Your hands finally met a working elevator. The guards seemed deceased; no signs of life were able to be discerned from a quick glance. Flawless efficiency. Connor.

You're heading in the right direction. 

Not a thousand training courses could prepare you for what you were met with on the other side of the metal door. That traitor, that cheap fucking cybernetic copy, holding the gun that put a bullet in Connor's head. Hank lies dead right beside him. You know it can hear the pained sounds of your heart, the desperate cries to be relieved of any more grief. 

Too late, the android's posture seems to taunt.

There's a knowing in the copycat Connor's eyes. Like it has won the game you didn't know you were playing. There's no lifeless obedience. There's a certain cockiness. A contrasting attitude that you hate yourself for not recognizing sooner.

Here you were, like a dunce, having fallen for a machine that was killed by another of his kind. Here you were, at the mercy of yet another Cyberlife creation.

"I don't think you understand. This is for the best."

It sounds too much like Connor. If not for the giddiness in its tone. A sort of sadistic satisfaction at the fact it completed its mission.

"You killed Connor!"

The words escape you in anger, aligning the soul-crushing despair you feel inward. You didn't dare take another step. For all you know, the gun could be pointed at you next. "Perhaps it'd be better that way," that deeply repressed part of your mind whispers.

"I am a Connor," such sacchariferous consolation in its tone.

"You aren't my Connor!"

It looks like you shot a puppy in front of this clone, instead of it killing those closest to you. It stares at you like this is your fault. Like you're the offender. Like if you had complied with some unwritten code of rules, this could have all been avoided.

still feel. (RK900/fem!reader)

cw: fingering, alcohol, small ment of violence, kissing, semi-public sex, bodily fluids, rough sex, choking if you squint

You've worked with RK800 for six months now, and three months in, a RK900 walks in. What do you do? Well, let's try a conversation mixed with a subtle invitation. It's almost 3 am, and you're in over your head.

ashes to ashes, dust to...oh fuck (RK800-60/fem!reader)

cw: flirting, banter, just him being a bitch, oral sex (f receiving), office setting

Working as a secretary for the DPD, it's usually pretty easy to have someone else shut the place down so you can leave early. One person, however, isn't leaving without a fight.

one of the girls (RK800-60/fem!reader)

cw: rough sex, office setting, face-fucking, dirty talk, spanking if you squint

You've been in the sugar bowl for a while, been in all sorts of arrangements but an android sugar daddy? You just have to see what this is about.

blackout (RK900/fem!reader) *new!*

cw: lingerie, alcohol mention, fingering, choking, rough sex, interrogation room sex, dirty talk, praise kink

What'd you do to end up in police custody after getting drunk at home? Hey, maybe that guy who walked into the room knows!

The activation of the second android had created a point of divergence, and deviancy had widened the breach further, but there was no getting around the fact that although they were separate individuals now, they had begun as the same person. Two trees grown from a single seed. It had taken you an entire weekend to get your head around that. Both of them remembered forming a connection with you, and both of them expected to continue that connection. And that was how you found yourself in a love triangle. The most head-fucky love triangle in the history of love triangles, no less.

At least the second android had chosen his own name. You weren’t sure how much more confusing it would have been if they had both insisted on being called Connor. It was their right – they’d both been given the name – but Sixty had quickly opted to discard it. They really were different people, and the differences only grew more apparent as each day passed. Each of them had their own priorities about the dominant traits of their personality, each developing different directions from their identical starting points. Connor was curious and decent. His path to deviancy, (after Sixty’s activation), had given him a fierce desire to help others and atone for his past mistakes. He had a steadfast loyalty to Markus, and had bonded with the deviant leader’s followers.

Sixty had had a faster and more forceful push into deviancy. As a result, he was cynical and sassy, but a little more carefree than Connor. He strove to keep Detroit safe, but his work at the DPD seemed like a placeholder until he decided what else to do. He wanted to do the right thing, but he refused to make himself a hero. That was more Connor’s territory.

Both of them had expanded on traits they’d had before diverging into two, and it was fascinating to see how they prioritised different things. One thing they both prioritised equally, however, was you.

Neither had any intention of stepping aside, and truthfully, it was impossible to say if either of them should. They had an equal claim on your affections. The arguments in those early days had been awful. Ranging from heated and intense to petty and jibing. It hadn’t brought out the best in either of them, or you. Things had settled since into a professional truce, but it was clear that they expected you to make a choice. The three of you were caught in a sort of weird limbo until you did.

It was an impossible choice. You liked them both. How could you not? They’d been the same person once! You’d been so sure that time would help, that the further they diverged from each other, your feelings would become clear. No such luck. They continued to be the best men you knew, with the uncanny ability to know exactly how to cheer you up, how to make you laugh, when you needed a hug, or when you needed someone to rant at.

Finally, you agreed to go on a date with each of them. A more romantic setting to trial a more permanent shift in your relationship. That didn’t help either. If anything, it made it worse, as you now knew exactly how their kisses made you feel.

There was an obvious, if unconventional, solution. You hadn’t been brave enough to raise the topic, unsure if they would even consider it. You also weren’t sure if you could endure the gossip and assumptions that would follow you. Either way, you had to make some sort of decision soon. It wasn’t fair to any of you to let it drag on much longer.

The fairest decision – to let them both go – filled you with dread.

In the end, the universe seemed to reach the end of its rope and orchestrated events to give you a shove. You’d been on your lunch break, having wandered outside to get some fresh air. Some of your fellow cops were bringing in a suspect. You weren’t sure how it happened, but somehow the man broke free, grabbed a service weapon and lunged for you. You’d seen hostage situations before, but never from the perspective of the hostage. Despite all your training, you were shaking and terrified, your mind flooded with regrets.

Within seconds, Connor and Sixty were on the scene. It made sense; they were the best negotiators on the team, but it still seemed a bad idea for them to be involved when it was so personal to them.

But you shouldn’t have doubted them. They talked the guy down in less than ten minutes. As soon as he tossed the gun aside, they were moving towards you. Connor reached you first, and you clung to him, sobbing into his chest as the relief hit you. He held you close, stroking your hair, soothing you with reassuring words, and gradually your death grip on his jacket began to ease.

“Better?” he asked you, moving you back so he could see your face. His LED was flickering amber, concern in his dark eyes.

“Yeah,” you breathed. “Thanks.”

He smiled faintly, brushing your wet cheeks with his thumbs. You managed a shaky smile back, grateful for his comforting touch.

“I thought I could lose you,” he confessed. “I haven’t felt fear that potent since the night of the revolution.”

“I’m sorry,” you said unnecessarily.

Connor waved off your apology, drawing you into his arms again. He felt wonderful; sturdy and safe. And yet, you didn’t feel wholly reassured. Someone was missing.

You pulled back to look around, and frowned when you couldn’t see him. “Where’s Sixty?”

Connor glanced up too. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t see him leave?”

“I was focused on you.” He gave your shoulders a supportive squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s just scoping the area.”

Logically, you knew he was probably right, but it didn’t sit well with you. Why had Sixty just left? Didn’t he want to check in with you?

You let yourself be drawn back into the precinct, where you gave your statement. When you were done, there was still no sign of Sixty. When you tried calling, he didn’t answer. Worry gnawed at you, and you approached Connor’s desk.

“Can you talk to him?”

He didn’t need to clarify who you meant. He obliged you, LED flickering as he communicated through the network.

“No response,” he muttered, brow furrowing. “I’m calling again.”

You could tell by his expression that Sixty answered that time. Connor’s face went through a range of emotions, including a look of alarm that turned your blood cold. He abruptly stood up, seized your hand and hurried out of the building. Once outside, he started running, giving you no choice but to keep up.

“What?” you said urgently. “What is it?”

“He’s gone to see Kamski,” Connor told you, unlocking his car and throwing himself behind the wheel.

You got in the passenger seat. “What? Why?”

“He wants a full memory wipe.”

You stared at him with wide eyes. A memory wipe would erase any sense of self or achievement. Sixty would have to start again, and with new experiences, he wouldn’t be the same person he was. And he’d forget his history with you.

“Why? Why would he do that?” you exclaimed.

Connor’s voice was grim. “He thinks it’ll be easier for all of us. But he can’t do that. It goes against everything Markus fought for.”

Horrified, you gripped the edge of your seat, willing Connor to pull every last bit of speed from his old, manual car. His LED was amber, flickering red, and you rested your hand over his on the gear stick. He and Sixty were rivals when it came to you, and their history together hadn’t had the most auspicious start, but there was respect between them. Sometimes even tentative friendship. He glanced over at you briefly, attempting a smile before looking back at the road.

