The sound washed over him as he stumbled blearily into the living room, and found Roan sprawled on the sofa, swigging directly from a bottle of rum. That was shocking for several reasons. Roan didn’t like rum (the bottle was a Christmas gift from a totally clueless passing acquaintance); Roan drank very sparingly, and when he did, he had a preference for microbrews; and, perhaps most shockingly of all, it was just after seven in the fucking morning! Since when did he drink in the morning?

“Ro?” he asked, padding around the sofa.

Roan looked up at him slowly, his bottle glass green eyes glazed, red rimmed, and strangely unfocused. “Oh, sorry hon,” he slurred, his syllables an almost inaudible mush. “I didn’t think I’d wake ya.”

“You’re drunk.” Yes, it was an idiotic thing to say, but it was startling to see him this way; he couldn’t help but be stupid.

Roan shrugged in a strangely defeated way. “Con always liked it, so I thought now was as good a time as any to give it a serious shot.”

“Con?” he repeated, puzzled. Or had he said Vaughn? Either way, he had no idea who that was.

“I guess I get the appeal of drunkenness, but fentanyl’s easier.” He took a swig from the rum bottle, then grimaced as if it was the worst thing he’d ever tasted. “God, this is horrible. It’s like drinking hairspray.”

“Then why drink it?”

“It’s the only hard liquor we have in the house.” He sighed heavily, and let the bottle thunk onto the carpet, where it still managed to remain upright. His voice was scratchy, hoarse, and Paris wondered if he was coming down with something. (Which would be about time, really. The whole time he‘d known him, Roan had never gotten a single cold.) “I didn’t want to think anymore; I wanna stop thinking. I wanna shut off my head.” He dry washed his face, and that’s when he saw that the knuckles on Roan’s right hand were red and slightly swollen, filaments of blood marking the back of his hand like a henna tattoo.

He reached out and grabbed his hand, examining the injury close up. “Holy shit, Ro, did you get in a fight?”

Roan yanked his hand away violently before he could get a cursory glance. “Naw, I … I broke the bathroom mirror. Sorry; I’ll replace it.”

“How’d you break it? Are you all right?” But even as he asked that, he realized that the injuries on Roan’s hand could only have come if he’d punched the mirror, possibly more than once.

He shook his hand in the air as if it did actually ache, but then he let it fall casually to his lap. “I’m fine; I’m so fine I’m golden,” he replied, but with a derisive, sarcastic snicker, and he got a pained look in his eye. “I’m the king of the fucking cats. I’m the alpha male.”

Paris sat on the couch beside him, and it was a fight to catch Roan’s eyes, as he seemed to be looking everywhere but at him. “Sweetheart, you’re not making sense.”

Roan’s eyes started to turn liquid as tears welled in them, and once again he was quietly amazed at how perfectly, richly green they were. When he first met him, he thought he was wearing colored contact lens. “They knew I could kill all of them. How’d they know that when I didn’t know that?”

Paris shook his head, trying hard to make sense of this. Well, drunken rambling wasn’t new, it was just new for Ro.

He sniffed and wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. “There was this social worker once, her name was Allison, Rainbow reminds me of her in a way; very hippie-ish, kinda mousy. Allison was the only one who would touch me; she’d take my hand or give me awkward hugs. She would always tell me at the end of our sessions “You are not your disease”. She’d look me in the eye and say that, and I didn’t know why she was telling me that; it was other people who needed that info, not me. But I’m starting to think she was smarter than everyone else. I’m more my disease than I’ve ever wanted to admit.”

Paris reached out and touched his face, cupping his cheek and turning him towards him. “That’s nonsense -”

Roan pushed his hand away and shoved himself farther into the corner of the couch, like he was in one of his moods where he didn’t want to be touched. They were rare, but every now and then he’d get in these dark places inside his own head where he wanted no one near him, where a casual touch, no matter how gentle or affectionate, would make him nearly jump out of his skin. Roan never wanted to talk about it, and Paris respected him enough not to ask. He could imagine what it meant, though, and it made him a little sick to think about it. “It’s not. I wish it was. I’ve known for some time that too much of the cat is bleeding into me, but I liked to pretend it didn’t mean anything. But it does. What d’ya think’ll happen one day? Do you think I’ll change and never change back?”

