Chapter Text
"Ha! Sucker's bet."
It was no secret that their Captain and Lieutenant have been best friends for years, decades even, and even less of one that Hank's drinking problem wasn't exactly curbed no matter if he was doing better these days. It was no stretch of the imagination to think that Hank would be over at Fowler's house if Connor wasn't home to keep him company, especially if he was being particularly chummy.
"Wonder if they're having their own bitch night? It'd be a great time for him to talk to his pal Jeffery about the creep from SVU."
"Most definitely. Except I think theirs involves more hockey and bad decisions. You remember that one time the Captain came in like two hours late and limping? Hank was on time and cordial all day." Nines knew that Tina was going to punch him for that one.
O-oh. That was rude and wrong, and not something that Tina needed in her head. Those two men were not only old enough to be her parents but were also her bosses! She didn't need to have an image of them getting down and dirty playing in the background every time she thought about them at all.
"Fuck you, Nines. Just - gah - why did you have to put that in my head?!"
But it made a kind of sense, in a way, why the Captain was so lenient with Anderson's behavior both past and present, and so blase about the man's drinking problem.
Still, it wasn't something she wanted to think about it. Nope. No old men fucking like bunnies in front of the television.
Jesus fuck.
"God, I hate you so much right now."
Nines fell off the couch he was laughing so hard. "I'm sorry Tina, but I've seen pictures of Hank's late wife, guess who he was married to?" Nines was glad that she hadn't punched him yet.
She followed his downward momentum and flopped in the empty space he left behind. A hand slapped at the android's heaving chest and shoulder.
"When has this information ever been something I have sought out? Tell me anyway, babyboy."
"Amanda Stern. Elijah Kamski's beloved mentor. How's that for a small world?"
That was a bombshell if ever there was one because what the actual fuck?!
Elijah Kamski's life was pretty much plastered all over the place and throughout so many publications back when Cyberlife started to make waves in the tech sector that anyone who had a working brain glommed up tidbits if not the whole monty regarding who he was, who he associated with, and who helped guide him towards his full potential as an inventor and innovator.
Amanda Stern was on the top of that list. To know that the Lieutenant had a deeper, more intimate connection to someone so influential was mindboggling and sparked a curiosity so intense it might as well have been a literal lightbulb shining inside her skull.
However, Tina was quick to snuff that out. Anderson's life was a mess for as long as she'd known the man and he further mucked it and several others up with his shitty decisions and spiral into alcoholism. And he tended to snap like a rabid dog whenever brought up anything about his life outside of the precinct.
Sure, he was getting better and tended to be more of an overgrown teddy bear but she couldn't and wouldn't forget how intimidating he was when his hackles were up and he was spitting venom at whoever pissed him off.
Besides, how much would he appreciate his underlings knowing something he didn't want to share? Or she assumed he didn't want to share that since he didn't have pictures up at his desk of his late wife. He didn't have pictures of his late son up either.
It made her wonder just how much of the man's previous anger towards androids was really all about the one that failed to save his kid...
"That man has the shittiest of luck. Do you think Kamski knew and that's why he was such a fucking prick when Conman and Anderson went looking for answers back in that November?"
"Gavin says that Kamski definitely knew. But he thinks that Elijah's behavior was more akin to child sulking because their favorite toy taken away. Apparently the RK line is his personal pet project." Nines thought about the man's indignation on his and Sixty's behalf. "He's very attached to us as a whole."
"Pet project ten years after he was booted from the company? Seems fake but okay."
That always seemed an odd point of contention being thrown around. Gavin had mentioned it a few times and she's heard it from various others, including Nines, but it never made a lot of sense unless Kamski had his fingers still in Cyberlife's pie and if that was the case the man was a lot more scummy than she thought.
"You're not toys and you're definitely not his. I've got more claim on you than that guy...but he definitely has more money to take care of your nacho habit."
"Cyberlife illegally seized both the RK800s and the RK900s from him about threeish years ago. The same year that Cole died....." Now that Nines was thinking about it why would Cyberlife create an Android that was custom tailored to Hank? Unless Connor was going to be a gift for him like Markus was for Carl.
"That doesn't jive well with what Cyberlife said about Connor's development but I'd more believe that they're lying than them having a ready built twunk investigator model all ready to be deployed all over the country right after a little trial run where deviancy just happens to be sparking hottest."
