jermastrat: Helmless Headcanon! (11)
Gabriel ([personal profile] jermastrat) wrote in [community profile] datadiving2025-06-20 11:36 am

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Draped across the bed, bored out of his mind. Not the kind of situation Gabriel ever imagined he'd be in, at any point in his life, ever, but he could add that to the pile of new experiences he supposed. Yeah sure not all of them could be absolute bangers, life wasn't always going to be interesting, that much he'd learned long before everything fell apart but it felt almost insulting to be in another world, another time, and still be fucking bored. An old saying he'd heard a soul pass on to him once before rattled through his brain: boring people are bored, and he scowled at the memory, petulantly kicking a pillow off the bed.

Maybe he could go call on Cassiel. They could spar, or hunt, or talk, or fuck, or anything else, he didn't know. Anything was better than laying here doing fuck all.

The conspicuous lack of the Machine was as ever, not a concern either. Where was it? Well, outside somewhere of course, doing whatever. At this point he'd grown quite comfortable with its presence and conversely, lack of. Whatever trouble it could get itself into was at this point no longer his concern. ... A pleasant enough idea to hold onto at least. It did nothing for the boredom, other than alleviate some of the annoyance swirling around his head thanks to it.

... He really had to find some way to fill his day before he started taking this growing, foul mood out on someone who didn't deserve it, he hates this.
mechanicalmortality: (11)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-23 12:50 am (UTC)(link)
In some ways, it makes it more difficult to kill someone when their hands are in your internals. If you don't care about damage, however, it makes it very easy, and harder for them to get away. It's a calculation V1 is making on a subconscious level, and consciously choosing to ignore; it's not as if they can turn off the parts that keep them alive, that would be stupid. But it can make its own choices about what's a dangerous situation or not.

(SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION: Knuckleblaster module to target head, fire. Wait for cooldown, fire. Repeat until threat is neutralized.)

It's aware that the stimulation it's feeling is the result of old damage. An error, a flaw that was never fully healed. There is no thrill in that, but there is a strange pleasure in someone finding it and choosing not to deepen it, to remind it that the flaw remains without reopening the wound. Something soothing where there would usually, inevitably, be pain.

Pain is such an ever-present part of its life; whether the panic characteristic of starving (and though it does not have a stomach, its organs will fail without blood to sustain them; it adds a visceral, organic edge to its need for fuel, for sustenance) or the more simple, straightforward pain of combat. Having little to no pain at all is a baffling experience.

It stretches in his arms, languidly rubbing that sensitive spot against his fingers as it works out the kinks in its spine, sending pleasant sparks through the organic components of its brain. Its systems are nearly singing, humming and vibrating around the angel's fingers as Gabriel continues to sort out cables and untangle knots in its musculature.

It places a hand on Gabriel's arm, not to guide him anywhere - the touch is surprisingly delicate, feather-light - but simply because it can.

Yes, it understands now. It's not exactly the same way as a human would feel it, or even an angel, probably, it knows nothing about the insides of angels apart from how their blood tastes - but it's marked intimacy as worth the vulnerability.
mechanicalmortality: (4)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-23 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
Gabriel had mentioned it before, that insistence on give and take. Cooperation, sharing, exchange. It supposes that this is fair enough, like trading effort for reward.

V1 doesn't really have the ability to climax. Possibly overstimulation would do it, but a bout of overstimulation strong enough to simulate climax would likely knock them into dizziness, and a disoriented war machine would not be particularly hospitable to what's technically an invasive procedure.

Also, and this is quite a surprise even to it, the amount of times it's actually wanted to shoot Gabriel in the past few months for things outside of combat can be counted on one hand. It does not...actually want this specific encounter to end with any sort of violence. Weird. It's feeling nice right now, lying there, getting some much-needed relaxation time in, and it doesn't want to actually stop doing that.

