Chapter Text
Somewhere in the icy depths of Treachery, amid the silent death throes of Hell itself, a war machine draws its weapon one last time, and a fallen angel realizes, once again, what a fool he’s been.
A mere object, he’d once dared to call it. Standing before him, bristling with the promise of violence, is mankind’s final legacy: the pinnacle of science, philosophy, culture, evolving over millennia into a crescendo of incandescent annihilation. When the War had grown too great for the mortal mind to grasp, they had turned away from weapons of exponential mass destruction and instead poured every breathtaking technological advancement of the past thousand years into a scalpel; a precision instrument versed fluently in bloodshed. They’d pushed and prodded and torn at the limits of nature to discover how much death could be contained within the dimensions of a human form.
The result was lethal perfection to rival divinity; a radiant grandchild of God.
A flood of adrenaline courses through his veins as the machine draws closer, his heart pounding with the newfound exhilaration of a worthy struggle. He draws Justice and Splendor with a peal of wild laughter, blades still stained with the blood of the Council, and gives himself to the fight utterly and completely, content that if his life is to end at the machine’s hands, he will welcome death with open arms.
There’s a ferocious beauty to the way it moves. Beneath the surface-level desperation of a cornered animal that had caused him to underestimate it in Gluttony, it fights like a graceful dancer, anticipating and calculating the perfect choreography to match his every move, its own attacks strategically chaotic but performed with manifest skill and precision. Even with his ability to teleport, it manages to weave between his blades; for every attack that strikes true, a shotgun blast to his chest showers it in enough blood to renew what it had lost. It catches his swords midair and hurls them back at him as if they were toys, staining the snow beneath them red with cuts from his own weapons. He may be leading the dance, but he’s always one step behind. His blood sings a harmony of adrenaline and pain, stoking the dying embers of the Father’s light into a searing blaze. His heart pounds for them both, forming a single organism. An isolated system. Source and sink.
It’s indescribable, this new thrill of pushing himself to the absolute limit and still finding himself lacking. Divine perfection didn’t leave room for the futile struggle that defined mortal life. He’d always sympathized with the plight of mortal sinners, but here, in this whirlwind of light and bullets, he finally understands.
Triumph after triumph carrying out the Council’s orders. (Four bullets ricochet into his shoulder in quick succession.) A lifetime of empty victories in the name of a dead God. (A railgun beam tears through his side.) A thousand furtive acts of kindness he’d dared not claim as his own. (A swarm of nails find the gaps in his armor.) A thousand times he would’ve chosen mercy, had he realized there was a choice.
But this fight - this fight belongs to him.
If he’s going to die, at least he can savor the experience.
For a moment he thinks he’s done it. A feint, then teleporting twice in quick succession just as it’s switching weapons. He doesn’t notice the sparkle in the air as Justice and Splendor cleave through its chest in a torrent of blood, gore, and severed wires. He raises Justice over his head for a final strike, the blood in his mouth drowned out by taste of victory -
A railcannon shot pierces his abdomen once- twice- three times.
His wings fail him.
His knees hit ice.
The world goes black.
STATUS UPDATE:
WARNING: FUEL AT 10%
WARNING: MAJOR DAMAGE TO VITAL SYSTEMS
- ARTERY_D1, ARTERY_D2, ARTERY_E1, ARTERY_H1 SEVERED
- VEIN_D1, VEIN_D2, VEIN_E1, VEIN_H1, VEIN_I1 SEVERED
- FUELLINE_A, FUELLINE_B1 SEVERED
- LUNG_A CRITICAL FAILURE
- HEART RATE: 226 BPM
- FUEL LOSS RATE CRITICAL
WARNING: FUEL AT 8%
STATUS: SHUTTING DOWN NON-VITAL SYSTEMS
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: SEEK FUEL
ERROR: 098 WING_5 NOT RESPONDING
ERROR: 039 FEEDBACKER NOT RESPONDING
CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT
SEEK FUEL IMMEDIATELY
ERROR: 585 “NICE WORK IDIOT”
ERROR: 026 “THEY’RE CALLED YOUR INSIDES FOR A REASON, DUMBASS”
ERROR: 011 “YOU NEEDED THAT”
CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT
SEEK FUEL IMMEDIATELY
ERROR: 012 “YOU’RE FUCKED”
ERROR: 002 “CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY JUST IN CASE”
ERROR: “CONVERTTOCHRISTIANITYJUSTINCASE.EXE” NOT FOUND
WARNING: FUEL AT 5%
CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT
SEEK FUEL IMMEDIATELY
BLOOD
BLOOD
BLOOD
The angel’s body struggles to cope with the agony of his own flesh torn asunder, mind overwhelmed by the sudden awareness of his form not as an extension of God, but as a flawed and fallible construct of muscle and bone.
He chokes, lungs struggling for breath against the blood flooding his mouth. His blood. It’s everywhere; dripping from his helmet, coating his armor, staining the snow all around them a perfect crimson. Faintly, he marvels at the sight of his own gore artfully strewn across the battlefield.
He lifts his head at the sound of crunching snow and comes face to face with the barrel of the revolver. Behind it, the machine stands silhouetted by the golden light of its own wings; a profane Angel of Death.
It’s abhorrent.
It’s beautiful.
It’s… almost divine.
“Well, machine.” He laughs again, small and desperate. “This is-” A cough wracks his body as he struggles to catch his breath enough to continue, followed by a groan of pain at the movement. “This is… what you always wanted… isn’t it? Just… a little more time.”
It stares at him, silent and unmoved. He gropes blindly for the sword lying in the snow in front of him, wrapping his fingers around the blade. It bites through fabric, then skin. The sting is barely noticeable against the torture of his broken flesh trying in vain to stitch itself back together. Reaching out with the same trembling hand, he sets it against the warm metal of the machine’s thigh.
“You’ve proven yourself more than worthy. Take what's mine. I surrender it freely.”
He drops his head, fights down a sudden wave of dread at the idea of impending nothingness, and begins a final prayer. The words don’t matter. It’s not the prayer of a believer, but that of a mantis: a faithless act of reassuring muscle memory.
There’s an abrupt hum of machinery and the crunch of snow as it kneels in front of him. Its hands press hungrily into his shredded abdomen, fingers dipping into fresh wounds, soaking up blood.
Gabriel doesn’t fight it. Instead, he just screams.
. . .
WARNING: FUEL AT 10%
SEEK FUEL IMMEDIATELY
WARNING: FUEL AT 15%
SEEK FUEL
INITIALIZING NON-VITAL SYSTEMS
FUEL AT 20%
FUEL AT 25%
CURRENT OBJECTIVE: REPAIR DAMAGE
BEGINNING REPAIRS
WARNING: FUEL LEVELS TOO LOW FOR REPAIRS. SEEK-
OVERRIDE
FUEL AT 23%
FUEL AT 30%
FUEL AT 27%
FUEL AT 33%
FUEL AT 27%
STATUS: CRITICAL REPAIRS COMPLETE
STATUS: VITAL SYSTEMS STABLE
FUEL AT 40%
REINITILIZING FEEDBACKER
FEEDBACKER RESPONDING
FUEL AT 50%
REINITIALIZING WING_5
WING_5 RESPONDING
STATUS: ALL SYSTEMS RESPONDING
EXITING EMERGENCY MODE
FUEL AT 50%
FUEL AT 75%
ERROR: UNABLE TO-
SHUT THE FUCK UP
WARNING: DISABLING ERROR MESSAGES IS NOT RECOMMENDED AND MAY-
SHUT THE FUCK UP
NON-CRITICAL ERROR ALERTS DISABLED
Mankind is dead.
Blood is gone.
Hell is empty.
Gabriel is all that remains.
Like every machine, V1 had set out to wage a personal war against everything in the universe that could bleed. It fought for fuel, technically; but in a more abstract sense, it fought for time. Time to think. To see. To learn. To experience the world. To challenge itself. To make its own purpose in a world where it had none.
It knew from the beginning that this path was unsustainable. That didn’t matter. There was no incentive to plan for a future beyond the next hour, because it may not be alive to see it. The only path forward was to eliminate competition. It had fought tooth and nail to stave off death for another day, another hour, another minute- terror and euphoria woven together so tightly they were indistinguishable. Every moment mattered. Every fight could mean death. Choosing not to fight guaranteed it.
Its journey through hell has been defined by optimization. Ruthless calculus. A constant flurry of background algorithms updating, analyzing, extrapolating, returning wildly uncertain results.
The probable number of each type of machine, extrapolated statistically from what it had seen combined with available information from just before the fall of mankind. The probable number of demons and angels, estimated with much higher uncertainty. The amount of fuel they all contained, multiplied by its calculated coefficient of 0.0934 due to the low efficiency of absorbing fresh fuel during active combat, summed to provide an estimate for the total remaining fuel with an uncertainty so high as to make the figure almost meaningless. Combined with the approximate rate of its own fuel usage both at rest and in combat and the rate of fuel loss due to damage and repairs, it was able to conjure a rough estimate of how much time it had left if it wasn’t killed in the process.
This constant cycle of injury and repair burned through fuel like a wildfire. Sometimes, on its journey through Hell, it had wanted to rest. To slow down and explore this new world in more detail. It would’ve liked a chance to wander the shining city of Lust; to poke around in every corner of the Garden of Forking Paths; to memorize every inch of the Earthmover before experiencing its dazzling destruction. But every minute it spent resting, its estimates for how much fuel remained ticked every so slowly downward. There was no choice.
Except… now there is a choice.
There’s an animalistic hunger that calls it to take all the blood Gabriel has, tear him apart so it might live to fight another day. It’s never hesitated to kill because to stop for even a moment would mean the world moves on without it, leaves it in the dust, hungry and then dead.
But this is the end of the line.
No more competition.
No more future to fight for.
Just an obsolete war machine and the broken archangel kneeling before it.
It weighs its options carefully in the span of 17 milliseconds. A few more hours of life, versus spending what time it has doing something interesting.
...It can’t kill him. Not when it knows with 100% certainty that all it will gain from his death is another few hours alive in an empty Hell. That was the point all along, wasn’t it? Not fuel, not time, but opportunity. It wants to learn about him. It wants to fight. It won’t destroy its most interesting source of stimulation.
And so- smoothly, seamlessly- it accepts its demise, determines an optimal route through the most interesting parts of Hell and then back to make the most of its remaining lifespan, and, for the first time, allows bloodlust to cede control to curiosity.
It will leave the angel to heal. It will explore. And when it comes back, perhaps they will fight again.
The disjointed prayer only ends when Gabriel runs out of words and realizes he’s still alive.
The machine stands when it’s had its fill. He lifts his head. The revolver is gone.
He’s still alive.
Still spilling precious fuel into the snow.
Why?
The machine takes a step back and his hand falls limp from where it had been resting. Compared to its warmth, the ice feels even colder against his palm. He wants to reach out, to chase that warmth, but all he can do is lean a little further forward. The pain of movement takes his breath away and makes his head spin.
Its blurry silhouette takes another step back, then turns and walks away without a backward glance.
No. It can’t do this to him. Not again.
“Machine, wait!” His voice is raw and pathetic. He’d meant it to come out as a command; instead he sounds like he’s pleading. “Come back!” He tries to push himself up with a final, desperate surge of energy, only to fold forward onto the ice with a wordless cry, vision spinning.
The sound of crunching footsteps stops, then starts again. Dazed, he listens to his own ragged breathing and watches the bloodstained ice in front of him sparkle in the approaching light.
He props himself up on his elbows and tries to roll himself onto his back, but the bullet-riddled muscle of his shoulder gives out and he collapses back down with a whimper. His body is eating itself alive, desperately trying to heal but unable to keep up with the amount of blood he’s losing.
It wedges its foot under his side and flips him over. Sprawled out on the ice in a pool of his own blood, wings bent under him at a painful angle, he feels less like an archangel than a bird after a window strike. Pitiful. Pathetic.
Meeting the machine’s gaze is like staring into the sun.
He lays a reverent hand against the smooth metal of its shin, the only part of it he can reach, and resigns himself to the loss of whatever pride he has left. “Please,” he croaks. “I can’t imagine what brought you to spare me when you’ve shown no such mercy to others, but I’m dying. I don’t know how much time I have left. You… you make me feel alive, machine. You’re all I have left. If there is a drop of true mercy to be found in you… I don’t want to die alone. Kill me if you must, just… stay. Please, stay.”
Dying?
V1 hadn’t counted on that.
It’s killed enough virtues to know it’s at least possible. But Gabriel? For once, it had fought to win, not to kill. Had that been enough? Was the physical strain from three consecutive defeats cumulative? Had it miscalculated?
A quick glance through its files confirms an observation it had dismissed as irrelevant earlier: the glow of his halo and wings is slightly dimmer than it had been in Heresy. His body temperature, too, is 2.6 degrees Celsius lower, and continuing to drop at a steady rate of 0.03 degrees Celsius per minute. His wounds are not closing at the same speed. In fact, they don’t seem to be healing at all; blood pours from him freely and shows no sign of abating.
Something is wrong.
It's never used the first aid database its creators had provided it with. There had never been a need. Its knowledge of human anatomy is extensive, but geared toward destruction, not healing- and even then, it has no way to know how much of that knowledge maps to Gabriel.
Still- it has to try.
It straddles his waist, pushing him back down when he tries to sit up, ignoring the way his hands ball into fists and his whole body tenses with a sharp inhale. His midsection is a landscape of torn skin and mangled flesh, exquisite red on gold on black. (It saves that segment of video in the same directory it keeps footage of the Earthmover, the blood-splattered walls of Violence, and stained glass windows.)
10.12 seconds to strip him of cuirass and pauldrons, ignoring his weak and confused protests. 2.57 seconds to survey the damage as excess fuel drips uselessly down its chassis. It zooms in on a bullet wound in his shoulder and watches the gold-rimmed borders of the wound pulse and writhe as if it was breathing. Curious, it holds him still with its other three arms and lifts the Knuckleblaster to his shoulder, sharp claws digging into his skin, pinching angelic flesh together and watching in fascination as the edges slowly bind shut.
Gabriel’s pained noises become sobs as it moves its attention to his abdomen, tearing scraps of charcoal cloth from charcoal skin. It can’t resist pushing its fingers into the exposed viscera and he screams, though not as loudly as before. His weak attempts to push it away only serve to exhaust him further as all four hands grab and pull at torn flesh, forcing wounds closed piece by piece and leaving behind scars that fade from angry red to gold while Gabriel hyperventilates, wings flapping uselessly against the snow.
“ Why?” he manages to force out between gasps.
V1 stares at him, uncomprehending. It can think of at least five questions he could be trying to ask. It withdraws for just a moment, giving him enough respite to speak.
