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Grave Matters: A Repo! Roleplay (SevenxKawamura)

Graverobber hissed, lungs emptying fully as he fought to keep still. The move was so quintessentially Nathan that he would have laughed if he wasnâ??t currently sunk balls-deep in the tightest, most proper piece of ass heâ??d ever had in his life. And the only one heâ??d actually considered liking. â??Christ,â? he croaked, dropping his head to Nathanâ??s covered shoulders. God, but the manâ??s back felt good against his chest, the soft, conservative fabric slipping down the curve of the doctorâ??s spine, the waistcoatâ??s subtle embroidery teasing skin that was already too sensitive.

The mix of sensations tore away at his control: Graverobber loved viewing the world through touch and all the little details, the smooth, damp skin and rough-by-comparison clothing, the heat and clenching, the short tuff of hair he pulled in along with the shell of Nathanâ??s ear all made staying still difficult. Impossible, in fact, as he started thrusting, the hand that had been on a too-slim hip coming up to tangle in the doctorâ??s graying hair. It was funny to him, that this style, trimmed with an exact, obsessive hand to be the dullest, most average length on the planet, was just right for him to get a good grip so he yank the doctorâ??s head towards him so he could kiss him, open-mouthed and sloppy, with very little consideration as to where to put noses and teeth.
 
It was possibly one of the most intense things he had felt before, and judging by the noise Graverobber had made, it was something of an experience for him as well; Nathan found he could barely think right then, it was difficult enough just to concentrate on all of the sensations. First there was the feeling of Graverobber's skin against his, the man's chest pressing against him, he could feel the stomach against his spine, and the heat through the material halfway up his back. There was the hand gripping at his hip, the feeling of the other man's breath on his ear, then the mouth worrying at the shell of it.

Then there was the feeling of the man pressing inside of him, and it was varying between a slow, heavy roll of pleasure and sharp spikes of it - and the feeling of Graverobber losing his self-control and beginning to thrust into him. Nathan's fingers gripped into the sheets for the duration of the first few pushes, eyes shut as he felt almost overwhelmed by it.

Then there was a hand in his hair, wrenching him back, but it didn't register as pain, just spikes of more pleasure that made him make noises he wasn't proud of, but found them muffled by Graverobber's mouth as he was yanked up, up on his knees, torso twisted partially in a painful position that allowed their mouths to clash - it was ungraceful, hot, needy. Nathan's hands went behind him to touch any part of Graverobber that he could right then, palms slipping down the man's sides as he found himself quietly grateful for his own decent flexibility.
 
If he had the sense, he would have worried for Nathan's back, for the awkward way his torso curled up so they could kiss, but his mind was consumed with more pressing factor of the doctor's mouth on his own. Graverobber forced his tongue into the older man's mouth, mimicking his own thrusting motions as he swallowed those needy sounds, making more than a few of his own.

Some part of him, though, understood the masochism, knew the man wanted to feel this fuck in his teeth. It was what sent him after Repo, that same urge, made him chase down a man who flitted between strangling him and biting him in a way that left him aching more than any of his customers did. There was something they shared that was horribly deranged that he simply hadn't come across before in another human being, not even in the self destructive desire of a scalpel slut. Graverobber dug his nails into the older man's scalp, jerking his head away so he could tear at his throat and neck, hard enough to bruise and just barely managing not to make him bleed.

"Drop your hands," he growled, rolling his head and Nathan's so he could assault the other side. He remembered, after all, the surgeon's hesitancy to touch himself earlier. "Jack yourself off, Doc, I'm not going to."
 
It was less like a kiss and more like a painful mash of teeth, and the messy slide of tongues; Nathan's hand's gripped at Graverobber's sides, partly to steady himself on his knees as the other man forced him up, partly so he could touch him - the skin under his palms and fingertips felt good, and he could feel the shift of muscle as Graverobber rocked his hips back and forth. Each thrust was jerking Nathan forward slightly, but in his current position he couldn't get leverage to push back against the other man, leaving him feeling incredibly vulnerable again.

Then Graverobber broke the kiss and began to ravage his throat, so rough that it felt like the other man was precariously close to breaking the skin and each bite and tug on his skin was sending sparks directly to his groin, and Graverobber's growled out demand had very much the same effect.

When Graverobber moved to the other side of his neck, abusing the skin there, Nathan made a sharp noise because of the bite, and the thrust that happened at the same time, and he knew that if he did use his hand on himself, it would be too much - all of his nerves felt raw from the biting and rough treatment, touching himself seemed like it would be torment.

