Dbh Connor X Fem!reader - Blog Posts

Broken Machinery

Intermission

To be read after part five

Series masterlist

Connor RK800 x fem!reader

“Oh, no.”

“Is something wrong, detective?” 

“Yeah, something’s wrong.” You didn’t wait for Connor to open your door, you got out of the car and began heading towards where Hank was sitting. Connor closed the car door behind him and followed after you.

You hesitated behind the Lieutenant, your hand hovering over his shoulder as you stood behind the bench. You stood like that for a minute before you finally dropped your hand and turned around. There was a defeated slope to your shoulders as you sat down on the roundabout, staring out at nothing. 

Connor kept an eye on you while he walked over to the Lieutenant, there was already an empty bottle beside him, and he was starting on a new one. “Nice view, huh? I used to come here a lot before…” He paused, “You remember that, Y/N?”

Your voice was quiet, barely louder than the falling snow. “Yeah, I remember.” Connor looked between the two of you, neither of you were very interested in the idea of ‘opening up.’ However, the Lieutenant had been drinking, perhaps he would be more loose-tongued. 

“Before what?”

“Hm?”

“You said, ‘I used to come here a lot before.’ Before what?”

Hank stared down into the bottle, slowly swirling it before taking another sip. “Before… Before nothin’.” Your foot scraped across the ground as you twirled yourself slightly on the roundabout. Your posture was closed off, not defensive, just closed off. He would have no luck with you. 

Connor figured now would be a good time to ask the LIeutenant a question that had been bothering him. While things were obviously tense, there was a tranquility on the bridge that Connor rarely experienced around Hank. 

“Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?”

Hank turned towards Connor, “Do all androids ask so many personal questions or is it just you?”

Connor didn’t think Hank would appreciate the truth behind his desired answer to that question. Plus, you had warned him recently to keep any thoughts that had been causing conflicts in his software to himself, that it would be safer for him. 

“I saw a photo of the detective and a young child in her bedroom.” Hank turned around and gave you a long look when Connor mentioned that he was in your bedroom. His brows were furrowed when he turned back to Connor. “The boy, it was your son, right?”

“Yeah… His name was Cole.” Connor already knew that, but telling the Lieutenant that wouldn’t do any good. “And the girl in the picture had been my daughter, not anymore.” Connor turned towards you at the sound of a sniffle, but your back was to the both of them as you had spun to the opposite side of where they were standing. He could vaguely make out the shape of your shoulders shaking through the snow. 

Connor needed something else to think about, his humans were too emotional, too complicated. It was in turn making his mission more complicated. “We’re not making any progress on this investigation… The deviants have nothing in common. They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places.”

Hank didn’t seem truly interested in what Connor had to say, but he entertained his musings nonetheless. “Well, there must be some link.”

Your voice was still quiet, but you spoke up loud enough for both of them to hear, “rA9,” Connor waited a moment to see if you wanted to elaborate on your thoughts. You remained silent. 

“They do share a similar obsession, it’s almost as if it’s a myth. Or a god to them. Like it’s something they invented that wasn’t part of their original program.”

“Androids believing in God… Fuck, what’s this world coming to?”

“You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant… Is it something to do with what happened back at the Eden Club?” Your head perked up slightly in the background and you angled yourself so you could hear their conversation more clearly. It seemed his actions at the club hadn’t confused only him. 

“Those two girls, they just wanted to be together… They really seemed in love,” the idea appeared to distress the Lieutenant. 

“They can simulate human emotions, but they’re machines. And machines don’t feel anything,” perhaps reminding the Lieutenant of that fact would ease his troubles and make him a more agreeable partner. Towards both Connor and you. 

“What about you, Connor?” You had finally made your way over to the bench, keeping a clear distance between yourself and the Lieutenant. 

The Lieutenant finished his drink and stood from the bench, “Yeah, you look human, you sound human, but what are you really?” Both pairs of eyes were boring intently into his. 

