Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was a rather innocuous shortcut on Hank’s old, wheezing PC. The icon was a green diamond against an off-white background and when Connor hovered the mouse over the shortcut, it stated the program was called simply The Sims (2033).

“Hank, what is this?” Connor asked, even though he knew he could simply search for the information through his own connection. He liked hearing Hank explain things better anyway.

Hank squinted at the monitor, still in denial about needing glasses. “It’s a video game; you can make people and houses and play people in those houses. I haven’t played it in ages.” Hank frowned, his tone going wistful the way it usually did when he talked about old hobbies. Connor can still remember the weirdly melancholic mood Hank was in when he explained Silent Hills to him.

“You control people?”

“Yeah, it’s a simulation. They’re called Sims, you tell them where to work, who to start a family with.” Hank shrugged. “Surprisingly addictive, really.”

“Huh.” Connor put it out of his mind before he returned to his original task of looking for Hank’s old college photos.

Later that night, after an evening of teasing Hank for his failed college punk band and after Hank had turned in for the night, Connor returned to the desktop with some curiosity. He didn’t need to sleep and as such spent his nights consuming various media to better understand humankind.

In the half year since the revolution, he and Hank had fell into an easy routine that started when Hank invited Connor to live with him instead of his crappy studio apartment. Connor was relieved to no longer return to an empty space where he was unsure of what to do with himself without any Cyberlife-issued directives. It was easy to fill that gap at work, creating his own directives aimed at solving their cases, but it became more difficult on his off hours. And no matter how often he tried to explain he didn’t need rest, Hank and Captain Fowler both refused to let Connor stay overtime at the precinct, Hank’s reasoning being that Connor needed hobbies outside of work and Fowler grousing that he can’t pay overtime to someone who would never stop working.

Connor’s hobbies so far consisted of watching Hank’s favorite movies, listening to Hank’s favorite music, or reading Hank’s favorite books. Hank was annoyed that Connor wasn’t developing his own interests but Connor considered it a start. Besides, he entertained himself watching a film and wondering which elements resonated with Hank, or made him laugh, or made him startle.

He hadn’t yet tried Hank’s favorite video games, but Connor considered this night to be a good time to start.

Connor couldn’t interface with the PC, as it was almost halfway through its lifespan when androids were available to middle-class consumers, and he already knew Hank’s response if he’d complain about it.

‘It’s a video game, for Christ’s sake. The whole point is to play it and be challenged, not cheat your way through it. Fucking androids.’

The corners of Connor’s mouth tilted up. Not for the first time or the last, Connor wished Hank didn’t need to sleep so much.

He opened the program and watched it load up slowly on the monitor. He frowned. It was an old video game on an old computer, it made sense it would take a while.

He checked up on Hank, listening to his heartbeat and his uneven snores, before finding the sleeping Sumo on his dog bed in the living room. He scratched behind his ears and watched the dog lazily wag his tail before drifting off again.

He returned to the PC and saw it was still loading. He grimaced and ended the program.

Searching online found him millions of results of humans complaining about being unable to run The Sims (2033) and reminiscing on the good old days when The Sims 2 (2004) ran easily. Connor took an agonizing fifteen minutes to follow suggestions on cleaning up the desktop’s outdated software and installing new programs to mimic the game’s intended OS before finally loading the game. Thankfully the main menu was reached in a more bearable two minutes.

From there, Connor found the game pretty self-explanatory. You picked which neighborhood to live in and created a household to move into whichever house you can purchase with the provided funds. Curiously, he looked at Hank’s old saves, the last one being from March 2036. He stilled at the image of an older Sim with long gray hair and beard and a child Sim with brown hair and bright eyes. He knew the household would say “Anderson” before he hovered the mouse over the image.

Cole, eternally young and never allowed to grow up.

Connor returned to his own save, quietly thankful that Hank was asleep.

The funny thing about the Sims was that you can make a vampire Sim, a plant Sim, or even a wendigo Sim, but you couldn’t make a deviated android Sim. Sure, there were controllable Simbots, but they were more of the traditional robots, and the Sim version of androids, called Simdroids, existed purely as furniture. Annoyed, Connor once again returned to the internet to find other androids, and humans too, complain about the lack of controllable deviants. He also thankfully found a mod made by an android that made Simdroids a life state and deviant by default. It also took Simdroids out of the furniture category. It didn’t make Simdroids completely integrated with the rest of the game, it was really just regular Sims with an LED circle and most typical human needs eliminated, but Connor felt infinitely better with the mod installed. He only hoped that the sequel would have Simdroids alongside human Sims.

