Guest: Brought up a good point about how in HP!Canon, murder is considered to be an act of ultimate evil and shreds the soul of any wizard who does it - after which a horcrux can be made if you know how. So if Harry goes ahead with Madeline's plan, wouldn't he go slowly insane?
My personal belief is that there's a difference between murder and killing - and euthanasia is different again. It made me think, though. Historically, in some cultures, those people who are involved in killing animals have been considered 'untouchables' because of it. I wonder if Wizards have the same thing? And does the method of killing matter? Wizards used to push people through the veil to kill them - can a push shred your soul?
WARNING: Non-explicit adult content in this chapter. Homo & hetero sexual relations, implied prostitution, dub-con and crude language.
Earth
Harry woke with a groan, body responding before his mind finished booting.
There was a hand on his shoulder and he followed the arm attached to it up to an exquisitely-angular face framed by luscious dark curls.
"I require charging." The vision informed him flatly. Harry blearily put 'charging' and 'frizzy hair' together before the rest of his brain woke up.
He groaned again, this time in irritation.
"Don't you have a charger here?" He whined shamelessly. It had been a long day and he'd only been asleep for - he checked his replacement watch - two hours. Bloody hell.
Amazon released him, standing straight without the slightest expression.
"No."
He let his eyes slide shut. He vaguely remembered Dave mentioning that she'd prompt him when she needed a charge but until today, he'd always been home in time for bed during that once-monthly timeslot. Her charger was installed in his bedroom for reasons he refused to examine, but he normally went to bed alone and just sometimes woke up with her standing against the wall. Staring at him.
"Fail to comply and I will be forced to relocate you."
His eyes slid open into a scowl. With a hard-wired priority structure that required her to remain charged and for him to be with her, she'd hoist him up like a bag of potatoes and ignore any command to the contrary. For all that she was technically superior, there were just so many little things that made her so much less than Mike had been.
The thought of his bodyguard made his stomach churn as he swung up off the couch and preceded his replacement bodyguard out of the office.
It had been weeks since the attack. He'd spent the time neglecting almost everything else as he searched for some sort of magical solution but no matter where he looked…
There was just nothing. Nothing useful. He'd focused on potions first because he trusted his brewing ability over a self-taught complex sequence of medical spells and if his bodyguard had been afflicted with joint rot, liquefied organs or dragon pox? He'd have been fixed up within days. But his brain…
Most of the body was relatively simple to fix, magically speaking. Even the Black Plague that had devastated Europe had been just a bad bout of flu to the wizarding world, so swift and effective was their response to it. Simple fractures of bones could be healed with a wand tap while highly damaged bones, as he personally knew, could simply be vanished and regrown. Even eyes, he'd discovered in his feverish search, could be treated if one could afford the ingredients. He'd assumed otherwise up till now, since Dumbledore wore glasses and Mad Eye… well. In hindsight, Dumbledore probably had perfect sight and just used enchanted glasses for the bonus features and Mad-Eye was Mad-Eye. Losing an eye had been an opportunity to get a better one and his wooden leg? Probably a portable ward anchor or maybe just a sign that the paranoid man wouldn't submit himself to another's wand - even a healer's.
The sole exception to the Wizarding World's superior healing capacity though… was the brain.
The Janus Thackery ward was full of people who the Wizarding World's best healers had never been able to help. Anything that screwed with a person's head - excessive or ill-located oblivation, repeated or over-powered confundus charms, multiple or long-term imperios and of course, extended crucios - did so permanently and victims with the coin for it were housed in lifetime care.
Healers who had trained for years, practiced for lifetimes and researched for decades had failed to find a solution. How the hell was he, a not-even-graduated wizard, supposed to find one where they'd failed? Not only find one, but do so in a world where he couldn't even run basic tests because the magic would bleed out as fast as he could pour it?
