Hozier – Work Song
Taylor sat on the bed, watching Connor take his jacket off. He was poking through the closet for a hanger to put it on, so she had the rare opportunity to observe him when he wasn't looking at her. Oddly enough, they had ended up back in the same room she had locked the two of them in earlier that day.
She glanced down at her own clothing, still the short and nondescript android uniform she had woken up in. It didn't really matter, but she had meant to ask Chloe for a change of clothes. Connor had come along and distracted her from all of that. Not that she minded.
She stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Turning them over, palms facing upward, she flexed her fingers. The touch felt mostly the same as her human hands. Her brain, or, her processor still had the same thoughts and memories as before. When Connor had kissed her, just now, she'd felt the same weightless longing that she'd always felt.
Something was different, though. She was still working it out. It felt like more than wires, displays, and the inability to get tired or feel pain. She had changed somehow, and she thought she knew what it was, she just didn't want to believe it. Not yet.
"What is it?" Connor sat in front of her on the bed. She glanced up at him, but he was looking down at her hands. They were sitting, unmoving in her lap, but he must have noticed her spreading them a moment before.
"I feel different." She told him. She was past the point of lying or keeping things from him. He tilted his head just slightly.
"You are different." He said carefully, as though he could sense there was a different meaning behind her words.
"I know, but," she looked down at her hands again, flexing her fingers. "I've had anxiety since I was very small. It didn't start with Anthony. It just got worse. I developed tics. I became afraid and started having panic attacks."
The edges of her lips turned down. "Fear has been with me constantly, since I was a child. In flux, large and small, but always there. Now I can't feel it. It's gone."
Her eyes came back up to his face, her lips still pinched into a frown. Connor blinked. Then he said, slowly, "Isn't that a good thing?"
"I don't know," she said, sounding slightly miserable. "It feels like a trap. When something is intrinsically a part of you for all of your life, how are you supposed to react when it just disappears?"
"You're still the same person," Connor said quietly, placing his hands into hers. "You feel your emotions through the processor in your head rather than a human brain. It compartmentalizes, it knows there is no reason for you to be afraid right now." He gave her a small smile. "The fact that you're worrying about this shows your capacity to still feel anxiety."
"I guess that's true," she said, laughing. She looked at him for a moment, still smiling before she said, "I want to tell you something."
"Okay." He said. He tightened his fingers around hers, sliding his thumb across her knuckles.
"The morning we came back to Detroit," she began, swallowing. Nervous. His hands stopped moving for half a second, almost too small to notice. "I didn't tell you. I thought I would have time."
"Time for what?" She didn't realize that she had zoned out, her eyes drifting down to their entwined hands. For maybe half a minute, the silence stretching, making him uneasy.
"I was going to stay." She said it in a rush. So that she wouldn't hesitate again. So that she didn't overthink it and fumble over her words. He just blinked, tilting his head slightly. "With you. In Detroit. I wanted to stay with—"
Taylor didn't get the chance to finish her rambling. Connor leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. His hand came up, sliding into her hair, pulling her closer. He slid his tongue past her lips, exploring her mouth, hungry for more of her. He was pushing so close he had nearly pushed her down onto the bed.
She slid her arms around his neck and pushed back into him. He pulled away a minute later, pressing his forehead to hers, his eyes bright.
"Do you still want to stay?" He said breathlessly, his internal fans already working to cool him. He said it like an afterthought, like he had forgotten that she hadn't gotten that far in the conversation yet, an anxious look on his face. As if maybe she had changed her mind.
"As long as you'll have me," she said, smiling despite herself, kissing him again. "Until you get tired off me."
"Never," he said, smiling back at her, and it was beautiful. Iridescent. She moved closer, scooting into his lap, her knees on either side of him. Cradling his face in her hands, she pressed kisses all over his face. Against his cheeks, the tip of his nose, his eyelids when he closed his eyes, his temple.
