Blaine stretched out his legs, flexing his socked feet, sinking back into two pillows propped up against the headboard in the luxurious hotel room. He has pulled the information sheets on the three remaining androids out of the briefcase on the floor next to him and shuffled through them absently, struggling to focus.

He peered first at the tiny, fuzzy, 3-D color photo which he could barely make out. The woman, Santana Lopez, was attractive, but even with the poor quality photo he could see a wicked glint in her eye. Some mixture of playful and dangerous. The information on her was very limited, but she seemed to be associated with the man – David Karofsky – in some way.  She helped him run a pharmacy on Mars, he read. Or at least, the androids had made use of that cover.  It was much more likely that David was a laborer, forced to work in construction or in the fields, an android with a bulky, muscular build like that. And perhaps Santana was some sort of maid. Or a pleasure model. Or both. Either way, they both had aspirations for something better. Do androids dream? Blaine asked himself. Evidently; that's why they occasionally kill their masters and flee here. A better life, without servitude. Like Rachel Berry; singing show tunes to adoring fans instead of toiling across the face of a barren rock-strewn field. 

David Karofsky, the information sheet informed him, has an aggressive air of authority. According to Shannon's notes, this android proposed the group escape from Mars. Before that he stole and experimented with various mind-fusing drugs, claiming when caught that he hoped to promote in androids a group experience similar to that of Mercerism, which he pointed out remains unavailable to androids.

Blaine sighed deeply. A rough, cold android, hoping to undergo an experience from which, due to a deliberately built-in defect, it remained excluded. But Blaine couldn't work up much concern for David Karofsky. He caught, from Shannon's jottings, a repellant quality hanging about this particular android. Karofsky had tried to force the fusion experience into existence for himself and his fellow androids. When that fell through, he had engineered the killing of nearly a dozen human beings, followed by the flight to Earth. And now he, and the others remaining from the group of escaped androids, were doomed. If Blaine himself didn't get them, someone else would. Time and tide, he thought. The cycle of life. Ending in this, the last twilight. Before the silence of death.

The door of the hotel room banged open. “What a flight,” Kurt Hummel said breathlessly, draping himself against the doorframe. His eyes take in the plush carpeting, the polished wood furniture, the giant flat screen television mounted to the wall, the elegant chairs, and the slightly rumpled bed. But his eyes are roaming up and down Blaine, outstretched on the bed, when he says, “Hmm, nice.”

Ignoring him, Blaine said, “The worst of the eight is still alive. The one who organized them.” He held the sheet on Karofsky toward him and Kurt accepted it.

"You know where this one is?" he asked, after reading. 

"I have an address. Out in the suburbs where it's virtually abandoned. Just a few specials live out that way.”

Kurt held out his hand. "Lets see about the others."

"A woman and a man." He passed Kurt the sheets, one dealing with Santana Lopez, the other an android calling itself Carson Philips.

Glancing at the final sheet Kurt said, "Oh — " He tossed the sheets down and moved over to the window to look out at downtown San Francisco. "I think youre going to get thrown by the last one. Maybe not; maybe you dont care." His skin had turned an even paler shade and his voice shook, fingers trembling as he pressed them against the glass.

"Exactly what are you muttering about?" Blaine retrieved the sheets, studied them, wondering which part had upset Kurt.

With forced joviality that sent his voice up nearly an octave, Kurt said, "Lets talk about something else."

Blaine sensed the rapid flight of Kurt's hidden thoughts: the transitions showed on his frowning, tense face. "Tell me whats the matter," Blaine said.

Kurt said petulantly, "On the phone you told me if I flew down here tonight youd give up on the remaining three andys. Well do something else, you said. But here we are — "

"Tell me what upset you," Blaine insisted, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor.

Facing him defiantly, Kurt said, "Tell me what were going to do instead of obsessing over those last three andys." He unbuttoned his coat, carried it to the closet over one arm, back straight and tall, leading a bit with his hips. This gave Blaine his first chance to have a good long look at him.

