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At some point, when lines had started to blur and days turned to weeks, then months, did his thoughts also start to take another shape.
The pain started to slowly fade into mild throbbing when he still thought back to Cindy or his ex wife Lisa, it didn’t hurt as much anymore, when they somehow turned into distant memories, days long gone like the better days when Lisa wasn’t in debt and Arkin hadn’t gone to prison.
That was a long time ago.
Physical pain still sent him into a momentarily spiral of revenge, every cut inflected opened up two other times he had gotten caught by the Collector.
He had lost his energy, when his revenge was already reality, he finally got what he had swore to do only to it to end, come in hasty end and put Arkin down but instead of killing, now two were taking their own shot with him.
And it had worked.
Hate had turned slowly to craving and at some point, as a reward, the pain wasn’t always so intense. He got praised.
Held closely and given affection he hadn’t gotten in years and it had made him cry when finally left alone at one night again, everything coming crashing down because the situation was completely fucked up, he never asked for this and yet two sadist serial killers were the closest thing he had gotten to love in last years.
It all had started to make him feel wanted, when he woke up always to the next day with all of his body parts still intact and injuries cared for.
When the palest one came down to talk to him, with him, one encouraging a normal conversation even though they loved their own voice as much.
The Collector still valued silence but would be one communicating with his touches more, more pushing and pulling and tapping what Arkin had noted on his first stay in.
He had started to fall, first it had been more towards the one who had cut Arkin’s revenge to an halt, and the reason for it was stupid; He felt like he could shield him just a bit from The Collector’s wrath, from pain even though they both gladly took turns on inflecting it.
Then, one night The Collector bandaged his arm, naked, soft touch making Arkin’s heart skip a beat from getting actual human skin contact after so long. It felt stupid but he also could recognize scars on Collector’s hands what he had left.
When those scarred hands held onto his more ruined ones, it made certain pride and connection flicker inside him.
The most stopping point in his stay was, when he didn’t wake up from the basement tub chained up, but instead from the upstairs bed of the abandoned house he had used for his revenge and making the perfect place to become his own doom, his own grave if things were to go south again.
Even though it never did.
The mattress was old and worn but a sleeping bag thrown open on him was clearly brought in recently.
But the main thing that catches him off guard was that his first thought wasn’t escaping. It was the concern of how silent it was and small threat, that he was all alone, locked in to die.
Carefully, he gets up from the bed even though his body protests, and only now notices a small piece of paper, glass of water and generic Tylenol tablet. So at least they wanted him alive. That was good.
“Come downstairs.” He hardly even looks at the window, what wasn’t even boarded, only taped over the glass to keep eyes out.
He takes the pill and drinks it down, taking notice to the window and how familiar tuck in his stomach knew what he should probably do. But where would he run exactly?
He didn’t have a home, not really when the rent has been due this long. In the worst-case, he was going back to jail.
Many people wouldn’t probably hire him either, as news had kindly paraded him being a twice-convicted thief and used his mugshot of all things, probably closest picture to the hottest news of the century to use.
His eye corner twitches, when he takes a deep breath and continues his way downstairs, past the window which would be easy to make into an escape route.
At least here his way to survive looked tame and nonexistent compared to who he had been in contact with for a while now.
They saw him as more than a petty thief and a criminal.
They saw potential, admired him as himself.
A piece forms to his throat for a moment, as Arkin thought how that was, in its own way twisted, how the world's monsters could see him more as a human than a normal citizen. Maybe that was because none of the three of them weren’t exactly like that.
When he had gone down the first set of stairs, on the wall there was another note, this time it's a green sticky note and under it, hanging from the wall were two masks. One which was The Collector’s and what Arkin had managed already once to take off. He wasn’t sure whether he should just call him Asa at this point, a name he had picked out from the list of entomologists.
The second was clearly the other one, who introduced himself as Beda. Who was still a huge mystery to Arkin, though he knew they were someone from the Herpetology wing and had severe albinism, at least judged by his hands and snow-white hair. The mask had covered their whole face, two parts fused together and reminded Arkin of a hard plastic that had been covered with leather. Clearly handmade and Slavic in style.
They were both big on their respective fields and murdered, guess Arkin could easily see where the charm comes from for them both not to kill each other.
He focuses on the task again, and reads the small note: “Come to the kitchen.”
He could already feel in his guts what he would find there.
Yet when he finally gets his shaky and aching legs to the kitchen, the sight still throws him up, it felt like a dream when the sun shined through taped windows to a round dining table, where Co- Asa sat with his coffee mug, without the mask, light brown hair still wet from a morning shower with loose, gray t-shirt and pants which looking out of place from what Arkin had used on seeing.
