Fic: Understanding

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Understanding
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Friendship.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 556
Pairings/Characters: John Kennex, Dorian, Rudy Lom.
Synopsis: In which John finally gleans some understanding on why the DRN's were decommissioned and he finds that he can relate to their reasons more than he expected.
Comments: Written in response to cottoncandy_bingo prompt: compliment. First try writing for Almost Human, hopefully no one is too out of character. Characters are not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.

"What was the problem with the DRN's?" Kennex asks one day, when he and Rudy are alone in the lab, waiting for Dorian's latest update to finish processing. He knows he's asked before, back when Rudy had explained the decommissioning to him as he was first waking Dorian for him. Extreme emotional responses, he knew, was one answer, but he had a feeling there was more to it than that.

Rudy shoots a nervous glance at the statistics running across the screen, but they all suggest that Dorian is presently offline and unaware of his surroundings. With a sigh, he answers, "they... got attached."

John smashes down on the fleeting thought that the DRN's probably weren't the only ones getting attached, if Dorian is any indication and aims for indifference when he asks, "So?"

"So, they chose their partners over the well-being of others in extreme situations. Exactly what they aren't supposed to do. They're supposed to be logical and data-driven, like the MX's are, but Synthetic Soul gave the DRN's emotions, to make them more appealing to the humans, and then the powers that be got mad when they actually started using said emotions just because it wasn't how they'd anticipated things would go."

"They were too human. They made human choices."

"That was the argument that was made, yes."

John frowns, because that lack of humanity was the primary reason he hated synthetics before Dorian. That damned soulless tin can had left him and his last partner to die because the chances were slim, others had a higher likelihood of getting out of the ambush alive. And John understands that, in theory, but he's already proven that he can't see his partner hurt and walk away and he doubts that would be any less true for Dorian than it was for Pelham. Why should the DRN's be penalized for feeling the same way?

The computer beeps, signaling its completion, and that's enough to pull John out of his own head. "That's stupid."

"I agree," Rudy says, freeing Dorian, who's stirring now, from the wires he'd been hooked to as he runs some last diagnostics, "but few others do so I must urge you to be careful."

John shrugs off the warning with his usual gusto, with a flippant reply of, "I'm always careful." Dorian gives him a quizzical look, but follows when John makes for the stairs out of the lab without question. "C'mon," John says, "we've got a case."

---

Later, when they're in the squad car en route to a triple homicide across town, John looks over and catches sight of his partner with this stupid dopey smile on his face. That's never good. Narrowing his eyes, he asks, "What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"It's just that... I was curious what you and Rudy were talking about while I was offline. Worried, really, since all I heard was 'be careful,' so I downloaded the footage that was recorded," he says, ignoring the slightly irritated scowl that appears on John's face (because when is there not a slightly irritated scowl on John's face?) because he'd been listening in on his seemingly private conversation, "And I have to say... it means a lot. Thank you, John."

"For what?" The man growls out, eyes flashing back to the road as they head to their call out.

"Understanding."