Archive of Our Own

There is a staleness in the Upper Ward that reeks of metal and artifice. 

It is fleece in winter and fire in the hearth. To the initiated, it is the scent of home, security, and companionship. Sturdy pillars and delicately carved ceilings shelter all between and beneath them. The season of sharp wind, crisp leaves, fleeting sunlight, and scents of brisk alder wood descends upon Yharnam. In the bleakness of night persists a warmth that cradles The Vicar in his study. He works despite the weight upon his mind and body, one hand propping his head up ever diligently, the other tracing lines of ancient whispers. In front of him: some blur of documents, their words muddled into meaningless ink under the pestle of exhaustion. To read was one thing, to remember was another entirely. Neither strikes his fancy. 

Exhaustion embraces him for a moment. His eyes close, heavy and pulled by the nights before, and the glow of the candles at his side beckons him to total blissful unconsciousness. The sweetness does not last, for nothing ever lasts here. Not civilizations, not medicines, not even prayers. 

A fist knocks upon the other side of his door. Feeble- but persistent. Hurried in the way that he is in his own nightmares, brought to his knees before the gates of the cathedral and begging them to open. But they do not, and he is caught and torn by whichever foe takes residence in the recesses of his memory. He hears no hounds nor hunters on the other side. There is no smell of ash, only the vibrant sting of arsenic. 

Groaning, he rises from his seat and greets the polished wood that guards his solitude. The knocking does not stop, not for a second, and Laurence finds his patience is slowly being tapped away- the noise of a chisel against the marble of his composure. He carefully allows a sliver of evening’s glow to draw a line upon his face.  

The sight is a cold one. Sullen, sunken eyes that are inlaid upon a bed of sleepless shadows. Ill-kept teeth reveal themselves in a faltering smile, dry lips curling at the edges. Micolash’s gaunt and sickly complexion seems at once nearly enough to extinguish every candle in the entire cathedral with its wintry, grey tone. There is the slightest twitch in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” Laurence asks, though he has no interest in helping at this hour. Each letter betrays its own sound, wanting desperately to curl into something else. A new arrangement, one that sang a tune of “ What is it this time, Micolash? ” instead of the polite fare Laurence first offered. There is silence.

Micolash inhales sharply, and Laurence no longer feigns his curiosity. The wiry dark hair that falls over Micolash’s face like the algae he so adores now fails to hide the hint of urgency in his eyes. Flitting: here, there, this way and that. Even when towering over the Vicar, his ill composure spares him very little in the way of intimidation. 

“Yes, actually.” he pauses to breathe and it does not go down smoothly. Too quiet. 

“I fear there’s been, ah, a bit of an-“ 

He winces, and at once Laurence thinks to observe anything besides his face. His eyes trail down, where a trembling hand has been pressed against the left side of Micolash’s waist. Wordlessly, he reveals the fresh crimson that paints his palm. It is too bright for these walls: wine drops in clear waters. 

“-An accident in the laboratory.” He ends, smiling nervously.

 Laurence says nothing, for even the slightest response risks shattering what little strength Micolash has left in him. This is wrong. It is all wrong. A verbal spat, or the reflexive urge to dismiss something ridiculous, remains coiled up upon his tongue, awaiting some mild response- utterly ill-fitted to the scene before him. Every part of him had prepared for something superfluous,  something inconsequential. He waits, still waiting for it to come, for the reveal: of course, there was always an opportunity for another exchange of disagreements.

Yet there is crimson on Micolash’s hand.

The fabric of the headmaster’s robe is shredded and torn into jagged obsidian teeth, gnawing at his pale skin, sticking and brushing against the leathery flesh. Laurence remains wide-eyed for a moment too long. Against his initial judgement, he finds himself pushing the door open. How many times has he held it open, how many more will he betray himself?  

As Micolash staggers his way inside, Laurence thinks to glance at where he stood before. Splatters of blood decorate the area as a trail of crumbs, leading back out and around the hall. The drops tell of a distance greater than anything he could have expected. The thought makes him wince, but the smell puts him at ease. Neither reaction weighs well upon his moral scale.

A clatter turns his head back into his office. Micolash leans against Laurence’s desk, one pitiful arm keeping him upright as he gasps for air- the inkwell has been knocked over. Laurence takes in the sight. The fatigue in his mind scarcely clears before his better consciousness returns, and with it, the full force of emotion that had been due at the door. He guides Micolash into his chair whilst a slight panic twists and bunches the muscles in his face. How he hates this feeling.

“How did this happen?” he asks, his delicate hands peeling back the blood-encrusted fabric that clung to the wound. Micolash makes an odd noise, and Laurence cannot tell if it is of pain or the restraint of it. He flinches unexpectedly- the twitch nearly forcing his thumb against the cut’s centre. With the cover of the cloak gone, three other wounds that weave into the middle one are revealed. One slash, a three-pointed instrument. Beast's work. 