Whatever he said next could make or break the trust he had been building back up, he looked towards you. He knew what you wanted to hear, he knew exactly what to say that would make you warm up to him again. But he had promised, he had promised to be honest and not to manipulate your emotions. 

For some reason that meant something to him. 

So, he went with what he felt was the truth. “You know exactly what I am.” Your face dropped and Hank’s got angrier. “In any case, I don’t see how that’s relevant to the investigation.”

“You could have shot those two girls-“

“But you didn’t.” It was a bit unnerving to have you and the Lieutenant finishing each other's thoughts. Perhaps this is a method you used on perps when you interrogated them, corner them and trap them into the truth. 

“Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” Hank shoved him back and you stepped forward, stopping yourself for a moment and letting everything play out. “Hm? Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?”

He looked towards you again, you had moved a step closer. He could practically see what you were thinking. 

Tell the truth. Please. 

“No… I just decided not to shoot, that’s all…”

“Oh, Connor,” he thought you would be happy, he told the truth. Instead you seemed incredibly sad and he didn’t like that. Your eyes widened and then your eyebrows turned down in anger at the sight of Hank pulling his gun. “Hank, what the hell are you doing?”

He ignored you, seemingly having only enough mental capacity to focus on one thing, Connor. “But, are you afraid to die, Connor?”

“I would certainly find it regrettable to be… interrupted… before I can finish this investigation.”

You were slowly moving closer to the two trying to figure out how to stop Hank. “Put the gun down.”

“What will happen if I pull this trigger? Hm? Nothing? Oblivion? Android Heaven?”

The idea of Android heaven was preposterous, but that wouldn’t get Hank to put the gun down. He needed to do it soon as you seemed ready to jump in between the two of them. “Where does all this anger come from, Lieutenant? Some unresolved trauma in your past?” He knew the answer, it was Cole and whatever had caused the rift between you two. 

“Connor, stop.” You had stopped trying to intervene now, staring at him with hurt swirling in your eyes. 

“You think you’re so fucking smart,” his finger tightened on the trigger. “Always one step ahead, huh? Tell me this, smart ass… How do I know you’re not a deviant? The way you hover around Y/N, your mercy towards those two girls back there…”

“I self-test regularly, I know what I am and what I am not.” 

That wasn't truly an answer but it seemed to work for the Lieutenant. His hand shook before the gun fell back to his side. Hank moved back towards the bench, picking up another bottle. 

You watched him walk away, “Where are you going?”

“To get drunker… I need to think.” Both you and Connor watched him get in his car and drive away. 

You rocked back on your feet and tucked your hands in your pockets. 

“Guess we’re walking home.”

“DAD!” 

You couldn’t see.

Why couldn’t you see? 

There was a red film over your eyes and when you went to rub it away, you couldn’t move. There was something digging in your cheek, glass judging from the pile of it next to your face. What was going on?

You don’t remember what happened, the last thing you remember was getting into a fight with Hank about joining the force. He didn’t want you to, he thought it was too dangerous. 

And then there was something loud. 

A scream

You screamed

Why?

Because there was a noise, an awful noise, like metal scraping on pavement. 

What the hell happened?

“Cole! Cole, wake up!”

Your hands were pinned under your body, half of you was on asphalt, and when you tilted your head down you saw your legs on the grass. There was a strange warmth running down your face, you could see bone sticking out of your calf and blood pooling beneath it. 

There was a strange calmness as you tried to move your legs and failed. In the back of your mind you knew that wasn’t good, that your life was about to be changed forever. But you couldn’t break through the fog in your mind long enough to freak out.

You lifted your hand and dragged your arms out from underneath you, your skin catching on the pavement. There were two shapes in front of you in the middle of the road. Your vision was still blurry but you could recognize the close cut hair of your dad, and he was holding something small in his arms. 

It wasn’t moving, you felt like it should be. 

