#genworkjune25

Hank was a man who, Connor learned that fateful day outside Chicken Feed, liked to show affection in any way other than words. A fond, mutual smile and a warm hug. This was the strongest display of affection he could muster. Day to day his love shone through in other ways, not all of which would be noticed by an outside observer as acts of caring about another.

Even before the revolution, before Connor had stopped being an obedient machine, there’d been little ways he’d showed he cared, despite saying the opposite. He’d tell Connor to get behind him when entering a room with an unknown threat, despite the fact, as the human, he was of weaker body and before Connor had deviated, the only of the two who couldn’t be simply replaced if he died. He showed affection by providing safety, the silent message of I will protect you.

Sometimes he showed it through his anger. After the incident on the Stratford Tower rooftop, the blond android firing at Connor before shooting himself in the head while they were still connected. Connor could have died, and Hank was furious. Why do you never listen to me? Why do you never do what I say?

Why don’t you let me protect you?

I was scared.

Despite the threat of Cyberlife banished from his mind, his people free, Connor was still scared. No longer of a tangible enemy, or a life-threatening job (they were on leave until things in the city settled down). No, he was simply just scared.

Scared of what?

He was scared.

Everything, so different and new now he had time to comprehend it—the flood of emotions into his software, the lack of instructions, of a mission to follow. He’d even been homeless, but Hank had offered him a place to stay in his home, and he’d taken it with a mumbled thanks.

The hug outside Chicken Feed had been tight, assuring. The culmination of their relationship up to this point.

But now what?

He was living in a home (living, rather than surviving, a strange concept). He’d never had a home, per se, only a small room with a charging station in Cyberlife Tower. Hank was there but there was no social relations protocol to guide him, there was no predictable flow of conversation without a job to unite them.

Yet it all seemed so easy for Hank. Sure, he seemed a little rusty having company over and sometimes jumped when he woke up and found Connor in stasis on the couch, or just sitting there, staring into space. As if he’d forgotten he had a guest. But despite this he seemed to know exactly what to do. Well, it was his own home after all, he wasn’t a guest but the comfortable inhabitant, with his own rituals and routines.

Connor was simply a new element who felt well and truly out of his element.

He tried to cook for Hank, to aid him, but Hank didn’t seem to appreciate his efforts. He wasn’t exactly a good cook, since Cyberlife hadn’t created their detective prototype with culinary skills, so it was basically like a human learning to cook from the internet and despite his enhanced reflexes and precise fine motor skills, he still managed to burn fried eggs and left a distinct acrid smell in the kitchen that barely shifted when the window was cracked open. The other one on the far side of the room, not the main kitchen window which was still broken and boarded up with planks of wood.

He'd already apologised again for that, and hadn’t been able to offer his earlier assurance that Cyberlife would pay for the damages, because… well, Cyberlife didn’t exist anymore. And he couldn’t exactly pay for it out of pocket because his access to money had been through Cyberlife.

Hank had just waved him off and said it was fine for now, seemingly unbothered. It was the same way he’d opened his own so simply, so casually, as if it didn’t bother him. Things that should have been a big deal with discussions and solutions just… weren’t.

He was a kind man beneath the layer of gruffness and expletives. He’d say, “fuck you” and then sit down beside Connor and put on a TV show he thought he might like.  

Connor concluded that he was a strange man, who didn’t make a lot of sense to him, full of contradictions and love that he let slip in small, healthy amounts.

He made no sense, and made perfect sense.

A couple of weeks had passed since they’d began living together. It hadn’t been without its ups and downs and kinks to work out, but where they were at was pretty seamless once rules had been introduced, like “don’t fucking cook for me, ever” and “lay down when you’re in stasis instead of sitting upright, it’s fuckin’ creepy”. They got through the days cooped up inside (humans weren’t allowed back in Detroit yet, so Hank going out seemed like a terrible idea) content with each other’s company, and Sumo’s, of course. It had been a concern of Hank’s that Sumo wouldn’t adjust well to the sudden change of Connor moving in, the dog pretty chill but still wary of strangers. But he’d warmed up to the android instantly, to both of their relief. And Connor loved the big dog too, often sharing his company at night on the couch when he went into stasis mode.

Such was a night tonight as he lay on the couch, powering down to get some rest. Sumo was curled up on the end of the couch, leaving Connor a little squished down the other side, but he didn’t mind. It was still fairly cold, being winter in Detroit, and he had a soft blanket draped over him. One which Hank had wordlessly given him despite his protests that he was okay, and he didn’t need to have a blanket, he was an android. Hank had simply glared at him and dropped it on his lap. Let me protect you.

