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Unbeknownst to anyone (because it’s none of their fucking business), Hank did actually go to therapy after Cole died. Not for long. It only took a few sessions of having to talk about his feelings to confirm it was much easier to drown them in a bottle of whiskey instead. But one strange thing had stuck with him from the second session.
“Some people find it helpful to leave themselves little notes of positivity around the house. To remind them to just stop. Think. Become aware of the negative thought process and turn it around in that moment.”
It sounded stupid. But Hank still found himself stealing a packet of sticky notes from the stationery closet at the precinct that hadn’t seen daylight in years and trudged home to give it a shot.
He started out with simple things. ‘Keep smiling’. ‘Today will be fabulous’. ‘Just keep swimming’. (Cole had always loved those old Pixar movies…). ‘It’ll get better’.
It lasted a couple of weeks before he woke up one morning on the kitchen floor with a killer hangover and, upon stumbling to the bathroom, found a note he’d left himself the night before bang in the middle of the mirror that said ‘Why don’t you just kill yourself?’.
He didn’t use the method for several months after that. Over the next couple of years, he’d go back and forth on it but it always inevitably ended with scathing assassinations on his character written alongside empty pep talks.
The weeks leading up to the deviancy case, he’d picked it up again but half-hearted at best. He barely even registered the existence of the notes he had stuck around the bathroom mirror. The positive, the negative…they were just decoration at this point, the words not even processing any more. Kind of defeated the point of them being there. But for one reason or another, he couldn’t be bothered to take them down.
After Markus’ peaceful revolution and androids gaining their freedom, Hank found himself with a temporary house guest. At a loss for what to do with himself or where he belonged in the grand scheme of things, Connor had politely asked if he might stay with Hank for a short time. And after everything they’d been through, Hank wasn’t about to turn him away.
It took four days for him to notice. He was brushing his teeth one morning, frowning at himself in the mirror. Something was wrong. Staring at himself, he quickly realised that it wasn’t him, it was the mirror. Or, more specifically, what was on the mirror. A new sticky note, the writing on it immaculate. CyberLife Sans.
‘Take one day at a time.’
Hank stared at it for so long, toothpaste started dribbling out of his mouth, making him curse. He chose not call the android out on the new addition.
Two days later, another one joined the ranks. ‘You’re doing great.’
Then another. ‘You are important.’
‘Keep going.’
‘I am proud of you.’
Hank felt like he should be disgruntled. Maybe even incensed by the patronising messages. Only they weren’t patronising. They were from the heart. Or…the equivalent, at least. There was nothing in his programming that would call for it, after all. Still he said nothing.
Then the messages started to change.
‘You should try eating some fruit.’
Hank stared at the message one morning, the handwriting identical to all the others only there was something more…personal about this one. Less like it had been copy+pasted from an ‘inspirational quotes’ website. More intimate, almost. When he returned from the station that evening, the same note was still there but with an addendum.
‘I hear raspberries are a nice flavour and have many nutritional advantages. I have left some in the fridge.’
What the fuck. Forgetting why he even went into the bathroom in the first place, he found himself making his way to the fridge instead. He let out a somewhat hysterical laugh as he was confronted with yet another note stuck to the door. ‘Bottom shelf’.
Opening the fridge, sure enough, there was a punnet of raspberries sitting on the bottom shelf. He really wasn’t much of a fruit guy but fuck it. He wasn’t one for letting things go to waste, either. Grabbing the whole punnet, he made his way over to the couch and put the basketball on.
When Connor returned from running whatever errand he was on that evening, Hank watched him as he processed the presence of the raspberries in his hand, blinking once, and then not saying a damn word about it. That motherfucker. Well if that’s how he wanted to play, Hank was game…
‘There is a new smoothie maker in the kitchen.’
‘Well that was a waste of money.’
‘Smoothies are good for lowering cholesterol.’
‘No fucking way.’
Hours later, when Hank peered into the bathroom to see if there was any response, he found a fresh sticky note plastered over their last one with a smoothie recipe on it with shit like spinach and walnuts and who the fuck wants to drink walnuts? In retaliation, he drew an approximation of the old vomit emoji and placed that over the top, grinning to himself as he did so.
As he was getting ready for bed, he noticed it had been covered over with yet another note. ‘You are quite the artist.’ Hank counted it as a win. Right up until the following morning when he saw the smoothie waiting for him on the table with a note that just said ‘Enjoy. (Or Sumo will be disappointed in you.)’ Bastard. Hank took the smoothie to work, muttering in disgust as he drank the entire thing.
The banter continued for weeks, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes Hank would sass back, sometimes he would just indulge in the notes that he found spreading around the house. ‘I like this shirt.’ ‘This is a nice picture.’ ‘If you like this jazz singer, here are a list of recommended artists you might also enjoy.’ ‘This book is a first edition and worth $5500. Even with its yellow pages.’
And not once did they ever mention it. It was like some kind of secret that they never acknowledged. Hank didn’t know if Connor chose not to because Hank had never brought it up and he assumed it wouldn’t be correct. Or perhaps he found it just as fun as he did, keeping it clandestine.
Fun. Hank couldn’t deny it for what it was. The messages may not exclusively be the boring ‘uplifting’ adages that they had been in the beginning but they had the same effect. More so even. Because they were personal, aimed specifically at him. They showed that someone actually cared. And for the first time in longer than Hank cared to admit, it truly made life that little bit easier to live.
As he was leaving for the precinct one morning, Connor handing him his morning smoothie in a takeaway cup, the android blinked sharply, LED flashing yellow as Hank slapped a sticky note onto his forehead. “Stay outta trouble,” he said, taking the cup and walking out the front door without glancing back.
Connor carefully removed the note from his forehead, turning it around to read Hank’s scratchy handwriting, mouth ticking up at the side at the two words.
‘Thank you.’
Connor slipped the note in his pocket, hearing Hank’s car drive away. “You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”