Recollectionist

He knows the recollectionist doesn't recognize him when he forces the door because the man tries to get in Dorian's way.  "You can't come in here," he says.  He looks afraid, but it's not fear of the law in his eyes.  It's fear for someone's life.

"Where is he?"  Dorian has no idea whether his new partner uses his real name here or not, and he doesn't particularly care.  But if the man hears "Detective Kennex" and becomes confused, or worse tries to run, it's just going to slow things down.

Then Dorian hears it, pushes past, and finds a man going into cardiac arrest in the recollectionist's chair.  A human might hesitate.  A human did hesitate, he thinks, but he doesn't have time to both watch the recollectionist and shock his partner back to life.

"I'm so sorry," the recollectionist babbles, "I told him it was too dangerous," but the information isn't important so Dorian ignores it.  Later he'll wonder what exactly the man planned to do while someone expired in his chair, and who he thought Dorian was that felt the need to apologize.

Now he holds a seizing shoulder down with his bare hand, and the electricity that zings through him is minimal compared with what he's designed to take.  A secondary defib device steadies the heart jumping under his hand, and he measures the gasps against the renewed pounding of blood beneath the skin.  The response is promising: maybe not too late after all.

The sudden grip on his wrist both startles and reassures him.  Not brain damaged, and lucid enough to react appropriately.  He doesn't pull away or try to stand up, just lets himself be held until details of the situation sink in.

The recollectionist still hasn't run, Dorian notices, when John's gaze flicks to him.  If not police partners, what does he think they are?

Marissa

He doesn't expect any of the nightclub hostesses to look at him, let alone engage him in conversation.  One of them does, though, and he wonders if she's new.  Everyone else in the club is clearly trying to pretend that they haven't been invaded by a large contingent of law enforcement personnel, but she sidles up to him and says hello.

"Hello," Dorian replies.  He thinks the Albanians should have gotten a native English speaker to approve their nightclub name.  Still, the place seems popular and so far all the bots are negative for human DNA.

"I'm Marissa," she says, in a voice that's probably supposed to be seductive but suffers some for having to be heard over the music.  She can't know he's a bot if she's talking that loudly.  "Are you looking for someone tonight?"

It's an interesting way of phrasing the question.  "No," he says, glancing after John automatically.  "Thank you."

"Are you here with him?" she asks, following his gaze.

He has to smile.  "Yes," he says.  She doesn't seem to have any idea what she's doing.  "I'm afraid we're working.  You'll have to excuse me."

"Coworkers, huh?"  She puts her fingers on his arm, gentle, just short of stroking.  "I know how that is.  I've got a friend with the same… hands."

He's not sure what she means by that, and he doesn't pull away before she says, "If you come back later I bet my friend could help you take the edge off.  Close enough with your eyes closed, right?"

This, of all of it, sounds like something she's said before.  So he pats her hand, sliding it off of his arm with a polite smile.  "Thank you for your assistance," he tells her.

Though her assumptions are unexpected and her conclusion flawed, he's not impatient with the attention.  After being compared to a sexbot himself several times today, he is secretly, selfishly pleased to be offered one instead.

Jenna

Paige and Jenna are both witness to him being shot multiple times at the top of the Sanderson building.  He expects them to be troubled when John brings them over to meet him on the street afterwards.  Rudy's been called to the next bot, and Dorian will ride back with John.

After he meets John's new friends, apparently.  Seeing someone who looks human filled with bullet holes isn't usually comforting to civilians, but John never seems to consider this.  Dorian can't tell if it's because he forgets not everyone is made of such strong stuff, or if he just thinks they should be.

Regardless, it doesn't go quite the way he expects.  Paige smiles at him without reservation, but Jenna looks shell-shocked and seeing him doesn't seem to make it better or worse.  After they've been introduced she asks quietly, "Is your vest…?"

She's looking at his chest and she doesn't finish the question.  So he tells her, "I'm not wearing a vest.  I'll be all right; CT checked me out."

He knows she's from out of town, but he doesn't realize how far out until she says, "CT?"

"Cyber tech," John says.  "He'll get a new chest plate and be back in the game tomorrow."

