bakerstreet | Pic prompts (Reverse/text friendly)

"I don't get them." The upside of healing as quickly as he did Booker always felt fine in the morning. It took a great deal of alcohol to get drunk and stronger the better but he never suffered the consequences.

"The point... is to do good while you can do it," he said with a little shrug. "Who knows what long reaching effects there are to it? Maybe you save the guy who cures cancer. Or kill the man that would be the next Hitler. Is it enough some days? No."

Booker hated his existence most of the time, especially without his family around but he kept going. He had to live better otherwise... well, that was really it. He didn't know what else there was. It would be drinking and fighting and misery like before.

Though, to be honest, he was fairly miserable most of the time. "But it's something."

Marcus wasn't going to get into it, but since Booker hadn't left and he was still joining the conversation, the lieutenant took it as an invitation to continue.

"To do good," Marcus repeated the other immortal's words. "I've put away murderers, drug lords, gangbanging bastards..." Marcus worked police, had for quite a while now in between stints of other things. And there was the reach of his alter ego, to cover what the law couldn't.

He shook his head. "Doesn't feel like there's a point to any of it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... eventually that's all they are, good, bad... anyday someone could start World War 3 and it'll wipe everyone out." Wasn't that a recurring nightmare of his, to wake up one day in a wasteland with no life, no survivors, not a single person left around him but himself. That more than any past traumatic attempts to kill himself plagued his real fear.

"I can't give you hope," Booker said before he sipped his drink. "You have to find that for yourself. I can only tell you that's what keeps me going most days. Try and do good otherwise, what's the point?"

Marcus had forever. He had real immortality. Booker had his uncertain immortality. There was only so long he could do good and hopefully, it would be enough to make the world better in some small way.

"I'm hoping I see the end of cancer, honestly." He smiled sadly thinking back to Jean-Pierre as he always did. "If I can live long enough to see that it'll have been worth it."

But there was no hope. Marcus had tried and tried again to climb out of well that was the despair that was the process of living. The few times he managed to get to the lip, losing everyone dropped him back into that well more hurt than before.

Maybe with another immortal there, he could hold on a bit longer. Maybe.

"I remember the days when people didn't live long enough to have cancer, or before they even knew what cancer was." He switched back to French again, thinking it might be a strange conversation to have to have in English. "I have watched them come from wandering vagabonds to building civilizations that can reach the stars. In a few thousand years, cancer will probably be nonexistent."

Marcus took his next drinks of whiskey slower. "They all want to be immortal. If they only knew."

"No wonder in any of it? Nothing that thrilled you?" Booker had certainly seen things that gave him bursts of excitement. Computers were a revelation. Airplanes, those had amazed him and he immediately wanted to fly one. There were little things all over that kept him going until it was too much.

Marcus reminded him of Andy, reminded him of how he thought figuring out how to end it would free them all and how wrong he had been. There was no way for him to make Marcus see hope. That was on him and him alone.

"They are afraid, that's all." And Booker knew it all too well. His son had been afraid and hurting so he had lashed out. Booker had borne the brunt of it and it weighed on him. One day he might master that burden.

Marcus had really tried. "I have tried everything, hobbies, sex, new music..." Of which the newest ones given the immortal headaches instead.

He tried to catch up with the times, and new inventions were novel only for a few years before it became everyday. The discovery of the rest of the world, humans crossing the great oceans... now with the age of technology, things were novel only for a few months, but they were just repetition on a loop. It was getting harder and harder to find any enthusiasm for any of it.

"They want what they don't understand. Even when you give it to them, they still cannot unlock the secrets of the divine. What makes me... us...immortal... or what can kill us."

“If sex isn’t still good you’re having sex with the wrong people.” Even at his lowest Booker still liked sex. It was a good escape even for a single night. Even Andy still enjoyed sex after thousands of years. If Marcus was bored of that he was definitely doing it wrong in Booker’s opinion.

He leaned back in his chair, one arm thrown across it while he crossed his legs. “Everyone wants what they can’t have. Don’t pretend it’s different for you.” In this short conversation Booker knew that much about Marcus. The man wanted someone to live out existence with and he didn’t get it so he was bitter. Booker understood but he was no better than the people he put down.

“The only thing we have different from them is a long time. That doesn’t make us better or worse or above the same mistakes they make every day. We’re still human, not divine.” There was no divinity in this. They weren’t suddenly angels or holy avengers. They were just men and women with a long, long life ahead of them. Booker knew he wasn’t better.

That statement got the first chuckle out of the ancient human the whole night. "Sex is... sex. It's good for a few minutes, a whole night if I indulge. I suppose I haven't indulged in a while."

It was different having a conversation with someone who he could... open up to. Even if not to share all his secrets, being able to talk freely by itself was already a gift. Maybe it was the drink, or maybe simply having a companion to talk to after these years of loneliness, without a need to filter his content, the words flowed out.

"That's the point of wanting something, you don't have it. But I think I understand pretty well what I want." He wanted an end of the endless loneliness, an end to his curse, true death. "While the others who want what we have, they haven't a clue.

"And I'm not saying I'm divine. I'm not, I know I'm not. I'm human as they come, born from..." Marcus trailed off, shaking his head instead. "What I mean is the source of the immortality is. It must be." And a little book full of God's words verified it as well. "It is why I have not been able to unlock it, nor anyone else who tried."

Booker made a skeptical noise but knew better than to debate the existence of divine powers with someone who believed. Nicky and Joe were pretty steady on that while he gave up on God long before he was immortal. It was all bullshit.

"Like you said once they didn't have a word for cancer, now they can treat it. Give them another three thousand years and maybe they'll make themselves immortal." Not through divine power but science and technology, the forces that drove the world now as surely as religion had one done.

