Honeyduke's was busy on the best of days and chaotic on the worst. Today was a good day, filled only with its regular customers and tourists without the addition of all the Hogsmeade weekend students. There was no pushing, no jostling, a minimum of excited shouting, and just enough room to leave a wide berth around the dark-haired man in worn robes currently looking over the bloodpops. He seemed normal enough, with little resemblance to the face plastered all over Hogsmeade's WANTED BY THE MINISTRY posters, except for maybe the way he smiled at other customers when they wandered by. Sharp smile, pointed teeth, it was better suited for a graveyard than a sweetshop.

But Michael liked the sweetshop. All the bright colors reminded him of his daughters' hair.

Philomenes was chewing his nails down to the cuticle. Days like this, his nerves got to shivering. Wit Sharpening Potion, ginseng concentrate , sugared black coffee – anything he could get his paws on to jolt him out of the deep sleep which swallowed him every night. It left his nerves frayed down to nothing, set his teeth chattering, and body shivering in ways that had nothing to do with the January snow. His jittery mouth ached for something to bite and suck, no better than a damn teething baby, so…hard candy it was. For the health of his bruised nail beds, at least.

Very few of the bustling crowd wanted to linger near Philomenes either, it seemed. All sunken eyed, scraggle haired, and visibly vibrating in his boots, no could really blame them. He had junkie scrawled across his pale brow in red ink; his blown out pupils were each an exclamation point tacked onto the word. The plump witch ladies milling about the shop steered their children away from Philomenes politely as possible. This mitotic division of bodies in Honeydukes left Phil shakily milling about on the left side of the shop, inhabited mostly by one raggedy man perusing the blood candy. They looked like strawberries, and Philomenes smiled. He reached across the wizard’s body to pluck one from the little velvet display case, mussed hair a pale haze clouding his face.

“S-s-some people,” he muttered, breakneck voice tripping over the syllables. “Can be s-s-so rude. Do I smell unfortunate? I…I…I certainly hope not. That would be…that would be dreadful.” Spindly white fingers crinkled the cellophane right off the sucker as he spoke. He shoved the hard candy between his chattering white teeth, and it stained them pink.

“Y-you…you smell fine, I’ll say. You…you don’t smell like a-anything.” Big, glassy grey eyes wandered from the man’s dark face to the rows of sweets spread out before them, something lean and hungry showing on the peaked lines of his face. “People,” Phil insisted again, “can be so rude.”

Michael had not been thinking about much when Phil approached him. His mind was blank, forebodingly so, as he reached out to crush and crinkle the red-tinted wrappers and hear the plastic scream. Left by wife, left by daughters, he had no one to preoccupy himself with until the girls' next break, when they'd come home with him instead of Audrey. Say what you like about the old rotting familial home, all dust and silverfish, but even its most crooked artifacts would do no harm to those of Michael's blood. Unlike the dubious favoritism of his ex-wife, whose pretty fashion shows and pretty tailored outfits were not enough to distract from her deceiving, poisonous tongue. He should've killed her in that cafe, but then who would look after Erin and that stupid squib boy of his? The twins were one thing, but he'd rather murder the other two than let them in his home. He'd be gentle death, loving death, at least until Erin opened her tainted mouth.

This blank slate of a mind was dashed when a shaking hand reached across to take a pop. Michael twisted his head to follow the pale arm back up to its owner - young, pale, a worn-down angel who was all eyes, runny nose, and clacking teeth between which blood-flavored juice was beginning to bubble. Something else began to bubble between Michael's teeth, spilling over cracked lips in stops and spurts - not blood, but laughter, rough and low like autumn leaves scraping down the road. "You like blood, lad?" he asked, utterly delighted. Unlike his laugh - less used, more worn - his voice was all beautifully round Welsh vowels and high-class intonation. No disguise this time, no easy accent to imitate; Phil was talking to one Michael Dark, but he'd was no threat to Michael in terms of recognizing his voice. Said voice rose and fell, lilting sing-song, as he continued. "Some beast, some wicked thing, your eyes are hardly asserting. Want to know? You smell like cold, chemicals, and desperation." Experimentally, he placed on long finger against Phil's sleeve, but still the trembling continued. "Think I can hear your bones shake. Maybe you're just scaring the people away, love."

“…issat what this is? Oh.”

