Graves stomped through the dirty snow.
The deadened gray metal box that was serving as his-their, he reminded himself-new home loomed befor him. Oddly, this time it was not a dumpster. Though he took a deep-seated pleasure in discomforting Shilo (HOW are we both going to fit in THERE?), it turned out that the farther they went north, the less ready-made customers roamed the pre-dawn alleyways. There were some surprising benefits to this alternate black market, though.
He shoved open the box-car door with a ghastly crreeeak, too cold and tired to worry about the noise. The rails were on the outskirts of the city, anyway, and Graverobber was sure no one would want to come poke about the cars that were supposed to be transporting corpses.
His tired mind jolted with that same momentary fear, anxiety, and the strange, stinging feeling of attachment that he always felt when looking at the pale little body curled in the corner of their latest make-shift house. She was huddled under both their blankets, and an odd shaft of sunlight filtered through the slats in the topmost edges of the metal walls, making her skin seem to glow against the colorless filthe and faded graffiti of that smeared the iron walls, like nicotine plastered inside a smokers lungs. The stark white of her dress and rare lack of black smudged about her eyes made her look almost otherworldly.
However,Graves wasn't the sort for aestetic appreciation when there were blankets to be reclaimed.
"MMM-umph...gerroff..." 17 years of no alarm clocks had made the harmless little girl surprising vicious when it came to interrupting sleep. He tugged again on the blanket, but she pulled back ferociously and curled into a tighter ball, reclaiming it into her nest of bedclothes and rags. Graves opened the door again, hoping the breath of frigid air would win him the battle. Shilo groaned, but curled the motley bedclothes about her all the tighter. Was there something a bit triumphant in the way she wiggled deeper into the nest, as Graves shoved the door closed again?
Frigid and desperate, he yanked his heavy boots off his feet and swore as his holey socks made contact with the floor. Wincing as his skin burned on the rusted, icy floor, he crawled into the "bed" and yanked the blanket over the two of them.
"ff-gahhh! What are you doing?" The words were still slightly slurred with sleep, but considerably more alert than they had been moments before.
Graverobber responded by wrapping his arms around her and holding tight to the small, warm body.
There was a moment where he tensed, waiting for her to shove him away. They had been on the road for a few weeks now, riding the rails up to the northern cities...true, they had huddled together in dumpsters and alleyways, a hairs breadth away from the scalding flashlights and certain capture of the gencops. She had clutched at his arm as they made their way through strange urban jungles, had collapsed against him after particularly grueling sprints from whichever cop or local dealer Graves had managed to piss off. Contact out of desperation...there was little room for tension (sexual or otherwise) on the road he had chosen with her.
He felt her breath on the back of his hands.
Her hands moved to relax his grip, and she moved them so that he was not holding on, but simply holding. He let out a shuddering breath, feeling that same, strange ache he had come to think of as directly linked to Shilo. He pressed his face into her neck and let exhaustion take him...but he thought that even in his dreams he felt her skin on his lips.
He awoke to feel her stirring, pulling away, letting in the bloody light of the sunset. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back down. She gasped with laughter as she fell down atop him, and Shi found herself nose to nose with the dealer. Their breath puffed around their faces like miniature clouds. She meant to push herself up again...and realized her hand was on his chest. There was a moment of stillness.
"You need a tic tac," he said, ending the moment. She shoved herself off of him, and promptly turned around to root through her bag. She hoped the cold would excuse the red on her face...a blush she could feel spreading as she determinately did not think about how his body had felt under hers.
Graves turned on his side. A smirk tugged at his mouth, but he inwardly wondered at what had just passed. He wasn't exactly a "cuddler" as most of his...customers...could attest. He watched her struggle to lace up her boots with numb fingers...he also watched the way the fabric clung to the shape of her back.
If he wanted her...why didn't he take her? He winced a bit at the memory of her boot the first time he had attempted anything. If cooling his ardor was her purpose, being shoved into a brick wall had certainly been effective. But it had been weeks...weeks of sleeping inches away from each other, huddling against the increasing cold, weeks of pulling her out of the reach of lowlifes and cops, refusing to let go of her hand for fear he would turn around and find her gone. All inside dumpsters, or, as the case was now, cargo trains-meant to carry the dead, he thought wryly. Not terribly romantic, but it was safety.
True, the Largos had little care for capturing the stray child of a dead employee-revenge didn't bring in any money. Not much risk there. But had he planned on leaving the city? Had he intended to cast his fate with the protection of a girl who knew literally nothing or the streets? And did he expect no payment in return?
Was it payment he was after?
She turned around, her face stony. "Don't you need to put your clothes on or something? You said you'd take me out tonight." She began rooting through his bag, something she had learned early on that he hated people doing. Actually, he had slapped her the first time she had tried. He grimaced inwardly-the little brat apparently had realized that he had developed some sort of conscience when it came to her. She took out one of his belts and started attaching the gear she had seen him put on every night-vials, the Gun, knife...It looked a bit absurd over her little white dress, he smirked. As Graves thought this, she pulled up the hem of her skirt and started strapping her a second knife around her thigh. He quickly rolled away from her and hurriedly shoved his arms through the weathered old trenchcoat, feeling suddenly glad it hid him from throat to knees. Damn those little skirts.
10 minutes later, she leaned against the metal wall, looking decidedly impatient as her companion applied his dealer's face. She sighed loudly, and he angled the piece of mirror in his hand, beginning to add a second coat of lipstick. She tapped her foot. He began making what Shi could only assume were his "sexy" faces and swiping a clawed hand at the shard of glass.
"Oh, dear GOD, Graves! You look fucking pretty enough!"
"Excuse me, my dear, but you are interrupting my ritual. Now I'll have to start again." He began reaching for the mottled towel next to him, and she dived to snatch it away from him. He wrenched her arm behind her and rolled her onto her stomach in one move.
"YEOOWW! What is it now?" He leaned down until his face was a few inches from hers.
"And do you think you are going out tonight without your face covered?" She squirmed, but couldn't move.
"No, why would I?" The one eye that was visible was burning a hole through his forehead.
"Because, kid, you look far too recognizable and, forgive me, jail-batey at the moment to pass. Why do you think I wear all of this?"
"I assumed you were fulfilling some sort of cross-dressing, cabaret, Frankenfurter fantasy."
"Well, looking sensational is only an added benefit. Now hold still." He dipped his finger into the thick paint again and reached for her face. Perhaps it was because she acknowledged his ability to pin her down with one hand, but she didn't resist as he rubbed the paint a little more vigorously than was necessary onto her cheeks.
But his fingers gentled as he smeared his thumb over her nose and eyelids. "Keep 'em closed," he said shortly as he wiped off his hands. She started a little as she felt a damp brush sweep over her eyelids. She wondered vaguely what he was doing to her face as the minutes passed. "Keep your eyes closed," he repeated as she felt the brush lift...and she felt his finger on her lips. She could feel a blush rising under the facepaint as his fingers softly skimmed her jawline, down to her neck. She wondered if his hand would continue downward.
She kept her eyes closed.
Instead, with such hesitancy that she wasn't sure she felt it at all, the hand on her throat curled around to cup it, and she felt the brush of fingertips over her painted cheek. After a slight pause, in which Shilo's heart seemed to be doing triple-time, she felt his hand come fully to rest on her cheek. Well, half her face actually, his hands were nearly twice the size of hers.
She could feel his breath on her lips.
"Finished," he said quietly, and she opened her eyes. He held her gaze for a long moment before he pulled away.