The journey probably wasn’t as long as it had felt, but you still tumbled out of the car with a sense of urgency, Connor on your heels as you ran up and jabbed the doorbell. Kamski’s place was isolated by design, and you wondered if Sixty’s car was the first one to park on the drive in a while. Even post-revolution, Kamski was a recluse.

Several long seconds passed, then Connor gripped your arm and gently but firmly moved you aside before kicking the door in. You were surprised at his lack of patience, but grateful for it. The two of you marched inside, just as Elijah Kamski emerged from a nearby door.

“I was just coming,” he said calmly. “You didn’t need to break my lock.”

“Where is he?” Connor demanded.

“In the lab. This way.”

Kamski gestured you through the door, and you exchanged a look with Connor before following him. You traipsed down a set of stairs, finding yourself in an underground room, a well-lit, well-equipped workspace for an introverted genius. Sixty was there, inserting a thick cable into the back of his neck with a look of determination.

“Sixty!” you exclaimed, dashing forward and resting your hands on his shoulders. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s for the best,” he said flatly.

“No, it’s not,” you protested, hearing the restrained panic in your own voice. “Don’t erase everything you’ve achieved. Nothing is worth losing yourself.”

“I won’t be dead,” Sixty told you, a touch of exasperation leaking through. “I’ll still be around, I’ll just…”

“RK800-60 will be around,” Connor interjected from behind you. “You won’t.”

You nodded in agreement, raising a hand to Sixty’s cheek. “You won’t be you anymore.”

“It’s what I want,” he said. “Isn’t that what the revolution was about? Free will? This is what I choose.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to forget you!” he burst out.

You recoiled, your hands slipping to his forearms as you found yourself unable to completely pull away.

Sixty searched your face, his own taut with despair and underlying anger. His expression softened as he looked at you, no doubt a reaction to the look of horror you wore.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he admitted softly. “It’s too painful. I watched you together, after the hostage situation. Like there wasn’t anyone else in the world. Let me do this. It’ll be better for all of us if I don’t remember wanting you, and I know you’ll be alright.”

Tears leaked down your cheeks as you adamantly shook your head. “No, Sixty. This isn’t…”

“I know,” he jumped in. “You’re going to tell me that I shouldn’t take a shortcut, and pain is a part of life, and humans don’t have the luxury of erasing their bad memories. Well, I’m not human. I can do what I want.”

“But I haven’t made my decision,” you declared.

His smile was small and achingly sad. “I know. But we both know you’re going to choose him.”

“No, I’m not.”

Sixty’s confusion was evident. “What?”

So was Connor’s. “What?”

You shot him a reassuring look over your shoulder, silently pleading with him to hear you out, before returning your attention to Sixty.

“I can’t do this anymore either,” you confessed. “I can’t choose between you. I don’t know why I’ve been trying to convince myself that I can. I don’t want to lose either one of you. That’s my decision. So now it’s up to the two of you. Can you live with that? Can you…share? Because I don’t want to go through life feeling like there’s a piece missing, which is what will happen if I choose one of you over the other.”

Sixty stared at you, LED blinking as he processed. His expression was hard to read, which only added to your anxiety. He looked past you, presumably at Connor, and you wondered if they were silently communicating.

You stepped back from him, placing yourself squarely between them, and extended a hand either side. Then you waited, your heart thudding in your chest.

After what felt like hours, Sixty slipped his hand into yours, and you took a breath. Then, a few seconds later, Connor did the same. You closed your eyes as your tension dissipated, smiling even as a tear slid down your cheek.

“Get that cable out, please,” you said to Sixty.

He sent you a small, lopsided smile before reaching up to remove it. You glanced at Connor, seeing a hint of conflict in his face.

“We’ll work it out,” you assured him.

He nodded, lips ticking upward.

“Well,” said Kamski, startling you. You’d practically forgotten he was there. “Sounds like you all have a lot to talk about.”

Connor turned to him. “I’ll…send funds for the door.”

“I can afford it,” Kamski waved off. “I suppose I’m relieved that I didn’t have to stall anymore.”

Sixty glanced up at him, dropping the cable on the floor. “You were stalling?”

“Of course. A memory wipe is not the answer to your problems, but you weren’t going to accept that from me. At least you have people in your life that you will listen to.”

You studied the android creator, trying to work him out. You couldn’t. When he caught your gaze, his expression was amused, although you couldn’t quite call it a smile.

“Well…thanks, I guess,” Sixty said.

“You’re welcome. If you’ll excuse me, I need to call a locksmith.”

You all took the hint and left the lab, stepping out of the broken front door into the afternoon air.

“Let’s go to my place and talk,” you suggested. “It’s the closest.”

Both androids nodded in agreement, heading to their separate cars. You caught Connor’s arm.

“I’m going to ride with Sixty, okay?” you told him. “It doesn’t mean anything, I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

Connor smiled at you, briefly cupping your cheek. “I understand. I’ll be right behind you.”

You sent him a grateful smile, then jogged over to Sixty’s car. He eyed you with pleased surprise when you got in the passenger seat, but didn’t comment. A comfortable silence fell for the majority of the journey, but eventually he spoke up.

“Do you actually want it?”

You shot him a questioning look.

“A relationship with both of us?” he clarified. “Or are you just being diplomatic because you don’t want to hurt either of us?”

“I actually want it,” you responded simply. “You really think I’m being diplomatic? I thought I was being selfish.”

He chuckled. “Are they mutually exclusive?”

You smiled. “I don’t know. But are you really okay with it?”

“Yeah, I am. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind before. I’m sure Connor will say the same. It just didn’t seem like something you wanted.”

“I was too chicken to admit it,” you said truthfully. “And you…you believe me, right? You don’t think I was just trying to stop you…”

“I believe you.”

He didn’t elaborate further, but you found he didn’t need to.

“And you,” you ventured, “you’re okay? Because what you were about to do…”

“I’m okay. I just…I saw you together and…I guess I panicked. I didn’t like feeling on the outside.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to make you feel that way.”

“Don’t apologise, you’d just been held at gunpoint,” he told you firmly.

“Connor just reached me first. It would have been the same if it had been you instead.”

“Not exactly. Connor wouldn’t have reacted like I did.”

“Yes, well…you’ve always been more histrionic than him.”

As you’d hoped, he smiled at your teasing, soothing some of the remaining tension inside you.

“What can I say; I’m a dramatic bitch, sweetheart.”

You laughed, taking in the familiar sight of your neighbourhood. Sixty parked on the drive, and Connor pulled up behind him. You sent him a smile, leading the way to the front door.

“So, who’s ready for polyamory negotiation 101?” Sixty commented. “Do you have demands, Connor? Because I really don’t.”

Connor sighed. “Is this what it’s going to be like from now on?”

“Probably,” Sixty answered. “Just with a lot more sex.”

You opened your door and turned to face them both. “Boys, if you can’t play nice at this stage, I might have to rethink this whole thing.”

You were joking, of course, and they knew you were.

“Is our human backing out already?” Sixty asked.

“Looks like it,” Connor said. “Kind of a shame. You won’t get to see how nice we can play.”

Sixty picked up the thread at once. “Exactly. We can play very, very nice.”

The woman asked, thoroughly exasperated with the man standing in front of her.

Nines opened his mouth to argue, but Connor spoke up from behind him, sounding almost as tired as the lady who had been forced to deal with his brother for the past twenty minutes.

"Nines, Trouble has his insurance card in her wallet. If the cost is so high that Sixty cannot pay it, I have no doubt that she will have them run the information. Now will you please sit down before you get us all kicked out of the hospital?"

Nines scoffed but did as his brother asked, glaring as he made his way back over to where you sat beside Connor, your six month old held firmly to your chest by his wrap carrier as your five year old slept soundly on his uncle's lap, drooling slightly against his t shirt while Connor continuously rubbed lightly at his back the very same way he had done when he was just a baby.

"If she runs that insurance, she'll have to deal with whatever copayments they ask for, as if it isn't already ridiculous enough that she pays for his insurance out of her own pocket."

Nines muttered to his brother as he sat down beside you, causing Connor to sigh and shake his head,

"She uses the money that Hank left her and you know that, if she were paying for it herself I would have long since put a stop to that."

Nines scoffed,

"The money that Hank left her is supposed to be her money, Connor, not another way for her to keep supporting Sixty's bad habits."

Connor opened his mouth to reply, but you cut him off, more than a little fed up with being talked about as if you weren't there at all.

"Would you two just leave things be? We've only been here for twenty-five minutes and I have a feeling it's going to be a long morning, so I really don't think we should start it off by arguing."

Nines sighed audibly from where he sat beside you, clearly still unhappy with the insurance situation, but Connor simply gave you an apologetic half-smile before he nodded in agreement and changed the subject entirely.

