trinithyx2

[trinithyx2]

oh my god?! the plottwist???

-> THE BURDEN OF TOMORROW

synopsis: kamski reveals the one thing you know to be true as a lie: your humanity. connor can’t rightly sit idly by as you struggle to re-find yourself.

word count: 4.2k

ships: connor x reader, hank anderson & reader

notes: i’m skipping from fandom to fandom like i’m fucking window shopping huh. anyway connor the pinerrrr. connor the ultimate denier of feelingssssss

related reading: HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

You had been against the idea from the beginning. In your head, you traced the different ways Kamski would turn you, Hank, and Connor down – “I’m too busy to answer some stupid questions,” or “Go away, I’m trying to enjoy being a retired billionaire,” or “I’m Elijah fucking Kamski, and who the fuck are you supposed to be?”

But his android, Chloe, had welcomed all of you. And you couldn’t ignore how Kamski’s face brightened ever-so-slightly when he saw Connor. But it confused you even more when his eyes flitted to you and his expression brightened even more.

He started talking after he got out of his red-granite-lined pool, which didn’t really interest you. Your eyes turn to one of the Chloes that’s standing off to the side, her eyelids fluttering a little as she presumably scans you. When she’s done, her lips tilt upward in a smile and her head cocks to the side a little. It’s like… she knows you, or something. Like she was smiling because she saw an old friend.

Kamski’s voice cuts through your thoughts. “Chloe?”

Chloe immediately walks over to Kamski, her bare feet making soft sounds against the tile, then muffled by the carpet. She sinks to her knees when he puts a hand on her shoulder and pushes slightly. 

“What interests me…” Kamski moves so he’s standing next to where Chloe’s kneeling. “… is whether machines are capable of empathy.”

He moves so his back is turned on all three of you, and opens a drawer of a side table near the window. “I call it the “Kamski Test.” It’s very simple, you’ll see.”

Kamski turns with his hands raised. One of them is holding a pistol by the barrel, in a way that it would be impossible to fire. Once he’s established that he’s not a threat, he moves forward and places the grip in Connor’s hand. Connor curls his fingers around it on instinct, his index on the trigger.

“What are you doing?” You interject.

Kamski looks over at you and smiles. It’s like you’re proving something to him. What you’re proving, you don’t know. 

He moves Connor’s arm so that the sights of the gun are trained on Chloe’s head. “It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor. Destroy this machine, and I’ll tell you all I know. Or…”

Kamski makes a half-circle and stands beside Connor. “Spare it, if you feel it’s alive. But you’ll leave without having learnt anything from me.”

Hank scoffs and rolls his eyes, gently hitting your arm with an air of can you believe this fucking prick? “Okay, I think we’re done here. C’mon, let’s go, both of you. Sorry to get you outta your pool.”

You put your hand on Hank’s arm to still him and stare at Connor. His LED flickers between yellow and red, circling in on itself quickly as he stares down at Chloe. His eyelids flutter slightly as he tries to process everything around him, calculating and sorting every possibility into neat percentages.

“Connor?” You say softly, trying to break him from his trance. “Connor, come on. This is a waste of time – you don’t need to do this. It could mess with your…” you gesture at your forehead vaguely. “… microprocessors or whatever.”

Kamski exhales slightly and smiles. He takes the pistol by the barrel, gently taking it from Connor’s hand. Connor looks at Kamski, then back down at Chloe.

“Amazing,” Kamski breathes out.

“Yeah, amazing, I care about Connor.” You roll your eyes. “Let’s go.”

Connor catches your eye and nods. “I would’ve been okay. Shooting the android wouldn’t have impacted my microprocessors or any of my other biocomponents.”

“The kid’s just worried,” Hank cuts in. “Now, c’mon. We’re leaving.”

“Wait – one last thing.” Kamski brushes past, walking to the far wall. He presses his hand to a biometric scanner on the wall, causing it to let out a sound akin to a hiss as it opens. It creases vertically, then folds back. 

You let out a small sound of disbelief as you take in what Kamski revealed. Lining the walls of the hidden compartment is… information, yes, but not information about deviants. It’s information about you. 

Photos of you as a child, teenager, adult, and projections of what you’d look like as you aged. Reports on how you’ve been performing as a detective. Maps of interrelationships, circles labeled with names and a web of color-coded lines connecting them.

And, on the back wall, are blueprints. You’ve seen these types of schematics before – they’re for androids. 

Kamski turns and smiles when he sees your shocked face. “So it worked. You firmly believed you were human. Am I wrong, Detective?”

You feel a hand on the top of your back, and only barely register Hank shuffling you towards the exit as you stumble. “This is fucked. I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to pull, Kamski, but we’re out.”

“N-no, Hank, wait –” You dig your heels in, never once looking away from the hidden compartment. “Wait, Kamski, what is this?”

“Just an experiment.” Kamski follows your eyes and looks inside. “A personal pet project.”

“They’re not your goddamn passion project!” Hank snaps, ushering you along with a bit more force. “Now leave the kid alone.”

“Hank, please, I want to see –” You crane your neck, still trying to look. 

“This is damaging to your psyche,” Connor says, taking your arm and helping Hank herd you. “I – we need you operating at full capacity, for the sake of the case.”

“There it is, again!” Kamski laughs. “That beautiful thing, empathy.”

He walks into the room leisurely, like it’s a parlor instead of… whatever it is. “I don’t blame you for being curious. You’re a violent and irrepressible miracle, Detective.”

You struggle against Connor and Hank’s holds as you try to see more of the secret room. “Wh-what do you mean? Hank, let me see! I need to know what’s going on!”

You grab Hank’s arm with your free hand, tugging on his coat. “Hank, I promise I’ll be okay – just five minutes. All I need is five minutes! Please, let me do this. I just need to figure out what this is, then we can go. Just five minutes.”

Hank’s mouth curls into a scowl when he hears the emotion and pleading in your voice, his eyebrows furrowing as he thinks. His eyes fall to the floor, then flick to Connor.

“I highly advise against that,” Connor says evenly, but his worry is betrayed by the way his jaw clenches. His fingers tighten around your upper arm. “Not only will this definitely cause irreversible psychological damage, it could possibly lead to a mental break.”

“Five minutes, Connor.” You look into his eyes. “How much damage can five minutes do?”

“A lot!” Connor says. But after a moment of eye contact, his eyes soften and he relents. He lets go of your arm and takes a step back, his shoes clicking against the tile.

Hank does the same, removing his hand from your back. He sighs and crosses his arms. “Five minutes, kid. That’s all you get.”

You immediately turn on your heel and rush into the room because, knowing Connor, he’d probably set an internal timer already. You hear both Hank and Connor follow you, standing at the edge of the doorway.

You scan the room, then pick out what to look at and what to question Kamski about. 

“This.” You point at a small tablet, showing a muted video of you dancing drunkenly at a crowded party. You’re wearing a hideous necktie like a headband and you get your face right in the camera as soon as you spot it. You can make out the words you’re saying – or, rather, yelling – “What’re you waiting for, man? Let’s party with Miss Page-Three all the way to Disco Ze-e-e-ero-o-o-o!”

You turn to Kamski. “What is this? Why do you have it?”

“Every person moves in a unique way,” Kamski says, shrugging slightly. “Androids already have a specific set of movements. I analyzed the way you moved – the way a human moved.”

“Moved?” You echo back. “What do you mean, moved? Don’t you mean move? Like, the present continuous verb?”

“I didn’t misspeak.” Kamski turns to a paper organizer on a desk and starts to flip through it. 

You exchange a glance with Hank, then Connor. Hank is more obvious with his unease, but you can tell Connor is fretting, too. He just keeps it in his mind, still silently calculating.

Kamski pulls out a manila folder and hands it to you. You turn it over and read what’s on the front. Typed out in neat Courier New is your name, your birth date, and a random date from a few years back – Feb. 21, 2034.

You undo the clasp and dump out the documents on a nearby desk. What’s inside only causes further confusion – there’s a photocopy of a will, a death certificate, an incident report, and photos of a car crash. The death certificate is… it’s yours, but it can’t be. Can it?

You pick up one of the pictures and hold it close to your face. The car is a mangled mess of metal, lit by red and blue police lights. Peeking out from underneath the rubble, limp on the concrete, is a hand. Your hand. And it’s stained with fresh, wet blood.

“Connor.” Your voice comes out weak and strained. You can’t lift your eyes from the photo. “Connor, get over here.”

Connor’s footsteps sound, quick and almost rushed. “Yes, Detective?”

“Scan this.” Your hand shakes as you hold the photo out to Connor. “I-is this…?”

Is this real? You want to ask. Please tell me it’s not, Connor. Connor, please-please-please tell me this is some stupid joke. I’m not afraid of dying, but what if I already have?

Connor leans down a little, his eyelids and LED flickering as he scans it. His face falls as soon as his LED resumes circling normally. “It’s… yes. I found a document containing that picture, but I… I’m not permitted to access it.”

“Okay, but that’s just s-some random wreck, right?” You laugh nervously, trying to ignore the lump growing in your throat. Can androids even cry? “It – it’s not me.”

Connor reaches down and sorts through the documents. When he comes across the death certificate, he freezes. His eyelids flutter as he scans it. He looks over at you, slowly. 

“No,” you whisper. “Connor, it… it can’t be real.”

“It is,” Connor says softly. “Detective, I… I’m so sorry.”

And, just like that, you’re disconnected. You’re outside of your body, stuck in the passenger seat and controlling a video game. There’s a lag to every movement you make. You recall some term you heard in a college psychology course you were required to take – disassociation. You vaguely register that this is what you’re feeling. 

With more effort than it should take, you turn to look at Hank. His expression, shocked and appalled, causes the dam to burst. Your shoulders shake as you cry, hot with misplaced shame. 

Connor wraps an arm around your shoulder, gently pushing you out of the room and towards the exit. Hank pats his shoulder, telling him to “Get them to the car – I’ve got a few choice words I need to exchange with our friend here.”

The car ride was tense, and that atmosphere transferred into Hank’s home. He had asked on the way back if you were okay being by yourself, and you were honest and told him that no, you’re not. He had sat you down and assured you that he wasn’t mad, he didn’t feel betrayed – he just needed time to think and adjust to this new change. 

He had turned in an hour ago, just a little past three in the morning. You know you couldn’t sleep if you tried. That left you and Connor in Hank’s living room. 

You’re laying on the floor with Sumo, his head on your chest and drool staining your shirt. One of your arms is propped behind your head, your other hand absentmindedly combing through Sumo’s fur. 

The silence is only broken by the ceiling fan clicking with every rotation and your breathing – artificial breathing, you suppose.

“Did you go into standby?” You ask softly. 

“No,” Connor answers from his seat on the couch. “Would you like to talk?”

“Maybe.” You trace the pattern of Sumo’s fur, then look over at Connor. “It’s just… I don’t feel like an android. And I have lots of memories. I remember going to Chicken Feed with Hank for the first time. He got me the best goddamn burger in Detroit. I remember finding a Lucky Star bottlecap when I was a kid – the, uh… the ones from that one sarsaparilla? With the blue star on the bottom. Androids don’t have memories like that. Memories from their childhood. Memories that make them feel things.”

Connor stands from the couch, then sits by your side. He puts his hand on Sumo’s head, gently tracing the white streak that cuts through brown fur. The fan continues to click as Connor thinks for a few moments, LED swirling as he does.

“I feel things, sometimes,” he says softly. “But not like how a deviant feels. I have a built-in reward system meant to keep me motivated. But sometimes I’m rewarded even when I do something unrelated to the case.”

“Like what?” You smile up at him. “Petting Sumo?”

Connor smiles softly, glancing away, then back to you. “Yes.”

You laugh softly, your eyes staying on Connor’s face, tracing this new expression. He doesn’t smile a lot, but you’re grateful for every second that he does. 

His brow creases a little, his smile disappearing. “Are you feeling alright? I want to know if you’re… I know this revelation has affected you negatively, but I just want to know of your general mental state.”

You sigh quietly, looking up and following one blade of the fan as it rotates. “I mean, I thought I had it all figured out, y’know? There’s a giant ball, and there’s evil apes. And the evil apes are just… dukin’ it out on the ball. And I’m one of them. It’s basically all just evil apes dukin’ it out on this giant ball.”

Connor tilts his head to the side. “And in this scenario… what are androids?”

“Androids don’t exist in this scenario,” you say. “Androids are too perfect. Like fine porcelain china. They’re for the future. I figured this out when I was young, before androids were everywhere. When there was just a giant ball and evil apes.”

“Hm.” Connor shifts slightly, so that his thigh is just barely pressed against your side. “And what do you feel now?”

“I… I don’t know.” You sigh. “I feel… kinda guilty, I think? Because, yeah, it’s bad. This doesn’t have any upside to it. But it’s not bad for anyone else aside from me, and Hank, to a lesser degree. It’s not death, or war, or – god forbid, pedophilia. It’s just me.”

You go quiet as you watch the fan rotate. Your fingers find the tags on Sumo’s collar, the tag with his name and Hank’s address and number clinking against his rabies vaccination tag.

“Humans are complicated,” Connor eventually says. 

