The priest landed with an irritated groan, head knocking back against the wooden wall.

He didn’t know why he needed the knife that fucking badly anyway. Did he not have any of his own, or did he just want to disarm him too, on top of everything else?

Malachi curled up upper lip in a better display of his bared teeth.

“Fine,” he relented, with no small degree of dissatisfaction… and turned his head to catch Arthur’s thumb between his teeth. Not hard enough to draw blood, even – but pressure enough to remind him he could.

Straining slightly to reach down far enough around Arthur’s body, Malachi lifted the black fabric of his trousers and slipped the knife free from its bindings. It was as clean as could be, despite its age, and sharpened often.

Lips drawn into a pout, Malachi held the hilt of the blade out to Arthur.

“If you’re going to try to kill me with that, I’m going to be very upset.”

Arthur smiled when Malachi bit his thumb, waiting until he had taken the knife to shove it further past the other man’s purses lips.  Teeth scraped against his skin and bone uncomfortably, but it was worth it to feel his tongue again.

“I won’t kill you,” he assured, “what a waste that would be.”

The hilt of the knife was comfortable in the doctors hands, both because the doctor was well experienced with blades and the like, and because it was obvious this knife had been well loved over many years.

A now wet thumb dragged out of Malachi’s mouth, smearing his spit across his own chin as he tilted his head up.

“Stay still now.  I don’t  want any jagged lines.”

Starting at the the dip between Malachi’s collar bones, Arthur dragged the knife perpendicular to the cut already there, not stopping until just above his belly button.  Thin but obvious, a cross cut into Malachi’s front.

“Gorgeous,” he praised, setting the blade aside and kneeling, licking up the incision he had made and past it, kissing and biting Malachi’s beautiful, bruised neck.

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.”

God, Arthur was too old to sit in someone's lap like this.  Spreading his knees on either side of Malachi's hips caused a stretch in his legs he was unaccustomed to, and he knew if he stayed here long he would regret it.

But Malachi's request was so quiet and simple, and he'd even said please, and Arthur had promised indulgence, and this was something he could do.

"Darling," he whispered right before he caught Malachi's lips with his own, and this time, there was nothing else.  Just lips, and kisses soft enough to be considered devout, perhaps even affectionate.  It was a bizarre but welcome change to the status quo for the two so far.

Arthur leaned closer to Malachi, like they could absorb one another with enough pressure.  He didn't know how he'd walk back to his office looking like he did, and he didn't even fucking care.  Let the people stare and gossip about him and what he might be up to.  Let them wonder what he had just gone through and never have the bravery to ask him to his face.

Hands rested at the base of Malachi's neck, rarely still.  They danced over the bruises and stroked his cheek, showing kindness to the priest for what was very likely the first time, and hopefully wouldn't be the last.  Arthur's own hips burned at this point, but he still did not try to move.  This?  This was too good to end so soon.

Darling, he still called him, like it wasn’t by intention to mock him.

More surprising than any cruel-intentioned endearments, though, was the lack of resistance to his request. Malachi leaned into him gladly, the arm around his waist providing what support it could while his hand caressed slowly across his back.

When his fingers dampened, stealing blood that had ran down from his shoulder, they did not press. They did not dig, either, nor even drag over the injured skin beneath his shirt.

Like this – Arthur’s lips so soft against his own, warm bodies pulled so close, touching the doctor with a gentleness oft reserved for delicate, priceless things – he could almost pretend they were doing more than just using each other.

“Arthur, love,” Malachi whispered, finding his soft breaths at the corner of Arthur’s mouth. He kissed him there, then the other side, then centered another kiss to his lips.

It frightened him.

It didn’t feel like enough when he finally pulled back, cheekbones dusted pink in the dim light of the booth. The priest tried to hide the way it flustered him. He nudged at the doctor’s knees in an effort to encourage him to get off.

“I don’t want you to die,” he admitted, hoping to just move past it by moving onto something else, “not from that.”

He touched his wounded shoulder, firmer this time.

“Don’t let it get worse. You don’t- do you want me to…”

It just felt awkward, wanting to help him, so he didn’t say it out loud. Arthur was a doctor anyway, he could do it himself – but he’d claimed that it was worse, and it had torn again so easily, and he wouldn’t be of any use to him dead.

To be touched so delicately was something Arthur was not accustomed to.  He had always believed worship was raw and vulgar and dizzying, but this was none of those things - and it felt better than worship.

Why would God want a religion in his name when he could have this?  Could have just one, Malachi Brennan beside him and be more than satisfied?

Arthur didn't care to know the answer.  This, Malachi, was God's loss, and Arthur would relish in his misfortune.

He didn't even flinch away from that name Malachi so persistently called him, despite Arthur's demand for otherwise.  Any anger he felt evaporated when he was kissed again, and again, and again.

It was - harder than Arthur expected, to allow Malachi to pull away when he finally did.  He was almost offended, but more so at the fact that he had not been the one to pull away first.  Though his body ached from the unusual position he was reluctant to get up, but he wasn't given a choice at Malachi's gentle and insistent touch.

