Chapter Text
The family photo albums were all packed away in storage boxes in the garage, where they had been for years since Hank had moved into this house. His ex-wife had taken digital copies of them all after the divorce, but Hank had insisted on keeping the originals himself. One day maybe he’d be strong enough to look through them again, watch the home videos again, revisit those happy memories again…but not just yet. He only kept one picture of Cole out at all, and it hurt to look at it every single time. But the pictures of his son, his ex-wife, and Hank all together…No, he couldn’t handle facing those yet.
Connor had been delicate when they’d cleaned out the garage last week. The boxes of albums were clearly labeled, and the android had been careful as he moved them around. Now the garage was successfully decluttered, and from where Hank was taking a break in the living room, he could hear Connor shuffling things around outside: dividing all the stuff into piles of trash, donations, and keeps.
Hank’s back had threatened to go out on him after lifting one heavy thing too many, and Connor had gently bullied him into taking a break in the house while he finished this weekend’s project. Honestly, just seeing the boxes—not even opening them—had taken the wind of his sails, and so he hadn’t fought Connor too much on it before retreating to the living room with a sports drink.
He didn’t take many pictures anymore. He hadn’t had much reason to. Odd, how for such a painfully short stint of time, their lives were so well-documented in pictures and home movies. He couldn’t think of a single day that he hadn’t taken several pictures of the everyday life of their family of three. It had been followed by a several-year period of nothingness. No pictures. No videos. No timestamps to mark the progression of time. Years of his life left in the white noise.
Hank frowned, picking up his phone and turning it idly in his hands before unlocking the screen.
Even the lock-screen and home-screen on his phone were just the blank default colors that they had been from the manufacturer. Pursing his lips, he absentmindedly touched the icon of his stored photos on the device…and was surprised when several pictures came up. Sure, he had taken a few pictures over the past year, but mostly of the mundane. A few oddball pictures of the days after the revolution, when the city had become one enormous liminal space that they were all figuring out how to navigate in the wake of the upheaval. A picture of the contact information of some guy who had dinged Hank’s car in the grocery store parking lot months ago. A barcode on a filing cabinet for sale, where he’d thought he could find it cheaper at another store…He’d never followed up on that one…
And pictures of Connor.
He wasn’t sure why he was surprised to find these pictures; he’d been the one to take them all. Still, he had become someone who didn’t linger on Memory Lane, and looking at the pictures now was like seeing them for the first time. The jog to his memory was pleasant this time, rather than painful. Most of the pictures were clearly ones that he’d taken sneakily without Connor noticing. Just stealthily capturing moments that he’d found endearing, and they brought a helpless grin to his face now.
Among them, there was an up-angle picture of Connor, when the two of them had been working on the Oldsmobile. Hank had been trying to turn on the flashlight feature on his phone and accidentally taken a picture instead. Connor was looking down at the camera with a casual expression, looking a little put-out over Hank’s insistence on fixing the car himself.
There was a picture of Connor coming back toward the car from the Chicken Feed, arms laden with bags full of Hank’s favorite food…celebrating his one-year sobriety. Connor was looking up the street to make sure it was safe to cross, but Hank could remember the spring in the android’s step and the quick smile on his face as he’d expressed how happy and proud he was of Hank for that accomplishment. Hank’s stomach had punished him later for all that greasy food, but Connor had had the good graces not to point that out.
The next picture was Connor standing in the driveway, soaking wet, after Hank had turned the hose on him for angsting all over the yard after the driveway had been vandalized with blue paint. Connor looked indignant, hair plastered to his head and his clothes clinging to his body. He’d tried so hard to be mad and offended over Hank spraying him with the hose…so Hank had just kept spraying until they were both laughing.
Connor was almost as soaking wet in the next photo, but he was more covered in soap bubbles. In the aftermath of trying to give Sumo a bath, Connor was attempting to towel-dry the large dog in the bathroom. Hank had nearly pissed himself laughing at the sight of Connor, Sumo, and mountains of soap bubbles spilling over the tub and piled on Connor’s head.
Hank snorted as he slowly scrolled through the pictures, his chest feeling warm and knotted as he kept going.
The next picture had bad lighting, and he recalled it as taking place during the snowstorm power outage months back. They had both been miserable, but Hank had apparently had the wherewithal to snag this picture of Connor curled up on the floor next to Sumo. The dog was splayed out on his side, and Connor had made himself as small as possible as he’d bundled up against Sumo’s warm fur. Connor’s expression was grumpy in sleep mode, but during those hellishly cold days, it had been a kind of grumpy that made Hank relax a little…knowing he wasn’t suffering through that alone.
