Angels were pure beings though, maybe even the fallen ones. For all Gabriel knew, Abaddon’s touch had been an innocent expression of care, but Gabriel’s devious mind suggested big warm hands sliding up the back of his T-shirt and stroking the ugly scars.
He shivered, tortured by the pulsing between his legs, but as he wondered whether jerking off to fantasies about an angel was more of a transgression than doing the same while imagining a mortal man, something clicked, prompting him to open his eyes.
He’d locked the door, he was sure of it, but his heartbeat sped up anyway. Maybe this was when his wet dream became a nightmare and Mr. Watson’s charred remains, a blackened skeleton dripping with fat, steps into the bathroom to punish him?
He reached for the razor, again wondering if a cut would snap him out if this, but the shower curtain slid open, and a large body with black markings replaced it, occupying all of Gabriel’s mind. He choked out a cry and wanted to slam the razor’s plastic grip against his assailant, but his one weapon was slapped away, leaving him defenseless.
“Hi,” Abaddon said and stepped into the shower.
Gabriel’s eyes widened, and he covered his cock in panic. Overwhelmed, he backed into the corner. “What are you doing here?” he choked out.
How could his fantasy feel this tangible? How did it conjure a man in such detail, with tangles in damp hair and small imperfections on the skin? “Don’t look at me!” he added when the gray gaze traveled over his body as if it owned him.
And in a move that would have never happened in a fantasy, Abaddon closed the curtain to keep the rest of the bathroom dry.
Speechless, Gabriel looked for an escape route, but there was nowhere to run from the stormy gaze taking in his naked body. It was so very inferior to the angel’s that he could’ve evaporated from shame.
“Did you do this to yourself?” Abaddon asked after a moment’s silence and pulled up both of Gabriel’s forearms to examine the ladders of long-healed marks.
Despite the warm water being a calming trickle down his back, Gabriel still shivered and managed to whisper, “I did all of it to myself. I’m fucked up. I should have just died and saved everyone the misery of caring for me.” Sadness filled his chest like tar, and he sniffed, keeping his eyes closed to not see the disgust he’d surely find in Abaddon’s eyes.
Scars sprawled all over his pale skin, most prominently—the burn mark on his chest Mr. Watson had been responsible for, according to Gabriel’s delusions. The cook was no saint, but he didn’t know Latin and couldn’t be one of the chanting demons. The truth was that there had been no mysterious cult, and Gabriel alone was responsible for wrecking his body in a bout of insanity.
But while the medication had for years kept Gabriel’s mind from fooling him, it didn’t stop him from experiencing the painful delusions as if they’d been real. So he still hurt himself in a helpless cycle of self-harm.
He was useless.
But Abaddon didn’t berate him. He didn’t shake him. Didn’t ask him about meds or say nice yet patronizing things. His warm arms went around Gabriel and pulled him to a warm chest which smelled of cookie shower gel. And while Gabriel ought to be horrified, all he wanted was to let Abaddon take him. To just melt and be absorbed by this man who seemed to doubt nothing about his reality. He wished he could be this confident, not a fractured mess with missing pieces.
He hunched his shoulders, clenched his fists against Abaddon’s pecs and sobbed, shivering like a baby bunny left out in the rain without its mother. The angel was stability in human form, his warm embrace like sunshine after a ten-year long winter. Gabriel usually shied away from people’s touch, hidden in his shell like some ugly crab forever tossed about by tumultuous waves, yet against this celestial being, he felt safe, and the skin-on-skin contact disarmed him. He had no willpower to deny himself this pleasure, and didn’t want to. Even the constant buzz in his head became silent.
The hand resting between his shoulder blades glided lower, putting gentle pressure on Gabriel’s spine before wandering up and down the shivering flesh in soothing circles.
Gabriel had never been touched like this.
He’d never hugged another man naked, and while a voice inside his head told him he shouldn’t let this continue, the sharp blade of fear that constantly shaved at his confidence seemed to have gotten dull in Abaddon’s presence.
Dark hair fell to Gabriel’s back when the angel hugged him, and as Abaddon’s chin rested on his shoulder, the scratch of stubble made his cock twitch with excitement. His scar-marred body had been accepted as worthy of touch.