Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time that the Beheaded entered the Collector’s lab, he nearly tripped on an unexpected piece of paper on the floor. His idiotic flailing caught the Collector’s attention better than any words and he watched the Beheaded knock over several books. Papers acting as bookmarks and others as notes scattered in the air like snow, falling slowly to the ground while the Beheaded worked on not keeling over.

The Collector watched the Beheaded finally catch himself on a wall shelf, the flames puffed high in embarrassment. If the Beheaded had not broken down the door with a vicious kick and ran inside, it would not have happened, and so it was entirely self-inflicted.

The room was massive, full of vials and flasks and bubbling liquids, piles of books and papers distributed about with little organization that the Beheaded could make sense of. Not only the ones he knocked either, either, it was chaos regardless of the Beheaded’s accidental damage. The writing on the book on the desk was neat and orderly, matched by the various notes nearby as if collecting short snippets for study.

As it was, once the Beheaded had straightened and dusted himself off, the Collector inclined his head in greeting. “Well, look who it is…”

The Beheaded’s hand snapped to his side but stopped short of fully drawing his sword. He tilted his fiery head, eye narrowed, then made motions as if to speak. His head bobbed, but there was nothing, much as it had been earlier. If only his earlier attempt had been something so simple as a misunderstanding of how to use the body and not, apparently, a quirk of his biology.

His shoulders slumped, then jumped as if recalling something. He’d allowed the blade at his hip to fall back into the scabbard. He hadn’t released the hilt though, resting his hand on it. He couldn’t leave himself so open simply because something about the effervescent liquid and the man before him felt unsettlingly familiar and intensely foreign at once. He tightened his grip on the handle, his skin paling at the ferocity of his grip.

“Yes, I suppose you would be used to using violence to solve your issues,” the Collector said with a quiet laugh. “You will find that I do not appreciate my work being destroyed in your wake.” He waved pointedly to the broken door and the mess of papers that the Beheaded had knocked over in his foolish swinging.

The Beheaded’s flame flared at the implication of danger.

The Collector’s eyes glowed brightly in the darkness of the hood, a toothy smile matching it for a moment before vanishing. The Beheaded’s sword flashed as he drew it and dared the Collector to use the violence he had just decried.

“Hmm. You would do well to sheathe that.” the Collector said conversationally. It was not a threat, but the Beheaded could hear the command behind the suggestion. It might well become one.

The Collector set down the vial in his hands, the small glass tube laughably miniature in his large hold. He straightened for a moment as his back popped. Perhaps he had been bent over his desk for too long. The cylinder chained to his back made it easier for the motion to tilt him back farther than he might have managed alone. He groaned at the loosening of joints.

He caught the Beheaded’s eye widening at the sound, a faint color change towards warm tones in the flames. Intriguing. He wanted to know what every shade meant precisely, even if he was sure some of them would be more obvious than others.

His face, shrouded in the shadow of his hood, revealed nothing. The only visible markers of his head were the teal eyes glowing in the darkness so deep that it seemed tangible. The Beheaded wondered if his hand would disappear if he thrust it into that void too.

The Collector relaxed into a less healthy, but infinitely more comfortable, posture, leaning forward slightly. He was still taller than the Beheaded, a fact that he resented deeply. It wasn’t like the Beheaded was short, the Collector was just… something other than human, obviously, with his digitigrade legs and sharp taloned feet. The Beheaded was not human either, but that was different. Somehow. The Beheaded did not enjoy the feeling of being small (vulnerable).

The blue of the liquid in the cylinder made the Collector’s skin seem a similar shade. When he moved, however, the Beheaded realized that the Collector’s skin was blue like his own. The black iron chains on the Collector’s wrists clanked ominously, echoed twice by the two pairs on his legs, one below and one above his ankles. Was he once a prisoner? Maybe talking to him was a bad idea.

The Collector ignored the Beheaded’s assessing, the obvious nature of the Beheaded’s gaze unworthy of comment. He did note the lingering stare at the Collector’s bare chest, but politely made no mention of the Beheaded’s rudeness.

“I am the Collector, and I’m about the closest thing you’ll find to decent company around here,” the Collector said, that smile appearing once more.

The Beheaded’s eye narrowed suspiciously, his flames obligingly tightening into a hot, blue blaze. He did not lower his sword. The Collector’s gaze followed the jagged, cracked shape of the blade, then tsked. The Beheaded blinked stupidly in response. He didn’t expect such a judgmental tone for a perfectly serviceable blade (it was most certainly not perfectly serviceable in the Collector’s opinion).

The Collector’s hands fell together naturally before his chest, a position mocking the idea of prayer. It was more comfortable that way. He always needed his fingers moving, and at least this way he could keep tapping his fingers together.

“I see you do not believe me. Just as well. We can be… acquaintances.” The Collector finished his sentence with an odd tone.

The Beheaded bristled, the hairs on the back of what little remained of his neck standing up. Something about this felt like the Collector knew him more than he knew the Collector, and he didn’t know how. The Beheaded had come to life (existence?) a day ago at most. He’d clawed his way through shambling corpses in hopes of seeing someone sapient. At least, someone new and not only the knight woman who had greeted him when he scrambled up the first ledge he’d seen. He held the sword out more firmly; a threat.

The Collector shrugged, his shoulders made all the wider from his skull pauldrons. “Do as you like.”

The Collector’s unconcerned nature at the thought of attack was worrisome at minimum and frightening at most. This might not be a fight the Beheaded could win as he was. His body was not at full capacity and he could feel aches and pains that noticeably slowed his reflexes. If what the knight said was true, then he would come back regardless. He had yet to see if it was true and did not want to test it because he was irritated at a justified scolding.

The Beheaded’s sword wavered for a moment before he lowered it reluctantly. He sheathed it and took careful steps forward. The Collector did not move, more than aware that the Beheaded was wary and liable to attack like a cat. He was certainly impulsive enough to act without thinking as he always had.

The Beheaded stood before the Collector begrudgingly, staring up at the Collector in an attempt to make eye contact. The Collector tilted his head down, momentarily humoring the Beheaded’s aggressive attempt at a power play. The Collector had no need for that. A moment later, after clearly acknowledging what the Beheaded was doing, he broke away from the one-sided staring contest to glance over his desk to check on the vial. The Beheaded’s flames tightened again at the dismissal.

“Do you have Cells?” the Collector asked as he turned back to the small man at his side.

The Beheaded tried to focus on calming himself from the perceived slight and ignored the Collector.

“Ah. Right. You are unable to speak. A kindness that the world has given us in such dreary times,” the Collector said wryly.

The Beheaded’s head snapped up with with a heavy glare and his flames sharply pointed. He nearly attempted to shoulder check the Collector (but wisely did not complete the motion) as he stomped past and towards the unbroken door on the other side of the room.

“I suggest,” the Collector said, watching the Beheaded’s failing attempts at breaking the door down, “that you return to me. That door will not open while you carry Cells on your person.”

The Beheaded gave the door another sharp kick, but the wood merely rattled before settling back down. The glow of magic within the wood hadn’t been missed, but he had hoped that enough strength might grant him the right to break it. He was clearly incorrect.

The Beheaded returned to the Collector petulantly, and if he had a head, the Collector might have seen a familiar pout on his lips. As it was, he had merely the darkening of the flames to go by. While the Beheaded’s power play had failed, the Collector’s had not, and the Beheaded’s chest churned with resentment. He waved a hand sharply, as if to say “so?”

The Collector’s eyes squinted in a smile. “The Cells are gathered upon the demise of your enemies. More precisely, those affected by the Malaise.”

The Beheaded waited for further explanation and crossed his arms. He tapped his foot when the Collector did not continue fast enough for his liking.

“Patience,” the Collector chided.

The Beheaded’s eye rolled.

The Collector pushed a few papers aside on his workbench to free a covered book. He dusted it off with a few taps to the fine cover, then flipped it open. It spread easily in his hands, clearly well worn and used, and the pages whispered softly as he pushed them aside.

The Beheaded dug his nails into his arms, trying to force himself to wait without causing issues. It was shockingly difficult.

After a minute or so that felt at least ten times as long, the Collector turned the book around for the Beheaded to see. A clean drawing in a fine hand showed a spherical object with something inside that felt altogether… alive.

The Beheaded leaned away slightly, aware now of what the blue orbs in his pockets and bobbing in the Collector’s vats were. They were what the Collector called “Cells.” He had no idea what that even meant, but they seemed valuable. He understood value.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and plucked out a handful of Cells, holding them out as though displaying fine jewelry and careful not to drop them. The Collector’s eyes gleamed brightly, focused on the small items. He set the book down and went to reach out but the Beheaded snatched his hands back. His eye narrowed and he shook his head.

The Collector huffed. What else did he expect? “Indeed, those are what I desire. I am using them in an attempt to cure the island of its sickness. Bring me the Cells you gather from the others. In exchange, I'll procure a few useful little items for you,” he cajoled.

The Beheaded seemed to weigh the matter, assessing the worth of the tiny orbs.

The Collector hid his eyes once more into the darkness of the hood. “I would not recommend attempting to leave with them.”

The Beheaded stopped himself from looking up from the pile with difficulty. He didn’t want to appear weak. Instead, he rolled his shoulders in an exaggerated sigh, then opened his palm towards the Collector. He raised his other hand expectantly as though the Collector would drop something into his palm.

The Collector smiled, mouth visible for a mere second before the thick black of his hood returned. “I would never cheat you. I will give you what you desire: weapons to better destroy your enemies. Should you stumble upon a blueprint, bring it to me and I will introduce you to some more... experimental items.”

The Beheaded’s eye dilated. He was remarkably easy to read so far. The Collector’s hand itched to make notes of the minor changes he had already noticed. If he waited too long, he might forget the details, and no true science was made by forgetting to put pen to paper.

A vicious man even now, the Collector mused, when he was so ignorant of the world around him, always focused entirely on destruction and selfish desire. The Collector’s smile was invisible this time, licking his teeth greedily. He needed to wait. If he pressed too hard, too fast, he risked losing the wary man’s little trust. He could learn about him later.

The Collector didn’t take the Cells yet, allowing the Beheaded to hold onto them and feel as though he were in control. He carefully unwound the chains around his body, gently setting the large test tube from his back onto the floor. He made sure it was secure, a hand lingering on the top for a moment before turning away. His hood, empty of face, paused to look at the Beheaded pointedly. An blank gaze, but the message was heard loud and clear: do not touch.

He walked to another door half hidden behind towering vats full of opaque liquid. “Wait here. I will return with new equipment for you.” He slipped inside.

He didn’t dawdle, not wanting the Beheaded to get too curious and damage his delicate equipment. He decided on a bow, one that he had collected from a guard that fell rather close by. He tugged on the string and found it as easy as picking up a pen. Yes, this would do. The Beheaded would find this sufficiently difficult to pull and feel it an appropriate trade for the pitiful amount of Cells he currently held.

The Collector turned to face the the door when he left, hiding the knob from sight as he closed it. He locked it with a small key and tucked it into the shelf in the same motion he stepped forward. He did not want the Beheaded to know where the key was in case he got a bit nosy.

He straightened into his normal hunch, leaving the large vat where it was. He could return it to his back when the Beheaded was gone and he didn’t look quite so foolish wrangling it back into its proper place.

The Collector moved to stand in the middle of the room, the bow in his hands, and waited for the Beheaded to approach. The Beheaded would come sooner or later. The door he came in would be the only door he could leave through without the Collector’s permission, and the curiosity of a closed door was more alluring than refusing to acquiesce to the Collector’s momentary control. The Beheaded’s flames tightened into a scowl and he made his way to the Collector’s side.

The Collector set the bow to lean against his work desk, then took the Cells from the Beheaded. He clicked his tongue in disappointment at how few there were. Not even ten. He checked them over for signs of spoilage or if they were cracked, but they were whole and unbroken. He set them into a small bowl on his desk that once held a candle.

The Beheaded shifted, hand clenching as he prevented himself from lunging forward for the bow. The Collector finally had pity on the man and proffered it to him with a small quiver of arrows. “Do you need guidance on its usage?”

The Beheaded gave him such a look of disgust that the Collector could not stop a laugh from escaping. It was a deep sound, made from the belly and not the chest, and almost hissing. His hand went to his stomach when he felt it tighten, breathing out so he could take a bigger breath.

The Beheaded’s eye was locked on his chest, shamelessly so. Ah. His chest must have bounced with his laughter, made all the more obvious from the supportive bones of his torso beneath his pecs and over his skin. He supposed he could hardly blame the Beheaded for being interested. Were he in the Beheaded’s position, he could not say he wouldn’t do the same.

He raised the bow to catch the Beheaded’s attention once more. This time, the Beheaded took it in hand, testing the draw. As he thought, it was difficult enough that he saw the Beheaded’s arms tighten with the effort, giving a textbook view of powerful muscles on the bicep and forearm. The Collector wistfully thought of seeing them spread neatly over a surgical table, playing with the strings and seeing how long they would writhe when separated from the host. Perhaps another time.

The Beheaded loosened the draw of the bow and gave a nod of acceptance towards the Collector. The Collector smiled, allowing it to be visible this time.

“It was nice meeting you,” the Collector said, remembering the social rules he’d had to follow all those years before. “I look forward to seeing you again. Do you have a name you wish to be called?”

The Beheaded stared at him for a few seconds, then shrugged. He had no better way to communicate his thoughts, and didn’t really care to find a way to be more clear when the message was obvious enough. He had no name that he remembered, and of all the things important to him, a name was not one of them.

“Very well then,” the Collector said. “Nameless you will remain.”

The door behind him clicked, the lock slid out of place, and the glow of magic keeping it closed faded away. The Beheaded looked to the Collector, then the door, and back to the Collector questioningly.

“You are free to go. It will open when you approach.” The Collector waved towards the door in question.

Now that their business was concluded, the Collector wanted the Beheaded out. He had things to write down, notes to document about the Beheaded. The change of hues in his flame, the inability to speak, the returning arrogance, it was all important, and if the man did not leave soon—!

Thankfully, the Beheaded did not wait any longer, taking his leave immediately. The door closed roughly behind him, but that was fine. The door was strong enough to handle such abuse. He would need to replace the door that the Beheaded use to enter his workshop, however. A small price to pay to see his work function, if only in a limited capacity.

He hummed a song under his breath as he plucked out a new journal from the wall. He hadn’t used this one yet, and he thought this meeting would make for a nice first entry.

Chapter Text

The Collector reinforced the door, so when the Beheaded tried to kick it down the next time he came by, he had the schadenfreude of hearing the door rattle only once before being opened properly like a normal person. The Beheaded shot him a glare, but the Collector acted as though he hadn’t seen it.

“Well, well, well, look who it is…” the Collector said with a bright smile.

The Beheaded’s glare did not fade.

“How many Cells do you have for me this time?” the Collector asked, ignoring the Beheaded’s sour attitude.

The Beheaded’s sharp stare faded into a smaller, less saturated flame that felt sullen. He opened a new bag at his hip and held out some Cells. Even fewer than before. Disappointing.

“Hm. I suppose it will have to do.” The Collector held his hand out for the Beheaded.

The Beheaded waited a beat to see if the Collector was actually going to force him to approach and put the Cells in his hand like some sort of gift. The Collector did not move, and so, with a stiff walk, he dropped the Cells into the Collector’s grasp.

The Collector closed his fingers around them immediately. He couldn’t risk even one falling and breaking. They were far more precious than any metal, even gold, and he would sooner burn the castle to the ground than waste them. The castle would survive that; the Cells would not.

He looked them over with a keen eye, tilting his hand back and forth to inspect them for defects. They seemed so small in his large hand and he held them between his fingers almost like marbles. They glowed softly, and while the light illuminated his skin, it did not lift even a drop of black inside of the Collector’s hood. He sighed softly when he saw one of them leaking a pale blue fluid. A shame.

He plucked it from the rest and held it up for the Beheaded to examine. “Look at this one.”

The Beheaded looked at him askance, but the request was honored by an incurious gaze. He was going through the motions even if he didn’t actually care. That was enough for the Collector. He felt a flush in his soul that the Beheaded already obeyed the minor demands. In time, he would heed even greater ones.

“See how it weeps liquid?” the Collector asked, tilting the orb so it would be more obvious.

The Beheaded’s eye narrowed and he leaned closer to better inspect, then nodded. A drop trailed its way down the Collector’s finger in a cool slide. The Beheaded forced his eye away from the oddly enticing sight and back to the Collector’s words.

“I will not accept these as currency. I will still take them from you, but they are not useful to my work.” The Collector turned towards his desk.

A hand snapped out and grabbed his arm, startling him into a blink.

The Beheaded struggled to find a way to express what he desired, his flame bouncing as he thought. He finally settled on closing the Collector’s grip around the solid Cells and holding a hand out for the damaged one.

The Collector looked between the Beheaded and the Cell. “You… want to keep this one?”

The Beheaded nodded.

“I see. It will not do you any good,” the Collector warned. “It has no use outside of the scientific context in which I use them.”

The Beheaded shrugged.

“Very well then.” The Collector placed the broken Cell into the Beheaded’s hand. The Beheaded’s flame flickered when the liquid stuck to his palm, shoulders drawing up into disgust. It was so much grosser in his hand rather than the Collector’s. He still didn’t give it back and shoved it into a pocket.

The Collector returned to his desk, setting the new Cells into a small bowl he had gathered for that purpose. If he had a new source of Cells, he needed to ensure that he always had a place for them now, a bowl that once held ink for his pen the perfect size for the few that the Beheaded was bringing.

His previous attempts at harvesting them, while successful, took more time than it was worth for the pitiful numbers of Cells he was able to get alone. He had enough to use here for now that it wasn’t yet an issue, but it would soon be one. Thankfully, that far off problem had a new solution, one that required only his stash of items and knowledge in return; an easy task he would be almost glad to do.

The Beheaded’s feet, shoeless as they were, were silent as he padded up to the Collector’s side. The Collector reached for a vial on the other side of the desk and bumped into the Beheaded, jumping at the sudden touch of an unexpected person. Curse the lack of peripheral vision!

The Beheaded’s fire bounced with his shoulders in mockery. The Collector tamped down the urge to pick the Beheaded up and forcefully remove him from his lab. He could do it without too much effort, probably. The Beheaded was still having trouble adjusting to his body.

“Yes?” he asked instead.

The Beheaded rubbed his fingers and thumb together, then held out a hand pointedly.

“My apologies. I have forgotten to pay you for your efforts.” The Collector tapped his fingers over the stained wood desk. “Do you have a blueprint, or should I give you a premade item?”

The Beheaded plucked a small paper from his bag and held it out. It was a soft, faded blue and the Collector’s fingers itched to see what knowledge it held. He may not be that much of an engineer or a blacksmith, but he was determined to create whatever he was handed, no matter the field or research he might need to do.

The Collector was able to make out the scratching on it with difficulty, the blueprint cracking in his hands and threatening to fall apart if he held too tightly. It was some sort of bear trap— no, a wolf trap, as it was labeled. A beautifully cruel invention, made to inflict agony while the attacker could take their time with the victim. It was rather like the straps on a medical gurney in that aspect; there was no escape without further harming the captured individual. However, instead of IVs and scalpels, this worked by a far simpler principle of maiming and locking down rather than the delicate accuracy of a surgeon.

The Collector nodded once. “I can create this. It will take me some time. You may rest here or leave and return in the meantime. If you choose to stay, be silent while I work.”

The Beheaded flattened his gaze, his flames as still as they could be for a small fire. The Collector laughed quietly.

“So it is that your silence is your blessing as well as your curse,” the Collector said, ignoring the rude gesture the Beheaded gave him. “Regardless, do not cause issues or I will take even longer. Neither of us desire that.”

The Beheaded’s eye rolled, admitting that the Collector was right with a wave of his hand.

The Collector’s smile felt predatory in its quick flash of approval. The Beheaded’s skin prickled, on edge at the temporary sight, but there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t going to leave without getting his portion of the deal.

The Collector nodded towards a corner, bare of papers, where a chair sat. It was firmly made —it had to be, to hold the Collector’s bulk without breaking— but not all that pleasant to use. A desk chair through and through, created to hold weight alone, and it did that admirably. The Collector found it far more comfortable to stand than to use the creaky seat. If he wanted to sit, he would rest on his bed. At least that was softer.

The Beheaded dusted the wooden seat off. He flicked his hands afterwards to clean what he could off with a grimace, though the Collector found it rather pointless. The Beheaded was filthy as it was. The Beheaded squinted slightly to see if any of the nearby books made any sense, then decided against trying to understand them when the titles swam with too many words. He was not a scientist or a magic weaver, it meant little to him. He sat down and crossed his arms, eye trained on the Collector.

The Collector sat the blueprint on the desk, tracing the shapes as he made notes on a separate paper. The paper was delicate enough that he didn’t want to risk damaging it further. He murmured to himself as he did so and soon found himself in the rhythm of creation, the knowledge that he was being watched pushed out of mind in favor of a far more interesting endeavor.

The trap was straightforward, but too simple for his liking. As it was the first blueprint, he would add a small modifier to encourage the Beheaded to continue giving him the Cells. Shock damage would work nicely, he thought. Considering it was made of metal, it would course through whatever the teeth caught easily. If the victim were wearing clothing or had dense fur, it might block the teeth from making contact with skin, however, and he would hate for his first creation to end up being useless. This one especially needed to be worth the Beheaded’s time lest he decide against offering the Cells to him in the future. He added a note to add a sharp edge to slice through any protection hiding the flesh beneath.

The Collector hummed quietly as he worked, the tapping of his fingers over the paper and the deep, soothing sound of the song making a remarkably calming atmosphere. The Beheaded was tired, and though he tried to keep a vigilant gaze upon the Collector, he caught himself falling asleep multiple times. It was unpleasant to jolt up from surprise at a sudden sound, his muscles tensing and paranoia jumping before fading into an uncomfortable wariness. His body won in the end and he soon slipped into fitful sleep.

The Collector paused midway through his work to look at his unwilling companion.

He was too small for the chair since it was built for someone of the Collector’s size, and it made him look breakable. He was, of course, as all beings of flesh were breakable, but there was an aspect of desire to break him that made it all the more appealing.

The Beheaded leaned back in his chair, head hanging over the back and feet lazily sprawled on the foot support beneath the seat. Why his head, separated from his body as it was, still acted as though it were connected by flesh and bone was unknown, but intriguing. His skin was blue again, the same as his previous body. Was it a change that occurred after possession?

The Collector’s fingers twitched, wanting to touch and feel the Beheaded to investigate his anatomy. Was his skin sensitive? Did it react to heat or cold? How was his balance? Was his first entrance to the workshop a product of foolishness or an issue with coordination? He had no head, perhaps the lack of vestibular system made it more difficult to remain upright when his feet fell out from under him.

The stump of the Beheaded’s neck was more alluring than anything else, and he knew that being allowed to examine it was far off from now. There was no blood pouring from it, nor did it seem that it would. He saw the vertebrae and flesh as if the head was cut off by an executioner’s axe, neatly severed by a heavy, sharp blade. Perhaps it was once one of the prisoners who had met such a fate.

The Beheaded’s body was not the same as before. Rather than the muscled form he’d come wearing prior, this one was rather wiry. It was fitting then, that the blueprint he gave the Collector was for a more tactical build rather than one relying on brute strength. The Collector forced his mind back to his work. He could finish it and then consider ways to study the Beheaded without being noticed afterward.

Time whiled away in patient burbles of bubbles, and the Collector held the completed weapon with little memory of actually working on it. His notes were copious and covered his desk, his work often done in an almost thoughtless haze of creation. He focused on the goal and everything he needed to get there, but remembered little afterwards. It was why he took so many notes. If he forgot how to recreate something, it would be a major setback for even minor tasks if he needed to make it anew.

He sighed. He could not focus on the future when he had a present to live. He picked up the papers and roughly organized them with a quick tap on the desk, then set them aside in favor of testing the new device. He turned a small knob on the side of the trap to set the snap weight. He lowered it into a lover’s bite, then picked up a torn, unimportant book. He hovered it over on the pressure plate and loosed his grip.

The trap slammed shut with a squeal of metal grinding against metal. The Collector frowned; the squeaking was unpleasant and was like as not to alert enemies, the exact opposite of what a trap ought to do. More oil then, or a change in the way the teeth met in the center. It was also too strong even on what was meant to be a low strength. If the Beheaded used it as it was, it would likely sever a limb, not capture one.

He heard the Beheaded catch himself with a echoing slap of his hands against the chair, his rough startle awake nearly tumbling him to the ground. He didn’t turn to face the Beheaded, speaking loud enough for the Beheaded to hear.

“My apologies, I was not aware of your slumber,” the Collector lied. “One cannot test a new weapon on the battlefield, and so I must ensure it works properly.”

The Beheaded eyed the Collector warily. He resettled himself, bringing his feet up to sit cross-legged in a more stable position.

The Collector smiled, knowing that the glow would reflect on the metal. He heard the Beheaded shift behind him and stifled the light. He spun the trap and picked up a wrench.

“Sleep. I will endeavor to be quieter,” the Collector said.

He didn’t expect a response from the Beheaded, mute as they were. The sharp tap of a knuckle on wood prompted him to turn, however, arching a brow.

The Beheaded seemed surprised that it worked, blinking for a moment before smoothly sliding to his feet. He bounced over in a half-jog to look the trap over with curiosity. As if he could possibly offer any advice that the Collector had not already considered! He supposed that an interested Beheaded was a behaving Beheaded, so he bit his tongue.

It also, more pleasantly, gave him a view into the cut neck. Not perfect, of course, seeing as it was a couple of feet below, but it was something. The wound was sealed in some way, though fluids and flesh ought to still be wriggling and dripping from the open veins. The Collector allowed himself a moment to imagine the Beheaded covered in blood.

Hm. A pleasant image.

He made a mental note that the Beheaded’s chest still rose and fell as though breathing. If the still open windpipe were covered, would the Beheaded suffocate?

Ah, he was getting ahead of himself yet again. He needed to focus on the now.

The Beheaded pointed at the large bolt that adjusted the snap weight of the trap. He made a motion with his hand to mimic the trap’s motion, then closed it with enough force that the slap of skin was audible. He repeated it more slowly, almost languidly, then once again pointed to the bolt, though this time with an inquisitive tilt to his head.

The Collector blinked in surprise. Granted, it was hardly a difficult design, but even so. A short survey of the item and a basic understanding was already granted. He needed to remember that this was still an intelligent man, arrogant or not.

“Yes,” the Collector agreed. “That changes the strength of the bite. It is currently set too high.”

