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Hank knows.
He doesn’t want to know-– doesn’t want to pry but sometimes he can’t help it. Sometimes he just slips, sometimes it just happens.
He knows about Lyta’s break up with Hector and that she’s pregnant and she wants it to be a secret for the moment. He knows she’s breaking down trying to think about how to handle herself.
He knows Rick has thought of trying different pills. He knows he can barely deal with his father being gone and his mother crying behind closed doors. He knows he’s lost his drive for his goals.
He knows Bones’ loneliness for the rest of Helix, for is family, and how he really isn’t a bad guy. He knows his crippling fear of actually killing someone due to his ‘skin condition.’ And his accidents in the past.
He knows Syl is having confidence issues as team leader. He knows his uncle blames himself at every little turn. He knows the Pemberton funds are honestly a mess right now. He knows he worries about Hank himself, and Hank hates being something to add to his weight to his already heavy thoughts.
He’s caught way too many hot flashes going between Albert for Lyta and Yolanda for Albert and that’s honestly a circle jerk he’d rather not even be apart of.
(Despite it being completely obvious.)
The point is he knows things and then he feels like-– He wants to intervene, to say something, to aid them in their fears. To reassure them. But then… is he allowed? They would ask how he knows and he’d be a liar and looking into their private thoughts is very, very bad. Not that he wants to.
He’s seen dark corners of Todd’s mind. Todd is the closest person on the team to know… how he feels. Todd sees things. He sees things in people, the darkness, the demons, the greed– all just by looking at them. He can’t help it at all.
Hank also can sense… something else. His powers aren’t sharp enough to pinpoint it– not that he tries or anything. But. He’s seen things Todd himself hasn’t even let himself acknowledge. Urges to do terrible things. He’s trying to find the right way to ask Beth to assess him, but he knows she’s not that kind of doctor. Some of the things Todd sees aren’t because of his powers and.
And he just wishes he could talk to Todd because maybe they could understand each other. But no, Todd hates him. Todd thinks he’s going to take Jenny away from him and, god, he doesn’t even know how he got with Jenny. She’s way too good for someone like him. She’s out of his league.
Todd always thinks that Hank is reading his thoughts when he’s around him.
Which is technically true. Thinks he’s going to lie to Jenny, tell her things about him and ‘turn her against me.’ All because he thinks his thoughts of Jenny are too close. He’s guarded in his affections. They’ve been separated all their life, what’s wrong with wanting to hold her.
It didn’t help Rick passing a joke to them when the siblings shared a hug. Todd had an outburst and melded with the wall.
Hank tried to appeal to him.
Heh.
Wanting things of him. If only Todd knew the thoughts he had sometimes.
About people. He thought he was messed up for wanting to hold his sister. If only Todd saw him in his private moments, curled up in the corners of his room, head crushed between his two palms. His mind simply throbs, as suddenly he feels like a radio tower, honing in on all the most horrid, disgusting, dripping, selfish thoughts of the area.
Such greed, gluttony, envy, all those gross sins.
Turn it off.
Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off. The things he wanted to do to these people in those admitably short moments was… he sickened himself but he just wanted the thoughts to shut up. He didn’t want to KNOW. Sometimes he ends up screaming. He almost ripped off a chunk of his scalp once. A construct of his father appeared, began to lecture him, tell him what a gift he was given.
This wasn’t a gift.
Hank knows it wasn’t a gift.
Hank knows.