Every back breaks. Even those of loud mouthed mercenaries.

Paper Crane

The bunk beds had been designed for one person each. Someone tall most like, someone like Crane. He did well filling it out on his own, left barely any room for her naked bits squashed up against him, and turned sleep into a difficult and snug affair. Whenever he shifted in his knocked-out-for-good-slumber, she woke, keenly aware of a great deal of things: of how their applied Tetris fit them together, and the lingering, timid, ache inside her that felt entirely out of place. But mostly him and the warmth of his skin, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the tha-thump of his tireless heart.

Even while idling, Crane had a rhythm. She'd grown used to it, had learned its patterns. Had a lot of time to, since what else was she supposed to do with all those nights spent waiting for sleep to come back around after something woke her? Count sheep? Matted, clumpy, and gross balls of zombified wool leaping over stubby fences… Yuck. So when his rhythm broke, when his breathing hitched and his heart kicked, she knew. He mumbled. Squirmed and twisted, his fingers grasping at something unseen. Zofia sat up, dragged the blanket along, her good hand wrapped in the cloth and pressed to her chest.

"Crane." She nudged his shoulder. He muttered a little more.

There wasn't a lot of light to get by, safe for a thin slice peeking through the crack under their door, but it was enough. She saw the twitch of his eyelids. The frantic tremble to his chest as the nightmare had a go at him. His teeth ground together and his throat strained with a scream stuck in there. Zofia shook him a little harder.

"Kyle. Wake up, you're dreaming."

"Hrgnh—" he said.

"Kyle."

"Yeah-no-that'sme—" And he was awake. His eyes blinking open and the tip of his tongue tapped at his lips. "Fuck."

"Are you okay?"

"Great," he told the bunk bed above, the answer coming quick and automatic.

"Want to talk about it?" Because you're lying.

Now his eyes flicked to her, and even in the thick darkness of the room she could see his lips curl into a rueful smile as he prepared himself for the bluster. Fake it 'till you make it, that was Kyle Crane. She'd learned that too. It was a little sad.

"You should talk about it," she added before he could protest, and let herself sink back into the mattress. Her leg snuck around his, hitched up his thigh, and with her chest pressed to his and her chin turned up, she watched him mull it over.

Least until his fingers tickling their way along her spine— as if her vertebra were a xylophone and his digits a pair of gentle mallets tapping out a tune. A diversion, and a good one, because she liked the gentle hum in his chest and how he pulled her closer against his side.

"Please?" Coarse hair tickled her nose and lips. "I want to help."

"You are helping," he murmured, snatched her knee, and pulled it up a little higher. Yeah. She was, evidently, in a manner of speaking, but hardly how she wanted to.

Hardly. A barmy giggle bumped around at the back of her throat. Very mature, Zofia. "Crane," she warned.

"Spoilsport," he said with a pout in his voice, and she admitted it was tempting to just let the whole thing slide and let him carry on with being absolutely thick skulled.

"You should share more, you know. You never do." Zofia propped herself up on her elbow and glanced at the dark eyes watching her under pinched brows.

"I don't like sharing," Crane said. His lips curled and he squeezed her naked rump with warm, gentle fingers.

She swallowed. Shifted. Ahm— oh boyOhboy. There'd always been cloth between them. Up until now, anyway, and she didn't know what to do with how it grabbed for her attention and stirred her like a simmering pot. A pot that'd been gathering dust on a shelf. Rusting. Bits flaking off.

"And as much as you're hanging out with that Collin kid…"

She snorted.

"What? Come on, Fi. He's young and cute and—"

"Collin is probably seven or so years younger than me, Crane. And I'm absolutely not his type."

The hand on her rump gave another playful squeeze. "Heey, you do know I have eight years on you, right? Are you calling me old?"

"Maybe."

He huffed. "And why not? You're a fine type to have."

"Because you are."

Squeeze. "Ha. No. What? How can you tell?"

She shrugged. "I… I don't know. Maybe it's how he looks at me, not at my bits. A gut feeling, really, difficult to explain."

"Hmm. They're nice bits though."

"Crane, please. Stop changing the bloody subject."

