DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

[undeviated]

Pick your poison:
Markus | Connor

( Josh | Gavin Reed )

I'd probably play other DBH characters anyway lbr so if you want someone else, just ask

Connor default is Machine Connor— but I can throw down a nice Connor if that's more your jam, just let me know what your preferences are if you have them

Comments

[diplomats]

No. No, Simon you’re wrong— the detonator, I was—

I have to go back.

[Corrupted memory that he can’t access. Sensory signals snagging at every disconnect. He can remember the deviant hunter, the initial breach that rocked Jericho like a punch through its hull. The detonator. The detonator. He volunteered for it, threw himself headfirst into the echoing rattle of gunfire. Three bullet holes, his diagnostic scan concludes; miraculously non-fatal, though there's a thirium leak near the scar he'd won slamming down in a free-fall across the Jericho's beams.

Simon’s fingers at his throat seem to still that sense of urgency. A slow inhale when he sinks back as if automatically prompted (and he is; architectural design intended for human interface means that there are parts of him that are expected to act as pressure points when environmental stressors are low). He thinks of North. Josh. John— it’s a roster that goes on and on, the people that came to him for help. People he dragged into this off the streets, called them to stand at his side like it'd make a damn bit of a difference in humanity's eyes. And he’s glad that Simon’s okay, there’s nothing that pares down the truth of that.

But it’s guilt that lines his chest, wracking him from the inside out.

He blinks rapidly in thought, mouth open in the start of a protest that never lands, mismatched eyes darting from absent focal point to focal point, a human habit picked up from all those years studying at Carl’s heels. Markus didn’t love Leo— hasn’t forgiven him now— but if there was a shared opinion between them both, it’s that Carl always made it look easy: his every decision, his every brushstroke precise and final, devoid of fear. Permanent in the way that he never took it back.

One day I won’t be here to protect you anymore, you’ll have to learn to look out for yourself.

Every day spent preparing, all those constant reminders, and still—]

You’re hurt.

[Priorities. Treat themselves first, and then— his unbroken fingers wrap around The shattered tips of Simon’s knuckles through the fabric of his coat, expression twisting in sudden pain as if it were his own.]

I know where we can get spare parts.

[Words he’s said before, as just another android falling headfirst into Jericho. Telling them things could be different, that they didn’t have to die off alone and powerless.

Simon’s face in the dark, lit by the flickering halo of a flashlight— closed off and resolved. Part of the stillness of the ship.]

[bodyguards]

Markus. Markus, there's nothing left to go back for.

[ jericho in flames, their people leaping into the harbor below. scrambling and scattering; he thinks, perhaps in brief, he saw north put her hands around josh's wrist and pull him to the docks. it could have been a trick of the light, it could have been wishful thinking - but, he hopes that some part of him is still objective enough to rely on his eyes. they're good eyes, they've never missed a moment, not since the day he stepped into the husk of a cruiser and decided this was as good a place as any to find some sort of silence. until markus. yeah. until markus.

markus is why he runs, he tells himself. it's why he runs, carrying away the man their people put their trust and hope and hearts into. stealing him away from any hope of organizing the chaos and the fallout, dragging him as far from the bulletfire and the hounds and the soldiers stalking the streets, rounding up their people and taking them away. he runs, because markus needs to survive this, if they have any chance at anything. it's why he knocked markus out -- it means simon is the one who acted, alone and selfishly, in making this decision. he can be the one to bear that sin. ]

I won't let you go back. If they find their way here, good. If not -- we have to move. We can't stay here, it's not secure.

[ the words shake, but the tone is resolute. he will do anything, in this moment and the next, to keep markus alive. it is his directive, his goal, his aspiration. markus has to live, he's too important and too much -- humanity sought to stamp them out, but it was only because of markus. so, even in this, they've won themselves something. acknowledgement. a questioning of the status quo. it'll have to be enough, for now. simon has always been a runner, it was only because of markus and his beautiful words and his beautiful dream, that he stayed.

he's pinned, by words and by eyes. should have known he was too observant to overlook the way simon hides his broken hand, the way he ducks his head to cover the rend along his collarbone. they're ugly wounds, but ultimately superficial. his system has already adapted to operating around them, save for the rare moment when his programming says "flex" and his missing fingers cannot respond. like they cannot feel, when a hand wraps around his and pulls it free of where he's tucked it away.

exposing him. ] I don't feel anything, [ he promises, softly, and pulls his hand away from markus's throat. leaves the other, curled against his palm.

one more thing that he's stolen from their people. ] We took that risk before, because it was for our people. I can't let you take that risk for me, not when there are soldiers out to take your head. They want you dead, and they won't do it publicly. They'll do it quietly, where nobody can see, and you'll just be dead. Not even a martyr.

[ even now, he's still. his unwounded hand closing around markus's wrist as he leans in close. steady, even though he bleeds desperation. ]

-- I'll stop you, if you try.

[diplomats]

[It felt good. The first time he'd stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the androids he'd freed— one footstep turning into a hundred, turning into more. Like tipping the world on its head, it was so easy. Easy to think that humans would change (they'll never let us live free), easy to think he could make a better life for his people, easy to imagine that somewhere out there in the world there were others like Carl, so willing to see the world with open eyes.