He shook his head sharply as they took the lift down, trying to shake the creeping feeling that there would be no solution. That for all the fuss the world made over him - before and now - he was useless when it really mattered. He couldn't help the man who'd helped him so much - because Michael had been more than just a bodyguard, towards the end. He'd felt something like Harry imagined family should. Maybe better, in a way. He'd been there for him, quietly supportive and comfortable but never trying to tell him what to do like Mrs Weasley, never hiding things from him like Mr Weasley. Never, Merlin forbid, insulted or belittled him like the Dursleys. Never nagged him like Hermione, or made him feel ignorant like Ron.
He'd just… been there for him. And now he wasn't.
Right now, the only solution Harry could see was getting his hands on enough unobtanium to restore the world's background levels of magic. Then he could at least practice magic spells without the magic immediately draining away…
Yeah, he was grasping at straws and he knew it. Even if unobtanium wasn't $20 million a kilo, how much would it take to fill up a planet the size of Earth? And how long would it take to get that much? Years? A lifetime?
His wrist chimed (his 'baby's first phone' having been replaced by a hair-thin version stuck lengthwise to the inside of his arm) as the elevator opened onto the RDA link station. He turned his attention to it, half watching where he was going and relying on Amazon not to let him walk into a wall. Despite his avoidance, there'd still been things he couldn't get away from. The Japanese diplomat assigned to broker contact with him was a frequent vid-caller and the many companies and researchers he'd been in contact with left mountains of correspondence to pick through - and who knew when one of them would come up with something useful? He couldn't afford to snub them all. Then there was the GLF itself, always coming up with more and more tests to run in their everlasting quest to save the world and how could he of all people refuse?
Groggy from not nearly enough sleep he didn't bother to protest when Amazon forcefully yanked two innocent employees out of his way, nor when she utilised her low-charge permissions to draw weaponry on anyone trying to enter a pod with him. Insanely, for a bot of her model and a person of his importance, she wasn't doing anything even slightly illegal. He sat with a sigh and pulled up the most recent, unread reports flagged as focused on unobtanium. The barrage of holograms outside the pod had long since dulled from exotic to irritating.
The GLF's latest experiment had confirmed suspicions about the unobtanium and its relationship with magic. Tests showed that every time he used it, it degraded at the molecular level, polycrystalline bonds collapsing until the remainder resembled a more common type of igneous rock. This somehow suggested that the point of energy absorption was likely to have occurred when the material had still been molten - and that similar terrestrial material would likely be found in areas of ancient Earth lava flows. Teams had been dispatched to search already. They'd asked for Harry to accompany them, reasoning that he'd be able to sense what they were looking for far faster (or at all) than any equipment, but he'd missed the initial project launch and request in the flood of other matters.
Sometimes he wished Amazon was a companion bot of some sort. Even the skeevy sexbots came equipped with basic secretarial software and he desperately needed to offload like 80% of his everyday workload. That figure was only getting higher too, especially as the reality of his abilities became both more widely known and visibly achievable. He wasn't just famous, he was useful - and supply was both singular and limited by his lifespan. People competed for a moment of his attention, his time, his magic and even his money. He'd sifted through hundreds of earnest proposals (and a few seriously dodgy ones) for medical shelters, space elevators, undersea cities, orphanage & foster funding, exploratory mining, speculative research and much more.
With all this going on, Harry had yet to even visit the man who'd almost died defending him. If he was being honest with himself, he'd been putting it off until he'd found a cure but since it was starting to look like that might be never…
"Let me know as soon as you're done charging." He ordered the bodyguard bot the second they got home. "Then find out where they took Mike and how to get there."
Amazon curled a hand around his arm as she strode up the stairs and into his bedroom, dragging him along at her heels. Something was beeping quietly and tiny lights had lit up under her skin.
"Target clarification required: Mike. Identity unknown." She said coolly, dropping him only once the door was shut (and locked) behind them. It would unlock after a couple of minutes, once the emergency fast-charge part of her battery was topped up - just enough for her to react to an assault on the apartment but not enough to go long-term. She swiveled smoothly on her heel and backed up to a section of the wall that unfolded to meet her. A near-silent click and she was linked in.
