TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS: claustrophobia, strong language including homophobic slurs, torture, kidnapping, obsession/stalking/voyeurism, needles, knives, guns, extreme violence, strangulation/choking, nudity/sexual content, verbal noncon, dubcon, Stockholm Syndrome, blood/gore, restraint, dark romance, character death/murder, mention of strong drugs, mentions of childhood trauma, unwitting filming of sexual encounters, some sexual violence, mention of adultery/cheating, mild petplay, no aftercare, self harm, mention of animal death, panic attacks, mention of suicide, self harm, major spoilers for both The Collector and The Collection
A/N: Hey I've been gone for a while, but I've been working my ass off irl and now I'm back writing fanfic! I wrote about 10k of a first draft of another Elder Scrolls fic but this one is getting done sooner because The Collector and The Collection are fresh in my mind and I needed to get some Asa/Arkin content out of my system. I hope you enjoy!
The crash happened so fast, so violently, Arkin barely had time to register what had happened before the doors of the ambulance were wrenched open and he was fighting for his life yet again. The EMT didn't stand a chance as a knife soared directly into his eye, killing him almost instantly. The Collector then turned his full focus on Arkin. He was more aggressive in his grappling this time, more desperate it seemed. Arkin was too injured, too exhausted to fight back with any real strength, and he soon found himself locked in a tight, dark space within the red trunk that still reeked of Larry Wharton's blood. Everything hurt and he didn't even have the energy left to scream.
The Collector dragged the trunk out of the ambulance and hefted it into the back of his van, his own stamina wearing thin. His heart raced with the effort he was putting in to have his prize, the unexpected fifth person in the Chase residence, the one he had intended to test at a later time and who surprised him tonight merely by being there, but also by managing to evade him longer than anyone had before. This was supposed to be an easy mark. Tonight was supposed to be leisurely, almost like a night off for him. A small family who no one would be looking for for at least a few days due to their announced vacation...he could take his time and really play with them and still have plenty of time to clean up all the traps before taking his chosen victim home, but Arkin threw a wrench in his plans. It was a wonderful surprise that kept the Collector on his toes and nearly forced him to evacuate with no trophy, a scenario he had not experienced since his earliest days of collecting.
He had been hoping for Victoria at first; he thought she might make a beautiful creature in his exhibit, but he did not like her shrill screaming. Her death was mildly disappointing, but forgettable. He then thought Jill would be suitable. Jill was young and resilient; she would last long in his collection. He was frustrated that she was so foolish as to fall into his projection trap when the trigger was so obvious. He was willing to settle for Hannah for her skill at evading him, but he preferred to play with older teenage or adult victims; he liked a challenge and somewhat equal footing rather than the clear disadvantage children had. But when Arkin revealed himself and proved to have been dodging the Collector from the beginning, his interest in him piqued higher than it had previously.
He had noticed Arkin working on the house while he performed his "day job". Arkin was resourceful and soft-spoken. He paid attention to things overlooked. The Collector toyed with the notion of planning another outing to Arkin's home after he had finished with the Chases and secured his prize at the hotel. He wanted to see if Arkin would make good sport. The Collector was pleased with Arkin's preemptive performance in the Chase home and was overjoyed to take him over any of the Chases. He would admit to himself that he may have gotten overzealous after Arkin killed his dog, but that was one of his best dogs. He was annoyed that he would have to train the others harder to make up for that loss. He would have to punish Arkin for that slight, but he had plenty of ideas to play with him later.
Arkin shivered in the cramped confines of the trunk, still soaking wet from the rain and probably having sustained serious injuries from the cruiser hitting him, if not from his time in the house, particularly the basement, with the Collector. He waited to move until he felt the trunk stop as it was lifted onto a platform, most likely the back of a vehicle. He unstrapped his belt with shaking hands, painfully squirming to pull it loose from his pants, and flipped the middle prong outward to attempt to use it as a pick to escape the trunk. He felt around the seam for where he could insert the prong, but could not locate the latch with his fumbling, nearly numb fingers. He instead pressed lower to find a weak spot in the wood that he could poke a hole into to allow some light. There, near a corner, he found some flexibility. He jabbed at it with the prong of the belt buckle until the wood began to splinter and break. One last hard jab tore through the outer fabric and allowed a tiny shaft of light to spill into the pitch black of the trunk. A stab of relief just as minuscule as the light entered Arkin's mind as he was able to locate by the shadows where the nearest latch was. He poked the prong through the tight seam between the lid and the trunk and wiggled it to try to loosen the lock and free himself, but all he managed to achieve was a sharp scraping sound of metal on metal.
