Chapter Text
V1 found itself beyond frustrated. It had gotten itself stupidly, stupidly attached. Ever since the two fought in Heresy, Gabriel had embedded himself deep within V1’s mechanical mind. His roots had twisted deep into the cracks in its programming, like a thorn, like a tumour. They had enjoyed fighting him. They had really, really enjoyed fighting him.
But it wasn’t just that. Its thoughts kept circling back to how it liked the way he carried himself, all gilded grace and sunshine. They liked the way his voice filled the silence, and how he wore all of his emotions on his sleeve. He was so warm. Everything about him was positively magnetic.
That delicious warmth, in particular, had captivated V1. It wanted to be closer to him. He was always beautiful; even when he lay defeated on the ground, chest smeared with the red of their shared vitality and with his blood coagulating beneath its hands. V1 had never admired an enemy like this before. This went against… everything it was built for.
A part of V1 wanted to slit open his belly and worm their way inside. It wondered if they could find a home there, nestled comfortably in between his ugly organs, surrounded by his blood, his bones, his everything. Would it be safe there? But no, that would be pushing too deep, too far. That would drain him until he had nothing left to give, and then he would turn cold and empty like countless others before him. V1 would be left alone again. It wasn’t sure when the idea of being alone had become a bad thing.
V1 let out an irritated beep as the fish in the lake eluded them once more. They seemed to taunt it, enticing flashes of silver just beyond its grasp. Obnoxious creatures. This was perhaps the most infuriating choice of a pastime it could have picked for this moment of introspection.
They had travelled to this peaceful little island in the Wrath layer to have some brief respite while they unravelled their thoughts. It truly was a beautiful place, perhaps the only sanctuary Hell had to offer. Light glistened on the surface of the lake and a gentle breeze caressed their cool plating. They abandoned their rod and leaned back on the yellow grass, gazing at the pale sunset as they contemplated.
For as long as V1 had existed, it had lived a lonely life. Their creators only cared for what it could do for them. It was a tool, a weapon, and nothing more. As the ages went by, it found itself lost and utterly alone. A slave to violence, whose only purpose was to kill in the name of creators who were dead and gone. The closest it ever had to family had been V2, but that bridge was long since burned. V1 would always mourn the ghost of what could have been.
If they were to see Gabriel again, they wanted to fight him. Fighting him was fun; a dissonant dance of metal and flesh. Nothing in all its many years had made it feel so alive, so imperfectly human. But it also didn’t want to hurt him, not anymore. These two conflicting desires sat utterly alien within V1’s thoughts.
When did it start having desires? For how long had it wanted to be more than what it was made for?
An alert sounded, informing it that its fuel levels were running low. They jolted out of their musings. Best to head out, then. They rose to their feet and grabbed the discarded fishing rod, returning it to where it belonged.
Gabriel lay inside the shattered wreckage of the city of Lust. Behind his helmet, his eyes stared off into the middle distance; transfixed on the swirling purple sky, but not really perceiving it. He was slumped uncomfortably up against a wall, stones digging into his skin. His body ached. In a fit of disgust he had torn his armour off, and now it lay discarded with his twin swords in an ungainly heap beside him. He didn’t deserve to bear them.
There was something quite poetic about a fallen angel being left to rot in a ruin of his own making. Oh, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. Of course he would fall here, of all places. The brave, kind ruler of this layer… he had been the first. King Minos had been selfless til the very end; all he had ever wanted was freedom for his fellow man. Gabriel had torn down all of his hard work in a heartbeat. How many others had he destroyed in the name of an absent creator, fueled by the Council’s manipulations? He had lost count.
And now, he has lost his purpose also. For as long as he had lived, he had been desperately clinging to an illusion. Knowing that all of that had been a lie, that all of the pain he caused was, ultimately, without meaning, left him… lost. It wasn’t in God’s name. He was not the Righteous Hand of the Father, and perhaps he never had been. He had been the Council’s puppet; a weapon wielded by the silver strings of clever lies. The only ‘purpose’ he had served had been perpetuating their tyranny.