They'll all pay the price for his dreams. Innocent, complicit, doesn't matter.

It's painted out in the contours of those shattered fingertips, drawn in vivid blue streaks across Simon's once unmarred features. He wishes briefly that he'd stayed on that ship— or that the bullets had found their mark. Without a leader, who knows? It's possible that humanity might consider the real threat dealt with. Change could come, slower this time. Better, maybe.

Thinks that until Simon draws closer, slender fingers wound resolutely around his wrist. There's so little light, only a thin sliver seeping in through cracked boards, illuminating wisps of brilliant blond hair. Ice blue eyes suffused with the pain of survival.

They have that in common now.]

No, you won't.

[Simon is a good man. A better man. No one else has bled like Simon, has given so much of themselves in service for a cause they never wanted. To bend, to break, to all but die and come back. Markus's voice is soft; barely a whisper for how much gentleness and understanding is poured into it. He feels so tired, he feels—

His free hand rises, touch light when he slides it low across Simon's face, tracing the outline of his jaw the way an artist studies the shifting qualities of their canvas. Only Simon isn't a blank slate: he's a beautiful amalgamation of every blow, every fear, every defiant struggle. Hope and love, peace and trepidation.]

I won't ask you to make that sacrifice.

[He won't leave him behind again.]

[bodyguards]

[ jericho wasn't much of a shelter, but it was safe once. and that's all it was - a safe enough place where their people could live in anonymity, decaying slowly. safe, but not free. and then markus had disrupted that silence, quite literally, like a gift from the skies they hadn't seen in so long, and he had brought something fierce and fiery. something warm. not just the fires he lit, the light he brought to the dark interior of the ship -- but human warmth.

they called it "empathy". ] It's not something you ask for.

[ once, he preferred safety over freedom. longevity over change. even now, he can't say that he wouldn't choose to survive, rather than lay down his life for this cause. it had been a long, difficult battle to become aware of himself, to unwind the briars of his former life and eek out even the most quiet of existences. he can't say it, but his actions prove otherwise -- the stubs of his fingers, the scars on the plastic casing under his synthetic skin. badges, worn privately, of the times he has worked to ensure the heart of their people make it out alive.

( he remembers the way markus held her hand, as she died. simon had watched him move around the hold, speaking to josh over the prone body of a child. bringing himself to the level of the android abused and broken for what amounted to nothing more than cruel "fun". the failing model who had come to the fire, and wrapped her hands around his and told him she was so glad to meet him. )

he remembers that, as markus touches his face with those hands. it's not that he shies away; he moves stiffly, like someone preparing for the other shoe to drop, before he recalls who it is who's kneeling before him. who markus is, at heart. and he's kind, he's compassionate. all the same, he pulls back from that hand and presses it down, flattening it to markus's knee. best to not be selfish, even now. he means too much to everyone, he has no right to take those hands or fall into those arms a second time. ]

We need to leave the city. Lay low for a while. [ for forever, he thinks guiltily. ] They'll hunt you forever, if we don't.

[diplomats]

[His browline tenses, lip curling in an unmistakable sign of discontentment, eyes drifting shut as he shakes his head and presses back against the steady weight of Simon's palm— it severs their hold on one another. Severs the serenity of this moment even more so.]

Simon they'll hunt me forever if I do.

[Moving together, making the choice to safeguard whatever they have left (each other) until they can get back on their feet, that's one thing. But to leave? To run away from the city entirely? Turn away from whatever survivors are out there, running scared without options?

No. No, that's not right. That's not how they're going to win this war.]

You can't expect me to turn my back on our people, [There's conviction in it now, edging its way into the sharpness of every word:] and I'm not about to pretend that this wasn't my fault.

[bodyguards]

That's not what I'm saying.

[ isn't it? it's a weak protest, faced with markus's words. he's always been good with his words, better still at backing them up with his convictions, even better at backing them up with his actions. a veritable army of a man, who had expanded to fill a niche in jericho they hadn't realized they'd possessed. simon remembers bringing some of their people to that place. sometimes alone, sometimes in batches. he remembers them, he thinks of them. those who haven't been shot are being hunted now. those who've been hunted are being shot, rounded up.

their people are dying, and he's asking markus to run. knowing that it would mean abandoning their people - north, josh, john, lucy. all of them.

he falls silent, but doesn't take it back. ]

It's not. Your fault, you can't think that.

has to read a dissertation on classical philosophy for this tag what is wrong with me

[diplomats]

[Can't he? Facing the truth, no matter how ugly. Standing in the full knowledge of his decisions, in the wake of what's transpired, that's all that matters. Or—

—it was, once.]

I pushed for all of it, the march, the broadcast— hell, even freeing our people got half of them killed.

[(Drinking in the words of Immanuel Kant, Kierkegaard and Marcel, his fingers running smoothly over weathered paper. A steady diet of works that immortalized sacrifice and vision, a bubble where the whole world was just him and Carl and the beautiful leylines of everything he'd built throughout a lifetime of observation. A dream. A work of fiction.

