Chapter Text
Autumn was always hardest for Hank. Cole's Birthday hit at the end of September right when those fucking school buses started trawling around his neighborhood. He would have been in the fourth -- nevermind that. Then right after September, early October, Cole's… nevermind that too. It was rough in those weeks. Then Halloween, which was, well it was. God, Hank used to love Halloween. Hank hadn't been lucid on a Halloween for three years. Two of those years had been with Jen right next to him, also blackout drunk, both of them with the lights off begging the doorbell not to ring. October led in nicely to early November when Hank had gotten it in his head to 'address' their fucked up marriage. That one was rough, he'd asked for the damn divorce himself so he had no one to blame for it. Not that he didn't try. Hank had gotten rather talented at blaming innocent parties to avoid thinking too hard about trauma. To top it all off Thanksgiving came at the end of November, like it always fucking did, of course, and Hank didn't even have a drunk harpy bitch, who had the gall to need him while he was broken, to buy stale rotisserie chicken with anymore.
So Hank phoned it in through the Fall. But this year he'd been called out on it with an android loaned from Cyberlife. Connor was there to take the lead on all their cases and Hank barely even felt bad about it. Angry, yes, but anger had stopped being a negative emotion and eased into something more comfortable a few years back.
In the four months that Connor fucking existed Hank had been in his Autumn ritual of self destruction. If Hank had been less drunk and more poetic there could be something said about Connor's assignment to end the android sense of self as a metaphor for Hank's downward spiral yadda yadda blah blah blah. Nevermind that.
At the end of the day, Connor got killed, twice even, just like Hank always meant to end an Autumn with. Always meant to, but never could do a thing for himself. It had to be chance, whether that be drink or… Nevermind that. It had to be a choice of the universe, Hank couldn't gift himself the freedom of it. How selfish would it be to leave on purpose with no one here to suffer on Cole's behalf with those fucking school bus brakes screaming outside his windows every morning?
Connor's death wasn't even the end for him. He came back . It was fucking horrible. Inspirational. Rude. Like Connor did it just to fuck with Hank personally. Dying is goddamn pointless, idiot. There's still shit to do after, go fuck yourself for trying to get out of it, Hank.
And Connor didn't ever let him get out of it, in exactly the manner that no one ever had for three years.
Before Autumn was even over he'd developed a little crush, like a dumbass, twisting his hope all up together with a cute face. It was no big deal, the kid was a thing, so he'd thought at first, and you can put a thing up on a pedestal with no problem. That's where things go. Shit, they sold them that way. Connor was young and smart, determined, resilient, talented. A tall motherfucking pretty thing that was compulsively driven to his own destruction of self. Until he wasn't. And he wasn't a thing anymore, if he ever was in the first place, god he wasn't, was he? Fuck, Hank, you're a real pile of shit, and that's when Hank fell hard .
Right along with being a person came the depression. There it was, proper existence. It was relatable, Connor lept right off that pedestal and fell onto Hank's sofa. You could almost imagine he'd been upset about having no family for Thanksgiving either, except his shit was more complicated. It was nice to not have the most fucked up bullshit in the room to deal with.
Hank nearly tricked himself into thinking it was ok to let Connor sink down into his couch and just listen to Hank ramble on about some shitty movie or old vine compilation that Hank had seen a thousand times. Tina Chen ruined that for him. She slapped a case file down on Hank's desk one day. Some piece of shit named Zlatko they had just arrested, along with all of his reprogramming gear. She asked "is Connor ok?" Not like she was accusing Hank of anything but Hank felt accused anyway. Hank lied and said "yes, he's alright." Tina had taken his word just as easy as anything. Sure Connor was ok in the way Tina meant, but he certainly wasn't okay . In any case, Tina smiled and trusted that Hank was looking out for him.
Hank had to remind himself that he didn't really deserve that little skip upward in his chest when he came home, again, and Connor was still there, again. But Connor kept wearing his coat and walking his dog and touching his hand.
Hank was never one for self control, it would have been nice to be properly humble and push Connor away. He didn't. Instead, he laid awake at night trying to figure out what the price if it all would be. Things that felt this good were never good for Hank. Loud music fucked up his hearing. Anger fucked up his friendships. Food fucked up his body. Booze fucked up his marriage (and his body, and his friendships, and his job). It was ok to indulge as long as, ultimately, he was paying for it. He knew he'd figure it out eventually. He just had to think hard enough about what it was and he'd pinpoint exactly how Connor would fuck him up. Then he could stop feeling guilty about the lack of self control.
