Chapter Text
He heard the shot ring out. He saw how Gavin moved to hold his right arm, shouting out in pain.
Connor began to take aim at Gavin’s head, stepping towards him.
His blood ran cold, the feeling taking precedence over the mixture of already fading adrenaline and the practiced neutrality of combat.
Kent had lost all three of his men already. The thought that he’d kill Gavin, too… that was enough to drive him onwards.
Doing his best to ignore the increasingly searing pain in his side, Kent took aim and fired, managing to hit Connor’s shoulder.
Connor kept his grip on the gun and pulled the trigger, but missed Gavin as he ducked, taking cover behind one of the vents.
As Connor turned the corner to confront him, Kent shot him once more in the side.
Connor took another step forward. A gunshot rang out. Connor collapsed to the ground, dead.
Fucking androids. What should have been a simple detainment had turned into a bloodbath.
Hand covering his blood-soaked abdomen, he began to walk towards where Gavin was emerging from his place of cover. Kent’s head was starting to feel light, and his legs were weakening.
He managed to get ahold of a dispatcher; “I need an immediate medical evac at Hart Plaza…. I and another officer have gunshot wounds. Three of my men are dead.”
“I’m sending an ambulance... It may take a while though.”
Kent stumbled, barely managing to catch himself. He cursed at himself for being shot, at Connor for relentlessly taking down his men, at the state of the city slowing down the paramedics. The gunshot was burning, and his breaths were too short and shallow.
“Shit!” Gavin hissed as he ran up to him, “You need to settle down.” He wrapped his good arm around Kent’s waist and guided him down in front of the vent, the two of them collapsing side by side.
Leaning against the metal, Kent turned to look at Gavin as much as he could, pulling a tourniquet out of one of his vest pockets. “What the hell are you doing up here?”
“I had a score to settle with the plastic prick,” he knelt in front of Kent, brows furrowed. He lightly took ahold of his chin and turned his head left and right with shockingly cold fingers. Kent flinched a bit when Gavin’s touch went over where Connor had struck him.
Kent took the tourniquet in both his increasingly unstable hands.
“For fuck’s sake Kent, keep pressure on your wound! You’ll bleed out!”
“So will you if I don’t-” Gavin pressed his hands firmly to his vest, above the entrance wound.
“...fuck!” Kent hissed at the pain brought on by the action. “It’s not like this will last long,” he added, managing to secure the tourniquet above the gunshot wound on Gavin’s upper arm before sitting back.
Gavin continued pressing his bare hands, which were already coated with blood. He shook his head, exasperated, as his voice began to waver; “God, you’re such a hypocrite, you know that? Lecturing me on keeping pressure on a simple laceration all those years ago, and then you go and ignore that with your own fucking gunshot .”
So Gavin still remembered that night, from all those years ago. Kent smiled for the briefest of moments at that; what a strange memory to recall with fondness. But he stopped himself from thinking back further; knowing the memories would make him feel like he was a dying man looking back at his life.
And he couldn’t be dying. Not yet.
Gavin’s hands were shaking, and Kent could see the fingertips on his less bloodied hand were tinted an alarming shade of pink.
His hands had been so icy. Kent decided to remedy that; he needed something to ground him before the paramedics got to them. Whenever that was going to happen.
Fighting the sluggishness in his limbs, he covered Gavin’s hands with his own, intertwining his fingers with Gavin’s. Even though he couldn’t feel them through his gloves, the indirect contact put some part of him at ease, a welcome feeling amongst the pain and faintness.
Gavin looked at him, eyes glistening. “What’re you-”
“God, you’re…” Kent took a shaky breath, “...such an idiot… not wearing gloves... are you trying to get frostbite?”
“You’re worried about my fingers when you’ve been fucking shot in the abdomen?!”
Kent shook his head, dismissing Gavin’s comment. He regretted the motion as his vision spun. “I’ve been shot before,” he gritted his teeth, focusing on Gavin’s tourniquet to steady his gaze, before continuing, “I’m not going to let a fucking android of all things be what kills me.”
Gavin nodded at that, sniffling. “Good… cause if you die, I swear to god I’ll fucking kill you ,” his voice broke with the threat.
Kent scoffed at that. “That made no goddamn sen-”
Gavin’s lips cut off his sentence, pressing desperately to his own. He wrenched his hand loose from their tangle of fingers to cup his chin, his touch still cold.
That, too, made Kent feel slightly more at ease.
Their breaths shuddered as Gavin pulled away, looking him in the eyes, his thumb tracing over Kent’s cheek.
Kent kept his focus on Gavin as he continued stroking his cheek; noting his shining eyes and the tear trails that traced down his face.
That made Kent feel worse. If only he wasn’t at risk of bleeding out; he wanted to reach his hands up to his face and wipe the tears away. Or just be able to hold him.
“The tourniquet… is it working?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Kent leaned his head back against the vent, closing his eyes. Despite the distractions, the pain remained unbearable, and he was feeling so tired.
Gavin’s hand patted his cheek, “Hey, don’t you fucking dare fall asleep on me. Stay with me, Kent,” he pleaded, voice thick with emotion. He shifted onto Kent’s lap, his hand pressing down the slightest bit more onto the gunshot wound, and Kent had to stop himself from crying out as the pain flared up.
There was a ringing in his ears, but through it he swore he could hear the distant wail of sirens.
Gavin pressed his face into Kent’s neck, murmuring, “Just a little longer… don’t you fucking leave me.”
Weakly, he managed, “I won’t.” He paused, before continuing quietly, “Just know... if something does happen to me I… I love you.”
Gavin let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob, “Don’t fucking say it like that, Kent. You’re going to be okay and you can’t tell me otherwise.” He kissed Kent again, short and gentle, before burying his face back in Kent’s neck, adding in a hushed tone, “I love you too, idiot.”
Kent opened his eyes, his surroundings unfocused. Maybe it was just an illusion, but there appeared to be faint red and blue lights flashing off to the side of a building, and a siren echoed nearby.
He was too tired to keep looking. So he closed his eyes again, everything going black.