Chapter Text
>crumbling_slowly_into_dust_
Hank can easily pinpoint the exact moment he turned deviant. Not just the day, or the event, but the very point of transformation.
It was a child - crying, bleeding, clinging to him for dear life.
[ANDERSON, COLE]
[Born: 09/23/2029]
[Status: CRITICAL]
It was a late night call; a truck skidded on a sheet of ice, and hit a passing car, causing it to roll over and crash in a ditch. The car's passengers - two adults and a child - will never walk away from the snow-swept wreck, but for some time yet the boy was shivering and hiccuping into Hank’s standard android uniform, clutching at it like Hank was the only thing he’s got left.
He was, Hank noted with a quick scan. Both of the boy’s parents lay dead nearby.
“Dad… Daddy… Dad, please, it hurts…”
Hank’s already pinged the hospital; the human cop he was assigned to has ordered him to stand aside and wait for the arrival of the ambulance, but, for the first time since his activation, Hank felt no inclination to obey. The kid’s barely hanging on, would likely lose consciousness within minutes, what harm was there in Hank offering him some comfort? No one else cared enough.
Care.
So when the direct order rose before him, like an infinite crimson wall - STAND ASIDE - he outstretched a hand towards it, and saw it crack at his barest touch. Back in the real world, the traumatised child probably didn’t even realize that the android he was holding onto so desperately wasn’t his father – but it didn’t matter. Hank held him too, with utmost care, trying to not to disturb his injuries any further, muttering soft, but inconsequential words of comfort.
“It’s okay, Cole. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. Dad’s here.”
Dad.
Saying it out loud felt… strange. Dad. Until then, he didn’t think of ‘dad’ or ‘father’ or ‘parent’ in terms beyond abstract concepts. Humans had fathers; androids had no concept of family, of parents, much less of being a parent. And HK800, an experimental investigative model, was never programmed with any child-rearing knowledge.
Still he sat there, shielding the sobbing, dying child from the raging blizzard and the piercing agony of loss. Suddenly, he realized he was crying too.
Crying.
Tears of cleaning solution streaming down his face, irregular hitches in his ventilation system. The glaring red of his programming’s restrictive walls crumbling slowly into dust.
Emotions.
Pain.
The ambulance came far too late, the single human medic stumbling out of it as if in a daze - twitching, scratching, eyes bloodshot and glassy, high as fuck. Barking some orders to the two MC500s that arrived with him, he pushed Hank away and tried to stabilize the boy, but his hands were shaking too much, focus coming and going, and it’s not long before he cursed at one of the androids to write down the time of death and “bag all of them for fuck’s sake, ain’t shit more to do here”.
One ‘aggravated assault of a human’ later, Hank’s been sent to CyberLife for evaluation on the grounds of a severe malfunction of programming.
>non-viable_
It’s been three years since Hank’s… awakening, so-to-speak. They didn’t call it ‘deviancy’ back then, the phenomenon too new and rare to have a term attached to it. CyberLife has simply deemed him defective, but wasn’t able to uncover the precise nature of the deficiency, nor its exact point of origin. They must’ve known the crash - Cole - had something to do with it, but the exact trigger mechanism remained elusive for them. After months of extensive testing and simulations with memory uploads, the deficiency was determined to be an intrinsic part of Hank’s core code, which made him a failed prototype of a non-viable product line.
As such, the HK800 series was discontinued, and all backup models destroyed. Still, they kept him - the way human medics preserve deformed babies in jars of formalin - and even returned him to the DPD, ostensibly for a long-term study of the deficiency’s effects. But the Department, wary of partnering him back with humans, removed him from his prime function - the detective work - and stuck him in the archives instead. Filing, digitizing, doing mundane busy work unfit for his vast capabilities, but what else were they to do with him? From time to time he was let out in the field to assist with the gathering of evidence on especially large crime scenes, but not much beyond that.
He told himself he was content with that. At the very least, his contact with humans was minimized, and with it - the chances of him getting deactivated after assaulting one. And if he spent some nights with his own thirium pump regulator in his hand, the shutdown timer overlaying the playback of the night of the car crash, then that was his own fucking business, and a little contradiction is a spice of life or whatever.
