"You're in love with him."

She says it so casually, so nonchalantly, barely a flicker of an eyelash in his direction, that John almost misses it mid-rant. As it is, he freezes with his hands still raised in the air and gapes incredulously.

"No."

Valerie gazes at him evenly and sips at her coffee, still eyeing him over the edge of her cardboard cup. "Hm," she offers thoughtfully.

"He's a robot," John points out, feeling the first stirrings of panic rising in him.

"Hmmmm."

"A guy robot," he adds, squiggling his hands in a vague male-ish gesture. "With all the parts and everything."

Her expression takes on a sense of long-suffering. "It's 2048, John."

"It's Dorian," John says desperately. "Come on, you can't think-"

"It's Dorian," she echoes, and there's some sympathy in the little pat she gives his hand. "It's always been him, hasn't it?"

She gets up before he can answer and walks away with her cup of coffee, leaving John sitting stupefied at his desk.

He hates the psycho-analyzing, he decides moments later, when his brain's finally unlocked enough to start complaining. Smart is one thing, but this….he doesn't need this.

He sips at his cooling coffee and tries to remember what he was even talking about to begin with. Something about his last case, the way Dorian nearly wrecked the bust by barging in alone and skimpily armed. The coffee suddenly sours on his tongue and he sets down the cup with a dry swallow.

"He'll need a full diagnostic run-through as well as new plating. His entire right side is dysfunctional, John," Rudy told him, disappointment and annoyance thickening his accent to the heights of condescension. "Really, you should be more careful with him."

"He went in by himself! What was I supposed to do- cuff him to the car?"

Rudy looked at him then, gave a little sigh, and closed the visual comm.

It's been three hours now, and John looks across his desk at the empty chair tucked to the side. Three hours without Dorian. It feels strange now, like when he wakes up in the morning and realizes for what feels like the millionth time that his leg is somewhere else. Still there, still functional, but gone, and it still feels funny no matter how many times he tells himself that he'll have it back soon.

"Hey."

He looks up, startled, and blinks up at Valerie. She's ready to leave for the night, he notes distractedly, her coat tucked under her arm and the cup in her hand steaming with a fresh refill. "Hey."

She tilts her head and considers him for a moment. "I'm headed out. You going to stay for a bit?"

John looks about his cluttered desk, lingers on the paperwork he's supposed to have done by 0900 tomorrow, and shrugs. "No. I'm waiting for a call."

Valerie suddenly looks more understanding that he thinks she should, and he waits suspiciously as she fiddles with her cup and gives him a knowing nod. "You know, you should probably go home. Rudy'll have him patched up by the morning."

"I'm not waiting for him," John says too loudly, too quickly. He palms his phone and slides it adamantly in his pocket. "I'm not," he repeats for emphasis.

She nods again and absently swipes a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'll see you tomorrow."

John grunts in reply, busying himself with straightening the stack of tablets in front of him. He hears Valerie's quiet steps as she leaves, and he glances up just as the ends of her brown hair disappear out the glass doors. John sighs and lets the tablets clatter back down to the desk surface, sagging back in his seat.

He doesn't think about what Valerie says, because it's a crock of sentimental bullshit and he typically doesn't go along with that particular brand of bullshit. His phone is silent and still in his pocket, and he tries to not think about that, either.

"Dammit," he mutters, kicking his chair away from the desk and pushing himself to his feet. Why the hell did he have to go and get himself shot up?!

It's late by the time he leaves, the night patrol of MXs staring him down as he crosses the lobby. The night is cool, but tolerable, with only the occasional breeze sending chills across his skin, and he flips up his jacket collar absently as he rounds the corner and-

He stops dead in the middle of the pavement, hands frozen where they still clutch at his collar. "You idiot."

Dorian's lounging against the side of his car, hands in his pockets and legs crossed at the ankles. He looks up from his contemplation of the sidewalk cracks at the sound of John's accusation, and a grin splits his face. "John. I was waiting for you."

"Idiot," John repeats, but his eyes are automatically dropping down to Dorian's chest, taking in the way his jacket is pulled carefully over the bullet holes in his torn shirt. "Aren't you supposed to be at Rudy's?"

"I have a follow-up in the morning. He's replaced most of my plating already, see-" Dorian makes to roll up the edge of the shirt and blinks when the edge rips off in his hand.

"Nice," John snorts, shouldering past him to get to the car door. "You snuck out, didn't you?"

"I wouldn't," Dorian says with a note of disapproval. "That would be against protocol. And rude."

"Whatever." John pauses, then sighs and shakes his head, leaning against the open door. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"I took a cab." While John tries to clear the image of Dorian attempting public transport on his own out of his mind, Dorian takes the opportunity to step closer. "I wanted to talk to you."

John is definitely not hearing Valerie's voice right now. He clears his throat and eases the door open wider with his foot, avoiding looking in Dorian's direction. "All right."

"Are we going to your place?" Dorian questions, as soon as John eases in beside him in the driver's seat and slams the door shut.

"No," John says adamantly, and he sits back and crosses his arms sternly across his chest. "We're talking here."

"That's fine." Dorian sounds calm, unworried, and it pisses John off. He tightens his arms and settles for glowering impatiently. Dorian doesn't see him- or if he does, he doesn't show it- as he gazes down sedately at his hands in his lap.

"You're angry with me."

"Damn right I am," John growls, and this isn't how it's supposed to go, he's supposed to be happy to see Dorian or something, but all he is now is mad. "You're an idiot."

