It had taken nearly three days for Charlie to question the new whiteboard hung up in the nerve centre. It was small, about A4 size, and fixed to the wall beside the other whiteboard Du'Met normally used to keep track of where his prey had last been spotted. On its own there wasn't really anything noteworthy about the whiteboard, what had finally roused Charlie's curiosity was when, in Du'Met's distinctive handwriting, two columns had been drawn in blue with one labelled as 'C' with '2' written underneath, while the other had been marked 'G' and had '211'. That hadn't been there that morning. The whiteboard caused no questions but the scribbling did, so, dressed in nothing but his pyjama pants and while he sipped his morning caffeine boost, Charlie padded over to where the killer sat researching new contractors to get working on the pool he'd been ignoring for the most part.
"Granthem, what em, what's with the new whiteboard?"
The killer turned slowly in his swivel chair and regarded his gorgeous phoenix a moment with interest, after all, the Englishman was rather nice to look at. Du'Met applauded himself for gifting Charlie with that rowing machine shortly after they'd returned from abandoning Rosalie Patterson. Still, the blond had made a query and it was Du'Met's duty to answer. He pointed at Charlie's free hand, the one not being used to lift a white mug of steaming coffee up to his lips, and it was quickly held out for Du'Met to drum words out on.
"Our kill counts?" Blond eyebrows shot up furrowing his brow deeply as he recalled those two siblings he'd killed – the people he'd murdered in a moment of rage. Part of Charlie still wanted to feel remorseful about that incident, but Du'Met had been so happy after and their fates had already been sealed. "Why would you want to keep track of that? It's not like we're competing, and even if we were, we both know it."
The killer shrugged because he'd always win. That said, the counter down in the lobby kept track of Du'Met's kills and, while not actually a serial killer intent on rising up the murderous ranks of infamy, he'd thought Charlie deserved a tally as well; just in a less official capacity. The day Charlie had turned on the gas and ended the lives of those two annoying siblings had been one of the happiest of Du'Met's life. His beautiful phoenix had been born again into something better, something special, and their deaths were a wondrous display of Charlie's true darkness. Oh if Du'Met could have bottled that sinfully good emotion, he'd have drunk it down daily.
The serial killer stood then and kissed his sweet boy who tasted of fresh coffee, then leaned in to breathe two words against the shell of Charlie's ear.
"My phoenix."
Charlie always melted when Du'Met actually spoke, his voice so deep and wonderful, his words so praising and pleasing.
"I love you too." Smiled Charlie.
A merciless murderer and savage strategist, but by God had Charlie honestly, truly come to love Granthem Du'Met. Lots of people insisted there was somebody out in the world for everyone, but Charlie had long thought that to be ridiculous, hogwash, total shit, but then he'd been kidnapped and Charlie had been forced to accept they'd been right, because the other half of Charlie's coin was a monster, but he was Charlie's monster.
Then it was all over, the intimacy broke apart and Du'Met carried on with his work while Charlie returned the empty mug to the kitchen then went to dress for the day. So much domesticity between hunts.
~X~
The resident Holmes-obsessed serial killer had built a multitude of new traps after they'd dealt with the Patterson girl, he'd really thrown himself into building something original and seemed heavily focused on whatever he had schemed for his next guests. Of course those next guests would be a while away since Du'Met had agreed to Charlie's request for a break. Charlie hadn't dwelt on his lover's burst of homicidal creativity though, not when Du'Met seemed so damn happy and Charlie had some lovely new waterproof cameras to install in the water vat trap. However, as the days turned into weeks the Brit started to think of his lover's behavior as odd. With Rosalie out of their hair and no victims running through the hotel, it seemed strange that Du'Met would be quite so enthusiastic. Part of Charlie wanted to ask while the rest of him avoided the subject entirely.
Disturbingly for Charlie his fiftieth birthday approached and he was acutely aware of it; the day practical loomed. Fifty years old was a landmark birthday and, before he knew it, it would be another September twenty-sixth. Last October he'd honestly not thought he'd get to see fifty, had assumed Du'Met would just wack a party hat on whatever animatronic he'd fashioned Charlie into for his own sick amusement and that would be that. That macabre mental image hadn't made it to fruition though and Charlie would see his fiftieth birthday. Old, Charlie felt old but unlike most of his life he no longer felt miserable, the weight of the world didn't sit on his shoulders any longer nor did debt collectors hound him. Frankly he felt three times younger going into his fiftieth ear than he had into his forty-ninth, though that probably had something to do with the fact he smoked significantly less frequently than before.
Blue eyes glanced up to the calendar tacked above the filing cabinet he kept spare equipment for his cameras in. Three days and he'd be fifty; a middle-aged man but one in love and who had found his calling.
