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“Do you wanna come along, buy a gift for your brother?”
Farah gently threads her fingers through Sadia’s hair. It’s turned a lighter shade of brown over the years, occasionally shimmering shades of walnut that drove her mother insane. She did all the work and had so little to show for it, both of her kids starting to look more like their dad with the years passing.
“Mh,” but the eyes have stayed, dark and calculating, “where are we going?”
“Best Buy. We’re looking for - “ Alex throws a cautious glance at Oliver, tucked into Kate’s arms, but - the boy is out like a light, “headphones, remember? For the noise?”
Sadia sets her eyes on her dad, who gifts her a winning smile. It might’ve worked on her mom, but Sadia … But she sighs and slips her hand into her mother’s.
“Okay … Best … Buy …”
The little girl murmurs, repeats and tastes the syllables over and over.
Kyle had known she was pretty much fluent in both, Arabic and English, but he was mad impressed either way. He can’t quite help it, hanging back a little and watching the small procession.
Watches as Sadia sticks close to her mom who in turn sticks really, really, really close to her husband.
It’s a bit early in the day for the Christmas rush and they’d carefully timed their shopping on a Tuesday morning, so there’s not nearly as many people milling and scrambling about as there could be.
Yet, it still seems to be quite a bit more than what Farah must have thought she bargained for. Every now and then a shop’s lights flash too brightly, a couple fights too loudly, children squeal too abruptly and she doesn’t quite flinch, but her shoulders are too tight. She's not wearing a bulletproof vest and seems to sorely miss it's familiar comforts.
“I’d almost say we need a pair for her as well,” Soap murmurs, loud enough only really for Kyle to hear.
He tears his eyes off of Farah and eyes his partner in christmassy crime.
Soap’s still got glitter in his eyebrows, from the night before, when his and Ollie’s super secret arts and crafts endeavour had gotten mildly out of control. They still didn’t know what the Scot and the tiny man had gotten up to, but it had involved one and a half tubes of Elmer’s, four different loose glitters and several hacked up balls of wool. And coloured cardboard.
The glitter in Johnny’s eyebrows is blue. Same shade as his eyes.
“I have a feeling the quiet would scare her more. At least like this she’s aware of it all,” Kyle sighs.
Finding a gift for Farah wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Bugger.”
Kate gently bumps the napping Oliver up on her hip, his little face hidden in her dark blonde hair. It had started to look a little grayer than Kyle would’ve liked. The scathing glare she throws Soap’s way over her shoulder was also meaner than Kyle would’ve liked.
“T’was him!” Soap yelps, slapping a reprimanding hand against Gaz’ chest, who gasps - “E - excuse me?!”
Kate squints, the fine lines around her eyes deep and menacing, and Soap shrinks, properly reprimanded, “Sorry, Ma’am.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The Laswells had adopted a rather severe no-swearing-policy while the (tiny) Karims were over. There was a swear jar and while both, Kate herself and Nik, had already donated heftily, she was easily outshined by Soap.
Nik at least has the advantage that neither Sadia nor Ollie understand Russian.
Kyle tuts, grabbing Johnny’s hand where it’s hot against his chest, “Mate. Not okay.”
Soap is saved by a screeching gaggle of teenage girls.
Farah jumps, yanking Sadia into her arms, black eyes huge as she almost trips Alex in her urgency to - hide in his chest or something to the same extent. It’s a brief tussle and balancing act, but he quickly wraps his arms around his wife and daughter, resting his chin atop Farah’s hijab.
But it’s really just that - a gaggle of four screaming and laughing girls, barely older than maybe fifteen, sixteen. One of them hammers her fist against the photobooth they’re gathered around, hollering, another daps gingerly at her eyes with the end of her headscarf, gasping for breath.
“Noo! Look - oh my god - “ a ginger girl wheezes, “no, look, Gizem - your face - “ she dissolves into laughter, falling into her friend who can barely keep herself up with laughter.
“You make such a good reindeer, you’re amazing, oh god - “
“Says you?! You?! You look like - like a gremlin or the grinch! What are you doing with your hair?!”
