Chapter 1: Nine Lives, None of Them Yours
Chapter Text
> hey
> morning dipshit
Nines boots up out of stasis, taking a moment to let his systems start back up before he directs his full attention to the messages flashing across his screen.
He smiles, feels his lips slightly twitch upwards with that warm feeling of fondness that only one person could give him. So his human had woken up early today.
> And a pleasant morning to you too, Gavin.
Perhaps once upon a time not too long ago, the RK900 would have addressed him with nothing but Detective , but those days were long past them, and he for one was quite delighted with how much their relationship had progressed from their first meeting, though the memory of the android flipping the detective across the table was one he has stored securely in his folder solely dedicated to Gavin.
> What brings you up so early?
It was unlike Gavin to wake up before Nines did, which was at a precise 7:15 am. It was currently 6:59 am.
> eh, just woke up from a nightmare is all, no big deal
Nines frowned at that. It wasn't a big deal logically, but quite an important ordeal to him. He knew only some of the demons that the detective had within him, didn't need to look through his records to know he's had more than enough cases that would haunt his dreams. The android wished he could somehow protect Gavin from those kinds of dreams, but instead he settled for what was plausible.
> I am sorry to hear that. Shall we get a cup of coffee from that store you like the most before we head to the precinct?
Only a quick moment passed before a response.
> that sounds fucking amazing
Nines felt his lips curl into a smile again.
~~~~~~~~~
The day passes by without much disturbance. They pick up the coffee together, and Gavin makes obscene noises as he drinks his triple venti caramel macchiato (Nines makes a note that they aren't allowed to go to that place for at least a week; he was too concerned for Gavin’s health). There wasn't an urgent case that needed to be investigated, so the two of them worked on reports that still needed to be finished.
Gavin, of course, did not in fact work on the reports like he was supposed to, though Nines supposed he could forgive him just this once, what with the rough start to his morning, as well as the fact that there weren’t too many reports that needed to be done. The light bump of their knees together and Gavin occasionally resting his head on his shoulder--a rare gesture of public affection--was certainly not opposed by the RK900, either, and he took it as compensation.
But then things started to get more interesting into the afternoon. They were called in to investigate a drug lord’s potential hideout. Nines was ready to head out, but just as he was about to do so, he noticed Gavin’s stress levels seemingly start to rise a bit above average.
“Is there something wrong, Gavin?” He frowned, trying to identify what was the source of Gavin’s stress. He, just like Nines, often craved action instead of simply sitting behind a desk and doing paperwork. Gavin, however, seemed to be in a daze of sorts, a frown plastered onto his handsome features before he blinked out of it and looked up at Nines.
“Huh? Oh, no, I’m good,” the human waved it off and stood up, stretching. “We headin’ over there or not?”
Nines frowned, eyes still scanning the detective for any signs that point to what had caused the sudden spike, but his stress levels had already dropped back to acceptable levels, so all he could really say was, “Let us go, then.”
For some reason, Nines couldn't shake the feeling of premonition welling up inside him.
~~~~~~~~~
They head over to the address given to them. It seemed to be a rundown building, and it was quite clear that not many legal activities went down in such a place.
Nines hadn't talked about the growing sense of forewarning that tugged at the back of his processors, and instead he decided to listen to the ‘metal’ music that blared through the speakers in Gavin’s car. Gavin himself had also been fairly quiet, though he supposed that had to do with the fact that he wasn't sufficiently energized and needed to focus on the road. Still, it inevitably added to what the android thought was a sense of slight trepidation as they got out of the car.
“So,” Nines heard Gavin take in a breath as he slammed the car door shut. “This the place?”
Nines’s eyes flickered over him, his processors still trying to look for a cause to something that was no longer there before he nodded. “This is the address given to us by the captain, yes.” He watched as Gavin eyed the rundown building from top to bottom before the detective makes a nod and sucks in another breath.
“Right, uh, you think anyone in there?”
“...With the current state of the building as well as the fact that there hasn’t been reported activity recently, I would not think so,” he made eye contact with Gavin, trying to find out why his stress levels were beginning to rise again, “but, perhaps you think otherwise?” Gavin looked back at him with those deep gray eyes that the android could spend ages analyzing every little way the light refracted against them, but for right now, he took in the way those eyes seemed to be looking at him pleadingly, as if Nines was supposed to glean something that wasn’t outwardly spoken.
He frowned, eyes flickering over the detective’s as he tries to understand what it is he apparently seemed to be pleading for. “Gavin?” He felt that sense of premonition tug at the back of his mind once more as Gavin flinched and blinked, almost as if he was surprised at having his name called.
“Huh? Oh, uh, nah, maybe, I guess?” the human scrambled for words before shaking his head and waving his hand. “It’s--whatever. Dunno what I was thinking, sorry.” A frown creased across Nines’s forehead.
“Are you sure you're alright, Gavin?” Even he could hear the concern laced within his usually-collected tone. He knew he had already asked the same question earlier, though, and knows from experience that he should not push him, but yet he hoped to hear something from the detective. The uneasy feeling in his pump would not allow him to drop his concerns so easily. “You seem...on edge, today.” He picks his words wisely, not wanting to say something that might trigger the detective, but still wanting to convey his worry nonetheless.
Gavin’s eyes flickers over Nines’s, and for a brief moment he sees that pleading look hidden behind those gray, gray shades before Gavin simply huff and looks away. “Yeah, well, it's a creepy-ass building, how do ya’ expect me to feel?” He attempts to lift his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “And I need some more coffee, so sue me.”
Nines attempts a small grin at that, hoping to ease the slightly high levels of his detective’s stress. “Perhaps we can visit another cafe after this investigation, then,” he offers before promptly adding, “with restraints to the quantity of sugar in your drink, of course.” He believed that teasing has always been something that he and the detective have always bonded over, but he admittedly panics for a good moment when Gavin doesn't seem to react to his words before the feeling qualms and turns into that fluttery warmth when Gavin flashes him that rare, rare grin that the android has a special folder dedicated to it.
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
With that, they head in, and Nines followed closely behind the detective as he quickly tucked that screenshot into the special little folder of his.
If Gavin’s grin had a sadder tone to it compared to the other pictures within his folder, Nines didn't notice.
~~~~~~~~~
As he had expected, the building was completely empty, but Nines was starting to get a bit skeptical. He picked up on traces of red ice and other miscellaneous drugs here and there, but no signs of life. He frowned, studying the abandoned pile of drugs simply laying out on an old table. There were clear signs that a drug lord or at least a drug establishment facilitated this building, and the drugs he was currently analyzing were not that old.
“Hey, Nines.” Ah, what timing. The android turned his head towards Gavin, who’s now next to a closed door. He must have finished investigating the room next to the one they were currently in. “I’ma open this,” he points to the door nonchalantly as he reaches for the doorknob. Nines frowned at that and took a moment to assess. There was no way that the suspects were in that room, right? They had encountered maybe closed doors already, and none of them held any danger towards either them.
“Wait,” he blurts out despite himself, however. Gavin pauses and looks at him, and Nines knows he has to explain why he's making him wait, why there's still something nagging him at the back of his mind that’s telling him something is not right. “You should try to proceed with caution,” he decides to say instead, because he has no basis for the feeling of premonition within him, and therefore feels like he's just being a little paranoid. Connor had told him that he often feels the same when it comes to Hank.
But Gavin, being the beautifully insufferable man he is, scoffs and shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll be okay. You know me, Nines.”
Yes, he does in fact know Gavin. He knows how capable he is of taking care of himself in dangerous situations, and he knows that Gavin wasn't one to be easily taken down. Besides, the calculated chances of danger were a low 20%.
Still, the sense of dread within him lingered, intensified, actually, and Nines suddenly thinks that this idea isn't such a good one anymore.
He reaches out to grab Gavin’s arm to stop him, to tell him that they should probably wait for backup, but then Gavin opens the door and heads in before he could do so, and then a single gunshot is fired not a moment sooner.
Nines feels something warm and wet splatter across the sleeve of his Cyberlife-issued jacket, the one he has yet to part with. And then he hears something crumple to the floor.
It takes him a very long moment to process what had just happened. To piece the events together.
They had been expecting them. The suspects been waiting for them to open the door ever since they came in.
One of them fired a shot point-blank. The bullet’s trajectory lined up perfectly with Gavin’s head.
Gavin’s body was the one that fell to the floor.
Gavin is d͕͍͘͟͡e̺̬̝̹͖̪͞a̸͉̩̰͓͡d̜̘.
That final piece being fitted together is what makes his systems crash. He doesn't know what happens for a good few moments, knows his body is moving but doesn't feel like it’s his own. Splotches of gray and blue and red and red fill his sight and blinds him for who knows how long until, before he knows it, he’s kneeling against the floor, gaze set upon Gavin again, who's lying lifelessly on the floor with the pool of blood under his head slowly expanding.
He doesn't notice Hank and Connor come crashing in, doesn’t see how he himself is covered in blood that's a mixture of both blue and red but mostly the latter. He just stares at Gavin’s dead, empty eyes.
