Hankcon Bingo

Hank flipped up her welding hood as she took in her work. It wasn't her worst—she might have been rushing a little to avoid the proposition of overtime. They were celebrating Cole's birthday this afternoon and she'd made a pinky promise to be there. As she removed her gloves and headed for her locker she pulled her grey hair out of a short pony and rubbed her scalp where the helmet band had been pressing into all shift. Her phone buzzed and she already knew it was Connie reminding her to leave work.

On my way.

Connie felt a wave of relief at the prompt response—immediately interrupted by the ringing of the oven timer. She jumped slightly and snapped back into focus, reaching for the nearest tea towel to retrieve the cake. She sighed in defeat looking at the burnt confection and fishing out a knife from the drawer to try and shave off what she could.

Hannah was just starting her car when she got the phone call.

Hannah's lips curled with a toothy grin as she answered it.

"Hey, can you swing by the grocery store on your way home?"

"Just a cake I'm assuming?" Hannah tried reply without laughing.

"Or cupcakes…honestly anything at this point." Connie groaned, "I swear I set the timer ten minutes before it was supposed to be done."

"How long did the box say?" She teased. For as much as Connie tried to bake she never really got the hang of things, mostly due to her ADHD distracting her during the process at some point. Hannah loved that she never really gave up trying despite this.

There was a moment of silence on the line as Connie re-read the box instructions and realized she'd read it too fast to register the numbers properly.

"Not important." Connie declared loudly, earning a snort from Hannah.

"Of course not babe." Hannah smiled. "I'll be home in twenty."

Hannah was rushed as soon as she opened the door, her son clinging to her legs as if she might float away.

"Hey Cole," Connie took the items from her hands, affording her the opportunity to ruffle Cole's hair affectionately. This earned her a happy shriek from the kid. He was dressed in his favourite orange shirt and blue overalls.

Connie set the violets on the table beside the package of cupcakes, she was half dressed in work casual with a white button up and a pair of Hannah's PJ shorts that revealed the moles dotting her legs. Hannah raked her eyes over her wife for a moment longer watching her lean into the fridge to set down the six pack.

What a cute ass.

Connie ran her fingers through her hair to get it out of her face, realizing she didn't have a scrunchie on her wrist as usual.

Hannah wordlessly pulled a hair tie off her wrist and gave it to her wife who blinked her brown doe eyes at her appreciatively.

Cole made a noise and Hannah turned to focus on her energetic kid, hoisting him up to rest on her hip. He was non verbal but that didn't mean he was quiet, not in the slightest.

Connie beamed at them, eyeing the way Hannah's arms flexed as she picked up their seven year old—god she was strong.

"Shit—forgot the food in the car." Hannah plopped the child down and pointed towards his shoes, "Can you give me a hand little man?"

Cole had crawled away so fast that the mothers' couldn't help but laugh, Cole climbed onto the couch to burry himself in pillows—clearly not wanting to put on his shoes to go outside.

"Here take this when you go—" Connie slung a trash bag at Hannah's feet, the smell of burnt cake emanating from the black plastic.

Hannah just shot her a toothy grin and slipped outside to dispose of it, returning with the bag of burgers she'd left in the car.

Connie began to unpack the food, taking a seat at the table and sighing—she'd been wrangling their son for hours in-between plugging away at her remote job and her back was starting to ache. Cole perked up immediately as he heard the rattling of his chicken fingers and he grabbed a spot at the table, pressing his face onto it making a humming noise.

Hannah quickly disappeared into their room to change out of her sweaty work clothes. She put on a fresh black tee and shrugged on a loudly patterned button up—her signature style consisted of what Connie called 'old-man shirts.' She stepped into some navy blue cargo shorts and returned to the living room to see Connie attempting to wipe Cole's face with a napkin. How their kid had managed to get honey mustard sauce all over his face within minutes of eating was a mystery, even more than Cole's hyper-fixation on all things mustard.

Hannah dug into her burger with a hearty bite and took over the impossible task of keeping Cole from staining another one of his shirts. Connie flashed her a grateful smile and began to eat her own food.

Taking a sip of her pineapple soda she cleared her throat, "How was your day?"

"Internet went out in the middle of a meeting." Connie smiled softly, "Might need help finding that Ethernet cable in the closet."

Hannah licked the ketchup that dripped out of her burger onto her fingers. Humming a response she grabbed a napkin off the table to tuck into Cole's shirt—he was getting more of the mustard on the chicken fingers at least.

