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connywrites · 5 years

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of flesh and blood 18

start - part [17]

The day went on as usual, and Gavin wondered if he’d imagined everything from the night before.

It didn’t help that everything was different around him, too. The way people called his name, how they acknowledged his existence at all, treating him with respect, creating a new universal ambiance he wasn’t quite used to. Work went relatively well, as he’d left his ego at the door upon arriving and kept his prim and proper nature up throughout the day without any mistakes. The life he was living felt like an excerpt from a book, or watching a movie as he saw the people move around him, talk to each other as well as himself, but there was a recognizable distance between himself and everything else. Disassociation wasn’t unusual to him, but the extremity was new; the way he felt so out of place, like a puppet on strings, shuffling the paperwork in front of him with a look of exhaustion.

They’d never trusted him with paperwork. This wasn’t his part of the field. The responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders; RK900 spoke often of how well he was doing, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had no idea who, what, or where he was, and looking at bulky lengths of texts still made his vision go blurry and his head ache. There was a reason he didn’t touch it, but now he’d been ‘granted’ with the nitty gritty details as well. He’d been promoted but he felt demoted with the way he was handling printer paper like it was the early 2000s, malcontent with his position, just as he always was.

At least it was easy; onto the scanner, through the printer, on a pile by the desk. Over and over. The nice clothes he’d developed a habit of wearing always grew itchy, but it made people treat him with a bit more respect, something he didn’t entirely mind even if it was strange and unusual. By the time work was over, he headed home, unlocking his door more diligently as he swung it open and expected the RK900 within his own sight. Sure enough, it beckoned with its eyes from the couch, laying haphazardly over the cushions with its head leaned against the armrest. Gavin was unsure what to do right away, frozen in place for a few seconds before closing the door behind him and turning all the latches to lock it a total of six times.

“Welcome home,” it purred. Gavin immediately felt sick to his stomach, trying to decide if he really wanted to ask a computer some questions just to get his evening routine through with. Slugging down the rest of his coffee, he tossed the empty cup across the room, missing the trashcan by a few inches but seeming unphased by the fact.

“Good to see you too,” Gavin mumbled. Remembering to keep his posture straight, he stiffened up, nudging off his shoes and leaving them at the door before he paused, not sure what to do. He didn’t want to go near the android, but he didn’t want to try and avoid it, either; the way it chased him was scarier than if he’d tolerated its presence in the first place.

“Thank you for doing what I asked of you.” Sighing, Gavin nodded, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in a moment of stress.

“Yes. S-sorry, again, sir. For what happened.”

“Take ownership for your actions, jackass.” Gavin flinched his eyes shut tight, and it took all his willpower not to scowl.

“Right. Er, sorry for what I did. To you.” Feeling stupid, he entwined his hands together, nudging the flat of his thumbs together awkwardly.

“Better. Care to come sit down? I’ll put something on TV.” Gavin didn’t feel brave enough to say no, but still felt reluctant to say yes. Opting not to speak at all, he walked over to sit on the couch. The android shifted to face him, leaning forward to slide off his jacket, then moving to unbotton his shirt as it half undressed him, leaving him topless. Letting it, Gavin felt both vulnerable from the invasive action yet grateful to shed the stiff clothes; missing his old leather hooded jacket that the android had thrown away, he mentally noted to set aside the money to replace it once the RK900 was out of his life for good.

Placing its hands flat to his chest, it pushed him back, shifting to lay on top of him and rest its head over his heart, glancing at the TV to turn it on. Gavin tried to relax, but his heart raced, deciding to test the affection aspect for himself by tentatively reaching to touch its hair and pausing to appreciate the soft texture of it. The thing didn’t sweat, so it’d never have to wash, dry or cut it. It always looked properly well-groomed, so it made sense why it was so insistent on such a thing. Sometimes it felt like living with a pretentious rich person, but he mentally noted another reminder to be grateful, as it had told him to do so many times before. There was nothing to complain about when his life was on track, his coworkers took him seriously, his job was going well and the bills were paid, but he wished he wasn’t afraid to come back to his own home because of an element he could do nothing to help – even when he’d tried, he quickly learned never to do that again, ultimately backing him further into his own corner of fear. Yesterday was definitely one he’d remember for the rest of his life, and he certainly regretted it. Regretted that it didn’t go through and the android was waiting for him at home instead of sent back to Cyberlife, or better, left as scrap metal in the junkyard dumps.