“We have to keep this one!”
“Okay, but then - then -“ ‘Gizem’ heaves a strangled breath, “ we have to, like - like cut it -”
Her ginger friend yanks on her shoulder, “I call dibs on this one!”
They watch as the four girls pick themselves up, fall apart again, fall over each other, as they make it four steps, before the ginger stops them and yells “Oh, my god, are we stupid?! Michael’s is that way!” and they turn down a different aisle.
“What was that,” Sadia grumbles, resting her head against Farah’s arm, “They were so …” she scrunches up her nose, “so loud.”
“A photobooth,” Alex supplies, voice mellow and gentle as he kisses Farah on the top of her head.
“A photobooth? But they’re … boring.”
“This one isn’t,” Kate interjects as Farah half turns her head to hide her face in the crook of Alex’s neck, “It comes with seasonal effects.”
“Affects?” Sadia turns her stern frown onto Kate, who switches the still sleeping Ollie to her other hip.
“Effects, like masks and frames.” At Sadia’s disbelieving, somewhat confused look, she stretches out a hand, ”Do you wanna try it? They’re fun.”
“Give me the lil’ lad, Kate, a got him.”
Soap is quick to sneak his hands between Kate and the toddler and she seems happy enough to hand him off to Soap, after all; the only people besides his parents that Ollie is proper glued to, are Soap and Kate - to Nik’s ever growing despair.
Kyle's had made his peace with it. The boy will grow up and grow in confidence and trust. They have time to make friends.
“Yeah, we’ll take Ollie and, uh, … we’ll go ahead?” Kyle offers, watching Alex wrap his arms around Farah and running his hand up and down her back. It leaves a strange feeling in his chest.
Being single on Christmas is always … weird, especially when almost literally everybody else isn’t. Farah and Alex had each other and their kids, Kate had her wife, Captain Price had Nik and Ghost was the happiest with his cats. Of which he had four. Which they’d all known, obviously. Obviously.
Yet Kyle doesn’t quite know what to do about it. It's not like their line of work allows for much romance - evidently why everybody found their partners within their group or work. He sighs, brushing a sandy blond strand out of Oliver’s face, who smacks his lips in his sleep.
Hates the noise and rhubarb of it all, but the moment they got out of the car the kid had fallen asleep. Absolutely dead to the world.
It's like he's still recovering from the long flights over from Urzustand to America.
“D’you wanna get some air? That Starbucks has a terrace,” Alex nods over to the coffee shop and Farah groans, burying her face in his shoulder.
“I’m fine, they just surprised me.”
“Well, I want some air,” Alex shrugs, “I haven’t been in a mall in years and I forgot what a clusterfuck they were.”
Farah raises her head to eye her husband with barely veiled disdain as Alex’s hands glide to her hips, tugging her flush against him.
“Humour me?” Alex’s smile is crooked and pleading.
Tucking her fingers into his jacket’s pockets Farah sighs, a vague, bemused defeat in the twitch of the corners of her mouth. They can practically watch the tension seep from her.
They're beautiful.
Again the sight - however endearing - twists something in Kyle’s chest. He never quite felt this lonely until he realised nobody else was. That everybody else had something special, someone special. Something else, besides their battle-forged bonds and years of friendships.
Soap tucks Oliver’s head under his chin, “Alright, well. Kate’s got Sadia, we got Ollie. Meet at Best Buy in twenty?”
And how does Soap do it? Is it because of his own upbringing, his - what, four? Five? - siblings? That he enjoys being on his own, most of the time? Or maybe it really doesn’t bother him to be alone, not just because he grew up craving quiet. Maybe he really is content on his own. He’d gotten over his crush on Ghost surprisingly quickly, surprisingly fast, those years ago.
“You comin’, mate?”
“Hm?”
Gaz blinks at Soap, with that small bundle of two-years old toddler cradled against his chest.
Who snickers and stretches out a hand - “Mate, if you’re going to zone out, at least hold on so you don’t get lost.”
