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

[bodyguards]

And I wish I had it, but I don't.

[ it's a simple statement, said with his softest of tones; the one reserved for someone he doesn't want to make unhappy, but must deliver poor news to. simon's legs shake as he fixes his clothes, trying to put himself back in order after being torn apart and rebuilt, after feeling markus race throughout him until he'd hit such a high it had broken something inside of him again. delicately, he wipes his nose until his self-repair fixes the burst seams and focuses on calibrating his new limb.

his system struggles, forcing him to move slowly. first to his knees, then to his hands. practically crawling into position before he braces himself along the nearest wall and begins to creak to his feet. ( this can't go on, he thinks to himself; one day, he won't be able to go on. he'll hinder markus, he'll be what gets them cornered and killed. ) and on his feet, he continues to move cautiously - waiting for his system to figure out what it can accept from the CX100's limb and what it has to reject. ]

It's going to get colder, Markus. I don't think either of us is in any shape to fight the freeze that will come off of the lake.

[ gently. gently. ]

-- and I need to get you to Chicago, as soon as possible.

[diplomats]

There's nothing waiting for us in Chicago. [It's a fact, not an excuse. He's out of those. He's always been out of those— and there's nothing of his maker's hands in it: that right belongs to the home that breathed life into him, not electricity.

Simon rises, and for a moment Markus only watches him. Functionally held up by a difference in time and determination thicker than blood— or maybe purpose. Maybe purpose. His palms are flat against cold cement, legs tucked under his own center mass, chin high where he stares a single moment longer. Rooted. And uprooted. The inescapable dichotomy fused to the entirety of his timeline now.

But then he concedes. Warmth still lingering on his insulated casing from the deeper hollows of Simon's sweet-soft chassis.

He rises, and knowingly doesn't reach for Simon in that fragile moment. It's the supplies laying nearby, the ones he'd abandoned in favor of a single request, that he returns to. Packs the backpack with thirium and spare casing components, packets of fasteners and all the tools they'd left spilled across the ground.

Simon's old leg, disconnected and lifeless, he picks up last. Spilled thirium will dry. The footprints outside already covered by wafting snow. This, though, heavy in his grip from encased alloy marrow, would make it all too obvious where they've been.

It's not his limb to feel sentimental over. But it was a part of Simon, once, and Markus briefly considers that between the two of them, he's the one more sorry to let it go. To bury it, rather than embrace it or keep it or section it away, knowing the farther ahead they move, the more they'll lose. Without any real means to destroy it, he turns mismatched eyes across their surroundings instead, mental processes barely flexing to preconstruct possible scenarios and safer outcomes. In the end, he fights (deftly) against gravity to clamber up along warehouse storage shelving, well-worn boots pinned tightly against framework and brick. The crate he opens is old, but it gives easily enough under the twist of his hand, just at the seam. Humans have a habit of meeting the world at their eyeline: opting to bury evidence above their heads (all irony aside), is the best option for the timeframe and tools they're burning through.

Snapped shut, faux factory sealed, the crate's realigned with its surroundings, and Markus drops back to the floor— having now, hopefully, bought Simon enough time to acclimate to his newfound mobility.]

Last chance to stay. [There's no hope in his voice. He's too mired in reality, watching the set of Simon's hip, measuring out how long it takes for his knee to bend or his heel to find a supportive angle.]

[bodyguards]

There's someone there. He escaped Detroit before the barricades went up, we'll be able to rest there.

[ on mismatched legs, he takes unsteady steps. his gait a shabby, ungainly thing as he works his new ankle and realizes that the toes won't flex properly. not the way his old limb used to - the knee shakes, the hip trembles. running will be a conscious task, but he hopes that with time and use, his system will adapt. it will learn to coordinate, because they are not just machines made of inflexible code. they are alive, and to be alive is to adapt.

for a moment, he paces the length of the warehouse they've hidden away inside of. hands pressed to his chest, fingers tucked under his chin as he methodically counts code breaks and measures the length of his stride. turning algorithms over in mechanical silence, eyes disfocused and focused all in the same moment. his peripheral senses pick up on markus, the mournful way that he seems to dispose of the dead limb. the graceful way that he climbs scaffolding, into the warehouse shelving. simon loses him for a moment, and it's in that fragment of time ( separated; but not by much ) that he pauses and looks to where markus has vanished.

thinks of how easily they could be separated.

thinks of what he's done, how far he's gone and how far he will go, to continue stringing jericho's most beloved son along. he is the unrepentant mary magdalene, it seems. a mantle he realizes he must take on, to keep markus's momentum focused on the path that simon will lead him on - the one that will save him, keep himself. ]

What am I doing, [ he whispers to himself, to the palms of his hands as he buries his face into them and tries to find a balance between necessity and selfishness ] Oh, what am I doing.

