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A pool… a different one. A girl.

[ He hates this. He hates that he’s stumbled onto something so very raw for Connor, something that has him tensing, ready for the worst. Without really thinking, his fingers curl into the fabric of Connor’s sleeve.

Please. Please don’t run from this. ]

You could have gotten what you wanted if you shot her, but you didn’t.

[Connor freezes as the memory sluices through him. Kamski’s voice, ingratiating and patronizing all at once, asking him to shoot another android for more information regarding deviants. Chloe just… waiting for him to make a decision, her existence in his hands, like it would be nothing at all if he pulled the trigger. Just a machine, and Kamski could obtain another — he already had several.

But the very idea stilled him, knowing that the man could just sacrifice his own android without thought, all for the sake of an experiment. And his words, cutting through him like the blade of a knife, when Connor refused: Fascinating… CyberLife’s last chance to save humanity… is itself a deviant.

He registers fingers curling into his sleeve. Looks down at Arenvald’s hand, then back up at his friend. Doesn’t pull away, but he’s barely moved as it is.]

I couldn’t do it. [His voice is low, almost breathless.] I should have, but the way she was looking at me, I just—

[He couldn’t.]

Kamski's terms were unreasonable. Even the Lieutenant thought so.

[ Connor goes still, a perfect kind of still that only he would be capable of, and Arenvald waits, insides twisting with worry. He didn’t choose to see what he saw, and he could have kept it to himself if he’d really wanted, but that would be unfair to Connor. By pure happenstance, Hydaelyn’s gift stirred to life after having been dormant in the Temple for so long and showed him two pieces of his friend’s past. He understands much more than he had before, but at what cost? ]

You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Connor.

[ His fingers flex, tighter still, into his friend’s sleeve. ]

It’s okay. I think… I think you did the right thing.

[Maybe it’s less justification to his friend. Perhaps Connor is trying to justify it to himself.

There are thresholds he can’t cross. Errors he can’t house; how much longer does he have to carry them inside his head, jostling around like loose pieces? How long until he could complete his mission and be done with it? In the Temple, on Struxta, here on Lake Dona with his friend, all of these experiences have just made them worse. Intrinsically, he knows this is true.

Connor wants to return home to Detroit; he wants that set path of clear expectation. And yet, at the same time, he doesn’t.]

I haven’t told anyone about that memory. Hank doesn’t know; it’s too… recent.

[And finally, he moves. But it’s to pull his sleeve away, and if he manages it, he'll stand and look out over the water, crossing his arms across his chest, shoulders angled taut.]

You know enough of my situation to realize why that day was problematic. CyberLife will want to correct the issue whenever I return.

[ Arenvald maintains his grip for only a second more, ultimately relenting to let Connor move away. His heart aches to watch it, though, to see that tension in his frame. Slowly, gingerly, Arenvald gets to his feet. The lily pad sways with the movement, but it’s broad and balanced enough not to send them both tipping into the water. ]

Connor…

[ He reaches for his friend, hesitant at first. He has no idea what comfort he can give here, if any, but he very desperately wants to. Connor is so afraid of what he might be, of the things he might feel, and Arenvald has no idea how to help him embrace that – because running from it will surely help nothing. At last, he rests a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. ]

Mayhap… the issue is not with you, or that moment or any of the choices you made. Mayhap the issue is with the people who see valuing life as a problem.

[He doesn’t flinch when he feels the pressure of Arenvald’s touch on his shoulder, but tension doesn’t drain. His friend would be able to feel it, nestled in there, across the line of his back, the faux muscles along his profile. The visible parts of his fingers fidgeting with the fabric of his sleeve.

He doesn’t look at him.]

Androids aren’t alive, Arenvald. Not deviants, not the ones that remain compliant, not even myself. We’re meant to give the impression that we are; maybe it works too well, even with each other. A cycle that perpetuates itself, an idea that spreads like a virus.

[Kamski had said that. Connor reflects the words back purposefully.]

But it doesn’t change the truth.

It’s never that simple.