The hand fell away. Aw. Maybe don't change the subject, let's go back to— He sighed. Turned his eyes to anywhere that wasn't her, and settled his head into the pillow. His adam's apple bobbed with a hard swallow. She could hear his throat click. And when he spoke, his voice slipped past his lips already scratched to ribbons.

Gone was the gentle humour and gone was the bluster and gone was a lot of Crane.

"At the other safe house, the one where Meghan and I went to get the keycard," he started, but his words tapered off. Grew small and timid.

"You said they were dead," she offered when his words wouldn't come out again.

"Yeah— No. Sort of. Shit. I— okay. So, we get there, and it's obvious something is wrong. The roof access is busted. Lights are out. And inside there's bodies. Four, all torn up, no gunshot wounds."

"You think the same happened there as at the restaurant?"

He nodded. "Probably. I don't know? Smart Zombies? How fucking fair is that? I mean, I thought maybe they had a power surge that blew the bulbs, or a psycho shot up their defenses and let a bunch of Volatiles in. But this? I mean, what's next? They start sitting down for class and get a PhD in fucking us over?"

His chin tilted to his chest and he glanced at her.

"Not funny," she said.

"No. No, I guess not." Crane drew in a long breath. Held it in, and then puffed it all out when he continued. "Meghan got the card, and we're halfway out when we hear someone trapped behind a door. Which is fine, okay? I mean, it's not like I expect anyone to still be alive, not really. But I don't expect kids. And when we open the door, there are kids. Two. Couldn't have been older than five. Boys, I think? They were locked in a bathroom with their mom. They— someone put them in there after they'd been bitten. Tied their mom to a fucking heater and left them to turn. By the time we got there…"

He squeezed at his eyes with an unsteady hand, and Zofia regretted having asked.

"They'd killed her already. And I shot them when the came out. I shot kids . I mean, I know they were infected, right? Nothing I could have done? Except maybe get there sooner. An hour, maybe two, I don't fucking know. Half a day. But they were little goddamn babies. Why the fuck—"

Crane clamped his teeth shut. Bit the sentence in half. A miserable, throaty groan rasped against the base of his throat.

Zofia didn't know what to do. Not stare, she thought. Not nothing. So she slipped a hand around his neck. Hugged him. Squeezed the man who'd always stood steadier than her. Taller. Unfazed. Unimpressed by the world falling apart around him. And she'd always leaned on him, even if reluctantly at first. Had slipped into his shadow and hung to his strength. Had taken and taken and taken, and couldn't remember if she'd ever given anything back.

"I hate this shit," he muttered eventually.

Zofia looked up. Caught him squinting and rubbing his knuckles against his eyes and down a wet sheen on his cheeks.

Her heart twisted painfully, got wrung like a sodden rag. "I'm sorry," she said. Which was lame. Stupidly so, but she thought he'd probably got used to that by now. Her being lame and useless and stupidly harsh where she should have been gentle.

He exhaled slowly, the air coming up in uneven stutters, cut by the serrated edge of grief sitting in his throat. "I'm so ready for this to be over. Can't wait to just throw my legs up, scratch my dog, watch a movie, and do fuck all. Maybe retire—"

She pinched him.

" Ow! What the hell, Fi? What was that for?"

"Don't talk about retiring, that's horrible luck."

His hand slipped against her neck, the tips of his fingers sliding against the base of her skull and up into her hair. They stayed like this for a while, and Zofia's mind wandered through the silence, bumped into piles of memories. Crane hadn't ever hesitated when Harran had thrown him a curve ball, no matter how cruel, and not once had anyone asked him if he'd come away clean.

You sure haven't. The day he went to that basement to kill Rupert's wife, you sat on your arse and did nothing. After Jade died, you never asked him how that made him feel. Zofia winced. She'd dreaded his answer, that had been why. Dreaded hearing that it had hurt.

And the damned Screamers. They'd found a handful over the months, and— You should have bloody known. But she'd been blind. Too busy sitting under her own little rain cloud and scrounging for the comfort of a few stupid pills.

And now she didn't know what to say. Or to do, or if there even was a method to mending the wear and tear on him.

"You hungry?" Crane's voice pulled her thoughts back together, and the warm touch of his lips in her hair brought them to order. Muted chatter drifted into the room from outside. A shadow moved across the slice of light underneath the door.

