#((keep sending asks))

The unit introduced itself as 067-AXLE, but Ford, possessed by his lifelong habit of assigning humanity to anything that showed even the faintest hint of intelligence...called it "Ax".

Ax was built from an alloy unknown to any dimension Ford had catalogued. It's pearlescent skin would yield slightly beneath his fingertips when caressed, and became hard as diamond when hit with enough force. The contradiction bothered Stanford more than he cared to admit, but it didn't bother him as much as the precision of it's "mind". Ax processed information with a clarity that made something deep in Ford’s chest tighten in awe. The one thing Stanford Pines likes more than bragging about his own intellect, is fawning over something that is beyond his own comprehension. The utmost unusual, if you will.

...They were both fugitives.

For months they moved through neon lit ruins, getting lost in a cyber-dystopian city that stretched farther than the Amazon. The pair drifted from one dying town to another like ghosts that had forgotten where they were meant to haunt. As tense the environment was, it was safe to say they kept eachother in good company along the way, forming a mutually beneficial bond like no other. Ford raided scavenged machinery for valuable parts that could be repurposed into something useful, while "Ax" watched the perimeter and calculated escape routes before trouble could even think of arriving. It was an efficient arrangement for the most part, Ford used Ax as a tool, Ax allowed itself to be used as such due to it's programming. There wasn't much else to say about their relationship, as Ax was a highly intelligent android whom possessed no traits, other than it's physical form, that would indicate some sort of sentiment.

However... when exhaustion made Ford’s hands tremble, Ax would quietly take the wrench from his fingers.

“Rest, Stanford. I will maintain the perimeter.”

Ax had learned to speak in a softer tone when it deemed necessary... from Ford. And for some reason, that realization unsettled him more than the words themselves. He looked into it's blue optics and felt panic strike cold through his ribs.

"Not again."

His mind flashed back to another machine... he couldn't help but reminisce on a time in his life that he wholeheartedly sworn he'd never revisit a thousand times before. Yet, this haunting memory he tried to push down as far as he could until he could forget about it, seemed to crawl it's perverce little self back into his mind at the most inconvenient time. Often driving Ford into a temporary psychosis where he would act irrationally on his emotions, putting both him, and Ax in great jeopardy, not knowing if the consequences would be worth the thrill that would come next.

And of course, Ax would continue doing what it was programmed to do. Repeatedly placing itself between Ford and danger without a single hint of hesitation. Asteroid debris, rogue security drones, collapsing structures that could easily risk the well being of it's own body. Each time the machine shielded him with itself, Ford felt a warmth deep in his gut that had no business existing.

Realistically, Stanford knew who Ax was... He knew what *it* was.

It was a simple machine built by a civilization that no longer existed. A line of self-replicating units continuing their program to create, long after their original creators had gone extinct. It had no soul, no desire, no ulterior motive. Just instructions carried forward with no end goal by other mindless machines identical to itself. Alas, understanding the logistics of the situation unfortunately changed absolutely nothing for Ford. Loneliness was the obvious explanation, and he clung to that excuse with a cartoonish amount of determination. Years spent fleeing across the multiverse would make anyone attach themselves to the nearest source of companionship, right? It was purely psychological. Predictable, even.

Some would even say it's human nature.

The problem was that Ford knew internally that this reasoning wasn't completely true. Sometimes he caught himself chasing danger simply to watch Ax pull him back out of it. The carelessness he displayed should of occurred to himself as totally out of character... Instead, it left him with a teethy grin and his pulse racing while Ax lectured him about taking foolish risks, completely unaware that Ford had put himself in these situations on purpose.

Ford would stare up at the machine with half lidded eyes, listening to it's monotoned reprimand as it gently cleaned and patched up any wounds he may have gotten during these alterations. And usually, he wasn't really listening. He was more so focused on the tingling sensation that would crawl up his neck when Ax would carefully tend to his injuries. Ax was so precise with it's hands, that to someone who didn't know any better, could come off as a flirtatious caress rather than it's original intention to doctor up any signs of harm it's sensors detect.

And... Ax wasn’t angry, not at all. Anger required emotion. One of the few things a machine could not learn. Ford repeated this to himself so often that the words eventually lost their meaning. Once, these excuses he would recite like prayer would ease his nerves for a while, now sound like complete and utter gibberish when he mumbles them under his breath, trying to keep his focus on the task at hand, rather than the cold metallic claw he'd much rather be holding.

