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“One minute,” John’s telling Detective Stahl, “we’re following Detective Paul into Doctor Vogler’s lab, and the next minute he’s gone. Dorian said his GPS signal blinked out too, not that I noticed—I was busy getting shot at.” John glares pointedly at Dorian, who was not shot at even once throughout the raid.
As if returning fire, and probably also because Detective Stahl looks satisfyingly intrigued by John’s bandaged arm, John’s cockblocking robot adds with mock sympathy, “He was shot by a chimpanzee.”
Part of John dies when Stahl can’t quite smother her laughter. She glances at John’s arm again—this time with mirth. “Do I want to know?”
“No,” John says at the same time as Dorian says, “It was actually quite fascinating,” and opens his mouth to humiliate John with that same angelic expression he always wears while getting away with being a total shit in front of John’s coworkers.
John is saved by the gray cat Stahl came over to ask about in the first place launching itself from Dorian’s arms and into John’s lap, where it lands with claws that gouge through John’s pants and into his thigh to steady itself. John doesn’t hiss at the surprise of pain—Stahl’s watching—but it’s a near thing, and Dorian notices anyway.
“I’m sorry, John,” he says instead of continuing to humiliate John in front of Stahl.
“Sure you are,” John mutters.
“I didn’t expect it to do that,” Dorian says placatingly.
“Uh huh,” John drawls, hands gradually returning to orbit from giving the cat a wide berth while it got comfortable prowling around on his lap. “Right.”
“Cats don’t usually like him,” Dorian very helpfully explains to Detective Stahl, troll that he is.
John rolls his eyes with a huff. He’d forgotten Dorian’s ribbing about cats. And…kids, was it? Anyway, Dorian clearly hadn’t.
“Kids don’t like him either,” Dorian adds with a placid smile.
The cat sniffs delicately at John’s bandage and then nuzzles it. John jerks, startled by the bloom of pain the pressure sends through him.
The cat’s response is to bristle and dig its claws back in, then pad in a circle on his lap, whacking John’s nose with its tail in the process, before nuzzling at John’s chest instead. John frowns down at it. “Well, this cat likes me,” he says, bemused.
“It was found in a pile of Detective Paul’s clothing in a mad scientist’s lab where cruel and unusual experiments were routinely performed on animals, John. Right next to a used canister of an unidentified inhalant. It’s probably deeply traumatized.”
“Does it look traumatized to you?” John snaps, tone at odds with the gentle patience with which he lets the cat sniff his hand. When it nuzzles him, he cautiously begins scritching its jaw with the bend of his finger. The cat purrs.
“Studies show that people raised in abusive households learn to see abuse as normal and are more prone than people from non-abusive households to let people with similarly abusive personalities into their lives and to regard their behavior as normal.”
“So?” John says distractedly.
“Animals do the same thing, John.”
John glares at Dorian. “I do not abuse animals.”
“That wasn’t my point.”
“That cat seems pretty well-adjusted, considering where you found it,” Detective Stahl points out.
“Thank you,” John says, waving his free hand at her. When the cat mews, John take it as agreement.
“The point is its instincts aren’t working properly,” Dorian insists. “If they were, it wouldn’t like you, John—just like every other normal, non-traumatized cat.”
A snort is all the response John thinks that deserves.
Detective Stahl is grinning as she leans close and strokes down the cat’s short gray back. “It’s a boy, right? Is it full-grown? It looks a little small.”
The cat jerks away from both their hands to hiss at Detective Stahl. It also digs its claws into John’s leg again. “Please don’t piss it off,” John grunts.
Detective Stahl looks down at John’s thigh and winces. “Sorry! Cats usually like me.” She shrugs and straightens, grin impish on her pretty face. “Maybe its instincts really are off.” Her grin becomes a dazzling smile at John’s shocked look of betrayal. “Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work.” She nods and returns to her desk.
John and the cat both watch her go.