“It pains me to admit it, but there seems to be some truth in your earlier warning. '' Micolash begins, his voice more ragged than before. Laurence can only silently scream for him to get on with it.

“The live test subjects, that is. They’re- they’re rather volatile when left unattended. I hadn’t expected one to reach through the cage, hadn’t expected I was close enough.”

At once the image is in crystal clear focus. Laurence stands before it: the rattling of metal, the sharp cry of alarm, one rotted arm with fur prickling as a thousand needles outstretched between rusted bars. Nails that swell within their slots swipe at whatever they can find purchase on. The tear of fabric is a crescendo, the digging of claws into fragile skin a squelching accent, a cry of iron against stone as the cage shifts from the force. It is an explosion of sound in an otherwise deathly silence, a finch bursting from the underbrush to escape. Papers, like feathers, fall to the floor.  

There is but one question on the Vicar’s mind, but he does not ask it.

“ Why did you come here, of all places? Why to me, and not the doctor you so revere? I can not fix this. ” 

Micolash does not hear him, for there is nothing to hear, yet he answers anyway:

“Everyone is asleep at this hour. I reasoned that, if anyone were to be the exception, it would be you.” He sheepishly explains. Stubbornly, there is a sharp hint of cunning in the twists of his syllables, a near-dishonesty that Laurence is all too familiar with. Regardless of the reason’s authenticity, it is reason enough. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Laurence says, though he is not certain he means it. 

He retrieves a pail of cold water that sat dormant by the washbasin, the once clear liquid quickly discolouring by virtue of one or two impatient droplets of blood which trickle down from the edge of the seat. Micolash, familiar with the awaiting process, frees himself from his robe entirely and lifts the vest to where the injury is in full view. Nestled beneath protruding ribs is a mockingly thin sheet of skin, stretched out to protect soft organs. Laurence studies his newfound patient and pries into the folds of his face for the indications of his thoughts, but he finds nothing outside of a bone-chilling calmness. 

For a being so frail, there is too much life in him that is eager to escape. Laurence readies an old cloth to clean the wound.

He hears Micolash gritting his teeth, his usual theatrical demeanour nowhere to be found. Pain removes all intricacies of mannerism, peeling back every layer of one's fortifications to reveal a single base human instinct- the desire to survive. While having no fondness for the work of a doctor, it entertains the Vicar nonetheless. 

Crimson sap flows from the torn bark of his skin, flashing black and gold, seeping towards the ground and forming rivers in the ridge of his hip. There is a temptation in this forbidden ichor- and to reject the sweetened call proves a weightier challenge than imagined. If only he could seal the punctures with his own teeth, canines that outgrew their sockets piercing as surgical needles with silk-thin threads, the mark of his work would last eternally in the form of a scar. But he does not, he dares not dream of it, allowing the greedy cloth to steal it away in his stead. 

Ruptured veins cry out until they drown in their own bloody tears, and no amount of the colourless cotton is able to dry it all. Stubborn is an ill body: intent to betray its master at every opportunity. The Vicar tastes iron upon the roof of his mouth. It darkens his countenance much in the way that an ebony hilt reflects upon its steel. 

Micolash, pale as he is, forfeits more of the colour that runs through him in each minute that passes him by. Though the smell of it all has long since seeped into the coils of nerves beneath his skin, poisoning the lungs, there is no stiffness present in his expression. Out of some cruel curiosity, Laurence finds he is tending the wound with a heavier hand. He presses the cloth sharply into the folds and tears of weary flesh whilst his own eyes, expectant and focused, do not shy away from his patient’s. The wail that escapes Micolash as he jerks forward in his seat has no place in the ruined streets outside. 

Laurence has heard the former, memorised the despairing music: it persists in the silence within his bed-chamber and the grooves of his ears before sleep takes him. It is the sound of gravel ground to sand, of man feasting upon himself, of cries to the gods with prayers for forgiveness rather than mercy. 

Micolash is a different instrument. There is a brand new arrangement to these notes, and though the resemblance to the suffering that parades through the city alleys fills him with a desire to wince as the headmaster does, there is a freshness in it- a lullaby he wishes to hold in his hands. The cricket song at his shoulder sings for more.

“Pardon,” he whispers. A salve so minuscule it nearly brings him to hysterics. 

Micolash settles in his seat, cautious as a winter hare. The acknowledgement in his eyes does not bother Laurence- they both understand that temptation will always prevail. The patient restrained upon the autopsy table in leather fetters will never understand why the surgeon delights so, why the tools do not rust, and why the onlookers never share in their nausea at the hands of razors and chemicals. Though accepting the role is biting and sharp, Micolash’s own hands have grown weary, and he no longer desires to hold any tools. 

His eyelids flutter from the pain. Laurence entertains the notion that it is only to keep him awake, only out of the goodness of his heart, but the exhilaration that courses through him as he twists the cloth into the wound further tells of a different tale entirely. 

