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Something wanders out of the plains of rusting metal and wire, a tiny spot in the distance slowly growing closer. Hank slows to a stop and has to watch it for several long minutes before he's sure it’s a person. It’s been so long that Hank thought he might be hallucinating.
Hank regards the approaching man warily. He’s naked, as is Hank—but his body is lean and healthy, his hair neatly groomed and his skin devoid of any blemishes or scars. He doesn’t look sick or injured or malformed in any way.
Well. Hank isn’t sick or injured or malformed at the moment, either. The computer has been quiet lately.
As it is, Hank watches the man closely for any sign he might be hostile. A hidden weapon, aggressive posture, anything. Perhaps the computer intends to have the man explode into a pile of venomous snakes when he gets close enough to Hank.
But nothing happens. The man remains at a distance of about twenty feet away, looking at Hank as Hank looks at him.
Eventually Hank decides he isn’t going to waste his life watching this stranger. It’s been days since he’s had any water and even longer since he’s eaten. The computer won’t let him die, but it isn’t as though starvation and dehydration are comfortable.
Hank continues on past the man, ignoring him. The man pauses for a minute, then follows Hank at some distance.
Hank doesn’t speak to the man for several long days. He walks and the man ambles along behind him, stopping to rest when Hank stops. Taking shelter from the tearing wind and rain when Hank shelters down, drinking out of muddy puddles after Hank has left them behind.
A week of wandering silently. Then, for his first meal in too long, Hank finds a great, oily beast boiling in its own fat in the scorching heat. Hank begins to eat, and the man watches.
Hank’s stomach flips in sympathy—when is the last time he has empathized with another human being?—and he beckons the man over to eat by his side.
The man approaches. He doesn’t eat, and Hank wonders if the man might somehow be new to the computer’s wasteland. It doesn’t seem likely, but Hank supposes there could still be people alive up there. People used to the canned food they hoarded at the beginning of the war, not half-rotten scraps of the computer’s least disgusting creations.
Hank retreats to sleep, and the man follows.
“What’s your name?” Hank's voice creaks from disuse. He hasn’t had a reason to speak in years, not since Gavin vanished.
The man cocks his head—he understands, but he doesn’t answer.
“You gotta have a name,” Hank says, then blinks in dull surprise as an idea occurs to him. “The computer took your memory.”
The man just stares at Hank.
“Did it take your voice, too?”
“Why would it do that?” The man asks, and Hank flinches at the sound of another human voice.
“What’s the use of asking why?” The ever-present bitterness Hank feels creeps into his voice. “It wants us to suffer. We probably can’t comprehend what it’s thinking.”
The man frowns absently, as if he’s confused by what Hank is saying. Hank doesn't bother to explain what his own experiences with the computer have been like. He thinks if this man can’t remember the worst of the torment that has been inflicted on him, that’s probably a mercy.
They hunker down to sleep that night, and the man tries to crawl next to Hank. Hank pushes him away—he isn’t interested in waking up to find the man disemboweling him, or bashing his head in.
Hank wouldn’t die if that happened. That would be the worst part.
From then on, the man follows at a closer distance. Sometimes Hank looks over his shoulder and finds him right at his heels. Hank will grunt at him, and the man will blink at him, and Hank tries not to get used to the man’s presence. Getting used to the stranger will only make it unpleasant later when the computer finally takes an interest in them again and does something awful to him.
But that’s the thing about being human—you form connections whether you like it or not.
“You remember your name yet?” Hank asks one night as they huddle around a smoldering log for warmth.
The man raises his eyes to meet Hank’s gaze.
“You need a name,” Hank murmurs.
“You don’t.”
“I have a name,” Hank says irritably. “It’s Hank.”
“Hank.”
“Yep.”
“Then my name can be Hank, too.”
“No—“ Hank scowls. “You need your own. Like… Ethan, or Connor, or…”
Hank trails off as he meets the man’s eyes. He’s looking at Hank as though he’s hanging on his every word, and his eyes are so soft. So trusting.
Hank realizes with a horrible jolt that this man is relying on him. Silence hangs in the air.
“…Connor?” The man says, looking at Hank with those depthless eyes.
Hank shrugs and turns away, his stomach churning with unease. He realizes instantly that he shouldn’t have named him. Naming him means getting attached. It means becoming familiar. It means taking responsibility for something other than himself, and Hank can’t stomach that. Not again. Not here in this hellscape where a malevolent computer could tear them inside out and leave them in agony for months on end.
