Chapter Text
"Hank."
Hank shoved his face into his pillow and tried to drown out Jeffrey's voice with his owned forced snoring. It had to be the middle of the goddamned night. Jeffrey's midnight crisis could wait.
"Hank, you bastard. Wake up!"
Jeffrey thudded to the floor. Hank could feel him leaning over the bunk, his great awful bulk blocking out the little trickle of window light . Hank hugged his pillow around his ears and snored louder. Jeffrey flicked the side of his face.
"What the fuck , Jeffrey!" Hank flopped onto his back and tossed the pillow at Jeffrey's face.
Jeffrey caught it and shoved it right back at him," Don't be a dick."
" You don't be a dick," Hank's lip curled," I'm fucking sleeping."
"I got it," Jeffrey shoved his arm under Hank's nose," I fucking got it ."
Hank blinked blearily in the darkness, trying his get his eyes to adjust to the shitty light. Jeffrey was grinning. Ear to ear, a real shit eating grin if Hank ever saw one. Hank adjusted his gaze and Jeffrey's arm came into focus. 'Madison Reyes' was scrawled across his forearm in looping, messy letters.
"Fuck," said Hank.
"Yeah, right?" Jeffrey reeled his arm back against his stomach and stared down at it.
"Looks like you're gonna get hitched to a doctor. Can barely read that shit."
Jeffrey punched his shoulder. Hank rolled with it and sprawled back over his pillow.
"Took you long enough to get it," said Hank. He rubbed his own bare wrist. Bad habit. He'd scratched the skin red raw, but it was hard not to. Not when you were already eighteen and had no soul mark to speak of. Hank quashed down the sick ball of worry and kicked at Jeffrey.
"Like you can talk." Jeffrey caught his ankle and tossed it back on the cot. He scrambled back to his own bunk. "I bet she's going to be great. Madison."
"She'll have to be a saint to put up with you."
"Yours is probably going to be a nun."
Hank kicked the top bunk, satisfied when Jeffrey let out a grunt of pain. It petered out into a bark of laughter.
"No fucking for you, Hank! Gotta be pure in the eyes of god."
"Shut the fuck up, Jeffrey. Mine's gonna be way hotter than Madison."
"You keep praying, buddy."
They continued until their bickering dwindled off into sleepy murmurs. Jeffrey's snores filled the room, dead asleep. Hank stared quietly at his arm and rubbed his bare wrist.
It's alright. He thought. People can be late bloomers. Jeffrey had three years on him. He's got time. It'll come.
____________________________________
The soul mark never came.
Hank spent a lot of time being worried about it as a kid. Less than 5% of the population lacked a soul mark, a soul mate. Nothing to do with sexuality or gender or romantic compatibility. Hank had met plenty of soul mates who oozed compatibility and companionship, but never considered themselves part of a romantic relationship . Hank had trysts. One night stands with people who didn't think they needed to save themselves for their soul mate. Didn't have one, or lost them. Hank never expected anything long term out of any of them. Got used to being alone. Didn't exactly love it, but got used to it.
He met Tiffany when he was 43. She had a soul mark, a woman's name in sweeping elegant print so large it took up most of her left arm. Tiff never talked about her. Hank never asked.
They sort-of dated, meeting up in seedy bars where they shared a vape. Some sticky sweet flavor Tiffany was fond of, and Hank was fond of seeing her smile, so it worked. She thought Hank was handsome, cutting a sharp figure in his police officer's uniform. He was clean shaven back then, only a little salt and pepper threading through his cropped blond hair. She was pretty cute herself, curvy and plump with dark hair and light eyes.
They got drunk. Forgot protection. Tiffany placated them both. She was in her forties, nothing would come of it. It's fine. It's all fine.
Six weeks dragged by before Hank got another phone call from her.
"I'm pregnant." Her voice was hard and stony, but Hank could hear the tremble of fear underneath it.
Hank examined his blank arm as anxiety rocked through him," Okay."
"I don't want a kid, Hank. I've got..." she trailed off. Hank could fill in the blanks. A life. A job. A future. A soul mate.
"Hey, it's your choice, Tiff. I've got your back." Even as he said it, something hard and awful twinged in his chest. He choked it down. Not his body, not his place, not his choice.
