Work Text:
Gavin was engrossed in the file open on his screen, rereading the report yet again, looking for a lead he hadn’t followed yet, irritably tapping his pen on the pad, in a quick staccato.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he flicked his gaze to the side to find Connor transfixed by the flick of the pen, his pupils blown, and his head bobbing up and down to the same rhythm.
This was strange.
Experimentally, Gavin lifted the pen from the pad, and Connor’s gaze followed it; Gavin moved it to the left and Connor’s head turned to the left; Gavin moved it to the right and Connor’s head turned to the right.
“Anderson?” Gavin called over as Connor continued to follow every move of his pen. “What’s wrong with — your partner?”
Anderson looked up, first at Gavin, and then at Connor, realising straight away what Gavin was talking about.
Anderson shook his head.
“Connor downloaded a corrupted file this morning.” Anderson paused before reluctantly adding. “He thinks he’s a cat.”
Gavin burst into laughing, and Connor jumped at the unexpected noise, his attention broken from the flick of the pen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“Leave it, Reed.” Anderson warned and Gavin huffed another laugh before turning back to his screen. He had to admit that things had got a lot more interesting since Connor’d officially joined the DPD. Gavin had personally found Connor’s exploration of personal style very entertaining, especially his punk phase.
And now he thought he was a cat.
Gavin glanced over again to see Connor licking the side of his hand and then smoothing it over the lock of hair on his forehead that never seemed to stay in place. The lock of hair flicking back down a few seconds later and Connor once again licked his hand and smoothed it back again.
Gavin shook his head and returned to work. He didn’t realise he was drumming his fingernails on the desk until Connor was almost on top of him, drawn to the fast steady movement.
Connor stared at his fingers, peering over the edge of the desk, and Gavin thought, if he had ears, they’d have been focused forward and intent on the hunt.
“Shoo.” Gavin said irritated by just how close Connor was to him, and when Connor didn’t move, made the shooing motion with his hands, which only succeeded in making Connor even more interested.
“Anderson!” Gavin called over but the other man wasn’t at his desk and Gavin was stuck with the situation.
Connor meowed at him plaintively, trying to entice Gavin to play, and Gavin scrunched up a piece of paper from his pad and threw it towards Connor’s desk.
Within a heartbeat, Connor darted after the makeshift ball, moving faster than Gavin had ever seen him move, and caught it before it even got half way across the space, batting into the trash.
A few officers turned to look at what had happened, but by then Connor was once again back on firm ground, showing no signs of the acrobatics he’d just preformed.
Connor cocked his head to the side and then meowed again.
Gavin scrunched up another piece of paper and this time hurled it up towards the ceiling. He knew that with his cats they’d launch themselves into the air and catch it at its highest point. He doubted Connor would do that!
He was wrong.
Not only was Connor fast but he was also extremely agile and he sprang into the air, his body stretching and flexing, once again batting the ball of paper into the trash, without exerting the slightest effort.
Gavin had never seen Connor use his body in this way before and it was both a little surprising and a little shocking.
Thinking for a moment, Gavin rummaged in his desk drawer and pulled out a laser pointer, flicking it on and catching Connor’s attention, first moving it around in a figure eight on the floor and then dancing it up the wall. Connor watched it intently, his pupils continuing to widen the further up the wall the dot of light went.
Gavin and Connor had now gained an audience as officers stopped what they were doing to watch Connor’s antics.
Gavin brought the dot down to just above Connor’s head and then shot it back up the wall as fast as he could — and Connor went after it. Straight up the wall. Doing some crazy damn parkour in his pursuit of the tiny red dot.
Officers clapped, like Connor was putting up some kind of show, and Gavin cut off the laser pointer, leaving Connor perched on one of the ceiling support beams looking around frantically for were it had gone.
“Reed!” Anderson snapped. “What the fuck are you doing?! Connor get down from there!”
“Don’t blame me, you’re the one that disappeared and left him here, meowing at me.”
Connor jumped from the ceiling beam and landed lightly on the floor in front of Anderson.
“So you thought you’d turn him into a circus act?”
Gavin had to agree that that was exactly what he had done, so he changed the subject.
“Did you know he could do that shit?”
Anderson looked back up at the ceiling beam and then looked around to see how Connor could possibly have got up there and then shook his head.
“He’s a state of the art prototype. Don’t underestimate him.”
“He thinks he’s a cat.” Gavin pointed out helpfully, and Anderson scowled at him.
