Notes: A little longer than usual, only because I was assured that these two work better as one narrative rather than two separate pieces. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far. Remember - reviews make the story grow faster. They may even make it get more interesting...

"Vanity." The woman Graverobber nodded to was walking stiffly, shoulders pulled back, nose in the air. She had a superior smile on her face, completely ignoring everything and everyone around her. She wouldn't have seen them sitting on the crates even if she'd looked.

Shilo scanned the faces of the people she could see from their perch in the mouth of an alleyway, watching people of all ages, sizes and colours pass by, each of them looking just as arrogant or unhappy as each other. "Liver," she said, pointing out a man swigging from a hip flask, "liver poisoning."
The game was easy, and they'd been playing it for a few turns already, picking the appropriate deaths they thought each new person would succumb to. It wasn't really fun, just something to pass the time.

"Cancer."

"Botched cosmetic surgery."

"Overdose."

"Suicide."

"Accidental bacterial infection."

Shilo looked at him. "All bacterial infections are accidental."

"The means I'm thinking of is less common."

"Oh." It was a testament to just how morbid Shilo was becoming that she automatically wrinkled her nose, thinking of the most macabre explanation. "Ew," she added, looking at him again, "I hope you don't."

"Safety first, kid. I use a condom."

Her jaw dropped open. He grinned. Shilo decided that it was best if she took that as a joke. "How do you think you'll die?" Shilo asked, turning their game in on itself.

Graverobber was silent and pensive for a moment, turning the ideas over in his head. "A broken heart," he answered, then shook his head as if to dispel such a romantic notion. "If the genecops don't get me first. You?"

"Starvation," Shilo replied without hesitation, thinking of her piteous cooking skills. "Or hypothermia." And the frozen electrical services keeping her house in the dark. It was a wonder there was still running water. She didn't know how to pay off the money owing or even who to pay it to. As far as the electrical company was concerned their contract had died when Nathan Wallace had. Shilo sighed, turning a little only to see Graverobber watching her. "I can't cook," she explained. Sudden and stupid, inspiration struck. "Can you cook?"

"Sure."

"Really?"

"No."

Shilo rolled her eyes. "Why do I even talk to you?"

"You like creepy older men," Graverobber suggested, clearly joking. He watched her a moment. "I don't cook, I scavenge."

"But... I've seen the money you make. You could buy food."

"Scavenging," Graverobber said, getting to his feet, "is more fun. Come on, I'll show you."

Shilo put her hands in his and let herself get pulled to her feet. "You are such a bad influence on me," she groused, following him down another back street to god knows where.

The spread was ridiculous in its variety. A jar of unopened pickles sat next to a slightly squashed loaf of bread, a dented box of shortbread cookies and an entire wheel of cheese. A few silver tins that had turned out to be carrots, peaches and condensed milk respectively sat in the middle of the bright red lace 'picnic blanket' that Graverobber had unearthed from a department store dumpster.
Shilo should have realised that he would never fail to surprise. She was very used to thinking of bins as containers full of rubbish, not as a box of opportunity. She was rapidly coming to understand that the graverobber saw them as everything from refuge to dumping ground.

"Here," Shilo looked up to see her dining companion offering her the hilt of a small knife. "You need it to eat with," he told her, talking to her as if she were a very small child who obviously didn't understand such a simple concept.

Shilo took the knife, giving him a contemptuous look. "Has anyone ever told you that you can be really annoying?"

"Frequently." Graverobber tore open the bag of bread, dipped a piece into the condensed milk, and proceeded to eat dessert first. "It's a point of pride."

"Well it's annoying," Shilo told him. She hesitated, then picked up the can of peaches. "So this is how you live," she asked, spearing a peach slice on the end of the knife. She looked about, even in the glow of the street lamps this place looked as if time had forgotten it. Sometimes it seemed as if everything was crumbling.

"The lace is purely for your benefit," Graverobber told her, stretching out on the bright red fabric and lazing, looking up at the starless sky. "Yes, this is quite the glamorous life I lead."

"Do you like it?" Shilo asked, the flavour of artificial peaches on her tongue.

"Would I live this way if I didn't?" he asked in reply.

Shilo shook her head. No, He wouldn't live this way if he didn't enjoy it somehow. He couldn't. She began to wonder just what exactly was so fun about living on the fringes like he did. What was it about the job that he did, the trade that he practiced, that held such allure?
"Can I come with you?" she found herself asking, "the next time you... harvest?"

Graverobber didn't look at her, but she could see it when he grinned, obviously amused by her request. "Sure, kid," he chuckled. "You'll love it. More glamour than you can bottle. And after we're done we can have a picnic with teddybears and little cakes with pink frosting."

"You're making fun of me. I'm serious," Shilo insisted. "I want to know what it's like."

"You know what it's like. You've seen it first hand."

"I wasn't sleeping in coffins back then," she pointed out, part of her insisting that she must be insane.

"Alright," he said eventually. "Teaching you to 'cook', how to do your eyebrows, taking you about the graveyeard. You're going to owe me something big someday soon."