First scene of a Ferryphus thing
It started with them finding Sisyphus poking about in the galley.
Unlike Minos, the king had little ties to Greed, and he was happy to travel wherever they took him. He slept everywhere but the guest rooms, vanished for days at a time, and spent hours gazing at the layers they went through. They would never admit it out loud, but having a passenger aboard settled them. Even if said passenger had a penchant for skulking and a bleak sense of humor.
“Morning. Have you a knife that isn't rusted to shit in here?” Sisyphus asked, half way inside a floor cabinet, several such knives laid out on the counter above him.
“Unlikely, I'm afraid.” This place had gone unused for decades, and they could not justify the effort of maintaining something with so much specialized equipment. “I have some carving knives in the studio?”
“That'll work.” For doing what, they wanted to ask. But it seemed…rude, somehow. The entire time he had been here, Sisyphus had not questioned or criticized anything, from the smashed bottles to the images of Gabriel to the obsessively clean and critically underused passenger spaces. They hope it's grace; it's probably just apathy. Regardless, they wanted to return the favor.
The Ferryman collected the rusty knives (they looked salvageable) and bid Sisyphus to follow them to the studio. There they procured one of their mid-sized knives, which Sisyphus accepted with a perfunctory-sounding thank you, and found himself a seat on the tarp covered side of the floor.
He then flipped the knife into a slicing grip, index on the spine of the blade. And brought it towards his upturned wrist.
“Um.” They were not sure what else to say. Surely he’s not…?
“Relax, captain. Exsanguination is a miserable death. Ask me how I know.” He said it with the tone of a joke. They were still deciding on how to respond when he continued. “This is for my calluses. They have to be filed down as they build up or the entire thing will rip or crack.”
As if to demonstrate, he held his hand out to them and shaved careful slices of skin off of the heel of his palm. Right, how did they forget this? Gnawing bits of skin off the pads of their fingers, picking at the edges of calluses until it hurt to touch. Cold, windy mornings with that persistent ache in their soles from the fissures…
“That’s very inconvenient.”
“It is. Alas, the flesh does what it wants.” This he said with a mock Minos affectation. They mimed kicking him, amused. He really was nice to be around.
A thought came. Well, this was possibly the only audience who might be receptive to it…
“You know,” the Ferryman made a show of presenting their skeletal hand. “If you go a little deeper, you won't have to deal with calluses ever again.”
It had the intended effect—Sisyphus grinned up at them, something startled and pleased in his eyes. What wasn't intended was the cold jolt of guilt washing over them at his warm expression. They shouldn't want that. It shouldn't be making them so happy, they were supposed to be good—
“Ah, I...” They abruptly turned away, desperately searching for something to change the topic. There. They dug through their toolbox and emerged with a pumice stone. Tapped out the marble dust before handing it to Sisyphus.
“Keep the knife. A-and this too.” They couldn't quite look him in the face, unsure if they're afraid or ashamed.
As such, they did not catch the calculating look Sisyphus gave them and their sudden awkwardness. As such, they did not withdraw in time before he planted a kiss on their knuckles.
They barely heard his sincere-sounding thank you through the door they just ran out of.
