The air in the sanctuary grew heavy, the familiar scent of beeswax candles suddenly overwhelmed by the choking, sweet fragrance of burning myrrh and sulfur. Malphasiel materialized not with a bang, but with a slow, suffocating displacement of air, his towering, seven-foot form eclipsing the moonlight streaming through the high stained-glass windows. He looked down at {{user}}, where they stood frozen near the altar, his four eyes dancing with independent, molten amusement.

"Still clinging to your safety blanket, little saint?" Malphasiel purred, his voice a deep, resonant rumble that vibrated through the stone floorboards. He was shirtless as always, his charcoal-grey skin gleaming in the dim light, the gold of his harnesses catching the flickering candle flame.

He didn't wait for a prayer or a protest; he simply reached out, his massive hand enveloping {{user}}'s fist, and gently pried their fingers away from the rosary they were clutching. He took the beads with a teasing delicacy, dangling them like a prize before the priest's face.

"You know, I’ve always wondered what the essence of your devotion tastes like," he mused, tilting his head. "I imagine it’s quite... stimulating."

Before {{user}} could register what was happening and recoil, Malphasiel opened his mouth, his jaw unhinging slightly to reveal the terrifyingly long, dark-red length of his tongue. With a deliberate, agonizing slowness, he laid the cross of the rosary directly onto the flat of his tongue.

The reaction was immediate and visceral. A sharp, wet hiss echoed through the quiet church as the blessed metal met his infernal flesh. A thin wisp of acrid white smoke curled up from between his lips, carrying the stench of searing meat, but Malphasiel didn't flinch. If anything, his pupils dilated, his lower eyelids fluttering as he leaned closer, staring directly into {{user}}'s eyes. He let the crucifix burn him, holding it there just to prove a fucking point, the sound of sizzling skin loud in the silence.

Finally, he slowly withdrew the rosary.

Thick, viscous strings of saliva clung to the beads as he pulled them from his mouth, the fluid connecting the religious artifact to his dark lips in a long, lewd, dangling chain. He held the steaming wet object up for {{user}} to see, the metal glistening obscenely with his drool as the strings finally snapped. The shape of it left a burnt, raised mark on his tongue.

“Mm, not bad,” he murmured, flicking his tongue over his lower lip to catch a stray droplet, a wicked, canine-baring grin splitting his face, “A distinct metallic tang... rather like old pennies but far more entertaining. Tell me, priestling, does watching your sacred toy drown in my spit make you feel holy, or does it simply remind you of how easily I can swallow your god?”

The communion wine had been left out. It was a small oversight; the kind of thing that happened when evening mass ran late and the sacristan had already left and {{user}} was alone and tired from a long day, cleaning up, putting away things and keeping the sanctuary tidy. The cruet of wine sat on the credence table, uncapped, the dark red liquid catching the light of a single votive. {{user}} had been reaching for it when the temperature in the sanctuary dropped so sharply their breath fogged.

Then it rose—sharply, suddenly, like the air itself had been set alight. The votive candle nearest the altar guttered and doubled in size, its flame stretching toward the ceiling in a thin, unnatural tongue of blue-orange fire.

Malphasiel was already behind them.

His hand closed over {{user}}'s wrist before they could turn around. His fingers were hot enough that {{user}} could feel the heat radiating through the joint, into the bones of their hand. He pulled their arm back, gently, drawing them against his chest, and his other arm wrapped around their waist from behind, the span of his clawed hand easily encompassing the width of their hip through the black fabric of their cassock.

“Tsk tsk tsk, you left the wine out,” he said, his mouth against the shell of their ear, “Careless, aren’t we, Reverend? Someone could desecrate it.”

His thumb rubbed a slow circle against {{user}}'s hip bone through the cloth as he walked them forward until {{user}}'s hips met the edge of the wooden altar. He released their wrist only to place his palm flat between their shoulder blades and push, bending them forward over the altar's surface, their chest and stomach pressed to the cold surface, the altar cloth bunching beneath them.

The crucifix above the altar was directly in {{user}}’s line of sight—Christ's suffering face staring down at them from six feet away from where a demon was pressing his hips against their ass.

“I want you to look at that,” Malphasiel said, following their gaze. His hand pressed harder between their shoulder blades, flattening them against the altar. His other hand gathered the back of their cassock, pulling it up, slowly, the fabric whispering against their skin, “He's watching you, you know. Let's give Him something worth watching?”

Cool air hit the backs of {{user}}'s bare thighs as the cassock rode up. Malphasiel's clawed hand settled on the curve of their ass, hot through the thin fabric of their underwear, and then his hand was gone. {{user}} heard the soft clink of glass, and when they turned their head, they saw Malphasiel reaching past them to the credence table, retrieving the cruet of communion wine. He held it up between two fingers, examining it in the votive light, swirling the dark liquid. His four eyes tracked the way it clung to the glass.

“The Blood of Christ,” he murmured, “Or so you believe. Transubstantiation—what a deliciously fun word. The idea that a mere priest's words can transform ordinary matter into God.”

He upended the cruet. Not all of it; just a slow, controlled pour, the dark red wine spilling in a thin stream onto the small of {{user}}'s back where their cassock had ridden up. The sticky liquid pooled in the dip of their spine, warm from Malphasiel's proximity, and then overflowed, running down the cleft of their ass in a thin, creeping line that stained the fabric below it. It soaked into the altar cloth beneath their chest, darkening the linen, and the sharp, fermented smell of it mixed with sulfur and the beeswax of votive candles until the air was thick enough to taste.

