Chapter Text
Shilo walked after GraveRobber, walking in sync with him a few steps behind. After the Genetic Opera they had run into each other again and he had taken her in. As of now they were living in this tiny shack that was pretty much an old shed. It had to be like five hundred square feet at the most and even that was generous. GraveRobber slept on the couch and let her have the bed. He had also started bringing her along on Zydrate runs after she had kept begging.
Which was what they were doing now.
GraveRobber gestured for her to stop. This looked like a fine place. “Let’s get digging,” He said, kneeling down on the ground.
Shilo nodded and knelt next to him. Her hair was starting to grow back and she had a short pixie cut almost. Her hair had turned out to be more of a dark dirty-blonde than black. She kinda liked it. It also made lies about GraveRobber being her father much more believable.
She watched as he started to dig and she followed his lead. It took them ten or so minutes, but eventually they got to the coffin.
GraveRobber gestured Shilo back as he worked at the coffin, jerking it open. He dug through his bag and grabbed an empty vial and his gun, putting the vial onto the back as he leaned down and smacked the gun into place.
Shilo looked around. That was how it went. Whoever wasn’t extracting played watchdog. And if someone was coming they told so immediately.
After getting six more vials, GraveRobber got up. “That’ll be enough for now, Kid.” When he didn’t get a reply he looked around and found Shilo going after something on a grave with a jar. Gosh, that girl always had to find some sort of interesting bug, didn’t she?
Shilo cupped the bug in the jar with a smile. “Coming!” She turned around and got up, eyes widening slightly when the bright moonlight came between the graves and caught on the jar, glinting brightly. She cursed a bit when she felt the familiar dizziness and a slight headache. Hopefully Graves wouldn’t be too pissed at her…
She saw the distortion in her vision and felt her legs suddenly lose their stability as she fell. Right this was—
When Shilo woke up again, she was still slightly dazed and confused. She had been relocated to behind the cover of a monument in the graveyard and GraveRobber was leaning over her, shaking her and continuously saying something she was still a bit too out of it to hear. Luckily, that part never lasted that long.
“Kid? Shilo. Shilo! Can you understand me?” GraveRobber asked.
Shilo nodded. “Yeah, sorry, I didn’t try to drop on you like that.” She started to push herself up and felt the firm grip of GraveRobber help pull her up and shift her so she was leaning against the monument.
“Don’t apologize. Does your head hurt?” He asked, looking at her. He didn’t see any blood or cuts… He took a vial of Zydrate out from his belt and held it up, using the glow to illuminate her eyes. Her pupils looked the same and normal size, which likely meant no concussion, but he would still have to watch her. He didn’t have enough doctor, so he was praying she ended up okay, because one of the back-alley doctors wouldn’t cut it when it came to her.
“Not really.”
“Not really or no?”
“No.”
GraveRobber nodded a bit. “What happened, I didn’t see. I just saw you suddenly drop to the ground.”
“Oh, the light from the moon was too bright and between the way it shone through the graves and caught on the lid to the jar, it made me collapse.”
GraveRobber stared. “…That doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, like, how some lights make you pass out, it was just that.”
“…Lights don’t make people pass out, Kid. Has this happened before?”
“Yeah, but only when the lights are bright and sudden, or flashing, or something like that. I mean, bright lights can give me a headache, but that’s normal and doesn’t cause passing out.”
“Okay, sometimes, lights will give you headaches, but no, lights don’t cause people to pass out, no matter how bright or sudden they are. This sounds like you’re having seizures, Shilo.”
Shilo immediately shook her head. “No, I don’t shake or anything, I just kinda pass out for a bit.
“Seizures aren’t just grand mal seizures—”
“What?”
GraveRobber sighed. How did he know more about this than she did? Obviously she hadn’t ever suspected the fact that she might be having seizures, but still, most people knew the basics. “What you just said, dropping and shaking, it’s a grand mal seizure, a tonic-clonic seizure. Either of those terms sound familiar?”
Shilo shook her head. “Seizure sounds familiar.”
GraveRobber handed her his bag. “Put this over your shoulders, let’s get back home.”
Shilo took it and did as instructed, yelping as Graves suddenly pulled her arms around his neck and pulled her onto his back, grabbing under her legs.
“I’m carrying you so you don’t collapse on me.”
“Oh… Thanks, but I can do it myself.”
“No, I’m carrying you.”
Shilo just smiled a bit.
GraveRobber carried her out of the graveyard before he continued to talk to her about seizures. “Back to what I was saying, there’s more than one type of seizures. Do you ever find yourself inexplicably jerking? Like shoulders or arms? Legs? Head? Anything?”
“Uh… sometimes, but not much. I think it’s just a random twitch I get sometimes.”
“That… or it could be a seizure. Ever find yourself seemingly skipping forward in time or missing chunks of time?”
“Yeah.”
“Absence seizures. You’re epileptic, Shilo. So, tell me something, Kid. How did you live to seventeen with someone like your dad and never knew you had epilepsy? You think your dad would notice you randomly passing out.”
“Well, he always kept the lights super dim, even at night, so I didn’t really have any of those episodes… Seizures?”
“Most likely seizures, yes, but if episodes feels more naturally then go ahead, I don’t care what you call them.”
“But because of that medicine he had me on I passed out sometimes anyways. He would probably write it off as that. Besides, he wasn’t home enough to tell.”
GraveRobber scoffed. If he had a daughter (which he pretty much did now) he would absolutely notice if she was randomly passing out or jerking around. The absence seizures were easier to miss, but after someone had a couple you should get suspicious.
“…How do you know so much about seizures?” Shilo asked. She liked GraveRobber, but he wasn’t the most knowledgeable with things, so it was a bit surprising.
“I know a lot about health,” GraveRobber said simply. “When you live a life like mine you need to. And I got wrapped up in it and in the process ended up finding out there was more than one type of seizure, which led me to learning even more about them.”
“…So you really think I’m having seizures?”
“Kid, I am very close to positive.”
“…Does this mean I can’t go out with you anymore?”
“Did I say that? No, I said you have epilepsy.”
“But what if I pass out on you again?”
“Then at least I won’t worry about you running off,” GraveRobber said simply as he sidestepped an alcohol bottle on the ground. “From now on, tell me if you have a seizure, because if this is something severe then we’ll start changing around the way things go and work.”
Shilo frowned a bit, he was starting to remind her of her dad… but unlike her dad, he wasn’t telling her that she couldn’t live normally anymore.
“I can feel you pouting. I mean it. This can be dangerous.”
“Fine.”
“And if we can get enough money I want to try and find you a doctor. A good one, if those still exist.”
“Why?”
“Because we can get you medication so things are more controlled.”
“No. I am not going back on any medication,” Shilo immediately said.
GraveRobber sighed, he understood why, but he also knew that this was much different. “I get that, but this is necessary medicine that would actually help.”
“I’ve gotten this far without it.”
“Not healthily.”
Shilo huffed.
“Look, just consider it, Kid. I don’t even know if we could get it. We have to steal half of our food and live of oatmeal. Drugs are our income source. Medicine and doctors are expensive.”
“Fine, I’ll think about it,” Shilo grumbled reluctantly.
“Thank you.”
“And thank you for not leaving me when I passed out back there.”
“I’ll never leave you, Kid,” GraveRobber said. “You’re stuck with me now.”
Shilo chuckled and smiled, setting her head down on GraveRobber’s shoulder. That sounded nice.