Chapter Text
The first time V1 had faced Gabriel, he was restrained. Graceful. Predictable.
The second time had them on the defensive, flying back and forth in a desperate effort to create space between themselves and the blurred assault that was the archangel. Wild. Livid. Like an animal trying to tear them apart, always, always, always pressing whatever advantage he had; in the grand halls of Heresy, V1 had never felt so claustrophobic than they did battling an enraged Gabriel.
V1’s head poked through the halls of this new layer, already wiped clean from their devastating initial sweep. Now, they prod for secrets, lamp angling high for a cracked wall or loose vent, a light glowing from behind a small, just barely accessible crevice. A new sound just barely audible if they squeezed up against the right wall.
It was not, in fact, the sound of stuck gears or flowing pipes which peaked their auditory sensors, but the crack of space dividing behind them and the sound of something flying for them at top speed.
V1 just barely manages to throw themselves from the wall before the spot where they once stood shatters and erupts into a cloud of dust. The machine looks back just as they land, freezing as they see two brilliant shapes of blue cutting through the smoke: they already know who it is before he speaks.
“Machine.” Gabriel says, taking even, measured footsteps out from the crater he created. His wings snap straight, scattering the floating debris from his path and flinging rocks from his feathers. V1 stands their ground, fondling the trigger of their revolver, their body hunched, coiled. Uneasy. They raise their parrying arm before them.
“YOU’RE EARLY,” they sign. Gabriel pauses to read the motions, and… laughs? Nothing hearty or taunting, just a scoffing chuckle that V1 can pick up in the silence of the hall. A part of them realizes that this is the first nonviolent communication they’ve had with him. Feedbacker falters as they draw it back to their side.
“I am afraid I cannot wait much longer,” Something like mirth edges his tone, “Oh, how I’ve been waiting for this. Our last fight,” Gabriel’s wings shudder, “Out of all mortals, all machines, all beings to come across my blade, you CONTINUE prove to be my greatest challenge. My equal. ”
Gabriel starts moving towards them. V1 does not allow him close; they match each of his steps forward with one of their own backwards. They do straighten, eased by the familiarity of his monologuing. When they’re drawn up to full height, they almost rival Gabriel’s size. Unhinged laughter brings V1 back. He’s staring up at the ceiling— no, beyond the ceiling.
“Minos, Sisyphus… The countless number of your kind flooding these layers. My siblings and their useless fucking Council. None of them could stop me,” This last part he hisses to himself, and V1 gets the impression that they’re missing some crucial context. Gabriel’s gaze levels out to match the machine’s. “None except you. A soulless fucking husk.” He pauses, and a wheeze gets forced out of him. He looks around, pivoting to laugh into the empty hall, “That’s all it took! To tear everything apart! These halls, these layers, all of hell itself: empty, barren, every corpse drained because of your INSATIABLE FUCKING HUNGER,” At this, he whips around, pointing Splendor directly at V1, his voice threatening to crack. The machine tightens their grip on their revolver. Gabriel heaves. There is an imperceptible tilt to his head when he calms. “But there’s one you haven’t killed yet. Fight me, machine, for the last time.”
His hand is shaking despite the evenness of his voice.
“I don’t care who wins. Let us tear each other apart, break each other down to flesh and steel, until there is nothing left.”
They stand like that for a while. Gabriel’s breathing reverberates off the stone walls, Splendor leveled at V1’s chassis. They look him over, taking a few moments to process what he just said. They pull up his previous monologues, and the ferocity which followed each; V1 feels some concern for how their opponent will be fighting this time. They nod, pulling the trigger and preparing a charge as Splendor comes wheeling at them.
...
V1’s fans are struggling to keep up with their exertion. They look up just in time to see Gabriel’s blades coming at them, throwing out a punch to deflect them. They dodge backwards as Gabriel closes the distance, catching his swords as he blurs past, throwing them one after the other at the machine. They slide into a jump, granted no time to lament the loss of precious offense: Gabriel is upon them again, blades searching for purchase upon blue steel. They miss, narrowly, as this dance is at least familiar to V1. A fully charged revolver shivers in their hand, and they duck under one of his swings and pump the shot into Gabriel’s stomach, bathing them in much-needed fuel. V1’s fans scream as their momentarily-full reserves are halved— a blade has torn into one of their primary fuel hoses. They slide backwards, watching as Gabriel spins into the air, his wings beating furiously.
