by a_seagulls_hubris
Rating: Explicit, Multi (M/M, Other), Complete Work
Published 19 June 2025
They’d reconnected years after they last saw each other, neither of them knowing what to say, the glass in Gabriel’s hand shattered from how hard he was gripping it. Red-stained shards fell to the wooden floor, some of the smaller pieces landing in between the floorboards, unlikely to be cleaned out considering what the Ferryman knew about health and safety standards at this place.
Gabriel dropped the rest of the broken glass. Without his armour, he could almost pass for mundane if not for the radiance that emanated from him like a second shadow. His helm tilted downwards and the Ferryman took his bleeding hand, the tentative glance of an index turning into a cage of bone around his wrist, further encasing it in the folds of the Ferryman’s holy cloth.
~~~
The Ferryman feels only gratitude towards Gabriel, or so he tells himself.
Some desires are not so easily suppressed.
Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Ferrymen/Gabriel (ULTRAKILL), Gabriel/V1 (ULTRAKILL), Ferrymen (ULTRAKILL), Gabriel (ULTRAKILL), V1 (ULTRAKILL), ferryman sits in the cuck chair. that's it that's the fic, Religious Guilt, Trans Gabriel (ULTRAKILL), Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Nude Modeling, specifically the ferryman drawing gabe, Exhibitionism, if you squint there's a utena reference in here, Vaginal Fingering, a lot of it, chat i haven't written smut since my genshin days, Character Study, Non-Linear Narrative, the ferryman is one horny bastard, technically everyone is but, gabriel has boobs, Explicit Sexual Content, is this yuri, or yaoi, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Somewhat., It/Its Pronouns for V1 (ULTRAKILL)
'hubris you're too obsessed with the lamb as effigy' don't care. NOISE MUSIC BLAST be upon ye
A feather cut from the clearest summer sky drifts to his feet. The Ferryman’s gaze locks onto the feather, shaft broken, the palest tint of gold lining the tip already fading. Sunset swallowed by the sea.
He isn’t wearing any shoes so the bones of his feet are on full display, turquoise stained with dirt no matter how much he scrubs at them. The blue means devotion, pure as flowing water, amniotic fluid that even the Father once rested in. The clearest manifestation of his soul once the cumbersome flesh and all its desires have been stripped from his form. He lives to worship, to witness the perfection of the Father and his Word—
His fingers form claws that dig into the armrests of his chair. A standard piece of furnishing, standing in the corner of every hotel room, in range of a yellowing lamp whose illumination, even at maximum, barely allows one to parse the minuscule lettering at the very bottom of a room service menu. He’s only picked that menu up once out of desperation when his flesh was still attached to his bones, knowing he will starve unless he eats something soon. The dwindling supply of cash in his backpack no longer as big a threat as the angels staying in the room across from his, who flash detective’s badges at every staff member they see. They say they’re looking for a sinner.
What was the word? Liminal. A transitional space, not a destination—not somewhere he can stay and pray and feel safe in. He would have suggested somewhere else they could do this: his place wasn’t too far, but he had already been afforded the privilege of watching. Any more, and he’d be overstepping. Greedy, decadent creature.
The archangel on the bed lifts his wings, spreading out those gold-tinted feathers as he grinds his hips downwards. He’d kept his cuisses on and that was somehow worse, the glint of the yellowing bedside lamp reflecting off his armoured thighs, only accentuating the nakedness of his torso and pelvis. The snap of metal against metal brings the Ferryman back into sharp, painful clarity, writhing in his seat. Desires were of the flesh. Does his brain count, then? Every thought that flashes through his mind only proves his theory right. He should have removed the damned thing when he had the chance. Lobotomised, half-dead, but better than the growing rage that makes him grit his teeth and dig his fingers into plush velvet— wishing it was him in the place of the blue war machine who burrows its length further into the body of the archangel with every thrust of his hips.
The archangel keels over, bracing himself against the machine’s chestplate, panting. He is speaking but the Ferryman does not hear, more focused on how lovely his voice sounds post-orgasm, cracked and desperate in all the right places.
Gabriel speaks again, louder. The Ferryman realises he is addressing him.
‘Are you all right?’
~~~
They’d reconnected years after they last saw each other, neither of them knowing what to say, the glass in Gabriel’s hand shattered from how hard he was gripping it. Red-stained shards fell to the wooden floor, some of the smaller pieces landing in between the floorboards, unlikely to be cleaned out considering what the Ferryman knew about health and safety standards at this place.
Gabriel dropped the rest of the broken glass. Without his armour, he could almost pass for mundane if not for the radiance that emanated from him like a second shadow. His helm tilted downwards and the Ferryman took his bleeding hand, the tentative glance of an index turning into a cage of bone around his wrist, further encasing it in the folds of the Ferryman’s holy cloth.
