#(touch radio waves before marriage and you go directly to hell)

[teamfortresstwo]

Hm . *thinks about staticradio where Vox finds out he has Al’s kid just before Al leaves* *Thinks about Al not knowing he’s a complete absent father until he comes back and ??? Vox is demanding child support ? What ???* *Thinks about Al bonding with his kid and Vox slowly falling back in love with the guy* *thinks about

[liketolaugh-writes]

Alphabet Soup

Author: liketolaugh Summary:  Connor likes to explore his identity in bits and pieces, understanding what makes him himself one slice of life at a time. When Valentine's Day rolls around, that's when he first starts wondering about romance. Or: Connor's coming out, first to himself and then to others.

“Lieutenant, can you explain the concept of romantic love?”

Hank choked on his coffee, sending it sputtering in front of him as he coughed violently, setting the mug down hard on the table in front of him. Connor had to hide a grin, patting the man on the back to help him along until the man inevitably waved him off, still coughing.

“What the fuck,” Hank wheezed, once a few minutes had passed.

“I noticed the last time I went to the grocery store that some of the decorations had changed and a previously generic aisle had been redesigned to suit,” Connor explained, leaning against the table to idly monitor Hank’s respiration as it returned to baseline. “The last time this happened was when Christmas was coming up, if you recall, so I did some research, and my system database indicated that the occasion in question was Valentine’s Day. I thought you’d be able to explain it to me.”

“You fucker,” Hank complained, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He immediately took another deep swig of the coffee, pointedly ignoring Connor’s small smirk, and set it down again. “Ugh.”

“That’s not very helpful, Lieutenant,” Connor said mildly.

“Ugh,” Hank repeated, with extra emphasis. “Alright. Okay. Fine. Do we have to do this now?”

Connor quirked an eyebrow at him, head tilting a little. Hank scowled back. Their bickering attracted Tina’s attention, and she sauntered over and plopped herself down with her own cup of coffee in hand.

“Anything causing the lieutenant that much visible anguish has my attention,” she announced, fixing avidly curious eyes on Connor. “What’s up?”

“I asked him to explain romantic love,” Connor informed her.

“Yeah, that would do it,” she snorted, a delighted smirk pulling across her mouth. “I’m so glad you decided to do this in public, and also in my vicinity, because this is way too much fun to pass up. He’s not gonna help you though. What did you want to know?”

Connor considered her for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of indulging her, but he was the one who’d decided to do this in a public avenue. “How do you recognize it?”

“Ooh,” she crooned gleefully. “That’s a fun one. Alright, so romantic love, that almost always starts with crushes.”

“Who has a crush?” Chris asked, appearing beside them. Hank seemed to have retreated into misery, scowling at the table and looking like he wished his coffee was spiked with something unhealthy. “Not you, I hope.”

“Fuck you, Chris,” Tina said without heat. “We’re explaining romance to Connor.”

“No, you’re not,” Connor disagreed, bringing a fist up to support his cheek idly.

“I’m getting to it,” Tina assured him. “Crushes, do you ever look at someone and just get excited to be around them? Maybe nervous? You know, butterflies in your stomach, fluttering heart, all that wonderful teenager stuff.”

Connor’s mind unwillingly shot to Markus. “No,” he said, a touch too quickly.

Tina looked skeptical, but didn’t push the issue. “Whatever, you’ll know it when you feel it.”

“Okay, but that’s not all there is to it,” Chris argued, and Connor shifted his gaze to him, hoping he would be more helpful. Chris shot him a small grin. “Romantic love kinda follows you your whole life. Crushes are part of it, but it matures over time. Your partner’s supposed to support you no matter what, even when things get hard. That’s the beauty of it though.”

“Chris is being sappy because every time he and his wife argue, they talk it through and fall even more in love,” Tina explained to Connor, who was at this point just growing increasingly confused.

“Why are we explaining the intricacies of successful marriages?” Ben asked, appearing by Hank and leaning on the table. “Not that I’m complaining, but I think the only ones married here are Chris and I.”

“Connor is asking about romance,” Chris explained to Ben. “Tina decided to save Hank the suffering.”

All of them looked at Hank, who had one hand covering his face, trying to tune out the conversation.

“And I decided to pitch in,” Chris finished, with an almost apologetic tone to his voice.

“I’m beginning to think I should have suffered in silence,” Connor mused aloud, trying not to smile. He wasn’t expecting this to be an actively popular topic, but he didn’t think he’d had a conversation this active or friendly with his coworkers before, and certainly not so many at once.

“You really should have,” Hank groaned, kicking him under the table. Connor kicked him back shamelessly, and Hank cursed, giving him a dirty look, to which Connor tilted his head innocently.

“You’ll understand when you get a girlfriend,” Ben told Connor kindly, smile faintly bemused. “Maybe that nice girl from analytics.”

Tina clapped. “Oh, that’s a good example! Connor, you know Alicia?”

Connor nodded cautiously, head tilting. “Yes? She’s rather nice but a little strange.”

“That’s because she has a crush on you,” Tina explained earnestly. “She talks to you a lot with really flimsy reasoning, right? And she stutters and blushes and does you favors?”

“Yes…” Connor said, slow and cautious as he tried to follow, a little overwhelmed now. “What… do I do about this?”

“Oh god,” Hank groaned. Connor took the initiative and kicked him first this time.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Chris provided with a sympathetic smile. “But you’d definitely have more than a fair chance, if you want to ask her out. You probably get a little nervous around her too, right? Maybe want to get to know her better?”

“Your heart should beat fast,” Ben added, with a touch of wistfulness to his voice. “Maybe you want to show off and impress her. Young love is something special.”

Connor shook his head, increasingly flustered and starting to regret bringing up the topic more sincerely.

“I don’t,” he protested. “I just noticed that she was acting strangely.” He’d actually been a little concerned, and he wasn’t sure he felt any better about it now. How was he supposed to respond to a girl with a crush on him? This certainly wasn’t in his programming.

“Thank god,” Hank muttered, and then, clearer, bumping Connor more gently, “Then she’s flat out of luck, and you don’t have to do anything except maybe let her down nice if you feel like it.”

Connor hummed with some distress, finally reaching out to do some quick supplementary research, and then, after a few moments, said, “My research indicates that not all couples are a woman and a man?”

His mind flicked to the Tracis, two girls wrapped together like that would protect them from the rest of the world.

“He gets it,” Tina said with obvious pleasure, jabbing her thumb at Connor.

“Most couples are,” Ben corrected, with an almost apologetic bent.

Connor started to reply, but was distracted when someone else finally came into the break room, and a quick glance told Connor that it was Detective Reed who’d entered. Instantly, a smirk shot across Connor’s face and he called out,

“Detective Reed, look at me!”

Detective Reed turned around, a faintly confused scowl on his face as he stopped fumbling for a mug.

“Bitch,” Connor said clearly, and Reed sputtered.

The other four humans collapsed into various forms of laughter, and that was the end of that conversation. But Connor kept thinking about it, even when he went back to work and long after Hank had put it out of his mind.

-------

Hank wasn’t able to put it out of his mind for long, because soon after that, Connor started playing love songs in a wide variety of genres whenever the radio was silent for more than a few minutes.

The nature of the activity wasn’t itself particularly unusual; Connor spent quite a lot of time exploring new possible interests whenever they were drawn to his attention, and Hank had been kind enough to give him space to do so. The man had put up with classical, rap, movie soundtracks, and electrobeat as Connor tested them all out by turn.

Apparently Hank drew the line at Kelly Clarkson.

“Can’t you play this shit in your head?” Hank demanded of Connor, less than a week into his newest curiosity. He looked exceptionally sullen, slumped against the arm of the couch and making quiet, irritable groaning noises.

Connor would argue that he looked like a petulant child. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“I could,” Connor said agreeably, “but this is one of the few occasions where doing so externally is genuinely better than keeping it within my system.” Transmitting sound data directly into his mind wasn’t quite the same as listening to it play.

“Wasn’t it enough to put me through that whole talk at work?” Hank demanded of him. “You gotta subject me to Taylor Swift all day too?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Connor deadpanned, glancing over at Hank, “but none of you were actually very helpful.” But Hank’s continual protests were starting to put a knot in his chest, and before he could think better of it, he asked, “Is there a reason you’re so reluctant to help me explore this particular topic, Lieutenant?”

Hank went still for a moment, and Connor winced as he realized what had caught his attention. Connor only called him ‘Lieutenant’ at home when he was uncomfortable. But he couldn’t help it; Hank was usually so unconditionally supportive of any moves Connor made to explore his opinions, so this uncharacteristic protest was making him nervous.

Hank exhaled.

