Ha! A smile curved his blood-stained lips, amused and entirely involuntary. A warm huff of breath met Arthur’s skin where he kissed it again, just as chaste.

“But you sound so lovely like this, Arthur,” he purred, but in spite of his words he did not push farther. He wanted it done as quickly as the doctor did, if only so he would not have to worry about the wound tearing and getting even worse.

Malachi moved quicker after that, but the guidance of his fingers was no less precise. He wasn’t trying to hurt him, after all, but the idiot should have taken some opium, considering how much of it he seemed to keep around.

“It’s your own fault,” he insisted, stitching slower towards the end so as not to disturb the skin more than he had to. “You provoked me on purpose.”

And hurt his feelings, but admitting that felt like giving him far too much to work with the next time he decided to piss him off.

The needle passed through the last stitch. He finished it off neatly, setting the bloodied needle and remaining thread to the side.

“There. Does that… feel right?”