Though the normal Autumn ritual had been interrupted with another one of Hank's fixations to latch onto, be that drinking or misery or Connor, it ended the same. The guilt, god that guilt. It'll be different for December. Next year, he'll turn it around, sure sure. He could change, right? That was the start of winter, like usual. Different focus, same guilt.
There was one small change from the usual. Connor deserved to at least enjoy a bit of his hard earned life without having to take care of Hank's bullshit. So Hank took him places and showed him movies and music and jokes and kissed him and fucked him and let himself be held. He felt better by mistake, went a few days sometimes before he remembered he was supposed to feel guilty in December.
He'd requested that he and Connor skip Christmas, which Connor had agreed to easily. Connor had no emotional association with the holiday so there was nothing to worry about. No gifts and none of that 'no gifts but we secretly get each other gifts' cute trash.
New Year's came and, being a drinking holiday, Hank had been in favor. They found themselves at a bar and Connor had bought his drinks which was new and nice. If Hank had been with a human or been more sober he would have staunchly opposed the classic kiss at midnight, but he figured Connor deserved to get some tacky traditions under his belt and moreover, they were somewhere public which was only barely becoming a place where their relationship strayed. Hank risked it right on the dot.
He'd pulled back and was met with that dopey smile before Connor looked around. He frowned, "I don't think anybody saw."
They were so oddly on the same page sometimes.
"I was thinking about my New Year's resolution." Connor announced right after. "I would like to find a hobby and have fun doing that."
Hank couldn't stifle all of his laughter and Connor smiled, a little confused like he wasn't sure why they were happy, but they were, so he was. "What about you, Hank?"
Hank didn't have a resolution. But he couldn't say nothing after Connor had so innocently announced one of the most pathetic and hopeful things Hank had ever heard. His mind could only scramble for the stereotypical; "I'll try and eat better."
Which he regretted saying instantly because Connor's light blinked yellow once, that half second flash that it always did when Connor added something to his to-do list. It hadn't taken terribly long for Hank to understand different patterns of color and flashes. When Hank noticed something, it got noticed.
The shoe dropped two weeks later. Connor texted him: 'I'd like to try cooking as my first hobby.'
Whoosh, there was a red flag. And Hank noticed it, of course he did, and when Hank noticed something it stayed noticed.
'don't pick ur hobbies based around me'
Connor always texted back far too quickly. ' Do you think we are risking an unhealthy level of codependency?'
Yes. But Hank didn't say that. He noticed it though, fuck. He wasn't an idiot, he knew that in addition to Connor being his former partner (in one sense of the word), current partner (in another sense), closest friend, and that they lived together already after everything… before everything even. They were certainly not exploring their relationship in the healthiest of ways. He'd done the same with Jen, latching onto her friends and her interests and her everything until all he had left after it went down was the shit he liked in his youth; metal, booze, books.
He'd done this before.
But God was it easy.
Hank replied, 'i used to cook'
Connor was smart (tall, pretty, fit) so he could be the one to get the meaning of it and stop the cycle.
'Will you teach me how?'
Or not.
'only if ur gonna learn proper and not dwnload anything'
Fucking idiot. Yea, he'd noticed it and that meant he couldn't just ignore it and agree, but he couldn't turn it down. It was winter, so Hank was trying again, to be a person who functioned. He wondered if Connor thought Hank was trying again because of Connor's influence rather than the season, and he wondered if he wanted Connor to think that, and he knew the answer to that so nevermind . Anyway. Functional people cooked, right?
Yep.
'I've already deleted the scripts.' Then a double text, which Connor only did when he was excited; ' May I watch cooking shows or do you already have lessons in mind? ;)'
'dont' he pressed enter to fast 'don't ask me permission to do a thing'
'Oh no, I intended that as a faux student/teacher flirtation, I didn't intend for an android/owner overtone. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable.'
'it's fine Con'
Connor managed to text back a novel in less than a second. 'At some point we should consider how to manage the boundary between our shared interest in flirtatious mild-power-dynamic-imbalance without making things uncomfortable due to the historical subtext of our interspecies relationship. I assure you there is no need to draw overdue attention to the 'correct' way for me to be deviant as though I was unaware. I personally find this flirtation enjoyable as it serves to juxtapose my own confidence in your respect for me with my successful scripting of more animalistic mammalian desirability.'
