Chapter Text
“…al…”
“Sm…ne…”
“Small One!”
Eyes snapped open as the youngest Collector jolted awake, shooting up from their sleeping position. Around them languished two entities, both bigger and more imposing than his small form.
“So you finally decided to wake up,” one said, “Warm was getting worried you were another failed attempt.”
Another entity was off to the side, arms crossed, “Cold, stop scaring the kid. They don’t even know where they are,” they said before coming to a stop in front of the smaller’s face. “I’m Other, and that’s Cold over there.”
At this, Cold sighed before shifting to a more comfortable position, “Welcome to the home of the Collectors, Small,” he said with an unsettling smirk. A shiver ran up Small’s spine.
The feeling of unease was abruptly ended by a heavenly smell preceding the entrance of a third being, holding a tray of… something.
“Has the kid- OH MY STARS THEY’RE AWAKE-!” Was all the warning Small got before he was lifted from the soft void beneath them and wrapped in a suffocating embrace.
Other made a face of long-suffering before taking the tray the warm entity had left suspended in midair, then turned away from Small’s smothering situation.
Wriggling away from the other Collectors, for that’s what Small assumed the people surrounding them were, he drifted towards Other and the tray holding round… pizza bites? They could’ve mistaken them for a bagel if not for the cheese and sauce on the food.
The aloof Collector noticed Small’s look of concentration and answered the question brewing in their mind, “They’re pizza bagels.”
Small’s eyes shot to them before their gaze returned longingly at the pizza bagels, another unasked question in the air between the two.
They sighed, “If either of them ask, I didn’t give you this,” Other murmured, before slipping Small a pizza bagel and rearranging the tray so it looked like none of the round snacks had been moved.
A heavy blanket of silence enveloped the four as Small nibbled on the pizza bagel Other had gifted him. (Though, technically, they had been made by Warm.)
They didn’t know how long the silence lasted, but they did know that the other three Collectors straightening at once was probably not a good sign.
“A Collection call?” Warm said in surprise.
“And on my day off…” Other muttered, before turning to Cold, “Can you make sure Small stays here? We’ll decide what to do when we get back.”
Cold nodded, then looked over his shoulder at Small, “We aren’t going to call them something other than Small?”
“What else are we supposed to call them? We can’t exactly let the Collective see them and give them a name!” Other sighed, “We’ll be right back, just… keep them safe until we make a decision, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Cold murmured.