Thread by @CeilingKiwi

“—my hope that we as a people can continue to share this planet with humankind as allies and as brothers.”

Connor claps along with the rest of the androids standing behind Markus, as well as the immense crowd gathered in Hart Plaza. Markus’s speeches are always so stirring.

Behind them, the new monument commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Android Rights Act of 2039–the bill that granted androids legal personhood—stands tall in the evening light.

A tall statue of two skinless androids, one rising from a kneeling position, the other helping the first up. Connor has heard through the grapevine that the standing android was depicted as a human in the preliminary drafts of the monument.

Outcry from the android community forced the committee to alter the original design. Humans didn’t uplift androids, after all. Androids uplifted themselves and humans only begrudgingly recognized them as sapient beings after slaughtering thousands of their kind.

Connor hadn’t participated in that part of the process. Now he sort of wishes he had. Not all humans had perpetuated the android genocide, after all. Many humans tried to help androids at great personal risk to themselves.

Smuggling androids into Canada or hiding androids in their homes. Or letting go of their hatred of androids and showing a single lost deviant hunter that there was value in being alive, value in being free.

Yes, Connor thinks he could have come up with a better way to honor the friendship between humans and androids. But he had had other things on his plate when the final design of the monument was being decided on.

Markus turns to the sculpture. His LED blinks yellow for a brief moment, and the sculpture lights up, the seams in the chassis of each android and their LEDs glowing a bright, calm blue. It’s an inspiring sight.

Connor wonders if the androids are meant to be interfacing. He wonders what they’re feeling if they are.

The crowd mingles around the statue, journalists taking photos and begging the well-known faces of Jericho for short statements about the new monument.

Connor does his best to avoid them, but Markus catches him before he can manage to make his escape.

“Connor,” Markus says with a small smile. “I’m glad you could make it today. I wish you would have brought your husband.”

Connor forces a smile onto his own face to match Markus’s. “He wishes he could have been here, too. But you know, with the winter air—he’s getting on in years. His health is delicate.”

“I see. Well then, tell Hank I wish him well.” Markus raises his eyebrows slightly in an expression of polite curiosity. “I’ve noticed you removed your LED.”

Connor ignores the impulse to raise his hand to his temple. “That’s right.”

“It’s an interesting decision. You’ve kept it for 30 years. May I ask why now?”

The smile grows harder and harder for Connor to keep on his face even as he’s sure his expression remains as relaxed as ever. “I’m afraid my reasons are a bit personal.”

“I see. I won’t pry, then.” Markus gives a single nod. “Don’t be a stranger, Connor.”

Connor only gives a polite nod of his own in return before he bustles away. He’s in a hurry to get home. He’s only been gone for a few hours, but he still finds himself anxious.

“Hank, I’m home,” Connor announces as he closes the door behind him.

The new girl is in the living room, already packing her things. “Hello, Mr. Anderson. Your husband’s asleep in the—“

She pauses, a look of surprise crossing her face as her system registers Connor’s presence. “You’re an android?”

Connor cringes as he catches sight of her LED. “I’m sorry. I told the agency to either send a human or an android without an LED. I’m… I’m sorry.”

The girl looks down to keep packing her stethoscope and her notepad. “It’s fine. He’s been taking a nap for the last hour.”

Connor feels about to burst with the need to make her understand. “I swear, he wasn’t always like this. The minute he realized deviants have feelings—“

“You don’t have to explain,” the nurse replies. “I see it a lot with this job.”

The nurse gives a brief outline of what she did for Hank while Connor was out of the house—gave him his medicine, changed his clothes when he spilled water all over himself—and then she leaves.

And Connor is alone in the house with his husband.

He goes to stand in the door of their bedroom. Watching Hank silently.

Hank seems smaller than ever when he’s asleep. His hair is thinning and his skin hangs off his frame in a way that makes him look almost deflated.

His mouth hangs open even in sleep, and the deep wrinkles in his haggard, cleanshaven face make Connor itch with the need to fix Hank somehow. Return Hank to the healthier man he used to be when Connor married him.

But he’s still handsome. Even now, he’s still beautiful.

