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The sky is filled with neon.
In the dark of night the whole of Detroit is alight, shimmering and unreal as the snow falls. Connor stands atop a building with a gun in his hand pointed at Hank Anderson. Connor walks in the frigid endless snow of the Zen Garden with tears bubbling up and away from his pale face as if he stands in zero-gravity, does not know which way the pull of the Earth is holding him or if it holds him at all. Connor reassures Hank he is not deviant, he does not think, he does not feel, he does not love.
When he wakes Connor chokes on a half swallowed sob and dry heaves over the arm of the sofa.
He does not know why his body reacts this way, he has no stomach to expel sick from, and it is a painfully human reaction that serves no purpose for Connor other than to soothe some unknowable ache.
At some point he had dozed into an intangible half-sleep, not quite the powered down emptiness he used to go into Before (back when he was forced into standby mode like an oversized Roomba at CyberLife Tower) but neither had he been fully cognizant. It was an unnerving experience that left his limbs feeling overburdened and his chest tight. The faint whine at his side was Connor's only warning before Sumo licked the flat of his slobbery tongue along his smooth fingertips, looking up at Connor with doleful brown eyes.
“...Sumo.” he murmured quietly, fondly, ruffling a hand over the flop of the dogs ears and trying to shake the squeezing in his heart.
It was as cold outside as it was in the Zen Garden but inside Hank's home, their home, it is warm. The radiator resolutely rumbles away, noisily thudding against the wall every now and then and filling the otherwise quiet space with a comforting noise. It's late, too late for walks, but Connor brings Sumo outside with him when he steps out the front door to breathe deep the crisp bite of winter air. The dog does not stray from his side, simply sits heavy and warm against the line of Connor's long legs.
He likes the way the glow of the downtown lights reflect in melted puddles and turn the snow multicolored. He likes the faint roar of a train in the distance rumbling along the tracks, an occasional honk of it's horn being pulled in the far off black night. CyberLife didn't program him to like these things, he earned them all on his own. When spring comes he will like the sound of children laughing on the way to school – the way their voices rise in the morning air makes the world feel more alive than the cold crunch of winter does.
Hank didn't used to like it, the echoing voices of children in sunshine, but he will now that Connor is there.
The children aren't afraid of Connor, they don't care about the color of his blood or that he lives with grumpy old Mr. Anderson. They like his smooth even voice and the kind shine of his brown eyes – warm like honey when the light hits just the right way. The older kids think Hank is 'cool' because he's a 'badass' with a standoffish personality, but it would supremely uncool to tell someone you think they're cool so none of them come right out and say it. Hank is blissfully unaware of his small fanclub of punk teenagers.
Connor hears the rumble of Hank's car before he even sees the headlights up the road. He isn't sure how long he's been stood on the front porch with Sumo by the time Hank is able to make it home from a late night at the DPD, looking haggard and a little miserable at the dreadful hour, but Connor is pleased to be there when Hank pulls in the driveway.
“Connor?” Hank's head pops over the hood of the car as he steps out, the silver of his shaggy hair catching the glow of the halogen lights.
Sumo let's out a little boof and wags his tail, swiping snow back and forth as he does. Connor notices the puff of the dogs breath and hastily lets him inside before meeting Hank's concerned gaze. Hank doesn't know about the half-sleep Connor has been experiencing, only that something had been upsetting him more and more when he was away from home and Connor was left alone at night.
“How long you been out here? It's freezing.” He wraps both hands around Connor's forearms, rubbing up and down as if Connor could suffer from the cold at all. Connor thought back to the Zen Garden and thought that, perhaps, he did suffer it after all.
“I...don't know.” He admitted, looking a little bothered by his own lack of awareness.
Before he deviated Connor's brain was strictly regimented and controlled, but now...it wasn't that his mind had changed, just that now he had the choice what to do with it; where Before he was compelled to obey the myriad of pop-ups that filled his vision with everything from time of day to the slightest change in heartbeats, Connor no longer felt forced by the endless information being slammed into him on all sides.
At some point he had simply stopped living on-rails like a Disney track ride and hadn't even noticed when it happened.