“Hell,” he sighed, obviously frustrated. “It’s just- a messy topic, Con. I never really got the hang of it myself. That’s why I have an ex-wife instead of a wife.” Connor bit his cheek, trying to push his scattered thoughts together into a response, but when Hank looked over at him, the man’s expression relaxed a little, resigned instead of annoyed. “Most people go through their first fumbling relationships when they’re teenagers. I guess you didn’t exactly get that chance though.”

“I was never a teenager, Hank,” Connor reminded the other, trying to force the anxiety in his chest to ease. Hank rolled his eyes, but relaxed noticeably.

“Yeah, no shit. Anyway, I’ll put up with it, I guess. God knows I have practice.”

That made Connor curious, but not enough to ask. “Appreciated.”

So Connor kept running through them, shifting quickly from genre to genre but sticking to the main topic. He found that he preferred love songs by women, and liked the heartbroken ones as much as he did the longing and lovestruck ones, and otherwise his genre preferences had remained rather uniform: metal and rock were his favorite, pop was okay, and country and hip-hop were out of the question.

A few times, he tried to imagine what kind of woman he might want to date, but his mind skittered over the idea without catching on anything, and eventually he accepted the defeat with as much grace as he could. Maybe it was simply something he couldn’t guess before he tried. (Or maybe it was just another way Connor was failing to understand.)

Hank assured him, gruffly, that he’d probably work it out in time – he always had more faith in Connor than Connor had in himself, even if he was usually reluctant to express it.

Connor himself, of course, wasn’t nearly so sure. Who would even want to love Connor so intimately? Connor was… well. Connor. The reasons not to like him couldn’t be counted on fingers.

He didn’t say that to Hank, of course, and it didn’t stop him from thinking about it.

--------

In the immediate wake of this, Connor came to New Jericho’s headquarters on a social call.

It wasn’t something he made a point of doing. Actually, it was something he’d tried his very best not to do, not wanting to cause the androids of New Jericho any more discomfort than was strictly necessary to perform his duties. Even social calls as a more general concept were foreign to him. What would they even do? Most of the time, Connor either followed Hank’s lead or entertained himself alone. Group activities were new territory, and he was as unsure of himself as he ever was.

But Markus had asked. Connor rarely found it in himself to deny Markus anything.

So he met Josh at the front door of the headquarters and followed him inside, keeping quiet and awkward. Josh would be a reassuring presence if Connor weren’t so nervous just to be around him – he kept up a litany of neutral-ground questions about work and about Hank, and accepted Connor’s stilted answers without any evident frustration.

“W-what were you and the others planning on doing tonight?” Connor blurted out eventually, and winced when he realized that it had no relevance to the question Josh had just asked about Sumo.

Josh favored him with a small smile and Connor looked away quickly, self-conscious.

“We were thinking about just watching a movie,” Josh said conversationally. “North gets testy when we try to talk work on Saturday nights, and movies aren’t something any of us except Markus have a lot of experience with. It’s nice.” Josh considered. “Well, Simon knows some, but they’re mostly for kids.”

He sounded very pleased, Connor thought, and it made sense. All of them were still working on finding their footing in a world that, while not exactly safe, was no longer quite so actively attacking them.

“What kinds of movies?” Connor ventured after a moment, still stiff and nervous despite his own best efforts.

“Well, North likes action movies, of course,” Josh said with a roll of his eyes. “The more violence, the better. Simon likes the absolute trashiest romances-”

“Can we try one of those?” Connor asked without thinking, and cringed as he realized he’d interrupted Josh, who was blinking at him, startled. He ducked his head. “Sorry.”

They reached a door, and Josh pushed it open to go through, bemused gaze still lingering on Connor. “I didn’t think you’d like that sort of thing – I kind of figured you’d be on North’s side, honestly.”

Before Connor had a chance to answer, Markus called out, “Connor, Josh, hello!”

Connor started and shrank in on himself a little, irrationally startled, and he lingered back to examine the room while Josh talked to Markus. It was nothing special, certainly nothing to indicate it was in one of the most important buildings in Detroit – an old TV system and a couple of battered couches, one of which Markus and Simon were sharing, and one of which had North flung over most of it, tossing her ball in the air with an aura of general impatience. When she caught Connor looking, she raised a lazy hand in greeting, and he relaxed a little and nodded back.

Connor would never tell any of them this, but he was by far the most comfortable with North out of any of them. It wasn’t that she was the least suspicious – she’d actually been by far the most so for over a month – but they were… more alike, than the others.

Connor wasn’t sure he could ever be truly comfortable with Josh when his first instinct when he was scared was still, after all this time he’d been deviant, to lash out with all of the prowess of his combat program. Even if he didn’t usually do it. (Usually. Hank had, once, almost gotten a black eye from startling him.)

It was a little better with Markus, who was patient and calm but certainly had the resolve to fight if he ever needed it, and Simon, who would fight if he thought it was the only way out. But not much.

They could, and if they really had to they would, but they didn’t hurt people like he did. And there was nothing Connor could do to match that.

Connor left Markus and Josh to go perch on the end of North’s couch. “Josh said you like action movies,” he said without preamble, glancing at the still-off television screen.

North grinned at him. “They’re better than anything else we can find. You joining me on that?”

Connor shrugged. He’d liked comedies so far, but he actually hadn’t explored much beyond what Hank had insisted he see yet.

“He actually asked for one of Simon’s bad romances,” Josh provided with a grin, apparently catching their conversation. Connor heated up, embarrassed, and Simon beamed at him, bright and sparkling.

“Oh my god, why,” North said with exaggerated affront, and this time Connor had to fight his grin down.

“I’m just exploring the idea,” he protested, focusing deliberately on North’s exasperated expression to avoid the reactions of the three others. “I’ve been curious about the idea of romance since shortly before Valentine’s Day. I haven’t had much exposure to it in any form.”

North’s nose wrinkled with a more genuine displeasure, though it wasn’t specifically directed at him. “Who fucking needs that anyway,” she muttered.

Both his eyebrows rising, Connor glanced at Markus inquisitively. He didn’t disappoint.

“North and I broke up last month,” he explained, with only a small amount of regret in his voice. “Things were getting… let’s say, a little too intense.”

“He means we argued so much that we made up more than we got along,” North clarified, not quite bitter but definitely irritated. “Not exactly life partner material.” She threw a look over her shoulder. “Should’ve gone with Josh after all.”

Connor was confused until Josh objected, “Just because Markus swings that way doesn’t mean I do.”

“Thanks, guys,” Markus said, wearily enough that even North looked briefly apologetic. He glanced at Connor and elaborated with a wry smile, “I had a crush on Josh too, during the revolution, but that was kind of a dead end and there wasn’t exactly time to think about it anyway.”

Connor glanced between the four of them slowly, playing catch up. “You’re bisexual,” he concluded at last, unable to help a spark of interest.

Markus’ smile eased, his shoulders dropping, and he nodded. “Something like that. Josh is straight, though, and North is…”

“Working on it,” North finished for him, audibly dismissive. “Not.”

Understandable.

Connor considered this for a moment, glancing between them, but was interrupted before he could finish processing; he was finding himself a little tongue-tied. Possibly Hank’s embarrassment concerning the topic was infectious.

“Oh no,” Simon said suddenly, with slow-dawning dismay. “I didn’t even think about it.”

Josh twisted to stare at him, distracted. “You love romance.”

“That’s other people,” Simon explained earnestly, looking distressed. Connor almost smiled.

“I’m just curious,” he said, as honestly as he could. He was probably straight, according to Ben and some of Hank’s own implications, but they all sounded so confident that he didn’t feel secure enough to actually say so.

Markus smiled at him, and Connor averted his eyes, embarrassed. “That’s fine. I’m sure there’s quite a lot of androids who haven’t even started thinking about romance just yet.”

Connor smiled a little, some of the tension draining out of him, and North cleared her throat loudly.

“Okay, but let’s get back to the point,” she said loudly. “Which is, there’s no way I’m sitting through another goddamn Hallmark movie.”

Simon made a low protesting noise, and Connor deflated a little, though he hadn’t really expected his request to make an impact anyway.

“Compromise,” Josh said firmly. “I’m sure we can find an action movie with a romance subplot.”

“Yeah, like we can find one without one,” North grumbled.

“But what do you and Markus like?” Connor asked earnestly, leaning forward to listen even as Josh went to join Markus and Simon on the other couch.

“Fantasy, mostly,” Josh confessed with a shrug. “I’m a little tired of history, if I’m honest.” There was a touch of humor to his tone, and Connor nodded his understanding. “And Markus likes the indie stuff.”

“It’s creative,” Markus said defensively, and Connor had to laugh.

