by a_seagulls_hubris
Rating: Explicit, Other, Complete Work
Published 10 March 2025
V1 has no mouth to scream with.
With less than an hour to live, in the depths of a now-empty Hell, Gabriel offers to share in its agony.
Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Gabriel/V1 (ULTRAKILL), Gabriel (ULTRAKILL), V1 (ULTRAKILL), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Blood and Gore, Blood and Torture, (?) kinda. is it torture if he's into it, wound fingering, Nonverbal V1 (ULTRAKILL), angels are sexless in here, i'm serious this is not light, V1 is scared of death (that's canon now), tfw you dismember your gay rival because you have no way to express your terror, Graphic Description, this probably counts as eroguro, V1 has no mouth and it must scream, me when the dismemberment is kind of sexual
haha.
yes the title is from the English translation of Maretu's Binomi. interpret it however you will i cannot be arsed with the symbolism rn.
One hour remains.
Seconds, minutes bleed through his skin, each passing moment just as stark as the last. There is no fear here, Gabriel knows. He’s made peace with his fate. He will die here, and he will have done everything right in the end.
He’s bleeding, red on glittering ice, vision swimming. The strength in his wings has long faded and so he stands, the blades of his swords thrust into the ice to keep him upright.
He lifts his gaze. It stares back, that terrible, beautiful machine, yellow optic bright as the sun. If it knows its own end is near it gives no indication: it still fights, elegant in its violence. Order within the chaos of its speed, its grace.
It almost feels like a dance.
But he can no longer keep up. Bullet holes riddle his unarmoured skin; nails embed themselves along the length of his legs. His cuirass is barely holding together, cut into ribbons by a railcannon beam that had pierced through him once, twice, three times…
It will take his blood and move on, its efficiency driving it to scour every last corner of Hell for stragglers (though Gabriel knows there will not be any). His blood in its rubber tubing, coursing through veins both organic and synthetic. Dimly he wonders if that is even such a terrible fate, the two of them contained within its shell of steel even for a brief moment.
He rights himself, brandishes his swords, his usual taunts lost in the weight of his breaths, his body trying desperately to keep himself alive. But the message is clear enough.
Keeping low to the ground, wings fluttering, the machine pounces like an animal.
Gabriel is weak, too weak to dodge when a volley of shotgun shells hits him in the side. Fighting to stay conscious against the pain, he lets the machine’s whiplash spear lodge itself in his shoulder, allowing it to close the distance with its steel cord. He swings when it gets close, Splendor and Justice aiming for its core.
The blades strike true. The machine slides back with a mechanical groan, deep red fuel splattering onto the ice. Both of their blood on full display, in the depths of Hell, at the end of their time.
It’s been an honour, he wants to say to it, but what comes out instead is, ‘Running already?’ A cacophony of coughs rattles through his ribcage. ‘Come get me!’
Broken tubing still leaking precious fuel, it draws the railcannon from its wings once more.
Gabriel dives to the side as the beam barely passes over his head, singeing his feathers. He throws out a hand to catch himself, biting down a shout against the sting of cold. The machine is approaching, shotgun drawn, a loud mechanical whirring overpowering every one of his senses.
He mistakes it for an opening. It catches his thrown swords with an arm, hurling them back at him. The blades slice through his cuirass and he falls backwards, head ringing. The last thing he sees before he hits the ice is the machine’s chainsaw, detached from its shotgun, heading straight for him.
Something in his shoulder breaks clean in two.
He cannot stop the scream that escapes him.
Gabriel cannot move, sprawled out on the ice, his gore strewn beneath him like a mattress. Metallic footsteps, getting closer. He pushes down the wave of panic as it kneels down, yellow optic as brilliant as the sun.
He’s long accepted this fate. His body is struggling to mend itself, every breath too short, ruined ribcage pushing down on his lungs. It’s his collarbone that is broken, he realises, his right arm completely motionless as he tries to move his limbs.
The machine pins down his left hand as soon as it moves, sending a new wave of pain surging through him. He’s not proud of the noise that he makes, a thin, agonised wail. The machine’s red arm, tipped with claws, dips itself into the wound in his shoulder.
Gabriel looks away, as if that will help. It’s rummaging under his skin, finding broken tissue and muscle, coaxing out more blood that it absorbs through its plating.
There is a weight on his chest. He turns to face the machine, straddling his hips, fingers digging deeper into his wounds. It’s close, head almost pressed against his injured shoulder, as if peering into the opening. Broken bone, crushed blood vessels, all its handiwork.