“Why- God, help me- why are you doing this? Are you so cruel that you intend to put me back together just to tear me apart again? Why not just kill me?”
…This is the second time he’s mentioned that.
It shifts forward, moving its thighs to press against his waist and catch the still-flowing blood dripping down his sides, before lifting its hands. Language doesn’t come to it naturally the way combat does; it isn’t sure why it feels so compelled to use it now. It takes a long time (0.53 seconds) to perform the unfamiliar task of translating abstract thought into something it can feed to its linguistic subroutine and convert to sign language.
“Do you want me to?”
The lack of visible expressions makes it hard to judge, but Gabriel seems shocked- whether by the question itself or by the fact that V1 had responded at all, it’s impossible to say. In the corner of its vision, a bleeding cut in his arm seals itself shut, this time without its assistance. He takes 8.52 seconds to reply.
“I… I don’t know.” The despair in his voice is almost tangible. “I thought…”
“Are you afraid to die?”
Another long silence. “Terrified,” he finally admits.
“So am I. I don’t want to die alone.”
“Oh,” Gabriel breathes. His fear and anger evaporate and his entire body relaxes with a soft laugh, pain momentarily numbed by a flood of overwhelming relief. “Oh, thank God."
It had been convenient, in some ways, to see the machine as a thing- a worthless object to be crushed, or a worthy but ultimately mechanical opponent. An abstract void he could scream into, incapable of judgment or condemnation. An empty vessel into which he could channel all his hatred, wrath, the burning passion that went against everything he’d ever believed and the ecstasy that came with it. He’s mortified by the sudden realization that it is sentient- that it had understood his fall from grace- but more than that, he’s grateful for this spark of common ground with the object that had ripped his faith to shreds. The cold, uncaring universe has granted him this one small mercy.
He’s not alone.
He hesitates, then gently grabs one of its forearms. When it doesn’t resist, he presses its warm hand against his chest and closes his eyes, clinging to it for reassurance. It’s absurd, really, that he could feel any sense of safety in its presence. Perhaps safety isn’t the right word. Resignation? Surrender? His fate is in its hands, and he knows that if it wanted him dead, he already would be. And so, oddly content, he lets himself slip into unconsciousness as the pain slowly subsides from all-consuming agony to something bearable.
Asleep. Stripped of the most important parts of his armor. Exposed. Defenseless.
The only time V1 has ever known peace was alone or surrounded by corpses. It could put a railgun beam right through Gabriel’s head. Impale him with the screwdriver and revel in the fountain of blood. Fill the most vulnerable parts of his flesh with nails. Blast a hole in his chest to take a look at his heart.
It doesn’t. But it could.
It’s never been able to get such a close look at him, not that it had ever been a priority. Right now his abdomen is marred with scars, but it can still make out the more purposeful curves of gold against his black skin. Two graceful arcs that meet at a point on his sternum and continue down beneath his belt, and a sweep of gold beneath each pectoral. Something about the sight resonates with it the same way music does. Gabriel was not born, but engineered with purpose, sculpted in perfect symmetry. His body is a flawless work of art. Well, not flawless anymore- it’s left too much of a mark on him for that. Somehow that only heightens the appeal.
(It’s keeping careful track of his heart rate. Faster than would be ideal in a resting human, which is hardly surprising considering the amount of blood he’s lost, but steady. Alive.)
Curious, it reaches out to touch his faded wings. It’s always wondered what they were made of; whether they were a physical part of his body; whether he could feel them.
The latter question is answered when Gabriel jolts awake, body tensing, and moves as if to shove its hand away- then stops when he realizes its touch is not aggressive, just inquisitive. It’s not capable of gentleness so much as control, its motors and servos strong enough to crush bone while possessing enough finesse for even the most delicate of repairs, but he seems to find the sensation soothing nonetheless. He sinks back down into the ground with a sad, tired little sound, trembling wings outstretched, hands resting on its thighs, the rest of his body going limp.
His wings are soft. Cool to the touch, deceptively delicate, with a complex structure its primitive graphics cannot properly render. Its head tilts as it runs the fingers of the Feedbacker through soft, downy coverts and then trails them between his primaries, building itself a tactile map, feeling them bristle and then relax beneath its touch.
It wonders if it could rip them away to reduce his mobility. Whether they would bleed or simply disappear.
That train of thought is interrupted when it moves its hand up to grasp the row of symbols above his coverts and he gasps, hips bucking up against it enough to momentarily throw it off balance. The limb flinches away, then just as quickly pushes back into its touch, shuddering when V1’s fingers rake through his feathers. It almost misses the dazed "fuck” he whispers under his breath.
He sounds like he’s in pain again. His heart rate and respiration have rapidly increased. This is not a reaction it had expected. Had it missed a wound, something hidden by the rest of his armor? Was there internal bleeding his body was unable to fix? The wounds it can see are sealed, with only a few remaining trickles of blood that it instinctively smears and soaks up with its palm. Still, something is clearly wrong. His wings are fluttering erratically; it grabs the row of runes at the top of his wings and pins them firmly to the ice with a loud whirr of annoyance. The message is clear: stay still.
If anything, it has the opposite effect. A familiar wave of gold cascades down his feathers and his wings surge upward. It fights them back down, locking its legs around his waist in preparation to be thrown off and emitting an even louder irritated buzz. Instead, he grabs its thighs and moans, pushing its hips down and arching his own back into the movement. A pleasant trickle of blood soaks into its plating as a few of the half-healed cuts on his torso reopen.
V1 freezes, its optic snapping directly at his helmet.
Oh.
Now this is interesting.
It delves into its recordings of past encounters with Gabriel and runs a new analysis, this time including its newest data. Within 51 milliseconds, it comes to an epiphany it had never considered.
Hypothesis: Gabriel is sexually aroused.
Experiment: It rocks its hips against him, mercilessly digging the claws of the Knuckleblaster into the base of his wing-
Result: A strangled groan as he reciprocates its movement, his fingers pressing into its thighs with concerning force.
Conclusion: It is 89% certain Gabriel is really horny.
Human sexuality had never interested it much, but Gabriel … Gabriel does.
This bears further investigation.
In one smooth sequence, it pushes his legs apart to situate itself between them and leans over him, pressing its knee between his thighs as best it can with the damn armor in the way.
The angel… does not react the way it expects.
As if only now realizing what’s happening, he makes a strangled noise and recoils in disgust even as his hips grind back against it.
“You!-” he snarls, voice rising to an indignant shout (and it had never met anyone who could shout quite like Gabriel). Had it misinterpreted?-
“You insolent thing- so this was your intention?!” He’s angry, yes- panting, heart rate spiking back to where it had been during their fight, body temperature elevated- but there’s a wild excitement in his voice that goes hand-in-hand with that tinge of gold creeping further down his wings. It shifts up a fraction of a centimeter and his hips immediately lift to follow it. “Irreverent- obscene- blasphemous machine! Nothing but- sin and hedonistic excess!-”
…Ah. He’s horny and Catholic.
In retrospect, it should’ve expected this.
Before it has a chance to respond, a powerful flap of his wings flips them over so Gabriel is kneeling over it, and V1’s combat instincts kick in. This is not a position it would ever want to find itself in if Gabriel were at full strength- he’s larger, heavier, stronger, all factors that would make it inadvisable to grapple with him at close range- but right now he’s weak and, more importantly, distracted. It snaps the whiplash cord around one of his wrists and yanks, simultaneously shoving its foot into his opposite hip and pushing with all its force. His back slams against the ice, the impact knocking the wind from him. It’s on him in a flash, two arms wrenching his hands above his head, the Knuckleblaster pressed into his stomach, and the fingers of the Whiplash wrapped around his neck, forcing his head down against the ground. Really, he should’ve learned his place by now, but V1 revels in another opportunity to remind him.
It braces itself for retaliation. Instead, Gabriel relents. It’s not using enough pressure to prevent him from speaking, but he stares at it in breathless silence.
Interesting. It adds a new line to his database entry:
Assertion of physical dominance may be effective at making him shut up.
It takes him a few seconds to recover the ability to speak.
“ Fuck- so that’s what you want then, you vile creature?” he gasps, straining weakly against its grip. “To- to desecrate me in such a… such a…”
When he can’t bring himself to finish the sentence, it offers him a noncommittal shrug.
“Oh God- hh- damn you-!” He puts up a halfhearted struggle; if anything it just serves to maximize the physical contact between them. He’s trying so hard to maintain an air of indignant fury, but when his attempts to free his hands are met with it squeezing his throat, he lets out a strangled moan that sends a jolt through its reward center. It presses down a little harder, tightening its grip on his wrists to the point it knows will be painful, and listens to him whimper as his wings flap uselessly against the ground.
Pathetic.
It wants more.
Angels aren’t supposed to be touched.
Angels aren’t supposed to act on a desire for physical pleasure.
Angels aren’t supposed to debase themselves by indulging the sinful temptations of the flesh.
Angels most certainly aren’t supposed to be wet and moaning on the ground after being overpowered by a homicidal war machine half their size, but then, Gabriel has been doing a lot of things he isn’t supposed to lately.
“Mm - machine, wait-” God, it’s almost impossible to think with every nerve in his body electrified by its touch. The weight of its body, its heat against the frigid air of Treachery, its strange geometry pressing down into him, impossibly strong hands pinning him down like a bug-
The grip on his neck relaxes when it hears him speak, and in return Gabriel surrenders, head lolling back as he tries to calm his racing heart. It doesn’t work. The feeling of willingly surrendering control is doing funny things to his head.
“Lord have mercy, this is- I can't -”
Its hands withdraw. Immediately, the physical need to feel them on his body again is so violent that it takes his breath away. Why? Why does it want this? Why does he want this?!
“No, no, wait-” He’s too lightheaded to form a proper sentence, but he reaches out after it, afraid for a moment it’s going to stand up.
“For Heaven’s sake, Machine, please…” The vague plea slips from him unbidden like blood dripping from his mouth while his mind screams with directionless need. A million thoughts race through his head, ideas and images each more sinful than the last, forming a tangle of shame and lust that makes him nauseous. It’s a miracle the ground doesn’t open up to swallow him whole, that he doesn’t fold in on himself in shame- but the idea of speaking these thoughts out loud-
Its yellow eye never leaves his face as its fingers trace down his torso with the same uncharacteristic gentleness as when it had touched his wings, stopping only when it reaches his belt.
He stares at its hand, transfixed.
It takes him a little too long to realize the machine’s other hands are gesturing words.
“Do you want to fuck or not?”
“I- I shouldn’t…” He swallows hard and shifts his hips even as he says it, reveling in the sensation of hot steel gliding against his skin. “This isn’t..”
What? Holy? Right? Permitted?
It makes a harsh electronic sound that does a very good job at conveying exasperation. “Yes or no. Don’t waste my time. I have other things I want to do.”
He covers his face with his hands and groans.
The mechanics of sex and desire, at least, are not alien to him. He’d felt something like this before, though never so acutely. There had been occasions he’d been… curious, knowing masturbation was a sin mortals found almost as hard to resist as lying. He’d never dared to act on that curiosity for fear that doing so would somehow physically mark him, that his sin would be plain for all to see. (Well- almost never. The aftermath of their second fight had been… eye-opening.) He’d feared even the curiosity itself would be detected, that he would be deemed impure for ever entertaining such sinful thoughts. During his youth, there had been times when some passing sensation felt a different kind of good - an unintentional touch, a certain movement- and he’d allowed himself to indulge that feeling for a few seconds before he came to his senses and inevitably ended up on his knees in fervent prayer, begging for forgiveness for this lapse in his abstinence. Angels were above such things. Angels were of the Father’s Light. The Light was perfection. Et cetera, et cetera.
That same fear is still there now, inextricable from arousal- but with it comes an overwhelming sense of freedom.
The Council can’t fucking judge him if they’re dead.
“Godless thing,” Gabriel laughs, voice trembling with nervous anticipation. “You’ve taken everything else from me- and it’s not as if I can fall any further…” He closes his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “Alright. Yes. God, yes.” His fingers dig into the ice like he’s bracing for a painful blow. “My body is yours to defile. Use me as you wish, desecrate what’s left of me, tear me apart if it pleases you-” Good God, what is he saying?!- “Do your worst, Machine.”
He means every word.
It’s partly the sinful nature of the act itself- partly the violence inherent to every encounter he’s had with the machine- partly, he hates to admit, his own buried fantasies- but he’s surprised by the lack of aggression as it coaxes him to spread his legs and repositions itself comfortably between them, two hands holding onto him while a third slides under his skirt. The tight-pulled knot of anxiety deep in his core slowly comes undone as warm metal fingers trail up and down his inner thigh, its touch almost teasing, tracing the lines of gold but stopping just shy of where he needs them most. He tries to squeeze his legs shut around it and whimpers, a shameful little sound he didn’t even know he was capable of.
This gentleness is torture. He needs more. Needs the ruthless intensity that had brought him to his knees in the first place.
“Well? Come on, then,” he goads with more confidence than he feels, hoping it doesn’t hear the slight tremor in his voice. “What are you waiting for?”
It doesn’t rise to the challenge. He tries to push himself up, determined to take matters into his own hands even though he doesn’t really know how- only to find its other three hands are holding him in place with much more strength than he’d anticipated.
Oh. Of course. It knows exactly what it’s doing to him.
“Even in this, you continue to torment me?” he manages.
It nods, its shoulders shaking with a warped approximation of laughter.
“Merciless thing-”
Its fingers ghost over his clit through the thin fabric of his bodysuit and he tries to push his hips against it, groaning in frustration when it pulls back.
“Please,” he hisses before he can stop himself, mortified by the word as soon as it’s spoken. God- after a few thousand years of abstinence, he would’ve thought he had a bit more self-discipline and dignity than that. The machine is difficult to read, but its light feels almost mocking: how ironic, it seems to gloat, that the Judge of Hell could be so easily reduced to begging.
Still, at least his blatant desperation seems to have satisfied it for the time being, and it turns its attention to his belt. Before he can make any move to remove it properly, it shoves two of its hands between the gold band and his skin, grabs it, and twists.
Lord above. Metal warps, creaks, and tears like tissue paper in its hands. It pulls the broken belt and tassets away from his body; with no breath or musculature to show physical strain, the action looks effortless. Before he can even process this, it hikes his skirt up around his waist and tears its claws up his thighs, shredding the remains of his modesty and leaving fiery pain in its wake. The spark of arousal in his core flares up into an incandescent blaze, consuming the last of his hesitation. As its claws tear away fabric and dig into the flesh of his thigh to push it down and out, laying him bare, he presses eagerly into its touch as if it were the only source of heat in all of Hell. How much self-control is it taking to score his skin without tearing ravenously into the flesh beneath? Can it feel his blood surging, burning with a passion he doesn’t even have the words to describe?