“Didn’t zone out, won’t get lost. Fuck off -”
Soap’s eyes grow comically large, skyblue saucers in a rugged, handsome face that will always look youthful - soft, rounded cheeks, mirthful eyes and mischief etched into every inch - affecting scandalised, cupping a large hand over the back of Ollie’s head. Kyle hastily sneaks a glance towards Kate, but she’s busy and a bit off, trying to convince Sadia to join her in the photo booth.
“I can’t believe this is the language you’d choose to speak around little Oliver!”
Sadia looks not entirely convinced, though that means little - she’s about as good at guarding her feelings as her mother is.
“Shh - Shut - Be - bloody - shh. Shhh,” attempting to shush Soap, Kyle pats at the Scot’s face and vaguely his mouth, wiping his hands over his lips and - coming away with something sticky.
“Ew - Eww, is that lipbalm?!”
Soap smacks his lips, “It is and that’s what you get for putting your hands in other people’s mouth - “
“God, Soap - “
“You can’t just do that, really - Also, Johnny’s just fine, no need to call me - “
“I didn’t - Soap. Soap. Shut up.”
Johnny nuzzles Ollie’s curling mop of dirty-blonde, hiding a grin behind sandy locks.
Kyle is beginning to suspect Ghost a stronger man than him.
It’s an unfortunate accident.
Really.
There should be warning signs. Neon signs.
Actually - no, there shouldn’t - if there were, it’d be even harder to avert disaster - and disaster it is; a lilac, silver-plated, glittering nightmare of frilly bits and ruffled bots, of pailetted misery, with a grave and alarming holographic offer of “Two-for-one ear-piercing!! Inquire more inside!” slapped onto the polished windowglass.
Kyle isn’t against the concept of a Claire’s store - not exactly - it’s just - garish.
There’s a buble tea shop on the other side of the hallway -
Kyle tentatively tugs on Soap’s hand, hoping to turn the corner before the Scot spots The Purple Abomination, “Hey, do you wanna - “
But just as Soap goes to turn his head, face Kyle to listen, his eye catch on The Holo Glitz, he does a double-take, because of course he does, and Gaz’ shoulder socket groans in protest at the abruptness with which Soap drags them towards The Sparkling Abyss.
“Look!” he gasps, “A Claire’s!! Oh, this is perfect - “
The closer they get the larger this Home of Claire becomes, until it looks like the Frilled Labyrinth Kyle’s mom hoped he’d be into before, you know, all that, a proper, domed, sparkling altar room dedicated to all things distastefully pink.
“Ah, but we’re supposed to meet Faralex and Kate - “
“We’ll be just a moment - “
“- Soap - “
“It’s fine, just a moment - hey, psst, hey - “
Soap disentangles his hand from Kyle’s, where he at first had held on pretend-reluctantly - no getting lost - and now honest-reluctantly let go. This is the last place on earth Kyle wants to go. Fuck.
“Faralex - “ Kyle tries again, but is properly ignored.
Gently hoisting the little boy up in his arms, supporting the back of his head, Soap gives Ollie a little shake and pat on the bum, trying to wake him.
“Hey, lil’ man …”
Ollie gives a disgruntled gurgle, stretching his little head and blinking at the Scot warily. Johnny’s eyes light up at the ruffled attention, his wide, toothy grin crinkling the skin around them, feathery, fine lines tugging at Kyle’s heartstrings ferociously.
The toddler recognises his favourite uncle as if thunderstruck, giving an excited yelp and slapping his little hands against Soap’s cheeks, like - like he can’t quite believe his luck - he fell asleep in Gra’ma’s arms and wakes up in Unnie Soap’s?
The joy! The delight!
There’s glitter in Soap’s eyelashes, catching the light of the bright overhead-lights and Kyle’s vision grows a little wet and fuzzy around the edges.
Fuck.
Fuck.
They’re going into Claire’s, but Kyle hardly sees it. He’s in a bit of a daze, head comfortably full of skyblue eyes, thick lashes and - ew - lip gloss. Lip balm. Something-something.
Soap sets Ollie down in the store, facing him with stern purpose in his face, “Right, soldier - the objective is: Squishies.”
