Archive of Our Own

Pain.

Hot, searing pain in your lower abdomen. Nothing you’ve ever felt before.

It hurts so much that you don’t even try to scream. Even if you want to, you can’t even focus on anything besides the fucking agony you’re currently in.

You feel another burst of pain and jolt. When you look to your stomach, all you see is red, and a hand firmly pressed against your wound.

Slowly, you look up.

Allen’s face is hovering right above yours. His mouth is moving and you hear him saying your name.

Despite the predicament you’re currently in, you manage a weak smile. “Am I dead?”

“Of fucking course not,” Allen snaps at you in the middle of giving orders over his headset. He’s yelling at someone but you can’t tell who. Your ears are ringing for some reason, everything sounding muffled around you. Still, you don’t want Allen to feel too worried since you’re not, like, dead or anything. Yeah, you’ve just gotten shot, but you doubt you’ll die from this. Lots of people get shot in the DPD. It’s just a part of working in law enforcement.

In an attempt to lighten the mood—because really, what’s the point of panicking right now?—you reach up and cup Allen’s face with a hand. “Are you sure I’m not dead? ‘Cause I’m looking at an angel right now.”

Allen gapes at you for all of two seconds before a furious expression crosses his face. “Stop fucking joking.”

“Babe,” you gasp in exaggerated offense, before wincing when you feel Allen add more pressure to your wound. Your hand instinctively reaches down to push his away, but Allen quickly uses his other to pin your arm to your side.

“Don’t move.”

“But—”

“He’s right, Detective,” a new voice chimes in, and the sight of Connor’s concerned face pops into view. You see Hank’s appear right beside his, except the man isn’t crouching down like the other two. It’s certainly disconcerting to be surrounded by so many people while you’re down on the ground but it’s definitely better than bleeding to death in your lonesome.

“Hey, Connor, how are you?” you ask lightly, as though you’re not currently losing a significant amount of blood from the gaping hole in your lower abdomen. Well, you can stand to lose more blood, if you’re being honest, but Allen is doing a good job applying pressure to your wound.

“I’d be more concerned about you right now, Detective,” Connor replies with a frown, his LED flashing yellow and red as he examines you. He turns to Allen. “Captain Allen, if you’d like I can take over—”

“Not a fucking chance,” Allen interrupts coldly, not even sparing Connor a glance. Androids may have obtained their freedom but in his eyes, they’re still not human, so they’ll never be able to understand loss, and right now he’d rather die than allow anybody else, let alone those plastic fucks, to tend to you.

Allen knows what happened to Anderson’s kid, after all.

“Don’t be rude,” you admonish, reaching up to tap Allen’s nose with a finger. The SWAT captain scowls and once again pushes your arm down to your side.

“What did I say about staying still?”

Why is he so stressed? you wonder with a frown. Sure, you’re hurt, but you’re not going to die, especially since it seems like you’re in the presence of all of the DPD. Right now, you’re really just doing your best to stay distracted so you don’t think about the pain. It’ll only be a matter of seconds before paramedics arrive to take you to the hospital anyway.

A thought crosses your mind and you grin. “Hey, hey, babe.”

Allen looks at you wearily. “What?”

“I bet you’ve never dated anyone who’d actually take a bullet for you.”

If looks could kill, the one Allen throws your way would have murdered you before you could even bleed out to death.

It had happened so fast.

You and your partner, Detective Reed, had no idea that the disturbance at the park that you were sent to investigate would turn into a full on shootout with crazed red ice dealers. It didn’t take long for the two of you to realize that you were outnumbered, but luckily Reed had been able to request for backup while you shot back at the furious criminals. The SWAT team arrived rather quickly—most likely Allen’s doing after he’d heard you were in trouble—and with their help, you were able to incapacitate most of the hostiles.

Allen had been in the process of physically disarming one of the assailants when your eyes caught sight of a figure hiding behind a nearby tree. Naturally, Allen was too preoccupied to notice said figure raising his gun but by then you had already reacted and thrown yourself in front of the SWAT captain, just in time to hear a resounding bang.

With a cry, you’d fallen to the ground, and Allen had wasted no time silencing the figure with one precise shot.

And now here you are, bleeding out on the ground at the local park, surrounded by red ice dealers, dead and unconscious alike, with Captain Allen yelling at you to stay with him.

You try to. You really do.