Which also brought up some uncomfortable questions about Cyberlife's ties to the military and RK900 line that was supposed to fill their ranks.
It didn't matter so much anymore, though, since androids were free beings now and Cyberlife was in better hands these days.
"Fuck'em. You're ours now and everyone else can suck an egg."
Nines laughed at her crass but true statement. He grinned brightly at her, showing off the fangs that he often hid out of self-consciousness. "I'm glad that I belong to you guys. It's never boring. Speaking of Cyberlife and better hands, how are you enjoying teaching a bunch of PLs how to kickbox? Simon told me that North says that your students adore you."
"It will never cease to amaze me how advanced you androids are, built strong, tough, flexible, and with the capacity to learn that is, frankly, scary as fuck yet can be so terribly clumsy and uncoordinated when it comes to fighting."
She loved their students, she really did, but they were hilariously bad at fighting. Or, well, terrible at first. They took direction really well and it didn't take them long to pick up techniques and proper stance and strikes, but those first few lessons were filled with accidents and falls with some dislocated fingers and joints.
"They're coming along though. Won't be long before they're out there defending themselves effectively and possibly helping to teach more androids that wanna learn."
"Do you think that I should try to trick Connor into joining the group therapy afterwards or is his martyr-complex too strong?" Nines had to ask her, because Simon just got snippy when he talked about Connor.
Tina smacked at him again, this time harder.
"Tricking someone into therapy is a dick move. But I think some therapy would do him some good because that boy has issues. You all do. Is Sixty going to it or did he find his own therapist? For that matter, have you?"
"Sixty is joining North's meditation group. I'm going to see if I can't get an appointment with Lucy on Saturday before I watch Venom with Gavin. North doesn't want a conflict of interest with anyone in the therapy group. It's partially why she and Markus are fighting.... again. She was crying to Josh the last time Simon and I had a day in. It was the day before I came to work with the silver eyeshadow and black wingliner." Gavin and Connor had both stared at him strangely all day. Gavin had been staring so hard that he'd walked into a wall and knocked himself out. Needless to say Nines had since not gone to work in any makeup no matter how pretty it made him feel.
Honestly, Sixty didn't seem the type for meditation so it was a little odd to think the guy was peacing it up with North. If he was, though, good for him. Bad for North because the bitch didn't tell her! But good for him.
"Isn't she usually booked solid? Hopefully you'll get a slot because I heard she's really good."
Hooboy, the makeup incident.
She only heard talk about that because she'd, unfortunately, been stuck out on patrol and then kept on scene as crowd control most of that day. Gavin gave her the deets but the man refuted any claim that he had photographic evidence and since it didn't make its way in their private group chat or his insta she tended to believe he hadn't gotten a sneaky snap.
"You know we're going to have to have a glam night at some point. I can't do eyeshadow for shit but I'm an ace at couture and your cheekbones were made for it."
"Not on a work night Gavin injured himself last time, because he was staring so hard." Nines sulked, he'd been trying to be pretty and Connor and Gavin had both acted like he'd committed a crime. "And thank you for the compliment. I'll do your eyeshadow."
"Maybe you can come over early on Sunday and we can get prettied up before the concert?"
It's asked innocently enough, she thinks. No ulterior motives or anything. Nope!
"Thanks. I've got tons of makeup packed in a case underneath my sink we can break out and play with so don't worry about bringing anything unless you got some specific colors you want to use."
"You mean it!" Nines is eager to be pretty again, he hasn't had the courage to touch the cheap little set that he'd snuck off to buy during a stakeout with Gavin. "Silver and pink, I want to be cute for a night!" Nines gave Tina another fangy grin. Two! In one night!
Tina smiled down at him, delighted in how something so simple made her friend light up like a Christmas tree.
"I'm Asian, so half my palettes have soft tones and highlights so you bet your plasteel ass that there's silver and pink mixed in there somewhere. All you need to do is make sure you've got something snazzy to wear that matches. Me? I'll have to wait to see what cute little number Sixty went out and got me...and don't think for a second I'm not going to interrogate the fuck out of that dumbass about that because what the fuck?! But, yeah! It'll be fun."
