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xekstrin · 5 years

Text

Warm-Blooded

Title: Warm-Blooded Fandom: None (Original Work) Genre: Sci-Fi, Romance Tropes: Bodyguard Romance! Warnings: None

Summary: Adhira Kahtri does not need nor want a bodyguard. Her meddlesome, rich, and devastatingly powerful family disagrees. So she does her best to ignore Emilia Roarke, who stares at her just a little too hard, and moves just a little too fast, to be entirely human.

You can also read this story on AO3.

===

The last thing Adhira wanted was a bodyguard. But when the menacing letters escalated to phone calls and eventually an outright bomb threat, her family put their foot down. Enough was enough. The Kahtri family had plenty of enemies even without a daughter who straddled an arbitrary line between ethical and unethical science. If she was going to be assassinated, it would be after they had exhausted all avenues to protect her.

So she got a bodyguard. Or rather, one was foisted upon her.

"Emilia Roarke," she said out loud, and scanned over an impressive resume. Her eyes landed on an accreditation near the top. Lingered there. A fencer was unusual, but not unheard of. Adhira assumed they were mostly for vanity's sake. Of course her family would get a froofy bodyguard with all the bells and whistles. "Miss Roarke. Miss Roarke."

Adhira went over it again with disinterest, lacking any other reading material in the lab. Her new tablet was still being swept through for trackers, bugs, or viruses that might compromise her research, or leak any secrets to the family's enemies. She wouldn't get it back for hours, and while her productivity skyrocketed, she missed three calls from her sister.

That was a shame. She enjoyed their talks.

"It just seems superfluous after I already splurged on a PAA." Adhira told her once she got home. She idled in her kitchen, a cup of hot tea cradled in her hands. "Mother could have asked."

"It's a gift," her sister Trayi said in response. "Don't be ungrateful."

Adhira groaned. "I'm not b— don't start with that. It's just..."

"Extra?" Trayi supplied.

How's that different from superfluous? she wanted to say, irritated. "It's all for show. Once this all calms down and people move on to other subjects to be outraged about, I can fire Miss Roarke."

"You're crazy. If our parents got a private contractor for me I'd keep her as long as I could."

"Well your job comes with that territory. I went into this field hoping to be left alone."

Instead all she got was a reminder that that wasn't happening. Not as long as they shared a surname. The subject moved from Adhira's bodyguard to Trayi's job, and what headaches her children were bringing her this week. Adhira listened attentively until her tea went tepid, neglected in favor of the conversation. Sipping at it anyway, her eyes were drawn to the PAA around her wrist. It was still new enough to be distracting.

"Hard to think a little bracelet can stop a bullet," she said, twisting her hand from side to side.

"It's not a force field," Trayi warned her. Dark black eyes, mirror to her own, honed in. "Some people out there make guns specifically to get past the Affect!"

"No," Adhira said in disbelief.

"Yes!" Trayi countered, leaning forward. Her finger waved in front of the camera. "Technology can only get you so far! Learn to trust another person from time to time!"

Later, morbid curiosity brought her nothing but a sleepless night. The minute she ended the call she started researching if there were any guns with velocities low enough to not be registered by the Personal Anti-artillery Affect she wore when she was in public. Turns out there were many ways to kill someone even through the PAA. Knife wounds, for instance. Blunt force trauma. Poison. She flickered through them all until the health app on her tablet started asking her why she was jogging at two in the morning.

A little more research led her down a rabbit hole of videos online, of fencers slicing right through PAA's, the thrust slow but strong enough to not register as a threat. It was hard to find that perfect balance. Even a punch thrown too hard could be caught in the Affect.

Adhira thought if anyone was bold enough to stab her, a bodyguard would not dissuade them. But still, she was suddenly glad Miss Roarke was a fencer.

Ahdira's attention lingered on the hilt little too long during their first introduction.

Since Emilia Roarke had her license, she was allowed to carry the hilt on her hip out in public. She wasn't very tall, which went against what Adhira assumed a bodyguard should look like. But then she supposed height didn't really matter more than skill. She was also very pretty; Adhira hadn't expected that.