The Beheaded put a hand to his face where a chin might have been, eye narrowing in thought. The Collector patiently let him think it through. Even fools might think of something a master could not, and he would allow the Beheaded his moment.

The Beheaded looked around a moment later in search for something. The Collector watched him flounder, shoulders rising higher and higher as he struggled to communicate.

“Are you able to read?” the Collector asked.

When the response was an insulting slam to the workbench to emphasize his attitude, the Collector’s already thin patience wore out.

“Do not repeat that,” he said sharply. “If you damage anything in this room, you will receive precisely what you dish out.”

The Beheaded flinched, leaning away. His chest puffed out in a silent scoff, then nodded in response to the previous question.

“Then you can write what you wish to say,” the Collector said in a far calmer tone.

The Collector reached for a pile of old, useless information that he had not yet tossed away, then flipped the empty backs upwards. He held out his pen, hesitating momentarily. It was a nice pen, only he had received as a gift when he had kept breaking the more fragile ones made for human hands. The converter worked as well now as it had when he received it, and the nib was still firm, yet springy. He had another, lesser quality pen that—

The Beheaded plucked it from his hand before he could grab the replacement from its place in his desk. He sighed, praying that the Beheaded would treat it well.

The Beheaded’s penmanship, as expected, was exquisite. The letters marched the page in a neat line, no angling even on unmarked papers, and easily legible.

”I’m not a goddamn idiot.”

“Hm. I suggest that you endeavor not to act as one, then,” the Collector said. The Collector’s eye twitched when the Beheaded wrote a response with a heavy hand, nearly tearing the paper.

”Fuck you.”

“Eloquent,” the Collector said drolly. “Have you anything to say that is not merely an insult, or are you going to waste my paper away on childish squabbling?”

The Beheaded picked up a couple of papers and raised them to his head. The flames, while warm next to the Collector, were not burning. He was rather surprised then, when the papers went up in an eager blaze only to fall as ash on his workbench.

The Collector snatched the pen from the Beheaded’s hand. “That is enough,” he snapped.

The Beheaded stepped back, hands in his pockets as though he were a teenage troublemaker, and pleased with irritating one of the few people who gave him the time of day.

The Collector flicked the pen towards the Beheaded dismissively. “Return to your seat. I will finish this and then you can take your leave.”

The Beheaded returned to the chair. Rather than sitting down or returning to his nap, he dragged the chair over to the desk. The noise of wood against stone grated into the Collector’s mind, nearly as bad as the metal screaming against itself. He hadn’t exactly taken care of the floor and the legs bounced over every crack and divot of stone with an agonizing cacophony of sound.

The Collector closed his eyes and resisted rubbing his temples with difficulty. There was already a headache tempting the muscles to tighten. Finally, finally, the sound ended when it was within reach of the workbench. The Beheaded scrambled to sit on it once more, then made a motion to prompt the Collector to continue his work.

The Collector sighed. It could certainly be worse company.

He turned the trap towards the Beheaded. “The bolt here,” he pointed at the same one as previously noted. “The end on the inside has a hole for the spring. By turning it, you are able to gather more of it and coil it tighter. To loosen the trap, one must merely do the opposite. However, it seems that this method is not currently working.”

The Collector tilted the trap to the side, leaving it closed still. He thought about the various options only to be interrupted by the Beheaded tapping his arm for his attention. He glanced over to see the Beheaded holding out a paper.

“Get a different spring then. If it’s too tight, you can’t loosen it more.”

“Technically incorrect,” the Collector said, mostly for the sake of disagreeing. “I can unwind the spiral. Whether or not that is a wise decision is a different matter.”

The Beheaded rolled his eye.

The Collector set the trap down and meandered over to a box in the corner, picking through the bits and bobs in search of another spring to use regardless. It wasn’t as though the Beheaded was wrong. It took a little bit of digging, but he emerged with a smaller one triumphantly.

He returned to his desk and shifted the trap closer once more. The spring wasn’t easy to pull out of its place, and after a few moments of unpleasant force on his fingertips, it was free. He set it aside. It would be used sooner rather than later in some new device, he was sure.

The new spring was more delicate and would create less force when closing. He didn’t know if it would be too little weight, but it was different enough that he may as well try. He slotted it into place and unlocked the teeth before setting it on the ground.

He used the same book as before to test it, gratified when it still slammed shut with force. It was not nearly as strong as before. If anything, it was too weak now. He pried the teeth open and pressed his fingers into the trap’s maw before they widened too much, about a couple of inches. He wanted to test the tug but not break them. Weaker or not, it was still a great deal of metal and he preferred to keep his fingers whole.

He released the teeth and allowed them to close carefully. He winced anyway, the sharp metal digging in like a hungry beast. He held the trap still, then pulled his trapped hand away. It opened reluctantly and fought him the entire time. It took little effort however. It was most certainly too weak.

With a bit more adjusting and cajoling of the metal to do as it was told, he had the trap set to an appropriate weight. He closed the teeth and held it out for the Beheaded.

The Beheaded took it, tucking it into a backpack. He gave a thumbs up, hopping down from the chair.

“I am glad it is to your satisfaction,” said the Collector. “If you excuse me, I have other work to complete.”

The Beheaded considered overstaying his welcome. There was no need to piss the Collector off too much, because as the Collector said, there were few people to speak to. He did not need to make an intelligent man his enemy. He nodded instead, throwing his bag over his shoulder. His free hand moved as if to accompany words, then noticeably sighed.

The Collector breathed in, then exhaled slowly. “There is another method of communication beyond verbal speech and writing.”

The Beheaded cocked his head.

“There is Sign Language. I am assuming you do not know it?” the Collector asked. The Beheaded shook his head. “I thought not. It was not a particularly common language. I believe I have some books regarding its usage within my library. I will find them and have one ready for you to peruse relatively soon. Or not, as you like. I do not know it myself, but there is no reason not to take an opportunity to speak with the man providing me with resources.”

The Beheaded considered this for a moment, then nodded.

The Collector momentarily debated telling the Beheaded to put the chair back, then rejected the idea. The Beheaded would not do it and there would be no point in being rebuffed in such a request.

“Very well. I will find it.” The Collector turned away from the Beheaded and to his desk, a pointed dismissal.

The Beheaded made a rude gesture behind the Collector’s back, but left anyway.

The Collector picked up the pen that the Beheaded had so roughly used. The tip was slightly bent, but nothing that could not be fixed with a pair of pliers and delicacy. He would take the opportunity cost out of the Beheaded’s next order. It would not do to allow the Beheaded to break his things without consequences.

Chapter Text

They fell into a casual rhythm over time. The Beheaded brought the Collector Cells, and the Collector provided weapons in return, though they had yet to practice any Sign Language. The Beheaded found he was too focused on exploring the island to stay long, and the Collector was chasing down new leads now that he had more Cells to use.

The items the Beheaded requested were satisfying to create, even if they brought him no closer to the cure. Having something new to focus on was a welcome, if very short, distraction and helped prevent him from falling into a rut. He hated retreading old ground he had already written off when he had no other method from which to draw progress, and with the influx of Cells, he no longer needed to conserve them as aggressively.

That was not to say he was wasteful. They were still, if the First Alchemists were correct, the manifestation of a former person’s life. Granted, he did not think that they were, but he would not treat them as if they were disposable regardless of their spiritual basis. Replaceable? Certainly. A limited resource either way, and he preferred not to toss away his resources willy nilly.

The door opened slowly the next time the Beheaded came by. The Collector, expecting a far more impressive entrance, turned when he heard no hurried footsteps or slapping of blueprint against a leg to announce his presence.

The Beheaded leaned against the door jam as if it was all that kept him upright, one arm bent at an impressively incorrect angle. Bone jutted out so far that it was more out than in the flesh it was meant to be housed within. The Beheaded forced himself forward, wincing with every step but marching onward with determination, regardless of the pain.

“I would ask if you were well, but I would not insult you by asking in a state such as that,” the Collector said dryly. The Beheaded’s returning glare was pitiful.

His flames flickered weakly, the normally pink-tinged color pallid and lacking its normal vibrancy. The Collector did not offer assistance, knowing that the Beheaded would neither ask for nor want it. He waited for the Beheaded to make his way to the desk in the same manner as their previous visits. He would not disrespect the Beheaded with an assumption of inability when the end of the walk was so close.

Finally, the Beheaded completed the grueling journey and leaned against the Collector’s work table. The Collector held off on scolding him for the blood now marring the edge of the desk. It would be cleaned easily enough. When the Beheaded reached into his bag and produced Cells, he cared even less about the mess.

It was a great deal of effort to get to his laboratory with Cells in hand. The Beheaded could have dropped them to reduce his carrying weight, but he actively kept them on his person to give them to the Collector. If the Collector were a man to read emotion into the Beheaded’s choice, he might name it a desire to please. He quite enjoyed the idea that the Beheaded suffered in order to satisfy him.

The Collector took the Cells and set them aside into their bowl. “My thanks. Perhaps you should rest here for a short time before you continue your unrelenting rampage upon the smallfolk.”

The Beheaded didn’t argue, dropping his bag at his feet and folding onto the floor right then and there. The Collector quirked a brow, allowing the expression to manifest in a teal glow.

“If you need assistance, you must merely request it,” he said.

The Beheaded’s head leaned against the leg of the work table and closed his eye.

“Please do not perish on my floor. It would be quite messy and irritating to clean,” the Collector chided gently.

The Beheaded’s eye opened, exhaustion painting the attempt at annoyance into a plea for pity. Perhaps he should assist the fragile man without too much prodding. If he made it more of an annoyance than a help, the Beheaded might not come by when in such a predicament again. This was the perfect opportunity to examine the Beheaded in more detail.

“Very well,” the Collector said, and took a step back from his desk. He offered a hand for the Beheaded.

The Beheaded stared blankly at it.

The Collector beckoned. “Up. I will fix what I can to send you out in a better position than how you arrived.”

The Beheaded didn’t need to speak for the Collector to read his expression and see the doubt in his skills.

The Collector took the Beheaded’s cold hand —cold from lack of blood due to his nature, or due to damage?— and assisted him in standing.

“Do you wish for me to carry you, or are you able to walk to the surgical table?” the Collector asked.

The Beheaded took a step forward towards the door with stiff backed pride, fully planning on leaving, then nearly collapsed when his knees gave out.

The Collector clicked his tongue. “I assure you, I am more than qualified to treat you in a medical faculty.”

The Beheaded waved a hand in begrudging agreement. He had little else he could do in a situation like this.

“I will carry you now. I will try not to jostle your arm as best I can.” The Collector leaned down and picked up the Beheaded carefully, an arm under his knees and the other supporting his back.

The Beheaded was thin, but not because the body was slender. He had not been eating enough. There was not a lot of food to be found, so it was not surprising. It was a shame though. This particular body looked as though it would have been rather pleasing to look at if it were healthy.

The Collector walked carefully, slow and steady, to the operating table in attached room. He even went through the effort of keeping his breathing calm to prevent pushing the Beheaded back and forth with his chest. He could not prevent every motion from translating into movement of the Beheaded’s body, and the Beheaded shuddered at every step.

“I apologize, I do not often carry the living and it is far harder to keep a body still than simply in my grasp,” the Collector said. The Beheaded did not bother attempting to respond.

The Collector brushed some papers off of the table with an elbow. He rarely had reason to use it, but the nearby Guillain occasionally found himself with minor wounds and it was easier to keep a sometimes sterile space at least nominally tidy. Cleaning it the moment it was needed would create unnecessary delay, and if the damage was severe enough, the difference between life and death.

He set the Beheaded down gently, but kept him upright. “Remain sitting. I must clean the steel before you can lay down.”

The Beheaded nodded slowly, mind muddled now that he didn’t have adrenaline coursing through his body to keep him attentive to his surroundings.

The Collector took a few steps back before turning, not wanting to whack the Beheaded with the vat on his back. The soap and equipment was nearby, and with only a few minutes of wiping down the table and washing of his hands, he was ready to assist the Beheaded.

“You may lay down now,” the Collector said.

The Beheaded nearly fell over in the attempt and the Collector caught him in one large hand. “Careful now. I have you.”

The Beheaded was so small. Rather, it might be more accurate to say that the Collector was large, always too big for the world made for humans and Guillains. His hand held nearly the whole of the Beheaded’s back. The heel of his palm rested over a kidney, his claws wrapped around the Beheaded’s shoulder. If he curled his fingers, he might even be able to touch thumb to fingertip around the Beheaded’s stomach. His claws were sharp enough to gut the Beheaded like a fish, slit him from belly to throat, and long enough to tear right through his flesh and into the squirming organs beneath. The Beheaded was deliciously fragile in his grip.

The Collector set him down gently and released him once the man was secure, laying supine. He looked at the broken arm with a more detailed eye. The bone’s break was neat, so resetting it would not be too much of an issue. The healing might be. He didn’t know if the Beheaded’s bodies could heal at all. He had a suspicion that he might be able to assist with that, though.

In a separate room, he had started a new experiment. He created a new elixir with the last of his small store of the sanctuary’s sap as well as some of the new Cells, and the orange bubbling liquid was as close to complete as he could get without testing. This was a perfect opportunity. It wasn’t as though the Beheaded could really deny him. Well, he could, but there was no point in it. He’d take it and possibly heal, or he could refuse and the Collector would send him off with a splint wrapped tight around his forearm, likely to die in the first fight he got into.

There was always a backup option of providing a swift mercy kill to shorten the suffering and speed the acquisition of a new body to possess. The fact that he would then have a body to investigate afterward was a large bonus on that choice. He didn’t think the Beheaded would want that, unfortunately, and so he shelved that for a far off future.

The Collector laid a hand over the Beheaded’s chest reassuringly. “I will return. I have a healing draught that will help speed the healing process.”

The Beheaded made no response beyond a closed eye and fluttering chest. The Collector wished he had a stopwatch to measure the Beheaded’s respiratory rate. He forced his hand to rise.

The Collector went to the massive retort, a hulking piece of glassware taller than the Beheaded with a downwards angled spout of a similar length. The fluid within boiled slowly with thick, viscous bubbles. He was certain it would be rather unpleasant to the palate, but there was no sugar around to help the medicine go down. The Beheaded would have to deal with it.

He used a stand with a pair of tongs to hold the small round bottomed flask while he dripped it into the container. It was too hot and it would need time to cool before he would be able to hold it or give it to the Beheaded to drink. He put a small cork into the tube when the vessel was full, making sure that the seal was tight before returning to the surgical room.

The Beheaded squirmed on the bed. If he had a mouth to speak with, the Collector knew he would hear gasps of pain. Thankfully, such sounds —when in a medical context— were annoying enough that he was glad for the silence. The Collector set the flask on a nearby table, making sure it was stable before turning away. It needed to cool, and in the meantime, he could set the bone and see to any other damage. He returned to the Beheaded’s side and prepared a few minor accoutrements he would need once the bone was set and the wound ready to be dressed.

“This is going to hurt quite a lot,” he warned. The Beheaded made no answer, but the Collector didn’t care if he got one. He spoke more for himself than the Beheaded. “It’s also going to take longer than you think it will. I need to weave the bone back into place between the muscle, and it is easy to cut the fibers on the sharp edge of a broken bone.”

He grasped above the break firmly, a similarly tight grip near the wrist. Blood dribbled sluggishly from the Beheaded’s arm. So he did bleed. There was a circulatory system of some kind functioning within the body, though how it dealt with the dead ends of the severed neck was a mystery. Alas, it would remain such for an unknown amount of time yet.

“Take a deep breath.” The Collector began to twist the Beheaded’s arm to reposition the bone, but the Beheaded writhed in pain on the bed. It was too much movement and it risked the results being suboptimal.

The Collector sighed. “I’m going to tie you down to keep you still. I cannot work like this.”

After a quick wipe of antiseptic to sterilize the heavy straps, the Beheaded was firmly locked into place. Any wriggling now would not be enough to stop the operation.

The Collector licked his teeth when the Beheaded stopped squirming, unable to keep the eager trembling in his hands in check for a moment. The Beheaded was vulnerable, open to his touch, and oh, so very easy to take apart bit by bit in a position like this. The body could be torn open and investigated, every inch of veins vivisected apart to follow the blood within, the feet of intestines unwound like a grisly garland to check how lively the muscles were when parted from their warm, protective cocoon of skin. He could scrape wet marrow from the broken bone and study it under a microscope. He could slice the skin open and check the tautness of the tendons, the springiness of the sinew. He could— he could—

The Collector drooled momentarily from his ardent desire, then wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. No. Not yet. It would taste all the better when given to him as a gift. Vivisection was a treat to savor, not a sweet stolen away and devoured in secret.

He steadied his hands and grasped the Beheaded once more. This time, while the Beheaded could not stop his body from fighting, it was only one limb to keep track of. It was easy to keep the arm in a firm grip without the leverage of the rest of his weight struggling against the Collector’s hold.

The Collector slid the bone back into place. He winced in momentary sympathy when bone ground against bone, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He laid the arm down and held it still with one hand as the other gathered the splint strap and prewetted dressing. The carbolic acid smelled as tarry as the coal by-product it was made from, but the sweet underbite softened the unpleasant scent into the gentle aroma of cleanliness. The Collector rather liked it, personally. After a few deft motions, the arm was immobilized and protected.

The Beheaded’s eye opened blearily, gaze unfocused.

“You did wonderfully. I will undo the straps and sit you up. I have a solution for you to drink that should assist in your healing,” the Collector said. For once, he didn’t mind repeating himself. The ill had little memory to draw from and he would rather repeat his words than deal with a confused, belligerent patient.

The amber liquid was no longer steaming from the small opening. When he picked it up and cupped the round base in hand, he found it to be a little cooler than a cup of tea, but not hot enough to burn. It was too cold to drink in the Collector’s opinion. He was quite fond of drinking nearly boiling liquid, always chasing heat to remain lively and energetic, so he supposed he would not be the appropriate individual to assess temperature comfortable for humans.

The Collector cajoled the Beheaded into sitting upright. When he was certain that the Beheaded would not fall off of the table, he passed the flask over. The Beheaded looked at it, tilting it back and forth, then to the Collector. The Collector blinked. Even now the Beheaded was suspicious.

He held out the vial and made a half drinking motion. He wished for the Collector to demonstrate its safety. The Collector supposed it would only be fair, though he had not tested it on himself and had no idea if it would be anything close to palatable. Or that it worked, honestly, it was all conjecture and hypotheses. For all he knew, he could poison himself right here and now.

He tilted the vial and brought it into the void of his hood. It vanished as if going through a black curtain. He poured a small amount onto the inside of his hood, enough to be noticeably reduced without overtly soaking the fabric. When the vial was a little lighter, he held it back out.

The Beheaded took it. His suspicion had not waned when the Collector had kept his face hidden, wishing he’d seen the glowing teal mouth open and swallow this unknown substance. Beggars could not be choosers, however, and so, it was bottoms up.

He downed the potion in a long quaff. His chest expanded and contracted with the motions as if swallowing in heavy gulps, but the liquid poured into the flames and evaporated into the air. The Collector wondered if the Beheaded could drink through his esophagus or if he was limited to his flames.

It was… It was awful. The Beheaded had tasted better things when he’d fallen to the floor and got dirt into whatever passed for his mouth. He struggled not to hurl it back up, his stomach flipping like oil dancing on a hot pan. It took a few moments for it to settle enough that he felt safe holding out the easily breakable container for the Collector to take.

The Collector set the small flask aside, leaning over the Beheaded to assess his condition. The Beheaded seemed more active now at least. He wasn’t laying on the metal with shuddering, twitching limbs, nor was he limp and unconscious. He didn’t look good by any means, but it was better than before and the Collector could ask for no more than that.

“Rest. I am sure the world and your enemies will miss your blade. Give them time to crave its return.” The Collector picked up a couple of books and laid them on the table like a pillow.

The Beheaded wanted to complain about deserving something soft, but there was no energy for it. He laid down and closed his eye.

The Beheaded awoke slowly, as if from the long, languid sleep of a cat feeling the warmth of the sun on their fur. He felt great. Well. Achy and sore —to be fair, he always was a little achy and sore— so it was leaps and bounds better than he was prior. He slowly clenched his fingers and while he felt a twinge of pain, his muscles obeyed his commands. He had healed far, far too much for a little nap.

He pushed himself up to sit. His feet hung over the edge, unable to touch the ground from the height of the table. The Collector, as he always seemed to be, stood at his desk working on something or another. Sometimes reading, sometimes dripping single drops at a time into a beaker, and sometimes humming to himself as he methodically cut the Cells open to harvest the wet goop inside. Right now, he had a microscope set up and a selection of slides to the side that he was investigating.

The Beheaded tapped the table for the Collector’s attention. When he turned, the Beheaded waved the formerly broken arm. The Collector brightened, all but dropping the pen he was writing with, and bustled over to the Beheaded’s side.

“May I?” he asked, hands hovering over the splinted arm. The Beheaded held his arm out for permission.

The Collector unwrapped the Beheaded’s arm with an uncomfortable amount of reverence for the flesh beneath. When the wound was revealed to have not only scabbed over but healed into a ghastly, overgrown scar, the Collector could not help the wide grin that bathed the Beheaded in teal.

The Beheaded squinted his eye at the brightness. The smile was real, entirely honest, and gleeful. The Beheaded thought that he had never seen something quite so entrancing in his entire life, short though it may have been so far.

He looked away, the flames of his head flushing red and expanding in a rush. The Collector took the silent hint and released the Beheaded’s arm. He took a step back, his expression fading away like the sun’s light when dusk becomes night. The Beheaded regretted accidentally pushing the Collector away.

“This is a wonderful development,” the Collector said, the smile still audible if not visible. “With this, you will be able to venture further and handle more damage before you are forced to abandon your host. I will need to make some modifications for the future to prevent the overgrowth of hypertrophic scarring, but for now, it is certainly an improvement from dealing with an open wound.”

The Beheaded nodded awkwardly, trying to avoid meeting the Collector’s eyes with his own. He wasn’t sure what kind of response he could possibly give to clarify his thanks, and he really didn’t want to make a fool of himself.

The Collector put a hand on the Beheaded’s shoulder. He took note of the flinched response, as if the Beheaded expected the Collector to harm him even now. Still skittish as a mouse. The Collector let go and the room felt all the colder for the loss.

The Beheaded rested his weight on his hands, preparing to hop down and head out now that his problems were dealt with. The rest of his pains were minor, the scrapes easy enough to handle. His broken sword was a problem, but not one that the Collector would fix for free.

The Collector made a motion for the Beheaded to pause, then went to his desk and picked up a item that was nearly engulfed in his hand. It was a small dagger, perfect to use in one hand.

“I call it the assassin’s dagger,” the Collector said proudly. “I wanted to give you an option in case your arm was still giving you issues. Giving you a heavier blade would leave you off-balance.”

He approached the Beheaded and pressed it into his hand. “To use it best, catch your enemy by surprise. Aim through the ribs and at a slight angle upwards. You want to pierce the heart and lung in one strike. It will leave them incapacitated immediately and dead within moments.”

The Beheaded closed his fingers around the hilt. The weapon was oddly ornate compared to the blunt, functional items he was given before. It felt like a reward. He didn’t think he liked what the payment seemed to have been.

The Collector waited to see if the Beheaded would communicate anything further. When the Beheaded slid the dagger into the comparatively crude sheath, he figured that there was nothing more the Beheaded had to say.

“I have found a couple of the books I mentioned before,” the Collector said. At the Beheaded’s inquisitive tilt of head, the Collector continued. “About Sign Language. You may study them as you like here, but they will remain in this space. I do not wish to have gore splattered over easily damaged pages, nor do I want them lost in a tunnel you cannot find again. I do not have extra copies.”

The Beheaded took the proffered book, flipping through the pages. The grammar was different and the motions difficult to envision. Whatever they came up with together would, by nature of mutual learning rather than a tutor and pupil, be changed from the book he held. Languages were living things, and this felt as though it would be a secret language that only he and the Collector knew. His chest tightened at the idea, a hand raising momentarily to touch his sternum to soothe the ache, but he aborted the motion before it became obvious.

The Beheaded closed the book and held it back out to the Collector. The Collector took it, unoffended at the quick turn around.

“I assume you wish to leave rather than study?” he asked.

The Beheaded nodded.

“Next time then,” the Collector said. “I will create copies of the basic signs for you to carry with you since you will not be taking the book itself.”

The Beheaded gave a thumbs up. He gathered his bag and tossed it over his shoulder. Before he took too many steps away, he was called back by the Collector offering him a small vial of the healing potion he had taken earlier.

“I can not make a great deal at a time, so I will be giving you only one vial each time I see you. It will be enough for one dose. Ensure that it is not a wasted one,” the Collector said as he firmly corked the stopper into the mouth of the vial. “If you want more, I will need more sap from the Slumbering Sanctuary far beneath us.”

The Beheaded nodded as he took the small flask, unsure of where he could put it to keep it safe. The Collector already thought of that, and held out a small, padded bag of fabric.

“Wrap it in this to protect it from whatever it is you have in your bag. Tie it tightly and it should protect the glass.” The Collector demonstrated, the knot neater than anything the Beheaded could have made himself.

The Beheaded bounced it in his hand. He barely even felt the glass within, it was so protected. The Collector used a knot he was unfamiliar with, but with a short tug, it opened with no effort at all. The Collector reknotted the cord with a short demonstration of how to do so. The Beheaded slipped it into his bag.

The Collector debated if he wanted to ask, then decided there was no harm in it. “What is your goal? Why do you wander onward so determinedly, even to the point of secondary death?”

The Beheaded paused, thoughtfully assessing the Collector. With offered paper and pen, he wrote, “I’m gonna kill the king. Sounds like an absolute asshole, putting innocent people in prison for being sick. I think. The note was pretty fucked up and hard to read.”

The Collector’s brows rose. “Perhaps that is so,” he murmured. “May your path be straight and the fight quick.”

With another nod and thumbs up of appreciation, the Beheaded headed out on his new cycle.

The Collector scratched at his wrists, the manacles itchy over scarred flesh. What else could he possibly expect? The snake would ever chase its tail, and only when catching it will the snake realize the mistake it makes. The Collector would not interrupt the creation of the Ouroboros. A kinder, more noble man might, but the Collector was neither of those things. He was a scavenger, a gatherer of knowledge, and a hoarder of information. He was the Collector, after all. That’s all he needed to be, all he wanted to be.

The Beheaded made for a fine specimen. He would fit in the Collector’s bountiful collection as the crown jewel soon enough.

