Chapter Text
First there comes pity; like watching a mother bird accept that there is no saving her plundered nest, limping away in desperation when broken wings will not carry her away. Then a blink of amusement– watching a small puppy flounder uselessly as it tries to figure out how to use its newborn body. But ultimately he settles on disgust ; maggots writhing in the carcass of days old roadkill. Purposeless. Reliant on the world to keep it safe from the crushing heel of a passerby.
His apprentice gasps out in pain with every inch he drags himself through the sand by the fingernails. At least he finally doesn’t have eyes for the plant, several feet away, half his body crushed beneath rubble, crying out Nicholas’ last name like he understands a single thing about the boy who crawls away in vain.
“You fought far too defensively,” Chapel says, stepping closer, bridging the gap between them and ruining whatever small lead Nicholas had managed in a single instant, “Distracted yourself with the affairs of a secondary combatant. Prioritized the life of a third party rather than your own. These are some of your most fundamental lessons, Nicholas. You–”
“Shut up!” Nicholas snarls back, voice cracking midway, his bravado empty and meaningless, proven when Chapel sighs in response, grabs him by the leg, and yanks him back from the gun he desperately reaches for. The mere touch makes him choke on his breath, eyes flinching wide, and he tries to be subtle about the way he reaches into his jacket to check for another vial. But Chapel knows how many he had been carrying– knows that he has none left.
“The devil’s corruption runs deep in you,” he muses, side eyeing the plant, the way budding roots snake out from his body only to wither and die before they can do so much as lift the rubble atop him for a second. He’s fortunate that this angel is weak, unable to properly harness the power that would undoubtedly be capable of gutting him in an instant. Such distress– the incessant screaming for his apprentice, the indigo blooms that crawl across his flesh like pustules only to crack off his skin and crumble to dust before they hit the bloody sand.
Nicholas tries in vain to claw to his knees. Chapel pushes him back down with the heel of his boot, then reaches to grab him by the sleeve of his jacket to toss him back over onto his back. A more familiar position. One the boy recognizes and tries to circumvent by flipping onto his stomach again, even if it renders him more prone. Chapel doesn’t give him the chance. He wedges his foot between Nicholas’ legs and presses his boot down upon the boy’s groin; immediately the boy changes gears and tries to grab at Chapel’s heel like he has any hope of pushing him off. Instead his face screws, body rebelling at the bend, the gun shrapnel in his side deterring him from making a second attempt.
Chapel breathes deep, sheds the lingering exertion of battle with the crack of his neck and the roll of his shoulders. Nicholas stares to the side. Hand pressed against the wound in his side, the fingers of his opposite hand curl into a fist. He grits his teeth, tolerating the weight on his groin only because he lacks the strength to fight it. A sight Chapel is accustomed to.
“Look at me, Nicholas,” Chapel says as he pulls a vial from his coat. Brown eyes flick to him with innate obedience before his gaze hardens and Nicholas stubbornly denies the command. Such arrogance– and a testament to how easily a boy prone to sin strays from the path of righteousness as soon as he is given the slightest bit of slack on his leash. As the angel tried so diligently to give the benefit of the doubt to humanity, so too has he tried again and again to be patient. To extend grace even when he is being tested.
Chapel snaps the top of the vial with his thumb; glass cracks, and so too does his sympathy. He presses down hard on Nicholas’ cock with a suddenness that makes the boy flinch and whine. “Look at me, Nicholas,” Chapel repeats, and while he is not wholly pleased with Nicholas’ forced jolt onto his back, compelled by the threat of the looming rod as though he is cattle in the way he rigidly stares, it is progress nonetheless.
The plant cries out with strain, trying again to lift himself from the rubble. Chapel pays him no mind. He maintains eye contact while he tips the vial back into his mouth and sighs audibly with relief as the bitter fluid floods his body with renewal. Bullets melt in his flesh, burned away with a hiss and the mildest of steam, and he can’t help but remember the first time he taught Nicholas how to endure the sting of expunging inorganic matter from his body. How the boy writhed and cried and screamed bloody murder– and yet now he watches the vial in Chapel’s hand with ravenous hunger where he once needed it forced down his throat.
He’s given this boy so much. But children are greedy like that. Wanting to take and take and take and take, never wanting to give in turn. Such is the burden of parenthood, Chapel supposes.
“What now?” Nicholas hisses through his teeth. The plant goes silent as though he is the one being spoken to, listening diligently, with an urgency that suggests whatever Nicholas says will turn the tables when the battle has already been all but won. Not a complete victory– that would come shortly. Twofold, in the delivery of the fallen angel, and the recovery of an apprentice gone rogue. “Gotta kill the traitor, right–? Or ya gonna just keep dicking around just to feel somethin’...?”
“Watch your tongue,” Chapel replies, sharply. He grinds his heel into Nicholas’ pelvis and relishes in the mild jerk of his leg, the fingers that sink into the sand for relief. “I don’t think you realize what I had to do to stave off the Eye’s condemnation of you. Not that I expect you to show any gratitude.”
It’s a thankless task. It always has been. Chapel tosses the empty vial aside with a dull plat into the sand. Nicholas wants to say something, to spit vitriol– it’s plain by the way his lips quaver and his chest shakes with the anticipation of going against his word. But he doesn’t know how to take the statement. Chapel watches him, knowing in his heart that this is neither the time or place for such things, but–
–oh, the burden of attachment. Chapel kneels, elbow at rest atop it, purposefully pressing his knee up against Nicholas’ crotch. The boy’s thighs tense, protectively, and Chapel feels the first pang up the back of his throat, a tightness that preludes the sin Nicholas is so very adept at invoking. “You know the cost of insubordination, Nicholas. You always have,” he says, quietly. It’s not a surprise to either of them. Yet the boy– his boy– acts as though he’s been slapped in the face, eyes going wide, pupils dilating with terror. “The penalty remains,” Chapel adds before the boy can think to say something daft, “and you will be coming home with me to be properly disciplined for your misbehavior.”
The boy’s eyes search his face feverishly, as though hoping for Chapel to relent and redact the punishment. His body stirs to life, first with a shudder, then with a sudden burst of strength as he props himself up on his elbow and tries– fails– to jolt away. “Haaah… hah… like– like hell I am–” Nicholas stammers. He tries to flip over, to get up, but his motions are telegraphed and slowed with pain. He barely twitches before Chapel grabs him by the shirt collar and drags him back down, pulling his crotch hard into the boot, unfazed by the way Nicholas grips his wrist and tries with all of his remaining strength to pry him off.
“I won’t let you!” The plant yells at him, but that fails to win him even a passing glance. Empty words from a fallen angel who has long since relinquished his divine birthright. Chapel ignores him utterly; he leans forward, planting a palm in the sand beside Nicholas’ head to peer down at him while fingernails dug into the meat of his wrist in protest.
“The fruit of the devil looks succulent and pleasing from the outside,” Chapel says, watching Nicholas’ lips as he breathes in clipped, short pants, “But were those few bites truly worth the stain on your soul? Was it worth it, Nicholas? To follow so blindly behind he who would tempt you?” His lips, split and cracked, in desperate need of moisture. Saliva pools in the back of Chapel’s mouth. He could so easily wet them. Clean away the blood with his tongue.
