Under the Skin (5 page)

A language barrier that was actually made worse by the software and a crush on the Inoue heir—those were bigger problems.

Wait... Crush?

"Anyway, I know this stuff and you don't. Simple as that. I'm going in, you're staying out.” He must have hit home, because something made Minoru sit up and look sharp.

Padraic supposed it meant something, the way he felt about his tech. It was just metal and plastic fiber, but even without the specter of burnout and corrosion, it was something that felt entirely his. In many respects, it was literally a part of him, and he could no more hand it over to Minoru or another technician than he could cheerfully hand over his arm.

His heart, on the other hand...

As he took off his shirt, Padraic glanced at Minoru, who was still staring out the window. The Inoue heir stood ramrod straight, more steel than flesh. Padraic knew firsthand, however, that Minoru was flesh and blood, and he felt a sympathetic ache. He knew how it felt to be so tense that bending was unimaginable.

Minoru's hands were fisting tightly at his sides, and Padraic was suddenly tempted to go over there and kiss them.

The image was surprisingly sensual. If Jenner hadn't been in the room, if his poorly developed sense of self-preservation hadn't stopped him, Padraic might have done it anyway.

He couldn't help a very small, bitter smile, though, when he realized Minoru could have just about every part of him except the tech.

When he realized that Padraic wasn't going to budge, Minoru made sure that the American technician at least wasn't going to be fumbling with poor tools. He produced a set of diamond-edged instruments that looked like a combination of surgical scalpels, dentist's equipment, and beauty supplies, all rolled together, and Padraic recognized enough of them to feel confident in starting.

"Okay, do either of you know CPR?"

Jenner sullenly raised his hand, and Minoru nodded.

"How about emergency treatment for seizures?"

Jenner's hand stayed raised, and Minoru shook his head.

"I don't suppose either of you have nitroglycerin on you?"

"This is ridiculous,” Jenner spat.

"No,” said Padraic, feeling remarkably calm. “If my blood pressure skyrockets, nitroglycerin can keep it down to a manageable level. I've used it before."

"It's not ridiculous because you might need it,” Jenner growled. “It's ridiculous because you shouldn't be doing this at all."

"I disagree.” Padraic shrugged and took off his shirt. Was it his imagination, or were the metallic parts of the jacks hotter than they were before? He pressed the pads of his fingertips against them, but he couldn't tell. He wished he were back in his apartment in Milwaukee, but then he glanced at Minoru almost instinctively and realized that that wasn't true.

Padraic looked around and dragged the other empty chair up to the full-length mirror in the bathroom. He sat down and pulled as close to the mirror as he could. He was skinnier than he thought he would be, and the violet rings under his eyes made him look half-dead. He glanced up and caught a glimpse of Minoru hovering in the doorway. He smiled at Minoru's reflection and managed to surprise one out of Minoru himself.

Look sharp, he told himself. One wrong move here and you're going to be roasted from the inside out. One jittery twitch and your brains are going to be splattered across the inside of your skull.

The thought made him feel surprisingly giddy, and that was normal at least.

He pried the interface off, and without it in the way, he could definitely feel the heat from the small set of wires and chips that were so neatly arranged there. It wasn't a dry electric heat, either; he thought it felt kind of... “wet” would be the best way to put it. That could be tricky. That could be bad.

Padraic shrugged internally. It didn't have to be either, really. He picked up a tool with a threadlike rubber probe and started to work.

He started with the basics: connectors to leads, pins all unbent, no physical barriers interfering with the data transfer. When the working surface was slightly smaller than a playing card, there just wasn't much to check. He sighed and realized from the crick in his neck that more time had passed than he thought.

There was no sign of infection, either. The skin around the interface was a little pink from the pressure he had been exerting on the plate, but it didn't have the hot-to-the-touch feeling of a bio-jack rejection.

Working while looking in a mirror was something that Padraic had had to perfect. He realized that he was leaned in so closely that his breath was fogging up the glass, and he pulled back, hearing his back pop a little.

