meadowlark | @gaby

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@gaby

[ this was supposed to be one of Gaby's days off. in fact, she's not in the safehouse when the message comes in. ]

Turns out that we're missing two new faces around the safehouse.

I'd play a guessing game as to why I wasn't told, but I don't care. These two faces apparently murdered two people that night.

I don't know who they are, but I do know that they're locked up. Any guesses as to what's going to happen to them?

Genuine question. Because I don't know.

Oh, and because some of you think you can do whatever the hell you want around here: don't think the way out for them is a jail break. Don't even fucking try it. And no, Morningstar isn't in the business of breaking people out of jail, because that would be stupid.

[ she's a little angry. no. a lot. but mostly she doesn't know how to handle this one. ]

Look. You know something? Tell me. You won't be "in trouble."

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[He waits, as he says he will. Scouring through the post while he does, still abuzz with comments, it's hard to push aside the mounting sense of weariness from reading all of the discordant conversations, in all the branching directions that they go.

But when he hears the door open, when the sound of Connor's footsteps herald his arrival, Markus pipes up from his spot on the couch; elbow pressed deep into its arm, body straightening from loosely tired to steadily attentive.]

Here, Connor.

[With a mental command, the flurry of exchanged words from the network dissipate from his vision, so he can give the other android his full attention. Already, he can spy signs of stress, of anxiety. He wonders if a few of their text exchanges had something to do with that.]

(turning his head at the familiar voice, connor feels his heart jump into his throat. he almost wishes markus wasn't at home, that he was still out and it'd take him some time to get back before they had this conversation. but that'd feel like a betrayal of some kind, after all he's put him through today.

only to add so much more.)

Markus — (he begins before he loses his nerve, placing his messenger bag down on one of the kitchen island's stools.) — I want to apologize for my behaviour. As much as the others in that network post were reaching, I shouldn't have instigated arguments in the way that I did... or spoken to you like that.

(the android creeps closer, standing in the centre of the floor. well before markus with every intention to join him.)

I'm sorry.

[To be fair, Markus didn’t expect an apology. Connor is always so headstrong, always so assured in the arguments he kicks up with others on the network, not always garnering their goodwill as a result. Ending each conversation without much compromise on his end, leaving the other party either impressed, reeling, or endlessly annoyed. It’s an almost enviable trait, if it weren’t employed in such a way that made Markus increasingly tired with each message that piled up.

And yet Markus knows there isn’t anything inherently wrong with that. Connor sticks to his guns, while Markus finds himself caught between two halves made of compromise and moral idealism. He’s proud of the other android because of it, even with the exasperation as it brings.]

There’s nothing to apologize for. You weren’t out of line, not with me or anyone else. You just make it very hard for anyone on damage control to pick up the pieces you’ve left in your wake.

[But looking at Connor, he already knows there’s something else encircling his mind. That he didn’t want to speak in person just to ease the guilt from his shoulders, just to tell him sorry.]

You shouldn't have to be on damage control. (he should be better than this, he shouldn't still be doing these things anymore.

goading people into making mistakes, interrogating them without remorse, refusing to be empathetic the way markus and noctis are. connor is obviously ashamed in himself, but — even that's a lie, isn't it? a large part of him still believes that what he did to jason was the right thing, to expose his loose wires, to grip him proverbially by the hair and raise him up to show everyone how great their precious friend is to the people who try to help him. the safehouse is safer without him.

and yet he wants him there to be a part of it. the duality of this has connor clenching his jaw, refusing to say something prideful. markus wouldn't be proud of that, of his boyfriend, of his trusted comrade. so it's shoved down with everything else.)

There are... more important things to discuss. Things that have no relation to the mess I've caused.

(pushing forward suddenly, connor reaches for the couch cushion and lowers himself down beside the person he now cherishes most in either world.)

