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“You need a bath.”
Its head whipped up from where it was busy settled on the cold floor of Lust’s barren pathing. It had its hand buried to the wrist in an unintelligible mesh of red flesh. Whatever it was doing was swiftly abandoned in favour of twitching it's wings irritably and glaring at V2 the best that it possibly could.
He was leaning on a towering wall beside it, his own wings tucked to his spine. A quick glimpse around told it that Gabriel was nowhere in sight. Its legs folded beneath it and it's wings flared out in preparation to retreat from the misery it knew was coming. Perhaps if Gabriel were there, it would have been more compliant.
It knew itself well enough to be aware that was a ridiculous assumption.
Its defiant stare was met with an exasperated sigh. “You reek , Ones. No way in Hell am I letting you around Gabe like that.”
It heavily considered reaching for one of the multitude of guns stored in its wing pack. Instead, it readied its whiplash and scoured the terrain for a swift escape. V2 tensed, his own wings lifting from his spine as he prepared to chase it. It would have to be quick, quicker than he expected it to be. Luckily, speed was its strongest suit.
The whiplash connected to a wall in the distance with a sharp snap , and then it was lifting off of the ground. It tucked its limbs and wings in and waited as the air tightened and the world around it blurred. It could no longer see V2 when it turned its head to look, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. It was very likely that he was chasing it somewhere out of sight.
As soon as the soles of its feet connected with the concrete of the towering building, something slammed into its back. A hand shoved against the middle of its back, between its shoulder plates. It writhed and squirmed, and V2 shifted so that he could dig his elbow into its back and use the other hand to hold its waist still. Its wings had no choice but to be pressed against its back, and as such, it could not reliably reach behind itself for a gun.
“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,” V2 hissed.
The deep red hand of its knuckleblaster clenched into a fist and it readied itself for the impact of the shotgun shells combusting within. V2 yelled, agitated and surprised, as he was knocked from his perch and sent into the depths of the city below it. Its wings twitched, amused, and it shifted to grasp onto the side of the building more reliably. While he was occupied with saving himself from falling, it could retreat where he would not be able to find it again.
Its plan was foiled the second that it clambered on top of the tower. Gabriel stood there, holding a furious V2 by the joint of his neck a safe distance from his chest. It crouched close to the ground and pressed its wings to its spine. It really did not want a bath, but it was severely outnumbered by opponents of equal strength. As subtly as possible, it backed up and attempted to scan for any retreat.
Nothing.
It would have to brute force this. That was fine, it was used to brute force.
Gabriel grunted as its fist connected with his stomach. V2’s feet hit the ground with a thud, and he was right back to moving.
—
Its arms crossed firmly over its chest as it was dropped unceremoniously into a bathtub full of water. Gabriel had his hands on it at all time, while V2 stood at the closed and locked door of the bathroom with his arms over his chest and his wings flared. He remained as alert as possible, truly committed to his old, planned role as a security bot. It tried not to let the sour feeling in its processors fester.
The water had already begun to turn red after only a few seconds. It shifted as if to ease the unpleasant feeling of its body soaking. Gabriel sighed softly and leaned against the edge of the tub. His touch remained gentle, never once prying beneath its external plating. It felt… odd. Had it ever been touched so gently without the context of primal pleasure rolling over it in waves? Had it ever experienced intimacy like this in any capacity at all?
Its wings twitched. It wasn't quite sure what to do with itself.
His hands rubbed over its back, splashing warm water over its wings without making any direct contact. It raised a wing every so often to make his task easier but otherwise did not budge. The water only continued to get redder and redder the more time that it spent submerged, and agitation flitted through it stubbornly. All of that blood that had dried and been unable to absorb was a waste of fuel. It was no longer fresh enough to be used, either. Tainted with oxygen and other external nuisances.
“Lean your head back,” Gabriel commanded, pausing only long enough for it to oblige.
Water washed over its neck. Gabriel made a noise as something dislodged from its metal and fell into the water with a splat , and somewhere behind him V2 laughed.
“Yeah, you’ll want to really get in its joints. Its not just blood that's making it stink.”
It had the feeling that Gabriel was scowling somewhere beneath his helmet. “Get over here and help me, then. We can't be here all night.”
V2 shook his head. Its wings twitched, annoyed, and it eyed the collection of guns resting on the floor by the door. It had been reluctant to let them go when it was first trapped in the bathroom, but it wound up without much of a choice. The guns were not all waterproof like it was, and it did desperately need its wings cleaned. Unfortunately.
“I have to keep the door guarded,” V2’s amusement shone clear in his voice.
Both it and Gabriel stared at him until he budged. He crouched at the edge of the tub and grabbed it by the wrist of its gun arm. He extended the arm and splashed water over it. Another unidentifiable piece of gore dropped from its elbow joint into the water, and Gabriel cleared his throat in a poor attempt to conceal his disgust at the sight.
V2 made a noise meant to mimic an amused snort. “Don’t you have an absurdly high death count for a heroic, virtuous angel, Gabe? You'd think you could handle a bit of gore.”
Gabriel shifted his weight. “This is different.”
“Sure it is,” V2 remarked, “You’re just cleaning someone else of it this time instead of yourself. Very different.”
It reached across the space between them to hit V2 in the chest with its knuckleblaster. He responded by yanking its arm hard enough to creak. It hit him again and their scuffle continued with a steadily increase in severity until it nearly launched itself from the tub to mangle him. Water splashed over the sides and onto the tiled flooring.
“Will you two cut it out?” Gabriel snapped, grabbing ahold of it by the shoulder to keep it from being able to launch itself properly. “Seriously. Its like dealing with wild animals.”
V2 made a series of beeps that it recognized as a very eloquent phrasing of ‘lame boring asshole’, and it buzzed its agreement in return. Gabriel didn't even bother attempting to question their secret communication. He had spent enough time around them by then to be well aware of the fact that the answers were never worth his curiosity. Instead, he only focused even more on his task.
By the time they were done, the water was barely water anymore. It clambered out of the tub and shook off each limb one by one, watching cautiously as the murky red liquid threatened to spill over the sides of the tub once more. While it supposed that most would consider it clean and be relieved at the feeling, it found itself uncomfortable without its joints mucked up with gore.
It would simply have to retreat into the more crowded layers of Hell later to fix that sensation. For now, though, it packed its guns back up and allowed the continued bickering between Gabriel and V2 to fade into the background of its sensors. The bath wasn't as terrible as it could have been, though it did find itself wondering how humans did that as a daily ritual.
It would still continue to fight the mere concept of receiving one for the rest of its life, and that was for certain.