Kitty-fic.
So Jensen had this cat. And this cat became a boy.
“Jensen?” Trist asks, which seems to be his default for all the little meows he used to make. It makes something in Jensen's chest tighten to know that all those things he used to think were ‘feed me’ or ‘pet me’ or ‘hairballs hurt’ were his name, that Trist has so much faith in him.
They’re sitting on the couch, after sharing a can of tuna (Jensen's just not feeding a person cat-food, despite how Trist still sniffs around the container). Trist’s head is on Jensen's lap, which is uncomfortable in the “gorgeous, naked, innocent” sort of way. It’s definitely an improvement over the “crushing my damn leg” way it was when Trist tried to sit his whole six and a half feet on Jensen's lap.
Despite how fast the man-cat picked up language and eating with utensils, the sweet-hearted kitten that Jensen picked up out of the gutter three years ago is still there, touch-hungry and physically affectionate.
“Yeah, Trist?” Jensen replies, and it doesn’t sound as strange as it should. Working from home for the past couple years has made Jensen lonely in that way where talking to an animal seemed better than talking to himself. He strokes the dark brown of Trist’s hair, marveling at the change, how long it is, how soft.
“Trist is,” Trist says in that way that Jensen's come to understand means he’s missing a piece of vocabulary. “Trist is couch?” Trist tries again, and Jensen smiles.
Language is a much easier thing to contemplate than the fact that Jensen's cat is talking back to him, and Jensen's been stalling on doing or thinking about anything else for hours.
“Trist is not a couch,” Jensen corrects, gentle. “Can you show me?”
Trist nods and stretches. He yawns, lips pulled back and his pink tongue curling at the tip. He closes his eyes and snuggles in against Jensen's thigh. “Trist is,” he says again, a tiny plaintive note creeping into his voice.
Jensen pets him again, slow and calm. It soothes him as much as his ex-cat. “Trist is sleepy? “
“Sleepy,” Trist agrees in a whisper.
“Go to sleep then,” Jensen urges, and strokes his hair for a while, until the young man’s breathing slows and deepens, until his body is all flat and relaxed and soft.
Creeping slow, Jensen slips out from under Trist’s weight. The computer’s still on and he rights his desk chair and takes a seat. Trist’s cheek twitches, like flicking whiskers, as Jensen hits Google and starts searching. “Animal transformation” brings him some links to what looks like porn with people becoming animals who become people again and have sex with their brothers. Weird. And when a guy who’s teaching his cat to speak in full sentences calls something weird, it just ain’t right.
From there his night just goes downhill. He runs across people dressing up in big fuzzy suits and having sex with each other and before he can decide that there’s no possibility of anything useful there he’s seen photos. There are a lot of websites in purple and black, with background pictures of cats and pentacles and the moon, sites about female sexual potency, but nothing, absolutely nothing, that says what to do when your cat’s been turned into a person.
Jensen stretches and pops his back. He should keep looking. The right site has to be here somewhere. Bill can’t have the market cornered on turning things into things they shouldn’t be.
And what are you gonna do if you find something? He has to ask himself. It isn’t right for an animal to become a person. He knows that. He should never have started teaching Trist to be more of a person, but it’s a little late now. He doesn’t know if he’s looking to find a way to reverse this or a way to make sure it never ends. He scrubs his hands against his aching eyes. Fuck. Just--fuck.
A big warm hand lands on his shoulder, scaring the crap out of him. Trist is stealthy as all hell. Still. “Jeeensen?” he asks in that little purring question of a tone.
“I’m okay,” Jensen starts to say, but Trist is there in his space, nuzzling at his jaw, doing those ‘scent marking’ rubs against his stubble.
“No,” Jensen says as Trist’s knee comes up into his lap. They are not both gonna fit in this chair. “No, Trist. Down.”
Trist makes a little piff through his nose and turns and stalks off, heading to his food dish in annoyance. Jensen groans. A pouting human is so much more effective than a pouting critter. He wants to make it right but he’s too tired for this shit.
“Look,” he says, and Trist ignores him. “Trist. Look, I’m going to bed.” Trist pushes his bowl around the little mat it sits on.
Jensen turns away and goes into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He’s not sure he’ll be able to sleep, but he needs a couple minutes to just be alone and process it all. He strips down by the bed and then crosses to the bathroom. The shower’s hot and feels good against his scalp, over his shoulders. He doesn’t plan to, but between one thought and the next his dick’s in his hand and he’s stroking it.
He’s a bad person. He’s sure of it. Trist is like--new in the world. Like a baby in a man’s body and no matter how beautiful that body is, all long lines and sculpted muscles and golden skin, Jensen shouldn’t jerk off to the thought of him. He shouldn’t and it’s wrong and he comes knowing that this, this sick attraction, is what makes him want to keep Trist forever, keep him a person forever.