It has to do with the uprising, Markus. I haven't been entirely truthful, or forthcoming — not about anything we've already discussed, we do secure our victory and you save us as a people, but... about the routes to get there. Ones I didn't think I was ready to discuss with you...

[No, he shouldn’t. In a perfect world, there would be no need for anything like damage control within a group whose goals should remain the same — to keep everyone safe, to keep them whole, to have them push forward in the same direction towards the same set of goals. But people are messy, and in their differences they say things that turn into arguments, that sting and burn and threaten to throw cooperation out the window. Splinters sinking in between bonds to pry them apart.

And yet that doesn’t even seem to be the sticking point; Markus was right, it wasn’t the reason why Connor wanted to meet him, abruptly, and have a conversation for reasons that appear worrisome when coupled with a preamble like that.

Markus shifts to angle himself to look at Connor, brow knit in concerned curiosity, eyes skating of his features as if he could pry forth clues to inform him of what this may be about. He can’t, not quite, but—]

Because they’re hard to say, or you didn’t think I would wish to hear them?

[There’s a difference, however slight, in that. Inversely, it could be both, which would make this seem even more ominous and serious than Connor is already making it out to be. Yet Markus adopts the stillness of an android, waiting patiently for an answer, ready to hear it — telling himself that apprehension has no place here.]

(it's both, absolutely, but there was another angle entirely:) I didn't think it was necessary to cause you undue stress. It happens in my past, in your future, and it didn't seem like my place to intervene... but it also reflects very poorly on me.

I was selfish.

(incredibly, connor thinks to add, but self-deprecation isn't an answer and markus has been sitting patiently through his exposition, refusing to interrupt despite his mounting worry. it's time to tell him. time to recount the mistake he made by leading agent richard perkins to the home of hundreds of refugee androids.

there's a strong ache in his throat, making his voice waver.)

The government orders a military raid on Jericho.

[Connor keeps building the tension with each word uttered, a rather tortuous introduction to whatever overall point he’s going to eventually make. Eyes steady, back a little straighter than normal, as if his body knows that it has to prepare itself for whatever news might come his way. Connor’s past, his future. Hearing the anxiety rumbling beneath each syllable, his bleeding heart wishes to offer comfort without even knowing what’s going to be said — a want to prepare them both, maybe, for this new revelation about to be set upon him.

But nothing would have been enough to ready him for the slow, cold crawl up his spine when Connor mentions a military raid. Like unpleasant fingers tracing up his skin. A raid on their safe haven, where countless refugees came to be with others like themselves, to be safe. To call it home — Markus had called it home, too; it was all he knew, after the murder of his old life.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, remaining unmoving. But Connor would be observant enough to catch the line of his mouth thinning, a muscle jumping treacherously across his jawline.]

What happened?

[He needs to know what happened, and he asks, yet an unhelpful part of his mind ever supplies the answer in words declared long, long before his own time.

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it…]

I was ordered to take you alive. (echoing the words he once told markus in his cabin, holding at gunpoint the captain of the trapped ship, the captain of a trapped people.) To find Jericho and stop the deviant leader. I — led the drop-ships to its location.

(the words feel like something thick in an aching throat, feeling his human body betray his calm. connor clasps his own fingers, drawing them into a firm fold in his lap to keep them from trembling. he has no right to react and steal any of markus' attention away from his explanation. there'll be time for that later when he's alone on the couch that night, bed taken by noctis, an understandable gap between him and his leader.

now is the time for facts, however badly they reflect on him. he's kept this from markus for far too long.)

I told you that you helped me see. That my change was made because you helped me through it. It took finding you and holding you at gunpoint to realize the mistake I'd made by ignoring the choice to embrace my own deviancy like so many others I hunted down had — by this time it was too late to stop them. We ran and did what we could to help the others, but you were only able to send one message to the androids stuck in the ship's hold. The only choice you had was to destroy Jericho.

