#I haven't looked at thi sin months but OOMF i love it

[the-cookie-of-doom]

“Open your eyes, my dear Alistair. I’ve no desire to lie with a dead man.” Alistair does, revealing twin sapphires glinting against the pallor of his skin and the blood-rust of his hair. Alistair’s eyes land on another glint in the dark; a blade held aloft in Elliot’s hand, a scalpel expertly wielded. 

“What do ye intend to do with that?” he asks, gruff as ever. His tone doesn’t have half the warning he wishes it did, nor does instinctive fear grip his heart the way he believes it should. 

“You wish to understand the inner workings of the human body, do you not? I intend to show you.” 

Before Alistair can ask what the young man means, before he can offer so much as a protest, the blade comes for him. Hooks under the first button of his shirt, the one right at his throat, and flicks deftly through the thread holding it attached. The button flies and lands delicately on the stone floor. 

“I hope ye intend to pay for that.”

“I’ll mend it for you,” Elliot promises, repeating the motion with the next button. 

Alistair begins undoing his shirt from the bottom before Elliot can ruin the entire thing, meeting him halfway. His fingertips tingle where they brush against the cold grip of the scalpel, not warmed in the least by Elliot’s touch. 

“Let’s see you, then.” Elliot sets his scalpel aside at a safe distance—still well within reach—and pushes open Alistair’s shirt, revealing a broad chest dusted with a thatch of auburn curls. “Beautiful. An ideal specimen.” 

“Am I?” 

“Yes.” Demonstrating his point—demonstration is always the key to effective instruction—Elliot runs his hand down the center of Alistair’s chest. He covers his heart with his palm, then traces the arch of his lungs with both hands, his fingers dragging over Alistair’s nipples. Maps out the route to his stomach, his liver, his kidneys, pointing out each as he passes them. “So far as I can tell, you’re in peak physical condition. You’ve the strength and build of a working man, without the unfortunate black lung. I imagine your corpse would fetch a pretty penny with Dr. Clarke.”

“Are you intending to collect, then?” Alistair asks, acutely aware of the murderous tool beside them, whose only purpose is to cut apart bodies, to allow crude surgeons to play with their insides. He pulls his lips back over his teeth when Elliot furrows his brows, confused, or perhaps disappointed that Alistair would ever think such of him. The expression might be called a smile on anyone else. 

“I might, if you keep up that attitude.” Elliot picks up the surgeon’s blade and holds it to Alistair’s throat. The freshly honed edge kisses his skin, sharp enough he doesn’t feel it cut into his flesh. Only the warmth dripping down, down, down to pool in the hollow of his throat. 

Surely now the fear will come, Alistair thinks. Elliot holds his life on the edge of a blade, and there is a cold, calculating look in his eye that says he wouldn’t be afraid to take Alistair’s life for his own. Not for the money Dr. Clarke would offer, no, never that. For the simple fact that he could. Take the hot, liquid proof of the power he holds over life and death itself. Isn’t that the purpose behind any physician’s study; to conquer that untamable force?

And yet, even as his heart beats wildly, in his chest, the rabbiting pulse no doubt visible at his throat, where Elliot’s eyes are so acutely focused that he must be aware, Alistair is calm. 

“Would you let me?” Elliot asks on a whisper, finally tearing his eyes away from that ruby necklace to meet Alistair’s unflinching gaze. There’s something wild in his eyes. Wild and familiar like the God’s Alistair’s family once worshiped, long before saints and angels with their pure white wings and soft-voiced hymns. 

“Yes,” Alistair breathes. There is no other answer he can give. Since the day Elliot forced his way into his life, unafraid, whatever’s left of Alistair’s soul has belonged to him. 

There is nothing I could deny you. 

Elliot shudders, overcome with the weight of Alistair’s trust. Nay, his devotion, because what else is devotion if not complete surrender, body and soul? He braces himself with a hand across Alistair’s body and leans down, captures that pearl of blood on his tongue and traces it to the source. It tastes of copper and salt, of life. 

The warmth of Elliot’s mouth soothes the budding ache of the thin wound. However a new ache arises within him, coalescing between his thighs, and Alistair clutches desperately at Elliot’s arms, growling out, “I want you.” 

“Have me then.” Elliot climbs atop him, the marble table easily withstanding their combined weight. It isn’t nearly so forgiving as Elliot’s alabaster flesh, kept hidden by the stuffy layers of his clothes. 

Alistair accepts his place as a sacrifice upon the stone altar, anointed in his own blood and the holy water from Elliot’s own mouth, the salt of his joyous tears, and makes an offering of himself. Worships his lover with reverent hands, unworthy of such a creature. Somehow they do not stain him with their black, rotting corruption; Elliot is left untainted. A shining pearl amongst sand and bottom-dwelling creatures and filth. 

“Let me see you,” Alistair prays. He knows only the muted warmth of Elliot’s body, and longs for the searing heat of his bare skin