Chapter Text
It was a fact about most humans that they needed boundaries. They liked their privacy, their personal bubbles, their secrets, and John was no exception.
Dorian understood it, to a certain extent: living with personality-less, feature-less, uniform MX’s who stared at him with their lifeless eyes as if he, too, were an object like them would drive any man (android) to insanity. Still, humans had their own special brand of pickiness, which manifested itself in angry retorts and defensive jokes every time their detailed line in the sand was crossed, and sometimes it made Dorian glad that he wasn’t human. Glad, that his synthetic body was not a canvas for his emotions the way a human’s was. For those who could see – and Dorian could see all too well – a human body was a written ledger of fears and furies, joys and embarrassments, written in the chemical and statistical responses picked up by Dorian’s scanners. With that came a certain vulnerability no human would admit to and that Dorian, for all his longing for humanity, did not envy.
And so Dorian kept a promise he’d made to John once: he didn’t turn his all-to-perceptive senses on any part of John’s body.
Well, except for the times when he did.
It’d started with the sex. It was one of those activities where Dorian felt strangely and completely out of depth. It was an ignorance he was not used to - he was used to having information, too much information, statistics and data flooding his synthetic brain at every instant. But here, in this realm of intimacy, he needed all the guidance he could get. However many instructions and facts he knew, however well he understood the physical processes of human arousal, he could never know how it felt, never share that experience in the true physical sense. He hadn’t an inkling of what reaction it elicited when he pressed his lips to skin softly or demandingly. He knew how to do everything in particular, but didn’t know what to do in general.
And so John had grudgingly agreed to let himself be read, scanned, understood when they were intimate. Had agreed that he would let his own body guide Dorian. And so Dorian’s sensors and scanners became his navigators through this strange realm of physicality, helped along by John’s verbal responses. They gave him the security to try and the fact (a fact he had so long doubted) that John truly wanted this, this strange thing between a human and a synthetic, that his moans and gasps were not just so many faked sounds, played as if on a recording.
It started like that, just Dorian reading John’s vitals to confirm the moan of pleasure when Dorian’s lips touched John’s body, Dorian sensing the arousal flooding through the human when he mouthed kisses along John’s jaw or closed his lips around the human’s erection. It told him that John liked the needy kisses as much as the soft, gentle ones, that he enjoyed the messy hand jobs and quick blow jobs they exchanged hectically. It reassured him that even without real penetration (which they had either not gotten to or wouldn’t - Dorian hadn’t really got the guts to ask yet), John enjoyed this, wanted it, needed it.
It also gave him a strange kind of familiarity with John. At any moment, he could recite what John’s vitals should be, including his resting heart rate, average blood pressure, and temperature. He knew every inch of John’s body, inside and out, both because he’s mapped it with his kisses and because he’s scanned it with his sensors. John muttered occasional complaints, but Dorian could tell (and not because he was cheating), that he was pleased by the attention.
The problem, however, is that John keeps getting into danger and giving Dorian other stupid reasons to invade his privacy, and between John’s privacy and his safety, he’d choose making sure that John’s all right any day. Even if it meant that, with Dorian’s very familiarity with the exact way John’s body manifested arousal, he got to find out embarrassing (for John, at least) facts, like the fact that John was aroused at the strangest, most inconvenient of times.
The first time he noticed that fact, they were investigating a murder scene. The trail of blood and DNA led under a car, which needed to be lifted. With a simple shrug, Dorian picked up and flipped the entire thing. Turning his head, he found John staring in shock, his mouth gaping open so wide a bird could fly inside. He looked so stunned that Dorian was almost worried. Dorian blinked in surprise himself and switched to his sensors for the merest millisecond, spurred on by a curiosity that got the better of him. A quick scan of John’s vitals revealed that, beneath the shock and surprise there was – arousal? Stifling his confusion, Dorian turned towards the evidence, with John joining him.
“Well? What do we have here?” John asked, and Dorian turned his sensors elsewhere. He filed the encounter away in his vast memory, to be retrieved when necessary but of no concern now.
The next time, John was actually in danger. True to his reckless nature, he’d ventured into a den of thieves and criminals on his own. “They don’t take too kindly to synthetics,” he’d said, as if Dorian were worried about his own danger when John’s safety was at stake. But, in his experience, arguing with John was about as useful as arguing with a wall, so he’d let it go. The result was John being tossed unceremoniously through the window, and secretly, Dorian was glad for an excuse to stay by his side to protect him from any more serious harm.
