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Gunfire shredded the night, blooming orange and spitting metal.
Crouched behind a desk of questionable integrity, the RK900 known as Nines estimated they had one minute and thirty-three seconds before their pursuers both caught up to them and rendered their cover useless.
“Well. This fuckin' sucks,” his partner hissed, bloodied face tight with pain.
“It might’ve sucked less if you hadn’t taken on that behemoth alone.”
“You were taking too long."
“He was twice your size.”
“Had nothing on aunt Meredith ’round Thanksgiving time.”
The RK900 rolled his eyes and peered around their cover. Shouting and footsteps echoed down the corridors. One minute and twenty-four seconds. “I doubt you ever had to wrestle a brass-knuckled body-builder version of your aunt Meredith before.”
Gavin gave a one-armed shrug and winced. “Hey, you don’t know how intense it could get at the dinner table. Only so much peach cobbler to go around.”
Nines smirked. “Maybe we’ll get you some when this is all over. But come on, we’ve gotta go,” he pulled on Gavin’s arm to help him up. “They’ll be here any se—”
“Fuck!”
Gavin fell back down to the floor hard, gun clattering to the floor as his hand wrapped protectively around a limp shoulder. “Dammit, Nines.”
The RK900 dropped next to the detective. “Shit, I’m sorry.” A quick scan indicated a shoulder subluxation to go along with the multiple contusions and cuts Gavin had accumulated over the course of the night.
“You should be,” the disgruntled detective muttered. Nines snorted, positioning himself across from where his partner sat.
“We need to fix it. There’s too many of them and I can’t have you half useless without your shooting arm.”
“Hey.”
“It’s just a partial dislocation anyway, this’ll be quick.” The RK900 gently directed Gavin’s affected arm so that his hand rested on Nine’s shoulder, laying his own forearm across the crook of Gavin’s elbow.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, if you’re gonna just shove that back into place, I can do it myself, thank you very much.”
Nines sighed, repositioning their arms from where Gavin had half-squirmed out of it. “Relax, Gav,” he said, putting his free hand on the other man’s shoulder and massaging it. “This isn’t one of those absurd action films you like so much. It won’t even hurt.”
Grey eyes narrowed in suspicion. Nines stared back seriously. “I’m not lying. It’s called the Cunningham technique for shoulder reduction. Just trust me on this, okay?”
Nines leaned in closer until their breaths mingled in the space between them and the scent of blood, sweat, and gunpowder filled Nines’ olfactory receptors. Never losing eye contact, he slowed and regulated his own breathing so that Gavin would unconsciously mimic it.
“Just think of something else,” he said softly. In, two, three. Out, two, three. Gavin’s Adam’s apple bobbed, throat slick with sweat.
“Oh, yeah, like what?”
Nines leaned in further so that his lips were almost whispering against Gavin’s.
“I’m sure you can think of something,” he smiled, mouth left slightly ajar.
Gavin moved as if to close the gap, but Nines pulled away, pushing him back against the desk. “Posture. You need to sit up straight for this.”
Gavin scowled, spluttering. “You’re a right bastard, you know that?”
“Of course,” Nines agreed, continuing to massage his partner’s shoulder and moving from trapezius to deltoid to bicep. “It’s one of my crowning achievements.”
With no shortage of grumbling, the detective eventually settled back down, Nines continuing to knead the partially dislocated shoulder. The appendage wanted to go back to its proper place; it was just a matter of getting it into the right position to do so.
Gavin hummed. “That’s actually pretty cool. Think it’s feeling better.”
Nines blew out a sigh of relief and disentangled their arms. After checking that Gavin could, in fact, move his shoulder once more, he retrieved the discarded gun and pressed it back into his partner’s hand. “Great, because we’re about to get company in...oh, about four and a half seconds.”
“WHAT.”
As if on cue, a squadron of booted and heavily armed men stormed into the room they had been hiding out in, a spray of machine gunfire littering the room with molten apertures.
“Two and a half, thanks to that untimely yell.”
“Nines, I swear to your precious fucking RA9—”
Nines cocked his gun with a wink and braced himself against their cover. “Just think of that lovely bowl of peach cobbler you’ll have once we make it out of this,” he said.
Popping up from behind their cover, he took two men down in quick succession and rolled behind a second office desk. An irritated shout from his partner followed him, and he smiled even as the bullets pinged and sparked around his new position.
“You had better be the one fucking paying for it!”