He could, technically, back track and find the exact time of night he stepped out into the cold but found himself unwilling to face it just yet. Connor knew the answer was 'too long' either way. Hank had steered them inside and was brushing melting bits of snow out of Connor's dark hair, a smile quirking his lips but his heavy brow was still set in a concerned furrow.
“I'm sorry, Hank.” He said, tucking his chin to allow the mans searching fingers in his hair. “I...I had a bad dream.”
Hank went still and it felt like the whole world went quiet with him. He brought Connor's gaze up with his big warm hands cupping his cheeks and Connor was vaguely aware that his own skin was cold, must be freezing, but it was a detached knowing. There was a strange fuzz in the back of his brain that felt a little like TV static humming away beneath his skin, it made him want to dry heave again.
“You...you had a bad dream?” Hank ventured, rubbing his thumb across the soft swell of Connor's cheek.
He nodded slowly, watching the play of emotions flit across the ocean blue of Hank's eyes. He wanted to kiss the worry off his face. He wasn't sure that was allowed, but he wanted it desperately. They touched more intimately than Connor was aware the norm for platonic friendships generally entailed, knew that what they where to each other was not strictly 'platonic', but neither of them had yet to bring it up. To put word to the way they drew ever closer within each others gravitational pull.
They did whatever felt right at the time – like Hank putting his hands on Connor's face with such tenderness it almost burned.
Sometimes he caught Hank looking, those bright winter eyes watching him with a kind of sad yearning that made Connor think maybe Hank didn't realize his affections where returned. Maybe he didn't realize Connor was capable of returning them.
“I was...not asleep but also I was not awake until I was awake and I was...scared.”
It didn't make any sense at all and Connor felt terribly frustrated by his inability to explain, to make the words come out the right way when he was literally designed to be good with words, with people, and suddenly he felt a little like crying. There where days Connor thought he must be experiencing every human emotion all at once for how hard they hit him, particularly when he was alone.
“Con...'m sorry I am so late.”
Somehow, despite all logical reasoning, Hank managed to understand exactly what Connor was trying to say. Hank had a way of knowing like that. It made Connor want to kiss him even more but he wasn't quite brave enough to put their lips together as he'd seen humans do, so instead he pressed a tentative kiss to Hank's palm where it was still holding his cheek.
It was barely a kiss, more just a press of his mouth against Hank's skin, but it made the man look a little weepy all the same.
“I can call or..or I could come get'cha? If you wanted to keep me company at the department?”
Hank had leaned in and pressed his mouth against Connor's forehead, practically kissing him with each word he spoke into Connor's skin, then brought them together in a hug that pressed their cheeks together. It reminded him of the program on wildcats he saw on NatGeo; the narrator had said cats scent marked by rubbing their cheeks and foreheads together so everyone else would know who their family was.
Connor thought of lions nuzzling together in big fluffy piles, of house cats purring as they rubbed against their owners legs, of Hank putting his mouth to Connor's brow.
“Thank you. I...I'd like that, Hank.”
---
There was a flower growing out of the sidewalk. A little cornflower blue daisy looking thing half frozen in the snow and Connor couldn't help but think of Hank's kind eyes from the night prior. The concern and care. He put it in a tiny Styrofoam coffee cup and placed it on Hank's desk with the bag of take out Hank had ordered for lunch.
“What is this, prom night?” Gavin Reed chirped from where he was leering across the room, eying Connor like someone might look at roadkill.
“Officer Reed, I was unaware you where interested in being my prom date. I can find you a pretty flower next time if it will make you feel better.”
Hank choked on the fork-full of lunch he had just raised to his mouth and tried not to look as proud as he felt. Connor waited,because he wasn't completely cruel, until Hank was done shoveling fried rice into his mouth and chasing it with half flat Pepsi to tuck the little flower behind his ear, sweeping the length of his hair back as he did.
“Is this how you ask someone to prom?” Connor asked with feigned naivety, putting on his best doe-eyed stare.
Reed had the strangest look of feral rage and indigestion on his face the rest of the day.
- - -
This time when Connor woke, the taste of bile rising in his throat from a source that simply did not exist in his body, Hank was there. Like maybe he had been waiting the whole time.
“You cried out for me.” Hank said, a twisted look of desperation on his handsome face.