“Just get back to work, Reed.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” His voice dripping with sarcasm, and Anderson scowled at him again before leading Connor away.
Gavin did get back to work and didn’t once think about Anderson or Connor, until he was headed to the restroom and heard the loud scared hissing of a cat. And if there was one sound he couldn’t abide it was the sound of a cat in distress.
“What’s going on in here?”
Connor was backed into a corner, his hair and face wet as if he’d just had his head flushed down the toilet, and Gavin felt his anger swell, as he glared at the officers surrounding Connor.
Gavin’d heard these officers talking shit about Connor before but they’d never said anything to his face and Gavin had always known they were chickenshit - but this was exactly the kind of thing chickenshit would do.
“You’re gonna pull this BS now when he doesn’t know any better and can’t defend himself? You wouldn’t say boo to him on a normal day. You fucking cowards.”
They protested but Gavin talked over them.
“You’ve assaulted a fellow officer, and I’ll be bringing this up with the captain. Get out.”
Once they’d left, Gavin approached Connor, but Connor shrank away and hissed again.
“It’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re safe now. I got you.”
Gavin reached out his hand slowly and Connor tentatively leaned towards him.
“It’s okay.” Gavin repeated soothingly. “The bad men have gone.”
It only slightly surprised him that he was talking to Connor the same way he talked to his own cats when they needed reassuring.
“C’mon, let’s get you dried up.”
Connor was hesitant but he still went with Gavin, padding along silently behind him into the changing rooms.
“Sit there.” Gavin instructed and Connor sat down on the bench while Gavin got a towel. Connor stayed still and quiet for all of two seconds before he started growling low in his chest and snarling as Gavin scrubbed the towel over his hair and face.
“Ah now, we’ll have none of that. I’m doing this for your own good. You don’t want to walk around all day with wet hair do you? No, you don’t. So stop your complaining.” Gavin kept talking calmly until he was done and had removed the towel from Connor’s head, and he knew if Connor had a tail it would’ve been wagging furiously just now.
“All done.”
Connor’s growl of annoyance made Gavin laugh as he started to run his fingers through Connor’s hair, coaxing it back into place, and as his fingers worked Connor started to purr, the low sound vibrating through his body and into Gavin’s finger tips.
Gavin pulled is hand away quickly, instantly aware of just how intimate his actions had just been, but Connor continued to purr and nuzzled his head against Gavin’s arm, his chest, his soft hair tickling beneath Gavin’s chin.
“Time to get you back to Anderson.” Gavin choked and stepped back, bumping into the row of lockers behind him.
Connor stopped purring and cocked his head to the side again.
“C’mon.” Gavin called as he headed to the door, not even checking if Connor was following, but knowing that he was.
Gavin quickly filled Anderson in on what had happened and Anderson instantly took over, his anger making Gavin flinch and almost feel sorry for the officers that’d assaulted Connor. Almost.
This day had started out interesting but was ending up confusing. Not only had he learned that Connor was incredibly flexible, but also that Connor’s hair was as soft as cats fur and just as nice to stroke.
He’d also learned that it was easy to be kind to Connor and that Connor would respond in kind to that kindness.
Gavin glanced over at Connor’s desk to find that Connor was dipping his fingers into a glass of blue blood and then lapping it off with quick light flicks of his tongue. Gavin quickly looked away again.
There was obviously something very wrong with him right now and he wasn’t having any of it. So what if Connor had chosen to trust him and then purred in contentment at Gavin’s touch. That didn’t mean anything. Nothing had changed. And tomorrow Connor would be back to normal and none of this would matter anyway.
“Reed, they’ve got a fix for this ah malfunction, so I’m taking Connor to get the patch.”
“Why you telling for?”
“Why’d you think? You’re in charge while I’m gone.”
Of course he was, Gavin shook his head.
“Do whatcha gotta do, Anderson.”
Gavin tried to tell himself that nothing had changed, all night he tried to convince himself, but something had changed, and it became clear just how much it had changed when instead of greeting Connor the next morning with a ‘you still here, tincan?’ he said:
“Morning, Connor.”
Connor looked at him in surprise and then smiled slightly.
“Good morning, Detective Reed, and thank you for your kindness yesterday.”
“Don’t mention it.” Gavin croaked and sat down, turning his back on Connor, but despite not being able to see him, Gavin was certain he could hear Connor softly purring.