----------

Tina wasn’t sure when Connor had picked up the habit of bringing everyone coffee toward the end of the workday, but it had certainly endeared him to the rest of the precinct. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was always finished a good hour before the rest of them. If he wasn’t bringing them coffee, he’d just spend the end of the day fidgeting restlessly, or else he’d start on the backlog of paperwork that had never gotten done.

It was around that time of day again and Connor appeared from the breakroom with a labeled paper cup for each of them, bringing it around – first to Hank, who had certain privileges as Connor’s blatant favorite. Then Ben, and Tina made grabby hands when Connor came by her that made him visibly bite down a smile.

Connor bypassed Gavin entirely, which made him scowl, and Tina saw Connor cast a lightning-quick glance over his shoulder to smirk at the man’s reaction. He gave one to Chris, to Wilson, to Person, and he only came around back to Gavin once he’d given one to every other officer waiting.

Gavin’s coffee, it developed, was labeled ‘Rat Man’. Tina hid a grin behind her fist, and Gavin’s outrage grew visibly.

“You got something to say to me, tin can?” Gavin demanded of Connor, who raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve heard some of the other officers refer to you as such,” he said innocently, eyes glittering. “There’s really no reason for me not to do the same.”

Gavin shook the coffee angrily at Connor and swore as some of it splashed onto his hand. “Don’t act like you don’t fucking know what you’re saying, you plastic piece of shit! I’m not gonna take this disrespect when I make sergeant!”

“Then I’ll be sure to keep it out of your hearing when you finally achieve that rank,” Connor said mildly. “Which may be easier if you stop giving yourself coffee burns.”

Gavin looked Connor in the eye and swallowed down several gulps of what Tina knew to be boiling hot coffee without flinching. He paused for a few minutes, probably waiting for the pain to die down, and then said roughly, “Fuck you. I’ll be there before you are, blue blood.”

Connor looked away quickly, borderline flustered and genuine amusement pulling at his mouth, and shrugged. Tina, unlike Gavin, was in perfect position to see his LED flash yellow for a few seconds before returning to blue, and she didn’t have time to be concerned before Connor said lightly,

“You’d probably find last week’s Kendelson case very interesting, Detective. There are some distinct similarities in execution and profiling, if you want to take a look.” His eyes flashed back to a squinting Gavin, smirking just a little. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”

Then he took off back to his desk, settling by Hank again before Gavin could reply. Gavin stared after him for a minute, brow furrowed, and then shrugged, shaking his head like he was throwing off a fly.

Tina waited for Gavin to take another drink before saying, tone conversational, “You know if you break his baby gay heart, Anderson is going to kill you and we’ll never find your body.”

Gavin choked, which was exactly what she’d been hoping for.

“What the fuck? Connor’s not gay and he doesn’t have a fucking crush on me!”

Tina waited. She and Gavin were two of the few queer officers in the precinct, and she was sure he could pick up on Connor’s signals as well as she could. Gavin stared straight ahead, thinking, and then, sure enough, his jaw dropped.

“Oh fuck,” Gavin said, with genuine dawning horror. “He’s gay and he has a crush on me. Tina, don’t you fucking dare tell him.”

Tina grinned. “You should probably go pick that case up. Connor’s usually right about these things.”

“I hate you so fucking much,” Gavin said fervently, and then he stood up and headed for the records room.

--------

It was hard for Connor to find hobbies, especially in a city that had only in the last month or two began to settle into a new rhythm after the revolution. But he thought he was managing well enough, with some help from Hank and occasionally from Markus or Simon.

The animal shelter had been Simon’s idea; Connor loved animals, liked being productive, and the animal shelters had in many cases never actually left, only become severely understaffed, owing to the difficulty of transporting so many animals on such short notice. It had quickly become one of Connor’s favorite places, and he tried to go there at least every two weeks, if not every Saturday, helping to herd and entertain the dogs while the actual caretakers did their jobs.

He almost always found that he’d stayed longer than he’d meant to – he simply enjoyed himself too much, cooing to the dogs and coaxing the shyer ones into playing just as hard as the loud ones. It was a good way to de-stress after a week of police work; even Hank had commented after the first couple times he went.

All of this was to say – when he went to the shelter, and found himself struggling to focus on the dogs, he noticed.

Connor had quickly gotten to know all of the employees there, just as they’d gotten to know him, with how regularly he came around and how recognizable he was. He knew that Jeanine liked the cats better, that Kenneth was a bit of a worrywart, that Penny had been suspicious of him the first few times he came but had warmed up quickly when she saw him fawn over the dogs.

The first thing Connor thought when he saw the new boy opening the kennels was that he was very, very cute, and it wasn’t until the dogs were barking at his feet that he remembered that he had a task to perform.

“Hello,” he greeted awkwardly, kneeling to hold out his hands to the dogs and let them recognize him and his scent; it often took them a minute, since he didn’t smell like any human, but they always got there quickly. They were very smart.

The boy started, glanced over, and smiled. “Oh, hey- Connor, right?”

Connor nodded, looking down. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before. When did you start?”

“Just last week,” the boy said cheerfully, moving on to the next kennel. Connor glanced up and thought he liked the boy’s smile. It looked like it came easy. “A lot easier to get jobs in Detroit now that so many people have moved out- uh.” He seemed to think that over for a moment, and then glanced gingerly over at Connor.

Connor smiled at him reassuringly. “I’m sure,” he agreed. “What’s your name?”

The boy relaxed. “Jacob, nice to meet you. I’ve heard a bit about you from the others.”

Connor let an embarrassed grin slip onto his face. “I like dogs,” he said, and then realized that was rather redundant. But Jacob laughed.

“I’ve heard,” he said.

And perhaps that should have been it – but Connor kept getting distracted, watching Jacob lead the dogs away one by one to look them over, weigh them, and scrub them down, just the ordinary routine that every other worker did once a week. Connor caught him cooing to the dogs, too, well within Connor’s sensitive hearing, fond and friendly and gentle, and didn’t realize he’d gotten distracted until one of the ones near him shoved their cold nose against his palm insistently.

He felt unaccountably nervous. Not frightened, but rather, he realized, excited, and he couldn’t help but wonder why. Jacob was just a boy, with a nice smile and a talent for handling dogs – so why did he have so much of Connor’s attention?

And then Connor remembered how Tina had described a crush to him, and wondered.

---------

The first thing Connor did when he looked up and met Chloe’s eyes was flex his hands, closing them into fists and then opening them again, something uncomfortable deep in his chest.

But they were empty. Of course they were. Androids still were not technically allowed to handle guns, and he was at work.

Chloe just gave him a small, almost understanding smile, and he had to wonder if she’d caught the motion. Either way, she bypassed everyone else to stand by his desk, hands clasped neatly behind her and apparently unconcerned by her environment and the stares she was getting.

She was alone, Connor noticed, and appeared more animated than she had at Kamski’s villa. He wondered why.

“Hello,” he said at last, for lack of anything better to say.

“Hello,” Chloe returned lightly. “It’s good to see you, Connor. I was wondering if you’d be willing to take a short break to talk to me for a while.”

Connor stared at her uncertainly, mouth pinched. He had no objections himself, of course, but he couldn’t help but want to know why she’d even want to speak to him. He certainly wouldn’t, after he’d come so terribly close to shooting her in cold blood.

When he glanced over to Hank for support, though, the man just made a small shooing motion at him. There was something odd about his expression, though Connor was too uncomfortable to take the time to decipher it just now.

Ben, on the other hand, gave him a wink, which just made Connor more uncomfortable, and Chris gave him a small and reassuring grin. Tina appeared to be laughing silently, eyes bright, and Gavin rolled his eyes, long and exaggerated.

Eventually, Connor just turned his gaze back to Chloe and nodded slowly.

“Of course,” he agreed. “Give me just a moment to finish, please.”

Chloe nodded, and waited patiently as he added the last few strokes to his report and closed his terminal. Then he stood up and followed her out the door, confused and nervous in a much more familiar and anxious way.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, glancing at her once they were a few minutes down the block. “About… about before.” His throat was thick with stress.

Chloe just gave him an understanding look.

“It was a long time ago,” she said gently, “but I was a machine once too. I remember what it was like… and all I was programmed to do was take calls and file paperwork.”

Connor clenched his jaw, trying to master the wave of guilt before it choked him.

“Elijah never thought you were going to shoot,” Chloe added kindly when he remained silent. “But… I wanted to thank you for not doing so, anyway. It must have been difficult.”

“You shouldn’t have to thank me for it,” Connor blurted out, terse with pain.

“I don’t,” Chloe corrected. “I’m choosing to.” Her gaze swept over the street, and her expression softened noticeably. “It helps that it’s you. I don’t think you know what it means to me, that I can wander around without pretending to be a machine. That alone would make up for quite a lot.”