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Kahtri."

Her eyes returned up, meeting Emilia's. The bodyguard had green eyes. There was something very intense about them. The way they shone made them seem almost like glass. Adhira assumed there were some kind of enhancements in her irises. "Nice to make your acquaintance as well, Miss Roarke."

The woman took her hand, shaking it swift and firm. "Emilia's fine." With one hand on the pommel of her sword, the bodyguard regarded her coolly. Her shining copper hair was pulled back into a tight, serious ponytail. It made her face look sharp. "Your family must love you a lot. I'm the best in the biz."

"Are you?"

Emilia's eyebrows darted up, a smile playing on her lips. "I'm the best," she repeated with just the right amount of surety and disbelief, as if it were the most obvious thing anyone could have said. She wore a grin that looked freshly-pressed, like her red suit.

Many people had that smile. A few years ago she'd seen a lot during interviews. That was before, though. When others had thought her research was interesting. Before the fringe groups got ahold of misinformation and spread it like wildfire.

They'd painted her as a modern Mengele and the people who had fawned over her suddenly couldn't say her name or meet her eye. Adhira wondered when bacteria gained personhood, or why others were so deadset on preserving them. Regardless, she resumed her studies, which she personally found as controversial as Sudoku, and lost herself in her interests and her work.

Adhira's smile felt tight, but it wasn't feigned. She was genuinely amused, just a little tired and not functioning at 100% social skill. "It would be bad advertising if you had to say you were second-best."

"Gotta protect the brand."

"That's what I thought."

She led Emilia through the labs. The fencer swaggered, loose and slinking like a confident cat.

"Tell you what." Emilia's voice spoke easy, easy like her walk, though her too-bright eyes made Adhira feel distinctly uneasy. She never seemed to blink. "Anybody gets past me, you can fire me."

"Anybody gets past you and I'm dead."

"Nah," Emilia said. "You'd put up a good fight. Unless you're the sort who freezes?"

Adhira had to stop mid-step. Only for a moment, hesitating, before her pace resumed. "Well, the last time someone tried... well, there's a reason my parents think I need protection."

"Oh. Well hey, hey, hey."

The woman reached out and grabbed her. It sent a jolt through Adhira. Not fear, but just as strong. It was a shock to be touched, even as impersonal a touch as Emlia's palm around her wrist.

She went still, looking from the pale hand touching her to Emilia's strange green eyes.

"Nobody's gonna get past me." Emilia gave her a little squeeze. She had a very warm hand. Adhira could feel the heat of her through the palm of her black leather glove. "Okay? Promise."

"Okay," Adhira said.

The rest of the day she worked in gloves as well, sterile blue to Emilia's black. The latex wasn't nearly as thick; she wondered how hot Emilia's touch would feel if there were even less layers between them. Then she pretended she wasn't thinking that.

And Emilia remained a fixture in the labs, day in and day out. On those rare times Adhira went into town, Emilia followed. Occasionally she drove her home, though Emilia never passed the front doors. Just as well. It would have been a terrible disappointment. She merely existed in her home. It wasn't a place to live. It was a place to store her things and sleep and shower. Adhira had her groceries delivered and cooked rarely. Everything else was work. That's how it had been for a very long time and she liked it just like that.

Besides, her home security was up to date as all Kahtri estates had to be, to protect the lineage.

"What do you do during your time off?" Adhira asked, unprompted.

Bacteria floated, suspended in the slide under her scope.

Her bodyguard's loose body language tightened up a bit in confusion. "Huh?"

"When you're not babysitting me." Adhira looked up from her sample to see Emilia standing, even though she'd offered her a stool. Emilia always stood. It was not exactly a lean or a slouch but she was always a little off-kilter. Something about the set of her shoulders was sleepy; it wouldn't have been odd if one day Emilia slid down right onto the floor to take a nap.

She never did, of course.

