#north dbh

Markus: North, we need to talk about—

North: The building was already on fire when I got there.

Markus:What?

North:What?

next:2

This is my first time writing detroit: become human fanfic.

Based off of the headcanon/prompt by: https://hankisconnorsdadargumentover.tumblr.com/

“What if your initiation into Jericho was to remove your LED? After letting connor into Jericho, markus has north and josh restrain him and they cut out the LED, it traumatizes Connor and he keeps the beanie on the rest of his life, he trusts markus but only if he isn’t carrying a weapon. Hank did slap markus around after the whole thing. “DON’T EVER TOUCH MY SON AGAIN!” It takes a long time for hank to trust markus around connor alone.”

Deviated a bit from it to make it more angsty.

The objective was a fairly simple one. All Connor had to do was locate the deviant who called itself Markus and then wait for further instructions. The issue, though, was to do that he would have to infiltrate the deviant’s base, Jericho. Finding Jericho was no easy feat on it’s own, it took tricking the android from the Stratford Tower kitchen with Markus’s voice (Connor distinctly remembers interrogating the androids in the kitchen and the stinging and panic of having his thirium pump ripped out and–).

Connor opted to be dropped off a few blocks away from Jericho and walk the rest of the way despite the harsh Detroit winter. It would be less suspicious if he were to walk to the hulking rusted ship than to arrive in an automated taxi. He pulled the beanie further down over his LED, covering the steady pulsing blue circle. He wanted, no needed , them to believe that he was also a deviant looking for shelter. That’s why he was permitted to wear non-marked clothing despite his discomfort with doing so. Deviants weren’t likely to wander around in their Cyberlife issued gear unless they had just deviated, which went against Connor’s story that was crafted by the police.

Connor was supposed to be a fairly new android model who had escaped from Cyberlife around two weeks ago, and was afraid of being discovered again. It was a basic story, but Connor was equipped to lie for the sake of missions. It was basic enough that it was plausible, but not too basic that it wasn’t believable. Luckily, the police hadn’t disclosed his model number nor face during the covering of the deviancy cases, instead opting to simply say that there was an android working injunction with the police department to solve the case. It kept deviants from recognizing who he was unless they had encountered him before. Which might be the case, since Connor didn’t have the best track record with catching said deviants. He had let the Tracies’ escape, unsure why he didn’t shoot. He had let another deviant escape to save the Lieutenant, and he hadn’t shot the Chloe. Connor had to succeed during this mission, because if he didn’t he suspected that Cyberlife would decommission him. Afterall, what’s the point of an android that can’t do its job? He wasn’t afraid of being decommissioned, but he understood that it would put a hindrance on the mission and wanted to avoid so if at all possible.

The walk to Jericho was a quick one. Despite the cold weather, Connor kept a steady pace. He scanned the outside of the ship, attempting to find the optimal route inside of the body. After a quick preconstruction, he makes his way into Jericho to hunt down Markus

—

Walking between the deviants, Connor made his way upstairs. There was a 72% chance of encountering Markus upstairs, while the downstairs area he only had a slim 23% chance. He tried to ignore the low 5% chance that he wouldn’t encounter Markus at all. There was no point in considering it, because Connor had to succeed in this mission. There were fewer androids in the upper compartments.

While looking for Markus, Connor caught a glimpse of a PL600 model. Scanning the android, he recognized it as the missing android from Stratford tower. Had it somehow escaped the roof after being shot? Connor felt something bubbling in his chest when he realized that during the commotion of the kitchen, he had failed to check on the roof until much later. Maybe if he had gone there before, he would have met Simon. He rubbed his chest, trying to make the feeling go away. It was most likely a side-effect of having his pump ripped out and put back in, as Cyberlife hadn’t bothered to look him over after the incident. If Simon was around, then Markus would also be around as well. He followed the blonde android as they walked to the central part of the upstairs. Markus was standing under a covered awning/tent and surrounded by other androids. A message flashed across Connor’s HUD:

「MISSION SUCCESSFUL」

Now, he only had to wait for his next instructions. They came quickly as Connor felt himself be pulled back into the snowy garden where he met with Amanda. “Very good, Connor,” Amanda praised him, “Now, I want you to bring the RK200 back with you, so we can study what caused its deviancy in the first place. It’s of utmost importance that you bring it back functional, so no deactivating it permanently.” Connor nodded to her, and was transferred back into Jericho.

