Fic: Attempt Number Nine
Android!Kurt au based off this piece of fanart by @i-wanna-be-a-klaine-ship-ranger. ~3.7k, AO3
It’s his ninth attempt. Three years of research and scrounging parts have led to this, and countless days before that, daydreaming, sketching, imagining. He’s spent a good portion of his inheritance. He barely goes out of the house anymore. His sleep schedule is fucked and he doesn’t really pay much attention to what he eats.
But if this works, it will be so worth it.
He presses record. “Android K-05, neural loop test, attempt number nine. This is Blaine Anderson speaking at--” he glances at his watch-- “2:09 am EST, Wednesday 13th October, 2028. Commencing charging now.”
Blaine cranks the dial to the right, fingers hovering above the switch on his dashboard, headset on and ears covered. He feels static electricity crackle in the air around him.
“Complete,” he mutters as he reaches maximum charge power. “Here we go.” He drops his hand and flicks the switch, hoping beyond hope that this time, it will work.
In a second, a bright blue light glares among the wires and machinery of his workshop, throwing everything into deep highlights and shadows. He squeezes his eyes shut against the glare and winces when the loud squeal of the android energy turbines manages to break through his thick earmuffs. The thrum and throb of the power coursing through the network of cables reverberates right down to his feet. He cautiously squints his eyes open a little more--it’s never lasted this long before.
His heart is pounding in his chest as he reaches up to shield his eyes from the light, daring to hope--is it--could it actually be--
There’s a loud bang and a bright shower of sparks flies up in front of him, then suddenly, darkness. The machinery goes quiet.
Cautiously, Blaine takes off his headset and steps around the dashboard console. Suspended on a network of tubes and wires in the centre of his workshop, Android K-05 glows a dim blue, still.
He approaches slowly, examining the tilt of his head and closed eyelids. The android betrays no movement.
“Kurt?”
He reaches out and touches the cool side of his cheek--it’s soft, a perfect synthetic skin, if not for its blue glow. “Kurt? Can you hear me?”
There’s no response. With a sigh, Blaine drops his hand and returns to the console, checking the readings for K-05’s vitals and processor levels. Everything is perfect. Everything apart from the fact that the ultimate goal of his years of experimenting is still unreached. Kurt still has no mind of his own.
Morosely, he picks up the headset to speak into it. “This is Blaine Anderson, speaking at 2:13 am EST. Neural loop test number nine failed. I--.” He sighs, glancing down at the blinking record light. He had said he would stop after five attempts. Then six. Seven. And so on. After nine failures, he feels close to losing hope. “I have not yet planned another attempt. K-05 is still unresponsive. Maybe I’m just going to have to…” He trails off, not wanting to say the words “give up” out loud, and drops the headset.
He flicks off the various apparatus at his dashboard before heading over to Kurt, still suspended on his support network. He finds the remote for the main arms holding him up and levers him onto the large steel work table, lying on his back, arms and legs at his sides. With his eyes closed and the soft whirr of his internal cooling system hovering on the air, he could almost be sleeping.
Blaine unplugs the thick charge cables before methodically pulling out the little wires around his head, completely fried from the amount of energy flowing through them. It will be another two months before he can have more delivered to do another test.
He takes one last look at K-05’s glowing form before switching off the lights and heading upstairs into his apartment.
His stomach grumbles as he enters the kitchen to get himself a drink, and he opens the fridge, groggily rubbing his eyes. God, he’s exhausted. He’s been in the workshop almost non-stop for the past week preparing the test. He can’t remember the last time he actually lay down in his bed to sleep.
There’s not much in the fridge. A couple of beers, an out of date milk carton, and some unspecified takeaway containers. He grabs the nearest one and sticks it in the microwave, not even bothering to check what’s inside. He folds his arms on the countertop and rests his head on them as he waits for the ding.
Wearily, he takes the carton of what looks vaguely Indian over to the table and eats it with eyes unfocused on the blank wall in front of him. He had so much hope that this time, this time it would work. His parts were better quality, he had designed a more intricate neural relapse system, he had even done more updates on Kurt’s synthetic organs.
But he had still failed.
By the time he’s lying in bed in the dark, it’s nearing 3am, and he can feel exhaustion wracking his body. Thank God he doesn’t have a day job that means he has to get up at the crack of dawn every day.
*
He’s woken up by a loud crash.
He sits up too quickly, blood rushing to his head and vision still groggy from sleep. His apartment and workshop aren’t in the nicest part of town--anyone could be in his house right now--
He grabs the baseball bat he keeps in his closet in case of emergency and creeps out into the hallway, peering around the dark apartment. The glow from the light on the microwave lights up part of his kitchen, empty. The couch and TV on the other side of the room are equally deserted, lit by the streetlight coming in through the window and bouncing off the shiny top of his piano.
