Incomprehension [Grathan Drabble]
Figured I might as well put it here so I don't lose it.
--------
Nathan doesn’t always understand why he keeps the grave robber around.
The man is crude: anything that can be said in a way the doctor doesn’t approve of he manages, he says with that curling smile. It’s amazing the sort of creative things he’s come up with, things that Nathan has never heard in his seventeen years of chasing people down and killing them. He stares at aging surgeon sometimes, at his rear or his … front or his neck or wherever else the thief wants to, even when he knows Nathan is watching.
He usually smells, too, of the city, of other people, of the dead, of dirt, even of his own body. It’s so very different than the clean, sterile background scent of the Wallace home: Nathan has always been a hygenic man and, even though he knows Shilo’s immune system can take it, he has to pretend that she’s too sick to be able to take filth. Of course, that illusion gets weaker every time the scavenger wanders into their home and lives, tracking in dirt and germs and God knows what else. He’s a gaudy piece of detritus that floats in and up the stairs and into Nathan’s bed, past portraits of his Marni. He doesn’t know that the surgeon has seen him do it, but the dealer sneers sometimes at the holos, artificially whitened face blue from her images. He purposely walks through them and a few have gone dead since the grave robber started visiting; Nathan only saw him fiddling with one once, clever fingers manipulating one of his own worn tools in a way it’d probably never been intended for. He understands, though, or he thinks he does. Neither of them talks about it, barely talk about what it is they do outside of the sheets. It’s easier for them, even if that leaves the surgeon’s brain to mull over the symptoms, trying to diagnose their relationship so he can find a name for it, can treat it or perhaps, perhaps if it proves benign or even beneficial, can incubate it.
The Graverobber is a horrid influence on Shilo. He drags not only physical mess into the house, but other forms of trash that Nathan fears: magazines, tabloids, sometimes even flashy make up and clothes. She loves him for his services and he soaks that up, some mix of doting older brother and dealer even here. The dealer must be paid somehow: Graverobber is a businessman first and foremost, and Nathan sometimes wakes up with nightmares about how he takes that payment. He’s part Rumplestiltzkin, part Devil, and part Largo in that, and the father frets over what fine print his child is missing.
Nathan fears the Faustian contract he’s entered into as well sometimes, but just as often he sees a serpent without his fangs. It’s an odd image: Graverobber is a supplier, a man who goes to any length to get his customers their fix, their cure. He found out Nathan’s fairly early on and he gives it… the doctor almost wants to say freely, but there has to be some catch in the apple he offers, some hidden razor or trap door out of paradise. He wants the dealer to hurry and stab him in the back, get it over with, and leave his life, but Graverobber seems to be settling in like a bad stain. And oddly, Nathan doesn’t mind. It’s good to have human contact, they both realize that.
Sometimes, he understands why he keeps the grave robber around. Usually those times come in half darkness, when Nathan is high on his drug of choice: affection, shared air, warmth from a body that’s whole and alive. Sometimes, it comes when he walks into Shilo’s room and sees her shoving some illegal fashion magazine under her pillow, all checked over by her dealer’s sharp eyes to contain no mention of the Repo Men. Sometimes, there are moments when a large hand will rest on his waist, or when the thief smiles and there’s no hint of the mocking fool, and Nathan relaxes for just a moment.
He takes these few instances with him into hell, when the monster is in charge and the doctor has to sit back and watch his own form tear into a perfectly healthy body to rip out perfectly functioning organs to give back to their perfectly evil loan shark. The doctor still hates it, still feels guilt and self-loathing and all sorts of the nasty emotions that have plagued him for nearly two decades, have nearly driven out his sanity and replaced him with the night surgeon, but that little bit of warmth he drags down with him helps. The tiny flame chases away the darkness, makes living with the monster just a little easier and it’s perhaps the first relief he’s felt in seventeen years.
Nathan doesn’t understand it, but sometimes, sometimes he feels himself again when he’s with the grave robber. And that's enough for him.