Chapter Text

Their meetings became more frequent. Sometimes perfunctory; a blueprint offered and a weapon returned with little discussion. If the Collector was lucky, he also received a bottle of sap from the Sanctuary. Other times, the Collector treated the Beheaded’s minor ills, occasionally more major ones. With the addition of the healing potion on his person, the damage increased in severity. It was as if the Beheaded were acting more recklessly since he had something that could heal a great many of his wounds. It could not, however, heal anything that was not appropriately set, such as bones, or sutured together, such as a stab wound.

Every time the Collector put the Beheaded back together, he got a new hint of the Beheaded’s nature. The bodies breathed and bled, the sanguine fluid flowing as he would expect it to from a normal person. It seemed to simply vanish into the space where the neck was cut, returning in some other form to course through the veins and arteries as if whole.

The heartbeat was steady, organs in (mostly) fine condition. However, the body was —unless healed— slowly undergoing necrosis. Even then, the healing did not stop this process entirely, only delayed it. When closing wounds, the elixir jumpstarted it like an electric shock might encourage a stopped heart to beat properly once more. When a limb was cut off, reattaching it was managed with the healing potion. It would not heal on its own, no matter how tight and neat the stitches were. There was only change upon consuming his incomplete cure.

The Collector believed quite firmly that if the Beheaded managed to stay in one body long enough, the flesh would rot away and leave him a pristine skeleton, alive and aware. The main issue would be the loss of movement, as the homunculus seemed to require integration with the flesh.

It was not a magical animation of body. It was a magical joining, but the mechanisms and movement still required a functional, relatively whole body. He needed the ligament to connect his joints together, the sinew to bind muscle to bone, and the muscle to actually animate the body into action. He needed his lungs to breathe and heart to beat, his stomach to process sustenance and, much to the Beheaded’s mortification upon asking, needed his intestines and rectum to expel waste. The Collector gave the man his privacy and did not ask if his genitalia functioned as expected, tempting though it was from a personal medical standpoint.

For all intents and purposes, it was a dying, but perfectly average body. It was strengthened by the homunculus and given a longer time to rot, yet remained as close to alive as the Collector could possibly imagine.

Every time he took the flask for the healing potion refill from the Beheaded, he had to stop himself from refusing to do so. It was an incomplete elixir and he needed every drop to test upon the afflicted. The Malaise was close and dying specimens easy to gather for experiments in a hidden room, but so far, it had accomplished nothing apart from prolong their suffering. There was no healing of sickness, no regrowth of what was already lost. The Collector cared little for ethics in his work, cutting as needed to investigate the most minute, painful details of the bodies he took, even splitting the skulls to check the matter within. Every single time, it was rotting and grey, no flowing blood or healthy flush of pink.

He was starting to think that the Beheaded was the closest thing he would able to get to curing the Malaise. He couldn’t get further detail without actually cutting the man open to assess the heathy organs beneath, as every time the Beheaded needed his help, it was always due to damage that ruined the possessed body’s natural function. He couldn’t even touch the head to see if it was solid.

It was infuriating.

The Collector was but a man. A long lived man, but a man nonetheless, and his patience was not infinite. Pages after pages filled his journals of his work, all coming undone and wasted by virtue of the Beheaded’s existence. He nearly regretted knowing the Beheaded lived. If he was ignorant, he would be able to eventually break into madness and then, well, who knew what end he would meet? But now, he had a goal so torturously, untouchably close.

The best information he had gotten was from the Apostates. He had interacted with them, of course, in the early days. He shared his knowledge and taken theirs with false smiles, promising that he would give them updates on how their work fared when combined with his. He shared nothing substantial of his own, but he read theirs cover to cover in hopes of finding a way to save the island. He’d given it quite some thought, in fact. Let it be said that he was thorough, even in his distaste.

He ended up with books and treatises filled with well written words and wry turns of phrases, experiments taken on men, women, and children with no regard to their wellbeing copied down in excruciating detail. He supposed the experiments might have been more excruciating for those experiencing them, but that was neither here nor there. He, too, would sooner tear a child limb from limb than allow the island to fully fall to the Malaise, though their purposes for doing so had not been as altruistic as his own.

And yet… and yet! All he had accomplished, everything he made, all of his information and results and creations, none of them worked except for the Beheaded. A foul man, an asshole to everyone, rude, pointlessly sarcastic, disrespectful at every point he could possibly manage, and still so close to the Collector’s final objective. He was alive in the way that mattered.

He could interact as an equal. He could write and read. He could learn and remember. He could move delicately when he so chose or force a body beyond its fleshly limits. While mildly constrained by the health of the body he took, he could use weapons almost the same whether the body was a hardened, well trained guard or a thin scholar found headless in the prisoner’s quarters. Either way, the Beheaded’s weapons struck hard and true, pushing weak muscles in the same way he might push the strong.

The Collector’s dark claws dug into his palm and he pushed himself away from his workbench to pace the room. The Beheaded was like as not to return in the next day or so. He had time to indulge himself in a baser instinct and clear his mind. Running in circles like this, focused on what he was unable to do to the detriment of what he could without some way to break out of the rut was only going to wind him like a spring, tighter and tighter and tighter until he snapped.

He had, as a young man, run himself ragged in such a way. His school laboratory had been wrecked beyond repair, shredded pages scattered over the ground like slush when they met with the various chemicals pouring from broken beakers and distillers. The whipping he had gotten for such destruction had been awful, but it had also been… relieving. The loop he had found himself in was finally broken and he was able to chart a new course.

He passed that class with flying colors after trudging through with middling grades earlier in the year.

He did not need whips or pain to control himself now. Most of the time, the heavy memory of his self-enforced dismissal hanging from his limbs in quiet, chattering chains was enough to invigorate him into better focus. It was not so at this moment. He needed novelty of some kind to simplify his mind into focusing solely on the present. What had he not done recently? What was new?

He had tea, either herbal or from actual tea leaves, approximately once a week. Still too often to work. He could cook a better meal from his supplies, use some of the seasonings he often did not bother to use. He used food to fuel himself, not to enjoy. He had not eaten anything truly enjoyable in quite some time, actually. His eyes flicked to the door that led towards Guillain.

No. Guillain was too important and useful. He knocked his knuckles to his head to dismiss the temptation. The tailor was even more alluring, somehow unharmed and unaffected by the Malaise as he was. Human, too. Sweeter than the Guillains.

The Collector struck himself harder this time, holding back a wince at the force.

…The knight. She was still alive. Barely, yet still alive. As of yet she was unaffected by the Malaise, but her wounds were severe. It was a matter of when she perished, not if. She protected the area in which they lived, a noble cause that he appreciated her greatly for. Unfortunately for her, her reckoning was fast approaching.

The Collector wiped his hand over his mouth, embarrassed to feel drool stick to his flesh. How long had it been? Years. It must have been years. He’d held himself in check for so long, had played the part of a “civilized” human and not the creature he truly was deep down.

It would be a mercy, he told himself, and knew that he was looking for justification. Her death was slow enough to be a misery, and he could stop a long, drawn out expiration by infection. He could give her the healing draught, but the thought was dismissed with such prejudice that he nearly hit his forehead (again) to call himself a fool. He would not waste it on her.

He licked his lips, fingers twitching as he debated how he might accomplish his desire without notice. He was more than aware that, should the Beheaded return earlier than expected, he would likely face the same disgust as the first time he had been found. There were many reasons the Hand of the King and Giant had disliked him, most of them mere prejudice. This hunger, however, he had to admit he understood their opinion. He didn’t share it, but he understood the quibbling of morality and how it might affect their view of him.

He was not the slavering beast the Giant thought he was, nor the backwards heathen the Hand thought him. He was successful, alive, and they were long gone. They meant nothing, not anymore. The still simmering fury in his chest belied his thoughts, but he was more than accustomed to ignoring his flesh in favor of his mind.

It would be a waste of perfectly good meat. When food was so scarce, what moral high ground would there be in allowing dozens of pounds go to rot, uneaten but for rats and carrion scavengers? He would share none of it. Not from selfishness, (at least, not entirely from selfishness) but because he would honor others’ wishes and not subject them to loathsome food.

The Collector stretched, his back popping quite pleasantly without the weight of the vat hanging behind him. He always hated when his spinal protrusions tapped against the glass in the motion. From what he was told, it was quite similar to jamming the end of a finger upon a flat surface; sharp with a lingering ache. His long, claw-like nails had always protected him from such a fate.

He straightened, plucking a few bandages and basic medical supplies. He would approach her and offer his skills. When it becomes clear to her that these simple tools would not be not enough, he would bring her to the laboratory. A quick strike to her head would be enough to render her unconscious. He could not afford to use a sedative upon her, even if it would be kinder. The effects could linger in her flesh.

The meat was neatly portioned, some placed into barrels of salt for preservation, some diced and sizzling on a skillet over a temporarily repurposed burner. His few vegetables bounced in the rendering fat, unleavened bread cooking in a second pan. It smelled divine.

The Collector washed his hands in the sink, picking out the blood from under his nails. He had given in to a minor fit of frenzy earlier, unable to stop himself from devouring a bite raw. He regretted it, as it meant he needed to cook the rest of the thigh he had bitten immediately, and it was enough meat that it would need to be kept food safe for multiple days.

Well, unless he gorged himself, of course, eating the remaining pounds in fistfuls of flesh shoved between his sharp teeth. If he were to let himself free entirely, he would have eaten her from head to toe right then and there. His natural diet subsisted primarily of meat, raw or cooked, but he had long accustomed himself to a more plant based diet, and he was concerned that a return to his roots might have given him a stomachache. How embarrassing that would be for the Beheaded to enter his workspace only to find the Collector laying with his head on on the desk, a hand over his belly, and grumbly about the discomfort!

He sighed wistfully. Those free times were behind him and had been for lifetimes. There was no need to focus on his childhood and the treats he had devoured then free from judgment.

His hands froze when he heard the door to his laboratory open. The metal hinges squealed unpleasantly, a purposeful error to ensure he knew when the door was opened. He scanned his laboratory over in momentary panic.

The bones were in in a shallow barrel of heated water to macerate away the flesh that remained, but the wooden lid over it hid the view within. The meat, while oddly shaped, was not distinctly human. Any unusable viscera had already been given to the scavengers a few turns down the tunnel. The knight’s brain was in a jar of formaldehyde, set near the rest of his biological research. Even if it were recognized as human, it might not be unexpected. He had no time to do anything about it now regardless. He wiped his hands dry and turned to his new visitor.

“Welcome! I had not expected you so soon,” the Collector said and tossed the damp towel over the edge of the sink to dry.

The Beheaded stopped about halfway through the room, a bag in hand that presumably held Cells. He stared at something rather intently, and the Collector followed his gaze with mounting dread. The knight’s armor and sword sat neatly against the wall. He lost his breath for a moment, then switched into a soft, sad sigh.

“Yes. Unfortunately, she fell protecting us from an incursion of the infected.” The Collector walked to the Beheaded for the bag.

Just as he suspected, it was full of Cells. Precious few broken, too. The Beheaded must have taken care to protect them. He did not seem particularly harmed, and so he must either have been lucky on his travels or rather early on this path.

The Beheaded looked to the Collector quizzically, then made a motion of putting the armor on. “Can wear?” he signed.

The Collector barked a laugh before covering his mouth at the Beheaded’s scowl. “I apologize,” he said, “but I do not think you are her physical equal, nor that the armor was made for you. Armor is tailored for its wearer and not often easy for others to adopt for protection. Her sword, however, needs new hands to wield it.”

The Beheaded walked over and squatted before the armor. He lifted up a pauldron and held it to his own shoulder, then shook his head in disappointment. He dropped it, the metal clanking loudly and echoing in the large space. The Collector mentally patted himself on the back for not flinching at the sudden noise.

The Beheaded picked up the large sword, swinging it back and forth a few times. He found it acceptable, and with a stolen strap from the armor, made a loop to hold the sword at his side. It nearly scraped the ground, but it seemed solid enough that the Beheaded would handle it just fine.

The Beheaded jogged over to the impromptu kitchen. He knocked on the table for the Collector’s attention, then pointed. The bread was burning.

“Oh!” The Collector hurried over and snatched the thin bread from the pan and set it on a small stack on a nearby plate. He waved his hands in the air, the tips aching from the thoughtless motion. The tongs had been right there. He sighed upon seeing the dark charcoal layer on the bottom. “You are ever the distraction upon my mind.”

The Beheaded’s flame flared for a moment, a flash of red dashing through before being subsumed by its natural pink. The Collector blinked as he watched the Beheaded avoid meeting his gaze.

The Beheaded finally burst into words, the awkward, still poorly learned signs difficult for both of them to understand quickly. “Food. Will eat. Bad, okay.”

The Collector lifted the burned flatbread. “You’ll eat it even though it’s bad?” he clarified.

The Beheaded nodded furiously.

“Would it not taste poorly?” The Collector set the bread on a second plate with an unsure frown.

The Beheaded tapped his arm to get him to turn back. It was so easy to forget that he needed to actively be looking at the Beheaded to have a conversation.

“Food bad, good, same.” The Beheaded struggled to express his meaning.

The Collector laid the tongs on the plate thoughtfully. “Your sense of taste is dulled.” The Beheaded nodded, glad to be understood. “You had such a reaction to the healing potion that I assumed it was unaffected by your condition.”

The Beheaded shrugged for lack of a better way to explain himself.

“Very well.” The Collector offered the plate out to the Beheaded, surprised yet again by the small man when it was pushed back into his chest.

“More,” the Beheaded signed firmly.

“Demanding, aren’t we?” the Collector chuckled. “I will share my food in exchange for your Cells. You have already received a new weapon today.”

The Beheaded thought it over. He had just gotten a shiny new toy, one well taken care of, too. He supposed he could make a trade for a decent dinner. He nodded.

The Collector picked up a few more pieces of flatbread and went to place them on the plate as well only to be tapped by the Beheaded once more. The Collector took a breath. Patience.

“Yes?” he asked after a moment.

The Beheaded made aborted motions for words, trying to find the right one before simply signing “eat” and pointing at the pan with flesh.

“I do not think you will like it,” the Collector said, a surge of horror crawling down his back like a spider in search of its prey.

“What is it?” The Beheaded asked curiously.

The Collector hesitated for a moment. The Beheaded looked at him guilelessly.

“It is one of the large rats,” the Collector said as if admitting something embarrassing. “The ones with the Malaise mutations. I am a being that needs meat for sustenance periodically, and I have found that the Malaise, so far at least, does not transmit via consumption of cooked flesh. Raw flesh, yes, but not cooked. I do not know if it would be wise for you to eat any.”

The Collector felt a trickle of guilt for the lie. Not much, but it did make his back ache for the weight of the vat upon it. He was immune from what he could tell, similar to certain other denizens of the island, such as the Time Keeper. He would not say so, however. He preferred that his nature remain private and felt no desire to share any personal information with the Beheaded.

The Beheaded’s hand moved as if cupping a chin thoughtfully. He made a motion for the Collector to hand the tongs over. The Collector watched the Beheaded check the underside of the meat with a judgmental stare. He shook his head and the Collector bristled. What right did he have to determine the quality of the Collector’s cooking?

The Beheaded flipped the meat over and picked the skillet up. He stirred it with a vigorous swirl, watching the softening vegetables with a sharp eye. He returned it to its former place, then turned to the Collector with a smug squint of his eye. “Close burned.”

The Collector huffed, crossing his arms. “Do you want some of it or not?”

The Collector thought for a moment about what the Beheaded might choose. If he said yes, then he would be giving a man the flesh of a fellow unknowingly, generally considered a form of betrayal. Multiple books he had read as a younger man had it as a plot point, actually. Then again though, the Beheaded was a curious man. Perhaps he would be more practical about it if he knew the truth.

The Beheaded nodded.

The worse choice. So be it. The Collector waved for the Beheaded to step back, taking the tongs back.

“Then sit. I will bring the food when it is ready. Practice your signing in the meantime,” the Collector suggested.

He didn’t turn when he felt air move in a sharp rush behind him, knowing without seeing that the Beheaded had made a crude gesture. The Beheaded did go to the large chair, at least, to wait for the food to finish. He was unsurprised when he heard the chair being dragged to the desk again, the grinding sound annoying. The Beheaded was probably hoping to use the table to hold his plate. The Collector debated telling him no, but the space was clear and it would be far easier and less messy if he allowed him. The Collector wished that he had lied better, but what was done was done. The food finished quickly, because unfortunately, the Beheaded was correct. It was nearly burned.

He served up some of the food on the plates. He handed the Beheaded his to either use the table or not as he pleased. He didn’t sit down, holding his plate in one hand and fork in the other.

The first bite was delicious. Every taste of meat was a treat, the vegetables bringing out the flavor wonderfully. It was worth the effort, the Collector decided. He felt renewed already, the gears of his mind beginning to tick more cleanly, as if he had wiped away accumulated filth keeping the mechanism from functioning properly.

The Beheaded was much more casual. Food vanished into the flame, brightening up into a large flare before settling down until the Beheaded repeated the cycle. Their plates emptied quickly, and surprisingly, the Beheaded asked if the sink was the appropriate location for them. The Collector had expected the Beheaded to simply drop it on the table and leave. The Collector nodded.

He finished the last few bites of his dinner while the Beheaded geared up. The sword looked heavy, but the Beheaded wore it well. The Beheaded gave him an odd stare, hesitating at the table’s edge.

“What is it?” the Collector asked. “Do you need anything further?”

The Beheaded made a sign that the Collector didn’t recognize, and he squinted. The Beheaded repeated it more slowly. A scooping motion towards himself over a flat hand, the moving hand bent into the sign for the letter C. The Collector blinked as it connected. The letter C mixed with the word “collect.”

“You made a sign for my name,” he said in wonder, an unfamiliar warmth filling his chest.

The Beheaded nodded, then forced himself on and resisted the urge to kick at the ground nervously. “Do again, Collector?”

The Collector blinked, then smiled. “Are you asking me out for dinner?”

The Beheaded jumped, his flames surging and turning such a vibrant red that blood would seem pale in comparison. He didn’t try to speak again, throwing his bag over his shoulder and all but running for the exit door. The door slammed behind him, leaving the laboratory silent but for the bubbles within the vats and flasks around.

While the Beheaded had not explicitly accepted, based on the scarlet flames and lack of refusal, the Collector decided he would take it as agreement. He hummed to himself, his talons clicking against the ground loudly as he approached the sink to wash the dishes. It might make for a nice way to while away the time while the reagents boiled in the distiller. He should offer the next time he saw the Beheaded, but perhaps something other than the knight’s flesh.

He wondered if the Beheaded would like tea. It would be nice to share one of his small indulgences that might even help the Beheaded relax for once. He tried not to think about the fact that it meant that his small store of tea would deplete twice as fast and he had precious little left. Sometimes, life wasn’t about scrimping and saving. Sometimes it was about experiencing things, even if only for a moment.

As prickly —and sometimes infuriating— the Beheaded was, he was still a pleasant experience. He looked forward to the next time he saw the Beheaded sign his name again.

Chapter Text

The Beheaded poked the Collector’s side roughly, startling a displeased huff from his lips as he nearly dropped his pen. He looked over his shoulder to see the Beheaded smirking brightly at him.

“A few moments, if you will.” The Collector batted the Beheaded away. He needed to finish his writing before he lost his train of thought.

When the Beheaded resisted, the Collector put a hand flat to the Beheaded’s chest and pushed, thoughtless in the overfamiliar motion. The Beheaded fought back, his scuffed, secondhand shoes scraping against the ground as he attempted to win the battle of strength. He was forced to concede when he accomplished nothing but ruining the soles of his shoes. He walked around to the Collector’s other side to bother him from a new angle.

The Collector sighed and turned to face the man properly. “Yes?”

The Beheaded set a bag down on the desk in front of the Collector.

“Thank you. I will count them in a moment.” He ignored it, pushing it aside with his pen, and continued writing.

A reagent meant to strengthen the healing potion had precipitated differently, and he needed to figure out why. His current hypothesis was the rising heat of his room was a factor he hadn’t planned for. With the greater number of cells to test with, he had also increased the number of vats in the room, and the heat escaped through the glass easily.

He found it rather pleasant. He preferred to live in warm environments, the castle and tower always too cold for him and leaving him lethargic. When he had moved underground, he’d kept the room cool to prevent this very issue with his experimentation, comfort be damned. Heating a flask was far easier than cooling it down when he had little access to ice.

The Beheaded didn’t care for being ignored and jabbed the Collector’s side again after only a minute.

The Collector stifled a snarl. The pen protested his grip and a squirt of ink splattered the page he was trying to focus on. The Collector dropped the pen before he broke it, took a deep breath, and turned to face the Beheaded straight on.

“What do you need so badly?” he asked, trying to keep his irritation from his voice.

“You forgot?” The Beheaded asked brusquely, the signs cutting. When the Collector merely blinked, the Beheaded’s shoulders fell.

“Forgot what?” The Collector frowned, trying to recall what it was that had the Beheaded up in arms. Did he make a mistake on one of his items?

The Beheaded’s flame flickered and shrunk. He looked away from the Collector, the motions sharp enough that the Collector could feel the inclusion of cursing. “Fucking make it.” He slammed a blueprint over the book in front of the Collector.

The Collector thoughtlessly adjusted the tilted paper to better look it over, but turned to the bag the Beheaded had given him. Upset or not, he needed to see if the amount was equivalent for the work he had to put in. He recoiled when he touched it, immediately rubbing his hands onto a nearby towel. He looked at the Beheaded from the corner of his eyes momentarily, but most of the view was hidden by his hood and he saw nothing of the man’s expression. He used the towel to pull the bag open.

Inside was not Cells at all, but some roughly cut meat. The greased fabric made sense immediately. Where he got the oil was a question he’d ask later, but the oil ensured that the blood still on the cuts didn’t leak through the bag. The fillets were uneven and awkward, and he was fairly certain there was some skin left on a haunch. It was rat meat.

The Collector’s frustration faded away into shame. It had been multiple days, surely it was understandable that he had forgotten the implied acceptance for dinner? It likely felt like far less time for the Beheaded, constantly on the roam as he was. Unlike the Collector, the Beheaded had nothing to occupy his mind with apart from his butchery, and that surely felt as drudging as it sounded.

The Collector moved the blueprint and his book aside. The ink was already soaked into the page, there was no salvaging it now, and he could rewrite it later. “I… apologize. I was caught up in my work and I forgot my offer to you, especially when you have been gracious enough to bring fresh meat.”

The Beheaded’s chest huffed, the apology half accepted. He avoided the Collector’s gaze. “How long?”

The Collector’s brow furrowed.

“Food. How long cook it?” The Beheaded clarified. The words themselves were still stuttering and included minor grammatical errors, but it was clear enough, if awkwardly phrased.

“It depends on the thickness of the meat. Go nap, I will make dinner and wake you when it is ready,” the Collector said.

The Beheaded debated it, then shook his head. “I’ll help.”

“Very well,” the Collector said. “Minor tasks often go better with an extra pair of hands to speed the work.”

The Collector placed the meat onto a cutting board, still using the towel to hold onto the bag to avoid touching it again. The sensation had been quite unpleasant. There wasn’t a lot of meat, he noticed, now that he was able to examine it in more detail. The rats, while larger than their originators, were still rather small. It would be an accompaniment to the meal, not the main dish.

His stomach churned in nervousness. It was going to taste different than their previous meal, and he wasn’t sure if the Beheaded would be able to tell. He supposed all he had was hope that the Beheaded’s poor sense of taste would leave him ignorant and that neither of them would get sick from the meat. Cooked or not, it was mutated by the Malaise. Not infected, per se, as most of the rats around were descendants of the initial plague-bearers and had changed to handle it in a different way than the humans. Their shorter lifespans and greater litter size made it easier for them to adapt in a way that humans never could, and while he knew he was immune to the Malaise, he was probably not immune to food poisoning from improperly treated meat.

He had given it some thought after their previous meeting. He didn’t want this exact situation to come up and need to decide his reaction on the fly, but with the issue of the reagent, his attention had been diverted and the planning tossed to the wayside. There was little for it but to simply do it and hope for the best. He stood and began to gather the equipment he needed to cook.

“Cut these,” the Collector said, passing over some potatoes for the Beheaded to chop. “Cubes about an inch across.”

The Beheaded took the proffered knife, tilting it back and forth to see the sheen of metal in the light. The blue fluid in the vats made the metal cold and distant, reminding him of the gleam of the Collector’s scalpels —and eyes— when they descended upon his body. He held back a shudder and turned to the vegetables to begin his task.

Soon enough they had the meat and vegetables cooking in the pan once more. The rat meat didn’t have enough fat to ease the cooking and the Collector had to use some oil from his cooking stock to stop it from sticking. It didn’t take that long and a little over half an hour later, the meal was ready.

The Collector dished it out once more. He hadn’t moved the Beheaded’s chair —how odd that it had become the Beheaded’s chair and not his own so quickly— and was pleased to see the Beheaded take his seat. Based on the lack of comment, he assumed that the difference in meat was not noticed. He exhaled in relief.

The Beheaded looked at him oddly. “Are you okay?”

The Collector allowed his smile to glow. “Yes. It is not often I have the opportunity to spend time with good company.”

The Beheaded’s flames reddened and he ducked his head to stare at his plate. “I am the best companion here you will find,” he said, repeating the Collector’s first words to him as best he could with his rough phrasing.

“So it is,” the Collector laughed.

When the Beheaded’s eye obviously watched the Collector’s chest and stomach bounce from the motion, the Collector laughed harder. He rested a hand on the Beheaded’s shoulder, wiping away a tear with the other. “You have no idea how noticeable your gaze is, friend.”

The Beheaded’s flames felt like an explosion against the back of his hand and he was forced to pull away lest he burn himself. The Beheaded sat up straighter. He made sure the Collector could read his words and signed with shaky hands, “maybe I want you to see, Collector.”

The Collector’s eyes hooded. He replaced his hand on the Beheaded, but on his back instead. “And what do you want me to do when I notice, hm?” His hand slid down the back of the Beheaded’s leather cuirass and stopped a few inches above his tailbone.

The Beheaded shifted into it, though still skittish and trying to put on a confident front. Unfortunately, the Beheaded was too short for the Collector’s hand to go any lower without bending down to do so. The Beheaded’s gaze flicked to and fro, avoiding looking at the Collector for more than a second or so at a time.

The Collector was patient. This would, technically, be the first time the Beheaded did anything like this. He did not recall anything before his first reawakening, and the Collector was more than fine giving him the time to decide what he wanted to do.

