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HONK!
Gavin groaned and pulled a pillow over his face as he blindly reached over to try and snooze his alarm.
HONK!
Wait a minute… That was not the sound that his alarm made… and also it was a fucking Sunday.
HONK!
“Phck,” he grumbled, squinting at the clock on his phone. Six in the fucking morning. On a Sunday. “Fuck. OFF.” This time the words came out less slurred and far more hostile. Whoever—whatever had the audacity to wake him up on the one day he actually could have slept in had it coming…
HONK!
Gavin was finally, unfortunately, awake enough to properly look around his room. Next to his bed, standing on top of the laundry that had begun to pile up stood a… goose?
No. Nope. There was no fucking way. Gavin rubbed at his eyes, hoping that it was just a sleep deprived hallucination.
HONK!
He opened his eyes again, a slew of curse words tumbling out because, of course, it was still there. Gavin took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and be rational.
Okay so a perfectly normal fucking goose got into my apartment. My locked apartment. That’s on the third floor. In a secure building. There’s a perfectly logical explanation for this…
…Because Gavin refused to accept the alternative. Of course, he’d heard all of the stories of animal guides appearing to show you the way to your one true love… your fucking soulmate or whatever. But in all the stories he’d heard, the animals had been described as elusive, ephemeral, something people just barely saw out of the corner of their eye. They didn’t stand on your pile of dirty laundry and incessantly honk at you at SIX IN THE FUCKING MORNING . He was thirty-six, for fucks sake. He was too old for this shit. Besides, he’d accepted long ago that he didn’t have a soulmate, and more importantly that he didn’t fucking want one.
HONK!
“Would you shut the fuck up?” Gavin groaned. Great. Now he was talking to it. He dragged himself out of the warm comfort of his bed, joints popping as he stretched, and pulled on an old t-shirt and a pair of sweats. The goose didn’t move. It just sat there staring at him as he moved throughout his bedroom.
Coffee. He would get the goose out of his apartment once he was sufficiently caffeinated.
As the coffee was brewing, Gavin leaned against his counter and ran his hand through his messy hair. He’d never met anyone else who didn’t want a soulmate before. But Gavin hated everything about the concept. He knew exactly what he was like as a person. He wasn’t exactly pleasant and honestly he never had been. His feelings had always been… intense, and that made him a difficult person to deal with, and an even harder person to love. He despised the idea that someone out there could be obligated to put up with his shit—to love him—all because some stupid animal said they were supposed to be together. So as the coffee sluggishly dripped into the pot, he kept telling himself that it was just a perfectly normal goose.
The coffee burned his mouth as he took the first sip. He didn’t care and kept drinking until the mug was empty. It was still way too early in the morning for any of this shit. At least he felt slightly more functional now. He refilled his cup and left it on the counter. He’d reward himself with more glorious caffeine after he got rid of his unwanted houseguest.
The goose stood in the same place in his bedroom, and let out a honk when he entered but didn’t move. Gavin glared at it. If looks could kill… Well, his problem would have been solved.
“Shoo,” he said, trying to nudge it off the laundry pile and out of the room.
The goose didn’t budge.
“C’mon,” he groaned, “get the fuck out.”
He tried to push it forward to get it to move, but as soon as his hand made contact the goose turned around and fucking bit him.
“You fucking feathered prick,” he shouted, jerking his arm away and holding where he’d been bitten.
He stalked out of the bedroom in search of a broom or something else he could use to try and get the goose to move.
The goose followed him into the kitchen.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Gavin muttered as he continued his search for a broom.
There was a crash from the other side of the kitchen. Gavin looked over to see a puddle of coffee on the floor, his favorite mug shattered, and he could swear the goose had a smug look on its face.
Gavin had always had a short temper, and that was the last straw. He grabbed the gun that he’d discarded on the kitchen counter after his last shift and shot the goose.
The shot was loud, echoing through the apartment. The goose stood there, unscathed, just staring at him. Gavin was a good shot. He knew he hadn’t missed. Which could only mean one thing—this goose was supposed to guide him to his soulmate.
FUCK.
So that was how Gavin ended up with a bullet hole in his kitchen wall… and a mandatory referral for an anger management program since the only explanation he had for the missing bullet in his gun was that a fucking goose woke him up at six in the fucking morning. In his defense, it was a Sunday and he’d really been looking forward to finally getting to sleep in. Plus, he hadn’t even killed the goose. Gavin gestured wildly to the perfectly uninjured goose at his feet… not that Fowler was even able to see it. Apparently the goose still being alive didn’t negate the fact he’d shot his gun for no good reason.
Gavin stomped down to the basement, to the office where his appointment was scheduled. The goose followed at his heels. Ever since he’d shot at it, it dutifully followed him wherever he went. He just wanted to get this fucking over with. He opened the door with more force than was strictly necessary, hitting the wall with a loud bang.
There was one other person in the waiting room. When they looked up at the loud noise Gavin found himself staring into a pair of piercing blue eyes. The android sitting in the room looked so much like Connor… except for the eyes and the emblazoned RK900 on its jacket. Gavin hadn’t seen them before, but he remembered something about all androids who were employed by the DPD having to do a few mandatory counseling sessions, to make sure they were properly adjusting to having emotions or whatever.
“Fuck,” he muttered, averting his eyes, his cheeks flushing pink as he entered the room. He’d hoped that he would be alone. He really didn’t want anyone else to see him down here. Mandatory or not, going to therapy was embarrassing .
He slumped into a chair on the opposite side of the room of the android, and was glad to see that those icy blue eyes were no longer on him. Except, they were looking at the floor next to his chair, where his goose had settled himself…
If the android was also able to see the goose that meant…
HONK!
Both Gavin and the android jumped at the sudden sound.
“Don’t tell me you fucking see the asshole too,” Gavin asked, still holding out hope that maybe the android just happened to be staring at an interesting stain on the floor or something.
“Of course I can see the goose,” the RK900 unit replied, “my optical units are functioning just fine.”
Gavin groaned and hid his face in his hands.
His soulmate was a fucking android.