Work Text:
Deep down in the bowels of profanity where even those long-dead go to die, life finds a way to sully the unhallowed grounds tucked away from the eyes of all others. Grinding metal in a cold blue shell, sitting atop the spires of Hell's deepest, darkest layer, idly flipping a coin in imperfect tune with the endless song humming inside.
The scratched and faded hull said V1, but who was around to read it? Glowing yellow, a mockery of an eye, stared across the blood-splattered grounds like a tiny spotlight. The wet gore shimmered beneath the lenslight, stuck to the walls like tapestries of flesh. Stone crumbled and fell into nothing, islands chained together, the ramshackle facsimile of the final layer, all empty and falling apart like the rest of Hell.
Suddenly, warmth. A flash of light stretched high, golden brilliance, the last its creator would ever shine. The angel Gabriel, fallen from heaven for the last time. He descended on his flickering wings to the machine's side. He himself was bathed in blood, red liquid and organs splashed across the once holy armor. The spiked halo hovering above his head split and shattered.
The two living creatures, the angel and the machine, fell upon each other. Flesh and steel intertwined in a messy, passionate dance. All rationale abandoned, the two simply had to be near each other, touch each other, become one with each other. Gabriel's armor broke to pieces with his remnants of God's light. The frigid winds didn't feel so cold when they were together. Sharp-edged metal felt soft to the fallen angel, as did hard, stiff muscle to the machine.
Faint traces of divine blood seeped into the frostbitten ground. Choked, soft laughter echoed from Gabriel's throat, rising forth like steam from water, the noise clearly struggling and half-dead. The machine whirred, it couldn't speak any words of comfort. But that didn't matter to them, the soft tink of their metallic heads together said more than words could ever hope to. Half of Gabriel's helmet fell at this, clattering to the ground, the light gone from its brushed metal. His lips pressed against the robot's lens. It pushed its head forward in turn. The two sat there, sharing a strange, incorrect kiss, deep in the farthest reaches of Hell for what they wished were an eternity.
But as with all things, it came to an end. The former angel's breath hitched. The last of his light, the Father's light, wiped from his body by the simple passage of time. He clutched hard against the wires and steel. His fire went cold, and his gold-covered eyes became dark. The last of his blood dripped into the blue-painted machine's circuitry. Gabriel died, perfectly calm, held tight in the arms of the one being he loved.
Its light flickered. A set of lines ran down its HUD, commands and directories. Its body began to fall rigid as it prepared to die in the arms of its lover. Lens nearly off, it saw one last text run down its digital vision, four sentences that it knew it would see eventually, but never expected so soon. It shut its lens.
ALL LIFEFORMS ARE DEAD.
FUEL RUNNING LOW.
HELL IS EMPTY.
SHUTTING DOWN…
And with the very last spark fizzled out, the bloodstained halls of the cosmos could at last fall silent.
