Chapter Text
Gavin Reed felt like every single fibre of his whole fucking being was currently out to get him, purposefully making his days oh so much more difficult. His right hand shakily held a cup of coffee, far too sweet and far too hot to be healthy to drink (he gulped it down anyway, ignoring the immediate burn of his taste buds being scalded), all while his left hand violently tapped out a repeating rhythm, blunt nails making resounding click noises against the desk. Each tap alternating between one of his fingers and then by his index finger. Index, middle, index, ring, index, little, index, little, index, middle. The pattern repeated constantly, he was pretty sure that it had been for hours now. Hell, maybe it was days. He didn't even know how many of these far too sweet, far too hot coffees he had had today. Honestly he wasn't even sure what day 'today' even was.
He had been on edge for four days now, roughly, probably, (maybe it had been five days?). He knew the sequence by now, he knew the pattern. He knew that it, whatever it was would probably last for a few days longer still - and would keep going until he passed out as a result of his own exhaustion or until he found another way, either by alcohol or by a punch to the face in some seedy fucking bar. That's just how it went. He didn't even know what it was. He knew how it always started, and he knew that it had been that way since his early teens. And frankly, he didn't fucking care to know any more about it. He dealt with it, that was the end of that.
And it started the way it usually did. Four (five?) days ago he'd bolted upright in bed, cold sweat dampening his skin and plastering hair to his forehead. His heart beating too damned fast, breath coming in short puffs, eyes darting around the room - desperate to find the danger he was sure would be there. The only physical danger in the room was the claws of a black cat which were now digging into his arm, a sharp reminder that he had disrupted her sleep, and he knew his other cat would be around somewhere causing mayhem as well. Fucking furry pests.
He never remembered what the nightmares were even about, just that after they happened he couldn't get back to sleep that night again - lest memories and images and terrors from the past all flashed in front of his eyes at once as son as he began to drift to sleep, every single image morphed into one horrific scene with elements from each individual memory.
Gavin was vaguely aware that his leg had begun to bounce to the same rhythm as the one his fingers tapped out. His eyes burned, whether it was from looking at the bright white of the terminal screen for too many hours or from the exhaustion of five days awake pulling at his eyelids. He threw back the last dregs of what remained in his cup, desperate for the caffeine to kick him back into gear. He'd read the same paragraph in the case file on the screen in front of him at least three times at this point and he still wasn't absorbing any information.
Phck.
Everything about him felt too jittery, he mind was cycling the same thoughts and images round and round as it had been for days, he was too on edge - the sound of someone knocking something over somewhere in the room both startled him, making him jump and momentarily lose the beat he was counting in his head and tapping to, and immediately after startling him it made anger flare in him. Anger at the loud noise? Anger that he let it get to him? Fuck knows.
He reached for his mug, again, after having read the same paragraph, again, and had it at his lips before he realised his mistake, the cup was already empty.
"Phck!" He cursed aloud, pushing his chair back with more force than necessary. The exclamation gained Nines' attention, making him look away from his own screen directly opposite Gavin's own. Blue eyes looked to Gavin, yellow light at his temple spinning, as Nines' cocked his head to the side slightly - a habit him and Conor both shared which made them look astoundingly like dogs. Gavin didn't really like dogs all that much.
Having said that though, he didn't mind Nines' all that much. A fucking shocker, he was aware. He remembered kicking up a helluva fuss when Fowler had told him two months ago he was being assigned a partner for the first time in nearly two years. And the protesting became a threat of an all out punching when he was informed it was an android, Connor look-a-like. As it was, Nines wasn't as insufferable as his doppelganger. He had a biting wit and sharp tongue to rival Gavin's bitchiest days and always had some form of comeback. And somehow, he was attractive for it. Which was so fucking wrong that Gavin had almost wanted to vomit the first time he had dreamt about Nines in that way (one of the very rare 'good' dreams he ever got).
"Have you passed out standing up, Detective Reed?" Nines' drawling tone, lower and different to Connor's voice (which probably shouldn't be possible should it? Was that just his imagination?), snapped Gavin out of his trance and he realised he must have been staring at Nines' face for longer than was exactly normal. "Am I required to call a medic of some form? Because I do not wish to complete the paper work should you keel over and hit your head off of a desk or something."
Gavin felt his face contort into a vague sneer, as he attempted to ignore the fact that behind Nines words there was that downwards pull of his lips that indicated...something - an emotion Gavin didn't want to fucking see, "Fuck off, dipshit. I'm fucking fine. Fuck, I need more coffee." He snatched up his cup and turned on his heel sharply (too sharply, he felt his head swim - the effects of too long spent awake making themselves impossible to ignore) and stomped off towards the break room - ignoring Nines calling after him.
