Graverobber heaved himself through the fireplace door. He was sweating and coated in at least an inch of salty, river, sludge. He'd run faster than he ever had in his life. He was desperate to get to the house before Shilo.
He looked down at his outdated wrist-cuff. 5:32
Shilo got done with work at six. He'd made it, he still had time. He took off his coat and bag, draping them on the railing at the end of the stairs. His coat dripped brownish-red water onto the worn floorboards. He hoped Shilo wouldn't mind what a terrible house guest he was.
When he bent down to untie his slippery laces, Graverobber felt a pang of grief.
Shilo had just cleaned them.
He took off his socks too, not wanting to mark up any more of the floor.
Quickly, he padded up to the bathroom and stripped off the rest of his clothes. He wasn't too filthy but even still, he scrubbed himself raw under the hot shower for a few minutes.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he checked the time. 5:47
Was Shilo leaving work at six or would she be home at six?
Why hadn't she specified!?
He reached for his pants but they were still wet and stank of the river. Graverobber looked desperately around the bathroom, seeing nothing but porcelain fixtures and soft white towels.
He needed pants!
5:48
Shilo had given him her dad's clothes before. Where was his room?
Across the stairs?
Graverobber pulled on his shirt and peeked into the hallway before running bare-assed across the whole damn second floor.
There were three doors there.
One led to a laundry room, there was a hamper filled with lacy, delicate looking fabric and Graverobber safely assumed he'd find no pants in there. The second door he tried opened into a bedroom similar to Shilo's but very different.
It wasn't stripped bare like hers, but clean and comfortably cluttered. Stacks of journals rose up from nightstands, the fireplace, and the dresser. Vials were neatly arranged by size on a narrow desk. And on the walls hung skillfully drawn maps of every major organ in the human body.
Graverobber didn't feel right intruding. It felt like he was walking in on someone's painful memories. Not just Shilo's either.
He was standing in Nathan Wallace's bedroom. The fucking RepoMan's bedroom!
And he wasn't even wearing pants!
Pushing aside his anxiety, Graverobber moved to the dresser and managed to find a pair of dark jeans. They didn't feel like they'd ever been worn. He pulled them on quickly, relieved that they were only a little loose but otherwise a fine fit.
As he turned to leave, his eye caught the portrait mounted above the fireplace. It was their wedding photo. Nathan Wallace and his wife, Shilo's mother. Their ghostly figures hovering in a permanent state of joy. Shilo really did look just like her mother, having inherited the woman's dark features. But looking at her father, Graverobber saw something there, an intensity. His eyes held a passion that Graverobber couldn't relate to, but recognized it immediately as something he'd noticed in Shilo on more than one occasion.
Yes, she got her father's spirit in her. Smart, stubborn, passionate; hurt.
He wondered if Shilo knew that.
His gaze drifted to an old fashioned clock that hung on the wall. 6:01
He hustled out of the bedroom and flew across the stairs to gather his messy clothes from the floor. He continued to Shilo's room where he stuffed his soiled items under her bed, remembering to extract the condoms from his pocket and stash them in a drawer in the nightstand.
He straightened up the sheets, they'd still been wrinkled from the night before. He closed the curtains, painting the room in a soft pink haze. And then, he waited.
6:10
6:12
6:15
Was she okay? Did something happen to her? He should have waited to walk her home.
6:17
What if she ran into Amber, what if that plastic bitch already has her strapped to a saline drip under some random name!
6:18
The downstairs door opens and shuts. Graverobber freezes, standing beside the bedroom door so he can hear. She didn't say anything, but he heard her climb the stairs, stopping somewhere, then going into the bathroom. A few moments later the water came on.
Graverobber relaxed onto the bed, letting his head rest on the pillow. He hadn't felt truly comfortable in years. Sleeping in a dumpster wasn't exactly ideal, but it was necessary. It kept him hidden and untraceable. But here he could relax, and Shilo would come in and find him calm.
He listened to the hiss of the shower, sometimes catching small sounds of Shilo singing to herself. He couldn't hear any of the words, but he was pretty sure it was an old Blind Mag song.
When the water shut off he could hear her moving in the bathroom still. Cabinets opening and closing, the swish of the shower curtain, the squeak of her hand on the mirror. Graverobber closed his eyes. He liked this, the feeling of not being alone. He could live this way, not alone. He could come home every night and have someone there to know he'd lived another day.
Did he want that someone to be Shilo?
Graverobber had never thought about that before. He didn't have friends, there were a few people he knew first names for but it never went deeper than that.
Shilo was his only friend.
If you could call her a friend, his plans for the evening weren't exactly hair-braiding and pillow fights, but they treated each other as friends didn't they?
Graverobber was pretty sure normal people didn't think of their friends naked as much as he did.
The door squeaked and Graverobber sat up on his elbows.
Shilo stood in the doorway. Graverobber's eyebrows shot up.
She was wearing a pale, pink, lacey nightshirt. Graverobber recognized the fabric from when he'd been in the laundry room earlier. It hung a few inches above her knees and was just see through enough for him to see she did not have a bra on.
