Like wine, Zydrate aged with time.

With every day it fermented inside the body, it became stronger. Graverobber was lucky when he found a corpse that had rested in the dirt and cracked marble of graveyards instead of the usual fare of bodies on the streets. A handful of times a month he found someone who had rested long enough to turn their brain fluid to that deep hue, a vial of liquid lapis, and it fetched a high price on the streets. It was the rare scalpel slut who could afford such a strong version of her favorite drug, however, and Graverobber typically saved those special vials for special customers, like the daughter of the newly deseaced organ overlord.

Amber Sweet hadn't sought out her favorite drug dealer all week and the man of the streets hadn't bothered to look for her. In the years Amber had been an addict, she had only bought from Graverobber in the last few months of her habit, mostly because he allowed her to pay in other ways besides cash. Money could buy clothes and more surgery. Sex was cheap, quick, and easy for Amber. Graverobber tolerated most of it, near the end of their relationship, whatever the hell sort of relationship they could label it as. It certaintly wasn't romantic and neither Amber nor Graverobber had any respect for one another, much less affection. There was something mysterious, something distant that, once touched, shuddered and shivered in delight. Amber was the princess of the city, practically queen of the world. Everyone placated her, giving her whatever she wanted, and Graverobber had been no exception. It wasn't the physical contact that pleased Graverobber, even though Amber's only true talent had been kneeling at the alters of the flesh. It was the fact Amber would smile after being shot up and pulled down on the streets covered in dirt and blood. A true smile. It was fleeting, brief, and always twisted into a sneer when she saw Graverobber's watching her, but it was a smile.

More people should smile like that, Graverobber thought to himself as he wandered his usual route, occassionally ducking and hiding from the searchlights and stomp of boots as others fled the GeneCo authorities. He continued on his way even when the danger hadn't faded, but he wasn't as interested tonight in his usual antics of tempting and taunting the men with the life taking guns. How many times had Graverobber wondered what dealer would be taking Zydrate from his body once the GeneCo assassins found him? He knew that he was just going to be another brick in the city built on death, just as he was part of the vermin crawling the streets in life. Shilo had a chance, an opprotunity to be something more. Then again, when 'something more' meant living as Amber lived, maybe it was best Shilo was still locked away in Nathan's house. There was no inbetween in the world: just Ambers and scalpal sluts. That was always Graverobber's understanding of it and he pondered his plan as he placed the little glass vials into the gun and shot up his customers. Shilo was one of the few who couldn't be classified into the majority, not yet, at least. One of those rare decent women was Mag, the hope of decency and talent, of kindness and love. Perhaps the scalpal sluts he was injecting with the addictive vice of the underworld had some decency and talent. Perhaps Amber had kindness and love hidden in her heart. But no one knew for sure, just as Graverobber didn't know how his plan was going to work now that he had an idea of how Nathan's daughter had been faring and no clue who her attacker could have been.

.................................................

It was always warm in the house, especially Shilo's room. Nathan had always kept the heater going, the blankets piled, and the hugs readily available. Now, Shilo shivered. How had things gotten so cold? How had things gotten so bad? How had everything happened the way it did? Maybe she was cold because of her injuries; Shilo had read enough medical books to know the basics of what her body was going through. The bed had been so warm, the sleep so deep... it was so nice to sleep after nearly a week of broken naps and fitful dreams. She had never had another person sleep on her bed before, much less curled around her feet. To see a grungy drug deal waking up, blurry eyed, had been less of a shock and more of a comfort. Silently, Shilo ran her hands over the bedspread as she continued to lay in the same position she had been in since Graverobber left, tucked into herself in the middle of the bed. It had been hours, nearly a full day. The sun was going down, hardly shining. It was a weak attempt on the star's part to warm the Earth, much less Shilo's bedroom. The girl gathered the blankets around herself as carefully as she could, wincing at the sharp pains coming from various parts of her body. Her wrists were still seeping blood through the rough stitching and poorly formed scars. Shilo had ignored her stomach pains for days, the growling requests becoming muttered pleas as food became less and less of an event. What use was food when the idea of eating something made her completely nauseous? She hadn't kept food down, hadn't had much water, and Shilo knew what the pains in her kidneys were from. Hopefully Graverobber would come back. She felt she needed him.

"No," Shilo whispered through cracked lips as she closed her eyes to drift off to sleep, "I know I need him. He's the only one I have left."

............................................

Graverobber found himself wandering the streets back to Nathan's house, his daytime customers placated. Should he go back? Couldn't he be hiring someone to do this? The plan didn't really involve himself directly until the very end; why was he wasting his time now? Why was he going back to that little girl when he should be roaming the streets for more Zydrate, more customers? It was dusk, nearly nightfall, the prime time to be preparing for his round of evening visitors. He was throwing away another night of business to spend time with a broken little body claiming to have had her wrists slit by someone else. She didn't know this city, didn't know the sort of people out there... if an attempt had actually been seriously made on her life, the would be murderer would have slit her throat and been done with it. Contemplating how much of this attack story could have been real and how much could have been a mental collapse, Graverobber leaned against a headstone, staring at the house in front of him. He could see Shilo's balcony, the blood spatter on the curtains invisible from the street.