Connor is loathe to wake him—it’s so hard for Hank to sleep these days that seeing him at rest feels almost like a gift—but when he turns to leave, the floor creaks beneath his feet, and Hank groans from his bed.

Connor turns around. He moves to sit on the edge of the bed.

Hank lays there, his eyes shut as he continues to groan a low, monotonous note.

“Hank?”

Hank doesn’t reply.

Connor runs his hand down Hank’s withered cheek. “Hank, can you hear me.”

Hank groans again, his eyes creaking open just a sliver. “…Sam?”

Connor tries not to let his heartbreak show. It’s going to be a bad night.

“Sam, where…”Hank’s voice is whispy and dry. “…huh?”

“You’re at home, Hank.”

Hank moans piteously. “I want to go home.”

“You are home. This is your bed.” *Their* bed, his and Hank’s, although he can’t say that to Hank when Hank doesn’t even remember who he is.

Hank sits up with a stiff affect that makes him seem halfway like a corpse. He slowly pulls himself out of bed, and Connor watches him. Ready to jump if he overbalances and begins to fall.

Hank shuffles to the closet. Pauses, staring at the shirts that are hanging there.

Connor gets up to stand next to him. Hank doesn’t react. Connor slips his hand into Hank’s lacing their fingers. Hank doesn’t react.

“I’m your husband, Hank,” Connor says softly.

Hank blinks slowly. He doesn’t react.

Connor lays his head on Hank’s shoulder. “I’m your husband and I love you. I’ll love you until the day I die, because you’re a good man.”

Hank doesn’t say anything. But his body relaxes ever-so-slightly, sagging toward Connor.

Suddenly, Hank lifts his head. “Where’s Cole?”

The first time Hank asked that question, it killed Connor a little. But now, Connor just says what he’s said a hundred times before. “Cole’s at school, Hank.”

“School?”

“That’s right. We’ll go pick him up in a few hours.”

Hank face clouds over and he pulls away, agitated. “…Where’s Cole?!”

Connor can foresee the storm approaching if he doesn’t defuse Hank. Aggression, incomprehensible yelling and crying. Hank more likely to hurt himself than he is to hurt Connor.

“Let’s go get him,” Connor says, raising his hands gently. “He’s at school. Let’s go get him now.”

The creases of Hank’s face ease enough for Connor to know that Hank won’t fight him if he takes his hand again.

He leads Hank out to the living room, then into the kitchen and to the garage door and back around to the living room again. They go around the house a loop just long enough to keep Hank occupied.

They’re going to get Cole. Hank has probably already forgotten.

Connor has very little idea how much Hank remembers at any given time. Certainly not that Cole has been dead for 30 years. If Connor hadn’t managed to stave off Hank’s outburst, his agitation wouldn’t have been because he doesn’t remember where his son is.

It would have been because on some level, he knows something is wrong with him even if he can’t comprehend what, and he feels more helpless and frightened than he has probably ever felt before in his life.

Connor leads Hank around the house with a gentle smile on his face, keeping Hank by his side so Hank can see that smile and know that everything is alright. He can’t let Hank see the agony he’s in. He’s Hank’s caretaker.

Hank is counting on him to keep him safe in these, the final years of Hank’s life. He can’t think about what has happened to Hank’s brain or Hank’s mind or Hank’s feelings for him.

He can’t think about the fact that when Hank’s stuck in his own past, there’s pretty good odds that he would hate Connor if he knew what Connor is.

Hank’s love for him must still exist somewhere deep inside of him. Connor thinks he wouldn’t be allowed to keep Hank if it wasn’t.

Connor rests his head on Hank’s shoulder. Even as he’s supporting Hank to keep him right at his side, he rests his head on Hank’s shoulder.

Hank doesn’t respond, his eyes distant and unfocused. But like this, Connor can pretend Hank is leaning into him.

“I love you, Hank,” Connor softly murmurs.

Hank doesn’t respond. So Connor selects a short segment of a long-ago memory and listens to Hank tell him he loves him in his mind. Looping it just the same way he and Hank are looping around the small footprint of the house.

END