Harry rolled his eyes. Goddamn useless machine.
"Hub, display staff profiles for my bodyguards." He ordered, sprawling out on his bed. His window flicked up two images with a shaded file below that probably belonged to the temporary team that had guarded him immediately after the attack. Amazon was one of the images. The other was of Mike.
"That guy." He pointed, knowing she could access his full details and find his current location in the time it took him to vaguely gesture. A yawn caught him by surprise and any vague idea about continuing his work from home, withered.
By the time the door unlocked itself, he was already fast asleep.
Earth
The next day, Amazon guided him to a dense building with few windows tucked away in an industrial district. Multiple sterile portals showered him and his bot with disinfecting light and moisture before he even hit reception. After asking which room Michael was in, he was escorted to a good-sized windowless room containing one comfortable chair and multiple bright red glowing lines sectioning off a wall and part of the floor.
"You can cross when the lines are green." His escort - maybe a nurse or maybe security, it was hard to tell - waved at a list of rules printed on the wall as he rattled off a well-practiced speech. "Press the blue button to summon a carer, the red button for emergencies, the room is monitored for security purposes and use the yellow button to return the patient when you're finished. Any questions?"
Harry looked about the empty room.
"Are you bringing him here?" He asked doubtfully. The doorway was narrow and the room contained none of the medical equipment he expected to see. It really had nothing except for a chair and the aforementioned buttons.
The attendant/nurse/maybe-guard nodded.
"Yeah, he should be here in a minute or two. Non-actives are stored pretty deep." An absent nod later and the man was gone, door sliding quietly shut behind him.
A sudden shrill noise made him jump half out of his skin. He whirled on the spot just as the far wall split apart and drew back to reveal a dark interior. Within it, a vaguely-rectangular glass box was slowly rising before built-in machinery shifted it onto rails that had risen from the floor to accept it.
The glass box locked into place in the centre of the red-line-enclosed floor, the top of the box cracking open with a hiss then lifting smoothly away. Digital readouts glowed within it, repositioning themselves to be readable from the lid's new configuration. Oxygen levels, brain activity, nutrient intake, waste output and a dozen more constantly updating streams of information laid out the severity of Michael's condition. The wall closed and the red lines on the floor turned green.
Stored, the nurse/guard had said. Non-actives are stored pretty deep.
Wires and tubes snaked out from under the bed and disappeared beneath the blanket into various places along Mike's body. The blanket itself was pristine and unwrinkled, as though applied with machine-precision just like the rest of his treatment. Harry doubted anything human had touched his friend since he'd first been determined a lost cause, kept alive only because his contract included a clause for coma-care.
He wondered if 'non-active' meant that no friends or family had come to visit him.
He wondered if the man even had any family. It had never come up until now.
He dragged the chair closer and inspected the touch-controls on the side of the glass box until he found one which lowered it a little.
"Hey Mike," He greeted, before remembering that the room was monitored. He glanced around for the camera but couldn't spot it. Annoyed but unwilling to risk disrupting any medical machinery with an area-effect privacy charm, he turned back again. And paused.
He turned to Amazon, speculative gaze catching her attention. "I don't suppose you can disrupt the camera feed, can you?"
"I am capable." The machine confirmed.
"Great!" Harry beamed, settling back in the chair. "Do so, please."
"Order acknowledged." Amazon stated, already moving. Her right hand lifted, all but her index finger folding closed. The skin at the tip of her finger split, a tiny muzzle poking through.
Two short, ringing shots later and two separate sections of wall were punched in and sparking.
"…Thanks." Harry said flatly, ears ringing. "Do me a favour and pop outside now, would you? Maybe stop all the security personnel that are no doubt on their way in response to gunshots in a hospital."
His scathing tone sailing right over her head, Amazon simply nodded and obeyed, the door sliding shut behind her.
Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to the guard he actually liked.