"I could eat."

"Sweet, 'cause I'm starving. How does breakfast in the shower sound?"

"Soggy," she said.

Crane pulled her in close in response, locked his arms around her in a firm embrace that hinted on desperation. But the kiss he landed on her carried a smile, she thought, and so maybe— just maybe —she was helping , even if she didn't quite know how.

Great job, Crane. Start bawling in front of her, you fucking moron. That's exactly what she needs. For you to lose it. Wimp.

No. What Zofia needed was for him to keep his shit together. That way he could help with sorting hers out. And then, only then, it'd be his turn; the circle of get-your-shit-together-ness finally completed. He grimaced. Gee, you're hilarious, Crane.

So he squared himself up, and went about carrying the day on his shoulder like he had all the others before. One breath after the next. Yesterday didn't matter, since it'd already slipped off his back and landed hard. The day before was done with too, and yeah it had fucking sucked. But he couldn't turn back time to fix it, and there really wasn't anything to take away from it except another exercise in compartmentalising.

As if he needed any more of those.

Today though— today, step by creeping step —was tentatively leaning towards good. It started with a shower and breakfast. Separate, because soggy , and for some inconsiderate reason, Phoebie didn't feel like serving pancakes anywhere but in the rec room.

Pancakes.

They'd made him want to cry again, even if they'd been thrown together out of flavourless instant powders dug up from the pantry.

"You're a savage," Zofia told him matter of fact, her fork raised threateningly close to his plate. "Look at them, they're drowning."

Kyle glanced at the golden disks soaking in syrup, before a plop and squirt drew both their eyes to Collin across of them. He squeezed the syrup bottle that had made the round with a frantic sort of distress. Shook it. Squeezed it some more. A sad little blob landed in the golden soup on his plate, his own pancakes barely coming up for air.

"Oh god," Zofia groaned. "Savages."

And then she made a stab for his plate— Little shit. —and he locked her fork with his, a click on metal ceramic and a playful growl settling that particular situation.

Meghan planted herself next to him halfway through the rest of his food, and Kyle feared for his idea of today is okay, saw it deported with a sack of broken dreams on its back.

"Whatcha need?" He asked and she perked a brow.

"Nothing. Unless you're a radio tech, but—"

"Ha. No."

"Shame." She leaned back, draped her arms around the backrest of the couch, and turned her eyes to the ceiling. Turned her round bits up that way too.

"Yeter and Eren think they're making progress with the bunker's control system. It's slow going though, so they're trying to get the communications fixed up now. If all goes well, we'll be able to radio out tomorrow. Maybe Savvy can help with the lockdown after that."

He swallowed another piece of pancake. Nodded. She glanced at him. And then right past, her eyes flicking to Zofia arguing with Collin. Kyle turned his head. She'd abandoned her spot by his side, and instead sat perched on the table's edge, not even an arms' length away from Collin and his syrup soup.

"You're wrong," Zofia said, emphasizing her words with a jab of her left hand, the lone finger and her thumb not needing any more digits to get a point across. "Archer. Maybe Janeway, but mostly Archer, what with his eyebrows and all."

Collin scoffed and sat back with a shake of his head. "Picard." The kid was grinning.

"What's going on over there?" Meghan asked with an amused tilt to her voice.

"I— I think they're having a disagreement over who's the better Captain." Kyle blinked. Zofia's chin was up. Her back straight. And her shoulders wiggled as she talked, the stiffness he'd associated with them… gone? No. Still there, but fading.

"What?"

Light warmth looped around his heart. "Star Trek. They're arguing about Star Trek." He couldn't look away. Didn't want to miss a single moment of that curious display of the Paper Tiger having forgotten she'd been made from easily flammable material.

"Aha."

Meghan eventually left and promised him it was Scott's turn to make himself useful. He offered help. She turned him down. And Kyle was pretty damn grateful.

Oddly okay today continued with spelunking on his private time, Zofia in tow. It led him to the same closet as the one she'd found yesterday, where he carefully weighed his chances. Let's see how close we can toe the line. Feeling pretty damn confident, Kyle started stuffing condoms into his pockets until said pockets bulged.

