Impact Bloom




They're back again, skirting along the stone walls of their enclosure, hands entwined and flanked by a small entourage of God's Creatures.

Gabriel does not think he's ever seen them apart; one always follows after the other. Whenever Adam stumbles into the only meadow visible from his vantage point, Eve is not far behind. Other times it is Eve leading Adam to the blackberry bushes beneath the peach grove, here at this eastern edge of Eden.

The rhythms of conversation float up to him as the two humans gather berries and pick fruit. But as instructed, Gabriel does not speak to them, call to them, or otherwise acknowledge them. He simply keeps to his post: ten steps to the north, pivoting on his heel, and marching ten steps back to the south. The bright star that this planet circles is beginning to set; soon the moon will chase it across an endless expanse of stars.

Strange, sometimes, this concept of 'time'. It does not exist in God's Kingdom, and yet this part of the Universe is bound by it.

The angel's brief internal musings are interrupted by a bark of laughter from Adam, drawing his attention to his charges. They're seated now beneath a flowering magnolia tree, fruit piled between their linked hands as they feast upon the bounty of God's garden. A lamb has curled itself against Adam's thigh, while a lion reclines behind Eve, its mighty head resting in her lap as she pops blackberries into her juice-stained mouth.

Another idyllic evening in the garden, it seems. None of the other guards have seen neither hide nor feather of Lucifer since he'd been cast into the Inferno. Gabriel does not think that there will be, not when the all-seeing eyes of The Father are always fixed upon this garden and His new pets.

What happens next isn't anything unusual, but it is the first time Gabriel himself has borne witness to it.

In his peripherals, he sees the mortals take pause in their eating. Adam is looking up at where Gabriel continues his tireless patrol, and in turn, his wife's dark eyes follow. Sometimes they look at him like that, as if he is somehow intruding upon their lives simply by performing his duty to God. While forbidden from addressing their existence, the helm wrapped around his skull allows him to discreetly direct some of his eyes right back at them.

Adam leans over to his other half, lips brushing her curly black hair with inaudible whispers. Eve only nods, silently and subtly, and then the remaining berries spill from her palm to the grass below their bare legs.

Matching grins split their faces, and Eve turns to face her husband with violet-dyed fingers, reaching for his shoulders. The lion that had been serving as her backrest rises with a swish of its tail, and the lamb that had been at Adam's side joins it as they retreat from the clearing.

Their mouths lock together, arms wrapping around one another in an inseparable embrace. Eve's breasts squish against Adam's chest, pulling her legs from beneath her to climb into his lap. They part briefly, but only long enough for her to push the other human to the ground. The moment Adam's back flattens the grass below is the moment Gabriel feels God turn His gaze away from His Garden.

It distantly occurs to Gabriel that he should as well, as Adam's lips skim Eve's slender neck and his hand slides to the crux of her thighs. Her breathy gasps are audible even from here, and in turn warmth begins to blossom deep in the pit of his stomach--

Gabriel belatedly realizes he's stopped in his tracks, eight paces from the edge of his post. The effort it takes to tear his eyes from the scene unfolding below would be worthy of the Lord's praise.

"Holy Father, Creator of the Universe," He murmurs fervently under his breath, striding those final two steps before whirling about-face 'Grant me Your strength against the temptation of sin--

"Never forget it is a sin," God had told him, a sour undertone beneath His perfect song, "For you, My Children, it is a terrible sin. Turn your gaze, do not look; do not fall into lust."

So Gabriel does not look as the bodies in the garden below twist and twine together like reeds swaying in the wind. He does not listen as their voices rise over the trees and undergrowth.

He does not think about what they might be up to when God's all-seeing eyes are turned away.



Once upon a time, entertaining the idea that God's experiments had conspired together to escape that garden would have been laughably blasphemous.

Eons later, as Gabriel spends an evening tending to his ever-changing collection of houseplants, a chuckle escapes him as he realizes that might have been precisely what happened. Of course they would have wanted to leave, spending as long as they had pacing the walls of their gilded cage. And of course they wouldn't have dared face that brave new world beyond its borders alone.