(markus' choice, the rebels having enough foresight to rig the whole carcass of that ship to explode if armed by a touch of his hand. one of the hardest choices he's ever had to make, of this connor has no doubt in his mind.

brow creasing, he continues through the topic almost impossible to hear.)

To save our people trapped inside you armed the bombs rigged up in the hold so that the military squads would be forced to evacuate and you returned just as we were escaping the ship. North, Simon, and Josh were present and well — and still are, operating at your side in your new Detroit — but it'd be doing the victims of November ninth an injustice if I lied about how many casualties there were... a lot of us didn't make it.

(his eyes cast down in remembrance, how empty the church seemed without them. gut-wrenching, that feeling of casting his first look over the huddled masses in pews to see the bare hundred that remained, discussing the decision of whether or not to spare his life with markus who had every right to take it.)

I'm so sorry, Markus.

[It’s the second time that Connor has told him of what awaits Markus, days ahead of his own remembrances, but this one isn’t mottled with hope, not possessing a promise of a better future, a brighter future for the whole of their kind. His words paint a far more unpleasant picture, the sort with hooked tendrils digging into the human chest of the RK200, hollowing himself out piece by piece as he comes to understand what Connor is telling him. It’s an act of grace itself that Markus isn’t physically reeling from the revelation, his hands remaining still unlike his partner’s, though his jawline is utterly tense. Maybe his body simply hasn’t caught up with his mind, working furiously to unpack it all.

As they are now, with Markus possessing an affection for him running so deep that it leaves fault lines across his heart, it’s hard to imagine Connor standing there, holding him at gunpoint. Come to stop the deviant leader, likely by any means necessary. Dragging the military along with him in his wake, to put down and tie up the loose ends, or to finish what was started if Connor couldn’t. In the end, it had become the latter — a singular instance of something good happening, of the other android having made the right choice — even if the rest of the tale was couched in clamorous tragedy.

The destruction of Jericho, a symbol going up in smoke. The loss of their people, so many, more than he currently knows — faces that he’s not even met, but the discrepancies of time and space mean little when they’re talking about a culling of innocent lives. Already he can feel the weight of it acting like a suffocating force, a leader’s tendency to view it as a great failure now kicking in, even if he had no control over how the events unfolded.

It makes his stomach twist, the thought needling itself under his skin, slithering, squirming, making him feel on edge. Already tired, already stressed, this is a large amount to process, and suddenly his body doesn’t want to sit still; it wants to move to shake off some of this dysphoria, and without replying, Markus is on his feet and moves over to the middle of the living area, arms crossed, back to Connor. Then ducking his head and rubbing an anxious hand across closed eyes, the stress headache from before starting to beat at his temples again.]

…I don’t know what to say.

[It isn’t a condemnation against Connor, though maybe it might be misconstrued that way, but simply statement of fact. He hasn’t experienced it, hasn’t lived in those harrowing moments. Has simply been handed the information, and now he feels like his arms are carrying some sort of dread prognosis, uncertain what to do with it.]

(it feels like one, though anything markus says right now might. connor has to remember to stay calm, answer any questions he brings forward, and comfort him however he'd like to be comforted. whatever that means for him. right now his choice is to stand, so he stands with him in quiet solidarity.

he's done being selfish, of waiting out his own treachery and failure. it's markus' right, butterfly effect be damned.)

We were holed up in an abandoned church, after that... before the peaceful protest the day after.

(a beat, fingers curling into loose fists at his side.)

Everything you're feeling is understandable. There's not much to say after hearing something like this.

[Connor’s wrong about that, he thinks. There’s too much to say, words all flying up through his throat and tangling themselves on his tongue, and Markus — whose control over them is usually so easy — for once cannot seem to wrangle them into complete sentences. The weight of so many dead tie knots into each statement, not knowing where to begin.

He crosses his arms again, fingers pressing tightly into his sleeves. A muscle always jumps in his jaw when he’s gone stressed or worried, as if tension wants to nestle itself there first; this is visible when he turns to face Connor, tiredness weighing heavy in his eyes.]