The words are mostly washing over it, but it does process them, even if it all seems to handle concepts it's never really had to deal with in its existence. Machines might even share blood, might grieve their blood-donors, might group together for safety or security, but V1 has always been alone. If other machines huddle with each other, it doesn't know anything about that; downtime in Hell was spent tucked in a corner of an elevator foyer, listening to the crackling music of the terminal, resting only because mechanical stress required it. Even a creature of steel couldn't keep running forever.

Intimacy is nice, though. And it does understand...returning favors, of a sort. Even though every favor it's returned has been a violent one, before this.

This part, receiving intimacy, is good. It's curious to know if the other part, giving intimacy, is the same. So after a long moment, it taps at Gabriel's arm.

-.. --- / -.-- --- ..- / .-- .- -. -

He's been with people before, presumably. But 'do you want V1, robot who is really good at shooting you a lot with every gun, to try and Do Whatever Intimate Thing To You' is, well, a different question? It's a different question.
mechanicalmortality: (7)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-23 04:42 am (UTC)(link)
If the world could be different...it's not something it's really given thought to. What mattered was the reality, the reality of here and now. It might not be fighting for survival any more, but it doesn't trust things to stay the same forever in any case.

Still, it's strange to look into someone's face and see the refracted light, to know and understand them in a way that doesn't require violence. There is commonality there, something shared, some strange frail thread that connects them...it doesn't know what it is.

(Below that, a kind of confusion. If others could entertain these thoughts, they hadn't spared much of a thought for V1. Should V1, then, spare that much time for them, they who had challenged it and found a challenge beyond their skill or tenacity to surpass? Would 'mercy' even do anything, or would it simply be a prolonging of extended injury, waiting for something else to pass by and kill them?

It's a new thought. It's a difficult thought. It's not something it knows how to communicate.

Gabriel is the only person it's ever felt the impulse to spare. It doesn't know why that is, either....)

It's such a heavy set of thoughts that it has to shake its head a little to clear it, as if that will do anything. Thinking is annoying and slows things down. Answering questions is much easier.

. -..- -.-. .... .- -. --. .

Gabriel had said all that stuff about reciprocation. V1 listened to all of it, apparently, like it listens to everything he says.

It just chooses to be selectively disobedient.
mechanicalmortality: (8)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-24 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
V1 swivels its head to the side and just nods. If it could make a baffled expression, it would be doing that.

Of course it listens to what he's saying. Why would it not listen? How else was it going to pick out what would annoy him the most?

It waits patiently for him to make his decision, yes yes flesh isn't metal (obviously, they're not the same thing, it knows that) yes yes it has to listen to him (obviously, he knows his body better than it does, this is supposed to be reciprocal) blah blah blah

INTERNAL NOTE: RANKING FOR ACHIEVING OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE?

No, that's stupid. It ignores that.

It gets up from its sitting position, delicately stepping over the gap in the line, and proceeds to plop itself on Gabriel's bed, leaving him with plenty of room to sit. There's a hiss of hydraulics as it closes its back panels and idly traces around its chest plating, as if considering something. It looks at Gabriel expectantly, waiting.
mechanicalmortality: (9)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-24 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
It tilts its head in a distinctly judgemental way - whose fault is the gap again? Not V1's, that's for certain - but it soon passes.

It waits patiently, almost politely, for Gabriel to finish talking before it puts its hands on him.

Rather than running its hands down his body, as might be expected, its hands cup his face, fingers stroking his skin. Its thumbs brush against the feathers of the wings on his face. It stares blatantly and quite without shame or any other kind of barrier to its clear curiosity, its touch almost exaggeratedly gentle.

It's still weird to see him without his helmet. It doesn't think it'll ever get used to that. It doesn't even know where all the hair goes, but it's a secondary priority to simply...looking at him.

