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It’s too much.
Too much.
The world. The universe. The infinite space just beyond.
But so too is the smaller, less grand scale of existence. The sort of small that leaves a person feeling inconsequential. Meaningless. Nothing but a speck in an empty void.
What is one human life when compared to the burning of a distant sun, let alone a galaxy full of them? A galaxy full of life, perhaps not intelligent, but life nonetheless? Lives led by countless beings with their own agendas, their own agency, their own wants and desires? Lives also filled with pain and suffering?
What is one lost son to a tired, middle-aged police lieutenant? In comparison to the atrocities committed around rest of the world, the rest of the universe?
But still, it’s too much.
Hank picks up the bottle. He frowns at it, at the finger of liquid still left inside. He knocks it back and leans his head against the wall.
He’s sitting on the floor. Sprawled, more accurately. It was too much to hold himself up and so he stopped and he dropped and he drank.
It’s not enough. His thoughts swirl, spinning like Connor’s LED, red, red, red.
More booze. It calls to him from the kitchen. He rolls his head to look, to answer, but the kitchen is much too far away.
Besides, Connor dumped the last of the alcohol left under the cabinet. The vodka in the freezer. The twelve-pack of beer in the fridge. Hank bought the bottle of whiskey in his hand on his way home from work, from a crime scene, bloody and violent.
He tries to take another swig, to get at the last drops at the bottom. One drop. Two.
Not enough.
The world is still too much. His thoughts are still too much. The pain in his heart, the pain of an old wound, a dull, constant ache in his bones and his joints and the space just behind his eyes. It’s too much to bare.
The gun—his gun—rests in its holster in its new home on the dresser in Hank’s bedroom. Connor’s hurt, puppy-eyed stare is all it takes for him to put it away these days, when they aren’t out on a case. When before Hank kept it near, more for comfort than for protection, the way a scared kid holds onto a teddy bear. A way out.
Always a way out.
Sumo whines, sitting at the door to the back yard. He needs to be taken out, taken for a walk.
He can’t even take care of his own fucking dog. How is he expected to take care of himself? Or the clueless android he’s welcomed into his home? A surrogate, perhaps, for the son he never got to see grow up. The son he wasn’t allowed to guide through life. The son taken from him far too young, far too soon, at the hands of a man too stoned out of his mind to do his fucking job, to save a child’s life.
Hank lifts his head. He tilts it back to thud against the wall. Once. Twice. “Fuck. Okay. Okay, Sumo. I’m coming. Just you hold on.”
Using the wall for support, Hank staggers to his feet. His feet are unsteady, his knees alcohol numb. He wobbles like a newborn deer on legs far less graceful.
He makes it to the door. It’s too much to grab the leash, too much to fit it onto Sumo’s collar. Sumo will have to make do with a quick trip to the backyard, in the snow.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. Connor—Connor will take you out. For a proper walk. Take you all around the block, if you want.”
Sumo looks at him with sorrowful eyes.
“I know. I’m sorry. I can’t, okay? I can’t.”
Sumo lumbers outside. He does his business and trots back inside. He shakes out his fur, sending ice and snow all over Hank and the room at large. He pads his way over to his water bowl, slobbering water onto the floor.
“Good dog,” Hank says. He slides, boneless, onto one of the dining room chairs. He fists his hands in his hair, bent over the table like a worn-out question mark, heavy with answers left unsaid.
The world, unconcerned, indifferent, continues to spin. The sun set long ago, the stars shine bright over the city of Detroit. Lives are lived. Crimes are committed. Babies are born. Children sleep soundly, tucked in their beds.
Androids continue to fight for their rights.
All of it happens as Hank sits in his chair, unable to find the strength to stand. All of it happens and Hank can’t find the energy to care.
Everything hurts.
He sits and sits and sits.
A key turns in the lock of the front door. The handle turns. Sumo trots over and lets out an expectant woof.
“Hi boy,” Connor says. He kneels to stroke the dog’s fur. “You’re all wet. Did Hank take you for a walk?”
Sumo sits at Connor’s feet and pants.