He made himself quite easily with a brown hairstyle closest to his own and a plain black suit. He gave his Simdroid traits like Brave, Loner, Perfectionist, Dog person, and Good Sense of Humor, though he knew Hank would disagree strongly with that last one. He moved his Simdroid into a simple one-storey home and started his Detective career as a lowly cadet.

It was strangely addicting. Every time Connor thought he was done for the night he found another thing he wanted his Simdroid to do. His Simdroid achieved two promotions and caught the infamous perpetrator responsible for stealing lawn flamingos from twelve different residences. He made friends with a painter and got invited to her party and met a fellow Simdroid, who later asked him out on a date to the beach. It was not lost on Connor that his Simdroid had a more active social life than him. By the time his Simdroid started moonlighting as a DJ in the local nightclub, Connor felt like there was something missing.

His train of thought was caught off by the deafening sounds of Hank’s alarm. He could hear him grumble, half-asleep, before getting up and stumbling into the bathroom.

Connor exited the game to start the coffee machine.

The next night Connor watched his Simdroid dance with a pack of werewolves before realizing what he missed. It was simple enough to pull up the household menu and move the Andersons into the empty house next to his. He felt vaguely guilty watching his Simdroid stroll up to ring the doorbell, his cheery “Sul Sul” greeting Hank and Cole. But he still made Hank join the Detective career, cheating to automatically make him a lieutenant, and felt satisfied to see the Coworkers label on his and Hank’s relationship panel.

This was ridiculous. It was one thing to be amused by making your Simdroid a master chef, but it was another thing to get sentimental watching Hank and Cole hug while his Simdroid cooked them dinner in their kitchen.

But the point of The Sims was wish fulfillment. That was why the actual Hank created a save of himself and his dead son to live forever on his hard drive. With that sobering thought, Connor thought to himself ‘Why not?’ and moved his Simdroid in with the Andersons.

Then he created Sumo, not as big as he should be ingame but still adorably fluffy. Connor liked dogs, even virtual representations of them. Cole absolutely loved him, automatically playing with him and training him without Connor needing to direct him. Even the grumpy Sim Hank stopped occasionally to stare at Sumo and his animated expression betrayed how happy he was that a dog now lived with him. Connor’s Simdroid had constant wishes to cuddle with Sumo and play fetch and give him flea baths.

When Connor was fulfilling another wish to take Sumo on a walk, the next wish to pop up made him pause. ‘Have First Kiss with Hank Anderson.’ It startled a huff of air out of him, very nearly a laugh. Of course his Simdroid would also want to kiss Hank.

By now his Simdroid and Hank were best friends forever and spent most of their time together. His Simdroid ignored calls to go to parties and dates to stay home and watch sports with Hank. On their prior day off, the four of them went to the park, Cole running around the playground while his Simdroid and Hank alternated between playing fetch with Sumo as they chatted the entire time. Connor’s Simdroid had already kissed two other men, the game must have recognized him as gay and simply recommended his closest platonic relationship. The game was only doing what it was programmed to do.

Connor turned it off for the night.

He ignored the game for the next few days. He knew he was being unreasonably surly, to the point that Hank picked up on it and tried to cheer him up. It only made him feel worse.

Connor hated feelings.

Or at least he did until Hank thanked him for cooking dinner, smiling gently at him while wiping spaghetti sauce from the corner of his mouth and sucking it from his thumb. Connor felt like his wires were overheating and twisting up with each other, and if he was human he’d definitely be blushing. Instead, his LED dipped briefly into red before circling into an orangey-yellow. Hank frowned at the sight.

“Connor, you can tell me if anything’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Connor lied. “I’m glad you enjoyed dinner.”

Hank clearly didn’t believe it but stopped pushing it.

While Hank got ready for bed, Connor sat on the couch with Sumo, curling his fingers through his fur. It soothed the ache inside of him as he listened to the shower turn on.

What would Hank do if Connor entered the shower with him? What if Connor walked right up to him and kissed him with no explanation? Would Hank stiffen and shove him away? Or would he moan and kiss him deeper?

Connor felt paralyzed. Chasing a suspect across a highway was easier than this.