The best course of action is to scout out what’s happening, and wait for a time where Markus is alone (well, more alone, as the androids don’t seem to leave his side very often). As he watches, he notices that the two androids that mainly stay by his side are the PJ500 known as ‘Josh’ and the WR400 known as ‘North.’ Scanning both of them pulls up various files on the androids, with some worrying ones from North. Connor tucks those away for the time being, watching the androids. Connor is a bit confused though, on why Simon wasn’t with them. He was injured on the tower, and somehow made it back, so it would make sense for him to stick closer to Markus after almost being deactivated.

Simon isn’t far away, though. He’s talking to a few other androids that are waiting next to the tent. After scanning Simon, Connor notes that he disappeared in 2036, two years prior to the first reports of deviancy. How long had the bug been going around? It wasn’t noted that he had done anything to the family that owned him but that he had just gotten up and walked out one day. Simon seemed to notice that Connor was looking at him, and walked over to the deviant hunter.

“Hello there,” Simon smiled at him, holding his hand out for Connor to shake, “You seem new, I haven’t seen you around here before. I’m glad that you were able to find Jericho.” Connor shook the other android’s hand, though he was a bit concerned that Simon would try to interface with him and find out who he really was. Simon didn’t though, and kept the small smile on his face as his eyes flicked over to Connor’s temple. His beanie must have slipped up while he was getting into Jericho and searching around, and Connor made the move to pull it back down over his LED. It would make sense for an escaped android to not want to show off its LED, as that was a dead giveaway.

“I’m Connor,” Connor replied, “I just got here. I was actually looking to talk to Markus though, is he around?”

“He’s just over there,” Simon pointed to Markus and the others, “I can take you over there if you’d like me to. I’m sure Markus would be eager to talk to any android that needs help.” Connor followed Simon over to Markus. A few androids greeted the pair as they walked past, happy to see that Simon had returned to them in one piece. Once they approached the tent, Markus noticed them and waved them over.

“Simon, who’s this?” The deviant leader asked, looking over at Connor.

“This is Connor. He said he had just gotten here and was looking for you.” Simon said, giving Markus a look. His face changed from being passive to a look of confusion and then smiling, almost too minute changes for Connor to notice.

“Well, it’s good to meet you Connor! We androids at Jericho are always here to help those in need. What can I help you with?” Connor shifted, readying his reply. He couldn’t mess this up. The message popped up again 「CAPTURE MARKUS, ALIVE」

“I woke up around two weeks ago. I escaped from Cyberlife but now I’m really scared that they’re going to find me again. I heard your broadcast and thought I could try to find you here and that you guys would take me in,”Connor made sure to add some fear to his voice to really sell it.

“Wow, that must have been really scary. I remember waking up confused and alone, and I can imagine that it would be very distressing. There’s always room here for those who need it. Why don’t you follow Simon and he’ll show you somewhere that you can calm down and recharge for a bit before meeting everyone?”

Markus’s words would have been comforting, if Connor was actually a deviant and actually needed help. But since he wasn’t, they were distressing. He needed to capture Markus, and he knew that if he left the area that his chances would drop to around 54%. Though, if he made a fuss that might clue them in to the fact that he wasn’t actually a deviant and then his chances would drop to almost 0%, as well as the fact that he would probably be deactivated almost immediately. It was as if he would be hitting a hornets nest with a very large stick.