“How interesting,” Dorian says. His face lights up worryingly.
John jerks his gaze away from Stahl to find Dorian gazing shrewdly at them both. The cat shuffles on John’s lap and turns its back on Stahl, tail swishing and growing bushy under Dorian’s watchful eye. “Aw, don’t scare the cat,” John says as its claws start sinking into his leg again. He thinks he should pick it up and put it down somewhere, but he doesn’t want to actually pick it up. “C’mon,” he tells the cat, “don’t do that—that hurts.” His hands hover around his thighs, wanting to unlatch the claws but not wanting the cat to dig in more if he touches it. “Calm down, kitty. Cat. What the hell, I don’t know what to call it.”
The cat unhooks its claws and swivels its head to give John the stink-eye. John brings up his hand hesitantly. After a tense moment, the cat nuzzles it and its fur starts to settle again.
This time, when the cat raises its neck to lean into John’s finger, he notices it’s got white on its chest, not just on its paws and face. Its chest coloring kind of reminds John of his badge.
John smirks. “I know what we’ll call you,” he says.
“Oh?” says Dorian.
“We’re gonna call you Paul,” John says, chuckling up at Dorian. “Found buried in Detective Paul’s clothes, wears a badge on his chest? Dorian, meet the new Detective Paul.”
Dorian raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
The cat purrs and rubs its head against John’s chest.
“See, he likes it,” John says.
Dorian’s grin is worryingly secretive. “Indeed,” he says. “Unfortunately, it seems Detective Paul is hindering your ability to do the paperwork for this case. I’m going to take him so you can be productive. Well, as productive as you ever are.”
John curls his lip at Dorian, who ignores him and picks up the cat. Its purring cuts off with a hilarious, surprised warble.
“Back to work, John,” Dorian says, nodding at his tablet and the case folders on his desk.
Paul settles himself in Dorian’s arms, then pads its way up to nose at Dorian’s nose.
“Yes, Detective Paul?” Dorian asks, as if the cat understands him.
John rolls his eyes and turns to his desk.
The cat hisses, then immediately starts purring.
John looks up to find the cat looking curiously smug as it settles against Dorian’s chest. There are four long, lavender claw scratches across Dorian’s left cheek.
“That was uncalled for,” Dorian informs the cat. “My actions were caused by a charging shortage you were directly responsible for.”
John frowns. “You know that’s not the real Detective Paul, right?” Maybe he needs to send Dorian to see Rudy, get his circuits checked, or whatever it is Rudy does to fix him.
“We’ll see,” Dorian says mysteriously.
An MX walks up and hands Dorian a slim leash. Dorian loops it around the cat’s annoyed neck and clips it closed. “Thank you,” he tells the MX. The MX walks away like the creepy human drone that it is.
The cat hisses at Dorian.
Dorian holds it away from himself with a stern look, and then drops it.
Paul makes a surprised yowl when Dorian lets go; John can’t help laughing. He laughs harder when the cat lands on its feet like it belongs in the drunk tank and hasn’t been a cat all its life. The cat tries to walk it off like it didn’t nearly miss a basic landing, and it’s such a Detective Paul thing to do John can’t help but shake his head.
Dorian smirks down at the cat. “Better?” he asks, holding up the leash. The cat glares at him.
“It really is like Detective Paul,” John says with a snicker. “He can’t stand you either.”
“He scratched me, John.”
“I can see that,” John says, motioning to the healing marks on the synthetic skin of Dorian’s usually perfect cheek.
Dorian motions to his bicep, where a growing patch of purple in the shape of a bite is blooming. “Next time, you collar Detective Paul,” he says. “He actually likes you.”
John snorts. “Detective Paul can’t stand either of us.”
“And why do you say that, John?”
“He’s openly hostile, blames me for the ambush that got good people killed…” John trails off. “Mutual friends,” he says softly. He huffs. “Paul made sure when I walked in that I knew he thought I deserved to stay gone.”