It is the only part of himself that he cleans anymore.
Red spreading through white. Gabriel hissed in pain, a sound he barely suppressed as the Ferryman dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead against the archangel’s hand.
Gabriel’s hand twitched in his.
‘That will not be necessary,’ he said, his tone kind, and the Ferryman felt his legs growing weak. He said something to Gabriel then, something embarrassing about how ever-radiant he was or how beautiful or how much he missed him—
Gabriel gently untangled his hand from the Ferryman’s cloth. ‘Your praise will reach the Father. Shit.’ He immediately clapped his hands over where his mouth would be had he not been wearing that helm. ‘I keep—He is dead. He is… fine. All right.’ He stood, back straight. ‘I have been looking for you. How have you been?’
The Ferryman said he was fine.
‘Myself as well, mostly.’
They both knew then that they were lying.
Gabriel audibly swallowed and asked him about work. The rest of the night carried on, both masked men talking and laughing about things that didn’t matter, like the Ferryman’s newest coworker or Gabriel’s new friends.
‘They helped me,’ he said, perched on a bar stool, ankles crossed as anyone who wore a skirt should. The fabric of his pleated skirt stuck to his skin, and as the night went on Gabriel would go on to wipe his palms on the already wet fabric. The Ferryman found himself mirroring the movement, rubbing his slacks between his fingers.
Gabriel continued, ‘It was when I was at my lowest, and it was mostly my own fault. My own blindness. If I’d seen everything earlier…’
He didn’t continue. The Ferryman didn’t press him for more.
He pretended to cough into his hand and changed the topic, something mundane that neither of them could recall after the night had passed.
They parted ways when the clock struck midnight, knowing as much about each other as they did when they first entered the bar.
The Ferryman clutched a crumpled receipt in his hand, committing to memory the number written on the back of it.
~~~
It is not the first time Gabriel undresses. This time, however, he peels off his bodysuit with a deliberate slowness, a deep-seated hunger thrumming through his veins as his fingernails catch on the skin-tight fabric.
The Ferryman crosses his legs on instinct when the suit comes off at his waist and his breasts spill out, heaving with each breath he takes.
Angels are not created with the propensity towards lust, or so the Ferryman thought. This body exists to be looked at, but only to be looked at; the most direct proof of the Father’s divine glory reflected in flawless charcoal skin and golden lines that cradle his abdomen and snake up his back. The powerful muscle in his limbs, the perfect ratio of shoulder to waist to hip.
The illusion breaks when the Ferryman sees the scars. Thin lines of broken gold, striking a path across his left shoulder, a particularly large one below his ribcage extending all the way to his hip. Healed bullet wounds and gouges from the clawed red arm belonging to the machine on the bed before the radiant archangel, lying on its side with its head propped up on an elbow. The gesture is so disturbingly human the Ferryman feels himself shudder.
But he can be angry at no one but himself. He had his chance, and he lost it.
The machine beckons Gabriel forward with a lazy wave of its hand and he obeys, inching forward on his hands and knees. Its optic is half-lidded, and its gaze slides over the Ferryman for just a brief moment before it grabs Gabriel, its faceplate clinking against Gabriel’s helm.
The Ferryman finds something else to focus on.
The machine has four hands, the claws of the red one tracing a dangerous path along the bob of Gabriel’s throat. Its blue hands slide over Gabriel’s shoulders, following the line of golden patterning down to his sides, and the green one shoots out to grab his left breast, squeezing it as Gabriel gasps and pushes himself forward onto the machine’s claws, a trickle of blood running down his neck.
It lets go of his sides, making him prop himself up with the strength of his shaking arms, its claws directly over his jugular. It is signing something with its hands, something that Gabriel nods frantically at with a soft, whimpered ‘please’.
The green hand, sweat-stained, rolls a nipple between forefinger and thumb, and the Ferryman pinches at a corner of his own holy cloth.
~~~
The first time the Ferryman saw him naked was at his home studio.
Gabriel had showed up at his door, evidently confused at the way the Ferryman leapt back. He’d been holding up a namecard, and yes, the Ferryman remembered—he’d handed that accursed thing over to Gabriel on the night they lied to each other and pretended to enjoy it. And then the Ferryman had no choice but to lead him down the darkened corridor (to save on the electricity bills) and towards his workspace, hoping and hoping that Gabriel would not turn his head ninety degrees to the right or to the left, to witness the blasphemy this sinner is capable of.
Gabriel held on to his shoulder in the dark. The Ferryman fished for a conversation topic: relevant, but not too close—the lights. He must be wondering about that. And so he said that his day job didn’t pay well and he hadn’t had many rich clients in a while.Gabriel said that he wasn’t rich but he’d be willing to help out a friend in the midst of his financial struggles, to which that friend laughed. He had said Gabriel should have kept his mouth shut because now this friend feels guilty about exploiting a virtuous archangel, taking his money in exchange for mediocre artwork.