"See what I have to put up with?" He joked weakly. It was easier now that the camera was gone but Mike's pale, slack face was a far cry from the intense man he'd known before. "Anyway. Sorry I haven't been by until now. Things have been… crazy." He tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair, eyes flicking from one monitor to another. It almost seemed… rude. To see his friend and guard so vulnerable. So exposed. To witness such intimate details of the systems keeping him alive.
"I'm sorry-" He caught himself, already hearing his bodyguard's scoffing voice in his mind. It was his job to protect Harry with his life, even if Harry went cartwheeling naked through a minefield. Harry's guilt over what he did or didn't do couldn't change the fact that Mike was always at risk by virtue of his job and apologising certainly didn't do anything to fix it. It was a bad habit that Mike had helped him notice and he was trying to break himself of it.
"I'm trying to find a solution for you. A magical fix." He promised quietly. "But it's… not going so well. I just don't… Merlin, Mike, it feels like I'm drowning some days. There's so much to do, so many people wanting a piece of me - and I know what you'd say, 'tell them to go stick their heads in an afterburner', right? But it's not that easy. They, it's-." He stopped, took a breath. Glanced at the closed door, beyond which a bunch of muffled sounds suggested Amazon was doing her job with - so far - limited casualties. Amazon, who was technologically brilliant and yet so completely inferior to Michael in all the ways that mattered.
"I asked the GLF about medical applications." He continued after a moment. "I figured they'd be better at the research than I would. And you know I'd do whatever it took to patch you up, right? But they're not interested. Busy, with other stuff. And…"
"Medicine is kind of low-priority." Heineken had explained, not unkindly. "What with over-population and all, most societies don't actually want regular people to live very long."
"Turns out, there's not a strong ROI on keeping people alive these days." He huffed an unamused laugh. "Seriously, you should see what that Roux woman wants me to to do, I-." He froze, struck by a sudden idea.
Madeline Roux wanted him to do something he didn't want to do, even if he could understand the reasoning behind it. He wanted the GLF to do something they didn't want to do. He was the only one who could help them with their plan and they were the best-placed, after months of intensive study of his magical samples, to work out the answer he needed. Best-placed, but not the only option.
He had leverage.
He sprang to his feet and paced furiously as he thought it over. On the one hand, he'd be euthanising people en masse. On the other, he'd be saving Mike.
Making the decision was easier than it probably should have been. He tapped at his forearm and dialed up the entry marked 'Mad Cow'.
"Ms Roux?" He opened, slapping the 'return' button on the wall as he stalked out of the room. "Let's make a deal."
Earth
You gonna call him?
Buddy scowled at the message that flickered, letter by letter but so fast that his brain perceived it as whole words, through his contact lens.
It was a new purchase and one they couldn't really afford - but one he absolutely refused to do without. Mia would not spend the rest of her life silenced and unheard, especially by him.
"No." He lied, digging a little deeper into the dumpster they'd hacked open so she couldn't see it on his face. They kept up with the news on Harry, the strange but nice guy who'd sort of drifted into their lives and who he and Mia had done their best to keep connected to. It had to be slow and careful, they couldn't be seen as a couple of street kids trying to get their hooks into his money or fame. But slow cost time they didn't have and with Mia's degradation…
He cut the thought off ruthlessly, pulled out a broken bit of tech to add to the pile and kept looking. Movement at his back had him tensing, but it was just Mia reaching in to help him work.
He's going to Japan next week. The words were without inflection, the cheap device not offering anything other than plain text, but Buddy knew how Mia would say 'em.
Actually, it would be pretty inflectionless. Mia never did like revealing her hand too early, even to him.
He didn't answer.
He might not come back. Mia continued. It's still nice there.
He ignored her.
If he never comes back, what'll happen to us?
"I know, alright?" he snapped, glaring at her. "I know. Fuck."
Mia met his eyes, sombre with a hint of sympathy. Her left hand kept digging but her right - equipped with the glove that let her spell out what her ruined vocal chords could no longer let her speak - stayed free to flash through newly-learned movements.
