Hello! Hmmm, don't have as much to say in the beginning, other than I started writing a tumblr blog that gives a behind the scenes look on how i created certain scenes, the importance or hidden meanings in scenes, my thoughts on the plot and relationships, deleted scenes/concepts, fun facts. Link to it by clicking: here.
For a sneak preview of stuff I write in the blog, Fun Fact #2 that I wrote on the blog, paired with a ramen gif XD, was that part of the reason why I made Alina Asian was because I wanted the cooking scenes to have meaning and not just 'she cooked this'. I wanted there to be a step by step process while characters bond, but I only know how to cook Asian recipes and I didn't want to just like copy recipes from others(part bc thts just wrong & plagiarism) and it was easier to not have to deal with copyright when its ur mother's recipes tht you're writing about :D
Thank you to last chapter's commenters/reviewers for their never ending support! RandomUser,Guest, Veira-Raven
Last but not least, thank you to new follower+favorite folks, VieleDLR18, LTCactus,Ren-Chan4869
Connor let out an exasperated sigh at Sumo, whose fur was covered with mud. Luckily, the dog was quite obedient in letting them give him a bubble bath right now.
On their way back from the park, Sumo was actively splashing in almost every puddle they passed by. Alina didn't seem to mind being pulled along by Sumo, instead she had a soft expression on her face whenever Sumo made a pit stop at a puddle.
In Connor's opinion, seeing her gently giggle at Sumo's playfulness was better than the pasted forced smile she gave him earlier.
"I'm going to miss doing this next week," Alina then pulled on her hoodie to hide what looked like a strained expression. He couldn't use his facial recognition program to properly analyze her, as she was covering half her face. But regardless, at the very least as a deviant now, he could tell that she was hiding her discomfort with the front she was putting up.
As Connor gently rubbed shampoo onto Sumo alongside Alina, he kept thinking about how Alina didn't seem to be honest with him. It was clear that she was upset, but instead she chose to give him the pretense that she wasn't. Does she not trust me enough? Hank usually seemed to be upfront with his emotions, mostly with curse words.
Well, it has only been three days. But during this time, he thought he had really bonded with her over cleaning, cooking, gaming and just regular chatting. He especially liked playing with games with her during his breaks at the DPD.
They had played online apps of air hockey, tic tac toe, tetris, chess, etc. Of course he won the majority of their games, but on occasion he would let her win. Mostly, it was funny watching her sulk over losing and then she would rally herself up and go into competitive mode.
As of right now, Alina was gently layering and distributing the shampoo, happily humming with a genuine smile. Connor couldn't tell which song she was humming without the lyrics, so he simply catalogued the melody into her folder as another potential piece in finding her background.
It was nice to see that she was back in a better mood, compared to the walk back home in silence. The only sound on their way back was pretty much the steady pattering of the rain onto their umbrella and Sumo happily barking as the dog jumped into puddles.
Every time Connor tried to initiate a conversation, she simply looked away from his direction, leaving an uncomfortable stillness in the air as they strolled through the streets.
Connor gently took the soft towel from the sink counter, while Alina took a pail of water from the filled bathtub to pour onto Sumo. She slowly poured the water onto Sumo's back, lightly rubbing Sumo's back to expose more of the shampooed fur. Occasionally she would whisper words of encouragement, saying 'Sumo's a good boy' and the dog would respond back by rapidly wagging his tail.
After the rinse off came the hard part of drying all of Sumo's fur. Sumo seemed eager to get out of the bathtub. Even with the bathtub drained of water, with the amount of water soaked into Sumo fur, Connor knew the floor would be soaked if the made efforts to step out of the bathtub. They both took strides to quickly dry off the fidgety dog.
Once finished with drying, Connor handed a treat over to Sumo, thanking the dog for its patience. Sumo gobbled up the bacon health bar Connor bought for it, before leaping out of the bathtub with a trail of watery paw prints.
"Whew!" Alina said, plopping onto the bathroom seat cover. "I'm wiped out! Taking care of a dog is harder than I thought."