The headmaster refuses him the satisfaction of hearing him cry out again, crooked teeth clamping down against one another so as to hold in the compulsion. A whimper escapes him, staggering from the mismatched gaps, and Laurence drinks up every bit of the sound. It is arsenic in his ears yet nectar to his mind. 

“Mind the-“ 

Micolash gasps again before he can complete his sentence, his back slamming against the chair’s own as his nerves alight. Laurence holds the cotton matchstick with near glee, but the infliction sickens him. The flame is beautiful, it beckons him for more, and even at his age, there is a child within his conscience that wishes to question if touching it would truly burn. His fingers caress the warm ridges and folds of tissue beneath Micolash’s skin through the cloth, blind to his discomfort as he reads the braille. It squelches, resetting any progress he had made with more blood, but that is of little concern to him now. 

Something behind his knuckles yearns to forgo the cloth entirely, to take pride in how the headmaster writhes at his slightest twitch. Organs are hiding beneath the muscle stretched taut between his bones and it asks to see them. It asks him to reach behind it all, to pry the curtain of sinew apart and reach up, up, up until he can pluck his heart out as easily as an apple from a tree. 

Laurence pushes the thing to the space between his neck and his spine. The cover of the cloth is the dignity he leaves himself, for as long as he has it, he is protected. A curtain between his newfound morbid curiosity and the responsibility he holds himself to. Though his body wishes to gouge at itself until there is nothing left as a punishment for his indulgence- the satisfaction he gathers from Micolash’s discomfort is louder than the sound of judgement.

There is a brush of bony fingers against his own, but it does not stop him. Not yet. He wishes to see more, to hear more- he does not question why this wish has grown to overpower everything else. Micolash, in some feeble grasp at relief, tries to push the cloth away from him. Laurence brings it closer. It is not a warning, but Micolash bares his teeth in response all the same. Regret drips into the spaces between them. 

“Please, sit still. Your wound is far from clean.” Laurence speaks as though neither is fully aware of his intentions, as though Micolash has done him a great disservice by providing him with this thrill. His voice is sweet and sorrowful, with a bit of a scolding edge to it: the voice he uses when he ushers the schoolchildren back into their homes before sending his hunters out like hounds. 

The headmaster flinches, he has grown wise to Laurence’s pattern in a matter of minutes. His muscles tense, relax, tense, relax: a simple dance as he predicts when Laurence will yearn for that sound again. 

“You’re enjoying this.” The accusation is clear and bold, though no anger can be found in Micolash’s tone. 

Laurence pulls his hand away. The cloth has burned him, and the feeding of his urges has left him with nothing but charcoal for fingers. The false calm that masked him has crumbled into dust, aside from the few traces of guilt he can still feel. The holes that have replaced where his remorse would be frighten him. To enjoy it would not concern him nearly as much as the fact that he does not regret it.  

“If you’d rather someone else tends to you, you’re free to stand and find them.” He replies. 

“You and I both know I can’t stand.” Micolash sighs, exhausted. “Not like this.”

Laurence permits a smile to bless his features. He wrings the blood-soaked cloth in the pail, squeezing out every bit of red with deceivingly dainty hands. If only the pail were a vial, the water turned to glass, he could keep the spoils of his care for as long as he desired. The river of blood has dried up at the source, though the shining beads of it that remain encrusted in the cut remind him that his work is far from over. 

“The bleeding will not stop. Suppose we’ll have to cauterise?” Laurence offers. Micolash stares at him in disbelief, though even he knows it would be necessary. There is no trace of humour to be gathered from the Vicar’s steely focus.

“You think I’d trust your hand with the cautery? After all that? You’ll sear your initials into me before closing the wound even crosses your mind.” He shakes his head, and he too, withholds all pleasantries. 

Poor decisions are not foreign to him, and neither is the shame that acts jointly with the bitterness of facing consequences. It is a foul feeling that squirms within him and slithers out into his countenance and his quiet gasps. Remorse takes on form inside his mind, sings its anthem, and spills out each thought so mild in order yet so loud in practice: “ To come here, it was a mistake.” 

A smile flashes upon the Vicar’s face for but an instant, and Micolash wonders if the wrath of the gods can grant one the ability to read minds. 

Laurence lets the cloth sink into the pail. The bloodied water festers into each thread, but he will not use it again. He tilts his head to the side, and Micolash recognizes the gesture to be his own, now a delicate mockery of his insatiable curiosity. 

“You’ve nothing to fear. I’ll be very careful. Unless, of course, you’d wish to do it yourself?” 

Micolash is silent. He purses his cracked lips with great reluctance- his vision is blurring, and to fall unconscious in Laurence’s presence when he is afflicted with such wild urges appears unwise upon consideration. Trusting the hand attuned to the choir bell proves, against all odds, easier than trusting the hand attuned to the scalpel.