He had never noticed that there were few very light and thin scars on Asa’s face. The fresh one on the side of his head was one Arkin had made, that’s for sure.
He avoids the obsidian eyes when his eyes land on an upheld newspaper, before its reader lowers part of it down.
Face so pale it competed with freshly fallen snow could have easily rendered Arkin blind with the intrusive morning light. Gray eyes, empty from color, take a quick scan and his eyes seem to burn on Arkin’s skin before the man before him smiles.
“Morning, sleep well?” The man looked younger than he probably was with well cared for skin, pretty even and It was suddenly hard to form an answer like every word died to his tongue.
His nails go over his arm, where he starts to scratch over dried and healing cuts.
“Better…” Somehow he gets his gaze ripped to the table, where between two men, there was a third place with a plate of two pieces of toast with cheese and cucumber, boiled egg, a bowl of yogurt, and glass of water.
Hunger crawls to his stomach but he doesn’t dare to move.
There had to be some trick.
“Sit and eat.” Asa’s voice was gruff, clearly still not ready to face the day or at least comment on anything more than he had to.
For that reason alone Arkin gets his ability to walk again and goes to sit, catching himself taking a quick glance that there wasn’t anything on the chair, like nails hit through it.
He sits down when he finds the seat empty.
It was now when his nerves started to kick up again, waiting for something to happen any minute now but it never came, the other turned the newspaper page, Asa drank his coffee and got up to wash his cup. Nothing happened so Arkin starts with the bread, his head throwing him an idea about hidden glass.
Yet he bites down, trying to push this line of thinking down, and finds out that there wasn’t anything horrible under toppings.
“Asa, he is on page six, the whole page.” Somehow hearing the real name was odd and so out of place but his curiosity was still peaked, when the said page is turned to show Asa, who was drying his hands and taking a closer look to the page, Arkin almost choking to his bread when he saw it.
“Great, they used my mugshot again…” he mostly mumbled to himself as he sat back down to eat his cruel hunger away after seeing that news was about him being missing - again. At this point in time, it didn’t bother him long, when he remembered how he was cuffed in the hospital and treated like… Like trash. Surely he had broken in but it still felt like he was treated like the worst dirt on earth.
After him kidnapping Asa from gunpoint and everything else though, Arkin wouldn’t be surprised to be thrown to a cell without a key.
“Yeah, I think it’s a bit outdated but still cute.” He gets the page next to Arkin’s mildly blushing face as he tries to just focus on the second piece of bread.
“Okay, it has been outdated a lot.” Asa snatches the paper to read the actual article “Give it here.” And Arkin is just beyond speechless from the whole casualty of this all and for a moment doesn’t know, does he have to respond.
“Did someone report me missing?” The question leaves his mouth before he even thinks about it and he looks up to two pairs of eyes looking at him. Gray eyes visit inky ones before the latter goes back to the article and gray stays on Arkin.
“Not exactly, news tries to fish you out, mostly in lines of where you vanished and that you were last seen after the Hotel went up in flames. You have holed yourself up good.” That's so…
Arkin didn’t have an answer to that information so he just took a swing from the water glass and it seems like the answer wasn’t really demanded from him either. Asa sighs, folding the newspaper to the table.
“We will be going back in a few days.” The paper is tossed to the table, before the eyes are on Arkin again, who starts to fidget with the spoon in his hand.
“Yeah about that. We have an offer for you, Arkin, choice in a way.” A pale hand reaches out, touching multiple scars running on Arkin’s arm, which sent chills running down his back but he didn’t dare to pull his arm away, kind of didn’t want to do it.
“We want you to join us, be with us both.” Arkin swallows down when his eyes drop to the hand on his arm.
“Or?”
“Or, you can blow up with this house or we will give you to the police. Provide evidence that you decided to expand your criminal record a little with kidnapping, best case scenario they think you went so nuts that you become a copycat.”
“We want you, preferably alive, though.” Without giving it much thought, Arkin lets the spoon go and thoughtfully traces his still healing fingers over the pale hand and feels how Asa is coming closer.
In its own way, the choice was easy. Arkin was tired of getting hurt, getting stabbed to the back, and yelled at.
What was one more fucked up try to have someone to care about him in return?
“I would love to… But do I just call you by your name? Come to think of it, I don’t even know yours.” Arkin looks up when there's an encouraging squeeze to his arm.
“Preferably, yeah. You can call me Ira.” Asa and Ira… At least those were short and easy to remember.
A heavy hand comes down to pet Arkin’s head and he can’t help a small smile escaping to his lips. He would finally be at home.