The doctor’s assurance shouldn’t have been nearly as comforting as it was.

Malachi peered up at him, mouth irritatingly empty once more, and gave a slow blink.

Stay… still. He could do that.

He sucked in a breath as the blade pierced the soft, sensitive skin between his collarbones; exhaled slowly, steadily, as Arthur guided the knife in a downward line. Fuck, it was like he was dissecting him, laid out on a mortuary table.

…Or a cross. That should have been his first thought, considering who he was – but something about Arthur did not lend itself well to the church. He was… too sharp for it, Malachi thought, and not because he was an apparent man of science and medicine.

Devotion, however, looked beautiful on him.

Bruised fingers found their way back into Arthur’s hair, thoroughly mussing it beneath his admiring touch. Malachi held him close, letting his head fall back against the wall again to bare his neck. He kissed the doctor’s temple and, after a few long moments spent distracted by the fiery ache of his bite and the cut he’d made, Malachi slid his arms around his waist to pull him up from his knees and into his lap instead.

Blood still seeped from the line sliced down his chest, bleeding into the front of Arthur’s shirt.

He kept one arm around Arthur’s waist, but the other hand raised to touch his cheek.

Biting light impressions of his teeth at the other’s jaw, he murmured, “just- kiss me, please.”