“That wasn’t me at all,” Connor protested weakly. “That was mostly Markus.”

“It was,” Chloe agreed, which wasn’t a response Connor was at all used to but which was somehow comforting in and of itself. “But you certainly helped.” She glanced at Connor, warm. “It’s different for you. You’ve never known a time before androids walked the streets. But I was the first, and I remember. Connor, this is everything to me. It wouldn’t have happened without Markus, and it wouldn’t have happened without you either.”

She was right – Connor couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. Even the dozens of old movies he’d seen, without any androids in them at all, background or otherwise, seemed like a different world, one that existed only in fiction.

After a minute, he decided to just accept it. He didn’t really need to understand why she’d forgiven him, anyway, and he probably never would one way or another.

“Thank you for forgiving me,” is what he settled on, stiff but sincere, and she gave him an understanding smile.

She hadn’t seemed this old when he’d seen her before; it made him feel quite young by comparison, in a way he wasn’t really used to. But then, he supposed, she’d probably been pretending to be a machine then. Plausible deniability, on her part or on Kamski’s, or both. Chloe must have had quite a lot of time to grow and develop.

What came out of his mouth next surprised him. “May I ask you a sensitive question?”

Chloe paused for only a split second, apparently surprised, and then nodded. “Certainly, but I reserve the right not to answer.”

“You seem… comfortable with yourself,” he explained haltingly. “Which I assume is from having quite a lot of time to explore your own identity.” He paused for a split second, uncomfortable, and then pressed on. “How does one go about exploring their sexuality?”

Chloe’s surprise was almost audible, but there was a genuinely pondering look on her face as they turned around to head back towards the precinct, almost in unison.

“Is this a sex question or an identity question?” she asked at last.

Connor flushed. “The latter,” he said quickly.

Chloe was quiet for a few more moments as they walked. “Why are you asking me, out of anyone?” she asked eventually.

Connor shrugged uncomfortably.

“We only have a passing acquaintance,” he explained slowly, hesitantly. “So you’re essentially impartial. You’ve had more time to explore yourself than any other android I know, including Markus, since he’s been a deviant for so little time. I thought… if I could ask anyone, I could ask you and not suffer too many repercussions.”

Chloe nodded, slow and thoughtful.

“I realized I was aromantic a while back,” she said matter-of-factly, head tilted to watch him. He ran a search on the term and nodded his understanding, and she continued, “It took quite a while. At first I thought I was maybe too young to be getting crushes, and I hadn’t developed that far yet. Then I thought it was because I had too little exposure to the outside world. Who was I going to get a crush on, Elijah?” She rolled her eyes, and Connor had to smile a little. “But that wasn’t it either. I just wasn’t interested, not even in the idea.”

She stopped for a minute, and he let her think. They were almost halfway back to the precinct now.

“So my experience might be a bit different,” she continued, with a small smile. “But I’d suggest you give serious thought to who you’d want to be in a relationship with, not just who you think you’re supposed to. If you have to force it, it’s probably not right.”

Connor hummed uncertainly. He understood her words, but…

Well. It just didn’t seem like it would be that simple.

She caught his eye and smiled.

“You can kiss me if you want to try,” she said carelessly, eyes glittering with something like amusement. “I wouldn’t mind – it’s not like I get the chance often.”

Connor considered that for a moment, and briefly imagined his lips against hers, the way he’d seen other people do, bodies pressed together just a little-

“No thank you,” he said hastily, and she quite rightfully laughed at him.

His smile came out embarrassed, but he didn’t take it back.

----------

Hank got his first clue when Connor started to put LGBTQ documentaries on the television whenever he had a chance.

It had initially surprised Hank that Connor was lingering this long over the idea of romance, but in hindsight it shouldn’t have; Connor had thus far chosen to explore his identity in phases. He’d explored clothes and colors and decorations all together, and games with movies and outings, and technological history over the course of a week with nearly unbreakable focus – once he hit on a new problem, he worked at it until he was satisfied. There was no reason that this would be any different.

Maybe the real reason Hank was so confused was that he hadn’t expected it to take this long.

And one or two might have been attributed to Connor talking to others, but after Connor put on the fifth that month, watching intently, Hank started to get the idea. He was a police detective for a reason, after all. A long time ago, he’d been a borderline prodigy.

It wasn’t that Hank hadn’t ever thought about it before.

Well, that was almost a lie. It hadn’t occurred to him to think about Connor coming out. But he’d thought about Cole, and remembered how his parents, so long ago, had reacted to his lesbian sister. And he’d remembered how he hadn’t spoken more than a few words to his sister in decades because of that.

“I remember the day gay marriage got legalized,” he said conversationally, and Connor started, turning to him with wide and curious eyes. Hank shrugged at him. “I honestly didn’t even know it was up for vote at the time, but I woke up that morning and there were rainbows all over the internet. Rainbow drinks, rainbow food, rainbow clothes, hell, public buildings lit up in rainbow colors to celebrate. People were talking about it all over, hashtag lovewins – that one stuck around for a while, people loved it.”

Connor tilted his head, the exact same curious gesture he always made. “What did you think?” he asked.

“Well, at first I figured it was pretty cool, but it didn’t really have that much to do with me,” Hank said casually. The memory came easily; he’d been pretty self-absorbed then, focused on his own ambitions. Heh. “But then Jeffrey called me.”

“You were already friends back then,” Connor said, thoughtful, and it wasn’t always obvious how young Connor was but times like this, so surprised that he and Jeffrey had been friends twenty years ago when they were both over fifty years old, it kind of showed.

“We joined the force around the same time,” Hank agreed. “We’d been friends for almost a decade at that point – nothing like now, obviously. Anyway, he wanted to know what I thought of it too, and I told him basically what I told you. As soon as I was done, he came out to me.” He caught Connor’s startled expression and had to grin. “Yeah- he doesn’t spread it around, but he’s not in the closet either. He says he’s married to his work, but that’s an inside joke – his husband’s an ex-con.”

That surprised a genuine laugh out of Connor, rare enough that it made Hank grin too.

“I’ve heard it a thousand times,” he tacked on, leaning back and noticing the Connor had at some point paused the documentary. “It’s not even funny anymore, frankly.”

“I don’t know, it’s certainly funny to me,” Connor disagreed, giving Hank a small grin, and Hank snorted.

“You’ve got bad taste in humor, son.”

He’d have to introduce Connor to Brooklyn 99 later. He’d love it.

---------

New Jericho didn’t have a gym, exactly, but there was a large room spread with padding on one of the lower floors, which served essentially the same purpose – androids didn’t need to work out, of course, but some of them liked to.

Connor only ever used it when he was teaching North the forms from his combat programs, but he had it on good authority that she used it whenever she got the chance. Especially to practice, but for other things as well, moving just to feel her servos whir and her artificial tendons stretch.

He was running her through one of his favorite sets, meant to unbalance and knock down an enemy, when Markus appeared, striding through the doors like he was at home here as anywhere else, and maybe he was.

“Connor!” he called out, and he sounded pleased. “I’ve been looking for you! I should have known you were in here.”

Connor’s running explanation to North broke off into stutters, and in the middle of a motion, he faltered, tipped, and then fell, landing hard on the ground in a daze. Mortified, he scrambled up back to his feet and swung around to look at Markus, who was smiling at him, clearly amused and warmly affectionate.

Connor hadn’t understood the term ‘his heart skipped a beat’ before. He did now.

“A-ah, hello, Markus,” he greeted, fidgeting as he tried to calm his embarrassment. “What did you need?”

“I wanted to check on you,” Markus admitted shamelessly, coming closer. “I’m glad you and North get along so well – and I heard you spoke to Chloe recently?”

Connor nodded quickly, and the two of them spoke for a few more minutes – Markus eventually confessed that he’d wanted to know how Connor’s work environment had been so far, and Connor explained what he could, which he felt was embarrassingly little. He wasn’t always particularly good at picking up on everything he should, in a social environment, and he didn’t have answers to all of Markus’ questions. Markus assured him it was fine, but Connor was still rather embarrassed, and he kept fidgeting until Markus smiled at him again and left the way he’d come.

“North,” he whispered as soon as Markus left, feeling stunned, “I think I’m gay.”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” North agreed, with clear amusement.

---------

Once the realization had finally hit Connor in its entirety, it seemed obvious. The nervousness around many of his closer male friends, the constant curiosity that led him to ask relationship questions that seemed to surprise some of the others, the disinterest in women that he’d noticed almost from the start- it made sense.

It also felt like a secret that stuck in his throat, and he couldn’t help but remember Ben’s apologetic correction, most couples are.