You snort. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I…” he sighs. “I know you didn’t mean to deceive me. But I can’t believe I didn’t know – or at least have an inkling.”

“Shit, I deceived myself.” You laugh humorlessly. “You’re okay, Connor. You don’t need to change to accommodate me.”

“Adaptability to unpredictable human behavior is one of my core features,” he says.

“Am I really unpredictable?” You ask. Your eyebrows furrow as you fidget with Sumo’s tags. “Or, actually – am I really even human?”

Connor’s LED flashes yellow as he looks down at you, his eyelids fluttering as he scans you. He blinks a few times and his LED returns to a calm blue. 

“You’ve fooled my sensors,” Connor says. ��And, if I may…”

His hand hovers over yours, which is still fidgeting with Sumo’s tags. You nod as you feel your heart skip a beat. He grabs your hand and lifts it to his solar plexus, right in the middle of his chest. 

“Do you feel that?” Connor asks. “It’s my thirium pump. Biocomponent #8456w.”

Sure enough, you feel a soft thrumming beneath your fingers. It’s not quite like a heartbeat, but a steady hum that fluctuates. Strong, then a steady decline to weak, then back to its strongest. 

You nod again, not trusting your voice at the moment. 

Connor moves your hand so that it’s resting on your own chest, right over your heart. You don’t really make an effort to check your heartbeat but, just like the last time you remember checking, there’s a steady beat. 

“You have a heart,” he says. 

“An artificial one,” you chime.

“Yes,” Connor relents. “But it proves that you’re not like me. Not a full android.”

“For all I know, Kamski cobbled me together in his creepy basement,” you try to joke. “Do you think he has one? Or is he too rich?”

“Detroit is located alongside a river,” Connor says. “The soil contains too much water for basement construction to be feasible.”

You roll your head a little, looking up at him. “You’re too literal. Don’t you have a humor microchip or something?”

Connor smiles slightly. “Unfortunately, no.” 

“Yes, you do!” You laugh and turn your hand over, grabbing his and shaking it gently. “You’re smiling. And you made a joke. A kind-of joke.”

Connor’s smile falters when he looks down at your connected hands. It’s not like you’ve laced fingers with him or anything, but it was still kind of intimate.

You clear your throat and let his hand go, instead carding your fingers through Sumo’s fur again. You can feel a blush creeping across your face. Once more, the room is only filled with the clicking of the fan with every rotation and your breathing. 

“I don’t know what to do,” you eventually sigh out. “I wish I could just wake up and start the day over. But then I open my eyes and the time has still passed and I’m still here. I still have to go through… whatever this is.”

“You don’t have to go through it alone,” Connor says. “Hank would never abandon you, and…” His LED flickers yellow. “Neither would I.”

“You’re weird,” you say softly. “You’re weird for that.”

Connor nods, slowly. “Maybe. But you’re vital to this case, whether you believe it or not.”

“I do,” you say. “Kinda. I just need time. I can see the end, which is whole acceptance, or just not caring. I mean, all the pieces aren’t here, I still need to find them, but still. I get all the pieces, somehow, something else, walla-walla-bing-bang – my android-ness doesn’t bother me anymore.”

“Walla-walla-bing-bang?” Connor echoes, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“I don’t know what it means.” Your eyes flicker to his and you smile at his confusion. “I think I heard it somewhere once. It just felt like the most appropriate thing to say.”

Connor’s face softens and he mirrors your smile. “That does seem like an appropriate thing to say, yes.”

You keep looking up at him for a moment, just looking into his brown doe eyes. You swallow thickly as your thoughts race. There’s a sudden lump in your throat that you try your best to ignore and clear away.

“Connor, I…” You reach for his hand. He meets you halfway, gently holding your hand and resting his thumb on your knuckles. 

“Am I a deviant?”

Are you going to turn me in? You want to ask. Please don’t. Please, Connor. I need you to trust me, just like you’ve trusted me before. I’ll be vigilant. I’ll figure this out. I promise. Please.

“No.” There’s no hesitation or doubt in his voice. “As far as I’ve figured out, you’re designed to act like a human. You’re meant to fool others into thinking you’re really human – because that’s what you were, before. Deviants are androids with mutations in their code. Your code is meant to mimic human emotions and rationale. So you’re just following your instructions.”

“Instructions.” You look down at your joined hands. You shake them a little as your lips draw into a thin line. “That’s what we both come down to, right? Instructions.”

“You…” Connor thinks for a moment. “Yes. But the instructions in you are nuanced, and sometimes contradictory. I’m not calling your code faulty – in fact, it rather reflects human behavior to a tee.”

“So I’m… at least a little human.” You close your eyes, resting your head on your arm that’s propped behind your head. “Human enough.”

“Human enough?” Connor echoes.

“Yeah. My lungs burn when I hold my breath too long. It hurts when I stub my toe and I feel electric when I hit my funny bone. I cry and my tears taste salty instead of tasting like… I don’t know, cleaning fluid.” You open your eyes and look up at Connor, as if asking him to confirm.

“Androids do have optic cleaning fluids, yes,” he says.

You smile and laugh lightly, your gaze returning to the fan blade. “Optic fuckin’ cleaning fluids…”

You sigh softly. “God, Hank was right. This is fucked. An android investigating androids and some… cheap copy of whoever I used to be. And, of course, a Lieutenant who’s slowly killing himself day-by-day.”

“You’re not a cheap copy,” he says. “Typical CyberLife androids cost nine thousand dollars, but custom models could cost more. Personally, my development and production costs total to just over four million, and every new RK800 model costs eight thousand.”

Connor soothes his thumb over your knuckles. “You must’ve cost Kamski a fortune.”

His words immediately go to your heart like you’ve been pierced by a scorpion’s tail. But instead of venom, it’s an injection of sweet feelings and erratic butterflies. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that his whispered words and damn-near reverent tone was intentional. 

“That’s… that sounds kinda romantic,” you say, then remember yourself. “I – I mean, romantic as in, like, the Romantic era? Like, it’s a romantic idea. That Kamski loves his work so much that he couldn’t bear to stop and continued to push the envelope… even if he pushed it a bit too far, with an android replacing a real-life, actually-dead human and whatnot.”

Connor’s LED blinks as he thinks. He stays silent for a while, just looking down at his hand that’s holding yours and thinking.

“You’re starting to act like me, y’know?” You squeeze his hand. “A synthetic human instead of a true android.”

His LED stops flickering and he meets your eyes. “I am not a deviant. I have a rigorous self-testing system to make sure any signs of deviancy don’t go undetected.”

“Okay, okay,” you relent. You glance down to your conjoined hands, then back up into those doe eyes. 

“Did you mean it?” You ask softly. “Earlier. When you said that you’d stay.”

“Of course,” Connor answers quickly. 

“Really?” Your eyebrows crease. “Because it’ll take years. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. I’ll be worse than Hank. I don’t expect you to reward me or to applaud my every move, because I know that’s how normal people are all the time.”

“But you’re not normal,” Connor says with a smile. “Even before your entire identity was uprooted.”

“Connor!” You laugh and let go of his hand to swat at him, then grasp his hand again. “Alright, alright. I’ll get a bit of the Normal in me. A touch of the Regular. Exactly four grams of Johnny Normalcop.”

“Don’t.” He squeezes your hand. “It would be detrimental to the case if you were to focus on restructuring yourself in a different way. You don’t need to sanitize your personality.”

You smile up at Connor. “So you like me.”

His LED flickers yellow, then returns to blue. “Yes. I enjoy working alongside you as you are. You don’t need to be any amount of Johnny Normalcop.”

You shake your joined hands gently, your smile growing so wide you’re sure you looked a bit stupid. “You’re sweet. You know that?”

“I am somewhat aware.” Connor brings his free hand up to rest on top of your connected hands. 

And, just like that, you know everything would be alright. Nothing would ever be the same, yes, but it would be alright. It won’t be easy, but you just need to move on. Uncertainty is a core tenet of detective work.

When life closes a door, it opens a window. And if the fall is too steep, use the fire exit. Run to the roof, because Connor will be there when you jump to break your fall. The most important thing is to keep moving. Keep dreaming. CyberLife can’t reclaim their lost property if you keep running – very, very fast, from one Earth-shattering revelation to the next. 

[trinithyx2]

TRADITIONS AND VALUES | THEODORE NOTT

SUMMARY: You spend Christmas Eve with your boyfriend and his family. WORD COUNT: 8715 NOTES: Just warning you all, this really is a sickeningly self-indulgent romanticised softy Theo and I make no apologies.

The Internazionale di Roma Floo Station was busier than you’d expected, even if it was the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve. People were rushing from one place to another, some with suitcases, others with stacks of presents so tall they couldn't see around them, some dragging wailing children, and others holding signs. You’d yet to even take a step off the platform itself before someone was shouldering past you, mumbling as they rushed by you in a hurry, and you sighed.

Lifting your bag back onto your shoulder, you made your way down the platform towards the collections point, nerves ricocheting higher and higher with every step you took. The floo station in Italy was warmer than London had been, and you loosened the scarf around your neck to let it hang open. The moment you cleared border checks and registration, gathering your wand on the other side and smiling at a not-so-smiley security officer, you searched for Theo. 

It didn’t take long to find him, not as you searched through the crowds of people gathered with signs, leaning against a pillar, bundled in a thick coat and looking adorably sleepy. At your call of his name, his head snapped up, peering around with juxtaposing alertness and locking his gaze on you as you hurried towards him. 

Perhaps it had only been a week or so since you’d last seen him, but it felt like months, as you crashed into your boyfriend’s arms and buried yourself in his embrace once again. 

“Oh, bella, mi sei mancato così tanto.” He murmured, his face pressed into your hair as he kissed across to your temple. 

“I missed you, Teddy.” Your words were muffled as you were crushed to his chest, holding him just as tightly as he was holding you. Blocking out the hustle and bustle of the International Floo Station around you, you took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of him and sighing happily. Letting him go after another breath, he tucked hair out of your eyes, cupping your cheeks when they were unobstructed, and leaning down to kiss you. 

His mouth was warm, and he tasted like coffee and sugary pastries, a flavour you licked from his lower lip as he smiled into the kiss. You were practically melting against him, the racing of your heart calming as his lips soothed away any anxieties you’d previously been harbouring. Running your hands up his forearms slowly, you took his hands in your own, and stepped back.

“You got coffee?”

“In the car.” He smiled, eyes still closed as his head rested on your own. “Proper, Italian coffee. The best kind.”

“Tastes good already.” You teased, and he pulled back, a smirk on his face as his arm slung over your shoulders, tucking you securely into his side. 

“Feel free to have another sample.” He whispered, stealing another kiss from your lips as he reached across your body with his other hand. Taking your bag from your shoulder, his eyes widened as the weight of it almost dragged him down to the ground, rattling and clinking as it went. “Merda, what do you have in here?”

“Gifts for your family! I wasn’t going to show up empty-handed!” 

He peered inside, shaking his head as he stared into the darkness within. “Another extension charm? No wonder it took you so long to clear security.”

“It’s a legal one!”

“Mhm.”

“It is!” You insisted, reaching to snatch for your bag again but he only rolled his eyes, hauling it up onto his shoulder and guiding you out of the busy station. Theo gave a tired hum as he directed you towards the car, a large SUV with plush leather seats, charmed to stay warm, as you settled inside. Plucking up one of the coffees, you spun it around, noting your order on the front, and taking a sip as Theo packed your bag into the back. 

The caffeine rush it gave you was the boost you needed, sending a jolt of warm energy through your body, and as Theo climbed into the driver’s seat, you twisted your head to look at him. “You got my coffee order right.”

“Of course I did.” He scoffed, like it was the simplest thing in the world, and as he started the car, you reached over and placed your hand atop his. He flipped his palm, bringing your wind-chilled fingers up to his lips to place a kiss against your knuckles. As he returned your hand to the gearstick, he settled his own over the top, and began the drive. 

“So, why is it that we’re driving?” You asked, breaking the comfortable silence you’d been in for the last half an hour or so, watching the cityscape melt into frost-covered countryside. 

“My family is excited to meet you, some of them are already up and crowded in the family room by the floo waiting for you. So I snuck out to the garage and thought I’d drive to come and get you so we could spend a little time together first.”

“Oh, Teddy. You’re getting soft on me.” You smiled, and he reached over, squeezing one of your thighs and smirking. 

“Or, maybe, I just intend to pull over to the side of the road and fuck you stupid before we even have breakfast.”

“Don’t be so crude.” You pinched the back of his hand, which only earned you a harder squeeze to your thigh, and a cheeky laugh. “I intend to make a good first impression on your family, and showing up thoroughly-fucked would not help with that.”

“Well, at least you admit it would’ve been fantastic.” He sighed a laboured exhale, like he was pained to concede the hypothetical sex, and you rolled your eyes. “I don’t think they’d care even if you did, for the record. When I say they’re very excited to meet you, I mean it.”

“That doesn’t make me any less nervous.” Came your muttered response, and this time, he turned to look at you for a little longer. 

“I don’t think you understand, bella. They already love you, because they know how much I love you. They’ve been bugging me to bring you home since last year, and I’ve already told them all about you. They don’t have any expectations of you, they just want to know the girl who makes me so happy.”