(And God, he hasn’t played that in months--)
There’s another loud shatter and with a pang of alarm he realises that it’s coming from downstairs, in his workshop. Everything most dear to him is in that room, the thing most dear to him is in that room--
He throws open the door, armed with his bat and ready to take out anyone who thinks they can steal his precious designs.
To his surprise, the basement is lit with an eerie blue light--brighter than the soft glow which emits from Kurt’s body--throwing into sharp relief the console and stacks of parts and tools.
“Hello?” he calls. “I--I’ve got a weapon and I’m not afraid to use it.”
There’s another crash, followed by silence. Then--
“Hello?”
Blaine nearly drops the bat in shock. He knows that voice. He designed that voice. Sure, he’s only heard it say pre-programmed phrases before, but it is unrecognisably--
“Kurt?”
He rushes down the stairs, turns the corner to where Kurt’s table is. And holy shit.
Kurt is standing in the middle of the workshop, arms by his side, nighttime charger cable hanging loosely from his shoulder. He’s glowing, brighter than he’s glowed before when Blaine was designing him--he didn’t even know the alloy used for the skin could go that bright. His face is--he’s actually expressing, brows a little furrowed and lips parted in confusion.
The attempt didn’t fail. He’s alive.
“Blaine,” Kurt says matter-of-factly, head tilted slightly to the side. “I am Android K-05, nicknamed Kurt.”
Blaine can’t help but let out a strangled noise of relief, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You’re alive,” he exclaims awe-fully, going up to Kurt and peering into his bright white pupils. “You’re--you’re--”
“My systems are functioning and neural relapse system is up and running,” he says, and Blaine can’t believe it, because there’s a teasing tone to his voice. “Yes. I am ‘alive’.”
“Oh my God,” says Blaine, reaching out to take Kurt’s hand. Kurt watches him, head still tilted, as Blaine feels the skin begin to react and warm up where it’s touching his--a feature he had added purely for his own satisfaction, because what good was having a homemade friend if they couldn’t even give you warm hugs?
“May I hug you?” he asks.
Kurt stares at him for a second--Blaine wonders if he’s scanning his database for the word “hug”--then nods and opens his arms. Blaine steps forwards and wraps his arms around Kurt’s shoulders gently, grinning. “This is amazing,” he says, stepping back. “And do you--know who I am?”
Kurt looks at him again before smiling--actually smiling!--and nodding. “You are Blaine Anderson, inventor and android engineer, aged 24, and you created me.”
Blaine giggles happily. He’s glad he had thought to pre-program certain aspects of knowledge into Kurt’s head before the eighth attempt--knowing who he was and where he came from seemed the most important.
“Kurt--that’s amazing. I’m so…” He trails off, looking up at this being he created in adoration. Kurt definitely seems to have a mind and personality, something that most commercial AI androids show a severe lack of. He can’t believe that he created something so… intricate. Almost human.
“How are you feeling, Kurt?” he asks hesitantly.
Kurt looks at him with his lips pursed. “Cold,” he says, and Blaine’s heart drops a little, because ‘cold’ isn’t an emotion. “I think… a little confused? Excited?”
“You… you feel excited?”
“Yes. I am finally seeing the world properly with a mind to process it, and derive my own opinions and emotions from what I discover.”
The additional aspect of feeling and emotion was the main reason he was standing here now--he had always wanted to create something with a soul of its own. Blaine can hardly believe it’s worked, that Kurt is talking about processing things into emotions and being excited--it’s a dream come true.
For a moment, he hesitates on what to say. There are so many things he wants Kurt to see, to teach him, to discuss, but it’s nearly five am and his brain is getting fuzzy from a mix of excitement and exhaustion.
“Are you fully charged?” he asks, unplugging the cable from Kurt’s shoulder and dropping it onto the table.
“Yes. Are you?”
Blaine almost laughs at Kurt’s genuinely curious tone, he’s like a child discovering a new concept for the first time. “As a matter of fact, I’m not, not really. But it’s okay. I’d really rather stay up, now that--well.”
“Okay,” says Kurt simply. He watches as Blaine goes around the console to add his new success to his previous recording. His fingers are still shaking slightly from shock.
With the recording done and the lights switched on in the workshop, he checks Kurt over for any errors or touch-ups. Just like earlier though, he’s pretty much perfect, and Blaine catches his eye and smiles at him when he tells him so.
“Can you show me around the workshop?” Kurt asks when Blaine is putting away his microboard reader.
“Of course,” Blaine offers, and shows him over to the console, pointing out what each of the different screens are showing and how to operate them. Kurt is transfixed, and Blaine can’t keep his grin to himself. His life definitely just took a turn for the better.
