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He fully came back to awareness as the stench of blood and death flooded his senses, eyes adjusting to the room around him, scattered with bodies of people he didn’t want to scan for a name of, his processors running at double their usual speed as his chest rose and fell as his fans tried to cool him down.
The next thing he was aware of were all the damage reports that started popping up in his vision, slowly making himself organize them a bit so they weren’t all encompassing and shielding his field of view, swiping all the unimportant ones away in a few seconds, only keeping the major damage and thirium levels up for him to see.
After that was the feeling of something sticky and warm on his chassis, from his face and hands to his chest he could feel it all over, speckled over his skin and clothes. Taking a moment he looked down to see what it was, blue and red mingling on him in a swirling splatter, mentally analyzing it as thirium and blood, more specifically the blood that was also on the floor and splashed even on the walls.
Flexing his joints he checked to see just how badly his hands were damaged, systematically going down each joint from his jaw to his knees to see what was still good and what was not, compiling a list of each different inconsistency.
Only a few of his fingers were badly damaged, his knuckles had been cracked and the synth skin had been unable to return on them, along with spots on his jaw and fingers. His ring and pinky of the left hand were broken, unable to close completely and on the other side his middle was bent and cracked but still functioning, thirium leaked from each of the injuries onto whatever surface it came in contact with.
Next up was checking for other external injuries, closing his eyes from the motionless room around him covered in violence of his own doing to run a scan. Patches of skin on his sides were cracked from blunt force along with a few more scattered from his cheek and shoulder to his shin.
Opening his eyes again he focused on the more internal damages, noting thankfully that his thirium pump was still unharmed, his head seemed to sustain little to no injuries aside from superficial ones. His chest and stomach held most of the blows, being reinforced didn’t mean it was unbreakable though, only a few broken ribs and one thirium line cracked, which his internal self healing should fix on its own.
Lastly was the bullet hole right in his shoulder, something he had kept up in his visuals the entire time to ensure if anything was to be complicated with it he would be made aware, it was leaking a substantial amount of thirium but not a fatal amount or enough for immediate attention for the next few hours.
Rolling his shoulder he was pleased to find it still functional too, not able to hold what it should but still able to move freely, but not without risk of losing more thirium than necessary.
He was designed for this after all, uploaded with thousands of different ways to kill or defend if necessary, reinforced with graphene layers in his chassis, stronger than steel but with enough bullets you could take anything down.
His very existence was handmade, picked from the best of each quality found in any other android, but deviating was not something that was ever planned for, the only thing he was lacking was specific to integrating into society, he was not made to live but to destroy.
And he did destroy, he hated it, no matter how lucky he was that he had gained freedom and a job that he was good at and enjoyed, he was always in the end just there to destroy, whenever he was forced to use lethal methods he tucked himself into his garden, letting the programs run and do it for him so he didn’t feel his hands break someone or pull the trigger.
In the end he did see it though, either the footage or the aftermath he always saw, what he was capable of. One thing he was lucky in though, the one thing he didn’t have any expectations for or anything was hoping for someone to actually understand and be there for it, and not just afterwards, but in the moment he could always count on them.
His partner was a lot of things, arrogant sure, hot headed yeah, even aggressive, and he really was all those things, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be, Nines had learned early on in his partnership with the other that Gavin wasn’t entirely a dick, it was more of a self defense tactic from what he had seen.
Whenever Gavin was cornered or frustrated he always just went with the simplest out, being a dick. He was like a feral animal in Nine’s mind, if you didn’t give him a reason to be apprehensive or afraid then he was bearable if not pleasant at times.
Over time they had slowly gotten used to each other, Nines not backing down and Gavin slowly understanding that he wasn’t there to be against him, even going as far as to becoming friends at the very least, growing more comfortable with one another.
Standing over the bodies of maybe eight different men he could construct the way each of them died in his head, a step by step cause of their death, his hands wrapping around their throats or breaking their spines, a shot between the eyes or a knife to the heart for each of them, each one different and even more elaborate and gruesome.
Behind him he could hear the sound of slow apprehensive footsteps behind the noise of blood and traces of thirium dripping off of his hands and the rapidly cooling bodies around him, drops making a trail down his face and the walls around him.
The phantom feeling of flesh and bones under his fingers slowly fading, twitching in preparation of another fight that wouldn’t come, he stretched and clenched them into fists the best he could with some of them out of working shape, letting his cracked and skinless fingers dig into his palms.
