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Early 2010s rock music filters through the bar’s wall-mounted TV. Low-quality concert footage of various bands Gavin doesn't give a shit about loops endlessly. He sits hidden away in a lone corner, away from anyone who looks a little too chatty. The music grates on his ears and has done so for the past forty minutes. Gavin has been inclined to move somewhere else but options are limited when he’s trapped himself in his own drunken stupor.
He knocks back another shot of poison. It burns furiously down his throat and heads straight to his liver. By this point, he’s lost count of how many he's had. He tacks the empty glass onto his growing collection, though several others have already been whisked away, however long ago. Hours, minutes, seconds—time ceased to exist the moment Gavin stepped through the door.
His head’s a mess without the alcohol. For fuck’s sake, Gavin came here to avoid thinking, but his mind’s been running rampant all night. Nines took over every waking thought like a parasite and he tried to drown the fucker in booze but he was nothing if not resilient. Tipsy gave way to drunkenness, which was now quickly on its way to being wasted. As the night went on with Gavin drinking his feelings away like he was in his 20s again, the heavier the dead weight in his chest.
It’s not the first time Gavin hears Nines’ voice in his ear, shaky and too human. All that changed was the hour.
“Why do you always do this?”
The intrusive memory causes Gavin’s face to twist in disgust, countless others behind it and more to come. His fingers curl tighter around his next shot, some of the liquid spilled over the edge. So many of his typical responses come to mind, all of them used, never truthful.
Nines just kept… pushing. It’s all he ever fucking did, like his one purpose in life was to uncover everything Gavin tried to hide.
“Me? You’re the one always shoving your nose somewhere it doesn’t fucking belong like some sort of dog. I guess you just never changed, huh?”
All Gavin knew was that he wanted nothing more in that moment than for Nines to stop looking. He’d been at this for so long, that he honestly doesn’t know what Nines might “find”. He’s gotten so used to hiding that the act was comforting in itself, a defense mechanism engrained in the folds of his dumb human brain.
“What is that supposed to mean? Explain.”
Nines’ expression faltered ever so slightly, but anything other than stone-faced meant he’d drawn blood. Gavin latched onto that fact. There was anger in the android’s voice, but Gavin knew better. Thought he knew better. With his hackles raised and nowhere else to go, he had to brute force his exit strategy.
A low, snarling hiss rumbled in his throat before he pounced.
“You may be deviant, but doesn’t “base programming” sound a lot like “biological instinct”? Whenever you catch a whiff of something on me that you can unravel and get to the bottom of like I’m a goddamn case to solve, I know it’s just so your fuckin’ dog brain doesn’t go nuts.”
Gavin regretted it instantly—this all-encompassing guilt that felt like barbed wire around his throat. He never wanted to see that look on Nines' face ever again, as if his words caused physical pain. There was nothing machine about it.
“Take that back right now.”
This is what he wanted, right?
“Not even gonna try and refute it?”
Any means necessary.
A bitter, tense silence stretched before them. Gavin desperately wants Nines to say something, but he knows how the memory plays out.
“Thought so.”
So much for calculating the best course of action. He was a damn fuck-up from day one and is still going strong by day thirteen-thousand one hundred and forty.
He wobbles in his seat and nearly falls backward on the stool when he stupidly decides to stare at the ceiling. Fuck. He’s so fucking drunk right now.
Movement in the corner of his eye draws his attention to the front door. There's a couple, though he can't make out much through his tilted axis. Human or android, everyday it got harder to tell the difference. One of them is clearly inebriated, swaying on their feet and giggling, one of those irritating bell-like laughs. Their partner holds the door for them while holding an umbrella. Gavin imagines the soft look on the human-android’s face as they help their partner home.
He misses Nines. It’s come to that point in the night, hours later when all that misplaced anger melts away and everything else fights to fill the holes it left.
If Nines were here he’d probably have cut him off long ago and spent the rest of the evening making him laugh.
Gavin grimaces when the memory comes barrelling forth again. The hurt on Nines’ face.
“Why do you always do this?”
I don’t know. I was—
██████
He downs the last shot, and for a second he thinks it’s about to come right back out. Maybe it was time to get the hell out of here and actually deal with the reality he’s built for himself brick by brick. Fucked as he was, Gavin couldn’t let himself pull a damn Hank Anderson, despite being two thirds of the way there already.
Despite having not been in use all night, when Gavin brings his phone back to life, he’s met with a low battery warning first and foremost. Then, nothing else. The time reads 12:43 AM on top a picture of his German Shepherd. Spending three hours moping into the ungodly hours of the night matters less when Gavin suddenly thinks about how Nines and Rosco really get along.
Something builds inside Gavin. It’s hot and cold and for a second he thinks he’s actually about to be sick but it settles in his stomach and doesn’t go anywhere. He fumbles with the wallet that miraculously managed to follow him out of Nines’ apartment. He pays for his shit in cash and accidentally leaves a thirty-dollar tip.