“Can we fuck?” It blinked, glancing up in the direction of his face.

“You want that?” Pausing as it acknowledged his racing heartbeat, it glanced down at his chest and ran its hand over it with the tone of its synthetic, pale skin washing away while it did a quick analysis. Disturbed to the see the plastic, Gavin gave the appendage a strange glare.

“Nevermind,” he redecided, suddenly feeling repulsed by the android all over again.

“Your blood sugar is low. I’ll order dinner now,” it stated, and he blinked with surprise.

“Thanks,” he muttered barely loud enough for its microphones to pick up. Sighing, he shifted, feeling uncomfortable being pinned beneath the android’s weight. Restless, a hand maneuvered to reach around its shoulders as he attempted to see if it made him feel any better. It didn’t. He wanted to puke.

“You’ll be happy to know I’ll be replaced in a week,” it stated seemingly out of the blue, causing him to freeze as he heard the words but didn’t immediately register the information.

“A week?” he repeated.

“Like, next Tuesday?”

“Yes. Like next Tuesday,�� it parroted with only a hint of snark in its voice. The idea seemed surreal. The calendar in his head didn’t matter; only that it was going to be the longest week he had yet, he imagined. Unsure what to say, he felt the need to leave the couch, compelled to get up and move but unable to escape his position.

“How do you feel about it?” It was an oddly humane question, but Gavin was legitimately curious if RK900 had any particular persuasion one way or another.

“I don’t,” it stated simply. Gavin didn’t immediately accept the sentiment considering 900 now had emotions, but also believed it considering how stoic the android was by nature.

“Then it’ll be an easy transition, right?”

“Easy for me,” it responded knowingly. Gavin didn’t like the apprehension it left in the air, knowing the statement was pointed at him in a future depiction of how hard it was going to be to let the android go, whether he liked it or not.

“I’ll be fine,” he said with more confidence than he actually had.

“I don’t want you to fail,” it said in a voice with boldness that told him it was being honest.

“Why not? What do you care?” He watched his words halfway, gauging where the RK900’s mood was at by the tension on its facial expression, which was relatively calm for now as long as he didn’t push its buttons.

“Do you think I want all of the time we’ve spent together to go to waste? Please. I have created something incredible and who wants their accomplishments to fall apart as soon as they’re gone?” Gavin narrowed his eyes at being called an accomplishment, but didn’t comment.

“Don’t you want something out of all this?” Gavin peered at it skeptically, but it held a rather innocently confused expression.

“What in the world would I want from you?”

“Anything that would be useful to you, I guess,” he half-snapped with a mocking tinge to his voice; enough to catch the android’s attention without getting scolded. He’d found the orange zone and seemed content staying there.

“What would be most useful to me is what would best benefit Cyberlife, and that’s you continuing to work hard and behave well. Ultimately, that’s all I could ‘desire’ from you.” Gavin closed his eyes, taking in the information as he questioned himself as to why he’d expect any other answer.

He felt its fingertips on his face, even when he woke up and it wasn’t nearby.

“Don’t you wish I could stay?” He’d been unable to tell it was a dream at the time, considering his mind never cared to differentiate while he was unconscious.

“You’ll be useless without me. You know you will.” The voice was crisp to his ears, almost as vibrant as the visage itself; Nines standing with the sunset behind it, casting its form in a silhouette, on the beach of the Salt Lakes with that usual, tender gaze in its eyes as it opened its arms, offering him somewhere to go. Somewhere warm, safe. Somewhere he was supposed to trust.

“You’re nothing without me.” It’s words became threatening, and its gaze grew dark. In real life, he’d have expected nothing different; in the scape of his dreams, he was confused, bewildered, terrified.

“You won’t survive once I’m gone.” Why? What was the use of repeating itself? The fact it told him not to use you statements yet constantly accused him never left his mind, but it was an immature, childish thought in favor of something much more complex. The way RK900 smothered him in double-standards and split-second attitude changes was confusing and frustrating, alongside terrifying, leaving his psyche twirling in the enigma day after day.

