One Man's Treasure}// Geebs

Time was a hard thing to measure when things such as calenders and pocket watches were considered nothing more than exorbitant luxuries. No, Sebastian and the rest of his homeless street children measured the passage of time by the movement of the sun in the sky and by the temperature changes that were brought with the changing of the seasons. And of course, by the annual hunger games. But even with things like that, it was hard to pinpoint things like birthdays and anniversaries. There were only five kids in the pride the last time that Sebastian had checked; counting himself and Zanita there was her "brother" Kovu, the smelly one and the devious one. The other one had died awhile ago now, and with that death Zanita seemed to relax a bit. They were talking again, so that was something. Food was also a bit more plentiful since there were less mouths to feed as well. But winter was about to arrive in full force and they needed to stock up on rags and dried food if things were going to be tolerable for the next few months and Seb had heard through the grapevine that the pickings were good in the dumpsters this week; which was good considering that it had also been some time since he had taken Zanita out for a night on the town. It was his sincere hope that she wasn't still mad at him about that little misunderstanding and if she was, then hopefully this excursion would serve to change her mind for the better.

It was getting late in the day, yet not quite evening. In Sebastian's opinion, the best time for getting things done and done well, because any earlier and people would not have anything better to do than watch them, and any later and too many street children would be out and about and there would be some competition for the best scraps. Not that any of the other homeless kids or gangs were really a threat to the outlanders, it was just prudent to avoid getting into a real scrap unless he had the brothers backing him up and tonight? Tonight was just about Zanita and him, and he was going to show her a good time, the best in fact. It was all planned out. First, they were going to go to the dumpster out behind the general store and look for food. He had it on good authority that a whole shipment of bread got tossed out after the loaves came out burned, but hey, that dusty charcoal taste was just extra flavoring, and considering that most of the food they ate had to be cooked over flames until it was just about burnt anyway, all it did was take one step out of the equation. Two actually, the more Sebastian thought about it, because it meant that they didn't have to cook it, or hunt for it either before getting to eat all of it.

The second stop was going to be across the street and down four blocks near the edge of one fence. There was a section of ground being used as a garbage dump and in the few years he had been living on the streets, he had learned that people had a tendency to throw away things that were still quite usable. It was a throw away society in the district where everything was made in the factories and most people were happy to get a new thing instead of spending the time to try to fix something that was a little broken. There was plenty of things that could be found in that makeshift landfill. In the past, Sebastian had found towels, blankets, and other fabrics of the sort. True, they always had holes, tears, stains or some combination of the three, but every little bit helped to keep him and Zanita warm and so anything that could be found was good. And fabrics weren't the only thing that showed up there. Once, he found a comb only missing eight of the teeth. That was still in his tent and he used it whenever he had to get his hair to look decent. He was also starting to have a really noticeable five o clock shadow and with no way to shave it, it was likely that he'd have a full on beard by the same time next year if not sooner. Good. It was one more thing to keep his face warm.

The final stop would be a certain clearing that he knew was a stomping ground for migrating or dying insects around that time of year; to be more specific, fireflies. Now, Sebastian had no idea how those things worked, but he had to admit that it was actually kind of cool to watch them hum around while blinking their butts to some unheard rhythm. And if it came down to it, they made for a pretty crunchy snack too. Sebastian was no stranger to eating bugs, and he rather preferred the ones that crunched. The other kind was slimy yet satisfying, but never filled his stomach substantially. If there were better things to eat, he'd go for those instead, but one could not be picky when they never knew where their next meal would come from or what it would be. Weeds could be good too, dandelion stems for example. But as winter drew nearer, small plants were not in good supply. At any rate, the fireflies would either make for good entertainment or a decent snack and neither he nor Zanita would be disappointed. The thought briefly crossed his mind that at the first stop they might meet an opponent or two, but if that was the case they would still be well protected. Sebastian was after all, Sebastian, and Zanita was no slouch when it came to scrapping either. When there was nothing else going on, Sebastian made it a point to do push-ups, sit-ups and to lift heavy rocks to stay in shape. He was lean, ferocious and had more than few noticeable muscles.

The clothes on his back were a peculiar mish-mash of whatever he had found in the past few months and whatever he had had from before he had run away. A pair of jeans that was two sizes too small and only came down to right below his knees and that were frayed around the cuffs. Shoes that were just barely holding together and a peculiar vest like shirt that was slight covered by an old faded blue towel. He made a mental note to bring some extra food back if he could, because devious and smelly could be ornery when they hadn't gotten enough to eat and he was tired of smacking the back of their heads when they were acting up. Kovu never gave him any trouble like that, but then again, Kovu was also an annoying little shit that had no right to ask certain questions. As he and his girl drew nearer to the general store, he made another mental note to give that redheaded chick a sound thrashing if he saw her again. Some people needed to stick their hand in the fire a few times before they realized that it was a dumb thing to do and that girl seemed like the type to not take a hint. You see, Sebastian had a list, a mental list of people that needed to be beaten up. Most of them were part of the gang that had kicked him and the others in his makeshift family out but there were a few others that had found their way onto the list for one reason or another.

The general store loomed up ahead and Sebastian studied both sides of the street for a few minutes to make sure that they wouldn't be disturbed. Up and down the sidewalk he could see that most people were closing up shop and heading home for the day. No peacekeepers in sight either, there were other areas of the district that warranted more attention. Even better, there didn't appear to be any other homeless children anywhere around and so Sebastian purposely strode to the trash bins behind the building and started rummaging through the mess. The first had a lot of packaging and empty wrappers and what looked to be a couple damaged bars of soap which he threw over his shoulder in disgust. They weren't edible and it wasn't like baths were something that they were able to take often enough to make soap something worth taking up space in the tent. Digging down a little deeper he was surprised to find a tube of toothpaste, which was rare to see but useless for his lifestyle. However, the next one had the aforementioned bread and he hungrily bit into one to test the consistency and then held out another to Zanita." Told ya I knew the pickings were good tonight."