Fic: Best Laid Plans (1/1)
Title: Best Laid Plans
Author: Gixxer Pilot
Summary: Kennex visits his father for Christmas Day. Dorian, unsurprisingly, convinces John that he needs to tag along. But what happens when one puts a human who harbors a certain aversion to AI technology in the same room with exactly the thing he doesn’t trust? Kennex is about to find out.
Author’s Notes: Merry Christmas, everyone! From day one, I’ve absolutely loved the character of John Kennex. And with all the little hints the show has dropped about his father, it’s also made me wonder what kind of man raises a guy like Kennex. So I started thinking, my beta enabled, and here we are. I shouldn’t be surprised that this story is the result. It’s also, technically speaking, patient zero of a new AU crossover for me, though (tags on this work aside) that probably won’t be completely evident until the last 100 words of the story. Oh, and all mistakes are mine - I didn’t have time to get this to Wicked Jade before Christmas. So we’re going on the fly with it.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything recognizable seen in this work of total insanity. No money is made from this - I do it because it amuses me.
========
John Kennex was well and truly beginning to question the soundness of his own sanity.
Kennex knew he’d had some utterly horseshit ideas in the past, but this? This might bump everything else he’d ever done in his entire life to a distant second place. Indeed, John was on his way to meet his father for an early Christmas dinner with Dorian in tow. Dorian, his emotionally-adept AI partner, who, in all honesty, embraced his humanity more than Kennex himself did. Dorian, who was actually excited to meet John Kennex, Sr. Dorian, who had unknowingly kicked the hornet’s nest through his good intentions.
He probably should have been fair to Dorian, explained his father to the android. It would have given his partner an out should he have wished it. Instead, Kennex had just mumbled something rude about irritating technology when Dorian used his programming to forge his partner’s signature, accepting Kennex, Sr.’s dinner invite without John’s knowledge. When confronted, the android claimed that it would be good for both of them; Kennex needed to see his father more often and Dorian could use the time to update his human relations subroutines. Predictably, John wholeheartedly disagreed to both rationales.
If turnabout is fair play, then the punishment really should fit the crime. And Kennex wasn’t entirely convinced that Dorian deserved his father’s wrath for something as simple as attempting to ensure his partner had company for the holiday. After all, he was just trying to be helpful.
Not that Dorian helped matters. His endless optimism often grated on Kennex’s every last nerve. The human had no idea how someone, man or machine, could possibly be so happy all the time. John’s childhood was a stable one; his father really did love him. But, Kennex, Sr.’s demeanor was best describable as serious and reserved, a couple of personality traits that probably rubbed off on his son.
But if John were honest with himself (a skill at which he wasn’t particularly adept), Kennex would say that his reason for such monumental amounts of trepidations had nothing to do with his dad’s unique personality. Every other reason why this meeting was a bad idea aside, the biggest problem of them all was that John Kennex, Sr. harbored a deep-seeded hatred of technology.
He hated AI technology most specifically.
John thanked the powers above that his old man retired before MX partners were compulsory for every human officer. He shuddered to think of the massive pile of androids that would have been decommissioned at his father’s hands, likely sending Rudy into early retirement. Kennex, Sr. worked his entire career with nothing but a Sig Sauer and exacting hand-to-hand skills he claimed he learned in the Army.
It was the elder Kennex’s ability to put a person to sleep in five seconds or less that had his son so worried. Even if Dorian was a technical masterpiece, he’d proven that he was still susceptible to bullets.
John’s father had a certain fondness for shooting at the kneecaps. Kennex was certain that Rudy would not approve.
The detective exhaled. The Christmas cheer sprinkled all over the city, the holiday songs on the radio and the colorful displays in the shop windows dotting the streets did nothing to calm the detective’s nerves. And while John knew Dorian could feel it, at least the android was polite enough to ignore the tension radiating off his partner in waves, ratcheting up his attempts at human conversation a couple of notches instead to serve a distraction.
“I have a question, John.”
Kennex rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, sending an irritated glace towards the android in the passenger seat. “Yeah, you’re full of those. What do you want this time? The key to the universe? Secret of long life?”
Dorian smiled. “Nothing that complicated. I just thought it was customary for humans to spend their holidays with family, eating excessively large meals prepared at a relative or friend’s home.”
“It is,” Kennex replied flatly.
“Then why are we going to Mickey’s? The humans I’ve encountered seem to agree that the food is good, but I doubt it would be a suitable substitute for the home-cooked thing,” Dorian surmised, peering out the window at the passing blur of humanity. The festivities - all red and green decorations wrapped in feelings of good cheer - clashed so deeply with the dirty reality of the crime and violence that normally gripped the city. The temporary respite was welcomed, even if it was nothing more than a fictitious bit of wishful thinking.