"I'm going to wear that sweater that I brought with you the other day, the one you yelled at me for." Nines was just happy that he was going to get to really dress up. "Sixty scanned you the last time we all got together as a group."
"You RKs have got to stop scanning your friends without permission or at least stop admitting to doing it."
It was a little creepy. Okay, a lot creepy but most the time it was done benignly; health checks, injury checks, things like that. Scanning a body to get measurements so they can be used to get a properly sized dress for a friend?
Creepy yet thoughtful. Tina's undecided, to be honest.
"As long as it's not just that sweater I won't scream at you again."
"I'm not Simon got me shorts with built in thigh garters and some cute mesh nylons to go with! He kept telling me not to let North or Connor see them. And Gavin and I went boots shopping!" Nines knew that his inability to feel shame in most aspects of his life was often a point of contention between his friends.
"What I'm getting out of this is that you're a real slut and Simon needs to take me shopping for weekend bootycall outfits."
She softened the blow of her comment with a quick pinch to the nearest cheek should could reach followed up by a soft pat.
"You're going to look amazing and I'm already jealous."
Tina wriggled a little, bending at her waist and half off the couch, to get a hand around one of Nines' legs and went to lift it.
"Boots with or without heels because you are already a mountain, okay? Like legitimately scraping the clouds. How much taller are you planning to be?!"
"Just an inch. Gavin said that anything else would get me raped. Besides you're going to be wearing your shiny strappy heels so there's not going to be much height difference." Nines allowed Tina to manhandle him, slipping into that happy headspace that only she seemed able to coax him into.
Imagining Nines an inch taller in that sweater she nearly brained him over because catty-gorgeous doesn't even begin to describe it was easy enough but adding another inch to his already indecent height had her agreeing that he'd be an absolute feast for any horn dogs looking to eat out.
Though thinking about Nines putting someone through a wall because they tried to get frisky without permission was sending her into peals of delight.
Tina shook his leg then let him straighten it back out on the floor.
"I bet they're shitkickers. He's got such a thing for those things and I don't even blame him. Bet you look amazing in them."
Nines hummed and smiled lazily at Tina. Thinking of what I would do to someone who gets fresh with me? The boots have lots of chains on them." Nines stretched and rolled over.
"Kinky."
It probably wouldn't take much convincing to let her snap a few dozen photos before they go out, right? Maybe. He was going to look devastating and it would be just the thing to tease her best friend with.
Well, she would if she didn't think Nines would shatter her spine in retaliation.
Probably worth it.
"Gavin probably thought a lot of impure thoughts about you and those boots because I know I sure am. You're completely unfair, the lot of you RKs. Thank god you're my friend or I'd be jealous."
"Is that why he was staring vacantly into space for five minutes when I showed him that picture that you took of me sitting on your couch in my sweater? I'm sure Sixty will check all your boxes. He's a bratty subby bitch. And he's only a couple of inches taller than you." Nines pushed himself up to sit with his back against the couch and grabbed the controller and wirelessly saved the game, then he switched over to botw. He still has 60 shrines to go 100% completion of the game. Tina could bitch at him later.
"Proof. You have had proof of this man's want for you and yet you've been thinking that he doesn't like you or would date you."
She refused to give up her sprawl but did scooch down towards the lounger to give him plenty of room to sprawl comfortably.
"Both excellent qualities that I do deeply enjoy. Helps, too, that he's cute as hell. However, Mr. Matchmaker, that's neither here nor there since we've known each other this long and nothing's sparked."
She sighed and waved a hand in a circular motion as if to clear the air.
"I'll forever be loveless and have to live vicariously through your love life so get crackin' on pulling my idiot best friend and your idiot predecessor. Also, buddy, break the Xbox and get the new switch already. What's the worst Sixty'll do? Whine? Screech? Toss you out a window? Pft, he'll get over it and finally join this decade."
Nines had just attempted to make a jump in one of the shrines only to end up yeeting himself into empty space. "T, he buys you clothes. He sent you six fucking dozen sunflowers , because he knows you hate roses. He took you on a spa retreat with him for a week ! Tina, he's been courting like a gentleman for months !" Nines loved Tina and his brother, but this denial was more ridiculous than his love life.