"You're… optimistic," she said from the door, her cheek pressed to the frame. There was a smile in there somewhere, he thought. Her lips were pressed together, one end slanted up all pretty, and a hint of pink rode her cheeks. He flashed her a grin.

"We're here a few days. And do you know how much these are worth in the Tower? A fortune. People want to bang, but they're running out of rubber."

Zofia's right brow perked up. "And you'd know that."

"Absolutely. Oh hey— what's that." He swiped up a can of shaving cream on his way back out, and flipped it idly in his hand.

"You being ridiculously optimistic."

"Shame." He pulled the door closed on the way out. Stuck an elbow out, and she slipped her arm through without a moment's hesitation. Her smile kicked up, even if she tried to stifle it, and Kyle really loved that smile.

Yeah.

Today was good.

A few steps in and he tested his luck again. "Collin is right, by the way."

"Hm? 'bout what?"

"Picard."

She sighed as she hung from his arm. "You're going to be rich when we get back to the Tower."

Okay Today rolled on. No one bothered them. Their underground slice of Harran stayed in one piece without him having to stick his neck out anywhere, and nothing— abso-fucking-lutely nothing —tried to eat him.

It also brought a wad of face cream scooped out of a jar, and a lingering, sweet aftertaste called Fi. She watched him with careful curiosity, her head slightly tilted and her legs dangling off the desk. Legs which she'd stopped locking at the ankles, and he caught himself thinking: Hey, who're you? Come here often? Kyle admitted to being hopeful that he hadn't imagined things earlier. He squinted, tried to find the badly measured Paper Tiger, the one once made of crumpled newspaper clippings, in the set of gray eyes locked with his.

His thoughts spun off, failed to gain traction. They kicked up garbage in his head, useless to the point of embarrassment, and left him feeling muddled and content.

Kyle didn't know what to do with that. Had forgotten how to get a handle on anything but his impending death, and so he turned his attention to the blob of cream on his fingers, right before sticking his face into it. That felt about as good as rolling said face on cloud nine, and Zofia's puffy cheeked grin made him want to make camp up there.

"Your turn," he said and she cocked her head. Stared at him with a guarded, but amused glint in her eyes. Least until he cradled her face in his hands. They fell shut and she puffed air at him, a happy little sigh that itched at his heart.

Kyle tracked his thumbs down the bridge of her nose. Traced a gentle curve along her cheekbones, across dry and cracked skin, weathered by too much sun and scrapes and cuts that had healed badly. He went back for another wad of cream. Turned his attention to the neat, sinewy stretch of her throat. The desk came closer. Bumped into his thighs. The world shrunk in on him, turned to her and how he couldn't ever mess this up again.

He found the dip of skin between her collarbones. Her shoulders under her plain shirt. The thing was in the way, so he got rid of it.

-1 condom.

Yeah.

Today was pretty damn sweet.

Someone had dug out a sad little stereo with an empty CD drive and zero reception. When Zofia followed her stomach back into the common's area, the poor thing sat abandoned on a table at the centre of it. Her stomach, the one that was always so bloody vocal for her to "Eat, god damnit. You need to eat more," stopped walking to stare at the radio for a few heartbeats, before he turned around and walked briskly back to their room.

Zofia watched him go, shrugged, and picked her way through the labyrinth of recliners, pillows and low tables to the couch that'd somehow become familiar territory.

The group hadn't been idle. They'd turned the place into a homely nest, strewn blankets and pillows wherever they'd pleased, and weighed down the tables with empty cans and food wrappers. Zofia settled down. Pulled her sock covered feet up, and rested her chin on her knees.

Centre of stage, Phoebie had laid Riley on a blanket. The baby babbled, tiny fingers stretching for locks of Phoebie's hair, and even tinier toes having themselves pinched by careful mom hands.

"Kind of hard to imagine that most people would have left them to die," Collin said from behind her, and she jerked her head around just in time to see him vault over the backrest. Clumsily. He landed badly, with half of him knocking into her, and the other almost falling off the side. "Crap-Crap-Crap," he went, but gathered himself up enough to shift his arse until he seemed certain he wouldn't slip again. The smile he shot her after pretended itself at What? Nothing happened. It's all good.