"The flowers are lovely." Connie reached out with her foot under the table to rest on top of Hannah's, "Nice attempt to distract me from the beer."

Hannah swallowed a bite, "For the Gears game this Friday." She had cut back on drinking a lot since having Cole—of course it came with the territory of carrying a child. They'd spent most of their savings for IVF, Connie was unable to carry due to health complications and so Hannah had rose to the challenge—she surprised herself with how much she enjoyed the pregnancy. Of course Connie dotting on her and giving those legendary foot massages definitely played a role.

Connie just smiled back at Hannah, "You've earned it I suppose."

The family had finished their dinner and Connie had thrown on her favourite blue cardigan with various fish scattered across it. It was brisk outside with the fall breeze, and the sun was already setting when they buckled Cole in the backseat and headed for the animal shelter.

They'd spent a few days of the week looking at adopting a dog, Cole had zeroed in on an elderly St. Bernard. He had a calm temperament and didn't seem phased by Cole's occasional banshee cries so they were confident they could give the dog a nice home. Since it was finally his big day they let him name the dog while they filled out the paperwork.

Their son had signed the word for wrestling and Connie tilted her head curiously.

"You wanna name him wrestle?" Connie asked, trying not to dissuade him from choosing even the most unconventional of names. 

Cole shook his head and signed the letters: S-U-M-O.

As soon as they'd brought Sumo home he found a comfortable spot on the couch and laid there, gratefully accepting the belly rubs afforded to him by the family. Not long after Cole had begun to doze off so Hannah had brought him to bed, followed by Sumo who snuggled up beside him. Hannah gave them both a kiss goodnight before grabbing a shower and falling into bed beside Connie.

"Did we forget to open the cupcakes?" Hannah mused, trailing circles lazily on Connie's back.

Connie cursed, burying her face into the crook of Hannah's neck, "I knew I was forgetting something."

Hannah chuckled, "I don't think he noticed."

"We're bad parents." Connie moaned melodramatically, rolling onto her back and throwing an arm over her face.

Hannah propped herself up on an elbow and gently grabbed Connie's hand planting a kiss on her knuckles reassuringly.

Connie's eyes snapped open and she gasped, "Where's your whiskers?" Connie on multiple occasions had expressed how much she loved the grey thick hairs that lined the edges of Hannah's jawline.

Hannah huffed, "I shaved em'."

“Ah jeez…”

The bench below her was already soaked. Who the hell designs a park without shade over the damn benches???

“Great, who doesn’t want a soaked ass when you’re trying to wallow in self-pity”

She didn’t do it often, hell, she was damn sure it was illegal too. But when you got a shiny DPD badge and the gift of having no more shits left to give, you don’t really care all that much.

Maybe that’s what was dragging Hanna down, she just didn’t have any more fucks to give. For starters, drinking at a children’s playground.

Like a jackass

Or a grieving mother

Okay, that did sound bad. At least it was the middle of the night and she wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten here. Although some would say that’s even worse…

‘Petrichor…’

She had remembered reading it in some old catalog at work when she was meant to be working, the smell of rain or whatever bullshit it had said.

Words, meanings, technicalities, none of it mattered right now. The smell of rain always did something funny to her head…rainy days with Cole while they played hooky. Eating slightly burnt grilled cheeses and tomato soup from a can.

The smell of rain on park slides, the way the sand started clumping together, that stupid soft faux shit that always hurt kids more than regular good concrete. She bet there was some comparison to make to how things changed for the worse over the years but she couldn’t think of one.

Nor did she really want to, if you were to ask her ‘why?’ Well, first she would scowl at you and then ask you to be more specific because she isn’t a mind reader. But she knew what you meant.

Why go here? Why go here when you only know it’s going to hurt?

And under all of it, it would be ‘Because.’ Because she knows it hurts. She knows it’ll drag her deeper and deeper until she has finally burned all the bridges she’s managed to keep.

The rain had finally made its way through that god awful shirt she had, blue, yellow, white. Almost looked like the day after one of these ‘solo investigations’.

God… drinking at a children’s park? Lying to her job about what she was doing? You don’t really think you’ve hit rock bottom until you've been staring at it and it stares right back at you.

Maybe…maybe there was no up anymore. What if this was the end. Pushing 54 at a job that’s killing her faster than her liver. Forgetting days- no, forgetting weeks. But maybe that was a blessing in disguise, she wouldn’t remember people’s faces enough to even think about whether they would care if one day she just-

“Lieutenant Anderson, correct? It took me a while to find you, I was having trouble tracking you down after you left your car at Jimmy’s.”

