Chapter Text
Something was very, very wrong.
Connor would be hard pressed to give an explanation as to why something was wrong, or at least an explanation that made sense to a stranger. It was a lot of little things that had all built up to create an intense feeling of wrongness. Sixty had been smiling since he returned home the previous evening, but it was his ‘I have done something and I’m waiting for you all to find out about it’ smile. And if that wasn’t enough, he hadn’t woken Connor up by pouring water on him, or even kicked the back of Connor’s seat on their way to work. He had come up with 213 possible explanations for Sixty’s behaviour, and he knew he would be on edge until the matter was settled.
Hank had shrugged off his concerns, as Hank usually did when Sixty was Up to Something, but Gavin had noticed as well. Three seconds after he’d sat down, he’d asked, “why are you smiling at me like that? It’s creepy.” He’d also pointed out the gap on Sixty’s desk where his nameplate usually sat, which he’d noticed even faster than Connor had.
Three hours into their shift Tina’s eyes met Sixty’s across the room, and Connor immediately prepared himself for the worst. Sixty acting strangely was worrying enough, but Sixty and Tina together? A nightmare. The third-worst thing Connor could imagine, behind ‘being hacked’ and ‘Sixty becoming friends with North’.
Sixty retreated into the breakroom and turned the coffee machine on. Connor felt like he was frozen in place watching what was about to unfold, even if no one else had noticed anything out of the ordinary. His fellow detectives could be truly useless sometimes. A few seconds later Tina focused back on her screen and said, “hey Reed, can you look at this for me?”
Gavin looked up from his computer, startled out of his work by the sound of his own name. “Huh?” he said, because Connor had not once in his life heard Gavin say anything eloquently.
“No, not you,” Tina replied. Connor could hear her trying to hold back laughter. “The new Reed.”
“The new-?” Gavin muttered; his brow furrowed in confusion. Connor was sure his expression was similar.
Sixty chose that moment to reappear into the bullpen, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. “Ah, Tina, you called?” he asked. It was the most fake-innocent thing Connor had ever heard him say, which was impressive, because Sixty was constantly causing trouble and then pretending that he hadn’t.
“There you are, I need your help for a sec.” She looked up at him, grin returning to her face, and shook the file slightly.
“Sure!” Sixty walked across the room and traded the file for the coffee mug. He opened it to the first page, turned to look at Gavin over his shoulder, and winked.
Connor had just enough sense to take a picture of Gavin’s face for later, question marks practically visible flying around his head, before he asked what everyone in the room - or he and Gavin, at the very least - were thinking. “Sixty, what have you done?”
“Well,” Sixty said as he started flicking through the pages. At regular human reading speed, another sign that he was causing trouble. “Fowler kept telling me to get off my ass and pick a last name, and Gavin is always saying that I should pick an awful last name to match my awful first name. So last night I went down to city hall and picked the worst name I could think of. You, my friends, are now looking at Sixty Reed.”
This was not one of Connor’s 213 predicted explanations.
Sixty took the shocked silence that followed as an opportunity to retreat back to the break room, and this time Connor followed him. He knew Sixty tended to be impulsive, but changing his name? That was a pretty big deal.
“Six, did you actually think about this?” Connor asked as he sat at the table. Tina’s file had been placed on the table, so Connor took the opportunity to read through it. The case was already solved, to his surprise. Just a prop for the big reveal.
“Be more specific, Con. Clearly, I had to think about it in order to do it,” Sixty replied. “What you mean is, how long did-”
“Alright, what’s the big idea, smartass!” Connor had seen Gavin angry before, but nothing like how angry he looked as he stormed into the breakroom. A potential second to ‘finding out Sixty was his new partner’ on the Gavin Anger Scale, but definitely bad.
Sixty, on the other hand, was busting out the ‘puppy that absolutely didn’t just eat your slipper’ look, as Hank liked to call it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, as if he hadn’t just announced to the entire bullpen what Gavin was talking about.
“Har har, don’t play dumb,” Gavin snarled, poking Sixty in the chest. “Why the fuck did you steal my name?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Sixty said, as if he hadn’t just announced to the entire bullpen that he’d stolen Gavin's last name - wow, Connor's thoughts were getting repetitive. He needed to play a few rounds of solitaire and get his brain working again. “I just think Reed's a neat name. I like plants…” False. Sixty killed Connor’s house plant by giving it too much water. “I like books…” False again, Connor had never seen Sixty read a book in his life. “I like…”
“You like Gavin,” Connor interrupted before Sixty could say something stupid like ‘wind instruments’. And yes, perhaps Connor should not have impulsively said something that he’d inferred from a late-night conversation three months ago, but Sixty did that all the time, so whatever.
