Common Law and Almost Human AU:
This wasn't the bot shop with Rudy and his whirring clanking machines. This was a hospital. There were disinfectants and soaps and doctors and people dying. There were people dying. He didn't like that feeling. The feeling that there was something he couldn't control. He couldn't stop this if he wanted to. Kennex glanced down at the plastic bag of items the young woman handed him.
"Thank you…" His eyes dropped down to her chest where the name tag sat.
"Katharine."
The girl smiled, cheeks burning bright, blotchy red. She couldn't be more than an intern, he thought. The blush made her look young enough to be his daughter.
She tucked her mouse brown hair behind one ear, the trailing strands that escaped her pony tail and said, "Molly, actually. I'm just borrowing her coat."
Kennex nodded and glanced around. That was a very bad train of thought to follow for a man in his forties. It was a little too late to start thinking about children.
He crinkled his nose as a door opened behind him, the smell of preservative and ash permeating the air. God, he hated hospitals, especially the morgue. It reminded him that he would be here eventually and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't some bot that they could put back together if he still had a functioning personality chip.
Suddenly, Molly reached around searching for a moment before presenting him with a digi-board. She held out a pen and gave the usual spiel about confidentially and privacy.
"Sign here."
He signed with the usual speed and brevity, John W. Kennex. She retrieved the board and synced it over with her computer. She tapped the screen, reading the on screen instructions that followed the questionnaire he was presented with as he waited for her to return with the personal affects.
The edge of her mouth dropped a little as she read. "I'm sorry for your loss, officer."
He nodded. The ashes would be buried in a little plot on the opposite side of the city, next to another urn of a man who passed a few years earlier. He tried not to think too much on the fact that all this was presented as an option to him. All of this was planned and he never even knew. He didn't want to know then, and it was a jarring thing to know now.
He nodded and stepped out. "Thank you."
Dorian, odd in his "casual" wear, sat awkwardly in the car. He looked around, mildly confused as John hopped in, powering on the engine and driving, more swerving, out of the parking lot and onto the road. A plastic package landed in his lap. He stared down at the blue wrapping and processed through the material: keys to a house, another set for a car, a wallet with a few cards and some money, a white data card labeled "Kennex", and a cellular phone. He surveyed his partner's elevated rates of norepinephrine and epinephrine and the resulting increase in heart rate and breathing.
"John, you appear to be disturbed. Has something happened?"
John slowed the car to something under the legal limit on the highway and kept his eyes on the road. "Nothing."
Dorian sighed, a human sound. His tone was chiding as he said, "Your negative energy is really radiating, man."
Dorian paused, waiting for a response. Other than a twitch in his jaw, John showed no sign of even hearing the DRN's words. Dorian processed that filing away into the box, that grew increasingly fuller every day, labeled "John Kennex".
"You can't keep it all bottled up. It's not good for you."
Kennex glanced down, looking away from the horizon for a moment, to see the pavement disappear under his wheels. "My dad, he's dead."
Dorian tapped into his files. "Your father was listed as deceased thirteen years ago."
"My biological father," John corrected. He stared on, green eyes not straying from the dark ground and cars around him. "He and my mom didn't get along so much and they got a divorce. James was my step-father."
Dorian created a new file in his hard drive correcting the file labeled "James Kennex" to "step-father" status. The blank file sat waiting for new information. He asked, "What was his name?"
"Wesley Mitchell."
He input the name into the server. A barrage of data filled his system. The profile filled with photos, track records, and family records. He updated "Alex Kennex" in the meanwhile, adding her first marriage and rewriting the points in Kennex's file as they came up.
"LAPD," he mused, running through the terabytes of information. It appeared that Detective Mitchell and his partner had a very strong success rate.
Kennex switched lanes onto the off ramp that put them in the quarter near the station. He smirked at the name and drawled, "One of the best. Best collar rate that side of the watershed back when he could still run with the cops."
More quietly, he added, "Crap father though."
Dorian nodded. He paid special attention to the odd little note, apparently a post-it that made its way into the digitization process, on the file.
"When to couples' counseling, all is well," it read.