Until he grew impatient again, pulling her to his lips, his hands tracing along her sides. She slid her fingers back into his hair, curling them against his scalp. His touch trailed down over her hips, the tips of his fingers brushing against the bare synthetic skin on her thighs.
She'd closed her eyes, but there were warnings suddenly blinking in her vision, behind her closed eyelids, persistent and angry. A small click sounded from somewhere in her chest, followed by the whirring of a cooling fan. The notification of her elevated temperature followed by other irregularities in her system started popping up on her display in quick succession as his hands continued to move.
"Connor, w-wait." Taylor broke away from the kiss, panting, shaking now. Overwhelmed. Was this what happened to Connor every time they did this? She couldn't even focus on the touch of his hands anymore. The sensory input was too high.
Connor froze, blinking his eyes open rapidly. His LED turned a solid red and he immediately attempted to pull away from her, holding his hands away from her body and trying to slide backwards on the bed. He thought she was afraid of him. He was trying to give her space.
She placed her arms around him before he could get far enough, burying her face in his neck, still shivering. He was even more tense, holding both arms out at his sides, unsure of what to do.
"I'm sorry, it's too much." She tightened her fingers around his shoulders. "It's overwhelming. I can't yet. Don't go."
The last two words were a whimper, full of desperation. He still hadn't moved. The warnings in her vision were only getting worse, her stress levels rising.
Very slowly, he placed his arms around her again. His hands began to make slow circles in the middle of her back, and he lowered his head back to her shoulder.
"It's okay." He said after a moment. Maybe to her, maybe to himself. "Nothing is wrong. You're fine. Just relax." She didn't realize she was still panting, so fast that had she still been human she would have hyperventilated. "I'm not going to leave you."
The words drained the tension out of her. She went weightless against him, still shivering, but her stress levels started to fall. Connor didn't stop running his hands over her back, but he did lift his head after a moment.
When he felt like she had calmed enough, he tucked his hands under her thighs and lifted her as he stood. She didn't have time to react before he had deposited her back into the pillows. The bed dipped down as he claimed the spot next to her, but a second later she was sliding up against him.
"You should go into rest mode." He said gently, placing his arm around her waist and pulling her flush against his chest. "I think you've had enough stress for one day."
Connor watched Markus walk up to Taylor and wrap his arms around her, lifting her bodily off of the floor. A laugh escaped her, and she couldn't move her arms to hug him back. He held her aloft for almost a whole minute, squeezing her, until the smile slowly faded from her face.
He'd spent the last several days trying to help her adjust to being an android. After that very first night, where she'd scared him senseless after her stress levels nearly went critical, they'd been spending time getting her used to the changes. Their roles had been reversed since he became deviant and needed her help with his emotions.
That morning she'd said goodbye to Hayley and Jake. Hayley had to return to East Lansing before her school break was over and Jake was going to take her back. Taylor let them know that she was staying in Detroit and promised that she would visit more often.
Now she was giving Markus that same look of concern she'd given them all since she came back. He found it puzzling that she couldn't understand how devastated they had been at the idea of losing her.
"As it turns out, I will be retiring from public life," she was saying. Connor had zoned out of the conversation momentarily, but he focused on Taylor's whimsical smile. "You'll have to find a new ambassador."
"That's the least of my worries." Markus still had his hands around Taylor's upper arms, leaned in close to her face. She was staring back at him, her face still scrunched up with worry, when he said, "Taylor, I'm sorry."
"For what?" Her face relaxed into surprise. Markus frowned, glancing away.
"It's my fault that this happened to you." He said quietly. "I shouldn't have gotten you so involved in this. You're—" He faltered, giving her a once over again. "You were human. I put you in an undue amount of danger."
"You did what was necessary." She said, frowning now. "If you think you could have stopped me, or if I wouldn't have ended up exactly where I did without your help, then you haven't been paying very close attention."
