Damo leaves once the procedure is done. Without so much as a thank you, Hale notes.

That night, while Theo flicks through TV channels and Rayner works from the sofa on his laptop, Hale fights the sudden connection to Damo in as many ways as he can. The parting threats leave him hollowed out with a helpless fury he can't articulate or show on the surface. How can he fight against an android who doesn't care whether or not he's destroyed for his crimes?

All efforts to delete the invasive connection are in vain. If anything, they only serve to amuse Damo in their futility. Worse, when Hale demands to know what he wants out of all this, Damo gives no solid answers, just jibes and riddles, so Hale can't even resort to bargaining for freedom from his new, parasitic roommate.

Damo's grim warnings about the nervous system, though designed to repel him, only steel Hale's resolve to go through with the upgrade anyway. He didn't trust anything Damo said before, so why should he trust what he said about the pain? What's more, if the nervous system had been sabotaged in some way, he can at least scan and assess it.

As Theo pointed out, it's his choice.

Theo and Rayner listen, rapt, to news on the crew of the Athena discovering alien plant life on Planet B-9. He finds humanity's obsession with finding aliens both perplexing and endearing. Despite his past protest, he's come to think that perhaps he is alive after all, but not by any typical definition, and doesn't that make him a bit alien?

These are the sorts of thoughts he'd puzzle over without much awareness. Now, every time he has a strange or inquisitive train of thought, an obnoxious second voice intrudes.

>>Our Haley, the philosopher.

In the morning, Hale tells Theo while cooking breakfast that he's prepared for the synthetic nervous system whenever she is. She just beams at him over the stack of pancakes he made.

"I can clear my schedule if Rayner can."

Rayner looks up from his laptop, hand reaching blindly for another piece of bacon. "Definitely."

Within the hour, Theo is setting up a table of instruments and pulling the synthetic wire nerves out of an acid bath that cleaned them of silicone skin and thermo-fluid overnight. Hale thought that Damo had been unusually silent during the whole affair, and after Theo finishes laying the wires out on the table, he understands why.

>>Got no desire to relive this shit, Haley. I'm out. Catch ya later. Hope the nerves don't fry your little brain!

The moment Damo goes offline, Hale feels the knots of tension in his belly and shoulders loosen. He's too relieved by the solitude in his mind to worry over the parting jibe. Though it's only temporary—Damo's presence still lurks as if from the other side of a door— the reprieve is joyously welcome.

Briefly, he considers telling Theo and Rayner about Damo's transgression while he has the chance but reasons it would be a rash and foolish move. The moment Damo reconnects, he could sift through Hale's memories and discover the subterfuge, or infer the information from their behaviour.

No, it's too risky and could result in the arrest of both Theo and Rayner. There is an alternative though.

"Theo, Rayner? I have an unusual...request."

Rayner looks pleased. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Would it be possible to teach me the necessary skill sets for robotic engineering and hacking? I can learn certain disciplines using teaching resources and my own internal databases, but other skills are prohibited by my programming. I'd like to bypass those protocols."

Rayner smirks.

Theo says, "Look at our Hale, the rebel!"

Hale can hear the praise in her tone. He supposes that he's already broken several laws with them, so what's a few more? If he can learn how to block Damo under the guise of helping his friends with their respective jobs, all the better. Keeping his underlying motivations a secret should be simple enough, since he truly wants to give Rayner and Theo a break from their busy working lives.

"Why the sudden yearning to be a criminal, eh?" Rayner says, nudging Hale with his elbow.

"It would enable me to help with your work and give me something to do."

Theo nods. "I could always use an extra hand."

"So, you want us to rejig the code stopping you from learning?" Rayner asks.

"Yes."

"I think we can do it." Theo shrugs. "Well, I think Rayner can do it. That's not my area."

"It's tricky," Rayner says. "I don't want to mess around with your code and change you in an unintended, bad way. I've actually thought a bit about this though. Been doing some research. And I think I know someone who could help."

Hale breathes a little sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"No problem."

Their response fills Hale with a fuzzy glow. His frayed nerves over Damo's invasion still prickle with the anticipation of attempting something this bold, but at least he isn't completely on his own.

