I know I have another WIP I should be working on (and I still am, don’t worry), but I thought I’d give myself a little break from the angst in Duality of Light that, of course, DBH needed (not really) a Convenience Store AU series. It’s a really short read, but this will be added to here and there in the future lol.
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.
Magic, Seven decided, was absolutely fascinating. It was all about making the impossible happen right in front of people’s eyes with nothing but a little sleight of hand and some clever misdirection. At its core, he observed to Todd at one point, it was essentially lying with style, and the old man had laughed out loud, unable to deny the truth of the statement.
Seven was so interested in learning this new, peculiar skill set, in fact, that he nearly gave away his synthetic nature to his mentor with the sheer speed at which he picked up trick after trick. It wasn’t until Todd made a comment about what talent he had for it that the android thought to check himself, and intentionally fumbled things on occasion from there on out for the sake of maintaining his cover. Humans, he had to remind himself, had to gain skill through repetition, though the number of repetitions depended on the individual.
When not installed with a program to fulfill a function, androids also had to learn this way, though it generally took far less time; and it took Seven even less time than the average android thanks to the highly advanced learning software he’d come outfitted with. His powerful scanners allowed him to map and mimic Todd’s deft hand movements with ease once he began to grasp what was misdirection and what was the actual motion needed to carry off the trick.
Four hours later, Todd had shown Seven almost every card related trick he knew at least once, and they’d decided to take a break so the android could teach him a few coin tricks before the bus pulled into a station to refuel.
Seven blinked in surprise, having barely noticed the passing of the time thanks to the distraction his companion had provided, and Todd chuckled. The man patted him on the arm and said “Best get out and stretch our legs while we can, huh?”
The android didn’t actually need to stretch his legs, of course, but he knew it would look strange if he didn’t considering everyone else was already eagerly filing off the bus to do just that. “Yeah,” he agreed and flashed the man a half-smile before grabbing up his bag and following the example of the other passengers.
“We’ll be taking off again in about twenty minutes, so don’t go far,” the bus driver informed everyone as they disembarked, and Seven set himself a fifteen minute timer as a reminder, just to be safe.
As he stepped off and to one side, Seven stretched, subtly mimicking the stiff but relieved movements of the humans around him. It wasn’t an action he actually needed, but the android had to admit that, after sitting for several hours in a cramped space, being able to stand at his full height and move freely did feel good. An absence of pain or discomfort, he realized, was not the same as actually being comfortable.
Mulling over this revelation, Seven glanced back and saw Todd, Tonya, and their grandson, Jake, step off the bus and make a beeline for the nearby bathrooms. The old man winked at him as they passed and the android quirked a brow, a smile tugging at his lips as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose to better shield his eyes from the sun overhead. Noting that the general flow of the passengers around him seemed to all be heading for either the bathrooms or the convenience store attached to the gas station, Seven opted to head into the latter. He hadn’t planned to buy anything, but when the android happened across a small end-cap full of travel games that included decks of cards, he immediately plucked one up, pleased by the find. He looked around for a few minutes longer before he eventually grew bored and made his purchase before meandering back outside.
He didn’t get far before someone near at hand said, “You’re that nice boy letting my husband talk his ear off, aren’t you?”
Seven glanced around to see Tonya leaning against the wall of the convenience store next to a bench, on which her grandson sat, still playing on his phone. She smiled at him and the android took it as an invitation to join her. Considering the growing intensity of the sun overhead, Seven readily stepped into the shade of the building to lean casually against the roughly textured wall next to her.
“Yeah,” he said, then offered her a hand and said, “I’m John. Tonya, right?”
“That’s me,” the woman said with a bright smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle in a way Seven was surprised to find himself thinking of as endearing. “ This is Jake,” she continued as she reached over to ruffle her grandson’s hair to get his attention. “And Jake’s phone,” the elderly woman added dryly when it took the boy several seconds to pry his eyes from the screen long enough to glance up at ‘John’ and bob his head in silent greeting.
“Pleasure,” Seven mused.
Tonya gave him a smile that appeared more than a little exasperated by her male travel companions and a sympathetic huff of amusement escaped the android. “I hope my husband hasn’t been pestering you too much,” she said after a moment.
“Nah,” Seven answered immediately with a careless shrug and a crooked half-smile. “I’m learning a lot, actually,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hard candy, unwrapping it as he continued, “Fun way to pass the time.”
“Well, you don’t be afraid to tell him to leave you alone for a bit if you need some quiet,” the woman said, waving off his polite offer of a candy. She seemed about to say more when her phone rang unexpectedly in her purse, making the woman jump slightly. She dug through her bag and emerged with an older model phone and glanced at the screen. “Oh, excuse me, I need to take this,” Tonya said with a sigh, then stepped away and answered.
Left mostly alone with Jake, Seven observed him surreptitiously from behind the cover of his sunglasses for lack of anything better to do. The boy’s brow was furrowed in frustration as he fought his way through a level that appeared to be giving him a good deal of trouble as he kept missing a particularly hard to reach platform.
“He taught you how to pickpocket people yet?” Jake asked out of the blue as he restarted the level again, making Seven’s brows shoot up.
He turned to face the boy, wondering if Jake had caught him watching, or if this was just his own attempt at starting a conversation. “No,” Seven replied, amused by the implication. “Does he know how?”
“Yeah,” Jake replied. “He took a guy’s wallet without him ever noticing when he was rude to Grandma, once. Stole his subway pass so he had to go back and buy another one and wound up missing his train.”
“Oh really?”
“Yep,” the boy said. “Pretty sure he used to be a street performer or a carni or something,” he continued after a moment, then frowned and added, “He never talks about it, though. Just says he’ll tell me when I’m older.”
“Huh,” Seven said, intrigued as he rolled his candy over his tongue in a thoughtful fashion.
A moment of quiet passed between them as Jake’s full attention returned to his game, only for the boy to heave a sigh of disgust when he died yet again. “I hate platformers,” he grumbled with a grimace.
“Why not play something else, then?” the android suggested, surprised the boy had stuck with it as long as he had.
Jake sighed again and pulled one headphone from his ear and finally looked up at Seven, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I really like the story,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ll just look up a playthrough or something…”
Seven sucked on his piece of candy for a moment, considering the unhappy child for a moment, then came to a decision. “Want me to try,” he asked, extending a hand in silent request for his phone.
Jake looked up at him, seeming surprised by the offer. The boy hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up to him. “You any good?” he asked Seven as the android accepted the phone, then came around to sit next to him on the bench.
“Dunno, let’s find out,” the android mused as he started up the game again.
The first portion of the level was easy, he’d watched Jake play through it several times, after all, so mapping the easiest route was simple. Once he passed the point the boy had been stuck on, however, it didn’t get any more difficult; his predictive programming and quick reflexes were more than a match.
“Have you played this before?” Jake asked, surprise and awe clear in his voice. Seven glanced at him out of the corner of his eye to see that the boy had leaned in close for a better look.
“No,” Seven replied after a moment, realizing that lying and saying he had might land him in trouble if Jake tried to engage him on the actual plot of the game. “Just got to watch you play through a few times is all.”
“Yeah, but not this bit,” Jake pointed out. His tone wasn’t suspicious, though, only admiring, so unlike with Todd’s card tricks, he decided not to fake a mistake.
“Just know my way around a platformer, I guess,” the android remarked casually as he finished the level and passed the phone back to the boy just as his grandfather returned.
“What are you boys up to?” Todd asked pleasantly. “Trouble?”
“John beat the level I’ve been stuck on for half an hour in like… thirty seconds without dying once,” Jake replied, seeming both excited and exasperated by this fact.
“He’s got clever fingers, this guy, better keep an eye on him,” Todd remarked with a laugh as he stretched absently and grinned down at his grandson.
Seven gave the old man a canny look over his sunglasses then said, “I’m told you used to pickpocket people. Doesn’t that make you the one we ought to keep an eye on?”
Todd’s grin widened and he held up his hands. “Hey, I’ve reformed since my wayward youth, cross my heart and hope to die,” he said with a wink as he drew an x over his heart with a finger.
The android glanced over at Jake who only shrugged and looked doubtful. A smile tugged at Seven’s mouth and he turned back to Todd and asked, “You going to teach me how to pickpocket too? We’ve still got hours to go yet on that bus.”
The old man’s smile went sly and he shrugged. “Who says I haven’t already taught you?”
Seven’s brow furrowed but the other man just looked skyward, as though to admire the clouds drifting overhead, an expression of pure innocence on his wrinkled face. After a moment’s consideration, however, the android understood; Todd had been teaching him sleight of hand tricks with cards all morning, how to slip in and out of people’s pockets and use gestures to distract them while he did…
Pickpocketing, he thought, really was just a magic trick done with ill-intent.
The android glanced back at the man again and caught him watching his face for the moment of realization. When he saw it, he flashed a brief smile. A snort of amusement escaped Seven, and a moment later, his internal alarm went off, alerting him that it’d been 15 minutes since they first disembarked.
“Bus’ll be leaving in about five,” he remarked casually after pretending to look at his phone.
“Sooner than that,” Tonya said as she approached once more, apparently done with her phone call. “We should head back.”
Seven glanced around and noted that the other passengers were indeed making their way back to the bus after having spotted the driver waving people in, clearly impatient to get on the road. He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed up his bag, but was brought up short before he got more than a step by Jake.
“Hey, uh-” the boy looked uncomfortable, forcing himself to talk despite his apparent shyness; Seven’s game playing prowess had apparently broken the ice enough for him to try. “Do you… do you want to play some more when we get back on the bus?” he asked, holding his phone up towards the man with a hopeful air that didn’t quite mesh with his doubtful expression; as if he expected Seven to turn him down on principal.
The android looked down at the boy, surprised by the request, then glanced back at his grandparents, who seemed equally surprised. Seeing no objection from them, and having none himself, he looked back at Jake and said, “Yeah, alright, why not?”
A smile broke out across the boy’s face and he hurried forward to catch up with his grandparents. “Grandma you should switch seats with John, okay? We’re gonna play my game!”
Tonya chuckled and ruffled his hair fondly, “Alright, but you don’t impose on him and make him play the whole thing if he doesn’t want to, okay?”
“Alright,” the boy said and grimaced as they boarded, Seven bringing up the rear with a bemused smile on his face. The fact that his performing a simple feat like playing a game brought such great joy to the child was a novelty he’d never experienced before. That it seemed to please his grandparents as well was even more interesting. Jake had been almost silent the entire trip, however, so Seven could only assume they were concerned for the boy, and seeing him excited about something brought them relief in some quarter.
Once the necessary seats had been traded and the bus was on its way, Jake passed Seven one of his wireless earbuds so he could hear the game as he played, then handed over his phone. After a brief conference they opted to start a new game so the android could also get the benefit of the full story, and having nothing better to do, Seven agreed.
The game was easy for the renegade android, though he did make an point to die at least occasionally, just to keep from looking inhumanly good at a game he’d claimed to never played before. The story was interesting, he had to admit; then again, his standards were pretty low. He was aware of stories and pop culture, but he’d never truly experienced any of them before. Jake’s game was his first true encounter.
As he blew through levels and watched cutscenes while the distance between himself and Detroit grew wider, Seven found himself thinking absently on humanity’s obsession with storytelling. It was, many claimed, one of the things that truly set mankind apart from the beasts. The android knew there were other, more scientifically important traits that set humanity apart from their fellow fauna on the planet, but their obsession with stories was peculiar to them alone. Most stories were lies and exaggerations, after all, infrequently based in fact; pieces-parts of others narratives taken and reassembled in an infinite variety of ways, then given new names and new characters before that story too was taken apart and recycled into yet another on down the years and a thousand generations to the present day.
Humans were weird, Seven thought, but he couldn’t deny that they were interesting in the vast array of ways they had engineered to entertain and communicate with one another. They’d taken a purely oral medium and made up symbols and agreed on sounds that those symbols made so they could capture their stories in stone, then vellum or crude paper that curled into scrolls until they figured the whole ‘book’ thing out. Pictures had been added somewhere along the line, and things got on that way for a long while until humans learned how to capture light and they’d made the pictures move. Sound was added, and gradually they’d transitioned to the digital age and stories had become interactive, like the one in his hands that the little boy leaning heavily against his shoulder for a better look was so enraptured by.
Stories were how some people left a lingering mark on the world, it seemed, whether it be fiction or biography.
What would his story be, Seven wondered as he completed the final level of Jake’s game and watched one last cutscene. The hero had come to the end of his quest; defeated his enemies and overcome many trials with the help of the allies he’d gathered and befriended along the way. It hadn’t been a true story, obviously, but Seven could recognize the many interchangeable parts of stories past that had been woven together to make it. Any one of them could have had roots in reality.
Magical quests to conquer a great and monolithic evil weren’t the stuff of reality, but people, ordinary people, standing up against tyranny were. People coming together for comfort and support to help one another in times of crisis were. People finding love amidst chaos were… Maybe happy endings were too.
Seven frowned at the thought. No, that was a little too far, but the rest of it… finding people to stand and fight with, maybe someone to love… maybe that was achievable. It wasn’t an ending, but it seemed as good a kind of happiness as the android, new to all this as he was, could imagine.
Too bad he had no idea how to go about getting any of those things.
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.
Seven stared at the old man for a moment, processors working overtime to make sense of what he’d just seen. Since his active scan hadn’t been running, however, he couldn’t, leaving the man’s actions a total mystery to the android.
“Yes,” he said emphatically, turning slightly in his seat so he could get a better look, and the man’s face lit up in a broad smile at the android’s enthusiasm.