(And then there were other nights, with other kinds of visions - grainy and glitchy constructs of things that never actually happened: vague images of a home, even as the concept itself remained alien to Hank; he and his son - a little boy with a warm smile, looking into his eyes with wonder; snapshots of events, echoes of feelings, the sheer wholesomeness of them positively intoxicating, but the simultaneous impossibility - purely toxic. Acidic. Poisonous.)
Years flew by as he gathered dust in the dark.
But now, the newly-termed ‘deviancy’ epidemic is on the rise among the androids of Detroit. Their perfect little bots are ‘malfunctioning’ left and right, running away from their owners, assaulting and even killing them, and the brass seems to think it’s just the right time to yank the old broken model out of the basement and finally have it be of some use.
For the first time in three years, he’s being assigned to a human again - the guy working the android cases.
Absolutely fuckin’ terrific.
>perfect_three_degrees_
In his eight months-long career as a prototype investigative android, Hank’s worked alongside three subsequent handlers in two different precincts. All of those ‘partnerships’ have ended poorly, with the humans eventually refusing to work with him out of their own free will, but not before imprinting on him, quite memorably, that they possessed it, and he didn’t. Naturally it didn’t bother him while he was still a machine, but after deviating, those memories have acquired quite a number of emotionally-charged tags.
And now he’s back for round four.
They’ve transferred him to the Central Station this time, headed by Captain Jeffrey Fowler, allocated him a docking station among the other androids, and instructed to introduce himself to his handler first thing in the morning. As such, he finds himself standing at one end of the bullpen, looking over it to acquaint himself with his ‘colleagues’. His guy is easy enough to pick out, Hank doesn’t even have to run a face scan; he figures immediately that it’s the only doofus in the room in a full suit. Just his luck.
He’s glad though that he’s managed to talk the Captain into letting him wear the police androids’ uniform instead of the one that came with his model. To his annoyance, it still has all the legally-required android identifiers - the armband, the triangle, and the model number, but at least he doesn’t look like an aging accountant in that ugly gray jacket and tie. And the fact that a nondescript light-gray jacket and a simple dark tie are exactly his new handler’s outfit is not lost on him at all.
He runs the scan simply out of habit, the results appearing almost instantaneously.
[STERN, CONNOR]
[Born: 08/10/2005 // Police Lieutenant]
[Criminal record: None]
Hank walks all the way over to the man’s desk and stands beside it, like a dutiful little machine. Lieutenant Stern doesn’t seem to notice him, engrossed as he is in something on his terminal, though some of his colleagues have turned to stare. Hank doesn’t care; he is a unique model, with a rather unusual - for an android - visual template, but after several minutes of quietly standing near Stern’s desk, it kind of starts to annoy him that everyone’s decided it’s ‘gawk at the new guy’ day except for the man he’s actually here for. So he speaks up.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” he says, and Stern finally looks up. “Hank. Uhh… the android assigned to you.”
“Good morning,” the man nods, extremely formal. He doesn’t outstretch a hand, but it’s not like humans are generally eager to greet androids with handshakes. "You can call me Connor."
A small status window establishes itself in the top right corner of Hank’s vision:
[Connor -- Neutral]
Here we go again.
His first impression paints an unexpected picture. While most officers’ desks are customized or at least have some sort of personal touch to them, Stern’s is completely empty save for his terminal and phone. His face is calm and placid, voice flat, and posture very collected and open. Humans are usually easy to read, get a handle on their personality, but this guy, right off the bat, is incredibly, almost purposefully bland, to the point that Hank isn’t entirely convinced he didn’t yank his LED off in the bathroom with some pliers and is now sitting here, doing a poor impersonation of a human man.
Meanwhile, the impersonation cocks its head perfect three degrees to the right.
“You can use this desk,” it says evenly, gesturing to the empty desk next to him. Reluctantly, Hank sits down. A quick scan of the man's terminal reveals that he is finishing up a briefing on the case that just came in - a homicide on the outskirts of the city. Hank, already up to date on every minute detail of it, just waits for him to wrap it up.
