After the events of the tea shop, Elijah found himself wandering aimlessly around the streets, completely devoid of ideas on how to pass the time. He couldn’t stop his mind from replaying his entire interaction with Detective Maxwell over and over again, each time overthinking more little things he said or did, to the point of obsession. There was just something about him that Elijah couldn’t shake. Perhaps it was his freckles he spent so long observing, or maybe that cute way he scratched his hair when he was nervous, or even the way his dark hair looked as if it was glowing blue when he was in the sun. Whatever it was, Elijah was going a little crazy over it. This was nothing new, of course, he had a tendency to go full fairytale when he so much as glimpsed an attractive man walking past him on the street. Some would call him a romantic, most would just see him as he was - alone. He fidgets with the scrap of paper Maxwell gave him as he walks, and considers his next move. He had nowhere to sleep - going back to the same hotel would be too risky, the room wasn’t likely to be unbooked two nights in a row. He had no money left, and, quite frankly, he was bored as hell. People-watching from a park bench, then. A dull and all too common plan B.

Hours pass as Elijah enters a sort of meditative state on the uncomfortable wooden bench. He watches as groups of friends rush past him in a noisy haze, jumping up and attempting to swing on tree branches that would never hold their weight, giggling and cheering when their friends inevitably fall flat. Elijah secretly craved that kind of friendship and fun that he so bitterly missed out on in his tormented childhood. Instead of parties and sleepovers it was homeschooling and beatings. Instead of birthdays at the cinema it was bible verses and Catholic guilt. Whenever he would let slip any kind of indication that he liked boys more than girls - as he well knew for as long as he could remember - his father didn’t hug him and tell him he loved him anyway, not even close, his mother cried and his grandfather locked him in the basement for three days, forbidding his brother from speaking to him. Elijah lays down on the bench, brings his knees to his chest and rolls over so he’s facing the backrest. Reminiscing about his family was the last thing he ever wanted to do, but the mind is a cruel machine, and the memories plague him more often than he’d like. He squeezes his eyes shut and hopes for a little quiet in his brain.

Elijah startles awake. He must’ve dozed off at some point, because the sun is setting and he can smell alcohol in the air. The barely-of-age drunkards from the nearby pub had started their nightly migration to the park, where they could lay in the grass and piss in the bushes - by far the most fascinatingly stupid way to waste one’s youth in the 21st century. He can feel somebody loitering in his general area so he remains still for a while longer. Pretty soon his suspicions are confirmed by the sound of the mystery figure accepting a phone call and slurring, “Hello?”.

Elijah struggles to grasp most of the conversation as half of it is drunken nonsense and the other half is belching, but of the snippets he does hear, he can piece together the context. It’s certainly not a conversation he particularly wants to be listening to. If he was to take a guess, he’d say that the person on the other end of the phone is a friend - most likely also completely hammered - who has a brother who’s expecting a baby with his husband, but drunk guy number two quite clearly seems to disagree with his brother’s decision, leading him to phone drunk guy number one because assumedly he’s the first person he would think would participate willingly in his homophobic rage, evident by the sheer amount of discriminatory language being hurled across the park right now. Ain’t friends grand? So supportive.

That red hot feeling is back. It starts in Elijah’s stomach and fizzles up his throat as if his body’s threatening to throw up molten lava. He can feel his face heating up and his fists clench. He doesn’t want to do this, he really doesn’t. He wants to calm down, to ignore it, to be fine, to be happy. He blinks, the world spins, and the next thing he knows he’s snatched the phone out of the drunk’s hand, hung up, and flung it to the ground. He hears nothing but ringing in his ears as his arm locks around the man’s neck and he drags him behind the bush line. The man is screaming something whilst he kicks and thrashes against him, but Elijah can’t hear it. He can’t hear anything. The world’s gone mute, his mind; blank. Peace, at last. He pulls the drunk to the ground and straddles him, pinning his arms to the ground with his knees. Before he knows it, he’s giggling, knowing what this would look like to any passerby who decides to interrupt them. Two men, behind the bushes in the park, under dusklight, one on top of the other - the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. It was only for a second, though, because by the next one Elijah was already forcing the man’s mouth open and pouring a drop of the liquid from that little glass bottle into it. He doesn’t dare move until the man stops convulsing and lies still, pulse gone - dead.