A politely dressed woman stood in front of her. Dark brown, neat hair, with the exception of a few pieces out of place, still completely dry. The rain seemed to roll right off her weirdly pressed clothes, like the outfit had never seen a drop of water.

“Huhwhatthefuckwhoareyou-?!”

The words tumbled faster than her brain could register them while the rain drummed down to a low hum and a black umbrella settled over her head. Not that it mattered much, she’d already been soaked for the last ten minutes. It was more the thought of the gesture than anything.

Constance’s eyes moved over the empty playground for a moment almost lost in thought. The swings, the slides, the clumps of wet sand under her flats.

Her previous assignment had involved children, in a sense. Plastic ones. Ones that never got cold or scraped their knees. Or at least not like real human children could.

“My apologies, I should have introduced myself sooner. I am ‘RK800’ designated ‘Constance’ model. My previous main directive was to make sure the new CyberLife line of children Androids were calibrated correctly. But with model expansion I was moved to assisting alongside the DPD with their investigations.”

“Wow. Impressive. Went from one type of babysitting to another kind, real impressive.”

Her eyes glared at the thing in front of her, the damn LED giving her a headache as her hand came up to block her eyes.

“Well I was informed you would be a handful from the placement process, but I suppose I am the most qualified one to work with someone with a rap sheet as long as yours.”

If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a small hint of a smile to its-her…? face, the freckles scattered across her cheeks like stars. Didn’t even know androids could do that. Or talk back, for that matter, maybe they did stick her with something that could keep up.

“Now Lieutenant, should I remind you that drinking on public property is against the law. The fact that we are currently sitting in a children’s playground does not help your case. Or would you rather me add that to your continuing list of violations?”

The street lamps caught against the wrinkles of her face as she poured the rest of the bottle, not that there was much left of it, onto the sand. Huh. Almost funny…the way the light caught on it. Almost made it the color of…

Whatever.

Not like it mattered anymore

Not like anything mattered

“Did they run out of all the other happy plastic pricks or did they just program you with a stick up your ass?”

A grunt came from her lips. The taste of alcohol and lingering menthol coated her tongue.

If this job wasn’t gonna kill her this damn android sure as hell was.

“My social relations program was customized to fit alongside my handler. I assure you I am merely just programmed to reflect your particular… teaching style.”

There was a beat of silence as they stared at one another, unsure of the other’s intentions.

“Unless you would like me to change it?”

“Goddamnfuckingandroids”

Although the anger didn’t exactly reach her eyes, she let out a low groan, getting up from the soaked bench that still smelled of crayons and sneakers.

“I believe my name is ‘Constance’, although you can always call me Con, or if you would like to replace my name altogether I can hand you the allotted paperwork.”

“Paperwork? Thought you knew there was everything to know about me, asshole, would rather keep calling you ‘thatfuckingandroid’ than have to do even more paperwork than what keeps me from getting fired.”

A silence fell between the two women as they walked, or, well, Hanna stumbled slightly in step with the younger android. The rain started to let up slightly as they walked along the wet pavement, now just a few scattered patters along the trail. But nevertheless the Android still held the umbrella above her new handler’s head.

Rain had soaked through Hanna’s hair, bringing out the slight waves she still had. Water clung to her lashes or maybe they were tears. Constance wasn’t sure, but something about those eyes told her not to analyze further. Even if there was something in her programming that wanted just one last look.

She told herself it was for profile cataloging.

“Where the fuck are we even going -fuck-, because I swear to god if I have to walk my ass all the way with you all the way down to my house, I’ll be on the news again and we both know it won’t be for any outstanding police work.”

She hated the way she felt her body lean towards the damn Android, why was she even warm? Why did they even send her one? Why wouldn’t she just be left the fuck alone? Why was she holding the umbrella out for her? Why did she look at her like that?

Why…

Why did someone still care about her?

“The same way I arrived here, Lieutenant. I have not been registered a car yet so…I flagged down a taxi with my CyberLife model access code. It gives me basic necessities related to my ongoing task until my allocated vehicle and other items are registered to me.”

“You’re weird ya know that?”

It sounded warmer than she wanted it to, but the alcohol was making it hard to come up with anything more snarky than that. And maybe that was the truth, that was the most snarky thing she could say about this stupid Android.

“Let’s get you home, Lieutenant.”

//AN:

BLAHH AH

This was so fun to do YAY! It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this and forgot how much I enjoyed writing even if it did take 5 years off my life beta-ing it myself