the miles are way too long

[saviorexe]

WHO: Markus, Ardyn, V & various
WHERE: All around.
WHEN: The first half of IC November.
WHAT: This is basically a catch-all log for my characters.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: None, will add if any crop up.

[Closed starters below! If you want a thread, just hit me up at aurajen and we can figure something out!]

Comments

[theseuschip]

[ Markus happens to be a nice guy Simon would like to get to know better. Of course, that’s almost incidental at this point; that invitation could have been from pretty much anybody, and he would have taken it, just for the distraction from the pointless tunnel of rumination about Catherine up and vanishing. Did she wind up what she was before they got here, a digitized brain, strained to a flashing, smoking death in the Omnitool by Simon’s weaponized denial? Or simply where she was before — now human, teleported instantly to the bottom of the ocean with no protection from the crushing pressures of the abyss? Is she anywhere or anyone at all?

Why didn’t he say more to her when he had the chance?

And for as short as his time in PATHOS-II was, it left more than its share of pockmarks on his psyche. A mastery of the art of getting from one place to the next while dwelling on the feeling of progress instead of why you’re doing it or what’s actually going to happen when you get there has been one of them. Enough so that when Simon approaches the table (arms crossed; it passes a single-glance-from-a-local test), he just looks slightly startled for a moment to see that there’s food on it— ]

Oh, thanks.

[ —and to be remembering how they’ve only spoken or seen each other under weird circumstances and Simon doesn’t know why he was invited here. But Markus is acting totally normal about it, so he will too, offering him a small smile as he takes the seat across from him and plucking two of the fries from a pretty towering quantity of them. ]

How’s it going, Markus? Happy to be... [ not “home” but. ] uh, back?

[ Of course, Simon is prepared to discuss only the nightmarish weather on their trip rather than the actual nightmares. Not that Simon doesn’t also have some hardcore benchmarks to measure those against. ]

[saviorexe]

[There’s no way they’re both going to finish this gigantic assortment of fries (unless the other Displaced ends up having a much larger appetite than what Markus expected), piled up between them when Simon takes his seat. He had learned, in his months of living in an organic body, that the android-to-human transition meant that he was granted a blank-slate of a stomach, unused to heavy foods and fried confections. Too much of this and he’ll have a heck of a stomach ache later. Even the mini-tower of fries that he’s claimed as his own is only slowly growing smaller, with Markus possessing enough self-control to take his time.

Still, better that he orders too much rather than not enough. It’s comical, kind of, but they were cheap and he’s not going to be stingy if he’s invited someone out to meet him.]

I hated the cold.

[Rare that Markus hates anything, and rarer still that he says it so bluntly. But he hated the cold. Snow used to be aesthetically pleasing to him, and it still is, but now it’s laced with the terrible associations of numb fingers and a numb face, of a blizzard’s wind cutting through his layers of clothing. Falling off a hoverbike into a great, freezing knoll of white. Not a fun time.]

I don’t regret going, even if it wasn’t… planned. It was good to help people, but— Let’s just say I am glad to be back in New Amsterdam. What about you?

[What about you? asked casually, but his eyes are fastened to Simon’s body language, trying to preemptively ascertain how he’s been doing. An old habit.]

[theseuschip]

[ Simon’s lips quirk in amusement at this declaration; he doesn’t know Markus well, but you don’t have to talk to him long for a statement starting with “I hate” to stand out. Not that the polar calamity of New Tokyo wasn’t worthy of it. ]

If it had been regular snow, it would’ve almost been homey.

[ He eats three fries at a time (all his self-control about these is being enforced by having another civilized human sitting directly across from him), and then— He expected to have the question about his welfare turned back to him, of course. So there’s no blaming surprise for the way his smile stiffens on his face and he awkwardly scratches his jaw, breaking eye contact in what Simon hopes looks like a normal, casual effort to take stock of the good and not depressing time he’s been having.

His skill in self-deception is inversely proportional to his ability to deceive others. ]

I’m- good. [ his attempt at a light tone is a little uncertain, but steadies when he follows it up with the technically-true, ] Could be a lot worse.

[saviorexe]

[It isn’t particularly convincing, is it? Not for someone as observant as Markus, a caretaker created to be observant, with this trait so indelible that it’s become a facet of personality rather than programming.

But it’s informative; it reveals that his approach needs to be one he eases into. He knows the look of a man trying to pretend that something doesn’t bother him as much as it actually does. Markus sometimes wears it, too.]

That’s true. It could be.

[The city could be shut down and in chaos thanks to an apparent-AI, but hey, at least they have fries.

He leans forward on the table with his elbows, casual.]

I… admittedly, wanted to check up on you. I know that you might’ve been missing a friend of yours.

[theseuschip]

[ Simon’s face falls before he can catch himself. Somehow, he hadn’t expected Markus to know that, even though he’s starting to see just how involved the latter is in the Displaced’s affairs. ]

Catherine, [ he confirms, though it comes out more hollow than he intended, and looks away. ] Yeah.

[ ...he was going to pretend everything is fine, but Markus already knows about it and he’s right here, so he becomes the sounding board for Simon’s feelings now — some of them, at least. He can barely articulate all of his feelings about Catherine’s disappearance. ]

I don’t know why it had to be her. She- she should be here. There were things I should have said to her when I had the chance, but I didn’t, and now—

[ he rubs his forehead pensively. ] Where do they go? The people who disappear?

[ It doesn’t feel pointless to ask, even knowing that nobody seems to know the answer to this question. Simon is comfortable with dumb and futile questions. ]