It's such a novelty to be able to look upon the face of someone who had tried to kill it twice. Who it had tried to kill twice. And yet here both of them are, still somehow living.
mechanicalmortality: (4)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-24 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
It knows very well how to wreak havoc on flesh and blood bodies, or at least the appropriate facsimiles of them. Husks and demons were not exactly mortals, but they were...enough. Enough to kill, enough to bleed, enough to be fuel. This whole business of not immediately acting on the best way to dismember a body into parts is uncharted territory, but it's nothing if not curious.

It's simply not something it has any real guidelines for. Touch without violence, resisting the urge to tear into a ready source of fuel within a living body... That in itself is...exciting? Bizarre? Interesting.

It would be so easy. The fingers of its auxiliary arms twitch as it contemplates the thought and then -- puts it aside.

It reaches out to touch that blush, holding the edge of one wing with a delicate pinch between thumb and forefinger, and then pats Gabriel fondly on the head before leaning back. It sweeps him with a calculating gaze, trying to decide where to put its hands next, and then puts one hand against his throat for a brief moment.

One thumb in the center, pressing briefly, feeling the pulse of a living heart, fresh blood surging below the surface. Then it moves its hand again, down the curve of Gabriel's neck and to his shoulder as if it hadn't paused at all.
mechanicalmortality: (6)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-28 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
V1 doesn't laugh - it can't - but Gabriel's reactions are amusing enough that it leans close to...well, stare at him might be a good guess, until it very gently nudges its head against his cheek for a moment before withdrawing.

It notes that sudden acceleration of pulse, the catch of breath, the sudden tension as it presses down on the angel's neck. Interesting. It will return to that later, it's not done yet.

Wings, though, wings are interesting, aren't they? V1 has 'wings' of a sort, but it's not the same. Its right hand moves in a slow arc, down Gabriel's chest and around to his back, seeking the point where the angel's wings connect; it leans over him as it does so, quite unashamedly in his lap as it investigates.

It doesn't have a heartbeat, not exactly. But this close, the way V1's angular frame thrums with subtle vibration, pulses with warmth through the thin plating, is noticeable.
Edited 2025-06-28 03:32 (UTC)
mechanicalmortality: (4)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-29 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
Intimacy really is something that needs to be experienced directly, is the conclusion V1 is drawing so far. It's one thing to see it from a distance and promptly ignore it (DATA IRRELEVANT), another thing entirely to be sitting close enough to feel the way the angel's pulse speeds up, the warmth of another body that it doesn't need to tear apart in hunger.

It's interesting. All of this is interesting.

Gently...it can do gently, with some effort. Its fingers rub curiously against that sensitive spot, where the ephemeral-on-a-whim wing connects to Gabriel's flesh, mimicking the way Gabriel had massaged it earlier in its hand movements. Exchange, reciprocation, just as he'd said. It's being almost exaggeratedly careful, because it can still feel--

(BLOOD SOURCE DETECTED. BLOOD SOURCE DETECTED. BLOOD SOURCE DETECTED.

It's already fed. Its reserve tanks are full. But still, that pang of hunger remains, dogging it, haunting it. Next time could be the last time. Nothing is ever certain.

It would be so easy.

IT WOULD BE SO EASY.)

Its other hand moves downward, idly settling on his hip with no particular intent. It's concentrating right now. Its systems can be quiet unless something actually dangerous crashes into the room.

INTERNAL NOTE: TARGET HAS MADE TWO ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY YOU.

It seems to have no idea, or is quite possibly ignoring, how Totally Normal Gabriel is about it being in his lap. In fact, it's settled quite comfortably there, kneeling before him and completely absorbed in its investigation.
mechanicalmortality: (4)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-29 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
If Gabriel had asked for its opinion, V1 wouldn't find anything surprising or even offensive about the notion. Letting your guard down was for people who hadn't tried to kill each other before. That this kind of closeness would come with hesitation, distance, is expected.

The words are a little surprising, though. It glances at him, a quick twitch of motion, its eye fixing on his face once more as it draws its hand away. Both hands on his hips now.

It lets itself be tugged closer without resistance, obeying his instructions for once so they're flush against each other. Its auxiliary arms twitch in subconscious protest, but it doesn't seem to intend to use them.