*
Three weeks later
Blaine is standing at his stove, cooking. Actually cooking. There are diced onions sizzling away in one pan and butter melting in another. He’s got his ingredients--all fresh and organic--laid out on the counter beside him. The radio is on and he sways his hips to the tune it’s playing.
Behind him, the regular chopping noise stops, and he hears a soft grunt of frustration. He stirs the butter a little and turns round. Kurt is sat by the plate of chicken, fiddling with a long string of sinew that has got caught in the joint of his finger.
“Do you need a hand?” Blaine asks.
“No, it’s--fine,” Kurt huffs, shaking his hand in an effort to dislodge it. He looks up at Blaine wearily. “Yes please.”
Blaine smiles and comes across, gently taking Kurt’s hand in his, feeling the skin warm up at his touch. He pulls the sinew out of Kurt’s joint, drops it onto the chopping board, and smooths over his pale blue fingers. “Better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Blaine pats his hand and goes back to his roux.
Later, they’re sat side by side on the couch, Blaine reading on his Kindle while Kurt scans at breakneck speed through his tablet. He stops occasionally, mouthing a couple of words, and then starts again. Blaine’s pretty sure he’s reading Huffington Post articles online.
Then Kurt stops for longer, scans up and down the page slowly, and turns to look at Blaine.
“Blaine,” he says bluntly, holding out the tablet to him. “What are these people doing?”
Blaine looks down at the article Kurt’s been reading and--okay, yes, it’s normal that he would have questions. “They’re up, kissing,” he says. “Passionately.”
He doesn’t know why Kurt is reading Hottest TV Couples: The 2028 Picks, but it seems that one of the pictures used for a couple is them, well, making out.
“Kissing?” Kurt asks.
“Yes,” Blaine replies, because surely Kurt has--
But then, he did only originally program him with a knowledge of simple greeting gestures and situations. And Kurt’s spent a lot of time in the workshop since he woke up, so he hasn’t even really seen any movies which would have kissing in--
“Oh,” says Blaine, kicking himself for his oversight. “Um. When two people are really--attracted to each other, when they like each other a lot, they might kiss. It’s usually romantic. Like how when I told you about the characters in the book I’m reading.”
“When they’re in love?”
“Yes.”
Kurt is quiet for a moment, then--
“Can I feel love, Blaine?” His voice is very, very soft, and he’s staring down at the coffee table like it might hold the answers to all life’s most mysterious questions.
“I, um, I don’t know, Kurt,” says Blaine kindly. “It’s like an emotion but--more. It’s in your heart.”
“But I don’t have a heart,” Kurt says. “I mean, not a real one.”
Blaine feels a pang in his chest, and puts his Kindle down, kneeling up on the sofa and scooting over so that he’s next to Kurt. “I’m going to hug you now,” he says, and does. Kurt relaxes into it. Blaine wonders what it feels like, to be hugged, when you’re an Android with a neural loop for a soul. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and Kurt nods and pats his arm.
“Thank you.”
*
Three more weeks later
Things progress. Kurt learns more and more about the world everyday, and starts to work his way through Blaine’s film collection. It’s a little awkward at first when Blaine has to explain to him what happens in the car during Titanic, but Kurt just giggles his way through it and glows an even brighter blue. Blaine wonders if he somehow gave Kurt the ability to blush.
Then Kurt starts asking for things. A new hairstyle, firstly--apparently his original style wasn’t fashionable enough, and Blaine finds it almost hilarious that he’s being lectured on fashion by an Android he gave intelligence to himself. After that he wants to be able to sing, which is trickier, but he had good quality vocal chords in the first place. Blaine just has to do an update first.
Kurt comes into the workshop one day carrying a large box and a smile on his face. “I ordered something online,” he says. “Look.”
He opens up the box and pulls out a pair of dark grey slacks and a red button up patterned with little screwdrivers. “I thought it would be appropriate for me,” he says in way of explanation.
Blaine watches him mostly in shock, because Kurt really does have a mind of his own, even if he doesn’t have a bank account of his own yet--Blaine gave him his ebay login a couple of days ago.
“Wow, Kurt,” he says, smiling as Kurt tugs the pants up his legs and does the fly up. “They fit perfectly.”
Kurt twirls and looks over his shoulder to check the back. “I know,” he says. “I ran a calculation on the exact sizes of the garment from the photos online, and it just turns out that I’m lucky enough that you made me an exact clothing size.”
“Well, I think you look fantastic. Try the shirt on?”
The shirt hugs his shoulders like it was made for him. He grins at Blaine, fiddles with the cuffs. He looks incredible.
“Kurt--you--”
“You like?”
Blaine swallows. Kurt is an Android, for God’s sake, and one he designed himself no less, he should not be having thoughts like these--
“Yeah--yes. It, um. It fits you really well.”