It’s been so long since he’s tasted his boy’s breath. Chapel wonders if it still tastes the same.
“Damn pig!” Nicholas snaps, abandoning Chapel’s wrist to try and scratch at his eyes instead. A foolhardy plan quelled by pulling away slightly and snaring his wrists, planting them firm on the ground, on either side of his head. “You– you don’t get to throw that threat around– and then start blowin’ air out yer ass about temptation–”
He’s truly grown bold. All those years of discipline, of honing him to a fine point, and the plant has undone his work by battering his blade against the ground until he’s grown dull and splintered. How tragic that something so precise can be ruined by brutal and clumsy hands. His boy wouldn’t dare speak to him so crudely, but the only tangible sign of how narrowly he restrains himself from slapping the ungrateful child is the twitch of his index finger in Nicholas’ upturned palm.
Patience is a virtue, he reminds himself.
“Honor your father, Nicholas,” Chapel says, still watching his boy’s lips, the flashes of bared teeth as he breathes—
A globule of saliva and blood is on his cheek before he can finish his train of thought. “Eyes up here,” Nicholas snarls, and how very clever he must feel, throwing Chapel’s familiar commands back in his face.
Patience is a virtue, but he is only human. He backhands Nicholas, the clap of skin on skin sharp in the stale air. The plant cries out in protest, and it almost makes him want to backhand the boy again. Nicholas presses his cheek against the sand, silenced by the strike, frozen for all of a few precious seconds before he stirs again. At least this time his hand fumbles blindly in the sand as though searching for something, a weapon perhaps, or even debating a fistful of sand to Chapel’s face.
So Chapel grabs him by the chin instead. He jerks his boy’s head upright, forcing their stares. The backbone leaves him visibly; he shrinks back as Chapel leans closer, closer, their noses barely an inch apart before he speaks in low, warning tone: “Do you think it was a bluff? The decree has already been made. Your contracts are forfeit. You would do well to grovel for forgiveness, Nicholas. Or maybe you’ll have to watch the consequences of your actions firsthand.”
His boy’s misplaced arrogance withers with every scathing word. For all his snarling and growling, he’s quick to retreat, the fire leaving his eyes to usher in a perfect fear and reverence for his master that proves too great a temptation for Chapel to ignore. He licks his lip, a quick swipe of the tongue to wet them, then leans in.
Nicholas tenses beneath him, pulls away as much as he is able— but there’s no escape from Chapel’s grip, and no running from the hungry kiss, a momentary connection that tastes of copper and salt, the sound of their parting moist and poignant, a smack that punctuates the end of the repulsed whine in the back of Nicholas’ throat. The plant may have ruined his boy, but there are lingering parts that even a false messiah cannot take. His breath, the way he surrenders so naturally; blood is not the only thing that makes a son, and Nicholas is proof of that, already so docile at the mildest interference. Spare the rod, spoil the child— he’s been too good to this boy for too long. Nicholas needs this. He needs the intervention. Already he pays the angel no heed, focused utterly on Chapel, his gaze so hollow and small that it fills him with a blissful sense of nostalgia.
“Good. You remember who pulls the strings,” Chapel says as his hand slides from Nicholas’ jaw to his throat. How small his windpipe; how simple a feat it would be to clench his hand hard around his boy’s throat and cut off his air. He squeezes, not with the intent to choke Nicholas, but rather to simply feel the desperate bob of his throat with every dry swallow.
Such a distracting boy. “Turn,” Chapel commands, daring to release him and sit up. Nicholas hesitates, and for an instant he wonders whether the boy will try to fight back against his painfully simple order. Regardless, Chapel decides that he’s taking too long to obey. So he grabs Nicholas by the shoulder and shoves him onto his stomach— at least he doesn’t resist. Fortunate that he came prepared, knowing full well his boy is a stubborn one, and it’s for that very reason he begrudgingly produces a pair of handcuffs from his coat. Lost technology that conveniently slots around Nicholas’ wrist and provides a grip for Chapel to force it close to the other arm.
Chapel shuts the latch of the cuffs, Nicholas’ hands firmly bound in a box behind his back, fingers flinching into tight fists only to grow slack, repeatedly, like the pulse of a heart. Nicholas buries his brow in the sand and hisses with frustration. Chapel is prepared to roll him over onto his back again when his wandering gaze falls to Nicholas’ lower half. His jacket and shirt usually cover that part, but they’re rumpled and hiked up from his struggles, leaving his ass on display– a beautiful curve accented by the tightness of his pants.
Chapel knows what he’s going to do, knows that it will happen either way. There’s no harm in indulging himself a little, he reckons. He’s doing god’s work, and above all else, obedience to that gospel is the important part. So long as he’s doing right by god, and not contradicting any of his lord's desires, his teachings…
His hand wanders to Nicholas’ shapely rear. His boy gasps sharply at the touch, and he tries to flip over all on his own, but Chapel stills him with a hand to the back of his neck, pinning down one of his legs using his own, one hand still free to run across Nicholas’ ass. The pressure in the back of his throat sharpens to a razor edge, and that tightness travels down his spine and into his groin.
“Not here,” Nicholas spits, struggling beneath him, but the vain struggle shoots heat straight into Chapel’s cock. He squeezes Nicholas’ cheek, inching ever closer to the gap between his legs. Nicholas knows precisely where he’s gunning for, and tries to lock his thighs together, but he’s in no position to manage it, to fend off Chapel’s hand in any meaningful way. “You can’t be serious,” he says, a shake to his voice. The fact that he hisses and doesn’t yell is a curious one, but Chapel sees right through it.
Broad fingers stroke against his crotch. The fabric of his pants is a shield, but Chapel knows precisely where his anus is, can practically envision his exposed ass even with a barrier in the way. The way Nicholas writhes, however, is new— he jerks his head to the side, cheeks flushed like this is the first time it’s ever happened, and it’s obvious he’s developed some form of performance anxiety.
It doesn’t stop his steady hand. Chapel pinpoints his taint and rubs sweetly at it, putting pressure exactly where his boy likes it. “What’s wrong, Nicholas?” He asks, treasuring every momentarily flick of those beautiful brown eyes towards him, hot and pointed as his stare is.
“Why does it have to be now?” Nicholas questions in turn. A ludicrous inquiry— but it’s all for the sake of maintaining his dignity in front of his messiah. The rebellious son who tries to pretend he’s better and bigger than the man who raised him, tries to pass off the illusion of not needing anyone to guide him. A tale as old as time. So very, very obvious. “You’re… you’re gonna have all the time in the world to do it… why’s it gotta be now?”
Chapel has no particular reason to reply. He owes his son nothing; not when he’s done nothing but misbehave and turn so brazenly to evil. And yet when he spares a glance to the fallen angel who bares his teeth, the left side of his face overgrown with blooming flowers, a compulsion strikes him. To loom closer over his son, to rub more firmly against his crotch, brush the hair from his face, and say: “We must show this creature that you are a true child of blessing. Your tongue may be untamable, but your body knows, Nicholas. Your body knows who you serve.”
“Stop,” Nicholas protests. He tries hard to shake Chapel’s hand away, a hard rock of his torso, but without his hands there’s so very little he can meaningfully accomplish. “You just wanna piss on me like you own me, you old bastard…! That’s all this is!”