Gripping the steering wheel, John angled the car off the expressway and up the off-ramp towards the stop light at the top. “Well, normally it is, but this year it was my turn to cook,” he finally admitted without looking at his partner.
“Oh,” was all Dorian said, the beginnings of a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “That makes sense now.”
Exasperation wormed through every portion of Kennex’s body as he watched Dorian fight the laughter bubbling just below his carefully constructed control. “Don’t,” he warned lowly. “I swear on everything holy, if you start laughing--”
“No, no,” Dorian insisted through shaking lips. “I would never do anything like remind you that you almost burned your place down trying to roast a turkey. That would be cruel.”
Kennex cursed under his breath, hitting the accelerator much harder than necessary when the light turned green. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”
“And proud of it,” Dorian said with a nod.
“Of course you are. Rudy couldn’t have given you a humility program?”
“No, that would make me boring,” Dorian replied, looking disgusted that Kennex would even make such a crass suggestion. “I mean, if you want an MX partner, I’m sure Captain Maldonado could arrange it.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass, thanks.” John grimaced and eased the car to a stop in the parking lot of Mickey’s Diner. He killed the ignition and yanked the keys out of the car. When his partner made a move to exit the vehicle, Kennex said, “Dorian, wait.”
Halfway out of the seat, the android paused, searching John’s face as he contemplated the reason for the delay. Noting the way Kennex’s jaw was working back and forth, Dorian dutifully sat back down in the passenger seat and gave his partner his full attention. “What’s up?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about my dad, things I probably should have told you earlier,” the detective began, his gaze roaming everywhere but onto his partner. “Let’s just say you might not get the warmest reception from him.”
Dorian cut Kennex off with one smooth motion of his hand. “Nothing I don’t already know. John Kennex, Sr. Police officer, detective, retired. Classified by his superiors as painfully intelligent with above average hand to hand ability and firearms knowledge but with little respect for his superiors or inferior officers. Has a well documented deep-seated hatred of AI technology.” He turned to face Kennex. “Did I miss anything?”
John shook his head, amazed and relieved all at once. “Nope, that about covers it. You ready for this?”
“Always,” Dorian replied, lifting the door handle and stepping out of the car. He waited politely for John to walk around to his side, stopping him with by laying a hand gently on Kennex’s forearm. “Don’t worry. I think I can handle one senior citizen.”
“You say that now,” Kennex replied, implication of doom dripping heavily from his tone as he brushed past.
Maybe Dorian deserved a little bit of his dad’s wrath after all, the cocky pain the ass.
The bell above the door jingled as John pushed it open, the lone waitress looking up from her crossword as the pair of men stepped in. Gigi smiled and tipped her head at Dorian and John, motioning with one hand towards a booth tucked in the back corner of the diner, away from the door but still with a clear line of sight to the entrance. Kennex walked around the marbled linoleum countertops, running his hand over the red vinyl booths as he passed. Nodding to the small handful of customers at the barstools, John’s posture relaxed as the silver-haired man occupying the back booth practically unfolded himself, stood to his full height and smirked at the approaching pair.
“How’s it going, dad?” Kennex asked as the two men shared a quick embrace. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” John Kennex, Sr., six feet two inches of silver hair and intense steely grey-blue eyes, stepped forward and greeted his son. His tenor-pitched voice was low and soft, but there was an undercurrent of strength behind it. Looking John up and down, he added, “I think this is an improvement from last year, don’t you?”
“Last year, I was still in a coma,” Kennex replied flatly. “It’d be hard to have a worse year than that.”
Kennex, Sr. nodded in acquiescence, turning his head as he noticed Dorian’s presence. Just as quickly as it had come, the guarded but joyful expression practically melted from his features. Like a hawk, a sharp, suspicious gaze regarded the android as long, almost delicate fingers flexed at his sides. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, putting special emphasis on the last word of his sentence.
Kennex cleared his throat. “Dad, this is Dorian, my new partner. Dorian, this is my father, John Kennex, Sr.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Dorian began happily, extending a hand towards the elder Kennex.
John’s father looked Dorian up and down, arms crossed against his lean but still surprisingly muscled chest. “You’re a DRN,” he half-asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.
“I am. I’ve been assigned as your son’s partner since his reinstatement,” Dorian replied, retracting his hand.
Kennex, Sr. nodded his head, face set stony and declaring absolutely none of his emotions. Turning to his son, he asked John, “Tell me: is he behaving himself?”
John’s gaze met Dorian’s. Kennex raised an eyebrow and smirked from the side of his mouth. “For the most part, when he’s not getting himself shot in the head.”
Beside him, Dorian snorted. “We went over this, John. You stuck a used piece of chewing gum into my head. Do you know how many ways that could have gone wrong?”
