Injured or Damaged

by nadiasghost

Summary:

“Who the fuck are you?.... Connor?” Gavin demanded, slamming him back against the counter opposite them for good measure. The android blinked tensed in a frustrated manner. “No. My name is RK900,” he replied crisply, “or, if you would prefer a more…. Human nickname, you may call me Nines. I'm here for the single purpose of assisting you, detective. I've been sent by the captain of the precinct. After the success Lieutenant Hank Anderson had with an android assistant, he agreed amicably to hiring me for the purpose of being your partner. He phrased it for you: 'you're even more of an asshole than Hank, Reed. Let's see if an android will fix you too.'"

Notes:

Is this proofread? No.
Gavin and Nines? Taking over my life.
Hotel? Trivago.

Chapter 1

At first Gavin though it was one of his family members, banging around in the kitchen. But the footfalls were too methodical, too measured to be his mother, too calm to be his father, too steady to be his sister. And then Gavin realized what year it was and that he hadn't lived at home in nearly eight years, and rolled over with a groan in a confusing mix of sadness and relief.
Then he assumed the noise from downstairs must've been Benji, and that the idiot was finally up before him for some reason. When he realized he'd broken up with his ex nearly two years ago now he barely had time to feel the even more amplified wave of sadness and relief because.... He fucking lived alone.

Which meant somebody was fucking breaking into his house.

He fell from bed with a slew of curses, fumbling about for his uniform. Because on his tactical belt was his gun and…. Son of a fucking bitch the whole belt, buckle and gun were downstairs on the kitchen counter. Hello, random person breaking into my house, he thought bitterly, here, have my firearm just laying in plain sight. No really, take it, it'll make robbing me soooo much easier for you.

Gavin clumsily swiped a book off the shelf, the manual to something: to his car, or maybe to his gun, if the universe was really feeling like rubbing it in his face his morning. He hefted the book and began a silent descent down the stairs, trying his best to wrangle in his sleep rumpled brain into the task at hand. At least the book was heavy enough to do some damage.

He paused at the foot of the stairs, straining to listen for the sounds of human activity from the kitchen. There was the shuffle of feet, not in thick boots, but in quiet sounding, sensible shoes, too quiet to gauge distance, and then--

“Good morning, detective!”

Gavin didn't look, he just swung the book wildly at the direction of the owner of the voice, heart thumping. He didn't process any of the words, or even the non threatening tone, just the volume. LOUD.

He hit the android in front of him solidly in the jaw, and thank god he wasn't as tall as this intruder into his house, or he would have had proper leverage to take his head off his fucking shoulders. The android barely reacted, just stumbled back, blinking, processing. Gavin grabbed a fistful of shirt, and made sure the androids attention was on his snarling face, (so the android wouldn't notice he was on his tiptoes to be equal in height).

“Who the fuck are you?.... Connor?” Gavin demanded, slamming him back against the counter opposite them for good measure. The android blinked tensed in a frustrated manner. “No. My name is RK900,” he replied crisply, “or, if you would prefer a more…. Human nickname, you may call me Nines. I'm here for the single purpose of assisting you, detective. I've been sent by the captain of the precinct. After the success Lieutenant Hank Anderson had with an android assistant, he agreed amicably to hiring me for the purpose of being your partner. He phrased it for you: “you're even more of an asshole than Hank, Reed. Let's see if an android will fix you too.” I was very pleased to be hired, especially given everything that's happened. I worked with detectives and the police before …. Everything happened and cyber life was shut down. Of course, back then I worked under orders. It seemed too vast a sea of choices, after, so I selected for myself the option to apply for a job similar to what I'd been doing. However, I can also draw on previous experience as --”

“Shut UP,” Gavin finally begged, “PLEASE, stop talking. My head is pounding--”

“That would be the hangover, detective.”

“--and I just need some--”

“Coffee is in the pot.”

“Whatever,” Gavin managed, but he bee lined for the coffee, pouring himself a cup and tuning out whatever the intruder-not-intruder-but-still-kind-of-an-intruder might be trying to say and he poured nearly as much milk as coffee into a cracked mug, and gulped the lukewarm substance down greedily.

“I also made breakfast--” the android-- Rk900-- NINES, whatever, tried to begin. “Yeah, whatever, that's sweet homemaker robot, but I don't eat in the mornings,” Gavin cut him off. “Sustenance is required for human function--”

Gavin didn't even need to cut him off the second time, he simply started walking Nines towards the door with a firm hand on his chest. “Now partner or not, I'm gonna need like WAY more space from you, tin can,” he informed, “in case you were unaware, you DON’T just show up in somebody’s house at eight am-- EVEN if you make coffee,” he pushed Nines out the front door, “I'm going to get ready for work, alright? Nice talking to ya.”

He closed the door with a low sigh, and turned around for a second cup of coffee.

If he was being completely honest with himself, he'd been half hoping to open the door-- after getting dressed and snagging his uniform belt, holster, and gun off the counter-- and find the android gone. Unfortunately, but predictably, he opened the door to the android just standing there-- STANDING THERE-- holding the strap of his messenger bag against his chest with one steady hand, and regarding Gavin with a judgemental frown, almost as if he was appraising, or scanning--

“What, tin can?” Gavin finally settled on, “it's rude to stare.”

“Your heart rate has changed significantly after the consumption of your coffee, detective. Consumption of caffeine to an excess can--”

“You can shove your advice right up your--” Gavin began, walking to the driver side of his car. He stopped as the android mirrored his motions, heading for the passenger seat. “You are not getting in my car!” Gavin all but yelled in frustration, feeling like a petulant child, “dude! The captain assigned you as my partner, not my babysitter, so get your own damn car, and drive your own damn self to the precinct!”

Nines cocked his head to one side, analyzing. “I don't have a car, detective Reed.”

“Then how the fuck did you get to my house?!”

“I …. Walked.”

Gavin was, at this point, reluctant to get in the car, because unlocking it would unlock the passenger door. If he could just get in and then lock it before the android could pull on the passenger side handle….

“You…. walked? From where?”

“The precinct.”

For a moment Gavin was genuinely speechless. “You, I, what the fUCK?! You left before six am to break into my house?”

The android blinked. “I left at four. I had to prepare breakfast--” as he spoke he removed a tinfoil wrapped package and slid it across the roof of Gavin's car to him, “ --as well as your coffee, and check in on your vital signs, as I knew you would protest such a check during your waking hours. It is my duty to--”

Gavin's stomach simultaneously spiked in curiousity from the food smell and hissed in revolt at the fact that it was still not fully awake, distracting him for a moment from what the android was saying.

….check your vital signs….

“You…. You…” Unable to fully articulate how mad he was that the captain had authorized an android to come watch him sleep, Gavin settled on sliding the breakfast burrito aggressively back to him and yelping, “GET THE FUCK OFF MY CAR!”

Surprised, the android stumbled back to catch the tinfoil package, and Gavin lept in the passager seat and locked the doors, grinning in childlike victory. “Fucking ‘droid is NOT getting in my car.”

Nines blinked, cocking his head again in the little pause that meant confusion, before placing his hand against the door handle. Gavin watched in horror as the door unlocked, and the android slid into the passenger seat.

“The captain gave me access to your car. The vehicle itself belongs to the police department,” Nines offered in explanation.

Gavin cursed. And cursed again. And again, setting his head down in his arms on the steering wheel and pressing the car’s horn with his forehead. “Are you quite done?” Nines asked.

Without answering Gavin revved the engine to life, and rolled out of his driveway, staring stiffly ahead through the windshield. Nines set the breakfast burrito down on the centre consol, and Gavin’s glare only worsened, his jaw clenched tightly.

**

Gavin metaphorically kicked and screamed as much as he could stand to do whilst maintaining his dignity, and that in itself was much more metaphorical kicking and screaming than the captain could usually stand, but still he remained firm. Gavin was going to have an android partner. That partner was going to be RK900.

So he glared Nines back into the passenger seat and they set off for a crime scene debreif. Connor and Hank had been all but demanding to be put on all the (admittantly plentiful) cases of humans attacking androids attempting to make it to the freedom of Jericho even after US law had mandated no human may be allowed to keep an android working for them against their will.

So he and the tin can were working on a new red ice dealer case, thank god.

And he had evidence to collect, so he could put off doing those reports, thank god. Gavin didn't think he could make it through a day in the office with the android following him around like a watchdog from the captain.

So yes, by all measures today would have been the optimal day-- no paperwork, all crime scene work-- except for the android.

The investigation wasn't really going much faster or slower with Nines’ help. They came to the same conclusions at about the same time, but Nines felt the need to announce his thoughts on every new clue, thought Gavin was already piecing together himself, and it felt like he was showing off, even though it was moreso a part of his ideas about doing his job that he wanted to inform Gavin of each discovery he was making.

Which drove Gavin absolutely insane, as every time he went to jot down a clue, Nines would point at it and loudly announce, “that seems like a clue, detective.” And Gavin would be absolutely forced to respond, “I KNOW, dipshit, I figured that one out too.”

By the end of an hour, Gavin was loudly announcing his discoveries before Nines could, and soon enough it was just the two of them attempting to one up the other by angrily explaining the crime scene to each other.

“So this evidence, detective,” Nines tried valiantly, “points towards the theory that--”

“He had a second house!” Gavin shouted over top of him, “I figured it out too. Now get in the fucking car, let's go.”

**

When they arrived at the address of the red ice dealer’s second hideout, there were already several cars ideling outside.

“This is the last fucking time I tell the captain where I'm going,” Gavin hissed vehemently, throwing the car door open. Nines followed suit, eyebrows together in confusion, head cocked to the side. “Isn't it protocol to inform the precinct of a lead this large?”

As they spoke, a cop car pulled out from behind the building, lights on but no sirens.

“See,” said Nines, pointing at it as it dissapeared down the road, “they're going to the precinct with suspects from the address we gave them, presumably other red ice users and possibly even dealers. Imagine if they had still been in the house when we arrived.”

“Would've been great,” Gavin replied shortly, slamming the car door and heading in, “coulda beat them up myself.”

“Detective! That's not--”

“GAVIN REED!” Came a booming voice, “never thought I'd see the day you'd get an android to do your job for you!! Goddamn and especially now, you're probably even paying the piece of plastic, aren't you?”

“Yes, I make--” Nines began. “Shut it,” Gavin and the new detective chorused at the same time, before glaring at one another. “Ross,”Gavin ground out. “Reed,” the new man replied with equal venom, and a new measure of amusement.

There was no way Gavin was about to admit to Terrence Ross that the captain of his precinct had saddled him with a babysitter.

From inside the house was movement, not the suspects, because they were gone. “Fuck,” Gavin mumbled, kicking the curb on his way towards the front door, “who called the fucking feds?”

“Your very own captain fowler,” Ross shot back, and the two men glared at each other again. Gavin took back all his thoughts that the android was the only thing making this day horrible. Everything was making this day horrible, and his head hurt, and he was finally hungry but fuck if he was gonna tell Nines that.

Gavin had never seen a crime scene full of people so on edge. The minute he walked in the hostility hit him like a brick wall. But he took a deep breath through his nose, and glared back at the glares he recieved, ready to bare his teeth all the way if necessary. This was HIS crime scene, he’d got the lead that carried them all here, him, the ‘droid, Terrance Ross, Captain Fowler, and the two Feds standing over a body in the living room. This was Gavin’s lead and he belonged here. Not only was he was ready to fight for that if neccissary, he was more than ready to cut through the bullshit tension in the room, and attempt to assert his dominance over the situation, so he could get the facts, and do his goddamn job.

“Look! It's the damsel in distress who called this one in!” One of the Feds called. Gavin bristled, but he managed to reply with a short and effective, “I didn't call for backup. I called the lead in to the precinct. Per protocol. Because I do my job. I dunno why you dipshits are here, but I can tell you that I didn't invite you.”

The fed that had spoken rolled his eyes and went back to the body, but Gavin counted that as a victory. “Gavin--” Nines began. Gavin’s red alarms went all the way back to full blaring mode. If nines thought he could show off infront of the Feds, not to mention Ross, when all Gavin needed was them off of his case-- “shut up!” He snapped at the android.

“But--”

“If you don't shut up I'm going to shove that plastic tie of yours down your plastic throat--”

“Trouble in paradise?” Ross asked nonchalantly from the window, sweeping dust into an evidence bag.

Gavin lunged at him. It wasn't what he wanted to do. He wanted to formulate something cutting to yell back, something that would hurt Ross like Ross was trying to hurt him, but he didn't plan on hitting the other detective.

“REED!!” Captain fowler a voice cut through the thick air of the crime scene, “get the fuck off of Ross! Outside! Now! You're off this case, go back to the station, write your report, get another case! This is too important for you to fuck it up before you've even done anything remotely helpful! This case is now between Detective Ross’ precinct, the FBI, and me-- I said outside!!”

Gavin stormed out, Nines on his heels.

Gavin wanted to tells Nines to fuck right off and stop following him around like a dog, but his throat felt hot and God, if he cried right now--

“Gav-- Ga-- GAVIN!” Nines yelled. Gavin stopped punching he wall to roughly shrug the hand off his shoulder. He looked down at his knuckles and breathed evenly, trying to will away the releaved sigh at how much BETTER he felt. All the knuckles on his right hand were puckered, pink, and swollen, but only one had broken and begun to leak bright red blood.

“What are you doing?!” Nines demanded, with an inflection Gavin had yet to hear in his voice. “Sometimes humans do dumb shit to feel better,” Gavin grit out, “deal with it.” He rested his forehead against the bricks, breathing deep into his stomach. “That damaged you!” Nines insisted, “and my programming-- my job-- my one job requirement is that you not be injured or damaged!!--”

Gavin turned to him, already buzzing with frustration again. But Nines’ face looked SO UPSET, and Gavin did a double take at not only the confusion painted across his strong features, but also the emotion there.

“There were traces of red ice fumes in the house,” Nines said quietly, “the suspects taken back to our precinct must have been smoking right before they were taken away. Not thick enough fumes for humans to detect, but my sensors are much stronger…. Anyway, as you know, red ice fumes can cause aggression, frustration and violence, especially for humans who are unused to the drug.”

Red ice. THAT’S why Gavin had had zero control over his emotions in there. “Why the fuck didn't you tell me that the moment we got in the door?!” He demanded, “that's literally the only piece of information I couldn't have known, the only way you could've been helpful today!”

“I tried to, detective,” nines said evenly, “you told me to shut up or you would, how did you say it? Shove my plastic tie down my plastic throat?”

Oh. Nines had him there.

“Give me your injured hand,” Nines demanded, with zero trace of bedside manner, “it's bleeding, I'll wrap it.”