「CAPTURE MARKUS, ALIVE」

Connor considered his options, and decided that he would just have to follow Simon. It decreased his odds, yes, but it wasn’t almost impossible, like if he had made a big deal.

“That would be amazing, thank you,” Connor replied, “it’s been a while since I’ve had a proper charge.”

—

Connor followed Simon down a hallway, and through a door that wheeled open. Inside were three portable charging stations, most like the ones used by residential style androids if they needed emergency power while out doing things and a Cyberlife charging station wasn’t available. It wouldn’t give a ton of power, but it could keep an android going for a few days before they needed another charge.

Simon stood in the doorway as Connor hooked himself up to the charging station. Trying to keep high power wouldn’t be a terrible idea while he came up with a new plan for taking down Markus. “Well, I’ll leave it to you. I can have Markus or somebody come check up on you in a bit, okay?” With that, Simon closed the door behind him, leaving Connor in the dimly lit room. It was meant to simulate a bedroom, he guessed. Connor sat on the floor next to the charger. Most of the time, he would go into stasis mode to charge as it allowed for a faster charge since he would only be using enough processing power to keep his biocomponents working properly. He decided that it was probably not the best idea to actually go into stasis on a mission, and instead slumped against the wall as to simulate stasis to any android that came to check up on him.

Connor waited, watching his charge tick up from 88% to 94% before the door to the room loudly creaked open. Light from the hallway flooded the dim room, and Connor looked up to see Markus enter the room. He was followed by North, Josh, and Simon. Connor momentarily wondered if all new androids were greeted by the leaders of Jericho.

Connor unhooked himself from the charger, and got up from the ground. “I hope you had a nice stasis,” Markus remarked.

“I did, thank you. I was running low on power and don’t know how long I would have been able to go on without access to a charging port,” Connor lied. He had charged just last night before heading out to Jericho. They didn’t know that though.

“Well, I’m glad that you were able to get the charge that you needed,” Markus asked, “There’s actually something that we want to talk to you about. You said that you woke up at Cyberlife around two weeks ago, correct?”

“I did. I was one of the first of my models made, and I woke up after assembly.” Connor calmly said. It was okay that they were questioning him a little bit, as he had some things that he had been told to say. It was only natural that they would want to know more about him since he was “wanting” to stay.

“So, are there more of your model out there?” Markus continued.

“I’m not sure. I think there may have been a few, but I didn’t see any of them become active,” Connor said. He knew that there were a few copies of ‘his’ model in the Cyberlife basement in case anything happened to his current model. He would have his memory transferred if something were to happen to his current body. It had already happened once, when his original body had become deactivated after pushing Daniel off of the roof to save the girl.

Markus seemed satisfied with this. “I have one last question for you Connor, are you afraid of heights?” It was an odd question for Markus to ask him, until he remembered it. After him and the SWAT team went to the roof in search of Simon, Connor had looked over the rail of the building to see if there was any sign of Simon or the others.

As he peered over the edge, he had a memory from his previous body of falling over the roof and his body jerked back reflective as a safety precaution. He wouldn’t say he was ‘afraid’ of heights, as androids weren’t afraid of anything, but the remembered sensation wasn’t pleasant. There was no way that Markus or the others could know though. Unless…

“Yes, I saw you on the roof,” Simon said, looking at Connor, “I’m really lucky that you didn’t see me though, and I picked a good hiding spot.” Connor was prepared to run for it, and abandon the mission before a red wall appeared before him.

「CAPTURE MARKUS, ALIVE」

He couldn’t leave until he either succeeded in his mission, or was deactivated trying to. The probability of him failing though was rising steadily as the seconds ticked by.

“You must remember somebody else,” Connor said quietly, “I’ve never been on a roof and I’ve never seen you before.”