Gabriel stopped in his steps then.
There is a ray of midday sun that falls through the skylight the Ferryman had installed after he’d gotten rid of the electric lights (this lighting only worked during the summer months, but you get what you pay for), snaking across the sickly yellow wallpaper. It slashed a bright cut of white into the middle of the painting mounted on the wall, directly below the skylight. He’d moved the painting here after losing his last customer, figuring that he wanted whatever little bit of happiness he could get. And if happiness came in the form of a painting of the archangel now standing half-illuminated in that shaft of light, gaze fixed on the image of himself splayed naked on a luxurious couch, the only thing disqualifying the painting from counting as straight up pornography being the half-transparent bundle of cloth wrapped around the subject’s hips and resting right between his parted legs, well, the Ferryman wanted this bit of happiness to be somewhere he could see it.
The Ferryman contemplated shooting himself in the head as Gabriel lifted a hand, resting a finger on the ornate frame of the painting. His brains would splatter on that painting, hopefully covering up this gouache-crafted degeneracy with a fine film of blood.
Gabriel turned to the Ferryman. ‘A pity that this corridor is not properly lit. This proof of skill should capture more attention.’
He turned back around, summoning his halo for light, leaving the Ferryman with a burning pit of phantom shame that used to live in his stomach. It is the one thing he misses about his flesh: he could at least pinpoint where his rage sat and where his agony festered and then wish that he could remove the offending organ, an easy scapegoat for the abstraction that is emotion.
He should burn that painting, and everything else that lines that corridor, those proofs of weakness and sin. Gabriel can call it art all he wants, but the Ferryman knew that the fire that burned within the artist with every stroke of the brush was not that of worship.
His studio faced southward, its one small window too grimy to let in any light, the bed folded away to become a couch for visitors. He set up his canvas and paints as Gabriel walked around, resisting the urge to tell the archangel to stop rifling through his sketchbooks, though mercifully he only picks up the ones that contain still lifes. The Ferryman managed to get ready before Gabriel’s curiosity could lead him through the pile of discarded charcoal sticks. The Ferryman had his beloved palette and oil painting knives in hand, asking, has this client confirmed his request for a full-body portrait?
Gabriel nodded. The Ferryman led him to the couch before heading to the light switches, the single yellowing lightbulb in the middle of the room insufficient for his work.
The sound of a belt buckle being unfastened stopped him dead in his tracks. The Ferryman stood perfectly still, finger on a light switch, listening to a pair of jeans, wallet and keys still in its pockets, get thrown over an armrest, followed by the rustle of a jacket being shrugged off.
The Ferryman gathered all his composure and turned around, just as Gabriel’s shirt came off and the Ferryman strung together the stupidest string of words ever conceived of in the history of language.
‘You have… breasts?’
The urge to shoot himself returned in full force, perhaps even stronger. Gabriel rolled his shoulders, sighing in relief.
The Ferryman contemplated shoving a painting knife into his eye socket.
‘Is it that surprising? We do not need to conform to human conventions of gender.’
The Ferryman stood there, calculating the exact amount of steps he would need to take to grab the painting knives balanced precariously atop a stack of sketchbooks and cleaving his skull in two.
Gabriel coughed. ‘I can put my clothes back on, if you wish.’
The Ferryman dashed back to his easel. ‘Just be reminded that nude portraits cost extra.’
Gabriel leaned back on the couch. ‘Do I need to do anything else?’
‘No, just—hold that pose.’
He sketched in silence. Gabriel crossed and uncrossed his legs multiple times as the Ferryman worked, too lost in the process of the art to pay any heed to the building tension within his mind. He would like to draw Gabriel’s wings; the painting in the corridor did not feature those. But those could come after he was done with the main body.
Compared to his other subjects, Gabriel was easier to draw, the sheer perfection of his body in the pale fluorescent light a closer match to the stone busts and statues the Ferryman practiced drawing when he was a student than anything organic. He propped himself up on his side, the fingers of his right hand drumming nervously against a shapely thigh.
The Ferryman asked if he played an instrument.
‘I have been trying to find a pipe organ I can rent,’ said Gabriel. Sweat was beginning to gather in the dip of his clavicles, and the Ferryman’s feverish mind ran a simulation of that sweat trickling down and over his heavy breasts, drooping slightly on either side of his ribcage.
A rogue line snaked across the canvas, and the Ferryman held back a curse.
‘But for now, Mirage—a friend—has lent me her piano. My skills have been getting rusty, I am afraid.’
That nervous drumming hand rested on his hip, long, elegant fingers casting tendriled shadows across his stomach, drawing the Ferryman’s attention to that particular piece of anatomy. He lacked a navel, as expected for the nature of his creation, and the faint outline of abdominal muscles showed beneath a layer of fat when he adjusted his position slightly.
