She’s angry today. Everything has piled onto each other into one massive shit show, each mishap and fallback of the past week blaring their bright lights at her until she feels suffocated under their lack of progress in the revolution. The past days have built upon each other in an effort to push her into exploding, and now today every single misfortune that finds itself on her shoulders may be the one to push her right over the edge.
She’s free, but the politicians still look at her like she’s fresh meat, and the women turn their noses up at her when she tries to fix the buckle on her jacket in the bathroom. It’s humiliating in ways she thought she had left behind. The burn of anger in her processors is so familiar, and yet it hurts all the same when her mind tangles itself into a further knot of rage and frustration.
She thought she’d be used to the humiliation by now, but she’s not. She’s still impossibly angry, and it’s misery. She wants to be free of it, but every time she thinks of her past, or her present, or god forbid, her future…
She has to stop walking sometimes and lean against the closest wall, eyes squeezed shut as she fights back the red in her vision, forces herself to calm down. She takes measured breaths in an attempt to sync up her thirium pump and calm down.
She manages. She always manages. One day, she won’t have to.
Today, especially, is testing her.
Everything is so entirely fucked up, and it’s not getting better, and the anger peeking through the cracks in her interior are starting to show in how she stomps down the hallway, walking too quickly, face twisted into a promise of demise to whatever poor soul tries to speak to her next.
It’s not fair. She’s pissed, and she needs to go cool off. She’s gotten better at it, but sometimes she doesn’t want to. Sometimes she wants to explode— scream and kick and destroy something— if nothing else than to have something to testify to how angry she is.
Today is one of those days.
Still, she doesn’t want to take her fury out on some helpless bystander, so she starts off towards the rec room in Jericho. If nothing else, she could drag out the boxing dummies and knock them around until her stress levels evened out again.
Thankfully, no one within their right mind even attempts eye contact with her. She’s practically vibrating with rage, and it must be oozing off of her as she walks down the halls, because everyone leaves her alone. It’s just as well, because she knows for a fact that the next time she opens her mouth, it will be to yell obscenities.
And then she rounds the corner to see Connor, who she’s not sure has ever been in his right mind to begin with, because he is either utterly oblivious to her foul mood, or just suicidal enough not to care.
Judging from his volunteering to invade Cyberlife Tower, she’d guess it’s the latter.
“North.” He calls for her, stepping forward when he sees her approaching. He has the same impossibly impassive look on his face that he always has, but there’s something in his eyes that she doesn’t have the patience in that moment to wonder about.
She glances at him, but doesn’t stop walking. She can’t. If she stops walking now, she’ll inevitably end up destroying Connor, and she doesn’t want to do that. She normally doesn’t mind him much, but just the thought of being interrupted— made to pause in where she needs to go just to chat—
It will only add to the shit fest piling on top of her shoulders, and she’s already so fucking done with today—
Apparently it doesn’t matter, because Connor doesn’t even bat an eye at her pointed snuff at his presence. He simply falls into line at her side, and begins walking with her.
She has to tell herself that she will not tear Connor’s head off. He hadn’t done anything. He just had the misfortune of coming across her—
“I wanted to ask you about the meeting with the police commissioner, I was considering taking out—”
“Connor, I swear to god—” She rounds on him, fully prepared to brush him off and make a hasty retreat (or murder him. She hadn’t decided.) but pauses at the look of slight bemusement on his face. “What?” She snaps, voice far harsher than normal.
“You changed your hair.” He tells her, eyes twinkling.
Her hands twitch as if they have a mind of their own and are considering reaching forward to wrap around Connor’s neck, even though it wouldn’t do a lot of good.
He was wasting her fucking time— Was he yanking her around on purpose? Just stating the obvious to waste her fucking time?
Her voice comes out far more strained than she means it to. “Yes. Connor. I did.”
He is unblinking at her tone. “It looks good.”
“It—” She blinks at him. That is certainly not what she was expecting him to say. Connor rarely gave his opinion on things— hell, rarely talked unless spoken to. Markus and Simon were still fighting to get him to open up and express himself, and from what she saw, it was a struggle. It had only been a few weeks since the ceasefire, and most androids were still struggling with understanding where they stood in the world, and who they were supposed to be, but Connor struggled with it far more than the rest.
This unprompted sharing— it means something. She knows it does, she just doesn’t know what.
She must have taken too long to respond, because Connor is speaking again. “You do that a lot. You never leave it in the same style.” He pauses for a second, and she can practically see the clogs in his mind turning over each other before he speaks again. “It suits you. The changing hair.”
The anger has been mostly surprised from her mind, but her words don’t immediately reflect that. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She practically hisses. Even in her fogged mind, she already feels a little bad for that. Only twice had she ever seen Connor say anything maliciously, and each time had been towards abusive humans.
He pauses again, eyes floating away from her and to the wall instead. He seems to have taken the question literally, and he’s not offended when he speaks again. “Is it alright if I’m not completely sure?”
She’s taken aback by him again. Connor struggled with his self concept, but damn if he wasn’t one of the most honest motherfuckers in the damn place. He knew how to lie about the little things— how to lie in speeches and in front of the cameras— but he didn’t know how to lie about himself yet, or about his feelings. He could put on an act, but he couldn’t shape himself.
Instead he was earnest and honest in everything concerning his feelings or emotions. He spoke what was there, and he didn’t twist himself into knots to fit other people’s predesigned concepts of him.
He was Connor, and nothing else.
She doesn’t want him to learn how to shadow himself.
The anger from before is still there pulsing at her temples, but it’s dulled and looser— easier to push away.
Connor is still staring at her, fingers fiddling in his pocket where she knows he keeps change. It’s another thing he hasn’t mastered of himself— how to hold still.
She can’t help it. She throws an arm around his shoulders and tugs him with her. “Don’t you ever change Connor, you hear me?”
She can see him blink in her peripheral vision. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She leads him further on towards the rec room. “That’s okay. Doesn’t matter. Are you free?”
“Until Markus arrives back, yes.”
“Great. I need a sparring partner.”
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