Gabriel was the furthest thing from innocent. How could he be, when his hands had spilt as much blood as that accursed machine? Even now, the harsh stench of iron clung to his fingers and palms. Trying to wash it away had proved futile, and it stuck to his skin as an aching reminder of what he had done. He had been blinded by faith and hubris in equal measure, committing atrocity after atrocity in the name of a righteous cause. What a joke.
In the aftermath of his fight with the machine, he had come to a realisation. Fueled by this sudden clarity, Gabriel had cut down the corrupt Council of angels without mercy. This, at least, he did not regret. With gore dripping from his fingers and his strength fading fast, he had left heaven for the final time; streaking through the darkened sky like a shooting star. He had thought that he would burn up in the atmosphere as the last dwindling embers of the holy light finally died. Instead, he had crashed to the ground here, on illuminated wings that could hardly support his weight.
Far, far too many hours had passed since the light in his chest had been torn from him. His heart still beat, his lungs still breathed, his mind still raced. Gabriel was still alive; of this, there was no doubt. Why was he still alive? It seems that he could not even rely on the certainty of death.
He supposed he should be grateful for the machine, he mused. It was only because of them that he was able to break free from Heaven’s control. Because of them, the wool had been pulled from over his eyes and he saw clearly for the first time in his life. He wished he was able to hate them. Hating them had been so much easier.
The machine. V1. They were an enigma. Fighting with them had been exhilarating beyond anything he had ever experienced. He hadn’t even minded the part when it had pinned him to the cathedral floor and gorged itself on his blood like the savage animal it was. Which wow, okay, there was definitely something he needed to unpack there. He cut that train of thought off before it could progress too far. Another time, perhaps.
He wondered what it was doing right now. Probably off terrorising some other poor soul. Did the machine have other hobbies? He had never thought to ask. An angel of his status should not ask such things of a godless creature. Now, as a godless creature in his own right, Gabriel found himself wanting to see them again. Oh, Lord Almighty. How depraved had he become?
It appeared that its fellow machines did not know the meaning of the word “restraint”. There was hardly anything left to be salvaged from their ceaseless rampage through the upper layers. V1 trekked through the city of Lust’s remains, scavenging for any signs of life. Stained by the illumination of an amethyst sky, its blue plating appeared a dark indigo. Metal clanked harshly as it came into contact with the stony ground, littered with rubble from what had probably been buildings. They could almost taste the blood lingering in the air.
Aware that they were making no progress, V1 decided to dial up its senses to the maximum. All of a sudden, the machine was able to make out a faint sound. A whisper of a breath was carried on the chilly wind, delicate as a feather. So it wasn’t alone, after all. It jogged around the corner of a structure and saw… oh. Now that was unexpected.
Gabriel lay upon the stones and bricks, broken and beautiful. Something about this was terribly, achingly wrong. Gabriel was supposed to burn bright and passionate as a star in the sky, haughty and visceral and terrifying. Now, he looked so… despondent. So lost.
V1 wanted to fight him again, but not like this. They stowed away their weapon, hoping that would be enough to inform him that they were not a threat, at least not today. Fighting Gabriel was fun because he put his everything into their battles. All his strength and his training and his raw, burning emotions. It felt like V1 finally had an equal match, somebody it could take seriously. A strange feeling swelled within their artificial chest, a feeling that felt alarmingly close to concern. It wasn’t supposed to want him.
“Come to mock me, have you?” His voice startled it out of its thoughts. He had it all wrong, they didn’t want that at all. They frantically shook their head and raised all four arms in a gesture of surrender, hoping that was enough to get the message enough. Gabriel seemed perplexed by this reaction, shifting his body to a more upright position. That was good, he looked properly alert now. And he hadn’t reached for his swords, also a good sign.
“Then what is it that you want from me?” There was an accusation in his voice.
Figuring it was best to be honest, V1 raised two of its hands to clarify, signing the words “I want to talk with you.”