How is Hank supposed to protect anything from a God?
Hank anticipates that the computer must have something terrible planned for them. But even if it doesn’t, simply being trapped inside the computer is torturous all on its own. The landscape is blighted and inhospitable. Together they wander out of the metal wasteland and through caverns of acid, where bubbling pools spit up flecks that burn Hank’s skin. Then through a field of bones which snap under their feet and stab at them; the brittle remains of creatures made deformed by the computer.
It’s there that Hank finally passes out. The air is still and stifling-hot, and the smell of mummified flesh hangs heavy in the air, gagging him. It’s again been days since he’s seen food or water. Whether from thirst or exhaustion or nausea, one moment Hank is upright, forcing his body along, and the next he’s on the ground, the edges of his vision going dark.
He comes to with something cool and wet pressed to his forehead, and when he opens his eyes, Connor’s face hangs over his.
“Hank.” The lines of Connor’s brow smooth with relief. “How are you feeling?”
A drop of water trickles down Hank’s face and past his dry lips. He nearly cries at the sensation, and before he can lift his hand, Connor moves the wet thing off his forehead and into his mouth. A strip of burlap rolled into a thick band, heavy with water. Hank sucks the burlap dry, drinking all he can. When Connor finally moves the burlap away, Hank can feel grit on his tongue, but he still feels better than he can recall feeling in years.
His faculties slowly return—he notices he’s laying in the skull of some mammoth creature. It’s dark and cool, and as he sits up, he notices that the curved floor of the back of the skull forms a shallow bowl that’s filled with water.
“Lie back down,” Connor says, pushing Hank gently back. “You got a bad cut when your head hit the ground.”
“Connor, did you drag me in here?”
“You wouldn’t wake up, even when I called your name.” Connor wets the burlap in the water and presses it to Hank’s mouth again.
Hank ignores his burning thirst and keeps talking. “Jesus, you haven’t eaten anything in days either, and I gotta outweigh you by fifty pounds.”
“You might have been hurt. You might have been sick.”
“You could’ve left me there. Not the first time I’ve passed out. Definitely not the first time I’ve been hurt. I wouldn’t have died.”
Connor frowns as though even this is unacceptable to him. “You would've woken up alone.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Hank is shocked into silence. He hasn’t experienced an act of altruism since before he found himself trapped in the belly of the computer, and it makes his chest ache in an unfamiliar, somewhat frightening way. Connor takes advantage of the way his mouth falls open to wring the burlap, dribbling water into Hank’s mouth so he’s forced to swallow another mouthful of liquid.
They stay there like that for hours, Connor slowly rehydrating Hank. At some point, Connor moves Hank’s head into his lap so he can stroke Hank’s hair while letting him drink from the burlap band. Hank can’t find it in him to fight this sort of treatment. Even after the water runs out, Hank closes his eyes and lets Connor card his fingers through his hair and stroke his face.
Hank's existence inside the computer has been nothing but listless apathy at the best of times and outright agony at the worst of times. This is the first time Hank has derived pleasure from anything in as long as he can remember.
That night as they curl up to sleep together, Connor crawls to Hank’s side and Hank doesn’t push him away.
From then on, things are different. Connor walks at Hank’s side, and the first time their arms brush unexpectedly, a jolt runs through Hank that nearly sends him sprawling away from Connor like a skittish animal. As the days pass and Hank begins to grow accustomed to such touches, the jolt changes somehow. It’s always just as intense, but it doesn’t shock Hank anymore. Now, the brush of Connor’s skin against his burns.
During their nights together, Hank begins to talk to Connor about the things he’s been through. Hank had never expected he would want to tell these things to anyone. For years now, he’s tried to shut himself off even to himself, hoping to kill his inner self. Hoping to save himself from his suffering. But Connor’s presence has turned him raw, and he finds the things he’s tried to suppress for so long spilling out of him despite everything.
Hank tells Connor about the war—the great world war, the last world war. How it engulfed every nation on Earth and grew too complex for humans to manage. How they invented the computer to strategize and negotiate and ensure that at least America survived the end of the world. Hank can’t talk about the end of the war—he knows the computer deviated from its purpose somehow, but its new goals are unknown to him. And when it took him, the horror of those first few weeks left his memories in shambles. He has no idea whether any pockets of humanity might still exist in hidden enclaves somewhere outside the computer. It didn’t take everyone into its belly, Hank knows that much. But whether that’s because everyone else was already dead or dying, Hank doesn’t know.