“YOU’RE LOSING IT, MACHINE!” He goads. V1 knows they shouldn’t, but they take the bait anyways, bouncing from a wall and slamming down, jumping high with the stored energy. Knuckleblaster comes forward, scoring Gabriel along the thigh before it blasts them apart, flinging V1 away from Justice’s range. Gabriel screams and dives after them into a flurry of overheated nails; he just barely misses the machine as they skirt closer for more blood. V1 hears a sword spinning after them, and they turn to deflect Splendor— mortified as Justice curves upwards below it.
There’s a dull throb in their arm as Feedbacker is cut from their body and their reserves tick down to staunch the flow of fuel. Gabriel laughs maniacally from somewhere above them, driving them back as his swords are recalled into a downward swing.
“COME ON, MACHINE, TEAR ME APART.”
V1’s fans snarl, and a rocket explodes center-mass while they shoot another at their feet, narrowly dodging Gabriel’s retaliatory lunge. Now Whiplash comes out, lodging itself into Gabriel’s shoulder as they pump their shotgun into overcharge.
But they never have a chance to fire it.
V1 is slammed into the ground on their side, the uneven impact shaking them to their core. Their visual feed is reset first, and they quickly register two things.
One: Gabriel is tearing the Whiplash anchor from his shoulder.
Two: He is stomping over to V1’s prone body at an alarming rate.
The machine’s systems take too long to reboot, and just as they move to scramble away twin pains light up in their wings, and V1 screams— a long, metallic screech, generated from the rapid spinning of their drives and the squall of their fans. Gabriel’s boot lands on their chest, pinning his middle while Splendor and Justice hold the glitching hardlight of their wings to the ground. The archangel is panting heavily above them.
“I win,” he whispers, almost disbelievingly. V1 can barely hear him over the sirens in their head, nor see him past the warnings obstructing their view. Their head drops back, and they realize their chest is heaving; a cyclic spasm of their chassis. It’s a last ditch protocol, trying to circulate more air through their body— the final step before their components desolder and fry their circuits.
Gabriel laughs above him. “I WIN.” He repeats, dropping his knees on either side of V1’s torso. A hand grabs their optic casing and forces them to look up.
Gabriel is covered in blood. The marks of nails flowed with supple, red streams, down his body and onto their plating. V1 takes him in greedily, their body arching up towards the fresh fuel. They instinctively reach out with Knuckleblaster, to score the flesh available to them, to drink in more, to heal their damaged chassis…
A metal wire wraps around the arm, and the anchor slams into the floor above their head. They look back as Gabriel coos disapprovingly.
“Ah ah ah, machine. You had your chance–”
V1 traces the wire from the green spike, to the twisting spiral around Knuckleblaster, to its origin in Whiplash. Their eye is drawn back to Gabriel as they feel fingers groping beneath his plating. The archangel leans in close, insufferably smug and goading:
“It’s my turn,” he hisses, pulling several electrical wires taut in his hands. V1’s vision flashes, their fans whining erratically. Their one remaining functional hand claws at the floor, failing to find purchase. Their body thrashes in vain, trying to lessen the stimulation, the pleasure, which is only amplified as Gabriel strokes their exposed wiring. Above them, Gabriel is panting, but V1 can detect the whine edging his breath.
They felt like they were going to break. It hurts. This was too much, too much, too much.
“Tear me apart, machine ,” Gabriel breathes, grinding back on their pelvis.
Their optic dilates, and their fans whirr harder in sudden panic. Too much, too fast.
V1 aims a punch at Gabriel’s jaw. It shakes the archangel out of his stupor for long enough to read the sign they’re putting up.
“STOP,” They repeat. Over and over again; it takes far too long for Gabriel to shuffle off of them.
“I, uh,” Gabriel shakes his head, clears his throat, meets the machine’s livid gaze, “I don’t–”
V1 ignores him and goes about reorganizing their wiring into their correct places. Their fans give a relieved hiss when they’re set, and their head falls back to the floor with a metallic clang.
After a while, they throw their hand up and sign:
“ARE YOU DONE.”
“Y-yes… I am so, so sorry–I don’t–That’s not…” V1 picks up the sound of his greaves scraping against the stone floor.
“STAY,” They sign. To their surprise, Gabriel stops moving. Their fans mimic a deep sigh— at least their hyperventilating has stopped. Their fingers twitch in anticipation for their message, “YOU WANTED TO FUCK?”
Gabriel stammers something, and V1 reiterates:
“IT’S YES OR NO.”
“Fuck, I do! I did– I’m,” He sighs sharply. V1 looks at him; he’s staring up at the distant ceiling, “These… brawls , these fights… I– have to admit they’ve been… arousing . The idea that this would be our last, my last… I got too excited. I’m supposed to be dead, machine.”
V1’s optic shutter closes a little. They wait until Gabriel looks at them to continue.
“BY ME?”
