this one gets pretty heavy (note the suicidal ideation tag again) but there is gay sex so
Knock knock knock
V1 ignores the knocking at the door.
Knock knock knock knock knock
It gives up, sets down its drumsticks, and heads for the door to its dorm. It’s taken advantage of V2’s absence to push her bed out of the way, fitting its entire drum kit into the freed-up space. It’s early in the morning, but its neighbours should mostly be in class.
V2’s probably having fun watching Mirage produce her music. V1 feels no urge to join them this time, despite the excess of time it has after two cancelled classes (hay fever?). Something on that camping trip has surely knocked its processor askew. It does not remember enjoying solitude.
Yet it is with a hint of annoyance that it opens its door.
Gabriel is standing there, dressed in his armour once more, clutching his chest.
‘Class starts in an hour. Be fast.’
A lie, but he does not know that. Gabriel draws a shaky breath.
‘Come with me. Somewhere… not here.’
‘What’s going on?’ It reaches out to grab him but misses when he turns, beginning to head towards the stairs. ‘Do you want a fight?’
‘…Yes.’
‘That’s not all.’
Gabriel stops, leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. He flinches when V1 approaches, its hand brushing against the base of his helm before jerking it down, forcing him to look at it.
‘You’re an awful liar.’
He jerks his helm out of V1’s grip.
‘God is gone,’ he says, hushed. ‘I am to bear the weight of my actions on myself, and nobody else.’
He seizes, folding forward at the waist, muffling a soft cry of pain.
‘I don’t have much time left. Please, promise me one thing.’
V1 crosses its arms.
‘There are a few more things I must do. Give Sisyphus his fight. Find the Ferryman. Regardless, in a week, I want you to end my life with your own two hands.’
V1 doesn’t speak. Gabriel keels over, his wings flaring, their brilliant blue fading fast.
‘I have done so much wrong. All this misery… because I could not be bothered to think for myself. I trust you will grant me a punishment befitting my crimes.’
‘No.’
‘You promised.’ A broken laugh escapes him. ‘You’d grant me absolution, free me from this spiritual pain—‘
‘You’re a coward.’
‘Then let me die a coward’s death,’ he says, voice rising ever so slightly. ‘I do not deserve—‘
‘What do you want?’
‘Absolution. Justice for what I have done—‘
‘That’s not what I meant.’ V1 stares down at him, curled up in a pathetic heap at its feet. ‘Quit the martyrdom. Or are you still stuck in your cave?’
‘You don’t understand.’ A hint of hysteria in his voice. ‘This is what I want.’
‘Coward.’
‘That is true.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ V1 steps forward, trapping his wrist under its foot. He gasps, struggling halfheartedly before giving up, like a bug trapped in amber.
‘You were brilliant when I met you. Full of rage and fire. A burning star. Now you’re… whatever this is.’
‘I’ve always been like this.’ Gabriel lifts his other hand to his helm, resting it on top of the cross. ‘I haven’t had a fucking spine in ages.’
V1 puts more pressure on his wrist, making him whimper, before removing it. He drags himself upright using the wall, leaning against it with a heavy sigh.
His wings flicker, then go out.
‘The depths of my cowardice know no bounds. The Ferryman—he was a friend—no, a loyal devotee to God. His devotion, his goodness, should have been enough to lift him out of the depths of sin.
‘Yet all it took,’ says Gabriel, refusing to look V1 in the eye, ‘was a mistimed confession to myself, witnessed by a Councillor, for him to be branded with the sin of Lust and exiled.’
V1 taps its foot. ‘He loved you?’
‘It was why he was willing to repent. A Husk doomed to damnation, attracted to the radiance of an angel. I wish I could have told him that it was all a lie.’ Gabriel bows his head. ‘I let him be exiled. I was too blind to see my own strings.’
V1 lets him sit in silence for a while. He is still breathing heavily, a sharp gasp interrupting his pants when he clutches his chest, a muttered prayer on his lips. He doesn’t look like an angel at all, this creature in pain, wishing for a quick end to his misery.
‘The first thing you do when you break free of your strings,’ it says, ‘is to die?’
A broken laugh wrenches itself out of his body. ‘Direct as ever.’
‘Waste of my fucking time. I’m not running an euthanasia service here.’