He shook his head as if to shake free those thoughts and headed off to deal with his cameras. Fuck Mark! Charlie had turned directing into an art form, so fuck Mark and his comments about Charlie not knowing how to get a good shot. He'd knew exactly what his team had really thought of him and his work, had heard Kate and Mark up on the balcony, the way they'd mocked and the full-on castigation. At first Charlie had been so very grateful that Jamie, Erin and the others had survived the hotel but, over time, the blond had come to resent them. They'd chosen to leave him to die, offered him up to Du'Met like some kind of sacrificial virgin. Those hypocrites had justified his death and Charlie hoped the guilt kept them up at night for the rest of their lives! Abandonment and betrayal, that was all his crew had left him with when they'd tied him to that fence. Sure, everything had worked out rather well for Charlie after his kidnapping but the crew hadn't known that – fuck, Charlie hadn't known being with Du'Met would be so fulfilling. Fuck them, he had his art and a birthday Erin had tried to take away from him.
Once the new waterproof cameras had been installed, Charlie went to sit in the gazebo as had become normal for him when he wanted to relax and have time to himself. The beauty of the Great Lakes and what that gazebo had come to mean to Charlie always managed to sooth him. The day was a sunny one so Charlie was pleased for the shade by the time he made it up to the wooden structure. A quick glance upward revealed that Spider Du'Met was still there happy and doing it's thing. Originally Charlie had wanted to clean the cobweb away but he'd slowly come to think of himself and Spider Du'Met as unlikely friends.
The fresh air soon rid Charlie's mind of his team and what they'd done to him, instead replacing it with thoughts of how far he and his tall lover had come in their relationship. Charlie glanced down to the cable ferry. When he'd first arrived they'd been strangers with totally different lives, then, once inside the hotel, Charlie had been forced to fight for his life, to be cunning and think his way out of Du'Met's traps. They'd gone from strangers to mortal enemies practically in the blink of an eye, but that was the past, something gone but not forgotten.
"No more thinking about the past, right, Spidey?" Just as with the actual Du'Met, Spider Du'Met didn't respond. "I should get to thinking about which of my documentaries to play first down in the maintenance tunnels. I'm thinking that pink-haired girl one – no, no, no! No, it should be that second construction crew Granthem brought in. That total idiot who smacked him with a fire extinguisher and stood their celebrating his awesomeness so long Granthem stood up and stabbed him in the fucking stomach."
Oh dissociation was a powerful thing, it could take a once fairly level-headed man who'd made a stupid mistake but still had a moral compass, and turn him into the sort of person who giggled at death. In a way Walt Disney had been detrimental to children, he'd taken fairy stories with dark but educational lessons and twisted them around into happy, bright and musical tales which left children thinking good always prevailed while the villain got their comeuppance. Those children had then grown up expecting the world to be good and noble only to find it dark and unforgiving, they'd clung onto the idea that bad people got their just desserts. In reality though, it was the bad guys who normally won. The world wasn't black and white, nor were people, everything was a perpetual shade of gray and villains crushed whoever was in their way because magic didn't exist. Astronauts killed the man in the moon and growing up killed everything else.
~X~
For Charlie Lonnit birthdays weren't overly important things, he didn't need a fancy party with lots of presents, and after his father's death the idea of celebrating at all had become somewhat distasteful to him. So to say he'd not been expecting much for his fiftieth birthday had been an understatement; that and Du'Met wasn't exactly big on romantic displays of frivolity and glee regardless of the special occasion. The day would just be like any other and the blond was more than okay with that. Yes it was a milestone birthday and for a while there it had looked like he'd never see fifty, but Charlie didn't want reminding he was officially middle-aged.
When he'd awoken that morning he'd found the bed beside him vacant of his murderous lover, which wasn't all that unusual and certainly not a cause for alarm. He donned a navy suit for the day with a paisley tie and his beloved cap, then made his way to the kitchen for some coffee and breakfast all without seeing the elder man. Since Charlie just assumed the killer to be in his workroom, the absence still didn't cause any red flags to shoot up. Black coffee was drunk down and toast smothered in fresh butter was chomped before Charlie returned to the nerve centre and finally grabbed a radio to figure out if Du'Met would be showing himself at all that day or not.
"Granthem, you coming out your workroom today or have you got yourself stuck in a trap and need me to come rescue you?" He'd teased with a smirk but when no answer came that smirk faded to seriousness and just a touch of irritation. "Granthem?"
Blue eyes caught sight of the radio charging dock then and noticed the only radio missing was the one Charlie currently had in his hand. Yet more emotions surfaced inside the Brit, this time confusion laced with a little concern. Quickly he flicked through the cameras, of which there were literally dozens, but he couldn't spot Du'Met anywhere. That was the last straw for Charlie because it had him return to the bedroom to grab his cell phone, a phone that was rarely used, and shot off a text message in seconds.