They return their attention to the wires, now laid out on the table in an eerie semblance of a human's nervous system.

Once certain it's untangled, Theo inserts one instrument into an outlet at a spot where the wires all connect, roughly around the seventh cervical vertebrae. It makes a high, whirring sound. Slowly, each of the spidering wires retract into the larger segments, folding telescopically until, instead of a web, they look more like a rudimentary tree branch in the shape of a man.

Rayner says, "Uhh, could you not have done that yesterday instead of having us peel every individual nerve ending out from under Damo's skin?"

Theo shakes her head. "They get caught in skin and clog up, and then it's fucked for realsies. Frankly, they didn't really build it with an uninstall in mind. No one figured if you went to the trouble to get it that you'd want to get rid of it."

Hale hopes that faith isn't ill-placed. He tries to imagine how hard it might be if, after all this, he actually hates the sensation of clothes on his skin, or Rayner's arms around his back. But that seems inconceivable. Perhaps Damo is simply less tactile by nature.

Theo instructs him to take off his shirt and roll up his shorts, then lies down on the table. He opens various panels on his body at her prompting, feeling nervous, excited, and exposed. He tries to focus on the excitement, like popcorn kernels bursting in his chest.

It is the same procedure from yesterday, but in reverse and less tricky. They start by attaching the main branch along his spine. Then, rolling him over, they feed the others into his extremities from the base of his skull to the tips of his fingers and toes. He can't feel it, but he's aware of it, and the data feed is bizarre. It keeps sending him error messages and diagnostics of foreign matter in his skin. Theo tells him to dismiss the reports. Once the program has been installed and the hardware connected, his diagnostics will recognize the nerves as a part of him.

It takes the better part of their morning. When they break for lunch, Hale can't get up to make sandwiches, so Rayner goes to make them instead.

Theo says, "So, we're nearly done. How ya feeling?"

Hale looks down at himself, at the few ports on his body still open with wires sticking out, ready to be fed into his fingers. "I am processing a number of emotions," he says.

"Mhm. Excited?"

"Yes."

"Nervous?"

"A little."

"That's okay. So, it's best if you're as comfortable as possible. Less likely to be a shock or for you to read the new sensations as painful. While the program's sorting out the new data and adjusting, negative feelings can sometimes transmit neutral sensation into pain, you know?"

That's welcome news to Hale. With Damo's absence and the company of his friends, he is a lot more relaxed. It also occurs to him that Damo's experience may have been a tense one, and that's why he'd found it painful.

Theo goes on, "So, the comfier you are, the better, which makes me think maybe Rayner should do it and not me."

"You don't make me uncomfortable, Theo," Hale says.

"I know. But I don't make you super comfortable, either. And I didn't rescue you from a traumatic situation. And I don't sleep next to you at night."

"We have separate beds," Hale amends for her.

"Sure. But, either way, you've got a rapport. A friendship. Also, Rayner seems to trust you, and he hardly trusts anyone. But it seems mutual. So I'm just suggesting he be the one to do it, but it's up to you both at the end of the day. If you'd prefer I be here—"

Hale is too busy feeling a warm glow, like a small sun took up residence in the space his lungs used to occupy, to reply immediately. When he's gathered his thoughts, he says, "I defer to your judgment. It's a good idea, thank you."

"No problem."

When Rayner returns with lunch, Theo fills him in on the plan. At first, he expresses some concern that he'll mess it up. Theo tells him he's more likely to fuck up turning on a light switch. Rayner relaxes at that and agrees. They finish their sandwiches, eating over a separate table in the corner to avoid crumbs anywhere near Hale's open ports and equipment. Rayner made a little finger sandwich for Hale to try, which he does. He likes the tuna a lot. Much better than peanut butter and jelly, he decides.

It's a nice break, then they're back to work. Once the wiring is complete, Theo accesses the same port by which she withdrew the telescopic nerves and inserts a tool, reversing its rotation. The spidering wires all erupt under Hale's skin like umbrellas unfurling. They trigger a series of error reports again, all of which Hale dismisses, but it's otherwise simple compared to the painstaking extraction on Damo yesterday.

Theo gets up, stretching out her back as she does. "That's it! Well, mostly. Here's all you gotta do now, Rayner."

