[CW: discussions of violence, murder, and cannibalism]

The briefcase was safe beneath his seat. Malachi, too, was safe above it.

However, the safety of an aging passenger seated near him, perhaps several feet away but still too close, was repeatedly called into question every few times the wheels of the train made a full rotation. Which, considering the damned thing was moving, was very, very often.

And every time the wheels circled back around to keep on going, to continue pushing forward as trains did, the aging man – a decade or two older than him, he thought – took it upon himself to breathe louder than Malachi, with his aching throat, could currently even talk.

No – it wasn’t breathing. It was far too loud, too offensive for that. It was an awful, heaving sound, as if with every intake the man breathed in all of England and sighed it back out. To say that Malachi was agitated was… it was very generous. He’d been biting at the inside of his cheek since they had boarded, and glancing down just to double, triple, quadruple check that Arthur’s briefcase was still beneath his seat.

It always was. He just had no idea what to do with himself, trapped inside the cage that was their train car, and the item proved a point of focus.

He was annoyed. He was restless. Trapped. He was – excited, and it was making him nervous, which in turn just made him more annoyed.

Malachi leaned closer to Arthur, eyes fixed forward, and dropped his scratchy voice to a whisper.

“If no one would stop you,” he said, “what would you do to the people in this train?”

Train rides were -

Well.  They were train rides, unfortunately.  They were loud and dizzying and crowded at worst, populated at best, and it was boring.  Arthur's gaze kept travelling between the moving landscape beyond windows, Malachi's still bruised scabbing knuckles, and Malachi's face.

Only two of those things were of any real interest to him.

All of them were out of his reach.

Perhaps he was staring, but it was his right.  Malachi was beautiful, and if Arthur couldn't let the man know with words because of company, then he'd do his best with other means available to him.

He met Malachi halfway when he leaned over, and stayed there as he considered the question.

"First," he whispered back, "I'd spit in your mouth, lick it back up, and have everyone watch.  Second, I'd cut that man's throat over there to clear up his air ways since, obviously, his nose is just not good enough for him."

Whether or not it would work was really none of Arthur's concern.  Either the bag of bones would be able to breathe clearer, or Arthur was putting him out of his slowly suffocating misery.  Both were a favor to the man, and the world around them.

"What about you?"

Well, Arthur did not seem to need much time to think of that one at all. Rather quick on the draw, he was. Malachi was stunned enough by the former half of the answer that it took one, then two slow blinks for him to even register the latter.

“Ah,” he dipped his head in a nod, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world for Arthur to say that he wanted to spit in his mouth and then kill a man. In truth, to Malachi – it might have been.

Curse the rules of the world.

The priest breathed out a disappointed sigh and glanced away, back to the source of his annoyance.

“I would bash his head into the window,” he whispered, “until either it or the glass shattered open.”

His gaze grew somewhat distant as he stared on, imagining it.

“If it was the glass, I’d throw him out. And I’d tie that woman to him, too,” Malachi gestured subtly to a younger woman ahead of them, who had thrown both of them a concerned glance as she’d boarded the train. Turning back to Arthur, he finished, “and what you said too, of course.”

Arthur nodded a bit at Malachi's own answer, eyeing both of the people on the train who had evidently gotten on Malachi's nerves with less subtly than he'd looked at the man himself.  Curse the short notice of their trip; if Arthur had known just a day in advance, he'd have bought out an entire train car for just the two of him.

So, so badly he wanted to feel Malachi's warmth in his hands again.  Wanted to taste him, his salty skin and metallic blood.

Damn this damn rain ride.

"If his head shattered first, what would you do then?"  The question was asked more to distract himself then out of any real curiosity.  "I'd make that woman clean it up with that dress she's wearing.  The stains would be an improvement."

A slow blink, and Arthur turned and looked back at Malachi.  Through glasses that were not his, he was entranced by the other's dark eyes.  He wanted to drown in them.

A gentle smile came to Arthur's lips, despite - or maybe because of - the morbid thoughts he shared with his companion.

"How would you kill me?  Or, how will you kill me?"

An intrigued hum vibrated low in his aching throat. It was a good question – what would he do if the head shattered first, and not the glass? Quick as Arthur was to suggest the cleanup, Malachi could not think of anything but the mess it would leave spattered on the window.

Skin and bones and brains and blood.

Hair, too. There was not much of it left atop the man’s head, but it would stick to the glass just as well.

Before he could offer a legitimate answer, however, he felt Arthur’s stare on him, and reminded himself to look away from the target of their violent fantasies.

“You?” Malachi repeated, willing himself not to stare too long at Arthur’s smile. It was cute, and it lessened the annoyance that burned hot in his shoulders, and he couldn’t stand the sight of it.

“I already said that I don’t want you to die,” he whispered, “however. I would kill you with my hands.”

As if to demonstrate, he lifted them, palms upturned. If only they were alone, he would have placed them on Arthur’s skin to show exactly what he meant.

“I would… hold you close to me, your back to my chest. When you were sleeping, perhaps, and I would wake you…” Malachi paused, though it was unclear if the silence was intentional or if he had simply gotten caught up in his own answer. “…I would wake you, and kiss you, and keep you there close to me.”