Kurt was wearing a snugly fitted button-down in a silky, rich green fabric. The shirt was tucked into tight black pants, narrow hips and waist accentuated by a studded belt. The outfit drew attention to his tall and slim form, shoulders and chest broad but narrowing into a slender waist. Kurt turned to fumble in the closet for a hanger, and Blaine's eyes were drawn immediately to the round, firm globes of his ass straining against the fabric. Blaine forced his gaze upwards as Kurt turned to face him once more, eyes lingering at the smooth expanse of skin exposed by several undone shirt buttons before dragging up over that slight cleft in his chin, the plump, pink lips, and those incredible eyes, more green than blue with the shirt's reflection. Overall the impression is very good, and Blaine cannot stop himself from swallowing audibly.

Seating himself uneasily on the bed with one folded leg tucked underneath him, Kurt smoothed absently at the spread; his expression inscrutable. Blaine turned toward him, sitting cross-legged and took hold of his hand. It felt cold, bony, slightly moist.  "What upset you?"

"That last goddamn Nexus-6 type," Kurt said, enunciating with effort, "is the same type as I am." He stared down at the bedspread, found a thread, and began rolling it into a pellet. "I know there isn't a picture with that one, but didnt you notice the description? Its of me, too. He may wear his hair differently and dress less fabulously — he may even have used a little bronzer. But when you see him youll know what I mean." He laughed sardonically. "Its a good thing the association admitted Im an andy; otherwise youd probably have gone mad when you caught sight of Carson Phillips. Or thought he was me."

"Why does that bother you so much?"

"Hell, Ill be along when you retire him."

"Maybe not. Maybe I wont find him.”

Kurt huffed and said, "I know Nexus-6 psychology. Thats why Im here; thats why I can help you. Theyre all holed up together, the three of them, plotting their crucial, all-out, final defense." His lips twisted. "Fuck," he said quietly.

"Cheer up," Blaine said, patting Kurt's knee.

Kurt watched Blaine's hand as it lingered, rubbing slow circles into the fabric of his pants. “You know what I have? Toward this Carson android?”

“Empathy,” Blaine said.

"Something like that. Identification; there goes I. Crap; maybe thats whatll happen. In the confusion youll retire me, not him. And he can go back to Seattle and live my life. I never felt this way before. We are machines, stamped out like bottle caps. It s an illusion that I — I— personally — really exist; Im just representative of a type." He shuddered, his eyes suddenly moist.

Blaine grabbed for Kurt's hand again and searched his mind for words of comfort. "Ants dont feel like that," he said, "and theyre physically identical."

"Ants,” Kurt scoffed, pulling his hand back and shuffling out of Blaine's reach on the bed. “They dont feel period."

"Identical human twins. They dont — "

"But they identify with each other; I understand they have an empathic, special bond." He rose and began pacing the room, brows knitted darkly. “I guess it doesn't matter if you ‘retire' me by mistake. If I die, I'll probably just be born again when the Sylvester-Hummel Association stamps out its next unit of my subtype.” Pausing with his back to Blaine he murmured, “And I used to think I was unique. That I mattered.”

“You do matter, Kurt,” Blaine said, hollowly. It sounded false even to him. Kurt raked a hand through his hair. Suddenly, Blaine realized something. His voice sounded surprised, yet sincere, when he heard himself say, “You matter to me.”

Kurt spun around and smiled weakly in Blaine's direction. “Thanks, I guess. Though I can't really fathom why you would say such a thing. You don't even know me. My father – or I guess I should call him Mr. Hummel – told me that I mattered and I used to believe it. Until I found out that all of my memories are lies.”

“Most memories are lies,” Blaine said. “I'm not kidding. I read about that. I have to keep up on psychology to be good at my job, after all.” Kurt looked at him with wide, wary eyes as Blaine continued. “It's been well-documented that humans can strongly recall something and have memories about it, when it actually never happened. Like if your parents tell you again and again about your victory in a baseball game as a little kid, even if it didn't actually happen at all, you may develop vivid memories of that very thing.” Blaine gestured broadly, warming to the topic. “Also, memories aren't like recording a video. Two people can be in the exact same situation and they will remember it very differently. Or you can change your memories just by talking about them or thinking about them a lot. Like say you got a bunch of gifts for your birthday when you turned fifteen, but you've told people again and again about that great new phone you got, it's likely that you won't remember the other gifts accurately or at all. Memory is such an important factor shaping who we are, but it's not as reliable as people like to think.”