Philomenes slipped the sucker out of his mouth, and finally gave the sign above the display a thorough look. His arm snapped away from the odd man’s touch, cradling itself against his chest as though injured. He held the pop between his teeth to free up a hand, which drifted up and rubbed at the place those fingers had grazed.

“S-s-sorry. Terribly s-sorry,” he chirruped right after, tentatively lowering the limb again. Speaking of rudeness, jeez. Jolting away from a brush of skin like it was fire. Calm the hell down, he forcefully told himself, but…yeah, that didn’t do a damn thing.  Much easier thought than done. “I’m just…it’s…ah…not you, sir, it’s…um. Chemicals,” he muttered, pale gaze shifting down and away. A bare trace of shame in that one little movement. “Right right.”

He sucked experimentally on the blood pop, the taste not horrid or any such, just some blend of the metallic warmth of blood (like all children, Phil had licked his wounds before; gross, but true), the taste masked faintly by a flicker of sugar and cinnamon.

Not the tastiest candy he’d ever had, but not terrible. And…well, his teeth weren’t knocking on each other so bad with it crammed in his mouth. That’s a plus. He swiped his thumb along his lower lip, and it came away all sticky red. Phil pulled a face at that, but…just tried to convince himself it was the same scarlet juice that flooded his mouth with fire bonbons. Not…well.

Phil’s eyes flickered to the man’s face, and couldn’t quite settle anywhere. They moved skittishly around his features, ricocheting off the cold blue eyes and sharp cheekbones and…settling on the curve of his mouth. Not a good choice either, but who was Philomenes to judge? His great-grammy probably ate sailors.

He leaned in a bit closer, peering thoughtfully at the pointed curve of the older man’s teeth. Then back to the display. Then back to the teeth.

“I s-s-say, are you a vampire? Oh, how interesting,” Phil breathed, voice all airy. “Very exotic. I’ve…I’ve never met a vampire before. I daresay my blood couldn’t be anything worth your time, though. Unless you’d like your bones to vibrate all ludicrous, too.”

His pale lashes were fluttering as if exposed to bright light, though Honeydukes was warmly dim. He pursed his mouth around the blood pop, brows pinching.

“Would y-you like a s-s-sucker?”

The boy flinched away like a shot hare, and Michael laughed again, soundlessly this time. How precious, that he felt the need to apologize. Strange little bird, cuddling himself close. Addiction was such a wonderful thing; Michael wondered if Phil could possibly be wearing any more scarves.

"Chemicals," he said aloud, drawing the word out, rolling it on his tongue like the thick strange-sounding Welsh term he used later. "I thought so. What you want, bachgen, is some of those Pepper Imps." The same finger that had pressed so delicately against Phil's sleeve now pointed towards some shelves on the other side of the shop. "They'll keep you nice and toasty, even if they take your tongue in the process. But you don't really need it, do you?"

His gaze went back to the blood pops. He pressed light fingertips against the crackling plastic again, the same way he'd touched Phil. Then his head snapped towards the part-Veela, thin lips parting into a rueful smile. "Ohhhh, a vampire," he said, eyebrows raising as if in surprise. Welsh vowels turned briefly into British posh, then melted back into a low murmur by the end. "My word yes, why not, sounds nice. But I don't want to suck you dry. My bones have been shaken enough already, by nastier things than you."

He drew out a pop, flicking it between his fingers. His mouth went slack in that haughtily bored expression some men had, often particular to purebloods. No, no vampire he, but wasn't the image lovely? He might as well be, for all the entertainment it'd give him. Oh, yes, that'd be blight on the family line, he'd forgotten. There were vampires buried deep in the Dark family crypts, their coffins barred over, shackled tight, almost as well hidden as the squib graves. Michael toyed for a moment with a vague memory, himself as a boy on an annual visit to the crypts clutching his father's hand. He'd thought even then that if you listened really close, you could hear scratching from behind some of the doors. He'd never been brave enough to go after dark - but now, maybe, that could be quite entertaining. Taking tea with the ghouls who crunched on his ancestor's bones and learning from the family vampires, yes, just like that. He was sure that they had stories to tell, and his hot blood was too teeming with madness to drink. If any tried to sup from his veins, he liked to think all they'd get would be bitterness and deceit.

Phil spoke again, little waif offering him things so brave and brash. Friendly lad - stupid lad - Michael hardly knew whether to be disgusted or intrigued.