What in the fucking hell was he talking about?! Was he serious? “That doesn’t happen. Infecteds don’t become cats and stay that way. You know that.”

“Infecteds like you. Functional virus children … the medical profession still doesn’t know what to make of us. We’re the freaks of freaks.” he continued wiping away snot and tears, as he wasn’t crying, but tears were still streaming from his eyes as he stared resolutely down at the carpet. “And I’ve just gotten confirmation that I’m King Freak. I suppose I should be glad. If I gotta be a freak, at least I’m the biggest one.”

He wanted to tell him that was total bullshit, he was not a freak and he was not his disease - what kind of thing was that to say anyways? - but Roan was not in a mood to listen right now. He reached out tentatively, letting him see his hand in the corner of his eye before gently touching his face, feeling if his forehead was hot. His skin did seem abnormally warm, but that could have just been the booze; he’d been to enough keggers to know that. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs. You need to get some sleep.”

Paris stood and took his arm, and Roan reluctantly let him help him up to his feet, not so much stumbling as taking a moment to find his balance. He leaned against him, and buried his face in the side of his neck. “You smell good,” he said, his breath hot against his neck.

Oh joy. You had to love these drunken mood swings. “No I don’t, I haven’t had a shower yet.”

“Doesn’t matter. Tigers smell good.” He scraped his teeth along his neck, not quite a love bite but very much in the same spirit.

“Are you serious? Have you ever been to the zoo?” He held Roan back by the shoulders, and said, “I’m on a supposedly lethal dose of illegal painkillers, and you’re falling down drunk. Do you actually think we’re capable of doing anything at the moment?”

Roan stared back at him in glazed, bemused defiance. “Nobody likes a quitter.”

Pariis frowned, trying not to laugh. At least Roan was still in there, beneath all the self-pity and alcohol, still being a smart ass. “Come on, horndog, let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t that be horncat?” He suggested, but not very seriously.

He helped him up the stairs in an odd reversal of their usual roles, chewing over everything Roan had said. It didn’t make any more sense in retrospect, and he wondered what the hell had happened to drive him this far to the edge. Roan was one of the toughest guys he’d ever known, in just about every sense of the word; he had a contrarian’s soul, so the more you tried to push him down, the more he fought back. You could beat him black and blue and dump him by the side of the road, but he would just spit out teeth and go right back to where he had been (once quite literally). It was either tenacity or insanity, depending on who you asked. It wasn’t that he wasn’t afraid, it was just that his fears had a tendency to be more esoteric and obscure - a gun in the face would just make him roll his eyes, but an EEG appointment would keep him up all night.

Obviously something was bothering him about himself, about his strain, but what? Yes, Roan had several aspects of the cat that never quite left him in his human form. The most obvious was his sense of smell, but his eyesight was equally acute, and he had a tendency to move with a feline grace that occasionally verged on eerie. People couldn’t actually move without making a noise, but Roan seemingly could; if he wanted to, he could be in a room with you and you’d never know it unless you somehow saw him out of the corner of your eye. He could stand in the shadows, move in them, and you’d never know it (that’s why he got so many great pictures of cheating spouses, and could tail people so successfully). He also had lightning fast reflexes that allowed him to catch insects in mid-air and grab people’s fists even when they attempted an out of nowhere sucker punch; according to him, the police recruiters were especially impressed with his reflexes. (That Matrix shit, ducking bullets? He bet Roan could do that in real life, although he hoped that never actually had to be proved.) But none of that seemed especially “inhuman”, although he had to admit his “super smelling” was a bit creepy at times.

Oh, and he did growl a bit. Usually when he was really angry - he always seemed to be startled to find himself doing it, like it was an unconscious reflex - but sometimes when he was aroused too, although that was a different kind of growl. It was much softer, lower in the throat, almost a kind of purr. Did he know he did that? It never occurred to him to ask, but now it did, although there was no way in hell he was bringing it up while he was drunk. Paris always found it kind of flattering, that he could make someone want him enough to growl; a weird kind of ego boost.