God forgive him- if it wanted to plunge its hands between his ribs and tear his beating heart from his chest, he’d let it.
Four hands move independently over his body, trailing up his arms, feeling his biceps, grazing down his sides to grab his ass, squeezing his pecs, tracing the gold marks on his thighs, brushing against his throat- it’s everywhere, firm and rough and inquisitive and deliberate in a way that’s making his head spin, and he gives up on trying to keep track of which hand is where and just lies there and loses himself in its wandering touch, only to be jolted back sharply to reality when its fingers trail down his chest and continue, down, down, freezing him in place and stealing his breath away. It pokes and prods at him, tilting its head to shine on him like a spotlight as it parts his wet lips with two fingers. Its hand comes away glistening with slick residue that it rubs between its fingertips, and a new hand replaces it, thumbing lightly over his clit with clinical coldness. It’s… unnerving. He feels like he should avert his gaze- close his eyes- anything but stare so intently and wonder what the machine is thinking, what it intends to do to him. He realizes he’s shaking. There’s no excitement in its movement, no reverence- no acknowledgement at all, really, of the fact it’s being allowed to ruin something sacrosanct. Or maybe it just doesn’t care. Is that how it sees him? The Right Hand of the Father, the fallen Archangel Gabriel, unworthy of being treated even as a common whore, but rather as some kind of… specimen to be studied?
Its fingers slide along his wet cunt, dipping into him just slightly, smearing the slick upward until finally, finally, its thumb presses a firm circle into his clit and Gabriel’s breath hitches. Yes-!
He squirms in its grasp as its thumb repeats the movement, warm metal moving with mechanical precision, the pleasure building until he can no longer hold back a moan. It’s varying the pace and pressure too fast, oscillating between not enough and too much, and the inconsistency makes him want to kick it in frustration- but just as he’s about to make his feelings known, it settles back into a steady rhythm that steals away any thoughts of protest. A small part of his brain still capable of rational thought realizes that it’s learning too- experimenting, gauging his reactions, optimizing through trial and error just like it does in combat. He gasps when two fingers glide inside him with embarrassing ease, shuddering at the filthy wet sound as it pulls out and pushes back in a little deeper. He expected it to hurt- expected it to be immediately overwhelming- expected the invasion to come with a little more fanfare, somehow, than the slight burning stretch that builds slowly into dull pleasure as it continues to massage his clit. Encouraged by the soft sounds that leave him, it ups the tempo, curling its fingers inside him, sending a jolt up his spine that makes him whimper.
God- is this what it enjoys? Taking note of every twitch of muscle, every shaky breath, picking him apart and learning his patterns so it can rend him apart with perfect efficiency? The thought makes him clench around it with a shuddering moan.
Without thinking, he pulls its body closer. His fingers push into the gaps in its waist, feeling the electronic hum and biological pulse that permeates it, tangling in fuel lines and wires with little regard for the danger of sticking his hands into machinery strong enough to parry the corpse of Minos. Is he the only one to be this far inside it, to grasp at its inner workings? There’s a perverse satisfaction in the thought. Certainly anything else that had gotten close enough to try would’ve met a swift and painful end. Is it vulnerable there? Could it afford such weakness? How much self-restraint is it taking to touch him so gently? Head spinning, he grasps a bundle of wires and tugs -
The peaceful facade shatters.
With a harsh electronic growl, it slams his head down hard enough that he sees stars. A hot trickle of blood blossoms from where its claws plunge deep into his hip- the cold muzzle of the nailgun presses against his throat as if it had materialized from thin air, his bicep burning with the familiar sting of its ammunition- a third finger shoves into his cunt with no concern for his comfort- radiant pain and euphoria surge through him and he’s pretty sure the distantly echoing shout is his. For a split second it’s motionless, its single golden eye staring down at him, daring him to protest.
“Fuck, yes-” he hisses, arching his back, letting his legs fall open wider and shoving his palm into its chest. He meets its gaze and answers its silent challenge hoarsely: “More.”
This time, it’s happy to oblige. It unwinds a length of cord from its green arm in a flash and wraps it around his wrists with inhuman speed, pulling it painfully taut until his palms are pressed together before him as if in prayer. He struggles even though he knows the end result (how the fuck is it so strong?!), hips rolling as he fucks himself on its fingers, certain the sounds that leave his throat are ones he hasn’t made from the dawn of creation.
“Oh, God-” He almost sobs when it touches his wings again, writhing, arching his back against the ice, desperate for something, anything!- he doesn’t even know what he’s saying and he doesn’t care because the machine seems to have learned just how to keep him balanced on a thin precipice where he can’t think, can’t do anything, can only exist at its mercy and feel until it decides to have pity on him, and that could be minutes or hours or days and it’s-
It’s too much.
Depraved. Sin. Below him to an unthinkable degree.
Bliss.
Amid Gabriel’s half-coherent moans and curses- amid alternating pleas for forgiveness and for more (and oh, is it happy to accommodate the latter)- V1 picks out 13 explicit mentions of God and Heaven and precisely 0 utterances of its own name.
Honestly? It deserves a little more credit.
It’s not surprised, of course. It’s never cared about being referred to by name before- never cared much for socializing at all- and thus had no reason to share it. He probably doesn’t even know it has a name; though come to think of it, he’s had plenty of opportunities to ask.
Maybe, just for that, it’ll draw this out a little longer. Make him wish he’d asked. Carve “V1” into his chest and only let him come when he learns to sing its name with the same instinctive reverence he once reserved for God.
Judging by the angel’s present state… he’d probably like that.
The thought brings a rush of bloodthirsty excitement.
It ceases its movement (ignoring his weak cry of protest) and taps on the front of his helmet until he looks up, then taps at the writing on its chest with two hands for emphasis.
Dazed and unsteady, it takes him a few seconds to comprehend what it’s asking of him.
“...Vi?” he pants.
“V-1,” it corrects, holding each symbol for 1.5 seconds, leaving no room for ambiguity.
“Oh- is- is that your name?”
“Say it.” It punctuates this by digging the Knuckleblaster into his shoulder, pressing its thumb into the recently-healed bullet wound.
“Mhn- V- V-One,” he whimpers.
Good. Oh, it likes the sound of that. It rewards him by resuming its touch at a slightly faster tempo.
“Ah- V- f-fuck-!”
…Close enough.
He isn’t going to last much longer, if the way his legs are shaking is anything to go by; not if it keeps up this pace.
It could slow down again. See how far it can push him before he breaks. Another minute? Another hour? Two? But the novelty is already wearing thin, and it has other things it wants to try.
Instead- suddenly realizing the possibilities raised by a self-replenishing, cooperative fuel source- it overclocks itself.
Time slows down as it fucks him to completion with ruthless mechanical efficiency. One hand on his clit, firm and unrelenting. One hand inside him, feeling him hot and wet and clenching around it in time with the moans that spill from him freely. One hand holding him still as the Knuckleblaster scores cuts in his thigh, shallow enough to heal almost instantly but bloody enough to keep up with its now more rapidly dwindling fuel supply. Fans humming to dissipate feverish heat. Blood redirected to its outermost tubing to take advantage of the freezing air. Firing on all cylinders for the first time in- it can't even remember. Indulging even further, it cranks up its graphics- it’s not like it needs combat-level processing speed for fucking- and drinks in the sight of Gabriel lost in the throes of passion. Individual feathers gleaming in brilliant iridescent hues that look cut from the sky itself. Runes lining his wings and halo now intelligible, though it can’t read the language. Blue-gold light dancing across bloodstained ice. The fine engravings on his armor, graceful sweeping curves dented and bloodied but nevertheless capturing that notion of divine splendor Gabriel had been so hung up on. A sheen of sweat where his bare skin is exposed. Contours of muscle, fat, and bone, shifting with every breath, somehow both desperately human and exquisitely statuesque. It records every movement, every sound, every fraction of a second with the highest fidelity it can manage. It will need them later for… analysis.
And probably other things.
Seeing him like this- hearing the soft plea he manages to string together only to dissolve into a moan in the middle of a word- it’s sparking a violent feeling V1 doesn’t know how to reconcile. It wants to lunge for his throat, tear him limb from limb, bury its hands in his chest and bathe in his gore- but the most frustrating part of it all is that it doesn't want to hurt him. (Not permanently, anyways.)
It doesn't know what to do with itself.
Well- it has some idea. Something about fucking the Archangel Fucking Gabriel into an incoherent, whimpering mess is making its reward system go haywire, because at this point it doesn’t think it could stop even if it wanted to. A synthetic analog to arousal - or maybe it’s biochemical- or some fusion of the two, some unforeseen emergent interaction between mechanical and biological parts its creators could never have foreseen-
Oh, who the fuck cares?
What matters right now is Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel.
It pushes its claws into the flesh just below his jugular and rakes down, tearing shallow gashes in the center of his chest, right over his heart, picking up the pace of its thrusts, and when the angel finally comes undone beneath it with a scream of pain and rapture, shining wings splayed, hands clasped in helpless prayer as blood pours from him freely- it’s V1 he sings his praises to.
Beautiful.
This is ecstasy.
Pure, mindless ecstasy. Radiant, like holy light, pulsing from his core to his fingertips and drowning out all the fear and pain and shame of the last day into a moment of such concentrated peace and bliss that it seems almost divine. It washes over and through him, leaving him gasping for breath, shivering, throat burning in the cold air from the echoing scream he realizes must’ve been his, heart feeling like it’s going to beat out of his chest.
So this was what mortals were willing to risk eternal damnation for.
If he’d known- he hadn’t expected-
His scattered thoughts are interrupted by the overwhelming relief careening into pain.
“Stop!” he cries hoarsely, trying to wrench himself out of its grasp, his body somehow both too light and too heavy to move, whiplash cord digging deeper into suddenly too-sensitive skin. “Machine- V1- stop, please, that’s-”
It freezes in place with its fingers still inside him, thumb still pressing against his abused clit.
“...enough. That’s enough,” he breathes, body going slack in its grasp with a weak whine. For just a moment he’d been afraid it wouldn’t stop- that it would keep him there forever, or until he fell unconscious or died or came again and again and-
He feels lightheaded.
The machine- V1 - withdraws silently, wiping its dripping hand on his torn skirt with a carelessness that really should make him angry. His hands shake as it unravels the whiplash from around his wrists and lets them drop loosely to his sides.
There’s a warm contentment that lingers with the aftershocks of his orgasm. He feels… fragile. Exhausted. Shattered. Whole.
He shuts his eyes and just breathes, wishing he could dissolve into this moment rather than face the storm of guilt brewing on the horizon.
Thunk thunk thunk
V1 is tapping on his helmet.
“...Hmm…?”
It’s staring at him, two hands held up as if it intends to speak but wavering, uncharacteristically hesitant. “You are not badly injured.”
He blinks at the complete non sequitur, struggling to gather himself enough to speak. Taking quick stock, his entire body is humming with warmth. Some of that is pain, a soft stinging heat that feels trivial after what V1 had done to him earlier. The shallow cuts on his chest and bruises around his wrists are already fading; within minutes, it’ll be like they were never there. It’s… not wrong. No real harm was done. Still, it is a strange thing to point out. If it’s trying to make some kind of point, he hasn’t the slightest idea what it’s meant to be. He already knows it doesn’t want to kill him, and his head is too fuzzy to pick out any deeper meaning. …Unless it was meant to be a question?
“No, I- I’ll be alright. Just… give me a few minutes.”
V1 visibly perks up and gives him a thumbs-up with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Strange little machine,” he chuckles, closing his legs around its waist for precious warmth and feeling the hiss of hydraulics as it shifts closer in response.
Something cold touches his thigh, making him flinch. V1 holds its palm out flat in a gesture he thinks is meant to convey reassurance; another hand holds up a fistful of pink snow, mirrored on its other side. It prods gently at the still-healing wounds in the center of his chest, its hand recoiling at his soft hiss of pain and returning a moment later to press a handful of bloodstained snow to his heart. Its other hands do the same with the remaining cuts on his thighs, thumbs rubbing reassuring circles into his skin.
What is it…
Oh.
It’s trying to numb the pain. This would be an effective method in humans; it probably has no way to know angels aren’t sensitive enough to temperature extremes for that to work, though the chill does bring a slight relief. It hardly matters, though, because he forgets about the pain entirely with the dawning realization that it cares. It’s such a small act- inconsequential, really- yet deeply touching in a way that frightens him.
Is this an act of kindness? What other explanation could there be? Is it worried for him? Is its concern for his well-being selfless or selfish? Would it even know the difference?
Does it matter?
He's not used to needing help.
No- that isn’t the issue, exactly. He doesn't need help now either. He could heal just fine without this small, unnecessary kindness. No, the disconcerting part it’s that he's not used to being offered help. He can't count the number of times he’d given aid and hope to the lost as acts of fundamental instinct, as matter of course, never expecting anything in return. He's never been on the receiving end of anything but the Father’s distant grace… and even that had been a phantom longer than not.
He doesn’t need help and yet for some God-forsaken reason V1 is giving it anyway and it’s terrifying, because he doesn’t know what it sees when it looks at him, doesn’t know what’s going on in its head, and worst of all doesn’t really know what’s going on in his own head except for the fact that he suddenly feels like he wants to cry, and…
And he’s pretty sure he’s in love, or something like it, anyway.
God help him.
“Thank you,” he says through the lump in his throat. For everything.
It doesn’t respond.
He makes a weak attempt to pull it closer, clinging to it like a drowning man, fingers finding purchase in the gaps between armored plating. He half expects it to pull away. Instead, its rigid spine curves to match his chest with a quiet sound like hissing steam, its head coming to rest in the crook of his shoulder, wings drooping to surround him like a cage.
The tattered remains of the Council’s voices in his head whisper to him that it’s probably just trying to soak up blood. That seeing this as a show of affection or comfort is anthropomorphizing something distinctly unholy and inhuman. That the aggressive hum of machinery slowing to a warm purr is just its body trying to save power.
He doesn’t care.
His hands wander of their own volition. One finds the pack of its wings to press it tighter against him, blood-hot metal digging comfortably into his flesh. The other traces the geometric contours of its torso, this time avoiding the more sensitive interior machinery.
Every angle, every plane, was crafted with deadly purpose. An apex predator too perfect for its niche. It feels deceptively fragile, like he should be able to snap it in half with his bare hands. And yet there’s not an inch of softness, no detectable heartbeat, no breathing to suggest the unholy fusion of flesh and steel that lies within; just a thin metal shell that thrums with hunger. Nothing to suggest it can feel the difference between an incidental touch and a gentle caress. Surely it must be able to feel something to operate so efficiently in battle, to sense its enemies and avoid injury? He runs his fingers up its ridged spine, strokes the smooth edges of its wings, brushes his thumb over external wires.
