Disclaimer:
I do not own Repo! or Graverobber. I do, however, own Lavender Wolfe ("Zy"), and I actually like her. So please don't steal my medic. She is my baby.
A/N: I blame Hannah. She got me into Repo, and also caused me to absolutely adore the Graverobber. So, as I was watching Zydrate Anatomy, I came up with the idea that "What if Graverobber came across the body of one of his druggies?" After a few minutes of musing, character development, and playing that song on repeat, this idea popped into my head. It is my first Repo fic, and so please be nice. Also, i actually haven't seen the entire movie. Just seen the songs. Han's letting me borrow the movie... Eventually. Without further ado...
Zydrate comes in a little glass vial.
(A little glass vial?)
A little glass vial.
And the little glass vial goes into the gun like a battery.
And the Zydrate gun goes somewhere against your anatomy.
And when the gun goes off, it sparks, and you're ready for surgery.
Zydrate Anatomy
"Another inch to the left, and the bullet would have pierced your heart."
He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye, "One would have to have a heart in order for it to do so." He reminded her, then winced as she slid the hot needle through his flesh again.
"Everyone has a heart," she gave the thread a tug, brought it to her lips, "it just depends on whether or not you care to use it." Pausing, she fastened her teeth over the thread and nipped it off. She began to knot it as she resumed speaking, her fingers moving with the grace he never thought a Zydrate addict could "Even Rotti Largo has a heart. You can see it in the way he babies his daughter. The same for you, Robber. You just have to use it."
Carefully, with a touch as light as a butterfly's caress, she ran her fingertips over the freshly stitched wound. She nodded once, then stood, tucking her medical tools back into her bag. "There you go. Now, I'll be billing this to you later."
He risked giving her a painful smile just before she exited the apartment.
Since her appearance in his "happy little Underground," Zy had saved his life on more than one occasion. She had come in, found a place to live, and quickly established herself as the resident unofficial doctor of the area. Everyone he did business with, from his customers to his protégées, all went to her whenever they had something wrong with them. He had to admit: she deserved the attention. Sometimes he wondered why, with her talent, she didn't got to work for GeneCo.
As if reminding him of that fact, his latest wound, a gunshot in his chest she had stitched a few days earlier, gave off a throb. He paused, placing his hand over the covered flesh, and leaned against the side of a grimy building. Ever since word had gotten out that Rotti was dying, GeneCo had stepped up there appearance in the graveyards. They said it was because he wanted to get rid of the grave robbers, but he knew the truth. Rotti was simply trying to get rid of the one and only Graverobber, because he knew. He knew of his daughter's many rendezvous with Graverobber, and no doubt wanted to stop it.
After a brief moment, he pushed off of the wall and started on his way down the street again. Normally around that time he would have been heading off to scavenge some more Zydrate, but not today. Now, don't think he wouldn't be going tonight; he would. But, first, he had to run an errand. A debt he owed was a debt to be paid quickly; that was something he had learned as a child, from his mother. And, though the debt he owed was not to Rotti Largo, the very thought of owing another human being money or time was simply uncomfortable to him.
That was why, hidden in his bag, he held three different vials of Zydrate, a spool of thread, and two sterile needles. Zy never asked for much when she healed, just the materials she used on you, but he had decided that the money she would have made should she worked for a true doctor would have added up after the years. The Zydrate in his bag wasn't just to pay for his own debt, but for the debt of all his customers and friends. After that, he wouldn't have to give away such quantity of the beautiful drug for another three years.
He could see her home now. It was a decrepit little building, pushed back in the shadows of the street. It was the house of a junkie, he mused, the home of someone who couldn't pay for what they owed. It was the same kind of home he had lived in for most of his childhood.
The Zydrate felt heavy in his bag.
"Zy!" He called as he neared, his famous grin already appearing on his face.
Amber Sweet may have laid claim on him every time she saw him; she may have been beautiful, and decent in bed, but she wasn't the one that tended to his wounds whenever he needed her. If he was to approach Amber with the type of wound her daddy's toys left on him nearly every week, she would have quickly found a reason to leave the room – and leave him bleeding. Not that he trusted her to take care of him, anyways.
He actually trusted someone with more than just paying him back. That was a bit surprising; even he had to admit it. Then again, it had been two years, and it had taken him nearly two months before he would strip his shirt in front of the good doctor, despite her pleading with him to let her help.
"Zy!" He called again, stepping up to the doorway. Reaching up, he gave the door a few, careless knocks. "I got your payment."
He waited, clasping his hands behind him and standing almost uncomfortably on her stoop, which was far too small for someone of his stature. As he waited, he looked up at the darkening sky, then over at the grimy walls. Quietly, Graverobber began to whistle one of his favorite Blind Mag songs.
His gaze shifted to the door.
It moved to the window.
A light was on, that much he could tell, despite the curtain blocking his peering view. That meant that either Zy was home, or she had darted out in a hurry. Odds were, since she wasn't answering, the second option was more likely. Her door was always open when she was home, and she always welcomed those who appeared at her doorstep with open arms and a medical bag. Graverobber glanced up at the sky again, noted how far the sun was behind the skyline.
He would just leave them on her desk, he decided. Reaching up, he found her key where it was always hidden, tucked safely in the bottom of an old flower pot. After making sure it was the right on, he slid it into the door and unlocked.