It still feels good to laugh about now, and to spare a moment's thought for his long-gone brother, framed for Mankind's unstoppable fall into sin.

The archangel lets those musings go without dwelling on them too long, and turns his attention back to the towering monstera plant he's been cultivating. Several squeezes of an acrylic trigger sprays a small cloud of mist onto waxy cellulose, tiny droplets glistening like diamonds in the rapidly-waning light of day. The air here on Earth is nowhere near as humid as the sprawling rainforests of the Fifth Sphere he'd procured it from, requiring twice-a-day mistings.

As much as Gabriel disliked its manufactured abundance, the durability of plastic has served him well nearly four decades into his exile. Left with little in the way of aid from their maker against the harsh realities of time and disease and scarcity, it is of little wonder that they tried to make their things last as long as they have. Their tools, their fires, their cities, like beacons against the darkness surrounding this planet. For a time, they had prospered; the ruins of this decaying world were proof enough of that fact.

One day, these too will disappear, buried under nature's unstoppable path, and broken down into the very dust from whence they came. But that day was so unfathomably far from this one that Gabriel releases that thought, as well.

Any further deliberations about what remains of the Universe are dismissed when he catches the clatter of metal, just behind him. The rattle of an ajar glass pane sliding further along its track follows, heralding the return of his lover from their day at the city library. Soft footfalls float up from the rug below as they cross the living room, right to where he stands by their cluttered kitchen island.

"Welcome home, V1." He says, without looking up from his diligent misting. "How was your day?"

In answer, the warmachine simply presses their steel-plated front all along his bare back. A low, happy hum of internal fans reverberates down his spine, warm air spilling from their vents. He's awaiting the telltale drag of a finger drawing letters when all four of their arms wrap around his sides, and begin to squeeze at every inch of flesh they can reach.

Contentedness melts into the low burn of desire, exacerbated by the waking memory of his time at Eden's edges. It's been some time now since they last took him to bed; an act pushed to the wayside while he worked tirelessly to bring Heaven's bounty to his rejuvenating gardens. But every knead of V1's metal digits into his sore muscles wears further away at his remaining plans.

Gabriel can't help the low moan that rumbles up his throat at the onslaught of sensation. One hand caresses the flat plane of his stomach, another trails along the scar that cups his left pec. Talons tease at the hem of his skirt while the fourth slides daringly beneath the waistband.

G-O-O-D, V1 answers at last, feather-light claws tracing the word into the meat of his thigh. Their primary arm inches its way across his mound, sliding past his clit to where his folds are already beginning to soak through the fabric of his loincloth. Y-O-U-?

"Not as productive as I'd--ahh--hoped." A husky edge lurks beneath his tone, heat pooling into the pit of his stomach. His hips push into their touch, upper back leaning into the comforting embrace of their arms. 'Did you--mmm--finish what you were working on?'

A momentary pause. He's beginning to regret opening his mouth when their Whiplash hand releases his chest.

"DATA TRANSFER AT FIFTY-SEVEN PERCENT." V1 spells, every other letter they spell synchronized with a teasing roll of their fingers. "FULL BACKUP PROJECTED TOMORROW MORNING."

Good; even when that weathered building falls in on itself, the digital repository within would remain accessible to them both. It's a notion swiftly forgotten when those clever digits finally trail up to his clit, rubbing at it in firm circles through the cloth. The spray bottle falls from his fingers, landing somewhere near the base of the half-misted plant. A faint, needy whine escapes him as V1 begins grinding their pelvic plating against his ass.

Years have passed since their first fateful encounter in the depths of Hell; years and years of vicious sparring, tender love, and wanton lust. But still does their steel pressed flush to his skin ignite red hot coals in his core; still can their hands drawing bloodfuel from his body fill him with wanton arousal. He doesn't think he'll ever get enough of this mind-blowing (back-blowing) sex.

Half of Gabriel expects them to drag him bodily from his evening chores to their bedroom; the other half hopes to be bent over the kitchen counter, have his skirt hiked up, and taken then and there. So when V1 abruptly pulls all their hands off his body, he's entirely anticipating the impatient snap of their fingers around his arm and a violent tug to his left.