His eyes were always the same. Did Roan know that? He never told him because he didn’t know how he’d process the news. But even when he was in his lion form, his preternaturally green eyes remained, almost like there was just a little bit of Roan still in there (the eyes changed shape, of course - it was just the irises didn’t change color). Did he find out and freak? No, he didn’t see how he could find out, and even if he did, that would hardly send him careening towards a self-pity drunk. He was having a hard time imagining any scenario that could shake Roan so badly.

Although he tried to help him down onto the bed gently, Roan just kind of collapsed on it, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind. He took off Roan’s shoes and put them aside, pulling the blanket over him as Roan stared up at the ceiling, tears still leaking from the corners of his eyes, tears like fragile diamonds getting suspended in the stubble staining his jaw. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He knelt down beside the bed so he could be more or less at eye level with him, and stroked the hair off his forehead. He did feel a little feverish - maybe he was simply sick and reacted weirdly to it.

“For this, for everything. I’ve just wanted to believe I was more than a virus, but I don’t think I can deny it anymore. I am my disease; I’m not sure I’m all that human.”

“What bullshit is this?” He turned his face towards him, and this time he seemed too weary to resist it. “You aren’t your disease. You are Roan Christopher McKichan, and don’t even try and insult me by implying I love a walking virus. Got it?”

He smiled weakly, but it almost looked like a grimace. “Yes dear.”

“Don’t you “ yes dear” me,” he said in mock outrage, before giving him a kiss. He was right, the rum kind of did taste like hair spray.

He held him close, putting an arm around his chest and burying his face in his neck, and before he nodded off, Roan said the weirdest thing. “I wonder if I wanted you, or if it wanted the tiger.”

Paris was a little surprised to find out he was dozing off as well - Roan’s voice made him start a little - but when he looked at him his eyes were closed, and his breathing had the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. Had he dreamed Roan said that? He must have. What a weird thing to think you heard. What did that even mean? Oh well - dreams, right? They weren’t supposed to make sense.

He shoved himself up from where he’d been kneeling beside the bed, and he figured he’d be aching from being in such a strange position if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was so full of painkillers his insides felt like jelly, and his joints were so loose they could have been greased with WD-40.

Paris went and took a shower, and since the mirror in the bathroom was intact, he figured Roan must have broken the mirror in the downstairs bathroom. That reminded him of Roan’s hand, and as soon as he got out, he found the actual first aid kit - not one of their Courtney Love variations - and returned to work on his hand.

Roan slept through everything: the antiseptic spray, the wrapping of his hand in gauze, even the last minute slapping on of the “cool patch”, the ones they kept in the medicine cabinet for Roan’s migraines - Paris was hoping it would bring the swelling in his knuckles down. He couldn’t have punched the mirror hard enough to break them, could he? What would upset him that much?

He went downstairs and shut off the stereo before going into the bathroom to clean up the shards of bloody glass. Roan had done an excellent job of shattering it in its frame; in fact, there was a fist shaped indent in the wall behind the mirror. He’d hit it incredibly hard, so hard he must have broken his hand. But you’d think, even as drunk as he was, he’d have felt a great deal of pain. You’d think he wouldn’t have been able to use it to hold a bottle of rum. Maybe that was another gift of the cat; maybe he could do things like this and not be hurt as much.

A bizarre thought, especially since Roan was hardly immune to injury, but since that was what Ro seemed so upset about, his cat aspects, he wondered if that was somewhere in the neighborhood of what was bothering him. God, he hoped he was willing to talk once he was sober. Ro shut down so often, he kept things so bottled up, he felt privileged to pry little bits of information out of him. That thing he said about the social worker? Paris had no idea he even used to meet with a social worker, but if he was a kid in the state foster care system, that would make sense.

He thought about calling Sikorksi just to see if he knew what was the hell had happened to Ro last night, but Sikorski barely knew who the hell he was - he met him briefly at the funeral for that cop friend of Ro’s a couple months back - and he could still remember the look the old man gave him, like he was thinking “So you’re the guy Roan fucks”, a look both dismissive and disdainful yet tempered with an obvious splash of amusement. Paris loathed him on first sight, but played nice because it was a funeral, and because he was an acquaintance of Roan’s. But he also hated him because he so obviously used Roan, he used Roan’s compulsion to solve puzzles and his ability to look at a scene, at a pile of evidence, and see the tiny little flaw that would bring the whole thing crashing down. Roan was a born investigator, he was almost supernaturally good at it, and Sikorski knew it; Sikorski knew the force had lost a major asset when Ro was bounced. Worst of all, Ro had to know Sikorski was using him, but he so loved to do this, he so loved what he did, that he let him. Mundane private detective work was never going to completely satisfy him; he needed meatier puzzles, he needed challenges to make him feel useful.