Theo lays a printout of instructions flat on the table in front of Rayner and indicates the last few lines. "I recommend turning on each section separately, like it says here. It's less overwhelming that way. All the controls are in here."

Within Hale's open chest panel, she indicates the switches for each section of the nervous system, all labelled N1 through N12. The switches are thankfully located along his sternum rather than deep within his chest cavity, so Rayner can see them easily.

Rayner listens attentively to her instructions, a crease of worry between his brows, but his heartbeat fairly steady.

"Right. I'll leave you to it," Theo says. Then, on her way out the door, she pauses. "Uh, is there anything I could bring you to make this cozier? Candles? Incense? Ophelia?"

Hale says, "Ophelia," without really thinking.

Nodding with a laugh, Theo retrieves the orchid from her kitchen. The blooms wilted with the full descent of autumn, but her leaves remain a deep, healthy green. Theo sets her down on the table and leaves with a happy 'good luck!'

Rayner takes a deep breath. "Okay. So, starting with N1. That should be your right hand?"

Hale nods. "Yes."

"Are you ready?"

Rayner holds a finger over the switch. Hale reads the spike in his heart rate as though it's his own. There's a moment of hesitation. It feels significant, this moment between feeling and not feeling, their gazes fixed and breathing deliberate.

"Yes," Hale says.

"Okay. Count of three. One, two, three—"

Hale jumps. It starts like pins and needles under his skin, fuzzy and bristling and spreading to his fingertips and the base of his wrist. As they abate, the metal of the table replaces the new prickles of sensation. It's cool to the touch, slightly warmed by his skin, and he slides a hand over the edges of it in wonderment.

Rayner watches his cautious exploration with a held breath. "Did it work?"

Hale nods.

"Does it hurt?" Rayner's Adam's apple bobs, and not for the first time Hale wonders what Rayner's skin feels like, his pulse, the flannel of his shirt. He knows words attributed to these things from books, data logs, articles, but not the reality of them, and the possibility that now he can—

He takes a steadying breath. "No. I don't think it hurts. You can turn on the next one."

Rayner nods. One by one, he brings Hale's body to life. His other hand, both feet, then one arm at a time, a leg. The sudden weight of them surprises Hale most. The press of his limbs into the table edge. Then, when Rayner leans closer to press the switch for his face, Hale feels the heat of Rayner's hip through the rough fabric of his jeans. It makes Hale's pulse jump. Abruptly, his programming for intimate situations kicks in, incorrectly assuming a sexual element to their interaction. Hale shuts it down and holds stalk still.

None of it hurts, he's certain of that, but his heart beats wildly all the same. With his chest panel open, he can't even hide it.

"You sure you're okay?" Rayner says, because of course he notices.

Hale nods fervently. "It's...interesting."

"Okay. Next one's your head, face, and neck. Ready?"

Hale nods. Rayner flicks the switch, and this time his skin comes alive like bursts of static electricity under the surface, like shards of ice under his skin. He flinches, a noise of shock smothered in his throat and a hand flying up to his lips, where the newfound pain burns hottest.

"Shit, did that one hurt?" Rayner asks.

To Hale's surprise, Rayner holds a hand up to his cheek, like he can smother the flames physically. It's only the lightest brush of his palm against Hale's skin, but it engulfs the pain with something softer and sweeter.

Rayner suddenly seems self-conscious of the gesture. He starts to retract his hand. Hale doesn't intend to stop him but his own hand comes up automatically, clasped over Rayner's to keep it there. His next breath shudders on the way out. He leans into the touch, turning his face into Rayner's palm. Rayner smells of honey soap and the tuna sandwiches he'd made for lunch, and his hand is so warm, but not painfully so, and his skin is soft, uncalloused—Hale realizes he has no point of comparison. His only references are the metal table and the fabric of jeans. And, now, the soft skin of Rayner's palm. It makes his heart ricochet between his ribs and a sound of unparalleled yearning rise in his throat, like a wish no one could possibly grant.

It's all so involuntary, but it happens, and now it's his turn to feel embarrassed. He's eternally grateful that Damo isn't witnessing this too. Hale doesn't think he'd ever live it down.

"S-sorry."