That more serious harm was coming. Dorian had no idea what John had done to get tossed through a window the first time he walked in, because he was good at this, at blending in with the lower elements of the city and pretending he wasn’t a cop but one of them. He did it perfectly. Dorian stood by him, attempting to appear as inconspicuous as possible. His easy smiles and easygoing manner weren’t useful here, so he let John do the talking. Someone caught on, however, and soon they had a riot on their hands, because, apparently, John had been exactly right and they didn’t take too kindly to synthetics.
Dorian surged into action immediately, his inhuman speed allowing himself to place his own body between John and those of the attackers. He was fast, taking on several at a time, but John wouldn’t be John if he didn’t get involved. With his inhuman hearing, he could hear the sound of a fist colliding with John’s face as he easily disposed of the pair of humans he was occupied with. By the time he was done, John was bloody, breathing heavily, and watching Dorian with, Dorian noted, interest; his lone opponent was lying on the floor with what John noticed was broken bones.
“Are you all right?” Dorian asks. John’s a little too occupied with cop stuff like seeking out the suspect they came here for and didn’t respond, leaving Dorian with no choice but to do a quick scan of John’s vitals.
He seems unharmed, his vitals exactly what Dorian would have expected - adrenaline, an elevated heartbeat, the endorphins released by what John would call an exhilarating fight. But there’s also arousal, in the dilation of his eyes, in the blood flowing to strange parts of his body, in the way that Dorian could almost read the anticipation in his body.
Perhaps, Dorian hypothesizes, John likes the exhilaration of a good fight. The human has a chronic inability to walk away from a confrontation; it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to suppose he liked the rush of adrenaline and danger. Perhaps he’s aroused by the fight, by the pain, by the atmosphere.
Or perhaps this data fits with a pattern Dorian’s begun establishing, a pattern that begin when he’d flipped a car.
That, too, he files away as something to ponder later, as the needs of the moment take over and he focuses his attention on what they came here for.
The third time confirms that Dorian’s data does, indeed, fit into a pattern. His brain was programmed to look for patterns – synthetic soul or no, his analytical qualities were above that of the average human being, and he noticed coincidences, trends, sequences, causes and events, where a human might only shrug and pass on. By itself, John’s arousal in a particular situation meant little, a scientific anomaly, perhaps. But three times, in situations that bore similarities to each other, similarities easily noticed by the analytical side of Dorian’s brain – well, three times was the charm.
In fact, considering how often the two of them ended up getting into danger, Dorian was surprised he hadn’t noticed the pattern earlier. As it was, it took him a couple of weeks from the discovery of the initial piece of data to finalize his hypothesis, and it happened because criminals had an affinity for explosive devices.
Seconds before this particular explosive device was about to blow, Dorian processed what was about to happen (slow! Too damnably slow for his abilities!). “Run!” he yelled at John, and it was a testament to their partnership that John listened. They ran for cover, but not fast enough, and in a last, desperate attempt, Dorian dove, covering John’s human body with his own more durable one. He felt shrapnel sinking into his back, an occurrence he noted with interest but without pain.
“Are you all right?” he asked John as silence fell around them.
John didn’t respond, and Dorian looked closely at the detective. He seemed fine, and it was only now that he realized how intimately close they were. Intimately close in a strange parody of the way their bodies molded together when they kissed and their hands roamed. But different, too, with Dorian pinning John to the ground, helpless beneath him, both his body and his hands insistent in keeping him still, immobile.
John didn’t answer, though he was conscious, his wide eyes staring at Dorian. Alarmed, Dorian scanned him, the act an instinctive one. His body flooded with relief at noting that John was unharmed; beyond the surprise and shock and ringing in his ears (which probably accounted for his lack of response), no harm done. But again, beneath the excitement and adrenaline, there was something else, too, a different set of responses visible to Dorian’s scanners. And, Dorian realized, as he looked at John with his vision rather than his sensors, that arousal was clearly visible without sophisticated equipment, in John’s eyes, in the way his hands has gripped Dorian’s arms, almost as if he wanted to continue this intimacy.
This time, instead of filing away the occurrence in his memory, he filed it away in the part of his brain where he kept a lengthy, robotic version of a to-do list. Assuming both of them got off this case alive, he had a working theory, extrapolated from pieces of data, and he would very much like a chance to test his hypothesis.
…
They do, as it turns out, get out of this case alive. It turns out to be a contract killer, intent on preserving his identity as well as clearly eliminating his targets. It involves Dorian throwing himself in front of a bullet and a congratulations/dressing-down from Maldonado about reckless risk-taking, but, in the end, they’re home safe.
