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The sun streams through an old library in dozens of punctures in the roof, like pinholes. Gabriel, hovering inches from the roof, puts a hand out and catches a sliver of light in his gloved palm. Beautiful, he thinks, if one ignores that the "pinholes" are bullet-sized.
He glides back to the ground. Gently-flapping wings disturb debris on the floor as he touches down, tucking a small collection of books under his arm. Idly, he glances to a nearby shelf and notices he nearly matches its height. Angels were not meant for human structures, he realizes.
It’s a miracle that this Earth library was even partially intact, though Gabriel could not help some sadness that not every book was spared. He looks at the edge of what remains. The blackened end of the intact walls formed a half-circle, too clean, as if something cut through with a hot knife - or an enormous beam. If the fact that the diagonal half of an entire building is gone, evaporated from existence, didn’t tell a story, the vertically bisected bones on the edge spoke it loud enough.
All the more reason Gabriel wants to cherish what remains. He liked to read, usually in the rare moments he had between duties. Heaven had material beyond the Good Book, of course - plenty of great authors came to Heaven - but since his supposed death sentence...well. At least it gave him time to try new things.
Tucking his wings in, he walks through the rows to see V1 in some sort of reading nook by a wall of books. They pull one off a shelf and hold it sideways, flicking through the pages from beginning to end in one single motion. Their eye flicks rapidly from page to page in nanoseconds. Their fingers, sticky with stale blood (sourced from a barely-healed score in Gabriel’s side), stain the paper. As quickly as it happens they scan, process, then toss the book over their shoulder toward a small, haphazard pile they created.
Gabriel catches it with a huff.
"Mistreating books is not a sin, machine, but it should be."
As if sin matters now given everything that happened between them, the relationship they had now. But old habits die hard. V1 swivels their neck over their shoulder to look at him.
"V1, what are you doing?" Gabriel says with incredulity. "Are you...reading?"
V1 nods and holds up a finger. They grab another book from the edge of a "hole" they’ve made in the middle of the packed wall. Gabriel’s hands were too full to stop them, the machine’s bloody fingers smear the dust jacket and open to the middle of the book. Like before, the dot in the center of their optic sweeps through each word, snaps to each line, and then—
"SCANNED," they say, signing with their other two hands. "UNIQUE PASSAGE FOUND. REMAINING TEXT IRRELEVANT."
V1 taps at whatever "unique" thing they found, pressing more sticky red into the paper. They nod up towards the angel and push the book at him with a robotic chirp, insistent and self-congratulatory. Gabriel blinks behind his helm.
"Irrele—... Irrelevant to what? You looked at two pages!" His voice rises to something incensed. "That’s not reading."
V1’s head tilts back in surprise. They lower the book and sign again, faster, annoyed to have to explain it further.
"PRIMARY INFO," they argue, tapping again. "REMAINDER NONESSENTIAL."
"Books are meant to be read, machine. Not scanned. Slowly. Or at least...slower. Savored word for word. Here—"
Gabriel takes the book out of their hands and sets it - and his own collection - aside. He takes a nearby cloth, a rag he used to clean himself earlier, and takes V1’s hand. Laying it palm-up atop his own, he carefully wipes each finger with a methodical touch. He cleaned his own armor like this, V1 recalls, having watched him polish each nook and crevice despite knowing it would only be tarnished again. Comparing themselves to a metal shell should be insulting, or at least irrelevant, and yet - having that same care put towards them is...nice. V1 watches his hands for a while before glancing up at the angel, who glances back with a quiet scoff.
"For starters, one should keep a book as pristine as possible," he says, letting go. The indignance in his voice is gone. "Now. Pick something."
V1 blinks again. Their head swivels toward the shelves. A clean hand hovers over each individual spine in thought. Then, they take one out. A small, thick novel. Gabriel pulls it from their hand and turns it over.
"Mm. You WOULD gravitate toward this human," he says with cautious interest. "Alright, then."
V1 tilts their head and reaches out to take the book back - until Gabriel turns and walks away.
"Come."
The machine stares. Then, their optic narrows. They follow behind and reach up to snatch the book. Gabriel, quicker, raises it above his head without even looking. V1 could easily jump and match his height - but they get an idea.
They step out in front of him. Standing directly in the angel’s path, wings flared out to ensure they block his way. What they don’t expect, though, is for Gabriel to scoop the machine up by the arms, lift them, and put them down out of his way. It’s quick. It’s casual. It reminds V1 their lightweight frame WOULD be easy enough to lift, and the thought irritates them.
He continues on. V1 blinks, stunned, and pushes their fans to a quiet whine of annoyance.
