dualislogs | Midnight, not a sound from the pavement

Midnight, not a sound from the pavement

WHO: All residents of Dualis + special guest stars
WHAT: Strap in, kiddos, it’s a ~memshare~
WHERE: In your head. Or, you know. Everywhere you go to escape that.
WHEN: August 15-24
WARNINGS: Don’t forget these if they’re applicable!

It’s been a few months, Dualis, how are you settling in? New arrivals, we know it’s sudden, but we hope you’re making new friends already and settling in well! You’re all gonna fit in juuuust fine around here.

Things have calmed down after the supposed terrorist attacks during the Dualis Days celebration, and there’s still no news about that strange network broadcast. But maybe that’s for the best, right? See, the Head really does have everything under control.

But speaking of heads…

Over the course of these next few days, yours might be feeling a little funny. Maybe you just aren’t quite feeling like yourself. Or there’s an ache that just won’t quite go away. Or maybe you’re perfectly fine! Which is completely optimal, honestly.

Except--that memory you suddenly have. Is that really yours? And what about those fainting spells that seem to come with premonitions...or are you perhaps remembering something you repressed long ago? You’d probably remember something like this, though, wouldn’t you?

It’s perfectly natural to be concerned. However, if you approach your friendly neighborhood MedBot or clinician, they’re going to be pretty stumped. It appears there's nothing really wrong with you, but hey, here's some mild painkillers if you want them. And if you try and consult the Head, all it’ll be able to do is give you it’s most sincere condolences. It seems that there may have been some complications with the transfer process, but these should definitely wear off soon! In the meantime, why not visit your local clinic for a sedative and some painkillers?

Good luck, denizens. Looks like you’re in for a bumpy week or two...

[[As a reminder, these memory shares can happen at any point in time during the span of the event, not just when your characters are sleeping! You're also welcome to have them experience no side effects at all, all the way up to fainting spells and headaches a la Cordelia circa season 2 of Angel. Feel free to reach out to your friendly neighborhood mods if you have any questions!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's been doing his level best to not get too emotional over it all week. But random strangers seeing a tidbit of a boy they didn't know with a man they're barely aware of hasn't bothered him as much as it could have.]

[Though knowing Connor saw it, and knows what losing that did to him, sparks... fuck... he doesn't know what the feeling is. Something big and empty. Maybe a little foolish. Hank is a man full of too many emotions, not all of them he knows what to do with.]

Should have put his pictures on the fridge.

[Though taking them down would have hurt just as much, but maybe he just thinks he should have been prouder of him for even the little things.]

I picked up a dog. I'll introduce you when you get back to the room. Sorry for not asking you, but I was sure you'd like her.

Edited 2019-08-29 21:13 (UTC)

You can when we get back?

[It was an odd memory for how many feelings it brought on in Connor himself, not all of them good. Pleased he got to see Hank's son as he was. Hank as he was. But at the same time, it was hard to see, knowing how much things would change, not only in that house but in Hank's very mind.]

I already said we could, it's fine.

[...]

Send a picture.

His mother has them all. And I'm pretty sure she won't answer the phone if I call her.

[Yup, still bitter.]

[It takes a couple of moments, but he gets a picture. She's dark brown and rust, and laying very primly in the middle of their floor. She's a doberman, cropped ears and tail. As far as dobermans go, she looks pretty average for a female.]

I've not named her yet.

I can try if you want.
I'm not sure if it would be closer to a hostage negotiation or an interrogation, but it's somewhere in my skill set.

[Terrorists, murderers, ex wives.]

[And there's Connor, walking home with a multiple shopping bags all in one hand, grinning at his phone in the other.]

I like her already. Doberman Pinscher, right?

[He initially only knew police dog breeds off-hand, so he knew this breed already, but then at some point he downloaded everything in the American Kennel Club database...just in case he needed it, is probably what he told himself at the time.

It's been five days and he's really realising now how much he relied on his ability to just look up everything he needed in life.]

