a FINAL FANTASY crossover for mayflo
Author: chester_w
Recipient: mayflo
Title: No Place Like Home
Crossover fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Pairing: Draco/Rufus Shinra
Rating: hard R
Summary: A stray curse sends Draco Malfoy to a strange world, and he pins his hopes of finding his way home on Rufus Shinra.
Clearly, it was all Potter's fault. Draco knew that the very idea was almost cliché, as he'd blamed a great many things on Potter ever since he was 11 years old, from Slytherin losing the house cup six bloody years in a row, to the ruin of a perfectly good pair of handmade Italian loafers when Potter's blood stubbornly refused to be cleaned off. But this? This new Hell to which he was being subjected? This was, without any doubt, entirely Potter's fault.
Draco trudged through the streets of the ruined city, disoriented by the utter lack of anything familiar in his surroundings. Severus had told him time and time again after leaving Hogwarts-first, get out of danger, then procure sustenance and shelter, and then you can work on finding your way out of whatever foolish mess you've managed to get yourself into this time, you idiot child! Of course, when Severus said this it was usually accompanied by mutterings like "worse than your father," and "I could strangle your mother for this," which Draco really hadn't understood until days later, after they'd rejoined the Dark Lord. On this occasion, however, finding sustenance and shelter was easier said than done.
Draco pulled his cloak tighter around himself, though he was not by any means cold. The harsh sun heated the twisted, tumbling steel of the half-ruined buildings around him, driving the temperature of the narrow street to near unbearable heights. For the first time in his life Draco was completely alone, and his cloak was flimsy armor shielding him from the crushing indifference of the other people on the street. He tried in vain to ignore the fact that he hadn't eaten since early the day before-Potter's fault as well-as his earlier attempt to buy food was met with a scornful look as he offered first a handful of sickles, then a fistful of pounds to the petite girl behind the counter. He didn't know what "gil" was, but he was sure that if he didn't get some soon, his already troublesome situation would get much worse.
Draco rubbed absently at the growing ache in his left shoulder. The backlash of Potter's curse, whatever it had been, had hit him there, knocking him out and apparently sending him to this place, wherever it was. When he woke after the battle, he'd been lying in an alley; the stinking muck of the battlefield which saturated his cloak had dried, leaving it hard and stiff. His first indication that he likely to be in a great deal of trouble was that his magic was not working quite right. He cast one cleaning charm, then another, then another. Finally, after a solid ten minutes of casting every cleaning charm he knew, he was finally able to shake most of the dirt loose from what had been a very high end, custom made wool cloak. Now, hours later, he was marginally cleaner, but the gnawing hunger ensured that he was no more comfortable.
It was desperation that drove him to a dingy little shop, half hidden behind a fallen billboard for an utterly plebian looking amusement park. The shop was dimly lit, and the shadows only served to highlight the almost empty shelves. The clerk, a middle aged man with too-small eyes, lank black hair, and a nasty looking grey mark on his neck, looked as desolate as his establishment. Unfortunately, Draco could wait no longer.
After heavy negotiations, where Draco explained that, yes, his fine wool cloak did have some highly sophisticated magical upgrades, and no, it wasn't stolen-all without giving away the fact that he was a foreigner in more ways than the beady-eyed clerk could possibly imagine-he walked out with a pocket full of gil and directions to the nearest inn. He found the place quickly, as it was the only building in its neighborhood that showed any signs of life. Severus would have had his head for it, but Draco didn't even notice his surroundings once he'd made his way inside. He paid for three nights room and board, ate two helpings of a stew that may have been passably good had he bothered with eating slow enough to taste it, and retired to his room, barely taking the time to undress before falling into bed.
Draco blocked the curse coming at him easily before aiming a cutting curse directly between the eyes of his opponent, effectively blinding him. He quickly dodged the next would-be attacker before scanning the chaos around him for his mentor. Just then, everything seemed to slow to a crawl when he finally spotted Severus Snape, and then he saw his father. Lucius Malfoy raised his wand to Severus, striking down his old friend with a curse delivered through teeth clenched tight, this face a mask of shocked rage and tortured betrayal. Draco could hardly reconcile that face with the proud, laughing man at whose knee he'd attempted his first Cruciatus.
