#but jesus fuck the arrival and threat of was unnecessary and stressful

[catullansparrowlet]

Oh, the thrill of narrowly getting out of a forced grippy sock vacation caused by someone seeing one crying a bit in the staircase of the university and, instead of asking if everything was alright, deciding to call emergency services.

#We'll take you with us if there's no one you can call right now #care about your well-being and all you talk about is wanting to go home! #this day has been a lot; I'm physically ill and I lost the keys to my bike which made me late to class #like this is a uni building- everyone here has cried over at least one of their courses #with all due respect to the languages of the ancient near east: we love you guys but sometimes you are a bit much for our sanity #and that is okay #nothing like a shared cry over Coptic or Akkadian homework to really create a bond y'know #but jesus fuck the arrival and threat of was unnecessary and stressful #and then they had the audacity to shout at me bc they #like duh? #Fam I love you but there's nothing a paramedic can so to make me suddenly remember all those cuneiform signs in time for exam week #so yeah I want to go home to where the books are that should be able to help me #And no I was not actually in crisis #This wasn't even a panic attack #just a meek little cry #and they wanted to put me away #tsk #CW: mental health #CW: hospitalisation #CW: forced hospitalisation #CW: crying #CW: university #I feel like Akkadian should have a CW too at this point #so #CW: Akkadian

[phcking-detective]

8. Baby’s First Crime Scene

Fic Title: First Blood

Rating: E

Length: 7/33 chapters, ~128k

Tags: Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Trans Character (gavin), Autistic / Asexual / Non-binary Character (nines), BDSM, learning to use good etiquette and safe words, Dom Nines / Sub Gavin, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Chapter Tags: more Tina Chen, Nines works his first crime scene without Gavin, Nines goes nonverbal during a confrontation, Nines and Tina discuss how the victim was shot (medical and detailed, but not overly graphic)

Link on AO3

***

Nines returns to the crime scene to find Officer Klein under the delusion that he is now in charge. His partner seems to better understand his place on the food chain at least, slumped against the wall of the hallway while enjoying his coffee and donut.  

Officer Rogers, age fifty-nine, active member of an online boston terrier fan club. A nearly negligible threat who barely even glances up as Nines enters the victim's apartment.

He stands quietly behind Officer Klein with his audio processor set to strip out the human's voice so he can focus on prioritizing the crime scene. [retrieve Gavin's jacket] receives an unnecessarily high priority. Nines attributes the discrepancy to the jacket containing his partner's cellphone, a device he frequently hacks for his own communicating convenience.

The laptop sitting on the victim's desk takes highest priority, followed by examining all surfaces for trace amounts of blood tracked away by the perp—before the human officer and two android units inside bumble their way through all the evidence.

Nines slips around Officer Klein's side when he turns to lecture the PC200 and calculates the optimal position for reaching Detective Reed's jacket without stepping in any of the blood.

Officer Klein stomps directly through it.

The human's lips move, so it is likely making sound, but Nines cuts that off when he grabs it by the throat and removes it from the crime scene. Flailing and kicking prove ineffectual. Still, to prevent the human transferring blood from the bottom of its shoes to Nines' dress pants, he tosses it down the hall.

The other human officer moves to place its hands on him, but then quickly rethinks that idea when Nines makes eye contact.

You just assaulted an officer. The human's lips move. Klein—hey! Stay over there, Klein.

The PM700 moves closer slowly in his peripheral vision. It holds Detective Reed's jacket, lips clear in Nines' peripheral vision.

Is this what you wanted?

Nines reaches out and takes the jacket without breaking eye contact with Officer Rogers.

You can't just lay hands like that on—for fuck's sake, Klein, you don't want to bother the Captain about this, trust me.

Nines locates the cellphone and pulls it out for the human to see. He gets a gun pointed at him for his effort in communication. Not that it would be effective in any manner, but still. The bullet ricocheting off his chassis could damage the two other police units or worse, contaminate the crime scene.

Are "—you all right?" The PM700 asks.

Nines broadcasts his reply from the cellphone. "Yes. Officer Rogers."

"Uhhh." The human looks at the phone, then stares up at him before intelligently asking, "Yeah?"

He has Rogers' attention now, but using the cellphone's text-to-speech function is tedious. Text alone would be much faster. Nines shows the phone screen to the PM700 without relinquishing it to her.

"I require the crime scene to actually remain secure," she reads aloud. "If Officer Klein tram—um, tramples through the evidence—"

Officer Klein beings yelling again.

"Then I will remove him. Again."

