Resolutions

Part 3 - Trust

[Explicit Content Warning]

Connor rolled over for had to be the fiftieth time that hour, letting his head fall heavily back onto the pillow so that a soft whump filled his ears as his skull hit cotton and sunk into the plush thing, swallowed up by the fabric; but even the thick fluff around him couldn't muffle the whispers of the night around him. Darkness crept in from every corner, bleeding across his ceiling as he stared up at it and breathing into his head to let the cold touch of cunning black fingers ghost across his mind.

The case he and Mace had been running down this week weighed heavily on the back of his thoughts even as he tried to push it away. The victim's body showed clear signs of sexual assault and, try as he may, he couldn't get the echo of the mortifying image to stop flickering behind his eyes every time he tried to let them drift closed.

Connor let a heavy sigh breathe between his lips as he hoisted his body up on his elbows and threw himself haphazardly onto his side, landing with half his face smushed in the pillow and his shoulders sitting crooked to leave him staring at the wall through one eye. A few wayward strands of mahogany hair disturbed by the unsettled actions fell into his face to block his limited vision, curling over his furrowed bows and catching in his lashes as he glared out at the burgundy painted blankness before him, as if it was all the drywall's fault he couldn't rest. Stupid wall. Stupid case. Stupid mind that wouldn't shut up for two fucking minutes and let him get some goddamn sleep!

There was a shifting of weight behind him, the bed creaking under the strain of something heavy moving about, and the mattress dipped just behind the man, sinking pathetically under the bulking mass pressing into it. Huge arms wound their way wordlessly over the detective's waist, massive palms brushing over angular hips and sending a rush of sensation pricking along Connor's skin wherever they touched before they came to rest on the man's stomach, huge palms pressing into bare skin and drawing the human's lithe frame back into a solid wall.

"You're not sleeping well, Detective." Mace's impossibly deep voice rumbled softly into Connor's ear, the machine's mouth inches away from the man's skin to let his hot breath ghost along the sensitive flesh there, prickling over the tiny hairs on the back of the human's neck and sending a tiny shiver over the man he was certain the robot could feel.

"'M, sorry," Connor mumbled into the pillow, the thick fluff clogging his mouth and slurring his words. "Don't mean to keep you up." The human apologized in a quiet sigh, whispering as people always felt the need to when it was dark for whatever reason and feeling his lips tug down in the beginnings of a disgruntled frown. Mace needed sleep. Well, that wasn't exactly true... The android didn't necessarily sleep, per say, but he did enter a stasis mode to run system checks and install any new updates, just little things that kept him running smoothly, and he always timed it to align with his human partner's sleep schedule so they could lay together at the end of the day.

Even if stasis didn't mirror sleep exactly, Connor reaped a comforting pleasure from Mace's reassuring presence in bed beside him late at night, strong arms wrapped around his smaller frame and bulky body pressed tight up against his, keeping him close and blocking out the rest of the world around them in an echoing song of warmth and safety and care. Usually, that alone was enough to quiet his restless mind.

Tonight, however, his mind was being a bitch. A noisy bitch, to be precise.

Mace made a sort of shushing sound in response to the detective's apology, dismissing the words in a warm breath smothered against Connor's shoulder where he pressed his lips, the light brush sending chills racing down the human's spine and drawing a small noise of surprise from his throat. Yeah, let's just never speak of that totally unmanly squeak. Ever.