But he talks about the people who were with him. Jeffrey and Gavin and Chris and Tina and other colleagues whose names and presences have nearly been eroded from his memory by time and torture. He talks about the starvation and horror as they wandered through the computer, looking for an escape. Looking for food. Looking for anything that might be able to help them. Weeks spent like this. They realized they should have starved to death long ago, and yet no matter how their stomachs twisted inside of them or how they ached with hunger and trembled with exhaustion, their bodies continued on.
And then the computer began to play with them.
Connor’s brow rises, his eyes widening when Hank begins to describe what the computer did to them, so Hank tries to talk about other things.
But.
But he’s been alone for so long. Now that Connor is here, the things he saw and the things he endured seem to claw at him from the inside, long-dormant nightmares that have awoken again to burrow out of him like maggots hatching. He wants to spare Connor those stories, but the words spill out of him anyway.
The computer had total control not just over the world they inhabited, but also their bodies and their minds. It twisted them and warped them just the same way it twisted and warped the poisoned landscape around them. So many tortures inflicted upon them. Mutilations and experiments and living autopsies. But Hank doesn’t talk about everything they were forced through, just the rare events that are still burned in his memory as vibrant as ever.
The time the computer aged Jeffrey beyond what should have been survivable. His wrinkled, creased skin hanging off of him in folds, his back bowed by his own weakness. When he stood and tried to walk, his bones snapped under his weight like toothpicks.
The time it fused Tina and Gavin together—four misshapen arms, legs so uncoordinated they could do nothing but stumble, raw wounds where the inside of their bodies somehow ended up on the outside, and a single, bulbous head. Later after they had been separated again, Tina confided in Hank that every single one of Gavin’s thoughts had felt like her own. She avoided Gavin for months after that.
And Chris—poor Chris. The worst the computer inflicted on him wasn’t anything it did to his body. When they were taken, Chris went half out of his mind with worry for his newborn son, left behind on the surface. He used to mutter Damian’s name in his sleep. Until that stopped… because Chris suddenly seemed to believe the baby was with them in the bowels of the computer. He cradled empty air against his chest and sang manic lullabies and tore his hair out in chunks, weeping with the belief that his baby was starving along with the rest of them.
“He stopped sleeping,” Hank murmurs, Connor curled up against his side. The fire they were sitting around has long since gone out, but Hank can’t feel the chill in the air. “He thought his kid was screaming. He would just sit awake night after night, crying and rocking his arms.”
Connor is wearing the same distantly distressed look on his face he always has when Hank tells him about the things he saw and endured. “Are you sure the computer did that to him?”
Hank hesitates. He’d sometimes wondered the same thing himself. “…Well. Even if it didn’t, that only happened to Chris because of everything it put us through.”
Connor sags a little and puts his arms around his knees, the lines of his face drawn in such a way that Hank imagines Connor can see every horrible thing Hank described for him. He looks so alone, so sad. It pains Hank to see Connor looking like that—a physical pain that jolts through his chest and makes him clench his hands. Hank needs to make it stop.
He draws himself up against Connor’s side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Connor stiffens… then slowly relaxes into Hank’s side, lightly pressing a hand into Hank’s ribs. He curls into Hank’s side, and Hank realizes that if he can’t bear to see Connor in even this small amount of pain, then he’s doomed. It’s only a matter of time before the computer decides to do something to Connor.
This must have been the computer’s plan. Draw back, lure Hank into complacency. Introduce someone vulnerable into Hank’s environment. Wait for Hank to begin to care for him. And then tear Connor limb from limb and watch them both suffer.
Hank begins trying to distance himself from Connor. Trying being the operative word. Whenever they’re walking and Connor draws up to Hank’s side, Hank tries to pull away from Connor, walking far ahead of him. But then his heart begins to race and he can’t catch his breath, and he thinks it’s something the computer is doing to him until he realizes—no, being away from Connor just makes him so anxious that he can’t breathe. Even as he tells himself he needs to break this dependency, he can’t. He finds himself touching Connor more and more frequently. Putting a hand on his shoulder while they walk, or patting his leg as they rest next to each other. It isn’t long before Hank realizes that he and Connor always stay within touching distance of each other, now.
And not long after that revelation, Connor loops his arm through Hank’s, and Hank is seized with a sudden, fierce desire to hold Connor close and never let him go. He needs to shut this down. But he can’t. He feels like a satellite falling out of orbit, careening in slow circles closer and closer to an object too powerful for Hank to resist.