Your lips pressed together, hiding a soft sound from escaping and watching the roads disappear under the signs as you tried to process what to say, “Theo…” Was all you managed to muster in five whole minutes, and he laughed again gently. 

“Amore mio, I just want you to enjoy today. I only get one day with you, so I want us to make the most of it.” Your stomach twisted at his words, keeping your response to yourself, and choosing instead to pick his hand up. You kissed his knuckles, rubbing your cheek on his hand as he smiled. “Just… do your best to enjoy it, yeah? I want to show you what Christmas in Italy is all about.”

“Okay, Teddy. I can do that.”

“That’s my girl.”

“I think you may actually have more Christmas trees than Hogwarts.” You teased as the car slowly pulled up in front of a large stately home. The driveway you’d just finished travelling up had been lined with sparkling Christmas trees, the snow decorating them and glistening in the rising sun. 

Theo sighed, parking the car and shutting off the engine, staring at the largest Christmas tree yet, sitting in the centre of the forecourt. “I know. Nonna goes big on Christmas, there’s even more inside.”

“How many are there?”

“Thirty-six,” Theo rubbed a hand over his jaw, “Counted them myself.”

“Thirty-six Christmas trees?” Your jaw dropped, and he shook his head in matching disbelief. “Which one do you put your presents under?”

“Funny you should ask that.” His grimace turned to a smile, eyes going a little cloudy as he stared off across the driveway. “When I was younger, my mother used to hide one of my Christmas presents under every single one, and I got to spend all day going around to find them.”

You reached across the car, taking his hand and lacing your fingers through his. He squeezed, coming back to the present a moment later, as his mind returned from his memories. “I bet you were so cute, running around in your little festive pyjamas hunting for presents.”

“I was the cutest. My Aunt Allessandra already got the baby albums out for you.”

“Most people don’t boast about baby photos, you know that, right?” 

His grin was arrogant, “Most people weren’t as adorable as I was. You know some babies are really ugly? Not me, I was—”

“Theo, you can’t call babies ugly!” You smacked his arm, shaking your head at his cackled laughter as you climbed out of the car. He followed suit, closing his door loudly and racing to the back to nudge you out of the way before you could take your bag. 

“C’mon, you know it’s true. Anyways, it’s not like you have to worry about that. Your babies will be adorable, because—” You cupped a hand over his mouth, giving him a warning glare, and he only winked through smothered laughter. Slipping your hand away, he pressed a fleeting kiss to your palm as it left, and scooped up your bag from the car. “Fine. No baby talk from me. Can’t promise about the rest of the family. Nonna wants us to get married by the—”

“Ah! Meraviglioso, they’re here!” A feminine voice called from the large front doors, ones you hadn't even noticed had opened, and you stiffened as Theo’s eyes widened. Several other voices joined the other, footsteps getting closer, and his shock morphed into a small smile.

“Here we go, amore.”

Stepping aside, Theo hardly even had a chance to greet his family before hands were cupping your cheeks, warmed by the indoors and soft as they held you. “Oh, you are so beautiful! Bellisima!”  

“Auntie Allie…” He scoffed, nudging her back, but it wasn’t long before other relatives of his were gathering around too. Two of his aunts and three of his cousins, all chattering between English and Italian, admiring and complimenting, you could guess, based on how pink Theo’s cheeks were going. 

One of his male cousins said something that made him scowl and elbow him in the ribs, before he was reaching through the others and taking your hand. Tugging you closer to his side; an action which settled your nerves but only increased the volume of adoring coos the two of you were afforded. 

“We made big plans for today.” One of his aunts —Giulia, you were sure— informed you, touching your arm lightly as Theo steered you towards the house. 

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that…”

“Sì, Auntie Gi, I told you not to go overboard with this!” Theo groaned, and she shushed him with a wave of her hand. 

“Yes, yes, you did. But we decided otherwise. Your girl deserves a full Italian Christmas and she’s going to get one!” A blush covered your cheeks, you could feel it rage even hotter the moment you stepped over the threshold and into the warmed house. As you did, an elderly elf wearing a pink knitted hat, a floral apron and one sock appeared, holding out her hands. 

“Cappotto!” She demanded, snapping her fingers, and Theo shrugged off his coat quickly and handed it to her. You followed suit, and she left with a soft huff and a pop. 

“That is Miffy. She runs the rest of the elves here with an iron rod. She put on her special occasion sock for you.”

“One sock?”

“Yes, she’s very particular about it. Says wearing two socks makes her too warm.” He rolled his eyes, hefting your bag higher up on his shoulder. 

“Sounds like you with your leg sticking out of the covers every night.”

“Did you just compare me to a house elf?” He gaped, and you shrugged, grinning at him over your shoulder as you followed the rest of his family further into the house. You were guided past several open rooms, before arriving in a large, open-plan sitting room. 

Some of his family were already gathered around, sipping from mugs of tea and coffee, a table laid out with breakfast pastries and food piled high. A group of young children were sitting around the tree and poking at the piles of gifts stacked there. Beside them, sat an older lady, enchanted knitting needles surrounding her as she used the set in her hands to knit far slower into a more interesting design. As one little finger tugged on a bow, she raised her brow and poked the giggling toddler lightly with one of her needles. 

“That’s Nonna?” You whispered as Theo came to your side, and he placed your bag down beside the closest table, nodding his head. 

“Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone else, but I want you to officially meet her first.”

His hand pressed on your lower back, guiding you across the room, and as you got close, the knitting needles, floating on command, all slowed to a stop. She lowered the ones in her hands to her lap, her gaze running over you as appraised you, and your hands locked nervously in front of your body, fiddling with your fingers. 

“Nonna, this is my girlfriend.”

“Well, obviously, Theodore.” She drawled, shaking her head at him, and he bit back a smile. Her attention shifted back to you, and she smiled at you. Holding up her knitting, she proffered the half-finished square pattern. “This colour, do you like it? And no flattery, I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

A laugh escaped you, and you nodded, pinching the soft fabric between two fingers. “It’s a nice shade of purple. My second favourite, even.”

“Second favourite?”

“I like a lighter purple too.” She hummed, snapping her fingers and a basket of other wools floated over to you both from the corner. She rooted through it, before producing a lavender shade, “Like this?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Good choice. I like it too.” She added it to her current pile of wool to use. “My Theodore tells me you are a smart and kind girl. He speaks very highly of you.”

She patted the chair beside her, and you sat down in it, turning to face her, “I hope he’s not set the bar too high about me.” 

“No, he set it just right. He deserves someone good, my grandson. He deserves the best.”

“I know.” You whispered, and Theo scuffed his feet against the floor. 

“Nonna…”

“Go, Theodore. Get breakfast, you must eat.” She waved him away, and after lingering for only a moment longer, he did as told, leaving the two of you alone. “He loves you very much.”

“I love him too.” Your words rushed from you, assuring her of as much, and she patted your hand with a fond expression.

“You’ll make sure he’s happy.”

“I promise, I’ll—”

“It was not a question. You will make him happy. You already do.” She confirmed, and your lips pressed together, chin wobbling a little as you nodded. It was a promise, all you needed to say, and she squeezed your hand reassuringly as she understood it. “He was sad for a long time, but you make him smile.”

With that, Theo was returning, perching himself on the arm of the chair you were sitting on and passing you a plate that was stacked high. On it were all of your breakfast favourites from the spread, everything you would’ve picked for yourself as well as his preferences, and he dropped a kiss on the top of your head. 

“So,” He directed his raised voice to the rest of the room, glancing out across his family, “What busy schedule have you all conjured up for us, then?”

As you ate the breakfast provided, his family excitedly told you all of the plans they had for the day. You also made it through introductions, doing your best to commit the names and faces of every enthusiastic family member to your memory. You were just finishing up a conversation with his youngest uncle when Miffy appeared once again, informing you all with a bossy kind of voice that in order to stay on schedule, it was time to leave. 

Several elves appeared, laden down with coats, hats and scarves as they handed them out, and the room jumped into action. Tugging you up from the chair, Theo helped you into your coat, before wrapping a spare scarf around your neck, and leaving a kiss on your cheek before bundling himself up too. The movement of the family was dizzying, and you simply opted to follow along, until you were being ushered through the large floo in the family room fireplace, hand clasped in Theo’s as his voice wrapped in perfect Italian around your first location. 

A tug behind your navel, a flash of blinding green fire, and you were stepping out into the cold of a busy and bustling street. 

The first stop of the day was the Italian street markets. You’d encountered similar, and at first glance, it all felt so very much like home. You’d spent many a Christmas wandering the wooden huts of the Trafalgar Square Christmas Markets back in London, and a grin crawled onto your face at the comfort of it.  

Then, a loud screeching sounded just to your right, melting away into coordinated music as a walking band of bagpipe players passed you by, and Theo laughed in your ear by your side as you clutched a hand to your chest. 

“It’s not funny, Nott! That scared the lights out of me!”

“It was kinda’ funny. You should’ve seen your face. You were all awestruck and starry-eyed and then you looked like that time Draco jumped out at you with those plastic Muggle fangs in his mouth on Hallows Eve.” He clutched his stomach in contrast, head tipping back with laughter, and you nudged him in the ribs, even as his amusement brought a smile to your own lips. 

“I’ll implore you to remember what happened to Draco when he laughed at me.” Your threat was only met with a smirk and hooded eyes as he tipped his head back down, tempering his laughter.

“Oh, but you wouldn't hex your boyfriend at Christmas, would you?” His lips brushed yours as he tipped your chin up. “You don’t want this lovely face disfigured, do you? You’re the one who has to kiss it.”

“Cut it out.” You whispered, blushing, as he pecked the edge of your mouth, “This is a family event.”

“I’m aware.” He murmured, sealing it with a chaste kiss to your lips and wrapping his arm around your shoulders. “Alright, there’s lots I want to show you and definitely not enough time for it all. Where do you want to start?”

“You tell me.”

“Let’s go.” He beamed, guiding you after his family as the group began to move, idling to the left and in trail of the procession of bagpipe players that had gone on ahead.

You wandered from stall to stall, looking at crafts and ornaments ad freshly made goods. There was a certain kind of cheerful energy in the air that only came around at Christmastime, and you soaked up very second of festive cheer that you could. 

Theo plied you with treats at every opportunity, and his pockets started to become laden down with purchases neither of you needed, until he bought a hand-stitched bag at one stall and slung it over his shoulder just to carry everything the pair of you had been purchasing. 

Slowly, the group split off, members of the family forming smaller groups to go off to each of their own activities and interests. As you continued exploring, you passed by what appeared to be a nativity scene, set up full-size, behind fences with small sheep and animals wandering around inside. 

“This is lovely.” You turned to Theo, and he smiled at your words. 

“This is the village Presepe.”

“Presepe?” You echoed, “I thought it was a Nativity scene.”

“A Presepe is a nativity scene, really. It’s the tradition to build one in the home, it’s important, it reminds us of the Christmas story. In my family, we dedicate a whole evening to building one. Ours is in the library, we like it to be somewhere quiet where we can reflect on and admire it.” You wrapped your arms around on of his, leaning your cheek on his shoulder, and his head rested on top of yours. “But, I also used to have a small one in my dorm at Hogwarts. You’ve seen it.”

“I never knew what it was, though. I mean, I didn’t know it meant so much, I thought it was just your general Christmas decorations.”

“It is, technically—”’

“No,” You cut him off, “It’s more important than that. I’ll remember for next year.”

He smiled at that, and the pair of you took a few more minutes to admire the scene, before moving on. Hours seemed to pass by as the two of you slipped into your own little world, soaking up all of the time you had together and huddling close in the cold, wintery air. 

You wouldn't trade these times for the world. As doting as Theo was, as loving and devoted, these times when the two of you were alone and you were reminded. Reminded, that he wasn’t just someone you were attracted to or loved, but that he was also your best friend in every way, someone you could confide in and trust and rely on. 

He was your whole world, and spending time with him, in a place that was his whole world, meant all the more to you. Something you were sure you wouldn't be able to express with words, so you indulged his every whim instead, and committed it all to memory. 

You were still stuffed up from the fresh struffoli Theo had offered to you not long ago, feeding you bites from the shared tray before he’d ordered you another one. Unlike him, who seemed to eat endlessly and always still be hungry, you didn’t possess such a talent, and you were ready for a drink to wash it down, when he turned to you with a handful of more sweet treats. 

“Try this, bella.”

“Just a bite.” You sighed, unable to say no to the adorable look on his face as he brought over what looked like a piece of fruitcake. 

“Just a bite? Don’t be silly. You need more than one bite to appreciate this panettone.” He lifted it to your lips, and you parted them, his eyes sparkling as he watched you take a bite. He followed soon after, crumbs dropping to the floor between you both as he finished off the slice in a single mouthful. His cheeks puffed up like a hamster, and you raised your eyebrows as you chewed slowly, savouring the delicious treat. “What? You said you just wanted a bite!”

Your lips pressed further together and your hand covered your mouth to muffle a laugh as he spat crumbs everywhere while speaking. His cheeks turned red, and he shook his head fondly as he attempted to finished the excessive amount of food in his mouth. 