"Fuck," Nathan rasped out, leaning his head to the side, unsure if he wanted to get away from that torturous mouth, or whether he wanted more of it, because the pain and the pressure was intense.
 
The Graverobber growled again, this time in irritation. Of course Nathan wouldn't listen, not even when he'd been good enough to fuck him. (Because the dealer obviously was only doing this out of that charitable spirit and certainly not because he wanted the prissy older man. Obviously.) "Fucking Christ, Doc," he breathed, tugging the good doctor's head back this time, more for discomfort and humiliation than to reach his neck though he kept up the cruel tear of teeth. Oh, he'd probably pay for that, later when he met up with a sharp-eyed surgeon no longer dulled by alcohol and lust, but right now, while he had control, he was brave.

Brave enough even to shove that head forward when he was done, because he wanted more leverage, wanted to dive as deep as he could into that tight ass. And he wanted Nathan to be out of his mind: if he didn't want to touch himself, Graverobber would. The dealer reached up to clutch at the headboard, knuckles blanching from a tight grip that did more damage to himself than the heavy would. His other hand, free from holding him up, snaked down to the father's crotch, wrapping around the surprisingly large (who knew a nerd like his doctor was packing?) cock. His thrusts were harder now that he had the benefit of the headboard and his own weight.
 
His neck felt as though it was being hyperflexed by the other man's insistent tugging and wrenching, which was being done more for causing discomfort now than for better access, but the mouth continued at his neck for a few more moments, until the skin threatened to break from being worried too roughly and dark bruises had begun to colour the originally pale surface on both sides. It was for the best that Graverobber stopped when he did, because the presence and smell of blood had the tendency of bringing out the doctor's dark side, something that would be detrimental with the butterfly knife within reach.

Graverobber released his hair, nearly shoving him forward, and Nathan ended up with his hands pressing into the bed again, but he barely had time to steady himself before the other man was roughly pressing forward again; chest to back, a low growl in his ears that made him shudder.

Then there was the hand that snuck down between his legs, and Nathan's fingers twisted into the sheets, another sharp sound escaping him because it really did feel like too much; he felt over-stimulated right then but he couldn't get the words out to tell Graverobber, and he wasn't sure it would matter if he could. Despite himself, he ended up rocking his hips back into the thrusts, eyes closed, shoulders tensed, soft noises were escaping him now and he couldn't seem to stop himself anymore, and the force of Graverobber's movements caused him to seek more support and he ended up pressing his hands into the headboard.

And, if he'd been more capable of thinking, it might have registered to him that it actually was banging up against the wall now.
 
Graverobber's own baritone mixed with the litany of soft grunts and gasps and little cries that Nathan seemed unable to hold back. He was talking, saying nothing, barely forming words and certainly not making sense but it didn't matter because he just wanted the doctor to feel breath against his ear and neck, to communicate the rumble in his chest directly to the bones and tendons and muscle that made up the other man's back.

There was a distant thumping, the feel of metal digging into his knee and wood into his sweaty palm, but that didn't matter now: his world had shrunk down to Nathan and the quickly approaching cliff of orgasm. He could hear someone breathing raggedly and couldn't be sure if it was him or the doctor. Didn't matter. Close as they were, close as he was, he couldn't tell himself from the other at the moment.

He kept his hand moving, jerking, twisting in time with the little rocking movements of Nathan's slim hips then devolving into an erratic pattern as he stretched further, reaching -- There. With a final snap forward, Graverobber grunted into the slender, bruised neck beneath his lips, remembering vaguely that he had to be quiet as he came, though his mind had been wiped clean of the reason, of everything but that burning pleasure. His thrusts slowed, became shallow and almost gentle again like his mouth at the abused skin.
 
They were a mess; they were rutting against eachother, both of them had become unable to do anything but focus on the pure sensation. Graverobber's rough thrusts were rocking the headboard into the wall and emphasizing every movement, and the combination of the hand on him and the press inside of him was causing a hot twisting up his spine and in his stomach.

There was no controlling what was happening now, the heat building in his body was spiralling out of control, and as Graverobber's thrusts became more erratic and unsteady, he hit Nathan's prostate several times in succession, and it caused the doctor to lose his hold on the head board, ending up on his elbows. A few more strokes, and the sound of Graverobber's groaning and muffled noises of pleasure into his neck, and Nathan's orgasm hit almost painfully; he could have sworn he went temporarily blind, because his vision sparked and then went white for several long moments.

