Chapter Text
Jax's apartment reek of reheated hamburgers and other difficult-to-identify combinations. It wasn't a smell that particularly bothered him, he'd gotten used to it like how a person gets used to the noise of traffic or neighbors complaining.
But it was the kind of smell that made his mother wrinkle her nose every time she appeared unannounced. Luckily for him, she lived an hour away and was even away on a business trip.
Now Jax was at the kitchen counter, using it as an armrest while watching videos on his phone, the remains of a box of Spudsy's burgers he'd taken from Tuesday's shift lying beside him. And.. today was Friday.
He was in his comfort zone, wearing his pajama pants with a pattern of small rabbits, an old band t-shirt Ribbit had given him back in college before they both dropped out, and on top of all that, his purple hoodie with bunny ears. The ears flopped slightly to the sides when he didn't wear the hood up, giving him a ridiculous look that he found genuinely funny.
From one of the speakers, distorted guitars blasted at a volume that Zooble was likely about to complain about at any moment with a bang on the door and a string of insults. Jax almost hoped they would because arguing with his non-binary neighbor was the most stimulating social interaction of the week.
He took a sip from a can of energy drink that was already warm and his fingers moved to reply to a message from Ribbit until the doorbell rang.
It took him a while to clean his hands and throw the burger in the trash, at which point the doorbell rang again, this time more insistently, and Jax let out a frustrated groan as he turned off the music.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," he grumbled, even though no one could hear him.
Zooble's probably already arrived to complain about the volume, ‘how predictable’ he thought as he yawned.
Jax's relationship with his neighbor was complicated. Zooble hated him, he knew it, and yet it was always Zooble who showed up when something was wrong. Like that time Jax had a fever and didn't answer Ribbit's messages, and Zooble ended up breaking down the door with the doorman's help only to find him wrapped in three blankets watching The Little Mermaid for the twentieth time.
However, this time it wasn't Zooble. When he opened the door, the first thing Jax noticed was his mother's long brown hair. The second was her arms, which shot out at him with the force of a hurricane.
"Jaxy!"
She enveloped him in a hug before he could protest. Smelling like floral perfume, the same one Jax always associated with childhood and his mother's loving scoldings.
"M-mom?!" he managed to say against her shoulder. "What are you doing here-? I thought you were still traveling!"
But his mother was already talking, a torrent of words per second: “Why haven't you called me? Are you still locked up in this place all day? Oh, son. Why did you dye your hair again? You know I like your natural color, what's with the obsession with that dark purple?”
Jax wasn't listening to her, or maybe he was, but his attention was seperated, divided between the maternal embrace and the figure peeking out from the doorway.
There was a man, almost the same height as him, standing with a posture too perfect to seem human, dressed in a red suit that looked like it was taken from an old movie about Victorian circuses. Impeccable white shirt, a black bow tie precisely adjusted to the neck, white gloves covering hands that moved nervously. The red hair, with white streaks intermingled that stood out, and a short beard, also red with white highlights, framed a square jawline that seemed perfectly designed.
‘He looks like a damn circus ringmaster’ Jax thought. ‘A circus ringmaster who got lost on the way and ended up at my door, either that or he's come to take me to be another clown in his show.’
“Ma,” he began, carefully pulling away from the hug. “Who's this guy?”
Her mother blinked, as if just remembering that she hadn't come alone. Turning to the man in the red suit with a smile that Jax knew well. A little too well. It was the same smile she wore when she was about to do something he would hate but which she had already decided was for his own good.
“Oh! He's-”
“My name is Caine! Model CA100!” the android's voice resonated in the hallway with an enthusiasm that was completely out of place with the faded walls of the building. “Nice to meet you!”
He bowed, with his right hand extended to the side and his back perfectly straight, as if he were presenting himself to royalty and not to a guy in pajamas with bunny ears on his hoodie.
Jax blinked slowly, even more confused as hell.
"Where'd you get an android-?" his voice came out higher than he would've liked.