He found that odd. Couples counseling must not have worked if they sign divorce papers in the end. He asked, "Do you want to watch the card?"
Kennex pulled over into the parking lot of a little coffee shop that tried very hard to look authentically French. The name, "Café Gardon", or Roach Café, gave it away.
He sighed, "Yeah."
Dorian removed the card from the package and pressed it into the spare digi-screen he kept in his pocket. It was considered standard gear for a DRN who could not assimilate with the newer system displays.
The image of a pale, blonde man appeared on the screen. He looked to be somewhere in his forties, around the same age as John was now. He could barely recognize the rail thin man as John's father, but they shared some characteristics. They had the same canny look in their eyes and cheek bones.
The man spoke, voice measured and words well-articulated. He voice was a little tinny over the small speaker, but the authority and hesitation was clear in every inflection.
"I don't know if you know who I am. I only got to see you a few times as a kid. You might not remember me."
Mitchell rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. Dorian noted his shirt was buttoned up to his neck and hair was immaculate. His tie was a little askew and that was uncharacteristic according to the profile. The man went on, "I'm your father."
The man blinked grimacing and looking away from the screen in what appeared to be an uncharacteristic, according to the file, show of embarrassment and regret. "Someday, I'll say that without feeling like I ruined your life."
"Well, to be honest, I did." Mitchell leaned back in his chair and it became apparent he was in a hotel room somewhere. The lighting of the scene switched as the camera auto-corrected the lighting. He said, "I hope you can forgive me for that. I was a terrible father."
"Look. I…" A small sound registered in the background on Dorian's system. He matched it to the sound of footsteps of a man of about 150 pounds on a carpet. Mitchell went on, "I wanted to tell you that I still care about you. I might not show it, but I really do."
A voice radiated from the left speaker, lower-pitched, male, and annoyed. "Wes, stop acting like you have a stick up your…"
Detective Mitchell's eyes widened in shock. "Travis!"
The voice came again, placating in a snarky tone. "Calm down. Your kid's a twenty something. He'll survive a few cuss words."
The detective's affronted look transformed his face into something familiar. Dorian made a note of that. "That's still not a reason…"
A dark skinned figure appeared in the back ground, ducking to look into the camera before turning knowingly to Detective Mitchell. "He's probably said a few already."
"Okay, fine." The man didn't leave the view of the screen raising his eyebrows at Detective Mitchell's words.
"This is Travis. He's my partner." The dark skinned man winked into the camera before moving off screen. "I wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you for joining the force. I'm really happy that you've gone and done something that you're proud of, even if your mother doesn't approve."
"I want you to know that you'll be a great cop." The man looked down at his hands, twisting a ring on his hand. "You'll be better than I ever was."
He looked up from his hands and smiled into the camera, a wry twist of the lips on his right side. He shook his head, as if imagining the future his son would have. He smiled wider into the camera. "Take care."
Dorian felt his sensors pick up on the rapid beating of John's heart. His adrenaline and noradrenaline levels were lower now than before, but his elevated heart rate and breathing stayed up.
The voice came again. "Hurry up. It's your turn to drive. You know that Dr. Ryan hates it when we're late."
Dorian felt the information click. Oh, partners…
John leaned back in his seat. A hand going up to his face to rub his eyes and cheeks, rubbed the stubble along his jawline and breathed deeply. Dorian waited.
"I sent this back," John confessed. "He sent it to me after I passed the detective exam and I sent this back. How's that for letting go of bottled up emotions?"
Dorian processed that.
"Your father and his partner were very close."
John narrowed his eyes at him. One eyebrow went up. "That's the thing you notice?"
Dorian paused before responding. "Travis Marks and I have the same face."
"Yeah, isn't that a little freaky?" John looked away, searching for something comforting and not an emotional trigger, to rest his eyes on.
Dorian shrugged, because it really didn't bother him. "Not really. DRN's are built to be like humans. It would be natural to emulate good officers for their programs."
