A/N: Something I wrote over the winter break.
The sewers were dark and dank, and John's lurching footsteps echoed wetly along the dripping tunnels. Their last flare had gone out an hour ago, and Dorian's weakly flickering circuits were the only light source left. John's hand met something slimy and identifiable on the wall, and he flinched slightly before pressing on resolutely. Every now and then, he paused to hitch Dorian's arm higher over his shoulders, tightening his grip around his partner's waist with a dogged determination.
"Go on without me," Dorian would inevitably say every time they stopped, his voice a rattling, broken whisper in the dark.
"Shut the hell up," John would tell him, and they kept moving. The blackness smelled like urine and worse, the occasional clank or muffled scuttle ringing through the walls. They were under an older part of the city now, John hedged, where the maintenance crews didn't bother scoping and the ladders were rusted through. He wondered briefly if he should double back, and decided it'd be worse to try looping around in the dark. They'd come this far, after all.
"We're lost," Dorian said at length, his legs tripping uselessly in the shallow puddles underfoot as his synapses froze and jerked.
"I know exactly where we are," John growled uncertainly. "Stop talking and- and just get better, you hear?"
Dorian laughed quietly and didn't say anything for a long time. John could only hope that he was doing what he'd been told. To be honest, and he hated himself for even thinking it, he wasn't even sure if Dorian could get better. The dealers had emptied a good two clips into the android's back, and things were sparking and fizzing and broken inside Dorian. Things John didn't know how to fix, and he hated not knowing even more.
There was a muted light ahead, a maintenance light strip that hadn't broken down yet, and he gravitated towards it clumsily. Dorian was no lightweight, and he'd busted something in his synthetic leg when the android had shoved him down the shaft. The blast overhead had blocked the entrance and blown out Dorian's navigation, so they were, put quite plainly in a voice that sounded unnervingly like John's great-grandmother, screwed six and a half ways to hell.
John halted at the light strip, a flickering, greenish thing half covered in mold, and leaned his shoulder against the wall with a groan. Dorian hung against his side, limp and- not useless, John thought fiercely.
"Sorry," Dorian mumbled, and then he was slipping downward too fast for John to catch. John bit back a curse, turning awkwardly so that Dorian at least came to rest against the wall, and managed to wrestle him into a semi-upright slouch. His leg creaked warningly, and he knelt down with a muttered curse, rubbing at the joint.
There was a long gouge along Dorian's left cheek from a stray bullet, oozing purple and blue discharge down to his jaw, and John reached out unthinkingly to wipe it away. Dorian caught his hand, fingers grasping at his shakily, and shook his head. "No. M'good." His voice cracked and dissolved into static briefly, and John swallowed.
He didn't let go of Dorian's hand, rubbing his thumb absently over the stiff digits. "You're cold," he said quietly. "Is that normal?"
"No." Dorian tilted his head back against the wall and looked at him. The sickly light made his eyes murky and dark, casting shadows on a face that had never been anything but light. "You think we're going to make it, John?"
John grunted noncommittally and ran a hand through his hair wearily. "Don't talk like that. 'Course we are."
Dorian squeezed his fingers and John thought he might have smiled, but the darkness hid his expression.
They continued on after a few minutes longer, John bending beneath Dorian's arm and heaving him upright with a grunt of exertion. They swayed for a moment, Dorian's hand clutching John's shirt and sparks of electricity stinging feebly through his jacket.
"Let's play a game," Dorian said unexpectedly, as they stumbled along. John concentrated on walking in a straight line, his leg screaming beneath him. "A question game," Dorian added, when John didn't answer. "We'll go back and forth. You go first."
John snorted. "What a gentleman." He thought for a moment, if only to humor Dorian. "All right...favorite color."
"Green," Dorian said promptly, and John wondered distantly why it wasn't blue. "Who was your first kiss?"
