Bullets were flying everywhere and the smoke blinded them. Dorian could still shoot, obviously, with all his sensors and a particularly accurate vision, but John was shooting blindly, vaguely trying to emulate Dorian in hopes of hitting someone. They were surrounded and reinforcements would still take a few minutes to arrive. They were screwed. John could feel a panic attack starting, the familiar situation was almost overtaking his mind, but he needed to maintain control.
Then everything happened too fast. In one minute he was shooting, and in the other he was thrown to the ground, with Dorian's body over him, and he could hear sirens approaching. The criminals were fleeing, but his partner was still motionless on top of him. He realized that something was wrong.
He rolled him to the side in search of the problem, and the answer was obvious. Dorian was deactivated; he didn't know how to put this in another way. And the cause could only be the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Again his memory was lacking pieces because he didn't see the shot and didn't even remember how he got on the floor.
He shook Dorian gently, then more forcefully. No, this couldn't be happening. He couldn't be deactivated, couldn't be... dead. Not like this, not now, not so soon, not before...
"Dorian!" He cried out slapping his face. "Dorian! Wake up! Fucking wake up! Don't even think of leaving me like this!" his slaps, as well as his screams, became increasingly desperate.
However, Dorian didn't answer. He wouldn't answer, he couldn't.
"Wake up Dorian! You can't leave me like this! I love you, dammit! I can't... no... you can't ... don't…" his speech was increasingly incoherent, and he felt the tears starting to form.
Dorian 's eyes widened . "Wow , that's was one hell of an abrupt shutdown! I had to run a general check with the emergency system and repair the... Wait, you just said you loved me?"
Up until that point, he hadn't realized the significance of his words, but now he couldn't deny it. Still, the thought caused him some irritation.
"I thought you were dead! " He yelled angrily.
"So you only love me if I'm dead? I didn't think of you as a necrophiliac. If you prefer, I have a subroutine that..." Dorian began with his usual sass.
"You know it wasn't what I meant you idiot."
Dorian's lights began to twinkle and his body seemed to crash. Once the tremors stopped, he pulled John for a quick kiss before commenting : "I don't want to ruin all this moment of confessions, but I need urgent repairs. So how about you get Rudy first and then get me a place to sleep tonight that isn't full of soulless cops?". John was already moving away, muttering something about sarcastic partners and what to do with them, when Dorian decided to yell "Oh, I love you too, and you don't even need to be dead for me to say that.".