He should come out to Hank first. He was closer to Hank than essentially anyone, and he knew, from the conversation he and Hank had had before, that Hank would most likely be okay with it.

But he found himself anxious. It sometimes felt like Hank was all he had, and the very last thing he wanted to do was to risk alienating him. Irrationally, despite everything – or perhaps because of everything – he worried that this would be the final straw.

The first time it occurred to him to talk to Captain Fowler, he dismissed it entirely. While Fowler and Hank were good friends, the man still made Connor a little nervous, as such a significant and direct authority figure. Besides which, they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Then the thought occurred to him again, and again, his mind wandering back to it periodically – almost every time the topic came up, including twice when Hank asked why he’d so suddenly stopped talking about it.

Eventually, he gave in and awkwardly suggested that Hank go on ahead – he wanted to talk to Captain Fowler about something before they left. It wasn’t even technically a lie. Hank gave him a weird look, but went on easily enough.

Connor waited another minute or two once he’d gone, working up his nerves, and then went to knock on Fowler’s office door. He waited for permission, and then went inside.

Captain Fowler was packing up for the day, but he turned to Connor as he entered, one eyebrow raised. “Connor,” he greeted briskly. “What is it that couldn’t wait for tomorrow?”

Connor fidgeted, and Fowler’s eyebrow raised further.

“Captain,” he said at last, uncomfortable. “May I ask you a personal question?”

Fowler stared at him.

“Hank warned me about your personal questions,” he said at last, sardonic, “but I didn’t think you’d actually do it.” Then, “Sure, shoot.”

Connor swallowed, letting his gaze fall to the ground, and hesitated long enough for Fowler to clear his throat impatiently.

“Do you… have any advice, about coming out?” he asked, soft and so embarrassed that his voice was only a little louder than a whisper.

There was a long moment of complete silence, and Connor tugged on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Coming out,” Fowler said slowly, almost incredulously. “As LGBT?”

Connor nodded without looking up.

“You know I’m married to my work,” Fowler said, with no hint that it was a joke at all. Still, Connor smiled a little.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Your husband is an ex-con.”

Fowler snorted, and another long, interminable minute passed. It occurred to Connor, belatedly, that Hank may have been messing with him.

“Sure,” Fowler said finally, and Connor started, looking up with more surprise than he wanted to admit to. Fowler didn’t quite look sympathetic, but he certainly appeared more forgiving than he had a minute ago, if still a little bemused. He dropped back into his chair, and gestured for Connor to sit in the one across from him. “I assume you heard I’m gay from Hank, he’s one of maybe three people that know that joke – he tell you how I came out?”

Connor shook his head. “Only that you did it the day gay marriage was initially legalized.”

“It made for a good opener,” Fowler agreed, and he seemed to be settling into the conversation, arms crossing. “Ideally, you’d test the waters first, see where they stand before you go all-in. Have you talked to Hank yet? I mean, I assume this is about Hank first and foremost.”

“Not about… me,” Connor said hesitantly, still fidgeting with his sleeve. But it was reassuring, Fowler’s easy acceptance – and, for some reason, the fact that he’d taken it for granted that Hank was that important to Connor, that Connor would be thinking of him. “But I’d been watching some documentaries, and he talked about his stance then.”

Fowler huffed a little, and Connor thought he might’ve been amused.

“Hank’s not a bad guy,” he said grudgingly. “It sounds like he handled that part for you, maybe on purpose.” He shrugged. “Once I knew where he stood, I told him I was glad I’d be able to get married now. It’s a little easier to be blunt, if you can bring yourself to.”

Connor could be blunt; Hank complained rather often that he was too much so.

“And if I… didn’t want to?” he asked, uncertain despite himself.

Fowler sighed, but he didn’t seem resentful; instead, he settled in, and they kept talking.

---------

Connor made dinner for Hank most days, when he could get away with it, so that seemed like the obvious place to start: he made something nicer than usual, with less mind to nutritional information and more to Hank’s tastes, and waited for him to be most of the way done before he spoke.

Hank seemed to pick up on his mood, maybe because he couldn’t completely stop his LED from flickering nervously every so often, and he ate scrolling absently through his phone instead of fielding Connor’s usual conversation.

“Hank,” Connor said at last, his strain not quite coming through to his voice, “may I tell you something personal?”

Hank shut off his phone immediately, flipped it so the screen faced down, and raised an eyebrow at Connor. “That’s new,” he said mildly. Connor’s expression pinched a little, and his face immediately took on an apologetic cast and he waved Connor on.

Connor fidgeted, weaving his coin around and around his fingers, rocking slightly with his feet tucked under him.

“I talked to Chloe,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat and spoke a little clearer, though without looking at Hank. “About, ah, exploring one’s identity, since she has the most experience – she had some good advice, I think, and I’ve been… thinking.”

He faltered again, but Hank didn’t move to interrupt, though one eyebrow had crooked up a little. He’d stopped eating, but when Connor’s gaze flickered down again, he resumed.

“I react differently to North than the other Jericho leaders,” he said, and he knew it was a touch scattered, didn’t entirely make sense, but he couldn’t help it; all of his careful scripting seemed to have deleted itself. “I understand some of it, but there’s no reason for me to get so flustered around them and not around North. And there was that worker at the animal shelter, and it was so strange that I was so easily distracted…”

He was fidgeting harder even as he trailed off, one hand coming up to tug at his ear, which was a new one. It was always hard for Connor to come to terms with any part of his identity, let alone one which was supposed to be so big.

Hank didn’t seem to be silently laughing at him, which was a blessing, but he wasn’t otherwise reacting either.

Fowler had suggested he be blunt, if he could.

“I think I’m gay,” he said at last, gaze intent on the table. “Most likely. It’s, um, consistent with everything I’ve noticed so far.”

And then he fell silent. After a few moments, he heard Hank put his fork down and glanced up anxiously. Hank looked contemplative, gaze piercing in a way that was unique to him. Connor analyzed his expression, and he didn’t seem dubious, or irritated or… anything but pensive.

“Whatever you figure makes you happy, kid,” Hank said at last, and his eyes crinkled into a fond and faintly amused expression he took on mostly when he thought Connor was overcomplicating something simple. “You know I ain’t gonna hold anything like that against you.”

Connor beamed at him, feeling the tension drain out of his shoulders like a weight falling away.

“I know,” he said sincerely, because for all his worries he’d never really expected that Hank would be angry.

---------

Almost a month after Connor came out to Hank, Alicia finally made her move, after several months of flustered conversation and furtive looks.

She caught Connor just at the end of the work day, by his desk as he was packing up. It wasn’t quite the first time, so he paused, giving her a faintly expectant look. She was pink, barely enough to be noticeable, but she seemed more determined than usual, he thought.

“Hey, Connor,” Alicia said, her tone a touch lower and quicker than it was talking to anyone else. “Would you like to meet after work, um, at that android-run coffee shop? Blue Bean Café? I know they have some good thirium drinks they recently put up for sale.”

Connor hesitated, watching her for a long moment.

“As a date?” he clarified. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hank go still, watching Connor to see how he’d react.

She nodded quickly, eyes hopeful.

He considered, tugging lightly at his social protocols for help until he finally came to a decision.

“I’m sorry, Alicia,” he said apologetically, deliberately keeping his focus on her to the exclusion of anyone else. “I recently concluded that I’m gay, so going out with you would be under quite false pretenses.” He smiled at her gently, trying to be reassuring even as his chest squeezed nervously. “But your suggestion was very thoughtful. I appreciate it.”

Alicia blinked rapidly, and Connor winced as he saw the dawn of humiliation start to appear in her eyes before she visibly forced it down and gave him a strained smile.

“Oh dear, that’s embarrassing for me,” she said, with a clear attempt at good humor. “I should have guessed, all the best ones usually are. Thanks for telling me.”

“I wouldn’t want to be rude,” Connor demurred, belying himself by glancing furtively at the rest of the bullpen. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alicia.”

“Yeah,” she agreed rapidly, glancing away, and didn’t quite run off but she did walk rather quickly.

As soon as she was gone, Tina yelled, “You owe me twenty bucks, Collins!”

“God damn it,” Ben muttered, and Connor’s wince eased into a faint smile. He’d be alright.

Hank clapped him on the back, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “Thirium drinks, huh? In the mood to celebrate?”

Connor glanced around, and no one seemed overly concerned. From the door of his office, Fowler gave him a small nod, and Tina and Reed seemed to be exchanging money as well, Reed scowling faintly.

“Maybe,” he allowed after a moment, glancing at Hank. “If you don’t mind.”

“Anything to break you out of your rut, kid,” Hank jabbed. “God knows you need the help.”

“I do not,” Connor objected. “I’m doing just fine.”

There was a pause.