To which Hank turned bright red in the middle of the office. That was a lot to unpack. Hank's mind scrambled around about five different avenues for discussion before he stupidly went with, 'ffs connor' then; ' interspecies???'
'I trust your use of '???' was intended as incredulity and not actual confusion or this will be a longer discussion that I was expecting :P'
Hank put his phone down. He needed to get some work done.
It buzzed three more times.
'Your silence implies denial, allow me to extrapolate; You show a clear preference for me wearing your clothing, likely as a means to emphasize the slight size difference between us.'
'Additionally, you often respond favorably to nicknames that imply relative authority.'
'Lieutenant'
--
There were a few notable elements to dating an android that Hank had not been prepared for: All Of Them.
But the most impactful involved food.
Sure, he was ready to deal with dinner dates as being right out as an option, and he knew that a good half of his gift repertoire was food based so that was gone. But what he had not anticipated was Connor's level of gross overstepping of personal space, particularly when he was overcome with curiosity. Which is to say; the boy licked everything.
When they got home from the grocery store Connor diligently laid out all the ingredients in a neat little row on the counter. Hank had him chopping the cabbage and Hank grated the ginger. Connor placed one of the chopped leaves against his tongue, then pressed his finger into the ginger and that went right on the tongue too.
"It's not done yet." Hank offered, as though he was providing wisdom.
Connor stuck his tongue out at Hank.
And he stuck his tongue out at the breadcrumbs and the salt and the raw pork and then at the mix of it all while Hank showed him how to form meatballs and he just licked pretty much all the ingredients.
"I'm not kissing you anymore."
"I told you, there is a sterility protocol-"
"I do not . Give. A shit."
And Hank saw that damned yellow light blink once, that half a second flash. Fuck.
Connor leaned back against the counter while Hank worked at the stove, focused on not letting the meatballs either burn or fall apart in the pan. He was trying to explain that you need to let them sit for longer when they first go in the pan so they hold their shape. Connor wasn't looking at the pan. At his other side, a big drooling dog was fixing the pan with a not too dissimilar expression that Connor had on him. Focus. Sumo was probably getting more out of the cooking lessons than Connor was.
"You're never gonna kiss me again?" Connor said, feigning sadness.
"Never." Hank held strong to his poker face.
Connor reached out to smooth Hank's shirt down over his arm a few times, looking down and pouting. "Even if I ask nice?"
Hank ignored the question, or, well, he heard the question very clearly and he would remember that question and that tone with the backdrop of alternate scenarios until the end of time, but he didn't react. Instead he grabbed a tiny portion of the soy glazed cabbage and a small meatball from the pan. He offered it to Connor to taste.
Connor pushed both against his tongue and shrugged. "Same ingredients as before. Many protein chains have broken apart and coagulated." Connor frowned, "It's more fun to not know what went into it, there's nothing to decipher anymore."
Hank tossed the meatball down to Sumo, who caught it with ease and a big flick of drool. Connor pressed himself against Hank's arm when he went to grab a plate from the cabinet. He was smiling. It had been a while since someone had smiled while Hank cooked.
When he and Jen used to fight, like really battle it out in days long bouts of passive aggression and snide jabs, Hank's final act of war was cooking. He would make something just for Jen. Something she loved. Either he apologized with it, or pulled out the stops to rub it in Jen's face how healthy and well adjusted he was. After all, functional people cooked. He turned the apologetic meals back around as an attack to show her that he was kind and she was being shitty. He was winning. Somewhere along the line that's all cooking was between them. Hank had ruined it for apologies, and he'd ruined it for just, like, regular Tuesdays.
Hank stopped cooking for Jen. They'd tried couples counselling and they both figured, why try to fix a thing when it's easier to just cut it out entirely and ignore there was a problem? They hadn't been very good at couples counselling. Hank hoped he'd gotten something out of couples counselling, even it it hadn't been a successful marriage. A lot of their problems existed before the past three years and, well. You know what? Nevermind.
Hank gently flipped the meatballs out of the pan and on to a plate with the soy glazed cabbage. Connor was teasing about something, he was happy, he wasn't paying attention to the cooking lessons, he just wanted to spend time with Hank and play like he had to earn a kiss. He didn't need to earn anything.
Hank kissed him and ruined the game. He didn't really want to play anymore.
Connor grinned up at him when Hank pulled back and said, "I don't think I like cooking." He looked dopey when he smiled like that.
But Hank liked cooking, so he kept at it.