“There’s no need to look so grim. You act as though I’m going to snap your neck the moment you turn your back to me,” Laurence coos, standing to retrieve the pristine case full of medical equipment. He is acquainted with only one side of its contents, often retrieving spare needles and thread in the event of insufficient vials. He has only touched the cautery twice, yet he picks it up with a confidence that tells of years of experience. “I gain no advantage from hurting you.”

“You lie,” Micolash breathes. “Never in my years of knowing you have you committed to any task without gaining from it” 

Laurence laughs, and the cadence of it is not entirely his. The glow from the candle flame he places the cautery against lights his face in gold and shadow, and the headmaster finds he cannot look away. There is something there, something different in the way his features are lit. 

There are more of them. 

A flash of ivory in his gums, a speck of black in his canthi. The headmaster squints, his memory sputtering as he follows the ridges of Laurence’s face. Light is sharper upon it. Has it always been? How many times has he seen this face, seen it sneer or shift in a silent language only he could decipher? The letters are foreign now.

Of course. The smell of blood, his blood- he cannot sense how it suffocates the air or the sweetness of it. He is only able to parse the metallic notes of chemicals and iron, scent-blind to all else, to the strength of it. How Laurence has withstood the siren’s song, now surely a symphony, he cannot be certain. He wonders if the Vicar has yet grown deaf to his voice.

As though the weight of Micolash’s eyes has grown heavy, Laurence turns back to face him. A grin writhes underneath his serene expression, fighting to escape, desperate to leap out and reveal what he is now certain to be too many teeth. It rattles and buzzes in protest of being trapped: a wasp in glass. The black in his pupils shiver.

 Like instinct, Micolash is overwhelmed with a desire to bolt. Each hair stands on end and his breath never quite reaches his throat, afraid to move past his lungs. His thoughts do not scream. They whisper, cautious of setting off the hunger he knows has made a home in Laurence’s stomach. 

“ Wait.”

The command never escapes his mind. Laurence advances, his hands on either side of the chair, trapping him. The realisation on Micolash’s face does not deter him as he leans forward. A grin, or the mockery of one, blooms much too gracefully to belong. Too wide to be his. Upon its arrival, every single tooth is in perfect view.

 He watches as Micolash’s eyes dart from one to the next, counting them, counting the seconds before the desire within him jumps out to feast. They jut out like broken porcelain between gums too tender, too soft for such violent implements. There is something alien in the way he panics that Laurence yearns to immortalise the way a trapper keeps skins. Micolash’s stifled breathing tickles Laurence’s throat, almost begging him to steal it, and there is no cloth to save him now. 

“You’ve gone white in the face. Does my condition frighten you?” Laurence tempts. The answer precedes the question, yet something in him yearns to hear it out loud. In the back of his mind, he begs for a laugh. He hopes for a dismissal, a reassurance that he has not asked such a question with that ill smile, that Micolash is not looking at him this way, and that the air is not sugar-soaked. In the pit of his stomach, he awaits the affirmation he knows he will receive, be it in the refusal of words or the resigned “ yes” he can already envision. His throat is so close. So close. 

“The- the cautery. You’ve left it too long.” 

Laurence’s disappointment in this neutrality is great, his relief even greater. The two sensations mix and swirl until he is entirely speechless. Micolash’s shoulders fall with something he cannot identify, his face so devoid of anything but trepidation that it appears featureless. He had never been easy to cow, too cunning for his own good, too nimble. Now, Laurence is only astonished. 

He pulls himself away, the last of his control sinking back in, leading him to retrieve the now smouldering tool to which Micolash owes his fortune. Though he knows this sobriety will not last, he clings to it. It almost makes the Vicar laugh: how merciful is the thing that would soon make him scream again. He handles it carefully, a poor veil over the mess of his prior wildness, a silent apology to no one in particular. Micolash does not let a single movement out of his sight.

“How many vials have you taken since I’ve seen you last? Five? Ten?” Micolash interrogates him as though he is not the one chair-bound, the thirst for answers greater than the fear of consequence. There is the faintest quiver in his fingertips. 

The crook of Laurence’s arm aches, but he does not let it answer.  “That is not your concern.” 

“I’ve counted six more teeth, and your eyes have gone red. I’m no fool.” 

In an instant, Laurence is at his side. He presses- nearly stabs- the cautery against his flank, and Micolash howls from the agony. There is a second screaming sound that duets him, a high-pitched hiss as blood turns to steam. The Vicar’s eyes twitch but his hand does not, it is steady, almost angry. Healing and hurting. The smell of burning meat makes his stomach churn, and he cannot be sure if it is hunger or disgust. It is too rich to belong to Micolash’s starved frame.