Kurt curled up on himself like a wilting leaf, gripping his elbow with one hand, arm folded across his stomach, and fixed Blaine with a doubtful gaze. Slowly he asked, “What does this have to do with me?”

Suddenly, convincing Kurt of his own identity as a person seemed like the most important task in the world. “Memories shape who we are – our personalities. So I may have certain genetics and you may have certain, um, manufacturing, and those things shape who we are to an extent. But we also are the experiences that happened to us, our memories. And you have memories, so you are unique.”

“But I have someone else's memories,” Kurt said bitterly.

“Not really,” Blaine insisted. “You may have some memories implanted in you from Mr. Hummel's son, but you don't have his genetics, so those memories have affected you in a unique way. And you have made those memories your own. The things you remember that are important to you, as you talk about them and think about them – you are shaping those memories in a different way. I bet if you ever met the guy whose memories you have and talked with him about them, they wouldn't sound like the same memories to him.”

“You really think so?” Kurt asked quietly, an invisible veil lifting from his eyes, a light of hope shining out of them.

“Absolutely,” Blaine said emphatically. “They are your memories now. Plus, you've been around for at least a few years, right? So those implants – as altered by you – may be your earlier memories, but you have created countless more memories since then. And those are wholly yours.”

“I've never really thought of it that way,” Kurt said, blinking slowly. “Thank you?”

“It's nothing,” Blaine said. “Now I said I wanted to get to know you and I meant it. So tell me about yourself.”

“My life really isn't that exciting as a floor model and employee of the Sylvester-Hummel Association,” Kurt said dejectedly.

“No,” Blaine said firmly. “I want to know you. Tell me your memories, your dreams, your desires.”

Kurt laughed. “That's quite a list.” He draped himself into a plush chair, leaning back against one corner of it and crossing his legs delicately over the opposite arm rest.

“Okay, one thing at a time, then,” said Blaine, crossing to the chair opposite Kurt and dropping into it, leaning forward, chin in his hands. “Tell me more about your father.”

“He's not really my father,” Kurt protested.

“He's the father you remember,” said Blaine. “I know he's important to you. Tell me about him.”

Kurt's shoulders drop and he releases a slow breath, gazing into the distance. “He and I were always so different. But it didn't matter that he didn't really get me. He always loved and respected me just the way I was. I think it's because my mother died when I was so young.” Shifting his piercing eyes back to meet Blaine's gaze he added, “It kind of drew us together, you know?”

“How are you different?” Blaine asked.

“In so many ways,” Kurt said with a wistful smile. “He loves sports, rock and roll, and fancy hovercars. He would fix up old hovercars in his spare time. He taught me how.” Blaine tried to imagine this pristine creature bent over an engine, forearm straining as he loosened a bolt with a wrench. Feeling his cheeks heating up, Blaine looked down at the floor as Kurt continued. “My father is into the mechanics of things – how they work. The physical aspects of creating artificial humans.”

“And you?” Blaine asked, daring to look back up. “What are you interested in?”

“Performance,” Kurt said immediately. “Fashion. Theatrics. Music. It comes in handy when designing our products – how to make them act more human than human. But I really prefer being the one to perform. I just don't get much of a chance to do it.” He sighed. “Work duties get in the way, you know. I don't get much of a say over what I want to do with my life.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“What do you mean?” Kurt asked. “Surely you have some control over what you do with your life. Doesn't hunting andys make you happy?”

“It used to,” Blaine admitted. “I mean, it still does, I think. But I can relate to what you said. A lot of my work involves playing a part, making the potential android feel comfortable while I conduct my testing. Or acting a certain way to get the information I need when I'm trying to track someone down.”

“Why, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt said airily, the teasing quality back in his voice for the first time since he saw the information sheet on Carson Philips, “are you saying that we actually have something in common?” Kurt placed a hand over his heart in a dramatic fasion.

Blaine smiled. “Yeah, I guess so. I like performance, too.”

They smiled at each other stupidly for a moment too long. Then Kurt's smile faded as he remembered something and he asked, in a serious tone, “If your job doesn't make you happy anymore, why don't you do something else?”