The Beheaded turned to face him, rising to his knees and grasping the Collector’s biceps. He tugged lightly and the Collector obligingly lowered himself. His hand moved to rest on the arm of the chair, the other on the back. He loomed over the Beheaded, his shadow engulfing him from the candlelight and test tubes around that lit up the vast majority of the lab. Here, the Beheaded was lit up by his own flames and the Collector’s eyes alone. The Collector knew the Beheaded was small, but all compacted like this, he looked positively miniature.

The flames darkened into scarlet, the flickering edges dancing aggressively. The more active the flame, the stronger his emotion, the Collector surmised, and red was most certainly still a blush. It was more obvious now than it had been so many years ago, though it had never been acted on then. There had been no interest to do so, only a distant sort of acknowledgement. He had used to it his advantage, of course, making sure to keep the man at a reasonable distance and refusing to allow anyone to part him from his work. But now… he could see how a king the Beheaded would look with ardent desire to please.

Though the Beheaded’s flames were still hot, they no longer overwhelmed him like the heat of a forge. The Collector waited to see what the Beheaded wanted, but the time stretched on long enough that concern begin to rise. Did the Beheaded regret his impulsive actions? He would not force the man to do anything, he was not that kind of monster.

Slowly, giving the Beheaded all the room to deny him, he raised his hand to the warm flames. If it burned him, then so be it, but he wanted to touch them so badly and this was a perfect excuse. He would look to be cradling the Beheaded’s head in a sense, and while that was very sweet on its own, he could not deny that it was much more the scientific desire to assess that pushed him onwards.

It was hot. Brilliant assessment, he told himself wryly when it began to heat the manacles at his wrists, but it was more than that. There was an electric tingle in his bones that the Beheaded felt too, arching into his touch with a fluttering eye and heaving chest and fingers twitching on the Collector’s arms. It was such a strong reaction that the Collector had to continue his experiment. The ends of the chains at his wrists brushed over the Beheaded’s shoulders, almost touching the cut flesh that tempted the Collector so.

His thumbs brushed over the eye and the Beheaded closed it instinctively. The Collector was surprised to feel that it had no real solidity to it. He pushed his thumbs into the space and the Beheaded reacted merely by gripping tighter on his arms. He stopped and pulled back slightly in case it was from pain only for the Beheaded to firmly tug him back down. He didn’t repeat that particular action and held the flame from behind as if cupping the back of a lover’s head.

“Open your eye,” the Collector murmured, the word heavy in its demand.

The Beheaded opened it slowly before it squinted into annoyance at the loss of the Collector’s petting.

The Collector smiled, the sharp outlines of his teeth momentarily visible. “I want to see what I do to you.”

The flames almost exploded and the Collector had to let go to wave his hands from the heat to cool them down. The Beheaded flopped back into the seat, fingers trembling and difficult to wrangle into understandable words.

“Don’t stop,” he said, trying to make it a command and instead turning it into a plea.

The Collector’s smile grew, then faded into the darkness of the hood. He wanted the Beheaded’s flames to be the only light, not his own, selfish teal, though he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy seeing the Beheaded engulfed in him in every way. “Would you prefer to remain on that hard chair, or do you wish to be somewhere softer?”

The Beheaded ran a hand through his flames as though soothing down frazzled hair. It did nothing but make it all the more obvious how affected the man was. He hopped down from the chair rather than attempt to clarify himself.

The Collector took a few steps back, eyes following the shape of the Beheaded’s body as it unfolded. His chest shook with with shallow breaths, muscles quaking from lack of coordination. His cock stood proudly against his pants and made a bulge that the Collector was going to have a great deal of fun examining in detail.

The Collector waved for the Beheaded to follow and led to a small hallway that branched off into various rooms that had once been used for storage. He had a poor track record of keeping himself healthy and well rested, and so he turned the room with the least space (and thus least usability) into a sleeping room. He kept little in there, a simple cot and small bookshelf, so it wasn’t really a bedroom so much as a place to sleep. The shelf held a few non-scientific books he used to while away the time when he recognized that he was too tired to continue his work with any meaningful results, yet unable to sleep.

Darkness broke with the Beheaded’s fire when the door opened. The Collector entered first, snapping his fingers over a few candles to light them with minor magic. When the Beheaded stared at him oddly, he realized that he had never actually demonstrated his magical acuity before.

His face warmed with a blue-tinged flush. “It never became relevant,” he said defensively.

The Beheaded’s shoulders leapt with a laugh. He put a hand to the Collector’s arm and the Collector moved as the Beheaded willed him. Refusing the movement would have been easy, but the Beheaded was given grace to rule for now. Soon enough the Collector would have the Beheaded begging for the guidance of his hand.

He stepped backwards until the back of his knees struck the edge of the bed. He resisted falling for a moment to show the Beheaded the level of difference in their strength. The Beheaded was strong, undeniably so. He was likely more powerful than any human was at this particular moment, and not simply because he returned to life again and again. Against the Collector though, he was as weak-limbed as a kitten batting at a dog’s heels. The Collector’s grin lit up the Beheaded before he folded obediently to sit on his bed.

Embarrassment and frustration surged in the Beheaded and he nearly took a step back. Realizing he had pushed too far, the Collector grasped the Beheaded’s arm. His fingers wrapped around the small limb, thumb past his first knuckles. He could fling the Beheaded against the wall with nary a thought. He could squeeze and be stopped by the thickness of his fingers before he crushed the Beheaded’s bicep.

“I apologize. I am more used to my own strength than I realize,” he lied in an attempt to appease the Beheaded. “It is surprisingly difficult to recognize when I am pushed sometimes.”

It was both insulting and demeaning, the mixture of the two firming the Beheaded’s will into a blade to use. He shoved the Collector’s chest hard enough that the slap of their skin echoed in the room, and he fell to his back in surprise. The Beheaded made a motion for the Collector to move back and he did so until his ankles and toes hung off of the edge. He blinked up at the Beheaded as the man climbed on top of him to sit over his hips, a determined tightness to his eye.

The Collector’s own cock felt substantial compared to the Beheaded’s, his bulge far greater. He wasn’t even fully hard, more of a warm thickening than anything else, and it eclipsed the Beheaded’s by a sizable margin. The Beheaded’s hands cupped his chest, thumbs brushing over his nipples, and the Collector sighed pleasantly in response. He grasped the Beheaded’s hips but didn’t pull or push. He was ever so weak when he could hold his bedmate’s hips so easily, and now was the perfect time to enjoy the fact that the Beheaded was imminently tossable.

“Is this truly your desire?” the Collector teased, his thumbs playing over the jutting bones of the Beheaded’s hips. “To play with my nipples?”

The Beheaded slapped his chest, then signed “shut up.”

“That is not an answer,” the Collector said.

He tugged the Beheaded down to press their hips together firmly to grind his cock against the Beheaded’s ass. The Beheaded arched and met it with his full weight, giving in for a moment. His eye snapped open to glare at the Collector a second later.

“Please. Allow me my amusements, I get so few of them,” the Collector said.

The Beheaded huffed and waved a hand to accept the quirks of the Collector’s attention. The bright glint of the Collector’s grin was his only warning before the Beheaded was flipped around to his back on the bed. This time, they were aligned with its length properly and the Collector knelt between the Beheaded’s spread thighs without worry of slipping off the side.

Concern shot through the Collector when the Beheaded’s fire erupted in a heavy gout, but luckily for them both, the heat did not ignite his pillow into a matching conflagration. He remained wary, keeping that threat in the back of his mind, then turned his attention onto the far more interesting man beneath him.

The bed was an ocean and the Beheaded a small rowboat, spread over a space he could not possibly hope to fill. The Collector’s bed was large even for himself; he had precious few vanities and an oversized bed would always be one of them. He had long since tired of beds made for creatures three-quarters his size and had decided to never again feel like he would fall off if he turned around. It had been worth the effort to gather materials to make it when he had moved, and now, it was all the better when the Beheaded swam in the too large sheets.

The Beheaded seemed unmoored, eye wide and unsure. His hands gripped the Collector’s wrists, the heavy chains laying over his forearms and on either side of his head. The Collector needed to get him back in the right mindset.

The Collector’s claw gently ran down the side of the Beheaded’s flames. “Calm yourself. You are in no danger.”

The Beheaded rolled his eye and released the Collector to speak. “I want… Up.”

“Up?” The Collector’s hand moved to the Beheaded’s pelvis, the back of his knuckles gliding over the taut fabric. “I believe you are quite ‘up’ as you are.”

Hips rose into every soft motion and the Collector’s eyes watched the Beheaded’s chest fight for air, his eye struggle to stay open rather than falling into the simple pleasure.

“More up,” the Beheaded managed, the signs nearly unreadable.

“Of course.” The Collector hooked a finger around the belt that held up the Beheaded’s overlarge pants. “Raise your hips, I will remove your pants and you will be as ‘up’ as you can get.”

The Beheaded struck the arm that still laid by his head. The Collector tilted his head, his smirk still visible and mocking, then sighed as if granting a great concession. He began to lean back to his knees and raise his hands from the bed.

“Very well. I suppose I will leave you to your own devices if you wish to be ‘up’ alone,” he said ruefully.

The Beheaded’s eye widened and he shook his head vehemently. He snatched the Collector’s arm to prevent him from moving and tugged him back down to his previous position. His hand slid up the Collector’s arm to push aside the manacle from his wrist. He twisted to press his face into the Collector’s arm on the scarred skin in a soft nuzzle, eye squinted open to watch the Collector’s reaction. The Collector adjusted himself so he wasn’t holding his weight on that arm, then cupped the Beheaded’s head sweetly.

“Was that our first kiss?” the Collector teased. He ignored the Beheaded’s embarrassed strike on his arm when it was softened with another kiss.

He tapped on the Beheaded’s cuirass. “If you bare yourself, I will be more than happy to give you my own.”

The Beheaded froze, then burst into frantic motion to try and tug it off without pushing the Collector away. The Collector laughed good-naturedly.

“There is no rush, friend. We have all the time we desire.” He leaned back to give the Beheaded more room.

With four pairs of hands, the scarf and armor was quickly set aside next to the bed and the Beheaded’s blue skin shining purple from the pink lighting. The Collector removed his own pauldrons and added them to the pile. They would get in the way even more than the Beheaded’s armor, their spikes longer than the Beheaded’s hands. The Collector sighed once their chests were freed, shifting his weight and gratified to see the muscled planes of the Beheaded’s belly jerk when their hips rubbed together.

He shuffled down the bed, much to the Beheaded’s displeasure, but made up for it by lowering his head to the Beheaded’s chest. The first lap over the darker nipple was met with a grip to the back of his hood. The Collector’s hand snapped up to prevent the Beheaded from pressing down to trace the shape of the Collector’s head, his grip tight enough for the Beheaded to flinch in pain.

“Do not,” the Collector said, voice sharp. The Beheaded’s fire flushed high and the Collector released his hand.

“Sorry.” The motion interposed his hand between the Collector’s face and his chest, but he removed it once the Collector huffed in acknowledgement and lowered his face once more.

His hood brushed side soft hairs of the Beheaded’s chest, and when he parted his lips and allowed his rough tongue to lap over the expanse, the fabric’s point rubbed against the edge of the Beheaded’s severed neck. The response was nearly violent, entirely instinctual, and the Beheaded’s back bowed with such ferocity that the Collector had to pull up lest he hurt himself by trying to fight the motion.

The Collector rubbed at his face in annoyance, brows furrowed and scowling. Upon seeing the Beheaded’s dazed expression and shuddering limbs, he decided that maybe he wasn’t actually that upset. “What was that?”

The Beheaded’s attempt at an answer was gibberish, fingers uncooperative in creating any sensical response. After a few seconds of impotent movements, he pointed to the stump of his neck.

The Collector frowned in concern. “What happened?”

The Beheaded reached up with difficulty and tapped the Collector’s hood.

“It brushed against the wound?” The Collector clarified, and when the Beheaded nodded, he hummed thoughtfully. An eager rush of scientific curiosity hoped that this might mean he would be given a unobstructed, distraction-free environment to investigate the cut. “Was it bad?”

The Beheaded shook his head. The Collector glanced down to the Beheaded’s body in hopes of further clarification without needing to ask the still wobbly man another question. He was rather surprised to find that there was a significant wet spot over the Beheaded’s groin.

“Have you already…?” He trailed off when the Beheaded’s answer was a humiliated crimson flame and inability to meet his gaze.

“I see. That’s fine. We have learned something today, and you enjoyed yourself. It is enough.” The Collector leaned back, preparing to separate and give the Beheaded time to gather himself together.

The Beheaded’s legs rose to wrap around what he could of the Collector’s waist and the Collector blinked. The Beheaded waved a hand towards the Collector’s arousal.

“Ah. That is not a problem. I can take care of myself. You need not worry about me,” he said sheepishly. As much as he would enjoy the man’s touch, he didn’t want to overwhelm him when he clearly needed some time to reacclimatize his mind to his unsteady body.

The Beheaded shook his head and waggled a hand. The Collector hesitated. The Beheaded, thinking he was misunderstood, made a jerking motion. The Collector barked a laugh, the slight tension between them breaking.

“I understood you. I must warn you, my anatomy is not the same as your own,” he said. “Surprisingly, I am sure, I am not human, and that extends to my genitalia.”

The Beheaded shrugged.

“Very well. How do you wish to do this?” the Collector asked.

The Beheaded looked between them, fingers tapping along the Collector’s arm as he thought. He brightened. He motioned for the Collector to pull his pants down. The Collector did as requested, allowing them to bunch up around his knees and curious as to the Beheaded’s plan. The Beheaded stared at the Collector’s cock when it was revealed, unsure of what he had really expected.

The Collector’s cock was thick and long, befitting of his stature and larger than the Beheaded’s by a considerable amount. It slapped against the Beheaded’s belly, the wet drool of precum dribbling over his skin and running down his side. The ridged underside ground against his skin from the weight alone, and the slightly pointed tip peeked out from his foreskin. Nodules marched along the sides, stiff enough to be felt when pressing inside his partners, much to their highly expressed delight. The Collector wanted to fuck the Beheaded senseless, but this seemed far too large. He wasn’t sure it would even fit with how big he was (in all ways) compared to the Beheaded.

The Collector breathed heavily now that his cock was bare against the Beheaded’s skin. His hips jittered in place as he stopped himself from rutting against the Beheaded. Resisting the urge to do something as juvenile as rut against the Beheaded was remarkably difficult. The Beheaded was cool and he was warm, and the contrast tempted him to heat the Beheaded up with wild thrusting against the strong muscles. He might even be able to get the Beheaded hard again to frot their lengths against each other. His hand could hold them tightly together, he was sure.

When the Beheaded did nothing more than stare, the Collector laughed lowly. “Am I to orgasm by merely looking at you? That will take quite some time without stimulation.”

The Beheaded had a momentary thought of slapping the Collector’s cock to stop his constant sarcasm and teasing, but he held back. He laid his hand over the top of the Collector’s cock and pressed it down against himself. The Collector’s nails dug into the sheets on either side of the Beheaded’s head at the pressure. The Beheaded’s hand seemed so small compared to his length and reminded him sharply of the fact that he could quite easily shove the Beheaded down and take as he wanted. The Beheaded would probably like it in all reality, hardly a man to avoid pain as long as he got something out of it, but the Collector held back. He gritted his teeth together to prevent himself from saying something to put the Beheaded off of his delicate exploration.

The Beheaded teased him, whether purposely or accidentally was unknown, and dragged his palm over the Collector’s length slowly. He explored the shape curiously, pushing slightly at the foreskin still barely covering the glans to see if it would move further. The Collector gasped and thrust into the Beheaded’s grip thoughtlessly.

When was the last time he was touched, let alone by anyone that wasn’t himself? Years, many, many years. His last bedmate was… who was it? He didn’t recall. All he could focus on was the Beheaded’s calloused grip stroking him, a rough thumb playing with the flatter underside of the sensitive head. The Collector swallowed a pathetic sound. How rude of the Beheaded to undo him even now. He couldn’t keep going like this, he would embarrass himself if he lost control over something so simple.

The Collector pushed the Beheaded’s hand aside, a spark of domination filling him when the Beheaded let go immediately. “I want to pleasure you,” he said, eyes flicking up to the Beheaded’s.

The Beheaded tilted his head. “How?”

The Collector leaned back. “I will sit against the wall. Straddle my lap, and if you will allow me, I will repeat your earlier pleasure. Perhaps you will even be able to orgasm again.”

The Beheaded nodded furiously, eager as a virgin. The Collector debated asking if he could penetrate him, then dismissed it. Later. This was a perfect opportunity to investigate the Beheaded’s neck sensitivity as well as the anatomy of it in close detail. He always did love to turn his bedmates into primal, whimpering creatures, begging for his attention, and this was a tool he planned on using over and over again until the Beheaded craved the overstimulating thoughtlessness. Perhaps he could even condition the Beheaded into immediate arousal when he put a hand to the man’s shoulder.

It was awkward to get in the right position, the Collector’s digitigrade legs always a hassle when attempting to match up with more humanoid partners, and the requirement of a pillow behind his back to cushion his spinal ridges annoying to figure out. After a short amount of wriggling and further clothing removal, they were aligned properly. The Beheaded’s cock was not erect, but neither was it entirely soft, sandwiched between the two of them with his own. The Collector had a feeling that it was merely a matter of time before the Beheaded hardened once more. The Beheaded more sat on his thighs than straddled them, but the Collector wasn’t going to argue with having more control.

The Collector encouraged the Beheaded to lean forward, their chests sliding against each other. The Beheaded was neither thin nor wiry, but in comparison to the Collector’s thick weight, he may as well have been. His pecs were nothing against the Collector’s and their nipples brushed each other’s with a pleasant drag. Already the Beheaded’s toes curled and he leaned forward into the Collector, arms tight on the Collector’s biceps for balance.

The Collector nuzzled the side of his hood into the Beheaded’s fiery head. His finger traced around the severed neck, not touching the cut yet. The Beheaded’s reaction, as telegraphed as it was from their proximity, informed him that the closer his finger got, the more sensitive it was. Each swipe of the large hands was soft, the Collector's claws kept carefully in check. Not a single scratch marred the Beheaded's body even when he dragged the tip over the soft skin.

The Beheaded writhed and the Collector had to hold his hips to keep him still. He didn’t want to overstimulate the Beheaded too quickly and end the fun early (again). The veins and arteries pulsed as if actively pumping blood, muscles working to mimic a swallow. Even his esophagus pulsed to draw in air and gasp in silent pleasure. Deviant thoughts swirled in the Collector’s mind, cruel imaginings of how he could stop the Beheaded’s breath with something as simple as his tongue. Would the Beheaded suffocate, the flame extinguish?

He turned his hand over to run the back of a claw over the clean edge of the executioner’s blow. The Beheaded’s body tensed, hips grinding into the Collector’s belly desperately. The Beheaded’s cock dripped precum over his belly in enthusiastic agreement of the Collector’s touch. The soft pudge allowed rough thrusting and the Collector’s patience began to thin as his own cock throbbed with each motion.

The Collector moved his hand away and the Beheaded collapsed against him, muscles stubbornly loose. The Collector’s hand moved to hold the Beheaded by the back and into his chest firmly, the other gripping even more tightly at the Beheaded’s hip. The Beheaded’s hands rose to ask a question but fell into desperate thrashing the moment the Collector’s tongue lapped along the flat surface of the Beheaded’s neck.

The previous release assisted the Beheaded in not cumming immediately, though it was a close call. The man still jerked against him, cock hard and rutting against his own. The flames burned, but the Collector merely tugged his hood to protect him from skin contact, and licked again. He was very thankful that the length of his tongue made it easy to stay close enough to lick but far enough to avoid being burned.

The Beheaded tasted coppery, a metallic tang that drove the Collector on to repeat the action again. And again, and again until he was coating the Beheaded’s shoulders in saliva and huffed breaths. He tasted so good. The Collector nearly bit down onto the Beheaded’s shoulder, but he couldn’t pull away from the spot that made the Beheaded into this twisting, jerking mess. He would probably taste divine on a dinner plate; he wouldn’t even need any seasoning. The hands clawing into his shoulder and side ached, the sharp, half broken nails drawing blood from the ferocity of their grip, and still the Collector refused to stop.

The slurping of his rough tongue echoed in the room, nearly as loud as the wet slapping of the Beheaded’s frenzied humping. The Collector groaned and his claws dug into the Beheaded’s side at a thrust that aligned the Beheaded’s cock with the bottom of his own.

“Again,” he commanded hoarsely.

The Beheaded didn’t understand, couldn’t possibly understand. He grabbed the Beheaded’s hands and shoved their cocks into his grip, squeezing his own hand over top to encourage the obvious conclusion. The Beheaded took to his task with vigor, eye scrunched as he did his best to remain focused.

The Collector panted over that sensitive plane, chuffing a laugh when the Beheaded’s hold spasmed tighter. “Just like that.”

The Collector kissed the Beheaded’s shoulder in reward when the Beheaded’s enthusiastic stroking matched the tempo of his grinding. Immediately, the Beheaded repeated the motion in hopes of proving himself worthy of another. The Collector smiled in the hidden space of his hood and repaid the Beheaded with a languid lap of his thick tongue.

If the Beheaded had a mouth, he would be whimpering, whining. The Collector could hear it in his mind as clear as day, a dead voice crying for more, if only in his fantasies.

“Are you close?” he asked, lips brushing against the Beheaded’s muscles with each syllable, his own words interspaced with swallowed sounds.

The Beheaded shaking served well enough as an answer, bouncing in the Collector’s lap and chasing his pleasure with the single-minded focus of a dog chasing a cart. Thankfully, that distant peak of the Collector’s cresting pleasure was closing in too.

Groaning, the Collector’s thrust up into the Beheaded’s hands. He finally had the rhythm right and the Collector’s stomach tautened, the muscles tight and fluttering. His balls twitched against the Beheaded’s as they drew up and he crushed the Beheaded into a bear hug. His eyes closed and he jerked the Beheaded down against him like a toy to fuck into the tight space between them, toes clawing into the bedding for leverage. He didn’t need the Beheaded to do anything now, just be hot and present and pinning his cock to his belly with delicious friction driving him mad, tighter and rougher and oh, so still like an obedient pet made to serve—

The Collector growled into the Beheaded’s neck as his cock spurted between them to join his copious precum and mess of the Beheaded’s first orgasm, thrusting roughly to spread the thin fluid over the Beheaded to mark him as his, his, his!

The Beheaded thrashed in his hold and he tasted sweet blood, the Beheaded’s shoulder in his maw and skin broken. He parted, jaw fighting his will, and shoved a hand between them to jerk the Beheaded’s cock hard and fast. His manacle, initially freezing cold, was quickly slippery with their slick, and the chains bounced over the Beheaded’s hips with a discordant reminder of who they were deep down.

The Beheaded arched hard enough that the Collector knew the Beheaded was going to have a back ache that he’d need to work out for him afterwards, but that was in the future and the future didn’t matter when everything was so perfect now. A final lick over the fluttering pulse and the Beheaded’s release mixed with his own, the light of his fire bright enough that the Collector had to close his eyes and hot enough that his skin protested his proximity.

The Collector eased him through it, gentling his touch until the Beheaded melted into him like a heavy blanket, his flame a candle in comparison to the normal roaring bonfire. The Collector extricated his hand with a grimace at the liquid staining his skin. There was nothing for it. He wiped his hand off on the bed.

He breathed heavily, eyes closed, and relaxed into the wall. He petted the Beheaded’s side gently, only slightly apologetic when he felt the drying rivulets of blood. He hadn’t meant to, and he hoped the Beheaded would understand that. At the same time, though, it was immediately gratifying to know that this body, transient as it may be, would bear his marks.

It was a decent amount of time before the Beheaded stirred, his head back to its normal size and pinkish color. He leaned back and stretched, wincing at the aches.

The Collector’s eyes opened lazily. His tongue felt thick, still savoring the taste of the Beheaded’s blood. “My apologies. I did not mean to bite or hold so tight as to prick you with my claws.” He exhaled a soft laugh. “It has been… quite some time.”

The Beheaded hit the Collector’s chest with his fist hard enough to hurt, but gentled it with a pat over the plush pec. Apology accepted.

The Collector forced himself up, helping the Beheaded balance with a hand on his hips. “We need a bath.”

The Beheaded fought the hold, but when the Collector was standing and still kept him wrapped around that thick waist, he finally acquiesced with a vulgar gesture of his displeasure.

“Come now, you act as though you will perish in a tub. I will rub your shoulders afterwards,” the Collector promised.

The Beheaded sighed exaggeratedly, then nodded. He leaned into the Collector with a nuzzle against his shoulder. The Collector patted the Beheaded’s ass fondly, amused when the motion jolted the Beheaded in surprise, and started the bath.

Chapter Text

“How do you feel about medical experimentation?” the Collector asked, keeping his tone light and question casual. He turned a page in the book he studied, scribbled another note, then glanced at the Beheaded for an answer.

The Beheaded’s hands were stiff, having paused in his signing practice in favor of a suspicious squint of his eye. “What?”

“Medical examination,” the Collector corrected himself. He hadn’t meant to say the right word and needed to correct himself into something the Beheaded would allow.

“That isn’t what you said before,” the Beheaded said accusingly, sitting up straight in his chair.

The lights of the vats around flickered over the Collector’s skin, the black of his hood impenetrable. If the Beheaded were still as paranoid as the day he arrived, it would have been over from the start. As it was, it seemed that the Collector was being given some grace to fix his mistake.

The Collector tapped the end of his pen against the table. “You are correct. I apologize. I have my… proclivities and sometimes it is hard to recall that they are not as acceptable to others as they are to me.”

The Beheaded’s eye narrowed. “What do you want to do?”

“What don’t I want to do?” the Collector muttered, then shook his head. “There are places, things, I have not been able to examine yet, and I cannot leave my laboratory. There are too many experiments in action that I can’t leave alone. I need to watch them and adjust temperature, ratios of chemicals, and so on. If I do not, the results of these long running experiments may be contaminated and go to waste.”

His hand moved to rest on the tube that he normally kept chained to his back. It bubbled from the slight jostle of his touch. He loathed lying to the Beheaded, but he pushed himself onward, twisting the topic into something else. “You mentioned that you found some notes from the Alchemist, correct?”

“Yeah?” the Beheaded prodded the Collector’s side when he stayed silent. “What is it?”

“Where did you find them?” the Collector asked. He wished he could look away. He knew it was rather damning that he kept his face hidden, but he couldn’t bear to force his expression into something it was not.