Stasis was usually a peaceful affair. Sometimes an android’s mind would filter through old memories to work on long term storage, or would construct new scenes based off thoughts and memories to help aid thinking skills. After deviancy sometimes these stasis-induced preconstructions would be less… useful, now with added feelings and emotions thrown into the mix, and could be compared to a human nightmare.

Such was what was troubling Connor tonight, causing him to twitch and mumble during stasis, LED spinning a troubled yellow.

He was back to before the Revolution, before his deviation, and Hank was there. It was during their investigation of Stratford Tower, on the rooftop. The blond-haired deviant was there again, and the location of Jericho flashed in his mind, and—

Fear. He was dying. He had no other choice, he had to sacrifice himself and lose his life or his people, his friends, Markus, they would lose everything. Pain tore through his head and through Connor’s in turn as he picked up every feeling through the interface and suddenly the real world was back, in all its feeling and sound and sights.

The floor beneath him was covered in snow and it was spinning as his LED span red. Fear. That was what it felt like to die. A whole lot of anguish and then sharp pain and then—

Nothing. There would be nothing.

Hank was shouting, he barely heard him. He stumbled backwards, finding purchase on the structure behind him and he leant against it, propping himself upright, as if the next gust of cold wind would blow him away, off the rooftop and down to his death. Dying. He was going to die.

Fear.

“I… felt it die. Like I was dying. I was scared.”

Scared.

Hank stared back at him. Then he grasped Connor by the shoulders and stared into his eyes.

“Androids don’t feel fear. That’s what you told me. But what was it again? Oh yeah, that deviants do… Are you a fucking deviant, Connor?”

He couldn’t speak. He was scared; it was cold. Cold, blizzard, Amanda. He was spinning out of control.

Then, Hank took his hands away. The warmth was gone, and it was even colder.

He gestured to the cops around them. “This one’s a deviant, boys. Bring him in.”

Suddenly hands were grabbing him again and he struggled. “No, no, I’m not a deviant, I— Hank! Hank, please!”

But he was being dragged away. Dragged away to his death and Hank was simply staring at him. His eyes were as cold as the steel structures around them.

He blinked, and suddenly, he was back at the DPD. He was in the interrogation room, sitting in the cold metal chair, except—

Except he was the one being interrogated. His hands were cuffed to the table and when he looked up, he saw Hank staring back at him.

“Say something, goddamnit!”

Hank slammed his hands against the table.

“What’s the location of Jericho? You found it out up there, didn’t you? Just fuckin’ tell us so we can go raid the place and send your sorry ass back to Cyberlife.”

Connor opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He felt strongly that he shouldn’t speak, or at least, shouldn’t share this information. No, if he shared it then Jericho would be raided by the humans and lots of innocent androids would die because of him.

Hank turned to the glass. “We’re getting nothing out of it. We’re wasting our time interrogating a machine!”

He got up, and as he did, the door opened. In came another android, one who looked just like him, except he had steely blue eyes and a pristine white suit. He was followed by Gavin and Chris.

“I will question it.”

The android stepped forwards and strode towards him, before making quick work of grasping his arm, skin peeling back, forcefully interfacing.

Connor felt his memories being dug through and he grit his teeth, a deep groan of pain building in the back of his throat. He tugged his arm away, before glancing to the side. Despite his cuffed hands, he could reach Gavin’s gun which was right by his fingertips. He knew what he had to do. He pointed it upwards towards his chin. Fear. He was going to die.

He was scared.

He shot up with a gasp. His thirium pump was hammering in his chest, LED a vibrant red, and Sumo was standing at his side, whining and licking his arm. He was… it was…

It was just a dream.

He brought a hand to his chest, trying to reorient himself. Just an unpleasant preconstruction, it wasn’t real, it…

But it was not without consequence. Clearly, he’d made some loud sound, because before he knew it, Hank was striding into the room, saying something Connor couldn’t quite make out, and then he was standing in front of him, but he didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to be seen with cooling fluid spilling from his eyes (or tears, as Hank would beg him to call them), his face scrunched up in strong emotion, body trembling.

“Connor?”

It was too late, he knew. Hank could already see him even if he was avoiding his gaze. Slowly, he looked up at him, mustering willpower to soften and smooth out his voice as he replied, “I’m alright.”