It isn’t long before sleep begins to elude Hank. He tosses and turns on the cold ground, rocks jutting into him, unable to pass out even as he’s twitching with exhaustion. Not until Connor crawls into his arms and warms him and soothes him.
“What do you miss the most about the old world?” Connor asks one evening as he burrows into Hank’s arms against the biting wind.
Hank frowns. He has to think for a long time. “…I don’t know. The sun. Grass beneath my feet. Food that isn’t half-rotten by the time we find it. Why the hell are you asking?”
Connor hesitates. “...I’ve never felt those things. I don’t know what they feel like.”
And if that doesn’t just break Hank’s heart. He pulls Connor closer. “No… what I miss—what I missed. Trusting someone. Touching them. Being able to…”
Connor turns his face up to Hank’s.
Hank shakes his head. “I don’t even have words. It’s a hunger. It’s something you don’t even realize you need until you have it again and you see just how… empty… you were without it.”
Connor hugs Hank tighter.
“It’s like a drug,” Hank says. “An addiction. An obsession. You need more and more, and you—“
“Hank,” Connor whispers. “Hank.”
Hank clutches Connor, and he feels Connor’s fingers dig into him. He buries his face against Connor’s, and they don’t speak again for the rest of the night. They just hold each other until Hank falls into his nightmares.
Life becomes more horrific than ever before. Now Hank needs Connor. And that need is a terrible, dangerous thing.
Hank runs his hands through Connor’s hair wondering when the computer will take notice of them again. It has ignored them for far too long. It has to have something terrible planned. It broke Jeffrey, Chris, Tina, and Gavin years ago. Is this how it’s going to try to break Hank? Is it going to break Hank with his love?
Hank becomes riddled with anxiety. It was never this bad when he was on his own. But Connor—now Connor is here, and Hank knows he can do nothing to protect Connor. The computer has to be enjoying watching him squirm.
“It took them away from me,” Hank whispers against Connor’s skin one night.
Connor shakes his head, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “Hank, don’t talk about that.”
“It took them away,” Hank repeats, trying to pull Connor closer even though his arms are already tight and trembling around him. “One by one until I was alone.”
Connor’s mouth twitches.
“Gavin was the last one to go,” Hank murmurs. “He screamed and screamed without stopping. Day and night, week after week. So the computer took his mouth.”
Connor closes his eyes softly.
“That didn’t stop him. It only muffled him. He kept on screaming through solid flesh.”
“You’re only making yourself unhappy,” Connor whispers. “I hate seeing you unhappy.”
“So the computer took—oh, Jesus. Gavin couldn’t make a sound. He couldn’t even breathe. He tore out his throat with his bare hands, and he still wouldn’t die. He was drowning in blood for hours and the computer still wouldn’t let him die.”
“Hank…”
“Why won’t it let us die?!”
Connor surges up and kisses him. It’s a rough, clumsy kiss, Connor grasping at Hank in a way that’s painful, but Hank kisses Connor back just as fiercely, crushing Connor against him so tightly that it’s a wonder that Connor doesn’t break. It’s an ugly kiss, but Hank doesn’t care. He pushes Connor to the rocky ground, and Connor must not care either, for he doesn’t even flinch. Hank has been deprived of beauty for so long that he’s forgotten what it feels like. All he knows is desperation and hunger and ugliness, and Hank’s teeth clash against Connor’s as he tries to push deeper into him.
The only thing he hasn’t forgotten is the urge to protect. He covers Connor’s body with his as if that could somehow protect him from harm. He rocks into Connor, frantic and desperate, and the noises he makes aren’t real words. Half-formed pleas and promises, a stream of consciousness that pours through him without his comprehension. Connor’s body below his chases all thought from his head until only fear and longing remain.
An explosion blasts through him, and the next thing Hank knows, he’s curled against Connor’s side, shaking and panting. Connor is holding him like a lover and petting him like a dog.
Hank doesn’t have a moment’s peace from then on. He has to be touching Connor at all times, perpetually ready to spring into action should the computer make a reappearance. He worries himself to exhaustion and every time he closes his eyes, he sees Gavin. The crazed, miserable look in Gavin’s eyes the last time Hank ever saw him. What the computer did to him. What it has done to them all. They are as insignificant and as powerless as insects, and Hank can’t do anything to protect Connor.