He attacked it. It attacked back. It didn’t stop attacking, but he started listening, and it somewhat ceased. What did this mean?

“Won’t you miss me?”

He still felt the tender touch of its hands when he woke up, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling with an offending gaze as if it were the one to plunge him back into this twisted reality versus the one his own mind had constructed. At the time being, he wasn’t sure which was worse.

It left him in a tired daze all day, having not collected enough REM sleep from the night terrors and sweating fits, tossing and turning between memory and imagination alone creating a collage that was his thoughts and feelings over the RK900 that he didn’t understand.

Maybe that was scariest of all; the way it didn’t make any sense, and as soon as Gavin thought he had an idea of what it was thinking or doing, it seemed to change its mind in the blink of his eye. Was it designed to do that? Or was he a particular exception? Should he have spoken up about it sooner?

No, no, no. It was too late now. Nothing had been done, and it was only a matter of time to wait until something else came along. Hopefully something better – and not worse.

Gavin thought back to their first days together, when the android was but a stranger, an annoyance on the team as it corrected his sentences and proved him wrong at every turn. Then, it was covered in android blood. Then it was gone. Then it was back. Then he’d done something unforgivable. Then he was being tossed around his own home like a ragdoll, being ripped apart by the seams as RK900 tore into him with literal nails and metaphorical teeth.

It didn’t stop. Watching him, following him, demanding him, shocking him, hitting him. Every day, every hour. Every minute, maybe each passing second. He wasn’t sure, but it definitely felt like it.

“Don’t touch me,” he hissed as he swatted its hand away without meaning to; he hadn’t thought twice about it, still in a simply instinctive state of mind, as he often was when he’d just woken. The RK900 lifted its eyebrows, deciding to let Gavin determine his own wrongdoings rather than speak for him. It was growing used to these routinely slip-ups, and Gavin smacking his palm to his face showed he’d already regretted it without it demanding for another change in his behavior.

“Sorry,” he murmured. It accepted, appearing placated.

“I hate waking up,” he murmured, mostly to himself as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“What do you dread about it?” Its voice was simply curious, which he appreciated for the pure sake of the fact it wasn’t already angry at him.

“Uh, everything,” he spat, yawning and shivering, pulling the blanket around himself again—ever since the 900 had him start sleeping in less to no clothes, he’d woken up freezing. Offering no sympathy, it ripped away the bedding and smacked him on the back – right over its own graciously-indented scar – and shoved him forth to force him off the bed.

“I didn’t make your first cup of coffee this morning,” it said unprompted. This time Gavin flashed it a downright glare, squinting with narrowed eyelids under shadowed eyebrows as irritation increased the redness in his sclera; he looked exhausted.

“I think you’ll do fine without it.” Gavin didn’t care enough about the coffee anymore, dismissing it for the fact he was meagerly grateful it didn’t want to beat him up over something.

“Oh yeah, orange juice,” he murmured.

“It’s a weekend… I get caffeine on the weekends,” he reconsidered, feeling like a punished preteen as he glanced at his own closed door, thinking about the kitchen in that general direction.

“Not anymore.” Gavin closed his eyes. Sighing prevented him from feeding into the anger and doing something stupid, so he collected a few more deep breaths.

“Can I have a chai tea?”

“Definitely,” it stated as if it were but a simple request, standing from the bed to make way out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

Grateful to have a moment to himself, Gavin closed his eyes and threshed back against the mattress, allowing himself to bury his face into the pillow and sink chest-down into the blankets and let out a tired groan before he tried to drift back into sleep, blanketed with lethargy.

“What would you like for lunch?” Gavin paused at the question, but couldn’t think about the answer.

“When you’re not here am I supposed to be allowed to order my own shit again?” Slightly snarky, a bit sarcastic, with laughter at the end; in the past, it would have gotten him hit, but RK900 granted him some wriggle room over time, as he’d shown he could behave otherwise. A stark irony, in his mind, but if it let him show a bit of his personality a bit more than it had been, he couldn’t exactly complain.

“Yes,” it stated simply. Clearing his throat, he shifted so he wouldn’t scratch his hair by habit, despite being in sweats on a weekend – 900 would catch the motion nonetheless, so he dismissed it.

“You set me up for failure,” he said flatly, only recognizing the assumption as it fell from his lips; but this time, he didn’t respond.

