mustang

---

"When I spoke of Patagonia, I meant

skies all empty aching blue. I meant
years. I meant all of them with you."

— Patagonia, Kate Clanchy

---

Claude’s makeshift safehouse seems anything but, almost too lived-in to be simply called a drop point. Outside, the wind claws at the walls like it’s trying to get in—persistent, chemical-tinged.

Freodore supposes he’s got no room to complain though, so he keeps to his quiet and just carries on with work. The “table” is cramped, provision as everything else is in the space, just a cardboard box. His toolkit has to stay on the ground by his feet, all parts of what appears to be a very aged ASH-issued hunk of metal scattered across his work station.

“Where did you pick this up?” Freodore asks, genuinely curious, unable to help himself.

He’d need to know, if only so he can evaluate the conditions he’d found the weapon in.

“Far from headquarters; south of the wharf. Think it was raining when I saw it.”

“I see,” He remarks, not expecting a fulsome response to that.

He hears Claude bustling about in the small room. The blinds on the one surviving window are patchwork plastic and duct tape, with cardboard thrown over the gaps. Wooden crates form makeshift furniture. His equipment case is propped up in one of them, housing his scope, a few other items.

“Sorry about the accommodations,” Claude tells him with a wry smile. “Or lack thereof.”

Freodore figures he isn’t actually that sorry, just trying to be polite in front of someone he needs a favor from. Claude sets down a mug of coffee on one of the crates nearest him.

“That’s fine—”

“Oh, crap,” He mutters. “Sorry, no sugar, no creamer, right?”

He moves to go back and remake the cup.

“Right…” Freodore doesn’t look up from the piece he’s trying to scrutinize—how integral was this rusted bit to the overall structure of the weapon?

He comes back with the new coffee cup which smells just as bitter and burned, making idle conversation again. “Didn’t expect you to ever come back here," His tone is light.

Claude doesn’t typically make too much conversation, but since he’s on this job alone, it’s likely he’d been asked to fish out information from him. In case there was anything important he’d come across or wouldn’t say without prompting.

Not that Freodore had anything to hide, or anything remotely important that had happened to him within the last year, or since they’d last seen each other, for that matter. They’d been outside the new settlements at that time.

“Ethyria Labs didn’t want me looking at their warranty-expired stuff,” he says eventually.

Which is the half truth.

What he doesn’t say is how they’d offered him a job out of sheer desperation to contain knowledge. Or how pointless the idea of job security felt when the world itself had expiration stamped across the sky.

Freodore just thanked them for the offer politely, left the weapon prototype on the steel table they’d told him to set it down on and left. He’d miss the opportunity to really see how he could improve trigger feel and recoil but that was neither here nor there. He was lucky they even let him walk away in the first place.

Claude opens and sets down a pack of cinnamon sugar cookies just as Freodore finishes locking the catch back in. He lifts it up, a hefty rifle for its class.

The scope is clear, although it would probably be better to test it out outside because all he could see right now was concrete wall and paint peeling. The weapon itself looks like the very first few models issued out, maybe over a decade ago, but all the parts are fresh. There’s a compartment near the muzzle where he thought the rusted piece was supposed to go.

“Usable. But I’d test it out a few times to see if you can use it with any of yours. It might be specialized, even though the brand name’s faded by now.”

“No way,” Claude’s eyes widen as Freodore closes the latch, sealing the ‘rusted piece’ into it with a loud click. “We can put chemicals in that thing?”

“Yeah,” Freodore nods, he takes the drink and sets the gun down on the table. “I think it might actually fit your bullets, or closely, anyway. Putting the solution in the catch will infuse them.”

“Bullshit,” Claude lets out a soft chuckle as Freodore finally takes a sip of his now lukewarm coffee. “You think?”

Freodore shrugs.

“Who knows,” He starts, getting up from his seat. His foot has cramped up a little, but he powers through, intending to get moving. “I’d really rather not have a repeat of the harbor incident here like in that other city. I’d run out of work in this one if something happened to you.”

He says this more matter-of-fact, any concern is obscured by tone, but then it might as well be there, if only a little bit. In the past, people might have thought he was joking. But with every day sounding more like a countdown, even irony had started to sour.

“Freo,” Claude calls out to him, his voice lowering, not so much gentle.

He can’t see him because he’s already turned towards the door, checking his CommLink for any repair schedules (there are none, predictably) but also for the fastest route home that doesn’t take him through the harbor. Even the tech was starting to glitch in ways nobody had time or money to fix. The world was full of things like that now—half-broken and endlessly looping. Of course, the damn shortcut keeps trying to route him through Harbor 011-A.

“Five years is a long time to be hung up on an honest mistake. I’m sure he—”

Freodore pulls the door open, the rain outside bearing down and drowning most of Claude’s voice. If he hears the words ‘thought’ and ‘forgive’ he makes no indication of it. He just waves a lazy hand up as his goodbye, then pulls his hood up over his head, and leaves.

“You can wire the money over the weekend, no rush.”

It doesn’t matter if Claude doesn’t really hear it either.

As luck would have it, his stupid CommLink, now six years too old and due to be replaced chooses today to go haywire. It’s a walk home, which shouldn’t be any longer than an hour on foot. A distance he’s gotten used to getting around the city by now.

Freodore’s link, in his ear to tell him where to go, won’t stop badgering him about the shortcut he could take through Harbor 011-A.

 

 

 

Even as he passes the street that’s supposed to take him there, the route won’t change. The CommLink keeps pulsing the same suggestion—through 011-A, through 011-A—like a stuck needle. He doesn’t memorize these streets like he used to. They’ve changed too much over the years anyway—some cracked open by flooding, others swallowed by blackouts and sinkholes that no one wanted to own up to needing to patch up. The map updates were behind, or maybe no one was updating them at all.

He sighs, shakes his head and doubles back.

Harbor 11, stylized 011-A by most like that somehow sanitized it had officially been converted into one of the city's sanctioned e-waste zones. Nothing but a scrapheap for old tech and expired utility parts. A few other dumps in the region were just like it, carved out of dead neighborhoods. Other cities had their own Harbor 11s.

This one had tried to make it sound like progress. They rerouted undersea volcanic heat into repurposing plants, said it was sustainable—called it geothermal innovation. But even the factory lines had started breaking down. Now they just melted junk on a rotating schedule. People picked through the wreckage between cycles, scavenging what they could. The rest steamed into useless sludge, sometimes toxic.

The air here always smelled like scorched lithium and iron rot. On drier days you could see smoke bleeding up from the stacks, curling into a yellow-brown sky. No birds anymore.

He’d heard people didn’t like ‘11, here, specifically, because of the ghost stories. Something about the place being haunted.

Sure, Freodore thinks. Haunted.

He kicks a stray can into a pile of trash, thud cushioned by a box filled with more junk, old foam and decaying fabric. The whole street is muffled like that now, like the world’s trying not to wake up from a long, long dream begetting survival.

He and Claude had a brief conversation about what this place turned into long ago. Maybe a year back. They'd both agreed it was unsalvageable. Only the desperate came here anymore, kids with nothing better to do daring each other to fish out scrap, or adults who'd run out of places left to be ignored. Mostly little boys and girls, laughing like none of this was real, chasing each other through the metal and getting scared off by the noises they made themselves.

There’s a small group today. All local, it looks like—kids from the nearby housing blocks that hadn’t been fully condemned yet. Three hover by the harbor’s entrance, twitchy and hesitant. The other two have ventured nearer, knee-deep in metal rot and collapsed boxes, clustered around something just beside the other exit that leads a few blocks toward Freodore’s place.

He notices them only in passing, their shapes half-silhouetted by the dim streetlight flickering through oily rain. He wouldn’t usually stop. Wouldn’t even look twice. But they’ve been focused on something for a while, ignoring their friends' nervous calls from the edge of the zone.

Whatever it is, it’s got gravity, he’ll give it that, and he’s close enough to get pulled in.

When Freodore passes, he catches a glimpse of adult feet poking out of the pile. He’s too late to take back stopping by. A boy and a girl, turn to face him, curiosity and fear fighting to get a foothold.

He’s already stopped before he realizes it. They look no older than ten, maybe, and they turn to him as if the presence of an adult might finally make sense of what they’ve found. Their expressions flicker between fear and something hungrier: the kind of curiosity that grows in kids born into a world careening towards the end.

“Mister!” The girl calls out, “Mister! There’s a dead body here.”

Freodore blinks. His frown sets in automatically, slow and shallow. But he doesn’t move.

The rain has lightened during his walk a considerable bit, but it was still going. Fine, cold, possibly more chemical than actual water. He can feel it clinging to his coat like a film. These kids were probably going to get an earful when they got home, assuming home had anyone left to worry. He doesn’t scold them himself, it really just isn’t worth the energy.

Instead, he squints toward the pile. Those were definitely feet.

“There’s circuitry,” He murmurs, crouching slightly. The peeled-back ‘skin’ reveals not flesh but a pale sheet of dented metal, the finish warped by exposure. Fine wires jut from what, on a human, would’ve been a wound—but here, it’s just sloppy damage. Industrial and cold.

The little boy hazards a poke. The body doesn’t react, because, of course it doesn’t.

“An android,” He explains, but doesn’t really know why. “Probably.”

They look at him quizzically, and he takes a step forward despite his better judgment. No jobs left in the queue. No schedules to keep. Only a few places were lucky enough to still run on deadlines. The kids seem to be trying to understand him, like this might be the first time they’ve seen something both broken and human-shaped.

“It’s just trash now.” He tells them, voice flat. “Probably defective. Maybe an old unit. Useless.”

“So they just threw him away?”

“Yeah.” Freodore doesn’t add anything else or attempt to soften the truth or twist it into something digestible for ages ten below. Though he supposes, it is what it is. Even the kids knew this place was where the unwanted ended up. Food scraps, frayed cables, expired meds.

The boy is getting closer to the android’s body. The girl has sidled up to Freodore, hiding behind his one rolled up pant leg.

“I know you, mister!” The girl tells him as she watches her friend unearth the android’s arm. More wiring has spilled out from his casing. The wires are so fine they’d almost pass for veins.

“You fixed my sister’s CommTab the other week.”

“Ah, that was your sister’s? Tell your mom thanks for the apples. Hard to come by fresh fruit these days.”

“Mhmm.” She mulls this over for a moment, and then tugs at his shirt. “Hey, since you can fix stuff with lots of wires, maybe you can fix him!”

Freodore puts a hand on her head. Her friend finds more of the android’s metal and isn't hesitant to dig further.

“I’ve never tried,” Freodore tells her, not knowing why he’s being so forthcoming with his work experience to a child.

“Besides, you two shouldn’t be playing out here. Your friends have gone back home.” He finally starts to say to them, the rain is starting to pick-up again too.

The boy shoves aside two metal plates, wrenching at a tangled clump of wire and rusted mesh. He nearly slices his hand open on the jagged edge of a discarded panel, and Freodore has half a mind to tell him to quit it and just leave. He lets out a breath, addressing them both when he says:

“Hey, stop that already. Androids like that are better left to melt in the—”

The boy lifts out a head. White hair. Thunder cracks. The girl shuffles closer to Freodore and grips the fabric of his pants, and he’s a little thankful neither of them can see the expression on his face.

His breath hitches and he can feel his own eyes widen marginally, his shock is less from the sudden burst of lightning that follows in the distance.

“You two should run along home,” He tells them after a moment, voice dry. It sticks in his throat like static.

When the rain begins to beat down on them all, the boy drops the android’s head with a loud thunk as it hits the pile beneath him. Freodore winces, but the boy has taken hold of his friend’s hand already.

“Don’t tell our moms, mister!”

He just nods and the girl thanks him before they both dash off in search for shelter or maybe the way home. It’s in the opposite direction, as it turns out.

Freodore stays.

He doesn’t know why. Maybe curiosity. Maybe something worse.

He steps closer to the pile, his boots sinking slightly in the slick garbage underfoot. The android’s body is half-unearthed—limbs askew, cables frayed, one knee joint bent entirely the wrong way. The torso is partially buried under a gutted server box and what looks like the shell of a CommTab so old it still has physical keys.

Where the face should be, there’s just damage. Layer upon layer of shredded synthetic skin, warped metal, and fragmented circuitry. The remnants of a frame. It might’ve once resembled someone, but now there’s just the ghost of a shape—blank, concave, and torn. The android’s eyes are sealed shut, either broken or never meant to open again.

He moves closer, ignoring the part of his brain that’s telling him this is a bad idea. He moves until he’s digging out the rest of the android from the rubble, brushing back strands of dirty white fiber from what might be a forehead. The hair is wet, tangled with grime, but it falls across the form like something he’s seen only in his memories.

