Louis is the Leader of a Steampunk street-gang and earns money as a male prostitute. Harry is a Dutch Gypsy with a prosthetic hand with a keen eye for all things beautiful.
They find each other perhaps by chance, but perhaps that the Gypsy-Boy knew...
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Harry didn't bother to retrieve his weapon from the dead-man's chest as he spun back around. There was no way, not even with blood on his hands and a scar in his heart that he'd ever feel any pity for Edvard. Even if the young lord had been brought up to understand that feeling no pain was the same thing as feeling love, and even though he'd learnt that it wasn't; Harry would never forgive him from the mistake he'd made.
You see, despite the fact that Edvard had managed to change, the young Gypsy still remained as relentless as his parents' had taught him to be. He'd love those who did good - but those who sin, who hurt, who tear others apart-those were the bastards that Harry would never let cross the bridge of Heaven without the scars to let God decide if they deserved to be there.
The relentless man tore himself away from the body he'd destroyed and ran up to the door, ignoring his comrades who were struck with shock like a gathering of lifeless statues. Harry pushed the door open and looked down at Louis. The man was lying face-down and naked, body turning black at the tips of each limb, cuts all over his skin like spiderwebs that crawled deep into his flesh, and bruises that clouded together in dark and murky storms. His left leg had been mauled by what seemed like a very hungry dog, teeth marks digging so deeply into his skin that one last pull of the dog's jaw would have torn the muscle out of Louis' calf. Harry was sure that Louis couldn't feel his leg any longer, and he could confirm his belief by the way that the blackened limb was bent horribly at an angle as if it wasn't even meant to be there. Louis had deep burns on his back as well, so red that even a woman's most expensive make up couldn't have covered them.
The Gypsy bent down and found Louis' face beneath the white hair. He was terrified of the emptiness that stared back, almost unable to recognise this man as his own. There was nothing the same about him, nothing left to show that he was indeed Louis and not some kind of decaying monster that had been left aside for the hounds and maggots to feast upon. There was nothing left of the little steampunk but a single shimmer in his glassy eye.
"Take him to my place." Harry ordered in the voice of a man who knew how much respect he'd earned. Liam and Zayn suddenly snapped back into themselves when they received a command, and rushed up the steps to help carry Louis out. The young man never said a word, he never gave a sign of pain, and was as emotionless as a broken mannequin waiting to be thrown away. That was what scared the Steamers the most. Harry shuddered, forcing to tear his eyes away from his beloved stranger. He retrieved his black cloak despite the air being close to freezing, and threw it over the naked body before Liam picked the man up. The commander winced back as he heard how many bones cracked beneath the sliced skin.
They left Edvard to lie in the gutter, not even considering giving his body a restful place to be found, and they ran down the road as fast as they could, fighting every rough stone in the pavement to not startle and jolt around the nameless man who was meant to become King.
*
Everyone watched the old barista observe the body that had been layed out in front of him. His hair was gradually falling out and he stammered when he spoke, old croaked voice seeming unable to string his wise words into a correct sentence. He adjusted his eyepiece that zoomed in and out, scanning over Louis' body as the young steampunk rested on the kitchen table. A fact that Harry had learned long ago was that his guardian used to be a doctor but had since then long retired to claim a calmer lifestyle as a barista.