“It's not that simple,” Blaine said. “There are only a few jobs I'm really qualified for, and none of them pay as well as this one. At least, when I'm lucky.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “I have a wife to support. And I bought a black Nubian goat, mostly on credit. I have to retire those three andys. I need the money.”

“I still can't believe you bought a goat,” Kurt said, chuckling.

“The goat is beautiful,” Blaine said with a smile. In a more serious tone he added, “But I don't think I can get those last three andys without your help.” Blaine suddenly realized that he had developed an irrational fear of the last three androids, especially David Karofsky. His heart sped up, blood pounding in his ears. Thinking about those androids, plotting together about how to defeat him, made the fear grow until it snared him completely. “I can't go without you now,” he said to Kurt. “I can't even leave here. Azimio Adams came after me. Cassandra July basically came after me, too.”

“You think Karofsky is going to try to find you?” Kurt asked. He stood up and crossed the room to the closet, extricated his coat from the hanger, and tossed it at Blaine. Blaine startled hard, his arms clamping over the coast reflexively.

“Look in the pocket,” he said. “I have a mechanism that our factory builds as an emergency measure for when they put a newly made andy through its routine inspection checks. It looks like an oyster.”

"Is this it?" He held up a metallic sphere with a button-stem projecting.

"That cancels an android into catalepsy," Kurt said, settling back into his chair. "For a few seconds. Suspends its respiration; yours, too, but humans can function without respiring for a couple of minutes, but the vagus nerve of an andy — "

"I know." He straightened up. "The android autonomic nervous system isnt as flexible at cutting in and out as ours. But as you say, this wouldnt work for more than five or six seconds."

"Long enough," Kurt said, "to save your life. So, see — " He stood and stepped toward Blaine, closing both hands over Blaine's, pressing the metal of the device into his palm. "You hang onto that. If David Karofsky or any other android shows up, you just press the stem on that thing. And while David Karofsky is frozen stiff with no air supply to his blood and his brain cells deteriorating, you can kill him with your laser."

"You have a laser tube," Blaine said. "I felt it. In your coat pocket."

"A fake. Androids arent permitted to carry lasers.” Kurt released Blaine's hands and stood up straight. “Look at us, talking shop again. I thought you wanted us to get to know each other.” 

“Yes,” said Blaine. “I do.”

“All right, Mr. Anderson,” Kurt said airily. “What else do you want to know?”

Blaine looked down at the oyster shell device in his hand and tucked it into his pocket. He looked up at Kurt and forced himself to smile, focusing again on the earlier thread of their conversation. “Where were we?” 

“Performance,” Kurt said, his voice low and guttural, an eyebrow raised like a challenge.

Blaine had to blink a few times to break the spell he seemed to be under, staring at Kurt's flawless skin. “Right. So, um, what would you rather be doing, if you had the choice? What type of performance?” 

“I've always liked the idea of Broadway. Musicals, especially.”

“Really?” Blaine asked, surprised. “You sing?”

“I sure do,” Kurt said, staring into Blaine's eyes intently, voice dipping and raising, adding complex layers of innuendo to those three simple words. “Do you want me to sing for you, Blaine?”

Blaine jumped up from the chair, escaping the intensity of Kurt's gaze, breaking the spell once more. “Yes, that's a great idea. Let me grab my ipod from my briefcase. I can find some background music for you.”

“You have the instrumental versions of show tunes on your ipod?” Kurt sounded amused.

Blaine ruffled through the briefcase, spinning around triumphantly with the silver rectangle in his hands. “Yes,” he said, striding over to the television to plug the ipod into the sound system. “I have the karaoke versions of a lot of old standards. I like to sing, too.”

“Let me see what you have,” Kurt said, standing up and leaning into Blaine, reading the list of songs over his shoulder as Blaine scrolled through. “Play that one,” Kurt said, when Le Jazz Hot was highlighted.

“You can sing that?” Blaine asked doubtfully.

“I have an incredible range.”

And he was right about his range. Kurt sang song after song, some originally intended for female vocalists and others for a tenor. Blaine joined in on a few duets. By the time they reached the closing notes on the tenth or twelfth song, they each had two hands on the other's shoulders, laughing with delight, breathing in each other's huffed out breaths.