“No thanks,” Gavin shot back roughly. He pulled his sleeves down over his hands so if he ran into anybody else from the house they wouldn't see, and pushed himself off the wall. He just needed to get to his car.

“Come now, detective,” Nines insisted, reaching out. Were all the police androids this fucking pushy about their “jobs”? And this grabby? Gavin slapped his hand away with a hiss, like a cat.

“Detective,” Nines huffed, “this isn't even a, how did you say it…. ‘Fucking creepy android thing’. Wouldn't a normal officer bandage his partner’s wound?”

Gavin began to speed walk determinedly to his car, Nines trailing. “Too bad I don't want a partner, and I don't have a partner,” Gavin called over his shoulder, because you don't count, tin can.”

Gavin threw himself into the car, unconsciously waiting for Nines to slide in after him before revving the engine. He gripped the wheel with his left hand, the non-bloody one.

He felt lightheaded. Fuck. And hungry. How far was the nearest food? He didn't really have the emotional stamina to talk to anybody, and if he went all the way home he'd never go back to the precinct, which would land him in even more trouble. He shouldn't have drank all that coffee without eating anything.

Fuck his pride, he would just admit that--

Nines slid the breakfast burrito, still warmer than room temperature, across the car’s centre consol to Gavin. Gavin grunted his approval, but blushed, thankful that he hadn't had to ask. Nines smiled out the passenger seat window. For the first time he was successful in his mission.

**

Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face, yawning and blinking back the light of the computer screen. He wanted to finish this damn report, but he and the android were the last two souls left at the precinct, and it was getting late-- even by Gavin Reed standards.

“Detective,” Nines said crisply, pulling him out of his thoughts, “the other officers have gone home, to rest. It's recommended that you do the same.”

“Fuck off.”

“The optimal amount of sleep for a human your age is--”

“I said fuck off,” Gavin grumbled instantly, putting his head down in his arms, “and why the fuck are you still here, dipshit? Go home. Or…. Back to wherever you came from.”

“I don't require sleep, detective,” Nines informed him, “and as for where I came from, I've been staying here the past few nights.”

“What…. in the precinct?” Gavin asked incredulously.

There was a moment of silence, and though Gavin couldn't see, his head still pillowed in his arms, he could clearly picture the android’s curt and earnest nod. “I sit in the chair in the staff room and put myself into resting mode until the human detectives return in the morning.”

“What the fuck?” Gavin grumbled tiredly, the sound muffled, “you know that's creepy as all hell, right?”

“Where would you prefer me to be during the night hours, detective? I could just as easily sit in rest mode at your place of residence.”

“What, my house?” Gavin asked, finally lifting his head up, “fuck no!”

Nines gave an exasperated sigh, staring at Gavin with his eyebrows raised to convey his frustration. Gavin stood, cracking his back. “I am going to go home,” he announced, tossing the report folder to Nines, “you finish this and I'll review it tomorrow. After you're done you can…. Hibernate or whatever the fuck in the coffee room--”

“--put myself into rest mode--”

“--yeah that,” Gavin grumbled. At the door he stopped, swinging his coat on, and turned back to Nines to add, “and don't come to my house tomorrow, okay? It's fucking creepy. Just wait for me at the precinct.”

Nines’ eyebrows rose imperceptibly, but he nodded. “Got it. I'll be here.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Chapter 2

Notes:

Here’s ur weekly trash — lil bit earlier and a lil bit longer than I had planned (yay!) bc i was waiting in an airport all day lol
I’ve totally started loving writing this so hopefully y’all will be seeing much more in the future
Un-beta-ed, as always

“Nines! Gimme some good news!”

The android startled up from the desk he was leaning over, and Gavin frowned. He didn't think you COULD startle an android, especially not RK900. He seemed pretty fucking unstartleable.

Nines turned, immediately pristine and orderly again. “I’ve finished your report, detective, and all outstanding reports. Meaning all that's left to do is hand them to captain fowler and we can select a new case, starting today with gathering evidence. And from the evidence I've gathered on you, that's usually the part of your job you feel you most excel at. And after yesterday's frustration I hope this will be considered ‘good news’, detective.”

If Gavin didn't know better he'd say the son of a bitch looked…. Smug. Proud. But he could barely blame him because Gavin's own jaw was nearly on the floor. There was NO way, Gavin had more over due reports than hairs on his head. “The Allison Case?” He asked. Nines handed him a file. “The Brenson Arrests?” Nines handed him another file. “The three murders from November? Those have been on the fucking back burner since--” Nines handed him three thick folders.

“Holy shit,” Gavin breathed, and Nines set down the rest of the pile of folders is his arms, the one from yesterday ontop.

“Could fucking kiss you right now man what the fuck,” Gavin breathed, struggling under the weight of the stack of folders. Gavin was not great at expressing gratitude. Nines stared at him blankly for a moment, and by the time sixty seconds had passed of blank staring and Gavin was starting to worry, Hank burst out into a choked laugh from across the precinct main room.

Gavin hadn't heard Hank laugh in a long time, and he did almost as big of a double take as when he'd seen the folders. “You-- you fucking--” Hank wheezed, drawing the attention of the room, “you fucking found a phrase he's not programmed to respond to, look at his little gears whirring away. Somebody help the new android.” Connor joined in the laughter with his tinkling giggle, and Gavin blushed, frowning. Unsure why he was angry, but knowing it could probably be boiled down to the fact that the attention was on him and he didn't know how to deal with it.

“Thank you,” Nines finally said, in a very formal tone, and even Gavin had to hold in a laugh.

“Let's go get a new case then,” he nodded to Nines.

**
“I feel like shit.”

“Blood loss will do that to do, detective,” Nines quipped back, but he helped maneuver Gavin to the police car, careful of the mark where a bullet had grazed his ribs. “You know what would've helped you feel less like shit? If you'd worn your bulletproof vest.”

“Save it,” Gavin bit out. But it was quieter than his usual “shut ups” and Nines felt like for once he was serious. Nines nodded gently and hummed, then replied, “let's just get you to the car, Gavin.”

“Wrong side dipshit,” Gavin bit out as Nines tucked him into the passenger seat. “You’re in no fit state to drive, detective,” Nine’s replied evenly.

“Like hell am I letting you drive my car!” Gavin announced. But despite such a statement he made no move to stop Nines from clipping his seatbelt for him, and sliding into the drivers side. “Keys?” Nines asked politely. Gavin glared at him like a child, almost pouting. Nines only sighed and reached over, retrieving the keys from his partner’s pocket. He revved the engine, and pulled out of the parking space.

It only took a few seconds for Gavin’s leg to begin bouncing up and down. He couldn’t sit still in a passenger seat to save his life, the lack of control over the car drove him insane. He was trying to get better about it, he really was. Just as long as Nines would leave him alone about it--

“What’s wrong, detective? You seem on edge.”

Gavin glared back. “What’s wrong? You’re driving the fucking speed limit. Like a loser. It’ll take us forever to make it back to the station, let alone my place at this rate.”

Nines glanced at him for a long moment, eyes squinted in his “computing” face. “I do not wish to drive over the speed limit detective. For while I have no reason to fear physical damage, a vehicular crash would be very bad for you.” Gavin let out a dry laugh, and went back to fidgeting.

Nines turned on the radio, or rather, the cd of trashy rock that was currently in the sound system.

Gavin was about to ask him what the hell he was doing, as, to the best of his knowledge, androids didn’t exactly appreciate music. But then he realized it was like what Nines had just said about speeding. He wasn’t doing it for himself. He was doing it for Gavin. Giving him a form of distraction in lieu of driving.

Gavin didn’t say anything, but it helped.

**

“I think I need assistance,” Nines began. The four figures in the coffee room turned to him. Hank, Connor, and two human detective partners named Jen and Kristin. Hank raised an eyebrow, but Connor was quick to respond. “Assistance with what?”

Nines turned fully to him. It was still odd seeing his own face stare back from somebody he didn’t know all that well. He’d like to get to know Connor better. Connor seemed to have his own identity all figured out.

“With detective Reed,” Nines replied.

“Yeah, good fucking luck with that one,” Hank laughed, and Connor elbowed him lightly.

“What did Gavin do this time?” Jen asked from the counter. “Well,” Nines admitted, taking a breath, “he keeps preventing me from doing my job! My one job, which is to protect him. He won’t eat like humans are supposed to, he won’t sleep like humans are supposed to. He got shot and wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital yesterday, barely allowed me to drive him to his house, and then bandage the wound, and then told me to go away! This mission is proving to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.”

“Ya ever hear of the carrot and the stick?” Hank asked, mouth full of food. He finally swallowed and repeated himself. “I should give detective Reed a carrot?” Nines asked.

“What? No! Jesus fuck why are all androids so literal? It’s like, y’know, the Pavlovian response. Subconsciously training somebody by giving ‘em things they like, or making ‘em do things they don’t like. Like how I trained Sumo.”

“Or how I trained Hank,” Connor contributed, purposefully ignoring Hank’s “hey!”

“Or how I trained my kids,” Jen offered. “Or how I trained my boyfriend…. Wow, that’s neat!” Added Kristin. Nines blinked, his eyebrows furrowing, and his head cocked to the side. He didn’t really understand what the humans were talking about.

“Alright,” Hank clarified, sensing his growing confusion, “think of it this way, what do we want Reed to do?”

Nines considered his answer at length before responding: “take better care of himself…. oh, and be nicer to people, especially androids.”

“Okay, and what does Gavin genuinely care about? Or like?” Hank continued.

“I…. don’t know.” Nines thought hard. What did Gavin Reed like? Nines quickly flipped through all information he had gathered on his human partner. “He likes his cat. He likes coffee, a lot, too much. He likes food, in some contexts. Or maybe just some foods. I’ll further analyze that. He likes Rice Krispies cereal, heavy rock music, perfectly round stones, sex, driving, the mountains in the distance. He appreciates both human connection, and finding a sense of purpose in his own life, but both of those concepts are ones I’m still working to grasp. He likes positive attention. And sometimes even negative attention. He likes attention. However all of those seem perfectly irrelevant.”

“So when he takes cares of himself and respects others, he gets those things,” clarified Hank. “And then when he does bad things, doesn’t take care of himself, is rude to others, no rewards,” Connor added.

Nines nodded his affirmative. “That makes sense, thank you so much for your help detectives, Connor, Lieutenant.” Nines nodded at at them and turned to leave. “Go!” Jen yelled after him, “be the Dom he needs.” He left to the sounds of Hank cackling and Kristin shushing them.

**

Unlike yesterday, Gavin Reed did not burst into the precinct like a tiny vessel of righteous fire, asking for some good news. This morning, Gavin Reed just seemed sleepy.

He bit back a yawn, and rubbed sleep from his eyes before stumbling into his desk chair. Nines fully exited rest mode upon his arrival, instantly fully awake and aware of his surroundings.

He went to ask Gavin if he wanted coffee, before remembering the advice from the other detectives yesterday, and amended his question to a thinly veiled inquiry about how well Gavin had behaved so far today. “How has your morning been, detective? What have you— how do you say— what have you got up to?”

Gavin regarded him with a raised eyebrow. “Fuck off,” he replied, “oh, and put the coffee on in the break room.” Nines stood immediately to head to the break room. Gavin looked SO tired. But at the door he stopped and turned.

“No,” he said, hands on his hips, watching Gavin carefully, “that’s not how we ask for things.”

“eXCUSE ME??” Gavin asked incredulously, staring back at him. Nines crossed his arms solidly across his chest, and Gavin paled a little. “Try again,” Nines demanded.

Gavin looked around worriedly. They were the only two out on the precinct floor so far this morning. Alone except for captain Fowler in his office, which was fairly soundproof.

“Please?” Gavin bit out, testing to see what response he’d receive. “Better,” Nines allowed, and turned to the break room, already wondering if there was whipped cream in the fridge to make the best coffee he’d yet made.

Because Gavin just seemed so…. so…. Nines frowned. When had he become so fond of his human charge?

**

Coffee drank and files filed, Gavin threw his bag over his shoulder and slung his utility belt around his waist. “What are you waiting for?” Gavin demanded, “let’s go.”

Nines eyed the gun hanging off Gavin’s hip with apprehension and mistrust. “Where are we going now that you need that?”

“Relax, tin can,” Gavin snorted out a laugh, heading for his car and forcing Nines to follow, they passed Connor and Hank in the doorway and waved. “I’m with the DPD, of course I’m carrying my weapon for investigating.”

“But the last time we were “just going to gather some evidence” and you brought your gun, you got shot,” Nines pointed out. Gavin rolled his eyes.

“Why is it always us, or well, you, I suppose,” Nines continued as they reached the car, “who gets put on the cases most likely to have shots fired?” Gavin only shrugged, revving the engine, so Nines sighed and nodded to himself, “fine, I believe you detective, if you say today’s work is not that dangerous.”

Gavin smiled, “you shouldn’t. That’s a blatant lie. Where we’re going is fucking dangerous as all hell.”

**

Shit. The deviant android they’re chasing, clearly a deviant, is clearly a child model. Child androids are only equipped with their human equivalent level of intellengence and maturity. If they’re designed to model a ten year, they only have the mental grasp of a ten year old.

And from the picture, this deviant doesn’t look to be much older than six or seven.

“Shit,” Gavin says aloud, echoing Nine’s thoughts exactly. They’re sneaking through the house, it seems empty, but Gavin is being careful, checking corners before entering each room. So far he’s been slinking infront of Nines, effectively keeping the android safely behind him.

Which would make a lot of sense given that Gavin has the gun, but in fact makes very little sense because Nines is fairly incapable of dying in the human sense.

It’s cold in the house, and Gavin’s breath billows in clouds. For some reason the lack of heating gives a simultaneously reassuring and spine chilling sense of abandonment, emptiness.

The deviant they thought they were chasing is suspect of smuggling red ice for big money, under a face nobody had thought to question. Nines’ stomach drops. The little girl. She looked young and innocent. She was probably guilty of being their target.

Unfortunatly the two adults who lived in this house were nowhere to be found, and neither was the young deviant.

Gavin motioned for him to stand back, at which Nines rolled his eyes, and moved back half of a whole inch for Gavin to break down the door of the master bedroom.

The closet shrieked.

Or rather, somebody in the closet shrieked.

Gavin ripped the closet door open, aiming the end of his gun at the small figure inside. “Please please please don’t please don’t please please—“

Nines stepped forwards to explain to Gavin that this android had the mind of a child, but before he had to, the detective stowed the gun in its hostler and knelt beside the deviant.

Not gentle, but being very careful not to be hostile.

Nines was genuinely surprised.

“Look, no gun, okay,” Gavin pressed, careful not to touch the android, but raising his empty hands infront of her face. “But this is important— hey! Listen to me! Is there anybody else in the house?” Gavin demanded, and again Nines bristled.