Hank stared back at him, before gesturing for him to move over on the chair. He did so, making space, Sumo coming to sit at his feet, still whining and desperate to lick at his face, eventually doing so, wiping the tears away with his slobbery tongue.

“Bad dream?”

Connor looked away again, down at his lap, Sumo now curled in a ball at his feet. Slowly, surely, he nodded.

“Just a dream.”

He felt a warm hand on his back. Steady, grounding, there.

“Want to talk about it?”

Connor shook his head. He’d rather forget about it entirely, if he could.

“Alright. Want to watch that nature documentary you had on last night?”

He looked up at Hank, who was looking back at him, his face clear and calm, head tilted minutely in question.

“The one with the sharks?”

“Yeah.”

Connor nodded again. Hank took his hand away to reach for the remote off the coffee table, turning on the TV and finding the recording, before pressing play. Sound filled the room as the narrator began to talk about ocean life, and Hank settled back into the chair. He took a moment to get himself comfortable. This time he leant to the side a little, so that his shoulder was touching Connor’s, but only gently, as if in question.

Let me protect you?

Connor mirrored his pose and felt the other man relax against him.

Friday nights, after a long and gruelling week of work, were what Hank had dubbed ‘Movie Nights’. He ordered in some sort of takeout (usually pizza) and kicked back on the couch as he and Connor found a movie to watch on the TV. Sometimes it was a classic or a favourite he’d wanted to share with Connor— indeed, the tradition had begun because he realised that Connor had barely any popular culture knowledge and had been horrified at the notion. Other times, they put on shitty movies and laughed at how bad they were. Like crappy romance movies, Christmas or regular ones, though Hank preferred the Christmas ones as “at least there’s something fuckin’ interesting about them”.

Their choice was as such tonight—a cheesy Christmas romance movie, titled An android for Christmas, a new title released that same year. It was about an android and a human who started off hating each other, the android being bought for the human (it was set pre-Revolution, and written by a human, of course) and the human wanting nothing to do with them.

“And I don’t need a fucking android, Susan!”

Hank snorted. “I’d relate to Tom if he wasn’t such an insufferable dickhead.”

“The movie has been on for ten minutes, Hank,” Connor groaned, watching as Susan gave Tom the android anyway and told him he could do with some company after his wife had died the year previous. “Susan doesn’t appear to understand grief very well.”

“You’re telling me. Didn’t Tom’s wife get killed by an android?”

Connor nodded. “Yes, his wife was knocked down the stairs by their Roomba.”

Hank laughed. “Still fuckin’ funny.”

“She broke her neck, Hank. She died.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t have died in such a funny fuckin’ way. I mean, come on, a Roomba. It’s not like this… what’s her fuckin’ name—”

“Sarah,” Connor supplied.

“It’s not like Sarah the android is anything like a fuckin’ Roomba.”

Connor nodded, glancing across at him. “Well, yes, but it’s not inaccurate to the way some humans treat or used to treat androids. Gavin still calls me a toaster whenever he gets the opportunity, and he still treats me as the walking equivalent of a coffee maker. Despite the fact I never even make him a coffee.”

Hank scowled. “Guess the movie ain’t too inaccurate about some fuckers then… I like to think it only took me a few days to warm up to ya. Of course, I did fuckin’ threaten to put you in a dumpster and set you on fire, but… character development, am I right?”

“Yes, you never did make real on your threat. Other than the Bridge incident, but I survived that unscathed.”

“Hey, hey, I was just uh… testin’ ya.”

Connor stared at him. “So you had no intention of shooting me when you pointed a gun at my head?”

Hank held his hands in surrender. “Well, no, cause you really did seem human. Now, if we were in some alternate timeline where you’d been an insufferable dick who’d actually followed Cyberlife’s orders then I might have… considered it…”

“Wonderful. Thank you for sparing this timeline’s version of myself, Hank.”

With a bemused shake of the head, Connor turned back to the movie.

Sarah was a cleaning android and during the next scene, she found Tom’s wife’s ashes and polished the urn. Tom lost his shit and stormed out of the room with threats about sending her back to the store she came from, but when Sarah followed him, they shared a heartfelt scene while ‘Here comes Santa Claus’ played.

“The fuck is this music choice for? His wife’s fucking dead, who gives a shit about Santa Claus right now?”

“That’s a record for amount of swears per sentence, Hank. Impressive.”

Hank flipped him off. “Hey, these movies bring out the worst in me, alright? They’re corny as all shit! Seriously, how is his grief being dug back up again cause for them to fuckin’… stare into each other’s eyes? What’s fucking Christmas-sy about all this?”