His breathing was unsteady, and he barely stopped himself from collapsing face-first onto the bed, feeling the last few shallow thrusts from Graverobber, and the mouth on his throat.

And he was silent for a long moment after, trying to steady himself before he finally went boneless, a small groan escaping him, and the soft rasp of:

"Good god."
 
Nathan's orgasm was nearly painful for them both: Graverobber gasped into the other man's ear, those muscles clenching around him much too hard to be pleasurable. The doctor had gone quiet save for his ragged breathing, which leveled out some before he collapsed.

Graverobber managed to pull back, hissing when the now over-sensitive head of his cock slipped out, Nathan's own muscles practically abrasive at this point. In one fluid motion, he pulled off the rubber, tied it off and flung it somewhere near where he remembered a trash can being before settling down next to the good doctor as a larger lump of satiated dealer. There was a ringing in his ears that he hadn't quite managed to shake off yet and his chest still heaved above a fluttering heart as he rolled over in an attempt to get as close to the doctor as possible without being in him again.

"Very good," he breathed, sprawling a lazy arm across Nathan's back; the dark blue shirt was damp now with what he assumed was sweat, though whose exactly he couldn't be sure of. Seeing the way the doctor's pale neck was already discolored, bruises forming and spreading under older ones, made Graverobber chuckle and he couldn't help but lean closer and run his tongue along the splotches of color.
 
Nathan could barely find the drive to move right then; with his face planted against the sheets, it was all he could do to keep his brain together as he tried to sort out the series of sensations still rolling through him. He was aware that the ache would be worse later, but right then his nerves were so raw that he couldn't quite tell the difference between pleasure and pain.

He could feel sweat on his skin, something he hadn't even become aware of until right then, and he realized his heart was pounding, gradually winding down from the extreme pace it had taken on during their activities - he felt the arm sling over him and suddenly the material on his shoulders felt like too much, and he tugged off the now creased shirt and waistcoat, carelessly tossing them aside, relieved to feel the cooler air against his skin.

He gave a small groan at the tongue against the bruises, not so much pleasure as just over-stimulation.

He would have to disinfect the entire room later, he was sure.
 
Nathan's heart fluttered like a bird's under Graverobber's forearm, and he couldn't help but chuckle, body and mind relaxed in the warmth of orgasm. "Your heart all right, old man?" he teased, nosing short, grey hairs that managed to find the most awkwardly cute ways of sticking straight out from his scalp and froze like that, stiffened by dampness. He could feel Nathan's heart beat even back here, in the dip right beneath his skull, could feel it slowing down at near the same rate as his own.

The younger man continued to press lazy kisses to the back of the doctor's neck, then down his spine and across shoulder blades. Nathan might be in good shape for an old man, but he was obviously unused to having sex and afterglow simply wasn't the same as being tired out from a long night of killing debtors (not that he had ever thought to ask Repo; it might very well have been). Graverobber chuckled again, pulling back his own sweaty hair from his back, tying it back carelessly.

"Huh," he said thoughtfully, taking in the expanse of Nathan's back, the gentle slope of spine, the masculine form of shoulders and hips that tapered down to that cute ass. "I don't think I bit you when I was down there." The low voice was mildly disappointed as he traced a slow finger down the trough of Nathan's back.
 
"I'll live to see another day," Nathan said, muffled by the sheets and suddenly grateful for all of the occupational cardio he had been doing over the years - granted, this was a more pleasant way to get it. Unfortunately, this also reminded Nathan of the painful fact he would need to leave in a few hours to do his job; he had no doubt that Rotti would have an assignment for him in short order - it wouldn't be like him to just leave it to just a kill inside of GeneCo.

Nathan felt the lips down the back of his neck and across his shoulders, and it struck him as oddly intimate - Graverobber had made a few affectionate motions recently, and though the doctor took it with a grain of salt and remembered precisely who he was dealing with, he found himself pleased with the strange warmth of it. If it wasn't for their bizarre lifestyles, there might have even been some edge towards normalcy.

He shivered a little at the finger stroking down his spine, and he turned his head to look at Graverobber, finding the man looking intently at his rear; he did his best not to be embarrassed by it, considering precisely how well they had just gotten to know eachother.

"Why would you?" he asked, raising his eyebrows, genuinely astonished by the observation.
 