“Wha— no. No, it’s just me. I promise. I can tell you where they went I swear, just please.” The little girl sniffled. Gavin seemed to deflate in relief, “there’s time for that, kid. C’mon, let’s get you out of there.” Gavin backed up and watched wearily both signs that she was injured, or that she was going to attack him. As she clambered out of the closet and onto the master bed, made with clean white sheets that billowed as she sat down, Gavin introduced himself and Nines.

“My name is Gavin, this is Nines. He’s a RK900, but he’s an android, like you. If you answer all our questions truthfully, we’ll do our best to help you, okay?” As Nines watched the two of them interact carefully, Gavin scooped up a throw blanket from the armchair in the room and handed it to the girl, who wrapped it eagerly around her shoulders.

Androids don’t technically have to feel temperature, but for a moment both Gavin and the girl had forgotten. “What’s your name?” Gavin asked.

“El— Eloise,” she replied. “Do you know what Red Ice is, Eloise?”

She nodded, looking down at her hands. “And you know that it’s illegal?” Gavin continued. These were his normal interrogation questions, to assess the state of mind of the suspect. But this time he was being uncharacteristically gentle. “Do you want to tell me who it was that asked you to take red ice to people?”

“My dada— Richard. His name is Richard.”

“Do you know his last name?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“It should be the same as your last name,” Gavin prompted. Eloise shook her head, “they didn’t give me a last name.”

Nines rewound footage of the past fifteen minutes, found their street address, and said quietly to Gavin, “it’s alright, I have a last name.”

Gavin hummed his thanks. His attention didn’t leave the deviant. “A few more questions, okay? Do you know where they are going, your parents?” Eloise looked close to tears. “They left me.”

Gavin nodded. He didn’t offer her a hug but waited patiently, kneeling by the bed as she pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “To the southern boarder,” she finally hiccuped, “to Mexico.”

Gavin and Nines breathed a collective sigh of relief, they hadn’t lost their lead. “I’m sorry they left you, Eloise. Me and Nines will help you, okay, you don’t have to stay in this house.” She nodded.

“Did you take money from the people you gave packages to? Or did you just give the packages to them?” Gavin asked.

Eloise nodded. “They gave me money, bills, and I put them in my backpack to bring home. But my backpack had lots of money in it when they left, so my dada took it with him, I’m sorry, I don’t have it.”

No paper trail, electronic or otherwise. Paid in cash.

Gavin shook his head. “It’s alright, we’re not looking for the money, we’re just—“ he stopped, him and Nines both stiffening. Gavin had almost admitted they were after the girl’s “parents”. Would she still feel loyalty to them?

“We’re just looking to help fix things, and help you,” Gavin finally settled on, “because that’s what police do.” At this she finally seemed to brighten. The child’s mentally that there aught to be somebody else, an adult figure, to help fix what was clearly a huge mess of drug trafficking an other illegal activity seemed to have been quashed a while, but now resurfaced with a hopefulness thanks to Gavin’s calm but firm reassurance.

Nines smiles wide, he was proud.

They get the kid out of the house, Nines analyzing everything again as they leave. Gavin explains to her the the detectives at the station will probably have more questions, and for a second, she looks worried, and Nines speaks to her for the first time. “I think our friend Connor is at the station right now, I’ll call ahead and ask if he wants to be the one to ask you the questions, okay? He’s an android, just like us.”

“I didn’t know androids could work as detectives,” she replies happily, “I’d like to be a detective.”

Gavin and Nines exchange a look. Androids don’t grow up, was on the tip of both their tounges.

As soon as the deviant kid is safely with Connor and Hank, under the captain’s official jurisdiction but not having to directly deal with the captain, heaven forbid, Gavin deflates.

He folds into the driver’s seat of his car and just…. holds the wheel, steadying himself for a moment. Nines hums in thought, then admits, “I was expecting to have to be the good cop.” That pulls a short laugh from Gavin.

“That was messed up,” Gavin finally offers. “It’s over now,” Nines reassures. Gavin shakes his head, looking at his hands on the wheel, “getting an android for a kid, and then using her to smuggle drugs? Even more fucking messed up than doing that to a human kid. It’ll be over when we catch Richard and his wife, those sons of bitches.”

Nines smiles softly at him.

“What?” Gavin demands. “You called Eloise a her, this whole time, even once we were far away from her. ‘Her’, not ‘it’, for an android.”

Gavin shrugs noncomittally.

“Turn left here, detective,” Nines requests, and Gavin does so on autopilot, before starting and grumbling that they were supposed to go right. “I thought we would pick up food from that Italian place you always have takeout bags in the fridge from. You choose your favourite dinner, and I’ll pay.”

Gavin’s face is difficult to read as he flounders for a moment, before settling on, “an android with disposable income for takeout?” Nines smiles again. “Since the accords were settled between the president and Marcus’ Jericho—“

“English, please,” Gavin mumbles sarcastically.

“Captain Fowler legally has to pay me now,” Nines concludes, “its not a lot of money, but I sleep at the precinct and I don’t require food, so I do have, as you put it, a fair amount of disposable income.”

Though Nines had historically had little interest in food, he tried some pasta at Gavin’s request. “Cmon, man, you gotta try it now, while it’s still hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth.”

Gavin put the pasta down long enough to drive back to his apartment, and invited Nines in for the first time. (So much better than breaking and entering.)

“Eating food is quite an enjoyable sensation,” Nines finally admitted, perched pristinely on Gavin’s couch, “especially this “garlic bread”.”

“Dude,” Gavin began to reply, and Nines didn’t like ‘dude’, but he supposed he liked it a lot more than ‘tin can’, “are you going to be okay to eat all that bread? You’ve, like never eaten that much food in one go right? You’re not gonna short circuit something, are you?”

Nines gave him big eyes for a moment, before shrugging and going back to his garlic bread. Gavin doubled over laughing.

They watched an old cop show Gavin had already seen many times through. When Nines pressed him as to why he would want to watch a show about people working the same job he works during the day, Gavin wrinkled his nose and replied that he liked to laugh at how bad the actors were at pretending to be policemen.

Nines tried to explain that it was no surprise they were bad, they were actors, not REAL policemen, but Gavin just rolled his eyes and laughed, his cat stretching out on his lap.

Gavin fell asleep scratching his cat’s ears, his face pressed into Nine’s shoulder. Nines blinked rapidly, looking at him closely to make sure he was asleep. It wouldn’t do to wake him. And moving him to his bed was certainly asking to be yelled at tomorrow. But Gavin had been so good today.

Confused by how much he would love to just sit here with the detective and watch over him while he finally slept, Nines realized Gavin probably wouldn’t like that either. Nines quickly put himself into sleep mode.

Chapter 3

Notes:

Yeet I’ve already started writing chapter four but like FYI if u hadn’t already clued in this is a slow burn this is a long journey lmao we’re all in this together for the slowest of burns to ever burn

This morning Nines gained a new understanding of a human emotion he thought he’d understood: embarrassment.

Gavin was embarrassed to have fallen asleep on his shoulder, that much Nines could understand immediately. Gavin had begun to stir as bright sunlight filtered through the window across his face in a way it normally wouldn’t if he’d been in his bed. Nines’ rest mode had ended half an hour ago, but for whatever reason he’d allowed himself to give into the temptation to sit like this a little longer.

It was peaceful in a way being around Gavin rarely was. Gavin’s cat had moved to his lap while he was asleep, and Gavin himself was curled up to his left side, snoring quietly in his ear.

It was just…. nice.

Not a lot of things had been nice recently for Nines, but last night has been, and so was this morning. And—

“What the fuck?!” Gavin demanded, practically leaping out of his skin in order to stand up immediately from the couch. He instantly regretted his decision, groaning as every one of his joints popped from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.

These first symptoms of embarrassment were ones Nines recognized: red face, hunched shoulders, frustration, uncharacteristic bashfulness. What he wasn’t expecting was the following outright anger. Because of course for Gavin if it was Nines’ fault, then it wasn’t his own fault.

So this was another one of Gavin’s very confusing Gavin-Reed-only feelings.

He barely said a word to Nines as he shuffled around his apartment getting ready. They drove in silence, and as they entered the precinct Gavin was careful to walk a few steps ahead of Nines, as though they hadn’t driven together.

Nines was confused. Had he done something wrong? Had he even done anything out of the ordinary? He and Gavin traveled together all the time, and went together in the car everyday. This hardly seemed any different.

Even more perplexing was the collective reaction from Hank, Kristen, Jen, even Connor. People Nines thought he understood, teasing Gavin and only causing him to become more embarrassed and angry and — oh. They thought…..OH.

Nevertheless, their jibes were no excuse for Gavin to reply back with biting insults and storm to his desk. Hank merely rolled his eyes, but Connor looked genuinely upset. “At least make yourself useful and put on the coffee,” Gavin snapped at him after he sensed Nines behind him, just watching the muscles in his back tense as he booted up the computer.

“No,” Nines replied. He waited for a “why not?”, Or, since it was Gavin, a “why the fuck not?”, so he could explain it was due to the detective’s behaviour, but Gavin merely stood up himself and said, “fine, I’ll get my own fucking coffee.”

Nines sat firmly in his chair, across the desk from Gavin’s seat, and waited for him to request something, all the while shooting looks he hoped were conveying his absolute betrayal to the other detectives.

Refusing to help Gavin was just making the both of them more angry. The case was going slower, and anxiety churned in Nines’ stomach. A quick scan of Gavin revealed he was similarly on edge.

Fine. It proved difficult, but Nines completely ignored Gavin for a whole two hours, working instead on the case by himself. It was clear Gavin was desperate to figure out how to get Nines’ attention back, but he didn’t want to ask for it, especially not in front of the other detectives who were already enjoying teasing him.

Nines took a steadying breath. He had to be above that.

Finally Gavin began poking his leg with the toe of his shoe. Nines raised an eyebrow. Gavin was basically tugging on his sleeve for attention and it was absolutely adorable. And just when did he start thinking like that about—

Gavin scribbled something on a sheet of paper and slid it across the table. “I’m sorry,” it read.

Nines crosses his arms.

“Sorry,” Nines huffed aloud. Nobody else in the precinct so much as batted an eye, but Nines beamed at him. “Good boy,” he smiled.

Gavin went back to glaring at his computer screen, bright red again.

A siren sounded from the corner of the room where it was mounted on the wall. “Shit, the siren,” Hank grunted, cursing his way to his feet. Nines blinked up at Gavin in surprise. The siren? We have a siren?

Everybody was standing. Nines scrambles to his feet, uncharacteristically hasty and awkward. “What is that alarm FOR, detective?”

“All officers on call!” Gavin, ironically, did grab his sleeve, pulling him along as he ran outside, “something has happened that requires all possible help!”

**

Nines’ hopes for Gavin had been simple enough. That Reed take care of himself, and that he not be an asshole to others. Two agendas that should never have contradicted one another. But SOMEHOW Gavin had managed….

“Why-“ Gavin winced, “—why the fuck are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you, Gavin,” Nines responded, clearly mad. Gavin watched him wearily. “At least the bullet didn’t hit you,” Nines allowed, as he helped the detective to stand. Gavin groaned in pain, leaning heavily into Nines.

“Fuck,” he managed between gritted teeth, “yeah, about that—“

Nines skipped the formality of yelling “you got hit?!” In a shocked or incredulous voice and opted to instead immediately demand, “WHERE did you get hit?” patting down the side of Gavin’s body.

“Leg, leg, ow, my thigh, yeah there don’t fucking poke it, asshole.”

Nines had thought he was confused before, but this added layer of …. emotion? It was making it so hard to think.

On the one hand, Nines hadn’t expected Gavin to take a bullet for a stranger, as Gavin’s self -proclaimed motto was “fuck everyone, everyone is selfish, and i don’t owe anyone anything”. (Though Nines was slowly starting to realize that Gavin didn’t believe half of the things he himself said).

One the OTHER hand, jumping in front of bullets was NOT GOOD SELF CARE.

He carefully helped Gavin into the passengers side seat. “In my defence,” Gavin attempted, “I was wearing a bulletproof vest. So I’m okay.”

Nines climbed into the driver’s seat— “Yes and then the bullet hit you fucking leg!” — Nines slammed the car door. They stared at one another. Nines has never shown so much emotion in his voice.

Nines revved the engine and successfully evaded Gavin’s gaze, a way of changing the subject Gavin himself knew all too well. Nines switched on the music, and they headed for the precinct.

Once the witnesses were dropped off for questioning Nines drove Gavin to the ER, against his valiant protests. He obliged Gavin’s request to at least pick up food along the way if they were going to be there all night, and the detective shut up long enough to eat.

In the waitroom Nines helped Gavin to a chair and then gracelessly deposited him there, handing the detective his jacket as the wound began to bleed again, and moving off silently to check in at the desk.

The android there behind the desk confirmed that they would likely be there a while, but that they would be shown to a room as soon as possible. The android asked his relationship to Gavin, starting first with the guess of “partner?” Nines nodded at this, but quickly blushed as he realized the misunderstanding.

“Um, no, I think you’ve misunderstood.” His jacket was off, stopped the bleeding on Gavin’s leg, and his hair was matted down over his eyes from the brief tussle outside in the rain. “I’m his police partner,” Nines clarifies, lifting a lock of hair to reveal his blue LED.

“Oh!” The android exclaimed, then rushed to apologize.

“It’s alright. Really, it’s alright.”

Nines found Gavin some coffee, since it was already late, and they’d have to be here later into the night. As Gavin began to complain that he was tired, and wanted to sleep, Nines scolded him, stating that it was a bad idea to sleep after losing so much blood, he should “wait until after [he was] seen by a doctor”. Gavin scowled, yawning, but took a large swig of coffee and stopped trying to put his head down. Inside, Nines bounced with a form of nervous energy he was unaccustomed to, frustrated that they hadn’t been seen right away. Gavin was bleeding out! Shouldn’t that be at least a little bit priority?

Nines sat with him, and filed the paperwork for the case, but he also largely ignored Gavin, seeing as he wasn’t sure whether he was meant to be rewarding the detective for his selflessness, or punishing him for his stupidity. Nines was confused, unsure of how to feel, and his mixed signals were only serving to in turn confuse Gavin.

“Mr. Reed?” They both looked up to the owner of the voice. A young doctor. He beaconed Gavin forwards, and Nines stood with his partner, mostly so he could catch Gavin when the detective began to teeter.

They made their awkward shuffling way to a room in the back, Gavin cursing the whole way.