Booker almost hoped they did it even though he also knew that would lead to some ugly, ugly things. People like Merrick shouldn't have this but he wouldn't be upset if more people like Nile did.

"Or they might wipe themselves all out." Not to be pessimistic, but humanity did improve greatly in how they were coming up with ways to kill themselves too. Cain had only a rock when he did it. Now there was technology to destroy a small nation in one shot.

"It can go either way." And by his tone, Marcus didn't want to stick around to find out which.

It was a depressive topic to chase after, and Marcus tried to veer away, knowing it was a rabbit hole that led only to darkness. "Humans shouldn't have immortality. It is not something I would wish on the people I hated the most..." But the rare ones that he loved... He had wished it for it, at the time of their passing, but knew afterwards that it was better that they didn't. It was why he was afraid to love again too.

That was a difficult topic. On the one hand he had seen the good love could do for immortals. Joe and Nicky were so powerful together and so happy, how could he not want the same for himself? Booker would give a limb to go back and spend millennia with his wife.

But... more immortals would lead to more problems. It would lead to people knowing and more risk of capture. It would lead to people like Merrick using them not for the betterment of the world but for profit. Booker only needed to learn that lesson once.

"I suppose it's different for me. I know this will end at some point." Booker shrugged a shoulder. Nothing that lives, lives forever. Except maybe this man sitting across from him. Booker was still deciding if he believed that or not.

"Don't have to keep rubbing it in." Marcus didn't sound as bitter as he had been a moment ago. Still sour, but nowhere as bad. He just sounded a bit mellower, it could be the alcohol's influence.

"Maybe you're young, you can still have hopes and dreams." Marcus held his whiskey silently, swirling the amber liquid as he watched it circle. "Don't tell me it's not too late to have dreams. It's not the same, the aspiration to have a goal and see it fulfilled. I see only tasks that I will eventually complete. When you have all the time in the world, there's no incompletable task."

Except to find an end to his immortality. He hadn't given up though, not fully. He still kept an eye out and searched.

"I don't look forward to the future. If I do, that's admitting defeat."

Marcus reminded Booker of him and Andy at their worst when they had completely given up. He didn't like to see it, this strange mirror of him right before his betrayal. It made him unease.

"Then that's your problem. Like I said, I want to see the end of cancer. I want to see what little pieces of good I can do and what bad guys I can take down along the way. I want to keep going out of spite for whatever gave me this immortality." Booker wanted to keep going so he could see his family again. He wanted one more hug from Andy. One more football game with Joe. One more of Nicky's home cooked meals. A chance to see Nile become incredible.

"You can figure out what keeps you going on your own. I've got no answers for you, apparently." Since Marcus had shot down every suggestion Booker made about reasons to keep going. Booker wasn't going to waste his time trying to motivate him.

"Sorry... I'm not a great conversationalist." Marcus realized that much about himself. He was every bit of an ass, sometimes done on purpose to keep others from wanting to get close, but the reverse was true too, he hadn't had a reason to get close to anyone since eternity it seemed. Apparently right now he was a depressive, nihilistic ass.

"I look at you... and I see... light. Hope." Probably not words that the other immortal would have chosen, but compared to Marcus, the difference was there.

Marcus finished the rest of his shot in a single gulp and waited a second for things to get mellower. "I don't know how to reach it. You say I need to figure it out for myself... I have been trying for thousands of years. You're the first spark I've felt in ages."

Booker wasn't sure how he felt about that either. He wasn't a good example given how royally he had fucked up and the hurt he had caused. The echoes of his actions would ripple much farther than just his family and he knew it. It would come back to bite him somehow.

"Right. You're not alone." That much Booker could provide, proof that there was at least one immortal out there. He wasn't ready to mention the others. He was still, perhaps, overprotective about them.

"But you know I won't be hanging around. Once this job is done I'm moving on." Booker wanted to remind him before he hitched all his hopes on an alcoholic, depressed, trying to be better Frenchman.

Compared to Marcus who made an eternity of mistakes, that was barely anything. Heaven and hell knew Marcus had plenty of mistakes under his belt. Did he feel guilty about it, no, but they were mistakes nonetheless.

The reminder that Booker wasn't sticking around wasn't what the depressed immortal wished to hear.

"Right," he said, sitting back and placing his empty tumbler back on the table. "Tell me when you do... Or you won't have to. I'll know when the job's done." He glanced towards the bar but despite how he wanted to drink himself to oblivion and said he would, he had better better control.

So when he waved for the bartender, it was only for the tab and the request to call him a cab.

"You'll know the job is done. And you found me once. I'm sure you'll find me again. But I don't settle down. I can't."

Not everyone was dead from Merrick's. That doctor was still out there, probably still eager to slice off pieces of them and study them. The others had Copley to hide their tracks. Booker was on his own.

He would keep moving and keep finding work until he was certain everything was safe. And even then he probably wouldn't settle down. That gave him too much time to think and regret.

"You should figure out how to enjoy the life you've got." Because God, Marcus was a miserable bastard and Booker sympathized but he was trying hard to break that mindset.

It wouldn't be fair to drag Booker into that mindset either, Marcus understood. "I'll up that in mind. " He tried to tell whether it was polite words or an invitation to call again, but figured Booker wasn't the type to do polite.

"You know how to find me as well if you need something." It wasn't an offer that Marcus made lightly, or one he would make more than once, but to another immortal he could. And if he moved, he might find a way to tell Booker too.

The bartender came with the bill that Marcus paid with in cash. When Marcus asked about the cab, with an embarrassed look the server said he forgot but could call him one now. "Really? Wow. Service these days."

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