He tried his damndest not to make eye contact with anyone on the short walk to the break room before stopping in front of the coffee machine. He jabbed a sequence buttons, an action that was muscle memory at this point, in his own violent manner that made up his own personal prayer at his altar of caffeine. He stood staring at the dark, steaming liquid as it poured from the nozzle, the sight oddly hypnotising to his taxed mind. His left hand still beat out the same tempo, right foot tapping along, his teeth clacking against eachother and rattling to add to the silent rhythm.
He didn't hear the approach of Nines behind him, too caught up in his own racing thoughts. The sudden weight of a hand being laid on his shoulder made Gavin jolt. His thoughts which had constantly been chanting 'caution, caution, caution, there's danger, there's always a danger, be alert' suddenly spiked much louder. He spun fast, hand reaching for his gun, the other grabbing for the offending hand on his shoulder and tossing it away.
He spun too fast.
The action caused a dull throb in his head, and a blackness at the edge of his vision and he felt the world tilt beneath him. The hand that had grabbed at the hand on his shoulder to throw it away clawed forwards, looking for the very thing he had tossed away - desperate form some form of purchase to keep him upright. His hand found purchase as it fisted in the collar of the jacket infront of him. It was also unneeded.
It took Gavin a full five seconds to pull his thoughts into a coherent enough state to realise that; a) the offender that sparked him into the state he was in was in fact Nines, b) he now had the collar of Nines jacket crushed in his palm tightly, blunt nails digging into fabric, and c) Nines had caught Gavin and prevented him from losing his balance. And his hands were still pressed firmly to Gavin's waist - a grounding anchor that kept his body upright.
"Detective?" Nines still had a frown carved into his face, different to his resting bitch face frown - no this one had some form of meaning behind it but fuck if Gavin knew what. Fucking android was hard to read. His voice however pulled Gavin back to his senses for the second time. He pushed Nines back as soon as his sluggish reflexes caught up with his equally sluggish thought process.
"The fuck, plastic, I told you I was getting more caffeine!" Gavin felt the familiar clawing of irritation and anger heating him up. Nines for his part seemed unphased.
"If you had bothered to listen to me then you would know that I was attempting to talk to you before you so rudely walked away."
"Yeah, well, I didn't listen did I," Not one of his best retorts, admittedly, "So, fuck off!"
"Detective, I was trying to tell you that you should not consume any more coffee. I'm detecting increased heartrate and blood pressure and it would be inadvisable to-"
"If you're about to tell me not to drink more fucking caffeine then you can know that I sure as fuck am not gonna listen." Gavin cut off Nines speech, turning (a little gentler this time) back to the coffee machine and his cup which must be full by now. The movement was halted by a hand on his upper arm preventing him from turning fully.
"I must insist, Reed. It would seem that you have been awake for an extended period of time and continuing as you are may have negative- I mean that I- I am trying to say that you are hurting yourself - you will have problems sleeping tonight if you continue-." Nines LED cycled to red for a moment as he held Gavin in place. The light returned to amber relatively quickly but it refused to go to the calm blue Gavin was used to seeing. Blue like his eyes, they match, I wonder if that was a design choice- Phck! Stop it! Gavin physically shook his head and jerked his arm away from Nines grasp.
"Yeah, that's sort of the fucking point, Nines!" The heat of anger boiled below the surface as he realised that Nines was trying to care for him, to tell him how to look after himself. I don't need to be cared for, I don't need help. Never have. Never will. It brought back too many thoughts of the people who were meant to care for him when he was a child, memories of how they failed, how they actively caused harm.
Suddenly feeling trapped with the coffee machine behind him, a wall to one side of him, and Nines directly in front of him, Gavin forced his way out and past Nines slightly taller frame - all while trying to ignore the frantic screaming in his thoughts of 'run, escape! You're trapped, get out, he'll hurt you like they did!'
As he stormed outside and into the cold February air, vaguely surprised to see that it was dark out (was it night time again, had another day passed?) he was unsure of whether the tenseness in his muscles and the fact he felt like a coiled spring was due to anger and irritation or anxiety and downright fear. He stalked around the building to the darker side of it, to a line of old metal bike stands that sat unused and frosted. He collapsed between them onto the cold ground, forcing air into and out of his lungs, uncaring for the fact that the ground was coated in a layer of white frost that would soak his clothes and drop his temperature. He was actually glad of that biting cold as it settled against his skin, numbing his ass and legs as the cold seeped into his skin. He hoped that the numbness would spread to his head and slow it down.
Instead his mind continued to race. Flashes of shitty memories, with shitty peoples, in shitty places, with shitty foster parents, in shitty foster homes, his shitty foster father who lunged forward with a broken glass bottle in hand, the sight of the blood on the glass and on Gavin's own younger hands as the red liquid dripped from the gash on his face that marred his nose, there were other shitty wounds, red stains on clothes, bruises that were strategically placed so they were hidden by clothes, shit nights in bars where he'd gone looking for a fight at times like he was experiencing now where he just wanted something to ease the growing pressure inside of him, shit nights where he had let himself get too overwhelmed and hurt in those shit bars, shit experiences as he let those shit people get too close, let them take too much.