He smiled sweetly at Sixty as the other android’s face turned red. “What? No!”
Gavin, to his credit, immediately ran with it. The workplace bullying circle had finally paid off. “Yeah, it’s like we’re married or some shit.”
“No!” Sixty protested again. “And you don’t get to talk, Connor Detroit!”
“Holy shit, that’s what you went with?” Gavin laughed as he walked over to the table and ruffled Connor’s hair. Finally, things were getting back to normal.
Sixty shrugged as he followed Gavin across the small room. “Dumb name for a dumb face.”
Gavin mimed holding a walkie talkie. “Ksshh, dispatch calling Detective Detroit, we need you urgently.”
“An award was dropped off at reception, it’s inscribed with ‘world’s biggest loser’.”
“We knew to call you.”
Connor sighed and looked back out at the bullpen. Hank was looking around in confusion, coat in hand, which meant they probably had a case to go on and that Hank had somehow managed to ignore Sixty’s Bullshit of the Day. He pushed Sixty and Gavin away from him so that he could stand up. “Alright, laugh it up,” he said, a phrase he definitely had not stolen from his partner. “At least people won’t think I’ve married the city.”
Gavin snorted as Connor began to walk away. “So what? We could be married.”
Connor saw Sixty nod and immediately wanted to sink through the floor. Nope. Why would you say something like that to the most impulsive android in Detroit? “The benefits would certainly be worth it,” Sixty said, and Connor knew that he would regret making a comment about marriage for the rest of his sorry life.
“Taxes…”
“Mortgage, especially since I can’t legally own property yet.”
“Oh, better credit score! Fuck it, let’s do it!” Gavin exclaimed, and to Connor’s horror Sixty agreed. You fool, Gavin.
“Wait-” he tried to protest, but Hank had finally realised where he was hiding and started dragging him out, completely unaware of the terrible event that had just taken place. Gavin may as well have just proposed. This was terrible. This was worse than a name change, or the time that Sixty hid under his bed and began to tickle his feet just as he fell asleep.
Something else about the conversation was bothering him too though… and it wasn’t the whole ‘Sixty clearly has feelings for Gavin’ thing. Was it Gavin’s sudden mood change? Or the-
Wait.
“WE’RE IDENTICAL, SIXTY, YOU DUMB FACE!”
---
Connor didn’t have the guts to broach the topic until he and Sixty were alone that night, their shared bedroom lit only by their LEDs. Statistically, the best time to have a serious conversation with Sixty was when he was tired - he was more honest, and more straight to the point, since he wanted the conversation to finish quickly. “Hey, Six… what happened today?”
“I’m pretty sure I got engaged,” Sixty replied. Honest and to the point. “We talked about it more after you left. It’s pretty common, actually, androids getting married to humans. It counts as ‘joining an American family’, and while Hank might adopt you one day, I am shit outta luck. Gotta get my citizenship somehow.”
Connor had heard about this from his friends at New Jericho but knowing it and seeing it happen to his brother were very different things. “And you aren’t going to regret it a few months down the line?”
He couldn’t see Sixty, but he was fairly certain that his brother shrugged. “Who cares if I do? If we can get married, then we can get divorced. But Gavin’s been single for over a decade, according to him, and I’m-” Sixty’s LED span yellow for a second as he cut himself off, but it was enough for Connor to fill in the blank.
“You have feelings for him,” he said gently, more of a statement than a question.
“I don’t know.” That was unlike Sixty, to admit to not knowing something. “Sometimes I think I do, y’know? He’s attractive, and sometimes I’m like ‘wow, I could kiss you right now’, but is it just curiosity? Because I think that about other people too! And he’s my best friend, I like spending time with him, but what’s the difference between hanging out and going on a date?”
“Sixty, I am probably the worst person to ask about this,” Connor said eventually.
Sixty sighed. “Yeah, I know. And maybe it’s just because he’s the only person I’m super close to that isn’t my family. This shit is so confusing.”
“Emotions suck,” Connor agreed with a nod. “You’ll figure it out, though. It’s okay if you stay friends, and it’ll be okay if it becomes something more.”
“Yeah, I hope so. Thanks, Con.” They laid in comfortable silence for a few minutes, neither of them eager to sleep so soon after a serious conversation. “Your face is dumber than mine, by the way.”
“It’s the same face,” Connor protested, but his brother had already gone into stasis.