“I should smack you for being so ungrateful,” it said with snide, snarling towards him at a downcast angle, yet remained physically distant for the time being.

“Don’t turn this against me, detective Reed. You’ve had the ability to order, make and cook your own food this entire time, well before I arrived into your life.” Folding his arms, Gavin pouted, glancing off to one side as he wondered who was really right, but didn’t argue.

“What if I extinguished your life before mine was dismissed?”

There was a particular darkness within Gavin that he didn’t often show, and he wasn’t about to explain his game plan to an android trying to play mind tricks with him. This was the last time.

“What if?” Gavin’s eyebrows raised in tune with flaring nostrils, gray eyes meeting silver in a strikingly fearless way. It told the android he was feeling particularly brave, for better or worse, and its facial expressions signaled to him that there was, indeed, fear within it over the idea of being replaced and extinguished.

“Here’s your chance.” Gavin’s words were nonchalant, and thus all the more provoking.

“But tell me, first,” he commanded with a sarcastically nigh on friendly tone to his voice, “why you wanna kill me so bad?” As if surprised by the question, it blinked a few times, causing Gavin to scoff in response as he mocked the fact it took this long to consider such a thing.

“Why did you want to kill me so badly?” Its words were striking, and his body ran stiff, skin turning pale.

“I don’t know,” he spit back immediately, an identifier of honesty. With its internal drive to locate a certain answer, the response struck the android with offensive surprise, leaving it to stare at him with a glare of impossibility.

Gavin waited for it to ask another question while it anticipated his next inquiry. Lips twitching, he took it upon himself to say something before he could give up the chance of being antagonized again.

In this moment, it felt a twitch in its arms with a prompt that insisted Gavin would listen better if he were in a more comfortable position mentally, and by extension, physical comfort might help as well. Hands on his shoulders, the idea he might refuse its touch based on the fact it was potentially dangerous went entirely dismissed.

“What do you remember?” Gavin was statuesque in his place, eyes glossing over as he stared ahead and revisited that night.

“Hitting you. Punching. Anger.” None of it was a surprise to him, and the android wasn’t terribly moved by his words.

“After that?” It knew he didn’t want to revisit that night, and the cold realization left him at a loss for words. The strong tone in its voice struck the deeply embedded memories like a cord, vibrating to the front of his mind from the darkness of his hazy subconscious. All at once, in bright flashes, there was the morbid sight of the scene he’d created; bullet holes, knife gashes, eyeless sockets and displaced facial plates. A mess of liquid thirium. Instinct made him cringe, but his consciousness brought him back to the present, letting him open his eyes even if he couldn’t look directly into the android’s.

“More anger.” He stated it as if it were fact, monotone and bold, telling the fact both to the 900 as well as himself. Anger. That was all it took to ruin his life, and this wasn’t the first time he’d faced dangerous consequences, mentally cursing himself in spite of the irony.

“What else?”

Gavin swallowed.

“Your voice. You told me something.” The way it sounded less human as the moments passed that night still haunted his mind in split-second intervals. It was eerie and downright awful, the high pitch of the autotune grating on eardrum and microphone alike, leaving him with a ring that resonated in his ears long after its ‘last words’ to him.

It never stopped speaking. In his head it might have been the worst part; the way it berated him, scolded him, praised him, mocked him, taunted him, fundamentally challenged him or simply whispered sweet nothings into his ears, the sound was stuck in his mind.

The way its speaker distorted, however, he’d never forget. The particular tone in its voice even as he stepped on it over and over again still struck him in his nightmares, and the robot autotune when it assured it would haunt him was nothing but a grain of salt in the wound that was his current situation.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Gavin rubbed his forehead with a disgruntled noise.

“Something about…not winning… I don’t know. I was angry, or something.”

“You’re angry no matter what,” it reminded him. Gavin threw it a glare, wearing an expression that made him look dumber than he really was.

“Right,” he admitted out of complete loss. Nines scrunched its nose with a glance of distaste in his direction, wondering if he really didn’t take anything it had said into account.

“I was dying beneath your feet, at your own hands, and you don’t even remember what I told you?” It knew it would tip him, and that was exactly what it was searching for; the way his eyes flashed wide, immediately struck with rage as frustration dug into his psyche first and foremost.