Tiffany fell quiet, her unsteady breathing filling the silent space between them. Finally," Do you want the baby?"
The awful twinge erupted into bright, shattering sparks. Relief. No , Hank thinks. He doesn't want a baby. He can't have a baby. He's in his forties. He's a cop. He works odd hours and he'd never be home for the kid. But... he's got a good income. He could support a kid. Get child care to make up for all the hours Hank spends walking the beat. He could... have that. He doesn't have a soul mate, he never will. But he could have a kid.
"Yeah," said Hank. The hard feeling in his gut disintegrated," Yeah, if you're willing to have the baby, I'll keep them."
Tiffany sighed, blessed relief," Thank-you, Hank."
"Nah," Hank chuckled," Thank-you." He could feel it. The happiness. Deep and bright inside himself.
_____________________________________________
Hank found out what it meant to really love someone on September 23, 2029, when Tiffany passed him his baby boy. So small and bright and perfect in every fucking way there is to be perfect. Hank's chest was ready to burst from the pressure of it. The great big, ball of love growing inside himself. He cried. Big, fat fucking tears rolling down his cheeks and into the grooves of his smile. Tiffany reached for his hand.
"What's his name?" she asked. Low, awed.
"Cole," said Hank, choking back his tears," His name is Cole."
It was the happiest Hank had ever been in his life.
He doesn't need a soul mate. He has a son.
____________________________________________
2am in the fucking morning on October 11, Hank's entire world shattered.
Bandaged and bloodied, Hank paced the corridors of the hospital. Every movement hurt like hell, but he couldn't stop. Couldn't sit down. Didn't want to. If he stopped, all he could see was Cole's crumpled body under the ruined chassis of his car. Blood everywhere. Hank's fingers slick with it when he managed to scramble for the police radio and call for help.
That had been hours and hours ago. A lifetime. Hank's lifetime.
2 am oozed into being and a woman headed down the hallway toward him. He couldn't see her. Couldn't see passed his own hands. His own grief. She settled a hand on his shoulder and he reared back, eyes wild.
Not a woman. The LED on her brow flashed an ugly, calming blue.
Fucking androids.
"I'm sorry," she said.
But of course she wasn't. She couldn't be. She was a goddamned machine and she didn't know the meaning of the word sorry.
"We couldn't save him."
Hank howled a terrible wounded noise. His knees cracked on the tile floor.
He deserves this. For cheating the system. For making something the universe hadn't intended on creating. 6 years of joy with the most perfect human being on this planet ripped away from him, because he was never supposed to have this to begin with .
Hank was done . Finished.
With all of it.
_____________________________________________
The summer of 2038 blazed with sweltering heat. Hank sweated in an old shirt and did what he always did in the evening. Drank until he couldn't remember how to do anything else.
The house was stuffy and stale, stinking of sweat and the wreckage of week old take-out containers Hank couldn't
be bothered
to throw out
.
Sumo ate something
noisily
off the kitchen floor, but Hank ignored it and buried his face in another gulp of Black Lamb
. The coffee table was sticky with spilled whiskey. The bottle teetered
dangerously
over the corner. Hank curled his fingers around the grip of his revolver until his knuckles turned white. It was so heavy in his hand. His arm shook with the effort to muster the strength to point it at his temple one more time.
Fire shot up his arm.
His hand spasmed. The gun clattered to the floor.
Hank bolted upright, fighting the squelch of nausea surging up his throat.
Every nerve in his arm burned. A thousand worms trying to needle their way through his skin. Hank clasped a hand over it, trying to dull the pain. It didn't help. Hank staggered into the kitchen and shoved his wrist under the tap. The water did nothing. The burning roared up to his elbow, making Hank's teeth ache.
Hank bent over the sink and vomited his whiskey down the drain.
The pain stopped. The sudden flood of endorphins drove Hank to his knees, leaning hard against the cupboard doors . Hank wiped the grime from his beard with shaking hands.
He held his arm out in front of him.
313 248 317 - 51
Bold. Black. Perfect Cyberlife Sans font. Exactly where a soul mark should be.
"Fuck," Hank dragged his thumbnail over the numbers," Fuck no."