Graverobber glanced up, one thick eyebrow arched in an exaggerated fashion. "Oh, come on, Doc," he said sweetly, latching onto the hint of embarrassment and massaging the lean backside, lips curling into a smirk with more slick to it than his fingers earlier. "You must understand how good it is to leave a mark where no one else can see." He was sitting back, now, knees planted next to Nathan's side, and he curled around to mouth at the skin. Save for the pricks from his fingers on the hips, the good doctor's bottom was sadly bare.

He clicked his tongue against the roof his mouth. That would simply not do.

Quick as a snake, the dealer bit down then pulled in a patch of skin and muscle to worry, sucking color and pain into what would become a nice, very proper hicky. Hopefully one the doctor would feel when he sat down. He pulled back just as quickly with a 'pop' and grinned widely. "Better," he breathed.
 
Nathan eyed Graverobber warily as the man used that baritone on him; Graverobber was clearly more used to the post-orgasmic glow than the doctor was, because while the thief was bright-eyed and bizarrely energetic, Nathan felt like he could barely get his hands to obey him. He was vaguely aware that the other man would never actually behave himself - he wasn't even sure that was a possibility - but Nathan had held onto the vague hope that Graverobber would at least wind down a little after an extremely rough session of - fucking.

No such luck, because before he could even protest, Graverobber was correcting what he viewed as a problem by placing a sudden and sharp bite on his rear that caused the doctor to let out a small gasp, and Graverobber lingered long enough that Nathan knew the man had left a mark on him. He felt heat in the spot, and glanced back to see a red circle forming slowly into a bruise, and he cast an unimpressed look in Graverobber's direction.

As though he wasn't going to feel it enough every time he sat down, he had to bite him there too.

Of course, that was when Nathan's mind helpfully supplied the fact that Graverobber had kissed him with that mouth, and his eyes went round.

"I have to brush my teeth." he croaked.
 
The disinterested, almost haughty look he got from the older man made his smile widen. Without his make up, face flushed and hair disheveled, there was an almost honest look to him: when he smiled, it was real, there was no predatory glint, no mocking.

Well. Maybe a little mocking.

Graverobber knew exactly what Nathan was thinking about the moment those pale, lopsidedly colored eyes went wide as saucers and he laughed, a low rumble in his chest that was more warm that it should have been, before crawling up to kiss the man again. "Give up, Doc," he said pleasantly, pressing another gentle kiss against the line of his jaw, then another and another. Sex had the completely unexpected tendency to make the dealer a little more energetic, at least, sex he liked, as rare as that was (though, really, sex was like Chinese take out: even really bad and greasy, it was still palatable). "I'll have you know, your ass is fairly clean," Graverobber added wickedly.
 
For a long moment, the obsessively hygenic part of Nathan wanted to drive him out of the bed and into the bathroom to sanitize every part of himself - he had forgotten how messy sex could be, how intensely involved it could get, and how sticky things were afterwards. He had forgotten what it was like to have another human's sweat on him, and have the taste of their skin on his tongue.

But the kisses along his jaw caused him to ease against Graverobber, and he found himself returning the motions, kissing along the younger man's throat, because as it turned out, seventeen years of loneliness and no physical contact, seventeen years of affection that had been limited to the occasional hug he would give his child, and only ever speaking to other human beings if it was absolutely neccessary - it turned out all of those things had outweight the need to violently brush his teeth.

Skin on skin, even post-orgasmic, was difficult for him to deny to himself after having done it for so long, and when he had Graverobber in front of him like this - he was giving into temptation without even realizing it at that point, and it was partly because he could never be certain if it would happen again. These moments were fleeting, and for all he knew, one of them could be dead in weeks.

That was the moment he grabbed hold of Graverobber and pulled him into a deep, terribly raw sort of kiss, for once lacking the pain of teeth.
 
Graverobber touched: that was simply a part of his life. He had foreign hands on his body in places that would make Nathan snarl nearly every time he met with someone else, he had sex and things very much like it against walls and dumpsters nearly every day and he dug his grubby fingers into tombs and bodies and pockets. This was different for some reason. When he touched, when he was touched, there was always an ulterior motive: he'd broken a few hands in his day stopping a thief reaching his or her needy hands into his pockets or for a little glass vial, he'd received payment, even given it, with mouths and hands.

