Disclaimer: I do not own Detroit: Become Human
Rating: T
Words: 2772
Warnings: language; mention of violent android murder cases
-Hello everyone! I hope you enjoy this next installment of my Otherworldly AU! This chapter is gonna be a little more lighthearted compared to next chapter, which will be a little darker. Appropriate warnings will be added for next chapter.
-Also, I did want to mention that I was able to get Nines added as a character to the FF character list! I contacted the staff a bit ago and they finally added it. He is listed as RK900.
-Still at the pre-rk1700 relationship status with Nines and Connor, just to note.
Part I: Frustration/Worry
At age 53, Hank Anderson felt like he was still a damn good lieutenant, even after years of drowning himself in alcohol.
Yeah, his disciplinary record could be another best-selling novel, and yeah, he could stand to come to work at the actual time he was supposed to be there—it was one of Connor's ongoing objectives (and yes, Connor had specifically told him it was an important objective of his), but he knew for a fact that his skills weren't as washed up as Reed made them out to be. He was observant and analytical in his own way—Yeah, no supercomputer brain needed here, Connor—and there were times where that sleuthing part of his brain could help but notice some things.
Like now, for instance.
It was 9:45 in the morning, too damn early to be here yet not early enough according to his partner, and he was sitting at his desk clutching his mug of coffee like it was the only thing keeping him sane. One sip from his Don't Talk to Me Until I've Finished This Coffee mug and the following euphoria that came from it kinda confirmed that, yeah, it was his only lifeline right now. He was only human, sue him. To his luck, or maybe misfortune, the coffee stimulated his brain just enough to home in on Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Connor and Nines were hunched over the latter's desk, pouring over a current case. Their LEDs were matching rings of rapidly spinning yellow. The two androids, including Reed and himself, had been following the trail of a human serial killer who seemed to be taking a perverse pleasure in crucifying androids. Like actually, honest-to-God Bible-style crucifixion. (For fuck's sake, what was wrong with people?) The case had opened about three weeks ago and they were coming to be pretty close to solving it.
The evidence had been some nasty work, and Hank knew that despite how much Nines and Connor wanted to keep it to themselves, the grisly nature of the murders had been getting to them more and more lately.
Hank didn't blame them. He'd seen the lowest of the low of humanity, but seeing your own people being executed for just being alive took a whole new turn on disturbing.
A drop in the room's temperature sent a minor shiver through his body, prompting him to clutch the warm coffee in his hands tighter on reflex.
Ah shit.
His immediate focus snapped to Connor first. Deviancy, from Hank's learned experience, had gifted the android with a violent slam-dunk of both good and bad emotions. The bad emotions were ones Hank hated to see in his friend. He watched as Connor leaned in a little deeper from his perch on his desk—deviancy also made him allergic to sitting like a normal person, it seemed—in order to look more closely at a stack of evidence photos. There was a deep furrow in his brow and a flat pinch to his lips that looked like he was trying to will away a bothered frown.
The temperature dropped another few degrees. A flicker of movement on his right brought Hank's attention to one of the walls. None of the lights in the bullpen had changed, but the shadows on the walls began to shift and yawn, stretching in length as if a passing car was reflecting lights back into the precinct.
A glare formed in Connor's eyes.
The Lieutenant knew that Connor wasn't always Positivity and Good Dog Vibes. Knew that he could be ruthless if the situation called for it, even though he despised when aspects of his previous Hunter coding trickled into his behaviors (and yes, it had taken a while for Hank to pry that little nugget of information from him), but even then, that narrowed glare would have been much more at home on Nines's face.
And speaking of Nines…
The intensity that the man was using to speed-read the reports on the monitor of his terminal could have melted the thing. To anyone who didn't know the RK900 well, they would have called the look on his face the one of a mean son of a bitch. The icy blues that were narrowed—and flicking around reading at an inhuman speed—in what might have been read as hateful, that clenched that jaw that was working itself to death, and that nasty pull of his mouth. Christ, that was the picture of someone not to fuck with.
To Hank, however, he knew better. One couldn't spend a lot of time with Connor without also spending a lot of time with Nines. In layman's terms, that meant he knew the deeper meaning behind those features. That narrowing of his eyes wasn't hateful, but more concerned and frustrated that he didn't have the answer right then and there. That frown on his face wasn't angry, but rather displeased with his own performance. Nines was even more of a perfectionist than Connor was, which was saying something. Nines was supposed to be Connor's upgraded (almost) everything—although he stated this when he was first activated, he had assured them all later that it did not mean that he thought he was superior to Connor—so it was bothering him he wasn't getting the answer he wanted and needed.