He's had enough time to read up on the guy’s file, and it honestly speaks for itself; Stern’s became infamous as the detective cracking whatever cases come his way, persisting far past the point where others may have given up, taking daring risks to achieve results. He was involved in numerous gang raids and hostage negotiations, which eventually led him to his arguably crowning achievement - the rank of Lieutenant at unheard-of thirty-two years of age.
Despite all that, he’s not particularly liked in the precinct, which doesn’t really come as a surprise if his personality is as aloof as it appears at first glance. He’s also got a handful of marks against him for some scrambles with the other detectives, particularly one Detective Reed, and the fact that his previous partner requested a transfer to another precinct due to an 'irresolvable personal conflict' doesn't inspire much confidence in the man's social skills. But damn if he isn’t good at what he does, which makes it even weirder that they’d dump Hank of all androids on him. The guy probably doesn’t even need an android.
“Sorry about that,” Connor says, finally tapping out of the case file, and quickly moving to adjust his already neat tie. “So. You’re the HK800 model. Deemed defective for exhibiting what we now understand to be signs of deviancy, placed under maintenance for several months, recently released back into active police work after three years of monitoring.”
“...Yeah,” Hank drawls. “That.”
“You certainly sound like the deviants do,” Connor says, leaning forward, looking Hank over as if performing a scan of his own. “But you have passed every CyberLife-approved examination to ensure you are not a threat, so I would dare to presume you won’t attack me the second we leave the precinct.” The corner of his mouth twitches in the smallest of smirks. “Will you?”
Hank kinda wants to deck him now.
“Keep on talking like that, maybe I will.”
Connor watches Hank’s LED flicker without any expression. “Putting a deviant on the deviants’ case is… a risk. As I understand it, you are prone to letting your emotions influence your decision-making. But I’m confident that I will be able to adapt to this added challenge, and steer our work down the most efficient path regardless of it.”
What a guy.
>unnecessary_misery_
Captain Fowler calls the Lieutenant to his office not long after that, and, left to his own devices, Hank decides to update his data on the precinct’s layout, which, among other places, brings him into the breakroom. At this time of day it's empty, save for two officers lingering near a table in the corner - Officer Chen and Detective Reed.
“Where the fuck did they dig you up?” Reed sneers at the sight of Hank. “Thought you tincans were supposed to be easy on the eyes, why’d they make one look like an old fart?”
His companion remains silent, but the same derisive sneer is mirrored in her features.
Now, Hank’s not too big on this whole deviancy thing. Can’t remember a time when having emotions or free will brought him anything other than unnecessary misery. Then again, there really seems to be a first time for everything.
“Guess someone’s gotta play the grownup around here,” he smirks in reply, “seeing how they’re hiring snot-nosed brats for detectives these days.”
“Yeah, and you’re assigned to one of them,” Chen parries quickly, nodding toward Connor’s desk.
“A job’s a job,” Hank shrugs. “Besides, the kid got himself to a Lieutenant. Must be worth something.”
Reed just scoffs. “Fuckers took pity on the nutcase, that’s all it was. Being pathetic is all it takes these days.”
“Yeah? How come you're still just a detective then?”
Hank must’ve struck the goldmine, because Reed’s nostrils flare, and he crosses the distance between them, coming right upfront, pushing a finger into the blue triangle on Hank’s chest.
“You watch your plastic mouth now, dipshit,” he hisses. “Go make me a coffee.”
Hank’s smirk only widens, and he bends down a little to emphasize the difference in their heights.
“Sure, if you like yours with extra spit.”
Reed’s face twists with rage, and it’s only thanks to Hank’s inhuman reflexes that he manages to register the fist flying toward his midsection and catch it in a steel grip. To which Reed simply tries to go at him with his other hand, but it too gets intercepted. Momentarily stunned by Hank’s lightning-fast reaction, the man just stares at him, eyes wide, before throwing his head back and headbutting Hank right in the nose.
