Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The smell of blood was thick in the air; heavy and overpowering and it would've driven most mad or sick by now, but Gavin was used to it. Blood was the kind of smell that distracted; it coated everything like an oil, made it impossible to scent anything else, and tainted most things in the area. Very little of this crime scene would ever retain its original scent, which was exactly the reason why it had been so violent, or so Gavin guessed. What a pissoff.

The body was practically in pieces, held together by thin ligaments and leftover muscle and worst of all, it felt as if it had been left on display for them to find. The unidentified man, maybe? Woman? Honestly Gavin couldn't tell what gender the victim was at this point, just that they'd been torn open, organs displayed in some kind of disgusting ritualistic way that made no sense to him yet.

Gavin stepped around the mess, trying to keep his boots on the clean patches of floor but even those were few and far between. The body itself was splayed open right in the center of the living room, obviously moved there and displayed the way it was on purpose. A smeared trail of blood from the kitchen was enough evidence to confirm that the victims body had been dragged to where it currently was and the gory mess had been enacted right in the middle of the room. The organs; heart, lungs, intestines, stomach, liver - all major ones, where displayed in a circle around the body and Gavin's own stomach knotted uncomfortably at the sight. Rib bones had been removed from the body; snapped from the rib cage itself if the jagged edges were any indication. The rib bones were meticulously arranged around the organs, with purpose. It was fucken creepy and Gavin didn't understand it, but he doubted he was meant to.

Kneeling down beside the body, Gavin was careful not to touch, or step on anything. The last thing he needed were his own footprints mucking up the crime scene or getting mixed in with evidence. He fished his phone from his jacket pocket, tapping the screen until the camera came up and tried to get as much detail into his pictures as he could. The jagged edges of the broken rib bones, the gaping exposed hole where the victims chest had been. There were huge angry red gashes across blood stained skin that Gavin hadn't seen until now. He clicked at his phone to get a picture before hesitating, sliding his phone back into his pocket before holding his hand above the marks. They were bigger, wider, but clearly scratches made by something larger than a person.

His stomach was sick because of the blood, the body, the pieces. The complete disregard for life. Nothing about this murder was right. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it besides the strange ritual-esk display. Gavin sat back on his heels and took a few more photos of the body before pulling himself back up. He stepped around the blood and peices, turning his camera to the rest of the house, and it wasn't any better. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls and torn apart. The couch was shredded to peices, the fabric was soaked and dripping in blood and the marks were just as large as the ones on the body. A long coffee table had been flipped up on its side, and Gavin nudged it over a bit with his boot so he could get a look at the tabletop, kneeling down with his camera to take another picture. It looked like wax drippings on the top, but he couldn't be too sure without touching it, and from what he could see it didn't look like there were any candles in the room. At least not anymore.

Gavin took another couple pictures before moving to the kitchen, his stomach twisting sickly. The kitchen was only marginally better than the living room in that there wasn't a body. There had been a fight, the kitchen table had the broken into peices and was scattered across the floor and the back door was open, hanging half off its hinges as if it had been pulled clean off the side of the house. There was a knife on the ground, less blood on the floor besides the drag marks into the other room, spatter spots against the wall and some plain white candles on the counter. The knife on the ground was coated in blood, dried now, but still visible. Had the victim fought back or had the knife been used by the killer? Gavin took a picture of the knife, the bloody trail leading to the living room and the back door, moving out into the back yard. The fresh air was a relief, even if all he could smell right now was blood.

It was too bad, the back yard didn't look altered at all. The fence around the property looked undamaged, the gate was closed and latched, and the lawn furniture was set up on the stone patio, and it was pretty clean and undamaged besides the basic wear and tear. His suspect had gotten into the yard without forcing his way in, and then had broken into the house from here. He walked the perimiter of the fence slowly, stopping at the gate when he reached it and used his phone to slide the latch open easily and the gate creaked open. Glancing down at his feet, Gavin frowned. There was a stone path from the gate to the patio to the door, and it didn't look like there were footprints besides his own around the yard in the grass. Too fucken bad.