"Chest plate?" Jenna repeats.  "Are you… wearing armor?"

Dorian listened from a distance as Paige introduced her sister to John, and he's relatively certain this is the most she's spoken since she left the building.  He hopes he's not about to set her back when he says, "I'm an android.  I don't need armor."

"Actually, you do," John says.  "With the number of shots you've taken?  The MXs get tac gear; we should get you some too."

"Like yours," Paige says helpfully.

When Dorian looks at her, she's looking at John, who just nods.  "Yeah," he says.  "Maybe a little heavier duty; he can take the weight."

"Because he's a different model?" she says.

Dorian catches John's eye.  Far from looking offended, or even confused, John actually has a small smile as he says, "I'm not an android, Paige."

"Oh!"  Her surprise confirms that yes, that's exactly what she was thinking.  "I'm sorry!  It's just--on the phone, you--you introduced yourself as a police program, so I thought… I'm sorry."

"It's fine," John says, glancing at Dorian again.  "The program was just, ah… a little joke.  I should apologize to you; I didn't mean to… make light of your situation."  His expression is pointed until he turns back to Paige.  "I hope you can forgive me."

"Of course," she says quickly.  "No, I mean, I understand.  You must do this kind of thing a lot."

"Well, more than I'd like," John says, smiling again.

"Thank you," Jenna says.

When Dorian glances down, she's looking at him.

Marty

Only two visits pass before Dorian gets an invitation.  He didn't expect one.  He prompted it, certainly, poking and prodding whenever the subject comes up.  Talking about his partner's son makes John smile now, and Dorian will push that as far as it goes.

He expected it to be an ongoing argument.  He accepts that he isn't part of John's life outside of the precinct, but John doesn't have a life outside of the precinct so the concept is largely theoretical.  It's only when reminders of John's old life surface that the reality of it seems strange.

"You should come," John says on the afternoon of the third visit.  "He asks about you, you know."

"Marty asks about me?"  It's the logical conclusion given the context of their conversation, but he thinks this is worth confirming.  You should come is ambiguous enough that it doesn't seem correct to begin speculating there.

"Yeah," John says.  "He wants to meet my new partner.  You'd like him; he's a good kid."

"I don't doubt that," Dorian says.

"So you'll come," John says, without taking his eyes off of the road.

He didn't realize it was a question.  "Of course."

Marty seems disappointed by him when they meet.  "You don't look like a synthetic," he says, frowning up at Dorian.  "You look normal."

Dorian wants to tell him that the word "synthetic" is unpleasant, that it denotes an imitation of something that can never be fully realized.  But he doesn't know Marty, and he's not as reckless as he was when he first woke.  And it's clearly important to John that Marty think well of him.

"I was designed to be as human as possible," he says instead.

"He doesn't like the word synthetic," John says bluntly.  "Try bot, or android."

"You don't look like a bot," Marty tells him.  He doesn't question it, and Dorian thinks he's old enough to understand both that he can and that it might be rude.  Marty wants to impress John as much as John wants to impress him.

Then Marty continues, "My mom says you can tell.  She says bots don't act human."

Dorian sees John glance at Maria, but he focuses on Marty.  "Not all bots have the same behavioral programming," he says.  "My series was designed to feel and learn in a manner similar to humans."

"Not like MXs," Marty says.

"No," Dorian agrees.  "I'm very different from an MX."

Marty nods.  "Good," he says.  He doesn't frown at Dorian again.

Rudy

Rudy thinks it's fascinating, right up until the day he doesn't.  Dorian isn't sure what changes.  Ever since Rudy carefully mentioned that John seems to act more like his old self around Dorian, Dorian has tried to quantify the difference in the way John interacts with him relative to his other coworkers.

The exercise is straightforward and unmistakable: John is less withdrawn in Dorian's presence.  He's more frequently animated and engages for longer periods of time.  Even after controlling for length of exposure, all indications are that John is more physically and socially comfortable around Dorian than he is around anyone else.

There's nothing particularly aberrant about this in terms of human behavior.  John spends most of his time in Dorian's company, and familiarity is the most common source of comfort.  Rudy agrees, and if he makes a habit of cataloguing the ways in which John treats Dorian like a human partner, his job is to improve human-android integration.  His observations are relevant and valuable.