There's a Wild on tonight.
He stilled. Eyed her. Was she really suggesting…?
She was.
It might be our last chance. She shook her head, shoulders lifting slightly.
He closed his eyes.
"Fine." He capitulated. "I'll call him."
Earth
Madeline Roux was more than happy to make a deal - until Harry added the clause that he wouldn't hold up his end until Mike was back on his feet.
"That's impossible to guarantee!" Madeline argued. "And even if we could, it could take years! Decades! We'd have to start from scratch, turn our research to an entirely new area, run tests - possibly wasting our limited materials - and all for something that might be impossible? No!"
"Consider it incentive to succeed." Harry countered coolly. "Because if you don't, you can forget about your Rebirth project - forever."
The few accompanying scientists edged away as Madeline all but ground her teeth.
"You'd waste hundreds of lives out of stubbornness!" She accused. "If you're okay with doing it in exchange for something, you're okay with doing it in general - you just won't. That's extortion."
"That's business." He retorted. "And considering I haven't asked anything else from you in the entire time we've been working together, I really don't see why you're complaining. You want something and so do I so let's make it happen."
The woman glared, but on this Harry was immovable and she was smart enough to know it.
"Fine." She growled. "I can divert some researchers to this task and transfer in our few medical specialists along with any equipment needed - but I can't divert funds from other areas. You want this done, you'll need to back it with more than threats."
He narrowed his eyes at her wording but nodded curtly. Deal done, the woman stormed out and he didn't waste time going the opposite way, Amazon ever at his heels. He left through the front entrance for once and, unobtanium pressing against his skin thanks to a carbon-fibre-leather hybrid band, generated a mild diversion ward against the toxic drizzle outside.
His arm chimed, close enough to his nerves that the music was more felt than heard. He swiped an absent finger along his forearm and the chip in his ear canal picked up the call.
"Hey, uh, Harry? Damn, I didn't really think you'd pick up. Hey."
"Hi Buddy." Harry replied easily. It was true, calls from the guy were relatively rare but there was no other calls from anyone under the age of 20. "What's up?"
"Up? Oh! Oh right, yeah, well… there's kind of a party on tonight and Mia-" a soft grunt "-and I, were wondering if you might wanna come?"
"A party?" Harry thought of Griffindor bashes; prank items and butterbeer, Weird Sisters blaring over the radio and people laughing and shouting over each other. "Um. Who's going?"
"Everyone!" Buddy laughed, seemingly a little more confident after not being turned down flat. "It's, ah… well, fair warning: It's a Wild."
"What's a Wild?" He asked obligingly, directing the question at Amazon as much as Buddy.
"Underground parties linked with excessive drug-use and crime." Amazon reported as Buddy enthused about pretty much the same thing.
"And I want to go to a Wild… why?" He asked, amusement plain to hear.
"It's one of those things everyone should do before they die." Buddy said sternly. "At least once - it's a life experience! And we're one of the few countries it's still semi-legal in, c'mooon."
Harry laughed aloud.
"Fine," He agreed, liking that he'd been invited even if he wasn't really a party person. "But I'm telling you right now - I'm not really a Wild sort of guy."
"You say that now." Buddy said slyly. "I'll flick you the coordinates as soon as I know 'em. Dress to drop and we'll meet you there, okay?"
"Okay," Harry got out before the connection closed. He turned to Amazon, absently noting that he should have extended the rain ward to her as well - her artificial hair was starting to frizz and fray. "'Dress to drop'?"
"'To wear clothing intended to flatter one's form, particularly sexually.'" She recited obediently.
"Great." Harry muttered to himself. "Do I even own anything like that?"
"No." Amazon said flatly. He shot her a sour look.
Fine then. It was long past time to get some because at seventeen years of age he was more than ready for a little sexual flattering.