“Squishies,” Ollie nods solemnly.
“What do we know about the target?” Soap inquires matter-of-factly.
Ollie thinks really hard for a moment, looking at his blue frog shoes, then up at Soap.
“Squishies,” he enunciates and Soap nods, “Exactly, soldier! They’re squishy! We’re looking for the round kind, preferably a solid colour … preferably orange.”
Ollie’s face scrunches up at the mention of orange.
“I know, I know,” Soap sighs, “but it’s for your sister. She likes orange.”
“... orange … squish …” Ollie sighs, mirroring Soap’s exasperation with the eerie accuracy of a 4-year old.
“I like orange …” Kyle murmurs and earns a low laugh from Johnny.
“I know that.”
“You do?”
“Everybody knows you love orange, but not everybody knows it’s specifically blood-orange.”
Kyle whistles, avoiding a stray many armed earring-stand narrowly, “And you know that?”
“Aye.”
“Paying close attention, hm?”
Soap half-turns over his shoulder, shooting Kyle a mischievous glance - “Always - “
“Squish!!” Ollie yells and tears away from a startled Soap.
“Fu - ah, eh, he’s uh, he’s quick, huh?”
“You’re saying something, there, for real …”
Luckily Ollie had body-slammed into the bottom drawer of the shelf he’d been aiming for, throwing him straight onto his butt. He was now using the edge of the shelf for leverage to pull himself back up.
Noticing Soap and Kyle approach, he starts yanking on the strings of a … pastel - a … a sort of … handbag? A purse … -ish? It looks vaguely like a small purse, if purse was defined by ‘object that can be opened and is suspended by a connected cord in two spots’.
“Woah, there, easy! Let’s see …”
Soap hunches down next to the toddler, inspecting the purse-in-question.
“Well, it’s round, it’s squishy …”
“Ssssquishy!” Ollie agrees, wholeheartedly.
“But it’s not orange.”
Ollie frowns, blue eyes squinting as if Soap’s critique was anything but well-meant.
“I’m just saying!” Johnny let go of the purse, raising his large hands in defense, “I’m just saying … she’d prefer orange.”
Ollie threw Kyle a severely questioning glance, as if to say ‘D’you hear this motherfucker?’ and Kyle has to bite the inside of his cheeks hard to keep from laughing.
Instead he repeats the word back at Ollie in Arabic, carefully mouthing allawn alburtuqaliu making sure the kid connects it. Orange colour.
“Ahhh!” Ollie’s eyes light up in understanding, of course, and he turns back to the purse-in-question. His little fingers wrap and squeeze around the silicone, pushing what looks like little nubs and buttons in and out of the soft material.
Kyle understands, suddenly.
It’s a fidget toy. It’s a fidget toy in the shape of a pastel rainbow purse.
“Ohh, so that’s what you’re looking for? A fidget toy for Sadia?”
“Shhh!” Soap cuts him off viciously, eyeing their surroundings in suspicion as if the girls was about to pop out of a bin of polka-dot umbrellas. “You know nothing!”
“Yes, yes,” Kyle laughs, “I know nothing. That's me, Knower of nothing.”
As if by magic they are in the correct corner for sure. Between fuzzy diaries, shelves full of glittering bracelets and candy themed necklaces there are boxes of glitter and non-glitter fidget spinners, scrunchies, colourful, geometric shapes of Push Poppers (as Kyle is educated the nubbed ones are called), several stands of fruit- and pet-themed stress balls. They come as key chains or on their own.
It’s a small wonderland and while Kyle wonders if Claire’s would even carry fidget toys if they hadn’t been so outrageously popular, he quickly discards that train of thought. What does it matter if they carried them to make bank on their popularity? Popularity means accessibility and if a place like Claire’s carries them, they’re surely easy enough to find. That’s a good thing.
His hand brushes something sticky and wet and Kyle yanks his hand out of the box, gagging audibly. A haggled looking employee looks at him appalled.
Soap looks up in alarm from the purse Ollie was still clutching - he’d refused to let it go - “You good, mate?”