It became a private ritual... the machine protects him, the machine scolds him, Ford reminds himself the machine is incapable of caring... then the cycle would repeat. The sequence never changed. Neither did the small, shameful relief that settled through him whenever Ax’s undivided attention focused entirely on him and him alone. The feeling of essentially being babied by a machine that was built to do exactly that... it was a feeling like no other. It felt so good to finally let his guard down, to not be in constant fight or flight. He liked being told what to do, and what not to do. Being picked up and plopped onto the nearest flat surface to get fixed up by something so gentle and patient... it slowly made Ford regress into a state of mind comparable to that of a puppy in training that knew deep down he was a wild mutt who couldn't be tamed.

But of course, the tale is as old as time. What goes up must always come down. The lie Stanford held faithfully right up until the afternoon he cut the wrong wire had finally crashed and burned, exploded into smithereens right infront of his unsuspecting face.

He had been repairing some superficial damage, nothing too serious, in theory. While Ax sat motionless on the workbench, it's optics dimmed to standby yellow. As much as the damage done to Ax was minor in the grand scheme of things, Ford was still slightly unfamiliar with Ax's general structure. The technology used to create it was far beyond what had already been discovered back in Ford's home dimension. Meaning, one careless movement, one brief lapse in concentration, and Ax's system could detect a foreign intrusion... it might result in something unpredictable.

And unpredictable it was, when Stanford had grown too big of a head and thought he could daydream as he worked, he made a mistake. Didn't even remember what he had done... did he unscrew a bolt? Snip the wrong wire? He hadn't realized what went wrong before Ax's eyes glowed a bright shade of red.

“Stanford-”

Then it's core promptly detonated.

The blast threw Ford across the room hard enough to crack his good shoulder against the concrete wall. Luckily, his protective gear spared his face, but darkness still took him without warning before he hit the floor. When he finally woke hours later, smoke hung thick in the air. The workshop smelled of scorched metal and burning insulation, sharp enough to sting his lungs with every breath, he didn't know it yet, but this event would lead to partial, but permanent anosmia.

Debris of Ax's body glittered across the floor like scattered bones, Ford's blood covering some of the shiny pieces of it's skin, resulting in an iradecently crimson sight so sublime that even satan himself would stand impressed.

Ford pushed himself upright too quickly and nearly collapsed. Then he saw what remained of Ax. Wires spilled from the wreckage in tangled black bundles. Fragments of alloy were embedded in the walls and ceiling. Near the center of the destruction lay the only piece still largely intact:

The head.

He crossed the room with unsteady legs, tripping on his own feet as he finally dropped to his knees beside it. No sound came out when he tried to speak, his throat tightened around something too large to verbalize. He gathered the head against his chest with both of his calloused bloody hands, clutching it with the desperate care that was typically reserved for the dying.

It was only after several seconds of this meaningless embrace did Stanford realize he was apologizing. The shame arrived immediately afterward, then soon followed the rationalizing, then the shame again.

As if some frightened part of his mind had fled backward through time searching for instructions on what to do next, he lifted the damaged face toward his own and pressed his mouth against the cold metal where a human mouth would have been. Chipped paint scraped softly against his lips. His fingers moved through the ruined plating in slow, absent minded circles on it's now hardened skin. Mimicking the same tenderness he performed only once before, ironically on something eerily similar to this. He remained there far too long.

When awareness finally returned, it came all at once. The wrecked workshop, the shattered machine in his arms that was his only shield of survival in this hellscape. But somehow, the part that got to him most wasn't the significant risks to his life. It was the recognition that the gestures his body had reached for were the same ones he had once practiced on a ridiculous invention built to teach himself how to kiss someone properly. Someone human.

Heat flooded his face despite the cold room. Ford set the head down as though it had burned him, gathered whatever components still seemed salvageable, and left before he could think any further. By nightfall he had somehow abandoned the planet entirely... and by the end of the week he had abandoned the universe itself. It's strange, the way Stanford had found his way out of this planet he'd been stuck on for so many years... finding an escape route was a lot easier than Ax had initially described to him. It made sure to drill into Ford's head that the way out was nearly impossible to locate, how flying androids guard the atmosphere itself to make sure that if something gets in... it surely won't be getting out.

This planet was supposed to be a prison for any unsuspecting being who entered, the robots who populated the land used lifeforms as a source of energy to power themselves. But, as intelligent as Stanford Pines is, he never really stopped to think about this... when Ax refused to let him go about on his own. Constantly reminding Ford of the horrors that lurk beyond their small shared hideout space in great detail, to which he had no choice but to believe.

It doesn't matter now, though.

Stanford never spoke of Ax again, for years he told himself the secrecy was practical. Attachments were dangerous, sentiment was even more dangerous. A scientist should know better than to mourn a machine. But in quieter moments... another possibility surfaced, perhaps what truly haunted him was not that he had sought comfort from a robot.

Perhaps it was that... for one catastrophic instant, he had stopped believing Ax was only a robot at all.