The Beheaded shrugged. “Lots of places. Promenade, the village, even the sewers. They’re kind of all over. Why? Are his notes useful?”

The Collector’s nailed clicked on the brass cap of the vat. “Yes,” he said finally. “I have found a few of them and they have good ideas, but I believe that there are more. They may have hints that I can use to cure the Malaise. If it is possible, bring them to me along with anything mentioned within them.”

He turned to face the Beheaded more, reaching over to caress the warm flames. The Beheaded flushed red. He smiled and pulled gently. The Beheaded followed like a fish on a line until he was standing on his knees on the chair. Even then, he was shorter than the Collector.

The Collector ran his thumb over the base of the flame in the same way he would over a lip. “I will reward you for each note you bring me.”

The Beheaded’s eye dilated and the fire expanded eagerly. “Does that mean this time you’ll actually suck my—”

“There is no need for such vulgarity,” the Collector said, pushing the Beheaded’s hands down to cut him off. “But if the note you bring me assists me particularly well… we will see.”

The Beheaded nearly leapt off of the chair and out of the laboratory to find the first one he could. The Collector didn’t let go, however, and he was locked in place. Confused, but unwilling to pull away if the Collector still wanted his attention, he waited.

The Collector’s hand slid down to the Beheaded’s shoulder, the motion “accidentally” pushing the scarf aside. He needed to keep the Beheaded’s attention on him, to tease with the carrot on the stick so the Beheaded would not see the possibility of a switch behind his back. He shifted his thumb and the back curve of a nail grazed over the Beheaded’s neck stump.

The Beheaded shuddered. His fire burned and he couldn’t stop the movement into the Collector’s touch, silently begging for more.

“Apologies,” the Collector said with a smile that belied his words. The Beheaded was too woozy to notice. “You do not need to tear yourself away from your goal, but I would greatly appreciate those grimoires.”

Though the notes he gathered from old experiments were mostly useless, he did genuinely want them back. Not because he needed them for the information inside, but because he hated not having all of his notes in one place. He technically could have missed a minor detail that he was unable to recall because he couldn’t take his book along, and he was running out of ideas.

Anything he could do to slow down the Beheaded’s goal would be ideal. The Beheaded had explored so much of the island already and had yet to find the throne room. The Collector hoped that the day he did would be far off yet, but the Beheaded was more and more confident in his work every time he came by. It seemed like every other day he opened the door covered in viscera and blood and grinning, babbling about new places he had gone to and Malaise-ridden beasts he had seen. The Collector thought that the Beheaded was most beautiful when covered in blood. He hoped someday he would be the cause of it.

The Collector pulled away from the Beheaded, leaving him cold in the wake of removed affection. The Beheaded blinked a few times and rubbed at his eye.

“I’ll get them for you,” he promised. “As long as you—”

The Collector turned away, stifling a laugh. The Beheaded hit his side in playful irritation, then finished his earlier aborted motion of hopping down to the floor. He tapped the table for the Collector to turn around, flames brightening into a smile when he saw the Collector smiling too. He raised the Collector’s hand to press a kiss into his wrist, then headed to the items he’d left sitting by the door earlier.

The Collector waved as the Beheaded picked up his bag and crossbow. He adjusted his boots, then waved as well before taking his leave. Once the door closed behind him and the latch clicked in place, the Collector laid his head in his hands.

What had he done? How many lies was he going to ply the Beheaded with? The knight’s meat, the grimoires, his very self, where would it end? He would run out before the Beheaded lost his will to continue. He’d be forced to tell the truth. If the Beheaded managed to find the throne room, to see the Hand of the King, to see the body on the throne—!

He slammed a hand onto the table. His nice pen bounced off and fell to the ground and he saw the nib strike the floor at a vicious angle. He had replacements somewhere. Everything was always just somewhere. He didn’t know where anything was anymore. The island changed every time the Beheaded failed his cycle and he knew the Time Keeper was still working her magic. She was surely tiring. Eventually, she would fall to exhaustion and everything would go to hell. He snorted. Like it wasn’t already.

The Collector picked up the pen. One tine was broken entirely and he was sure he would find the shard in a toe bean at some point. He tossed it aside on his desk and ignored the ghastly ink stain his frustration left on the wood. He’d clean it later.

Later, later, later. Everything was later. He couldn’t handle it now, and so he shoved the issue off for another day, another time. He had plenty of it. He turned to his vat, running a finger along the dispensing nozzle. Not yet. He still felt fine.

He turned back to his desk and opened a drawer for a new pen nib. Once it was replaced, he sighed and turned to cleaning the desk. The soap stung his nose, but he had to use a particularly sharp cleaning solution to get the glue-based ink up before it soaked into the wood irreparably.

How did he keep doing this to himself? Everything he did amounted to nothing. Every kindness he attempted to make turned to cruelty in his hands.

The Apostates’ learnings had created failure after failure, hurting those who trusted him to cure their ills. The sap from the Slumbering Sanctuary had been the closest he’d been able to get to an answer, and that hadn’t been enough. He did not have much left that he could use to test with regardless, considering he was using it on the potion for the Beheaded. He had none of his once collected herbs to use on the suffering, and even if he did, everyone was already dead or out of reach. Everyone but the Guillains, himself, and the Beheaded.

He was certain that the Hand of the King was infected, though he stood still in front of the husk of his master’s body. The Time Keeper, he believed, was safe from the Malaise due to her abilities, but would not —or could not— speak with him. Who knew where the queen was, or her Servants. The Royal Gardener had failed his mission of burning the arboretum and then vanished. Or maybe he had refused, who knew, either way, he was unreachable. Castaing, the prison warden, patrolled a bridge he no longer recalled the purpose of. The Giant killed, his body tossed into the Prisoner’s Quarters.

What was the purpose of this? The Collector fell into the chair, finding the seat still warm from the Beheaded’s presence. He may as well tell the Beheaded everything. He knew he wouldn’t.

Every failure, every heartbeat he felt still under his palm, every needle jabbed into a body with a new, experimental elixir that inflicted nothing but pain, every agreement with the immoral Apostates to advance his research just a little bit more, all of it for nothing. Nothing but a failed experiment with no past and no future.

And now he sat in a laboratory deep underground, manacles on his limbs that he placed himself to remind him of his mistakes. He ought to be in the Giant’s place. The king had trusted him through all of his fear and shaking commands. The queen less so, but she left before the Collector had managed to find an answer. Together the king and the Alchemist made a decision that he regretted every time he saw the Beheaded.

No. That wasn’t true. If he was going to lie to others, he shouldn’t lie to himself. He didn’t regret what he did. If he had accomplished what he set out to do, he’d be lauded a hero. He regretted seeing the king’s life fade into nothing for nothing. All he’d managed to do was to kill the last person who believed in him, and now he was alone.

In the end, he was always alone.

The Beheaded returned periodically, but not with the Alchemist books in hand. Each demand for a new healing potion was met with thinning patience, and the Collector held himself back from making a request of his own. The Beheaded was harmed every time that he came by, organs held in by a hand over his stomach or limbs incapacitated. Only rarely did he appear fairly intact, and the Collector’s desire to see him spread over his surgical table mounted. When the Beheaded next appeared with only minor wounds and a still full healing flask, he decided that it was as good a time as any to ask.

He placed a hand on the Beheaded’s back affectionately, thumb brushing over the Beheaded’s side. He was tempted to hold more firmly, but he held back. “My friend,” he said. “I have a request of you.”

The Beheaded tilted his head, the flames still flickering upwards and yet demonstrating the curious motion so clearly. “What?”

“I… must confess something. When I asked how you felt about medical experimentation a while ago” —the Beheaded’s eye narrowed suspiciously— “I have to admit that I was thinking of you.” The Collector sighed and pulled away.

“You are a fascinating being, how could a man of science like me not wish to see how your body functions more than skin deep?” He shrugged, then turned back to his work desk and pushed aside some of his paperwork for the Beheaded’s blueprint to take up more space. “I understand that such a desire is not exactly pedestrian, but… I desire to see you taken apart so I may study underneath those protective layers of skin and muscle.”

The Beheaded raised a hand to his chin thoughtfully. The fact that he was even entertaining the idea made the Collector’s heart soar. If he was denied, then so be it, but the possibility of agreement made his head spin.

“It’ll hurt, won’t it?” the Beheaded asked. He took a moment to look himself over, turning his arms to check the wholeness of flesh. A few stitches that he had put in himself were uneven and unhealed, but overall, he was fairly hale and hearty.

The Collector breathed out heavily. “Very. If I am given free reign, I will be investigating you quite thoroughly. Possibly testing new versions of the healing potion to see if it can heal greater damage without such invasive tasks as setting bones or stitching up organs and flesh myself. With a better potion, you would not need to waste time putting yourself back to together manually. I would prefer not to use a sedative as it can impact the bodily functions as I am investigating them.”

The Beheaded’s eye watched the Collector’s fingers twitch as if imagining the surgery at that moment. Truth be told, the Collector was. He was sure that the Beheaded’s insides would be fascinating. He knew some of it from previous rounds of reassembling the Beheaded, but to have the opportunity to see his insides functioning as naturally as they could? He would do a great many things to be afforded the luxury of the Beheaded on his surgical table, willingly offering himself as a sacrifice upon the altar of science.

“As long as you don’t do anything weird,” the Beheaded said warily.

The Collector forced his muscles to freeze, his intrusive desire to leap across the room and bash the Beheaded onto the table and rip him open with his claws alone tamped down into a half-strangled sentence instead. “Define ‘weird’, if you will.”

The Beheaded’s eye flicked aside before returning. “I don’t know, don’t try and fuck me while I’m opened up?”

“I would not make that our first such encounter,” the Collector replied quickly. He realized what he said when the Beheaded’s eye widened in… disgust? Fear? Something that turned the flame into a sickly yellow, a color he did not want to see again.

“I apologize. My eagerness makes me rather foolish.” The Collector took a deep breath, eyes closing as he centered himself. “I would do nothing without permission. I am not a man to take advantage of trust.”

He felt a sharp tingle of a memory in the back of his mind, remembering a time before when he had said something similar.

The Hand blocked him from entering his observatory, their similar size making the implied threat all the sharper and more dangerous. Nobody else could stand at anything close to eye height anymore. The Giant was so far above that it wasn’t threatening, more of a fact of existence than anything else. The Hand, however, while slightly shorter, was close enough that the man was closer to an equal, and equals were dangerous. The king trusted him more than the Giant, after all. If anyone were to be a threat to the king’s decisions regarding his work, it would be the Hand.

“I can’t believe he trusts you,” the Hand said, his grip tight enough to leave bruises.

“I won’t take advantage of it,” the Alchemist responded. The Hand’s attempt at a power play was rather annoying. Every time it was done, it intimidated him less and less. At this point, it was becoming trite.

“If you hurt our king, I will personally find you and teach you what it feels like to be split open by my lance, and I will make your death as slow as your experiments.” The Hand’s snarl felt more like a puppy’s whine, and he was done with the Hand’s attitude.

He brushed the armored hand off of his shoulder dismissively, pleased when the Hand released him with little fight. “You should spend less time spitting threats at me and more time kneeling in front of the king. Maybe he’d listen to you more if you swallowed next time.”

He’d ended up with bruises he had to awkwardly explain away the next time he saw the king, though the seething resentment emanating from the Hand’s helmet had been worth it. He was no longer that impulsive man, but the thoughts were forever there, deeply buried.

He shook his head to dismiss the unpleasant memory. “You do not need to—”

“Yeah, sure.” The Beheaded shrugged. “I die enough times anyway. Not like you can hurt me more than the monsters out there.”

The Collector chose not to dispute that, knowing very, very well he could do far more than any thoughtless creature could. “I will need to restrain you.”

At that, the Beheaded’s flames compressed into a grimace. “Ugh. Yeah. I guess.”

The Collector took a deep breath. His lungs fluttered as he chased air, too excited to breathe properly. “Very well then. Please go bathe, I will prepare the operating room.”

The Beheaded nearly refused, but he did make the offer and the Collector was likely to give him something in return. He obediently went to the bathing room, though not without a vulgar gesture that the Collector ignored.

The moment that the door was closed and separated them, the Collector gave into his excitement and walked in quick circles. He wanted to gnaw on something, nearly bringing up a hand to bite at the meat of his palm. For some reason, it always helped him settle down. Maybe because it hurt, maybe because it soothed the twitching muscles underneath, he didn’t know. He forced his mind towards the surgical table and his plans.

By the time the Beheaded returned, remaining naked for simplicity’s sake, the room was prepared. A rolling table sat aside with various tools, a second one with a journal and pen. A large flask of the healing potion, enough for multiple doses, and a few smaller bottles of more richly red bottles marched along the back of a table like chess pieces waiting for their turn.

“Please, to the bed.” The Collector fussed over the Beheaded until he was neatly tied down, then smiled so widely his eyes squinted. “You are generous to me. Remind me that your next item is free, regardless of difficulty. That offer will not be repeated, however.” He ran the back of his hand along the Beheaded’s flame affectionately.

The Beheaded couldn’t reply, his arms lashed down, though one was raised to make it easier to manipulate. He managed a thumbs up instead along with a kiss to the inside of the Collector’s wrist.

“I will endeavor to make it hurt as little as possible,” the Collector said and the Beheaded nodded.

He wiped down the Beheaded’s arm with antiseptic, then sighed, almost dreamily. One of his favorite activities, given to him on a surgical steel platter. How lucky he was that the Beheaded had no sense of self-preservation!

The Collector picked up a scalpel, tilting it to assess the edge in case something had happened in the last 5 seconds that might have dulled it. It was as sharp as it was when he set it down, and he was satisfied.

The edge of the blade hovered over the Beheaded’s arm as he debated where to begin, humming a song under his breath for a moment. When the Beheaded tensed instinctively, the Collector paused and waited. The Beheaded took a deep breath, then forced himself to relax.

“Would you prefer silence or for me to speak and fill the air?” the Collector asked.

The Beheaded folded his fingers on the other hand to indicate option number two.

“Very well.” The Collector placed the blade against the Beheaded’s bicep and began cutting delicately.

He wanted to get to the muscle without damaging it, and he was quite careful. He began to explain what he was doing, but before he finished the large cut, the Beheaded blinked twice.

The Collector pulled back. “Different topic?”

One blink.

“Hm. Perhaps some history of the island, then?”

Two blinks.

The Collector frowned, having a feeling he knew what the Beheaded really wanted. He heaved a sigh. “My past?”

One blink.

The Collector debated stopping the process and setting the Beheaded free instead, but… it was right there and he had permission to dive into the man’s guts. The least he could do would be to entertain his whims. The Collector would hide quite a bit, of course, he did not want to spill his entire past regarding his previous life. He could talk about his life until he graduated from the academy, then. The knife lowered once more.

“My family were miners in the caverns,” he said. “We woke early and slept late. We were not slaves in the traditional sense, no living master owned us, but coin was scarce and there was precious little chance of advancement. I was small for my race, and was used primarily to gather the smaller crystals in areas my family could not reach. When they found me crafting in what little downtime they had, my parents spent every coin they had on an opportunity for me to attempt the entrance test to the royal academy.”

The Collector set aside the neat square of skin and leaned in to investigate the muscles. There was some delicate green cording weaved into the fibers, perhaps tendrils of the homunculus. Curious. He made notes, then returned with a small, dull rod to prod at the cord. The Beheaded’s entire body shuddered and the Collector blinked.

“Painful? No. Yes? Hm. Stinging? Cold? Hot? Tingling? Hm… similar to a strike to the ulnar nerve?” he asked questions in hopes of clarity, taking two blinks as no and one for yes, and the slower the blink the more unsure or the Collector not asking quite the right question. When the Beheaded didn’t understand the last question, the Collector pointed to the outside of his own elbow and at the soft spot. “The ‘funny’ bone.”

The Beheaded blinked once and the Collector nodded thoughtfully. “Curious.”

He jotted down some quick notes and returned. He continued gently prodding the nerve to see how it reacted under various tests, continuing his conversation as he did so. “I failed the test, naturally. Oh, don’t give me that look. Intelligent or not, an unschooled mind cannot provide answers for knowledge untaught. I was noted for my efforts and answers, wrong though they were, and offered a chance for one probationary semester as a kindness for my unwilling ignorance yet quick-mindedness.”

The Collector lifted the cord the tiniest amount from the fibers, ignoring the Beheaded’s furious twitching. “Relax as much as you can, if you can at all.” When there was no difference apart from a determined closed eye, the Collector assumed it was a lack of ability than an unwillingness. A quick snip from a tiny pair of scissors separated the green strand.

The arm immediately went limp along with the Beheaded, that large eye unfocused. The Collector leaned forward, snapping his fingers for the Beheaded’s attention. Thankfully, the Beheaded’s eye immediately followed the moving finger and proved that it was a minor dissociation.

“Are you able to move your arm?” he asked.

The negative response was expected. He picked up a pair of forceps and purposely oversqueezed on skin that was out of the Beheaded’s line of sight. With no reaction, he concluded that the strands were the connection from the head to the body. He assumed so before, but confirmation was nice. More notes filled the journal along with a rough sketch of the cord’s location.

More investigating of the arm revealed that there was no cable there anymore. He did not see it return to the head, either, nor was there any hanging loose from the wound. It was as if it had simply vanished. What a curious thing the Beheaded was. He turned his attention to the Beheaded’s belly now. Would there be cording wrapped around organs? Along major arteries?

Between notes and cuts, he returned to his story. “It is at the academy that I found my place in the world. I am a man of science, intelligence, and replicable experimentation. No single study can hold its own weight. Without at minimum a second study to support it, no pattern can be drawn. There are unspeakably rare things in this world, and eventually, one will come across one. Without studying others, it would be understandable to assume that this rare thing is actually common. It is a logical fallacy that is quite easy to slip into.”

The scarlet liquid occluded his vision and his hands grew sticky quickly, though thankfully, he planned for that with some prewetted fabrics for that exact purpose. “As a new student, I was quickly informed of my social status. As a then small student, it was enforced firmly. However, it also meant I was the perfect person to resist common knowledge, because it wasn’t common to me, and reveal that many of their foregone conclusions were erroneous. Their sciences were imperfect, but they did not want to admit that. I was nearly asked to leave even after I proved them wrong time and time again. Can you imagine that?”

The Collector laughed and resisted the urge to lick the scalpel with difficulty. The winding green tendrils surrounded the organs within the Beheaded’s abdomen like a net, each of the organs otherwise seemed perfectly mundane. He set down the bloody knife and picked up another to repeat the same cutting testing he had done to the arm.

“I was given a chance by the king himself, if you’ll believe it.” The Collector’s eyes softened, grew fond even as the Beheaded’s grip on reality was slowly fading with each touch of the Collector’s hands. “A fool of a man, mind you, one with more focus on his own arrogance and pride than on anything else. I’d made an impression with my accidental rudeness the first time we met, and I am told he thought it charming. When he found out I was to be expelled for my attitude, he sponsored me. As long as I swore to find a way for him to live forever, he would allot me anything I needed.”

The truth fell so easily from his tongue, far too easily. When the Beheaded’s flame flickered as if a storm wind were threatening a candle, he realized what he said. The Collector cleared his throat. The truth he’d started grew bitter as he turned it into a lie. He couldn’t let the Beheaded know too much. Hopefully his mind was addled from pain and the changing interaction with the body enough that he would forget the conversation. He turned to the bone saw, glad that the magicked edges would prevent the serrated edge from clogging as he worked to open the rib cage.

“I was given my lead for a while until I failed to provide him with what he needed. After a few years of attempts, I was asked to leave.” The Collector raised his hands to jingle the manacles in implication. He wore them even now, though blood free and easily kept away from the subject on the table. “I spent my time here, far from the castle. Because of my distance, I did not catch the Malaise and have been given a chance to study it without someone over my shoulder telling me that my work is not up to their standards. I make my own and will accomplish what they could not.”

The Collector’s hands rested on the edge of the table, the gore of the man before him still sweet in his eyes. “And yet…” he trailed off quietly. “And yet I try. What else do I have but to try and try again?”

The Beheaded’s eye stared emptily at the ceiling. He was still in there, the flames not yet separated. He would split apart soon, however. The Collector’s study of a living body was coming to an end. Each strand of the homunculus he cut vanished into the ether and he was left with more questions than he started with, and there was little more he could get from the almost fully nerveless body at this point.

“You have my thanks, my friend,” the Collector said. He rested his fingers over the cut open ribcage momentarily to feel the motion, the lungs beneath fluttering in their stuttered expansions. “You have given me something I did not know I needed: motivation. Alone, it is difficult to muster the urge to continue.”

The new blade in his hand was sharper and longer, magic aiding the edge. It would slice more easily than the steel would seem to, stopped by nothing less than bone, and leave a clean cut. If he were to sew the flesh back together after using this particular blade, the scar would be miniscule, if there was any.

“This will be unpleasant,” he warned, “but it will be quick. I look forward to seeing you again.”

He grasped the Beheaded’s heart. It fit into his hand so easily, the firm muscles doing their best to pump blood and keep the Beheaded going. A circle of decisive cuts and it twitched in his palm as he lifted it free. The Beheaded’s flames shrunk more and more until he was a green mess of tendrils laying near a dead body. Unlike the flames, there was no way to express himself, and so he bumped against the Collector pointedly.

The Collector set down the heart on a platter in favor of the Beheaded’s homunculus. He smiled gently and took the Beheaded to a drain, setting him down. The Beheaded didn’t look back, immediately slinking into the grate and back towards the Prisoner’s Quarters.

The Collector returned to his table and began the process of clean up. He would keep the body and investigate it further at a later time. He didn’t think he would get anything, but there could be something. It was best to hedge his bets.

Glad that he would be alone for quite a while yet, he gave himself a small treat. The Beheaded’s heart made for a fine dinner.

Chapter Text

The door crashed into the wall from the Beheaded’s kick and the Collector spun around. He nearly overbalanced into his desk and caught himself with a claw to the wood, the heavy scratch obvious and impossible to hide. It had been many visits since the last time the Beheaded had kicked his door in and he had lost more of his tolerance of the Beheaded’s fierce violence than he expected.

The Beheaded swaggered in with a backpack stuffed full of books and journals that he gleefully dumped on the Collector’s desk, every one that he could gather dropped in an eager rush now that he felt he had them all. Familiar pages of old handwriting hit the Collector harder than his first drink as a teenager and he recoiled as though burned.

The Beheaded caught him on the arm and prevented him from falling, the weight of the bubbling tube on his back almost sending them both crashing into the floor. “Are you okay?”

The Collector forced his chest to expand and air to enter his lungs. “I— yes. I am alright. You’ve done wonderfully,” he croaked. He cleared his throat with an awkward cough into his hand.

The Beheaded looked him up and down. The Collector’s hunch was particularly pronounced, his voice hoarse from thirst. Was he even a little thinner than before? The Beheaded swore there used to be a pleasant squish to the Collector’s stomach and now it was nearly gone. It revealed a fantastic set of abs, but the Collector was not made to be so thin. He looked ill.

“You’re not gonna be able to suck my dick that way,” the Beheaded concluded. “When was the last time you slept? Or ate? You look fucking awful.”

The Collector smiled, trying to be reassuring, but the glow waned after a mere moment. “I am not certain,” he admitted quietly. “I thought… I thought I found something, but it slipped out of my grasp.”

The Beheaded slapped the Collector’s arm, taking note of the delayed wince. “You can’t find anything if you’re dying.”

The Collector shrugged a shoulder in response. The chains around him clanked like cheerful bells in contrast to his haggard tone. “I am not dying, friend. It takes more than this to kill me.”

Scoffing, the Beheaded tugged at one of the chains. “Get this off. If you’re gonna be useless, I’ll make dinner, but you better make it up to me.”

“I always do,” said the Collector.

The Collector lowered himself to his knees to set the bottom of the vat to the ground, then guided the Beheaded in undoing the winding shackles. They pooled on the ground in a mess, and neither the Collector nor the Beheaded bothered to pick them up. The Beheaded couldn’t move the vat, so he left that for the Collector to deal with later.

He held out a hand for the Collector. He didn’t stand immediately, trying to see a hint of the Beheaded’s former self. There was nothing, really. The concern in the Beheaded’s eye, hidden by a front of arrogance, was nothing like the king’s harsh commands.

The Beheaded perked up as the Collector rose, then steadied himself on the desk when his vision swam in shattered memories, his fingers skipping over the deep scratch the Collector’s claws had left. Something about the sight of the Collector standing from a kneel with his hand in the Collector’s felt dizzyingly familiar.

The Collector caught the Beheaded in turn, hands on muscled shoulders and concern in his tired eyes. “Are you well?”

The Beheaded shook his head to get rid of the cobwebs, then gave a wave to dismiss the question. “Come on. I’m gonna to make you some food. Then you’re gonna suck me off, and after that, you’re going the fuck to sleep.”

The Collector’s laugh echoed in the room. The Beheaded’s demands were mostly fair, if ridiculous. He had taken care of himself poorly, he had no real reason not to agree. He ran a hand through the Beheaded’s flames affectionately. “Very well.”

The Beheaded’s cooking was subpar, unsurprising to either of them. The reward for the grimoires afterwards, however, was much more thoroughly enjoyed. Once cleaned up and the treat returned, the Beheaded forcefully dismissed the Collector to his own bed. He refused to hear any protests otherwise and pushed until the Collector conceded.

“Stubborn as a mule,” the Collector muttered, and ignored the Beheaded’s vulgar response.

He set his pauldrons aside, laid on his bed, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He patted the bed for the Beheaded to lay down as well, but no weight settled near him. He tugged the blanket up to his shoulders and attempted to chase sleep as vigorously as he had avoided it.

The Collector awoke to a rather violent slam of a book against his chest. Before his eyes even opened he was on the move, hands snapping out to snatch the Beheaded and bash him against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs. He blinked as he tried to wake up more, struggling to focus. The Beheaded silently squirmed from the strength of his hold, nails digging into the Collector’s arm and along the manacle scars.

“My apologies,” the Collector stammered.

He gently set the Beheaded down, eyes flashing over the Beheaded’s body in hopes that he hadn’t harmed him too much. He knew bruises would be welling along the Beheaded’s side, long, thick lines matching the shape of his fingers, and probably some on his back from the wall.

The Beheaded shoved the Collector’s hands off of him and picked the book up once more. He thrust it into the Collector’s hands and pointed at a page about half way down. Nonplussed, the Collector began to read, realizing quickly it was one of the Apostate’s books presumably mistaken for an Alchemist grimoire.

