Hobbies

Hank always loved puzzles.

Sometimes he had help… Though Uncle Dipper really couldn’t because he knew where every piece was and could solve it in two minutes and that wasn’t fun. Acacia lost patience too quickly, and Willow was good for ten or twenty minutes before she Saw something that caught her attention and then she stared off into space.

His best helpers were usually Mom or Dad, even though Mom usually had the tendency to try and shoehorn pieces in where they really didn’t go.

At the end of the day though, there was nothing like just sitting in the quiet (or as quiet as it got at the Shack) for a few hours, and making order out of disorder, stability out of chaos.

(When Hank and Vivienne had children of their own, one of his favorite things to do with all four of his kids was to sit down with a 10000 piece puzzle across the living room floor and spend a rainy afternoon trying to solve it)

—————–

The Normal One

Hank was six when he heard himself described as “the normal one” for the first time.

Even at six Hank realized he probably wasn’t supposed to hear Ms. Tilly talking to two of the other teachers, but on the other hand they were talking in front of him like he wasn’t there so.

“Which one was Hank again?” Mr. Stepanov asked.

“Oh you know, he’s the normal one,” Ms. Tilly laughingly responded.

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Redhook the gym teacher said.

“Oh, you know, Acacia gets in to so much trouble that girl, and Willow…Willow is…herself but Hank is nice and normal. No trouble that one; he’s a nice rest after dealing with his sisters….”

The conversation moved on to something else, and Hank went to go play on the swings, hoping to get rid of that sick feeling in his stomach the words he heard had brought with them.

Hank tried over the years to act as odd as possible, so people would stop calling him ‘the normal one.”

Stop treating his Mom and Willow and Acacia as somehow wrong just because they were different and bright and wonderful, and he was somehow better than them just because he was calm, and turned in his work on time.

So Hank played hide and seek by himself, and talked at the air (different from when he was talking to Uncle Dipper) and went on and on about how he really liked clowns, and did his best Willow impression and stared off into the air at times (Willow smacked him on the shoulder the first time she saw him do it and he stopped soon after that.)

But none of it seemed to work; mainly because Hank couldn’t change who he was (and honestly, no one in his family would have ever wanted that). He was still Hank who baked cookies for the whole class, who held the door open for everyone, who ran track, who liked computers.

Maybe it didn’t bother his sisters and his mom but it bothered Hank. And if he had to be “the normal one” then damn if he wouldn’t at least make sure that no one ever made fun of his family in front of him.

———–

Hank and Dipper

Some of Hank’s most treasured memories involved the violin, and Uncle Dipper.

He remembered Uncle Dipper taking Hank’s hands in his larger ones, to show him how to hold the violin, to draw the bow across the strings.

Uncle Dipper showing him how to read music, the hats on the lines and the little dot that meant three notes. Later when it came to try on the violin, Uncle Dipper had made the strings light up with what note was where on the instrument.

There was the first time he played Uncle Dipper a song he wrote himself. Sure it was twelve measures long and sounded like a song that Hank had heard his Mom sing a lot, but Uncle Dipper had teared up, and grabbed Hank up into his arms when he was done playing,

“I loved it Hank,” Uncle Dipper exclaimed and Hank had never felt so proud.

Countless jam sessions with his Uncle in high school, at Oregon State and busking with Dipper to make a few extra dollars, playing for Myrtle and Linden when they had trouble falling asleep.

(Decades later, as Hank’s coffin was lowered into the ground, Dipper played the first song his nephew ever wrote.)

——-

Hank and Will

Bombarded as she was every day with the emotions of everyone around her, the various sprites and sights most people’s eyes slid over even in this post-Transcendence world, and homework, Willow usually spent part of her day trying to get some quiet time in.

Sometimes Hank joined her, because he could use some quiet as well and he had run out of puzzles to do.

They played endless rounds of chess, of checkers and Monopoly, rummy and crazy 8s, and several games they made up themselves.

No words were needed between the two of them, no sound necessary.

Just Hank and his sister, cherishing the quiet, and time spent with each other.

——

Dating

Once Mabel thought that it would be Acacia who dated around in high school, and Hank the one who would marry a high school partner.

She was pretty spectacularly wrong.

There was Qamra, who was the first person that Hank ever went out with, who smelled like jasmine and ink, and drew flowers on all her homework assignments.

Edward with the surprisingly talented hands, and perpetually crooked glasses.

Margarita who could out-program him any day of the week and had a laugh that was kind of like a horse but Hank still loved hearing it, hearing her voice.  

Harper who was on the track and field team too. She couldn’t out run him but she was a demon on the hurdles, which Hank had never managed to get the hang of.

Hiroto who barely ever spoke, but made up for it with the leaves of poetry he pressed in books, in hands, across the cafeteria table.

Lillian with hair down to her back that his mom once spent three hours playing with, much to his embarrassment and her bemusement.

Maia who practically lived in the Chemistry classroom, and always had an acrid, smoky smell coming off her in waves.

And there were more as well. Sometimes it lasted a month, sometimes three or four, but never longer than that.

But the breakups were always amicable, and Hank stayed friends with all of his former partners, and could be counted on to know what half of his and his sister’s graduating class was up to after high school thanks to his network of friends and former flames.

(Sometimes Hank worried that there was something wrong with him, the way that after a few months he ended up feeling more friendship than romance towards his boyfriends and girlfriends, that there was something in him that was broken and could never feel love. Which was ridiculous, as his mother and sisters told him, but he couldn’t help the way that he felt.)

Then in his world history survey course freshman year at Oregon State he met Vivienne Chen.)