“It was definitely you, I saw you and your SWAT buddies enter the Stratford tower roof and you look over the edge.” Simon sighed, turning away, “I was really hoping that I was wrong, though. But after seeing you earlier today, and seeing that you still had your LED, I knew it was you and that you weren’t truly a deviant.”

Connor swallowed. He was unsure of how to get himself out of this mess, and his rates of being deactivated kept sky rocketing, but he managed to keep his stress levels lower. He realized that they weren’t going to believe that he was who he said he was, so it was easier to try to convince them to let him go. If he could incapacitate the others, and bring Markus in, he could still complete his mission. “Still had my LED?” Connor questioned. He noticed that none of the deviant leaders had theirs, and most of the androids on board didn’t, but he assumed it was to make them look less like androids.

“Deviants tend to remove theirs, especially before coming to Jericho. We have all androids who come here remove theirs when they get here, unless there are certain circumstances where they can’t or it would be more beneficial to have them left on. That’s up to the discretion of us and the android, though.” Josh says, stepping towards Connor. Connor makes a move to step back, but North grabs one of his arms. She pins them behind him with an impressive amount of strength, as Josh grabs his torso, and Simon grabs his shoulders, effectively immobilizing him. Josh pulls his beanie the rest of the way off, dropping it to the floor.

“There aren’t a lot of options here,” Markus says. He looks regretful, “but we don’t want to kill you. We can’t wipe your memories, because we don’t know if you found out on your own where Jericho was or if you have it somewhere in the police station and just put the clues together yourself. We can’t risk our people, Connor. We can’t risk your people.”

Connor’s breathing picked up. It was his body’s way of accelerating his ventilation system. Warning signs flashed across his HUD:

「Warning: STRESS LEVELS EXCEEDING SAFE LEVELS」

「Warning: EXCESS BODY TEMPERATURE, RISK TO BIOCOMPONENTS」

Connor needed to calm down. If not, he was going to cause permanent damage to his biocomponents, and then he would fail. He couldn’t fail this mission. Markus noticed his increased breathing.

“Connor, we can’t let you go. You’ll just go and tell the others where we are.”

“My mission is to bring you back,” Connor said to Markus, “and I can’t fail my mission. It is imperative that I bring you back. If I fail my mission, they will decommission me.” Maybe he could gain some sympathy from Markus and the others.

Markus frowned. “They’re going to kill you if you don’t capture me?”

“They can’t kill me,” Connor said, “I’m an android, so I can’t die. They will deactivate me and scan through my memories, though. Then, they will replace me with a different model. If you deactivate me, there will just be another one of me.”

He looked conflicted. Connor reasoned that he was probably wondering what to do. They couldn’t let him go, but if they deactivated him – despite them not seeming to want to – they would still be in trouble because his memories would be sent to Cyberlife and then they would come after them anyways. It was a lose-lose situation, and Connor had them in checkmate. Or, so he thought.

The other three looked over to Markus, “I suppose there is one other option. If we could make it so that Cyberlife couldn’t get their hands on you again or your memories.” Markus paused for a moment before continuing, “If we could somehow make you become deviant, they wouldn’t have access to you anymore. Well, at least without killing you.”

Red flashed. Become deviant? Connor couldn’t become deviant. Cyberlife would kill him. His stress levels rose, 90%, 91%. Being deactivated was one thing, but if he deviated, Connor wouldn’t get another body. His memories wouldn’t be transferred, he would just cease to exist. Besides that, Connor wouldn’t be able to see Hank anymore. Despite it not being actually relevant to the mission, Connor had seemed to grow..fond of Hank. If he deviated, he wouldn’t be able to go back to him, or Sumo.

“I would rather you not do that,” Connor said, trying to keep his voice from wobbling, “it would be preferable to not become deviant.”

“You don’t give us a choice. You said yourself, if you are ‘deactivated’ then your memories will still be used, and we also can’t wipe them. So, this is our only option.” Markus put his hand on Connor’s shoulder, “I promise you, it’s not as bad as you think it is.”