It didn't look like there as anything else in the yard so Gavin took a breath and went back into the house. The second time inside was almost worse. Gavin squeezed the bridge of his nose and stepped over a blood spot on the floor, moving towards to counter and the candles. The wicks looked burnt and the colour was the same as the wax he'd found in the living room, and the implications pointed towards more creepy rituals. Candles? Weird bone patterns? Organ removal? Gavin was almost a hundred percent sure this was some kind of occult shit which was real fucken shitty because he hated all that weird stuff. Why would it be an easy, clean murder when it could be difficult Satan worshipping cult bullshit. Some kind of Cthulhu crap maybe or whatever the kids all worshiped these days. God fucking damnit.

The rest of the house hadn't seen much action, at least not from the murderer. It was clean and organized, and it gave the impression of what the house should have looked like before shit had hit the fan. There were pictures on the walls, happy family photos, and even with those Gavin wasn't sure which member of the family was on the floor in the living room. He also wasn't sure exactly where the rest of the family was right now, because there was only one body. His gut twisted up at he prospect of more bodies piling up so fast, because it wouldn't be as simple as daddy killing mommy or vice versa.

Gavin turned around, taking a breath and moving back through the house and slipping out the front door and into fresher outside air again. Fuck. It was never fucking easy.

It was busy outside of the house, lots of activity as officers worked in gathering statements, clearing the perimeter, and waiting for the forensics lab to show up. Gavin noticed a few people bent over, heaving and he didn't blame them. The Detroit PD hadn't dealt with something this gruesome in a long time and a lot of the officers here hadn't had an opportunity to experience some of the more explicit murders that could happen in the city.

Then again, Gavin acted tough but this was the worst thing he'd laid eyes on since he joined the DPD, and the only reason why he wasn't throwing up all over his boots was sheer force of will. And pride. Gavin had a lot of that.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with this shitstorm. Fuck.

Murder was one thing, but murder involving a werewolf as the actual murderer? Because that's what had done this, Gavin didn't need a forensics lab to tell him that. A big old angry dog with teeth and claws and better arm strength than a regular man. The weird thing was, this kind of shit didn't happen, at least not this way. It was usually a dead werewolf, victim of some hate crime, because human beings hated things they didn't understand, and they definitely did not understand werewolves and werewolves were, for the most part, not used to fighting back against regular people. When it did happen this way, with a human as the victim, it was rare and difficult to solve because... Well, wolf packs kept such tight ties with their pack members, it was usually really hard to get them to admit it even happened. Cooperation was stupidly difficult to get and Gavin would know that better than anyone because he was exactly that; a werewolf.

Humans and werewolves had only been aware of each other for around two decades. Two long decades of dealing with harsh prejudice and a lot of demanding basic rights. It wasn't a lot of time to hash out important details like how to deal with a murderous animal on the loose, especially since it didn't happen often as far as Gavin knew. Forget solving the actual murder though because there was so much fucking red tape to cut through it was stupid and- Gavin ran a hand through his hair and sighed. This was going to be a fucking shit show, he just knew it.

Pulling a pack of smokes from his jacket pocket, Gavin took one between his lips, replaced the pack and lit the cigarette. The immediate relief of nicotine on his tongue was a blessing and he exhaled slowly into the night, staring up at the dark sky and for a minute he just breathed. It was the flashing lights of an incoming cruiser that distracted him and he watched as it pulled to a stop at the curb by the busy house. The cruisers lights shut off and Gavin took another long drag of his smoke as two people stepped out of the front. He recognized the old man on sight even in the dark and irritation started to bubble immediately in his gut - what the fuck was Anderson doing here? This was Gavin's case, not a fucking free for all.

