Chapter Text
Hank's therapist had told him to find a place he could feel calm or centered, somewhere he could go that wasn't work or a bar or his too-quiet house. He stares at the plant on his desk, the poor thing still wilted a bit after months of neglect despite his recent efforts, and thinks about the public garden near the station. He's never been; it was created fairly recently, within the last decade, and he hasn't had the time or the inclination to visit parks or the like, lately.
Today, though, it sounds like it might be nice.
He wanders over on his lunch break; it's only a few blocks from the station and while the air is cool, the early-spring sun keeps him warm enough.
Hank starts to feel a bit silly as he enters the garden gate and sees the other visitors: young professionals looking for a quiet spot to eat their takeaway lunches, nannies chatting while the toddlers in their care peer wide-eyed at a cluster of crocuses, a group of elderly women strolling slowly along the path. He feels out of place, and as he stops to admire a huge patch of daffodils, butter-yellow and delicate pale peach, he has the sudden conviction that it's ridiculous for him to be here at all. For him to want to appreciate something beautiful for a moment.
Still. He came all the way here, and he'd feel even sillier turning around and leaving immediately. So he picks a direction and starts walking. Once Hank's far enough down the path he chose, the sounds of the street and the excited children near the entrance fade away. It's rare for him to be anywhere other than his own home and be surrounded by such quiet.
As he rounds a bend in the path, Hank's hit with an intense, sweet scent wafting from somewhere nearby. It's familiar, he thinks, but he can't quite place it.
He follows the scent to a pair of bushes covered in cone-shaped clusters of deep magenta flowers. They're tall enough that he can lean in and smell them without bending over and he does so, being careful to avoid the bees making their way from flower to flower.
"Shit, that's nice," he says aloud, after a deep inhale. The scent is perfumey and thick, and reminds him distantly of playing in the yard at his great-aunt's house, years and years ago. "I wonder what the hell these are?"
"This is an early-blooming lilac varietal," a voice answers from behind the larger bush, and Hank just barely manages not to yelp in surprise.
"Jesus, you startled me," he says, stepping around the lilac bushes to get a better look at whoever's there. A young man in a Detroit Parks polo shirt is crouched next to the bush, clippers in hand. He's pretty, Hank thinks, and curses himself for it. No one like that needs Hank drooling over him, even subtly.
But he really is cute, damn it, and tall, Hank realizes, as he stands up. "I apologize for surprising you," the man says cautiously. "My intention was to be helpful."
Hank sees a flash of yellow as the man turns to face him more directly and realizes, in a second moment of surprise, that he's an android. Not a face model he recognizes, and certainly not a standard groundskeeping model. He sets the thought aside; it doesn't matter, really, and he's been doing his best lately to look at androids as people. Just people.
Seeing a face he doesn't recognize makes it easier, in many ways. No memories or experiences to pin to it. "Eh," he says, waving off the android's apology, "don't worry about it. Guess I know what this is now, anyway." He takes another sniff, this one from the bush the android is in the middle of pruning. "Lilac, huh. Can you--can you smell this?" He looks at the android's carefully neutral face. He looks wary, and Hank wonders if he's being an ass. "Is that a rude question?"
He smiles, and his dark (gorgeous, Hank thinks, despite his best efforts) eyes light up. "Oh, not at all! I can't smell the way you can, exactly, but it's still a pleasant experience."
"Oh, well," Hank says. "That's good, at least." He flounders, not sure of what else to say. "Do you, uh. Do you work here?" Hank asks the question, of course, while staring at the man's shirt, which is emblazoned with a park logo. His knees are stained with fresh soil. The answer is obvious. "Shit, of course you do, sorry. I'm not great at conversation, most days."
"It's fine," the man says. He laughs, but it doesn't seem like he's laughing at Hank. "People rarely try to make conversation with me at all." He sets his shears down in the bucket next to the lilac bush and steps closer to Hank. "But yes, this is my job. Taking care of the plants, keeping things neat. Answering questions, if visitors have them, but." He shrugs. "As I said, I don't get a lot of those."
Hank scratches the back of his neck and wishes he had another question to ask.
"I haven't seen you here before," the man says, cocking an eyebrow as he looks at Hank in a way he hasn't had anyone look at him in a long time. Surely he's imagining it. "Are you new to the area?"
"Hell no," Hank mumbles. "I've been here forever. I work down the street a bit, just. Trying something new on my lunch break." He sighs as he looks at the rows of tulips flanking the path ahead and the small grove of cherry trees just starting to bloom across the clearing. "I'd rather keep walking than go back, honestly, but I should probably get going."
"Oh! All right," the man says. He looks a little disappointed, but Hank understands the feeling of having to get back to work when you've found a way to slack off for a minute. It's not about him. "I hope you'll come back," the man says. "Maybe I'll see you again."
"Maybe so," Hank responds. He gives the man a nod and turns to go, but he steps to the side, neatly intercepting him, and holds out his hand.
"I'm Connor, by the way," he says, and Hank has no choice but to take his hand and shake it.
"Hank," he says. Connor's hand is smooth, not roughened by work the way a human's would be despite the labor he does. Hank absently notices how long and delicate his fingers are, and immediately tries to put the detail out of his mind. He wants to say something polite, that it was nice to meet him or that he hopes to see him again, but the words all stick and die in his mouth. Connor's just another lovely thing in a garden of lovely things, something Hank doesn't quite feel like he's allowed to admire.
(Not just a thing at all, of course, but Hank feels even less proper looking at Connor the way he wants to than he would a beautiful flower.)
"Well, Hank," Connor says cheerfully, pulling Hank back out of his thoughts, "I'm glad you stopped by." He reaches down for the shears and Hank takes this as his cue to leave but before he can take more than a step away, Connor's next to him again, holding out a small sprig of lilac flowers and deep green leaves. "Here," he says.
Hank frowns. "I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that. 'The garden's for everyone,' and all that, right?"
Connor shrugs. "My hand slipped," he says. "I was trimming the dead branches, and I made an error. Perhaps I was distracted." Then he winks, so blatantly there's no way Hank could be imagining it, and offers the flowers again. "It would be a shame for this to go to waste, wouldn't it? Just because I made a mistake? Someone should enjoy it."
Hank snorts and reaches for the lilacs, but instead of handing them over, Connor moves in even closer and tucks the stem into the breast pocket of Hank's old coat. He barely realized he had a breast pocket, but the flowers tucked inside are all the evidence he needs to know it's there.
Connor fussily arranges it just so, and pats Hank's pocket once he's done, as if to make sure his work is secure. The tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips as he adjusts the flowers to his liking, and Hank forces himself to look away until he finishes and takes a step back. "I do hope I'll see you again, Hank," he says. "I'm never in the same place, of course, but if you come back, I'd like it if you said hello."
"I'll look for you," Hank says, and he isn't sure he really means it, but the smile on Connor's face when he says it is sweet enough that he knows he won't be able to resist.
He turns with a final wave and ambles back to the office, not caring that some of the guys look at him funny when he walks in with his head bent down so he can catch the scent of the flowers in his coat. Hank rinses out an old mug, fills it with clean water, and pops the lilacs in it first thing when he gets to his desk.
"Where'd you get that?" calls one of the young detectives Hank never remembers the name of, Ells or Elias or something. "You got an admirer?"
"None of your goddamn business," Hank grouses, and the detective laughs and walks away, but he nudges one of the glossy leaves with his finger and remembers how close Connor had stood to him, and that bold, too-obvious wink. "Shit, maybe I do," he says to himself. He's already stopped pretending he won't be back the next day.