But Nathan, he knew, was lonely and for some reason he felt a twinge of pain below his lungs. Graverobber understood being alone: solitude, he thought as he continued necking with the older man, was being in the middle of a throng of people and hating every single one of them because they were just the same as the others and if they weren't, they were stupid, or they were competition or such a waste of space they shouldn't even breath. And here he was, falling into the same patterns they did, becoming one of them. He was so stupid.

That didn't matter, though, when the old man kissed him. There was no teeth, no bruising force, but something about it was just as painful and he couldn't keep it up. He had to pull away, but he held on afterwards, face pressed into a neck that was hot with bruises, unable to identify the thing that was gnawing at his insides. Fear, maybe, though he couldn't figure out why. After all, he was safe at the moment, and that was all that mattered.

Right?

Nathan would have to leave, though; go out and kill people who certainly could do the maths, could arm themselves. Sometimes Repo Men died: he'd come across a few after throwing something at them to check if they were conscious. Had watched a little girl You's size crush a dead one's head with an old TV and the brains had gone everywhere, like the grey, wet innards of an over-ripe melon. Graverobber gasped, then jerked away. "I'll have to work tonight," he said roughly, looking everywhere but at the doctor.
 
Nathan was aware of the lunacy; there was something undeniably stupid about what they were doing - every moment that they spent together was idiotic for the sole reason that they lived two very different lives that had the potential to cross in a very nasty way. At any moment, one could be the other's target, Graverobber because of his tendency to take on any job handed to him, and Nathan because - well, because of Graverobber's tendency to take any job handed to him.

The fact was that Graverobber stuck his rainbow-hued head into places he shouldn't, it was the reason he was in the Wallace home right then, but he was only alive because he was lucky, there was a good chance that any other Repo Man would have ended him by then. After all, it was a rare thing for a GeneCo employee to stop and think about loss of life as a negative, and Nathan couldn't bring himself to kill unless it was for the job, or, he suspected, if he had no other option. For Shilo, he would take a thousand lives; it was a fact he was uncomfortably aware of.

Yes, he was even aware of the stupidity of the kiss; it was too delicate, too affectionate of a thing to survive between - people like them. He knew how it must have seemed to Graverobber too; lonely old man going soft on him after a shag, he hated how pathetic he must have seemed, but he didn't regret the kiss.

"I'll make sure I hold off dinner then," Nathan replied drily, though there was a sliver of humour somewhere in there - he wasn't sure why Graverobber was telling him. It might have been because he felt obligated to make conversation, or he was just trying to find a way to break out of this strange too-intimate comfort, to settle them back to their usual states.
 
Graverobber rolled his eyes, climbed out of bed and set about gathering his clothes from the floor (even threw away the used condom which had landed very close to the bin, thank you very much). "Maybe you should preform your comedy act for the Largos; you might convince Rotti to put you on the giant blimp." The dealer stuck bare legs into his pants, eschewing, as always, even the thought of underwear or even a wash after sex. That would be too distracting, too tempting: he'd want to drag Nathan into the shower with him or back into the bed before he got his orders, then he'd want to stay in the warm nest of blankets or maybe go pester the kid until the father returned.

There was something positively thrilling about not hating a person, if he could get over that odd fear-like feeling that had settled somewhere in his stomach. He wanted to stay in the house, near him to tease him and make sure he was still breathing. Graverobber focused on pulling his boots on and lacing them, chasing that thought away with all the finesse of someone chasing away a stray dog.

"You took one of my tools before, a syringe." The dealer cringed as he yanked his hair free of the knot he'd hastily tied earlier, rainbow dreads and dirty blond hair swinging over his chest and shoulders. "I'm gonna need that if I want to get anything done," he said, voice muffled because he was pulling on that stained shirt, material rough after the press of skin and he threatened that longing with the same mental broom.
 
"I think I've performed enough for them recently," Nathan said grimly, doing his best not to think about what had happened earlier that day and failing - the Largos had invested far too much interest in that situation, enough that the doctor knew there would be a repeat in the near future. They were too entertained by what they had seen - it would happen again, he knew there was no avoiding it, but it left him wondering what the Largos would do to make it more painful the next time.

They were, after all, experts at making people suffer; they just liked having someone else make it into a physical sort of suffering.

He eyed Graverobber as the man climbed into his clothing, watching him struggle into his shirt - which needed to be washed - and taking a moment to appreciate the scavenger's torso, though he pulled his eyes away the moment he could be seen again.