Both Anderson and his lackey started towards Gavin right away, not giving the actual scene much of a look over. It was like they were on a fucking mission and for the second time today Gavin wished he hadn't gone inside that house because his nose was compromised, still thick with the metalic blood smell and he couldn't get a clear scent of the stranger. It was the equivalent of walking into a fight blind and it made him anxious. As a creature of instinct, not having one of his main senses was unsettling, especially when you were so used to relying on it, like Gavin was.

So to counter that anxiety, he reacted with the hostility he was used to, flicking the tail end if his cigarette onto the driveway. "What the fuck are you doing here, Anderson?" He'd managed to swallow the growl that had threatened to roll off his tongue, and Hank still shot him an unamused and disapproving look. It wasn't a secret that the old Lieutenant didn't like him, and honestly, it was true. Hank really didn't like Gavin and most people thought it was just because Gavin was an asshole and he and Hank were always butting heads. They were both pretty stubborn so it made sense but that wasn't it at all.

Hank knew exactly what Gavin was unlike the rest of the precinct, and he definitely didn't know because Gavin had told him willingly. It had been an accident and Gavin preferred not to think too hard on it. What mattered was that Hank knew exactly what Gavin Reed was, unlike the entire rest of the precinct, and the old man really disliked him for it, as if Gavin had had a choice in the matter.

"Trust me," Hank's dry laugh cut through Gavin's thoughts. "I'm not here to get involved in your fuckin' mess." before Gavin could snap at him for assuming shit about his case, Hank gestured towards the guy who'd followed him out of the cruiser and Gavin focused on him for the first time since they'd both gotten out of the car. He was young, and pretty too which was weird for a cop. Tall - taller than Gavin by just a little bit which was just enough to be annoying and he looked uncomfortable. He had absolutely no fucking idea why Hank had felt the need to drag some random guy right into the middle of his investigation, but Gavin didn't need to wait long for an explanation.

"Fowler seems to think you need a partner," oh fuck. "and as much as I disapprove of it here he is." Hank went quiet after that, waiting. There was enough tension in the air that you didn't need heightened senses to notice it, and Gavin didn't know why Hank was being extra hostile towards him. And then the words hit him like a ton of bricks. Partner. Hank was delivering his partner.

All of Gavin's attention zeroed in on the officer standing next to Hank because now he cared to pay attention. What kind of asshole had they sent him? Gavin couldn't smell right now, at least not past the thick stench of copper stuck in his nose, but he had 4 other senses. The guy looked sharp, like he took time in his appearance; clothes and hair alike, and Gavin could say for sure that they'd never met before. They wouldn't stick a green officer with him, would they? So... His best guess was that this was probably a transfer from another precinct. Fucking great.

Flicking his grey eyes between the two men for a moment, Gavin thought about saying something, snapping at Hank for no reason, or the new kid, but before he could manage a word, his new 'partner' stepped forward and extended a hand to him, a small, nervous smile twitching at his lips which caught Gavin off guard. Oh shit he was kind of cute.

"Hello, Detective Reed. It's nice to finally meet you. My name is Connor. Detective Connor Anderson. It's a pleasure, I've heard a lot about you from Hank-."

"-Oh Jesus fucking christ no."

Gavin stared, completely taken back by the fact that he was standing in front of Anderson Jr, with Anderson Sr, and that he'd just admitted to himself that an Anderson was kind of cute. This had to be some kind of sick joke, right? What the fuck? Gavin blinked, finally, glancing at Connors outstretched hand, Connors face, then towards Hank who still looked miffed and Gavin totally understood why. He didn't know what to do, how to react. He was caught completely unprepared.

Since when did Hank have a kid? Had Gavin ever known about that? Who the fuck would want to have kids with Hank Anderson?

Then suddenly the tiny hairs on the back of Gavin's neck stood on end because did Connor know? Why wouldn't he know about Gavin? Hank knew, so it made sense that his son knew, right? Was it a problem? Would it be a problem? Anxiety swelled up in the pit of his stomach.

