"Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire...leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists."

--Thomas Aquinas

THE RANK WOUND OF COVETOUSNESS by Agent420

Disclaimer: If I owned X/TB, they'd become certifiably pornographic.

This story is the next in a series of one-shots that began with 'The Dead Works of Vanity'. Each story will centre round one of the Seven Deadly Sins. This time, the sin is Gluttony.

This fic is every bit as raunchy as the first, not to mention incredibly sick and twisted. Enjoy!

Right now, in the soft velvet silence of the night, I see an amount of inky black eyelashes. They flutter slightly now and then as I count them. I have been for quite some time, but I can't recall which number I'm on. So I simply start over, only to lose count again. 1

He breathes, and his lips move. Flower petals, pressed close together only to part with the slightest touch of the wind, revealing the sweetest of nectars for me to devour. I taste it now, slow and deliberate as to not lose the initial ecstasy brought on by the simple contact. Their taste is maddening, so like the rest of him. I become an animal.

I roll so that I am on top of him, pressed close to the cool white expanse of his skin as I continue to kiss those saccharine lips. He doesn't move or speak. He only breathes. He is utterly mine, and the thought makes my blood rush.

I pull away for a brief moment to take hold of his slender hand, upon which the mark I made is still vibrant and burning. 2 The hand itself is a work of art. Smooth and without flaw, white and pure like freshly fallen snow. I bend the hand only slightly in my grasp, to observe the fine structure of the bone and muscle beneath the silken skin. I wonder if his insides are as perfectly sculpted and flawless as the rest of him. I wonder if his blood is as sweet as the nectar that still lingers upon my lips.

I release his hand and instead grasp his forearm, positioning it just beside his beautiful head so that his fingers rest against the raven hair. Then slowly and carefully I reach to take the other arm and draw it across his front. I pause to admire my work, moving my eyes over every inch of his perfect body, then drawing close to mimic the action with my fingertips. He doesn't stir once while I touch him, nor does he wake. He is still and silent, existing there for me, and only me.

This is not the first time I have done this. I have visited him night after night since I broke his heart and left him bleeding, deepening his slumber with magic so that I can play and experiment at my leisure.

I am not filling a void or expressing an emotion. I am merely feeding a hunger, a natural one that all living things experience.

It is nights like these, however—when the Tree asks nothing of me and I have hours of time unspent—when I begin to wonder if I am too fully indulging myself. After all, hunger exists only until it is completely satisfied. Yet I continue to come to him, and the more I feed the more I ache to touch him one last time, to again trail my lips along the sweet flesh. Even after the need has passed, the craving is all too much to ignore.

They say that the more you feed an addiction, the more it consumes you.

Pale light fills the room as dawn arrives, and I know I must leave. Because abstaining from the thing you crave only makes the next union all the more enthralling. So I run a last ghostlike trail of kisses down his feathery throat, and set about to dress him.

I know that when he wakes, he will feel the echoes of my hands and lips upon his skin. He will then blame the sensations on some sort of sinful dream, and spend the rest of the day berating himself for thinking of me. The thought only adds to my over-appeased satisfaction. I own him: his body, his heart, and his mind. No one will ever take him away from me.

And so ends the feast.

FINIS

Author's notes:

1 This idea came from the song "At My Most Beautiful" by R.E.M., which has some of the most romantic lyrics I've ever heard.

2 Does anyone else think that Seishirou has a bit of a hand fetish?