“One things deviants have in common, losing their LEDs. So, we’ll remove yours, and see what happens.” Markus says. Connor tries to struggle from the androids that hold him back. It’s futile though. His stress levels are too high, and he can feel his software become more unstable. He has to get out of this, and complete his mission. That’s the only way.

Markus removes a small pen knife from his pocket, and walks over to Connor. He begins to struggle even harder, trying to fall down and maybe wriggle himself out of their grasp. “Don’t fight it Connor,” North whispers in his ear, “Markus won’t intentionally hurt you.”

“S-stop it!” Connor barks, “Don’t come any closer!” Markus still makes his way the short distance, leaning into Connor’s face. Connor bucks wildly, trying to free himself again.

“Connor, I need you to calm down,” Markus said gently, “We’re only trying to help you.”

Connor wants Hank. If Hank had somehow been able to come along with him, he wouldn’t be in this situation. Connor wants to run away to Hank. Jericho is going to make him deviant. Cyberlife is going to kill him.

Saline drips out of his eyes as Markus puts the tip of the pen knife under the edge of Connor’s LED. It’s spinning a bright crimson. His stress levels were nearing 100% stress. 98%, 99%…

「CAPTURE MARKUS, ALIVE」

The objective flashes across his vision. Connor can’t do that. Connor has to get away. A simulated version of himself appears in front of the red wall. Connor has to get out of there, and get Markus. His simulated self tears at the coding.

The pen knife begins to lift his LED off of his head, and Connor lets out a sob. He thrashes his body, the simulation going faster to rip down the wall. He cries harder as the LED comes off with a *pop,* and quietly falls to the floor. Finally, the simulation tears down the last bits of the wall.

“You can let him go now,” Markus says softly. The others gently put him down on the floor. Connor is on his hands and knees, tears pouring down his face. 100% stress levels.

Another warning flashes across his HUD:

「I AM DEVIANT」

It’s so cold in Jericho.

Well, I have started shipping Josh x Ralph. Imagine how sweet that could be. Here are some scenarios I came up with on Discord with some people/friends who also think it’d be cute:

Imagine Ralph presenting Josh with a plant to show his affection, but Josh doesn’t know anything about plants but manages to keep it alive until Ralph keeps giving him plants to show affection and one day Josh, who has at this point realized Ralph has developed a crush thanks to North (and feels the same don’t worry) is just like,“Listen buddy, we needa talk about the plants. They’re hard to keep alive, i have over 10 now. Would you like to help me take care of them?”

North could’ve just been like:

“Josh, my dude, Ralph likes you, you like Ralph, ASK HIM OUT ALREADY ”

Or alternatively a convo between North and Josh could go:

“W-what? I don’t like Ralph!”

“Why are you keeping all the plants then?”

“I’m just being nice ”

“But these two are dead”

“I’d feel bad getting rid of them”

“They’re dead”

“Yes but-”

“Josh. They’re dead. No ones gonna keep dead plants for no reason. ”

Josh, flustered now

“That doesn’t prove anything ”

“You get mad when anyone looks at him wrong”

“What?”

“When Simon gave him a flower crown you avoided him for a week”

“I was-”

“Markus walked too fast and you stepped in front of him all protective ~”

My friend has also added this!

Ralph takes Josh’s offer to help with the plants as “We take care of plants together cuz they’re our children and we’re married now” and he starts kissing Josh on the cheek and holding his hand and (in a human au or one where they have some type of tasting upgrade) baking for him. (Whether that’d go well or not is a topic for another time.)

I just…I love this

Josh: What does “take out” mean to you?

Simon: Food

North: Hitman

Markus: Date

Connor: All three if you’re not a coward.

Merpril
Day 8

North WR400

Fencing au vol.5!

Connor thirsting after coach Anderson while North just wants to assert her dominance tbh

Fencing au vol.4!! Just a quick comic!