Even the mere idea of Hank gently letting Connor down left him feeling raw and wounded. He burrowed his face into Sumo’s soft neck.

Because he was weak, Connor booted up the game that night. Wish fulfillment, he reminded himself, as his Simdroid hesitantly pecked Hank on the lips while cartoon hearts floated around them. He felt his processors growing hot as their exchange turned steamy and the wish popped up for ‘Woohoo with Hank Anderson.’

‘That means sex,’ Connor thought to himself.

He sent Cole and Sumo to the park and let the new couple have the house to themselves for the rest of the afternoon.

Connor knew enough of humans’ social cues to know that getting married the day after their first kiss was not realistic at all. Yet, he felt something soften inside him as he watched his Simdroid and Hank walk down the aisle, as Cole and Sumo sat in the front row. Cole clapped and cheered while Sumo lifted his leg to urinate.

His Simdroid and Hank kissed in front of all their excited friends and coworkers. When the two parted, they laughed and giggled and stared at each other, their gazes clearly so very loving.

Connor couldn’t help but beam at the little family he made.

Connor was hiding something.

Hank didn’t become a lieutenant by sitting on his ass, contrary to popular opinion. Something obviously bothered Connor to the point that he was quiet and sullen for multiple days. Every time Hank tried to pry, Connor would conspicuously change the subject.

Sometimes the android got into these sorts of moods. Came along with the whole ‘programmed to follow an evil corporation before deviating and joining a revolution’ territory. Most of the time Hank reminded Connor that he was there to help, and sometimes Connor would fess up to what was bothering him or get over it. Hank just needed to wait him out.

Hank knew this logically but was still peeved when Connor rushed him in his night routine to get to bed.

He didn’t need to sleep and like always Hank wondered exactly what his partner got up to at night. The few times he asked Connor had assured him he spent the time learning more about humanity. Which was a pretty broad range of things he could be doing. Connor could either be watching those cringey old Kids Bop music videos or watching weird fetishy porn.

Oh god, Connor could not be watching porn, could he?

The thought stuck in Hank’s mind and he couldn’t get rid of it. He knew Connor knew about sex. He had no idea if Connor had a libido or even had all the parts necessary. But then Connor wouldn’t be flustered about watching porn, after all he had absolutely no shame when he asked Hank to rent all those Traci’s back when they first met. Or maybe he somehow learned shame since then.

It was not porn.

Hank laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to listen for any sound in his house. Connor was typically quiet, except for that one time he decided to blare his jazz records at three in the fucking morning.

It was probably something mundane, like looking through Hank’s old photos. Connor had gotten a kick out of the image of Hank in a torn skull shirt and smudged black eyeliner. Or maybe he’d finally followed Hank’s suggestion to actually read through a book, page by page, instead of instantly downloading the entire contents into that supercomputer brain of his.

See? Not porn.

‘Fuck it,’ Hank thought. It was a thought he’d usually have before doing something stupid.

He slowly got up from his bed as to not disturb the mattress springs and alert the android to his awaken state. If Hank was going to catch Connor in his definitely-not-porn-watching habits, he’d have to move through his own house like a damned thief. Luckily, he knew every creaky floorboard in the place.

Hank reached the end of the hallway, leaning against the corner that turned towards the main area. He could see that there was a light in the kitchen -- probably the monitor’s light from where he had set up his old PC in the bare corner of the room.

He crept up slowly, waiting for Connor to whip his head around at any second, LED red. But he seemed to have snuck up on Connor, surprisingly. He must have been completely engrossed in whatever he was (not porn) doing.

Hank frowned at the monitor. There was a Saint Bernard on the screen surrounded by tiny copies of itself, running around and yapping at each other. A familiar looking man with a blue circle on his temple strolled up to the dog to coo at it, before turning around and kissing a gray-haired older man with a beer gut. A man who was helpfully labeled as ‘Hank Anderson.’

“Are you playing the Sims?” Hank blurted.

Actual Connor startled and whirled around, his LED a bright red. His eyes were wide and he was gaping at Hank, an expression Hank had never seen before and in any other circumstance would have jumped on to tease Connor for. But in this case Hank was equally as stunned.

“Is that us? We kissed?”

Connor was silent for a painfully long ten seconds before he stated tersely, “They did that on their own.”

Hank narrowed his eyes. “Sims don’t kiss unless you make them. And the game says we’re married.”