Zofia arched a brow at him and rubbed at her shoulder where he'd bumped into her.

"Phoebie," he clarified. "and Riley, though she wasn't born yet, I guess. They were at the school with us, and we tried to get out together, find a group. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. But Jin wasn't kidding when she said every group we found turned us away. Eren and me because we'd been bitten, and Phoebie because she was pregnant."

"What about Jin? Why'd she not split?"

"Eren," he said with a woeful little smile that told her that Eren had been a good amount of why for him too. "We'd have run out of Antizin eventually if we hadn't found Meghan. You'd think people would think past their own noses when pressed for survival, but no. Trying to find someone in Old Town who's willing to share is damn near impossible. Especially when they think you could turn on them. Literally."

Zofia nodded. "It's the same everywhere in Harran. I honestly hadn't known there was another place that had Bitten. Aside of the Tower, anyway. We assumed they all eventually end up with Brecken."

"Did you go to him because…?" He bobbed his head at her, indicating the suddenly very itchy patch of scar tissue on her chin.

"In a manner of speaking," she said, just as Crane returned with his iPod clutched tight in his fist, a cable trailing from it. Typical. The man didn't leave the Tower without the thing, even if that meant he'd squirrel it away in her pack somewhere. He stepped around Phoebie and Riley as if they were a couple of moving eggshells, and hunkered down by them with the stereo in front of him.

"I didn't stay with them though. Not for a long while."

"Seriously? Why? I mean, if you don't mind telling. You don't have to, I know—"

"It's fine." Her brow creased. Is it? She swallowed, tried to find a good reason on why not, but came up empty. "I'd just spent almost two months at Rais' garrison," she continued. Collin flinched. "So I didn't particularly feel the need to stick around another place full of people. But I was in a pretty bad way, what with a guy just having tried to eat my face off, and didn't know where else to go. Back at the garrison, people had always been talking about Brecken and his Tower, about how they were stubborn and kept trying to steal Rais' Antizin drops, and how Brecken refused to ally himself with them. Didn't feel like a bad choice, anyway."

The stereo woke up, brought to life with a muttered thrum of guitars. Zofia's fingers twitched. Wanted something to pluck at. She stuffed them between her thighs. Crane, in the meantime, seemed thrilled, but he didn't come to join them. Instead, he leaned back on his haunches and tilted towards Phoebie and Riley, his mouth already running itself silly.

"The doctor there, Lena, wasted a lot of effort on me."

"Heeeey, don't be so harsh on yourself. You're pretty ace. And a badass."

She snorted and shot Collin a glance. He'd folded his legs under him and had his sketching pad and pencil out. Dark shapes crowded on the paper.

"I took off the day I could walk straight again, though I didn't go far. Much as I hated how crowded the place was, they had food and they had Antizin, and long as I had things to trade, I figured I'd be fine."

And Rais had folks looking for you, and you got a family killed because you thought maybe a bit of company wouldn't be so bad. All of which she left out, though the careful peek from Collin told her he might have been guessing there was more to it than a poorly socialised yours truly. Whenever wasn't there in Harran?

He didn't dig though.

"How'd you get bitten?" she asked after a moment of silence in which he'd started smudging at one of the drawings on his pad. Crane was back on his feet too, but he'd got stuck halfway towards her, caught up in a hushed discussion with Meghan and Scott. Scott who, to this point, still looked at him with his eyes dangerously close to twitching.

Collin lifted his arm and pointed it to Eren. "His fault. Or mine, depending on who you ask. He got greedy and hungry, and me stupid because I thought I could help. I'm still on the fence over whether it was worth it or not. But at least we got infected early. From what I hear the virus got more aggressive later on. That true?"

She shrugged. "I suppose. People were able to go days without the first shot of Antizin initially. I don't think I would have lasted half of one, to be fair."

More silence. More scribbling on his pad, and Crane shot a look over his shoulder and offered her a long-distance sort of encouraging smile. He'd been smiling a lot today. A couple of retarded butterflies knocked their little heads against her stomach lining.

"Say," Zofia started and leaned towards Collin. "What you drawing?"

She'd not had to ask. One look and the butterflies drowned in ice, and she wished she'd not tried herself at that whole human thing with talking and showing some measure of interest.

