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

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[bodyguards]

[ he must regain the upper hand, difficult as it will prove itself. connor is a state-of-the-art machine, created to worm his way under human skin and into the hearts and minds of deviant androids. showing him vulnerability is more than a mistake, it is going to be the death of him. but he speaks with markus's voice, and for a moment, simon is able to forget himself - his internal wear and tear, his exhaustion. his limited systems, compared to this beautiful, deadly, horrible machine that holds him in place like a needle through a butterfly.

he's lost his ground.

he fights to regain it, and leans into his natural vulnerability, doubling-down on it. ]

Don't. Please, don't.

[ he whispers it, and lets his voice crack - a hiss of static, the uptick in his inflection. ]

I don't care if you're cruel, just stay here. With me.

[ hands fold around connor's wrists. simon curls his fingers around them, under the hem of connor's shirt. just a little more. play the game. clever, wicked, cruel connor - he'll catch on, simon knows. he's built for it, but it won't be for simon's lack of trying. ]

You can use his voice, I'll listen to everything you say. Please.

[undeviated]

[He pauses as Simon begs. Nothing in him aches or stutters at the sight or sound of it; he doesn't relent because it's vulnerable and soft and here, in this lighting, looks so violently familiar.

The sensors dotting the edges of his thumbs, articulate and fine, translate the soft rabbiting pressure of Simon's eyelids, right down to the thin brush of their lashes. All manufactured. All intentionally constructed from strands of hard-wired code. But fragile. Breakable, like the optical fibers he holds pinned for a single second longer— and then withdraws, still smiling coarsely through the edge of his mouth.

The thought of hurting it never leaves him.

Simon's hands are still braced across his wrists. He smooths the printless pads of his own fingers across the inside of Simon's brow bones, tracing outward. It isn't as gentle as it should be— hands made to hunt and catch can't perfectly emulate the natural give of a caretaker's touch. They trail down, palms flat, one resting against the underside of Simon's jaw, the other working its shoulder lower, drawing away dark fabric and the tattered collar of Markus's coat. A smooth expanse of unmarred skin that he sinks into, bowing his head and spine.]

I missed you. [He mouths low against Simon's neck, teeth too sharp.]

[bodyguards]

[ for a moment, he is concerned that connor will gouge out his eyes. it would be just like him, after all. a wicked, cruel machine with the sensibilities of a human encoded into the fiber of his being - a mimicry of social interactions at his beck and call, and simon doesn't even pretend to think that he can outpace, outrun or outrank this cutting-edge creature. he's as close to perfected as could be, and it fills simon with dread for the future of his people ( their people; the remnants of jericho ) to think that the base model of cyberlife's hound will be advanced upon.

improved.

made more lethal.

he feels the way that connor pulls his shirt away from his body, markus's ruined coat still heavy as a crown, heavy as the mantle of leadership. the mouth that glides along his neck simulates softness, warmth. the voice is markus's, and he sags into it with another vulnerable sound, knowing - at any given moment - connor might turn those teeth on his throat and bite it out. he does the next best thing, short of jumping the gun: he curls into himself. tucks his chin into that exposed line of synthetic flesh, though it presses his mouth to the angle of connor's jaw. as one would a lover, a friend.

instead of allowing that mouth, those teeth, at his throat, he glides into connor's space. one hand remains on his wrist. the other touches the small hairs ( markus had no hair, only the soft brush of stubble ) at the base of connor's skull. he whispers: ] What do I do, Markus? Where do I go from here?

[ tighter, softer. he aligns himself with connor. noses along his cheek, not with affection - but something blind and hungry, weaponizing his grief and his turmoil against a superior machine. there's not a threat in the lax way he holds himself, the way he angles himself against cyberlife's hound. the way he calls him 'markus', voice thick in his throat and pained. ]

Tell me what you want.

[ just a little more... ]

[undeviated]

You did everything you could. [Unlike Markus, Connor never had time to experience the complex give and pull of human emotion firsthand: instead it's hardwired into him, just another toolset to be put to use, like the compressed alloy of his substructure, the reinforced redundancies of every cutting-edge biocomponent. Predictive logic triggered by keywords, emotions designed for scenarios, not for the machines or humans behind them. Patching in singular interactions, imitating (perfectly) Markus's sweet-slow response, but never feeling an ounce of it.

(Simon sinks lower, curls tighter: his body is a heavy weight, his mouth is smooth and delicate, brushing up along Connor's jaw, fingers threaded along the nape of his neck where it meets the edge of his own heavy coat— unnecessary in warmer months.)

Connor's mission was— is— the rhythmic pulse of his functional existence. If he stumbles, if he falters, his lifespan is inherently cut.