The picture after that was one Hank had taken during his brief flu. At the time, he’d been trying to catch Connor in the act of doing too much and overreacting, but he’d never confronted Connor with this evidence. The evidence in question was Connor in the kitchen, making an absolute mess as he tried to organize the comical amount of soup that he’d ordered for Hank. The bowls were piled up all over the counter, and the android looked more than a little stressed at choosing the ‘correct’ soup that Hank would like.
Hank actually chuckled out loud at that one, but he quickly sobered as he reached the next images.
The next several pictures were just a sequential timelapse of Connor’s facial injuries after the car accident last month. The damage to his cheek had healed pretty quickly, but his lip had remained dark and swollen for several days after the incident. The pictures looked like mugshots, as Connor had also been curious as to how long it would take for the damage to visually mend itself.
But God, Hank hated that first image. It was of Connor sitting on the couch, bundled up in a hoodie and holding an ice pack against his mouth. It was taken the night of the accident, and his cheek had swollen up so badly that it distorted his eye somewhat. He was looking at Hank forlornly, with an expression mixed between “I’m okay, please don’t be upset” and “this hurts, please make it stop.” It made Hank’s chest ache, and he quickly scrolled to the end of the timelapse images, where Connor’s face was back to normal, and he was tentatively smiling about it.
The last picture was from last weekend’s project: tackling the yard work. Connor had eventually gotten covered in grass clippings and soil from working all day, and he had shamelessly dawned a large straw gardening hat that he’d found God only knew where. It was ridiculous looking on him, but it had helped him stay cool. So Hank had just snagged a picture of him wearing it while working in the sun.
The front door of the house clicked open, and Hank scrolled back up through the pictures, glancing across them all fondly.
“Everything that you designated as a Keep item has been put back in the garage,” Connor announced as he entered the house. “I’ve moved the trash to the curb for tomorrow’s pickup, and we can take the donation items to a drop off center later.”
“Sounds good,” Hank said idly, gesturing to the couch. “Take a load off.”
Connor retrieved a bottle of chilled thirium from the fridge and joined Hank on the couch.
“How is your back?” he asked, twisting the lid off and taking a drink.
Hank lifted a hand and rubbed his neck. “It’s still bitching at me, but some stretching should keep it from locking up too badly.”
Connor hummed, glancing at the phone before looking back at the door. “I thought Sumo followed me in—” He popped back up on his feet, heading for the door.
Hank watched him go, then looked at his phone again. The picture of Connor and Sumo post-bubble path was pretty hilarious…He smiled to himself and quickly opted to set the picture as his home-screen. He left the lock-screen as it was, but that would be a funny picture to greet him every time he opened his phone maybe.
Getting an idea, he looked back over the couch. Connor was standing in the open doorway, sunlight pouring in as he called for Sumo. Between the bottle of thirium in his hand and his faded t-shirt and jeans: the android looked unusually at ease and casual today. He could get so wound up and stiff about things sometimes…It was nice to see him relaxed…or as relaxed as an RK800 could be.
“Hey, Con,” Hank called over.
Connor looked at him, and Hank swiftly lifted his phone and snapped a picture. Connor blinked at him, then smiled curiously.
“What was that for?”
Hank snickered and looked at the image. There was nothing special about it…literally just Connor standing in the doorway holding a drink and looking at Hank with his eyebrows raised.
But now it was a moment that had been captured. A blip on the timeline that proved that this moment had happened. No, it wasn’t special. It wasn’t posed. It wasn’t marking some pivotal moment in time…but Hank still felt compelled to capture it somehow. After years of the white noise, it was just a simple thing that reminded him…life kept moving. It was up to him if he wanted to participate in it or not. And after years of the white noise, he finally had a reason to.
“Just,” Hank started, shrugging his shoulders. “Trying to start taking more pictures again. Maybe…start a new family album or…something.”
Connor’s curious expression softened, and he smiled, glancing down as Sumo padded past him into the house. He looked at Hank again.
“Well...You don’t have to be sneaky like that. We can pose for better pictures—”
“No, no.” Hank shook his head with a laugh. “Candids are always my favorite over posed. C’mere, let me show you some.”
Connor smiled and returned to his seat on the couch beside Hank. “Hank, I look silly in these—”
“That’s why I like ‘em!” Hank chuckled.
Connor leaned over and watched as Hank scrolled through some of the pictures. His face playfully frowned after a moment.
“I still don’t understand why you laughed so much at my gardening hat.”
“Because it was enormous and had an embroidered hummingbird on it!”
“It was very functional—”
“Where did you even FIND that thing?”
“Why? Do you want a matching one?”
“No!...Maybe.”
Connor laughed at that, and their lighthearted squabbling filled the living room. It all left Hank feeling lighter than he had in a long time, and the white noise finally began to fade.