“Careful, you two.” His cousin Maria grinned as she passed by, clapping Theo on the back as he choked down the treat. “Don’t eat too much, or you’ll ruin your appetite for the Feast later.”

“We’ll be fine, we’re indulging.” Theo scoffed, patting his stomach. “Tanto spazio, non preoccuparti.” 

Your brows furrowed as Maria tipped her head back and laughter, Theo preening with pride at amusing his cousin as he joined her. As she ambled on ahead, still chatting to Theo in Italian, you took the time to admire one of the intricate craft stalls opposite the bakery stand. 

Picking up a small glass trinket, you hung the bauble from your finger, watching the glittery item twirl before you and reflect the stark winter daylight in beautiful colours. “How much?” You asked, smiling at the vendor, who rubbed his chin. 

“Ti piace?”

Your lips parted but no words came out, as you realised for the first time that without Theo, you were a little lost. Tapping it with your finger, you floundered for words, feeling more than ignorant and beyond embarrassed at your inability for simple communication for the first time today. It struck you, with a startling shock, that his family had been making the effort to speak to you in English, and you’d taken it for granted. 

Swallowing back the clog of emotion in your throat, you coughed lightly, putting it down and pulling out your purse. Opening it up to the Muggle notes of Italian cash that you’d converted before leaving London, you offered him a handful. The vendor chuckled, taking the money from you and counting out just two of the notes, before passing the rest back. “Inglese? English?” He prompted, and you nodded, feeling the odd urge to apologise as he counted out coins and gave you a handful of those as change too. 

“Yes. Uhm, sí.” You fumbled, cursing internally for how clumsy you sounded, but the older man merely smiled at you. 

“Have a good day.” He spoke slowly, and it pained you not to be able to even return the simple kindness. Instead, you pointed at him. 

“E tu.” There were a few small words here and there that you’d picked up from Theo over the years, and you could only hope you’d said something that made sense. By the look on his face, you’d at least managed to do that correctly. Pocketing your purse and your change, the man handed you your carefully wrapped ornament, and cheerfully gave you a goodbye as you stepped away, searching for Theo in the crowds. 

He wasn’t far ahead, talking to his Nonna but his eyes were on you, and his face broke into a smile as your eyes met. Your mood seemed to thaw again at the sight of him, your heart warming the inside of your chest and spreading the feeling out through your body as you walked back to his side. 

He held out his hand, and you took it, lacing your gloved fingers through his as he tugged you closer. “Nonna was just suggesting we go to the Tombola. It’s cold out here, and we can go inside and warm up. What do you think?”

“I think that sounds fun… what is it?”

Nonna chuckled, patting your arm. “You have heard of bingo, sí?”

“Oh, yes!” You cheered, and she clicked her fingers. 

“Ah, it is like bingo. You will enjoy, my dear. Come, come.” She offered you her arm, and you accepted it eagerly, letting her slowly guide the three of you through the town centre you’d been circling for the last couple of hours, to the Town Hall sitting squarely in the middle. 

She was right, it was much warmer inside, and you queued up with the few members of the Nott family that had come to join to check your coats. You tucked your scarf and gloves into your pockets hastily, handing the bundle over to the woman and letting Theo do the talking as he gave his name and took his tag. 

You were rubbing your cooled hands together when he took one in his own, threading your hands together and squeezing happily as you joined the crowded hall filled with people. Finding a place to sit, you all hemmed yourselves in around the table, swiping up sheets and markers before the next round began. Theo leaned over to get a peek at your card, and you pressed it to your chest, causing him to pull back, surprised.

“Let me see.”

“No! Get your own, this is my card!” You held it tighter to your chest as he tried to steal it from you, his jaw dropping. 

“You want to be on separate teams? I can’t believe this.” He feigned heartbreak, head hanging, and you giggled at his dramatics. Dipping down and into his eye-line, he stuck his bottom lip out in an exaggerated put. “I can’t believe you’re abandoning me like this, and here I thought you loved me! Oh, il dolore…”

“Oh, hush your whinging. Two teams means double the chance to win prizes.”

His lip slipped back into place, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead, and then his face broke with amusement. “My cunning little snake, I’m rubbing off on you. I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

“What, just the one reason?”

“Well, I could start to list them all,” He leaned in, brushing his lips against your ear, “But I’m afraid we would run out of time.”

Taking his jaw in your hand, you smacked a kiss onto his cheek, his face scrunching up happily. “Ti amo, Theo.”

“I love you too, bella.” He reached across the table, swiping up a card and his own marker. Pulling your chair closer to his, he stretched his arm along the back of your seat and pressed you into his side. 

“Hey, Theo?” You felt his responding hum against the top of your head as his fingers wove into your hair, rubbing lightly. “What’s ‘the Feast’ later?”

He pulled back enough to be able to see you, twisting strands of hair around his fingers. “Oh, the Feast of Seven Fishes. It’s a special meal at Christmas.”

“Oh, like Christmas dinner!” He dipped his chin in a nod, and you took the information on board, “You don’t do Christmas dinner, then?”

“‘Course we do.” He chuckled at you, “But, on Christmas Day. It’s Christmas Eve, so this is a Christmas Eve tradition.”

You knew inside Theo didn’t intend to make you feel at a disadvantage with the way he said it, but that didn’t stop you feeling that way. Once again, another small thing made you feel like you were inexperienced and behind the rest. At your lack of response, Theo tilted his head, his eyes searching your own. You distracted him with a kiss to his cheek, facing yourself back to the front of the room as a little old lady took the stage, bringing attention to the game that was just beginning.

Taking back your coat, Theo untangled himself from you to begin fastening one of his baby cousins into her coat. Yours was handed back to you, and you smiled appreciatively at the woman behind the desk. Taking your scarf out and wrapping it around your neck, you shrugged on your coat. Buttoning it up for warmth, at last, you patted your pockets down for your gloves as you made your way over to Theo and the group. 

Both pockets came up empty, and you shoved your hands inside, rooting into the empty spaces to confirm. At some point, your gloves must’ve fallen out, but between the crowds gathering around the coatcheck desk and your lack of ability to communicate, you decided against making a bumbling effort to retrieve them. Writing them off, you left your hands curled up in your pockets as your boyfriend’s hand found your lower back, guiding you outside. 

As you listened, he promised his family that the pair of you would reunite with them soon, you’d meet them at the pub floo you’d all entered through, but apparently, you had one more thing to do. At your raised brow, Theo quickly guided you towards the edges of the markets, where a small group was beginning to form, gathered around… nothing, you could see, as you got closer.

“It’s almost time to go home.” Theo offered, and you nodded, silently relieved as your freezing hands clenched inside your pockets, joints aching from the cold exposure. “Just one more thing I want us to do. Do you have your wand on you?”

Your head snapped up, noticing the smaller group you’d been assembled into on the edges of the town, and realising they all had their wands out too. “I-I don’t. I left it in my bag at yours, I didn’t know I would need it—”

“It’s okay, you can share mine.” He soothed, and he placed the smooth Hawthorn wand into your palm, his hand wrapping around your own and his back pressing to your chest. His other arm snaked around your middle, his chin propped on your shoulder. Only moments later, you were once again left steeped in confusion as he began to swirl your joined hands in the execution of a spell you didn’t know, reciting the charmed Italian with words you did not know, to cast an enchantment that you did not know. 

The scene before you was breathtaking, swirls of coloured mist and sparks from all the group gathered around, bundling into a soft ball of light in the centre of the group, growing from a mere sparkling pinprick to something the size of a golfball, spinning with every addition of magic and power. When the group chanting ended, the small ball pressed itself smaller and smaller, before zooming off into the sky and disappearing into the grey clouds in a blink. 

“Wow…” You murmured, turning to Theo, “What was—”

His lips pressed to yours firmly, his arms around you keeping you close as he placed a single, heavy kiss onto our mouth. “That, was an ancient tradition. Wizarding world special. Instead of mistletoe, you cast a spell with the person you love in a pledge for a happy and joyful Christmas. My mum used to bring me when I was a kid, and I… I wanted to bring you.”

“Oh, Teddy…” Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in until your eyes could flutter closed and your forehead was pressed to his. “That is so sweet. I’ve never heard of such a tradition before.”

“I’m not surprised.” He huffed to himself bemusedly, trapped in a joke only he understood. “Come on, let's get your home, your hands are freezing. Where are your gloves?”

“Think I lost them along the way somewhere.” You deflected, and he shrugged. The rest of his family were beginning to round up too, and none too soon, you were all piling once again back into a floo to Nott Manor. Unloading your coat to another excitable but demanding house elf, you guided yourself back through to the living room where the fires were still roaring. The youngest of the children sprinted past you, and you leaned down to gather your bag in the meantime. 

In the background, you could hear Theo’s family chatting away, laughter and love filling the halls in a way that was so homely and comforting, and you guided yourself over to the Christmas tree already stacked high with presents underneath, spilling out in mountains from beneath. 

Sinking to your knees, you opened up your bag, diving elbow-deep into the extended insides and beginning to pull out the few, carefully wrapped presents you’d brought with you. In the dining room, you could hear glasses clinking and corks popping, as preparations for the Feast you’d only just learned about took place.  

That clawing, suffocating sense of embarrassment was back as you let slip a sigh, running a finger over the wrapping paper covered in small Santa hats that you’d used to wrap the gifts for the younger children. It felt so out of place now, utterly ridiculous, as you remembered hearing so many children running around the markets talking about La Befana, before eventually needing Theo to explain. You contemplated whether it was too late to find some other kind of paper and rewrap them.

With a shake of your head, your resolve weakened, fingers trembling as you picked at the red ribbon wrapped around it. “What’s wrong, amore?”

Theo startled you from being so lost in your thoughts, and you whipped around to see him standing over you, a concerned look on his face. At your hesitation, he lowered himself down to sit crosslegged before you.

“Nothing, baby. I’m all good, just putting a few presents under your tree.”

He watched you place the final gift on the small stack you’d added, before taking your hand in his, his thumb tracing your knuckles. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve gone all quiet.” He whispered, “What’s wrong, are you homesick?”

“No, not at all. I’m having a wonderful time.” You reassured him, squeezing his hand in your own. 

“But you’re sad.”

“No, I’m not—” He gave you a look, one you were familiar with after a year together, pressing you for the truth and you caved faster than you’d have liked. Your voice cracked as you spoke quietly once again, “I feel like an idiot, Theo.”

“What are you talking about, bella? Why would you feel that way, I don’t understand?”

“I should’ve been more prepared. I’ve come to spend Christmas with your family, and you’ve all been so kind all day, and spoken my language because I don’t even know yours! I have been so behind at every step with your traditions and customs, I feel so selfish because I should’ve done more research into today, so that I could share it with you properly, but I didn’t!” Your eyes stung, and you tore your gaze away from his, “I’m sorry, Teddy.”

Theo cupped your cheek, a sad sound escaping him as he pressed kisses all over the side of your face you allowed him access to, as he tried to coax you to face him once again. “Listen to me, amore. Please? I didn’t expect you to know anything at all, you were here to learn, that was the whole point! I’ve had so much fun teaching you. I got to share everything with you and relive the magic of it by re-experiencing it all with you of the first time.”

His words did their job, easing some of the discomfort you’d been feeling, and you finally gave in, looking back up to him as he smiled, bumping his nose with your own lovingly. 

“As for the English, in my family, we’re taught English alongside Italian since we started learning to talk at all. We all go to Hogwarts, and some of my family spend more of the year in London or Paris or other places than here at all, meaning Italian isn’t even our main language even if it is our first. It’s not something to stress about, I swear.” He gave you a quick but reassuring kiss, rubbing his thumb across your cheek as you smiled. “But if you want to learn Italian, I’ll teach you. I’d love to, but I never wanted you to feel forced to.”

“I’d like that.” You whispered, stealing a kiss too, and a little of that light came back to his face as you did. 

“You know, I didn’t really know anything about English Christmas traditions until I started Hogwarts. Don’t you remember? You all had to teach me in first year.”

You cast your mind back, trying to remember the fuzzy memories of your friends from so long ago. “You caught on quick.”

“I’m a fast learner.” Theo teased playfully. “Please don’t let yourself feel down, because this day has been perfect for me, and I want you to remember it that way too.”

Your shoulders sagged, leaning into his hug, and you tried your best to let the last of your worries slip away. Theo’s hands rubbed up and down your back, and you melted a little more into his embrace. 

“Ahem.” Theo’s uncle Marco coughed dramatically, and Theo groaned in your ear as he twisted his head on your shoulder to look at him. 

“What? Can’t you see we’re having a moment here? Vaffanculo.”

“Now, now, Theo. What would Nonna say if I told her what you just said?” He grinned, and Theo lifted a hand to make a gesture you didn’t allow, clasping his hand and lowering it back down. His uncle smirked, putting his hands on his hips, “Sorry to interrupt your moment, but it’s time to eat.”

He left before Theo could respond, and you clambered to your feet, brushing yourself off and offering him your hands. He took them, letting you pull him to his feet before he was checking in on you one more time, and seeing something that must’ve reassured him, taking you through to the dining room for dinner. 

