starter under the read more, because it’s a lot longer than my actual tags are going to be XD
It’s not totally like the time they met back up at the Chicken Feed. The world had been bright then, the sunlight reflecting bright off the snow and into an empty city, a fresh new world. And Hank had been ready to face it.
It’s not like he’s not, now; it’s still a new world, full of new opportunities for the new people filling it. People who have futures, now, and Hank has a part in some of that. Fowler’s got him working with some guy who specializes in community engagement and they’re training everyone to play nice, working out how to get in good with the androids. A lot of the human officers almost have to be tricked into giving a shit about the community they’re supposed to be engaging with and said community has less than no reason to give the cops the time of day but Hank’s spending his days talking to people now, stopping a lot of shit before it starts, and the guy he used to be, some days, couldn’t feel any farther away.
It used to be Hank’s biggest problem was how much of his work he could shove off on the other guys cause it’s not like the people he was supposed to be helping were gonna get any less dead. Even when he had gotten off his ass and done some real detecting, it’s not like any of that made any kind of fucking difference. Not to the people who’d needed it.
When Hank drives to work now, steps inside the building and starts his day, all that stuff feels like it happened in a different world.
Hank kind of wants to get back in the car and drive away before Connor has a chance to get here, tell him sorry, work stuff came up, you know how it is. He wants to call out of work tomorrow. He wants to call out of work forever, give up his fancy new job to one of the offers who’s young and hungry and knows they can make a difference and then hole up in his house where no one can see the shiny new lieutenant Anderson start to curl up and flake away while the guy he used to be finally pulls him apart and oozes out all through the cracks.
Hank puts his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders up, even though it’s not as cold as it was. He watches his shoe kick at a patch of brown, slushy snow and thinks longingly about his car, his house, where he won’t have to talk to a guy who genuinely deep down likes him about how honestly good his life is going.
His house, at least, has some kind of food in it.
Hank doesn’t get back in his car. He thinks about that instead. There used to be a hot dog stand right over there, a guy who knew Hank’s face, if not his name, who was out here all the time. But Detroit’s still rebuilding, and a lot of the people who evacuated might just never come back.
Hank’s stomach gives a loud, hungry gurgle and he looks up at the sky, trying to feel less like he’s waiting here with no company but his own aching brain and more like he’s just looking around at his city, getting used to the weird new feel of it.
The headache did, at least, mostly fade off about an hour ago. The nausea slunk away a little while after that but most of the places he’d usually go to grab a pile of grease and calories went the way of that hotdog stand, and figuring out what to do about that with enough time left over to be on time for this was just too much fucking hassle.
It’ll be good to see him, Hank reminds himself. Once it starts, when Connor’s right here in front of him, when Hank can see him and hear his voice. Then it’ll be good to see him. “Guy’s probably never been stood up in his life,” Hank murmurs, in the hopes that hearing the words out loud will guilt him into sticking around just a little bit longer. Connor probably hasn’t ever been stood up before, and Hank really doesn’t want to be his first.