Draco did something that he'd never done-couldn't even imagine ever wanting to do. He turned his back on his father, and ran to his mentor's side. He knew instinctively that only one thing that could have caused his father to turn on his old friend, the favorite of the Dark Lord, especially in the heat of battle. Severus must have shown himself to be a traitor to the cause.
Draco knew this, but in that moment, the only thing that mattered was that the light that struck Severus was a sickening shade of red. It was not green. It was not green, and the convulsions and the blood and the unbearable rictus of pain Draco could see on Severus' face meant that Severus was not dead.
Draco ran, never seeing the crowd part as Potter approached the Dark Lord. He saw nothing aside from Severus, curled in on himself in the muddy, battered field that used to be the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Draco was close, but his path was littered with men and women from both sides of the fight, some still firing curses and others lying horribly still.
Dodging curses all the way, Draco was finally nearing his mentor when he fell.
He landed face first in the muck at the Dark Lord's feet, just as Potter let his secret weapon fly. The power with which Potter cast illuminated the entire macabre scene for an instant, causing Draco to shut his eyes against the brilliance of it. The last thing he saw before the backlash of the spell struck him was Severus, lying motionless amid the chaos, his black eyes staring unblinking across the field.
Draco awoke with a start, once again disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings, before remembering where he was. As he dressed, after casting several ineffective freshening charms on his soiled clothes, he remembered that the events of his horrible dream had happened only the day before. He stepped in front of the dusty, warped mirror before buttoning his shirt, and stop cold at what he saw. The skin of his shoulder had was a sickening shade of gray, fading out around the edges into a faint webbing of dark grey lines.
Draco stared at the mirror, horror dawning as he remembered seeing the same kind of mark on the clerk who'd bought his cloak, and he realised where he'd seen it before. In his sixth year at Hogwarts, he'd spent a great deal of time in the library, buried in the stacks, searching for anything that might help him carry out the Dark Lord's orders against Dumbledore. He'd watched the man for weeks, trying to find any weakness that could be exploited. He was beginning to lose hope, when one morning at breakfast, while Draco watched surreptitiously from the Slytherin table, the headmaster reached for his tea and the sleeve of his robe slipped. It was only a bit, but it was enough for Draco to see how his wrist was black as at disappeared into his glove.
Weeks before, on one of his endless trips to the library, Draco had found a crumbling folio on archaic magics. One of the illustrations in the chapter on earth magic showed a man's arm. It was black from wrist to elbow, fading to gray on his hand and upper arm. The writing accompanying the drawing was extremely difficult to read, however, Draco did manage to make out something about hastening the return to the earth before noticing that the end of the description, and the method for casting the curse were missing. He'd paged frantically through the book, but the page he needed was nowhere to be found.
Draco, being unwilling to risk drawing attention to himself by attempting to try to get another copy of the book, finally set the idea of using Dumbledore's already cursed hand against him. He hadn't given the book another thought until that very moment.
Draco seethed as he finished dressing. Earth magic! Could Potter really be that stupid? Was he not aware that earth magic had fallen out of use for a reason? As with any elemental magic, it was simply too difficult to control by anyone but the most powerful of wizards. Potter was powerful enough, that much was true, but he was far too inexperienced.
The pub at the inn was nearly deserted this early in the day, but Draco did manage to get a cup of tea and bit of breakfast before going back into the city to try to find some answers.
When Draco returned to his room that evening, exhausted both mentally and physically, he was no closer to getting back home than when he'd set out. An entire day of listening in on conversations and asking careful questions, he had gained information, but no real direction.
All he had to show for all of his detective work were two words that he'd heard everywhere he'd gone: geostigma and Shinra.
