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"Do you remember the lectures Mama used to give us whenever she caught us playing with one of these?"
The demon's voice is hot against Alastor's cheek. It's too sweet, too soft against his skin, maggots squirming on something thick with the cloying scent of rot. The whisper of the knife the other Alastor holds against the soft skin of his throat is ice cold compared to the warm, sticky air, summer in the bayou making his collar feel as tight as his pants. The demon's eyes stare back like the rubies set in the necklaces of the girls back in town, flashing in the low light, and there's far too many teeth in his grin as he leers down at Alastor.
"She always told us not to run with knives," the twisted version of himself whispers, in time with the subtle, near-imperceptible presses of the knife against the racing pulse just below his jaw. "Don't play with them, don't steal them from the kitchen. But you remember what we were doing with those knives, don't you?"
Alastor — horribly, desperately human — swallows against the icy chill of the blade, mind working with plans to get himself out of this situation. His manhood is aching against his slacks and he's not entirely sure why, not when the other Alastor presses a little harder and there's a bright sting just before the sensation of blood joining the beads of sweat rolling down his neck. It feels like sticky syrup, surely staining the starched crispness of his collar, and he spares a brief second of annoyance to hoping it doesn't end up soaking through to his tie.
"Yes," Alastor murmurs, the motion of his throat making the knife waver, another shallow cut. "I remember."
People have died in this city since long before he ever wielded the scissors to cut their threads of life: there are always bodies to be found, if one knows where to look. Before Alastor ever held a knife against a living person, he studied the ones who had been felled by something else — drugs, illness, someone that was gone by the time the gangly child got there, knife in hand, his heart racing in anticipation just the same way that it is now. He wonders if the demon can hear it, or smell the fear and apprehension that makes his shirt stick to his lower back, mixed with some twisted sort of thrill as a shudder rolls down his spine.
"The man on the shore of Lake Catherine." It comes out high and breathy from Alastor's throat, and he clears it, the knife hard against his artery, before going on. "That December where it didn't rain a single day."
"The lake was low," the other Alastor says, eyes growing somehow hellishly brighter, one of his strange ears twitching restlessly. "They had dragged him into the reeds. The lake would fill up when the rains came..."
There's a needy sort of throb from between his legs as the demon digs the point of the knife into his jawbone. Tomorrow, it will look like it's simply a nick from shaving. Tonight, it bleeds slow and sluggish, the demon's eyes following it the whole way down.
"...and the body would sink into the muck." Alastor has to wet his lips, and he tastes salt on his skin and ozone in the air. "But we found it first."
"Yes," his counterpart breathes. "Yes, we did."
The man was freshly dead, gone for mere hours. He was dressed nice, his own blazer haphazardly tied around him, and Alastor was twelve years old and had decided that since the body already had a stab wound, there was no reason he shouldn't slit the man open like he was gutting a fish and stare in silent curiosity at the bright insides. What he remembers most vividly is how soft they looked, fleshy and cloyingly sweet. Alastor's insides probably look like that, too, and they could spill out so easily with a few swift cuts of the knife the demon holds so deliberately against his throat. He swallows drily and feels his thighs tense as the demon leans a little closer into his space.
"You really must keep better control of yourself, boy." The other Alastor's voice is rough with static. "What if I were to slit your throat right now? My, that would be embarrassing."
"You won't," Alastor says, but he's not entirely sure of that. "I know you won't."
"I won't," the demon agrees. "Though I could. But I think you know that already, hm?"
The demon's leg shifts and Alastor has to bite his tongue to hold in a shocked moan as the motion drags the fabric of his underwear across his aching manhood. He thought he was tall, but his counterpart is even taller, his thigh pressing hard into Alastor's groin as he adjusts the knife so the tip is digging into the soft underside of his jaw, forcing him to tilt his head back. The ceiling is dark above him, swimming like he's six feet underground already. The motion makes his breaths come in short, sharp gasps. He can hear blood rushing in his ears, his skin hot. The other Alastor can still look down on him like this. He tilts his head to the side.
"I always forget how fragile you are," the demon murmurs, tender in the same way a bruise is tender. "How easy it is to draw your blood."
A flick of his wrist and the knife cuts a neat slice into the vulnerable skin, not deep enough to damage but deep enough to feel numb for half a heartbeat before the sting comes. The blood that follows trails down Alastor's throat, heading towards the sweat-soaked collar and knot of his tie, but the demon catches it first, deforming his neck with a sickening crack to lick up the droplet, his tongue warm and wet and shocking a raw noise from behind Alastor's teeth. The other Alastor's smile is lined with teeth where he's still pressing his face into his throat and the knife is body-heat warm against his skin once more and he is so terribly hard that it's starting to make him feel a little lightheaded. The urge to grind his hips into his counterpart's thigh is tight in his gut, but he resists, panting up at the ceiling.
"If you carry one knife, carry another." The demonic version of himself presses his leg a little harder against his groin. "Somewhere you can reach with one hand, like the inside of your waistband. That way, if someone else gets close to you and threatens you like this..." The knife digs hard into Alastor's artery and there's a brief shock of primal fear before he realizes that it's the blunt edge, pressingly harmlessly into his skin. "You can have your other one sticking out of their kidneys before they even realize what happened."
It's sound advice, and Alastor will probably follow it. That's why he's keeping this warped version of himself around, isn't he? Because he's got the same look in his eyes but he knows what's coming? He breathes deeply and carefully lowers his head back down to a more comfortable position.
"I understand."
"I always was a quick learner." The other Alastor hums and withdraws the knife but not his presence, flipping it back in his hand so he's holding the blade. It looks like he's about to hand it back, for a second — but then he lowers it and digs the bone handle of the knife cruelly against the obvious tent in Alastor's slacks.
Alastor nearly yelps, only barely managing to choke it into something marginally less embarrassing as his manhood twitches in his clothes and a full-body shudder wracks every limb. His counterpart just stares, eyes like embers as he watches him squirm. Just when Alastor thinks he's about to pull back and tell him to go take care of it himself, he nudges the handle of the knife against him again, carefully applying pressure until Alastor's thighs start to shake.
"You really do like this."
"Surely you do as well, then," Alastor says, and he wishes his face didn't feel so flushed as he says it.
His counterpart leans in dreadfully close once more, his breath ghosting over his ear. "I would never show it."
The sensation of the knife pressing into him changes all at once and a moan is torn from his throat as he realizes that it's no longer the handle but the flat of the blade that the demon holds against his prick, rocking it until Alastor's body takes over and he can only groan helplessly as he grinds his hips into the metal. One slip of the other Alastor's wrist, one hard jolt, and the blade would bite through his slacks and into the meat of his thigh and slit his femoral artery wide open. His blood pressure would drop like a stone into the murky water of the bayou. Within minutes, he would pass out. The last thing he would feel would be this awful, delicious pressure. The last thing he would see would be the demon's brimstone eyes. It would not, all things considered, be such a bad way to go.
Alastor cums with a strangled noise, his underclothes going hot and sticky with his own release. The wet patch that blooms on the front of his slacks threatens to dirty the blade — but as Alastor pants, electricity dancing behind his eyelids, the other version of himself pulls it away and steps back entirely, looking satisfied with himself.
There's a blur of movement and then a thud next to Alastor's head. For a moment, the haze of the orgasm makes his thoughts slow. Then he looks to the side and finds the knife sticking out of the wall next to him, still wavering with the force of impact.
"Same time tomorrow," the other Alastor says, his smile growing disconcertingly wider. "Don't be late."