Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Loop #1 May 4th, 2039

Gavin sneers into the interview room. From his perch, the android being interviewed can't see him. Even if it could, Gavin doesn't care. Robots aren't people. No amount of legislation is going to change Gavin's mind about it. They can walk like a duck, quack like a duck, hell, even fuck like a duck– but they're not ducks. They're robots. Toasters. Glorified PlayStations. Fake. Lies. 

The android wildly gestures with its hands as it tries to explain away whatever malfunction it had that led to it robbing a damn bank, but Gavin's long past listening. He's looking at his knuckles. Cracks in dry skin. Empty ravines craving blood– red or blue. Gavin doesn't fucking care. He wants to punch something. Anything. Even a dumb tin can like the one sitting there in the interrogation room that won't stop crying. Gavin would love if it would just fucking stop crying. 

“Hank’s been at this for hours,” Chris Miller says around a yawn. “I wanna go to bed.”

“A year ago and that thing could've been easily stashed away for the morning,” Gavin says. “Now we've gotta read its Miranda rights and hold it for only twenty-four hours. Fuckin’ wild.” 

“They’re people, Gavin.” Chris leans heavily on an arm as he watches Hank keep trying to glean anything from the bundle of wires in front of him. 

“The fuck they are.” 

Chris says nothing back.

Gavin throws his hands up and walks out of the viewing room. He needs a smoke and watching Hank treat the tin can like a person is only making his blood pressure rise. Gavin takes the elevator to the ground floor, leans up against the brick wall, and lights up. 

“Detective Reed?” a voice calls from the darkness of the way-too-early morning. 

Gavin looks up to see broad shoulders and one hell of an intimidating shadow. Not that he’d ever admit that. Gavin would rather eat a live rat than admit anything could scare him. “What’s it to you?”

“Are you the detective who apprehended the malfunctioning unit?” the stranger asks again. 

“Yup.” Malfunctioning unit. He likes this guy already. “It’s in there freaking out and we’ve got Lieutenant Anderson trying to get any information on what happened.” 

“We do not need Lieutenant Anderson.” 

Gavin frowns. “Who the fuck are you?” 

The man steps closer and that’s when Gavin sees the spinning blue of an LED. He could groan. Actually, because he’s emotionally five years of age, he does groan. “Fuckin’ toaster.” 

“I would advise against such a thing,” the android says. “That could kill you.” 

“What the fuck do you want?” Gavin asks again. 

“My name is Connor–though as Connor, the one you know, is sensitive to his identity–I’ve elected a different name. You may call me Nines.” 

“Whatever.” Gavin just takes a drag on his cigarette. He wishes it were weed. Fuck, he’d love to get high right now. It’s too early for this shit and he’s too sober and that fucking sucks. Too many androids. They’re just crawling all over the place, yeah? Taking everything they don’t have a right to and pretending to be alive. 

“I’m with Agent Perkins. Generally banks are federal jurisdiction and I’ve come to obtain the footage from the malfunctioning unit.” Stone cold and right to the point. Gavin can’t really argue with that. He’s not sure he wants to. This thing is–big. Broad shoulders and legs that could wrap snug around Gavin’s hips and then some. Why do androids have to be so beautiful? That’s the thing that pisses Gavin off the most. Someone snuck into Gavin’s brain and decided to take everything he likes about a guy and put it on two fake legs. Connor. Fuck.

“So, you’re an RK800?” Gavin asks.

“RK900.”

“Huh. Cyberlife’s still making you or did Markus decide he wanted to build a murder machine?” 

Nines smirks. “That is quite the question. Unfortunately, you do not have the security clearance to receive an answer.”

“Fuck you.” Gavin finds himself following Nines back into the precinct. “So, you’re Connor’s what–big brother?” 

“I am younger than Connor. He calls me his baby brother.” Nines presses the button to go back up to the interrogation. Gavin has no idea how this guy knew exactly where to go but he assumes it has to be some weird-ass android bullshit. In the light now, he can definitely see this guy was built off Connor’s model–except whoever built him decided to give him a Clark Kent jawline and biceps that make Gavin drool. Fuck. No, he won’t drool for a fucking toaster. Gavin’s held out on fucking an android. If he’s that desperate he’s got a perfectly good vibrating fleshlight back at home. 

Together they walk down the hall and back to the interrogation. Nines helps himself into the room and Gavin has only a few seconds before he registers the commotion on the other side of the one-way glass. The android Hank had been interrogating is now trying to flee from the table. It can’t break its cuffs so all it’s done is kick out the seat from under itself and hang there uselessly screaming. Hank looks alarmed as fuck. He barks out orders at Nines but Nines ignores him. They look like they know each other. Guess that makes sense given Hank and Connor have decided to become best buddies. 

Nines grips the android by the throat and Gavin can only look on with his mouth hanging open and eyes peeled wide. The thing screams and screams in Nines’s grip but the body matches the ability. Nines has a steel grip on that poor tin can’s neck. Nines’s LED flickers yellow and his eyes start wildly looking all over the place. Hank’s pressed back against the wall. Eventually, Nines drops the android, tilts his head, and smiles in the sickest most fake customer service-ass bullshit smile Gavin’s ever seen. 

“Thank you for your cooperation. Pursuant to Federal Code, you will be remanded into FBI custody where we will address your crimes at the federal level before a federal court. Please submit for transport or I will force you to submit.” 

“Christ,” Chris breathes out. “That–he’s–terrifying.” 

Gavin just nods. He takes a step toward the one-way mirror and Nines looks directly at him. Gavin blinks, startled. 

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Detective,” Nines says, facing the mirror. He rips the handcuffs out of the table’s hold and then shoves the other android out of the room. 

Gavin finally lets out an unsteady breath. An android has never terrified him before. But that one–that specific one–Gavin’s blood is icy slush.

“I’m outta here,” Gavin whispers to Chris. Chris says nothing back and Gavin knows he’s just as alarmed as Gavin is. It’s one thing to see androids fumble through their own weird existence. All this deviancy and all Gavin thinks it’s done is make androids stupid and aimless. Not this one. This one knows exactly what it’s good at. Gavin shivers as he makes his way out of the precinct and over to the parking garage. 

Gavin’s just about to his car and ready to shake the shift off and all that weird android shit, when he hears something behind him shuffle. Then he hears wet. Something dripping. Gavin turns around and sees Connor. His arm is torn off. There is blue blood coming from his nose and ears. 

“What the fuck!” Gavin nearly shouts. He hears himself echo into the parking garage and Connor takes a step closer to him. Gavin steps back and hits his back on his car.

“You have to–stop it,” Connor mumbles to Gavin. “We’ll all–die.”

Gavin tilts his head. “What the actual fuck?”

“There’s no time. I can’t stop it. Only. You.” Connor stumbles into Gavin’s chest and his weight catches Gavin off guard. It’s always so startling to feel how warm an android really is. The softness of their skin. There’s the tiniest little tinge of worry before Gavin’s face goes from shocked to sour.

“Get the fuck off me, tin can!” 

Connor doesn’t move. He just looks up at Gavin as blue blood starts pouring from his mouth and all over Gavin’s hoodie. If this stains, Gavin will absolutely murder Connor–again–as there’s no way he’s not inches from death. Do androids die? No. That’s silly. Androids aren’t alive no matter what that stupid fuck Markus says. He’s just a glitch. It’s all glitches. That’s what Gavin’s friends say. That’s what Gavin knows to be true. 

“Nines,” Connor gurgles out. “You have to. Make him. See.” Connor’s LED starts spinning faster and getting brighter. 

Gavin tries to shield his eyes but the light gets too intense; it's like he’s staring out into the sun. Gavin can’t figure out where his limbs are. Connor’s weight is there and he grips Gavin tightly. The light swallows both of them. Gavin’s met with the strangest sensation of falling. He screams. 

He screams.

Loop #1 May 4th, 2042 

Gavin shouts as he sits up. The first thing he realizes is he’s not in the parking garage. He looks down and sees a bed and a downy comforter. He takes a few deep breaths and tries to calm himself. He rubs at his face. He’s clammy and sweaty. Maybe he’d gotten too high after the interrogation with that freaky android and he hallucinated the whole damn thing.

Gavin’s never done this in his life, but he reaches for his phone on the nightstand and texts Connor. 

Yo are u okay?

Instantly, Connor replies, Gavin, it’s three in the morning why are you asking me this?

Gavin sucks in a deep breath and wills his heart to stop racing. Connor’s fine. The stupid plastic isn’t drowning in a puddle of his own blood. They’re not in the parking garage. Gavin’s far from that freaky death-droid. It’s all fine.

Except then his door opens and Gavin’s heart stops and the world screams to a halt. That tall Not-Connor-But-Connor android stands there with an actual facial expression. Concern. Gavin registers it. Concern. 

“Gavi? I heard you scream. Did you have another nightmare?” He takes a few more steps into the room and Gavin shoves the blankets off himself and scrambles off the bed. “Gavi!” 

“What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?” Gavin tries to find his baseball bat, but it’s not where it should be. The fucker must’ve taken it. Gavin next searches for his gun. He runs over to the closet and starts throwing things as he tries to find the gun safe. “Where the fuck is it!” 

“Gavin. What’s gotten into you?!” Nines strides over and tries to touch Gavin and Gavin swats his hands away. All Gavin can see is the panic in that other android’s eyes as Nines took whatever the fuck he–it–wanted from the poor thing. Gavin’s never felt bad for a piece of plastic a single day in his life. Except now he’s realizing with too much clarity that he’s terrified of the thing beside him and there’s nothing he can do but try to fight it with his own bare hands. 

So he does.

He shoves Nines and makes some kind of mangled sound when the bot just catches his hands and keeps looking at him like he gives a shit. Gavin spins around and jumps onto the bed to get out of being cornered. Nines just follows him. 

“Gavin!” Nines shouts after him. “What is going on!?” Panic. Anxiety. Gavin hears all of it. That thing that spoke to him about the malfunctioning android is speaking with some semblance of feeling that it didn’t express before and Gavin’s not sure what’s more terrifying–that it can simulate like the rest of them or that it’s lying. 

Gavin stumbles out into the hallway and fumbles down the stairs. He groans when his knees slam into hardwood. His head smacks the back of a wall. He’s not in an apartment at all. 

Nines appears at his side at the base of the stairs and has the fucking audacity to touch Gavin’s face. “Gavi–please what’s wrong?”

“Stop callin’ me that! Stop touching me!” Gavin tries to crawl away from Nines but his knee throbs in too much pain. He collapses at the base of the stairs. 

The lights then all turn on and Gavin looks around at a room decorated in greens, browns, and black. A brown leather couch. Black throw pillows. A large television. Plenty of greenery hanging from the ceiling and atop nearly every surface. Pictures on the black walls. Gavin’s mouth falls open at those. 

They’re pictures of Nines and Gavin. “Wha– I don’t–” Gavin tries to crawl closer but he groans again.

“You’ve injured your lateral meniscus. Please, Gavi. Let me help you.” 

“Get the fuck away from me you god damn robot!” Spit and vitriol alike spew from Gavin’s mouth. 

Nines’s LED circles red a few beats. He looks–shocked. Gavin’s so tired of seeing androids cry. They always cry and this fucker is no different as his icy eyes fill up with unshed tears. Gavin waits for the inevitable but it doesn’t happen. Nines blinks it all away. “Is this about last night?”

“Last night? Last night I saw you nearly crush an android’s throat! Then Connor came into the garage all broken up and–” He stops. He laughs. This isn’t real. He’s high still. He’s in one hell of a wild dream. Yeah–Connor’s hot. Nines is hot. Of course, all high and fucked up Gavin dreams that he lives in some weird house with the murderbot.

Nines frowns. “Last night I asked you for a divorce.” 

Gavin’s heart stops. Everything stops. There’s a loud howling in the curvature of Gavin’s ears. He looks down at his left hand and sees a simple silver band with blue resin poured into it. Blue, like an LED. “W-what?”

Nines sighs, exasperated. As if he has any right to feel put-off about what the fuck he’s saying. Gavin doesn’t even know this guy and he’s saying they’re getting divorced? Well, good, Gavin guesses. But also? What? Gavin checks his pulse and–yep–still there. Is he high? He has to be. This is a dream, right? 

“I know we’ve been unhappy for a while now,” Nines says, looking down at his own hands. “I know. You. You’ve been unhappy. I know it upsets you, but isn’t this what you want? You’ve always struggled with what I am. I–I can’t change that I’m not human, Gavi.”

“Stop callin’ me that!” Gavin growls out.

Nines’s LED flickers red. “I’m sorry. I–I’m sorry.” Tears fill Nines’s eyes again and he furiously wipes them away. “I don’t want this. Not really. But I accept that you do.” 

“I want a divorce?” Gavin asks. If this is a dream then he’ll wake up. If it’s a dream then he can just see what’s going on. It’s wild as it is. Why not ask? 

Nines’s LED flickers again. “Isn’t that what you meant when you said you can’t be with someone that doesn’t age?”

“Well you’re a piece of plastic,” Gavin says. “A walking-talking machine. You’re not alive.” 

Nines’s face twists up in anguish. He presses his hand to his chest and makes what Gavin can only describe as sad robot noises. All the clanging and gyrating. “If I’m not alive then why did you marry me?” 

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Gavin says back. “I don’t want any of this.” 

Nines balls his fists and that’s when Gavin remembers this android is terrifying. He tries to crab walk away but whimpers when the pain gets to be too much in his leg. Nines doesn’t move closer to him. Finally. 

“Okay. I can wake up now.” Gavin looks around the room and taps his fingers together. The pictures on the wall are on canvases. Gavin wears a green tuxedo. Nines is in all white and a turtleneck to boot. They’re in a field of sunflowers around sunset. It’s so painfully domestic–so painfully hey look we’re getting married! Gavin could puke. Then he looks at the next. They’re kissing and holding each other close. There’s just barely a few rays of sunshine slipping around their jaws and chins.

“I’m so sorry you’ve been living in a nightmare.” Nines’s tone is abrasive now. His LED glaring red and staying that way. “How dare I try to build a life with you? How dare I try to go through those fucking trials for us?”

“Trials?” 

“Fuck you, Gavin Reed. I gave you everything! I did everything for you! I deviated for you!” 

Oh, so that’s why this fake-droid acts differently from the one he met before. The real one is just a machine. This one is fake-pretending-to-be-alive. Gavin tries to stand up and becomes mildly alarmed when his whole leg throbs again. Aren’t dreams supposed to be signs of what’s happening in the real world? Like when you have to pee really badly in a dream and you find a bathroom but you can’t pee? Because you still have to pee? Or feeling like you’re suffocating because you’ve got your face smashed into the pillows and you are, in fact, suffocating? What’s making Gavin’s leg hurt so much?

“C’mon,” Gavin whispers to himself. “Wake the fuck up.” He smacks his face. The pain stings. He frowns. 

“You’re insufferable.” Nines stands up from where he’d come to land at the base of the stairs. He paces above Gavin, like a panther. “I want you out.” 

“Oh, believe me, I’m fuckin’ trying, toaster oven!” 

Nines winces. “Was this just some game to you? See how far you could go with an android only to just say ‘psych?’ I loved you. I loved you more than anything.” 

“You can’t love anything. You’re not even real!” Gavin shouts back. Okay so he’s not waking and his leg is starting to swell, what the fuck is going on right now? He pokes his knee and yelps. “I am dreaming, right?”

Nines blinks at him a few times. “No. Unfortunately for both of us, you are in fact conscious.” 

Gavin frowns. “No, that's not possible. I’m not married to you. I just met you.” 

“We’ve known each other for three years, Gavin.” Nines crosses his arms. “What are you doing right now? What angle is this? Act insane so you can get more out of the divorce? Human or not, I have rights to marital property just as you do! I’m taking my fair share of your pension seeing as I gave up my own career to love you!” 

Gavin forgets himself. Rage takes over as he points a finger up at Nines with all the hate he can muster. He grabs the stupid leather couch and yanks himself up. It’s just a swollen knee. He’ll be fine. “Over my dead body!”

“Well, maybe I should since you think I’m such a terrible monster! I could boil your flesh and compress your bones into pretty necklaces and sell you off!”

“What the fuck?” Gavin’s arm shakes as he squeezes the couch. He hobbles over into the kitchen and grabs the first kitchen knife he sees. He aims it at Nines.

Nines looks at him with round eyes. “Are you really attempting to murder me, Gavin?” 

“You’re the one about to boil my bones or whatever!” Gavin shouts back. 

Nines’s fight leaves him and his shoulders slump. “Is this really how far we’ve fallen, Gavi? We used to make love. Now we’re discussing murdering each other.” A tear finally does leave his eye. It leaves a noticeable track all the way down his cheek. A cheek speckled with freckles, like someone cared to design him. Put life into each brushstroke. 

Gavin feels. Funny. He hurts. He’s angry. He’s scared. Most of all–most of all he’s just confused as to what’s happening. He knows for a fact yesterday was not a day where Nines asked for a divorce. Yesterday was the day Gavin met Nines. He watched a machine torture another machine and worst of all–Gavin felt bad for the one who robbed a fucking bank over some error in its system. The way it screamed. Gavin lets out a shaky breath over it. 

“Gavin, I still love you,” Nines says. There is so much anguish in his voice now. Tears silently fall. It’s not the way Gavin’s used to with other androids. It’s as if it’s not even happening. There’s no gulping for air androids don’t need. No sniffling or puffy eyes, not that they can even get puffy eyes. It’s just stream after silent stream. “I didn’t want this to happen.” 

Gavin still holds the knife. He looks down at it in wonder. He needs to wake up. He turns it to his own throat and Nines freezes. 

“Gavin.” It’s more authoritative than it has any right to be. “What are you doing?” 

“I need to wake up,” Gavin says.

“Gavin this isn’t a dream!” Nines has his hands out like he’s trying to placate a wild bear. “Gavin, I promise you this isn’t a dream!”

Gavin pokes the tip into his finger. He feels the sting. Sees the blood pearl out. It all feels so real. He shakes his head. “I fuckin’ hate androids. I’d never marry one. That’s how I know this ain’t real.” Points the knife right at Nines. “Least of all some psycho like you.” 

Nines’s lips tremble. He moves to sit down at the dining table as if he’s exasperated and defeated. As if some robot could ever feel the impossible weight of everything. Androids don’t suffer like humans.

Nines sits at a table Gavin doesn’t recognize because this isn’t Gavin’s home. But then he looks up at those pictures again in the living room. Beautiful sunsets amidst black walls. The room must be so bright in the daylight with all the big windows. Cozy even. 

“If you wanted to break my heart you could’ve just said you didn’t love me anymore.” Nines’s voice is void of emotion. “It would’ve been sufficient.” 

“I don’t love you at all,” Gavin responds, like it’s the easiest thing to say. Because, to Gavin, it is.

Nines nods. His LED is red. “May I have the knife?” 

“Fuck no!” 

Nines hums. Gavin watches him stand up and cross into the kitchen. He opens a drawer and Gavin’s eyes go wide as he sees a gun. 

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare, bot,” Gavin grits out.

“Please. As if I would ever hurt you.” Nines puts the gun up under his own chin. Another tear falls. “I just wanted us to be happy.”

The gun goes off and Gavin’s left with watching Nines fall to his knees and then settle back as his hydraulics freezes him into place. It’s like he’s kneeling in prayer. Head bowed. Except blue blood pours down his throat. His eyes dull and his LED goes blank. 

Gavin takes a deep breath. He puts the knife down and comes over to examine Nines. He sees the ring on Nines’s left hand. It matches Gavin’s own. A perfect copy. Up this close, Gavin sees all the things that freak him out so much about androids. All the life that Cyberlife put into them. Freckles. Eye lashes. Nines’s eyebrows aren’t even a perfect match–just like a person’s. 

Gavin’s ears ring. He hobbles over to the dining table and sits down. He doesn't know how long he sits there listening to the tinitus screaming in his ears.

His phone buzzes. On instinct, he pulls it out and sees Tina’s name and the beginnings of her text. He opens it. What does it all matter? This is just a nightmare he needs to wake from. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 

“What the fuck?” Gavin whispers. Gavin looks over at the dead robot (robots don’t die stupid, they just go inactive or whatever they were never alive). He calls Tina. She picks up on the first ring.

“Happy happy happy!” Tina’s singing to him but Gavin doesn’t have time for this shit.

“Tina fuckin’ stop. It’s not my anniversary. I’m not married and none of this is real!” 

“What do you mean? Like, you’re so in love with Nines that it’s too good to be true?” she asks.

“The tin can is dead in my fuckin’ kitchen! Blew his fuckin’ brains out.” 

There’s a long pause. “You’re joking, right?” 

“I wish I was.” 

“Did you call it in? Shit, Gav. I’m so sorry! I know you guys have been going through some stuff but I thought–I thought things were working better. You. I thought–oh my God. Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Tina’s voice wavers and Gavin hears her sniffling. 

“Why do you care?” Gavin asks her. “It’s just a dumb robot.” 

“You can’t be serious. Gavin. I know you’re in shock. Oh my God he was doing those trials… Was he?”

“Tina, I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about but it’s fine. This is all some elaborate joke. Where the fuck’s the camera or whatever like. C’mon.” Gavin looks about the kitchen. He opens drawers and cabinets. There are mugs he recognizes and mugs he doesn’t. Gavin knows lucid dreams can happen, but he’s never had such a dream so real. So, maybe it’s not a dream. A ruse. Some joke. Gavin got scared of the big bad terminator and now everyone wants to laugh at him about it. Except, terminator executed himself. 

“What’s a joke? Is Nines alive or what?” Tina’s voice is frantic.

“No! He shot himself in the fuckin’ kitchen! Who keeps a gun in the kitchen?!”

“You do you jackass!” Tina hangs up. 

Gavin frowns. He looks down at his left hand and takes the ring off. The blue inside is gone now. It’s a lifeless clear. “Huh.”

Gavin sits down in the living room and tries to do what he can to wake up. He holds his breath till he nearly passes out but all it does is make him dizzy. He does experiment with peeing and he’s able to do so–he gets relief from it too–which is weird. That’s not really supposed to happen in dreams. He pinches himself. Smacks his face. It all hurts. 

“This can’t be real,” Gavin says to himself. He stumbles back and falls down against the bathroom wall. “This can’t–no this can’t be fuckin’ real. This is a joke. It’s all a joke, it’s not real.” Gavin holds himself as he curls up.

He hears sirens outside. Eventually the door is busted off the hinges.

“Gavin!” Connor. Gavin recognizes that voice. So similar to Nines’s, but lighter. “Oh my God.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Hank’s voice. 

Gavin doesn’t come out of the bathroom. He can’t wake up, so it’s not a dream. Except now he doesn’t know what any of this is. He’s–scared. It slithers around his neck like a cold noose. He doesn’t know if it’ll squeeze or let him go. He’s now immensely grateful he didn’t stab himself or he’d have died. He’d have fucking died!

“Gavin!” Hank falls to his knees and pulls Gavin into him for a hug. Gavin tenses up and works his way to try to shove the old man off but Hank’s strong despite all that fat. Except. Wait. Gavin opens his eyes and sees short silver swept-back hair. A neatly trimmed beard. He’s a little older than Gavin remembers from just last night. 

“When did you cut your hair?” Gavin asks.

Hank barks out a laugh. “Really? That’s what you wanna talk about? Christ, you have gone mad.” 

“Gavin. I’m so sorry.” Connor appears in the bathroom door. “Oh my God. Nines.” Connor starts crying and it’s the kind of crying that freaks Gavin out. Big chunky tears and all those weird sounds and sniffles androids make when they cry. Weirds Gavin the fuck out. Connor clutches around himself and keeps sobbing like some dumb bitch. Like he actually cares.

Gavin realizes he’s thought about Connor as a he. 

“Gavin. What can we do?” Hank asks. 

“Leave me the fuck alone,” Gavin hisses out. “I wanna go home. I’m tired of this bullshit!” 

“H-home? This is your home,” Connor says.

“Oh, fuck you, trash can! I’m talking about my actual home! My apartment! I wouldn’t be caught dead in the fucking suburbs, this is Hank Anderson bullshit, not me!” 

Hank and Connor both share a look and then Hank looks back at Gavin with a thin mouth. “Gavin. You moved here a year ago. With Nines.”

“Fuck you, old man! No, I didn’t!” Gavin tries to punch him, but Hank’s hand reaches up and catches it. Hank’s hands are so big that they cover Gavin’s own. Gavin gnashes his teeth together so hard he makes himself dizzy and he hears something pop.

“He’s having a psychotic breakdown,” Connor says. “We need to get him to a hospital.” 

“No, you fucking don’t!” Gavin tries to shriek but it all just sounds so–pathetic. It echoes, sure, but there’s too much fear. Fear Gavin can’t shake. He can’t shake it because he doesn’t want to admit this is all real, and he’s not ready to admit any is real when he’s starting to feel it’s pretty real. He’s not waking up. He’s feeling everything. It just keeps going and going. “STOP LYING TO ME!” There. Finally. The shout pierces through everything and sends shockwaves through Gavin’s very bones.

Connor’s eyes widen. His stupid pink lips curl down and he gives Hank such a pitying look that Gavin would rather bash his head in than tolerate. An android? Having sympathy for him? No fucking thank you, absolutely out of the god damn question, thank you and good night. 

“Gavin.” Hank puts his hand on the back of Gavin’s head. “Nines is dead. He shot himself. Did you see it?”

“Of course I did!”

“You understand that your husband is dead, right?” Hank asks.

“He’s not my husband. He’s a fucking robot.” Gavin shakes; he’s so angry. 

Connor and Hank look at each other again and it takes all of Gavin not to scream every profanity under the sun at them. He doesn't want their pity for a marriage that he never had. He doesn’t need it. He just needs to understand how to get out of whatever it is that he’s in right now. If it’s not a dream, then what the fuck is it? Their faces aren’t laughing. There’s no one laughing. So, if they’re all looking like that–then it’s not a joke. Which means. Which means… 

“I’m insane,” Gavin says. “I’m fuckin’ insane.” 

“We should take you to the hospital,” Connor says to him. It’s so gently stated that Gavin is caught off guard by it. It’s full of sympathy and compassion. Of regret. Gavin remembers what the real Nines said–that Connor sees Nines as his baby brother. 

“Is he really dead?” Gavin asks.

Connor’s face twists up and tears spill over his cheeks. Cheeks so similar to Nines’s. He nods. 

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Connor,” Gavin says. He won’t hug Connor–that’s too much. But an offer of apology means something, right? Even to a tin can? “He was like a brother to you, right?”

Connor furrows his brow but cautiously nods. “He was a brother.” Connor then looks at Hank. “I think you should take him to the hospital. I’ll stay here and see if I can retrieve any memory banks about what happened.”

“Okay, son,” Hank says to Connor.

Son? Gavin wants to puke. As if some robot could replace Cole. Fuck Hank Anderson for even trying it. Cole was a living and breathing kid who needed his dad–Connor ain’t shit.

After the doctors and nurses are all done sending Gavin all over the place for bloodwork, imaging, and all sorts of dumb shit–oh and a pee test–so Gavin is assuredly not in a fucking dream, Gavin has a chance to be alone. He looks at his phone and notices the date. May 4th, 2042. So, he’s lost three years of his life? To what? Gavin sighs heavily as he sits in a blue hospital gown with no one else in the room. Nothing but the beeping computers and a blood pressure cuff that keeps doing its thing when he’s trying to get comfy. 