--------
Nathan doesn’t always understand why he keeps the grave robber around.
The man is crude: anything that can be said in a way the doctor doesn’t approve of he manages, he says with that curling smile. It’s amazing the sort of creative things he’s come up with, things that Nathan has never heard in his seventeen years of chasing people down and killing them. He stares at aging surgeon sometimes, at his rear or his … front or his neck or wherever else the thief wants to, even when he knows Nathan is watching.
He usually smells, too, of the city, of other people, of the dead, of dirt, even of his own body. It’s so very different than the clean, sterile background scent of the Wallace home: Nathan has always been a hygenic man and, even though he knows Shilo’s immune system can take it, he has to pretend that she’s too sick to be able to take filth. Of course, that illusion gets weaker every time the scavenger wanders into their home and lives, tracking in dirt and germs and God knows what else. He’s a gaudy piece of detritus that floats in and up the stairs and into Nathan’s bed, past portraits of his Marni. He doesn’t know that the surgeon has seen him do it, but the dealer sneers sometimes at the holos, artificially whitened face blue from her images. He purposely walks through them and a few have gone dead since the grave robber started visiting; Nathan only saw him fiddling with one once, clever fingers manipulating one of his own worn tools in a way it’d probably never been intended for. He understands, though, or he thinks he does. Neither of them talks about it, barely talk about what it is they do outside of the sheets. It’s easier for them, even if that leaves the surgeon’s brain to mull over the symptoms, trying to diagnose their relationship so he can find a name for it, can treat it or perhaps, perhaps if it proves benign or even beneficial, can incubate it.
The Graverobber is a horrid influence on Shilo. He drags not only physical mess into the house, but other forms of trash that Nathan fears: magazines, tabloids, sometimes even flashy make up and clothes. She loves him for his services and he soaks that up, some mix of doting older brother and dealer even here. The dealer must be paid somehow: Graverobber is a businessman first and foremost, and Nathan sometimes wakes up with nightmares about how he takes that payment. He’s part Rumplestiltzkin, part Devil, and part Largo in that, and the father frets over what fine print his child is missing.
Nathan fears the Faustian contract he’s entered into as well sometimes, but just as often he sees a serpent without his fangs. It’s an odd image: Graverobber is a supplier, a man who goes to any length to get his customers their fix, their cure. He found out Nathan’s fairly early on and he gives it… the doctor almost wants to say freely, but there has to be some catch in the apple he offers, some hidden razor or trap door out of paradise. He wants the dealer to hurry and stab him in the back, get it over with, and leave his life, but Graverobber seems to be settling in like a bad stain. And oddly, Nathan doesn’t mind. It’s good to have human contact, they both realize that.
Sometimes, he understands why he keeps the grave robber around. Usually those times come in half darkness, when Nathan is high on his drug of choice: affection, shared air, warmth from a body that’s whole and alive. Sometimes, it comes when he walks into Shilo’s room and sees her shoving some illegal fashion magazine under her pillow, all checked over by her dealer’s sharp eyes to contain no mention of the Repo Men. Sometimes, there are moments when a large hand will rest on his waist, or when the thief smiles and there’s no hint of the mocking fool, and Nathan relaxes for just a moment.
He takes these few instances with him into hell, when the monster is in charge and the doctor has to sit back and watch his own form tear into a perfectly healthy body to rip out perfectly functioning organs to give back to their perfectly evil loan shark. The doctor still hates it, still feels guilt and self-loathing and all sorts of the nasty emotions that have plagued him for nearly two decades, have nearly driven out his sanity and replaced him with the night surgeon, but that little bit of warmth he drags down with him helps. The tiny flame chases away the darkness, makes living with the monster just a little easier and it’s perhaps the first relief he’s felt in seventeen years.
Nathan doesn’t understand it, but sometimes, sometimes he feels himself again when he’s with the grave robber. And that's enough for him.