“I..”
Don't worry, Lieutenant. I am not a danger. I am not a deviant. I am not a man. I can't love you like a person loves another person. Don't worry, the Blue Fairy didn't make me into a real boy. I wont love you, I promise. Don't send me away. Don't send me away. Don't send me aw-
“Connor?” Hank was sounding terribly frightened now, concerned and confused.
He sucked in a tremulous breath then wondered why his first instinct was to breathe at all. It felt good, the way it made his chest expand and fill with the clinging scent of cupboard on Hank's nightshirt. The astringent sting of his aftershave with a little ship on the bottle, the musky animal smell of Sumo dozing at the end of the couch Connor was sat on. The radiator kicked on and rattled away against the wall.
“Don't send me back.” He blurted out, staring up at where Hank had come to crouch before him, hunched down in the space between Connor's knees. “I...I don't want to go back. I cant go back.” CyberLife didn't even exist anymore, not like it used to, now just a crumbled kingdom falling to the demands of it's own creation. That didn't make the fear of them, of Amanda rooting around in his head, go away.
Connor knew he was starting to babble, could feel the rising panic like a tide threatening to drown him from the inside-out. “I'll stop if you want me to.” He pleaded, grasping at Hank's shirt where his hands balled at the mans shoulders. “I'll stop if you wont send me away.”
“Stop what? Connor slow down, just...Just breathe a second and slow down, you're kinda freaking me out.”
“I'll stop saying 'I love you' if it makes you keep me.” His words came out in a wheezing breath, pitched too high and warbling unnaturally.
This close he could see the delicate lines around Hank's eyes, the creases of his brow, could make out the tiny flecks of green hidden in the ocean of his eyes. This close he could see the bright flash of something aching and pained cross Hank's face. Had Hank really thought Connor didn't know? Hadn't known Connor was saying it back?
Because that's what it was, really. Every time Hank put a gentle heavy hand on the curve of Connor's chin or when Connor leaned into the broad expanse of Hank's chest because god being human could be so tiring and Hank was so comfortable. Everything from a little blue flower tucked behind Hank's ear to his hand brushing snow from Connor's hair. The hours spent together that made the hours spent apart feel like being torn asunder. It was all a confession.
“Say it? Connor, please say it.”
Hank was looking at him with such all encompassing intensity it felt not unlike the way interfacing with other androids did – the naked vulnerability of being seen. At being known. His hands (so big and so warm) where holding Connor's tightly in his own, pressed together like disciples in prayer. Connor had the sudden feverish thought that Hank was worshiping him.
“I love you.” It was easy, the easiest thing Connor had ever done, to say it aloud. It was a simple indisputable fact; Water is wet and he's in love with Hank Anderson.
The sound Hank made was cracked and agonizingly needy. He released Connor's hands to drag him into a kiss so fierce it threw Connor a little off balance and he slid off the sofa to sit himself in Hank's lap instead. It must be uncomfortable for him half sprawled on the living room floor like that, his back pressed against the hard line of the coffee table with enough force Connor heard it start to squeak across the floor.
Later Connor would marvel at where the show of strength came from when Hank tucked an arm under Connor's ass and hoisted them into standing, holding him up as if Connor didn't weigh enough to topple most men.
“HANK?!” He let out a startled squeak, arms going around the mans shoulders as he was carried.
“What? This ain't all fat y'know.”
Hank looked decidedly smug and it was a rather good look on him as far as Connor was concerned, but he didn't have much time to examine it before he was sprawled out on Hank's bed with the man in question hovering over him. Wrapping his fingers into the tumble of silver hair Connor gave an experimental little tug, pulling Hank down to kiss him with the sort of clumsy enthusiasm of a man that knew the theory of how things ought to go but didn't have the practical experience to know how to make it happen.
Hank didn't seem to mind though, eagerly letting Connor pull him about and lick into his mouth with the same determined curiosity Connor did most things. Like he was categorizing and carefully filing away every taste, every sound, every hitch of of breath between them. Connor was well aware he lacked a certain level of...finesse in this situation but he felt far from shy in the way he went about slipping his slender fingers up under Hank's shirt to smooth along the firm line of his back, scratching into the nape of his neck in encouragement.