The mention of death caused a lift in the doctor's brows, just slightly.  He flinched under Malachi's hands, curling his lips against the pain.

"Yeah," he answered Malachi's unasked question, "please.  Unless you're queasy, it's not nice to look at."

Not nice was probably an understatement, but Arthur didn't want to overexaggerate what he couldn't even see.  Stitching it had been an adventure and a half that mostly consisted of the man stabbing himself with needles, struggling to even get the damn thing threaded, coughing up blood and cursing Malachi for breaking his fucking glasses.

Arthur's fingers touched the top of the hand on his shoulder, urging it away.  The lack of pressure almost seemed worse, by the grimace on the doctor's face.

"I've got supplies in my office, if you don't mind the walk there."  Did churches carry things like that?  Arthur had no idea.  A better question might have been, did Malachi, but Arthur was not one to assume, not when it came to other's around him being just a little bit competent.

Oh. He just… agreed. So easily, at that.

Malachi swallowed his discomfort and dipped his head once in a nod. It was strange to speak to him almost normally, closer to the way he had before his identity had been found out, but not bad.

Not… terrible, that was. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Arthur would twist his words back into daggers and curse him again with that haunting laugh.

“I’m sure that I’ve seen worse,” was his flat response. He had offered, and he didn’t need Arthur caring about whether or not he was queasy. Malachi’s hand fell away from his shoulder when touched, and the priest moved to grab his cassock off of the floor instead. He grabbed the discarded devil mask too, and pushed it into Arthur’s hand.

As he stood, he pulled the long, black garment back on, and set about the arduous task of buttoning it up. The fabric stuck to the line of blood cut down his chest, scratching at the edges.

“I don’t. We should go before you bleed out in my confessional.”

There were supplies in the presbytery as well, of course. Malachi simply had no desire to parade Arthur through the halls, bleeding, and the idea of Richards, or Higgins, or Tully running into them was even less appealing than the walk.

“You can walk fine, can’t you?”

He'd made it to the church… that had been before they reopened a vicious stab wound, but how much blood did a person really need?

Malachi's comment piqued Arthur's curiosity immediately.  What was worse?  When had he seen it?  Why had he seen it?  Was worse on someone else, or himself?  Malachi didn't get those scars on his body by accident, that much was obvious to the doctor, and he so wanted to know if those flowers were worse or a reaction to it.  But he swallowed all of his questions for another time, perhaps when he was not bleeding out inside a goddamn catholic church.

"Can walk now better than I could when I was born," he replied flippantly, exiting the confessional and tossing the devil mask he'd been tossed somewhere in the rows of pews.  He had no use for it, and he sure as hell wasn't bringing it back to his office when he had Malachi instead.

The bright light outside of the small confines of the confessional really emphasized what a fucking disaster Arthur looked.  Blood down the front of his shirt from Malachi's wound, and more down his back from his own, enough that the hem of his pants were even getting damp now.

At least Malachi could hide beneath a black cassock that nearly reached the floor.  Arthur wanted to roll his eyes.

"Follow me, then.  I'll be sticking to side roads to avoid prying eyes, but if we do run into anyone..." the doctor paused, in thought for a moment.  "Is there someone you hate a lot?  Say we got into a fight, and he looks a hell of a lot worse than me.  Come on."

Well, he supposed neither of them needed that mask. The church certainly didn’t either, but the thought of a parishioner stumbling across it did… amuse him, a bit.

There was little time to think of it regardless, for as soon as he got a proper look at the state of Arthur in the light, Malachi forgot the mask entirely.

He didn’t look like he was doing as well as he so flippantly claimed. Not at all.

The priest steeled himself with a deep breath and followed after him, catching up to walk at his side within moments. Malachi stood as tall and straight as he always did, no trace of pain crossing his pale features, and linked his bruised hands neatly behind his back.

“And if they happen to run into this person I hate?” he inquired with a curious lift of his brow, but a subtle smile betrayed his amusement with the idea. As much as he hated for the doctor to lie to him, he did so appreciate his shared willingness to lie to someone else.

Malachi turned and shouldered open the door, holding it with his back until Arthur could pass through.

Without so much as a shift in tone, as soon as they were outside, he asked, “did you really kill that man in Ravenscar?”

Arthur clicked his teeth at Malachi's question, waving it away with his uninjured arm.  "I'm sure they look like shit anyway, don't worry so much."

Did the cut down Malachi's front not hurt very much, or was the priest just very good at hiding it?  No, it must have hurt, Arthur remembered the man flinching when he licked it.  He could imagine very well that the weight of cloth against it was much worse.

Interesting, then, that Malachi was able to hide it so well.  Very interesting indeed.

The next question was waved away the same way the first had been.  "No, I only wish I had.  Weren't you listening to me in there?  I'm a liar, even in the house of God.  That's the only truth I live by."

Who's idea was it to make the sun so bright?  Arthur was going to be bedridden before dinner with a headache with how much he was squinting.  From the brightness, blindness, pain... hopefully, Malachi would d a half decent job with his shoulder and he'd not need to worry about it again for a bit.

"If that girl isn't your daughter, who's is she?  And, you don't really believe I'd touch her, do you?"