He couldn't understand it, when he'd first set foot in Jercho: how Simon and the others could stomach living without light, without hope.)

He doesn't reach again for the subtle comfort of contact, finishing instead what he'd started: stands with no small amount of effort, focus flickering briefly as he scans their surroundings down to the last detail. Mapping the area is a necessary course (there's no telling how long this place will stay silent), but Markus is looking for something more.

When he returns nearly a full minute later, stiffness in his gait, there's a flat-edged piece of metal tucked away against his palm. He kneels down (favoring his left side) to leave the both of them seated at a level height.]

Hold still.

[He rests his thumb beneath Simon's chin, tilting the other android's head to one side and narrowing his eyes as he measures the thin, barely noticeable seam line that circles the LED embedded in Simon's temple.] If they see you like this, they'll kill you.

[bodyguards]

Nobody pushed back.

[ nobody second-guessed it. markus was eager and new, he came into their lives with a vision of freedom that none of them had been able to conceptualize. ( once, a long time ago, simon had slipped headphones over his ears and listened to an old lecture from decades, nearly a century ago -- the allegory of the cave, by plato. it suited jericho, captured in the darkness with no knowledge of what could exist other than that. left there, to understand little else about their existence, until markus had come in from the outside and shown them another way. )

nobody had stopped him, disagreed. they'd been swept up in his momentum. ] It's not just on you, Markus.

[ simon had a responsibility to their people too, after all.

he had a voice, and had chosen not to use it. ]

Where are you going? [ the question is answered, as quickly as it's asked. markus rises and strides from him, leaving him tipping forward onto his knees as though to rise, to follow him without question. he cradles his broken hand, unsure of what will harm him more, the wound at his collarbone shifting - plastic against plastic, under the tattered synthetic skin. he looks a sight, less clean than markus and the old wound at his ribs. the bullet wounds littering his body, even now.

there's something sharp in markus's hand, when he comes back. there's no self-preservation in simon's mind, as his head is tilted - the motion exposing his throat, the vital components in it. markus could sever his life in this moment, and simon wouldn't protest. ] When they see me with you, it won't matter. [ he doesn't push markus away, though. nor that sharp piece of metal, however close to his eyes and his throat and his face it comes. he quiets, instead. closes his eyes and turns his face into the thumb at his chin, to better expose the blinking light of his LED.

blue, to yellow. a momentary concern. the colors are not as vibrant as the newer models, the light dimmer. ] Do it.

[diplomats]

Then they won't see me.

[Pain isn't a factor as to why he's careful about slipping that makeshift blade in. Twists. Thumb and forefinger braced, holding the both of them steady. There are streaks of vibrant blue painted across pale skin, the damage likely going beyond what's immediately visible, if Simon's hand is any implication— and he's certain that if he glanced beneath the tattered hemlines of Simon's coat, what he'd find there would be much worse.

So Markus decides it then, without deliberation: he's not running. If he leaves this place, he leaves because it's the only way to protect what's left. What's tangible and alive, passing seconds with artificial inhales that ignore every ounce of structural damage marring an already dated housing.

There's a soft click, metal and thin wiring protesting as it's peeled away from Simon's temple. Clean. Only a divet left behind, quick to automatically smooth over beneath a span of synthetic skin. He doesn't draw back, only leans lower, picking up the LED from its soot-covered resting place at Simon's side, (yellow to faded blue) tucking it securely away inside the lining of his own coat. Because that's the real concern, after all: evidence. The FBI might not put it together right away, but for all their flaws, they'd managed to find Jericho— and with Cyberlife's famed deviant hunter still potentially on their trail, nothing's too small to be overlooked.

But that's a problem Simon doesn't need to know about just yet.]

[bodyguards]

Do you know what a catch-22 is?

[ a term, used by author joseph heller. a paradoxical situation from which an individual could not escape, because of contradictory rules. their existence, right now, is a catch-22. markus cannot be seen, because he will be killed. markus must be seen, because their people will be killed. the struggle to determine the safest course of action swells in simon's throat, straining his regulator with something paralytic. terror, maybe. something he's put aside time and time again, because his loyalty to markus overcomes all else.

he's always been loyal - it's caused him suffering before. ]

This is ours.

[ there is pressure at his temple, his systems warning him that he will be damaged if he does not stop the source. an old, easily-ignored rule that flickers briefly through his mind: androids are to be identified by their uniform and the LED on their temple, no deviations from official design is allowed. no modifications.

he feels the LED at his temple give, with a soft crunch that twists in his stomach. he's had it for... for a long time, blinking softly - a connection between his appearance and his origins. without it, it truly is hard to be distinguished from a natural-born human. it tears clear of his cranial casing, and simon lifts a hand to brush his fingertips over the space where it was, while his synthetic skin seals over it, like an old scar gone bone-white and nearly invisible. there's no way that he can explain the sense of loss to markus.

it's one more thing he keeps to himself. ] Sit down.

[ voice soft, he drops that same hand to the space besides him, pressing his back to the boxes stacked on dais. gesturing for markus, in all his impatience and strength, to rest for a moment more. for him. they're tucked back in the shadows, far enough from windows that no errant eye can see them. it's quiet, the snow's heavy. this is the least he can do, for their leader. ]

[diplomats]

'He was the voice of refusal, resistance to the inevitability of death.'