“Say it again?” Hank pleaded, knelt between Connor's knees and leaning over him on his forearms. He sounded almost afraid, like Connor might 'come to his senses' and throw Hank off.
He brushed the fine hair from Hank's face, tucked it delicately behind his ear as he had the little daisy, and kissed across the rise of his cheek then along the bridge of his nose. A kiss to the corner of his mouth then the line of his chin. Finally he nudged their foreheads together. “I love you, Hank. You know I do.”
“Connor.” He sobbed out a gasping breath as he wrapped his arms underneath Connor and bowed over him, rocked his hips in a slow rough grind that sparked fire between them. “I love you so damn much. Didn't wanna scare you away, thought you'd run for sure if you knew.”
It was good. It was good even with their clothes still on but Connor endeavored to remedy the issue of their mutual lack of nudity as soon as possible. Hank laughed gently at the impatient way Connor pawed at the mans clothes, a dirty tee-shirt and equally grubby sweatpants that where easy enough to do away with, but his own proved more involved – why did he still wear a dress shirt and slacks on the weekend?
Connor was never wearing slacks on a weekend ever again.
Then they where naked and touching and Connor couldn't figure out why the hell they hadn't been doing this sooner. Hank was big and wide, strong armed and it was easy for Connor to fit his own slender legs over top of Hank's thick thighs. He liked the way they looked like this, felt a little perverse flash of arousal at the way his own body was smooth and lithe where Hank's was thick and coarse. But then again, he'd always liked Hank being big. That had never been much of a secret.
Hank seemed to like their differences too, if the way his hands smoothed across the flat plane of Connor's belly and squeezed the swell of his thigh was any indication. He looked at Connor like a starving man, like he was astounded Connor let him put his hands on him at all. He raised a delicate hand to the thatch of gray hair covering Hank's chest, following it with his fingers down to where his cock hung red and wet and impossibly hard.
Connor didn't technically need to breathe, to gasp or whimper or pant open mouthed into the scant space between them, but all the same he did. He needed it in some primal human way that didn't make any sense with his anatomy but came as easily as putting one foot in front of the other. It just felt right. For the first time in his life it didn't feel like he was pantomiming humanity, it felt natural when nothing about him was natural at all.
Like he was becoming human, here with Hank.
When Hank reciprocated with a calloused hand around the hot length of him, Connor let out a shout and scrambled at the bedsheets hard enough to punch a hole right through. Hank was bigger than he was in all ways, and this was certainly one of them, but it didn't make him bashful - it was just another part of their variances he liked a little too much. One of his hands barely fit around the fat width of Hank's cock but his own fit so nicely in Hank's fist as the man moved his hand in a languid grip.
It wasn't that Connor hadn't tried anything by himself, just that it was infinitely better to be doing this with Hank who was currently making little aborted thrusts into the gentle grip of Connor's fist and lewdly grunting. Connor gave a curious squeeze as he stroked up from the root of him, marveling at the silken feel of his cock in his hand, mouth parted as a sudden delicious urge grew in him. If Hank felt good to touch would he feel good to taste?
Something in his face, in the eager way he stared unabashedly with his tongue between his teeth, must've clued Hank in because he groaned and pressed his forehead into Connor's shoulder. “Christ. Later, alright? I wont last if you do that.”
Connor hummed and nodded but filed away this reaction for later, he was beginning to think Hank really would taste very nice.
“What are you trying to 'last' for, Lieutenant?” He asked cheekily and thrust his own hips up at the same time he urged Hank down to meet him, delighting in the wet slide of his cock against Hank's. The heat and hardness of them together. He wanted to keep rutting like this, wild and inelegant like animals in heat, but Hank stilled his squirming with a hard grip around Connor's narrow waist.
“For you, if you can hold still for five minutes.” He hissed and gripped the base of his own cock tight enough to look a little painful. “We need to...”
He smiled up at him, a smug little quirk of his lips, and brought the mans hand down between his legs. “I think you'll find, Hank, I don't need five minutes”
Connor nudged Hank's fingers through the slick wet slide of something that was already dripping from him, not quite the same as the precum leaking from his cock but not far off – just thicker and far more of it. Hank experimentally stroked his fingertips through the slick, watching Connor's face for any sign of discomfort, then oh so gently pushed two fingers inside where he was just as wet and wanting.
