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The corridor was cold and dark and silent. And yet still he could hear the sound of music pounding in his ears, see the bright, blurry flashes of the party behind his eyelids.
Every step was agony. The insides of his legs felt sticky. His clothes were ruffled and torn in places. He felt sick. So sick he suddenly found himself stopping in the middle of the hallway, found himself bent over. Bile scorched his throat. The sharp, disgusting tang of it was not enough to overpower the sweetness of the drink he was foolish enough to accept. The taste of Leith and Eddie devouring him.
He didn't know where he was going. All he was aware of was the blind, mindless, animal instinct to get away. Get as far away from here as possible. Somewhere where he couldn't be followed. Somewhere where he couldn't be found. Not by Leith. Not by Eddie. Not by anyone who wished to harm him. Not again.
That's good, Harley. You're doing so well. Taking us both so well…
The door refused to open. He threw his weight against it, desperate. It took several swipes of his ID card to unlock, his hand shaking so badly it was a miracle the door opened at all. And even then there were several flashes of red light — a warning not to enter. A panel slid back, requiring an override code only someone of his rank and up could possess. Trembling fingers jabbed it in, and the door finally slid to the side, admitting him inside. He launched himself through it gratefully, the cold metal sliding shut behind him, locking him in and plunging him into pitch black darkness. Harley collapsed against the wall, exhausted, relieved, his legs finally giving out beneath him.
Moments before unconsciousness took him, Harley thought he heard the click of metallic joints, glimpsed a clawed hand reaching for him from the surrounding shadows.
Harley wasn't even sure what had possessed him to go to the party. His presence had not been necessary. But Leith had insisted he go, had said it would be good for him to ‘lighten up’ and enjoy himself for once. Whatever that meant. But whenever Leith made a suggestion, it was commonly understood that what he really meant was an order.
So he'd had no choice. He'd had to go. He’d been on thin ice with Leith ever since the Theater Incident. Despite knowing how indispensable he was for Playtime, how secure he was in the knowledge that they would never dispose of him as they did of Stoll and so many others, he also knew that Leith was prone to making very stupid decisions when he was angry. If going to this stupid party served to placate the man's fragile ego and put Harley on his good side again — then he would gladly suffer through the indignity of it.
Whatever it took to guarantee the survival of his project and his place at Playtime.
He knew immediately that the party was going to be torture. Neon lights blinded his vision. Deafening music blasted overhead, making his pounding headache several times worse. His coworkers crowded the room, talking, laughing, getting drunk on the alcohol they'd procured from the bar. It was a very Leith style party to throw, that much was painfully clear. Complete with booze and crass music. Harley found himself already thinking longingly of the silent labs several levels below. Of the peace and quiet of solitude he could find down there.
Before he could think of quietly slinking away and finding another way to get Pierre off his case, a strong arm wrapped itself around his shoulders, another brandishing a glass in front of his face.
“Harley!” Leith boomed jovially, straining to be heard over the music. “Glad to see you could make it, old pal! Go on, go on! Have a drink! There's plenty more where that came from!”
Harley accepted the glass, if only to avoid being dunked with its contents with the sheer energy with which Leith was waving it around. Clearly the man was already drunk, and the party hadn't even been going for an hour. Past Leith he could make out Ritterman, the businessman also holding a drink in his hands, though looking much more put together and in control of himself than his fellow executive did.
“Dr. Sawyer.” The man greeted, nodding in his direction. “It's good to see you could make it.”
Not by choice, Harley thought to himself, taking a reluctant sip from his glass. Perhaps if he got sufficiently drunk the party would go by quicker. Were it up to me, I wouldn't have shown up at all.
Leith reappeared with a new glass in hand, his arm once again finding its way around Harley's shoulders. Harley stopped himself from recoiling. “So, what are you two talking about? Didn't miss anything, did I?”
“I was just about to ask Dr. Sawyer about his newest project.” Ritterman said smoothly, casually swirling the drink inside his glass. “Three children in one toy body to form an experiment that can fit multiple assigned roles. It sounds quite ambitious. I'm curious to know how the good doctor plans on pulling it off.”
