[DISCLAIMER: Since I am female, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that I don't own REPO! The Genetic Opera, or any or the related characters. I only own the plot that I came up with.]
She had been in good health for days. They had gone on three successful harvests since her breakdown in the graveyard and Shilo was hoping that she was past the worst of it and that she wouldn't need to worry about it soon. But she had gotten her hopes up last time too, and Graverobber seemed to have put her back on suicide watch or something, because he was careful around her. Painfully, wretchedly careful.
She had taken to clinging to him in the night when they were both supposed to be asleep and neither likely actually was, afraid suddenly that he would disappear in the night like a ghost. The confidence that she had been slowly coaxing out of the recesses of her mind had fled with a single bad night.
"Relax, Kid," he had told her, stroking her short, sweat soaked hair one night when a nightmare had woken her with a scream tearing its way out of her throat, "There's nothing here but you and me, and that's how it's gonna stay."
But that had been days ago, and Shilo was doing much better now than she had been just days ago. She didn't spend every night squeezing the very oxygen out of Graverobber's lungs. They slept with their fingers entwined, and sometimes with their legs a tangled mess, but she wasn't clinging to him anymore.
All of that was unimportant during the day when they weren't curled up in the bed. There wasn't much for them to do during the day; theirs was a nocturnal lifestyle. They rarely risked going out during the day and letting people see Shilo's face in a clearer light. Nor did they want prying eyes seeing them enter and leave the cottage too often. So instead they spent the day cleaning the important parts of their cottage and leaving the rest in disrepair for those just in case reasons.
Shilo walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, nothing unusual there—she had probably forgotten to grab her comb. Her hair was now long enough for her to run a comb through it if she wanted to, but she always seemed to forget to grab it before heading for her bath.
She walked right into Graverobber who was standing outside holding her comb in one hand with the other raised to knock. She stumbled, hastily grabbing her towel lest it fall and she end up mortified, wishing she had wrapped it more tightly around herself. Graverobber caught her by the shoulders and steadied her, dropping the comb with a clatter as he did so.
"We need to stop meeting like this," he joked, still holding her by the shoulders.
"For a guy wearing such huge boots, you sure are stealthy," Shilo grumbled, still clinging for dear life to the towel and staring steadfastly at Graverobber's scarf.
His fingers trailed lightly against her moist collarbone and to her chin, lifting her face so that she had little choice but to look up at him. She looked confused and a shadow of his Cheshire grin flashed across his features as he leaned down to her.
His first instinct was to fun, but she found herself frozen like a rabbit cornered by the fox. Her heart beating too hard and too fast and she felt like she might faint. She had hoped, so secretly, that this would happen and now her mind refused to believe that it finally was.
It was gentle, almost chaste press of chapped lips against her; almost as if he was afraid she would reject the touch. When she didn't he became more assertive, kissing her until he forced small noises from her throat. He pinned her free hand to the wall before disentangled her fingers from the towel and pinning that hand as well.
Eventually, what felt like an eternity passed, and he let her go. For a moment she swayed where she stood with her eyes still closed.
"Please tell me I'm still wearing my towel. Please tell me it didn't fall, even if it's not true," she managed to say in a breathy voice before she opened her eyes.
Graverobber laughed, deep, hearty, and purely masculine. She was indeed still wearing her towel, though it had shifted dangerously low. She scrabbled to shift and tighten it, accidentally flashing more leg than she was comfortable with. Glancing up, she saw that Graverobber's eyes were fixed on that point and her face burned with embarrassment.
"I'm… going to go get dressed now," she announced awkwardly, leaving the comb forgotten on the floor as she sidled past Graverobber back into the bathroom with her cheeks still burning.
She sat down on the cover of the toilet seat, sitting right on the clothes that she was supposedly putting on, and lay her head down on the sink edge and sighed with a contented smile on her face. Shilo didn't know if what just happened changed anything between them, but at least she could tell herself that she meant something to him.
A dark, cynical little voice in her head told her that it was simply the fact that she was garbed only in a towel, but she pushed it aside. He had seen her in clothes that covered less than the towel on nights that she masqueraded as his whore. The hands and legs that twined every night could be explained away. To Shilo, this felt like something more substantial.
Finally, Shilo got up and dressed and walked back into the living room where Graverobber was lounging on the couch. As she passed heading for the other chair in the room he grabbed her and pulled her down to lounge as well. She squeaked out a flimsy protest.
"Predictable," she accused.
"That's okay," he claimed nonchalantly, "people stop expecting predictable after a while."
She had nothing to say to that as she leaned her head down on his shoulder.
"Your hair's wet," he pointed out.
"Yup," she chirped, settling more comfortably, "but you sat me here, so I intend to be comfortable."
Graverobber chuckled at that. They sat in amicable silence for a while. She held his hand loosely while he stroked her leg with his free hand. Shilo noticed that her comb was back where it had been before she had taken her bath.
"I have to go to the alley tonight," Graverobber said into the silence. His voice was somber, "Are you coming, or staying here?"
"I don't want to be alone," she said after a moment; Graverobber nodded, "I don't want to hide anymore."
"Better hidden than dead. Sweet will get bored eventually," he replied. Shilo nodded.
It was already almost sunset, so she stood and went to change into one of her addict outfits.
[A/N: I'm really sorry that I keep wandering away from this story. I love it so much, but lately it hasn't been cooperating when I go to write it. This isn't exactly how this chapter was supposed to go, but since it turned out to be mostly fluff, I don't think you'll mind too much, right? Hopefully, the next chapter will be more interesting. I'll try not to keep you guys waiting for too long this time... though I say that every time. Thank you all so much for sticking with me, even after all this time.]