A shimmer of gold caught the Ferryman’s attention.
Between the two purposeful arcs of gold, Gabriel’s skin was marred by a thin, jagged line that stretched from the bottom of his ribcage to his hip.
It was impossible, but the Ferryman knew it was a scar.
Gabriel noticed him looking. Running a finger along the line, he said, ‘It’s a long story.’
The Ferryman went through the motions of clearing his throat, a habit he could not break. ‘It’s going to be a long session.’
Gabriel lay back, resting his hand on his hip again, the golden scar catching the brilliant fluorescence that was beginning to choke the room. He spoke as the Ferryman worked, his voice low, almost musical with the easy rhythm of his speech.
Line by line, the Ferryman sketched his hips, distracting himself from the desire to place his hands on the dips by focusing on Gabriel’s voice, suffused with emotion. He was recounting the day he met the only person who could hurt him.
It was a machine, and the Ferryman already knew that, but the fit of rage when Gabriel spoke its serial number as if it were the thing’s name surprised the Husk still. There was some minor dispute or other—the Ferryman didn’t catch that segment—but both of them were wound up and tired and both only knew how to kill.
‘I hated its violence. The decadence of it, the way it felt like mine—it was a mirror. Have you ever tasted your own blood?’
The Ferryman shook his head, busy outlining the shadows on the underside of Gabriel’s helm.
‘I did the next day, thinking I could beat it, trying to prove that my first loss was merely a fluke. It… held me down and made me bleed. I’d never known that kind of… relief, before that.’
Gabriel’s voice trailed off before picking up again. ‘God is dead. I left the Council.’
The Ferryman’s pencil sounded a crisp rattle when it fell to the floor. Gabriel moved, hand outstretched as if to offer assistance, but the Ferryman told him to stay put, perhaps more harshly than he had intended.
Gabriel slid back into his original position, face unreadable under his helm.
The Ferryman gritted his teeth and continued to sketch with more fervour, as if each stroke of the pencil would cull the roiling, burning something that settled near the stem of his brain.
He kept Gabriel there for as long as he could bear it (thirty minutes) before thanking the angel for his time and telling him to be back soon, full portraits take multiple sessions, make sure you warn me about the nudity thing beforehand next time, if there is a next time, I’m just joking, goodbye.
As soon as the door shut behind Gabriel, the Ferryman collapsed against the doorframe, knees trembling, skeletal hands placed over his face as he tried to remember how to cry.
Because eclipsing the relief and the confusion was the overwhelming sense of fear.
~~~
Gabriel would tell him more about God, the Council and his departure in the coming days, laying on the same couch. He spoke of regret and sin and how blind he was, to have enforced this cruelty, to have looked the other way when the Ferryman was denied redemption again and again, and that he was sorry, so sorry.
The Ferryman cannot piece it all together.
The Council’s word is law, but Gabriel was the one who showed him the option of redemption —holding this starved sinner with dried blood on his hands in his arms as he negotiated with his colleagues, his heartbeat in the Ferryman’s right ear. Any devoted follower of God deserved a second chance, he’d explained to the singular Councillor who’d showed up, arms crossed over his robes.
And if Gabriel had turned his back on his Father’s mouthpiece…
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.
Gabriel’s bodysuit lies in a heap at the foot of the bed, stained with sweat, blood, and though the Ferryman cannot see it now, a patch of off-white around the crotch area when the machine had torn the suit off him in one fluid motion.
On the bed, Gabriel lets the machine press him into the sheets and pull his legs apart. Its red hand skims over his folds, glistening with slick by the time it finds his clit, claw tip balancing atop that delicate organ.
Gabriel tilts his head back when it removes its claws, only to scream when it drives those digits deep into the flesh of his thigh, a sound that morphs into a moan when the machine slides two fingers of a different hand inside of him, the obscene wet sound making the Ferryman lean back in his seat.
It would be easier to think that the desire rested within that infernal machine rather than Gabriel, but the archangel hooks his legs over the machine’s hips to draw it closer, crying out loud when it adds a third finger. He swears, begs for more, dares the machine to hurt him, which it does by clawing a deep red scratch into his other thigh.
By every definition of the word, this is lust of the highest order. But neither were created to enjoy, nor to beg for pleasures of the flesh.
The hole in that logic presents itself as soon as the Ferryman eyes Gabriel’s dripping cunt, speared open on the machine’s fingers.
Gabriel meets his gaze over the machine’s shoulder before quickly locking on to something else.
~~~
The second session had him breaking out the oil paints. Listening to Gabriel start coughing as soon as the paint thinner was uncapped made the Ferryman race over to the only window in the room and struggle to get it open, apologising the whole time for forgetting that his guest still has a nose (or whatever olfactory organ lies beneath that helm). But try as he might, the Ferryman’s bones were no match for the strength of several bent nails, pinning the window firmly to the frame.
