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The first time Connor mentions it, Gavin narrowly holds himself back from wrapping his hands around the android’s neck and trying to crush it beneath his palms.
His sleeve had slipped up as he leaned toward the shelf where some idiot had left the brown sugar for the fancy espresso machine (that he refuses to admit he adores). It had happened dozens, hundreds, thousands of times before and nobody ever gave a damn about the bandages that perpetually adorned his wrists.
And yet, like all of his luck in the past, it ran out.
“You have bled through the gauze, detective,” the voice behind him spoke. “It might be time to replace the coverings.”
Very slowly, Gavin turned his head to look at Connor. His face was neutral as it always was and the light on his temple circled yellow. Gavin said nothing in return.
He poured the sugar into his coffee and used the frother to make a nice foamy texture on top. He resolutely ignored the android behind him— he had nothing to say to him, and he would rather stay silent than risk yelling and alerting everybody about how defensive he had gotten over this.
The night before had been…rough.
He had drank and smoked enough cigarettes to make his apartment reek for a month, and had woken up on the floor with vomit staining his chin and blood smeared across his wrist. It had taken half an hour to even find the razor blade where it had skidded beneath the couch.
“Detective Reed, do you need to go to a medic?” Connor asked, and Gavin gritted his teeth. He brought up his coffee to his lips and took a sip. Delicious. “Hello? Are you ignoring me?”
Gavin finally turned to look at Connor in the eyes.
“Yes. I am.”
He turned and stalked out of the breakroom before the android could reply. Gavin could hear the blood rushing in his ears and his heart hammering in his chest in fear of Connor finding out—and god forbid, telling detective Anderson about it.
Hank was an asshole, reasonably so. Gavin had witnessed his descent into the darkest descent into depression and self destructiveness after Cole’s death. A few times of lucidity had had Hank frowning at the bruises or bandages on his coworker’s body and making the grave mistake of bringing it up, causing Reed to remind him so brutally of his own issues that they had accepted a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on each other’s actions.
He felt android eyes trained onto him the entire day after that. The few times he felt dried blood tear off with the gauze and flinched, Gavin grit his teeth and refused to look up.
When he finally arrived home to clean up the blood and spilled liquor, he changed the bandages on his wrist. They weren’t the worst he had done by far— but the added component of alcohol in his system that made his pain receptors feel less explained why they were deeper than normal.
The next time Connor commented on it was the day after one of the most regrettable nights of Gavin’s life.
Out of an absolutely idiotic moment of loneliness, he had texted his ex…something. He was a tall and muscular man that Gavin had met one night at a club and continued to meet up with when moments like this arose. Moments where he wanted companionship but no vulnerability, when all he wanted was to get laid by someone who didn’t give a damn about the scars on his chest and even less about the scars (or sometimes, open wounds) on his body obviously made by his own hand.
He was a brutal man who had kinks that Gavin had absolutely no interest in, but indulged in solely for the experience. He put up with the degradation, the tight wraps around his wrists and ankles, the slaps across his face. Everyone else around him just put up with his bullshit, hating him behind his back. At least Wyatt carried out the brutality on his body instead of letting it fester through tense stares and conversations.
The last time they had gotten together was nearly a year ago, and Gavin had been practically forced to break it off because a concerned Tina and Chris ratted him out to Fowler. For some reason, the captain actually cared about his well being and spent an hour lecturing his detective about how dangerous it was to be wounded while on a case, how he didn’t understand why he was okay with having bruises blooming on his face and neck and wrists from what was supposed to be a good time.
Gavin had been mostly silent throughout the entire situation, arms crossed defensively. He had promised it was over. But he thinks they all knew it was a matter of time.
Maybe it had because Valentine’s day was coming up, but Gavin had been three drinks in at a bar before he had the brilliant idea of asking Wyatt to meet him. He missed hands on his body, and it didn't much matter that the hands were violent in their intimacy. He knew it was a bad idea. But Gavin was an amalgamation of bad ideas.
There had been more drinks, an alley, his apartment, and eventually waking up to a sprained wrist and a cigarette burn on his neck and blue black bruises in a hand shape on his chin. A note written crudely on a notepad beside him thanked him for the 'quick fuck that he needed' and a request to meet again soon.
His cat meowed softly in his face and licked at his closed eyelids as he cried.
He wanted to call out of work. But he didn’t. He knew he would only add to the wounds if he stayed home.
And Gavin had tried, really tried to put on a wide smile and not use his wrist much and wear a turtleneck at his desk. But the moment he saw Connor’s deep frown and angry eyes and clenched fist, walking quickly to Fowler’s office, he knew he was screwed.
Mierda.
“Detective Reed!” He heard Fowler call from across the room, quieting the entire office. Gavin slowly raised his eyes to the man. "My office. Now."
Letting out a long suffering sigh, he got up from his chair (leaning on his less wounded side) and walked methodically so as to not limp.
Connor was standing in the corner, LED bright red and spinning as he looked to the floor. Fowler shut the door with a deafening lock.
“Sir, do we have to do this with… him here?”
Connor doesn’t shift his eyes or body at Gavin’s words, but the LED flashes red twice before resuming its spinning.
“To be honest, you’re lucky we’re having this conversation at all,” Fowler started as he sat down in his chair. His from was deep but his eyes held something akin to…concern? Anger? Angry concern? “I have half a mind to send you to have a psychological evaluation and suspending you until you pass."
