bakerstreet | listen to your heart 😌

listen to your heart 😌

"Can You Handle Your Emotions?"

Emotions are... eh. We all have them, whether we want to or not. Some people have control over their emotions, and some people let their emotions control them. Where does your character fall on this spectrum? More importantly, what's their relationship with their emotions like? Do they bury everything deep, deep down inside, or are they the first one to cry over a sappy movie? Do they even know how they feel about what's going on inside? Pretty meta stuff.

No blank top-levels.
Instead, characters are to respond to the proposed question: can you handle your emotions? / are you in touch with your feelings?
Get deep. Look within. Hear, think feel... or don't.

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[Hank shifts his weight from foot to foot and looks down, sighing and guilty. He's already regretting saying it. Who the hell told a guy like fucking Markus The Savior of Androidkind that it was a good idea to talk to him anyway?

Well, shit, now he knows exactly who. Damn it, Connor.]

I'm just having trouble buying that this is something the leader of a whole ass revolution thought was gonna be worth his time. This really what you want to know?

[Markus looks up at him, blinking slowly as he straightens.] Learning is always worth the time. Connor speaks highly of you. There are few humans who have made such a positive impact on our existence.

If we learn to understand, wouldn't that make this easier?

[At the 'few humans' thing Hank grimaces. That says more about the rest of humanity than it does about him. But then Markus is moving on before he can protest out loud and Hank shrugs, arms still crossed.]

'This' -- you mean being a person? I don't know, it's always messy. Feeling your feelings isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[He pauses to study Markus, sounding curious.]

I figured you'd have all that stuff covered anyway, a guy like you. What is it you wanna understand, exactly?

No. It isn't all that it's cracked up to be. [The aphorism lands a little oddly, but it shows that he's trying, still learning, still trying to understand.] I have experienced grief and loss as much as I have felt hope.

[Markus ducks his head, ruffling the dog's ears again.] I have very little 'figured out'. I am simply trying to do the best I can by both of our people.

[It was why they sang instead of turning the final conflict into a bloodbath.]

[Hank takes a breath big enough to move his crossed arms, then he heaves it out. There's something surreal about watching this particular android standing in his living room petting his dog, something that makes it hard to get his hackles up. Or maybe that's just how it would be talking to Markus anywhere; it's hard not to be a little in awe. So after a moment Hank just gives in to the feeling, tone resigned.]

Well, who am I to argue? I'm still pretty sure you came to the wrong guy, but if there's something you wanna talk about, hit me. There some specific feeling you've been having trouble with?

[Markus sits cross-legged on the floor to better pet Sumo and to look at Hank as he speaks.]

Connor said you were a leader, a detective.

[He looks down at his fingers lost in Sumo's fur.] How did you cope with that pressure? With those expectations?

Leading is.. new to me.

[Hank grimaces, but this time it's a sympathetic grimace. Markus looks like anything but a leader sitting crosslegged on the floor like a kid, not even looking at him. He guesses that's intentional, considering why the guy's apparently here. He wonders how many chances Markus gets to not be the Savior of Androidkind just for a second. He wonders how many other people have gotten to see him like this, and what Hank did to earn the right to it. Maybe nothing more than being kind of a stranger; it's a whole lot easier to unload on someone you don't know, sometimes.]

New, huh? You wouldn't know it, watching you.

[He uncrosses his arms and sinks down into the couch, far enough from Markus to give him some space. He rubs his hands over his knees, gaze going distant as he thinks back. There's got to be something he's got that's going to help.]

Honestly, I think I just coped 'cause none of it ever stopped. There was always something else that needed doing, or someone else who needed me; you've got to just deal with one disaster at a time and tell everything else to fuck off until you can get to it. And, uh...

[He gives a quick little shrug, leaning back, voice for a second or two a little too casual. He doesn't really want to go too deep into this part.]

And I used to be pretty good at that whole work-life balance thing. I think that helped. Why? I'd have thought there'd be less pressure on you now that everything's starting to, uh... I don't know if 'calm down' is the right word, but things are better than they were, right?

[Being the savior of Androidkind was nothing short of exhausting.

Carl would be amused by the whole thing, he thinks.

Small and stolen moments with Connor and with those he seemed trustworthy helped Markus sort out the path forward, in spite of the pressure. He smiles, scratching Sumo's chin.] The last owner that I recall taught me an old aphorism. Fake it until you make it, I believe is how it went.

Like you, I have been attention to cope because the pressure is neverending.

[Help him, Hank. You're his only hope.]

[Hank's answering smile is small and wry, sympathetic. Yeah, he thinks he sees the call for help there.]

Works right up until it doesn't, huh? Faking it helps, though. I know it sounds stupid, but you just try to think like a guy who can deal with all the shit, and after a while you start believing it.

[It sort of fits wrong, talking like that after the last few years. But if Markus knows more about who Hank was in those earlier days than the recent ones, or doesn't know anything about him at all outside of whatever embarrassing shit Connor's told him, Hank isn't going to fill him in. Not if he's coming to Hank for help, someone to relate to.]

And being the only guy who can do what you can do -- I don't know, that helped me, at least. It's more pressure, sure, but there's a... a meaning to it. Helped me be that guy, when people needed me to and I felt like no one else was gonna do it.

[He snorts and murmurs the next sentence:] I was a stupid kid.

Pretty full of myself. It's probably more true of you than it ever was of me. But I really thought it for a while, and it did help.

A meaning to it. [He mulls over Hank's words. Life was far simpler when all he had to worry about was Carl's care. Now he has the whole of his people looking to him for help, for leadership.] Finding the meaning behind what you were doing helped you deal with the pressure?

Things between our people are calmer, but I worry. I worry for both of our kind. [Will the peace hold? Will his people truly be given roles as equals in society?]

Yeah... There's a lot to worry about. You'd know that better than me. But yeah, if all that pressure on you's for something, it helps. Take it from me, it uh...

[Hank pauses, looking down at his hands, because he has to push this part out.]

It changes things, when you don't have that.

You're doing something more important than anyone else in this damn country's done in a long time, and you're the only guy who can do it. And that's... shit, I probably sound like an asshole saying this, but you get to look at people really suffering and say, I can fix that. I can make that better. And then you actually can. Most of us never get to have that. Not the way we thought. So.

[He leans back, rubbing at his knees again and looking up at the shelves on the wall like he's not avoiding Markus' eyes, like he's actually going to see something new up there. His casual tone, once he looks at Markus again, sounds forced even to him, but there's not a lot he can do about that but hope Markus is nice enough to go along with it.]

Pretty sure a vacation wouldn't hurt, though. Bet you've never got to take one of those yet.

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listen to your heart 😌

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