Work Text:
Elijah Kamski has never considered himself to be superstitious. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He doesn’t believe in fate.
And he sure doesn’t believe in luck.
Some journalists like to speculate that Elijah is a very lucky man. He’d grown up poor as dirt but now he’s the richest man in the world. But it wasn’t luck. Elijah is and has always been hardworking and determined. He never let anything get him down or hold him back. He’s too smart to believe in luck.
Which is why today is a confusing time for him.
He’d woken up later than he was supposed to. He rolled over and saw that his clock was blinking like it usually does when the alarm goes off but no sound is playing. He sits up and checks the volume.
Full.
He sighs and gets out of bed. He missed his dentist appointment. He’ll have to reschedule and apologize profusely. He grabs his phone off the nightstand and begins scrolling through social media on one of his many throw away accounts he can use anonymously. All of the biggest accounts are posting about or joking about today’s date.
Friday the 13th.
Elijah scoffs and rolls his eyes. Bad luck? There’s no such thing as bad luck. You make your day how it is all on your own. Luck doesn’t exist.
He steps into the shower and turns on the hot water. Which comes out cold. And doesn’t warm up. So he takes a pretty cold shower. He doesn’t mind all that much because it’s summer. But it’s still an inconvenience he’ll have to handle later.
He steps out of the shower and goes to dry his hair with the blow dryer. But the dryer doesn’t turn on, though it’s plugged in. So he dries his hair with a towel. Again. Not too bad, just inconvenient.
Connor is out in the living room, standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly.
“Uh, good morning?” Kamski says, still toweling his hair as he walks closer. Connor turns and looks at him surprised.
“Good morning, Elijah. It is currently 11:23 AM. It is partly cloudy and 83 degrees fahrenheit.” Connor states.
“For the millionth time, you don’t have to do that. Come here,” Elijah says, snaking an arm around Connor’s waist. “You know I hate when you act like a machine. You’re not. I’m sure it’s hard for you but you’re not a machine, my star. You’re so much better.”
“I…” Connor starts, his LED spins yellow. “I’m sorry. I just feel… strange today.”
“You are strange. But it has nothing to do with your programming.” Elijah says, pressing a kiss to Connor’s cheek.
“You have things to do today. You’re already late enough. You should really get a move on.”
“I’d rather spend the day with you in my arms.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Hey, why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You’re an adult. You can wake yourself up.”
Elijah’s eyes widen at the amount of attitude in that one response. He rolls his eyes and plants another kiss on Connor’s cheek.
~
Elijah Kamski is a genius with many talents. Inventing, speaking, math. He’s also a really amazing driver. Not many people still drive by hand. Most just let the machine do it for them. But he got his license at sixteen and he’s gonna use it.
He’s never been in an accident before.
So he actually doesn’t know what to do when a truck comes out of nowhere and t-bones the back of his car, spinning him out.
He manages to escape completely uncathed, thankfully. But his car is totalled. The other driver’s car was automatic, meaning it should have been impossible for it to hit anything. Elijah gives it a quick look, since he’s the one that programed these things, and realizes the safety mechanism completely failed. Just his luck.
No! Luck doesn’t exist!
It’s just a malfunction.
~
“You’re late. I was starting to worry.” Markus says, giving him a light elbow to his rib.
“Yeah well, I’ve had a crap morning but I’m here now.” Elijah grumbles, following Markus to the meeting room. The Jericho androids have taken over CyberLife and asked Elijah to be at least a small part of it, providing repairs and support.
“How’s Connor?” Markus asks.
“Sweet as always. Still working on the whole emotions thing.”
“It’s been months!”
“He’s hanging around me. What did you expect? I don’t even have a proper grasp of my own emotions, how do you expect him to?”
“That’s a fair point.” Markus says, chuckling.
They get situated in the meeting room with the rest of the Jericho leaders already waiting. Elijah gets right to work, plugging in the USB drive that contains programs and blueprints he was asked to give to Jericho.
The screen immediately shows that there’s an error with the drive.
Every file corrupted.
A week's worth of work… gone.
He feels like he’s back in college again.
“You are fucking… kidding me.” Elijah says, putting his head down on the table.
~
Making himself lunch back at home honestly didn’t go much better than the rest of the day. He was making a dish that included rice.
And his rice cooker…
Exploded.
Coating practically everything in rice.
He’s curled up on the floor of the kitchen now, back pressed against the counter. He’d insticntively ducked when the cooker exploded. Now he’s just sitting there, covered in rice along with everything else in his kitchen, breathing heavily. Conor walks into the kitchen and looks around at the mess. His eyes flit between the exploded rice cooker and the rice stuck to the walls and various other surfaces.
Then they land on Elijah, curled up in a ball on the floor.
“Not your day, huh?” Connor asks, holding out a hand to him. Elijah takes it and Connor pulls him to his feet.
“Not. Another. Word.” Elijah grumbles.
“Go get yourself cleaned up, I’ll handle this.” Connor says, gently pushing him out of the kitchen.
So Elijah takes another cold shower.
~
Elijah spends the rest of the day experiencing one failure after another.
His computer crashes while he’s trying to redo the work he’d done for Jericho.
His bank freezes his account, offering no explanation.
He shatters his phone screen after dropping it on carpet!
He trips, landing directly on his face.
After doing so he rolls over onto his back and just lays there for a moment. He replays how his day went and how bad it’s been. He’s exhausted but it’s not even late at night.
Connor walks over and looks down at him, towering over him.
“Would you like me to bring you to your room?” Connor asks.
“Just… lay here with me for a bit.” Elijah replies, voice barely a whisper.
“As you wish.” Connor says, getting down onto the floor next to him.
“This was such a shitty day.” Elijah says.
“I’d have to agree.” Connor replies.
“I don’t even know where I went wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t do anything to warrant all these fuck ups. I’m a great driver. I’m a great cook. I keep all my drivers up to date. What more could I do?”
“Today wasn’t your fault, Elijah. It was just a case of very bad luck.”
Elijah scoffs and locks eyes with Connor.
“There’s no such thing as luck.” He says bitterly.
“Do you still believe that after today?” Connor asks.
“I… no. I guess not.” Elijah admits.
“Come on. Let’s turn in early.” Connor says, standing and offering Elijah a hand up. Elijah takes it and allows himself to be pulled to his feet and led to his room.
He lays down on the bed and Connor lays down next to him, wrapping an arm around Elijah protectively. Elijah breathes a deep sigh of relief. He’s always liked being held like that. But he loves when Connor does it. He leans over and ever so softly kisses Connor’s lips before giving him a gentle smile.
“Goodnight, my star.”