"I put it down in the lab." Nathan said; it was characteristic - he wouldn't have something filthy from the outside hanging around in his house, he would leave it in the workshop with Repo, somewhere Shilo would never find it, "Along with the vials."

And seconds later, his watch went off; Nathan didn't answer it, but he didn't need to - he knew there would be a message left for him, and that it would detail his next assignment.
 
Graverobber chuckled and said, almost fondly, "Of course." It didn't surprise him. Nathan liked to keep everything clean and spotless, or he kept it down with his monster. It filled him with a certain warmth to know that he was slowly learning his doctor and he had to knock that thought away, too. "I pray to God you didn't clean them. Waste of enzyme spray if you did," he added, referring to the cocktail of organic chemicals that people like him used to speed up the break down of brain and blood, the same stuff that turned the Z blue in the first place. GeneCo had figured out a way of slowing down the reaction, which went on to feed on the actual Zydrate, but they weren't keen on sharing that with the street competition. Plus, a good dealer like him went through his entire stalk as quick as he could refill it.

He had it down to an art these days; now if only he could keep Nathan from distracting him with sex.

Speak of the devil, the surgeon's watch had gone off, one of those expensive coms that could do anything from project holos to take the wearer's vitals. Graverobber arched an eyebrow. So Nathan would have to work, too, eh? The dealer swallowed, that thick feeling of fear returning for just a moment before he could chase it away and suddenly wished he had some Zydrate or, hell, even some of the alcohol from earlier to help him.

Graverobber meant to turn and leave, but his feet had other ideas: they led him back to the bed, to Nathan and he leaned over, pressing a kiss to the old man's lips, the little brother of the needy one before: chaste, but just as familiarly painful. "Stay safe, Doc," he muttered, attempted a flippant grin, turned, and, as slowly as possible, fled the room.
 
Nathan had been temporarily distracted, looking in the direction of the watch, so he had missed the brief flicker of expression on Graverobber's face, and most of all he had missed the footsteps as the man led himself back to the bed - he turned his head just in time to find the scavenger in front of him, in time to be caught in another kiss. This one was restrained, chaste, but it was still such an intimate motion that it left Nathan momentarily stunned, and he could only watch as Graverobber tossed him a smile and headed out.

And, a while after he had gone, Nathan took a scalding hot shower, dressed, cleaned the bedroom, and spent time with Shilo - who had slept with her wig on and woken up with strands of hair plastered across her face. She looked vaguely hungover, and he supposed that at the very least, she had learned something about nutrition.

At breakfast, he did his best not to wince when Shilo insisted he sit down with her; he showed that restraint a second time when she asked what had been banging into the wall earlier on. He hadn't been able to come up with a reasonable excuse, however, and had ended up telling her she had probably dreamt it - nothing had been banging into the wall, and certainly not the headboard of his bed because he was being roughly fucked by a drug-dealer.

He didn't say the last part.

He thought it, but he didn't say it.

He did put his head in his hands though, briefly, because he was most definitely not going to win 'father of the year' award.

They spent the afternoon together, and when the sun sank below the horizon, he finally listened to the message on his comm., grimly acknowledged what he had to do and frowned at himself in the mirror as he slicked his hair back out of the way and felt the cold creep down his collar. Only for an instant, he allowed himself to be saddened by how distant the morning suddenly seemed, and then he put on his mask and Nathan Wallace dissappeared once more while the monster led his form through the dark streets.
 
Shilo had stopped him, shortly after the lie, and gave him such a serious look that even though her eyes were glassy and her skin paler than usual, she managed to look very much like her father: very adult, very dignified and very focused. "It's okay, Dad," she said in a voice that was much more grown up than the one she usually used.

Sometimes her dad, who was small and frail and not all that given to emotional displays, needed her to be the adult because if she didn't he'd run away and pretend nothing was happening. So Shilo drew her tiny frame up and said clearly, "Make sure you use protection."

Graverobber, meanwhile, went back to his apartment to clean himself up: he still tasted Nathan's mouth no matter how often he swallowed, and the mix of mint and brandy wasn't unpleasant. That was the problem; he didn't want to bring anything from that morning and afternoon with him into the graveyards and the streets. It would only prove distracting, and distracting could get him killed and what would Nathan do with him de-- The dealer growled and rinsed his mouth out again with an old bottle of mouthwash that had been left by ... someone.