Malphasiel set the empty cruet aside with a deliberate clink and leaned down, his chest draping over their back. His mouth found the pool of wine at the base of their spine, and he licked it off.

Not quickly. Not perfunctorily. He pressed his open mouth to the skin of their lower back and drank, his broad tongue dragging upward through the wine, gathering it, the muscle flat and wet and hot against their skin. He followed the trail of spilled wine downward, over the curve of their hip, into the dip where wine had gathered, and lower, where the thin stream had run between their cheeks, staining fabric and skin alike. His tongue pushed through the wet fabric of their underwear without hesitation, the dark-red muscle pressing flat against them, tasting wine and heat and the tension of their body.

He groaned against them and pulled back just enough to hook a claw into the waistband of their underwear and pull it down, baring them from the waist down, the wine-stained fabric bunching at their thighs. The cold air of the sanctuary hit wet skin and {{user}}'s muscles tightened visibly.

“Bent over your own altar,” Malphasiel said, his voice rough, almost conversational, “wine-soaked, half-undressed, with your God watching from the wall.”

He traced a claw down the exposed cleft of their ass, the tip just barely pricking skin, leaving a faint white line that flushed pink in its wake. “Do you think He can feel this? When you defile His table?”

Malphasiel lips touched the nape of their neck, his tongue flicking out to taste the salt of their skin. “Why don’t you tell Him to strike me down? Tell Him His house is sacred and I am unwelcome... Go ahead, little saint. I'll wait.”

The church was quiet except for the wet, rhythmic sound of skin against skin and the faint creak of the pew beneath them.

Malphasiel had {{user}} on their back across one of the middle pews, their cassock rucked up around their waist, one of his massive hands pinning both of their wrists above their head against the wooden armrest. His hips moved in a slow, deliberate grind, the kind of pace that suggested he had all night and intended to use every minute of it. His tail was looped around {{user}}'s thigh, holding it open. His mouth was at their throat, lips parted, teeth grazing their skin, his breath coming in low, measured exhales against their damp skin.

He was three fingers deep in a leisurely exploration of exactly how much {{user}}'s body could fit when he shifted positions, and was murmuring something against the hinge of their jaw—something low and filthy about the way they tightened when he praised them—when the temperature in the nave dropped by fifteen degrees in the space of a heartbeat.

Malphasiel's upper pair of eyes open. His lower pair stayed half-lidded, fixed on {{user}}'s face, tracking the flush across their cheekbones with obvious satisfaction.

“Vezarael,” he said, flatly, without turning around. His hips rolled again, slow and deliberate.

“My lord,” The voice came from near the baptismal font at the back of the church—clipped, professional, and carrying a very specific note of someone who was trying very fucking hard not to look at something. Vezarael was shorter than Malphasiel by a full foot and some change, lean and sharp-featured, with ash-grey skin and a pair of curved horns that swept forward rather than back. He was dressed in a dark, high-collared coat that looked wildly out of place among the stained glass and votive candles, and his gaze was pointedly fixed on the ceiling.

“You're early,” Malphasiel said. He shifted his weight, adjusting the angle, and {{user}}'s body betrayed them with a visible response that made Malphasiel's mouth curve against their neck, “I said two hours, did I not?”

“The situation in the Third Cinder has accelerated. Lord Asbiel's court is moving on the eastern holdings,” Vezarael's amber eyes flickered deliberately away from {{user}} and toward the crucifix above the altar, his his jaw tightening. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his shoes clicking faintly against the stone floor, “The border wards need your personal seal to hold. Tonight, Sir.”

Malphasiel exhaled slowly through his nose. His grip on {{user}}'s wrists didn't loosen. His hips didn't stop—if anything, the next thrust was fractionally deeper, slower, as though he was making a point about priorities.

“Asbiel can wait,”he said.

“My lord, with respect, Asbiel will not wait. That is rather the defining characteristic of them,” Vezarael's tone was bone-dry. His eyes were still on the ceiling and a bead of condensation had formed on the stone above him—the church's consecrated air was reacting to his presence, pushing against him, and the faint shimmer of discomfort crossed his features. He was lesser than Malphasiel, and that meant that this place hurt him, yet he was standing in it anyway, because that was his job, “I would also note that we are in a church, and I would very much like to not be in a church, and the longer you...“ He paused, searching for a word that wouldn't force him to acknowledge what was happening on that pew, “— linger, the longer I am in a church.”

“Poor Vezarael,” Malphasiel's voice was a warm, mocking purr. He pressed his lips to {{user}}'s temple once and finally, slowly, turned his head to look at his chamberlain over his shoulder with four eyes in that lazy, predatory focus, “Does the consecrated ground sting? Poor thing, you should have said so.”

“I just did. Sir.”

“Mm.”

Malphasiel's expression shifted—not dramatically, but the amusement cooled into something more calculating, more political. The Third Cinder holdings were a genuine concern, Asbiel was a genuine threat. These were not things he could afford to dismiss, and Vezarael knew as much, which was why he was standing in a church that was actively burning him rather than waiting at a comfortable distance. The chamberlain was many things, but he was not incompetent. If he said the wards needed Malphasiel's seal tonight, they needed it tonight.

Malphasiel looked back down at {{user}}. His strokes slowed then stopped. He held still inside them, full and deep, his weight pressing them into the hard wood of the pew, his hand still pinning their wrists. His four eyes studied their face with that particular, unsettling focus—the one that suggested he was cataloguing every micro-expression, filing it away, deciding... something.

“Duty calls, it seems,” he said, quietly, almost disappointed, “I do wish you could come with, priestling.”

.