Kurt giggles and twirls again, catching his reflection in the polished metal of the generator. Blaine’s eyes are drawn to the dip of his waist, the width of his shoulders, his thighs in the tight slacks, and he accidentally sets his glass of water down far too hard, sloshing it over the brim and onto the worktop.
“Sorry, I just need to--” He darts away before finishing the sentence, running upstairs and locking the bathroom door behind himself. He runs the tap, stares at himself in the mirror--he looks less disheveled now that Kurt is, well, alive, hair tamed with gel and neatly buttoned polo. “What the fuck are you doing,” he says to himself, and splashes water in his face in an attempt to cool the red flush there.
He’s been in the bathroom for a little while when there’s a tentative knock at the door. “Blaine? Are you there?”
He takes a deep breath, dries off his face again, and lets Kurt in. “Sorry,” he says, fishing for an excuse. “Upset stomach.”
Kurt’s face scrunches up, and Blaine sees his eyes scanning over his body, probably checking for symptoms of something. “Can I get you anything?” Kurt asks. “Water? Toast?”
“No, you’re alright, thanks,” Blaine replies, settling a hand in the dip of Kurt’s back and leading him out of the bathroom. “Do you wanna go put a TV show on?”
Kurt bounces a little with excitement. “I’ve already scanned the channels, Project Runway is on, can we--”
Blaine laughs, shakes his head fondly. “Of course, go on.”
*
The next day, Kurt has his first minor injury. If that word can be applied to the situation--breakage? Error? To Blaine the words sound too critical, too harsh, dead. Injury happens to something that is alive, like Kurt.
He has him strip, glancing away as Kurt removes his new jeans--though it’s hardly necessary, as Kurt is perfectly comfortable in his bare skin, but it just feels like he should.
Kurt’s left hand is having issues after he dropped a pan of soup on it at lunch. Kurt is not the type to be clumsy, and the accident had mostly been Blaine’s fault. But while Kurt is generally water-resistant, he is not soup-resistant, and so a repair is necessary.
Blaine detaches his arm with great care, lays it on the table, finds a screwdriver to adjust the energy capacitors that he can power the arm with separate to the rest of Kurt’s body. Kurt sits patiently on a stool, watches him work with his detail tools and tablet set up, resting his head on the palm of his remaining hand.
“You’re beautiful when you work,” he says out of the blue.
Blaine stops, puts his tiny brush down without looking up. His stomach is doing a weird flip.
A delicate blue hand enters his field of vision, brushes over the top of his fingers. He looks up. Kurt’s eyes are somehow deeper than usual, his bright white pupils boring deep into Blaine’s.
“Kurt,” he says, for lack of anything else. Kurt’s fingers twine around his.
Kurt stands up, moves to the edge of the workbench, pulls Blaine onto his feet. He’s still holding his screwdriver, for goodness’ sake. “Blaine,” Kurt starts, and his voice is soft. “We watched that film, with the dog, remember?”
“Marley and Me?”
“Yes. That one. Blaine, those two people, they liked each other very much.”
Blaine’s heart flutters, and he takes a step closer. “I remember,” he says simply.
Kurt looks down, and for once he’s seems to struggle to speak, brow drawn. “Blaine,” he starts, fingers twitching in Blaine’s hand. “Blaine, I don’t--I don’t understand how it works. But I think I like you very much.”
He glances up, and he looks nervous, as if Blaine would say anything to deter him right now. But all he can do is hardly keep his face from splitting into a huge smile, and step right into Kurt’s space, sliding an arm around his back and tilting his head up to meet Kurt’s bright gaze. “Kurt, I like you very much too.”
Kurt lets out a little gasp, and Blaine can almost read his thoughts, calculating the situations, Blaine’s movements, and the point where he throws all caution to the wind and his eyes slip shut.
“Blaine,” he murmurs, and Blaine settles a hand on the curve of his shoulder, brushing their noses together. Kurt’s skin is warm. His breath between them is hot, and he tilts his head a little more, pressing forward and touching Kurt’s lips with his.
Kurt inhales deeply at the touch, then kisses back, a little noise in the back of his vocal chords, and in that moment Blaine takes back every regret he’s ever had about the life time journey to creating Kurt, every dollar overspent, every sleepless night, every frustration and trial and error. It was all worth it, for this. For Kurt.
His lips part, and they pass the kiss back and forth a little, his hand cupping the side of Kurt’s jaw, the screwdriver loose in his fingers.
They part with a sudden gasp when it clangs loudly to the floor.
Kurt looks up at him, shocked, and then giggles, his eyes creasing adorably, and that makes Blaine giggle too, and then they’re kissing again, and they just can’t seem to stop.