"Thank you," he said gravely instead, and snapping the wrapper off, gnawed experimentally on a bloodpop. Blood-flavored juice filled his mouth; he held it for a moment, considering, fine wrinkles developing between his slightly rumpled brows as he thought again about the family vampires. Then he spat bright blood onto the wooden floor, red tongue flicking between his teeth to clean off the mild red film. Well, that was disappointing. Too sweet and too thin - but maybe if he brought the vampires gifts of this they really would leave his poor blood alone. He stuffed a handful of the candies into his pockets, unmindful of the sharp gaze of the shopkeep. What was a little theft, after all that murder?

He dropped the used sucker to the floor and turned first his head, then his whole body, in search of other wares. He glanced back at Phil, brown eyes flicking over the boy's scarves and jittering limbs. Then he smiled, and his teeth were back to normal. Without the teeth and the hungry edge, his smile was almost pleasant. "Coming, little one?"

Philomenes simply stared, for a long moment. The Welsh were odd beasts. Anyone would be, he figured, if they lived in a place with more sheep than people and strange words such as that. Whatever that word was, he hoped it was good. He felt a toothy smile stretching across his face, seeing the fellow stuff his pockets so shamelessly.

His feet were moving faster than his muddled brain, scuttling a few paces after the strange man before seizing hold of his senses. And feeling the singe of the shopkeep’s gaze grazing the back of his neck. Phil shot a glower right back over his shoulder, jitters putting his nerves on needles and pins. A wrong twitch could send him bristling, when he got like this.

Grey eyes wandered over the vast wooden displays, holding the sweet treats of pepper imps, toffees of all tastes, and sugar drops of all colors. His shaking fingers itched to clutch great handfuls of the stuff and cram his coat pockets to the brim. A few wide eyed patrons were silently gawking at the pair of them.

Well, good. Maybe they thought some weird drug deal was going down. There were few savory reasons why a grown man would linger alone in a candy store. Funny that Phil scarcely thought this about the stranger he was thoughtlessly following.

A nervous, bell-tone laugh shivered past his lips, spluttering droplets of sugared blood over his lips and chin.

“Depends, depends!” Phil chirruped, diving a hand greedily into a display of caramel toffees. “Wh-where…where are we going?”

Welsh was a bloody odd language, Michael knew that. Coming from an old Welsh family, of course he'd had to learn it as a boy. It wasn't good for much now except impressing the locals and confusing the Brits, which Michael so loved to do. He favored Phil with a too-wide smile and madly fluttering lashes (which conveniently grew a little longer just for that purpose) before turning his attention to the toffees. Heavy, sticky mess - only good to stuff your gobb if you didn't want to talk for a week. Michael passed them over.

“Wh-where…where are we going?”

"Why, just to the other shelves," Michael said, running careless hands over brightly colored boxes and crackling cellophane. "Did you fear I was to steal you away? Look, the shopkeep's staring." He turned suddenly on Phil and spun him around by his shoulders, pressing lightly but firmly (oh, the boy wasn't going to jerk away from this) at the curve between shoulder and neck and extending a crooked finger to point. It was not unlike a familial pose, as casually possessive as a father teaching his son how to spot the geese on their way south for winter, except for it was two criminals staring at the blustery shopkeep instead. Over Phil's shoulder he leered at the owner, eyes bright before he whipped sneeringly away further into the store. At the last moment he plucked briefly at Phil's scarves then dropped his hand like an absent-minded child.

Thank bloody fuck he’d pulled away when he did. Phil’s shoulders had jolted up around his ears at the sudden touch, whole skinny body cringing in upon itself and tensing for an attack. The sudden seizing, the clutch, the nearness had coaxed a piercingly shrill squawk of protest to burst up out of his vocal cords and would have squalled around the shop had he not snapped a hand over his mouth.

The other hand had flashed down into his coat pocket the moment those hands clutched him, spidery fingers clenched hard around his wand.

Another high-pitched bubble of laughter, fresh with shivering anxiety. Louder than before, notes climbing higher up the decibel scale with every shuddery breath. Cat feet scampering all discordant over piano keys.

“Ahaha…d-don’t…ha….d-don’t do that.”

