Thread by @FastHankconSmut

Is this whump? I think I have a bad idea of what that word is, but if it means gratuitous hurt and feels for the sake of fluff and comfort later, that’s what this is. Also *extremely* cliche.

💫Hurt/comfort to feed my disgusting, black heart- jumbled, nonsense writing.

Hank tells Connor to go experience the world, get those crazy upgrades everyone’s getting. Live on his own a bit, maybe get a pet. What the fuck ever .

Reluctantly, Connor agrees. He doesn’t like how little time they have together to begin with, and this is not helping.

But, he does as Hank’s asked, and finds its not...totally unbearable.

But, all he can think about is being back at *home* with Hank. And not like the way he’s stay on weekends to watch a movie or play games.

Just stay. *Permanently*.

It’s only been a month without his android who walked his dog in the park, and pressed his shirts, when Hank begins to realize how much he *misses* Connor. He missed him something fierce.

But, Hank is a creature of habit, and it’s not long before he’s remembering *why* he sent Connor a way in the first place. He’s remembering that he was ‘unworthy’.

It was easy to think otherwise when you had your own personal cheerleader making you feel, well, *special*. Important, deserving. But that’s not the truth for Hank Anderson, is it?

Wretched thoughts that stretched from loneliness, to insignificance, soon turn to resentment.

At himself, of course, not Connor.

*Never* Connor.

But, those thoughts are here, lurking.

And, Hank handles them as poorly as the weathered, tired man with little left to hold onto can. He begins to push at Connor, starts to add more things to his list.

“Maybe go to school for something?” Whatever the android equivalent to that was.

“Get a better apartment somewhere nicer.” Away from this junk town Connor’d only ever known. Things that would all extend Connor’s trip *considerably*.

He understands the logic. There’s no way Connor can actually experience every milestone a young, free adult can in just the few months he’d hoped to be gone for. But, that was kind of the deal. Unspoken, maybe, but Hank *knew* Connor was supposed to come back to him.

He wasn’t meant to stay away and do everything there was to do. Obviously, there was *far* too much for that.

To make excruciatingly worse, Hank had stopped hanging out with him like he used to. Because, now Connor had all these things he was supposed to do.

At first, he wondered if Hank was trying to live out some of his glory days by having Connor do all the things he couldn’t. Sometimes people did that.

Then Hank told him he should *find* someone. *Romantically*.

As far as Connor knew, he already had.

Now, he feels defeated.

He doesn’t know what Hank wants from him anymore, but he’s got a sneaking suspicion it isn’t the same things Connor does.

Connor drops out of those classes he was taking. They were just for fun, anyway.

It’s hard to see what was so fun about them, now, when they were just another gap between him and Hank, eating up his time.

He gives his pet lizard, Tabby, to Simon, because he’s having trouble giving her all the care she needs. No animal deserved that, but he’ll still miss her.

He knows it’s better for her this way.

Then Connor gets a roommate, just so he doesn’t have to be ‘home’ all the time. It doesn’t break his lease, so why not? More time with his new boyfriend.

At first, Connor had honestly just forgotten, but then he just...*lets* his upgrades back up.

Sets them to manual so they don’t rely on him going into stasis to update- since he gets so little of that anymore.

It’s disrupted the flow of his natural state and put a bit of a block in his relayers. His boyfriend doesn’t really mine the slight bit of ‘fat’, so why bother with it now?

Then he loses his boyfriend for...unfortunate reasons. Unfortunate, but completely foreseen.

He’d complained several times after their fifth ‘date’ that they should have already...

Well, there was more time for work, at least. And staring wistfully at the Lieutenant....

Hank begins to notice Connor’s efforts at work are somewhat lacking. Weird is an understatement.

Connor took a hard stance when it came to doing things by the book. He didn’t crave organization and compliance, but he did expect those things from himself. He wanted to be a model at all times, whether Hank or other followed the example or not.

He took his work and appearance seriously. Hank was laughable comparatively, but Connor had never really cared about that. *In fact* he was rather favorable to it, wasn’t he?

Yet, as strict as he’d been about them before, Connor had seemed to fall off the wagon a bit.

It started with little things, dumb things that had no real baring on his job. Things like, coming in to work with bedhead. Which he did pretty much all the time, now, but so what?

Hank was seriously overdo for his own haircut.

Then Connor forgot his badge at home. Twice.

Not really a problem with that crazy, holographic shit he could do with his hand.

And, yeah, sometimes, Connor looked a little more put out with Gavin than he usually did- letting his trash talk affect him more than it should.

But, Hank has been there *plenty* of times, too.

Fuck, he drew a *gun* on Gavin before. A fellow officer, in front of a witness.

Except, all those things were especially unlike Connor. He could make excuses, throw in his own, special blend on why the android Hank knew so well was acting about as dysfunctional as he did.

But, it was just so unlike him. It was so unlike his Connor.

Then it got *worse*.

Hank found out about Tabby. Connor said it was just because he was so busy, now, and Hank couldn’t judge.

He’d put himself before Sumo in the *worst way* possible, and he hadn’t even let him go.