Then one day, Dorian remarks that John's touch feels warmer than usual, though scans indicate he isn't running a fever.  He attributes it to a localized sensory malfunction, undetectable by diagnostics.  Perhaps a calibration issue.

"Sure, of course," Rudy says.  He seems distracted.  Dorian knows he can process multiple inputs simultaneously, so he says nothing.  "Where do you want me to look?"

"My face," Dorian says.  "Directly beneath my left cheekbone."

That makes Rudy pause.  "Um, your--John touched your face?  Does he do that often?"

"No," Dorian says.  "Though the frequency is increasing.  It seems to be an attention-getting gesture.  I've told him it's unnecessary, but he says he can't tell I'm listening if I don't look at him."

"That doesn't make any sense," Rudy says.  His words are slow and his tone has changed.  External signs of processing delay, Dorian thinks, but he doesn't know why this one thing would increase the lag so noticeably.

"No," he says again.  "Like everything else John does."

"Like what?" Rudy asks, frowning.

"Everything," Dorian repeats.  Something has stopped Rudy's processes entirely, preventing him from keeping up.  "Can you run the recalibration now?"

"Right, yes," Rudy says.  He doesn't stop frowning.  "Of course."

The calibration is successful.  When Rudy rests his fingers on Dorian's cheek, the temperature matches his bioscan exactly.  Dorian thanks him, and Rudy nods.  He looks like he has something else to say, but then, he often does.

John

"What I'm saying is," John tells him, gesturing violently with his glass, "it's the principle of the thing.  You get that?"

"No," Dorian says.  He reaches out to push John's hand down onto the bar.  John tries to jerk away but Dorian doesn't let him go.  "Please stop waving around potentially breakable projectiles."

"Project--I'm not gonna throw it," John argues.  His arm relaxes anyway, and Dorian's grip eases.  "Jesus.  If you wanted to hold my hand, you could've just said."

Dorian raises an eyebrow.  "Is that something you'd be receptive to?"

John snorts.  "None of your damn business."  He picks up the glass with his other hand and finishes the drink--his first, and Dorian was going to count but when John sets the glass down again he just says, "Time to go."

This is atypical enough that Dorian doesn't move, and John is standing over him before Dorian realizes he means it.  He looks up in time to catch John's smile.  It vanishes immediately, and John's gaze flickers away.  "You want to drive?"

Dorian stands up.  The question was clearly directed at him, so he puts his fingers on John's face and presses gently until John looks back at him.  "Yes," Dorian says.

"Don't do that here," John mutters.  He doesn't pull away until Dorian drops his hand.  He should have realized the gesture might only be appropriate in certain social situations.

They walk to the car in silence, but John hasn't given him the keys so they both end up next to the driver's side door.  Dorian holds out his hand pointedly.  "Did you mean that?" John blurts out.  "Back there?"

He seems agitated, so Dorian doesn't ask.  "Of course," he says.  He hasn't done anything deliberately deceptive since he let Valerie believe the coffee on her desk this morning was from her MX.

"Okay," John says.  "Okay."  It's not keys in Dorian's hand then, it's John's fingers, curling around his own.  They feel warmer than they should.  Dorian wants to look down but John's crowding him and his face is very close.

"So," John whispers, and Dorian can feel breath against his skin.  He feels John's other hand on his face, soft and hot and those temperature readings can't be correct.  Why is he touching Dorian's face when Dorian is already looking at him?

Then John's lips are on his, and only now does he understand how completely he misread the gesture.  Those touches weren't a request for attention at all.  They were an invitation.  John was inviting this all along and when Dorian responded he read it as reciprocation.

John is kissing him, tentative and trusting and all because he thinks Dorian knows how to respond.  He thinks Dorian understands.  He thinks Dorian wants this and that part, at least, is completely and irrevocably true.

Dorian lifts his free hand to John's face.  He runs his thumb over John's cheek, very carefully.  He kisses John back.  When he feels the fingers curled around his relax a little, he thinks he must have gotten it right.

He's never been so glad that John has no idea what he's doing.