All of a sudden, he feels like he’s hyperventilating (i̸T hUŗT͘S) and he can’t breathe; it doesn't matter that he doesn't need oxygen to sustain his life, he only knows he just can’t breathe , and he claws at his chest trying to make it stop .
His vision is starting to fade out at this point, his systems all crumbling with his incredulous levels of stress, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care . He doesn’t care how Hank cries out for him, or how Connor is racing to reach him. He can’t stop looking at the detective, his detective, his partner .
He doesn’t register the way his systems were forcing him into a shutdown, doesn’t notice the way his vision starts to fade into a staticky gray. All he could think about was the heavy, heavy feeling of R̶̗̯͚E҉͕̦̭̮̹̣͚̗̤G͉̪̬̟͡R͏̦͓̺̝͠ͅE̯̼̰͈̝̘̳̺̮͡T͙ͅ clawing at his chest.
He doesn't--he never-- He Ne̷veR ͝g͟͠O͏͘T͝ ͘͜ţ̢̧HE ͝͏ ChA̷̶̹̱̥̤ͅṉ̯͔̘͍̼̙̱͖͢͢C̫͞E̮͎͕ ̢̱͈̟̘͉̗Ṱ̵O͕̘̰͢͢͝ͅ-̵̢̜̠͙̜̲̯̠̗͜ͅ-̷͓͕͓̥͚͙͢
He doesn't feel the hands that grab him and desperately try to pull his arms away from the claw marks now embedded in his chest.
He doesn't hear the yelling for him to stop and listen and breathe.
He only sees error messages fill his vision as that tightness in his chest threatens to kill him then and there.
He finds himself wanting it too, honestly. Perhaps then the pain can S̨̲̖̹͠T͏̸̼̪̼̳͎̘͕͓ͅƠ̺̘P̷̷̴͎͍̺͚̣͚͚̝.
*̸͜[͜͞E͝҉̶̛R̷̛͘͜͟R̴͏O̢͟R̴E̴͢9̸̢͟͠A̶̧͏͘R̸͞͏A̶̢̛͟E͠͏R̡͞͡9̸̧A̵̡̛͟O̢̕͝E̷͠R9̵͢O̷҉̛͝ER̛͡Ơ̸̧͟E̛͟R̵̕͞͡E͏̛͝O̴͘͡Ŗ̛͞9̶͟͞A̧̢͜E̶̴̵̛͢]̵*̡͘͠͠͏
> hey
> morning dipshit
Nines boots up out of stasis, taking a moment to let his systems start back up before he directs his full attention to the messages flashing across his screen.
He smiles, feels his lips slightly twitch upwards with that warm feeling of fondness that only one person could give him. So his human had woken up early today.
> And a pleasant morning to you too, Gavin.
Chapter 2: That Wasn't in the Script, Chief
Summary:
Another death, another repeat, another run. Gavin knew the script, by now.
Notes:
*flops down* aaaAAAAAAAA hi this took so long to write because motivation don't know her.
I hope you all enjoy!! Here's where plot starts happening ;-)
(Please don't mind any grammar mistakes,,,this was mostly written at 12:00am for a series of days,,,,)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Gavin jolts awake with a strangled gasp. His heart was fucking pounding , pure adrenaline and instinct and fear coursing through him. He forced himself to just fucking breathe , a hand coming up to clutch his chest. Years of police training and being on homicide had built up his reaction time.
He supposed he could add a few more years to that, since he’s been experiencing the same damn event over and over for about that long, or wait--fuck, just how long had it been, already? He lost fucking count so, so long ago.
He rubs a hand through his face, taking deep breaths to stabilize his heart rate, just as he’d done many times before. He’d experienced the same thing so many fucking times, and yet he still acted like it was the first. If he wasn’t so fucking tired of it all, he’d laugh at himself for not having gotten used to the feeling of the world ending in a split second, of the darkness that lies between death and sleep. He wonders if the darkness was him asleep, immediately restarting the day, or if that really was a taste of death: neverending darkness.
Welp, that’s not a train of thought I’d like to board . He forced himself to reach for his phone on the edge of his nightstand, letting the blue light fill his vision. He closed his eyes and breathed once, twice through his nose. His fingers practically memorized the order of which buttons to press by now.
> hey
> morning dipshit
He stares at the messages alit across the screen. And so another run begins. Time to go through the script again, he supposed.
Nines was going to greet him, they were gonna banter for a bit, and then they’d go to his favorite cafe and he’d order his “favorite drink” (to be honest he’s god-fucking sick of what used to be his favorite, so he changes it up every go). He used to also actually do shit when they got the precinct, but looking at the same case files and doing the same fucking report hundreds of times got fucking stale and depressing to do, so he had dipped out of it long ago, and it wasn’t “out of script,” since it was something that people “expected” out of him.
When he decided ‘fuck it’ and started doing that good ol’ PDA shit with Nines here and there while skipping out on work, he was rather glad the android didn’t question it. Sometimes, he thought about outright pulling the android towards him and crashing their lips together, because why the fuck not, if everything’s going to reset the moment he dies? He hasn’t ever done it while they’re at the precinct; he was too afraid that it might fuck something up and Nines would have to die again, but he admits there were some times before he expired that he’d pull the android into a blind kiss. If he closed his eyes, maybe, just maybe he could remember what it felt like to have Nines’s lips against his own--
But then his phone buzzes and all of his concentration is lost.
Well, it’s not like it ever matters . Gavin sighs and rolls over in his bed. He never remembers it anyway.
He brings the phone up to his face and reads the message that he’s seen far too many times
> morning, gavin
..Except, that isn’t the message he’s used to seeing.
Gavin blinks. Before his mind could jump to any irrational conclusions, he told himself there were bound to be tiny deviations (wow what a joke) here and there; every run had its little variations, from Nines’s remarks changing here and there to Hank occasionally bothering him once before they leave for the drug ring hideout, but ultimately, the result had been the same, no matter what little changes there were.
It always was.
> wow, no punctuation? the world must be ending
It felt weird, honestly, to type out a message that wasn’t usually in the “script”. He knows that the world will in fact
not
end, not with how this day kept fucking repeating, at least, but he thinks that’s what he would say if this was just like any other day. Sometimes, he wonders if he’s ever truly acting like himself; he’s long forgotten what the regular life of Gavin Reed was like when his death day didn’t go on loop for eternity. He wonders if he’s really acting normal or if he’s just going by the script at this point
(he wonders, but he’s pretty fucking sure it’s the latter)
.
He remembered how the first few go-arounds, he had tried to make things differently; frantically told people his dilemma, tried to somehow convince them that the day of his fucking death was on loop and he wanted out somehow. He remembered how Hank had just shaken his head at him and left, while Connor just smiled politely and nodded.
He remembered how Nines had assured him that everything was okay and that his caffeine intake was probably too high for his own good.
He also remembered how the one time he had tried to dodge the bullet, Nines had taken it instead; and the time he tried to find a different way to ambush the suspects, Nines somehow lost his grip while climbing the building, and Gavin could never forget the sight of his crumpled body (it hadn’t even been a horrible fall, and yet, he knew he was fucking dead); and then there was the time he tried to just not go to the drug hideout at all , but whatever was fucking making the day loop didn’t ever want him to get out of it, and so a crazy shooter just so happened to burst in on the precinct, and Nines just so happened to take a bullet right in the thirium pump.
So in the end, no matter how many different ways he tried to come up with to survive again and again and again, they always, always ended up with him inevitably dying somehow, or Nines taking his place.
There was one time where Nines had straight up shielded him from the bullet without Gavin even trying to dodge it, and the moment Gavin had felt thirium splatter across his face and chest as the bullet went straight into the android was when he decidedly stopped trying to change his fate. Images of Nines’s lifeless face and bleeding body in various positions would haunt him forever, and at this point, if he got to see Nines just before the bullet hit, got to see him yell for him and actually give a shit about a lowlife like him, then that was enough.
That was what he liked to tell himself, anyways.
There was no response from Nines for a good full minute, and it made Gavin’s chest start to constrict with panic. It reminded him of the one time Nines had insisted he come over to Gavin’s place when he had told him he didn’t want to go to work today, only to end up in the middle of a car crash.
Not wanting him to fucking die and have another repeat so quickly, Gavin scrambled to type out a message, hoping it didn’t sound too “out of character”.
> what gives anyway? you’re always such a grammar nazi
Yeah, that sounds about right, he thinks. He’s not sure if he has good judgment on that anymore, but whatever, at least it earns him a response.
> I suppose I had a...nightmare, of sorts
Gavin could have pointed out that his I’s were now capitalized, but his brain more so freezed and focused on the actual content of his message.
> ..Are you awake this early because of a nightmare, as well?
Oh that’s. Too on the fucking nose. Wait. Hold the fuck up.
Gavin can feel his heart rate starting to accelerate as he read the android’s messages over and over, making sure he wasn’t actually hallucinating this shit. There was no fucking way he actually-- no , no way.
