November 8th, 2038
PM 07:34:34
His eyes were strained, wobbling under a watery sheen that spilled from the cusps of their setting. His fingers twitched at the knuckles, hands shaking as he peered into the depths of his palms. His lips shuddered as a tattered breath slipped its way through clicking teeth.
Connor fell apart piece by piece, and instead of catching those fragments in a safety net, you were trained on him with your own form of dismantled trust.
Your hands squeezed the gun's grip like it was trying to run from you, wrangling it in place as the sights rattled almost as violently as the android they watched.
He fell to his knees. Hissed as a fresh wave of hysteria washed over him. Cringed when his LED solidified to red; refreshing it's maddened spinning.
"I almost-" He choked on his actions as if he'd transgressed against divine law, "I could've-"
"Is it you?"
You couldn't let your guard down. Didn't have the luxury of just accepting she'd been purged from his mind and quarantined to the Hell she belonged in…
"Is she gone?"
Because while some injured sharks swam, others sank. Let predators gain the advantage while they were vulnerable and subdued. But when he looked at you…
He transferred that tonic immobility.
Flipped your fortifications belly-side-up, stifling your lungs that clawed for air just above a shallow surface. Paralyzed your muscles in a way that left you vulnerable for insurgence.
"I-I-I'm…" The corners of his mouth pulled back, lost to his sorrow, "I'm sorry."
He reached out for you, and you raised the gun's nose to his heart; sniffing for traces of the program named Amanda.
"Stop-" You begged.
He didn't listen. He never, listened.
"I said stop-"
The steel brushed against the flap of his jacket, and you squeezed your eyes shut. His chest blocked out the stark lights overhead. His arms enveloped you, the tremors from within creating friction against your own. He hugged you. Planted his chin over your head, squeezing you tight.
Your finger curled around the trigger.
"Connor-"
And you realized that, even if you'd needed to, you wouldn't be able to pull it.
Your crown collapsed against the side of his neck, his fingertips easing the pressure in your skull as they pressed along the side of your head. His pulse drummed against your cheek, ear flushed to his throat.
"You're safe now…"
The gun was pinned between the two of you, and he didn't care. Didn't flinch as you dropped it, letting it skitter across the hard floor.
Two riptides fought for your soul; currents ripping at each other's borders as they tried to suck you in – tried to devour one another until you were composed of one, raging whirlpool.
You slid your hands up his body, thumbs dancing over the buttons of his shirt. Caught both sides of his collar. Then you pushed him back, his weight balanced between the sides of your fists.
His eyes shot open as his arms braced behind him, jostled by your sudden attack.
"I wasn't worried about ME!"
Your anger slipped between the fibers in your malfunctioning muscles that couldn't be restrained.
"Don't you understand that yet?!"
He was on his back, and your knees pinned him down on either side of his hips. Your knuckles whitened at the strength of your grip.
His hands curved around your wrists, a sharp inhale slipping through as he touched you.
"You weren't worried I'd kill you?"
You sniffed, chin hitting your chest as your head fell. A new spring of warm, hot tears streaked down your face as you returned your attention to him, vision filmed over.
"When I saw what was happening…Something snapped, inside of me."
You recalled Kara's retelling of the events leading up to her escape. Words that resonated with you, because like her, you found a higher calling.
"All of a sudden, I felt like your life was more important than mine."
Your hands shot open, the wrinkled fabric slowly unwinding as your fingernails left imprints in the mounds of your palms.
"I had to protect you…"
You couldn't keep them steady – wings caught in the turbulence of the storm…so you grounded them.
It was like a lightning strike shot through him. He jumped underneath you, eyes widened and awestruck with clarity. His lips parted, words stuck on something hidden. His brows creased, and his breathing steadied…
He gave the feintest hint of a smile.
You'd cupped his wet cheeks and caressed him with your thumbs, his stale, saline tears spreading along flesh painted on plastic.
"There are some things worse than dying, Connor…"
A drop from your chin landed on his nose, and he blinked as it splashed.
"Like letting someone down after you told them they'd be safe…" You whimpered under your breath, "After you told them you'd never let them take you-"
Your own sobbing heightened, guilt-ridden at the serenity pouring from his gaze. You wanted to scream. Tell him to stop looking at you like that, and that you were being serious.
"Not deviants…"
You leaned forward, your hands tangling themselves in his hair behind his head.
"Not CyberLife…"
You pressed the side of your face against his, lips dragging over the burning LED on his temple.