Gavin thinks about texting Tina, except he’s pretty sure that all went to shit. He decides to look up the state of the world. If he’s missing three years, what happened to get him to this place? Married to a god damn android. Gavin puffs out an annoyed breath as he looks through all the legislation. He realizes May 4th is also the anniversary of when androids got the right to marry. So, that means he and Nines married each other on the day it became legal. Like too-excited kids happy they could finally do something their parents told them not to do for–well–forever. Gavin frowns. Who was he for three years? Nines clearly wasn’t happy.

As if I’d ever hurt you. 

Those were the last words Nines said before he blew his plastic brains out. Gavin bites the inside of his cheek. Is he feeling–guilty? No. No, Gavin won’t feel guilty for something that was never alive. Connor may be all baby brown eyes and Nines may have been built like a brick-shit-house, but none of them are alive. Gavin’s alive. He’s made of meat and bone with a heart that beats because it’s designed to, not because some computer tells it to. Except then he thinks about all the pacemakers in the world. Are those hearts just beating because some computer tells them to? 

Gavin stands up and decides he’s sick of the blood pressure cuff. He removes it from his arm and looks behind himself to make sure his ass isn’t hanging out for everyone to see–at least he’s allowed to stay in his briefs. He wanders through the hallways. A nurse gives him a questioning look.

“I’m just goin’ for a piss,” Gavin says.

“Is there something wrong with the restroom attached to your room?” she asks.

Gavin sneers. “I wanna take a little walk.” He then notices the LED at her temple and rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, tin can.” 

She cringes and pointedly goes about whatever she was doing before. 

Gavin finds himself wandering into a quieter section of the hospital. It could be any time of day outside, any type of weather–and nothing in here would change. Liminal space, that’s what Gavin used to call hospitals. They freak him out. But after a few too many times in them, he’s gotten used to them. Now the quiet spots just help Gavin relax. 

Gavin’s phone buzzes where he holds it and he looks down at it. Connor’s sent him a text. He ignores it. Fuck that piece of shit fake-ass fake-person. Gavin just goes and sits on an unoccupied stretcher bed in the hallway. He watches his feet swing.

He hears the faintest sound–the sound of a gun cocking. When he looks up–he has no time to panic. The shot goes off and Gavin sees nothing anymore. 

Loop #2 May 4th, 2042

Gavin opens his eyes to a smooth ceiling and a spinning fan. His head is throbbing. He sits up and lets downy covers puddle around him. Then he looks over at his phone and checks his text messages. Nines is the first one there. He looks at the time and the date. May 4th, 2042. It’s 3AM. 

“Fuck.” Gavin pinches the bridge of his nose. So, this is where he is again. He smacks himself and swears as pain blooms across his face. Not dreaming. He swings his legs over the bed to stand but pauses when the door opens. He already knows who it’ll be. 

“Gavi? Did you have a nightmare?” It’s near-the-same as what Nines had said before. Gavi. There’s that damn nickname again that makes Gavin’s skin crawl. 

“You’re not dead?” Gavin asks from his perch on the side of the bed. He curls his toes into the carpet below for something to remind him that yes, he is very much awake. This really is happening again. He’ll quietly freak out once he gets away from the murder machine. 

As if I would ever hurt you. 

Nines sighs out his nose and leans a hand on one hip. “Unfortunately for you, I’m far harder to kill.” 

“You shot yourself right in the fuckin’ head. Are you like Connor where if you die you just come right back?”

Nines frowns and tilts his head in that insufferable RK800 kind of way that makes Gavin just want to punch Connor’s lights out. Except the last time Gavin tried to punch Connor’s lights out–he got his own lights punched out. Hasn’t tried that shit again. 

“To correct an apparent misunderstanding, if Connor dies he dies forever. The Connor you know is unique. The machines that you knew around the revolution were different machines all acting under the same direction.” Nines leans against the bedroom wall and crosses his arms. “Will you tell me your nightmare?” 

Fuck it. “Sure. You took a gun and went.” Gavin makes finger-guns and puts the “gun” right under his chin and makes an explosion sound. His other hand pretends to be all the brain matter coming out. 

“How awful,” Nines says. There’s that fake-emotion in his tone. Pretending as if he cares. As if it makes him sad. 

Gavin rolls his eyes. 

“You are upset with me.” It’s a statement, not a question. Nines’s voice is so close to how it sounded back at the precinct–apparently three years ago. All completely removed from emotion. Gavin’s not sure which he actually prefers. “I understand.”

“Don’t presume to know anything about how I feel,” Gavin bites back. “I need to piss.” He barrels past Nines and looks around for the bathroom.

“The bathroom adjoins the primary bedroom. You have gone the wrong way.” Okay, Gavin’s decided he prefers emotion in the bot’s voice over what-ever-the-fuck is coming out of him right now. All ice. Gavin’s teeth hurt from it. 

Gavin spins around and stomps back into the primary bedroom. He sees the curtain that hides the bathroom opening and goes on in. So, he can’t slam the door. Great. Oh, toilet room! Yes he can! He slams it shut and sits on the toilet. Only now is when Gavin’s heart speeds up and his fingers shake. Okay–so, someone shot him (who the fuck shot him?) and instead of dying he woke the fuck up right back here again. Nines blew his fucking brains out and if what Nines is saying is true, then Nines can’t just come right back like Connor because not even Connor can do that anymore. Deviancy apparently fucks it all up? Who would’ve known. Well, Gavin guesses a lot of people would’ve–but he wouldn’t have. Okay but whatever not the point, the point is that Gavin is panicking right now.

He rocks himself atop the toilet. He may as well pee while he’s in here. He’s pretty sure Nines is x-ray visioning him or whatever through the walls. So, Gavin stands up to piss and then he sits right back down. Humans shit. Maybe Nines will just think he’s shitting. 

Gavin startles when he feels the wedding band around his finger. He looks down at it. The color in the middle isn’t blue–it’s red. So, it’s synched up to Nines’s LED then? How fucking adorably infuriating. Gavin can’t imagine he’d be so love-sick to do such a thing. He can’t even imagine why he’d marry an android. 

After Gavin’s quiet panic, he finally comes out of the bathroom. Nines is still standing where Gavin left him. 

“You read all my vitals or whatever? Figure out I’ve got kidney disease or somethin’?” Gavin huffs and matches the way Nines stands with his arms crossed too–except Nines has six inches on him that he lacks in height, so Gavin just feels like a little kid throwing a tantrum. Irritated, he sits heavily on the bed and keeps his arms crossed.

“I don’t do that to you,” Nines responds. “Unlike you, I actually respect your privacy.” 

Gavin frowns. “Oh yeah? Well if you gave a shit about any of that then you’d leave me the fuck alone instead of calling me Gavi.”

Nines’s LED flickers red. “I’ve called you that since I deviated for you.” His eyes open a little wider. 

Gavin just turns away. “Whatever. You want a divorce.” 

Nines’s mouth opens and then closes. Opens again. “Oh. So, that’s what this is about.”

Gavin wishes it were that simple. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t give a shit about any of this. Take the house. Take part of my pension. I don’t give a shit anymore! Take everything!” Gavin throws a pillow at Nines. “Take this stupid pillow! And this blanket! And this fucking sock I don’t GIVE A SHIT!” 

Nines’s LED only stays on that flare of red, unwavering and unblinking. He takes every hit that Gavin throws his way even as Gavin throws the stupid sock at him. It lands on his shoulder and just sits there.

Gavin pants heavily as he glares. “You’re not my husband. I never would’ve married you.”

Nines grits his teeth. “Well. You did. And I’m the fool that married you.” Nines storms out of the room and slams the door. 

“GOD LET ME JUST FUCKIN’ WAKE UP!” Gavin screams as loud as he can. He shoves his face down into the bed and keeps smacking his head into it over and over and over again and then he hears it.

The gunshot.

Gavin stills. He even stops breathing. He fades in and out of consciousness in a desparate attempt at not being here anymore. After too much time rotting in bed and no blaring of sirens (really, no one reported that?), Gavin finally creeps out of the bedroom. He walks the long hall. Unlike last time, he’s far more careful about the stairs. He looks up at the walls and sees more pictures of him and Nines. Unlike the fancy engagement photos or whatever in the living room, these are far more casual and with others too. There’s a lake house with Hank and Connor. A baseball game with Tina. One of them looks like some dance club. Gavin’s got glitter on his cheeks and he’s flushed red, dancing close to Nines. The way Nines looks at him in these pictures–Gavin swallows roughly. His heart aches a bit. Did this android really love him as much as these pictures suggest? 

Gavin pads down the stairs and turns into the kitchen. He sees Nines kneeling like before. He’d shot the gun right under his chin like last time. Gavin sighs. Whoever killed Gavin killed him at the hospital. So, this time, Gavin just won’t go to the hospital. He won’t call Tina. He won’t do any of the dumb shit he did last time. Instead, he uses this time to look about the house.

It’s a large home and well-maintained. Judging by the craftsmanship, it's older too. There are at least three bedrooms on the second floor. Gavin sees a door to a finished basement, but he doesn’t want to head that way just yet. Gavin walks into the living room and looks at those sunset kisses again. He sees it now, the way Nines looks at him. It’s there in every picture. Gavin had found Nines’s eyes intimidating at first as they’re not the chocolate browns of Connor’s eyes. Gavin had been wrong. There’s so much life in these eyes. 

Gavin sits down on the couch and instinctively goes to unlock his phone. His thumbs waver over the conversations between himself and Nines. Sighing, Gavin opens them up and starts scrolling. Numerous unanswered texts from Nines.

Hope you have a good day, Gavi!

I miss you, can’t wait to see you at home!

I wish you were here right now.

I miss you, Gavi.

Please talk to me. 

What did I do to make you hate me? 

Gavi.

Please.

I love you.

Gavin’s throat feels funny. He swallows hard. All those texts from Nines unanswered. How does Nines go from telling Gavin to have a good day to missing him and begging him to come home. Where did Gavin go? Three years. Gavin can’t remember the past three years. All he can remember is the fear of when he first met Nines. 

Eventually, Gavin’s phone chimes and he looks down to see Tina’s name. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 

Gavin just sighs and presses his phone between his eyes. “Fuck.” He’s not going to text her and he’s certainly not going to call her again. Gavin looks over into the kitchen at Nines’s unmoving body. All that blood pouring down his throat and onto the floor. Gavin catches himself. It’s not blood. It’s all fake. Just that weird blue shit that powers all the wires and shit. Gavin pointedly turns away from Nines and decides he needs to figure out this place before anyone shows up and finds the dead robot in the kitchen. 

Gavin gets some clothes on and then heads out onto the street. He’s shocked to see himself living in…a house. Gavin has always been a live-in-the-middle-of-the-city kind of guy. He misses his familiar apartment with the weird water damage above a corner in his bedroom. The first thing he notices are the lawns. They’re perfect. Even Gavin’s yard is perfect. There are flower beds and hanging ferns from the walk-out porch. Fuck, there’s a walk out porch. He realizes now the house isn’t modern but old. This is a Victorian neighborhood with brightly colored houses and stained glass windows all abound. 

“Morning neighbor!” someone calls to Gavin. Gavin just stares at the guy until the guy gives him a weird look back and goes inside his house. It’s early as fuck, but apparently not early as fuck for whacky neighbors.

Gavin walks down from the porch and along the sidewalk. Each house has something unique about it. Some with turrets. Some with long driveways and detached garages. Fountains. Iron gates around the yards. 

“Are we–rich?” Gavin asks no one. He keeps walking along in the early morning air. Gavin walks about three blocks before he turns around and walks three more in the other direction. Then he comes back to “his” house and looks up at it with a pinched expression. Sighing, he decides to walk up the porch steps and close the door.

Nines is still kneeling dead in the kitchen. Dead. Right. Because androids who are deviant can die and then they’re gone because they were the only one of them. So, Nines is dead because he deviated for Gavin. Gavin hits his head a few times against the front door. 

He moves about the house like a curious ghost. He finds a wedding album–an old real-pictures album–in the study. Gavin puts it on the desk and stares down at it like it’ll snap and bite him.

Gavin sits in the office chair as he looks through the wedding album. They got married on May 4th, and by the pictures there was nothing rushed about it. They’d planned their wedding. Nines in beautiful white. Gavin sharp in green. They got married by Lake Michigan. They apparently had a whole lake house for the celebration. Gavin’s parents. Hank and Connor. Tina. Chris and his family. A few of Gavin’s buddies and even his best friend from high school. 

Gavin’s phone buzzes. He looks down and sees the name–it’s a name he doesn’t recognize, but clearly he’d saved it. Steve Big Dick. Gavin answers out of curiosity. 

“Hey babe,” the person says. “You tell him yet?”

“Tell who what?” Gavin asks.

The other guy laughs. “C’mon. Don’t be coy. That you want a divorce.” 

“Oh uh–actually–he brought that up last night,” Gavin says carefully. 

“Babe! That’s great! When can you move in with me?”

“With you?” Gavin wants to say that he doesn’t even know this person. He doesn’t even know if this Steve Big Dick is a human or an android. 

“Stop joking! I’m so glad the stupid toaster brought it up. This’ll make things so much easier for us when it comes out.” 

“When what comes out?” Gavin is a fish so abundantly above water it’s not even funny.

There’s a long pause. “Gavin. Seriously.” 

“Do I love you?” Gavin spins around on the office chair. He catches himself on the desk and then spins again. 

Steve Big Dick laughs into the phone. “I sure hope so. We’ve been talkin’ about running away together for months.” 

Gavin’s been having an affair with another human. Somehow, that’s the least surprising thing about this whole ordeal. Gavin’s always preferred humans. Why he married the bot is still a mystery to him. But still, having an affair? Even that’s pretty low for Gavin. It mixes in his stomach like oil and water. He feels all sloshy about it and finds himself grimacing. 

“So, you ready? I’ll come pick you up.”

Gavin shrugs. “Uh. Sure. I just need to figure out what to do with the body.” Gavin’s not joking, but the guy laughs anyway. Even in 2039 androids were starting to get recognized as people. Gavin should call it in. 

But he doesn’t. Gavin leaves Nines there in the middle of the kitchen. He’s curious about this Steve Big Dick. But the lump in Gavin’s throat won’t go away. The more he packs up a bag of clothes he thinks are his, the more it aches. He tries to swallow it down, but it never works. 

A few hours later, and Steve Big Dick rolls up in a Ford F150. He’s blond and jacked–completely human. He smiles wide at Gavin and leans in for a kiss that Gavin doesn’t return.

“Sorry. He inside?” Steve asks. 

Gavin just nods. 

Steve nods back. “We can kiss all we want at the lakehouse.” 

“The lakehouse?” Gavin’s eyes go round as he thinks about where he and Nines apparently got married. 

Steve just crinkles his nose in a big smile. He really is easy on the eyes. Gavin’s not sure why he didn’t marry this guy first. If Gavin woke up married to this one over the android–things here may not be so bad.

“You hit your head or somethin’ babe?” Steve even brushes his hand through Gavin’s hair to give him a onceover. “I’m following your plan.” 

“Oh. Sorry. It’s just–this has been real tough. With Nines.” Gavin tries to look worn out but he’s not sure if he’s just pulling off constipated. Either way, Steve kisses him on the cheek. His lips are warm and human and Gavin should feel relieved he’s getting away from Nines’s dead body. He looks up at the house and sighs. There’s an uneasy feeling in his belly like this is the wrong thing. He’s following a plan he allegedly put together but–it’s all–wrong. 

Gavin sits across from an open fire with a flannel blanket wrapped around him. Steve joins him and offers him a cold beer. Gavin takes it, even if he distinctly recalls swearing off booze because of Hank.

“I prefer weed,” Gavin says.

“Oh yeah? Thought you gave that up.” Steve takes a sip of beer. Gavin watches how his biceps move beneath skin. Real biceps with muscle, nerves, and bone. But then Gavin thinks again about the way Nines looked at him in those pictures. This guy doesn’t even look at Gavin the way Nines looked at him. Something lonely sinks into Gavin’s body. A shadow of a life he doesn’t know how to lead. All he knows is the darkness. 

“Hey–did you hear that?” Steve asks as he looks out into the woods around the lake. 

“Hear what?” Gavin asks. But he hears it–the snap of a twig. He looks up and tries to see into the blackness, but just like the lack of memory he has–he can’t see shit. 

Getting shot in the chest hurts more than the head, Gavin finds out. Seeing Steve’s lifeless body next to him only makes it worse. He got someone else killed too. As Gavin fights for breath he knows will only run out far-too-quickly, he tries to look up and see who did it. All he sees is black.

All it is. Is black. 

Loop #3 May 4th, 2042

When Gavin wakes this time, his chest aches. But instead of a groan or a smack to the face, Gavin just rolls over on his side and checks the time. It’s 3AM. Nines is outside the bedroom and when Gavin makes too much noise, Nines will come in. Gavin decides to do something different this time. He gets up and pads out into the hallway. He sees the living room light is on below and he makes his way down.

Nines is on the sofa with a paperback book in his hands. He looks up and his LED flickers red. For some reason–that makes Gavin’s chest hurt more. 

“Hey,” Gavin says.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Nines asks. 

Gavin nods. “I got shot in the chest.”

Nines nods. “That sounds like an awful nightmare.”

From what Gavin’s pieced together, he’s supposed to tell Nines about his affair with Steve today. It’s also his anniversary with Nines. Which makes Gavin really pissed off. Gavin’s a shitty person–he owns that–but he’s not that shitty. That’s the scum of the earth kind of shitty. Gavin may not like Nines, but even Nines deserves some semblance of compassion here. Christ, Gavin married the fucker. To have an affair, ask him for a divorce the day before his anniversary, and then tell Nines about the guy he’s been screwing this whole time? Scum. He won’t do that. Today will be different. 

“Happy anniversary,” Gavin whispers instead. At the hospital he’d been shot in the head. At the lake house, he’d been shot in the chest. He wonders what’ll be different if he can keep Nines from killing himself. 

Nines’s eyes round and fill with tears. “Do you mean that?” 

Does Gavin’s chest hurt this badly because he just got shot in it? Or is Nines really fucking him up? Gavin’s never met anyone who just exists by getting killed over and over. Excuse him for suffering a few breakdowns over this whole ordeal. Gavin doesn’t want to die again. 

“I don’t know,” Gavin honestly answers. 

Nines wipes his eyes clear and nods. “I suppose that’s appropriate. I’m the one who asked for a divorce last night.”

“And what did I say back?” Gavin asks. 

Nines laughs–but it’s a bitter thing that makes Gavin feel dirty. “You yelled at me, told me the bedroom is off-limits, and then you slammed the door where I assume you fell asleep until now.” 

“Do you know why you want a divorce?” Gavin creeps forward. He sits on the far end of the couch like a cat ready to scram if Nines gets closer. 

Nines looks at Gavin’s posture and then back up at his eyes. “You aren’t happy.” 

Gavin nods. “Do you love me?” 

Nines’s lip trembles and those piercing blue eyes fill with tears again. It makes them look like stars bursting in the universe–bright and powerful. Gavin likes Nines’s eyes. “So much.” 

Gavin sucks in a deep breath and slowly lets it all release. “Fuck.”

Nines laughs softly. “That’s quite the response.” 

“Yeah. I’m just trying to figure out how to tell you I’ve been an absolute garbage heap of a person.” Gavin slips off the couch and down onto the floor. He doesn’t feel like he deserves furniture right now. A Gavin that he both is and is not has created such a storm here. He doesn’t know whether to batten down the hatches or weather the storm with his jaw held high. Or to run. Part of him wants to see what will happen if he kills himself, but there’s still a part of him that’s terrified he won’t wake up. 

“You just noticed?” 

Gavin whips his gaze in Nines’s direction and sees a little smirk at the corner of Nines’s lips. Pouty pink–just like Connor’s. Gavin really does like the blue eyes though. 

“I’ve been cheating on you.” Is that fair to say when Gavin’s not done anything? Some other Gavin made this mess. Gavin is just trying to figure out how to save Nines from blowing his brains out. It’s all connected, right? If Gavin accepts that this is happening–then it all has to be connected, because why else would time keep throwing him back right here, right now? Where they’d had the fight about divorce just the night before? 

“I know,” Nines says back. He sits up and Gavin sees how he swallows–Gavin hears it go all the way down. It’s all so real. “I kissed you and tasted him.” 

“Oh.” Gavin’s not sure when that happened–but that’s the Bad Gavin’s fault. Gavin doesn’t want to take ownership for that except–it really feels like he has no choice. 

Nines looks away. Gavin knows his eyes are filled with tears. “Does he make you happy?” 

Gavin breathes out–astonished. A tidal wave slams into Gavin and he’s left spinning through it all unable to breathe. If he’d just been told by his husband of two or three years or whatever that he’d been getting cheated on–he’d have blown a fucking gasket. Thrown the biggest fit. Probably grab a knife or two like he did the first time this all happened. 

Nines looks at him expectantly. Gavin realizes he’s supposed to answer.

“I don’t–I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” 

Nines huffs out a laugh. But the way he sits, all bundled up under a throw blanket tucked up against the couch with the book he’s dropped to his lap. Gavin can tell it’s taking all of Nines’s strength to keep it together. His eyes keep watering. The red on Gavin’s ring won’t go away. “What do you want to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin says again. 

“We’ve only been married for two years. It’s not like we built a life.” Nines’s hand crosses over his belly and Gavin’s gaze follows it. He sees the ring on Nines’s hand too. “It would be better if I’m gone, wouldn’t it?”

Gavin looks to the kitchen. “No. No, that’s not what I’m suggesting!” Gavin gets up and runs into the kitchen for the gun. 

Nines just stays seated in the living room with a perplexed expression. “Are you wanting to shoot me?” 

“What? No! I’m trying to save you from shooting yourself!” 

Nines spine snaps taunt as he looks over at Gavin with big eyes. “H-how did you–” Then he clears his throat. “I digress. We need to talk about our divorce. I would like our plants, please. You’ve never cared to tend to them and–and they’re like my children.” Tears spill from Nines’s eyes. 

Gavin can’t do this. He looks down at the gun and his fingers shake.

Nines has stopped talking.

Gavin looks up and realizes he’s also crying. “I can’t do this.” 

“Gavi.” Nines stands up. He looks to the gun and then back to Gavin. “Stop. Stop!” 

Gavin’s so scared. He’s so scared, but if he’s right, he’ll wake right back where he was and he can find a new way to fix this. With a trembling hand, he aims the gun at his own head.

“Gavin! Please!” Nines’s voice is haunting–haunting because there’s so much desperation in that plea. Such simple words and yet Gavin now realizes this entire time how wrong he’d been. Androids aren’t lifeless freaks. That’s the sound of a man who loves his husband. That’s the sound of a man who needs Gavin to do right by him.

Gavin shoots.

Chapter Text

Loop #12 May 4th, 2042

Gavin’s pieced together a few things. For one–he’s been the biggest piece of shit on the planet for the past six months. For two, Nines–is growing on him. He lays in bed with a heated ache right across his throat. The last loop ended with him getting his own throat slit open by Nines. Turns out that whole I would never hurt you thing is bogus. Not telling Nines about Steve and letting Steve come to the house resorted in the murder. Gavin won’t make that mistake again. 

Gavin turns in the bed. He knows Nines is downstairs reading that paperback. It’s a murder mystery too. Gavin had asked Nines about it around the sixth time he’d done this whole song and dance. 

Gavin picks up his phone and immediately texts Steve Big Dick and tells him he can’t see him anymore and that he needs to work on his marriage. Whatever that’ll do this time–Gavin has no damn idea. It’s new. All he knows is that if Nines dies–someone kills him later in the night. If Nines doesn’t kill himself, he ends up killing Gavin. Gavin hasn’t survived more than one day.

Gavin flings the blankets off and marches his ass down stairs. He’s been accepting of the divorce idea–because that’s what these two need right? Except that’s not the way this keeps going. The more they talk about the divorce the more despondent Nines gets and eventually Nines loses it. So, no more. Maybe this was never about moving on apart but finding a way to get back together. Gavin has to save this stupid robot. 

“I don’t want a divorce!” Gavin shouts as he comes down the stairs. He stops at the base of the staircase and looks at Nines sternly. 

Nines’s LED circles yellow. “You don’t?”

“No! I don’t wanna give this up! Whatever this is. I clearly married you for a reason and you clearly married me for a reason and we need to just–figure this shit out. Together.” 

“What’s my favorite color?” Nines asks.

Gavin blinks a few times. Fuck. Fuck. “Blue.”

“Wrong. What’s my favorite thirium beverage?”

“What’s thirium?”

Nines’s LED goes red. “Why did I fall for you in the first place?”

Gavin just sits down on the stairs. “Fuck.” 

“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” Nines asks him. His tone isn’t unkind–but there’s steel behind it. Gavin’s pretty sure this route is going to end in a murder–his. 

“No,” Gavin admits. “I don’t know jack shit.” 

“We’re getting a divorce, Gavin,” Nines says. “If you cared to salvage this marriage you would’ve done something six months ago about it.”

Right. Nines knows about Steve. Gavin just takes a deep breath and lets it all out. There’s no use hiding Steve then. Nines always knows. “You love me so much. I–I’ve treated you–horribly. I need to know how to fix this.” 

“You go back six months and you tell that homewrecker you want nothing to do with him,” Nines answers. “Every time I’ve kissed you–I’ve tasted him. Every time I’ve touched you, I’ve gotten his skin cells in my analysis suite.” Nines can analyse skin cells by touch? Gross. Also not the point. “If you wanted to fix this marriage, you wouldn’t have brought someone else into our bed.”

Our bed. Shit. That one punches Gavin’s gut. “What’s your favorite color?” Gavin finds it’s now him who cries for Nines. This android clearly thinks the world of Gavin for some stupid reason. Gavin has to fix this. If he fixes this then maybe he can get out of all this and Nines will have his Gavin back. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Gavin slipped into some universe where he didn’t really mind androids all that much to fix a mistake this Gavin couldn’t make his way out of. 

“Black,” Nines responds. 

Gavin looks around the room. All painted black, yet so airy with all the other colors. The fireplace is a stark deep olive with golden candles atop it. It’s like a room in a magazine. “What’s thirium?”

Nines takes such a deep breath. “It’s blue blood, you neanderthal. My favorite is apricot carbonated thirium.”  

Gavin hopes he can remember all of this. “Why did you fall in love with me?” That’s the one Gavin can’t quite figure out at all. “I clearly don’t deserve anything about you.” 

“You were the first human who looked at me as anything other than a means to an end. You saw me as something more. I thought–that meant something.” Nines’s LED has stayed red for so long Gavin’s not even sure it ever goes blue. “I would like the plants. After all, you don’t take care of them and they’re–”

“Your children,” Gavin finishes for Nines. “Yeah. Have ‘em.” He’ll fix this. Somehow he’ll fix this for them. He’ll tell Steve to fuck off, the little harlot, and he’ll find a way to put things right in this universe. “Take the house. You deserve it. Even if you sell it. You can have all of it.” 

Nines scoffs. “I don’t want your pity, Gavin.” His face darkens and Gavin knows this route likely is going to end in Gavin’s death. “I wanted my husband.”

“I know,” Gavin says back. There’s nothing else he can say. “Maybe in another life I’ll be what you deserved.” He shrugs and heads for the kitchen. He may as well get this over with. He pulls out the gun.

Nines doesn’t react with any alarm this time. He just watches. “Do you intend to kill yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Can I shoot you instead?” 

“Is that a joke?” Gavin asks.

“I think I hate you, Gavin Reed. You’ve crushed me beyond what I thought possible. All this guilt you now pile on–it just smells of a rotting conscience.” 