He really, really shouldn’t put up his hopes like that, and honestly, he wasn’t sure if his heart beating faster was due to hope, or fear. He didn’t want to find out and decided that he wasn’t known to wake up so early, so a nightmare is an easy guess to make. Yeah. That’s totally legit.
> ya caught me
He bites his lip. Should he? Fuck.
> didn’t know androids could have nightmares though
> what did ya dream about, humans taking over the world?
Welp, he did it. He hopes to all hell he doesn’t fuck any shit up. He didn’t think he could stomach another Nines death, which seemed bound to happen if things got too out of the quota.
> Technically, humans already have taken over the world.
Gavin breathes a loud sigh of relief. Good, good, things are, going back to normal. He thinks. Which is good.
He’s pretty fucking sure he didn’t receive an answer to his actual question though, and at this point, he’s not sure if he wants to--
> As for the content of my nightmare, well...It was nothing of importance.
Oh, uh, okay, he guessed. Gavin’s surprised he’s actually really torn about wanting to know more and just noping the way out of this new conversation. To play it safe, he decides to go for the latter.
> well whatever ya say tincan
And to speed things up--
> wanna go to my fav cafe? i need the boost with this shitty start to the day and maybe you do too
> Androids are unable to drink coffee, Gavin.
Gavin feels the smile curling onto his lips. Fuck, he can’t help it when it comes to Nines, especially not when he can fucking see the android’s lips quirking upwards ever so slightly accompanying a roll of his pale blue eyes. The fucking things he could do to him despite everything. He quickly shoves his worries to the back of his head where they're not needed.
> no reason not to start now
~~~~~~~~~
Luckily, going to the cafe and getting to the precinct had gone according to plan. Gavin ordered a Venti iced vanilla latte with soy milk this time around, and though Nines had been a little...more quiet than usual, a few knee nudges and Gavin resting his chin on his shoulder for a good few minutes made it seem like everything was going to go okay, or at least, as okay as he's grown to have it be.
However, when they get to the drug ring, Nines looks a lot tenser than he usually is. Some runs, he's calm as all hell and goes through it like any regular old case, and other times, he's more worried about Gavin, because sometimes he lets the fatigue or stress of knowing what's gonna happen show. There were the rare times when Nines seemed a bit skeptical about the place without any prompting from him, but Gavin was always able to convince him that it was nothing.
“The fuck do you mean? There's no fucking way.” But, this time around, it was a lot harder than he remembered.
“But don't you think there's a possibility of people being in the building?” Not only does the question itself throw him off--it was always Nines who thought that the chances of any signs of life in the building to be low if not nonexistent--but also the insistence on his tone. He almost sounded pleading, like he was trying to reach for something he can't see. Gavin did not like what that implied.
“Well, are we just gonna stand here and argue or are we actually gonna find some druggies or some shit?” Gavin snapped, hoping to just get things done quickly. It had been a while since things went off course, and he really wasn't in the mood of seeing blue blood splashed across his jacket again. Hopefully, when things reset, it'll go back to normal.
He still refused to let it go, though. “Perhaps it would be best if we went back and collected more information, or at least maybe called for backup,” Nines suggested, and fuck he was giving him the pleading head tilt and frown. Gavin swore his eyes, cold to everyone else, looked the saddest they could ever be like that. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes.
“Look, Nines, let's just get this shit over with, okay? I'm fucking tired of waiting around.” It comes out a lot harsher than he means it to be, but he can't let himself apologize else risk Nines forcing them back to the precinct, leaving Gavin to play a game of who's going to unpredictably die first. Again.
“...Alright, Detective.” Gavin winces. He knows that the use of his title meant that Nines was upset with him, but there wasn't much he could do. He'd rather take that then his blood on his hands...more of it, anyway.
He refuses to take the risk of glancing over to the android and catching sight of his hurt gaze. For all the days he's spent in this cycle, he's learned how to read the android pretty fucking well.
Whether that's a good thing or not, he couldn’t say, or rather, he refused to answer.
~~~~~~~~~
They're at The Door™ (as Gavin coins it in his head) now, with Gavin on the right and Nines on the left. He knows for sure that their searching took a lot longer than usual, and he also knows it's because Nines was a lot slower and more observant than he usually was, intently scanning every little bit and piece they came across. What made Gavin’s heart jump the most was when the android suspiciously narrows his eyes on something, almost looking as if he was trying to...recall something.
Nope, no, no . If he didn't believe it, it wasn't happening. What were the fucking odds of it happening, anyway?
Never, in any of the goddamn months he's been doing this, has Nines actually remembered what's been going on.
He doesn't know if he would want him to know at first; he remembered he used to desperately try to explain his situation to Nines, try to somehow convince him of his problem and to just have someone there with him so he wouldn't go batshit insane, but he gave up on that a long, long while ago. And, now that he's given it more thought, he's decided that he rather Nines did not know about all this shit. He didn't want him to have to suffer through this like he is, didn't think the android deserved that.
Really gives new meaning to ‘ignorance is bliss’, huh.
He mentally shoves away his thoughts and comes back to reality, which was about a few minutes before his death.
“I’ma open this,” he says like he always says and points to the door like he always does. He learned it was much easier for the criminals to ready their weapons and make things quick if he announced he was going in.
“Wait,” Nines stops him right on cue. There's some sort of ironic ease that fills Gavin at the familiarity of it, his body visibly relaxing as Nines says, “You should try to proceed with caution.”
Of course Gavin should. He ain't fucking stupid. Honestly, he feels like he pulled out his gun in caution the very first few times.
But he knows what's going to happen. He's done this more times than he can fucking count.
“Nah, I’ll be okay. You know me, Nines.”
But he’s keeping this up, if only for Nines’s sake.
The same Nines that's put up with all his bullshit since the day they were slapped together as partners.
The same Nines that looks so calm and stoic on the outside, yet is the one who whines at him that he can't move due to all his cats lounging on him, the android not daring to move an inch or face disturbing “their peaceful slumber”.
The same Nines who had thrown himself over Gavin to save him more times than he can count (which is a fucking lie; he sure as hell has counted, knows the number, but would rather he didn't know, in all fucking honesty).
It was because it was the same Nines that he's stopped caring about his death, about his neverending situation.
If this doesn't show that how much he cares for the fucking android then he doesn't know what will.
Well, actually, he can think of some ways, but he knows better than to say that he’s literally dying for him.
With his resolves reinforced, he reaches for the doorknob, readying himself for what to come by running through the script again. He was going to open the door, the suspects, already waiting, were going to point the gun right at his head and shoot, then everything was gonna go black, and then he'd be right back to the start.
...Except, none of that happens this time.
“ No .” Gavin flinched as he was suddenly thrown way the fuck back as Nines grabbed him by the wrist and harshly tugged him away from the door. He couldn’t help but look up towards him with wide eyes. This, this wasn’t in the fucking script, this hasn't ever happened before.
“H-huh?”
Nines regarded him with wide icy-blue eyes that both held both a steel resolve and a wavering desperateness to them. “You’re not going in there. You’ll get killed.”
“Wh-..” Gavin tried to laugh the notion off. He prayed to some fucking god that the way his voice nervously shook went unnoticed
(but really, with Nines, what were the fucking odds)
. “The fuck you talking about? There’s no way I’m gonna die by opening a fucking door.” There actually was a hundred percent chance he was going to fucking die if he so opened that door, such accuracy being brought about by trial and error at least a hundred fucking times, but Nines didn’t need to know any of that, and Gavin sure as hell was gonna try to keep it that way.
The way Nines looked at him with such an intense gaze made something sick curl within his chest, though. He was starting to believe that he was already too late on that last part, especially when the android still had a vice grip on his wrist. But, denial was one of his best characteristics, and the idea of Nines remembering the many, many fucking times he’s died was, again, not one he wanted to entertain, so he tried redirecting everything back to the way it was supposed to be. “I mean, you said it yourself, didn’t you? This place is fucking deserted.”
The android blinked at that, confusion becoming etched into his features as his eyes flickered back and forth, seemingly thinking about that notion as his LED whirred a flickering yellow. His grip on his wrist loosened, and Gavin felt fucking relief wash over him. Nines was gonna accept what he was saying, probably apologize like the dumb polite prick he is, and then let him continue with his search; then Gavin can just open the door wide open and practically say “hi! I’m a walking target just for you!” before getting shot again and feeling a momentary burst of pain within his chest before it all goes black.
And then the whole damn thing restarts like a fucking videogame or some shit. He’ll go through the whole routine again, and again, and again, probably until fucking eternity, or whenever the god playing this fucking hell game with him decides to be merciful and let it end once and for all. He’d take either at this point, really, but he wasn’t really betting on the latter.
But then Nines still didn’t let go of his wrist.
Gavin felt his blood run cold as his partner’s face suddenly went rigid and his eyes narrowed on him like a fucking predator towards his prey. He suddenly felt like he was in the interrogation room and Nines was the one intimidating the fuck out of him, the android’s grip turning into one as tight as death’s (but then again, Death’s personal grip on him was really fucking loose, so that wasn’t such a great analogy to use in his case).
