Chapter Text
It’s something he’s always struggled with: self-image, self-esteem... self-love. He seeks out validation from his peers and subjects alike, always aiming to impress. He knows that he isn’t a lovely sight to behold; he was doomed to ugliness from creation, he supposes. So he pours all that he is into sculpting—into creating things that aren’t ugly. And still, the humans only look down upon him with such fear and disgust that it makes him feel like he’s more mud than he is individual.
But Michael doesn’t look at him like that. It never has. So when Gabriel asks it, in earnest, the question of “Am I ugly?”, the only thing that crosses Michael’s face is genuine shock.
“Who on earth told you that?”
“Nobody,” Gabriel answers. “Not outloud.”
“What makes you feel that way?”
Gabriel pulls at the sleeves of his sweater with blocky fingers, and the material squishes under his fingertips in a completely unnatural way, a way that cotton would not.
“They all look at me so funny,” Gabriel says, and it is more of a whisper than anything. Michael hears him just fine, like he knew it would. “None of them like me. Not really. Some pretend to but... I can see it. They think that I am hideous, and they are right—”
“Worker,” Michael cuts in before Gabriel can go spiraling down that ridiculous line of thought. Gabriel feels a hand on his back, and given the size difference between him and his companion, it basically envelops him. It’s nice, awfully nice, and Gabriel fears he might melt away. “You are... You are the embodiment of clayworks, a manifestation of artwork itself. I am speaking in an entirely literal sense when I tell you that you are a true work of art.”
The hand on Gabriel’s back pulls him forward, and he finds himself pressed up against Michael’s chest in a gentle embrace. Michael holds him like that, so remarkably tender, and he lets himself sigh, clay bones buzzing with the intensity of making direct contact with a powerful thing such as Michael. A human would be afraid, perhaps, but the touch gives Gabriel nothing but warm comfort.
“You are a beauty beyond this world,” Michael murmurs into his ear, and he can’t keep the smile from forming on his face at the sweetness. Michael always makes him feel like this. Like he’s special. Like he means something. “Their eyes view you but cannot process you, and their minds acknowledge but cannot comprehend you. They cannot conceive of the beauty that your very existence represents. You are beauty, Gabriel, beauty in its purest form. It’s best you do not forget that in a life so full of ugliness.”
Michael pulls him from its chest gently, and presses a kiss of static and light against his lips before it says to him, “My friend. My love... You are the only beauty in my life.”
And in that moment, with Michael cradling him and looking down upon him with such fond admiration in its eyes, Gabriel truly believes that he is the most beautiful thing in the world.