Officer Rogers attempts to calm the yelling. The PM700 glances between the two as her stress levels rise. The PC200 stands half behind the doorway of the apartment and flinches every time the human's noise rises above seventy-five decibels.

Nines considers removing them all from the building.

The yelling temporarily stops at least, at Detective Chen's arrival. Nines had not picked up on any additional transmissions for assistance, either from the other androids or over the DPD radio.

"I got here as fast as I could." Detective Chen ignores the other humans to address Nines. "Gavin texted me from this random number about blood and being in a hospital and—"

Nines reads through her recent chat history with Gavin, who apparently though it would be a good and coherent idea to text his friend and follow police detective:

123 &131

blood @ hosiptal

Given that Detective Chen has every right to believe Gavin has been shot, Nines decides clarifying the situation takes a high enough precedence to broadcast his actual voice through the cellphone.

"Detective Reed and I responded to a code one-forty. We found the victim still alive. He is currently donating blood at the Henry Ford medical center."

"Oh Jesus." Detective Chen bends over with her hands on her knees. "That asshole! I'll show him a fucking code one-forty. Goddammit."

Everyone stays blessedly silent while she gets her breath back. Almost everyone.

"He threw me!" Officer Klein suddenly feels the need to complain.

"What?" Detective Chen straightens back up and surveys the hallway. "Nines, report."

"Angelica Juarez, age twenty-seven, subject of the codes one-twenty-three and one-thirty-one. I have secured the crime sce—"

Officer Klein interrupts. "The fucking murderbot over here picked me up by the throat!"

"Nines." Detective Chen looks at him and lets out a sigh. "Why did you use your big boy hands on Peter?"

Officer Klein splutters and opens his mouth to say something else, but a sharp finger stab in his direction by Chen cuts him off.

"If you boys are going to act like first graders, I'm going to treat you like first graders," she says. "Nines. Report."

Nines continues to broadcast through the cellphone. He has no way to estimate if Detective Chen has done so for his benefit, but responding to an order to report is much easier than simply vocalizing. If the other humans leave, he may even be able to skirt his lack of a social module enough to hold actual conversation from his own voicebox.

"Officer Klein walked through trace amounts of blood that could have yielded a footprint from the perpetrator."

"Bullshit, no I didn't!"

Detective Chen lets out another loud sigh and pulls out a package of plastic booties from her utility belt. The other two android units already wear their own, unlike Officer Klein. Nines moves to follow Detective Chen inside the apartment after she finishes equipping hers, but she stops him with a hand in front of his chest. No physical contact though. Nines rates his estimation of her a little higher.

"Booties," she says.

"Unnecessary. I can perfectly predict where I—"

"Booties in the crime scene, that's the rule," Detective Chen insists.

The two human males snicker. Nines would protest an unnecessary and illogical rule further, but there's no need to subject any of them to more immaturity. However, even after deciding to comply, he recognizes that her pairs meant to fit over a woman's size 6.5 will not fit over his shoes.

"Here," the PM700 says. "These should fit you."

The official DPD database lists a PM700 and PC200 working together as partners. That is accurate. Yet the two have swapped appearances and seem to have altered their files accordingly as well.

While the PM700 has modded her physical model to have the appropriate facial and secondary sexual characteristics of her new series [gender?], she cannot change the size of her feet. Since that affects neither himself nor his partner, Nines designates that information as [irrelevant].

"They're … my partner's," she lies.

The PC200 who still hasn't dared to venture out of the doorway doesn't make eye contact. His feet clearly aren't large enough to fit either that statement or these booties.

Nines accepts the booties and practices giving [a nod]. Gavin does that when he doesn't want to actually say thank you, and speaking directly to the PC200 might raise his stress levels even higher.

Except now Nines has to actually put on the booties. Bending over or sitting on the floor would be undignified. From the [smirk] on Officer Klein's face, the human knows it as well.

Nines maintains direct eye contact with him as he lifts his foot and crosses his ankle over his knee, as he has observed some males prefer to sit. He remains standing however, for the first bootie and then the second.

"You." Detective Chen points to the PC200 in the meantime. "Sync up with the other androids who have human partners. I want officers canvasing the neighborhood in case the killer is hiding out somewhere or anyone saw something."

"Yes, ma'am."

Chen motions for Nines to follow her into the crime scene now that he is properly outfitted. Officer Klein is left outside as the PM700 tells him that was their last pair.

Nines reaches for Chen when she approaches the edge of the blood splatter too fine for her human eyes to see. He also does not initiate physical contact, only steps quickly to her side and holds his hand in front of her.