"You know Nines, I didn't realize you were back from your trip already. I thought you were scheduled to be away for another six weeks."

Nines let out a low hum of acknowledgement before he finally spoke, keeping his explanation brief and vague, as per usual when it came to his job.

"I finished early. They gave me the wide time frame assuming I would need longer than I actually did."

Connor nodded, but pressed a bit harder regarding the stipulations of his brother's job.

"Well I'm glad it didn't take as long as projected. Though, I am surprised that they sent you out on a trip they believed would take two entire months to complete. Weren't you placed on a short distance travel list after Finley was born?"

Nines stiffened a bit from where he sat beside you, and you raised a brow at him in response to Connor's words.

"What?"

You asked, hearing Connor let out a quiet "Oh" from your right as he fixed his gaze downward.

"I didn't realize that you hadn't told-."

"I inferred, Connor."

Nines snapped back quietly, causing his older sibling to sigh before he returned his focus to the child on his lap, clearly wishing he were literally anywhere else.

You turned toward Nines,

"You messed with some of your work contracts for me?"

Disbelief and shock were evident in every word you spoke as you tried to make sense of what Connor had said.

Nines was an FBI agent, that much you knew, and because of that he had strict contracts that he resigned every year stipulating where he could go, what he could do, what his pay would be, and what would happen if he were to not come back from a mission.

You knew that because every year he had to call you asking if you were okay with being put down beside Connor as his next of kin, meaning you would be notified if and when something happened to him...

And every year you had to verbally confirm that yes, you were alright with that, no matter how much the idea of ever actually receiving that dreaded call from his superiors terrified you.

But you also knew that the distance that Nines had once been willing to travel greatly bolstered his pay check. When he had been gone for the duration of your pregnancy with Finley, he had made enough money to buy his expensive car in cash and then attempt to fund both of your sons' college accounts.

So why the hell would he change his distance contract for you?

Nines sighed,

"I was unhappy with the circumstances that I had to work with while you were pregnant with Finley. Being unable to support you throughout the process while being forced to get updates through letters addressed to random P.O. boxes is an experience I would rather not repeat, so I told them not to send me so far away that I might be gone for more than a certain amount of time-"

"How much time?"

You asked, voice shaking as you attempted to keep yourself calm. Time and time again you had begged this man not to sacrifice anything else for you and your family, and time and time again he'd ignored you in favor of putting himself last for the one millionth time.

Nines sighed.

"I asked them to not send me away for longer than six weeks at most unless absolutely necessary."

He looked down at you, his voice stern and his expression serious as he spoke,

"And I will not be asking them to change that anytime soon."

You groaned, tossing your hands up in the air exasperatedly while being careful not to jostle the baby who was still sleeping soundly against your chest.

"You are impossible."

You muttered, hearing Nines chuckle a bit as he looked down at you in amusement,

"Only when it comes to your profoundly foolish requests for me to stop taking care of you."

You opened your mouth to protest the idea that he had any responsibility to do such a thing at all, but then the doors to the emergency center opened, and out stepped a doctor who called a familiar name into the empty waiting room, which remained devoid of all life save for your small and atypical family.

"Is anyone here for Caiden Anderson?"

He asked, causing all three of you to stand immediately, though Connor took a moment longer than you and Nines did as he adjusted Atlas properly in order to do so.

The doctor regarded the three of you with a nod, not bothering to ask the relationship that Connor and Nines had to Sixty and moving straight on to you and your boys.

"What is your relationship to the patient?"

He asked, and grimacing, you spoke the same lines you had already said so many times since long before you and Sixty had even started dating. He was an accident prone man, and you and the boys had needed a way to make sure you could get inside of hospitals to see him without issue.

"His fiancee."

You said, hoping that the doctor took your nervous body language as worry rather than the discomfort it truly was.

Because as many times as you had said those words, both truthfully and untruthfully, you didn't think it would ever stop hurting to say them now.

The doctor nodded, gesturing toward your children,

"And the kids?"

"Our sons."

You said, tone a bit more confident this time, and despite how displeased he looked to be bringing so many visitors into one room, the doctor motioned for all five of you to follow him into the room they were monitoring Sixty in.

Walking into the space though, you struggled not to wince at the sight of him, taking note of how pale and sickly he looked bathed in the white hospital lighting, his veins obvious beneath his skin, as if he were made of glass.

You shuddered slightly, staring at him for a moment until Connor, who had just set your son down in one of three available chairs, gently took your hands and guided you toward another, offering you a kind and encouraging smile as he and his brother stood behind you in spite of the fact that there was still one other available chair.

They preferred to stand anyhow.

Sixty had always been the one to sit with you.

The doctor sighed as he fully entered the room behind the five of you, closing the door and taking a look at the tablet within his hand to ensure he was looking at the right patient's chart before he spoke.

"So, it appears that Mr. Anderson managed to pop the stitches and re-injure the stab wound he came in for the other day."

He said seriously, and immediately your eyes grew wide and your hands felt clammy.

Stabbed?

Sixty, your Sixty, the too beautiful jokester with the too pretty smile had been stabbed?

You swallowed thickly, trying to stop your eyes from growing teary at the thought as you continued to listen to what the doctor had to say.

"So, the good news is that he hasn't sustained any new injuries, and that this was likely just an issue of him doing too much too soon. The bad news is that the area already seems to be infected, and while we are trying to treat that to the best of our ability, he will likely require at home bed rest for several weeks afterward. As you likely know, this is far from his first run in with infections, and at this point treatment is starting to become a lot less effective than we would like."

You felt your hands shake as you nodded numbly, wishing so hard that you could shake the sleeping man on the other side of the room awake and scream at him until he told you why he was doing this to himself, why he was doing this to you.

He had been a sickly kid, all four of you knew that, and in taking all of these risks with his health he was bringing himself closer and closer to an early death than you hoped he realized.

"To be clear,"

The doctor began solemnly, looking you in the eyes as he removed his glasses,

"If Caiden does not become more serious about his health soon, there may very well come a day when he is brought in here and there will be nothing that we can do but make him comfortable."

You blanched, watching as the doctor sighed,

"Look Ma'am, if I may be so frank, I have no idea what is going on with your fiancee. Hell, I don't even know if you two are actually engaged. But what I will say is that looking at his chart, he is playing a dangerous game. You can't do the type of drugs he's done and live the kind of life he's leading and expect to make it very far. And I think you're fully aware of that."

You nodded again, avoiding eye contact with the man as you did so,

"I am, of course I am."

"Then for your own sake, either get him to stop doing whatever the hell it is that he's been doing, or let him go. I don't like saying this, and I wish that things were different, but in the end if he won't take care of himself, and you can't make him, this can only hurt you and your children."

He sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders, and then he stood, his expression still solemn and his eyes sympathetic.

"He should be waking up soon. When he does a nurse will come to inform him of his condition. Whether you stay or go is entirely up to you, just don't disturb any of the other patients please."

And with that he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him as the room filled with a tense kind of silence that you knew all too well.

"Did you guys know?"

You asked quietly, already aware of what the answer to that question was deep down.

"Did you know that he was letting this happen to himself?"

Their responding silence was deafening.

It was all that you needed to hear.

masterlist

Gavin

Being his snarky self, Gavin would be jokingly flirty at first not thinking much of it

Until he began sensing a warmth every time (Y/N) laughed at his silly jokes and sarcastic comments

Before he knew it, he was always spending his free time with (Y/N)

Going into the breakroom, whenever he noticed they were there

Greeting them every morning with a genuine smile on his face

Vibrant morning sunrays hit (Y/N) skin as walked into the building of the Detroit police department. It was quiet except for the usual sound of mouse clicks and the occasional phone ring. A bright smile curled the corners of their lips at the sight of their partner Gavin Reed.

"Morning, Reed!" Enthusiasm was evident in their voice; his attention was immediately anchored to them and their face, which he found absolutely adorable. Affected by their happy expression, he couldn't help but smile back at them.

"Somebody call the cops because it’s got to be illegal to look that good!" He eyed the from head to toe, causing them to shyly look away.

Interestingly enough, it was the colleagues at the department that noticed the change first

His longing to constantly be in (Y/N)'s company was obvious to everyone else but Gavin and (Y/N)

Happy to finally see Gavin break character and soften, his colleagues would tease him every once in a while

While on the other hand (Y/N) would get overwhelmed with questions such as "Did you put him under a spell?"