"Damn it, man, you're supposed to warm up to those." John gave a huff of distracted amusement. Something ran lightly across his foot and he hoped sincerely that it was nothing more than an overlarge cockroach. "Uhhhhh, Sandy Goldman," he said vaguely, remembering something of a cool summer day and nervously chapped lips. "In fifth grade. Her dad was an engineer."
"Was she nice?" Dorian asked, sounding genuinely curious, and John glanced at him, hobbling along at John's side, before answering.
"You've had your question. My turn." He scrambled for a likely question. "Why d'you drop your gun up there? You could've taken out the lot of them."
"He was aiming at you," Dorian said plaintively. "The gun was deadweight."
"And now you're screwed up," John snapped and regretted it instantly when Dorian fell silent. "Sorry. Didn't mean that. You're not..." He flailed mentally. Not screwed up. Not deadweight. Not a burden.
I can still carry you.
"It's okay," Dorian said quietly, but he had always been a rotten liar and he wasn't any better now. "Chocolate or vanilla?"
"Mint."
"That's gross, man."
"Hey, don't knock it. Cats or dogs?"
"Aw, see, that's not even fair. I'm gonna say cats, just to piss you off."
The talking helped, John had to admit. He could pretend they were back in their cruiser on patrol, Dorian's crappy music playing in the background and his mug of coffee in the holder beside him. He could pretend that Dorian was laughing and smiling and unbroken, his skin still smooth where bullet holes now riddled it. Eyes cleared of underground shadows.
"First love?"
"Thought we covered that one already." John shifted his grip on Dorian's wrist, his fingers cramping and his arm straining from the android's weight.
"That was your first kiss. Who was the first girl you ever wanted to take home to your parents and say, this is the one I'm going to marry?" Dorian sounded too serious for such a question, but it was too dark for John to see his expression.
He thought of dark hair and milk chocolate eyes and a smile wide enough to rival the setting sun. His stomach twisted with a lurch that was neither pleasant nor painful, but an uncomfortable gray area. "Pass."
"You can't do that."
"Dorian." Maybe his tone was warning enough, because Dorian didn't press the subject. There was a quiet moment during which John realized he was waiting. "All right, what about you? Any robo chicks out there ever give your carburetor worked up?"
"Pass," Dorian said coolly.
"Hey, now-"
"You changed the rules first. Just playing along."
And John wondered if this was really a game anymore. Somewhere along the line, it felt like something had shifted without him knowing, and damn it if that wasn't the two of them in a nutshell.
"Hey, John?" Dorian said abruptly, and his voice was strange. John halted immediately. "What?" The air was still and damp, and the darkness tasted like lightning and copper. "Can you put me down?"
John hesitated, then towed the two of them over to the wall. Dorian's lights were still glowing, though they were ebbing alarmingly low by now. He sat Dorian down, wincing at the heavy thunk of his locked limbs against the concrete, and squatted down in front of him. "You all right?"
"I think I love you, John." Dorian wasn't looking at him when he spoke, but John wasn't sure of anything anymore in this dark underground hell. "I just wanted you to know."
A heartbeat later.
"I'm sorry."
The lights went out. John forgot how to breathe. "Dorian?"
Silence.
"Dorian?" It was pitch dark, and John was more lost than ever. He shifted forward and reached up blindly, hands sliding over cold synthetic skin. He fumbled at Dorian's face, gripping his jaw between numb fingers. "Goddamn it, Dorian, don't do this." He was starting to panic. He couldn't remember the last time he had cared so much, been so fucking scared. He shook Dorian's shoulders helplessly. "Dorian, please. We're going to make it. I'll carry you out if I have to, so- so just..."
He closed his eyes, and it made little difference. "Hey, it's your turn, Dorian. Ask me...ask me if I love you too, damn it."
Dorian said nothing, and John pressed his mouth shakily to his forehead in what might have been a kiss under the sky. Under the earth, though, there were no eyes to see and no words to call it what it was. "Don't die," he muttered, and told himself that the stinging in his eyes was just sweat, though it was too cold for that.