“No, there are…” Nines closed his eyes, his LED flickering between red and yellow, his expression more pained than it was fucking allowed to be. Gavin’s seen that distressed look before, seen them many, many deaths ago, many times just before blue blood had splattered across his vision. “There are three hostages within that room, two of them armed with guns, one of them with a crowbar.” Gavin thought he was going to fucking faint with how lightheaded he suddenly felt and how loud his own fucking heartbeat sounded pounding against his ears.
“You...you can’t possibly know that,” he breathed, desperately hoping that this was all a fucking dream, that he could somehow convince Nines (and himself for that matter) that this wasn’t fucking happening, there was no fucking way . He had gone down this rabbit hole far too many times, he couldn’t bear to lose him again. He had already accepted his fate, but yet...those icy eyes stared down at him with a gaze far, far too pained.
“But you do, don’t you?”
Notes:
I hope you liked it!!! Please look forward to the next chapter (whenever that comes out)!!!!
Chapter 3: Losing Control
Summary:
Nines knows it's impossible to know, but he does.
And Gavin does too.
Notes:
Hiiiiii I'm not dead but I'm definitely going to be rather soon!! Exams and all that are going to end me :'D
Thank you all for your kind words and patience though!! Big kudos to @LinkeyBlue for the really nice comment! You really made me motivated to finish this chapter, which I had only in bits and pieces until a few days ago;;
I hope you all enjoy, the story continues!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“But you do, don’t you?”
Nines knows that’s impossible; Gavin could never have known that there are hostages inside of a hideout they were only informed of today, but then again, he knows that he’s not supposed to know either. He’s not supposed to know the number of assailants (exactly three), the identity of each (Daniel Collins, Farley Wurst, Michael McHurden), or what weapon they each are currently wielding (Collins and Wurst have .22 caliber guns, McHurden a rusty crowbar). No, it’s physically impossible for him to know any of that.
And yet he does.
And he’s sure Gavin does too.
He’s having a hard time processing both of those facts. He doesn’t know what prompted him to know, to r͜em̨em̶b̧e͘r͠, but he has memories, brief flickers of footage that until now he couldn’t process. It had made him feel uneasy throughout the entire day since he woke up with those bits and pieces forcefully jolting him out of stasis. It really put him on edge when he could tell that Gavin was hiding something from him, but it was only when he saw Gavin’s hand reach for the doorknob—no. It was when he heard him say he was going to be fine, followed by a sudden prompt that told him Gavin was lying, did something click within him.
He couldn’t have known that Gavin was lying, there were no micro expressions to back up such a conclusion, but yet Nines found something within him that yelled HE̟̟̯̭͖’͉̱͓̟̬͚̬͡S̴̘͔̬ L̴̩̠Ỵ͖̗̮͎̼I̘N҉͓̹̱̫G̮ from deep within his wife’s.
He looked back towards the door. They have been standing here for quite some time, and Nines could tell that the hostiles were starting to get a bit restless.
His eyes glanced towards Gavin, whose expression was still one of utter shock and disbelief and somehow he didn’t expect Nines to know, to remember—
h͢o̕w̛ ̵ma̛ny̸ time͠s͞ had he go̴ne ̛thro̸u̵gh̵ t͠his with͡out͏ h͞im kn͡ow̴i̴n͢g҉?
The thought makes something glitch within him, and Nines knows that he neither has the time to find the answer nor wants to know right this second. It͞ ̢m̶i̵g҉h̵t͝ ͠b͜rea͜k̛ ̴him͏.̶ ͝Hȩ c͢an’t a̧ffor̶d̸ ͏that r͢ight now.͝
Without any sort of prompt, his hand goes for the door at a speed that doesn’t catch Gavin’s attention until he’s already shoved it wide open. He has to do this n̴̕o͢w .
“Nines, wait—!!”
Shots whip right past him. Admittedly, he didn’t have much of a plan or preconstruction before throwing himself in, but it almost like something was filling in the pieces of a preconstruction, like he already knew what was going to transpire.
Right, 2cm.
Left, 3cm.
Left, 6cm.
He doesn't know who or what is prompting him, but they lead him to smoothly and efficiently dodge the incoming bullets with a good margin of error. It almost feels like autopilot, his body lunging straight at the closest suspect ( GET̛̕ ҉̡͜C̵̷o͏̵LL̵i͝N̸͝s̨̨͢ F͢i͞R̨͡s͏̕t҉̸ ) before going right for his neck, which made a sickening crushing sound before Nines let go of him to fall right onto the ground with a sickening thud. Something within him laments that he is unable to revel in the sound as there are still more people responsible for Gavin’s death right beside him.
The thought suddenly stirs something deep within him, something dark and heavy and quickly all-consuming that he doesn’t even register the fact that he knew Gavin died.
For a moment (for more than a moment?) he finds himself feeling as if he’s not in full, conscious control of his body. Both the feeling and the realization should scare him, but for some reason, the android finds himself accepting it for once; letting his emotions get the better of his usually rational self. Control was not something he always liked to lose, he supposed, especially since he is always reminded that he was (is?) meant to be nothing more than a machine following orders. It was nice to be able to lose control this way, though. This wasn’t him simply obeying orders, oh no—quite the opposite, actually; he lost control to the very thing he was supposed to shut down: emotions . In some cruel way, he quite enjoyed losing himself for a bit, paying no mind to any external sounds (screaming, yelling, cries of pain) or any visual stigma (blood, lots of blood).
Nines re-entered reality only when he heard Gavin yell sharply into his audio processors.
“Nines! Stop !”
It’s not the command that makes him stop; it’s the way he can hear Gavin’s voice shake that makes him freeze right then and there. He blinks rapidly, realizing that he wasn’t paying any attention to his vision sensors. He recalibrates, and finds himself holding the collar of a bloody, unconscious Michael McHurden does he realize what he’s done. His grip immediately drops, leaving the body to thump against the cold floor. He doesn’t need to scan the body to know he’s dead.
“How...how did you..-?” He snaps his head towards the uncharacteristically meek voice, but he immediately flicks his gaze off to the side, too...hesitant to see Gavin just yet.
“I…I don't know,” Nines admits quietly, slowly letting himself stand back up. His LED flickers red amongst a solid yellow for a solid moment before he braved a hesitant glance towards the detective. He doesn’t seem as fearful or disgusted as he initially believed (Nines felt his thirium pump slow down to a more stable pace at that, he didn’t what he’d do if he was afraid of him like many others), but he definitely does appear quite “shaken”, by the feat he performed, no doubt. “I believe I...must have had a recollection of confronting them before...of their bullets’ trajectories…” He pauses, processes. Slowly turns to Gavin and whispers quietly, “because I once was unable to miss them, wasn't I?” It pains him to no end, the way Gavin’s head wrenches away from him, the way his expression was twisted up with despair and hurt and pain that Nines had wished would never have reason to be there. It almost made him wish he hadn't said anything to cause him that expression, but he immediately dispelled the thought; he would much, m u c h rather Gavin was here, Gavin was alive.
Slowly, as he’s coming back to his senses, Nines surveys the destruction he had just wrought, his vision quick to lay upon the other two hostiles. They're dead, beyond dead really; he doesn't even remember shooting them, or how they came to be so...damaged. For a moment, he feels the beginnings of what he’s learned is disgust and shame well up within him, but then brief, staticky flashes of Gavin’s lifeless body make their way into his vision (f҉ŗǫm ͟wh̛e͠re?), and the feeling is quick to dissipate and be replaced with the fleeting regret of not being able to hit them right in the artery so that they could experience a slow , painful death, but alas, this would have to do. There was no way to bring back the dead, desire as he might.
Nines pauses at the thought. He turns his head back towards Gavin.
Well, he supposed that may not actually be so accurate, considering the current circumstances. That being said, he had questions.
“Gavin—“ he starts, because he saw no need to “sugarcoat” things at the moment. There were too many pressing matters at hand that Nines really needed to be clarified, especially concerning the fact that he knew and Gavin himself knew that he was going to D͜͝I̵̡ ̢E͝.
However, before he could even get a single question out, Nines found the words dying in his voice processor as he felt himself confused and suddenly wary at the sudden spikes he detected in the detective’s stress levels. “We—we have to go,” Gavin whispered shakily under his breath, seemingly more directed towards himself than anything. His sensors picked up on how his pupils were heavily contracted and darting between him and a random spot on the floor below him.
“Why? What is—“ Without any warning, Gavin suddenly tackled him right in the chest. Usually, with Nines being a state-of-the-art android, it would have been impossible for someone of such small stature as Gavin to even budge him, as he’s tried many a time when they had started their partnership, but from both being caught off guard and still slightly overwhelmed by everything that has been happening, the RK900 couldn’t stop himself from losing his footing and landing the both of them to the ground, Nines’s arms darting out and wrapping around Gavin to protect him as they did out of pure instinct.