Please do. I want her to jump to conclusions and think that I hooked up with someone hotter and younger than her. Not even fucking around, there.

[He's not even paying attention to how that reads. Just actually grinning meanly to himself about someone hot and young rolling up to his ex-wife and clarifying that he's not Hank's android because like fuck would Hank ever own an android. And then asking for personal items. The conclusions she'd jump to would be great.]

Yeah, that's what she is. Has a short tail. Wags it every time I pet her. [He knows it's an automatic reaction, but he likes to think she's actually enjoying it.]

[He's not entirely aware that his LED's gone yellow - the street lights are casting everything in orange light anyway. He has a feeling just two weeks ago Hank would rather have put bullets in all five other chambers of his revolver than let anybody think he 'hooked up' with an android. (And as soon as he thinks that, he wishes he hadn't because he hates that thought on every possible level a person can hate their own thoughts)

Considering the two Tracis, considering Markus and North, he doesn't know why the idea of him in that situation just never crossed his mind before. But it didn't. But Hank thinks that's what his ex-wife would jump to. Like the jump to thinking of him as a sexual being is just that easy.

He just hasn't made the jump yet.

Humans are lucky they get a couple of formative decades to work all this out.]

I'll make sure I record the exact look on her face when she sees me.

[That reply only comes a minute later - maybe late for Connor, but Hank shouldn't notice that, right?]

Two minutes.

[And exactly two minutes later, Connor enters their room and unceremoniously drops a few bags on his bed - clothes, office supplies, books, CDs before he does anything else. His LED's still yellowing away there.]

Edited 2019-08-30 22:56 (UTC)

[Hank doesn't notice, because Hank is trying to figure out what commands she responds to. He just chuckles when he eventually does see it, loving the idea of her appalled look being preserved for eternity.]

[When Connor comes in, she jumps to attention and looks up at him, dog head tilted.]

Why don't you give her a scan, Connor?

[That's the first thing Hank says. Maybe he's a little excited to show him. She has no LED, nor ever has had one. But she's an android. A non-Cyberlife android (constructed by a company called Weyland-Yutani). And after a moment of watching, looking pleased with himself, Hank points at Connor. He's so proud he's not noticed that yellow light yet.]

You're his dog, too. Register him as an owner.

[She looks to Hank, then to Connor. Then wags her docked tail twice.]

[He's about to protest that he's not a vet and can't give a dog a health check, but...sure, he moves closer, bumps his processor power up to full and enters his mind palace, immediately honing in on the dog looking at him with her head currently tilted to the side, eyes bright and inquisitive.

And he falters, mind palace falling away.]

It... She's an android.

[He looks from her to Hank, processing this rapidly. The yellow light ticks in a circle.

Hank got them an android dog. Connor didn't even tell Hank he was nervous about looking after a living being.

But Hank chose an android dog. Turning that over in his mind, that thought has a warmth to it that spreads through him, pleasant though aching, just a little. There's a sudden and annoying intensity behind his eyes and that he shakes away with a hard blink.]

Where did you get her?

Found her at a rescue. Turns out there are all kinds of animals here, a lot of 'em with all kinds of histories. Also brought in by the head.

They told me she was an android, an intelligent and independent one. Had a history of protectiveness and acting on her own. And I thought, 'You know what? I think I know which dog Connor would like.'

[Finally he sees that yellow light. And while he's a little alarmed, Connor seems... pretty alright? Maybe alright. He reaches out, rubs his thumb over that swirling bright mark on Connor's temple, indicating what he means even before he says the words meant to go with the gesture.]

You alright?

[He doesn't know about Connor's uncertainties. He does know, however, one day there won't be a Sumo. One day there won't be a Hank, either. But if Connor takes care of himself? He'll be around for a while. It'd be nice for a companion to last with him. Something to keep him from being alone.]

You can name her if you want.

[It's not just that he was nervous himself. It's that Hank, given the choice, added an android to his family. A pet is part of a family - a roommate might not be, but a pet is, and now they both own a pet - and that pet is an android. That's what it is, even more than alleviating his probably unnecessary worries.]