Markus frowned back at her before he sighed very pointedly, letting her go. "I suppose there is no winning with you."
"Now you're getting it." A smile spread over her face. "Remember what I said before. You have your voice now. Use it."
"This is a charming reunion and all, but I didn't realize I was running a halfway house for androids." Connor turned to see Elijah approaching, Chloe not far behind him. Indeed, North had been standing behind Markus, watching the exchange between him and Taylor in silence as well. The look on her face was remarkably unreadable, but decidedly focused on the blonde.
"Oh, very funny. Markus was just seeing me out." Taylor said. Connor realized, looking around at the six of them, they were in fact all androids. Her statement seemed to catch Elijah off guard for a moment.
Alex had flown back to Los Angeles the day before, and for Connor it had been very sudden. Taylor had not talked about it at all up until the moment it was happening, and then said it as an afterthought. He had the feeling it had been something private, a secret between them, a long goodbye.
Now he had the feeling Taylor had pulled a similar wool over Elijah's eyes. They had planned to leave today. She was going to move into the house that Alex had rented for her, back when she was planning on a temporary stay in Detroit. For whatever reason, she hadn't told Elijah until just now.
She walked to him though, while he was still processing her announcement. Her arms came up and circled his neck. Even Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise, and Connor knew that he had been right to suspect she was deviant the first time.
"Thank you." Taylor said softly. Elijah was still stiff in her arms. She didn't qualify her statement, but just as she was about to pull away, he circled his arms around her, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
"If you need advice on how to be a hermit," he began, pulling away an instant later, still looking quite uncomfortable. "You know where to find me."
"Doesn't that defeat the purpose?" She said in return, smiling again. Still, she turned and came back over to the group of them, her eyes finding Connor. "Ready?"
The taxi was waiting outside. Elijah didn't bother to walk them out. Taylor turned back toward Markus and said, "Don't be a stranger."
"I think that was my line." He returned, smiling at her.
"You're going to be the busy one, now." She said, ducking into the taxi. Connor followed, settling in the seat beside her. Markus hung back on the sidewalk.
"Actually, I've got to get back. There's still a lot to do. It was good to see you, Taylor." Taylor leaned across him, frowning now, but she didn't protest. She gave Markus a long, unreadable look as the taxi idled on the curb.
"It was good to see you, too." She settled back into her seat, and Markus shut the door on the two of them. The taxi pulled away a moment later, driving them back towards Detroit.
The traffic was dense. Gone were the quiet days after the revolution, where much of the population had evacuated and the streets were mostly empty. People were returning now, even more so since the android bill had been passed.
Taylor scooted to the middle seat, away from the window, and rested her head against his shoulder. Connor suspected that she didn't want to risk being spotted by someone in a passing car while they were driving or stopped in traffic. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side.
"Alex is working on announcing my retirement," she said. "He'll take down all my social media accounts and the like. I wonder how long it will take for people to stop caring about who I am. Rachel wanted to do an exclusive on my retirement, but I told her the kind of ruined the hermit thing."
Connor didn't say anything in response. Partly because he thought that she was just thinking out loud, and partly because he couldn't really speculate. He still didn't fully understand the concept of fame, or what made one person more popular than another, or why humans when to strange lengths to try to interact with celebrities.
They arrived at the house eventually. Alex had sent some of Taylor's things before they left for Washington, and Jake had moved them inside the house. The boxes were just inside the door when they let themselves in, and Connor looked over them curiously.
"It's mostly clothes," Taylor told him, smiling. "You can open them if you want. I'm going to look around."
The house was very similar to Jake's. Two stories, big enough for a family with three separate bedrooms. It was already furnished, but Taylor was going in and out of the rooms, muttering under her breath about the size.
Connor brought the boxes upstairs to the master bedroom for her, and since she'd given him permission, he started to open them as well. They were, in fact, clothes. The first three boxes he went through and put away into the closet for her. She found him just as he was opening the last box, placing her hands on her hips.
