It's Called: Freefall
Relationship: Machine!Connor & Reader. AO3 link.
Tw: canon-typical violence and behavior.
Summary:
You were assigned to work with Connor against your best wishes.
And there's something. Connor shouldn't be able to touch a gun, ever.
It was supposed to just help with forensic bullshit, investigation, take your job. Whatever. Not do that shitshow it did on the Eden Club.
When you were eight, your father had two dogs and the terrible habit of beating things into shape.
Two dogs. Dobermans. Trained to watch the door.
You still remember how they curled up close to you. How warm and soft and gentle they were with you. How your father kept them outside, pitilessly.
Remember how they kept going back to him, wagging their docked tails, love and forgiveness in their eyes despite all the pain.
Never forget: how your father trained them into obedience, until they loved him, and how they believed wholly they could be loved back as long they're good.
~*~*~
"Can I ask you a question, detective?"
You open your eyes, not startled by Connor. The cold hurts your cheeks, and you're not dressed for the weather.
It's difficult to remember why you're here, at first, head pounding with pressure. Eyes dance on the freezed playground and Detroit's river running cold.
Years on the job and your ears still ring with gunshots.
But there's a beer on your hand and an android in pristine clothing before you. You take one step back, back meeting the rail, body instinctively retreating. Shuffling with your feet on the white-covered ground.
"Do all androids ask so many personal questions–, you take a sip of the beer, voice too coarse to talk loud, "–or is it just you?"
Something on your mind tells you it's just him. And this little voice also sends a shiver down your spine– Connor shouldn't be able to touch a gun, ever.
It was supposed to just help with forensic bullshit, investigation, take your job. Whatever. Not do that shitshow it did on the Eden Club.
Connor tilts its head like it's analyzing your thoughts, reading you like an open book. Like it's innocent, and can feel how you tremble from the cold. "Why are you so determined to kill yourself?"
You glance up the sky, scoffing, unable to look it in the eyes. The sky is breathing and crying, tonight. And you pretend Connor's voice doesn't bury a knife between your ribs. How you almost flinches at it.
Humans are so irrational. At the end of the day, it rots between your teeth.
"I don't know what Cyberlife did with your social program, but it's not working," you say, baffled. Then, shaking your head, you mock, "An android with all the virtues I dislike and none the vices I admire."
Connor stands still, snow upon its shoulders. "Woking with an officer with personal issues is an added challenge, but adapting to human unpredictability to is one of my features."
Your eyebrows rise. If you didn't know better, you would say Connor were sarcastic, or even sassy, right now.
But you do know better, and your lips are bleeding red, tongue tasting blood from the mean uppercut that blue-haired Traci gave you, splitting your lips and toring a wound in your jaw, and how the android is better dead.
And Connor died once, already. In the interrogation room, Ortiz's android killed Connor before killing itself. And the paperwork was a headache. Thirium stained Gavin's favorite tshirt, too.
You don't like Connor.
But you don't like Gavin even more.
So you weren't too mad about the paperwork.
(Death is the only real elegance; a promise kept. Those two Tracis never lived but now they are dead. You could throw this at Connor's face; say, even androids want to kill themselves. )
Connor adjust his tie and you roll your eyes. "Cyberlife really thought of everything, huh. They even gave you delusions of adequacy."
You take another sip from the beer, hoping it'll wash off the blood aftertaste. Bitter fighting bitter. Tell yourself it happens to everyone; this reason-less undying grief.
Connor draws closer, never not scrutinizing you. It'll try to make it work between you both; your collaboration matters to the mission, and nothing matters more than the mission– Connor itself told you so.
"You should stop drinking, detective," Connor says, hunching on the rail by your side, human-like. "It could have serious consequences for your health."
You cringe. It sounds genuine, this feigned interest. And you remember that Cyberlife ad, how humans dislike perfection. Connor has uneven dimples, a soft jawline, and nearly-invisible wrinkles– and it infuriates you.
Rage is blood in the water– rage is something that gets stuck on throats–
"That's the idea," you say. And take another sip just to challenge it, or perhaps yourself. Irrational as it is.
Connor decides to ignore the fierceness in your demeanor, setting its eyes on the river. And you decide to swallow more beer, mindful of what battles to fight.