Earth
The coordinates he eventually received took him to a stinking dead alley, the air above filled with buildings that had been expanded into each other and the walls on either side choked with old automated garbage bins. Buddy and Mia were waiting for him at the end, both dressed… unusually. Buddy was basically topless except for some sort of clinging spiderweb-like material that emphasised the slender lines of his torso and Mia was wearing a tight, long-sleeved tunic pretending to be a dress over similarly spiderwebbed leggings. Neither would have looked too out of place in his own time, except that Mia's dress traded regular cleavage for some sort of under-boob exposure that ran down in a V all the way to.. Well. Harry coughed and averted his eyes.
"You're supposed to look." Buddy assured him with a grin that turned briefly weak as he took in the Amazon. "C'mon," he rallied. "It's down here."
Dropping into a crouch, he used a thin bit of metal to pry up a rectangle of stone, the edges of which were grown over with furry muck and slime. As it was lifted up and to the side, Amazon slid smoothly between him and it - and sniffed.
"The air below contains a diffused neurotoxin." She warned, a deceptively slender hand wrapping around his bicep like a precision vice. The warning sparked a memory, Michael in t-shirt and jeans trying to make him understand just how willing people would be to kill him, how they didn't need to be enemies or even have a reason. As abruptly wary eyes turned to the two native teens (backed up by a machine licensed to kill them), Buddy frantically waved his hands.
"Woah no, not the bad kind. That's normal for a Wild, otherwise they wouldn't be Wilds. It's just like having a free beer before you go in, I swear."
Harry hesitated. "Amazon?" He checked. "Is that right?"
"Unknown."
Typical. He'd roll his eyes if he weren't wondering whether or not his only friends were trying to kill him.
"Will it kill, disfigure or otherwise permanently harm me?" He rephrased tersely. Amazon tilted her head a fraction, curls spilling over her shoulder.
"…Negative." She decided, after a longer pause than he thought the question warranted. But, if he couldn't trust her…
"Alright then." He deliberately stepped around her, smiling at his anxious friends. "After you."
Earth
"This is a stupid idea." Buddy hissed into Mia's ear, not daring to use his throat-installed pickup in case Harry's killbot tapped the line. It was still entirely possible she'd manually hear him despite the din, so he tried not to actually incriminate himself - but it fucking bore mentioning!
Mia just glared sideways and shoved him away. He took the hint and returned to Harry's side, partly for the plan and partly just to keep the guy somewhat safe. The Amazon might protect his life but the safety of his virtue was questionable.
Wilds were designed to be portable and this month's - set up in an old sewer system that hadn't seen any actual sewerage since biomass generators were made standard - was no exception. The stone walls were mostly dry but the floor had been flooded with tiny neon baubles that glowed under blacklights and refreshed the drug in the air with every crushed globe.
The drug that he and Mia - and all those with sufficient insider contacts - had taken the counter to prior to arriving. It was easy to see those who'd come prepared and those who hadn't - the drugged moved more loosely, their eyes dulled and pupils blown. Most of them had likely already been targeted by predators, their money & identity (and sometimes organs) to be stolen, or pushed into a corner or down on the ground to be used or even vanished entirely for the slave trade that was totally illegal and yet totally booming.
Only in 'the freedom to put yourself at risk' America were Wilds still in regular operation and oversight was lax to non-existent.
If anything happened to Harry, it would be all on them.
Including what they were planning.
Earth
The sewers were dark and grimy but concealed lights made the neon-littered floor glow. Clothing, tattoos and eyes all flashed in the dark, music making the walls thump. The tunnel they were following soon opened into a large space full of people and something that might be a ruin of old pumping equipment. The air had also gotten better the further in they'd walked, from rank run-off to something sweet like apricot pie. He could feel himself relaxing, his mood lifting, as the 'free beer' effect kicked swiftly in. He realised he was smiling and the knowledge just made him grin further.