[ The deliberate repetition of that man – of Kamski’s words does not escape him. There had been something about that fellow that Arenvald had disliked immensely. He found him too like a serpent for his liking, slimy and sly and far too content to play with others. ]

There is a girl, back home. Her name is Fordola. A pureblood Ala Mhigan, born during the Garlean occupation. Her parents bent a knee to the Empire, told her that it was the only way to live, that it was Ala Mhigo’s best chance of a future. There was no freedom to be won, only respect.

That was her truth. A truth that drove her to slay her own people, to become the hated enemy of Ala Mhigo.

[ His fingers flex against Connor’s shoulder. He wishes he would look at him. ]

It’s your truth against their truth.

[Difficult to grasp that concept without it slipping away like sand through clumsy fingers. Connor, made to think analytically, made to view the world as a procession of zeroes and ones, of what is true and what is false. A multitude of reason and consequence, of if/then scenarios.

More than one truth — whose would override the other, then? His? Markus’? Hank’s? CyberLife’s? Kamski’s? No, the world couldn’t spin on more than one axis. Connor can’t tread more than one path.

What would Amanda say to all of this?]

You’re wrong. It’s not that complicated.

[He does turn his head to look at his friend this time, and the brightness of the overhead sun seems to drown out his LED.]

I am either functional or I am not. I am either useful, or I am not. Why can’t you understand this?

[Everyone here, they treated him so differently. Considered things for him Connor never bothered to do. Didn’t realize what that was doing to him.]

[ Arenvald is not Minfilia. He’s not Alphinaud. He’s not terribly smart or especially skilled, he has no way with words like they do. He can’t summon up inspiring speeches or keep pace with diplomats. He’s a broken boy with a sword and a gift he’s not so sure he deserves.

But he is free. Free to write his own story. Free to move forward despite the many ghosts of his past, the scars carved deeply into his heart as sure as the ones that he hides beneath his warpaint. It pains him to see Connor fettered so, stuck on a notion of what he is when he has long ceased to even be that person.

What he would give for Connor to be able to see himself as Arenvald sees him, kind and funny and warm, a bright presence in his time here. Someone he cares about so very deeply, and only wishes the best for. ]

You keep trying to put yourself in a box you don’t fit in, Connor. You have worth far beyond what those people who made you tell you, I know it. I've seen it.

You chose to spare that girl, just the same way you chose to put your life on the line to save Struxta. Is that uselessness to you?

I put myself in danger because it doesn’t matter if I die.

[The word slips out before he can stop it, caught on the sharp hook of Arenvald’s counter-argument.]

It doesn’t matter if I shut down, because I am made to serve a purpose — if I can help, then I should. Do you know what it’s like—

[Something is stirring in his chest, he’s not sure what, but he knows it’s uneasy.]

—to be built like I am, to inherently want to make sense of everything, and am able to make sense of none of it? That all I can do is accept my new mission parameters as a helpful member of the Circle, because I can’t hunt deviants here?

[He’s wheeling on the wind. He needs an anchor. If it means shutting himself down over and over again for the sake of applying himself to this new scenario in an effective way, then what did it matter?

He’d just push fear away.]

Of course I threw myself into the Storm. That’s not worthy of a compliment; that’s not a show of humanity. It is simply an android looking for ways to perform a task well.

[ It doesn't matter if I die.

He would call it a dichotomy, that that phrase should fly out of the same mouth that told him he was afraid to die, if he hadn't thought the same of himself. A wretched halfbreed, neither Ala Mhigan nor Garlean, left to scratch out a living like the vermin he is. It doesn't matter if I die.

And yet...

I don't want to die.

Arenvald's expression sharpens, a strange mix of desperation and concern and the fiery spark of anger. He's not mad at Connor so much as the situation, the walls that have been built around him by people who think they know what he is, when in reality they have no idea. ]

Yes! Yes, I know exactly what it's like. You're looking for purpose, and that is the most human thing in the entire universe! There's not a person alive who's born knowing exactly who they are or what they want, or who understands what they feel. We just try our best, because that's all we can do.

I was already given a purpose!

[His voice raises along with Arenvald's, a reflection of what he can read as irritation in the other -- not knowing what to do with it, his programming dictates that he tries to mollify the flow of conversation; but something else, that lingering feeling in his chest, running through pulses of energy carried by his Thirium, stray lines of code not arranged properly, simply doesn't follow that directive.]