Incensed, John stuck his hands on his hips, facing his chest straight at Dorian. “After I had to chew it to soften it up! Do you know how many diseases could have been on that thing? You should be thanking me.”
“I scanned it. There was nothing wrong with that gum, other than it was three days old,” Dorian fired back. “But my network? It’s a different story.”
Kennex Sr., his head lolling back and forth between the two men, cut in dryly, “And yet, neither one of you died.”
“More’s the pity,” Kennex mumbled as the trio sat down.
Gigi wandered over, handing the men two more menus while she snapped her gum. “I’ll give you boys a few minutes, but I’m guessing you want coffee?”
“Please,” Kennex replied.
“You got it. And John,” she said, looking at Kennex, Sr., “I assume you want the usual?”
The elder Kennex simply nodded, wordlessly handing over the menu to the woman before she sauntered away to go fetch some more coffee.
Dorian’s sharp eyes perused the menu, wondering what all the selections tasted like. Lowering it from his face, he looked across the table and asked John’s father, “So. What’s good here?”
The menu clattered onto the table top, tumbling out of the younger Kennex’s hands. His eyebrows descended into a deep crevice, pulling together right above the bridge of his nose. He stared incredulously at his partner as he replied, “Really? Did you just ask that? You don’t even eat.”
Dorian, nonplussed, shot back with, “I was just trying to make conversation, and it’s also a valid question. Your dad seems like a regular here. I thought I’d ask someone who comes here often for his opinion.”
“You don’t need it because you’re not human.”
“I’m well aware of that, John,” Dorian said as he went back to looking at his menu. “But maybe I was asking for you, since I know you’ve never been here before, either.”
Shaking his head, Kennex went back to his own menu as he growled under his breath, “Definitely better with an MX partner.”
“Now that’s just cold,” Dorian said, placing one hand over his chest as if the statement physically wounded him. “I’m hurt.”
“Good,” Kennex insisted.
On the other side of the table, the elder Kennex sat patiently, hands folded on the table in front of him while he watched the exchange. His mind flashed back more than thirty years to a diner in New York City, one not entirely dissimilar to the one he was in right now where a similar conversation had taken place. ‘What’s good here?’ he remembered asking the man sitting opposite of him. ‘It’s an innocent question…You’re paranoid…Maybe I just don’t know what’s good here. So I’m asking a regular.’
Kennex, Sr. exhaled softly, covering his mouth with his hand as he smiled at the memory. He let his eyes wander across the diner towards Gigi. She was staring down at her crossword, but the little smirk on her face told John that she heard the entire exchange. He reached out with his left hand and plucked the menu from his son’s hands with one quick and fluid motion, laying it flat on the table. One long finger tapped a space circa the middle of the electronic page as he said, “Try the eggs benedict, John. It’s why I come here.”
The active duty detective nodded his head, shooting one more glare at his partner for good measure. The trio ordered and then made small talk for a few minutes while they waited for their food. Kennex’s stomach growled loudly as Gigi delivered their food, diving in like a starving man who’d not eaten in months. “This is really good,” Kennex said between bites, stopping only to breathe as he continued to shovel his food from plate to mouth. Halfway through, John paused and lifted his eyes. “Dad, something wrong with yours?” he asked when he realized his father’s attention was directed elsewhere.
Kennex, Sr. laid his fork down on his plate. In a low whisper, he ground out, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
The bell above the door jingled happily, the flash of sunlight reflecting off the chrome finish of the moving door. Kennex, Jr. and Dorian whirled around in their seats as a rail-thin, pale man in a black hoodie and dirty jeans barged his way into the diner. He waved a handgun in Gigi’s face, forcing her and all the patrons at the breakfast bar off their stools and to the floor. He made quick work of relieving them of all their cash before moving towards the back of the diner.
The detective sighed as he cursed just about every deity he could think of because why was this his life? John watched as his father stood from the booth, stepping forward to meet the punk.
“Get down on the ground and give me your money!” he ordered.
Kennex, Sr. shook his head to the negative, purposely placing himself between his son and the perp. “No,” he said firmly, his voice rock-steady, leaving zero room for argument.
“No?” the punk replied, shocked. Waving his gun for good measure, he said, “You must be more senile than I thought, Gramps. I’ve got the gun - I call the shots.”
“You have a gun? Good for you. It won’t do you any good,” Kennex, Sr. replied. He scoffed as he stepped forward. “You really don’t want to do this, son. It won’t end well for you.”
John jumped up, interjecting on his father’s behalf. “Actually, he’s right. You really don’t want to do this,” he said, flashing his badge at the young man.
The punk pulled the hammer back on the gun. His face was flush, and his hair was slick with sweat. Two bloodshot eyes regarded the trio of men from underneath a frock of unkempt dark hair, hidden in part by the hood draped across his face. Resolute, he swallowed hard. “I’ve got thirteen reasons to do whatever the fuck I want. Hand it over.”