And that’s all this came down to. Roan, cynical and tough as he was, just wanted to help people. He did, and it was so obvious Paris didn’t understand why Ro pretended that wasn’t it. He felt totally abandoned by people, by society, and yet he wanted to help them, because maybe that would allow him to be a part of them in some way. If he couldn’t be “normal”, if he couldn’t be un-infected, then maybe he could be valued for what he could do. And if society was at all smart, they would have. It was a terrible cliché, but even Roan just wanted to be loved, even though he’d never admit such a thing, even under the threat of death.

Thinking of mundane detective work reminded him that Ro was supposed to be in at the office today to meet a potential client. He’d mentioned it last night before he had to go in the cage, something about a woman worrying her husband was on the down low with his best friend. Roan was a little queasy about possibly “outing” some closet case, but Paris pointed out it was just a cheating spouse case, just like any other, with the possibility that he’s fucking a guy as opposed to his secretary. After all, they did have one case that accidentally turned into an outing: the Patterson case. That was just last year. A guy showed up and wanted his wife followed, as he was pretty certain she was having an affair with a guy named Grassow, a neighbor, but as Roan soon discovered, Mrs. Patterson was actually having an affair with Mrs. Grassow. The husband was utterly flabbergasted, and apparently wasn’t sure what he was going to do with this information. In the end, it probably didn’t matter; the two women ran off together, and last Roan heard they were living in Rhode Island.

Paris found the notebook Roan left by the phone, and found all the information he needed to know. Ro was rather eccentric in that he liked to keep handwritten notes, usually meaning half of Paris’s “job” at MK Investigations was scanning or transcribing his copious handwritten case notes and entering them into the computer files for the various cases. Paris always left out Ro’s occasional conversations with himself on the paper (“Coincidence? Follow up. This guy is so disgusting I’d cheat on him too”) although he hated to do it, because they were often the most entertaining things.

Paris hated to put on a long sleeved shirt on a day that was already promising to be as miserable as yesterday, but Ro tried to look “casually professional” on the job, meaning he’d only wear a “cubicle noose” (a tie) if he was absolutely forced to, but otherwise he tried to look professional and presentable. So Paris followed his lead since he’d be filling in for him, playing “detective”.

He didn’t do it often, but he did like to do it. He felt like putting on a fedora and one of Ro’s long coats (bless him, he had trench coats and dusters, giving in to the stereotype stylishly), maybe stick a cigarette between his lips (he hadn’t smoked since he was infected, but it seemed to go with the image), and not so much walk as swagger. Again, he knew none of this was true - he knew most detective work was rather dull and somewhat voyeuristic - but it was such a good stereotype, how could you not want to be a part of it?

Still, it was hot enough that he eschewed the trench coats, and rolled up the sleeves of his button down shirt as he went out to the Mustang and drove out to the office, stopping along the way to grab some fast food to calm his roaring stomach.

It was stuffy and slightly stale in the office from being closed yesterday, so he opened the blinds and turned on the rattling air conditioner, and although he thought caffeine had absolutely no chance against the painkillers in his system, he put the coffee on to get a pleasant aroma in the office. He almost sat down behind his desk out front, then remembered he really should be in Ro’s office. He felt odd walking in and not seeing him there behind his cheerfully weather-beaten wooden desk, which was relatively neat, with a cup of gel and ballpoint pens (Ro preferred gel pens; he felt they were smoother and easier to write with) and an appointment book on one side, and his computer on the other. Paris booted it up, feel a little like he was prying where he shouldn’t, and wondered again what was in that locked bottom drawer.