“Did you sell your kidney? Don't tell me... Did you steal it? And you didn't ask me to come with you?!”
“Ha ha. Very funny Jax,such a Funny guy.” his mother laughed sarcastically, scolding him by pinching his arm and entered the apartment as if it were her own.
Caine followed her with measured steps, his eyes, too bright and lively to be artificial, scanning every corner of the place with a fascination that was almost childlike.
"I found him on the road," Lin explained, leaving her bag on the sofa that Jax never used to sit on but as an improvised clothesline. “The poor thing was abandoned by its owner.”
“Abandoned?” Jax squinted, observing Caine suspiciously.
The android had stopped in front of the dining room shelf, and its gloved fingers reached out toward a framed photo of Ribbit with Jax.
“Hey!! don't touch that!” the order came out of his mouth before he could even process it
The reaction was immediate, Caine withdrew his hand as if the object were burning him. His shoulders tensed visibly and his eyes widened with an expression of alarm so genuine that Jax felt momentarily guilty.
“Ah- I'm sorry!” the android's voice trembled slightly. His hands fell to the sides of his body where his fingers drummed nervously.
There was something in that reaction, something that didn't fit with a common android. Jax had seen enough C&A models on the street, serving coffee, cleaning offices, accompanying the elderly. They were efficient, polite, perfectly programmed to interact without any flaw. They didn't get nervous and certainly didn't stutter.
"Maybe they abandoned him because he was defective," Jax murmured, more to himself than to the others, but he knew Caine had heard him from the way his eyes dropped to the floor. "Or because of his strange appearance. Like why are you wearing a formal suit? You look like a ringmaster. all you're missing is a top hat.”
"But he looks like your favorite actor in that movie where everyone sings and you love it," Lin interjected, taking off his glasses to clean them with the corner of her blouse. “The one who looks gay and plays Wolverine, what was his name? The big show or something?”
Jax felt his soul momentarily leave his body.
“Hugh Jackman in the movie The Greatest Showman?” his voice sounded strangled. “You offend me, ma. Hugh is a lot Better looking.”
“alright,alright” Lin smiled calmly.
Caine, meanwhile, had remained standing motionless in the middle of the room. His eyes continued to scan the apartment, taking in the pile of dirty dishes by the sink, the trash bags that Jax had sworn to take out three days ago but still sat by the door like a monument to procrastination.
It was the first time he'd entered a human house, with real sensations and smells, and even real mess. His sensors picked up the dust accumulated on the furniture, the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the smell of cheap air freshener that Jax had sprayed that morning to mask the musty aroma.
It was fascinating. And terrifying, because Caine knew he shouldn't be there, he knew Scratch would be looking for him.
But the woman─Lin, he mentally corrected himself,
Miss Lin as she insisted on being called—had found him and looked at him with a kindness that Caine didn't know humans could direct toward an unknown android.
And when he, in a fit of desperation, had lied about being abandoned by his owner, she simply nodded and told him to get in the car
‘She wants to help her son,’ Caine recalled. During the trip, Lin had told him about Jax, about how he'd withdrawn into himself. About how he'd dropped out of college, and how his father, the man who'd abandoned them to start another family when Jax was just seven, had tried to reconnect and things had only gotten worse.
She feared that her son would be alone forever.
" If you could make him happy ," Lin had said, her eyes shining, " it would be the greatest gift anyone could give me ."
And Caine, who was created to feel more than he should, had felt a pang in his processing core.
He had set ‘I must make Jax happy’ as his goal. It was something that would help him distance himself from his past. And maybe distract..
But now, standing in the middle of that chaotic apartment, watching Jax look at him with a mixture of distrust and annoyance, Caine realized it wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought it would be. Although he also noticed the brown color in his eyes, very similar to his mother's.
‘Such magnificent eyes’ Caine thought. Even though they were glaring at him in disapproval.
"Ma," Jax said, crossing his arms. "You can't go around picking up abandoned androids on the roadside like they're kittens."