Alina was smiling brightly as if the conversation they had back at the park never happened. It greatly concerned him that she could just throw such a heavy topic away. He simply found himself frowning back in response.
Alina threw him a worried look, "Do you wanna take a shower first? Maybe that will make you feel more refreshed."
For a second, a part of him wanted to press on about her behavior, but from his negotiator programming he knew it might backfire.
"No," Connor replied back, flashing a smile. "You can go first." He could tell that Alina was hiding her fatigue. Even though she was doing a pretty good job of hiding it with her perky personality, her eyes were drooping, shoulders were sagging a bit more than usual and her breath was all ragged. Furthermore, he noticed that the more they had progressed with showering off Sumo, the slower her movements became.
Connor pulled off the plastic raincoat he wore that protected him from Sumo's potential splashing. Then he helped Alina do the same, though she had pretty much taken off 75% of it.
Once they finished up cleaning the bathroom, Alina took to the showers humming what seemed to be a rendition of 'What's up Danger?' from 'Into the Spiderverse'.
Connor on the other hand, changed into indoor clothes and took this chance to report to Markus for the week. After the revolution, Connor was always fearful of Amanda taking over if he ever met Markus in person or just visited Jericho in general, so he limited the amount of contact he made to Jericho.
Markus, however, insisted that if Connor wasn't going to make in-person visits to Jericho for non-DPD related business, then Connor should at least check in twice a week via wireless communication. If Markus was too busy, sometimes Markus would transfer Connor over to Simon or Josh for a weekly talk instead.
Earlier this week on Monday, Connor had already "checked-in" with Markus shortly after bringing Alina into Hank's home. Nowadays, he found himself often talking to Markus about his troubles and on any advice in regards to deviancy or emotions. This week was no different. He spoke to Markus about his confusion on why Hank didn't become furious on the idea of inviting a stranger to the house.
Maybe he could ask Markus about why Alina was purposefully avoiding a heavy topic after opening up. He had texted Markus throughout the week about various updates, many of them including information about the young companion who had newly joined the Anderson household.
Connor went into his private room, sinking into a navy blue bean bag chair Hank had gifted him to decorate his bare room. Connor had initially insisted that it wasn't necessary, that he would only use the room to enter 'resting mode' after a long day. The older man disregarded Connor's argument, saying that precisely because Connor's bedroom is a resting place, the bean bag chair was necessary. Hank asserted that the bean bag chair was much better than the creaky worn out bed especially after a long day of work.
True to Hank's word, Connor found himself often sitting on this bean bag chair, looking out his wide window. It was especially comforting during his talks with the folks at Jericho, like someone's warmth warped around his body. It reminded him that he was safe at Hank's place.
Connor took a glance at his internal clock, 11:37pm. Would it be too late to call in right now?
[Calling RK200 #684 842 971 aka Markus]
"Connor?" Markus answered on the other line of the call with a muffled yawn.
"Markus? Are you busy right now?" Connor tried to listen into the surroundings in an attempt to discern what Markus was last doing. "I can check in another day of the week."
"No, you're good," Markus replied back, this time his voice much clearer than before.
There was shuffling on the other side of the line, alongside the clatter of what seemed like metal pipes hitting cement pavement.
"I'm just going to move to a better location," Markus followed up, his footsteps echoing in the background.
Connor patiently waited, imagining Markus walking to the rooftop of one of Jericho's buildings. Markus had shown it to him once in the past, it was Markus' favorite place.
Markus had mentioned in the past that he enjoyed the view overlooking Jericho, reminding him of all the progress Jericho had made. It was also because there weren't many people there and he got to have some alone time there.
Finally, Markus' footsteps slowed down and Connor could hear the whistling of wind.
"I'm surprised that you're calling in and texting a little more frequently," Markus huffed out with a chuckle.
Somehow Connor could picture Markus putting up a playful smirk even with the heavy exhaustion weighing down the Jericho leader.
Connor quickly looked back at his texting channel with Markus, the former's words being correct. Connor normally only chatted every so often about updates in regards to android police cases. However, lately he realized he had been messaging sporadically about Alina: how he met her in a snowstorm, his theories on her background, the games he played with her and her cooking.