Bruised fingers curled inward and fell to rest upon his thighs again.

“And I would slip my hands around your throat, just like that, and kill you.”

Malachi looked back to him, and concluded, “but if you pissed me off, I’d bash your face in and let the wild animals take care of you. As for the man and the window, I would eat his brain.”

Oh, to be held close to Malachi and strangled to death.  To be kissed awake by him and then sent back to sleep forever, just as quickly, to feel his warm embrace cover him entirely like a blanket as he faded away.

To have his head bashed into a bloody pulp and then left to rot by the man who so claimed to love him.

Arthur yearned.

"Malachi," he whispered, lower than before, "I hate to change the topic of conversation so suddenly, especially because I am thoroughly enjoying it, but I must insist that we do before I get on my knees and suck your cock right here and now."

In London, would he and Malachi share a bed?  Arthur hoped so.  He'd never been so close to Malachi, not since their tryst in the alleyway.  If Arthur knew how much he'd miss the close proximity, he'd have savored it more in the moment.  He'd have done more than savored it, he never would have allowed Malachi out of his sight.

"Tell me about that woman you call your mother, perhaps?  Or your house in London?  Anything but this, or I really may not be able to control myself."

For the quickest, most fleeting fraction of a second, Malachi was concerned by the shift in Arthur’s voice. Surely, he thought, he could not have offended or upset the doctor in saying what he did – but no. No, that was not it at all, not even close.

Arthur was bothered, yes, but in a very different way than he’d expected.

On second thought he really should have expected as much.

Malachi fluttered his lashes.

“We wouldn’t want that,” he murmured, in a tone that suggested very much the opposite.

Drawing in a breath, the priest straightened back up, crossed one leg over the other, and stared forward again. His mother, his house. What lovely topics. He held out a hand.

“Give me the papers,” he said first, “I need to write.”

Not that it would be very easy, penning a letter to his niece while he was distracted by a man’s annoying breathing and a doctor that he wanted to pin down to his seat.

“My mother is… a perfect woman, if you ask her. She cares terribly for her image,” Malachi explained, “and she cares for her frivolous, lavish parties even more. She’s quite vain, and she’s happy to keep you around if you make her feel better than she is. Mother – Miriam – is… repulsive.”

Even after being warned, Malachi looked at him like that, spoke to him like that, and Arthur hated him for it.  Hated Malachi, hated every damn person inside this train car, hated himself most of all.  Worse still was when Malachi straightened and crossed his legs.  After a moment, Arthur mimicked him and retrieved the papers and a pen for him.

The description of the woman, Miriam, made Arthur grimace.  Repulsive was a good word; Arthur felt it whole heartedly.

Perhaps it was more because of Malachi's own animosity towards the woman than anything Arthur felt towards her, or the vivid description of her, but.  Well.  What did it matter?  What use would Arthur be to Malachi if he fell on Miriam's side?

"She sounds dreadful."  Arthur's eyes returned to the window, but not the view outside of it.  Instead, the reflection within it captured his attention.  Malachi, first, and then the man who breathed like he was powering a fucking factory.

Would it seem suspicious of he gave the man a pill or three?  Just to knock him out, send him to sleep for hopefully the rest of the train ride.

Then again, maybe that was a worse idea.  If he sounded this bad awake, Arthur dreaded to know what he sounded like asleep.

He really would be better off dead.  Maybe five pills then?  Some heroin too?  A deadly concoction would be easy for the doctor to make, the trouble would come in finding out how to administer it.

"Should I flatter her when I meet her, then?  I want to make a good impression, but I don't want to leave you in the deep-end either.  What advice can you offer me?"

Papers and pen in hand, Malachi glanced about for something to place them on, and settled ultimately on retrieving the briefcase from underneath his seat.

It was a little awkward at first, situating it over his lap, but he managed it and set the papers down.

“She is,” he agreed distractedly, looking through the papers for a blank one. Had Arthur brought nothing without something already written or printed upon it? After a few seconds of shuffling, Malachi sent him a look, but the doctor was looking out the window.

“You… you want to make a good impression? On her?”

Whatever did he want to do that for?

Malachi picked the least written-on paper and turned it around, beginning to write across the back of it. His hand was hurried, but careful, his writing practiced and precise.

“I suppose, yes, flatter her. Tell her all about being a doctor, and – is your family wealthy? Tell her that they are, in any case. The more respectable you are, the more you matter, and the more she will wish to cling to you like the parasite she is. My brother is much the same, if he’s there.”

In the reflection in the window, Arthur watched Malachi look to him, but did not turn to meet his gaze.  Was it so unusual to want to appear respectable and polite to a woman, someone's "mother"?  Even if they were to murder her, what she thought of him was still very important to the doctor.

"A brother," he repeated, glancing at the word's Malachi wrote in beautiful, elegant handwriting.  He tried to imagine Malachi meeting his own brothers, and his sister and father too.  Was it possible to impress them, if it was Arthur introducing Malachi to them?

He couldn't be sure, but for some reason, he suspected the answer was no.

"The father to your niece, I suppose?  Will he be there too, then?"  Will we kill him too?  "Tell me about him, please.  I'm so curious about you, Malachi."