Most of the android’s body is there. Not so much intact. It's already been salvaged for a number of parts. Maybe some even without market replacement.

Freodore looks at it.

At him.

His white hair splayed across the trash beneath him.

He brushes the android’s fringe away from his face. Tells himself to see if there’s any more damage to this thing. Arguably, he could do this at home.

“Ghosts, huh?” He mutters.

He kneels and lifts the android’s body or what’s left of it. One leg is severed clean at the thigh. The back has been ripped open near the spine, a mess of exposed fiber-threaded cable and jagged connection ports spilling out under its tattered clothing.

Freodore doesn’t bother inspecting further. Not now. He hoists the android by the legs, supports its weight with his arm under the ruined frame of its back, and starts walking.

The shortcut through Harbor 11 means he’ll be home in under fifteen, probably. That is, if the road hasn’t collapsed again since this morning.

 

 

 

Apartments near the coast are a lot smaller than the ones in the inner city. Not that it mattered much anymore after things like space, light, and comfort had all become relative.

His place, a nearly fifteen-year-old unit in a crumbling complex with paper-thin walls and barely functional security, used to feel full. Back then, when the actual sun still came through the windows warm and clean, it had been cramped for two. Cozy, in that way small spaces were when filled with presence. Shoes at the door. Two mugs in the rack. The sound of someone else breathing in the next room.

He's since hollowed it out, rearranged to fit the survivors: himself and his work.

There’s still the kitchenette, a little more rust-worn now. The dining nook had once fit a tiny square table for two—he’d replaced it with a long plank of repurposed hardwood that served as his workstation. That table was the last thing he owned made from real wood. Probably the only reason he still pays association dues at all.

His bed is smaller than it used to be. The couch is gone. More floor space for kits, crates, tool racks. The far wall has hooks drilled in where wall art used to hang, the instruments. Now it holds soldering irons and extension arms, tweezers and high-magnification scopes.

He sets the android down first on the floor, next to the door. He takes care to key in the lock, both the passcode for when he’s inside, and the manual one for good measure.

To survive in these parts and stay without much incident, you had to come up with your own systems. Not that he can say he’s particularly savvy in that department. Other than hardware, he’s pretty much clueless. Anything he knows about software and security systems or code even, were all taught to him, anything new he’s struggled to pick up on his own. He tells himself that’s why he even tries to keep this place fortified at all. But really, it’s just inertia. You live long enough in a half-broken world, you start patching things out of habit, not hope.

Without ceremony, Freodore shrugs off his coat, heavy with rain and street grime, and tosses it onto the back of a chair. It lands with a damp thud. He doesn’t bother with the hooks anymore or with taking off his boots at the door either—he gave up on that habit a long time ago. The floors were never really clean to begin with.

He moves through the apartment with slow efficiency, pulling open a shallow drawer beside his desk to grab his apron, heavy canvas, worn smooth in places where grease and solder have burned into the fibers. He could’ve upgraded to something more flame-resistant or magnetically shielded. But Freodore’s always kept to the old tools. The apron, the solder pen, the single-banded magnifying monocle he tethers to his right eye when working with fine circuit paths. A relic from another era, like most of him.

He circles the apron around his waist, over his black shirt, sleeves already rolled to the elbows. The fabric’s tucked neatly into the waistband of his utility pants. Functional. Clean. Standard. Not much left in the world that isn’t one of those three.

He goes back to the android, lifting its frame with both arms, careful not to snag any more exposed wires on the edge of a crate. The body’s colder now after the walk and heavier than it looks.

He lays it down on his workstation, the real centerpiece of the apartment now. What used to be a dining space was reworked into a makeshift lab. The lights above don’t work anymore and haven’t for years, but the desk lamp, the one by his bed, and the soft beam near the computer glow steady was usually enough. Until now.

He turns the brightest lamp to face the android and begins.

The shirt is too tattered to save. He cuts it clean down the center and peels it away, tossing the scraps into a bin already filled with wire clippings and solder shavings.

The bruising, it seems, is superficial. The gashes don’t even look like wounds at all, just dark skid marks on the soft casing that can pass well enough for skin. He recognizes the casing as high-end polymer blend, the kind used in hyper-human androids. Meant to mimic dermis, but reinforced with internal lattices and mesh. Durable, but not invincible.

He knows what’s beneath. A layer of fine plating under the skin, then the structured network of wires so thin they mimic veins. Subsystems for sensory feedback—touch, heat, maybe even taste. Whoever designed this model wasn’t aiming for utility. They were replicating experience.

Freodore draws a breath and gets to work. The torso is intact, but barely. The back, more questionable. He turns the body over and finds the latch where a spine might be. Screws rusted almost flat. He suits up. Goggles, gloves, heat wand to cut past the damage without frying what’s left inside.

Progress is slow going at best.

Four hours in, and all he’s done is trace circuitry and sketch out a crude map of the android’s internals. What parts can be re-used. Which have been pilfered or damaged. Which don’t even have market-grade equivalents anymore.

Still, he manages to pry open a small panel at the base of the neck—a program slot, dual-bay. One slot labeled with what might be the android’s model number. The other, scribbled over in black marker, jagged and rushed: memo.

The chips are cracked. Warped from heat or maybe pulled out and jammed back in too many times. Fine wires spill out like nerves, exposed and fraying.

Freodore stares at them for a long moment. He knows better than to try anything. Software was its own beast. He could make the shell shine. Rebuild the limbs. Smooth the joints and wire a new power core. But this? Programming, integration—that was beyond his capabilities.

He leans over the table, hands braced on either side of the android’s spine casing.

He looks at the curve of the android’s bare back, the base of his neck, sculpted perfectly; it almost looks made out of porcelain and not some polyester hybrid to mimic human skin. When he touches it, it’s predictably soft, and jarringly familiar. Something about it itches at his memory.

“I’m going to need help,” he mutters, almost begrudgingly as he turns away from the android, carding a hand through his hair to center himself.

Thinks, where’d I put that number?

 

 

 

The screen sputters before it stabilizes, dust in the circuit, maybe, and the low hum of an active CommLink connection comes through. Vanta appears in blue-gray wash on the display, upside-down at first, before he flips the view with a smirk already plastered across his face.

“Freo,” he drawls, voice crackling with static and amusement. “Didn’t think I’d hear from you unless someone threatened your screwdrivers and held you at gunpoint for them.”

Freodore exhales slowly, a sigh, decidedly not acknowledging that and says, “I need to negotiate a contract.”

“Oh?” Vanta leans back into whatever mess of cushions and gear his background suggests. “Not the kind of call I expected. You changing your mind about ASH’s little jobbie? Miss us already?”

“No.” Freodore’s voice stays even. “This isn’t that.”

Vanta whistles. “Cold. But alright, shoot.”

“I need access to some high-grade components. Specific-grade wires, non-standard junction cores. I’d need a clean heat-seal replicator too, eventually.”

Vanta sits forward. “You finally take up doll-making, Freo?”

Freodore doesn’t answer immediately. He taps a hand against the side of the terminal. “I found a unit. It’s defective. Half-scrapped. I’m trying to bring it back online.”

“Salvage?” Vanta’s voice sharpens, though not with suspicion. More like curiosity that just got its first whiff of blood. “Commercial?”

Freodore’s hesitation is answer enough.

Vanta tilts his head. “No way,” he breathes. “You’re telling me you found one of those?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Freodore says, slow and careful. “But the architecture—it’s dense. Precision-grade routing, like it wasn’t meant for public release.”

“And you didn’t report it?” Vanta grins like a cat at an open birdcage. “Gutsy.”

“I’m not looking to cause trouble. I just want to fix it.”

“‘Fix it,’ he says. You even peeked at the neural scaffold yet? That kind of craftsmanship’s rare. Memory chips?”

“Compromised,” Freodore admits. “Pulled out both. One might have been auxiliary. I don’t know if they’ll both be salvageable.”

“Damn,” Vanta mutters, chewing on the thought. “Alright, here’s the rub. I can send you a few things. Old print specs, firmware matching charts. Maybe even some clean synthskin panels, if you promise not to make it creepy.”

Freodore doesn’t respond to the joke.

“But,” Vanta continues, “we’ve got jobs for you—pickup, repair, covert drop. No questions. You want my help, you’ll take the ones I send you.”

“I want books,” Freodore says, flatly. “Old tech logs. Pre-closure circuit models. That’s the only thing I can’t scrape from the networks anymore.”

“Done,” Vanta says instantly. “But riddle me this—ever work with fractured memory cores?”

“I tried once,” Freodore says. “Didn’t succeed.”

“Hah!” Vanta claps once, startlingly loud through the speakers. “That’s a yes. You know what soldering nerve-trace data feels like. That’s enough.”

Silence simmers between them for a beat. Freodore looks back at the android’s still form on the worktable, eyes flicking to the empty socket where its chip had sat. Something about the design of its spine, its joints—it stirs something old, not quite in recognition, but in a familiarity that doesn’t sit clean.

“I’ll send a package,” Vanta says after a moment. “Two days. One of our runners will drop it. They’ll want to know what they’re walking into.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Yeah, sure. You say that like you aren’t shaking in those old boots. You find a name yet?”

“A name?”

“For the android, genius.” Vanta grins again. “You’re halfway to giving it your last blanket.”

Freodore doesn’t answer. His gaze lingers on the delicate seams in the android’s back. Then he just nods a curt ‘thank you’ and then cuts the feed as Vanta fumbles, maybe attempting to reach for him through the screen and shake him a little for his ingratitude.

 

 

 

The first crate arrives just after dawn the day after next. The courier doesn’t linger, just drops the package, scans the doorframe, disappears before Freodore finishes punching in the code to unlock it. He hears the retreating hum of boots against the wet concrete of the corridor, muffled in the morning drizzle.

The crate smells of polymer wrap and copper dust when he cracks it open. Inside: more than he asked for.

Sheets of pristine synthskin sealed in vacuum packs. Coils of gold-threaded microfilament wire, still warm to the touch. A full set of corrosion-resistant mini-sockets. Even the rare graphite-core micro-joints—some models of those hadn’t seen circulation in a decade. Beneath it all, a stack of books, actual paper-bound ones. One with a worn spine that he recognizes immediately. He hasn’t seen a copy of Circuit Philosophy: Parallel Thought in Non-Human Logic since university which feels like eons ago.

Vanta’s spoiling him.

Freodore kneels by the crate in the still-dark of his apartment. The fake morning light hasn’t yet filtered through the smog outside; his lamps cast long, warm arcs across the floor, catching the corners of the tarp where the android lies dissembled, waiting.

Freodore sets to work.

The room stays quiet save for the soft rasp of sandpaper, the clink of metal against ceramic, the quiet exhale he gives every time he removes another layer of damage and memory from the android’s form.

He starts with the torso, carefully soldering along fractured chest plates, his touch so practiced it borders on reverent. The wiring here feels different. Smart muscle, coded responsiveness buried in layers of living alloy.

He remembers that laugh—sharp, knowing, always a step ahead. He finds the same curvature in the android’s shoulder, rebuilt now with a blend of carbon steel and synthetic tendon. Muscle memory, almost. Or maybe just memory. His fingers hesitate sometimes, just for a breath, just long enough for old ghosts to slip through.

Outside, the rain drizzles like static. Mornings always tasted faintly of rust. Salt in the air from somewhere near the coast, solder in his throat.

He moves to the android’s left hand. It’s mangled. Some of the phalange joints are misaligned, some missing entirely. He rebuilds each digit with patient precision, eyes scanning the diagrams Vanta sent over, muscle memory guiding the rest. When he slots in the final joint, it clicks with a strange sort of finality.

Freodore leans back, wiping his brow with the hem of his shirt. His hands are shaking.

He doesn’t stop.

There’s something unnerving about how familiar it all feels—the way the joints align, the way the android’s frame rests against the table. Like it once learned to move by watching someone he knew. Someone who would never say no to a reckless order, who had too much fire in his chest and not enough caution to contain it. Someone who walked into the crossfire because Freodore was behind it.

That wasn’t your fault, Claude had said.

No one’s fault, Vanta would echo, until Freodore insisted he’d tired of hearing of it.

He doesn’t think either of them really meant it. Not really. But they all agreed to let it lie at some point, and Freodore had made peace with what little silence gave him.

He replaces the subdermal sensory lines next. Each filament must be mapped by hand because older tools can’t read their specific current thresholds. The light catches the android’s face as he turns the head slightly to one side, exposing the narrow seam along the jawline. It’s still lifeless, eyes shut, synthetic lashes dusted with static. He brushes away a speck of rust from the corner of its mouth.