There was an immediate urge to deny that. She even opened her mouth to emit the denial but closed it sharply in embarrassed frustration.
There was physical evidence of courting behavior and Sixty was pretty nice to her but that didn't mean anything! They were friends and friends acted friendly all the damn time! Besides, if there was something more going to happen you'd think that the guy would just approach her like an adult and not employ the same —
Fucking hell.
Sixty was just as much of an idiot as Gavin and Connor and she was a dumbass for not seeing it sooner.
"Shut up and go conquer those shrines and leave me to wallow in my stupidity."
Nines laughed even as Link decided to try and fly once again. "You help get mine and I'll help you get yours?"
"No. You're on your own. I'm going to die in a hole of dug by my shame." She whined, pressing her face into the fabric of the couch cushion.
Nines finally made it to the end of the shrine and handed Tina the controller so that she could release some of her pent up tension on henox or two.
There was only so much beating around Bokoblins and White-maned Lynels before even the satisfaction of sending them off to meet their makers lost all appeal. It did help loosen the ball of anxiety and regret in her stomach though so there was that. Eventually she just handed the controller back over and rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling.
"We are the worst and I don't understand how we made it this far in life. But okay. I'll help you bag Gavin. I mean, I was already going to do that but now we can go even stevens because I really, really, really want to kiss Sixty's stupid face."
"Sheer dumb luck?" Nines guessed.
"To be fair he really wants to kiss you too, but every time he even thinks about doing it sober he has a panic attack about you just simply being attracted to RK800s. I have to remind him that you are actively helping me try and date Connor. It doesn't seem to help, so you'll probably still have to deal with gentleman's courtship until he's a little bit further into his meditation class." That had been Sixty's primary objective in joining the class, asking one Tina Chen on a date.
Nines shrugged, glad that Gavin made a point to take his expensive alcohol home with him when leaving Tina's. "He drinks less than I do. Which.... isn't saying alot because I drink like a fucking fish. But that's better than he was a month ago, I think he and Hank go to the same AA group. The humans keep trying to tell him that since he can't get a hangover he's not really an alcoholic. Which is stupid." Nines grumbled and tweeted Link across another chasm. "Did you hear when Gavin called me a couple of days ago?"
"To be fair, and you know how much I hate being fair to supposed professionals that should know better, androids and alcoholism isn't something anyone would have thought would go together. They're probably not trained how to address it.
But I'm betting everyone who has given him shit are just assholes still laboring under the delusion that you guys aren't really alive and can experience authentic human emotions or experiences themselves like getting drunk or eating nachos despite the proof literally being advertised on television, billboards, and wherever else companies can wedge in an ad or two."
Or they could literally stop being shitheads and show the same kind of understanding, acceptance, and support to another person who wanted help overcoming an addiction they all suffered with.
Tina took a gulp of soda and sighed. Some people were just assholes and there was nothing anyone could do to change that. She was just sorry that Sixty had to deal with them, especially since he was trying.
"I did not and am now demanding to be informed of said phone call."
"Okay so I was at home with Sixty when Gavin called me and when I answered, I put him on speakerphone, he's yelling and you can tell that he's totally smashed. I hear Connor in the background asking if he's called for pick up yet and do you know what Gavin says?" Nines knew that he was being dramatic but Tina liked dramatic.
"I'm going to go out on a limb with an educated guess that it was a thoroughly, disgustingly cheesy pick-up line or flirtation that made both you and everyone else around to cringe and the ugly laugh?"
"He called me a sexy playstation 5! Sixty nearly brained himself on the coffee table, he was laughing that hard! I was dying at how cute he sounded slurring it at me."
Yep. That was her idiot best friend to a tee. The man was a happy drunk and thought he was hilarious. Admittedly he was but his humor took a sharp nosedive once his brain cells were fermenting. Tina was actually surprised it wasn't worse.
"Well, you do rock the black and white motif that Sony adopted for their white series productions so that was a compliment of the highest caliber his drunk ass could come up with." She grinned and snuggled up against his side. "He thinks you're preeeeeeeeeeeety ."
And there went Link screaming into the void once more. "How are you so much better at this game than I am? I'm pretty sure that he said that you were prettier than Kono from the 2010's adaptation of Hawaii 5-0 one time." Nines could never keep up with Gavin's brain when he was drunk.