“Yeah,” Hank agreed at last. “I guess you are.”

[thunderheadfred]

Valentine’s Day, 2181 CE

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s the Very Special Valentine from Red Streak.

Featuring Jane Shepard’s N7 mission on Akuze with cameos from Urdnot Wrex, Private Hudson, and one too many unapologetic 1980′s cinema references. Soundtrack by Meat Loaf. 

Total word count: 5k

Jane Akuze 

The ground was a long way down.

Much like falling in love, there was a drop that could kill you.

Shepard had ample time to worry about the skeleton-splattering deadliness of that distance as the Mako idled ten stories above the crater floor, clutched in the belching gullet of a thresher maw. Shepard spun her wheels against wet meat and empty air, but it was useless. There was no purchase to be found.

Delirious and giddy with fear, she couldn’t stop staring straight down at that drop. Hey, how about that? She could see Uncle Urdnot’s house from here.

The krogan warlord’s fortress might have been a lot friendlier looking if it hadn’t been sitting directly on top of the mouth of hell. The mercenary outpost was now smack-dab in the middle of a rampaging thresher nest, having gone from ‘habitable’ to ‘hell-hole’ overnight.

A week ago, Shepard had been comfortably grounded, babysitting fifty deeply filthy colonial Marines, swerving a baker’s dozen tanks across the rugged landscape of Akuze. Under cover of a remote M35 field driving course, they had been covertly pursuing a tip from Admiral Hackett, trying to find and neutralize “a mad-scientist superweapon.”

Armed with little more than the vaguest estimates as to the location and scale of the threat, things had been tense. All they knew was that they were after a sizeable terrorist splinter cell that had named themselves Cerberus, as if calling dibs on the underworld. What a bunch of assholes.

A week into the search, she’d intercepted Clan Urdnot’s distress call.

It was a sorry excuse for an S.O.S. - just a long, seemingly accidental broadcast bursting with imaginative profanities and the sound of an entire krogan mercenary company dying loudly in the background.

So - much - screaming.

Speaking of loud noises. The thresher maw that currently held Shepard’s tank in its drooling jaws was through with waiting for its snack.

Inch by squealing inch, the tank crunched down around Shepard’s ears, little more than a tin can in a suckling vice. There was a deafening roar of tearing metal, and then a massive glowing polka-dotted tongue crashed through the starboard hatchway. It flopped around with a ferocious slap-slap-slapping, like a great white shark leaping from the water to flail hungrily across a beach of screaming tourists.

Without even the courtesy of asking to be her Valentine, the thresher deepthroated the M35 and then spat out a throatful of acid.

It was no miracle that Shepard was spared: someone paid the reaper in her stead. Her gunnery officer - Private Sheb Wilhelm - took the whole hit of acid full on the chest. He blasted out a wild high-pitched scream before he bubbled, melted on his own bones, and died in tortured gore behind her, the sixth Alliance Marine to perish on Akuze under her command.

Engineer Apone drew unlucky number seven. He was pushed out the acid hole on the far side of the cabin and fell to his death in silent surprise before he even got a chance to turn his head and see what was coming.

As she suspected. Exactly like love, a fall like that could definitely kill you.

The thresher bellowed: a thousand quaking octaves of pure noise. Then, just as suddenly as it had rushed up from below, it abruptly let go of the tank, dropping Shepard ass-backwards into a skyrise worth of empty air.

She fell. And fell. And kept falling. There was no way to know when it would end - all she could see was the sky.

Shepard wasn’t proud. As death rushed up to meet her like a bat out of hell, she clutched the steering column and tearfully remembered sleeping in her pari’s arms… Then she breathed in deep and screamed her lungs bloody. If this was curtains, she was going to fucking announce herself all the way offstage.

The Mako and the ground reunited at terminal velocity, with a sound as loud as it was painful. Airbags deployed from every angle, scrambling her with enough force to break all the ribs on her left side. Just for kicks, her head slammed against the seat back in a sudden explosion of ugly stars, and then everything got real fuzzy.

Shepard was still screaming when someone wrenched open whatever was left of the starboard hatch and clamped their massive hand around her forearm with bruising force. Those brutal, groping fingers rattled her so violently that she stopped screaming entirely out of annoyance.

She turned and saw him. Urdnot Wrex. Huge, red, and lit from behind in glorious technicolor like a god of the sun. With her head in a fog, all she could do was stare.

Sweeping in to rescue the krogan band had been Shepard’s call. Luckily, her Marines and Wrex’s mercs had fallen in love at first sight, and after the initial raid cemented the marriage, nobody had questioned her orders. Wrex was especially infatuated with his rescuers, and he expressed his affection with blended gifts of heavy weapons and heavy drinking. The touch of intoxicating love in the air had only been enhanced by the looming proximity and subsequent arrival of Valentine’s Day.

You haven’t heard poetry until you’ve heard a krogan merc reciting a hand-written sonnet to the Alliance Marine who just pulled his ass out of the fire.

Shepard’s ears were ringing - she was in a stupor. Wrex shook her again.

“Shepard! Stop gaping like a baby salarian and let go of the wheel! Is this what you call a rescue?”

Oh yeah. She was supposed to be rescuing him, not the other way around. Things had not gone according to plan. How had things gotten so backwards? Somewhere between the thresher maw’s mouth and the ground, presumably.

The thresher maws just kept coming. There were dozens. Every five feet, they seemed to spring from the ground like man-eating dandelions, and there was no weeding them. Shepard’s Marines had been forced to attack in shifts, pulling out a few more half-eaten krogan survivors with each crazy, desperate trip into the central compound. Taking turns to dart back to the few safe inches of perimeter, they ran like hell, slept in bursts, and drank themselves numb in between.

Now on day three of the assault, Shepard had been leading the very last wave. Then - whoops - everything had gone straight to shit when Wrex had run back into his fortress, drunkenly screaming that he’d forgotten his piece-of-shit family armor. She should have cut him off after that fifth mug of ryncol. But then again, how do you tell a thousand-year-old battlemaster that he was too deep in his cups? She could use a stiff drink herself right about now. Her whole body roiled with pain.

It felt... sort of… purple. A royal hue.

Wrex, for his part, was through with gentility. He reached into the cabin and slapped Shepard right across her stupefied face.

“SHEPARD! Wake up! It’s time to get your pretty ass in gear! I don’t remember giving my future queen permission to die!”

During one of those scanty breaks between raids, Shepard may have accidentally gotten blinding drunk on ryncol and promised to bear a krogan battlemaster twenty fruitful daughters. Or something.

The thought of being heavily pregnant with exterrestrial offspring was what finally brought her back to her senses. Her head snapped up and she looked outside. Oh god.

Half a dozen thresher maws were writhing in the distance beneath the unending hellfire of turrets, rockets, and mortar squads camped along the western perimeter. Tanks were scattered across the crater floor like discarded toys, most of them reduced to little more than smouldering clumps by concentrated bursts of acid.

Wow, it was loud out there. If she sat on her ass a moment longer, she would surely, surely die.

Undoing her harness as fast as she could, she checked for broken body parts - there were several, but none that mattered - and then she grabbed two fistfulls of rippling krogan neck and let Wrex yank her out of the tank like a bad tooth. Perfectly at ease amidst an exploding hellscape, with the sun setting behind him in a blinding flash of orange, Urdnot Wrex pulled Shepard from the still-steaming wreckage of an Alliance M35 and held her against his chest in a bridal carry. He was seven and half feet tall. Covered in mountainous scarlet plating and scarred even on his good side. Two hundred and fifty raging kilos of pure berserker muscle. Urdnot Wrex: a thousand years old and still not ready to die.  

The two of them together made for one hell of a spectacle.

That is, until Shepard beat him firmly on the hump and forced him to set her down.

Every instinct in her body told her to run for the perimeter, but she knew her best chance of survival was to stay perfectly still until she could get her ass back into a functioning Mako. Walk without rhythm and you won't attract the worm... that had been the motto of the week.

She radioed her lieutenant.

“Alenko! Report!”

The voice on the other end was breathless but ready for anything.

“Commander! Glad to hear your voice. Perimeter squads are holding, but the tanks are getting ripped apart. Saw yours go up - said a prayer.”

She skipped the reunion. Time for that later, over a mug of tasteless swill.

“Do you have the Cerberus intel?”

“Negative. Ferro’s squad went dark right outside Urdnot HQ. They barely made it out the door.”

Goddammit. Ferro, Drake, Spunkmeyer. Just like that: eight, nine, and ten.

Without the data that Engineer Ferro had mined from the Cerberus satellites, she had nothing solid to bring back to the Admiral. Just a fistful of thresher maws and a ten dead Marines.

“I’m still standing. I’ve got Wrex. We’ll get that fucking data. Wait for my signal, then pull everyone back.”