He doesn’t even have any time to question Gavin as his audio processors pick up the distinct sound of wood and concrete crumbling, his eyes widening at such a noise. He tilted his head to get a better view, and he stared in utter disbelief at the large hole in the ground where he once stood. That—that can’t have happened. The interior durability of this building, although old, was substantial, or at least sturdy enough that his scanners told him there shouldn’t have been any danger for either of them.
“Fuck—that’s why I said—“ Gavin let out a string of curses as he pulled away from Nines (leaving him feeling oddly co̢l̷d) and scrambled to his feet, his hand grabbing ahold of the sleeve of his now-dusty RK900-model jacket (the one he can’t ever seem to part with). “C’mon, let's get the fuck out of here, now .” He would have protested, not demanded but perhaps insist he know more of what’s going on. He really didn’t like feeling this overwhelmed with confusion and dread, but there was a sense of urgency and pleading to Gavin’s voice that made Nines allow him to drag him and file the numerous questions in his head for later.
“...Alright, Gavin.”
Notes:
I hope you all liked it! I'm sorry it took so long to update, and I'm not sure when the next one will be up, but stay tuned (and deviant ;) ) until then!
Chapter 4: Time and Time Again
Notes:
AhhHhHhhhHh HI hello I'm alive life has just been happening to me and time slipped whoops BUT I'M ALIVE AND WITH AN UPDATE!
Thank you so much to LinkeyBlue for their amazing fanart!!
Chapter Text
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck .
Gavin knew he was probably hissing curses both in his head and out loud under his breath as he practically dragged Nines through the building. He was too fucking busy wracking his brain for the right, safe path. He hadn’t gone past the room full of hostiles in a long, long time, probably a few fucking hundreds of runs, so excuse him if he couldn’t fucking remember which areas of the floor were going to fucking crumble right underneath them or which parts of the ceiling would oh so conveniently break and crash right as they passed by.
He skidded to a halt right before they came to the stairs, his arm darting out to stop Nines before he could step onto the crumbling floor. He remembered he himself had fallen straight through that the first time he had gone through this, when he had frantically tried to get him and Nines out of that building the first time.
“Gavin--” Nines tried to talk, but Gavin immediately tugged on his arm and led him in a different direction.
“This way.” He really, really didn’t want to have the conversation Nines surely wanted ( one they already had once upon a time ) right now; his mind was still reeling over the fucking Inception-like dodging Nines had done just a few minutes ago, and he really couldn’t afford to be distracted right now.
God he couldn’t fucking tell if he hated that new things were happening. It had been a long, long time since the last time anything new had happened. Gavin honestly thought he had exhausted all choices he could possibly have al-fucking-ready, but he guessed fucking not. Whatever God or higher power or whatever-the-fuck was doing to this was really going to wring out his suffering, huh?
He tightened his grip on the android as he led them down the stairs, purposefully skipping a few steps that crumbled just as Nines hopped over them. It was the 8th step, then the 11th, then the 13th, then--fuck, which one after that?
Wait. Fuck . “Nines!” Gavin frantically grabbed his Cyberlife-issued jacket when the stairstep the android just put his feet underneath suddenly crumbled, his nails digging into the fabric as he pulled like his fucking life depended on it (really, it did). Unfortunately (yet somewhere in the back of his head sneered not surprisingly ) , the wooden step that he put his weight into just so happened to crumble as he dug his heels into it, causing him to feel a sharp spike of panic and adrenaline just before the two of them went falling.
For a brief moment he feels like he’s not even in his own body, but then he felt strong, familiar arms wrap tightly around him as air rushed into his ears, snapping him back to his senses.
Oh no you fucking don’t .
Gritting his teeth, he shifts himself and pushes Nines so that the android doesn’t get to use his own fking body as a cushion for him. Time and time again, he’s seen—felt— experienced Nines using himself as Gavin’s own shield, whether it be for bullets, for knives, for falls like these. He was tired of it, and he swore he was never going to fucking let that happen another time .
Fuck--Nines realized what he’s trying to do though, and Gavin finds himself wrestling with the android on who’s using who as their fucking cushion for what felt like an eternity before Nines, at the last second, is able to tilt his body so that he was under Gavin just as they crashed into the ground.
The impact of hard metal immediately punched the air out of his lungs and Gavin was left gasping as pain lit up the entirety of his body (fuck, even after all these fucking times—) .
Once he’s back to his senses, he immediately feels his blood go cold with dread.
“Nines?!” Fuck, fuck, fuck -- was he okay?! He can’t do this without him, he can’t do this without Nines, he swears to fuck he’ll reset if he needs to--
He feels something cool tightly hold onto his wrist while another rests against his cheek, snapping him out of his thoughts. “I’m...alright, Gavin.” The detective blinks as he feels Nines’s thumb gently wipe away something on his cheek, and he suddenly realizes he’s crying .
Once upon a time, he might have pushed him away and tried to cover himself up, because blah blah Gavin Reed does not cry or whatever , but again, that was a long fucking time ago, and now he honestly will take anything he can get.
He leans into Nines’s hand, breathing out a shaky “ fuck ” as he uses his other not-gripped hand to wipe the tears trailing down his cheek from the other side of his face. “I...don’t scare me like that again, tin can.” He closes his eyes as flashes of other times he was laying on a pile of dented metal and blue blood flickered in his vision. “ I thought I lost you again,” he whispers under his breath, more for himself than anything, really. Air escapes his lips once more as he lets himself relax for just one fucking second against the android’s chest.
“...Gavin…” Nines whispers quietly, but Gavin doesn’t say anything—he’s too scared that his voice might waver if he even tries.
So instead there’s a moment of silence between the two of them, and Gavin honestly relishes the peace for just a moment as the relief of knowing that Nines was fucking okay and not dead outweighed his anxiety of more bad things happening to them. Quietly, Nines shifts to sit up, and Gavin lets him, though they both seem to share the mutual idea of not letting go of each other, Gavin’s fingers tugging on Nines’s sleeves still as Nines hands slid to rest against his arms.
A beat passed. “...How many times?” Nines suddenly speaks up, and Gavin snaps out of his reverie and darts his head up to look at him, eyes growing wide open as he realizes the android’s voice was fucking shaking. He bit his lip and looked away. He doesn’t need to ask what he’s referring to, and honestly, it’s fucking weird that way and he’s still confused as shit as to what’s going on with that, but he supposed he can only handle one fucking oddity at a time.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he lied. He, at the very least, thought that Nines was gonna give him that unamused look he always gave when it was obvious he was fucking lying, which was why he was taken aback when he saw the android’s usually-blank eyes become glassy and wet and so full of emotion that Gavin could never understand how he used to find them so cold. It made his heart ache in a way that it hadn't since the last time he had seen Nines die.
“How many times?” Nines whispered again, his usually composed expression breaking with a heavy frown and a wobbly lip with eyes full of sadness and tears threatening to fall. “How many times have I failed you?” Fuck, Gavin’s heart was fucking breaking .
“Nines, that's, that's not--”
“How many times?!” Gavin flinched before going into full-on panic mode when the android suddenly breaks down. Nines held his hands against his face and sobbed , his form hunched over as tears flowed down his cheeks. Gavin, being the social shitshow he is, scrambled over what to do before his arms haphazardly pulled Nines into an embrace.
“H-hey, hey, Nines, Nines ,” he tried to soothe him, his hand rubbing circles in his back in an attempt to comfort him. “I'm--you didn't fail me, Nines, you never did, I just--” Fuck, he'd never been good with words. He’d never gone through this either; through all the times Gavin had told him what was really happening, Nines had never cried before, much less like this . It made the detective's heart ache in ways he thought it could never do anymore.
He didn’t want to just babble out nonsense that wasn’t going to do anything for either of them, so the detective tightened his grip around the android and continued to rub his back, mind racing for what the fuck he was supposed to say in a situation like this. It had been...it had been so long since he was able to have a moment of fucking peace like this, of just holding Nines in his arms without having to constantly fear what was to come.
Maybe that was why he was willing to just be honest this time around. Might as well, right? If they were going to just have to repeat everything again...he might as well spill at least once, when it seemed that Nines desperately wanted the truth now that his eyes weren’t clouded to it anymore.
“I’m, fuck, I dunno.” Gavin desperately wanted to run a hand through his hair, but he didn’t want to let go of the android and instead just dug his fingers into his jacket. “Lost count after, what, hundred—something?” Well fuck. “It's probably been at least a few years or so.”
That made a wrecked, glitched sob tear out of Nines, one that made Gavin immediately regret ever uttering those words out loud. He didn’t dare to say anything else that might fuck things up even more, so he simply held the shaking android in his arms and rested his chin against his shoulder while the android buried his face into his own shoulder.
He closed his eyes, praying that whatever sadistic-ass god out there doing this to him—to them would just allow them to have this moment. Fuck knows how many cycles of dying and watching the one he fucking cared about die at least granted him something , right?
