Since his tumultuous time with Artemis, Malcolm's life had shrunk down to one room, and it had been that way for over a year now. At first he had been stupidly grateful to just be in a safe place. Michael's apartment was warm and comfortable. Michael fed him everyday, which was far more than Artemis had done.
It was more than he had done for the Merry Men when he had had them in his dungeon too. He thought about that all the time. There was an uncrossable barrier between Malcolm and the rest of the apartment, and Malcolm was entirely at Michael's mercy. If the angel wanted to, he could starve Malcolm without a second thought. It was what Malcolm himself would have done, and yet he was shown only kindness. Hell, once the barrier between himself and freedom had come down, when Michael was murdered by Lucifer, and Malcolm was so terrified of Artemis, and sickeningly glad to be taken care of, that he stayed.
Perhaps he wasn't the hero he had always thought himself to be, after all.
As time passed, however, Malcolm grew weary of his comfortable cage. He was still overtly grateful for the food and the warmth, but he wanted freedom. He wanted to see something other than the same four walls, day in and day out. Not even the very expensive streaming services Michael allowed him access to really entertained him. He was touch starved and people starved and company starved. He found himself finding movies with naked women and sex scenes and just watching those bits over and over again in a desperate attempt to make up for the lack of pornographic material in his little cage. He pulled himself off in the shower day after day.
The monotony - the loneliness - it was going to eat him alive.
He had taken to begging Michael, promising the angel every increasing amounts of money for his freedom. He even tried threatening Michael once, but the damn angel had drawn his firesword without a fucking word, and Malcolm had decided never to try that one again. Malcolm became so bored and desperate for something, anything to change that he started to pull his own hair out, one strand at a time, until his head was covered in small bald patches.
And then finally, near the end of August, after fourteen months of captivity, the barrier went down again. And Malcolm only noticed because he was leaning against it at the time, his bedroom door wide open. He had been trying to see if Michael was coming home soon, because his lunch was late. Michael was rarely late. When the barrier came down, Malcolm fell forward onto the floor, his chin bouncing off the carpet.
"Ow, FUCK!" he hissed, rolling to the side and groaning. It took a full minute for him to realise what had happened. And then he sat up in surprise, staring at the doorway to the room that had held him for so long.
He was free.
Malcolm jumped to his feet and put another several meters of distance between him and that room. Oh god, he could leave. He could run and never look back. His heart sped up in his chest and the thought that this was possibly a trick and that his freedom would be revoked the second he reached the front door made him sprint towards it, wrenching it open roughly.
Then he was standing in the hallway of the apartment building. Nothing stopped him. "Holy shit," he breathed. He only ducked back into the apartment to grab a pair of shoes (slightly too big for him, but he could deal with that later) and then he was off, running down the stairs and outside.
When the hot summer air first hit his face, he laughed. And despite the humidity and the incredible distance between Michael's apartment and the home he hadn't seen in nearly two years, Malcolm found he didn't mind the walk. The hours it took to slowly meander back to his apartment were spent reacquainting himself with the outside world. He brushed shoulders with others as they crossed the street. He was jostled by crowds and even once shoved out of the way by someone intent on grabbing a taxi as quickly as possible. And Malcolm loved it all. The stink of humanity was all around him and it was like a fire in his belly.
When he reached his own apartment, it was early evening. He passed through the front doors, his fingers combing through his hair to shove it back. He hoped that covered most of the bald spots. And then he smiled widely at the doorman, whom he was gratified he still recognised. Thank goodness. "Fred! It's been ages, how have you been!"
"Mr Reinault, sir," Fred bowed his head a little. "It's so good to see you home. You've been away awhile."
"Attending to business in Arizona," Malcolm nodded. "I'm having my things sent to me, but bugger it all, I packed my keys with my things. You don't mind, do you?" And thank everything, that Fred didn't. Fred knew that Malcolm owned the penthouse apartment, that he belonged here in this very expensive building, and that the man tipped well. Which Malcolm did as soon as he was let into his home, because he knew precisely where some cash was. And he shoved it all into Fred's hands.
He was home. Home. And dear god, he was going to order food, a sex worker, and then he wasn't going to leave this beautiful place full of his beautiful things for as long as he could manage it.