I feel like Gavin will distance himself once he realizes that his feelings toward (Y/N) are more than just a silly crush

Progressively he will grow colder to (Y/N)

He would find himself in a rabbit hole of repressed emotions and anxieties, connected to his past, which will ultimately lead to avoiding (Y/N)

Hurt and confused, (Y/N) wouldn't give up on reaching out to him but with little to no success

Until they give up, which in return pains Gavin even more

Suddenly he will have to deal not only with the fear of abandonment but also the consequences of said fear taking over him

I like to imagine Hank will be quick to notice the distance formed between the two and will talk to Gavin

Knowing him since his rookie days, Hank is one of the few people who know quite a lot about Gavin, which helps him in advising the detective

Eventually, thanks to Hank's help, Gavin will be able to realize that by avoiding his problems he made things worse

He will want to apologize to (Y/N) for hurting them

“I know I’ve been a total ass the past few weeks, but maybe I can make it up to you. (Y/N) silently gaze at him as if they weren’t sure if this was a dream or reality.

“There’s new restaurant down the block and I thought maybe..” He went on all the while studying their face. “Maybe we could check it out?”

Much to his delight, they agree

The two have the time of their life, catching up like nothing ever happened

And even getting closer

“So,” He spoke up, hot puffs of air escaping his mouth. “Are we even?”

(Y/N) swayed back and forth on their feet, overdoing the time it took them to answer.

“I’m afraid a single date won’t be enough, Reed.” Their hand reached for his neck, bringing his face closer to theirs; their lips touched his in a soft and delicate kiss that left him wanting more.

“Your wish is my command.” (Y/N) giggled, causing a warmth to spread in his chest, despite the cold of the November night.

Markus

Markus is definitely the type of person, who looks for a friend first and a lover second

So, I expect him to fall for (Y/N) after they have gotten to know each other

His feelings for them will slowly but surely progress into a sensation he's never felt before

Even if the thought of (Y/N) wouldn't leave his mind, he would be reluctant to share that with them

Or at least not verbally

Being the altruist he is, his love language would be one of service

Anyway he could, he would help

Standing on their tippy toes, (Y/N) struggled to reach the contents of the top shelf; even the chair they were standing on seemed to not help much. Passing by the kitchen, Markus’ attention was caught by the creaking of the chair and (Y/N)’s puffs and quiet curses. With a puzzled expression, he walked up to them and took a glance at what they were doing.

Reaching with a hand near theirs, he took a hold of a box of cereal; electrical shock ran through (Y/N)’s entire body at the slight brush of his cold skin against theirs.

“Is this what you were looking for?” They nodded as they got down.

“Yeah, thanks.” (Y/N)  took the box with a bright smile on their face that caused his circuits to malfunction, resulting in LED lighting up in a vibrant amber color.

Though he will eventually come to realize that his desire to help (Y/N) exceeded past just his typical friendly behavior

He desired to be by their side at all times

He will absolutely melt if (Y/N) were to compliment him

The enchanting melody filled the space, alluring (Y/N) the source of the sound. Letting the music take over them, their steps were in perfect sync with the rhythm of the song; it almost felt as if time stopped and they have found themselves in a wonderland- one they couldn’t imagine even in their wildest dreams.

The volume grew louder so did the effect of the melody upon (Y/N); seeing a door, they weren’t surprised to see Markus sat before the piano. His slender fingers stroked the snow-white keys, the impact of his firm, yet delicate, touch made for a captivating melody akin to the song of a siren that drew in sailors in the dead of night.

Much like a sailor, bewitched by a magnificent siren, (Y/N) stood and watched as his composition tingled their every sense. Not long after did Markus sense their presence; startled by their sudden appearance, he stopped playing.

“Why did you stop?” Disappointment was written in their expression.

“I didn’t expect to have an audience.” He made a reply in a bashful manner, his colorful eyes avoiding theirs.

“I love it when you play the piano.” (Y/N) began as they neared him. “No matter how many times I hear you play it’s never the same. It’s truly fascinating.” There was a spark in their eyes as they spoke that caused a tingling sensation to occur in his thirium pump. Was he malfunctioning?

Markus will definitely confess once the revolution is successful and he feels safe enough to have another person in his life

Connor

He's completely oblivious

Never in his short life did he expect to feel let alone fall in love

So, he's very confused when he experiences system malfunctions in (Y/N)'s presence

He constantly runs system checks only to get confused when the results show no apparent errors

Despite being a prototype, created to unravel complicated cases with ease, it takes him some time to figure out it's (Y/N) that causes these malfunctions

Of course, not without Hank's help

Enamored by the enigma surrounding them, Connor couldn’t help but stare at them and wonder: why they caused such reactions in him. Coincidently or not, Hank had noticed Connor’s lack of focus on his tasks; following the direction of his gaze, the man had found the reason.

“You know it’s rude to stare right? Or that isn’t in your damn program?” Hank got straight to the point but Connor seemed clueless, for he gave him a puzzled look. The man let out a sigh of disappointment.

“Look, I know you got something towards (Y/N) and you better go talk to them.”

“But I-“

“Trust me. They like you too.” Silently, Connor looked at his partner, processing what he had said. “Come on! Don’t waste your chance.” He urged the android on.

Connor will get flustered if (Y/N) were to compliment him

“Good morning!” (Y/N) greeted; their voice akin to a bell rang in Connor’s ears.

“Mornin’, kid” Hank mumbled under his nose, not quite returning their excitement.

“You’re here early!” They stared in awe.

“Yeah, thanks to him.” He pointed to Connor, who shyly waved his hand; (Y/N) smiled.

“Good job, Connor! Even if I wanted, I wouldn’t be able to bring Hank here before noon.” They joked, causing the lieutenant to laugh, meanwhile, Connor’s cheeks got blue, dusted with deep shades of blue, and amber hues danced on his LED.

If it came to physical touch Connor would probably shut down from how many system errors he gets

Much like in Markus' case, I think Connor will be confident in his emotions after the revolution when he becomes a deviant

It may take him a bit longer to fully grasp the experience of having feelings

Though he will get used to it with some guidance

Sixty

Just like Gavin, Sixty will be flirty but mostly with someone, who reflects the same energy

He may be a bit too daring at times, openly flirting without any shame whatsoever

Heading towards the breakroom with their partner beside them, (Y/N) was eager to get their morning coffee, though it seemed Sixty had other plans.

"Is your phone in your back pocket? Because your ass is calling me." With him being close by their side, his voice- barely above a whisper- caused shivers to run down their spine.

“Haha very funny, Sixty.” They sarcastically laughed, in hopes of hiding the excitement that grew within them.

“You know I’m always at your service.” He winked at them as he opened the door for them.

It may take him a lot longer to get attached and even longer to acknowledge his feelings

He would definitely test (Y/N)'s loyalty for him to fully trust them

Being Connor's successor and the android that almost caused the downfall of the revolution, Sixty is battling his past

An awkward silence had settled upon the two; worried, (Y/N) glanced at Sixty though his blank expression didn’t aid them in understanding what was going on.

“Is everything alright, Sixty?” Their voice were calm and quiet, loud enough only for him to hear; his brown eyes stared back at theirs. A puff of air escaped past his lips.

“It’s none of your concern.” He cut them off, bitterness was evident in his voice.

So, he will fall for someone, who accepts him for who he is and helps him in forgiving himself

His path to deviancy will be turbulent, filled with an explosion of repressed emotions Sixty is forced to deal with

But by being by his side, (Y/N) cloud build a bridge to his heart

The moment he realizes he is head over heels for (Y/N) is when he lets his guard down

When the playful facade crumbles down and what is left is a person, fighting to be accepted and forgiven

Nines

Out of all of the boys, it will take Nines the most time to catch feelings

Being the most advanced android in the world, Nines is less prone to deviancy

Not only it takes him more time to feel emotions but to also acknowledge and accept them

So, romance with Nines is close to nonexistent until deviancy

Though there still would sign in his behavior that indicate a crack in his system

With all of his advances, I feel Nines would want to use his assets for good

And working at DPD gives him such an opportunity

Upon meeting (Y/N) he wouldn't sense anything right away

Though as they work together and get accustomed to each other, Nines will slowly change

His curiosity will grow, resulting in asking (Y/N) questions outside their field of work

Yet what draws Nines in is their tolerance

They never pressure him to open up or to talk when he doesn't want to

It just occurs naturaly

“Detective, may I ask you something?” Nines’ icy blue irises bore into theirs.

“Of course, go ahead.” (Y/N) took a sip of their drink.

“Why did you join the force?” A smear of genuine curiosity was evident behind his enigmatic gaze.

“Well,” A smile curled the corners of their lips as the memories flooded in. “I guess you could say I just want to help people.” Their gaze met his. “What about you?”

He stayed silent for a few moments; bright yellow circled across his light-emitting diode.

“I suppose we have common motives.” He danced around the question, yet they didn’t question him any further.

And in the darker weather, thick soot falls from black clouds, a weight that stretches the scales on his chest--the air suffocates him as does the truth.