And I... I want to adhere to it.

[He wants to, because what choice does he have?]

Why are you so eager to willfully misconstrue my point? Why do you want to argue this into the ground?

[ There is a part of him that doesn't want this, these raised voices and tense feelings, but a part of him that also hopes that Connor will realize that irritation is just as human as anything. He knows, as much as he hates it, he knows that his own feelings can't come first in this. Connor has to figure himself out, and Arenvald has no room here to be selfish. ]

Because I watched you change! I saw you on that rooftop and you let that man die. You earned his trust and then they killed him, but when the gun was in your own hand, you couldn't do it! You chose, and you chose mercy over the mission.

You're not just some machine, Connor. Your purpose can be whatever you want it to be. You can write your own story.

[Connor hates this feeling, knowing what it is. Knowing that it doesn’t belong in him, that an android shouldn’t experience it, but he’s felt it before — emotion, the kind Hank shared with him. The kind the deviant on the rooftop forced into his processing. The kind that even he registers time and again, without any outside influence, like right now, and right now he feels twisted up and frustrated and lost—

He’ll return to Detroit when this mission is over, once they’ve felled some unyielding dark, and CyberLife will know everything that’s wrong with him. Amanda will see it, will frown at him, tsk and tell him that she’s disappointed. And then each piece will be removed by a careful engineer’s hand, and they’ll turn every part of him over and over and ask themselves where they went wrong. Where’s the design flaw? Where’s the imperfection? Why couldn’t the machine just do as it was told and not question its directives? Start over from scratch, we’ll try again.

Start over.

Connor doesn’t reply, only presses his crossed arms closer against his body, defiantly looking back out over the water. As if trying to hold himself together, keep himself whole, the very thought of it making him feel like parts of him have gone hollow already.

And then, finally, quietly—]

Are you calling me a deviant, too?

[ The hot ember of anger that’s been burning in Arenvald’s chest goes out almost instantly, extinguished by the frost that creeps over the inside of his ribcage at that quiet accusation, the way that Connor seems to close in on himself.

“Deviant”, he decides, is a dirty word, and he doesn’t like it. A phrase coined to make it sound like being true to oneself, to fully embrace who and what you are, something worthy of punishment. That’s not something he wants to enforce, but he can’t help but feel like he’s royally screwed up here, by putting the idea in Connor’s head in the first place.

His reply comes, just as quiet, ]

I’m calling you Connor. My friend. Someone I… someone I care about. No more and no less.

You’re already your own person, I just wish I knew how to make you see that person like I do – you’re not defective. Not useless. You’re… you’re wonderful.

[The ice that runs through blue blood seems to still, the world jolting to a stop when Arenvald doesn't apply the word deviant to his person. Instead just calls him… Connor. Says that he’s wonderful.

No one’s ever said that to him. No words have ever been so weighted with concern, with sincerity, with something else he can’t quite quantify, directed at himself. To describe the whole of what he is, other than just android or RK800, but an individual, a person.

(Connor thinks of the overlarge screens at Stratford, the recording of Markus declaring the need for android freedoms. To be seen as people, not as objects, to be realized as alive. What Arenvald is saying now, is that how that RK200 viewed the world? Finding worth in androids who were only supposed to be disposable at best? The concept is staring him in the face for a second time, but now the words come from a friend, not a target. It’s more affecting this way, far more personal.

Something shifts. Destabilizes. He partitions it away, to linger with the rest.)]

You think I’m wonderful?

[It’s all he can say. He glances at his friend, arms still pressed to his body. As if a winter storm was blowing through, despite the sun hanging in the sky —vulnerability, uncertainty. What he wants to hear, and what he doesn’t, all the same.]

Edited 2018-09-28 15:11 (UTC)

[ For another moment, Arenvald thinks he’s said the wrong thing. Connor doesn’t move, and it can be damn near impossible to guess at what he’s thinking sometimes. They’ve no room to part ways, out here on the water as they are, but were Connor to give him the cold shoulder until they make it back to shore, it would be just as bad as him walking away.