It was on the bottom right, and it was the only drawer that was actually locked (the left bottom one could lock, but it never was). Roan said the lock was stuck on that drawer and there was nothing in it, but Paris suspected he was lying. Why he had no idea, and he supposed if he pushed Roan would tell him eventually, but in a strange way he almost didn’t want to know. He feared he’d find artifacts of old lovers or something, things Roan didn’t actually want to share and things that Paris would not feel better off knowing.

Roan didn’t talk much about his romantic past at all. He said he had “one or two” relationships which never worked out, but he mostly stuck to casual relationships because he wasn’t good at serious ones. Paris suspected he had gotten his heart not so much broken as minced, sautéed, and served to him in a light Béarnaise sauce, but if that was too painful for him to talk about that was okay. Everybody had a hard luck relationship story … well, okay, not him, not unless you counted the one night stand with Darlene that got him infected with the tiger strain. All in all, that could probably top a lot of people’s stories.

He sat in Ro’s chair, an old leather seat that looked battered but was incredibly comfortable (no wonder he never got a new chair), and tried to pretend he was him for a minute. He was pretty sure he could mimic the attitude - be a smart ass? Check! - but he couldn’t actually think like Roan. He wished he could. In fact, he’d decided a while ago that while he was initially attracted to Roan’s gorgeous, intense eyes, the slinky way he moved, and his great ass, what he fell in love with was his kindness and his fascinating, almost inscrutable mind. Paris knew he wasn’t the most intellectual guy around - hell, he spent most of his life as a dedicated hedonist, only focused on getting laid as much as humanly possible (check!) - but he knew there was something different about the way Ro thought, the way he could find those little flaws, take obscure leaps of logic that miraculously panned out, find the threads that everyone else missed. He wished he could think that way; he wished he could feel out leads like they were tangible objects, something he could hold in his hands and examine at his leisure. But he felt more comfortable in his male “femme fatale” role. He didn’t know things, but he knew people; he knew what they wanted, he knew their desires, and he knew how to make almost anyone beg. That was good enough.

He heard the office door open, and he jumped to his feet and went out to greet the client. Susan Heffernan was a Clairol sun-kissed blonde with muddy roots, average height and average weight, with relatively large breasts and a small bulge of a gut in a pink top that was a bit too tight for her form, and a pair of denim capris that didn’t quite work with her clunky sandals. As she adjusted her suede hobo bag, she stared at him in what must have been shock. “You’re Roan McKichan?” She said it like someone might say “You’re my daughter?!”

“No,” he replied with a small, professional smile, and wondered if she knew how lucky she was. She’d just pronounced his last name “McKitchen”. “I’m afraid Mr. McKichan - “ he pronounced it correctly, with some emphasis. “ - is ill today. I’m his partner, Paris Lehane.”

“Oh.” She shook his hand, but held on a bit too long, and he knew she was taking a mental snapshot of him for later. Oh well - it happened too much for him to be bothered by it now. “Named after the city?”

Most people guessed that; Roan had impressed him by asking, “City or myth?” His mother was a teacher of classical mythology; he was named after the guy who supposedly started the Trojan War by kidnapping (or eloping with, depending on interpretation) Helen. Of all the kids, he’d probably got the best end of the name game - his sisters were named Antigone and Deianira.

It was a pretty much a straightforward transaction: he gave her the standard forms, told her their rates, and he got the basic information about her husband (where he worked, what his shift was, where he liked to go after work), and she also provided a photo of Ryan and his “best friend” Cooper. They were both blandly good looking and not screaming queens, so it was impossible to say if she had a reason to be worried or not. What an easy case to solve; just give him five minutes alone in a room with Ryan, and he’d know if he was gay or bi or not.

It didn’t seem perfectly ethical somehow, but they were one payment closer to getting the sliding glass door replaced, so that eased his conscience a bit. He was happy to put the down payment receipt in his wallet (so she paid by credit card; it was better than a check) and decided to close up before Braunbeck came over with a sack of gorp and an offer for a free “rolfing”. He couldn’t help but worry about Roan, although he knew the last person in the world he ever needed to worry about was Roan. But whatever happened to him last night must have been … heavy.