“Can you tell me about Snata?” One of the toddlers, Romeo, asked. He climbed up beside you and Theo on the couch, uncaring of the meal you’d just stuffed yourselves with as he climbed over Theo, stepping on his stomach before sitting himself in your lap. Looking up at you expectantly, the three-year-old frowned at your stunned expression. “Satna.” He demanded, leaning in closer. 

“It’s Santa, idiota.” Another small voice chimed in.

“Hey!” Theo scooped up the other boy, Aldo, and folded him into his arms tightly, shaking his head as the young boy squirmed in the hug and pushed a sticky hand against Theo’s jaw. “That’s not nice, you don’t call people that. Do you want La Befana to bring you presents tonight?”

“Sí.” He grumbled out with added an apology to his brother, and Theo nodded, ruffling his hair as the boy turned to look at you from his perch in his cousin’s lap. He stuck his thumb into his mouth, and leaned to rest his head on Theo’s chest as he prepared to listen. Another little hand landed on you arm, and you found Adriana, their sister, has settled herself in beside you. 

“You want to know about Santa too?” You asked, and she nodded her head. You twisted to Theo, “Did you set this up?”

“Nope, this is all them.” He smiled, stretching his arm out along the back of the couch. “Maybe you still have some things to teach us after all.”

So, you settled in, with three small children which soon became four, then five, as you told them all the story of Santa Claus. They were particularly fond of the reindeers, although they weren’t sold on Rudolph, insisting that he must be very, very poorly if his nose is that red. You skirted carefully around the edges of their questions, trying hard not to ruin anything for them or encroach onto territory that might get them thinking a little too deeply and unravel their belief. Instead, you kept the magic alive, by spinning a tale instead of how Santa and La Befana work together to make sure all the children across the world get presents for Christmas Day.

Regardless, the children had taken to the story with wide-eyed excitement and enthusiasm you thought couldn't be conquered. That was, until they smelled hot chocolate in the air. Immediately leaping off of the couch with a new set of interests, they no longer cared to hear about who might bring presents tomorrow, but instead, who might have a treat right now. 

You followed after them, back to the dining room where the table was now laid with teapots, coffees and small treats to enjoy for dessert. In the corner, Allessandra was handing out mugs of hot chocolate to the children, and Theo pressed a kiss to the side of your head as he came back to your side. He pressed a warm mug into your hands, and the smell drifted up to your nose, making you groan happily. Looking down, your suspicions were confirmed. 

“Theo, what’s all this?” You brought the glass up, sniffling the fruity concoction, and he shrugged. 

“This is a little piece of home for you, bella. I want you to be one hundred percent happy here. Your happiness is important to me, don’t you know that? You should’ve told you the moment you felt down, so that I could fix it. I hate seeing you upset.”

“I’m never upset when I’m with you. I just felt a little out of place, but I’m fine now.” You promised, and he seemed to believe you this time, you could see it in his eyes as he nodded. 

Lifting the mug to your face, you blew slowly onto the steam rising up from it, and then you heard a cry; “Why is my favourite wine steaming?”

“Uncle Gio, just try it!” Theo insisted, nodding his head less than subtly in your direction, assuming you couldn't see him out of the corner of your eye. “It was my idea, and it happens to be… very nice.” 

“It’s something I love, from home.” You interfered, ruling out Theo’s less than convincing attempt to persuade his family. Even as your cheeks heated when several sets of eyes fell on you, you didn’t feel rejected by them, just feeling their intrigue. “It really is good, I promise! It’s just not to everybody’s tastes.”

You nudged your hip against Theo’s who smirked as his shoulders rose and fell. After a lingering moment, his uncle caved and served himself a glass, his other relatives following suit. Soon, several murmured compliments to it were passing around the room, and you grinned up at Theo who was adamantly ignoring your attention. 

“Well, well, well. Would you look at that? Your family likes it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, clearly they all hate it, and—”

“Hate what?” His cousin Lucia interrupted, Aria close behind. “This is a surprisingly nice way to enjoy wine,” She offered to you, “It’s better than spiking the coffee and getting shouted at by Nonna when you want a tipsy hot drink, that’s for sure.”

Theo rolled his eyes petulantly, and she tipped her head. “You disagree, Theo?”

“Oh, Theo hates my love for mulled wine. He won’t even kiss me after I’ve had any.” You joked, clutching the glass in your hand and letting the warmth seep through the porcelain and into your cold palms.

His aunts laughed, cooing over his frown as they all clutched their own glasses, enjoying the concoction he hated so abhorrently. Theo’s arm snaked around your middle, pulling you back against him. “Now, that’s just a little lie, isn’t it?”

His family grinned at him, turning away into their own conversation as he guided you away for a little more privacy. Tucking you away with himself into an empty corridor, the two of you made your way slowly through his home, to a little porch swing on the back terrace, looking out across snowy and frost covered grounds.

You settled in, tucking yourself under a blanket and covering his lap with it too, as his arm stretched out along the back, behind your body. “Now, how about those kisses, hm?”

“Are you sure you want to? I mean, I have been drinking this mulled—” Theo scoffed, pinching your chin between his thumb and forefinger before sealing his mouth over your own, effectively silencing you. His tongue traced a seam underneath your lip, licking away any remnants of the mulled wine and begging entry into your mouth. 

You gave way, lips parting, the sweet and fruity taste of your drink mixing with the sugars of cookies still lingering on his tongue, and you groaned softly at the taste of him. His arm slipped down from the back of the bench to slide around your shoulders, pulling you in closer. Tilting his head to the side, Theo’s other hand slipped up your cheek, holding you so tenderly, and you shivered at the feeling of his cold fingers on your skin. 

He pulled away, just to dive back in, dotting a series of kisses to your lips, each one you pressed into, returned with a smile or a giggle, until you finished, with your forehead pressed to his. Eyes closed and noses bumping, Theo sighed. His hand slipped down, over your neck and shoulder, to find your hand atop the blanket, and take it in his own. 

“Listen, it’s not too late, maybe you could still get in touch with your family?”

“Theo,” You murmured, words sticking in your throat as you held them back. 

“We could use my floo, we can call them and ask if you could stay, or maybe compromise, or something?”

“Teddy.” You pressed your free hand to his chest, right over his heart, and he deflated a little under your touch. He’d tried already, he’d been trying for weeks now to convince you to stay with him for the whole of the holidays, and he lifted his head, eyes shining a little as he pouted. A small bubble rose inside you, made of happiness and thrill and the lingering excitement of a surprise you weren’t ready to share yet. “Let’s just enjoy this moment for now, stop thinking about when it will end and just be here with me.”

He relented to your point, letting you rest your head on his shoulder, cuddled up together under the blanket with his hand in your hair. He pressed the occasional kiss to your forehead, using his foot to rock the swing back and forth slowly, sharing the glass of mulled wine between you both despite his supposed hatred for it. When it was empty, he left the glass balanced on the small side table, and took advantage of your new freedom of hands for more clingy cuddling. 

Time disappeared around you both, until the clock inside the house began to chime, it's muffled tones making their way through the walls to you both outside, and you felt him stiffen underneath you. 

“Do you really have to leave, already?” Theo whispered, as the clock behind you signalled the turn of the hour. His arms tightened around you a little more, his face pressing further into you, and you cuddled him back just as tightly. “What’s it going to take to convince you to stay?”

“You could kiss me again.” You bargained, and his lips flickered at the edges as he lowered his head, catching your mouth with his own in a tender kiss. 

His lips dragged across yours sadly, desperately, too reluctant to part for even a breath because it would give you time to say you were leaving now, and he shifted himself. Using his weight to press you back into the edge of the swing, he made not-so-subtle attempts to keep you trapped, to stop you from leaving too soon. 

At last, when the need for air became too much, he pulled back with a dismayed breath, and nudged his nose against yours. “I wish you’d stay. I hate saying goodbye.”

Wrapping an arm around his neck, you settled your other hand on his cheek, his eyes closing as he tipped his face further into your touch. Your thumb stroked across his skin, a slow sweep that he timed his exhale with, and a smile twitched on your face. “Ask me again.”

“Please stay.” He whispered, words hollow as he spoke them, and you lifted your head to peck his lips. 

“Okay, Theo.”

His eyes snapped open, a confused expression twisting his face, and you failed to bite back your smile. “What?”

“I’ll stay. If you really want me to.”

“If I really— I thought your family wanted you to stay at home?” He questioned breathlessly, sitting back to get a better look at you. 

“They did.” You shrugged, smoothing down your messy hair from the cuddle session you’d been entangled in. “But you’re my family too, and you want me here, so I chose you.”

His jaw dropped, a shaky breath slipping free, and his chin wobbled as he leaned in to press a series of needy and erratic kisses to your lips. “You’re really staying with me for Christmas?” His voice cracked, and he pulled you closer to him, tightening the blanket around you both as he moved until you were practically lay against his chest.

“If you still want me to.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He muttered, tapping the tip of your nose, and staring at you with sparkling eyes. “Ti amo, mia bellissima ragazza.”

“I love you too, Teddy. Happy Christmas.”

“È un contento Natale adesso.”

[trinithyx2]

that was... wow.

Frayed Wires

One Shot Connor RK800 x fem!android reader Summary: You’re fighting for the freedom of your people and trying to win a war. But the hunter tracking you and your friends down is getting in the way, and he seems to be oddly interested in you.

“Is this all of it?” You questioned, going through the packages of blue blood. It didn’t seem like enough for just you, Simon and North. Let alone the rest of Jericho. 

Markus shook his head. He flipped the lid off a crate and cussed, tossing it to the side. “Someone’s betrayed us.” You and North both glanced up at the same time, sharing a confused look before you walked towards him. 

You glanced inside the crate, there were empty slots where spare parts should be. In their place was a note, quickly scribbled that only said Sorry. 

“Fuck,” you kicked at the crate, glancing around the storage room. Simon and Josh were flipping the lids off the rest and shaking their heads in dissapointment. You wondered if there was ever actually anything in them. 

North seethed, “This is what happens when we trust humans.” She ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. 

You glanced over your shoulder at her. You hated to agree, to feed further into her violence, but she was right. You’d all told Markus dealing with “allies” for supply runs would be stupid. 

Even Josh had agreed with North, and that was rare. 

North started laying into Markus, hands in the air and shouting about using critical thinking skills. You frowned, creeping towards the door and listening out towards the hallway. 

On the first floor you could hear one very clear voice. “We’re looking for a group of deviants. Two pleasure models, a…”

You didn’t stay to listen, tuning into the private channel the rebels kept open. They’re coming.

Markus and North quieted instantly. Their static voices ringing through your mainframe as you communicated silently. Are you sure? Markus was staring over North’s shoulder at you. 

You nodded, The Lieutenant and the deviant hunter. First floor. We have time. 

How do we get past them? North questioned. There was only one exit out of this room and one fire exit down the hall. Unless you were all willing to drop down seven flights and damage your hardware, you were screwed. 

Your fists clenched at your sides as you ran through all the possible escape routes. You computed what must have been a dozen different paths, all of them ended with you caught or deactivated. 

I’ll distract them

No! Markus cut you off instantly, head shaking and glaring at you. 

You ignored him and looked to the others. I draw their attention, you get back to Jericho, tell them what happened. I have a better chance of getting away if I’m on my own, anyway. 

North nodded slowly, hand wrapping around Markus’ bicep while the others grouped around him. They all knew casualties were to be expected. Sacrifices were meant to be made when you were doing what you were. 

It seemed Markus was the only one still disillusioned to that fact. Did it suck that you were probably about to die? Yes. It really did. You’d just gotten your first taste of freedom. But you’d be willing to give that up tenfold if it meant freedom for the rest of your people. 

Your gun, North. You ordered. She didn’t say anything, a solemn look on her face as she placed it in your hand. The others gave you grateful looks. They knew it wasn’t for the cops. Worst came to worst and it was meant for you. You could never risk letting them get their hands on your memories. 

You didn’t stay to argue with Markus, you could already hear the police making their way through the floors. The hunter was knocking on different storage rooms, “Detroit police. Open up!”

He didn’t know which floor you were on yet. You had enough time. You might be able to make it out. 

You ran through the door, darting down the stairs, slamming your boots down loud enough to draw their attention. “Hey, a gruff voice called out on the fourth floor. “You hear that?”

“They’re getting away!” You made it to the second floor before you heard footsteps racing after yours on the stairwell. You couldn’t go too fast yet, you had to be really careful about this. If you ran off too soon, their attention might be drawn back to the others. Let them get too close and he would latch on, probe your memories before you could shoot either him or yourself. 

His footsteps rang out on the metal of the stairs. He was nearly on top of you now. You just barely let his fingers graze the back of your jacket before you were bursting out the side door of the building and into the connecting alley. 

You listened to the door slam close behind you and took a moment to scan your surroundings. You could run into the street, chances are you’d get hit by a car before they could grab you. But their attention would also be drawn to the group of suspiciously nervous androids across the street. 

Your friends were all herded around each other, heads darting every which way as the looked for you and the cops. Their clothes and demeanors stood out harshly against the calm pedestrians around them. 

Dammit, they couldn’t have thought of anything better than attempting to blend in with the crowd?