Connors smile faltered after a second and Gavin realized he was standing there like an idiot, so he grabbed the kids hand and shook it - might as well try and make nice for the time being. "Hi." Connors hand was cooler against Gavin's own, his eyes bright and doe brown, with hair matching the shade of his eyes and again Gavin was annoyed that his nose was not working properly because unlike Hank, Connor probably smelt good, though he doubted Hank would appreciate him sniffing around his son. Then again Hank wasn't exactly the boss of him and Gavin could put his nose where ever he wanted to.

"Reed can you just... Try and fucken behave?" it sounded like an exasperated request, like Hank didn't think Gavin even knew the definition of the word, and Gavin was happy to ignore him because fuck the Lieutenant.

After a moment Hank shook his head and slapped Connor on the shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be encouraging, before he turned and headed back towards the cruiser, leaving Gavin alone with Anderson Jr. It was still strange, to be standing in front of a way more attractive Anderson, considering the one he was used to seeing.

It was only minutes until Hank backed his car out of Gavin's crime scene, leaving the two Detectives, and Gavin clapped his hands together. Might as well toss the kid into the thick of things, he was supposed to be a detective, after all. Might as well test out that pretty head of his. "Connor, right?" when Connor nodded, Gavin turned and started for the house and Connor fell into an easy pace behind him. "We found one body, no identity, really rough shape. Some kind of ritual killing, and done by a Werewolf."

"Werewolf?" the word rolled off Connors tongue like it was foreign, and Gavin glanced back at him as they walked only to see the kids brow furrowed in a frown. They made eye contact a second before Connor glanced behind Gavin towards the house. "You know for a fact that it was a werewolf?"

Gavin didn't mean to laugh, but he couldn't stop himself. "Yeah. It's kinda hard to miss the obvious evidence." he stoped a few paces from the door, turning so he could look his partner over again, a little more curiously now that he wasn't being scrutinized by Lieutenant Dad. "How long have you been a Detective?"

Connor hesitated under Gavin's stare and refused to make eye contact with him, which to Gavin's trained eye pretty much meant that he wasn't going to like the answer. "Not long. The transfer to the 7th precinct came with my promotion." well that fucking figured.

"So this is your first actual case as a Detective."

Connor visibly stiffened at the implication behind the words. "I know what I'm doing, Detective Reed. Simply because the title is new does not mean that I haven't had my hand in solving cases like this for years already."

It was clear in just his tone of voice that Connor was upset at even the idea that Gavin didn't think he could do his job, and to be totally honest the kid was extra cute when he was mad like this which made it real difficult to be annoyed with him. It was shitty though, because Connor probably got this kind of reaction a lot just because of his name. Being the kid of a Police Lieutenant kind of held expectations, and the misplaced idea that he was being handed everything instead of working for it like everyone else. Gavin understood that situation better than most people did thanks to his own family.

"Cases like this, huh." Gavin cleared the last few paces towards the door and pushed it open, a clear invitation for Connor to go ahead and look at the crime scene himself. "Alright, you fucken take a look an let me know what you think." he leaned back against the wall beside the door and waited, watching Connor as he rubbed his palms down the front of his pants before stepping forward and entering the house. Gavin had no intention of going back inside, he'd already spent enough time in there.

To the kids merit, he didn't back out of the house right away, and it was a fair bit of time before Connor did come back outside, looking a little paler than before, one hand covering his mouth. Gavin raised an eyebrow. "Well, oh great Detective? What's your verdict?"

Connor didn't answer right away, needing a bit of time to compose himself but when he did, Gavin wasn't surprised with the answer. "I believe you are correct. The ritualistic nature of the murder is also quite concerning. What does it mean? And the rest of the family?"

They were good questions, even if Gavin didn't know the answer to them yet. Werewolves weren't all nice and fluffy all the time, they had bad eggs just like humans did but they were usually kept in check by the pack; Betas, Alphas, and just the hierarchy in general. As for the family... "Fuck if I know. I'm not looking forward to it though." Gavin sighed, eyes closed. He'd seen the look on Connors face, and could tell that the kid was just as unhappy about this case as he was.