"The man is gayer than a jaybird but he has excellent taste in ladies."
If she preened a little well so what? It was nice to be reminded that her bestie was a sappy sucker who appreciated her. She's returned the favor on a number of occasions but this was an excellent reminder that Gavvy was due some friendly puffing up.
'Note to self: bestie cuddle session needed."
"I have no clue because, statistically, you're better at just about everything a human can reasonably do so it makes very little sense that you suck at this.
But if you'd stop trying to rush to victory and bypass half the steps to get through areas like the cheating cheater you are then you might actually develop the skill to power through. But noooooooo , that's to slow."
"I beat the game in fifteen minutes for that YouTube speedrun challenge that got me banned from those. Why'd they ban me and not the other six Androids in the contest?" Nines managed to complete the rito shrine and thought about switching to the Ocarina of Time Master Quest Ultimate Remake Remastered. "Want to throw ourselves into agony with Ocarina of Time, again?" Both he and Tina tended to ugly cry by the end of that game.
"I hope you aren't looking for an actual answer from me on that because, buddy, I don't have a damn clue. Mostly because I don't give a shit about speedrunning since I think they're all shitty and shouldn't have any kind of acclaim attached to them."
Right, so...she's very passionate about not rewarding people for breaking rules and sometimes the entire game itself in order to get it done quickly. It was stupid and shitty and nope. No thank you.
"Can't we just throw on a sad movie and drown ourselves in nacho sauce and tears instead? It's less brutal."
"But you said that you downloaded the dlc that lets you befriend ganondorf! And I want to see long it takes for that to become an angst fest!" Nines allowed Tina her video game purity views as long as she didn't mess with his Harry Potter dnd campaign and spoil the final villain.
"Again, a sad movie will be less emotionally devastating than traversing a world with characters we know and love and are heavily invested in only to have things get brutally real once again only to then add on top another character we are highly invested in getting torn down, tortured, and tormented for hundreds of lifetimes because fate it bullshit and the world sucks."
Tina poked at Nines' side.
"Switch games and I'll go get us some sweet things to gorge ourselves on when the feels hit."
"Have I said that I love you recently T? Because I do." Nines saved and switched the games, all while bouncing a little bit in place.
Tina stood and before manuvering around the coffee table and Nines' long limbs she leaned over to ruffle his hair.
"All the time but it never hurts to hear it. And for the record I love you too ya giant sweettheart."
The kitchen wasn't far and for once Walt wasn't darting around her legs and being a general nuisance so it wasn't more than a few second to reach it then a few minutes to rummage around the cupboards to find the stashes of sweets she stocked for just such an occasion. A lot of it was straight up human consumables but there were a few experimental thirium creams and fruit treats, as well as what was supposed to be like a cherry cordial but it looked dubious. Hopefully it tasted just fine.
Tina made her way back into the living room and got herself comfortable by Nines' side, sitting closer so the large selection of treats she brought back could be shared easily without having to constantly pass things back and forth.
"I'm warning you now, though, if Gannon doesn't get a happy ending I'm rioting."
"The cordial looks like it's fermented. It's not for human consumption, right? And of course you'll riot, so will I." Nines grabbed one of the fruit treats and started the game.
"Nah, that one is one hundred percent androids only."
Not that she hadn't been tempted with the forbidden cordial but it clearly stated that it was toxic to humans due to the amount of thirium, diluted as it was with other chemicals used in its production.
"I like breathing too much to even chance it."
"So besides everything else that we've talked about tonight, has anything else caught your fancy?" Nines was going to hand her the controller as soon as the deku tree finished babbling about how evil ganondorf was.
A handful of chocolate covered cashews made their way into her mouth and while they were being crunched up and consumed she thought over everything they'd talked about to this point.
Eventually she shook her head.
"Unless you wanna revisit the topic of your pitiful pining I think the only thing we got left is objectification.
I love Gavin and think he's a fine piece of man meat but I don't wanna talk about his pert ass and killer thighs any more than I'm sure you wanna talk about Sixty's. So I think we're good to just enjoy smashing our way through video games, stuffing ourselves with all this glorious junk food, and then wrapping up like burritos and conking out like teenagers in the mess left behind."