“Yeah, yeah, just … Ugh, I think one of the boob ones popped.”
“Boob ones? Oh!” Soap jumps up and is by his side in a blink, flush against Kyle’s back and hot where he bends over Kyle’s shoulder.
He smells like - warm. Spicy. Kyle knows this, Kyle knows this scent, what is it?
“Huh?” he asks in full eloquence when he realised he hadn’t heard a single word of what Soap had said.
Johnny eyes him like he knows. Kyle’s heart stutters.
“I said - that’s we’ve been looking for. D’you see any orange ones?”
“I, uh, I - I see, uh - blue?”
Kyle can almost taste the pity Soap takes on him, knowing smirk ‘n all, “Not me eyes, lad, the boobs.”
“Right. Boobs.”
“I’ll get Ollie.”
“Sure,” Kyle squeaks, turning his eyes back onto the box he’d been looking through.
Orange, they were looking for an orange … boob, he supposes. An orange boob.
Above the box there's a shelf of small plushies. Kyle's eyes, while trying to find singular orange in this mess of pastel rainbow boxes and torn apart packing, catch on a name tag that reads Farah. Bemused he tugs on it and unearths a floral print abomination of a plush lion. It's purple, ruffled mane and huge, purple, glittering eyes immediately remind him of a wild-eyed human-Farah, looking frayed and rather manic as she came off the trampoline in the Laswells’ backyard, hunting for her husband to join her in defying gravity.
He's supposed to be looking for orange boobs, but he may have just found his gift for Farah.
Soap’s wail of anguish rips him violently from his contemplation of syrup-filled, orange boobs and floral-print-lions. The Scot yanks him around by the cuff of a sleeve, the terror in his eyes a frosty periwinkle.
Anxiety bubbles up within Kyle, coating the insides of his stomach in dread as he realises he can’t see Ollie anywhere behind Soap.
“Soap - “ he starts but doesn’t have to end his question - the horrified noise the Scot makes is enough - “right - okay -”
“Okay?!” Johnny repeats, incredulous and horrified, “What do you mean okay - “
“Check around the corner first, before we panic - he’s just a kid -”
“Right, he is - “
“Soap - “
“Farah will kill me!”
“You know, for some reason I’m less worried about Farah than I am about Alex.”
They check around the corner, but Ollie isn’t there - they try the hair accessories and hairspray, glitter and jewellery corners, but Ollie isn’t there. A blue-haired employee takes pity on them, inquiring with great boredom if they need help, only to sober up immediately, when they explain they’re looking for a small kid.
They - the button on their lanyard says “They/Them” - turn on the heel of their boot and march up and past the counter, tearing open the door to the back, while asking their colleague at the till if they’ve seen a kid leave on his own.
Within seconds four more employees spill from the back room. Kyle would’ve been impressed and nauseated by how decked out in Claire’s accessories they were at any other time, literally any other time, but Ollie was missing and -
It hits him like a truck.
It doesn’t matter how much help they get.
Ollie is missing.
The store’s not so large they would’ve missed him.
The employee at the till hadn’t been paying attention, so she wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
Ollie is missing.
“Fuck - “ he breathes, pressing the butt of his hands into his eye sockets and forcing himself to take deep, shaky breaths. All his training, all his training. It’s not the first case on a child he’s on, but - damn - fuck - it’s - he’s their baby, Ollie is everybody’s baby.
And they lost him.
Fuck. Fuck.
He’s not scared of Farah or Alex or Kate or Nik, he’s fucking scared of never finding Ollie.
This is America.
“We gotta go - check - check the other stores -” Soap murmurs as the employees catch up to them and the blue-haired one explains -
“They’re looking for their son - he’s only four and, uh -” they look at Kyle for help.
“He’s blond,” Soap cuts in, “he’s blond and only four and small, he - he’s, like, a metre -” and at their blank expressions, adds, “that’s like 35 inches. He doesn’t really - he doesn’t really speak English, yet, he speaks Arabic …”
“I speak Arabic!” one of the employees says, the one who’d been at the till, “I’ll go out and help looking for him - “
“He’s still got the purse, probably.”