Apparently, geostigma was what they called the curse Draco had been hit with. It was a fitting enough name, but all that anyone seemed to know about it was that it was fatal. Shinra was a different story. It turns out this Shinra was responsible for the destruction of the city, and everyone said that it was also the cause of the curse. Draco tracked Shinra to a small building, the only one he'd seen that was in decent repair. Two men stood at the entrance, guards from the looks of them. He approached them warily, pulling himself up to full height in an attempt to project his importance despite the admittedly unimposing state of his attire.
The larger of the two was a rather intimidating figure. Clearly well muscled under his neatly pressed black suit, he towered over his partner. Although his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, Draco knew he was being closely watched. If there was going to be any trouble, however, it would be the other guard who started it. The shorter man had gravity defying hair in a shade of red that Draco was quite sure wasn't found in nature. He slumped against the wall, toying with an odd metal rod, a weapon of some sort. His suit was of the same style as the other man's, but it looked as though it had been peeled up off the floor before being put on.
As Draco approached, the redhead stood straighter, then narrowed his eyes. Looking Draco over carefully, he sneered, "You lost?"
Draco decided his initial instinct was correct. If this one had gone to Hogwarts, he'd have been a Gryffindor. "I'm looking for Shinra."
"Well it looks like you're out of luck. He's not here."
Draco's fingers twitched, but he didn't draw his wand. The way his magic was working, it would surely only get him into trouble. However, he decided to address what appeared to be the more reasonable partner. Turning to the taller man, he asked, "When can I see him?"
"You can't," the redhead answered, earning a glare from Draco. His patience was wearing thin, and the temptation to hex the mouthy little prat silent was getting too great, so Draco opted for a graceful retreat.
As he lay in bed, he tried to plan his next course of action, but gave up when he found that he didn't even know where to start, and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
Sometime before sunrise, he awoke to find that he was not alone. In one startled motion, he was sitting up with his wand in hand in trained on the three figures in front of him. The guards from the day before were in his room along with a man in a wheelchair. He couldn't see the new man's face; it was obscured by a blanket that draped over him, so that all Draco could see was one well-manicured hand, marred by geostigma. The redheaded guard stood by the door, his attention split between the hallway and the room, and his partner stood stoically beside the wheelchair.
"Didn't I tell you, boss?" the redhead drawled.
"The resemblance is remarkable." The man-Shinra?-had a smooth, almost musical voice. He was clearly amused.
Draco pointed his wand menacingly at the man and demanded, "Who are you, and why are you here?" His own voice was steady, his time with Severus and the Dark Lord taught him to hide his fear of situations that were out of his control.
The man responded, "You can put your wand away. We both know that your magic does not work here." Draco barely had time to wonder how the man knew, when he waved his hand and said, "Leave us." Both of the guards nodded and walked out, shutting the door behind them.
Draco, knowing he was caught in a bluff, lowered his wand.
"I've met one of your kind before. If you're anything like him, you'd do anything to find a way home. When my associates informed me that you came to find me-"
"So you are Shinra?" Draco wondered.
The man nodded, a nearly imperceptible movement through his shroud. "Rufus Shinra. And you are?"
He began to say Malfoy, when an image of his father from the last battle flashed behind his eyes. "Draco. I need some answers, Shinra-"
"If you're Draco, then allow me to be Rufus. As I was saying," he continued, completely ignoring Draco's attempts to speak, "they had no idea what you are; nonetheless, they thought I'd be interested in meeting you."
At this, the man slowly removed his shroud, laying both the blanket and an odd box on the floor. Draco's first thought was that the man was beautiful. His neck and head were bandaged, leaving only one eye exposed, but that slight imperfection did little to detract from his smooth, pale skin and the way his fine platinum hair seemed to glow in the dim lamplight. Draco's second thought was that Rufus was frighteningly close to being a mirror image of Draco himself.
Rufus allowed his scrutiny for a long moment before he broke the spell by standing and stepping forward. It was clear that the chair was part of some sort of disguise, because in truth the other man moved with a confident grace that Draco recognised. He'd moved like that once, but that was before. Nearly four years in the Compound hiding from Greyback-and any of the Dark Lord's other followers who enjoyed using the fresh meat for target practice or worse-had wreaked havoc on Draco's carefully cultivated poise. Draco's rented room was small, and in two short strides Rufus was standing right next to his bed.