Kennex, Sr. motioned almost imperceptibly for his son to stand down. A bit of fearlessness flashed in his eyes for the briefest of seconds, only to be replaced by calm indifference a millisecond later. His voice hoarser and softer than it’d been a few seconds earlier, he said, “I’m going to give you some advice.”
“And what would that be?” the punk hissed, checking over his shoulder for the umpteenth time as he shoved the gun closer to the older man’s face.
Undeterred, the elder Kennex smirked, titling his head to the side. Condescendingly but matter-of-factly, he told the kid, “You should really consider other avenues of employment because you’re never going to be a successful criminal.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, clearly, you haven’t done your homework,” John, Sr. began, noting with satisfaction the involuntary flinch that graced the kid’s features. “It’s Christmas Day. Not a lot of people eat at diners on Christmas Day and those who do don’t carry a lot of money on them. And then there’s that,” he said, pointing to his son’s police issue cruiser in the parking lot. “You would have had to have been blind the miss the light bars on the top of the car. Generally speaking, robbing a place with cops inside isn’t a good idea.”
Kennex internally smirked as he saw the little punk’s face pale about three shades, making him about equal the color of freshly fallen snow.
“Finally, third,” the retired cop continued on with a light laugh as he raised his left hand, shaking his finger in the air, “and this is where it gets good. Your gun.”
The punk swallowed hard and re-gripped the weapon, wiping the palm of his free hand on his jeans. “Nothing wrong with that. It’s fully loaded and ready to take you out.”
“You’ll have a hard time doing that with the safety still on,” Kennex, Sr. said flatly.
With speed and agility normally found in men thirty years younger, John stepped in with his left foot, reached up with both hands and shoved the weapon aside, away from any patrons in the diner. He grabbed a hold of the kid’s right wrist with his right hand, used his left forearm as a battering ram and swung it hard into the juncture between the younger man’s scapula and upper bicep. Kennex, Sr. bent the suddenly compliant punk’s wrist up and towards his head while he let inertia take over. The forward momentum sent the kid crashing chest-first into the corner of the diner counter. The symphony of breaking dishes mixed in with the clean snapping sound of shattering bones and dissonant cries of pain.
Winded by the contact and in tears courtesy of a broken arm, the punk collapsed to the floor in agony, cradling the injured limb. “What the fuck, man?!”
Kennex, Jr. rolled his eyes, hopping over the broken dishes and ruined food lying insipidly on the floor. He gave his eggs benedict a sad look before he came up to join his father’s side. Squatting, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cuffs, activating them with a flick of his thumb. He slapped them on and then gave the kid a rough tug. “Get up, idiot. Do what I tell you and I’ll forget about the extra charges I was going to add just for being stupid enough to make me work on a holiday, and for pissing my dad off.”
“Your dad? Are you kidding me?” the punk said through clenched teeth. “Your crazy-ass dad broke my arm, man! I want to file charges!”
Kennex crossed his arms over his chest as he thought of every stupid thing he’d ever seen in all his years on the job as inspiration. He rolled it all into one very unimpressed expression as he replied, “Against a 75 year old man? Good luck with that,” as he shoved the kid towards his partner.
“Okay,” Dorian began, accepting the hooded perp Kennex offered. “I definitely wasn’t expecting that. That was pretty awesome.”
“I don’t think he was, either,” John said to his partner, pulling out his phone to call in the attempted robbery. Halfway to the car, Kennex stopped and executed a perfect about face when his brain processed the low five he’d just seen Dorian give his father as the android led their perp out of the diner. He gave dispatch the pertinent information as quickly as he could before he double-timed it back into the diner. “DAD! You better not have done what I think you did!” he hollered at the top of his lungs.
God help him, his partner and his father were bonding.
John Kennex, Jr. was suddenly very afraid for the safety of the city.
========
Across the country, a bespectacled man in a $10,000 custom-made three-piece suit sat amongst shelves upon shelves of dusty books in a nearly abandoned library. His fingers danced with the practiced ease of a longtime hacker, typing away at a keyboard while he watched the security feed from outside the diner. He stopped his work as the tall silver-haired man looked up to the camera, nodded and turned on his way. Leaning back in his chair, he let a small smile creep up the sides of his mouth as he said, “And a merry Christmas to you as well, Mr. Reese.”
--FIN--
End Notes: See? This really is a crossover with Person of Interest! I didn’t lie. And yes, Kennex’s dad is John Reese and the person at the end of this fic is Harold Finch. The conversation Kennex/Reese is flashing back to about the eggs benedict is this one, from S01E05. Also, the attempted robbery is my homage to the great moment in the pilot when Reese beats up Anton O’Mara’s crew for the second time 'round.