"I'm glad to hear that you made a new friend. Hopefully I get to meet her someday," Markus said warmly.
"About that. . .I wanted to ask you something about," Connor's mind floated back to the park conversation with Alina.
"Go ahead, I'm all ears."
Connor raised an eyebrow in response to what he assumed was an idiom, but swiftly moved his mind back to the park memory.
"Alina. . .She finally told me more about her family, and I won't go into the details for her privacy. But just when she was opening up, she like-" Connor grappled with the collar of his oversized T-shirt as he felt his chest tighten up. "She acted as if the conversation never happened."
"Like for a moment, it was as if I got to see the real her," Connor sank into the bean bag chair further. "Like she acts really mature all the time. But this time in the park, she seemed like a kid who was still figuring out the world."
Markus replied with a 'Mhmm', as if urging Connor to continue on.
"She wouldn't meet my eyes and kept silent the whole way home from the park," Connor added on. "She later perked up from giving Sumo a bubble bath, but didn't bring up the topic of her family again."
Connor shifted his position on the bean bag chair once more, "I understand that vulnerability causes us to close up, but it was like she just switched off a part of herself in an instant."
There was a couple seconds of silence on Markus' end and Connor heard Markus' shoes scrape off the cement.
"Connor," Markus responded back. "Is there something else that's bothering you too? I feel like there's more to the story that you're holding back on."
Connor sighed, resting his left hand on his forehead, "No?"
"Is that a question for me or you Connor?" Markus chuckled again.
"I guess," Connor paused, before letting out a puff of annoyance. "It's just frustrating that I feel like I haven't made much progress with befriending Alina the past few days."
"It's only been three days, Connor," Markus reasoned. "Relationships take time. And a lot of times when you're building one, it can be stagnant at first. But from what I'm hearing so far from you, I think you two are getting along fine."
Connor gave an aggravated grunt back, harsher than he originally intended. He quickly apologized, but Markus was much faster on the other side of the line, telling Connor that it was alright. The leader seemed to just know or understand almost everything about deviancy and how to deal with sparks of emotion in times like these.
For a couple of seconds there was stillness on Markus' end, so Connor took the opportunity to reach out to the work tablet sitting on a nearby dresser. After fumbling a bit to get the tablet, he managed to retrieve the device just barely out of his fingertips' grasp.
Connor opened up Alina's file on the DPD issued tablet, and took a quick look at the digital file that was growing in size with each passing day. A lot of the information was minuscule details, like notes about her habits that indicated she was most likely fabricating statements to them.
Connor spoke up again, breaking the quietness, "Lately, Hank and Alina have been having late night talks or something. And I feel like I'm missing out on vital information because they've always occurred when I'm asleep."
There was a light laugh from Markus, "You mean you feel left out?"
"What?!" Connor choked out.
"Well, I guess," Connor instinctively looked away to the side as if Markus were in front of him.
"Yes," Connor reluctantly said back, his arms tightly grasped around him. "But it's only because I find out more about her through second hand accounts and Hank's digital report updates."
Connor frustratedly ruffled his hair, "I mean, she literally refused to tell us anything about herself initially. I'm certain that when she was filling out the forms, she left out her original address and family information blank on purpose."
Connor then rested his arms on top of his knees, folding them over in front of him, "I didn't push her about it at first. I felt like it would have been better to have her reveal it later after gaining her trust."
"And?" Markus pressed on gently.
"T-This is the first time I felt like I really gained her trust," Connor reasoned, his arms slacking a bit. "She hadn't spoken to me about her family before. And suddenly that connection we were building. . .it just abruptly ended. I-I felt a little saddened by that, I believe?"
"Trust me when I say that you're doing a great job connecting with Alina already," Markus said in a soothing tone. "Some progress is better than no progress and the fact that you recognize these emotions means that you're also learning more about your deviancy."
Markus continued on talking, "Besides, I'm really proud that you're conversing with other people, other than just Hank and your co-workers. Having relationships within your work life is good, but it's always nice to have someone to talk with or just relax in general."