The sound slowly came to a halt for a moment, having gradually gotten louder until he could hear it stop only a few feet behind him, heavy steps making their way steadily to him in the mess of the room, the click of a gun’s safety turning back on making its way to his ears.
Whoever in their right mind would come into the room covered in death with an eerily still just as horrifyingly blood soaked android in the middle was beyond him, especially hearing someone actively put their gun away at the sight just confused him somewhere in the back of his mind.
“Nines?”
Ah, that’s who would do such a stupid thing, none other than his dearly beloved detective, he should have guessed when he heard the footsteps really, no one else besides maybe Connor would actively come looking for him, let alone approach him.
The words came out of Gavin’s mouth a bit more hesitantly than Nines would have liked, if it were anyone else he would have even said it sounded scared, but he knew better than that, the detective sounded more concerned than anything, the footsteps still coming closer.
Coming into his line of sight Gavin made himself seen, hands held up in a halfhearted placating gesture, no fear in his eyes as he regarded Nines, he could see the detective was looking him over lightly for any injuries, eyes lingering on any particularly blue patches in his clothes.
Nines didn’t want to worry the other, he didn’t want to think about the scene around him either, slowly and softly flexing his jaw to see if he could talk if he wanted to, watching as Gavin caught on to it fairly quick, gray eyes tracking the movement and letting his hands fall even further down.
He watched every little thing Gavin did, letting him decide what would happen, even after similar instances happening and every time it ended in Gavin chastising him for still hesitating, he just didn’t want to freak him out or accidentally hurt him in some way, he cared deeply for his detective.
“Gavin.”
His voice was the same as it always was, a perk of being an android, he didn’t need to clear his throat or worry about voice cracks unless his throat was physically injured, at the sound of him quietly saying his name Gavin perked up a bit, a small grin quirking the side of his lip upwards as he moved closer almost a foot away by then.
“Hey there terminator.” Gavin’s remark didn’t make him flinch back at the implications, instead slowly uncurling his previously tightly wound hands, letting some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders.
“Gavin.” He didn’t feel the need to say anything else, it wasn’t like he needed to either, Gavin could already guess what he meant, either by the softness in his voice or the look he gave him.
He let himself be pulled into a tight embrace, Gavin practically yanking him down into the hug, he could have easily stopped it, the pure amount of force he had could have stopped a dozen of Gavin but he didn’t want to, he wanted this, the comfort.
“You fucking idiot, what did I tell you about going in on your fucking own, I hate you.” Gavin’s voice held everything but hate, some anger lacing through the words but the worry overpowered it, Gavin never approved when he was told to go in and forcefully do the job, even with Nines being a state of the art military android Gavin had seemed to have grown attached to him.
“I know.” He also knew that Gavin didn’t actually hate him, another one of Gavin’s things was he could never accurately show affection, it had taken them months of precarious dancing around each other for him to even get a handle on it, finally shoving Nines against a wall and kissing him when he couldn’t figure out how to say what he meant.
His hands finally came up and wrapped around Gavin, letting his head rest forward against him, uncaring of the potential staining the leftover blood on him would do. The hold was firm, Gavin digging his arms into Nines back and chin into his shoulder, clearly relieved to see him, even though there was backup somewhere outside just in case.
The feeling of thirium oozing even more out of his shoulder was disconcerting, but he didn’t care about it at the moment, only shifting so it wouldn’t get all over Gavin.
The shifting seemed to alert Gavin of his injury as something he didn’t notice before, since he could probably feel the thirium soaking into his own shirt, he wasn’t wearing a bullet proof vest Nines noticed both from the lack of resistance from his arms around him and the ease at which the blood got to Gavin.
Pulling away from Nines Gavin had an apprehensive glare on his face, not unlike his everyday look Nines thought, but instead of his usual brooding he did it was a serious look he leveled Nines with.
“Where is it?” Gavin began prodding at Nines shirt, Nines just watched him and only lifted a hand to peel back the fabric of his turtleneck away from the injury when Gavin’s hand began to get lower on his chest.
The black of the shirt perfectly hid both the blue and red blood mostly from sight except in direct light and androids who could easily pick it out, unluckily for Gavin is that neither of those two things were applicable to the situation, Gavin neither being an android or them being in direct light.
“Shit Nines, we should get you out of here, there’s one of those techs outside, should get that checked out.” His hands kept the shirt peeled back only for a second before he let it fall back, putting pressure on it even though Nines knows Gavin is aware that thirium doesn’t clot like human blood.