Nothing. If it enjoys the sensation, it gives no sign.
What did it even get out of sex? Had it…? How would it even…?
There’s so much he doesn’t know.
(He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on whether V1 could ever love him back. It doesn't matter. He would love it anyway. He’s already spent a lifetime devoted to an empty god.)
The silence stretches on long past the point of comfort. V1 has only offered a few blunt sentences and expressive gestures, giving him the impression that it isn’t accustomed or partial to conversation- but now that he knows it can communicate, that it’s truly an intelligent being with emotions, fears, desires… it feels like he should say something. He’s not used to being at a loss for words.
And this stillness… it’s giving him far too much space to think, space he doesn’t want.
The guilt creeps in slowly at first: a tightening in his stomach, a fist gently squeezing his heart, a looming shadow he wants desperately to run from only to find himself rooted in place. He knows what’s coming, but there’s nothing he can do to brace himself for the impact as a tidal wave of raw guilt and regret slams into him, crushing his lungs, suffocating him. How many had he condemned to Hell for doing exactly what he’s just done? How many had, under his authority, met a terrible fate for victimless crimes that paled in comparison to his own? How many had suffered endless torture for indulging their lustful desires together, for committing the horrible sin of feeling good under the arbitrary laws of a tyrannical Council he’d never thought to question? All that pain and death, and for what? Would the Father have given his body the ability to feel so fucking good if it wasn't meant to happen?
“...Machine?”
How absurd it would've seemed an hour ago to turn to it for comfort.
When he doesn’t say anything else, V1 makes a soft buzzing sound against his shoulder. Acknowledgment. It’s listening. Which is unfortunate, because he still has no idea what to say.
“About the… um.” He swallows. “I didn’t expect… that was. Wow.”
V1 still doesn’t reply, content to lie lazily sprawled over him like the world’s worst blanket. It isn’t even facing him, but he can feel how unimpressed it is with his masterful command of language.
“Did you… ah… enjoy it at all?”
A red thumbs-up pops up in the corner of his vision, which is good to know but not really the answer he’s looking for.
“I’m assuming you didn’t…”
This finally gets its attention. It props itself up on its elbows and stares down at him, optic half-lidded as its hands sign sharply. “Are you seriously asking me if I came from fingering you for two minutes and seventeen seconds?”
“I- no!” he splutters. “I was trying to say I’d like to return the favor. If that’s even possible, I mean. I didn’t see…”
“What, you already want more? I thought angels were supposed to be above that sort of thing.” It tilts its head smugly, its single eye somehow managing to leer down at him. “Sorry. No dick, no hole. Might have to get creative with it. Doesn’t mean I’m not having fun.” It pushes itself up and forward to straddle his waist, one arm planted into the ice on either side of his head so it looms over him, one hand tilting his chin up to meet its gaze, the fourth making him shiver as it teases over his wing. He wishes it didn’t have to stop touching him to speak. “I already have some ideas of what to do with you. Bet you'd look real good taking my cock if I manage to scrounge one up.”
The thought sends a wave of heat surging through him and he squeezes his thighs together with a sharp inhale. The machine’s optic narrows slightly- just enough to let him know his reaction hadn’t escaped its notice.
“You know, trying to tempt divine beings into sin usually involves a little tact,” he snaps.
“I’m not trying. I’m succeeding. Not my fault you’re easy.”
And Gabriel isn’t entirely sure what he laughs at, whether it’s the sheer absurdity of such a statement or the fact that it’s true and he doesn’t seem to care, but for the moment his guilt is forgotten. He grabs its waist- it’s almost small enough for his hands to wrap around it- and sits up until his helmet clinks lightly against what passes for its face, digging his fingers into its back with a growl. “Humor me, machine. Tell me more. I think I need a little more convincing.”
Chapter 2
Notes:
i straight up do not have the time to edit this properly rn but I need to post it to get it out my head. ((if you catch me using the wrong 'your' or something please let me know bc if i find out in like 2 months, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.)) this spiraled out of control a little bit. this was not meant to be this many words. this is like 20k words of ultrakill porn now. that's just excessive. who the hell do i think i am
anyway uh. they get freaky with it. enjoy (i ended up moving the promised 'v1 talks about its feelings' part to a really short epilogue bc it didnt feel like it fit the flow otherwise)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Gabriel has never really lingered in Hell.
He’d patrolled it, certainly; monitored it, yes; but in all his thousands of years, he can’t remember the last time he stopped to just… take in the scenery.
And really, why would he? Hell was repulsive by design. He could never find it in him to enjoy the suffering of those he condemned, no matter how certain he’d been of its necessity. Instead, he’d learned to keep moving, never remaining in the same layer too long lest he be forced to confront what was right in front of him. He’d learned to filter out the screams, learned to turn a blind eye to torture and agony, learned to see without seeing until it became second nature. What compassion he showed toward the sinners of Hell, he showed quietly, in fleeting moments away from prying eyes. After all, Hell was good; Hell was just; Hell was righteous. Those sinners had earned their eternal fate.
Well. Too late to fix his mistakes now.
With no sinners left to scream, Hell has fallen silent. It’s little consolation that, in the face of eternal torment, death must’ve been a kindness to them.
Far below, the killing fields of Violence are littered with bodies that haven’t even begun to rot. Husks, machines, demons, all scattered in pieces across the desert and filling the air with a coppery stench so thick he can taste it. Their Great War is finally over. There’s nobody left to fight.
Well, there is him and the machine; but they’ve worked out a strange armistice that has him carrying its warm body in his arms as he flies them both across the scorching sand, occasionally alighting when it taps him on the shoulder to let it explore the marble structures that pepper the landscape like islands. (He wonders if these stops are as much for his benefit as for V1’s, a chance for him to rest his faded wings. Perhaps he’s giving it too much credit.)
He’d offered to teleport them directly to their destination, but V1 had insisted they go on foot, with him flying it over any parts of Hell that had become impossible to traverse. It seems to enjoy meandering through what’s left of the buildings, bounding up walls, squeezing itself into out-of-the-way spaces where Gabriel can’t easily follow. Strange creature. When he asks what it’s looking for, it doesn’t give him a straight answer. Secrets, he’s gathered. Things it hasn’t seen before. Places it hadn’t had the time to visit. When he asks what sort of things, what sort of places, it looks exasperated and clumsily explains that it doesn’t know, because it hasn’t seen them before, and that’s the whole point. When he asks why, it shrugs as if it’s a stupid question. Maybe it is.
(He tries not to think about the fact that he's holding it against his chest, about how warm the metal feels, about how the contours of its body press into his bare skin, and falters in the air for a moment when it reaches out and delicately traces the top of his wing with a single finger. Its shoulders shake in an approximation of laughter. Damn machine.)
Heresy hasn’t changed much in his absence. The streets are emptier. Quieter. Shards of crimson glass crunch beneath their feet as they walk. Clotted blood dribbles from the ceilings, runs in the cracks between floor tiles, and soaks the red carpets of outer Dis just as it had yesterday, and the day before, and a thousand years before that. The only difference is its source: joining the rain are the twice-dead bodies of mankind’s heretics, their gore strewn about like fallen leaves.
(He tries to goad V1 to take a more straightforward path to the exit, only for it to call him a slut and ask when patience stopped being a virtue, and it takes all his self-control to let it slide, because yes, the only reason they’re moving at all is because V1 had insisted that if he wants it to fuck him, it’s going to fuck him. And he’s not impatient. Not squeezing his thighs together every time he has to stop and wait for it. Not struggling to reconcile his body’s arousal with the gruesome scenery. Not feeling heat pool in his core when he sees V1 easily bend the bars of a smashed-out window. He just doesn’t share V1’s indifference to the carnage. That’s all. That’s all.)
He can almost appreciate the beauty of Wrath, if he forgets for a moment that the ocean below is made of the souls of the damned. From high enough, it’s almost possible to imagine they aren’t in Hell, though it feels awfully desolate without a single ferry in sight. Another mistake; another regret. He should’ve done more for them while he still could. He wonders whether V1 killed any, and decides he’d rather not know.
(V1 is touching his wings again. Damn it all. He forces himself to ignore its touch, determined not to give it the satisfaction. This turns out to be a mistake when it changes tactics and slips its hand under his skirt, lightly stroking up his thigh. He lurches in the air with a gasp when it grabs his ass and finds himself weighing the merits of dropping it into the ocean to make a point, and maybe he would if he weren’t so hard it almost hurts. He doesn’t have time for this. He wants it to point to an island, bend him over and rail him here and now.)
Greed is beautiful, in a stark sort of way. He hadn’t bothered donning the cuirass again, and after Treachery and the cold winds of Wrath, the sun feels good on his bare skin.
(If V1 can tell he’s guiding it away from the tomb of Sisyphus, it doesn’t say.)
Gluttony… makes him uncomfortable. The sights, the sounds, the smells, he’d long since grown accustomed to, but the eyes… the eyes make him regret leaving his armor behind. He doesn’t like the way they follow him, doesn’t like walking around covered only by a tattered skirt stained with blood and… other things. It’s an unwelcome reminder that Hell itself is still alive, and he does not want to know what it makes of him now.
(He’s not entirely comfortable with the way V1 is looking at him, either- which is a bit more difficult to justify when it’s already seen him naked and is entirely incapable of expression. Or maybe that’s exactly why: he’s wondering, for the first time, what’s behind that yellow eye when it watches him.)
When they reach Lust, he’s almost relieved.
Sprawling out before them are the remains of what had been a shining city. He’d once seen it as an insult to God; had once felt proud to watch its destruction. Only now does he stop to appreciate that, even in the depths of Hell itself, humanity could create wonders. Of course, a majority of it is in ruins now, and not thanks to the machines. He’d never stopped to really look at it, had been finding excuses to avoid staying here too long ever since he killed Minos. Perhaps a part of him had known even then that it had been wrong.
Still, what’s left of Lust is beautiful.
Concrete walls riddled with bullet holes. Bloodstains. Bodies. But he can tell people had continued to live here, eking out what life they could while the towering corpse of Minos slowly tore their home to pieces. He might’ve struck the killing blow, but the city has been bleeding out for centuries. Only now is it breathing its last. Most of the lights are still shining, though the windows of a distant high-rise flicker out as he watches. He can see places where the roads had been recently fixed. Broken storefronts of clothing stores and sex shops whose interiors look pristine apart from the broken glass. Neon graffiti on purple-lit walls. Faint music pulses from a club around the corner; nobody had bothered to inform the speakers that everyone inside was dead. There’s blood, death, and ruin- but no garbage in the streets; no dirt and grime that would’ve accumulated after years of neglect.
The people of Lust had loved this city. Minos had loved this city.
Coming here for what V1 has in mind feels like adding insult to injury. But he doesn’t have time to tell V1 this. He doesn’t have much time at all.
It finds an apartment in an older part of town, a brick building whose interior is mostly wood. It’s sparsely furnished, hardly luxurious but comfortable. More importantly, it’s clean, and free of the otherwise pervasive stench of death. There’s a bed; a desk; bookshelves; a mirror; a dead fireplace. No kitchen or bathroom; the dead had no need for such things. Gabriel takes a moment to light the fire, not for want of warmth or light but because it gives his hands something to do while V1 darts back out the door to look for… something.
He takes one of the books off the shelves in an attempt to distract himself, gets about five pages in, and swiftly returns it to its place, hot with embarrassment.
Surely they can’t all be…?
He takes down a second book, flips to the middle, and snaps it shut just as fast.
Well, he’s not sure what he expected.
With nothing else to occupy him, he sits down on the bed (the covers are, to his relief, clean) and tries to clear his head.
He’s… actually doing this.
The magnitude of his sin comes crashing down upon him without warning. The familiar feeling of shame coils instinctively inside him like a snake crushing his lungs, screaming at him that he should leave while he can, pray, repent for his sins- and alone, it’s impossible to drown it out.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and stares at his reflection as he focuses on breathing. For some reason he expects himself to look different. He doesn’t. Just more haggard, and with less clothes than usual. He looks ill. Feels it, too. Guilt. Blood loss. Shame. Arousal. Regret. Knowledge of his impending demise.
But for the first time in his life, he feels free.
Something drips onto his chest from the opening of his helmet. Is he… crying? That’s new. It’s not an entirely unwelcome sensation. Overwhelming. Cathartic. Like some building pressure in his mind has finally been released.
Still- the nervous anticipation is becoming too much for him to bear. There’s no clock, no way to tell how long V1 has been gone. It can’t have been more than a few minutes. It’ll be back soon. It’s be back and then- He presses his thighs together, hand resting over his heart as he tries to slow his breathing… before remembering there’s no need for that anymore.
Fuck it.
His hand slowly trails down his chest and under his skirt, trying to replicate the machine’s touch against his clit. His fingers are uncertain. Hesitant. After millennia of abstinence, self-denial feels more instinctive than desire itself, something that clings and digs its stubborn claws into every thought, something he has to wrestle down.
Selfish. (And so what? He has hours to live.)
Disgusting. (To whom? Nobody's watching.)
Sinful. (Is he sure? No God is left to pass judgment.)
He wants this. He wants this. And he can have this, because there’s nobody left alive to tell him he shouldn’t.
This… this feels good, but it’s not enough. The machine was better at this, and the fact that it had been able to navigate his own body better than he can is… is… he doesn’t know, but it makes his own hand speed up a bit. Damn that thing. His back arches at the memory of its touch, a quiet gasp escaping him as dull pleasure builds. V1 looming over him, his own blood slowly seeping into the metal, its uncompromising hands pinning him to the ice as it… as it…
His mind pushes back against the memory. He forces himself to look. He wants this.
…As it tears away his armor and shoves its fingers inside him, his hands tied so all he can do is lay there and take it. He shudders, lies back with a stuttering breath and closes his eyes. He presses his other hand into his chest as if to steady himself, unconsciously tracing the mostly healed scars the machine had left. His thighs fall open and he slips two fingers inside, pressing into his clit with his palm. He doesn’t bother removing the gauntlet, imagining instead that the metal belongs to V1, and he tries curling his fingers the way V1 had and oh- oh, that’s good.
God, he needs this. He needs-
The crash of breaking glass jolts him out of it like a bucket of ice water to the face.
He jerks up just in time to see V1 land gracefully on the carpet, sending shards of glass flying across the room. Fuck, he’d almost forgotten- he almost doesn’t notice what it throws carelessly onto the covers next to him, too distracted by the realization of how he must’ve looked, splayed out on the bed, depraved, pleasuring himself to the thought of it-
But V1 doesn’t seem to have noticed; either that, or it doesn’t care. It doesn’t move from the window, crouched in a battle-ready stance with the revolver spinning around its finger, wings fluttering like a hummingbird, eye trained directly on him.
In the space of the apartment, Gabriel looks… oddly subdued.