Shilo waited as he looked at her, smiling shyly and rubbing her arm. Her hair hung in damp, kinky, curls that framed her face perfectly as she grinned at him.
"Hi there." He managed to say without his voice breaking. Shilo seemed to exhale as she came away from the door and crawled onto the bed.
Graverobber adjusted himself to be laying down while Shilo curled up under his arm, pressing her body against him. She was warm, and smelled like flowery soap.
"I'm not used to coming home to someone waiting." Shilo whispered. Graverobber could feel her fingers absently playing with his shirt.
"I'm not used to waiting for someone to come home." He replied, making sure to brush his hand against her bare shoulder. Shilo snuggled closer.
"Were you worried about me Graves?" She teased him. Graverobber hesitated, he had been worried. He had a reason to be, but Shilo didn't need to hear that.
"You're a tough kid. You can handle yourself." Was what he said instead. His fingers combed through some strands of her damp hair. Shilo breathed deeply.
"You know you're the only one who's ever thought that of me?" She said. Graverobber's hand froze.
"What do you mean?" He asked. He didn't want Shilo thinking too seriously about what he said, especially since it was half a lie.
Shilo sat up and looked down at him, smiling warmly. A little hint of unease twisted in his gut.
"You remember when you helped me get home that night? When you told me about Mag's eyes?" She asked him, the night he'd found her in Pavi Largo's tent when he lifted a zydrate gun. He nodded. "You didn't treat me like a little kid then. I told you I needed to get home, and you said '...this way'" Shilo made a big gesture with her hand, attempting to mimic Graverobber's grand persona. He rolled his eyes. Shilo giggled before she went on with her story. "You didn't hide anything from me, or lie because you needed to shelter me, or keep me a secret…" The nausea in Graverobber's stomach churned, "...and you got me home just like you said. You didn't lie, you didn't need to say anything." Shilo lay back down and curled into him. "I never got to thank you for that."
Graverobber could feel himself starting to sweat. He was lying to her. He'd been worried sick the entire night over her. He was determined to hide her from Amber. He never planned on telling her any of this. He was trying to protect her.
He sounded like her father.
"These aren't your pants." Shilo said, running her hand down his thigh. Graverobber shuddered at her touch.
"No I...borrowed them." He said softly. "From your father's room." Shilo's hand stopped moving and rested just alongside his leg.
"They fit good." She said. Graverobber held his breath. Not sure if he should apologize. "I don't go in there that much if I can help it. It didn't feel right...getting rid of his things."
"You're not mad at him?" Graverobber asked. It was a question he'd been eager to ask her but it never felt okay. Shilo shook her head.
"He wanted to protect me. Wanted me to be happy. I'm sure if the world wasn't so terrible, he'd have let me go out into it." She whispered into the crook of his arm. "It's strange but, since he's been gone, I understand more why he did it. But at least now I know everything. I'd rather know the truth than have it be like before."
Graverobber's stomach lurched and he sat upright. Shilo sat up quickly beside him, her big eyes worried. Graverobber ran his hands through his hair.
"I have to tell you something." He said, staring at his clenched fists.
Shilo curled her knees to her chest and waited, her brow furrowed in concern.
Graverobber didn't know what to say first. He went with the obvious choice.
"Amber Sweet is hounding people all over town looking for me." He said, chancing a look over to Shilo, her head was cocked to the side, unsure what this information meant. "She wants me dead, I've been hiding from her for months but now it's … difficult." Shilo blinked slowly.
"Why?" She asked. Graverobber sighed.
"Because of you kid." He said. "If she finds out how I feel about you, she could come after you and not let you go until she gets to me."
Shilo inched closer to him.
"How do you feel about me Graves?" She breathed. Graverobber gripped his hair in his fists before turning to stare into her eyes.
Graverobber didn't speak his emotions out loud. He made his living on lies and drugs, feelings had nothing to do with it. Having Shilo ask him what he wasn't even sure about made it that much harder to say. So he looked at her and said what felt the most true.
"Everything." He said, "I feel everything, kid."
Shilo stared at him for a moment, then brought her hands up to circle around his shoulders. She brought a leg up and sat on his lap, her enormous eyes inches from his. Graverobber didn't know what was going to happen, but the warmth of her body on his lap was enough to drive him wild, her hands resting on his shoulders made him want to pull her closer. But he bit his tongue and waited.
Shilo smiled at him, and kissed him.
Her kiss was forceful, powerful, Graverobber had to stop himself from falling backwards by gripping her hips. Shilo's tongue moved against his bottom lip and Graverobber was helpless against it. She kissed him like she knew exactly what he needed, like she'd kissed him a million times before.
And it felt amazing.
His pants were uncomfortably tight, he needed to get out of them. They both needed to get out of their clothes.
Graverobber ran his hands up Shilo's thighs and felt her thin panties. He dared to move his hands higher and grazed the size of her bare breasts. He wanted to pull the nightshirt from her shoulders, but at that moment, Shilo pulled back.
Graverobber stared up at her, his hands still outstretched but now empty. She smiled, cupping his cheek with her hand.
"Why don't we just go beat up Amber Sweet?" She said.