Connor scratches him behind the ears, making his tail swish against the floor.
Connor stands. His LED goes briefly red, then to yellow. “Hank?”
“Hey, kid.”
“Are you…okay?”
Connor’s taken to deviancy surprisingly well. What was Hank expecting? One of the android’s primary functions was to analyze human behavior and adapt to it. But something about his voice, and the way he expresses his emotions now—it’s not just the work of complex algorithms. It’s Connor.
“What’s it look like?” Hank asks, voice muffled by the table and the cage of his arms and the fall of his unwashed hair.
“I didn’t mean to be gone so long. Markus needed me to help negotiate—“ Connor cuts himself off. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”
Hank waves a heavy hand in Connor’s direction. “S’alright. You’ve got better things to do than take care of this wreck.”
Connor frowns. “You’re not a wreck. You’re my friend.”
Hank laughs, ending in a hiccup that could have been a sob, if he let it. “Then it sucks to be you.”
Connor’s frown deepens; he’s put his abilities to use and has probably already recreated the entire evening in his brain. All from one glance at the empty bottle of whiskey lying forgotten on the floor. “We should get you to bed.”
Hank fights him off with jelly limbs, but Connor is faster and stronger and completely sober. Like before his deviancy, like before, when he picked Hank off the floor and dragged him into the bathroom, Connor hoists Hank up with an arm around Connor’s shoulders. He holds onto Hank with an arm around Hank’s waist and walks Hank into his bedroom.
Hank doesn’t struggle. Because even that is too much work. He hangs limp and unhelpful in Connor’s arms.
Connor, bless him, pulls Hank higher on his shoulders, tighter against his hip, without even a grunt of effort.
Hank’s bed is already a tangle of pillows and sheets and an old comforter. Connor sets him down on the bed. He kneels to unlace Hank’s boots and pull them away from his feet. He lines them along the edge of the bed, out of the way. He unbuttons Hank’s shirt—the one Connor likes to call ‘stripey’—and folds it over his arm. He stands and walks out of Hank’s sight, returning empty handed. “You should lie down.”
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” Hank says. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s what spills out of his mouth. He laughs.
Gently, Connor presses on Hank’s chest, encouraging Hank without words. Hank goes down with another of Connor’s hands on his back, guiding him onto the mattress. Connor untwists the comforter at the foot of the bed and raises it to cover Hank, right up to his chin.
Hank groans. “Not a kid.”
Connor smiles. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
“Not a dog, either,” Hank grouses, but he pulls his feet up to his chest, face smushed into a lumpy pillow.
Connor, the smartass, pets Hank’s shoulder before leaving the room.
“C’mon, Sumo,” Connor says from the other room. Keys jangle. Sumo lets out a delighted woof. The front door creaks open and closed.
It opens again sometime later. Hank doesn’t bother to check the time. It hasn’t been long—as much as he needs the exercise, Sumo is just as sedentary as Hank. And Connor, despite being an android who shouldn’t have an opinion about such things but does, hates the snow.
Kibble rattles out of the bag into Sumo’s bowl. The faucet runs as Connor tops off Sumo’s water bowl. Minutes pass and lights around the house wink off, until Hank stares into complete darkness.
“Are you asleep?” Connor asks, standing in the doorway, voice hushed.
He could pretend to sleep and Connor would leave him alone. Connor would know he was awake, but he would leave, go back to his room to do maintenance or whatever. He wouldn’t ask questions, not even in the morning, while Hank suffers through his hangover.
“No,” he says. “C’mon in.”
Connor enters. He’s changed out of his heavy jacket and jeans into something more comfortable—as comfortable as androids get, anyway.
His tastes run far different from Hank’s own loud style. He prefers solids over prints, no corporate logos of any kind, no matter how fashionable. Blue seems to be his favorite color and, privately, so as not to sway his newly-formed opinions, Hank thinks it suits him.
His navy sweatpants are a little baggy, tied loose around his hips. His tee shirt glows a pristine white in the pale blue light of his LED.