He knew, as he held the advanced android in his arms, that he didn’t have to make his life a priority over his own. He’s never tried finding out what the world was like after Nines would get shot (or would he get shot trying to save him? He wasn’t sure what came first anymore).
He didn’t care to, honestly, because he knew, time and time again, he’d much rather choose a repeated moment with Nines than an eternity without.
Chapter 5: What Happens Now
Summary:
A long-overdue continuation!
Notes:
HI YES IT'S BEEN QUITE A WHILE HASN'T IT
A lot of things have happened and to be honest I haven't been writing as nearly as I used to since COVID, but I've been having a really great summer so I thought I should be a bit productive and finish up the next chapter to this story! If you're still here after all this time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking around.
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Text
Nines relished the detective’s embrace, grateful for it as it gave him a moment to fully process everything that was going on (and Gavin was...warm).
But everything must end, he supposed...though, that principle’s foundation was being shaken by everything that has been going on.
He still didn’t fully understand what was going on; the flashes of moving images blurred with static seemed so much like memories, but they couldn’t be his own memories, because, because—
Well, he was having a hard time fully processing that they were, had to be. Because Gavin has those same memories, knows of them much more vividly than he does, and the fact that he had to bear them all by himself…
Nines has to force the thought away lest he risks being overwhelmed by emotions again. Already he’s discovered that he actually has the ability to shed tears, and it’s odd that he has that built into him, but that was an existential question for later—he has other more dire issues to deal with.
“Hey, Nines…” Surprisingly, it’s Gavin that speaks up first. Nines reluctantly moves away to face the detective. “How did—“ he bites his lip, eyes flickering, hesitating, but before Nines can say anything he blurts out: “How did you know?”
Nines pauses. He takes a moment to process, contemplate the answer. How did he know? From what he’s gathered, this has been going on...longer than is acceptable. Gavin had said at least a few years or so.
That’s more than 365 days of Gavin dying over, and over, and over. How many times had he known? How many times had he simply brushed the detective off? How many ̸t̵i̸m̷e̵s̴ ̴h̵a̵d̸ ̴h̵e̵ ̸w̶a̸t̸c̸h̴e̴d̴ ̵h̵i̴m̷ ̵d̷i̴e̶-̷-̴?̶ ̸
Nines is quick to cut that thought off, or rather, multiple SOFTWARE INSTABILITY^^^ messages did, but nevertheless he continued to think of an answer to Gavin’s question. “I...I do not have any vivid memories, but...simply a growing feeling of dread, I suppose; not only from today but I believe from...past iterations, as well.” When the case was introduced to him, when they walked through the entrance of the building, when—
“When I saw you, about to open the door I—” His thirium pump feels too tight, like it’s going to burst, but he pushes forward. “I..just felt like I knew you were going to…” He took in a sharp breath that he didn’t even mean to make. “And then it just, hit me. The memories. Vague, at first, but the more I focused on them, the more they...became real .”
Nines refocuses his lost gaze on Gavin. “Has...have I not known before? In any of the iterations?”
Gavin purses his lips, and Nines can already feel the dread become solid in his stomach. “No...no, this...this’s the first.” Gavin’s voice was deathly quiet, drenched in disbelief.
Nines shouldn’t be able to feel body temperature, yet every part of him feels like ice. “Have you...never told me, before?”
There’s silence, and Nines feels, feels hurt that out of all the time Gavin’s had to suffer, he still never trusted him—
“I have.”
Nines snaps out of the spiral he was about to go down. “What?”
A long, tired sigh passes through Gavin’s lips. His hands go up to wearily rub his face. “I have, Nines. You were the first person I told when all of this shit started happening.”
“…Oh.” Despite the situation, Nines couldn’t help but feel a little pleased by that. But, then: “Has nothing come from that time?”
“You mean time s ?” Gavin shakes his head and looks off to the distance. “No. Sometimes, you wouldn’t believe me. Other times, we couldn’t do anything. And no matter what happened, you or I would die, and this whole fuckfest starts all over.”
Nines processes this information. Clearly, this time is different than the other times Gavin deliberately told him of what was occurring; according to Gavin, this was the first time that he remembered on his own without any prompting. Could that mean this specific time is special, then?
“What comes after this, then?”
Gavin cocks his eyebrows. “What do you mean after this?” Nines blinks and tilts his head.
“Have we not fallen through the steps before?”
Gavin grimaces. “We have. A lot. Those times, though, either you or I…” He trails off, but Nines understands the implication.
“So in other words, you don’t know what happens after this?”
“No, I don’t.” Gavin runs a hand through his hair. Nines could see his stress levels slowly rise. “This...fuck, it’s been quite a while since you’ve—we’ve—I’ve gone this far.”
“Then, perhaps, a different outcome awaits us this time?” Nines suggests. He watches Gavin’s face twist into a grimace, but he immediately groans out loud and seems to push whatever he was thinking about away.
“It’s...we might as well try to get out of here, I guess.”
Despite himself, Nines can’t help but grin a little. Despite the unacceptable number of times the detective has gone through the same scenario, dying over and over and over, he still hasn’t completely given up yet. That was the detective he knew.
Nines stands up and brushes off the dust from his CyberLife jacket before holding a hand out for Gavin. “Shall we get going, then?”
Gavin blinks at the hand before a tired but genuine smirk curls onto his lips.
“Ever the gentleman, huh?” He snorts softly.
The moment Gavin’s hand grabs his, however, Nines suddenly detects something around them shift. The sound of the old building crumbling, above them.
“ Gavin—“
“LOOK OUT!”
Somehow, even though Nines, a state-of-the-art android, was supposed to have faster reactions than Gavin, who was a fragile and vulnerable human, the detective somehow was able to push him out of the way of the sudden falling debris before he could push him.
“GAVIN!” Nines screams just before the world crumbles before them.
Chapter 6: 'Till the End of the World
Summary:
The world is ending. Gavin and Nines can only do so much.
Notes:
HI OH MY GOD? BEEN A HOT SECOND.
Ummm I haven't been active in the DBH fandom for a while but I opened my draft on a whim and was hit with mega inspiration? So here you go. Hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Gavin blinks awake, he thought he was back looking at the ceiling of his bedroom again, doomed to do this all fucking over again, but then his vision flickers in and out, and he’s met with Nines hovering over him with a distressed expression.
“Gavin! Gavin, Gavin—” the android desperately chants his name like a prayer, usually emotionless blue eyes wide and trembling, rapidly darting back and forth.
That’s when he notices something heavy is weighing down his lower half.
“Fuck.” He didn’t need to look down to know his legs were broken underneath the rubble now toppled over the bottom half of his body. He can feel the splintered wood digging into his flesh, but oddly, he feels…numb. He should probably be feeling a lot more pain than he’s actually aware of.
His eyes hover over to Nines. Blue blood is dripping down the side of his head, and when he looks a little further down, he can also see some smaller planks wedged into the side of his abdomen. He probably wouldn’t die from those wounds though, Gavin thinks with slight relief.
“Gavin—Gavin,” Nines says, like a tape stuck on loop. “You’re—you—why, why did you do that??” Ah, typical Nines chiding him for doing dangerous things. A typical thing that typical Nines does.
A typical thing that typical Nines does every time he goes through this typical fucking day and—
A huff of a laugh escapes Gavin’s lips. “I knew it.”
Nines’s distress shifts slightly to confusion. “Gavin, what—”
“I knew it,” he says again, not really listening to the android as he puts an arm over his eyes. “I knew it, I knew it, FUCK!” Gavin pounds the floor with his fist and lets out a bitter laugh, ignoring the pain that reverberates through his arm from the force. “Nowhere, nothing’s safe, nothing’s fucking changed and I fucking knew it.”
There’s a poignant air of silence, Gavin’s words echoing through the debris that may or may not serve as their tomb—only temporarily, because he’s just going to go back to the very fucking beginning and do this all fucking over again and again and again.
He’s just so fucking tired of this.
“Has…has this happened before?” Nines is the first one to break the silence. A dry, bitter laugh echoes through the dust-filled air. Gavin only belatedly realizes it escapes through his own lips a second after.
“No.” He can’t find it in himself to say anything else. His voice sounds hollow even to his own ears, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
“We just…we just have to find a way you make it out alive,” the android says, voice quiet. “We have to find a way to get you out of the debris, and—and stop the bleeding, and…as long as you make it out of alive, that seems like the most plausible solution to make this loop end.”
Gavin snorts. Even though he, the ever so calculating and cold RK900, seems to be panicking, he is still going through this situation logically as always.
“It’s never been that simple, Nines.” The bitterness oozing from his words has to be clear, even to Nines. But yet the damn android gives him a quizzical look.
“What—what do you mean? Is that not the way to avoid the timeline resetting?”
Despite the throbbing pain that’s starting to pulse in his nerves, Gavin still manages to throw his arms up. “Oh yeah, let me just get myself out of this shit real quick. Easy peasy. You wanna help me? With those planks stabbing your stomach?”
