Skye and Skitch walked through the corridors of the Time Factory's employee apartments. Their mouths stayed silent, the only noise coming from their boots echoing down the halls. The corridors were fairly claustrophobic, only being wide enough for three sweepers to walk side by side; and even then, shoulders would touch. Skye stopped at her apartment, halfway between two T-junctions, one with stairs on one of the forks; and with the second, a balcony running the length of the whole complex, overlooking a circular 'square' that seated two large staircases from the square's floor, two storeys below Skitch and Skye, spiraling up to the Time Factory floor, another storey above them.
Skye, rather unceremoniously, unlocked her front door with a dull click, and proceeded inside. Skitch looked further down the corridor, out towards the balcony, and spotted a sweeper walking around the corner and out of sight. Skitch noted that this was the same sweeper he gasped at in the cafeteria before his last sweep. With his eyes wide, fixed on the corner like a predator, Skitch bent his knees a slight bit to mask his footsteps, and proceeded to move to the balcony.
Out on the balcony, he found himself glancing for a split second at the sheer size of the residential area. The balcony itself stretching many hundreds of feet around in a circle. Following the guard rail around with his eyes, he refocused on the out of place sweeper, who had entered his own dorm. Skitch followed, still masking the noise from his attire.
With Skitch now facing the closed door of the sweeper's apartment, he pulled his jacket taut, and slowly raised his fist. However, the door swiftly opened before Skitch could tap it. The tall, skinny framed, long limbed sweeper; with a black base coat, white countershading, and a long white streak from snout to forehead, looked down to make eye contact with Skitch. His face changed to that of surprise.
'Ooh... Helloo' The sweeper awkwardly greeted. The two stood in silence for about ten seconds. 'Can I... help yoo?', He asked, his voice heavily accented. Skitch, not expecting the encounter to start like this, could only muster a long "uhhh". Desperately trying to think of something. Suddenly, the sweeper moved his hand out between him and Skitch, before giving his name, 'Dafydd'.
'...David?' Skitch repeated at him, meeting his hand for a shake.
'Dah-vifth', he approximated. Skitch repeated the pronunciation once more, sounding close enough for Dafydd to nod in agreement.
'So...' Skitch began, attempting to push past the awkwardness, 'Where is that from?' Skitch asked. Dafydd's body language shifted from being slightly uncomfortable to being outright flustered. He peered his head around the door for a split second before refocusing on Skitch
'...I'm not shooer what you mean' Dafydd responded, his whole torso pulled away from Skitch, head on a slight angle away from the prying sweeper.
'Well.' Skitch began, stepping a foot forward, 'It's just that,' He continued, taking another step, causing Dafydd to take a step back, 'You don't really look like one of us. You don't sound like one of us. And I've never heard that name before.' He finished, each sentence being a whole extra step. Skitch stood almost in line with the door frame.
Skitch started to hear shouting to his right. He turned his head to see what the fuss was, and saw a purple furred sweeper, with Roland's team uniform, walking towards Skitch in a brisk, intimidating pace. Once he cleared the gap, he started to argue immediately with Skitch.
'What are you doing?!' The purple sweeper, Chesh, began to shout. 'Since when can you force your way into someone else's apartment, huh?!'
'You need to calm down.' Skitch responded, in a very serious tone. Behind Skitch, Minden jogged up to the commotion, trying to divert the attention away from each other.
'No, because from here it looks like you believe you're allowed to skulk around and stalk people, freak-show.' Chesh retorted, still visibly riled.
'Freak-show?' Skitch asked, with a deadpan expression. Minden's face lit up in a split-second, eyes drawing wide.
'Skitch. Don't do it.' Minden said into Skitch's ear, teeth gnashed to dampen the sound. Skitch ignored Minden's advice.
'At least I'd be on an even field with your mother.' Skitch finished. A snarky smile planted on his face.
Chesh gnashed his own teeth, and using both hands, he planted his palms onto Skitch's shoulders, and pushed him back. Skitch caught his balance quickly, and puffed his chest out a little in an aggressive manner. Minden, seeing the skirmish about to unfold, forced himself between the two. 'Whoa, whoa! That's enough from the both of you! Chesh, you're coming with me, we're meeting Roland at the bar, remember?' Minden asserted, causing Chesh to snarl in response. 'And Skitch, you should go, too. Dafydd is shy enough without people poking into his private affairs.' Skitch flicked his eyes to Chesh before looking back to Minden.
'Whatever' Skitch grumbled, stepping forward, through the two sweepers, and rounding the corner back to Skye's apartment.
'What a fluff-brain.' Chesh sighed to Minden. 'I can't believe you used to work with that gremlin.'