But they relent, and follow Gabriel to a cheap, puffy couch. It’s a loveseat, the upholstery torn and full of holes. Gabriel sits - and quickly realizes his long legs spill over, the couch clearly too small for him. He sighs, then shifts to sit on the floor in front of it. V1, though much more human-sized than Gabriel, opts to do the same, and sits cross-legged next to him.
"Let’s at least see if it’s interesting..." Gabriel opens it midway, and skims through a random paragraph. "...Oh. This is quite violent."
V1 perks. They nudge him, insistent. Gabriel glances at the machine, then sighs and leans against the cheap couch with a murmur of 'of course.' He starts to read.
"It splattered the wall. He heard the blade squeal against bone as she wrenched it free. He looked unbelievingly down at himself. The sheet was turning red. He saw his toes wriggling. Then he saw her raising the dripping axe again. Her hair had fallen free of its pins and hung around her blank face."
Gabriel hums, considering the last sentence - and notices V1 staring at his ankle.
"My foot wouldn’t grow back, if that’s what you’re imagining," Gabriel says mildly. "So don’t."
Looking directly at him, V1 flattens their hand into an "axe" and raises it above the ankle, miming a chopping motion.
"I said don’t."
V1 throws him a cheeky look - amazing, the expressions they can make with one eye. Gabriel shakes his head and continues.
"He tried to pull back in spite of the pain in his leg and knee and realized that his leg was moving but his foot wasn’t. All he was doing was widening the axe-slash, making it open like a mouth. He had time enough to realize his foot was now only held on his leg by the meat of his calf before the blade came down again, directly into the gash, shearing through the rest of his leg and burying itself deep in the mattress."
Gabriel brings the book down again to find the machine leaned in close despite their antics moments ago. Their head and shoulders lift, blinking, as if snapped out of a trance.
"Ah." There’s a smile in his voice. "You like it?"
They quickly nod.
"I’ll admit, the writing is succinctly...horrific. And now I want to know how it happened. Let’s start from the beginning."
And so they do. They start at page one. A car accident. The man, foot still intact, is pulled out by the blank woman who, for now, is unsettlingly cheerful. Gabriel reads aloud for hours - longer than most would. Neither angel nor machine needed sleep - though Gabriel’s voice eventually wore out by the time they reached the moment with the axe. As he continued, though, V1 settled against his side. Their head on his shoulder, fingers curling around his, optic drifting - staring at nothing in particular as they listened. Still. Quiet, save for their spinning fans.
It’s one of the few times Gabriel had seen them so calm.
At a point, they fidget. Taking Gabriel’s free hand onto theirs, palm-up atop their own, they play with his fingers. Drifting between digits, gingerly bending them open and closed. Eventually working off his gauntlet and pushing into the soft of his palm, inadvertently massaging his hand.
Or maybe it’s deliberate. Despite the violent story - despite all V1’s violence - they're quiet. Tranquil. Gabriel knew they were capable of being gentle - when they wanted to be. As he stops for a break, he curls his fingers around theirs.
"You’re not usually this still."
V1 looks up at him and tilts their head, confused by the remark.
"I meant no offense, I’m just...not used to it," he chuckles. "Were you ever able to have moments like this before? Quiet times, I mean."
They pause. They look down and count on a few free hands. One, two, four...six.
"Six times?" Gabriel says. "Rare enough to count on...some hands, then."
"NEVER SAFE."
Gabriel pauses. He glances at the skeleton, caught in a blast and cut in half, in the distance.
Right.
"I see," he says, opting to ignore the implications for now. He knew the violence of what happened here - and the violence of machines - well enough. "But you're safe here. So what do you think?"
V1 seems to hesitate at that. Safe here. They never thought of it before, not concretely - but with Gabriel, and without the threat of other machines - yes. For the most part, they feel safe with him. It's...
"DIFFERENT," they finally answer.
"I think I know the feeling. Somewhat." Gabriel sets the book aside. He slips an arm behind V1, settling on the couch cushions, and offers his other hand for them to toy with. They do so, pulling off his remaining gauntlet and massaging between his fingers. "It wasn’t always dangerous, but duty kept me busy. In the few times I had to myself, I realized I was...tired. And yet the thought of being still just irritated me, which only made me more tired. But...well. All this to say, I can appreciate these moments now. I hope you like it too."
V1 settles further against him, Gabriel’s shift allowing them to lean on his chest. They don’t answer, but the angel assumes that’s a "yes" all the same. They gesture at the book.
"You want me to read more?"
A nod. The angel chuckles. He’d let V1 read it on their own now - his "lesson" seemed to go over well - but he had to admit, the story had him just as eager, and he wanted to continue with them.
"Let me rest my voice a while, and we can."