For the first time since his rather abrupt awakening, Draco was reminded that all that stood between this imposing, attractive man and Draco's nudity was a dingy, threadbare sheet. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. His prick, having found itself virtually exposed and taking a keen interest in the situation, chose that time to remind Draco that four years of war among the Death Eaters had not done any favors for his sex life.
His prick quickly jumped from interested to eager when Rufus reached out with his curse-marked hand and carefully traced his fingers over Draco's neck and across his shoulder. "We haven't found the cure yet," he said, a simple statement of fact.
Draco swallowed hard as Rufus's long fingers continued their journey over his shoulder, past the hideous gray mark of the curse, and slowly down his arm, pausing to run his thumb carefully over the Mark before letting his hand fall back to his side.
"It's a curse based in Earth magic," Draco said, his voice not nearly as steady as he'd have liked. "You're not likely to find a cure or a counter." Rufus looked at him oddly, and Draco shrugged. "I spent quite a lot of time in my father's library as a child."
"I see," Rufus replied absently, leaning toward Draco just the slightest bit, and Draco couldn't be bothered to notice that he was leaning in himself. Tentatively, he raised his own hand and touched Rufus's carefully.
Rufus shivered at his touch and turned his hand to stroke his fingertips over the thin skin on the inside of Draco's wrist. Draco decided that questions could wait. He rose to his knees on the bed, allowing his sheet to fall away, and pulled Rufus closer. Their lips crushed together almost painfully at first, and Rufus climbed onto the bed, sliding his hands into Draco's hair to take control of the kiss. Draco's hands fumbled with the buttons on Rufus's suit, but Rufus brushed him away.
"No time," he muttered, and Draco was gratified to hear the breathless quality of the other man's voice. Rufus pushed Draco down onto the bed, the wide leg of his surprisingly soft trousers brushing Draco's aching cock as he moved to straddled him, causing Draco to moan and raise his hips, searching for more contact. He didn't have long to wait. Rufus leaned in for another rough kiss, pressing his hard length alongside Draco's.
They lay like that, thrusting against one another, until Draco broke the kiss and buried his face in Rufus's neck. The bandage was rough on his cheek, but the skin around it was warm and smooth and he explored it with his teeth and his tongue. Heat pooled in his belly, he was so close and then Rufus shifted. He slid one knee between Draco's thighs and lifted Draco's leg, sliding his hand down the back of his thigh to cup his arse. He pressed with one dry fingertip, barely breaching Draco's entrance, and that was enough.
Draco cried out, clutching at Rufus's hair as he came. With a few more thrusts, Rufus was coming as well. Draco vaguely noticed that he'd never even unfastened his trousers.
They lay still for only a moment before there was a quiet knock at the door and a voice, that redhead, Draco was sure, called that it was time to go.
Rufus stood slowly, and began to go back to his chair. Draco reached for his wand. "Let me…" He cast a cleaning charm, then another, and it only took three more tries before Rufus's suit looked something like clean again. He nodded his thanks and sat down, retrieving his box and replacing his shroud.
The transformation, Draco noted, was amazing. One minute he appeared strong and confident, the next frail and weak. Draco pulled the sheet back over himself, and the return to their original positions reminded him that he did not yet know what he needed to know.
"How long? How long till it kills you?"
Rufus was silent for a moment. "The longest was just under a year."
There was time, Draco thought. Surely there was a counter to the curse, if only-
Rufus interrupted his thoughts by calling his bodyguards. The door opened, but the other men remained outside while Rufus turned his chair and began to leave.
"Wait!" Draco called. Rufus stopped, but didn't turn. "The other one, the other wizard, how did he get home?"
There was a longer pause this time, before he replied simply, "He didn't."
Draco sat on the bed, barely registering the click of the door latch that signaled that he was, again, alone. He thought of his home, his world, his magic, how the last time he saw his father he was wearing the face of a madman. He wondered whether there was any point in finding a way to survive in this place, knowing that he had so little time. He stared into nothing, not moving from that spot, even when the sun rose and the world outside his window erupted into chaos.