There were bright lights and smoky smells surrounding you, hands were tugging at your arms, but all you could see was the stillness in Hank’s arms. The small shape that should be moving, but wasn’t.

Again that small voice in your head was screaming, in pain or in anger, you weren’t sure. 

Nothings ever gonna be the same, is it?

“Y/N! Y/N!” Your hand lashed out, and connected with something hard.

It was hard to see in the dark, but you could make out the vague shape of Connor standing in front of your bed. “Connor?” Your voice was hoarse from being quiet for so long. 

“You were having a nightmare,” he reached out and turned your lamp back on. Your eyes momentarily closed from the shock of the brightness. “Are you okay, you sounded upset?”

You sat up on your bed, your head in your hands, the dream slowly coming back to you. “It was that night.” Connor’s jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled up. Normally the sight would have made you a little irrational but you were still feeling emotionally wrecked. 

He sat next to you on the bed, “What night?” There was a comforting hand on your shoulder, his thumb moving in slow circles as he worked to calm you down. 

You could barely hear your own voice as you whispered, “The night Cole died.”

“Why can’t I feel my legs?”

“Please try and remain calm-”

“Where’s my dad? My little brother was with us. Have you found him? Are they okay?!”

The MP600 paramedic stared down at you blankly, it’s human counterpart looked worried as he wrapped the gash on your leg. “Answer me god dammit! Why won’t you look at me?”

The paramedic’s movements stopped for a moment and he looked at you, finally. You immediately wished he hadn’t, you wished he would just go back to pretending you didn’t exist. You knew the answer by the look in his eyes. 

The look that told you he’s had to break this type of news to someone one too many times, there was no hope, no light, nothing there to comfort you as you rode to the hospital, silently sobbing into your hands from both pain and anguish. 

Words were going in and out of your head, the sound of the heart monitor was background noise to the doctor speaking to you. You still hadn’t seen Dad, or Carla, or Cole.

No one was there to hold your hand as you were told you might never walk again. 

That a nerve had been damaged in your spine that might result in lifelong paralysis. 

“Y/N? Y/N!” Carla rushed into the room, sweeping you into a hug. You ignored the pain in your ribs and the clear absence of pain in your legs as you returned the embrace ten-fold. “Oh god, I was so worried, no one’s telling me anything. I wasn’t even sure you were alive until an android told me where you were.”

You were crying into her shoulder, so grateful for a familiar face that wasn’t a cold doctor or a frantic nurse. 

“Where’s dad, is he okay? Cole?” Carla pulled back, brushing some stray hairs from your forehead as tears lined her eyes. 

“Your dad’s okay, he’s just getting patched up. Cole,” her voice broke and your heart crumpled. “Cole’s in surgery, they have an android working on him. On my son.”

Disbelief colored your features and you could hear your heartbeat pick up on the machine. “What, why?”

She shook her head and went back to tenderly brushing the hair out of your eyes. 

Carla had came into your life after Hank, she’d cared for you and you loved her but she’d never been your mother. Now her only child was in the hands of something that wasn’t alive, it couldn’t feel empathy. If it failed its mission it wouldn't keep pushing to save Cole like a human might, it would simply give up. 

There was a horrible feeling in your gut, burning and twisting around your insides until you became physically ill. You threw up all over yourself. Carla rubbed your back as the nurses came in and cleaned up. You held each other as you both cried. 

It wasn’t until Hank walked in did you realize just how worried you had been for him. 

“Dad,” his eyes were vacant as he walked into your room. There was no relief like there was with Carla, he stared straight through you. “Dad?”

He shook his head, an empty smile on his face. “Hey, kiddo.” The nickname felt wrong, sounded fake. He just stood in the doorway of your hospital room. 

“Hank, what are you doing?” Carla seemed to pick up on the strange behavior too. He stared at you a moment longer, there was a gash across his eye and a bandage wrapped around his arm. 

It seemed he’d escaped unharmed compared to you and Cole.

The thought came with such a burning amount of rage and hatred it startled you. 