Elijah breathes heavily, still pinning the man, until the fizzling in his throat subsides and his hearing returns. He didn’t want to do this, he didn’t. He looks down at the man and feels a pang of… guilt? Well, of course he felt guilty, that’s the correct emotion to feel when you kill someone, isn’t it? Elijah didn’t know. He scrambles to his feet and his eyes dart around for the man’s phone. He had to make sure he tied up any loose ends before destroying it - standard practice for an impromptu park murder. He sends out a quick text to all his contacts with some manufactured story about needing some time away to recover and heal from the pain that lead him toward alcoholism, and smashes the phone to pieces with a jagged rock. It’s not the most elegant solution, Elijah admits, but he was in public, he had no time for a more thought-out story. As luck would have it, the park ran directly alongside a canal that looked deep enough to hide a body, at least for a little while. Elijah sets to work stuffing the man’s clothes and pockets with the heaviest rocks he can find, checks the coast is clear, and then grabs the man by the feet and drags him the short way to the canal, staying behind the bush line for as much of the journey as he can. He rolls the body into the (thankfully) murky water, praying that there’s enough weight on the man for him to sink to the bottom. Once he sees the bubbles cease and the body disappear, he takes off sprinting in the opposite direction. That wasn’t guilt he felt. It was nostalgia.

By the time Elijah slows down, it’s pitch black. His only means of sight; flickering street lights, not even the stars had bothered to come out that night. He doubles over, hands on his knees, and attempts to catch his breath. His legs burn and he has a painful stitch in his right side, he must’ve been sprinting for at least an hour. He looks around, searching for some kind of indication of where he’s ended up, but he seems to have run so far out of town that all he can see is rows upon rows of dimly lit, tall, Victorian-style houses.

“Shit.” He breathes heavily and then quietly begins to laugh to himself, “That’s my exercise done for the year. Now, where the fuck am I?” Thinking hard, Elijah turns in circles, trying to figure out his next move. He squints and just about manages to make out the outline of a telephone box in the distance. He still had the number of the precinct crumpled up in his pocket. Should he? Was it even a remotely good idea to call a police precinct after you had just committed a murder? Probably not. But Elijah was lost in the night, had no other resources, and certainly wouldn't mind talking to one dark-haired, freckled detective again. Besides, good judgement was never his strong suit.

Jogging up to the box, he prayed he had enough change left over from the tea shop to make a phone call. He pulls what’s left out of his pocket and sighs. Providing the telephone box took five pence coins and didn’t spit anything back out, he should be fine. He deposits his last three coins - one ten pence and two fives - and thankfully the dilapidated machine takes them with no trouble. Uncrumpling the paper, he dials the number. Elijah swallows, suddenly nervous.

“Hello?”

ꕥ

The rest of Arlo’s shift went so slowly he could’ve sworn he was at his desk for three days straight. Witness. Paperwork. Interrogation. Paperwork. Criminal. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Piling up and up on his desk, the ever-growing stack of files never seemed to go down. His eight-year-old self would never have guessed that being a detective would include filling out so many forms. If he’d have known, he probably would’ve followed his dream of being a dinosaur-tamer instead. Despite the tedious data entry and the unsavoury partner, however, there were some highlights to Arlo’s day. Most notably, Officer Sophie Lake, whom he had met in the break room and had spent a full hour with being shown photos of her various dogs. He looks up at the clock and watches the second hand meet the minute hand at twelve.

“Working overtime, Maxwell?” Speak of the devil. “It’s eight already, go home.” Arlo looks up at Sophie with her motorbike helmet under her arm and smiles.

“I didn’t even notice. I’d probably just be working at home anyway. Reports don’t write themselves.” He chuckles lightly, a sort of sad chuckle that he was sure Sophie would’ve picked up on had she not just received a text. She sighs.

“God damn it.” She breathes, barely audibly.

“Everything okay?” Arlo asks.

“Huh?” She quickly looks back at him, “Oh! Yeah, no, everything’s fine, my wife’s parents are just coming to dinner. They’re not exactly the most tolerant of people so we eloped instead of having a big fancy wedding and apparently they’ve just found out.” She rolls her eyes and shoots Arlo a sad smile, “Family drama, never boring.”

Arlo returns her sad smile with his own and nods slowly, “I know what you mean. My parents still haven’t really come to terms with me either, just one more reason I moved here.”

“Oh, you’re…?”

“Pan.”

“Oh, nice.”

“And demi, which makes the whole family approval thing extra complicated.”

“Oh Jesus, I can’t even imagine.” Sophie looks at Arlo sympathetically.

“Yeah, it’s a tough one. I mean, how do you tell your mother who’s always wanted great grandchildren that her son’s never met anyone he’s loved enough to… well, love, and that when he finally finds that person, it might not even be a woman?” He takes a breath, “If he finds that person.” He amends. After a moment, he looks up, slightly embarrassed at his outburst. Sophie, however, doesn’t seem fazed.

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“Don’t you have a twin sister?” She asks.