Gabriel stepped over, already fully undressed, dug his fingernails into the edge of the window, and pushed it open with a grunt of effort. The Ferryman forced himself to stay where he was when the angel moved, facing head-on the defined lines of muscle and the way his breasts move when he reaches to secure the window.
The Ferryman’s hand tightens around his brush.
This is a test. He can keep lust at bay. Even if there is no one left to offer him redemption, it is the virtuous thing to do, and the Ferryman has sworn himself to virtue.
He’d thought he had let it all out the day after his arrest. Gabriel had let him keep the handkerchief he’d washed the Ferryman’s bloodied hands with, and it was the memory of a strong, firm touch through a thin layer of cloth that he clung to as he stroked himself to completion in the shower of his holding cell. Quick and easy, the last bit of attention his sinful flesh would get.
It appeared that some sins went bone-deep.
The Ferryman had started working on the gold filigree that lined parts of Gabriel’s body. The ones on his shoulders caught the overhead fluorescence in their metallic sheen. Beautiful. The thought crossed the Ferryman’s mind multiple times and each time he stopped it there, not wishing for it to go any further.
Art was worship. This was worship, and Gabriel’s body is holy.
The Ferryman omitted the fresher scars on his pectorals and sternum.
The lines on his abdomen went further down than the Ferryman expected. They framed the spot where a navel would be if he were mortal before trailing downwards between his legs, each golden thread on either side of his slit. His clit peeked out from under its hood, and the Ferryman thought briefly about touching him there. Hell, why stop there? It’s obvious that Gabriel is here because of his guilt. If the Ferryman asked to lay with him as a man with his wife, Gabriel would agree.
The surge of disgust that passed through the Ferryman nearly unseated him.
This was no way to think about his saviour. Gabriel saw potential in him, and here he was betraying the very purity that Gabriel had saved him for.
The Ferryman picked up a painting knife and got to work on the cross in the middle of Gabriel’s helm. The angel stayed as still as a statue, hand balanced on a hip.
‘If possible, I would like to draw your wings.’
Gabriel obliged, his brilliant wings manifesting into existence, both slung over the back of the couch. The pale blue light they emitted made the Ferryman want to hurt something.
Preferably Gabriel. Pin him down by those wings cut from the sky, skeletal hands clawing at his back as Gabriel rides him.
The Ferryman’s palette clattered to the floor and he bit back a scream.
~~~
When did Gabriel stop being a virgin?
Of course it had to be the machine to take that from him. Taught him to put pleasure above all else, infected him with its hedonism, dragging him deeper into sin. It has to be the only explanation. What archangel would choose, of his own free will, the darkness of sin over an eternity with the Father?
A dead Father, the Ferryman reminds himself.
It is easier to think that Gabriel had been manipulated in some way. It is easier to think that it is the Ferryman’s turn to drag him from the quagmire of sin, restore him to glory. Two souls indebted to each other.
But the Ferryman prides himself on his ability to reason.
The machine is on top of Gabriel, its hands around his throat while the claws dig into a wound on his left pec. The Ferryman knows that the angel can end this at any time, teleport away in a flash of gold; the machine is not restraining him in any substantial way, bar folding him almost in half as it penetrates him in more ways than one. Its chestplate slides open, allowing Gabriel to take hold of a bundle of wires and pull, tearing a harsh mechanical whine from deep within the machine’s chassis.
Gabriel’s legs tense around its thin neck as it begins to choke him, the two of them in a perpetual feedback loop of pain and adrenaline. Is this love?
The Ferryman searches for something to fill the emptiness living within his ribcage.
Gabriel gasps as the machine moves within him. His fingers, lodged deep in the machine’s chassis, come away sticky with blood. He lets the machine come closer, stretching his flexibility to the limit, before cupping its camera-like head in a bloodied palm. It withdraws its claws for a brief moment to return the gesture, a streak of fresh blood marring the image of the cross on his helm.
When Gabriel cries out, calling its name, his wings manifest underneath him. Large, soft, and feathery, now tinted gold at the ends. His radiance returning in full force. The Ferryman reaches for those wings, as if by touching them he will be healed, he will be clean. Please. Lift him up again out of this terrible crawling and gnashing of teeth. Even if they must burn together, just one touch would be enough to save him.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The Ferryman wishes to drop to his knees in front of the bed and start praying right then and there. What’s another god that doesn’t hear his pleas?
He should have torn to shreds this desire at its source.
The machine releases Gabriel, letting him catch his breath and massage his neck. His inner thighs are messy with slick, and the full view of his entrance only serves to make the Ferryman grip the armrests of his chair tighter. The machine stretches and crawls to the other side of the bed to give Gabriel some space in an almost animalistic manner, its single eye continuing to observe as Gabriel touches the wound on his chest. The opening is already beginning to knit together, gossamer gold sealing it shut.