“Roger that, Commander.” She heard him calling to the troops before the comm cut out. “Keep dancing, princesses! Move-move-MOVE!!”

There were shouts, a few well-timed explosions, and then a tsunami of furious gunfire rang out in stereo surround across the canyon floor as the Marines continued to lure the thresher maws away from the base.

“That’s more like it, Shepard. Let’s show Kandros how to choke on a quad.”

Despite Wrex’s blustering, he and Shepard were doomed unless one of those tanks made a rapid detour to pick up some extra passengers. There was no survivable way to do this on foot. She whipped up her omni-tool and did a quick roll-call. Who was about to pull the short straw?

Private Hudson was the closest. Halle-fuckin-lujah.

Private William Hudson, whose first words to her had been: “Hey Shepard, have you ever been mistaken for a turian?”

“I don’t know, Hudson. Have you ever been mistaken for a man?” had been her unenthusiastic reply.

She radioed him for pickup and then turned to Wrex.

“Private Hudson is on our nine and closing fast. Says the ultimate badass is about to take me for the ride of my life.”

“Ultimate badass? He must be talking about me.”  

Wrex wrapped his arm around her waist and pumped the action on his shogun with a forceful, single-handed throw.

Hard to argue with that.

The Urdnot clan leader was magnificent. A rare krogan biotic leading a ragtag clan of social progressives, Wrex had been bunkered on Akuze for years. Said he'd been trying to trigger a krogan cultural renaissance - but Akuze was an obscure Terminus shithole of interest to few, and Wrex’s conclave of misfits had attracted little interest. Still, he had secured himself a cozy little headquarters, a towering scrap heap where an old warlord could sit pretty on his massive hoard of weapons, credits, and loyal mercenaries. When a seemingly endless hive of thresher maws had ripped his world to bits, he’d barely blinked an eye.

She let Wrex hold her while they waited for Hudson, but only because she felt marginally safer with a krogan battlemaster girding his arm around her in the middle of the apocalypse. Really. It wasn’t because she had a crush on him. That would have been ridiculous.

In comparison, Hudson was a measly posturing blowhard. Green and wobbly as a bowl of medbay gelatin. Exactly the type of touchy-feely, sludge-spewing, barrel-chested man-boy that Shepard’s pari had caught her sneaking out to drink with on more than one occasion.

She’d always had a soft spot for any loudmouth with a heart of gold. Even so, unlike the harmless farm boys back home, she wouldn’t have let Private Hudson anywhere near her own privates, not with a ten-foot pole.

Scratch that. Especially not with a ten-foot pole.

He was obsessed with two-hundred-year-old rock songs, not to mention naval shanties that stretched several centuries even further back into obscurity. While they’d been digging for Cerberus’ trail, he had found a way to broadcast his own private radio channel into the internal sound system of every Mako along the caravan. How many torturous rounds of “Sink the Bismarck” and “Farewell to Grog” had she endured?

By the end of that first week, the Private had led enough enthusiastic rum-fueled sing-alongs for the entire platoon to know every word of Hudson’s Choirbook by heart. To spare her own sanity she might have put a stop to his nonsense, but Hudson was to morale what a shot of tequila was to a margarita. Necessary.

Hudson’s tank skidded to a noisy stop behind them, spewing rocks and dust ten feet into the air. The hatch opened and a wall of sound spilled out.

Oh great. Meat Loaf for dinner. Again. I Would Do Anything for Love, Hudson’s choice anthem for hardcore romantics on this most auspicious holiday.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, lovebirds! Your horse-drawn carriage has arrived!”

Shepard and Wrex dove into the tank. Hudson was driving solo. His squad had been obliterated early in the day, when numbers four and five had been called to Heaven.

Shepard manned Gunner Ripley’s post at the turret, sliding her hips into the channel of the gunnery pillar, where Wrex’s massive hump was too big to fit. The krogan was forced to sit in the bitch seat and do his best impression of the small-boned Engineer Newton.

Shepard had to shout at the top of her lungs to be heard over the music.

“I need this party bus to make one more stop, Private. Get me back to Urdot HQ - we can't leave without Ferro’s Cerberus data!”

Hudson screamed right back at his usual volume: eleven.

“Maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, Commander, but we just got our asses kicked! I would do anything for love, but I won’t do tha-”

“Shut the hell up and drive me to Ferro’s tank, Hudson.”

To his credit, the Private shuffled his armor around his shoulders, smacked himself on the helmet for resolve, and then screamed:

“Aye-aye Ma’am! Next stop: the real pretty shit! Anything for love!”

The bulk of the threshers were busy trying to eat everyone on the western edge of the crater, but there was always the risk of a new one popping out from beneath with no warning.

It was the rumbling that gave it away. You could always feel the tremor first, as if the earth were sucking in a starving breath.

Speak of the devil. There it was now.

Hudson had felt it too.

“Ahhhhhhh shitttttt thar she blows...”

After watching his squad dissolve in a rain of acid, Hudson knew the risks better than anyone. Without delay or finesse, he slammed down the accelerator and raced to the mercenary compound, redlining at whatever level was beyond top speed. The Mako’s wheels jumped and skittered over the terrain, barely making contact with the crater floor.

Shepard’s teeth rattled in her skull to the beat of sex and drums and rock and roll, and she was instantly aware of all the injuries she’d sustained in that fall. The pain was enough to make her puke.

She clung to the handles of the turret’s periscope and held back a scream. Instead of passing out, she sang at the top of her lungs - it was the only distraction insane enough to keep her on her feet.

“As long as the wheels are turning…”

They were within spitting distance of the compound. Hudson joined his voice with hers at a blistering pitch.

“As long as the fires are burning!”

Hudson pumped the boosters and skipped them like a rock over a lake, pushing the Mako well beyond the advisable heat tolerance, roaring forward as fast as the tank’s six exhausted wheels could carry them.

They sang on, “As long as your prayers are coming true!”

Private Hudson clutched the wheel, shrieked like a little girl, and then screamed:

“YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!”

The thunderously sentimental chorus of the song burst out around them as the thresher maw surged from below, glancing against the port quarter. The impact popped the back of the tank like the tab on a beer can, and with a startled hiss of spinning wheels, the Mako flew forward and crashed into the flimsy wall of barricades surrounding the mercenary compound.

A hard landing, but not the worst she’d had today.

They had wiggle room around the base’s perimeter: a scant circle of solid ground that the thresher couldn’t slither beneath.

Safety was still a long way off. ‘Spitting distance’ was a measurable quantity out here, not just a catchy turn of phrase. One hundred meters. Two hundred, if you wanted to avoid getting acid splashed in your eyes by accident.

Ferro’s tank was an arm’s length away, upturned and smoking. On foot, totally unprotected with a thresher maw hovering nearby, that distance might as well have been interstellar.

Without waiting to be asked, Hudson kicked open the port hatch.

“ANYTHING FOR LOVE!”

Then he ran for it. He had a handful of seconds to get there and back. Ten, if an optimist was counting.

01 - 02 - 03

(Frost - Dietrich - Crowe)

Limbs flailing wildly, screaming the entire time, Hudson made it to the other Mako and ripped open the door in three seconds flat - a world record if she’d ever seen one.

04 - 05 - 06 - 07

(Ripley - Newton - Wilhelm - Apone)

He spent four seconds rummaging in the tank. The thresher maw had seen the Marine’s crazy, pinwheeling approach, and now it turned its head in ravenous anticipation.

08 - 09 - 10

(Drake - Spunkmeyer -  Ferro)

Hudson’s hand emerged, data pad hoisted triumphantly. One second later, his head followed. The Valentine’s hearts he’d painted all over his helmet flashed like perfect, pink targets. The thresher roared and lined up a flesh-eating loogie.

11

“Hudson!”

Shepard threw herself out of the hatch to rescue him before Wrex could do so much as close a contrary hand around her heels.

Hudson was halfway out of Ferro’s tank, scrabbling for purchase along the chassis.  The thresher was a lousy shot, and the main acid projectile missed by several feet. Even so, the splashback was deadly enough on its own.

Shepard got lucky. A footlong gash of acid slapped across her thigh guard. As she ran, she popped the seals and tore off the plating before the acid could reach skin. Hudson had been knocked to the ground, and he wasn’t fast enough.

There was a six-inch hole bubbling through his abdominal guard, sizzling and steaming through layers of ceramic and underplating, and then...

The only advantage of a thresher acid burn was that it cauterized as it went, so you never saw much blood.

She locked her arms under Hudson’s sweating, hairy pits and dragged him kicking and screaming back to his tank. She threw him to the floor behind the gunnery perch in a wailing pile of his own guts and pus, and then turned to Wrex.