“Not the worst I’ve seen,” the doctor decided quickly. Nines stiffed in anger as Gavin stiffened with a quiet hiss of pain for the fifth time in as many minutes. Gavin was too tough to ask for--

“Be gentle!” Nines snapped, hands balled into fists, feeling useless. All three young men seemed surprised at his outburst, Nines himself perhaps most of all. The doctor laughed. “Good guard dog you’ve got there,” he remarked, eyeing Nines’ LED pointedly. Gavin seemed unsure who he wanted to glare at MORE.

The doctor put in five quick stitches with the same brisk and efficient motions he’d been using, while Gavin clung to the table with a white knuckled grip.

He bustled off to fill out paperwork, barely addressing the two of them. Nines quickly brought up how to take care of stitches in his mind, so he would know--

“What are you concentrating so damn hard on?” Gavin demanded. Nines looked up quickly, so their eyes could meet. “Nothing, detective. Where to now?” He stooped to help Gavin stand, picking up their newly issued crutched in a smooth motion with his other arm.

“Take me home, Nines.”

Chapter 4

Notes:

Do I like this chapter? No. But I wanted to update.

“You should really take the day off, detective,” Nines began, already sensing the futility of his resistance. Gavin shook his head, swallowing a concerning amount of headache medicine with a mouthful of coffee that was still too hot.

“What have I told you about staying on my couch all night?” Gavin replied, deflecting. Nines raised an eyebrow at him, hands on his hips, “I was worried about you, detective, you made me all but carry you through the front door and into bed last night. I thought the painkiller they gave you at the ER might’ve been too high a dosage for you, given your…. Smaller stature.” Read: SHORT.

Gavin glared at him over his mug of coffee.

“And what pills are you taking now?” Nines demanded, picking up the bottle for inspection. Just anti-inflamitory pain medicine for headaches.

Gavin downed the last of his coffee. “Suit up, android, if I’m working, you’re working. Where’s that jacket of yours.”

“Well, blood soaked is not the look I’m going for while meeting witnesses,” Nines replied dryly. “Is that…. Is that a joke? Did robocop 900 just make a joke?” Gavin asked in mock shock. Nines rolled his eyes. “Why don’t YOU suit up, detective. While those pyjamas are an excellent look they’re not exactly crime scene ready. I’ll meet you in the car.”

**

“I’m getting real tired of the passenger seat in my own car,” Gavin announced as he swung himself into the car, fully dressed, coffee in hand, eyes still somewhat bleary.

Nines glanced at him sideways with a raised eyebrow. “You and me both know you cannot drive with your leg like that. So if we’re working, I’m driving. You’re welcome.” He hit the music button for Gavin and the car filled with the brash sounds of rock music old enough to be outdated, but not old enough to be retro.

They barely stopped at the precinct, checking in with Hank and Connor long enough to rock paper scissors for who was going to hunt down the witness of a jewel thievery case somewhere in the upscale part of town, and who was going to question the witnesses to a few instances of the movement of red ice down in the east side of the city. Naturally Gavin pushed Nines out of the way, and promptly lost to Connor.

“Best two out of three!” Gavin demanded.

“.... Best three out of five!”

Hank shook his head at the younger detective. “You lost, Reed, Connor gets to pick who’s going where today.” Gavin crossed his arms, huffing. “Not fair! Connor’s an android, of course he won!”

“Next time let Nines play,” Connor said reasonably. Gavin glared at him. Nines rolled his eyes at their antics, he had already mentally prepared for working in the “bad” part of town today, somebody had to do it, and it usually ended up being Reed.

“My LEG,” Gavin tried, “has stitches, so me and Nines should be able to choose!” Hank looked him up and down, unimpressed, and countered, “right…. So should I tell Captain Fowler you’re working injured?”

Gavin’s eyes narrowed, and Nines nearly laughed. Defeat.

**

They pulled into a parking space down a nearly entirely empty dead end street blaring Gavin’s terrible rock music. The houses here were built nice, this used to be a blue collar neighborhood, same as most of the suburb-like set up around here, but now the houses here were abandoned. A huge “condemned” sign glared out at them from the house at the end of the street.

As they exited the car, another police vehicle raced down the street to the house at the end, sirens screaming. Gavin and Nines exchanged a look. That wasn’t good.

They ran as fast as they could, Gavin limping slightly, and reached the house as the two officers in the car were exiting onto the street. Oh no. Terrence Ross.

“Well well well, what do we have here,” Ross drawled, as his partner rolled her eyes, and started towards the house. Ross looked Gavin up and down before continuing, “Gavin Reed and his plastic partner, trying to stick their noses in MY case?”

Gavin grit his teeth. “For ONCE, can’t the crime come before being an asshole to me? We don’t know what happened here, we’re tracing a red ice lead at this same address. Care to enlighten us?”

Ross put a hand to his chin, as though he had to consider it, then finally answered, “somebody is dead. That’s what happened here, boys.”

They followed Ross through the front doors. The house was quiet.

“Whoever called the body in over the anonymous tips line sounded high off their ass on the phone,” Ross’ partner called helpfully over her shoulder, “my guess is that they didn’t stick around for us to show up.” Gavin nodded, looking around. Nines watched him with curiosity. He didn’t look worried about Ross, or about Nines showing him up, or about anything as petty. Gavin’s jaw was clenched tightly, he was focused. Somebody was dead, and it was his job to figure out what had happened.

Nines smiled, pride blooming in his chest.

Their eyes met, and Nines opened his mouth to remind Gavin to be careful with his leg. Gavin’s eyebrows came together creating a little furrow between them, and he nodded. Nines didn’t need to say anything.

The body wasn’t hard to find. The house was silent apart from the creaking of it’s old wooden structure and there the young man lay, dead in the center of the living room. Ross knelt beside him, nose scrunched in disgust. “Overdose, this wasn’t murder,” he decided loudly.

“Nope,” Gavin called, “look at the dust I’m stepping in, notice anything about the floor over where you are?” Ross rolled his eyes, standing again beside the body, as his partner began to lay out markers and take pictures. “That doesn’t mean a struggle, Reed, he could’ve done any stupid shit in this house while he was high, before he OD’d.”

Gavin’s eyebrows rose, “you’re right. Oh, but what’s this?” he ran his middle finger through a sticky patch on the windowsill, “oh yeah, this is blood,” Gavin announced, flipping Ross off with the offending blood covered finger, “this was murder, call in to tell your precinct.”

“Tell them what?” Ross asked dumbly.

“That the murderer is still in the house. And we’re about to get him.” With that Gavin turned to ascend the stairs, gun in hand, and Nines followed, grinning huge. Ross fumbled for his weapon, and hastened to follow.

At the top of the stairs Gavin paused, flicking off the safety, aiming his weapon at the door there. Nines reached past him, one steadying hand on the small of Gavin’s back, the other snaking forwards to the nearly black substance on the handle. Gavin wrinkled his nose, briefly forgetting about the proximity, about Ross. “The hell is that,” he asked, “blood? Why’s it black?”

Nines brought the two fingers to his lips, tongue darting out to analyze the new substance. “Thirium,” he informed Gavin. After Gavin failed to give an opinion on this new development, standing dumbly with his gun still pointed at the door, Nines turned his head to look at the detective.

Gavin coughed, face red, and nodded, “right, right, that’s bad, something’s wrong, that’s not good at all okay--” he shook his head quickly seeming to cringe in on himself, before turning back to the door and adopting his scary police voice, “--not good at all, okay DPD OPEN THIS DOOR!”

From behind the offending door was a muffled yelp, and then silence. “IF YOU ARE NOT-- Y’KNOW-- A CRIMINAL BAD GUY THEN STAND BACK, I’M BREAKING DOWN THE DOOR!”

“‘Criminal bad guy’,” NInes asked, grinning in amusement. “Shut up,” Gavin whispered venomously back, “and break down the door for me.” Gavin did as he was told, attacking the poor old rotting door with a solid front kick, and it creaked right off its hinges, falling to the floor with a crash. Inside there were three figures, a young human man and a young human woman holding a young android man at knife point. The android was bleeding black blood from several gashes.

Yeah, android blood was supposed to be blue. That wasn’t good.

“DPD HANDS ON YOUR HEAD, ON YOUR KNEES,” Gavin demanded, entering the room in front of Nines, aiming his gun at the man and the woman in turn, switching between the two of them, the android in between only looking more and more concerned for his safety. Oh no.

“I SAID HANDS ON YOUR HEAD, ON YOUR KNEES,” Gavin repeated. He fired a warning shot at the ceiling. The plaster broke easily to allow the bullet through, raining down roof dust and opening up a small window of sunlight. The only person in the room who seemed scared at the noise was the android. But reluctantly the young woman stepped forwards and sunk slowly to her knees. Gavin’s gun followed her down carefully, watchful for anything threatening, and while he did the second human pulled a gun from his waistband. He dropping the knife, and pointed the gun at Nines all in one fluid motion. Oh no.

The bloodied android snatched up the knife from the floor. Gavin cursed and Nines raised his hands in a motion of surrender, cocking his head. Ross and his partner flanked Gavin and Nines, weapons pointed at the one standing figure. Three guns against one, good odds, but Nines was still frustrated. Why did it always end in a fight?

As the criminal pointing the gun at him began to speak, Nines’ jaw clenched. THIS is why the DPD needed to give their androids the same weapons as their humans. But no time to dwell on that now.

“You want the murderer?” The young man asked, then abruptly he pointed the gun at the bleeding android at his feet, “this here is your murderer. Killed our friend in cold blood.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t, I swear!” The android protested. Nines pictured the body downstairs. There had been signs of a scuffle, and blood on the mantle, proof of foul play, but the body itself had no wounds.

Gavin stepped forwards, gun on the young man. The young man’s gun was still trained on the android. If he shot the android, Gavin would shoot him. But if Gavin went to shoot him, it’s likely he would have time to pull the trigger on the android first. The young man was banking on Gavin Reed valuing the life of the android.

A few weeks ago, Nines would have laughed at him for being so stupid. But now it was anyone’s guess what Gavin would do.

Whatever he did, he had to be careful. To think before he acted, and —

The android on the floor lurched up and stabbed the young man in the arm. He cried out and hit the android, switching the gun to his other hand and leveling it at the androids head. As he did Ross fired two confused warning shots into the air, and Gavin rushed forwards, yanking the young man off the android. They fell to the floor in a scuffle, both guns trapped between them.

As Nines ran forwards to help Gavin the young human woman jumped up from her knees and flew at him. Ross’ partner fired several shots, one of which caught the woman in the leg, and she stumbled, but nevertheless fell onto Nines, hissing and clawing at him.

From Gavin and the young man came several shots that went careening into the walls. Finally Nines was able to push the woman off of himself and she careened backwards, falling to the floor. Ross’ partner grabbed her roughly to handcuff her.

Nines turned quickly to Gavin. He’d thrown the young man off of himself, but the man had somehow figured out Gavin’s leg was hurt, and had scratched his leg hard enough to yank out some of the stitches. Nines only took a step in the direction of whooping his ass before Gavin himself roundhouse kicked the young man—with his injured leg—and he fell. Gavin holstered both weapons, his, and the one he’d struggled off of the young man, before half collapsing onto the ground himself.

Nines rushed the rest of the way over to help Gavin sit down safely.

Ross finally found his voice. “Aw is Mr. Plastic here to help you—“ Nines stood, walked the five feet over to him, and punched him in the face so hard he stumbled back into the doorframe.

“Take these two to the cruiser, and back to your precinct,” Nines instructed Ross’ partner roughly, while Ross held his broken and bleeding nose in disbelief, “Gavin and I will question the other suspect.”

Nines turned back to Gavin, expecting to feel a similar tug of anger deep in his gut, but there was nothing but relief there, and an undeniable swell of pride. “How bad is the bleeding,” Nines finally settled on asking. “Not hospital bad,” Gavin replied, “but I’ll tell you if it gets worse. I promise.”

Nines was surprised to feel his vision blur, and he blinked until his eyelashes clumped together. Tears. That’s why the back of his throat was burning. He was crying.

“Nines,” Gavin demanded, wanting and succeeding in gaining his attention, “I’m fine. I promise. Sorry I-“

“Don’t say sorry, I’m not upset,” Nines rushed to explain, “I….” He was worried Gavin was hurt, but more importantly he was SO PROUD of Gavin for rushing to defend an Android, one he had no reason to trust, and to risk getting shot for— That Gavin was prioritizing androids like he was prioritizing humans— Nines didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say, and he didn’t want to mess up. So he settled on repeating himself. “I’m not mad, I’m pleased. You did good.” Good. GOOD.

Nonetheless Gavin blushed. Nines turned to the android to avoid having to explain himself yet, and Gavin followed suit.

“Slide that knife over here,” Nines demanded. The android did.

“Why are you bleeding black?” Gavin asked without preamble.

“Red ice….” The android replied, “I took— he gave me red ice.”

“Who?”

“My old owner’s son, he — he’s downstairs. He’s dead.” The android was a deviant. He looked truly remorseful. Nines and Gavin watched him carefully. “I get a lawyer right?” The android demanded.

“Yes,” Gavin replied truthfully, but hesitantly. Androids didn’t win cases in court. This question seemed to ground Gavin to the routine of what he was doing, as he explained to the android that they would have to take him down to the station, and then began to rattle off his rights. “You have the right to remain silent….”

As he spoke, Nines moved forward and handcuffed the android, swallowing his feelings and utilizing his ability to look emotionless.

“Don’t worry,” Gavin said, “you’ve got the best detectives in town on the case, so the truth will be found—“ he stood and promptly stumbled into Nines, “scratch that you’re going to have the second best detectives in town — fuck— Nines and I are going to the fucking ER again to get new stitches.”

Nines scooped Gavin up in one arm, his phone already held between his shoulder and ear on the other side, and he motioned for the android to descend the stairs in front of them, so they could head in the direction of Gavin’s car.

“Lieutenant Anderson?” Nines asked when the phone stopped ringing, “—oh, Connor, hello. If I give you an address can you and Hank come pick up a murder suspect?— yes, it’s Gavin, he— Thank you.”

Notes:

Snek pek (sneak peak) of the planning for the next two chapters:
Chapter 5: the soft TM content you have been waiting for
Chapter 6: the spicy TM content you have been waiting for
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE NICE COMMENTS SO FAR I LOVE ALL OF YOU SO MUCH!!

Chapter 5

Summary:

the Soft Content TM you were promised

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes I fucking will. Fuck off, toaster.”

Nines stood with his arms crossed in the bedroom doorway, regarding the angry sleep-rumbled mess of bed head and blankets that was his partner.

“You can’t stop me,” Gavin continued petulantly, “and while we’re on the topic of stopping: STOP FUCKING BREAKING INTO MY HOUSE!”

