"Can you make me forget?" her voice is not exactly girlish, Graverobber has always noted that about her. It's a little too low, too rich and raw at the edges. It makes her infinitely better as far as he cares. He has always been so tragically bored by all of that perfection. When you can buy a perfect body, perfect skin, perfect eyes what exactly is the beauty in all of that boring? Shilo Wallace will likely never bore him.
"Kid, my Z is top of the line, the best," he puts on an act of being offended by the question, puffs his chest out, tilts his chin up. It's been weeks since the final Opera, looks about as long since she last slept. And he isn't talking about that restless half-sleep that too often accompanies an empty heart. Zydrate can help with that. Her eyes are dark, inky and hollow. Life does that to a girl and the Zydrate will help with that too. He turns his attention away from the waif making her way to him through the alley to take money from what amounts to a boy barely thinking about manhood and presses the zydrate gun against his skin.
When he looks up again she is closer and he wriggles himself away from grasping hands, desperate eyes. His hands spread, coat catches in a fortunate wind. The edges of his eyes crinkle when he smiles and the look says it all. C'mon kid, his head cocks back, it's a challenge, let's put on a show.
Because he always loves making a spectacle.
"I don't have any money," she tells him and her voice is dull underneath, like her eyes. There is a here that follows the words, hovers unsaid behind her lips. Shilo Wallace is the sole benefactor of the best Repo Man there is, or rather, was. Now, he's a pusher, it is - how does he put this - his livelihood to con kids like her into their first hit, their first oblivion and then keep them begging. And yet, and somehow, his gut twists at the thought of this particular kid under his needle. Maybe it's just that she's been through so fucking much already, enough to give her the right to want the Z, anyone could understand wanting a little nothing after that opera.
Still, this is his livelihood he's talking about and Graverobber is always looking out for number one.
"First hit's free," he tips his head to one side, curtain of rainbow hair sliding around his shoulders, catching in the fur at his throat.
"I don't," she falters, almost stumbles on stockinged legs and her fingers twist around the strap of her bag. Her shoulders curl in and Graverobber watches the weight of death and all alone in the world push her down. Her wig is askew. Still her lip curls back she shakes her head, her wig settles back where it ought to be, "I don't owe people money for my organs or my drugs."
Big talk, big brave words past dry chapped lips and he wants to applaud. Atta girl. Atta baby. Bravest little pretend girl, all doll parts held together by sheer stubbornness.
He doesn't turn, not quite, just flicks his eyes back to his writhing masses - he's a back alley priest with the most devoted flock anyone could ever ask for - and settles. His hands fold into his pockets and he takes a step towards her, bends at the shoulder so that his cheek presses against her bought and paid for hair. He bares his teeth in a smile that is wasted because she is staring at his shoulder anyway.
"We go back, kid, you and I," he rubs his cheek against the fine black hair and breathes in, "you can pay me another way."
Her head jerks, something like a nod and Graverobber sighs. Normally the doll parts pretending to be girls don't bother him. It's their own damn fault, under the knife, under the pimp, under their own damn mistakes. And yet, and somehow, he likes her scrawny hide, sees little insect limbs and thinks her strangely graceful. He was almost hoping that she'd turn him down, get stuck in all the things dad surely told her about men like him and stay away.
He supposes that the prettiest bugs do end up on some needle or another. He laughs at his own joke and takes a dance step around her body out of his alley. He can feel the shadow of her at his back as he strolls - leisurely because he's in no hurry to be anywhere when he's not being chased - but he's still surprised when frail fingers find the edge of his wrist where his hand tucks into his pocket and his sleeve has ridden up. Her fingers press against the pulse there and by the time they reach the apartment he is calling home sweet these days he has forgotten which heartbeat is his own.
They reach his doorway, warped, paint peeling, before his fingers find hers and her hand is cold after the warmth of his pocket. He lets their hands swing when they step into the demi dark of his apartment and her face is cast into stark shadows. Zydrate vials are strewn, abandoned on the cardboard box that is his coffee table. She looks pretty in blue and blue will probably look pretty in her. This time. Next time. A few times after that too.
Not always though. It never stays pretty.
He lets her linger at the edge of the hall as he steps into the glow of the drugs in his living room - if one can call the echoingly empty, forlorn space a living anything - and his coat stays in a graceless pile where he leaves it by her feet. Life has not been easy on his body and he knows that there are scars when he pulls his shirt up over his head. It is lost somewhere behind the couch with a long limbed toss of one hand. And then he gasps, startled by cold fingers on old scars.
Brave little bug.
Her pulse flutters in her mouth, a trapped bird when he kisses her and her fingers wind into his hair. Sweet thing, honey sweet and he wants to feed at her mouth. His hands catch on her arms and they stumble together, tumble, lose it, fall into the torn upholstery of his couch, her skirt working up around her thighs. One of his legs grinds down against her and she gives a full body shudder that is better than he expected. Somewhere in the hands and nails and - holy fucking hell, where'd a bit like her learn this shit - teeth her wig is lost amongst the tossed away pile of their clothes and he rubs his cheek against her scalp. A few days of stubble scratch against a few weeks of stubble and he snickers, biting at the shell of her ear. The not-quite-chemo baby.
She's a virgin of course. Whines with it, soft little keen that makes him - and he's a bad, bad man for it - shudder with the effort of staying still for the seconds, eons that she needs to settle, to adjust to him. It's not that she rocks up against him that says it's alright to start moving again, not quite her little murmur but rather teeth on his throat, on his shoulder.
Desperate and she's keening again, different now but no less aching.
It's awkward at times, spills him laughing into the soft of her throat, the curve of her breast. Her rhythm isn't quite right and her hands flutter about, unsure as to exactly where they ought to settle. Afterward, just moments after tossing the condom in the general direction of his trashcan, with a lithe little body curled into him on the couch he thinks he could maybe stay here for a while, enjoy the sort of domestics but the girl is moving again. Gawky limbs of hers rub against his sweaty skin as she stumbles up, moves like she's sore.
"You owe me," her voice is husky, not just raw but torn at the edges from the moments he brought her screaming. He gives her the laziest of smiles, unphased by his own nakedness as she stomps into her boots, buttons the very last little pearl button on her blouse. She watches him then, in silent contemplation perhaps before she lets herself out of the apartment, wig settled in place. Prim little bug undone by an edge of teeth.
The slam of the door echoes in the empty apartment.