There’s such an easy way to shut him up. Chapel’s groin pangs, and he inhales sharply through his nostrils. The rubbing stills for all of a second as he fights the desire to pull himself free of his trousers and shove his cock down the ungrateful brat’s throat. But there’s no telling just how far the fallen angel has taken his corruption— no telling whether or not Nicholas would dare do something as crude as try to bite him. He’s so very reminiscent of the creature that once was, the raw and impudent rodent that the Eye of Michael gave to him to sculpt into something superior. So he reminds himself that this is all a cry for help to save face, that he is the adult, that he must be the patient one even when his patience is tried.
He turns Nicholas onto his back; all it takes to erase any resistance is to pin his legs. Then he’s left to arch his spine uselessly as though he can free himself if he simply lifts the weight of his body off the cuffs. A strategy he abandons as soon as Chapel runs a hand down his chest and begins to unclasp the buttons of his shirt. Then his body inverts, pressing hard into the sand. He grinds his teeth together. Screws his eyes shut. Tries to twist his legs out from beneath Chapel’s body. “Tell me I’m wrong, huh?” Nicholas spits, a pitiful attempt at bravery, “This is all for you, so you can feel better… and wet your gross, shitty dick—”
Chapel imagines the familiar sputtering. The sound he makes when he’s choking, and the guttural gurgle that tells him he’s gone as deep as he’s able without making his boy vomit. It soothes the sting of Nicholas’ disrespect, particularly when he reminds himself that these are noises he will soon be free to invoke at his leisure. So it’s to his benefit to let the boy mouth off while he still can.
It’s as he’s debating whether to punish Nicholas here and now that the angel calls out: “Chapel.” Just as Nicholas feigns ego, so too does the plant. He speaks loud in a feeble effort at intimidation, but the quake in his voice undermines him. “You don’t have to do this. You won. He… he’s not going anywhere. You don’t have to hurt him anymore.”
He continues to unclasp Nicholas’ belt, undeterred. The words of this creature mean nothing to him. The devil’s honeyed tongue will never sway him from his course. Button undone, zipper pulled down, he caresses Nicholas’ hips and pushes his pants down. Slow and tender— but only for the way it makes his abdomen tense, every muscle prominent in the way he sucks his stomach in and tries hard to keep breathing steadily. Such a far cry from how relaxed he used to be. If only the angel knew how pliable Nicholas is in private. How much of a whore his boy really is.
“Please,” the angel says, suddenly, every effort made to remain firm in tone. “Please, Chapel, just accept that you’ve won. Please.”
“There you are,” Chapel coos instead, running a broad palm across the bulge in Nicholas’ dark undergarments. Even that is a new sight— he must have purchased some on his own. A sound leaves him, a huff of amusement, and it makes Nicholas flinch, the scarlet of his cheeks deepening all the more.
Chapel cups the outline of his boy’s cock and runs his hand up and down through the fabric. Slow, teasing, watching Nicholas writhe and choke on his whimpers as though he’s being run through with a knife. For all his boy’s hesitance, there’s no denying the small wet blotch present even before Chapel touched him, nor the slow definition of his cock that builds with every stroke.
He almost feels his touch in his own groin. Every rub of Nicholas’ bulge goes straight to his own cock, the warmth of arousal panging in his pelvis. Yes, he’s doing this for Nicholas’ sake, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a nigh unbearable urge to yank down his pants and push himself deep into the hot, tight hole waiting for him. He leans forward to run a hand up along the length of his boy’s trembling chest, past his collarbones, the side of his neck, and cradles his cheek in his hand.
All the while he rubs, and he rubs, and like they were made for one another, their cocks stiffen in parallel. Every momentary glance that Nicholas offers him is rife with the sort of black hate that one would offer a creature of their very nightmares, but he’s used to that by now. It will fade, and by the end those eyes will roll back in his head as he croons, even if the song of his pleasure is always tinged with frustration and despair. Even now Nicholas jerks his head away from Chapel’s sweet touch; it takes a fistful of hair and a sharp yank to deter him from his petulant fit.
“Please,” the angel continues, “If you gotta do it to someone, do it to me. I’ll let you. I won’t fight you–”
“Shut up!” Nicholas snarls at last; Chapel allows him to throw his head in the angel’s direction, even if his eyes are screwed shut and he refuses to look the beast in the face as he retorts. “Blondie, just– shut it! Or I’m really gonna lose it–!”
The angel listens. His silence is immediate, and from the corner of his eye Chapel sees him divert his gaze, bury his face in the crook of his arm as a hand clutches maddeningly at his hair. He knows that this isn’t a genuine effort to rebuke the devil; no, this is just him desperately trying to preserve his pride as the man he’s been parading himself around as. The intent is skewed. Nicholas doesn’t deserve praise for that, nor a reward. Yet Chapel finds himself gravitating closer nonetheless, leaning in again to caress his face in one hand while the other continues to work him down below.
“Good boy,” he says, quietly, moving to kiss him when Nicholas snarls and snaps his head up to butt him in the brow.
“It’s only so I don’t have to listen to two insufferable shitstains at the same time!”
Such vitriol in his voice. The words barely leave his mouth before he regrets them, but there’s no time to offer so much as an apology before Chapel backhands him again. He sits up and rubs at his chin where the boy managed to graze him, and even then Nicholas’ chest heaves prematurely, his lip trembling as though he wants to apologize, but unable to will the words to come forth.
Chapel lashes out. A hand latches around Nicholas’ throat, forcing him once more to look in his father’s eyes. He squeezes; if only the boy knew the restraint it takes not to crush his windpipe. “A lick of praise and you see fit to misbehave again,” Chapel says, an audible chill to his tone that he can taste, that Nicholas can feel as his entire body freezes. “I believe you need a reminder not to test my patience. A reminder of what all you’ve been given.”
He brushes Nicholas’ shirt aside to wholly unveil the ugly patch of shredded flesh at his abdomen. Even tearing the fabric from the wet of the wound makes his hips twitch with pain. Unfortunate, then, that he’ll have to deal with worse. Chapel ghosts his fingers along the surface of the injury, but ultimately there is little hesitance. He digs in to a thumbnail sized piece of shrapnel embedded in his skin until it yields and comes loose. No mercy for the way Nicholas yelps and squirms, or for the way his breath quickens.
“You ascended beyond pain,” Chapel says, hooking his nails beneath another metal scrap to yank it out. “You were granted the gift of resilience, of strength beyond measure. Is this what you desire, Nicholas? Human frailty?”
He digs his skull back into the sand and chokes on a scream that he’s barely able to make with the squeeze of his throat. Chapel continues to pull out what pieces he feels blindly with his fingerpads amid the bumpy moisture of skinless, bleeding flesh. And when he no longer has any metal bits to prod at, he slaps an open palm against the wound to press hard against it before he digs his nails in.
His palm is slick with blood when he pries it away, and waits for Nicholas to swallow down the tail end of his outburst before he says: “Playtime is over. Open your mouth and do as I command you, or I promise the extent of your resilience will be put to the test.”