Markus was right in that Connor's social circle consisted solely of his work company. Connor never really had a reason to reach beyond it. He personally felt that all his needs were taken care of either with Hank or his fellow DPD co-workers. Plus, Connor found that doing DPD work was generally invigorating to him mentally.
If Connor did need to relax, he either went on a walk with Sumo or watched the TV with Hank. He never really needed anything beyond that. Though, lately his mini-games with Alina have been very satisfying. Markus' next set of words then broke Connor's train of thoughts.
"You should visit Jericho more, maybe bring Alina along too and introduce her to us."
Connor instantly froze, a cold unsettling feeling seemed into his chest, "I-I don't think that's a good idea."
"I think the number of times you've visited Jericho since the revolution is about the same number of fingers on my hands. And just going up to Jericho's gateway doesn't count!" Markus teased jokingly in the phone call.
Connor hung his head staring at his hands, the same hands that had held Markus at gunpoint twice and nearly killed the compassionate leader. He began clenching his hands, so much to the point that his nails left small imprints on his skin.
"I…I just don't feel comfortable," Connor eventually answered.
He couldn't bring himself to tell Markus about that dangerous moment on stage. Every time he tried to, some part of him held him back-afraid that it would break the friendship he built with Markus. Markus was one of the few people who reached out to him and was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt despite being a deviant hunter.
Connor wondered if he told Markus the truth, would Markus still want to be friends with him? He thought about the issue over and over again. Every time he worked up the courage to tell Markus, his voice modulator would just suddenly stop working. When Markus had an engineer examine the voice modulator's malfunctions, the engineer would tell them that there was nothing physically wrong with it. The only way the engineers could only explain the periodic modulator shut downs was deviancy stress.
"No one blames you for being a deviant hunter, Connor," Markus murmured out softly. "It was in your coding."
If Markus was physically standing in front of Connor, Connor was sure that the leader would have a reassuring hand on Connor's shoulder right now. Markus would tell him again that Connor had already proven his worth on that fateful night at CyberLife Tower.
"Talk to us," Markus stressed to Connor with a strain in his voice. "It doesn't have to be me either. You could talk to Simon, Josh or even North."
In his dimly lit room, Connor creased his eyebrows in response to that last comment.
"North?" Connor questioned with skepticism.
To Connor, she seemed like the last person willing to hear him out. She was always glaring at him from the sidelines and her expression turned dark whenever he appeared at Jericho. Simon and Josh on the other hand were a bit more open to him in a courteous fashion. He had talked to them once via phone call whenever Markus was too busy for a call-in.
John and Simon also sometimes helped with dealing with androids in emotional turmoil from being in DPD custody. It wasn't always Hank and Connor that were first responders to android cases and many androids were still on guard of human police officers.
"North. . .can be difficult at times, but even she can be reasonable when it's necessary. I'm sure you two will get along in the future with time," Markus remarked with a hopeful voice.
Connor didn't take the time to reply though. He was too focused on the fact that almost everyone in Jericho seemed wary and cautious of him other than Markus. Even if he wanted to take the chance to talk to other androids, he didn't feel ready for all the stares from any nearby androids listening into their conversation.
Markus exhaled a long tired sigh from Connor's lack of acknowledgement, "We'll wait for you. We'll wait until you feel ready to talk to us. Not just the four of us, but ALL of Jericho."
Connor wanted to counter back that there was no need for such a thing, but he knew Markus would stubbornly insist otherwise. Connor really didn't think he would ever be ready, he felt that it would be better just to continue limiting contact with Jericho for Jericho's safety. He would sacrifice the potential of building android friendships if it meant being able to protect his people.
"On a better note, Serendipity is fitting in fine since you last brought her over to Jericho," Markus cheerfully said.
Connor could feel the tinges of his mouth slowly curl up to a small smile, "How is she doing emotionally?"
"Well, she said that it was really helpful knowing that an android was in law enforcement," Markus expressed proudly. "You're doing a really good job with helping the android community in regards to DPD's android cases. Your reputation at Jericho is better than you think."