One may be tempted to think that the body and the spirit are two names for the same concept. This is not so. The body and the spirit are separate pieces of one person, and without one, as long as they are in possession of the other, they will still have the strength to trudge onward, if in differing manners. A spirit without a body is a specter, a manifestation of lingering will without the body to accomplish it. A body without a spirit is in a deep, unwakeable sleep, yet the heart still beats and the lungs still breathe. He is decidedly, measurably, alive. He does not need to have will to live, even if he takes no actions due to the lack thereof.

What, then, is the nature of man? Is he the vessel or the mind? Depending upon who one speaks to, it can be either, and upon proper questioning, the same individual can vary their answer between the two without a hint of cognitive dissonance. However, the author proposes a third opinion.

A person is neither the spirit nor the body. Just as the spirit enacts its will and the body exists to fulfill it, there is the intermediary to enfold the pieces into a functioning whole. This, I conjecture, is what makes a man. A spirit cannot affect the waking world, and a slumbering body accomplishes equally little. There must be something that binds the two together.

This binding force is what creates a creature with both will and the power to manifest it. Without it, a person is either body or spirit, but not both, and lacks this encompassing piece. This force of self actualization, which I will henceforth call the homunculus—

The Collector dropped the book. What could he say? What should he do? He’d never felt so lost. Anything he said would probably contradict a different paper and his lies caught out if the Beheaded was able to find one that did. This was the book that he had referenced most heavily in his useless attempts to create life.

The Beheaded picked the tome up and dusted it off. He snapped his fingers in the Collector’s face until he looked to the Beheaded’s pointing finger. The word “homunculus” was a bomb, ready to set off everything the Collector thought he’d been building up.

“Why do people call me this?” the Beheaded asked, tapping the page insistently.

The Collector rubbed at his face. “Probably because you seem similar to the concept of a homunculus.”

“Explain it to me,” the Beheaded demanded.

The Collector stretched, then sighed. “It is a complicated thing to explain.” Upon seeing the Beheaded’s flame grow and glare deepen, the Collector continued. “That does not mean I will not try.”

Mollified, the Beheaded closed the book.

“You are truly incapable of patience,” the Collector said reproachfully.

The Beheaded flipped the Collector off.

They returned to the main space and the Collector waited for the Beheaded to take his usual seat. He opened a nearby chest and pulled out a small kettle and bag of tea leaves. With a replacement of a grabbing stand for a holding one and a quick fill of water from the sink, the kettle was set to boil. The mugs the Collector set out were fine, unreasonably so for being so deep in the dank earth and away from any noble homes. The Beheaded looked them over curiously as the Collector began to speak.

“Homunculi are… not individual things. Not entirely. They exist only in service to combine two other objects.” The Collector picked up two Cells and set them on a piece of paper.

He pointed to one. “Imagine that this is the will. This is what gives you the option to decide that you like to wake sleeping people up for something that can wait” —The Beheaded’s flame flushed and revealed his hint of shame brightly— “or the desire for power, or to explore, or any other thing that requires a decision. Choosing a blue ink from a black, to turn and face an enemy instead of running, learning how to speak and read to express yourself, is something the will does.”

The Beheaded nodded thoughtfully, a hand to an invisible chin. So far, so good.

He pointed to the second Cell. “This is the body. It’s what bleeds, aches, moves, speaks, anything that requires a physical impetus. When you raise your arm and drop a book on someone’s chest while they’re sleeping” —this time, the Beheaded refused to acknowledge the Collector’s justified scolding— “when you instinctively shiver in the cold, when you trip and catch yourself before you realize you’re falling, all of those are the body without thought. When you interact with others and tell them what you want, though, that is the body carrying out the will.”

The Collector picked up his pen and drew a circle around them on the paper. “This is the homunculus. Together, they create a person. You can’t tell other people things without a body part doing something for them to understand. Your Sign language, my verbal responses, they are ways we accomplish things. We share conversations on your blueprints, we haggle on the price, all of those have purpose. You want the item from the blueprint and to pay as little as you can. I can create the item and want you to pay as much as you can. However, without the will giving the body something to say, the body has no purpose and does nothing. To be whole, one must have both will and body.”

The kettle whistled and the Collector waved for the Beheaded to give him a second. The Beheaded needed time to contemplate this anyway. He wasn’t the philosophical type, but he might need to give it some thought. He wasn’t human. Maybe he once was, though.

“You’ll have to forgive me, I have no cream for your tea,” the Collector smiled thinly as he returned with the tea.

The Beheaded gave him a thumbs down and an exaggerated shake of his head.

The Collector tsk’d as he poured their cups. He set the kettle down on the desk and picked up his own. It was warm and comforting in his hands, small though the cup was, and his shoulders lowered. This was a sharing of information. He could do that. It was often helpful to teach when the master was stuck, as the act of explanation can sometimes find the snarls of thought stopping forward progress.

“You have desires, and to do them, you need your body. Your body needs you to want things, or else it will sit and rot itself away. The idea that naturally followed was that there must be a rope to tie these two things together to create something that makes decisions and has a body that can enact it, a ‘little man’, if you will. The writer believed that,” the Collector said with a wave to the book. “I assume that people see you, a will made physical with choices and thoughts combining with an empty, mindless body, and consider you the epitome of that force. After all, nobody else but you can separate will and body and put it back together again.”

The Beheaded’s brow furrowed. “What do you think I am?”

The Collector took a drink of tea to stop himself from correcting him with “who do you think I am?” and instead focused on the fact that he burnt his tongue. It hung out of his mouth for a moment before he slurped the long appendage back into his mouth.

“I think that, by this definition, you are a homunculus,” the Collector said, the words mildly distorted as he tried not to further burn his tongue when taking another drink.

The Beheaded’s leg bounced in place. “But I don’t have a body. When I die, it’s not really me that dies. It’s the body that dies and I come out of it.”

The Collector had an intrusive thought of falling to his knees and pleading, begging, to be allowed to see the Beheaded’s death at his hand once more. The blood spilling over the scalpels, the beautiful view of a heart pumping blood, knowing that a single cut to the artery was enough to destroy a man. He did not enjoy killing, but he enjoyed learning. Was it not understandable, then, that his interest in the comfort of the patients locked on his table was missing when there was so much more to be learned from active reactions? But this was not the time. He waited for the Beheaded to figure out what he needed to say.

The Beheaded’s fingers clenched, then forced them open to sign bitterly. “I’m not the mind, either, because when I’m a head, I can move around and do things. But you said that a homunculus can’t exist by itself.”

The Collector quirked a brow, a frown on his lips. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he really didn’t want to go there.

The Beheaded exploded into motion, the words large and frenzied. “Then what am I, Collector?! How do I exist? It doesn’t make any fucking sense!”

There it was, the true crux of the existential crisis. It had likely been building for quite time time, and he could not say he would not do the same in the Beheaded’s position.

“Does it matter?” the Collector asked mildly.

The Beheaded went to slam his fist on the table, stopping when the Collector’s shadowed face turned towards him with an empty expression that still held more threat than he wanted to test.

“Yeah, it fucking matters,” the Beheaded said instead. “I’m— I’m not a person. I woke up in a prison cell with hundreds of bodies around me, somehow went into one, and I know that I’m responsible for fixing what the king fucked up. Did someone make me? Is that what I am? A freak of nature that shouldn’t exist?”

His flames wavered uncertainly, dancing to and fro as if in a windstorm. The colors cycled without pattern, a hot blue into yellow into a faint green hue, all to broadcast his scattered mind. The Collector took the Beheaded’s shaking hands in his own, raising them into the darkness of his hood. They vanished as if passing through a curtain, but the Beheaded still felt thin lips press against his knuckles.

“Then you would be something worth celebrating, wouldn’t you? If you were created, then the creator would have to have been skilled. It would take a great deal of effort,” the Collector said. He let go when the Beheaded pulled back.

The Beheaded ran his hands through his flames, a self-soothing action that did not do very much at all. “Was it the Apostates? I saw the shores, there were things there, things like me. They threw their head at me and could pull it back like I can, but they don’t answer me when I try to talk to them, or write, or— or anything. They’re—”

“Failures,” the Collector interrupted, turning his head away. “They were failures.”

The Beheaded’s hands fell to his lap with an audible weight. The Collector shook his head, then turned back towards the Beheaded. As much as he wanted to avoid looking at the Beheaded while he spoke, it was only fair to ensure that the Beheaded could speak to him in answer. It wasn’t as though the Beheaded could see his expression unless he wanted to share it anyway.

The Collector’s grip on the tiny tea cup threatened to break it, but he couldn’t let go. If he did, he might drop it and break it and burn the Beheaded with the tea or worse, refuse to answer at all. He needed to have something to focus his hands on lest he start breaking more fragile things, like the Beheaded.

“Their research ended in those creatures. Thoughtless bodies with enough will to animate but no mind to control the body’s base impulses. A homunculus with body and without mind. It shouldn’t have worked at all. A homunculus is the sum of the whole, it is not a piece alone, and yet… they made a body move without the will to make choices.” The Collector finally set down the cup, the porcelain rattling before the weight stilled it on the saucer.

“I don’t know why they failed and you did not,” the Collector lied, the falsehoods burning his tongue more than the tea. “I don’t know what was different in your creation.”

The Beheaded leaned back in his chair and brought his legs up to press his feet together, knees bent wide and altogether focused in thought. It reminded the Collector of the deeply religious in their motions of meditation.

How could the Collector possibly explain it without his whole tower of cards falling to the ground? It was the will that allowed the homunculus to form properly, to solidify its ability to exist without a body and yet accept a transient connection to one. The desire for it to work, choosing for the body and mind to be ripped apart and knowing that he would die before he would live again, that was the difference. The experiments were unwilling. They said they were, and perhaps they thought they were, but deep down, they were afraid, frightened creatures desperate to stay alive.

The king had been willing to do anything, and therein lied the will’s choice. There was no hesitation, no doubt. Fear, certainly, for the procedure was painful and horrific, yet he walked into the laboratory with back straight and determination steeling his resolve. He had believed in the Alchemist’s conclusions more than he trusted his own Hand’s doubt. The Alchemist had never been more afraid of failure that night, but the Collector’s fear was starting to rival it.

The Collector rubbed at his face roughly, then brought his hands down and turned an exhausted gaze to the Beheaded. The Beheaded’s fire stilled —as much as fire could— and he reminded the Collector of a burner’s flame. Unchanging in shape or size with only the temperature modifying it.

The Beheaded spoke slowly, the motions of his hands working through the knotted skeins of thought in the same way one might speak in a stream of consciousness. “Is… this what you’re trying to do?”

Not anymore, the Collector thought. Out loud, he said, “No. I do not think that avenue will give us the answers we seek. It requires bodies to possess and we are at a distinct lack of fully dead creatures with functional, non-rotted bodies. The Malaise likely prevents it from working regardless, considering how the bodies rise again after mental demise.”

The Beheaded’s closed hand bobbed in acknowledgement, the sign slurred. “Yeah, alright.”

He sat up straight again and looked to the book that had jumpstarted the entire conversation. His gaze lingered on the scribbled notes in the margin, then to the various notes tacked up on the Collector’s desk. The Collector suddenly debated burning his entire laboratory to the ground, but it was far too late for that.

The Beheaded didn’t comment on the matching handwriting. That was somehow worse than demanding answers. The Collector could give many, some of which might even sound plausible, but when the Beheaded didn’t ask, there was no way to answer them without suspicions becoming facts.

The Beheaded hopped down from the chair. “I’m heading out. I saw someone that looked like the pictures I saw of the Hand of the King. I figure that guy is probably guarding the king. I got stabbed before I could get there, but the guy was huge and he had a double sided lance. There’s a pattern to the way the island changes and I think I can get back there.”

The Collector swallowed past the panic in his throat and managed to sound only slightly strained. “Good luck, my friend.”

The Beheaded threw his bag on his back, buckling his axe to his belt. He hesitated, then signed, “I wish you’d be honest with me, Collector.”

The Collector’s head jerked away to stare at the floor. He didn’t want to lie again when the Beheaded clearly knew he already had. The Beheaded snapped his fingers for the Collector’s attention.

“What, no kiss goodbye?” the Beheaded teased.

The Collector stared blankly. Now? Of all times? He realized that the Beheaded needed reassurance. He could give that. He would always give that.

“Apologies,” he said as he made his way over.

His nails clicked on the ground like a countdown that never fully finished its set. He took the Beheaded’s hand in his own and raised it to his mouth, pressed a kiss to the knuckles gently. The Beheaded shook his head and withdrew his hand.

“Like this,” he said, then pressed his hand inside the darkness.

The Collector flinched back, expecting that the Beheaded was going to try and cup his face, to feel the shape and learn what he ought never to know, but the Beheaded didn’t push forward to reenter the space or close his fingers. The Beheaded pointed to his wrist. Hesitantly, the Collector returned, and the Beheaded watched with awe as the incorporeal black stole his hand away again. The glow of the Collector’s eyes did not pierce any of it and he saw nothing even when he realistically should. He kept his hand flat but turned it at an angle, hoping that the Collector would understand.

The Collector’s own hand rose to hold the back of the Beheaded’s hand. He sighed, tension bleeding from his shoulders, and he pressed his lips to the thin pulse point of the Beheaded’s wrist as he closed his eyes. He remembered, quite painfully, the first time the Beheaded had done the same motion to him. Pleading for him to stay then; pleading for him to be honest now.

“I am sorry,” the Collector said softly, then kissed the Beheaded again.

The soft skin was ticklish and the sensation sent a shudder through the Beheaded’s body from the Collector’s gentleness. The Collector nipped lightly. The Beheaded’s flame burst into an explosion of scarlet and he jerked his hand free.

“See you later!” he signed hurriedly, then all but ran out of the laboratory.

The Collector laughed, but it faded quickly into the background sound of the vats bubbling around him. Perhaps it was time to return to his roots. He was out of ideas and materials. The Cells the Beheaded gave him were changing. They were getting larger, the mass within increasing in size. He was not sure if it was because the Beheaded was making it closer to the throne or if they were transforming. He took what he was given without comment regardless. He did not know precisely what they were, spiritual matters had always been beneath his notice, but he was forced to reckon with the idea that maybe —he mentally retched— the Alchemists were closer to right than he was.

He had no window, but he could imagine the tower still looming over the kingdom, nearly taller than the castle. The moon, at minimum, could be a key part. Deep underground as he was, he was not able to use its light and see its machinations upon the Malaise ridden down here. His old work was likely still there, untouched but for time. The lock was impenetrable to anyone but himself, and his abandoned notes included First Alchemist ravings. If he had nothing left that was logical, he may as well admit that there could be something in the illogical.

The next time the Beheaded came by, he would tell him of his plans to move. Resolve firmed, he began to organize. He wouldn’t be able to take everything and he needed to pack light. It was going to be quite difficult, but all things in life were difficult. First though, he needed to address why he was actually tired.

The vat that normally sat on his back was there for a purpose, primarily to remind him of its existence and its usefulness. If he were left alone without it chained to him for too long, he would forget it as he had now. He walked over to the large tube, resting a hand over the brass nozzle for a moment. His fingers slid aside to the tubing along the side and the port from which it came, the other side plugged back into it. It seemed pointless, but it was far from it.

He picked it up and took it to the surgical room, finding it awkward to carry in his arms rather than on his back. The balance was all off. Thankfully, once he was inside, it fit neatly into the small hole in the ground he had made specifically for it and he no longer needed to worry himself about carrying it. He wiped the table down then rummaged about in his medical supply cabinet until he found the needle he needed. It was large and thick, horribly painful when inserting, but necessary with how dense his skin was.

With how difficult the Malaise was to study and the the island too large to study in detail over the space of a mere few decades, he would perish before he was able to complete the cure. That was unacceptable. While this was an even older, cruder concoction than the orange healing potion, it extended his lifespan —and transformed him— to make his death into a vague when. It had already worked for over two hundred. He felt no different now (age wise) than when he had begun with his experiment, so he supposed his death would likely be quite far off indeed.

He cleaned it despite knowing that it was clean when he put it away, then hopped onto the surgical table. With a few deft twists of the tubing on the vat, it was clamped closed and connected to the syringe. He measured out a healthy —ha!— dose into an IV bag, a little more than usual to make up for the one he had missed, and reversed the process to reassemble the vat.

He stared at the translucent blue liquid. It wriggled gently even after he tapped the syringe cylinder and expressed the air within, the mass inside of the harvested Cells gone but its thick presence still felt. As he did every time when in this position, he contemplated not doing it.

Nobody would blame him. Nobody even knew about it. He could put it all back and live the rest of his life at a normal pace. He could leave the island, he knew where some small boats were. He could do so many things without stealing from another to feed himself. But he wouldn’t. He was selfish that way, he knew. He was not a good man. He had never truly tried to be. Even when he was trying to cure the Malaise, he was not doing it from the good of his heart.

It was for the power, the knowledge that one as lowly as he could rise above even the most intelligent, greatest human to walk the earth. He would do what no other person could not and prove himself the victor of death itself, able to wrest life from the jaws of fate. He wanted awe in his presence, to build himself into someone greater than any petty king. He wanted to rule over those who hurt him and his family so much when he was a child.

That possibility was long made impossible; his family dead from their labor and those responsible a mess of rot on the island somewhere. Even the king was not above reproach, but it was too late for that. Not when the king wasn’t even aware of who he was. Rather, who he used to be. And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He was a different man, just as the Collector was different. Changed name, changed face, changed life.

The Collector put the needle’s point to his arm, tracing along the vein to find the right spot. A few dotted scars lined his elbow, the same location used too many times in a row. A shame, they were the easiest spots, but that was entirely why. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. Just as his lungs emptied, he pushed the needle forward.

It ached as it always did, but the knowledge that he would soon feel much better soothed it greatly. He undid the clamp keeping the liquid still in the tubing slowly to avoid overcooling his already cold-blooded flesh. The moment the elixir entered his bloodstream, his eyes dilated, his breath caught, and he struggled not to twitch. It was difficult to keep the instinctive shudder at the sensation of cool liquid coursing along his veins. While it wouldn’t be the worst problem he could deal with, the needle was still quite stiff and he always hated the sensation of it slipping aside. He’d need to redo it and deal with a punctured vein and it would be a pain he was just too tired to deal with.

Patiently, he fed his body what it craved so badly and before it was even a quarter down, he felt spritely and bright. He knew from prior experience that it was not, in fact, done. His first dose had been so little in comparison to this, but it was the nature of the beast that tolerance would increase. The amount in the vat was far more than he could possibly go through in a single dose, or even a dozen, but he preferred to have as much available as possible. He didn’t know when he’d have enough in the future, and seeing as he had been distracted from making more by the Beheaded recently, it was a good thing he had made such a large store. He was even able to see the bottom of the lid, a fact that twisted his stomach into knots.

He sighed and laid back on the table, closing his eyes. He would be fine. The Beheaded knew nothing of his nature and it would remain so. He had plenty left for years, thankful that it lasted quite well as long as it did was not exposed to oxygen and kept relatively cool. There was time left to figure out how to keep everything stable for the foreseeable future, and he could solve all of his problems later. Right now, he simply wanted to enjoy the calming cool of the life-extending elixir in peace.

Chapter Text

The Beheaded’s next entrance into the Collector’s laboratory was almost silent, attention caught by the door’s last second squeal. He looked up from the pile he was currently organizing on his knees, concern painting his expression into a dull frown.

“Are you well?” he asked, nails tapping on the book in his hands nervously. The Beheaded was never like this, shoulders down, steps silent. His very flame was dull and desaturated.

The Beheaded shuffled to his side and flopped to the ground against the Collector. He tugged one of the Collector’s hands over his chest and cradled it rather than saying anything. His flames were cool compared to their normal burning heat, and that alone concerned the Collector more than anything else. Could the Beheaded’s flame snuff, his life along with it?

The Collector set down the book he held in his other hand and sat on the floor on his bottom. Whatever he was doing was not nearly as important as the Beheaded’s pain. He pulled the Beheaded between his thighs to rest his back against the Collector’s front, the weight of the vat against his own back rather unpleasant. He had no plans on telling the Beheaded that though.

“I cannot fix what I do not know. What bothers you?” He carded his fingers through the Beheaded’s flames.

“Nothing changed,” the Beheaded said, the signs dispassionate and clean. They were never so textbook as now, forcing himself through the motions listlessly.

“Should something have changed?” The Collector brought the Beheaded’s hand up to kiss his wrist. The Beheaded’s muscles unknotted somewhat and he leaned more of his weight into the Collector with a sigh. He didn’t relax, but the tension began to bleed out slowly in the Collector’s calm hold.

“I killed the king. The Hand protected him, we fought, I won. The king was still breathing, but he didn’t react to anything I did. I even punched him in the stomach to see if he’d wake up, but all he did was choke for a second. No fucking response.” The Beheaded’s shoulders fell and he dropped his head back into the Collector’s shoulder, eye closed. “I figured it would be… I don’t know. Poetic or something to use the Hand’s lance to kill the king. You know, killed by the hand that protected him or whatever.”

The Collector ran a hand down the Beheaded’s side in hopes of soothing the ache he could feel in the Beheaded’s heart. “Imagine that I am kissing your wrist again,” he said, “because I cannot do so and allow you to speak.”

The Beheaded laughed, but the expression was not mirrored in his flames. He opened his eye to look at the Collector, exhaustion so deep in his soul it was a wonder that he had not simply fallen over. “It was supposed to change things. Somehow. Cut the head off of the snake and shit.”

When the Beheaded remained silent, the Collector nodded to encourage the Beheaded to continue. The Beheaded scoffed, shaking his head, but raised his hands again to continue.

“The only change was… me.” The Beheaded’s hands moved faster, a rush of locked emotions bursting through the newly broken dam. “I fell apart. My fucking body broke into ash and I was just my goopy head thing, like when the body gets too broken to use. But I wasn’t hurt. I had your potion, I drank it before the fight and I felt alright. It wasn’t too bad, he didn’t break any bones and I’m pretty sure I only had one bad cut over my stomach, but that was before the fight. I was sewed it up myself, I was going to come back and show you after I killed him and you were gonna be so proud of me and—”

He cut off into a slicing motion as if to cut the somatic vomit and start anew. “I did the same thing I always do when I die. I crawled into the pipes again to come back” —his sign turned into flailing and the Collector’s eyes narrowed as the Beheaded corrected himself sharply— “to eat. Because I’m hungry after I die. Like, starving.”

The unfinished motion over the side of his face, half stopped in the middle of a second tap, had turned around to the front of his face with enough aggression that he almost shoved his fingers into his eye to deny the implication of the first incomplete word. He nearly said “home” but turned it into “eat” instead, and the Collector’s chest ached, his breath momentarily devoured. He had become home.

The Collector squeezed the Beheaded and hoped it was comforting. His head spun in circles, dizzy and off kilter. He pushed through to pretend he hadn’t noticed. “I will make you food after you finish your story.”

The Beheaded nodded jerkily. “Why didn’t anything change, Collector? What does it mean?!” He hit himself on his thighs in frustration, then curled up into the Collector’s hold.

The Collector enfolded the Beheaded into a stronger embrace. “I am sorry, my friend. I wish I had an answer for you.” That I could share, he said in his mind alone.

The Beheaded’s shoulders jumped in a bitter laugh. He freed his arms enough to mutter “and old bones isn’t even there to greet me anymore.”

The Collector’s breath caught. “Old bones?” he repeated.

“Yeah. You know, the fuck off big skeleton in the prisoner’s quarters where I come back. He’s gone,” the Beheaded said, finishing the sharp downward motion of the sign into the Collector’s arm accidentally. He patted the Collector in apology before continuing. “Not exactly talkative, but it was a good sign for me to know where the hell I was. This place is a goddamn maze.”

The Collector turned the Beheaded around, searching his expression for anything kept back. The Beheaded’s brow furrowed at the intensity of the Collector’s gaze. Did the Giant survive? Was he talking to the Beheaded, was that way he knew that the Collector had lied? The Beheaded’s flames were sullen, short and spiked, but nothing he hadn’t already seen when he told the Beheaded no sometimes. He let go.

“I can only repeat what I have already said. I am sorry,” he said softly, cradling the Beheaded’s flames in a hand. “If I could help you, I would.”

The Beheaded closed his eye and leaned into the large palm. He pressed a kiss to the Collector’s wrist, holding him still with a hand to the back of the Collector’s in a ticklish nuzzle. His free hand rose, the signs missing their other half but understandable regardless.

“You can help me feel better,” he said with a tired sort of smile. The fire tried to puff up but fell back into its sadness a moment later.

The Collector’s chuckle bounced the Beheaded against him. “Now? Truly? Would you not want a happier day for a bedding?”

The Beheaded shook his head. “There’s a lot going on—” he waved at his head “—and it’s really confusing. I don’t want to think about it. I want to think about you, Collector.”

The sign for his name changed, or maybe it was slurred, because it was emphatic enough that his hands ended the word with a double-handed crossed strike to his chest. The hit was strong enough to puff his flames like he lost his breath for a moment from the ferocity of the motion. The Collector’s teal smile softened. He was always weak when he saw his name in the Beheaded’s hands, even if it was a little messy from the Beheaded’s poor state of mind.

“For you? I would do anything,” the Collector said, realizing entirely too late that his words were terrifyingly sincere.

The Beheaded’s squint of a smile was painfully trusting and all too familiar.

He gently encouraged the Beheaded to let go so he could free himself of the large glass drum on his back. He made sure none of the chains fell on his companion, but he had a feeling that even if they had, the Beheaded would not have cared. The moment he was free, he scooped the Beheaded up into a bridal hold and headed to his room.

He dropped the Beheaded on his bed, laughing when the man squirmed to his back like a cat. After quickly undressing, he watched the Beheaded’s strong knees part invitingly and beckon him closer with a half-lidded gaze. The Collector’s waist slid into place between the Beheaded’s thighs as if he was meant to be there all along.

The Beheaded rocked up against him, neither of them hard yet. The stimulation was enough to jumpstart the action, however, and the Collector ran a thumb over the Beheaded’s shoulder. He stayed away from the edge of the wound, teasing with soft brushes closer and closer before sliding back down. The Beheaded rose to the touch with shivers, and the fourth time the Collector skipped away, his patience ran out.

He wrapped his legs around the Collector and tightened, forcing their thickening cocks together. The Collector grunted at the fierce motion, then grinned. “Patience is a virtue.”