He dragged a palm across his face, and then dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He felt so fucking tired - and yet not, too alert to be tired. He just wanted to sleep, and yet he didn't - sleeping brought shit memories back to the surface in a way he couldn't control. He wanted to rest but not to sleep. He wanted to continue his five day run of purposely wiring himself on caffeine, of smoking until the taste of tobacco made him sick, all of it to hurt himself. How fucked up was he that he wanted that? How long had be been that fucked in the head? He just wanted this shitty, bad patch to pass.
Absently he let his finger tips run over the scar on his face that ran across his nose where it was most prominent and then further, almost to his jawline where it was more faded. He slumped forwards, head in his hands. The cold had at least taken away his constant need to fidget.
"Gavin?" The voice that Gavin could easily place as Nines sounded quieter and softer than how it often did. It sounded more like how Nines sounded in Gavin's rare good dreams, dreams where Nines called him Gavin instead or just 'Detective' or Reed, those dreams where they- No. Stop.
Frost crunched audibly as Gavin heard Nines walk closer. He didn't bother to take his hands away from his eyes and watch Nines approach. He didn't even have the energy to react to how on edge he was. He felt as much as heard Nines kneel on the ground in front of him, legs touching Gavin's own outstretched leg and a hand came to rest on Gavin's other leg, the one drawn towards his chest - Fuck Nines was handsy today.
"Gavin," Nines voice was even softer this time, "It is late, our shift ended hours ago. I'll drive you to your apartment, you should get some rest there." Gavin swore for a second that through the numbness that had crept into his body he could feel Nines begin to move his thumb in soothing ministrations.
"I don't need to rest-" He skidded to a halt for a second as he processed what Nines had said, "Wait, what time is it? If its late then why are you even fucking here? You don't stay late unless there's a case - fuck knows what you need personal time for but-" He stopped talking abruptly, not sure what he wanted to say. There was a long pause as Nines seemed to wait to see if Gavin was going to keep talking.
"I'm still here because you are still here, Gavin." Nines finally answered, voice low and level. That made Gavin pull his hands away from his eyes, blinking quickly to clear the blurriness. Nines was knelt on the ground, damp patches visibly appearing on his black jeans, his thumb really was rubbing slow circles against Gavin's knee, his LED was red and his face pulled into an expression of - pity? Pain? Fear?
Gavin couldn't stop the sharp, humourless laugh that escaped him, Nines is here for me - as if I'm worth that. He wasn't sure when his spinning thoughts had changed from anxiety to depression. I really am fucked in the head.
He didn't reply in any way for what felt like hours. Maybe it was minutes? Perhaps just seconds? Time felt fucked up. Eventually Nines moved, taking his hand away from Gavin's leg - he almost broke his silence just to complain at the loss. Nines stood, unfolding long legs from beneath him, and brushing at the white frost that clung to his clothes. Gavin stopped himself from looking any higher and risking catching Nines eye, he was being smart, Nines was being smart and leaving him alone. A pale hand filled his vision suddenly, prompting him to actually look up to where Nines was stood over him, hand extended - an offer. He debated internally for a moment, he didn't want - didn't need - anyone's help. But it was Nines, Nines who featured in the only dreams that gave Gavin a reprieve from his usual dreams. He wanted to be selfish. Actually feel the subject of far too many dreams.
He took the hand above him, allowing Nines to pull him upright.
And then promptly have to catch him as his head swam and vision darkened. When was the last time he'd had a meal that didn't consist of coffee and cigarettes and cheap candy from a vending machine?
Nines refused to let go of Gavin as they walked to Gavin's car, keeping an arm tightly wound around Gavin's back and holding his waist. Gavin didn't protest, exhaustion suddenly having set in for some reason. Was it because he was cold? Was he cold? Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered that Nines somehow had his car keys. It also didn't really matter, did it?
Nines helped him into the beat up old car he'd had for years, before getting in the drivers seat and turning the key in the ignition, immediately reaching for the air con and turning the heat up full. Gavin knew he should probably tell Nines that there was no way it'd actually heat up before they got to his flat, the beat up hunk of metal being too old for that. He knew he should, but he also was effectively silenced by the warm weight of Nines left hand on Gavin's knee again. Maybe Nines being handsy wasn't so bad.
Gavin could almost convince himself that Nines was being so nice because he cared, because there was something there between the two of them, because he mattered to Nines. He bit his tongue to stop himself from laughing bitterly at how deluded he must be. Instead he turned his head to look out the passengers side window as Nines drove him to his apartment.