To his shock, there are tears in the headmaster’s eyes. They do not fall. Micolash would never give him the pleasure of seeing him weep unless it was in triumph, and even then, he would make him chase. But there is water all the same, and the wisp of smoke that stretches towards the ceiling does little to hide it. 

Laurence releases him, breathless. “You’ve miscounted. The blood loss has made you delirious. No, maybe you’ve always been. But you’re mistaken. Count all the teeth you wish, I am no closer to beasthood than you are to madness.” 

Micolash groans, his hands instinctively digging into his side, preferring to tear the wound open again than to allow the searing pain to stay. Laurence watches in complete stillness as though he is waiting for him to fix his ribbon, rather than blankly staring as he convulses from the agony. He awaits a remark, a witty retort: “ Then we are both doomed, you more than I.” 

The retort never comes. Micolash is still, save for his trembling limbs, as he slumps forward in the aftermath. Had the occasional squeak of pain not slithered out between his heavy breaths, Laurence would have thought him unconscious. The last glimmer of defiance fades out of him, a dying flame, and all that remains is the ashen wick of his gaunt form. 

Laurence kneels beside him, and the newfound anger is gone. Like everything in his self-woven kingdom, it vanishes too quickly. He guides Micolash to lean back in the armchair as he had before, his touch is more tender than it ever has been. The dent his compulsion has gouged into his side stares back at him, deep and bloody. Laurence guiltily breathes it all in, for there is still work to be done, and the scent is fresh. 

“Brace yourself” he warns, a mercy bestowed far too late. 

The hiss of the cautery is shy now, a whispering thing, a brother to the dying sigh of cigarettes. First, he seals the puncture, next the open veins, professing to himself that the noise is loud enough to drown out Micolash’s groaning. Even if he has had his fill of this torment, extracted whatever pleasure was to be found in it that he would never find in anyone else, the blood that courses through him is still not satisfied. It is never satisfied. 

The wound is dry of all bleeding. With it clean, Laurence finds the air has revealed its true nature: reeking of forgotten metal. He brings a hand up to his mouth and doubles over, the cautery clattering to the floor, yet nothing comes out. There is a depth behind the rot that he clings to. An aftertaste he cannot burn away. He chokes it down and brings himself to face the marks he has made. The tear is wider now, a product of Micolash’s feverous clawing, and he finds he is right back where he began. The desire to close it is strong, but with what thread? The spool in the bottom drawer of the medical case, or the spool that lingers on his tongue? 

The needle proves greater than his appetite. His stitches are wide, mismatched, ugly pockmarks on a canvas he does not deserve. Still, Micolash’s taut skin seals up with every dip of the Vicar’s hand, and the row is tied off. Laurence severs the briny thread with a bite. Salt and the smell of sickness fill his nose. There is a reprieve in it, and though the craftsmanship is poor, he is satisfied. 

Micolash is silent as Laurence bandages him, wrapping a length of gauze too thin for the task until the better half of his torso is off-white. His eyes are glazed with frost, and Laurence can not be certain he is awake. It is wrong to see him so limp. A gloved hand nearly strokes his face and tilts it down so that he may regain some small shred of composure, though he refrains. A polite caress could all too quickly become a cruel hold, nails that burrow into his neck and tear out his eyes. He has damaged him enough. 

Instead, he buttons the headmaster’s torn shirt and lowers the tail of his vest. His handiwork is hidden too easily for his liking- aside from the dried blood that cakes the rip in his cloak, there is little indication the wound ever existed. Still, all the layers of cloth in the world could not hide the mark he knows he has made, not upon his flesh, but his already faltering trust. If only minds were sewn as easily as skin, he would have tapestries upon tapestries of words unsaid. The needle would have fit his hand then. 

To his surprise, Micolash strains to stand the minute that he is as he had first entered. The attempt amounts to nothing, for even pushing against the armrests grazes his wound and makes him hiss into the air. Laurence finds he is coaxing Micolash to stillness, no matter the unease it brought him prior. 

“Rest, rest. You’ll tear yourself open if you stand.” He urges. Contempt flashes in the headmaster’s dull eyes. 

“Rather than being torn open by you?” 

Laurence moves back, allowing some meaningless space between them. A small condolence. The ache in his arm is unbearable now, and he scratches at it to relieve the sensation. He cannot face the headmaster as he does this, choosing to allow the moonlit window to steal his gaze instead. 

“I can offer you some ether if you’d like?” 

“No,” he cannot tell if Micolash laughs or seethes. “No. I’d rather be conscious enough to writhe than asleep and at your mercy.” 

Icy blue and withered brown stare into him, piercing him. There is something challenging in Micolash’s gaze. Hostile. Laurence recognizes it to be the wariness and bitter resentment that the forest animals gave when they were caught in their traps, when prying a paw or hoof free from the clamped wire meant nothing. Animals were not made in that way, were not made to forgive. Nature had no time for forgiveness. 