Author: Gixxer Pilot
Summary: Kennex visits his father for Christmas Day. Dorian, unsurprisingly, convinces John that he needs to tag along. But what happens when one puts a human who harbors a certain aversion to AI technology in the same room with exactly the thing he doesn’t trust? Kennex is about to find out.
Author’s Notes: Merry Christmas, everyone! From day one, I’ve absolutely loved the character of John Kennex. And with all the little hints the show has dropped about his father, it’s also made me wonder what kind of man raises a guy like Kennex. So I started thinking, my beta enabled, and here we are. I shouldn’t be surprised that this story is the result. It’s also, technically speaking, patient zero of a new AU crossover for me, though (tags on this work aside) that probably won’t be completely evident until the last 100 words of the story. Oh, and all mistakes are mine - I didn’t have time to get this to Wicked Jade before Christmas. So we’re going on the fly with it.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything recognizable seen in this work of total insanity. No money is made from this - I do it because it amuses me.
========
John Kennex was well and truly beginning to question the soundness of his own sanity.
Kennex knew he’d had some utterly horseshit ideas in the past, but this? This might bump everything else he’d ever done in his entire life to a distant second place. Indeed, John was on his way to meet his father for an early Christmas dinner with Dorian in tow. Dorian, his emotionally-adept AI partner, who, in all honesty, embraced his humanity more than Kennex himself did. Dorian, who was actually excited to meet John Kennex, Sr. Dorian, who had unknowingly kicked the hornet’s nest through his good intentions.
He probably should have been fair to Dorian, explained his father to the android. It would have given his partner an out should he have wished it. Instead, Kennex had just mumbled something rude about irritating technology when Dorian used his programming to forge his partner’s signature, accepting Kennex, Sr.’s dinner invite without John’s knowledge. When confronted, the android claimed that it would be good for both of them; Kennex needed to see his father more often and Dorian could use the time to update his human relations subroutines. Predictably, John wholeheartedly disagreed to both rationales.
If turnabout is fair play, then the punishment really should fit the crime. And Kennex wasn’t entirely convinced that Dorian deserved his father’s wrath for something as simple as attempting to ensure his partner had company for the holiday. After all, he was just trying to be helpful.
Not that Dorian helped matters. His endless optimism often grated on Kennex’s every last nerve. The human had no idea how someone, man or machine, could possibly be so happy all the time. John’s childhood was a stable one; his father really did love him. But, Kennex, Sr.’s demeanor was best describable as serious and reserved, a couple of personality traits that probably rubbed off on his son.
But if John were honest with himself (a skill at which he wasn’t particularly adept), Kennex would say that his reason for such monumental amounts of trepidations had nothing to do with his dad’s unique personality. Every other reason why this meeting was a bad idea aside, the biggest problem of them all was that John Kennex, Sr. harbored a deep-seeded hatred of technology.
He hated AI technology most specifically.
John thanked the powers above that his old man retired before MX partners were compulsory for every human officer. He shuddered to think of the massive pile of androids that would have been decommissioned at his father’s hands, likely sending Rudy into early retirement. Kennex, Sr. worked his entire career with nothing but a Sig Sauer and exacting hand-to-hand skills he claimed he learned in the Army.
It was the elder Kennex’s ability to put a person to sleep in five seconds or less that had his son so worried. Even if Dorian was a technical masterpiece, he’d proven that he was still susceptible to bullets.
John’s father had a certain fondness for shooting at the kneecaps. Kennex was certain that Rudy would not approve.
The detective exhaled. The Christmas cheer sprinkled all over the city, the holiday songs on the radio and the colorful displays in the shop windows dotting the streets did nothing to calm the detective’s nerves. And while John knew Dorian could feel it, at least the android was polite enough to ignore the tension radiating off his partner in waves, ratcheting up his attempts at human conversation a couple of notches instead to serve a distraction.
“I have a question, John.”
Kennex rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, sending an irritated glace towards the android in the passenger seat. “Yeah, you’re full of those. What do you want this time? The key to the universe? Secret of long life?”
Dorian smiled. “Nothing that complicated. I just thought it was customary for humans to spend their holidays with family, eating excessively large meals prepared at a relative or friend’s home.”
“It is,” Kennex replied flatly.
“Then why are we going to Mickey’s? The humans I’ve encountered seem to agree that the food is good, but I doubt it would be a suitable substitute for the home-cooked thing,” Dorian surmised, peering out the window at the passing blur of humanity. The festivities - all red and green decorations wrapped in feelings of good cheer - clashed so deeply with the dirty reality of the crime and violence that normally gripped the city. The temporary respite was welcomed, even if it was nothing more than a fictitious bit of wishful thinking.