The Beheaded’s answer was a yank on the Collector’s shoulder to pull him down. The Collector went with it, dragging his tongue along the small torso bit by bit. He ignored the Beheaded’s attempts to force him to move faster and get to the Beheaded’s cock any sooner than he felt like. He lingered at a nipple, free hand playing with the one his mouth was not currently abusing. He left long, trailing lines of saliva as he traced every muscle one by one. Over the mound of his pec, beneath it, between them and over the sternum, and finally back to the perked, desperate nipple once more.

He nipped gently, his sharp teeth a threat to all but the Beheaded. He had to hold the Beheaded down when he arched to avoid being shoved away, the action easier than the Beheaded wanted to admit. The Collector was more than happy to put his strength to use, however, loving the way the Beheaded writhed against him and went nowhere for all of his attempts.

He could so easily cover the Beheaded with his body alone, pin him to the mattress with his weight and leave him at his mercy. If he got particularly ornery, perhaps the Collector could use that as a punishment in the future. Right now though, he wanted the Beheaded to understand how gentle the Collector was being. A large hand rose to pin the Beheaded’s wrists above his head as he raised himself to his knees, his shadow covering the Beheaded like a blanket.

“Stay.” He let go. The Beheaded’s hands didn’t move an inch. “Very good.”

The Beheaded’s flame exploded and the Collector grinned. He reached to his own wrist, a claw slipping into the lock. It wasn’t hard to pick, made to be a symbol rather than difficult to remove. Once it opened, he picked up the Beheaded’s wrists and closed it around them. If the Beheaded really wanted to, he might be able to slip out, but it would be quite difficult and likely scrape the skin off of his hands.

The Collector breathed deeply, eyes shining brightly at their size difference. One manacle held both of the Beheaded’s wrists with room to spare. The chains were almost thicker than his arms. So tiny compared to the Collector. So breakable. He ached for another world, one where the Beheaded could plead and sob aloud, but this one here, with the Beheaded watching keenly for instructions to obey, was more than enough.

“If you need my attention, hit me with your hands. Otherwise, do not move or I will leave you here to finish yourself off alone,” the Collector warned.

The Beheaded stared at him with a wide eye, the flames more active than he’d ever seen and bright red. Trembling fingers curled into a thumbs up.

“Good,” the Collector purred, then lowered his face once more.

The Beheaded could see nothing but the Collector’s hood when it pooled over his hips. The Collector licked along the throbbing, hard length of the Beheaded’s cock, his rough tongue long enough to curl around its girth. The Beheaded tasted delicious, a desperate combination of something utterly him and warm, the flavor of a man the Collector was starting to care for far too much. The Beheaded’s hip jerked and feet scrabbled against the bed as he tried to fuck into the Collector’s mouth, but an arm lowered over the Beheaded’s stomach like a bar and prevented him from moving.

He heard the chain on the shackle clink above and he pulled back with a quirked brow. The Beheaded had the links in his hands, needing something to hold onto. The Collector smiled and patted the Beheaded’s belly in approval. He chuffed a laugh when the Beheaded rose into each tap. He submitted so well, truly a different man than he used to be. He belonged on these sheets, open and obedient and doing precisely as he was told like he was made for it. He ought to take orders, not give them.

Spread out like this beneath him, the Beheaded looked like one of the filthy pictures he’d bought when he first had the money to do so as a young man. Even better than the drawing, in his opinion. This one was much more personal, far more tangible. What sufficed then would not be nearly enough now when he had someone to ruin in person, especially someone as close to his heart as the Beheaded.

Wrists above the Beheaded’s head revealed the shapes of the muscles along his arms and forced his torso straight lest he move his hands down and end his own pleasure. The hair speckled chest heaved for breath and shuddered when the Collector kissed the tip of his cock. A fine cock it was, too. A little longer than the previous one, and thicker. It was easier that way, because in a large mouth like the Collector’s, something too thin was going to be annoying to try and suck. He gave a grin that bathed the Beheaded’s cock in teal, then engulfed the member in his mouth.

The Beheaded’s flames splayed over his pillow in a gasp, struggling in the Collector’s hold. His cock pulsed, dribbling precum and filling the Collector’s mouth with it. He swallowed, a stifled groan at the taste vibrating the cock and teasing out another spurt. It was too good to stay slow for long, his own pleasure at giving head increasing the tempo until he was fucking his mouth on the Beheaded’s cock. He swallowed every drop the Beheaded could give, teasing out as much precum as he could to better savor the Beheaded’s desperation. A hand slipped down to stroke himself in time, and when he parted to breathe, he pulled away from the Beheaded’s dick. He wanted to ache for release as much as the Beheaded did, to force the Beheaded to cum before him, and he could only do that if he held himself back.

The Beheaded shivered in need, but his hands hadn’t moved. The weight likely helped, considering how the iron band was wide enough to cover a third of the Beheaded’s forearms, but more than anything else, it was the submission that kept him still. The Collector wanted to bite the Beheaded, tear and devour and keep within himself every bit of the Beheaded’s essence. He didn’t want to share even a breath of him with anyone else. He belonged only to the Collector. He’d be the favorite of the Collector’s collection, hidden away and tied with red rope to stay still and obedient. Maybe he’d get him a wristband like his shackles to wear; the Beheaded couldn’t exactly wear a collar.

He slipped a finger between the Beheaded’s cheeks, rocking the length over the winking hole between the plush muscles. The Beheaded tried to grind down onto his finger to entice the Collector to press inside, but the Collector couldn’t let that happen. Not that he didn’t want it, of course, but because his claw was far too dangerous for such an endeavor. He had something that would be easier and safer.

He pulled away and reached under the bed, tugging out a slightly dusty box. When he flipped it open, he was greeted with his few toys, made for lonely nights and pathetic need. He plucked out one of the dildos and shoved the box back under the bed with a slap. He set the dildo on the Beheaded’s belly to hold it still, regretting it when it nearly fell over. He didn’t move it, though.

“Don’t drop it,” the Collector chided. When the Beheaded took a deep breath and stilled his muscles, the Collector smiled. “Very good.”

He ignored the heat of the Beheaded’s flames to twist and grab a small bottle of oil from the shelf. If the Beheaded were to refuse or change his mind, he would offer to ride instead. As long as he was in control, the particular position didn’t really matter.

When he turned back to see the Beheaded’s expression, there was no fear or nervousness, only begging in the flicking fire. He brought up his heels to assist his thighs in parting further to call to the Collector’s desire and demonstrate his own. The hole beneath the twitching balls ached to be filled and the Collector was more than glad to provide.

The dildo was smaller than himself, but bigger than he was comfortable immediately pushing inside, generously lubed or not. He used a hand to keep it still on the Beheaded’s stomach as he shuffled down a little further, grasped the Beheaded’s thigh in one hand, and plunged his tongue into the Beheaded’s hole roughly.

The Beheaded’s feet kicked at the bed but when the Collector tried to pull away and ask if he was alright, he got a heel jabbing into his back and tugging him closer by the shoulder. The Collector laughed. He took a more gentle approach this time, a thumb and two fingers stroking the cock above him and making a mental note to wash his hood later. There was absolutely precum soaked into the fabric.

His tongue pressed forward, the thickening of the appendage helping press the pliant walls apart. He moved his hands to the Beheaded’s thighs, then pulled back to rest his weight on his elbows and tugged the Beheaded along in a quick jerk. The Collector was careful not to raise him too high, not wanting that sensitive part of the Beheaded’s neck to rub against the sheets, and so he ensured that the Beheaded rested his weight on his shoulders. His hands curled around the Beheaded’s thighs to lock him into place.

The Beheaded’s cock wept over his belly when the Collector pressed inside again. This time, the Beheaded could see the darkness of the hood bob over his hips as the Collector tongue fucked him open. The Collector ground his tongue against the Beheaded’s prostate until the Beheaded shuddered and his cock jerked in impending orgasm, then withdrew in a rush. He wiped at his mouth, watching the Beheaded flail his legs in frustration. Even so, he kept his hands above his head to show that the protests were mere whining.

“Are you ready for more?” the Collector asked, thumb rubbing over the Beheaded’s hip bone. The Beheaded nodded furiously.

The Collector knew that the Beheaded could handle more than he seemed. Even so, he would be careful with the toy. It was about the size of the Beheaded’s cock, but shaped like his own. The nubs along the side were small, and the ridges underneath were gentled into flowing curves. Hard edges on stiff materials did not play nicely with soft flesh, after all.

The Collector pulled the Beheaded’s cheek aside with a thumb, pausing to admire the pillowy fat around the digit. If only the Beheaded could keep a body with such a plush bottom for longer. He tilted the bottle over the twitching hole. The Beheaded jerked in his grip from the cold, fighting even as the Collector refused him the right to move. He had a little bit of mercy and rubbed the pad of his thumb on the entrance to warm it. It helped the lube dribble inside too, a bonus. The Beheaded settled down and he decided it was time for the dildo. The toy was warm from sitting on the Beheaded’s belly, so with a quick wipe of lube, he pressed it against him without the Beheaded complaining. The tight entrance resisted, not open enough to allow it to slide inside.

“Take a deep breath. It will help,” the Collector suggested.

The Beheaded nodded. His chest rose, then fell, and his muscles relaxed. The toy slipped in, the pointed tip making it a bit easier. The Collector breathed heavily at the sight. Soon enough his own would be entering that enticing hole. The Beheaded squirmed, flames compacting in discomfort and mild confusion.

“It will not be pleasurable immediately,” the Collector said, sounding far more put together than he really was. His dick jerked against the Beheaded’s thigh in time with his heartbeat. “This is the stretching phase. Once you relax, it will go faster. When I am inside you…” he grinned. “It will be far better.”

The Beheaded’s cock throbbed at the thought.

The Collector stroked the Beheaded’s cock lightly as he stretched his hole, and soon enough, the Beheaded was trying to bounce on it for more. When he struck the Beheaded’s prostate and the thick thighs shuddered, he decided it was enough. He could only take so much before his patience snapped like a thread. He tossed the toy on the bed behind him, uncaring where it went when he had something else —something better— to think about. He lubed his cock with impatient jerks, the sight of the Beheaded beneath him almost overwhelming, but he forced his hand to part before he got too lost in the sensation. He wouldn’t want to deny the Beheaded his cock simply because he was too excited to see him squirm.

The Collector pressed his cock against the Beheaded’s ass, the length gliding over the hole before stopping behind the twitching balls. He held them out of the way with one hand. He had to see every single inch when he entered the Beheaded for the first time. He would allow nothing to block his view.

He thrust forward gently to test the stretch. His cock was so big and the Collector nearly pulled away in concern for the Beheaded’s safety, but he was too greedy to resist. The Beheaded knew how to get him to stop if it became too much. He pushed forward a little more and the hole began to open slowly. It resisted, though not enough to be concerning. He pressed onward and the hole parted until the head popped inside, shivering at the grip. It was hard to resist the urge to slam in to the hilt, to force the Beheaded to take what he wanted, the way he wanted it. He wanted to destroy the Beheaded until all of those confusing thoughts melted into emptiness and hiccupping pleasure. The Beheaded’s mind needed to fade away until all he could possibly think about was the Collector above him.

After seconds that stretched into years, he was finally balls deep. How he managed to fit was a mystery, his previous partners often requiring him to only use three-quarters (if he was lucky), and the aching tightness around the base of his cock was novel enough that he struggled to control himself. If he thought about it too much, he was liable to cum before the Beheaded.

The Beheaded’s eye fluttered, the flames as unsteady as the Collector’s arms on either side of that beautiful fire. The Collector withdrew slowly, then thrust back in. The fire puffed up as he compressed into the bed like a bellows would encourage a forge’s flames to grow. Mutual hunger took precedence and it was only a few moments later that he pounded into the Beheaded with heavy slaps. Still slow, but he wanted the Beheaded to feel every inch that the Collector could give him until he could tell how deep the Collector was by feeling alone. The Collector planned on ensuring that the Beheaded was very, very familiar with the sensation of the Collector inside of him. The Beheaded’s toes curled and feet pointed as he writhed beneath the Collector, hips trying to meet every motion with his own.

“I want to turn you to your front,” the Collector said, words panted between his teeth.

The words were a request as much as they were a plan, and he was pleased when the Beheaded nodded. It wasn’t like they lost all that much facing away from each other, neither of them had traditional faces anyway, and he’d be able to fit even more of his cock inside. As much as he liked seeing the Beheaded’s eye twitch and flames writhe, he wanted even deeper. The Collector pulled out and flipped the Beheaded over. Rather than pulling the Beheaded’s thighs apart, he pinned them together, his thicker ones on either side to keep them still. He guided his cock back into the Beheaded’s ass, then lowered himself.

The Collector sunk down on the Beheaded until he rested most of his weight on the man, elbows buried into the sheets and bodies flush together. The Beheaded wriggled, and upon realizing how trapped he was, his flames surged and ass tensed. He liked it as much as the Collector did, it seemed, and he trembled like a leaf in a storm.

Heavy, pounding thrusts went further in this position. It felt like it would never end, that the Collector would go deeper and deeper like the Beheaded was nothing but a hole for the Collector to fill, to mold him to the shape of his cock and ruin him for anyone else. Nobody else could possibly fill the Beheaded like the Collector could. The Beheaded belonged on the Collector’s bed, doing his best to fold wrinkles into the sheets that even an iron couldn’t fix and nearly burn everything to ash around his head from earthshaking pleasure that turned a warmonger into a desperate mess.

The Collector growled when the chain around the Beheaded’s wrists clinked, but when the Beheaded’s flame brightened, he knew the sound was only because of the way the bed bounced. The Beheaded thrashed beneath him at one particular slam, and the Collector adjusted himself with the following ones until he found the angle again. The Beheaded’s fingers clawed into the bed, toes digging into the bedding as if he could bounce his ass on the Collector and make him go faster. The Collector’s chuckle went right into the Beheaded’s core.

Their hips met with echoing slaps, painful in their harshness but the sting enhanced the pleasure. The Collector’s teeth brushed against the Beheaded’s shoulder and his tongue flicked out to taste the salty sweat. The Collector had never tasted someone so perfect, someone that satisfied his vicious desires so deliciously. The Beheaded was made for filling, his ass a gift from whatever powers there were and tighter than his hand could ever be. Every jerking muscle encouraged the Collector to fuck harder, deeper, and his lips parted to pant heavily into the Beheaded’s flame.

This was worth it, worth everything, as long as the Beheaded came back day after day to fall to his back and part his thighs and beg with that pretty scarlet flame. The Collector would do anything to keep the Beheaded beneath him like this, in his bed and safe in his arms. It should have been like this from the first time they saw each other. They were different men then, but the Collector knew the man that the Beheaded used to be would have made the most beautiful, pathetic whimpers.

The Beheaded’s feet alternately struck the bed, shoulders rising as if to push himself to his elbows to try and get more leverage, but the Collector didn’t care. He shoved the Beheaded into the bed by the flames and ignored the sting of a too high temperature in favor of the way the Beheaded’s eye shook and his body writhed.

He was so close, his thrusts turning sloppy and uncoordinated. He couldn’t cum before the Beheaded. His pride, small that it was, would kill him. He licked along the Beheaded’s shoulder and to the stump of his neck, panting over the sensitive flesh. The Beheaded arched as much as he could, flames bouncing as if crying out for more again and again. The Collector licked over the cut-yet-whole flesh and felt the Beheaded’s ass jerk and his balls throb beneath his own. The Beheaded’s cock, laid over the bed and under his thighs, ached from the friction against the sheets, but he didn’t care. He wanted more, and the Collector was happy to oblige.

Lap after lap bathed the Beheaded’s neck in wet strings, even getting some spit over his own fingers, close as they were and holding down the Beheaded’s fire to the pillow. His stomach tightened into knots that, in any other context, would be miserable, but here, it was the glorious kind of pain that made his vision spark. His hips snapped erratically against the Beheaded as he chased his pleasure, dragging the Beheaded along as they bolted along a race that the Beheaded didn’t even know they were in. His own eyes fluttered and closed. The Beheaded’s light was too bright and stung his eyes, unable to handle the ferocity of the fire as he curled over him. His mouth hung open to pant and the lashing flames tickled his tongue with electricity.

He gasped for air and his throat burned with the Beheaded’s hiccupping flames, heat pouring down his maw like boiling water until he breathed in more and more of the scentless fire. He was as full of the Beheaded as the Beheaded was of him, and with the Beheaded’s fingers tearing holes into his bed, ass rhythmically tensing with orgasm around his cock, he was returned to the beast he’d been from the beginning.

The Collector pounded into the Beheaded, the hand not in the Beheaded’s flames clawing into the Beheaded’s hip to keep him in the right position. He felt the Beheaded cumming against his balls, each glide over the Beheaded’s prostate milking him for more. Skin tore beneath his claws, blood wetting his fingers and tempting him to grab tighter, rip and tear and mark and keep and own—!

The Collector snarled, the nubs on the side of his cock growing harder, the ridges on the bottom of his cock stiffer. The Beheaded had never felt anything like this and the flames of his head split into streams around the Collector’s fingers as he went limp on the bed, thoughtless even as his cock dribbled cum with every thrust in an orgasm that never ended. The softened walls set free the dam of the Collector’s orgasm, cum pouring into the Beheaded like a waterfall. Pulse after pulse from heavy balls filled the Beheaded until his ass couldn’t hold anymore and dripped onto the nice sheets that the Collector had kept from his old room at the castle.

He shuddered, a few weak little bounces against the Beheaded’s ass to tease out the last few drops of cum, and finally let go of the Beheaded. The Beheaded had blood dripping from his hands, the cuff tearing at his wrists to match the scratches of broken nails over the backs of his hands. His flames were airy, more wisps than flaring light.

The Collector rolled off of the Beheaded, tugging him into an enforced cuddle on their sides. He pulled the manacle off of the Beheaded and put it back on himself with practiced, tired motions. The drying blood stuck to his skin, a dull red against his pale blue. He planned on licking it clean later. The rush of the Beheaded’s blood would be a gift to himself in a shame-induced ecstasy once the Beheaded had left.

He ignored the wet gush of his seed dripping from the Beheaded’s slightly gaping hole, uncomfortable but wanting to keep an eye on the Beheaded more. The Beheaded shivered in the cool of the room and the Collector wrapped around him tighter before tugging up a blanket. He kept it off of his own back, far too overheated. When the Beheaded kept shaking, he realized, through a foggy mind, that he wasn’t cold.

The Collector ran a hand down the Beheaded’s torso gently, easing him back into the living world with soft touches to slowly acclimatize him back to reality. The Beheaded’s trembling eased and he began to relax. He didn’t shift or speak, the flames returning to normal brightness over time. The Collector felt the Beheaded’s breathing slow into sleep, and he struggled against it himself. He had things to clean, including himself and the Beheaded, let alone his bed, but he couldn’t leave the Beheaded alone. He fought valiantly, but soon he too was drawn into a warm slumber.

Chapter Text

The Collector waited patiently for the Beheaded to return from his trip to find the Giant. The Giant had likely been dragged off by bone scavengers, so he wasn’t that worried. If the Giant had moved on his own, it would be from Malaise reanimating his bones into a new abomination to put down again. He wasn’t worried. The Collector spent hours packing his carriable equipment into bags, then pulling them out and repeating the process with an entirely different set of items.

Days passed.

He set aside some flasks, realizing that they wouldn’t survive the trip, and besides, he had some up in the astral laboratory. Assuming they weren’t broken, at least. He definitely needed his good pen though. The replacement nib he’d slotted was working perfectly, and he’d even found the broken tine with a hand instead of a toe. It was a good sign, he thought. The Sign language books too, those would absolutely come along even if it meant his space for other things was limited.

Nights passed.

The Collector’s nerves were starting to fray. The Beheaded never took this long. Normally it was a couple of days. It had been… He glanced to his hourglass and cursed, realizing he had never reset it after his previous sleep. Now the markings were all off. It had to be at least two weeks. Maybe the Giant had lived in some impossible way, and they spoke. He dismissed the foolish idea. When the dead rose again, it was not with intelligence.

Days passed.

The Collector chewed his nails, a childhood habit he thought he’d outgrown. Did he push the Beheaded away? He knew that the Collector was hiding things. Maybe he decided it was too much. Maybe he’d read too much into the Beheaded’s words. The Beheaded wasn’t perfectly fluent, it was more than possible that the mistake that implied that the Collector was his home was truly an accident. Maybe he really was hungry when he came back.

Nights passed.

A month. Maybe more. The Collector laid on his bed, staring into the ceiling with his back on the mattress. His back hurt, the spinal protrusions screaming their ache, but he ignored it. When the Beheaded had signed his name last, was he seeing things? It had been different.

The C was clear and impossible to miss. It was his entire hand. If he misunderstood that, then he had more problems than he thought he did. The gathering motion over a flat hand, that was most certainly “collect.” The strike on his chest though, what did that mean? He couldn’t recall anything that made sense. It wasn’t anything to do with his work, or his size, or how he looked. It was firm and he remembered the sound of the crossed fists striking the Beheaded’s chest with enough force that his flames had grown brighter for a moment.

He needed more research.

Days passed.

He poured over the Sign language books, turning each and every page with slow deliberation. The closest he found was the sign for “love,” but that was patently ridiculous. Who would love him?

He was a mutated beast, changing over the lonely years since the kingdom’s fall from a small Guillain into the thrice-grown brute he was now. He was grumbly when interrupted in his work and impatient when misunderstood. He drank his tea nearly boiling and ate other intelligent creatures. He didn’t care for morals when it came to advancing science, and sometimes, he chose the crueler option just for the rush of power.

He conspired with Castaing to drag the sick into hidden tunnels so he would have more of the infected to experiment with. He argued with the Giant over the peasants’ right to rebellion —knowing that the healthy would be imprisoned and ripe for his research if he won the verbal tussle— until even the Hand’s pleading could not overwrite his opinion, and the king cut down one of his most trusted men because of his faith. He enabled the Apostates with money and flesh to continue their work in hopes that someone, if not him, would solve this crisis. He later turned against them when the king’s suspicions grew too strong. He fought with the queen until even her love was not enough to overcome his connection with the king, and she chose to leave rather than knock sense into her husband.

He created the failures on the shores. He desecrated the graves in the sepulcher for testing and brought the Malaise to the peaceful dead. His meddling transformed innocent creatures into beasts like him, the crows that infested his tower like rats and Conjunctivius in the old storeroom the ones he knew most intimately. The failed experiments likely still walked their patrol paths, protecting his observatory and killing anything they came across with the light of the moon emboldening their strikes. The librarians, once creatures like him, had become nothing more than thralls with animated spellbooks, their minds warped into obedience and protection.

He watched his king fall apart from the Malaise and become a husk of himself, begging for his help. When he could offer nothing but a potential, unlikely to succeed way to survive the Malaise, the king had merely nodded, trusting that the man he had raised up from the workhouses would not let him down. He failed that too, like he failed everything else.

He did terrible things, awful, unforgiveable things, and did not care to apologize for his cruelty. It was impossible to love someone like him.

Nights passed.

The Beheaded entered the Collector’s lab, half-shredded boots slamming on the stone like a pickaxe. The Collector’s smile brightened his face before he even fully turned towards him only to be met with a fist.

The Collector reeled, bringing his hand up and shocked to see his own blood dripping down his fingers. “What are you doing?”

The Beheaded held up a poster, pointing at it aggressively. It was vandalized, once a proclamation from the king regarding the Malaise, now full of the rants of angry citizens. The Collector frowned and he squinted in confusion. He didn’t see anything that might convince the Beheaded to take up violence against him.

The Beheaded threw it aside. “You knew.”

“Knew what?” the Collector asked. He picked up a small towel from his desk to dab the blood away from his face. The Beheaded hit him surprisingly hard and he winced at every touch of the fabric on his skin. If he continued growing in strength, he would soon be able to fight the Collector on even footing. The thought was both gratifying and intimidating.

“You knew that it was me. I was the fucking king. I did all of this!” The Beheaded’s hands screamed at him.

“It wasn’t you. You aren’t the king,” the Collector said, voice nearly hidden by the soft bubbling that echoed in the room.

“But I am,” the Beheaded snapped, “and you knew the entire time and you hid it from me.”

The Collector spread his hands in a plea for understanding. “You were the king. But now you are you. I speak to you as an equal here, not as a servant, do I not?”

The Beheaded scoffed, his shoulders high and tight. “I don’t fucking know. How am I supposed to fix things by killing the king if I can’t even die?”

The Collector tossed the rag aside and took a wary step closer. When the Beheaded didn’t push him away, he took another, and another, until he was within arm’s reach.

“Killing yourself isn’t going to solve it,” he said. “The king’s death won’t fix anything. Killing one man will not solve a plague. I would rather see you solve it with me.”

He wasn’t foolish enough to try and pull the Beheaded into a hug, though he kept his arms out in a silent offer. The Beheaded looked away and the Collector dropped them. The Beheaded paced the room, but the Collector’s gaze didn’t leave him. His eyes swiveled back and forth so he would have no issue if the Beheaded were to speak. The least he could do is hear the man out.

“Maybe it can, magic is fucked up that way. What are you doing to try and fix it?” the Beheaded asked, his arms widening to encompass the world in his hands, a mockery to the Collector’s offer of a hug before. “This entire island is fucked. Is there even anything you can do?”

The Collector sighed. The cuffs on his limbs felt far too light now, too freeing in comparison to the crushing disappointment of his repeated failures. “I don’t know. I have another place with older research that may aid in my work. I was planning on going there. The observatory tower in the castle.”

The Beheaded’s eye quivered, struggling to keep ahold of the anger that fueled his furious march in instead of being hurt at the idea of being left behind. The Collector was the only one who cared; he was also the only one who lied. “Every time I wake up again, you’re right there. The next time I die, you won’t be there. You’re leaving me.”

“No! Not you.” The Collector darted closer to erase that distance between them, and his grip on the Beheaded’s shoulders was probably too tight. “Never you. I’ll tell you where I am, you can meet me there instead. I will always be here for you. I will be your— your home. If you want.”

His fingers slackened. He didn’t want to force the Beheaded to stay with him. He did upset his entire world, it made sense if the Beheaded wanted nothing more to do with him. It would crack his heart like an overheated flask set into too cool water, but it was the Beheaded’s choice in the end. The Collector would not take another from him.

The Beheaded’s eye twitched as though crying, but no tears flowed over the flickering flames. Maybe he couldn’t cry. He caught the Collector’s arms before they fell and pressed kiss after kiss to the scarred wrists until the Collector held his head in return.

