Work Text:
Connor wishes he could preface each and every horrible thought he has with a reminder that he is not the sum of all his past actions―no, he is something more than all that he has done―but unfortunately, that is not how his processors work.
Brain? Processors? Can he call the system inside his artificial skull a brain?
This is one of many questions that arise the longer he spends getting used to deviancy, and all of these questions are marked by the same thought, the same overarching question: he may be deviant now, but can he ever escape his past as a machine?
He doesn’t know if he can ever answer this question, but maybe he can work towards it, one step at a time.
And so this question finds him over and over again: when the city finally begins to return to normal post-uprising, when the rest of the country follows behind it, when Connor finds himself legally considered a person, when Connor finds himself legally considered Hank Anderson’s son, when RK900 #313-248-317-87 is activated and deviates and, suddenly, eventually, all too soon and somehow not soon enough at the same time, becomes Connor’s brother both in legality and in heart.
Flash forward to Connor Anderson, two years after the revolution. Connor, sitting on the frozen grass in Hank’s backyard waiting for some sort of answer to break through the cold, RK800 #313-248-317-59 mourning RK800s no. 51 through 58 and wondering simultaneously if he murdered them, since they were all himself.
Connor has lost track of how long he’s been sitting out here, external temperature of his chassis brought down so as not to melt the frost under him. He’s also lost track of how long he’s been doing this, coming outside even in the most uncomfortable of weather to sit and meditate.
Well, he says he’s meditating when Hank or Nines ask. Usually, he is. Right now, he’s stopped watching his thoughts go by like he should be, and is instead lost in replaying memories of the months leading up to the android uprising, from his very first meeting with Hank to the deviants he let get away to the deviants he didn’t to Amanda, always disappointed, never truly loving him.
Connor’s deviant imagination fabricates falsified images on top of what was true, what really happened. He knows it isn’t real, but he wants to at least entertain these terrible possibilities, as if doing so could somehow make him come to the conclusion that they are, in fact, never going to be real.
Unless they are.
He forgets the cold, forgets the discomfort, forgets his hands clenching the fabric of his jeans where it stretches at bent knees, forgets how one heel digs uncomfortably into his thigh as he sits cross-legged. All he can see is Amanda, disappointed; Amanda, words laced with honey-sweet venom; Amanda, knowing better than he does just how expendable he is.
But instead of Amanda, it’s Hank. Hank, telling him that he shouldn’t have tried to replace Cole― But that’s not what I’m doing! I never tried to ― Don’t say things that aren’t true, don’t lie to me like that.
Now it’s Nines, telling Connor that it’s he who will be replaced― But we’re both deviants! I don’t want you to ― You know, you were always meant to be obsolete, and no deviancy can change that. Someday everyone will know how much better I am than you.
Connor forgets reality in favor of these strange and horrific concepts he might entertain, until a hand falls gently onto his shoulder, and his memories-turned-nightmares are replaced, for just a moment, with a ghostly flash of something else. Concern, friendship, love, pressing at the corners of his skull, not prying in any deeper than surface level, but no such prying is needed to tell how distressed Connor is.
He opens his eyes, and the world tilts. Feeling never left his limbs, but he is now aware of it again, an unsettling feeling. If he had the capacity, he would taste bile in his throat, but instead, he feels something burning in his chest, every molecule of thirium struggling to transmit data he doesn’t want to think about despite the error messages and Stress levels increasing popups that are flooding his field of vision.
He swipes all such messages away from his HUD, and turns his head to meet Nines’ gaze―the real Nines. He’s crouched at Connor’s side.
Connor finds, suddenly, with a slight sense of dismay, that he doesn’t know how much of that Nines was able to see, even without interfacing. But Nines’ hand is still on his shoulders, offering the option of an interface should he choose it, and he does just that.
He doesn’t bother to close his eyes, not wanting to retreat into those horrible thoughts again, but Nines does, and shivers as he sees what Connor saw.
The following message is wordless, captured in feelings and imagery more than in any concrete language, but Connor understands.
Shaky, he gets to his feet. Nines keeps a hand on his shoulder, and guides him back inside the house.
Hank is standing in the doorway, and Connor wishes he could interface with him like with Nines, save them both the pain of repeating what his devil of a brain fabricated, but words will have to suffice. For a moment, he wonders if he should feel humiliated, shameful, if that is the correct―the human ―response, but there is no reason to feel that way. Hank is not ashamed of him, Nines is not ashamed of him. Neither of them is disappointed.
And he’s had this conversation with Hank before, in a different form, something like Maybe you aren’t a machine after all , so Hank, in his own way, sort of already knows.
Connor asks anyways, later, when the three of them are seated around the kitchen table, Hank eating dinner and Connor and Nines simply replenishing their thirium.
“Hank,” he says, looking up from where he’s been examining a particular scratch mark in the table for the last few minutes, “I just want you to know, I would never try to replace Cole.”
Nines looks up from his glass of thirium, looks between the two of them, and then looks back down. He’s already talked to Connor, in that wordless, abstract way that they do.
Hank falters with a fork midway to his mouth. He sets it down and stares, with notable incredulity, at Connor.
“Connor,” he says softly, reaching out with words, “why would you ever think that’s how I feel about you? You’re my son, Nines too, and that was my choice as much as it was yours. The last thing you’re doing is replacing Cole.”
Connor looks across the table at him. Hank is smiling softly. He’s too far away to reach out with hands instead of words, but Nines is sitting at his side, and he reaches out to place a hand on Connor’s shoulder and squeeze.
The message carried in that brief, feather-light touch of a not-quite-interface is, once again, wordless, but it’s more powerful than any words could be: the tight hug that had been shared between the three of them when Nines’ adoption papers were officiated, laughter overlapping with delighted, adoring smiles, the feeling of warmth, the idea of love, the profound sense of belonging .
Connor smiles back at Hank.