There are deep grooves carved in her family's dining room table by the years, by dinners she imagines must have been shared by her parents. Her house is a stranger to her, it's hallways familiar on the paths she took from bedroom to hidden doors, to graveyard, but it's rooms, the places where her parents lived their lives before her? They are strange, alien and unknown, seemingly unknowable. She pulls her feet up onto the seat with her, curling herself down around her knees, fingers picking at her tights as her gaze catches on every time worn wound on the hard wood. Her stomach is gnawingly empty with equal parts hunger and grief today - is it tonight? Shilo hasn't checked the time yet, hasn't pulled open any of the heavily curtained windows - and there is a loneliness chaser sticking awkwardly in her throat.
Immovable, a lump she cannot swallow.
She thinks perhaps she will go out today, maybe she will face the world if only so that she can actually eat in the next little while. Daddy died saving her life and a part of her is screaming that she's letting him die in vain. Still, any plans she has for going outside are only vague outlines, things that -maybe - she might do if nothing else comes up. So far things that have proven more important than getting herself food have included sitting in the dark and standing outside her father's bedroom door.
A floorboard creaks in the hallway, protesting under the weight of a visitor who doesn't know the house well enough to avoid it. She tenses, her body going stiff and she rolls her head to watch the doorway. She isn't sure if she's going to reach for that scalpel, sink back into the shadows near the wall or if she's going to sit, wait for whatever is coming.
There is still blood on the blade, Graverobber's blood. She hasn't cleaned it yet, just left it where it lay at the top of the stairs for the better part of the day, tip toeing around it. Graverobber ran and it's nothing new. She imagines that he must do a lot of running in his line of work. Running from other pushers. Running from GeneCops. Just running. He has it down to an art.
Her nail catches in her stocking and it frays under the edged that she's chewed sharp with nerves and it is startling. It is a little thrill of a scrape and it spills her out of the chair, curls her fingers around the cool handle of the blade and takes a half step into the shadows that bank the walls. Daddy died for her, she's not going to let that go to waste. Not today in any case.
He calls out to her this time. Still smarting from her reaction to last night's unannounced visit and she doesn't know she is surprised that he is back. He is forever coming back and yet. Shilo lets out a shivering little laugh, or as close to a laugh as she's gotten in the last few weeks and steps forward, towards the door.
For a moment she lets his whistle hang in the air, watching as he collapses his body against the doorframe, broad shoulders curving. He leans his head back, stretches the line of his throat and watches her with lazy eyes. He seems, in a word, at rest but Shilo read somewhere that crocodiles used to do the same thing before they gulped down poor little fish, lulled into a false sense of security. She tilts her head, feels the false hair of her wig slide across her shoulders.
"That's Blind Mag's song," she tells him, her fingers tingling in the remembering. She thinks, perhaps that she can still smell that garbage truck on her skin. His chin jerks up, his laugh is more like a bark. He remembers too. He pushes up from the door frame, hesitating for a moment and she is startled when he seems uncertain. The moment is gone almost as soon as she recognizes it for what it is and he lets himself sprawl into the chair that she has only just vacated. His boots are muddy when he props them up on the table and leans. His spine curves, slouching himself into the chair even as he rocks it back on the back legs with the length of his legs, the ball of one foot pressing against the edge of her table.
"S'pose it was," he is not looking at her, hands folding across his chest but she can hear his smile. She can taste the edges of it when she breaths, mixed in with that cool, unmistakable scent of death that he brings with him wherever he goes. She talks a half step forward and he lets his head fall back, multi-hued hair spilling down the back of his chair. When he swallows in time to the moment she first swallows past that lump loneliness left in her throat - maybe his loneliness had matched hers, shot for shot, or at least she finds it pretty to think so- she can see the rise and fall of his adam's apple. He rolls his eyes to watch her, and the edge of his smile deepens, "not much she cares now, huh?"
Shilo shoves his feet off the table, suddenly angry that he has gotten grave dirt where her parents used to eat. Parents who are lying dead in one of his graveyards. He is thrown forward, pitches to keep his balance and it brings his body close to hers, his leg pressed against hers where he tried to steady himself. His hair is tickling her arm where it is braced against the table and for a moment neither of them bother to move. And then he laughs.
Same self satisfied, too certain laugh just this side of hysteria.
"First hit's free," he tells her, stretching back in the chair, long legs unfolded under the table. Her hand tenses where it is on the table and her body goes stiff. Shilo does not know how she will answer when he offers her oblivion and the uncertainty eats at her as much as the hunger does. Can Shilo forget all that death and blood? Can she forgive herself if she does. He digs into that bag of his, worrying one dark lip between blunt white teeth until he pulls out - seemingly triumphant - and brown paper wrapped package and deposits it with absolutely no ceremony at all on the table.
The edge of the paper peels back of it's own volition and she takes it from there. The paper crinkles under her fingers like the wings of her bugs and she feels, with parts of her body that have nothing to do with it, the give of the packaging under her hands. Milk. Bread. A few apples. Groceries. His hands are folded behind his head, body stretched out in the chair and his eyes are closed. He looks perfectly at peace, as though he has not surprised her more than she ever thought he could.
He has not changed his shirt, has not washed it yet and his blood is dark where it stains the pale material. She lets the scalpel fall on the table from where it is still clutched in her hand like life line. He quirks a dark eyebrow at the rattle of it's fall but does not move, does not even open his eyes to look at her. Not until her thumb brushes against the scab she left on his collar bone. She leaves a shine of spit behind where she wet her thumb on the edge of her tongue, wipes blood away, dilutes it on her skin.
He has an iron grip on her wrist faster than she can see him move, looming over her as he leans her back across the table. Her other hand goes to steady herself and knocks an apple, sets it rolling. THe sound of it hitting the floor is loud beside the rush of his breath just inches from her face and she knows how wide her eyes must be. He looks down at her hand in his and she follows his gaze. His skin is dark only in comparison to her own and there is dirt under his nails. He lifts her hand and she does not try to stop him.
When she remembers human speech she's going to talk to him about him man handling her about all of the time.
Her thumb presses against his lips and for a second he resists, as if it is her controlling the motion and not him puppet mastering her. His mouth his warm, wet and Shilo isn't sure why that surprises her, draws a little gasp off her lips. His tongue rubs against the pad of his thumb, the edge of his teeth threateningly close to her skin and she realizes that he is tasting his own blood where it mixed with her saliva.
He pulls away then, watching her with zydrate blue eyes. Graverobber does not release her hand however, holds it near his chest. His grip goes soft for a second and his other hand comes up, tangles in the hair of her wig and shifts it, settles it back on her head as it should be.
And doesn't exactly run away. The effect is the same though, one minute he is there, as he always is, impossible and impractical but - somehow - still wanted and then? Nothing. Just the smell of death on the air, the way her thumb is rapidly cooling. Shilo looks down at her hand, where her thumb is bright with spit and lifts it to her mouth.
He tastes like she thought he would, cool and soft, like grave dirt, cemetery bugs.
a/n: I'm concerned about my Graverobber in this chapter. Does he seem... you know, alright? Not the gooey inside Romeo bullshit romance hero?