‘I am asking for a warrior’s death.’
‘Prove it.’
It stalks over to the stairs, turning back with one foot on the first step. Gabriel lets out a groan and gets to his feet, still supporting himself using the wall.
‘You’re a miserable creature.’
‘Same place,’ he spits, a hint of his initial venom in his voice. ‘If it is a fight you want, machine, then that is what you will get.’
~~~
He knows he will lose from the moment he raises his sword.
It is one of the fundamental truths of the world: God is gone, the weight of his crimes should drag him to the core of the earth, and this machine is stronger than he ever will be.
V1 is still unarmed, still not at its fullest potential. How much quicker could it take him down if it had its guns?
Gabriel does not know the answer.
He tries, or rather he throws himself at it over and over again. His wings barely carry his weight, and he is too slow to move out of the way when it catches one of his thrown swords and tosses it back at him. The weapon slices a deep cut into his side, fresh blood spilling onto the asphalt of the parking lot, joining the older bloodstains from coins punched into the exposed gaps of his armour.
Gabriel doubles over, clutching his side, pain piercing through his chest.
A kick connects with his shin, sending him sprawling to the ground. V1’s full weight pins him down and it locks its knees around its torso, his struggles futile as he scratches at its legs, unable to reach the tubing of its stomach.
‘Is that all?’ The disdain is obvious even without a voice.
Swearing, Gabriel summons a dagger of light and stabs it into V1’s knee joint. It makes a stuttering sound and falls over, bracing itself against Gabriel’s chestplate. The extra pressure only agitates the constant pain in his chest and he lets out a strangled scream, scrabbling for purchase—
His hands close around one of the tubes on V1’s abdomen. He could rip it out now. Not enough to kill it, but enough for its blood to join his on the ground, mingling—
A light pressure on his throat makes him pause. V1’s hands are around his neck, the threat obvious as it gives a light squeeze.
A delicate balance. They could hurt each other so badly now, locked in this position, and the only thoughts that run through Gabriel’s mind are the ones that he cannot vocalise lest the embarrassment bursts out of him like a butterfly from its cocoon. He listens to his own breathing, the quickening pulse in his head, the burning light suffusing his heart and limbs…
His wings flare back into existence and he throws V1 off himself. He doesn’t bother picking up his swords, instead choosing to manifest a spear of light. Everything burns, holy fire in his veins, the wounds peppering his side.
He recognises in his quickening pulse excitement.
V1 sits back on its haunches, animal-like, caution in its every step as it beholds him. Gabriel brandishes his weapon.
‘Come at me.’
It obliges.
It parries his strikes, but fails to see the dagger he throws at it. The blade grazes against its chestplate, tearing a piece open, revealing a section of blood-filled tubing and multicoloured wires. He keeps up the pressure, forcing it to retreat, until it has to slide along the side of the lot to avoid him.
Gabriel is out of breath. He is laughing, the sound reverberating through his aching bones. He should stop, allocate himself more oxygen for this fight that is doing terrible things to his brain and he doesn’t remember why he needs to die and oh God he’s forgotten how much he enjoys this and—
V1 tosses a coin and punches it. He dodges, not seeing the follow-up: a leap that catches him mid-air as it grabs into his wings, sending him crashing to the ground. He cannot stop laughing as he throws a punch that connects painfully with its shoulder and it responds in kind, grabbing his head and slamming it into the asphalt.
Gabriel’s head rings. Blood seeps out of the bottom of his helmet, pooling on the ground, seeping into the fabric under his armour. He groans, hands reaching vaguely to continue his struggle, but V1 grabs them so hard it hurts.
He lets out a soft noise as his vision swims. His blood is warm and sticky as it soaks into his bodysuit. Not warm like an embrace, but something much more visceral and alive.
‘I think…’ V1 leans closer to hear him. ‘I think I’m going to pass out.’
God, he wants to do this again. V1’s eye is a blurry sun that takes up most of his vision.
‘I love you.’
It freezes, releasing his hands in shock. A familiar heat is spreading through the lower part of his stomach and his head spins as he remembers the last time they were in this position. It had carried him to its room and it had made him feel so good for five minutes—
What right did he have to that feeling now? He should be taking on the misery he has inflicted, and perhaps it will die alongside him—
But Gabriel does not wish to die.
