In the instant Arthur stepped out of the room, Malachi sat upright. And, while he considered all of the fastest ways to pull his clothes back on and get out of the room before the doctor could take notice, he sat unmoving at the edge of the couch.

He had moved by the time Arthur returned, of course.

Leaned against the back of the couch instead, with his head fallen back over the cushions, he drew in another deep breath as the sounds of footsteps shuffled back into the room. Resigned to what he’d just agreed to, by not taking the moment to escape.

Arthur wasn't sorry at all.

Malachi lifted his head and, without a word about it, pulled himself up from the cushions to do as Arthur asked. He stopped a foot ahead of him, resettling tired dark eyes on the doctor’s face – and waited.

Arthur's eyes were unsympathetic as they gazed back up at Malachi, his face indifferent even as he looped the rope around the other's already bruised neck.  He tied a knot with swift efficiency, checking how close it was to Malachi's skin and tightening it and checking it again.

"All right?" he asked, but he didn't really care about the answer.  Instead, Arthur dropped the rope to the floor and found a shirt, slipping it carefully over his freshly stitched shoulder and buttoning it all the way to the top.

"A doctor must always look presentable," he explained, even though the shirt was stained in two different placed with two different substances.

He returned to Malachi's side, picking up the rest of the length of rope and wrapped it around one arm.  The other motioned to the front door.

"Lead the way."

A wince, a pained grimace – but Malachi was silent as could be. The fibers of the rope scratched uncomfortably against his neck; every time Arthur’s grip on the other end of it moved, it rubbed the skin red.

He didn’t answer, nor did he acknowledge the absurdity of Arthur putting on a shirt alone. Of course, because his presentation mattered, even while he walked a fully grown man on a makeshift leash. As if Malachi’s appearance was not enough to warrant unkind stares and merciless gossip at the very least.

The world outside was hot, sweltering even, but Malachi swore he felt himself get colder and colder the closer he got to the door.

They were going to get arrested. There was no way around it. Everyone was going to see them and their lives were going to be ruined. His, that was; whether Arthur had a life he cared enough about to save, he wasn’t sure.

Ignoring every single instinct, every scream of protest in his head, every fraction of sense he still had, Malachi opened the front door.

This was insane. Pointless! What did it even matter if Arthur felt he’d proved his loyalty, or his faith, or whatever the fuck he wanted him to prove – if they never saw each other again after this? It was a workhouse for them if they were lucky. What had Wilde got? Two years in prison? And that was for the frivolous dalliances of an author! He was a priest, a community leader; what would they give him for such corruption? What would they give Arthur, who held the rope, and what would be said if his wounds were not taken into account, and they took him for a madman that’d captured a poor, naïve priest?

Oh, God, he was going to faint.

Malachi stepped outside.

The sun was blinding. His eyes quickly shut against the intrusion of the light, unshielded by his glasses or saturno. His skin had not seen the sun in years upon years, if it had ever seen it at all.

“Where?”

God.  God, was Malachi really going to do it?

There was so way, Arthur was certain.  Even as poor Malachi stepped closer and closer to the door, even as he reached for the knob, and even as he turned it, Arthur was certain he'd stop and turn and apologize, or yell, or hit Arthur again, maybe kill him.

He had not expected Malachi to open the fucking door.

The bright light of the sun spilled in like a flood.  Arthur turned his head away from it, lip curled in frustration and defeat.

And then Malachi stepped outside.

Arthur was frozen for all of a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.  Had Malachi said something?  Arthur couldn't hear anything over the roar of blood in his ears.  He yanked on the rope to draw Malachi back inside, not caring if he choked him or hurt him or if he killed him.  He'd deserve it, for what he just tried.

Once Malachi was clear of the door, Arthur stormed past him and slammed the door shut before whirling around.

"Are you fucking insane?!" he demanded.  "Have you no shame?  No dignity to speak of?  You'd rather act like a dog than a man and be seen as such?"

The doctor was irate.  How could he have known Malachi would - would be so stupid?

Was this some attempt to humiliate Arthur?  Call his bluff and laugh in his broken face, to say that Malachi knew Arthur wouldn't let him do such a thing.  He shouldn't have stopped the man if that was what he wanted!  He should have slammed the door on him and left Malachi outside to fend for himself!

"I bet you think you're so much smarter than me, so much better, but you're not!  You're nothing!  Less than a dog, less than dirt, do you do what any old person who comes around tells you?  How you're still alive amazes me!"

All that existed in that moment was the rope.

Jerking him backwards into the building, tightening before he could think to breathe. Digging, scratching, bruising soft skin in a red ring around his neck. His Adam’s apple, next, jutting awkwardly against the hemp, restricted in his throat within its capture.

The loss of gravity came next, just as swift, a sequential slip of one back-stumbling foot and then the next. Then force, as hard as it was sudden. He fell back against the cluttered floor.

His head smacked first, and then again, dizzying vision into darkness.

What. The. Fuck?