You thought right.

[When Hank touches his LED, he barely feels it - but the pleasant ache coalesces into a sharp jolt of a feeling in his chest that makes the fans regulated by his breath stutter for the briefest second. He knows - somehow - that it isn't a malfunction, but apart from that doesn't know how to explain it away.]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just… She's an android.

[He repeats it like it hasn't sunk in properly yet. CyberLife don't even make android pets, which honestly seems like a huge mistake on their part now he thinks about it.

He leans down to touch her and, as she butts her brow into his hand, he lets the skin of his hand withdraw on a whim, trying to interface.

What he gets back is…sounds. Smells more intense than he knows himself. Instincts. Tangible programming with developer information he files away just in case. And a voice saying a name that she responds to almost naturally.]

She already has a name.

[He crouches before her, skin reappearing as he pets behind her upright ears, quite unlike Sumo's.]

She's called Maggie.

"Maggie?" [He repeats, watching Connor pet behind those impressively upright ears. It would be nice, also, to have a younger friend for Sumo that wouldn't aggravate him to the point of wearing him out. Surely there must be protocols for behaving with real dogs.]

[He finds himself happier than he expected at Connor being so pleased with her. He had hoped he'd like her, but like any human who's been looking forward to a pet he seems almost... is breathless a word for androids? Probably not. He's fuckin' excited, that's the important part.]

Maggie seems like a good name. Can't be too scared of a good girl named Maggie if you're out in public.

[He reaches down and scratches the realistic fur on her back. She's not really used to 'attention', per say. So she's wiggling her tail as she's taking in and scanning the environment herself.]

I think she might need some help in acting like a normal dog sometimes. She didn't lay down until I told her.

[As soon as they both say the name, Maggie wags her little tail all the harder. Connor doesn't know who the woman was who he heard saying the name - definitely a woman's voice - but Maggie seems just as happy to accept Connor and Hank as substitute owners while her other one isn't here.

And Connor somehow can't stop just...taking in everything about her. All mechanical, but he wouldn't have known without scanning her, not to begin with. Just like Connor himself, she was made to be as realistic as possible, and she doesn't even have an LED.

(He wonders, for the first time, if he should take his off, and as one of his hands pets Maggie's neck, he touches the tiny ridge on his temple very briefly, almost absently.)]

She'll learn to act normal. If she wants to.

[And if she'd rather not act like a normal dog, Connor's not going to make her - even if Connor himself is trying to be normal just because normal isn't normal to him.]

I was a little bit worried about getting an organic animal. I wouldn't know what to do to keep it alive. So this is... I guess it's perfect.

[When he smiles this time, it's at Maggie - then up at Hank.]

Alright. [Hank concedes.] I'm still gonna tell her to lay down sometimes though, 'cause it's hard to relax when she's just standing there.

[At least give him the impression of resting, okay.]

[But that smile wins him over, and he realizes then, finally, why Connor was so happy she was an android dog (though he misses the significance of him choosing an android to be a part of their family). He's just happy that Connor likes her.]

Good. [He's also pleased that he did right, so that 'good' sounds a little brighter than usual.]

Phew. Didn't wanna fuck that up. Glad you like her. I think you'll be good for each other. And in the meantime you can read up on organics for Sumo's sake.

You watch out enough for me. I sincerely doubt you'll fuck it up. [He realizes he's smiled so much lately that his face fucking hurts, and does something that looks like a yawn without breath before going back to smiling. Like he has to stretch those muscles.]

Yeah, I'm sure she won't mind, huh?

[He says that more to Maggie than to Hank, immediately cementing his place in the world as one of Those People. He's not using baby voice, though, which is something. Shifting, he sits up against his bed on the floor and gestures, not sure if she'll understand or care, but she immediately comes over and sits beside him, leaning heavily into his body and sniffing his face. Connor's arm ends up around her, still petting. She's warm - runs a lot warmer than he does.]