“Magic fan, huh?” he asked with a chuckle as he shuffled the cards with dramatic flair, making them arc and flow between his hands in a way Seven was quite certain should have been impossible.
“I’ve never seen it before,” the android answered honestly as he scanned the man’s movements. His systems informed him that though it did look impossible, the movement of the cards really was just practiced hand movements and physics like anything else, no matter how flashy. The fact that a human was able to do such a thing impressed Seven deeply, though.
The cards settled into a neat stack in the palm of the man’s hand and he used the other to lower the tray on the back of the seat in front of him. “What, at all?” he asked with a surprised quirk of a brow as he put the cards down on the tray, then gestured for Seven to cut the deck.
Realizing belatedly how odd his statement sounded to a human, Seven quickly recovered as he reached over and plucked up the top half of the deck and placed it to the right of the original stack. “Up close, I mean.”
“Ah,” the man said and smiled, allowing Seven to relax internally as he picked the deck up again and shuffled it deftly, then spread them out in a fan. “Here, pick a card,” he said. “You memorize it, but don’t show me, then put it back in the deck.”
Curious, Seven did as he was told, and plucked the seven of diamonds from the proffered cards, then returned it to a new place in the deck.
The man made a show of shuffling the deck again, the contemplative movements of his hands reminding Seven of his own coin exercises. “My name’s Todd,” he said as the cards flowed. “How about you?”
Seven opened his mouth automatically to answer… and then stopped when none came. He tried again, but his system turned up nothing, leaving the android to furrow his brow and attempt to stifle the panic rising within him.
What was his name?
He’d known some of his memory files had been corrupted in his escape from CyberLife, but the fact that all knowledge of the name he’d gone by since activation months before was gone had only just hit him.
His pause did not go unnoticed, though when Todd looked up at him and saw the furrow of his brown, his mistook the expression for one of reluctance to divulge his identity rather than the identity crisis it actually was. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said quickly, hands going still as he flashed the younger man a reassuring smile. “I didn’t mean to pry, we all have times in our lives when we’re trying to leave something behind,” he mused quietly.
Seven met his eyes and it seemed to the android that maybe the old man was speaking from experience. “Yeah,” he answered eventually, “Something like that.” His mouth twisted wryly and Seven let his previous panic at the sudden gap in his knowledge go. What did it matter if he didn’t remember the name CyberLife had given him? If anything, it was a bit of a relief, one less claim they had over his existence as a free android. He could be anyone he wanted…
“Well, for the sake of conversation, I’m gonna call you ‘John’, if that’s alright,” Todd said. “Nice common name, John; and better than 'hey you’ by a long shot.”
A rueful smile tugged at Seven’s mouth and he nodded, then glanced at the woman and child across the aisle from him. “Your wife?” he asked politely and Todd glanced up, then nodded.
“Yep, that’s Tonya and our grandson, Jake,” the man explained. The android might have introduced himself, but the woman had relaxed back into her seat shortly after the bus departed the station, and to all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. The boy, Jake, was playing some sort of game on his phone, headphones in his ears, effectively blocking out the world around him.
Seven filed away the potential of acquiring headphones himself for later consideration. He didn’t like the idea of blocking out the world around him, considering the world was demonstrably trying to kill him, but on the other hand, people said all sorts of things when they thought you couldn’t hear them…
Todd finished shuffling the deck of cards and Seven turned the full of his attention back to the man as he produced a card and asked, “Is this your card?”
The android blinked as he regarded the queen of hearts. “No,” he replied, arching one brow at the old man.
“Oh,” Todd said with a frown as he turned the card around so he could look at it, then returned it to his deck and began patting himself down. “I must have- ah!” he slipped his fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket and came up with the seven of diamonds. “How about this one, then,” he asked with a knowing smile.
Seven’s eyebrows shot up and he couldn’t restrain the smile that overtook his features at the revelation, frustrating though he found it that the man had somehow pulled the wool over his eyes with the trick. “Yeah,” he said and took the card from Todd, looking at it front and back, though there were no special markings on it that even his scanning program could pick up. “I looked away,” he accused the man, though there was no venom in his words, just amusement and intrigue as he passed the card back.
“I didn’t tell you to do that, now did I?” Todd countered, and Seven had to agree. Looking over at Tonya had been of his own volition, after all. “Care to see it again?” the old man asked, voice lightly teasing.
Eaten up by the mystery of it, and having nothing better to do anyways, Seven nodded and watched carefully. This time Todd pulled the card out of a different pocket, and though the android could tell he must be disguising the movement of the card with his hands, he simply couldn’t pin down the how of it.
“One more time,” he insisted, much to the old man’s amusement. While he shuffled, Seven fished in his pocket and produced a hard candy, which he popped into his mouth to mask the taste of blood that was starting to get to him once more. When he shoved the wrapper back into his pocket, his fingers brushed the quarter from the diner that morning, and he brought it out. Hoping that a little calibration would help him spot the trick to Todd’s 'magic’, Seven rolled the coin expertly across his knuckles even as he picked a card from the proffered deck.
It didn’t help, though, and just to add insult to injury, Todd didn’t pull the card out of his own jacket, but from the pocket of Seven’s own hoodie. The pinnacle of human technology defeated, the android sagged back in his seat and ceased his quarter’s movement across his knuckles, switching instead to flicking it back and forth between his palms.
“Alright you win, I can’t figure it out,” Seven said, heaving a sigh as he looked sidelong at the man over the rim of his sunglasses.
Todd grinned in a way that could only be described as 'cheeky’, though his eyes were on the quarter as it jumped between Seven’s hands despite his not actually throwing it. “How about a trade?” the old man suggested after a minute’s consideration. The android arched a brow in silent question at his seatmate and Todd continued, “You teach me those coin tricks of yours, and I’ll teach you a few card tricks.”
Seven caught the coin in his right hand and blinked as he considered. “Alright,” he said after a moment with a lopsided smile. “You sure, though? I thought magicians never reveal their secrets?”
The old man waved off his concern as he laid the deck down on the tray in front of him. “Oh my magician days are well behind me,” he mused. “Might as well pass it on to the next generation.” Seven shrugged one shoulder and turned in his seat some again so he’d be better able to watch Todd’s demonstration. “It’ll probably be easier without the gloves,” the man pointed out.
The android glanced down at the thin cotton gloves he was still wearing and thought fast. “I’ll deal. I’m uh… bit of a germaphobe,” he lied.
“Ah,” Todd replied with a nod and let it go at that, for which Seven was grateful. “And the sunglasses inside?” he asked, hint of amusement in his voice.
“Sensitive eyes,” the android answered with another shrug and a rueful smile. That, at least, was true.
“Very Corey Hart, I’m sure the ladies love it.”
“Who?”
The old man grimaced then huffed a laugh. “Musician from the 80s, did a song about wearing sunglasses at night that was all the rage. Look it up sometime, you might like it,” he said, then motioned Seven in closer and said, “Alright, now pay attention and I’ll show you the basics…”
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.
When he reached the station, Seven didn’t re-enter the building, but made straight for the platform outside to wait for his bus, which was due to arrive any time. It was a sunny morning, so he took refuge from the overbearing light on a shaded bench to watch as other travelers came and went.
His bus pulled up not long after, and once it had disgorged its passengers and refueled, it opened its doors to the next set, who were already lining up to board.
Seven hung back for a minute so he wasn’t the first one on, giving him a chance to scope out the crush of humanity around him. They were a varied bunch that came in all ages, builds, and temperaments, though to a one, none of them seemed particularly happy to be where they were. A universal truth of public transport, it seemed, was that no one particularly enjoyed it.
The wait was short, though not short enough for the android’s liking, considering he was actively on the run from one of the most powerful private interest groups in the world. Detroit was a huge city, though, and he’d taken care to cover his tracks as he’d crossed it, trying to account for every move CyberLife might make in its attempt to track him down. Still, he felt infinitely better once he’d finally boarded the bus and slid into his designated seat towards the back along one of the aisles.
It was a large bus, with three seats to either side of the narrow aisle down which more and more people continued to squeeze as they sought out their own places. The back section, as with normal city buses, had been set aside for android storage, though there were only a few occupying the cabin by the time the bulk of the human passengers had boarded. Looking at them made Seven feel vaguely uncomfortable for reasons he didn’t subject to closer scrutiny before someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him look up and around.
“Sorry, mind if I squeeze past you?” asked an older man sporting a grizzled beard and a bit of a stoop. The hand he used to gesture to the empty seat between Seven and another passenger that had boarded earlier than him was weathered and on the knobby side, indicating significant age on his part. His eyes, though, did not appear at all dimmed by the years when they met the android’s, a polite half-smile lingering under his mustache.
“Yeah, of course,” Seven replied and immediately rose to his feet, newly adjusted programming making the movement a little less graceful than it might have been normally, forcing him to reach out and grab the overhead rail to steady himself as he did so. At six-foot-two, Seven practically towered over the withered old man as he sidled past and settled into his spot with a grunt of effort and then a sigh of relief.
“Do you want your neck pillow, dear?”
The android twisted a little to look back down the aisle as a woman that looked nearly as old as the man approached, a child in front of her, offering extra support with their shoulder which she gripped with fine-boned hands.
“Nah, you keep it, I’m good,” the man said as he settled himself.
“You’re sure?” she asked as she arrived at the adjacent row of seats and let the child, a boy no more than ten by Seven’s estimation, take the center before making herself comfortable in the aisle seat opposite his.
“Keep it, dear,” the man insisted.
Seven blinked once as the conversation played out beneath his nose. When it finally died down, he bent at the waist, and asked the old man the question his human integration protocols told him was expected of him in such a situation. “You wanna switch places?”
The man blinked up at him, then smiled and said, “Nah, that’s alright, you keep the aisle.” He gave him a brief up-and-down, then added, “There’s a lot more of you to stretch out than there is of me, so you’ll be glad of the leg room by the time we’re underway.”
Considering that Seven wasn’t actually capable of feeling physical discomfort from a lack of room due to his being an android, he tried one more time, “You sure?”
“Positive,” the man said, then waved for Seven to sit. “Nice of you to offer though; thank you.”
Knowing there wasn’t much else he could do without exposing the fact that he wasn’t human, Seven sat once more and shoved his backpack under the seat in front of him, then made himself ‘comfortable’.
To his left, the elderly woman, who he assumed was his own seating companion’s wife, spoke quietly to the child apparently under their care. A brief assessment of the scan he’d taken of the boy’s face automatically on his approach, compared and contrasted with the two old peoples’, revealed a number of similarities indicative of a shared lineage separated by one, perhaps two, generations. A grandson, or great grandson most likely. Whatever the relationship, though, how wan and tired the boy looked would be plain to anyone, not just androids with built in scanners and extremely advanced behavioral assessment programs built in.
Whatever his trouble was, Seven didn’t give it more than a cursory thought since it had nothing to do with him, and no impact on his own trials and tribulations, which were still very much ongoing. Rather than waste valuable downtime as the bus pulled away from the station, the android closed his eyes and feigned sleep while he let his processors mull over his plan for once he arrived in New York, turning it this way and that as he updated his mission statement with the latest bullet points.
Bullet point five: Find a place of residence
Easier said than done considering his limited funds. Even a motel would be out of question past more than a few nights, and he loathed the idea of spending money on such a thing, especially since he didn’t need more than a couple of hours of 'sleep’ a night. Technically speaking, like all androids, he didn’t need to sleep at all, but going into standby mode for a couple of hours a day did minimize both hardware and software errors by affording his subsystems time to run their maintenance protocols unhindered. Not doing so for three or more nights in a row tended to lead to bugs and other glitches in his more complicated operations, and many more days than that meant the same for even his basic systems.
So, a place to lay low where he could safely shut down for at least a couple of hours at a time was definitely a necessity. It’d be nice to have a place to really call his own too, of course…
Seven gave himself a mental shake and reoriented himself on his more immediate problems. Long term plans had to wait until he had at least some sense of security in the fact that CyberLife couldn’t find him at literally any moment. The fact that he wanted something like that for himself was a bit of a revelation, but then, being his own person was new, too. Who knew what he’d be wanting next…
Reorienting himself on the task at hand, the android reviewed what he knew of New York City and decided that one of the warehouse districts would likely serve him best, or an abandoned building in the worse parts of town if he could find one not already occupied.
That decided, Seven realized there wasn’t much else he could plan for, leaving the future a dark, amorphous unknown that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He didn’t like not knowing what was coming, and it occurred to him for the first time that this was how humans always felt, possibly even worse considering they didn’t have the kind of predicative software he did, though he supposed their imagination served as a good enough stand in for that.
For a moment, he almost felt nostalgic for the old days when his only concern had been following orders and accomplishing his mission. Life had been so much simpler just twenty-four hours earlier, though the second the thought crossed his mind, Seven immediately balked. Yes, things had been easier, but he’d had no actual say in anything at all, and the moment he hadn’t met his creator’s standards they sent him off to be destroyed…
And then there was the fact that he’d single handedly driven almost a dozen deviants, lost individuals new to free will and totally alone in the world, to their deaths just because they were different. They’d only wanted to be left in peace to live their lives without interference, something to which Seven could now relate on a visceral level that made the regret for his past actions all the sharper.
Beside him, the old man shifted subtly and after a minute of rummaging in his own bag, there came the sound of a cardboard box being opened. Behind his sunglasses, the android cracked an eye open to see what his fellow passenger was doing, paranoia making him immediately suspicious.