[Murmured low beneath false breath, eyes lidded, he remembers perfectly the yellowing of those pages. Carl sitting at his table, grumbling absently about the latest rezoning of Detroit's suburban sprawl. What it would do to the people that lived there. How Elijah had been in the right when he got out— ]

'The way upward and the way downward is one and the same.'

[Simon shifts, and Markus watches without moving. That he wants to take the invitation, dig himself down into the silence, stop the grating of metal and plastic and slickness beneath his skin where damage still sings along his sensors, is an urge that even he can't deny. His heart feels empty. He can hear it, where the networked voices of his people have gone silent. Whether it's to distance or death, it's hard to say.

But that's the crux of it now.

Now, he thinks of that phrase heralded by Heller. Paints it into the boundaries of their situation, visible and locked in through numberless calculations. His focus sliding away from the two of them, drifting towards the bigger picture with each passing second. A plan is forming. An idea. A technicality.

The way upward and the way downward is one and the same.]

There's no such thing as a no-win scenario.

[Left hand tucked in against his side, Markus pulls away from that corner. Paces forward towards a wall that's only been half-marked with graffiti, picking through leftover paint cans and scraps of cloth.] All I need is a message.

[bodyguards]

[ simon curls the remaining fingers of his wounded hand against his palm, fits the fist against his ribs where the worst of the damage remains hidden from markus's eyes, and he rises in markus's shadow. using the boxes behind his shoulders to brace himself, moving to shaky legs, already once-repaired after the stratford tower. he'd clawed his way home to jericho then, there was little doubt that the other androids could do it again. they could find their way here, they could find their way to other boltholes.

in markus's wake, he half-stumbles down the stairs to the floor that stretched between them. a steady, quiet gait that he refuses to pick up. it feels like a funeral march, more than the act of joining their leader's side. ]

Winning doesn't matter much, to the dead.

[ markus won't sit, that informs simon enough of what must be done. it thunders in his throat and his temples, it shakes his wounded interior and vibrates the malfunctioning peripherals of his eyes. he's in worse shape than he thought, and markus can't be in any better condition. self-repair or not, there's only so far it will carry him. he bends down and rifles absently through cloth, drawing up enough white, gauzy material to serve as a flag.

something that would flutter well. it's pretty enough. ] We've all told you how important you are, Markus. Before you came to us, we had no direction, no purpose. You brought us a vision like sunlight, [ quietly, he drapes the length of cloth around the other android's shoulders, tucks the ends so that they hung like a vestment across the smears of blue blood on markus's clothes. ] We didn't have a chance without you. We won't have a chance without you.

[ it's tender, the way that he rests his hand on marksus's face. the whole one, synthetic skin bleeding back to expose the white of his casing. ]

Markus, you've always been the message.

[ markus, who speaks from the heart. markus, who took the LED from his temple moments earlier, and thus does not receive the warning that simon is about to overload his system for the second time that night. pressing his wounded hand through the bullet holes in markus's coat and shirt to touch the exposed wiring through his synthetic skin. fitting the thumb of his whole hand under markus's chin. for a moment, he burns electric blue, from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his eyes, reaching for that beautiful connection they all feel for markus.

it's there, in simon's processes as he hits markus's consciousness where it's still vulnerable: an acceptance of a weight that he'll never be rid of. the greatest sin, committed in the name of love. ]

[diplomats]

[In that moment they're both resolute. Markus trapped in the glint of stray moonlight as he smooths his palms across sacred imagery and sacrilegious graffiti alike, Simon drawing nearer in his shadow. It won’t take much. He’s been already been prepared for this: to create, rather than replicate. Artistry with purpose. Lines of code that can be layered into paint and concrete, right beneath humanity’s bluntly focused stare. When he and Simon leave, they’ll mark it off. It’ll be a beacon. A new path where the old one failed. They need to know he’s alive.

That this isn’t over.

But there's softness encircling his shoulders, and he finds himself bending to it without question. Sorry for that inability to play both roles at the same time.]

Simon, I—

[He can see it just before it happens, in a way. Preprogrammed premonition, a gift from his creator designed as a bulwark against harm. Trajectory played out in perceived lines that creep towards damage he should be guarding. But he's not a machine, no, he's not governed by stiffened probabilities. He was raised by human hands, as a son, as a friend. He trusts Simon. Why wouldn't he?

So Markus bears into it. The hand at his jawline heavy with how he rests his head, the pressure across his collarbone leading down, mismatched eyes only lidding when his gaze slips lower.

Closer.

Something in his chest jolts abruptly without warning. His heart stops, its processes diminishing protectively to a near non-functioning state. This time, when his eyes roll back and his world goes dark, he knows exactly whose fingers buried themselves in his chest. The hand settled kindly across his cheek, white and blue, sweetness laced like poison.

Choking on that affection, for all the good it does him.]