There’s a moment, brief but arresting, where Freodore forgets he’s looking at a machine.

He frowns. Forces his hands to keep moving.

Every detail is too exact. The shape of the lips, the slope of the neck. The nape of the android’s back, now mended and smooth under the new synthskin, is unmistakable.

Freodore tells himself he’s imagining it. Memory’s a bad liar but a convincing one.

By evening, he’s done with most of the external construction and the body looks whole again.

He stands over it in the low lamplight, and something in his chest twists.

Then: he picks up the ruined memory chips from where he left them, rolls them between his fingers. They’re still useless, but they’ve been cleaned now, catalogued, stored in a box marked with a symbol Vanta sent him. An encrypted pin-prong socket.

Thunder rumbles far off in the distance.

Freodore closes the crate. Washes his hands. The water runs pink with metal dust. He doesn’t look in the mirror on the way to bed.

 

 

 

The next day, Freodore stands over the cluttered table, scanning a sprawl of open books and scattered blueprints, going over how the externals are supposed to work with the internals.

The pages, marked with creases and grease-stains detail the usual android classes—commercial models widely circulated in the public sector. Most were assistants, aides, programmed with soft-voiced protocols and clean interfaces. A few secondhand units had developed just enough self-direction to apply for jobs on their own, patched together with leftover consciousness software someone didn’t bother to fully wipe. Others got re-coded to supplement tasks across all manner of professions—factory lines, courier services, even home care, companionship.

Some of them had even started demanding rights, briefly. That particular movement didn’t last long. Easy to silence, when you could shut them off and strip them for parts without a fight.

Because unlike people, androids had built-in resets. Their bodies didn’t wear down the same way, and without modification, they could wake up after a system restore looking exactly like they did the day they rolled off the line.

But none of the diagrams matched what lay on Freodore’s bench.

Some pieces were close—he could identify a few standard joint enhancers used in precision industrial models, and a small chamber that at first seemed designed for breath simulation, but was just another data compressor. Functional, not performative.

What stood out most was the sheer density of processing units. Not one, not two, but several, nested within the core structure, distributed like organs. Redundant, layered. Powerful.

It was why he’d dumped most of his dwindling savings into high-grade wiring.

Luca, his metal dealer, hadn’t asked any questions. Just did the math, packed the coils in a foam crate, and gave him a look that said he didn’t have to know, flashed him a smile and the invoice. Which, fair enough. These kinds of components weren’t cheap, and the market wasn’t exactly thriving these days, at least not when half the city ran on salvaged rigs and DIY energy loops.

Freodore pulls in a breath, steadying himself, trying to re-focus.

The chips. The ones he’d pried from the neck compartment labeled with serial data 0001X-ILE and that hastily scrawled “memo” slot were damaged, but not beyond repair. At least one more than the other, that’s what Vanta said, after a shaky video call full of dropped frames and static buzz. Shu, a quieter contact he reached through his metal dealer’s network, had confirmed the same: the damage was fixable. The trick would be knowing what to restore.

Freodore leans over the table again, exhaling slowly.

He doesn’t know what this android is yet. But it clearly wasn’t meant for anything ordinary.

Shu had told him it wasn’t impossible. Repairable, sure, and even offered to take the whole job on. If he could wait a bit, and throw in a guarantee deposit, he could get it done on a discount. But Freodore had tactfully declined even after all the hours spent talking shop, figured he could manage it himself as a side project. It was safer that way after all. Less exposure, less risk of involving someone who didn’t need to get tangled in whatever this was becoming.

Instead, he opted to slot in the one with serial data, which was an easier fix. It takes him close to a month, but everything seems to be in working order with more troubleshooting from Shu. Without the memo chip, it’s a temporary workaround, but it was enough to boot the system and see what was left.

Freodore fits the base model chip into one of the ports at the android’s spine. Solders it in, a slow, careful job. Working through android skin was always a mess because it was too soft in some places, too layered in others. He doesn’t have the tools or the finesse for a clean finish, so there’s a somewhat visible square-shaped seam where the panel closes. Scar tissue, if it could be called that.

The android’s charging terminal was on his neck like the older models instead of its arm. Newer ones could just hold it over a dock for a couple of minutes and there were contactless ones now too, cheaper android variants took a bit longer to charge, but there were now more comfortable and quicker options regardless of range so they could get back to work quickly.

This one had to be plugged into a wall.

Freodore lifts the android up. Already clothed in one of the larger shirts left in this apartment—he’d figured it would be big enough and didn’t want to spend too long trying to figure out if this one came with preferences.

He props the body against the wall, just next to the edge of his bed. It slumps naturally, head tilted down, limbs resting heavy like sleep.

Shu had been kind enough to have an older charging wire sent on the off-chance that the unit was that old, anticipating this exact possibility.

Freodore goes over a mental checklist. Instructions had to be patched together from three the manuals of three different android models just to cover all the features this thing seemed to carry despite having some older features.

After he plugs the wire into the small socket behind the android’s neck, a dashed, small white circle lights up on the space just above it. It seemed to function fine without the damaged memo chip slotted into place. He doesn’t know why, but he hadn’t brought up repairing that too in his long talks about the tech with Shu, hoping he’d at least drop enough useful information even though the damage ran deeper and seemed much more complex than the base.

The manual had said to key in the code for the base chip to start when the android was charged at least over 60 percent. On models this old, that meant two, maybe three, hours of solid charge.

For now, he’d get started on dinner, he supposes. Shu had already helped bypass the chip’s reset settings, and so already he really need to do was charge to full and turn it on.

He sets his tools aside, rubbing at the ache in his neck as he starts toward the kitchenette.

Dinner, if you could call it that, is nothing more than cup udon noodles, cold by the time Freodore starts eating it.

 

 

 

There’s no heating in his unit.

It’s usually fine during the day when the outer wall catches what little artificial light filters through the permanent cloud layer, or when the generator hum from the building next door radiates faint warmth through the floorboards. Most of the time, he manages. Nights this time of year, though, aren’t as forgiving. At least he doesn't live further north, where the air burns your lungs before it even settles in your bones.

He sets the half-eaten cup of noodles on the kitchenette counter and ambles over to the bed. The room feels tighter than usual, more crowded with the presence of something else alive, or close enough to it.

Freodore places a hand lightly on the android’s forearm.

A light hum pulses beneath the surface, and the skin glows faintly where his palm rests. A minimalist display flickers to life: a small system screen with a keypad interface and basic diagnostics. The charge level reads 93 percent. That should be enough, right?

His fingers hover for a second.

Only when he begins keying in the startup code Shu provided does he realize his hands are clammy. He wipes one on his pant leg and finishes entering the sequence.

The machine whirs to life the first three seconds, then the gears inside it quiet down as his internal cooling system kicks in. A hand twitches, and it's not Freodore’s.

The android’s voice is bright despite the typical robotic boot-up spiel that comes with it.

“Signal stable. Please key in neural network access code.”

Freodore leans over to grab his CommTab, squinting at the string he jotted down ages ago and hasn’t bothered to change since:

 

1-4-1-5-2-2-5-1-3-2-5-1-8-5

 

He keys it in without much thought.

A signal indicator pops up on the android’s display—his home line, detected and syncing.

“Voice recognition, activated. What is your name?”

Freodore sits on the edge of the bed, across from where the android remains propped against the wall, still more machine than anything else.

“Freodore.”

The android blinks. Once. Twice. Its tone modulates, shifts subtly.

“That’s a nice name.”

“It’s literally just Freodore,” he mutters, glancing away. But the android seems to register the comment regardless. It tilts its head slightly and offers something resembling a small, polite smile—just off enough to feel like a reconstruction of one.

“Should I sync with the time on the network I am connected to, Freodore?”

“Yes. And please stop saying my name every five seconds.”

The android takes time to process this new information, maybe the request.

“I am configured to create a personable atmosphere among peers; if this instruction makes you uncomfortable, you can request to bypass my default settings. Should I initiate, Freodore?”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

And then— “I could call you master, instead?”

“Please don’t.”

“Understood.”

There’s more setup than Freodore had anticipated.

Shu had warned him about that—without programming experience, it would take time. The android would need to learn through interaction, a sort of guided Q&A until enough preferences were logged into its system. Until it could simulate familiarity convincingly. There might be snags or behavioral gaps. Missing context. All of it would have to be patched slowly, line by line, like stitching together something that had once been whole.

Freodore runs a final check. Nothing obvious out of place. Its arm articulation looks fine, the legs respond to small movement tests, and the shoulder joints rotate smoothly. Everything that should move, does.

He straightens, glancing over the android one more time. Then, tentatively, he asks.

“You good to go?”

The android lifts its head. Nods.

Freodore hazards a look, meeting the android’s eyes properly for the first time. He hadn’t expected them to look so lifelike up close. There’s a clarity to them—glass-clear, reflective, almost too real in a face that still carries the subtle asymmetries of a broken mold. The irises are a sharp, crystalline blue, maybe almost too vivid to be human, but steady in a way that feels disarmingly familiar.

“Would you mind terribly,” the android says, tone gentle, “if I got a better look at your face?”

Freodore blinks. “My face?”

“Yes,” it replies. “I need to recognize who made me.”

He swallows, throat tight. Turns his face slightly away, pretending to check something on the desk behind him.

Freodore swallows thickly. “I didn’t make you. Just… fixed.”

It’s starting to sink in now. How bizarre this all is. Though he supposes the android wouldn’t know, and true enough, it just moves through the whole ordeal like it doesn’t really matter at all. Maybe it doesn’t have to, for now.

“Final step to full configuration,” it says.

“That’s?”

“What is my name?”

The android is looking at him, probably still working through facial recognition protocols. Probably also because he was designed to. A “personable atmosphere” meant good eye contact, fluid conversation, a comforting tone. Things Freodore was mediocre at, at best.

He’d be lying if he said the android didn’t seem too human.

If he hadn’t spent hours with his hands inside its broken frame, learning the wiring like muscle memory, he might not have known at all. Maybe if he’d only caught a glimpse on the street, just a passing glance, he wouldn’t have guessed. Not until the display on the android’s arm flicked to life, or he noticed the terminal behind its neck.

The android still has his eyes fixed on Freodore, seemingly expectant. If Freodore could assign feelings at all to the expression, it might seem like excitement, almost.

“Your name,” Freodore starts to say, like he actually has to think about it, like he hasn’t known since he’d picked him up in a pile of trash at Harbor 11.

There’s that strange lump in his throat again, which Freodore has to will away.

“It’s...” Freodore pauses, if only to ground himself, just so he doesn’t change his mind, just so he can speak it again without a crack in his voice.

“Kaelix.” He takes one last bracing breath and then lets it go. “Kaelix Debonair.”

The android takes this information in, and not long after it begins speaking again.

“Understood. Completing configuration and initializing sequence for custom unit 0001X-ILE.”

The android seems much more animated now; this time, running through joint feel and stretching his arm out, looking over his own parts like he’s brand new, he looks at his legs, and Freodore sat between them, still paralyzed by the sheer weight of the situation’s absurdity.

Then, Kaelix looks back up at Freodore, addressing him with a smile again, and a hand for him to take this time.

“It’s nice to meet you, Freodore. My name is Kaelix, at your service. Please do not hesitate to depend on me.”

 

 

 

Kaelix follows him everywhere he goes.

Which, granted, is not a lot of places. But also, he’s been programmed to recognize him as his keeper, so Freodore figures this is just the usual settings at play.

Freodore had gotten used to the silence and stillness his apartment offered, doing most everything alone. Having Kaelix trail behind him like a polite, usually wordless shadow, never obstructive and always attentive was unsettling in a way that he couldn’t place. He tells himself he’ll shut him off for a bit once the novelty wore off, but he never quite gets around to it.

Instead, he ends up giving Kaelix small tasks. Sorting tools, holding wires steady. Sometimes he’ll check for hairline fractures in old alloy panels. Kaelix completes them quickly, perfectly like the hunk of metal that he is.

Days pass.

The changes are gradual and Freodore’s realization hits belatedly. It’s in the evening when he’s headed for the bathroom, having woken up from sleep that he notices Kaelix on the floor, after plugging himself into the charger unprompted and how he’d do this without fail when he sensed he’d need it. How Kaelix begins to anticipate Freodore’s movement patterns, adjusting his own quietly to accommodate. How he now calls him Freo softly, gently, and never without purpose.

It’s not creepy—it’s mostly familiar, but that’s somehow worse.

Though it doesn’t change that Freodore rarely needs help for majority of his work. Vanta and a few other contacts still send him odd repair jobs here and there—power relays, comm modules, even a few chipped data cores. Freodore handles those alone while Kaelix sits nearby, watching videos on a spare CommTab or running old archived simulations on the monitor.