They go for each other. It’s become their routine, after a case; each needs to feel the other’s body against his own, the reassurance that his partner is safe, sound, here. That something they have, born of wading together through danger, throws them close, and they cling to each other. They kiss, fast and desperate, and Dorian enacts his plan.
He slams John against a wall, hard, and John lets out a surprised sound as the wall collides with his back. Dorian holds him there, continuing to read John’s vitals as he always does, and the spike in arousal is immediate and obvious. John parts his lips in surprise, but before he has time to get a word out, Dorian seals his lips with his own. He monitors John’s body as he kisses him, his enjoyment of the kiss conflicting not-at-all with his more analytical observations. John’s hips stutter towards his; even held immobile, his body seeks Dorian’s, not simply aroused but also excited, expectant.
With a smooth movement, Dorian gathers John’s wrists, pinning each against his head. The motion, so simple Dorian barely dedicates any processing power to it, evokes another surge of arousal that floods John’s bloodstream. Pleased, Dorian smiles into the kiss they’re sharing. He prolongs the kiss, carefully monitoring John’s levels of oxygen – he can’t have his human pass out on him, after all. He does like John right at the edge, though, breathless from being kissed but not quite fainting, and when his sensors remind him that the oxygen in the human’s bloodstream is no longer at optimal levels, he finishes with a quick bite to John’s lower lip. The action elicits a small, pleased huff of breath from the human.
Encouraged, Dorian gathers both of the human’s wrists into one hand, pinning them still as he allows his other hand to slide down to John’s chest, whether to feel the heartbeat he can already sense or to hold him even more still, he does not know. That, too, is a motion requiring but an afterthought, and he melds their lips together as he adjusts their position so.
Then John begins to struggle. It’s completely wasted effort: John has no chance of getting free and he knows it. Nevertheless, he resists Dorian’s grip where his fingers are biting into the human’s wrists and holding them still. He twists beneath Dorian, attempting to resist the immoveable weight. And yet, strangely, he continues to return Dorian’s kiss, his arousal not tempered by his struggle.
Confused, Dorian breaks away.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, feeling lost at the conflicting signals.
“No, don’t – don’t stop.” John’s voice is hoarse; there’s just not quite enough breath in his body to give it its full strength, and Dorian eyes him with more confusion.
“Why are you struggling?” he asks.
John tilts his face away from Dorian, looking embarrassed. He’s not blushing, but Dorian can tell the embarrassment creeping up on him, the blood threatening to redden his cheeks.
Dorian stares at him, taking it all in.
“You like being helpless,” he says, surprised, though pleasantly so.
John raises his eyes tentatively to Dorian’s face, and that’s all the confirmation Dorian needs.
He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand it at all. He doesn’t get the appeal of fighting a losing battle or the arousal that experience evokes. Especially not in a man like John, who picks fights and flies recklessly into danger and will never take no for an answer. John’s belligerent, assertive, infuriating, and yet somehow willing to surrender all of those things to Dorian.
He doesn’t have the foggiest understanding of it.
But, as he’s discovered with John, understanding comes with time. There are many human idiosyncrasies that he’d never grasped until he spent his days with the detective, allowing understanding to leak slowly into his brain through exposure. . This, too, he thinks he’ll catch on to in time and with experience.
It’s that experience he pursues. Ignoring the tentative, almost shy look in John’s face, he resumes the position he’d broken away from, his hands finding their grip on human wrists as his lips seek John’s out again. The effect is immediate, a jolt of arousal shooting like electricity through the human body as John resumes his fruitless struggle. Dorian almost gets lost in each of the responses of John’s body; he finds himself experimenting, tightening his already-tight grip around the human’s wrists, changing the angle and pressure, adjusting the pressure he allows his own body to exert on John.
Like this, John is exposed, vulnerable to any deep, dark desire Dorian might have. The idea is infinitely tempting, and Dorian allows himself to give in to that temptation. Breaking away for only a millisecond, he hefts John’s body into his arms easily. John makes an undignified sound of surprise, but allows himself to be carried.
When they reach the bedroom, Dorian deposits John’s body onto the bed with equal ease, before climbing on it to tower above the human body splayed beneath him. Again, he pins John’s wrists, and this time the detective barely struggles, pinned down by the android’s weight. He’s exposed again, his body lying spread-eagled with a delicious expanse of skin that is all Dorian’s. John is helpless, and Dorian could do anything with it. Anything, like kiss every single inch of it while John squirms beneath him, begging Dorian to “please – fuck – I need.” He can ignore John’s every plea for relief and instead suck on every sensitive spot he’s found on John’s body until he brings tears of need to the human’s eyes.
