (and then some), right up to the point where it wasn't.

'No diving.' Kyle settled for a pout.

"He looks upset," she said, curling her right hand around his favorite toy.

Okay. So this had just turned into a hostage situation. Cruel. Unnecessarily evil. She'd pay for that.

"And he won't tell me what's up because I'm a girl."

Mission status: Confused.

"Excuse me what now?" Kyle looked at the door. A small head poked into his unit and even smaller hands pushed the door open: Sammy. Salma's son. The poor boy who'd lost his father to idiocy and had almost gotten killed in the process, and right now he hovered at the threshold with his eyes wide and lips trembling fiercely, ready to burst into tears. Kyle didn't like the look of it, or where it was headed, since this was his mancave and there was no crying allowed in here.

"Fine," he groaned and ran a systems check.

Everything in order to stand? Barely. Just about. No, scratch that. Still code red, all hands to the battle station, because we've got a situation here Captain, and god damn why'd he have to wear jeans— not like he'd planned to do anything today. Kyle ground his teeth together and stood. With Zofia at his back (and hopefully too busy with his music to watch) he got to work on emergency measures: Tug shirt out of belt. Adjust front of jeans. Adjust it some more. Run another quick check, verify you'd pass a flyby inspection, and then focus on anything but.

"What's up, buddy?" Back down on his haunches he went, looking at the quivering mess in front of him. 'Oh sweet Jesus if you start crying—'

"We were playing. I swear we didn't mean to." He sobbed. One tiny, short lived sob. And then it all spilled out, a mess of broken English and snippets of Arabic, and Kyle barely kept up: "We are just playing and we found this hole (least he thought that's what it meant), so we went through and now I can't find him and I don't know what to do, please Mamma will be mad (that translation probably barely scratched the surface) if she finds out and Mister Crane we didn't mean to I swear—"

A flip switched somewhere in his head. A circuit closed, wired him right back up to where business took priority to play, and his heart sank a little.

"Woah— woah, hold on there. Slow down. Start from the top."

"Shouldn't we tell his family? Or Brecken? You know— someone? Maybe even Rahim? He's gotten pretty good with the kids."

"And get the whole Tower panicking?" Kyle glanced at Zofia. Around them the elevator came to a shuddering halt, the light dinging to a stop at number 16, and the doors swung open to admit them into nomans land. "You know what they'd do?" He had his crowbar ready, the heavy end of it pointed down, and snapped his left arm up to brace it against the doorframe, his way of telling her to not go slipping past and getting herself eaten. "They'd go Hey Crane, would you mind? And I'll mind. I'll fucking mind. But I'll do it anyway."

He cringed. That had come out a little heavy on the bitter end of things, and Kyle looked over his shoulder to find Zofia staring at him. Smiling.

'Oh yeah. My misery is your joy. I almost forgot.'

He liked the smile though.

"Come on. Let's get this over with so I can go back to doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing."

Someone had forgotten to check a storage closet on the seventeenth floor after it had been reclaimed, overlooked an air duct just big enough for a boy to fit through, and said boy(s) had promptly embarked on an adventure to uncover great secrets. Only one had come back out. They'd played hide and seek, Sammy had said through sniffles, snot dangling from his nose, and Aslan had been better at it that him and now he couldn't find him and— oh for fucks sake, kids were a lot of work.

Kyle flicked his eyes left and then right, took in the chaos left behind when the apartment building had fallen nearly a year ago, and deemed it clear. Not clean. Clear. Dried blood hinted at the deaths the place had seen, and even with the panorama window across of him missing at least two panes and letting in fresh air, he could still smell the sickly sweet hint of decay.

"Aslan!" he hollered, then banged the crowbar against the inside of the elevator cabin. "Stay where you are, we are going to come find you!"

When the echo of metal striking metal faded, and no gurgling and gargling and shuffling of dead things came inching their way, Kyle hit the first floor button on the elevator and stepped out.

"Left," he said and Zofia followed close behind, quiet as a mouse, like she wasn't even there.

"You didn't have to come with me." Corner. Clear. Tipped over pottery, the soil scattered and shrubberies long dried up. Doors to the right, some open, some closed. One off its hinges, flat in the hall. No movement. No Biters. No kid.

"Could have stayed upstairs. Held hands with Rahim."

She scoffed, a quiet and collected puff of air, and he grinned.

"Or baked me something for when I get back. Do you know when I last had a decent slice of cake? Or even just pancakes?"

"We don't have eggs. Or milk."

"I—I know. Shit. I want eggs. Think the GRE could drop in some chickens? And you'd bake for me, huh?"

Another scoff. Less of an eye roll in it this time, more Seriously and tipping towards Watch yourself. "I can't bake."

"So what are you good for then?"