There was a time when the idea of a machine being so close to him, hands all over him, taking blood from his all-too-willing body would have repulsed him. But now all he can do is watch, the clarity of pain keeping him present, each breath a fresh wave of agony.
It will take what’s left of him, and then it will leave, singular goal in mind.
But Hell is empty.
It should know that, Gabriel decides.
He cannot even recognise his own voice at first, a terrible raspy thing clawing its way out of his throat, warring against his struggling body and the freezing temperatures of Treachery.
‘M—machine.’
It doesn’t listen to him at first, pressing its head against his broken collarbone. Gabriel groans when one of its claws brushes against bone. All of its arms are on his torso now, some scrabbling for purchase, another cracking open his cuirass like an eggshell to expose more blood-heated skin.
Gabriel reaches out with his functional arm, fingers brushing against its chestplate. It freezes, blue arm shooting out before it realises his intent.
There, covered in blood, silhouetted against the faint glow of its wings, it turns its attention slowly to him.
‘Machine,’ he says, his voice barely loud enough for him to hear. The machine leans closer, so close that he can hear the hum of machinery under its metal shell, read the letters written on its chest. V1. Is that its name?
It taps him on the helmet. Get to the point.
‘Hell is empty now,’ he says. ‘Once you kill me, you too will meet your end.’
It goes perfectly still. One of its claws digs deeper, scraping against bone. A broken scream drags itself out of his throat. The sound fades into nothing, lost to the biting winds. The next time he speaks his voice is barely a wisp, a shell of its former divine glory.
‘I—agh—I have less than an hour left to live. Before the Father’s light is torn from my body.’
He’s come to terms with his end; it will have the chance to, as well.
V1’s wings twitch.
‘Is there anything else you wish to do?’
It removes its claws from his wound. He gets the strangest sense that it is thinking, going completely still. Gabriel struggles, a futile effort, and it absent-mindedly pins his functioning arm down.
And that makes him light-headed.
His superior in strength is a mere machine, so far removed from everything that he has served to this point. Amalgamation of steel and flesh. A blemish on the Father’s design.
It is removing his armour, discarding pieces of his broken cuirass, tossing his pauldrons to the side. Before he can react it is running a hand over the gold lines on his abdomen.
Gabriel yells with all the strength he has left, attempting to throw it off as it locks its legs tighter around his waist. It is a futile struggle and both of them know it, V1 pushing his shoulders into the ice, Gabriel’s wings flapping uselessly against the ground.
Defilement. Sin. The whisper wars with the quickening pulse in his ears, the gathering heat in his stomach, and—oh, he wants this, doesn’t he. Can it even feel—it seems more curious than anything, probing touches trailing up his torso and making him shiver. Is he misreading this? After all he was not designed for—
V1 lunges forward. The movement punches the air out of his lungs, ribcage pressing in painfully against his insides.
V1 closes its hands around his throat and squeezes.
Gabriel sputters, his dying body fighting back on instinct. His functioning hand grabs at the machine’s tightening fingers, his legs kicking to try and throw it off. His wings spasm hard enough that feathers go flying, a pinned butterfly ready to be displayed.
Its singular yellow eye glares down at him. Gabriel’s gauntleted hand leaves scratches in the blue paint of its arms. Its green arm shoots out to pin down his hand once more.
Black spots fill his vision. V1’s head is so close to him, connecting with the metal of his helmet. It is all he can see now, a brilliant sun blotting out the rest of the world. If there were anyone left alive to see the two of them, they would be forgiven for thinking of this as an embrace.
V1’s wings shudder. Its hands loosen just for a moment, though it still crouches over him. Gabriel draws as much air as he can into his lungs, each freezing cold breath an exquisite agony.
The gentle whirring of its fans brings him back. They are touching now, its chestplate against his torso. It takes Gabriel a moment to register the more agitated undertone of its mechanical hum, the constant shuddering of its wings, the unsteadiness of the hands that run themselves over his shoulders.
It grabs his shoulders hard, and Gabriel realises that it is shivering.
That revelation stuns him. It has only ever shown the determination of a hunter, each kill merely another stepping stone in its mission to survive. Blood-thirsty thing, he’d called it once. Ever in motion, ever so desperate for just another taste of blood, of life—
Oh.
It has been some time since he has offered comfort. Gabriel’s hands have known nothing but rigid judgement, a puppet to the Council, the spark planted within him in Wrath long faded. He’d seen the statues, the recordings, the visceral confessions scribbled in a diary. He should have gone back, he thinks. Give them an answer, tell them that their devotion meant something to him at least.