Recipient: mayflo
Title: No Place Like Home
Crossover fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Pairing: Draco/Rufus Shinra
Rating: hard R
Summary: A stray curse sends Draco Malfoy to a strange world, and he pins his hopes of finding his way home on Rufus Shinra.
Clearly, it was all Potter's fault. Draco knew that the very idea was almost cliché, as he'd blamed a great many things on Potter ever since he was 11 years old, from Slytherin losing the house cup six bloody years in a row, to the ruin of a perfectly good pair of handmade Italian loafers when Potter's blood stubbornly refused to be cleaned off. But this? This new Hell to which he was being subjected? This was, without any doubt, entirely Potter's fault.
Draco trudged through the streets of the ruined city, disoriented by the utter lack of anything familiar in his surroundings. Severus had told him time and time again after leaving Hogwarts-first, get out of danger, then procure sustenance and shelter, and then you can work on finding your way out of whatever foolish mess you've managed to get yourself into this time, you idiot child! Of course, when Severus said this it was usually accompanied by mutterings like "worse than your father," and "I could strangle your mother for this," which Draco really hadn't understood until days later, after they'd rejoined the Dark Lord. On this occasion, however, finding sustenance and shelter was easier said than done.
Draco pulled his cloak tighter around himself, though he was not by any means cold. The harsh sun heated the twisted, tumbling steel of the half-ruined buildings around him, driving the temperature of the narrow street to near unbearable heights. For the first time in his life Draco was completely alone, and his cloak was flimsy armor shielding him from the crushing indifference of the other people on the street. He tried in vain to ignore the fact that he hadn't eaten since early the day before-Potter's fault as well-as his earlier attempt to buy food was met with a scornful look as he offered first a handful of sickles, then a fistful of pounds to the petite girl behind the counter. He didn't know what "gil" was, but he was sure that if he didn't get some soon, his already troublesome situation would get much worse.
Draco rubbed absently at the growing ache in his left shoulder. The backlash of Potter's curse, whatever it had been, had hit him there, knocking him out and apparently sending him to this place, wherever it was. When he woke after the battle, he'd been lying in an alley; the stinking muck of the battlefield which saturated his cloak had dried, leaving it hard and stiff. His first indication that he likely to be in a great deal of trouble was that his magic was not working quite right. He cast one cleaning charm, then another, then another. Finally, after a solid ten minutes of casting every cleaning charm he knew, he was finally able to shake most of the dirt loose from what had been a very high end, custom made wool cloak. Now, hours later, he was marginally cleaner, but the gnawing hunger ensured that he was no more comfortable.
It was desperation that drove him to a dingy little shop, half hidden behind a fallen billboard for an utterly plebian looking amusement park. The shop was dimly lit, and the shadows only served to highlight the almost empty shelves. The clerk, a middle aged man with too-small eyes, lank black hair, and a nasty looking grey mark on his neck, looked as desolate as his establishment. Unfortunately, Draco could wait no longer.
After heavy negotiations, where Draco explained that, yes, his fine wool cloak did have some highly sophisticated magical upgrades, and no, it wasn't stolen-all without giving away the fact that he was a foreigner in more ways than the beady-eyed clerk could possibly imagine-he walked out with a pocket full of gil and directions to the nearest inn. He found the place quickly, as it was the only building in its neighborhood that showed any signs of life. Severus would have had his head for it, but Draco didn't even notice his surroundings once he'd made his way inside. He paid for three nights room and board, ate two helpings of a stew that may have been passably good had he bothered with eating slow enough to taste it, and retired to his room, barely taking the time to undress before falling into bed.
Draco blocked the curse coming at him easily before aiming a cutting curse directly between the eyes of his opponent, effectively blinding him. He quickly dodged the next would-be attacker before scanning the chaos around him for his mentor. Just then, everything seemed to slow to a crawl when he finally spotted Severus Snape, and then he saw his father. Lucius Malfoy raised his wand to Severus, striking down his old friend with a curse delivered through teeth clenched tight, this face a mask of shocked rage and tortured betrayal. Draco could hardly reconcile that face with the proud, laughing man at whose knee he'd attempted his first Cruciatus.
