Maybe more than a Machine (Gavin x rk900)

Brax be Best

9s POV

We, well, Gavin ate the rest of his food. Occasionally Brax came back around, still eating his weird pizza.

"On the house homies. This is Denny's in the late 2030's, we don't really get a whole lot of business. So, bros, y'all certainly made my shift fun..." he said and handed us the check, nothing but a paper towel and a half eaten oatmeal raisin cookie inside.

"On the hooooouuuussseee..." Brax whispered, then skated away with his heelies. They were tracking frying oil everywhere now, the employee must've rolled through some in the kitchen.

Gross. This whole place seems like one big health code violation.

Gavin just shrugged and began to eat the cookie. He pursed his lips and swallowed hard, eyes watering.
"It's really dry..."

I chuckled and finished off the thirium.
"What did you expect? It looks like it's made of sand and pebbles compared together..."

"Yeah. Kinda expected it to be like, spiked with a little something something. But nah, it's just... really dry." Gav whispered, rubbing his neck and making a face.

"Mmh..." I hummed, looking out the window behind me and watching cars drive past.

"Nines? Do you like do the thing dogs do and see yourself and just be all like... why're you me? I'm me. Yknow?" Gavin asked, putting his head in his hand and messing around with the crumbs of the cookie that had fallen onto the table.

"Uh... I mean, when I first was manufactured, maybe. But now, no. I have a little more sense of identity and a grasp on reality than I had then..."

Brax skated past.
"And now I'm having a sort of out of body experience."

"Maybe you shouldn't have licked that cane toad back in tenth grade then, man. Shit will phck you up." Gavin called, then drank the last creamer.

I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to drink the flavored syrups next...

"You were the one who dared me to do that, you turkey burger." Brax said, skating up and down the rows of empty tables.

Someone else walked in, they wore a trench coat and glasses. It looked like the little incognito icon for Google...

"Oh shit is that the FBI agent in my phone?" Gavin whispered, hand on the side of his mouth in a sort of stage whisper.

"No. But I can't see his face, or get a scan of him." I sighed, looking at the human who sat across from me.

"Wack. Anyways, you ready to go? Oh wait never mind, hang on." He asked, half standing before plopping right back down into the booth and taking out his phone.

"What's wrong, Gav?" I asked, LED going red.

"Nothin'. Just updating the Kahoot of my life, been making it for a few months. Since uh... the Cory Braxton incident. Had a lot of free time while in the hospital, y'know?" He mumbled, typing away on his phone.

Wow... I never expected to hear those words in my life.

Part of me wondered if he was serious, or just making an excuse to talk to Tina.

"Ight. We Gucci, also I gotta get gas. My car is almost on E... haha, E..." he said, looking up at me and putting his phone back into his front pocket.

"Uh... okay. There is a gas station 1.5 miles away." I chuckled, still pretty confused. Gavin somehow managed to keep track of his wild train of thought, even if it he only managed to barely do it, but how he did so was beyond me.

That wording doesn't seem right... maybe my processors are overloaded.

Gavin waved goodbye to Brax and we left, getting back into the car. He had me drive for the time being. Saying something along the lines of, "I'll take back over the driver seat after we get gas. Don't feel like listening to directions right now."

All my reply was was just an, "Uh... okay."

So I drove to the gas station. And filled up the car. And Gavin was already back into the front seat without even getting out.

"Did you climb over?" I asked, sitting back down, now in the passengers seat.

Gavin puckered his lips and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
"Perhaps..."

"Oh my RA9."

He laughed and drove off. Getting gas was quick. Wait...

"BangBangBUR!...n?" He suddenly screeched as music started playing. Sure enough, with a quick analysis, that was the title of the song.

"What weird show is this from?" I asked, using the past music he's played to guess that it was from something and not just some... weird, semi-mechanical semi-violin-attack sort of song.

"Bitch what?" He scoffed, not using his blinker.

How dare you disobey traffic laws, Reed... how dare you.

"What?" I asked, looking at him.

Gavin shook his head and turned up down the radio.
"Dude, it's from Promare. I watched that movie back in 2019, remember trying to get it illegally because the Blue-ray came out in like February in the new year... still probably have that somewhere. We should watch it. Only with subtitles though, because the English dub is kinda Garbo. And that's really saying something because I'm super lazy and halfway illiterate so..."

That's rambling if I've ever heard it.

"Uh... okay." I laughed. Today was a very confusing day. That fact would just have to be accepted.

"Anyways, it's a movie about this tall blue haired firefighter -who's shirtless the whole time- with tits bigger than his brain and this little dainty yet badass, fully dressed in leather, pyromaniac. And like... they're gay for each other. And just... y'know. Human experimentation for a spaceship to escape before all of earth is doomed and shit. At first it really confused Elijah, but after we saw it he spent the $200 on a Lio Fotia collector's item or whatever. Guy's weird." Gavin continued to ramble, taking one hand off the wheel to wave it around as he talked.

My LED went red for a multitude of reasons.

"Said guy is also your half-brother." Was my comment, which was based off of the only part I understood at all.

"Said guy is also a forgetful jackass." Gav mumbled, his expression going a little more serious.

He sped up, shoulders tense before hitting the breaks really hard.

"GAVI-" I yelled, my arm shooting out to protect him, but was cut off my the seatbelt.

We both fell back against our seats, breathing hard.  My LED was red and so was Gavin's face.

A little frog hopped away and into the grass.

I looked at the human, fans running at top speed.
"You nearly killed us over a FROG?!"

Gavin whipped around in his seat to face me.
"HE'S JUST AN ITTY BITTY BOI!"

"He's a WHAT?!"