Hank once asked him why he still had the thing. Connor looked at him askance, a small smile on his face. “I’m an android. The LED is part of me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being an android or having an LED, so I’ve decided to keep it.”
“How are you feeling?” the current Connor asks.
“Peachy,” Hank answers.
If Hank were in any other mood, Connor might have asked what relevance peaches have to human emotions. But Connor can read his mood or analyze him like one of their crime scenes and so he stands there, silent.
“Statue impression needs some work,” Hank says.
Connor jolts like he was lost in thought. “I’m...not sure what to do.”
“You don’t gotta do nothing. S’my own fault.”
“I meant,” Connor looks down. “Not in regards to your state of inebriation.”
“Then what?”
“Your depression. It’s why you drink, isn’t it?”
Hank grunts and rolls over, back to Connor, tired already of the conversation. “Go away, Connor.”
Connor doesn’t move. “I think—I think that would be a bad idea.”
Hank doesn’t answer. A push-pull wages war in his gut. He fights the urge to tell Connor to get out of his room—to get out of his life—and the urge to ask him to stay. He lays in his bed and does nothing.
The bed dips behind Hank. A hand settles on his shoulder. “I’m going to sit with you. If you need anything, I’ll be right here.”
Hank closes his eyes, but even drunk as he is, sleep is a long way away. Hank sighs. “Don’t be a fucking creep, Connor. Lie down.”
The hand slides off of his shoulder. The bed dips even further as Connor lays down, the plastic and metal and complicated electronics of his body heavier than that of a human his size. He rolls onto his side and puts his hand again on Hank’s shoulder. “Hank? Is this—“
“It’s fine, Connor. Go to sleep.”
It’s a testament to how bad Connor thinks Hank is when Connor doesn’t try to explain—again— the intricacies of his internal, nightly maintenance.
“Is it your son?” Connor asks.
“Sometimes,” Hank says.
“Sometimes?”
Hank sighs. “Yeah, Connor, sometimes. Sometimes it’s something else. Sometimes it’s just me, okay? I’m fucked in the head.”
The glow from Connor’s LED bleeds to red. His hand tightens around Hank’s bicep.
“Kid?”
“You are in pain. You are my friend and you are in pain.”
Connor’s hand is like a vice, now.
Hank rolls over, facing Connor. “Kid, hey. Hey.”
Connor’s eyes shine bright with unshed tears. Connor shuts them tight. “I’m sorry.”
Hank pulls him close, wrapping an arm around him. He tucks Connor beneath his chin and breathes into Connor’s artificial hair.
Connor hesitates, then burrows into Hank, pressing his face into the hollow of Hank’s neck and shoulder. Just like Cole used to do after a nightmare or during a particularly bad storm.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Connor says, voice muffled.
“I ain’t going anywhere,” Hank says. “Okay? I’m right here.”
Artificial saline soaks into Hank’s undershirt. His heart clenches in his chest.
“Look, I—I can’t promise to be around forever or that things’ll get any better. But, shit, I can try to hold on. Okay? I’ll try.”
Connor nods, the most tiny, most pitiful thing, and it rips Hank’s heart right open. Hank cards his hand through dark, surprisingly soft hair.
Connor’s LED spins from red, to yellow, to blue.
It’s far too early to be awake. Hank groans and presses the heel of his hand into his brow, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. His head pounds.
Movement in the kitchen and the smell of coffee wafting in through the open door alert Hank to Connor’s wearabouts.
Coffee. He needs coffee.
He rolls out of bed, slowly, carefully. He shuffles into the bathroom to relieve himself, washes his hands. He considers the merits of brushing his teeth before or after breakfast, but the dead-animal taste in his mouth convinces him to pick up the toothbrush. He squeezes out a line of toothpaste and sticks the brush into his mouth.
He looks over the sticky notes stuck to the mirror. Platitudes to help him get up, to deal with the day. A new note, sans the crinkles and smudged marker of the older notes, catches Hank’s attention.
Written in Connor’s perfect CyberLife font is HOLD ON.
Hank spits out toothpaste into the sink.
He stares at the new note, the new directive.
Hold on.
He can try, for Connor’s sake.