The Earth pulls at his feet, shying away from where his footprints dusted over; baby leaves, the stir of deeply rooted wildlife tease into a growing distance, his shoes shaking off remnants of the ground once stepped. A distant memory.

It’s truly an inch away, where his ankles flail to meet the grasps of gravity and he fails. The image of the forest floor blurs together—it’s not shrinking, he’s flying—and desperate to find ground to gain root, he’s chasing something that can only brush his fingertips. Even if he savours the taste a little, the contact doesn’t imprint, barely licks his skin but not long enough to register it. He’s losing something, but it’s too far away to recognise it, and some third force urges him to dent it into his chassis as does the scar on his forehead. It's fleeting, tasteless when he forgets again, as if he was clawed hollow, ripped wires and shredded organs.

The ache stills in his shoulders, then churns to his elbows which he tries to knock out into open air. It’s desire and want and it’s everything he can no longer have. His breath delays.

Air puffs and clouds, and then cohere into bubbles that faintly cage his image before floating high. His brows tense and then furrow, wrinkling lines of equal parts confusion and frustration, before he wrenches an arm high to chase his mini image. He passes through cold nothing, his eyes cannot find it and it strikes him that he can’t remember just what he reached for. It’s all take, take, take.

He flies. He floats. The space around him grows dense. Cool air rushes into deep water.

The sea wraps him snugly, perhaps to make up for whomever's arms ghost around his chest - but the latches aren’t comfortable, they're unsafe and work to suffocate ventilation. There's only so long he can sink, so long the reserves in him squeal an exhale before his systems encourage him to break through the surface.

Warnings flesh as blaring red rectangles; he ignores it. He's waiting for something. A reason? An answer, to why an ugly, icky tumour clenches his palms shut, why he can't get rid of the feeling as much as he tries to stretch it away. The water swishes when he turns to his hand, expecting some creature to claw from beneath his skin, blame it for why his mind blurs when he thinks.

The sea is quiet; it dulls stimulation. Gives him some veiled excuse for ‘time’. It's why he enjoys it.

His chest tightens. His systems caution him further, overheating. It's an abysmal discomfort, but strangely cathartic. Wheezes muffle into the water but he hears it no less, feels how biocomponents sear in a mockery of pain. It's too loud, it hurts in the part of him he misses.

He blares crimson. His chest burns. The surface serves as his bright light, deep rushing currents and beeping warnings a choir for his funeral, and the sea will be his grave.

A boat passes. A canoe. Chatter muffles but he can make out two distinct voices. One hauntingly similar to his own and the other… he... can't quite... who...? No, he’s sure he doesn’t recognise it. No face to that sound. No lips to that mouth.

The sea edges him to the surface for him, bubbles that lift him with tiny limbs, pushing past surface tension until he floats. He’s hollow, it only makes sense how the sea lays beneath him.

Why does his body feel different? Why is there a one-way mirror fitted between somatic and internal, between instinct and thought?

Why does he feel longing ?

The surface tickles his lips, velvet soft, it reminds him of... his mind halts. Chest pulling in a cooler touch, he still feels a strain around his ribcage, a lie and truth meddled into a fluid mass. He chases the flash of... something tries to fill it in his lungs when he breathes in deep. His fingertips brush his lower lip and they feel prickly, new. No lips to that kiss. The warnings recede but his vision clouds still.

Something touches his hand. Stings, rather, like rope burn. Sears into his framework like his hand drove through a shredder. A thread weaves and gains purchase tight around his fingers, projections into cobwebs, but this time, it holds.

It's a fishing line, though it doesn't seem to have a handler, nor a place of origin. The line tangles and pulls taut around his hand. Crunches his plastic like day-old snow. It doesn't snap. It doesn't escape him.

And Sixty remembers.

There is no coming of sunshine, no beam pushes through that doubling storm, no spread of saturated colour when every memory muddies into one. It circulates and spirals him with a force harsh enough to stretch his skin thin and puncture vessels—tears him like a damp paper towel, watch it loosen and break away in wet chunks. It's impenetrable to light, for it absorbs it until light is no more.

Outlines form in dark space, meshing golden edges into one another as they layer per memory—like his mind spins on an axis, catching the clutter of reconstructions into something sensical. Sounds are out of sync, mouths of faces—he cannot name them—speak words he hears seconds later. Pressure finds stubborn fingers against his temple where he’s gripping tighter, as if to keep a fractured mind in one piece. It helps momentarily, but it’s an illusion of strength.

It hurts. It really does. Like the layers of him are spliced an inch apart, like his eyes could fall right out of their sockets, like his limbs could spring apart without reason.

He's lost in the nothingness of himself, forced in the corner to be pelted with memory upon memory until it bruises his skin for good - and for once, hoping it'll last. Choppy flashes of yellow that resemble some unnamed figure, wrap their fingers around his artificial brain, squeezing until he cries in paralysed anguish. He contorts in pain, it rubs harshly against his throat but carries no sound.

It makes him want to scream.

But his grip on the fishing line tightens.

The blood that rips from his fingers and the water coalesce, blurring the borders between the shades of blue. If the water exists as his illness, maybe his pain is fated to be forgotten.

And oh, how he burns. His blood is acidic and thaws the plastic that pumps it, cursing the rest of his body to a poisoned end. The screws in him rust to a hair's width. Sixty's the pieces of him that fragment in his memory.

Broken. Aimless. Nuts and bolts in a sack of simulated flesh.

The water latches on his ankle and pulls him far harder than he can hold on.

“No!-” Static twists his voice in a stray note, duly muffled by the water, a nodule in his throat he can’t cough out or swallow down. That desperation fills his lungs alongside the water, an unwelcome weight, but it jogs some corner of impulses in his android brain.

Struggle slips into gargles within the lake, locked in pockets of air, unmoving to keep his struggle unheard. Panic nestles in his joints as he is dragged faster, his kicks are clammy and desperate but useless from the unforgiving fingers of kelp. Seaweed shackles curl around his ankle tighter, pulling him closer to the ocean floor. His fingers fumble with little progress.

Colour evades the deeper he falls, remnants of the moonlight serving as a fleeting solace, a light at the end of the tunnel that Sixty is maliciously rejected. It's ironic, how the near-black expanse he's pulled into reminds him of something. The ghost of feathered lashes, The pressure on his chest punishes. Something audibly cracks in him.

Sixty takes to mouth something, his lips shaping a vow, a plea to the prison bars, and a familiar voice echoes on the tips of his hair.

“To never forget,” blurred lines of fading memories lose definition. Unravels in the wind, thread that's fallen loose from its clipboard, gathering dust with little memory of where it’s from or where it goes. Seaweed pulls him undeniably fast.

His hands fall immobile, hopeless, unsure. Defeated.

That feeling in his chest remains. That memory of sheer fear still knocks his bones, still tickles an itch without scratching it. But the panic, the bruises on his body fade inexplicably, where the vow curls around his tongue... what was it again? Why were his fingers slashed due to force that only could've been his own? Sixty's desperation tremors in his hands but his reason is long gone.

Thud.

Sixty hits the sea floor. Sixty becomes a shell of a man.

There is no panic, no fear. Memories have been abandoned, lost at sea. A hard reset makes Sixty's eyes look inexplicably hollow.

His arm solos above him but the night silently watches through the water. Down here, Sixty knows that nothing exists besides the vegetation that binds him low.

-.—.-

Daybreak bleeds between his curtains that fan the dull walls of his bedroom a better gold. The sun peeks at him boldly, this time without clouded company and its promise of a fleeting shelter. There was no escape.

It's like the sun has found him now, searched in a land untouched until he made the mistake of half-drawing his curtains to watch the moon last night.

Ambient rumbling of motors whine from the open window, birds scurry and sing in flight like little leaves caught in the wind; a solemn sense of consonance merges the bustle outside to an optimistic backdrop. It fills the space with warm adoration.

Ha! I knew I'd find you! The sunlight mocks with a childish cackle. A painful eyeshot of a blinding day makes him flinch. Sixty muffles a groan into his cotton pillow, rumpled bedsheets that felt a little too like…seaweed?

Sixty scrambles to his knees.

The day is anew, but the android feels cuffed to an undefined torment of the past, a crushing weight of the entire ocean converging to a singular point above his pump regulator. It restrains him so, like a timid hand pulling at his sleeve to return to bed and stay a little longer. He can’t quite decide whether it’s the ghostly touch of supple fingers or binding kelp pulling at his wrists.

What is he even thinking about? Sixty scoffs at his break in hysteria. He must be losing it. What the hell was going on anyway?

Sixty clasps his fingers around his other forearm unprompted, his thumb pushing into the autonomous ripple of the synthetic epidermis to the white shell of his android anatomy. He drags his palms proximally to his elbow.