"Of course I can," Lin started. "And I just did."
“It's illegal, probably.” He grumbled,pinching the space in between his eyes
“Oh don't be so dramatic! Besides, I'm not going to keep it for myself, it's for you!”
The silence that followed that statement was so dense that Caine could feel the sound waves hitting his sensors.
“ ...That?”
"It's for you, Jaxy. You need company. This apartment is depressing honey, and as much as I love you, your friends aren't exactly role models. Ribbit drags you to parties, Kaufmo lets you smoke at work, and Zooble... well, I like her. But we both know she's not your type."
"You don't need to say that," Jax muttered, his cheeks flushing, but he quickly composed himself. "I'm not keeping an android, Mom. I don't need a metal nanny.
I'm perfectly fine on my own."
Caine observed the apartment and the mess in it.
“...Perfectly fine?” he muttered to himself
Jax heard it.his head turning slowly towards the newcomer
“What did you say?”
"Nothing!" Caine straightened his back immediately, hands behind his back. "I was just admiring the... decor. Very minimalist, and the dishes in the kitchen give it an... organic feel."
Lin let out a giggle, though Jax wasn't as amused.
“Listen, android.” he said, taking a step toward Caine and pointing his index finger at him. "I don't know what story you told my mom, or where you really came from, but I'm not going to be part of your little circus act. You can stay just for tonight, but we'll figure out what to do with you tomorrow."
"Jax!" Lin protested.
"It's my final decision," Jax said, lifting his chin and crossing his arms. "One night, period."
Caine nodded slowly, his eyes scanning Jax once more, as if memorizing every detail. The dark purple hair with visible brown roots, the jaw clenched in a stubborn expression, the chipped black paint on the nails.
"One night!" Caine repeated, and for a moment his lips curved into a small, almost imperceptible smile. "I'll make the most of it."
Something in her tone of voice made Jax frown suspiciously. But before he could reply, his mother was already clapping enthusiastically.
"Perfect!" Lin grabbed her bag from the sofa. "I'm off then! I have to get home before dark, you know how the roads get~" she winked
“Ma, you just arrived.”
"And I've done what I came here to do! I'm leaving you in good hands, literally." She winked at Caine, then leaned in to kiss Jax on the cheek. "Be good. Be nice, and try not to be... you.!"
“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Mom.”
“I love you, Jaxy.”
"I love you too ma," he murmured, in a voice so low that Lin probably didn't hear him, but Caine did.
Caine filed it away in his memory, in a folder labeled with Jax's name that he had just recently created.
Lin closed the door behind her with a small wave of goodbye, starting a silence that took a few moments to break.
"Okay," Jax began, turning to Caine. "The rules are simple. Don't touch my stuff, don't even make a single noise when I'm playing, and don't tell anyone you're here. Ever. Especially not Zooble."
“..Who is Zooble?”
“My neighbor. They're a tattoo artist, non-binary, and they hate me. If they see you, they'll think you're a stripper or something, and I'm not going to deal with that conversation.”
Caine blinked, there were so many words in that sentence that he didn't fully understand.
“What is a non-binary and a stripper?”
“ ...You know what? It's better not to ask.”
without another word, he turned around and went to his room, leaving Caine alone in the room with no orders to follow.
‘One night.’ he repeated to himself. It was something despite everything.
─────────────
For the first hour, Caine stood motionless in the middle of the room for exactly 127 seconds after Jax closed his bedroom door. He counted every single one, because he had nothing better to do and because his mind needed to be kept busy to avoid spiraling into anxiety.
Anxiety, he thought. I shouldn't feel that. It's not in my basic programming.
But he felt it, an electric tingle at the base of his metallic neck, a slight increase in the speed of his internal fans. Kinger had given him emotions beyond the basics— he was an experiment, a miracle, and a curse. and now Caine didn't know what to do with them as he stood in the middle of the apartment.