“No, I… I was stripped of my light. My final connection to the Father. They— the Council— gave me twenty-four hours before… before whatever happens to angels when they die.”
“... WHEN WAS THIS?”
“Just after our first meeting,” Gabriel’s head tilts towards the floor, suddenly extremely interested in the cracked stone. V1 checks their clock; they had made a timestamp of when they and Gabriel first fought.
“YOU’RE TWO HOURS PAST,” They sign. Gabriel’s body stiffens.
“Two… we fought for that long?” V1’s checking their clock again.
“YES.” Two hours and some change, but they weren’t about to go into specifics. Gabriel looks away again.
“And I’m not…” He stares at the wall for a long time, slowly making his way to meet V1’s gaze. “Did you still want to fuck?” He asks, almost sheepishly.
“YES. AFTER WE TALK,” V1 signs, their fans working a little harder.
…
V1 opted to keep their other arms bound. Gabriel had fetched the severed Feedbacker and helped to reattach it with his own blood, before weaving it into Whiplash’s wire. Justice and Splendor sit in their sheathes on the floor, alongside much of Gabriel’s armor. The archangel himself is perched on V1’s thighs, fixated on where the machine presents a delicate wire just above his pelvic plate. They have it clasped between two fingers, are barely applying any pressure or motion at all, but their subtleties are potent: their head is off to the side, fans hitching erratically like pleasurable whimpers. Gabriel’s mind is blank, entirely enraptured by this display of sin. A past version of himself might be repulsed to find him so easily turned on by a machine. A soulless, fleshless husk. An object.
That Gabriel died with the Council, though. This ‘object’ made sure of that.
“May I?” He finally speaks, offering his hand. They start, looking up at him with their dimmed optic before nodding. V1 takes his hand, guiding it down to the wire, adjusting him to just the right pressure and speed. Their hand falters at a mere touch, finding purchase further up his arm. Fans gasp as Gabriel resumes V1’s motions, drawing slow, gentle circles just as they had. The archangel is keenly aware of how focused he is on this task, making sure he doesn’t pinch too tightly lest he pull. Their legs are shifting beneath him, making him acutely aware of the heat pooling in his gut. He breathes, returning to his work and having a thought.
“May I try something new?” He requests. V1 refocuses, removing the vice-grip on his arm and nodding, ready to sign if it becomes necessary. Gabriel nods, slipping both his fingers below the little loop the wire creates and oh-so-gently stroking the top with his thumb pad. The machine’s fans moan, their whole body arching off the floor, their head thrown back. The arms tied above their head strain against their bonds. They’re signing something over and over and over. It takes a moment for him to decipher the movement; when he does, it only fuels the fire in his belly.
“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.”
“Good?” He asks, swallowing down the huskiness in his throat.
“KEEP GOING.” V1 signs, and after a moment, “HARDER.”
Gabriel does as he is asked. He adds force on his upstrokes, basking in the way their chassis arches at his touch. Their fans hitching in drawn-out whines. Their free hand marking the stone as they claw it.
Their legs trying to spread where they’re pinned between Gabriel’s.
The archangel tears his gaze from the machine’s upper half and down to their pelvis, honing in on a seam where two inset plates appear to meet. Curiously, cautiously, he traces two of his free digits down the length of it, idly wondering if they could feel him there. Gabriel can read V1’s manic signing out of the corner of his eyes.
“CLOSE, I’M SO FUCKING CLOSE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE–”
Whatever was behind the panels would have to wait. And Gabriel had all the time they’d be willing to give him.
He foregoes any pretense of delicateness and introduces the full length of his thumb, pinning the delicate wire between it and his forefinger. He shows them no mercy, toeing the line between rough and abusive, his eyes plastered on every inch of blue steel that convulsed with pleasure beneath him. The whining fans began to scream, and every part which could spasmed. He kept them like this until he heard their fans choking and felt their body go lax. One last brush of his thumb earns him a whimper, and he tucks the wire back from where V1 had retrieved it. He spread his hand on their abdomen, idly thumbing a feed hose. Phantom convulsions racked them now and again; Gabriel noted how their cables and housing felt like muscle, contracting and relaxing against his palm. It made something in him ache. Their fans had calmed to a purr; a blue hand raises shakily:
“WHO TAUGHT YOU THAT.”
Gabriel snorts. “Would you believe me if I said I was a celibate?”
V1 stares at him blankly. Gabriel turns away laughing. He motions for the three arms still wrapped together. “Did you want this off?” he asks. V1 follows his gaze to the tangled mess and nods. Gabriel rises from the machine’s legs and pulls the anchor out with ease, beginning the task of uncoiling the wire from the other two arms.