---
The next day Connor’s backup quarter was missing from his pocket. He knew from reviewing his memory files that he hadn’t put it somewhere else, but he had a good idea who had taken it, which meant he wouldn’t be getting it back.
He’d taken to fiddling with a hairband that he’d permanently borrowed (not stolen, no matter what anyone else said) from Tina in its absence. Usually fiddling with something made it easier for him to focus, but the commotion from the breakroom was currently outweighing the hairband’s benefits.
To no one’s surprise, it was Gavin and Sixty again. The pair caused so many distractions that they may as well make a television show, like that Brooklyn Nine-Nine show Chris had shown him once. Today Sixty was holding a Ring Pop, which was strange since Sixty was physically unable to eat candy. They were vegan-friendly, though, which meant it was likely intended for his partner.
As if on cue, Sixty held out the candy and dropped to one knee. “Gavin Jerome Reed,” he said, loud enough to turn the head of everyone in the bullpen. Gavin’s middle name was not Jerome, Connor knew, but he suspected Sixty didn’t care. “You are my best friend that I don’t live with, and despite us both being absolute assholes, sometimes you’re kinda nice, so it is no surprise that we have fallen hopelessly, head-over-heels in love. I don’t know about you, but I want that for the rest of your puny human lifetime. Will you marry me?”
“You are so fuckin’ dramatic,” Gavin replied through stifled laughter. “Fuckin’ hell, Six, I said yes yesterday.”
The pair kept bursting into fits of giggles as Sixty slipped the makeshift ring onto Gavin’s finger. They seemed oblivious to their staring co-workers, until Chris ‘took one for the team’, as Tina would say, and spoke up. “Anyone else have so many questions right now?”
His response was some variation of ‘yes’, from almost everyone in the room.
“Didn’t you hate each other yesterday? You were yelling at him ‘cause he changed his name.” It seemed that once Chris started, he wasn’t able to stop. “Or have you actually been together this whole time?”
“Hey, I haven’t hated him for at least six months.” Gavin said, scratching the back of his head. He winced, presumably from Sixty nudging him or stepping on his foot. “But uh, yeah. Been together for a while. The name change caught me by surprise, since we hadn’t talked about marriage or anything, kinda freaked me out. But then we decided, hey, why not?”
Connor had never heard so many lies before in his short life, which was impressive, because he spent a significant amount of time interrogating criminals. Gavin’s explanation was almost convincing, though, and seemed to be good enough for most of their co-workers.
Connor thought that would be it - everyone would return to work, Sixty and Gavin would delight in their ability to convince their workplace of untrue things. Tina seemed to have other ideas though. “Ain’t you gonna kiss your fiancé?” she yelled across the room. “Gotta prove it to the masses!”
“Ah, well, we don’t-” Gavin’s attempt at an excuse was interrupted by Sixty grabbing him by the jacket collar and pulling him in for a kiss. It looked awkward, not that Connor had any experience. Sixty flipped Tina off as they pulled apart, but he was looking at Connor, his eyes displaying a strange mix of panic and lust, and it was in that moment that Connor understood: Sixty had fucked up.
---
“This is the worst thing to ever happen to me, and I’ve been shot in the head,” Sixty groaned, hours later when it was just the two of them sitting in the dark.
“Congratulations on having feelings for the guy you’re faking a relationship with,” Connor replied, because he could be an asshole when he wanted to as well.
Sixty threw his pillow at Connor’s head. “Shut up, this wasn’t meant to happen. It was meant to be a joke! See whether we could actually convince people or not!”
“Well, you succeeded in convincing most of our co-workers, and yourself.”
“I hate you so much,” Sixty said, but Connor knew he didn’t mean it. “There’s a new quarter in your jacket by the way. Used yours to buy the ring.”
“Of course, you did.”
---
The few days after the proposal were a blur. Connor and Hank had a difficult case, returning home far later than Sixty most days, and were far too exhausted to celebrate once they finally had their suspect in custody. Sixty must’ve sensed Connor’s mood, because he’d turned his usual chaotic behaviours onto Gavin instead. Well, that’s what Connor assumed, based on the two times he’d heard Gavin yell about having salt in his coffee. Not a common courting method, but whatever floated Sixty’s boat.
Now that he was back to paperwork and cold cases, though, it was his turn as the victim again. Already that day, Sixty had hidden Connor’s only jacket, transferred him a CAPTCHA code via interface, and given him a bottle of blue Gatorade. Before they’d even arrived at work.