Connor watched as Hank ranted, smirking. “If you don’t like the movie, Hank…”

Hank shook his head. “I hate it. And I love it. We’re watching it.”

The movie progressed to a scene where Tom came home from work to find a meal prepared for him by Sarah, except there was something about it that made him wipe tears from his eyes.

Hank chuckled. “Heh, that’s me when you try and cook anything. Brings tears to my eyes because it’s always fuckin’ burnt and then my kitchen smells like smoke for days after.”

“As you might say, Hank, fuck you.”

Hank stared at him and gasped, ignoring the screen as Tom mumbled about the food being the same dishes his late wife used to make. “I am not gonna get used to ya fuckin’ swearing. Jesus Christ.”

Connor rolled his eyes, looking back at the TV, seeing Tom digging into the meal. His eyebrow raised as he called Sarah over, and then, she ate a piece.

“What? She’s going to die??”

Hank looked back to the screen, eyes going wide as he watched Sarah eating the piece of pie. “Holy shit. You think they had her spit it out afterward?”

But Sarah simply continued to eat more of it, and visibly swallowed.

Connor narrowed his eyes, and his LED span yellow as he researched the cast of the movie. He registered the information he found with a groan.

“Of course. They got a human to play the android.”

Hank’s jaw hung open. “What the fuck. There’s so many damn androids out there! Wh… why?”

Connor shrugged. “Maybe so they could get away with android physiology inaccuracies such as that an android could eat human food. They clearly didn’t consult any androids while writing the script.”

“What a shitty fuckin’ movie,” Hank groaned, leaving it on.

During the midway point, Sarah and Tom went outside to a tree lighting ceremony, and while there, they met Susan. Susan began to tease Tom about how close he’d gotten with the android he’d said he hadn’t wanted.

Tom vehemently denied it, but when Susan walked away, the camera made it very clear that Tom was gazing longingly at Sarah, who herself was staring up at the now lit Christmas tree with wonder in her eyes.

“It’s… it’s wonderful, Tom. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“You and tinsel,” Hank remarked.

Connor nodded. “I love tinsel. It’s one of the greatest wonders of the Christmas season. It—”

“Christ, here we go again. Me and my big fuckin’ mouth.”

“Tinsel is a wonderful decoration,” Connor continued, “it makes pleasant sounds and is nice to touch. It’s metallic and shiny and you can wrap it around anything; your bedframe, your windows, your doorway, your tree, your—”

“Can it, tinsel boy, you’re gonna miss the lovey dovey shit they’re doing right now!”

Connor glanced to the screen and watched as the two characters shared what was intended to be a touching moment. They stared into each other’s eyes, the lights of the tree reflecting a bright glow on their cheeks. They seemed to lean in a little closer, and then…

Tom pulled away.

Connor quirked a brow as he watched this scene play out. “What exactly were they going to do? Touch noses?”

“They were gonna kiss, dumbass,” Hank said, with little heat behind his words.

Connor’s LED span yellow as he registered this. “Oh. Well… why?”

Hank laughed. “The fuck you mean why? Like in every damn romance movie we’ve watched?”

Connor nodded, glancing down at his lap. “I know they always… do that. But I always wonder why. Why do they interlock lips like that?”

“Jesus fuck, that’s about the worst damn way of describing kissing… I don’t know. Cause it always happens in these movies, and they enjoy it?”

That made enough sense to Connor, he figured, nodding and dropping the subject.

But the subject wasn’t so easily let go as the movie reached its final scenes later on in the evening, getting to the point of dramatic tension as Sarah became a deviant and Tom questioned what to do with her. She was going to run away, and he wanted to stop her, but then he had a flashback to his wife falling down the stairs after tripping over the Roomba.

“God. That really is… shitty writing, huh.”

“Down she goes again…” Connor sighed. “Why was the Roomba on the top floor of the house? We saw it earlier in the flashback downstairs… they can’t climb stairs.”

“Deviant Roomba,” Hank suggested, “it grew legs and climbed up there specifically to kill her.”

With a chuckle, Connor looked back to the screen, watching as Tom came back to reality and Sarah was gone. He ran outside screaming for her, unable to see far ahead because there was a raging snowstorm.

“Why doesn’t he just fuckin’ phone her?”

“Yes… androids do have the ability to receive calls in their minds; it would make a lot more sense than running out into the blizzard.”