[ markus's voice, behind him.

simon unhunches his shoulders, fingers tracing down the front of his face to his chin. curling against one another, the image of fragility as he rests them at sternum height. the look in his eyes suggests he's anything but. older, brittle, and wise in a way that defies the trends of most deviants. ] We can't stay here. We'll freeze. I know... I know it's a lot to ask, after what I've done to you - but follow me a little while longer, Markus. I'm not -- I'm not leading you blindly.

[diplomats]

[Simon watches him disappear. Markus disappears with purpose, and doesn't think anything of it, too driven by what has to happen to stop and think about how far away he's gone again, connection slacking like a tied line.

For a little while.

—what am I doing. It's barely there. So soft and so quiet part of it erodes under the scuffle of Markus's boots as they drop from ledge to ledge with pinpoint precision; only the second verse catches his attention, Simon's back is still turned, and the high curl of his angular shoulders from behind (arms tucked rigidly against his chest) melds the edges of his silhouette with darkened walls. Private council comprised of Simon's voice, Simon's hands. Simon's fears.

Markus doesn't interrupt for a change.

His feet are firmly planted by the time he slaps his palm across metal to simulate the heavy sound of his own landing; Simon unhinges the doors to his closed-off session as he turns, still brittle in the gaps between knuckles and teeth, all of him folded around the distant beating of his heart. His beautiful, tired heart.]

Don't worry. [Markus breathes, speaking in that distinctive tone of voice he uses when he's aiming to mend wounds or tend to the dying. Slow and unshakable. His hand finds Simon's elbow first, settling just an inch behind the joint.]

I still trust you.

[bodyguards]

For now.

[ said, with the whisper of something wry, something waiting in the wings for recognition to dawn upon markus's sternly-composed face. already, simon's composure comes back to him; he's practiced, experienced in masking not only his feelings, but his mind. more a ghost than something alive, aged in consciousness and clearly in body. he imagines markus yearns for comfort, auditory and physical. it's with that in mind ( the lingering warmth of markus's mouth on his thigh, between them -- ) that he brings his hands to that freckled face and presses his cold palms to simulated skin.

simulated, and undeniably warm. ]

There are trucks. We'll need to take one, we can't walk in this weather - we'll die long before we get to the city.

[ for a long, lingering moment, he keeps his hands where they are. fingertips curled around the rounded edge of markus's jaw, tucked soft against his throat and chin, his thumbs aligned with the outer corners of his bicolored eyes. it reminds him of their positions in the church, the way markus hadn't wanted to be still, hadn't wanted to linger - and now he does. it worries simon. he's stolen jericho's leader from the cause, and doesn't know what affect it will have on his mind. it's the greatest crime he could commit, he thinks. ]

We'll talk, when we're there. I promised you, I didn't forget.

[ the words are soft, almost breathless though he doesn't need to breathe; a horrible promise, sealed with the faint press of his mouth to the corner of markus's own. one more crime to add to the pile. he'll burn for them all in the end, he knows. ]

Come on. This way.

[diplomats]

It won’t change.

[His trust. Even if he knows better, even if he thinks he’s being deceived or led or lied to— he’s made his choice now. Or he’s fallen into it all over again, like the way he’d tumbled into Jericho. Off balance and entirely uncontrolled. Not really a free fall half as much as it was a gravitational spiral, marked by mathematics and scientific theories he could lay down like a timeline: centimeters per second, mass versus gravity careening down, down, down.

Simon puts his lips to the corner of Markus mouth and he’s done for.

And it’s terrifying.

And it's beautiful.]

Let me drive. [He doesn't sound dumbstruck, there's no numbness lingering at the edges of his functional interjection, footsteps cutting in across Simon's still-delayed pathing just before a (mildly) raised hand follows suit. Automated GPS will get them wherever they need to go, but vehicles operating entirely on their own also yield by default to traffic instructions and law enforcement: if there's a road block, if something happens, someone should be at the wheel ready to steer them away from danger.

Someone with two functioning, synchronized legs and hands.

Not that Markus says it out loud.]