Gripping the steering wheel, John angled the car off the expressway and up the off-ramp towards the stop light at the top. “Well, normally it is, but this year it was my turn to cook,” he finally admitted without looking at his partner.
“Oh,” was all Dorian said, the beginnings of a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “That makes sense now.”
Exasperation wormed through every portion of Kennex’s body as he watched Dorian fight the laughter bubbling just below his carefully constructed control. “Don’t,” he warned lowly. “I swear on everything holy, if you start laughing--”
“No, no,” Dorian insisted through shaking lips. “I would never do anything like remind you that you almost burned your place down trying to roast a turkey. That would be cruel.”
Kennex cursed under his breath, hitting the accelerator much harder than necessary when the light turned green. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”
“And proud of it,” Dorian said with a nod.
“Of course you are. Rudy couldn’t have given you a humility program?”
“No, that would make me boring,” Dorian replied, looking disgusted that Kennex would even make such a crass suggestion. “I mean, if you want an MX partner, I’m sure Captain Maldonado could arrange it.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass, thanks.” John grimaced and eased the car to a stop in the parking lot of Mickey’s Diner. He killed the ignition and yanked the keys out of the car. When his partner made a move to exit the vehicle, Kennex said, “Dorian, wait.”
Halfway out of the seat, the android paused, searching John’s face as he contemplated the reason for the delay. Noting the way Kennex’s jaw was working back and forth, Dorian dutifully sat back down in the passenger seat and gave his partner his full attention. “What’s up?”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about my dad, things I probably should have told you earlier,” the detective began, his gaze roaming everywhere but onto his partner. “Let’s just say you might not get the warmest reception from him.”
Dorian cut Kennex off with one smooth motion of his hand. “Nothing I don’t already know. John Kennex, Sr. Police officer, detective, retired. Classified by his superiors as painfully intelligent with above average hand to hand ability and firearms knowledge but with little respect for his superiors or inferior officers. Has a well documented deep-seated hatred of AI technology.” He turned to face Kennex. “Did I miss anything?”
John shook his head, amazed and relieved all at once. “Nope, that about covers it. You ready for this?”
“Always,” Dorian replied, lifting the door handle and stepping out of the car. He waited politely for John to walk around to his side, stopping him with by laying a hand gently on Kennex’s forearm. “Don’t worry. I think I can handle one senior citizen.”
“You say that now,” Kennex replied, implication of doom dripping heavily from his tone as he brushed past.
Maybe Dorian deserved a little bit of his dad’s wrath after all, the cocky pain the ass.
The bell above the door jingled as John pushed it open, the lone waitress looking up from her crossword as the pair of men stepped in. Gigi smiled and tipped her head at Dorian and John, motioning with one hand towards a booth tucked in the back corner of the diner, away from the door but still with a clear line of sight to the entrance. Kennex walked around the marbled linoleum countertops, running his hand over the red vinyl booths as he passed. Nodding to the small handful of customers at the barstools, John’s posture relaxed as the silver-haired man occupying the back booth practically unfolded himself, stood to his full height and smirked at the approaching pair.
“How’s it going, dad?” Kennex asked as the two men shared a quick embrace. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” John Kennex, Sr., six feet two inches of silver hair and intense steely grey-blue eyes, stepped forward and greeted his son. His tenor-pitched voice was low and soft, but there was an undercurrent of strength behind it. Looking John up and down, he added, “I think this is an improvement from last year, don’t you?”
“Last year, I was still in a coma,” Kennex replied flatly. “It’d be hard to have a worse year than that.”
Kennex, Sr. nodded in acquiescence, turning his head as he noticed Dorian’s presence. Just as quickly as it had come, the guarded but joyful expression practically melted from his features. Like a hawk, a sharp, suspicious gaze regarded the android as long, almost delicate fingers flexed at his sides. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, putting special emphasis on the last word of his sentence.
Kennex cleared his throat. “Dad, this is Dorian, my new partner. Dorian, this is my father, John Kennex, Sr.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Dorian began happily, extending a hand towards the elder Kennex.
John’s father looked Dorian up and down, arms crossed against his lean but still surprisingly muscled chest. “You’re a DRN,” he half-asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.
“I am. I’ve been assigned as your son’s partner since his reinstatement,” Dorian replied, retracting his hand.
Kennex, Sr. nodded his head, face set stony and declaring absolutely none of his emotions. Turning to his son, he asked John, “Tell me: is he behaving himself?”
John’s gaze met Dorian’s. Kennex raised an eyebrow and smirked from the side of his mouth. “For the most part, when he’s not getting himself shot in the head.”
Beside him, Dorian snorted. “We went over this, John. You stuck a used piece of chewing gum into my head. Do you know how many ways that could have gone wrong?”