Gavin lets out a shocked laugh with no humor.
“What? What the hell are you on about?”
Fowler raises his eyebrows and makes a show about scanning Gavin’s body, from his bruised chin to his wrist. He clenches his teeth.
“I’m a consenting adult. Is rough sex a fucking crime now? Are you going to arrest me and every BDSM enjoyer on the street?”
“Trust me, kid. If I had a single doubt in my mind that it wasn’t consensual I would be tracking down this man myself and putting him in prison,” Fowler growled at him. “But since I am well aware you’ll let him continue to batter you around in the name of ‘pleasure’ I will instead tell you: if you come to work like this one more time, I will suspend you until you pass the psych eval.”
They’re silent, both glaring at each other as the threat hangs in the air. They both know the truth: he will not pass that evaluation at his current state, and his suspension would last weeks.
“So instead of doing that, I have asked Connor to monitor you. He can’t be fooled like the idiots outside have so thoroughly been fooled by you. And if he sees that you are in this condition again due to anything that isn’t job related or a goddamn car accident, you will be in the medical wing before you can even open your mouth to argue with me.”
A beat of silence.
“Are you,” Gavin erupted, jumping up from his seat and trying not to wince in pain. He whips around to point at the android that is in the same position as before. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re having this fucker babysit me or something? I just fucking told you it’s consensual so why does it matter?”
Fowler is silent. Gavin’s heavy breaths are interrupted by Connor’s voice, quieter than he had ever heard him.
“Detective Reed, you have a sprained ligament in your left wrist and visible level 3 bruising on your face and neck. You have two burns on your neck from someone extinguishing a cigarette on your skin,” Connor details and Gavin’s face falls. How did he see those? The turtleneck? Had it slipped? “You also show symptoms of strained muscles in your thighs and …other areas resulting in difficulty walking. If you were in danger on a case, I find it doubtful that you could outrun a criminal.”
Gavin doesn’t have a retort to that.
Fowler clears his throat.
“Thank you Connor. You may leave. I need to speak to the detective alone for a few moments.”
Connor’s eyes flitter over Gavin’s for a second, and seeing the sheer anger in them makes his steps quicker as he walks out.
“Sit down, kid.”
Gavin does so.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to lose your job? Your life?”
Gavin says nothing, looking down at his lap. He feels the sharp pain in his backside from the chair pressing against him. His jaw is sore from things he doesn’t want to remember.
“I’ve known you for a long time Gavin. You’re pushing yourself to the brink right now, and soon you’re not going to be able to come back. I know you hate me right now— I know you think I’m being an invasive asshole and not letting you live your life the way you want. But for me, I’m doing the exact opposite.”
Gavin looks up at the man before him, the one that had offered him a job so long ago when he saw no future in himself except an early grave.
“I don’t want you to die, kid.”
Gavin walks out of the office and doesn’t stop until he’s outside with a cigarette between his fingers and smoke in his lungs. His eyes sting just as much as his chest and jaw and ass and back and thighs and neck. He’s a wreck. He can admit that.
With a quick glance at his phone, he sees a missed call from Wyatt. He licked his lips in consideration.
The door creaking beside him makes Gavin look up and immediately want to snarl. But he’s too fucking tired.
“I apologize for going to the captain, detective Reed. But i was extremely troubled by my scans.”
Gavin doesn’t say anything. He takes another pull of his cigarette. His throat is sore. So fucking sore.
“I believed I was well versed in human methods of self destructive coping mechanisms after spending time with Hank. But yours are…different.”
Gavin paused.
He looked over at Connor then, watching the yellow LED spin methodically in thought. He kept fiddling with the quarter in his hands. Since the revolution ended, the android had changed so much, and yet in some ways he hadn’t at all.
Gavin huffed a sarcastic laugh.
“What, Hank doesn’t call up any exes to fuck? Who would’ve thought.”
“On that note, I can’t seem to imagine a possibility where making love would result in such injuries like your—“
“Who the hell said I was making love?” Gavin sneered at him. “Does this look like love to you?”
He hooked his fingertips on his shirt and pulled it down to expose the dark bruises along his neck and the crusted over cigarette burns where his shoulder met the base of his neck.
Connor’s eyes narrowed in on the sight, no doubt scanning. His lips pursed and fingers clenched around the quarter.
“No,” he spoke quietly, with a voice that was laced with disgust and perhaps a bit of anger. “That is not love.”
Gavin lets the shirt slip back and flicks the cigarette away. He takes out the pack to light another and can’t seem to shake away the thought of pushing it against his neck like Wyatt did last night.
“Getting pretty good at emotions, huh?” Gavin snarks as he pats around his jacket for the lighter. With a soft click he looks up and flinches violently away from the flame Connor has conjured with his lighter.
Connor’s eyes widen in fright and he drops the lighter like it had burned him, watching the way Gavin clutches his chest to calm himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I—“ Connor mumbles quietly, curling into himself. Gavin tries to reach up and reassure him that he’s alright, but Connor’s LED is bright red and his eyes are glassy. “I frightened you. I don’t want you to be frightened of me…”
“I’m not, Connor, I’m fine.”
But all Gavin gets in return is Connor’s retreating back as he rushes back inside, hands trembling.
That night, the razor is a punishment. Gavin can’t shake the sight of Connor shaking. He is nothing if not a burden: to Fowler, to himself, to anyone who has ever been close to him.