Jaws part, albeit with shuddering hesitance. Blood-slicked fingers slide into his mouth as Chapel watches, vigilant, for any sign his boy might be foolish enough to bite. Nicholas chokes and he sputters, but every time his teeth flinch around Chapel’s hand, it’s the result of a guttural spasm and nothing more.
“I’ll not be doing the work for you,” Chapel says. The boy’s nose wrinkles, but his tongue flicks to life, running along the edge of Chapel’s hand. When Chapel pulls back his hand from the back of his throat to let him work and swallow, his pace quickens. Warm and wet, the boy’s tongue stokes that fire inside of him once more. So diligent. He can picture every swipe against his cock, cleaning spend away, silent labor aside from the obscene sounds of his mouth.
Like a dog licking the side of a bin for scraps. He can’t help but compare the two as he watches, enamored, turning his hand slightly and stretching his fingers apart to make it easier for Nicholas to reach the gaps. He gags between every other swallow, but he’s diligent, pausing only to make sure he’s not going to vomit anything up before he continues.
So very sweet when he shuts his smart mouth. Chapel reminds himself again he should not reward this behavior. That this is a punishment. Yet there’s no denying that there is an end goal to this display, and after working his abdominal wound, there’s more work to be done to stir his boy’s now flaccid cock.
So he adjusts. Keeping his bloody hand in the boy’s mouth while he strokes Nicholas’ groin with the other. Chapel spares the angel a glance— met with gnashing teeth and a glare so foul it might unnerve him were it not for the trails of petals and tears that streak down his cheeks in silent frustration.
But his eyes are for his boy. Not that thing. Chapel rubs loving circles against Nicholas’ member, relishes in the flick of the tongue against his fingertips. How much more satisfying it would be against the tip of his cock.
His member strains against the crotch of his pants. The hunger is an insatiable growl in the pit of his stomach; a testament to his will that he doesn’t cave and devour this pitiful little thing here and now.
“There,” Nicholas gasps out, voice thick with shame, but he’s not done yet. Chapel withdraws his hand to present the butt of his palm. His boy’s brows pinch together, but he presses his lips to the skin and drags his tongue along like the obedient creature he’s capable of being when he so chooses.
No praise is given this time, though. Chapel cradles the side of his face instead and brushes away his bangs with saliva and the lingering traces of crimson that cling to his skin. Nicholas smacks his lips together with distaste, tries to scrape the blood from his tongue with his teeth, and glances off to the side as far as he can humanly manage. If he wants to be shy about it, so be it. He’ll learn soon there’s no point to that.
This time he’s not so eager to stiffen beneath Chapel’s touch. To be expected, perhaps, with how blood continues to roll from the irritated wound at his side and visceral disgust is painted plain upon his young face. Open palm rolls up and down against Nicholas’ crotch. Soon he chooses to caress a nipple instead of the boy’s face, flicking the nub beneath his thumb to a fine, hardened point.
He shifts anxiously under Chapel’s weight. How coincidental that his cock hardens at the same time. It pokes out against his undergarments when Chapel chooses to slide those down under his hips; the breaking point, it seems, as Nicholas turns his head away from the angel entirely to stare vacantly in the opposite direction. How charming that he tries to hide the hot flush of his face. It’s only natural that his father knows how best to make him feel good. There’s nothing to be ashamed of— but that’s the curse of the beast, the very thing that cast humanity out from the angel’s grace. The original sin.
He holds Nicholas’ cock, grip neither too firm nor too loose. A few slow, loving pumps given before his hand wanders higher, sitting at his frenulum while an exploratory thumb strokes across the slit of his tip. “You’re wet, Nicholas,” he remarks, smearing the bead of precum across the head of his cock. “As you always are for me.”
Nicholas flinches in on himself. But he doesn’t argue. No disputing the facts. He flinches again when Chapel cups his balls with the sole intent of massaging them gently. A pity this is neither the time nor place to milk his boy dry. As pleasurable as it is to use him, there’s a beauty to wringing every last scream from his throat until he’s left gasping for air and begging to be spared Chapel’s touch.
Several more beads of precum ooze from his tip as Chapel kneads. They slide down his length, droplets of undeniable proof that his boy belongs to him.
He returns to the shaft. Strokes the length and pumps against it, quickly pleasuring Nicholas before he slows. His world is his boy’s face, beet red and agonized at how good his father touches him in all the right ways. Precum leaks from his tip. Cock stiffens until he’s hard as the sandstone all around them in Chapel’s hand. A silent dance between the two of them. A dance where Chapel leads, and as always, Nicholas obeys, head low with humiliation.
The rest of his body is not long to join in song. Muscles tense in Nicholas’ thighs and stomach, flinching taut every time Chapel strokes the top of his cock. He catches himself the first time his hips chase Chapel’s hand, lifting off the sand ever so slightly before he forces them firmly down. But they shudder from then on, tiny nudges, unspoken worship for the touch of his master. And they only start to jolt higher.
He can pout and writhe and tantrum all he likes. But ultimately this is where the road always leads. Nicholas whines; his cock twitches and throbs in Chapel’s hand, so needy, desperate for his touch. He pumps hard and quick. Nicholas’ hips climb up, up, up, and he throws his head to the other side as his face screws and he stifles a whimper. “Good boy,” Chapel coos. The sight of his son squirming is intoxicating. “So good for your father.” When you want to be, Chapel adds in private.
So wet that there’s not a lick of friction between them. His palm glides up and down the length of Nicholas’ shaft, the schlick-schlick-schlick music to his ears, and an audible testament to how utterly delusional his boy is when he pretends as though he doesn’t want to be beneath the man who owns him.
Who else could play him like this? Who else would ever know the fine details of his body, the way his muscles stiffen as he draws ever closer to orgasm, his hips locked in mid-air, the tension in his face slowly loosing? He’s so close. Teetering on the brink of release. Which is precisely why Chapel pulls his hand away to caress his balls instead, lips twitching into a pleased ghost of a smile when Nicholas shudders and whines with frustration.
“Tell your father you want to come, Nicholas,” Chapel says, watching his lips, unable to decide which hole he wants to use. He makes such pretty sounds either way. Even if he can hardly stand, surely he can stay upright if Chapel holds him– sitting on his knees, he can take a cock down the back of his throat–
Nicholas curls in on himself, but he doesn’t reply as commanded. It stirs Chapel from that fantasy. He frowns. “Nicholas,” he prompts, again, but the boy shakes his head adamantly.
“Father,” he says hoarsely in spite of it. Nicholas grimaces as though the word tastes foul on his stubborn tongue. His upper lip curls, and he’s silent, trying so very diligently to push the next words out. When he does, they spill out in a single verbal lump, on the very cusp of being comprehensible: “–Iwannacome.”
He’s torn between wanting to make the boy say it right, say it properly, and accepting it if only so he can relieve the gross pang of his cock, constant and ever present in the back of his mind. Ultimately he chooses the latter, and takes his boy’s wet cock in hand to give his precise desire.