Laurence finds his hand twitching once more. How he yearns to reach in, to hold his acolyte’s face and study each time-tested fold in his skin: a map of his sleepless nights. If only he could rob him of this expression.

The thought is blinding in its clarity: his thumbs tracing at the crow’s feet by his sunken eyes, sliding closer, closer, enough to dig. Feeble hands wrap around his wrists and he relishes in how easily he overpowers them. He hears the wet sound of the socket giving way as he reaches behind the precious pearls, nails scratching until the veins sever. Micolash weeps bloody tears just as he had months ago, before the holy chalices began to rust, before the church had grown too big for its inhabitants, but Laurence pays it no mind. For in his hands, there is a priceless treasure speckled in red, and Micolash can no longer look upon him with such a cold gaze. It belongs to him now, it is his to keep, and the selfishness of it all is too distant an afterthought. 

A sigh snaps the morbid fantasy away. Micolash observes his repaired side, eyes un-gouged, their cruelty still lurking behind thin lids. 

“You can lie to those poor fools outside. They won’t mind. Worshippers of the mundane, you could say. All they’re after is a decent meal waiting at the table and the promise that the gods will not turn on them. As long as they hear such drivel, they’ll be just merry.”

He traces the outline of the thread through the bandage, grimacing as he notes the unevenness. 

“Still, you lie to me. I expect no meal, no promise, still, you deem me one of the common folk and banish me to some cold wing of your grand institution. These things are not in your control. You cannot admit that?” 

“You mistake treatment for banishment. You’re far more unwell than I.”

Micolash laughs, curt and impolitely. 

“I’m not cowering with my tail between my legs about it. You, my friend, are one vial off from ripping my throat out, yet you insist upon clamouring over your silly little pedestal.”

Laurence despises that the remark nearly causes him to prove Micolash right. The headmaster grins, the frustration telegraphed too quickly. Laurence wishes to squeeze it out of him. To wrap one claw around his starved being and constrict until there is nothing left. The hunger inside lunges out to tear him to shreds, but Laurence leashes it with a steep frown. 

Micolash’s gaze softens under the candlelight, nearly pitying, even as his side throbs from the poor stitching. He rummages around in the folds of his cloak with an unexpected urgency. The smile on his face is bittersweet

“It was cruel of me to come here and hope you’d tend to me. I hadn’t expected the blood to progress so quickly.” 

The cigarette is lit aflame with hands that move like clockwork. His words lose their sandpapered elegance when it is clamped between his teeth. With it, the anxiety that squirms beneath Micolash’s skin finally slows. A grey exhale, and it ceases. The air tastes different now. 

“There is hope for stopping it. The transformation, I mean. I’ve had success with-“

“No.” Laurence interrupts. The frustration in his voice is his and his alone. “You cannot. You’ve had no success in anything other than disturbing your patients and driving your assistants to the brink. I see how your research drains you of your reason, and I desire no part in it.” 

Micolash pauses, but there is a knowing disappointment in the silence. Ash scatters all over the Vicar’s desk, and he fears it will be lit aflame. Micolash chuckles something dry.

“I never took you for a pessimist,” He muses.

“I’m no pessimist. To a mad contrarian, rationale must look identical to resignation.”

“Mm. Maybe it does. Maybe you’ve been right about everything all along. Maybe I’ve always been the fool. That is what would please your ears, isn’t it? That the world will always bend to your whims?”

Laurence holds his tongue in silent condemnation. The tassel running down his back feels an anchor now, dragging, sinking. There is too much weight in it for the shoulders it hangs from. He fiddles with the lace of his sleeve, as though the answers to all his questions are woven behind it. A readjusted cuff, an attempt at a wordless response. 

“ No” he yearns to say. “ No, I’ve no care about the world. If only you were the fool, it would be easier, then. I would accept it, then. The cure in exchange for your corpse.” 

He says nothing, allowing Micolash to accept his silence as a forfeit. There is no competition nor race for victory, and still, he hopes the medal is stolen from him. The impression of having won some vague battle of no distinct value would ideally rob Micolash of his caution, of the discerning glare he orders himself to redirect elsewhere. It would put him at ease. It would simplify. 

Instead, there is the slightest tilt of the headmaster’s features. A minuscule lift to his brow bone, a grave angle to his lips. The face he makes when he scours for a source or a quote in pages that rot from their bindings, only to be disappointed by the contents. 

Laurence attempts to turn away, but it is too late. The message, unwilling and intangible, has been transmitted faster than his hands can slam the covers shut. 

“Or, perhaps, you’d wish to hear something else?” Micolash asks. Laurence hates how the answers are no longer his to give, how they stand alone and clear against the backdrop of his faltering mind. He shifts in his seat out of instinct, and it speaks. 

“ I would.” says the clenching of his teeth.

“If I’m given time, a subject or two, I’m certain there would be promising results.”

“ Time cannot be afforded.” whispers the crease between his brow.