I did some already. Downloaded information about dogs, I mean. The day you were gone, Sumo kept standing by the door and I didn't figure out what he wanted till I looked it up.

[Still feels a little stupid in retrospect - dog stands by door, dog surely wants outside.]

I wouldn't slap Sumo in the face and throw him in the shower, though.

[He's not sure he watched out for Hank so much as just dragged him along enough to keep him on the investigation. He should have done more, and he didn't know how - and even his clumsy efforts to find out what was wrong weren't welcomed. As a machine it had seemed so easy, anyway - a mechanic would repair an android; a doctor or therapist or something could mend Hank.]

[That he feels Connor shift into being one of Those People rather than one of Those Things in his mind is a comfort. It's not sudden, and he's been aware of the change. But a device awkwardly saying words he doesn't mean to grab his attention, shifting to a person hugging a dog sitting in the floor.]

He'll be okay. [He tells himself as much as Connor.] I set up some stuff just in case... [Just in case he'd killed himself, and he wouldn't be there to answer the phone when particular people called him. Just in case.]

[A grim reminder of his state of mind as he reaches to pet Maggie, crouching beside of Connor.]

And he'll be considerably harder to throw in the shower. You'll figure that out. Better at wiggling out of your fuckin' arms. I need to take lessons from him in case I need to get out of your grip again.

[Connor's mouth turns down for a moment at Hank's words, knowing exactly what he means and it stinging sharply in a way he's not used to. He never liked or understood this impulse, but it's never really felt like this. But in this case? It's turned out to have been of some good.]

I carried him home.

[His smile is fond as he leans into Maggie in turn. She licks his face - he wrinkles his face up against it, though he's laughing.]

I took him with me to look for you, and we went about ten miles.

[His next noise is a muffled sort of oomph as Maggie licks his mouth.]

He couldn't walk home, so...I took him.

[It occurs to him also the dogs kind of match their aesthetic as well. Sumo, giant and floppy and playful. And Maggie, slender and keen and a little awkward as she licks on Connor's face as naturally as a real dog, and Connor responds in realistic kind.]

I'm lucky she's not telling me the components of your skin right now.

He's probably not walked that far since he was three so I bet he was wore the hell out. I hope we can take her home, 'cause she'll actually be able to keep up with you.

[But Hank moves to his side to sit in the floor with him, accompanied by some big-stocky-man grunting, before putting one arm around Connor's shoulders and using one hand to pet their new friend.]

She could if she wanted to.

[And there's genuine affection in his voice as he leans into the dog, who tolerates - and maybe even enjoys, or at least, he thinks she might - his attention with a lot of goodwill.

And as Hank sits down on his other side and wraps his arm around Connor to reach Maggie, he finds himself just relaxing in place, head back and eyes closed as he absently rubs Maggie's neck and ears. He could just stay like this for hours without moving, without needing to move, just him and Hank and the android dog leaning against his side so heavily he can feel her chest moving with her artificial breath. As he takes it in, he's astonished to feel a build up of heat behind his eyes.

He inclines his head towards Hank very slightly to speak, and as he opens his eyes again, he can feel a hint of moisture. Nothing major, not outright tears - and he'll probably be genuinely alarmed the first time that happens - but it's enough that he notices, and...doesn't get it immediately. So he files it away to think about later.]

I think I just forgot organic beings get tired. I'll remember for next time.

I didn't realise when I deviated just how much I don't know.

[He obliges the lean, letting Connor get comfortable and happy with his new friend. It is a sweet moment. Sad that Sumo isn't here, but not bad at all. The closest to family he's felt in a long time.]

I think Cole would have liked you.

[He thinks back to the memory that Connor mentioned earlier. And the general idea that, hell, it would have been nice to have someone help him get Cole up for school and make sure he had everything. Someone that would have nitpicked his food.]

[Well... Hank never was the most positive on having androids do everything. But having a partner, whatever sort of... thing... this is? He would have liked that.]