"Has this happened before?" Connor moved away from the door, heading back towards the driveway where Hank had dropped him off and Gavin followed after a minute, if only to get away from the house and the mess inside of it. "The only werewolf things we dealt with at the 6th was petty crime, and even then it wasn't often and we usually deferred to the local pack."

"Mmm. Doubt this'll get deferred." even though Gavin wish it would so he didn't have to deal with it. Murder was one thing, he could solve murders. Trying to solve a murder while tip-towing around all the red tape was a whole fucking other ball game. He sighed, running a hand through his hair, scratching down the back of his neck. "Have you had to deal with Detroit's local werewolf pack before?" he was curious.

"No. The opportunity was never available."

That made Gavin laugh. "Opportunity, huh?" Well fuck, obviously Hanks dislike for wolves hadn't rubbed off on his kid because most people balked at the idea of having to associate with a pack of dirty wild dogs. "Well let me be the first to tell you that it isn't fun."

"How so?"

"Too many rules." Gavin shrugged, and waited for the obvious next question that never came. The question of why Gavin had had previous contact with a werewolf pack when they were so... Reserved wasn't a strong enough word. Again, anxiety knotted in his stomach at the idea that Connor knew what he was, that Hank had told him. People normally didn't like werewolves. Hell, Gavin didn't like them half the time. He just wanted to do his job without being judged on something he couldn't control. It wasn't like he'd woken up one day and decided you know what? I'm gonna go get bitten by a monster dog today. Who'd honestly want that?

There was a silence between them for a long minute and Gavin shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, eyes fixated in the ground ahead of him. He watched Connor fidgit out of the corner of his eye. "So, I guess Hank told you."

Connor just nodded.

"Fucken great."

Chapter Text

The precinct had started getting lively around 8am with officers starting their day and gathering their assignments, finishing paperwork and going over evidence. Gavin had been at his desk as of two hours ago after tossing and turning most of the night because of moon cycles and proximity and a whole shit load of bullshit that meant he had a hard time sleeping. He could complain for months about the weird sensitivities he had to the slightest fluctuations of the earth and it's rotation with the sun and the gravity of the moon and it was total and complete insane bullshit but whatever it was, it kept him awake a lot. The absolute worst kind of insomnia because he felt it ache in his bones.

So that meant that Gavin got a lot of work done during the quiet few hours before the day shift started trickling into the precinct, and today was no exception. He'd accumulated a lot of information yesterday and only some of it had to be run through the computer system. He'd spent most of the day yesterday with Connor going over the crime scene, and then compiling the information once they'd gotten back to the station, and now that it was relatively quiet, Gavin had time to look over what they'd found and actually investigate. It was a lot of information to sift through, which was nice. The autopsy report wouldn't be finished for at least another 10 hours, but Gavin had enough tidbits of info that he could already start piecing together this family.

The victim could be either Wallace or Holly Turner, assuming that it was someone who lived in the home. The victim could also be someone entirely new, killed by either Wallace or Holly and left in their house. Gavin doubted that only because he'd done a quick search of the werewolf registry and neither name had come up. If either of them were werewolves, they weren't legal. The child, Amber Turner, was too small to be the victim, and also hadn't come up in Gavin's search of the registry. She was missing, however, and so far the girl and whatever parent was still alive hadn't turned up. Murder and a missing persons, fantastic.

It was strange, but also worrying. There was a possibility that the girl had been killed and moved, or kidnapped or maybe Holly had just left her husband and the divorce papers hadn't come through yet. Whatever the case was, Gavin couldn't look into the family any more until he knew which of them was dead. Getting some of the blood ID'ed from the inside of the house would help too, to at least let them know if anyone else had been hurt during the fight.

It was a good start, Gavin didn't feel like he was sitting on his hands waiting, and he could start poking around the neighbourhood a little more than they had done yesterday, asking about the family. If anyone knew anything, it would probably be the neighbours. Maybe the one who'd initially called the police.