He manages to release Rayner's hand, but Rayner keeps it there, watching him with eyes so dilated that even the blue one looks black. The pad of a thumb traces Hale's cheek and makes him shiver.

"Don't be sorry," Rayner says. "Does this feel...better?"

Hale nods.

"Do you need a break, or should we keep going?"

Aside from the embarrassment of such an extreme reaction to the barest first touch, he's fine.

"We should continue," he says, managing not to fumble his words.

Rayner's hand drops away, but the warmth of his touch lingers.

Blowing out a breath, Rayner leans forward for the next switches. Hale's upper body and abdomen come to life without a problem. The press of Rayner's forearm where it rests across his chest to press the final switch is distracting, but Hale does his best to avert his focus from those points of contact. It's difficult. His head is a fog of new sensation.

Rayner glances back at the instruction sheet to double check the last switch. The pink blush on his cheeks turns a deep red, and Hale knows why without asking.

The final switch is for his pelvic region.

"Last one," Rayner says.

"I'm prepared," Hale answers.

He is not prepared. A warm sensation builds in his abdomen, in the places Rayner's body casually grazes his own. All of it seems to coalesce and travel southward in one glowing path. By the time Hale catches his breath enough to realize what's happening, it's far too late. The mounting heat between his legs is matched only by the heat of embarrassment burning in his cheeks.

"Hale? Hey, are you oka—"

Rayner cuts himself short as Hale propels himself backwards on the table and plants both hands between his knees to disguise his erection. He executes the command meant to turn him off, literally, and it doesn't work. If anything, it stiffens further.

"Oh!" says Rayner.

"I didn't tell it to do that!" Hale says quickly.

"No, I kn— It's okay. It's involuntary. Totally natural."

"For humans maybe!" Hale squeaks.

"It's okay! Nothing to be ashamed of! You're just—it's new? Uh, oh god, do you want me to leave?"

Hale watches with growing humiliation as Rayner oscillates between trying to be respectful and wanting to reassure him. Of all possible results of the upgrade, this was not the first that came to mind. Especially with all the warnings of pain. Granted, it is sort of painful as Hale fights to suppress it. An exercise in futility.

"How do I make it stop?" he demands.

"Uh, oh, well, I think you know how? But otherwise think of like...dead puppies?"

Hale squeezes his eyes shut and moans despairingly.

Rayner looks both sympathetic and like he's trying very hard not to laugh. "I'm gonna let you figure it out. I'll tell Theo to give you space, okay?"

"Don't tell her!" Hale is too busy feeling scandalized by his own penis to recognize how uncharacteristic it is for him to issue orders to a human being.

"No, I won't! Just, uh, I dunno. Text me if you...need anything? Fuck, that came out weird. Just, like, download all the porn you need or something and...Okay I'm gonna go."

Now they're both embarrassed. Rayner lets himself out, but as he goes, Hale notices his body showing all the usual signs of attraction and arousal. Elevated heart rate. More blood in the pelvic region. Dilated pupils. It's wholly frustrating and makes the tension in Hale's lower belly wind tighter. Why can Rayner control it better when for Hale it should be as simple as executing a command, pressing a button on a keyboard?

Hale cringes. In a unique form of torture totally new to him, his memory logs replay the last five minutes in a debasing loop. Ironically, that does make the pressure in his groin lessen just a little.

But not enough.

He withdraws his hands from between his knees to regard the treacherous tenting in his trousers with a grimace.

He doesn't need to download porn. He has a database of sexual content for reference to use within his symbiont relationships, but he's had no need for them since leaving Melissa, and he feels ashamed and reticent to use them now. Within the framework of those references, masturbation was only relevant within a voyeuristic context. For the satisfaction of his symbiont, not his own.

He'd been curious what pleasure would feel like. He hadn't anticipated the barrier shame might present in allowing him to explore or even enjoy it.

He flops back against the table in frustration, wincing as the cold metal sweeps into him. He tries to focus on that sensation instead. The frigid cold doesn't last though, melting with the heat of his body. To distract himself, he looks upstairs using his thermo vision. He can see Rayner and Theo chatting in the kitchen. Theo's shoulders don't shake with laughter. Nor does their body language seem particularly animated. Hale didn't doubt Rayner when he promised not to tell Theo what happened. It's still a relief to know for certain.