“John,” Dorian says kindly.
The cat rubs against John’s leg.
John absently reaches down and pets it. “And you’re my old-fashioned robot that shows up his MXs all the time,” John finishes. After a pause, he adds, “One of whom I shot—”
“Because you like me.”
“—not because I like you,” John growls. “See? Detective Paul doesn’t like me. Open and shut case.”
Dorian nods to himself. “You like me better than Detective Paul,” he says.
“So does everyone,” John shoots back, “that’s not hard.”
Dorian hums. “I think Detective Paul is jealous.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He’s feeling territorial about you.”
That’s when John hears it. And smells it. The damned cat is peeing on John’s synthetic leg!
John jerks away with a snarl. “Ugh, dammit, Paul! It peed on me!” He resolutely ignores the snickering of his rubbernecking coworkers. “Dorian, get someone to come clean this up. Why did you let it pee on me?” He holds his pants away from his synthetic leg and hopes the material won’t absorb the smell. “I’ll be back—I need to go change.”
Dorian’s face lights up and he cocks his head. “Take Detective Paul with you,” he says abruptly.
“It just peed on me!” John growls. “No!”
“Detective Paul has adopted you and views me as a threat to your affections,” Dorian says. “He might act out or try to follow you if you leave the bullpen without him.”
“So hold onto him,” John snaps.
“Do you want to explain to Chief Muldanado why there’s a cat loose in the precinct, John?”
“Dorian.”
Dorian loops the leash around John’s wrist. “You two should go change.”
When John tries to hand it back Dorian is already walking away. “You can thank me later,” he calls back before knocking on the chief’s door and striding in when ushered.
John glares down at Paul. “You’re both assholes,” he tells the cat, and starts to walk.
The cat moseys.
With a huff, John picks it up and tucks it into his uninjured arm, then strides self-consciously out of the collectively amused bullpen and down to the locker room. There he strips off his shoes, pants, and dirty sock, and folds them so the piss is on the inside. “Damned cat,” he grouses as he walks to the sink in his underwear, leash still looped around one hand. He has to tug to get the cat to follow him; it looks a little dazed.
John wonders if it’s sick.
He washes his hands and shuts off the hologram on his leg to clean it as best he can, then puts on a clean pair of pants and one sock. He switches out his shoes for the sneakers in his locker and stuffs everything Paul pissed on in a self-sealing bag designed with sweat-rancid clothes in mind. As he ties his shoes, the cat starts pawing at his synthetic leg, nosing under the pant leg, like it’s wondering where the smell went. “Hey—don’t even think about it,” John says, pushing the cat away. “Once was more than enough, thank you. Just sit over there.”
The cat sits and blinks at him.
“Good,” John says uneasily. Is its fur browner than it was a minute ago? John shakes himself. Maybe the cat piss fumes were getting to him. From the sealed bag. Maybe. But the cat looks…bigger than it had a minute ago, too.
John’s comm goes off. “Kennex,” he answers.
“John,” Dorian says, tone as urgent as Dorian ever gets, “remove the leash from Detective Paul’s neck immediately. He’s going to change back soon and may asphyxiate.”
“You’re not making any sense,” John says, even as he automatically reaches for Paul and puts him in his lap to unclip the leash. When your partner uses that tone, you do what they say first and ask questions later. “What do you mean ‘change back’?” He asks as he pockets the leash. “You don’t seriously think this cat is Detective Paul, do you?”
The cat slumps against John’s chest and starts moaning.
“The chimpanzee animal services was examining changed into Dr. Vogler roughly five minutes ago. He used an inhalant to change his shape. The cat was found in Detective Paul’s clothes next to a used canister of unidentifiable inhalant. He responds to what we say as if he understands us. He’s a cat that actually likes you.”
“Hey!” Dorian can’t prove cats don’t like John.
“The cat is Detective Paul,” Dorian concludes.