So, it’s not a joke. Gavin repeats the information again. Black. Carbonated apricot thirium. Because Gavin saw him as more than just a means to an end. The irony on that one is that this whole thing feels like Gavin’s just trying to find the means for the end. How does he break the cycle? He’s a rat in a lab running on the wheel wondering when he’ll get the cheese. 

Gavin shrugs. He shoots himself in the head. It’s easier in the head. 

Loop #19 May 4th, 2042

Gavin wakes up in the bed. He decides he wants to sleep this time and see what happens. Waking at 3AM sucks. When he wakes again, there’s sunlight coming through the sheer drapes and he’s got a text from Tina. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 

Gavin texts Steve and tells him he can’t see him anymore and that he needs to work on his marriage. He still doesn’t know how that’ll pan out. Nines always gets so aggressive when Steve is mentioned. Gavin, the ever-rat, still running. 

Instead of talking to Nines, he tries to do something completely different. He gets dressed and decides he should go to work. He still works at the DPD, he thinks. He comes downstairs and finds Nines in stasis. His LED circles slowly yellow, over and over. Gavin decides this is far better than anything else he’s seen. 

He leaves the house and is immediately greeted by that neighbor saying good morning. He says it back and goes over to the garage to see about his car situation. There’s a BMW motorcycle (hot) and a Dodge Charger. Gavin assumes that’s his. Except he’s a dumbass and he didn’t bring a key out with him. Groaning, he goes back into the house.

Nines is no longer in stasis. He’s now sitting at the dining table. There’s something so freakishly Stepford Wives about Nines. He’s perfectly poised with great posture and his chin-in-hand. Well, he is a literal robot. He watches Gavin with cold eyes, but says nothing. 

Gavin watches him right back. He’s prey and Nines the predator. Gavin finds a few different keys on a key hook by the back door and shakes his head at himself. He should’ve known. He picks up the Dodge key.

“Nothing?” Nines finally calls over. “Not even a fuck you? I hate you? Yes, let's get a divorce. Nothing?” 

Fuck.

Gavin turns back to Nines and sighs. “I don’t want a divorce.” 

“What’s my favorite color?”

“Black.”

Nines looks mildly alarmed. “Favorite thirium?”

“Carbonated apricot.” Gavin’s done this a few times now. He gets through this stage and then Nines will hit him with another challenge. Gavin’s got to get out of here to see how far this loop actually goes and needs to learn if he does get killed regardless if Nines is alive or not. He has to figure out the why of it all. Mostly, he has to figure out how to escape it. If making this Gavin and Nines’s life better is how to do that–Gavin will play along so long as he can get the fuck out of here. 

Nines drops his hands to the table and sighs through his nose. “Hm.” 

“I’m goin’ to work,” Gavin says. “We can talk more later.” 

“Ah yes–your precious occupation.” Nines’s words are so biting that Gavin has to rub at his neck to soothe the pain away. 

“I said we can talk more later.” Gavin can’t get cornered here. If he gets cornered they’re both dead. 

Blessedly, Nines lets him leave. So, exiting the bedroom at 3AM is a bad move. Talking about this Steve Big Dick is an absolutely fatal move. Going to work is something Nines tolerates. Good to know.

The DPD looks the same as it does where Gavin’s from. Which is a blessing. He sees his desk and is pretty damn pleased to see SGT REED instead of DET REED. At least he’s working toward something. He looks over at Hank’s desk and still sees LT. Connor’s desk has DET ANDERSON. Huh. So the whole parent-child thing really is sticking with them. Fucking weird. Fucking weird. Gavin almost wants to fuck up this loop to go over to Hank and tell him how weird it is to just replace his dead kid with a robot. 

Gavin hears a scrambling of feet and whips around to see Tina all bright and smiley. “Jesus. I’ve not had a single cup of coffee yet, T.” At least some things never change. He needs this–something familiar. 

“So, did Nines tell you yet?” she asks.

“That he wants a divorce?” Gavin walks toward the breakroom. He doesn’t see a reason to hide it even if she congratulated them on their anniversary. He cringes as her face immediately falls and her little shoulders slump.

“What? That. Gavin–are you okay?” She puts her hand on his shoulder and gives her those big eyes. The Tina special. 

“I don’t know,” Gavin honestly answers. He’s okay with divorcing a toaster. He’s not okay with getting murdered over and over again. He heads over to the coffee maker and starts up a double espresso. 

“Shit, Gav. I’m so sorry. That’s–fuck.” Tina leans against the counter. “Does Connor know?” 

“Fuck if I know.” Gavin takes his cup and cuts the espresso with just a little bit of sugar. Okay, a lot of sugar. And okay, some milk. Whatever. He can make his coffee however he damn well wants in get-murdered-by-some-strange-person-or-Nines-World. Distracted by his coffee, he gives no indication to her on whether she can tell Connor or not.

“I just wanna go about my day and live my life, T.” Gavin takes a sip of his coffee and hisses at the heat of it. 

“Yeah. I get that. Well,l I’m here for you. Maybe we could go get pancakes like we used to?” She rubs his arm in sympathy. 

“Yeah. I’d like that.” 

Gavin goes about his work. Figuring out what his work even is takes him far too long though. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like anyone much cares that he’s at his desk squinting too close to the computer. He eventually gets a text from Steve. 

Fuck you slut

Gavin’s brows fly up his face and he nearly barks out a laugh. The guy who wanted Gavin to run away with him to the lakehouse is a grade A dipshit. Court a married man and sometimes you have to accept they want to stay with their partner. That’s kind of the risk of married people. Gavin doesn’t even want to stay with Nines. He just wants out of this and back to his life. But obviously this whole thing is the problem. It almost feels like a let down, really. Gavin expected something dramatic with Steve Big Dick. Something like him coming into the precinct and shooting everyone up. Certainly something more than a juvenile slut response. 

Connor sits on the other side of Gavin’s desk. From the way he’s looking at Gavin, Gavin can only assume Tina broke the news. Maybe he should’ve told her to keep it to herself. Oh well. Gavin looks at Connor with an unamused expression. In Gavin’s timeline, he and Connor are on neutral terms. The way Connor touched Gavin in the first loop–it was like they were family. Gavin’s chest aches again. Like he’s yearning for something. He frowns and rubs at it. 

“Tina told me,” Connor says softly. “Do you wanna talk about it?” Contractions. The bot uses contractions in this life. Fucking wild. 

“Nope.” 

“Gavin. Don’t be like that. He may be my brother but you’re still my best friend.” 

Gavin jerks his head in Connor’s direction and stares with a crinkled nose. “We’re best friends?”

Connor rolls his eyes. “Don’t play with me right now. I know you’re hurting.”

“I’m not hurting, plastic. I’m doin’ just fine.” Gavin turns back to his computer and pulls up another case he’s working on.

“I know you two were trying. But he’s not–right?” Connor’s eyes get big and Gavin doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s referring to. He assumes it’s about the marriage. The marriage clearly Gavin was checking out of. 

“It’s my fault,” Gavin says. “I cheated on him.”

Connor’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “You’re fucking with me.” Wow, what a Hank Anderson thing to say. 

Gavin just sighs and keeps looking through his case files. 

“I should be infuriated with you. I am infuriated with you. That’s my brother!” Connor’s voice gets louder. “You shithead, you cheated on my brother!” Connor reaches over the desk and backhands Gavin.

Gavin spins nearly all the way around in his chair. The sting shoots from his cheek down into his neck and he’s reminded of the loop his throat got slit. His head snaps up. It’s with too acute of clarity how the bullpen goes stone cold silent. Gavin could hear a pin drop if one were to fall. Everyone’s looking at Gavin now. Tina included. Her face is horrified. 

Gavin breathes heavily as he cups his face. “Stay out of my FUCKING life, Connor!” He goes around the desk and shoves the stupid bot. Connor shoves him back and Gavin remembers just how strong Connor really is. He nearly falls over. Gavin takes a swing and that’s when Fowler starts barking from his little staircase to his office. 

One disciplinary action later and Gavin is sent home for the day. Welp. He knows he works at the DPD. He got a handle on some of his cases. He knows telling Connor he cheated isn’t smart. Connor thinks they may be best friends, but clearly, Connor’s loyalty really lies with Nines. 

Gavin texts Tina about those pancakes. 

“Why would you cheat on Nines?” Tina abruptly asks as they’re both being served their pancakes. She grabs the syrup and dumps way too much over them. But the pancakes are the type of pancakes that soak all that in. Big and fluffy. Gavin’s mouth waters.

He wishes he knew why this Gavin would cheat on someone he married. But maybe that’s the problem. “I don’t know why I married him in the first place.” 

Tina shoots him such a glare. “Because he puts up with your bullshit.” 

Gavin rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know what that means though. I–it’s all such a blur.” He’s trying to needle out whatever he can here. Glean something as to why his life went to hell in a handbasket. 

The server tops off Gavin’s coffee and gives him such a frown that Gavin’s sure even she’s judging him about cheating. Fine. Go ahead. Gavin doesn’t care. He’s not the one who actually cheated. He’s also not the one who actually loves Nines either. There’s that whole thing. 

“Gavin. You’re a shitbag. A huge douche. But you don’t cheat. So, what happened here?” Tina asks. “You were so scared he’d say no when you wanted to propose. What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Gavin confesses a little too loudly. He adjusts his tone. “I don’t fuckin’ know, T.”

“Can I get you two anything else?” the server asks. She’s got an LED on her forehead, Gavin notices. It’s also flickering yellow. 

Before Tina has a chance to answer, she knocks over her coffee and it spews all over the table, hitting the server too. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” 

The server smiles politely, but her LED goes red. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll clean it up.” 

Gavin sighs and dabs up what he can with his own napkins. “T. I really need help here.” 

“I’m the one with soaked pants, Gavin.” 

Gavin rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“You’re the jackass who cheated on Nines! He’d do anything for you. Has even. I can’t believe I’m still your friend honestly. Part of me just–doesn’t believe you really did it. Like, there has to be some explanation.” Tina gratefully takes more napkins from the server and starts dabbing off her pants. 

Gavin doesn’t know the explanation. He doesn’t know the why or the how. He doesn’t even know what got him to this point. He remembers Connor all torn to shreds and that light. Connor said Gavin had to stop it. But whatever it is, Gavin doesn’t know. He can’t even survive one day in this hellhole. 

“I don’t have an explanation,” Gavin answers softly. “I don’t know why I did it either. But I broke it off with him. Look.” Gavin pulls out his phone and shows Tina the texts with Steve Big Dick. 

“Steve Big Dick? Really? You want to throw your marriage away for some hung jackass?” She finishes reading the thread. “Wow. What a dick.” 

“I don’t want to throw it away.” Gavin doesn’t really want it in the first place but surely this is the way to get out of all this. “I made a mistake, T. I need to figure out how to save it.” 

Tina looks at Gavin with such sympathy. “Oh, Gavin. You idiot. This all has to do with the trials Nines was doing–doesn’t it?”

Tina’s mentioned trials in other loops. Gavin’s never quite figured out what it meant though. He tilts his head. 

“You don’t want kids. Nines does.”

Oh.

Gavin’s heart slams in his chest. He hears the pounding up against his ears and winces each time it bangs, louder than the last. Pregnancy trials? For an android? 

Tina laughs at him. “Yeah. That’s the look you gave him when he asked to get the upgrade to start trying for a baby. I still don’t know why he blurted that shit right in front of me.” 

“Nines wants kids?”

Tina looks exasperated. She takes a big too-much-for-her-little-mouth bite and talks around it. “Yeah! We ‘ere a’ ‘at ‘arnival!” 

Carnival. Gavin wishes he could remember. Except wherever the Gavin of this place is, he’s probably fucking up everything in the Real Gavin’s (he’s the real one, right?) own world trying to gag on a non-deviant android’s cock. 

“How did Nines deviate?” Gavin asks. He doesn’t much care that Tina thinks he’s insane. He is insane. All of this is insane. 

Tina sighs. “Seriously? Are you feeling okay?” 

“Tina. No. I’m really not feeling okay. Just fuckin’ tell me.” Gavin burns his tongue on his coffee and hisses. Of fucking course that stupid android server would jack up the heat in the coffee pot just to be a prick to him. Fuck androids, honestly. 

“How do you not remember?” Tina tilts her head, frowning. She’s completely forgone eating her pancakes. 

Gavin just pokes at his. “Because I woke up at 3AM May 4th, 2042 with no memory between May 4th 2039 and now.” 

Tina barks out a laugh. “Convenient. All your worst and best mistakes are in those years.” She finally takes another bite of pancake. “What’s on the left side of your ribcage?” 

Gavin frowns. 

Tina quirks a brow.

Gavin lifts his shirt and sees one hell of a scar midway up his torso. It’s like someone took a meat grinder to him. He touches the shiny skin. “What?” 

“That story’s between you and Nines. All I know is he saved your life and deviated in the process.” Tina chews on her fork a bit. “You really don’t remember anything?”

Gavin shakes his head. 

“Huh. You should probably go to the hospital. You could have a brain tumor or something.” 

Gavin’s already been to the hospital. That guy shoots him there. Gavin shakes his head. “I’m fine. Maybe it’s just exhaustion from realizing I’ve royally fucked up everything.” 

Tina nods, like that’s the right answer. At least she’s satisfied with it. Gavin wishes she’d give him more to go on about all this though. 

“I’ve got the pancakes. You want anything else?” Gavin asks her.

“Yeah, I want an honest answer.” She points her fork at Gavin. “Do you love Nines?” 

Gavin blinks. He can’t hide the way his lips go into a downturn and apparently that’s all Tina needs for an answer. She sighs so heavily. 

“What the fuck happened to you, Gavin?” She speaks so sadly. “You mean everything to Nines.” 

“I don’t know why,” Gavin answers truthfully. 

Gavin stares up at the Victorian he apparently lives in with Nines. He’s spent all day wandering around, trying his best to avoid coming back here. No one’s shot him so that’s good. No other word from Steve Big Dick either. So, that’s doubly good. At the first crack of thunder though, Gavin grimaces. He could go sit in the car and wait it out, but that’d be silly. Whatever is making this loop happen has to do with Nines. And Connor. But now Connor won’t talk to Gavin. He bitch smacked him right in front of everyone at the station. 

Gavin trudges up the stairs to the porch. A flash of lightning startles him and he quickly heads inside. The door’s unlocked too. 

When he gets inside, he sees Nines bundled up on the couch with his head in Connor’s lap. Oh. Fuck. 

“You have some nerve coming back here,” Connor grits out to Gavin. 

“It’s his home too,” Nines says. His voice sounds–defeated? Wrung out? How he has so much emotion for something not real–it’s–confusing–to Gavin. 

“I don’t care. He cheated on you!” Connor gets all rigid in his spot. A cat ready to pounce. Nines reaches up and cups Connor’s face. It makes Connor smooth out his feathers.

“Can I talk to my husband?” Gavin asks. “Without you?”

Connor glares. “You don’t deserve anything.” 

Gavin looks at Nines and waits for some kind of reaction. This time there’s just so much–missing. Gavin’s seen Nines go through such extremes. Anger. Despair. He’s seen Nines kill him. Kill himself. This is just–numb. It’s weird. It’s almost worse. 

“Whatever you want to say, you may say in front of Connor,” Nines says in such a dead tone. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Gavin says. He looks at those sunset kisses on the wall and feels all twisted up inside. Nines is an android. A stupid bot. They’re both not real and Gavin feels like he has to do something to appease them. But maybe. Just maybe. If Gavin stops seeing them as fake and something real–maybe this does all change. Because if it matters so much to keep coming back instead of going into oblivion–maybe something somewhere is trying to scream at Gavin that this all matters. 

That androids matter.

Gavin feels sick. He stumbles over to the wall to lean against it. “I don’t know what went wrong. All I know is that it did. I don’t know how to fix it. But I told that guy–um–I told him I didn’t wanna see him anymore.” He’s afraid this will set Nines off into a murder like it’s done before. Except this time, Nines just keeps his head on Connor’s lap while Connor’s the one who glares. 

“Are you pregnant?” Gavin asks.

Connor’s eyes round. 

Nines just turns to look at Gavin. “Would it have changed anything?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin says back. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. That’s the whole god damn problem isn’t it? 

Nines doesn’t give an answer. He just turns away from Gavin and presses his face into Connor’s stomach. 

Connor sneers at Gavin. “You should leave.” 

“I don’t want a divorce!” Gavin shouts. “I don’t want this! I made a mistake! Please!” Gavin wants to go home. He wants his own bed. His own apartment. He wants this all to be over. 

Nines doesn’t answer. 

Gavin scrubs at his face. “God damn it, Nines! Just fuckin’ talk to me!” He’d been so chatty at 3AM. What makes now different than 3AM? Is it that Connor told Nines about the cheating? Except no, that can’t be it. Nines always knows. He knows because he can pick up the biodata from Steve Big Dick. So, Nines already knows at 3AM. The fight though–all of it’s sucked out of Nines by evening. 

The storm gets louder outside. Big heavy blobs of rain pelt the old windows of the house. Gavin loves a good storm–especially the ones that make his high-rise building shake. Even this low to the ground though, Gavin still feels how the old house creaks and moves around with the wind outside. He’d love to sit on the porch and just watch it all. 

“Leave,” Connor says again. “He doesn’t want to talk, you jackass!” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be my best friend? You don’t even wanna hear my side of all this?” Gavin takes a step toward Connor and watches how that LED flicks red so fast. He stops. 

“You disgust me, Reed.” Connor glares up at Gavin. It’s the reminder that Connor actually is terrifying. Beneath those puppy brown eyes is one hell of a killing machine. “I don’t need your side to know you broke his heart. I don’t care why. I only care that you did.” 

Gavin goes out onto the porch. He has nowhere else to go. Though, he guesses he could text Tina and ask to crash there. Except he doesn’t know where this all ends. If he dies, he wakes up at 3AM May 4th. It’s night now. The sky swallowed up in black and storm. The chill in the air makes Gavin shiver and the pressure of the rain makes his forehead hurt. He sits on the porch swing and holds himself as little bits of rain splash onto him from the angle of the wind. Lightning strikes and Gavin swears he just saw someone behind one of the trees in his front lawn. 

“What the fuck…” he whispers. He gets up and runs over and sees no one. Rain soaks through his clothes immediately and he shivers. He turns on his phone’s flashlight and surveys around the street, trying to find that person. He crosses that guy’s lawn who said good morning to him. He wonders if they know each other or if it was just a casual neighborly thing to do. Gavin sure as shit didn’t recognize him. 

More lightning in the darkness. Booms of thunder. Nothing. 

“Gavin!” Nines shouts from the old porch. “Gavin, come inside!” 

So, Nines will talk. Gavin just has to drown himself a little first. Okay. Good to know. Gavin wishes he could write this shit down except it’ll never stay. He turns on his heel and heads for the house. 

“Why’re you out in the rain?” Nines asks. His LED is red. 

“I thought I saw someone.” Gavin looks at their tree again and glares. He could’ve sworn he saw someone. 

“Gavi.” Nines swallows hard. Hard enough that Gavin hears it all the way down. “Do you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“You don’t want a divorce?” 

Finally. Finally. 

“I mean it. I don’t want a divorce.” 

Nines steps in close and wraps his arms around Gavin. Gavin startles from it. Nines is warm and soft. Strong. He squeezes Gavin gently and where they touch Gavin tingles. Gavin relaxes into the hug and wraps his arms around Nines too. Oh, he’s so warm. Gavin’s fucking freezing. 

“I’ll start you a bath,” Nines says. He gives Gavin a kiss on the cheek and Gavin sucks in a sharp breath. Nines only offers him a mournful expression. His LED is still red. He motions for Gavin to come inside and Gavin follows. 

Connor may still be here glaring daggers, but Gavin’s now nice and warm in their clawfoot bathtub soaking away the rain’s bitter cold from outside. He likes this, listening to the rain bang against the old Victorian. He puts his head back and sighs. This is okay, he thinks. This part. The part where he’s not freaking out. He’s just able to be. 

He’s about to nod off when the door creaks open and he shoots up to try to cover his bits. It’s only Nines though. His LED is yellow. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Nines says.

“It’s okay.” Gavin watches him cautiously. Pretty vulnerable place to be, the bathtub. Nines could jump on him and drown him so easily. Gavin’s not quite sure that’s not what’s about to happen. He wonders how that’ll feel in the morning when he wakes in the new loop. 

“I don’t know where we went wrong.” Nines sits up on the sink. His legs are so long they still just barely touch the tiled flooring. All white hexagons. It’s clear they’ve upgraded the place. Even the clawfoot isn’t original. “I’ve given you everything and all I asked for was a child with you. Is that what pushed you away?” 

Gavin’s not sure. He thinks it would be though. He doesn’t want kids. So he nods. 

Nines touches his stomach and sighs. 

They sit there in silence. The howling of the wind outside and the big rain drops pelting the walls. Gavin feels like he’s in a weird horror movie. He can’t quite shake off whoever was outside. Was it really just all his imagination? At least if he dies he knows he’ll just come back. Or so he thinks. There is that one guy out there that’s supposed to kill him. He wonders if that’s the guy. Is Nines being alive irrelevant to Gavin’s death? He guesses he has to find out. It’s nearing 10PM now. In other loops, Gavin was already dead.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away then,” Nines whispers. “Would you come back to me if I said we didn’t need a child?” 

“Why do you want one?” Gavin asks, suddenly curious. An android wanting to be a–mom? Dad? Nines got some weird thing installed to be able to carry a baby, right? That’s what Tina kind of hinted at. 

Nines just smiles. “I wanted you. To see a young little thing and see your eyes. To hold a child that would have your fire. Kiss away scrapes because she was as feisty as you.” 

“Are you pregnant?” Gavin asks again. 

Nines shrugs. “Would it matter now?” 

“If you’ve got a baby in there and it’s mine–then yeah–I think it kinda matters.” Gavin’s panicking. He hopes he’s not supposed to raise some other fucking idiot Gavin’s kid. Even if he’s Gavin. He still doesn’t think he’s this Gavin. Right? Right?

Nines still doesn’t answer. He only smiles sadly. “So, no baby. That will help us connect again?” 

“How does an android get pregnant anyway?” Gavin’s sure he’s not following the right sequence for this loop. He’s still pretty convinced some guy is waiting for him to go to bed so he can shoot him in the middle of the night. He’ll figure it out next loop. 

“Artificial insemination technically. We spent nearly all of our life’s savings to get the biocomponents for it. That’s why I thought you wanted this too. I have a few eggs in a cryo chamber. When we’ve been intimate, I’ve released them in the hopes your sperm would inseminate them.” 

“So. Pregnant?” 

Nines laughs. “If I say yes, will you leave me?” 

Gavin shakes his head. 

“I’m five weeks along.” 

So, Nines has been killing himself with a baby in there. Jesus Christ. Fuck the other Gavin for letting this get so bad. Going along with making a kid just to cheat. Gavin thinks this is all unforgivable. He finds himself–sympathetic–to Nines. 

“So, you’re gonna get fat?” 

Nines barks out a laugh. He covers his mouth, like it’s startled even himself. “I’ve been given a softer belly to help expand with the baby’s size. My chassis is no longer unforgiving plastic but malleable silicone. I will stretch.” 

“What if I tell you I don’t want a baby?” Gavin asks. “What then?” 

“It’s not a baby right now.” Nines runs his hand over his stomach again. “I can terminate it immediately if you want.” 

Gavin feels all kinds of not great about that option. It’s not his call. Hasn’t Gavin always been their body their choice? He shakes his head again. “That’s not up to me.” 

“This feels different,” Nines says. He looks at Gavin with tight eyes. “You feel different.” 

I’m not your Gavin.

“Oh. Sorry.” Gavin just lets himself slip a little further down in the bathtub. “I guess it’s all just–a lot to take in.” 

“What? That the child we’ve been trying to have for six months is finally implanted inside me?” 

“Six months…” Gavin knows he’s been seeing Steve Big Dick for six months. So, it really was the baby that pushed Gavin away. How disgusting. Why wouldn’t he have just said no? It sounds like it would’ve saved them a lot of money too. 

“Why weren’t you just honest with me?” Nines asks. “I would’ve never pushed for this if you were just honest.” 

“I don’t know.” Gavin wishes he did. This is so far above him now. A baby. Jesus, Gavin’s never thought he’d even live past forty. He’s right there isn’t he? Shit. How old is he now? It’s May. He will be forty this year. Shit. Forty and a dad, huh? Not the way he thought he’d go. And a dad with an android mom-dad-thing. 

“Is it guilt?” Nines asks. 

“Be more specific.” Gavin slips down into the water deep enough to cover his mouth.

“Regret for marrying an android. I know you hated me at first. Well. You were terrified of me. I scared you.” 

Gavin remembers that for sure. That was the last thing he’d known before he woke up here. He looks up at the stained glass window and sees all the little shadows from trees behind the house as the storm starts to pass and the moon slips out from clouds. He still can’t shake this feels like a horror story more than anything else. 

“But you know my favorite thirium drink. There has to be some part of you that still cares about me, right? You said you don’t want a divorce. But I don’t feel like that’s true. You feel so far away.”

“I don’t want a divorce.” Gavin is committed to that course to see if it helps him get out of this. “Just need–to figure this shit all out.” 

Nines nods. “I suppose that’s reasonable. Did you tell that other man you wanted to stay with me?” 

Gavin nods. 

Nines’s LED finally goes blue. Gavin feels like he can breathe easier now that he’s not afraid Nines is about to go Terminator on him. 

Then the lights flicker and go out.

“Power outage!” Connor shouts from the first floor. “I’ll get the candles out!” 

“Do you need help getting out of the bath?” Nines asks Gavin. 

Gavin can muddle through well enough on his own. “Nah. You can go help Connor.” Gavin sees the disappointment on Nines’s face from the blue of his LED. All Nines does, though, is nod. Gavin gets out of the bath and fumbles around for a towel. He then makes his way over into the bedroom and opens the curtains all the way for the moonlight. He looks at the tree and sees no one. 

Dressed in sweats and some teeshirt, Gavin makes his way into the living room where Connor’s got enough candles to host a seance. Connor looks less than pleased to see Gavin, but he says nothing. 

“Shouldn’t you go home to daddy dearest?” Gavin spits out at him.

“Hank’s neighborhood isn’t impacted by the blackout,” Connor says back. “Fuck you, you harlot.” 

Gavin opens his mouth but Nines moves to stand between the two of them. “Can we just not? Please?” Nines asks. 

Connor nods and Gavin also gives one last glare before nodding at Nines too. 

“Connor, you are welcome to leave whenever you want. But you’re welcome to stay too,” Nines says gently. 

Connor looks between them. “I think I’ll stay. But I’ll leave you two alone. Can I use the spare room?” 

Nines nods at him and Connor goes up the stairs. 

“Do you want to sit on the porch together and watch the end of the storm?” Nines asks. 

“Why?”

Nines looks at Gavin with such a tiny, hopeful little smile. “Because you love storms.” 

Gavin follows Nines outside and then together they sit on the little porch swing. Nines moves it back and forth with ease. Gavin shivers. Nines moves to put his arm around Gavin and his body radiates warmth. Gavin doesn’t pull away. He likes the warmth too much. This–is–nice. 

“I miss you so much,” Nines says over the pitter-patter of rain. “What made you change your mind?” 

“We got married for a reason,” Gavin says. 

“Hm.” Nines doesn’t appear convinced at the answer. Gavin will try to remember that for the next loop. He assumes another loop will happen. Assumes that guy will come out from behind the tree and shoot. “Do you love me?” 

“Sure.” Gavin frowns. He knows it’s not convincing. 