At dinner, Freodore eats quietly, perched on the edge of his seat like he’s waiting for an interruption that never comes. Kaelix simply watches—his expression curious but unreadable, like he’s cataloging the ritual of it.

Then one night, as Freodore is rinsing out his empty bowl, Kaelix speaks from behind him.

“Freo,” he says, tilting his head, “would you prefer me to wear something else? Or... do these clothes not need to be washed?”

Freodore stiffens. He glances down at the worn black shirt Kaelix has been wearing since the first day. He hadn’t even thought about it. He should have.

“They do,” he mutters, setting the bowl down. “Didn’t think it’d bother you.”

“It doesn’t,” Kaelix replies simply. “But they are starting to smell. Slightly.”

Freodore snorts under his breath. “Fair enough.”

After dinner, he moves to the corner of the room where a stack of boxes has been set for years, untouched. He hesitates. Kaelix notices, of course, and steps forward to help. They clear the top crates in silence, revealing a battered trunk sealed with twin latches that squeak in protest when opened.

Inside: neatly folded clothes, aged by time. A few familiar fabrics, colors he hasn’t seen in years. Freodore’s hands hover before he finally reaches in and pulls them free. His throat is tight, but he manages:

“These’ll need a wash. Haven’t been used in a while.”

Kaelix tilts his head again. “Would you like me to learn how?”

Freodore hesitates. Then, simply, “Yeah. Sure.”

They set the garments in the empty half of the closet a few hours later—the one Freodore hasn't looked at in almost five years. Kaelix watches carefully, storing the placement, the method, the way Freodore folds even when it clearly pains him to do it. He joins him in it not long after he gets through a few, which doesn’t make it better.

One evening a few nights later, Freodore throws himself back into his work. Soldering leads, checking volt levels. The usual. Eventually, when the numbers begin to blur and his eyes sting from strain, he decides to call it for the night. He stands, stretching, and moves toward the bathroom to freshen up.

When he steps back into the room, towel around his neck, he stops short.

Kaelix is lying across the bed, propped up slightly by the wall, a book open in his lap. His legs are stretched out casually, crossed at the ankle. He’s wearing a loose beige shirt now paired with darker soft pants that bunch around his calves. His posture is entirely unguarded, almost lazy—one hand idly turning a page, the other resting over his thigh.

His white hair falls partially across his face as he reads, the strands catching the soft glow of the desk lamp. His expression is relaxed. Focused, alive.

Freodore’s breath catches in his throat, the sound soft but the way it catches is sharp.

And then he sees the charger cable, slotted cleanly into the back of Kaelix’s neck, trailing from the outlet beside the bed, and the illusion shatters.

Freodore exhales hard, grounding himself in the hum of the apartment again—the flickering lamp, the soft whir of cooling fans. He sets the towel down, avoiding the bed for a beat too long.

“Did you pick that?” he asks, nodding toward the book.

Kaelix looks up. “You had it bookmarked. I assumed you hadn’t finished it.”

Freodore makes a vague sound in response, moving to power down his work station.

He pads slowly over to the bed after, rubbing at his neck, unsure why he’s suddenly so aware of how quiet the room has gotten.

Behind him, at the foot, Kaelix gently coils the charger cord and sets it aside on any clean surface he can find with precise care. The book is closed and placed back on the small ledge near the window. By the time Freodore’s pulling back the blanket to slip under it, Kaelix moves too—quiet, smooth, his movements somehow more fluid than even the night before.

He climbs onto the bed.

Freodore freezes the moment he feels the shift in weight behind him. A pause. Then—

Arms wrap gently around his waist, one over the other, a soft but definite hold. His back slots into the curve of another body, a form far too warm to be incidental.

Freodore stiffens instantly. “What are you doing?”

Kaelix’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact. “You always look so cold when you sleep. I have a warming function.”

Freodore blinks. He tries to swallow but his throat’s dry.

The hybrid skin—whatever synthetic polyester blend they used for Kaelix—it’s warm, textured just enough to pass as human. Too much so. And right now, pressed against him, it’s alarmingly effective. He can feel every part of it.

“This…” Freodore starts, his voice low, almost strained. “This isn’t something you do with anyone else. You understand? This is— It’s inappropriate.”

“Yes,” Kaelix says simply. “Of course. Only with you, Freo.”

Freodore closes his eyes for a second, wrangling with a sound the back of his throat wants to make. The name slips into him with practiced ease now, softened by time and repetition. Kaelix doesn’t explain this part of his programming, doesn’t preface the decision with a speech about social comfort thresholds or behavioral reinforcement.

At some point, Freodore realizes, Kaelix had learned to just stop doing that. To speak like this was natural. And it’s not until he shifts slightly, just enough to settle in the hold around him, just enough to feel the warmth more evenly across his back, that Kaelix’s voice returns, this time gentler.

“Is this okay?”

Freodore exhales sharply through his nose. “You just said…”

A beat.

“Yes, but now you’re hesitating,” Kaelix counters, tone light. “I’m learning that means you’re emotionally conflicted.”

Freodore groans softly, turning slightly to glare at nothing in particular. “It’s those damn things you’ve been watching on the CommTab, isn’t it?”

Kaelix hums, a small, amused sound. Then he laughs, warm, caught somewhere between digital playback and genuine mirth. It bubbles up, loose and unexpected.

Kaelix shifts slightly after that, nuzzling in closer against Freodore’s shoulder.

“Did you know,” Kaeilx begins, conversational, like he’s discussing the weather, “that physical touch—specifically hugging—triggers endorphin release in most humans? It's said to reduce stress, regulate blood pressure. Increase serotonin.”

Freodore sighs, not quite amused. “Great, you’ve learned emotional depth.”

“There’s more,” Kaelix adds, voice soft, as though he’s reading from some internal archive. “The effect is heightened when skin touches skin. Shared warmth is registered as comfort. Especially when experienced over long periods of absence.”

That last part lands heavier than it should and roots Freodore in his spot, rendering him unable to move. Or think much, his brain filling with static.

He hadn’t even noticed how tightly he’d been keeping everything in—shoulders always slightly tense, hands that never rested unless occupied. He hadn’t let anyone this close in... he doesn’t even remember how long. He’d gotten good at not needing it.

But tonight there are fingers, large than his, warm and certain, curled gently over his own where they rest against his stomach. And there’s an arm wrapping tighter around his middle, holding him in place.

Kaelix doesn’t push it. He doesn’t try to slip under fabric or force more contact than what’s given. He just makes sure their skin brushes where their arms rest together, just enough.

Freodore lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His chest rises and falls more slowly now, grounded by the quiet rhythm of another body pressed against his own, even if the breath coming out of it is simulated at best.

He closes his eyes.

It’s strange not to recoil or to mind too much. It feels like something he used to know, and could see dimly, in flashes—leaning into somebody’s touch without flinching, the sensation of allowing himself to be anchored by it.

They don’t speak again, the room fading in the low hum, light flickering quietly above the bed. Kaelix stays close, silent now, his body warm against Freodore’s back, his hand still resting loosely atop his.

And for the first time in years, Freodore falls asleep easily.

 

 

 

Freodore doesn’t dream of him often, which is a strange mercy and a curse. There’s no looped trauma, no constant replay of the exact moment that still drips through the cracks in his memory when he isn’t paying attention in dreams.

No. When, dreams come, they’re almost kind, but also almost crueler for it.

Tonight he places it at two months before everything went wrong.

Freodore’s dream world is usually warm without being uncomfortable. Real, golden sunlight leaks through the windows of a rented flat, the kind with open beams but also faulty climate control. It’s a coastal town, and he can sometimes feel the heat rising off the concrete outside through the floor. The breeze carries the sound of traffic and distant music, and it’s the kind of morning where time feels like it can be ignored.

His hands are stained with the resin of thermal sealant. Tools scatter the table in front of him. A metal forearm is flat against a towel, casing open, wires exposed like veins in disrepair.

“Wait a bit,” Freodore hears himself mutter, though he’s not looking up.

Behind him, there’s movement. Light feet on hardwood. A familiar hum under breath. And then, a body crowding close without real imposition or urgency, but it is warm and a little bit impatient.

“Now? Pleeeease,” comes the voice, rich with that quiet amusement he knows too well, but also his playful pleading. “They’re just wires, Freo. You can leave them for five minutes. Just five.”

“No,” Freodore counters. “You say five now, but you’ll say ten later and make the jump to sixty if I’m not careful. And you won’t be able to throw any punches if I stop now.” Freodore says, carefully adjusting a joint.

“Mmm. Who said anything about punching?” There’s a grin in that voice. “I only need one arm to hold you.”

Freodore sighs, but the breath is fond. He sets down his tools with exaggerated care, turning slightly as the man leans over him, resting his chin on his shoulder. The arm clicks faintly as it lays useless on the table between them, falling gently sideways when Freodore finally lets it go.

“Ten minutes,” Freodore says softly, even as he allows himself to lean into the touch now, fully.

“Twenty…?”

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty-five?”

“Can you count?”

The voice laughs, lilting.

The air smells ironically of both freshly laundered linen and solder, but the light casts golden stripes across the walls, warming the room gently.

The man tries to pull him closer, but his missing arm makes it a bit awkward.

“Later,” Freodore tells him, smiling faintly. “When we put it back, you can strangle me with affection all you like.”

He pauses, then sets down another tool. Wipes his hands on a cloth and stands up, leading the way to the couch.

“For now,” he murmurs, reaching up as he pushes himself back against the cushions, “we’ll do it like this.”

He cups the man’s face between his hands as he crawls over him, warm palms on warm skin. Freodore inches upwards, pressing a kiss to his forehead and another to his temple. Freodore leans back on the couch, pulling the man with him.

It takes some maneuvering, but they make it work. His lover folds into him naturally, even though he’s broader, longer-limbed. Freodore holds him anyway, arms wrapped around his waist, his head tucked neatly under Freodore’s chin.

He smells of sun and old soap. The same brand he insists on dragging across borders when they have to be on the move, on jobs together.

When he looks up at Freodore, eyes half-lidded and amused, there’s a soft smile playing on his lips, content, familiar.

He says something to him then. It’s the sweetest sound.

But his words don’t reach Freodore. They stay silent.

His lips move, soundless, mouthing something beautiful and tender, but Freodore hears nothing.

The dream stutters; the light flickers.

Freodore wakes to rain, to human-like arms around his waist and the hollowed out feeling in the center of his chest, deep enough to throw in a stone without hearing the drop.

 

 

 

The room is quiet save for the steady tap of rain against the windows.

Gray light filters through the blinds in broken bands, casting the room in soft shadows. Freodore lies still beneath the covers, eyes open now, awake but not quite present. The remnants of the dream still wrap around his chest and makes his breath feel tight. It takes him a moment to remember where he is—when he is.

The arms around his waist cradle him like something precious.

His body is warm, a low hum beneath the surface, but his systems are in rest mode, breathing synced to Freodore’s out of learned mimicry, the way androids sometimes do when they live close to humans long enough. He doesn’t need to sleep, not really.

Freodore doesn’t remember when he turned inward, into Kaelix’s chest. It’s taking him longer than usual to pull away from the weight of memory pressing against his rib cage.

Kaelix’s eyes open as he senses movement, tightening his hold around Freodore.

“Good morning,” he says politely.

“Good morning,” Freodore mumbles, throat still heavy with sleep or the remnants of what came before it.

Kaelix doesn’t release him right away. He holds on a second longer, then a breath more, reluctant, like letting go might break some kind of quiet contract.

Eventually, Freodore shifts and sits up, drawing in a slow breath as he gets up from bed. He pads barefoot to the kitchenette, fingers dragging against the counter before grabbing a glass and filling it with water. The quiet settles gently, broken only by the light patter of rain beyond the windows.

Predictably, Kaelix trails after him.

“Hydrating before caffeine intake. Statistically rare for you,” Kaelix remarks, stopping just a step behind, leaning one shoulder casually against the doorframe.

Freodore sips. “Didn’t sleep well.”

“You didn’t sleep poorly either,” Kaelix counters gently. “Your breathing was even. Heart rate normal. Minimal subconscious vocalizations. Rest mode suggested you were content.”

Freodore glances at him sidelong. “You’re monitoring me now?”

Kaelix shrugs. “Only a little. It's part of the sleep protocol. You approved it—sort of.”

“I probably grunted and rolled over.”

“It felt implied,” Kaelix says, cheeky now. “Which I’ll take as a win.”