Nines raised an eyebrow, but made no move to help the human as he floundered his way out of his blanket cocoon. “I didn’t break in, detective, you let me in with the apartment key. Because I was carrying you, because you got shot in the leg, remember?”

It took Gavin a moment to realize the Android wasn’t actually trying to test his memory of the past couple days after repeated blood loss, but was in fact making a sarcastic joke at his expense. He angrily shrieked in an undignified manner, and finally succeeded in sitting up.

“Where are you going?” Nines asked— moreso drawled, seeming to become even more comfortable in his position leaning against the door.

“Up, out, work, I don’t care,” Gavin grumbled. As he threw his legs over the bedside he almost whimpered with the sudden stabbing pain there. Nines was by his side in an instant, a firm and insistent hand on his chest stopping his from moving further.

“The muscle of your thigh is seriously damaged, detective,” Nines insisted, “the hospital called Captain Fowler directly last night and left a message saying you were not to work today. They gave explicit direction to me that you were not to stand on it, and that you were not to leave my sight.”

Gavin swatted the hand away from his chest. “So what, are you gonna carry me around?”

Without a word Nines scooped Gavin up from the bed, holding his carefully but firmly in a princess carry, tight to Nines’ chest. Gavin squeaked indignantly, but didn’t back down. “Fine, take me downstairs to the coffee, dipshit.”

Nines did, descending the stairs carefully, gentle footfalls as not to further agrivate the detective’s wound. Without a word Nines set Gavin down on the counter, next to his cat, who meowed loudly at the unusual behaviour. This was her counter, Gavin could get his own thank you very much.

Nines bustled around— feeding the cat, making the coffee— before returning to Gavin with a hot mug. Gavin took a tentative sip, always expecting the robo-coffee to be off, but no, it was a perfect replica of how he made his coffee. Just how he liked it.

Gavin huffed, blushing, and hid his small smile behind the rim of the cup.

“What next, detective?”

Gavin watched Nines watching him.

“I’m on house arrest, yes? Well there’s fuck all to do in my house, so you played yourself by signing up to be babysitter.” Nines merely leaned against the counter where Gavin was perched, shrugging.

Gavin narrowed his eyes at the android. He really wasn’t going anywhere. And Gavin felt…. relieved? With a jolt he realized he really didn’t want to be stuck at home with a screwed up leg alone. The main reason he worked so much was to avoid having too much downtime alone, to think, and then have to deal with intrusive thoughts. It was easier to feel broken and useless with somebody there to distract him. Even if— no. Especially if that person was Nines. If nothing else, Nines has been EXELLENT at distracting him lately.

Gavin let him cat nuzzle into his left side, and then turned to Nines on the right. “Okay, well, I’m going to answer some emails, and then we could, I dunno, watch some tv. Cook something. Make you some more garlic bread. We’re just waiting for the damn muscle to heal so it doesn’t really matter what we do, as long as I don’t find a way to screw it up more.”

Nines modded. “Where are your emails, detective?” Gavin nodded to the computer sitting on the couch in the living room. Instead of picking up the computer to bring it to Gavin, Nines easily picked up Gavin to take him to the computer. Gavin let out a laugh at the absurdity.

**

“Well I know you have every recipe ever in your head, but I’m GOOD at baking,” Gavin protested, “look, Nines, you’re in MY house and I will decide how much butter is too much.”

“Health wise—“ Nines tried to protest. “No, nuh uh, not all food is supposed to be healthy,” Gavin paused to open Nines’ mouth with one hand, and stick cookie batter in with the other. Ironically, Nines looked robotic as he allowed Gavin to push up on his chin and close his mouth.

“I prefer garlic bread,” Nines said while chewing. Gavin wrinkled his nose, “we’re making cookies, man. We can’t put garlic in cookies. Besides, it’s not good yet because it doesn’t have the important stuff in it….” Gavin looked around for the vanilla extract, before spotting it on the far counter. He pouted. Too far.

Gavin reached forwards, motioning sadly to the vanilla until Nines laughed and stood. Instead of picked up the vanilla, Nines picked up Gavin, and delivered him to the vanilla counter. Gavin blushed, that was the first time he’d outright indicated he wanted Nines to pick him up and move him. He couldn’t put a finger on what it was— but being picked up didn’t make him feel weak. It made him feel taken care of.

Nines set Gavin down, and then set the bowl of batter down in his lap. Somewhere between this morning and now in their baking adventure, Nines had stopped picking him up princess style, and started picking him up like a hug. It seemed a natural progression at the time, Gavin was sat on the counter, and Nines had sidled up between his legs, wrapping an arm around his waist and another arm underneath his uninjured leg to scoop him up. Gavin’s arm’s had gone around Nines neck automatically.

Gavin recognized how the pair of them would look if somebody else entered the room. But he…. couldn’t really tell Nines off. Not when Gavin himself had wound his arms tight around his neck, chin resting on his shoulder in a fake pout, and soaked up the attention.

**

Nines got through cookie making in one piece, but Gavin ended up with batter smeared half up his face, and flour in his hair. “Need a shower,” Gavin laughed, catching his reflection on the window of the oven, “it’s just as well, I should clean the wound on my leg anyways.” Nines grimaced at the reminder of his injury, but popped a timer on the over (no doubt a perfect estimate of how long Gavin’s disaster cookies would take to cook, the calculator-head), and picked Gavin up.

Gavin’s cat trotted after them up the stairs.

Nines set Gavin on the edge of his own bathtub, and Gavin grimaced. He hated baths, but he’d rather bathe than shower right now. He leaned over to switch on the water. “I think I got it from here,” he laughed at Nines. When Nines didn’t move, Gavin turned around to face him.

“Dude! You aren’t seriously— get OUT of my bathroom, I’ll be fine. I can take a bath myself.” Somehow the gentleness of the day dulled what would’ve been a biting demand from Gavin, to a softer request.

“Yell if you need anything,” Nines settled on, “and if I call through the door to check that you haven’t drowned, you better respond.”

Gavin snorted a laugh, and saluted. “Yes sir.”

**

The wound was bad, but not the worst Gavin had had. Certainly not the worst Gavin had seen.

He brushed over the scab, gently cleaning the stitches, and the bath water around him turned pink. Gross. That could not be good for him.

The flour was out of his hair but now he felt so completely exausted— like the hot water was sucking the energy, the lifeforce, straight from him.

He stood quickly, using the wall as a crutch, and succeeded in slipping and eating a good chunk of ceramic floor tile. “Gavin?!” Came Nines’ worried voice.

“Fuck. Yeah. I’m fine,” Gavin groaned. He checked the stitches. All intact. He was going to cry if he had to go back to the ER for the third time in as many days.

Gavin felt around on the countertop from his position on his own bathroom floor. He’d made Nines detour to his closet before the bathroom for— hell fucking yes. Sweatpants.

He tugged on the clean clothes and then leaned against the cool counter. “Hey Nines,” Gavin began, frustrated to find his voice unsteady, “I’m dressed, do you want to—“

Nines was there in an instant, checking to make sure he was uninjured, scooping him up into a strong hold. This wasn’t just functionality anymore, Nines was— Nines was comforting him. And it was working.

Of course Nines was equipped with empathy, but this felt like sympathy. Gavin buried his face into Nines’ collarbone. Maybe that was just wishful thinking. But—

“Hey, it’s okay,” Nines murmured, “I know.” I know. What did those two words mean? Nothing. But they also meant EVERYTHING. Sympathy. Nines understood, Nines KNEW.

Gavin burst into tears. Big, gross sobs. Of course he did, Gavin knew himself: when he was alone he could keep it together, deal with feeling numb. But as soon as he got a second of attention, all bets were off the table. He was mad at himself for letting Nines make him feel this comfortable in such a short span of time. Soaking his shirtfront with tears was no way to repay him for his kindness.

“Sorry….”

“Shhhh.” Nines ran a gentle hand through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. “No sorrys. It okay.”

Nines waited until he was cried out and numb again. Then he walked them downstairs, and switched on the TV.

It was the procedural cop show Gavin loved to put on in the background while he was at home, and it was comforting. Gavin had already seen this episode a million times. He fell asleep easily on Nines’ shoulder, reminiscent of the first time Nines had ever stayed the night in his house.

Gavin woke up sometime later. When he peaked open an eye he was being carried up stairs. He should say something. He was feeling better, more put together, more like a human and less like like a small container for a large amount of tears. So he should open both eyes and tell Nines that he was okay now, that Nines didn’t have to cradle him gently to his chest, Nines’ thumb rubbing soothing circles into Gavin’s hipbone.

But he didn’t WANT to. Gavin quickly closed both eyes. It wasn’t so bad to pretend to be asleep.

Nines set him down in his big empty bed upstairs, and abruptly Gavin realized he was going to be left all alone. He blinked his eyes open quickly, and pretended to wake up. He looked up worriedly, and Nines was grinning down at him in amusement. He knew Gavin was awake.

“Very convincing, Gavin,” Nines whispered, biting back an even larger grin. Gavin didn’t have the energy to glare. He knew what he wanted to ask, but…. it was much more to ask of Nines than just carrying him around his own house all day.

“Stay?”

After a beat of pause with no response from the android, Gavin added a: “please?”

Unnecessary, as Nines was already jolting back into action, sliding off his jacket and slipping into the bed next to Gavin.

Nobody could classify this request as platonic, Gavin realized with a feeling that was both a sinking sensation of worry in his stomach, but also a thrill of excitement in his chest. Confusing. As innocent as he had meant it, this was not platonic. Gavin was going to have to figure some things out.

But not right now. Now he just needed to check and make sure Nines was comfortable with this request, and not just doing it to please Gavin. Gavin rolled onto his side to view Nines and the android was…. already asleep? Or in “resting mode”, his eyes shut and his breath coming evenly.

“Nines…?”

Nines eyes fluttered open, and he rolled to face Gavin, pulling the detective to his chest with a secure arm around the small of his waist. “Just resting for a moment. I won’t fall asleep until you do, Gavin.”

Chapter 6

Summary:

Ooooooof

Notes:

The spicy content u were promised ;) .... it’s not THAT spicy lol just, just read it

While Gavin couldn’t work, he was still being forced to attend meetings and debriefings. Which seemed highly unfair. Especially now that he’d discovered his new absolute favourite thing to do in the entire world— cuddle Nines in bed while the morning light filtered through the curtains. And Folwer wanted him to STOP cuddling Nines in bed while the morning light filtered through the curtains JUST to attend a stupid meeting?

Gavin was not pleased with this at all.

Gavin had forced himself to curb his anxiety when he’d first awoken and found himself wrapped up tightly in Nines’ strong arms. Nines had been offering him genuine connection, and he’d been accepting, he wouldn’t mess it up and be rude like the time he’d fallen asleep on Nines shoulder on the couch. He would not be a dick because he was insecure.

Gavin’s shifting around to face Nines, or perhaps the change in his breathing, seemed to trigger the end of Nines’ “rest mode”. Gavin pouted. His rest mode really was exactly like sleep, and his face looked so innocent and relaxed…. calm. Breathtaking— oh no.

Nines eyelashes fluttered open, and Gavin could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he met Gavin’s eyes with his own and saw that Gavin had been watching him closely. “I’m sorry if my presence makes you uncomfortable—“ Nines began.

Gavin put a hand on his arm, platonic given their current situation. Neutral. Safe. Gavin didn’t want to push it. He didn’t know what was okay. He didn’t know what Nines was thinking.

“I’m not gonna get mad at you, Nines,” Gavin replied, voice still rough from sleep, “I asked you to stay, and I’m glad you did.”

Gavin knew this soft interaction, the gentle and measured touches from his android, couldn’t last all day. They had work. And Gavin had to go to work and deal with all the bullshit he usually dealt with and letting Nines carry him around like a damsel would not help.

But for now, he could soak it up.

“Coffee?” Nine asked. Gavin’s stomach grumbled it’s approval before he could say a word and the two of them laughed. “I’ll bring it right up,” Nines decided, “you and your leg stay right here.”

But Gavin caught his sleeve as he tried to leave. “No,” Gavin tried tentatively, “take me with you?” He looked down at his lap and held his hands up to be carried, blushing.

Nines scooped him right up and oh god Gavin didn’t know how he was going to be able to give this up at work.

**

Gavin had forgotten how absolutely unbearable it was to sit through a debriefing meeting with Fowler. He’d gotten out of attending the last TEN by working on urgent cases. It had been a long time since he’d had to sit through one of these.

To top off his frustration Nines was sitting right next to him and all Gavin wanted to do was grab his hand to fidget with the digits of his fingers, but Gavin himself had specifically instructed Nines not to be all…. grabby with him, like they had been over the last 24 hours. An embarrassing conversation to have about professionalism, but less embarrassing than Nines picking him up in the board meeting room.

Walking around on crutches was a bitch when his tall, strong, cuddly ride was right there. Gavin didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“Reed?” Fowler asked again, frustrated but not surprised. “Hun?” Gavin replied intelligently, and somebody snickered. “You still with us, Reed?”

“Yessir,” he managed.

“Let’s see the report for the investigation you and Nines wrapped on Tuesday,” Fowler asked, probably for the second or third time.

Nines slid the report onto the table. Why Fowler had assumed Gavin would be the one carrying the important papers around, Gavin had no idea.

As Fowler turned to talk about evidence cataloging this, and protocol that, Gavin sighed a little too loudly, his uninjured leg beginning to bounce up and down again.

“Sit still, Gavin,” Nines said under his breath. Gavin turned his head to look at his partner. “Shove off,” he murmured back.

Nines leaned down to whisper directly into his ear, a hand on his knee, sending a shiver down his spine. “If you sit still through Fowler’s talk, you will get a reward.”

What—- what did—- Nines SO did not mean what Gavin’s mind immediately jumped to. There was no way. That was so far out of left field for the android.

But Nines squeezed the inside of Gavin’s thigh and asked at a whisper, “understand?” And oh my god he was totally meaning what Gavin thought he was meaning.

Gavin was too shocked to do anything more than swallow and nod, sitting up straight and attentive. In fact he was too shocked to do anything other than be attentive for the next twenty minutes. He was probably reading what Nines had said incorrect. Right?

When Folwer checked his watch and concluded the meeting, leaving the room, the others followed. Nines put a hand on his knee. “You need help getting up, detective?”

They were alone much too fast, and Gavin’s face was red. He could no longer lie to himself and say he didn’t want Nines to be thinking what he thought he might be thinking. But he was also terrified. He was worried Nines was about to do something dumb because he thought it was what Gavin wanted, because pleasing Gavin was his primary “objective”.

“You were very attentive, Gavin,” Nines continued, voice still low, “what a good boy.”

Nines wasted absolutely no time sliding off his chair and sliding onto Gavin’s lap, careful to support most of his weight and not put pressure on Gavin’s injured leg. “Nines—?”