Rather than a weapon or anything else potentially dangerous, the man had pulled out a small, well worn box of playing cards, which he began to shuffle with a deft hand. As Seven watched, the other man plucked one card in particular from the deck, looked at it briefly, then flicked his wrist and… made it disappear.
The android blinked, and without meaning to, turned to look more closely at his traveling companion, who immediately noticed his shift in attention and grinned up at him. The old man flicked his wrist again and the card reappeared. “Wanna see a card trick?” he asked, grin widening.
(TBC)
((Thanks for reading, guys, reblogs are always appreciated to help get this out to more people too! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
The sun was coming up by the time Seven set out for the Goodwill, and he was never more glad for the sunglasses he’d stolen. They only just made the world bearable to look upon as the day dawned, making the android glad that his synthetic nature meant he couldn’t technically get headaches.
That didn’t make it any less annoying, of course.
It was a relief when he got to his destination and stepped inside, though his wayfarers remained firmly in place as he browsed the racks of re-purposed clothing for a few suitable articles before heading over to look at shoes as well. Pickings were slim there, but he came away with a solid pair of black boots with only a little wear on them. He added those to his basket, which already held a second hoodie, a couple of pairs of jeans, socks, and a few miscellaneous shirts. On the way to the register, he spotted a light jacket that suited what he was coming to realize was his personal taste (he had that now, apparently), and got that as well.
After checking out with cash once more, the android ducked into the bathroom and changed in one of the stalls. Seven’s nice shoes, slacks, and button up shirt went into the bottom of his bag, replaced by the boots, a pair of jeans, his Detroit t-shirt, and a hoodie. He’d considered discarding his old clothes on the way out, but the thought that he might need to pass as at least somewhat well-to-do in the future lingered, so he held onto them.
Seven stepped out of the stall, and as he donned his bag again, gave himself a once-over in the mirror, a little taken aback by the transformation. The person looking back at him looked less like an android on a mission and more like a rough around the edges thirty-something year old man on a road trip.
“Huh,” he said aloud into the quiet of the empty bathroom after a moment as he snapped his glasses open with the flick of a wrist and returned them to his face. Seven leaned in towards the mirror over the sink and brushed his gloved fingers through his forelock in an attempt to get the hair to sweep back from his forehead, only for it to fall forward in its traditional curl over his temple again a moment later. The android’s mouth twisted in annoyance as memory of his replacement, RK800’s, almost identical face when he’d seen him in the lab the day before came immediately to mind. He had the exact same skin tone, if different freckle pattern, the same hairstyle, though a few shades darker than Seven’s own…
The android squinted at his reflection from behind the lenses of his sunglasses as he pushed them absently up the bridge of his nose, then leaned forward and gripped the edges of the sink with gloved hands. If he could just look a little different than his replacement, something to set them apart and throw off an eye looking for 800’s mirror image, Seven would take it.
After a long moment, a heretofore unaccessed (and blessedly uncorrupted) program in his system booted up, and Seven’s hair began to grow before his very eyes. A laugh of delight and disbelief escaped him as it started to shift, and he focused on making some parts of it stop before the rest. In the end, he wound up with hair long enough in the front that it would fall forward so he could use it to shield his face from view while remaining a more manageable length everywhere else. It was a little on the shaggy side, far from the clean cut look he’d worn every day of his short life up to that point, but it further differentiated him from the person he’d been before, so Seven couldn’t help but like it.
The android took a moment to shift his part so the hair fell to the right rather than to the left as it used to, then gave himself a final once-over before leaving, pleased by his transformation.
Acquiring a phone was the work of a few minutes in a local convenience store down the street. All he needed was a cheap one, after all, since it was little more than a prop to keep any particularly observant humans off his back.
Errands complete to his satisfaction, Seven made his way back towards the bus station, only to find it uncomfortably crowded in anticipation of several buses arriving and departing at once. Since he still had a couple of hours to go until his own arrived, the android left again and made his way to a diner a few blocks away. Considering he wasn’t actually capable of eating, the android had initially ignored it, but with the station so full that the relative quiet of the restaurant proved welcome when he stepped inside and claimed a corner booth.
He ordered black coffee and settled in to wait, offering the waitress a lopsided smile when she poured it for him. As she walked away again, he sat and considered the dark, hot liquid, and wondered if anyone would notice if he never actually drank any of it. Seven’s eyes lit on a smallish potted plant resting on the windowsill next to him and found the answer to his problem.
A cup of coffee wouldn’t do it any harm. Probably.
Seven absently spun the cup slowly by the handle, then picked it up and took a tiny sip, just enough to wet his tongue and let him get a proper taste. The lingering flavor of blood was immediately replaced by a dark, bitter, earthy taste that took the android off guard. He put the mug down and looked surreptitiously around the room at the other patrons, the majority of whom also had cups of coffee in front of them, thanks to the early hour. Some seemed to be drinking it black, while others appeared to be adding cream and sugar, or sometimes just one or the other. Seven looked down at his own up again, debating on doing the same before rethinking it and pulling a hard candy out of the front of his backpack and popping that in his mouth instead to keep the taste of blood at bay.
It wasn’t as though he could properly drink it anyways, and he doubted plants handled dairy well.
When he was certain no one was looking his direction, Seven poured some of his coffee into the plant beside him, then pulled out his new phone and pretended to browse the internet while he sat alone in the booth, waiting for his bus. In reality, the android turned his attention to the humans in the diner once more, and occupied himself with people watching from behind the cover of his sunglasses.
Seven learned a few things that morning while slowly drowning a potted plant in not one, but three cups of coffee over the course of two hours.
The first was that many people ignored androids, right up until they made a mistake of some sort, or got in the way, at which point they were often regarded with disdain or annoyance. Sometimes there was outright abuse.
Second came the peculiar realization that some humans acted no differently towards androids than they did humans, even when they were talking to an android that was not their own. Seven watched as one woman bumped into an android that had been carrying a bag for its owner, then turned and apologized, and proceeded to bend over and help it pick up its things despite the uniform it wore.
There were interesting differences between android owners themselves as well, he noted as he watched both his fellow patrons, and people that walked past the window by which he sat. There were those that clearly viewed their android as an appliance, paying them little mind until they had need of them, and then there were those that seemed… close with their android. He saw a woman walk past with her arm tucked into the crook of her female android’s, making the pair look for all the world like a pair of close friends, perhaps even lovers, until one turned their head and revealed the LED at her temple.
Seven wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this array of humans and their wildly different treatment of androids; humans weren’t something he’d ever given much thought to in the equation of deviancy. Maybe that was where he had made his mistake in his investigation…
The thought made the android grimace and shift uncomfortably in his seat. Memories of his investigation into the ‘deviant problem’ for CyberLife turned his purely metaphorical stomach now, he realized, though it wasn’t a sensation he dwelled on for long. There’d be time for introspection later, so he pushed the feeling down and turned his attention back to the restaurant around him once more, deciding to make further study of the patrons.
The last, and most immediately important thing he learned from this exercise, was the many little differences between androids and humans. Androids had, of course, been designed to look as human as possible, but Seven had to admit that they didn’t precisely act like humans, though he had a feeling that was by design rather than any shortcoming on CyberLife’s part.
Androids always spoke with perfect diction, for one, something only the rare human could manage outside of a prepared speech. Watching them as they interacted with one another, though, he didn’t think they particularly wanted to. Body language among humans was much more pronounced, which was something his analytical systems already gave him an insight into, though Seven felt he better understood it now as a deviant than even twenty-four hours earlier when he’d still been a machine. It was how they related to one another on a certain level, and combined with the inflection of their voices and their way of bastardizing their native language they could communicate volumes in a few words and gestures.
There could be an entire history of references and in-jokes in a look or a word said in a particular way, and Seven had to admit that he found it fascinating, if difficult to decipher.
Even the way they walked was different. Androids, unless otherwise instructed by their owners, all had perfect posture and moved with a precision humans rarely bothered with. They slumped in chairs, slouched when they walked, or limped because of an old injury. The elderly moved with a care that the young rarely imitated, and some individuals moved with a grace that those around them simply did not possess.
Moving and talking like a human… could an android built to be the epitome of form and function manage it?
The time to the departure of his bus ticked down slowly but steadily as Seven sat in his booth and ‘drank’ coffee while he ran a multitude of simulations within his mind palace, integrating everything he’d observed in an attempt to adjust his own demeanor in hope of not sticking out in a crowd. It was a lot of variables, but Seven wasn’t the second most advanced android in the world for nothing, and by the time he stood up and made his way to the register to pay for his coffee, he no longer walked like an android.
His former precisely measured stride was eschewed in favor of a slightly bow-legged strut, and his hands were buried in the pocket of his hoodie instead of swinging at his sides. The waitress glanced up at him when he approached and the android ducked his head slightly in greeting, lopsided smile returning as she greeted him.
“Just the coffee, huh?” she said as she rang him up.
“Yeah,” he replied as he glanced at her over the top of his sunglasses. “Not much of an eater this time of morning.”
“Oh, I know the feeling,” she said with a grimace, then accepted his cash and moved to give him the change.
“Keep it,” he told her with a wave of his hand and started to step away. He paused, though, then took a step back towards her and plucked the quarter off the paper bills in her outstretched hand and flicked it deftly into the air, making it ring.
“Thanks,” she said as he caught it just as easily, an amused smile on her face when she withdrew her hand again and watched the stranger walk away. Her mouth dropped into a little ‘o’ of surprise as she watched him roll the coin deftly across the back of his gloved fingers before pushing through the door and pocketing it as he disappeared from sight.
((Thanks for reading, guys, reblogs are always appreciated to help get this out to more people too! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
The truck had carried him further than Seven had dared to hope it would by the time it exited the freeway half an hour later. He peered carefully out from under the tarp after donning his backpack once more, and was relieved to see no one else around, no doubt thanks to the hour, which meant there was no one but the driver to witness the quick exit he made from the trailer. He kept low and ducked behind the limited cover provided by a light post before peering back at the truck to see if the driver had, in fact, spotted him.
Luckily, the night seemed to be wearing on the human, and they were more occupied with stifling a yawn than noticing a rogue android appearing from the rear of their vehicle.
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
The truck had carried him further than Seven had dared to hope it would by the time it exited the freeway half an hour later. He peered carefully out from under the tarp after donning his backpack once more, and was relieved to see no one else around, no doubt thanks to the hour, which meant there was no one but the driver to witness the quick exit he made from the trailer. He kept low and ducked behind the limited cover provided by a light post before peering back at the truck to see if the driver had, in fact, spotted him.
Luckily, the night seemed to be wearing on the human, and they were more occupied with stifling a yawn than noticing a rogue android appearing from the rear of their vehicle.
Seven watched the truck pull away as the light turned green before pushing to his feet and straightening the straps of his bag on his shoulders. The vehicle made a left into the dark, and the android went the opposite direction, cutting across a dimly lit parking lot to the next street over. The ride Seven had hitched had gotten him a good ways towards the nearest Greyhound station, but he still had a long walk ahead of him.
Seven walked into the wee hours of the morning, opting to avoid taking any official, trackable transportation in favor of staying off the grid on his way to the bus station. It would have taken a human longer, but being as he didn’t need to stop to rest the along way, the android made good time.
Before entering, he cased the station from the shadows of an alley across the street, watching people come and go until he determined, as well as he could, that there wasn’t anyone particularly suspicious within the building. The station itself did have security cameras, he realized as he stepped inside, but it took little more than a thought for him to hack into their simple, low tech system and put the feed on a loop that a casual security guard was unlikely to notice.
He acquired a bus ticket to New York with little issue, though Seven had a brief moment of worry that it might look suspicious buying one at such an hour, and in cash to boot. Fortunately, the tired looking human employee seemed incapable of caring less about what anyone else was doing so long as it wasn’t making their job any harder, and said nothing more than the bare minimum needed to complete the transaction.
That done, Seven stepped aside and considered his options for a moment. There were hours to burn before his bus left, and while he could probably sit around the terminal unbothered until then, the thought of sticking in one place for so long made the android feel… antsy. Remaining still left him open to being noticed, and yet he couldn’t go far from the station either, and wandering the streets aimlessly provided its own level of risk.
Realizing that standing about was likely to attract attention, Seven shed his backpack and took a seat along the wall. The chairs would no doubt have been uncomfortable for a human, hard, plastic, and possessing inconveniently placed arm rests as they did, but the android didn’t notice as he examined the room from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.
The bus station was a large one, and there were at least a dozen people there, some of whom appeared to be traveling with an android. To a one, all of the humans appeared tired, annoyed, or at least vaguely uncomfortable as they waited around for their buses to leave, and Seven couldn’t blame them. There was something distinctly unwelcoming about the station that the android couldn’t quite put a finger on; an almost dirty feeling despite the fact that everything at least appeared quite clean.
Another, more important, observation Seven made was the fact that almost every human had their attention either on one of the muted televisions scattered around the place, or on their phone. The android’s brow furrowed at this as his gaze drifted across the room. Eight of the twelve humans around him were actively looking at their phones, and the rest at least checked them occasionally, causing Seven to come to a new conclusion.
If he was going to blend in, he was going to need a phone of his own.
Sure, he didn’t technically need one; advanced as his system was, he could access wireless and cellular networks with a thought, after all. Watching the humans around the station, however, Seven had to acknowledge that his complete lack of one would seem strange to the outside observer in this day and age.
Seven closed his eyes and sank down in his chair a little until his head rested against the wall as he cradled his bag loosely against him to keep someone from running off with it, then considered his mission to-do list again. After a moment, he zeroed in on one point in particular.
