SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-two ━ electric sheep

• • •

There was no system rebooting message in his peripheral vision, no rundown diagnosis blocking out his sight. Connor opened his eyes and he only saw Mia. She stood above him, her right hand somewhere besides his head, holding her up, and her left caressing back through his hair like she was hoping to comb away the proof of the night. Daylight danced behind her and the golds of a sunrise set her auburn hair in a spectacle of fire, radiant in way that only one other thing could match its warmth — her smile.

And she smiled down at him, green eyes curious to follow the flutter of his eyelashes. She had always looked at him like he was precious to her, like he was someone special in her life, and now was no different, save for the fact that he hoped she could tell he too looked up at her like she had put that sun in the sky, a silly, exaggerated thought, but one he entertained nonetheless, as it came closest to describing what he was feeling swelling in his chest.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she murmured, her left hand finally standing still in his hair. "Glad you've decided to rejoin the land of the living."

Mobility returned to him slowly, right after acknowledging that she half laid on top of him, stradling him down around the waist. His right hand found the side of her thigh and he held his touch there, below the line of her pajama shorts, where her skin's warmth made him sigh. Much more lively, his left hand reached up to her face and tucked a strand of her fiery hair back behind her ear. It was amongst the last things Connor would have expected, but a welcomed surprise nonetheless, to watch and feel as Mia moved her head to the side and pressed her lips to his wrist for a soft kiss. He felt the movement drawn out against his skin when her lips moved into a smile.

Perhaps it was his silence prolonged even after her gentlest affections that didn't let that smile of hers last too long. Mia's hand slipped down from his hair and took his own away from the side of her face. She sat back, with his hand still in her grasp, close to her heart, and though he wished to feel that heartbeat of hers, he was compelled to instead watch her eyes as they drew in an expression of concern. "You seem troubled. Is there something wrong?"

"I've had the strangest dream," he admitted before he even had the time to properly consider her question. Instinct, Connor told himself, even though, much as he tried, he couldn't remember what 'dream' he was actually talking about.

"Another nightmare?" Mia, on the other hand, seemed to know what he meant. "Tell you what. I'll finish getting ready in the bathroom as quickly as possible and we'll see if I can call at the precinct to tell them you need today off too."

"No," Connor shook his head. All the questions that appeared in his mind got dismissed and he recognized some dizziness taking hold of him as soon as he so briefly considered the thought that he felt an awful lot like a passenger in his own body, missing pieces of context and responding through an instinct he did not recognize. Nonetheless, he sat up when Mia did. "I should probably not take another day off. They need me over there."

Mia leant in and placed her lips to his forehead in another kiss before fully sliding out of bed, "Alright. How about we go out tonight then? It's been a while since we went on a proper date, just the two of us."

"Now that...," he looked up, studying her while she walked over to the bathroom, the door to which had been left open. "That sounds wonderful," Connor stood up and immediately shivered. "You should put on some warmer pajamas until I get the boiler fixed." Despite that chill walking up and down his spine and flinching his shoulders in an instinct to tense up, he joined Mia in the bathroom.