“It would not take long. A month, or so? The rest of the Church would not have to know.”

“ And if it drives you mad?” asks a heartbeat glance.

Charred tobacco falls over Micolash’s lap with the taps of his cigarette. Now it is he who is at risk of lighting aflame, and Laurence notes his palms are wet with perspiration against his gloves. Micolash looks far too frail sitting there, thin as tinder, half-torn and half-shrivelled. The embers die as quickly as they burn, and persistently, Laurence fears an ignition far more potent than the smoke that wafts toward the stars. 

“Laurence,” Micolash ensures his attention, eschewing the title he so often carried as a rosary. “You know as well as I do that my method holds the greatest potential for a cure to your god-graced misfortune. To not pursue insight any further- it would be a dreadful waste, would it not?” 

Like a merchant, the statement is delivered with the clear intent of persuasion, each inflection on every other letter an offering of its own. There is no demand, only enticement, and the Vicar finds that by some divine intervention, he is nearly swayed. To be rid of this hunger, this malignant craving that wraps each fibre of his being around wolven claws, it is tantalising to him. 

Unkindly, his mind is clear enough to foretell haunting visions. Cutlery powdered with a layer of dust, plates left untouched, food made to rot in the passion of Micolash’s work. Work that seeks to drain his mortality with each passing day. The shaking, the shivering, the constant nail-biting and nape-scratching. Not quite insomnia, but something deeper: a viral wakefulness, a vigilance so contagious it sets about infecting every cell. Exhaustion, ever the competent host, welcomes paranoia with open arms. Paranoia guides mania by the hand, mania to hysteria, hysteria to insanity. Blinding insanity. 

All while he would stand by and watch. 

It plays out as a tragedy to the Vicar, no matter how often he wishes it were a play of some other ilk: a drama, a comedy, perhaps a farce. Yet it is always a tragedy, for he knows he can not bring himself to put the poor sick thing down. Should Micolash lose his wits, sink into the upside-down of stars he cannot see and a cosmology he cannot hear, he could not bring himself to cut the tether. 

Laurence raises a hand, the simple gesture cutting away any opportunity for Micolash to continue. 

“Currently, understanding the blood is our priority. Your research and involvement is imperative. I’ve granted you freedom with your experimentation thus far, but- I can not allow you to be distracted. Not when the situation is so dire. It grieves me to hear these wayward fancies plague you still” 

It is a practised, measured, direct response. A professional answer, in both metre and make. Micolash’s irritated expression shows his preference for something harsher; a rude, unkempt, amateur response. He would not mind if the words spat in his face, given they were honest. 

“I wasn’t aware my freedom was under your jurisdiction. I ought to be offended.” He mutters, his voice low and dragging along the seafloor. 

Laurence’s countenance is grim and cut with shadows. He approaches once more, and for a moment, there is the mutual fear that the loathsome blood coursing through his veins will show itself again. Micolash bristles in his inescapable seat, not a wisp of smoke leaving him, a quiet reluctance about him as Laurence’s shadow grows. 

The Vicar offers a hand. Not a fist, nor a claw, but a simple invitation. Micolash finds it takes every ounce of his restraint not to swat it aside regardless. Though the gesture is warm, there is only an icy gale that rivals those of Cainhurst in the way he speaks. 

“The moon is high, and the night grows weary. I’m certain we’re both exhausted. Perhaps it would be wise of you to leave and get some much-needed rest. You aren’t thinking clearly- or speaking clearly, for that matter.” 

Micolash laughs, but there is no joy in it. 

“Sending me away again? You’ve gotten predictable.” There is sorrow in how he takes in another lungful of smoke, even as the cigarette nears its end. 

Laurence seizes the vice from him, extinguishing it in dangerous proximity to the back of Micolash’s hand, just behind the ridge of his thumb- a warning. While the headmaster expects him to toss the dead thing aside, Laurence chooses to suffocate it in the inner folds of his garb where the clinking of glass implies more vials than what Micolash would have liked. A quaint glass chorus of impending ills. 

With a sigh much too genuine, Micolash allows himself to be helped to his feet. His face scrunches in pain as his bones seem to gnash against each other, compressing the wound between them before pulling it fiercely apart. The fragility frustrates him more than he cares to show. He has been robbed of his graceful stride, now stumbling awkwardly as he did in youth whilst Laurence patiently supports his lacking weight. 

The Vicar stiffens as he feels a brush of warmth, a fleeting little exhale on his neck. Micolash is dangerously close to his shoulder, and what he had thought to be a wheeze of discomfort quickly twisted into a wily whisper at his ear. 

“ At least tell me how much time you have left. Then, I’ll leave. ” 

The request is uttered as a conspiracy. A secret, perhaps,  in some puerile attempt at offering an incentive. If reputation were the issue, an answer said in hushed breaths would provide respite. Laurence cannot tell if it is a plea or a proposal. Though his tongue is reluctant, the answer still forms.