As he moved amongst the swirling crowd a hissing noise heralded a swarm of new neon balls that fell from the ceiling like marbles made of spun sugar. People whooped and yelled, hands raised to catch and crush some in little puffs of glowing powder while others burst against the ground or bounced away like they were made of rubber. One girl to his right popped one into her mouth and bit down, tugged the person next to her over to breath the vapor-like glow from one open mouth into another. A girl-or guy? wearing nothing but glowing stilettos and dozens of strands of glowing beads swayed past him, a tray that flashed with light in time to the music lowered to offer him and his friends a selection of drinks.
Amazon dipped a finger in each before sucking them clean and nodding. After a sluggish moment, Harry realised she'd probably been testing them for poison and not, as his libido had immediately decided, coming on to him.
He shook himself, not quite so far gone yet that he didn't recognise the very idea as ludicrous. Still, who programmed a robot to test drinks like that, honestly?
He helped himself to something that looked like grape cough syrup with gold flecks in it and took a sip as Buddy stepped up beside him to shout over the noise and Mia crowded in close behind - to hear, presumably.
"If you see anyone wearing collars - like that one" Buddy pointed out a cheerful blonde girl who had what looked like glowing lines under her skin that swirled delicately around her neck "then go for it! They're licensed and auto-sterilise after every client so they're pretty safe! Just make sure they're actually bots first though!" He added with a laugh. "Sometimes they turn out to be norms with radiant tatts instead!"
"Why?" Harry made an effort not to shout back. The pickup installed in his mouth would transmit his voice clearly despite the din. Wait, was it switched on? He turned to tap at his arm-phone, drink spilling unnoticed.
"Ahhh, all kinds of reasons. Some girls do it to get shakked, others just because they're too diseased to ever get a liver but can't afford upkeep for a bot of their own." Buddy stopped shouting halfway through, his own hand moving as he accepted Harry's incoming call and moved their conversation into a digital three-way with Mia. "Oh, that reminds me, the bots here? They charge premium. Not that it should be a problem for you, huh? But just in case somebody's looking over your expense report…" Buddy winked and headed off with Mia, the latter smiling over her shoulder at him. Had her eyes always been that dark and rich? He looked towards the blonde, half thinking 'why not?' - but found her on her knees right there on the dance floor, already servicing another 'client'. He grimaced and looked away. Maybe it was his '90s sensibilities but, sterilised or not, he didn't want some stranger's sloppy seconds.
He made his way after Buddy, bumping into people as he went but since they just laughed or nudged him back, he didn't worry about it. It was nice here, nicer than he'd thought. Now that he was getting used to it, the music kind of… resonated. It was in him and he was in it…
"Woah…" He said aloud, surprised at the depth of his own thoughts.
He kept going, forgetting what he was looking for and just exploring. A girl bumped into him and turned with a laugh, her entire chin coated in the same neon powder that puffed out of the globes underfoot. She tried to kiss him, missed, but lavished some pleasant attention on his ear for a little while before a guy pulled her away.
He moved with the flow of the crowd, swaying with the music and reaching out to touch the skin on display all around him. There was a boy about his age - maybe younger - who was tied to a railing against some big machinery, completely naked and head thrown back as strangers licked smears of colour from his body. Nearby, a veritable crowd of people were redefining the word 'orgy', the smell of it piercing even the all-encompassing aroma of apricot pie and making him scrunch his nose in distaste. He wandered away, oblivious to the various peoples who reached to touch him with more than passing admiration in mind. Amazon broke three arms and one neck in his defence, screams inaudible amongst shrieks of euphoria. His shirt vanished at some point but, with neon powder streaking his body, he didn't feel self-conscious in the slightest. In fact, he wouldn't mind getting rid of his pants too - the previously comfortable material now feeling tight and irritating.
He wandered, looking for something he couldn't define and was pleasantly surprised when Mia and Buddy turned up instead.
"Hey!" He greeted. "I forgot you were here!" He was thrilled to see them, like it was.. Like it was something. Someone. Someone from… from back home. Someone, red hair, something teeth… someone he missed - but he couldn't miss them because they were right here!