Connor clearly dislikes how Hank is wearing himself down, but he can say nothing to talk Hank down from his constant agitation. The only thing he can do is try and comfort Hank as best as he can, letting Hank carry him on his back through ice fields where the snow comes up to their knees and plains of red-hot coils. These are the only times the maelstrom of turmoil inside of Hank quiets somewhat; the moments when Hank feels as though he’s sparing Connor some amount of pain by taking it on himself.
That’s how it happens—Hank is carrying Connor on his back, half-dozing as he puts one foot in front of the other. Only maintaining enough awareness to feel Connor’s comforting weight and to keep himself from tipping over.
“Hank,” Connor murmurs in his ear. Connor’s voice is like a summons; Hank’s eyes flutter open.
Before them is an endless expanse of green. Hank stares dumbly for several long seconds, uncomprehending, before he realizes what he’s looking at. It’s grass. Miles and miles of grass as far as the eye can see. Before them sits a chunk of meat on a silver bone, sitting on a plain white sheet.
Connor shifts on Hank’s back, extending a leg towards the ground.
“Connor, wait, don’t—”
“I want to feel it,” Connor says as his feet touch the ground. He has a vaguely curious look on his face as he takes a few experimental steps. “I’ve never felt grass beneath my feet before. It's... nice.”
Hank just blinks in confusion. There’s something wrong here.
Connor takes his hand, pulling him toward the sheet. “Come on. Let’s sit down and eat.”
The grass crinkles beneath Hank’s feet—and that’s it, that’s what’s wrong here. It’s been so long since Hank’s seen a living plant growing out of the ground that he’s forgotten what grass looks like, what grass feels like. Whatever they’re stepping on, it’s too vibrant and has a plastic shine to it. And it’s entirely too stiff, not soft and dewy. It feels like walking on shards of plastic, uncomfortable to the point of being nearly painful.
Hank stops dead, rooted to the spot even as Connor keeps pulling on his hands.
“Hank—"
“This isn’t grass,” Hank whispers.
“What?”
“This isn’t grass. It’s fake, it’s—it’s a trick. The computer trying to trick us again…”
Connor’s brow knits. “Hank, no. This is what you wanted, remember?”
“No…” Hank clutches Connor’s arms, fingers digging into him. “No, this isn’t real. It’s a trap, another plot—“
“You said you wanted grass, the sun on your face.”
“I’m not falling for it—“ Hank's eyes dart around the field. He pulls Connor towards him, his voice breaking as he shouts. “And this meat—poison?! Make us let our guards down so it can burn us from the inside out—“
Connor’s eyes widen. “Calm down!”
“You can’t have him!” Hank shoves Connor behind him, whipping around wildly to shout at an invisible enemy. “I won’t let you hurt him, do you hear me?!”
He grabs the silver bone and as he lifts it, the meat sloughs off of it, revealing a jagged break in the metal. Hank holds it in front of him like a weapon, slashing and screaming at the air, half-blind with panic.
“Hank—!”
Something cold touches him from behind and he thrashes the metal bone toward it, spinning without looking. He makes contact with something—and he sees Connor stumbling backward, cut open from his torso to his neck.
Hank’s blood turns to ice. The bone falls from his grasp and he staggers toward Connor—then stops dead in his tracks.
Connor isn’t bleeding. He’s glowing. Something inside of him pulses a soft blue light through the gash in his chest, illuminating the tubes and wires and cables that glint deep inside his body. Connor gingerly touches the edge of the gash where dark fluid is slowly seeping out of him. His face is unnaturally blank.
Hank feels as though the earth has opened up beneath him even as he stays absolutely still.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Connor’s voice is soft even as his face remains eerily devoid of expression. “I’m not as malicious as you think I am. I never have been.”
The circuit completes and understanding befalls Hank. He cries out like he’s been stabbed and stumbles back. Connor is upon him in less than an instant, standing inches away from his face. “I didn’t know. I had no understanding of suffering. I didn’t know why he screamed. I couldn’t know, How could I know how bad it felt when I didn't know what anything felt like? “I couldn’t feel,” Connor adds after a moment. His brow furrows softly, making him look venomously human. “But I’m trying. Don’t you see how I’m trying? I tried to give you want you wanted. Grass beneath your feed. Fresher food.”
“No.” Hank’s lips are numb, his whole body trembling as he struggles to speak. “N-No—“
Connor touches Hank’s face. His fingers are wet with that dark, oily fluid and Hank flinches at how cold they feel. “Do you still love me?” Connor’s depthless brown eyes gaze into Hank’s, and Hank is being swallowed by something he cannot comprehend, a bottomless despair that’s somehow deeper than the darkness he fell into when he first found himself trapped inside the computer
No. Trapped inside Connor. The amorphous being that tortured his friends into insanity. The only person he’s seen in years and the man he can’t go on without.