To make matters worse, the poor guy had somehow and somewhere picked up the bad habit of stress eating.
Hank could relate, although his stress eating was more like depression eating and beer guzzling. He was, like, ninety percent sure that androids didn't gain weight like humans did, but surely constant snacking wasn't good for them either, right?
With his eyes, he followed the long shadow that stretched from Nines's feet all the way into the breakroom. He had to tilt a bit in his wheely chair, but he could see that his shadow had morphed into a toothy creature and was making its way through an entire box of pastel blue thirium mini cookies. And it wasn't in a normal pace either. Even though a spped of twenty mini cookies per minute, the horror that should have been immediate was taking a backseat to impressed. As he watched the shadow practically mow through another five in the blink of an eye, Horror came back, but this time it had its buddy Concerned with it.
Can androids get indigestion? Hank thought with a note of worry. Nines didn't deserve indigestion.
"Anderson! Reed!" Fowler waved them over to come to his office.
Hank shared a wary look with Reed, who appeared equally confused. Fowler usually yelled out them to chew them out or quickly get their asses in gear. Now, however, he just looked like America's Next Top Exhausted Captain. Those eyebags were vintage fashion, so beat that Tyra Banks.
They didn't even get through the door before the Captain pinned them with a desperate look. Hank decided it didn't look good on him. "Look, Hank, Gavin," he crowded into their space, which made both detectives take a reflexive step back. Another look was shared because why the heck was Fowler acting like this? "I know how difficult your current case is and how much it's been dwelling on you guys. Hell, I'm not even on the case and I've been constantly thinking about it. Who couldn't—the nature of the whole thing is disgustingly terrible."
"If that ain't the understatement of the century," Gavin muttered under his breath.
Fowler glared at the younger man who gave a helpless, well-what-could-you-do shrug.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, continuing, "But," he stressed, "you have to do something about your partners before they end up doing something crazy."
"Crazy? Those two?" Hank snorted. "I think you got the wrong androids, Fowler. Those two are the most tight-laced guys on the force right now."
The incredulous eyebrow that was aimed at Hank could have won the next Academy Award for Driest Presentation of the year. Pointedly, Fowler turned his head to look at Connor and Nines through one of the glass walls which prompted Hank and Reed to follow his gaze.
Connor had a pool of black growing from his feet like a leaking, spilled inkwell. Even from here, they could see the flicker of red-yellow-yellow-red of his LED.
Although Nines had not moved from his spot, they watched his shadow move from the now empty box of mini thirium cookies to the communal breakroom fridge. It started to pull out someone's tater tots and remove the plastic covering of the container. A quick rotation of red in his LED matched the shadow opening its fanged mouth to eat. Androids, sans the little YK500s, couldn't eat human food.
"Y'know what," Reed winced, "that's fair. I got him."
"Okay, shit, I see your point. I'll handle Connor."
They heard Fowler's low 'Thank fuck' as they made their way from his office. When he got to Connor, he sighed and rolled his eyes as he took in the mess that his friend was in. Still hunched over his desk and preoccupied, he took absolutely zero notice of Hank behind him. It wasn't often that Connor got so absorbed by something (other than Sumo) that he ignored the world around him—especially at work—so it was apparent that he was bothered.
With a little shake of his head, he swiped a report from his own desk and rolled it up, and then proceeded to bop the preoccupied man with it on the back of the head. He watched as Connor blinked and startled a bit, LED jolting red then back to yellow. The inky pool of black shadows that had been leaking from Connor got sucked back into his normal little shadow, the yawning and shifting shadows on the wall ceased their movements, and the room turned back to its normal temperature. "Calm down some, kid," Hank patted him on the shoulder and got him to look at him. "You're getting pretty worked up over the case and it's making the room look like a shadow puppet show."
Connor looked away with an embarrassed frown on his face. Well, at least it wasn't as severe as the upset one he was sporting before. "I am sorry, Lieutenant," only this one time Hank didn't bother correcting him about being so formal since he seemed bothered, "but the fact that we still have yet to catch this killer is…" For an android who was meant to be articulate and know what to say—he wasn't a negotiator for nothing—seeing him at such a loss for words made something squeeze in Hank's chest.
"It's driving you up the wall 'cuz you feel like you should have solved this already, right?"
Genuine surprise was a freaking funny look on Connor's face, but Hank was a good partner and friend, so of course he was able to keep in mirth in.
Mostly.
Okay, maybe a chuckle came through, but only a small one.