It seems like all the fucking alcohol he consumes decides to crash into him the exact moment he rises to his feet, which cements this shit as the second worst idea he’s had all day. A pathetic sound escapes past his lips as he lurches forward, but luckily catches the counter for support. The world spins and spins, like Nines’ ever-looping LED.
It’s raining outside. Gavin only processes that it’s a much heavier downpour than earlier after two whole minutes of trying to get his head back on straight. He stands by the entrance, leans his forehead straight to the rough brick, and manually breathes in and out, in and out. At least there was some semblance of shelter from the rain sticking out of the building’s walls.
He checks his phone again and is still met with a blank screen. Rosco judges him pitifully behind cracked glass.
He vaguely remembers his car is parked somewhere nearby. Although Gavin Reed is very much an idiot, he isn't stupid. It’ll just have to stay here overnight, wherever the fuck he left it. He feels no particular way about it because there is no way in hell anyone would take one look at the outdated wheel sticking out of the dashboard and think that this car was worth breaking into.
Nines had walked him to his car from bars in the past. Now, Gavin stands alone, barely able to see two feet in front of him and, despite this, decides on a whim that he’ll walk home even though it took around fifteen minutes to drive here. Nines was always saying he needed to get out more, something he never understood because he did get out—mostly to crime scenes or bars but where else was he going to go?
Shit. He’s pretty sure he’s heard that exact sentiment coming out of Hank’s mouth before. Now that he’s gone and cleaned up his act with Connor’s good influence, the realization just sours his mood further. Gavin only narrowly avoids the “where did it all go wrong?” trap.
Gavin chooses a direction at random to go towards. He only has to stumble around in the dark for five minutes before he’s sufficiently drenched. The unapologetic downpour weighs down his hair, clothes, spirit, body. Gavin can barely keep his head upright. If he falls, he’s not sure he’ll be able to get back up.
He wonders about what Nines did after Gavin stormed out of his apartment when a dark thought crossed his mind. The sudden, unwelcome idea of this being their final argument turns his blood cold and it wasn’t just the rain.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
Gavin throws up on the side of the road.
Time bleeds together incoherently. He spends almost forty minutes wandering around aimlessly. He’s slower and shivering so much more than he was earlier, teeth lightly chattering as rain chills through bone. It’s impossible to tell where the fuck he is let alone where he’s going. Everything looks the same.
His brain pounds against his skull and brings forth a wave of nausea and anxiety. Gavin moves to lean against the wall, but miscalculates the actual distance between it and himself, and promptly falls right on his ass. His thankfully waterproof phone tumbles out of his pocket and lands face-first onto the concrete. When he picks it up, he can't tell what's a new crack and what was already there. It's 1:23 AM.
He tries pushing himself back to standing in utter defiance at being a self-fulfilling prophecy. As he does, his eyes catch on the glint of reflective metal. There’s a fence just beyond him, and what looks to be shelter in the form of some metal platform extending across two buildings.
Two feet, Gavin. You just gotta make it there and you can figure out what the fuck you’re gonna do.
With nobody around and at absolute rock bottom, he lets himself cry out in frustration as he tries to push all 176 lbs of himself up with uncooperative arms. He nearly claws off a fingernail gripping into grooves in the brick, but eventually, Gavin was back upright. He whines pathetically, panting hard. He thinks about how there’s something so deeply wrong with him.
Gavin shuffles to the fenced area. It’s blocked off but there’s a section that’s been peeled back, likely from homeless people in the area. He doesn’t see anyone, so he grabs onto the wire and tugs carefully at it with numb fingers. Cutting himself and dying of tetanus out here would be one of the stupidest things he could ever do.
Finally, there’s no more rain coming down on him. But he’s soaked through, sniffling, and breathing hard. He can’t be bothered to scan the place for anything like broken glass or needles because all he sees is a boarded-up door on his left with a few steps leading down. He collapses on top of it, dead weight. He hugs his knees close to his body, shaking.
His freezing cold hands can barely hold up the phone properly, fingers struggling to swipe past the image of Rosco. Gavin remembers the day he found him in an alley just like this one.
When he moves past his lockscreen, the last app he used pops up. He’s slapped in the face with previous messages with Nines and becomes overwhelmed with the urge to text him.
I’m sorry. I said the meanest thing I could so you’d back off. I wanted to hurt you because whenever you care, I just don’t know what else to do. I don't know why. Sometimes it just happens. I’m fucked up. It’s no excuse I know but it's the truth and I still don’t know how to be honest with you. You probably see it. I’m sorry. I hate the way you look at me sometimes. Like I’m made of glass. I don’t want you to ever look at me like that, it just reminds me of everything I’m not. I’m sorry. You deserve better than this, and yet I don’t want you to leave. You sc█re me, Nines. I scare myself.
If only he could manifest his thoughts onto the screen like his partner. Instead of trying to do the impossible, his eyes move to the call button.
Small droplets land on his phone screen and it’s not from the rain. There was no use hiding the tears anymore.
He wonders what Nines’ reaction will be to seeing Gavin’s name pop up on his end.
Would he help him, even now?
…As if.
(And yet, he always does.)