"Yeah…" Collin said when he noticed her staring with her face probably having gone a couple shades paler than physically possible. "Looks creepy as fuck, right?"

She swallowed. Crawling over the pad was a Volatile of sorts, its head narrow and crowned with short, sharp looking spikes protruding from its skull. The mouth hung open in most drawings, split ugly at the chin, and lined with teeth that might have been bigger than her pinky finger. He'd drawn clothes on it. Tatters, mostly, but it wasn't naked like Volatiles were meant to be. Naked and brutish and horrifying, but not this. The fabric stretched over bony shoulders, hung turn around its thighs, and bunched in folds up against wrists ending in long fingered hands. But what got her the most were the eyes. They looked a little too human. A little too real, and Zofia would have loved to say she admired Collin's drawings rather than feared them.

"What. The. Bloody. Hell. Is. That."

"I don't know. But there were two of them out on the balcony." He flicked through the pages, showed her the attempted sketches of a much taller one with wider shoulders and bowed legs. It lacked the same detail though, was mostly made of hurried, thick strokes of graphite and a lot of smudged shadow. "I couldn't get a good look at the second one though. Thing really didn't seem to like the light."

Zofia hugged her knees to herself and turned her eyes to the bright lit ceiling. She liked light. It ought to be light a lot. Never be anything but, and maybe this place had a tanning station. Could a Volatile get into a tanning station? She could get a tan while not dying— Zofia almost yelped when Crane landed heavy in the couch next to her, sending the cushion under her bouncing up. She squeaked instead. A shot and embarrassing noise and oh god I hate you, Muppet.

"Sorry. I startle you, Fi-Fi?"

She growled, squeezed "Screw you," from between clenched teeth.

"What? Again? Now? Hey— ouch— no— I mean— ow— I need time to recov— owow—"

The horror trapped on Collin's sketchpad faded to unimportance, pushed aside by a hard flush of red and the itch to murder herself a Crane.

Collin turned his neck up and exhaled slowly. He watched the thin curl of blue smoke drift upwards, get caught in the gentle draft of the air duct up in the corner, and sucked out of sight and out of mind. Most of said mind went with it, trailed the smoke and vanished into the wall. He'd been thinking a lot. Too much, really, and most of it had been about Dax and how he missed him and how it hadn't been fair it'd been Dax who'd had to die.

Scott was okay.

But Scott wasn't Dax.

No one was Dax but Dax, and now not even Dax was Dax any more.

He sighed. Took another drag from his blunt, and squeezed his eyes shut because they'd started stinging with tears again. Which sucked, because Collin didn't like crying. Almost as much as he disliked the whole Dax being dead thing, and hiding in a literal broom closet with bushy headed brooms because Jin always made a fuzz if he smoked anywhere within football-stadium-length of Riley.

Which was fair. Really fair.

Another sigh and one more drag, and all he had left was a sad, soggy stump and fading embers. It looked a bit like he felt, and because he didn't particularly like the cruel pinch of loss and misery, he dropped the stump and ground it out with the heel of his shoe.

"Take that, sucky life," he said, feeling better and worse at the same time, and ready to find out if he could drag any more stories out of either Crane or Zofia. They had pretty damn good ones. The Infamy bridge climb. A fight with a troll. Tales of Crane screaming like a girl, and a pair of brothers and a submarine of all things.

They were nice, Zofia and him. He liked them.

Mumbling that he figured liking people got them killed these days and maybe he ought to hate them instead, Collin shuffled back into the hall and made to reunite with his friends. The old ones and the new ones, though the number had stayed roughly the same.

He made the turn out the door halfway, when shifting shadows snagged his attention from the left. Hunched over shadows. Wiry, long limbed shadows with narrow shoulders and a bowed neck.

Collin jerked around.

The hall was empty. Poor light allowed for thick darkness pooling in from the walls, and one of the bulbs above flickered briefly. He blinked. Squeezed at his tired eyes. His fingers came away wet. When he worked them open again, the hall stood empty still.

"Okay, maybe lay off on the weed for a little while, champ."

Shivering, and with his neck feeling a bit like he had a set of jaws hovering over it, Collin trudged on and went to count his friends.