The first time Graverobber met Shilo, she had been shaking behind a headstone, close to nervous collapse, and he hadn't shown pity as he extracted a rather fine bottle of Zydrate from a body. Who was he to know the kid hadn't experienced the world, much less understood the finer points of how to survive in the big bad place? Who was he to care? But she had been interesting, to say the most he could in one sentence if asked to describe his first meeting with the girl. So pale, innocent, nervous... He hadn't bothered to follow her, to check up on her as he extracted what was his best harvest of Zydrate in a single night. Nathan's house had always been territory fought over by the best graverobbers and now they all knew why. The repo man had to have a place to dispose of the excess organs, didn't he? Strolling across the street and into the yard, Graverobber climbed over the ridiculously tall fence and entered the house through the side door he had broken into. So what was a night of drug peddling tossed away when so much money could be at his fingertips in just a short period of time?

"It's freezing in here," Graverobber grimmaced as he walked into Shilo's room, pulling the jacket tighter around his frame for emphasis until he realized the girl was asleep and didn't even know he was there. It was an intoxicating feeling, to know he was the only one aware of his actions in a room with other people, with another person who wouldn't know he was there until he wanted them to know. The drug dealer took a look around the room again, noticing how much medical equipment he could possibly sell; the girl wouldn't need it once she was properly through with the drugs her father had given her. It would take time to get the body independent from the drug, especially since Shilo had taken it her entire life, and Graverobber knew the symptoms of withdrawl from how many of his customers had crawled back to him, begging for a hit.

"Kid, are you alive?"

He didn't contemplate the cruelty of this statement until after he saw the gashes on Shilo's arms as she stirred weakly in the bed. It had been a slight gamble to leave her here alone in the first place, to let her be in control of her own safety so soon after it had been compromised for a second time in one week. However, she was here, alive, and it was all Graverobber needed at the moment. Pulling the plastic curtains aside, he sat on the edge of the bed, putting a hand on Shilo's wrist to check for a heartbeat. She groaned pitifully and Graverobber felt her blood pump meekly through her sliced veins, his thumb running along the crisp edges of scab and slide across her palm with the blood oozing from the wound. It she wasn't careful, it was going to get infected and Shilo was going to have less of a chance surviving that than the possibility of an attacker reappearing inside her bedroom.

"When was the last time you ate? I know when the last time you had a shower was," Graverobber said, wrapping his fingers around her shoulder and feeling the bones protruding. The dried blood from the opera stage still coated her back and hair, the black dress absorbing the odors of a mistreated body.

"You're back," Graverobber could hear her whisper, looking at her face as her eyes tried to search out his. A hint of a smile began to creep along her face, but Graverobber's frown paused her feeble search for his hand.

"Of course I'm back. Have that room ready?"

"Oh," Shilo said, voice shaking. She had forgotten about the room. Right after he had left, after her tears had dried up, she had staggered back to her bed and had been there ever since. "I'll get that-"

"Never mind, kid, I'll find a place."

"Stay!"

It was the loudest thing Shilo had said all day and her voice rasped as she exclaimed. Graverobber felt the trembling fingertips of her hand wrap around his wrist in what had to have been all the energy Shilo had in her body. The desperate look in her eyes, the distress in her face, caused Graverobber to frown and fidget in discomfort. He wasn't used to this sort of thing. Begging for drugs, yes. Begging for his company, no, especially not with such intensity.

"Kid, I mean I'll find a room here in the house."

Shilo didn't relax one bit, her eyes still imploring and helpless, hand never loosening on his. She didn't believe him, Graverobber knew. Why should she? She had been told tales so many times, so many farces found out, too much of her life a lie. Trust wasn't something Shilo had much of. Neither was cleanliness or body fat.

"If I stay here," Graverobber said with a smile he hoped wasn't as cynical and darkly humourous as his smile always tended to be, "I think we need to make a deal. You'll take a shower and eat, then don't do any more harm to yourself from now on. I have a few things to talk with you about. To do that, I need a living body, not a corpse, okay?"

Shilo nodded. She wasn't about to argue with him, especially when she felt she needed him so badly. No, she didn't just feel it: she knew it. She needed him. Shilo saw Graverobber's bitter grin change, turn to a cold contemplation of what he should do next.

"I trust you not to leave me."

"You shouldn't put your trust in anyone," Graverobber said, detatching her from his arm none too gently. "Much less me, kid."

With those final words, Graverobber stalked out of the room, the tattered rags of his jacket sweeping the floor behind him. She knew he would probably take up in Nathan's bedroom; she wished he wouldn't. Of all the things she wanted Graverobber to touch, her father's bedroom was not one of them. She hadn't even been able to go in there herself in years, having no idea if there were any valuables, emotional or monetary. Getting out of bed to do anything more than use the bathroom was out of the question right now, though, and Shilo threw her head back into the pillows, too exhausted to even take off her wig. Her blood was growing stronger, but she didn't feel any better.

Drifting off into the deep sleep of the restless who have finally been forced to rest is the darkest sleep of all, not even a nightmare to keep company with.


I have been overwhelmed by the positive response this story has so far, so I want to say thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, and favorites this story! This is just a fun little side story I have going on, so I dump melodrama and experimental structures here. Like most of my readers know, my fanfiction is not meant to be serious and I don't care for critique: I get ripped apart by editors as a journalist and by editors as a novelist, so fanfiction is for everyone to enjoy without tearing it apart. Thank you for respecting that. I don't own any part of "REPO" or it's characters.

I have ties to the Red River Valley, which is undergoing horrible flooding currently. The first crest topped 1997 records and I, along with the rest of my college, had evacuations to undergo. Hopefully we don't have a repeat of that within the next few weeks: there is supposed to be a second crest. Please keep your thoughts and hopes with the community! Thank you!