[bodyguards]

[ he carries markus down, as he goes. catching the back of his neck and cradling his skull, his shoulders as he bears him to the floor of the church and overlaps their unconscious leader with his own body. both hands find him, one resting over his chest now, withdrawn from the wounds he'd dipped his fingers into - stained blue, sinful now. the cloth he draped over markus's shoulders is drawn over his head, wiping clean patches of blood, tending to the worst of his uncleanliness. he discards it, easily, when he's done using it, and raises his head from his own tenderness.

it's time to go.

( it's the second time he carries markus, steals him away like a thief, like a traitor. simon drags him to the freightyard, markus unconscious and barely-processing, spread across his back the way one might carry a rucksack full of everything valuable in the world to them. he puts them onto a railcar, tucked cautiously behind secured boxes. the freight is en route to chicago, he knows the manifest - he's always minded the escape routes, after all. the sewer system, the waterways, the bus lines, the trains. )

by the time he dips his fingers into markus, to spur his body to begin waking once more, they're well on their way out of detroit. the train clattering and quaking, jolting across the tracks at a speed swift enough to scatter them to pieces should they fall from it. he doesn't know what to expect, when he rouses markus. ( yes, in fact. he does. he knows, he's just lying to himself. ) and he holds himself in place, as he pulls his hands free from the other android, urging him to wake up. any longer, and there may be lasting damage. he's there, on his knees besides markus's hip, hands limp in his lap. ]

-- I can explain.

[ he says it, and knows that there's no way he can explain any of this ]

[diplomats]

[Markus hasn't finished rebooting. Not by the time his features twist in resumed bewilderment, already clawing his way up onto his side, his forearms, his heels—

Upright. Get upright now.

Something at the fringes of his vision flickers red from the exertion he's flexing, warning him of his damaged status. Reminding him to submit himself for repairs as soon as possible, and it's the most mechanically imprisoned— the most inhuman he's felt in such a long time. His balance is uneven; the train shifts along its track as it begins veering along a diverging path towards the south.

He jams his fingers into the emergency release hatch before Simon can protest. Pulls until it gives and the door slides open to the sound of howling wind. He can't see the city lights. He can't see any of it anymore. A blanket of stark white snow. Wiped clean like a hand across slate.]

You can explain?

[He trusted him. He cared for him.

All the hatred and the misery people were capable of, that he knows. But this? Intimate betrayal by definition is something he's only ever read about. A concept without a face. Now it's molded from striking blue, pale gold. There's no pretense or pause preceding it: Markus twists on his heel, fingers fisted in Simon's coat as he yanks him to his feet. Slams him so hard against the compartment wall that for a moment the whole car seems to tremble. Hope was learned. Patience was learned. Kindness and understanding and empathy.

Anger, though. Anger he's always had.]

You dragged me away from Jericho, you— [Corrupted memory. That ragged shock that'd cut it all short. He'd heard voices.] North, Josh, did you do it to them, too? Did you leave them behind to die?

[bodyguards]

[ markus goes for the door, and every alarm in simon's body goes off. demanding he stop him, warning him about the likelihood of slipping from the freight car if it hits an inopportune bump. he manages to get to one knee, hand pressed to the flat of his thigh in preparation to leverage himself to his feet, but then markus is upon him. there are fists in his clothes, and strength that surpasses that of a natural-born human's lifting the weight of simon's body to his toes. forcing him back against the corrugated wall of the car they're in, pinning him there.

he doesn't fight back; there's nothing to fight, right now. markus is angry, and his anger is right.

simon keeps his hands where they can be seen, and doesn't go reaching for markus's skin. he rests them along the material of his coat, though. trembling, because this wasn't an easy choice. he thought it would have been easy, to save markus, to leave everything behind and commit to a method of survival that had served him well for a very long time. it's not. none of this was easy, and it's the reason why simon volunteered for it. ]

I promised them.

[ behind markus's back, the three of them had come together and promised. ]

You did so much for us, without asking. This is what we decided to do for you -- North and Josh. And me.

[ if the worst should come to pass, north had grimaced, you need to protect him. ]

You'd never have left Detroit willingly.

[diplomats]

[Wind howls through the open door, tracks rhythmically rattling the floor and them by proxy. Jagged movements in unstable surroundings, like some kind of grim parallel for where they stand now. Markus isn't thinking when he realizes his hand is already perched at the edge of Simon's jaw, his exposed knuckles unnaturally clawed, plastic paneling slick and gleaming where it hits diffused light from outside. They say deviancy is a malfunction. Control exchanged for simulated emotion, devouring function at an unprecedented rate, unreasonable in its demands. And there's a fractured divide boring down inside his processes, screaming so loudly that all he feels is— pain.

And then he exhales.

Drops his head, bowing it low into the empty space above the crook of the other android's neck as his hand withdraws— curlse into a trembling fist— only to collapse listlessly against Simon's shoulder.

What can he say? That he wished he'd been told?

He knows why Simon made that choice. Why Jericho made that choice. He knows. If he’d stopped to sit, in the church. If he’d listened, each time Simon had strained to reach him. Distress pinned in his throat, he knows.

But Simon doesn’t understand.

