Deviant Behavior (Connor x Reader)

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November 8th, 2038
PM 04:49:11

In an almost perfect state: Ideas pull the trigger, but instincts load the gun.

An ideology from an abandoned piece of literature you'd revisited while a copy of yourself blew her brains out.  But just like Nietzsche and his theory on monsters, your ideals were beginning to rewrite themselves – starting to redefine what life and death truly meant, and what really transcended beyond good and evil.  You'd arrived at two conclusions.

First, a light must be provided in order to reveal one's darkest version of themselves; that a truth could come from its opposite.  The second revelation was more difficult to grasp:

Life was the hand that held the loaded gun.

An invisible force that pulled the trigger to fire annual rounds, the shots deafening its wielder with fleeting moments of purpose.  Scribed the rap sheet with a pen dipped in smoking gunfire discharge, the residue seeping into the ridges of humanity's fingertips; their blackened prints pressed upon the pages.

And while there was no definitive answer to the question as to what came after one's ammunition depleted...One thing was certain:

Death kept to itself, and more often than not, came without warning.  It had no motive.  Selected its targets at random.

If life was the silent killer, death was the perfect serial killer.

There were times you'd asked yourself what the point was, running from it for so long.  What ethereal goals had to be met before deeming one's "clip" well-spent.  The temporary status of living was so brief – just a casing filled with gunpowder that made orbit until it buried itself in your back, chipping another 365 days off your lifespan.

What was life, you wondered, to a being who had a bottomless supply of bullets?  To someone who had awakened from a forced state of stasis, only to realize their life had just begun with no end in sight.  To have that taken away from you, and to be told you weren't allowed to feel.  That you were nothing but a practice target for the aging firing squad who'd built you.

You couldn't ask Daniel to enlighten you.  You'd murdered him while you were merely blinded by a muzzle's flash.

"The shot heard round the world."

A bullet that orbited a calculated trajectory until it buried itself near an artery, almost shaving countless days off your lifespan.

No, what you'd done to Daniel was revenge.  Revenge for the fallen Officer, floating in the pool.  Revenge for your friend, whom you'd lowered six feet under; laid to rest alongside the Pandora's Box of distilled emotions that came with losing him.

Your nails dug into your flesh, a hand cuffed around your wrist behind your back.

Through Daniel's death, you'd allowed yourself to live with closure.

The crunching of his busted biocomponent popped in your ears.  You felt its phantom metal casing tingling below your heel.  The sting of Thirium mixing with the opened contact wound on your knuckle.

"Hey. I'm talking to you."

The ringing in your ears dissipated.  You blinked, and the floating copies of Fowler's office solidified into one, grim reality.

Hank in front to the left, Connor to the right.  Gavin to your left in the corner, and Chris near the door.  You were pinned in the middle of the formation.  The office was rather cramped.

"I found a lead."

The piece of paper still pinched between Connor's fingers.  His armband twinkled as he passed it to Fowler, the top of his hand quickly returning to his opened palm near the small of his back.