Blush Fog
They've repeated these steps of greedy hands, dancing hips, and razor-thin talons raking down his flesh many times over now. It's the prelude to a symphony, one where they play him like an instrument and watch as he falls apart to the tuneless song of pleasure.
Up until now, every single one of their sinful trysts had always followed on the heels of an especially intense spar. Blades and bullets acted as foreplay; pain and mania tempered so easily into lust. There remain no other inhabitants on this empty, empty world to hear his shameless, rapturous cries, echoing across the artificial gullies and plastic streets. After carnal desire gave way to aching muscles and bone-deep relief, they would simply part ways.
And Gabriel had found himself content with this arrangement. The agony of wounds and the sins of the flesh melded together into white-hot ecstasy, spurned on by adrenaline both chemical and artificial. It satisfied both V1's need for bloodshed and Gabriel's passion for struggle. Sordid pleasure afterwards acted like a balm for his battered body and soul, allowing him to return to his self-appointed tasks with a clear head and want for nothing else, other than perhaps a quick rinse in the First Sphere's only river, and a good book after the sun went down.
But this?
This is nothing like any of those prior encounters. Grayling light bleeds through the wide windows, dappled with a racket of rain slashing upon the fading glass, and falls softly upon shifting metal and rustling cloth. V1 is hastily relinquishing him of his remaining armor, but they deign this time to strip him entirely, rather than simply removing what's in the way. He's comfortable; instead of smashed concrete or shattered acrylic beneath his bare back, downy sheets stretch in all directions.
Gabriel's hands clutch at the blankets below, anticipation igniting warm coals in the pit of his stomach. It's hardly been four months since the tentative beginnings of their sordid arrangement, but these past weeks of bitter distance, centuries-long exhaustion, and frugal contact have left him hungering like it had been an entire lifetime. The more golden steel is stripped away from his body and discarded somewhere beyond the borders of this cotton island, the more it threatens to consume him.
But just as flames finally begin to blossom across his nerves, right when their hands land upon his belt, V1 comes to a sudden stop.
His voice can't quite catch up to his brain, so his verbal response to this development only manifests as a lowly whine. With no memory of having ever closed them, Gabriel opens all his eyes.
And he finds that there's a subtle, inquisitive tilt to their conical head; the tell-tale precursor to their endless sense of curiosity. They stare down at his buckle, and a single finger taps a restless rhythm against the glimmering metal.
"Machine?" He manages, though that term has only ever come up in battle, these limitless summer days. V1 starts, as if snapping out of deep thought. Their dimmed optic light glides up to his helm, staring at him with that inscrutable expression for just a beat longer.
As a follow-up question at last rolls to the tip of his tongue, V1's hands lift away from the remaining barriers of his modesty.
Metal fingers alight at the tops of either of his wrists, wrap carefully around their width, and bring his palms to curl around the gaps between their pelvic plate and upper thighs. There they are left to rest, and Gabriel is, perhaps quite contrary to their intended effect, struck breathless by their display of certitude. At the same time, something ignites within him as he registers how easily his hands engulf their segmented hips.
"You--you are allowing me to... ?" He asks, unable to veil the awe in his tone. "Are you sure?"
V1 nods in unabashed encouragement, wings flicking once before settling at a downward angle. Their topmost blade sits just at the end of his arms length, and Gabriel wonders, with a heated jolt, if they've put thought into this particular scenario before.
Far from one to deny either of them a learning experience, the archangel obliges their wordless request.
He starts by trailing down their legs, at first to simply gather his nerves, but even then the motions coax subtle shivers down their frame. They're warm to the touch, like always. But he revels in its glow, now; in this trust that they've fostered over weeks of silent company and misplaced anger and careful reconciliation.
With this in mind, Gabriel lets his hands stray higher, one taking the span of their waist in his hand. The other draws closer to the nearest hardlight wing. In all their sparring, he's never quite been able to prevent them from reaching their portable arsenal, let alone disarm them entirely. It certainly twitches quite a bit as his fingers near their destination, as if fighting off hard-ingrained instinct, but at last, those elusive targets are within reach.