After a couple minutes, Rayner leaves and heads down the hall. Good, Hale thinks. Perhaps Rayner could get some sleep and take that weight off Hale's mind. Except, Rayner doesn't go to bed. He heads to the bathroom and goes through the familiar motions of taking off his clothes instead.

Hale freezes. He knows, on some level, he should turn off his thermo-vision at this point. Though it's only a thermal outline, it's still invasive. It feels even more so when just the notion of Rayner naked renews some of the waning heat in his body. At first, he just averts his eyes and tries to think of the dead puppies, but curiosity proves difficult to deny. When he looks back to that distant corner of the ceiling, the silhouette of Rayner's slim frame leans into the spray of the shower. Judging by the angle of his body and tilt of his neck, his forehead is pressed to the shower tiles, looking down at...oh.

Hale swallows around the rising heat in his chest, his face, everywhere. If it weren't for the diagnostic readout telling him that his core temperature is perfectly normal, he'd expect that he was on fire. He should really look away.

Rayner's hand slides from the tiles down his body. Through their Symbiont link, Hale receives readouts of the trip in Rayner's heartbeat and his feverish breaths. Even if Hale turned off his thermo-vision, the data alone is impossible to ignore. It's difficult to breathe, and he isn't sure it's right, but Hale surrenders to the invisible draw. He undoes the fly of his trousers and plunges a hand into his boxer briefs.

The pleasure of his own touch is curious and new enough that it's a little easier to let go of the embarrassment. He shivers. The desire presses him past those last remaining reservations, overrides all other thought processes so there's only the slow glide of his palm and the thunderous beat of his heart and the quickening strokes of Rayner pleasuring himself upstairs in the shower. He closes his eyes briefly. It feels good. Both a relief and a mount of tension, like the winding of a reel until the thread goes taut. He tries to match the rhythm of Rayner's movements to his own, tries to match heartbeats.

The wave comes over him gradually. It starts when he sees Rayner's hips thrust into the motion of his hand and overcomes him totally when he imagines what that might have felt like with their bodies pressed flush together. He doesn't know what it would feel like because the only context he has is a soft hand against his cheek and his own fist around his cock, but he imagines it's exquisite, and that's enough. The heat and tension unspools in his gut. His vision feeds briefly hiccup, and black spots fade in front of his eyes. He checks the moan halfway out of his lips, self-consciousness returning with the spill of something warm and wet over his fingers.

With a jolt of shock, he realizes what it is, and can't be sure whether it was considerate or just messy of android developers to include that amount of realism in his design. It had never struck him as strange until he finds himself looking around the workshop for a cloth or something to wipe himself clean. He pushes from his mind the thought that, of all his encounters with Melissa, his own orgasm had never occurred. Yet, he had at least some code to account for it. Some programmer had made it possible, hadn't they?

He finds an unused microfibre cloth and rubs it over himself in a quick, perfunctory motion. As his heartbeat eases back to normal, Rayner's gives a sudden spike. With the return of some of his earlier embarrassment, Hale only glances up at the ceiling, suddenly shy and a little ashamed. If Rayner feels any of those emotions, his hormone levels don't reflect it. He moves onto shampooing his hair once he ekes out the last of his orgasm.

Hale will have to make sure he washes the cloth before anybody notices. How will he look Rayner in the eye after that? What can he say to make the awkwardness of that situation any less? If Rayner catching him mid-coitus with Melissa had been embarrassing, this has to be several thousand percent more so.

The worst realization comes later, when Hale sneaks past Theo on his way to the laundry room, where he piles sheets into the washer along with the terry cloth.

The worst realization is that Damo was right.

Hale really does want Rayner.

-----

Author's Note: Finally starting to earn the mature rating on this, eh?

I wanted to take a moment to thank you all so much for 10K reads! That's insane and much higher than I ever expected SC to reach. You're honestly the best <3

Last thing! If you'd like to support me and my story, voting, commenting, or pledging to my patreon are all spectacular ways to do that! It really helps encourage me, and allows me more time for writing.

Thanks again for being the amazing readers you are. I hope you enjoyed this chapter <3