By 10AM, Sixty was sitting at his desk across the bullpen, glaring right at Connor. Gavin was doing the same, which meant it was ‘Fuck Connor Club’ time. He could read their lips if he tried hard enough, but he already knew that it would be some variation of “fuck Connor”, or “Connor’s the worst”. He was used to it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling uneasy. The vibe was nasty, as Tina would say.
Hank called him away to follow a lead before Sixty and Gavin could follow through with whatever they’d been planning, and his stress level dropped 20% once he was out of the station. “Where are we off to, Lieutenant?”
“Corktown, Connor. Did you break your ears or something?” Hank asked. The unimpressed look on his face reminded Connor of their first week working together, before he had deviated.
“Sorry, Lieutenant, I was distracted by Sixty and Gavin,” he said. Becoming distracted was an unfortunate side effect of having free will, and one of the things he disliked most. He searched his database for any active cases they had related to Corktown and managed to find the one Hank must be investigating - a corner store robbery committed by a deviant. Something that was happening more and more often lately due to unemployment rates and low minimum wages amongst the android community. “Another android struggling for money, then? Unsurprising. At least Sixty and I have found better ways to deal with it.”
“You applied for a credit card using my SSN, Con,” Hank pointed out as he unlocked his car. “Technically a crime. Don’t tell me your evil twin’s done that too, I’ll be bankrupt before I know it.”
Was Hank really oblivious to what had happened a few days earlier? He’d been in the room, for rA9’s sake. Hank’s ability to completely ignore Sixty truly baffled Connor sometimes. “No, Lieutenant,” he started, before realising he was still standing in the parking lot. He opened the passenger door and sat down, buckling his seatbelt before he continued. “Sixty has decided to turn to tax fraud by marrying Gavin. They’re engaged.”
Hank’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to come up with a response. Connor knew how that felt. “That kid is fucking insane, I swear,” he settled on eventually. The latest Knights of the Black Death track drowned out Connor’s attempt to continue the conversation.
---
His missing jacket was on the back of the chair when he returned to the station, confirming his suspicions that his brother had taken it. Something felt different about it though, and as he got closer, he saw that parts of it were covered in holes and tears. Gavin and Sixty were looking at him from their desks, so he held the jacket up towards them. “What did you do this time?”
“Target practice!” Sixty said with a grin. “Tested out those throwing knives I got for my birthday. Gavin was giving me tips.”
“I did tell him to use an actual target.” Gavin, for once, looked slightly apologetic. He had helped ruin Connor’s clothing, after all. But once Sixty had his mind set on something it was very hard to convince him otherwise.
“It’s fine! He hates that jacket, now he has a reason to get a new one!”
Sixty was correct, but that didn’t mean Connor couldn’t be annoyed. “You could’ve asked first, at least. I probably would’ve said yes.”
He sat down and interfaced with his terminal, ending the conversation. He really had hated that jacket, but it still hurt to see it destroyed. It was one of the few things he owned. And Sixty had stolen and ruined it without an ounce of regret. This was out of line, even for him.
>Alert! Somebody is calling your name.
He could probably guess who. Hank usually just texted him if he was needed while interfacing.
>Alert! Incoming projectile.
Could Sixty just stop for once? Connor was tired and upset and angry; he didn’t want to have things thrown at him too.
>Alert! Incoming projectile.
>Alert! Incoming projectile.
>Alert! Damage to biocomponent #327L.
He pulled out of the interface to see a letter opener embedded in his left shoulder. “What the fuck?” he said in unison with Hank’s shout, both of them turning to face Sixty.
“Stop ignoring me when I’m trying to talk to you!” Sixty yelled back, arm raised with a pair of scissors in his hand.
“You just fuckin’ stabbed him!” Hank stormed over to Sixty’s desk and grabbed him, pushing him up against the cubicle wall. Connor knew how that felt. “The fuck is wrong with you?!”
Connor looked down at the letter opener again and turned his audio processors down, not in the mood to hear a screaming match. Sixty had thrown something sharp at him. Sixty had hurt him, for no reason besides Connor was working rather than talking to him. Sixty had done a lot of stupid things in his life, but he’d never hurt Connor before. Not since the warehouse, where he’d shot Connor in the same biocomponent that was damaged now.
He was fairly certain that Captain Fowler must’ve broken up the fight at some point, and he was vaguely aware of Gavin shouting at Sixty too, or maybe those things happened the other way around. He paid them no mind as he removed the letter opener from his shoulder. Thirium stained a small area of his shirt, but it would evaporate by the time he made it home. He stood, grabbed his ruined jacket, and left.
