METAL GUARD DOG ⊳ connor x reader

Ch. XIII

"Sorry, I meant like— You know, the components. Can you sit up?"

"Yes." Connor moved to create some space for (y/n), who cautiously approached him from behind, lowering his black coat.

"Any injuries other than your nape?"

"My shoulder." Connor answered, resting his palm on top of the injury, realizing his coat was blood-soaked.

Her eyes shifted over to it, fingers wrapping around his wrists to move his hand away. Connor winced in slight discomfort, yet didn't complain.

"Shit." (Y/n) whispered through gritted teeth, analyzing the dark blue hole in his synthskin. "When did this happen? I thought—"

"One of them tried to shoot you while you were unlocking the door. I—" He stopped in his tracks, unable to come up with a proper explanation.

(Y/n) inhaled in a shaky manner, biting the inside of her cheek.

"You took a bullet for me?" Her voice sounded unusually broken, maybe even strangled, the hand she had laid over the wound twitching in the slightest. "I- I'm just...I didn't...Thank you."

What was she thanking him for? Wasn't this part of their deal? As far as Connor knew, he didn't deserve thanks for doing his job, however he appreciated her sentiments nonetheless. Amanda hadn't ever responded this way when he was successful. A few dry words of praise was the best he had received from Cyberlife, and Hank, well, Hank hadn't ever exactly been the one to exteriorize his feelings.

Connor almost flinched when (y/n)'s hands wrapped around his shoulders gingerly, squeezing around his frame slowly, placed carefully to avoid hurting him.

"Thank you, Connor."

His Thirium pump skipped a beat at her action, state-of-the-art processors unable to come up with a fitting response to his situation.

Upon realizing that he wasn't responding, (y/n) let go, cleared her throat awkwardly and got to work on his injuries. "We should hurry, there'll be more cops soon. I'll give them that, they're a bit too tenacious for my liking."

"Of course. What's the plan?"

"We'll hide underground."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"Let's hope they've given up for today." (Y/n) mumbled, in spite of the fact that they hadn't seen cops (or any other people, for that matter) for at least the past 3 hours. Instead, they had been wandering through the old, empty metro stations of Detroit, (y/n) leading the way as if she were born in the dark. Connor was struggling to make out the shapes around him, and ultimately failing, occasionally tripping over the railway. State-of-the-art-prototype his ass.

"Unless we're somehow trackable, we should be able to resurface." Connor commented. "Deviants' trackers usually deactivate the moment they rebel against their coding, so I believe I should be fine."

"We should wait a few more hours. I wouldn't risk anything."

"But-"

"No!" (Y/n) interrupted him, stuffing her hands into her coat's pockets and sighing, before saying it again, however more firmly and calmly this time. "No."

"I don't see why not." Connor insisted, reaching for her shoulder to grasp it when he realized that (y/n) had ignored his words.

"I have my reasons, and that's that. We're making our way to Lake St. Clair underground."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The more they wandered through the dark, stagnant tunnels, the more Connor realized why he had wanted to travel under daylight. This was worse, far worse than any sort of night, there were no stars, no moon, no synthetic sources of light other than the flickering of (y/n)'s purple neon goggles.

"Did you know that Russia became so heavily monitored that a lot of citizens live only underground, in the old metro areas? Imagine spending your whole life down here." (Y/n) broke the heavy silence, something Connor didn't realize he needed up until them.

A shiver crawled down his spine at the feeling. "How do they produce food?"

"They don't need to, most of them are machines. And the ones that aren't...well, they're just unlucky." He heard her huff and slow down her steps.

"How did you survive?"

"What?"

"Humans appear to be...a rarity nowadays. How did you survive?" Connor asked carefully, yet bluntly at the same time, unable to control his curiosity.

"Ah well, it's a little something called perseverance. And luck too, I guess. Though I've only been living on the streets for a year and a half, so maybe there's not lot more to come before I die anyways." She shrugged nonchalantly and grinned.

"May I ask a personal question?"

"Go for it." The light shining from her neon glasses highlighted his features when she turned around to look at him.

"Tell me how you got to live on the streets."

"What are you, some kind of sucker for sob stories?" She huffed. "Okay, well. Well...Where should I start? My mom."

(Y/n) paused in her tracks, tapping her fingers against the outside of her thigh as she thought. Connor stopped beside her and waited patiently, scanning her face as she seemed to be going through her thoughts. "I used to live with my mom, for as long as I can remember. Things were good. I mean, not perfect, but satisfactory, yknow? We had a little gas station, I was in school, eleventh grade. One day, the gas station got robbed. I didn't even know anything until I got home and found her at the station, on the floor, by the empty cash register, crying her eyes out. They had taken everything, our savings, our cash, everything. All we had left were some products we used to sell there and some-" Another ironic chuckle bubbled up in her throat. "Some fucking tinned food cans. I lived on nothing but tinned tomatoes and tap water for three months. The police hadn't found anything. So I took matters into my own hands. Got into the drug business. When my mom found out, I guess it just became too much for her, and she gave up. Maybe she thought I'd give up too, and put an end to myself as well. Who knows?"

That was...a lot more than he had expected. A lot more information, more details, more emotion.

"I'm sorry." Was the best Connor could muster.

"You didn't know." She shrugged, her eyes drifting down to his neck, stopping to rest on the string of the improvised necklace with his LED. "Well then, Android detective from the 30s. What about you?"

Where should he even start?