“Please,” the Collector pleaded, “Give me some time, that’s all I ask. I have one last idea to try. If I fail, then we can… we can try yours. The research includes some information about homunculi. I will see if there is a more permanent way to” —his voice cracked— “to kill you, if that is what you truly believe will end the Malaise.”

“I want the island healed,” the Beheaded said. “It doesn’t matter how. We have to try everything.”

The Collector gave in to his urge to crush the Beheaded to his chest in a bear hug. “You are a better man than who you used to be, then.”

The Beheaded flailed, his arms pinned to his side and unable to answer. He fought for a moment but it was a token effort and he gave in almost immediately. He rested his head on the Collector’s chest. It was intensely relieving to be held so tightly and his muscles unknotted into pudding.

The Collector released him slowly and choked on the words that refused to claw out of his throat. He spoke when his throat finally agreed to cooperate, the words shifted and softened from fear that the Beheaded wouldn’t want to hear them from someone like the Collector. “I care about you. Please don’t make me kill you.”

The Beheaded laughed. It wasn’t very funny, but there was no better way to respond. “Better get your answer from those dusty old books then.”

“Yes. I will do my best.” He glanced back to his poorly packed backpack. “Perhaps your assistance in helping me decide what to take along will speed my travels.”

The packing went far too quickly, mild quibbling over details aside. The Beheaded forced more food into the bag than the Collector could possibly eat, but when the Collector pulled it out, his hands were slapped roughly aside and the food shoved back inside. He thrust the last of the healing potion into the Collector’s grip and when the Collector tried to argue, ignored it. He tied the bag closed and pushed it into the Collector’s arms.

“I’ll come back. I don’t need it,” he said. “You’re almost out. What if you need it for the cure?”

The Collector closed his eyes. He could imagine the gory deaths the Beheaded would go through that could be avoided with just one dose of the potion. An arm cut off and he’d bleed out in slow agony. A slice along the Achilles’ tendon and the Beheaded wouldn’t be able to run from the many threats. A broken rib shoved inwards and piercing a lung. It was terrifying.

The Beheaded was right. He kept the elixir.

The Collector didn’t want the Beheaded to go, part of him wanting to grab the man and tie him down. He wouldn’t be in danger if he could never leave. The Beheaded would hate him for it. He didn’t know if that would stop him. By the time he finished the final packing and the choice was before him, the Beheaded was already gone.

The Collector was quicker than many thought he was. Generally, large creatures moved more slowly, but his legs were made for quick bounding and he was able to avoid most threats even with his massive vat of elixir on his back. He dropped some of the excessive food as bait when it seemed he might be trapped, and time passed far faster than it had any right to.

He reached the throne room over the course of a few days. He laid a hand over the Hand’s broken body with resigned sadness. He had meant well. He had probably been right, too. Forcing the king to kill and provide the Collector with bodies again and again had not created anything but pain and rebellion.

“Rest in peace. You deserve it,” The Collector said, wishing he could do more. The time for that had long since passed, and there was no answer. He was thankful for that.

The door to the tower sparkled with magic. He had not used magic often, finding the unreliable results pointless in a scientific endeavor. If he couldn’t get the exact same result every time he used it, then it wasn’t worth trying. It did mean, however, that nobody broke down his door. They expected clever mechanisms, perhaps an ornate and detailed key. He’d left a keyhole in the door to act as a red herring, and while it clanked as though turning the lock when someone attempted to pick it, it did nothing but make noise.

He laid a hand over the center and murmured an incantation. The door swung open on well oiled hinges, silent and foreboding, and the darkness of the space beyond yawned wide. He tightened his grip on his bag and tugged a chain of the vat on his back closer. It was a long, long walk to the top.

When he arrived, he was pleased to see that everything was as he left it. Even the scattered crumpled papers were sitting in their corners. No rats had managed to get past the second lift, the birds were too large, and the experiments too stupid. He set his bag down on a creaking chair and the vat by the others. The Cells inside bobbed like drops of oil in water, dancing to the music of the spheres above.

He dragged a finger over the bumpy desk scarred with his frustrated, juvenile claw marks. He laid a hand over a particularly long set. He may as well have been holding the Beheaded’s hand in his own, the size difference so great that it would be impossible to know that he had been the cause. He was a different man now, a different beast. He pulled away and went to work organizing his equipment.

He prayed that the Alchemists had been right. He thought the myths foolish still, the idea that these Cells were anything other than crystallized Malaise ridiculous. For the Beheaded’s sake, however, he would try. He pushed aside doubt, ignored every logical part of him that screamed it was a fool’s endeavor, and he did as he always had. He worked.

Chapter Text

The Collector stared at the distiller, the bubbling fluid different than in his lab below. Had he done it? Had he created something new? The orange sap and healing elixir didn’t have any notable color change in the large barrel of Cells, and the Cells had softened and jellified into a slurry. The pages of drivel said that they would increase in size, not turn into goop, and he had precious few Cells left to use for a new attempt.

He turned the page and began again.

The still was larger this time and connected to the most mystifying item in the books. It was a massive tube of glass and brass, pneumatics to increase pressure and to decrease it, some to inject items and others to withdraw. This mysterious thing, a Catalyst, made no sense. It took the Cells it was given and swirled them in a twisting double-helix vortex, spinning around like a lazy centrifuge, though with far less force. They increased in size and their hard coating grew into a malleable membrane, similar to the previous results.

When he tried to pull the goop inside into the barrel attached as per the instructions, it acted a a liquid might, somehow softened into melding with themselves to become something that was thicker than water, yet thinner than the slurry from before. It filled the still only halfway. It wasn’t enough and now he was out of Cells until the Beheaded fought his way to him with more. It would take time to find him, and he resolutely put the idea of a time frame out of his mind. The island’s shifting was labyrinthian and he was the center. False routes abounded and the Beheaded had not been here yet to find the pattern needed to repeat the trek. It would be a while.

The glow of the fluid within the still was beautiful beyond words. It gleamed with its own light, flickering brighter than mirrors catching the sun. The moonlight emboldened it, and the Collector watched with awe as the moon’s phase brightened or darkened its emission. The full moon would be the time to use it, when the moon pressed her protection into every drop.

The Collector sighed and brushed a claw over the glass separating him from the incomplete Panacea. Soon.

The Beheaded’s entrance was eager and messy, skipping stairs and barreling into the door until he fell into the Collector’s arms. The Collector spun them together with relieved joy, pressing the Beheaded as close to him was possible until he grew dizzy.

“You’re here,” he cried. “You’re back!” His face felt like it might split in half from the smile stretching his cheeks so widely.

“I’m here, Collector,” the Beheaded agreed when he was freed. The name ended with that same crossed thump to his chest and the Collector’s heart skipped a beat. That was the motion he’d thought he’d seen before, the one that added love to his name.

“Do that again,” he demanded, eyes locked onto the motion. “My name.”

The Beheaded’s eye squinted into a smirk. He repeated the movements, exaggerating the last cross until it was impossible to deny. The Collector clung to the Beheaded like a besotted fool. Who was he to deserve this? The Beheaded ought to be with anyone else, belong to anyone but the monster that he was.

“You… you idiot,” he said, weakly hitting the Beheaded’s chest in denial. “You don’t even who who I am, what I’ve done.”

The Beheaded pushed him back. “I know who you used to be. You aren’t the Alchemist anymore, are you? You’re the Collector. You’ll finish what he started, and you’ll do it right this time. I know you can. Show me.”

The Collector nodded, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his arm. He couldn’t stay sappy and weak, he needed to save the Beheaded from his self-imposed duty. He needed to be the Alchemist again, if only for a moment. He took a deep breath and slid away from himself and into his work.

He walked to the Catalyst with steadier legs than heart, then turned back to the Beheaded. The light of the full moon paled his skin into a dusty grey. “How many Cells did you bring me this time?”

The Beheaded turned his backpack around and opened it. Nothing lay inside but Cells, dozens of the things overflowing the bag like the hoarding stores of the Guillains.

“Would you be kind enough to put them in the Catalyst right there?” The Collector guided the Beheaded in placing them inside. They watched the swirling helix of Cells speed up, electricity crackling along the lines and splitting them open to release their hidden power.

“I suppose I never told you what my idea was. Are you familiar with the myth of the Panacea?” he asked, unsurprised when the Beheaded shook his head. “The cure to all disease distilled from the crude essence of life itself.”

He sighed. “Well, if you believe the First Alchemists.”

He slammed his closed fist on the Catalyst, fury suddenly coursing through him. He was left to this last ditch attempt, doing it only from the vain hope that he might get time to convince the Beheaded to abandon his own. He would rather lie over and over than allow the Beheaded end his life.

“Drivel! From a bunch of senile old fools. Fairy tales for gullible children... I must be a child, then, to place my hopes on this mockery of science. It’s magic, my mute friend, a curse upon any proper scientist.” He turned away to pace the room as the brass still began to fill with the final result of his work.

He chewed on a nail, the anxiety of this supposed Panacea finally at a head. What if it failed? What if it worked? He’d written it off for so long. He could have saved thousands if he’d put aside his pride and truly tested all ideas before running away. He’d picked and chosen what to believe. Cells, he thought, had been at the center of all of it, and in that, he agreed with the First Alchemists. But as for what the Cells were, he firmly differed.

“Nothing good can come of messing with Cells. Look at me! They changed me, raised me from something pitiable and abusable into a fearsome beast. To think the First Alchemists called them shards of crystallized life. Ha!” His laughter echoed in the room as his emotions began to boil over. The room was cool, the windows open, but he walked in the flames of his mind and overheating from within. “But when when the logical answers are lost, we must look at the illogical.”

He turned to face the Beheaded, the man still and focused. “You know who I was, but not what I’ve done. I've already scoured the entire island, scavenging from the remains of the fallen.”

He clawed at the cuffs on his arms, tugging and ripping until they tore at his skin to bury the memory, to hide it from the man who would hate him for it. His voice broke on a strangled laugh when the Beheaded grabbed his wrists to stop the self harm. The Collector’s fingers shuddered and he resisted the desire to pull away to hide his shame from the Beheaded.

“I took from the dead, desecrated their graves and ruined the memories of the lost. I stole from even the bellies of the living. Few were willing to help. Many begged for mercy. I am not— I am not a good man. This madness is what I kept from you now.” His voice lowered. “From you then.”

He shrank into his normal hunch as his energy left him in a painful rush. “Is this all I've got left? The false hope of a bunch of children's stories in hopes that something, even a fool’s errand, would keep you alive just a little longer. I am utterly selfish. Pathetic.”

The Beheaded released the Collector and snapped his fingers for the Collector to focus on him. “I’m a catch, I’d be selfish too.”

The Collector kissed the Beheaded’s wrists, glad for the Beheaded’s utterly ridiculous attitude. “Even after all that I’ve done? The cruelties I crafted one slice at a time, grafting muscle to muscle, splitting brain from body. I did nothing but fail until I made you, and I didn’t even accomplish what I set out to make. And you truly accept me as I am?”

The Beheaded shrugged. “You can’t change the past. We’re different men, you said. Just because you remember doesn’t mean you haven’t changed. I’m not the king, right? So you aren’t the Alchemist anymore either.”

“Far be it from me to deny you,” the Collector said, “when you turn my own words against me. Allow me to be selfish again. I will test this fool’s errand on myself first. It is all I have left. If it fails, I have written notes on possible ways to destroy a homunculus. I am weak in my adoration of you. Forgive me for not being able to handle seeing you die.”

The Beheaded’s gaze gentled and he ran a hand over the back of the Collector’s chest in the way he might have caressed a face. The Collector still hid so much from the Beheaded, a coward in the end. He deserved none of the Beheaded’s grace. He pressed a final kiss to the Beheaded’s wrist, then turned to the creation that would be his last hope.

He pulled a lever and the now full still dripped out the glittering essence of stars into a mundane flask. The barrel had been full of so much, yet it ran dry before the space overflowed. He didn’t know where the extra went. He didn’t care. Just a drop ought to be enough, let the moon take her payment as she will.

“I…” Even now he was too cowardly to admit his feelings, too weak to offer the smallest bit of honesty. He owed the Beheaded so much, took of him again and again, and still could give nothing in return.

The Beheaded smiled. “Collector.” The word was so gentle in his palms, so sweetly cradled in an embrace he couldn’t possibly earn.

The Collector picked up the flask, tilting it to and fro. It sang with lightning, flashing like a storm, but it wasn’t warm to the touch. If anything, it was soft and gentle as it whispered tales of the coldness of space. He lifted it to his lips and took a drink.

Power coursed through him, an understanding of everything that happened firing through his brain in such a rush that his body couldn’t keep up. He fell to his knees and dropped the vial, the Panacea bouncing on the piles of paper. It was too viscous to spill and the flask spun in circles to scatter the pages over the stone even more, and the Collector howled.

The Beheaded leapt forward, but the Collector arched back and the strength within him became a physical force that kept the Beheaded from coming close. The Beheaded’s panicked attempts to get to him went nowhere and nearly tripping when his balance failed him.

The Collector’s bellow shook the room as he transformed, a final form; from Guillain, to beast, to god. The bones under his pecs were joined by the rest of his rib cage below before extra bones manifested to protect his vulnerable abdomen. The lower part of his torso changed from flesh to something new. It shone like an orb reminiscent of the Cells he had gathered over decades and sparked with electricity. It was firm and taut, and yet it wasn’t physical at all. He was filled with the cut short potential of lives, the knowledge they would have had if only given the life to live it.

The Collector burned from the inside out as lava coursed through his veins and the stones themselves rose as a manifestation of the magic he was now blessed with. So much more than he could possibly handle and it didn’t stop. He was a cup overflowing with strength that needed to be released before he cracked. Maybe he already had. Maybe he always had been.

This Panacea gave him the power to accomplish what he set out to do. The island would be cured; he held fate itself in his hands. It was a matter of time now, nothing more, and he had so much time left in his life. His voice gave out and the world began to move again, the longest seconds of his life ended after an eternity. The room echoed with cacophonous clanging when the stones, once raised with magic, fell to the crumbled flooring.

His chest heaved, fingers twitching into the air. He held the invisible scales of fate, and he found the weight… pleasant. He tilted his hand back and forth to feel the weight of his sins compared to the price of a life. It wasn’t equal. It could never be equal.

He would make it equal.

How could he possibly allow the Beheaded to die permanently? He couldn’t. He would do anything, anything, as long as the Beheaded would continue to live. His desire to die was unimportant. He was perfect as he was. He could be opened over and over on his surgical table, examined to find the reason for his eternal life. Surely he would understand that a few years of pain would be worth saving the island. Maybe he’d even forgive the Collector.

The Collector cackled, eyes once blindly staring at the shattered glass ceiling and the impassive eye of the Moon lowering to see the Beheaded, his flame pale and eye wide. He trembled, and a part of the Collector that he no longer controlled ached to hold him, to reassure him.

“It doesn’t hurt. Actually… This feels AWESOME! I’ve never felt anything quite like it! Not even my injections give me such strength!” The Collector said wondrously, turning over a hand to examine his toughened skin, his lengthened claws.

He stood, swaying for a moment before getting his feet under himself correctly. He grabbed the Panacea and locked it to his belt with a leather clasp over the neck, trusting that the liquid was too thick to spill. He couldn’t let the Beheaded have any. It would destroy his body and leave him a mess of vines on the ground. He needed a body to dissect, to tear open, to chase the nerves and sparks of life to their conclusion before giving the Beheaded peace to start the cycle anew.

His feet spread for better balance and his hands opened to welcome a new world. He reached through space to grab a syringe from his desk, hands disappearing into a portal and withdrawing it a hundred times larger. This was capable of pinning the Beheaded down to send him back, the sedative inside powerful enough for even sluggish blood to pump along into every inch of a deadened body and force him to release the flesh he wore. He would start with the dead, and if it were not enough, he would keep the Beheaded alive for the following experiments. The Beheaded had looked so pretty on his surgical table. He longed to see it again.

“I need more Cells, more Panacea. It’s not enough to cure the island. Be a good sport and bring me some more,” the Collector said.

He turned the syringe needle up and flicked it to encourage the bubbles to rise. His foot rose to press the plunger and expel the air, and a few drops of the priceless Panacea dribbled down the steel needle. He lapped it up, unwilling to waste even those few precious drops. His tongue was even longer now as he wrapped it around the thick needle to clean it of Panacea in an obscene curl of the muscle. He slurped it back into his mouth with a groan at the taste. It was the very essence of success.

He was ready.

He turned the point outward towards the man he loved. “I’ll send you back myself. After all, you’ll come back to me over and over again. You’ll always come back!”

He crouched, his legs bending at a sharp angle and threatening a rabbit-quick bounce. He kicked off from the ground with an earth shaking roar, the Beheaded’s blade shining brightly in the moonlight. “It’s time for your medicine!”

Chapter Text

The Collector stared blearily at the ceiling. Everything hurt, from the tip of his talons to the top of his head. The moon wobbled in his sight against the blanket of the stars beyond, a dancing pink flame making it look so close. He reached out to try and touch it. The moon was so big. He needed to see her secrets, his work was almost done.

The Beheaded leaned over the nearby desk, eye flickering over the hundreds of papers. He tossed them aside into an ocean of words pooled on the ground when they didn’t have what he needed. None of them mentioned anything about destroying a homunculus.

The Collector’s hand dropped to the ground heavily, the sound of the cuff striking stone muffled by the pages beneath him. The Beheaded turned to look, then slowly crept closer, ready to bolt at any moment. The Collector smiled and his lips hurt, split as they were from the Beheaded’s strikes. He coughed and a tooth flew with a wet spurt of coppery blood following to make a mess of the Beheaded’s shirt. He was covered in blood already. Was he hurt? The Collector couldn’t have that. He had some of the healing potion somewhere, if he hadn’t used all of it for the Panacea. He should give it to the Beheaded in case he got an infection.

The Beheaded squatted down to his heels, a sigh rolling his shoulders back, and patted the Collector’s belly affectionately. The Collector squirmed, wheezing on a laugh at the ticklish sensation. There wasn’t time for that, he needed to focus. Words swam in his mind, but surely there was something more to be done with the Panacea. Did he even finish it? He didn’t think so. More than anything else, he needed to do his injection, he was liable to drop at any point. He wouldn’t be able to finish anything if he died.

The Beheaded sat down, feet pressed together as he watched the Collector struggle to rise. He didn’t say anything or help when the Collector collapsed multiple times before finally giving up.

“I... I... I never noticed how cold these tiles are,” he rasped. His gaze rose again to the moon’s silent stare. “Do you think the moon is cold too?”

“I don’t know,” the Beheaded signed. “Maybe. How are you feeling?”

The words took a minute to assemble in the Collector’s mind, but he forced a smile on his face. It looked an awful lot like a grimace. “I’ve been better.”

“No weird electricity in your stomach anymore?” the Beheaded asked suspiciously.

The Collector’s brows rose and he frowned, trying to figure out what the Beheaded was referring to. “What?”

The Beheaded shook his head. “Nothing.”

They stayed together silent for a while, the moon’s steady progress across the sky bathing them in light accompanied by the Collector’s strained breathing. The viscera scattered across the room was uncomfortably familiar. The shreds of flesh turning the paper on the floor into a scarlet sea, an arm in the distance with an all too obvious bite taken out of it, organs lined up in grisly order with scalpels plunged into them to pin them down. A nearby surgical table held a blue-hued, headless body with a sheet delicately covering its lower half. Its upper half was splayed open with pins and clamps and a pile of notes where the head would be. A smear of glowing blue dripped down a wall into a pile of broken glass and gigantic bent steel needle, and the sight twisted the Collector’s stomach into something more than guilt.

“Do you think… that I can fix it?” the Collector asked, turning his head to look at the Beheaded. It took too much effort to turn his body, so this was the next best thing.

The Beheaded shrugged. “You have to. You’re the Alchemist.”

“I don’t want to be anymore,” the Collector admitted, guilt weighing on him heavier than any chain ever could. “I want to be the Collector. Your Collector.”

The Beheaded took his bloody hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. He was so small. The Collector could squish him like a grape. His stomach churned at the thought.

“I don’t want you to be the Alchemist anymore either.” The Beheaded placed the Collector’s hand over his belly gently.

It felt awful. His stomach felt wobbly, like custard set out too long and skinned over. He didn’t like it.

“Can you help me get up? My back hurts,” the Collector asked. The Beheaded held out a hand and heaved the Collector up until he was sitting. “Thank you.”

The Beheaded’s flame was weak, eye tired. Cuts and stab wounds covered him as if jabbed by a rapier over and over.

“The healing potion… You need to take some,” he said, trying to be firm, but his hoarse voice cracked and he winced at the childish sound.

The Beheaded shook his head. “There’s no more left.”

“Oh.” The Collector twisted to try and stand, fully planning on finding some himself, but he barely put his hand down with weight on it before he realized he was going nowhere. The Collector eased himself back to the floor, curled up with his head on the Beheaded’s lap.

How his face remained hidden even then was a mystery the Beheaded would never know the answer to. He didn’t want to know, actually. He liked when the Collector’s smile glowed like a lamp light. Maybe he was a moth headed towards the end of his life, but, well. He had plenty of them to go around.

“I hurt you, didn’t I?” the Collector asked, fingers tracing some of the wounds. Fuzzy memories swirled like smeared pigments on an incomplete painting. He really didn’t like what he saw.

“Yeah. A lot. I came back every time, though.” The Beheaded kissed the back of the Collector’s hand.

The Collector’s eyes flickered in the darkness of the hood. It was hard to keep them open, but he refused to ignore the Beheaded. “I’m sorry. I was scared to lose you.”

The Beheaded shook his head to dismiss the apology. “I’ll always come back, promise. Can you do something for me?”

The Collector nodded. “Anything for you.”

“Don’t make that again. The Panacea. It didn’t work,” the Beheaded said with such finality that the Collector mentally closed the idea off for good. The Beheaded requested so little of him. He could do that.

The Collector’s nod hurt, but he meant it. “You have my word.”

There must be a different way. He remembered the bright light of the Panacea’s power within him; he felt the emptiness of ash when the flame went out. He had been incandescent, truly luminous with the moon’s light within his very bones, but now he was forced to remember that the moon’s light was a mere reflection, not its own strength. He could not hold the sun’s radiance, no matter how powerful the potion had made him, and he was left to reckon with the results of his hubris.

If this was the final result of unlocking the power of Cells, it was a good thing that his life-extending elixir was so crude. His body had changed so much from that alone, and the purity of the Panacea broke him. It would not heal anyone. It would simply destroy them.

His eyes fell closed. He was so tired. Maybe if he took a little nap he would feel better. Just a short one. The Beheaded was always on his case about not sleeping enough anyway. The Beheaded jostled him and his eyes shot open, grunting in pain.

“Drink this.” The Beheaded pushed a bottle in his hands. It was dark amber, hiding whatever was inside in darkness.

The Collector hesitated. The Beheaded took it as weakness and plucked it from his grip. A strong hand grabbed his shoulder, respecting the hidden face even now, and tilted the bottle. He wasn’t going to aim right and it was going to go to waste. He reached up to guide the Beheaded’s hand to where it should be, and drank.

It tasted awful. He nearly retched it back up, the thick liquid sticking to his teeth like burnt sugar. When the Beheaded’s hand on his shoulder tightened, he opened his mouth wider and continued to drink obediently. Finally, the bottle was empty and he was freed. He massaged his neck, the fluid hot as it traveled the length of his body.

Strength eased through him the same way he melted into a truly hot bath. He sat up, rubbing his face as he realized what the Beheaded had done. The Beheaded had given him a healing potion, and the Collector had to agree with the Beheaded’s prior assessment of them. They truly were the worst thing he’d ever had. He panted open mouthed in vain hope that the air would steal away the disgusting taste, but it didn’t make a difference when the trickling down his throat was the worst part. It was like honey coating his throat, one of the nastiest sensations in his opinion.

He leaned into the Beheaded, feeling as though he would knock the Beheaded over with his weight and size, but the Beheaded didn’t move except to put his hand around the Collector’s waist. With the potion came lucidity, and the Collector didn’t want it. He didn’t want to remember the awful things he’d done to the man who chose to put faith in him to the point of death not once, but twice.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” The Collector asked. “I deserve it.”

The Beheaded laughed once, his words half signed with his other hand assisting the Collector in remaining upright. “Call me selfish. I couldn’t handle seeing you die.”

The Collector breathed out heavily. He was still too tired to laugh at the absurdity. “Yes, I suppose that would… be a little selfish.” He yawned, the broken horns of his skull pauldrons no longer a barrier to cuddling. “We can figure out a way to fight the Malaise tomorrow.”

“Together,” the Beheaded said firmly, his hand tightening around the Collector’s waist.

“Together,” the Collector agreed, “with a little less self-sacrifice on either end involved.”

The Beheaded’s silent laughter was his only warning. He squawked in a remarkably undignified way when the Beheaded stood and picked him up, clinging to those small shoulders in fear that the Beheaded would drop him. He was so strong now— how did his tiny body carry him so easily?

The Beheaded had changed just as he did, his newer bodies strengthening with every regeneration. Maybe… maybe the Collector had succeeded. Maybe he’d given up too quickly when the result of his homunculus creation had seemed to fail so many years ago. He didn’t know what to do with this information, thoughts bouncing around his mind.

The words on his lips and in his heart struggled to escape, cats rattling the door to demand their freedom. He couldn’t do it. When set down on his bed, he hesitated after releasing the Beheaded’s hand. He did the only thing he could do.

His signing was a bit clumsy compared to the smooth flow of the Beheaded’s, but he was slow and clear. He never did give the Beheaded a name sign. He pointed his fingers into the sign for K over the opposite shoulder and swished a hand over his throat for “decapitate.” He hesitated for a moment, then finished it with arms crossed over his chest. He had to add “love,” the same as the Beheaded did for him, to ensure that the Beheaded knew how he felt.

He couldn’t help but cringe as he finished, afraid of the response, and he looked away to avoid seeing it. He had been so cruel. He couldn’t bear the idea of the Beheaded no longer caring for him. The Beheaded hadn’t even used his name during this entire conversation, and he was afraid that his own name sign no longer included the same affection. He was a coward, in the end.

When the Beheaded touched his shoulder, he flinched, but forced his head up to see.

“Idiot. But you’re my idiot, Collector.” The Beheaded’s eye was soft and fond, the flames gentle and pink with a tinge of red. His hand curled into a C, beckoning towards himself in the sign for “collect,” and ended with both arms crossing heavily to thump his chest with love.

As long he saw the Beheaded finish signing his name like that, maybe he could learn to be brave.