It took nearly half a vial of Zydrate, the characteristic glow already dimming due to age, to get him in the proper mindset for going out in the graves. He wasn't floating, but he was close, and everything in the world went high def, he could see every detail, feel every little bump and scratch on his hands from pushing open heavy tombs, but he didn't register the pain in his limbs. It was the perfect cure: take too much, and your brain blew itself out. But take just enough (and Graverobber was a fucking alchemist with Z, could measure each dose out with a discerning eye the old crack dealers would kill for) and you were in that state right before death when everything was sharp and clear and your mind grabbed for every line, every color because it thought it was your last. (He had thought it was his last this morning when he strolled into the Wallace household: the doctor had managed to make that place empty of color, made it sacred, made it dry and old and lonely just like him.)

Graverobber whistled (old tune, from the seventies or the eighties or maybe even the thirties, the sort Nathan might know) as he pulled out a body, wrapped clumsily and half mummified. "Hello, gorgeous," he teased, sliding his toolkit down his back (worn leather that left streaks of soft sounds, better than skin on skin and sheets, a breathier sigh than even Nathan could hiss). This was familiar, he thought as hands moved through memorized motions. (He belonged here, with the smell of fresh dirt and rotting flesh that tasted heavy, like chocolate, on his tongue and sounded like nothing and footsteps, he belonged here, not in that old tomb of a house set up like a museum.) The vial was cold in his hand when he pulled it from the syringe to examine it, bright blue illuminating his colorless face.
 
Nathan had done his best not to think about it; the look Shilo had given him at the breakfast table had startled him because the expression had been so frighteningly similar to his own - but what had been more astounding was what she had said to him. At that point, he had known there was no denying to her, or to himself, what was happening - not anymore.

And he knew Shilo wasn't stupid; she wasn't even truly naive anymore - she was growing up but it seemed so sudden, and the last thing he had wanted was for her to know -

- but she knew now. He didn't deny it after that because it would just be insulting, but he hadn't continued on the topic either, he'd simply given the slightest of embarrassed nods and quietly appreciated the bizarre show of maturity from his seventeen year old.

He tried not to think about it because it inevitably led his mind to other places; back to the reason behind the conversation, back to earlier that day when there had been the warmth of skin and the feeling of someone else's heartbeat, going just a little too fast and not from fear. He didn't want to think about it because this wasn't the time for it, and Repo was getting irritated, batting away the disturbances, the fleeting and near romantic notions that were swimming around his mind - the monster wasn't interested.

No, he was after only one thing - blood.

Theresa Harding was the unfortunate woman to have hers spilled that night; Repo had been edgy, and the results had been messy even though the liver didn't require a terrible amount of gore to access - but he'd still torn her open and wreaked havoc on her remains, becoming more vicious every time the memories of earlier that day came to mind, to the point where bits of her ended up strewn across the street. When he was done, he couldn't figure out where her head had gone to until he heard the sound of something crunching beneath the tire of a car, and the sound made Repo smile.

Though, the smile didn't last to the next patient - Gregory Crew - because Nathan had done research; he had studied their files before he'd left that evening, and while Harding had been fodder for the blood-lust, this one couldn't be.

He had seen the ancient scars on Graverobber's chest; the scavenger hadn't done it for the purpose of body modification, but he'd had surgery before, a long time ago. Nathan knew he shouldn't have done it, but he had looked into it and discovered that Graverobber had undergone a lung transplant as a child - nearly fifteen years ago, back when the surgery wasn't at its prime, back when mistakes were being made, back when - organs weren't the best.

They needed to be replaced soon; he would be able to get another year or two out of them at best before they started breaking down and becoming a health risk, and then Graverobber would need to crawl back into the pocket of GeneCo - but he was already being watched by Rotti, and going into debt could mean terrible things for the scavenger. He needed to stay out of the spotlight, he needed to remain a ghost.

He knew he was doing a stupid thing, but Gregory Crew had replaced his lungs two years ago; he'd paid them off, and then gone for a kidney transplant and had failed to make his most recent payment - so now he was on the list, and the kidneys would be brought back to GeneCo, but the lungs - they didn't need to be brought back. They would just be left in the body with the rest of the organs, left to rot, to be thrown into the back of a GeneCo disposal truck and dumped into a mass grave.

He'd had to dig through his medical supplies, but he'd located a single vial of GeneCo zydrate, ancient and now an off, murky blue from age - but it would do the trick. He injected the entire thing into Crew; it wasn't something he normally did, as a rule, and he usually didn't fight off Repo at times like these, not when he was poised over a body and ready to cut - but he found that he suddenly didn't trust his darker side with this, and he forced Repo down the way he did when he was in the house.

