As Malachi pushed out his chair to stand, Miriam arose from her own seat, setting her glass down half-emptied.

“I will send a servant around soon with that recipe, doctor,” she assured, and curtsied politely while the former priest set his napkin back on the table and, all too gladly, exited the dining hall with his lover.

The sun had fully set. Darkness alone peered through the house’s windows, further accentuating the shadows cast by the winding halls and the candles recently lit within them. Malachi did not reach for Arthur’s hand – he was not sure how soon after them Miriam would be wandering through to her own room, after all – but their arms brushed as they walked.

He was silent until they returned to the room, as he had been for most of dinner.

“What happened?” was his first question, voiced lowly as he closed the bedroom door.

Arthur did not look hurt. Not any more than he had been beforehand, at least, and he suspected that if Miriam had lured him into private just to attack him, he would have heard more from the hall.

“Are you alright? What was- what did she want?”

If Malachi wanted a quiet walk back to the room, then Arthur would let him have it. He didn’t have much to say, anyhow. Nothing that could risk being overheard, anyway.

Even if their shoulders brushed every now and then, or their elbows bumped each other’s, it was not enough. Arthur knew he’d just assured himself he didn’t need to be touched, but now that it was being denied him, he wanted it more.

“Nothing happened,” he answered quickly, just as quiet as his lover. The rest of his questions were ignored.

“In a moment or two, a servant is going to take me to Miriam’s room. Would you please follow behind? I’d rather not be alone with her again for very long if I can help it.”

Had Levi left the house, yet, Arthur wondered. Perhaps that was something he needed to make sure of before anything started; how inconvenient it would be, if he doubled back having forgotten something.

Arthur took a step closer to Malachi, but was careful not to crowd him against the wall. Not to touch him, even though he itched to do so.

His mouth opened, probably to ask about Levi or something else relevant to their evening plans, but before the words could formulate Arthur noticed the flush, high on Malachi’s cheeks. They did not indicate embarrassment or bashfulness in the slightest.

“Are you drunk?” is the question he ended up asking, voice raising in surprise. It was only at a normal volume now, but compared to their previous whispers it shocked even the man that spoke them.

The frown that subtly twisted Malachi’s features could not convey even half of the unease he suddenly felt. What did he mean, he was being taken to Miriam’s room?

He was right then. All along, that had been her plan, likely from the very first moment she laid eyes on him. Part of him knew that it did not even matter who Arthur was; she would have done the same with any man that showed up on her doorstep with Malachi in tow, but thinking of them together – of Arthur, his Arthur, with anyone else – brought a bitterness to his tongue that could have made him gag.

“…Alright,” he answered in spite of it. If Arthur wished for him to follow, then that was what he would do.

Malachi trusted him. He had to.

A hand lifted to push back through black hair. He took a step back to lean against the wall, watching the shadows move under the door. Arthur’s question, when it came, forced his dark eyes wide.

“No,” he insisted. “No, I- I’m not drunk. I was… worried.”

Among other things. Had he consumed more alcohol than solid food in the last several days? Yes, he had. But that did not mean he was drunk.

Malachi reached out, grabbing onto Arthur’s vest to pull him closer.

“What are you going to do?”

God, finally, finally. Arthur let himself be pulled into Malachi’s space, his hands landing on the others hips to slow him down before they crashed.

And what a silly question, meanwhile. Was this not something they’d already decided? Already decided before even coming to London?

“Malachi, I’m going to kill her, what else would I do?”

Fuck her? Like she thought he was going to do? Arthur wanted to gag.

Soft and slow only to not hit his head, Arthur pressed his forehead into Malachi’s shoulder. Doing so seemed to have a few calming affect on the doctor.

“That’s still what you want to do, isn’t it?”

For all his desire to tug the fabric of the vest harder, and pull their bodies closer as he had so wished he could do before, Malachi’s efforts ended when Arthur’s hands settled on his hips. The answer served only to upset him, as was evident by the way his brows drew together and his frown deepened.

“That… isn’t what I meant,” he said quietly, looking down into the doctor’s hair.

Slowly, Malachi slipped his arms around Arthur’s shoulders. His heart felt like it could beat straight out of his chest, for how forcefully it fluttered within him.

“I mean, what are you going to do once you’re in there with her?”

Holding Arthur close, he rested his head against his, while his eyes searched the room desperately for a distraction. He felt – awful. Dirty. He felt like the feral child that the Brennans had made him into, just to have something to ridicule.

“Are you going to – incapacitate her, somehow, before I’m in there? If she sees me enter the room, she’ll call for the servants. But I want to see you do it.”

There was a knock on the door to the room beside theirs. The one that they had presumed Doctor Adams to be staying in, of course.

Arthur only had time to hum in thought before distantly, he heard a knock. Not at their door, so he figured it safe to ignore for another moment or two.

“Well, of course.” Never mind that he didn’t know how he would, but. Perhaps he’d have a better idea once he was actually in the room?

Belatedly, Arthur’s arms wrapped around Malachi’s hips to return his hug.

“I want you to see it too. I don’t even want to leave your side.”

Another knock. Arthur felt like he was going to be sick. He said so.

“But,” he continued, “what is it that they say? The show must go on.”

Still, Arthur lingered for another few seconds before pulling away from Malachi. He reached out and straightened his lovers collar, as if he was about to go see Miriam rather than himself.

