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The meat glistens attractively under the glowing lights of the refrigerated case. Meat comes in all shades and textures in Hell, but this is the first time Alastor has seen a cut this blue - and not just from deoxygenation. No, the body of the meat itself is blue, the layer of skin still attached to it an even darker navy. It looks firm and fresh, and most unusual. And Alastor has always sought out the rare and intriguing.
He taps the glass over it with one sharp claw, the butcher who'd been watching him warily almost jumping out of her skin. "That piece. I'll take a sample," he says cheerfully, and the butcher hesitates. "Oh, come now! Surely you don't begrudge me a little taste before I buy? I would so hate to think that you don't trust the quality of what you sell..."
"No! I mean... at once?" She sounds almost unsure, taking it out and raising her knife to shave off a slice, gossamer thin. "We just don't sell much of this, because... well, you can see for yourself." There's an undercurrent of desperation, 'so please don't say you weren't warned,' unspoken between them.
Delightful! Alastor does so love to know his reputation precedes him these days. He accepts the slice he's offered, drops it into his mouth, and... oh. That's why. It tastes oddly inorganic, and his first instinct is to spit it out. But then it melts across his tongue, richly metallic, like blood distilled down into its core elements. Theres something uniquely primal about it, and he wants more.
Still, it won't do to give away any sign of how much he'd enjoyed it, not with a price negotiation ahead! "Strange, but not entirely unpleasant!" he trilled. "Wrap it up, my dear. I'll take it off you for a song!"
Alastor unwraps the cut of meat as soon as he gets home, keen to get a better look at it. Under his claws the skin is smooth, almost rubbery, and he wonders idly what the Sinner who sold it might have looked like. Dark blue shades into a barely-there layer of cyan subcutaneous fat - but that's hardly surprising, since very few Sinners poor enough to sell themselves have much to eat in the first place. Beneath that, the flesh itself - cut from a thigh, would be his educated guess - is firm and dense, the muscle fibres attractively layered. Yes, a quality cut indeed.
Alastor carefully slices another piece off the whole, the ozone scent of it wafting up. His mouth waters as he sets it on his tongue, letting the flavour spread and develop as it lifts from the chill of the counter up to blood-warm. Finally, he bites down into it, sharp teeth sinking into that buttery smooth flesh, and it parts so readily for him that he decides at once that he won't be cooking this, at all. It's fine enough to enjoy raw.
Decision made, he slices it into thin, almost transparent segments, arranges them in a pretty layered fan on his plate. Half of fine dining is the visual, after all! He adds is a little lemon juice, a handful of capers, a twist of salt, and watches the flesh turn an attractive shade of purple. He would have liked to savour it longer, but the first bite makes him ravenous, and his jaw almost unhinges in his desire to consume every last bite. Once he's done, however, the hunger in his belly is barely sated - he needs more. And soon.
* * *
The next time Alastor sees meat from that same Sinner is nearly two months later. This time it's a whole arm, hanging along the ceiling with feet and tails and wings. That navy skin gives away that it's from the same source, but now there's something new - cyan clawed fingers on a delicate hand, curled loosely in on themselves. Intriguing! He'd almost expected flippers.
The butcher gives him a somewhat confident smile. She'd grown used to her most notorious customer, realising quickly that as long as he was kept happy, she didn't have much to worry about. "Good morning, sir! What can I get you today? We've had some lovely new..."
He cuts her off with a wave of his cane towards the dangling arm. "I've already chosen! The whole, if you will."
"Certainly!" She brings it down and sets it on the scale, and it's heavier than Alastor had imagined. He sees why almost instantly - the bone inside is metallic and shiny, corded with wires as well as veins, and he almost objects to paying extra for something he can't eat. But the price she enters per pound is ridiculously low, and she gives him a wry look, as though she'd indeed expected him to say something. "I know. Most of it's inedible. Honestly, if the guy wasn't so pathetic I wouldn't even buy off him. Are you sure I can't get you something else?"