There was an unmistakable edge in that deep voice, a sense of danger in those cold, emotionless eyes. Harley wasn't fooled by the niceties in the least. Could recognize a predator on the hunt when he was faced with one. Ritterman was testing him, fishing for weakness. Looking for any excuse to remove him.
He had never liked him, after all. Had been against hiring him. But Harley wasn't going to give him the opportunity to finally get his way.
“It will be challenging, balancing out the stupidity of one child with the two I handpicked from Playcare.” He said, not bothering to conceal the sneer in his voice. Really, falling into a vat of play dough while on tour around the factory was nothing short of natural selection. If only the vat the aforementioned idiot child had fallen into hadn't been the one filled with experimental play dough Harley's team had been working on for months. “However, I have no doubt in my mind that the experiment will be a success. My team is already moving ahead with having the other two processed by Monday morning.”
He took another sip from his glass, acting casual as Eddie coldly stared him down.
“Good.” Ritterman said at last, finishing off his drink in one swallow, his sharp, hawk-like eyes never leaving Harley's. “We'll be looking forward to seeing the results, Doctor.”
I'm sure you will, Harley thought, meeting the other's glare with an equal one of his own.
Their silent, tense staring match was broken up by Leith.
“Alright, alright, enough talking about business.” The man said, releasing his hold on Harley and gesturing at the festivity going on around them. “This is a party! We should enjoy ourselves while it lasts! After all, it's such a rare treat.” He winked at them both mischievously. Eddie stared at him for a moment, before chuckling, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
“You're right, Leith. Of course this is a time for us to enjoy ourselves.” He agreed, but Harley was not deaf to the lingering poison in that deep, smooth voice. “What do you say we go find Ms. Greyber? I'm certain I've seen her around here somewhere.”
“Of course, of course.” Leith slurred, clapping Harley on the shoulder and moving to follow Eddie. “We should see how ol’ Stella's enjoying the party. She's such a lightweight! Try and have fun here, Harley, old pal! It would do this whole factory a lot of good for you to loosen up!”
Breathing a soft sigh of relief as the two executives began to move away, Harley made for the nearest table, fully intending to set his drink down and return to the labs. He wasn't that drunk, and there was still plenty of work to be done.
Only… he never reached the table.
The world suddenly grew fuzzy and swam before his eyes. His legs wouldn't follow his commands. For a heart-stopping moment, Harley realized he was about to fall. The glass slipped from his fingers, shattering into a hundred tiny pieces the second it touched the floor, causing several people to look around in alarm, expressions concerned.
An arm caught him around the waist before he could collapse, however, pressing him back against a strong chest, holding him up.
“Whoops! Looks like our good doctor here had a little too much to drink!” Pierre's laughing voice rang out, putting the surrounding people at ease. Harley struggled weakly against Leith's grip trapping him against the other man, wheezing when it tightened painfully around him. He was not drunk! Pierre was lying! He'd put something in his drink, Harley was sure of it!
He needed to get away. Needed to call for help. Now. But his tongue, much like everything else, refused to follow his mind's commands.
“Hey, Eddie! Get over here! Help me take Harley here to a more quiet place so he can sleep it off, won't ya!”
Another person appeared at their side, a set of strong hands throwing one of Harley's over an equally sturdy set of shoulders. Leith took his other side, and between the two of them they began dragging Harley away, ignoring the man's weak struggles and protests and attempts to free himself.
“What are you…?” Harley slurred, but Pierre shushed him harshly, his voice lowering to a deep, threatening whisper that sent shivers running down Sawyer's spine.
“Shut up. Not here.”
The booming music grew quieter the farther they got from the party. To his growing dismay, Harley realized they weren't taking him to the staff rooms, but to Leith's office instead. Far away from where anyone else could overhear. Far away from where anyone could step in to intervene.
Well… at least they weren't taking him down to the labs. To the surgical suite.