Incensed, John stuck his hands on his hips, facing his chest straight at Dorian. “After I had to chew it to soften it up! Do you know how many diseases could have been on that thing? You should be thanking me.”
“I scanned it. There was nothing wrong with that gum, other than it was three days old,” Dorian fired back. “But my network? It’s a different story.”
Kennex Sr., his head lolling back and forth between the two men, cut in dryly, “And yet, neither one of you died.”
“More’s the pity,” Kennex mumbled as the trio sat down.
Gigi wandered over, handing the men two more menus while she snapped her gum. “I’ll give you boys a few minutes, but I’m guessing you want coffee?”
“Please,” Kennex replied.
“You got it. And John,” she said, looking at Kennex, Sr., “I assume you want the usual?”
The elder Kennex simply nodded, wordlessly handing over the menu to the woman before she sauntered away to go fetch some more coffee.
Dorian’s sharp eyes perused the menu, wondering what all the selections tasted like. Lowering it from his face, he looked across the table and asked John’s father, “So. What’s good here?”
The menu clattered onto the table top, tumbling out of the younger Kennex’s hands. His eyebrows descended into a deep crevice, pulling together right above the bridge of his nose. He stared incredulously at his partner as he replied, “Really? Did you just ask that? You don’t even eat.”
Dorian, nonplussed, shot back with, “I was just trying to make conversation, and it’s also a valid question. Your dad seems like a regular here. I thought I’d ask someone who comes here often for his opinion.”
“You don’t need it because you’re not human.”
“I’m well aware of that, John,” Dorian said as he went back to looking at his menu. “But maybe I was asking for you, since I know you’ve never been here before, either.”
Shaking his head, Kennex went back to his own menu as he growled under his breath, “Definitely better with an MX partner.”
“Now that’s just cold,” Dorian said, placing one hand over his chest as if the statement physically wounded him. “I’m hurt.”
“Good,” Kennex insisted.
On the other side of the table, the elder Kennex sat patiently, hands folded on the table in front of him while he watched the exchange. His mind flashed back more than thirty years to a diner in New York City, one not entirely dissimilar to the one he was in right now where a similar conversation had taken place. ‘What’s good here?’ he remembered asking the man sitting opposite of him. ‘It’s an innocent question…You’re paranoid…Maybe I just don’t know what’s good here. So I’m asking a regular.’
Kennex, Sr. exhaled softly, covering his mouth with his hand as he smiled at the memory. He let his eyes wander across the diner towards Gigi. She was staring down at her crossword, but the little smirk on her face told John that she heard the entire exchange. He reached out with his left hand and plucked the menu from his son’s hands with one quick and fluid motion, laying it flat on the table. One long finger tapped a space circa the middle of the electronic page as he said, “Try the eggs benedict, John. It’s why I come here.”
The active duty detective nodded his head, shooting one more glare at his partner for good measure. The trio ordered and then made small talk for a few minutes while they waited for their food. Kennex’s stomach growled loudly as Gigi delivered their food, diving in like a starving man who’d not eaten in months. “This is really good,” Kennex said between bites, stopping only to breathe as he continued to shovel his food from plate to mouth. Halfway through, John paused and lifted his eyes. “Dad, something wrong with yours?” he asked when he realized his father’s attention was directed elsewhere.
Kennex, Sr. laid his fork down on his plate. In a low whisper, he ground out, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
The bell above the door jingled happily, the flash of sunlight reflecting off the chrome finish of the moving door. Kennex, Jr. and Dorian whirled around in their seats as a rail-thin, pale man in a black hoodie and dirty jeans barged his way into the diner. He waved a handgun in Gigi’s face, forcing her and all the patrons at the breakfast bar off their stools and to the floor. He made quick work of relieving them of all their cash before moving towards the back of the diner.
The detective sighed as he cursed just about every deity he could think of because why was this his life? John watched as his father stood from the booth, stepping forward to meet the punk.
“Get down on the ground and give me your money!” he ordered.
Kennex, Sr. shook his head to the negative, purposely placing himself between his son and the perp. “No,” he said firmly, his voice rock-steady, leaving zero room for argument.
“No?” the punk replied, shocked. Waving his gun for good measure, he said, “You must be more senile than I thought, Gramps. I’ve got the gun - I call the shots.”
“You have a gun? Good for you. It won’t do you any good,” Kennex, Sr. replied. He scoffed as he stepped forward. “You really don’t want to do this, son. It won’t end well for you.”
John jumped up, interjecting on his father’s behalf. “Actually, he’s right. You really don’t want to do this,” he said, flashing his badge at the young man.
The punk pulled the hammer back on the gun. His face was flush, and his hair was slick with sweat. Two bloodshot eyes regarded the trio of men from underneath a frock of unkempt dark hair, hidden in part by the hood draped across his face. Resolute, he swallowed hard. “I’ve got thirteen reasons to do whatever the fuck I want. Hand it over.”