It’s intoxicating. Dorian’s never felt actual intoxication, but the thinks the effect might be similar.
“You’re helpless, John,” he says. “I could do whatever I wanted, leave you desperate and unsatisfied for hours and you couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Dorian – “
“This is what you asked for, isn’t it?” Dorian can’t resist saying. Intoxication makes one say reckless things, after all, and he can’t resist this playful gloating, this revelry in the power that John’s never truly been able to give him before.
“Don’t you even think about it – “ John tries to protest, but it sounds half-hearted and unthreatening in his wrecked voice. Dorian laughs.
“What do you want, John?” he asks.
John’s eyes meet his. Dorian thinks he knows what John’s going to say.
“Can you – will you – “ he lets the words hang, uncertain.
“Say it, John.”
John stares at him, lips parted, for several seconds before he says the words.
“Fuck me.”
Dorian leans down, until his face is inches away from John’s. “Don’t you dare move a muscle,” he orders. Their eyes meet once again, and John nods. Satisfied, Dorian slips off the bed and walks into the bathroom, searching his way through several drawers. It takes a while (and he refuses to ask John; that would be inappropriate for the situation), but eventually he finds the lubricant that he knows John bought (he’d seen it, as much as John tried to hide it).
When he comes back into the bedroom, he stills in awe. John’s still spread-eagled on the bed, his skin flushed from excitement, with red blossoming all over his body from all those places Dorian’s lips had touched. He’s desperately hard, his cock beautifully erect even as the rest of John’s body is helplessly prone. His head is thrown back, his lips parted, their red matching that of John’s cheeks. His hands are placed, palm down, at each side, and a quick scan reveals him taking deep, slow, breaths, as he uses every ounce of willpower to remain still, his hands by his sides. His eyes are squeezed shut, and as he watches, John’s fingers dig into the sheets, clawing desperately at them to give them something to do besides give in to temptation.
It is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen. Beautiful, astounding, because entirely his, given to him freely.
John clearly hears his steps, for his eyes fly open as Dorian approaches the bed. They’re almost completely dark, a beautiful, liquid dark color that Dorian could drown in. John doesn’t beg with words, but those eyes do it for him.
Dorian doesn’t waste time on formalities; he resumes his place on the bed, settling between John’s spread legs. He makes quick work of preparing John, who thrusts eagerly back onto his fingers until Dorian places a hand on his hip, easily holding him still. John whines in protest at that, but Dorian only smiles and lets his fingers dig a little deeper into the skin of John’s hip.
When John’s prepared, Dorian slides in with one easy movement. John moans in relief as he feels Dorian fill him, and again attempts to thrust back, further onto Dorian’s cock. Again, Dorian holds him still. It’s easy, laughably easy, only the tiniest percentage of his strength required to hold John down against the mattress. He can tell the human is nearing the end of his endurance, though, and he wastes no more time teasing.
He fucks John. Holding him still, he thrusts into him so completely that, were John able to move, there would be no room for him to thrust back. Again and again, as his fingers adorn John’s hips with a pattern of bruises, he moves effortlessly, rocking the bed with each movement. The headboard creaks, the floor creaks, everything creaks as he fucks John into the mattress - not with every ounce of his strength (for that would surely kill him), but with every ounce of strength a human like John could endure.
It is more than enough. Each movement is like pressing a button, each button releasing a moan from John’s lips, each one sounding more surprised than the previous one. Despite being held immobile, John hasn’t stopped attempting to move; he thrusts back at Dorian while his hands claw at the bed and at Dorian until he gathers them up in one of his hands and holds those still, too, as he completes his task.
It doesn’t take long. Dorian monitors John’s body ever second of the way there, reads his orgasm creeping slowly up into his body and speeds up his movements by a fraction of a second. He can read, at the same time, the beginnings of pain as he continues to drive into John’s already exhausted, used, sensitive body. But, were John able to speak coherent thoughts, he would demand no mercy and Dorian obliges.
John comes, shaking, and Dorian watches the reactions of his body in awe. He takes in the sounds spilling from John’s lips, the way he spills all over himself, the way his muscles tense and then relax, the way that all the arousal in his body converges into this sweet release. He monitors the chemicals flooding his bloodstream, filling him with bliss and relaxation. He stares as John’s eyes flutter, his eyelashes so beautiful against his skin, and watches as John relaxes, sinking bonelessly into the mattress.
