Hide and seek isn't fun... [sledge]

“Here I am, living in my metal thing,” Sledgehammer sang to himself as he hoisted his duffle bag higher up onto his shoulder and tried to balance the bag of groceries that he had picked up before returning to his apartment. New York City was plenty busy for the conman, and he quite enjoyed it. However business had called him down to New Jersey for a few days. The beaches were lovely he supposed, though after his crossing the ocean Sledge wasn’t too fond of the big blue wet thing. If the risk of allergic reaction wasn’t bad enough, he had faced more chavs with skin orange from tanning than he wished to meet in his lifetime. There was also talk about this Snooki person, who, upon Sledge seeing an image of, couldn’t possibly be human. She had to be a mutant who hypnotized the masses through the oversized hair.

Coming back to his apartment felt good. No heavily seafood laden menus at every single restaurant. Sane drivers, excellent shopping opportunities, and millions of mindless, featherless pigeons. His family had never really gone on a vacation, so this felt almost as though he had been taking a little holiday. A chaotic, working holiday that he was ready to take a break from. His own bed was sounding appealing. While Sledge could easily stay up for a few days in a row when he crashed, he would sleep for days upon days. It was comfortable in his bed. He liked it there. Once he made himself something to eat maybe he would catch a nap.

“Hm hm am… living in a metal thing,” he continued to sing and hum, trying to get the stupid little song out of his head. There was another flight to go up before he reached his floor. With his free hand he started to fish out his key. The complex was pretty quiet today. It might have been that time of day where people were heading off for work or school. One such person was heading down the stairs and Sledge had to step out of the stairway and into the floor below his. With the duffle bag and the groceries he was just going to get either trampled over or be a road block. While David didn’t care to get an actual job he wasn’t going to keep someone from doing theirs.

On this floor things were particularly quiet, minus the sounds of a young child crying. School could be rather dreadful he had to admit, but Sledge was under the impression that it wasn’t nearly as rough in the States. While he waited for the traffic in the stairway to clear up David stood around like an idiot, listening to the child bawl. There was no sound of a parent trying to comfort the crying child, no shouts to shush up. Nothing but an escalating wail. He looked up and down the hall, trying to tell if there was anyone whom the child might belong to, but nobody approached.

His parents had tried to impress upon him the importance of being a good neighbor. If they had a spar moment his mum and da checked in on those nearby, offering what little food could be spared or helping out around the house. If nothing else they would have a cup of tea and chat. To hell with that, he thought. But the problem was that Sledge couldn’t just walk away from a crying kid. He headed down the hallway, listening as the cries grew louder when he approached. David knocked on the door.

This is a waste of time, Sledge thought to himself as he waited by the closed door. The child was crying too loud to hear him it seemed, a nd while he was waiting his duffle bag was digging more and more into his shoulder. He should just turn around and head back up to his apartment. There was the groceries to think of as well. Not that anything was right on the brink of spoiling. David was just hungry and a bag of food balancing in his arms was tempting. You should never go shopping hungry, but you shouldn’t be checking in on an apartment one floor down either.

At last there was the sounds of something other than crying. ”Hello? Who’s there?” There was a little kid in there, and the lack of an adult response was raising questions in Sledge’s mind. Shouldn’t this kid be heading off to school right about now? Three words was hardly enough to be able to tell if the kid was sick, especially if they had been crying. “Me name’s David. I live one floor up,” he said to the door. At least the child was smart enough to not open the door to a stranger. That should satisfy his concern. If kid wasn’t going to get caught up by a stranger than it shouldn’t be in danger. Nice and safe inside the apartment, no need to worry about anything hurting them from the outside.

But there were dangers on the inside he knew as well. Without the knowledge of how old the child on the other side of the door was, Sledge couldn’t tell if they were able to provide themselves with food. His nap would most certainly be interrupted if this kid were to set fire to their apartment. Nobody enjoys evacuating a building. Fast food was an option. New York was filled with plenty of delivery options for almost any type of food that you could possibly want. However if this kid hadn’t been left any money the delivery option went flying out the window. “All right in there?” he asked.

He was hoping that the child would say that everything was fine. Already Sledge had to deal with more preteens than he wanted. The young crowd stunted his business. David wasn’t that big a fan of having to defer to a boss. That was why he had always assumed the leadership of his gangs. Not being the one calling the shots was maddening, often because he knew better than his mates. “Your parents leave you food and all?” he asked. Food was the important thing David thought. Growing up there had been days of empty bellies that he had to deal with while his parents were busy at work. If the kid had food the risk of the apartment building burning down was lessened.