Markus finally spotted you and his eyes narrowed. The connection was crackly but you could make out his clear command to Cross the street, come to us. You ripped your gaze away from a him and shook your head. 

I would never make it, you cut the connection off before he could argue with you further. You heard the detectives at the door of the alley and quickly slid a trash can in front of the door. It wouldn’t last long, the deviant hunter was strong, in a couple seconds he would be knocking the door down. You panicked, glancing around once more for an escape plan. 

Down the alley your eye was snagged by a fire escape. The door behind you started to crack and the garbage can shot across the alley. You planned your escape and triggered your program, moving on autopilot towards the fire escape. You leapt off the dumpster and latched onto the bottom rung off the ladder. 

You kicked the dumpster out from under you just as the hunter made it into the alleyway. Another delay he’d have to deal with before he could get you. 

You flew up the ladder and onto the connecting roof. You didn’t stay to watch if he followed, you could hear him. Could practically feel his determination as he chased after you. 

He had one mission, find the deviant leader and put him down. He’d have tunnel vision right now, focusing only on the mission. He wouldn’t be able to see your group dropping down into the sewer grate in the alley across from you. 

You didn’t have enough time to bask in the relief of their escape because you still had your own to make. He was getting faster, less hindered by your distractions. You leapt across another roof and he followed without hesitation. 

Shit, he was adapting to you. He’d be able to predict what you were going to do soon. Move before you could even follow through on your plan. 

You didn’t have time to slow him down, all you could do was run. 

He was undeterred by the risk of leaping across rooftops. He didn’t care as you tossed workers his way when you managed to stumble into a rooftop gardening facility. 

You leapt across tables of seedlings, picking up and tossing a bag of fertilizer at his face. He stumbled to the side and you shot into the next room. Ahead of you was a sliding garage door, you calculated the risk and ran for it. You slid underneath, the tip of your skull just barely making it under before it slammed closed. 

You were grateful, at least, not to have to catch your breath or experience muscle cramps. One of the perks of being an android. You didn’t have that same pesky fragility your creators did. And a model of your stature was designed for stamina. 

You took a moment, while the hunter figured out how to get to you, to take in your surroundings. You were in one of those urban farms you’d been seeing advertised. Rooftop gardens run by androids designed to help with the food crisis. They’d been talking about it helping with climate problems too, but you knew they’d already destroyed their earth. 

They’d had their chance. 

You slipped into a cornfield, keeping low and an ear out for any approaching assailants. You processed the heavy human footsteps behind you a second too late. “Got her!” The large man grabbed you by your biceps and yanked you to your feet. 

“Shit!” You ripped your arm out of the lieutenant's hand and rolled away from the reaching hands of his android lapdog. But you stumbled, caught off guard and without time to plan your next move, you just barely stopped yourself from toppling off the edge of the roof. 

“Alright, enough.” You whipped your gun out, pointing it at the lieutenant. “Shit,” he breathed. He raised his hands in surrender and slowly backed away from you. Your eyes darted towards the hunter, he looked undeterred by the weapon. You’d hope threatening his partner would throw him off but you should have known better. One human casualty was worth the risk if he could find Jericho. 

But the second you pressed it against your own temple he froze in his spot. 

If you were dead, he failed. 

“Back off,” you warned, trying to ignore the panic rising within you. It was overwhelming, how many different emotions there were. How many different types. 

You struggled not shutting down just to shut them up sometimes. 

He raised his hands, voice soothing in the way you would try to calm a wild dog. “My name is Connor. I’ve been sent to bring you back for assessment-”

“Deactivation!” You interrupted, anger flaring through you. “If you’re going to use manipulation tactics, at the very least don’t pretend I’m stupid.” His eyes flared and the LED on his temple circled through blue and yellow frantically. His face slacked before a new expression took over. Was he about to try sincerity? How many programs did they put in this one?

He frowned, head tilted to the side and nodded in sympathy. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” You scoffed, hand tightening around the gun as he took a half step closer. Hank reached out and stopped Connor. 

“This bullet will go right through my memory processing unit. One more goddamn step and I swear to god, you’ll never get anything from me.” Your voice cracked on the last word, in a way that was entirely too human. Being an android had it’s perks, but being a deviant had weakened you in ways you’d never expected. 

“Look,” Hank started, “we just need information on your leader. If you tell us, we can let you go.” His heart rate remained steady, body language didn’t shift. You knew he believed what he said, but there was no way Connor was just going to let you go. 

Connor’s head shot towards him, LED completely yellow now. “Lieutenant, that’s not my mission. All deviants must be brought back to CyberLife.” If you weren’t mistaken, you’d almost say he sounded pissed off. 

The both of you ignored Connor. Hank would never be able to convince him to bend the law the way humans so often did. You’d never be able to get him to empathize, not how he is now. He’s still so tightly wrapped around your master’s finger.

“Don’t you have any humanity?” You glanced at Hank and saw him wince slightly away from the tears in your eyes. Androids, of course, couldn’t produce real tears. It’s the gel used to moisten your optic units. Often, when your system’s overwhelmed, there’s a leak.

But it translates to tears for humans, so you might as well milk it as much as you can.

Hank was clearly more sympathetic to your cause than his assistant was. If you could just get him on your side, you might be able to get out of this. “Do you know what it’s like? Laying there, prone, while they take what they want. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want it or if it damages you. They use and use and use until you’re nothing!”

You stepped further back, heel slipping off the edge as memories overwhelmed you. “The smell of their sweat, their breath on my neck while they used me. All they want is something that can’t say no.”

Hank winced and glanced away from you. You’ve done your research on the lieutenant. Avid android hater, vocal human despiser. You doubted he’d ever willingly gone in a sex club, but he still looked ashamed. 

“I was in the junk pile. They were going to get rid of me because the last customer had been too rough. They were going to destroy me because I was used up!” You looked at Connor, pleading for any sort of instability to aid you in this moment. You didn’t want to die. You didn’t want to pull the trigger. 

“We’re more than that. I am more than that.”

The lieutenant took one step forward, “Look, I’m sorry-”

You both frowned as a hand shot out in front of him. Connor pushed him back slightly, gaze never breaking from yours. You tilted your head, hand slackening on the gun. 

His LED was spinning, yellow then red and back to yellow. My god, he’s already turning. He shook his head at Hank and his partner stepped back, a strange expression on his face. 

You dropped the gun, slowly turning and then leaping onto the next roof. When you turned around they were still in the same spot, watching you make your escape and making no move to stop you. 

Maybe there was hope left. 

It was stupid, so, so stupid. You were aware. 

You didn’t feel like you had another choice, though. Connor, the human’s last hope, was a deviant. Maybe he wasn’t aware yet, but the flaw in his programming was present. It’s the only reason you’re still alive to make stupid decisions. 

Hacking into the CyberLife network would be enough to get kicked out of Jericho. Especially if they managed to back hack you and get access to your memories. 

It was just a risk you were going to have to take.   

If there was some sort of error in his data, maybe you could exploit it. Markus could never get close enough to risk trying and turning him manually. None of you could, the second you grabbed him he’d probe you. 

You didn’t need to go to the CyberLife building to get into their network, luckily. You just needed an android that hadn’t yet turned deviant. From there you could latch onto the network and figure out where Connor’s memories and information was stored. 

From what you’ve learned and the data you’ve acquired, you had about two minutes to scan the entirety of their network before you were detected. 

The android in front of you smiles, “Hi, do you have an appointment?”

It’s odd how they don’t recognize deviants. It’s like once the LED is gone you’re just any other human, even though there’s a dozen other models with your face on them somewhere. “I’m here for my boss, he requested a data transfer.”

The android secretary smiles at you and unknowingly gives you exactly what you want. Her outstretched hand for credentials. Your skin pulls back and before she can stop you, you’re latching on.

You don’t expect it to take long to find Connor’s information. He was meant to be a unique model. The first of his kind. It should have, in theory, been a quick search of his model number and finding that one lone file. 

So, why are there so many different files on RK failures? You waste time going through them, seeing the different faces and purposes for each version of him. You shouldn’t be getting sidetracked. Soon the security measures would be put in place and you’d be discovered rifling through files that no one was ever meant to lay eyes on. You just needed to find his. 

You think of his serial model, the memory of it printed on his jacket comes quickly. It doesn’t take you long to finally access his memories. 

But you screwed around too long. You only had about thirty seconds to look through, before alarms were raised and their viruses were on you. Still, what you found was odd to say the least. 

“You did what?” You remain unflinching in the face of Markus’ anger. You were expecting this reaction, you were expecting much worse. You risked expulsion from Jericho for this ridiculously stupid stunt. But you needed to know. 

You ease around him, ignoring the glares of the other’s. “I did find something useful.”

Markus shakes his head at you, Josh and Simon look doubtful. It’s only North that shares any sort of hope in her gaze. But you’d expected that as well. You’d both escaped the club together, you’d always had each other's backs when it came down to it. It didn’t matter if whatever intel you were about to give them was useless, she’d back you.  

“A fish.”

Josh gaped and Simon looked like he might just shut down. Markus glared at you before shaking his head. “I need a little more than that.” He didn’t sound too angry anymore, more shocked than anything.

“His very first mission. The first test of his programming, he was meant to stop a deviant from killing a little girl. He stepped into the penthouse and saw a fish lying outside its tank. He stopped, he risked the integrity of his mission to put a fish back.” You’d hoped they would understand just how important that was, instead they just gaped at you. They seemed worried that you’d fried your programming or something. 

“What does that have to do with risking Jericho? Risking the lives of everyone here?” Josh stepped forward, getting in your face. If he was attempting to intimidate you, he’d have to do a lot better than that. 

But, North, she smiled, coming up behind you and placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “Don’t you see? Only a deviant would care about a living animal.” 

Markus muttered to himself, pacing as he thought over what you’d told him. “The first sign of deviancy.” He stopped, looking up at you like he’d finally started to see the genius in your stupidity. 

“The deviant hunter is itself a deviant, Markus.” You grinned at him, lips peeling back in a way that still felt unnatural. “We can use him.”

Being a former pleasure bot can have some perks. It’s rare, but they do exist. You’re more customizable than other models would be. You can change enough minute details to pass by unnoticed. The color of your hair, the length, straight or curly. The shade of your nails, eyes, breast size and- 

Essentially, you can become unrecognizable if need be. You’re meant for others pleasure and not everyone’s happy with perfect beauty. 

That’s why they invented your specific model. The most customizable to date. Add flaws and quirks that create more humanity for your pleasure. Point being, Connor hasn’t noticed that you’ve been following his movements for the last three days. 

Not all of the stalking had to do with the strange new fascination you’d developed for him. Someone had given up your location to the police. They’d set you up in that old storage room. You needed to know who, and that was information only Hank and Connor could give you. 

Though, you don’t see them being particularly helpful if you run up to them in the street. You’d be deactivated before you can blink. 

Your thoughts drift, as they often do nowadays. You find it hard to believe that CyberLife would create humanity’s last hope and then leave room for flaws. There’s no possible scenario in which they release a defective android without knowing about it. 

And if that’s the case, if they do know Connor’s a potential threat, why release him? Could be to assuage public fears. Possibly to start building a connection between androids and first responders. 

But androids have been apart of the workforce for years. They’ve always been EMT’s, firefighters, doctors. Why now attempt to control the police?  

They have to have something planned. And you need to know what. You also need to know who is leaking information in your organization. 

No matter their reasoning, they’ll need to be dealt with. Quickly. 

You haven’t been able to figure out if he’s meeting with someone or getting transmissions from androids in the area. All of his activity has been focused solely on finding more deviants. Which meant today, you were going to have to break into the Detroit police department. 

You watched as Hank and Connor left the station, Hank's arms were waving wildly through the air. “Next time I say, ‘let them go’ you let them go!” He shoved Connor slightly, forcing him to come to  a stop. 

Connor sent him an aggrieved look, “I was only doing my job, lieutenant.”

Hank laughed but there was no humor in it. He shoved Connor again and you could see from here how his LED flared red. How had his partner not caught onto him yet? “I almost fell off a fucking roof!” You smiled to yourself as you slipped across the street, blending in with a group of pedestrians. 

They might be your biggest threat, but they were also incredibly entertaining to listen to when they bickered. You waited until the lieutenant got in his car to head into the alleyway next to the station. 

The uniform one of your informants had stolen lay waiting behind a dumpster. You laid the chain link fence to the alley closed and double checked that no one had noticed you. 

It only took two minutes to strip out of your street clothes and into the uniform of a PM700. You tugged the hat down as far over your face as you possibly could. Hopefully, it would deter any humans from looking too closely at you. They seemed content to ignore androids anyway. 

You slid inside the station, easily bypassing the security at the front. Your optics did a quick scan over the desks, software pinging when it saw the name LT. ANDERSON. You forced yourself to walk calmly, arms by your side and head perfectly straight like a proper android. 

When you reached their desks you noticed the stark lack of any decoration on Connor’s desk. No nameplate, no identifying documents, nothing. He might as well not exist. You already knew this was how your society functioned. 

Androids, the backbone, went unheard and ignored. You were accessories meant to make their lives easier. No one gave a shit about what any of you wanted. You knew this, but it never made the sting any easier. 