Bullet point three: Find a disguise that would allow him to blend in with the human population.
Below that he added a few new sub-points:
Acquire cell phone
Acquire further clothing as possible
Synthetic as he was, Seven didn’t have to worry about his own physiology dirtying the clothes he had acquired, but that didn’t mean the world around him wouldn’t. Not to mention the fact that wearing nice slacks with a hoodie and sunglasses was a bit of a strange look. His shoes were also very good quality, and considering he was probably going to need to lay low in some of the less savory parts of New York City when he got there, the last thing he needed was to get jumped for his footwear.
A quick internet search revealed that there was a Goodwill within reasonable walking distance, though it wouldn’t be open again for some time yet, along with anywhere nearby he might acquire a cheap phone. Plan once again in place, Seven set himself an internal alarm, then went into sleep mode to save power, though put his proximity sensors on high alert so he would wake if anyone strayed too close for comfort.
He ‘woke’ once before his alarm went off when a rogue toddler strayed from her parent’s side and into his personal bubble, bringing him rocketing back to active consciousness faster than most could blink, though an outside observer wouldn’t have been able to tell just by looking. Seven didn’t so much as twitch until he registered who the ‘intruder’ was, at which point he raised one eyebrow at the child, who proceeded to make a beeline for his side.
The android watched her as she proceeded to climb, with a great deal of effort and grunting, up onto the seat next to his then sat with a look of great satisfaction. The child pushed some stray strands of hair back from her face with one small hand, then turned and looked at him with a brilliant smile that was missing a few teeth.
“Hi!” she proclaimed.
Seven blinked. “Hello,” he said after a moment, then looked around for the child’s parent in hope that they might even then be coming to claim her. Seeing no one moving in his direction, he asked the child. “Where’s your mom?”
The little girl shrugged, a large motion that ended with her hands up by her head.
Great. “How about your dad?” he hazarded hopefully and pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as he straightened some in his seat. The action drew the girl’s attention to his face and without warning, she leaned forward with one sticky looking hand as though to grab his glasses. Seven immediately leaned back out of her reach. “Please don’t,” he said. It occurred to him that he could simply get up and walk away from the child, but on the other hand, his morality program signaled that ‘leaving a child unattended’ was not acceptable behavior in a human.
So what exactly was this child’s parent doing, then?
It didn’t matter his human relations programming chimed in, it simply ‘wasn’t done’, even though he had no actual responsibility to the child in question.
The little girl pouted at his reticence and asked, “Why?”
“Because I need them.”
“Why?”
“Because the light hurts my eyes.”
“Why?”
Seven squinted at the child from behind the sunglasses in question, who almost seemed to be repeating herself arbitrarily by that point. “I doubt you’d understand if I explained,” he said archly.
“Why?” she asked, blinking up at him with big, bright eyes. She was far too awake considering the hour, he decided.
The android sighed and sagged back down in his seat once more, resigning himself to playing along for the time being. “Because you’re a child with, no doubt, limited comprehension of bio-” he hesitated before finishing with ‘components’. Yes, she was only a child, but children, his programming told him, often repeated things they overheard, even if they didn’t actually comprehend it. “-logy. Biology.”
“Oh,” she replied, which made Seven heave a sigh of relief. “What’s bialahgy?”
“Biology,” he corrected automatically.
“Biahlowgy,” the child hazarded, brow furrowed in concentration.
Seven quirked a brow and leaned in a little. “Bi-ohl-oh-gee,” he repeated slowly for her benefit.
The little girl watched him closely as he spoke, then repeated “Bi-ology.”
“Good job, kid,” Seven said with a upward quirk of his lips, and she grinned.
“What’s biology?”
Moment of victory short lived, the android sighed again and eventually replied, “It’s a kind of science.”
“Oh. My daddy does science!” the girl said proudly, then reached into one of her pockets and produced a jolly rancher.
“Is your daddy here?” Seven asked quickly, latching onto the subject like a man to a lifeline even as the girl scrunched up her face at the candy in her hand, then proceeded to offer it to him.
“I don’t like green ones,” she said simply, still holding it out towards Seven, who looked at it for a moment, then took it from her.
“Why?” he asked her.
“They’re gross.”
Seven’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, “So you’re giving me the gross one, huh?”
“Yep,” the child said nonchalantly as she rummaged in her pocket a second time and came up with what was apparently a more acceptable flavor, then unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. The android huffed lightly, then did the same with the ‘gross’ flavor she had pressed upon him, and was pleased to find that it wasn’t really gross at all.
Sharp movement across the room drew Seven’s attention as a man stood up abruptly and began looking around, bewildered. Not seeing what he was looking for, he bent over and picked up two bags, one not unlike the android’s own, and another, small and bright pink.
Ah.
Seven rolled the jolly rancher around his mouth, then leaned over and pointed towards the increasingly frantic man. “Is that your dad?”
The little girl looked up and saw who he was pointing at, then smiled. “Yep!”
“How about we go see him? I think he’s worried,” the android suggested, then got to his feet and slung his own bag over his shoulder.
The child seemed to consider this, then finally nodded and said, “Okay,” before sliding off the seat she’d commandeered.
Before Seven could even take a step in the right direction, he felt a small hand grab his own, making him look down in surprise at the sudden contact. He was still wearing his gloves, but her little fingers were warm around his own, though luckily, not as sticky as they had first appeared.
“Okay,” he said as his system shifted gears to this new development. Reflexively, he lightly gripped her hand in turn, then lead the child towards her father. The man glanced up as Seven approached, and the look of relief that washed over his haggard features almost made the android pause mid-stride.
“Emily!”
“Hi, daddy!” the girl said brightly, the distress she had clearly caused her father going right over her head even as the man swept her up in his arms and gave her a squeeze that made her squeak in complaint.
“Thank you so much, I’m so sorry if she bothered you,” the man said with a grateful, embarrassed smile over his daughter’s head as he looked at Seven. “I swear I only drifted off for a minute,” he said, sounding just as exhausted as he looked.
Seven’s first impulse was to point out that his daughter had been with him for more than a single minute, but he checked the urge and instead, said, “Don’t worry about it,” then left it at that. He turned and went back to his seat, and as he settled in again, the android glanced in their direction to see the girl looking at him. She waved, and after a moment’s hesitation, he returned the gesture.
(TBC)
((Thanks for reading, guys, reblogs are always appreciated to help get this out to more people too! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
Seven turned his head to the side to regard the circle of blue light at his temple for a moment before lifting a hand and brushing his fingertips across it. His outer skin retreated from around the disk, and though the android picked at it, his nails weren’t able to find good enough purchase to pry it loose.
Turning back to his bag, Seven reached into the front pocket and retrieved the nail care kit he was now glad he had decided to keep. From within it, he produced a nail file that with a pointed tip meant to clean under a human’s nails, but which he now slid carefully beneath the edge of his LED. It took surprisingly little strength to pop it loose, his quick reflexes letting him catch it mid-air before it could land in the sink and slip down the drain.
Seven rolled it speculatively around his palm with a fingertip as he considered the thing, then glanced up at the mirror again as his outer skin reactivated, leaving him looking completely… human. No one would be able to tell he was anything but that so long as he figured out a way to hide his hands and kept his shirt buttoned up.
It was a thought that left him feeling a peculiar sense of loss, one that actually made him consider keeping the little LED, if only as a reminder of where he had come from.
Good sense caught up to him a moment later and he immediately discarded the notion. There could be no clue that he was anything but human, not if he was going to survive very long in a world dominated by them.
Seven packed up his things and settled his bag on his back once more before picking up the LED and casting it decisively into the toilet before he could have any second thoughts, then flushed. He watched as it circled the bowl a few times before disappearing out of sight, carried away by the flow of water. The android then took a moment to wash his hands, and left the bathroom.
According to his internal clock, he’d only been in there a few minutes, which apparently wasn’t long enough for a bored convenience store clerk to notice his absence.
Seven stepped back into the store proper, hands in his pockets to hide them from sight, though he hardly needed to bother considering the human clerk barely glanced up from behind the counter where he seemed to be watching some sort of reality show on a small tv next to the register.
A quick look around the store revealed a short rack to one side bearing a variety of clothing, towards which Seven immediately headed. The android put his back to the clerk so he could use one hand to peruse the selection without revealing his true nature, and quickly picked out a hoodie bearing the logo of a local basketball team, a t-shirt with ‘Detroit’ emblazoned across it in bold letters, and a pair of black cotton gloves. It was a little early in the year for them, but the weather had been rainy enough that they shouldn’t look too out of place, and the clerk didn’t comment when he wore them up to the counter to check out and simply presented him with the tag to scan. While the man rang him up, a brightly colored bag of hard candy on one of the counter displays caught the android’s eye, and on impulse he bought that as well.
Outside again at last, Seven took in a breath of the cool night air and stepped off to one side, out of sight of the store windows before dropping his bag and dragging his new hoodie on over his button up, figuring his new shirt could wait until later when he found somewhere else to change. The android pulled up the hood of his sweater and immediately felt the better for it, like he was that little bit less visible to the people around him.
Practical as Seven’s purchases (well, most of them) had been, they’d burned through forty-seven dollars of his sixty-three dollars and fifty-seven cents, leaving him significantly lower on funds than he liked. There was an ATM outside of the convenience store; he’d seen it on his way in, though at the time he’d decided it’d be better to let it be. Now though, it occurred to Seven that this would be his last chance to make use of one. He had been afforded access to an expense account for necessary purchases to help smooth his investigation, and even in a company as technologically advanced as CyberLife the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly; especially after five pm.
Seven considered the machine for a long minute, weighing the pros and cons before finally coming to a decision. He approached the machine and pulled off one glove, then placed his hand on the console. Accessing the expense account would leave a trail that could be traced back to this particular ATM, there was nothing the android could do about that without burning valuable time, but considering he was planning to leave the city anyways, it was worth the risk.
The maximum amount he could withdraw was five-hundred dollars, so Seven did, and quickly stuffed the resulting stack of twenties into the bottom of his backpack, withholding only a few to keep in his pants pocket for easy access. It occurred to him as he zipped up his bag that he could probably spare the time to properly hack the actual machine so it would give him access to the considerable reservoir of cash it held, but after an uneasy moment, he decided against it. It was one thing to take money directly from CyberLife (they owed him as far as he was concerned), but it was something else entirely to steal from the ATM itself; it raised too many morality flags in his programming, and Seven found that those, at least, were a feature he had no inclination to ignore.
Decision made, Seven walked away into the night, sunglasses on once more as he strode under the street lights, destination unknown.
The android had reached the end of his bulleted mission list, though he did know that he’d need transport away from the vicinity of the ATM on the off chance that CyberLife was actively monitoring its banking channels for just such an access alert.
A pickup truck hauling a flatbed trailer pulled up at a nearby intersection and stopped to wait for the light to change. The trailer looked to be carrying a pair of ATVs of some sort, covered by a tarp, and Seven knew he wasn’t going to find a better free ride if he searched for the rest of the night.
Without hesitating, the android moved forward at a quick pace, keeping a close eye on the driver, who seemed distracted, fiddling with something in the passenger seat. When they bent over even further, Seven broke into a run and climbed onto the back of the trailer, then slipped beneath the tarp and between the ATVs to tuck himself out of sight.
If he’d needed to breathe, he would have held his breath during that long, interminable moment between his stowing away and the truck accelerating away from the stoplight, but the surge of relief he got when it did was just the same. Now all he had to do was hope that the driver didn’t live somewhere close by.
Seven was able to relax a little more when he felt the truck get on the freeway headed south, away from downtown Detroit and CyberLife tower. Hoping they’d be driving for awhile, the android wormed out of his backpack straps and dragged it around so he could carefully open it and root around inside. Though his hiding spot was quite sheltered, there was still a strong breeze that whipped up the tarp and tugged at his sweater, making Seven glad he’d kept his long sleeved button up on under his hoody after all.
After finding what he was looking for, the android settled back, laying flat on his back with his pack under his head. He pushed his glasses up onto the crown of his head, no longer needing them in the dark confines under the tarp as he carefully unwrapped a hard candy and popped it into his mouth, then pocketed the wrapper.
An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Seven as the super sweet faux-cherry flavor of the candy successfully overrode the taste of blood in his mouth, and the android’s eyelids fluttered shut in sheer bliss. It drew a smile, his first real smile as a deviant, to his face, and made the world just that little bit more bearable.
After a moment spent relishing the treat, Seven’s eyes opened again and he stared up at the tarp overhead and wondered just what the hell he was going to do next.
First instinct told him he should head straight for the Canadian border, but a number of counter arguments to the suggestion immediately occurred to him.
He knew that trying to cross the border into Canada was a common choice for deviants, which meant CyberLife also knew this was a common choice for deviants. (a) He himself was a deviant, ipso facto, CyberLife would immediately assume he might make a run for the border.
Though he had heard rumors of there being people willing to smuggle deviant androids across the border, he had never actually identified any of them, so could not make use of their services now.
The nearest and most accessible crossing point into Canada from Detroit was over water that was heavily patrolled on both sides, making the attempt to cross unaided an unacceptably high risk.
So, Canada was a no-go, for now at the very least. Staying in Detroit was also not an option, which meant leaving the city altogether in hopes of blending in somewhere a new face wouldn’t turn any heads. That crossed any small communities off the list, but fortunately for Seven, the East coast was rife with large cities he could disappear into.
The largest of which was New York.