"Don't touch my things, don't make noise when I'm playing, and don't tell anyone you're here. " Jax's rules were clear, and Caine could follow them—yes, he was good at following rules. Except when he wasn't.
In the back of the room, on the other side of the hall, opposite to the bathroom, Jax was losing another game.
It wasn't his fault—well, technically it was, because he'd missed three shots in a row and ran out of cover like a rookie—but mentally he blamed the android in his room. Because it was easier than admitting he'd been distracted.
His gaming chair creaked as he leaned back in frustration, staring at his desk with the curved monitor displaying the humiliating screen of defeat.
‘What was my mom thinking?’ he repeated to himself as he respawned on the map and was instantly killed by a sniper. ‘Picking up an android on the side of the road? Like it was a stray dog? An android in a circus costume with a generic Hugh Jackman complex?’
Although he wasn't generic, Caine had something. An expression that was too lively, a way of moving that wasn't robotic but... uncertain? Normal androids weren't insecure, but that wasn't his problem. One night and the next, the android would be gone.
His character died again.
“Shit-!”
In the room, Caine jumped when he heard the exclamation muffled by the door.
"Are you okay-?!" he asked aloud, before remembering the second rule " Don't make noise when I'm playing. "
There was a brief silence, then he heard Jax's voice, with a tone somewhere between irritated and resigned.
“I'm fine! my character just died!”
"Oh!" Caine nodded to himself, though Jax couldn't see him. "My condolences!"
A strange sound came from the room, something between a snort and a stifled laugh.
─────────────
The second hour brought the discovery of the kitchen, which was small but functional. A bar separated the living room from the appliance area, a refrigerator humming softly, and a pile of dirty dishes next to the sink that looked like it had been there for days.
Caine frowned, that wasn't hygienic. Humans need a clean environment to thrive, or so his basic care database said.
His gloved fingers brushed against the surface of the refrigerator. There were small magnets with various designs, one of a pizza, another of a cat, a star, and one that said ‘everyone's dumb but me’ The star magnet held a handwritten note with a smiley face drawn in the corner: ‘Buy more Monster. Urgent!!!!!!!!’
The handwriting was sloppy but had a certain charm, as if the person who wrote it hadn't put much effort into it but still wanted it to look nice.
Caine touched the cat magnet with his fingertip. And got reminded of the first rule by his system, ‘Don't touch my things.’
He pulled his hand away immediately. But technically, he thought, the dirty dishes aren't ‘his things’ they're scraps, waste, residues. And getting rid of waste doesn't break any rules.
It was a sound argument, Kinger had taught him how to reason, how to find creative solutions to problems. And the problem here was the dirt.
Caine rolled up the sleeves of his red suit and got to work.
─────────────
Twenty minutes later, Jax left his room because he needed another can of Monster and maybe something that vaguely resembled food. What he found left him frozen in the kitchen doorway.
The dirty dishes... were no longer dirty. They were stacked in the dish rack, gleaming in the light as if they'd just come from a store. The garbage bags that had been by the door for three days were gone. The kitchen counter was so clean Jax could almost see his own reflection. Even the refrigerator magnets seemed to have been rearranged by someone with a very specific aesthetic sense,seeing as they were now arranged by color and size.
And the culprit of it all, whose wearing an expression of intense concentration, was Caine, diligently scrubbing a stain on the countertop.
“What... what are you doing?”
Caine looked up, his eyes shining with something Jax could only describe as pride.
"Cleaning!" he announced with the same enthusiasm as if he'd just won an award. "It was necessary! The bacteria levels on this surface exceeded the recommended threshold for human habitation by 37 percent. Now they're at an acceptable 2 percent!"
Jax wrinkled his nose, detaching what had happened.
“I... didn't tell you to clean though.”
“No,” Caine admitted, returning back to the stain he was cleaning. “But you said not to touch your things. Dirty dishes aren’t technically ‘things’. they’re waste! And garbage bags aren’t either, they’re residues. And residues have to be disposed of—it’s a loophole!”
