Fandom: Detroit: Become Human
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The park was abandoned.
Of course it was, Hank mused idly, as he plodded past the creaking swing set, the six pack of beer dangling from his half-frozen fingers clinking lightly against one another. It was the middle of fucking November; who in their right mind would take a kid to a playground in eighteen degree weather?
He did, that was who. Like a dumbass, he'd get emotionally manipulated by his precocious little hellion of a son, who would give him the goddamn puppy dog eyes, and ask, "Just for a little bit, pleeease?" Then the guilt would creep up the back of his neck like a hot, burning rash, because his work schedule meant that his son was basically growing up with an absentee father, and he'd be damned if another Anderson boy was going to go through that shit—
Hank cleared his head with a shake. He plunked the shitty cardboard carrier onto the frozen-over bench seat with a glassy jangle, before taking one look at the ice that awaited his ass, and slowly leveraged himself onto the top of the bench itself. The thin edge dug uncomfortably into bones he didn't even realize he still had beneath all the flab he'd accumulated over the years, but it was still fair sight better than managing to actually freeze his nuts off while polishing off a six pack all by his lonesome.
He let his mind wander like a leaf down a babbling brook, brushing over one topic here, dipping around that topic there; never really allowing himself to get stuck on any one point. Over the years, Hank had become quite adept at the art of compartmentalizing, and became a skilled navigator of his own mind.
Danger points were avoided because it didn't do any good to spend time and effort thinking about them, it only got him shoved against a hard place with nowhere to go, where work did that enough on its own. His shrink once warned him about that—said that unlike creeks, the mind only dumped back into itself, so every avoided topic was just going to be faced again and again, until he chose to tackle it head on.
Hank ruminated on that for a moment longer than anything else that had meandered through his thick skull. The swing creaked woefully in the dark, its hinges starting to rust from disuse.
"Yeah, I know how you feel," he said to the swing set sadly, hunching forward against the cold and clasping his hands tightly around the neck of the ice-cold bottle.
"Life's pretty shit in the winter, huh? Everybody forgets about you, and you just hang out here in the cold until people decide you're worth their attention again."
Another squeak of metal echoed in the biting wind.
He hummed, glancing over his shoulder and briefly tipping the neck of his bottle in conciliatory toast. "Yeah, don't I know it." He then raised it to his mouth, and took a swig.
His lips twisted in distaste as the beer hit his tongue, cheap piss-water that it was. Jesus; if he was planning to kill himself a little every day, he should've at least splurged on the good shit, first. But that would've been committing, and if he was too chickenshit to pull the trigger when he knew there was a bullet waiting for him—hell, even when there may not have been—then, naturally he'd be too chickenshit to really go the distance and spend his meager life savings because he knew he wouldn't be around to see it all, anyway. No matter how much he wanted to let go, he still couldn't; despite knowing better, when push came to shove, he still wanted to live.
Fuck. He took another, deeper draw of the brew.
A car door slammed shut somewhere behind him; Hank didn't look up from his hands. Like before, he felt the guilt crawling up over the goosebumps of his skin, his face heating up with shame even as the chilly weather made it pulse with pain. Shit, he thought Connor had been spending the week with his Jericho buddies, doing whatever the fuck they needed to keep their species from being written out of existence for the fiftieth time that year.
He knew, deep down, that Connor was a greater asset to the android leadership than he was to the DPD or Hank, and while he didn't want to be that asshole that questioned the free will of a sentient being that had to literally offer himself up as some kind of prize in order to acquire it, Hank still couldn't get it.
His blue eyes reproachfully darted to his left, and then back down, as he heard the nearing footfalls. "Thought you were out saving android lives," he murmured, by way of greeting. He wasn't much of a conversationalist when there wasn't a dead body to talk over.
"I was," Connor answered, tone unbothered, like it usually was whenever he was actually very bothered. "This time around, Markus thought it would be a good idea to bring in a trusted human consultant, someone with law enforcement experience that could see pitfalls we, as androids, wouldn't."
Ah shit, was Connor really going for a guilt-trip at ass o'clock at night? He grimaced and gruffly responded, "Well, Fowler's got a lot of his plate, but I'm sure he'd be able to—"
"They don't trust Fowler. They trust you."
That made Hank glance in Connor's direction, and only then did he see that Connor wasn't even looking at him. His dark eyes were focused intently on the black waves churning over the railing, chiseled features inscrutable.
Fuck, Connor didn't even want to look at him.
Hank wanted to sink through the bench and never be seen again. He dropped his gaze back to the tea-colored bottleneck glinting between his fingers. God, he was such a weak-willed asshole. "Look, Connor..."
"Your blood-alcohol level isn't that high, Lieutenant, so I know you haven't been out here very long," Connor stated. "I also know that you haven't drank anything in seven weeks and three days, which, according to my estimate, has been a personal record."
Christ, he was tracking it? If Hank hunched any further in his position, he was liable to fall over, so he settled on grumbling, "Ring-a-ding-ding."
"Hank." Something in Connor's tone caught Hank's attention, and he was compelled to lift his eyes back to the scrawny little shit perched next to a bench, wearing his fashionable fucking sports jacket and pleated dress shirt in eighteen degree weather, like sub-freezing temperatures wasn't that big of a deal. Connor's eyes, dark like the water, slipped in his direction, unreadable, yet somehow warm.
"You saved Markus' life. You saved my life." Connor huffed, his poker face cracking for one glorious second into a reasonable facsimile of amused exasperation. "North doesn't explicitly hate you—if that's not a written invitation, I don't know what is."
"I don't know, maybe a written invitation?" Hank shot back without thought, words lighter than he felt. Maybe. He couldn't tell; this fucking kid muddied the waters for him.
Connor raised his brows. "That can be arranged, if you want."
Hank appraised him, before his eyes caught the shadowy, indistinct blob of the swing set over Connor's shoulder, half-lit by the Oldsmobile's headlights.
He glanced down again, fingernails tinking against the glass thoughtfully. He then inhaled, straightening his back with a stretch of pissed off muscles. "Alright," he exhaled, putting the beer bottle down to start maneuvering his sore and frozen ass off the top of the bench. "When do you want me to head over?"
Connor smiled thinly, a hint of relief softening his features. "After we head back to get Sumo."
Hank paused mid-movement, setting his attention on Connor with air of amused confusion. "Sumo? What do you need him for?"
Connor shrugged in his peripheral vision. "Bargaining chip."
Hank shuffled to his feet, joints throbbing. "For what?"
"North wanted to see Sumo, but I told her that you were both a packaged deal."
The creaking swing set was drowned out the echo of booming laughter.
