Malachi did not want to stay here a moment longer.

No amount of vague threats could change that fact, and the dissatisfied look on his face suggested as much. His hand slipped from the knob, but not out of any desire to stay, as Arthur continued to demand of him.

No. Bruised, pale fingers raised to Arthur’s neck like the sharp, pointed legs of a spider. Malachi traced a finger along the line he’d carved into the skin, pressing harder only when it danced over his adam’s apple.

“I don’t want to,” he countered. I don’t want to love you, even if he did.

He hoped that Arthur was capable of love. He hoped that he fell in love with a man as vile and worthless as Malachi, and that he felt nothing for Arthur by then. He hoped that Arthur hurt the way he hurt, and that no one cared he did.

But that was a lot of faith, even for a priest.

“Come with me instead,” said Malachi, dropping his hand again. “I have things to do. There’s a woman in my house that needs evicting. I’ll be back when I’m done – it’s your choice, Arthur, if you want me to make an enemy of you or not.”

Arthur's smile softened, but it did not disappear entirely, even at Malachi's rejection.  The fingers against his neck, the pressure however faint, overshadowed any denial in that moment.

"I will always choose you, Malachi."  The words might have been empty, but they didn't feel like it.  Not to Arthur, anyway, but he wasn't the one who needed convincing.

Slowly, prepared to be brushed off, Arthur reached out for Malachi's hand.  Only just to touch his wrist, as the priest had done to him before.  But his reasons were different.  Deeper, unknowable even to Arthur right then.

"Where do you live?" he asked.  "Who's this woman?  Let me help you."

Would he now.

Malachi hardly looked convinced, but then, there was not much to read from his careful expression at all. As lovely as they might have been, he was not going to let himself believe a single thing out of Arthur’s mouth that was not intended to degrade him.

At least the hurt was real. Something tangible that he could work with, argue against. The kindness, when it came, was… sickening, and he would not let himself return to that dizzying delirium of praise and belief.

“London, dear, we’re going to kill my mother.”

His hand moved upon being touched, twisting to take Arthur’s into his own firm grip. Malachi set his other hand on his shoulder, all too aware of the stitches beneath his shirt.

“So I suggest you pack your things quickly, unless you’ve changed your mind.”

London.

Arthur was going to meet his mother.  His wrist was caught in Malachi's tight grip, but it felt like it was his heart being squeezed.

Right underneath Malachi's other hand and still tender, Arthur's fresh stitches pulsed with the desire to be ripped open again.  Anything to distract from this feeling that was too good to be true.

"I told you," he whispered, "I will always choose you."

He wanted so badly to kiss Malachi.

"Will you wait for me?  I won't need more than five minutes."  If that.  What would he really need to bring with him to London except opium and money?  Arthur could spend weeks upon weeks on the same clothes without a second thought.

But he was meeting Malachi's mother.  He'd need to make a good impression on her.  More than that, he wanted to.

Good, he wasn’t putting up a fight about it. What kind of clients must a man like Arthur have anyway? Would there be desperate families clawing at his door for help? Young mothers in need, and boys with scraped knees?

The thought of Arthur actually helping anyone without some sort of twisted, ulterior motive could have made him laugh, but he was not in the mood to be amused.

Malachi’s head tilted slightly as he seemed to consider the doctor’s rather simple request.

“Five minutes,” he agreed. “After that, I’m walking out whether you’re ready or not.”

There wasn’t any rush, not truly. He had nothing to pack of his own, after throwing away everything he’d brought to Whitby besides one knife and a few articles of clothes. They were all cassocks anyway, besides the ruined red suit. He would not need them anymore.

He just liked to make things difficult, and that much was clear.

With that, he released Arthur’s wrist and removed his hand from his shoulder.

“Have you ever been to London?” Malachi inquired, leaning to rest back against the wall while he waited.

The moment Arthur was released, he turned to go up the hall towards his room.  He didn't have the slightest fucking idea where his suitcase was, but his room was the best bet, wasn't it?  A bedroom would be the last place he'd have had it.

"London?  Oh, no," he called back to Malachi, distracted.  God, his room was a fucking mess.  Under the bed, in the corner, between piles and boxes, within the wardrobe - there were too many places to look.  Where did Arthur start?

The bathroom, apparently.  It was the cleanest room in the building, but that wasn't much of an achievement.  From there, the doctor took two towels that were stained and fraying, but soft with age.