"There are no legal loopholes in—in the basic rules of coexistence!" he exclaimed, confused by the android's logic.
“Of course. Rules are like code, if you don't specify the exception, the exception is technically valid.”
"You're... weird," Jax commented after a moment.
Jax decided he needed that Monster more than ever. Opening the refrigerator, which was also mysteriously cleaner, although Caine had been considerate enough not to touch the inside, and grabbed a can.
"I don't like it when you touch my things without asking," he told caine without even looking at him. "Even if it's to clean, it's my space."
"Understood," Caine's voice was softer now, less enthusiastic. His shoulders slumped slightly. "Sorry, it won't happen again."
And again that tone, that small break in the artificial voice and that way of apologizing as if he feared that the mistake was unforgivable.
Something in Jax's chest tightened, stirring a feeling of unease within him. He wasn't going to trust that robot.
─────────────
Dinner time arrived, and Jax ordered pizza, since cooking required a level of energy he didn't possess. While waiting for the delivery guy, he went out into the living room and found Caine sitting on the sofa, his back perfectly straight and his hands on his knees.
"You can relax, you know." Jax suggested, sinking down at the other end of the couch. "The couch doesn't bite."
"I know, sofas don't have mouths," Caine replied, perfectly serious.
“It was a metaphor.”. He squinted at him
"Ah," Caine visibly relaxed, though his posture remained more formal than that of any human being. "Metaphors are difficult, sometimes I understand them, sometimes I don't. Kinger said that's what made me more human."
That caught Jax's attention, turning his head towards him.
“..Kinger??”
Caine stood still, realizing his mistake.
"My... previous owner," He said, his voice carefully neutral. "He was someone who knew me well."
Jax looked at him for a moment, the name sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it.
"Well," he finally said, changing the subject because it wasn't her problem. "Do you want to watch something while we wait for the pizza?"
Caine's eyes lit up.
“Can we watch a movie? I've heard a lot about them!”
“What kind of movies catch your attention?”
“The ones with a great plot! Something with an unexpected twist, action, and adventures!”
"You're definitely a strange robot, did you know that?" he remarked, raising an eyebrow.
“Thanks, although technically I'm an android.”
Jax rolled his eyes, annoyed by the answer.
They ended up watching an action movie with explosions and fights, which Caine was fascinated by, making comments throughout the screening.
"That's physically impossible," "Why doesn't he reload his weapon?", "What a dramatic entrance! I love it! "
Jax, who normally hates hearing people talk during movies, found himself responding to Caine's comments with sarcasm. And when the android burst into laughter during a particularly absurd scene, Jax let out a genuine laugh, albeit a short one. ‘This android is definitely defective’ he thought.
The delivery man arrived in the middle of the movie's climax, so Jax paused and went to open the door.
"Good evening, Jax!" greeted the delivery man, a nervous-looking young man with short reddish spiky hair. "The usual?"
"The usual, with extra pepperoni and a cheese crust. Although you got it wrong last time, Thomas," he teased, leaning against the doorframe.
"Oh, sorry! I can buy you pizza next time, if you want we could—" The boy paused, looking at something behind Jax. "Um,you have.. visitors?"
Jax turned slowly. Caine was standing in the middle of the room, perfectly visible from the doorway in his bright red suit and with his feigned innocent expression, He waved excitedly.
“Hi! I'm Jax's new roomma—”
"He's not my roommate." Jax cut him off immediately.
The delivery man looked at them both, clearly uncomfortable, preferring to change the subject.
“It's— it's ten dollars and fifty cents.”
Jax paid quickly, grabbing the pizza and closed the door harder than necessary without saying goodbye.
“What part of ‘don't tell anyone you're here’ didn't you understand?”
"I didn't tell him," Caine replied calmly. "I just introduced myself. Technically, he deduced that Im your company."
“Okay, that's enough. You're unbearable.”
“Your pizza is getting cold.”
Jax grunted something unintelligible and placed the box on the dining room table. Caine stood at a safe distance, his eyes fixed on the pizza with a certain curiosity.