He pulled back and shuffled half a pace or two away from the man – something was off about his face, Phil just couldn’t say what ), blood streaked white hands rising to swipe the spluttered spittle from his face. They got a bit, but mostly just smeared the red stain around his mouth. He looked for all of London like a very puzzled little cannibal, gawkishly poised in a candystore just after a meal.

“Haha…s-sometimes I get like this and uh…I just….I-I get all twitchy and my muscles just get t-t-to going around f-faster than my head, arrite? And uh. I…I. Sometimes. S-seemed like…like you were trying to hurt me or…s-something, hahaha…almost- ha! – cursed your baubles off and tha’ – tha’ would’ve b-been awful for the k-kids to see. Right. Sorry. I…I should…s-stop fuckin’ talking and such and.”

‘And’ whatever was next was left unsaid, because Phil dissolved into a flurry of quiet, private laughter that sounded agitated as a flock of startled doves. He slid his thin, pale wand from his pocket and traced it up and down his sleeve. The blood candy had broken in his teeth and it looked like he maybe had a chunk of human heart beating away on his tongue, dribbling juice onto his chin which he was badly mopping up with his coatsleeve.

“S-sorry, sir,” Philomenes stammered again. “Acuity potions are...are a helluva drug. 'specially. Like. Y'know." He started to make a weak gesture down toward the crook of his elbow, but thought better of it halfway through.

Michael didn't pay much attention to the boy's jumping and twitching under his hands. There was brief satisfaction at the accuracy of his own prediction, but little of the pleasure Michael usually got from such taunting games. There was nothing resisting about the boy - he trailed like an eager puppy at Michael's heels, no fear at his changing teeth or eyes or any of a dozen subtle tricks that usually unsettled people, and so Michael did not quite know what to do with him. He was almost too oblivious to bother with a good scare.

So the man had already turned away, ignoring Phil's anxious recovery, when a surprisingly sick little high-pitched laugh burbled from behind him. Michael spun at the sound, regarding Phil with surprise. Crackling high giggles and shivering shoulders, this boy was almost painful to behold, especially now as he stuttered out his apologies and dragged his wand up and down his sleeve like a nervous twitch. Michael was used to a sorry-looking lot and also to looking the same, but this was different. He could see the skull that stretched the weary skin, and unlike some of Michael's more frightening appearances, this wasn't for dramatic effect. "Baubles," he repeated, frowning, and stood stock still for a moment to consider.

Then, approaching slowly - for he didn't want Phil to pull away - Michael took one of Phil's pale hands in his own. One tan thumb pressed lightly at the side of Phil's wrist, near enough to reference arching blue veins through fragile-looking skin, before Michael folded a taffy into the lad's piteous fingers and dropped his hand again.

"Pitiful thin flesh over brittle bones," he said musingly, but there was a warning in his dark eyes, something vaguely like disapproval lurking there. "And too cold. Look you, eat a little more for that sunken stomach of yours. One can't survive on just sugar and smoke." But ... "Good manners." He paused, the disapproval lightening. "What's your name, bachgen? Foul blood, fair blood, inbetween?"

“Haha…ha….it’s…it’s none of your business.”

The laughter died down, revealing Phil’s face to be stony and silent. It might have been mildly intimidating if Phil weren’t so skinny,  so trembly, and so chewed up by cold. He raised the candy to his lips and tore off the paper with his teeth, before slipping it into his mouth with the crushed remnants of blood pop. Phil’s voice was a crackling and brittle, the sound of skittering creatures and swaying branches lurking there.

“How much I eat or how a-addled I am or…or how clean my blood is, I mean. Don’t even know you’re name y-yet, I-I don’t.” The salty taffy taste coiled around the metallic cinnamon on his tongue, blotting it out a bit but not masked completely. His breath stilled smelled like a baby vampire with a sweet tooth mingled with black coffee.

“My—my da used to say I was made of sugar and smoke. Or maybe it was my mana. I don’t…I don’t r-remember.” His face softened at the mention of his mother, a small gap-toothed smile slinking across his lips. “I-I hope it was mana, though. I hate him. He can go suck on a sh-shotgun for all I care, haha!” Liquid and sweet as fine wine, that bubbling laugh.

The shopkeep had looked like he was nearly rounding his counter to stomp over and curse the pair witless, but he seemed to have…stopped, once that laugh rang through the shop. A distinctly dreamy look washed over his face, as if half-asleep, and he braced himself on the polished oaken counter. He squinted at Phil’s back after a moment’s passing, as if trying to puzzle something out, before slowly moving back behind the counter. He shook his head sharply, and went back to ringing up customers.

