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Sure he'd sent the others out to make money on the campus grounds, he'd even planned on doing it himself, but that wasn't going to be enough money for all the stuff Roch wanted to do. Lately, well, the punk boil had been going out at night just for an hour or two, working the street corner.

The jar sitting on the table in front of him was halfway full of silver seeds and a few other strange objects. On the beanbag behind the low table lay the boil himself, conked out like a lightbulb. He hadn't planned on falling asleep, just wanted to drop off the cash and put it away again, but the beanbag looked really tempting. Getting home at three in the morning for the past week would do that to a guy.

He slept sitting up slightly, his head forward and resting on his chest, tilted slightly to the left. His arms were crossed over his chest, his legs sprawled in front of him, one bent at the knee. It seemed an odd position to sleep in, but somehow he was managing it. He was pretty much dead to the world.

They were inside a tiny room. The world seemed lacking in color somewhat, a sepia colored world which was silent except for a consistent ticking sound. For a moment it seemed like the room was empty. The bare wooden floors looked dingy, the table--this was a kitchen, it seemed, was a simple square piece that looked as if it would fall over at any moment.

There was a fridge humming. It took a few seconds to notice the antique looking appliance, or the sound of it, but once you did it seemed to grate on your nerves. The metal sink was empty save for a dirty bowl with a spoon in it. The counters were bare.

There. There was Roch. He was sitting on the floor next to the wall, his little knees hugged to his chest. He looked to be about four years old, possibly just turned five. He looked up, his usually expressive silver eyes even larger in the tiny face.

"Rochester... England... Scythe," Roch replied, as if a bit hesitant on the name, himself. "It's spelled Are... Oh... See... well, it's got that in it," he said, his chin resting on his knees. "I'm waiting," he told her softly, looking at the door behind her. "But she's not gonna come."

He stood abruptly, still pretty short, and looked at her for a moment before heading for the door. "I gotta go." As he walked he started getting a little taller, just a little. The softness of his cheeks shed with each step, but his hair was still blonde, a blonde that was almost white at that age.

They reached a door, which he opened, letting in a blinding light that was almost overwhelming. For a moment he seemed just a silhouette against the light, which he stepped into, disappearing for a brief moment, until she would follow him.

The street that they stepped out onto was tiny. The concrete seemed potted and ugly, chunks of rock here and there, trash laying ignored, forgotten against the curbside. People--not reapers, no, there were no reapers to be seen, but monsters and undead and all sorts of creatures sat on the steps of the tall buildings that towered over them. There wasn't any grass to be seen, or sky, even, since the buildings--the apartments--were built practically on top of one another. Screams and laughter and shouts came from all directions, poorly dressed scarelings racing past them, playing tag.

Roch ignored them, heading down the street with a sense of purpose. "I can't afford one yet, but Bones said if I work hard enough to learn he'd buy me one," he told Xiu conversationally.

"A guitar!" Roch said. "Duuuuh," he added, since it seemed so completely obvious to him. "My fingers are starting to get calloused, see?" he added proudly, showing her tiny hands with bloody, savaged fingers and a few bandaids that looked like they were about to fall off. "It was really bad when I started out," he added, looking so utterly proud of himself that it was almost sad.

"Hey! Reaper boil!" someone yelled from the steps. "You want some more licorice?"

"I thought I ate it all yesterday!" Roch called back. "You were holding out on me!"

The monsters sitting on the steps started cracking up as the guilty werewolf tossed him a bag of candy. Roch dug in, still moving straight forward. "You want some, lady?" he offered, holding up some of the creepiest looking candy in all of Halloween.

"They're a gang," he said cheerfully. "They steal stuff. And that's Bones," he added, pointing forward. There, sitting on the corner of the street was a tall skeleton wearing tattered clothing and pouring a bottle of golden liquid down his throat--or into his gaping maw of a mouth, at least. He looked like a drunk. He smelled like a drunk, too.

Roch headed straight for him, dropping down on the curb next to him and holding up his hands. "Look, Bones! Callouses!" the little boy bragged. "Can I have a guitar yet?"

"Not until you can play," the skeleton said in a deep, bluesy voice as he handed over the guitar that had been sitting next to him. It looked massive compared to the little boy, well covering most of him as he situated it on his lap.

The skeleton lifted the bottle to his mouth again, the liquid sloshing and hitting the ribs and ground beneath the man. It left a puddle, but neither Roch nor the skeleton seemed to notice as Roch started to play.

"You missed that part," the skeleton said abruptly. "Do it again. A, A, B, A," he added. "What did you do?"

"A... A... C," Roch muttered, looking embarrassed to be yelled at in front of his new friend.

"That's right."

"Wrong," the skeleton interrupted again. And again. And again. It seemed to go in fast forward, a scene blurring several scenes together in a whirl, the boy growing like a sped up movie, taller and thinner--

Then abruptly they were in his room. Roch looked to be about ten, laying on the bed sweating. It was a bit unfocused and red in color with flashes of gold and black, almost as if the world was swirling around them. And music was playing.

It wasn't his guitar, which you would expect to hear in a dream like this. No, the sound was that of a saxophone. It was foggy, almost ethereal sounding, dancing over the skin in gentle waves. The redness that had overtaken the sepia colored room started to fade, gently turning into a soft blue color. The boy thrashing on the bed calmed.

The shadowy form that had been playing the music was only noticeable then. It stepped forward, a hand made of shadow touching the boy's forehead. Then the shadow disappeared.

They were back on the bright, sepia colored street again, as if that scene hadn't even happened.

"I don't... but I do," Roch said quietly from where he sat on the step next to her. He was ten still, now as tall as she was, almost. His clothes were tattered and he hadn't bothered to put a shirt on. There were scars on his chest and back, and a muscular definition that only roughhousing young boys could have. His hair was short, buzzed in the back and on the sides, barely longer on the top. It was still blonde. But his ears were pierced.

"Hey! Reaper boil! Old Mz Wheedle said you broke your bed!" The same were that had thrown him the candy in the earlier scene headed for them now, grinning wolfishly. "The Tank said he'd make you a new one, but you gotta help us get the material."

"Yeah?" Roch said, looking up. "Sure, count me in."