"Relax. Train. See friends. Read." Emilia shrugged. "I'm boring."

She wondered how Emilia felt, coming to work every day only to do nothing. "You can read in here if you want to bring books in."

"I read on my tablet." Her glass-green eyes shimmered again. "Which I will never bring in here. I know the sweep you all need to do in order to 'okay' portable tech. And I don't want you judging my habits."

"Lots of romance?" Adhira guessed.

"An obscene amount of westerns," Emilia relented. "I like watching westerns, too."

"Contemporary or old-school?"

Emilia took a few steps closer. She relegated herself to that corner near the door, most days. Adhira wondered how she didn't die of boredom. It wasn't like Adhira was a great conversationalist. Even this moment was taking a lot out of her. But she was more curious than socially depleted.

"I like them all." Emilia's carefully unaccented English swapped to a southern drawl. "Pardner."

Without warning, Emilia's hand dropped to the hilt at her waist and she pulled it free. It was a whip-like movement, drawing steel at high noon.

At first Adhira wanted to laugh, then the noise died in her throat as Emilia summoned her weapon. The fiber-thin steel unfolded from the hilt to form a straight, sharp sword. The mechanism was completely silent, but Adhira swore she heard a hummmmm underneath, like raw power made it vibrate in place.

Emilia wasn't smiling, not at all. Her pale face creased with worry as she dashed towards Adhira, shouting her name.

The hum grew louder, and Adhira realized the sword was not the source of the noise.

The bomb hit with the force of a charging animal.

It left the air around them burning. Knocked breathless, Adhira's vision swam through the flames, rippling like coils of smoke rising in the sky.

The impact had been so sudden. An eyeblink. One moment standing and the next, she and Emilia were thrown through one of the thick glass doors of her open-space lab.

"I've got you, Dr. Kahtri." Emilia was holding her, arms solid as cage bars around her. Holding tight onto the lapels of Emilia's jacket, Adhira croaked in fear, all words failing her.

Miraculously, Emilia stood up, and brought Adhira with her. Glass shards clattered around them. Emilia's suit was nothing but bright red ribbons.

Glass-green eyes scanned her up and down. "You okay?"

Through her shaking, Adhira managed to talk. "We have to go. Let's go. Can you walk?" She looked down at their feet. The shards of glass were at least four inches thick. Had the explosion broken them? How could Emilia withstand the kind of force needed to crash right through them? "H-how am I walking?"

Emilia cracked her neck as she twisted it from side to side. "I took most of the hit for you. If wewerk thrhuuwuu— urr— urr— "

Suddenly, her bodyguard started turning away. She held a palm to her face, speaking in a slur. Her head cracked a few more times, a startling clicking noise repeating over and over.

Terror gripped Adhira. She thought Emilia was succumbing to the impact, that she'd only gotten this far out of adrenaline and stubbornness. But Emilia raised a finger for her to wait.

Taking her sword, Emilia started sawing through her own face.

It fell onto the floor in pieces, kicking up puffs of dust from the debris. When she turned back to Adhira, shining circuitry pulsed over Emilia's left cheek, her brow. The rest of her face looked the same, though a little distorted, as if grimacing in pain.

"Come on." Emilia said. "Sorry, my face was acting up."

Emilia reached out for Adhira and the other woman flinched away. Another kind of terror rose up in her, less sharp but so much deeper. The realizations hit her one after the other.

My bodyguard isn't a human.

My bodyguard is one of the six dozen.

I'm working with the most dangerous machine ever built.

Artificial Intelligence.

Everyone knew what they looked like, under the skin masks. The six dozen AI first programmed during that fateful year, before anyone knew the legal and political ramifications the act would spark.

Only six dozen were ever made; after the watershed victory that granted them full rights as living autonomous beings, most of them went into hiding. Trying their best to live among us, like anyone else.

Adhira flinched away from Emilia, who paused there with her hand open and still reaching for her.

"It's just me," Emilia reassured her, gently.

The metal on her face shone.