Gabriel clears his throat. ‘I am… ready, if you will continue to indulge me.’
It shrugs at him. Gabriel lets out an annoyed huff.
‘Must you seek to humiliate me at every turn? Fine. Fuck me.’ A beat. ‘Please.’
The machine’s hardlight wings flutter as it allows Gabriel to seize it by the shoulders, lining himself up with its already-slick length. His wings flare out, brilliant as a summer sky, and he slams his hips down.
‘F—fuck,’ he gasps as the machine sinks its claws into his hip. ‘Mhh—you’ll let me—take this?’
Its shoulders shake in silent laughter as it stays perfectly still, this terrible, godless thing, letting Gabriel’s moans veer into desperation as he rides it, grinding his hips against the machine’s.
The machine catches his attention with a snap of its fingers. ‘Your armour.’
‘Ahh—the damn armour can—‘
It signs, ‘Put it back on.’
‘I—I don’t see how—‘
Its green hand shoots out to grab him by the halo, pulling his face down so his helm clinks against its optic lens. ‘Now.’
~~~
On the day of the last painting session the Ferryman made tea for the two of them. Gabriel accepted, though he covered his face with a wing whenever he removed his helm to take a sip.
The Ferryman’s kitchen is small, bare, and badly illuminated, the singular lightbulb buzzing with frantic energy every moment it was switched on, its pale yellow light needing to be supplemented by the glow of Gabriel’s wings and halo.
They talked about more things that didn’t matter. Gabriel would be able to pick up the finished painting in a couple days, no problem. The Ferryman found his gaze straying to Gabriel’s chest area, where sweat had soaked through most of the fabric.
If this was a test, then he had passed it. Torturous sessions spent staring at the body he wanted to deflower, and now he could safely say that he’d suppressed the temptation.
He sent Gabriel off with a wave at the front door before proceeding to the next step.
Fires attracted less attention during the day, masked by the sun’s light. He scoured his house, mostly the entrance corridor, taking paintings alongside their heavy frames down from the walls and hauling them to his overgrown backyard. Dandelions swayed in the wind as he worked, detaching the canvas from their frames and tossing them into a neat pile in the middle of the yard, far away from any other potentially flammable objects.
The Ferryman turned each and every canvas face down. He could see into his workshop from here, the window having stayed open since Gabriel had wrenched it from its frame that day. How much of his life had he dedicated to working on this defilement that he had mistaken for worship?
He did not need an answer. Now that he had passed this test, the past could be cleansed in flame.
The match failed to light on the first strike, and the second strike broke the thin wooden stick in two. The Ferryman extracted a second match, arm raised far above the box—
A stone landed next to his foot.
The Ferryman looked up at the roof of his house. A machine stood there, silhouetted against the midday sun, its wings forming a mockery of a halo, chipped blue paint looking wreathed in flame. It tilted its single-eyed head before placing its hands on its hips.
The Ferryman looked around for a weapon but found none. The machine stretched, slid to the edge of the roof, and leapt down, landing a mere foot away from the pile of destroyed paintings.
It had four hands, one of which—the red one—ended in three pointed claws. It pointed at the paintings with that hand, while two of its other arms began to sign.
‘That yours?’
‘Leave this place.’
Its wings fluttered and it bent down to hold one of the canvases between its forefinger and thumb. The Ferryman picked up a rock on the ground to throw, but the sight of the machine unrolling the canvas—a depiction of Gabriel in his armour, though notably with the breastplate removed—stopped him dead in his tracks.
‘You give that back right now.’
‘It’s not like you need it.’ It deftly stepped to the side to avoid the rock thrown at it. ‘Gabriel sent me.’
‘A likely story.’ The Ferryman looked for another rock to throw.
‘What, you think he’s oblivious? If there’s anything he knows better than you, it’s the repressed sexual guilt you guys both have. Took us some time to get over that initially.’
The implications of the last line made the Ferryman grit his teeth and stand his ground. His self-preservation being the only thing stopping him from lunging forward and snapping this thing’s neck. These machines were built to kill, and this model was made to do that at a higher efficiency than anything else. It took the painting and tossed it at one of its wings, the canvas seemingly vanishing into thin air as soon as it hit the hardlight blade. Storage.
‘Give that back.’ Then, ‘What did you do to him?’
‘Not answering anything until you admit the truth about yourself. Pervert.’
‘My devotion to God has not changed. I am a sinner on the path of redemption, and this—this is me correcting my mistake. My desire is pure.’ Unlike yours. The thought of this thing laying a hand on Gabriel…
‘Prove it.’ The machine’s single eye glows brighter.
‘Are you challenging me?’
‘Do you accept?’