John opened the door. "This is some weird shit. I need a drink." Dorian watched Detective Kennex step into the lamentably named café and get in line to order a coffee. He turned his attention back to the white card. He had noticed some other writing on the opposite side of the card as he plugged it in earlier. This time, he hooked it up to his own system, viewing the footage.
Travis Marks appeared on the screen smiling jovially in a way that looked like something else. He wasn't happy.
Detective Marks took a very intimate position with the camera, unlike Mitchell who had it on a table aimed at himself from the waist up. The screen was shaky, and the image low quality, probably from the cheap built in laptop camera. He filled the screen from the shoulders up. His face was close to the screen, like he could see his viewer through it.
"Hey, if you're reading this then you must be a DRN, a very specific DRN." The edges of the man's mouth twitched up in a smile. "You're DRN-0167."
He took a deep breath before spreading his arms in a "what can you do" gesture.
"Hey, Dorian. I'm your dad."
The man dropped his hands laughing. He cradled his face in his hands, cheeks burning. Dorian knew that movement well. He had wanted to, instinctively, make that same motion, but found it odd. He couldn't hide a blush if he couldn't blush to start with. "I thought I would say that to a kid eventually, but this is so much more awkward."
He grimaced into the camera. "When I was called in for the synthetic soul program, they asked me a bunch of questions, the probing kind that you get in the system."
He smiled gently, softly at the camera. His voice dropped to a whisper. "I answered them all because I knew that you would be born. You're patterned on me."
He sat up straighter, like he was preparing to preach at the pulpit. He fixed his eyes on the camera, and though his systems and logic told him otherwise, Dorian felt that the man was speaking to him. Travis said, "But, you are not me. You have your own will. I don't care what any of those assholes tell you. You have a soul. A soul is an existence. If you are anything like me, you've done that."
His voice dropped to near silence as he said, "You've questioned whether or not your existence was worth it."
A little louder he said, lovingly as a father would to his son, "You are worth it."
He smiled. "If you're seeing this, then you are right where you need to be. I talked with Detective Maldonado and she said she'd pass you on to John when the time came."
"John's a lot like his dad," Travis went on. "He's got a very rigid system. He's anal retentive. He falls desperately in love with the wrong people and gets hung up on them afterwards." The man shakes his head at the last one, laughing in little puffs of breath.
"The only reason why Wes is still standing is the fact I don't let him crumble under the weight he puts on his own shoulders. I'm asking you to take care of John. He needs you like Wes needed me."
"He's just like his dad. He'll never show it," he said. Travis looked down at his hands for a moment he appeared to be studying a the banded ring that Dorian spotted when the man placed his hand on the back of the chair earlier. "Deep inside, he needs you and you know it. You sense it."
He looked up at the camera, green-grey eyes blazing and smile glowing.
"Dorian, whenever you reach the other side, I want you to look for me. There is no doubt in my mind that we won't meet in this lifetime. But, you have a soul and I'll see you on the other side."
Dorian powered down the camera slowing his "body's" reaction to meeting his "father". There was a reason, he knew, why protocol did not allow a synthetic soul, especially those like his own, to meet their base maker, their parent. It wrecked a system. He held it in, reminding himself that, yes, his father was dead. Yes, he had never met the man. Yes, that man was still so proud of him.
So proud it hurt
John slipped back into the car, grimacing as he sipped the coffee. He looked over to Dorian, taking in the look of awe and shack on his face. The emotion sloughed off the moment the unit registered his appearance, but he knew that there was something else, something about that disk made his partner nervous. That was Dorian's choice to say.
The DRN spoke, mellowed in tone, almost reverent. "He's in a better place."
John pulled out of the parking lot.
"Yeah…"
Wall of disclaimers on my userpage.
At the start, I was a little against Almost Human because I couldn't stand to imagine Michael Ealy playing cop opposite anyone other than Warren Kole.
Then I saw the show. Dorian is so different from Travis. He has so many of his own doubts and worries. He's such a dynamic character and I think he deserves to know that he has a purpose other than his programming, that he is loved and means something to the people around him. Especially in the light of "Skin".
So here is my meager offering. I hope you enjoyed it. Happy journey, dear traveler.
Also on my AO3 page (same account name).