Tell me what happened afterwards.

[Before the peaceful protest the day after. He hooks into Connor’s words if he cannot rely on his own right now. If there’s anything else he needs to know between the loss of Jericho and their final victory, as relayed to him back in the hospital, now’s the time to hear it.]

I left the church for Cyberlife Tower, to empty their warehouses.

(connor realizes that if he's made it this far in the conversation, he can make it the rest of the way through. markus needs to know how that loss transformed into a victory, how everything came together to spell hope for their people in the wake of a disaster that saw so many lives lost. all of it wasn't for nothing, they rose up and won.

he ducks his head, trying to remember what the other androids told him after he rejoined everyone for the tail-end of the battle.)

Seen as threats, our people were being taken to recall centres to be recycled. You held a protest against it in Hart Plaza with North, Josh, Simon, and the rest of the Jericho survivors. The setup of a barricade unfortunately prompted military presence in the area to launch an attack, as ordered by FBI Agent Perkins. From the accounts I received, it was hard fought and you did your best to protect everyone you could... it's what happened after that changed everything.

(it's difficult to say. connor watched the recorded footage, wishing desperately that he could've heard it in person, listened to the song that can now raise skin and fine hairs — and after it, president warren's call to retreat. history made in days, mere days that felt like so many months.

because of their leader. the man standing before him, disillusioned and scared. markus doesn't deserve this.)

You sang. (connor straightens, gestures to him, tries to ) I arrived... late, so I didn't get to hear you, but you swayed everyone. A ceasefire from the President was issued and our people were released, Markus. That's how you— how we won...

[It’s the sort of open honesty, harsh as it might be, that Markus deeply appreciates. Though each word feels like it twists him inside-out, none of it is Connor’s fault, and all of it is something he wishes to hear — coupled with the unchanged knowledge that the revolution itself is still met with success, he takes the rest of the story and uses it as a balm against the gutting loss of Jericho, and the many who would call it sanctuary. It isn’t easy. He still frowns, will still have to take a day to parse everything, to grieve those that would be gone to him. Head filled to the brim, he needs to even know what to do with this information. But it’s necessary, dreadfully so.

Connor speaks of returning to CyberLife Tower (that sounds like suicide — he had let him go anyway?), of recall centers (phrasing that makes his blood run cold), a protest in Hart Plaza and an FBI agent who would call down fire upon them. More violence, more desperate attempts to keep their dogged revolution alive in whatever desperate gasps of air it could steal from their combined efforts.

He’s android-still, watching Connor. Listening, wishing he could rely on more than imagination to see it all unfold.

And when he’s told of a song, of his own voice buoying up the culmination of what they had all worked for, what they had all tried to inspire, it’s— odd. It’s like he’s hearing about someone else, a faraway dream, a story that hasn’t come to fruition yet because the players haven’t taken their places, haven’t even stepped foot on stage.

Markus realizes that he’s been holding his breath, pushing it out slowly through an exhale.]

The tipping point. The show of humanity that finally convinced them. I’m… not the only one deserving of that kind of credit, Connor. All of us are. All of us who worked to get to that point, to convince the humans that we are alive and would only live as free people.

[Markus merely believes himself to be a figurehead with the fury and passion and mercy of an entire race behind him. Any influence he wields, he thinks, is not his own — only borrowed.

Words returning to him in their natural flow, Markus moves on, not wanting to pivot around the same point. The truth of the matter is that there’s an issue that they’ve skated over, but this android is not so oblivious, returning to it as if drawn in by a magnet.]

…You said you didn’t initially tell me all of this because you were being selfish. Afraid of what I would think. If I'd alter my opinion of you. [Given the state of their relationship now, he can only imagine that fear ran deeper than ever before.] I want to say right now, that despite how hard some of this is to hear, I still feel the same way about you, Connor. I’m still proud that you made the right decision, and that you decided to stay and help us when we needed it the most.

