Don't Get Attached

Chapter Eighteen

"Ooof." You hissed before throwing yourself into the passenger's seat of your own car. The door was swung open wide and your legs dangled outside of the vehicle. You leaned to the side, pressing your head against the dashboard. The exact details of your escape from Jericho were fuzzy. You remembered everything in frozen stills; like photographs.

The family of androids huddled together, sitting on top cases of replacement thirium. Connor pointing his gun at Marcus. Running through the ship, trying to avoid being killed. The horror of being caught by one of the soldiers. Being lucky that he believed Connor's passable lies.

"[Y/N?" Connor crouched down so that you could see his face. Your eyes snapped over to him, but it seemed your memories weren't the only thing that was fuzzy. You squinted, struggling to keep Connor's face in focus.

"You've lost a lot of blood from your leg." He had said it so calmly. Monotone, in only a way that an android could be. "[Y/N], can you hear me?"

"Y-yeah." You told him slowly. Your head felt light and your limbs heavy.

"I'm going to have to move your legs." He explained. "I need to get you in the car so that I can take you to the hospital. Your left leg needs stitches."

"Hospital?" You frowned. "No. You can't. You're an android. They'll send you back to Cyberlife. They might replace you. Disassemble you."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Connor decided. "I promised Hank I would keep you safe."

"He'd kill me if he found out I let anyone take you." You argued. "Especially now that you're..."

"We don't have time to argue, [Y/N]." Connor told you firmly. He reached for your legs to begin moving them into the car but you stopped him.

"Wait. I have an idea." You adjusted yourself so that you could open your car's glove box. You dug around with shaky hands until you found an emergency sewing kit.

"[Y/N], no." Connor shook his head. "It's not sterile. The risk of infection..."

"There's half a bottle of whisky under the seat." You gestured towards the backseat of your car. Connor looked at you incredulously before opening the car's back door and dipping his head down. "It's the one we found Dad with awhile back. It's been rolling around in my car since I took it from him. Sewing kit for sutures and whiskey to sterilize. Everything you need."

"[Y/N]..." Connor looked between the sewing kit in your lap and the bottle in his hands. "The hospital will have skilled surgeons, proper antiseptic and pain medicine or anesthesia..."

"And probably cops or representatives from Cyberlife." You continued for him. "Maybe even deviant androids who want to hurt humans. You promised Dad you'd keep me safe? This is how you do that. Now, hurry up before I change my mind."

Connor collected the sewing kit from your lap, still looking decidedly unhappy about the situation. He set everything on the hood of your car. He opened the sewing kit and looped black thread through a needle of what he thought was the appropriate gauge. He uncapped the whiskey and poured a generous amount over the needle and thread. At last he stood over you prepared to begin. He hesitated again.

"[Y/N], I'll need to remove your pants to clean the..." His sentence trailed off.

"A minute ago, I was so bad off I needed to be carted away to the hospital. Now you're comfortable letting me bleed to death in a parking lot because of some bullshit modesty programing?" You scoffed, already unbuttoning your jeans. If you weren't so out of it, you might have noticed Connor bowing his head to hide the smirk on his face. You sounded just like Hank.

"Are we gonna do this or what?" You huffed. There was a hint of annoyance in your voice and a slight amusement but both of those only masked pain and fear. This time Connor didn't laugh at how much you sounded like the Lieutenant.

You knew you'd want to scream before he even began pouring the brown colored liquid onto your thigh. Bracing for the pain, you shoved the sleeve of Connor's jacket into your mouth. The Parking lot was relatively abandoned this time of night, but you couldn't risk alerting humans or android to your position.

"Give me that will, ya?" You motioned for the bottle as Connor moved to set it down. Connor handed it over, no questions asked. You held the bottle by the neck and gulped a mouthful of whiskey down. It didn't dull the pain in your leg but the sweet and sour taste distracted you momentarily from the needle Connor had begun poking into your skin.

Connor was glad that androids didn't need to breath. If they did, he was certain he wouldn't be about to work without shaky hands as he could now. He felt you wince beneath his touch as he tugged the needle through your soft skin. Humans are so fragile. He lamented, still trying to remain focused on the task at hand. Your face was slowly draining of color, but by his calculations you hadn't lost more than a pint of blood yet. That was good all things considered. Humans would donate roughly that amount to blood banks and their bodies could replenish it entirely unaided in a matter of weeks.

Connor tried to work quickly, both to stop the bleeding and to not prolong your pain. The regrettable side effect of this was that his stitching was haphazard, uneven. He wasn't a medical android after all. As he continued on, Connor felt guilty? He supposed that's what a human would call it. Emotions were all so new to him that he had no way of knowing for sure.

His inexperienced stitching would leave scars. Scars that you would have because of him. Scars from an injury you had sustained because of him. Because he'd let you come along with him when he shouldn't have. He was almost certain that if he had a stomach it would feel tight and knotted as humans describe. Yes, he was certain. This was guilt.

"See." You exhaled when you felt him finish off the last stitch. "I knew you could do it."

"[Y/N], I'm..."

"Do me one last favor will you?" You asked, looking up at him. If Connor wasn't sure that he was a fully functional machine, he would have thought his thirium pump had skipped a beat. The way you looked up at him wasn't accusatory or angry. Somehow this made his guilt worse. "I've got a clean pair of sweatpants in my trunk." You explained, holding out your car keys for him.

"Of course, [Y/N]." He nodded before leaving to retrieve your desired clothing item. Connor cleaned up his makeshift medical bay, replacing Hank's whiskey under your back seat and the sewing kit in the glove box.

You stood up slowly to pull your pants the rest of the way on. You staggered slightly and a hiss of pain escaped your mouth as the pants brushed against your sutures. Luckily Connor was there. He held you upright by the elbows until you could steady yourself.

"Thank you." You said to him. "I know that wasn't easy. Where to now?"

"I'm taking you home." Connor insisted.

"Connor, no." You shook your head. "I can't go home now. Not after seeing what I saw. People need to know Androids are alive. They have emotions. They have families! They deserve to be free!"

"[Y/N], I can't keep putting you in danger." He argued.

"Why should the safety of one-person matter more than hundreds or thousands of other lives?" You asked him.

"Because..." Connor's face twisted in frustration. It was a new expression. Something you hadn't seem from him before. He didn't say anything for a long time and you thought maybe you'd broken him. You reached out and touched his cheek. You could feel the whirl of biocomponents under his warm synthetic skin.