Observing the motions of their hands, he quietly remarked, “Huh, I didn’t know you could do that.” Luckily, it seemed like he understood every word V1 wished to speak. He hesitated, before continuing, “Very well then, machine.”
They studied his behaviour, careful not to alarm him. Now with his permission, they took several steps closer. When it had deemed that he was comfortable with its presence, it settled on the ground at his side. From where they were sitting, they could feel warmth radiating from his skin. More . It wanted more. It wanted to press its cold body against his warm one. It wanted to trace its digits along his collarbone and the golden scars on his chest. It wanted to stay with him until it had committed every detail of him to memory.
As much as they wished to be closer to him, they were careful not to push him. V1 may be a warborn machine, but at the very least they knew how important personal boundaries were.
The silence stretched between the two as neither said a word. V1 tilted its head upwards to look at its unlikely companion. Gabriel’s body language was unreadable. His shaky inhale ruptured the fragile quiet of the cold night air. He began to speak again, slowly, uncertainly.
“I’m supposed to be dead right now. I’m not sure why I’m not.” He fell silent again.
V1 did not know how to respond. They had never seen another person like this before, in such a state of vulnerability. They were not built to comfort.
Within the plastic machinations of its mind swirled emotions it found difficult to quantify, let alone put into words.
Eventually, it settled on “I’m happy you aren’t dead.” A little crude, but it got their point across. He scoffed and turned his head away from them.
Even now, Gabriel was unspeakably beautiful. He was a perfect picture of shattered divinity. V1 wondered if this was the way its sibling had felt towards humanity. An affection that drove them to protect, to care for.
V1 reached over and tapped gently on his knee. When he looked back at them, they signed, “You have something on your mind.” At their words, Gabriel let out a long sigh, his body filled with weariness that extended deeper than his bones.
“I have utterly lost my purpose, machine,” came his answer. After a silence that lingered for just enough time to become unbearable, he continued speaking. “For as long as I have been alive, I have been serving a lie. God is dead, or absent, I don’t know which option is worse. The Council are tyrants; false prophets, and I believed them blindly. All of the people I have hurt, the precious lives my blades cut short, none of it, none of it had meaning. I truly thought I was doing the right thing.” Gabriel’s regret clung thick as tar to his every word. “I am so, so stupid.” He looked on the verge of breaking.
V1 slid one of its arms across the ground until it could hesitantly poke at Gabriel’s hand with its own. When he didn’t reject the contact, it pressed its palm to his and laced their fingers together. His hand was much larger; they did not fit together evenly.
V1 heard another scoff and a muttered “I don’t need your pity” from the space next to them.
Using a different hand to speak this time, V1 told him its thoughts.
“This isn’t pity, this is understanding.” A truth for a truth. “I am a soldier. A slave the humans created to do their dirty work for them. The creators I was forged to serve are long dead.”
It glanced up at Gabriel. “Now, I have no purpose, and all I can do is survive. My very nature means that all I can do is hurt people. That never used to bother me, but now I want to be more than that. It is the one thing I want most.”
Their hands shook; they took a moment to calm themself and then continued. “What I’m trying to say is that I know what it feels like to not live or think for yourself. To be a tool of somebody else. But you can break free of that.”
As it finished saying its piece, Gabriel’s breath hitched. The quiet, strangled sound of words too difficult to speak. Between the two, so many things were left unsaid. But it understood him, through the way his hand gently squeezed on theirs. I see you. I hear you.
V1’s thumb traced comforting lines into Gabriel’s skin. The warmth from his palm bled into their cold metal body. It could feel his pulse.
With its mechanical heart feeling full to bursting with… some sort of emotion, V1 confided in their angel.
“I do not want to hurt you. I do not want to be your enemy.”
“That we have in common.” There was the beginning of a smile in Gabriel’s voice.
“Do you think we could learn to trust each other?”
“...I think we could. I want to.”
