#This had no planning the beggining words just beamed into my brain

[one-letter-virus]

A showdown cut short

Blacked out for 4 hours and there was suddenly a Gabv1el in my windows notes. Enjoy. Nothing suggestive, fluff, themes of death. No beta we die like the council. ₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

The archangel screamed as he fell.

Screamed as his body suddenly dropped like a rock, and quited as a jagged ice shelf knocked the air out of him on his descent.

His body landed below with an unceremonious thud. He knew it was coming, of course he knew he had limited time. That’s why he was battling the infernal machine, taunting –no, begging- for it to strike all the fire into his dying coil one more time. He wanted to leave on one satisfying final note, a gunshot singing him into the void.

Instead he now laid uselessly in the snow, halo and wings gone along with his power to do anything but wait for it’s vulture and saviour to arrive. Atleast it was quick. Reliable as allways.

Even amidst the howling winds of treachery, the symphony of mechanical clicks and whines was unmistakeable to Gabriel, as it skidded to a sudden halt upon reaching it’s destination, dousing Gabriel in the process with kicked up snow.

Gabriel couldn’t find the energy to even wince at that.

Instead he shifts, trying to find the Machine’s cyclopian gaze, then clings to it as the yellow light of his lighthouse penetrates through the curtain of falling snow.

It wasn’t even pointing any of it’s guns at him. It must have known, that in the flurry of their fight it was not it’s own blow to have felled the angel. Then, it must now know that drawing any weapon was unneceseary. „This is it then.”

He laughs weakly after a pause.

„This is dissapointing for to me too, you know.” He makes an attempt at sitting up, straining all of his quickly dissipating energy to get on all fours. The highest dignity he can offer himself is to stand like an animal. Shakily at that too. How humiliating.

Then, mechanical hands carress and reach under his arms, and the machine gently helps him up into a sit, supporting his weight by letting him lean against it’s frame and holding his head as it rests on one of it’s shoulders.

Gabriel finds himself awing at the springs and joints visible up close at it’s neck, ever so slightly moving even at rest, subtletly he had thought to be only possible to the fully organic. And the machine is deceptively warm too, and Gabriel shivers now that it finally registers how cold he is without his light. He greedily soaks up the warmth now surrounding him, hoping it takes a little while before the machine’s coolers really kick in.

„Thank you Machine.” He sighs.

„For everything. For… opening my eyes and making me feel truly alive, to whatever you are now doing.” Comfort. It was comforting him.

„Hah… what even compells a machine like you to hold an enemy like you do now?”

The machine doesn’t answer. As expected.

„Is there a reason you are denying me answers on my deathbed Machine?”

The Machine still doesn’t answer, but tightens it’s grip on Gabriel. Something clicks in it’s chest. Then it clicks again, and again untill it breaks into a high pitched screech like air forced through pipes. It has to be the most miserable sound Gabriel has heard in a while.

„Stop that insufferable sound you metallic bastard, I’m trying not to go deaf in my last minutes” He huffs, and the high pitched noise stops. The way it’s camera now droops down to the side makes it’s sadness clear. Gabriel reaches out an unsteady hand, cupping it’s camera in it’s palm like a head, gently trailing a thumb across it’s lens.

„You were created voiceless, weren’t you?” He asks as the machine presses it’s camera deeper into his hand. For a war machine, it sure seemed like it could be very affectionate. But then, out of the two of them, it wasn’t the one to deviate most from it’s intended purpose.

It seems to ponder for a moment, then uses one of it’s mismatched hands to point at a small dent in it’s chest. It takes a while for Gabriel to put two and two together.

„Foolish machine. You removed a feature of yourself without realizing the loss. What even prompted you to do such toughtless thing?”

Gabriel hisses as the machine pushes it’s camera suddenly hard enough against his hand that the edges of it’s plating creates a cut, and a few drops of blood trickles out. Normally such minor injury would have closed up again near instantenously, but of course he needs a sweet reminder of his vaning strength.

It points with the clawed red arm at the small wound.

„Huh? Blood? You… removed it for fuel reasons?” He recieves an affirmative nod.

„Was it worth it?” The machine stares at him for a long while then slowly shakes it’s head- really, it’s akwardly gyrating it’s camera from side to side in a deliberate arc.

A painfull flash in his chest causes him to hiss, a reminder of his time coming soon to an end. Thankfully the sensation seems to ebb quickly. Or, he’s simply too distracted now by a machine shoving it’s tubular head into his neck right under his chin. The force behind the aggresive nuzzling is enough to draw a couple of giggles from Gabriel without any edges scraping him. As it finally slots in, Gabriel’s previously outstretched hand falls on the machine’s back, resting between it’s wings.

He decides to gently pet it. The Machine’s wings twitch in response, and it’s hold relaxes then hurriedly tightens again to not loose balance.

Gabriel experimentally moves onto one of the wing blades itself. He hesitates with how close his hand falls to one of the Machine’s stored weaponry. The machine must have been aware how easily he could now grab it and use it's own arsenal against it.

But instead of being issued any warnings, something inside the machine kicks off at the touch, and starts producing a low rumbling, purring sound. It seems to practically melt as he tenderly draws his fingers across it’s magnetic surface.

It’s at the same time that Gabriel feels fascination at experiencing the machine’s anatomy like never possible before, the bittersweet realization that the machine only allows him to handle it’s weapon storage because he’s actively dying and incapable of posing a threat, and the awe over the machine acting in a frankly adorable way at his clumsy petting.

The low rythmic purring continues as the machine moves one of its many arms to reciprocate the gesture. Gabriel’s breath hitches in his throat as fingers graze the exposed skin at his waist, and crawls upwards along his spine in under his armour. He draws the machine even closer as he can feel it’s hand leave to curiously fiddle at straps keeping the piece secured on his body. It’s not like he will ever need it’s hard protection ever again.

Gabriel finds himself wondering for a split second why or how the Machine could possibly do all this for him, and then he quickly finds that it doesn’t matter now, only that it simply does- it couldn’t answer him anyways even if it wanted to.

He lets the pleasant sensation completly wash over his psyche as the machine has finally loosened the piece enough to push it’s blue hand between his shoulder blades.

Even if fate had denied Gabriel the pleasure of ending his life in blisfull ectasy as his insides gets shot out in a beutiful rainbow of viscera, he had in the end found a worthy alternative.