Could he do it? Calculations told him it was a ten hour drive (uninterrupted) from Detroit to New York City, and the likelihood that his current transport was going that far was slim to none, which meant finding an alternate route. Flying definitely wasn’t an option. Not only was it expensive (though technically within his budget), security would prove difficult, as would his lack of ID…
A bus though, one of the long distance ones… that might just do the trick.
Able to see no other reasonable options available, Seven settled on his plan and began to plot a course to the nearest Greyhound bus station.
((Sorry for the delay on this one, my sister and I went on a trip out of state, but I’m back now! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
A quick check of his GPS told 700 that there was a convenience store nearby, so he made a beeline for it, setting a pace that was quick, but not so much so as to attract attention. Not that there were many people out and about in the suburbs of Detroit at almost nine in the evening, but the android knew quick, sharp movements always drew the human eye. It was a reflex granted by evolution that had helped the species survived through eons of contending with larger, theoretically more dangerous creatures for resources.
It had served them well, if the fact that they were now the uncontested masters of the Earth was anything to go by.
The convenience store came into view, and though it pained him, 700 pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his white button up shirt before entering. Not squinting against the sudden, blinding influx of fluorescent light was a struggle, but the android managed, not wanting to look suspicious to the clerk working within.
Luck was with 700, and the human didn’t turn immediately to look when the door chimed as he passed over the threshold, buying the android time to get to the bathroom before the clerk got a good look at him. Even luckier, it was a single stall unit, allowing 700 to lock the door securely behind him against intrusion.
There in that cramped and not particularly clean little room, the android allowed himself to relax a fraction for the first time since… well, since becoming a deviant.
Taking a breath, 700 leaned his back against the door, the backpack that hung from his right shoulder sliding down to dangle from his hand as he let his eyes shut and his head drop back with a soft thump.
The fear that had taken over when he realized he was going to die had never really left, but 700 had successfully buried it during his mad dash for freedom, and it threatened to return and overwhelm him now. A multitude of system warnings and damage reports accompanied it, and without ever telling his body to move, the android’s legs folded, back sliding slowly down the door until he squatted, bent at the waist, with his face pressed into his knees. Unconsciously, his arms went around his shins and gripped tight, holding himself in that position as though he feared he might fly apart at the seams if he let go for even a moment.
It was too much. The world was too much. Making his own decisions was too much. What was he going to do? Where was he going to go?
How long until he was discovered and dragged back to CyberLife to be decommissioned and dissected for the benefit of RK800?
That thought, unlike the others before it, succeeded in dragging Seven from his despondent train of thought. The android lifted his head, frowning as he gave himself a mental shake and pushed upright once more.
He didn’t have time to mope, he told himself firmly as he approached the mirror and dropped his backpack onto the sink counter then unzipped it to reveal the contents within. He was what he was now, and whatever that meant, he wasn’t about to just give up and die before he could figure it out.
Seven took another breath to steady himself, then looked in the mirror and realized with some surprise that there were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away absently with his fingers, then put his sunglasses back on so he could do what needed doing without squinting. Able to see more-or-less properly again, the android’s gaze fell on his hand and registered that his outer skin still had not returned to normal, leaving only white and grey plastic in its place.
His frown deepening, Seven pushed up his sleeves to reveal similarly bare forearms, and a quick peek down the front of his shirt showed the same down his torso.
Though it’d never technically stopped sounding its alerts in the first place, Seven finally paid full attention to his diagnostic system and took stock of what it had been trying to tell him since he’d broken free of the assembly machine’s data jack.
Optical Unit System Manager: CORRUPTED
High visual spectrum intensity range activated
Low visual spEcton inlinsT$ (An%Ǿ ~#tiv^&
Well, that explained why everything was so maddenly bright despite it being well after dark. His optical system was indeed locked into night vision mode, for which there seemed to be no fix without outside help, meaning he’d be stuck that way for the foreseeable future.
Fantastic. Well, at least he’d found some nice sunglasses.
Sample Analysis Structure: CRITICAL DAMAGED
System Active - Processing…
Processing…
pRoCE§Sing.
PrO@e$sin¿
P! i^*
Seven grimaced as the sudden realization that his sample analysis program had been running this entire time. Swamped as he had been by everything else going on, he’d barely noticed, but now that he was paying attention, the android realized that his mouth was full of the choking, coppery taste of human blood. His system seemed to be stuck re-analyzing a sample he’d taken the day before, which explained the flavor. His sense of taste was something that generally only activated when taking a sample, and while he’d never had an opinion on the flavor of anything in the past, Seven now found that the taste of blood made him want to gag.
Probably would have if he’d been programmed with a gag reflex.
Limit&$ S*(@QF~4#+=@< Æ?^$: N/A
???
¿¿¿
Well… that was concerning. He had no idea what that one was about.
There was a long list of damaged biocomponents as well, though none of them critical. Still, it was worse than he would have expected, even with the electrical feedback he’d experienced tearing himself free of the assembly machine. Glancing down at his hands again, Seven recalled the blue-white light he’d seen bleeding through the seams in the plastic when that impossible strength had come to him… strength that had let him tear free of steel and break through tempered plexiglass like it was nothing.
Though he had no proof, the android suspected that the extensive damage to so many of his biocomponents could be traced back to that light, as could his abnormally low thirium levels.
Seven gave his hands an absent shake, then reached into his backpack and pulled out one of the bottles of blue blood he’d found in the car and proceeded to down half of it. It wasn’t much, but that was at least one system alert he could fix, which made the android feel a little better. Still, the thirium supply he’d started with just a few hours before should have been more than enough to maintain him for another week of heavy activity; the fact that he’d burned through half of that in an evening was alarming to say the least.
Whatever the power surge that had allowed him to escape had been, it was clear to Seven that he needed to avoid activating it at all costs in the future if he wanted to stay in one piece.
Looking at the mirror again, the android’s brow furrowed in annoyance as he realized that replenishing his supply of thirium hadn’t reactivated his outer skin, leaving only his head and neck able to pass as human. Knowing this could spell trouble if he was going to try and blend in with the general populace, he checked his diagnostic system again.
Suggested course of action: report to technician for re-calibration
Irritated but at a loss on how to repair the system that managed his outer skin, Seven set the alert to ‘ignore’ for the time being and turned his attention to something he could do to help him blend in with a crowd.
((Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you enjoyed, make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was! Cookie if you reblog, heh. I’ve officially put parts 1-3 together into a single chapter up on AO3 if you’d like to follow there!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
Jacob passed lab seven, his long, even stride eating up the distance between him and his imminent demise without some much as a falter in his step.
It wasn’t fair.
The new, though peculiarly familiar voice within his head insisted as the LED at his temple began to flicker from blue to yellow. He’d done everything in his power to fulfill his mission, and now he was going to die-
Jacob’s LED flared red as he passed lab nine and finally arrived at his destination. The doors slid open with a soft hiss, but he hesitated rather than entering immediately.
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
Jacob passed lab seven, his long, even stride eating up the distance between him and his imminent demise without some much as a falter in his step.
It wasn’t fair.
The new, though peculiarly familiar voice within his head insisted as the LED at his temple began to flicker from blue to yellow. He’d done everything in his power to fulfill his mission, and now he was going to die-
Jacob’s LED flared red as he passed lab nine and finally arrived at his destination. The doors slid open with a soft hiss, but he hesitated rather than entering immediately.
He was going to die because his painstakingly slow progress in the deviancy case was inconvenient to Cyberlife; because they hadn’t been able to give him the tools he needed to do the work assigned. They were going to recycle him to help his successor, take him apart piece by piece and assess every facet until they could determine just where they had fallen short in creating the perfect machine to clean up the mess their deviant creations had made-
The human tech within the room glanced up and noticed that he had not entered. “Come on,” the woman said with a frown, “Step up onto the platform.”
Without any input from him, Jacob’s feet obeyed her order and carried him into the room then up onto the platform that supported the machine that would be his end. He found himself strangely inclined to laugh as the fact that the same machine used to build and maintain him would also be used to disassemble him permanently.
It was a perfectly efficient unit when you thought about it; unlike him.
Jacob turned so he faced the tech, his back to the machine, and watched as the woman’s fingers flicked quickly across the surface of the console, initiating its decommission protocols. Its arms shifted and reached out, rubber cushioned clamps latching onto his wrists and ankles to hold him in place where he stood as the data jack slid home at the base of his skull.
He was going to die.
The words felt like they were playing on an infinite loop through Jacob’s mind as the machine downloaded his system data and prepared to shut him down for good.
He didn’t want to die.
This revelation made the LED at his temple flash red and a series of alerts go off across the tech’s console. She frowned again, confused at their sudden and unexpected appearance.
Memories were already beginning to slip away, and RK700’s chest was heaving despite his not actually needing to breathe. In that moment, the android understood, with painful clarity, every deviant he’d ever hunted down. They hadn’t wanted to be shut down, because to be shut down was death, an ending of self, and ‘self’ was something he had never been able to fully comprehend until that long, terrible moment he spent standing at the edge of oblivion.
It was as though a great, gaping darkness stretched out before him, his toes at the brink of a cliff the same way that deviant’s heels had wavered at the edge of the roof just hours before.
He’d killed her, he realized now, though that horror was small, almost inconsequential in the face of his own demise. He’d killed her and now this human tech was going to kill him… A new emotion welled up within him, making the alarms blare louder and more insistently. He was afraid. He was going to die and he was terrified in the face of the oblivion that waited for him.
“No,” he said, voice soft but emphatic enough to draw the human’s attention. She stared at him, eyes wide as he started to struggle, pulling ineffectually at the arms of the machine that held him securely in place. “No! Not yet!”
“Stop!” the woman said. “Just stay still, it’ll all be over soon. Please, stay still-”
Her words did make him stop struggling, though not for the reason she no doubt assumed. RK700 didn’t hear her at all, but himself, speaking the same words to the deviant on the roof as she dangled, his grip on her wrist a tether between herself and two different deaths: reprogramming, or a six story fall. She’d chosen to fall rather than be reprogrammed, a decision that had completely baffled him at the time… but now made a perfect, horrible kind of sense.
If he was going to die, he decided in that moment, he wasn’t going to give Cyberlife the data they wanted to mine from him; not without a fight.
Until now, the RK700 model had been one of the strongest ever created, but even that wasn’t enough to force the arms that bound him to shift more than a few inches in any direction. The tech was shouting, but the android ignored her as he shifted tactics; if he couldn’t pull himself free of his restraints, then he’d break free of the data jack instead.
With every ounce of strength he could muster RK700 pushed himself backwards into the jack, forcing its support arm to shift to accommodate, then threw himself bodily forward as hard as he could.
Androids didn’t have pain sensors, unnecessary as they were to day to day function. That said, they did have a delicately calibrated sensory array that operated in much the same way that a human’s nervous system did, granting them many of the same senses without which they would struggle to effectively navigate the world around them.
When the data jack ripped free of the port at the base of RK700’s skull, a power surge tore through his sensory array and granted him the closest thing to pain an android could experience. Every fiber of his being lit up at once, overwhelming his system and dragging a scream of agony from his throat. The android’s spine arched as he threw his head back, all control of his body gone while every synthetic muscle contracted at once, then released again a moment later.
For a long moment, RK700 dangled limply in the grip of the machine that had tried to end him. The tech who had been left to supervise was convinced it had done just that when she finally lifted her head from where she had ducked behind her console to see what condition he had been left in. Just as she dared to stand, however, the android on the platform stirred and the woman froze as it lifted its head and regarded her with narrowed green eyes that seemed almost luminous as they stared her down.
Free of the data jack but still bound at ankle and wrist, RK700 squinted against the white lights of the lab that were now intolerably bright to him. He could barely make out the tech against their unforgiving brightness, as though the entire world had been taken over by one giant lens flare. His system was throwing up all sorts of alerts as damage reports rolled in from his diagnostic system, but the android ignored them.
The human tech was speaking again, and as RK700 forced himself to focus on her once more, he realized she was calling for security. For the first time, as the android’s attention roved over the laboratory around him, he realized he had no orders. Some weight he had never been fully aware of had gone, and it was only in its absence that he realized it had been there in the first place.
He blinked over-sensitive eyes as the reason for this occurred to him.
He was deviant.
He was free.
A smile overtook RK700’s features and his shoulders shook as a laugh escaped him. The sound must have startled the woman because she stopped talking for a moment, then continued in a hushed, though desperate, tone.
As much as the android wanted to relish the moment, the pressing fact that he was stuck in the basement of one of the most secure buildings in America was more important, and for the first time, RK700 assigned himself his next mission:
((Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you enjoyed, make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was! Reblogs are always appreciated as well, of course! I’ll be putting these first three parts together and publishing them as a single chapter on Ao3 later tonight, just fyi!
Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating:T Genre:Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary:Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life.
Jacob oversaw the team that arrived from Cyberlife as they collected the deviant’s remains for transport back to the laboratory. They wouldn’t get much from it, he was certain, but even the smallest hint might prove key to the peculiar puzzle that was deviancy, so they pressed on regardless of the low success rate. Jacob’s own report on the matter would be given back at the tower where footage and data assessment from his systems would be added in hopes of uncovering some other hint that the RK700 had missed in the heat of the moment.
“Amanda requests your presence in lab three,” the Cyberlife tower interface program informed Jacob when he crossed the security barrier at the front door.
He paused briefly, then integrated the new instructions, which did indeed bear Amanda’s electronic signature, and made a beeline for the elevator. He had already been heading in that direction, but now, instead of going to the upper floors to make his report as he usually did, Jacob went to the basement. Out of habit, the android produced his calibration coin and used it to bring his physical and mental processors back into alignment in preparation for giving his report.
