Chapter Text
It's blurry and muffled but he gets a general theme. Two people yelling, screaming really, at the top of their lungs, and as the volume raises they slide apart like the force of their voices is pushing them in opposite directions. He's standing in the middle, well he assumes it's him given it's his perspective, and even though he doesn't move he feels pulled by them. Then suddenly the noise snaps into focus. Two voices shout, “Come with me!"
He reaches out to both of them, the pull gets stronger, and suddenly there is a crack.
-
Gavin Reed woke up with a splitting headache and a mouth that tastes like a dead rat. It was annoying. He hadn't done anything remotely bad last night. He went to bed early for god's sake. Gavin turned and briefly considers smothering himself with one of his lumpy pillows. It wasn't the best solution but half awake Gavin wasn't much of a thinker.
It was a process to get ready for work. It started with staring at the wall and listing all the reasons why he needed to be a productive member of society. This was set back when he realized that he had once again listed “so I can go back to sleep later” higher than “I need food”. Despite his self sabotaging brain's best attempts he did stand up, get dressed, and throw back a couple of pain killers after he brushed his teeth. For breakfast he grabbed a protein bar that probably had too much fake chocolate in it to pretend to be healthy. He gave his apartment on last look as he did the keys-wallet-phone-badge-gun pocket pat before he sighed and walked out the door. Gavin gave a wave to one of his neighbors who always side eyed him while they reapplied their home sigils. He rolled his eyes, ignored the glare that followed, and went down to his car.
The ride to the precinct was its usual flavor of bland. There was traffic despite the continuing return of public transport. Busses and trains be damned, you can't take cars out to the motor city. Gavin's car being part of the problem but he loved the thing. It was one of the last models to have a full drive and autonomous mode instead of having a safe drive mode like everything after it. That meant if Gavin had one of the last consumer cars that could actually exceed the speed limit. Or he could safely ignore the road completely to dick around on his phone. He sent a string of random emojis to Tina in retaliation of her block of narwhals and pink poops. He closed out of messenger and glanced up as a horn blared somewhere down the road. He rolled his eyes and returned is attention back to the phone. Years ago they tried to take horns out of autonomous cars but that had lasted less than a year. Manufactures said it was an overlooked safety concern and made it an option again. That was bullshit of course, people just loved to make loud noises when they were pissed and hated that their tool of anarchy had been taken away.
And with that delightful thought Gavin opened up his calendar to check his therapist appointments. They hadn't moved but with how hectic work got it was easy to forget the day of the week. Gavin still remembered Chris going into crisis mode after realizing his wife's birthday was the next day. The kind thing to do would have been to remind Chris that Kate was understanding and wouldn't care. What he actually did was cackle like a fucking gremlin chanting, “You are so fucked!" until he couldn't breathe. Yeah, there was a reason he was still in therapy. Despite this constant schedule upheaval he rarely missed his appointments. His web sessions with the tela-therapist Deb were usually after work and was late she used being in an earlier time zone to her advantage. As for his in person sessions with Aceso, Fowler made sure he attended them come hell or high water. The man had more reminder alerts than he did. Apparently having watched the fall of Anderson, Fowler was very motivated to keep his staff that willing get help to their various appointments. Gavin being a semi competent asshole was graced with this special attention as well.
The therapy hadn't even started off as a conscious decision honestly. Tela-therapy had been aggressively offered to all first responders and law enforcement during the weeks following the android revolution. Gavin had scoffed at it when he was forced to take the card with the contact number. It sat on his coffee table for several days until one night he was sleep deprived, through half a tobacco vape pen, and grabbed the card out a fit of frustration and the need to just talk to something with a face. That was how he ended ranting at some dude named Harrison about all of the shit he had to deal with for three during the middle of the night and somehow ended up talking about shit he didn't even tell his friends and family. He didn't intend to ever respond to the request for additional sessions but it had felt so good to talk to someone who wasn't in the thick it. Of the semi functional blockage into the city, protesters, rioters, military police, and watching people change their minds and sides seemingly overnight. People who had thrown bricks at the first march were now part of the groups blocking anti android protesters from Jericho. Went the other way too, saw a hippie chick from his building who was telling strangers androids were people screaming vile in the background of news report. And Gavin was in this weird tense limbo. He knew he was angry but he couldn't figure out what to do with it. So, one follow up call followed another until it three weeks had passed. It helped even if he never let himself go into the personal side of it like the first call. Detroit was still a shit show but he didn't want to see it burn out of spite. Now over a year since the revolution, revolt, whatever the term everybody was using he was sitting in traffic fondly remembering how he had tripped into therapy. God his life was weird.
The precinct had recovered well from the chaos from November 2038. Where it had been understaffed during the crisis and the first months that followed, now there was a full staff and updated equipment at every desk. Android rights were still being openly debated on the state and federal level but Detroit had kind of become a test bed for human/android relations. Especially since the notoriously neutral councils of magic had, in what could be described as the political version of a vague hand gesture, sided in favor of android rights. Even with the weakest form of support it gave the collective members of the United States government something to clench about. It meant that Detroit could tentatively hire androids on as staff for office work and emergency services. There was a series of public spats over hiring practices but Gavin was just glad he could go back to having time off. The Gavin from early November 2038 would be horrified but that Gavin hadn't lived through December 2038 and was a massive dick head.