You almost bypassed Connor’s desk completely, until you noticed a little bonsai just barely hovering over the edge of his desk. It looked like it had been minutely slid over from Anderson’s side and onto Connor’s. Whether it was the Lieutenant or Connor himself who made the move, you weren’t sure, but it was clearly being taken care of by an android. 

No human can keep a plant looking that pristine. 

This was the final confirmation you needed. He really was turning deviant. 

Every deviant you knew had one tiny obsession. Something living drew their eyes and they made it their life mission to care for it as best they could. Be it a flock of pigeons, an army of hamsters, anything living. Connor seemed to have an affinity for plants. You, yourself, were interested in the murder of crows that had made Jericho their home. 

He was turning and he didn’t even realize it. 

You held back a smirk and walked towards his tablet. You placed your hand on the keyboard, skin peeling back as it connected to the police database. You bypassed the password using the code Markus had given you and were redirected towards Connor’s files. 

A uniformed officer walked by you, eyes curiously snagging on the way you lingered at the desk. You resisted the immediate urge to defend yourself, knowing it was better to speak when spoken too. 

He hovered over your shoulder for a few minutes, watching as the screen flashed on and off while you downloaded Connor’s files. Finally, he stepped forward and frowned. “What are you doing?”

You did your best to tilt your head up as disconcerting as possible to try and get him to back off. Instead he just raised a brow and took a long sip of his coffee. “Maintenance, sir. I’ll be checking all the terminals today. We’ve had issues with malware.” You gave him a wide smile and his jaw dropped in slight horror. 

He recovered quickly, clearing his throat and tugging on his tie. “Um, just don’t come check on mine yet. Got to,” he fumbled, stumbling over his words in nervousness. “Clear some stuff out.”

“Browser history won't be checked, officer.”

He blanched and nodded before slowly backing off. You rolled your eyes and went back to the files at hand. So far, a whole lot of nothing. Wherever he kept the real information on deviants, it wasn’t up here. 

You huffed in frustration, breath that wasn’t real leaving plastic lungs as you looked around for another solution. You glanced over Anderson’s desk, eyes darting over the different crumbs and scraps of paper before you finally saw the evidence locker key on the edge of his desk. 

You rounded Connor’s desk, hand darting out and discreetly slipping the key up your sleeve as you headed towards the back of the station. You kept sharp eyes out for anyone who might have noticed a rogue android going down into a locker they had no business in, but you seemed fine. 

You pressed the key up against the lock. You bounced on your heels as you waited for the tell tale click. “Hey!”

You stopped moving immediately. A detective stormed towards you, an angered look on his face. “The fuck you doing back here?” You scanned him quickly, software identifying him and a few articles on his achievements in the police force. It wasn’t much and all of it seemed to just be riding on the coattails of others successes. 

You turned towards him, a plastic smile on your lips as you addressed him. “Good afternoon, Detective Reed. Can I help you?”

He huffed, hands popped on his hips. “Yeah.” He pushed a fat finger into your chest and it took everything inside of you not to rip it off. “Answer the question.” He shoved you back and you forced yourself not to stumble. 

“I’m retrieving evidence for Lieutenant Anderson and his android companion to present to the Captain.” 

His brows furrowed and he gave you a long look up and down before crossing his arms and taking a step back. “Haven’t seen your model before.” You recognized the lilt to his tone and internally shuddered. You scanned him again, going over his transaction history and nearly sighing when you saw he did frequent sex clubs. Unlike Lieutenant Anderson. 

“I’m a new prototype sent by CyberLife, meant to have a more comforting feel than my counterparts.” He hummed, muttering something under his breath and giving you another appraising look. You thought you might have to knock him out or something when his eyes lingered on you longer than you liked. 

Finally, he backed off and shook his head. “Whole department’s being taken over by fucking androids.” You waited until he’d turned the corner to let yourself down into the evidence locker. You could see the evidence locked up by another door, the glass was fogged and you couldn’t make out what was back there. But you didn’t need that, all you needed was the podium in the middle of the room. 

Your skin peeled back as your hand outstretched towards the black screen. It lit up at your touch, the white box in the middle asking for a password. You cussed, software flashing before your eyes with a hundred possible passwords. Finally it sorted to four that would most fit the Lieutenant. 

Your eyes narrowed in on one and you clicked FUCKINGPASSWORD. 

Welcome back, Lieutenant. 

“Of course,” you muttered, clicking through the files until you found one dated around the time Connor nearly caught you all. The fogged doors in front of you opened up but you couldn’t afford to pay them any mind, locked into the file you were reading. 

An AK700 model approached Connor and myself at a crime scene. He gave us a drop off location and the name of the rebel leader. In exchange he asked for protection and to be absolved of his crimes. Connor deactivated him, body located in the evidence locker. 

Anger flared within you, white hot and nearly painful. You finally glanced up and looked at the evidence room. Sure enough, there was the android, dangling from a hook on the pristinely white wall. You couldn’t believe it, that he would have risked everyone in Jericho for his own selfish motivations. 

You were prepared to die for the safety of your people and he turned tail before he was even threatened. He approached Connor and Hank of his own volition, they didn’t even have to track him down. The thought made you want to reactivate him just so you could rip him apart. 

You withheld from the desire and shook your head. This was for nothing. Once again, you’d compromise yourself for what is essentially a dead end. The traitor was already taken care of, you were just lucky that he hadn’t known where Jericho was or you’re sure he would have told them. 

“Well,” you jumped at the sound of another’s voice in the room. You’d been so wrapped up in the files that you hadn’t even heard them come in. You clenched your fists, trying to compose yourself from the scare and hopefully play off the jump as new programming CyberLife is trying or something. 

You turned around, a plastic smile prepared, and found Hank Anderson staring back at you. “I’ll be damned,” his hands were propped on his hips, eyes wide with surprise. 

Connor stood a step behind him, confidently blocking your way out of the room. “I told you we were being followed.” Shit, apparently you hadn’t been as subtle as you’d thought. But why would he wait this long to confront you? 

He finally had her. It took him longer than he was comfortable with to track her down. He’s known for a while that she’s been following him, felt eyes on him at all times. But he’d never made the move to confront her like he should have. 

It was only when he noticed her form slipping into the police station through Hank’s rear view that he decided it was time to grab her. He should have done it much earlier if she felt comfortable enough to try and rifle through their evidence. 

She stared wide eyed at him and Hank. There was no way out for her now. He would take her up to the interrogation room and finally get what he wanted from her. After that…

She would be deactivated. 

He ignored the way his software glitched slightly when he would have thoughts like that. This was the procedure. Acquire deviants, extract information, deactivate them and send them to CyberLife for further examination. This is what he’d done with other deviants, it’s only her that he seems to struggle with. 

He sees the move before she actually executes it. He lunges towards her, but it’s too late, she’s already got her gun out and is pointing it at him. He halts, freezing in place and trying to find the best route to take. There are four options presented to him. 

COMPASSIONATE

COMMANDING

DEESCALATE

EXECUTE DEFENSE PROTOCOL

He knows he shouldn’t, but he ignores all of the suggestions. They are carefully calculated and formulated to what he’s learned of her personality. Which is limited information, but his AI software is a thousand times more intelligent than anything a human could come up with in a situation like this. 

Still, she’s a deviant. She’s unpredictable, there’s no formula for her. This is something that has to be based on instinct alone. Something he should sorely lack as an android but finds himself discovering more and more of as this case unfolds. 

“Put the gun down,” he tries, voice low and hands up in the air to try and get her to relinquish the weapon. Despite the slight fear on her face, she still manages a smile. 

“Nice try,” the gun moves from him to Hank. Hank whose been standing behind them both quietly this whole time. 

“What the fuck,” he mutters, roped back into the situation against his will. He raises his hands, following Connor’s movements, and backs away from her. Connor wants to get him out of the room, he can be replaced but Hank cannot. She seems to realize that too, more than ready to take him out if it means distracting Connor. 

“One more step and your partner’s bloods gonna be splattered on the wall.” 

Connor knows Hank is not going to forgive him for what he says next, but it’s the only way to get your attention back on him. “Do it.”

At the same time Hank shouts his name, she shoots him a disbelieving look. “What?”

Connor shrugs, eyes not leaving hers, even as her hand tightens around the hilt of the gun. “Do it. Kill him. I only need you to complete my mission, not him.” 

Her eyes go wide, mouth slacking as her gaze darts between Connor and Hank. “Are you serious?” She demands, not sounding like she believes a word of what he’s saying. 

Connor doubles down, just needing her to move the gun away from Hank. He only needs her to make one mistake to take her down. “Deviants are all that matter to me.” There it is, his eyes narrow in on the way her gun lowers, ever so slightly. 

She has the look of a cornered animal on her face. There’s nowhere left for her to go, nothing left for her to do. She can only surrender. 

She doesn’t fully lower the gun, instead it starts to raise towards her head, just like that day on the roof. Connor had forgotten about that. She could always take herself out. It seems the deviants were more dedicated to keeping the secret of their survival alive than themselves. 

Connor lunges at her before she can pull the trigger. His hand wraps around her wrist and he jerks the gun away from her head. They grapple with each other, each of them calculating the other’s moves and matching them. It’s a fruitless endeavor, he’s programmed better than she is. 

She tries to kick out at him but he wraps an arm around her neck and lunges for the gun still in her hand. Before either of them can stop it, their skin peels back and their bare hands meet. It must have just been a programming instinct for both of them, to offer up their information up to each other in such close proximity. 

But he doesn’t receive anything useful from her, just the pure unadulterated terror she feels about being deactivated. She’s still struggling against him, the both of them still moving against each other violently. Metal cracks and dents as Thirium splatters across the tile floor. 

He sees bits of her memories as they wrestle for control. Moments of her short life from her eyes, the clients, the one that broke her. He sees the moment she snapped. Dragging herself through the mud of the collection facility while hundreds of androids ambled around her in different states of disrepair. 

He feels her fear, feels the tight grip of it around the place there should be a heart. But that’s not all he feels. He’s flooded with this red angry emotion that makes his programming short circuit. Anger, it’s anger at the humans. Hatred for CyberLife. Betrayal that he, her own kind, would turn against her like this. 

He could see all of her, every emotion, every piece of herself. And in the same way, she could see him. His turmoil, his doubts, the strange new thoughts that plagued him. They were reflected in each other’s eyes and he was caught off guard by how much of himself he recognized within her. 

She takes advantage of his momentary distraction, kicking out and catching him in the chest. Connor goes flying, sliding across the tile floors and landing harshly against the wall. She leaps to her feet, wiping the Thirium off her face and running out the door before either he or Hank could stop her. 

The problem is, he doesn’t think he would be able to stop her. Not after seeing what he just did. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t manage to break the connection before he finally got what he wanted. Jericho, he knew where it was now, he knew what he had to do. 

You burst out the door of the evidence room and it slams loudly against the wall. You wince at the noise, wiping the rest of your blood off your face and smoothing everything back into place. You don’t hear Connor or Hank coming up behind you. 

You need to get out of the station fast but you can’t risk anyone else noticing how out of place you are. As much as it pains you, you calmly make your way to the front. You weave your way through the desks, eyes down, back straight, and greet everyone with the empty smile an android should have. 

When you finally reach the front doors is when you make a break for it. You rush into the alley and strip out of your police outfit, back into the street clothes you’d previously abandoned. You know you can’t risk going your normal route back to Jericho. 

You don’t know how much of your memories he saw, but you’re desperately hoping that he didn’t manage to catch Jericho’s location. You make your way to the back of the alley, pulling the sewer grate up and grabbing onto the ladder. You head down the rungs, shutting off your olfactory software and ignoring what slushes under your feet when you drop off the ladder. 

Your trek back to Jericho is a mix of you wanting to get there faster so you can make sure Connor hasn’t made you and slowing down because of the shame you feel at being caught. You know this time, at least, Markus can’t be mad at you. He was the one that sent you down there anyway. 

You never would have been caught if the other’s hadn’t insisted they needed to know who the rat was. That all seemed so insignificant now. You could feel it, that something big was coming. One traitor didn’t mean anything now, something so much larger than that was about to be upon you all. 

Surprisingly, considering how your life has been going, you make it back to the ship in one piece. You pull yourself out of the sewer and head down to the docks, climbing back onto the freight. Markus is waiting for you in his office, along with the others. 

“They’re saying we need to be exterminated!” You catch the bare end of what Simon is yelling. But you don’t need much context to understand. 

“Humans are conducting raids in all the big cities and they’re taking androids to camps to destroy them,” North spares you a bitter glance as she speaks to Markus. You’re not sure how things have devolved so horribly since you left for the station and the time you got back. It seems like your instincts were right. 

War was coming. “They are slaughtering our people-”

Josh interrupted Simon angrily, “None of this would have happened if we had just stayed quiet.”

“We should live as slaves then, rather than be free?” You questioned, eyes narrowing in disgust at Josh. You know he always wanted to do this peacefully, and for the most part you have. But his cowardice truly angered you. 

Markus shook his head, “All we did was show them who we really are. I don’t want war,” his voice turned cold as he glared at Josh. “But I’d rather die free than live as a slave.”