Once that was complete, and to the time of yet another knock at the adjacent door, Arthur made his way out into the hallway. With a sheepish look, he waved to the servant.

“Sorry, are you looking for me?”

It took longer than Malachi would have liked for Arthur’s arms to wrap around him. There was no time left for hesitation, and less still for peace, but he felt like he was falling blind into water. Floundering, and his only sense of direction was about to walk out the door.

“Mn,” he forced the sound when the words wouldn’t come.

He wanted to say, if you don't feel right, don’t go. He wanted to say, I’ll be right there behind you. He wanted to say, I want you to hold me more than I want you to hurt someone else. It can wait. You can stay a little longer. Please stay.

But it was now or never. He wanted it all to be over, and to leave everything that happened in this god-forsaken house in the grave with Miriam and Lyle.

A new life, a better one, awaited them when they were done.

It was time to learn to breathe or suffocate.

“Be careful, love,” was what he got out instead. He would wait, and once they left, he would follow after.

“Yes, sir,” the servant girl bowed her head politely, avoiding the doctor’s gaze. “My mistress has requested that I bring you to her. Please, if you will follow me.”

She turned without waiting for an answer. Carried with only the sounds of their footsteps and the flicker of passing candles, she continued through the hall, back through the main entrance, and all the way up the grand staircase that curved and brought them to the second floor. Miriam’s room was through another hallway, and the servant stopped before the door.

“Here, sir,” she said. Pulling open the door, she dipped her head once more and gestured for him to go inside. “If you have need of anything else, sir, please fetch me.”

Candles decorated the many surfaces of the bedroom. The vanity, the wardrobe, the floor at the corners. Miriam sat before her vanity removing her earrings, her blonde hair beginning to fall from the tidy way it had been pinned up. She glanced over as she heard the door open, casting a curious look in the doctor’s direction.

“Doctor Adams,” greeted Miriam, her voice as smooth as velvet. “Be a dear and help me remove my necklace, would you?”

Walking down the hall to Miriam’s room, Arthur felt like a man sent to execution. Which was strange, considering he would soon be Miriam’s executioner. Did this servant girl know that she, inadvertently, was aiding him in murder?

Of course she didn’t. If she did, she would have to die too.

So, no, she would not be fetched for anything. He would have no help with this; only witnesses. Only Malachi.

“Mrs. Brennan,” he returned, eyeing the woman as he closed the door behind him. Anticipating his lover, he did not lock it.

His footsteps were quiet as they could be against the floor as he came up behind Miriam, watching her face in the mirror.

“Still, you are lovely as ever,” Arthur said quietly, his hands moving to the clasp of her necklace. Dextrose hands accustomed to dealing with small appliances had her freed from the chain not a second later. In one hand, he offered it over Miriam’s shoulder. The other touched her hair, light and testing.

“Would you like help with anything else?”

“Please,” she murmured, leaning her head to the side to bare her neck to Arthur’s hands. “Call me Miriam.”

Through the mirror, she could feel his gaze where it rested on her. She did not return it, fancying herself far too coy. The doctor’s compliment earned a subtle quirk of her red painted lips.

Miriam accepted the necklace into a delicate hand. Cold fingers brushed over his, trailing from the center of his palm to his fingertips, yet her touch too was fleeting. She set down her necklace and earrings and leaned lightly into the hand that graced her hair, finally lifting her eyes to stare heavily upon his reflection.

“Yes, if you do not mind.”

She stood, and as she slowly pulled the pins from her hair, it fell in tousled blonde waves upon her shoulders. Reaching back, Miriam took Arthur's hands into her own and pulled them around her, bringing them to rest at her waist.

“Help me out of this corset,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. “Unless you would prefer I keep it on.”

A woman’s body is an amazing thing. Arthur had always known that. They were beautiful in their complexity, and elegant, and welcoming and kind. This led Arthur to believe that Miriam was not a woman.

What else she could be, he did not know, but she certainly was not a woman. She was simple and ugly and cold, all of those things true for her appearances and ever layer of her soul. On a normal day, Arthur tolerated women, the occasional times they had tried uselessly to seduce him. This time, it was something he swallowed down like poison.

At least she had not touched him again, not further than his wrists. At least she had not assaulted him again.

And she wouldn’t ever again. Not to Arthur or anyone.

This was for Malachi. He had come to England for Malachi, because he loved Malachi, because Malachi wanted him to kill Miriam.

But there was a selfish part of him that would take pleasure in ending her life.

“You struggle to breathe in the corset, do you not?”

Delicately, Arthurs hands trailed up the corset, just barely touching her chest with his fingertips and smoothing his hands out over her shoulder. Traced the lines of her collar bones until his fingers met under her neck.

“Keep it on. I might need help.”

A second passed - maybe hesitation, maybe allowing Miriam to hear the words and understand them - before Arthur’s grip came right under the woman’s jaw. The force send her stumbling back onto her vanity, but the noise is produced did not phase him.

Doctor Arthur Adams, the character put on for Miriam, was gone. Now, green eyes stared furiously at Miriam as she was choked, a sharp and determined curl to his lips.

He squeezed her neck tighter and tighter still, not wanting to give Miriam the privilege of expanding her lungs - not yet, anyway. Not until she was unconscious and at his mercy.