It was just the sound of lips, of teeth, of nothing when he opened his mouth. Malachi clawed at the rope. Nails dug into skin and hemp fibers alike in their quest to pry it off. A slender finger pushed its way between rope and skin, and then another, and remained in place as a gasped breath finally pulled into his lungs.

It was shallow. But it was more than nothing.

Malachi pushed himself shakily up on his elbow, staring up at Arthur through a wide-eyed, wild gaze.

What was he talking about? Why was he so – why was he… what had he done wrong?

“Hghi–”

You asked me to do it, he wanted to say, I was doing what you wanted!

But all that came out when he tried to speak was a breathy tone and a scratch.

Nothing. Less than a dog, less than dirt. He was nothing.

“A-ckhgh–” he scratched out.

He struggled upright, trying to stand. His legs wobbled and sent him back onto all-fours instead, and he stumbled into the wall, all of his weight falling against it in a half-collapse. He didn’t have the fight to push up again. Not with a rope around his neck. Not when he was less than dirt, and this was where he belonged.

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?"

The other’s movements were slow, as he approached. The only indication that Malachi noticed his looming presence at all was the darting of his eyes, trained on Arthur’s hands.

They came closer. Too close.

Malachi tried to swallow, just to be impeded once again by the pressure of the rope around his neck… but he didn’t move. Even as Arthur knelt down at his side, the priest didn’t even bother to lift his head, and watched him from the corners of his eyes alone.

Wearing his old glasses, Arthur really did sound like his father. But Lyle, at least, had never dared him to walk outside. Never challenged him the way that Arthur did, and Malachi never challenged his orders in return.

His fingers fell out of the tiny gap they’d made when Arthur untied the rope. Rubbed raw and bloody at the inside of the joints, stinging from the burn of friction.

Malachi took another breath, deeper this time, and coughed blood onto the floor.

…Fuck. Falling, and fighting, and everything else he’d done over the last few days – it must have agitated the internal injuries he’d sustained weeks before. That, or (perhaps in addition to) the pain in his throat was more serious.

“Y-o- u to- l–”

Malachi had always possessed a voice that existed in a low, somewhat calming registry. The voice that escaped him now was scraped out like gravel, despite his attempts to modulate it.

He shut his eyes, one hand reaching for his throat to hold it. It hurt. More so than when Arthur’s bare hands had closed around it, and more so than any time he’d been choked in his youth. He lowered his head between his shoulders and, rather than scramble away, leaned in to rest it on Arthur’s thigh.

“Y-es,” he managed, barely a whisper. “Yes.”

Concern, or at least something that looked like it, crossed Arthur's face when Malachi coughed up blood.  Had he done that?  Surely not.  A rope couldn't be enough to make someone spit up blood.

Could it?

For once, Arthur mourned his lack of tangible medical knowledge.

His hands came to Malachi's hair, brushing through it slowly in an attempt to comfort the man.

"Shh, it's alright," he whispered, "I'm sorry, Malachi.  You're alright now, I promise."

The words might have been empty, or they might not have been.  They probably were, considering Arthur was the one saying them, but if not him, who would?  They were alone in the office, and perhaps in the world too.

"My darling, you're alright.  Why are you coughing up blood?  Are you very hurt?"  Arthur spoke like he wasn't expecting an answer, and didn't try to move Malachi from his position either.  He just pet the man's head, gently scratching up to the crown of his head and back down to his neck.  "You're all right, Malachi, you're all right."

The gentle touch was no comfort, but he could not pull away from it, either.

Malachi stared at the floor. The weight in his chest begged for release in the form of tears, but he couldn’t do that either. He just stared, and held his throat, and remained still beneath the brush of Arthur’s hands through black hair.

The questions registered, if only distantly. He knew what they meant. But all he heard was nothing, you’re nothing, you’re less than dirt.

Of course he was hurt. He’d been hurt for weeks, and though the external signs of it had mostly gone, he hadn’t the first idea what was wrong inside. It wasn’t like he’d seen a doctor, and he’d been coughing up blood since then. That night, and when he’d picked up Nettie from her club, and several separate instances more.

It just hurt. He didn’t need to know anything else. It would always hurt, and he would always make it worse.

Malachi moved, eventually. What strength had been knocked out of him slowly returned, and he pushed himself to sit upright against the wall.

“Y-ou to-ld m-e to,” he scraped together, fixing an uncertain look on Arthur’s face. “Wh-y?”

Arthur's hand stayed in his lap as Malachi sat up, but his eyes did not leave the man.  Even as he spoke in a barely understandable scratchy excuse for a voice that made Arthur frown.  Why?  Why?  Malachi asked him this like Arthur knew the answer.

Why did Arthur do anything?  Why did he say anything?  Why did he lie like he breathed, why did he breathe?  Asking Arthur to explain himself was like asking him to explain God to an ant.  It was impossible.

"Because I wanted to see if you would do it," he said finally, "but I didn't actually want you to, Malachi.  I wanted you to say no."

That was not the truth, but Arthur didn't know what the truth was, so it couldn't have been a lie either.

"I'm sorry," and that was a lie.  "Are you alright?"