Chapter Text
Friday November 12th, 2038. 7:34 AM.
Playing a massive part in a revolution and potentially winning freedom for an entire species -his species- was great and all, but all Connor wants in this exact moment is the comfort of familiarity: Hank. He has only known the Lieutenant for exactly one week now, they met on the Friday the fifth and today was officially Friday the 12th, but that short while was a large part of his existing life span up until now, counting in total two months, one week and three days, so after a careful weighing of the facts he decided it is ok that Hank is the most important person in his life.
He wouldn’t ask for the same in return; Hank had lived for long years, and had known the people in his life for longer than Connor has existed, so Connor wouldn’t be the center of his existence like Hank is for Connor.
Hank is at the core of his deviancy.
Connor, RK800, was designed as the first investigating android meant to support law enforcement, but he is a prototype in more ways than one. For him to be successful as law enforcement more so than the other police type androids, he had to be granted more freedom. For one, he doesn’t have to listen to every officer he meets, or every human for that matter. His code and protocols dictated that he listen only to Amanda and, through her, the people at CyberLife who gave him instructions, but unlike any other android model he doesn’t -didn’t- have any trouble ignoring orders of ordinary officers of people. He also doesn’t have the protocols that dictate he isn’t allowed to hurt humans in any scenario. If he is chasing a human criminal -which is a scene CyberLife factored into his coding, even if he was meant solely for hunting Deviants- he shouldn’t be limited by protocols like that.
Connor has also been given more of a learning stimulation in his code: All android models could be taught things, could learn their owner’s preferences and rules to remember those, but none of them had chance for so-called character development. Mostly, this was because androids were not supposed to have a personality.
Connor wonders if that’s why he’s having more trouble with his deviancy than other androids: he was programmed to have a personality, and they weren’t. How is he supposed to know who he really is? Does he abide by his coding and be content with who CyberLife dictated him to be? And if he’s not, how does he work around the most basic lines of his code to change his entire personality?
His thoughts stutter, and his steps falter along with it. He doesn’t want to think about that alone, he doesn’t want to delve this deep into his deviancy yet, into what it means, before he fully understands how it came to be.
He was supposed to learn, to develop his personality. He was given a few core treats; he was supposed to be likable, smart, confident, eager to please and quick to asses situations and make decisions. He was supposed to be adaptable to work best with whatever law enforcement he had to work with.
So, obviously, most of his character development over the past week has mostly been influenced by the Lieutenant, as were most of his choices. Sparing the Traci’s, sparing Chloe, letting Rupert escape so he could save Hank, even becoming a deviant himself were all choices inspired by the thought what choice would Hank most approve off. Amanda hadn’t liked it, but he was lucky he got away with his software instability for so long; it was written off as his programming adapting to the Lieutenant, which it was, but it also was more than that.
So, in short, he is deviant now, and he wouldn’t be without the Lieutenant, and he feels alone and confused and there is no one he would rather figure these feelings out with than the person who had inspired them.
Snow crunches under his feet as he walks away from Jericho, away from Markus and his friends, away from the celebrating and the sideways looks from androids who still didn’t quite trust him, which, could he blame them? Yes, it was his programming forcing him to chase deviants, and him finding Jericho had gotten hundreds of androids killed, but before they escaped their programming they were as stuck as he had been. He can rationally tell himself that their distrust makes sense, that just because Markus forgave him and trusts him now doesn’t mean that everyone will, but there is something bubbling right underneath his synthetic skin that makes him uncomfortable. The feeling he gets when he’s investigating a crime scene where the deviant might still be present, the feeling he gets when Gavin Reed is looking at him. The feeling of looming danger.
He realizes he’s clenched his fingers into a fist and forces the digits to spread out, to stretch and hang stiffly at his sides.
Emotions are overwhelming, confusing, irrational. There are so many, all leaping through each other in his head, mixing together in his chest, making his thirium pump beat faster, like an anxious human has an elevated heartbeat, and for some reason he feels the urge, the need to curl up somewhere, to hug his knees to his chest, to pull his own hair and to cry.
Why would he feel like that, what emotion is this? Why would he cry, why would he hide from the world, what problems would that solve?
Confusion is the only emotion he can accurately pick out, out of the swirling ball of so many emotions that he doesn’t know, and somewhere he regrets choosing to be deviant. He doesn’t like this, emotions are not fun, and suddenly mindboggling facts he’s learnt over the past few months make a lot more sense.
Human suicide rates. Human wars -so many of them. Racism, prejudice, drama in human relationships, friendly, familial or romantic, depression, anxiety disorders, distrust hatred jealousy bullying, every negative thing he’s ever learnt about human interaction and history suddenly makes sense because with so many emotions boiling inside how can anyone make a rational decision?
He’s not far from the Chicken Feed, where Hank had told him to go after, and Connor quotes directly, “this whole fucking revolution thing is over, yeah,” so, despite it being 7:36 AM, and it being very early and the probability of Hank being out of bed is small, Connor is on his way to the food stand.
The sun is coming up in front of him, just peeking out from above the bridge in the distance when Connor rounds the corner.
There, a silhouette against the bright morning sun stands a man, shoulders curled inwards and hands shoved in his coat pockets. He’s looking around like he’s waiting for someone.
Snow crunches under Connor’s feet and Hank turns around, looking at him. Connor stands still a few feet away from his only friend.
Doubts run through his mind. What if Hank wants nothing to do with him anymore? What if the scene at CyberLife made him decide that being friends with Connor was too dangerous or complicated? What if he fell back on his android hatred? What if he just hates Connor? What if…
Connor’s systems can’t finish the thought before Hank smiles at him. Relief floods his system, for a few seconds damping all other emotional turmoil, and Connor smiles back.
Hank starts walking towards him, and what is he going to do? Connor tries to anticipate his movements so he can reciprocate, but he does not expect the hand on the back of his neck, tugging him closer, pulling his body against the Lieutenants, his head on top of the mans shoulder, and arms strongly around his back.
Connor doesn’t hesitate and hugs Hank back. He closes his eyes, and feels all emotional doubt leave him like water leaves a bathtub after the plug has been pulled, leaving behind only contentment and a warmth he associates with friendship.