"I'm taking you somewhere safe. Let me do my job, Dr. Kahtri."

Allowing herself to be guided, Adhira did her best not to look at Emilia as they walked out of the burning building. In the distance she could hear sirens, but the world was spinning. She lost her balance, clutching onto Emilia for support.

The AI's body was firm, but not unnaturally so. The disguise was horribly convincing.

How did it mimic the heat, the weight, of human skin? How did she feel so warm, so good, the simple contact refilling Adhira's social batteries in an instant.

"The people who did this might still be nearby." An arm wrapped around her, carefully. "Stay close to me until the police arrive, hmm?"

Adhira nodded, trembling faintly. All around her sirens spun and wailed, lights flashing blue and red. The noises grew too much to bear; the last thing she remembered was crumpling onto the floor.

===

Her house was safer than any hospital. Adhira's parents called in a physician to do a home visit, as well as a mechanic for Emilia.

Under the ragged skin remaining on her face, a number could be seen.

Each and every one of the six dozen had an identification number. Some of them kept theirs out on display until the day they died, and refused to be turned back on. The public was endlessly fascinated with the Numbers, wikipedia entries and articles written about them, an intense fandom springing up around the functionally immortal robots who could look like anyone they wanted.

Emilia was Number 57. A quick scan through known Numbers pulled up her history before her current face switch. Most of her public personas were 'retired' or 'dead', meaning she didn't wear those faces or go by those names anymore. Legally, she couldn't. Every time a Number changed their face they had to do a mountain of paperwork, but by all accounts a trait all Numbers shared is that they were patient. They had all the time in the world to do paperwork.

Sitting with a bag of ice over her head, Adhira stared through the open-floor plan of her house at Emilia, who was getting patched up. Her last iteration had been a career soldier. She spent an entire lifetime learning how to fight, and in this lifetime, she evidently used it to be a bodyguard for the elite.

"So what's the problem?" her sister asked, bringing Adhira's attention back down her tablet. "Miss Roarke did her job, didn't she? You'd be dead right now if I hadn't hired her."

"I guess I just don't know what to think," Adhira admitted. "Until it happened, I didn't even realize she was different."

"Well yeah. She's got the best fake skin money can buy." A little bit of grumbling. "Probably why her rates are so expensive."

Falling quiet again, Adhira watched the technician slowly seal Emilia's new face on. She stood at ease while they did, one hand on the hilt of her sword, her posture completely relaxed.

What must it be like, Adhira wondered, to be that confident? To never need to rest? To not know fear? To change your appearance on a whim? She appeared so human, but it was literally only skin deep.

Number 57, Emilia, noticed her watching and waved at her cheerfully through the glass. Adhira managed a weak smile in response. From just her profile, the bot looked normal. But when she turned to give Adhira her full attention, she couldn't help but wince. Half of it— her face— was still missing after the attack. Even if her unlucky bodyguard couldn't feel pain, Adhira felt guilty to see the exposed chrome shining under the lamplight.

Once the job was done Emilia tested her jaw with one hand before leveling another thin smile at Adhira, as if she knew exactly what she was thinking. Then Emilia winked.

Cheeks warming up, Adhira averted her gaze.

"She saved you," Trayi warned her, voice and face stern on the tablet. Looking at her sister was like staring into a mirror, where Adhira's reflection was always two degrees prettier and more posh than her. "Be nice."

"I'm always nice."

Her sister rolled her eyes and hung up. Probably on her way to another meeting with the Queen or whatever it was diplomats did in foreign countries when they didn't have science to keep them busy seven days a week.

Later on, with her face fully attached, Emilia came over to check up on her.

"Did something getcha?" she asked, noting the bag of ice. "I'm sorry, I tried to shield you as much as I could."

Adhira grimaced. "I bumped my head when I fainted."

"Ah." Emilia seemed too amused by that, in her opinion. "Sorry. Can't protect you from yourself."