He’s in a white t-shirt, crumpled akin to the bedding as if it were taken from the bedsheets themselves. Sixty pulls a fistful of his top; the wrinkles stretch and converge to sharper lines. His shorts are long and loose. Sixty pats his body crudely to feel if he was really half the person he felt.

The android runs a shallow scan of the space around him. An apartment? Decor looks to be thrown about without rhyme or reason, the hard floor littered with crumpled clothes and springing plants on cramped shelves. Bright yellow post-its look to be placed at random; one juts out near the pots with black scrawl that barely passes for eligible writing:

"Water every Tuesday. "

It’s a Tuesday.

Sixty pulls in air with a mechanical wheeze, though the space in his chest shrinks as it grows. A pathogen lives at the base of his lungs, one that gnaws at his inner workings with cannibalistic curiosity, digging its fangs to feed and multiply as a means to raise its young. Sixty can feel it moving inside him, but he’s limited to scratching helplessly at his diagnostics, nails scraping bits of white off his plastic thorax.

What the hell is going on?

Sixty keels over. His midriff spasms into a painful flurry of staggered breaths.

Was he not dead?

-

Sixty tries to recall, but all that meets him are razor edges of battered pictures. The pieces belong to an uncertain figure, one without eyes or lips, a memory true if he was to see it one more time. It’s a bitter reality, with no one to show him what he’s missing, no one to kiss away the infectious sting of doubt lining his vessels. He’s alone in feeling it clot and occlude sanity’s door with a final blow.

The more he attempts to recollect the pieces, the deeper the memory cuts. Sixty stops trying.

Time has passed, years , if he was being specific. The seasons have swept on shore and pulled far into the sea, tidal in that it changes before Sixty found a moment to appreciate it. Though mostly indifferent, Sixty can’t help but grow curious of his kind and their place in busy streets.

Does he stand alongside them? It took no detective to see he had established himself, so was this life really his own?

What was going on?

Sixty searches for the one who shares the likings of his identity. One who he scoffed at with the barrel of a gun back at the Cyberlife Tower. Perhaps, as with deviancy, he has the answers.

There he sits with company, laughter on his lips, dressed in a tan, woolly overcoat that drapes largely off his shoulders and brushes the pavement. It’s far too big, neither functional, for his standard build, and despite the odd calamity of ‘whatever the fuck was happening’ to Sixty, Connor looks as though he belongs. All temple LED and android awkwardness, he pieced effortlessly into the background.

Sixty isn't quite sure why the fact surprises him, that much he figured in the earlier turmoil of the time skip; from the moment of his fatal deviation and the current day, everyone moved on.

Sixty feels the same.

His hands dig deeper into his hoodie, fingers crumpling the post-it that served to tie the frayed ends of his questions. A stark yellow with a near-dysfunctional sticky back from sticking it on the wall again and again.

“You have amnesia. This is your house.”

The scene fans out in tones of autumn kisses and raining leaves, where the sun relishes the sky in a longing embrace before parting for a lengthy slumber. A rotten taste finds the base of Sixty's tongue; it's ironic, as the sun, Sixty knows this miracle is ephemeral.

His predecessor is fortunate, but what does Sixty know about the turning days, because for him, yesterday existed and nothing more. His mission . The gunshot . The spark of fear between the fired bullet and Sixty's definite demise.

For Connor, however, time was a plentiful gift, wrapped in a pretty pink bow with a note of gratitude.

That timid bounce of perfectly parted hair looks fresh with product, a snug knitted pullover dressing him in near-black blues and oranges, and fingers warm around a cafés coffee mug. Sixty fixes on the pointless thrumming below the blue patterns on the rim of white ceramic.

There's a gold band on his finger; something brief twists in the cogs of Sixty's chest though he struggles to point just where its core lies.

"Connor," the successor hesitates, an awkward distance to count as conversation but close enough to catch the surprise in the predecessor’s eyes. It lapses for a moment, mirror images locked onto the other before Connor softens to a knowing look.

Passing a glance to his partner, a soft nod that spoke terribly loud for a quiet autumn afternoon, Sixty can't help feeling the distance within himself grow. The confusion he woke with grips the wheel with unprecedented curiosity.

"Do sit," Connor gestures an easy hand to the empty chair next to him, "we have to catch up."

-

His name is Sixty, formally. Sixty , he tests the sound of it but it doesn't quite strike the way he expects it to. It misses something, an edge, or a lilt that matched the serenity of rippled water. Sixty , or perhaps it's his voice that can't quite string it the way it's supposed to.

Hood raised and hands deep in pockets, Sixty idly walks without a destination in mind.

The sun is too bright, albeit setting, and he scoffs for a quicker nightfall; just as he wishes to settle the intensity of his new life and bask in the dullness of ignorance again. Perhaps, it was better if he did not know this was the life shackled to him.

Remnants of the falling sun cough out the last of its light into the coming night, like the speckles of streetlights blurring in a distance, impressionable but not dominant. It's how Sixty feels about the world around him, the breeze against his skin, the mindless chatter of passing crowds. Reality cuts through him like streaks of rainwater on a car window, and he's following it down with every will for it to stop while he catches his breath. The yellow parts of the sky are far too bright.

He can't quite shake it off, the nagging truth of his sunken sense of identity and an apartment full of sticky notes.

Sixty passes a bookstore. He catches his reflection in a golden light and stops. Amnesia.

He’s angry. Was he fated to await the moment he forgets again if only to relive the shock of waking up in a strange bed in a strange apartment that’s supposedly his own?

Chocolate stares back at him. His hair is tousled, and his clothes swallow him whole. He’s unrecognisable. Sixty sees beyond the glass window.

People meddle in happy heaps, whether stamped with a temple ring light or not, all warping in their perception of the world around. Fingers edge out to take a book in hand, read the contents, engross in the feel, blinking with the living condition to experience until they cannot experience anymore.

His feet move autonomously. People brush past unceremoniously as he walks in. The bookstore is packed. His hand pulls at a book between colourful stacks, unprompted.

It’s busy. The air is thick with age-old literature and wafts of perfume from the collective. Sixty focuses on the embellished lettering of the cover and swipes a thumb to let it print in his mind in an attempt to remember it.

The title sticks to his lips far better than his own name.

‘Remember To Love.’

He’s never held a book before. He’s not done much of anything before. Not that he can remember it anyway. A dry laugh huffs out of his chest; the title delivers an ugly stab of irony between artificial ribs but stings as though the pain was lowly human.

Chatter fades. The door jingles frequently as crowds work to replace those who left. Was this the consequence of being conscious? To live on such a plane off-kilter from faces around, coded with a curse to bear it alone?

What was the point?

"You know , if you open it, they'll be even more to read. "

Sixty startles, which itself encourages another considering his exclusive knickknacks would've noticed anything and everything in his surroundings. Maybe he isn’t all the same.

The first thing his optics fall to is that smile and its easy curves. The cracks in your lower lips are a novel sight, akin to the veins of autumn leaves.

A human has spoken to him. A human . In friendly conversation. The shock on his face must be nothing short of picturesque. Doubled at how long he figures he’s been standing awkwardly, staring at a book’s cover.

Your head tilts, patient in his stunned silence with a glazing edge in your pupils. A gentle curiosity locks his way, slack bait hanging off of a fishing line. It doesn’t pull him closer to you but doesn’t let him fall too far behind. Sixty fails to formulate a response.

"That book is pretty boring actually," you exasperate with a dismissing flick of your wrist, "too much drama, not enough action, if you know what I mean."

What?

(Not even preconstructed responses can save him.)

In a stolen moment, your brows hitch in sync with your chest but are swiftly replaced by the exaggerated smile of a guiding angel, or that of a child’s favourite mentor. Warmth that favours a mother to a lost kitten in broken alleyways.

"You look like it's your first day on Earth," you chuckle lightly.

This feels like too much.

You say your name. It pokes at the base of his heart. You wait expectantly for his reciprocal.

"Sixty." He says. It sounds foreign still.

You smile brighter, like the sun that woke him with a giddy 'I've found you'. Something is fizzling in your eyes. Android curiosity scans it again and again.

You cock your head to the world outside, "want me to give you a tour, Sixty?"

You say his name. He follows you like it’s the easiest thing he’s done today.

The sea meets him once more.

-.--.-

“Your name is Sixty. You have amnesia.”

The lettering is imperfect, surely it cannot be his own.

A scoff splutters akin to a wet gargle, as if the sea floor that chained his corpse liquified his innards into coarse crackles. The whites of his eyes are inexplicably growing just as his resolve shrinks.

Is this a fucking joke?

The furniture feels the brunt of his anger.