Kennex, Sr. motioned almost imperceptibly for his son to stand down. A bit of fearlessness flashed in his eyes for the briefest of seconds, only to be replaced by calm indifference a millisecond later. His voice hoarser and softer than it’d been a few seconds earlier, he said, “I’m going to give you some advice.”
“And what would that be?” the punk hissed, checking over his shoulder for the umpteenth time as he shoved the gun closer to the older man’s face.
Undeterred, the elder Kennex smirked, titling his head to the side. Condescendingly but matter-of-factly, he told the kid, “You should really consider other avenues of employment because you’re never going to be a successful criminal.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, clearly, you haven’t done your homework,” John, Sr. began, noting with satisfaction the involuntary flinch that graced the kid’s features. “It’s Christmas Day. Not a lot of people eat at diners on Christmas Day and those who do don’t carry a lot of money on them. And then there’s that,” he said, pointing to his son’s police issue cruiser in the parking lot. “You would have had to have been blind the miss the light bars on the top of the car. Generally speaking, robbing a place with cops inside isn’t a good idea.”
Kennex internally smirked as he saw the little punk’s face pale about three shades, making him about equal the color of freshly fallen snow.
“Finally, third,” the retired cop continued on with a light laugh as he raised his left hand, shaking his finger in the air, “and this is where it gets good. Your gun.”
The punk swallowed hard and re-gripped the weapon, wiping the palm of his free hand on his jeans. “Nothing wrong with that. It’s fully loaded and ready to take you out.”
“You’ll have a hard time doing that with the safety still on,” Kennex, Sr. said flatly.
With speed and agility normally found in men thirty years younger, John stepped in with his left foot, reached up with both hands and shoved the weapon aside, away from any patrons in the diner. He grabbed a hold of the kid’s right wrist with his right hand, used his left forearm as a battering ram and swung it hard into the juncture between the younger man’s scapula and upper bicep. Kennex, Sr. bent the suddenly compliant punk’s wrist up and towards his head while he let inertia take over. The forward momentum sent the kid crashing chest-first into the corner of the diner counter. The symphony of breaking dishes mixed in with the clean snapping sound of shattering bones and dissonant cries of pain.
Winded by the contact and in tears courtesy of a broken arm, the punk collapsed to the floor in agony, cradling the injured limb. “What the fuck, man?!”
Kennex, Jr. rolled his eyes, hopping over the broken dishes and ruined food lying insipidly on the floor. He gave his eggs benedict a sad look before he came up to join his father’s side. Squatting, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cuffs, activating them with a flick of his thumb. He slapped them on and then gave the kid a rough tug. “Get up, idiot. Do what I tell you and I’ll forget about the extra charges I was going to add just for being stupid enough to make me work on a holiday, and for pissing my dad off.”
“Your dad? Are you kidding me?” the punk said through clenched teeth. “Your crazy-ass dad broke my arm, man! I want to file charges!”
Kennex crossed his arms over his chest as he thought of every stupid thing he’d ever seen in all his years on the job as inspiration. He rolled it all into one very unimpressed expression as he replied, “Against a 75 year old man? Good luck with that,” as he shoved the kid towards his partner.
“Okay,” Dorian began, accepting the hooded perp Kennex offered. “I definitely wasn’t expecting that. That was pretty awesome.”
“I don’t think he was, either,” John said to his partner, pulling out his phone to call in the attempted robbery. Halfway to the car, Kennex stopped and executed a perfect about face when his brain processed the low five he’d just seen Dorian give his father as the android led their perp out of the diner. He gave dispatch the pertinent information as quickly as he could before he double-timed it back into the diner. “DAD! You better not have done what I think you did!” he hollered at the top of his lungs.
God help him, his partner and his father were bonding.
John Kennex, Jr. was suddenly very afraid for the safety of the city.
========
Across the country, a bespectacled man in a $10,000 custom-made three-piece suit sat amongst shelves upon shelves of dusty books in a nearly abandoned library. His fingers danced with the practiced ease of a longtime hacker, typing away at a keyboard while he watched the security feed from outside the diner. He stopped his work as the tall silver-haired man looked up to the camera, nodded and turned on his way. Leaning back in his chair, he let a small smile creep up the sides of his mouth as he said, “And a merry Christmas to you as well, Mr. Reese.”
--FIN--
End Notes: See? This really is a crossover with Person of Interest! I didn’t lie. And yes, Kennex’s dad is John Reese and the person at the end of this fic is Harold Finch. The conversation Kennex/Reese is flashing back to about the eggs benedict is this one, from S01E05. Also, the attempted robbery is my homage to the great moment in the pilot when Reese beats up Anton O’Mara’s crew for the second time 'round.