When he entered, he sensed that something was all wrong. Not even bothering to shut the door behind him, Graverobber moved into the house. He deposited the Zydrate vials on the table near her door, but didn't turn around and leave. Not yet. With all the grace the Graverobber was known to possess, he moved from room to room. There was the air of death in the air.
Had Zy lost a patient?
Graverobber stopped in the doorway to her guest room, which had been converted long ago into a sort of doctor's office. There, lying as if she had been thrown carelessly, was the body of a young woman. Her skin was as pale as his own, her eyes closed.
"Zy?" He called again, looking around, "Zy, did you loose one?"
He moved towards the body now, curious to see if he knew this person. If he didn't – heck, even if he did – and Zy wasn't around, then he would scoop some Zydrate from her skull. After all, there was no greater contribution that a person could make after death than donating to his cause. Reaching into his bag, he knelt beside the body. His fingers had just wrapped around the syringe when his entire form stiffened.
"No." He murmured, pulling his hand out of the bag.
Sweeping the dark brown dreadlocks out of the woman's face, he was able to get a closer look. That was when he recognized the scar under her eyes, the cut on her lip. She looked different now. Yes, her face was pale, but there were also smaller differences. Her lips were blue; a trail of blood marked the corner of her lips. Some of her dreadlocks had been mussed, causing her to look as if she hadn't finished doing her hair.
She was dead.
He released her hair, letting it cover her face again, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then, once he had opened them again, he moved to stand. As he did so, however, his hand bumped into something, and the sound of glass clattering caused him to freeze. Without moving the rest of his body, Graverobber let his eyes travel down to whatever had shattered the silence. An emotion he had never felt before grabbed at his chest like an unforgiving fist.
It was a Zydrate gun. Correction, it was an empty Zydrate gun. The entire vial contained not even the slightest trace of the glowing blue liquid. And, he noticed upon lifting it up into his hands, the entire charge of electricity was gone. It was just a dead thing now, only useable if one went through the hours-long process of charging it up again and refilling it with Zydrate. It wouldn't do him any good to take it, when charging it would only run up his bill.
He tucked it into his bag.
A Zydrate overdose. The woman who knew every cure for a hangover, the woman who knew how to drain a body free of Zydrate, the woman who had patched him up so many times was dead from a Zydrate overdose. The whole thing sounded preposterous to him. Zy wouldn't have let something so stupid happen. It was hard to overdose on Zydrate. The thing was a pain killer, and the gun regulated how much Zydrate and electricity went into one's body.
Unless it was tampered with. The biting thought hit his mind and buried itself deep. There was no other logical explanation, and he cursed himself for it.
But, another part of him argued, he had caused this. He had given someone with the talent and knowledge Zy – Lavender – had Zydrate. Lavender had only wanted to help and, in his lack of payment, he had given her Zydrate to make up for it. The first time had just been a trial run. The second time he had watched her take the normal dose, made sure she was cut out to handle it. After that, it became a fair trade. She gave him money; he gave her Zydrate.
He had killed her, that same part snarled. He had been the one to supply the gun and the Zydrate. He had just picked one of his old guns and handed it over to her. Truly, he hadn't been thinking about her using it at the time, at least not on herself. He knew she would probably use the Zydrate on her patients, in small, regulated doses, of course. It wasn't until now that he realized how old and how misused the gun had been. He had never taught her how to clean it, how to repair it.
By whatever god was up there, he was as guilty as any Repo Man in causing her death.
Before he knew what he was doing, he had her in his arms and was lifting her off of the ground. Her skin was cold to the touch, indicating she had been dead for a few hours, although rigor mortis had yet to set in. Carefully, he placed her onto the medical berth which, like the rest of her house, was spick and span despite the ugly outer appearance. He brushed her hair out of her face, wiped the dried blood from her lip.
Without a word, Graverobber grabbed a nearby sheet and threw it over her form. He would find a place to bury her. She, like himself, had no family. He at least had Amber, as annoying and as bitchy as she was. Maybe he would go to her and ask for a favor. There would be a price; there always was. But Amber, he knew, would do whatever she could to get with Graverobber.
The very thought of seeing Amber again after such a short time made his skin crawl, but he had no other option. And so, with one last glance at the peaceful face of the Underground's best physician, he pulled the unstained sheet to hide her from the world.
Suddenly he didn't feel like scavenging for Zydrate anymore. He would go tomorrow and resume his business. He would have to pull double duty, risk getting caught just because that place in his chest was aching with a mixture of guilt and sadness. And now there was no one to patch him up should he get injured. Of course, he could always get at least one vial tonight…
"God, no." He murmured, leaning against the berth. He may have been able to ravage the dead, but they had always been unknowns. He rarely encountered someone he knew and, even then, he somehow managed to block out the memories so he could scavenge the drug. But now it was too personal. Even if she had a high deposit of Zydrate inside of her, he just couldn't bring himself to doing that to her. Not to her body; not to her memory.
After a moment of quiet thinking, Graverobber pushed himself from off of the berth. He turned to look at the white mass. He closed his eyes, and did something he had not done since he was a child. He prayed.
"Goodbye, Lavender."
And, leaving her body untouched, he moved as silently from the room as Death had entered hours before.
A/N: So tell me what you think, and please be nice! Yes, I have my own take on Graverobber. So, yeah. Also, I may or may not write some Lavender ficcage. If you like her I may. Or, heck, I may anyway. Also, just to clear it up, there is no romance here. Lavender and GR are close friends, as Grave trusts her with healing him, and she trusts him with her real name.
Read and review, please!