I--

[He suddenly feels like he might choke on the emotion that floods up from his chest, even though emotion is quite new and choking is out of the question. He swallows it away with a tiny shake of the head.]

You think?

[In the moment he'd felt what Hank felt for his son, the whole immensity of looking at your own child, and knowing what came after makes him feel sick. And that's only a sliver of what Hank must feel. Thinking that, he finds himself shifting a little to lean into Hank's side - barely touching him, but leaning all the same. Maggie follows as he pulls her with him, watching them both inquisitively.]

I'd like to hear more about him sometime. If it's OK with you.

I do. I think he would have asked you all kinds of questions about how your servos or whatever worked and maybe asked if you could transform into a car or something.

[He hugs Connor a little closer, putting his chin on top of his head (even if that means angling his chin up). It's nice having someone close while he's talking about this, even if Connor isn't exactly warm against him. At best, reflecting Hank's own heat.]

I probably would have told you to say yes. Just because if he's gonna believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy he might as well damn well believe you can turn into a fuckin' car.

[He chuckles softly. It's easier to talk about if he's not looking at Connor's face. This position suits him fine.]

I don't know what you mean.

[He rests against Hank, and though Hank resting his chin on his head means Connor can't see him, there's something...nice...about that warm pressure of Hank wrapped around him. It feels good.]

I can turn into a car, didn't I tell you?

[It occurs to him that he can feel Hank's body heat, but Hank probably just feels nothing back - Connor is distinctly room temperature, and maybe it's disconcerting. But that's something he can change - just a little, notching up his core temperature and altering his heat dispersion levels as if overclocking himself. Maybe that'll help.]

I think I'd like him too. I've never met any kids before, but I'd like Cole.

Well. [He corrects himself.] I never talked to a kid before. There was that hostage case. I'm not sure it counts.

[He barely spared Emma a look, even after what she went through - he shakes his head a little, not wanting to think about it. Maggie makes the tiniest noise, and he smiles to hear it.]

You OK, Maggie?

[Her little stump of a tail wiggles and she headbutts him in the chest. That successfully distracts him.]

[Hank is chuckling again, expression unseen, but the hurt on it is obvious at that moment. Even when he had Cole, his wife had long gone. So he's sitting here, holding Connor (who is growing warmer?), a strange android dog, with another old dog back home and he's thinking about how close he came to having a full family.]

[Even if nothing came of him and Connor, which will be most likely the case, it would have still been a good family. Maybe even the perfect family, because he would have had someone with the patience for parenthood and without the burden of in-laws.]

[Hank closes his eyes and swallows, holding back a sting. It has the added misfortune of making his breath catch, which is harder to hide than every internal scar showing in the creases of his mouth and the wrinkles around his eyes, but the action keeps his eyes from actually welling up. Last thing he needs is to ruin a good moment of Connor and his new dog.]

Kids are just little people, anyway. You got some tiny little asshats that key cars and tear apart dolls for the fun of it.

Think you wanna take her outside? See if she wants to try playing? She might just want to patrol.

[With Connor leaning on him like that, he feels Hank's breath catch oddly, and doesn't understand it, but it doesn't seem good. He worms his arm up behind Hank's back to hold onto him in turn, because maybe that'll help. The touch calms Connor, why shouldn't it do the same for Hank?...He's still working on this whole being close thing.]

Sure, in a couple minutes.

[He does want to go out with Maggie, see what she does outside, but the main thing stopping him, and he doesn't mind voicing this to Hank, is:]

I don't wanna move yet.

[Hank finds himself wincing back another wave of heat behind his eyes because he can tell what Connor is trying to do.]

Yeah, I don't think I do, either.

[He offers that, at least. He can't figure out why it feels like too much, even then, but it does. Like he just tore out his own heart and said, 'Hey Connor. Here's a dog. My thoughts on my son. And here? You can have this too.' And just planted the bastard raw and beating in his hand.]

[Emotions are a morbid ordeal.]

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