Quick, unrelenting, merciless. Hungry for the whimpers and the squirming. Nicholas throws his head back prematurely, legs rigid, a blatant effort to try and steel himself as though he can stop the machinations of his body. “Shit,” he whines, breathlessly, “Shit, shit, shit–”
His brows pinch inward, and jaws split open as his hips jerk up and he gasps. The precise moment Chapel knows he should let go, let the boy stew in a most unsatisfactory orgasm for all the trouble he’s caused. But the angel is watching– and this is a lesson to them both. He strokes Nicholas through his crooning and the subsequent spill of seed from his tip. It spills onto his abdomen in forceful spurts; just more fluid to adorn his battered body. Chapel prises every last shiver, every last moan from his precious boy’s lips, then stills to allow Nicholas the grace of collapsing from his orgasmic arch.
“Let this be proof,” Chapel says, unclasping his belt with no further hesitation, “Of what you are, and who you belong to.” There’s nothing more to be said. He knows his boy well, and knows that by this point, most words pass in one ear and out the other. It’s plain by the forlorn stare as he chases his breath. It won’t be long before a semblance of liveliness returns to his gaze, however.
The rattle of his belt buckle stirs him from his daze. Nicholas blinks himself back to the present and watches Chapel pull his stiff member from his pants.
“You’re– gonna…?”
The boy trips over his words. Chapel spreads his legs to expose his ass. Nothing more needs to be said, though. The boy is waiting for him to produce some sort of lubricant. To spit on his hands, or demand he wet it with his mouth.
Chapel merely scoffs.
“After the way you’ve behaved, do you think you’re deserving of such mercies?”
It will hurt him. Undeniably so. Pressing against his boy’s hole with the tip of his cock makes him tense, and when he starts to push, there comes immediate resistance. The opening is small now, and unbearably tight. He hasn’t been keeping himself practiced. That means, at the very least, the angel hasn’t defiled his insides. He’s pure in that regard, and the reminder that he’s the only one with the right to this hole makes Chapel’s cock throb.
With the boy’s hips firmly gripped, Chapel pushes himself in. Nicholas whimpers and seizes, and his lips quaver with an unspoken plea. His tongue flicks between his open jaws, and Chapel watches, almost mesmerized, at the silent ple—ple—ple— that Nicholas manages before he remembers that no amount of please will defer his punishment.
Chapel forces the tip inside. Nicholas’ face screws, and he thrashes his head, arches his back, digs his heels into the sand in protest. The whimper breaks into a groan, and when Chapel inches deeper, relishing in just how tight his boy feels around him, it breaks into a pathetic cry.
There’s a downside to the fact he had to bind the boy’s hands. He can’t lace their fingers as he digs deeper, can’t feel the vice grip latch tighter with every hard won inch. Chapel has to make do with the sight of Nicholas’ ribcage, every bone momentarily defined with how tightly he sucks his gut in, and the desperate buck of his hips as he tries to push back against the intrusion.
“Can’t—” Nicholas stammers, staring blankly above them, “It’s— won’t fit—”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
To prove his point, he jolts another inch in. Nicholas screams. Another injury won’t kill him, though; that’s the joy of their resilient, inhuman bodies. Another one of the blessings his boy so readily overlooks. He sinks in without cease, undeterred by the pained caterwauling. In fact the tears of exertion that drip from the corners of Nicholas’ closed eyes fuel him all the more, and Chapel goes still if only to maintain control. The boy doesn’t know just how beautiful he is, and how Chapel’s cock throbs painfully on the very brink of release.
No. He wants to savor this moment. Chapel breathes in, breathes out, then leans forward to brace Nicholas’ head in his hands and kiss him. He sobs dryly into Chapel’s mouth, too overwhelmed to even fathom biting. Another weakness for him to rightfully take advantage of. Tongue dips into Nicholas’ mouth and wins a repulsed recoil, but he is helpless to resist. Chapel kisses him deeply, again and again, tasting his insides as thoroughly as he sees fit.
“If only you were a righteous child,” Chapel murmurs against his lips, “You would know the reason for your suffering is your sin, and sin alone.”
He braces Nicholas by the shoulder and goes deeper. Tears slide down into Chapel’s fingers, and he leers to one side to breathe in the scent of sweat in the crook of Nicholas’ neck. “The pain is your penance,” he says, nose drifting upward to Nicholas’ jaw, then further to the spot just beneath his ear. Beneath Chapel, the boy’s body shudders. “If only you were good. Perhaps then you would have the right to find pleasure in this, too.”
How can it be that there’s so very little satisfaction in these dry inward thrusts, and a simultaneous need to combat the blaze in his gut that threatens to spill prematurely? Chapel presses deeper, deeper, and Nicholas writhes so violently, howls so desperately, that one would think this is the worst pain he’s ever endured. “Shh,” he hushes and kisses him where ear lobe meets jaw. “Have faith, Nicholas. I will mend what this creature has broken. You will be made right.”
A lie, perhaps, given he’s worked so very hard to fix this boy. But he has to believe there is a chance— if not, then the boy is already lost to damnation. Chapel buries himself the rest of the way in, and it’s then he realizes that keeping the boy ready to be used is fine, but taking him like this, a sleeve for his cock so tight that it almost hurts—
This is perfection. This is as close to divinity as mankind can get. Chapel throbs inside of him, relishes in the boy’s heat around his member, then slides a hand around the back of Nicholas’ head in a gentle caress to pull him close as he starts to thrust.
He wants to hear the vibrations of the screams in Nicholas’ throat. The uneven hammer of his heart, pressed against Chapel’s chest. Every spasm of his muscles, every kick of his legs. All of it belongs to him. His boy weeps in agony, skin and muscle yielding violently to a girth that once slid so perfectly into his hole, and he has no one to blame but himself.
Nicholas presses his brow hard into Chapel’s shoulder, grazes his teeth against the fabric of his robes before he sinks them in to muffle his own squealing. It’s not even an earnest effort to bite— most of the mouthful is cloth— and it’s the only reason why Chapel permits it, refusing to cease his steady thrusting for even a second.
He’ll fuck the ingrate so hard that he won’t be able to walk for weeks. Unable to stand even if his ankles aren’t shackled. He’ll have to look up at Chapel when he’s addressed, keep himself small even if he would rather try to stand tall in vain— and— and—
Chapel gasps. The dry clap of skin of skin rings out unevenly, frantic and desperate in that final chase. His boy, back in his arms. Back where he belongs. Chapel’s cock twitches and throbs, and he digs his fingernails into the boy’s scalp as he stills, orgasm setting upon him before he can do so much as twitch.
Nicholas’ shoulders shudder with broken sobs as he struggles to breathe. The heat of his insides pales to the hot spurts of come he pumps out. Another unexpected, unintentional side effect of their new bodies. Able to produce more than any healthy human possibly could. More to spill, more release to relish in, and more to mark Nicholas with. Chapel can’t fill him to the brim, but he has no doubt it must be close. An uncomfortable fullness that his boy will not soon forget.
He lingers. The pulse of blood beats like a song in his eardrums, and the boy’s full body tension stands in such stark contrast to how limp and relaxed Chapel feels. “My son,” Chapel murmurs into his ear.
Nicholas doesn’t respond, but Chapel doesn’t need him to. He pulls out, sudden and quick in comparison to the slow entry, and pulled along with his cock is a slow, withered whimper from Nicholas’ gaping jaws. Chapel releases the boy and he falls back into the sand with a thud.