Not when this beautiful, terrible machine is resting its head on his chest, fingers tracing the edges of his open wounds, red-against-blue the only thing he can see. That’s his blood that it is absorbing, his blood that it is using to mend the cracks in its machinery. Ah, he feels lightheaded.
He grabs its hands, his wings flaring bright gold, and takes it with him when he teleports.
~~~
V1 watches the archangel in its bed, sheets tangled around his legs and hips, breathing hard. It gives him time to recuperate, grabbing a packet of blood from its fridge to refuel.
‘You’ve gone soft.’ He’s panting, hand outstretched. ‘Come get some blood.’
The haughtiness in his voice is offset by how shaky it is. He props himself up on his elbows, wings and halo flickering into existence. Now a tinge of pink colours his wingtips, a colour that he displays proudly as he lies back on the bed.
He is statuesquely beautiful, the shape of his bones and contours of his muscle moulded to an uncanny perfection, the rising and falling of his chest the only indication that he is alive. Pale gold scars litter his abdomen, marring the two more purposeful gold arcs that decorate that same spot. It has seen him naked before, but here, at its mercy, a sheen of sweat coating his skin and staining the bodysuit torn open around his breasts and hips—it feels like a victory.
V1 sets down its packet of blood. ‘You’re a freak, you know that?’
‘No—ugh.’ He collapses back onto the bed. He doesn’t say anything more, at a loss of words, wings curving forward to shield his body. Only half-heartedly, though, because he lets V1 grab the feathers and shove them aside.
It is on top of him a moment later, digging its fingers into his shoulder, his blood soaking into its plating as he groans. V1 stares distastefully at the sheets, now stained red with blood and… other things. That it will have to clean itself.
But now there is a kind, stupid, beautiful archangel on its bed, waiting for it to continue.
V1 rummages in its side drawer. Gabriel’s breath hitches when he sees what it tosses onto the bed.
‘It won’t fit.’
‘It will.’
‘Where did you even get that thing?’
‘V2 lent me hers.’
It savours his brief moment of panic.
‘Joking. That’s unsanitary.’
Gabriel watches as it tightens the straps in place around its legs. He tenses up when it approaches him, unwrapping the sheets that cover the lower half of his body.
‘Won’t hurt if you relax.’
It can hear his pulse quicken when it trails its fingers up his thighs. Gabriel looks away, wings fluttering nervously, but parts his legs nonetheless, a soft sound escaping him when V1 digs into the meat of his thigh, almost hard enough to draw blood.
‘To think you wanted to die thirty minutes ago.’ It goes to dip its fingers in but he grabs its wrist, wrenching its hand away. ‘What?’
‘I… have been thinking.’
V1 stops, sits back on his knees, and signs, ‘Can it wait?’
‘You called me a coward, too scared to take anything I truly wanted. It didn’t fully settle in until…’ He pretends to cough into his hand. ‘I was running. Easier to martyr myself and say I do not deserve atonement. It is more difficult, I think, to see the things I have done for what they are and reverse the harm I have caused.
‘If I die, even if I find the Ferryman, even if I give Sisyphus his fair fight, nothing will change. The Council will find a new blade, and the Ferryman will still be nowhere close to his salvation.’ He lies down fully, resolute gold colouring his halo. ‘I will face the violence I perpetuated. True justice. Not the escape of death.’
V1 crosses its arms, impressed. ‘This is the second time I’ve fingered some sense into you.’
Gabriel coughs again, looking away. ‘Epiphanies have been coming to me in strange ways as of late.’
‘Oh they won’t be the only thing coming.’ V1 flicks a loose thread off his stomach, reaching for one of his breasts.
He shifts in place, pressing his thighs together when it squeezes. V1 grabs his chin and forces him to look at it.
‘Thought patience was a virtue.’
‘Just… get started, will you.’
‘You aren’t such a coward after all, it seems.’
It stops, then pounces, its prey all-too-willing as he moans and spreads his legs wider.
i MUST reference closer at least once in this fic. sometimes the only thing stopping you from killing yourself is listening to music you enjoy or finding a game you want to play or getting into weirdly homoerotic fights with your not-bestie
also gabriel boobs send post