---
His bedroom door opened again 27 minutes after he returned home, but for the first time Sixty hesitated at the door instead of immediately collapsing into bed. He looked nervous; an expression Connor saw him wear very rarely. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, glancing down to Connor’s shoulder.
“It’ll heal when I sleep,” Connor said. He wasn’t okay though, and he knew that Sixty would infer that from his lack of answer.
His brother crossed the room and sat in front of him on the bed. He reached out towards Connor’s shoulder but dropped his hand at the last second. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t- I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Connor replied, surprising himself when he found it was true. Sixty really did sound sorry. “I know, Six, but…”
“Can I...?” Sixty held his hand out once more, but this time with the skin removed. Difficult topics were always better explained by sharing memories and emotions. Connor took it and accepted the interface request, preparing himself for whatever he’d see, and hoped it wouldn’t make him feel worse.
“Fuck, Sixty, I had such a great night last night.” Gavin stretched and leant back in his chair, and Sixty could see a bruise poking out from his collar. “Met this guy at the club, fuckin’ huge, holy shit. Don’t worry if you see me limping.”
Sixty ran the words through his social algorithms again, this time successfully interpreting them as ‘I got laid real good last night’. Usually these conversations didn’t bother him at all, but today his vision blurred red, the need to grab Gavin and leave his own marks on the shorter man overwriting any other self-assigned tasks he had.
(‘Jealousy’, Connor sent through the link, and felt Sixty respond with understanding.)
It made his jaw clench and his fingers curl into balls and he stood suddenly, shocking Gavin out of his recollection of the previous night’s events. He knew he couldn’t act on his desires, but he needed to do something else or he’d go mad. Target practice, maybe? He had those new knives, and he’d borrowed Connor’s jacket to wear out with Tina later but maybe he could use it for this instead. He needed to ruin something.
He grabbed the bag that held Connor’s jacket and briskly walked down to the shooting range, Gavin hot on his heels for some reason. He didn’t bother to explain himself as he draped the jacket over a target and grabbed the knife set. His first two throws missed completely, too worked up to use proper technique.
He felt a hand at his waist and looked over his shoulder to see Gavin behind him. “Here, turn like this,” he said, pushing lightly on Sixty’s hip until he was in a better position. “I think you should be using a paper target instead of Connor’s clothes, though.”
“Whatever,” Sixty replied as he threw the third knife. It hid the target, but not in the right position to stick. “He won’t care.”
Gavin grabbed his throwing arm and changed its position too, but his other arm still held Sixty’s hip, and they were almost pressed up against each other. Sixty could feel his breath on the back of his neck. It was incredibly distracting, but somehow, he still managed to embed the knife in the centre of the jacket.
They stayed like that until Sixty was hitting the centre every time. He felt cold all over as soon as Gavin stepped away, a big change from the intense heat of moments before. He wanted, needed, to have Gavin’s hands on him, and the chill was a reminder of what he couldn’t have. And not because they were at work since that probably wouldn’t stop him. It was because Gavin did not feel the same.
(‘Lust’, Connor suggested, even though the feeling was foreign to him. ‘I know what being horny feels like’, Sixty replied.)
He placed the jacket on Connor’s chair when they got back to the bullpen. He couldn’t bring himself to care about whether his brother would be mad or not. He was still so worked up, but in a slightly different way now. Not calm, not even close.
He stayed tense through work, through Connor’s return to the station. He needed to talk to his brother, but Connor wasn’t paying attention, so he threw the first thing from his desk that he could grab. It felt like a good idea at the time, but then later he could only see the letter opener in Connor’s shoulder, only feel Hank’s hands pushing him against the wall, only hear Gavin yelling at him.
He didn’t need Connor to tell him what regret and guilt felt like.
Connor pulled away from the interface as the memory faded away. He didn’t know what to say. Sixty’s actions were inexcusable, although he felt slightly better now that he had some context behind them.
“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to do that, I just- just didn’t know what to do, everything was too much, and it all felt wrong. I wasn’t paying attention. Why do I never think?” Sixty’s eyes filled with tears that quickly overflowed. Connor had never seen him cry before. “I hurt you again, oh God, I’m still just a- a fuckin’ piece of shit, I hate it, I hate myself.”
“No, Six,” Connor said, finally stopping Sixty’s rambling. He reached up and wiped away some of the fallen tears. “You’re nothing like how they made us to be, okay? You just need to learn how to control yourself and your emotions better. We’ll work on it. It’ll be alright. Okay?”
Sixty nodded frantically. “I can be better, I promise, I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” Connor pulled Sixty close, cradled his brother’s head against his chest. “I know.”