Work Text:
Android maintenance work requires the same, if not a higher, level of precision as compared to standard maintenance work in order to ensure everything’s operating fully. In rest mode, androids can order automatic maintenance work to perform while all systems are running on low settings, and since Connor’s been crashing on Hank’s couch after the rebellion, with Hank insisting on staying in Detroit now that he all of a sudden prefers the company of androids to humans, he’s been adjusting his pre-settings to perform automatic maintenance work over night while he slips into rest mode.
Maybe he’s being a little too diligent with it since androids don’t need that steady of a stream of maintenance work, but he’s deviant now, something it’s taken him long to admit, and he just can’t be too careful, not when his systems are running against vulnerability now.
There’s always the rare chance that something can go wrong during automatic maintenance work, especially in a deviant, but Connor’s been relatively lucky in the month or so he’s been ordering them, that is until he slips out of rest mode one January morning.
Slips, he thinks, may not be the appropriate word to describe his waking up. He has a timer set, something that mimics the idea of the circadian rhythm, and it wakes him at the same time every morning, but he didn’t wake from that this morning.
He was all but pulled out of rest mode by a weird sensation in his head, a pressure that pushes behind his eyes and drums against his temples. It feels as if the biocomponent that mirrors a human brain is swelling, as if the mechanism that filters through programs at a constant stream is taking in too much at once.
The uncomfortable feeling has him sitting up, his lips curled into an unsteady frown, one that visibly displays the confusion mixing in with… well, with the pain, a concept he’s still growing accustomed to.
It… it hurts, he thinks. That’s the best way to describe it. It hurts really bad, and he presses two fingers to his temple to find his LED burning hot.
He’s heard of this error, and he knows that there are codes that can be altered in his programs to remedy the problem, but his deviancy has him standing on shaking legs and stumbling to Hank’s room instead.
His vision is graying around the edges, his ocular sensors being forced into the string of glitches that come like a chain of events during faulty maintenance work.
He keeps a hand pressed to the wall for support as he pushes forward on buckling knees down the small hallway to Hank’s room. The door’s ajar, something Hank’s taken to since Connor started staying over, and Connor pushes it open with a shaking hand.
“H-hank–” his words crackle and wheeze out, sounding barely audible, and his vocal system shakes with the single word, enough to have Connor coughing harshly, burning coughs that sound similar to a mechanical wheeze.
He doesn’t remember ever reading about vocal system issues stemmed from faulty maintenance work, but his system feels as if someone’s ripped it from his throat and took it apart with a rusty knife, only to shove it back in with the wires sticking out in a jagged, twisted mess.
It feels as if the splayed wire tips are brushing against the back of his throat, and when he tries to speak again, the only sound to come from his mouth is a rasping wheeze.
Hank heard him, though, because a bedside light suddenly flicks on, and Hank’s sitting up, the barrel of a gun casting a large shadow along the wall by a window.
“Connor?” Hank asks, his voice exhibiting an air of nerves, and Connor tries to clear his throat and speak.
“H-Hank, I– m-my” is all Connor can manage out before he’s coughing loudly, feeling as if he’s trying to hack up shards of glass littering his vocal system. He’s growing frustrated, and through the swimming vision stemmed from the pulsing pressure against his forehead panels, he can see Hank walking toward him, gun not raised but held in a steady hand at his side.
“S-something’s w–wrong,” Connor rasps out around a few, weaker coughs, and then he flicks a gaze straight ahead and forces his glitching programs to cooperate in sending a text to Hank’s phone.
When he hears Hank’s phone chime, his shoulders slump in relief, and he sags against the wall while Hank walks backwards, eyes never straying away from Connor, as he reaches blindly for his phone, only pulling his gaze away to briefly scan the text from “RK800 Model Series Connor: Status Deviant,” with a little note in parentheses after that reads “(this is Connor)”.
“Your maintenance work fucked up?” Hank questions slowly, and Connor nods weakly. He can feel his legs trembling, unable to support the weight of his suddenly too-heavy body, but then Hank is in front of him, gun abandoned as he guides Connor over to the bed.
Connor’s skin is hot to the touch, and when he’s got Connor seated on the edge of the bed, he brushes a few strands of slightly curling hair back to smooth his rough palm over Connor’s impossibly smooth skin. It’s burning hot, and he jerks his hand back with a quizzical frown.
“Does that make you android sick or something? You feel like you’re running a fever.”
Connor sends a second text, his head throbbing more from the added exertion, and Hank reads it, frown slipping from quizzical to poorly disguised concern.
“Shit, Connor. You’re broken? What do I– what do we do?” He rakes an unsteady hand through his tangled strands of hair, and Connor sends yet another text, knowing he won’t be able to send many more.
“I can fix myself,” Hank reads aloud, tilting his head. “Then what are you waiting for?”
Connor struggles to explain in another text that deviants require a certain level of comfort for optimal recovery, comfort that touches both physically and mentally. He mentions in the text that he won’t be able to send many more because the pressure in his head is far too overwhelming, too many systems working in overdrive, and Hank reads the text with a string of curse words lacing his quiet breath.
“So what do I have to do, Connor? I can’t exactly offer you tea. You want me to microwave some blueblood and put it in a glass?” Hank’s concern often comes off as an aggravated level of frustration, but, he thinks, his frustration is justified because Connor’s falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do.
Connor shakes his head at Hank’s words, and he sends another text.
“Stop doing that if it hurts so much,” Hank gripes as his eyes scan the words on his phone: [a damp cloth to cover my face may help. And Sumo. I’ll need to slip back into rest mode for full recovery. Will you stay with me?]
“You want me to stay? I won’t,” he pauses, waving one hand, “distract you or anything?”
Connor’s eyes meet Hank’s, a soft expression that clenches strong fingers around Hank’s heart, and Connor mouths a small “no.”
“Well, okay, I guess,” Hank says before he runs both hands down his face. “I’ll get… shit, I’ll have to use a dish towel– that’s all I’ve got. And I’ll grab Sumo. Be right back.”
As Hank turns to leave the room, already calling for Sumo to get his lazy ass in here, his phone goes off, and he pulls the device to his face with a frown, reading the small [thank you], the two words that pack a large punch to his heart, a punch of concern and fondness.
“Will ya stop already?” He spits out, glancing over his shoulder. “Stop texting me before your head explodes, kid.”
His phone goes off directly after, and when he reads the short [I’m sorry, Hank], he turns and throws his phone at Connor with a huff.
“Un-fucking-believable,” he mutters as he stalks out of the room, but despite his sharp tone, a small, contrasting smile plays at his lips as he steps into the kitchen for a dish towel.