It furrows eyebrows, yet again mimicking human body-language. "We’re not making any progress on this investigation," it says, matter-of-factly. "The deviants have nothing in common. They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places."
It was taking too long for Connor to rumble back to its ramblings. You sigh, tired. You're clocked-out and this android followed you to talk about work, and you're too sober for this bullshit.
You wish to put Connor's head between the asphalt and the tire of a very heavy truck. Making you work without payment. The audacity! "There must be some link."
With fascination, you watch his jaw visibly tense. "We know the deviants experience an emotional shock, a violent trauma or a sense of injustice," it says, forehead creased.
You glance at the empty and melancholic beer bottle on your hand. "Those android at the Eden Club sure had a reason to feel a sense of injustice."
Connor's eyes shot back to you, nearly indignantly. Nostrils flared and face washed in bafflement. "Nothing in their program allows them to feel wronged," it says, copying the mocking tone you used earlier. "They can simulate human emotions, but they're machines, they don’t feel anything."
You agree. And maybe you should keep your big mouth shut for once, but the edges of your visions are blurry from alcohol. "What about you, Connor? What are you really?"
A defiant act of creation. A crime.
A machine that can not only get your gun from you – you, an officer of the law, – but fire without hesitation. For its own benefit, no less.
"You know exactly what I am," he says, monotone. And it's true, but not what you want to hear. "In any case, I don’t see how that’s relevant to the investigation."
Connor tilts its head again, like a kicked puppy, like you are going to make sense at a 45° angle. You copy him.
"Were just executing a program when you shot those androids, them?" You question, an edge of impatience creeping into your tone.
Were you just executing a program when you left me to die?
You open and close your hands, flexing fingers, a dull pain radiating from the knuckles, spreading through the entirety of the muscles. You had to pull yourself back from the edge of a building.
Not that you were surprised when Connor chose the suspect over you. It made all logical sense. Especially when the deviant could have all the information you needed.
And, of course, Connor did not hesitate when he shot that Traci. Connor's hands can't waver nor tremble like yours.
Humans are too complicated, you'll give Connor that. This resentment bubbling on your chest doesn't belong.
"I did what I was programmed to do," it says, because Connor is just an echo of Cyberlife and Cyberlife doesn't care about who dies and who lives. "I didn't have any doubts, if that's what you're asking."
Suddenly, you are made aware of the gun sitting in your hip. The weight pulling your center of gravity down, how you won every shooting championship within Michigan in the last three years. And Connor knows that because Cyberlife knows everything.
You're so very aware of your gun that you can almost ignore adrenaline running through your veins until your hands shake, nor from fear nor pain, but from sheer instinct. How everything feels hot, burning.
Breathing deep and focusing hard on Connor, you say, "When you took the gun from me, did you feel anything? Didn't you feel it was wrong?"
"I'm sorry," it says, not even trying to pretend some kind of regret or confusion, "but I don't see what you're getting at."
You can't help but give a mirthless laugh.
("What do you want from this?" "A lot. Everything.")
Connor looks at you, brown eyes dull, empty. Studying you to the marrow, burning down like wax, slitting like razor.
What an age to live on! The world is collapsing. Nothing truly matters. Everyone is dying, and everything is dying also. You're going home with your own blood in your mouth.
The night gets heavy, like they always do. "Are you afraid to die Connor?"
Connor is sharp-edged steel and you're prone to cut yourself on it. "Why would I be afraid?"
Another chill creeps through you, lacing your throat with a knot.
" No. No," you say, shaking your head, vindicated if not exasperated, "I know that if I shoot you right now you'll just come back like nothing happened. They'll re-upload a backup. I know that."
Snow sets between you two. And something burns on the gaze Connor's giving you; stern, a furious snow storm behind artificial eyes.
"I am asking, are you afraid to die, Connor? " you say, more force behind your words than necessary. "What happens then?"
It takes a good minute for Connor to digest what you just said. I am afraid to die, you think, unashamed of your own weakness.
But looking at Connor right now, the aloofness behind dull eyes, you finally understand a pivotal element standing just before your eyes.
Connor is a dog someone beat into obedience.
And Connor truly believes that, as long as true effort is put into the mission, as long as the massacre is done and the blood is shed, Cyberlife will turn around and smile and will not raise its hand anymore.
He replies shortly, "Nothing. There would be nothing."
