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“Adonai,” the girl’s voice came put quiet, yet determined. Serra spoke as though she were about to bring up something Morgan had explicitly warned her against mentioning, but that she felt too strongly about to keep her mouth shut.
“No, you may not have a drink,” Morgan replied, flashing her paralegal a terse smile.
“That’s not what I was going to ask,” she pouted. After more than a little prodding, she eventually finished her request. “I wanted to ask if you could teach me how to gamble.”
“You want to… gamble?” Morgan asked, incredulously. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but Serra didn’t exactly strike her as the gambling type. Morgan occasionally caught her checking the drink menu, even when she had the net just a thought away. She was more unsure of herself than anything with the sheer potential for violence that she possessed had any right to be.
Though, Morgan reminded herself, this was David’s… spawn. The words she’d heard right from her friend’s mouth were uncharacteristically tender and Serra’s bleeding heart was exceptionally soft. So what could she possibly want?
“I think it would be a good way to celebrate your victory,” Serra claimed. “And I’m curious.”
“I… suppose that I have the time,” Morgan allowed. From a more base, lesser part of herself, the spec of grey matter that allowed worse people than her to stomach the action movies, despite how unrealistic the gore was, she felt a small glimmer of excitement at the prospect.
Serra would almost certainly be terrible at it, of course, but she might fail entertainingly, at the least, which was its own kind of fun, Morgan supposed. And, at the least, she’d always take the time to play with her food, which someone as expressive as Serra would certainly allow for.
“We’ll begin with blackjack,” Morgan introduced, extracting a pack of cards from a cabinet. She flashed the pack to Serra, showing that the seal was untouched. “Fresh deck, of course. Never play a game where the decks aren’t new.”
“Why would that matter, Adonai?”
“It shows either that they’re cheating, open to the possibility of cheating, or that they think so little of their players that they’re willing to allow them to cheat each other.”
“So that means you respect me,” Serra presumed, puffing out her chest, proud at her (incorrect) assumption
“It means that I take pride in my work, so I wished to provide you with a practical example,” Morgan shot back, turning on the apartment’s speakers and selecting the shared playlist Serra had pestered her to make. Allegedly, her and her ‘father’ had made one, so Serra insisted Morgan make one with her, too. On some nights she struggled to sleep due to the potential implications of that. But she had obliged, so she had to lie sleepless in the bed she made
Regardless, Morgan sat across from Serra, who stared at her expectantly as she dealt them both the required cards. “You can access the net, you don’t need me to explain the rules to you.”
“…I did already look them up, Adonai,” Serra admitted. “I was just curious if you had any advice.”
“I’m sure you can research the best ways to win, so what do you really want?” Morgan asked. “Considering your eyes are cameras and your brain’s a computer, you can count cards with the best. You don't need me to teach you.”
Serra heaved out a heavy sigh. “I wanted to learn how you think things through, how you see through bluffs
“How to bluff, yourself?” Morgan guessed.
“N-no! I just want to be more helpful,” Serra admitted. “I didn’t catch much, last trial, so I figured…”
“But you located the knife just fine,” Morgan replied. Seeing how Serra’s face crumpled, she added, “and you kept Sosuke grounded.”
The kid- bot looked genuinely distressed at the mention of the knife, so Morgan scooped up the cards and dealt out a poker hand. “Look here, Spearmint, I’ll show you a few things. Texas Hold‘em, that’s my game of choice.”
She cast her eyes to Morgan. Good start
“Most people expect someone with a bad hand to give up. To fold. Because that’s the smart thing to do.”
“But you never fold,” Serra observed.
“Because I’m clever. I know how to get under people’s skin, at least enough to leave them exposed.”
“But how?” Serra grabbed her hand, glancing from it to the card in the centre
Morgan glanced at her own. 9 of Clubs, 4 of Spades. Bad hand, apt for the lesson she had in mind. She revealed the first 3 cards. 9 of hearts, 5 of hearts, 3 of clubs. Pair.
Morgan glanced across the table at Serra, who had, evidently, perked up slightly. That meant she likely had something decent. Better to assume she had something good.
“Watch your opponents, see how they react,” Morgan said. The difficulty in this was that Serra seemed capable of ‘reading’ people intuitively. She just didn’t recognize it. To get her point across, Morgan forced a small smile to her lips, to show that she had a decent hand.