When he first heard the name Seyta, it had struck Sledge as unique. Some names you can tell the country of origin just by hearing it or seeing it spelled. Part of it was how the language of that country worked. In Spanish words that were masculine tended to end with an "o" and feminine ones with an "a". He had yet to figure out what sort of name Seyta was. Certainly not a common name, yet he was talking to a little girl who said that it was her name. New York City was a large city with people from all walks of life. Whatever nationality a person named Seyta was, there probably was even more of them in New York. As unique a name as Seyta was chances were probably higher here that he'd run into another.

The door opened, revealing a blonde haired, blue eyed girl, who looked as though she wasn’t quite done shedding tears. Stepping in front of a moving car wasn’t a problem for David, nor was getting into a knife fight, though thankfully his mates had been more in favor of bare fists. He was a man who had literally broken out of prison and grew up on the streets. Even the fiercest frost of winter did not shake him, yet present him with a tear springing carrier of double X chromosomes between the ages of infancy and death and his resolve crumbled. In his life there had been a few times when he had gotten into serious trouble with his parents, and his da always had to point out “You made your Mum cry.” Somehow bringing shame to the family was to be held on the same regards as physical punishment that followed. If Anna started to cry about anything, David had an unexplainable urge to either give her whatever she wanted or go into hiding until it was safe. Sometimes that meant he just stood there idiotically.

Little Seyta offered up a license to him, forcing David to sit down his bag of groceries. If she claimed that she didn’t live in New York this was a much more serious issue than a kid left home alone. Children don’t randomly just appear inside of your complex, let alone an flat. Someone has to bring them in there, or they have to let themselves in. When it had come time to find his own place to live, Sledge had chosen this building because, number one, it was close to the Sanctuary, and number two, it had seemed like a safe enough place to live. Child trafficking was right up there on the list of things that was not alright in his books.

A careful study of the license however made that preposterous lie of Kaitlyn’s seem more plausible. He recognized the face frozen in the picture. As unattractive as these bits of American plastic tried to make you seem in photos, he could see the Seyta that he had run into a few times now. Yes this little Seyta had blonde hair and blue eyes, but the shape of the face wasn’t quite right, and there was no confidence in her. She was positively drowning in those jeans. Not once had his Seyta worn anything that didn’t flatter her.

But people’s appearance changes as they get older. Even though he still was called a baby face, David did grow out of most of his face roundness and now had jawbones that stuck out. Give him a few days and he’d go from having a smooth face to a five o’clock shadow that made him look at least a little bit closer to his actual age. Voices changed, for which he was so thankful. It was bad enough when his voice went high pitched on him. Imagine living life forever with your ten year old voice. Ladies were just more subtle with their changes. He very well could be looking at the young version of the Seyta he knew and hated him so well. Bloody hell did this mean that he was some sort of deviant for having hit on her in the past?

No. She was most certainly not a little kid then, and if she was, she shouldn’t have been in that bar, pub, club… wherever. “Radio was right. This is New York City, and if there’s anyplace to be lost in, be glad it’s here. Now, how about we make you a sarnie and figure out what to do alright?” His best plan, given his empty stomach, was to calm Seyta down and see if her history matched what he knew. Sledge was overlooking one simple fact though. Seyta had never told him about herself.

"A sarnie is an excellent start to the day when everything's gone pear-shaped," Sledge answered as he was granted entrance into the apartment. Giving her a bit of food meant that he would be able to eat as well, and after spending a weekend trying to avoid a serious medical emergency based entirely around food it sounded like the most appealing plan. "So much easier to think with a full stomach, wouldn't you agree?" Food was life. That's all there was to it. You can't function without it. Food also brought about comfort. For David nothing made him feel as warm and secure as a stomach full of lamb stew. It was the one shining moment about Christmas the way that his family presented it. Lamb stew meant home and seeing both his Mum and Da. The next best thing to the stew was a simple peanut butter and jelly sarnie. Lunchtime revealed a great deal about your home life. Buying a lunch was common place, but having a lunch from home meant something. It meant that someone cared enough for you that they sent you off with food they had made. Peanut butter and jelly was a classic, and as long as your parents understood the whole jams and jellies situation you were golden.

"Now where do you keep the peanut butter?" Sledge asked, pulling from the top of his grocery bag a loaf of wheat bread. The jelly no doubt was in the fridge, which meant that he was only in need of one critical element for their breakfast, which was actually a lunch item. Ah well, if one could consider pancakes and bacon an appropriate option for supper in the States why shouldn't lunch be moved up? Bacon and eggs was only to be eaten before ten in the morning in David's book, but he was game for a sandwich at any point in the day.

Whilst waiting for Seyta to reply on the peanut butter Sledge opened the fridge. There was the jelly, as he expected, and it was strawberry. Grape might be the more traditional option, at least there seemed to always be more brands of it and varieties at the grocer's, but traditions can get to be bland. "I can't claim to be a four star chef but I do alright with a loaf of bread and some basic staples," he addressed Seyta, his head poking about in the fridge for milk. Simple and timeless. Upon the discovery of the dairy product, Sledge turned back towards Seyta.