While he was locking up, Randi came over, buzzing on coffee, and handed him a manila envelope as she talked in a Starbucks fueled mania (it wasn’t her lunch hour, so she must have been taking a break). She’d emailed Ro all the stuff, but she thought he might want to have some hard copies to look at. Apparently DeSilvo and Henstridge both had been receiving money from something called “Metropol Limited”, which was as far as she could tell a dummy corporation and a very lame tax shelter based in the Cayman Islands. It no longer existed - it shut down after a huge donation was made to Henstridge’s account two days ago - and she was sure it was probably a person just trying to hide some cash. Her guess was they were trying to hide money from the IRS, but the amounts were “dribs and drabs”, so she wasn’t sure. But she thought Ro would be really interested in it, and so did he. It was suspicious, but he had no idea what it could possibly mean; Roan would undoubtedly know what it meant, and would stare at the two of them like the complete morons they apparently were.

On the drive back home he kept running over scenarios where Roan would freak out over being infected, but he kept drawing a blank. Ro wasn’t like him; he wouldn’t wake up one day and find himself covered in someone else’s blood, aching like he’d just been shoved off the roof of a twenty story building and run over by the ambulance that was supposed to pick him up, and take a minute to figure out that the weird … things on him, the things that looked like random pieces of shredded plastic, were actually flesh cut so thin it was almost translucent. Paris shuddered at the memory, his gut churning, but he felt a certain healthy distance from it now, which was probably good. That would make anyone lose their mind for a while, right? Well, maybe Ro could deal with it; maybe anyone would deal with it better than he did.

Pulling up to the house, he saw a silver Subaru Outback parked across the street, and a man standing at the base of their driveway. Paris recognized neither the SUV or the man, and he suddenly had a really bad feeling about this. It didn’t help that the man turned around suddenly, as if surprised. The gun was under the seat, right?

He got out of the car, and the man came up to him with a friendly enough “Hi”, with an additional, “Do you live here?”

Ro was a bit paranoid, but there was always some logic to it. For instance, he always advised to be careful in giving away information no matter how seemingly harmless if you didn’t trust someone. Paris didn’t trust this guy enough to confirm even that. “Can I help you with something?” he replied, meeting a question with a question.

The guy was six foot even, probably mid-thirties, reasonably broad across the shoulders but slender, face square jawed and ruggedly “all American”, his eyes hidden behind slender, pitch black sunglasses, his ash brown hair short and slightly spiky in the front, like he combed mousse through his bangs with his fingers. He wore a loose vintage t-shirt, dun brown with the “Twister!” logo on it, and oversized Levis that were baggy enough to hide his legs (and surely his ass as well … and maybe a gun). Paris figured he could take the guy if he tried anything, unless he was a martial art expert or a character from a Tarantino film or something.

The guy claimed to have been driving by when he saw the GTO. He claimed to be a classic car collector (in a Subaru Outback?!), and it had happened to Paris before, when he was painting the GTO, so he could almost buy it. The guy did seem to know something about muscle cars, but Paris couldn’t shake his suspicion that that wasn’t why he was here, that if he hadn’t drove up, this guy would have … what? Was he casing the joint? Was he looking for Roan?

For some reason, that made him feel slightly queasy. Looking for Roan.

The guy said his name was Mark, and he made him an offer for the GTO, a thousand in cash and another thousand in check form to buy the car as is - with the engine out - but Paris turned it down. Restoring cars like the Mustang and the GTO was a hobby, one that allowed him to turn off his mind and pretend for a while he was normal, like he was back in high school working in his Uncle Mick’s garage - not infected, not doomed to a grisly fate. Also, he didn’t believe “Mark”. He had no real reason to disbelieve him, but something about this was all wrong. Paris couldn’t completely shake the feeling that he had interrupted “Mark”, but in the course of what he had no idea.

He watched the Outback drive off, but not overtly. It was a new car apparently; it had no license plate, and the temporary one in the back was so obscured by the tinted windows he couldn’t read it. You’d think the cops would hate that.

Once inside, he went straight upstairs, and was relieved to find Roan still asleep and perfectly fine. He didn’t know why he was seized by the sudden fear that he’d find him hurt … or worse. It was stupid; he wasn’t a nervous nelly, and Roan wasn’t helpless (although currently he was as close as he ever came). There was absolutely no reason for him to be worried about this.

Right?