"Y'know, I'm almost impressed." John regarded the remains of his front door resignedly, mentally calculating the repair costs and groaning silently. Dorian had twisted the latch completely off, leaving a mangled mess of splintered steel and a hole the size of his fist. He could see the color of the walkway on the other side, and the sight was amusing in a twisted sort of way. "I hope you know that you're gonna be fixing this."

Dorian looked at him innocently. "I was worried, John," he said, for the third time.

"So you couldn't have called the landlord like a decent person? Hacked through the locks like an indecent one?"

"That would be rude," Dorian pointed out reasonably.

"And breaking down my door is the mark of a true gentleman, I suppose," John snorted sardonically. He moved to bend over and examine the damage closer, but that damnable dizziness had him back in its clutches as soon as he pushed away from the wall.

Dorian had a grip on his arm before he could stumble. "All right, that's enough exercise for the invalid."

John let him help him back to the bedroom, if only because he had promised to let the android crutch him around in exchange for the chance to stretch his legs. It turned out that Dorian was a menace when it came to care taking, insisting on following the steps of the easy-to-follow videos he had scrounged up from some godforsaken database and treating him like he was made of glass rather than one hundred and eighty pounds of irritated man.

He sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, favoring his right leg out of habit as he bounced on the mattress. Dorian placed a hand on his forehead- John had insisted outright that he never shove his fingers down his throat to take his temperature again- and hummed satisfyingly. "Your fever is down."

"Give me stats, man, I thought you were supposed to be accurate."

"Ninety-nine point one degrees Fahrenheit, if you must know." Dorian suddenly cocked his head to the side, his circuitry flickering crazily. "I'm being called in. It's-" he frowned, clearly displeased. "Rudy would like to run some scans."

John waved a hand dismissively. "So? It's your day off. Skip."

"John, my thermal sensors are practically obsole-"

"If you can still tell me my body temperature, you're just fine. The hell do you need with thermal sensors, anyway?"

"The standard MX has-"

"You're different," John said bluntly, stretching out on the bed and yawning. As opposed to the thought of bedrest as he had been in the beginning, he had to admit that it was nice once in a while to take a break from life in general. "You're fine just the way you are."

Dorian said nothing, and he cracked open an eye to peer at him. Dorian was watching him with a strange expression. "If you want me to stay here, all you gotta do is ask, man."

"What?" John spluttered, eyes flying fully open. "That's not what I'm saying-"

Dorian ignored him cheerfully, speaking in John's voice, "Dorian, I'm so sad and lonely and am completely incapable of taking care of myself. Would you like to hang out on our day off?"

"Oh my God-"

"Why, of course, John," Dorian replied in his normal voice. "I'd love to hang out with you. It's not like I've got anything else to do anyway." Back to John's voice, and damn if it was freaking unnerving listening to himself saying words he'd never say in a million years, "Awesome! Let's grab a couple of beers, and I'll drink them both because you don't drink! Hahahaha-" He was abruptly shut up by John's pillow hitting his face, and he pulled it away with a broad grin.

"You crackhead," John muttered, but he couldn't hide the twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth. "How the hell did you even pass inspection?"

"I'm in very good shape, John. You know, we should really go running sometime, if you're worried about that gut-"

John hurled his second pillow.

…..

They somehow ended up on the couch watching a basketball game, John's synthetic leg propped up on the low table and an afghan he hadn't known he possessed draped over his lap at Dorian's insistence. He had argued the right for two beers for the indignation of the afghan, and was now happily making his way through the first of the bottles.

After the first five minutes of the game, he had discovered that Dorian was the worst possible option when it came to someone to watch sports with. The android kept up a steady stream of commentary regarding the statistics of three-point shots and archaic tidbits of the teams' histories that John really did not need to know, and had only been appeased when John had turned to him and told him under no uncertain terms that if he didn't shut up and watch the game, John would throttle himself with the damned afghan.

He polished off the first bottle and wiggled it pointedly. "We got any more of these in the kitchen?"

Dorian shrugged. "No. There's a corner store down the street. I could make a run."

John put on an expression of mock incredulity. "What, you're leaving me here alone? All by myself? My God, what's the world coming to?"

"I'm sure Detective Stahl would be glad to sit in with you in my absence," Dorian said, apropos of nothing.

John snorted. "You crazy?"

"She is not an unattractive woman, John. You could do a lot worse."

John grunted dismissively. "She could do a lot better."

"Not really."

John glanced at him, startled by the frank statement. Dorian was staring contemplatively at the basketball game, but he didn't appear to be actually watching. "You seem...weirdly supportive of this," John said, almost accusingly. "What's this, some kinda master plot to get me laid? Are my testicles really that bad?"

"I wouldn't be so subtle if I wanted you to get laid." Dorian shifted his weight absently on the couch, and John had to wonder if even something so small as fidgeting was written in his programming, or if he had picked it up from watching humans. "She's fond of you, you know."

John said nothing, and Dorian seemed to take that as permission to continue. "When you didn't show up yesterday for patrol, I alerted her to the fact and she drove me over." He notice John's surprise. "What? How did you think I got here?"

"Dunno," John muttered. He hadn't really given it much thought, which was rather stupid upon reflection. Dorian couldn't have possibly walked to his apartment from the station, and he wasn't authorized to drive solo.

"You should call her," Dorian told him, but somehow it sounded like he was telling John not to.

"Hmm." John grunted noncommittally, and to his relief, Dorian dropped the subject.

"You don't have to leave," John eventually said, and he blamed the moment of sentimentality on the fever reducers. "You don't make bad company, honestly." He didn't miss the little smile on Dorian's face as he leaned forward and reached for the second beer.

A/N: Well, I'm awful about endings, but this was meant to be a drabble in the first place. But then people got excited about a second chapter and then I got excited and this happened, alas. The amount of bromance I tried to stuff in here is staggering, so kudos to you if you thought it was actually okay, haha.

ALSO, NOTE: I now have an AO3 account on which this fic and any other Almost Human oneshots will be posted. I plan to do a series of loosely related oneshots and I'll be posting those only on my AO3 account (for the sake of keeping this account mostly big fics and the fact that they have a series system over there.) I'll still be keeping up with this account, just posting my shorter works over there :) The link is on my profile!