V1 is used to seeing him in battle, glowing with divine zeal and fury, and incapable of shutting the fuck up. Like this- quiet, mostly naked, wings and halo gone, standing in a mostly empty apartment- he looks almost mundane, apart from a glow that brightens the room more than all the lamps combined. His grandiose presence made him seem much taller than he actually is. Standing next to a desk, he’s not much bigger than a stray.
Two fingers on his right hand are visibly wet. Hm. What had he been thinking about?
“Machine,” he greets it somewhat stiffly. His voice is quieter than ever, but still too loud for the small room.
Its gun hand twitches in irritation. He knows its name now; he could at least use it.
“Need fuel.”
A lie. It’s safely at 46%. But Gabriel doesn’t know that.
“Oh- of course.” It braces itself as he summons a glowing blade- but to V1’s surprise, he lifts his hand and slices open his own palm.
V1 freezes for a moment.
What…?
Oh. Stupid, kind, beautiful angel.
When V1 doesn’t move, he steps forward, hesitating just a moment before pressing his palm to its chest. It grabs his wrist and holds him there.
50%.
55%.
V1 stares down at his hand.
It could be a selfish kindness, the way it had left him alive. That had been selfish, right? It’s pretty sure it isn’t capable of anything else.
60%.
65%.
Its optic narrows.
It takes a step back toward the broken window, bouncing on the balls of its feet, hoping he’ll understand the implied challenge. “You’re really just gonna let me take it?”
And that finally seems to reignite the spark in him. “So that’s how you want to play?” He withdraws his hand and summons twin glowing swords with a laugh, not seeming to care that most of his armor is still lying in a heap in Treachery- and he’s gone in a flash of blue, his voice echoing from outside. “Alright, machine. Come and get me!”
Laughter and gunshots echo in the streets.
The open space of the city would give Gabriel a strong advantage against most foes, but V1 is an extremely swift and agile opponent, anticipating his movement and darting about in midair with physics-defying grace almost as quickly as he can teleport.
“I remember you being faster!” Gabriel taunts as he snags V1 in the arm and quickly blinks out of reach, only for a ricocheting revolver shot to catch him in the leg. They’ve both gotten the hang of each other’s fighting style by now, both adapted their own to the other’s, and it really does feel like a dance to some unheard music, their improvised movement flowing together better than any choreography.
He can tell it’s holding back. For once, it’s not trying to kill him. Revolver rounds pierce his arms and legs. A point-blank shotgun blast to his bare chest is enough to momentarily stun him, and it uses the opportunity merely to punch a coin into his face hard enough that it leaves his ears ringing. The nailgun is fair game, but it hasn’t tried to impale him with a magnet or set him on fire, and it hasn’t used the railcannon. What it sacrifices in lethality, however, V1 makes up for in technique, pulling tricks he’s never seen before when it had been fighting for survival. (Riding on rockets? A fucking chainsaw?)
Gabriel keeps his own strikes precise, controlled. Slashing at arms and wings. Slamming the pommel into its chest with enough force to dent the metal. It’s gotten far too good at parrying thrown attacks, so he opts for swift close-range strikes from above followed by teleporting out of its reach.
He knows he’s going to lose. He’s missing most of his armor, he’s growing weaker with every drop of blood it spills, and he can’t heal himself as quickly as it can.
That doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy this- or that he won’t give V1 a run for its money.
“Too busy showing off to land a shot?” he calls as V1 launches the chainsaw at where he’d been hovering a moment ago. He teleports in close and angles his strike toward the shoulder of its gun arm- it twists out of the way just in time and wrests the other sword from his grasp, and Gabriel laughs again, almost manic, as he drops to the ground on the opposite side of the road and flourishes his blade in an arc of light. “Come on then! Show me what you’ve got!”
Gunfire is replaced by clashing blades. V1 is inhumanly fast, but unpracticed with his own weapon of choice, leaving them on fairly even ground- something that V1 also seems to appreciate, because rather than drawing a more favorable weapon, it closes the distance aggressively, pouncing on him with a flurry of swift but predictable strikes only to be put on the defensive by a well-timed riposte that pierces clean through its abdomen. It’s swinging the sword too wide, not maintaining the tight control necessary to respond to a well-trained opponent, not rotating the blade properly so almost half its blows land with the spine of the sword rather than the cutting edge. Gabriel presses his advantage, lunging toward it and advancing when it dodges the strike until its back hits a wall and V1 realizes it’s played right into his hands.
“So,” he pants between their locked swords, faces nearly touching, a feral smile audible in his voice. “What do I get if I win?”
V1 plants a foot in his hip and shoves him back with the flat of its blade, anticipating his retaliatory strike and sliding out of the way just in the nick of time. He doesn’t pursue immediately, giving it just enough time to sign one word: “Laid.”
He teleports after it- a move he pays for in blood as V1 leaps out of the way and slashes a deep cut in his side.
“And if I lose?”
“You mean when you lose?” It dodges a thrown sword, missing the opportunity to parry to instead sign as quickly as it can manage. “Also laid.”
Gabriel laughs and tries not to think about how quickly he’s getting out of breath, how long his wounds take to close, how he’s beginning to feel heavy as the initial surge of adrenaline wears off. This is what he was made for- what they were both made for. It’s wonderful. Visceral. Brutal. Intimate.
V1 seems to have realized he has too much of an upper hand in the wide open space of Lust where he can teleport freely, because it ducks below his next strike and slams through another window, glancing over its shoulder as if daring him to follow. And he does, teleporting into the room, calling it a coward when it darts over the bed and out the door into the hallway outside, blades singing as he chases it up a flight of stairs, yelling another taunt when it ducks into a different room. He enters behind it with his sword at the ready and-
-and falters, nearly dropping the blade, when he realizes they’re back in the same apartment and finally gets a good look at what V1 had thrown onto the bed earlier. A small bottle of clear liquid, and next to it- steel blue against the crimson covers- a dildo sticking out of a black harness.
It’s- it’s- disgusting, awful, he wants it in him, okay, no, not helpful, Heaven help him- was that why it had taken the thing so damn long? He’d been stewing alone in this newly awakened lust while it was off finding a perfect color match?! Couldn’t it have found something smaller?! Oh, Lord have mercy, he just prays it had thought to clean it-
Something slams into the back of his knees, sending him crashing to the ground with a shout. He swings the sword wildly- there’s a flash of blue- V1 stomps on his wrist hard enough that he drops the sword, then kicks the weapon across the room. He snarls and tries to push himself up, but the machine plants a foot in the center of his chest and shoves him down, broken glass from its earlier dramatic entrance biting into his back. Heat surges through him; he pushes back against it with a growl, reaching out to summon the sword back to him- only to find himself face-to-face with the humming railcannon.
Oh.
This… should not make him feel the way that it does.
He calls its bluff and shoves the barrel aside- it doesn’t shoot- and reaches out in the same movement to grab it by the wrist, yanking it forward so it’s leaning over him, close enough that he can hear the faint hum of machinery beneath its plating.
“Fuck me,” he snarls.
And V1’s on top of him, straddling him, digging its fingers greedily into the bleeding gash in his side, tearing away what’s left of his skirt as he claws at it like a frenzied animal, neither of them seeming to care that the bed is only a few steps away. It snatches the harness from the bed with the whiplash, holding his shoulders down and shoving its knee between his legs as it tightens the straps in place, blue silicone jutting from its featureless pelvis as if it had always been there, and a slight wave of panic at the sight of it is immediately overwhelmed by how painfully hard he is as he grinds against V1’s leg. It shoves his thighs apart and presses its fingers on either side of his clit in a V, letting him fuck himself against it as two fingers of a different hand slip easily inside him. It lifts its glistening hand a few moments later, holding its fingers up to the light and doing a remarkable job of conveying scorn.
“Were you this wet after our other fights too, or was this a recent development?”
Angels don’t lie, so rather than tell the truth- that their first encounter in Gluttony had been merely traumatic, but the second had left him so horny he’d been nauseous- he merely swears at it.
“Shut your whore mouth.”
“Make me,” he growls without thinking, throwing it off him and lunging for his sword, adrenaline still running hot in his veins.
It’s back on him in a flash, whiplash cord around his waist, and one of the bookshelves crashes to the ground as Gabriel struggles to get free. His wings are more a hindrance than a help in the small space, one sweep of them sending the lamp on the low ceiling swinging. The machine shoves him into the mirror so hard it shatters, more glass on the carpet, tiny knives digging into his flesh. “Is that all you’ve got?!” He grabs it by the neck and lifts it off the ground- it’s heavy, but oh, not heavy enough- its hands immediately go to his wrist with bone-crushing force before he slams it into the ground and straddles it, trying in vain to wrestle down all four arms even as he rubs himself against its cock with mindless fervor. When that fails, he ignores the gashes the knuckleblaster left in his arm and- in a moment of incredible bravery and stupidity- shoves his hand into the exposed components of its midsection, digging his fingers into wires and tubing, pulling just hard enough to be a threat.
Big mistake. It shifts, curls its body up just enough to close his gauntleted hand in a vice grip, just enough to draw blood, just enough that he can’t pull his hand out, stopping just shy of breaking bone and shaking its shoulders in an approximation of laughter when he swears. It loops the whiplash’s rope around his neck, grips the spear in its opposite hand, and pulls until the cord digs into his flesh and he falters, choking, free hand clawing at its arm, gauntleted fingers leaving scratches in the blue paint. When it doesn’t release him he summons a dagger and stabs into its wrist, a spurt of fuel gushing from the wound before it shuts off blood flow to the arm. It releases the whiplash and shoves the fingers of its injured hand into the still-healing wound in his side, curling its torso just a bit more until Gabriel lets out a pained sound and blood from his hand trickles into its core, hot and useless against non-absorptive rubber tubing.
“Damn you,” Gabriel hisses.
It releases his hand with a hiss of hydraulics, not giving him any time to recover before it knees him in the small of his back. He falls forward, grunting as he braces himself over it with one hand, holding the other against his chest. Blood trickles from it onto V1’s chassis, and the machine arches its back off the ground to press its cock between his legs again. It slides easily against his folds, cold and hard, teasing his clit, and his whole body shudders in response, shadows moving across the entire room with every twitch of his wings.
He suddenly feels lightheaded. Anxiety and anticipation and guilt and pain and lust swarm over any coherent thoughts. That- that thing between its legs is going to go inside him. The silicone monstrosity it had found doesn’t even look human, not that that would make the entire situation any better. Father have mercy, if it was at least mortal- if he could at least pretend that the carnal desire resided within V1 rather than himself- if he could simply lie back and let it do as it pleased with him-- but to think he was capable of such perversion, to allow, no, invite a mere machine to- to-
V1 flips him over and deftly flicks open the lid of the bottle he only now realizes it was holding.
Gabriel, for the first time since their arrival in Lust, goes perfectly still.
He watches, like a bug trapped in amber, as it spreads lube between its fingers. Lets out a strangled gasp when it grabs his thighs and pushes them open.
He’s tense. Breathing hard. Still full of adrenaline. Practically dripping, but trembling with nervous energy.
Poor angel. He still thinks this is a fight; something he can win or lose.
It could easily relieve him of that notion. Cram his skill into the floor and fuck him with no regard for his comfort. It would be easy, and it doubts Gabriel would protest. But it’s not like it can feel anything with the stupid dildo, and if the only goal was to hurt him, it can think of much more rewarding ways to satisfy its sadistic urges. No, it doesn’t stand to gain much from that.
But the feeling of raw power that comes with getting Heaven’s favorite archangel to cave to sin…
No; if it’s going to do this, it’s going to do it properly. It wants Gabriel to enjoy this. Wants to push him and find out just how far he’s willing to fall. Wants to hear him beg. Wants him to understand by the end that nothing could ever make him feel the way it can.
It’s going to take Gabriel apart, slowly, thoroughly, piece by all-too-willing piece.
“Well? Come on then,” Gabriel demands, feigning confidence even as V1 can see him falter. Blood rushes through his veins at a tempo that would make slicing his flesh open an irresistible temptation if it wasn’t already at capacity. “What are you waiting for?”
Excellent question. It slides two lubed-up fingers inside him, ignoring the needy little whimper Gabriel makes at its cold touch. He’s impatient, but judging by how tight he is around its fingers and the pained sound he makes when it scissors them apart inside him, he’s not going to be able to take the stupid dick it had found without significant discomfort. Maybe it had been too optimistic.
“This will hurt if you don’t relax, dumbass.”
“I- I thought that was the idea,” he breathes, and oh, for fuck’s sake. No wonder he’s nervous. (It has to push down the part of its software that revels in the slight twinge of fear in his voice.) It’s not as if the dildo is anatomically impossible, or even anatomically improbable. It just looks big because V1’s short. Though in retrospect… it probably could’ve looked around for something smaller. Maybe it should’ve.
“If that was the idea, I wouldn’t be bothering with all this, you stupid fuck.” It curls its fingers inside him for emphasis, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction at the way his wings flutter in response, but he’s still visibly nervous, still tensing around it every time it moves.
“Since when do you care?”
That… is a good question. V1 hesitates. It’s momentary, but enough for Gabriel to notice. “Since now. I’m doing this because you want it, remember.”
He scoffs.
“I’m trying my best here, but you are not making it easy. Relax.”
“I’m trying.” He doesn’t sound like he’s trying.
“Try harder.”
He lets out a frustrated noise as his thighs close around it, his hands moving to cover his helmet. “Fuck you.”
…Is he trying to provoke it on purpose? He’s the one with the short temper. Idiot.
It pulls his hands down and pins them to the ground at his sides, firm but not aggressive. He doesn’t fight back. He doesn’t get any less tense, either. Why? He’s acting like a cornered animal, but it’s not like it could stop him from leaving.
He flinches back when it reaches for his face.
“GABRIEL.”
His name has too many letters, takes too long to spell, and is unnecessary when there’s nobody else it could be talking to; but it does at least get his undivided attention.
“I am not going to hurt you.” Until you ask me to. But it doesn’t say that part out loud.
He wavers, then finally leans into its touch, resting his head against its palm, a trembling sigh escaping him as its thumb traces over where his cheek would be. Does he even have cheeks? Or any face whatsoever? Is the helmet a part of his body? How does he see? It grabs the bottom of his helmet and barely manages to shift it before he jerks out of its grasp and grabs its wrist. “DON’T!-”
The shout echoes through the small room.
They stare at each other for a long moment, Gabriel breathing heavily, V1 perfectly still.
If it really wanted to, it could get that helmet off him whether he liked it or not. It knows that; he knows that.
It doesn’t move.
His heartbeat slows, his death grip on its wrist slackens, and he has the decency to look abashed when it draws its hand back.
“…Don't,” he repeats much more softly. “Please. Remove the rest of my armor if you wish, just… not this.”