“Adonai, what’s with that- oh…” Serra trailed off, tilting her head like a confused canine at Morgan’s smile.
“This is a practice game,” Morgan insisted, “tell me your thought process. I’ll correct your mistakes.”
“You’re smiling,” Serra observed. “From you, I would expect… a scheme.”
“What emotion?” Morgan prompted.
“Adonai, are you not aware that you are exceedingly difficult to read? Even father had difficulties with that, as I recall.”
“What would a smile on other people mean?”
“That they are happy?”
“Yeah, so..?”
“You must be bluffing. Your hand is terrible.”
“How do you figure?”
“You never show your emotions so plainly, Adonai, so you must be attempting to throw me off.”
She wasn’t wrong, but how she arrived to that conclusion was. Serra was trying to apply what she believed to be Morgan’s mannerisms to gambling overall. But then again, how was she gonna understand people if her frame of reference was-
Blatantly Empty?
-a skilled gambler? Morgan was trying to show her how to bluff when maybe she should be showing Serra how a more honest person operated. After all, not everyone was a social butterfly like her.
Some didn’t even know the difference between a people pleaser and a good person. Luckily, Morgan knew the right woman for the job. Well… to whatever extent she could be right for anything.
- - -
“You trying to invite me to your place so you can string me up and butcher me, Evangeline?” The shrill voice of Reyes squawked, causing Morgan to move the phone another inch from her ear.
“I’m inviting you to our place so we can discuss your prior conduct, detective.”
This caused a brief flash of panic to flash across Reyes’ face, her visage lighting up a bright crimson, “l-look, I was drunk and n-not in my right mind, so..."
“Despite the alcohol, you were much the same as usual,” Morgan reported, crushing whatever disturbed assumptions Reyes had conjured from the night she barged into Morgan’s home. Of course, she couldn’t be allowed to stay relieved, so Morgan added, “no, I was alluding to the fact that you used your occupation to stalk me during my off hours.”
“That’s not-!”
“It’s quite alright, Reyes,” Morgan hummed, voice sickly sweet, “all I ask is that you help me, so I can help you.”
“Listen, bitch,” Reyes snapped, regaining some of her composure, “I indulged you this far, but I’m not gonna let you blackmail me.”
“Detective, all I’m asking of you is that you play a few rounds of poker, perhaps blackjack. Besides, I’m not going to report you. It would, however, be quite the hassle to have to explain your behaviour to London, would it not?”
“What..?”
“C’mon, Reyes, it’s only a few hours putting up with me,” Morgan smiled, further flaming the detective’s anger, brandishing the stick before cajoling her into the trap with the carrot, “besides, drinks are on me.”
This finally did it and, reluctantly, the detective called a taxi to Morgan’s apartment. Despite having delved into whatever police database had the address of famed mob lawyer Evangeline Morgan, Reyes was quick to admit that she didn’t remember the floor nor the unit number. Small miracles, Morgan supposed, even if that meant Morgan had to trek downstairs to retrieve her.
As soon as the door swung open and Serra’s eyes literally flashed with recognition, however, both of them were left stunned. This was due to the simple fact that the first words from the android’s mouth were, “I got someone’s three sizes, Reyes, so now you need to tell me yours.”
- - -
“Last time I played,” Serra informed Reyes, “I beat Adonai.”
“Her hand was simply better,” Morgan shrugged, “she chose to stay. That’s all.”
“But I made the right call,” Serra pouted.
“...You did,” Morgan agreed, “I’m just giving our guest context.”
Who the fuck was this and where did Evangeline ‘easy as shooting babies in a cradle’ Morgan go? This was not the typical stone-cold bitch that Reyes was used to. Was it cause that Add was the only thing she could scoop up from her dear friend’s estate? Yeah. Had to be.
- - -
If Morgan were to be asked, she’d thoroughly deny that her open bar was part of the plan. If she were forced to answer truthfully, she’d admit that yes, it was part of her plan. If she were to lean into the benevolent spin, she’d claim that the detective was emotionally stunted, that just a liiiiiitttle too much alcohol would loosen her up, liven her up. That she did this for Serra’s development. Hell, she could even force in a lesson on why excess alcohol is unhealthy!