Draco did something that he'd never done-couldn't even imagine ever wanting to do. He turned his back on his father, and ran to his mentor's side. He knew instinctively that only one thing that could have caused his father to turn on his old friend, the favorite of the Dark Lord, especially in the heat of battle. Severus must have shown himself to be a traitor to the cause.
Draco knew this, but in that moment, the only thing that mattered was that the light that struck Severus was a sickening shade of red. It was not green. It was not green, and the convulsions and the blood and the unbearable rictus of pain Draco could see on Severus' face meant that Severus was not dead.
Draco ran, never seeing the crowd part as Potter approached the Dark Lord. He saw nothing aside from Severus, curled in on himself in the muddy, battered field that used to be the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Draco was close, but his path was littered with men and women from both sides of the fight, some still firing curses and others lying horribly still.
Dodging curses all the way, Draco was finally nearing his mentor when he fell.
He landed face first in the muck at the Dark Lord's feet, just as Potter let his secret weapon fly. The power with which Potter cast illuminated the entire macabre scene for an instant, causing Draco to shut his eyes against the brilliance of it. The last thing he saw before the backlash of the spell struck him was Severus, lying motionless amid the chaos, his black eyes staring unblinking across the field.
Draco awoke with a start, once again disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings, before remembering where he was. As he dressed, after casting several ineffective freshening charms on his soiled clothes, he remembered that the events of his horrible dream had happened only the day before. He stepped in front of the dusty, warped mirror before buttoning his shirt, and stop cold at what he saw. The skin of his shoulder had was a sickening shade of gray, fading out around the edges into a faint webbing of dark grey lines.
Draco stared at the mirror, horror dawning as he remembered seeing the same kind of mark on the clerk who'd bought his cloak, and he realised where he'd seen it before. In his sixth year at Hogwarts, he'd spent a great deal of time in the library, buried in the stacks, searching for anything that might help him carry out the Dark Lord's orders against Dumbledore. He'd watched the man for weeks, trying to find any weakness that could be exploited. He was beginning to lose hope, when one morning at breakfast, while Draco watched surreptitiously from the Slytherin table, the headmaster reached for his tea and the sleeve of his robe slipped. It was only a bit, but it was enough for Draco to see how his wrist was black as at disappeared into his glove.
Weeks before, on one of his endless trips to the library, Draco had found a crumbling folio on archaic magics. One of the illustrations in the chapter on earth magic showed a man's arm. It was black from wrist to elbow, fading to gray on his hand and upper arm. The writing accompanying the drawing was extremely difficult to read, however, Draco did manage to make out something about hastening the return to the earth before noticing that the end of the description, and the method for casting the curse were missing. He'd paged frantically through the book, but the page he needed was nowhere to be found.
Draco, being unwilling to risk drawing attention to himself by attempting to try to get another copy of the book, finally set the idea of using Dumbledore's already cursed hand against him. He hadn't given the book another thought until that very moment.
Draco seethed as he finished dressing. Earth magic! Could Potter really be that stupid? Was he not aware that earth magic had fallen out of use for a reason? As with any elemental magic, it was simply too difficult to control by anyone but the most powerful of wizards. Potter was powerful enough, that much was true, but he was far too inexperienced.
The pub at the inn was nearly deserted this early in the day, but Draco did manage to get a cup of tea and bit of breakfast before going back into the city to try to find some answers.
When Draco returned to his room that evening, exhausted both mentally and physically, he was no closer to getting back home than when he'd set out. An entire day of listening in on conversations and asking careful questions, he had gained information, but no real direction.
All he had to show for all of his detective work were two words that he'd heard everywhere he'd gone: geostigma and Shinra.
Apparently, geostigma was what they called the curse Draco had been hit with. It was a fitting enough name, but all that anyone seemed to know about it was that it was fatal. Shinra was a different story. It turns out this Shinra was responsible for the destruction of the city, and everyone said that it was also the cause of the curse. Draco tracked Shinra to a small building, the only one he'd seen that was in decent repair. Two men stood at the entrance, guards from the looks of them. He approached them warily, pulling himself up to full height in an attempt to project his importance despite the admittedly unimposing state of his attire.