"Not anyone."
You deflated, every curve of your bodies becoming acquainted with each other. You sobbed harder, your tears mixing with the cold stains on his jacket. His touch was cool on your heated skin; the negative charge that brought volatile protons to neutral.
"I know it's only been a day…" Connor muttered, clutching the back of your head, "But I've missed you."
Things started to click into place; to feel right again…like you'd been on a trip, and you were returning to where you belonged.
The tip of his nose tickled yours as he rolled you to face him.
He watched you as if you were everything. Laid his palm on your cheek as it puffed and trembled and left you exposed.
"I've missed you too." You sniffed, voice cracking as your throat choked at the last word.
His features creased, his hand applying a slight pressure on your mind. He didn't like seeing you this way.
"Let's go home." He offered a sad smile, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand, "Maintenance is on the way."
You nodded, blurring out the rest of the elevator and focusing on your gun. Jacket. Hat. Relics left behind to be excavated from a battleground of cease fires and distress calls.
It'd been the longest day of your life.
The playful teasing before you'd left. The arrival at Hank's house. Seeing Elijah, and everything that came after. Amanda, and her almost-fatal override sequence. You'd faced all your demons, today. Exorcised them from an android you felt things for…
Today was the first day of his life – marred by timeless tragedy where humor once prevailed…
You hoped it'd have a happier ending.
…
You'd stripped your gear of all the metal decorations and identifiers, leaving them in a pile on the entryway table. You'd thrown your clothes in the dryer, glaring at your reflection in the glass. Changed into something comfortable.
You stood in front of the drawing board – pins and strings and pictures and notes; a web spun around a question mark that was a question no more.
You wanted to get a shower, to scrub the snow, sweat, and tears from your skin – to cleanse yourself of the last twenty-four hours and start anew. But that anxiety…that fear…the compiling list of what-ifs.
What if Connor self-destructed while you were distracted?
What if Amanda was still active?
What it if-
"I am questioning my own self-worth as a result of causing you bodily harm. What is that called?"
You squinted, and you turned your head to the right.
"Guilt…That's called guilt."
Your worst enemy.
"How do you combat 'guilt?''
You snickered, "You just deal with it."
"That answer was maddeningly unhelpful."
There was always some madness in love, but also reason in madness. Maybe that's why you strayed away from it so much…just not from tough love.
"Connor, you know I'm not good with talking about…feelings."
You uncrossed your arms, biting your lip in anger and leaving towards the kitchen. He followed you, stopping at the side of the bar that divided the two open rooms.
"Who else can I ask?"
"Just-" You pinched the bridge of your nose, "Isn't there an archive…or something?"
"But I want to ask you."
You shook your head. Took a deep breath, letting your shoulders relax. You had to be more understanding. Had to be more empathetic.
"You just have to keep reminding yourself, that…" You pulled a steak knife from a holder, the built-in sharpener scraping at the serrated edge, "'That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.'"
You'd spent plenty of time with guilt. Guilt of being unsuccessful in helping androids so that this, what was happening to him, would've stayed an idea of paranoid frustrations. Guilt of your partner dying. Guilt of letting Amanda drag Connor into her lair of hoarded secrets and knowledge like the dragon lady she was.
The moonlight glistened on the blade; a silver stake that'd been destined to impale itself in the vampire's heart. The creature who sucked life from a species you'd help create as the project bled your marriage dry.
You didn't look at him as you made your way to the living room. Didn't acknowledge his trailing footsteps as you tossed a cushion of your couch aside, gouging the hidden lining with the knife. Couldn't bear to look him in the eyes as you retrieved the twenty-page manuscript of your transcribed guilt.
"'What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives…'"
You returned to the table. Dropped the tome of desecration on the flat surface as dust broke free from the pages. Picked up the cover letter, written in twelve-point Times New Roman and on three hours of sleep.
Revised Article 9.
You felt anger. Hate. All towards yourself, and you didn't have the courage to just say it…So you stabbed the thin sheet straight into the corkboard. You voiced the same question you'd asked yourself over the years…
"'Who will wipe this blood off us?'"
Again, and again…and again.
Your hands molded around the tables edges, head hanging between barred arms.
"'Devise me, then, the love which not only beareth all punishment, but also all guilt.'" He recited.
You'd written the article with a pen dipped in your own blood and faced a heavy punishment, bringing guilt along with it…but you'd also written it out of love.