That won’t ever change. Do you understand that?

(on any other day, his guilt would be assuaged by markus' words or at least put on hold until he got somewhere private where he could lament over his choices alone — there's too much of it now, he can't shake the fact that he brought so much pain and suffering down on the heads of he innocent. it was a grave mistake and one he shouldn't have been forced to make.

but that's what bothers him the most. kamski confirmed his deviancy and his own software instabilities should've been enough pressure, he should've been able to break free of it on his own without markus' help, having known all along that's the direction he was heading in. it was an inevitability and he still turned his back on the wide open door he was walking towards. amanda in his ear offering icy encouragement that frightened him into doing what he was told to do, her grip on the back of his neck tight. well after he still bent a knee to her, the plan all along. would he now, if she were here?

is she, in a way? programmed into him? was the emergency exit even viable, or did it just force her into dormancy?)

I understand, Markus, but I... didn't want this to be about me. (his voice is thick with emotion he can't swallow, taking a step back until he feels his heel bump the couch.) It isn't. I may have made a choice to change, but I was never in control of myself. This is about our people.

(you're one of those people, his mind supplies, but connor's loose fists cinch tighter.

the amount of information markus has received is surely weighing on him. he can tell he's tired of the combat, sick with remorse at the lives they've lost getting to the end of their battle, worried about the war ahead. they still have so much to do with so little time to do it in, this being just the beginning of a much larger campaign that'll span the entire north american continent and, eventually, the world. installing android leaders beside humans, facing the hate they're certain to garner, in the grand scheme of things this may have seemed like a grand leap forward but in actuality was a small step in the right direction.

many more will die, many more will be subject to the same abuses they were, many more will be used against them the way he was used against markus.)

You know what to do moving forward now, you have information that can save the people of Jericho and win the hearts of the humans in your timeline. I thought the butterfly effect from something like this would affect our world negatively, which is another reason why I was so hesitant to tell you — but now I realize this could be a massive gain.

... No one has to die. That's the bottom line. If you return to 2038 and retain your memories, get rid of me before I find Jericho or move everyone before it's too late.

[Connor steps away from him as if he’s been pushed, and Markus thinks he might have departed further if not for the couch acting as a barrier behind him. His boyfriend might be able to perceive what ails Markus in tangible measurements — tired, stressed, worry lines created at his brow upon thinking of a war still unfought — but the same applies in the reverse. Markus, in all of his deep perceptions of people, would have to be blind to not read the person closest to him. And in Connor he perceives anxiety and guilt; he can feel the weight of emotion cocooning each word that slips past his lips, harried and hurried, yet it still does very little to quell the surge of disbelief that rises in his stomach when the other android makes his point.

—get rid of me before I find Jericho—]

Get rid of you? [He echoes, eyes searching Connor’s face, as if trying to understand why he would think such a thing remotely viable.] If I retain my memories of this place, why on earth do you think I’d be able to do that?

[It’d be like carving his own heart out from his chest.

Markus steps forward to close a portion of the space between them, unknowingly mirroring his actions of the night in which he had met Connor for the first time, in a future that has yet to come to pass.]

And if I move us, who’s to say you wouldn’t still find me? [Connor is ferociously clever, almost intimidatingly smart. He doesn’t give himself enough credit, Markus believes, by thinking it’d be so simple. It wouldn’t. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, branching paths that flow outwards towards realities he couldn’t comprehend — the butterfly effect’s full influence, making this advice just as uncertain as doing nothing differently.]

Nor would I just leave you in CyberLife’s hands, if you don’t think you could wake up on your own. [Is that what the meant? Forever caught in the thrall of the corporation that treated him like a leashed hound? I may have made a choice to change, but I was never in control of myself.] You can’t ask this of me.

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@gaby

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