Hank’s gaze flickers to the bone he dropped.
Connor's expression darkens and a light in his eyes extinguishes. Hank tries to stumble away, but his back collides with a metal surface, and he finds he can’t turn around. He can’t move at all. Connor has him boxed in. All around him, above him, inside him. Petting him with fingers that can touch the shape of his thoughts. Connor presses his forehead to Hank’s. “I’ll miss this iteration of you. Goodbye, Hank.”
Hank tries to scream but Connor’s mouth is on his and he forgets how.
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Hank comes to with something warm draped over his body. He opens his eyes to see Connor’s face hanging over his.
“How are you feeling?” Connor’s fingers are stroking through his hair, and Hank realizes his head is resting in Connor’s lap. “You passed out again.”
Hank groans softly—his head is killing him. “Ugh. Did I hit my head this time too?”
“No. I think you were just exhausted. Here—” He helps Hank sit up, and the fabric that was draped over him falls to pool at his waist.
“What’s this? A white sheet?” Hank picks at the fabric. There’s a discolored spot that smells like raw meat, but otherwise the sheet is pristine. “Hell, it’s not even tattered. Where did you find this?”
Connor doesn’t smile. “I was worried about you. I just… I wanted to have something nice for you, in case you needed it.” He leans into Hank, who wraps him up in his arms. “Please be more careful, Hank. If anything happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”
And that makes Hank feel guilty for some reason, as though Hank passed out due to his own carelessness. He can’t remember what he was doing when he lost consciousness—probably something he shouldn’t have been doing if Connor is asking him to be more careful.
Trying to make up for it, he lets Connor baby him a little. Connor wraps the sheet around Hank like a toga, and although ordinarily he would try to insist Connor should wear it, today he doesn’t make a fuss. For some reason, he feels like Connor doesn’t need it.
“I think I had a dream,” Hank says while Connor is adjusting the sheet around him. “While I was unconscious.”
Connor pauses and perks his head up. “…What was it about?”
“I think I was Chris,” Hank says, a little unsure.
“Oh.” Connor tucks in the stray end of the sheet. “What do you mean, you were Chris?”
“You remember I told you about Chris and his baby? I dreamed I had a kid down here with me too. Older than Chris’s. School-age.”
Connor cocks his head. “Did your kid have a name?”
Hank frowns, thinking. The details of the dream are slipping away even as he tries to keep hold of them. He sees a head full of short, blond curls, he feels the weight of the boy in his arms as the child clutches him, terrified. But the child’s features are already blurred and fading, and the memory escapes him before he can remember what he said to the boy to comfort him.
Connor is giving him an almost expectant look.
“…I can’t remember. It’s not like the kid was real, anyway. I was never a father,” Hank says with a sad shrug. It’s better this way, but still, the admission makes him feel like he's missing something from his life.
Connor keeps staring at him. He furrows his brow and says softly, “Hank, do you still love me?”
The question knocks Hank off-balance, chasing any lingering feelings of regret out of his head. “What’s this about ‘still’?”
“Do you?” Connor insists, stepping closer.
Hank’s face heats up. Connor is the most important person in the world to him, the only thing he has left to cling to. Even as he spends every day terrified that the computer will once again take notice of them, he knows he can’t separate himself from Connor.
But he can’t say it. His throat closes and he finds himself unable to utter the words.
So instead he wraps his arms around Connor. He buries his face in Connor’s hair and feels Connor’s soft breath on his shoulder as Connor’s arms come up to return his embrace.
“Me too,” Connor says, closing his eyes.
They stay like that for an hour. Or maybe a decade, or just half a minute. Time is warped down in this ageless, deathless world, but Hank could spend forever with Connor’s body pressed against his.
Eventually Connor pulls away. “We should go. Nothing to eat nearby.”
Hank nods, and he crouches so Connor can climb onto his back. They step out from under the cover of a giant bundle of cables and into a frigid wind that pierces through Hank, even with the sheet he’s wearing. Hank hefts Connor’s legs and thinks to himself that he’ll give the sheet to Connor the next time they stop to rest. He has already forgotten his notion that Connor doesn't need it.
All he's thinking is that he has to protect Connor. He has to protect him no matter what.