He hated the way it made him feel, standing there half-exposed and newly bleeding while the doctor spoke so distantly. While he hesitated against the hollow weight of his own words. His touch still seared his skin, setting fire to every faded scar, feeding voraciously into the agonizing toil of his wrath.

Arthur’s denial did not soothe it.

What happened to indulge your self in me?

The sound that scraped his throat was annoyed, impatient. What the fuck did it matter if they were in the church? Did he think that after everything he’d done to him, the way he’d fucked with his head, that Malachi could claim to care about the church anymore? That he could continue on the way he had before he’d met him?

Because he couldn’t. It was over. Everything was over. All he needed now was hurt, blood, control, him. And not even Arthur himself could keep him from it.

A pained gasp escaped his lips as Arthur traced the cut with his tongue. Malachi grit his teeth, burying his fingers in the other man’s hair as soon as he was pulled closer. Even so, the priest leaned into the press of his tongue, into the growing sting of pain and welling blood.

“And what- would you have done,” he breathed, “but make them worse?”

Bandage him up nicely and send him on his way? Maybe give him a hug on his way out, or tuck him into bed the way Nettie had?

As if Arthur wouldn’t have laughed in his face for even asking.

Fingers twisted through the strands, Malachi pulled hard on Arthur’s hair to force him to look up.

“Don’t pretend you want to do anything but tear me apart,” he whispered, leaning in close to nip at the soft skin of his ear. He traveled lower, pulling at the other’s hair to bare his healing neck, and let his tongue trace the wound.

“And I won’t ask you for anything else.”