Blaine's breathing evened at last and he was still holding Kurt's shoulders, staring directly into those blue-green eyes as they searched his own intently, darting back and forth. A slow instrumental began to play through the speakers and Blaine stepped forward a fraction, grabbing Kurt's left hand in his right and pulling him close. “Dance with me,” he said. Blaine stepped forward and Kurt stepped back, falling immediately into a follow position as they swayed and moved slowly about the room.

Blaine could barely concentrate on the dance steps as he became more and more aware of the warm flesh of Kurt's back beneath his hand. Blaine slowed his steps and pulled Kurt closer, breathing in the clean crisp scent of him, lips practically brushing his hair as he pressed their cheeks together. He slowed his steps until their feet remained stationary, and now they simply held onto each other, swaying slightly, in a gentle hug. Blaine ran his hands up and down Kurt's back and his heart pounded in his chest.

“Blaine?” Kurt said questioningly, and pulled back so they could face each other, Blaine still gripping him tight and preventing him from backing away. Their faces were so close their noses were practically touching. Kurt's eyes darted to Blaine's lips for just a moment and Blaine surged forward, pressing their lips together and squeezing Kurt's back hard, feeling the muscles ripple under his hands as Kurt shifted beneath them. Blaine worked insistent lips against Kurt's soft and pliant ones. Kurt made a small noise into Blaine's mouth and Blaine broke the kiss, stepping back and releasing him, panting as they stare at each other hungrily.

“Kurt,” Blaine said slowly and carefully, “are you okay with this?”

“Blaine,” Kurt said softly, his voice infused with longing, “of course I am. You're the first person to really see me – to want to get to know me. Instead of just projecting on me what you want to see.” Blaine swallowed, trying not to wince at the implications of that painful admission. At how many others Kurt may have experienced who just wanted to use him. Kurt leaned forward and pressed their lips together softly, then pulled back just enough to breath against Blaine's lips. “I may be falling for you. If a came across a sofa covered with your hide I'd score very high on the Voigt-Kampff test.”

Blaine grinned against Kurt's lips. “This is pretty unusual bedroom talk.”

“We're pretty unusual bedfellows.”

“I suppose you're right.”

“Less talking, more kissing,” Kurt insisted, dragging Blaine forward by the lapels of his jacket and tugging gently on his bottom lip with his teeth.

As soon as Blaine opened his mouth to him, their kissing became desperate and they were clawing at each other's clothes, stumbling toward the bed.

“I don't know what I'm doing,” Blaine gasped out as Kurt pushed him backwards onto the bed. “I've never been with a man before.”

“Don't worry about it,” Kurt said between planting suckling kisses up and down Blaine's chest. “Just lay back and let me take the lead.”

Blaine scraped the pads of his fingers up Kurt's scalp, writhing a bit under the attention of his warm, wet mouth. Oh god, Blaine thought; I've wound up where Sebastian Smythe said. Have sex with the android first, he remembered. Then kill it.

“I can't do it,” Blaine blurted, grabbing Kurt's hair and forcing his head back.

“Don't stop me, Blaine,” Kurt pleaded with wide eyes and pouted lips, “I want you.”

“I – I want you, too, Kurt. Believe me. But I can't. Not because of you. Because of Carson Philips. What I have to do to him.”

“We're not the same. Like you said, I'm a unique individual,” Kurt said in a sultry tone, dancing a finger up and down Blaine's naked thigh. “I don't care about Carson Philips. Listen.” Kurt pushed at Blaine's hand in his hair until Blaine released him. Kurt straddled Blaine, bracing himself by his arms on either side of Blaine's head. “I'll do anything you want, okay? I'll even retire Carson for you. Okay. Just please, don't stop this.”

“Thank you,” he said, gratitude rising up inside of him and constricting his throat. Two, he thought. I only have two to retire.

“Goddammit stop talking,” Kurt moaned, falling onto him and grinding their taut bodies together, forcing Blaine's mouth open again with his tongue. And just like that they were frantic again, rocking and pressing and rolling and kissing. And suddenly Kurt was sucking on his own fingers and reaching behind himself while they kissed. And then Kurt was sinking down over him, swallowing him up as Blaine shouted out, one hand gripping Kurt's hip, the other wrapped around his shaft, Kurt whimpering desperately as they both convulsed and dissolved into bliss.