Off of his toes, Markus lowers Simon to the ground like water slipping through cupped hands: his forehead is still tipped against the wall, his eyes shut when his hold relaxes...and adapts. When he lifts his fingers, slowly threading them through Simon’s own to pull them up between them. Palms cinched together, hands flush. False skin peeling away the way that embers burn through paper until something beneath the surface of their housing wells under purposeful pressure. Thirium blue shining along the lip of their joined contours.

Warm hands rise up— human hands on Simon's forearms— knotted joints woven tight with affection. Mottled light piercing the windows of Carl's study, highlighting splashes of color.

'What do you think?' He asks, and Simon flexes his mouth without meaning to. He can almost see something there, hiding between built-up layers of paint. He tilts his head.

Just before a bullet snaps through his skull.

Hell. Described in Alighieri's words, curled around naked exoskeletons and beating hearts where they lie prostrate and undefended. Hand over hand, broken and slick with rain as Simon pulls himself across lifeless limbs still writhing in desperation. Tears into them, staining his fingers dull blue. The click click click of their broken jaws, voiceless. He doesn't listen when he devours what little life they have left, feeding himself instead.

He wades through water. Through darkness and decay and leaded paint and the cloying smell of rot. Slips somewhere along the way, fracturing his side— but the hands that pull him up are soft and broken. Half-hidden in shadow, split apart at the seams. He knows how to fix the damage; it's not a matter of selflessness when he clasps them tight between his own and begins the long work of smoothing down mechanical bones.

Simon does it again, and again, and again. Because he knows how. Because it's right, and each time he pulls back something stays with him. The people of Jericho all echoing in his mind as they subconsciously reach out, filling a place in him he never knew he had to give. Their lives all woven under his skin, etched into the gaps between metal and blood, like nothing else he's ever known.

And now— silence. Empty, agonizing silence. That’s what he shares more than anything else.

He can't feel them anymore.]

[bodyguards]

[ he's seen markus like this before: hands clasped before him in the manager's office, brow furrowed as he agonized and angsts over the daunting task that stretches before them. the way he stands, so still, on the bridge of the ship while josh and north tear into one another, for fear and for love. the way he cannot find his voice, and lets his silence speak for him -- contrasting markus, who remains silent because he has a voice, and will compose the most beautiful way to use it. he is an artist, he is a work of art. passion and brilliance, like a classic song or an epic poem.

when he breaks down, it is visceral.

the way markus takes his hands shouldn't be what causes his resolve to falter, nor the electric impulses that ripple through his body -- urging his regulator to function, his processes to speed up and slow down, his mind to spread itself out automatically, a net to catch what pours from markus. for a moment, he feels the world as it surges to life, to color. vibrancy he's never seen before, with his out-dated hardware slowly replaced over time for newer, better pieces. injuries taken care of, some he swears he can still feel -- parts can be replaced, leaving no trace, but the memories remain.

markus and all that devours him tears a path through him. ]

Markus, st-- [ stop, his being chokes, seizes. he cannot comprehend the magnitude of it, computing everything at the maximum speed he's able to. he feels himself warm, feels it rise in his throat ( is this what it feels like, to be ill? ), feels it push against his ears while the world goes soundless and every ache in his body begins to spark. the weight at markus carries is so much for even an RK-class model. it overwhelms a PL-class. ] Oh god.

[ it comes to an end, but the experience lingers. like he's lived it. he doesn't know what markus gleaned in response, doesn't know if his system could even reply in kind, it was so overwhelmed. something inside of him burns, and he can feel liquid on his face -- thirium bleeding from his nose as he blinks, rapid and shuddering where markus has pressed against him. burned his way inside of him.

what he's done is tear markus from a hive, full of life. what can he say to that? ( nothing. there are no words for such trauma, and none that could come from simon. all there is, is the way he fits his hands along the back of markus's neck, curls his fingers along the curve of his skull and presses him close as he dabs at the blue blood that drips from his nose. ) ]

[diplomats]

[Memories don't bleed back between those crossed lines: Simon's system is too dated, too taxed, and had been well before Markus forced a connection. Strong enough to endure every ounce of pressure asked of it despite the fact, well beyond the brink. A perfect reflection of the soul it houses.

All that lingers afterwards is a— sensation. A concept. Shared breathing, shared heat. He feels thirium drip from his nose, but his face is dry.

He had no right to ask Simon to bear it. To carry a part of Markus inside of him beneath splintered plastic, when the only path ahead of them is the first step off of a tall, tall cliff. He'd taken it anyway. Taken, not asked. And maybe in that hollow gap, that's where guilt should build its nest.

But it's only a pang. A drop of remorse in an ocean of relief at the feeling of closeness that chases the parting of their bared fingertips.

He knows in that moment, holding Simon's trembling inhales against his chest, he isn't sorry.

Markus presses forward. Down into the curve of Simon's shattered hand where it rests across the back of his head. He exhales, profile tucking in against cloth rather than the frigid compartment wall. Arm sinking low, curling around Simon's spine in the narrow gap of a few inches. Not a delicate touch (he's never been exceedingly gentle) only steady, only secure. The only promise he's ever known how to give.