Unfortunately, your head begins to feel too heavy, and though you want nothing more than to keep your eyes open and continue to tease Allen with lighthearted jokes, you feel yourself slipping away and darkness quickly takes over your vision.

You think you hear Allen calling your name.

But…you don’t exactly remember going to bed last night…?

You try to sit up and immediately hiss at the sharp pain on your lower abdomen. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re most definitely not in your bedroom, nor are the dim lights on because you’d forgotten to turn them off the night before.

“Good evening, Detective,” you hear a pleasant voice say, and you turn your head to see Connor perched on an armchair beside the bed—hospital bed that is. You try to sit up but the android immediately jumps to his feet to gently push your back into the mass of fluffy pillows behind your head. “It’s best if you don’t strain yourself so soon.”

“I’m fine, Connor,” you croak out, voice rough and scratchy from being unused for so long. You clear your throat a few times in an attempt to get your voice back and gratefully accept the glass of water Connor passes you. You don’t realize how thirsty you are until you’ve finished chugging the entire glass in one go. Connor immediately reaches over with a pitcher to refill your cup and you smile in thanks.

When you’ve had your fill, you place the empty glass on the table beside you and turn to Connor, who’s watching you quietly. “Where’s Allen?”

“He and Lieutenant Anderson left to get dinner.” Connor tilts his head slightly, his LED flashing. “Actually, Captain Allen instructed me to call him when you wake up.”

“Don’t!” you exclaim quickly, making Connor jump at the sharpness in your voice. You smile apologetically and sigh. “Don’t tell him yet, otherwise he’ll come straight back without eating.”

Connor regards your pleading expression with a cautious one of his own. His LED flashes yellow for several seconds, making it obvious that he’s torn between following Allen’s orders and granting your request. Still, you give him your best puppy-dog eyes (the same look that makes Allen weak in the knees even if he’ll never outwardly admit it) and you know it works when Connor finally nods and sits on the edge of the bed.

“Thank you,” you murmur, reaching out to give his hand a firm squeeze. He returns the gesture gently, as though he’s worried that he’ll hurt you if he’s too rough. You wonder if seeing you bleeding on the ground further reminded him how human and vulnerable you are, how you can’t just be sent back to CyberLife for repairs when you get damaged.

The two of you are silent for a while, both lost in thought. You don’t mind though, because you’re still trying to adjust to being conscious after passing out for several hours. Besides, holding Connor’s hand brings you more comfort than all the words he can say.

Finally, Connor breaks the silence. “Are you and Captain Allen…intimate?”

If you were still drinking water, you’d have probably spit it out by now. Instead, you look away, pulling your hand back so that you can lightly cross your arms. “What makes you think that?”

“For one, last night you called him ‘babe’, which is a nickname often reserved for one’s significant other,” Connor replies matter-of-factly, and you almost want to smack yourself for letting your petname for Allen slip when you were surrounded by your coworkers. “And, well…Captain Allen’s behavior towards you has been…unusual, to say the least.”

Now it’s your turn to stare at Connor inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

“Well…I’ve seen Captain Allen under stress. During the Phillips hostage situation back in August, he was very calm. I could see everyone else was a little panicked, but not him.”

“He’s a professional,” you agree with a fond smile. Though initially it scared you how unfazed Allen could be even in the most stressful of occasions, you’ve grown to really respect how seriously he took his job. His level-headedness even in high-stakes situations is not something to take lightly; you’ve seen the man stare at death right in the face without batting so much as an eyelash for goodness’ sake!

“But last night…the way he was acting when he was keeping you from bleeding out…” Connor shakes his head, giving you a knowing look. “I’ve never seen him so panicked.”

“I mean, I did get shot,” you remind him cheekily, hoping to deter your friend from the idea that you and Allen are closer than what’s professionally acceptable. Still, you can’t deny that Allen definitely lost some of his cool when you were down.

“That’s true, but still…I’ve never seen Captain Allen personally tend to anyone’s injuries. He usually has someone else do it.”

You look away, swallowing. “Maybe he just felt obligated.”

“Or maybe he was scared,” Connor says softly, his eyes drifting down to his own hands, which were folded on his lap. Just as you open your mouth to ask what happened while you were knocked out, Connor’s head snaps up and he turns to the doorway. Within seconds, Allen and Hank are walking in.

“Oh, hey, you’re up,” Hank greets you when he sees your alert expression, but your eyes are drawn to the man standing frozen next to him.

Allen.

