[CW: implications of child abuse, abduction; references to murder, injuries; racism; awful rich people]

Malachi did, as it turned out, know his way around fairly well. It did not take him long to navigate the once-familiar city with Arthur at his side, quick though he was to leave the matter to several cab drivers throughout their outing for the sake of a few minutes of privacy.

What took longer was, of course, making a decision regarding what things to get. Had they been less pressed for time, he might have taken even longer, and by the end of it all he was certain he would have just bought everything, storage on the train car be damned.

The lingering threat of dinner loomed over him, however. If he wanted a seat at the table, they would have to be punctual – arrive early, even, lest his mother’s temper flare before the table was even set.

So, with that in mind, Malachi cut himself off and saw to it that they returned to the estate with a bit of time to spare.

“Arthur,” he addressed once they’d returned to the room, after he’d set his new purchases aside for their return to Whitby. He had grabbed a simple jacket from the other room, and fiddled with straightening out his twisted sleeves as he spoke.

“Would you care to walk with me?”

Malachi would have preferred to stay in the room all evening and not bother with any of it at all, but it was too late now. And with it hanging over his head, he could not stand to sit still, his limbs infused with a similar tension to the night before.

Oh. As soon as Arthur stepped closer and kissed his cheek, Malachi was distracted, his own twisted sleeves forgotten. His hands found the edges of the doctor’s vest at his shoulders, idly rubbing the material between his index fingers and his thumbs.

Without lifting his gaze from the vest and how lovely it looked on Arthur’s body, he reminded himself to speak.

“The gardens?”

It sounded like a question, given the upward intonation of his voice, but it was not meant to be.

Smoothing down the vest across his shoulders, Malachi gave them a pat and then let his arms rest back at his sides.

“Ah- yes. The gardens,” he said, decisive this time. “Come along then. Shall I show you where I grew up?”

Despite knowing he would have to let go once they’d passed through the door, Malachi reached for Arthur’s hand on his way to it.

For good measure, just before he opened the bedroom door, Malachi leaned in closer to kiss him one last time. Then, reluctant as he was to do so, he opened the door and released Arthur’s hand.

Evening light cast a warm, golden glow through the tall windows, throwing shadows long across the floor. Malachi had always thought the house felt suspended in time, stuck in the hour before darkness. Too early, too late, caught in-between in a moment that felt as wrong and out of place as Malachi always had.

He led Arthur through the winding corridors and back to the front doors. Outside, then, into the warm evening sun. Dark clouds loomed in the distance, rolling in too slowly to catch them yet.

Getting to the back of the house was a more complicated task than it should have been. There were no doors that let out to the back, and instead one had to wander through the increasingly narrow garden paths to get there. The air gradually grew cooler as Malachi led them through, shielded from sunlight by the house.

The halls inside might have been reminiscent of a maze – this was one. But it was a path Malachi knew well, and it was not long before they arrived at a wider clearing at the back of the house. A little pond sat in the center, with multicolored rocks all around it and fish swimming happily beneath the surface. Malachi ignored it in favor of pulling Arthur closer to the house itself.

Tucked away in a variety of overgrown plant life, there were two small cellar doors, painted over and peeling with age.

“…As you can see, I haven’t visited in a while,” Malachi noted, already bending down to open the lock that looked older than the man himself. Once it was off, he threw the tiny doors open with a puff of dust.

“Ah. Shit,” he cursed, peering down into the darkness. The air below was colder still. “Hold on, love. I’ll get the ladder for you.”

Without further warning, Malachi pushed himself and fell into the dark. A shuffling sound, a scrape of old wood against the floor, and then the top of a ladder met the edge of the narrow entrance into the ground.

In the cold, stale air below ground, Malachi felt more awake than he had been since he’d awoken that morning. Could see all of the details of Arthur’s beautiful, bruised, bitten features, while the sun above merely muted them without the added help of his glasses.

“More?” he repeated, intertwining their fingers. “We aren’t there yet.”

Rather, as the light slowly adjusted, what could be seen all around them were the remnants of an old wine cellar. It looked to have been connected at some point to the inside of the house – likely through some connection to the servants’ doors – but the entry had long ago been filled in.

Arthur seemed… tense. Perhaps this had not been a good idea. Throwing a glance back up to the narrow gap of light, Malachi debated playing it off as some sort of joke, if only to save his lover the discomfort of being there any longer.

“I’m sorry,” Malachi offered then, unwilling to lie, but unsure of what else to say.

“Do you want to go back up?”

Malachi was quiet for another moment longer. Aware as he was of his own distance from it all, after nearly sixteen years away – he reminded himself that ordinary children did not grow up like this.

No. If he had been allowed an ordinary childhood, he would have spent it climbing the hill in his village every evening, watching the sun slowly set behind the border wall.

“Alright,” he said, and stepped forward to lead him through the darkness.

The corridor down here was long, and the air was thick, but gone were the modern mazes built into the structure of the house itself. One door stood at the end, dark and heavy. Malachi stopped once they reached it and, with considerable effort, shouldered it open.

Old, but overpowering, the smell of lavender smothered all else.

The room was small, comprised of a stone floor and similarly stone walls. Half the size of the bedrooms, about, but devoid of furnishings and knickknacks and the rest of the clutter that filled the rest of the house. Malachi released Arthur’s hand only to grab an ancient-looking candleholder from the floor, and struck a match to light the half-burned candle and provide them with some light.

Stalks of dried lavender found themselves scattered about the floor, liable to turn to dust at the slightest touch. Towards the opposite side, just as ragged and thread-bare, there was a pile of fabric that might have been a blanket for a bed, and that was it for the room’s amenities.

In the corner, bones. It was difficult to tell from their broken shapes what, exactly, they belonged to.

“I stayed here until my father made me join the priesthood, when I was twenty-two,” Malachi explained, walking the short distance to the other end of the room, casting light over the few items within.

“I suppose looking back on it now, it was a blessing. At the time, though, I could not have been more upset to leave. Ah! Look,” he leaned down to grab what appeared to be a longer scrap of fabric, but it fell apart between his fingers.

“…Well, perhaps that is for the best.”