Not that Phil noticed a single bit of this, his back turned to the shopkeep and facing Michael.

Philomenes kept up that twitchy smile, and scuttled past Michael to shove his pale little paws into a display of butterscotch fudge. Putting a few feet of distance between himself and the stranger seemed like the smartest course of action, for the moment.

“You can make it your business if you want, so long as you buy me hot butterbeer and knit me jumpers or something like that.”

Michael's eyes narrowed, his words sharp and snapping with the same burning fire as his eyes. "Oh, you made it my business, boy, by talking to me when you should have left well enough alone. Starved for company as much as simple nourishment - don't talk to me with such disrespect." The his tone changed, voice lowering, the sing-songy croon of his voice as personal and nasty as thick London smog. "Such a scary, stony face, but you've got something to learn about frightening others. Take a step without your bones knocking together and your voice cracking and then we'll see how well you hold your ground."

"A trade then, a name for a name, and maybe you will be comforted. Call me Michael." Arrogance disappeared into a blindingly false smile, more bared teeth than anything, an expression that didn't reach his eyes. Last names were too risky at this point until he saw whether the dear little lamb could take it. Pity be to Phil if he couldn't. But Michael was calming, quick up, quick down, and at the mention of Phil's parents his face turned contemplative, attentive, and almost serene.

"A wand would do the job quicker," he said sweetly, and any remaining ire eased at the release of that tinkling angel's  laugh. Michael glanced over Phil's shoulder to see the dreamy shopkeeper subside, and sharp suspicion pricked through the pleasant chill Phil had sent down his spine. But Michael used to being a bundle of contradictions, strung together by a thin veneer of pride and remembered affections, and allowing the insignificant seduction of a laugh was no danger to him. He didn't question the boy's effect.

He did give a snort, though, thin faint huff of breath through winter-cracked lips. "See you me knitting anything of the sort? Come, let's get you a meal."

“What.”

No question in that voice, just flat out befuddlement. Whatever he was going to snipe about being talked to like that faded away from his lips. Philomenes’ eyes steeled, for that half moment, lips peeling back over his teeth.

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

The cutglass Scottish burr had dissipated, soft as a sigh, into a voice smooth as silk. The anxious stuttering, gone. The shiver of cold, gone. For a bit there, he’d even stopped vibrating in his skin. His palms went hot, noticeably hot, and instead of igniting with flames like his grammy’s might have, Phil pressed them to his chilled cheeks. They were…cozy.

“Really,” he murmured. “Don’t. That’s no way to ask anybody out to lunch, junkie or otherwise. I got standards, you know.” A smoldering drawl, an elegantly quirked pale brow.

Phil glanced over his shoulder to the proprietor, and noted that the man seemed devoted to ignoring him. Well good! He took full advantage to stuff his coat pockets full of hard caramels and toffees and taffies and pepper imps and…really anything that caught his fancy. God forbid he ever be allowed in Honeydukes again.

“Where you planning on spiriting me away to then, yeah?” Phil scuttled up alongside Michael again, jittery limbs set to work with unwrapping candies and greedily stuffing them into his mouth. His slick red-stained tongue poked daintily about his red-stained mouth, trying to pick up any stay fleck of sugar or cinnamon that may have eluded him.

“I’m not so proud that I won’t snap up a free meal, clearly starved for food and human interaction as I am.”

Michael sneered at Phil, not bothering with an immediate answer. His own disdain was a thing of beauty, fed by madness and superiority, birthright and tradition. He had a way of walking and talking as if he owned the world, had been taught how to use arrogance like a sword, and was not impressed by some smooth-talking red-faced little lamb.

"Standards," he drawled right back, and gave Phil the sort of up-down I-find-you-lacking look that no one who'd been steeped in Azkaban air should rightfully be able to do but which had been hammered into him from birth. Old habits died hard. "I see. Look, you, I am not asking you out to lunch, so quaint, so cute - no. No no no. I don't want to step over your body in the alley one day, and the best way to do that is to get you fed." Corpses got so unsightly after a few days, although in this cold it might take a while. But when Phil started to thaw, well, eyesore. "I will not be eating, I do not want it, your concave stomach needs it worst. The Three Broomsticks is overly cheery but the food is so much better than other climes, we'll go there."