And then Nines wasted absolutely no time in leaving a trail of open mouthed kisses up Gavin’s neck.

Oh….. oh Gavin was a terrible person. Yup, he hated himself. Which was kinda hard to do when Nines was sucking a red mark onto his collarbone and telling him he was beautiful, but Gavin was valiant in his efforts to hate himself. Because he couldn’t give two flying fucks WHY Nines was doing what he was doing. There was no way Gavin was going to push him away.

Instead he tangled his fingers in the short hair at the back on Nines’ head and made a quite frankly pathetic whining sound he immediately prayed fucking nobody could hear from the coffee room directly through the wall to their left.

“What sort of reward would you like, Gavin?” Nines asked, his voice deep and humming with a rumble. “I don’t— I— fuck, NINES—“ more biting. Biting was NOT FAIR to Gavin’s somewhat ignored but nonetheless honorable secondary objective to NOT be a bad person.

Nines pulled away from his neck to let their noses brush, a surprisingly intimate gesture compared to his earlier heat. Gavin blinked at him, wide eyed, as Nines slipped off his lap and onto his knees.

Nines ran a purposeful hand up the inside of Gavin’s uninjured thigh and— yes yes yes yes ….

But no no no no, Gavin could not do this if— this was not going to work if he had a gnawing ball of guilt sitting heavy in his stomach. He needed to communicate, but he could hardly form a sentence.

Gavin stood abruptly, and Nines looked up at him in surprise. “No,” Gavin said guiltily, and Nines’ eyes widened in horror. “I mean—!” Gavin quickly amended, “thank you! But no, I can’t— I have to go.” He awkwardly patted Nines on the top of the head.

He pushed past Nines and all but sprinted for the door.

Notes:

Don’t worry the communication TM they need is coming up next

Chapter 7

Notes:

y e e t. I don’t know how I feel about this chapter tbh but ohhhhh wellll it’s important thoughts in Gavin’s lil important brain. ALSO! Thank you guys so much for all the supportive comments, a billion trillion hugs for each of you <3

“Reed? Get your ass into work, now. I have something urgent for you, your Android is already here.” Gavin let Fowler’s demanding voice wash over him. “His android”. He wanted to be Nines’, he wanted Nines to be his, but not in the way Folwer was implying. Like Nines was a thing to be owned.

The way Fowler talked about Nines, the way Fowler talked about all the androids at the station, made Gavin’s stomach ache in anger. Gavin, self dubbed as “most likely to hate androids forever and ever” Gavin.

He was going to have to talk with Nines, properly, a real conversation where they figured their shit out like adults. Because Nines had been too much of a positive influence on his life for Gavin to not want to try his fucking hardest to find a situation where they were both happy. He knew what he wanted— what he’d wanted for a while but only recently allowed himself to acknowledge. He wanted to hold Nines’ hand. To kiss him, and go on stupid dates with him and be able to talk to him openly and whenever and feel Nines’ strong arms wrap around him when he was cold or sad. To wake up next to him.

That’s what Gavin wanted, and now…. now he had reason to believe Nines wanted that too, or his own version of what love and being in love meant, his own desires for what he wanted in a relationship. That he might want Gavin too—

But it was…. Complicated.

There was stigma, first of all, undeniable. Back before the revolution, before any androids were conscious, or “deviant”, some humans would have “partner androids”. Androids specifically designed to be significant others. It could never be a true two way relationship, if one member was just a reflection of what the other wanted, with no personality.

Of course, before widespread deviancy the assumption was that androids had no consciousness, and therefore no personality, no sense of self, uniqueness or being.

There was of course a following stigma set by the masses of society that anyone who chose to live their life with a “spouse bot” instead of another human was undesirable. That they wanted a romantic relationship with another human, but that nobody wanted a romantic relationship with them. That they couldn’t get a significant other and had turned to technology.

This was obviously not always true, but Gavin had sympathized with the mindset. He didn’t like the lack of consensuality that was unavoidable when the android was quite literally sold as a spouse to the human. That dinged all his red flags for morally not okay. So the only thing worse for society than an android, was an android-fucker.

Or so Gavin had thought for a long time.

When Gavin had broken up with his last ex, a person who he’d never really seen a long forecast future with, but nonetheless left him broken and betrayed, Gavin had turned to an Android club for a short discretion.

After going only a handful of times, he’d felt immediately guilty about the moral implications of being intimate with androids. Yeah, supporting the human strip club on the other side of town was equally dubious, there were arguments for and against supporting the sex business, and Gavin was aware- to a certain degree- of many of them.

But even if it was true that there was a possibility the humans working at a strip club may have felt coerced to be there, or been under financial pressures and felt they had no other choice, that kind of moral grey was not the same as an android club. Consent WAS a more complicated thing at any strip club, but at least it was there in theory in a human club.

At an android club, androids were bought. Purchased, and put in glass cages for the explicit purpose of serving human patrons.

Gavin frowned, and buried his head in his pillows. Clearly he was still feeling guilty.

But that train of thought just went round and round and back to the fact that before the idea of deviancy, androids weren’t considered people. They didn’t have as strong of a sense of individuality, of self which they would need a concept of consent to protect. So Gavin UNDERSTOOD why societally and legally android clubs had been allowed to exist. Didn’t mean he liked them.

This history wasn’t helping his current view of the idea of being romantically involved with an android.

He’d realized something though, as he woke up and abruptly buried his face back into his pillows to the sound of Fowler calling his cell. He’d realized: he wasn’t just in love with the ATTENTION Nines was giving him, he was in love with NINES.

Which was good. It meant they could have something meaningful and worthwhile between the two of them and hopefully Gavin wouldn’t fuck it up immediately by being a huge unsure prick. But it was also bad. Because it meant these feelings Gavin were rapidly catching weren’t going away any time soon.

“Gavin? Are you still with us?” Fowler demanded, and Gavin cursed loudly, rolling out of bed. “Don’t let your personal shit affect the quality of your work, detective,” Folwer chastised, as though reading his thoughts, “this is urgent, and it comes first.”

“You’re the one who teamed me up with the damn android,” Gavin bit back. He needed coffee. “What?” Came Fowler’s voice from the phone. “Uh, what?” Gavin echoed, “you know what, nevermind. I’ll see you in 20.”

**

Nines had stayed the night at the precinct last night and it had been lonely for Gavin. The drive to the precinct was lonely too. Gavin rolled his eyes. This was getting ridiculous. He needed to pull it together for 8 hours to do his job. He wasn’t in any mind to figure shit out with Nines yesterday, but he was today. So they could either figure it out while on the job, or they could just do their work and figure it out after. As long as catching the bad guy was still prioritized and carried out as a goal.

**

“There’s a red ice deal happening tonight,” Fowler began, “somebody working with the same perps you were chasing last week. The creeps that had a little android girl move their product for them. You catch this dealer, he’ll tell us where Richard and his wife are. Plus about 20 other dealers and movers in the city. This guy is pretty far up the ladder, we first heard of him five years ago. He’s a big catch, so this is serious.”

Gavin nodded. Angry. He was angry at bad guys for thinking they could fuck up innocent people’s lives, especially that little android girl’s life. Anger was a good solid emotion to use while he was working. It was grounding, real.

“The deal is happening at an electronic dance club downtown called Pulse,” Folwer continued, “only make the arrest AFTER the deal, so you can arrest both the buyer and the seller. That means don’t draw attention to yourselves. This guy isn’t new to the game. He’ll be able to spot a couple of cops.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I won’t roll up in my uniform,” Gavin snarked back, with no real venom. “I mean it, Reed,” Folwer warned, “don’t screw this up.”

“Cool. Pressure at early o’ clock in the morning,” Gavin replied. Fowler raised an eyebrow and informed him that it was already well after noon.

Gavin let out a groan and rested his head on his hands.

“Hank and Connor are already going that way,” Fowler continued, “catch a ride. I hear you and Rk900 are having an argument. Hank’s supervision— and I can’t believe I’m saying this— Hank’s supervision might be good for you two.”

An argument. An a r g u m e n t ?! Who was Fowler to stick his nose in Gavin’s business—

“Thank you, captain,” Nines said crispy, standing and guiding Gavin from the room with a hand on the small of his back, “report will be on your desk tomorrow.”

**

“You boys ain’t wearing that to go undercover?” Hank asked. The car ride was unbearably awkward. Nines had most definitely told Connor about what had happened last night between him and Gavin, and Gavin and Nines were both aware of Connor knowing too much from his nervous fidgeting in the passenger seat. They were both also hyper aware of one another, the two of them crammed in the backseat together, careful not to knock knees (especially Nines with his ridiculously long legs). Meanwhile Hank was calmly driving the car— with an all knowing and all seeing smile that indicated he knew just a bit too much for a man who had nothing to do with it.

It was Gavin who bit out a response to Hank’s original question. “We’ll swing by my apartment for different clothes, it’s somewhat on the way.”

Hank only grunted his affirmation, and switched on the radio.

Even the radio wasn’t helping calm down Gavin’s bouncing leg.

“Detec— er, Gavin,” Nines tried, turning towards him, “I want to apologize again for—“

“It’s okay,” Gavin said quickly. He was not having this conversation with Hank Anderson and Connor in the car. He wanted to talk frankly about his past, his opinions, values, and desires. And Hank did not get to know any of that. So: “it’s okay.”

“Just shut up about it for now,” he elaborated, not unkindly, just quiet and blunt, “we’ll talk about it later.”

“We’re at your place, Reed,” Hank announced, the engine on the cruiser quieting as they pulled into a parking spot.

Gavin pushed the car door open and Nines followed him inside. Gavin flipped on light switches as they went, already deflating. He was just here, at home. He’d slept in so long today. And yet. All he wanted to do was go back to his bed.

“Ok let’s talk,” Gavin called over his shoulder as he threw open his closet. God, that was not a sentence he loved saying. His bed beaconed to him from across the room. Come lie down, Gavin. Take a nap, Gavin.

Okay. No. Focus.

“I have an idea,” Nines began, and…. was that nerves in his voice? Definitely nerves. Oh no. “Let’s talk in hypotheticals.”

“Explain,” Gavin replied, digging out his largest jacket and longest pair of pants.

“Well, hypothetically,” Nines began, “let’s say I decided I have romantic feelings for someone, that I feel I have the emotional capacity to feel attraction and love and that I wish to pursue a relationship.... You’re being too hard on yourself right now, and I don’t care why, but take yourself out of the equation, just for now.”

“I thought we were talking in hypotheticals,” Gavin replied. He tossed Nines the jacket and pants, before avoiding his eyes and quickly turning back to the closet.

Nines let out a soft sigh that was almost a chuckle, and headed into the bathroom to change, closing the door with a soft click behind him.

Gavin tugged off his slacks and button up, and tugged on jeans and a tee shirt. “You gonna answer my hypothetical question, Gavin?” Nines called from the bathroom.

Gavin crouched beside the closet to pet his suddenly demanding cat. “I, I don’t—“ Gavin began, “i want to let you— to make sure you know—“

“Gavin, just answer my question,” Nines chastised, and Gavin could picture him, leaning a shoulder up against the door for balance, tugging his jeans on. “I have romantic feelings for someone,” Nines repeated, “I feel I have the emotional capacity to feel attraction and love and I wish to pursue a relationship. Objectively.”

“You’re right. I know where you’re leading me,” Gavin allowed, “I’d say that’s your right, to ask them out. Whether they are in turn attracted to you is their call. But it’s your prerogative to let somebody know you’re interested in them. Just like anyone else, android or human. It’s your right because you’re your own person, and to say that decision isn’t yours would be denying your autonomy. I get it, I do.”

“Exactly, it’s my prerogative, because I’m my own person,” Nines replied, “and whoever I choose to be with could never be taking advantage of me when they’re in full acknowledgement of my own autonomy. Just…. hypothetically speaking that is.”

“Fucking robot is too fucking smart for his own good,” Gavin muttered to himself. He couldn’t help but grin, but at the same time his stomach was doing flips in nervousness. Apparently Gavin couldn’t even decide how to FEEL about things anymore, let alone what to think. He rolled his eyes and stood, dressed, as Nines opened the door that connected to the bathroom.

And…. Oh.

Two things were immediately apparent. Number one: Nines was ridiculously attractive. Excessively so. Unnecessarily so. How dare he. And number two: Gavin was short.

Objectively, Gavin KNEW he was short. He’d kind of forgotten though, and that in combination with Nines being rudely tall had resulted in the pants being rolled into capris, and the jacket sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the jacket itself falling just above the curve of his hip. Clothes that were just being innocently too small had no right being that sexy. It didn’t help that Nines had gotten rid of his stupid neck brace thingy and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt.

“You look— well— um—“ Gavin finally settled on motioning to his neck, where the brace usually sat. Not “brace”. Whatever the dumb turtleneck piece was called. Ugh.

“Ah,” Nines replied, “you’ve noticed I’m trying to look more…. disheveled than usual. Here’s my train of thought. We’re going to a club and bar, you always look disheveled, and you frequent bars. So, to go undercover—“

It took Gavin a moment to figure out Nines was making a joke. “Oh fuck off,” Gavin yelped, but laughed nonetheless.

“Do I look sufficient?” Nines replied, turning for Gavin’s inspection.

“Yeah, you—“

“You idiots almost done playing dress up?!” Came Hank’s booming voice from the doorway downstairs, followed by Connor’s snickering.

Fuck you Hank fuck you Hank fuck you H—

“Coming! One fucking minute!” Gavin yelled back.

Chapter 8

Summary:

Anyways I’m sorrrrrrry in advance ahhhhhh (you need that good good hurt for that good good comfort you know??) ahhh

There was a line to get in. An actual line with a bouncer. As if getting dropped off by Hank in the police cruiser 10 blocks away and walking to the club so they could make sure their cover wasn’t blown wasn’t sucky enough.

“Ugh we shouldn’t have to wait in a line,” Gavin immediately groaned, only to receive an immediately raised eyebrow from Nines. “Of course we have to, Detective,” Nines replied crisply, “we’re undercover—“

“Whoa whoa whoa, first rule of being undercover? We don’t talk about being undercover.” Gavin chastised quickly. Nines merely raised an eyebrow at him. “Ah,” Nines finally said, “that was a reference. Fight club. 1999.”

“What? No! I’m not that old— nevermind. C’mon, focus.”

They approached the bouncer, and he took Gavin’s ID, before all but sneering at Nines, and reaching for the door. As he tugged it open his eyes seemed to widen, and he resolutely sneered at the BOTH of them as they shuffled inside.

“He didn’t ID me,” Nines remarked, as the pounding of the music hit the two of them, “he barely looked at me.”