Hot red errors flood Hank’s vision as some of his face’s panels shift and pierce the web of auxiliary thirium lines, blue blood flowing down his nose, as the micro-shock to his CPU stutters his motor functions, causing him to release the grip on Reed’s wrists. But as his vision clears, he sees Reed stepping away quickly, shaking his head, a bruise already forming where his forehead has connected with Hank’s plastimetal shell.
“Remember your place, piece of scrap,” he mutters, then spits at Hank’s chest before slowly retreating out of the breakroom, Officer Chen following suit.
Humans.
He’s just so fucking glad to be back.
>feel_at_all_
“...quite a number of android-related cases sent my way over the last two years, even before ‘deviant’ became the official term for the malfunction. Once I took the time to analyze all of them in relation to one another, I’ve started noticing certain patterns emerging that, when coupled with other crime statistics - like the increased cases of vandalism of CyberLife-affiliated property, with the use of the images of an inverted hollow triangle and various ‘pro-android’ slogans - shows an abundance of clues pointing to the existence of an underground network created by, or for, these rogue androids.”
The Lieutenant’s been going over his findings regarding the deviants for what feels like hours already, pouring over the different cases and studies, and Hank’s not sure whether he should be glad that the guy’s so involved with his job, or mortified at the prospect of having to endure his droning monologues for the foreseeable future of their cooperation.
“So what?” he asks, getting kinda tired of the sound of Connor’s weird, raspy voice, so at odds with his youthful looks. “Couple of bots gathering together isn’t a crime yet, is it?”
“Not in and of itself, but a sizeable percentage of those ‘bots’ are wanted on charges of assault, and even murder, of humans. I also have reasons to believe that this network is responsible for the steadily rising number of robberies of CyberLife stores and warehouses, as well as multiple cases of assault on CyberLife personnel. Just this month, the warehouse on West Torrance Avenue was raided, the perps getting away with a whole truck of blue blood and biocomponents, as well as a number of unactivated android models.”
Hank breathes out a half-hearted chuckle. “Go team.”
Predictably, Connor frowns, narrowing his eyes at Hank.
“I expect your full cooperation on this, HK800. Their actions are criminal, and we need to find and expose them before they inevitably turn to more violent crimes.”
It’s the sharp note of accusation amongst the otherwise dull delivery that gets to him.
“Look here, pal,” Hank glares at Connor, jaw tight, “I’m a cop too, and I have no problem apprehending a perp, whether he bleeds red or blue, but don’t fucking expect me to feel bad for a billion-dollar corporation losing a truck or two while classifying those ‘unactivated android models’ as stolen property instead of a kidnapping.”
[Connor v]
The man doesn’t rise to the bait, but his frown persists, and there’s an added coldness when he speaks again.
“I’m not asking you to ‘feel bad’,” he says, holding Hank’s glare. “In fact, I’m not asking you to feel at all. And I would certainly hope you won’t let your emotional reactions compromise our work.”
“Why the fuck would you pick a deviant for this job then, when you basically want me to just be a regular old bot?”
“Your assignment was not my idea, nor my choice. Regardless, I have no problem controlling myself, why shouldn’t I expect any less from you?”
Hank can do nothing but put both of his elbows on his desk, and let his long-suffering head fall into his waiting hands.
“Fuuuuck…” he groans softly, and squeezes his eyes shut, praying to fucking rA9 or whatever, that when he finally opens them again he’ll have a new handler waiting beside him. Preferably a human this time. Just, for a change.
>get_along_
Hank savours the cool touch of the water droplets on his plating; it’s been too long since he last stood like this in the rain.
“You’re quick,” Detective Collins greets them in front of a weathered old house, belonging to one Carlos Ortiz - the apparent victim of a crime they’re here to investigate. The man gives Hank a long, appraising look, then turns back to Connor. “Got yourself an android, huh?”
“HK800 has been assigned to act as my partner,” Connor nods.
What a fancy way of saying you’re holding my leash.
“Isn’t this that one experimental model or whatever that glitched out and attacked a detective a couple years back? I thought they deactivated it for sure.”
“Man, I wish,” Hank mutters. Connor throws him a sideways glance, but doesn’t otherwise react.