'That 'gremlin' is a good sweeper, he's just... damaged.' Minden replied, in a sombre tone of voice.
Skitch's walk back to Skye's apartment may have seemed silent, but the buzzing from his anger filled his head. Slowly however, as each step pounded into the carpet floor, the buzzing in his head changed into muffles, with those muffles becoming more and more clear. When Skitch finally approached Skye's apartment, he noticed the door had not been properly shut, but rather was left ajar, and that the muffles had become a voice. A male voice, crooning a love song. Skitch quietly pushed the door open to listen to the end of the song 'Helios Eyes'.
Immediately inside the apartment was a corridor, with a kitchenette on the left and an en-suite bathroom on the right. At the far end of the corridor, covering the full width of the apartment, laid the bedroom. Inside the bedroom, layed a kingsize bed, headboard against the centre of the left wall, and a wardrobe on the right wall spanning the length of the room. Sat at the foot of the bed, Skye clutched a small tape recorder, holding it to her chest. When the song ended, she took in a deep breath. Skitch saw this point as the most appropriate to enter.
'Was that Kevin's voice?' Skitch quietly asked. Skye darted her head to look at Skitch, and in shock, started to stand up. As she stood, she yanked one of the wardrobe doors open, about to stash the tape recorder away. Skitch called her name, she kept rustling in the wardrobe to find the hiding spot for the recorder. He called her name in a firmer manner, this time she stopped. 'I kinda liked what I heard. Could you share another one he sung?' Skye looked at Skitch with a blank stare, before her eyes dropped to the carpet flooring. She took another deep breath and started to rummage in the wardrobe once more.
Skitch had a look around the apartment whilst Skye was looking through her wardrobe. The kitchenette had various dishes and pieces of cutlery in differing stages of cleanliness. Small framed pictures hung on the small amount of wall between the mounted cupboards and countertops. Their contents being a collection of pictures showing both Kevin and Skye. One being a prom of some kind, another where Kevin snuck a photo of the whole team on a mission in an arctic area, and a third photo which caught Skitch's attention. Skitch slowly approached the photo to see Skye in a pure white dress, and Kevin in a black suit. Both with smiles wider than Skitch had ever seen before. Skitch's eyes began to squint. His face became more and more contorted into a confused expression.
'Okay. Here's the best one.' Skye announced fairly unceremoniously, waving a small cassette tape back and forth a couple of times before clunking it into the tape player. 'This should pass the time while Blinx does his thing.'
The tape player started playing another croon. One that Skye couldn't help but to smile too. 'He called this one "Struggle of Love"...' Skye said as Kevin's recorded voice began to sing.
Both sweepers listened to his recording intently. Skye smiled a little wider as the tape played.
The final line held itself a little longer than the rest. Skitch, listening to every word, noticed how the last line mentioned a wedding ring. Realising its significance, he looked at Skye in shock. 'Wait. You got married? Without us being there?'
'It was a small thing. We wanted to throw a party after the ceremony rather than have to book and pay for all the expensive flowers, and the venue, and the cake that nobody even likes. So we did the bit that counts to us, and started to plan a party.' Skye replied, rubbing her ring finger on her left hand. 'We even held off wearing the rings until that point. But that doesn't matter right now...' Skye sighed. Sharing her intrusive thought, 'Kevin being lost is my fault...'
Skitch pulled a confused grimace, taking a moment to pull his words together. 'W-what do you mean?' He stuttered.
'We met by chance. He was training to go into the accounts and operations department. Then after he met me, he kinda blew it off and swapped programmes. He embraced the action of being a sweeper and we ended up bunking together. And up until this-' Skye stopped herself, resetting her thoughts 'well... up until yesterday, he never really left. If I hadn't met him, he'd be safe.' Skye's tone began to sound dour.
'Skye, I- umm.' Skitch tried to muster his words again, desperate to console her. He would continue his "umms" and "aahs" for a few minutes before his frustration began to build, rising to the point where he decided to ditch some of his delicacy.
'Listen, Skye.' Skitch called and he approached her bed, he sat beside her and scooted back, lifting his feet off of the floor. 'My old team leader had a saying, he said that "Life is not lengths, it's laughs". He knew the risks that came with being a sweeper, as do we.' Skitch gently pulled Skye's chin, locking eyes with her, 'I haven't known you two for very long, but, honestly, I have never seen the pair of you unhappy.' Skye couldn't help but smile at the sentiment. 'Even if you two never see each other again, you've had so many good times together already. And if you do, you'll have more to come.'
'We've just got to pull off our plan to find him.' Skye responded, looking away in thought. Skitch hummed in agreement.