Hank walked out of the room, “Hank!” Carla looked at you, giving your hand a comforting squeeze. “I’ll be right back honey.” You didn’t see either of them for another four hours. 

“I’ll never forget the sound of her cry, Connor. It echoes around in my mind when everything’s too quiet.” 

His hand squeezed yours as he pulled you into his side.

There was a strange wailing, the noise woke you up. It ripped through the hospital and shook its foundation. Your entire body stilled at the raw visceral pain in the noise. It was terrifying, like you were being held down by some unknown force as you tried to get up. 

Then you remembered, your legs were the deadweight holding you down. The thought left you choking back a sob.

Why could you still feel an ache in them, an itch you couldn’t scratch?

There was another horrible noise and you finally forced yourself to roll over. There was a wheelchair waiting for you next to the bed, you almost threw up at the thought of having to use it. Something stopped you from completely flopping off the bed. 

You ripped the IV out, “Fuck!” That looks so much less painful in the movies.

You put the guard rail down and finally managed to get into the wheelchair. Your arms were still sore from the impact they took, you pushed through it as you rolled down the hall. 

Your room was close enough to the waiting room that it didn’t take too long to see who had been screaming. The entire time your heart was begging you to turn back around, to just get back in bed and rot there. That, that would be better than whatever you were about to see. 

Some nights, you wished you had listened. 

Carla was on her knees, clutching onto Hank as the doctor spoke in low tones. You barely held back the bile at the sight of their faces.

Hank, you’d never seen him like that before, so lost, so unsure of himself. Like every grain of goodness and light and hope inside him had just been ripped out and run over. 

Carla was a shrieking animal on the floor. You knew what that meant. 

Cole was gone. 

“My condolences,” you nodded, eyes on your hands so you didn’t have to look into the eyes of whoever was mourning. You couldn’t do it anymore, you couldn’t deal with the pity as they looked at your wheelchair and then at your father who was still sitting in the pews, bottle in hand. 

You felt hands on your shoulders and looked up, Carla’s once kind eyes, now sad, were staring down at you. “It’s time.” You nodded and she started rolling you towards the taxi waiting at the curb. 

Time to bury your baby brother. 

Time to bury your heart. 

TIme for the final nail on the coffin of what used to be a happy family. 

“He was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Hank’s eyes found yours from where he was giving his speech.

The bottle had been disposed of before he joined you in the taxi. You didn’t know if his eyes were red from the drink or from the tears currently pouring out.

“He was so young, so much potential and it was just ripped away from us! From me.” You looked away, wiping your eyes. “How dare you?” 

Your head shot up, looking for who he was talking to. You would assume God, if it didn’t sound so pointed. “How dare you sit there and fucking cry?” 

No, please no.

He was staring at you, finger pointed at you. “You’re alive and hes dead and you’re fucking crying?!”

“Hank, that’s enough.” He shoved Jeffery off of him, if he wasn’t mourning, the captain probably would have taken his badge. 

“No! He’s gone because of you! And you sit there crying like you have any right too?” There were gasps going around the people surrounding the coffin. You and Carla were the only ones who weren’t surprised. 

You’d heard this drunken rage a hundred times since the night of the accident. 

Hank stumbled towards you, “I wish you had been the one who died.”

Your chest caved in and your heart shattered at your feet. The rest of the funeral was a high-ringing blur of pain.

Carla didn’t stay long. You didn’t blame her. 

But you didn’t have the luxury of leaving.

Your admittance letter to the academy stared at you every morning as you wheeled yourself into the bathroom. For months you stewed in misery and depression, you didn’t go to PT and you cried yourself to sleep every night as you heard Hank’s drunken raging outside your room. 

Sumo would climb in your bed and snuggle you on the really hard nights. 

The only reason you kept going was because if you died no one else would be there to love him or feed him. 

You wondered sometimes, if it was your fault. Had you really been so distracting when you were arguing with Hank that he had crashed?