But it never comes. Instead, he catches the muted sound of V1 padding across the apartment carpeting, unexpectedly backtracking towards the exit.

The heady haze of desire rescinds so quickly it leaves him with an unexpected chill. Blinking all his eyes open, he whirls around to find his lover walking away into the glow of a swiftly-descending twilight. Their four arms stretch languidly over their head, sashaying their hips with every step, and their fans rise and fall in an imitation of a lazy yawn.

They stop right by the open door of the balcony. Then their optic swivels on its joint one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees to look back at him, the light behind their eye half-lidded and dimmed to a gentle gold. The two of them stare at one another for a beat, before V1's arms lower save their Feedbacker.

"SORRY," They say without looking apologetic in the slightest, and tilt their head at him coyly. "DID YOU NEED SOMETHING?"

Something about the drawling motions in their hand-spelling gives him an inkling to their unspoken intentions, if the subtle twitching of their wings is any indication. But Gabriel takes the bait of their silent challenge hook, line, and sinker. An unseen grin creeps across his face, spurred by a spark of salacious excitement; one that feeds the embers of his deepening hunger for their profane form.

"As a matter of fact, I do, Machine." He purrs, and as one, they move. Gabriel drops into a crouch as V1 shifts their weight onto the leg closest to the exit. '"And since you're so keen on reminding me..."

In a blur of gold and blue, Gabriel pounces, flying over the couch and the coffee table to where they stand. There's a blast from their vents, and then his outstretched hands close around the hot, empty air they leave in their wake.

The crack of a firing Freezeframe rocket rattles the fractured glass pane door; Gabriel tears after them with a powerful pump of his wings. The whistle of burning propellant is chased by the wild bark of his laughter, echoing across the concrete gullies of overgrown canyons.

V1 soars over the ivy-draped building opposite theirs, and the next, hurtling into the gathering neon night as the archangel slices through the air like an arrow from a bow. He's gaining rapidly; for all their prowess in battle, they've never truly been able to match him in speed when it came to long distances.

But just as he closes in on his prey, the warmachine throws their winch arm towards a passing high-rise to their left, draped with cascading vines of morning glories. Right as they go flying off the rocket, the ordinance explodes right in his face.

He's experienced far worse during any given spar, but the shockwave still knocks his senses askew, right as the sharp, searing pain of burns erupts all across his bare chest. Gabriel hangs in the air there a moment, reeling from the onslaught of sensation. Fire pulses from his core as pain twists into pleasure, and his nethers ache with a dull throb.

Then the sting of his rapidly-healing wounds pulls him from his adrenaline-fueled trance. With a violent shake of his head, he quickly begins scanning the city skyline for his fleeing rival. Flashy advertisements still cast outwards from the taller structures, while the ones closer to the ground level are swiftly being blotted out. Branches filling out with leaves obscure their points of projection, and those that aren't have been long-since consumed by curtains of nasturtium and flowering vinca.

It's thanks to this that Gabriel is able to easily spot V1, their yellow wings glowing like beacons as they flit between the flowering shrubs far below.

A manic giggle escapes him before thunder splits the twilight, and he vanishes from the sky in a blinding flash of light. In the next moment, he springs forth from a fissure in reality mere meters ahead of them. Gabriel glimpses their optic widening with faux terror before they collide.

Where once were polymer streets and unyielding concrete sidewalks, supple soil and verdant clover now cushion their initial impact. Gabriel distantly registers the Earth spinning violently around their grappling bodies as they each struggle for control of their fall. He's got their Feedbacker and Whiplash in hand, yet their heels sink into his stomach, attempting to throw him off. There's an unmistakable racket of plant fibers tearing as they collide with a neat row of shrubs, rolling right through them.

Just as Gabriel braces himself to pin them to a rough stop and a definitive victory, their red arm slips between their wrestling forms, and light explodes from their knuckles.

The shockwave rips them apart, but a few pumps of his wings keep him from flying beyond the boundaries of this small, shadowy field they've tumbled into. V1, meanwhile, lets the momentum of their concussive attack carry them right to the other end of the meadow. The machine comes to a skidding stop below the branches of the pomegranate trees he'd planted not two decades prior, heavy with unpicked, overripe fruit.