The larger of the two was a rather intimidating figure. Clearly well muscled under his neatly pressed black suit, he towered over his partner. Although his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, Draco knew he was being closely watched. If there was going to be any trouble, however, it would be the other guard who started it. The shorter man had gravity defying hair in a shade of red that Draco was quite sure wasn't found in nature. He slumped against the wall, toying with an odd metal rod, a weapon of some sort. His suit was of the same style as the other man's, but it looked as though it had been peeled up off the floor before being put on.
As Draco approached, the redhead stood straighter, then narrowed his eyes. Looking Draco over carefully, he sneered, "You lost?"
Draco decided his initial instinct was correct. If this one had gone to Hogwarts, he'd have been a Gryffindor. "I'm looking for Shinra."
"Well it looks like you're out of luck. He's not here."
Draco's fingers twitched, but he didn't draw his wand. The way his magic was working, it would surely only get him into trouble. However, he decided to address what appeared to be the more reasonable partner. Turning to the taller man, he asked, "When can I see him?"
"You can't," the redhead answered, earning a glare from Draco. His patience was wearing thin, and the temptation to hex the mouthy little prat silent was getting too great, so Draco opted for a graceful retreat.
As he lay in bed, he tried to plan his next course of action, but gave up when he found that he didn't even know where to start, and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
Sometime before sunrise, he awoke to find that he was not alone. In one startled motion, he was sitting up with his wand in hand in trained on the three figures in front of him. The guards from the day before were in his room along with a man in a wheelchair. He couldn't see the new man's face; it was obscured by a blanket that draped over him, so that all Draco could see was one well-manicured hand, marred by geostigma. The redheaded guard stood by the door, his attention split between the hallway and the room, and his partner stood stoically beside the wheelchair.
"Didn't I tell you, boss?" the redhead drawled.
"The resemblance is remarkable." The man-Shinra?-had a smooth, almost musical voice. He was clearly amused.
Draco pointed his wand menacingly at the man and demanded, "Who are you, and why are you here?" His own voice was steady, his time with Severus and the Dark Lord taught him to hide his fear of situations that were out of his control.
The man responded, "You can put your wand away. We both know that your magic does not work here." Draco barely had time to wonder how the man knew, when he waved his hand and said, "Leave us." Both of the guards nodded and walked out, shutting the door behind them.
Draco, knowing he was caught in a bluff, lowered his wand.
"I've met one of your kind before. If you're anything like him, you'd do anything to find a way home. When my associates informed me that you came to find me-"
"So you are Shinra?" Draco wondered.
The man nodded, a nearly imperceptible movement through his shroud. "Rufus Shinra. And you are?"
He began to say Malfoy, when an image of his father from the last battle flashed behind his eyes. "Draco. I need some answers, Shinra-"
"If you're Draco, then allow me to be Rufus. As I was saying," he continued, completely ignoring Draco's attempts to speak, "they had no idea what you are; nonetheless, they thought I'd be interested in meeting you."
At this, the man slowly removed his shroud, laying both the blanket and an odd box on the floor. Draco's first thought was that the man was beautiful. His neck and head were bandaged, leaving only one eye exposed, but that slight imperfection did little to detract from his smooth, pale skin and the way his fine platinum hair seemed to glow in the dim lamplight. Draco's second thought was that Rufus was frighteningly close to being a mirror image of Draco himself.
Rufus allowed his scrutiny for a long moment before he broke the spell by standing and stepping forward. It was clear that the chair was part of some sort of disguise, because in truth the other man moved with a confident grace that Draco recognised. He'd moved like that once, but that was before. Nearly four years in the Compound hiding from Greyback-and any of the Dark Lord's other followers who enjoyed using the fresh meat for target practice or worse-had wreaked havoc on Draco's carefully cultivated poise. Draco's rented room was small, and in two short strides Rufus was standing right next to his bed.