Connor did not offer any more explanation. His expression shut down into a blank stare that was more reminiscent of his pre-deviant days. But before Hank could assure him that he wasn’t mad, more just confused as fuck, something else on the monitor caught his attention.

A teen Sim walked out into the backyard towards the puppies. A Sim who looked a lot like--

Oh.

Without another word, Hank turned and left for his bedroom.

Connor was panicking. After Hank stalked off, he shut down the PC and lingered outside the bedroom door, but the lieutenant did not respond to any of his calls.

He was sure that the next morning Hank would demand Connor to get out of his house, but besides a grumbled greeting and an awkward silence, nothing had changed. Everything proceeded according to schedule. They were nothing but professional to each other at crime scenes and they even engaged in small talk during lunch.

But they didn’t joke with each other. Connor didn’t catch Hank off guard with one of his dry remarks, making Hank’s eyes crinkle as he chuckled and patted his shoulder good-naturedly. They didn’t have their recurring argument of Hank needing a well-balanced diet instead of the fast food slop he gravitated to. After work, Hank pulled into Chicken Feed without comment, leaving Connor behind in the car. It saddened Connor to know that he won’t be cooking dinner tonight.

It wasn’t until after dinner, when Hank decided to forgo beer in favor of whisky, that Connor decided they needed to confront this gulf between them. They sat on the couch, pretending to watch a basketball game. Connor petted Sumo absently while he watched Hank stare at the TV.

At last, Hank gave up on the pretense of not noticing Connor’s stare. He turned his head to stare back at Connor, raising an eyebrow.

“I want to apologize,” Connor said.

It unnerved him to see that Hank still had no reaction.

“I realize I have overstepped your boundaries. If -- if it would please you, I can find a new apartment to live.”

Hank’s blank stare turned incredulous. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Last night,” Connor continued hesitantly. “I know I made you uncomfortable. I enjoy the friendship we have, and I did not mean to strain it by…”

“By making us get married in a stupid video game,” Hank supplied. He shrugged. “Is that what got you looking constipated?”

“I can’t get constipated.”

“You know what I mean.” Hank waved him off. “It’s not a big deal.”

Connor frowned. This apology was going nowhere like his preconstructions had predicted, as it usually was the case with Hank. “But you’re upset.”

Hank sighed heavily. He took another swig of his whisky before setting the glass down on the table. “You had Cole in your game.”

“Oh.”

Of course. In his panic of inadvertently revealing his feelings through a video game, Connor had entirely forgotten the now teenage Sim in his game. Shortly before Hank had interrupted him, the Anderson household had celebrated Cole’s birthday with a riotous party. Even the Grim Reaper had attended.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said.

“Stop apologizing. You did nothing wrong.”

“But you’re obviously upset and I--”

“Connor,” Hank interrupted with exasperation. “I lost my kid. And sometimes I’m going to be in a shitty mood because of it. It doesn’t mean you’re to blame, and you can’t fix it.” He glanced back at his whisky before grabbing it and draining the glass. “And Christ, I’m not kicking you out just because of a damn game.”

The tension seeped out of Connor at those words and he let out an entirely unnecessary breath. He hadn’t ruin their friendship. Hank wasn’t mad at him. ‘He’s not mad at me,’ Connor repeated to himself.

Before Connor could fully relax, though, Hank looked back at him with a smirk. “So, why are we married in your game?”

“Uh.” Connor opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again. “My Simdroid got a wish to kiss your Sim.”

“He did, huh?” Hank chuckled.

“And the point of the game is to fulfill your Sim’s wishes, so of course I fulfilled them.”

“Well, of course you did.”

“And they’re very happy together,” Connor finished almost indignantly. He stared right into Hank’s amused and indulgent eyes before getting flustered and staring back down at his lap.

“Connor?” He looked back up to see Hank smiling softly at him. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I -- I might have the same wish.”

“Really?” Hank said. “A wish to kiss an old drunk who gets into stupid moods?”

“A wish to kiss a handsome detective who opened up his home.” Connor smiled a little and leaned closer into Hank’s space when he saw Hank moved towards him.

“Handsome?” Hank echoed, his face scrunched up at the thought.

“Very,” Connor assured him before closing the distance and kissing him briefly, feeling chapped lips press against his own. He imagined hearts floating around them and two mutual positive symbols flashing above their heads.

This was better than the Sims.