I bought it for him on a whim.
It was cheap, and I was tired and didn't really care. Besides, I was finding it harder and harder to say no to him. When I'd met Connor, he was just a piece of plastic that spilt my drinks and licked blood and ignored every order I gave him, then acted like I was the asshole. And now, it was hard to look the kid in the eye and still think "it" or "machine."
Being unable to say no in the first place is what led to not being able to say it a second time. He'd seen some ad on TV for a zoo, and got all excited as if I'd already promised him we'd go. He bugged me for a week straight to go to the fucking place. I couldn't say no, but I didn't want to say yes either. We were busy. There were new cases everyday that we had to take care of. So every time he asked, I just said, "Maybe."
Eventually he gave up. He quit asking, and when the commercial came on, he would look away from the TV and act like all the animals on the screen never existed. The fucker was stabbing at my heart. And so, very discreetly, when Connor was in sleep mode or whatever the hell it was, I called Fowler and asked for a day off. After some nagging and guilt tripping, he said yes, and I made plans to go to the zoo.
When the day arrived, I told Connor to get dressed, get in the car, and not to ask questions. When we started getting close, I told him to close his eyes (though I don't know if it helped. He probably has GPS or something). I helped him out of the car and we walked to the entrance, Connor still (probably) none the wiser. I bought our tickets and we went in.
Connor damn near yelled when he saw where we were and fucking crushed my ribs. He could have passed for a very tall, very formally dressed child, the way he was running around the whole time. Every animal he saw was his new best friend and you'd think the guy had never heard of a bird before. He was shaking the whole time we were in the aquarium area, he nearly cried when we saw the wolves, and I had to physically restrain him from jumping in some of the enclosures. He really likes tigers apparently.
We got to this area called "The Butterfly Garden" which was exactly that. A large dome filled with flowers, butterflies, moths, dragonflies, you name it. It had some tanks with frogs and snakes, a few had spiders, and there was a large koi pond in the center. Connor was positively beaming. He seemed to really like any animal you put in front of him. It made me kind of happy I'd taken the day off to go see a bunch of animals since seeing Connor smiling like there was no tomorrow wasn't all too common, even if he was a deviant.
At the end of it all, we went to a gift shop. And that's where he found the stuffed dog. That's when he looked about ready to get on his fucking knees and beg. It was a St. Bernard, so obviously Connor went berserk over it. It was relatively small, maybe a foot tall, and it was very soft, I have to admit. It was only about ten dollars and I was tired as all hell. So I bought it. And he cuddled the damn thing all the way home. He showed Sumo excitedly and Sumo couldn't care less as long as Connor still pet him. He went into his little sleep mode thing with it wrapped in his arms that night.
It was honestly pretty funny to me. Connor was a badass by design. He was able to do things humans could only do in movies. He was literally a killing machine. And here he was, splayed out on my couch, wearing a too-big DPD sweater, cuddling Sumo and the toy version of Sumo. It reminded me of his humanity. It reminded me of the fact that killing machine or not, Connor was still a goofy android that never listened to a word I said, and always licked blood, and liked dogs and listening to music.
He was a person, little circle in his head notwithstanding.