Several uncomfortable minutes went by before finally a response from his serial killer lover came through, and as soon as it did Charlie had his eyes locked on the screen. 'I am on the mainland and shall return shortly. Be good, my phoenix' was all it said. Charlie cocked a single eyebrow upward as more confusion and irritation washed over him. He grumbled to himself mainly because Du'Met normally told Charlie if he intended to leave the island for any reason, and why the hell had he had to go before Charlie woke up? Oh it didn't matter, trying to understand the inner workings of Granthem Du'Met's mind was like being tossed into the Minotaur's labyrinth with no string, and Charlie had zero desire to go stumbling around in there if he didn't have to. So, after doing his best to push his irritation aside, Charlie went to get himself some more coffee then did a once-over of the exterior cameras before he headed down into the maintenance tunnels to test the new projector Du'Met had assisted in installing – okay, so Du'Met had put it up while Charlie said 'a little to the left' and 'no my left' a few times until Du'Met had glared. The footage played on the damp bricks which resulted in an ominous glint that Charlie hadn't expected but certainly taken a liking to; part of him still hadn't quite taken in that the murderer had actually allowed the projector in the first place. Great thought had been given to whether or not having sound would be more or less effective, but Charlie was pleased he'd ultimately decided to keep it in rather than going for a silent horror angle. Those voices laced with fear would lure whoever stumbled down their next in and then they'd witness Charlie's masterpiece for themselves. Oh, he couldn't wait! Couldn't wait!
A couple of hours went by with Charlie busying himself since he'd finished work on his latest piece of art: he'd had a smoke while chatting to his favorite gazebo spider and started to wonder about getting a real groundskeeper to fix the encroaching wilderness of the gardens, then slumped down in the director's seat Du'Met had gifted him with a few months back for a while wondering if he could convince his lover to take a trip to a bookstore with him because all Charlie did any longer was work and read. Just as boredom truly had started to settle in, he heard one of the doors on the lowest level of the nerve centre open and promptly swing shun. Charlie grinned, beamed really, because that meant Du'Met was home and Charlie's lonely solitude was at an end. That touch-hungry part of himself wanted to rush down the concrete steps to greet his tall lover, but his mind forced the body to stay put so he didn't appear needy; so there he stayed at the desk he'd long ago commandeer as his own to jot down ideas for framing new shots. Charlie might have had his back to the stairs and Du'Met may have moved silently up to the middle level, but none of that stopped Charlie feeling the imposing man's approach, all that ominous power preceded him.
"Hi, Granthem." Said the blond as he looked over his shoulder.
Du'Met wore his plain clothes, had no mask nor bowler hat, and that was the real evidence he had indeed been on the mainland amongst normal people. As usual the killer spoke not a word, but he did bend to kiss Charlie's thin lips which gave Charlie a whiff of the outside world: the scent of exhaust and city grime clung to his clothes as well as a vaguely sweet smell Charlie couldn't place. The blond ignored it all in favor of kissing his lover back before the tall man slipped into their bedroom to change into his preferred attire.
For several moments Charlie simply sat there in his director's chair with blue eyes locked on the door. Du'Met hadn't seemed upset or concerned, nor had he appeared all that busy, which suggested his reason for being off the island wasn't all that important. He'd moved with a relaxed step and so Charlie's mind soon turned to questions of why Du'Met had bothered to go since Du'Met never left unless he absolutely had to. Charlie couldn't really blame the killer for that, the public were mostly naïve idiots or assholes, or both, and Charlie had little desire to interact with them either. God knew what had pulled Du'Met away but he had returned and his first act had been to kiss Charlie. Of course it had, Charlie was important to Du'Met, he was the man's phoenix! Charlie was special; who else could have not only survived Du'Met's games but been accepted into the fold? Yes, Du'Met recognized how worthy Charlie was. An outsider would have termed Charlie's internal thinkings as narcissism and arrogance, but since when had Charlie Lonnit listened to others?
Those blue eyes eventually gave up guarding the bedroom door and instead caught sight of the small whiteboard Du'Met had hung recently; the board which kept record of their kill counts, just two for Charlie while Du'Met had made it up to two hundred and eleven. At first he'd thought it was meant as a competition – an impossible competition because the masked man had elevated murder to a systematic and elegant extermination. No, Charlie couldn't have won that game even if he'd desire to. Yet, Charlie had been wrong as that whiteboard hadn't been about competition but rather Du'Met's odd way of showing he was proud of Charlie; like a more disturbing version of a parent putting their child's drawing on the refrigerator. Seeing what he'd done had sparked pride and admiration inside the serial killer which in turn sparked gratification and satisfaction inside the blond. Each time so much as a hint of question slipped into Charlie's mind about morality, guilt or even his relationship with the older man, Du'Met was there to suck him back inside the darkness.