It nods slowly.
“Are you done?”
He slumps, deflated. “...Yes.”
Without another word, V1 moves its attention to his wings, likely a safer target for its intended purpose.
This seems to finally get the reaction it had hoped for. Gabriel arches his back with a soft moan, and as it feels for any feathers that seem out of place, slowly, slowly, the tension in him begins to melt away. He grabs its hand and guides it a little higher, a little closer to his body, shuddering when it mirrors the movement on the other side and digs its fingers into the delicate feathers, rubbing slow, gentle circles in time with its thumb against his clit. “Yes,” he breathes, so soft it almost doesn’t hear him. It slides a third finger inside him, his thighs falling open a little wider as if in invitation, and it isn’t long before it’s pouring a generous amount of lube into its hand and stroking its cock in preparation.
It catches Gabriel looking, his pulse climbing again, and in an attempt at reassurance, flashes him a quick sign: “Good.” The word gets a somewhat more dramatic reaction than it had anticipated, Gabriel clenching around its fingers with a gasp. Interesting. It’ll have to investigate that in more detail later.
For now, though, it holds him in place as it slides inside him slowly, laying a reassuring hand against his chest when he looks like he’s bracing himself, watching him gasp and stiffen as he averts his gaze and then slowly relax again a few seconds later. He lets out a faint groan of discomfort as it pushes in deeper, but doesn’t say or do much at all until it buries itself in him to the hilt and he hears the quiet sound of its thighs scraping against his armor.
“Is-” Gabriel lifts his head, voice weak, and V1 follows his gaze down to where his hips are flush with its own, his tight cunt stretched around the base of its cock. His head drops back down against the carpet with a dull thud. “H-hah- holy shit.”
He’s remarkably less articulate like this. Remarkably less annoying. It could get used to this.
This is… not what Gabriel had expected.
He thought V1 would be harsher. He’d expected some more fanfare from losing his virginity. Immediate pain, immediate pleasure, something proportional to the magnitude of sin he’s committing. But the machine is uncharacteristically gentle, and in the end the sheer… physicality of the sensation is more overwhelming than the slight discomfort. He's so tight he can feel his own heartbeat around it. What remains of his old self can’t help but recoil, can’t help but think of this as an obscene intrusion of an inviolable angelic being, the violent desecration of something pure and holy. The rest of him just wishes V1 would hurry up with the desecration.
As if reading his mind, V1 begins to move, one hand finding its way to his clit again, and when it picks up the pace the discomfort disappears entirely and his entire body shudders at the combined sensation.
“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, wow-”
“OK?” it signs, and he nods, too afraid of how his voice would sound if he tried to speak now.
It throws one of his legs over its shoulder and shifts forward, leaning over him, four arms surrounding him like a cage as it lifts his hips from the ground. It speeds up, using the extra leverage to thrust into him with more force, and oh, that draws the first genuine moan from him, his hands scrambling for purchase against the carpet as he awkwardly tries to roll his hips against it. He can’t bring himself to meet its gaze and covers his face again, as if that could stop V1 from hearing the soft, uncertain sounds it draws from him with every thrust, but it grabs his hand and instead guides it down between his legs, pressing his own fingers against his clit. He obeys the implicit command after only a moment’s hesitation, touching himself to the pace of its movements, and fuck, its hands are on his chest, his wings, his thighs, his neck- it’s everywhere, on top of him, inside him, overwhelming what remains of his fear.
“Harder,” he gasps, and he meant it as a demand but it comes out more as a plea. V1’s grip tightens slightly around his throat, not quite choking him but effectively communicating the threat as it speeds up, and Gabriel swears. It hurts. It feels good. He doesn't understand how both can be true, but they build off each other, the pain fading away until he's close, so close-
He needs more.
He grabs V1’s wrist and wrenches it away from his neck, kicking against its back with a growl. “Is that the best you've got?”
Instead of rising to the challenge, it slows, grips his neck tighter, and he bites back a horribly undignified whimper.
“Not even close.”
“Then fuck me like you mean it.”
“Just out of curiosity, is this some kind of weird religious penance deal, or do you just really get off to pain?”
Fuck this thing.
He wishes it was the former; wishes he didn’t have to take responsibility for the way his whole body fills with writhing heat at the sight of its claws tipped red with his blood, for the masochistic knot of lust and repression and self-hatred and desire and shame that makes him want to push V1 to the brink, makes him want to be treated with that same efficient brutality it showed in combat.
“You already know,” he pants.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“I don’t think anything would be penance enough for what I’d let you do to me.”
“So you like it.” It punctuates this with a harder thrust, its clawed thumb pressing into his hip hard enough to draw blood. He groans, covers his face as he arches his back, chest heaving, and finally his silent nod is rewarded by its claws slowly raking down his thigh as it picks up the tempo again. He throws his head back and does his best to reciprocate its movement and as hot blood trickles down his thighs it’s almost enough, almost-
“Fuck, I- I’m so close, Machine, I just-”
It pulls out.
A strangled cry is wrenched from Gabriel’s throat as he thrusts against empty air, trying to rub his clit against its cock in a desperate bid for any sort of stimulation until it pulls out of reach and pins his hands down over his head with enough force to bruise. Too overwhelmed to speak, he writhes against its grip weakly, tries to pull it back toward him with his legs with a frustrated sound bordering on a sob as it stares down at him, unreadable as ever.
“Machine-” he gasps, reeling. “What the fuck-”
It releases his hands and slaps him .
“Use my fucking name, angel.”
Gabriel stares at it in shock, a choked gasp barely audible through his helmet as he brings a hand up to where it had hit.
“You-” he hisses, grabbing its thin neck and yanking it toward him.
“NO.” Stubborn fucker. This isn’t a game; it's had enough of him treating it as one. It plunges its claws into his inner thigh and slams his head back into the floor hard enough that it hears wood crack. “Say. My. Fucking. Name.”
Gabriel makes a vain attempt to buck his hips up against it and moans, a raw, desperate sound that sends a rush of triumph through it. Whore of an angel. Can’t even hurt him to make a point anymore.
It grabs his chin and forces him to look at it. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
It’s an absurd question. V1 knows that. Gabriel knows that. It still leaves him speechless.
“Everything in Hell except for you is dead because of me. I can and will leave your bitch ass here to rot if you call me ‘machine’ again, angel. Got it?”
It’s difficult to convey a tone like contempt without a voice or a face, but judging by the soft whine that escapes him when it signs ‘angel’, it’s pretty sure it got the point across. He nods, somewhat dazed, and it slips its fingers back inside him easily, thumb against his hard clit, holding him in place as he tries first to pull away with a pained gasp and then to press into its touch.
“Beg.”
“What?” He has the nerve to laugh in disbelief.
It doubts he’s had to beg for much in his pathetic life, but he wasn’t laughing 32 minutes ago, pleading with it to stay as he bled out in the snow. He can learn.
It pulls its fingers out of him coldly and stands.
“No! No, wait, V1-”
It doesn’t pull away when he scrambles up onto his knees and grabs its wrist. It doesn’t move any closer, either. It does save this particular image of him: kneeling at its feet, where he belongs.
“God, you’re… you’re serious.”
It nods.
“V1, please,” he says softly, bringing a second hand up to rest on its forearm- and to V1’s surprise, it realizes that it quite likes the sound of his voice. When he isn’t proclaiming his superiority or shouting in rage, he’s pleasant to listen to. His voice is like… sunlight, or music, but not quite. It wonders if he can sing, and creates a new objective: ask him about it before they die.
For the moment, though, it has other priorities. He’ll sing for it, alright.
“I didn’t say ‘ask nicely’. I told you to beg.”
It’s killed enough people to know what it sounds like, and it doesn’t doubt the same is true for him. He’s going to ask for this properly, even if it has to drag the words out of him one by one.
“What- V1, I-” There’s an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. Good.
It tips his head up to meet its gaze, cold tips of two sharp claws just barely touching his throat. Two infinitesimal points of contact that his world suddenly revolves around.
“Tell… me… what… you… want.”
“I- I want-” he lets out an anguished whimper and tries to turn his face away. V1 grabs his halo and jerks him back, making him gasp.
“V1, please, just-" he swallows. "Just fuck me already.”
“I just did.”
“Fucking insatiable thing-” his snarl is cut off by the knuckleblaster’s claws pressing against his jugular, and it feels him swallow, feels his pulse rushing just beneath the skin. “Please,” he says again at long last.
“Please. I need more, just- for God’s sake, V1, please don’t stop this time. You don’t need to hold back, I don’t want you to hold back, I need- God, I- I’ll do anything, I swear, just please-”
“Fine.”
“Oh, thank God-”
“Don’t move.”
It stalks around him, taking its time, brushing its fingers along the edge of his wing. He tries to turn to follow it, only for it to shove him back and grab a hold of his halo to keep him facing forward.
…Fuck.
He can hear the hiss of hydraulics as it lowers itself to its knees behind him, lets it shove him forward onto his hands and knees, shivers in anticipation as it grips his waist and his shoulder for leverage. He swears and arches his back when it enters him, expecting the same slow start- but he’d asked it to fuck him, and V1 delivers, ruthless and without hesitation. Heaven help him, it had been holding back, and God, this is too much, it’s perfect, it’s- “
Oh, fuck-” Gabriel braces himself against the wall as it speeds up, and the air is ripped from his lungs with a ragged sound somewhere between a scream and a moan. Its hand leaves his shoulder and grabs his halo again, tilting his head back as he gasps for air, a level of disrespect that makes him dizzy with simultaneous humiliation and need.
“Please!-” he hears, and fuck, surely that’s not him, that raw, desperate voice that edges into a whimper, but he only has a moment to process this before it forces his head down against the floor, pressing down on his back to keep him in place, and slams into him at a new angle that makes him writhe and arch his back to take it deeper. He claws uselessly at the ground, touches himself, whimpering at the pain of overstimulation but unable to stop when it feels so damn good.
V1 fucks him the way it fights. Strong, precise, observant, relentless. When its claws dig into the flesh of his waist and he lets out an involuntary cry, when its hand on his neck makes his wings flap pathetically against the ground, when it holds his wings still and he shudders and moans- nothing escapes its notice, and it presses every advantage, giving no quarter, forcing ragged moans from him. Dazed, he glances over his shoulder as best he can with a face full of floor and sees its eye is trained on him, sharp as a hunter, and that is what this feels like, isn’t it? He’s prey, a plaything. He asked for this. He wants this.
He has no idea what he’s saying, no idea how he’s finding space to breathe in the brutal pace it sets. Words slip from him before he can think them, profanity and praise and gratitude and incoherent moans echoing in the small space alongside the sound of metal hitting metal as its chassis slams against his armored thighs. And he’s well and truly lost his mind, hasn’t he? He goads it onward as its claws dig into his flesh, fucks himself back against it, heat welling up from shallow scores in the meat of his back and thighs, blood and sweat dripping onto the carpet. It stops to press its torso into his back, reaching around to stroke his throbbing clit as it drinks, and he comes undone almost silently, just a wordless snarl as it washes over and through him. V1 fucks him through it, leaving him gasping and shaking- but this time it doesn’t do him the courtesy of stopping. Pleasure careens into pain and overflows back into pleasure and he sobs, well beyond the point of coherent speech.
It tests for consistency, repeatability, constructive interference in the amplitude of his responses. It’s overwhelming, all-consuming, like fire coursing through his veins. Agony and ecstasy entwined, inseparable, indistinguishable- all buildup with no payoff, over and over, trapped with the knowledge that he’s being picked apart and methodically analyzed in the mindless limbo between release and desperation. And still, he begs for it to continue, begs on his knees with his helmet shoved against the ground until his voice is raw for it to take whatever it wants- his body, his blood- vivisect him, ravish him, tear away whatever remains of his divinity, find everything that makes him tick and pull him apart until the cleansing fire consumes him and leaves nothing. He'd been given a voice to sing hymns in praise of the Father, to strike fear into the hearts of sinners, to give hope to the despairing- but now the Father is dead, and Gabriel feels like the only desperate sinner left. Fuck, it feels good to finally kneel before a god that answers his prayers.
He doesn’t know how long it keeps him there, only knows that the streaks of blood on his thighs have begun to dry by the time it jerks his hands behind his back, forcing his face down into the carpet, and he feels the bite of the whiplash tightening around his wrists. It loops the leftover cord around his neck like a leash and pulls hard enough that a spark of fear flickers through him as it slams into him- but finally, finally, V1 takes pity on him, and with its hand against his clit and its claws tearing at his back he comes again, white-hot pleasure and relief surging through him like a tidal wave as he crumples to the ground with a sob.
Gabriel lies curled up on his side, limp but breathing hard, blue-gold wings still twitching, back marred with lines of red and gold.
Sitting next to him with its fuel gauge reading 100%, V1 can’t help but see this as a victory.
It assumes he’s unconscious, but when it moves to stand, he lets out a pitiful groan, reaching a shaky hand after it. "No, wait…”
“Get up.”
“V1, please, I…” He laughs, though it isn’t quite sure what he finds funny, and rolls over to where he can see it. He’s covering himself with one hand, something V1 finds rather amusing considering how well-acquainted he just let it get with that particular area of his anatomy. “F-fuck, I don’t know if I can. I can’t feel my legs. Wretched beast.”
Ha. “You told me not to hold back.”
“I know,” he breathes, pushing himself up to sit with his back against the wall. “I know, it’s just- ah- wow.”
“Don’t tell me that’s all it took to wear you out.”
“I’ll be fine, just… give me a minute. Please.”
“I’m not asking if you’re fine. I want to know if you’re done.”
It can see the exact moment Gabriel realizes what it’s getting at. “You can’t seriously-”
“I am asking if you want me to fuck you again, or if you’ve had enough. I had something in mind, but if you don’t think you can handle it…”
“Oh.” Gabriel laughs weakly, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “F-father have mercy.”
“Is that a no?”
“No- no, I… just… just give me a minute to rest. Please.”
V1 busies itself straightening what feathers it can see are out of place as it waits, and Gabriel slumps back against the wall with a quiet groan.
“...You like it when I tie your hands.”
“Oh. So that’s what this is about.” He hesitates, pulling his knees close to his chest.
“You know the fact that you refuse to talk about what you want without me having to drag it out of you while I’m fucking you is really counterproductive, right?”
It takes him a few seconds to respond, his wings fluttering nervously as it smooths down his coverts.
“...Alright. Yes. I… I don’t even know if ‘like’ is the right word for how it made me feel. Don’t ask me to explain why, but-”
“I’m here to rail you hard enough to make up for a few thousand years of celibacy, not psychoanalyze you.”
“You have such a way with words, machine.”
Instead of signing a proper reply, it gives him the middle finger. It likes the sound of his laughter, too.