The surface hums beneath his fingertips at first contact, and it burns much warmer than the parts of them that can drink blood. He traces the outline of their pistol, visible beneath the half-there, glass-like blade. There's a low, electric murmur that he can feel down to the heel of his palm wherever his touch brushes along its faint shape.
Heresy, indeed; even Heaven's highest Angels possessed no ability quite as practical as this one.
"It makes so little sense." Gabriel confesses, brushing a thumb along one of the thick, plastic veins on their front. "That light, Mankind's light, could be capable of such things."
A beacon against a dark future, light made to scrape away the darkness of an uncaring Universe that Angelkind had very little experience with. He wonders, not for the first time, what could have come to pass had their trajectory of ingenuity not been interrupted, by forces both Divine and Damned.
"You really truly are a work of art, V1."
He detects the shiver his praise coaxes from their frame, and it spurs his hands to wander farther. These plastic tubes run cooler than he expects them to, but a powerful thrum can be felt through their length every half-second; an artificial heartbeat. Every machine that fell to his spear before their clash held fleshy capillaries and scavenged organs. Do they have such a weakness, buried somewhere beneath steel and wire and components speckled with blinking lights?
Daringly, this same hand trails lower, dragging down the middle of their segmented midriff, until it hovers just above the faint outline of their crotch panel. The metal hums beneath his skin as their fans spin harder.
But instead of opening it, V1's hand reaches for his own, and wraps around his bent wrist in a firm grip. They bring it lower; lower until--
"... Oh."
His fingers trace over this second, unseen seam once, twice in succession. Its shape is thinner than the one he's familiar with, but it takes very little in the way of deducing to guess at what lies beneath its surface. Every single thought he can conjure trips over one another upon formation, stumbles aimlessly in all directions as he attempts to parse this newfound information.
As if they'd been waiting for this for some time now, the panel slides away. One moment, his digits are caressing flat, indescript steel, and in the next, they're brushing along soft, wet folds.
"... how long have you had this?" He asks, if only out of reflexive nerves. Their answer does not aid in calming his unexpected, embarrassing bout of nerves; in fact, they only serve to amplify it.
S-I-N-C-E F-O-R-E-V-E-R, they write into his left pec, staring down at him as if he had just asked why the sky is blue. They've only recently bypassed this major hurdle in direct communication, but picking up on their mockery is all but second-nature by now. The resulting, familiar sting of annoyance that follows is more than enough to snap him out of his inexplicable shyness.
"Well, forgive me if--" His retort stutters and stumbles as V1 shifts against his frozen fingers, bringing them up to where their clit is beginning to peek from below its hood. "--if I hadn't been made aware that this was an option earlier."
V1's entire arm twitches, as if intending to write further banter into his skin, but Gabriel's patience has at last worn thin enough to overpower his remaining sense of self-consciousness.
He presses down firmly onto the swelling nub, and the effect that has on them is immediate. A visible shudder travels up their body, a sharp whirring of fans that rise and fall in quick succession, as though gasping for air. The sight alone makes Gabriel's thighs squeeze together, and it only offers scant relief to his growing arousal. But he pushes through that heady haze in favor of further study.
Drawing away from their sensitive clit, he trails his digits back down their folds, tracing that almost seamless edge where silicone becomes steel. In the moments between first contact and their short-lived discussion of machine anatomy, they've somehow grown wetter. He almost asks if the lubricant that substitutes as their release is utilized here as well, but then his middle finger catches the rim of their opening. That particular query is discarded in favor of gently, gently sliding up and in--
There's a low, metallic whine, and it's his only warning before all four of their hands come down on his shoulders, bracing themselves as their hips buck into his exploratory touch.
"Good?" He asks, quietly surprised at the husky tone his voice has taken on already. V1's frenetic nod is cut short by another tremor, and his finger slips further in, up to the first knuckle. Of his own accord, his free hand slides downward to clutch at their upper thigh, bringing the reach of his thumb onto their erect clit.
Usually, V1 is leading the charge; dragging him headlong into this brave new world of hedonism and self-indulgence. But something about not being the one falling apart to this intoxicating pull makes him feel... powerful, and all his remaining reservations give way to burning hunger.