Still, they had things to do so Charlie stood and made to get himself some more coffee for the long day, but, just as he'd passed their bedroom door, Du'Met caught him by the wrist and hauled him back with a sharp, painful jerk. A year ago that would have scared the shit out of him but Charlie had become unfazed by his lovers ability to magically appear like some kind of devil with neither a footstep nor a puff of smoke. The director went willingly with Du'Met – yeah, like refusing was even an option – to the control panel and expected questions on the new submerged cameras Charlie had installed in the flooded section of the maintenance tunnels on a whim. However, Charlie instead found a rectangular and thin but heavy box wrapped in kraft paper and string like something out of the 1940s shoved into his hands. A blond eyebrow raised as he stared at it a moment with a combination of suspicion and curiosity. Du'Met's face gave away nothing despite his lack of H. H. Holmes mask, just stood there expectantly. Charlie's brow furrowed deeply because this surely wasn't what he thought it was.
"Granthem, is this – is this … a birthday present?"
There was no pause, no head cock or dismissal, just a curt nod of the older man's head confirming Charlie's theory and good God, did Charlie beam. This horrific murderer of a man, this remorseless serial killer, had gone to the trouble of getting him, Charlie Lonnit, a birthday present.
"Is this why you were on the mainland?"
That got a second nod before Du'Met used the package to tap out 'needed to collect' with two practised fingers. 'Yeah,' thought Charlie. 'Probably can't just have Amazon deliver chains, saw blades and everything else to build your own Saw set. Far too much suspicion.'
Excitedly, the director opened his gift while the elder man watched on as stoically as always. Inside was a white cardboard box that Charlie quickly ripped the side of open, he tilted the box a little and out slid a sheathed knife of all black. For a second Charlie was confused because didn't a knife seem more like something his lover would want as a gift, but when he removed the blade – a KA-BAR Becker BK72 apparently, not that Charlie knew anything about knives save for to hold them by the handle – Charlie suddenly became very attached to his knew knife. Engraved into the blade was Du'Met's preferred pet name for him and it was sharp as hell. Happiness welled up inside the Englishman because, even though it had been fairly clear for some time that Du'Met trusted him and had no worry Charlie would flee as soon as his back was turned, this was on a whole new level of trust. The blade could have been so easily thrust into Du'Met's throat while he slumbered and yet there the weapon was in Charlie's hand. This beautiful weapon, with it's surprisingly comfortable Micarta handle, was just for his trusted and beloved phoenix. Charlie grinned because Du'Met may has well have placed solidified trust in Charlie's pale hands.
"Thank you, Granthem." He told his lover honestly. "It's beautiful."
Charlie had no idea of course, but Du'Met had selected that knife because of it's resilience and versatility, it would be a tool most of the time and a weapon only when needed. Jamie, Erin and Kate breaking into his control centre had been unforeseen despite how swiftly, efficiently really, he'd dealt with the issue, and though he didn't plan on allowing it to happen a second time, he wanted Charlie to be able to protect himself if it did.
Du'Met shoved his left sleeve up, grabbed Charlie by the wrist and brought the new blade to his own skin. In one smooth motion Du'Met made his younger lover cut his exposed flesh causing red to trickle down his arm to the floor with inaudible splatters. The blond's eyes went wide despite the shallowness of the wound and they only grew wider when he licked the blade clean and offered his bleeding forearm to Charlie. His mouth opened to question but no words tumbled out, instead he saw the seriousness in Du'Met's eyes and felt that urge to please him inside his heart. Without further hesitation, Charlie ran his tongue over Du'Met's bleeding arm coating his tongue and lips with irony crimson. Yanked was the knife from Charlie's hand so Du'Met could wound Charlie as he'd wounded himself. As soon as Du'Met's tongue had tasted the blond's blood he crashed their lips together for a rough, bloody kiss. As their blood intermingled on their tongues part of Charlie's brain, a quiet part right at the back, realized this was a blood oath, that this was a vow to one another. They weren't just co-conspirators or life partners, they were literally part of one another with that kiss. Later, much later, Du'Met would mentally question himself if the reason he'd not known who he was for most of his life had been because Charlie Lonnit hadn't entered it yet. In the beginning he'd seen Charlie as nothing but pathetic, something which had only been re-enforced when he'd seen the man beating up the bar's cigarette dispenser, that was probably why Charlie's cunning had amazed him so much later on.
Finally they broke apart a little breathlessly Charlie and took back his birthday present almost lovingly. Neither man seemed overly bothered their arms continued to bleed: Du'Met had a very high pain threshold while Charlie got easily distracted when it came to his lover praising and pleasuring him.
"You know, sometimes I feel like I can only carry four small objects at a time."
Du'Met didn't give that comment a passing thought, just stretched to grab the first aid kit so he could patch himself and his corrupted lover up.