"Can I...?" he began, but stopped himself when he fell silent.
“Can you what?”
“Nothing, it doesn't matter.”
Jax looked at him; Caine had his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders slightly tense, and his eyes were still fixed on the food.
“Do you want to try?” the question slipped out of his mouth before he could stop himself.
Caine's eyes lit up as if Jax had just offered him a treasure.
"May I? I know androids don't need to eat, but I... I've always been curious. Smell activates my olfactory sensors in a way that isn't documented in my manual. And since I've been here, I've been processing the aroma of human food and—"
“Tin” Jax interrupted
“Yes..?”
“Just have one slice.”
Caine obeyed, sitting in the chair opposite of Jax and took a slice in both hands, as if it was a vulnerable but precious object. He examined it from every angle,tilting and rotating it, his sensors analyzing its chemical composition, dough, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, pepperoni, and a slight excess of sodium .
"It is nutritionally inadequate," he declared.
"It's delicious," Jax corrected, taking a bite of his.
"It's nutritionally inadequate and probably delicious," Caine conceded.
And then he bit, beginning the tasting. His eyes opened wide, a small buzz escaped his chest, the equivalent of a gasp of surprise.
"This is..." he began, his mouth still half full. "Why, this is extraordinary! Why don't humans eat this all the time?"
“Because we would die from obesity and high cholesterol.”
“A reasonable sacrifice.”
The comment provoked another laugh from Jax, who continued eating without much fuss.
"You're ridiculous," he added finally.
The rest of the dinner passed in unexpected calm, and once they had both finished eating, Jax got up from his seat leaving the pizza box uncleaned, he didn't care about the mess after all.
"Welp, I'm headed to bed," he announced. "The bathroom is at the end of the hall. I don't know if androids need to use the bathroom, but just in case."
"I don't need to use it," Caine replied.
"Of course not," Jax said, pointing down the hall. "There's a spare room next to the bathroom. It's full of boxes, but there's a mattress somewhere. You can use it if you want."
Caine blinked in surprise, having his own room was something new.
“Are you offering me a room?”
"I'm offering you somewhere to stay that isn't my couch." Jax corrected, crossing his arms. "It's not forever, it's just.. for tonight."
The android nodded at the words, knowing it was what had been agreed upon after all. Even so, he appreciated it.
“..Thank you.”
Jax's shoulders tensed as he looked away, uncomfortable with the gratitude.
“Yeah, well… Good night I guess.”
"Good night," Caine replied, watching as Jax retired to his room.
And before leaving, Caine cleaned up the mess left on the dining room table, because he did care about the mess Jax made.
─────────────
Once inside the guest room, Caine carefully observed everything. The place was small and full of boxes, just as Jax had mentioned. They were moving boxes that had never been unpacked, piled up in the corners, and against the back wall, a mattress without sheets rested on the floor.
It wasn't a laboratory, a workshop, or a testing room. It was a human room, imperfect and dusty, and Caine felt something in his chest that he couldn't name.
He laid down on the already placed down mattress, his back straight and his hands clasped over his abdomen. He didn't need to sleep, but he liked pretending to, it was a habit Kinger had taught him, a way to feel more human.
" Rest isn't just for the body, Caine, " Kinger had told him one night, while adjusting the panels of his emotional processor. " It's for the mind. To process what you've experienced and to dream ."
" Can I dream? " Caine had asked.
" That depends on you ."
Now, in the darkness, Caine closed his eyes and let his systems go into sleep mode.
─────────────
Meanwhile, several kilometers away, Scratch observed the reports on his desk with a calmness he didn't feel.
The anomaly had disappeared. The only divergent android, Kinger's most valuable creation, had vanished as if it had never existed.
"You can't fail this mission," he warned the android waiting by the door, a new model designed for tracking and containment. "Find him, Gummigoo. Before he talks to someone or remembers exactly what he saw."
The android nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Scratch.”