Leith let go of him to open the door, leaving Ritterman to bear his entire weight as Harley was no longer capable of standing. They hauled him inside, dropping him unceremoniously on the leather sofa pushed against the wall. The low click informed him that he was now locked in. His only escape route closed off. Trapping him inside with two predators he’d been foolish enough to cross.
“Thought it would work slower.” Leith's voice cut through the fog suddenly obscuring Harley's vision, through the steady ringing filling his ears. “Can't say I'm not pleased with the results though.”
A hand gripped his chin, forcefully drawing his eyes upwards, his dazed, unfocused gaze meeting Eddie's.
“I have to say, I much prefer him like this.” The other man said, his smooth voice sending frightened shivers running down Harley's spine. “He's much more pleasant when he keeps his mouth shut.”
“You'll be regretting those words once we get down to business.” Leith teased, and Harley felt a cold stab of horror and disgust at those words. Tried to will his body to cooperate. To move. To fight. To flee. “You want to be the first to take him then, I suppose?”
Eddie's appraising look made Harley nauseous.
“Sure.”
“N-no.” Harley slurred, his tongue as heavy and uncooperative as the rest of his body. “You… you wouldn't…”
Leith swam back into view, his features blurry under the haze of drugs Harley had unwittingly and so foolishly ingested.
“Did you really think we would just keep letting you off the hook, Sawyer?” He asked, and this time there was not a hint of intoxication or mirth in his voice; only cold anger. “Huggy loose in the woods. Catnap. The business with Stoll. And now the Theater Incident? You've become a liability to this company, Harley. Now usually, the way we deal with this is we get rid of liabilities such as yourself. You know better than anyone how proficient we are at that. However,” Leith's face soured, a grimace pulling at the corner of his lips, “we can't get rid of you. We have White, but he's no match for your ingenuity, your intellect, your knowledge. Another idea, of course, was turning you into an experiment. Plugging that brain of yours into a machine, your every thought just a few buttons presses away. But in doing so, we risk losing you. Eddie and I, we're businessmen and we know how to take risks, but why take that risk if we have another solution? A much safer way to put you in your place without rolling the dice on whether you come out of the surgery intact, or brain dead?”
Rough hands descended on his clothes, stripping him bare. Uncaring of the ripping fabric, of the buttons falling to the floor. Harley tried to protest, tried to struggle. To fight. But all of it was for naught. He couldn't fight. Couldn't resist.
He was completely helpless.
“A lesson has to be learnt here, Sawyer.” Leith said, leaning in so close their lips brushed. Harley flinched back in revulsion, only to find himself backing against Ritterman who had somehow slipped in behind him without the other noticing, his heavy hands settling possessively on the scientist's bare hips. Effectively trapping him between the two of them. “And it's in your best interest if the lesson sticks.”
And then, his lips crushed into Harley's, swallowing his scream.
Cold. That was the first thing he was aware of. It was cold. Freezing, even. He couldn't stop himself from shivering. Where was he? What was going on? His head… his head was absolutely killing him.
When he opened his eyes, he couldn't recognize his surroundings. He was lying in the middle of a giant cavern, the only source of light being that of the fixed lighting system Warrenbach used for their underground construction. That was somehow the first clue that pointed him to the fact that he was in the mines, deep beneath Playtime. A stream split the cavern in two, the gentle rush of water by far the only sound permeating the cold silence of the cave. How had he ended up here? He couldn't remember. He had never ventured so deep beneath Playtime before. Why would he? There was no reason for him to ever come down here.
When he sat up, he realized he wasn't seated on the cold cavern floor. A pile of blankets lay stretched out beneath him, cushioning him from the hard stone. By the looks of them, they had to have come from Playcare. But who had brought them here, to this abandoned section of the caves? Who had brought him here? Surely he hadn't come here by himself. What the hell had happened? Why couldn't he remember?..
His eyes fell on his clothes and Harley felt his breath catch in his chest, felt the suffocating feeling of horror taking hold of him.
