Chapter Text
Gavin Reed is a goddamn mess.
Normally, this statement would be par for the course for him — sometimes it feels as though he has to take at least 10 minutes every morning to let the shitstorm that is his life settle around him before he gets out of bed. This past week, however, has been a special case, and as he walked down the dimly lit street that would lead him to the most recent android murder scene, he let his shoulders sag. There were too many thoughts vying for attention in his head, and he stared hard at the ground as he forced himself to start sorting through them.
First and foremost, of course, needed to be the case. Crimes involving android deaths had been popping up almost every day over the last week or so, and manner of death led both him and his team to believe that they had some sort of twisted android serial killer on their hands. Some sick fuck who got off on brutalizing the androids before he killed them, ripping off limbs or tearing out organs before leaving them to bleed out into a system shutdown. Gavin had seen a lot of dark shit in his time as a Detroit cop, but no matter how hard he tried to keep himself at a distance from this one, the details of the case kept burrowing under his skin in a way he absolutely loathed. At that lovely mental image, Gavin’s arms started to physically itch, and he actually started to raise an arm to start scratching before he prevented himself from doing so.
God, he needed a fucking smoke.
He stopped abruptly on the street next to a brick building and fumbled for the beat-up carton in his jacket pocket, yanking it out and stuffing a cigarette between his lips. He flicked on the plasma lighter a little more violently than necessary, but it got the thing lit, so he didn’t care. As he dropped the lighter back in his pocket and took a drag, a low voice piped up from behind him.
“Is this an appropriate time to be indulging in one of your vices, Detective Reed? I understand you have enough of them, but we are on our way to a crime scene.”
Gavin blew the smoke out of his lungs in a harsh breath and squeezed his eyes shut, turning towards the voice’s owner. Of course. Here was the source of the other half of his wild and unnerving thoughts: RK900 himself, standing as prim and proper as ever in his white knee-length jacket and black button-down, staring at Gavin with a slightly bemused expression and his hands clasped behind his back. Despite Gavin’s insistence that Nines be assigned to help another department while this case was active, or at the very least be put on desk duty while Gavin and the rest went out into the field, the bastard remained as affixed to Gavin’s side as that damn LED was to Nines’ temple. It was nauseating, and frustrating, and...a lot of other adjectives that Gavin didn’t really want to think about right now.
As he turned and faced Nines fully, taking in the arched eyebrow and the quirked lips and the small wisp of hair that fell in front of his forehead, he felt his stomach clench. His mind was suddenly full of images from the past week’s investigation: gaping shoulder sockets where android joints used to be, blue blood splattered across cold pavement, dark LEDs and dilated, unseeing pupils and it could have been him, it could have been Nines lying cold and unmoving on the ground as Gavin stood over him, listening to the on-scene officer give a monotone report of what had happened because Gavin had been too slow to stop it, because he hadn’t gotten there in time, because he was useless when it came to protecting the people he—
Stop.
Gavin ripped the cigarette out of his mouth, shaking his head slightly to clear it. He had hoped the movement would be small enough that Nines wouldn’t notice, but being the fastest and most perceptive android ever designed by CyberLife had to have some perks. Nines’ expression shifted from teasing to concerned in a fraction of a second, and he moved slightly closer to Gavin.
“Are you feeling alright, Gavin? I was only joking—“
Gavin waved the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette in Nines’ direction, hoping to cut this conversation off at the first available opportunity. There were things he didn’t want to talk about, and then there were things he couldn’t talk about, especially with his partner.
“Shut up Nines, I’m fine. Just needed to take the edge off before we go stare at android corpses for the next two hours.” Though his words were meant to deflect, they only succeeded in making Nines more worried, his brows dropping into a distressed furrow as he took another step forward.
“The agitation in your voice and your increased levels of perspiration would indicate that you are anything but fine, Gavin,” Nines responded evenly. Gavin sucked harder on the cigarette and shot Nines a dirty look.
“How many times do I have to tell you to quit scannin’ me, dickhead?” he growled, and Nines put his hands up in a calming gesture.
