Every time he shoots her up, it feels like he's fucking her. That's why she goes back to him instead of the other street dealers who keep a more expensive and pure supply of zydrate. He knows her body inside and out, every last cut and tear even when she has surgeoned all of her pain away and she's only 20% worth of original material, stuffed and filled with silicone and daddy's dated, carefully labelled organs. There is something in his eyes that she remembers from the glory days- the days when her surgery was new and gave her a rush so hard it felt like the world was ending- a fleck of regret in his eyes.

Perhaps it was regret that she had ruined herself- Amber didn't deny that, but perhaps it was regret that they had ever had to meet. He looked after himself, he had told her that once and that was all he had needed to say it, but he looked after her when he thought Amber wasn't looking. She had never been a blushing little girl, but for some reason she had never been able to bring herself to cross that line with him, past the line of professionalism, so they dodged around the basics and played with each other's minds to avoid playing with each other's hearts. He cradled her in his arms and stroked her hair when she was so strung out on zydrate that she needed to be told to breathe, and she slipped an extra hundred in every payment she made. Sometimes she mentioned it to see what he would say, more dangerous mindfucking than she normally attempted. He would always look up with eyes that weren't quite blue and weren't quite brown and would say quite calmly and coldly,

"Overpaid me? Perhaps you did. You're gonna take it back, are you?" And his eyes would scrape down over the scars on her body while he sneers and he gives her another hit, because that's what he does. That's his job.

"Well, Amber Sweet. I'm surprised you haven't got a cock after all that surgery yesterday. Looks like you're running out of things to do to yourself." The verbal abuse is all that they do. Sometimes he slaps her, sometimes she kicks him in the face, they fight, but they don't touch. They never touch skin to skin. That's against the rules.

"Then you could really suck my dick. Like that, would you, Graverobber?" It's almost friendly now. The venom's gone out of both of their voices, and somehow all the insults seem to twist into words that mean other things. Don't leave me alone here in this fucking hellhole of an alley. Don't let me go under the knife without seeing you one last time.

"It isn't good for you. That surgery. Realised that, or are you too fucking bloody minded and stupid, Amber Sweet?"

"Still too stupid, Graverobber, but still not stupid enough to let you fuck me." Oh she's not stupid enough. She knows if she fucks him then it won't be fucking, it won't just be their bodies smashing together in a desperate bid to forget their own miserable lives, but she'll make love to him. She'll be too gentle and give herself away, because no matter how many times she shoves her boot into his chest and he crushes her hand in his, leaving a mark means that she belongs to him, he belongs to her. She can bear anything but that.

"Ever going to leave me alone and get another dealer, Amber Sweet?"

"Maybe I've grown fond of you. Like a mangy old street dog that nobody else wants around, Graverobber." She says it without meaning to.

"What, you want me around now?" His face is too conflicted for it to be a joke. Something lingers behind his eyes, a desperate longing for her to stretch out a hand and let him take her away, if only for an hour. He's so fucking vulnerable and he doesn't even know it and it destroys her piece by piece. There'd be no fun for Amber in breaking his heart, she has a feeling she'd be breaking her own in the process.

The closest she's ever come takes some thinking about. The nearest she's ever been to him was one night when she sneered a few insults directed near him or at him in the alley after a hit that would knock out a horse, knees him in the crotch but he didn't fight back, he held her tight against his chest until she was calm, he stayed with her and when he did, Amber's bought and sold heart softened and she asked him,

"What's your name?" And he turned to her, and for once, his ironic façade of a man who doesn't give a fuck about anyone else slipped, slips hard. He touched the side of her face and it burned in a delicious kind of agony, and with a painstaking gentleness, cradled her body in his arms like a child would hold a doll.

"I'd hoped you wouldn't ask me." With that, she tangled her hands in his hair, feeling the strength of his skin against her fingertips and drew him closer until she could feel his breath against her mouth and they were kissing, her lips melting against his like surgery, like they were being stitched together and the world outside the two of them had slid into a state of nonexistence. She'd laid in his arms all night, a refuge from the world.

"Do you think I'm ugly?" She'd asked softly, and he'd turned to her and kissed her forehead with tenderness that she didn't think he had in him, and replied,

"You're the only thing that glows in this fucking dark place. You're how I find my way home." He said it gruffly, then turned away, but kept his grip on her shoulders. "It's a pity you're such a wound up little bitch." He added it, and she could feel him smiling.

"Graverobber?"

"Amber."

"Hate you."

"Hate you too." Somehow, their words seemed to twist into something else. They allowed each other one more kiss before the rules went back to their unbendable status.

Still, sometimes Amber catches herself waking up with Graverobber sitting near her, his fists clenched into tight little balls, watching over her. Every time he shoots her up, it feels like he's fucking her. Every time he's there after the fucking is done, it feels like love.