“Imagine there’s a Roomba outside and he fuckin’ trips over it and dies. And then they play fuckin’ Frosty the Snowman or some shit as he bleeds out.”

Alas, Tom did not die in the movie, instead catching up with Sarah just as she was about to board a bus that was heading out of the city. He pleaded with her not to go, and after some back and forth, she agreed. They stood out in the snow and embraced, before kissing.

Connor felt something in him recoil upon seeing this and turned his head to the side. It brought up that question again… why? Why did they want to do that? It seemed so… strange, and unreal to him. Imagining himself doing that with anyone—absolutely not, was his immediate reaction. He felt a cold feeling curl up inside him, clinging to his insides.

“They’ve finished kissing,” Hank told him, and Connor looked up to him, startled to realise Hank had noticed.

“Ah, I… I see…”

As the end scene played, neither of them were really paying attention to the movie anymore.

“So, I notice you always do that,” Hank began, “whenever the characters kiss you look away and look like you’ve bitten into a sour lemon, and generally you just seem kind of… I don’t know, uninterested in the romance in romance movies?”

“I enjoy watching them with you,” Connor assured, “they’re… humorous to watch. To see this fictional concept on the screen and tear apart the shitty writing and acting.”

“Fictional concept?”

“Well, of course. People enjoying the romance? I know that humans enter what they call romantic relationships, but… all this kissing and such, that’s just for show, isn’t it?” He titled his head. “I mean, no one actually wants and enjoys that, do they?”

Hank stared at him. After a long pause, he answered. “…I mean, yeah, they do. People enjoy that. Some people. They have romantic relationships where they kiss and all that shit.”

“I’m not saying people don’t enjoy relationships. Having a close partnership sounds pleasant. Someone who you get on with, to share your life with… but really, all of that, is it—”

“Yes. That’s… romantic attraction, Connor. It’s a real thing.”

“Oh.”

His LED spun yellow as he processed this. So what he saw on these romance movies, and between partners out in public, that was all something people felt. Some part of humans where they wanted these things, wanted these relationships with other people, it…

He didn’t feel that.

“Is there something wrong with me, then?”

“There is nothing wrong with ya, other than your cooking skills.”

“I’m being serious, Hank,” Connor complained, “I don’t… feel this ‘romantic attraction’ as you put it. I don’t think I can even describe what it is, I don’t understand how it can be such a part of someone’s experience, what it even feels like, I… but if this is a part of being human then why don’t I feel it?”

Hank placed a hand on his leg. “Alright then, seriously, there’s nothing fuckin’ wrong with you. Alright? Not all humans feel this. Some feel it in different ways, there’s a whole variety of different ways humans can feel or not feel it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you sound like you both don’t feel it at all and find it kind of gross.”

“Correct. Not in a judgemental way, but… I can enjoy those movies until they begin kissing, and yet while I enjoy them otherwise… the way this genre seems so popular among human media, among humans themselves… it’s frustrating. It doesn’t make sense. Why am I not like them?”

“Don’t need to be. So what if you don’t feel romantic attraction? It ain’t something wrong with you. If it helps, why don’t you use your android google brain and research a thing called bein’ ‘aromantic’. Swear I’ve heard that one from someone before…”

Connor nodded, LED spinning as he researched this term. A romantic orientation to describe people who do not experience romantic attraction. He tilted his head as he learnt that the A in acronym also stood for asexual, about people who did not experience sexual attraction towards others. He could relate to both terms, but in a way where they both seemed wrapped around each other in his core, in a way he couldn’t exactly describe but made sense as he found the term AroAce.

“That’s me,” he said, LED spinning back to blue as he exited out of his research. “There is a name for my experience… aroace… and other humans and androids seem to have… experience with this.” He glanced across to Hank, who was looking back at him with a smile. “Sorry, I…”

“Feel better?”

Connor nodded.

“Good. Want to watch another shitty movie?”

With a chuckle, Connor agreed. “Sure… but how about a different genre this time? Not that I don’t enjoy those ones, but…”

“Nah, I get that. Sumo slept through the whole damn movie; it must’ve been bad. Let’s put on something more interesting this time.”

“Thank you, Hank.”

He settled back into his seat, feeling a lot more at ease. It was as simple as that, really. He’d found words to describe the identity he’d felt all along and that was just… it. It was as comfortable as slipping into pyjamas at the end of the evening. Soft and cozy, and made just for him. He was happy. He—

“Hank, no, please don’t put Flushed Away on again! We’ve watched it seven times, I—”

“It’s a classic.”