“It will…be fine. Your injuries are not fatal, so long as we are able to seek help—”
“And what help is coming, huh?” Gavin spits, a tightness that’s not from the debris weighing him down squeezing his chest with a growing vice grip. “Tell me, Nines, are you able to contact anyone? Huh?”
Gavin knows the answer even without the telling silence that follows. He grits his teeth. “Yeah, and you think I haven’t tried to, oh, I don’t know, not die??”
That makes the android’s face contort with a grave frown, as if the thought of him dying over and over and over makes him uneasy.
As if he has any fucking right.
“Gavin—“
The detective snaps his head at the android, teeth bared. “You really think after hundreds of times doing the same bullshit I didn’t try to find a way to not die? Nines, I’ve tried everything!”
God, why were they still talking about this?
“But perhaps there’s still—“
“No, Nines—“
It’s over.
“But perhaps—”
The throbbing in his legs is getting worse.
“Nines, I’m fucking telling you, I’ve tried everything—!”
Did he really think that if there was a way he could he wouldn’t take it??
“But maybe if I—”
“NO!”
Nines’s body, his corpse in multiple different poses and pieces, flashes in the back of his mind. He was a fool to think that this run might have been any different. It was always the fucking same.
There’s a long stretch of silence. Until:
“What will it take for you to live, then?”
The question is said quietly, barely above a whisper. Gavin gawks at him, eyes wide, before his already-boiling blood peaks. He tightens his hands into fists and feels the scream threatening to escape from the back of his throat.
“It’s not something you can just—!”
“WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO LIVE!? ”
The sheer, raw anger that ripped through the android’s voice blew the heat in his veins away in an instant. Nines is standing now, looming over him with his icy-blue eyes overflowing with desperation. Gavin stares up at him, wide-eyed in shock. He has never heard Nines yell before. Ever.
It takes any words he could even think to say die in his throat. Heavy silence once again blankets them as Gavin is forced to do nothing but stare up at the state-of-the-art android glowering down at him.
Neither of them say anything for a while, until words suddenly leave Gavin’s lips.
“If you die, I go with you.”
He’s not really sure from what part of him that came from, but there’s no way in hell he’s taking it back. It doesn’t look like Nines understands where that came from either. “What? Gavin, there—”
“We’re not questioning that.” Now that he knew for sure. There wasn’t a world without Nines. He didn’t need to live to know that. He refused.
A poignant pause passes. “We’re not questioning that,” Gavin breathes, eyes closing. So many corpses. Life never felt the same every time Nines was dead. “So don’t you fucking dare consider that an option.”
He feels a hand slightly jostle his shoulder. The pain that echoes through his body makes him re-open his eyes to see the android staring down at him with icy eyes that reflects a panic even though his lips are pursed, like he wants to argue that point, to which Gavin just annoyedly stares at him straight back. Try me.
“I’m not going to keep on living knowing that there's one possibility that you could live. If that possibility comes at the price of me dying, then so fucking be it.” Gavin shudders at the thought. He knows, he knows he could try to get through the day after Nines is dead. The farthest he’d ever gotten was an hour after his partner’s death before he pointed his own gun to his head.
That’s why he’s long since past the point of no return.
He swallows the lump stuck in his throat and rasps, “You're my partner, and I'm yours, and there's no way I at the very least am living on without you. So that’s that.”
Another long moment of silence. There’s a lot of that. It’s not like they had anywhere else they could go.
“...The feeling is mutual.”
Gavin blinks. “Huh?”
“There is no chance that I will continue living if you are to die.” Gavin gawks at the android’s straight face, of which the panic has settled to show that he is not in fact fucking lying.
“Huh?! Wait, Nines—”
“So I suppose we'll have to find a way where we both get to live.” His straight-laced words gag Gavin. He doesn’t know how to respond, so Nines keeps talking. “We’ll find a way to get you out. And then we’ll…both live. Both of us.”
“Both of us,” Gavin hollowly repeats. He lets out an empty laugh and lets his head loll to the side. “I think that’s the first time you’ve said that.” A hand, cold yet oddly gentle, cups his cheek and moves his head back to where it was, facing Nines. He stares down at him with a half-lidded gaze that is unfairly soft despite the blue blood slowly dripping down the side of his head. Since when could Nines look at him like that?
He could not remember what Nines was like before the loop. He couldn’t remember if he had been capable of looking at him like that before this whole fucking hell went down. He could barely remember what life was like before. He couldn’t remember why he didn’t let the loop consume him and go fucking insane.
The look on Nines’s face made him remember the last one.
“I’ll say it to you over and over again, if that’s what you wish,” Nines says.
“Fuckin’ sap,” Gavin replies. It earns him a small chuckle that warms something in his chest despite the rapid coolness spreading through his body.
Gavin knows there’s no way for him to get out of this. There is no way for Nines to lift the rubble by himself, and Gavin couldn’t feel his legs or lower torso anymore. Things have been too quiet for too long, too.
A large, threatening rumble suddenly sounds from somewhere above.
Ah, there it is.
Nines’s head whips up in alarm. Gavin blankly watches through a hazy gaze as those blue eyes glow while some android scanners or something analyze the situation.
“G-Gavin, the integrity of this building is rapidly deteriorating—”
Yeah, that would do it. He quietly watches as Nines’s head darts around in multiple directions, desperately rushing to find some sort of solution, like this is a quick-time event in some kind of game. The thought makes Gavin loopily snort.
You should try to save yourself, he wants to say. It’s something he always says, hoping beyond hope that maybe, just once, Nines will actually be able to make it without him. But he remembers what they had just talked about. Both of us, Nines had said.
So he, for once in his goddamn life, chooses silence. He only watches as Nines fruitlessly tries to do something about their inevitable situation, watches as the desperate, empty hope finally leaves his eyes and he crumples before Gavin, head hunched and just barely touching his chest.
“This can’t be the end.” Gavin closes his eyes, not wanting to see the tears he can hear in the android’s voice. He was sure he hadn’t known that the android could cry, before all this. “We've come so far...I don't want to forget.”
Gavin closes his eyes. “I...I just want it to be over.” His voice comes out quiet, like a prayer. God, he was so fucking tired. How many fucking years has he lost to this neverending cycle of hell? “I just…”
With all the strength left in him, he manages to wrench his teary eyes open to stare at Nines, one last time. He can’t feel his arms, so he opts to simply convey all that he can muster to those wide, wide blue eyes that stared at him with so much sadness, pain, and grief. They seem to get the message, or maybe he doesn’t, but either way Nines does inch closer to him, some form of tears still dripping down his chin as he shuffles over. Cool hands cup his cheeks as Nines positions himself over his body. For a moment Gavin doesn’t know why, but then he idly notices blurry gray bits falling around them in his periphery, and he gets it. He couldn’t even try to stop him, if he wanted, so he simply stares into those pained eyes now inches away from his own.
When Gavin wakes up again, in his bed, to those damn text messages, those eyes will have none of that as he hands him his coffee, knowing nothing is ever amiss. Again. Forever.
Gavin doesn’t think he can handle Nines forgetting again, actually.
Fuck it all to hell.
“I love you.”
He watches with some satisfaction as those eyes stop looking so sad and pathetic and instead grow wide with bafflement. In all his loops, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen the android look so perplexed. Well, at least he earned something from this run, then.
Nines’s expression quickly turns into one of unamusement. It looks real fucking hilarious against the drying tears against his synthetic skin. “Your sense of timing truly knows no bounds,” the androids deadpans. A larger piece of debris just barely skins Nines’s shoulder. Blue the color of a sky he hasn’t truly seen in years trickles out.
Gavin can’t help but let out a raspy laugh. “I know right? I’ve never said it out loud before.”
“What?”
“I mean, I always thought it, but—”
“Gavin.”
Gavin blinks. Realizes those bright blue eyes are suddenly way closer than they were seconds ago. “Are you telling me you’ve never confessed to me, before?”
He stares at the pale lips a breath away. “Yeah. I mean, we kissed once—”
“We kissed? ”
“Well yeah—”
“Without you confessing?”
They did. Gavin remembers being an absolute wreck many loops past that one. But for some reason, he can’t remember what they felt like. “I mean it’s a long story—”
Oh.
Nines’s lips pressed against his. He remembers, now.
They’re soft, surprisingly so. He also remembers being surprised by that fact before being consumed by the hunger pouring from those very lips. Gavin could barely breathe, feeling like he’s being eaten alive yet feeling more alive than he’s ever felt in a long, long time.
He’s left gasping for breath by the time Nines pulls away, and he’s pretty sure it’s only because the android could tell he needed to damn breathe.
“...There’s isn’t much time left.”
Gavin can’t see the state of the building, all of his vision consumed by the android, but he finds he doesn’t mind that. Maybe it’s better this way. Honestly? He’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to come back from this loop. If that was the case, then…
“Then kiss me ‘till the world ends, Tincan.”
He can’t tell whether or not he wants to etch every shift in the android’s expression into his memory as he watches it go from despair to annoyed to something he might just call fond. He decides to let that thought fuck off as those lips devour his again just as the roar of the world around him quite literally ending envelops his ears. He hears the impact of rubble hit the ground around them, plink thud THUD, then hears one seemingly directly above him hurtle towards him at a speed he decides not to give a fuck about.