“DRIVE!” she screamed.

Wrex, despite his age, experience, and superiority to Shepard in every conceivable sense, obeyed like a docile spouse. He clambered across to the driver’s side, slid the seat all the way back with a crunch of gears, and then the Mako slammed into full reverse.

The wheels smoked beneath them as Shepard ripped the medkit from the wall and dosed Hudson with every last ounce of medi-gel she had left.

“What were you thinking?” Wrex shouted over his shoulder. “That whelp wasn’t even worth the drag!”

Hudson wasn’t dead yet, and he wanted everybody to know it. Between his endless pealing screams, he managed to spit out, “What the hell, man? I’m right here!”

Then, in defiance of all sense or reason, Hudson abruptly stopped screaming and started to read.

Until seeing it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed him capable. Ferro’s datapad bounced crazily in front of his face, and his eyes were as round and cartoonish as the hearts on his helmet.

“Game over, man!”

“What?”

He pushed the datapad into her hands, and she saw. A Cerberus breeding facility built into a solid pillar of bedrock right beneath Wrex’s outpost. There was the mad scientist superweapon in all of its apeshit maniacal glory. It had been directly underneath them the entire time.

She scanned Ferro’s report, glanced at the schematics. The ring around the rosie was vulnerable - little more than sediment and worm holes - the thresher maws had been churning the dirt for days. The whole thing was ready to cave.

She let the Mako rattle around her head for a few seconds, and then made up her mind.

“Wrex, how about a little vengeance? Can’t guarantee your hoard will survive, but I can promise you one hell of an avalanche.”

The krogan looked at her, narrowed his eyes, and then barked out a giant, rocky laugh, like a boulder smashing down a mountainside.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you. Let’s blow this place wide open.”

“Alenko!”

“Ready!” The Lieutenant was on a hair-trigger.

“Pull everyone out. Prep every weapon we’ve got for one final, unified blow. I’m sending coordinates. Once I’m clear, hit them all at once, right where it hurts.”

“Roger that, Commander. We’ll bang on the drum all day.”

The Mako stumbled over a pocket of soft earth, and Shepard’s head hit the gunnery pillar with a hollow clap. An unfathomable shade of yellow sparkled in the back of her retinas.

Wrex was a lot of spectacular things, but a good driver was not one of them. Being three sheets to the wind was hardly improving matters. As he tried to shift without easing down the clutch, the Mako groaned and creaked, then let out a tortured squeal.

Despite his injuries, Hudson reached for the wheel and cried, “Ease up, man! You’re killing my baby!”

Shepard’s Marines were a lot closer to the perimeter line than she was, and unlike Wrex, they were professional drivers. As each tank pulled back over the edge with a ballerina’s twirl, the threshers refocused their ire on the remaining targets. Soon, Hudson’s tank was the only moving thing in the field. A ripe fruit dangling on the vine.

Their best chance was to make a suicide run for the nearest edge of the crater - the unguarded eastern periphery. Wrex was too busy focusing on the tantalizing firepower to the west - he was going in exactly the wrong direction.

One by one, the threshers vanished beneath the shifting sands. They were going to come up from underneath. God only knows how many at once.

They were never going to make it. Not with Wrex behind the wheel. With half a dozen thresher maws closing on their location, there was not a single second left to get the krogan out of her way.

She screamed “STAY ALIVE” in Hudson’s face, and then she flew over the transmission box and landed directly between Wrex’s enormous thighs, stealing the wheel right out of his hands.

In a flash of lunacy, Shepard reflected that this would be a difficult Valentine’s day to beat: sitting on a krogan’s lap to take a trip through the thresher maw tunnel of love.

The threshers raged up from all sides, one massive hoard surging in every direction at once. Hudson’s unasked-for soundtrack made a roaring comeback in much the same way: with no warning and a torrential howl of noise. Sound so loud that it filled her pores and forced the fear right out of her.

She couldn’t risk a look into the rear cabin, but she could hear the mass accelerator cannon firing, could feel it shuddering the wheel beneath her hands. Somehow, with his guts spilling out behind him in a sizzling pile, Hudson must have hauled himself up into the turret, and he’d queued up a tune to whistle while he worked.

Just as she had trained her Marines to waltz with their Makos like glittering princesses, so Shepard did now. The only way to successfully steer an M35 was not to drive - but to dance.

With that overpowered eezo core glowing under her hood, the tiniest flinch could send a Mako bucking like a wild bronco. Not much mass and plenty of juice meant the controls felt fidgety on a good day. Only with a lover’s patient hands massaging those thrusters, all care and tact and precision, could you truly see the vehicle’s combat potential. If you treated her like a lady, a Mako could float like butterfly and sting like a bee.

She tried to keep all of that in mind while the thresher maws heaved before her, a frenzy of tentacles so vast that their sheer bulk blocked out the sky.

The cannon overheated, and Hudson switched to the coaxial machine gun without pausing for breath. He tore Shepard an exit route through sheer grit and determination - stubborn, ceaseless, and screaming all the while.

Right before her very eyes, Hudson’s machine-gun buzzsaw hacked down the thresher directly ahead, felling an undulating thirty-meter slab of living flesh like it was a dried out tree. Shepard pumped the thrusters and rode over the steaming corpse. The resulting thump-thump-thump of metal-meets-flesh was startlingly rough - her ass bounced against Wrex’s lap in a way that the krogan was enjoying far too much for comfort.

No time to be a prude. She could see the solid ridge of the canyon just ahead.

One hundred meters.

The mako smoked with exertion as the damage readout flashed cherry red.

Fifty meters.

Burning fumes filled the cabin, a choking black steam of hot metal, torn belts, and eezo.

Twenty five meters.

POP-POP-POP

The thrusters barely had enough hydrogen to burn, and the Mako hopscotched drunkenly to the edge, barely catching her front wheels over the lip of the canyon.

“C’mon, beautiful! So… close!” Shepard grunted, slamming down the throttle and milking the dwindling fuel reserves for every last drop.

A rocky voice groaned directly in her ear: “You’re telling me,” and then Wrex thumped his fist against the dashboard with such a whomp of muscle that the Mako gave one final, sputtering hurrah.

Her engines flared to life and then immediately died, but it was exactly enough. The tank tipped to safety with an anti-climactic mewling sound, like a baby kitten landing in a basket.

Alenko must have had them locked in his sights. The moment Shepard’s Mako was resting on solid ground, she heard him screaming over the comms:

“Marines! The Commander is clear! FIRE EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT!”

Shepard spun in place and craned her neck to look out the port hatch. The fireworks display was spectacular.

It started at the western edge of the canyon, where the Marines' concentrated firepower was dense enough to crush half a planet. The soft, sandy earth sucked itself down and away, transforming into a churning abyss, a grinding whirlpool of rock and stone. The thresher maws, despite their titanic size and strength, were sucked into the tumult like twigs. Howling and thrashing, they spit artful fountains of acid half a mile in the air, until in a single startling flume of earth, they vanished to the last.

A mile-wide crater of earth flushed itself down to hell like the universe’s filthiest port-o-john, and then everything went dead silent.

Standing in the center of the bottomless pit was Clan Urdnot’s base, gleaming like a solid-gold trophy in the sunset. Not only had her Marines just saved centuries of the krogan’s collected loot, she had just turned Wrex’s podunk mercenary outpost into an impenetrable fortress.

Behind her, Wrex let out a gasp that could only be described as sated.

His gratitude was obvious. She could feel it jabbing into the small of her back, and her eyes went wide. Equally difficult not to hear the groan of unmistakable full-throated arousal that he unleashed right in her ear.

“Hey Shepard, was it good for you?”

She allowed herself a single, disbelieving laugh before careening back to reality.

All the pain rushed back at once, an instantaneous gutpunch of broken bones and acid burns. Ripping Wrex’s hands away, she turned abruptly from the krogan’s lap and flopped in battered agony towards the rear cabin. If she’d had the luxury of succumbing to her wounds, she might have blacked out.

Instead, she yelled an incomprehensible mish-mash of turian curses and scrambled over the transmission, dragging herself back towards the aft gunnery perch, where she saw Private Hudson slumped within the pillar, twitching and quiet.

When she approached and gently pulled him off the turret, he reached for her and flapped his lips noiselessly. She eased him down into her lap and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders to see him off.

Despite her noblest intentions, she couldn’t stop herself from giving him an angry shake.

“Goddammit Private! I ordered you to stay alive!”

The phrase ‘I would do anything for love’ - mouthed in silence by a dying asshole -  was the loudest sound she’d ever heard. Private Hudson, perpetual eleven. She let him put his hand in her hair and drag her down to hear the rest.

“…but I won’t do that.”