Maybe this was the Seyta he knew. Changed by some circumstances that he didn't know. Or maybe the woman he had those brief encounters with wasn't the real her, and he was only now seeing it. Mutants were on the rise and you couldn't always tell at a glance who was one. The milk carton was opened and he gave it an experimental sniff. Just as there was no guarantee that what you saw was what you get with "humans", milk was not always as good at first glance. Even the sell-by date could lie. This smelled fresh though, and he set it down on the counter.

"Not much in the way to drink in there," David said with a smile. Milk and beer did not exactly say "Child friendly". There had been no toys about, no teen magazines. On the whole nothing in the apartment gave any indication that a preteen lived there. The address on the license had matched up with their location, which meant that his Seyta did indeed live here. Somehow it was easier to believe that he was talking to a young version of her than to think that a kidnapping had occurred. And as cruel as it might sound, the con man was hoping that something had happened to Seyta which resulted in this young state. As an adult she had always seemed irked by him, but younger he had to be looking more like a good guy. If this situation was to be fixed somehow perhaps he'd be in her good graces for a change.

Well damn. Sledge had been hoping that Seyta would tell him where the peanut butter was. There wasn't anything wrong in his opinion with poking around in others cupboards. A closed cupboard door was just meant to keep pets out and the contents fresh. Besides which if he was operating under the assumption that he was talking to a younger version of Seyta, she should know where she kept the bloody peanut butter. "You're against finding peanut butter, but are welcome to the idea of taking some milk from the fridge?" If she wasn't going to go for the sarnie then he might as well make a more traditional breakfast item. Toasters rarely were kept in cupboards, so toast and jelly was a possibility. “Iffin someone took you from your home I don’t think you should concern yourself with being on your best behavior.”

Not that Sledge thought Seyta was a victim of a kidnapping. Seyta was young, but not too young that she would blindly go with someone, which meant that force would have had to have been used. There were no signs of injury anywhere on the girl that Sledge could see. Then again she was wearing clothes that were meant for someone much older and taller. Which he felt was more evidence that he was talking to the same Seyta he had run into in the past. While he totally understood and supported changing into fresh clothes every morning it made sense to him for a child to stay in their own clothes upon waking up in a strange place. “What ’appened to the clothes you arrived here in?”

Seyta wanted to know how to get back to Massachusetts. For someone who studied maps and almanacs on a regular basis it wasn’t important that he did not live in America, at least not previously. “Where in Massachusetts? It’s a big state, and not all roads lead the same way. Unless you want to take a plane.” He pulled out a couple of slices of bread. So Seyta was from Massachusetts eh? Well it wasn't as though Sledge knew the difference between a Texan accent and a Georgia accent. Americans sounded more or less all the same to the Brit. The bread went into the toaster and Sledge's focus shifted slightly off of Seyta. In his mind he could see the road maps that would lead him to Massachusetts had he been able to drive, and it is hard to keep you mind on one thing when your stomach is saying hello.

David took a slice of toast and nibbled it most politely, studying little Seyta. She was probably around Kaitlyn's age, which meant that he had pretty much no idea what to do with her. That girl Gina said that nail polish and body glitter were a given as far as gifts go, but that meant he'd have to dip into his stockpile of bribes for someone that he was hoping would turn back into an adult. For now she was a confused little girl who probably shouldn't be left alone. He wasn't going to bring her up to his apartment. The idea was to impress her, and inviting an underage girl up to his flat was simply going to reek of creepy. It wasn't common for him to ask birds over without there being some sort of adult desire, even if just for some more drinks. There had been beer in the fridge, which he had as well, but in Sledge's cupboards were other types of alcoholic beverages, most of which were of the hard variety. Additionally there were some things he had in his flat that he didn't particularly wish for her to see.

When Seyta said that she wanted to get to Salem Massachusetts, Sledge's mind started to wander away from thoughts of how to handle the little girl. He knew how to drive there, though he could not do it himself. Despite his spending many afternoons in Charlie's shop, the Brit did not have the foggiest idea of how to drive a car. Charlie had tried to get him to do some work, but all that David ever did was beg off and find a way to not participate. Cars had engines, brakes, and a petrol line, but that was the limit of their components that he knew of.

Yet again because his focus had been off from Seyta, Sledge found himself wondering what they had just been talking about. Enough that he had blanked on who this little girl was, but not enough that he wondered why he was eating toast with her. She had been crying, he could see the evidence of that. It was strange to see this small thing in clothes meant for an older, and taller, lady. This didn't look like someone playing dress up. "Where did your parents run off to?"