These were not his clothes. Someone had changed him. Someone had undressed him. Someone had—
Foreign hands on his body, exploring, groping, bruising. Lips kissing down his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. A heavy weight on his tongue, a pulsing length pushing deep into his throat, making him gag. But all of it was incomparable to the pain deep in his hips, the unwanted sensation of fullness, the nauseating mix of pleasure and pain—
“Harley?”
He didn't even hear the heavy steps approaching him, the telltale clicking of metallic joints. Before he even knew it, he was bent over again, gagging, coughing up the meager remnants of his last meal.
“Harley!”
A gentle hand settled on his back, the cold metallic feel of it snapping him back to reality. He flinched away with a sharp cry, wide eyes falling on the gigantic form of 1006 now towering over him, the man somehow having missed the creature's approach.
The Prototype took a hasty step back, hands lifting in front of him. Harley hardly noticed this surprising gesture of mindfulness, however. His breath came in short, rapid gasps. The world swam before his eyes. His body refused to follow his commands. All he was aware of was the feeling of unwanted hands on his skin. The filth being whispered in his ear. The taste of Leith and Eddie on his tongue.
The voice that suddenly spoke to him was familiar. Wrenching him from the memories his mind had once again lost itself in. A single voice, one he hadn't heard in over three decades, the fact so surprising that it was enough to snap him out of the flashback he'd fallen into; bringing him back to reality.
Elliot's voice.
“There you are.” Elliot said when he saw Harley's gaze finally focus on him, his voice surprisingly soft. “Come back to me. It's just me, Harley. Just me. I will not hurt you. I promise you.”
Not like they had.
Harley blinked, looking down at himself, at the blankets strewn beneath him and at last at the cavern surrounding them.
“Where are we?" He rasped, fighting back the panic choking him. "Where did you bring me?”
“We're in the caves. Just beneath the labs.” Elliot answered and, seeing the confused expression on the scientist's face, quickly added, “You didn't think I didn't have a million and one ways to get out of that silly little cell of yours, did you? Come on, Harley.”
Harley scowled.
“When I find my way back to the labs I'll find out how you did this.” He promised. “And your little escapades will be over.”
The Prototype shot him what was unmistakably a look of frustration. Which was remarkable given he didn't even have human features to work with.
“Thank you for not killing me when you had the chance, Elliot.” 1006 said, his voice seeping sarcasm. “Thank you for taking me down here, tending to my injuries and letting me sleep off the drugs and alcohol in my system in safety. — Ah, no problem, Harley! It was my pleasure.”
“Don't pout. It doesn't become you.” Harley sniped back, trying to rise to his feet and leaning heavily against the stone wall when the world spun before his eyes, bringing with it another bout of nausea. Soreness radiated up his body, making him all the more reluctant to move. “You've changed quite a bit over the years, haven't you? You didn't use to be so needy for appreciation.”
“And you've remained exactly the same. You stumbled into my cell last night, ruffled, bruised and bleeding, obviously drugged, your clothes torn and the first thing out of your mouth after I helped is not a thank you, but a threat. You haven't changed a bit, Harley. Or do you prefer to simply go by ‘Doctor’ nowadays?”
Harley glared at him.
“I didn't need your help.” He spat. “I was fine. I am fine.”
The Prototype simply looked at him and Harley knew that the other could see right through his feeble defense. It made him feel exposed. Vulnerable. He didn't like it at all. Needed to leave. To get out of here, before Elliot could say more. Before Harley could find himself breaking.
“I know what was done to you, Harley.” He spoke, as if reading the man's thoughts; the mockery from before now absent from his voice. “I saw your injuries. Who did it? Leith? Eddie? White? Who?”
His mouth suddenly feeling dry, Harley looked away, arms wrapping protectively around himself and his borrowed clothes. More than anything else, he wished he could disappear in that moment. Let the ground swallow him whole. More than anything, he wished he could no longer feel. No longer experience the hollowness within him. No longer feel the pain of the fresh, open wound that he now knew would never truly heal.
“Why do you want to know?” He asked quietly, bitterly, his voice no more than a rasp. “Want to personally thank the people responsible?”
The Prototype… actually seemed taken aback by that. If such a thing were even possible.