But now it is too late. Gabriel extends his wings, folding them upwards to envelop the machine’s much smaller form. It lets out a harsh mechanical groan, its claws shooting out to grab the base of his wing. He lets it crumple his feathers, ripping some of them out. They float gently to the ground, a quilt of brilliant gold and sky blue.
The weight of his wings rests on its shoulders. V1 allows them to guide it downwards so that it is almost laying on Gabriel, humming metal shell warm on his skin. The movement agitates his injury, his bones’ meagre attempts to mend themselves gone in an instant. He cries out at that and V1 shifts above him, alarmed.
There is blood in the back of his throat. He swallows it down.
‘Do not be afraid,’ he says.
V1 answers by bringing a hand up to his throat, warm metal fingers closing around his windpipe but not enough to hurt. Gabriel’s breath quickens. How is it doing this to him? Is it the enormity of its violence that has him motionless on his back, a god to replace his Father?
A god he has wrapped in his wings, steel against his skin, shivering from the knowledge of its imminent doom.
He speaks again. ‘Whatever it is you need from me, you need only ask.’
V1 lifts itself up on its elbows. A third arm gestures to itself, then to him.
‘What?’
It repeats the gesture, slower. It’s pointing at his throat, then at its neck. It repeats the harsh sound from earlier, a noise drawn from the grinding movement of its inner components. Not a voice like those Swordsmachines, yammering in panic whenever he sends a sword through their heads.
The pieces click together.
‘You… you cannot speak?’
It nods.
‘Do you want to?’
V1 shoves his wings off of itself. It doesn’t nod, now staying perfectly still. It’s thinking, Gabriel realises, and that is a foreign concept to him. To see it as something that thinks and feels—
It dips its claws into his still-healing wound and twists.
The fresh agony tears a scream out of him, a sound he doesn’t know he can still make. Its fingers dig deeper, tearing through muscle, drawing more sounds of pain from him. His wings twitch against the ground, more feathers flying free when it withdraws its claws, dragging along tender flesh on their way out.
Gabriel watches, unable to move from the shock. The sight of his own blood and viscera dripping from its claws, painting the ice with a fresh streak of red, reawakens the burning in his stomach. To think that it was inside of him, for that very brief moment—
It grabs his helmet and turns his face to the side, forcing him to look. There, on the ice, its claws scratch out a message.
SCREAM FOR ME
Then, underneath: I CANNOT DO IT MYSELF
V1 rests its hands on his torso, waiting.
He will, of course. He will allow its claws to penetrate him again, snapping fragile blood vessels, playing his tendons like strings, caressing bone. When had its violence become so intimate to him?
There was a time when pain was pain. The Father’s light being torn from his body was painful because it was a punishment. Every injury he sustained in battle was painful because they were proof of his mistakes. Seeing his gore on the machine’s hands, absorbed into its plating, pain as he had never felt before racking his body… it had done something to him. All flesh and blood and bone, just like every sinner down here, just like everything else that the Father created.
Like V1 as well.
A full body shiver passes through him at the realisation.
V1 is going to die too. This terrible, beautiful creature, capable of hurting him like no one ever has before. Deft hands and fluttering wings going still. He’d never thought of it as invincible, but to know that it lives and breathes just as he does punches a gasp out of his ruined ribcage.
And so he tilts his head back, trying to keep his breathing steady as V1 tears at his belt and skirt, tossing broken metal bits and shredded cloth to the side. Its final meal, bared to it in his entirety.
When the final piece of cloth drops away, V1 goes perfectly still. If it hadn’t torn down his pride and taught him his place he would have thought it was basking in the sight of divine perfection, every contour of muscle and fat honed to a statuesque beauty. V1 sits back on his thighs and Gabriel savours the little warmth its humming fans can provide. If it is any consolation, it will kill him before the cold can.
It is touching the lines on his stomach again. His breath hitches, his question from earlier resurfacing. Is it capable of the other kind of lust? Perhaps something similar—not that Gabriel would know. V1’s hand slides between his thighs, grazing over featureless skin. Angels are not designed for pleasure, after all.
But what was his climbing heart rate, the rapidly pooling heat in his stomach, the way his thoughts race between shame and anxiety and the slightest tinge of excitement, the pulsing pain-pleasure-pain of his open wounds and broken bones? He cannot put a name to it, and that alone scares him more than the machine pulling out a chainsaw from its wings.