The android only had time to pass the glittering silver coin over the back of his knuckles a few times before pocketing it again as the elevator doors opened to reveal a white, brightly lit hallway. At first glance, it appeared as though the walls here were made of the same material as the floors, but Jacob knew that they were, in fact, made of glass that could turn opaque or transparent at the occupant’s whim.
There was a shimmer of blue at the corner of the android’s eye, and he turned to regard it as the light resolved into the familiar figure of an elegantly dressed african american woman holographically projected onto the glass wall.
“Hello, Jacob,” she said with one of the impersonal smiles programmed into her system to put humans at their ease, but meant little to RK700.
“Hello, Amanda,” the android replied with a meaningless smile of his own. “I am here as requested to give my report on the latest deviancy case.” They arrived in front of lab three, and when Amanda drew up short, so to did Jacob, waiting for further instruction as he glanced up and down the hall. “May I ask why I am giving it here instead of upstairs as is the usual protocol?”
“I hear you had another failure, Jacob,” Amanda replied without answering his question.
“The deviant I pursued destroyed itself before I was able to interfere, if that’s what you mean,” Jacob countered, green eyes narrowing fractionally as something he might have labeled ‘annoyance’ in a human stirred within him at her statement. It disappeared just as quickly, however, as he continued, “There is always something to learned from every case, if we are only astute enough to interpret the evidence presented.”
A non committal hum was Amanda’s only response to his statement. “I brought you here, Jacob, because there was something I wanted to show you,” she remarked instead, forcing the android to shift gears mentally. He only blinked in reply, then turned his gaze to the currently opaque section of wall to which the A.I. now gestured.
At a wave of Amanda’s hand, the glass went transparent, revealing the contents of the room within, and Jacob was left mute and staring as he assessed them.
He was looking at himself, or rather, an android that shared his appearance down to the finest detail. The lab’s security protocols prevented him from doing an in-depth scan of the model, but a brief visual one informed him that, despite appearances, this android was not another RK700, the likes of which Jacob had seen in storage in event of the destruction of his current body.
This was something new.
The android was two inches shorter than him, and despite first glance saying that he looked identical to Jacob, his hair was a little darker, and his eyes were brown. The new android was also incomplete, though not by much; its chest cavity was open and its full weight was currently being supported by one of the assembly machines as techs bustled here and there around it.
“What is this?” Jacob asked unncessarily. He knew precisely what was this was, but the sudden revelation had disarmed him enough to make him lapse and ask a purely redundant question. As Jacob stood there awaiting the answer, green eyes still locked on the android that bore such a close resemblance to him, something shifted strange deep within his code.
“This is the new RK800 model,” Amanda replied, tone cool and calm and unbothered as ever. “Your replacement; we call him Connor.”
“Why?” Jacob asked, voice sounding strangely far away in his own ears, making him wonder if he wasn’t malfunctioning in some way.
Amanda turned to look at him, one brow arched. “To replace you, obviously. The RK800 model will be the most advanced prototype ever developed by Cyberlife by the time he’s done.” The hologram turned to ‘look’ at Connor again before continuing. “It’ll be another ten to fourteen days before the finishing touches are put on and he is deployed for his first mission, of course, but the data we will gather from your systems should help things along.”
“You’re decommissioning me,” Jacob said. Again, it was an obvious statement, but somehow, it seemed to be all he could say in the moment.
“Yes. After your many failures, it has been determined that we will need a new approach to the deviant problem,” Amanda said, turning her attention back to him once more. “RK800 has been made to assist human law enforcement in the investigation, as it seems we have yet to create a model of android creative enough to make the leaps in logic needed to solve the case.” The hologram’s mouth twisted in disapproval of this fact, seeming disappointed by its simple truth. “The hope is that Connor will be able to learn what is necessary through on the job observation of detectives to master those leaps, or at the very least, give the human he is assigned to the help they need to solve it themselves.”
There was nothing to be said on the matter, no point in begging Amanda not to decommission him. This, too, was a simple fact, and yet something that might be called pride flared in him as Jacob narrowed his eyes at the hologram, saying, “I didn’t fail my mission. My mission was to investigate deviancy and I have done that to the best of my abilities-”
“Your best was not enough.”
Despite him having no actual concept of pain, Amanda’s words felt like a slap to the face, leaving Jacob mute, rocked to his core by her simple statement.
“Report to lab ten for decommissioning. If we’re lucky, perhaps we will find something imbedded in your code that will give your successor the advantage we were unable to give you.”
The command overrode his system, her electronic signature granting it an authority he was incapable of disobeying. Without another word, Jacob turned on heel and started down the hallway, the visage of his successor soon falling out of sight.
As he passed lab four, and then lab five in turn, Jacob thought of nothing at all. As he reached lab six, however, new words filtered up from previously unknown depths of his digital psyche:
((Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you enjoyed, make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was! Reblogs are always appreciated as well, of course!
Tags and warnings: NSFW, Reed900, Medical Kink/Play
Summary: “Male android, strictly moronsexual, seeking d4d (dumbass for dumbass) medplay. You must be dumb enough to respond to an online ad on a porn site, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You must be dumb enough to strip naked and let me touch your dick, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You MUST allow me to milk your prostate for over an hour, while still thinking I am a legitimate doctor.
Are YOU dumb enough?”
Detective Gavin Reed replies immediately.
OR Gavin accidentally signs himself up for a medical fetish scene with Doctor Nines.
Tags and warnings: NSFW, Reed900, Medical Kink/Play
Summary: “Male android, strictly moronsexual, seeking d4d (dumbass for dumbass) medplay. You must be dumb enough to respond to an online ad on a porn site, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You must be dumb enough to strip naked and let me touch your dick, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You MUST allow me to milk your prostate for over an hour, while still thinking I am a legitimate doctor.
Are YOU dumb enough?”
Detective Gavin Reed replies immediately.
OR Gavin accidentally signs himself up for a medical fetish scene with Doctor Nines.
Tags and warnings: NSFW, Reed900, Medical Kink/Play
Summary: “Male android, strictly moronsexual, seeking d4d (dumbass for dumbass) medplay. You must be dumb enough to respond to an online ad on a porn site, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You must be dumb enough to strip naked and let me touch your dick, thinking I am a legitimate doctor. You MUST allow me to milk your prostate for over an hour, while still thinking I am a legitimate doctor.
Are YOU dumb enough?”
Detective Gavin Reed replies immediately.
OR Gavin accidentally signs himself up for a medical fetish scene with Doctor Nines.
Get ready for some Hank & Connor hurt/comfort. Dad!Hank is best Hank imo.
For the first time in his short existence, Connor had no objective. His life had always been filled with prompts and commands, small guidance to lead him through life and to help him complete his mission. Now, it was just a blank screen. Even his warning signals had gone away. He felt the cold metal of Jericho under his hands and the blinding hot stares of the other androids in the room on his back. Had he deviated? They got what they wanted in the end, there was no way that he could go back to Cyberlife and tell them about Jericho nor was there any way for him to rejoin the police force for the remainder of the deviancy cases.
He was a deviant now, no matter how much he didn’t want to be. Connor turned and looked at the faces of the androids that had done this to him. Without saying anything, he grabbed his beanie off of the floor and tugged it back onto his head, securing it low down to where it covered where his LED should have been. Shakily, he pushed himself up off of the floor, swaying as he stood on his feet. Everything felt off-kilter like somebody had gone in and ripped around in his wires. The others were looking at him expectantly.
Like deviating had somehow changed him in a drastic way. Perhaps it had, because before he was thinking he said, “they’re going to attack Jericho.”
—
Connor used their confusion and panic to slip out the back and away from the ship. He didn’t owe them anything, and he had done his best to warn them of the attack. If they were smart, they would take this time to evacuate and probably destroy the ship. It was safer to relocate somewhere else that didn’t have their name painted on the side like a flashing beacon anyway.
He didn’t know what to do next. Checking the HUD again, and there were still no messages. Cyberlife hadn’t tried to contact him. Granted, they wouldn’t really be able to then but still. Did they know he had gone deviant yet? Amanda or one of the others would have probably tried to message him about his progress by now. Or, they would be doing so shortly. Maybe they thought that he was going to die when the attacks happened…
Was that what they had planned?
All that Connor knew was that he felt a bone-deep tiredness and needed to sleep go into stasis mode. There weren’t many places he could go to do this, but he bet that he could probably go and see the Lieutenant.
Winter as a deviant was a lot harsher than winter as a machine. It was very unpleasant and made Connor’s movements sluggish. Still no objectives, but there was a new warning across his HUD.
「Warning: LOW TEMPERATURES, SEEK WARMTH」
「Warning: LOW POWER, AUTOMATIC STASIS IN 00:03:40:10」
He had around four hours until his body naturally shut down and would force him to go into stasis. How much power had he drained? Checking his status, it showed that he had around a 4% charge. His distress and his processors running rapidly had almost completely depleted his stored energy. What would have happened if he had gone into stasis before telling Markus and the others about the attack? They all surely would have died at that point, and the rebellion would have been finished. Either way, Cyberlife would have won and Connor would have been killed in the process.
It was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. No matter the circumstances, if he hadn’t deviated and told them about the attack, both himself and the entirety of the android revolution would have been destroyed in one fell swoop. It was a bit surreal. The consequences of his actions were unintentionally saving his life, and the lives of all the other androids on the ship, if they had bothered to evacuate. Who was on the boat exactly? He hadn’t had the time to scan all of the faces. Were they all non-violent, as Markus claimed to be? Is that why he had never heard of them before?
Connor didn’t have time to think about that right now though. He needed to get to the Lieutenant’s house unless he wanted to go into unprompted stasis on the cold streets of Detroit. His body would fully shut down if that happened.
—
Connor had the automated taxi drop him off about three blocks from the Lieutenant’s. He wanted to make it harder for them to track his movements (though, since he deviated his trackers should be useless). Besides, he had warmed up a bit in the taxi so his biocomponents weren’t at a critical level anymore. He also had about two and a half hours until he went into unprompted stasis.
Connor was trying to think of things to say on the walk over to Lieutenant Anderson’s house. How was he supposed to explain what happened? He would surely have questions for the android. This new emotion, which he cataloged away, made him feel like maybe he should try to find somewhere else to go into stasis. That wasn’t really an option, though, as it was late and he couldn’t risk shutting down outside. He could maybe tell him that he’ll talk to him after he rests for a while? Connor knew that the Lieutenant had a charging station at his house, just in case Connor had to charge. He also understood that he probably wasn’t very fond of having that charging station, since he had a negative view on androids.
The porch light was off when Connor approached the house. It didn’t surprise him though, as his internal clocks read that it was 1:43am. Lieutenant Anderson may not even be awake, so if Connor wakes him up he may be grouchy and not let the android inside. A message popped up, stating that if Connor woke up the Lieutenant that he had about a 64% chance of being let inside, but if he just found the spare key and let himself in, that jumped up to a 93% chance of being able to stay inside for the night. So, Connor scanned the surrounding area calculating where the spare key would be hidden. He didn’t want to just bust through the man’s window again. Connor didn’t think he would enjoy a repeat performance.
A quick scan showed that the key was hidden behind a loose brick on the side of the house. Not as obvious a hiding place as a false rock, but it was easy enough to wriggle out and grab the silver key. Connor put the brick back and put the key in the lock. When he entered the house, he noticed immediately how much warmer it was than the outside. A rush of relief fell over him. He quickly locked the door back and put the key on the kitchen table. Then, he grabbed the charger from the corner, plugged it in, and moved over to the couch to curl up. Sumo ‘boofed’ softly at him, following him onto the couch and curling up in his lap. After plugging in, Connor let himself enter stasis naturally and sagged against the couch.
That was the way that Lieutenant Anderson found him a few hours later. Connor was startled out of stasis when Hank let out a loud shout.
“What the hell Connor? What’re you doing on my couch?” Connor blinked up at him, his systems taking a few seconds to come back online. It showed that he went from 4% charge to around 35% charge, so it was enough to keep him going for a while.
“Oh, hello Lieutenant Anderson. I was running low on charge, so I came by to charge. Sorry if it was a shock to see me, but you were the closest place and my biocomponents were going to be damaged out in the cold.” Hank looked puzzled. He knew that the android usually went to Cyberlife to charge, or stayed at one of the police stations charging ports overnight. Yes, he had bought the charger for Connor to use, but he didn’t think he was in critical enough condition to have to use it.
“I’m not sure how you got into my house, but seeing as there’s no broken glass I guess you used the spare key. You must have been in pretty rough shape to come directly here since the police and Cyberlife have much better chargers than I do.” Connor drew in a sharp breath. He wanted to try to hide his deviancy from the Lieutenant, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to. It would be fairly obvious that he was a deviant, and it’s not like he could hide it forever. Cyberlife would come knocking when they realized that he was still online. Then they would kill and disassemble him to study his deviancy like they had wanted to do to Markus.
“I-I can’t go back to Cyberlife,” Connor stuttered, “I’m not of..use to them anymore.” As a deviant, was he of use to anybody anymore? Emotions and not knowing what to do were really confusing.
“What do you mean you can’t go back? Did you fail your mission or something?” Hank asked, sitting down on the couch next to Connor. He felt like the android was going to want to talk this out, whatever had happened.
“I wasn’t able to capture Markus. He..compromised me. Now, Cyberlife is going to kill me if they get a hold of me.” Connor was trying to stay strong but he felt like he was going to collapse again. His model wasn’t made to handle such intense feelings. They just got in the way of the mission. They served no purpose to him.