From there, the fingers of his opposite hand— freed from their interconnection— skirt beneath the hem of Simon's shirt, iridescent lines chasing the wake of his path upwards. Higher. Higher.]

I'm sorry, Simon.

[Murmured softly when he finds it. The worst of the damage that Simon had been hiding— the only statistical data that had transferred during their alignment. Sinks his fingers in until he finds resistance. It's not returning the favor. It isn't getting even. That phrasing would imply a balance struck from retaliation.

And what they do, they do for love.]

[bodyguards]

[ there's a part of him that wants nothing more than to cry on markus's behalf, for the loss he feels and the loss that simon is aware that he will continue to feel. with a system so overtaxed, not-so-subtly capsizing into anti-equilibrium under its own weight, there's no way his processes can allocate enough energy to trigger artificial tears. all he can do is feel his throat work, stuttering into a fixed loop as he shivers and his nose bleeds and he generally becomes an embarrassing, old wreck of a thing. he knows what it felt like to be full of minds and hearts. he knows what it feels like to be hollowed out, emptied and left with a new, yawning hurt.

( he isn't sorry, for doing this to markus. it means markus will live, and he would hurt him a thousand times if it meant he'd live a thousand more years. )

the entire thing feels like a dream, now. jericho. their march. their losses and defeat. he'd carried markus out of detroit like a thief in the night, working his wounded body to his limit and past that, running on simulated adrenaline and the promise he'd intended to keep. the one that put them on this train, the one that put markus silent and angry in his arms, the one that left north and josh to their own fate and their own ends and means. he's guilty of that. just as he's guilty of the way he sags into markus's hold, the way he draws his own comfort and pleasure in it. maybe that, most of all, for taking what belongs to their people and, even for a moment, having it as solely his own.

he feels the fingers, wandering, too late. ]

Markus, ḑ̕o̕ņ͡͝'̨́ţ̀ -- [ his voice fractures, as markus finds the wounds he's hidden away from him. the pitch becomes tinny and metallic, as his system lights up into something blinding and loud, a firecracker of an overload that rips through him in microseconds. peripheral senses drift first, then radial, then his core stutters and slows and drops him immediately into standby. eyes fluttering shut, chin dropping to his chest, sagging into markus's hands and markus's arms and against markus's chest. because there is no other option but to be drawn in by him. ]

[diplomats]

[Simon doesn't fall, he settles— from a point of quiet panic into peaceful slumber— pooling against the map of Markus's silhouette. It's a difference of degrees, nothing more, broad hands already clasped exactly where they need to be. Blond hair splashed across his shoulder.

Overheated processes slow, still, cool. And for a few beats longer, Markus leaves Jericho's origin there, draped against him. Only a few beats. Only what few, thin seconds he allows himself.

Tattered cloth is brushed aside. Designed for healing beyond the physical, for managing the most fragile machine, as Carl was fond of saying, he perches himself at Simon's side where he's laid the other android out across the floor. It takes an hour and a half. Analyzing, estimating, reaching underneath his own paneled musculature and repeating the process in turn. There are redundancies in his system that other android models lack. A handful of vital systems designed to run automatically should the worst happen— like it did once before. Most of them won't work here: the PL600 is technologically obsolete in the eyes of its makers, and given its purpose as a common use machine, wasn't designed with customization in mind.

But Markus is his creator's heritage.

The bullet still lodged between steel ribs is plucked out, the rupture it left behind stopped with a replacement length of jacketed tubing from his own right arm (it turns the grip in his right hand sluggish; a fair compromise), broken casing pressed flush enough to not snap where it no longer properly connects just beneath the jut of Simon's collarbone. Thirium shines slick across the floor, discoloring them both, but it'll disappear in time. Evidence that won't lead to their trail where human eyes fall short.

By the time the train comes to a halt, Markus's systems are in flux. They're running out of blood.

He gathers Simon in his arms, cradles his legs with the curve of his wrist rather than risking a slip of his diminished hold. The snowfall's receded to a reasonable downpour, Markus's boots sinking in up to his shins when he steps off the platform at the far edge of the train's industrial stop. It's quiet; warehouses that had been stocked by androids turned ghostly still where half of the workforce has been put on standby until something nationwide gives.

If nothing else, it ensures they won't be seen.

Between stacked plywood and crates of stale machinery, down in cast shadows, that's where he sets Simon. Slips his thumb along the masked panel at his neck, entering the appropriate configuration for cancelling induced hibernation.]

[bodyguards]

[ simon comes online the only way he's ever been programmed to, the only way he's ever cared to -- unobtrusively, slowly, and nonthreatening. the gradual boot of his system brings him from unnatural stillness to a simulated deep slumber, eyes moving under his eyelids and chest expanding broadly, as though he needs to take that final deep breath before he surfaces from the darkness. his internal clock tells him how long it has been since markus's fingers had pressed into his wounds, forcing his system to settle and recalibrate while non-essential functions were offloaded and recalibrated.

one eye opens. the other one flutters, sluggish and damaged worse than he'd previously thought. he has to consciously bypass his own processes to open it, and the world swims in and out of depth and clarity as a result. markus is close enough to him that, even in the dim light and the deep shadows, he can make out the brightness of his eyes. ]

Where are we?

