QUOTE COMPENDIUM ⊳ connor x reader

Ch. XI

"So, you've never visited his grave?" She asked while stepping inside the graveyard with, as Connor observed, some hesitation.

"No. I couldn't...I didn't even go to his funeral. I just couldn't." The Android stumbled over his own words, following her inside the area.

The air around him seemed to thicken, and somehow, his internal cooling system stopped working. Yet Connor felt unbearably...cold. He was stepping through the area, the soles of his shoes squeaking against the fresh, dewy grass. It had undoubtedly rained there a few hours ago, Connor concluded.

The Android came to a slow halt as he reached a spot where both him and (y/n) had a decent outlook over most tombstones. He began scanning the area, looking for Hank's name, slowly spinning on his heels.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but why?" (Y/n) spoke up, causing Connor to stop moving a tad too suddenly. He mentally repeated her words, frowning as he struggled to realize what she meant.

A few seconds of furious thinking later, he gave up and decided to ask her, while also resuming his previous scanning activities.

"What why?" Connor mumbled absentmindedly, going through hundreds of names per second.

"Why you didn't ever visit him. For three years."

There. To his southwest, fifty meters away. That was Hank's grave.

Both her words and the fact that he had, for the first time, laid eyes on Hank's grave acted against his usually calm, collected nature.

"Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?" He answered defensively, then took a deep breath. "Sorry, that was inadequate. I...I don't know. I really don't."

She sympathetically rubbed his shoulder and was kind enough to change the subject without him requesting her to. "Did you find it?"

"Yes. Follow me." Connor nodded in the direction of his old friend's grave.

(Y/n) silently trotted behind him as he guided her towards it. Only meters away from it, Connor's legs stopped moving. His entire body did, as well as a deep, heavy ache, as if he had swallowed a boulder settled in his metaphorical stomach. He couldn't- He really couldn't. He shouldn't have come there. He had no right to be there, especially not after refusing to visit Hank for three years and not even attending his funeral. Connor considered himself a horrible...person. Or at least a deviant with a horrible personality. If Hank was still alive, the old man would've despised him. For his cowardliness and lack of loyalty. Connor had no right to be there.

"That's him, right? Hank Anderson." (Y/n) appeared beside him, breathing a bit louder than usual since they had to walk up a hill.

Connor nodded.

"Well then." The young woman smiled gently and took his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers. "Ready?"

Giving her hand a squeeze seemed to help diminish Connor's invasive thoughts, so he did it before taking a deep breath and stepping forward. Once, twice, multiple times. Until he was roughly 50 centimeters away from his final destination.

He stopped beside the grave. The stone was dusty, with stains of dirty raindrops on it, and wilted flowers on top. No-one had visited Hank in a long time.

And neither had Connor. He hadn't fulfilled his duty as a friend.

He parted his lips to speak, to apologize, or say anything at all, but his thoughts were as dry as Hank's tombstone. He wanted to tell his old friend so many things, and yet couldn't even form a proper sentence.

He was left even more confused when he felt (y/n) stroke his cheek with the back of her hand before reaching up to his hair.

She retracted her hands only seconds later, holding the sunflower that had been made into a crown. She untied the knot, straightened out the stem, then repeated the procedure with her own flower.

Connor saw her pluck out one petal from each before she placed them on Hank's grave.

" 'When man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.' That's by Mark Twain." Connor bit his lip as (y/n) turned to look at him. "He's free, Connor. And so should you be. There is nothing to feel guilty about. It's not your fault. None of it is, was, or ever will be."

For the first time in three years, it felt like he was breathing. Like the shackles around his wrists had been taken off, like he had just emerged from underwater after a long time.

And (y/n) was the very source of it. She was his air, the key to his shackles, his freedom.

Connor had never been so positively sure about anything in his life - until then. He adored (y/n). In every single sense of the word.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure, flower prince." She smiled softly and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'll be in the car if you need me."

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

That was exactly where he found her: sitting cross-legged on the passenger's seat, Quote Compendium in her lap as she scribbled in it furiously.

"Do you think we could drive back?" She asked while Connor sat down beside her.

"Where to?"

"Tomorrow's Sunday, and I need to get back to the Diner by 6 AM." She explained with a tired yawn.

"I can bring you there." Connor confirmed. "You get some rest."

"Thank you." She reached for the pillow on the backseat, laid back, and closed her eyes.

Connor conducted a quick scan, only to realize that her breathing and heartbeat had already slowed down. She was fast asleep already.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

5:45 AM
August 6th

"We've arrived, (y/n)."

She only yawned in response, then slowly opened her eyes. Beautiful. Everything about her was so agonizingly perfect, and Connor just hated the fact that these were their last moments together. Of course there'd be promises of keeping in touch, but the Android knew better than that. She hadn't even given him her number, or any other means of contacting her.

"What time is it?"

"Almost 6 am."

"Perfect timing." She stretched and smiled at him drowsily, removing the pillow from around her neck. "Thank you. For everything."

She was thankful? The Android found that to be borderline laughable. How could she feel that way when she was the one that had helped him oh-so much?

"I should be the one to thank you." He answered, leaning back in his seat. (Y/n) was silent, but her smile had widened. "This is the end, isn't it?"

"Well, if you want it to be, then sure." She placed the notebook she had been holding in his lap, then opened the door, stepping outside. She threw a glance over her shoulder. "But it doesn't have to be."

With one last wave of her hand, she jogged over to the diner's main entrance, then stepped inside, out of Connor's field of vision.

The Android could only dumbly stare at where he had last seen her, replaying her words in his head.

"I doesn't have to be." He whispered to himself, then opened the Quote Compendium, flipping through the notebook. Ungodly amounts of words were written on every page, and Connor couldn't help but raise his brows in astonishment. His scan counted a total of roughly 126 quotes.

He stopped at the last quote she had scribbled, where he found two yellow petals between the notebook's pages.

"It is good to have an end to journey towards, but is the journey that matters in the end." -Ernest Hemingway

Want to continue ours?

Below that, Connor found her number. Sly little thing she was.