The Ferryman knew he was making a mistake, but the word slipped out before he could stop it. ‘Yes.’
The machine went very still. It tapped a finger against its almost conical head, wings lowered. The Ferryman had the strangest sense that it was thinking.
‘Well. This isn’t entirely my idea, but are you familiar with the concept of a “cuck chair”?’
~~~
‘Are you all right?’
The Ferryman’s vision regains a smidge of its former focus. Gabriel is sitting on the edge of the bed, his feathers scattered all over the room. The soft gold of his wings is fading, something that the Ferryman feels oddly vindictive about before catching himself and shutting down that thought.
Gabriel attempts to get up but his knees buckle and he is sent collapsing onto the bed again, cursing the machine under his breath. The machine in question is undoing the straps from around its thighs and hips, casually sticking the used dildo in one of its topmost wings without cleaning it. The disgust that racks the Ferryman at that sight shakes him out of his dissociative state.
He finds his voice.
‘Forgive me.’
Gabriel rubs his sore thighs. ‘I cannot grant you forgiveness. Neither can…’ He coughs. ‘Confess, sinner.’
‘I had thought that I desired you the way a sinner desires a saviour. I’d banished—I thought I’d passed my trials, gazing upon your form without once falling to temptation, but seeing you and the machine…’ Copulate? Fornicate?
Gabriel seems to get the gist. ‘If you have committed a sin by watching us, then my sins, as a participant, are far graver than yours.’
‘But—you—‘
Gabriel sighs. His halo, still stained with a tinge of gold, seems to dim slightly. ‘I wish I could say that this was the most heinous of my sins. But there is no one to measure that, no?’
The Ferryman hangs his head. The pieces don’t fit, not when they are laid out like this. Gabriel, fallen to sin. This is his fault, though he cannot figure out why.
Gabriel speaks again. ‘If you want me to grant you salvation regardless… come forth, sinner.’
The Ferryman stands up, only releasing the armrests when he is sure that he will not keel over immediately. Gabriel’s arms are outstretched, and the Ferryman all but stumbles into them, his head buried in the angel’s shoulder, wishing he could cry.
Gabriel’s arms wrap around him, strong and gentle. ‘I absolve you of sin.’
The Ferryman holds on tighter to his shoulders. Gabriel’s breathing is slow and rhythmic, though his heart still carries the rabbit-pulse of adrenaline. The Ferryman tries to focus on that instead of the weight of his breasts pressing against his ribs, the wetness on his armoured thighs. His wings curve forward to press gently against the Ferryman’s back, soft feathers like down.
‘The Father gave me this body,’ says Gabriel, his voice rumbling in his chest. ‘I cannot ask Him why He has given me the ability to feel pleasure, if it was never meant to happen. I doubt I will ever understand His design.’
A soft mechanical whirr. Over Gabriel’s shoulder, the machine lifts its head, interested.
‘But you—if this is how you feel, if this is how you love me—I do not think you should spend your life entombed in shame.’
For the first time in his life, the Ferryman wishes he had kept his flesh. Gabriel lets him go and the Ferryman takes a reluctant step back, caught between wishing to feel the warmth of Gabriel’s skin and the scared animal inside his brain that bites him and bites him whenever he is anywhere close to this warmth.
Gabriel folds his wings behind his back. Silhouetted against their soft blue glow, he is beautiful—the armour pieces he wears on his legs reflecting the light that is his radiance, the rest of him bare, black skin threaded with gold. The Ferryman wonders dimly about the strength of his thighs, and then thinks about why he had ever cared about any god other than Gabriel.
Idols be damned. This god cared about him.
‘Can I…’
The words slip out of him before he can notice. Under the machine’s watchful gaze, Gabriel tilts his head.
‘May I—may I take you to bed?’
Gabriel pauses for a brief moment, during which the urge to shatter his skull against the sharp corner of the bedside table hits the Ferryman, and then the angel nods, parting his thighs and lying on his back.
The machine snaps its fingers. ‘Need to borrow a strap?’
Gabriel makes a noise of obvious displeasure. ‘That is revolting, V1.’
The machine crosses an ankle over a knee, looking pleased with itself. The Ferryman comes to the awful realisation that he will have to thank it sooner or later, but for now he has something else important to do.
Gabriel’s breath hitches when the Ferryman touches his clavicle before sliding down to cup a breast, squeezing gently.
His heated skin is supple under the Ferryman’s bony fingers. His paintings do not do this body justice, toned muscle honed to perfection by centuries of training. The Ferryman grabs at his waist, unfairly small compared to the rest of him, and rubs the dips in his hips. Gabriel allows this exploration of his body, a shiver passing through him when the Ferryman kneels between his legs, hands on his thighs. This sinner looks up and meets Gabriel’s gaze. There is so much he needs to say, about himself and his crimes and Gabriel’s sins, but the thoughts dissolve in the dryness of his mouth.
