Detroit Become Human x Readers

Guilt (Connor x Reader)

Emotions were a human trait. They influenced impulse and bad decision making. They affected what should be simple scenarios, they complicated situations and soured even the sweetest thing.

Emotions were a human trait, exclusive to their living species. But Connor wasn’t sure how else to explain how he felt.

How could he explain the energy that thrummed through his synthetic veins as his foot tapped rhythmically on the cold, linoleum floor? An action that could only be described as anxious.
How could he explain the glances he cast, across the way to the ever opening and closing ward door? Searching for the face of the doctor that had greeted him some few hours ago?

How else could he explain the pain? Pain, that he had never truly experienced before. Twisting his artificial insides at an agonizingly slow pace, like a dull knife. Tugging at his chest and dragging his thirium powered heart to the pit of his stomach. Squeezing, crushing his head like a clamp, forcing painful memories of hours prior back to the forefront of his mind.

How could he explain it, when he didn’t even know how to process it? When the world around him seemed muffled, and blurry, where could he go for clarity?

The only clear thing at that moment was the hand on his shoulder, and the repeat of a gunshot, over and over and over in his ear.

“It’s not your fault, Connor,” Hank tells him again, patting his back in a rare show of affection. Not that Connor really registers. It’s all far too much, with him trying to run diagnostics every second, searching for the source of this… imitated emotion.

Because that’s what it was. He couldn’t be feeling, he wasn’t made for that. So something had to be wrong. He had to have damaged himself in the fight, knocked something loose while he wasn’t paying attention.

God, why had he not been paying attention?

The first time he doesn’t look to the door as it opens is, unsurprisingly, the time the doctor finally decides to grace Connor with any news.

“They’re awake and ready to be-” Is all he manages to get out before Connor is on his feet, taking long strides towards the room he’d been aching to enter for far too long now. Even Hank calling his name, and the shout of the doctor does nor cause his step to falter. No, that does not happen till he enters the room.

Pale, early morning sunlight came through the blinds of the hospital room in broken streaks, falling on the pure white sheets singular bed positioned by the window. Sheets that clung to a weak, but breathing body.

You looked bad. But, he supposed most people who’d been shot did. Bandages wrapped around like the strap to a handbag over your right shoulder to under your left armpit, covering bloodied gauze and a bullet wound only a few centimetres from your collarbone. A bullet wound that could have been prevented. You hadn’t seemed to have noticed the commotion outside, nor his entrance, your eyes fixed on the window, peeking out into a courtyard through a half-drawn blind. You looked peaceful. At least you did, before he took a step forward, and shattered whatever trance had been keeping your eyes on the outside world.

Meeting your eyes was like coming face to face with a higher power. His knees went weak, nearly buckling when a smile pulled the corners of his lips up. Yet another diagnostic told him nothing was malfunctioning. Whatever damage he’d taken must have rendered him unable to assess himself. Yes, that had to be it.

“You’re… you’re okay.” The words are like a heavy punch to the gut, winding Connor before he can move any closer. You’d breathed it out with a level of relief he didn’t think was possible.

“Why… why would I not be?” He speaks, but it’s not words familiar to him- rather, it’s not a tone he knows. Strained, like he’s pushing a weight off his chest. And it only gets worse when you sit up, an eagerness to see him that he knows he does not deserve.