The potent aroma of gardenias hits his senses all at once, threatening to dampen them beneath it's heady weight. All his eyes meet their narrowed optic in a challenging glare across this hidden stretch of grass and wildflowers. It cuts through the dark like a sliver of the rising sun, haloed by their splayed wings. A splash of bright neons shines through the branches above, painting their blue plating with the colors of Lust incarnate.

At first, he thinks it a mere trick of the light, but no. There, in the pink-purple-blue gradients, he can easily make out the outline of their cock, backlit by their glasslike feathers. Pearly precum beads and glimmers at the tip, the droplet balanced precariously by their battle-ready stance.

Then their shadowed frame rises from its crouch, and their heated expression shifts into one that is much more mocking.

"TIRED ALREADY, ANGEL?" They taunt with their primary arm. A heated, playful growl tears from his throat, and that same poised hand twitches towards the wing where they've stowed their revolver.

"On the contrary, Machine," Gabriel slides his palms up to his waist, hooking either one of his thumbs beneath the band wrapped snug around his hips. "I'm just getting warmed up."

Gabriel shimmies out of his skirt and loincloth in one smooth roll of his thighs, letting them fall to his ankles, and kicking both away with a flick of his toe. So transfixed is V1 by this development that they almost don't react in time when Light pours from his fingertips and weaves into a radiant short-spear.

Grass, soil, and spoiled bits of fruit spray in all directions as the flashing tip strikes right where they had just been standing. Unwilling to give them any quarter, the archangel lunges across the meadow as they finally draw their revolver, right at the apex of their leap. That retaliatory shot only grazes his bicep as he darts to the right, calling for a dagger as he closes in on them.

The golden blade easily slices through the plastic vein snaking down their thigh, sending a burst of hot blood through the scant space between them. That sharp yellow optic glow, cutting through the descending night, suddenly thins. Half his eyes shift to the left, expecting a look of annoyance, but not the barrel of their shotgun. As burning shrapnel tears down his arm and shoulders, his quarry tosses that blasted winch of theirs at an overhanging branch, dodging his intended counter kick.

Drawn to them like a comet to the sun, Gabriel spirals around the follow-up blast, and aims for their vulnerable silicone belly. He slices and jabs at the thick, rubbery membrane, splitting it open at the edges and burrowing deep into their guts. He hears that short, but familiar, shriek and drone of their body draining fuel to repair itself, before another crack of their Knuckleblaster tears them apart.

In the split seconds they have to evade defeat, the machine hits the ground sliding, and takes a flying leap over a nearby thicket of boysenberry bushes.

"Oh no, you don't!" The booming echo of his mocking laughter shakes the garden to its very roots. He teleports just ahead of their escape route, only for them to drop to the ground in a swift slam and go skidding across the undergrowth. Precious microseconds pass as he hurriedly twists around to continue chasing them, hurtling through the woods after his fleeing rival.

Cover fire from their revolver tears and scrapes at his feathers as he chases them deeper into the woods, where only the thin stripes of their wings and playfully lidded optic gives them away. Darts are tossed, spears are hurled, battleaxes are thrown, and all disappear in a burst of holy light upon missing their elusive target. Over the crack of breaking wood and rustling greenery as Gabriel pursues his prey through their sprawling garden, he thinks he can hear their fans stuttering in a crude imitation of laughter.

But where V1 might be far more precise with their maneuvering through these budding wilds, Gabriel knows every tree, fern, and low-hanging branch.

He ducks low to the earth, accelerates just as he passes over a trickling brook teeming with phytoplanktons, and is ready when their path pivots to the left around the thick trunk of a magnolia tree. Their gambit predictably comes at the cost of speed.

Gabriel tucks his wings, swings wide around the tree, and promptly blindsides them with several vicious slashes.

His blade kisses at their thighs, caresses their chassis, laps at the single, exposed tube that connects their heart to their head. V1 fires wildly, bullets digging into the meat of his thighs and hips, but Gabriel's assault remains undeterred. A mocking snarl tears from his throat as he draws arcs of blood from their steel, despite their efforts to retreat.

