Date:
December 19th, 2038
Time:
PM 05:22 06
As Hank pulled his leather jacket closer around himself to fight the bitter cold of Michigan's winter, Connor knelt next to a particularly mutilated body. The body of someone named Michael Parkins who had been brutally murdered earlier that morning. Connor touched his blood covered fingers to analyze the corpse's blood, having taken some of the crimson liquid from one of the multiple blood puddles surrounding the man's body.
"This must be like some kinda Christmas to you, huh, Connor?" Hank grumbled, watching the android do his work.
Connor's ears instinctively perked up when a word he had little to no knowledge of passed his audio processors.
"Lieutenant, I don't understand….What is Christmas?"
Hank's eyes widened to nearly half their size, even though he probably shouldn't even be surprised that Connor didn't know about this human tradition. He was like a child in that aspect, he had only become deviant less than a month ago. He cleared his throat lowly before continuing.
"Well, uhh...Christmas is a day when humans give each other presents as a way to celebrate uhh….love and peace on earth or some crap. I'm not really sure of the whole damn backstory anymore, I haven't celebrated it for years…" Hank explained, and before Connor could speak, he piped up again with something he'd suddenly remembered,
"-and another thing about Christmas that I forgot to mention is that there's a.." he trailed off, wondering if he should make it seem like Santa was real for the sake of Connor's innocence, or give him the full story to quench his curiosity. When he looked back up from the ground to glance at Connor's face, he couldn't bare to tell him the truth. Between the tilt of his head and his soulful yet puppy like eyes, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
"There's this guy called Santa that flies through the air in this...this magic sled pulled by reindeer to deliver presents all over the world...kids leave out milk and cookies for him, it's a whole big deal, I guess. That's why there's Christmas Eve before Christmas, to give Santa time to get shit done." The lieutenant explained in an almost exasperated tone. That's when Connor's brow furrowed in what seemed like confusion.
"Hank, everything you have just said just raises more questions…"
"Well then do your own fuckin' research then! Don't ask me!" The police lieutenant yelled, throwing his hands up in aggravation. Little did Hank know, Connor would take this to heart and do just that. Not that Hank should be at all surprised by this point.
Date:
December 25th, 2038
Time:
AM 3:37 23
Since Connor had no real need for sleep, after Hank had gone to bed, he went straight to work on decorating the house (with a bit of help from Sumo, of course) as well as putting the finishing touches on Hank's presents. He had no idea if his eccentric, hard-boiled partner would actually like the little gifts, but he had a feeling somewhere in his biocomponents that there was a chance he would.
When Hank shuffled into the living room that morning, he stumbled upon something he definitely hadn't expected. Connor was casually sitting on his couch beside Sumo, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with a large fully decorated tree that had somehow appeared in the corner of the room along with a couple of perfectly wrapped presents nestled underneath it. Hank took a moment to simply admire all the decorations that presumably his android partner had set up. There was a strand of paper snowflakes strewn around the perimeter of the ceiling along with colorful lights and cutouts of snowmen and snowflakes hanging down from above. While he was silently standing there, Connor finally noticed his presence and perked up, hopping off the couch with a santa hat atop his head.
"Merry Christmas, Hank!" he exclaimed, plopping a similar hat onto the man's head.
Hank couldn't help but chuckle at his enthusiasm, following the other across the room.
"I have a present for you" he nearly yelled, grabbing the small objects wrapped with newspaper and tape and thrusting them toward Hank. Even if Connor couldn't exactly identify all of his new emotions yet, the one that he seemed to feel the most was excitement. Well, that and confusion, of course. The police lieutenant's face contorted in bewilderment as he took the presents from the other's hands. Connor sat on the floor in front of him which made Sumo hop down and join him, his head dropping into the android's lap as he laid down. Hank hesitated for a few moments before opening the first present, which ended up being a book on coin tricks called 'coin flips for dummies'. If it had been given to him by anyone else, he probably would've shot them, but he knew Connor hadn't meant the book to be an insult so he simply smirked and moved it aside. When he tore open the next gift, he couldn't believe his eyes. He held the frame carefully covered in macaroni, glue and glitter in front of him to admire it.
"I read in my research that gifts that are made are more special to the person you are giving them to so I tried to-"
Connor's sentence was cut short as Hank pulled him up and into a tight hug.
"Thank you..This means more to me than you probably think." Hank mumbled, trying not to get too emotional. This specific frame reminded him of the only one his son had ever made him before the accident.
Later that night, Connor had insisted that they go caroling, wanting to experience all of Christmas. After a long hour of Connor explaining why they should go, Hank finally gave in and walked around with the android as well as his dog around the neighborhood, singing traditional Christmas songs.
For Connor's sake, he tried not to hate it too much. Or at least, that's what he'd say if anyone questioned him.
THE END
A/N: Thank you for reading this! It was my first attempt at writing a fanfic for DBH and I hope that I did well. Hope you enjoyed! More will be coming soon!