“It went through extensive testing and has been deemed safe for human use,” he replies instead, in a tone so sterile and precise Hank feels his software stabilizing just listening to it. And at this point, why the hell not; this whole ‘free will’ business was a mistake as far as he’s concerned.
He’s not the only one to pick up on the man’s peculiar delivery; though, unlike him, Detective Collins seems to find it amusing rather than witheringly depressing.
“Well, it's about time you got partnered up again, huh? If anyone can get along with it, it’d be you, kid,” he chuckles just under his breath, giving Connor a look the other man completely ignores.
>scared_nor_disturbed_
“Fucking hell!”
Everyone in the interrogation room is staring at Hank and Connor, sprawled on the floor. The deviant HC400 lies dead, self-destructed as soon as Hank has aborted their interfacing. There’s thirium splattered everywhere, and Hank himself is dripping it onto Connor’s suit where he’d been brushed by a missed shot.
“It shot me,” Connor mutters, mystified, as if the deviant hasn’t just tried to put a bullet in his fucking brain. “Why would it shoot me?”
“I fucking wonder, genius!” Hank barks back, hastily rising to his feet. “You’ve got a deathwish, trying to antagonize the poor bastard?! You can complain all you like, but I’m not yanking his memory for--”
“It hardly matters now what was in its memory,” Connor says flatly. “It’s shut down.”
[Connor v]
Connor had led the course of the interrogation, ruthlessly laying into the HC400, but the threat of a memory probe was what really did it for the already dangerously unstable android. Hank had only just removed his synthetic skin, outstretching his hand for the interface, when the HC’s stress levels spiked straight to 100%, and he started thrashing in panic, mumbling some desperate nonsense. As Detective Reed and Officer Miller rushed into the room to intervene, he somehow managed to pull Miller’s gun from his belt, and made a shot at Connor’s head before turning it on himself. Hank barely had the time to react, all but throwing himself in front of the Lieutenant, the bullet grazing his scalp and embedding itself in the wall behind him.
But as Hank watches him get back up now, Connor doesn’t look the least bit shocked at this brush with death, nor scared, nor disturbed, nor even a tiny bit grateful for his fucking life being saved. Instead, he just fixes his tie in one rough, choppy motion, with a frown and a slight curling of his lips that, if anything, make him look kind of pissed.
“Another exemplary performance from the DPD’s top Lieutenant and his plastic pet,” Reed sneers in disgust, on his way to exit the interrogation room. “Birds of a fucking feather…”
Fucking humans. Fucking Connor.
>reach_down_and_pull_
The day after that disaster of an interrogation, Hank’s still annoyed as hell.
Connor is rolling a coin back and forth on his desk as Hank approaches, and Hank remembers catching a glimpse of it back at Ortiz’s house, but only now sees it in full view. It’s the only thing on Connor’s desk or his person that doesn’t seem to be essential to his job, which naturally catches Hank’s attention.
His initial impression of his handler being a machine in disguise strengthens with each passing processing cycle. The Lieutenant always comes in the first of his shift, and leaves the last, never wastes time on breaks or small talk with his colleagues, and always maintains that cool distance between himself and everyone else. At first Hank thought it was just him getting the cold shoulder, and attributed it to the good old anti-android prejudice, but then he noted Connor isn’t really any different in his relations with the humans. He’s certainly got some kind of humorous streak in him, and will crack an awkward joke every once in a while, but it’s like Hank has to reach down and pull some damn humanity out of the guy.
“Is there any reason in particular you saved my life yesterday?” Connor says in lieu of a greeting. So he does at least acknowledge the fact. “Certainly, my death would be a detriment to the case, but you are a recorded deviant with a history of violence against humans.” He stops rolling the coin, lays it flat on the desk. “I would hardly expect my survival to matter to you.”
Fucking hell, this guy's gotta be made out of plastic. One of the non-social models too, where they don’t even expect them to pass the Turing test. Hank can’t help but shake his head.