And when V1 finally regains their bearings from his surprise attack enough to employ their Whiplash, Gabriel is more than ready for them.

As soon as the telltale thud of a metal spearhead burrowing into wood reaches him, the night splits again with sound and light. He reaches through the void, fingers snagging upon the thick cable of their winch. The archangel delights in the split-second expression change of the warmachine as they realize their folly, morphing from unwavering determination into unbridled horror.

All it takes is a rough tug of the wire, and V1 immediately loses control of their trajectory. The Knuckleblaster rotates into primary position, but by the time it locks into place, Gabriel's knee is slamming directly into their scarred stomach. Throwing all his weight upon their stunned form, they drop through the air like dropped stones, and slam into the forest floor below.

Everything crawls to a staggered stop. Blood oozes down his wrists and drizzle upon the dazed machine, pinned to the soft carpet of grass. He can hear their fans rattling in their frames like gasps for breath, and their optic has been taken offline. He's knocked them cold, even if for but a moment.

Pink and golden feathers flare in a display of dominance, diffusing rosy light through that shadowy glade.

"Did you really think you could outrun me, in my own garden?" He taunts through his bared teeth. Lubricant weeps from the tip of their pressurized dick, and Gabriel scrabbles for it like a man possessed. "Foolishness, Machine... "

Their hips stutter as Gabriel firmly wraps his palm around their slickened cock, shifting down their supine frame to line them both up. Pain still lances from where hot lead and shotgun pellets had ripped through his body; their talons blindly raking down his side opens healing wounds anew. But it only fuels his maddened lust like oil to an open flame.

"Is this what you wanted, you perverse, filthy object?" Humid lips brush along their tip with sensual fervor, and he relishes in the mechanical squeal they release in answer. "All you had to do was ask."

With that, Gabriel impales himself on them with one rough roll of his hips. Taking their girth to the hilt with little in the way of prep always stings, but he's so wet it hardly even matters. His wanton moan melds with the shrill whine of their fans, filling the silence of Earth's ruins with a symphony of carnal debauchery.

For a moment, Gabriel simply revels in ardor of their union. Back and forth he slides in their lap, watching them squirm aimlessly beneath him in the blood-speckled grass as he clenches down around them. Some days Gabriel mourns the years he'd wasted, never knowing this feeling of fullness; other days he thinks they could fuck for a month straight and that still wouldn't be enough satisfy either of them.

There's a muffled pop as V1's eye at last flickers back online, shifting their optic helm from the verdant groundcover to stare up at him with a half-focused lens. All four of their hands come up to grasp at his arms and legs, squeezing at his injured flesh for fresh fuel. The warmachine makes no attempt to gain the upper hand this way, so Gabriel allows their vampiric touches.

"Insatiable as ever, it seems." A shiver rolls down his spine as their steel siphons blood from his body, fueling their ever-hungry systems. His hips lift from theirs with a slow roll, and then he slams back down with a rumbling growl. "Will you ever get enough of this--mmmhh--this profane performance?"

A hypocritical accusation, as Gabriel sets a brutal pace right away, letting gravity and the sheer strength of his thighs do the work until he's practically bouncing on their cock. The obscene slap of flesh colliding with metal joins his musical moans and their metallic whines; a sinful nightsong from the only two remaining creatures on this reviving planet.

Every downward plunge has his neglected clit twitching needily, but he's determined to bring his stubborn rival over that edge first. It's intoxicating as ever to witness this proud warmachine reduced to such a mindless state, starved of sex and the thrill of a battle for little over a week.

And he's had years to learn all their weaknesses, as well. Such as this particular thermoplastic wire, poking from beneath their silicone stomach. There's just enough room for his index finger to slip beneath, and pull that thin, vinyl strand sharply-

Steam bursts from all of V1's vents in thick streams as their frame seizes violently, fans screaming beneath their plating. A possessive surge of satisfaction floods his head as their dick twitches, and warmth bursts like a blooming flower deep within his core. He milks their orgasm for all it's worth with harshening rolls of his hips.