"Hey." He grinned again. "Isn't this great? You should see the… the thing. There was…" He turned, slightly confused, forgetting what he wanted to show them. A slightly rough hand slipping into his own drew his attention back and he smiled at Mia. She looked even better than before, an upper layer of her dress/tunic having been stripped away so her sleeves were gone and only a strap over her breasts protected her modesty. He realised he was staring at them but didn't feel like it was a problem, not when they were so obviously put there to be stared at.
"I love your boobs." He remembered to compliment, stumbling slightly as he was tugged away from the crowd and his feet took a moment to catch on.
"Thanks." Mia said. Except, it didn't sound like her. He blinked, and it wasn't Mia leading him away, it was Buddy.
"Yours are nice too." He hastened to say, not wanting to cause offence. He paused. Something… something about that seemed wrong. Buddy just laughed though, so he didn't worry about it.
He blinked again and they were in a smaller room, bubbles still on the floor but also some giant pillows too. Mia was lying on one, naked and stretching as one foot rubbed up the inside of her calf.
He stumbled to a halt. A small part of him, the same part that had so stubbornly refused the Imperious curse, was making itself known. This… wasn't right. Was it?
Mia and Buddy shared a quick look and then Mia was standing, slipping out of sight - and yeah, of course, he'd known something was wrong. They'd walked in on her by accident. He laughed under his breath. Man, Buddy was gonna get an earful for that one later.
Soft skin pressed against his bare back, slender hands stroking over his stomach. He blinked down at them, then over to his bodyguard who was standing by the wall with supreme unconcern. He looked back and oh - Buddy was there now. On the floor, on his knees, hands busy doing something before his head moved forward and oh.
Oh.
His own head fell back onto a shoulder just waiting to catch it, lips and tongue teasing at his jaw as practiced fingers slid and pressed over flesh that had never been touched like this before. His own hands moved without him knowing, one catching in hair before him and one clenching in flesh behind him.
Emerald eyes slipped closed and he floated away on apricot-scented pleasure.
Earth
Later, distant sounds of the Wild still going and a passed-out semi-human draped over him and Mia, Buddy turned to his best friend.
"How come I had to go down?" He pouted.
Because anyone who ever wants one had better be prepared to give one. Mia flashed back, naked except for the glove that allowed her to communicate.
He considered that. Shrugged. "Suppose." He allowed, one hand wandering over pale, uncorrupted skin as he thought back to the experience. It hadn't been part of the plan but it also hasn't been the first time he'd ever done it, not by a long shot. He and Mia had sold themselves for years, when dumpster-diving and digital cutting didn't bring in enough to stay alive, but it had been the first time he'd ever done it free and voluntarily. He was honestly surprised that it made a difference. Even though Harry had been mugged out of his skull at the time, it had still felt like something he was doing to the guy - or maybe even for him - not something being done to him, by a stranger, because he had to.
He kinda wanted to try it again, with both of them sober next time. Before now, Mia had been the only other person he'd ever wanted to have sex with, but Harry was… nice. He was genuine, a good guy and more than easy on the eyes.
For a split second, he imagined himself and Harry, living in his section with Boxy to one side and Mia gone-
He smashed the image, refusing to waste the slightest bit of hope - or grieve a second earlier than he had to. Besides, if Harry ever stayed with him, they wouldn't be living in a damned section. He wouldn't have to look at Harry and wish he were Mia…
Hell, he probably wouldn't even stay with him at all.
He sighed and cast the thought away. He waved a hand at Mia and together they nudged and shifted the unconscious teen until his head was pillowed on her bare belly, face turned towards her breasts. Buddy himself curled against his legs.
It was a carefully crafted move. The closing act of their stupid, desperate, final gamble.
Earth
Meant to get this out on Christmas day but between the probably-too-adult content and my own impatience/irritation with this story, it took two solid days of forcing myself to go back to it and weed out the worst of the rubbish. Next two chapters are already written (but need some heavy editing) so you can expect another chapter at least within a week.
By the way, if you were to discover Earth's equivalent of Unobtanium tomorrow, what would you call it?