ANGELEYES, dbh connor

FORTY-THREE

━━━━━━(●'ω｀●)━

"ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE ALRIGHT with me staying here?" your soft voice fills Connor's sleek black car alongside the barely-audible pop music playing on the radio. It's a song from that Android boy band━the one that, up until the revolution, everyone was going absolutely crazy for.

Briefly, it has you wondering if they've been disassembled or not. Markus couldn't save everyone, no matter how hard he tried. But would humans throw away such a valuable thing for money making?

"Of course," Connor says. His hands glide against the leather steering wheel and taps to the beat of the song as he turns down his snow-coated street. "Why would I mind, Y/N?"

Your lips curl into a soft smile. You don't answer his question. "One day, I'll have my own house," you say with certainty, "and then I'll be able to return the favor."

With a single, smooth movement of his hands, Connor turns down into his home's driveway and goes to pull up beneath the closed-in carport. His yard has been coated in snow, much like the rest of Detroit, and you can see a few thick icicles hanging from his roof. But that's not what catches your eye.

There's already another car parked beneath his carport, taking his usual place.

It's a sleek, fancy BMW convertible model the color of silver-streaked moonlight. It has a glass roof that glints beneath the faint, nearby streetlight━and you recognize that sort of roofing. It's unique only to this model. These sorts of cars have the ability to project interior holograms onto the ceiling to give their driver whatever ambiance they want, from sunsets to internet videos of cats slap-fighting each other.

A car like this...

It costs far more than just a pretty penny. You're almost certain there are only fifty models produced in the US.

Just as you're about to run a scan on the number plate to see who owns the car, you notice how quickly Connor's heart is beating. All of a sudden, it's beating concerningly fast, like it's trying to break out of his chest and run across the car's dashboard. Worriedly, you look over at him and give him a quick scan. A new sort of anxiety you haven't yet experienced grips your system.

It worries you how stressed he suddenly appears.

"You should stay here," Connor says, and his tone is dark.

You blink at him, surprised by his sudden shift in behavior. "Why?.. What's going on?"

Connor's eyes flicker toward you. They've gone cold like they had when you mentioned the scars on his back. A protection mechanism? Is this him shutting down his emotions to hide his vulnerabilities? Either way, you're not sure how to feel about his sudden change.

"It's my brother," Connor speaks lowly, his eyes stuck studying a half-dead pot plant far away in the distance. His eyebrows furrow together, creasing in the middle. "It's not going to be pretty. I don't know why he's here, but I can guess... He wants to stir up some trouble."

You recall the time in Cyberlife's headquarters when Connor's Android clone had taken Hank hostage. 

If Richard Stern had the balls to do something like that━had the patience to perfectly clone and study every freckle and every mannerism of his own brother just out of spite━then it makes you wonder how bad it'd have to be for Connor to act so worried.

How could anything be worse than that?

"I want to come," you say, earnestly, as you stare into Connor's eyes.