When he sits up, it’s to pull his pants back up and buckle his belt, but also to bear witness to the slow ooze of come and blood from Nicholas’ hole, his muscles too ruined to even think to try and hold anything in. Not that he wants the boy to try— the thought of seed spilling down the inside of his thighs in an open admittance to the world that he is a creature made for another makes a shiver shoot up Chapel’s spine.
Nicholas lies still, defeated, eyes closed as tears leak continually from his lashes, face contorted and lip quaking as though he is some pitiful boy rather than a soldier of the Eye of Michael. At least it makes for a beautiful sight: flesh mottled with bruises and blood and bodily fluids like a living canvas. No more rebellion in his exhausted body. Just submission— perfect, complete submission to his better.
A masterpiece. A work of art that is so, so very distracting. To the degree where it is only then that Chapel remembers he has an audience; one who has been eerily silent when, ‘til now, it's only been a nuisance.
The cock of a gun is the only warning Chapel gets that aught is amiss. His eyes narrow, and he turns toward the source of the sound–
BANG. BANG. BANGBANG.
The first bullet grazes his torso; there’s no pain, no reaction save the arch of his brows as he lays eyes on the angel, gun in hand and raised as if it had been never taken from him in the first place. Then comes the first explosion of ache in his dominant arm, this time winning a gasp, bullet striking the crook of his elbow with perfect precision. Then two more jolts that tear through his ankle. His leg drops, unable to support weight on it, but he’s already moving to pull his pistol from his robes when he hears the clickclickclick of an empty barrel.
Wherever the angel keeps its bullets, they’re clearly beyond its reach. It makes no effort to try and reload. But it does hold Chapel’s stare, blue eyes ablaze with condemnation as though the devil has any reason to scorn a child of the one true angel. Such pride– such gall. Chapel scoffs, and with a hiss through his teeth, manages to upright himself even if he has to lean like an invalid on one side. He says nothing, but he does study the angel, the trail of coiled roots that shoot from its side, the disturbance in the sand that paints the story of its growths writhing like a snake to fetch its gun.
It rubs him the wrong way that the angel managed such a feat at all right under his nose. No one to blame save himself, he supposes. The false messiah wouldn’t be a threat if he were useless, after all, and one is not to underestimate even a weak servant of the devil. He approaches with a heavy limp, but the angel doesn’t so much as flinch in his presence. It grits its teeth and glares bloody murder at him through the weeping petals, but doesn’t move, not even to lower its pistol.
“You don’t get to do that to him,” the angel says, low, menacingly, unable to stop the shake in its voice still. “He was right to run from something like you. Wolfwood doesn’t belong to anyone. Not me– not you.”
Bait so potent that he almost falls for it. Chapel runs his tongue along the inside of his mouth, denying this creature the debate it craves. There can be no swaying the devil; it does not argue. The devil merely corrupts, and any opening he gives can be used against him. Rather than engage, he opts instead to use this as yet another teaching moment. “Nicholas,” Chapel says, stopping just short of the angel, “Let this remind you of the most crucial lesson I’ve ever taught you.”
Aim for the heart or the head, or don’t aim at all.
The sinful part of him longs to raise his gun and put a bullet between the false prophet’s eyes. But that is a blink of desire in the grand scheme of it all– the sort of thing he’ll pray for forgiveness later, once all is said and done. It is not his place to dispose of the angel. In any case, his savior has need of this creature, and to kill it would be to deny his lord’s express orders. The second best option, he decides, is to give it a kick to the head and put it down for the count until they can retrieve him properly.
Chapel comes closer, within reach. A second away from rearing back his weak leg when the limp angel stirs suddenly again, lashing out with arm of flesh to latch onto his ankle with a feral sound more befitting a beast. He tries to pull back, but it’s already too late. The flesh of the angel’s arm splits open to yield more roots that coil tight around his limb. Like the nails that dig into his pantleg, fine thorns ripple across the length of the roots to latch into his skin.
BANG. BANG.
He shoots the angel’s upper arm without hesitation, but the roots shoot across the span of his bicep like a shield. Indigo blooms crawl out from between the knots of growth. Chapel hisses, the only sound of pain he’ll spare even if the bite of the angel’s thorns tears deep into his muscles.
“I don’t want to save you,” the angel hisses, forcing its head upright enough to look Chapel in the eye. No longer does it weep petals; the entirety of its left eye is overrun, a large bloom that oscillates between a brilliant blue and the deep indigo of the other flowers. Pointed thorns dig deep into the vulnerable eye socket. It bleeds, streaks of scarlet rolling down his tear-stained cheek.
“I don’t need your salvation, demon, ” Chapel retorts, raising his gun again to the beast’s brow. A bluff, even if he debates putting a bullet through its eye for the sake of trying to escape the rapid entanglement that crawls up his leg.
“I don’t care what you need,” it snarls, undeterred by the gun barrel it stares down. It shakes with effort. The prosthetic limb at its side clutches at the sand to try and find support where there is none. “This is for me. Or else… I might do something I regret.”
So the demon didn’t even need words to ensnare him. Chapel’s upper lip curls back at the realization. It had him in its grasp the second it chose to take Nicholas from him, the outrage at such audacity all it needed to lure him close. His finger twitches on the trigger of his gun when the roots climb high enough that he clutches at it to pull it away, but the thorns that sprout from the end tear a gash in his palm, and they snake high enough to coil around his neck.
But no thorns sprout from the ends that loop around his throat. They tighten, and Chapel finally permits himself another shot, so very careful and pointed that it blows the top of the angel’s ear clean off. It cries out through grit teeth, but holds its ground, the grip of the roots so tight now that Chapel can’t breathe.
It doesn’t frighten him. Not when he knows the angel doesn’t have the guts to kill him. If anything it’s the idea of loss that brings the choked snarl out from him– to fail in the master’s righteous crusade– it’s utterly inconceivable.
For the word of the angel is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow–
He prays, and shoots again at the monstrosity’s arm. Pain is nothing. The blood he bleeds from the pointed thorns is hardly something he bats an eyelash at. But for all his strength, there is a clear line between mortal and angel; the needs of the flesh are undeniable, water and food and most of all, air…
The roots around his neck slacken just enough for him to inhale a rasping breath. It’s a mercy, but not an intentional one. Chapel hooks his fingers beneath the loosest of the roots to tug at them, and while there is resistance, he realizes just how pallid the false messiah is. A canvas of stark white against the scarlet that continues to snake down its cheek and plitter into the sand. One eye stares vacantly, half-lidded, while the growth in the other loses its color. A single petal flakes from the bottom of the bloom.
The angel speaks, but its lips are still. No– pull yourself together! A voice, undeniably foreign, that rings out in Chapel’s mind like an intrusive thought. A desperate cry that no one would actively choose to project. Just another sign that this thing truly is the false messiah. Too weak to use its power to its full extent, succeeding only when it ensnares its prey. And even then, it struggles, divine strength ravaging its body, unable to control itself in the throes of its agony. A floundering, pathetic animal.
You can’t let go!
Yet the roots give beneath Chapel’s pull. There comes a snap, and he feels it beginning to split. Chapel inhales as much as he’s able; unwilling to abandon his weapon, he reaches into his coat for a vial, tucked conveniently near his holster. All he needs is one. And then he’ll have that surge of strength to tear free of this creature’s weakening grip.