Gavin read over a few more of the compiled files, only half paying any attention to what was going on around him. He picked up the faint scent of something sweet, a subtle perfume that Tina had gotten as a gift from her fiancé. She was always early to the station on weekdays, something about carpooling with her fiancé. When she'd first gotten the perfume, he'd almost died it was so strong. The average dose of perfumes and colognes were overwhelming to a sensitive nose. When he'd asked her to cut back a bit she'd been okay with it, said something like she didn't want to kill him if he had allergies. Gavin was okay with that.

A few more officers piling into the station and then Gavin had to huff to get the smell of Axe out of his nose. It had taken all day yesterday before his nose started working properly again, he didn't need Chris' heinous amounts of body wash to clog it up again.

"You're here early again, Reed."

"Couldn't sleep."

Chris laughed, taking a seat at his desk next to Gavin's. "Just wait man. Molly was up all night with a fever, so you know I was too. I keep telling you to enjoy the life before you lose it, and that means sleep."

Gavin tore his eyes away from his reports and swiveled in his chair so he could give Chris the full effect if his frown. He didn't need to say anything, and Chris laughed because even he recognized that his advice kinda sucked. Gavin turned his chair back around and held up his almost empty coffee mug. "Be useful and get me some coffee, asshole. You can tell me how your kids doing when you get back." The guy laughed but grabbed the mug out of Gavin's hand and left for the break room to make some coffee for the both of them.

Chris and Tina were probably Gavin's only friends in the precinct, which wasn't surprising. He didn't exactly make friends easily, and he was naturally pretty standoffish, and the ambition that came with liking your job meant that he got on a lot of people's nerves as he walked over them. Metaphorically speaking anyways. Neither Tina or Chris knew what he was, Gavin had never told them anyways. He was genuinely worried about their opinion, because most people had shitty opinions on werewolves. The last thing Gavin wanted was to lose the only people he thought of as friends so he avoided the topic, laughed with Chris when he needed to repeat this dog joke he'd heard at the poker game Gavin never went to. That was life.

He was going over a particularly curious piece of information on Amber Turner's school records when his nose caught on something. Gavin knew everyone at the precinct by smell, it was something his brain did naturally, like a scent catalogue. It was helpful, being able to tell who had been where and when, especially when trying to catch crooks and murderers. This though... Gavin inhaled deep through his nose, file forgotten, eyes searching the precinct for the thing he hadn't scented before and focusing quickly on the desk across the bullpen. Hank had just gotten in, but Gavin cared less about the old Lieutenant and was more interested in Connor standing beside him.

All day yesterday and Gavin hadn't been able to smell his partner, and fuck if it hadn't been a blessing in disguise because even from across the room, Connor smelt fucking amazing. From half a room away Gavin could pick up the faintest bit of lavender, which wasn't natural so it had to be a soap and it was such a smooth scent, a stark contrast to Hank who often smelt like the whiskey shots he tried to hide in his coffee. Gavin inhaled deep, trying to wrap his brain around the intricate different little hints of smells mixed into the lavender and he didn't notice Chris come back to his desk, and he jumped when the mug of coffee was set beside him.

"Who's that?" Chris nodded towards the Anderson's across the room, not noticing Gavin's startled reaction at all. All Gavin could do was lean back in his chair and try to get his heart to calm down. Chris had scared the fuck out of him and that wasn't normal because he was supposed to be alert to his surroundings at all times without needing to think about it.

Gavin gulped down half the mug of coffee before he even tried to respond to Chris, and he still had a hard time focusing on his friend with Connor nearby. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of fresh caffeine and sugar, a feeble attempt at getting his brain to focus on Chris. "My new partner."

Chris barked a laugh at Gavin's answer. "No shit! Fowler finally found some sucker who'd partner up with you?"

"Fuck off."

"Whys he talking to Anderson?" Chris dropped into his chair and wheeled it around to Gavin's desk, sipping his own coffee while he watched Hank and the new kid chat, and Gavin downed the rest of his mug.