Playing with his own organics, trusting his life to his own reflexes and his own ideas of what bioware could and should be, those were certainly normal enough. The audience, however, was not. Jenner was staring out of the window, but in the mirror, Padraic could still see Minoru's gaze locked on his body. It was a strangely intimate moment, and he realized that it might be the first time that he could look at Minoru all he wanted to. Underneath his fingertips, his tech thrummed, but he couldn't erase Minoru from his mind.

When Minoru wasn't guarded, when he wasn't strutting in front of other executives or trying to remind them that of course he knew what he was doing, there was something almost achingly young about the Inoue heir. Padraic thought he could see the man that Minoru would be in a few years, slightly taller, perhaps slightly broader. That arrogance could turn into pride and confidence, but Padraic would have bet good money that Minoru's mouth would be the same: painfully sharp but almost ungodly sensual.

He glanced up again and found that Minoru hadn't moved; the Inoue heir was still hovering in the doorway, watching him with intent black eyes. There was something intense there that caught Padraic's gaze, and he didn't realize that he was staring until Minoru frowned.

"What?” Minoru asked.

Padraic started to respond, and then he realized he was hearing an extremely faint hum in the air. After making sure it wasn't coming from him, he looked at Minoru again.

"Are you calling for a pizza?"

Minoru looked somewhat embarrassed but showed him a small phone, flipped open and active. Padraic was surprised; everyone he knew had a temporal communication implant located behind the ear.

"I have emergency services on speed dial,” Minoru said. “They can be here inside of six minutes."

Padraic smiled. It was something that Arch might have done for him, but even Arch had never stirred the same feelings in him that Minoru did.

"Thank you."

An hour later, Padraic's fingers were sore and red, and he was no closer to figuring out what was wrong.

"It's not hardware.” He looked up at Minoru and Jenner helplessly. “For something like this, it should be hardware... but it's just not."

"Then we move on to the next thing that it could be,” Jenner said. “At least if it's software, there's less of a chance it'll blow your brains out."

"Software mostly can't hurt your organics,” said Padraic automatically.

Something about Jenner's smile made Padraic uneasy, but then his bodyguard was looking thoughtfully at his chest. The plate was still off, exposing all of the delicate wiring and circuitry that made up Padraic's sum worth in Japan.

"We need diagnostics,” Jenner said finally. “Once over, from the beginning."

"But software wouldn't...” Padraic trailed off as his head throbbed again.

"Did you check the hardware thoroughly?"

"Yes..."

"Would anyone know it as well as you?"

"No..."

"Then we go to software.” Jenner snapped his fingers. “I'm heading to that little free-zone kiosk I saw down the street. I can grab something from my home server and be back inside half an hour."

Jenner was already putting on his jacket and slipping into his shoes.

"Don't go anywhere,” he said, smiling.

"Some bodyguard,” was all the rejoinder Padraic could make while his head was hurting so abominably. “Leaving me here all alone..."

"I expect Inoue-san to protect you with his life,” Jenner said over his shoulder as he walked out the door. “If you lose yours, I'm going to make him replace it with his."

"He's joking,” Padraic said in the silence that followed.

"No,” said Minoru approvingly. “He's not."

The bed in the hotel room was soft enough that Padraic sank several inches down into it. He nearly moaned at the pleasure of lying down, but choked it off when he remembered that Minoru was still in the room. Minoru just laid a cool washrag on Padraic's forehead, smiling a little.

"When I felt ill, my father would do this for me."

With his eyes closed, Padraic could feel his body start to relax. Even in the hotel bed, in a room that smelled strongly of chemical cleaners, it felt good. Minoru was somewhere close by, and for some reason, that comforted him rather than making him nervous and tense.

By all rights, he should have been edgy as a cat, but there was something intimately soothing about the other man's presence. It was odd; an hour ago, hell, ten minutes ago, he wouldn't have said that Minoru was someone he could relax with, but now he was letting the man treat him like a sick child. Padraic might have objected if it hadn't felt so good.

The bed dipped when Minoru sat down on it, and that was fine, too. Having him close enough to touch was certainly a pleasant thought, but then Padraic uncomfortably realized how very pleasant his body found it. Christ, how long had it been since he had gotten laid?