“The purse?” she eyes Kyle, “Oh, the one you were looking at? The Club Bunny Popper Crossbody Purse? They’ve not been selling well, so that’ll be a great feature to look out for!”
So she had been paying attention, but she hadn’t seen him leave. Great. Do your fucking, bloody damned job - -
Kyle bites the inside of his cheeks, hard.
It’s no use ranting at her, she’s helping now.
But they don’t find him at the Cos next door and not at Hot Topic, he’s not at CVS either and Kyle is loath to enter Macys, but one of their Purple Glitteirng Ones is happy to do so - his girlfriend works there, apparently.
When he sees Soap exit the Subway, misery etched into his blanched face, his phone suddenly vibrates.
It’s Alex. Of course.
He steels himself, then answers -
“Alex.”
“Yo! Where are you guys? I thought we said we’d meet at Best Buy?”
“Uh, at … Macy’s and Subway.”
Alex laughs and Kyle’s insides twist into painful knots, “Any particular reason you’re having lunch without us?”
Soap sidles up to him, sliding a clammy hand into the back of Kyle’s parka.
“Yeah, yeah, uh …” he rubs at his eyes, “Listen, mate - I - we’re - we’re looking for Ollie.”
The quiet on the other end is … it’s something, it churns in his stomach and Soap drops his forehead to his shoulder, heaving shuddering breaths.
“Right. Subway and Macy’s, you said?”
“Mh …”
“We’re on our way.”
The Blue Purple One materialises next to them like an Eldritch Horror of glitter and plastic flowers, “I talked to the security guard at the toilets, they haven’t seen a blond, Arabic boy in a blue jacket and blue shoes wearing a Club Bunny Popper Crossbody Purse.”
Kyle nods weakly. He’s not - he’s going to have to face Farah. His third sister, basically. And he’ll have to explain he lost her son. Her youngest, her baby.
Because clearly she’s not lost enough.
“So, uh,” Eldritch Horror continues, “he’s Arabic? Where are you guys from?”
“Preston, basically. His mom’s from Urzikstan.”
“I don’t know where that is. Oh! His mom?”
“Yeah,” Kyle is too tired to explain.
And, anyway. He can see Farah and Alex come around the corner of Macy’s, closely followed by Kate with Sadia in tow - with Farah taking spear point the moment she sets her stormy eyes on them.
“That’s her, huh?” the Eldritch Horror asks, redundantly, twisting a plastic flower around a finger.
Draped over Kyle’s shoulder, Soap stiffens and straightens out. The set of his mouth is pinched and worried, but he takes a step towards her -
“You lost my son?!”
Her voice strikes like thunder and the sheer despair in it crests over Kyle like a tidal wave. As she breathes the water pulls away leaving him feeling hollowed out. Empty. There’s a bit of hope mixed into her terror - hope that it’s not true, that they didn’t.
That maybe they already found him.
“Tell me - “ she howls, “tell me you didn’t - tell me - “ swallows around the glistening tears in her eyes, “tell me - please - Kyle, please - where is my baby?”
Farah is close enough to wrench her shaking hands into the front of his jacket, pulling him closer, “Look at m-me - Kyle - “
“It’s my fault,” Soap whispers, “it’s - mine, I put him down and didn’t pay attention for half a minute - “
“He’s just a baby, Soap - what - what do you mean y-you - you didn’t pay attention?!”
Alex settles a hand on her back, his face unreadable, blue eyes shuttered. Farah turns around to bury her face in his shoulder, a heart wrenching sob wrestling from her throat into Kyle's head. He’ll never forget the sound of it.
They’ve seen her cry. Eventually, over Hadir. One drunken night, the only they’d ever seen her touch liquor.
That had been nothing in comparison.
“Where did you lose him? Where did you check?” Alex inquires, surprisingly calm.
“Claire’s, sir,” the Eldritch Horror breathes with a certain reverence, looking up at Alex, up the one and a half heads he has on them and in any other setting they would’ve joked about how pretty he is and what a hazard it is to let this man walk freely, but alas.