“What?” He asked, and the genuine confusion in his voice only served to set Harley off.
“You don't have to lie, Elliot.” He choked out, the words like acid on his tongue. “Go ahead. Gloat, why don't you.This is what you've always warned me about, isn't it? Hubris. That's what has led me here. Back to this… fucking company, to this position as head of Special Projects… to this godforsaken cave. I was blind. I didn't see… I was too busy chasing that elusive dream. Paving that golden path. And as a result, this is where I ended up.” The sting in his eyes was alarmingly familiar. Unbearable. He turned away, unwilling to let Elliot see the tears he was trying so hard to contain. He'd had enough humiliation in the last twelve hours. Enough to last him a lifetime. He didn't… he didn't need Elliot to see him like this as well.
And yet still the words left his tongue, refusing to be contained.
“I should have seen it coming. They had to have been planning it for a while, waiting for the best opportunity to strike. And I was too arrogant to see it. So sure I was untouchable that I walked right into their trap.” He turned around, fixing Elliot with a withering glare, all too aware of the tears gathered in his eyes as he spat with as much venom as he could manage. “So go ahead — gloat. Tell me I deserved it. Tell me how much you’re enjoying seeing me like this. That's what you brought me here for, isn't it?! So?! What the fuck are you waiting for?”
Elliot's continued stunned silence only served to stoke the flames of rage inside him, Harley suddenly wishing he had something to toss at the other man. To throw. Something he could use to cause even a fraction of the pain he himself was feeling at that very moment. To release the pent up emotions battling inside him.
“Say something!” He shouted, his voice echoing throughout the caves surrounding them, the scientist past caring if they were overheard. He stalked towards Elliot, heedless of the size difference, heedless of the fact that he was a mere human, while the other was a giant killing machine that could crush him easily if he so wanted to. His fist slammed against one of Elliot's legs, and he ignored the pain that immediately radiated down his wrist, or the blood that bubbled up where he'd sliced his hand open hitting it against sharp metal, tear-filled eyes glaring upwards, up at Elliot's crimson gaze. “Say something, damn you! What are you waiting for?! Gloat! Laugh! Mock me! I don't care! Just say something!”
But Elliot never did. Instead, gentle claws reached down, grabbing hold of Harley's bloodied wrist. A damp cloth was pressed against the deep cut, staunching the blood flow. Harley watched in confusion as Elliot carefully cleared the blood away and gently wrapped the wound, his hands soft and meticulous in their work. Tender.
“I don't have a first aid kit down here to tend to it properly.” Elliot murmured, his voice surprisingly soft. “I used what I had on your other injuries. You're going to have to disinfect it yourself when you go back up to the factory and change the bandage. For now, this will have to do.”
Harley wasn't sure why it was those words in particular that finally broke him.
His breath hitched. The tears, no longer able to be contained, trickled down his cheeks. Harley's forehead came to rest against Elliot's leg, shoulders shaking with the force of his silent cries. Gentle claws brushed against his back, so light their touch could almost be imperceptible. As if Elliot feared he would pull away. As if he feared Harley would reject the comfort offered.
He didn't.
The hand settled fully against his back, a gentle, soothing weight, metallic thumb rubbing circles into his tense shoulder blades. The touch was achingly, painfully familiar. Brought with it long suppressed memories of when Elliot had last held him like this, so many years ago. Back when Harley had been a boy. Back when Elliot had been his only support in the world. The only one he trusted. Before that trust had been thrown back in his face, leaving deep scars that had never truly healed.
A heavy sigh rattled through the Prototype's chest then, the sound so inhuman and yet so familiar it brought fresh tears to Harley's eyes, the scientist unconsciously reaching out and gripping the arm holding him. Hating how much he felt like that same frightened, vulnerable child he had once been. Seeking comfort and safety in the only person he had ever trusted.
“I'm sorry, Harley.” Elliot said quietly. “I'm sorry.”
Whether he was apologizing for expelling him from the program, or for what had happened — it wasn't clear. Harley accepted it regardless.