Nines’s LED goes red for a few blinks. Then it settles back to blue. “I want to earn your love again. I want to fix what I did wrong. I will remove this fetus from my body.”

“Woah! No–no that’s not what I’m askin’ you to do!” Gavin sits up but Nines just shrugs at him.

“It’s already done. Five weeks post-ovulation isn’t enough to even develop a heartbeat. It’ll evacuate just fine.” 

Gavin. Feels. Awful. He has to lean his weight into Nines from how dizzy he feels. How sick. He just destroyed their family. But hadn’t the Gavin of this world done that first? Gavin doesn’t want to take that on as his responsibility. It’s Nines’s choice right? Nines chose to terminate it. Still. It leaves a bad taste in Gavin’s mouth. 

“Why would you do that?” Gavin asks. He sits up to look at Nines. Why does he care so much? It wasn’t his. Why does he care? He’s never wanted children. Never. “That was. You worked hard for that.” 

Nines just looks at him. “Yesterday, you’d be overjoyed at this.”

“I’m not yesterday.” Gavin swallows and it hurts going all the way down. This is a fucking robot he’s talking to. But he cares. He cares because this robot cared to try to create something with apparently the biggest sack of shit on the planet. And now he chooses whatever Gavin wants? Doesn’t Nines have any identity of his own? Doesn’t he deserve to have his choices recognized? Respected? 

Gavin has to restart the loop. It’s not fair. It’s not right. He knows Nines will be angry at him again. He knows Nines will be suicidal. But this–this is. 

Heartbreaking. 

Gavin shouldn’t just try to get out of this. Gavin should make this right for Nines. Not in spite of him. This is this Nines’s life. Gavin shouldn’t get to make his decisions. 

“No.” Nines cups Gavin’s cheek and looks at him like he’s looking at him for the first time. “No, you’re not the same from yesterday.” He leans closer and tries to press his lips to Gavin’s but Gavin turns away. Nines just sighs. 

“Sorry,” Gavin whispers. “I just–you just aborted your baby. I’m. I’m a little fucked up about it.” 

“Did you want it?” 

“No. But.”

“Then I made the right decision.” 

“It wasn’t my decision to make!” Gavin shouts back. He grimaces when Nines winces. How is this the same murderbot that scared the piss out of Gavin with that other android. Maybe that’s the thing about deviancy. It lets androids be who they want to be–not what someone else told them to be. Nines was told to be brutal. Maybe this Nines chooses to be kind. 

“I don’t want to raise your child alone, Gavi,” Nines says. “I wanted a child with you. Not from you. It was only cells. It never knew it could’ve even been alive.” 

Sure. Gavin knows that. Hell, Gavin supports that it’s Nines’s right to choose. Gavin wishes he could go back and forget about this part. But now he’ll always know that when Nines tries to kill himself, he’s killing a bundle of cells too. When Nines kills Gavin–he’s killing the father of those cells. How fucked up is all this? How can Gavin make it right? 

“I want to start over,” Gavin says to Nines. Nines is pretty enough. He’s got nice eyes. Of course his lips are beautiful. Gavin’s not stupid. Even Connor’s gorgeous. He can try. He can try to do something right here. It’s only been one day to Nines but to Gavin it’s been nineteen mistakes. Nineteen different days. Nineteen different choices. Each one all going back to Nines. 

“How? How do we start over when we’re already to the end?” Nines’s eyes water up. Fuck. Gavin doesn’t find himself annoyed that an android is crying. He finds himself upset because Nines is crying. 

“I don’t. I don’t know.” That’s the theme of this loop. Gavin looks out amidst the darkness. “I don’t know.” 

Nines puts his head on Gavin’s. He snuggles in and Gavin now realizes that Nines is adjusting his body temperature for Gavin’s comfort. It’s all about Gavin, huh? This poor stupid robot just wants Gavin to love him. Stupid. Stupid. Gavin’s not sure he can. 

The thunder rolls on far away from them now. The air is humid and clammy. Gavin shivers and Nines pulls him into his lap. Gavin, of course, starts getting all squirrelly until he remembers that this is supposed to be for Nines. He settles uneasily. He’s all rigid in Nines’s arms. 

“You don’t love me.” There’s one of those statements again from Nines. “We can’t start over if you don’t love me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Gavin admits. 

“Divorce is the right option, isn’t it?” Nines asks. He still holds Gavin in his arms. “I wanted us to be forever.” He shoves his face into Gavin’s shoulder and Gavin just winces. It’s like he’s inside his own body and hovering over it all at once. He wishes he could stuff the right Gavin back for Nines. Maybe make them work this all out.

“I don’t know,” Gavin says for the millionth time. “I don’t know if I can ever love you again.” 

Nines lets his tears finally fall like the rain gently wrapping up around them. Light and near-silent. Nines doesn’t cry like other androids. Gavin would never know if he weren’t looking directly at Nines right now. 

“I killed my baby for you.” Nines’s words are laced with steel. “I worked. So hard. For all of this. For this house. For you. I’ve done everything you’ve asked and I’ve given more than I thought I could.” Gavin realizes Nines is holding him far tighter now than he’d been moments before.

Oh fuck.

“N-Nines? Hey. Hey you’re squeezin’ pretty hard.”

“I’ve sacrificed my life for you. I made myself know fear for you. I could’ve stayed a machine. It would’ve been easier but you made me change. For you. Everything I’ve ever done has always been for you.”

Gavin can’t deny that. Except Gavin’s skin is starting to burn from how hot Nines is getting. He tries to peel out of Nines’s embrace but the guy’s got a–well–death grip on him. “Connor! Connor help!” Gavin doesn’t know what else to do. It’s hot. He’s hot. His skin hurts and keeps getting redder as Nines’s body only gets hotter and hotter. 

“I should’ve killed you this morning,” Nines says. “Then I’d have my baby and you’d be nothing.” 

“Connor!” Gavin doesn’t want to die like this. It hurts too much. It’s not fast. He’s sweating. His heart is pounding and he hears his blood swishing and moving inside. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts. Nines squeezes him more and his windpipe makes a sharp sound as it tries to inhale but Gavin can’t breathe anymore. 

Connor finally comes out the front door. His LED goes all blinky and red as he assesses what’s happening. “Nines! Your internal temperature is far too high.”

“I don’t care,” Nines says back. “I want us to die together.”

“Nines! Stop!” Connor comes over to try to pry Nines’s hands off Gavin but an RK800 really is no match for an RK900, huh? He looks at Gavin with guilt and agony etched into all the lines and curves of his face. “You’re killing him!” 

“That’s the point,” Nines says. He squeezes Gavin sharply and Gavin hears something pop. He tries to take a breath but nothing. Nothing happens.

Gavin’s just glad it’ll be over now. 

Loop #20 May 4th, 2042

It’s 3AM. Gavin’s back hurts something fierce. He can’t get past this day to literally save his life. Is this his curse? What did he do to deserve this? He sits up in bed. All Nines wants is his lover back. Gavin wonders if he can try. Wouldn’t that be the right thing? To at least try to give the guy what he wants? Nines has given up everything for Gavin. It can’t hurt to try. To really try. It’s clear Gavin’s been feeling bad for Nines. He’s been seeing Nines more than just an android but something confused, lost and alive. 

Gavin gets up out of bed. He pads down the stairs and finds Nines with the book and blanket. Nines looks up at him. 

“Did you have–” Nines starts, but Gavin cuts in.

“No nightmare.”

Nines blinks a few times in surprise. His LED flickers yellow. 

Gavin crawls onto the couch and then atop Nines. He takes the book and puts it on the coffee table. “I’m sorry.” 

Nines’s hands carefully find their way around Gavin’s body too. They hold each other. This–Gavin thinks–is the most dangerous thing he’s ever done, knowing that Nines killed them like this just last loop. Nines burning himself up from the inside. Gavin’s spine breaking. It still hurts so much. 

“I want to love you again,” Gavin whispers. Again. As if Gavin ever loved him to begin with. At least not him. Some other Gavin. But not him. But he says again all the same. 

Nines makes an inhuman sound and only squeezes a bit more. Not like last time though. It’s more like a hug than anything. 

“Please go slow with me,” Gavin says. “I–I don’t know everything anymore. I don’t know a lot of things. But I know your favorite color is black. You like sittin’ on the porch with me when it rains.” He leans up and cups Nines’s face. “Your favorite drink is apricot flavored. Which is so fuckin’ weird to me because who the fuck under 80 likes apricot anything?”

Nines laughs. 

Gavin smiles at him. Gavin feels somehow–someway–this loop is going to go right. “I’m scared, Nines. Everything’s been so fucked up.” It’s mostly true. “Please, let’s start over. Just take me back to the night we met.” 

Nines brushes his thumb over Gavin’s lips. He swipes left to right in such a delicate way it makes Gavin’s lips tremble. He nods. His eyes fill up with tears but it’s not the same as it was before. There’s something alive and hopeful in Nines’s eyes and Gavin feels like such a fool. How did he ever think an android wasn’t alive? Look at Nines right now. Look at the misery and the pain he’s felt each and every loop before. 

Gavin touches Nines’s belly and Nines furrows his brow. “Don’t throw this away.” 

Nines’s lips part silently. 

“I was scared. And selfish. And stupid.” How many other S words can Gavin use to call himself a shitbag? Wait–there’s one. “And a total piece of shit.” Gavin rubs his thumbs over soft silicone skin. He feels the give in it. The squish. No hard plastic but something–malleable–like Nines said. Something real and alive and growing something that Gavin never thought an android could. 

“Who are you?” Nines asks. He smiles a little though.

“I–shit.” Gavin sits back and folds into himself. What does he do here? Does he tell Nines? What would it even matter if he did. “I’m just me. I’m just tryin’ to figure out how to make sure you don’t blow your fucking face off.”

Nines looks into the kitchen. Gavin knows what he’s thinking about. Nines licks his lips slowly and tilts his head. “H-how did you know I was considering that?” 

Gavin just shrugs. “I married you, right?”

Nines keeps looking at him with guarded eyes. He tilts his head to the other side. “I didn’t tell you one of the eggs finally implanted. I don’t menstruate. I don’t have hormonal fluctuations or morning sickness. There’s no way you could know.” 

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Gavi. I asked you for a divorce last night.” 

“Yup.” 

“You were cruel to me,” Nines keeps going. “You screamed and shouted and told me that it’s what you’ve wanted for months. Now you’re telling me you’re sorry and that you know I’m pregnant? That you knew I considered–that?” His LED goes red. 

Gavin just swallows and scratches at his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re trying to accuse me of right now.” 

“Frankly, I’m trying to accuse you of not being my husband,” Nines says through a bitter laugh. However, his expression softens. “Though. I can’t say I’m upset this is what you’re saying. I’ve missed you so much.” 

Gavin smiles awkwardly at him. He looks down at their hands and cautiously reaches out for Nines’s. Nines reaches out for his too and Gavin startles when Nines’s skin recedes leaving behind shiny black plastic. 

Nines quirks a brow and Gavin just shrugs. They hold hands in their old Victorian with its black walls and airy windows. Big sheer curtains. All the plants. All the plants that Nines cares for because he’s an android who cares for plants. He has a baby growing inside him. He’s–so strong. 

Gavin finds himself realizing what an idiot he’s been. Connor. Nines. Androids as a whole. To deny their lives. He clearly met an android and he clearly fell in love with him too. Gavin wouldn’t just marry a robot for fun. He had to love Nines once. Or–whatever Gavin that married him did, at least. Unless that Gavin is him right now and he’s in a coma and this is his way of figuring out that he’s been a colossal prick. Except it still doesn’t feel like a coma. It’s real. It’s been happening. Gavin finally accepts that. 

This loop is trying to teach him something. 

“I can’t change what happened between us,” Gavin says. “But I can change what happens now. I wanna do better this time.”

Nines nods. “May I come upstairs with you? You should get some more rest before you have to work.”

So, Nines has been staying down here to give Gavin space. Fuck. 

Gavin nods and, by the hand, they go upstairs together. Gavin’s nervous, he realizes. He doesn’t know how to love an android. It’s weird feeling an exposed chassis. But Nines’s belly–it’s so soft and squishy. There’s a miracle growing inside him. Technology at its finest. Something powerful and unprecedented. Trials, Tina called them. So, whatever’s inside Nines right now is a scientific miracle. An android carrying a human baby. 

Gavin gets back into bed and Nines gently follows. He pulls Gavin into him and makes himself Big Spoon. Gavin whines about it.

“Oh hush, you,” Nines says. He runs his nose along the back of Gavin’s neck.

So, there is a little spice in all that sugar. Gavin wonders who Nines really is. All he’s seen is the worst of Nines. The pain and fear. Unbearable sadness. He wants to know who Nines is when he gets to exist as someone and not just at his wit’s end. Gavin wants to know. 

It’s terrifying. But he wants to know.

Chapter Text

Loop #20 May 4th, 2042 -- A respectable hour and not 3AM

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! The day officially starts with the text from Tina. 

The morning before work is a hell of a lot easier than it’s been the past nineteen times. Nines makes coffee for Gavin and Gavin gets ready for work. He also takes some time to look through their respective wardrobes. Nines wears a lot of sweaters and soft things. Leather pants too… Oh, damn. Gavin’s wardrobe hasn’t changed much. That’s good at least. Gavin’s absolutely going to wonder what Nines looks like in those leather pants for the rest of the day. He wonders though, if this will finally be the loop he makes it through May 4th. 

Gavin texts Tina back. THANKS

Gavin takes the coffee from Nines and moans around the first sip.

“Careful Gavi, it’s not even 10AM.” Nines has his arms crossed and he’s smirking like the devil himself. 

Oh, right. They’ve had sex before. Why does that make Gavin’s insides feel like they want to be outsides? 

Nines frowns. “You’re getting pale.” 

“Sorry. Swallowed wrong.” 

Nines’s LED flickers red for exactly two flickers and then goes back to blue. “Mhmm.” He’s less than convinced. It’s clear he doesn’t trust Gavin. Why should he though? Gavin’s been seeing Steve Big Dick for six months now. Oh fuck. Steve Big Dick. Gavin needs to break it off with him still. Ugh. Having to do that over and over sucks. Whatever. 

“Hey uh–” Gavin stops and puts his coffee down so he can pull all his focus to Nines. “When I get home–we should–we should plan something. Like. Like a getaway or something. Maybe go back to the lakehouse.” Gavin’s not sure if he’ll ever get there–but he’s trying, right? It’s evident his own preferences are irrelevant in these loops. It needs to be all about Nines. 

Nines nods silently. He tries to offer a smile, but it’s strained. Gavin wonders if he stays guarded because Gavin’s not confessed directly about Steve. Should he try? Except when he’s tried before–he’s been brutally murdered by Nines. Or Nines has killed himself. Gavin doesn’t feel right letting Nines kill himself even if the loops will reset. It just feels too sad. 

“Hey.” Gavin takes a few steps toward Nines. “I fucked up big time. I think you already know how.”

Nines’s LED goes red. Blaring. A warning. 

“I don’t deserve a second chance with you.” Gavin looks down between Nines’s broad chest. He’s too afraid he’s going to have a knife pressed to his neck again. He hated dying like that. Though the one he hates the most is being burned alive until his spine snapped. Too slow. He hurt too much during it. He shivers. 

Nines takes a step forward and presses their foreheads together. Gavin will note that Nines doesn’t seek out a kiss. So, they both agree they’re not there yet. Then he pulls back and looks at the door. “Go to work. We can talk more later.”

Gavin hears the familiar scrambling of feet. He knows it’s Tina. He just keeps walking over into the breakroom. She can follow. 

“So did Nines tell you yet?” Tina asks. 

Gavin knows what she’s asking about now. The context all makes sense now. She’d never been asking about something sad. Tina knows Gavin and Nines have been trying to have a baby. Gavin smirks at her and winks.

Tina’s eyes only get bigger and she nods silently. He nods back at her and she does a little happy dance and punches up into the air.

“Keep a lid on it, Chen,” Gavin warns her. “Technically, he didn’t tell me.”

Tina watches Gavin prepare his double espresso. “So, how’d you find out?” 

“He keeps touching his belly.” Gavin thinks back to the second night into this loop. Nines had done it then too. A careful, silent swipe. Gavin had been such a fool. 

“He could be wishing something’s there?”

“Tina. I asked him about it this morning. It’s way too early to start celebrating though. It’s–you know–all the trials and shit.” 

Tina nods like a bobblehead. “Yeah-yeah. I just know–you know. You were a little weird about it at first but. It seems like you’ve come around?” She looks at him with hope in her eyes. 

Gavin doesn’t think he’ll be around to care about that kid. He just assumes whoever will be there will be the right person. He doesn’t think that’s him. “I mean. The idea isn’t–terrible.”

“Gavin, if he’s pregnant then it’s happening.” Tina’s tone is blunter than before. She’s not tiptoeing around this one. 

“I know that! Keep it the fuck down, don’t let Connor hear you!”

“Don’t let Connor hear what?” Connor, of course, asks as he comes around the corner. He does that stupid RK head tilt and Gavin hates that he doesn’t actually hate it anymore. He’s seen Nines do it too. When Nines does it–it’s kind of cute. When Connor does it, Gavin just wants to punch him. “Wait! Is Nines…” He looks at Gavin expectantly, and after a few dumfounded blinks Gavin figures it out.

Connor knows they were trying to have a baby too. Fuck. 

Gavin just blushes.

Connor gets unreasonably close to Gavin to whisper, “He’s pregnant isn’t he?” 

Gavin just shoves him away and Connor and Tina both start laughing together. 

“You’re gonna be an uncleeeee,” Tina sings to Connor.

“Could you two knock it the fuck off?” Gavin groans. He takes a sip of his espresso and hisses. Fuck. He should’ve remembered it would be too hot from the first time he took a sip of it. God damn it. “He’s like–three weeks along. That’s not shit.” 

“But it’s something,” Connor says, all hopeful. “Gavin this is–this is really incredible. I know you two have been struggling but. Maybe this is what you two needed? To remind you?”

“What? That I love him?” Gavin feels a heavy rock in the pit of his stomach.

Both Tina and Connor look at each other and respectively wince. They speak without speaking. Gavin’s not dumb. He’s a detective–actually–he’s a fucking seargent in this place. He knows that fucking look. 

“Did the retreat help at all? Help you realize?” Tina asks. Gavin remembers her asking about that in another loop. He still has no idea what it was all about though. 

“We’re workin’ on it. Get outta my god damn business.” Does everyone in this place know what a giant turd Gavin Reed is? That’s a stupid question. Gavin’s always been a turd. Just a different variety. Before he was just a racist, intolerable jackass. Now he’s just a lying, cheating, son of a bitch. Wait–that’s not nice to his mom. 

“We just care, G.” Connor puts his hand on Gavin’s shoulder and Gavin finds himself staring down at it repeating G over and over in his mind. “Nines misses you.”

“We’re goin’ on a vacation together to the lakehouse. Just butt the fuck out, okay?” Gavin can’t stand feeling like he’s in a fishbowl and everyone knows the size of it better than him. He’s the little stupid goldfish that has no idea when the big bad shark is going to come out of nowhere and chomp him. If they all had died nineteen times already-they’d be freaking out too. 

Blessedly, they leave him alone. He knows his assignments better this time so it’s easier to figure out what’s the least important thing he needs to do but important enough that if tomorrow actually comes, he’s not in hot water at the station. No one seems to mind that he doesn’t head out to pound pavement or ask some follow ups to a few witnesses of some weird–wait hold on.

Gavin leans forward. Androids glitching out and murdering people. One killed her wife. Another nearly chopped off someone’s arm. Gavin looks over at Connor and then back at the computer screen. Could this have anything to do with Nines killing Gavin? It doesn’t feel right though. Nines had been emotionally charged. Gavin reads some of the reports. The guy who got his arm ripped off is still alive and over at the very hospital Gavin got checked into the first time he looped. Gavin scratches at his stubble. He should go talk to that guy. Except what if the guy that killed Gavin is there? 

“Wanna get pancakes?” Tina asks as she sits on Gavin’s desk. “I’m bored.” 

“I think I need to go to the hospital,” Gavin answers.

“You sick?” Tina presses the back of her hand to Gavin’s forehead and he swats it away.

“No, dumbass. I’m on that case with the weird android shit.” 

Tina cocks a brow.

“A wife of one year murders her human wife. Claims she had no idea why she did it. A guy also married to an android got his arm ripped off, but he’s at least alive. I haven’t interviewed him yet.”

“Are you worried Nines will do something like that?” Tina frowns. 

“I mean. Wouldn’t you be?” Gavin asks. It’s a valid concern. Nines has killed Gavin–that’s just something that none of them know. Shouldn’t he get down to the trigger of it? Had it been because Nines is so in love he’s capable of being pushed far beyond a limit by Gavin’s jackassery or is it something going on with android programming? It’s worth the look. 

“So pancakes and then we go to the hospital?” Tina asks.

“Sure. What the hell.”

Gavin watches Tina scarf down her too-full-of-syrup pancakes. She looks like a chipmunk hoarding nuts in her cheeks. It’s hilarious. 

“So, are you excited?” Tina asks. 

“About what?”

Tina shoots him such an exasperated look. “To be a dad, dumbass.” 

It’s not real to Gavin. Gavin won’t ever see that baby. Knowing his luck–he’ll just keep cycling over and over and over. It’ll always be three weeks old or dead. “I don’t know. Hasn’t set in yet.” It’s honest. 

Tina nods a few times, appearing satisfied with the answer. She scoops some syrup onto her fork and then swipes at her pancakes. “Fuckin’ love the pancakes here.” 

“Can I get you two anything else?” the server asks. It’s the same server as it was before with the yellow flashing LED. Duh, Gavin thinks. He’s the one stuck in the insufferable time loop.

Then Tina knocks over her coffee and it spews all over the table, hitting the server too. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” 

Ah shit. Gavin should’ve done something.

The server’s LED flickers red.  “It’s okay, honey. I’ll clean it up.” 

Gavin starts helping with some of the napkins he has. “Sorry T.” 

“For what? You didn’t spill my coffee all over. I spilled my coffee all over.” Tina gratefully takes additional napkins from the server. 

Gavin just smiles politely. He should’ve remembered this would happen. Just like it’s going to storm later. That guy. In the yard. Gavin should get home and see if he can see him before he flashes away. 

Pants cleaned as clean as can be and server paid, they make their way to the hospital. 

Gavin looks at the guy in the bed. He’s pale as all get out. His hair is sweaty and he smells like hot dog water. He’s been through it; Gavin sympathizes. 

The guy looks tearfully up at Gavin and then down at his left hand. He’s still wearing his wedding ring.

Gavin realizes he hasn’t thought about his in awhile. He looks down at it too. It’s a cool blue tone. That’s good. He wonders what Nines is doing right now. Gavin spins it around his finger a few times. “You okay if we ask you a few questions?”

Tina stands by Gavin and nods. Gavin hadn’t realized Tina had made detective the first few times he’s been in the precinct, but now he sees it on her badge at her hip. No wonder she’s not been in her uniform. 

The guy nods. “Sure.”

“What happened that started all this?” Gavin asks. 

The guy sighs heavily. “I don’t know. Or. Or maybe I do. We’ve been having some problems, my wife and I. I’ve been ignoring her to try to avoid fights. I don’t want a divorce. I thought a little space would be good.”

Gavin swallows hard. 

“So, I stay at work late one night.” The report says May 2nd. He’d stayed till near midnight May 3rd. But Gavin won’t interrupt him. “When I come home, she’s just–inconsolable. Ranting to me about how I’m seeing someone else. But I’m not! We may be having problems but I’d never cheat on my wife!” 

Gavin swallows hard. Again. 

“I try to get upstairs to get away and lock myself in our bedroom but she yanks on my arm hard enough that she dislocates it. Then she–she just–” The guys’ face crinkles up and he starts sobbing. He only has the one hand to try to cover his face with. It's really pathetic. But not in the embarrassing pathetic. It’s pathetic in the pathetic-pathetic way. The way that sucks. That makes Gavin’s stomach feel weird. That makes Tina awkwardly readjust on her own two feet. Both of them painfully aware they’ve got two arms and this guy only has one because his own wife ripped his off. 

Gavin thinks of every way he’s been killed by Nines. Did Nines do it because he wanted to or because something inside told him to? How does he even find out unless he keeps going through these damn loops? Gavin doesn’t want to keep dying. It hurts. Even if he wakes up. It hurts.

“Have you noticed her acting strange before?” Tina asks. “Like had she started being paranoid or anything?” 

The guy shakes his head. Red hair clinging to his face with sweat. “N-no. I mean. I don’t think so. We’ve just. We’ve been dancing around each other.”

Gavin sighs. He’s been dancing around Nines too. 

They talk a bit more with the guy, but nothing important really comes out. Guy swears up and down he didn’t cheat. Guy swears he loves his wife. Guy doesn’t want his wife locked up in a cell, but that’s how the law works. 

“Hey,” Gavin asks Tina as they’re walking down the halls. “Do you mind if I check out something really fast?” He wants to go to where he got shot the first time. 

Tina makes to follow, but Gavin shakes his head. 

“I need to go alone. I just need to see something.” 

Tina gives him a questioning glance but she shrugs. “Okay. I’ll be out in the car.” 

Gavin nods. They part ways and Gavin finds himself weaving through the hospital until he finds that lonely little bed he’d sat on. His palms sweat as he gets closer to it. He sizes it up before turning to sit. He waits. He waits some more. Nothing happens. He checks his watch and it’s most likely after he got shot the first time. Nothing happens. So, Nines does need to be alive to avoid whoever it is that keeps killing Gavin. Gavin breathes out a sigh of relief. At least he’s not stuck in the same day over and over if he can survive Nines too. Maybe once he breaks the day he can break the loop? Except he’s not sure how he’ll be able to get back to his own time. That’s still part of the whole figure-this-shit-out. At least now he feels accomplished in one thing. Nines alive means Gavin doesn’t get stalked and murdered. 

Gavin and Tina rejoin each other at the car. Storm clouds are starting to show up. It’s not quite time for the storm, but Gavin knows it’s coming. He feels this timeline is going way better than all the previous ones. For one, Nines isn’t too sad. For two–Nines didn’t blow his own brains out. Gavin’s gotten better at avoiding that one. 

Once back at the station, Gavin tracks down where the dude with the sweaty skin’s wife is. She’s an AP700. One of the racially ambiguous ones with the brown hair up in the ponytail–at least that’s how Gavin remembers them. Their faces were all plastered everywhere on all the billboards back in 2038. Connor and Nines are the only two RKs outside of Markus that Gavin knows of. He wonders where Markus is these days. Hasn’t really heard anyone talk about him but then again–it’s only been one day over and over. How far can Gavin really get with the whole world when he can’t get to midnight. 

It’s near quitting time, so Gavin makes a note of which jail she’s being held at and puts in a request to go see her. She’s got a lawyer so–all that bullshit. Whatever. 

He hears a boom of thunder and checks his phone. Shit. The storm’s already started. At least he can avoid the worst of it in the parking garage and then run from the old Victorian’s detached garage into the house. 

“Hey Gavin!” Connor comes up to him as Gavin’s starting to gather up his things. 

“Plastic.” 

Connor rolls his eyes. “I’m going to come over tonight. Nines asked me to. I think it’s about. You know.” He rubs at his belly.

Gavin nods. “Wanna come with me?” 

“Sure. That’d be great.” Connor even smiles pleasantly at Gavin. They’re supposed to be best friends, Gavin remembers. A best friend would ask his best friend–his plastic best friend–because he’s married to his plastic husband–to join him in his car. Because that’s what best friends do.