They lost his son, too.
Kyle returns to the conversation with a shudder “Yeah, we were - we were at Claire’s looking for a gift for Sadia. I found something, showed it to Soap and the next moment Ollie was gone. I’m -”
He just so catches himself from apologising - something in the flat glint in Alex’s eyes tells him it would not go over well, right now.
They explain where they’ve checked, when Another Purple One emerges from the winding depths of Macy’s with his girlfriend and her manager in tow. They’ve called into a couple of other stores on this level and relayed a description of Ollie and the Club Bunny Popper Crossbody Purse.
“Alright, I’m going to say it,” Kate sighs, resting a limp hand on Farah’s shoulder, “Was there … anyone else, nearby?”
Farah turns a tear streaked face to her, a silent plea in her hazel eyes.
“I’m sorry, love, but - if he’s not anywhere … he could’ve been taken.”
“No - “ Soap interjects, “No, there was no one there, not in our corner and - “
“Yeah, and I didn’t really see anyone leaving the store, either.” The Purple One Of The Till shrugged.
“Oh, because you were paying such close attention?!” Kyle hisses.
“Woah, there,” Alex cautions, “Glasshouse, Stones.”
Kyle bites his lips and groans, hitting his forehead against Soap’s shoulder, “... Don’t I know it.”
“Can’t you do, like, an announcement through the speakers?” Another Purple One asks, “Have you asked at the service desk?”
Soap and Kyle look at each other, “Uh - n-no? Not me, did you?”
“No -”
“You can do that?” Farah urges, “Can we ask?”
Alex avoids her eyes, “I - Let’s ask. It’d have to be in Arabic, though - “
“Oh, they won’t let you do that,” the manager interrupts, “This is America.”
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
The man, slightly pudgy and a bit red on the nose, shrinks under Farah’s glare, “J-Just, geez, woman - you can’t just speak Arabic on the speakers! It’ll sound like a threat!”
“A - a threat?! My son is missing and you’re worried about me issuing a bomb threat?! Is that it?!”
“Farah! That’s not what he said - “
“It’s exactly what he said - “
“No, babe - “ Alex grabs her by her jaw, forcing her to turn and look at him in quiet for a moment. He runs his thumb across the wet tracks on her cheeks, before pressing a soft kiss to the tip of her nose.
“Americans are stupid, love. That’s what he said, and we are. We can however ask for them to make an announcement to look out for him.”
Kyle looks at the man incredulously. Is that what Farah means when she says he stupidly-reasonable at times?
Kate sighs, “And announce to the entire mall that there’s a 4-years old little boy missing who doesn’t speak English? I don’t think we should.”
“Maybe they can figure something out with security, though, or alert the police.” Eldritch Horror suggests.
Kate sighs again, “I … I can make some calls. Let’s get to the service desk first, before I put them in lockdown.”
“Lockdown? What are you, the CIA?” Another Purple One snickers.
The following pause is pregnant and grows more meaningful as the seconds tick away.
Another Purple One blanches, grabbing for his girlfriend's hand, squeaking “Nevermind, Ma’am. Sir, Miss. My lady.”
Soap’s eyes are flitting across the mall as they stride towards the service desk, checking every nook visible for that flash of blue or shock of sandy blond. But little Ollie is still nowhere to be seen.
The Purple Ones have returned to their Shiny Habitat of Purpleliciousness, for now, but promised to keep an eye out.
Kyle smells the Lush and Bath&Body Works before he sees them and while there’s quite the commotion at Lush - they have tables lined up outside of their store, with kids and teens elbow deep in various colourful doughs and for a moment, a short moment, he feels his hopes skyrocket, that maybe, maybe this is where they find him -
Of course not.
There’s no rogue toddlers to be seen anywhere and as his last shred of hope flees his chest, he sees Farah, too, visibly deflating. Walking ahead of them, she’s so - small, suddenly, with Alex’s arm wrapped around her and Sadia tucked into her side. He wants to envelope her and hug her, hold her close and beg for her forgiveness, anything, really, if they’ll be okay, if she’ll ever look at him or talk to him again.