“Your LED,” Gavin replied. Nines’ brows furrowed and he shook his head. Music too loud as they walked down the hall to the dance floor. He couldn’t hear. Gavin tapped a finger to the blue circle.

“Oh,” Nines replied in understanding, his lips fairly easy to read.

The club was nice, by all downtown Detroit standards. The floors were clean, but Gavin could already guess that meant the drinks were expensive. Not that he could drink tonight anyway.

There were also a fair amount of androids in the mix of bodies out on the dance floor, from what Gavin could see. Which was excellent, because that meant Nines wasn’t going to stick out like a sore thumb.

It took another minute of observing— detective skills and really, Gavin was a fucking DETECTIVE, it shouldn’t have taken him this long— but Gavin soon realized all the androids in the club were practically glued to the side of a human.

So this wasn’t a club that catered towards humans AND androids, and this wasn’t a place androids could come to mingle and have fun. This seemed to be fairly strictly a club for humans, and androids were allowed as arm candy.

Great. Awesome.

Fuck.

If Nines had analyzed this out for himself, he made no comment.

The two of them made their way across the floor to the bar. Hopefully they could get some info out somebody here in the club.

Nines walked a step in front of Gavin, easily cutting through the crowd, either with his height, or his generally imposing aura. Kinda rude of him to rub it in Gavin’s face how much taller he was, but also…. kinda hot.

Okay, no. Fuck. Gavin needed to follow his own advice, and focus.

There were only two other people propped up at the stretch of bar they arrived at. Most of the patrons of the club were dancing. The song playing was something popular right now, Gavin recognized it because Connor had been humming it under his breath the other day. Hank’s android partner was more obsessed with music than Nines was, he found it endlessly fascinating how many different songs could come from the arraignment of notes, and how songs themselves fell in and out of fashion.

Gavin shook his head. He was hearing Connors babbling now even when the android wasn’t there.

The two other people at the bar appeared to be a couple. A middle aged man, and a pretty young android girl. From the way he put a possessive hand to the small of her back as Gavin sat down, and she blinked over at him happily with big eyes, it was clear she wasn’t even a bit deviant.

The two of them were like a slap in the face. Especially considering Gavin’s trains of thought this morning about human-android relationships, this is what he did NOT want.

Nines and Connor had tried to explain to him once that deviancy was a choice, but it was also— and even moreso these days, with the full complexities of it under a fine microscope— a sliding scale of experience. Some androids experienced a split second switch, but many experienced a gradual change in their thought processes. The actual moment in which they chose to deviate did not always coincide with when most of the changes in their ideology and values occurred.

Complicated shit.

But irregardless, this android girl? Looked absolutely dead and empty behind those baby blues, one of the only tells that she had experienced very little in the way of deviation, and most certainly had not chosen to BE a deviant yet.

So Gavin felt slightly sick to his stomach as Nines perfectly mirrored her demeanour, and slouched down in the stool next to Gavin, turning to face Gavin, with body language that was clearly indicating he was waiting on Gavin’s instruction.

Acting. He was acting. Because Gavin didn’t want to tell Nines what to do, he wanted Nines to tell HIM what to do! Gavin turned to the couple, and forced a smile. “We’re new here,” Gavin managed, “you guys know the place?”

As the man began to answer, a bartender finally made his way over to Gavin. “What can I get for you?”

Oh. He couldn’t ACTUALLY drink…. but saying he didn’t want anything after sitting down at the bar looked kinda suspicious. Gavin ordered something that sounded somewhat gross, just so he wouldn’t be tempted, and turned back to the man.

“We’re regulars, yeah,” the man laughed. Oh and Gavin didn’t like him even MORE— if that was even possible— now that he had opened his mouth. The bartender handed Gavin the gross sounding drink he’d ordered, and he panicked for a moment.

Wait. Nines! Nines couldn’t get drunk!

He handed the drink to Nines, passing off the suspicion, and said “try some,” using his eyebrows to communicate that Nines just needed to go with it.

Nines took a laughably small sip and rose his eyebrows, noncommittally nodding. Gavin almost burst out laughing. For a detective android that could hide in plain sight and lie his ass off about being Gavin’s non-deviant date-bot, Nines just wasn’t very good at pretending to like things.

“Trying to get your ‘droid drunk?” The man across from them asked. He brought his own drink to his lips, and Gavin noticed his android date had a pretty pink drink clasped in her manicured hands.

“Wait, can they…. they can’t GET drunk, can they?” Gavin asked. Suddenly worried again. The man shook his head. “Nah, not biologically, but mine’s programmed to pretend. And she does a pretty damn good job, don’tcha baby?” The man paused in his flirting to regard Nines, and then asked, “can’t yours do that?”

“I, uh, I don’t know,” Gavin said truthfully. He had a sudden vision of Nines drunk, with him on the dance floor, blush flushed and pronounced over his high cheekbones—

This was not useful information.

Nines, very unhelpfully, leaned down to whisper to Gavin, “I could—“ Gavin drew upon all his willpower, and instead of shuddering, he glared the android down, trying to communicate purely through his eyes that this was not helpful.

“I actually don’t drink,” Gavin lied, leaning forwards on the counter, “harder stuff for me, you know?” Classic tactic. If all else is failing in trying to hunt down the drugs— pretend like you’re trying to buy the drugs. That usually brings you to them pretty damn fast. A little early, but Gavin was not fancying this evening being any longer than necessary.

“Oh, nice, nice,” the man replied, “I’m pretty much a liquor man myself.” I don’t careeeeeeee, Gavin’s brain replied, his thoughts bouncing off the metaphorical inside walls of his skull, don’t care, don’t care, I wanna stop talking to youuuuuu.

Why was this guy even sat at the bar meant for meeting new people if he had Barbie-bot 2000 hanging off his arm?

“You know where I could get something?” Gavin asked casually, “something stronger than booze that is.”

The man looked back at him blankly. Nope. This guy didn’t know anything.

“Nevermind, man,” Gavin said, nodding at him, he stood and Nines followed suit. The only problem was that Nines immediately angled himself between Gavin and the dancers, so nobody would knock Gavin over and flat on his ass. Nines was not going to be any good at this whole arm candy submissive android thing when he was the one using his height to direct Gavin to safety over and over. Gavin almost laughed, as the two of them realized what Nines had done at the same time.

“Your drink?” The man prompted, and both Gavin and Nines looked back at the sad little cup. Nines scooped it up, and thanked the man.

How deviant was Nines? More deviant than the android they’d just met. But less deviant than Connor? Or maybe he was just more reserved with his emotions. From what Gavin had been able to gather, deviancy was a fairly private process, because it was emotional, and often the things that kickstarted it were personal: loss, or love.

Gavin had always assumed Nines was pre-accepting deviancy. Because he didn’t use the title of deviant to refer to himself. But to be fair, he didn’t refer to himself as a programmed android either. How did Nines view himself? Gavin presumed that made all the difference.

Nines had been talking about love, and the idea of love. And if he viewed himself as fully deviated, then Gavin supposed he truly should have as much autonomy as a human in terms of his love life.

The two of them had never discussed Nines’ deviancy, and suddenly Gavin found himself wishing he was brave enough to ask. He also found himself resolved in the idea that he would only become romantically entangled with Nines if Nines was, in fact, a deviant.

“Gavin?” Gavin stopped, narrowing missing crashing into Nines, who’d halted suddenly to turn back to him. “Red ice fumes,” Nines clarified, and nodded to the far side of the dance floor.

“Can you get any more specific than over there?” Gavin asked, as they adjusted course through the crush of bodies on the dance floor. “No, the fume is a gas, Gavin. It disperses—“

Gavin struggled to focus on his voice with the competing sound of the loud techno music from overhead.

There were multiple likely suspects for both their dealer and their buyer lining the far wall.

Two human girls who seemed to be waiting on somebody— no they were waiting on a third friend, and the lot of them looked fairly new to the idea of clubbing, yelling at each other over the noise and clutching their drinks close. Good. Staying safe.

A couple leaned up against the back wall, chatting with a third friend. The couple was a tall slender man, and a girl with short hair in all neon clothing. She was smoking a blunt, leaning up on his chest. Not particularly suspicious, but one of them might’ve been the buyer. The friend they were talking too was a man in a leather jacket, also leaned back against the wall, eyes scanning the crowd lazily for someone or something.

The final obvious candidates were a young man texting quickly on his cell phone, and a young woman checking her watch in between sips of her drink.

Couple, leather jacket, texter, watch lady.

Gavin scanned the wall again before turning to Nines. “Over here, yeah? Let’s wait a minute and see if anyone comes up to talk to anyone along the wall. If anybody leaves quickly with a new person it’s safe to say that’s our deal.”

As he spoke, the man on his phone looked up and waved at a young woman. He put the phone in his pocket— this was who he’d been texting. Gavin tensed, but the two of them pushed past himself Nines and onto the dance floor.

A date then, and not a drug deal.

Who was left? Couple, leather jacket, watch lady.

“At least pretend to dance, Gavin,” Nines said, somehow keeping his low conspiratorial tone, despite having to speak over the music. Gavin scoffed, “not the time. C’mon, we’re almost finished with this.”

Nines set his chin on Gavin’s shoulder. “I know,” he replied, “but couple over there on the wall? Is watching us. We’re just hovering, too close. We need to blend in a bit. You know, be undercover.”

Nines slipped his hands onto Gavin’s waist and the two of them swayed side to side, Gavin shooting a glance over at the couple. “We talked about this,” Gavin replied, turning his head towards Nines so it would be harder to read his lips, “first rule of being undercover.”

A young man— tall, harsh features, tattoos— approached the woman with the watch. He seemed to be asking her something, gauging her reaction.

This was the buyer.

And he didn’t know what the dealer looked like.

Which meant the dealer didn’t know what the buyer looked like.

Which meant Gavin was going to do something dumb and risky to wrap this up.

The woman shook her head and tattoo guy backed away quickly. It wasn’t her, which meant—

Couple, leather jacket.

“Stall the guy with the tattoos, he’s our buyer,” Gavin whispered to Nines, “I’m going to talk to the dealers.” He slipped away from Nines towards the couple talking to the man in the leather jacket with a quickened step, already missing the warmth of Nines’ hands on his hips.

“Hey,” Gavin said, nodding to the tall man with the neon girl hanging off of him, “we’ve been in communication. Let’s make this quick.”

Something clicked in the tall man’s eyes, and he nodded to the man in the leather jacket. “This here’s Ryder. He handles money.” He nodded to the girl in neon, “and this here is Dolly, my best girl. Why don’t the four of us go outside a minute?”

Gavin nodded as if to say “lead the way”, putting his hands in his back pockets in a show of forced nonchalance. It was a happy coincidence that his hands were then closer to the police officer handgun stuffed in the back of his waistband.

As they turned to leave, the man in the leather jacket put an hand on Gavin’s shoulder, his thumb brushing the bare skin of Gavin’s collar bone, just inside his shirt collar. Just enough pressure to be intimidating. “Wait a minute, weren’t you dancing with some android?” The man in the leather jacket demanded.

“Him?” Gavin asked, swallowing thickly and hating it, “just some droid I picked up on the dance floor. Thought I’d have some fun but then I spotted you and decided on business first.” The lie burned his throat, but the man in the leather jacket nodded, seemingly satisfied, and the four of them headed outside.

As they walked down the narrow hallway to the backdoors, Gavin let his hand close around the handle of his gun. He just needed to get them outside, away from the people, then make the arrests and signal backup—

Suddenly, the man in the leather jacket, stopped, straightening. “Nah,” he decided, turning his head over his shoulder to squint back at the buzz of the club, “Dolly, go get that android okay?” He turned to Gavin as she skipped off, “just a precaution. You don’t mind do you?”

“Not at all,” Gavin lied. His hand slipped off the handle of the gun. Fuck fuck fuck.

They got outside into the dimly lit alley behind the club, and as Gavin’s foot touched ashphalt, both the men’s guns were pointed at his head. Of course. Of fucking course.

“Gavin Reed,” the tall man bit out. So much for undercover. “You’ve arrested a few of my friends in your little glory quest to smush the drug scene. Even shot at a few. I almost didn’t recognize you…. but Dolly did. She tells me you killed our old friend Robert. That’s not very nice of you.”

“Yeah I remember him,” Gavin replied, raising his hands above his head, “son of a bitch nearly took my kneecap out while I was trying to put him in cuffs. And I didn’t kill him. He decked me, got away, and promptly sped his car into a fucking semi-truck trying to escape me. Not exactly on me. Plus: I think he was driving while high off his ass.”

The tall man hissed at Gavin, clicking off the safety.

“Who gave you the tip off that there were cops on your ass tonight?” Gavin asked. “You did,” the tall man sneered, “our buyer never knows what we look like until we meet ‘em, but I always make sure to know what THEY look like.”

Shit.

Gavin had to keep them talking until Nines realized something was wrong. Gavin used to hate relying on backup— but right now it was coming naturally. He was boxed in.

“What are you going to do with me?” Gavin asked, “now that you have me.”

The tall man regarded him. “I won’t sugar coat it, Mr. Reed. I do have full plans to kill you. Not until we tie up the loose end with your android, however.”

As he spoke there was a banging from behind the closed door to the club, directly behind where Gavin stood. From inside, Dolly gave a yelp.

Nines burst outside into the cold night air just in time to see Gavin get shot.

Or at least— that’s how the sequence of events first processed to Gavin. He saw Nines’ furious face, heard the gunshot, felt himself get knocked off his feet.

He landed flat on his back on the cold and unforgiving asphalt with a crooked view of the sky that was mostly obscured by Nines. Out of adrenaline fueled instinct he quickly felt around his abdomen— where the gun had been aimed. He didn’t feel any pain yet but— yup, his hand came away slick with blood.

Not good, not good.

But Nines was here so surely it couldn’t be all that bad.

It wasn’t until Gavin raised his hand to touch Nines face, there was something not quite right— that Gavin realized it was blue. Blue blood.

Blue blood. Blue blood. Blue blood. Blue blood.

The situation went from “not good” to “Absolutely Unacceptable” in negative point two seconds. Gavin used all his strength to sit up, cradling Nines’ head in his lap. He trained his gun at the man in the leather jacket’s head in one hand, and he trained Nines’ gun, from Nines’ waistband, on the tall man’s head in the other hand. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

He used his elbow to press the call button hidden up Nines’ sleeve to alert the precinct of an emergency.

**

He’d called 911. That was what you were supposed to do when somebody was FUCKING SHOT. But no, Nines was an android, he would need a thirium transfusion, not a blood transfusion, and the ER didn’t know if they could fucking do that.