But, then Connor said he’d dropped out of his classes- just to work more.

Hank felt like he was in a tailspin by Thanksgiving, almost the end of the year, wondering where his friend had gone. And why?

Well, no. He *knew* why. But, he didn’t want to admit it.

He just hadn’t imagined it could ever get this bad. Was this because of him, or was he being infamously selfish again? Making it all about himself.

That’s what his ex used to say, and yeah. For good reason.

Hank wanted to bury it, turn a blind eye like he did to every crisis.

All the ones that were his fault, anyway. He wanted to wait until Jeff called his ass into his office and told him to whip his partner back in shape before it cost them their badges.

More than any of that, though, Hank wanted to know where his android has gone.

He wanted him back. With each passing day, with an ever exhausted looking Connor, Hank begins to forget all about that list he’d made.

He gives it some thought and decides while there’s probably a better way to go about it, to tell Connor it’s alright that he’d stopped taking his classes.

Try to ease the obvious guilt Connor had for leaving them.

“They’ll still be there if you want to go back, rest a little.”

Connor still gives him little smiles, little ‘thank you’s for Hank’s support, but he knows he probably doesn’t deserve either.

Hank presses on, doesn’t let himself dwell on where he’s fucked up in all of this, because Connor needs him right now. Hank hadn’t been there in a while, not since he’d pushed him away.

If Connor knew he was having thoughts like that he would worry-

try to tell him it’s not like that. Always looking out for him...

They’d been through so much in such a little time.

Hank slowly realizes that maybe he had no right to give Connor orders like that, regardless of whether he followed on his own will, just to have Hank’s approval.

He’d stuck by Hank when he pointed a gun at him, forfeited his mission and purpose- he confessed much later in an attempt to convince Hank to let him stay- and he never left when things got *real* fucking iffy.

Drinking at noon and holding a picture of his son, iffy.

Connor stayed true-

“Lieutenant? You seem distracted this morning.”

Connor looks like shit again. ‘Shit’ for him is looking like he’s completely given up, yet still miles ahead of how terrible Hank has looked at his lowest.

He wears a lot of pullovers now even though he doesn’t get cold the same way, but it’s weather appropriate and he can get away with not tucking his shirts in underneath it. His hair is messy as always these days.

It’s still so much better than Hank and probably half the people in here, but it’s just not Connor. His light stutters yellow practically all the time, now, and his eyes look so heavy. Tired.

Hank suspects talking to him is probably a chore for Connor. It’s his fault, after all.

“Lieutenant?”

Hank reminds himself to focus- this isn’t about him.

“Just thinking, want to come pick out a collar for Sumo with me?” It’s been *ages* since they’ve hung out, and Hank knows he should have invited him sooner.

He should have done a lot of things for his friend when he’d *needed* him.

Connor stares for a bit, as unfortunately it takes him a while to process things, especially things that surprise him.

His human predictability feature shot to hell with the massive amount of updates backing him up.

He’ll definitely get on those after work later. Or this weekend. Unless he gets called in.

He’ll get to him eventually.

His light briefly flashes to red, and Hank thinks “fair enough”. The last time they ‘hung out’ Hank told him to think about a new job.

He looks like he wants to ask Hank something, and Hanks probably right in guessing Connors just painfully confused he’s being invited out.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun. I’d like some company.” No catch, just some company.

Connor shuts his mouth, and lets the shock sink in. Then *excitement*. It’s small, hardly even there, and again, Hank thinks that’s fair. But it’s something. Pitifully small, but it’s there.

And Hank‘s pretty sure he can do something about ‘small’ so long as it’s there.

He hasn’t *totally* lost his partner. If he doesn’t come out of this with all the security he’d hoped for that Connor really *did* want a musty old, asshole like him, that’s just fine.

He’ll be happy if he can have his friend that made wisecracks and liked to piss him off every now and then for the thrill of it back. Someone to tell him he can’t eat his favorite foods, because they’re terrible for him.

Someone to bump knees with on his sofa and revel in the flutters it gave him when Connor bumped back. Platonic or not.

“I’ll let you put it on him, when we get home-uh back to my place.”

Hank feels a spike like ice run down his back. That’s no doubt a raw subject considering.

But it slipped out in the moment when he’d let himself get all wistful.

Connor looks unfazed, smiling softly and looking incredibly grateful to be invited. Like it’s some kind of priveledge to hang out with this oldest, best-est friend. Hank really fucked up.

Connor agrees, and doesn’t even protest when Hank convinces him to leave work early.

He sits quietly beside him on the way, making little comments about their latest case as conversation. At least he’s still like his old self in that way, bringing work outside the office.

Hank is *glad* to hear it. He indulges him, talks about their most obvious suspect and the punishment if he really did kill that lady. Morbid topics, but easy going for hardened detectives.

When a song comes on that Hank likes, he turns it up, and tells Connor about them.

That they’re a rock and roll band from even before Hank’s time, and that his dad loves to listen to them. Gave Hank all his records.

He did more talking than Connor for the first time in all the time he’d ever known the droid, and Connor looks elated to listen.

But, tired.