The driver's door opened and slammed shut as the Collector got into the vehicle and the engine roared to life. Arkin's pulse jumped as he realized he would not have enough time to free himself and this time would be better spent remembering the trip to report to police (in case he managed to survive). He looked back at the belt buckle, reflecting what little light he had and seeing it had been slightly sharpened by scraping it on the latch. Arkin took a deep breath to steady himself for what he was about to do. He tried to relax his body as much as he could and closed his eyes. He held the belt buckle firmly in his left hand, laying his right on his abdomen, inner forearm up. He rolled up the sleeve on his right arm to the elbow and began to count as the vehicle drove away, listening to every sound on the road.
...97...
...98...
...99...
Arkin growled in pain as he dug the mostly dull prong into his flesh, marking one hundred seconds with a straight cut. He let his breath out with a hiss as the nerves screamed damage and the blood oozed onto his shirt. Another hundred...he groaned and kicked his feet into the side of the trunk, muttering curses under his breath. He continued this for each hundred, indicating turns with different cuts. I hope this place isn't too far or I'm gonna run out of arm to mark up, he thought, clenching his jaw as strained tears made their way out of the corners of his eyes and ran back into his hair.
Soon, however, they finally stopped and the Collector got out of the vehicle. Arkin waited with bated breath as he listened to his heavy footsteps on gravel. The back doors swung open and the Collector heaved the trunk out onto the ground, slamming Arkin into the cramped walls. He cried out once in pain, but gritted his teeth and kept as quiet as he could, knowing what calling for help would get him. The Collector pulled something else out of the back of the vehicle, something that rattled and clanged against the metal and then the gravel below. The trunk was lifted onto the thing and Arkin realized it was some sort of dolly or flat bed hand truck.
The Collector wheeled him across bumpy gravel and then uneven ground, knocking him into the sides of the trunk with every sharp movement. Arkin grew angrier with each bump, a fire swelling in his chest that gave him more energy, more fight. He would get out of here and he would kill this monster who destroyed an entire family, leaving a little girl with nothing and no one. The wheels clattered up onto a smoother floor and the little light that came in through the hole Arkin had made dimmed. He couldn't tell what kind of building they had entered, but the reverberation of the wheels on tile indicated it was vast. A warehouse? Arkin tried to think of any abandoned buildings in nearby towns to the Chase home but couldn't bring any to mind. He was too angry to think about anything other than beating the Collector's face in and getting home to Lisa and Cindy with the payment he promised.
The Collector stopped walking at some point and kicked the trunk off the dolly, spiking Arkin's anger. Arkin could not remain silent any longer with everything that had happened tonight and punched at the lid of the trunk, shouting profanities and death threats at the Collector. A TV was turned on nearby and the volume raised just enough to combat Arkin's voice. Arkin could not hear what was on the TV, but it sounded like a news channel.
"Hey!" he called out, still banging on the lid, "Are you fucking listening, asshole? I'm gonna fucking kill you! You hear me? I'll fucking kill you!"
He was met with a sharp kick to the side of the trunk, near his head. The Collector ignored him otherwise, seemingly more interested in what was on the screen than the fact that he flipped an ambulance earlier to kidnap this very person he was trying to silence.
Arkin shouted until his voice grew hoarse and pounded on the lid until his knuckles bled. He fought to stay conscious, but his body was too weak and battered to keep alert. He had lost a significant amount of blood from the cuts in his arm, plus the injuries he had sustained at the house, and the adrenaline could only carry him so far. As he drifted into a faint, he could feel the trunk being moved again.