The police backup had come screaming down the alley, surrounding the two red ice dealers. Dolly had been found unconscious in the hallway. The buyer had gotten away, but with the three big shot sellers in custody, they should be able to find him again easily. But nobody was helping Gavin.

He slammed the hangup button on the phone and called back again. This time it was a different operator, and she was much more sympathetic. She told him to take Nines to the ER, it was their best shot.

So to the ER they fucking went. Him and Nines crammed in the backseat of Hank’s cruiser as the old man drove like the fucking speed demon everyone knew he was, sirens blaring.

“Nines? Nines stay with me,” Gavin begged, “c’mon look at me, okay?” Nines weakly protested Gavin applying pressure to the wound and he apologized profusely. “I know, I know it hurts but I gotta put pressure on it. Stay with me, okay? Please. I need you.”

Notes:

Everything will be okay I pROMISE

Chapter 9

Notes:

I’ve literally never written anything this sappy in my whole life what IS this omg

It was his programming. It was his programming to take a bullet for Gavin because Gavin was his fucking mission. Nines wasn’t a deviant, he was just doing his fucking job and here Gavin was falling all over himself at the only positive attention he’d gotten in years. Fucking pathetic. He was in love and that was fucking pathetic.

Gavin curled father into himself in the armchair, wanting to disappear.

**

Nines awoke in a hospital bed, which was an odd enough circumstance. But in the chair right next to his bed was none other than Gavin Reed, curled tight into a ball, fast asleep.

The beeping from a monitor, that he’d been vaguely aware of even in unconciousness, changed in rhythm as he registered as awake.

Nines sat, and then puffed out a groan. It wasn’t pain, but more so a sense of breathlessness. Of a great weight on his chest.

Gavin stirred at the noise, blinking one eye awake blearily. He started all the way awake when he saw Nines sitting up. “No, no,” Gavin stumbled to say, “stay down, don’t pull your stitches.” Gavin stood quickly and pushed Nines back into bed. The actual force he was exerting was minimal, but Nines sunk back into the pillows to appease him.

“How did you convince the ER to give me stitches,” Nines asked, understandably confused. Gavin paused a long minute, sitting back down in the chair before mumbling: “I just convinced them it was important….” then quieter: “that you were important.”

Tears. Gavin had cried all over the front desk until they’d let him in, and Gavin was pretty sure that was how.

“How- how are you feeling?” Gavin tried to ask, but immediately switched to, “does anything hurt? I mean do you feel any different or like weird or—“ Gavin cut himself off again, before continuing: “actually, you know what? Fuck it, nevermind that. WHY? Why did you fucking do that stupid fucking thing—“

“Gav- Gavin, calm down,” Nines yelped, grabbing for his flailing hands. He succeeded in grabbing Gavin’s hands on the third try, grasping them firmly. “I said calm down, and sit down. Understood? Look at me.”

For once Gavin did as he was told immediately and without protest, looking up at Nines with wide eyes. Whether it was his vulnerable state, or the sudden clarity of Nine’s speech that shocked Gavin into submission, neither of them were quite certain.

“You— I thought you were gonna— you almost—“

“Died?” Nines filled in. Gavin glared at him, and bit out: “yes. Idiot. Died.”

“Gavin you don’t have to worry so much about me, I’m not as fragile as you, I promise.” Gavin didn’t even have it in him to be mad at being called out as humanly fragile. Nines opened his arms as an offering, dropping Gavin’s hands, and Gavin immediately slumped into his chest.

Gavin’s knees were on the unforgiving linoleum flooring of the hospital and his hip was poking against the bed frame, but as he wound his hands in the material of the shirt they’d found for Nines, and Nines began to run a hand through his hair, he couldn’t care less.

Nines gently scraped nails over his scalp, grounding him and simultaneously requesting his attention. “What is it you were trying to ask, Gavin?” Nines asked patiently, admiring his features quietly. Puffy eyes, little red nose. Unfairly beautiful.

“Do you feel…. different? I guess more alive?” Gavin finally settled on.

Nines blinked at him.

“Gavin, I just got fucking shot.” The profanity surprised both of them. “I feel tired, dead tired. And like I lost a significant amount of thirium. So no I don’t feel more alive, I feel— oh.”

Nines took Gavin’s face in both his hands carefully, before continuing. “You’re trying to ask me if I had to deviate to jump in front of you, or if I did it BECAUSE of my supposed programming.”

Gavin nodded, not meeting his eyes. Nines pulled Gavin close, back to his chest. “I have been deviating for such a long fucking time, Gavin Reed. And look, you’re wearing off on me I can’t stop cursing. In answer to your question of WHY I would jump in front of you: first of all, you would have done it for me, don’t argue with that, you ARE that dumb. But more importantly, if you got hit without your bulletproof vest on I might’ve lost you. I couldn’t deal with that. Plus, the probability of me “dying” permanently from a gunshot is lower than you—“

Gavin put a finger to his lips. “Shut up. Say that last bit again.”

“What-? …. Oh,” Nines smiled down at him, “I couldn’t deal with losing you Gavin.”

“Oh,” Gavin whispered back. Gavin let out a bubble of nervous laughter and hid his face in Nine’s collarbone. Nines pulled away from him and waited a moment on his trademark impulsivity, but when Gavin did nothing but blush and stare down at the hospital bed sheets, Nines tilted his chin up.

A nurse, in scrubs, walked in with a swish swish. She knocked as she did so, but was already halfway through the doorframe as her knuckles rapped against the opening door. Upon seeing Nines sat up in bed inches away from kissing Gavin, she seemed to only register the sitting up bit.

“You’re conscious, that’s good,” she said to Nines. Gavin didn’t flinch away as Nines expected him to, but instead sat back in his chair so he could listen to what she had to say.

“We weren’t sure how long you would remain unconscious so I’m glad to see you awake,” she continued. Nines gave her a look that was somewhere between incredulousness and contempt for interrupting whatever was about to happen with Gavin, but she merely smiled a knowing smile and stood on tiptoe to rustle around in the cabinets at the far side of the room.

“I’m just about the only EMT here who wants anything to do with an android case,” she called over her shoulder, “so just work with me to get your vitals all accorded for and I’ll discharge you and you can get right back to it. Alright?”

Nines had the sense to look embarrassed, blushing and ducking his head. “Yes,” he replied, “thank you.”

She turned around with an assortment of supplies and walked back over to the bed where Nines sat. “I think Mr. Reed said thank you last night enough times already to last me approximately one lifetime of never wanting to hear the phrase again— I didn’t go home last night either, so I haven’t had the chance to sleep it off…. but you’re welcome.”

She gave Nines a smile warmer than the others and set about checking Nines’ vitals. A few times in what seemed like her routine check she would stop and laugh and realize what she was checking only applied to humans. And a few times she would squint and then check something that Nines knew for a fact was android-specific.

Throughout the entire process she gave instructions and information to Gavin. About what had been injured or damaged and how best to take care of Nines in the days and then weeks while he healed. At first Nines thought it was because she disliked him that she was directing her conversation to Gavin, but as he found his attention slipping for the third time in a row, he realized it was because he wouldn’t remember anything important like medicine instructions and he breathed a sigh of thanks that Gavin was there to remember it for him.

“You’re good to go,” the nurse declared, back on her tiptoes to put things away, “well, obviously you’re not ‘good’ yet— you’ve still got a fair amount of healing to do. But you are officially discharged. This is my personal number, you two check in with me every night for the next few days okay? I don’t care what the hospital says, androids are completely different than humans, and I want them make sure we treated your wounds right, and that there’s no lasting problems from them, okay?”

Nines merely nodded at her, blinking a bit blankly at all the new information, but Gavin blurted out another “thank you”. She shook her head as she left, but she was smiling.

Nines looked up at Gavin as the detective stood, gathering up his things and the few things the nurse had given to him. All he wanted to do was pull Gavin back into his chest, onto the hospital bed. To press his lips to Gavin’s— just to see what the detective would do.

But then a somehow even more appealing option presented itself. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Home.

Curling up around Gavin in the big bed upstairs and finally sleeping properly, even though he just woke up. Sleeping— Nines paused in his train of thought. Rest mode? No. Fuck it. SLEEPING. Or at the very least getting to lie down with his chin on Gavin’s head, the detective’s face pressed to his collarbone. Knowing the two of them are safe, and that Gavin is here with him—

Instead of standing, Nines held out both hands. Gavin hauled him out of bed, but kept one of their joined hands connected with tangled fingers. Gavin slung his bag over his shoulder and lead Nines out the door to the room and down the hospital hallway.

Home. Home. Home. Going home.

Nines leaned down to keep his face all but buried in Gavin’s shoulder as Gavin filled out the hospital release papers impatiently. When they’d finally made it outside and to the car— Gavin’s car, Connor and Hank had dropped it in the parking lot last night and thank fucking god for them, they were amazing— Nines was all but draped over Gavin’s back like a second backpack.

His arms were around Gavin’s neck, and he rested his head on Gavin’s shoulder to lock eyes with him in the reflection on the car window. “Are you okay to drive, Gavin?” Nines asked. He backed away from the intensity of their little staring contest before receiving his answer, burying his head in the crook of Gavin’s neck again.

Gavin let out a small noise, more a short exhalation of air than a true sigh, but a sigh nonetheless, before blushing, the heat of it tangible on Nine’s own cheek. “‘Course I’m good to drive, I didn’t get shot in the fucking abdomen,” Gavin replied. It was meant to be a retort, Nines could only assume, but came out as a breathless chastisement.

Nines hummed, “no, but you did say up all night. Or so I hear.”

“Get in the car, smartass,” Gavin finally settled on, but he waited for Nines to untangle himself first.

The drive to the hospital had seemed to take forever last night, coming all the way from downtown. But thankfully Gavin’s own apartment was closer, only a ten minute drive. With Gavin behind the wheel, they didn’t need the radio on, so they sat with the sounds of the drive. Nines listening to the engine rumbling, and Gavin listening to the sound of Nines breathing.

“Gavin,” Nines began, in a hushed whisper without meaning to be, “ask me about what made me realize I really was choosing to deviate.”

Gavin glanced over for a split second, while he could without crashing the car, only to find Nines watching him intently.

Gavin opened his mouth but only managed a: “wha—?” before his voice broke.

Gavin let out a bubble of nervous laughter and then bit his lip, training his eyes on the road. He took a deep breath. Then: “What was it? That made you deviate?” Gavin finally managed.

“You,” Nines whispered back, “it was you.” Gavin blinked over at him in shock, and he was blushed with blue across his nose and cheeks.

They were pulling into Gavin’s complex’s parking now, and Gavin reached over a hand, still steering with the other. Nines took it, but instead of holding it, brought it up to his lips and placed a gentle kiss in Gavin’s palm.

Gavin might as well been on fire with the way his cheeks flamed up, but he stared resolutely out the front window. At least to finish parking the car.

They were both at once acutely aware of the fact that Nines was going to kiss him. A million times better than that Nines was going to absolutely pin him to the wall and fucking kiss him senseless. There was some debate about whether or not that was going to happen in the car, once Gavin had finally safely parked.

A debate they shared in silence, before either had spoken a word.

Then Nines shook his head, smiling with just a hint of disbelieve, and opened his door. He walked around the car and opened Gavin’s door, and pulled the detective out. Gavin stared up at him, wide eyed, and Nines laughed, under his breath, leaning past Gavin to scoop up his car keys and phone, before slamming the door shut.

Nines walked quickly towards the building, Gavin in tow. Nines didn’t have to ask Gavin for the entrance code, he’d always been sufficient at breaking an entering when it came to this apartment. But now he wasn’t breaking in, he was coming home.

When they reached the elevator and Nines tugged Gavin inside they presently found themselves alone. The elevator doors dinged shut, and they again silently communicated for a moment — except now Gavin was not so patient.

The initial shock was finally wearing off (and thank god for that, Nines had missed his quick witted little idiot). Gavin grabbed two fistfuls of Nines’ shirt and backed himself into the corner, letting Nines obscure his view of the rest of the elevator.

Gavin didn’t have to say anything. He just looked up, meeting Nines eyes, and Nines smiled, before leaning down to join their lips in a searing kiss.

The elevator dinged open before Gavin could properly kiss back, and the two of them ran down the hall like teenagers, Nines fumbling the keys, lips already back on Gavin’s before the door could properly close.

Neither of them really registered the fact that there was no one out in the hall to witness their antics, blushing and laughing at how obvious they’d been. Gavin let out a bubble of laughter that turned into a
moan as Nines pushed him decidedly up against the sturdy door.

“Fuck…. nines…” he bit out, ghosting a hand over the short hairs at the nape of Nines’ neck and letting Nines crowd him. They kissed again, once, twice, until Gavin lost count and the motion of it blurred together with the way Nines’ hands were moving in his hair.

“Ask me about when I knew I was a deviant, Gavin,” Nines murmured. If Gavin registered what was being said, he didn’t respond. “Gavin,” Nines promoted again, kissing down his neck.

That got a response, but not the one Nines was looking for. Gavin grit out a groan, followed by a: “fuck…. NINES”, and Nines laughed into his collarbone.

“Gavin,” Nines repeated, lowering his voice even further, just to receive the same reaction again. Then he continued, beginning to kiss his way up Gavin’s neck to his jaw. “It was because of your laugh. Your face when you first wake up in the morning. The way your hands fiddle with the cuffs of your jacket—“

He’d reached Gavin’s mouth, and kissed him again, too chaste for Gavin. “— the humming noise you make when you’re thinking hard—“ kiss “—when your hair falls down in your eyes and you have to run a hand through it—“ kiss “—how fucking passionate you are about your morals, and your job, and—“

Gavin stopped kissing him to hide in his chest. “Shut up,” he mumbled weakly, “before I explode.”
Nines laughed, chest rumbling and moving Gavin’s entire body. “Can’t,” he replied, kissing the top of Gavin’s head, “I need you to know you…. you make me feel alive.”

“Well then,” Gavin leaned back a bit, enough to peer up at Nines, and enough for Nines to grab his chin and tilt his head all the way up. Gavin licked his lips somewhat absentmindedly, before finishing his thought, “then shut up anyways, before I explode, and kiss me.”

Notes:

Whomp. There y’all go. This is in fact where I had intended to end this fic. I’m not entirely happy with it but ohhhhh well. Thoughts? S

Notes:

I don’t think I’ll continue this as another chapter because it feels like a finished project BUT I think I’ll try and write a sequel in the series if that makes any sense?? Also!! IT WOULD MEAN SO MUCH TO ME if any of you lovlies wanna check out the original work that I posted here on AO3 in the meantime! (Shameless self promo lol) it’s called After and it’s absolutely one of my fav writing projects ever, and I’m stoked to finally be sharing it ♡ thank you thank you to anyone who goes over and reads it