“Oh don’t talk like that you—” For the first time, he smacked his hand to his mouth to stop from talking as he caught himself right in the middle of the act. RK900 looked unamused.

“No, you know, I mean, I don’t know what was going on but it’s not like that, okay?” Neither of them had any idea what he meant.

“Yes it was,” 900 retorted nonetheless.

“I don’t remember,” Gavin said swiftly in hopes for a cop-out.

“Yes you do,” it stated again.

“You just weren’t listening.” Shutting his mouth, he dropped his expression and squared his shoulders, appeasing the android at least slightly.

“You’re not a swift learner, are you?” Gavin’s eyebrow twitched, but that was all.

“Anyway, the point is moot. You didn’t gain anything in your endeavor, and I was still right. What happened will scare you until your dying day, if you let it,” it stated, flattening the front of its jacket in a moment of idling. Gavin said nothing.

“You’re still angry, aren’t you?”

“Livid,” he said sharply enough to guarantee the sincerity in his words.

“At what? Me? Yourself?” There was a nearly playful tone to its voice as it tilted its head with a gaze much too innocent for its general demeanor. Gavin did his best to ignore how unsettling it was.

“Yeah,” he said, lacking any other explanation. Looking nonplussed, 900 sighed.

“You don’t even know what you’re upset about,” it told him in a voice that held mock disappointment. He blinked, raising his eyebrows with a dumbfounded gaze.

“Everything,” Gavin murmured, but sharply enough he wanted it to be obvious.

“As you know,” he added. Closing its eyes, it was its turn to nodd once in acceptance.

“Indeed. So leads to the aspect of your life I may never be able to change. Though I am pleased with how I’ve affected your frustration and responses to such, I can’t get rid of it and nothing will stop you if you start a downward spiral after I am gone.” Lost in its wisdom, Gavin thought through all the years and revisited the frustrations he’d had over his lifetime, from being strictly disciplined at a young age to how badly he wanted to shove a cocked gun down the throat of a particular co-worker or three he’d particularly had it out for. How he fought to get decent scores since gradeschool, the way fellow peers glared him down once word had spread he was gay, the many times he’d shot himself in the foot that constantly seemed stuck in his mouth. Every exhausted night trying to sleep scrunched together in a sudden blur, every police file, piece of paperwork, bad word someone on the street had told him or the way they looked at him the wrong way. Staring was a big one, and one he never cared to share, but 900 knew or it wouldn’t glare him so deeply in the eyes for minutes on end the way it did.

Every fear reawakened, from the idea of maggots eating his corpse to the glistening blue-black wiring beneath the android’s skin he was so keenly aware of at all times.

“What do you know about anger, Gavin?”

“It masks fear,” he responded as if it were basic textbook knowledge, unmoving from his posture.

“And what do you know about fear?”

“I have a lot of it.” The wry laugh it exhaled seemed to climb up his spine with a billion tiny prickling hairs.

“What else?”

“That I shouldn’t take it out on others.”

“Good,” it chimed with a pleased smile, opening its eyes as if to gift him with its rewarding expression.

“What are you going to do when I’m gone?”

“Utilize what I have at home.” Gavin couldn’t deny how helpful it was to have a punching bag and workout equipment in the garage.

“And when a co-worker does something you dislike?” Being talked to like a child was beginning to get on his nerves, and it showed in his souring expression.

“I will neglect to acknowledge the event happened,” he responded, trying to expand his vocabulary usage in the process.

“Good,” it praised with another affirmative nod.

“And when all hope seems lost?” Gavin blinked in confusion, aware it surely knew it hadn’t left him with instructions for that. Gavin stared at it with a gaze that asked the question he was too afraid to.

“Well, I wish I could say rely on your instincts, but that doesn’t prove very effective for you,” it elaborated with a soft sigh.

“Stick to what you know. Arguing isn’t worth it. Don’t complain, do something. Above all else, don’t fail.” Fail what, he wasn’t sure, deciding it was a generalizing phrase and accepted it to mean everything. He dipped his chin for a bow of acceptance.

“And no more caffeine,” it quipped. He winced at the thought, but nodded.

#detroit: become human #dbh: rk900 #dbh: gavin reed

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