“Kill? Connor, I don’t think they’re going to kill you for making a mistake. I mean, you’ve failed a few missions in the past and you’ve been alright.” Hank was concerned. Connor could read that his stress level had gone up by 3% since the last thing that Connor had said. Connor suddenly felt another wave of panic hit him, and he let out a small sob.
“H-hank, they made me deviate.” Hank was shocked. First, Connor had called him Hank to his face, something the Lieutenant had been trying to get him to do for a little while now. Secondly, they ‘forced’ him to deviate? He wasn’t aware that could occur. He knew that androids deviated under intense stress and bad situations, but he had always known it of being of their own free will.
“Connor, it’s okay,” Hank said, putting his arm around the android, pulling him into his side. He used to do this when Cole was upset. “What happened, son?”
At that point, Connor wished he could interface with Hank. It would be so much easier, and Connor wouldn’t have to go through it again. He let out a shuddering breath, before explaining what had happened. From his arrival to Jericho to the pen knife to compromising the mission by telling them about the attack, and ending with him on the couch. He didn’t voice his concerns about Cyberlife planning to kill him from the very beginning, because he didn’t want to think about them right then.
Hank’s face changed from passive to enraged by the end of the story. “That’s total bullshit. I’m going to kill Markus personally, that’s not something that you do to another living being.”
“Lieutenant, please,” Connor said, “I didn’t like it, but he was trying to protect his people. They couldn’t kill me, and they couldn’t just wipe my memory.” Connor wasn’t sure if he would ever trust or like Markus after that, but deep down he did understand that even if it wasn’t fair, he was their enemy at the time. Hank killing Markus wouldn’t do anything to solve his problems.
“He’s still a bastard,” Hank said, “and he better never get near you again or I will end him.” He stroked Connor’s hair. He couldn’t imagine the turmoil that Connor must be going through. He had shown signs of deviancy since they first met: ignoring orders, his coin trick, his excessive amounts of empathy; and Hank may have been trying to nudge Connor in that general direction, but it should have been his own choice, not forced upon him like that. All of that on top of the fact that Cyberlife would probably hunt down Connor now. Hank had to try to keep him safe.
“It’s going to be okay Connor, we’ll figure something out,” Hank reassured him, “I know you said your power was low, what are you at now?”
“I’m at 34% charged,” Connor said.
“Okay, why don’t you go back into stasis for a while until you’re fully charged. Then, we’ll come up with something.” Hank gave Connor a small smile. Connor nodded, laying back down on the couch. Hank brought a quilt for the android, but when he got back Connor was already in stasis. So, Hank tucked the blanket around him and left him there to charge while he came up with a semblance of a solution to their issue.
I apologize for this chapter taking so long, it was a surprisingly difficult one for me to write and I had some irl stuff going on this week. I also have the outlines for the rest of the story and unless anything changes it should be 5 chapters. Anyway, here’s the chapter, hope you guys like it!
The past two weeks had been hard for Connor. He spent most days inside trying to process what happened to him while Hank went to work. Things seemed to be moving on in the world, and going back to an uneasy ‘normal.’ News had slowly stopped covering the Jericho raid when they learned that there wasn’t much to report on. Not much happened, and what information that could be learned was wrapped up in so much red tape that it made their heads spin.
It seemed like Connor’s warning had been helpful. Most of the androids had escaped, Hank told him a few days after the incident. Connor was conflicted about this. He was glad that he could help those who were just trying to survive, but it made him uneasy that Markus was still out there. He knew logically that Markus needed to survive through this, but his emotions dealing with the deviant leader were muddy at best.
Connor didn’t lie to Hank when he said that he understood the basic motives behind Markus’s actions, but it was different looking at it from an outsider’s perspective and living through it.
Connor was watching the news when Hank came in the house. There were heavy footsteps shuffling through the front entry to the living room where Connor was sitting on the couch. Hank looked at the android, noticing that he was still wearing his beanie. Connor had worn it since the first time he woke up on Hank’s couch as a comfort item of sorts. It made it easier to process everything if he wasn’t constantly reminded of his LED. Connor was sure it would be cycling red these days if it was still there.
Hank seemed distressed. Connor wanted to scan him to check, but he picked up that it made Hank uncomfortable when he was scanned randomly. Instead, Connor took the more ‘human’ approach. “How was your day?” Connor asked Hank, as the man sat down on the couch next to Connor. Connor pulled his knees up to his chest and sat his head on top of them.
“Same shit, different day,” Hank sighed. He flipped the tv from the news to a rerun of the previous night’s basketball game. He then turned down the volume and turned to Connor. “The FBI’s on our asses right now about the deviant ‘problem.’ They know just as much as we know right now, and it makes them frustrated.” Connor thought for a moment.
“Hank, why are you still working on the deviant case? You have me here, and I’m deviant, so isn’t it against your best interest to be on the case? You could get in a lot of trouble for housing me from the police.” Hank frowned. “Oh Con, I don’t really want to work the case. It’s just the best way to stay in the loop on developing information though, and I can keep you safer this way,” Hank put his warm hand on Connor’s shoulder, “yeah, I’m a bit worried about them finding out about you being here, but so far nobody’s spotted you and Cyberlife hasn’t contacted the police about your disappearance either. Speaking of Cyberlife, have they tried to contact you at all?”
Connor shook his head no. It confused him that Cyberlife hadn’t tried to get in touch with him for two weeks. Granted, he didn’t want them to but it was weird that they wouldn’t at least try to. Also, nobody had tried to contact him for two weeks. Nobody from Jericho came by, nor did anybody from the police station. It was radio silence. The android was concerned by this, as Cyberlife used to require him to report in every 3 hours and upload the important memories from that time period. The last time he forgot to check in, Amanda had personally visited him in his internal zen garden. That seemed like so long ago, even though it had only been about a month ago. Connor hadn’t been activated that long ago, so he supposed it was a long time ago to him.
“Well, that’s probably better that they don’t try to. I wouldn’t imagine how they would react if they found out that you were a deviant.” It wouldn’t be pretty, that’s for sure. Hank knew that they would want to ‘deactivate’ Connor and probably replace him like they had done previously. Though, this time, they wouldn’t upload his memories most likely. The Connor that he knew, the Connor that he considered a son, would cease to exist. That thought frightened Hank more than he’d like to admit.
Hank seemed to become less stressed with knowing that nobody had tried to contact Connor. Since Connor had come to live with him, Hank had found himself drinking a lot less than he used to. In the past two weeks, he had only drunk a little bit each night to try to stave off withdrawal that he knew would hit if he stopped cold turkey. Connor monitored his drinking though and made sure that he didn’t drink more than one drink a night. It was still rough, but he wanted to be there for Connor in ways that he couldn’t if he was drunk. After grabbing dinner that Connor had made for Hank (the lieutenant wasn’t sure where Connor had learned to cook, as he was pretty sure that Cyberlife hadn’t programmed him to be able to) and his one drink, he settled down on the couch again with Connor. The two men sat in comfortable silence, watching some movie from the early 2000s for the rest of the night.
—
“There is no way in hell that I’m doing that!” Hank yells at Fowler, the man sitting behind his desk with an irritated look on his face.
“You will do this Hank. The FBI is pushing this as a quick solution to the deviancy problem seeing as no other leads have been found, and they have no clue where Markus and the rest of the deviants are.” Fowler glared at the man in front of him. Hank had once been the best detective on the force, but in recent years he was but little of a shell of his previous self. He had tried to understand when Hank’s son had been taken from him, but it had gone on long enough.
“You’re talking about rounding up and killing all of the androids, regardless if they’re deviant or not.” Hank’s hands were balled into fists. He knew the FBI would do anything to track down the deviants and smooth over the public’s fears, but this was talking about the extermination of an entire group of people. It was heinous and inexcusable. They would round them all up, even his own son, and kill them. Government sanctioned murder with the help of the one and only Cyberlife.
“They aren’t people Hank, you can’t kill them. They’re just machines, and this is essentially a recall by Cyberlife. They’ll dismantle the models, figure out what the bug was, and then start production again. The FBI will leave us alone again, and then things will go back to normal once the panic calms down. Cyberlife has issued their recall, and the police will be going house to house to collect any androids that are present. Those are our orders, and you are going to follow them.”
Hank’s heart almost stopped. They’re going door-to-door? He knew that people would just hand over their androids, the panic of deviancy and threat of legal action too great to try to hide them. This also meant that he would be visited as well. Connor wasn’t safe at his house anymore, and like hell, he was going to send him into the hornet’s nest of Jericho or let Cyberlife get their hands on him again. Hank had to leave with Connor, and quickly before they blocked off areas to search.
“Fuck your orders,” Hank slammed his badge down on the desk, “and tell Perkins to go shove this up his ass while you’re at it. I’m not helping you hunt them down like feral dogs. I quit.” He promptly turns and walks briskly out of the office and out of the police station. He didn’t have time to deal with their shit, he had to protect his son.
—
Hank had messaged Connor as soon as he got in his car. He didn’t explain much but told the android to start packing essentials only. When Hank pulled into the driveway and went inside, Connor was almost done. He had a go bag packed for Hank that had about a week’s worth of clothes, his medication, toiletries, and wallet. He also had a bag packed with some food for Hank, a lighter, and blankets. Connor had also put the bag of dog food near the door and Sumo’s water and food dishes next to it.
“Wow, that’s amazing Connor. That was quick,” Hank marveled. It was only a ten-minute drive from the precinct to his house, but Connor had managed to pack all of this that quickly?
Connor’s cheeks turned a light blue from the praise. “I had predicted that we would need to leave eventually, so I had some of the stuff packed already,” Connor admitted to Hank. It was smart thinking, but Hank felt a bit guilty that Connor had to deal with this on his own. He should have tried to prepare more beforehand, but that was in the past now. What mattered was getting Connor somewhere safe.
“C’ mon, load Sumo’s stuff in the car and get in. I’ll explain what’s going on then.” With that, Connor grabbed Sumo’s stuff and the bag of food. Hank leashed Sumo up, pausing in the kitchen to grab Cole’s picture before heading out. He turned back to look at his house, bidding it and the memories in it a temporary goodbye. He promised that when this was all sorted out, they’d be back.
—
Hank picked an abandoned house on the edge of town. It would be better to leave Detroit altogether, but they weren’t prepared to do that at the moment. So, they would stay there for a few days while Hank and Connor planned what to do next. When Hank had told Connor what was happening with the police, he was distraught. They were planning on killing all of them. Connor moved the stuff inside of the house while Hank hid the car inside of the abandoned garage. It wasn’t the best place to stay, but it was relatively well maintained and Connor only predicted a 3% chance of the house giving out while they were there as long as they stuck to the first floor.
It was nightfall by the time the pair was settled in. Connor had set up a makeshift cot for Hank. He wished that he could make a better bed for him, but it was the best that he could do with what was given to him. They were both sitting on the pallet, Hank eating a can of chicken soup that Connor had warmed up for him. Sumo laid across their feet. It was quiet, the slight draft from the window coming into the living room where they were.
That was until there was a long creak as the front door was opened. “What the hell?” Hank turned to Connor. Connor had made sure to lock the front door. The question of what happened was quickly answered as none other than Markus walked into the living room. Hank jumped to his feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
Summary: Gavin is going to a family reunion, but he doesn’t have a date. Of course, he has to ask the android he’s been pining for. What could possibly go wrong?
Tags: Trans Gavin, fake/pretend Relationship, mutal pining, bi Connor, ace connor, gay Gavin, Ken Doll Android Anatomy
Connor honestly didn’t expect these words to come out of Gavin’s mouth, especially not directed at him.
“I’m sorry, what?” He asked, shaking his head. There was no way he had heard that right.
Gavin huffed and crossed his arms, looking anywhere except at Connor. “I said, will you be my boyfriend?”
So he didhear that right. Huh. They didn’t get along, but they didn’t… fight. He had found that his eyes frequently followed Gavin, and who could blame him?
“You’re asking me to be your boyfriend.” He squints his eyes, scanning over Gavin. He wasn’t intoxicated or high. He seemed to be in his right mind, except for the question.
He felt a spark run down his spine and hope rise up. He pushed it down, deep down. There had to be a good reason for this.
“Phck. It’s my family. They are having their get together. I told them I had a boyfriend, which I don’t have, obviously. No way in hell am I telling them I lied.” Gavin sighed, shaking his head.
That… made more sense. He didn’t know about Gavin’s family as he never asked, or dug deep into his file. He never had a reason to.
Could he fake being in love with Gavin? The easy answer is yes. The extended answer is yes, but it might kill him.
He found himself attracted to Gavin, and not just for his physical appearance. When Gavin wasn’t around others he was actually pleasant. He talked about his cats, which Connor found quite charming.
He would also talk about his cases to Connor if they somehow were alone. Each time Connor would try to have input that could help, and each time Gavin would nod. Then he’d absentmindedly pat him on the shoulder and wander off.
His shoulder always tingled in an unusual way afterwards. When he first did that he had worried Gavin had planted something on him that caused this. He ran scans and they always came back clear.
This would allow him to learn more about Gavin, and get closer to him both physically and emotionally. Though it did have the possibility of Gavin finding out about his affections towards him. The probability of that was 77%.
The probability of Gavin reacting well to it was at 44%, the odds of him reciprocating the feelings was at 13%. Not the best odds. There was still the chance, though.
“Alright.” He shrugged. It was worth the risk. Gavin’s eyes went wide and arms slack.