Gabriel nods his explicit consent.
He is still wonderfully wet, the Ferryman’s fingers coming away soaked at the first tentative touch. Gabriel encourages him to come closer with a nudge of his knee, and the Ferryman gathers all the courage he has left and trails a finger up Gabriel’s folds, stopping at his throbbing clit.
Gabriel’s whole body seizes as if electrocuted and the Ferryman retracts his finger, but Gabriel takes his hand by the wrist and presses it to his cunt again, trembling all the while. Emboldened, the Ferryman strokes his clit once more and the angel beneath him swears softly, a sound that fades into a moan when the Ferryman continues to move.
Gabriel releases his wrist, covering his helm with both his hands as he keens. The Ferryman presses two soaked fingers against the opening of his pussy, hesitating.
Gabriel spreads his thighs further. The Ferryman grits his teeth and slips his fingers in before he can change his mind, and—oh, God. Slick warmth envelops him, and he thrusts blindly, wanting to lose himself within those trembling walls. He explores further, curling his finger experimentally, and Gabriel’s wings slam down against the bed, sending feathers flying.
‘God… you—you’re good with your hands. Please—!’
The Ferryman obliges, adding a third finger to better feel Gabriel clench down around him with a wet sound. He writhes in place, wings twitching, a thin layer of sweat coating his skin. The noises he makes when the Ferryman goes deeper awakens something akin to hunger within his long-dried bones.
With his other hand, the Ferryman lifts the cloth covering his face. Fingers still inside of Gabriel, the Ferryman climbs on top of his armoured thighs, letting the cloth fall back down over both of their heads. Gabriel falls silent, or as silent as he can be with the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the thundering of his pulse around the Ferryman’s fingers. It’s an awkward angle for the Ferryman, but he is flexible enough to lean forward and press his teeth against Gabriel’s tits, wishing he still had a tongue to taste the salt of his sweat.
Gabriel’s hips buck upwards, and the Ferryman presses his palm into his clit. He’s close, already too sensitive from the earlier sessions, the exhaustion of his body giving way to a faster finish.
The Ferryman opens his mouth and bites down, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of a breast.
Gabriel reacts instantly, his back arching off the bed, a scream reverberating through his chest and deep into the Ferryman’s bones. His thighs press together and he clenches around the Ferryman’s fingers, his breathing ragged and heavy.
The Ferryman lets go of his flesh.
Under the Ferryman’s cloth, away from prying eyes, Gabriel reaches out a shaking hand, gently cupping the Ferryman’s jaw.
~~~
V1 is standing on the roof of the hotel when the Ferryman finds it, rolling a lit cigarette between its fingers. It perks up when it notices him, immediately tossing the cigarette at him, which he tries to and fails to snatch out of the air.
V1 shrugs. ‘Butterfingers.’
The Ferryman decides to ignore the innuendo and steps on the cigarette to put it out. V1 spreads its arms, looking unbearably smug.
‘I suppose you expect me to thank you now?’
‘I never said anything about gratitude. But since you brought it up…’
It crosses its arms and begins tapping a foot. The Ferryman grinds his teeth.
‘…Thanks.’
‘Partial credit,’ signs the machine. ‘It was his idea, mostly. Speaking of which, where is he?’
‘Dealing with the sheets.’
‘And you left him to do all that alone?’
‘He wanted time to think.’
‘Excuses, excuses,’ says V1. ‘A healthy companionship requires the sharing of a burden.’
‘I am not involving myself with you.’
‘Who said anything about me? It’s not like we’re a package deal.’ V1 finds a coin on the ground which it tosses into the air and catches. ‘Seems like you really do care about me.’
‘May the good Lord strike you down.’
‘Goodness.’ V1 tosses the coin at the Ferryman, and he catches it this time. ‘He’s really rubbed off on you.’
It strides over to the edge of the roof, lazy and drawling, until—
It snaps back around, its single yellow eye staring directly at the Ferryman. He stands his ground, the coin clutched in his hand burning like a seal against his palm.
‘You’ll learn to live eventually,’ it says.
‘I am very much alive.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ It tilts its head. ‘He’s here for you, whatever you choose to do next.’
Then, without warning, V1 hops backwards and off the roof. The Ferryman dashes forward to look down, more out of curiosity than concern—what kind of war machine could not overcome the dangers of gravity?—but V1 is gone.
The Ferryman watches the sun rise over the distant city skyline.
When the hues of the sky change from deep blue to a soothing purple, he pockets the coin and heads back downstairs.
thank you Vernalis and scarygreenlightning for beta reading this my ESL ass could not stop comma splicing and that hurt some of the readability
also the google doc this fic is in is called 'ferryman in the fudanshi cuck chair'. he's just like me fr. i also need to bite Gabriel's tits