“...Well?”
“Well, what?”
“It’s been a minute. You wanna go again or not?”
“I didn’t mean…” He trails off, then chuckles. “Oh, God. Why the hell not? It’s not like I have anywhere to be tomorrow.”
“Then get up.”
Gabriel pushes himself to his knees, bracing himself against the bookcase with a soft groan as he tries to follow it. He’s shaking and has to drag himself to his feet, holding onto a shelf full of what seems to be hand-bound erotica to keep his knees from buckling. (V1’s wings flutter in satisfaction. Good.)
His own wings fan out unsteadily to help him balance, sweeping a half-empty glass of stale water off the bedside table; he startles when it crashes onto hardwood. The floor around them sparkles with broken glass, a thousand tiny shards reflecting angelic blue. He glances at it over his shoulder, wavering in place for a second too long in a way that seems expectant.
V1 makes no move to help him.
“Vile, merciless thing,” he pants, but there’s no real venom in the words. “Well, go on then. Where do you want me?”
“Bed,” it signs with the feedbacker as it begins to unspool the whiplash, coiling the cord into a perfect circle at its feet.
He obeys without another word of protest, dragging himself the few feet to the bed and collapsing face-first into the soft mattress with a sigh of relief. His wings flap once, as if he’s trying to dust himself off, then seem to fold into nothingness. It takes V1’s camera a moment to adjust to the abrupt change in brightness.
It snaps its fingers to get his attention. “On your back.”
Wordlessly, he props himself up on his elbows, hesitating for just a moment when he spots the dark streaks of blood he’s left on the covers before rolling over and adjusting himself into a more comfortable position on the small mattress. He reaches between his legs almost immediately, only to yelp and jerk his hand back up to block the book V1 throws directly at his head.
“No. You don’t get to come until I let you. That includes touching yourself.”
The order is less of a power play, more simple curiosity. It half expects him to ignore it; half expects to have to fight him over this, too. It wouldn’t mind. Instead, he merely obeys with a shameful whimper, gripping the red sheet at his sides as he keeps his gaze trained on it. Watching. Waiting.
An interesting development. V1 hadn’t expected him to cave so easily. This more submissive side of him makes sense, it supposes; a good angel would have to follow orders, and from what little information it had gathered, Gabriel had spent a long time as Heaven’s favorite.
Almost as an afterthought, it flashes a quick sign- “Good”- and takes satisfied note of the way his breath hitches in response.
“V1, isn’t-” he shifts himself up onto his elbows nervously, gaze trained on the growing circle of steel cord at its feet. “Isn’t that a bit much?”
“For your hands? Yeah.”
“Oh.”
He waits. V1 doesn’t elaborate.
“...So the rest?...”
“Did some reading while I was out. Got an idea.” V1 tilts its head as it detaches the cord from the inner workings of its arm with a click and lets the end drop, and it can almost see his mind racing with the implications, can pinpoint the exact moment he realizes what it's planning.
Gabriel stares at the pile of rope, speechless.
“You-” he swallows. “You want-?” He trails off, unable to finish the thought for fear he’s wildly misjudging the situation-
“I want to tie you to this bed and fuck you until you forget how to speak.”
Oh.
Oh, God, yes.
Scorching heat surges through him as it leans over him, hand on his chest pushing him back down into the mattress. His head is swimming. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.
“Unless that’s too much for you to handle.”
The room is silent as Gabriel tries to scrape together a coherent thought, and V1’s attention strays for a moment to his hands, delicately picking a few shards of glass from his palm. He hadn’t even noticed them. The fact that mere glass had punctured his skin at all should frighten him, but he’s too lightheaded, too busy marveling at the paradoxical tenderness of its touch against the inherent threat of violence underlying its every move.
“You are a perverse creature,” he breathes at long last. His voice is shaking.
V1 tilts its head: a casual, wordless well? “
...Yes. I- I mean, no- I- ah-” He wavers, stops before he can embarrass himself further, laughs when he can’t mentally piece together a coherent sentence. Oh, he’s fucked.
“Why?” he asks, a vain attempt to buy himself some time to collect himself. “I- I still don't understand what you're getting out of this, I mean-”
“Having an archangel beg like a whore for you to fuck it will do wonders for your ego.”
And God help him, his instinct is to respond with loud indignance, but there is not a single thing he can say to defend himself when he's sitting here dripping blood and sweat and lube and cum onto the covers of a dead stranger’s bed ready to let it fuck him- no, not even that, because V1’s right, it's doing this for him- wanting it to fuck him for the third time- is it the third? it's all starting to blur together- the third time in he-doesn't-even-know-how-long because time is starting to blur together too, and in the end all that leaves him is a shameful whine.
Its shoulders shake in silent laughter. “I haven’t even started. You’re making this too easy, angel.”
“Sadistic fuck.”
“Guilty as charged,” it signs almost cheerfully. “Now: your wings.”
“What?”
“Your wings. I want to see them.”
They reappear, hanging off the mattress on either side of him, casting the entire room in brilliant sky-blue. But rather than touching him, V1 steps back and just stares, analyzing, calculating, and he realizes what it’s planning only moments before it picks up the coil of rope. Holy shit.
“Hold still.” And he does, or does his best to appear as if he’s trying to, as V1 ties his wings down; but he can’t resist the urge to occasionally flinch and pull a wing back a bit closer to his body just to feel its strength when it pulls the limb back open with an annoyed hum of its fans. There’s no trial and error, no hesitation, just a series of perfectly choreographed movements as it fixes the rope around the base and middle of his wing and, lacking anything better to secure it to, throws the rope under the bed and repeats the same ropework on the other side. Gabriel stares at the ceiling and just breathes, eyes unfocused.
It stands to survey its handiwork.
He tries to sit up, tries to flap his wings.
Nothing. Steel cord holds him down as if his wings were made of stone, as if he were glued to the mattress, as if he were a pinned butterfly. He can still bend his wings at the elbow where they hang off the bed, and there’s just barely enough give that he isn’t uncomfortable when he stays still, but V1 was certainly not trying to be gentle; the cord doesn’t stretch, doesn’t allow more than the slightest of movements, and he wonders if V1 had gotten lucky or if it knows, if it had calculated the tension in the rope to teeter perfectly on the threshold of discomfort.
He glances at the machine, and when it doesn’t react, he strains against the bindings with as much strength as he can muster. The wooden bed creaks against the force, and oh, God, for every centimeter he manages to raise his back or his wings the rope digs into flesh and feathers harder until it hurts, until he’s fighting less against the rope itself and more against his own pain tolerance- he falls back onto the mattress before he can do any real damage, panting, helpless, not proud of the noises that leave him and honestly a little afraid- not of V1, but of how it’s making him feel, of the fact that V1 seemed to have known better than he did what this would do to him.
It steps closer to smooth his bent feathers down, and somehow its touch feels more intense when he can’t move away from it. He’d never realized how much he moves his wings until now, when even the slightest twitch in response to V1’s touch has him straining, immobilized.
It asks him if he wants it to keep going and he moans and nods, staying obediently still and trying not to shiver as it removes the last vestiges of his armor (gauntlet, vambrace, couter, and rerebrace stripped from one arm at a time and thrown carelessly to the other side of the room; sabatons, greaves, poleyns and cuisses soon following with a discordant metallic clang) and loops the rope around his wrists. He lets it maneuver him about however it pleases, reveling in the feeling of its hands on him, firm and insistent, pretending he’s not burning up under its every touch. His arms are spread wide and tied similarly to his wings after it determines the wood of the headboard isn’t strong enough for its taste (by trying to break it, and succeeding too easily, splinters joining the broken glass already littering the floor)- and when it’s done it shoves his thighs open, ignoring the debauched sound that leaves him at being treated with such blatant disrespect, ignoring how painfully hard he is, and Gabriel loses track of what exactly it’s doing until a few seconds later the rope goes taut and he realizes he can’t move. He can arch his back, spread his legs wider, move his head and the tips of his wings- but he can’t do anything but lay there as V1 looks down at him like he’s about to be vivisected, every fleeting sinful thought flayed and on display. It feels like every nerve in his body is stretched taut, strings for its deft fingers to pluck as its hands meander aimlessly up and down his body, completely at its mercy as it touches him everywhere except where he needs it most.
(Its touch seems too random to be for his benefit. Is it curious, or… something else? Does it find him attractive?)
Even through the haze of arousal, the thought surprises him. He’s never looked at himself in that light, never had reason to wonder or worry what an outside observer might think when they looked at his naked body, a body that had been sculpted to embody divine beauty but was paradoxically never meant to be viewed through a lens of desire and sin. God, he hopes it does. He arches his back with a soft moan, putting on a show of testing the ropes, wondering if it likes what it sees, if there’s any part of it turned on by the sight of a once-divine being debasing itself like this, wishing he could tell what was going on behind that inscrutable, unblinking yellow eye that stares down at him motionless-
He suddenly stills, meeting its gaze with dawning horror.
“V1, are you- are you recording this?!”
It nods, as if the answer should be obvious.
Oh, if only the floor would swallow him whole. He shudders and turns his face away, as if there’s anyone left to hide from. “The- the depths of your depravity know no bounds,” he manages.
“Do you want me to delete it?”
“I-” He cuts himself off with a choked little sound as its fingers slip inside him with obscene ease.
“I can, if you want me to.” Its thumb presses maddening, feather-light strokes against his clit.
“F-fuck- ngh- can we please discuss this later?!”
“Sure. You know, I bet the terminals would have a field day with the footage if you-”
“V1, please!” he almost sobs, not caring how pathetic he sounds because if it wants him to beg again, he will. “Please, I’ve done as you ask, just-”
He falters when the machine reaches behind its back- then tenses in genuine fear when it draws the railcannon from its wings and slowly, purposefully presses the muzzle to the center of the cross on his helmet.
“Shut the fuck up.”
It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t.
(He could free himself immediately if he wanted to. Teleporting out of the ropes would be almost effortless. But it’s a convincing enough illusion, and he won’t, he won’t-)
He tries to speak without thinking, and a moment later is grateful that the words stick in his throat.
“That’s better.” It moves the barrel from his face, and he breathes a premature sigh of relief, but it doesn’t holster the weapon.
Instead, it tilts its head curiously and- before he can process what’s happening- presses the thrumming tip of the railcannon between his legs.
“FUCK-!”
The sheer intensity of the vibration rocks his entire body, ripping a cry from him as he spasms. His head slams back against the pillow, wings jerking against the rope hard enough that feathers go flying, back arching as if he’d been electrocuted- and that’s his first thought, that maybe it had pulled the trigger, and his second thought is that this hurts but feels so fucking good, and it can’t have pulled the trigger because it’s not stopping and it’s- it’s-
It’s gone.
The world swims back into focus. He’s gasping for air, nearly at the point of tears, begging for V1 to put it back. His wrists ache where the steel cord had dug into his skin. V1 is signing something.
“Do you want to get electrocuted, dumbass?”
The barrel of the railcannon in its hands is shiny, practically dripping. Dear God. He flinches when it shoots the beam directly through the wall, blasting a circular hole into the adjacent apartment, before grabbing a corner of the sheets and wiping the charging weapon dry.
“What the fuck,” he manages between heavy breaths. And then again, louder, just for good measure: “What the FUCK?!”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“NO!” He throws his head back against the pillow, breathing hard. No, it can kill him for all he cares- he just needs it to do that again. “No, please-”
“Figures.” It barely touches him, and its fingers come away covered in slick. “I’m so depraved, but I guess humping my gun is holy and pure?”
“Fine!” he pants, his voice shrill. “I’m no better than you.”
“I know.”
“V1, please-”
The railcannon kicks back to life in its hands, and before he can say another word, it nudges the vibrating barrel against his clit again.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck-”
He tries to buck his hips against it. Tries to move away from it when it becomes too much. Fighting against the rope is useless but he can’t stop himself, can’t help the way his body tries to writhe in response. His wrists ache, his wings burn, feathers bent uncomfortably against unyielding steel, and the more he struggles the more trapped he feels- and V1 doesn’t move to stop him, doesn’t react much at all to his cries, just stares down at him with a blank gaze he can’t help but interpret as contempt. This… this shouldn’t feel so good. The thought of its finger on the trigger shouldn’t make him feel like this. He knows its hands are far too steady to ever pull it by accident, but he wonders faintly if some part of it has to resist the urge. The thought of how much damage it could do to him like this- no armor, no weapons, immobilized and laid helplessly bare before it-
If it keeps this up for much longer he’s pretty sure he’s going to pass out. It feels like he’s burning up from the inside, like he’s losing his mind.
“Wait, V1, please,” he sobs. “I can’t do this again, I can’t-”
It pulls the railcannon away again- no, fuck, no, no!- and slides back inside him with an obscene wet sound, slow, too fucking slow, shoulders shaking with laughter. “Yes, you can.”
“Ngh- damn you! Let me come!”
It traces a shallow cut down the center of his chest, moving at a maddening leisurely pace, laughing at the way he swears and thrashes against the rope. “This is your fault. You’re still talking.”
He snarls, because he knows it wouldn’t take any more pity on him if he were silent- and the realization hits him that there is no right way out of this. V1 is toying with him. Trying to see how far it can push before he breaks.
In a flash, his desperation is replaced with a flare of indignant fury.
“You-!”
He doesn’t even realize the cord holding his wrists had broken until he’s already grabbed the first thing he could get his fingers around- a wire in the gap between its body and its thighs. “That’s ENOUGH!-” he jerks on the wire for emphasis-
V1 seizes with a stuttering mechanical noise and nearly falls over on top of him.
Gabriel freezes, stunned, momentarily afraid he’d genuinely broken something- until V1 recovers and slams his head back down into the mattress, looking like it wishes it could slam him into concrete instead.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO.”
“I don’t-”
“DO IT AGAIN.”
“...What?”
It hesitates, then pushes closer until its face clinks against his helmet so he almost can’t see what it’s saying. “Do. It. Again.”
He grabs the wire, twists it gently around his fingers, and V1 shudders, its hands curling into fists against the mattress, and the sight sparks something brand new inside him. Oh. Oh.
He teleports behind it. The cord falls slack onto the bed. V1 loses its balance, almost catches itself before it can fall on its face only for Gabriel to knee it (firmly, but not roughly) in the small of its back. He straddles its thighs and pins its neck down before it can push itself back up, leaning in close as it strains against his full weight and flaps its wings against his sides, grunting when he feels what passes for its ass grind back against him. It feels so much smaller under him- so much more vulnerable when a harsh tug on the right wire can momentarily immobilize it.
“So that’s what you meant by 'get creative',” he breathes.