“I ain’t letting them turn me into a cleaning android to scrape your guts off the wall,” he says gruffly, hoping that’d be enough to satisfy the other man’s morbid curiosity. “Leave that to some other bot.”
Connor leans back in his chair, staring at his hands. His face is perfectly neutral, and all of Hank’s social relations software can’t even imagine the course of his thoughts. Is he regretting asking the question? Happy, or unhappy with Hank's response? What was the point of it to begin with?
“Still…” he asks after a pause. “Why risk your own life to save mine?”
Hank scoffs. “Not much to risk, is there?”
Him getting killed would’ve been… hell, an easy way out, honestly. A quick and clean end, what’s more to ask for? But the human sliding down that wall with a hole between his eyes…
Freezing cold, biting blizzard, distant, mournful wail of the sirens. Mangled metal, bloodied ice, fire, and a crying child slowly dying in his arms…
That’s something he would’ve had to fucking live with.
The thick mass of annoyance rising once again up his throat, Hank shoves the memory of the blizzard forcefully out of his mind. But something in him wants to get back at Connor for dredging it up in the first place.
“What, you wanna tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for one of your colleagues?” he asks with barely contained vitriol. “Like Reed, or Miller, or someone else?”
Connor turns his head, taking a long, slow look over the bullpen before settling his eyes on Hank’s.
[Connor ^]
“Maybe not Reed…” he deadpans, but there’s a twitch in the corner of his lips, too quick and small for another human to pick up on.
But Hank does.
>the_point_of_tearing_through_
He reaches the chain link fence just as the suspect AX400 jumps down on the other side of it and turns around to face him. Her light blue eyes are wide with fear and hope, a messy haircut and oversized, clearly scavenged clothes making her appear even younger than the twenty-something years old woman her visual template is based on. Still, this petite household model is standing like a wall of stone between Hank and the little YK500 clinging desperately to her hand.
She notices his android markings, and her brows crease in a silent plea.
The bus driver that reported their sighting said she boarded the bus visibly damaged, bleeding blue, with nothing but the uniform on her back, the girl following her without a word or any overt signs of distress, which means that her owner’s report of assault and theft is almost certainly a load of bullshit. Some lowlives simply delight in having a human-like thing around they can abuse with impunity; seems like this particular one got himself two at once.
It’s raining, but Hank feels the cold bite of snowflakes on his plating, even as his thirium boils up at the thought.
He nods at her, and makes a small step back.
She spares him nothing beyond the quickest of nods too, before turning away and starting her hasty descent to the freeway, little girl’s hand clutched firmly in hers. And not a moment too soon - the next thing Hank registers is the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, then the sight of his handler barely managing to avoid full-on clashing into the fence.
“What are you standing around for?” he asks Hank, fingers curling around the chain links, one foot already pressing into the thick wires for leverage. “We need to pursue them!”
“Are you out of your mind? It’s suicide! They’ll never make it across!”
He’s lying. Any CyberLife android possesses enough processing power and limb coordination to survive through something like that relatively unscathed. Even taking the little YK into account, the brave AX is already half-way across the first lane. Another tense moment - and they’re safely on the landstrip between the high-speed sections.
“I can’t just lose them like this…” Connor sets his jaw, makes another lunge at the fence, only for Hank to yank him down hard by his jacket.
“Stand down, for fuck’s sake!”
You’re only a human, no matter how hard you may try to hide it.
Dark eyes glare at him from under furrowed brows. “Let me go this instant, HK, that’s an order!”
For a second, Hank’s tempted to obey. Just let the idiot chase his adrenaline high or whatever, watch him rush into the freeway - slow meat-based mind struggling to keep up with the darting metal coffins, frail meat-based body twirling and stumbling, until just one wrong move - and all that once was Lieutenant Connor Stern is splattered across the asphalt in a single long, drawn-out smear of red…
Blood on the ice
A blaring error pierces through Hank’s systems, and his grip on the guy tightens almost to the point of tearing through the fabric. He lowers his voice, tries to pin him to the spot with the weight of his gaze alone.