"You've said," Dorian tells him mildly, and John punches the steering wheel. It hurts his hand, but it gives him an excuse to swear loudly and blink his rapidly watering eyes. "John-"

"What did you not understand about, 'Stay on standby, we've got it under control,' huh?" John demands, flexing his stiffening knuckles. "I know we do crazy stuff, I'm not going to excuse that shit, but when I tell you to do something, damn it Dorian, that's what you do! So why the hell did you go in there tonight?"

"I saw a chance and I took it," Dorian answers, sounding surprised that John hasn't come to the same conclusion. "We would have lost a hostage otherwise."

"You almost died," John snaps, slapping his hand against the seat in mounting frustration. "And maybe getting shot for you is different than it is for me, but dead's dead!"

Dorian looks at him carefully, the streetlight painting a bright orange stream down one side of his face, leaving one cheek in shadow. "It's what you would have done."

"It's okay for me," John says dismissively, but it's the wrong thing to say. Dorian's voice doesn't get louder when he answers, but the tension in the car rises a little bit and John suddenly knows that he's upset him.

"That's messed up, man," Dorian says quietly, his eyes locked on his hands. "It's not like that."

"You're a good partner, Dorian." John swallows and stares out the windshield at the dark street, feeling his chest tighten and his heart falter uncertainly. "A great cop. One day I'll be old and useless and you'll…..you'll still be doing your job, like you've always wanted to."

He's been thinking about this for a while now, ever since he looked in the bathroom mirror one morning and found more gray hairs streaking at his temple. His body aches more now after a chase, takes longer to recover when he's injured. One day, he's going to take a hit and not be able to stand, probably be sent off into quiet retirement that he'll hate. And Dorian…..he's never going to change.

Valerie's voice is overwhelmingly loud now, and he almost misses Dorian's reply.

"Hey, that's not fair." Dorian sounds unusually upset, and John glances over in surprise. Dorian's looking at him, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth twitching in that funny way when he's trying to sort through his feelings, and John tenses apprehensively. "You can't say stuff like that."

"Well, it's true."

"I'm not better than you, John. You-" Dorian cuts himself off, seems to backtrack a little, then plunges forward again. "Just because I can take a few more bullets doesn't make you a worse cop. Or a worse person. You're the greatest man I know," he adds earnestly, and John feels himself flushing instantly.

"Shut up," he says automatically.

"I mean it." Dorian suddenly seems intent on pushing his point, and John averts his gaze desperately. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"Jesus, Dorian, stop it-"

"You say the nicest things, even when you don't want to, and you like me even if you say you don't, and maybe that's messed up, but you really are a messed up person, John-"

"Dorian."

Dorian blinks at him expectantly, and John takes a deep breath.

"I…." His voice breaks and words fail him, not for the first time. There's a reason that he's never been the talking type, that he's always gone in swinging and shooting before stopping to ask questions. "Dorian…"

Dorian's eyebrows twitch upwards. "What?" He tilts his head, leaning in closer with John probably without even realizing. Or maybe he's realized it all along.

"Just….screw it," John says, and he leans forward and kisses Dorian. He's more terrified than he remembers ever being, even worse than running into a building full of suspected terrorists or taking down a homicidal killer bot- that was easy. This is…this is something else. He's so freaked out that he feels almost like he's going to throw up,

Dorian's lips are dry and give way with a surprisingly naturalness that makes John's heart do stupid things, but the android sits motionless through the kiss, and John pulls back quickly after another second of awkward silence.

"Sorry," he says, his voice jumping slightly with suppressed nerves. "I just- sorry, that was stupid."

Dorian tilts his head a little, the side of his face lighting up briefly, and John's so distracted by the flicker that he doesn't notice Dorian moving until he feels the fingers wrapping around the back of his neck.

"Do that again," Dorian says softly, then interrupts himself by hauling John across the seats instead. The kiss is a little clumsy, a little dry, the movements awkward like Dorian's copying someone else, but John feels a spark that he doesn't think is completely due to Dorian's wiring and he leans into the kiss with a stifled noise.

Dorian's other hand comes up to rest against John's jaw, holding his head in place as he maps out John's lips carefully, coming to rest with his forehead against John's temple. He's not breathing hard, which should offend John a bit, but he can't bring himself to be annoyed when Dorian's looking at him like that.

"I think I love you," Dorian says, and it's not fair, it's not fair at all, when John's the one about to get a heart attack and Dorian's just staring at him with those stupidly expectant eyes.

"You think?" John croaks, once he's managed to squash down the mess of emotions that he's wrangled himself into.

"I don't know," Dorian amends, and it's the first time John's ever heard him sound this unsure. "Is that bad?"

John huffs out a startled laugh and shakes his head, his nose bumping into Dorian's. "No, it's not. It's not." He tries to pull back, put some reality in the space between them, but Dorian clings onto him like he's forgotten he's holding on, and he finds himself kissing back instead.

"You scared the shit out of me today," he says, when he can draw breath again. "Seriously, Dorian, don't- don't do that again."

Dorian kisses him again instead of answering, yanking at his jacket insistently, and John shifts awkwardly in his chair, trying to turn sideways and press closer. He hasn't answered, but John doesn't want to hear it anyway, and he buries himself in this moment.

Because if it's all going to disappear one day, if a case goes bad and a bullet flies the wrong way, if he wakes up one day and Dorian's not there…he'll still have this. So he pushes his face into the side of Dorian's neck, breathes in the edge of electricity and steel, and closes his eyes.