He closes his eyes, lets his last sense of the world be the weight moving on top of him, alive, before everything goes pitch black.
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Gavin jolts awake.
And he's immediately met with a sharp pang of pain on his lower left side.
Surprised, confused, afraid, his head shoots down toward the source of said pain...only to find thin white sheets covering his abdomen.
He blinks. That wasn’t— those weren’t his sheets.
His phone. Where’s his phone?
He darts his head to the side (hissing at the pain that shoots across his veins as he does), but he doesn’t see his nightstand.
No, he sees Nines.
Nines is sitting in one of those shitty hospital chairs beside him, arms crossed and eyes closed like he’s sleeping (do androids even sleep?)
But then Nines’s eyes flicker open. Slow at first, as if confused. Gavin blankly as he slowly wakes up (activates, whatever), turning his head back and forth before finally noticing him.
At first, Nines regards him with a look of bafflement, but then his eyes shoot wide open with abrupt clarity, and suddenly Gavin finds himself pulled into a tight embrace. He lets out a wheeze, pain shooting up and down his spine.
“Uh, hey,” he rasps weakly, quietly, almost like he was out of breath (which, quite frankly, he was with the android’s iron grip). Gavin wants to kindly tell him to please stop breaking his ribs—
“It’s over.” Nines whispers those words into his ear, his embrace tightening ever so slightly. “We’re here. I’m, I’m here.”
Oh. Yeah. Well, with the pain spiking in his nerves, there isn’t much room for doubt that Gavin isn’t dreaming. He’s not in his apartment, turning off his alarm and shooting a “hey morning dipshit” text to Nines. He’s not about to head out, grab coffee, and march right into his death. He’s not going to have to wake up tomorrow knowing it’s only going to be the same as today. He’s…he’s free.
Tears roll down Gavin’s cheeks. He couldn’t give less of a fuck. He returns the android’s tight embrace, ignoring the throbbing in his lower abdomen as he clings to Nines like his life depended on it, which it did, it had for thousands of days.
He’s here now, he and Nines are here now.
He digs his nails into the android’s CyberLife jacket (did the bastard get a new one?), trying to cling to the hope that finally, finally, everything is over.
Notes:
What a ride, huh? This started so long ago (jfc) and I've grown a lot as a writer since then and cringe a lot seeing the earlier chapters, so I want to thank you guys new and old for sticking all the way to the end. This is the last chapter overall, but I'm thinking of doing an epilogue!
Chapter 7: Epilogue
Summary:
And so, what did it take?
Notes:
THANK YOU thank you thank you to everyone for following me to the very end of this journey. It has been an arduous 5 years to say the least, but I'm so grateful for everyone old and new for reading through this little fic of mine. I hope you enjoyed the ride!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The only time Nines could ever describe himself as being “startled awake” is when Deviant leader Markus forced his way through his firewalls and awoke him, quite literally, into deviancy. It had been jarring to go from non-existence to suddenly feeling everything the world had to offer at once.
It had felt just like that when he awoke the moment after he experienced the world end with his detective in his arms. Which was extremely odd because—the world had ended.
His body—his hands, he can feel his hands—no, his eyes, vision—he should prioritize vision but also he needs to get up and find Gavin —
His struggle to procure which body part to prioritize ends up with his optical sensors booting up at the same time his body shoots up from a lying position.
All of a sudden there’s a weight against his body, trying to push him back down, and he tries to brute force through it as his vision hasn’t fully processed.
“—s, Ni-nes, Nines stop!” Both his acoustic and visual sensors recalibrate at the same time, offering him a clear picture of the current situation: Connor looking down at him with a wild look of concern. His hands are the ones wrestling him down, not—not debris, as he thought.
“Connor.” Nines says aloud, partially to test his vocal cords. He’s filled with relief for a split second before he remembers —
“Gavin—” He grips his brother’s arms with a vice grip. “Where’s—where’s the detective??”
“He’s alive, he’s okay,” Connor quickly assures him, hands moving to hover over his own. When he’s sure that Nines isn’t going to fight him again, he continues, “He’s still in surgery at the moment, but the doctors said he’ll make it.”
It was odd—android didn’t need to breathe, but Nines couldn’t help the deep sigh of relief that blew through his lips. He slumps over, body suddenly feeling heavy now that everything was in order. Is that what an adrenaline rush feels like to humans? He idly notes it down and files it for later.
“Have you calmed down now?” Connor asks. His wary tone makes Nines frown.
“I—what?”
Connor looks at him like he’s the crazy one. “You don’t remember?”
“Remember?” Nines blinks. “No, I…I only remember…” Kissing Gavin like it was the end of the world because it was, very technically, supposed to be .
A heavy frown sets on his brother’s face, but he’s kind enough to continue without questioning. “We managed to save you two from the collapsed building that you had been investigating. We took Detective Reed to the hospital while we got Elijah Kamski to personally repair you. You then—quite manically, might I add—insisted on staying by the detective’s side until he woke up.”
Nines sifts through his memory database a fifth time, but he can’t find anything between when the world collapses to now. He has, however, retained everything since this morning. “I…see.” Does this mean…everything is over?
Nines briefly contemplates telling his brother the full truth, but one look into those wide uncannily-dog-like eyes and he decides it would be best, as humans say, to live in ignorant bliss. He opts instead to take a closer look at his surroundings, which, he realizes quickly, is a hospital room for patients, and he is currently lying in a single bed. He looks down; well, at least he isn’t wearing a gaudy hospital gown, though it seems he is now wearing his spare CyberLife Jacket (they may all look the same to the human eye, but Nines knows. He’ll have to get a new one, later).
“Is that why I’m in a room meant for patients?” he asks Connor while still scanning his surroundings. He can hear the slight huff of an artificial breath.
“Yes. Kamski only recently finished your repairs, and he paid for the room, anyway.” Connor grumbles something under his breath (Kamski is a half-brother? Oh, that explains a lot on Gavin’s part. He files that bit of information for later as well).
“When will Gav—the detective be back?” He blatantly ignores the unamused look on his brother’s face, even the eye roll.
“Unsure. The doctor said it would be a few more hours.” He walks up to him and pulls the sheets over him (to which Nines can’t help but roll his eyes for. They’re androids, they don’t need warmth). “In the meantime, you should rest a bit longer.”
“Androids don’t need rest.”
“It’s more for your mental sake rather than physical,” Connor quips back. He shoots him a firm look. “Do I need to inform you of your current stress level?”
Nines purses his lips and doesn’t grace him with an answer. Instead, he says, “Fine. But let me rest beside the detective, then. I don’t need to lay down in a bed.”
Connor looks like he wants to argue but instead lets out a sigh and shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll lead you.”
Nines revels in the mini-victory, smoothly gets up from the bed, and follows Connor through the hospital halls. The room they enter is, indeed, empty, but Nines simply sits down in the chair beside the bed and closes his eyes.
Maybe he could solidify his hypotheses once he could confirm with his own eyes that Gavin was well and truly alive. Until then, he lets himself drift back into stasis.
(A few days later)
“Meow, meow, meow, shut up!” Gavin groused as he picked up Nia’s bowl. “I’m fuckin’ feeding you right now, fatass.”
Nines gently picked up the offending creature yowling her head off by his feet. He blatantly ignored the fond amused look directed his way. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to your cat, Gavin.”
Gavin snorted. “Yeah, well, she’s been yappin’ her ass off since we came back.”
“...Which was an hour and five minutes ago from the hospital?” Nines raised an eyebrow as he stroked her head. He glared as she innocently curled into the android all purring and shit. Fuckin’ traitor .
He grumbled as he placed her food bowl down. “Yeah, well, after such a long fucking time, you’d think—”
They both fell mutually silent. Nia conveniently ignores the heavy tension in the air in favor of hopping out of Nines’s arms to gorge on her meal.
Neither of them dared to speak for what felt like forever until, finally, Gavin couldn’t stand it and spoke the forbidden question aloud.
“It’s…finally over, isn’t it?”
He stared desperately into Nines’s searching gaze. The android seems lost in thought for a moment that felt like—well, close to eternity. He gave a singular slow nod. “Yes, I…yes. It would seem so.”
Gavin couldn’t help it. Consciously or unconsciously, he wasn’t sure—all he knew was that his legs buckled in sudden weakness, and the android was quick to catch him before he faceplanted into the floor.
They had technically already done this song and dance once at the hospital, but it was finally hitting home that Gavin finally experienced a tomorrow and even a day after tomorrow without it being the same fucking day over and over and over —
His nails dug into Nines’s jacket, engraving the feel of its synthetic materials and the soft sounds of Nines murmuring soothing words into his ear into the very being of his soul.
For his hell, his neverending days, had finally, finally ended.
And all it took was a confession.
Notes:
Can you believe I didn't own a cat before I started this and now I do? Crazy stuff.
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