For the first time since his rather abrupt awakening, Draco was reminded that all that stood between this imposing, attractive man and Draco's nudity was a dingy, threadbare sheet. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. His prick, having found itself virtually exposed and taking a keen interest in the situation, chose that time to remind Draco that four years of war among the Death Eaters had not done any favors for his sex life.
His prick quickly jumped from interested to eager when Rufus reached out with his curse-marked hand and carefully traced his fingers over Draco's neck and across his shoulder. "We haven't found the cure yet," he said, a simple statement of fact.
Draco swallowed hard as Rufus's long fingers continued their journey over his shoulder, past the hideous gray mark of the curse, and slowly down his arm, pausing to run his thumb carefully over the Mark before letting his hand fall back to his side.
"It's a curse based in Earth magic," Draco said, his voice not nearly as steady as he'd have liked. "You're not likely to find a cure or a counter." Rufus looked at him oddly, and Draco shrugged. "I spent quite a lot of time in my father's library as a child."
"I see," Rufus replied absently, leaning toward Draco just the slightest bit, and Draco couldn't be bothered to notice that he was leaning in himself. Tentatively, he raised his own hand and touched Rufus's carefully.
Rufus shivered at his touch and turned his hand to stroke his fingertips over the thin skin on the inside of Draco's wrist. Draco decided that questions could wait. He rose to his knees on the bed, allowing his sheet to fall away, and pulled Rufus closer. Their lips crushed together almost painfully at first, and Rufus climbed onto the bed, sliding his hands into Draco's hair to take control of the kiss. Draco's hands fumbled with the buttons on Rufus's suit, but Rufus brushed him away.
"No time," he muttered, and Draco was gratified to hear the breathless quality of the other man's voice. Rufus pushed Draco down onto the bed, the wide leg of his surprisingly soft trousers brushing Draco's aching cock as he moved to straddled him, causing Draco to moan and raise his hips, searching for more contact. He didn't have long to wait. Rufus leaned in for another rough kiss, pressing his hard length alongside Draco's.
They lay like that, thrusting against one another, until Draco broke the kiss and buried his face in Rufus's neck. The bandage was rough on his cheek, but the skin around it was warm and smooth and he explored it with his teeth and his tongue. Heat pooled in his belly, he was so close and then Rufus shifted. He slid one knee between Draco's thighs and lifted Draco's leg, sliding his hand down the back of his thigh to cup his arse. He pressed with one dry fingertip, barely breaching Draco's entrance, and that was enough.
Draco cried out, clutching at Rufus's hair as he came. With a few more thrusts, Rufus was coming as well. Draco vaguely noticed that he'd never even unfastened his trousers.
They lay still for only a moment before there was a quiet knock at the door and a voice, that redhead, Draco was sure, called that it was time to go.
Rufus stood slowly, and began to go back to his chair. Draco reached for his wand. "Let me…" He cast a cleaning charm, then another, and it only took three more tries before Rufus's suit looked something like clean again. He nodded his thanks and sat down, retrieving his box and replacing his shroud.
The transformation, Draco noted, was amazing. One minute he appeared strong and confident, the next frail and weak. Draco pulled the sheet back over himself, and the return to their original positions reminded him that he did not yet know what he needed to know.
"How long? How long till it kills you?"
Rufus was silent for a moment. "The longest was just under a year."
There was time, Draco thought. Surely there was a counter to the curse, if only-
Rufus interrupted his thoughts by calling his bodyguards. The door opened, but the other men remained outside while Rufus turned his chair and began to leave.
"Wait!" Draco called. Rufus stopped, but didn't turn. "The other one, the other wizard, how did he get home?"
There was a longer pause this time, before he replied simply, "He didn't."
Draco sat on the bed, barely registering the click of the door latch that signaled that he was, again, alone. He thought of his home, his world, his magic, how the last time he saw his father he was wearing the face of a madman. He wondered whether there was any point in finding a way to survive in this place, knowing that he had so little time. He stared into nothing, not moving from that spot, even when the sun rose and the world outside his window erupted into chaos.