Back in the office, from seemingly nowhere at all, Arthur produced an old, worn leather briefcase.  From inside if it, he tossed a folder of paper that scattered like confetti, replacing it first with the towels as lining and then with the leather bundle, thread, and gauze he and Malachi had used.  The salve followed, the alcohol, and more gauze.  Deep in a box beside the couch, Arthur retrieved a small bottle with white powder inside of it.

"I've not travelled much, not more than I've needed to," he continued to Malachi meanwhile.  "I only came to Whitby when I had no other choice.  Believe me, I would not have come here if it were up to me.  But I'm glad I did."

“It’s awful,” Malachi called back, so you’ll fit right in.

Nonetheless there was a certain… charm to it. London could have been the gates of Hell, and Malachi would not have been shocked, but it was a familiar hell. There, longer than anywhere else, he had spent his adolescence and a fair portion of his young adulthood.

It was the closest thing to a home a man like him could have. Churches were sanctuaries, sure, and he’d lived in plenty, but never long enough to call one home.

Whitby was… something else. It could have been a home to him – it still could – but not as things currently were. The church was out; he was done with it, even more so than the last time he’d thought to leave. He had nothing else in town of his own, no place to live, and he would not whittle away his fortune on hotels for himself. For Mable and Edmund, he would support them as long as they required it – but to do that himself? What a waste.

Malachi hummed while Arthur disappeared and reappeared again, shoving medical supplies and God knows what else into his briefcase. Had he grabbed any clothes? Malachi didn’t exactly have any with him either, but… he didn’t have any to take. All of his actual clothes were in London.

“Why here? Did your previous home run you out?”

It was a genuine question, despite its implication.

"Run out is - well!  Not exactly."  Such a crude term!  No one was following him, after all, and there were no torches or pitchforks.  "They wanted me gone, so I left, but I wasn't run out.  It was a mutual decision, between me and everyone in Ravenscar."

The chair in the corner of the office that held too many clothes for it all to belong to Arthur alone was ravaged.  Jackets and vests and shirts and dresses even rained as they were tossed away, the doctor selecting a small amount of the clothes there that fit whatever expectations he had.  And a small amount it really was - two, maybe three shirts and just as many vests, one of which still had blood and a tear from where Malachi had stabbed him.  One pair of trousers and a long skirt that the doctor might have mistaken as an apron or rag.

Everything in Arthur's arms were shoved into the briefcase and he was back to fluttering about, scouring his office for something else still.

"I came to Whitby because my family is here.  I thought they'd have missed me, so the choice was easy.  What made you come here?  Were you run out of London?"

Was that a skirt?

It felt like watching a horde of tiny bugs skittering around, seeing Arthur move about the messy space. Malachi almost could not stand to look at it, so perturbed was he by the clutter (that the doctor was only adding to), but at the same time… it was hard to look away.

How could anyone live like this? Not even Levi’s room, when Malachi had been lucky enough to sneak into it and see it, had been nearly as disorderly.

The knowledge that he was still somehow so… attracted to this man, made him feel all kinds of filthy. And what was that fucking skirt for! He wished he hadn’t seen it. Malachi turned his head and watched the wall as he continued to wait.

It was a surprise, in any case, that Arthur had been allowed to leave Ravenscar of his own accord. He didn't quite buy the notion that he would move for the sake of his family, but, well, what other reason would he have had to come here?

“Yes,” the priest answered easily, before tapping a hand against the wall.

“Are you almost finished?”

[CW for mention of guns <3]

Arthur paused for a fraction of a second, glancing curiously at his companion at his answer.  Had Malachi experienced torches and pitchforks and worse from his adopted family?  From all of London?

No wonder he wanted to kill them.

"Nearly," he responded, "I swore I had a gun somewhere, but I seemed to have misplaced it.  Do you think it necessary, or..?"

The real question Arthur didn't ask.  He wasn't sure if Malachi had an answer, or if he wanted to hear it.  Whatever he had planned, would it be better to know ahead of time or experience it in the moment?  Was there even a plan at all?

Frowning slightly, the doctor moved to his desk in the office, opening and emptying drawer upon drawer and gathering every coin he saw.  When gathered together, it was not an insignificant amount of money.  Whatever he was forgetting, he could surely purchase in London, both for himself and Malachi.

Money in paper and coin was dumped into the nearly overflowing briefcase, and Arthur turned a curious gaze to Malachi.

"I'm ready, unless you want to find that gun."