(Yet, at least.)

It taps the hand Gabriel has on its thigh, giving him a more...pointed look. Do you want it to follow instructions or let it free roam, give it some guidance here.
Edited (keep putting the wrong damn words in there smh) 2025-06-29 04:41 (UTC)
mechanicalmortality: (5)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-30 04:52 am (UTC)(link)
Fortunately, V1 has no concept of shame and has so far ignored the idea of internalizing it. Bodies were bodies and pleasure was pleasure, an interesting new curiosity it ought to explore out of a sense of, well, completionism really...

Unfortunately, V1 also thinks this is funny. Gabriel is usually quite articulate, albeit usually when it's for yelling or condescendingly explaining something, in its experience. It's interesting to see that when presented with this kind of situation, his words begin to fail.

And if there's one thing V1 has a vice for, it's the desire to keep going simply to see what happens. Insatiable, voracious curiosity. And it does have two arms...more than two, even.

Well, then, what else can it do but keep going?

It leans back a little, another calculating sweep of its head as it looks him over. Then it purposefully arranges itself in his lap, its legs hooking neatly over his hips so it can press its body to his more firmly. He'd wanted that, he'd said as much, it's following instructions.

Its wings twitch in what's either excitement or enthusiasm as it slides its parrying hand upward, fingers pressing under his chin and jaw, palm firmly against his throat. The other hand snakes around Gabriel's side to his back, seeking out that sensitive point near his wings, resulting in V1 essentially holding him in an odd, close sort of pseudo-embrace.

The other two arms settle on the angel's knees, not doing anything yet. It's simply a display that it has them there.

If V1 was capable of looking smug, it might. It does, however, give off the distinct air of being proud of itself.

See? I'm paying attention.
Edited 2025-06-30 04:54 (UTC)
mechanicalmortality: (5)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-30 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
V1 is finding this whole suite of observed responses a lot more interesting at the moment than the ever-present ever-ignored thought of ripping apart the angel for fuel, which is a strange thought to have. Some of the concepts overlap and fuzz in its mind, that burning desire for dismantling, but it wants...

It wants more of whatever this is. Not the violence. This other thing.

Maybe it's not as unaffected by giving as it thought it would be.

Its fingers dig lightly into the base of his wings as it applies a bit of blunt pressure, its smaller body moving, grinding against his as it feels his response and delights in it, responding in turn.

It can feel Gabriel's pulse speeding up, a constant drumming against its palm, the fainter but still strong sensation of a heartbeat against its chest. It squeezes lightly, testing its grip, finding itself strangely reluctant to push too hard...whatever that means in this case. The neck was still a sensitive area, probably, it's not an expert.

If Gabriel is a bit dismayed at the way his composure is scattering, V1 doesn't mind at all. It likes this. Gabriel being flustered when angered is funny; Gabriel cutting loose during their fights is, despite the danger, interesting. Compelling.

This, however, is simply fun.
mechanicalmortality: (8)

[personal profile] mechanicalmortality 2025-06-30 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
There's a sudden rumbling vibration, a whirring uptick of cooling fans in its slim frame as V1 expresses annoyance. It's trying to be considerate, having to ignore the system alerts for a potential fuel source is annoying, it's making an effort, stupid angel--

Its wings flare briefly in annoyance, smacking against Gabriel's legs.

It stops moving as it did before, letting Gabriel grind against it but not returning that movement in kind. The protective shutter over its eye near-closes for a moment as it shoots him an aggravated look.

Fine, if he wants it harder, it can do harder. It clamps its hand around his neck more tightly, increasing the pressure around his throat, drags its fingers from the base of Gabriel's wings down his back as it digs in hard. Its legs lock around Gabriel's hips, pressing them closer together, as if it means to crush him with it.

(It can't; its hydraulics aren't strong enough for that. It's made for running, not wrestling. But despite the annoyance, it's trying, god.)

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