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Yet another youma not only refused to Make Friends with him, but also managed to pin him down. He didn’t want to hurt it, so he just tried to gently squirm free. It was dripping something on him, blood? Slime? He could feel something warm and wet splash past the protection of his uniform and onto his chest. The youma was gone. Now he was naked and being placed onto a cutting board, oil dripping down from on high as he gets slathered and spiced and ready to get eaten by the cutting board is gone. He’s in a small dark room and there is a dog barking outside. He’s all alone and…no…wait there’s a smell.

There’s a smell that doesn’t belong here.

Eyes opening, Malory stared up and gazed at himself on high, splayed out and rumpled in a state of beautiful disaster, wonderfully displaying the vibrant blue goo that spilled over his chest. Eyes sliding down, he observed his immediate state of reality and its cause: Eles, comfortably pre-regret, drooling a long, thick blue rope of saliva, booze, and phlegm onto his current owner, lover, and angel.

After a long stretch of stillness, Malory carefully reached over to grab his phone and take a picture of that face and its crimes.

It was then that he noticed the hopeful looking little black face peering over the side of the bed.

Having taken photo evidence of Eles’s morning sin, Malory’s consideration of next steps was interrupted by yet another wrong to his person. The sudden slap to his torso had Malory yelping, followed by a so-mad-he’s laughing, “What the ********> Eles of course paid no attention, busy making sure no square foot of bedspace lacked for rancid smelling blue strips of last night’s bad decisions.

Dirk Bladegod the Excellent jumped up to catch some of Whatever This Was and Malory gave a near panicked, “No!” Clearing his throat he gave them the Firm Dad voice, “Boys go…go clean house.” They hadn’t collected their toys in days, it should take awhile to hunt them all out. Sensing movement behind him, he caught a wide-eyed Dreary mid-lick at some of the sheets that had received splash damage.

“Now.”

Truly, Eles had been teaching them some bad habits.

Turning his attention back to the boy, Malory gave that pale and shuddering back a grim look. A twist of spine that curled with obvious pain. Sides that contained the little, roiling signs that there was more to come. Skin that looked like it would be clammy to the touch. Malory wondered if his eyes were wet and a little red around the edges? How miserable and hollowed out did he look?

With a sigh, Malory closed his eyes and banished the familiar and usually quite welcome tension dragging across his body. Eles was determined to be extremely inconvenient to his morning, wasn’t he?

Very rude.

Getting up and not particularly enjoying the feeling of everything on his chest sliding down, Malory left the bed and helpfully made sure to make sure the bed curtains were wide open. “When you come down, I think there will be a lot of eggs for breakfast,” he assured the misery pile cheerfully. “Eggs every way! Warm and jiggling!”

Time for a hot shower followed by a very cold swim.

The glass hadn’t fogged up nearly enough and the echoing quality of his personal bathroom, normally quite nice, gave Malory a wonderful show of Eles’s decision to continue to make sure his misery was both shared and properly observed. His face was looking quite hollowed out, like the life had been roughly tugged out of him without warning. And those candlelight eyes were nicely glassy. The sound though…well, it got better when Eles started talking, throat raw and likely burned by the sour contents of his stomach being wrenched back up through it.

Slowly taking care of his own matters, Malory considered the death pleas, and finally asked, running a hand through wet hair that threatened his view, “Smothering would spoil it, your face would be covered over and then you’d probably have a seam print on your face. Pick something else.”

“Maybe. With my hands? With my own delicate hands?” Malory’s laugh shuddered through the bathroom and ended in a sudden hitch of breath. Fog steadily crept up the glass of the shower door as he went on, “Shooting is boring. Even worse than getting hit by a car or having a heart condition, and I would never want your death to be boring.” He said it with pride and reassurance, in the same way somebody…maybe anybody else might say they’d never let a loved one get hurt.

“Oh, sobriety? That’s so smart of you. You’ve really-” the good-for-you condescension abruptly cut-off.

“You’ve really learned a valuable life lesson about the ills of drinking,” Malory continued after a moment, breathing in the steam with short, small breaths, thankful for the way it blocked the smell for the time being. “I think the blonde will go well with your new, very clean, lifestyle.”

“Well, you do look except-” a beat, “-ionally good when drowning. But maybe starvation? It’d last longer and we’d get to see exciting new sides of you.” Malory had clearly forgotten that the goal was to put an end to his boy’s suffering, not prolong it. Or maybe he remembered, but didn’t feel it was a priority at the moment.

At the flush, there was a loud gasp and a hand slapped the now thoroughly fogged over glass, leaving a vivid smear.

“You loved that. You would do that again right now if he was in here with us. It would’ve been an a..ah…”A sigh. ‘“Abject cruelty to deny you that experience. Besides, I made a solemn vow, didn’t I?”

A hissed curse followed the next flush.

Which was to say, Eles would absolutely make the same decision given the choice to right now. At least that was how Malory chose to interpret the excuses rather than the denial. The difference between the lascivious joy of the night before and the moaning wreckage of this morning was truly in stark and brilliant contrast.

At the accusation, Malory gave another shudder of laughter. “But I still love you so much…” His finger started to draw a playful heart against the glass only to suddenly jerk and abruptly cut it in messy halves.

“There’s pain meds in the cabinet,” and finally his voice showed something terse, a certain snap in it. “And drink some ******** water,” Malory finished.

"If you loved me, you'd kill me," he half-wheezed at the clouded shower door. Heart looked about as ******** up as they were. "Or. I don't know. Put me in a coma. Wipe my memory again. Can't have been hard to pull me into the mess of you the first time."

Another whimper for his head, which felt thoroughly cracked from the light and sound and warm and parched, and Eles was reaching for a wad of toilet tissue. Though the cabinet was only a couple paces away, it may as well have been across the Sahara desert for how little he dared to trust his weight to his legs.

But up he went after a last flush and his head swam for how he nearly dropped back to the floor. Clutching the corner of the counter, he waited for the numbed buzz in his brain to pass before he rifled the contents of the cabinet. Eles spat in the sink then cracked the door open for a quick look.

"Which one's the pain med? Fuh… Fuhmuh… How the ******** does anyone say these…"