They smiled at each other. Even though Emilia wasn't anywhere close to her personal bubble, Adhira thought she could feel the heat of her skin like a wave, rolling over her and leaving her dizzy. Closing her eyes, she shifted the icepack and sat down.

"Nobody told you about me, did they?" Emilia guessed, sitting down next to her. "Thought you knew."

"No. My parents gave me your superficial ID and resume. None of the— other things."

"I'm pretty public if you know my Number." Emilia's voice was soothing and low. She wondered how long it took to get a voice like that. What actress did they pay to hum and croon consonants and vowels and diphthongs into a box for a year, so that Emilia could string together noises that sounded almost normal? Now that she knew the truth, Adhira could pick out little ticks and buzzes where the replication was imperfect. "You can look me up if you want."

"I already did. You're very talented."

Emilia brightened up. "Thank you! I've been working hard at rounding out my skills. Learning swordsmanship has been especially rewarding."

A million questions sprang to the tip of her tongue. There was so much she didn't know. How often did someone get this opportunity? But all she wanted to know were the mundane things, that she would have asked any other woman. And she didn't want to seem nosy.

And her head still hurt.

"Can you..." Adhira winced, shifting the ice pack again. "Stay here? A while longer?"

Emilia tilted her head to the side, a curious quirk. "Sure."

"I'll pay overtime. I just don't want to go to work alone tomorrow."

Sighing, Emilia tugged a handkerchief from her back pocket. She dabbed it against Adhira's brow, where the ice was starting to melt. "You're not going back to work tomorrow," she said. "Your lab is in shambles."

"We own a few other labs in the area."

"You could own all the labs in the country. You're staying home."

Resentment flared up in her. "On whose orders?"

"Your mother's," Emilia quipped. "She's the one paying me. Not you."

Oh. That made too much sense.

Maybe she'd hit her head harder than she realized. Even if the doctors gave her the all clear, Adhira spent the rest of the day lost in a haze, staring off into the distance or fitfully trying to get some sleep. She checked the locks on every door and window, twice, even though she knew Emilia already had tapped into her home security network. She called Trayi and convinced her, again, that she didn't need to fly overseas just to check on Adhira. She was fine, really.

Most distressing was the loss of her physical samples. She recorded everything she worked on, of course, but so much work would have to begin again from scratch. Adhira wondered if she'd have to go to work past picketers again, as news spread of this attack. Some would be sympathetic, and others would realize she was the ideal sort of target to attack for publicity and notoriety. They'd see her injured and it would trigger that predator instinct so many people seemed to have, where they piled on at the first sign of vulnerability.

She remembered being a girl, driving past crowds of people. Angry about the Numbers, even though they'd already been legal for generations. Every so often things went back and forth in waves, as humans died and forgot and made the same arguments over and over again, and the six dozen bots watched and recorded it all as their numbers slowly dwindled.

Numbers didn't change, it was true. But really, neither did humanity.

Emilia was downstairs, lingering in the kitchen. She had her own tablet out, headphones in. Faintly, Adhira heard pop music wafting out.

Adhira frowned to see it. "How are you going to hear an intruder like that?"

"I have two sets of consciousness," Emilia answered, not looking up. "Another part of me is paying attention while I distract myself. And I don't detect danger audibly, anyway."

She honed in on the first part. "Two sets of... all right, I need to know, how do you get through long days in the lab without getting bored to death? Do you shut off your second brain and let elevator music play in the background?"

"I'm usually playing a backlog of old westerns," Emilia breezily agreed. "Since I can't bring my unscanned tablet inside the lab I just use my memory."

"Have you been scanned? This sounds like a data breach risk waiting to happen."

"I am not interested in your bacteria samples, doctor, nor would I allow anyone to use me as a backdoor to access them." She assured her with a thin smile, finally looking up from her tablet. Coils of copper red hair had peeled out of her bun, messily framing her face. "They're safe with me."

Folding up her tablet, Emilia tucked it into her breast pocket. The technician who fixed her face also brought her a spare set of clothes. No flashy suit today, just a dress shirt and passibly formal pants. Adhira wondered if it was easy to sword fight in those. Maybe Emilia had them especially made.