He let the car autopark in one of the spots reserved for officers higher up the food chain and stretched before he headed into the precinct. While he liked most parts of his job Gavin couldn't help a sigh as he walked in. Even good work was still work. The front area was just starting to busy but he tried to wave to the secretaries as he showed the officer standing guard his badge. Just a little thing to at least make him look like a team player, the fake it till you make it approach. Apparently it worked to some degree if Deb was to be trusted. He was about to walk to his desk when someone grabbed his left arm. Gavin raised his free hand ready to take a swing when he saw who it was and deflated immediately.
“Damn it Tina, you know better than to do shit like that!"
Instead of an appropriate reply Tina stuck her phone in his face as he tried to push her off his now trapped arm. “Is this supposed to be a sex thing?"
Gavin gave up on freeing his arm and instead pushed the phone far enough away he could actually see it. Tina had the screen open to the last set of emojis he'd sent. It was a cat with heart eyes, eggplant, flexed arm, snowman, and the flag for Greece. Huh, he barely remembered what he sent and had picked them by scrolling through options. Totally innocent, but in Tina's defense the eggplant emoji was forever tainted by horny assholes. Tina pocketed the phone and used her second hand to secure her grip on him. Damn it.
“If you don't know I'm not telling you. I'm not a sweaty PE teacher forced into explaining the birds and the bees to traumatized children." Gavin said while rolling his eyes. “Now let go of my arm. You're claws are starting to cut off the circulation."
“They are not claws they are talons. You have nasty ass claws cause you only look at a bottle of lotion when you get no no thoughts." Tina hissed and tightened her grip.
Gavin batted at her hands again knowing that it wouldn't do anything other than stale her. He'd tried the not reacting path before and going full limp fish. It didn't work. Tina just used the lack of resistance to get control of the high ground.
“Tell me what it means you fiend," she muttered.
He stopped pawing at his arm just long enough to look her eyes and say, “Never."
She groaned and gave his arm one last extra squeeze before letting go with a huff. Gavin winced and rubbed his arm.
“You're lucky we're at work," Tina said as she stepped back slightly.
“I'm really not," He said, “Cause first of all it means I have to work. Next you got the whole day to plot whatever it is you have for revenge."
“It's funny you think I need the whole day for that."
Gavin shrugged, “You don't but means you have time to add flourish to it. Now get lost I have to get through a stack of paperwork."
“Yeah yeah, be afraid asshole. I have to head out before Chris starts tapping his foot at me," Tina smiled and lightly punched the arm she'd clung too. Ow.
Gavin rolled his eyes, “Stay safe out there T."
He glanced over his shoulder and saw her do a half wave as she walked off. He hoped something non dangerous but distracting happened. Tina's petty revenges made for funny stories a few weeks later after drinks, but he didn't enjoy living through them. Gavin shook his head and continued the walk to his desk. He didn't look forward to paper work but there was a chance he'd be chained to the desk.
Gavin had dropped into his chair and dicked around for a few minutes before he finally logged on his computer. It took a half hour for him to get engrossed in the various forms and started to relax into the rhythm. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up before he heard them. He took a deep breath and looked up over his monitor. Two witches, a man and a woman, dressed in dark navy were chatting with each other as they walked across the precinct floor. Probably there to collect some low level magic idiot who tried some shit. God he hoped they weren't grabbing a homicide suspect. Dealing with the councils and covens was a jurisdictional nightmare. Dealing with witches in general was a nightmare.
The pair had paused near Ben's desk and Gavin suppressed a shudder as he looked at them. Androids may have been glorified plastic but witches looked artificial in the way that should have been physically impossible. Cyberlife at least tired to fake human skin with undertones and various shades. Witches looked like they absorbed the life out all the colors they came in contact with. Their faces looked like flat porcelain and their clothing looked like it was paint chip samples more than an actual fabric. Then they moved and it triggered every level lizard brain to scream WRONG Gavin remembers his 3rd grade teacher saying all witches were born like regular humans and used to look just like everyone else before they embraced their magic. It was probably some misguided attempt to make witches less scary to children but for him it just made them creepier.
Still when the two started to move in his direction Gavin gave them a wave. Unlike the secretaries who didn't see him wave or didn't care the witches seemed to actively ignore him. They moved closer to Hank's desk instead of going straight between the desks like they had been and suddenly became very interested in the ceiling.
“Pricks," he huffed and turned to glare at his screen. The uneasy feeling left as the witches headed deeper into the building and Gavin felt drained. He leaned onto the desk and rubbed his face with both hands. Coffee. He was going to get coffee, forget about assholes with magic and finish his reports. Once he was motivated enough to actually stand up.