If she weren’t spinning the narrative to fit the bounds of what was typically socially acceptable, however, she’d explain that she simply enjoyed messing with Reyes. She was very entertaining, though it was entertainment of the best kind, unintended.
Hopefully Serra gained something from this, even if it was just practice mixing drinks for someone who was a little (a lot) less particular about the quality of their alcoholic beverages than Morgan was.
As it stood, however, Serra seemed to be enjoying herself.
“I’ll…” Reyes blinked (winked?) blearily, glancing between her cards. They’d moved on to blackjack and the detective had a very bad habit of overextending herself. Serra was already improving, learning more and more when to hold. “Hit me, Morgan.”
“I refuse to raise a hand on an officer,” Morgan quipped, gloved hands snapping another card from the deck, laying it in front of the drunken detective. As expected, Serra was the only one who laughed.
It was revolting.
Morgan often wished, in the back of her mind, that David was still alive. He was a mess of a man, but he seemed to make a… passable father, even a good one, if Morgan was feeling particularly generous. Serra needed a parent, not…
Not an absence.
-not whatever Morgan was to her. She was a bad influence, more the aloof aunt you only see on holidays than the maternal type. Serra needed better if she was going to to end up doing something more with her life than ending up a headline and another instance of an Add breaking their tenets. She-
“Adonai, are you alright?”
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you were alright,” Serra replied. “It is unlike you to ‘zone out’.”
“My bad!” Morgan chirped.
“Did’ja drink too much?” Reyes slurred. Morgan had been drinking too, of course, but she had self-restraint, unlike a certain homicide detective. So she was fine.
“Was just thinking of getting some fresh air, actually.”
“Shall I come too, Adonai? If you are drunk, I wouldn’t want you to fall and hurt yourself.”
“It’s a free country,” Morgan replied, sliding from her chair. It wasn’t, but one could dream. Or, rather, this one hadn’t yet grown enough to stop dreaming. She was only two, after all.
- - -
“That isn’t fresh air, Adonai,” Serra scolded as Morgan lit up a cigarette.
“Yeah, yeah, spearmint,” she took a drag, “already heard that a couple thousand times by now.”
“And I will tell you again,” Serra pouted.
“With what authority?” Morgan sneered.
“As your medical android.”
Another drag. Shorter, more contemplative. Obnoxiously, she was right. But just as Serra didn’t need to obey Morgan, that little rule went both ways.
“You looked… different in there.”
“What? Did I change my hair without realizing? New foundation? Different shade of eyeliner?”
“You are deflecting, Adonai.”
“I would never,” Morgan replied, tone awash with mockingly scandalized notes. This kind of conversation was easy. Serra wasn’t the only one able to run conversation as a background, rote chore.
“I simply wish to understand why you did what you did today,” Serra admitted. “You invited detective Reyes over and told me to observe her to learn how to understand when people are bluffing, but you seemed distracted. I simply wish to help with whatever seems to be troubling you, Adonai.”
“Yeah, isn’t that what you wanted? To learn how to outthink the terminally honest?” Morgan asked, rhetorically.
Reproachfully.
“Reyes is honest to a fault- several dozen faults if we’re being honest, so she’s easy to read. You can do the math.”
“You did not answer my question,” Serra observed.
“David saddled me with you,” Morgan shot back, “I don’t need to explain everything to you.”
“Then what can I do to help?” She asked, frowning. Morgan didn’t even need to turn, the frown was evident in how Serra spoke.
Morgan didn’t answer, hoping the kid would take the hint and-
Fuck off.
-go check on Reyes or something. But she didn’t. Instead, Serra wrapped her tiny arms around Morgan’s waist and pressed her shockingly durable skull into Morgan’s back. She didn’t squeeze, but Morgan felt her body reflexively tense, readying for… something she knew logically would not come.
A guttural noise from her throat caused Serra to tighten her grip. To ‘hug’ her more tightly. “It is alright if you are not feeling well, Adonai. I will do whatever I can to assist you. You were precious to father and… I can understand why. You are very kind, despite how you portray yourself. Thank you.”
Shortly after, Serra excused herself to go check on Reyes. She had assumed the choked noise Morgan had made was a sob. That Morgan was crying. She didn’t bother correcting Serra. In reality, the contact had only made her gag. And that wasn’t polite.