“Oh” Connor said at the same time Hank said “Fuck”
“I've never tried that before.” He panted open mouthed, staring a little dazedly at the ceiling as Hank reached with firm searching fingers at some absolutely wonderful spot inside of him. Connor might not have needed the extra care Hank had worried over but it was certainly not unwelcome now that he had it. Connor suspected he could finish on this alone, untouched but for Hank's big fingers inside him.
“What have you tried?” Hank asked a little breathlessly, bright winter eyes drinking in the sight of Connor stretched out on his bed and writhing back against his fingers.
“I touched myself thinking of you, but it wasn't the same as when you do it for real. It's good when you do it, Hank.”
“Connor you...hell. Oh hell. Where'd you do it? Where did you jerk off?”
“Here. In your bed.” He admitted without an ounce of shame. “At the department, once. I just wanted to see if it would be better knowing you where so close.”
“Was it, Connor? Was it better?”
“Yes.”
Even with the wetness inside him and Hank's careful fingers he still ached wonderfully, impatiently he tugged at the mans wrist with a frustrated whine. Hank let him and instead placed his hands along the pale expanse of Connor's legs, nudging them wide to fit between and teasing at just barely pushing the head of his cock inside him. Barely pressing in as he ran one hand up under one of Connor's legs to pull him in closer, soothing his hand in a gentle rhythm along his flank.
Connor wanted and he wanted now, said just as much to Hank who had been trying to encourage him to be patient and go slow but in the face of Connor's restless squirming could deny him nothing. He took Connor under his legs, dragging him roughly to meet the hard thrust Hank gave him. That he had begged for and continued to demand even as Hank fucked into him.
The sound of his moaning grew static, warbling at the edges, as he keened high and reedy at the hot slide of Hank all around him. Inside and over and everywhere at once. The drag of him as he pulled out and teased at leaving Connor like that, empty but for the fat head of his cock before shoving into him with an unchained desperation. Maybe if he where human, organically so, it would be uncomfortable but the roughness just left Connor feeling delightfully full. Sated in a way he didn't know he hadn't been before.
Hank was babbling, endearments half choked out as Connor shoved himself down to meet with the thrusting of his hips driving hard against him – unashamed as he took for himself and gave back to Hank.
“God you're beautiful. You're so fucking beautiful, so perfect.” He panted, gasping in trembling breaths. “Just look at you. So pretty, so soft.”
Connor had never thought of himself as particularly beautiful, or particularly ugly or really anything at all, but hearing Hank say it like that – with the kind of reverence of a man rediscovering God – he couldn't do anything but believe him. If Hank said it then it must be true.
The rise of something burning and fierce low in his gut made Connor cry out, made him try to warn Hank he was close but he couldn't quite manage the words before he was coming hard and hot over his own belly. Over Hank's too as they moved together. It was so much more than when he'd done it by himself, when it was just his hand and a base sort of curiosity, but now he had Hank there. Hank inside while Connor came over them both and he rode Connor through the wave of his thrashing orgasm, fucked him through it until Hank was coming too. So deep inside of him that Connor thought there wasn't a single place Hank hadn't touched him now.
He felt wet and achy and kind of sticky but in a way that felt deeply satisfying. It should've felt a little uncomfortable at the very least, but Connor just wanted to stay like this until the sun went supernova. He wanted to stay here with Hank softening inside him, murmuring wordlessly into the line of Connor's pale throat as he came down from his daze – arms wrapped tight around Connor like he couldn't bear the thought of them not touching.
Connor couldn't either. His arms went around Hank's back, tangling his fingers into the mans sweat damp hair while they lay tangled together until Hank gently pulled out and hushed the whimper from Connor's lips. Soon enough they'd shower and Hank would take care of the mess they'd made of each other, would gently wash them both with the kind of care that spoke of tireless love, but for now Connor didn't want to let go. For now they stayed in a tangled mess of limbs together on the bed, Connor with his ear against Hank's chest to listen to the thundering roar of his heart and wondering if this was what becoming human felt like.