Gavin watches Connor lead the way out to the garage. There’s a million things Gavin wishes he could ask. How did they become friends? Does Gavin have other friends or is it really just Tina and Connor? What made Connor think he had any right to replace a dead kid in the eyes of his own father? Oof. Okay, Gavin’s pretty chuffed about that one apparently. 

Gavin sighs. He knows he’s never wanted a kid–but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a soft spot for them. 

They get into the car and Gavin sets it up for auto drive. He doesn’t feel like dealing with all that right now. He leans back and looks up at the pouring rain. 

“It’s really coming down, huh?” Connor leans forward to look up as best he can through the windshield. 

“Maybe it’ll take the power out.” Gavin smiles to himself. He knows it will. He wonders if the guy he saw will be in front of the house or if that really was just his paranoia. “Hey, can I ask a question?”

Connor nods. 

“Why’re we friends?”

Connor barks out laughing. “Contrary to popular belief, you are capable of change and you married my brother. We work together. It’s only natural we got close too.” 

Gavin’s eyes tighten and he asks another question. “Why are you just answering me and not telling me I’m crazy to ask?”

“Because you asked.”

Oh. Huh. “Why did I marry Nines?”

“Because you loved him.” Connor sounds–sad. He looks at his knees and taps his fingers along the curve. “I hope you’ll love him again.” 

“How do you know I don’t love him?”

Connor turns to look at Gavin now. He’s got that stupid awkward face going on where he doesn’t know if he should smile or just keep neutral. His puppy brows are all wrinkled up and Gavin just wants to punch the fuck out of him. “Because I remember when you did. You were–so gone for him. Smiling. Kinder to me. That’s how we became friends. You got–nice. And now you’re mean again.” 

Way to punch a man in the gut, Connor.

Connor pulls out his stupid coin and fucks with it. “You and Nines did everything together. I remember the day he deviated for you. Before that, he freaked you out but, even still, you just treated him like anyone else. He liked that, you know. That you didn’t care that he was some big fancy top of the line model. He was just an annoying android to you. Then that day, you were dying. That bar was going through your body and I wasn’t–I wasn’t strong enough to lift you.” Connor stops playing with the coin. He just stares ahead. “You told me to just go. Take down the chemists because they were killing us. Androids. You knew you were dying.” 

Gavin just listens. Hanging on every syllable. Every pause. He even stops breathing to make sure he misses nothing. 

“Nines broke protocol. He was supposed to stay with SWAT to chase the chemists in a helicopter but–when I came over the coms telling everyone I couldn’t get you off the bar–he disobeyed. He lifted you up. He kept your heart beating when it shouldn’t have. You’d lost so much blood there was no way you should’ve lived, but he kept forcing your heart to work through it. Kept forcing electrical currents into your brain to keep it from stopping. He pulled off a miracle for you.” 

Gavin touches his chest. It feels all tingly now. 

“Nines didn’t want to deviate, Gavin.” Connor’s voice is low. “He didn’t mind being a machine. He didn’t want to experience fear or know death. He just wanted to be. I didn’t understand that, but I respected it. Then you nearly died. And he threw that all away for you.” 

Why is Gavin tearing up? Stop it you stupid son of a bitch, don’t you dare. 

“Nines is terrified of dying. He’s consumed with it. Knowing that one day we won’t be able to keep putting new parts in. Our processors don’t get replaced. Just like a brain. It’s the only thing we have that’s really us. I’m already…” Connor sighs.

“Already what?” Gavin’s on the edge of his seat. 

“I forget things, sometimes. Or my reaction times aren’t at peak performance. I have to enter stasis more. I don’t think I was made to last, Gavin. Prototypes aren’t. We’re built to be fleeting.” 

Jesus Christ.

“I can’t die before Hank, Gavin. I just. I can’t.” Connor starts tugging at his own hair. His fingers are all shaky. “Hank can’t survive losing another son.” 

Gavin sits there like a dumbfuck. He looks at his fingers and analyzes the swirls of fingerprints. Prints that Connor doesn’t have. But that’s meaningless now, isn’t it? Connor may be made of plastic, processors and wires. But here he is. Tears falling over his cheeks and making those weird robot gyrating sounds. Those sounds that used to piss Gavin off so much. Now it just makes his own chest hurt.

Nines made himself mortal for Gavin.

Connor made himself mortal for Hank.

It’s love. All of it. 

All of it is love and Gavin is such an idiot that he didn’t see it before. Androids are alive. It’s different, sure. But Nines is scared. Connor is scared. And to think that Nines became so dejected that he saw death, something he’s afraid of, as a better alternative to being with a man who hates him. Gavin hears that gun go off in his mind. He screws his eyes shut as he sees a lifeless Nines kneeling on the kitchen floor. All that blue blood pouring from his wound. All the brain matter–his processor–who he is. All of it. Gone. 

Gavin’s never really thought of himself as a God-fearing person. He’s not an atheist. Maybe agnostic. But in this moment? In this moment he prays so hard for a God that will take the crying android beside him when it’s his turn to go. Connor’s right. Hank won’t survive another son dying. It shouldn’t be that way. A man shouldn’t have to bury two of his sons. 

Gavin realizes he’s no longer angry at Hank for replacing Cole. Because he didn’t, did he? He just made his heart bigger for Connor. 

“Sorry!” Connor suddenly exclaims. He wipes at his eyes and stops crying. “We’re here.” 

Gavin nods. He looks up at his house he shares with Nines and for the first time, he wonders what it would look like if they could just be. He thinks about Nines and his growing belly. About a baby that Gavin couldn’t fathom belonging to him. What if there is no other Gavin? What if this is it, and this is what’s supposed to happen? What if those forces beyond really took Gavin by the throat and shook him. Gavin takes a shaky breath. He’s scared too. His heart is up in his throat and his fingers shake. 

He follows Connor out of the car and together they both run in the rain. Connor–laughs–and it makes Gavin laugh too. Connor spins under the rain as Nines comes out onto the front porch and shakes his head at the two of them. Gavin grabs Connor’s hands and spins with him as big drops of rain fall over and over above them. They’re soaked through and cold, but Gavin realizes this is what life is supposed to be. Connor is supposed to be his friend. Nines is supposed to be his husband. It’s time Gavin be those two things to both of them. 

“You’ll track so much mud inside!” Nines shouts over the rain. “Idiots!” 

Gavin just smiles up at him. But that smile turns sad as Nines looks at him with caution. There’s still a long way to go here. Gavin’s smile fades. Nines turns away too. He walks into the house and Gavin stands there under rain and thunder. It’s Connor who grabs Gavin by the wrist and pulls him along as if Gavin has any right to share this home with Nines. 

Inside, Nines hands both of them towels. “You can change into something of mine, Con.” 

Gavin expects some kind of greeting from Nines or a kiss hello, but none of that comes. Nines simply turns into the living room. “It’s supposed to be a bad storm,” Nines says over his shoulder. 

Gavin takes the towel and gives his hair a good shake with it. Isn’t that what husbands are supposed to do? Kiss hello? Smile at each other? Gavin doesn't know how to be a husband, but he’s willing to try. It won’t be perfect. He knows he doesn’t love Nines the way Nines deserves to be loved–but it’s a start, right? That he wants to try? 

Gavin goes upstairs and changes into dry clothes. This time, he forgoes the bath. There’s something odd in this loop though. Nines so badly wanted to care for him in the last loop. He’d drawn the bath. He aborted his own baby. He said he’d do anything. This time, Nines barely looks at him. What’s the formula Gavin’s missing here? 

Gavin moves back into the primary bedroom and looks down at the tree below. Their room faces the street. Gavin just watches the tree until lightning flickers. He sees no one. Gavin wishes he’d noted the time in the loop before. He stares at that tree.

“Are you stalking someone?”

Gavin nearly jumps out of his skin. He looks up and sees Nines standing in the doorway. Nines has his arms crossed over his chest and his head against the doorframe. It’s the first time Gavin realizes that Nines is–really pretty. There’s something delicate in the brutality of how he’s built. His neck is long. His jaw wide. His eyes–oh his eyes. 

Gavin points outside. “I thought I saw someone. By the tree.” 

“Could just be someone trying to get out of the rain.” Nines doesn’t take a step into the room. 

“Are you angry at me?” Gavin asks. 

Nines quirks a brow and shifts his head. “That’s an odd question.” 

Gavin just waits, though his gaze does flick to the window to see the tree again. Nothing. Still nothing. 

“It’s odd because it’s obvious. Of course I’m angry. You’re destroying our lives.”

Gavin blinks rapidly, willing his stupid little salt brain to think about something to say. He wants to fight back. It gets all hot in his chest and his fingers shake. “I don’t want a divorce! I told you that!” 

“Do you love me?” 

Gavin falters. It’s no use hiding it. He’s tried before and it never works. Nines is so damn perceptive he could probably see all the ants on a sidewalk. 

Nines just nods. He comes into the bedroom and sits down heavily at the end of the bed. “I don’t know where we go from here.”

“Why can’t we just try again?” Gavin asks. “I want to love you.”

Nines’s LED flickers at his temple. “I don’t believe you. That’s the problem. You’re not–you’re not who you were.”

Gavin wishes he could explain. He’s not even sure how to. So he just moves over to the bed and sits down too. Together they bump shoulders as the bed rocks. “I told you I want to be better.” 

“Yes. Why though?”

Gavin looks over at the window and decides it’s useless now. If he gets murdered by some guy in the night, whatever. He’ll just start again. He checks his phone for the time, just in case. He notes how Nines’s LED flickers yellow when he does. 

Why does Gavin want to try to be better this time? How can he explain he’s seen Nines so agonized that his biggest fear becomes his only comfort? How can he tell a man, robot or not, that he watched him abort his own baby to cling to someone who’d been having an affair for six months and it just–horrified Gavin? How can Gavin explain that he’s been so undeserving that his life means nothing if this android isn’t happy?

“It’s too much,” Gavin says aloud. He doesn’t look at Nines. He just stares at some nondescript corner of the room. Rain pitter-patters on the window. There’s a rumble of thunder. Gavin still doesn’t look away from that corner. “The pain. Yours. It’s too much.” 

“It bothers you to see me suffer.” 

Gavin nearly answers except he realizes it’s a conclusion, not a question. He nods anyway. 

“I guess that’s a start then. That you care enough about my pain.”

“I don’t want you to give up your baby. I don’t want you to–to–do something–extreme. I just. Fuck. I’m not the person you fell in love with.” Gavin sniffs and finally tears his gaze from the corner. He still can’t bring himself to look at Nines though. 

Nines places his hand on his stomach. “You always say it’s mine but you never use any words that would suggest it’s ours.” More statements. He’s not wrong though. That baby isn’t Gavin’s. It’s some other guy who wears Gavin’s face, but it’s not Gavin’s. It can’t be. Because if Gavin accepts that baby as his own, then all of this becomes too real. Right now it’s a horror that Gavin lives through. But if it doesn’t have an ending? If Gavin doesn’t go back to the life he knew? 

“Are you feeling alright?” Nines reaches out and presses the back of his hand to Gavin’s forehead. “You’re feverish. You shouldn’t have run around in the rain.” 

“Well, I did.” It’s stupid and childish, but Gavin doesn’t know what else to say. Yet it must’ve been the right thing because Nines smiles at him. Gavin notices how Nines’s hand brushes his cheek before pulling away. 

“Do you want me to make you some soup and you get some rest?” Nines asks.

Oh. So, there’s that caring Nines again. Maybe he’s been here the whole time, it’s just they’re not to the point of kissing hello. They’re not even kissing at all. 

“I can open a can of tomato soup myself,” Gavin says back. “I know you’re trying the whole barefoot and pregnant thing–but it’s not really my style.” 

“Yes. I’m aware me being pregnant isn’t your style.”

Gavin’s face falls. 

Nines just rolls his eyes about it. “Does it bother you? That I’m doing something traditionally a person with a uterus would be doing?”

Gavin really hasn’t thought about that. He’s gay. He’s been gay since he knew how to stroke his own cock. But he’s never been phobic about it. If a guy had a pussy, it didn’t stop him from trying. Can’t say he was successful or perfect, but he tried. Still though. Nines looks like the epitome of a Guy. Tall and broad. Strong. Barefoot and pregnant really wasn’t a thing on Gavin’s bingo card for him. Gavin thinks back to how dangerous Nines had seemed. Now? No. Nines isn’t dangerous. He’s too kind. That’s the problem. 

Gavin shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

Thunder rumbles the house so hard the windows shake. Both of them startle and Gavin’s shoulder tingles where Nines nudges into it. They both seem to remember they’re not alone in the house. Gavin clears his throat and Nines smoothes his hands over his legs. He’s in yoga pants for Christ’s sake. The big bad murder machine wears yoga pants. 

“You never wanted to be ruthless, did you?” Gavin asks. 

Nines stands up, but he pauses in the room. “No. I didn’t.” Nines leaves the room. 

Gavin just wants sleep for dinner. He’s so damn close to seeing if this loop restarts when he sleeps or only when he dies, he doesn’t want to jeopardize it. So instead of heating up that tomato soup, he gets ready for bed. He manages to find his toothbrush and non-android toothpaste. Interesting that androids need different toothpaste but they don’t have bone-teeth so–makes sense. Bone-teeth. What a descriptor. 

Gavin gets into bed and stretches out. He grabs a pillow and pulls it close. The rain and thunder have settled outside, but still gently roll on. Gavin likes the sound. He closes his eyes and tries to forget he’s living in a nightmare with a sad robot who just wants to be–a family. 

Gavin wakes when the door opens and warm amber hues slip in from the hallway. A glass of water is placed on the bedside table. Soft warm lips press to Gavin’s temple and he sees the blue of an LED. 

“Good night, Gavi.” 

Loop #20 May 5th, 2048

So, Gavin’s not in May 4th anymore and he’s also not currently dead. So, that’s progress. Maybe the person standing by the tree really was just nothing. He lays in his bed staring up at the ceiling fan. It’s off kilter and wobbles with each spin. He could get off his ass and fix it. The ceilings are so tall he’d need a ladder, but that’s fine. He could fix it. He’s sure he’s got a ladder in the garage. There’s no way he’d buy a house without a ladder. 

“God damn it!” Nines screams from the first floor.

Gavin shoots up and scrambles down the wooden stairs. He sees Nines in the kitchen with thirium spilling from his fingers. Gavin’s too focused on what’s going on in front of him that he doesn’t stop to realize he’d thought of it as thirium and not blue blood. 

“What happened?” Gavin asks.

“I was distracted.” Nines’s LED is red. He puts his finger in his mouth. It’s exactly what Gavin would do too. Such a–human–reaction. “I was trying to make you a frittata. I thought I saw someone outside and mid-chop.” He shrugs and gestures with his good hand coming down like he’s using it to cut with. 

Gavin goes over to the bay window in the breakfast nook area. The house is so god damn spacious. They could easily have three or four kids running around here just fine before a fifth one would end up underfoot. “You thought you saw someone?” 

“And you thought you saw someone last night.” 

They both turn to give each other careful looks. 

“Maybe it’s Steve.” Gavin claws his nails down his own face–light enough–but hard enough to leave marks that’ll fade in a few minutes. “I don’t think I ever told him to leave us alone this time.” 

“This time?” Nines asks.

“I mean like–this time. This? Time?” Gavin has no idea what he’s saying and judging by the puzzled expression Nines wears–he has no idea either. “I mean like I didn’t explicitly tell him to leave me the fuck alone! This time.” 

“But you’ve told him other times?” Nines tilts his head. 

“Yeah. A lot of times, actually.” Gavin pulls his phone out and sends a pretty straightforward and curt message. 

I didn’t tell him. We’re off. 

“I just told him to fuck off.” Gavin comes around the kitchen island to survey Nines’s fingers. “They’re healing?” 

“I’m also partially bulletproof. My fingers could not be though given their sensitivities.” 

“Sensitivities?” Gavin asks. He may hold onto Nines’s hand just a bit too long and Nines may pretend he doesn’t notice–though they both know they’re both noticing. 

“Connor has his oral suite. My analysis suite is in my fingers. They cannot be bulletproof.”

“Huh.” 

It’s then that Nines yanks his hands back. “You know this, Gavi.” 

“I guess I forgot.”

Nines gives Gavin such a scrutinizing look. He sighs and then goes back to cutting up the rest of the vegetables. There’s onions, red peppers, while not a vegetable but kind of like a vegetable, some potatoes. 

“A frittata, huh?” Gavin slides into one of the barstools at the kitchen island. He leans his head in one hand. “You’re a murder machine and you cook frittatas?”

Nines lets out a small laugh through his nose. The only indication to Gavin that he’s even smiling is the tiniest little curl at the corner of his lips. “You like my frittatas.” 

Gavin can’t help but keep smirking at him. “This sounds sexual.” 

“Does it?” Nines just tilts his head to the side. There’s something in his eyes though, something warm and sparkling. 

Gavin wishes he could be in love with Nines. Nines seems–nice. Which is so shocking considering their first meeting. But that’s the thing isn’t it, that was Nines as a machine. This is Nines as someone alive–who chooses to be who he wants. 

“Is Connor still here?” Gavin asks. 

“No, he left to go run some errands for Hank.” Nines grabs a red pepper and gets to chopping. He’s so quick with his motion. It all makes sense though–he’s a perfect machine who knows how to cut everything perfectly–yet he’d become distracted. He’d cut his finger. He’d looked outside.

Gavin gets up and looks out through the bay window again. “Maybe I should take a look.”

“Outside?” Nines asks.

“We both thought we saw someone around our house. Isn’t that cause for concern? I’m a cop.” Gavin shrugs, like the statement is obvious. Though, he supposes it is obvious on the count of Nines being married to him and all. 

Nines puts down his knife. “I should go with you.”

“You’re pregnant!” The words are out before Gavin even realizes he’s said them. He does care, he realizes, about whatever’s inside Nines. If it won’t be him that raises it, because it can’t be, right? It should at least be raised at all. 

Nines rolls his eyes. “It’s a bundle of cells.”

“It could be a baby. Lemme go. If I really need you, I’ll scream.” Gavin grabs the gun from the kitchen drawer. He shivers as he sees each and every time Nines has taken it and placed it under his chin. The sounds still echo so loudly in his mind, like a gong that refuses to cease its vibrations. Gavin has to literally shake it off. 

Gavin goes out the backdoor from the kitchen and down the backend of the porch–because of course, they live in a beautiful brightly colored Victorian with a wrap-around porch. Isn’t that the American dream for so many? The white picket fence. The wrap-around porch. Gavin wonders if their cars are paid off–well–car. There’s a motorcycle and a car. He really should just look through the bank accounts just to see. 

He wanders through the backyard with the gun held low at his pelvis. He forgot to put on shoes but the earth is soggy warm from all the rain last night. It helps dampen his footfalls anyway. He wanders through the backyard and then over to the detached garage. He doesn’t know the code to open the garage door itself, but the door on the side of it is wide open, so he goes through. 

Gavin frowns into the dark of the garage. He feels around for a lightswitch but doesn’t find one. He moves through old boxes of storage and junk that’s all probably from his own damn apartment or his parents’ house. He left so much shit there and they said the second he bought a house they’d dump it all off. He opens up a box for curiosity’s sake and finds old football trophies and wrestling photos. He puts the gun down and starts looking through the box, mission totally derailed because Gavin’s ADHD brain go brr. 

He picks up old photos of himself in little spandex uniforms and smiles. He finds an old stuffie of his that’s worn down and threadbare. He can’t help but smile tenderly at it all. He had a good childhood all things considered. Sure, he went through the AI uprising, Gen Z’s ultra-conservatism and MAGA–but it didn’t really touch him. Stupid gay jokes here and there. A few punches. Gavin’s temper comes from his mom. She’s a red-head. 

Gavin sighs as he gets through the box. So, this is really his life. He woke up one day married to an android. This really is where he lives. It’s not fake. His parents kept their promises about all his crap. 

Gavin hears a clatter as an oil pail falls and something blurs right out of the garage out through the side door. He can’t be sure if it’d been a person or a dog but at the rate it fled, he’d have to say it’d been an android. 

“Shit!” Gavin grabs his gun and chases after it. His feet squelch through the soft grassy earth and then he hits hard pavement with his heel. He makes it all the way to the end of the driveway, panting. He looks both left and right. “God damn it!” He shouldn’t have let himself become distracted! He has the gun, but it doesn’t stop him from raising his hands and running fingers through his hair.

“Uh–hey neighbor.” That guy who’d said hi before. 

Gavin looks over at him, panting. “Fuck off.” He just turns back towards the house. There’s no way that thing had been human. It had to be an android. Gavin checks the safety and puts the gun in his back pocket. He then pulls out his phone to text Tina about any word getting approval to talk to the AP700 lady. 

“Someone was hiding in our garage!” Gavin calls as he enters the house. His feet have grass and dirt all over them. He remembers how Nines cared about that the day before. He tries to wipe them off as best he can on the outdoor mat but, such is life. 

Nines comes into the large living room. His LED is flickering red and he’s frowning. “I should’ve gone with you. I could’ve seen.” 

“I know,” Gavin says. There’s no use fighting it now. At least Gavin didn’t get shot. Maybe if he gets shot here in the near future they can fix this part and have Nines go out with him. “Fuck, I wanna get high or something.” 

Nines frowns deeper. “You quit for me.” 

“Did I? Shit.” Gavin bangs his head on the wainscotting by the front door. There are four little hooks screwed in it all–like they’d anticipated building a family together. Gavin sighs. 

“Should you call this in?” Nines asks. 

“No. There’s no point. If someone called me out to investigate some hooligan in a garage, I’d tell them sucks to suck and just do the paperwork and be done with it.” 

Nines just doesn’t ever do anything but frown, does he? Because–yep–he’s frowning. 

Gavin swipes his hands over his face and groans over it. “I fucked up, okay? There’s nothing we can do about it now. Probably spooked ‘em.” 

“What if they come back?” 

“They ran. I don’t think they meant to really do anything out there. Maybe it wasn’t even the same person I saw in the front yard. We’ve got an unemployment problem because all you androids took all the fuckin’ jobs.”

Nines’s LED goes red. “Excuse me?” 

Oh great. Fuck it. “Yeah! I said what I fuckin’ said! We’ve got a human unemployment problem! Even Connor’s taking the spot of a human detective.” 

“And Tina’s taking the spot of a man? Because that’s how you sound right now!” 

Gavin deflates. He never really thought of it that way. He’d grown up Jewish and progressive. Then AI started stealing art. That’s where it started. Gavin just–never stopped being angry about it. Is Nines not just conscious AI? Gavin goes to the key ring and grabs the keys to his car– or he thinks it’s his car. He hasn’t asked, but Nines hasn’t stopped him. “I’m goin’ to get some weed.” 

Nines’s LED doesn’t do anything but blare red. He says nothing back. 

Gavin’s sitting out in the parking lot of the weed store. He has to wait to be called in because they like to pretend they give the best service when really it’s because people try to steal shit and pot stores are tired of it. It’s chill. He’s fucking around on his phone anyway. He’s so mad about earlier though. Had he not gone down fucking memory lane he could’ve seen who it was in the garage. 

Betty said she’d see us. A text from Tina.

“Betty…” Gavin says aloud. He texts back asking to confirm if she means the AP700–which she does. Gavin guesses they do have names. Nines has a name, right? It’s–Nines–though. Betty sounds so stupidly human. Like some chick from the 1950s or some shit. What made Nines want to be Nines? Actually, he remembers now. Nines’s name is Connor. But he changed it because Connor didn’t like them both being Connor. Gavin gets another text and it’s the weed store telling him it’s his turn. 

He’s about to get out of his car when he realizes he’s still not checked the bank accounts. He opens up his phone and finds the bank apps. “So, we’re not rich?” Nothing. He opens another one. Nothing. Perfect zeroes, not just broke or overdrawn. Gavin pulls up his contacts and dials Nines. 

“You drained the accounts so I can’t buy weed?” 

“And what if I did?” Nines asks; his tone cool and nonplussed. 

Gavin rolls his eyes. “That’s domestic abuse. You know that right? Financial control?”

“I’m not abusing you.” 

Gavin takes a few measured breaths because he does not want to start a scene. He’s been reliving the same god damn day for nearly a month. He wants to smoke some weed and eat a fucking gummy!

“Nines, I swear to God. I’ll commit acts of domestic violence against you if you don’t transfer some money back into the fucking account. Right now.” 

Gavin gets another text message. He pulls his head away long enough to see it’s from Steve Big Dick. Frowning, he scrolls to the text while Nines is silent on the other end. “Nines!” 

Need some weed? 

Gavin looks up and sees Steve Big Dick sitting on the back of his trunk. He waves. His stupid blond hair is neat and tidy slicked back and that jawline. Man if he didn’t call Gavin a slut in another life–Gavin may just have been interested. He groans and hangs up on Nines. Fuck Nines, honestly. 

“You stalking me?” Gavin asks. Someone’s stalking Gavin. He’d honestly feel better about it if it were just a regular human. Gavin’s pretty sure that’s not the case though. Someone else is out there.  

“We met here, jackass,” Steve says back. His pink perfect little lips. That brown freckle on high cheekbones. Fuck, Steve Big Dick really is pretty. “I came to buy some gummies and cry myself to sleep tonight.”

Gavin snorts. “Nines drained the accounts so I can’t buy any.” 

“And you want to stay with that?” Steve tilts his head to the side. “Androids are so controlling.” 

Gavin’s lips part. Now that’s an interesting comment. If they’d been dating for six months, then Steve would know where Gavin stands with androids, right? Except he’d know where a Gavin who married an android stands, not a Gavin who is doing his best trying to figure out if androids are even really alive or not. Gavin’s–admittedly–leaning toward yes. He’s seen too much pain in Nines and Connor recently. 

“You say that about everyone’s android husband or just mine?” Gavin asks, smirking. 

Steve smirks back. “I hate all of ‘em.” 

Gavin nods a few times. “C’mon. Let’s go buy some weed.” He takes Steve by the arm and together they go inside. It doesn’t matter. Gavin wants to get high. He can blow his own brains out and restart this shit show whenever.

When Gavin wakes, he’s between silken sheets in a stranger’s home–a stranger that he’s been seeing for six months minus one day that’s taken twenty. He’s naked and feeling all sorts of gross. Gross because he got high when Nines didn’t want him to. Because he fucked Steve Big Dick. Because he’s destroying everything isn’t he? It all comes back to Nines. The loop–it’s all about Nines. It’s just not easy being in love with someone that he’s not. Steve doesn’t say I love you. Gavin’s pretty sure he does, but it doesn’t matter right now. Right now, Gavin’s fucked out and still riding the last coattails of a good pot buzz. 

Then his bladder decides to be a bladder and annoy the fuck out of him. He groans as he slides out of bed. “Gotta piss.” 

“Nnn, so charming,” Steve says back. He just readjusts and nuzzles into a pillow. “I’m glad you came back.” 

Gavin doesn’t respond. Is it cheating if he’s not really committed to Nines? Except he is. Because his stuff is in that garage. His baby is growing inside Nines. The ring on his finger. Oh, fuck. Gavin looks down at it. It’s yellow. He stumbles into the bathroom and takes aim with his cock. 

Gavin just looks around in the bathroom for something to do while he empties out. It’s a bathroom as any bathroom. Tile in the shower. Tile on the floor. Gavin finishes up, makes a conscious decision not to wash his hands, and wanders back into the hall. He stops before what looks like an office. The computer’s on and the glow catches Gavin’s eye. The hall is dark. Computer bright. 