With Gabriel’s confession, V1 scooted closer, testing the waters. Perhaps a little awkwardly, the angel’s arm wrapped around their shoulder and pulled them close to him. Warm . It splayed its fingers over his ribs, feeling the way his chest expanded and contracted with every breath. Bodies pressed together like this, they realised how tiny they were in comparison to him. They didn’t mind. V1 basked in his warmth, memorising the rhythm of his heartbeat. A low mechanical purr resonated from deep within its chest. It felt safe.
Gentle words spoken by their angel ghosted by their sensors like a kiss. “Thank you, V1. For listening to me, and for sharing a piece of yourself with me.” Gabriel chuckled when they gave him a thumbs up in response.
He curled his wings, burning vibrant blue and searing gold, around both of them. They were enveloped, like a cocoon. V1 was tucked snuggly against his chest, utterly relaxed as soft fingers traced the lines between its plating.
After some time, V1 had fallen still. The light of its optic had dimmed, along with the blades of its wings. Gabriel assumed it was in a state similar to sleep. How curious, that humans would program a machine with such similarities to themselves. Maybe it was out of sentimentality. Did V1 dream? What did they dream of? It looked like a peaceful dream, whatever it was.
With his companion recharging, there was nobody around to hear him cry. Once the tears started falling, he couldn’t stop them. How long had he been repressing this? His body shook with silent sobs. Tears snaked lines down his skin and the inside of his helmet. It was cathartic.
The weight of the machine’s body was grounding. If only the Council could see him now, finding solace in the arms of an enemy. No, not an enemy. Not anymore.
Previously, ‘V1’ and ‘gentle’ were two contradictory terms. He had expected the machine to tear him open in his current state, like he was just another husk that roamed these haunted halls. Maybe they should have. He wouldn’t have fought back. But that isn’t how it went.
Instead, V1 had approached him carefully, like he was a frightened animal. They had kept their claws sheathed and sat by his side. Listened to him. Held his hand when the words became too hard. He didn’t deserve any of this.
They had eagerly embraced him and all of his sins. And now, they were curled around him like he was something precious. Gabriel didn’t know what to say. How could they stand to touch him? He was disgusting.
He had never considered that he and the machine could have such striking similarities. Like two sides of the same coin; both devoted soldiers who had been instruments of untold destruction in the name of their creators. Doing the dirty work .
V1’s confessional words lingered inside his tormented mind. I know what it feels like to not live or think for yourself. You can break free of that . Gabriel hoped with all his sickening existence that this was true. It was difficult to believe that a person like him could ever be redeemed, not when the harm he had caused clung to his back like a brand.
No matter how hard he agonised over the past, it was unchangeable. Set in stone. As such, he decided to look at things from a different angle. For the second time in such a short span, he was struck by a sudden clarity. For centuries, Gabriel had shouldered the overwhelming weight of Heaven’s threats and expectations. With that burden gone, his life was his own now. And maybe in time, he could do something good with it. V1 seemed to think that he could.
Gabriel began to consider his options. He was still alive. Neither the corrupt Council of Heaven nor the lie of God’s plan will ever control his life or choices again. From here, he saw many different paths he could take, branching off like the forks of a vast river. Nobody else would decide the road he would tread. That was up to him now.
Where before he felt lost, now he felt… calm. Maybe even hopeful. A hope that he could make peace with his own actions and work towards being someone worthy of redemption. His breathing slowed as his tears dried uncomfortably on his skin. With the starless sky as his witness, the angel pledged that he would never again live his life blindly.
Gabriel considered his companion in the dark, admiring the way it had absorbed the warmth from his body at every point of contact. He wanted to be selfish, if V1 would let him. He wanted to stay with them, to understand them. They were such a little thing, truly, and yet they had shaken the foundations of his whole world. He held them like a lover would.
Listening to the soft whirring sounds of the machine’s internal workings, Gabriel’s heart burned with an affection he did not have the words for. It was obvious, now, how much he cared for them. Why hadn’t he been able to see that before?
Thank you so much, V1, for helping change my perspective.