He watched as Connor's laser light show of a ring swirled yellow-red-yellow-yellow-yellow until it finally slowed to a calmer blue. "For a man who frequently informs me that he does not understand people, there are times where you seem to know just how I feel better than I, myself, do." His mouth eased into something that was no longer a frown but wasn't just quite right enough for a smile. It would do, though. "To give you an answer, yes, that is exactly how I feel, though not in the words I would have chosen."
Hank huffed a laugh, watching as Reed was about to pop Nines out of his own stress bubble. "Yeah, well, not everyone can be a walking dictionary like you."
Reed, still grumbling under his breath, had done a weird cross between a saunter and a powerwalk to get to Nines. He bumped his hip against the taller man's, which caused the creature in the breakroom to freeze and stop its food-scouring campaign. "Yo, Nines, take a break." He pointed to the shadow, "You getting all worked up over this is gonna make your shadow—or would it be you?—all fat."
Nines glanced over to the breakroom, a pale blue starting to creep up his cheeks. With a touch of embarrassment (it was a rare thing that their resident Terminator got embarrassed, so Hank and the rest of the bullpen took it in while they could), the shadow gets sucked back into its rightful place. "Apologies, Detective."
"Dude, it's just Gavin," came the reflexive answer. Then, a scoff, "Don't worry about it. I just don't wanna be the one to have to take you to a hospital and tell them that your dumb ass started malfunctioning because you decided to stress-eat tater tots."
There was a quiet moment before Nines pursed his lips. "I was not stress eating," his voice was low and unamused.
Hank had to just inject his input, "Uhhh, except you kinda were." He clapped a hand on Nines's shoulder in order to steer him away from his desk. The guy looked so confused to where and why Hank was pulling him away from the case material. He was a workaholic, like Connor—didn't help that neither of them had to sleep a human's necessary 6-8 hour schedule, but Hank knew they could get overloaded just like any regular ol' person. But hey, birds of a feather and all that.
"Lieutenant?" Though confused, Nines was allowing the older man to steer him towards the exit of the bullpen. "Where are we going? We still have yet to make any progress with the case and there is much work to still be done."
Reed, as much as he hated to admit he gave a damn about Connor and Nines, poked Connor in the back until he started to trail behind Hanks and Nines.
"Detective Reed, I insist you keep your fingers to yourself."
Another poke. "Insist all you want, but you aren't gonna continue to stress me out by you looking stressed out."
"I am not stressed ou—Detective, will you cease your poking?"
With a look over his shoulder to Fowler, he pointed to the two RKs and Reed and then to the exit. His captain looked all too happy for them to get the hell out of there and seemed to get what Hank was getting at.
"Early lunchbreak. We need it."
A few swats later, like clockwork came Connor's expected, "But, Lieutenant, you seem to forget that androids do not need to eat. Nines's and I's thirium levels are at 98%."
Reed rolled his eyes and scoffed, still poking a finger—and dodging batting hands—between Connor's shoulder blades. "Look, if I have to keep smelling burnt plastic from your brains frying themselves out, I'm gonna tank my bike into the next ditch."
There was a short pause before, "Detective, I do not think you understand—"
"We're gonna eat! Let's go!"
As Hank and Reed were in line to grab something quick from the café around the corner, Reed couldn't help himself. Not taking his eyes off the menu, he tipped his head towards Hank. "Hey, uhh, lemme ask you something." His mouth was screwed something funny.
Hank looked at the younger detective. Arms crossed, foot tapping the floor, Gavin appeared to be the exact opposite of someone who wanted a conversation. "Yeaaah?"
What came out of his mouth was not something that Hank expected to hear, to say the least. "…How can his breath be sweet if he never physically ate the cookies himself?"
"Reed, if you never listen to anything else that I ever tell you 'cept this, it's gonna be that it's best not to think about it too hard."
He seemed to take that in stride, surprisingly well.
At least they didn't have to take Nines to the hospital over eating human food.
They had to take Nines to the hospital because he ate human food.
Specifically, because he had managed to eat five tater tots. When that had happened, no one knew, 'cuz Hank had been keeping a damn sharp eye on him after Fowler had pulled them into his office.
Connor nearly had a fit when Nines had collapsed from pain in his stomach biocomponent and a heating problem. Well, after he had gotten repaired. His predecessor was kind enough to lay off the chiding tirade until he was functional again.
But damn, Connor had that worried hen tirade down pact.
God, Hank wasn't paid enough for this.
Published: 4/14/19
Posted early cuz I have a paper to work on and exams, and tomorrow is my mom's birthday! This was originally gonna be one whole chapter, but I split it into two because it flowed better. Next update will be ~4/28/19. (Otherworldly AU stuff will post about every 2-3 weeks-I don't remember if I've mentioned that or not.)