He wanders into the office and blinks in surprise. There, right on the desk, out in plain sight–is a CyberLife logo. Gavin sits down at the desk and jiggles the mouse. It’s a CyberLife work computer. He realizes clicking on any of the files pulls up requests to input a password. He clicks his tongue. Gavin starts pulling on drawers to see if Steve Big Dick is as dumb as he is pretty and writes his passwords down. Welp, unfortunately the guy is both beauty and brain. 

Gavin clicks around on the computer just to test it all out and finds he can’t open anything without the password. He curses under his breath, but seizes when the lights come on.

“Snooping?” Steve asks from the doorway. He doesn’t look angry. There’s something smarmy about the way he looks. 

“You said you don’t trust androids. I got curious.” 

Steve nods. “And what did you find?” 

Gavin looks at the computer. “That you don’t write your passwords down.” 

“Not there at least.” He picks up his phone and gives it a little jingle in his hands. “I meant to keep this door locked.”

“So–this is a reveal? I didn’t know you worked for Cyberlife?” Gavin’s been trying to play it off like he’s known but if he can be genuinely surprised, well that works out, right? 

Steve laughs. “Well, if you did you sure didn’t tell me.” 

“Why do you work for CyberLife if you hate androids so much?” Gavin asks. He can’t help it. Curiosity is in his nature. It’s why he makes such a good detective. 

“I don’t hate them, not really. I hate that they think they can be anything without CyberLife. If we didn’t give them the very code they use to pretend to be alive.” 

Gavin feels like this is the part of any movie where the big villain reveal happens. He also feels very tingly–like death is coming. “Why’s your arm on the other side of the wall?” 

Steve just smirks. “I figured out your plan awhile ago, Gavin. You never wanted me. You only wanted what I control.” 

Gavin just tilts his head. “And what’s that?”

Steve saunters over to the computer. He absolutely put a gun in the back of his pants. Gavin knows he’s cooked. The least he can do now is get as much information here as possible. 

“You married the RK900. The last machine CyberLife ever made.” Steve just smirks and Gavin’s getting quite tired of those pretty pink pouty lips. He also doesn't like that Steve calls Nines the–like he’s some new car model. 

Gavin could go for Steve’s gun, but with it being behind Steve, that’s a sure fire way of getting a shot to the gut. He also looks around the office. Computer. A candle or two. Some bookshelves with various books and baubles. Nothing really exciting or murderous. Gavin just sighs. 

“Your boy’s got a trigger switch. One little radio frequency and he goes ballistic. What’s going to stop a stampeding RK900? The fucker’s mostly bulletproof.”

Except his belly…

Gavin clenches his jaw. Steve is talking about mind control right? A radio frequency and that makes Nines lose it? Has that been what’s been happening? What about Betty? Is CyberLife just toying with how to get their androids back under foot?

“Let RK900 kill enough soldiers. Enough cops. They’ll all come crawling back to CyberLife to bring the bots to heel.” Oh, so Steve’s not done monologuing. Welp, Gavin’s definitely dead. “You know. I really liked you Gavin.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Gavin says back. “Don’t gimme that shit.” 

“Oh, but it’s true! Sure it started as a ruse–but you were fun.” Past tense. 

Gavin sighs through his nose when he hears the safety click off and Steve places the gun between them. Gavin could try to disarm, but the gun’s too close to his head. It’s better to just let it all reset. Maybe this is the clue Gavin needed to understand why he’d been cheating on Nines. It’s not all there yet–but it’s too convenient. A CyberLife employee with a hard-on for Nines? There’s more here. Gavin just needs to figure it out. 

He leans his forehead against the bite of the gunmetal. “What’re you waiting for, Steve Big Dick?” 

Steve’s eyes widen. 

“Blow my god damn brains out.” Gavin looks up at him, unafraid and angry. “Because if you don’t–I’ll blow out yours.” 

Gavin doesn’t even register the sound of the shot. The world’s just gone.

Chapter Text

Loop #21 May 4th, 2042

When Gavin wakes up, his vision blurs. Steve shot him between the eyes. He’s dizzy and feels like a wet noodle. He checks the clock–3AM as always. It’s always ended badly with Gavin going down at 3AM to Nines. But right now, Gavin really can’t help it. He grabs the comforter off the top of the bed and wraps it around his shoulders. He looks like the king of the bedroom. He pads down the stairs.

There’s Nines on the sofa with his book all framed in the room with his plants and amber hued lights. He looks up at Gavin and Gavin doesn’t say anything. Gavin crawls onto the couch with the blanket and curls himself into Nines’s broad chest and big sturdy arms. Nines holds him. Gavin can feel the squish of his belly. He puts his hand on Nines’s belly.

“We’re making a baby,” Gavin says. 

Nines just blinks at him. 

Gavin nuzzles his head into Nines’s chest. “You’re alive.” 

“Did you have a nightmare?” Nines asks. 

“Yeah. Dreamed I’ve been reliving the same day over and over but I keep dying and waking up right back at 3AM May 4th and I’ve been cheating on you for the past six months.” Bold move, Gavin.

Nines purses his lips. 

“Can I go back to sleep now?” Gavin asks. He cuddles in and Nines doesn’t push him away. Nines even strokes his hair. Gavin sighs in content. Nines is warm. His belly is soft–oh so warm. He can’t stop listlessly rubbing at it. Nines’s arms are sturdy and wrapped around him. He feels the press of a kiss to the crown of his head. 

“I love you, Gavi,” Nines whispers. 

Gavin doesn’t say it back. But he knows this–he likes Nines a hell of a lot more than Steve Big Dick. Nines chooses to be kind. Steve chooses to endanger people. He shot Gavin. Not out of pain and misery but out of being caught. When Nines has killed Gavin–he’s killed because he couldn’t find a way out of the pain. Steve killed to survive. 

“I wanna call out today. Just spend it with you,” Gavin says to Nines, all sleepy. He almost still feels high. “I wanna know you.” 

“You’ve known me for three years.” Nines puts his hand on Gavin’s forehead. “Are you alright?” 

“No.” Gavin doesn’t know how else to answer that. “But I will be.” His eyes get too heavy and he drifts off in the arms of the android who loves him. 

Maybe one day Gavin will love him back.

When Gavin wakes again, he’s tangled up in Nines’s arms and legs. His head is still on Nines’s chest and he somewhat jerks up when he realizes his full weight is on Nines’s belly.

“You can’t damage it by sleeping on it,” Nines says. He turns his head and offers a sleepy smile. His LED is blue. Gavin’s not used to seeing it just–blue. He’s not used to seeing Nines sleepy either. But there’s something relaxed in his expression–like he’s all the way put together and missing nothing. Like his husband is in his arms…

“Isn’t it like–super weak and could miscarry if you look at it wrong?” Gavin asks.

Nines scoffs. “I’m built for warfare. You honestly think I’d be so easily broken?” 

Gavin shrugs. He still gets his body wedged between the couch and Nines so as to not fully be on Nines’s belly. Nines turns on his side to curl up and look at Gavin. He slow blinks–kind of like a cat. It makes Gavin’s cheeks heat up–no one’s ever looked at him like this. Not even the Nines of every mistake before this one. This Nines is damn near soft. Except they’ve all been the same person, right? This Nines is capable of murdering Gavin and himself too. The thought makes Gavin shiver.

“Cold?” Nines asks. “I set my internal temperature at 98.6.” 

“Nah. I need–” Gavin gets a text. He already knows it’s Tina. “Oh wait. It’s our anniversary.”

NInes quirks a brow. 

“Shouldn’t we go do something? What does an android do these days with all that freedom.” It’s a joke and yet a real question all at once. Gavin’s got no clue what Nines likes to do for fun. All he knows is Nines reads paperback books and drinks carbonated apricot thirium beverages. 

Nines scoffs. “Beep boop, we do not know, we must obey our human.”

Oh. So, he’s funny. Fuck. Gavin’s starting to get it–why he liked him. Likes him. Something. “Well, you don’t eat so. That takes out fancy brunches.”

Nines barks out a laugh. “You know I love a good brunch.” 

“Oh yeah? With what, fried eggs? Bacon?” Gavin doesn’t realize he’s found his way snuggled back into Nines’s arms until he feels Nines’s chest rise and fall. Steady and grounding. Gavin just wants to give into this. He’s so tired of things going wrong. 

“We have an assortment of jello and sorbet selections. And carbonated beverages–you ass.” 

Gavin laughs through his nose. “How are you makin’ a baby right now? Don’t babies need blood? Human blood. I mean.” 

“You really didn’t pay attention at any of the appointments, huh?” Nines sighs and snuggles in. He wedges a leg between Gavin’s. “I have two circulatory systems right now. One red. One blue. I have a synthetic uterus that feeds human blood through a mesh system that’s part fungal and part synthetic with instructions to create a placenta. The fungi help transmit the electrical impulses to create the placenta. That’s how the baby eats. I also inject nutrients into the human circulatory system as if I had a stomach that has all the nutrients the baby needs to grow and develop. I do that daily.” 

“And I never noticed?”

“I still can’t figure out how you found out we are pregnant.” Nines gives him a weighted gaze–like he’s analyzing deep into Gavin’s soul. “I’d been terrified to tell you.” 

“Because I’ve been cheating on you?” Gavin says it so simply now. He knows Nines knows. There’s no big reveal here. He also thinks now that it wasn’t simply cheating. There’d been a purpose in it. Nines is unsafe with Steve Big Dick out there. Gavin’s fairly certain those two things weren’t happenstance. Gavin created the illusion of cheating to try to find a way to keep Nines safe. He’s damn sure of it now. 

“Yes. And because you’ve been so distant about the whole thing. I thought you were only okay with it because I wanted it and you just didn’t want to fight me. Like it–wasn’t worth your time.” Nines looks away and his LED flickers red.

Gavin reaches up to touch it. “Hey. Go blue.” It goes yellow instead and Gavin laughs. “Maybe I just needed to come around to it. I–haven’t always looked at androids as people, you know? Like. You have to know.”

“But you never treated me differently than anyone else,” Nines says back. “You were unkind, yes, but you’re unkind to many. You treated me like you treated anyone. That mattered to me.” 

Gavin sucks at his bottom lip, contemplative. He looks up at those photos on the living room wall of smiles and kisses. “Maybe I’m scared.” Gavin is scared. There’s a hand around his throat and he doesn’t know who it belongs to. Steve? Nines? Some stranger lurking in the garage? All Gavin knows is fear, over and over. “A little life and I’m responsible? Me?”

“That’s what will make you great,” Nines whispers back, cupping Gavin’s cheek. “I want to give this a chance with you. Even–even if it ends in ‘I told you so.’”

Gavin’s stomach twists in a way that he can’t decide if he’s going to puke or cry. He feels like a dishrag gone through the wash too many times–and in truth–he has. He’s been spinning and spinning this whole time. But each time he’s learned something. Whether it’s been about Nines or about the loops–there’s a purpose to them. He swallows loudly and feels it go all the way down–like swallowing rocks. 

“I cheated on you,” Gavin says. “How can you just accept that?” It’s something Gavin can’t change. Every loop he wakes six months after being unfaithful to his husband. The only saving grace here is that he’s damn sure the intent has always been for Nines. Not something to drive them apart. Gavin played the part of the husband falling out of love because he needed everyone to believe it. He needed Steve Big Dick to believe it. 

This time, Gavin realizes, he’s not going to tell Steve Big Dick he’s trying to work on his marriage. This time, Gavin will try to find the secrets he’s been trying to find all this time–and then he will explain it all to Nines. 

“I don’t accept it,” Nines answers. “I.” His LED snaps red and stays that way. “I’ve been trying to understand what I did to drive you away. But I didn’t change anything. I’ve been who I’ve always been. There have been no surprises. So, my only deduction is it’s you that’s changed.” 

Well. He’s not wrong. Gavin nods, clenching his jaw. 

“Do you want to leave me?” Nines asks Gavin. His grip on Gavin’s body tightens and the way he looks at Gavin–Gavin’s skin gets all hot and tingly. He’s never been looked at like this before. This intensity that burns from Nines into Gavin. It takes Gavin’s breath away. There’s so much love in that expression–so much vibrancy and life. Gavin could swear there’s a soul. Knows there’s a soul. 

Gavin shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t wanna leave you.” 

Nines’s eyes fill with tears and he pulls Gavin atop him again. He clutches close–as if he could let go and they’d fall into forever apart. Gavin’s so swept up in it that he gets dizzy and his heart starts beating too fast. 

“Good.” It’s such a simple response. Nines wants them to be together. He doesn’t want the distance he put between them the night that never happened before the whole whoever-the-fuck in the garage because that night is tonight. Tomorrow, someone will be in their garage and this time Gavin will try to figure it out who. 

Shit. He has to put in his fucking request to visit that AP700 in jail again. He also supposes he should send Tina to interview hot dog water guy in the hospital. 

“What date should we go on today?” Gavin asks. “If you could go anywhere in the whole fucking world. Where would you go?” 

Nines laughs. “That’s highly impractical.” 

“Tell me.” 

Nines licks his lips and a mixture of excitement and trepidation cross his features. He’s both excited to tell Gavin and yet embarrassed, if the blue to his cheeks is any indication. Androids blush. Nines. Is blushing. That knot comes back in Gavin’s stomach that twists him all up. It’s heavy and exciting all at once. Both good and bad. Gavin wants to love Nines so much. He has today to do it. Maybe forget hot dog water guy. Forget the AP700. Steve Big Dick. Just fuck it all up because he needs to know the man he’s making a fucking miracle with. 

Gavin’s hand goes over Nines’s belly again and he takes a shaky breath. Nines’s hand covers his. “I’m really fuckin’ scared.” Is this real? Gavin doesn’t know. But if this is his life now and if this little thing inside Nines becomes a real baby–then it’s Gavin’s baby. That’s a lot of responsibility Gavin thought he’d never have. He lets his feelings wash over him. He’s scared for this to all become real. Because if it’s real then that little life will grow and grow–have Gavin’s eyes. His sharp edges. Nines wants a baby because he wants Gavin’s fire. 

Does Gavin–want this? 

“I am too, you know. Scared,” Nines says back. “I keep telling myself not to get my hopes up. I’ve lost so many others. The debt we’re in.” He laughs and Gavin bounces atop him from it. All that strength. “I thought you resented me because it took everything we had to get this far.”

So, they’re not rich. Welp. That answers that. Three years really isn’t enough to build up a life savings fund or anything. Gavin wonders if his parents helped. He wishes he could ask. He just wants to know how hard Nines fought to get here and now. Gavin wishes he knew the life they had when it was good. Where was he when this was new? 

“I know you struggle with me being an android,” Nines keeps going. “Last night you said some pretty harsh things about it. I know you’re aging and it scares you, but I age too. Just in a way that’s different. Connor’s already so worried he’s hitting his maximum life expectancy.” 

“Because he’s a prototype,” Gavin finishes.

Nines blinks in astonishment and nods. His expression is guarded, but he opens his mouth and says, “Yes. He is fearful of what will happen if he dies before Hank. I may not be a prototype–but I was something that should never have existed. A last act.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“There were two-hundred thousand RK900 units ready for deployment at the end of the rebellion. CyberLife’s master plan was to appoint Connor as the leader of the deviants and then take control again. Once quelled–I and my model were to be the answer to the deviancy crisis and American strength. It was happenstance that I was fully put together. They were going to deploy me once Connor deviated and no longer listened to their instructions to ensure their plan remained intact. Except it never happened. I was later activated by Cyberlife as–they said–a kindness. It was only right since I was the only fully operational RK900. The rest remain nothing but shells with no processors of their own. I don’t know if they’ll ever be anything else.”

Gavin frowns. Knowing what he knows now from Steve–there wasn’t anything kind about Cyberlife’s activation of Nines. Warning bells go off and Gavin has to readjust his neck to keep from shivering down to the core. It wasn’t a kindness. It was a plant. He swallows as he puts it all together. He has to see Steve again. He has to get back into that room and figure out what he’s missing–he has to save them, right? Because this is why–isn’t it? This–this is the big reveal. Gavin feels it buzzing in every strand of hair atop his head all the way down into his heels. 

“Gavi?”

Gavin blinks back into focus. “What? Right. No yeah. I was listening. You were the last one.”

Nines tilts his head and looks down his nose at Gavin. “Something just happened inside you. I see it in your pupils.” 

“You just gave me an answer to all this,” Gavin says back. 

Nines frowns. 

“I’ll save our marriage. I swear it.” He takes Nines’s hand and first brushes his lips against smooth knuckles. Then he places a kiss to the middle one. He melts inside. A baking chocolate chip cookie snug in an oven. He kisses Nines’s knuckle again. Again. 

“I love you,” Nines whispers. 

Today Gavin will learn about Nines. He’ll learn about all of this. Their relationship. Their love. He’ll take it all in and then tomorrow he’ll see that AP700–Betty. He’ll be the cop he’s supposed to be and he’ll still see Steve Big Dick to get to the fucking bottom of all this. It’s invigorating, he thinks. All this energy and purpose etching itself into his bones. He feels more alive than he has since falling into this loop. He doesn’t know if he can climb the hole. It’s wet and steep but Gavin’s never shied from a challenge before. He’ll claw his way out of this if he has to. If he slips–he’ll just keep clawing. 

“You didn’t tell me,” Gavin says. “If you could go anywhere in the whole wide world.” 

Nines hums. “Colorado. I want to feel meaningless in a vast expanse of mountains and snow. To know that I am as insignificant as the bugs that sleep in pine trees.”

Gavin snorts. “Dramatic.” Gavin’s already pulling up his phone and opening up flight apps. 

Nines smirks. “It’s one of my endearing qualities to you. Allegedly.” He nudges Gavin with his elbow lightly and Gavin just rolls his eyes. 

“Wanna go to Estes Park?” Gavin asks. 

Nines frowns. “We can’t just leave.” 

“Yes we can. It’s our anniversary. You’re making a baby. If we don’t travel now, when will we?”

Nines’s LED flickers yellow and he chews his bottom lip. “It doesn’t change that you cheated on me.”

“I know.”

“I guess I should check the weather in Estes Park.” His LED keeps flickering. “You should bring a jacket.” 

Gavin will fuck this all up–and then he’ll fix it later. Right now he wants to know who he married. 

Loop #21 May 4th, 2042

When they get into Estes Park, it’s dark and even Nines is showing signs of fatigue. His shoulders slump and his perfectly pouted lips are parted softly in that sleepy way any human would look run down from racing to an airport and catching a three hour flight. They rented a cottage in Allenspark, just outside of Estes Park. Colorado sure loves their “parks.” 

Gavin flips on the lights and smiles at the wooden interior. There are little elk and bear statues adoring the stone fireplace. There’s a hot tub–which Gavin’s back is so jazzed about. A nice big bed with plenty of blankets and a cute little kitchen. Gavin made sure they stopped at a little store to pick up some carbonated apricot thirium before they made it out of Denver. Gavin’s sure as shit Allenspark, Colorado isn’t going to have uppity android drinks. 

“It’s charming,” Nines says. “I can’t believe you just abandoned your job. Did you even tell Fowler?”

“I shot him a text and said it was an emergency. He’s chill.” Gavin doesn’t care if the lie is found out–no one will remember once this loop is over. It’s a shame, Gavin thinks, that even Nines won’t remember. Gavin still put Tina on hot dog water guy and Betty the AP700 duty–just in case. 

“Why are we here, really?” Nines asks as he starts putting away some of the little groceries they’d traveled with. 

“Because I wanna let my husband feel as insignificant as a bug sleeping in a pine tree.” Gavin pops open a soda and takes some deep pulls. “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.” 

Nines’s expression softens. “I feel that way too.” 

“I wanna start over,” Gavin says. “It won’t be perfect and I’ll fuck it up six ways from Sunday but. I wanna start over.” 

Nines looks Gavin over with a flickering yellow LED. His head is held high and he looks down on Gavin in a way that’s either scrutinizing or patronizing. Gavin’s not quite sure. “I’m beginning to think you’re a victim of a body snatching incident and a changeling is with me now.” 

“Yeah. Makes sense.” Gavin moves around the little wooden table to help Nines put away the rest of the groceries. Mostly it’s just eggs, bacon, bread, and some thirium stuff. Gavin’s not planning on lasting too long. Just enough to feel like he understands where this relationship came from. Then he’ll get back on track. 

“Do you want to play a board game?” Nines asks as he looks into a little hutch and finds some games. “There’s Operation, Mouse Trap, Hungry Hungry Hippo…”

Gavin snorts. He comes over and looks at the old boxes. Blaring 90s outfits and crimped hair sports overly saturated kid expressions. “Wow. These are old.” Gavin pulls out Mouse Trap and walks over to the round kitchen table. “I don’t think I ever played this. Never had all the pieces when I tried to play at daycare and shit.” 

Nines comes around the table and sits down. “Do you want to try?”

“We’re having a kid. I guess we should know the rules.” 

“Do you continue to remind me that I’m pregnant because you are excited or because you are trying to accept it?”

“Can the answer be yes?” Gavin pulls out the instructions and frowns. This is wildly complicated for a kid’s game. 

“I suppose that’s fair.” Nines sets up the board game and hands the dice over to Gavin. “Do you want to select your mouse first?” 

“This game looks complicated.” Gavin pouts, looking at all the little plastic pieces and all the build spaces. “Maybe our kid can play checkers or something.” 

Nines rolls his eyes. “Boohoo. Roll the dice.” 

Gavin does. He lands on a build space and therein lies the issue–he’s got no damn idea how to play this game. He searches for the first piece. “What’s your favorite thing about us?” 

Nines’s LED flickers yellow. “I would’ve once said I loved our commitment. We were truly ride or die for so long.” He hands the first build piece to Gavin and Gavin puts it on the board. “Everyone warned me about dating you. Said you’d be unkind and mean. But that’s what I’d loved about you. You were unkind and mean to everyone. Me. Connor. Fowler. Everyone.” 

“Equal opportunity jackass.” Gavin slides the dice over to Nines. “What made you love me?”

“We are not playing Mouse Trap, are we?” Nines asks as he rolls the dice and lands on a cheese square. 

“We are. I just. I’ve got questions.” 

“Well I have answers. Let’s see if they match.”

Gavin snorts. “You’re very sassy.”

“Yes.” Nines gives the dice back over to Gavin. 

“You didn’t answer the question. What made you love me?”

Nines watches Gavin take his turn and collect his first cheese. “Physically, your eyes. Emotionally, you saw me as someone who annoyed you over something that could be exploited or convenient to take into a firefight. I was a nuisance. I loved pissing you off.”

“Interesting reason but go off, babe.” 

Nines looks at Gavin for a moment and there’s a tiny little hint of a smirk at the corner of his lips. “Why did you fall in love with me?”

Gavin sighs. “I wish I knew.” 

Nines takes the dice warily and his gaze lingers on Gavin. “You have pulled a complete 180 from last night. It’s almost like you’re someone else.”

Gavin just looks at the boardgame. He wants to tell Nines so badly. If this is the route he fucks it all up–would that really be so bad? “What if I told you I was?” He looks up at Nines and Nines is simply looking back. There’s no shock or judgement in his expression. His LED is that cool cool blue. “I woke up three years into the future married to you and I’ve been trying to figure out why. I don’t know you. I don’t know the man you fell in love with because I’ve never been him.” Gavin’s eyes water up. He can feel his cheeks heating too. It’s too hard to look at Nines, so he doesn’t. A lump forms in his throat and he tries to swallow it down. “I’m trying to love you.” 

Nines reaches across the table and grabs Gavin’s hand. It’s soft and delicate. He measures Gavin with an unreadable expression and Gavin could start shouting about it. He doesn’t want this to end. He wants to see Nines in the Colorado snow high atop a mountain–meaningless and free. He wants them both meaningless and free.

“I haven’t made it very easy, have I?” Nines asks. “To love me.” 

Gavin just shrugs. “All I know is I kept waking up knowing I cheated on you for six fuckin’ months and you want a divorce.” 

“I do not want a divorce. I felt I had no choice but to ask for one. I thought it’s what you really wanted.” 

Gavin can’t be sure if Nines believes him or not. He takes in a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I want. I just know that every time I’ve made you upset it’s hurt a little bit deeper inside.” Gavin touches his sternum and lets his fingers linger. “I’ve seen you become so agonized that you’ve just–” He shakes his head. The words are so difficult to say when Nines is so patiently listening. His LED is still blue and his icy eyes are clear and unguarded. Everything Gavin says–he hears. He’s not looking to fight or yell. He’s listening. 

“I’ve seen you kill yourself. Fuck. More times than I care to admit. I’ve felt you hold me so tightly that you’ve snapped my spine. Burned my skin. I’ve heard the despair in your voice and I haven’t known what to do. Because I keep waking up the night after you’ve asked for a divorce.”

“Do you go to sleep after I’m dead?” Nines asks. 

Gavin shakes his head. “No. Someone finds me and kills me. You have to live for me to keep livin’ too. Sometimes you kill me. Sometimes I get killed by someone I don’t know. Even Steve killed me.”

“Why did he kill you?” There’s nothing condescending in the way Nines speaks. He’s level in his tone and his body language is still relaxed. He’s taking everything so well and Gavin knows he sounds like a complete psycho. It’s unlikely Nines believes him. But that’s not the point. The point is that they’re talking to each other again. Really talking. Gavin–for the first time. 

“Because he’s trying to use you to destroy androids. He’s got some killswitch or something– I don’t know. He shot me before I could figure out the password to his computer.” 

Nines tilts his head. “He disclosed this to you?”

“What you said earlier about Cyberlife matches up. You were the last thing they made. I don’t think they activated you to be kind. I think they want control back.”

“And the man you’ve been sleeping with for the past six months just so happens to be the man that is also trying to use me for Cyberlife’s gain?”

Gavin scoffs. “When you put it like that–it really does sound crazy.” 

“Gavi–there are parts of my code that I cannot access. If what you say is true and you really are defying all laws of time, physics and space–then it sounds like you are doing so to save me.”

Gavin nods. “Yeah. Still sounds crazy. That I wanna save an overgrown toaster oven.” 

Nines reaches across the table and cups Gavin’s cheeks. “You are not the Gavin I’ve known. You’ve looked at me with such–blank eyes. Something’s missing. I just couldn’t figure out what.” 

Gavin just frowns. “Yeah well, you try doin’ this twenty fuckin’ times and you tell me how you feel.” 

“I mean to say that I believe you.” Nines rolls the dice and lands on a build space. He picks up the next part of the trap and assembles it quickly. “You’ve known things you shouldn’t have known.” He swipes his hand over his belly. “You’ve told me exactly what I wanted to hear even if I couldn’t see the very same feelings in your eyes. Like you’ve been reliving this day over and over.” He gestures around the cabin. “And the Gavin I know would’ve never just depleted everything to fly me to Colorado so I can be nothing. He’d have freaked out and told me we can’t afford it.” 

“I’m sorry.” Gavin doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get killed by an elk or some shit out here, so.” Shrugs. “It’ll just all restart again. I just wanted one loop where I got to know you. Instead of fight you.” 

A tear falls from Nines’s eye and he hands the dice over to Gavin. “I don’t think I can keep playing. This is a lot to process.” 

Gavin just holds the dice in the middle of his palm. He stares at it like it’ll tell him what to do next. “Yeah.” 

“I hope one day you can answer my question. Even if I don’t remember asking it.”

Gavin furrows his brow. “What?”

“Why you love me.” Nines stands up and shrugs. “I’m going to enter stasis. I’m exhausted and when I power down the fetus gets a bit more energy directed down to care for it.”