"Are you bored?" Emilia countered. "Is that why you're wandering around? It's three in the morning and you should be asleep."

"I can't get comfortable." The Affect she wore kept any shrapnel from hitting her, and Emilia took the worst of the blast, but she was still finding bruises all over her body.

"I see."

Now that she knew those eyes were indeed made of glass, they seemed to shine all the brighter. They didn't move like eyes normally did. They bored into her, tunneling deep and uncovering everything she had hidden.

"Then would you..." Emilia started uncertainly. Instead of fidgeting, like a human, she went absolutely still. Strange, how her normal mannerisms shone through. Not idle shifting, but something solid and motionless as steel. Her natural state. "...Like to watch a movie?"

She considered it. "Does it have to be a western?"

"It can be whatever you like. But I'd prefer a good old shoot 'em up with a duel at high noon."

"I guess it can't be helped, then." She ought to do something with that big screen in her living room, after all. Adhira used it once when it was installed and then never again.

She didn't remember anything about the movie. Adhira had perched on the edge of her couch until Emilia landed heavily right next to her, put an arm around her shoulder, and tugged her close. She made a noise of surprise, but didn't pull away. Not when the body close to hers was so warm.

Adhira fell asleep halfway through the film, and woke up in her own bed, the blankets tucked around her.

A robot bodyguard.

Adhira stared up at her bedroom ceiling, arm thrown over her forehead. The repercussions came at her, one after the other. The consequences. The risks. The implications.

"Fuck it," she said after a while. "I'm already in trouble with the fundies."

In for a penny, in for a pound.

===

The size and scope and power of the Kahtri family, with their fingers in every branch of government and law (and one little pinkie in medicine because of Adhira), meant she had an operational lab by the end of the week. Adhira went right back to it, grateful to no longer be idle.

"Most people would have taken a vacation."

In the next few months Emilia became closer than a shadow. No longer keeping to herself by the door, she followed Adhira as she moved about the labs, into her offices. They spoke, but not frequently. More often they listened to audio dramas or music. Adhira uploaded a few of Emilia's favorites onto her own tablet, since the especially soap-operatic ones were cushy enough to not be distracting.

"Most people aren't me."

Emilia's eyes flickered in a way she'd come to recognize as soft agreement. "So your family approves of your research."

"They wish I had gotten into politics like my sister." Adhira stretched. "But I've proven lucrative. And as long as she has her children there will be less pressure on me to keep the family name."

"Don't like kids?"

"I like children just fine." It was the truth. Children were interesting, not fully formed yet. All wobbly, like clay. They spoke unfiltered. And Adhria loved her nieces and nephews. She indulged them endlessly when she got to see them. "I just don't want to have any. I don't suppose you ever plan to adopt?"

It was a rude and personal question, but Adhira figured Emilia had already opened the door. She was just walking through it. There were more than a few Numbers who successfully reared and raised families. The main rival of the Kahtri dynasty was led by one, after all. Having a member of the family who didn't die meant they were a lot more stable than the many branches of siblings and cousins that Adhira had to navigate.

"Seems like an easy way to break my own heart," was Emilia's opinion on the matter.

===

Finally, Emilia decided that Adhira had stared enough.

"Come here."

There was a small courtyard outside the new lab, where other researchers came for cigarette breaks. Instead of that, Emilia drew Adhira closer, standing behind her with both hands on her hips. "Keep it loose. You're too rigid."

Adhira had the hilt in her hand. It was active, blade extended. "I don't know what that means."

"Means you're all tight." Emilia kept one hand on her hip, the other gripping around Adhira's wrist. "You need to relax. Know what happens to steel that doesn't bend?"

"No. What happens?"

Guiding Adhira by the wrist, Emilia had them swing the sword once. It whistled as it sliced nothing but air, cutting through the silence around them. "It breaks."