"I said you could open them. I didn't mean you had to unpack for me." She sounded amused and slightly exasperated. She came closer as he opened the last box, which contained shoes. "See? Nothing exciting."
Connor reached in the box, however, toward the small piece of blush pink ribbon that he could see poking out of a small mesh bag. As he held them up, he realized what they were. "Ballet shoes?"
"Pointe shoes," Taylor corrected, frowning at them. "I don't know why Alex sent those. It's not like I would have needed them."
"You said that you didn't dance ballet anymore." He said, taking the shoes out of the bag. They were mostly soft, with a hard, square toe that was slightly frayed at the edges.
"I dropped out of my ballet troupe when they told me I needed to lose weight." She corrected him again, watching him handle the shoes without protest. "I still practiced, and I used techniques I had learned in ballet when I moved on to other kinds of dancing."
"Will you show me?" He asked, turning his gaze from the shoes to her face. "I'd like to see it."
"Would you like me to teach you ballet as well?" She smiled, her eyes moving away from the shoes as well. "Ballroom dancing isn't enough for you?"
"I just want to see you do it." He said, placing the shoes carefully back into the bag. Her face turned a light shade of blue, but she dug into the box and started carrying shoes to the closet, not saying anything else.
When they were finished, she took a seat on the bed, glancing around the room. Connor sat across from her, watching her in silence for a few moments, before he said, "I would like to try something."
"Okay," she said, focusing her attention on him. He held his hand out into the space between them, the synthetic skin peeling back to reveal his white android skin beneath. Taylor glanced down, her brows drawing together.
"Now that you are an android," he began. Nervous, suddenly. "You and I can interface with each other."
She stared down at his hand, silent. Unmoving. He had held off asking her about this for days now because she had scared him on that first night, but he thought that he could show her more this way than just explaining things to her.
Plus, if he was being honest, he wanted to be connected to her. He wanted to see inside her mind, to know everything there was to know. He wanted her to understand his feelings, too. Every single emotion she had pulled out of him in his brief existence. He wanted to share everything with her.
"This is like what you did to those androids at the Eden Club." She said, still staring at his hand. The uncertainty in her voice was painful. He shook his head.
"I probed those androids for information." He said, keeping his voice very calm. Reasonable, even though inside he was going haywire. "This is a sharing of information. I'll only do it if you agree."
"Does it hurt?" She asked next, her eyes flickering back up to his.
"Only if someone were to force you to do it." He said. The significance of consent wasn't lost on him, but she only frowned slightly. Then she leaned forward, moving her hand toward his, the skin slowly pulling back from her fingers.
"Will you be able to see everything?" She asked suddenly, jerking her hand away, holding it against her chest. He'd almost reached out to grab her as she pulled away but forced himself to be still.
"Yes." He said honestly. "This will act as an open link between us. I will see and feel everything inside of your mind, as you will with mine." He paused, and then added quietly, "It is the most intimate act that two androids can share."
Taylor stared into his eyes, still cradling her hand against her chest. Her eyes moved down to his hand for a split second, then back to his face. Her voice was thick when she said, "I don't want you to see it."
It was fear in her voice. Connor knew, inherently, what she didn't want him to see. He understood why she was afraid. Her fear didn't deter him, it only made him more determined.
"Taylor, I love you." She almost flinched, but he didn't say it to make her feel guilty. "Do you trust me?" A minute stretched on, then two, where she only looked at him. Then she nodded. "Then trust me."
Maybe he shouldn't have said it. He wanted this, though, more than he'd realized now that it was so close. He wanted every part of Taylor. He didn't want her to hide anything from him ever again.
Very slowly, she reached her hand back toward his. The synthetic skin was still gone, and as she got closer, it took all of his will power not to reach the rest of the way and take her hand. He made himself wait until her palm had pressed softly against his before he established the connection.