Is this how they feel whenever they've got him begging and moaning, hips bucking into every offered touch? It's so heady, this hold over them that has little to do with battle and everything to do with lust. Melting into every pass over their clit, pushing down onto his hand as he meets them with a shallow thrust. They open so readily for the second digit, taking him deeper with every downward roll of their hips.
Urgency colors their movements as they pick up the pace, fucking themselves on his fingers in earnest. Gabriel doesn't dare look away, transfixed by the sight of their desperation; how their silky walls spasm around his soaked digits just from a shift in angle, how they start to nail them into that spot over and over.
He doesn't know what possesses him then: lust, frustration, this newfound source of self-satisfaction. Just that it drives him to withdraw his hand from between their legs, and instead reach for their thin shoulders. V1 is halfway through a sharp whine of protest, when it then morphs to one of surprise when he deftly flips them both over, straddling their left leg.
Gabriel looms over their slight frame, propped up by an elbow that's shifted to rest on the mattress, just over their helm. It brings them closer than he had intended, close enough to feel the hot air oozing from below their plating and hear their racing fans. But more importantly, it lets him see how the machine's expression of shock swiftly gives way to one of heat.
Two blue hands lie upon the ruffled sheets their shifted position has brought them, and the mismatched set moves to wrap firmly around his neck. He can barely stifle a moan, rumbling up his chest as he drags his other hand back across their front to their pelvic region. Slick smears across the steel as it wanders downwards, glistening in the raindrop-tinted glow of the afternoon.
Gabriel keeps them waiting no longer, and burrows his fingers into their drooling cunt, far as they can go.
There's a muffled, electronic pop when their golden optic light unexpectedly gives out for a brief moment. It struggles to flicker back on in full as Gabriel sets a steady rhythm. His attention remains rapt upon them, committing to memory what makes their wings twitch and what causes shudders to wrack their supine frame.
Talons start to dig into his shoulder, drawing sharp pinpricks of pain that further cloud his senses. It only spurs him to fuck them harder, faster, eager to see how far this desperate pleasure will take them both. Gabriel drinks in the sight of them speared open on his fingers, and how every rough thrust makes them writhe. When he at last pulls back to slip the third digit in, Gabriel feels almost dizzy with arousal.
"Look at you," He murmurs, positively drunk on wanton lust and heady desire. "Beneath me, at last. Right where you belong."
Gabriel hadn't meant to say these words aloud; they tumble off the tip of his tongue and into the scant space that remains between them. But then their walls unexpectedly clamp down on his fingers, and a high-pitched whirr bursts from within their shaking chassis.
It makes the both of them stumble to a sudden stop, his fingers half-buried in their pussy and their hips frozen mid-thrust. V1's conical head turns from where it lies angled on the sheets to fix itself on his visage, warming to an uncomfortable degree beneath his helm.
"My apologies." He says hastily, scrambling to salvage any form of blunder he might have just committed as his very flesh prickles with mortification. "I--I don't know what came over--"
A-G-A-I-N
Gabriel struggles to swallow the saliva pooling in his mouth as their unsteady claws spell out their demand a second time. They're halfway through the third by the time he finds his voice again.
"V1, are you sure?"
M-O-R-E, they plead, and then, W-O-R-S-E
Somewhere over the pleasant static filling his head, Gabriel distantly wonders why such a proud machine would enjoy such degrading words in this sordid way. It's a curiosity just as swiftly put out of mind when a blazing pulse bursts from his core and centers itself between his legs, reminding him starkly of his own unsatisfied need.
The archangel covers it with a growl, one that prompts another throbbing squeeze, and calls upon every instance of vexation and biting irritation he's never given voice to. He slams his fingers back into them roughly, setting a punishing pace right away.
"Degenerate, hungry thing." He continues, hardly daring to believe the filth beginning to tumble out of his mouth. He feels more than hears the droning cry in response to his empty affront. "Letting me debase you like this."
An audible, metallic groan resonates through their body, cutting through the ambience of rain and the slick sounds of his fingers fucking them senseless.
"If I had known that this was all it took to subdue you; to get you to spread your legs and let me ruin you... "
It's intoxicating. Insults like this, hurled at his quarry during a spar, would have normally earned him a railcannon shot to the skull. That they can reduce his prideful rival into this shaking, overheating mess in the shadows of a dim bedroom...