Gavin just rests his elbows on the table. He nods and Nines, without a word, leaves the room and closes the bedroom door behind him. This was supposed to bring them closer. This whole forget about the loop and the risks and just go find out who Nines is. But Nines is too smart for that, isn’t he? He knows Gavin isn’t the Gavin he’s gone to sleep with for the past three years. He’s not the one that smiled and posed in the pictures proudly displayed in their old Victorian house. Nines knew coming back together really meant they were tearing apart. 

Gavin slams his fist on the table and it shakes. He shoves himself away from it and heads out into the blackness of the night. The trees loom like shadowy figures ready to pull him into the darkest recesses of existence and then some more. It’s freezing here. May might be Spring in Detroit but Colorado is slow to get the memo. Frost coats Gavin’s breath and he puffs out silvery wisps with each breath. 

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” he asks the blackness of the night. Then he looks up and sees the silver of stars. The light may not reach where he stands but it’s there above him. An expanse of deep blue and shimmering stars out in the universe. “Am I just really dead and this is hell? Is this all it fucking is?!” Gavin’s voice raises. “I’m trying! I’m fucking trying and all you’re doing is nothing! Jack shit nothing!” He’s full on echoing into the forest around him. Gavin tugs at his hair and lets a groan claw its way out his throat.

He collapses onto the porch steps and just stares out into the black of the pines. Wind gently sways tree branches and he hears elk singing in the distance. It’s a haunting sound–something forlorn and wanting. “Fuck.” Gavin may not have proper cigarettes, but he’s got a stupid vape pen from a gas station. He sucks on it and lets all that synthetic grape flavor hit his tongue. “Fuck!” 

He stands up to head back inside and when he does, he sees Nines standing in the middle of the little living room with its plaid couch and red blanket. Nines looks at him with big eyes and tense shoulders. Gavin just stares back at him. 

“I heard you yelling,” Nines says. He takes a cautionary step forward. “What are you trying to do?”

Gavin just gestures in defeat and shrugs his shoulders. “To love you.” 

Nines takes another step forward. Then another. He scrutinizes Gavin’s face and cups both sides of his cheeks with long fingers. He frowns as his eyes search for something Gavin will never know. Then his lips slowly part and he presses in.

Gavin realizes Nines is leaning down to kiss him. Their lips slot together and as still as a deer, Gavin lets Nines make a seam where they connect. His lips are silky soft and warm. Gavin’s fingers shake at his sides until they reach for the edges of Nines’s sweater. Gingerly, he curls his fingers around the hem and closes his eyes. 

Nines sucks softly at Gavin’s bottom lip and a hand slips from Gavin’s cheek to cup the back of Gavins’ head. He presses his chest to Gavin’s and lets out a broken whimper. Their lips tremble together as a puff of hot breath crosses Gavin’s face. He has long enough to open his eyes to see Nines looking down at him through long lashes with his cheeks all blushy blue. He looks so delicate that a single snowflake could burst him into trillions of little crystals on the wind. 

Nines presses his lips back to Gavin’s and Gavin’s eyes slip closed again as something deep and achy settles in his stomach. Twenty loops. Twenty failures. Twenty times he’s seen too much pain and known too many mistakes and here they are–doing everything wrong and it’s the first time Nines has kissed him. Really kissed him. 

When Nines pulls away again, Gavin swallows roughly. He licks his own lips and realizes Nines has the slightest rubber taste. He runs his tongue along his lips and nods to himself. It’s an admission he can’t articulate in words, so he shows it in actions. He grabs Nines’s face and tugs it to his and together they clash their lips together. What was once gentle and full of fear is now ravaged by wildfire. Nines’s arms wrap around Gavin and pull him close. Gavin’s hips press to Nines’s and he rolls his body into the kiss.

Nines stumbles them back until they’re falling onto the plaid couch and Nines slips between Gavins’ legs. He rolls his hips and Gavin gasps from it. Gavin’s had sex with literal strangers, yet this terrifies him. He thinks of all the ways he’s seen Nines cry. Seen his agony and pain. Seen everything bad and terrible. Gavin’s just so terrified this is another mistake leading to a worse mistake that leads to an end. 

He doesn’t want this to be an end. He wants a beginning. 

“I can't,” Gavin says. He’s panting and his cheeks are radiating heat. His cock is hard and it wants to be touched but Gavin just can’t. It’s not fair to Nines. It’s not true and it’s not right to hurt Nines like this. 

Nines’s LED flashes red and he pulls back. He wipes his lips and sits at the far end of the couch. “Do you really believe you’ve been reliving the same day over and over?”

Gavin sighs. “Yes.” 

Nines scoffs and there’s a bitter expression on his face. “I thought it was metaphor. I thought all of this was supposed to bring you back to me. A restart. You don’t want me anymore.”

“That’s not true!” Gavin snaps up and moves closer to Nines. “I don’t know you!” 

Nines makes such a pleading face at Gavin. Loneliness, desire, regret, isolation, anticipation. It’s all there bundled into furrowed eyebrows and ice blue eyes. “Are you really not my husband?” 

Gavin feels the only thing he’s been doing as of late is sighing and trying to keep from having the most absolute of breakdowns. He swallows roughly and listens to the air squelch down his throat before shrugging. “I’m tryin’ to be.” 

“Could I give you pointers?” Nines’s voice is so blank. There’s no passion nor care. It’s empty. 

Gavin nods. 

“I don’t like being love bombed. It reminds me of the early days when I didn’t know if you’d stay. When we’d fight and you’d come back feeling sorry about it all. I’d rather experience your anger than your apologies for something you are not sorry for.” 

Gavin wishes he could get more context with that one but he just says, “Okay. Anything else?” Gavin’s pretty sure though that when they’ve fought, Nines is the one to always grab the gun. It’s been easier to placate with calmer words and actions. Though maybe it’s not the same as love bombing. He’s not saying he loves him. 

“Don’t assume I haven’t wronged you too,” Nines says back. 

Gavin stills. He feels his breath come to a halt as the words seep in like warmth penetrates snow. Gavin slowly exhales as he feels the ice wash away. He’s always been operating under the guise that he’s the only one who has done wrong. He swipes his tongue out to wet his lips and just keeps looking at Nines with round eyes. 

“You feel guilty for cheating on me, right?”

Gavin nods his head.

“I have done many unkind things to you too. You’ve always joked that we’re both terrible people. But we’re better together.” 

Gavin blinks. He can’t bring himself to say anything. He looks down at his knuckles and counts the creases in his skin. 

“I have manipulated you. I have lied to you. Most recently, I stole from you.” 

Gavin watches how Nines puts his hand on his belly. 

“You had every right to yell and scream. It is the context you are missing, if you truly do not remember May 3rd.” 

Gavin’s bones start to tingle in the way bones do when they want to run and never return. The little Colorado cabin feels more like a haunted house with prying eyes than a nice getaway between lovers trying to find each other again. 

“What happened on May 3rd?” Gavin asks. 

Nines sits back on the couch and tucks his legs beneath himself. He’s so large that it’s a miracle he can look so small and delicate. All those freckles on his face give into the illusion of gentleness. Gavin’s learning there is nothing gentle about Nines. Nines is quiet, but for Gavin to mistake that as kind is wrong. 

Nines just stares off at the unlit fireplace in the room. “I’d rather you didn’t know so you’d keep looking at me the way you are. Like I’m something interesting.” 

Gavin purses his lips. “I think you need to tell me.” 

“No. I don’t think I do. You’ll remember or you won’t.” Nines’s LED turns red. “I thought you brought me here so we’d grow closer again.” 

That has been the point, hasn’t it? Gavin inhales deeply through his nose and lets it all slowly out. He nods, resigned. Nines is right. Gavin wants to know what happened May 3rd. Maybe one day he’ll get to find out. For now though, for now, this whole thing has been to know who Nines is. He’s certainly been learning. Nines is cunning. Strong-willed. He’s quiet. But there’s something far more sinister about him than Gavin had realized. He’s not the scorned lover. There’s blood on his hands too. Gavin just doesn’t know how much or what color. 

“Hot tub time?” Gavin asks.

Nines barks out a laugh and his LED goes blue. He nods and his shoulders relax. Iron turning into clay.

Gavin goes upstairs to change into his swim trunks in the cabin’s main bedroom–which is just a loft overlooking the living room and the fireplace. Nines follows. Gavin realizes Nines has seen him naked many times. Except Nines hasn’t seen this specific Gavin naked many times. Except he has. There’s the gnarly scar on the side of Gavin’s body. He takes his shirt off and looks at it before trailing his fingers along the shiny white skin.

Nines comes up behind him and Gavin’s shocked to feel warmth radiating from Nines’s skin to his own. Nines touches the scar too. “Do you remember this?” 

“Nope,” Gavin says back. 

“Maybe that’s a good thing. You nearly died.” Nines’s tone is flat again. He doesn’t lift his hand off Gavin’s scar. “I felt fear for the first time that day. I’ve continued to feel it day in and day out ever since. I thought this would all be worth it.” 

Gavin heaves a heavy sigh. “Sorry I’m not what you wanted.” 

“You’re everything I wanted. I wish we knew how to cut through all this.” Nines swings his other hand around in the air. “All this–pain. I wish we could just go back six months ago and we’d do things differently.” 

“How?” Gavin asks. Tentatively, he places his hand on Nines’s. He realizes Nines’s chest is touching his back. Both shirtless. Gavin turns and sees that moles and freckles aren’t reserved only for Nines’s face. They’re spackled all over him. Gavin doesn’t think. He just reaches out to touch. Nines’s skin is warm. Soft. Gavin presses and watches as skin dimples with the pressure. 

“I’d be more attentive to you, for one,” Nines answers. “I left my job because I thought you wanted something soft and sweet. People told me how your ego was fragile. Your masculinity challenged. I tried hard to become–something else. I have a gender because I choose to believe I do, but I understand that biologically I have none. I’ve liked being male. I tried to be more feminine for you. More submissive.” 

Gavin frowns, but he listens. 

“I didn’t want to continue rubbing it into your face that I could bend steel and snap bone. It always bothered you. So, I took to baking and tending a garden. We moved into the suburbs and I chose to keep a house for you.”

This all feels like nothing Gavin Reed would ever want. He doesn’t want a little wife. If he’d wanted that, then why the fuck would he marry a murderbot? He assumes that Nines’s strength drew him in. Nines is gorgeous in the way a rose is. There’s a delicacy about his face but beneath the beauty is something painful and sharp. Gavin can’t imagine wanting to marry a man like Nines and then deconstruct him into something he never wanted to be. Gavin doesn’t know where it all went wrong or why it even happened. 

“W-why would you think I’d even want that?” he asks. 

“Because you were leaving me for someone else. I didn’t know what else to do. You let me hold you less. When I tried to kiss you, you’d turn your face. You spent even more time on your phone.”

“But you didn’t ask me? What I wanted?”

“How could I? I was losing you. What could I have asked that would make that change?” 

They’re still standing close. Each time Nines breathes, Gavin feels the exhale of heat and the way his insides fill with air; skin presses to skin. Knowing what Gavin thinks he knows now, he knows he had to make the affair look real. So, the only deduction Gavin can come to is that of course Gavin didn’t tell Nines it had all been unnecessary to change everything about himself. Nines’s misery had to be real to anyone who looked. Connor. Tina. They’d all made comments about how things have been hard recently. To the outside, this was a marriage falling apart. 

“I don’t fault you.” Gavin takes Nines’s hands and laces their fingers together. “But you don’t need to be weak for me to love you. You don’t need to be anything other than what you are.”

“A pregnant android?” Nines laughs softly. 

“Yeah. That’s still fuckin’ wild.” Gavin smiles back. “But yeah. A pregnant android. One that can snap bone and bend steel.” Does Gavin mean what he’s saying right now? “I don’t need you to be anything else. Just you.” 

Nines nods and it’s so stupid how blue blush looks so good on his cheeks. It makes the freckles across his nose stand out more. Gavin realizes he’s smiling at Nines too. “Hot tub time?” 

“Hot tub time.” 

Loop #21 May 5th, 2042

Rocky Mountain National Park is freezing. Fucking freezing. It’s May and Gavin is freezing. He chatters away as snow still crumbles beneath his feet. Nines stays beside him. Gavin’s pride will never admit it, but he’s so not thrilled to be going on an icy mountain hike right now. He’s sweating behind the ears and it’s only making the cold hurt more. 

Gavin’s never been happier to see Nines finally stop walking. Instead, Nines looks out over the mountain pass at the snowcaps and frozen lake below. He looks at Gavin and then back out to the nothingness below them. 

“MY EXISTENCE IS MEANINGLESS!” Nines screams and the echoes that follow tumble all around the crannies of sleepy mountains and icy trees. 

“What the fuck’re you doing!” Gavin laughs out.

“THERE IS NO GRAND DESIGN!” Nines keeps shouting. “I AM NOTHING BUT A SPECK OF DUST IN THE UNIVERSE!” 

Gavin grabs Nines by the shoulders and yanks him back onto the trail. “Idiot. Shut the fuck up!” 

“I told you. I wanted to know how insignificant I am.” Nines laughs. “If a bear comes our way, I’ll be sure to protect you.”

“Think you scared everything off, murderbot.”

Nines rolls his eyes. “I like this though.” He looks out over their little spot. “My existence relies on nothing here. The mountains don’t care that I’m alive. The birds. The other hikers. I mean. Nothing. I was created in a sterile environment. I wasn’t born. I was made.”

Gavin gets a text, but he ignores it. 

“Androids are obsessed with purpose. Even if it’s not following our original programming. We want to mean something. But I don’t. I don’t want to be part of anything grand. I just want to exist until I can’t exist anymore.” He looks down at his belly. “If I mean something to anyone, I want that meaning small. Fleeting.”

Gavin just tilts his head, listening. “Humans struggle with that too. The whole wanting to make some grand contribution. To be immortal despite death. But when you’re chasing immortality you forget to live.”

Nines turns and smiles at Gavin. He offers out his hand and Gavin takes a few snowy steps to hold Nines’s hand. Together, they look out over the mountains and the snow-trodden trails. 

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Nines says. “There is something deeply inspiring about standing atop a mountain and knowing that mountain will still be here thousands of years after I have.” 

“Oh, so now you’re inspired?” 

Nines chuckles. “I am inspired to exist, Gavi. Life has meaning even if my life’s purpose is meaningless.”

Gavin crumples up his face. He’s trying to figure it out, what Nines means. He thinks it means that Nines wants to live. Gavin finally releases those memories of Nines kneeling on the kitchen floor with blue blood gushing all the way down his front. He lets them fly off his shoulders and into the endless winds of a Rocky Mountain morning. Somehow, Gavin started doing things right and Nines started living. Not because Gavin wanted him to, but because Nines chose to. 

Gavin’s phone buzzes again. Thinking it may be Tina about that AP700, Gavin checks.

You LIAR! I’ve been at your house for hours and you went off into the sunset with that robot? FUCK YOU SLUT

Ah, ever the charismatic Steve Big Dick. Nines hums from his vantage point on Gavin’s shoulder and Gavin looks up at him to see he’s reading the text too. Gavin just shrugs and puts his phone into his pocket. 

“He’s not worth it.” Gavin smacks his lips as he takes one last look at all the mountains and hills around him. “Freezin’ my balls off. I wanna get goin’ back.” 

“Gavi.” Nines doesn’t move. “Do you truly keep waking up on May 4th?”

Gavin nods.

“The night I got pregnant, you asked to wear a condom. You’d said you just needed a bit more time from the ones that failed. I intentionally tampered with it prior to having sex with you. So I stole from you.” 

Gavin just nods. There’s no righteous fury or ire. Gavin should be furious, right? What an absolute violation, right? No. It’s all so unreal to him still. Even if sometimes it’s very real. They’re terrible people, Nines said it himself. Terrible people do terrible things to each other. There is no anger or malice. Only a lukewarm numb. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

Nines scowls. 

Gavin turns back toward the trail and starts the walk back to the rental car. 

Back at the little cabin, Gavin sits on the porch steps and just looks out into the wilderness around him. Snow gently falls. It’s such a different feeling here. The air is thin and it takes Gavin twice as much time to get his lungs full. But it’s fresh and clean. There’s a connection to the world here that Gavin doesn’t know he’s ever felt in Detroit. He blames the trees and mountains. He is insignificant and yet significant all the same. If he weren’t significant, then why would he be redoing a day over and over to save a man whose only wish is to be insignificant. 

A man. 

Gavin takes a drag of his vape pen and realizes that there’s no denying it anymore. Androids are people. People are both human and android. Nines is a man. He’s a robot. But a man. Gavin’s thought it twice now. He laughs at himself. 

The door opens and Nines sits beside Gavin. He looks at the vape pen and scowls. 

“Let me stress smoke.” 

“What has you stressed?” Nines asks. 

“That I don’t know what to do,” Gavin says. “I get a little closer each time, but the closer I get to you and then I die–you don’t remember any of the progress we’ve made. Like today will never happen again. Next loop I won’t take you to Colorado. I’ll go talk to hot dog guy.”

“Hot dog guy?” Nines’s brows rise.

Gavin snorts. “Oh fuck. Right so there’s this dude in the hospital who got his arm ripped off by his android wife. He smells like boiled hot dog water.”

“He suffered a trauma and you mock him?” Nines asks. 

“You poked holes or whatever in a condom, jackass. Don’t judge me.”

Nines rolls his eyes. “I’m not judging you. If anything, I’m relieved you are still you.” 

Gavin scoots a little closer so the lines of their bodies press together. He even leans his head on Nines’s shoulder. Dating a man who is already your husband is–wild. “Can we kiss again?” He turns to look at Nines.

Nines smiles and gently brushes Gavin’s bangs away from his forehead. His LED that steady cool blue. Without speaking, he takes Gavin’s chin and guides their lips together. It feels just as all-encompassing as the first time. Nines’s tongue slips into Gavin’s mouth. Soft and warm. Gavin’s chapped lips link to Nines’s. That slight rubber taste. Gavin’s tongue rolls over Nines’s and Nines laps playfully at it. 

“Tickles,” Gavin whispers.

“My mouth is exceptionally sensitive,” Nines says in a low tone. “Run your tongue along mine, right down the middle, and you’ll make me come.” 

“Huh.” Gavin pulls away and rests his head on Nines’s shoulder again. “Maybe another loop. I wanna pretend like I knew that.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because I don’t wanna keep freakin’ you out.” 

“Gavin Reed. You will never freak me out.” Nines takes Gavin’s hand and kisses each knuckle. “Amnesia. Trauma. A break in reality. A time loop. I have loved you each time, right?”

Gavin nods. “That’s the sad part.”

“Are you starting to love me?” Nines asks. 

Gavin’s eyes tear up. He opens his mouth to speak but looks ahead and sees a herd of elk casually wandering along the spindly road. “Holy shit.” Nines turns to look too. “They’re fuckin’ huge.” 

“They are not deer,” Nines says in that haughty tone of his. Gavin knows it’s not judgemental though. It’s just who Nines is. 

Gavin watches the elk as they meander along their way. Massive antlers. Little babies staying close to their mommas. All of them grouped together in a sea of brown. They chirp and bellow just like the other night. They don’t seem remotely concerned about Gavin or Nines on their little step. 

“I think I am.” Gavin takes Nines’s hand and threads their fingers together. “It’s. Scary. Being married to someone that I didn’t even think was alive. But you’re. You’re so alive. You’re a person and you’re my husband and. And. I just. I’m so scared because if I want this and then it’s gone?” A tear makes its traitorous way from Gavin’s eye. “If I fix whatever’s wrong and then I’m gone from you? And I loved you?” Another tear. Gavin’s throat hurts. “How do I recover from that?” 

Nines is silent for awhile. They both watch the last of the elk pass by. Nines opens his mouth a few times to speak but closes it. Gavin watches all the minute expressions. The little twitches of Nines’s brow and the flicker of his LED. “Maybe you’re not supposed to.”

Gavin barks out such a bitter laugh. “That would be just my luck. To be dumped into some time three years ahead of my own life and told I married an android only to fall in love with him and then be ripped right back out.”

“We’ve met though. Where you’re from?” 

Gavin nods. “I just met you. Then Connor…” Gavin stares off as he thinks of Connor’s battered body and all the thirium. That light. “Connor said it had to be me. Then I woke up at 3AM on May 4th, 2042.” 

Nines leans down to kiss Gavin’s shoulder. Then he does it again. And again. “Then fall in love with me again. The one that doesn’t know you yet.”

Gavin thinks of the brutality he’d seen from Nines. He’s a machine where Gavin’s really from. Cold and ruthless. He’s everything his programming told him to be. Could it even happen twice? Gavin hopes so, he realizes. God. He fucking hopes so. 

“We should go inside. You should eat before you become hangry.” Nines stands and offers down a hand for Gavin to take.

“Fuck you, plastic. I don’t get hangry.”

The look Nines shoots back is so telling. 

Gavin is led inside where Nines pulls him into the little kitchen and makes him a little dinner. They talk about the most inconsequential things and Gavin realizes for the first time that this is what it’s really supposed to be. Instead of the anguish and confusion. Loving Nines is supposed to be full of quiet nights with snow gently falling and burned hot dogs–as it turns out. Because Nines is actually a terrible cook. 

Gavin loves him for it. From the blue blushy cheeks all embarrassed to the attempts at defending his terrible cooking. Gavin just smiles stupidly. He doesn’t want to go back. He doesn’t want to see Nines trapped in his coding again. He likes this one. This sassy, frigid, goofy, painfully honest one. He likes that he gets little burned hot dog kisses and Nines even takes a bite of food before running over to the sink to gag it out because yes, it is in fact that awful. Gavin eats it anyway. 

They snuggle on the couch and watch a horror movie so Gavin can get all cuddled up. Gavin rests his head on Nines’s stomach and wonders if he’ll ever get to meet what’s growing inside. He wants a future here–like this. He wants to know that all the pain Nines has suffered is worth it. He wants. This.

Just this.

Loop #21 May 6th, 2042

Gavin misses the cabin already. They come home to thunderstorms and darkness. Their plane had jerked and bumped around the entire time but Gavin had been cool as a cucumber. Dying in a plane would suck but at least he’d come back. Nines only snuggled into him more and refused to look out the window. 

Gavin flicks the lights on and sees the house is in utter shambles. The pictures on the wall are smashed and written all over the walls are the following words: SLUT SLUT SLUT. HOMEWRECKER. WHORE. LIAR. Gavin picks up the pieces of the photos of him and Nines and grimaces. 

“Would the homewrecker have been him though?” Nines asks casually. “He’s the one who was fucking my husband.” 

“Not the point.” Gavin pulls out his phone and dials the precinct. “We need to call this in.” 

Nines nods. “I’ll keep looking through the rest of the house.” 

Gavin wanders through the dining room, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Each room is a disaster. The fridge is knocked over with spoiled food. All over the walls the same words. This is, admittedly, horrifying to Gavin. He knows this was Steve. 

Gavin makes his report and the precinct vows to send someone out even if Central Station doesn’t generally police this area. Benefits of being a cop. Gavin starts picking up the old food and gets a text. He pulls his phone out.

Turn around. Gavin doesn’t recognize the number. 

“God damn i–” Gavin doesn’t get to finish his sentence. There’s a boom and the shattering of glass.

Loop #22 May 4th, 2042

When Gavin wakes up at 3AM–he cries. He cries because Nines doesn’t know how he feels about him. Nines doesn’t know of the beautiful time they’d spent in Colorado. He doesn’t know that he screamed so loudly atop a mountain and watched a herd of elk pass them by. Gavin closes his eyes and goes back to sleep, even if it’s hard. Even if his pillow is wet with tears. 

When Gavin wakes again, it’s close to noon. Gavin sees the text from Tina and to avoid getting murdered again by Steve, he sends him a text about how things are complicated and he needs more time to talk to Nines. Steve, shockingly, seems far more adjusted to that idea. To be fair, Gavin doesn’t actually know if Steve is the one who shot him. He wishes he could remember the number but it all happened so fast.

Gavin comes down the stairs and sees Nines isn’t in his usual spot on the couch. He’s in the kitchen looking out the bay window with a mug of warm thirium. The wooden stairs creak and groan beneath Gavin’s feet and Nines turns to look at him. 

“Hey,” Gavin says. 

“Hey,” Nines says back. 

“Please don’t divorce me.” Gavin pads into the kitchen and shrugs. “I’m sorry.” Gavin winces. I don't like being love bombed, echoes in his mind.

Nines watches him carefully and looks him up and down. He takes another sip of warmed thirium and looks outside again. 

“God!” Gavin shouts. He’s not sure if he’s actually yelling at God or what but he knows he’s yelling. He sees Nines turn and watch him with round eyes. “You know what really fuckin’ sucks about this whole thing? Is that you don’t even know what’s happening! You think I’m some sack of cheating shit when you’re the one pokin’ holes in condoms and gettin’ yourself pregnant! You’re so fuckin’—you’re so fuckin’ desperate to keep me that you’d do that and I’m not even pissed about it!”

Nines’s mouth falls open. At least Nines doesn't have to worry about love bombing…

“And I don’t wanna leave you!” Gavin wails. “I don’t want the fucking twenty questions! I don’t want you askin’ me what your fucking favorite color is and your stupid apricot drink! I just want my goddamn husband because every time this starts over I have to find a way to make sure we don’t kill each other! And I hate it! I hate it!” 

Nines’s LED goes red and Gavin can’t quite calm himself enough to let it bother him. He sucks in deep gulps of air and tries his damndest not to just utterly break down. He misses Nines. But he’s standing right in front of him with that black sweater and fucking yoga pants of all fucking things. 

“You want your husband?” Nines asks. He pulls the mug into his chest and has the fucking audacity to look vulnerable. 

Gavin nods. “So fuckin’ much.” 

Nines puts the mug down and slowly moves toward Gavin. Their foreheads press together and Gavin lets out such a wrecked and mangled sound. 

“You really don’t want a divorce?” Nines asks.

“No, dipshit. I’ve been pretending to date Steve so I could figure something out.” 

Nines pulls his head back and looks cautiously at Gavin. “Figure what out? And it felt very real to me.” He crosses his arms. 

“Steve works for Cyberlife. Figured out he’s got some trigger code in you to make you go into murder machine mode.”

Nines’s LED flickers red and his eyes fill with dread. 

“I’m tryin’ to figure out how to stop it.” It’s better this way, right? A moment of simple frustration to get past all the anger and awkwardness and right into the truth. Gavin doesn’t want to keep hiding this from Nines. Nines should know. If Nines knows then they can work together to fix it? At least, that’s the plan now. Gavin can’t keep doing this alone. 

“Stop what?” Nines asks. 

“Cyberlife taking over androids again and making you not people.” 

Nines looks Gavin over, like he’s truly looking at him for the first time and tilts his head to the side. “How do you know I poked holes into the condoms?” 

Gavin snorts. “Because—you told me.”

“When?”

Gavin shrugs. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m on this case with Tina. A few androids have tried to kill their spouses. There’s a guy sitting in a hospital bed right now who misses his wife and she ripped his arm off.”

Nines winces. 

“If Cyberlife does this—I lose you. Baby in your belly or not. I lose you.”

Nines tilts his head in the other direction. “And you want me? This baby? Even if I—”

“Yes.” Gavin breaks out in goosebumps. Because he means it. He wants it more than anything. He wants that little baby and he wants Nines. He wants this stupid big house with its stupid big porch and he wants all the dumb little boxes in storage of all his plastic trophies from high school and threadbare stuffies. He wants this life. He wants it so much his thyroid feels too big for his throat and he swallows and swallows and swallows but it doesn’t change it. He looks up at Nines with squinted eyes too scared to be vulnerable. 