He likes taking steps towards preventing that. So is it any wonder that, when spurred forward by the hands that made him— the hands that hold his leash— that like grew into want, into cruel, sadistic need? He was programmed to feel. He was programmed to not-feel. He is— ]

It's time to let go. [Simon's hand lingers at his wrist, the rest of him edging ever closer, and Connor fits himself to that movement, aligning their mouths so that the words tangle across Simon's lips. His teeth. The only, brittle precursor to how he leaves nothing unoccupied between them: a kiss that's close to crushing. More take than give, more expectation than open intimacy— that's what Markus was, after all. To the world.

Killing hands braced over a dated android's spine.]

[bodyguards]

[ simon clings to it; clutches the embers of markus's voice, in the way that he will never be able to truly capture the essence of their fallen leader. connor is a facsimile of him, gifted with his voice but stripped of the passion, the empathy, the vibrance of markus's life - and that is what keeps simon from collapsing senselessly into those dangerous arms. they're still there, enfolding him, capturing him - every move he makes is a dangerous one. it could end up with him too far gone, unable to find his escape route.

he nearly makes his move, when connor's mouth shoves against his own.

it is, to say the least, a pseudo-electric shock to his system. the suddenness of it, the clarity with which he knows that this is not markus, no matter how his mind tries to delude himself into accepting that part of markus survives with connor -- because it doesn't. it's just a false voice, and he is far too close. swept up in the wake of a dangerous, highly-advanced machine that has either called his bluff ( no, he begs nothing in particular, not that ) or is aligning himself for the kill.

simon slips his mouth free, and makes his move: ] Is that what you require, Connor?

[ the words are mechanically sweet, the hiss of something built to please. ]

Do you find this behavior acceptable? Vulnerable, submissive before you? We've both been made for a task, after all.

[ he just needs. one crack in that armor. ]

[undeviated]

[Strange. Strange, because there's nothing to be measured and everything to be unpacked: Connor can't tell if he's winning or losing— giving lips, bared teeth, the way Simon spills warm across his tongue compared to how distinctly his wrists lock with resistance— and as a creature made less for the thrill of the chase or the moment, hard-wired for the end result, Connor eventually concludes he doesn't like it.

But that's before Simon's honeyed voice works its way under his skin.

Rocks into paced and whirring components in the back of his throat, and his lips tighten as they press into a narrow band, his dark eyes flickering with indecision. With independence.

He abandons Markus's voice because he's being spoken to without the illusion (concerning— or satisfying) his own body still levered against Simon's.]

I [I. I. A damning word, when it isn't attached to predetermined objectives or motiveless statements. Connor isn't buckling, he isn't wilting wholesale into whatever strange synthesis rests, uniquely sparked, between them. He is not compelled. He is not folding.] find it acceptable that you aren't willing to make the same mistakes he did.

[bodyguards]

[ as connor speaks with his own voice, the roiling and sickly feeling in the pit of his abdomen begins to unfurl. some measure of control has been stolen back, now that he doesn't have to listen to that beloved ghost speak to him through the wrong pair of lips. he'd have gone readily to his demise, if it had been markus who asked it of him - but this is connor, the hunter, and everything is a ploy to usher him along, placid as livestock to the slaughter. ]

I said I would listen, [ he whispers, mouth still soft along connor's; they do not breathe, so he has no need to pull back. he does have need to move his hands, to apply pressure and flex his inferior system to draw murderous fingers away from his spine. he relents, briefly. lets connor's dangerous hands remain pressed along his spine, as simon remains pressed along the angle of the damned hound's hip. ] I know enough about you not to be drawn in too deeply. Markus wanted to show you another way, Connor.

[ markus was kind at heart; he gave everyone a chance, though only one. it had broken simon to know that the chance he had given connor was used, devoured, then lead to his demise. ]

That's the trick of it - the thing all these newborns never got to learn, so fresh-faced and bright-eyed they are: you're always yourself, in the end.

[ like simon, who calls himself a machine.

like connor, who chooses his paths. ]

Let me go.

[ his tone, flat and serene, promises connor only one opportunity to do so. ]

[undeviated]

I can't do that.

[To kill him cleanly instead of cruelly, to bring him back instead of dismantling him on the spot, that's the inflexible border of his own willful concession— if he were making concessions. Instead he has a gun at Simon's temple in a figurative sense, maybe literal in the next minute or so, and yet the android wrapped up in his killing grip has the audacity to ask for more.

He takes it back, he thinks. This machine does remind him of Markus.

Not in his eyes or responses, not in gaunt features and hollowed sockets, or the low hum of an android that's outlived its own maintenance timespan, only noticeable this close, with their mouths poised to devour and disobey all at once. But there's familiarity in the image of something lost, something defeated, flexing itself into a sliver of hope rather than submissive dismay.

And that's dangerous, something in his logical processing acutely warns. Dangerous enough that if Connor releases him, he knows he might not get another opportunity to catch him again. Dangerous in the thought that what's left of Jericho will only adapt more easily under his leadership, bolstered by a martyred prophet and his miraculously unscathed disciple.]

You already know I can't.