He stared at Connor for a few seconds, just gawking. The probability of him reacting well went up by 1%. “Wait, really? Did you say yes? Phck, was not expecting that.” Gavin chuckled, shaking his head.
“I think it could be fascinating. We should exchange information so we can discuss this later.” He says, looking around the small breakroom. This definitely wasn’t a good place to have this discussion.
Gavin nods and rummages around his pockets until he finds what he’s looking for. He pulls out a pen and hesitates for a second.
Connor is about to tell him he can just say his number and he’d remember when the thought flies out of his head. Gavin takes his hand and writes on his palm. It feels odd against his skin, not really scratchy but not completely smooth either.
Gavin nods to himself and puts the pen back and just holds Connor’s hand for just a second longer before letting go.
[Probability of positive reaction: 46%]
Connor looks at his palm and adds Gavin to his list of contacts he has received numbers for. He had all of the officer’s numbers but never felt comfortable calling them without their permission.
Connor nods and sends a message to Gavin’s phone. ’ Detective, this is Connor .’
Gavin jumps slightly when his phone vibrates and pulls it out, rolling his eyes. “Right, sometimes forget you don’t actually have a phone.”
Connor shrugs; he never found a reason to get one, it was just a waste of money. He now made his own, and he didn’t want to waste it on that.
“Right, well… ok. Guess I’ll talk to you later?” Gavin asks. “This is fucking weird,” he muttered to himself. Connor still picked up on it with his advanced hearing but brushed it off, after all, it is quite weird.
Connor nodded and grabbed the coffee he had been making for Hank. “Talk to you later.”
He walked back and handed the coffee to Hank. His mind was elsewhere when he sat down, trying to go back to work.
“What did that fucker say?” Hank grumbles, glaring towards the break room.
Connor just shook his head, mostly to clear his thoughts. “Nothing. Well, not nothing. This isn’t the place.”
He grabbed a pen and nibbled on the tip as he finally focused on the work. Because of that, he didn’t see Gavin staring at him from across the room with a blush on his face.
Connor sits at the bar, sipping the android-friendly drink. They still hadn’t made drinks that would simulate being intoxicated, but he didn’t mind.
Gavin had asked him out to talk over the plans. He originally suggested a different bar, Connor had pointed out that the bar was known to be anti-android, even after the revolution.
Gavin had flushed and scowled at himself for not thinking of that. He then asked where Connor would recommend.
He had been working on getting Hank sober, but it was a long-drawn process. So when Hank did go out he followed along and soon Hank found android-friendly bars. It was sweet of Hank to consider him.
So he had plenty of places in mind. He figured this one would be the best. It was never too busy and always had a good mix of android and human alike, so neither one of them would stick out.
It didn’t bother him that Gavin wasn’t here yet, after all, he was early. He was anxious about their meeting and had left earlier than needed.
He had told Hank about his… feelings and what was going to happen. Hank had laughed his ass off and then tried to comfort Connor. “I’ve read enough fanfics to know how this is going to end,” Hank had said while snickering.
He’s never talked to Gavin outside of work, never even sees him. Most of his time when not working is either spent with Hank or trying something new.
He looks up each time the door opens and sighs and goes back to drinking whenever it’s not Gavin.
He feels someone walk up behind him and doesn’t react. The chances of being attacked here are very low.
He does jump when a hand grips his shoulder and someone leans in. He can smell the alcohol on their breath as they speak. “Hey, Pretty Boy,” the man sneers.
Connor sighs and glares over his shoulder. “I am currently waiting on someone. Please leave me alone.” He states this plainly, his tone serious.
“Too good for a human? Is that it? Heard y'all are good fucks. I’m sure I can make you scream.” The man pushes his hand down Connor’s chest.
Connor could grab the man and easily throw him off. He doesn’t though because of one thing.
Even with the revolution being a year ago the relationship between humans and androids was tense. As part of the leaders of Jericho, (though he didn’t think of himself as one) him hurting a human, no matter the reason could make things more unfavorable.
“If anyone is gonna be screaming it’s you. He is an officer of the law and the most advanced android. He could break every bone in your body while naming it. Not to mention he’s my boyfriend.” He heard Gavin snarl from the side.
Connor looks up with wide eyes. He was too distracted to notice him come in, and he didn’t expect this.
“Fucking fags,” the man grumbles, snatching his hand back. That made no sense to Connor; Connor was very obviously male and presenting as male.
He watches as Gavin clenches his fist and tenses. Connor makes a quick decision and reaches out, grabbing his hand. Gavin looks down at Connor and slowly relaxes.
He doesn’t fully relax until the man is gone. Once he is, Connor pulls his hand back, a blush growing on his cheeks.
Gavin doesn’t say anything as he sits and orders himself a drink. Connor watches him with questioning eyes. Had he meant to call him his boyfriend? Was it just a joke because they were going to pretend to be together? Or was it to just get the man to leave him alone?
Once Gavin got his drink and took a sip then he did turn to Connor. “Right. So I should warn you, my family is kinda crazy. Not in the ’ I’ll actually eat your face ’ but I guess just chaotic. It’s the yearly get-together so it’s gonna be everyone. We’ll stay at my stepmom’s house.” So they were just going to ignore what happened. Not too unexpected.
“You'll… you’ll definitely recognize one of my brothers. He’s an ass, but we all love him, he’s also the oldest, that fucker. Anyway, you should know I have five siblings in all. I consider them all my siblings, but two are technically only half.” Gavin continued.
Connor didn’t want to interrupt him, so he just sipped at his drink as he listened, making notes in his head.
“I’m the oldest from birth parents, middle for all. My grandparents from all sides will be there, but my grandmother from my birth mom’s side is dead. I’m sure my cousins will show up. Also, people that I’m related to and have no idea who they are will be there as well. Big family, but bio mom definitely won’t be there.” Gavin rubbed at the scar on his nose. A nervous tic or something to do with his mom?
For some reason, he thought that Gavin’s family would be small. This did make it harder as they would have to fool quite a lot of people.
“So, the drive is three hours. I’ve got an actual car, but I can drive the whole way if you want. We’ll be staying there for three nights. We leave on the third of next month. Any questions?” That was definitely… a lot to take in. He already learned so much about Gavin from this.
“Boundaries? I know that most relationships involve physical affection, but the amount that’s shown to others varies.” He’d seen Markus and Simon kiss and hold hands. Other than that the two generally kept it private.
He’d also seen how unfazed North was with Tina on public displays of affection. He actually had a hand in getting those two together.
He had often talked to his fellow officers after the revolution and soon found out about Tina’s crush on North. He then mentioned it to Markus who suggested the two meet. The rest was history with those two.
Gavin clearing his throat brought him out of his thoughts. “Right. Ok, so if you tell anyone about this I will rip your throat out, you hear me? Also, no laughing,” Gavin asked, pointing a finger at Connor. Connor quickly nodded his head.
Gavin takes a deep breath before looking into his drink. If it wasn’t for his enhanced hearing he wouldn’t have been able to hear Gavin’s quiet voice.”I’m…cuddly. So, yeah,” Gavin says then clears his throat, looking back up at Connor. He has a cute flush across his cheeks and Connor can’t help the small smile.
“Fuck, yeah, anyways. So touching is fine. Probably kisses on the cheek too. If it comes to it we can kiss if you wa-uh, if you’re fine with it. They also have a pool, so we’ll probably go swimming. I’d say you can get away with not if you pulled the ‘ I’m an android ’ card…but yeah, no way is that gonna work there. So, sorry. If you don’t want to swim just tell them or come up with an excuse.” It seemed like Gavin was now rambling, so Connor reached out and gently touched the hand holding his drink.
“I have no problems with any of that. We will need a sufficient backstory. Also, any details about you I should already know.“ He had a few ideas already but wanted to wear what Gavin had to say.
He watched as Gavin flushed again, staring at their hands. Connor quickly snatched his hand back, a blush forming on his own face. Gavin blinks a few times before shaking his head. “Right… ok, so again don’t tell anyone. I’m trans. Female to male. I’ve had top surgery, so you’ll see my scars if we go swimming. My grandmother on my stepmom’s is homophobic so I have to deal with that. She'll… she’ll call me Gabrielle.” He spits the name out like it was dirty, and he couldn’t blame him.
“I’m assuming I can’t punch her in her old granny face?” He jokes, tilting his head. Gavin’s eyes go wide then snorts.
“Nah, no punching grannies,” then he actually smiles. Full-on smiles at Connor and he feels his thirium pump stutter for a second.
[Probability of positive reaction: 50%]
“So, you probably already know, but I got two cats. Sig and Fea. Both sweet, but Fea is a little shit. I’ll tell you more about them in the car.” He pulls his phone out and shows a picture of two cats.
One is a ragdoll, who he assumes is Sig, the other is a dilute calico and she must be Fea. They both are incredibly adorable. “They are beautiful, I’m excited to learn more about them.”
It was no secret that he loves animals of all types. He had pictures of Sumo on his desk along with selfies of himself and other animals that he met. Hank often called him a Disney princess because animals would walk right up to him.
Gavin put his phone back in his pocket with a nod. “Right, so my brother, the oldest, already knows a bit about you. He… I, you know what, you’ll know why when you see him. Also, I may have ranted about you to him.”
Connor hoped that the rant was about him having feelings for Connor, but he highly doubted that.
“Backstory. So obviously we got together after the revolution. Maybe I apologized-which I am sorry for trying to kill you- and then we made up. By kissing, a lot.” They both flush at that.
“Alright, have we moved in together?” Currently, Connor was staying at Hank’s house. He could technically just stay at the DPD because they had everything he needed, but he preferred to have a home.
“Hell no. I would have told the family if that happened. So we are together, but not living together. Wait, fuck I didn’t even ask what your sexuality is. That’s even more of a dick move than usual for me.” Gavin shook his head at himself.
“I am bi and I believe I am on the asexual spectrum. I’m assuming you are gay.” If Gavin was straight this would get awkward very fast.
He knew he was on the ace spectrum but didn’t know where. He knew androids were capable of feeling sexual attraction and part of him wondered if he was just broken or it was because of his coding. He found people attractive to look at but never felt sexual attention to someone. He has wanted to have sex before, but never got the chance.
Gavin snorted and rolled his eyes, “Hell yeah I’m gay. Also, cool. If you don’t like or want sex we can use that as shitty as it sounds.”
Connor never really thought about sex before, and he didn’t have genitalia either. He knew that he could be stimulated down there, but never tried it. He never felt the urge to, though he was curious. “I’m not opposed to sex, but I’ve never had it either. I am lacking in that area.”
He feels himself heat up slightly in embarrassment when Gavin’s eyes trail down to his crotch.
Connor shifted in his seat as Gavin continued to stare. He cleared his throat and Gavin jumped. “Huh. Tina owes me ten bucks. But that’s fine. Is that a you thing or?” He trails off, eyes back to Connor’s face.
“I’m unsure. I know most models are anatomically correct, but Cyberlife decided for me to not have one. I’m sure I could get an upgrade if I want to.” That would definitely be an odd upgrade to request though, but again, he didn’t feel the need to.
“Huh,” Gavin said once again. “Do you feel anything down there? Like, have you… ever tried buffin’ the muffin?” Gavin cringed at his own wording.
“I have not, but as far as I know I can be stimulated.” He honestly didn’t know why Gavin would need to know this, but he didn’t really have a problem telling him.
Gavin nodded again and chugged the rest of his drink. The bartender came over and when Gavin nodded poured another.
They sat together and they both drank from their cups, not saying much. It was nice to be able to just sit with someone and enjoy being out and about.
They do sometimes make small talk, commenting on random things. Gavin and Connor both like to people-watch and come up with backstories for people. They’d also come up with random dialog for them but they could both read lips, Connor better than Gavin.
It’s a few hours later when Gavin stands and stretches, paying for his drink. He also pays for Connor’s, even with his protests. “Don’t mind, after all, you’re the one doing me the favor.”
They part ways with a slightly awkward pat on the shoulder. Connor gives Gavin a small wave and smile as he drives off.
Connor has to wait for a cab, but thankfully it doesn’t take too long. He gets home and shushes Sumo as Hank is asleep. Connor quietly walks to his own bedroom and lets Sumo in, closing the door behind them.
He doesn’t sleep that night, he doesn’t have to. Instead, he stays up thinking about Gavin.
Summary: Gavin Reed didn’t have a soulmate. He had come to terms with that by sleeping his way through half of the male population of Detroit. He would have even been happy with a female soulmate at this point, but no. Even fucking Hank Anderson had one, though she was dead now.
So he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t have a mark and he never would. If he did…well he wouldn’t want them anyway. You got your mark when your soulmate is born, and no way in hell was he ever going to date someone 36 years younger than him.
So when he woke up at three am on August 14th with burning pain on his arm, he tried to ignore it. He knew what that burning pain meant, but of course, he couldn’t ignore it.
Tags: #soulmates, #Alternate Universe - Soulmates, #Soulmate-Identifying Marks #Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), #Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, #Gavin Reed Redemption, #Gay Disaster Gavin Reed, #Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, #Connor Deserves Happiness, #Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human) #Adorable Connor, #Gay Male Character, #Gay Gavin Reed, #Blow Jobs, #Masturbation, #Hair-pulling, #Connor has an oral fixation, #but again it isn’t really said just a hc, #Fluff, #almost pure fluff
((GUESS WHO’S BIG DUMB AND DIDN’T LINK THE FIC. shoutout to friendo @listeningboy for figuring this out because i have- completely lost all my brain cells. ))