The Collector hated loudness of any kind. He hated raised voices, music that had been turned up too high, and most of all he hated screaming. It was ironic, he considered occasionally, that he would pursue a life of murder, torture, and abduction if he hated screaming so much, but it was a compulsion he could not ignore. He would feel what he could liken to an itch that would not go away until he added a worthy victim to his collection. He had a good feeling about Arkin, and hoped that he could reach his full potential and become the most special addition yet. He just needed to rest for a few moments to get Arkin to a room and test him to see where he would fit in the collection. He held so much promise from the Chase basement, how he did not break down, did not beg or cry for help like so many did...he only fought harder. While he was thrilled to have such a lively guest in his hotel, he was beginning to be frustrated with all the noise he was making. Why couldn't he just settle down already? He must be exhausted by now.
The Collector stifled a yawn as he watched the reports of his work on the news. He knew he was not injured enough from his struggles with Arkin to need medical attention, but he definitely needed a long sleep. He was tired enough to consider sleeping here at the hotel. He did have a suite set up in the few times he needed to rest before going to his day home...He shook his head, noticing his eyes had unfocused and he hadn't heard anything the news anchor said for some time...it might be in his best interests to use it tonight and start in on Arkin as soon as he woke up. He just had to wait until Arkin passed out so he could safely store him. It was far too risky to open the trunk and try to sedate him, or to leave him in the trunk awake, knowing how skilled he was with locks. So the Collector waited up, needing to remove his mask and gloves to release the heat buildup that only added to his sleepiness. He tried to make note of the media reaction to his massacre that night, but found his mind wandering to what he had planned for Arkin.
He waited for nearly thirty minutes as Arkin slowly lost steam and gave into his exhaustion, but finally there was silence. The Collector gave a sigh of relief and rose from his seat on the trunk to bring it to the hotel's kitchen, a room he had adapted to test his guests before assigning them to their rooms. He locked the door to the kitchen behind him before unlatching the trunk to reveal an unconscious Arkin inside. The Collector paused for a moment to appreciate this version of Arkin, his head tilting to one side as he observed the sleeping man's haggard visage. Arkin's mouth hung slightly open, stained with blood from where the Collector had knocked out one of his teeth earlier, and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. Having worked on the house all during the day just as he had, the Collector knew all too well that deep fatigue that could only be remedied by many hours of rest. He reached into the trunk and wrapped his arms around Arkin's torso, hoisting him up out of the cavity and shifting his limp form onto the metal table nearest to him, careful not to jostle him too much and wake him up. He positioned Arkin into the straps he had built into the table and secured them tightly, but not enough so to limit circulation.
The Collector took a moment to catch his breath once Arkin was assuredly not going anywhere, leaning against the side of the table. Arkin didn't weigh much, which concerned him for his overall health, but for the moment he was thankful for the relative ease of moving him around compared to some other guests he'd had to deal with. He looked down at Arkin, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. Something the Collector enjoyed about Arkin was that he always had a sort of serenity about him, even when stressed. This was strengthened by his resting state, and the Collector could watch him sleep for hours if he wasn't so tired himself. His eyes trailed along Arkin's body and stopped at his right forearm, which was much bloodier than the Collector remembered it being before he put him in the trunk. Oh no...Arkin had cut many marks into his arm. A suicide attempt? No, from the way they were done it was more likely he was marking time or distance. He almost certainly had passed out due to the blood loss rather than the exhaustion.
Sighing heavily, the Collector stood up straight and made for the cabinet filled with medical supplies he kept on hand for guests who bled a little too much. Sometimes he would get carried away, sometimes they would injure themselves like Arkin had done on the ride over. The Collector prepared some sterile pads, one with hydrogen peroxide to clean the wounds, one with antibiotic gel. He first washed Arkin's arm with a clean towel soaked in warm water, careful not to wake him. He then dabbed at the wounds with the peroxide saturated pad, watching the solution bubble around the edges of the cuts. Arkin groaned softly in his sleep, his face becoming slightly pinched in the pain of having his wounds touched. The Collector slowed down, knowing these were not life threatening, and began to cover the arm with the rest of the pads, wrapping them snugly with gauze. He secured the wrap with a neat knot, opting for a finish with no extra metal pieces Arkin could later use to fashion into picks.
The Collector put away his supplies, the fatigue hitting him even harder now. He switched the light off as he left the room, letting Arkin get some much needed rest as he retreated to his hidden suite for his own.
Tomorrow he would see what Arkin's true limits were and the thought of this delighted him well into his dreams.