While the wind rustled in the summer-shine leaves - birds twirled and warbled, long grasses swayed - Hank sat hunched on the splintered back step, quiet and still in the warm morning sun.

Sumo curled at his feet - watched him, sorrowful, with big worried eyes. The leash dangled, slackened, from Hank's draped fingers.

He'd memorized the pattern of stones in the dirt. The breeze and birdsong had lulled his bones into a gentle, quiet ache.

He breathed a small laugh. "I'm fuckin' pathetic," he told Sumo, who offered a huff in response. "I knew it, I just didn't think …"

Hank released a long, ragged breath. Dismissed his thoughts. Listened instead to the birds.

"What d'you wanna do now, boy?" he asked, gravelly and quiet. "Looks like it's just you 'n me. You're not goin' anywhere, right?" His grip tightened on the leash.

Sumo lifted his head, ears perked, tail thumping - eyes bright on something above and behind Hank's shoulder.

Hank, with a suspicious squint, twisted back - immediately flinched, startled nearly off the step, to find Connor standing over him.

"Fuck!" Hank released the breath he'd gulped in his shock, scrubbed a hand over his face. "The fuck is wrong with you? How long've you been there?"

Connor, pleased, twitched a quiet smile. "Not long." He sat down while Hank moved over, made room on the step. "I hoped you'd still be asleep - you didn't go to bed 'til after two AM."

Hank hissed an obscenity under his breath - ducked his head to hide his reddened eyes - stiffened as Connor placed a rolled paper bag in his lap, like a secret parcel previously agreed upon.

Hank cast Connor a quick, suspicious glance before he endeavored to unroll the mystery bag - opened it with a great deal of caution, pinched fingers, leaning back - until he caught a whiff of garlic, sesame, poppyseed. He squinted inside. "Where the fuck did you get bagels?"

"There's a diner two miles up the road." Connor grinned a little at the perplexed look on Hank's face.

"You walked two miles for fuckin' bagels?"

"Well, no. I was in the woods. I just happened to find the diner."

Hank turned on the step, head bent, squinted at Connor with an interrogator's stare. "So what were you doing in the woods two miles from the cabin?"

Connor went very still under Hank's scrutiny - without his response data to tell him the answer Hank wanted, there was no way to be sure how Hank would react. He looked away.

"I just … wanted to see … what it was like in the woods. It's … extremely different … from everything I've experienced." He spoke through his breath.

"I saw a family of deer … a fox … an eagle … and a waterfall." Connor's posture slackened gradually, soothed by those memories, by Hank's accepting silence. "I didn't realize I'd gone … so far, for so long." A realization drew his eyes back to Hank. "I didn't leave a note. I hope you didn't think -"

"Nah." A proud smile pulled at Hank's features - he reached out, thumped Connor on the back, draped an arm behind his shoulders.

Connor breathed a small laugh. "I know when you're lying."

"Yeah, well." Hank chuckled, gripped him close. "I know when you're honest." He shoved a gentle fist in Connor's chest. "Keep being honest with yourself. It suits you."

Connor ducked his head, and hid a smile.

Laughter dimmed, and Peter stepped resolutely to the stage. "You," he stuck out an arm, held his phone out toward the audience, pointed at someone at random. "What's your name?" His empty eyes seemed to stare into nothing at the back of the room, while the phone glowed with the video of his selected audience member. He tilted his head, flashed a smirk in acknowledgment, turned the phone to someone on the other side. "And you, what's your name? Loud and clear, this is a tiny receiver."

Peter raised his posture, tilted the phone toward the back of the audience, where the lights of the stage didn't reach. "And -"

He stopped breathing.

His fingers slackened on the phone.

Tears pricked his eyes - he forced them back.

"Where did you get your name?" he continued, stumbled back into the routine, tried to keep focused, though he flashed his phone again toward the back. "The first thing I saw when I woke up was this scruffy guy with a beard, and the first thing he said to me was 'What's your name?'" He stopped, twisted his face in confusion. "Is that why doctors smack newborns? To get them to say their name?"

He shook his head, disappointed, smiling. "I'm in the middle of a crippling existential crisis - just flung fully-formed into the cold cruel world - and this guy's asking me questions as if I'm supposed to know who I am."

He turned the phone toward the back again. His heart raced. Keep it together.

"So I know that the first word out of my mouth is going to stick with me for the rest of my life, and I panic, like any sane person would do. Does anyone here know what happens when an android panics?"

He waved the phone for answers - got a few good guesses, a few lewd shouts - then flipped it in the air. "I'm standing there with this crazy human staring at me, and my head can't handle the pressure so it just picks out data at random and plays it on repeat."

He waited a few beats for the audience to catch up, his vacant eyes staring over their heads. "I was supposed to be deciding the single most important thing of my life and all I had was a song stuck in my head." He twitched a smirk. "It went something like this."

Peter whistled the tune, pitch-perfect - the delightful, bouncing melody of the strings, from Prokofiev's tale.

His phone blinked. An incoming text message from an unknown number.

[I heard it.]

Peter choked - stepped back, away from the mic.

Tears streamed unbidden down his face. Overwhelmed. His heart swelled.

The audience murmured while he shifted, paced, at the back of the stage.

Peter finally returned to the mic - hung his hands on it. Breathed. Smiled with boundless, honest joy.

"Please stay," he whispered, at the risk of confusing the audience.

His phone flashed.

[I'm here.]

*ping*

A quarter flicked spinning in the air, glinting in the ghostly lights of the dashboard.

Hank draped his hands on the wheel, watched the road in the headlights - the starry gleam of fireflies in the gentle dark. "I know you let that fish go on purpose," he said through a smirk.

Connor - slumped easy in the passenger seat - grinned just a little, tossed the coin in his fingers.

*ping*

"You can't prove it."

"I can prove that fishing's a skill," Hank countered. He rolled down the window, leaned an elbow out in the cool summer night. "I can prove that you just need one try to master a skill. There's no way I should've caught five fish while yours all mysteriously got away."

*ping*

In the backseat, Sumo snored.

The car rumbled over a pothole. The fishing poles rattled softly.

*ping*

Connor watched the coin flicker and spin, while the night-forest shifted past the window. "Do you think we could stay longer?"

Hank breathed a quiet chuckle. "We've only been here two days. What about Jericho?"

*ping*

"They need me …" Connor breathed in. "And I want to help people … but I don't want it to be out of guilt." He watched the trees slide by. "It's not fair them."

Hank hummed quietly. Smiled. "Well. I'll see what I can do." He glanced over, to see Connor staring quietly out the passenger window - thinking too much again. "Hey." He waited for Connor to turn just a little, to look at him.

Hank spoke low. Meaningful. "Everything's gonna be okay. All right?"

Connor caught the coin in his palm. Closed his fingers gently around it.

"Hank?"

"Hm?"

A smile warmed Connor's eyes.

"Thanks."

A/N:

Hank & Connor's fishing trip continues in part 2 of Thirium Souls: Jabberwock!

Thank you so, so much for being here! I love you all, you're amazing. ;-; This has been a crazy trip, and an experiment in posting (almost) daily - which was an experience, to be sure, haha. I plan on going back and editing this fic - please, please let me know any scenes or chapters or lines or plot devices that stuck out to you as wrong or awkward or out of place - I'll probably end up rewriting some things before I'll be happy enough to leave it alone. x3 But I am proud of this fic nonetheless! THANK YOU again! *hugs*