Crew didn't feel a thing. All things considered, it was a peaceful death.

He took the lungs out first, stored them in a separate container he'd brought for the purpose, took the kidneys second and put them in the GeneCo delivery bag, and he didn't realize his hands were shaking until he tried to seal the bag and fumbled briefly, because the gloves were sticky with blood and his fingers felt clumsy. It occurred to him then that this was the first time he had wielded the knife in seventeen years, the first time he hadn't let Repo do it - and he felt a little ill.

But it was done - he'd needed to do it.

The kidneys didn't need to go anywhere soon - but he didn't wait to deliver the lungs. His feet took him in the right direction; he scarcely noticed the junkies who scrambled to get away when they glimpsed him; he just kept walking until he was in Dr. Bankole's office, dropping the container down on his desk with zero finesse.
 
The door barely clicked behind Ray as he pulled it shut behind him, leaving the poor girl unconscious on his bed.

It had taken Helen hours to fall asleep that night; usually, she went to bed early and woke up early, taking her house keeping duties very seriously. Sheâ??d woken up to make breakfast nearly every morning since she was a very little girl, even chasing away Ray as she got older. There would be none of that tomorrowâ??well, in a few hours. Helen had followed him like a quiet shadow, like the baby girl had when she had been brought in at eight but looking barely older than five, and heâ??d heard nothing more than a few sniffles from her. Theyâ??d both seen death, nasty deaths, but for her itâ??d always been the end; sheâ??d only seen the results. Sure, sheâ??d seen people shot and stabbed, but nothing like what Largo had his pet Repo Man do. It had finally taken two hours of sitting with her and a small glass of whisky before the girl had managed to drift off.

Of course, he couldnâ??t: not only because he was an old man and old men were in the habit of sleeping little, but because he could still hear the late scavengerâ??s screams in his ears whenever he stopped long enough to think. All those years stolen from that poor kid, from millions of poor kids; Ray gave himself a moment to be angry, the hot sort that burned in his chest and made his limbs tingle, before he tucked it away, channeled it off to be used later. Anger was a fantastic source of energy, dangerous, of course, but the old doctor had years of experience in focusing it, cooling it and storing it. He had anger saved up like coal, potential anger, malleable anger. Seventy-two years old, and he was a rather angry old man; sometimes, he thought he survived on rage and energy drinks alone.

Well. That and having Helen. And work. Heâ??d been running for several decades now and had simply too much work to die. Someone would have to kill him if they wanted to free up his schedule.

Ray settled down in his seat with a sigh, bones creaking as muscles unwound. The hand that turned the monitor to him was wrinkled and leathery, his own but never the one he expected to see. Bodies were odd like that: you stopped aging in your mind after about twenty-something years, but the house you lived in just kept getting older and older until it eventually ran down like a radio with old batteries. Ray measured his time not in years, but aches: the more he had, the older, he figured, he was. It was a pretty good system.

The old man cocked his head to the side, confused. Heâ??d heard something over the low whine of the computer as it loaded his simulation. The office was dark but not so dark that he or any potential visitors couldnâ??t see. It was too early for the dealer (though, if his sources were correct, the man hadnâ??t been doing the best of jobs lately so heâ??d be avoiding his landlord at the moment) and he could think ofâ?? The door slammed open and his mind froze.

There was something about a Repossession Agent, donned in full leather and vinyl that had that effect on most people. The part of Rayâ??s brain that took care of such things as breathing, blinking and protecting Helen when the rest was panicking had him rising to his feet, grabbing the golf club before the rest managed to catch up. Helen, his mind said, was unconscious and unsafe. He had to protect her.

This Repo Man, however, was familiar: the reflecting light on a mask that was somewhere between surgeon and gimp, the heavy scrubs. The action wasnâ??t, though. Ray kept eye contact the entire time as he reached for the bag (expensive, one use carrying container, the thing was like a ziplock baggie for organs); he recognized lungs before the first seven bars of the visible bar code told him. Even so, he asked, â??Whatâ??s this?â? His voice was almost accusatory, as if Wallace had brought a bomb. The bloody, bagged mess on his desk was as good as any explosive being a GeneCo product. â??Why are you bringing me organs?" Unnaturally green eyes stared at him, golf club still up, feet spread wide. Repo Men weren't known for being the sanest things in the world, but this was just plain weird.
 
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