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“This is surreal,” Hank said, his voice hoarse.
“I fear it is my duty to look after you in the critical state you are in, Lieutenant.”
Hank scoffed at Connor’s diplomatic response, letting out a croupy cough at the same time. It was a surprisingly cold week for April, a month usually full of light storms. It seemed Hank had forgotten and examined the last investigation’s crime scene dressed in just a light coat. Now, he faced the consequences — two layers of blankets and a sore throat.
“Critical state, my balls, Connor. I just caught a small cold — nothing out of the ordinary.” He paused to let himself cough again. “And don’t call me ‘Lieutenant’ outside of work. It’s weird. You’re no longer meant to assist me or anyone.”
Most of the time, Connor forgot that he was no longer lifeless. No longer an android meant to serve humanity. The rebellion had succeeded; androids were no longer slaves nor targets for oppression, at least in theory. Yet he felt surprisingly abnormal in his body. It wasn’t a new one; there hadn’t been any recent repairs, but the freedom that came with deviancy — owning one’s mind — transmitted a striking sentiment of vertigo. Until then, he had lived a life without knowing himself — this new level of consciousness and liberty was still mortifying to him. As for Hank’s remark on his unnecessary assistance, he simply felt the need to help the one who had aided him to wake up. It didn’t feel like a chore or a mission to accomplish; it wasn’t a duty either, as he had worded it, but something more frail that he had yet to put into words.
“I’m not assisting you, Hank. I’m just…” Giving a voice to these unknown, blurry feelings was a process that demanded a long time of lengthy, laborious mind debates — time he dispossessed at the moment.
“Oh, beat it! Whatever you are labeling it, I don’t need it!”
“Lieu — Hank, my system includes a great number of medical records, and it advises me to supervise your symptoms and see how they develop.”
“I don’t need any supervision; I’m a grown man.” He coiled himself up in a ball with a grimace. “Christ, my head.” he laid his hand over his sweaty forehead and tightened his lips as his eyebrows furrowed in pain. “You know what? Could you get me an ibuprofen? Over there,” he said, pointing feebly towards the bathroom from the bed.
“Got it.”
He gently stood from the foot of the bed, attempting to leave Hank’s comfort undisrupted, and headed to the bathroom. When in front of the sink cabinet, he squatted down to its level and started searching for the ibuprofen; it seemed Hank had no time to organize that cabinet; it was cluttered and a complete mess to look for something inside of it. As he searched, the rain pattered softly on the window that hid behind the bathtub’s curtain. The light drumming made him recall his early memories, his first time inside that house: the smell of alcohol and vomit, a vision of a gun. Who would’ve said that it would’ve ended up meaning such a big deal to him in just a few weeks? Even though Hank had probably taken him in temporarily out of pity, Connor could not imagine staying anywhere else except within these walls.
Those warm thoughts quickly faded away as soon as he saw the blister pack containing what his scanner identified as ibuprofen. He recalled having seen Hank struggle to swallow pills before, and came up with a little nice detail: he picked up an empty water bottle that Hank had left on the green cabinet and filled it up with water from the sink. Whether Hank would be too out of it to notice Connor’s subtle consideration, the latter was satisfied enough with his memory.
When he came back to the bedroom, he noticed Hank had fallen asleep. It wasn’t a deep sleep, the one he was in, for Connor’s silent steps seemed to open his eyes wide open, an action followed by a harsh snore that managed to scare Sumo awake from the living room.
“Huh?”
“The ibuprofen. And I got you some water too.”
He sighed, “Oh, right. Thank you.”
Thank you. Two simple words he had scarcely heard in his short life. They weren’t foreign to him — no, he had heard those words come out of Hank’s mouth once or twice before — but they weren’t familiar either. He panicked over what to answer and concluded to solely let a small, awkward smile form on his lips as a response. Connor was relieved Hank was too sick to be bothered by his oafishness, and possibly too preoccupied with sitting up to take the pill to notice.
Hank, when he had swallowed the pill, left the plastic bottle on the bedside table and sighed himself back to lying down. His half-closed eyes glanced at Connor, standing at ease in the faintly lit room. When he noticed Hank’s gaze on him, his position shifted and uneasiness took control of him.
“I’ll leave you to rest.”
“No, it’s —” He coughed, “it’s alright. Some company would be nice.” His hand weakly patted the mattress, signaling Connor to come sit again on the foot of the bed.