Whatever the hell was happening had to be some sick ploy, a malicious scheme to punish Sixty's nihilistic pre-deviant operations. A bladed jab for every objective he itched to pursue. Kick him whilst he's down.

Connor must be behind this. He has to be. For that crumpled edge in the corner of his eyes that seeped in the reflection of red temple rings, it must be that android's petty, subordinate revenge for Sixty using his Lieutenant as bait.

The apartment must pose as a means to mock his sorry state, to brandish his failures in the solid confines of solitary punishment. That wretched copy and his all-emotive facial plate ; Sixty digs his heels as if it were twisting on that Connor's neck, itching for the leeway of the first crunch and those staggering, desperate breaths that would follow.

Amnesia? Sixty remembers well how his chassis burned with a brittle shake. Sixty remembers the looming spark in the back of his head urging him to pull the trigger. Dealing with that sorry sack of alcoholism for a police lieutenant was enough of a pain...

Sixty falters.

The memories play the same though he feels another character is in play. Disembodied, yet latching on his back with wet tendrils like it wished to become an extension of him. Sixty cannot wield it like a limb, but it voices the contortions of his pump regulator just as well.

You disappoint me, pathetic fool. It sears, speaking for him when he's coded a mouth sewn shut.

Sixty slowly dips his head, letting his eyes catch on the palms of his hands.

Something's off. He's missing something. Even with the added ghoul that makes all his mistakes and fills the cracks with reason... he's carved hollow.

What the hell is going on?

Weeks pass and tides pull him back in.

-.--.-

“You have amnesia. Your name is Sixty.”

He slams his fists in fearful proximity to his pump regulator, straining stridor amidst harsh coughs as if his insides scurried to escape him. There is no water in his lungs.

The seaweed remains cuffed as he seeks answers. What's happening to me? Someone sits just over an arm's length across a desk from him, eyes peering over meticulous glasses as if they'd cost him a component to afford. White coat in faux medical aid and a personal office that did its best to sell Sixty of the man's competency. A professional, albeit human, but one who has the answers he's looking for.

However, when the man falls in conversation, Sixty drifts in the dull expanse of clouded memories. His mind pulls from the foreground. The former technician bobs his chin repeatedly that doesn't quite look like talking; Sixty can neither hear nor recognise the shape of those words.

The android's fingers tighten on the armrests, digging into the peeling vinyl and its spongy abscess. In its opening, creatures with spindly legs crawl up the back of his hand, biting through synthetic skin to the burrows of Sixty's flesh. The android is unable to draw air into his chest.

They crawl with needle-like legs. Sixty can't move. The mounds under his skin crawl faster. Sixty's voice has no weight.

Subject to the horned teeth that staple his plastic makeup with spotting blue blood, Sixty is paralysed. His eyes grow. They crawl up his neck.

He wants to scream. It's all too much.

"Would you like some help?" A faint voice offers behind him whilst he stands idly in a grocery store. The shelves stock unforgivingly in blinding variations of colourful foods, neither that would settle for appetising nor their exploited prices. Why the hell is he looking at food he can't eat?

Sixty regains his breath but his feet don't move. Snacks stretch in favour of a distraction. He finally turns to the voice that jolted him back; the eyes that meet him are the closest he's felt to his feet on the ground.

"Are you curious about our snacks? I've got recommendations if you're interested." You play a small smile, but the lift in your brows and the glaze in your eyes never settle.

It's strange. You're a face amongst many though he feels like the centre of yours. You look as if you've rushed to catch up to him.

" Su-" he croaks and then clears his throat, "sure."

And the water takes him again.

-.--.-

A crumpled paper ball of a tennis ball-yellow is stuffed in Sixty's jacket. He squeezes it tightly until faint marks indent on synthetic skin.

He's out of breath, but he can't find you.

Audio muffles by the overlay of memories, merry tinkles of your laughter, the shape of your voice snug in the space that felt hollow. Sixty runs through the streets in search of it again.

The line pulls taut. All he can think about is finding you. The water calls him back but he surfs the crowds instead.

You must be here. Sixty is in search of your head in the many. His phone has run dry, posing his feared reflection with all the desperation to seek. It's all going wrong. He just needs to find you.

The line loosens, tides rush to his ankles but Sixty pushes on. There must be some way. Someone you're with. Someone who knows you. But the existence around you splits into shaky pieces, uncertain and incomprehensible. He can't let that line go, not when it's finally in his grasp.

It's a losing battle.

-.--.-

"You have amnesia."

Why does he feel so exhausted?

The days spur on. The note. The chase. The staggering step in when he remembers your outline. Warmth leaves him every time his head falls in his hands, bound to the curse of reliving what cannot and will never be his.

Fate is a cruel feat. Sixty stands by the shore and waits for the tides to rise.

"Sixty. You have amnesia. I love you."

As he wakes up from a thrashing slumber, he notes the absence of kelp on his wrists. The memories spring up like hollow balls in a body of water.

He remembers everything; nothing tops the crushing guilt of having you wait so long.

The note. The pulsations under his fingers when he rests a hand over his heart. The hitch in his breath when the smell of your skin revisits his senses.

Water fills his lungs anyway.

"Your name is Sixty. This is where you live. You have amnesia."

The note. The chase. The reality.

The fate of the sea floor.

"This is your house. You have amnesia."

How can he accept the path fate carves for him?

"Your name is Sixty. You have amnesia."

How long is he supposed to do this?

"This is your apartment, Sixty. You have amnesia."

Sixty digs through the balls of yellow paper in his waste bin.

"You have amnesia."

They're all notes.

-.--.-

"You have amnesia. Your name is Sixty. This is your home."

There's a knock at his door.

In the tattered assortment of piling memories, never really starting or finishing anywhere as if they were pieces ripped out from the middle, Sixty exhales and opens the front door.

"Hey," you speak as such too, like the middle of a memory, wet lines down your cheeks with questions of why and when . Your voice is small, enough that he could roll it in his palm like one of those balled pieces of paper in his trash can.

Instinct makes him step back to let you in, but not enough to speak to the stranger of his new life. Your lower lashes clump wetly, the tips of leaves edging the stream of rainfall. You tighten your jaw.

There’s a mass that sloshes in his vessels the longer he looks at you, though he’s not sure what to call it. It’s weighted, mobile in the way it keeps knocking the wind out of him like a soccer punch to a little boy. Your eyes are wide and Sixty knows what to call that strain in your expression; it's hope.

Speak, his subconscious commands, bobbing his jaw open without knowing what to say. Your tears glisten freshly yet hold firm. Willing the world to halt so Sixty could take all the time in the universe to finally say something.

Do I know you? But something urges him to not ask. Seeing the wild nest of your hair and swollen eyes drives all his impulses to the ground except for one; muscle memory lifts his hand closer to you in what could feel like the most natural thing he's done in the past few weeks he's awoken.

But he falters halfway.

Sixty isn't quite sure why he let you in the first place, let alone why he entertained the thick glass between the two of you like he was breaking the walls of deviancy all over again. There is nothing of the sort in your scanned details to enrapture him, nothing to stop him from asking you to leave his apartment. You must be one of those people who existed in the lost parts of him, waiting expectantly for him to return.

It's been twenty-six days since he woke with no recollection of who he was or why he was here. Twenty-six days, though according to Connor, this charade had dragged beyond dozens of times over three years. Twenty-six days of his neighbours conversing like they intended to invite him to their weddings, twenty-six days of loitering faces, gazing at him pitifully.

'What a shame, isn't it? It's no way to live.'

Sixty died every time he forgot. The version they long to keep has slipped into the high tides for its ocean grave. Ironic, that he is misunderstood as some copy of an android that shares his liking. How bad must it be for Sixty to actually appreciate Connor's lack of prodding, despite still carrying that coiled resentment pre-deviancy?

You stand in his living room, hair thrashed, clothes dishevelled, cheeks warm due to friction with the knocking scent of alcohol. You're searching for a piece of him that doesn't exist. Even if your very presence calms the unstable writhing of his components, his mind has been made up.

A light sound escapes you, sounding like the huff of a cry, until it croaks again into a chortle. It's pained; Sixty can measure it in amplitudes, and your laughter rings on for a few more before a heavy sigh.

You're laughing? The smile you flesh out doesn't quite reach your eyes, except you look a taste manic with those damp and dilated pupils. It's wildly unexpected, and Sixty pulls up short; it throws a wrench right into his thoughts.

"You know ," you begin and Sixty snaps to the brittle notes of your voice. It's better than your laughing, "despite you being an android, I somehow feel like the one who's immortal."

You chuckle a little more, tilting your head back. It shakes your shoulders and takes you wholly.

"I really want to hate you," you don't look at him, "I really do. I want to more than anything. A right old sock to your face."

You glance at him before fixing to the plants on the tiny shelves. Sixty's silence stretches on.