The cat gives a low moan and starts twitching in John’s arms. “Right, I think it’s seizing, get down here.” John switches off his comm and, against his better judgment, pets it soothingly. “Alright, Paul, you’re gonna be fine,” he croons. If it really is Detective Paul, he needs to put it down like it’s on fire and pretend the last hour never happened.
But even if it is Detective Paul—which, serious mixed signals, if that’s true—right now it’s just a terrified, shaking cat…that’s getting progressively heavier in his lap while staying the mostly same size.
And John is good with cats, okay? He is.
When it starts thrashing, John rushes it to the wide, open area by the sinks, puts it down, and backs away. He doesn’t know what technology Dr. Vogler used to make Detective Paul into potentially-Detective-Paul-the-cat, but just in case, he doesn’t want to crowd him and end up with Detective Paul’s arm magically re-appearing through his face.
Seconds later, the cat turns into a naked man with a pop that feels like an airplane cabin depressurizing. One minute John is locking gazes with a miserable-looking, twitching gray-turning-browner cat, the next he is staring into the eyes of a miserable-looking, twitching, brown-skinned man who bristles when Detective Stall calls him short, holds a grudge against Dorian for punching him in front of the whole devision, and gets pissy or oddly quiet whenever John disagrees with him.
Huh. Detective Paul really is a cat that likes him.
John…isn’t dealing with that right now.
What he wants to do is dish out some payback humiliation for Detective Paul peeing on him in front of the bullpen, clawing the hell out of his thighs, scratching Dorian—twice, deliberately, which Dorian clearly suspected at the time, not that John had believed him—and letting John pet him like a real cat, which John would never have done if he’d known it was really Richard Paul in there.
But Richard’s eyes are dark and shocked and afraid when John snaps himself out of his rage, and he’s curled up and shivering on the cold cement floor, and all John sees in front of him is a crime victim who got drugged on the job. So John smiles like Paul is breakable and holds out his hands to show that they’re empty. “Hey,” he says as kindly as he can manage, “welcome back, Richard.”
Richard blinks slowly at him, then seems to snap back into himself. “Thanks…John.” He clears his throat. “It’s a little cold down here.”
As if waiting for just that moment, Dorian walks in, sweeps Detective Paul into a shock blanket, and helps lift him to his feet. Paul seems unsteady on two feet initially; John opens his mouth to tease him about it, but Dorian quells him with a look. Dorian does his disco face and warns them, “Medical staff will arrive shortly. Would you prefer to be dressed when they arrive?”
“Of course,” Paul snarls, “where’s my—oh.” He presses his palm to the locker Dorian’s stopped him in front of; it recognizes his print and opens. “Thanks,” he mutters, not looking at either of them.
“Detective Kennex will remain in case you need assistance,” Dorian says. “If you like, I will ask the medical staff to wait outside until you are finished.”
“Yeah,” Detective Paul says. “Do that.” He nods and starts pulling out clothes.
Dorian leaves with a warning glare at John. John holds up his hands—there’s no call for that look, he’s not gonna do whatever Dorian thinks he will, he’s not heartless, dammit. Dorian jerks his head pointedly at Detective Paul, then leaves.
So John helps him put on pants and doesn’t say a word. Buttons Paul’s shirt and doesn’t say a word. Puts socks and shoes on Paul like he’s dressing his old partner Pelham instead of the guy who thinks John as good as murdered him. Puts a gentle hand on Richard’s shoulder and asks, “You good?”
“Hey, John?” Paul says instead, mouth opening to say something that feels important.
John looks down and waits in trepidation for Richard to say what’s really on his mind.
Instead, he watches as pride slowly consumes Richard Paul’s vulnerable expression until all that’s left is Detective Paul, asshole coworker.
Detective Paul shakes his head and clears his throat. He doesn’t look at John. “Tell your bot to let them in,” he says.
John lets go of him and does. He tries to tell himself he isn’t disappointed.