Had it not been for you making him pick you up from a friend's house right after Cole’s karate lesson, they wouldn’t have been on that road. 

Maybe things would be better off without you.

“Get up!” A pillow hit you in the head, you buried your face further into your sheets, now more used to the dead weight beneath your waist. Another pillow, a familiar scent attached to this one. 

“Carla?”

“That’s right, get your ass up.” Hank must be gone, he’d gone back to work a little while ago, it meant you had the mornings to yourself. You sat up and stared at her in wonder. 

Carla had helped you for as long as she stayed, picking you up off the floor when you couldn’t make it onto the toilet in time. Bathed you and helped you get fed. After she had left there were a lot of humiliating mornings of sitting in your own filth because you hadn’t been able to get on and off the toilet on your own. 

You’d stopped trying after a while, just held it until it was too painful to keep it in. Stopped eating and drinking. You knew you looked awful, hair unwashed, and barely any meat left on your bones. 

“Ay dios mio,” Carla sat down and clutched you to her chest, embracing you despite the stink and the lack of enthusiasm on your side.

Eventually you managed enough strength to hug her back, the moment a painful reminder of the night your life ended. 

“Carla took me to physical therapy, helped me find a place on my own and figure out how to navigate my new life.” Your hand was holding Connor’s, you had been tracing shapes on it for a while now as you spoke. 

He was just staring at you, letting you talk it all out. “She helped me find a therapist, a lot of my physical problems were the result of mental blocks. That’s not to say I was magically healed once I realized I was traumatized, it was at least a year before I could stand with support.”

“Where are you going?” Hank was sober, rare these days. 

You had borrowed Carla’s van, she’d left an hour ago knowing Hank would be home soon. A box was in your lap as you wheeled yourself to the door, Hank was standing there, Sumo’s tail wagging happily beneath him. 

You could feel your face drain of color as you stared up at him. This was your last box and you’d really been hoping you would be able to get Carla’s van out of the driveway before he got home. “Um, I’m leaving.”

Hank closed the door behind him, you cried internally, knowing this would go bad. He threw his jacket on the table, his bag landing next to it. He reached for a glass and you started wheeeling yourself backwards, but he only got some water from the tap. 

“Was that Carla’s car outside?”

Your throat felt like sandpaper while you answered, “Yeah, she took me to physical therapy today, said I could borrow it. Self-driving, so I don’t have to worry about the pedals.” He already knew that, but you needed to say something to fill the silence. 

“How’s that going, the physical therapy?”

“Fine.”

This house is no longer a home. 

The thought nearly had you doubled over in grief. You didn’t think it was possible to lose so much in one night, but you should know better. It had already happened to you once. 

Maybe Hank was right, maybe you were a curse, a burden on any family you were involved with. Everyone you loved was doomed to die or leave. 

“I’m getting some feeling in my leg’s back. I can stand for about thirty seconds,” he turned back towards you, arms crossed and staring down at you. He hadn’t shaved in a while and his hair was starting to grow out of its usually cropped style. He was gaining weight too. 

“Thirty seconds?”

You flushed, feeling the need to defend yourself, “It’s a lot for someone who was never supposed to walk again.”

He nodded and the silence suffocated you. He was only twenty feet from you but he felt miles away. Like there was a never ending divide between the two of you. “I’m moving out.” You needed this to be done. You’d survived this heartbreak before, you would do it again. 

His gaze shot back to yours, “What?”

The hurt in his voice made you wish you had delivered the news more gently. “I found a place, it’s only a couple minutes away, rents cheap-”

“You don’t even have a job.” 

“Fowler helped me out, he’s letting me do some filing before I can retake the academy’s exam.” If I can retake the academy’s exam. Recovery wasn’t promised. “It’s enough for food and rent.”

“Were you going to tell me?” Were you? You had been planning on just leaving a note and going. 