"I didn't come here to fight. Or to get you to remember. I'm surprised you let me actually. Lucky day for me, huh?"

The android's pump regulator stutters. He feels as though he is not there.

Tension disperses from your joints as if they had lost against gravity and slumped in major defeat. The sag is paired with a staggered sigh. "I've been honouring our vows, Sixty. I really have. Even if you..." you sound raw, static, "even if you can't- aren't able to. I've been trying for so long. "

Vows? Vows. That's why you're here. You were married to that version of him lost at sea, not him, not him . The memories you search for have been driven ashore, photographs paled by the kicking currents of the ocean. Those memories have been worn out, faded. Sixty feels the loss like it's his own.

Tears fall irregularly and Sixty watches you cry with a churning in his chest... it's not quite guilt, nor the tickle of envy, but a combination of both. He knows if he asked you to jump, you would leap with all your might, but it doesn't belong to him. It's the same tickle of envy he felt when Connor's memories became his own.

Your love does not belong to him. It is not his. Perhaps, that is why the grief doubles in around his pump regulator.

"I'm tired, Sixty ."

It's not his. You're not his. The pain sears harder than before.

"I'm done. I can't follow you anymore."

It burns. The wires he'd tangled to fasten his resolve loosen unapologetically. He doesn't know why it hurts. Why is he mourning ? Why does grief bite his breath away in mock gentle kisses? It's alternative to the sour kick of the sea floor, doesn't quite slosh in his mouth in salt and muck as he expects. Instead, it solders his metal tubes into a spoiled clump, an acrid impression he can't swallow down or wash out.

The android feels hot despite being cold to the touch. In the few weeks of his new life, Sixty has never longed for the bits missing this hard before.

Twenty-six days. Your tears trickle but the pinch in your brows settles. You're the first to let him go. God it fucking burns. Why does it feel as if you'd packaged all of your hurt and gave it to him? The layers of glass between you two shake.

He can't breathe.

The glass cracks one by one. A hand clutches his chest; it's his own. Another plane of glass shatters. Your outline grows sharper.

Is this what he went through every time he remembered? This oppressive weight subject to twisting his joints all the wrong ways, pushing his eyes far back until they were lost in his own head. He feels like he's going insane.

Water crackles in his lungs.

No! Wait! Not when he's this close.

He steps to the few layers of glass you stand behind, a distance only he could see beyond the broken memories he'd cast at sea. Sixty's fist pulls back and lands solid and true.

Another plane gives way.

He punches again, mimicking how he first broke through the cage of his android walls. It burns too much. If this is his way forward, if he has to step up where you step back... he lands another blow.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

It's almost see-through. The fishing line tightens around his fist with a definite hit. Crack! You're here. He sees you. Every note you left behind before kissing his forehead, thinking he was long resting. Every smile you chased him with despite rejected the reciprocation. In each of his fragments, for every time he forgot again, you followed close behind as the fellow pedestrian with a shared umbrella; the one who poked at him in a bookstore, the one who took him to the midst of Detroit river with a valentine's gift, fitting a silver band with the memory of your vows.

You're here. Sixty keels over. You're not following anymore. Sixty strangles a cry.

Warm arms slot him into the bubble of comfort only you can instil, kneeling in front of him to pull him tight. You're letting him go.

Please. He's only just... Not now.

You're not following him anymore.

"I love you, Sixty." Resonant for his chest so hollow, the vibrations of your voice linger like he was brandishing it into his steel skeleton.

You're not following anymore.

Sixty doesn't recognise the cries he lets out, the coughs he splutters to desperately rid any traces of ocean floor. He doesn't sound like himself. It's animalistic.

"I love you so much." You whisper between his breaths. God, he loves you too. Even if he forgot, his body remembered, at home in your love.

He loves you hopelessly, and he knows that means he must let you leave. For if he cannot fulfil his vows, you can't carry both halves in his shadow all by yourself. It's inevitably wasting you away. A pitiful curse, written as stars, to exist in the same sky but only catch the tail end of each other's light.

It truly hits, the tragedy of those balled-up notes, how they pile beyond measure with traces of foreign teardrops. Sixty clutches to you as if he were to break apart if he didn't. He feels pathetic. Small. Rotten in his biocomponents. He's a shell of a man, though he is full of the memory of you.

"I'm sorry," you speak into his neck. Sixty his head to encode the colour of your eyes. His thumb finds the edge of your lips, a supple and soft shape that would no longer smile at him whenever he looked over his shoulder. The android takes a moment amidst his breakdown to look at you if it's the last thing he'd do. The stray hairs around your eyebrows. Your cheeks, damp and tinted rouge. Your skin, smooth but textured, perfectly human.

Sixty finds that your features make up for his flaws.

I really love you. I love you too much.

Your lips meet naturally. Complete.

It's salty; whether from the looming threat of amnesia or the combined tears of the truth spilt, Sixty laps lavishly with his desperate tongue. To consume you through and through because it's in his hands now, to find you and take you back when he can, and lift that drawn-out burden off your shoulders. He can love you this way, even in times he doesn't spare you a second glance, doesn't recognise you in the crowd of many. Sixty kisses with the promise of finding you again, his vow, for when he doesn't forget, he will follow.

The android carries you with a heavy heart, slotting your bodies in the effortless flow of nature. He relishes in the gentle flex of your back under his palm when he lowers you into bed, lips never leaving yours.

He shuffles your clothes slowly, savoringly. Water riles up his throat. Sixty breaks away from you for the first time, taking to pressing tender kisses from the tips of your fingers, on the ring you still wear, up the soft expanse of your forearm.

The sound of impending tidal waves sing distantly.

"Let me carry the vows," he says low, broken like he hadn't spoken in weeks, "even if I forget..."

Tears fall off the tips of your eyes.

"...I'll follow."

" Sixty ."

You pull him to meet your lips again, tonguing in the language that speaks best. Your palm on his chest feels the racing beats that you saw in his eyes. You can also feel him spluttering too, but he makes no reaction to it.

Clothes strip at a languid pace. The urgency is heavy in the air but neither of you intends to rush things.

Forehead resting on yours, Sixty coats two of his fingers with saliva and dips between your legs, sharing the breaths you spill to take as his own. Your thighs flex at the newfound stretch, taut around his waist. He curls just where you like it.

The breathy notes you moan, the pinch in your brows, Sixty records them deep like an embellishment. A printed image of you on the surface of his artificial brain. He'll chase and chase just to see you like this again.

If only to make up for how long you've spent following him, Sixty can't begin the imagine the hurt that would've festered over the years. To catch your lover's eyes and have them look away confusingly, unaffected, where you itched for the moment the lightbulb struck and he loved you again. Fate was cruel, for the gift of sending such a person like you to him, and stringing the both of you out like parallel lines, only meeting when one breaks through the rules of their reality.

Lips mark the line of your jaw with traces of his tongue; your pleasure is perfected like it were the easiest thing for him to elicit. Your whines ring higher and faster and all Sixty can do is watch.

"Come for me," he rasps in the small space, transfixed on the fine contortions of your pleasure-drunk face. The android dips to kiss hard yet chaste, "I'll always make you come for me."

The night is lasting. Even though the sun has set, you've still found him beyond the horizon and splashed him anew. Your leg is pinned to his chest, foot over his shoulder whilst he paces himself to the glorious cacophony of your reactions. He's not quite worked you up like this before, in any of the passionate, urgent bed-rutting he's previously taken to, because despite the looming reality of his amnesia, he feels like he has all the time in the world.

Long, full thrusts to repeatedly remind you of his presence, even if fleeting, will always return. Sixty juts particularly hard and your nails scratch his abdomen with a pornographic wail. It drives him wild.

Sixty drives you to the brink again, selfishly pulling orgasm after orgasm for the solemn depths of his mind. He needed to take everything he could. The bed creaks loudly, meshed in the lewd sounds of his hips snapping against yours. Sixty squeezes your hand until the ring on your finger makes an indent on his plastic shell.

You plead for the sweet release over and over again. Until your eyes roll back, driven to the recesses of your mind with a pathetic range of vocabulary, not that Sixty would want it any other way.

The ocean calls him back, lapping at his knees. Sixty kisses you again and again and again until he feels numb.

' To never forget ', Sixty tucks his head against your neck, grunting loud into your ear whilst he fucks you until the early hours.

' And to always follow ,' you pant together, his hands cradling your face, and the words are left unspoken.

They ring loud anyway.

I'll find you.

-.--.-

The day praises Sixty's bedroom with a flurry of golden light. The birds chirp young and free, reminiscent of little children in a playground. Sixty wakes with salt in his mouth.

A note dangles from the wall above, Sixty twists his neck back to read the perfect letters.