That’s when he realizes the purpose of that first, painless shot. Fingers grasp blindly at nothing. His shoulders go rigid, and he tilts his chin up slowly as he glances over his shoulder. He sees it in the sand beside the splatters of his blood where he took the bullets to the leg; the indent of the small satchel of vials he keeps in his coat. But the satchel is gone.
And so is Nicholas.
You aren’t allowed to let go! He needs you!
He keeps other vials on his person– but those were the most convenient. Chapel tries for a pocket in his pantleg, only for the gun to nudge uselessly against a knot of coiled roots. The eye bloom loses the rest of its color, and the angel’s actual eye rolls back in his skull. Fingertips clinging sternly to his leg flinch open, only to close tighter as the angel shakes his head and hisses through grit teeth.
Again the roots tighten. He’s unable to manage so much as a wheeze. He thinks to his god, his master, and prays for the ability to push through as he drops his gun to wedge his hand in-between a gap in the growth to try and retrieve the vial in his pantleg. To pray while the very breath is stolen from his lungs is one matter. But the fervent cries in the back of his skull come as a scream that blots out everything else:
Wolfwood needs you! He needs you!!
Whether the lightheadedness stems from the silent roar in his eardrums or the spasms of his chest as his body demands breath, not even Chapel is certain. There’s only a quiet relief that Nicholas isn’t there to witness his legs giving out, held upright only by the grace of the angel’s roots. Fruitlessly he tugs at his iron collar, and wrenches his fingertips into the pocket amid thorny roots. They nick his hand, his wrist, but he pushes deeper, and skirts the top of a glass vial.
It hurts it hurts it hurts I don’t care Wolfwood needs you
His final thoughts aren’t of fear. Merely the scalding heat of shame. Bested by the devil; a weak, snivelling thing that only won because he’d underestimated it. The master will not be pleased, Chapel thinks, and that’s the last of it because the blackness at the edge of his vision swallows him whole.
His hands are numb. They almost don’t close around the satchel of glass vials. His legs are so weak that he trips and falls onto his knees not once, but twice, and when he finally throws himself behind a half-collapsed wall out of Chapel and Vash’s sight as though that makes him safe, Wolfwood struggles to suck down any air at all even if nothing obstructs his throat. He tosses the satchel to the ground, and with sweat dripping from his brow, what little moisture his body can even keep producing, Wolfwood folds over to grab a vial in his mouth. His face screws, wounds at his side irritated with the motion, and he can’t make it all the way down before he collapses into the sand on his stomach and swallows down an agonized whimper.
It hurts. Everything fucking hurts. His ass, his abdomen, his body, his arms, his pride. An ache so deep inside that, if not for the looming guillotine of knowing Chapel could come after him at any second, he might be tempted to just lay there in the sand and let it consume him. But that’s a weakness he can’t afford. Not after the chance Vash gave him.
Even if he’s not wholly certain what he’s going to do with it. Wolfwood struggles back onto his knees. His head spins as he lurches forward again, nudging the vial with his lips to position it and grip it between his teeth by the narrow stem. He manages it, but as he sits up, his jaw parts involuntarily at a miserable upward shot of pain through his ribcage.
The burning sting of exertion is hot in the corner of his eye. A strained tear slips and rolls down his cheek as he tries again. This time he sits up properly with the vial, but it trembles against his lip, his entire body shaky with adrenaline and pain, pain, pain.
Gently, as to not snap the entire stem off entirely, Wolfwood clamps down on it. Waiting for the slightest crack in the glass. And when it does, when the glass splits beneath the pressure of his jaws, he tips his head back and slides the vial further back into his mouth so the fluid can slip through the crack and onto his waiting, eager tongue.
An agonizingly slow trickle. Wolfwood wills it to come out faster; every drop that slides down the back of his throat brings with it a sickening sense of relief. The numbness in his limbs ebbs away, and all of a sudden it’s not so damn impossible to keep himself up and seated. No longer does he have to fight every inch of his body, and as soon as the coordination returns to him, he pushes the vial back up with his tongue to grip the narrow stem in his teeth again, snap it clean off, then nudge it with his tongue to spit it out while he downs the rest of the dose.
He gasps with relief; the same sort of gasp a parched man would give after a tall glass of water, or an exhausted vagabond would give for a fresh bed. It’s not long lived, though. Wolfwood spits the empty vial out, and no sooner than the glass hits the sand does he jerk to press his back against the rubble and look to see if Chapel is anywhere in sight.
But he’s not. There’s nothing. Not even any sound from where he left them. Wolfwood twists his wrists in the cuffs, bends them to see if he can somehow reach the switch to release them, but as it so happens, whoever designed these cuffs wasn’t stupid enough to put it somewhere easily accessible.
The hell are ya gonna do even when you get out of them? What if he’s comin’ for ya right now? It’s over. You’re fucked. Why the hell did ya even bother runnin’...?
Thoughts spin through his head so fast it’s almost dizzying. Wolfwood wrassles with the cuffs with increasing fervor, utterly convinced that within the next five seconds, Chapel will appear in his peripheral. His head tosses to the side constantly just to check.
And let needle-noggin’s big damn heroic sacrifice go to waste? A breathless laugh leaves him, near hysteric. Whatever the idiot did, it’s not going to be enough. Wolfwood chokes on his heartbeat, the sweat once more dripping inside the collar of his shirt to roll down into his shirt, but he doesn’t stop struggling.
If anyone can kill Chapel, it’s him. He can’t come crawling out now to beg for Chapel’s forgiveness. He has to try and fight. A most daunting responsibility that he promptly determines is beyond his means, utterly trapped inside of these damn cuffs. Wolfwood goes still, leans his head back against the wall, and listens with narrowed eyes to the silence of his surroundings.
He knows what he has to do. Wolfwood rises slowly to his feet, and of all the asinine, unimportant things to think in the moment, he wishes he could at least tug his pants up past his hips.
Reluctantly, warily, Wolfwood slides along the dusty wall until he reaches the edge. Shit– even with the vial, he’s on the cusp of throwing up. Yet he forces himself to glance around the corner. Vash is exactly where he’d been left, pinned beneath fallen debris. Only he’s face down in the sand.
But so is Chapel. The devil himself, a tall and impregnable fortress only a few minutes ago, laying prone upon the ground. Like nothing he’s ever seen before. Maybe that’s why his first thought is, it has to be a trick. He knows better, though. Master Chapel is a man of underhanded tactics, sure. Feigning incapacitation, however, is sufficiently risky that he knows Chapel would never do such a thing if he had another choice.
That knowledge is what beckons him closer. His steps are timid, like the ground beneath his feet is made of something so fragile that it might shatter into a thousand pieces if he treads too heavily upon it. Timid, yet quick, eyes wide and fixed to Chapel, unable to fathom the thought of him drawing his last breath.
Chapel is immortal. A demon that will never die. A shadow that looms over his shoulder and holds him in vice grip even when he’s thousands and thousands of miles away. Undoubtedly he’ll rise as soon as Wolfwood draws near. Then all this suffering will pale in comparison to what happens next.
Still, he skirts past Chapel, and kneels by Vash’s body. “Hey,” he murmurs, nudging him with a knee, throat tightening at the sight of the gashes that lace his arm, the tears in the fabric that almost look as though Chapel stuck him with a knife ten dozen times. “Needle-noggin. Vash.”