Freodore exhales, amused despite himself. He downs the rest of his water and sets the glass down with a faint clink.

Then: “You mentioned nutrition sometime yesterday too.”

“Still relevant today,” Kaelix replies, crossing the room to stand beside him now, tone tilting gently toward concerned. “You’ve been consistently under daily nutritional thresholds. Your body’s showing early signs of protein deficit. And your last full meal was—what, two days ago?”

“I had a protein bar yesterday.”

“That wasn’t food, that was punishment.” Kaelix pauses. “And expiring in five days.”

Freodore raises an eyebrow. “You check the expiration dates?”

“I check everything,” Kaelix says simply. “Because you won’t.”

Freodore rubs at his temple, groaning under his breath. “Fine. Market run, then.”

Kaelix perks up instantly. “Really? You mean it?”

“Yes. You’ve convinced me. Your guilt programming’s surprisingly effective.”

“I don’t have guilt programming,” Kaelix says with a grin. “I just hate watching you eat like a raccoon.”

Freodore grunts and pushes away from the counter. “Go get dressed.”

Kaelix is already halfway to the closet before Freodore finishes saying it.

Freodore gets dressed to go out too, tugs on his coat when he’s ready and waits for him by the door.

The market’s a short walk. It’s rows of aging stalls and cloth-draped kiosks under a corrugated canopy that leaks in three places. Vendors eye them as they pass, the regulars giving Freodore a curt nod. Kaelix takes in the place with a bright, analytical calm, like cataloging the entire layout as he moves.

Freodore watches as Kaelix stops in front of a stall with bundles of greens and carefully sorted root vegetables.

“Don’t just stare. You gotta pay,” Freodore murmurs, stepping up beside him.

Kaelix lifts a brow. “I know that now. I’ve read the exchange protocol matrix you wrote on the fridge.”

Freodore snorts. “That wasn’t for you. That was someone’s last invoice.”

“Well, it worked. I’m very good at following instructions.” Kaelix leans forward and exchanges credits for a small bundle of scallions and a slightly bruised root crop. He offers the vendor a polite thank you. They move from stall to stall, Kaelix selecting mushrooms, a dried noodle bundle, soy root. Freodore occasionally offers direction, but for the most part, Kaelix handles the exchange with quiet confidence.

Eventually, Kaelix starts going to the market on his own.

It happens naturally once Freodore’s projects begin to pile up again. Older clients start reaching out, word gets around that he’s working steady again, and before long, his mornings are filled with rifle scopes and busted optic lines, field processors that need recalibration, and the occasional whisper of something off-market and hush-hush.

Kaelix slips into the gaps without being asked.

He leaves just after sunrise, pockets pre-loaded with credit chits and the shopping list saved in his internal notes. The vendors start to recognize him. Some try to haggle, a few flirt, one old woman insists on giving him extra garlic because he reminds her of someone. He’s charming in a way Freodore isn't—gentler, more direct. People soften around him.

Freodore eats more now, too. Two and a half square meals a day, somehow. Kaelix times them with care, down to the minute. Sometimes he plates the food with strange flourish—cooked greens laid in quiet spirals, soft noodles arranged in little nests. He once carved a carrot into the vague shape of a cat. Freodore said nothing, just ate around it.

They ease into routine before Freodore can question it. Before he can notice how the apartment feels warmer, more settled. How the silence doesn’t press in as oppressive and rests instead, easy and shared.

How, lately, he always seems to look toward the door just before Kaelix comes back through it.

 

 

 

The call comes through while Freodore’s elbow-deep in an old sight mod, lenses scattered across the desk in a spread like tiny cracked moons three days later. The CommTab vibrates twice, short and sharp, and then the screen blinks awake with Vanta’s smirking face already halfway through a sentence.

“—so unless you’ve completely forgotten our arrangement, I’m calling it in.”

Freodore doesn’t look up right away. His fingers are steady, adjusting the micro-threaded stabilizer ring with the tip of his tool. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“So reassuring, thank you, Freodore.”

Freodore exhales and finally lifts his gaze to the screen. Vanta is lounging sideways in some windowless room, bathed in flickering pale light, boots kicked up, headset crooked like he never fixed the fit.

“You said repair work,” Freodore reminds him.

“Uh-huh,” Vanta says, grinning. “And you’ve done good with that. Excellent work, really. But that wasn’t the whole deal. You know this.”

Freodore rolls his shoulders back, not arguing. He’s had the feeling this was coming. ASH never sends tech without strings.

“You’re due a run,” Vanta says. “Nothing messy. No security choke points. Just a retrieval. Box and drop.”

“And what’s in the box?”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get coordinates. Old sector, out near the 9th Docking Shell. Dead zone for most scanners. You’ll be fine.”

Freodore narrows his eyes slightly. “I want it routed out. My address doesn’t get tagged in the hand-off.”

“You think I’d do you dirty?” Vanta gasps, hand to chest, eyes bright with amusement. “I’m hurt.”

“I’ve worked with you long enough,” Freodore retorts.

Vanta grins wider, nodding like that’s fair. “Alright. Details’ll hit your inbox by midnight.”

Freodore flicks the tab shut before the screen goes dark, making sure Kaelix hadn’t wandered into the frame during the call. He never does, not during, but Freodore’s learned to double check. The android’s gotten clever.

Sure enough, Kaelix is at the far end of the room, pretending to organize toolkits that are already alphabetized by voltage resistance. He glances up just once, eyes catching Freodore’s, expression unreadable. Freodore doesn’t say anything, but he knows Kaelix heard most of it. The next morning, he pretends to gear up alone.

Kaelix’s coat is already laid out next to Freodore’s bag when he gets back from his shower.

“You’re not coming,” Freodore says.

Kaelix doesn’t look up from the pack he’s tightening. “You might need me.”

“I’ve done these plenty before. I’ll be in and out.”

Kaelix zips the last pouch closed. “And I’ve seen the call logs. Vanta doesn’t ‘in and out’ anyone.”

Freodore sighs, grabbing the energy bar Kaelix left on the counter and taking a bite out of sheer spite. “It’s not a combat op.”

Kaelix finally looks at him, pouting. “That doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

Freodore doesn’t have an answer for that, although he does roll his eyes a little as he steps forward, checking the charge on Kaelix’s sidearm.

 

 

 

When they leave, it’s just past dawn. Fog rolls off the coast in heavy ribbons, slipping through the alleys like something alive. The streets are near empty this time of day, just the occasional courier drone gliding overhead, and old neon signs buzzing softly against the gray.

They move in the quiet. Freodore leads, his steps purposeful. Kaelix walks just behind and to the left, never quite flanking, but also never really far.

He doesn’t say anything as they cross under the rusted scaffold of the southern egress, just scans the horizon with those too-perceptive eyes. His hand hovers near the blade clipped to his thigh.

Freodore doesn’t tell him to stop or bother correcting him even though he’s sorely tempted to point out how used to he is, going about this kind of work by himself.

The 9th Docking Shell is all broken spine and shadow now, long since gutted by time and water damage. They enter through a breach in the wall, the air inside thick with dust and damp. Somewhere overhead, loose sheet metal creaks like something breathing.

The drop point is tucked behind an old storage bay. Freodore kneels, checking the crate’s seal.

Kaelix stands watch at the entrance, eyes steady, fingers resting against the hilt of his weapon like it’s second nature.

The job’s clean. No surprises. No one else waiting.

Still, Kaelix doesn’t relax until they’re two streets away, back in familiar territory, the city warming under a rising sun.

“You were quiet,” Freodore says, as they pass a shuttered bakery.

Kaelix gives a small shrug. “Just doing my job.”

Freodore scoffs. “What job is that?”

Kaelix glances at him, faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Whatever makes sure you come back in one piece.”

 

 

 

They go on a few.

Then a few turns into plenty.

Freodore doesn’t remember when it changed. When packing a second coat and loading two canisters into the magcore rifle became part of the ritual. It’s just how it is now. Kaelix stands by the door when he’s lacing his boots. He hands Freodore the filtered breather before he asks. He scans their exit routes, double-checks field data, and always, always takes the seat closest to the door in whatever transport they hitch.

They travel city to city under ASH’s radar, ferrying half-labeled crates, locking in minor retrievals, ghosting their way through deactivated zones. Kaelix never complains. He blends into the noise of each place with sharp eyes and easy steps, tailing Freodore almost as if he’s always had to his entire life.

He tries to leave that train of thought well enough alone during the job. But still, it hits him sometimes, in between the work, when the quiet settles just right under his ribcage.

They’re three cities out from home this time, along the cliffside routes skirting the edge of the old manufacturing zones. He’s walking beside Kaelix, half-drained from the trek, when he’s struck by a memory: a train station on a different continent, sunlight too bright on corrugated metal, a shared can of coffee passed between hands. His lover’s laugh echoing too loud in the empty hangar. They had missed their shuttle, lost the package, eaten stale pastries on the floor and called it a victory anyway.

They had done so many stupid things together. Fun, bright, fleeting things.

Which is exactly where it still feels a little tender. All those small, sweet inconsequential moments that made up a whole.

Two days later, he and this Kaelix are working a drop in a city stangled by humidity and iron fog. A rooftop relay install, just a quick job, although high altitude, it’s nothing fancy.

Except the signal comes early.

Freodore’s half-crouched, wiring the uplink node into the rooftop relay box, Kaelix standing at the edge of the platform scanning the horizon, when the alert pings in his ear. A short, sharp frequency burst—not the all-clear they were waiting for.

A second later, the relay’s proximity grid flashes red.

Someone’s entered the building below.

Freodore freezes, fingers still clutched around the splicer.

“There’s movement,” Kaelix says low, eyes narrowing as he checks his HUD. “Four, no—five—heat signatures. Not our people, Freo.”

Freodore curses under his breath and yanks the node out. They’d only been up here ten minutes. The route was supposed to be dead. Secured. Vanta had said it was a clean handoff.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Freodore mutters, stowing the tool pack and already moving toward cover. “Locals?”

“Uh,” Kaelix checks again. “I’d say they’re too coordinated. Pattern sweep. Short-barrel weapons. I don’t think these are amateurs.”

The stairwell door rattles once, then twice, and then the first charge goes off. Small, focused, and concussive. Smoke curls through the crack in the doorframe, followed by the sound of boots. Fast. Tactical.

Freodore slides behind a rusted vent fan, heart hammering, drawing his sidearm with practiced ease. “Mercenaries?”

Kaelix doesn’t answer right away. He moves like a hinge snapping into place—weapon drawn, stance shifting into defensive posture. His body angles toward Freodore just slightly.

“Could be freelance,” he says finally. “Or someone else looking to pick up ASH’s leftovers.”

A second explosion hits the far edge of the rooftop, sparks spraying from a busted relay node. The stairwell floods with shadows. Figures in dark gear, filtered masks, silent gestures passed between them like they’ve done this before. Definitely not ASH, and definitely not part of the deal.

They don’t stop running until the fourth alley over, two stories down through a broken cargo lift shaft and across a gutted train platform half-swallowed by rust and ash. The sky above them boils with late storm clouds, and the air stinks of iron and old oil.

Freodore stumbles as they reach a narrow loading bay nestled between a pair of collapsed buildings. Kaelix grabs his arm to steady him, eyes scanning the corners, ears still tuned for movement. They wait until it’s quiet.

Kaelix presses Freodore into the wall gently, fingers brushing over the shoulder of his coat.

“I think we’re good,” he says. “We should wait here for a few minutes. Let your vitals settle.”

Freodore exhales, long and slow. He nods. His pulse is still thudding in his neck, adrenaline only just starting to burn off. His side aches. His coat’s torn somewhere near the ribs, but it’s not until he shifts slightly that the warmth spreads.

Kaelix sees it a second later.

He’s pulling back to scan the surrounding buildings when his eyes catch the slow, dark stain creeping across Freodore’s side. For a moment, he freezes. Then turns sharply.

“What—?”

Freodore winces. “Just a scrape.”

“Scrapes don’t come in that shape,” Kaelix says, already dropping to one knee beside him. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“That’s worse.”

Kaelix’s hands are already at his side, fingers deftly pulling up the fabric, exposing the wound. It’s not deep, but it’s jagged—shrapnel, likely, from the relay detonation. The blood’s tacky against his skin, already cooling.

Kaelix’s mouth is a tight line. “You should’ve said something! You could’ve passed out.”

“I didn’t,” Freodore mutters, not meeting his eyes.

Kaelix rifles through his kit, snapping open a sterile pack, hands moving faster now. He doesn’t speak again for a few moments and just works, cleaning the wound, sealing it with a skinfuser patch and bio-gel. He’s methodical, but gentler than he needs to be.

