Taffer Notes: I don't think I'll take this anywhere, and if I do it'll be slow to update. But as it turns out I seem to have grown overly fond of my interpretation of Kyle Crane, and because of that he needs himself a background. Something more, something that doesn't stop at the mercenary hired by the GRE to go after Suleiman, but someone who likes his cold beer and a good couch coop session here and there.

This can probably be considered complimentary reading to Latchkey Hero. It is somewhat important if you're following the series into season 3.

And as usual: Thank you for reading :) Apologies for the quality though, I'm not going to be spending a lot of time on editing these pieces.

TITUS

"Seriously, man?"

Kyle looked up, briefly pausing his assault on Titus' scruffy head, his fingers catching on large ears. Pink tongued, sticky dog appreciation followed quickly, slobbery and rough and very insistent. Keep going, the licks against his forearm said, and only stopped once he resumed kneading his fingers into the coarse, warm hair.

Good Boy—Good Titus— I'm gonna miss you, you stupid flea ball, Kyle thought, and a few steady thumps on the floor told him Titus agreed with the notion of being a good boy, and that he'd probably miss him too.

"You're the fucking worst," Sebastian complained next to him on the couch, and when Kyle looked at him the man three years his senior jabbed a bulgy XBOX controller at him. Jabbed it hard, snapping the corners against his shoulders like he was trying to make a point. And a point he probably had, because his friend's face was fucking pale, and his eyes all wide as they kept cutting between him and the TV. A sight that didn't really fit well on the square, fully bearded face with the crown of blonde hair. Sebastian the Viking, rattled like a baby.

"What?" A stupid question, Kyle knew, and he glanced at the game starting up, at the reason for Seb getting all worked up, and felt his lips curl up in a grin. He'd figured Seb wouldn't approve of his choice of parting entertainment, but the one leaving got to pick. That's how it had always worked and how it'd keep working, because traditions like those you didn't break unless you wanted to mess with your luck. He threw a toothy wide grin at the screen and watched the Left 4 Dead 2 intro rolling in. One of his absolute favourites, and he deserved to treat himself to it before the wheels went up tomorrow.

"Don't you think this is— I mean— come on, Kyle. Bad taste much?"

"Hey, I'm the one going down there, not you. Don't be a sissy." He stopped scratching at Titus' head. An equal parts disappointed and satisfied sigh escaped between floppy dog lips and pearly white teeth, the HRRUMPH of it lifting the German Shepherd's shoulders. A muffled whine followed quickly after, and Kyle patted the free spot to his right. "Come on up, boy." Titus readily complied, bumped his way up on the couch, and gave him a good swat with his tail while he curled himself into a blob of dark brown and black fur. Clingy as fuck, but that wasn't news. He practically attached himself to his heel when a deployment came around, something he'd picked up on even while he'd still been all paws and ears and the best chick magnet ever. Now all he attracted was ticks, but Kyle was okay with that.

Titus dropped his muzzle on his lap, blubbered up another sigh, and Kyle's hand went right back to administering additional attention. So maybe they both got a bit clingy before work. That was okay, too.

"I've got to prepare," he said eventually and leaned over the dog to swipe his own controller, along with his beer, from the table. The bottle he squeezed between his thighs, where it received a testing sniff and tentative lick, and the controller he balanced on his knee. "How else am I going to get familiarized with the opposition? It's not like they've got training material available for that shit. Dibs on Ellis, by the way."

"Prep— Shit, man. You're insane."

"Yeah, yeah. If I had a penny, etc… Just humor me, okay?"

He'd miss Seb too, Kyle figured. And the beer, because deployments to the Middle East were hard on a man, even without Zombies and all that shit.

Zombies.

It still hadn't quite sunk in, and he doubted it ever really would. At this point he'd just accepted it at face value, much like the rest of the world had. Nothing else to do, really. Things moved on. They kept rolling around the bubble of concrete walls and a tight communication embargo, that blob on the map called Harran. Truth be told, Kyle shouldn't even have told Seb what he'd be up to the next few weeks, but he couldn't just not tell his best friend about how absolutely mind blowing the job he'd landed was going to be. Not like he knew much about it yet— just that there was the need for a pair of boots on the ground, and they needed to be a decent pair, and Kyle had just that. His record proved it well enough.

"This is way out there though," Seb whined and picked Nick to slaughter Z's with. He always went for Nick, something about sleazy class or some such bullshit, and Kyle wondered if he'd find any men in dirty white suits with their business shoes still on once he landed in the Quarantine. Probably not. He took a swallow from his beer and mused that over while his friend repeated himself on his concerns about his latest contract. But that's what friends did, he figured. They bothered you because they cared, and he was fine with that. Didn't mean he had to listen.

"You should have gone private security."

Kyle scoffed. "Boring."

"Yeah but at least you'll be alive to be bored."

"Ye of little faith." Kyle squeezed Titus' head again. "Now shut up and play." Thick, coarse fur bunched up between his fingers— and yeah— he'd miss that stupid dog something fierce, but coming home would be damn sweet, because dogs, now those were the best when it came to welcoming you back, and Kyle had every intention to do just that.

He'd come back a little bit richer, and maybe then he'd consider private security, or buy a bike, one of those with a passenger pod so he could take Titus for a road trip.

That'd be ace.

Maybe Seb would come along and they'd do a repeat performance of their first trip down the East Coast, the one where Seb had met his wife and Kyle had signed up for the Army. Half a fucking eternity ago by now, with years upon years of life stacked on afterwards. It'd be almost poetic, he mused, going full circle like that.

"BMW or Harley?" Kyle asked while he knocked his way through a horde of Z's with a baseball bat.

"What?"

"BMW or Harley?" He repeated, and they spent the rest of the night planning a road trip Kyle couldn't wait to get to.

Taffer Notes: Okay, so I'll confess: This was inspired by a dream, in which Kyle Crane binge watched the Walking Dead to prepare himself for his trip to Harran and had a German Shepard constantly stealing his beer. I couldn't pass up doing something with that peculiar image in my head, so after I woke up I sat down and wrote this before going to work.

And come on, he obviously loves dogs, right? Or what do you think, Reader? Am I absolutely wrong and you think he's a cat person? Don't be shy to let me know. I love discussing characters and seeing other people's take on them.