“I’m not so proud that I won’t snap up a free meal, clearly starved for food and human interaction as I am.”

"Good. Pride is useless." He paused for a moment, flashed Phil a smile. "Unless you're me." And he strode towards the entrance, never giving the dazed shopkeep a second glance. Other patrons were not so entranced, and watched them and their bulging pockets in disbelief, but no one said a word, particularly once confronted with Michael's worrying smile. Cowards.

“Why thank you. I think,” he chirruped. “It’s c-comforting to know your intentions aren’t cute or quaint. I was s-s-starting to think I was some k-kind of…I dunno, saltlick for older men.” Philomenes stopped in his tracked a moment and blinked in alarm at his choice of words. “I…I d-didn’t mean it like that. S-sorry, I meant. Like. You know…well, probably not. Ah…hm.”

The smartest thing for him to do right now was to just shut his mouth and scuttle alongside Michael and stare at his feet. And not say anything at all, especially not in relation to anyone ever licking anything else. Not even in reference to candy. Philomenes made a faltering overture at redirecting the conversation – “conversation” – away from his last words.

“That’s t-terrible nice of you, though. Not wanting me to d-die, anyway. Lots of people have said otherwise, lately. F-f-fancy that! Ha!” There it was, the that ringing laugh again. It sang out that much more crystal clear in the cold January air. There was scarcely any real humor in it, just a pretty noise he made to make noise, like a twittering bird with no one to hear. Phil’s lungs convulsed very handsomely.

“Hoi, I want…I w-want…” he stumbled over his words, squeezing his eyes closed and licking his red lips. “Smoked salmon ‘n’ k-kippers, and a st-steaming bowl of partan bree, And…” Phil meandered out of his hungry reverie and fluttered his gaze to Michael. “…what do they eat in Wales, again? I w-went there with my da one summer and ate st-steamed cockles near ‘til I was sick.”

Michael stopped. Turned. Opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, looking confused and skeptical and very faintly disturbed. There was an impressively bizarre moment as the man all in dark tattered robes, practically dripping threat with his hooded eyes and occasionally shark-sharp teeth, stood in the street looking down at the scrawny little Philomenes and grimaced like a child.

Earlier it had been all games to pluck the boy's sleeve and make him flinch, but Michael was pretty sure he didn't want to touch Phil again. Not after that comment. His hands itched already.

"I coulda gone without hearing that, lad," he said finally, managing to muster up a twitchy little sneer. "For the future." He tapped the side of his temple, eyebrows arching critically as he gave Phil a very significant look. Pale pretty stranger with faint pretty laugh was not his type; neither was fucking the dead. Or nearly-dead.

Nearly to The Three Broomsticks. Michael hunched his shoulders against the chill and walked on, less playful, less light. Maybe some other time it would seem spectacular fun to make Phil flinch some more - perhaps even later tonight, perhaps ten minutes from now when he forgot his discomfort and was bored - for Michael did like playing (was it playing?) the charming stranger with too-wide smile and chilling words. But not now. He listened to Phil's words with a brooding air, the brief mention of the boy's da making him listen more closely with a father's ear. Bleak mood, dark mood - no puns, thank you very much - and now he wanted his daughters. He wanted to eat steamed cockles and speckled bread and some nice beans and bacon with them, although he didn't think they'd actually eat any of those things. He hadn't been in charge of their meals, and he had never payed much attention, so he wasn't sure. And it was past time for Christmas pudding, but he'd never had one to start with so it would be okay to have one now. Michael, who had very little idea of how to use a kitchen and no house elf, wondered idly how he was going to make one. It'd been four years, after all, and he couldn't very well skip out on a tradition - even if he'd be eating alone. Yes, Michael could get sick on Christmas pudding.

"Cawl'll warm you," he said off-handedly. And, "You'd like pice bach, it's sweet. Sweet little cakes, all cinnamon and nutmeg, raisins and such." A little too sweet for him - the twins had liked it though. And this boy with the sweet tooth and red mouth would certainly like it too. "Or teisen mel - that's a honeycake. Can't beat a nice stwnsh rwdan a iau, though." He bared his teeth in a smile and added helpfully, "Liver."

Actually, Michael hated liver. Something his parents had made him eat when he was a child, and hadn't the taste for since. But it had such nice dramatic effect.