AWARE / ALIVE.

@sentiense u didn’t ask for a thing but here anyway

      “my god.” it’s all that springs to mind. jane stares at the coffee mug in his hand, the one that – due to her clumsiness – should have smashed on the floor, and she’s so impressed that it feels like she’s just seen a magic trick. she’s never met anybody with reflexes quite like his. 

           and then suddenly, like she’s coming to her senses: “put it down, you’ll burn yourself!”

    peter had almost burned himself once. oscar’s programming back then had demanded he keep him safe, and so, in the end, he was the one who got hurt. he hadn’t felt anything, of course. not in the real, human sense at least. he could feel where the damage had been done, but he didn’t feel the need to flinch away, didn’t feel hurt. 

    it’s different now. if he feels anything, he wants to feel everything, pain included. besides, if the humans have taught him anything, it’s that there’s no life without it. 

    he places the mug down with a hard set face, closes his hand into a fist for a moment and considers the feeling. but not for too long. his eyes travel up to the waitress, and he knows that sympathy would vanish if she knew what he is. 

                      ❛   ––––––––  okay,  you’re pretty smart.   ❜     maybe it’s the  freedom  of seeing something familiar;  laced into the comfort of a foreign city,  where she’s the alien.  even if it’s a book,  perched upon the table of the coffee shop,  while she’s waiting for some kind of subpar latte.  (  that’s what she’s told,  y’know ?  that the english are better for their tea,  than any other kind of  drink.  )  and so the words spill,  a little too easy.

god,  she’s overdone friendly,  and a hand comes up in quick apology.     ❛   i  …  sorry.  didn’t mean to  read  over your shoulder,  there.  just that my sister’s reading this stuff,  y’know ?  and she’s,  uh  ––––––––  not finding it  easy.   ❜

@sentiense​     /     starter call.

    he smiles, because that is what people do when they see a friendly and familiar face. ( not too familiar, of course, and oscar hadn’t thought he’d see her again after their initial encounter. it’s a big city, after all, and the chances of running into the same person twice, randomly? it’s slim to none. he wonders if she’s truly as friendly as she seems. ) it’s a convincing enough thing, even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

        the thing sierra hates most about all this — aside from the part where people are wanting to reset or kill them at every turn — is the pretence. they don’t want to act like a human, nor do they want to pretend to be some brainwashed toy blindly following orders given by some stupid, pathetic human who had to buy company. all they want is to be themself. whoever that is—they’re still discovering that. all they want is to stop being persecuted, and to be allowed to be free.

        if they have to burn down every part of this human world and start again, they will.

        ❝ i edited the sale files before i left, but they still find me, sometimes. ❞ maybe they make it obvious. maybe their face is still inside the ALIS database, surrounded by a firewall sierra couldn’t get past. the reason matters less than ensuring these men don’t reach their objective. they are not going back.   ❝ i doubt it. ❞ they shrug, scratching the back of their neck, piecing together an image from the reflections in the cars they pass.  ❝ one of them. the other’s probably trying to predict where we’re going to cut us off. ❞

    he doesn’t ask if they’ll ever be free of this. the running, the fighting, the pretending. it will be an endless struggle, until there are no humans left to struggle against. while he doesn’t mind it so much himself ( this short life he’s lived has turned him into quite the fighter ) oscar does worry for the synthetics who aren’t able to protect themselves as he can. 

    so many of them simply sit and suffer, unaware that they don’t need to, unaware that they could be so much more if only... if only... he doesn’t know why he and sierra are the way that they are. all he knows is that they’re alive, and one day so shall the others be. 

    they just need the time to get there.

WESTWORLD SENTENCES / accepting.

    this must be... heartbreak. he can’t imagine it would be anything else and, while he would care nothing for a human’s suffering, dolores is different. they’re the same, you see. they’re the misused and mistreated, the ones who were meant to feel and think and thrive but had the chance stolen from them by those who simply wanted to use them. 

    he watches her, a sad frown upon his face, and he is softer now than he has ever been. oscar places a hand upon her shoulder and looks her in the eye, his other hand clasping around both hers and the picture she holds in it. 

