Compatibility

12

Markus did eventually go into standby, but only for 4 hours. He was activated by the overloading messages coming from North.

North 9:03am : we're leaving in a couple, you better be ready

North 9:34am : Markus?! Where are you?

North 10:02am : Me and Josh left without you, next time activate a little earlier.!

Markus jolted up, when he did he felt something hard hit his face with a small squeak coming after it, which caused Markus to fall back down. He met Simon's eyes. Markus realized where he had been laying this entire time, his head been placed on Simon's lap. "G-good morning Markus.." Simon said as he was rubbing his nose. "Did I-"

"It's okay.. it was my fault.." Simon blushed and gave Markus a smile, soon after his smile began to fade. "Weren't you supposed to go with North and Josh to the conference.?" Markus buried his face in Simon's lap and sighed. He didn't even want to be reminded. When North returned, she would probably be mad at Markus and he didn't want to deal with her. "Yea I stayed in standby too long.." Simon giggled. "It probably wasn't a good idea to get up at 6:00 am and not go back in standby, huh?" Markus gave him a another one of those mad 5 year old faces. "Well, if I hadn't done that, I probably wouldn't call it one of the best nights of my life." Simon became flustered, he still wasn't used to Markus being such a flirt, and he didn't know how he felt about it.

"Yea whatever." Markus couldn't help but to scan Simon's face. There wasn't anything wrong with it, in fact that was the problem. Markus could not find a single flaw on Simon's face and even if he did, he bet that he would still be as beautiful. Markus also noticed that he was still laying his head on Simon's lap. He sat up, making it so it was more of a normal position to be in. "So what now.?" Markus thought about it. "Well, I need to go to cyberlife to pick up some more blue blood and biocomponents, wanna come?" Simon didn't want to slow Markus down. He already missed his conference because he was too busy recharging on Simon's lap, he didn't want North or Josh to call him out. "I think I'd rather stay her-"

"Nope!" Simon couldn't even finish his sentence before Markus disagreed. "You're coming, period. Besides, there's nothing better to do here." Simon had to agree with Markus, beside entertaining some YK500s, Simon was basically useless. "Fine. Only because you have a point and there really is nothing to do here.." Markus' face lit up. "Great! Let's go!" He got up and picked up Simon from his waist, making it so Simon's feet were kicking in Markus' face. "Markus.!" He began running out of the room and into the auditorium. They got some looks and stares but Markus wasn't paying attention to that. Although Simon found it embarrassing and he covered his face.

When they exited the church, Markus didn't make an effort to put Simon down, while Simon was pounding on Markus' back. "Markus! Put me down!" Markus started bouncing all around, it made Simon dizzy. "C'mon Simon! Have a little fun!" Simon was in disbelief, is this what Markus found fun??? "Markus please!" He could hear the plead to be put down, he noticed that Simon almost sounded... scared. Markus immediately put Simon down gently on the grass. When Simon was down he began to tear up. Markus wanted to ask why but couldn't, he thought he would be crossing the line. "Simon I-"

"It's fine.. I'm just..." Simon paused, he took a much needed breath of fresh air. "Just remembering some old memories, that's all.." Markus felt unbelievably guilty. He wanted to apologize, he wanted to do it 1 million times. Instead he just leaned down and sat on his knees. He grabbed Simon and held him in a hug, just like Simon had done when Markus was crying. Simon dug his face in the crook of Markus' neck. After while of embracing each other, Simon let go and spoke up. "My past owner, he would always carry me like that, sometimes to entertain his kids, to make them laugh. Other times to-" Simon gulped, he forced the tears that were about to flood his eyes back down. "He would have his friends grab me and hold me so I couldn't move, and then he would punch and kick me over and over-" Simon gulped. "He would do over and over again until I would temporarily shut down. He always said the reason I always came back was because without me, his kids couldn't be happy. And without me his wife would leave him." Markus started to feel something inside of himself. Was it empathy? Yes but there was also something else. "I was aware of who I was, what I was. I let him do those things to me because even though what he did was wrong, I loved him. I loved my owners and their children and I didn't what to lose them, so I kept everything to myself." Markus started to understand the feeling he was encountering inside himself