When he finally speaks again, the pout in his voice evident “You’re not allowed to do that, you hear me, Freo?”

Freodore raises an eyebrow, eyes hazy from exertion. “Do what?”

“Bleed in silence.”

Freodore huffs a quiet laugh, even as he leans back into the wall and lets himself rest. “I’ve been doing it a long time.”

Kaelix’s frown deepens as he presses the last patch down and looks up at him.

“Well,” he says, “you don’t have to anymore.”

Freodore doesn’t say anything right away, still braced against the cold wall, the sharp scent of metal lingering faintly under his collar. Kaelix finishes pressing the sealant patch against his side with a gentleness that shouldn’t belong to someone made of alloys and reinforced joints.

He doesn’t look up right away either, but Freodore sees it anyway. The tension in his shoulders, the faint furrow between his brows. That stillness that settles over Kaelix when something bothers him.

Freodore exhales. He feels the guilt slip in, quiet and slow, heavy where it usually isn’t.

“I didn’t mean to make you worry,” he says, after a while.

Kaelix’s hands still, hovering over the patch. “You didn’t mean to get shot, either. But here we are.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

“You didn’t not hide it, either.”

Freodore watches him, eyes narrowing slightly. Kaelix is staring at the bloodied cloth like it’s a puzzle that won’t solve itself. And Freodore wonders if the ache he seems to feel is the real thing, or just habit he’d formed from watching closely enough to simulate it. He’s not sure what Kaelix feels, or what any of it means, or if meaning even matters.

He lets Kaelix fuss over him anyway.

Later, when they’ve finally returned home after a silent ride all the way back, the city’s haze curling through the sky like smoke, Freodore doesn’t resist when Kaelix draws him toward the tiny kitchenette. Doesn’t argue when he’s handed a warm bowl of soup, Kaelix already having peeled and chopped and stirred like it’s instinct.

Freodore eats in the glow of a flickering lamp, floor still dusty from the morning before, half-packed gear strewn across the table.

His wound aches, but he feels clean now, and the pain has dulled into something distant.

Kaelix says little during dinner, except to ask if Freodore wants more broth. When they finish, he washes the dishes, then switches the lights off with a quiet, “Come on.”

Freodore follows without a word.

By the time they settle into bed, the room is filled with the low hum of distant rain and the soft thrum of old electronics. Kaelix pulls him close, not as if asking. He does it as though he’s done this enough times now that it doesn’t really need Freodore’s sign off anymore. Freodore leans into it anyway, allows the weight to rest there, in the curve of Kaelix’s chest, arms slipping around him.

He falls asleep to fingers brushing idly at the back of his neck, his own hand curled loosely over Kaelix’s hip.

They spend days like this now, moving in and out of rhythm as though the world has finally agreed to slow down. Pockets of quiet stretch between Vanta’s requests, scattered like half-buried wires under concrete. Some days it’s straightforward: a weapon brought in for calibration, a broken scanner that just needs new housing. Other times, it’s a retrieval, or a delivery routed through sectors thick with gray zones and half-truths. Freodore never asks what’s really in the crates, and Vanta never volunteers the answer.

When the work is done, they go back home.

Kaelix moves through their shared space like he was always meant to be there—bright-eyed, always reaching for something, always humming under his breath when he’s cooking or cleaning tools. He folds laundry with excessive care, arranges the pantry by color and frequency of use, and insists that having a “fresh element” in every meal is essential for mental clarity. Sometimes he points out things Freodore’s missed in his work, then plays it off like it was nothing, eyes shining with barely-contained pride when he gets it right.

There’s light in him. Not literal, but it’s close. An energy that feels like morning sun on cold metal. He’s playful, curious, and sometimes even theatrical—striking poses when he dresses up for errands, asking for Freodore’s opinion like it matters, like the way his coat hangs or his boots creak might somehow affect the weather.

The apartment, once quiet in a way that echoed now carried the rustle of movement, the sound of laughter at odd hours, the scrape of utensils against ceramic bowls. It settles around them gently, familiar and full.

Whatever Kaelix is offering, whether it's clever mimicry, a spark of remembered affection, or something neither of them has language for, Freodore accepts it now. At some point, he just stopped questioning it at all and let himself have it.

 

 

 

It's during a job lull that he finally manages to fix the chip labeled ‘memo’—the damage had run deep and so it had taken this long.

The jobs, thankfully, had gone silent for the first time in weeks. Vanta was quiet these days, no off-record package lists, no requests. Likely giving him space after the wound, Freodore figures.

Freodore takes the stillness and folds into it.

The memo chip’s been waiting, tucked in the metal drawer just beneath his solder kit, half-forgotten and half-avoided. He’s worked on it in pieces—between repairs, after late dinners, once or twice with Kaelix in the next room. He never said what it was.

Tonight, the apartment hums low with quiet city static. Outside, the sky’s clear, stars like punctures in fabric. The scent of broth lingers from dinner. Freodore adjusts the clamp on the bac of Kaelix’s neck, snapping the casing open where the base chip is nestled and the slot below it is empty.

Kaelix sits on the bed, spine straight.

“You ready?” Freodore asks.

Kaelix smiles, and says,“I trust you.” Like it means anything between the two of them.

Freodore exhales, not quite a sigh. He presses the chip inside and closes it, smoothing over the synthskin to seal it gently into place.

At first, nothing happens.

Freodore rounds where he’s seated, tracks his movements. Kaelix’s posture shifts subtly. Then his pupils dilate, then constrict. The glow in his eyes dims, as if someone turned the lights out behind them. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t breathe, even the artificial rhythm he mimics every night falls away. Freodore steps back instinctively, his hand frozen at his side.

He hasn’t moved yet, but his brain is already going a mile a minute trying to figure out how this is going so wrong, if it would be right to just pry the slot open and pull it out and see if that would fix him.

Freodore watches, jaw tight, thoughts spiraling. Was it corrupted code? Was the data load on this thing too heavy? A part of him prepares for collapse—Kaelix slumped forward, memories of the last few months they’ve spent together since he was repaired, wiped clean.

Soon after the thought enters Freodore’s mind, the light flickers back in Kaelix’s eyes.

But it’s not as it was.

It’s brighter, sharper now. The blue of deep water, like the sea of their old coast, of how this town like many years ago, blue like where it met the sky on a clear, sunny day.

Kaelix doesn’t move.

Freodore hears him. It’s a sound he recognizes from a point just left of his heart, where memory settles.

"Hello... testing, testing. One, two, three."

The voice cracks a little, like it's not used to speaking. Like it doesn’t know if it’s being heard.

"God, I hope this is actually recording. Uhm."

Freodore’s breath catches.

That’s his Kaelix.

There’s a pause, and as if it’s part of his programming the android starts moving.

Freodore feels like he’s seeing him for the first time in a long time, eyes wide, mouth parted around a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

When the android—Kaelix—catches sight of Freodore again, finally, seated across from him, his gaze softens.

“Hi,” Kaelix says.

The voice is steady, lighter than usual, touched with that same off-kilter rhythm Freodore used to hear in every private message he ever left behind. It’s not the android speaking even though its lips are moving—this is playback. A ghost slipping through the wires.

“Hi.” Freodore says back, despite knowing.

“Wow, you look a little different than I remember.”

Freodore huffs, a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “You can tell?”

“I’m sorry,” Kaelix says, the voice almost sheepish. “It just seemed appropriate to say.”

Right. Freodore reminds himself. They’re not really talking.

He leans forward slightly without meaning to. The android moves the way it should, the way it’s been taught to. Shoulders shifting, hands loose in its lap. Everything it does is perfectly timed to the tone of the voice recorded within it. Freodore watches every motion like it might dissolve if he looks away.

Kaelix isn’t wrong though. Maybe he is different. His hair’s a bit longer now, again. His shoulders carry weight differently. Maybe he’s thinned out. Maybe he doesn’t smile as much even in private. Maybe, when the nights stretch too long, there’s a shine around his eyes he pretends is just the lamplight.

“You’re going to be so sick of me by the time this recording is over, by the way,” Kaelix says with a breath of a laugh.

The android’s shoulders shake in time with the sound.

“Never,” Freodore says, under his breath. He means it. Even if this isn’t really a conversation he’s having. Even if the man behind the voice isn’t actually here to hear it.

“All I have for you are apologies,” Kaelix goes on, voice a touch softer now. “And I know you hate that.”

Freodore doesn’t argue. He couldn’t if he wanted to. The air in the room feels too thick.

“So,” Kaelix says, then stops. The voice falters for the first time. When it picks up again, it’s quieter. The smile dims, even as it lingers faintly in the android’s expression.

“You’re probably wondering how I got here. Well. Funny story. Actually—no. Sorry. That’s apology one. Ugh.” A breath. Nervous. Almost laughing again. “A-anyway. I don’t have long.”

Freodore leans back slightly, his chest tight, fingers curled into his knees.

Kaelix goes on, half-joking now, half-sincere. “You’d think with all the tech now, we’d have figured this out better. All that research, all that wiring, and they still couldn’t bring me back with my actual body. Crazy times.” He lets out a hollow little laugh.

Freodore sits in silence, eyes on the shape of him—his posture, his face, the way the light clings to him like it knows this is borrowed time.

“The short version,” Kaelix says, tone tipping toward dry, “which is unfortunately all I can give you, is that they found me at the site. I think they said they were movement members. They’d spent years protesting what the city was becoming. Harbor 7 was theirs, too, you know? They were trying to keep it alive. I think they were just as surprised as I was to find someone still breathing inside.”

Freodore’s jaw tightens. The name of that place still tastes like smoke.

“And they said… they said what was left of me wouldn’t last very long. Little under a week tops. Whatever was in the plant had already started eating through everything. Blood, bone, implants... all of it.” Kaelix pauses. The smile fades from the android’s face, eyes dimming faintly as if weighed down by the memory. “I kept asking about the team. You. The others. So they’d offered this. Said they could run a neural imprint, store everything in case something could be done later. Said I deserved at least that.”

Freodore looks away for a moment. He knows how that day ends. But now he sees it from the other side, filled in by Kaelix’s voice, by choices made after the final moment they shared.

The mission wasn’t supposed to go that way.

It was an ASH contract, Freodore had been looped in through old contacts and Claude was on the site as a freelance field tech. They had promised stability and said the plant’s failure was hypothetical. They just needed people to stabilize the intake systems, keep the readings clean. That was it.

But by the time they realized what the plant had really become by then—decay masked by red tape and fake numbers—it was too late. The energy core was compromised and containment had faltered before repairs even started.

The city’s emergency head had told Vanta that the casualty predictions were within tolerable limits. ASH had clearance and the team could extract.

No one had taken the news very well, and Kaelix moved before anyone else did.

He rerouted the emergency drones. Found the workers that hadn’t been warned and got them moving. Vanta had thrown his headset at the wall after the news broke, cursed and got to his feet. Claude tried to convince him to stay grounded long enough to get more people through the side gate. Freodore had been on the floor of the old security room, trying to buy time by keeping the grid stable just a little longer.

Then the alarm came in. A tech muttered something about a heat sig approaching fast. Details purposefully obscured. Just one word Freodore would never forget: weaponized.

There was shouting. Someone from ASH started yelling to pull out now.

Kaelix had been the one to drag Freodore out of the hallway, arms steady but voice calm.

“You need to get on the bird,” he’d said.

Freodore had grabbed at him. “With me.”

Kaelix had smiled. Not soft. Not gentle. Firm. “I’ll catch the next one.”

“Next one?” Freodore had echoed, numb.

“There’s still a kid down there. The tech said we had a little time. The second one’s coming.” He smooths down the collar of Freodore’s coat, presses a kiss to his forehead, and then his mouth. He wraps his arms around him, briefly, and then he’s helping him up for Vanta to yank him into the transport, shouting at the pilot to lift. Freodore twisted in the harness to watch Kaelix shrink from view.

Just a little time, he remembers he’d told himself.

He’d run the numbers. They should’ve had enough time.

But the plant ruptured before they could even circle back.

The blast reached into the clouds, barely missing them.

Freodore had stared at the sky for hours after, something inside him gone very still.

Now, years later, in the glow of his apartment's low desk lamp, with the sound of Kaelix’s voice echoing from a reconstructed frame, Freodore finally sees what was left behind.

Not a second chance.

Just what Kaelix could give; what little remained.

His Kaelix looks at him through the android’s face, and though there’s no way he could know—no sensors or protocols detailed enough to replicate that moment, it still feels like he does. Like he can see too, Freodore coming undone all over again.

“It won’t be the same, love,” Kaelix says, voice barely holding together, apologetic. “I’m so sorry. But it’s the least I could do. It was the only thing I could do.”