Dorian takes it all in in awe before closing his eyes and letting his own semblance of an orgasm take him. He cannot really come, not in the physical sense like John’s just done; the physical act in itself does not feel like anything to him. But he is still programmed to feel pleasure, a strange kind of pleasure that he feels almost physically, coursing through his synthetic body, even as it’s elicited by no actual, physical sensation. No, it’s watching John, so vulnerable before him, then so human, succumbing to pleasure that only Dorian could give him, that coaxes forth his own reaction. It was John’s beauty, as he was helpless beneath Dorian’s hands, that made Dorian himself feel desperately out of control under the onslaught of his own sensations. He lets himself feel them, savors every moment of pleasure coursing through his body, before leaning forward to take his place next to John, tucked against the human body.
Eventually, John comes around from his haze of bliss. By the time he does, Dorian’s already managed to force himself to get up, leaving John’s side for those minutes necessary to clean them both off, before he pulls the blankets over the both of them. John lets out a content huffing sound and settles more closely against Dorian.
“Thanks,” he murmurs against Dorian’s skin.
Dorian runs a gentle hand through the human’s messy hair.
“My pleasure.”
John smiles, getting the joke, before taking the entirely human course of action of falling asleep.
….
It becomes a regular occurrence. Dorian fucks John on nearly every possible surface: against the wall, where he’d first held John immobile as he’d acted on his hunch. He holds John aloft easily, his fingers digging into the human’s skin. He doesn’t need to, could hold John without leaving a mark on his body, but they both want those telltale signs on John’s body for days afterwards.
He fucks John on the kitchen counter and the kitchen table, bends him over the back of the couch, forces him onto hands and knees on the floor, even once presses him face-first against the window.
John loves it all. For the first time, Dorian doesn’t need his sensors to tell him so. John begs and moans and thrusts back whenever Dorian doesn’t hold him still, pleading “more” like a broken record and offering his body up to the extent of his ability.
Dorian is happy to oblige. He revels in the power John gave him. Not in a power-hungry sort of way, but in a still-shocked sort of way. After weeks, he still can’t not quite believe how much John is willing to surrender to him. And though the experience continues to be exhilarating and intoxicating, he still does not understand, even after weeks.
Eventually the curiosity and the frustration of not knowing build up, growing with each coupling of theirs. Every time he revels in the way that John allows it all, he drowns, too, in the unknown of why. John still does not explain, perhaps thinks he didn’t need to or hopes that he can get away with it.
Slowly, Dorian builds up the courage to ask. John is always pliant and open after sex; when they lie in bed together after the act (which they always do, regardless of where they’ve fucked), John always manages to find a way to offer Dorian a piece of emotional vulnerability before drifting off to sleep.
They lie like that now, the lights off, Dorian’s arm around John’s cooling, relaxed form. He gathers up the courage to give voice to his question.
“Why do you want to be – helpless?” he asks tentatively.
He feels John shift beside him, turning his face away to make the confession bearable. John may have found a way to open up, but that does not mean he found it easy.
“Because I trust you,” he says quietly. The answer does not follow logically from the question, and Dorian knows that John will explain, but he thinks that even if John does not, these words are enough.
Dorian knows about Anna. Aside from his former partner, Pelham, Anna was likely one of the only people John trusted, and also the one that betrayed him. From his own basic understanding of human psychology, it had seemed all but reasonable that John would probably not trust again, or, at least, not for a long, long time. John had already shown all the typical human responses to betrayal, among them all the signs of pushing away anyone who got close.
It was why Dorian had never done anything more than hope madly that somehow, one day, John might offer him some specter of confidence, even if he was too broken to truly trust again.
He’s so lost in those thoughts, in the enormity of the feeling they send through him, that John’s voice comes as a surprise when he continues to speak.
“There’s something…exhilarating…about – surrendering – that much power to you. I don’t know why, but it’s – almost intoxicating – to trust you that much. Only you.” His phrase is a stuttering conglomeration of words, uncertain, but Dorian does not mind. Those words carry the information that puts his entire body on edge.
“You trust me,” he repeats, savoring the feel of their words, savoring their truth. He likes the taste of this particular truth, he thinks.
“I do,” John admits, and that seems to be the extent of heartfelt confessions he’s able to make for the night. Dorian doesn’t mind. He knows all he needs to know, for now.
It is, he thinks, his turn to offer the same.
“I will never hurt you,” he offers. “I will always protect you. I promise.”
John finally turns to face him again.
“I know,” he says with a smile.
He allows himself to rest his head below Dorian’s, and falls asleep with the android’s body as a pillow. Dorian wraps his arms around him, driven by a protective instinct he is unsurprised to discover in his programming.