#gabriel tempered him with his compassion while michael bolstered gabe's sometimes flagging faith

[muzzleroars]

You've mentioned in a previous post that your Michael aims to either kill or imprison Fallen Gabe in Treachery.

Wouldn't that make the Ferryman a target?

I imagine that some of the virtues Gabe used to command would be fully aware of the Ferryman's devotion which may prompt Michael to seek them out assuming they would know where Gabe is hiding, and I don't think he would be nice about it, especially since the terminal entries say that the Ferryman's idols are considered perverse and probably seeing all the high quality Gabe fanart would set him off.

Maybe seeing first-hand the cruelty of heaven that Gabe has been unknowingly shielding them from would help them see that the kindness, grace and other traits they idolize in Gabe are the very things heaven seeks to punish may prompt the Ferryman to try to see Gabe beyond something on a pedestal or something disgraced.

Also the Ferryman has to lay low on Gabe's and V1's couch because Michael is destroying their Ferry (rude).

oooughhh michael and the ferryman are a very interesting pair to me, mostly because their dynamic would be absolutely rancid - michael is entirely, unforgivingly ruthless with sinners, he despises each and every one regardless of their repentance or their genuine regret, shame, or attempts to make things right. even the virtuous of limbo, even those that made a single mistake or were simply foolish, michael wishes to see them all suffer the full extent of their punishments and nothing less. he is repulsed by them, a result of his internalized guilt for condemning lucifer forced to turn into dogmatic adherence to the heaven/hell system to make it right in his head. however, with my recent development on michael, he's gotten even further reason to loathe the ferryman in particular - with his current state of decay, it's highly possible he will one day be exactly like them. and that makes him face himself in a way he absolutely abhors.

however, this would be greatly compounded by what he sees on the ferryman’s ship. they have an unpleasant introduction, the ferryman knowing well that they are being visited by the prince of heaven, the very angel that binds all of hell...and they couldn’t help but think, no matter how unlikely, no matter how much they truly know their hope of salvation will never come to pass, that perhaps michael is finally here to release them. they bow so low, face to the ground, but michael dispels their dim flicker of hope by lashing chains to them and violently removing them from his presence. they crash to the other end of the deck, hearing curt words commanding them to keep their eyes down, to not behold him as they are unworthy (he can’t stand it, he can’t bear to think of a sinner knowing his wretched form)

he then takes to the interior, out of a driving rain he cannot feel and that the ferryman notices does not light with his presence (gabriel was so radiant, yet michael seems to have only made the night darker...or perhaps they have imagined it) but when he crosses that threshold and is confronted with the ferryman’s works, with their ship crafted for the obvious comfort of sinners, with their blasphemous idols made of twisted hell mass...with their reverence of gabriel in such fine detail he knows they must have studied him, fresh fury lights his numb body beside an aching, sickening grief. gabriel’s likeness adorns so many of the halls of hell, he was beloved, and this ship is like a holy shrine in his honor. this is how michael failed. this is how gabriel fell without him. taken in by sinners, tricked by his own limitless, weak-willed compassion. none of this would have happened if he had stayed. gabriel would still be with him. he would still be alive, whole. it’s all his fault, everything is his fault, he abandoned them all and the punishment he now suffers strikes him with unbearable clarity

in his stillness, in his inability to act, the ferryman had followed him at a distance, a good host who would give anything for him...but in doing so, they see him. he snaps around at their approach and they witness him, his cracked, bloody helm, his ravaged body barely hidden beneath tarnished holy vestments, and they are nearly overpowered with the smell of molded, rotten roses. their immediate, automatic apologies are drowned out by michael’s furious condemnation, a sin, a sin to look upon him and to disobey his holy word. ordained as the most high in all of heaven, he curses the ferryman even as they bow low before him once more and he spews his vitriol against them in retaliation for their defiance (his humiliation). this is a perversion of worship, do they not understand how they are hated by the lord and by his whole host of angels? they are repulsed by the sinners’ very existence, a waste of god’s love, a waste of all he gave, a worthless, ugly waste that god should have destroyed once again in all his fury. whatever gabriel had said, whatever hope he offered, was nothing but the empty words of an angel filthier even than all the sinners of hell. they debase the lord, they debase his holiness and his divine works with their idols, they shame the heavenly host with their love of gabriel, they defy the order the most high has set by their luxurious ship. disgusting, vile, loathsome, the ferryman is locked still as michael finally moves toward them and brutally strikes them with his chains to draw their blood, to make them pay for twisting the worship of god into something so repugnant. Each blow cracks harder than the last, their bones beginning to splinter as they dare not raise a single hand in their defense and they’re only left in one piece because michael soon strips them of their holy cloth, undeserving of even a scrap from god’s kingdom.

yet doing so knocks him freshly off-balance, seeing the emptiness of the ferryman’s sockets, his own half skeletal hand closed fast around the garment he feels absolutely no warmth from despite its brilliant glow. everything he’d done, to end up like this, to become like them. the ferryman flees his presence in that moment, michael barely registering their absence as he begins to tremble, as he’s overwhelmed with everything he’s lost, everything that’s gone so wrong...and again, when he feels himself so close to breaking, he has to turn back to god, back to his order and to his purpose. he razes the ferryman’s ship, personally tearing down every artifact of gabriel and setting the ship ablaze even as it starts to sink. he wants nothing left of it, he needs this affront to god reduced to ash as he prays for forgiveness for ever allowing such heresy to exist, and the ferryman can’t even look back as all their work is plunged into the sea of the damned. they must find refuge, they must escape before michael realizes he’s failed again and fresh flowers bloom from his ailing body. and they can seek out no one but gabriel, aided by the virtues still loyal to him (they know the ferryman too, and gabriel asks for them to be watched over despite tense relations).

gabriel is shocked by the ferryman’s state, robbed of their precious holy cloth and battered to such extremes he knows many other husks would have died. they have no right to ask him to shelter them but he does without question, tending to their broken bones as they stay silent on what’s happened to them. they can find no words, so assaulted by the prince of heaven that they had run to find care and comfort offered freely by a demon. this angel who offered no mercy, who said there was no mercy anywhere else for them, all the thoughts they circulated night after night in their own mind laid bear by the ruler of angels. eventually their words return, but all they can ask is one simple question despite being tortured by so many: what happened to saint michael? and gabriel understands then, he sees what michael will do if he can’t bring him to reason or kill him outright – he is determined to punish any sinner still alive and become a tyrant over all of hell, not stopping even if he gets what he wants in binding gabriel. there is no mercy left in him, he is consumed by the will of god, and all he knows to do is punish...a true zombie, if it’s possible for an angel. but all gabriel can say is that he is sick, suffering as they all are.