Addiction // Gavin Reed x Reader

Again

Day two at the bar. This time, Gavin had ordered a glass of honey whiskey; he needed something sweet to cool him off, to settle his nerves for the damage that he had witnessed the last time he was here was simply enough to make his blood boil.

But this time, the lack of patrons was uninviting. Gavin hated being in bars all by his lonesome, which wasn't a surprise due to how loneliness seemed to be the root of the majority of his problems. It was just him and Terrance, sitting bored while the radio station being played over the speakers washed away whatever tension there was between them.

This party's pretty boring
I don't think it's for me.

Gavin didn't dare speak of what happened last night. He wanted to be (Y/n)'s savior, but his own nerves got the best of him. What, was his time off as an officer of the law starting to soften him? No, it couldn't be.

But when you see a woman being harassed by another man, you don't just SIT there, Gavin. The fuck is wrong with you?

So many thoughts went through his head as he had continued to puff out smoke after witnessing what had happened. The scene replayed, and replayed, and replayed, until the guilt had eaten him whole.

And when he saw her eyes-- oh God, her eyes-- he would've just pulled a gun to his own head and shot rather than see that look again.

What if he was to never see her again? Would he ever be able to forgive himself for letting such an innocent angel fall to the grappling hands of the devil? The answer was no. No, he wouldn't. He would carry out the rest of his days questioning his own self worth; questioning whether he was allowed to continue living for committing such a horrible crime.

Yes, what Gavin Reed did was a crime. Punishable. In his eyes, he failed. He failed you.

"Refill?"

Gavin was so grateful for Terrance, or else he'd be consuming mass amounts of illegal substances as they speak. Or maybe putting lead into his skull. Either had its pros and cons.

He held his cup up in a silent response, itching the scar on his nose as he waited for that sweet liquid to crack against the cold ice already inside the glass. The noise was music to his ears, and he silently chuckled to himself as he thought about other sounds that were once as lovely as this one. A few groans, soft whimpers, his own name... to list a few.

"You're not looking too hot. You okay?" The prying bartender asked, pushing his thickly rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose as he set the bottle of honey whiskey back onto the shelf.

Gavin simply nodded as he took the first sip from the fresh glass, an ah sounding from his throat as his lips sharply popped off the edge of the cup. He loved to overexaggerate when he could, mostly to dim the lies and tales of his sad love life that just never seemed to spark. Except for last night, when his heart was being lit so prominently on fire that he couldn't even save the damn girl in the first place. He was a coward, not worthy of being her hero.

The mere thought caused Gavin's eyes to narrow, his brows to crease, and his jaw to harden as he bit down onto the rim of the glass, the sweet whiskey just barely touching the tip of his tongue. Terrance was too busy changing the radio station to notice this, however.

"I don't want any sappy R&B, nor do I want any of today's hits. I'm not in the mood," Gavin growled, setting the glass onto the counter. Terrance peeked back at him, raising one questionable brow from behind his tortiseshell frames in curiosity.

"So you are angry about somethin'," He settled on classic rock and made his way back to Gavin's side of the counter, folding his arms over the wood as he leaned intuitively toward the former detective. "Tell me about it."