"Sinful object." He huffs, faux disgust in his tone; he delights in how their entire body twitches violently in answer. "Perverse, filthy Machine."
V1's weapon arm relinquishes its grip on the sheets below. He follows its hasty journey down their arching torso, sliding to their pelvic plating. When two of their fingers glide over the mound of their cunt, trapping their clit between the two digits, his mouth runs appalling dry.
Any and all thoughts momentarily blank out as they begin pleasuring themselves. Gabriel doesn't realize he's stopped until they begin rocking their hips against his hand, trying to match the pace he initially set.
"You--you... insatiable." His fingers move of their own accord, pressing firmly down onto their upper walls. He finds it; he knows he does when their internal mechanisms begin to scream beneath the steel. Their rhythm stutters and falters as Gabriel hammers at that spot repeatedly. "Is this not enough?"
Half his eyes watch them roll that silicone pearl beneath their fingers, even as his own pulsates needily at the sight. The rest remain fixated on their helm as it thrashes fervently against the bed. V1 seizes beneath him, fans reaching that frenzied pitch and rubbing wildly at their clit--
And with a sudden, droning squeal of metal and hissing steam, V1 finally falls apart beneath him. Gabriel drinks in the sight of them coming around his fingers, utterly lost to the throes of euphoria. Their hips jerk violently against his soaked fingers, and he meets them in turn, dragging out their orgasm for as long as he can.
When their hand abruptly jumps from their clit to his wrist, pushing back against his movements, he comes to an immediate stop. Vapor drifts from their vents in thick streams, piping hot against his flesh. Slowly, Gabriel slips out of their dripping cunt. The moment he's clear, the machine's arms unwind from around his neck, and they slump down onto the mattress with a muted whine.
"Are you alright?" He asks, as pointless a question it must be when they're staring up at him with that seductive, fucked-out look. But they nod in answer anyway, letting out a long whirr as he eases himself onto the bed at their side. "Good. I've never really--I didn't think you would... enjoy being put down like that."
V1 blinks at him, the click of their shutters audible over the rumble of distant thunder. Awkwardness threatens to rear its ugly head, but then they shift, fingers brushing along the back of his hand. The creeping tension dispels all at once, like early morning fog beneath growing sunlight.
I L-I-K-E-D I-T, they write. A quiet, relieved hum barely has time to leave his throat when they continue. D-I-D Y-O-U-?
"Yes," He answers, without really thinking about it. More than ever is he grateful for the necessity of his helm, hiding his blush from their uncannily perceptive vision. "But I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise."
Their shoulders shake with unheard laughter. He's suddenly aware of their touch lingering on his scarred skin. It feels warmer than it would have been if they'd been pressed flush along his front, gently burning him with this easy affection. Gabriel wants to take it in his own, and see if it wouldn't reduce his flesh to smoldering cinders--
And then V1 shifts away, settles against the sheets with the closest approximation they have to a happy sigh. Gabriel simply contents himself with listening to the rise and fall of their spinning fans, puffing out the excess heat as he waits out their recovery.
It's usually no more than ten minutes, depending on the intensity of the spar prior. But in record time, V1's lifted themselves off the bed and, with that limitless strength, rolled him onto his back. A faint, but embarrassingly high-pitched groan slips from his throat as they at last divest him of his remaining modesty. His loincloth peels away from his sensitive skin, soaked through entirely, and is promptly discarded somewhere to his left.
Quite contrary to his earlier words, Gabriel eases his legs open with but a light caress down their length. He awaits the familiar click of shifting metal and humming rotors, for their cock to spring forth from its sheath and take him. But it never comes. Instead, V1 is shuffling forward on their knees, slick glistening on their inner thigh-plating and the two exposed veins that run down to the shift. One starts to lift from the bed when Gabriel finally regains enough of his wits to ask for their intentions.
"V1, what are you--" Heat prickles across his unseen visage as their legs tangle, one metal thigh hiking itself around his right hip, and their other leg is slipped beneath his left. "... Oh."
With one last, somewhat-clumsy slide forward, V1 slots them together like puzzle pieces, and then smooth, silicone lips kiss at his folds.