The sight of the whirring blade draws an involuntary noise from him, resisting the urge to block the blow with his wings. V1 hasn’t bothered restraining him again, with all the good only one barely functioning arm could do. He had offered to scream for it.
It takes aim and shoves the blade in between his legs.
It takes him a moment for him to realise that the drawn-out scream is his, too focused he was on the fresh agony that now courses through his legs, skin and muscle and fat giving way as the machine remakes him in its image. Gabriel bites down the rest of his scream, trying to keep his wings from flailing about as V1 shoves its blade another inch deeper. The teeth of the saw bite into soft flesh, stopping just shy of bone and he whimpers, his pulse at full volume in his ears and fire in his veins once more.
V1 withdraws its weapon. Gabriel gasps at the sudden relief, incoherent pained sounds and half-formed words escaping him. ‘Please,’ he says, ‘M-machine—‘
It tilts its head and shoves its claws into the newly formed opening.
Muscle and fat and exposed nerves give way to its intrusion. It slips in another hand to stretch him open, its claws carving out a new space for itself, bending his body to its whim. He writhes at its touch, legs moving to close on instinct, every nerve in his body set alight. He’s letting it hurt him so badly, and he cannot find the old hatred that once smouldered within him.
He wishes the Council could see him now, splayed out in front of a machine, shivering from the pain he is letting it inflict on him, back arched to try and urge it to dig deeper—
And it does. Blood trickles from the opening onto the ice below him. Gabriel lets out a choked whine as V1’s fingers brush against bone. He’s quickly running out of strength, black spots filling his vision once more, dimming wings twitching against the ice. V1 seems to realise this, brushing its fingers against his neck in an almost tender gesture.
Gabriel reaches out with his functioning arm, closing his fingers around the machine’s wrist. Any attempt to speak only floods his throat and mouth with blood, and so he squeezes, hoping that the message goes through.
This is all his. Blood-drenched blade, the fire of the machine reigniting his own. Dead man’s philosophy falling apart in the push and pull of their dance. He is dying from the only intimacy it can give him, its claws slipping in and out of him, a sharp lance of pain piercing him each time. Yet as blood flows freely from between his legs and his body struggles to keep him conscious he has never felt more alive.
Yes, desecrate him, penetrate him. The words spill out of him, staining his wings that brilliant gold, and he begs for it to go faster—
His wings shudder and he cries out, a thin sound that is lost in the wet noises of steel moving against opened flesh. His whole body is on fire, agony as he has never known before rushing through his veins, nerves shot and unable to do anything but command his limbs to twitch.
Kneeling between his legs, V1 twines a length of broken artery around its fingers.
Warm liquid slips between his skin and the ice. Gabriel can no longer speak or move, lying still on the ground as the machine climbs up his chest, its weight steady on his ribs. Its movements seem slower, less panicked, none of that frantic energy that had possessed it to hurt him again and again.
Gabriel closes his eyes and lets it touch him, blocky fingers sliding over his helmet and down to his neck. Its touch continues past his shoulders, tracing gold lines past his broken collarbone and down to his injured arm.
It notices him observing and takes his intact arm. Gabriel forces his eyes open to stare into that single eye, the brilliance of its light betraying no emotion.
With a hiss, the panels on its chest slide open. It guides his hand to its heart, gliding over wires and circuit boards. His fingers touch a wire close to its heart, softer than the others, and it shudders, shoving itself closer to him.
It arranges his hand so that his fingers close around that same wire. He presses down lightly. It’s fleshy, flexible—a nerve, he realises. A major one at that, considering its size.
V1 pats his arm. Good. He would tremble at that, but very little of his strength remains, all taken in their effort at intimacy.
It wraps its hands around his throat once more. He meets its gaze.
It holds up three fingers.
Three.
Gabriel holds tight onto the nerve. His body is broken. He is minutes away from dying.
Two.
He would do it again, if it meant the two of them could face their deaths, hand in hand.
And God, he is terrified.
But V1 is here, warm shell against his skin, his fingers brushing against its heart. Bathed in each other’s agony.
One.
Gabriel pulls, and beneath the machine’s hands, something cracks.
hi if any of my irls see this i'm so sorry. please never bring it up arigato gozaimasu
i'm hubris-moment on tumblr feel free to talk to me. thank you to everyone in the YPH discord for sitting through my horrid unhinged robotfucker rants.
i love this game so much it's time to p-rank p-2