Malcolm - Post Chapter Ten (Patreon)

“We shouldn’t have let them go.” Milo was pacing. Short little bursts back and forth where his feet tapped at the ground with a type of force that was bound to break his toes if he kept it up. Malcolm was familiar with this habit of his and had oftentimes found it triggering of his own anxiety. It wasn’t like he could just tell the man to go take a walk, however

“Can you not,” Malcolm stated. When Milo looked at him confused, he gestured down to Milo’s booted feet. “We have to trust that the literal Night Market knows what they are doing.”

Milo raised a brow. “You trust that?”

“You don’t?” But Milo didn’t answer. He kept staring at him, one brow artfully raised, hands clenched at his sides. Malcolm felt his irritation mount as the man just stared at him with a challenge that suggested Malcolm was being ridiculous when the reality was that Milo was always the ridiculous one. It wasn’t until Malcolm saw how the keyring at his belt hung, how it was tilted just right as if it was mid bounce off his hip, that he realized for once, Milo wasn’t trying to be a shit. He was frozen.

“I like that you trust them.” A new voice this time. Not new for Malcolm, but new for the little maze they found themselves in. As he turned around, Malcolm found Death, or Merripen, as Lamplight called them, standing a few feet away. Their ceremonial robes ghosted the floor, filling in the cobblestone cracks

Each time Pen had appeared to him, they had presented as female. Today, they were shifting between forms. Trying to find the form that would be the most comfortable to Malcolm. It didn’t seem as if Death had a beat on that part of his mind anymore. “Are you here on business?” Malcolm asked.

Pen frowned. “Am I going to get asked that in every reality? I mean, I know I’m Death and all but sometimes I just make social calls.” Malcolm didn’t feel the need to pacify someone who had reaped him twice now. Social calls with Death had never been his experience. “I’m not here to take your soul,” Pen said with a sigh. “At this point I feel like I need to fill out a punch card for you. Tenth punch and you get a hat or something. Maybe a pin.”

“Why are you here?” Malcolm asked. Milo was still frozen behind him and the swirling memory that Lamplight had slipped into would only hold for so long. The very presence of the individual before him was enough to make his stomach clench.

“I was checking up on Night.” Pen said nonchalantly.

“When they aren’t here?”

“Well, that’s the thing, I can’t actually check up on them. I have to check up on them from afar. Or in this case, through another person.” They nodded towards the memory. “They doing alright?”

“No.” Malcolm was often a dry sort of individual, blunt to a fault, according to Hazel. He had worked on curbing it with others. He didn’t feel the need to with Pen.

“Right.” Pen nodded, scratching at the back of their head. “Stupid question, huh? I am working on things for them. I really am. But there’s rules… You don’t care.”

“I really don’t.”

“That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Malcolm. The world can be crumbling but your allegiance is to the one that you have given your heart to.” There was a soft flicker of emotion in their eyes as they looked towards the memory. “I miss them.”

Malcolm knew very little of the relationship between Pen and Lamplight. Death and Life. Friends is what he had been told but he hadn’t seen the two of them interact. Not really. Malcolm also didn’t feel all that keen to comfort the entity that had ferried him away from this world.

“Do you have anything you want me to relay to them? Particularly a way to help us, would be appreciated.”

“It’s funny. The fae is yelling and screaming at me and you are so calm.” 

Malcolm glanced over his shoulder at a still frozen Milo. He supposed Death could be in several places at once.

“Milo’s good at protecting what is his,” Malcolm said.

“Is he?” Pen was tipping their head to the side. Now this was a challenge. One that Malcolm didn’t owe an explanation to. Unlike Milo, Malcolm never felt the need to explain himself. Instead, he shifted, making sure that he was in equidistant between the memory and Milo, in case he needed to get to either of them. Pen caught the movement and took a step back, trying to relay he was not a threat. “I don’t have any advice on how to get out of here. None that Night would take at least.”

“What’s the advice they wouldn’t take?”

“Leave the two of you behind. Go back up to their higher self. Wait for a moment to be reborn.”

Malcolm had thought about this very scenario before. If Lamplight went back to their higher self, would they be able to fix the lamps? They hadn’t before but then again, there was no telling if they had been connected or not. The best Malcolm could uncover, Lamplight had wandered this greying maze, following after the biggest manipulator of their time.

“Would it help?” he asked Pen.

Pen looked away. The set to their shoulders was pronounced, however. It would help. It would absolutely help.

“Would you be waiting for them when they get there? Would you be by their side?”

Pen reached out. Maybe it was to take Malcolm’s hand. Provide him comfort. But they let it fall before they could connect. “Of course I would.”

A world without Lamplight. Malcolm had done it before, hadn’t he? Back before he discovered the lights to confide in. Back when he was young and stuck inside his mothers home, curled into a small corner of the room and hoping for just a moment where his head didn’t feel like it was screaming.  The truth was, however, Lamplight didn’t belong to him. If they needed to go, he would have to let them.

“It’s their choice.” That, however, was what he would not move on. He would not take away their autonomy. He would not ask them to change who they were. If it was the last thing Malcolm did, he would fight for them to be their own person, even if it cost him his own self.

“It might not be their choice,” Pen said sadly. “The world might not let them wait.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Lamplight will make the decision that is right. It may not be the one you agree with, may not be the one I agree with. But it will be right for them.”

“I’ll be there if you can’t be.”

Malcolm shook his head. “No, the man you froze behind me will be there if I can’t. And after that, my sister. Then Belladonna. Gabriel. Anyone in Artisan Alley. Stay in your own lane, Death.”

Pen looked at him amused. “You’re a good man, Malcolm Albright.”

“I don’t want to see you anytime soon.”

“You’re not on my list so I think that’s fine.”

Malcolm blinked and Pen was gone. Behind him, a set of keys jangled and Milo gasped. “Fucking creepy as shit mother fucker.”

Malcolm turned, walking straight to Milo and folding himself against the other mans chest. Milo stood stunned for a moment before bringing his arms up. “Darlin’ okay?” Malcolm could feel his eyes ticking towards the memory.

“Yeah,” he rasped.

“Did you see…?”

“Yeah.”

They stood there for a moment, close to the swirling memory just waiting. Milo’s hands spread across Malcolm’s back, his other on Malcolm's hip. “It’s okay,” he told Malcolm, feeling the shiver race down his spine.

“I want to get out of here,” Malcolm breathed. “I want to go home. I want Lamplight safe. I don’t want them going back to the life they once had.”

Milo frowned. “I don’t think they will, Mal.”

“To save the world? You don’t think they will?”

Milo didn’t have much to say to that but what could he say that would make any sort of difference. “I think you aren’t giving Lamplight enough credit,” he told him softly. “We did the entire death for the betterment of the world thing. It didn’t work. Third time isn’t going to be the charm.”

“This would be the second.”

“Shut up with your semantics and just let me hold you.” Milo curled Malcolm closer. It wasn’t often he let this happen. He usually shied away from it, in fact. But he couldn’t help the quell of fear still trickling like ice through his veins at seeing Death again. aBout not just being worried that hooded figure had come for him, but had come for the ones he loved as well. He wouldn’t feel right until Lamplight was here. Until he could feel them both.

“I got you,” Milo whispered.

For once, Malcolm let him.