Which is so selfish of him.
He just lost her fucking kid. He lost her kid and he’s worried she won’t ever talk to him again.
And then he smells Soap, again - only he’s not smelling Soap, he’s smelling - that thing, that - whatever it is Soap smells like. He slows to stop and pause, unconsciously stretching his nose, trying to figure out what it is he’s smelling. Because it’s not on Soap, so it’s different, more clear and … his eyes follow his nose to eye the entrance and glass front of Lush. Is Soap wearing … Something from there?
Watching the entrance and the glass planes something catches his attention and he reaches out to grab Soap’s hand and yanks.
“Say.”
“Hm?” Johnny slides his palm against Kyle’s, playing with his fingers.
“Can you look at that table? The ice one with the fresh face masks on it?”
“Didn’t know you knew your way around a Lush store.”
“I’m British, you gormless tosser. Of course I do,” he quickly whistles for Alex, Farah, Sadia and Kate who halt reluctantly.
“What?” Farah sneers.
Pointing at Soap with a menacing finger, Kyle continues, “You tell me why you’re wearing some sort of Lush perfume,” Soap’s attempts to defend himself, but Kyle continues, undeterred, “Anyway, someone please tell me what that blue thing under the table on the right is. The one with all the ice.”
They line up a couple of feet from the window.
“Oh my days.” Kate snorts an aborted laugh.
“Ah,” Sadia sighs with all the world wariness she can muster, “anah ghbiun.”
They watch Ollie, curled up under a table in the store, clutching the Club Bunny Popper Crossbody Purse to his chest. His puffy blue jacket belies the calm and steady rise and fall of nap-time breaths.
Farah hiccups - a strange combination of hysterical laughter and desperate sob - and tears herself away from Alex, who scampers to follow her with only a moment’s delay. She pushes past the conglomeration of people and to the wild eyed alarm of the employees throws herself under the table to gather her son up into her arms.
Judging by the aghast faces, it seems no one had noticed the little man taking his nap right there.
Soap and Kyle are a little slower to follow inside, halting at the door, right on the threshold. The relief at Ollie’s half-sentences and babbling reaching his ears cracks open the anxiety and panic that had wound and built in Kyle. The reality of how close of a call that had been, what could have been but luckily wasn’t - it spills hot relief from his heart and eyes.
“Lord of Misrule.”
“Hm?”, Kyle blinks at Soap, dazed and vision cloudy with tears, “What?”
“Lord of Misrule,” Johnny croaks, “It’s, uh, it’s - it’s a Body Spray.”
“Oh. You - Yeah. Right. That's what it is. Of course.”
Soap’s glittering blues eye him, sheepishly, somehow, “What - what do you mean of course?”
“Well, you’re certainly - certainly - a Lord of fucking Misrule.”
“Right …”
They’re watching Alex and Farah squeeze their son half to death - not that he’s complaining, giggling gleefully at all the attention and everyone cooing over him, even the employees. Enraptured by the little rascal.
The little charmer.
“So, uh - “
“Hm?” Kyle looks at Soap’s profile, watching with fascination how mischief spreads across the Scot’s face, lighting his brow and returning some colour to that drained and grey pallor of his.
It only adds fire to fuel, a tentative, balmy giddyness, to that relief warming his chest.
“What?” he almost laughs.
“Mistletoe.”
“What?!”
Soap blinks at him, big, blue doe eyes, bats his pretty eyelashes at him and points upwards.
Some fucker at Lush hung a mistletoe in their entryway.
And they’re right beneath it.
Kyle laughs in earnest now, “You gotta be kidding me, mate - “
“What! It’s bad luck if you, you know - “
“If we what, Johnny? If we what?”
“If we don’t kiss?”
Shaking his head at this idiot of a man, this absolute bafoon and his first class bafoonery, Kyle snakes his hands into the pockets of Soap’s jacket.
“If you wanna kiss me so bad, why don’t you just say something!”
“Wha - listen, mate, I tried, but then - “
Kyle doesn’t know what then. He just kisses him.