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?”