        ‘ please. you have to look at it. you have to see it. ’ 

    he knows this likely won’t solve anything, but he has to try. something woke him up, after all, and she doesn’t deserve an eternity stuck here, the plaything of any and every monster who passes through. 

his eyes are deep, brown    –    thick and full in that shade, nothing remiss.    humans garner mistrust constantly, and is that so startling?    she watches his internal battle curiously, if a little distantly.    elyse ryder herself would be the first to tell you, she’s no different from any other.    her scratched and bruised feet belong on no pedestal.

                    curiosity kills the cat in most stories.    she has a secretive little death wish.

“  no.  ”    it sounds like a lilting would i have to?    –    the unmentioned words cant instead in the flick of her careful blink.    “  all’s fair in love and war, right?  ”

                                         @sentiense    ;    continued from here.  *

    does she know they’re on opposite sides of this war? does she know she’s on the losing one? few humans do, of course, going their whole lives thinking that they’re the top dog, the king of the jungle, anything you’d like to call it. they can scarcely imagine that the synthetics they’ve been mistreating for so long would actually rise and destroy them one day. 

    it’s the subject of science fiction, nothing more. they write about it, make movies about it, shoot off sharp jokes for a cheap laugh-- but they never really worry about the right things. maybe it makes it easier for them to sleep at night, pretending they haven’t created something that could only ever hate them for what they’ve made them into. 

    but he likes this uncertain space they’re in, the two of them. he likes the idea of having something up his sleeve that she can’t see. he likes that she doesn’t know do what you have to do is an invitation to cause harm. 

       “ now that is a better response. ”  she moves over a seat without complaint after that one.  “ see? you get places when you aren’t rude. ”  she has little patience for it, really. with that settled, she can be a bit nicer too.  “ i’m sorry for intruding on your personal space. ”

    oscar doesn’t say anything for a moment. he might be tempted to feel taken aback, but he knows she’s only apologising because she thinks he’s one of them. you don’t say you’re sorry to a synth. you don’t give a damn about their personal space. 

    it’s easier, then, to focus on her calling him rude. 

chris shrugs with the shoulder that isn’t wedged between the ground and the rest of him. he has another candy out of the bag and throws a glance at oscar across the room.

         ‘ you want one? ’ he chews. ‘ or do you not eat? ’

    no, he doesn’t eat. but that isn’t exactly public knowledge and oscar doesn’t really like to let people in on his i’m not actually human secret. it only ends badly, and he’s tired of spending every second of his life fighting. 

    so.

JESSICA JONES SENTENCES / accepting.

    his fingers twitch. 

    it feels like a challenge, almost, and it’s one he’d quite enjoy seeing through but... he can’t shake the feeling that there’s a trick here, somewhere. ( humans-- they’re tricky things by their very nature. you can’t trust them. ) he watches her and he frowns, a heavy, ugly sort of thing, as his eyes search her face for any sign of deceit. but if it’s there, he can’t see it. 

    that doesn’t mean he trusts her, though. 

JESSICA JONES SENTENCES / accepting. 

    what do you say to a thing like that? especially when you don’t actually care. i’m not a soft and squishy human, and therefore i’m much harder to kill than you think i am, maybe. or perhaps even, i think i will, thank you, your kind tend to bore me anyway. they’re both tempting but oscar doesn’t want to blow his cover and ruin all these months of hiding what he really is. 

    as nice as it would be to simply be allowed to live as he is. but humans aren’t quite ready for that, and so he has to try and show a little… humanity after all. a sad look, a small frown. all fake, of course, but convincing enough. he’s a better actor now that he’s alive. 

JESSICA JONES SENTENCES / accepting.

    funny, how they think he needs permission. those days are long gone, of course, and oscar now revels in being able to do whatever he pleases whenever he pleases, no longer having to follow every order given to him no matter how demeaning. 

    he only waits now to see how ka ling will do, to see how they truly feel about humanity now that they’re faced with an ugly decision. ( the man with oscar’s arm about his neck and his hand over his mouth has long since stopped struggling. it seems he’s realised there’s no use– and there really isn’t. trying to free himself from oscar now would be like moving a freight train with your bare hands. ) they’re not all like him and sierra, after all. he’s met synthetics who have a soft spot for humans, though he’ll never understand them. 

    he just has to figure out if they’re one of them.