"Oh fuck..." This was--they feel so soft, so hot and wet. The machine begins gyrating their hips in slow, experimental circles, gliding over his pulsing clit with every pass. Gabriel can't bite off a moan in time already, dizzy with heady relief and desperate hunger. They stop mid-thrust, and a protest is on his tongue when they shuffle forward, bringing his leg up and over their shoulder. This enables them to lean forward, far enough to place one of their blue hands on his chest.
"How do you--mmm--" Balance secured at last, V1 rolls their hips down more firmly, and his cunt throbs against theirs, insistently so, as growing confidence begins to drive their motions. "Where did you learn these profane things?"
He can't tell if their shoulders are shrugging or shaking with laughter, but he guesses the latter of which as they spell out their response onto the back of his raised thigh with a cheeky look.
I-L-L T-E-L-L Y-O-U L-A-T-ER
Gabriel has long suspected they've had other encounters, ones prior to their fateful one in the layer of this sin's very namesake. Had they been with humans? Other machines? Both? Had they been taught this very act like they teach him now? Things he can ask now, and get something of an answer.
(How far they've come from that first morning, emerging from their destined graves alive against all odds.)
He's not sure if the weeks apart have left him far more sensitive, or if the both of them are simply that pent up, but it feels incredible. And Heavens, the sounds are positively obscene, loud and wet with every rolling cant forward. Gabriel pushes his hips back the best he can, but the angle they've pinned him at makes it difficult.
"Ahhh--V1, this is--" Their rhythm begins to intensify, and it cuts off his words with a gasping moan. His hand scrabbles for their thigh, bracing itself upon it to more easily match their pace. Anything he intends to say is lost in the onslaught of burning hot pleasure stabbing into his center, knife-sharp.
V1 finally fucks him in earnest, dragging shameless cries and sobbing curses from his heaving lungs. Without the echo of the open air above and around him, his senseless calls for more are amplified against the bedroom walls, drowning out even the grumbles of the growing storm outside. He can only lie there, helpless to the rising tide of ecstasy that alights every nerve with fire.
It's too much, too fast. Lightning coils in his gut, and their desperate thrusts take on a frenetic edge. His other hand digs into the blanket, he swears he hears it rip beneath the strength of his grip, and--
And the world around him dissolves into blinding radiance, pulsating with white-hot euphoria. He doesn't hear the sound that pours from his throat over the sound of his heartbeat in his head. Sparks burst at the edges of his eyes as it just goes on and on.
Gabriel comes down in a dizzying rush of oversensitivity, V1's hips bucking wildly into his own. That thankfully accompanies the shrill, telltale stuttering of their fans overclocking themselves, signaling their own release. Their hips finally still moments later, tremors wracking their wings in erratic intervals as they cling tight to his leg.
They part from him with a jerking motion; perhaps they're just as worn out as he feels. V1 then proceeds to slump atop him, and the heat pouring from their body borders on uncomfortable against his flesh. But he can't bring it in himself to care, and instead summons just enough strength to slip his arm around their back, keeping them there as they both heave for oxygen.
Somewhere over all this, thunder rumbles again, much closer than before. The height of monsoon season is at last upon them, bringing with it life and growth and the promise of green. Gabriel eyes pry themselves back open as his senses finally recover themselves; he turns his head to watch the splashing of rain against the patio windows.
He imagines the future, for just a moment; saplings lining the next street over, shading ferns and shrubbery, lantana at the corner alongside the countless colors of chrysanthemums, lilac bushes in that decaying plaza just north of here. And throughout all that V1 at his side until whatever end they may someday meet. It's finally starting to dawn on him that they have time now, for that.
And time now, for this. V1 at last lifting themselves from him. He half-expects them to climb off of him, head back to the living room for their newly-collected books and wait out the squall passing over the city. But then simply settle astride his waist, the whirring of shifting plating taking place of their noisy fans. Their dick pushes forth from its sheath, already half-pressurized and smeared with streaks of milky lubricant. His hand is guided to wrap around its girth, twitching subtly in his tightening grip.
As his palm is dragged down their shaft in a slow, sensual stroke, he wonders how far he can push them.