Connor took a shaky deep breath, clutching the middle of his loosely fitted shirt, "You don't have to be kind to me, Markus." His hand shook a bit grasping the raspy material, while trying to desperately hold back the layers of guilt of being a deviant hunter.
"I nearly killed you," Connor softly whimpered out, clasping his hands over his face.
"Connor," Markus sternly called out, with his voice echoing alongside the backdrop sounds of the wind. "I've already forgiven you and I'll continue to do so, even in the future if anything happens."
"This is why North suggests that you are too soft, Markus," Connor gently reminded. "I think I prefer her harsher stance towards me."
"You're being too hard on yourself," Markus huffed in annoyance for the second time in their conversation, "And North isn't always as fierce as you think. Don't worry, she thinks well of you too."
Connor stroked his face, nonchalantly saying 'okay' to appease Markus' argument or he knew this conversation wasn't going to go anywhere. They've done this multiple times to the point that he could probably predict their discussions whenever it went in this direction, even without the help of his code.
"Connor. Really, we're here for you," Markus repeated again, just as firmly as earlier in their conversation.
Connor knew Markus was a genuinely nice person and that words were not spoken for naught. However, he couldn't find himself confining to them about that incident on their emancipation day. He had only told Hank so far on what happened with Amanda.
The older man didn't completely understand the mechanics of how deviancy usually broke a programming code's hold, but Hank had been very supportive of him. Hank had been continuously telling Connor that it was alright to take things at his own pace. And right now, Connor really didn't want to think about this.
"Let's, let's just stick to the cases," Connor said in an attempt to distract himself. Thankfully, Markus took the cue and didn't press on the other subject.
"You have already updated me on all you know about the android cases," Markus said in a calm tone, his voice turning back to his normal tranquil demeanor. "Serendipity is doing good overall. She's interacting with other androids in Jericho, making lots of friends and participating in lots of Jericho workshops or activities."
Connor relaxed at the thought of Serendipity fitting in with Jericho. She had been heartbroken during their question sessions, tightly gripping the engagement ring box to her chest during their talks.
Androids didn't really get eye bags as signs of fatigue, but he could tell Serendipity was emotionally exhausted as she usually held a glazed look. Connor let his shoulder slump down, his electronic muscle fibers finally able to loosen up a bit from his prior stressed out state.
"That's good," Connor uttered out, a smile forming on his face.
"Why don't we talk about something better? More cheerful?" Markus suggested. "What about all those cooking lessons you have been talking about?"
Connor playfully rolled his eyes, "You mean disasters?"
"I've been showing your cooking 'disasters' to the rest of the gang," Markus said while failing to stifle his laughter. "They enjoy the updates on you."
Connor widened his eyes, feeling his cheeks burn up, "What?!"
"Simon says you're welcome to visit him for any cooking tips," Markus continued laughing with what sounded like something muffling his mouth.
"Oh my god," Connor cried out, burying his face deep into hands. The rest of his DPD department knew about his cooking failures, but since he had been distant with Jericho they weren't aware of it. Until now.
"It's going to get a while to get used to this side of you," Markus amusingly said. "The great, almighty Detective Connor unable to fry an egg properly."
"I did get better on my 5th try though! Hank approved it!" Connor shouted back, his face still burning up.
"Alright, alright, whatever you say," Markus continued chuckling some more. "Give my regards to Alina, bring her around Jericho. We'll welcome her with open arms."
"I'll let her know," Connor said, while still groaning internally at the egg catastrophes being mentioned.
"Oh yeah. And Connor?" Markus piped up. "Give it time, I think she trusts you more than you think. Good night!"
"Good night," Connor cheerfully replied before closing the line.
[Total Call Time with RK200 #684 842 971 'Markus': 15 Minutes and 5 Seconds]
Connor took a moment to compose himself, before heading out his room to check if Alina was done showering.