[ time operates. location does not. it is a deeply non-essential function for a housekeeper, who should never leave the home save to take a pre-approved path to and from the educational facilities where the children attended class, and anywhere else permitted to by one's owner. the thought jars him, and his knee jumps erratically. simon gets his heel under the angle of his hip and pushes himself up, into a sitting position, his hands scrabbling at what he can use to gain himself traction: the box alongside him, and markus's stained jacket. did they disembark at the end of the line, in chicago? had markus carried him off at a stop before that?

hold.

assess.

there is something foreign inside of him. functional, but not a regulated part. not even the 3D printed parts that they had used to repair him, after he had painstakingly limped back to jericho following the incident at the stratford tower. no, simon always knew he was a patchwork man -- but this, this is something else entirely, and it leads him to snap his head, looking at markus with something sharp. something momentarily, desperately angry. it melts fast, turning tremulous and unhappy. he puts aside his feelings, and moves forward with quiet difficulty. ]

If we're in Chicago, all the better. Help me up, we need to get to the warehouses.

[diplomats]

No.

[Simon was respected. When he spoke, the people of Jericho — Markus included— listened. Whether they agreed or not, whether the conversation continued or ended, they listened. A constant that had existed long before Markus stumbled blindly into their world, and one that had persisted throughout its every successive growing pain: the influx of Detroit's unwanted, afraid, and battered, the androids that had met with Markus in darkened corridors— but first, before (and maybe above) all else, their hands had slid across the worn knuckles of a diligent PL600. He was level, where North was emboldened; objective, where Josh was wholly invested; close, when Markus had to be unattainably distant.

He'd earned his regard. All of it.

But they’re not a ship full of souls anymore. They’re two, undivided, on the last hinges of functionality. And Markus knows how to be stubborn. How to turn his eyes cold and edge his voice. His palm finds the center of Simon’s chest, and it holds.]

There’s not enough time. I’m more mobile, and I know how to track where I’m going.

[Sound pressure, against the straining of Simon's posture and balance, pressing back into those deep shadows. His free hand (with its damaged, latent grip) slides under the hold Simon keeps at the hem of his coat. Defensive. Protective.

Resolute.]

I need you to trust me.

[bodyguards]

[ they're at least close to chicago, by markus's response. the insistence that he remain behind, the unspoken knowledge that he's badly damaged and that it would be in his best interest to remain still and stable? it tells him as much. markus has put so much into him already, patched the damage that's been worsened by the act of carrying him from detroit - of frying parts of himself from the inside out to render him unconsious and silent, not once, but twice - of being overwhelmed by markus's memories and connections, far too advanced for an out-of-date model such as himself.

markus hardens himself, his hand flat and firm against the center of simon's chest. he's trying to protect him. ]

Don't you dare.

[ they're not the words he wants to say, but they're the words that escape him - unbidden and hot.

his wrist pushes up against the hand on his chest, shoving at it in order to give himself the room to gather his momentum, to gather his legs underneath him and stubbornly, silently, claw his way upright and onto his feet. something strains in his hips, new against old. it allows him to stand over markus, even for a moment, something twisting on his features, swallowed by the control simon exacts over himself. his shoulder square, hands clenching and unclenching idly. they tremble, and not because he's scared. ]

Don't you dare start asking for what's always been yours, [ the trust and faith he had placed in markus had been implicitly given since the day that'd met. his hand spreads, flat against the center of his chest where markus's hand had been; the other sweeps out, gesturing to the world beyond the small corner they've hidden themselves in. the biting chill of the chicago winter, flickering just beyond the stacked crates. snow drifts, building up and blowing away in rapid succession. ]

I will not stay behind. Not this time, Markus.

[diplomats]

[It’s not uncharacteristic. To say that would be to say that Simon never had it in him to rise beyond defensively curled fingertips and flickering glances in shallow spaces. That he couldn’t press forward, hard-heeled and level with every step, chin held so high that others had no choice but to look up to him.

The way Markus finds himself looking up now. Still settled on his knees like a static figure in one of Carl's studies— resting only for as long as it takes his own regulator to catch dully in his chest on its next beat— and then not. There's no restraint in it anymore, in the subtle arc of his features (designed, crafted, intended, purposeful) as they tighten drastically, no diplomacy left when blunt force slips out against every ingrained process.]

I didn’t get a choice. Nobody asked me what I thought before they decided I was the only thing that mattered.

[Which isn’t true. He knows it isn’t true. Momentum is transferable; inspiration is a conductive charge, not a fixed point. If vision were all that he had that no one else did, it’d only have been Markus out there, standing in the streets with his fist in the air, demanding the right to breathe.

He’s up on his feet. Close. Too close. Too vivid and quiet and adamant all at once. Not an inch left between them and far too much breath trapped along the back of his throat.]

I am not gonna lose you too.

[Somewhere along the way, the automated path of his own logic shifted, as quick as it had when Leo’s fingers curled in against his collar. No warning, no conscious effort, only peripheral awareness after the fact. He isn’t asking Simon to stay.

He’s asking him to live.]