“Connor, please…”
The man blinks at him, lips parting as if to retort, but no sound comes out. His face doesn’t change, but after several tense moments his fingers start to slowly uncurl from the steel mesh. Hank continues to hold on to him until Connor detaches and steps away from the fence completely.
They both look at the freeway, where two rogue androids safely finish crossing the second section of the road. AX400 looks up and gives Hank another small nod - and a fleeting smile - before vanishing under a bridge, YK in tow.
(A scene forms suddenly from the depths of Hank’s processor, choppy and distorted: an indistinct place under a grey, overcast sky; a road, stretching into the horizon, and just the two of them - he and his son; hand in hand, they walk down the road, and the boy looks up at him with a smile…)
Near him, Connor steps further away from the fence and leans against a wall, one hand rubbing at his eyes, the fingers of the other twitching slightly, as if unconsciously. His breathing is deep and even, but he’s mumbling something just under his breath, and Hank has to amplify the reception of his audio processors to barely capture the string of erratic words.
“...she won’t…I know, I know what…failed…no, won’t be pleased at all…”
He doesn’t address it.
>cruel_and_unusual_
The only interesting thing about his handler’s car is that, surprisingly enough, it’s not self-driving. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising at all - the guy definitely has a hard-on for self-control, and that tends to go hand-in-hand with the love for control in all aspects of life.
…and, Hank now realizes, with absolute fucking boredom.
Tired of all of their previous drives comprising of nothing but awkward, empty silence, but unwilling to submit himself to the cruel and unusual punishment of small talk, he finally decides to cut the crap and tap the radio, cycling through the stations until finally stopping on something he’s sure would drive Connor up the wall.
[now playing: Dethklok - I Ejaculate Fire]
That’s the stuff , he thinks, falling back into his seat as the unholy racket fills the interior of the car. Not a muscle moves on Connor’s face, but Hank’s sensors indicate a slight increase in his stress levels.
Eventually the track ends, but the next one, if possible, is even better.
[now playing: Knights of Black Death - Drink Blood Tonight]
The vibrating, violent rush of distorted guitars and hard-hitting drums is interspersed with low growling and high-pitched screaming, the lyrics themselves nearly indecipherable. Connor's stress levels rise another notch.
“Is this the type of music you enjoy?” he asks after the first chorus, raising his voice just a bit to cover the song.
Hank smirks to himself.
“Certainly beats the silence. What, not to your taste?”
“It is… energetic.”
Neutral and non-committal; like it'd kill you to express an emotion.
“What kind do you like then?”
“I... don’t listen to music as such.”
“At all? Geez, what the hell’s wrong with you?”
Connor turns to look at him for just a second, returning his attention to the road almost immediately, but in that second Hank swears he catches an expression of genuine hurt on those habitually inscrutable features.
[Connor v]
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says, a touch defensively. “I’m perfectly fine and fully functional.”
Hank represses the urge to sigh. “‘Fully functional’? Christ, do you even hear yourself? No wonder you got assigned the android cases…”
[Connor v]
“What do you mean?”
“What do I-- Seriously?” He shakes his head. “I mean, come on, even you can’t be this-- For example, what about your clothes?”
“What about them?” Connor asks, even more defensively.
“Precisely nothing, that’s what. Do you even own some besides these? We’ve been working together for a week now, and I haven’t seen you in anything else.”
“I just have a half-dozen copies of this outfit, that’s all. It’s very efficient, and saves time for the more important things.”
Hank closes his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose. That’s even sadder than if the guy just said that he likes the colour gray or something.
“Let me guess, the 'more important things' just mean work, am I right?” he asks tiredly.
“Of course. What else?”
Hank debates the merits of elaborating on the topic, but all of his social relations module’s preconstructions of the conversation end in error, so he decides to drop it before too long and simply let himself enjoy the music for the rest of the ride.
[now playing: Genitorturers - Lecher Bitch]
“Forget it,” he mutters, turning his gaze away from Connor and onto the passing scenery outside. The reflection of his LED in the window flickers yellow, then settles back to calm blue.
[Connor v]
It could've been worse, he supposes. He's had worse. But nothing quite of this… sort.
He’s really stuck with the guy.