They ran through some drills together. Adhira had a lot to unlearn about how to wield a sword, by Emilia's estimation. "And the rest is just practice."

"Maybe I should take up fencing myself. I need an excuse to stay physical."

Emilia agreed, and the next day, she came to work with two blunt practice swords.

Tossing one to Adhira, she grinned. "Let's start before lunch, and build up your appetite."

Crossing blades also happened mostly in silence. Nothing but the whistle of steel and the clack of her blunt blade hitting Emilia on her unbreakable body. Adhira appreciated that; Emilia did not talk to fill silence or to alleviate boredom. She respected Adhira's time and energy. Not many people did that. Even those paid to be in her presence.

"Dr. Kahtri," Emilia said, "I think when we graduate to live steel, you will be a force to be reckoned with."

Adhira had never been hungry for praise. She knew when she was doing a good job and didn't need anyone else to inform her. She also was keenly aware of all her failures. So hearing the kind words made her... off-kilter, since she was so new to fencing. She didn't know if she was actually good, or if Emilia was just humoring her.

It became even more complex when Emilia insisted on dropping her off at home every night. Until one night she insisted on walking her all the way to her door. And then one night she lingered by the door, her hand over Adhira's.

"Is it okay if I come inside?"

Dimly aware that the offer was possibly inappropriate, Adhira struggled to find a reason to refuse. She had never been the best at navigating social situations, or the proper protocol to follow during them. She only knew what she liked. "Why?"

"To watch another movie." Emilia's voice had gone softer, soft enough that Adhira strained to catch it.

"I might fall asleep again."

Emilia's hand hadn't left hers. She radiated an incredible amount of heat, more than most people. It had to be how she was built. When she stepped closer, Adhira felt soothed by that warmth the way a weary traveler longs for a hearth fire. "Then I'll carry you to bed again."

"You don't sleep, do you?" Adhira said, just to confirm. Emilia nodded. "That must be so convenient."

"Can't say. I've never known anything else." The pressure on Adhira's hand increased as Emilia's fingers curled over her own. She brought their linked hands up to her mouth, dropping a kiss on her knuckles.

Oh.

Adhira's cheeks grew hot. "You're my employee."

"I'm your mom's employee." Emilia grinned.

"Fine." Adhira pulled free, expecting resistance. But Emilia didn't cling, even if her grip stayed flexed, as if she was still holding on, or maybe she just wished she was still holding on. "But surely between two brains you can string together enough common sense to know why this isn't a good idea."

"Doctor." Emilia's green eyes focused and unfocused, a lens inside adjusting to the setting sun's dying light. "Saying I have 'two brains' is a gross oversimplification of my technology, and undersells exactly how much smarter I am than you."

The flames on her face traveled up from her cheeks to halo her skull. Veins pulsed, anger pounding thickly through them. It was as unfamiliar to her as everything else Emilia made her feel. The intensity of them, if not the emotions themselves.

Emilia was taunting her— trying to get a reaction out of her—

Teasing her?

The glitter in Emilia's eyes said she was amused, not angry, but Adhira didn't know how to feel. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why?" Her grin widened. "Dr. Kahtri, I've been flirting with you since the very first day we met. It's been nearly half a year. If I don't press harder, you'll never get the hint."

Her lips had gone dry. Licking them was worse than tonguing rough leather.

"So." Emilia said it slowly, bracing her arm next to Adhira's head. She was still trapped against her own front door; if she opened it she could escape this situation, but she didn't want to. "We should hang out sometime. Off the clock."

"We're off the clock right now. And you're probably already watching a movie, aren't you?" Adhira scoffed. "With your second brain."

"Maybe I am. You'd never be able to tell." Emilia leaned in closer. "Do you want all my attention even when you can't register the difference?"

"Of course I do." Adhira snapped. "Nobody likes to think someone is with them on auto-pilot." Even if they weren't talking about a robot.

"Why, Dr. Kahtri. I had no idea you were so greedy," Emilia said, and kissed her.

#original #Warm Blooded

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