Even as they fall still in a twitching, fucked-out heap beneath him, Gabriel does not let up. He ceases only for a moment to adjust his grip on their thin shoulder, yanking at that single cable hooked around his index finger.

Their hands scrabble aimlessly at his body, torn between pushing him off or pulling him closer as he rides their re-pressurizing cock with relentless sort of ferocity. Half-crazed laughter bursts from his heaving lungs as he pins them more firmly to the forest floor.

"Not so--ahh, fast, V1," He pants, and tugs on that wire again just to hear them drone mindlessly. He's pushed their limits farther than this before now; he knows they can handle a second round so soon after the first. "I'm--hahhh--not done with you, yet!"

The world narrows down where they're joined, all his eyes rolling back in his skull as he chases that high; the holy flame that's cleansed him time and time again. Somewhere below, V1 finally frees their legs, if only to plant them into the leaf litter, and begins mechanically bucking their hips into his own.

A ragged sob escapes him as he loses control over the rhythm of their dance, metal fingers digging into the meat of his hips as they begin pulling him down to meet their upward thrusts. Talons score down his back and leave delicious agony in their wake, and that fourth hand finds their clit and rubs at it mercilessly.

"F-fuck!" He cries, heat coiling in the pit of his stomach, poised to consume him body and soul. "O-oh, shit! V1, please, pleasepleaseplease, I--by the s-stars!"

The line of perfect heat snaps, and he is flung to the paradise he left behind, singing a wordless, erotic hymn in praise of his machine. White-hot fire surges from his core and spirals through his veins, igniting every cell with blinding euphoria. It takes him to the edges of the Universe, black and empty as death, and then back down to Earth without a shred of mercy.

Rousing from his release, Gabriel finds on his back, and V1 continues fucking him with all the desperation of their second orgasm of the evening. But before the overstimulation can spill over into ‘too much', all the lights on V1's body go dark. His partner comes dry, a cloud of vapor swathing them as their metal trembles audibly. Gabriel has just enough strength left to help ease them out of him, and onto a cushion of grass at his side.

"Are you alright?" He eventually murmurs between breaths. V1's Feedbacker lifts from the lush detritus below to shape into a thumbs-up, before it flops across his wounded waist and tugs him closer. "Mmmm, good."

His slowing gasps and their quieting fans fill the comfortable loneliness of another perfect night in paradise. Between the press of their steel to his sweaty skin and the heady fog of their afterglow, the archangel could fall asleep here, beneath the blanket of Fixed Stars that surround this empty world. They've hardly changed at all since those days on the garden walls, waiting for nothing save the inevitable, unchanging results of a failed mortal experiment.

He can still remember the day Mankind fell from God's graces. The heat of His righteous anger and the darkening of the sky, the morphing off those stone walls and the glow of a flaming sword at the only way out, or in. Not once did Adam nor Eve look back as they fled the garden hand-in-hand; he wonders if the Fruit of Knowledge had tasted like blood.

For a brief moment, Gabriel is hit with the mental image of V1 scrabbling up the walls of Eden, and disappearing into the surrounding wasteland beyond. The absurdity of it makes him laugh aloud, catching the attention of his recovering partner.

W-H-A-T-? They spell into his spine.

"Mmm, nothing important." Gabriel answers lazily, simply shifting his touches from their wingpack to the thrumming plastic veins snaking down alongside their titanium spine. "I suppose I was only thinking about how lucky I am to have lost to you, that first time."

There's an unmistakable rattle from their body, of fans kicking up by several notches. It lasts only a couple of seconds, but he grins despite himself; that he can still fluster them, decades after they fell for one another, is something of a point of pride for him.

V1 covers their lapse in composure with a low whirr and a firm press of their knee against his still-sensitive loins. A surprised gasp escapes him, followed by a faint moan as their thigh plating drags downward. Blunt fingertips glide down the plane of the archangel's stomach and drag claws over his scarred sides. He answers their silent request for more with a pinch, briefly cutting off the flow of blood through that particular vein.

As the warmachine arches their hips into his touch, Gabriel wishes for nothing more than for these blessings to last forever.