Learning to Live | D:BH Fic (Discontinued?)

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Android racism(?) and very slight gore warning!

"What about this one? Because I really like it!" Charlie twirled out of the dressing room wearing a simple shallow v-necked blouse.
"The colour is nice." agreed Connor.
They were at a local mall looking for clothes. All of a sudden Charlie's LED flashed yellow, meaning she was getting a call. She touched it and answered.
"Detective Charlotte speaking. ... Oh hi. ... Yeah, he's with me. ... Okay, we'll be there in twenty minutes." Charlie turned to Connor. "We need to go. An android murder was called in a little while ago."

When they got to the crime scene Chris Miller waved Connor over to the body while Charlie looked around.
"So what do we have?" Connor asked, briefly scanning the apartment.
"Victim is an XJ700 named Andrew, he deviated about five years ago. His boyfriend came back from visiting his mother and found him like this." Chris gestured to the android, who was leaning on the wall with his head smashed in. At this, Charlie came over.
"Well, there are some pretty clear signs of struggle. There's a chance that we can get memory from him, but we shouldn't get our hopes... up." Charlie trailed off as she scanned the wall right above the body.
"What is it?" asked Connor, noticing Charlie staring at the wall. Charlie frowned.
"The killer wrote something in thirium, it's-" Charlie squinted at the wall, which zoomed her vision in. Connor turned to the wall and immediately saw what she was referring to.
"I think we have a serial killer on our hands," Charlie said.
"What? Why?" Chris questioned, looking from Connor to Charlie to Connor again.
"The killer wrote: 'You can't hide from being our slaves. Until the android law is revoked, an android will die every day.' "

Charlie was sitting at the 'case station' looking over the file when Connor came down the stairs.
"I think we should talk to the boyfriend, he's probably not the killer but he might be helpful." She said without looking up. Connor leaned on the island.
"You're doing it again." He noticed. Charlie lifted her head to look at him.
"What am I doing?" She asked.
"When you're worried about something you throw yourself into work. You did it even before." Connor gave her a look of concerned teasing. Charlie sighed.
"I just... can't stop thinking about this android." She nodded to the file. "We were made to hunt and destroy deviants. If I had done this no one would have batted an eye. It's just hard to wrap my head around being free now, I guess."
"You are not going to hurt anyone, Charlie," Connor reassured her. "It takes some getting used to that's all."
"How are you so calm about this whole thing?" But as soon as the words left Charlie's mouth, she could tell that they maybe shouldn't have. Connor changed the subject as quickly as it came up.
"So... what are you thinking about the threat?" Connor said as he pulled the photo out of the pile.
"We have no reason to think that the killer won't act on it." Charlie worried.

"Jason Sinclair?" The man nodded. "I'm Detective Connor and this is Detective Charlie. We're trying to solve your boyfriend's murder." Connor said.
"Mr. Sinclair is there anyone who would have wanted to hurt Andrew? Did he have any enemies?" Charlie asked.
"No! Andrew is- was pretty quiet most of the time!" Then Jason thought about it. "Well no, Andrew was very vocal about android rights, obviously. When we met he was staying at New Jericho and helped with rioters outside after the revolution. There was one man he would mention sometimes, apparently, he was especially 'pushy.'"
"Pushy? Pushy how?" Connor inquired.
"From what Andrew told me, he broke someone's leg," Jason recalled.
"Sounds like our kind of guy," Connor said. "Did Andrew ever mention his name?" Jason shook his head.
"I'm sorry, no."

It had been about an hour since they talked to Jason when Charlie had an idea.
"Sinclair said Andrew lived at New Jericho. Maybe Markus knows who our guy is." She suggested, leaning back in her chair.
"There's a good chance. I'll arrange a meeting." Connor stood up.

Charlie and Connor were sitting inside the main building on the New Jericho property, waiting when Markus came up to them. He was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans.
"Connor! It's good to see you!"
"Hey, Markus!" Connor smiled.
Then Markus shook Charlie's hand.
"Charlie right? Connor's told me a bit about you." Charlie glanced at Connor in confusion.
"Yeah... that's me."
"I brought up all the riot files we have," Markus said. "They're in my office. Follow me." They followed Markus to the elevator but before they got there, Charlie stopped Connor.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You clearly know Markus as a friend, but you've never mentioned him. There's something you're not telling me."
"Okay okay, fine," He said after a second. "I'll tell you when we get back to the apartment."
"Thank you." Charlie continued walking.

"Sinclair mentioned the suspect broke someone's leg. So maybe we can narrow it down to just injury reports." Connor recollected. The three androids entered Markus's small office, where a few boxes Markus had brought up sat on his desk.
"Well, that helps!" Markus chuckled. "The injuries are in... " He opened one of the boxes and flipped through a couple of files.
"This one!" Markus quickly found and pulled out all the reports relating to leg injuries and then split them up.
"Did you know Andrew?" Charlie asked him.
"We weren't good friends but I met him a couple of times. His model was designed to be a heavy lifter for small spaces, like a smaller TR400, so he was really good at keeping rioters at bay." Markus said thoughtfully. "He was a good guy, a lot of people here looked up to him." He sighed.
"We'll catch whoever did this Markus, I promise!" Connor gave Markus his best encouraging smile. "And you've got the best people on the case!"

"Not a man, not a man, not a man," Charlie muttered to herself. "Oh, this one's a broken arm." She handed the file to Markus. Connor stood up and tucked about three-quarters of his pile back into the box. He turned to Charlie.
"Want some help?" He offered, sitting down beside her. Charlie was, again, very aware of how close he was to her. She kept her head down so her hair would hide her blue-tinted cheeks.
"Uh... sure," Charlie mumbled. She scooted over a bit. "I'll go through the rest of this pile, you can run background checks on the people we've picked out already. Look for criminal records, it'll be easier to get a reason to talk to them."
"Got it."

Half an hour later, they had finished going through the files and were preparing to leave.
"Any chance we can take them with us?" Connor asked hopefully, holding a stack of files.
"No, not these, sorry. But we have digitals of everything. They're in the basement." Markus said.
"I could go get them." offered Charlie.
"Okay. Josh should be down there, he'll show you what to do." Markus replied. When Charlie left, the room got quieter.
"I wouldn't have guessed that she'd slam someone's head into a table," commented Markus after a while. Connor laughed.
"That was definitely one of Charlie's more... dramatic moments. She's stronger than she looks and knows it but..." He glanced back at the door. "She's not proud of it. I think- I hope, deviating makes things better for her. "
"It will, you know that," Markus assured him, then they went back to silence.

A/N: AAAAAAAA! I'm sorry this took so long! My motivation to write is wack! I have decided to upload every other Sunday, if that changes it'll be in my bio. (I'll also give you a heads up here) Also, we're almost to 100 reads!!! That is baffling to me! I want to do something when it happens, maybe one-shot requests??🤔 Let me know! I hope you enjoyed Markus's appearance because it might not happen again in the main story. I'm not the best at canon character writing. Catch you later!