“I-” he pauses, breathing. “I can’t say.” 

Micolash huffs, toeing the line between disappointment and practised acceptance. This answer had been assured from the beginning. Wordlessly, he gives Laurence a gentle pat on his shoulder before limping off towards the door, the dark cloak draped around his arm. The floor creaks in protest, as though beckoning him to stay, but neither man allows the sound to sway him. 

As quickly as he appears, he is gone. Laurence watches the doorway. Some odd handful of seconds pass him by for reasons unknown. It is only when the building falls into the usual deathly silence that he permits himself to move again, to set about cleaning the drops of blood and scattered ash that now pollute his office. There are too many remnants and not enough washcloths to rub them all away. 

His arm quivers something fierce. Though his joints work in unison to clear the room of any lingering evidence, he does not reminisce fondly on how he was to clean the classrooms at Byrgenwerth as he expected. No, his mind is restless. Perhaps it is by virtue of the damp cloth in his hand, perhaps it is in how he no longer stands with poise and elegance but is rather brought to his knees, perhaps his unfulfilling dinner is to blame. The source of it yet unknown, Laurence is aware of one thing:

He is unbearably hungry. 

Before him, in thought alone, he recalls the anxious look that Micolash had given him when he had cast his menacing shadow over the man. Had it been anxiety? Or had it been acceptance, a beckoning for him to give in? To abandon the shackles of humanity that trapped him so? Laurence digs his teeth into his tongue, and it stops nothing. There had been a temptation, one so great he could not imagine it to be entirely a product of his own mind. It could not be so, temptation did not hail from nothing. 

Oh, how easy it would have been. He bites harder, and it is not into his tongue anymore. In daydreams, he pierces the thin skin of Micolash’s throat and warm blood greets him, and there is no finer drink in the world, no finer elixir than the one that runs down his chin. It is not enough. He bites again- tears, this time, and the whole of the headmaster’s neck is ripped away. Pomegranate-coloured, rich and sweet, and more tantalising than any offering, any banquet. He swallows it down, savouring every second, eager to devour more so that it may nourish his sense of famine. Bones snap, cartilage cracking beneath tender meat, and the stringy sinew is no match for his teeth. There are too many teeth. He looks down to see the beginnings of ribs, collar bones picked clean, the head held to the neck with one weak stretch of skin. Micolash smiles, content to find himself on a nonexistent silver platter. The smile reaches his eyes and they seem to sing the way they did in the distant past, the encouragement he had told him once: “ Do not regret this. Do not turn away the call of the gods. Nothing divine is without a sacrificial lamb.”

 Laurence hears a thumping echo within him. The heart. He must have it, he must. This is a blessing, a gift, this is what the deepest part of him yearns for. The ribs crack easily, the lungs are pushed aside with even less resistance. Still beating. He still has time. It is impossibly succulent. Something cuts the roof of his mouth as he feasts, the remnant of his molars that spreads into the back of his throat. He can’t breathe. Oh gods, he can’t breathe. 

The Vicar spits out the blood that has filled his mouth, and the illusion is gone. He sputters and gulps for air in an attempt to expel the vile taste, nearly drooling onto the pristine floor. His tongue aches with great pain and he holds his mouth shut, and despite it all, he is relieved. There are no molars in his throat. There is no corpse nor feast before him. There is no cutlery to be ignored. There is only the floor, and the washcloth in his other hand. 

Immediately, he is sick. He grabs the pail too eagerly, narrowly saving himself from another mess, and it is tainted yet redder. To tell himself it is only because he has bitten his tongue is a lie, that much, he knows. He assures himself of it nonetheless. 

The trembling in his arm is painful again, and Laurence resists its demands no longer. He reaches into the folds of his garb until he feels the tell-tale curve of the syringe, retrieving a vial of perfect condition. The needle sinks into his skin through the fabric- he has no time to pull his sleeve back and free himself of his gloves. A movement burned into his mind. One he practises with unmatched swiftness. Pure relief floods every vein and he sighs wistfully. 

Decades ago, it seems, had these vials been made. How simple things had been then, how ancient of a relic it was. A bygone era. There was no hunger save for that of knowledge. Anonymity was the only temptation then, safety had been guaranteed. The second sigh that escapes him is nostalgia-coloured, sepia tones that softly weep into his ears. Micolash could not dissect him with a glance in those years, not yet. What a mystery he had been. They had devoured the truth for so long, and all that had been gained was an ache in the stomach. Now, their gums rotted with the saccharine honey of the forbidden. Laurence looks to the empty vial, his reflection is older than he had expected. Time had been a cruel mistress, still, he chased after her, and not the ambitious promise of a scholar gone mad. 

Metal and artifice cradle him against its grand pillars once more. The vial clatters to the ground, drained dry. It is poison by another name, death by another face, and it is safe.