“Aromantic and asexual. Mum’s not getting any grandkids there.” Arlo replies. Sophie nods and gives a small ‘ah’ in understanding.

“Well, hey, this just means that one of you is going to have to get a pet.” Arlo laughs,

“That’s not a bad idea, Soph, any recommendations?”

“You seem like a cat kinda guy.”

“I’m allergic.”

“Coward.” She grins at him and puts her bike helmet on, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Maxwell.”

“See you tomorrow. Good luck with the in-laws!” Arlo’s smiling long after she’s gone, whilst he’s getting himself ready to leave. It was nice to have a new friend he could be honest with. He had spent so much time lying about his sexuality and his life to everybody that, when he moved away, he swore he would do his best not to carry on the same way. Cara knew, of course, and his dad suspected he was some kind of queer by the fact he caught Arlo hugging another boy on their doorstep, and when asked about it, Arlo turned all shades of red and almost had a panic attack, but this was the first time he had ever purposefully come out to anybody, and it felt better than he had expected.

Still in the highest of spirits, Arlo leaves the precinct and calls a taxi. The drive back to his flat is dark, drizzly and uneventful. The cabbie’s playing what sounds like an 80s hits playlist on the lowest possible volume which is driving Arlo insane. He can just about make out the familiar hook of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ but can’t hear enough to know how far through the song is. The cabbie makes some idle conversation about the weather, as expected, and Arlo gives some half-baked, polite reply. They then sit in silence for the rest of the journey.

When they pull up outside Arlo’s block of flats, he wastes no time in jumping out of the cab, unlocking the front door and starting the trek up the four flights of stairs to his floor. Moving out and starting a new job at twenty-four meant living cheaply, and living cheaply meant perpetually broken lifts and tiny flats on fourth floors. It was a less-than-ideal arrangement, but now it was home. Arlo was no stranger to decorating either - he had changed everything he reasonably could to shades of gunmetal silver and blue, a shift that had turned a once old and dingy looking apartment into a classy and mature home base for a modern detective. It made him feel like he should produce a bucket of ice from under the kitchen counter and pour himself a glass of whiskey, which would’ve been much less suave than he was imagining considering all his glasses were colourful and mis-matched due to them being one of the many things Arlo supplied his flat with from a nearby charity shop.

He drops his keys on the coffee table and falls into the sofa, face first. The thought of falling asleep right there occurs to him, but as he considers it, his stomach lets out an almighty growl and he groans into the sofa cushion. Reluctantly, he makes his way over to the fridge and opens it, flinching at the bright light that attacks his eyes. Nothing but milk and the day-before-yesterday’s take-out. He sniffs the box of leftover chicken and immediately recoils in disgust. Apparently an extremely second-hand fridge doesn't always, well, refrigerate. He tosses the chicken and reluctantly sniffs the milk. Still okay, thank god. Cereal for dinner it is.

Arlo’s mind wanders as he pours the milk into a bowl of mini chocolate-chip Weetabix. He looks around at his new home and wonders if it’ll ever feel less cold and lonely than it does right now. Thinking back to his conversation with Sophie, he exhales and scratches the back of his hair. Truth be told, his love life had been a bit of a disaster. He had grown up around friends and classmates that had loved to talk about relationships; in primary school they’d have play-dates and get married under the monkeybars, in secondary school they would giggle about who was sleeping with who, nervously ask each other out at the prom and get caught making out in music rooms, hell, in university, two of his classmates were already married. Arlo had had a few crushes, but pursuing them felt like too much, too fast. He simply couldn’t fathom the idea of being that intimate with a stranger, or even a classmate, and celebrity crushes were a completely foreign concept to him. He knew he wanted a big, sweeping love story, he could fantasise about a crush for days, but he figured he probably just wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of one. Every time he thought about the closeness he was supposed to have with a partner, he got a lump in his throat and he began to panic. Once, when he was eighteen, he thought that perhaps he could feel that way about his best friend, and so they went on a date, a horribly silent, uncomfortable, tense date that ended with an awkward hug on a doorstep. That same night, after crying for what felt like forever, Arlo researched and researched until, at 6am the following morning, he anxiously knocked on his sister’s door and confided in her that he was demipansexual. After the initial shock of being awoken at such an ungodly hour, she embraced and comforted him for a while, before coming out about her own sexual identity, and they spent the rest of the day in that room talking about anything and everything. If one good thing came from losing his best friend that night, it was that he finally bonded with his sister in a way they had never managed before, which, in his mind, was a worthwhile trade-off.

Arlo settles on the sofa with his bowl of cereal, kicks his feet up to rest on the edge on the coffee table, and grabs the tv remote. Flicking through channels, he settles on a food network showing reruns of Kitchen Nightmares and sinks into the sofa cushions, officially done for the day.

