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Even behind a mask, V1 took swift notice of the relaxed position Gabriel had taken as he tilted his head slightly skyward and faced out towards the biggest open space in hell. He might’ve been praying, or maybe just taking a few moments to breathe. Regardless V1 could sense that his eyes were closed, and his heart was slowing with a calm sense of thought.
It approached him with caution, but not with malice. Steadying by his side and turning out towards the ocean as well. Wrath was shockingly peaceful if you enjoyed the harsh noise of the ocean and the endless pounding of rain on your head.
Gabriel regarded V1 with no interest. Barely even acknowledging it before haphazardly turning to it and falling to his knees. V1 looked on with growing curiosity. Its head tilted not unlike that of the dogs it had seen long before hell became full.
“Machine.” Gabriel said, though his voice was soft, and unsure. Nothing seemed familiar about the angel sitting before it now, and in all honesty it brought a great deal of discomfort to its body.
Something clicked in the humming from its chest almost like it was responding inherently to Gabriel’s sudden display.
“I… am tired. Exhausted.” He continued. “Will you… please-” His voice gave out at his own plea. The words struggled in his throat, a sound easily washed out by the rain and waves.
V1 tentatively took a step back to match Gabriel’s spot on the ground.
“No. You sh- Stand up! Your place isn’t beside me.” A flash of that familiar rage crept back in that almost made V1 feel like things were ‘normal’ until Gabriel’s voice faltered again. “No… If it is your will to be beside me then so be it.”
V1 shuddered at the words. No this was wrong. It does not intend to vocalize these thoughts however, lending to conserving its energy in the event Gabriel’s sudden change of heart turns back into that familiar burning rage.
“Machine I do not know if you know, or could ever understand love as humans or angels might, but have you ever felt the comfort of a guiding hand? The touch of someone safe holding your very soul in their hands and commanding your ease with every touch?”
It thinks for a moment. Once as a database might recall. Many many years ago, when it had been activated by its creators and something went wrong. This of course, was before the new experimental self repairing technology had been fully implemented.
It was active, alive , for a waking vivisection of its own insides. It didn’t hurt, it couldn’t hurt in that way humans tended to do, but something about the scene created what it could only describe as fear at seeing its own insides for the first time.
Then came relief, as the familiar face of its favourite creator was there, a fuzzy poorly rendered image burned into its records. It was going to be okay, no matter what. For its creator handled its gore with knowledge and care, putting everything back where it belonged and patching it off to full health.
Not long after the new technology for self repair was finished. Knowledge on self surgery was committed to memory. V1 was self-sufficient now, and no one would have to take care of it again… though if it could meet its creator once more it would happily take her tender hands over its own any day.
V1 made a small nodding motion. Gabriel’s shoulder were still tensed with some unknown stress, but his head betrayed a slight sense if relief,
“I’ve killed all those who I believed would be a guiding hand for my life, Machine. Rage has boiled inside me in a way I never thought imaginable.” Gabriel choked out in whispers that could just barely be heard through his mask. “Yet despite all the pain each of their hands have brought me, used me, abused me, and stripped me from at my very core… I still yearn for that hand again. To guide, and soothe me.”
At the confession V1 tried hard not to tilt its head in a questioning manner, instead trying to find some other way to express confusion to the sulking angel in front of it.
Slowly Gabriel leans forward, nothing reaches for V1 but his body finds it anyways. V1 does not move away, instead allowing this brief moment of tenderness to unfold.
Then there was light. A strange light that caused V1 to stutter in surprise, expecting something to strike it down, but in the absence of something warning it about danger and death… it found a new part of Gabriel’s form unfolded before it.
Wings. Like those of angel paintings conserved in the few remaining history books, and through photos saved over machines. Gabriel had wings like those the humans drew, painted, and wrote about. They were gorgeous, illuminated with the same familiar light of his halo.
“Touch them,” Gabriel whimpered, his arms finally finding V1’s form and clutching it with a sudden desperation. “Please. By the stars can you please just touch me.”
With what remaining caution V1 could conjure they reached past his shoulders to gently pet the fluffy feathers of the wings, noting how well they rejected the biting rain.
Gabriel shuttered a few times against its body at their few touches, before shifting almost all of his weight onto it. It passed a few static fingers through a ruffle of feathers, patting down the wing as far as it could reach, before turning towards the otherside.
This was not how birds groomed their feathers, this it knew. But besides the simple idea of the creature, V1 didn’t know much else about bird care, let alone angel care, or angel wing care.
So it did its best to brush out a loose feather or two, gauging Gabriel’s reaction to see if this was wrong or right. As it grew more confident, the more the angel seemed to sink against its body, and slowly he had all but curled up into its lap, wings sprawling out limp and loose across the ground.
“You may save this for your database, Machine,” Gabriel muttered through an almost sleepy stutter. “Should you ever cross paths with another angel bold enough to show you their wings, that it is their very soul.”
V1 stopped its gentle motions, rearing back from Gabriel’s wings. The angel let out a low and needy whine, one that brought its hand back to caressing his wings- his very soul again.
“Should you kill me with this knowledge, I would not be surprised.” He continued, but no effort was made to move. “If I was laying with mine own enemy who was showing me their own soul, I would consider the idea too. If I act upon it depends on that enemy…”
It whirred almost like it was shushing him. V1 had no intention right now to kill Gabriel. Not when he seemed so sincere- it felt wrong. Especially after he had raised no hand to it on this one off occasion.
Gabriel took to the gentle shushing V1 had produced, and rested back into the steely touch that was still holding him. His soul was so tainted by the council, misused and filled with sins unique to an angel's desires. They wanted and expected everything of him, and the marks of their words and deeds had been stained so deep into his wings that even bringing them to visibility was enough to cause him to tear up.
Now as V1 touched his soul with an unique tenderness he hadn’t considered possible for a machine built for survival and nothing else, he wondered if, even in hell, the sins might begin to ease away as he laid there.
It was not enough to heal hundreds of years of abuse, but for those few tender minutes Gabriel could consider some part of him accepting that even the most violent of creations could still treat him better than an entire council of angels ever did.
Fuck . The damn thing didn’t even speak to him, he had no idea what its programming even know or thought about, and yet Gabriel pulled it closer to his being, wings shifting for the first time since he splayed them out.
V1 slowly moved its hands to rest to the back of his helmet, and the shoulders of his back. It emulated what it knew as an embrace, letting the angel envelope it in his very soul with wings arching up to form a small tent above them.
“Do machines need sleep?” He hummed, nudging his face against the metal plating.
It shook its head, not that Gabriel could see, before vocalizing the closest no that it could.
“Then stay with me regardless. As a reward I’ll willingly spill as much blood as you desire.”
V1 held his head and began stroking what little exposed skin peeked through his armour from where his wings had formed. If this had just been the arrangement from before hell, V1 would’ve accepted in an angel’s heart beat.
Taking that as a yes, Gabriel shifted to be more comfortable in V1’s embrace, and settled in for a gluttonous nap. Angels did not have to sleep , but they enjoyed it. He’d enjoy this.