You lifted your chin, looking at him from over your shoulder, "And what is done out of love, always takes place beyond good and evil…'"
He turned you gently, skin bristling as his fingers hugged the bend of your neck, "You remembered."
"How could I forget?"
You melted underneath his frigid, soothing hold. It numbed you; took the pain away.
"You don't know how much you mean to me, Connor…"
You lifted your eyes to meet his, but he was trained on where your flesh met. Lost in a daze, distant and forlorn.
"But maybe one day, you'll learn."
His eyes flickered to yours, and he licked his lips. Jerked at the last word as a blinking LED signified search results flooding his brain.
"Will you teach me?" He hesitated, "Will you teach me how to become…"
He struggled to finish the sentence before the rays of dusk touched his face.
"…Human?"
The idea terrified you. Of him learning all your innerworkings, how to figure you out. It'd been the last barrier between what you knew you should do to keep him safe, and what you wanted to do.
You'd been harsh. Distant. Hardened and weathered by the elements he was only beginning to experience. You couldn't stop guiding him, now…even if it made yourself vulnerable to attack.
He was so patient, like he'd always been. The small tugs around his mouth as he chewed in the inside of his cheek. The way his eyes danced between the two of yours. How his simulated breathing was relaxed, his loose hairs shifting in the subtle draft.
"I'll do my best."
Your cutting breaths stoked the burning stockpile of slashed emotions. Your heart was being cooked alive; the glass box around it covered in ash as it was smoked out, the spit churning over a fire pit in your stomach.
"When I saw you, after I…woke up." He leaned in, "It was like I was seeing you for the first time."
The glass cracked; popped – shattered from thermal shock.
His hands folded around your hips. You were gently; subtly slid into taking a seat on the top of your desk, edge digging at your thighs.
"As an android designed for homicide investigations, thus being quite familiar with the biological structure of humans…it was a transcendent experience."
He supported your back as he parted your legs with his own, throwing you off balance.
"Living beings work differently than corpses, Connor…" You gulped.
"Then perhaps this lesson requires a more…Hands-on, approach."
"What are you-"
Your arms encased him, shivering at the wet embrace of his cold jacket. He held you tight, reaching behind you while your chin hooked over his shoulder.
There was a flutter of paper, a crashing of a writing utensil holder and the emptying of its contents. A thud on the ground as a computer mouse bounced across the floor. You landed on your back, eyes focusing on the knife sticking out of the wall.
He closed his fist around it's handle, wrist straining as he yanked it free. It's pointed end hovered above. Alarms went off. Panic and terror from the deep-
"In the elevator, I was starting to have thoughts that were not part of my program…"
He was overshadowed in darkness; eyes hungering and feeding from the paper stuck by the blade dancing overhead.
"And then you asked me what I wanted…"
Your walls were lowered with the drawbridge extended. You were a wandering soul of the witching hour, and he aimed to send you back to the Hell you'd escaped.
"I just wanted to be close to you."
His fingers relaxed, and the knife fell beyond the edges of the desk; the cover letter of the code running through him along with it.
He took two fistfuls of your hair; a small gasp leaving you as his nose trailed up your throat.
"To smell you…"
His lips smacked as they opened, teeth tugging on the soft spot of your ear as he rolled it on his tongue.
"To taste you…"
He released you from his grip, running his hands down the length of your body.
"To feel you…"
Danger was near, but it was a danger you'd gladly meet with conviction. To cherish and nourish until it threatened every miniscule part of your body melted and came undone by his hands alone.
His head tilted as if the soft sounds leaving you intrigued him. He was toying with you; just a tangled mess of nerves and trembling muscles and dizzied thoughts and raw, pure ecstasy. And he studied you. Watched you for bodily cues, reacted to your every twitch and clawing at his shoulders as he rendered you helpless.
The pockets under his cheekbones deepened as he clenched his jaw, his hair brushing against your temple. His fingers dug into the wood on either side of you, jacket flared below the hulking shoulders and crushing weight that had you pinned to the desk.
He lifted just enough for his eyes to grace you with their exhilarating stare – the one that came with disclaimers and warnings of emotional overload:
The gaze of a hunter.
"What…IS this?"
He tunneled his focus, and then his eyes untrained – barely closing with each blink as he sought answers, like if he stopped for even just a second, he'd lose it.
"What is…what?" You squeaked.