"The perpetrator attempted to shoot the victim in the back, but only hit her arm," he says with his own voice now that they are relatively alone.

"Might've dropped down when she heard the shots or tried to hide beneath her desk," Detective Chen mused out loud.

She surveys the desk, then crouches herself without letting her knees touch the floor. She should be able to see the bullet embedded in the wall beneath the desk from her current angle.

"That from the second shot or the third?" she asks.

"Second. Clean through and through the victim's shoulder." Nines stands at military attention with his hands clasped behind his back as he delivers his report. "The shooter then stepped forward, grabbed her shoulder, and shoved her onto the floor."

"Face up or face down?"

"Face up, on her back. Third and final shot directly to her chest. No exit wound."

Detective Chen stands back up. "So he's not a good shot. Aimed for center mass three times and could only hit her point blank."

"We should not assume gender at this stage, but correct," Nines says.

Chen looks back around the crime scene without moving from her spot. "Bullet from the first shot?"

"Entered the potted plant on the desk there." Nines points out the location. "Likely still within the soil. I will leave recovering the bullets to ballistics."

"All right, so where's this blood splatter Klein stepped in?" Detective Chen asks next.

"On the floor diagonal to the bottom left corner of the desk."  

Nines steps carefully around the congealing pool. Chen follows exactly in his footsteps until they're close enough for him to physically point at the evidence.

"If you cannot see the spray left on the floor, even human eyes should be able to note where the blood hit the corner of the desk. Being closer to—"

"Yeah, yeah. I can see that," Chen mutters, crouching back down again and staring hard at the floor. "This would be from the first shot, through her arm?"

"Correct."

"I can see the blood splatter underneath the desk over there."

"Second shot, through her shoulder. As it is located underneath the desk, it contains no foot or finger prints," Nines informs her. "As such, it will be of interest to ballistics only, for the purpose of establishing—"

"I know how ballistics does their work," Detective Chen interrupts. "Do you overexplain to Gavin too or is it just women?"

"Overexplain."

Nines replays the parked car conversation he had with Detective Reed. The human had yelled and hit the steering wheel in an attempt to communicate that Nines should not inform him of "basic shit" about crime scenes. Yet failing to inform the detective that the maid had cleaned all the floors at the previous crime scene had been an oversight of important evidence.

"I provide Detective Reed with the same amount of information," Nines says. "He has requested I text it to his cellphone so that he may privately sort what is relevant. You have requested I never interface with your phone again. Therefore, you are receiving my reports verbally."

Detective Chen stares at him a moment longer. "So Gavin wasn't just being mean or joking when he said you don't have a social module."

"I do not see how that is relevant now," Nines says. "We are working, not socializing."

"Oookay. Hey, Klein!"

Officer Klein enters the room, stopping short of approaching them when Detective Chen holds up her hand.

"Did you step here?" She points to the fine blood spray on the floor where Officer Klein stepped.

"I mean." The human shrugs and hooks his thumbs into his utility belt. "Yeah, I might've, I guess. But there's nothing—"

"There's blood here."

"Aw, c'mon! Reed walked through all—"

Nines interrupts him this time. "Detective Reed provided emergency medical assistance and is currently at the Henry Ford Medical Center to donate blood to the victim. If she survives, it will be due entirely to his actions."

Detective Chen draws in a breath, and Nines is aware that is typically a signal that a human will begin speaking soon, but he has already preconstructed what he intends to say and he will be saying it regardless.

"Your actions were nothing except negligent, and to imply that the two share any correlation is—"

"RK!" Detective Chen snaps. "Only person here who gets to chew out the rookies is me." She turns back to Officer Klein. "So fucking speaking of which—this is why you always wear booties and pay. Attention. You can practice the latter outside, in case the ME didn't get the message there's no body. And keep the media out. Go!"

Officer Klein stomps away upon being dismissed. Detective Chen rubs her temples, then smooths her hand over her hair and tightens her ponytail.

"All right. What do we have left?" she asks. "Like, tell me you can do something about that laptop."

"Correct," Nines replies. "I can provide an initial examination to determine what parts are damaged, if it can still run, and the most likely explanation for how it was fried."

"OK, great. Where are those other two bots—uh, shit. Androids?"

The PM700 and PC200 appear at the doorway. The PM700 waves. Nines does not wave back. This is not a social function and they have already been introduced.

"Are we allowed in?"

"Yeah, yeah, get in here," Detective Chen says. "RK, do you need any help … doing your thing?"

"I do not require assistance."

"Great, sure. What do I call you?" Detective Chen asks the PM700.

"Um."