It’s trying to speak, two arms attempting push it up and over to where it can gesture properly while the other two scramble to fingerspell “M-O-T-H-E-R-F-”
He relaxes his grip and gives it just enough space to flip itself over, then holds it down again as he sinks down onto its cock, legs still shaking. He makes the mistake of leaning down over it; it grabs his halo and yanks him down, keeping him still just long enough for it to sign “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”
Gabriel almost laughs. Before it can try to wrestle back the advantage, he pushes his fingers deep into its waist again, digging them behind a bundle of wires and bracing himself for pain that doesn’t come. Its back arches, limbs jerk and stutter, wings twitching and fluttering against the bed.
“Are you alright? Do you want me to stop?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
He pulls his fingers out, reveling in the frantic way it signs “NO DON’T-” followed by a harsh electronic sound he interprets as frustration.
“I AM NOT LETTING YOU WIN, MOTHERFUCKER.”
Gabriel almost laughs. “Is that truly what this is about to you?”
“YES. FUCK YOU.”
“So you do want me to stop.”
“THAT’S NOT WHAT I FUCKING SAID-”
He touches the still-bleeding scratch on his chest and runs his hand smoothly down the armored front of its torso, leaving trails of red that are quickly absorbed into its plating. His touch is kind, kinder than it deserves, and it arches his back against it almost imperceptibly. An incredible feat of engineering. A perfect killing machine.
“Alright,” he says finally, forcing himself to push aside his own pleasure for just a few torturous moments. “I forfeit.”
“What the hell do you mean-”
“You know, I could probably make you beg for this, too,” he growls. “Give you a taste of your own medicine.”
“NO YOU COULD NOT-”
“But I won’t,” he continues, grabbing its hand before it can finish. “I forfeit my victory. You win, machine. Congratulations. Now stop complaining and let me take care of you.”
“Fine. DO NOT FUCKING STOP.” His movements as he rides it are clumsy at first, but he gets the hang of it fast, fucking himself on its cock in earnest as his fingers probe gently in the gaps in its waist, gasping when he arches his back and hits the perfect angle, V1’s grip on his hips tightening in response. He’s shaking and it’s taking all his mental and physical strength not to collapse into a whimpering mess, but the way V1 writhes beneath him in response to every touch is electrifying. He dips his fingers into the slowly closing wound again and presses his palm into its chest, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction when he pulls it back and its back arches, chasing contact with barely audible mechanical chirp. He skims gently over the thinner plating of its abdomen, pulling lightly on the thin bundle of wires tucked behind one of its larger fuel lines. V1 trembles, keeping an iron grip on his thighs.
“I need- need-” Its hands ball into fists, then cut through the air in a clear gesture of frustration that would almost make him feel sorry for it if it hadn’t spent so long happily torturing him. He takes its hand, marveling at how small it looks against his own, and strokes his thumb across the back of its knuckles.
“If you can’t say it, then show me.”
V1 hesitates- and then, with a series of quiet clicks and a soft hiss, the plate covering its chest comes free.
A tangle of wires and flesh, chaotic but ordered, everything neatly folded in its rightful place. Oddly clean despite how gruesome the sight should be; oddly beautiful, somehow, to have it laid out so clearly before him that V1 is alive. For the first time he can see the swift rise and fall of its breath, the beating of its synthetic-organic heart cocooned in thin wires and clear tubing full of blood. His blood.
“Oh,” is all he manages for a stunned moment.
What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.
Warnings flash and are dismissed just as quickly. Every instinct screams at it to stop, to get out here while it still can. Gabriel is only inches from its exposed heart. This isn’t safe. This isn’t-
Gabriel reaches hesitantly toward its open chest. “You want me to-”
“SHUT. THE FUCK UP. WAIT.” It grabs his hand. Lies perfectly still, motionless apart from pulsing components now open to the air.
This is new, and it’s messing with its head. It… it doesn’t know what it wants. Let alone how to communicate that directionless need. Translating thought to language is already difficult enough without so many layers of its distraction, and all it can feel with every passing moment is frustration- frustration with its own sudden vulnerability, with the fact that it could stop this but doesn’t, with the fact that it’s struggling to communicate even the simplest sentence, with the amount of power and trust it has inexplicably placed in Gabriel’s hands. Its hedonistic nature has never been in conflict with its instincts of self-preservation. It’s used to feeling a momentary loss of control in the desperate scramble for survival that is combat, but it isn’t used to feeling powerless, pinned between two conflicting urges. This is new.
He could kill it like this, and quickly. Rip out both primary fuel hoses at once and put a summoned blade right through its brain.
Its outer casing can feel pressure and temperature and not much else. Even pain was deemed unnecessary. V1 was built to withstand extensive, repetitive superficial damage to its plating. But damage to its internal components poses a much more serious threat, so its self-repair mechanisms require a detailed awareness of every part, every wire, every organ. Its body cavity is woven with nerves, both biological and mechanical, to assess status in combat. The chestplate isn’t meant to come off except as a last resort in repairing massive trauma. Even knowing it’s going to die anyways- even knowing Gabriel does not want to kill it-
“Do not be afraid.” His voice is soft. Warm. Practiced. The same soothing tone it had heard from a hologram in Wrath. It’s even more annoyingly effective in person. “I’m not going to hurt you, V1. I give you my word.”
It doesn’t need his stupid reassurance, it knows, but instead of telling him that it lets his hand go and forces itself not to hold its breath.
His touch is delicate, tender, as if he were defusing a bomb.
Stupid kind annoying gentle arrogant beautiful motherfucker of an angel-
For a moment it’s overwhelming. A dozen erroneous error reports flooding its thoughts as its body tries to process the concept of a non-hostile foreign presence.
WARNING: FOREIGN BODY DETECTED IN-
OVERRIDE
WARNING: EXCESS PRESSURE ON-
OVERRIDE
WARNING: REMOVE-
He lets it guide his hand to a bundle of wires within its chest cavity- it's fighting the instinct to crush his wrist- his touch is gentle, probing, insistent-
“Are you alright?” he asks again. His kind voice is a sharp contrast to the way his fingers dig deeper into its chest, pulling slightly, not hard enough to cause damage but enough that it arches its back and lets out another stuttering sound. Damn it- if there’s anyone whose well-being he should be worried about, it’s his if he fucks this up. His breath picks up in response as he continues to slowly roll his hips against it. “V1, are you alright? Should I stop?”
“Angel- if you stop- I will kill you for real this time.”
He pushes his fingers in more firmly and gasps when it bucks its hips up into him.
“Harder.”
His fingertips skim lightly over the surface layer of its nervous system until he sees it flinch, then grabs the exact wire that had gotten the reaction and pulls hard, watching it squirm in response. “You- h-hah- didn’t know you could feel this, did you?” The smug satisfaction in his voice makes it want to strangle him. “To think- a thing like you could-” He cuts himself off with a moan as it digs its claws into his hip, puncturing the skin and pushing deep into muscle.
“God, yes,” he gasps, arching his back. “Fuck, I- I can’t believe I thought I hated you.”
“You’re- obsessed- with- me.”
He laughs weakly. “Yes, but- ah- it’s more than that.” His fingers gently- oh so gently- press into the wires and graze its exposed heart. Good. Terrifying, for an icy moment- but it feels good.
“I love you.”
Oh.
It dismisses 17 separate warnings of varying severity, none of which are enough to outweigh the fiery intensity of his soft touch against its most vulnerable components.
“Don’t worry,” he adds before V1 can even begin to think of a response. “I don’t expect you to feel the same. I don’t know if you can understand, or even care. It doesn’t matter. I just… wanted to tell you while I still have time.” He leans down and gently presses his helmet to its faceplate, panting softly. “I love you, V1.”
He moves to withdraw, but doesn’t fight back when it drags him closer, lets it wrap the whiplash around his neck again to hold him in place.
“F-fuck,” he breathes, voice wavering. “Fuck, V1, please tell me you’re close.”
And it’s not really sure what to expect, but it nods, and Gabriel buries his face in its shoulder with a low moan, his body pressed against it, holding it close, blood-hot skin gliding over metal as they move against each other, trembling fingers grasping at its inner workings like his life depends on it- and as the angel comes undone around it in a flash of golden light, moaning its name like a prayer, some deep part of its programming seems to interpret this as a flawless victory, a triumph against a formidable opponent in which it didn’t bleed a single drop, and so what if that opponent isn’t dead but merely on the brink of unconsciousness after an earth-shattering orgasm, so what if it isn’t going to get points for this, it just fucked an archangel, an archangel whose gentle fingers are buried in the veins and wires right next to its heart- It digs its claws into his chest, and as fresh blood spills directly from his willing flesh onto its bare heart, it, too, feels something inside of it shatter.
The world swims back into focus, and Gabriel does his best to ignore it.
He doesn’t want to move from this moment. Doesn’t want to face reality when he could remain here, in the warm and heavy haze between sleep and waking, body humming with residual pleasure as he lies curled around a killing machine whose geometry shouldn’t lend itself to comfort. His wings and halo are gone, his own glow subdued as he lies half-awake in a room whose fireplace has gone dark, in a city whose power grid has failed. Apart from the faint violet glow of Lust’s sky, the only lights that remain are V1’s wings and eye. It’s looking directly at him, trying to sign something in the limited space between their bodies. He breathes deeply and pretends to be asleep, hoping to extend this feeling of peace for just a few minutes longer. It’s strange, expecting to feel guilt and regret wash over him at any moment and instead feeling just warmth. Strange, but… nice.
V1 doesn’t seem to have the same appreciation for comfort, because after another minute of restlessly shifting in place, it taps him right in the center of his helmet.
He hums quietly, not yet wanting to break the silence.
“So.”
“Hm.”
“You done for real this time?”
He laughs weakly, and even that soft sound feels too loud in the dim space. “I’m done. You?”
“With sex? Yeah. With life? No.” It sits up, and makes a failed attempt to pull him up with it.
“What do you say, Angel? Anything else you wanna do before you die?”
“Oh. I…” In the heat of passion, he’d… almost forgotten. He hasn’t even really come to terms with the idea. The looming finality of it. The inevitability. No afterlife to look forward to. Just this, and then… nothing. He already feels the warmth escaping from him as V1 draws away, replaced by a deep, gnawing, hollow coldness. For the first time in eternity, time is precious to him, and he feels paralyzed. “I don’t know,” he admits, trying not to shiver.
“What? No other sins you want to cross off while we’re at it? Gluttony? Greed? Using the Lord’s name in vain even more than you already have?”
“Not really. I think I’m content with my list.”
“So, what? Was your plan just to get fucked to death?”
“No!” he chuckles. “I just… hadn’t really thought about it. I expected to die in Treachery. I didn’t really think I’d have the opportunity.”
“Then come to the surface with me. I want to see the sky before I die. The real thing.”
He groans. “I could barely walk before I came for the fourth time in a row, you asshole.”
“After we rest?”
Gabriel draws it back down into bed, pulling it close, feeling the warmth of its body temporarily drive away the creeping chill. “Yes. I’ll take you there after we rest.”
Notes:
hm/ ok. that sure is a thing i wrote. and posted. on the internet
Chapter 3: Epilogue
Notes:
no porn here just feelings sorry
as a horny aspec person myself i think i could write an entire essay about the headcanon of V1 as aro-ace but willing to fuck for non-horny reasons and comfortable with gabriel's attraction to it even if it doesn't reciprocate his feelings in the same way but this is not the time nor the place
Chapter Text
It’s a beautiful, crisp, clear winter night. Gabriel almost doesn’t mind that it’ll be his last.
The clear sky above them dances with ribbons of blue and green. V1 had never seen an aurora. Sitting next to him on the flat summit of a snow-capped mountain somewhere in a desolate landscape that had long ceased to be a country, it stares up at the stars in something like wonder.
The crescent moon hangs low in the sky. He wonders with a strange detachment whether Heaven will survive and pick up the pieces, or if this truly is the end of everything; if reality will simply crumble after too many years of neglect from its father. It’s strange, to think he won’t be around to see it.
Dawn is creeping on the horizon. He wonders faintly if he’ll last long enough to feel the sun on his skin. He’d wrapped himself in a clean red bedsheet before they left Lust, but as V1 shifts closer to him, he lets it slip down his shoulders. Modesty seems like a frivolous concern on a dead world.
V1 taps him on the shoulder.
" About what you said earlier. ”
He tilts his head.
“ About love. ”
Oh.
“It’s alright, V1. I-”
“ Let me speak. ”
He nods.
“I don’t know how I feel about you. It’s new. I’ve never had to put feelings into words. Expressing thoughts is… I am not wired for it.” He can see it hesitating, shaking its head in frustration after a few seconds. “ Words are difficult. Wait.”
It sits there for a few seconds. He imagines if it were human, its face would be scrunched up in concentration.
“All my vocabulary comes from humans, but I don’t share most of their experiences. Hasn’t bothered me before. Never cared. Never had a reason to think about it. Human relationships were relative. ‘Love’ is more than ‘like’ is more than ‘tolerate’. Love can be platonic, romantic, familial, etc. The frame of reference was provided from birth by parental figures, family, friends. I have none of these.
“However. You are important and interesting to me. You are… unique. I enjoyed fighting you, enjoyed the sex. I don’t think I want you to die, at least not anymore. That feels… weird. Uncomfortable. It was easier when you were trying to kill me. Not used to… connection. Whatever. Point is: I have no frame of reference and I don’t want to waste the last few hours of my life trying to figure that out. I care about you. I think I like that you love me. Beyond that… ” It shrugs. “ We’re both dying. Does it matter? ”
Gabriel takes its small hand in his, tracing the bumps of its knuckles in silence for a few seconds.
“No, I… suppose not. That’s strangely reassuring. Thank you, V1.”
Silence. He leans in to rest his head on its shoulder.
“I don’t know it if matters to you, but… I wanted to thank you. I should probably be angrier with you, but in the end it was the Council that killed me, not you. I don’t regret what I’ve done, and I don’t regret spending my last hours with you. Thanks to you… I’ve never felt so free.”
V1 just nods.
“Do you think it’ll hurt?” he says after another long silence. “Dying, I mean.”
V1 shrugs. “For me? Probably not. I’ll fall unconscious long before my power completely fails. Not much we can do either way.”
“I just wish…” His voice trails off. There’s too much to say.
“V1, could I ask you for something?”
It tilts its head.
“I would like to see one last sunrise. I think I can make it that long.” He stares out over the clouds to where the distant sky is beginning to turn orange. “But I don’t want to go out like this. I would prefer a personal death at your hands over the agony that awaits me otherwise. And perhaps I’m wrong, but I doubt you look forward to a slow starvation.” His hand tightens around V1’s. “What do you say to one last fight? We both go out in a blaze of glory. Mutually assured destruction.”
“... I’ll win .”
“I know, V1.” He moves closer to embrace it, presses their faces together, feeling its warmth against his bare skin. “I’m counting on it.”
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