So the Sinner is a man. Alastor isn't entirely sure why finding that out feels like discovering a secret, given that men are more than well represented down here. "No, thank you. It will do perfectly well," he smiles broadly, taking the package when she's wrapped it up neatly in brown paper.
A cheaper cut like this is meant for braising, even if that strange metallic bone ruins his second best sawblade as he slices it into thick tranches for ossobuco. Hours of simmering leaves that dark meat blissfully tender, falling apart practically before Alastor can even get his fork to his mouth. The buco itself is almost distractingly blue, hidden within the depths of that inorganic structure, and resists his attempts to coax it out. He ends up sucking the bone segments into his mouth one by one, using his tongue to lick out every last morsel of that beautifully sweet, meltingly rich marrow until the hollow pit in his belly howls for more.
The hand itself, he keeps whole for now. He'd laced his fingers with those electric blue claws to hold the arm in place while he sliced it, a little surprised by the softness of it. No wonder the Sinner was resorting to selling himself, if he was so unused to hard work! But there's evidence there of the man he might have been... a divot where a ring might usually have been worn, a few scratches over the knuckles that suggested that he wasn't as weak as he might appear.
But the best part of the hand is those claws. They're delightful - almost as sharp and lethal as Alastor's own. The Sinner is a creature capable of great violence, even if he hasn't realised that about himself yet. Almost certainly newly-fallen, and unaware that nature has chosen him as predator, not prey. He pierces the pad of his thumb with one of those claws, sucks his own blood off the deadly point, and feels a thrill of excitement go through him for the first time in decades.
He boils away the flesh, disconnects the distractingly metallic bones until the claws are left shiny and clean, ready for his trinket box. And when the other arm appears a couple of weeks later, he completes the set.
* * *
It's some time before the Sinner is desperate enough to sell organ meat. It's invasive, debilitating, and so it sells for the highest prices. Even then, it's rare enough to see the pluck entire like this - that Sinner has been scraped clean from throat to crotch, and Alastor wonders idly if he'd known how much it would hurt beforehand, if he still would have agreed. If he had indeed agreed in the first place.
As attractive as they are, those organs are the only blue meat in store today. There's no other cuts laid out, no limbs hanging from the ceiling. "If he sold that much, why isn't the rest of him here?" Alastor asks, almost to himself, but the butcher answers anyway.
"Someone else bought the whole carcass. Not sure what for... not sure I wanna know." She forces a laugh through a rueful smile, and Alastor's gut twists unpleasantly. Really, cannibals have an unfair reputation for being distasteful, considering the depths that other denizens of Hell sink to on a regular basis. "Plenty left of your favourite, though! You want me to wrap it up?"
Alastor's gut twists even harder at anyone knowing that he has a favourite. Worse, though, that he does - he has wanted those freshly glistening organs since the moment he walked in. He can think of little else. "Please."
There's too much to eat at once, but Alastor knows exactly what to do with a glut of good meat, even though his days of lean winters are gone. Boudin bleu, he supposes wryly, unwrapping the collection of organs he'd bought. He's already boiling the casings clean on the stove, the seasoning measured out, a container of bright blue blood ready to be mixed in. All that remains is to prepare the meat.
He takes the heart in one hand, using the knife to carefully cut away the connective tissue connecting it to the other organs. It fits beautifully in his palm, shining like fresh fruit, so dark it's almost purple. A little taste before he starts cooking won't hurt, and he bites down into it, blood running down his chin.
He is never entirely sure what happens when the bloodlust descends. It hasn't happened in a while, what with his meals becoming routine, boring. But when he comes back to himself the pot on the stove has boiled dry, and he's covered, chest and hands and chin, in the bloody dried remnants of that sweet organ meat. There's no more than shreds remaining, every last mouthful stuffed inside himself, his hollow ribs caging the weight of it in his belly.
And it still isn't enough, he realises with a desperate subvocalised growl. The taste of it lingering in his mouth makes him feral all over again, antlers branching wildly as he greedily licks his fingers clean. Next time, every last bite of this Sinner will belong to Alastor.