The PM700's LED swirls yellow. She sends a message through the open network available to all androids. Nines monitors this network, but it is far too much of a security threat to join. Any android—or even a particularly adept human hacker—could send anything embedded in a message through that system.

"My name is Lisa," she finally says after Nines ignores several messages that were presumably intended for him. "And this is John."

"Hello, ma'am," PC200 [John] says.

Nines decides this conversation is no longer relevant. He makes his way over to the other side of the desk without disturbing any of the evidence and examines the laptop while Detective Chen chats with the other two androids before assigning them to interview the leasing manager and knock on doors to find any possible witnesses. Definitely not relevant to his own skill set.

The laptop is nearly obsolete even if it were running. The serial number on the back identifies it as a MSI GS97 Razor 0-87 that only has a tenth generation i9-1050H core processor at least ten years out of date. Parts of the plastic casing have melted from what Nines estimates at first preconstruction was a surge of electricity.

The power cord nestled beneath the desk still features a business card sized hunk of a power block, which has also been blown out. The outlet it connects too appears fine. Nines unplugs the cord, retracts the synthskin on one hand, and extends a single metal nail. 120v at 60Hz flows through his circuits, as is standard for an American outlet.

"Please tell me sticking your finger in the socket has something to do with the case," Detective Chen says after finally dismissing [Lisa] and [John].

"The laptop was most likely fried by an electrical surge." Nines stands back up for his report. "Ninety-six point eight percent chance. I have now established that the outlet has not recently experienced a surge, protected by the power block in the laptop's charging cord that absorbed the excess electricity."

"So something hit the laptop, jumped through the power cord, but then fizzled out before damaging the outlet," Detective Chen summarizes. "Gavin said you were looking at an android perp. Could one of you do that?"

"I could," Nines says. "Technically, any model sufficiently modified could as well, but such modifications are unlikely to be compatible with models created before twenty-thirty."

Chen makes a sucking noise with her mouth. This is an indication of thought in humans. Nines saves a recording of the action and reconstructs a facial model as well.

"What about unmodified?"

"Units created between twenty-thirty and twenty-thirty-five could possibly produce enough electricity to fry an older laptop, depending on the model. Any units from thirty-five to the current year could, regardless of model. Commercial models have internal protections in place specifically to prevent this however."

Chen leans over the laptop but keeps her human hands with their human fingerprints to herself. "So does that rule them out or not?"

"A deviant could theoretically bypass its own protective measures. May I continue my investigation, detective?" Nines asks.

"Yeah. Let me know if you get that thing running. I'm going to do another walk-through."

Nines acknowledges the statement with a nod, then returns his attention to the laptop. His attempts to connect with it wirelessly have been unsuccessful, so he tries a traditional interface next. No response.

The only fingerprints on the laptop belong to the victim, Angelica Juarez, age twenty-seven, arrested twice during public protests in 2036 and 2038. An android perpetrator would not leave prints, and neither would Nines, but he still equips his recently-purchased black leather gloves before handling the evidence, as per Detective Chen's preference.

Removing the plastic covering on the laptop's bottom reveals much of the circuitry inside has been fried, as suspected. While unlikely to be the only problem due to the extent of the damage, it is technically within the realm of possibility that the laptop cannot boot up because the information in the CMOS has been scrambled.

Nines picks out the motherboard battery with his extended nail, inspects it for damage, and replaces it after exactly three seconds.

The laptop does not interface with him.

Solely so that Detective Reed and possibly Detective Chen do not mock him for missing the most obvious solution, Nines manually presses the power button like an absolute barbarian.

The laptop still does not boot up.

Nines downloads a live version of Linux and attempts to connect to the laptop again so he can burn the OS to his own system and boot it up within his quarantined space, but the laptop is too dead for him to even force the Linux into it.

An actual, physical flashdrive may be necessary. Or even worse—a SATA-USB cord to connect him to the laptop like an overgrown iphone.

Gavin is going to mock him for weeks.

***

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1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33

I also have a Patreon for this fic, if you want to support me! $1 gets you access to chapters a week early, $2 gets bonus content and deleted scenes, and $3 gets short chapters from two AUs I’m writing: an A/B/O heatfic and reverse!AU

this week’s bonus content is some more backstory on how Nines gets an apartment before the start of this fic, plus another chapter from the A/B/O AU where Omega!Gavin is in heat and Alpha!Nines offers to help (fuck him)

the money I make from patreon goes toward paying for therapy and hopefully HRT, since I have my first appointment to start taking T this October!

#reed900 #reed900 fic #dbh #dbh fic #gavin reed #my writing #ch 8