“As many times as it will take you to memorize my response: I don’t do it on purpose, it’s a natural part of how the processors in my eyes function.” Said eyes seemed to soften as Nines dropped his hands to his sides.
“But I don’t need to be an elite prototype android to know when you’re upset and trying to avoid a conversation. What’s wrong?” Gavin was ready with another snarky quip on the tip of his tongue, to continue their dance of banter that they’d had between them since they first started working together, but Nines’ follow-up stopped him cold.
“You know you can talk to me, right? If you’re feeling upset about this case, you don’t have to go through it alone.”
Gavin blanched, and it was all he could do not to give in to his immediate fight-or-flight response – running away or decking Nines in the face would not get him out of this conversational trap. The plastic bastard didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Gavin had always been alone and he always would be, didn’t Nines get that? But no, of course he didn’t, he’d only been walking and talking for a little over a year, what the fuck would he know about shit like this. Gavin slowly removed the cigarette from his mouth so he could grit his teeth.
“Fuck off with that bullshit, Nines,” he seethed, not making eye contact with the android. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He watched the ashes from the cigarette fall, glowing and brilliant, to the sidewalk, where they snuffed out immediately upon contact with the ground. Gavin’s vision tunneled, and could see the ashes, the grungy sidewalk, and Nines’ perfectly shiny shoes, and that was it. He didn’t want to deal with any of this right now, not after the week he’d had, he couldn’t—
“If that’s the case, then it’s because you refuse to tell me ‘what the hell’ is going on with you,” Nines shot back, and Gavin could hear the air quotes mimicking his own words back at him, and that was it. He whipped his head up, met Nines’ gaze head-on, and stepped forward until he was right in the android’s face.
“Why do you care so goddamn much?” he hissed, thinking back to all of the other times before tonight where Nines had tried – unsuccessfully – to weasel personal information out of him in a similar fashion. “Why the fuck does it have to do with you? I’ve been dealing with this shit by myself since before the eggheads who made you glued your brain together – what the fuck do you know about any of it?”
Nines’ face became an impassive mask, and Gavin caught a sudden glimpse of the CyberLife model underneath Nines’ approachable exterior – there was RK900, the deviant hunter and killing machine, who will see a mission objective and do everything in his power to accomplish it. It made Gavin stumble back a step, but he recovered quickly, putting the cigarette back between his lips. Nines continued staring at him, and his next words were cold and clipped.
“For a man who doesn’t like to answer questions, Detective Reed, you certainly seem to enjoy asking them,” he said, and the shift from “Gavin” back to “Detective Reed” shouldn’t sting Gavin as much as it does. “You have issues that you’re clearly not addressing pertaining to this case. Is it that hard for you to believe that I might want to help you, that I consider you a friend?”
Just a friend, huh, Gavin’s brain helpfully supplied, and he wanted to scream. Even while they’re actively fighting, Gavin can’t turn off that part of how he feels about his partner. He blew out more smoke, the cigarette half-gone by this point, and laughed without humor.
“I’ve got no control over how you feel about me,” he replied, far more flippantly than he felt. “Consider me whatever the fuck you want. Just don’t expect me to get all buddy-buddy with you just because we’re tracking down a goddamn serial killer together.” Nines sighed in exasperation.
“I’m extending the metaphorical olive branch here, Detective.”
“And how’s that my problem?”
“It would help both our relationship as partners and our progress on this case immensely if you would take it.”
“Then how ‘bout I take it and shove it up your ass.” And with that, he blew the smoke from the last dregs of his cigarette directly into Nines’ face and flicked the stub to the ground.
Nines immediately closed his eyes against the smoke, taking a moment to process what Gavin had just done, his LED sputtering between yellow and red for several seconds before finally settling back on a weak blue. He opened his eyes and locked his gaze with Gavin’s, and Gavin knew that any man or android with lower emotional stakes in this conversation would be quaking in their goddamn boots right about now. Nines maintained his neutral expression as he moved forward again.