“You’re alright,” Vash replies, his voice weak. His lips twitch into a tired smile. He doesn’t move his head, or open his eyes.
This is where he would usually quip, yeah, and you look like roadkill. With Chapel in such close proximity, though, there’s no time for that. Wolfwood lowers himself awkwardly, trying his damndest to put the cuffs as close to Vash’s hands as he can manage. “Just get me outta these. I’ll handle the rest.”
The coppery scent of blood clears his head. Not wholly; he continues to cast leery glances at Chapel, an impulse he can’t control, barely wanting to take his eye off the demon for longer than a half-second. Standing there gawking, however, is a death sentence. Even with Chapel– disposed of– there’s the matter that there are others hot on the trail. And while Wolfwood tells himself over and over again he’s no worse for wear, Vash isn’t so lucky.
He’s fine, sure, the blood put safely back inside where it belongs, and yet the idea of standing to fight another battle, this time alone… no, they have to hightail it out of here. And fast.
It takes Vash longer than he’d like to unclasp the cuffs with a click. Wolfwood slides his wrists out as fast as he can to compensate, and practically jumps back up to his feet. The hell did he do to ya? Wolfwood wants to ask, practically envisioning the cut of a blade into Vash’s flesh, but he hasn’t the gumption to muster his voice.
Instead he grips the biggest hunk of sandstone that keeps Vash’s lower half trapped, adjusting his hands several times to find a good angle, then pulls it off with a grunt of exertion. It nearly slams down on his foot– why the hell didn’t he grab the rest of the vials? Wolfwood glances in the direction where he knows the satchel lays, only to glimpse Chapel’s corpse again, and promptly return to the task at hand.
“Talk to me, needle-noggin,” Wolfwood says, hoping his voice has lost its shake. Vash is too quiet. Too still. There’s a very real possibility it’s already too late. So he moves faster. Pushing away another hefty chunk, exposing enough of Vash’s legs that he can probably help him out.
He’s not sure what he expected. Nothing, really– Wolfwood moves from one instant to the next with hardly a preemptive thought in his head. But it’s odd that limbs pinned beneath unfathomable weight remain in relatively normal shape. There’s no blood, no deformity. And no time to dwell on it, either. He places his hands on Vash’s waist, gently at first, then grips more firmly to pull.
Vash groans. Not a yelp of pain. Just a quiet protest.
“Can’t be helped,” Wolfwood says, the only reassurance he can manage. His body slides out with minimal resistance– save his back foot. Wolfwood pulls harder; the joint of Vash’s ankle bends oddly, but he can’t stop himself before he realizes it. There’s just a sick instant where his stomach twists and he knows deep in his heart he should have stopped to try and dig out the foot– it’s going to come off, the entire thing–
His heart stops dead in his chest, but when it comes loose with a jolt, he’s left to realize that it was just the boot caught in the stone. Staring back at him is a perfectly intact foot. Or at least a prosthetic of one, the same scuffed green as his arm. Maybe that’s why they aren’t smashed to a bleeding pulp. But that means the other one is also…
No, not the time.
Now that he’s free, at least, Wolfwood can adjust his body with a little more tenderness, turning him over so that he can see Vash’s face properly. It’s not the closed eye he notices first, or the blood still slick on his cheek like a thick spill of crimson paint. Rather it’s wounds around his other eye, small puncture marks as though a clawed creature had latched into his flesh. That couldn’t have been Chapel. But what else would it be?
He pats down his pockets as though he’s got anything he can use to try and bandage some of these wounds. When that fails he opts instead to grab Vash’s gun and shove it into the holster at his thigh— Wolfwood knows he'd be damn pissed if someone hauled him off without his weapon. Then he claps Vash on the cheek. Not a slap, but neither is it a gentle pat. “You hear me at all? Say somethin’.” Wolfwood nearly tacks on a please for good measure when Vash’s lips wag and his eye flutters half-open.
“Yeah. Sorry. Kind of woozy.”
“Woozy’s not dead,” Wolfwood murmurs; seems that’s the best he’s going to get. He inhales to steady himself, to try and still the rapid-fire beat of his heart, then hauls Vash up onto his shoulder.
Not the first time he’s done this, but certainly the heaviest he’s ever felt in Wolfwood’s arms. A burden that would break him were it not for the corpse of his worst nightmare not even a few feet away.
“Didn’t mean it,” Wolfwood says as he starts away from the body, gunning it for the Punisher left abandoned where it had fallen from his grip in the quarrel.
“Mean what?” Vash’s voice is so weak. But weak isn’t dead. Woozy isn’t dead.
“Callin’ you a shitstain.” The words stick to the inside of his throat like glue. He glances behind him for the thousandth time before he lifts the Punisher awkwardly onto his other shoulder.
“I know,” is all Vash says in turn.
He’s not even certain where he’s going. All Wolfwood knows is they need to be far from here, and fast. Where Chapel prowls, Livio isn’t far behind. The fact that Livio hasn’t caught up to them yet is a damn miracle— but maybe he’s starting to believe in those.
As fast as his legs can take him with two heavy burdens on either shoulder, Wolfwood moves. Away from the blood even if the two of them are covered in it. Away from the taint even if it sticks to his stomach and the inside of his pants.
“You don’t get to croak after finishing off a monster like that,” Wolfwood says.
At first Vash’s prolonged silence unnerves him, wondering if perhaps he passed out. But then comes the answer, and Wolfwood comes to a stuttering halt, his heart seizing in his chest.
“I… I didn’t. I didn’t kill him.”
It’s a struggle not to drop Vash then and there, pivot on his heel, and march back there to put ten dozen bullets into Chapel’s skull himself. He doesn’t notice he’s stopped breathing until Vash sputters out: “I’m sorry. Maybe… maybe I should have.”
There’s only one stupid one between them, and it’s Wolfwood for thinking Vash capable of ending a life without at least checking to see if his so-called victim still harbored a pulse. He says nothing— unwilling to console Vash when he still struggles to stop himself from running back to end it with his own two hands.
Still. What calms him is the fact that he’s able to make that choice; that he’s able to run at all. If it weren’t for Vash, he’d be in shackles right now. Being marched right back into the devil’s den.
“Then ya definitely don’t get to croak,” he forces himself to say, “If only one of you gets to live, I’m not lettin’ it be him.”
With a slight sway to his step, Wolfwood starts forward again. It’s the right call, he realizes, when a mournful scream echoes in the distance behind them:
“Master—!!”
Another punch to the gut. So Livio caught their trail after all. Now they really need to move. It’s a miracle he’s able to scrape up a half baked plan to get out of here in the first place, but there’s no time to stop, to breathe, or even to let the raging wildfire inside of him simmer and stop gnawing at his chest.
Fine by him. There’ll be ample time to want to jump off a cliff later. He can’t be paralyzed with utter desperation to never let Vash lay eyes on him again if the asshole up and chokes. Or maybe he’ll be lucky, and this black stickiness inside of him will rot into something harsher by the time they can stop.
He’s always preferred spite to terror. Now is no exception.
One foot in front of the other, Wolfwood moves. The limp weight of an angel in one arm, the cold steel of a weapon that can’t save them in the other.