Seeing Malachi choke and struggle to breathe gave the doctor the smallest amount of satisfaction after what he'd just tried.  For once, Arthur stood silently and watched Malachi sit up, stand, and then fall again.  Was the rope that tight around him?  Or was he just trying to be dramatic?

Shouldn't he be used to this?  If he was this pliant and accepting of every other person out there, this couldn't be the first time Malachi was in a position like this.  Arthur so badly wanted to meet the last man, or whoever had stabbed Malachi's thigh, or was it who stitched it up?  Was he a man like Arthur himself, and did both?

Arthur would like very much to meet that man, and maybe even strike him.  Maybe even kill him.

He'd like very much to kill every person who had ever seen Malachi bare like this.

"What, can you not get up?"

If Arthur told Malachi to, ordered him to, would he stand then?

How far.  How far would Malachi go if pushed like this?

Moving slowly, as if to approach a wild animal, Arthur went to Malachi's side and kneeled down to his level.  His face was still impassive, but he wasn't yelling anymore.  Not even speaking, or trying to intimidate the other anymore.  Slowly still, he reached out and tugged at the knots around Malachi's neck to untie them.

Arthur wanted to see, to know intimately well, to memorize exactly how far Malachi would go, and then shove him further.  But he couldn't, not all at once.  Nothing good happened all at once.

"What were you thinking, Malachi?" his voice was soft again, as if he was scolding a child instead of a man older than him.  "Going out like this, are you crazy?  Do I make you crazy?"