“C’mon, Connor,” the lieutenant says gruffly, nodding over to the door. Connor catches on right away and jumps to his feet, offering you an encouraging smile before following Hank outside.

The door closes behind them, leaving the two of you in tense silence. Allen wordlessly walks over to the bed. You try to scoot over to give him more room, but he quickly stops you.

“Stop moving around so much.”

“I can’t talk to you lying down,” you mutter when Allen glares at you for doing the exact opposite of what he just said. Still, he gently helps you into a proper sitting position before taking a seat himself on the edge of the bed.

In these types of situations, you expect Allen to initiate either a heart to heart conversation, or well, sex. Unfortunately, you’re not exactly in the best shape right now, so you highly doubt you’re about to get it on in the hospital room anytime soon. Allen doesn’t seem to be looking at you in a lustful manner at any rate.

Heart to heart it is, then.

“Babe—” you begin, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, but suddenly Allen leans over to throw his arms around you. You sigh at the familiar sensation of being secured in his arms and you close your eyes as you bury your face in his neck, taking in the scent that you’ve grown to love so much, the scent that provides you with more comfort than you like to admit. Allen turns his head to press his lips against your temple and your grip on him tightens.

Much too soon, he’s pulling away, this time looking decidedly more pissed off.

You almost want to roll your eyes.

Here it goes…

“Why the actual fuck did you do that?”

“Do what?” you reply, knowing damn well what you did.

“I had a bulletproof vest. You didn’t,” Allen hisses at you, gripping your shoulders as if he’s worried that you would vanish if he let you go for even a second.

You glare back stubbornly at him. At this point, you’d almost rather be unconscious again. “I saw him about to shoot you! What, did you expect me to just—just stand there and do nothing while you get fucking shot?”

“I could have handled it!”

“Babe. If you think for a second I would just stand by and watch you get shot, then you don’t fucking know me at all.”

You can see how frustrated Allen is but you know what? So are you. Half of you wants to literally smack some sense into him but you don’t think you have enough self-control to not purposely make it hurt because you still can’t wrap your head around the fact that he’s actually upset that you’d risked your life for him. Don’t most people just say ‘thank you’ in these kinds of situations?

Allen lets out a deep breath. He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes shut in an attempt to rid himself of the migraine he feels coming. “Just—don’t fucking do it again.”

You scoff and cross your arms. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Allen immediately opens his mouth to protest, but you slap a hand over his mouth to shut him the fuck up. “If the situation were reversed, what would you do?”

The SWAT captain pushes your hand away, scowling, and takes it in his own. Once again you’re amazed at how easily Allen manages to express his love for you despite the contradicting expression on his face. You can’t help but smile fondly at him.

“Babe, I’m okay,” you whisper gently, bringing your intertwined hands to your lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Allen’s eyes finally soften as he regards your loving gesture. He cups the back of your head with his free hand and brings your face to his so he can finally kiss you.

You smile into the kiss, opening your mouth to grant him access, but he doesn’t slip his tongue in like you expect him to. Instead, he pulls back slightly, so that you’re only a breath apart, and whispers against your lips, “I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” you breathe back, eyes fluttering shut as you surge forward to kiss him again. Of course, those are just your words, and Allen knows that there’s no way for you to guarantee them. Who knows when you’ll be in danger again? Better yet, who knows when you’ll see him in danger and risk your life to save his once more?

If Allen could get you to quit, he’d do it in a heartbeat. You’re an amazing detective, but he’d rather keep you away from the dangers of working in law enforcement altogether. Hell, he makes enough for the both of you to live comfortably but he knows you’re too damn proud to quit your job just to appease him. Not to mention, you’ve worked hard to get to where you are.

You’re the only thing that gives his life meaning. The thought of losing you drives him absolutely crazy, which is why he needs you to be more careful from now on, and to stop taking stupid fucking risks for him because he can take care of himself.

But you’ve proven your stubbornness, so Allen knows there’s no point arguing any further. Instead, he promises himself to never put you in a situation similar to last night’s again.

For now, all he can do is pull you closer and let his lips show you how important you are to him. You moan into the kiss when he bites your lower lip, and just as he’s about to slip his tongue in, you push him away with a gasp.

He blinks dumbly. “What’s wrong?”

Covering your mouth with your hands, you sink back into the pillows, face heating up. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet!”

After getting over his initial shock at your words, Captain Allen lets out a bark of laughter before shaking his head and leaning over to kiss you again.

You’re definitely unlike anyone else he’s ever been with.