Empty bowl by his side and one foot on the ground, Arlo begins to snore lightly. His capacity to stay conscious when watching tv on the sofa was shockingly inadequate, Cara always used to beat him with pillows until he’d wake up whenever he dozed off during her favourite movies. Typically, he was impossible to rouse, “sleeps like the dead” his father used to say, but this time something woke him very abruptly. His phone was vibrating on the kitchen counter, the sound echoing around the walls. He looks at the clock on the wall, drowsy and confused. Who on earth would be calling him this late at night? He walks over to his phone buzzing along the counter and peers at the screen.

[UNAVAILABLE]

Curious, Arlo hesitates for a second, then picks up the phone and presses the round, green button.

“Hello?” He says, cautiously. The person on the other end of the phone makes a surprised sort of sound and takes a moment to respond.

“Oh, uh, hi there. I was told this number was for a police precinct, is that right?” Arlo’s hit with a wave of realisation as he recognises the lilting Irish accent on the other end of the phone. He didn’t really think he’d call. He meant to write down the precinct’s number, it was too late before he realised he’d written his own instead. The nerves had gotten the better of him on his very first case and he had made an extremely embarrassing mistake.

“Eli?” There was hesitation on the line.

“Yes?”

“It’s Detective Maxwell.” Arlo was trying to sound professional, but he had his head in his hands and was practically melting from the heat radiating from his face. ‘Embarrassing’ may have been an understatement.

“Oh, Detective!” Eli sounded happy to hear that it was Arlo - scratch that - Eli sounded absolutely delighted to hear that it was Arlo on the other end of the phone. “How are you?” Arlo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“How am I?” He asked, his head swimming with disbelief and impatience, “Eli, why are you calling this number this late? If you have more information about the robbery you can-”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?” Silence. “Elijah?”

“I seem to be, um, lost.” Arlo blinks, waiting for more of an explanation. He hears Eli exhale and shuffle around and wonders if he might be drunk or high. “Look, I was… walking around, and I got lost. I was hoping that the precinct could send a car to come pick me up or something. You know, track the telephone box with their super duper technology? Pick me up via helicopter? Something a little action-movie-esque like that?” A certain tone in Eli’s voice tempts a smile out of Arlo that he manages to suppress.

“Just find a street sign and call a taxi, Elijah, calling me this late is so unprofessional.”

“Hey, you’re the one who gave me your number. Besides, I can’t call a taxi, I have no money and no phone.” What kind of person these days walks around at night with no money and no phone? The suspicions about this man just kept piling up in Arlo’s head. There was something, he could feel it. He opens his eyes and sighs, he’s just had a very, very stupid idea.

“Stay on the phone. I’m coming to get you.”

ꕥ

Elijah was sitting on the pavement on the outside of the telephone box waiting for about forty minutes before Detective Maxwell arrived to get him. He had had to try and explain everything he could see; street signs, buildings, trees, whatever, just so the detective knew where he might’ve been. Luckily it was a fairly small town, and both of them were currently in the residential area, but it was still a bit of a game of hide-and-seek. Elijah begins to hear some fast-paced, anxious footsteps echoing against the rows of houses and quickly scrambles to his feet, straightening his shirt. Maxwell’s silhouette appears from around a corner and he can’t stop the small smile that spreads across his face. The street lights are illuminating him, giving him an ethereal aura of light that entrances Elijah, and he stares, unapologetically. Amidst his enchantment, though, he can’t help but notice the detective looks different. Less shy, more irritated. Still anxious, but now also conflicted. Not on high-alert, just tired, as if he’d just woken up. He was no longer in his police uniform, instead he wore a grey t-shirt, blue jeans and beat-up trainers, nothing special, and yet, to Elijah he was stunning.

“Hi.” His charming British accent made Elijah’s heart do a somersault.

“You found me.” A grin spreads across the smitten Irish-man’s face that remains unreflected on the detective. Maxwell puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs his shoulders, rocking on his feet.

“Come on then, we should get you somewhere safer.”

“Lead the way, Detective Maxwell.” Elijah’s ever-enthusiastic mood gave the detective pause.

“Just… call me Arlo.” He spins around on his heel and begins walking back the way he came before he can see the look on Elijah’s face. Under his breath, he mutters, “This shit’s about to be so incredibly off-the-record anyway.” He hears Elijah’s footsteps behind him quicken to match his pace, and his anxiety spikes momentarily when he falls in step beside him.

“Can I ask where we’re going, Arlo?” He could feel Elijah’s eyes boring into the side of his head. Arlo hesitates, then makes a small throat-clearing type sound and lifts his head.

“My place.”