“I didn’t think you’d care,” Hank scoffed and this time the glass he filled was with whiskey. By the time he turned around you had already left, the last of your things packed away in the car. You’d seen him running out onto the driveway as the car had taken you to your new home. 

There was a painful chasm in your heart at the sight of him watching you leave.

“I walked today, on my own, I didn’t have to use the bars or anything.” Your fingers fiddled with the edge of your comforter as you spoke to Carla. “I still feel like it’s not enough.”

“Más vale maña que fuerza, your physical body is not more important than your spirit, Y/N. If you can’t celebrate the small victories you're never going to heal. That’s a lot. I’m proud of you.” 

There were tears in your eyes and a thickness in your throat as you said goodbye and hung up. 

Fowler had been keeping you and Hank as separated as possible, different shifts, different days. But there was still the rare interaction. The both of you in the kitchen at the same time for coffee, Hank having to witness Gavin’s horrible attempts at flirting.

Sometimes when Gavin would give you a particularly bad pick-up line you and Hank would share a look that made your chest ache with a phantom pain of when you could laugh together about things like that. 

He looked pained every time he saw your cane. 

“On my honor, I will never betray my integrity, my character or the public trust. I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will always maintain the highest ethical standards and uphold the values of my community, and the agency I serve.”

Carla was waiting for you with flowers after you were sworn in. She took you out to dinner and tried to distract you so you wouldn’t notice who was missing. She’d said goodnight and dropped you back at the station so you could grab your stuff and get your car. 

“You did it.” Hank was waiting at your desk, his coat in his hands.

“I did.”

“I’m,” sorry? Proud of me? You were honestly getting pissed off he was even talking to you. Months of radio silence and now, now, on your big night he wants to talk.

“Congratulations.” 

You scoffed, “Thanks, your heartfelt words mean so much to me, dad.” Perhaps it was cruel, perhaps you were being petty. You didn’t care, he was reopening the wound in your heart and it was weeping.

You’d worked so hard and for so long to heal yourself, you wouldn’t have him ruining that progress for you simply because he was, what? Bored? Trying to ease some guilt? 

“Hey, I’m trying, okay?” Fuck that and fuck him.

“Damage is done Hank, too little too late. I’m done with you. You turned into the person you saved me from.” Maybe that was too much, comparing him to the abusive shitbag that was your foster father. You told yourself you didn’t care, but the tears in your eyes at the sight of his distraught expression betrayed you. 

He walked away and while you were weak and in pain Gavin had appeared, asking if you were okay. 

You weren’t proud of what you did that night with him, of what you gave to him.

“Hank? Hello?” 

You’d made detective today, and Fowler, in his limited wisdom, thought Hank would be a good partner.

You know it hurt for him to see his best friend change so much, but seriously? 

Hank?

“You used to call me dad, you know that?”

Drunk. Again. Why’d he call you?

Why did you come?

“Come on, up you go.” You helped him to his feet and managed to get him to the couch before you collapsed under his weight. 

“When’d you stop being my little girl?”

Your heart clenched, but it was a distant pain, not as bad as it used to be. “When you stopped being my dad.”

Hank swung out in a dramatic gesture, just barely missing you, “That’s ridiculous. I never stopped, you, you’re not the same anymore.” You could say the same, but there’s no point in arguing with him when he’s like this. He leaned in close, examining your features. “You’re not her. You’re not my daughter, she died. She’s gone. This person, this you, I hate. I hate you because of what you took from me.”

There were tears clawing their way up your throat. Yet you still untied his shoes and grabbed him a blanket.

You still took care of him. 

“Get out! Get out of my house! It’s your fault they’re gone, I don’t want you around!” He threw his bottle, it just barely missed your head. Sumo started barking and he started grabbing more things to throw. You ran out the door, his drunken screams still following you. 

You ran and you kept running. 

At least you could do that. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Forget it.”

A/N: Is she talking to Connor, or to Hank?

end. — I do not own the characters or the game Detroit: Become Human, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2023. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.