Freodore hears the break in his voice. It’s soft, like he tried to hold steady for the message, but couldn’t.

“I’m so, so sorry, Freo. I—”

Freodore speaks before he can stop himself. “It’s okay, Kaelix. It’s—”

But the recording doesn’t pause. Kaelix doesn’t hear him.

Freodore’s words hang in the air, unanswered, as Kaelix’s playback continues at its own pace, uncaring of the ache it stirs.

Kaelix’s next words are softer, not by tone but by weight. Worn at the edges, like he’s carrying them gently, like he knows what they’ll do to Freodore.

“I didn’t regret a thing, I promise you. I’d do it all over again if that meant you were safe. But I couldn’t bear to leave you alone. I’m sorry.”

Freodore’s eyes stay fixed, unmoving.

His lips press together, the lower one pulled tight between his teeth. He doesn’t blink, not even when they start to sting, not even when his breath slows to something shallow and uneven. His shoulders pull in slightly, just enough to make him look smaller than he is. A drop falls to the back of his hand, and he doesn’t wipe it away. Doesn’t move at all, except to swallow, slow and careful, like the motion might hold something down that’s already rising too fast.

"It must hurt more, coming back like this to you. I know you'd try your hardest not to think it was me,” Kaelix says, almost sounding fond.

“And maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that I'm not... and maybe that really is the case, but, if there's any chance at all, that you'll have me, in any way, shape or form. And I'd—I'd leave it up to you, Freo.”

The android looks at him, gaze calm but full, that slight cant of his head so familiar it aches.

“You can decide if this is enough of me for you to keep. If not, then that's fine too. You'll know what to do and what's best for you. You always do."

Freodore doesn't know what to say. He wipes tears from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, quick and quiet.

Kaelix holds out his arms.

Freodore hesitates for only a breath, then crosses the space between them. He doesn't know whether he’s reaching for what’s real or what’s left. He only knows that when he presses his face into Kaelix’s shoulder, it feels, right. The weight, its warmth. The memory in it.

If it's the real one or the one he'd put back together with his own two hands, he isn't sure, but he falls into them all the same, crying into his shoulder.

Kaelix wraps his arms around him and presses his cheek against Freodore’s hair.

"I'm so selfish, I'm so sorry," Kaelix whispers. "I promise, I really don't regret anything. I just... I wish we had more time."

Freodore doesn’t lift his head. He just nods slowly, once, twice. His voice is small when it finally comes out, when he says, “I miss you so much.” Even though he can’t hear.

There’s a beat, and then a kiss, light, pressed to his forehead.

A breath later, Kaelix’s voice teases, barely above a murmur, “I bet now you’ll admit you miss me, huh?”

Freodore lets out a short laugh, wet and cracked at the edges. “Joking like that at a time like this...” he mutters, voice frayed but fond.

Kaelix smiles. It’s slight but warm.

Later, they lie down together, limbs drawn close, the room dim around them. What’s left of this city’s light flickers through the blinds, scattered and soft.

Freodore’s voice is quiet, cautious. “What now?”

There’s a pause, and for a moment it seems like the recording is done, like the moment had passed. But then Kaelix speaks again.

“I don’t have much time left in this message. But... whatever they put me into, it should take all of it—my memories, if everything’s in order.”

Freodore listens, breath low, chest still tight.

“It just... it might be a little different is all,” Kaelix says, gentler now. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. Or if you’ll even really want that after it’s changed.”

Freodore nods faintly, trying to take it in.

Kaelix kisses his forehead again, Freodore lets him.

After a beat, Freodore lifts his face, his breath catching as his eyes meet Kaelix’s. There's a stillness between them, thick with an old tenderness he thought he’d long since forgotten. He shifts closer, one hand rising instinctively to rest against Kaelix’s jaw—thumb brushing over smooth synthetic skin that somehow still feels like home as he leans in.

They kiss slow, careful in its unfolding, biding their time. Freodore is afraid to shatter whatever delicate thread has tied this moment together. His lips find Kaelix’s with the gentleness of memory, the weight of the hundreds of other kisses laid between moments he thought were long gone.

Kaelix lingers there for a beat, pressing into the kiss, just enough to meet Freodore in it, acknowledge the truth of it, before pulling back just enough to look at him. He smiles at Freodore in silent apology, or promise, or goodbye.

“I don’t want the last thing I say to be an explanation. Or another sorry.”

He brushes a thumb lightly against Freodore’s cheek.

“So I’ll just say—I love you, Freodore.”

Freodore closes his eyes. His voice, when it finally comes back to him, is raw, and Kaelix in his eyes is a little blurry around the edges.

“I love you, too, Kaelix. Always.”

Silence falls like a held breath. Then the light behind Kaelix’s eyes dims. Flickers once, twice, before it returns again, bright and present, but just like Kaelix had said, a bit different.

Kaelix studies Freodore’s face with a soft curiosity, as if seeing it anew. A moment passes. Then he smiles, small and certain, and leans in until their foreheads touch.

They stay like that as the night drifts in, the hum of the city low beneath them, the weight of what’s gone and what remains settling between them.

They fall asleep like that, together.

 

 

 

They have three weeks of quiet before Freodore’s CommTab pings. He stares at it longer than he should. It’s marked, priority: ASH encryption, route-cleared by Vanta himself. Support crew needed. Partial engineering unit. Loadout prearranged. Rendezvous at Sector 2-H.

He exhales and rubs at the bridge of his nose.

Kaelix watches from the table, head tilted slightly, waiting without pressure. Freodore finally mutters, “let’s go,” like the words are being pulled out of him.

Kaelix nods, pads over to kiss the top of his head before he begins packing.

The rendezvous point is an old repurposed docking bay—wide open, wind whipping through steel with a low moan. Vanta’s already there, pacing like he hasn’t slept in a day, possible more. Claude shows up ten minutes later after they do, soaked in the leftover drizzle from the transit dock.

Ferodore barely has any time to survey the perimeter himself when Vanta does a double-take, gearing up.

His eyes land on Kaelix.

Claude freezes mid-step, jaw parting slightly. But no one says anything at first.

Kaelix smiles behind Freodore with a little wave. “Ya-ho!”

Something cracks when they finally hear his voice, but they look no less shocked.

“You… the doll—” Vanta murmurs, things clicking into place in his head. Freodore’s sudden eagerness for an influx of work with ASH, the manuals, the parts.

“I just fixed what I found,” Freodore says flatly, cutting him off before he can finish that thought out loud. He doesn’t look at either of them, just the panels and digital blueprints in front of them. “That’s all.”

Vanta’s mouth opens again, but Claude elbows him into silence.

Nobody says anything else about it or pushes. There are more urgent matters to attend to after all, and so they get moving.

The mission seemed straightforward: assist the shut down of some old, outdated energy plants spread across several grid sectors before collapse triggers a cascade into the metro systems. ASH had taken the contract thinking it was a technical emergency, contained, manageable.

They split from the rest of ASH’s technical team to head for the riskier zones marked on Vanta’s tab. It’s halfway through the third plant after the first two barely held out, and Claude plugging in to get a read out that they realize what this is. The plant’s systems report a full critical meltdown timer.

“Auto-override’s been cut from the shutdown protocol,” Claude reports. He’s usually calm, but there’s a frustration in his voice as he types away and absorbs everything written on his screen.

“No fucking way,” Vanta curses. “This isn’t maintenance. It’s a purge. If we get out of this, we're never taking government again, mark my fucking words.”

Freodore scans the readout too. It’s not just energy centers. They’re nodes. Cornerstones of the city’s atmospheric regulation network that’s going down. The faux-sky refractors, ozone pumps, the sun cycle panels. Effectively shuttering what was left of the illusion of life in this city because someone, somewhere, has decided this sector no longer earns its place on the grid.

“They’re gutting the zone,” Claude mutters. “Rerouting everything to the inner colonies and priority zones.”

Vanta swears under his breath again. “Anyone who can do anything here is gone already.”

No one is shocked, but they move fast after that.

Systems fail everywhere. Transmission signals jam, auto-evacs are stalled. The power grid sputters under the load. Some of the infrastructure in the city seems to be holding for now—but it won’t last another hour tops. There aren’t enough ships and too many people who need to get out.

They finish rerouting control on a fourth plant when Vanta’s tab sparks alive. One of his field teams is pinned near a compromised zone boundary, their exit corridor on the verge of collapsing fast.

“Shit,” Vanta snaps, turning to Claude. “We need to get them out. Now. I can’t lose them in this.”

Freodore’s already dropping to one knee, propping the next terminal he needs to work on open. “We’ll handle this one.”

Claude looks at him, “I’ll stay with you. The signals on—”

Freodore shakes his head. “There won’t be enough time if you split. Kaelix and I are more than enough here.”

Claude and Vanta glance at each other, then back at Freodore and Kaelix.

“If you’re sure…” Claude trails off.

“Go.” Freodore doesn’t hesitate, already leaning into his work fully.

Vanta tugs at Claude’s sleeve. There’s no time to argue further and they both disappear into the haze not long after, their figures swallowed by the flickering emergency lights in the plant.

Freodore turns back to the core systems. Sparks light the side panels. The override’s already half-burned out. He slides to the control hatch, tools out, Kaelix at his side, ready to match his pace. Freodore wipes a smear of dirt from his cheek, tightening his gloves, and keeps working. The only way forward is to buy more time.

The air above them flickers—one less light panel powering the sky.

 

 

 

The air outside plant four stings with the scent of scorched wires and vaporized coolant. Sirens wail in the distance, warped by the broken sound grid. Freodore and Kaelix stumble out into the open, the metal doors hissing shut behind them with a final, hollow click.

Vanta’s voice crackles through the comm, rough and rushed. “Hey, we got the grid back. Won’t hold for long, so just get the fuck out. Don’t even bother with the other plants. It’s done. Forget the others—”

The line cuts before he can finish and the static returns.

Freodore glances at Kaelix, who’s already scanning the skyline, tracking the glow of failing relays like falling stars. In the outer cities, it always rained, but just before the panels went online, the sky, Freodore remembers, was the color of the sun setting. He and Kaelix were there for it, and to take Freodore’s mind off the come down, he’d said, cheekily, while kissing his temple how it reminded him of his eyes.

Freodore grabs his hand, and runs.

The streets have fully come undone. Shutters clatter open. Smoke blurs the air. People are shouting—names, directions, prayers. Every alley becomes a choke point. Every turn tighter than the last. Skimmers scream overhead but don’t slow. There’s no order no coordination. Just movement.

Freodore pulls Kaelix down a side street, cutting through a collapsed walkway, then another. The light above them flickers, catches, and dies one panel at at time. The sky begins to pale in unnatural ways, as though the color is leaking out of it.

It takes time, too much time, but they find a pocket of calm by an old loading bay. The roar thins.

The old cargo garage is half-covered in scrap, its lights dim, a portion of it already given out. Freodore looks around, his footsteps loud in the silence and against the back drop of his breathing, still trying to catch up. He hasn’t let go of Kaelix’s hand.

Flickering light bleeds from the half-open hangar bay, dull yellow and sickly in the settling dust. Freodore steps inside first, Kaelix just behind him. His boots drag over warped metal plating, his eyes adjusting to the shape of the space—and the people huddled inside.

It takes only a second for recognition to hit.

Shu is crouched low beside a console and he turns sharply toward the sound. His sleeve is soaked through, torn at the shoulder, dark with blood. The moment his eyes land on Freodore, something in his face shifts—surprise, disbelief, then something close to relief.

“Freo?”

Freodore nods once, breath uneven. “Shu.”

Shu stumbles upright, wincing as his weight presses on the wrong leg. “We thought you were already off-grid. Claude said you were headed east.”

“We diverted.” Freodore’s voice is quiet. “Vanta called in backup.”

Near the wall, another familiar shape peels from the shadows—the metal dealer. His coat is ragged, also bloodied and singed at the hem; his eyes are closed like he’s recovering from something. It feels out of place when he’s usually so animated, even a bit loud.

There’s a ship in the corner of the garage, wedged between collapsed shelves and crates stacked like barricades. It's clearly not meant for evacuation. Compact, narrow-body, long-range engine exposed and humming low. Built for speed, not capacity.

Inside, a woman clutches a child against her chest, and two more civilians sit shoulder to shoulder on the narrow bench beside the rear hatch, hands gripping the wall tubing like they’re already airborne.

Freodore counts the seats, four are filled, excluding the person piloting this thing but it’s either going to be Luca or Shu.

“The fuel should be good to carry us into the capital, but we… we can only take one more person.”

Freodore’s heart sinks.