He did as he was told, since he had nothing else to do. There was no one besides Hank waiting for him — there were Markus, North, Josh, and Simon, but he was certain their care for him was nowhere as strong or as important as the one they had for each other. That wasn’t something to worry about now, though.
Time went by fast. Connor could’ve just gone on standby to avoid any complications, but he savored the soothing feeling the rain’s patter gave him. Plus, he enjoyed the small, softly said questions Hank asked him to distract himself from the pain. After exactly twenty-five minutes, Connor reminded himself that the ibuprofen had most likely already taken effect.
“Feeling any better?”
Hank groaned. “Yeah. I guess it has started to kick in.”
“My advice to you is to rest as much as you can now. If not, the pain you experienced earlier will recur tomorrow.”
He coughed again, however, with less struggle now. “Sure, whatever. I’m gonna rest on the sofa, though.”
Before Connor could object, Hank took the blankets off him, swiftly got up from the bed, and was already advancing towards the hallway. By the time he had set a foot on it, he stopped just by the door frame and turned around to face Connor, still seated on the bed.
“You comin’?”
As soon as he stood up, the lieutenant continued his steps to the living room, which Connor followed shortly after turning off the lamp.
...
Connor was misled to think Hank was going to sit down immediately. Instead, he found himself sitting alone on the sofa while Hank took something from the cabinet. It was easy to guess what he had taken, since he always left it in the same cabinet, same spot, but Connor’s trustful nature didn’t react until he brought the whisky-filled glass with him to the sofa.
“You shouldn’t —”
“Oh, come on.”
He stayed quiet, observing his gulps with a worried look and a yellow LED that cast a dim light on the room. It didn’t take long for Hank to notice.
“Fuck,” he muttered, leaving the glass on the coffee table. The LED shone on his face as well, tracing his wrinkles and a pair of prominent dark eye circles. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”
“No, this could have awful repercussions.”
Something inside of Connor shook. He had no idea what it was. It was the same feeling he felt when he was looking after Hank; something inside him made him do it, but the reason behind it wasn’t a mission to accomplish. There were no words in his program to describe what it was; suddenly, thousands of doubts and confusions stirred up in his program — some even too overwhelming to think about in Connor’s place. This disconcerted state triggered his LED to flicker between yellow and red, alarming Hank.
“Jesus, don’t —” He bit his lip. “I’m not drinking now, am I?”
Connor’s gaze went directly to the glass on the coffee table; a certain calmness came to him, leaving the LED to yellow again. He remained in unease nonetheless.
“I thought you had stopped drinking,”
His face turned away from Connor as he sighed.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
What wouldn’t he understand? he wondered. Why couldn’t Hank explain it to him? What stopped him from telling Connor the truth? It was already troubling to comfort someone, let alone without knowing the cause. Yet, that was only half of it; the unnamed, omnipresent feeling lingered inside him. With nothing else to lose, he decided to word it out loud, if even possible.
“I might not, but —” Hank turned to face him again, all of his attention directed at Connor. The latter hesitated. “Both human and android lives are ephemeral. Still, human lives are, by difference, shorter.” He noticed Hank’s eyebrows furrowing, expressing a state of confusion and hostility, “What I mean is that it would be… a shame to lose you sooner than expected because of your compulsive choices.”
His expression shifted drastically, but this time Connor wasn’t able to decipher what it conveyed. For a long second, nothing could be heard but Hank’s raspy breathing and Sumo’s soft snores.
“Shit, I…” He dragged his hand across his face and pinched the bridge of his nose for a split second and let it go. “Okay. Wow. I didn’t expect you to… care so much.” He continued before Connor could say anything, “I mean — I get taking care of me because I’m sick, but…” and stopped the sentence cold, leaving his mouth open and waiting for something on Connor’s face to make sense.
Then something finally clicked inside Connor: care. That was the word he was searching for. He cared about Hank. It was irrational, completely out of his programmed margins, but the reason he brought the ibuprofen to him, the bottle of water, and asked him to stop drinking wasn’t because he was following orders, but because he cared about him.
“It’s strange for me as well, if that should bring you any comfort.”
Hank snorted at his response; he got closer to him and gently patted his shoulder.
“Being a deviant comes with a whole new set of emotions, I’m guessing?”
Connor smiled again, tenderly; he knew that was Hank’s way of saying he cared about him as well.