“Now,” he said firmly, forcing Gavin to step back again and again until the detective was almost flush with the brick wall behind him. “I’m going to ignore that absolutely childish act on your part and make myself clear: we’re doing this, and we’re doing it right now, before whatever we see at the crime scene makes you lose your grip on yourself for the rest of the night like the last four have.” Gavin blinked. Good god, had he been that obvious? Or was this another super-android thing?
“I understand that you’re facing personal issues, Detective,” Nines continued. “Even if I may not know what they are. But the solution to your solitude is entirely in your hands. I’m here to help you – what you don’t want to accept is that no matter how hard you try to push me away, I’m not going anywhere.”
Gavin couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been leaning against the wall and staring at the ground as Nines spoke, but at that he pushed off the bricks and shoved his face right up into Nines’ personal space, despite their five-inch height difference that meant Nines towered over him. He was beyond done with this night, this case, and this fucking android.
“You don’t want to help me” he spat, relishing the small expression of surprise that flitted across Nines’ face. Finally, the fucker cracks. “You want to fix me. I hear it every time you talk to me like this – you want to crack me open like I’m made of plastic, like I’m a goddamn machine, so you can take me apart and oil up the parts that don’t work right and put me back together again like nothing was ever wrong!” He was aware that he was shouting now, but he couldn’t stop himself. Nines’ eyes kept going wider and wider and Gavin just couldn’t stop.
“Well, news flash, asshole! Plenty of people before you have tried, and they’ve all failed. I’m a fucked-up human being, flesh and blood through and through, and when my parts go to shit I can’t just run to the nearest car repair shop to get ‘em replaced! So fuck you,” – he had to pause for a moment, remember how to breathe – “and stop pretending to care. I don’t give a shit about you, so don't pretend you give one about me.”
And then he felt another sentence slipping out of his mouth, one he wanted desperately to keep behind his teeth, but it was no use, his defense mechanisms were on high alert and giving him the ammunition to permanently drive away whoever was talking to him, whoever was trying to pry out information he didn’t want to give.
Whoever was trying to get too close.
“With any luck you’ll end up as one of these homicide cases and maybe I’ll finally get a little fucking peace and quiet.”
Utter silence fell over the street. Nines always avoided extraneous movements, but now his stillness fell into the category of unnatural, his mouth slightly agape, his eyes wider than Gavin had ever seen them before. There was a beat while Gavin’s brain caught up to what his mouth had just said, and by the time he realized what he’d done Nines was walking away from him back the way they had come, purposeful strides carrying him in the direction of the precinct. Gavin ran up to him, reached up a hand to grab his arm, to stop him from leaving.
“Wait, Nines, stop, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Nines whirled around and slapped his hand away, anger and hurt written clearly across a face that was originally designed to only produce neutral expressions at best. It made Gavin’s veins turn to ice, and for a moment they just stood on the sidewalk looking at each other, hardly breathing, while each figured out his next move. Gavin was trying to find the words to express how much he wished he could take back what he’d said, how much he didn’t mean it, but in the end it was Nines who broke the silence.
“I have work I can be doing at the station,” he said, so low that Gavin had to strain to hear him, “that will be of far greater benefit to this investigation than my providing you with accompaniment that you clearly have no need or desire for. I’m going back.”
Gavin thought he was going to be sick. Please, no, not after everything, even if he doesn’t feel the same way, let us be friends, please, I’m begging you, don’t let me lose him too—
“Nines, I don’t want you too—”
“And why should I care about what you want,” Nines responded, “when I clearly don’t give a shit about you?”
Gavin’s mouth went dry. Nines stared him dead in the eye a moment longer, then he turned back around, and Gavin watched as the brilliant white of his coat faded into the darkness of the night until he couldn’t see it any longer.
Gavin didn’t know how long he stood there, but after what could have been a few minutes or a few days, he turned stiffly in the direction of the crime scene and resumed walking himself, replaying the entire train-crash of a conversation over and over in his head as he went.
He’d kept Nines at a distance because he didn’t want to fuck up what they had, because getting close meant getting hurt. Even if, deep down, he knew he would always want more. And now, thanks to what he had done, he didn’t have Nines as a friend or as anything else. He didn’t have Nines at all.
Good god, what the fuck have I done?