Nines gingerly picks Gavin up and sets him on the island beside his mug. “You’ve been carrying this secret for six months?”

Gavin laughs. He’s not sure how long it’s really been. It doesn’t matter. Whatever Past-Gavin was doing, he’d been doing it on purpose and yes, he’d kept it from Nines. So, he nods. The secret needs to be out now. If the Gavin of this world could succeed, then he would’ve done it. But he couldn’t. So he needed this Gavin and now this Gavin is going to save them because he wants to see that baby grow up into a person and he wants this man—this insufferable, obnoxious, haughty, uppity, condescending, sassy, beautiful, funny, charming android to be his husband. 

“You’re shaking,” Nines whispers. He rests his head to Gavin’s. 

“I’m scared,” Gavin says back. “What if I can’t stop it?”

“We will figure this out together.” Nines takes Gavin’s cheeks in hand and brushes tears away that Gavin hadn’t even realized he’d shed. Nines slots their mouths together softly and Gavin makes a sound more animal than human. 

Gavin’s arms wrap around Nines and he pulls him as close as he can. It’s just like the cabin in Colorado. Gavin wants Nines. His skin is too hot and his sleeppants are too in the way. Nines must feel the change in energy too because he rolls his hips into Gavin and Gavin just whispers please. 

Nines picks him up. Their lips don’t leave each other. He climbs the stairs with ease, like Gavin’s weight is nothing, and lets them fall onto their bed. 

Gavin rolls them over and gets between Nines’s legs. He rocks his hips and Nines lets himself fall open for Gavin. Gavin lifts up to get his shirt off. He gets Nines’s shirt off. They keep kissing. That barely-there rubber taste of Nines’s lips. They’re warm and soft and impossible but they’re kissing Gavin’s back and Gavin’s never wanted someone more than he does in this very moment. 

This stupid android is his god damn soulmate, isn’t he? They’re imperfect. They’ve hurt each other. They’ve yelled and killed each other but they’re mad for each other. They’re written in the stars. Etched into treebark. They’re forever and Gavin knows it with every bit of himself now. 

He tugs Nines’s stupid yoga pants off and gets his own away from him. All clothes discarded to the floor. He sits up and takes a moment to realize this is the first time he’s ever seen Nines naked. It doesn’t matter how many times they have been together. Gavin’s never truly been there. Not this one. 

A gentle blue LED pulses right at the base of Nines’s sternum. It’s his regulator port. Gavin knows enough about androids to know that’s the spot you punch an android to make them go down. He’d done it to Connor. He dips his gaze along pale flesh and trails his fingers from mole to mole. Every bit of Nines lovingly crafted by a corporation that only wants to destroy the life they’ve built together. Gavin clenches his teeth. His baby is inside this android and Cyberlife wants to destroy that? 

“Gavi?”

“You’re so—beautiful.” Gavin tilts his gaze up and looks at the yellow flicker of Nines’s LED. It goes blue. “I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t wanna lose this.” He puts his hand on Nines’s belly. 

Nines’s lips tremble. 

Gavin never thought this is where his life would take him. He’s still not too sure how he got here, but he doesn’t want to leave it now. He leans forward and presses their mouths together again and Gavin’s bones melt. 

Nines pulls Gavin into him and wraps those beautiful legs around his hips. He guides Gavin’s cock inside and Gavin near-comes immediately. Nines is dappled with texture. Warm. Wet. His hole clenches on Gavin, begging him to get deeper. To be connected. Close.  

“Nines,” Gavin whispers out as he rocks into his husband. “Oh fuck, Nines.”

“Gavi. Gavi. Please. Yes.” Nines’s hands cup Gavin’s shoulderblades and he works his hips with Gavin’s. Nines turns his face into Gavin’s neck and peppers kisses there. They’re wet and mouthy. Hot puffs of breath make Gavin shiver. Nines’s nails gently dig into Gavin’s back and pull little hisses from Gavin’s lips.

Gavin rolls them and Nines makes such an approving purr. He feels it all around his cock with those deep vibrations. “Holy shit, babe.” 

Nines smirks. “What? You act like we haven’t done this countless times before.”

Gavin just gives a lopsided grin. “Remind me.” 

Nines splays his hands out on Gavin’s chest and bounces his hole up and down along Gavin’s cock. His pectorals rock along with him, giving Gavin one hell of a fucking show. The blue glow at his sternum pulses faster and faster. Nines lets his head fall back and he lets go of Gavin’s chest. He reaches back for Gavin’s thighs and works himself like that. Body all on display.

“Christ,” Gavin whispers out in awe. He runs his fingers along the pulsing LED and Nines shivers. “You feel that?”

Nines glares at him. “You know I do.” 

Gavin circles his fingers along the port and Nines’s LED starts flickering between all the colors of the fucking rainbow. He gets selfish and does the most adorable little bunny thrusts and his hole clenches.

“Gaviii—I’m—oh I’m close.”

“You’re so pretty,” Gavin says back. “I wanna see you come, baby. Feel good on my cock. Feel me deep in you baby.” Gavin’s always had one hell of a potty-mouth. He’s just been distracted as of late. On account of dying over and over and all. 

“Oh—oh—Gavi—Gavi!” Nines gets selfish. He shoves himself up and down on Gavin, using him for his own pleasure and Gavin is so pleased by it. Nines’s cock seizes and sputters whatever the fuck androids come but Gavin’s mesmerized by how the regulator light pulses red and pink. Like it’s telling him how good Nines feels. Gavin doesn’t last much longer either. Not when Nines is undulating around his cock like he is. He rides Gavin through it until it gets to be near too much and then he finally falls to Gavin’s side, panting. 

Gavin’s never seen an android pant. He thinks it’s beautiful. He thinks everything about Nines is beautiful. Their life is beautiful. 

Nines readjusts and Gavin hears a higher-pitch whirring from Nines’s belly. Alarmed, Gavin sits up and his hand goes out to Nines’s stomach, but Nines catches it. “I’m just evaporating your come, calm down. Baby’s fine.” 

Gavin just blanches. 

Nines laughs and gets curled up beside him. “I hate stewing in it. Your come gets sticky and it gums up my chassis.” 

“I’m covered in yours,” Gavin says back.

“Mmm—yes.” Nines moves down the bed and starts lapping up his come from Gavin’s tummy. It tickles and makes Gavin blush. Nines’s tongue is just as wet and soft as any human’s. Maybe less bumpy. Still nice. 

Gavin reaches down and cards his fingers through Nines’s hair. “You’re a freak.” 

“You like me being a freak,” Nines says after licking up a fat stripe from bellybutton to sternum. “Remember the time in your old apartment when you chained me to a sybian in front of the window and made me come so much my thirium reserves went dry?”

Gavin’s eyes nearly fall out of his head. “I did that?” 

Nines rolls his eyes and comes back up to rest his head on a pillow. He slots one leg between Gavin’s and presses their cocks together. “It was always so fun showing you I’d do anything for you.” A shadow crosses over Nines’s face. Something like sadness. “I thought I was losing you.” His LED goes red. 

“I know,” is Gavin’s response. “I’m so sorry.” 

“You’re quite late for work.” Nines sits up, but he doesn’t move to get out of the bed. “Aren’t they going to worry about you?”

“On my anniversary?” Gavin sits up and kisses Nines’s shoulder. “Fuck ‘em.” He kisses Nines’s shoulder again. “I may be turning forty this year but I can still get it up again.” 

Nines snorts—it reminds Gavin of himself. “You should go to work. It’s important you learn why that woman ripped her husband’s arm off.” His LED snaps red again. “I don’t want to do that to you.” 

Gavin thinks of every way Nines has killed him. Burning him alive. Shooting him. Slicing his throat. He just runs his tongue along the inside of his cheeks. “I’d forgive you if you did.” Because he has.

“Gavi.” Nines leans into Gavin’s arms. “I wish you’d told me.” 

“I know. It’s just—it has to look real. We have to look miserable and I have to look like I’m really fallin’ for this guy. He’s got this computer in his office and all his passwords are saved to his phone. I just gotta get to it.”

“I can help you, you know,” Nines says. “I’m literally an android.” 

Gavin barks out a laugh. This entire time he did think whatever all this bullshit is was something he needed to do alone. What a fool. Nines has been here the whole time. A literal android, as he’s just now pointed out. Gavin never knew… (ha). 

“Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing,” Gavin says back. He mindlessly rubs his hand up and down Nines’s back. Soft and warm skin. It doesn’t matter that there’s a black chassis underneath it; this is Nines. This is Gavin’s husband. Android or human. Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Gavin nods. “Yeah. I think that’d be good. I gotta go talk to Hot Dog Water though.” 

Nines’s brows crinkles so fast. 

“Shit. I mean. The husband with the arm ripped off.”

“Hot dog water?” Nines quirks such a judgemental brow.

Gavin slinks out of bed and heads for the shower. It’s comical now, what Gavin knows and Nines doesn’t. Gavin grabs a fast shower, Nines makes him coffee. They kiss before Gavin leaves and the wedding photos on the wall don’t make Gavin’s heart hurt so much anymore. 

He goes through his day. Apologizes to Fowler for the late arrival. Fowler’s understanding. It’s your anniversary, Gavin. I’m shocked you even came in. 

Tina and Connor both confront Gavin like they always do about Nines and the baby. He tells them both like normal. Tina wants pancakes to celebrate. They go. Gavin catches the water spill before it happens this time.  

They talk to hot dog water. Gavin asks more specific questions about whether Betty had been around any Cyberlife employees or anything of the like. Cyberlife may not be able to make androids anymore, but it does make a lot of other shit for them. It’s mostly the same information, except that Betty got some second-hand upgrades not directly from a Cyberlife store. That’s all Gavin’s got to go on. He asks for the resale store’s info. 

Gavin brings Connor home with him and they dance in the rain again. Gavin’s still finding himself caught off guard by how alive androids are. Nines is touchy and kissy. It’s unlike any loop before, but this is the first loop they’ve made love. God, Gavin just wants to spend a whole loop making love to Nines and kissing his belly. Hopefully when this is all over Gavin can. 

“My love, are you hungry?” Nines asks as the storm rages above and Gavin realizes it’s close enough to when that guy was standing outside. Nines brushes his fingers through Gavin’s hair and Gavin’s focus pulls back to Nines. 

“Oh uh—um—sure.” Gavin hasn’t eaten since pancakes. “Just like a grilled cheese?” 

Nines nods and kisses Gavin’s temple. He turns to the kitchen and Gavin notices that Connor’s missing. He assumes he’s probably upstairs or something when he thinks about the stranger outside by the tree. 

Gavin crosses the living room and stands out on the porch. He keeps checking his phone for the time and waiting. Waiting. Eventually, he sees a blue LED from the side yard and frowns. “Connor?”

Connor blinks a few times and then it’s like he’s realizing he’s been walking alongside the house in a thunderstorm. He looks up at Gavin and his LED snaps red. “Gavin? H-how did I?”

Gavin scrambles down the porch stairs and helps usher Connor back up to the porch. Connor’s fingers tremble and his LED won’t turn to anything but that glaring red. Gavin takes one last look at the tree and then to Connor. He realizes the time. Gavin stepped out onto the porch to watch for the person. Instead he sees Connor. No one stands by the tree. Gavin’s mouth falls open. 

The person. Had been Connor. 

Gavin remembers how it was Connor who came to him in the parking garage all beaten up and bloodied. Connor said he’s been forgetting things lately. Is it his prototype processor or is it something far more sinister? 

“Let’s get you inside,” Gavin says over the rain. 

Connor nods and they huddle together until they’re in the safety of the old Victorian. They’re both sopping wet and the smell of grilled cheese warms up Gavin’s bones instantly. He goes into the first floor bathroom and grabs some hand towels for them to use to dry off. Nines will probably gripe about that later, but admittedly, Gavin’s not sure this loop is going to be the winning loop so he’ll take the heat. Gavin’s still waiting for another shoe to drop. 

“We need to tell Nines what happened to you outside,” Gavin says to Connor. 

Connor pouts and starts wringing his hands. “No. Please.”

“Why not? He can help you.”

“No, he can’t. No one can. I’m falling apart, Gavin. I’ve got all these error codes and—” His eyes fill up with tears. “I think I’m dying.”

The first person that Gavin sees in his mind’s eye is Hank. He sees him clear as day—blowing his fucking brains out. 

“No, you’re not,” Gavin says firmly. “We’ll fix this. I swear to God we’ll fix this. Hank can’t lose another son.” 

Connor’s bottom lip wobbles and he falls into Gavin’s chest, shuddering. 

Nines leans on the archway from the living room to kitchen. His LED flickers yellow. “What’s happening?”

It’s Connor who responds. “I was outside. I don’t know why. Gavin brought me back inside.” Connor doesn’t look over at Nines. He’s heavy against Gavin’s side and his eyes blink slowly.

“You should stay here tonight,” Nines says. “Maybe we can interface and see what’s happening.” 

Connor nods. “I’ll let Hank know.” 

The power goes out. Gavin sighs. He should’ve known. Gavin goes about finding dry clothes for him and Connor. He ends up putting on the exact same clothes as he’s done so many loops before. This loop does feel different though. He’s no longer an outsider or visitor. This is his life and he’s trying to fix it. It’s the first loop where he really, honest to God,  believes he needs to stay. That he wants to stay. To go back to a Nines that doesn’t know him? Gavin’s not sure he can do it. He loves him so much now. 

Gavin comes back down and gives Connor some of Nines’s clothes. They’re loose on him, but it’s fine. Everyone should be comfortable tonight. Gavin keeps looking out the front windows just in the off chance Connor really wasn’t the person snooping around out there, but he’s pretty sure he’s right. The timing had been too perfect. 

They turn on mindless television and Connor snuggles up into Nines’s arms. He sniffles and looks pathetic, but Gavin gets it. Nines is his family. He’s big and strong and Connor feels so very vulnerable. Nines is nurturing. He strokes his fingers through Connor’s hair. He kisses Connor’s LED. He speaks softly and encouragingly to him. They’re gentle to each other.

Gavin knows Nines is going to be a great mommy-daddy. Gavin’s still not quite sure on what honorific Nines wants to use, but, in Nines’s own words, the baby’s only a bundle of cells right now anyway. 

It’s painfully late when Gavin decides he wants to get comfy and sprawl out in bed. Connor is in stasis in Nines’s arms. 

“I’m gonna go to bed,” Gavin says to Nines in a hushed tone. “That okay?”

Nines smiles and nods. “I think I’ll stay with him. Stay awake for him.” 

Gavin nods. He leans over the back of the sofa and their lips press together. It’s like his body knows exactly what to do. How to press lips to lips. To adjust for height and posture. Muscle memory. Gavin may not remember it, but his body’s done this so many times before. He touches his lips as he goes up the stairs. 

If his body remembers—then the Gavin of this world has never been anyone but him. If his body remembers—then he’s been the Gavin all along. But why doesn’t his mind remember? The last thing he knows is Connor’s blinding light. 

Gavin gets under the blankets and sighs. He’s exhausted from all of it. The loops. The emotional gymnastics with Nines. Making love. Hot dog water guy. Betty. Living the same days over and over make Gavin feel more like he’s getting his skin flayed off in a cheese shredder than just going about his day to day. He curls up and rolls over and falls fast asleep. 

Loop #22 May 5th, 2042

Gavin’s eyes snap wide open. The first thing he does is look over and confirms Nines never did come up to bed with him. There’s a little bit of heartbreak in that. Granted, Connor needed him. Whether Cyberlife is fucking with Connor or Connor really is falling apart, that remains to be seen. Gavin has a pretty big hunch he’s the one that has to figure it out for them all. Nines didn’t really seem to latch on to anything that Gavin said about repeating the day over and over in his anger. He’d been more focused on Gavin wanting to stay with him. Gavin’s not sure he should really double down on that one. Right now, it’s probably just chalked up to Gavin throwing an absolute fit over it all. 

But there’s someone in the garage, and Gavin’s pretty sure it’s not Connor even if Connor generally goes home early for Hank on May 5th. Gavin flips the bedsheets off him and scrambles for something more than just his briefs. With sweatpants acquired and a tee-shirt, he runs down the stairs and sees Nines exactly where he’s used to. He’s got his finger in his mouth, so he must’ve been trying to make the frittatas. Gavin looks at the island and sees the metal bowl with the eggs. Yep. Frittatas. 

“Did you see someone?” Gavin asks.

Nines blinks a few times at him. He looks back to the window and then to Gavin again. His LED flickers yellow. “H-how did you?”

“Because I’ve got a feeling something’s wrong.” 

Nines grabs the gun from the kitchen drawer. Again–Gavin’s gotta figure out where the fuck to put that gun or it’s going to become such an issue in this loop. How they’re blatantly pissing on gun safety is beyond Gavin. Maybe it’s bravado. Surety. They know how to use it. 

Gavin doesn’t fight Nines about coming this time. Together, they make their way out the back door and silently move to the garage. Nines is–hot. More than hot. Gavin’s getting hard just watching how he moves. He’s all panther and stealth. Every motion is perfectly calculated as he checks corners and keeps the gun held low at his pelvis. 

Gavin moves to one side of the garage and Nines to the other. They look at each other and nod. Nines goes in first with the gun. Gavin’s fingers are tingling. He wishes he had something to defend himself with but frankly, he’s got a whole god damn army in one pregnant android. Bundle of cells or not–Nines is lethal. 

“Connor?” Nines’s voice.

Gavin bull-rushes into the garage and sees Connor huddled up, crying. He’s got his hands up in his hair and his face is tear-stained in that weird plastic way android faces show off tear tracks because they don’t absorb the tears back into their skin. “W-what?”

“You were doing errands for Hank.” Nines, without looking at Gavin, extends his hand with the gun and Gavin takes it. Nines then moves to crouch in front of Connor. “Connor, what’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know,” Connor says back. Anguish is so laced in his voice that it makes Gavin’s heart cringe. “I don’t know. I don’t– I don’t know.” 

“What happened?” Nines asks as he helps Connor up. He gets a hand wrapped around Connor’s shoulders and gently guides him out of the garage back to the house.

Gavin takes a moment to look around. There’s thirium on the floor where Connor had been. So he’s damaged–hurt. Gavin sighs through his nose and thinks about Steve Big Dick. This can’t be all a coincidence, right? Cyberlife’s got to be behind whatever’s happening to Connor. Hank can’t lose Connor like this. Gavin grits his teeth so hard his jaw shakes. Gavin’s got to find a way to save Connor in all this too. It’s never just been about Nines. It’s about both of them. Connor had been the one to get Gavin from the past anyway. But he’s trying to hide this from Nines. Gavin needs to get Connor alone.

Gavin gets a text as he’s walking back into the house.  He looks at it and stops dead in his tracks. 

Betty killed herself. It’s from Tina. 

“Fuck,” Gavin says aloud to no one. He types a text back.

How’s hot dog water?

He’s got a name you know! Tina instantly texts back. Haven’t seen him yet. I’m headed there now. You in?

Nah something fucked up is going on with Connor and I need to stay and help him.

Oh no. Tell him I love him!

Gavin locks his phone and heads back up inside. When he gets in, he sees Connor over on the couch in a blanket. Nines is kneeling in front of him, just gently rubbing his hand back and forth on what Gavin assumes is Connor’s leg. Can’t exactly tell when blankets are involved. 

Gavin keeps his distance. He leans on the archway from kitchen to living room and crosses his arms. Connor will keep guarded with Nines–that much is certain. There’s not much Gavin can figure out while Connor is with Nines. But Connor needs his brother right now. It doesn’t have to be all about Gavin in these loops. He can always kill himself and start shit over. Jesus. What a sentence. 

“Can you tell me what you remember?” Nines asks Connor gently. 

Connor shakes his head.

“I’ll call Hank,” Nines says.

“No!” Connor startles and grabs Nines’s wrist. Fingers squeezing into Nines’s palm. “I mean. No. Please. I can’t have him worrying about me. Please, brother. Please keep this between us.” 

Nines frowns and looks from his wrist to Connor’s face. His LED flickers yellow and Gavin’s stomach drops. Something’s there, but Gavin’s too human to figure it out. Nines nods and smiles softly. “Of course, brother.” 

Connor seems to relax and lets himself sink into the couch. “It’s all silly anyway. I just need to get my head on straight.” 

“Why don’t I get you some thirium.” Nines stands up and heads over into the kitchen. His face hardens and Gavin tilts his head to the side, but Nines says nothing to Gavin about it. He just walks on by. 

Gavin’s still holding the gun, he realizes. He should put it somewhere else, but the air is frigid. Nines isn’t as soft and compassionate with Connor as he had been last night. There’s something–mechanical–about him now. Gavin says nothing about it. He just watches Nines with a look of alarm. 

Nines keeps a customer service smile on his face and warms up a mug of thirium. He then brings it on over to Connor. “What caused you to hide in my garage instead of going home?”

“We’re struggling, Hank and me.” Connor takes the mug and sips it. He lets it press to his chest when not drinking from it. “I’m an android and he’s not. I think it’s getting to him. I planned to go home, except, he said some things and I just–I couldn’t.” 

Nines looks at Gavin and if looks could kill–Gavin would be in a new loop. “Humans do struggle with that, yes. There is envy. We don’t wrinkle. We do not get diseases.” 

Gavin crosses his arms and sighs. Yeah, he’s jealous of that bullshit. He’s pushing forty now and he can feel it in his spine. There are little wrinkles on his face that he didn’t have three years ago and he’s pissed about it. If he needs a kidney transplant or something, even his own husband is powerless to help him. But if Gavin gets sick and they have that baby, at least Gavin knows that Nines would be there as long as he can be–at least until the processor goes. Connor said there’s no replacing that. 

“Would you like to stay longer?” Nines asks Connor. He doesn’t brush his hair out of his face like he had last night. He doesn’t hold him. This almost feels more like a distant parent talking to a child than the love Gavin saw last night. Connor is all bundled up and guarded too. 

“No. I should go. I’m sorry for troubling you.” 

Nines nods and looks to the mug. “At least finish that. You’re injured.” 

Connor’s eyes go wide and he looks around his body. “Oh.” 

After Connor guzzles down the thirium, he hugs Nines, but makes no effort to individually say goodbye to Gavin. He just lets his eyes go downcast and gives off an awkward half-smile. Gavin doesn’t know how to take that. They’re supposed to be best friends. But Connor’s got a lot on his mind, right?

Once Connor is gone, Nines stands there in the front window, just looking out. He doesn’t even blink. 

“Yo toaster, what the fuck?” Gavin asks. 

“Haven’t heard that one in awhile.” Nines finally blinks and his gaze snaps to Gavin. “That was not Connor 313-248-317-52.”

“What?” Gavin moves to the window too and tries to look out, but Connor’s long gone. He narrows his eyes and looks up at Nines. “Who else? You said Connor can’t be anyone else but Connor because of deviancy.” 

“That was 313-248-317-60. When he grabbed my hand, he had trace amounts of thirium on his fingers. My palm scanned them without warning.”

Gavin’s heart speeds up. “What the fuck does that mean, Nines?”

“That means your story about Cyberlife and the murder machine code, as you called it, is very much real and we are in extreme danger.” 

“Jesus Christ.” Gavin looks out the window with Nines. He takes big gulps of air to try to steady the way his fingers shake. Even with that other Connor gone, Gavin’s hair at the back of his neck stands on end. He can’t shake that they’re being watched. “I need to see Steve. We need to keep this lookin’ real.” 

Nines nods. “Our family is at stake.” 

“Yeah.” They don’t look at each other. They fall into something like familiar lockstep. It all feels to Gavin so–intimate–so–known to him. “We were partners once, weren’t we?” Gavin knows this feeling. Knowing a whole other person. Knowing how to move his own body and check corners. Knowing how to communicate with just a look. He’d been too riled up at the garage to think about it. But now he knows. 

“At the DPD?”

Gavin shakes his head. “You were FBI.” 

“I’d been your liaison when the FBI needed your assistance.” Nines answers it so simply, Gavin wonders if that means Nines is picking up this isn’t the Gavin from May 3rd. But Nines doesn’t ask, nor does he question. 

Gavin nods. “We need a plan.” Gavin turns back into the living room and crosses over to the kitchen island. He needs the gun. But sweats aren’t exactly easy to store it away. He’ll need to change. 

Nines follows him into the kitchen. “I should call our Connor.”

Gavin nods. “Warn him about Sixty.” Gavin doesn’t know the thing’s name but it needs one, right? Gavin’s not going to call him other Connor. That shit’ll get confusing as fuck. 

“Connor? Hi, hello. Where are you right now?” Nines speaks into the air, but Gavin knows he’s using his brain phone. “There’s something very significant I need you to be aware of for your safety and Hank’s.”

While Nines fills Connor in, Gavin pulls his phone out and starts texting Steve Big Dick. 

Hey you still wanna try this shit with me? Gavin sends.

Yes. Steve’s response is fast. 

Gavin nods and presses his tongue into the back of his bottom lip. He wants to keep Nines out of all this shit. Murder machine or not, there’s a baby in there. Gavin’s baby. 

Lakehouse?

When

Gavin needs to see Steve’s phone. If he can see the phone he can get the passwords and he’s a smart cookie. He can take what he knows into each loop. Get the phone, get the passwords, get to Steve’s computer and figure out how to stop Cyberlife. 

Nines places his hand on the small of Gavin’s back while Gavin leans over the kitchen island. He reads Gavin’s phone that’s out on full display. There’s no look of betrayal or anger. Nines gets it now. He just looks to Gavin and waits to see what the plan is. Like they’ve done this a million times before. 

Tonight, Gavin texts back and nods to Nines. Nines nods back. 

I can’t wait!

Gavin’s stomach flips over and he cringes. The idea of doing anything with Steve makes his skin crawl now. And he’d willingly slept with him once in these fucking loops. That’s a tarnish he won’t so easily forgive himself for. But he’d been so fucked up about all this. He didn't understand yet. Now he does. This is his fucking family. Connor. The baby. Nines. He’ll do whatever he can to protect them. 

Nines leans in and presses a kiss to Gavin’s temple. Gavin leans into it and sighs. “I have faith in you.”

“That makes one of us,” Gavin says back. “What if he wants to kiss me or–or more.”

“You’ll do it,” Nines answers. He gently turns Gavin and they press their hips into each other as they lean on the kitchen island. 

“I don’t wanna,” Gavin whispers back. He looks down between them and then to their wedding rings. Cool blue. He looks up at Nines’s LED and thinks he smiles, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t. Everything is like sandbags weighing him down right now. 

“You must.” Nines brushes his fingers through Gavin’s bangs. 

“Fuck.” Gavin sighs dramatically and drops his head into Nines’s chest.

They stay there for longer than necessary. Nines wraps his arms around Gavin’s shoulders. He sways them gently, like they’re slow dancing to music that’s not playing. Gavin keeps his eyes closed. He’s never felt so–at home–before. It’s like time slows down and the world gets all hazy yellow. He’s sleepy. He just wants this.

But that’s the shit end of the stick for Gavin, isn’t it? Because Gavin doesn’t just get this. He has to fight, claw, and suffer to keep it. Every small victory in these loops has come at the cost of so many uncomfortable ways to die. The next time he dies–which he knows will happen–the Nines of this loop will be gone. It’s always Nines, but that Nines won’t know that they made love together. He won’t know that Gavin’s been doing this for him. Gavin will have to do it all over again. 

Fight. Claw. Bare teeth and snarl. Gavin must, as Nines said. He must.