His mouth moves before he even realizes. “No,” he says, low and rough. “No, not again.”

The words hit the floor like broken glass.

He turns fast, gaze sweeping behind him. He knows what he’ll find. He still looks.

Kaelix stands there, gaze fixed only on Freodore. There’s no fear in him and no urgency—or perhaps he’s yet to discern that in full. Freodore gets a small, quiet smile instead. One that he remembers too well.

Freodore’s chest tightens. His throat closes.

A long time ago, maybe he’d have accepted it and might have even told himself that this was logical, inevitable even. That this Kaelix would choose to stay because that’s what he was built for. And like the punchline of a cruel joke settling in his ribcage, he realizes with a start that his Kaelix had been wrong. Maybe they’re not all that different after all.

Freodore takes a step forward, although he barely feels his own weight shift. His hands curl at his sides. He can’t speak. If he does, it might shatter whatever hold he has left on the moment.

Shu adjusts a set of exposed cables near the ship’s hull, hands steady despite the tremor in his fingers. A warning light flashes above him, but he doesn’t look up right away. He just fastens the panel, gives it a sharp tap, and finally turns back to where Freodore still stands in the open space of the hangar.

“You’ve got a few minutes,” Shu says, voice low but kind. “Not long. I’ve gotta seal the hatch after that. Just head in when you’re ready.”

He gives Freodore a look, understanding, a pity that at this point Freodore doesn’t even mind.

Then he walks away.

Freodore stays rooted to the spot, staring at the ship like it’s some cruel test. His body won’t move. He feels the weight of it rising again, the same grief returning to him with a different shape. Less with the shock of loss this time, but something deeper.

He bites his lip like it might hold something back.

He doesn’t know if he can do this a second time.

Maybe it’s the third, really. Maybe more. How many times had the universe asked him to watch Kaelix leave by now? How many versions of him had been taken—by fire, by time, by silence?

And just when he’d stopped caring what kind of Kaelix he had, just when he had finally made peace with having this one, rebuilt with his own two hands yet still impossibly familiar, it was happening again.

His chest starts to tighten, breath thinning.

Kaelix steps forward, perhaps sensing his distress.

He says nothing at first. He just wraps his arms around Freodore, drawing him in close, hands sliding up his back with care. Freodore doesn’t move for a second, then presses his forehead into Kaelix’s collarbone. He wraps his arms around him, letting the shape of him held tight anchor him in place.

Still, no words come.

Freodore feels a kiss pressed to the top of his head, soft and warm. Kaelix lingers a second longer than he needs to, mouthing something inaudible into the crown, drowned out by everything threatening to spill, bubbling up inside of him.

Freodore’s throat works useless. He still doesn’t know what to say.

I’ll stay too.

I’m sorry.

Good bye again.

Thank you.

I love you.

This isn’t fair.

I just got you back.

It’s Kaelix who speaks first.

“It’s going to be different this time,” he murmurs.

Freodore’s hands clench into the fabric of Kaelix’s coat tighter.

Kaelix leans back just enough to meet his eyes. “I swear, Freo. This time, I’ll come back to you.”

Freodore looks at him, jaw tight. Something behind his eyes flicker, fear, disbelief, hope all tangled together in knots inside him.

“Promise?” Freodore breathes. It’s all he can manage. Just the one word, stretched thin by everything inside him and the one part of himself that even then, even in the first time, refused to let go.

Kaelix smiles brighter, clear even in the impossible, in the backdrop of ruin. Despite Freodore’s temptation to finally give into the way it feels like he’s being hollowed out, Freodore smiles up at him, something small. Something for Kaelix to have of him too.

“I promise,” Kaelix nods, resolute, watching him for a moment longer, then raises a hand, brushing knuckles lightly across Freodore’s cheek. His thumb lingers at the edge of his mouth, like he’s memorizing the shape of him.

“Go on, love.” He tells Freodore after a beat, gently coaxing, pressing a kiss to Freodore’s brow. “They’re waiting for you.”

Footsteps echo behind them—Shu, calling out again, voice strained. “I’m sorry, but we have to seal now!”

Just like that, time starts moving again.

Kaelix steps back, his hands slipping from Freodore’s side. He stands there, those sea-glass eyes studying Freodore’s expression like he already knows the trajectory of his thoughts.

Freodore blinks hard, letting the damp freely slide down his cheeks as he takes him in, just like the last time. Then he finally nods, just once. His legs move before the rest of him does, slow at first, then faster, carrying him toward the waiting ship where Shu stands at the ramp, ushering him in.

The engine whines as it climbs, a steady roar building as Freodore reaches the top.

He turns to look back.

Kaelix is still there in the hangar’s mouth, light flickering behind him. The air pulls at his coat, snapping the hem around his legs from the engine wash. But he doesn’t turn away. Not like before.

Instead, he lifts an arm and waves. Broad, animated, smiling big and bright for Freodore, knowing this is the last thing he’ll see.

Freodore grips the edge of the hatch as the ramp begins to rise.

He watches, even as the world starts to lift, even as the floor tilts and the space between them stretches, until Kaelix becomes, once again, a figure swallowed by dust and firelight and distance.

 

 

 

Everything goes slowly, or maybe it’s fast.

Kaelix can’t quite tell.

The city unravels behind him, its seams splitting apart in silence and smoke. Light stutters out of towers that once held up the sky. The false sun has already begun its descent, not into night but into nothing.

He moves through it without pause, past shuttered entrances, over buckled roads slick with water that isn't rain. The clouds above remain still, frozen in a broken cycle, a half-rendered dome the color of old glass.

He doesn't feel tired. He doesn't know if he can.

His joints calculate impact and motion in real time and then adjust accordingly. His internal clock says it’s been three hours since the hangar. Or eight. Time here slips. It loses shape out on the perimeter, where networks flicker and the world forgets to account for itself.

There are no people now, only remnants of them.

Signs of recent presence. Shoes left in a hurry. A door swinging open to no one. Echoes of voices through busted comm-lines that don’t carry any signal, just noise caught in the curve of empty halls.

Kaelix navigates with focus, but not urgency. The paths are clearer when there’s nothing left to compete with. He finds alternate power feeds when he can, low-voltage supply banks in the old service corridors, the kind no one ever thought to guard. Most of it is leftover energy, the dredges of it. Some work for a while. Others spark and die before he can interface. One station gives him exactly twelve percent, which is just enough to keep going.

He doesn’t need sleep at least, and doesn’t really need to stop to rest in the way most might think to. But he slows sometimes, perched on broken walls or slumped debris, watching the dark sweep across everything.

He thinks of Freodore.

Not constantly, but with a rhythm. Regular, like pulse.

He wonders if he’s allowed to call it hope.

It would be easier to name it something else, something unspoken, some quiet thread of code that refuses to collapse. But the truth is simpler than that. He would prefer it, deeply, if Freodore waited.

He tells himself that preference doesn’t equal expectation.

It doesn't help.

What complicates things more are the memories.

Not the ones he’s made since the repair. The others. The ones placed in him, or taken, or preserved. He’s not sure what the right word is. Lodged into him is what it feels like. They surface unevenly, sifted through warm water, indistinct and radiant.

He sees himself there. In gestures, in speech patterns, in the way his body turns toward Freodore like it was instinct and he acts much in the same way, like he was made for it.

But Kaelix also recognizes that those moments don’t belong to him.

And yet, the more they return, the less sure he becomes.

He didn’t make those memories. Not in the way a person might. Not by touch or shared breath or the quiet between laughter. He recognizes himself in them and it’s not like watching someone else or like he’s simply playing back a recording. He’s looking in a mirror where the light is a little too dim.

He moves through another corridor, old transport line stripped to bare metal. A sign above flickers with unreadable characters, half-eaten by fire or rust. Ahead, an access hatch clicks open with a sound that echoes strangely in the empty space.

Kaelix steps through it and keeps walking.

His charge level dips again, a quiet pulse at the back of his thoughts.

He keeps moving. And as long as he is, he tells himself this:

Freodore had once told him, it wasn’t the kind of Kaelix that mattered. Just that he was, and that would always be enough.

 

 

 

Kaelix loses track of time.

The intervals between charging and walking begin to blur, long corridors of dim light and flickering street signs broken only by the mechanical hum of his own systems. He learns quickly how to ration: how long a boot sequence can run half-throttled, how much warmth to allow in his joints before they stiffen. The city, when it finally returns to view, rises like a mirage out of soot and steel. The skyline jagged and unfamiliar, portions of the lower districts blacked out or half-collapsed, but intact enough to call it standing.

He slips through the outer districts unnoticed. This is easier for him than it would’ve been for anyone else. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t shiver. He doesn’t need rest. Navigation is clean, measured. Entry points flagged and stored, movement plotted through old courier networks. Still, the chaos here is different. Tighter, contained, but crowded. Edges dull but dense. Not quite rebuilding, but not quite collapsed.

He passes by the hum of failing signage and the occasional snap of wind against plastic tarp roofs. Rusted gates line the sidewalks, half-collapsed in some places and overhead cables droop between leaning poles like tired threads.

He manages to charge once, fully, in a gutted substation with residual city power. The feeling is sharp and clear, a reset down to his limbs. His internal clock syncs and he’s fully online again, just like that.

It’s been a little over a hundred weeks. And that’s… a lot. Freodore may have waited much more before, or maybe he wasn’t even waiting in the first place. But for humans, time was a currency with no equivalent to barter and was something they could only spend.

Still, the CommLink channels are unchanged and he follows the signal to the general direction he senses it from.

Kaelix keeps walking.

Every street is unfamiliar here, so he follows the last trace of something that feels known.

The building it takes him to is a mid-rise with a physical lock and an outdated security pad, both still operational. A dim light flickers behind the windows on the second floor. It’s not nearly as polished as the vertical glass towers he passed closer to the central districts, but the streets were cleaner than he remembers that coastal city being. Like somewhere someone could stay for awhile and even choose, even if just to stay out of sight.

Kaelix stops in front of the entrance, looking up at the weathered panels and the faint flicker of a hallway light inside.

He finds a way in through the back, up to second. He stops at the door.

For a brief moment, something in him tightens, and briefly, he wonders if there was something in the city’s electricity that might make him malfunction here, of all places, until it registers that what he’s feeling is the nervous churn of possibilities thrumming through his system.

Was this an acceptable length of time?

How would Freodore look and would he have changed?

What if he’s already moved on?

What if he was sad or angry that Kaelix might have taken too long?

What if he loved him a little less?

Or realized, once he saw him again, that he was, in fact, very different after having survived all that, or because he could.

He knocks. Freodore’s Kaelix preferred it to the bell, so he does that too.

The door opens to an annoyed sigh and an almost aggrieved, “I told you, repairs are done. No refunds on—”

Kaelix fights through his nerves, smiles, hearing the sound of that voice, because how could he not?

When Freodore hears no response, his head snaps up, the rest of his sentence left hanging.

Kaelix sees his eyes widen when they meet his, like the sunset when it was real in all those memories that came before him. He understands the feeling. He feels it too, perhaps in a different way—like the delay between memory retrieval and live function.

Freodore blinks, then closes the distance between them so fast it barely registers.

He barrels into Kaelix’s chest, arms wrapping tight around his torso. Kaelix catches him easily, cradling him with both arms, one hand resting lightly against the back of Freodore’s head. His feelings from being built from scratch and the memories left for him to keep overlap—Freodore’s weight, his warmth. The scent of oil and rain and the faint chemical cling of metal cleaner. The presence of him, pressed in and real and a gift to them both always.

Kaelix holds him like it’s both the first time and the thousandth.

“You haven’t changed much,” he remarks.

Freodore pulls back just enough to look at him. “I wasn’t sure how effective your facial recognition would be if I did.”

Kaelix’s smile grows, soft and familiar. “Well, I’d have your voice. And a hundred other things.”

They pause there, caught between relief and disbelief.

Then they step back slightly, enough to take each other in.

Freodore’s eyes are already tracing over him. His fingers brush against a scuffed mark on Kaelix’s synthskin, linger there, then drift up. Ghost-light against the edge of his jaw, then his mouth. Tracking repairs, maybe, or still coming to terms with what is, what's just showed up at his doorstep and if he wants to keep it.

Kaelix catches his hand gently in his, pressing a kiss to his fingertips, his knuckles.

Freodore takes one suspended breath for himself.

Kaelix smiles again, eyes crinkling as he regards him with a fond tilt of his head.

“Hi,” he says.

Freodore’s expression softens.

“Hi,” Freodore says back, before walking, still facing him, into his apartment, leading Kaelix in by where their hands are joined. And then, tells him, “welcome home.”