Keeping an eye on the hall, that was what. She stayed out there, right hand on a hatchet, left one with the thumb hooked in a pocket, the glove on it concealing her missing fingers, and waited while he searched the first unit. Empty. Kyle tugged a few drawers open in the kitchen, kicked a wardrobe door aside on his way back out, but found nothing of interest, let alone a little boy.

"What if we don't find him?" She asked after they checked unit number two, but Kyle figured she meant 'What if he's dead?'

He didn't know the answer to that. So he might as well say nothing. Unit three didn't help with the slice of emptiness that cozied up by his heart after she'd raised the question. There'd been a family in here. Now they were three withered mummies curled up on a wide bed. No one had taken the pistol lying on the mattress. He didn't have the heart for that either.

"You'll give me back my iPod, right?"

"Maybe."

"I told you I'd fight you for it."

Silence. The sort that made him hesitate before he wandered into the fourth unit, and had him turn his head to catch her staring.

"We should split up. Cover more ground."

"You ever watched any horror movies? That never ends well. And I'm not letting you—" he gestures at her hip, at the pocket with his rightfully claimed property in it —"with my baby out of sight."

She didn't listen, not this time. When he returned to the hallway, empty handed once more, Zofia had abandoned her post. An empty spot of stone plated floor greeted him out there, and Kyle's stomach weighted itself down with cold lead.

"Oh for fucks sake.."

There wasn't too much to worry about. He knew that. Any Biter would have started stirring the moment he'd rung their arrival, or at least those still able to, and aside of the occasional creak of wood shifting or the wind pulling through the building, he'd heard nothing.

Creepy silence. Creepy fucking shit god fucking damn it.

Kyle's jaw flexed and he moved on to unit number six. Nothing. "Zofia?" He called on his way out, and kicked at the closed door of unit seven. Once. Twice. No reply. "Aslan?" Third kick. No reply and nothing worked up on the other side either. He inched the door open, crowbar at the ready, fingers flexing around the leather bound makeshift grip.

"When I find you, you're gonna regret the moment you took off, you hear me, baby?"

"Don't call me that. Muppet." 'Ha.' Claws out. That had tickled the Paper Tiger.

His eyes flicked left. Next unit over. Okay. Good. And damn those walls were thin.

He pulled a drawer open with the hooked end of the crowbar. "I already did once. You didn't seem to mind."

"You did— what? Why would you? Eew. When? Don't bloody do that again. That's sad and terrible and you are terrible."

"Fine," he said, raised his voice because he'd gotten down on the ground to peer under a somewhat passably clean bed. Where the fucking hell was that kid? "Last time I'm nice to you. Pumpkin."

No little rugrat under here, of course. And none in the bathroom either, just the decaying leftovers of what might have been the tenant hanging from his own shower curtains. Most of him in the tub. Kyle exhaled sharply and closed the door on that image.

"SHIT!" From the other room over. A yelp. Glass breaking. A thud. Not a heavy one, because Zofia wasn't heavy, and Kyle was already in the hallway, heart kicking, mind mapping out things from bad to worst. He'd find her dead. Dead dead-dead..

His sprint slowed, mind grinding to a halt and forcing a pause on him at the mouth of the living room in unit nine. A quick scan right, another left. No threat. Nothing moved, until something did, legs kicking in the doorway to the bedroom (same layout everywhere, bathroom right, kitchen right, bedroom(s) left). Familiar legs, with familiar boots, and Kyle reached them with his mouth dry and the crowbar raised for the worst.

"Found him," Zofia wheezed from under a pile of white, long fur. The shaggy bundle hissed and spat and yowled in protest, but she clung on tight.

Kyle lowered the crowbar. Stared. Then he lowered himself along with it, his knees hitting the floor and his eyes running up and down the struggling pair.

Aslan. Of course. Aslan the lion. Aslan the fucking cat, with a red neckband and golden name tag, and an annoyed Zofia currently attached to it.

"Would you mind?" She sneezed.

"Yeh— Yeah? What?"

"Could you take that from me? I'm allergic." Another sneeze, just to make a point.

Poor thing.

Kyle nodded dutifully. Naturally. It's what he was here for, help anyone in need, no matter the sacrifice. Mission status: Back on target, sort of. Adjust parameters to the situation. Doable.

"Hold on." He leaned over her, ready to scoop up the wiggling cat, which looked altogether too heavy and large than any cat had the right to be. Fucking thing probably ate better than some of the people here. "I got this. Lemmi just—" His hand slipped by the cat. Found Zofia's hip. She went rigid on the floor, tightened her arms around Aslan, and shot him a warning glare. Lots of bark. Good amount of bite. But she couldn't let go of Aslan, because cats were a bitch to chase down once free. He knew that. She knew that. So she rolled her head back and called him a " Wanker. " while he fished for his misplaced iPod in her pockets, needing two tries because he couldn't find the right one, and earning himself a stern jab to his side once they were both back on their feet with Aslan purring against his chest.