Despite Minoru's presence, his eyes drifted closed. He was exhausted... and he realized that he couldn't sleep. In his head, he counted backward from one hundred, something that usually worked, except when it didn't.

Padraic opened his eyes again and found Minoru still sitting at his bedside, looking at him with that familiar, intense gaze. “Sorry,” Padraic said. “I'm not very entertaining..."

Minoru laughed softly.

"No one said you had to be,” he said reassuringly. “In any case, I find you completely engaging."

Padraic self-consciously touched the replaced interface on his chest, and Minoru shook his head.

"Not just because of that,” he murmured, “though it certainly does add to your appeal.” His finger hovered over the interface, not touching, but close enough that Padraic could feel the heat from his hand.

"Is it sore?"

"A little,” Padraic admitted. “Not much. My body doesn't like it when the gear's jostled too much."

"May I touch?"

Padraic stiffened, and Minoru pulled back.

"I won't open it, I promise. I just...” Minoru looked so wistful that Padraic found himself nodding.

Minoru ran his fingertip over the rounded corner of the silver plating. Padraic's breathing hitched, but then he held himself still, letting the other man gently trace the edge before just lightly touching the connection points.

"I've wanted to do this since I first saw them,” Minoru admitted, almost to himself.

"In the board room?"

Minoru smiled, glancing up to meet Padraic's eyes.

"Before that,” he said. “When I first saw the images that were sent to me by your cousin, I knew that I had to get my hands on it."

"So you've been thinking about this for more than two weeks?” Padraic smiled even as he turned a little red.

"Thinking about it... I suppose you could say that.” Minoru's fingers were so gentle that it took Padraic a moment to realize that they were no longer playing over the edge of metal. Instead, they were skating delicately over Padraic's chest, making him shiver with something between cold and fear.

"Minoru...” The name felt strange in his mouth, and Padraic realized that it was the first time that he had said it. It was curiously intimate, and Minoru smiled almost tenderly.

"I like the way you say my name,” Minoru said softly. “Say it again."

“Minoru,” he said obediently, and the other man dropped his head to Padraic's chest and kissed it, leaving just a trace of wetness and a spot of heat.

"I shouldn't,” the Inoue heir said with real regret. “If something I do causes you harm, your bodyguard will have my head."

"Do you really think a little bit of kissing is going to hurt anything?” Padraic laughed shakily. “I mean, I was just messing with my own organics. A little bit of kissing..."

Apparently Padraic was more convincing than he thought he was, because Minoru leaned over him and kissed him deeply. Padraic was acutely aware of the fact that Minoru's hand was situated right below the interface on his chest, and he blushed.

"Do... do you like it?” he found himself muttering shyly.

Minoru laughed shakily. “Oh, I more than like it...” he said. Minoru leaned closer and circled the interface with an extraordinarily gentle touch. “I can't stop looking at it."

Padraic was enchanted by the blush on the Inoue heir's cheeks. He reached up dreamily and touched the side of Minoru's face. Minoru felt warm to his touch, but he couldn't tell if it was from desire or embarrassment. “I don't want you to stop looking,” he said.

Minoru was flesh and blood and fire and temper, and then his fingers were just a hairsbreadth from the inputs themselves. When Minoru's finger touched the small opening, Padraic almost yelped in surprise. The metal was warm, and Minoru's touch made it feel hot. He almost wished he could tell Minoru to stop.

"It's an opening into your body, into your mind..."

Padraic half-smiled. “Into my soul, too?"

Minoru laughed a little. “I hope not."

Padraic watched with fascination as Minoru bent his head and licked the edge of the plating, where it met with flesh, and he almost arched off of the bed.

"No...” he whimpered, and he felt Minoru nuzzling against the over-sensitized flesh comfortingly.

"Better?"

"Almost, ah, God, no, stop...” Padraic planted his hands against Minoru's shoulders and pushed, and after a moment Minoru relented, sighing.

"It feels... weird,” Padraic said lamely. “Scary.” The moment he said that, he felt dumb as hell. Scary? Nothing that Minoru was going to do was going to hurt his tech, he knew that, but it was still hard to stand.