.

"That is the gloomiest face I've ever seen."

The dry, sneering chuckle Carl threw at the young man didn't dispel the beforementioned gloomy expression.

"Hello, Elijah. It's been a while."

Elijah nodded with a smile. Carl pushed the wheelchair to the side to allow him to enter, but Elijah remained by the doorframe. He was accompained by a tall handsome man neither him or Elijah had acknowledged. As he caught Carl eyeing the man, Elijah's smile widened.

"I just knew I'd find you in this mood, so I came prepared."

"Prepared for what?" Carl asked. He hadn't been talking much lately; his voice sounded hoarse and bitter, more than usual, even to his ears.

"May we come in?"

"Why the hell do you think I stepped out of the door? Or rolled out, anyway."

Elijah gestured the android to enter before him. Yes, android - Carl was clearly starting to turn blind as well; he hadn't immediately realized the tall handsome man wasn't a man at all. If not for anything else, the clothing was denouncing, all those gleaming bright blue lights patched over the fabric. Those should have attracted all the attention immediately, but both the robot and Elijah were the same height, towering over Carl (all the more reasons for the clothes to stand out, you old fool, he thought). And as he had been looking at Elijah's face, he had looked over to the android's face as well. With the angle blocking the blue LED on its right temple, it looked realistic enough to be easily mistaken for a human.

"You've changed your tastes, Elijah?"

His friend tried to imitate Carl's earlier dry chuckle; a poor mockery, as he lacked the bitterness of old age. Carl knew Elijah's masterpiece, Chloe, the beautiful blonde android that had allowed the breakthrough for the next step of evolution, and had correctly taken that as Elijah's type. Carl could picture the young man one day having a mansion filled with a handful of identical beauties. He might have some reasons to be accompained by another type of android instead of that beautiful creation - the blonde attracted quite a bit of attention, obviously - but Carl wasn't really interested to know why he had changed escourt, specially as he was starting to sense an ulterior motive for the android's presence.

"Come now, don't be like that. How have you been doing these days, Carl?"

"Majestic," Carl said ironically and not too pleasantly. He caught a hold of himself and inhaled slowly. The air exhaled even slower. He was acting like a child. "Forgive me. Can I offer you something to drink?"

"I'd love to."

They sat at the living room where Carl poured them both some scotch. When the android stood there, just standing up, Carl threw a complain at Elijah. The man ordered the android to sit down.

The conversation wasn't unpleasant. Elijah wasn't patronizing enough to bestow veiled words of pity, nor cynical enough to try to hide the fact that seeing Carl's condition, physical and mental, sadden him. He tried to pick interesting topics of conversation, guiding Carl towards reminiscencing about art or literature.

Elijah was a genius alright, but he was still a stupid young kid if he thought he could play the psychiatrist and not have Carl see through the act.

"Don't even try, Elijah," he cut him short. Elijah took the time to play confused with the statement, but Carl's glare made him reconsider that approach.

"I'm not trying anything, Carl. I'm worried about you. You don't contact anyone. You've lost interest in all the things that have always kept you going..."

"I'm old. I've done everything I could, tried everything I could. It's just the natural evolution of things."

"Don't throw the fatalist speech at me, please."

"I'm old. I'm dying of old age. I may have cancer. I'm a damn invalid, my legs don't move. I need help to take a fucking shower. I'm tired of living and I've already lived what I had to live. What's fatalistic about that?"

Elijah let out a breath and averted his gaze. He didn't have the audacy to roll his eyes, like Leo would certainly have done. Rather than make a renewed attempt at a positive by-the-book speech, Elijah lowered his glass.

"Your caretaker."

"What about her?"

"Have you finally decided to move her into the house and give her a full-time job?"

"No. I don't need a 24/7 nurse. Not yet."

"I don't see how your fatalism going unchecked is the best option." Before Carl could tell him to get lost or worse, he added: "You force me to narrow this conversation to the essentials. I brought you a gift, one I certainly do not accept any returns."

As he imagined. Carl eyed the android, who had remained silent for the whole conversation, looking at both of them as an attentive child.

"I don't need an unpayed employer. I have enough money to pay for the help I do need."

"I'm not offering you an unpayed employer, I'm offering you company." Seeing as the android would do all the work for free, it was the same. "If you are such an old man, a millennial or whatever was the trend you dubbed yourselves with back in the 70's or 80's of last century, then you should know better than anyone that old people need company. It's just the natural evolution of things."

For all the bitterness he was throwing at him, Carl couldn't fully blame Elijah for his comeback. Still, it stung to hear his own words thrown back at him.

"So here." He waved towards the android. "Someone who can hear you complain and yell and curse all damn day and not mind it one bit."

At that, the android seemed to find the opportunity to speak.

"I apologize for having not introduced myself, but I didn't want to interrupt your conversation." He had a pleasant voice. Damn androids were built to perfection. "My name is Markus. I would be very glad to keep you company and help you in your daily tasks."

Carl shot Elijah a renewed glare. The android wasn't at fault. Elijah was the mastermind behind the programming. The puppeteer shrugged, innocence displayed in his features.

"And, without intending to sound rude, I think it would be advisable for you to have company, someone for you to exteriorize all your fatalist thoughts rather than accumulate them inside," the android added.

Carl could see the little spark of fascination in Elijah's eyes, perhaps like pride or love a father feels for their child's sudden conquest. Well, he was the one behind all the programming, so supposely all of it was predetermined and expected, with some room for improvisations. Perhaps these variations in the program were as interesting to him as unexpectedly positive turnouts in paintings had been for Carl.

He finally took the time to look at the android attentively, now that he knew he couldn't complain further without only adding more arguments to Elijah's cause - arguments he didn't need to begin with, not when the young man was as persuasive and sneaky. The android's posture was somewhat stiff, but it could easily pass as the posture of a serious man. As realitiscal looking as androids were, Carl could always detect the little flaws: the slightly-too-perfect skin or detail in the eyes that denounced them immediately regardless of all their LED lights. However, this android was remarkably realistic. They were being manufactured in all shapes and colors (an improviment, if Carl was to form an opinion on the subject) but they still fell into that flaw-by-perfection, as far as he had seen. This android - hell, was he going to keep calling him that way? Markus was simpler - Markus seemed too beautiful to be real, and yet something about him deceived the eye. He looked human.

"He is a one-of-a-kind-model," Elijah added, thinking it would be a nice additional information. "He's the only RK200 model ever built. An exclusive, unique work of art. Just like your paintings."

"Deep down, you're a poet, Elijah," Carl jested.

"I write poetry through code. 'Natural evolution of things' and all that."

.

to be continued

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Author's Note: I intended this to be a single chapter fic, but I think this part turned out longer than I would have wanted it to to follow my initial plan, therefore I'll be splitting this into one or two more chapters.

I just wanted to write something with Carl and Markus and explore a bit more their earlier relationship until the point when Carl helped Markus become human and Markus helped Carl to find life again.

I obviously don't own anything related to Detroit Become Human!

Thank you for reading, reviews and corrections to English are encouraged!