“Home?” Nines really just wanted to get out of there at that moment, the scent and sight of the bodies was becoming overwhelming, he didn’t want either of them to stay there.
“Fine, but we’re getting you checked out first, cause you know I’m shit at patching you up.” Grabbing Nines hand on his uninjured arm and gently tugging him alongside him, Nines had to step over a body in the way, eyes lingering on the corpse that stared blankly up before Gavin slowed and pulled him to walk ahead of him to break the line of sight of the room.
Stepping out of the room Nines led them through the hallways, uninhabited and quiet as their footsteps echoed lightly in his head. Gavin was only a step behind him, still holding his hand tightly as they walked, letting Nines set the pace and lead the way, putting his full trust in him even after Nines knew he saw the gruesome scene he had just left.
It only took a minute or so for them to step out of the darkened building and out into the open air, instantly surrounded by officers and a technician. Through the crowd Nines could hear Gavin hissing at people to ‘fuck off’ and give them space until they stood in front of Gavin’s car.
He let Gavin do all the talking, confirming he did his job, which should have been apparent by the substantial amount of blood on him and damage that was out in the open, some of which had rubbed off onto Gavin.
Nines watched as Gavin sent away any of the officers and the few stray paramedics that had swarmed, his abrasive personality and words easily pushing them back for the time, leaving them mostly alone, only the tech and Gavin now near him, hands still clenched to Nines side.
“Alright do your fucking job so we can get out of here.” Gavin was waving at the tech who was just there to do his job, pulling out his kit to get to work, gesturing for Nines to sit on the hood of the car so he could reach easier.
“This should only take a minute, Detective, could you please step back?” The words were a little jab at Gavin who just sent an unimpressed and sneering glare at the other.
“You can do it even if I’m here, so fucking do it.” The tech was clearly unhappy with it, Nines scanners read his stress levels raise a few percentages, another perk Gavin had, the ability to stress anyone and everything out.
Gavin’s own stress levels were at a constant sixty percent, unlike his usual twenty he carried around everyday while working. Nine's own stress was higher than what he would like, Gavin’s presence was having the opposite effect for him, keeping the levels below fifty, less than Gavin’s but that was to be expected.
The tech had to cut back the shirt a bit to get to the gunshot wound, inspecting it a bit before pulling out a small tool to weld it shut a bit, cut off the thirium flow to the outside, Nines was well acquainted with getting patched back together, he didn’t feel exactly pain, it wasn’t the same as what a human would feel, but deviancy had ‘blessed’ androids with their own version of it.
It only took a few minutes for that to get sorted out, moving on next to his hands even after Gavin’s apprehension at letting go, letting him sort out how to fix the cracked or broken fingers, telling Nines to run a diagnostic multiple times throughout.
He ended up with the cracks sealed and the broken ones pushed back into place, assured that his internal self healing should take care of the rest of it, that the skin would return after the plastimetal had repaired over his jaw and hands, the shoulder wound set for a few days to heal completely.
After he was finished the tech packed up his tools faster than usual, trying his best to get away from Gavin’s constant glaring and the stench of blood and death that came from Nines.
Nines was then dragged to the back seats of the car, where Gavin always insisted that he keeps a change of clothes due to how often he ends up covered in something, from tackling a suspect to rain, and the occasional instance like that day where it was more than just dirt or water.
Gavin stood right behind Nines glaring at people nearby as Nines changed shirts, his old one sporting a bullet hole, blood and thirium and as of a few minutes ago, cut up slightly.
His new shirt was one of Gavin’s graphic tees because as Gavin always said, it was funny to see practically the terminator walking around with a pop culture reference of a band on his shirt when even a glare from him could probably kill someone.
Once he was done he stood in a loose blue shirt as Gavin dragged him to the passenger seat, leaving him there to get in as he rounded the car to the driver’s side. Nines slid into the car, adjusting the seat from where it was set for Gavin’s height, a little bit too little leg room for him.
“Alright Nines, lets go fucking home cause I’m personally going to crash on the couch with a movie, and you,” He pointed at him even with his eyes on the road as he pulled away from the curb, “Are gonna do the same thing, no excuses.”
“Okay Gavin, though I will need a shower at some point.” Nines could see Gavin’s nose scrunch up at the thought of the blood already soaking into their clothes and Nines hair, his eyes falling only on Gavin as he drove, to watch every expression he made, one of the few times outside of his home he relaxed some, something Nines enjoyed seeing.
“Fine, yeah a shower, and then we watch a movie.”