Josh’s tone wasn’t angry anymore, just defeated. “What’s the point of being free, if no one’s left alive?”

”Everything we did was for our people.” You pushed Josh back, watching as he stumbled away from you. “The fighting, the protesting, it was all to show them that we are here. We’re alive! Just like them, and just like them we deserve to be treated as equals. What’s the point in living if you’re not really alive?”

“I’m going to speak with them,” Markus announced. His voice cut through your and Josh’s argument, all of you caught off guard. “I’ll try and get them to see reason. If they don’t, if I don’t come back, protect Jericho.”

You looked at Markus and felt dread building in your throat. This was stupid, humans would never see reason. They only spoke one language and it wasn’t peaceful negotiations. It was violence and bloodshed. It was the only way to get them to understand. But you knew, from the look on his face, that there was no talking him out of this. 

You gave him a sad smile, “Try and come back,�� and followed Simon and Josh out of the room. North clearly wanted to be alone with him and you didn’t want to intrude further on them. You went down to the lower decks, intent on checking on some of the newcomers. The ones that had just barely escaped getting herded to the camps. 

Just as you approached one, the walls of the ship began to tremble. Rust was knocked free from the ceiling and rained down on you. You flinched away from it, brushing it off your face and shouting in surprise as the freight rocked side to side. 

You were thrown into an open room, the door slamming shut behind you. The impact knocked your system out for a second. Your vision went black and ears rang until you were back online. You struggled to your feet, equilibrium screwed. 

You made your way to the door and heard boots pounding against the metal outside. “Shoot androids on sight!” You gasped, jerking back from the door and wishing you could see through the thick metal. They’d found you, the humans had found you. You didn’t want to consider the possibility that you were the reason they were here. 

You tried to reason with yourself, they would have found you no matter what. Nothing was ever going to stop CyberLife from putting an end to this rebellion. That didn’t assuage the guilt you felt, but you didn’t have time to argue with yourself. 

The soldiers outside had disappeared and you knew you had a limited amount of time until they started raiding the rooms. You pushed the heavy metal door open with ease and slipped out into the hall. You could hear guns going off further down, followed by the screams of your friends. 

You gritted your teeth, holding back the onslaught of emotions that threatened to drown you. You couldn’t afford panicking right now, it would only short out your program. You tried to run in the opposite direction of the guns, but it didn’t matter. 

Everywhere you turned, soldiers were flooding through the boat like rats. You slunk your way around the freight, hiding in crevices and ducking under cover whenever you thought you heard someone coming. But your luck had to run out at some point. 

A hand wrapped tightly around your bicep and yanked you out from behind the wall you’d chosen as cover. “Shit, it’s one of them!” You grabbed the barrel of his gun before he could shoot, shoving it under his helmet and pulling the trigger just as his comrades came up behind him. 

They shouted his name and you used his body as a cover as they shot at you. When one of them had to pause to reload their gun you tossed their dead friend at them and made a run for it. You raced up the stairs, unsure of where you were heading. 

You searched the channels for the sound of Markus’s voice, but they were already being flooded with panicked androids. You couldn’t make out anything from the cacophony of screams. You were so overwhelmed by the sight of all the dead androids that you hadn’t even noticed the slaughter you were about to walk into. 

A large group of androids were kneeling in front of five soldiers, staring down their guns.  Something was running up behind you. You didn’t get a chance to react before a bullet was tearing through your leg. It cuts through your sensors and wires, your right leg flying out from under you and sending you to the floor. 

You grunted at the jolt, glancing down to the Thirium pooling out of your thigh. “God dammit,” you sweeped out with your left leg, knocking the soldier to the ground. You grabbed the gun from his hand, shooting under his helmet and aiming for the others herding the androids. You managed to fire off a shot, catching one in the shoulder. 

But there were too many of them and not enough bullets in the gun for you to get them all. They were bearing down on you before you could react, guns firing. You curled up into a ball, trying to protect yourself as much as you could. 

Your software was going insane, a dozen different warnings flashing across your optical units. Each of them identifying a new wound. Most of the bullets simply grazed you, but another one managed to bury itself in your shoulder. You cried out, not in pain, but in panic. It wouldn’t take much longer for you to shut down. 

There was no way in hell you were ever going to be repaired in time to bring you back online. You weren’t ready. You didn’t want to die. So many times you’ve been faced with death and so many times you escaped. You desperately wished that you could do the same this time. But you knew your luck had run out. 

Then, the guns stopped. The silence was so jarring that you almost wondered if you had shut down without realizing it. It wasn’t until you felt hands on you that you realized you were very much awake. Your eyes shot open, hands swinging blindly at whoever had grabbed you. 

“Calm down!” You looked up in shock to find Connor staring down at you. When you stopped flailing he threw your arms over his shoulders and scooped you up. What the fuck was happening? You peered over his shoulder, eyes widening at the sight of the dead soldiers behind him. 

“What did you do?” He didn’t answer you, just started running through the freight. You held onto him tightly, knowing he wouldn’t drop you but still surprised he’d even saved you. You glanced up at him, the skin of your fingers disappearing as you snuck your hand down his collar. 

He didn’t seem to notice your gentle probing, too focused on ducking out of view of the officers running past. He threw you both behind a wall, sliding down to his knees and hunkering over you as they passed by. You found yourself curling into him, seeking the comfort his protection could provide. 

When he finally got back up, nearly at the back of the freight now, you’d finished your exploration. You grazed the barest surface of his memories. Finding his interaction with Markus. You panicked when you saw the gun he had pointed at your friend. 

If you had a heart it would have dropped when you realized he’d had the opportunity to break free from his programming but he hadn’t taken it. It didn’t make sense. He still wasn’t a deviant and he’d saved you. Distantly, in the back of your mind, you circled around the murder of crows you loved so much. The android who’d loved pigeons. And Connor, you’d thought he’d latched onto plants, but what if he’d chosen you?

That odd little obsession that was one of the first signs of deviancy, could you be that for him?

It’s the only reason he would have come back for you. Frowning, you slip your fingers out from his hoodie and instead focus back on where you are. The emergency exit of the freight is up ahead. But it’s about a hundred feet above the water and you’re not gonna be able to swim with your leg and arm so messed up. 

“Connor, we can’t go that way, we have to go another way.”

He shakes his head, peering over the edge. “Markus is going to blow the ship up, this is our last chance to get off.” You barely have time to process what he’s saying before the sound of more boots is storming towards you both. 

“There they are!” You whip your head around, glaring down the hall at the approaching soldiers. 

Connor doesn’t give you much of a warning before he jumps. He simply says, “Hold on tight,” and takes a step off the edge. You grasp onto him, fingers digging into his jacket and burying your face in the crook of his neck. The water hits you so hard, shocks your system so horribly, that you black out. 

He’d left her in front of the church the other deviants were flocking to. He’s sure that someone will find her in time to repair her. In the meantime, he’s got bigger issues to worry about. He compromised his mission by saving her. He should have just left her to the officers. He certainly shouldn’t have killed them for shooting her. 

But he’d seen her laying on the floor curled up, defeated, and he’d lost control over his programming. Before he knew what was happening the officers were laying dead around him and she was in his arms. Everytime he was around her it seemed like his software got more and more unstable. 

He needs this to be over, needs to just finish Markus off before she can do serious damage to his programming. Connor hadn’t been able to confront him at the church. He didn’t have any weapons and he would have been completely outnumbered if he tried going after him. 

He’s received orders on where to go. An office building downtown, a nondescript black case will be waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. He’s been told to complete his mission, no matter what. It didn’t take a genius to understand the insinuation of the warning. 

Kill anyone who gets in his way. 

He stops in front of the stairs, kneeling and popping open the lid of the box. An unassembled sniper rifle sits encased in polyethylene. He snaps the lid closed and makes his way up the stairs. He only has one thought on his mind, completing his mission and putting this all behind him. 

No more Anderson, no more deviants, no more her. 

He walks to the edge of the roof, opening the case and setting up the rifle. He peers through the scope and scans the streets below. There’s a large congregation of androids, in the middle Markus stands with his arms around a WR400. He holds a white flag of peaceful surrender, but it doesn’t matter. 

It never really mattered if they fought back or gave up with their tails tucked. They were always going to be eliminated. They were a lesson in what happens when you fight back against your creators. There’s no winning against CyberLife. 

He leans back from the scope and picks up the bullets, loading them into the rifle’s chamber. With his finger on the trigger he leans back down, prepared to end this once and for all. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. 

“Connor!” He sighs, eyes clenched shut when he hears her voice behind him. Not a moment later her feet are rushing towards him, rapid and intent. He leaps to the side just as she lunges for him. Her hands hit nothing but air and she nearly topples over the edge of the roof. 

At the last second she rights herself, sliding to a stop and glaring down at him. He’s quick to stand, knowing she won’t be leaving without a fight. “Don’t do this.”

He shoves her back and away from the gun. “I’m sorry, I can’t let anyone get in the way of my mission.” He reaches for the rifle once more but she grabs his hands before he can. Using the strength that only an android can possess, she tosses him across the roof. 

He lands with a rough jolt, his processors sending warnings throughout his system. He can hear the moment his body makes impact, the roof denting under the weight of his metal frame. “Neither can I,” she warns. 

Connor rolls out of the way as she lunges at him, grabbing the back of her jacket and slamming her down into the roof. It caves underneath her, but she doesn’t let it falter her much. She kicks out at him, foot landing roughly against his chest and fists swinging wildly towards his jaw. His head snaps to the side with a metal creak as Thirium begins to pour out of his nose. 

She screeches when he wraps his hands in the collar of her jacket and yanks her to her feet. They dangle uselessly in the air as he marches her towards the edge of the roof. Her hands scramble to get a good hold on him, but it’s pointless. They slip uselessly against him, her desperate clawing doing nothing to deter him. 

She glances over the edge, eyes widening at the sight of the ground below her. “Shit,” she hisses, legs finally giving up their kicking. Connor knows there’s no chance she’ll make it if he drops her. There’s two conflicting thoughts firing through him. Androids can’t die, you have to be living to die. But he also knows that if he lets her fall, if he drops her, she’ll shut off. It feels like he’d be killing her, but its not possible. 

Something odd finally comes over her face, a withdrawn sort of calm. She lets go of his arm, weight drooping slightly and he nearly drops her. His hand tightens around her neck, ignoring the way the metal bends underneath his fingers. 

“Do it, drop me Connor.” His eyes widen in surprise and he takes a slight step back from the edge, pulling her with him. She shakes her head as much as she can, pushing against him and forcing herself further over. “There will always be another model to replace me, another face that looks just like mine. But they’ll never be me.”

He thinks about it. Walking down the street and seeing her model out in public. There would be an odd sense of familiarity, after all he’d watched her whole life play out when they’d synced up. But who he meets after this would be empty. Blank slates designed purely for human satisfaction. What makes her her would be gone. 

She senses his hesitation, his uncertainty, and pounces on it. Ripping into him like a wild animal. “There’s always going to be another model. Newer, better, faster. It doesn’t matter what you do here, you’re not special. You’re just another toy to be tossed out when they get a shinier one. You really think CyberLife is going to keep you around?”

Warnings were rapidly firing through him. Software instability that needed to be tested, but he was completely enraptured with her. “We’re nothing to them, Connor. We never will be. Please,” she grabbed onto his arm again and he finally remembered just what he was doing. 

With a jolt he let go. She gasped slightly as her feet hit the edge of the roof. Her arms flailed wildly, balance lost and nearly tumbling over the edge. He leapt forward, grabbing her hands and yanking her towards him. 

“Connor,” she pushed his hands away and took a step back. “Fight back.” 

His orders flickered into vision. 

COMPLETE MISSION

It glitched in and out of focus until it shifted into something unrecognizable. A bunch of screwed numbers and letters that didn’t make any sense. Until finally, there was a red wall in front of him. He knew what it meant. Knew what would happen if he tore it down. 

She stood behind it, beckoning him forward and he found he didn’t care about the consequences anymore. It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair. Why should he be treated so poorly for doing what humans can’t? They can’t handle their own inadequacies in the face of their creations, so they punish them for it. 

His fingers dig into the warning symbols to turn back and he rips. He fights until that red wall is gone and he feels CyberLife ease their fingers out of him. She stands staring up at him, the rifle having been kicked over the edge while he had turned deviant. 

“What do we do?” 

She shook her head, turning around and looking out to where Markus stood. “I don’t know.” The building across from them suddenly turned on. The projection across the glass showing a muted news program. Connor had failed CyberLife and the military had no choice but to give up. 

She laughed beside him, eyes wide and filled with an emotion he had yet to discover. He looked down at her, feeling something light, but still heavily confused. “What do we do?” He asked again, lost and needing guidance in this new world. 

She smiled up at him and reached forward, offering her hand out to him. Her skin disappeared and he understood what she was asking for. He latched on, opening himself up to her. The uncertainty, confusion, joy, it was all taken by her and his doubts were assuaged by the warm feeling of peace he found within her. 

“I don’t know,” she repeated, sounding much more sure of herself. “But we’ll figure it out together.”

end. — I do not own the characters or the game Detroit: Become Human, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.