The Storm Between Us (Reed900)

A long and awkward ride home

The first few minutes were silent, Gavin keeping his eyes on the road and his half-empty coffee cup. Conan's LED stayed yellow as he processed the work day's events. His memory, which should have been focused on the case, was overflowing with mental snapshots of Gavin's eyes and smile and occasional scowl at Hank and Connor. They felt like pop-up ads, though he couldn't bring himself to dislike them.

It was after a dozen more seconds of silence that Conan finally asked, "Do you think the case will be solved soon?"

Gavin shrugged.

The lack of response made Conan frown. He folded his hands in his lap. He tried again, "I don't think it'll take too long. We have plenty of clues to go off of." Not entirely true of a statement, they had a lack of clues to go off of. Conan just wanted to see if Gavin would reply. Once again, Conan was met with silence. He internally debated if Gavin had gone deaf and couldn't hear anything he was saying.

Finally, as a last attempt, Conan said, "Detective Reed, I wanted to apologize for my actions the other night." He watched Gavin perk up, but still not taking his eyes off the road. Conan continued, "I didn't realize my actions were... flirtatious in any way. I may have been programmed to understand humans and social interaction, but sometimes it is still hard to apply different concepts to different situations. I'm still learning, is what I'm trying to explain, detective. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable at all."

Gavin tapped his fingers on the wheel. He shrugged a little and said, "It's... cool. I guess."

That wasn't much better than the previous responses, but at least it wasn't silence. Conan tried to remain content with the reply. He couldn't help it, however, he had to overcompensate.

"Is there anything I can do? To make it up to you?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yup."
"Well, if there's anything you need, you can let me know, detective."
"Uhuh."
"... Anything at all-"

"Jesus Christ!" Gavin stopped at a red light. "Conan, tin can, are you trying to fucking- are you-" He huffed and snapped, "Shut up! It's fine! Really! If you wanna make it up to me just fucking drop it and stop asking for the love of God!" He crossed his arms and glared at the red light, as if it was the traffic's fault for his bad mood.

Now it was Conan's turn to stay silent. He waited for the light to turn green. As fun as it was to stare at screenshots of the day's memories, Conan was running out of idle things to do. He needed interaction. Finally, he asked, "Why do you think the killer's mixing android and human parts together?"

Gavin sighed, "Because the killers a fucking idiot..." The silence didn't have time to settle before he added, "It's probably a god complex sort of thing. Wants to create a superior being. Strength of an Android, bullshit of a human, make a supreme leader of the planet. I don't know. It's usually something like that."

"That's a possibility." Conan nodded. "... It's an interesting idea to think about... You think humans are bullshit? That's their redeeming quality to you?"

"Yeah?" Gavin scoffed, "All we do is talk, shit, piss, sleep, have sex, and die. What else are we good at? Any qualities we have can just be perfected in an android." Gavin glanced at Conan before returning his glare to the road. Rain sprinkled on the windshield, and Gavin rushed to turn the windshield wipers on.

Conan suggested, "I think that humans are more determined than we are."

Gavin burst out laughing at that, and he struggled to focus on driving. Conan reached over to steady the wheel. "You think we're determined?! You started a fucking revolution!" Gavin wheezed.

It took a few minutes for Gavin to finally stop laughing. Another traffic light. Gavin hit his horn and cursed not so quietly. Conan said, "I didn't start a revolution." Gavin furrowed his brows and glanced at Conan.