His breath was coolant on your overheated face, and it made your eyelids flutter as a small chuckle left him, "'Something unquenched, unquenchable, is in me that wants to speak out.'"
He kissed you, teeth colliding and intercepting your last attempt to breathe. You tried to keep him there, to trap him with a shameless ensnarement of your fingers in his hair…but he pulled back, fighting against your resistance.
"'A craving for love is in me, that itself speaks the language of love…'"
His eyes narrowed, flitting off to the side. His brows creased, and his mouth hung open just slightly. The LED flashed blue, spinning before solidifying…
And then he looked at you, enlightened.
"I love you," He cocked his chin, squinting as he pondered it over, "...I think."
He'd lost the husky tone in his voice, and it'd returned to the naïve, silly android that was stumbling his way through deviancy.
"Pfft-" You tensed up, letting out your 'awkward, ugly laugh' as Chris would say.
"Uh, Connor-"
"What?"
"It's way too early for that."
He looked at you in disbelief, "What is an appropriate time to love you, then?"
"No no no, not that…" You propped yourself up, trying not to laugh again, "I meant early as in our…"
What was it called? What label could you possibly put on this?
"Relationship."
He hiked his brows, neck snaking back. He was timid as he rolled his head forward, like if he said the wrong thing you'd discipline him.
"As in an…intimate, relationship?"
"Uhh…" You swallowed hard, realizing you weren't out of the woods yet, "Yeah. Sure."
"Ah. I see." He nodded, thoughts trailing off along with his attention, "Humans and androids have existed in monogamous pairs before…but…"
He froze – the jacket covering his arms shuddering from the sudden stop. He was staring at something.
"We haven't been intimate, yet."
The lump on his throat bobbed above you – taunting you to latch on to it and-
Your face went pale.
You sniffed and started coughing, covering your mouth as you turned your head to find a stupid fucking purple box from your goddamn mother fucking partner-
"Are you sick?"
Your face snapped back to his, lowering your hand before you spoke.
"I…I don't know?"
His shoulders rocked, and a half-grin crept up on his lips.
"I-"
Your mouth was plugged, and your face immediately blossomed with heat.
His thumb rolled over your tongue, your chin supported by a curled set of fingers underneath. Your eyes dilated, pulling in every fleck of light that glistened off his perfectly sculptured features.
He seemed so…amused.
"Your temperature is running high." His head swayed to the side, peering at you with a smirk, "Is something wrong, Officer?"
You gulped, reigning in courage with a steep inhale through your nose…and you bit. Not too hard, not too soft…but you challenged him. Lapped at his thumb, curling your tongue around it and grazing it with your teeth just enough to turn his confident, blue LED yellow.
His lips parted, quivering, eyes glossing over as if he drew pleasure from the muted pain.
Your fingers slipped into the loop of his tie…and you pulled. Closed the distance between your hips and his; your thighs trapping him when he got close enough.
His hands shot out above your head, catching himself mid-fall. His own rapid pulse banged against yours, strong and mechanical with single beats of uneven rhythms as you kissed him passionately, tantalizing every urge he'd never felt before now. That kind of power was…intoxicating.
He was flustered, and you loved it.
You let him catch his breath and giving him a look that'd remind him that you were a hunter, too.
He was panting, voice shuttering as he continued searching for his sanity.
"You're…" The bridge of his nose glided along the edge of your jaw, "You're so warm…"
You let his soft gesture guide your neck, steering the direction your hazed vision fell.
"That's because you're playing with fire."
He drew in a breath, long and steady. Grabbed the bend of your knees, and hooked them along his hips.
"Pain is a fear response…" His mouth twitched in a growl, "And I have yet to experience fear since deviating from my original programming."
He caught your wrists and they were pinned down, too.
"W-what are you saying?"
He licked his lips, taking a small bite at your own as he drilled into you with his deep, brown eyes.
"That I…"
You'd lost your power, then.
"Am not scared…"
And you didn't want it back.
"To get burned."
A/N: Time totally got away from me today! I am so sorry, and I'm still reading everything you guys have to say! I can't wait to see what you thought about this one. ;D
I am very active on the Discord if you'd like to come say hi there. It's a little easier for me to keep up with.
NOW GO LISTEN TO DESPACITO BECAUSE SHIT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN! Oh, speaking of which:
***I need to know if you want me to post the next chapter on this site or not!***
Guest Review Responses
MysticalSquirrel: Thank you for all your love and support you beautiful human being!