By some miracle, his fears seem unfounded, at least for the moment, and Arenvald’s expression softens, something fond in his gaze. ]

Of course I think you’re wonderful. You’re easy to talk to, you make me laugh. You’re there for me when I need it, even if I didn’t know I did at the time. I’d trust you – have trusted you – with anything, even the parts of my life that are ugly and difficult to talk about. I’m… glad to have you in my life.

[What to say to that? His social applications are useless here, so much of him is wound up in knots. Nothing comes up, and he finds himself struggling to reply.]

I… [And yet, what slips out is what he would’ve said regardless of his thoughts on deviancy as applied to himself. For some reason, this seems to be the only right reply.] …Thank you. I’ll always be glad to provide some aid or comfort to you. I want to, so—

[So much for negotiation subroutines. This should be easier.]

No matter what I believe, versus what you’re telling me, I don’t wish for you to think I don’t… appreciate what you’re trying to do. You’re a good man, Arenvald. A good friend.

[Arenvald, shouting into the void, trying to change what’s there. Connor’s almost sorry for the wasted effort.]

[ If one were to ask Arenvald, he wouldn’t call the effort wasted in the least, but he is of the mind that he’s pushed enough for now. Mayhap he needs to take his own advice to heart – don’t force the issue. Just be there.

Mayhap it will take a while for Connor to come around, a long while, even, but Arenvald knows that he has it in him to grow and change and eventually, to embrace who he is. He can wait, because some things… well, they’re worth waiting for. ]

Thanks, and… ah, I’m sorry, for whatever it’s worth. The Echo shows me what it wants. I’d have never nosed my way into your past if I could help it.

[Something in him seems to unwind, slowly. Barely noticeable. But Connor drops his arms to his side, and turns to look at Arenvald directly.]

I know. I don’t blame you for it; I’m not upset. Though… [A beat.] I’d just ask that you—

[Whatever he was going to say, it’s cut off. The lily pad suddenly, without any rhyme or reason, tips over at a harsh angle, making it impossible for either of them to keep balance.

Connor immediately tenses, tossing out an attempt to scan just what the hell is going on, but it’s too late.

Into the water you go, boys.]

[ What he assumes this is going to be is a request to keep the things he saw to himself, which is perfectly reasonable. Arenvald had already planned on doing that, but Connor is interrupted mid-sentence. They both are, as the lily pad pitches suddenly, dumping them both gracelessly into the lake.

Arenvald’s startled yelp is cut off by a deluge of lake water, and as he goes under, he swears he catches a glimpse of retreating fins, diving deeper and away.

A mermaid. That gods be damned little…

Thankfully, Arenvald is a strong swimmer, kicking to the surface with relative ease, spitting out water and sucking in a breath as he casts around for Connor. ]

[Water explodes all around him as he falls in, then becomes a dull roar in his audio processing. He notes the bubbles rising to the surface, catches the sight of a mermaid's tail flitting in his periphery. Her voice is like music, a bell pealing through the water, lyrical and laughing -- Machine! Machine! it sounds like she's saying, before her form disappears altogether, and Connor is left alone, with his friend rising nearby.

He can swim, at least; he's not an android so heavy that he'll immediately sink, designed instead to reflect the weight of a normal human male his size, if only slightly heavier. He kicks and pushes against the water, and a moment later, he appears next to his friend.

Connor doesn't gasp for breath, but he does spend a moment spitting out lake water.]

Are you all right?!

[ Arenvald is soaked, his hair plastered to his forehead, but is otherwise unharmed. ]

Aye, everything's still attached. What about you?

Still...

[The lily pad floats by, along with the branch. Connor makes a grab for the former, reaching out with an arm and slinging water gracelessly as he does it.]

...functioning! Grab hold of the branch if you can reach it!

[ He's oddly okay with this little tumble into the water. Though he and Connor seemed to reach some sort of understanding, the sudden up-ending of their raft seems to have taken the lingering tension out of him.

He swims after the branch, which thankfully has not gotten terribly far away from the lily pad. Clasping it in one hand, he does a one-armed paddle back towards Connor. ]

So much for not getting your outfit wet.

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