As expected, when he opened up his bedroom door, he found it wide open for him to use. However, what he did not expect to see was Alina sleeping and curled up next to Hank on the couch bed. Her head was resting on a propped up pillow that Hank had situated on his right shoulder. A blanket was draped over her body and to her right was a slobbering St. Bernard that was also in deep slumber.
Hank also had another couch pillow on top of his lap that didn't seem necessary. With Connor's preconstruction abilities, he could see that it was placed in that specific spot with Alina in mind. The idea was that with a 27% chance of Alina's head rolling off Hank's shoulder, her head would most likely land where Hank's couch pillow was and not startle her up.
Alina's face was also unusually flushed, her breathing was heavier and slower in comparison to the past when Connor found her in the morning. He deduced that she must have been tired out by today's events. It was more than their usual of just letting her cook. Today she also bleached the bathroom, took Sumo on a walk and also had to give the big dog a bubble bath. She deserved having that early rest.
Part of him was a bit disappointed to see that they weren't going to have their usual late night bit. Just when I finally decided to stay up a bit later. He went back to his room to get his shower gear and used the shower as an opportunity to cleanse his murky thoughts.
When Connor got out of the shower room in his pajamas, he was pleasantly surprised to still see Hank still up watching a previous Detroit Gears game. Connor went over to sit at the armchair to the left of the couch bed after putting his shower stuff away. When he sat down, he was greeted with the sight of the trio messily entangled in each other's arms on the couch. And . . . just like Markus said, he guessed what was feeling a bit left out? Jealous, was it too?
Hank seemed to have noticed though, the old man scouched a bit to the right and patted the extra space on the couch. Connor took the indication as a sign to tell him to come over to the couch bed. He plopped down to Hank's left and found himself following Alina's action of resting his head on Hank's other shoulder. Hank didn't appear to mind being sandwiched between two kids.
"You doing good, buddy?" Hank whispered.
"Hm? Yeah," Connor took a small square pillow off the ground and situated it between his head and Hank's shoulder.
"Sounded like something was up with your check-in earlier," Concern laced in Hank's voice.
Wait, the conversation was supposed to be via internal wireless communication. Did I react too strongly that it became external? Connor tensed up, thinking about how much Hank had heard.
"It was just the usual," Connor mumbled back. "And also an egg catastrophe that was mentioned." Connor laughed at the last part, but not too much that it would wake up Alina.
Hank seemed satisfied with that answer, a smirk lining his face.
"Alright there buddy, but if you need a good talk you always got me."
Connor silently nodded back, content at how everything was right now: the Detroit Gears Game mellowing in the background inconspicuously, Hank falling asleep to his right, Alina peacefully entangled in their jumbo mess and Sumo slobbering up a storm.
Things are . . . alright.
He felt a smile creep up on his face as his mind faded into the darkness.
Hmmm, i had a really hard time writing this chapter lol XD like i was deciding on the format on how i wanted to show internal dialogue communication between androids' voice calls vs like text messages and played around with things.
Ahh, yes the block quote, ended up being a result of my pondering. XD i didn't original intend for the block quote conversation to last so long. But here is the result *shrug* but also bc its sorta necessary for future stuff .~
Hmmm, as shown in the tags, this is platonic relationship between Markus and Connor simply bc they don't really talk too much initially-in like a formal manner mostly.
Damn I am worn out from this chapter. Didn't mean for it to turn out to be around 4k-5k words. XD i was going to ask yall too if u preferred faster chapter updates with shorter chapters(2k-3k) vs longer chapters(4k-5k) but with longer wait intervals. However, i ended up writing a long chapter in the end XD
And YES, it has only been 3 days surpingsly since Connor & Hank met Alina. But man has it felt like forever .~ Will this story cover a day to day basis? No, that would be too exhausting XD and the plot would be boring. But yes, I do pace things a certain way to help build up the story. Originally this chapter was gonna focus solely on the bubble bath but then it became this XD
Also feel free to go back to old chapters to see the tumblr blog posts of behind the scenes links for each of the old chapters
Our Q&A: Anything you guys are looking forward to for summer break or vacation? For me, mostly just staying at home & writing this fanfic for u guys .~