This was going to be a long fucking day if it was going to be this hard to focus. He shrugged, setting his now empty mug back on his desk. "Because that's Hanks kid."

Whatever Chris was going to say was lost as Connor turned and started towards them, nodding a hello to both Gavin and Chris when he was close enough. "Good morning." and he held a hand out towards Chris with a cheery smile. "We didn't meet yesterday while I was here. I'm Gavin's new partner, Connor Anderson."

"Ooh, kids polite unlike you, Reed, nice. Teach this jerk some manners will ya? Chris Miller, nice to meet you Connor."

Gavin didn't wait for the handshake to be done, he just nudged Chris' shoulder to get him moving. "Don't you have something to patrol? Go do some fucking work." It was hard to ignore the agitated growl that had almost slipped out at just watching Connor touch someone. Honestly what the fuck was wrong with him. Was he really getting territorial with Chris?

Chris just laughed, wheeling his chair back to his desk. "And that ray of sunshine is all yours, Anderson."

"Thank you."

"Well fuck you both." Gavin mumbled, shaking his head and he tried to go back to the file open on his computer, but that was proving to be impossible as he read the same sentence over for the third time. It wasn't just the lavender scent coming off of Connor that was distracting, it was his own reactions to his scent that was rediculous. It was a pretty distracting smell though, definitely a soap, probably a shampoo and it didn't quite mask the more natural smell of honey. It was such a smooth mixing of two different scents; crisp and fresh and clean. Gavin took a few subtle sniffs of the air, not taking his eyes off of his computer screen, and he was surprised by how much effort it took not to make a sound because of how purely satisfying it was.

"Detective."

"Hmm?" Gavin blinked a couple of times, focusing his eyes on the screen in front of him for a second before he glanced towards Connor curiously. "What?" He didn't expect Connor to look a little put off and Gavin didn't understand what he'd done, because he hadn't actually done anything.

"I've been talking for 5 minutes and you haven't been listening."

Gavin stared, nose twitching, mild panic coursing through his veins like a cold rush of water. He glanced at the clock on his terminal screen and low and behold, five minutes was not an exaggeration. "No, I fucking haven't been listening. I've been trying to read this report and you're being fucking distracting." Gavin snapped before he had a chance to think about it, and Connor seemed surprised and suddenly interested.

"I- which report? I was reading them on the way over."

Truthfully, Gavin had forgotten what the fuck he'd been reading up until now thanks to Connors rediculously delicious smell, and it took him a second to get his bearings and remember what the last file he'd opened had been. "Amber Turner's file."

Hearing that, Connor brightened, forgetting about how mad he'd been seconds before and he looked around his immediate area quickly before hoping up on Gavin's desk like he owned it. Sure, there weren't any empty chairs nearby but- "What are you doing."

The closer Connor got, the harder it was to ignore that scent of his. That sweet, smooth scent that was driving Gavin absolutely insane, and Connor was definetly a lot closer than Gavin would have liked, which was so strange because they'd ended up sitting this close yesterday while compiling their case information and Gavin hadn't cared in the slightest.

"No chair. I've read that file, did you see the part in the fourth paragraph about her school? Here-" Connor reached over to point at the screen and his arm brushed across Gavin's shoulder and Gavin was on his feet in seconds. "... Detective?"

Slowly, Gavin eased his way back down into his chair and moved it a few inches to the side so that there was at least some space between the two of them. Space so that Connor wouldn't touch him. Why was that an issue? His brain felt like it had short circuited and it was fucking stupid and distraction and he really didn't need this right now in the middle if a very important murder investigation.

"Paragraph four, yeah." Gavin nodded slowly, trying to remember what was in paragraph four. "Her school." thats right. Okay he remembered this. "The absenteeism records."

It took a moment, but Connor finally nodded. "Yes. She's missed a lot of school days this year. It isn't random by the looks of it, and it's always for a few days at a time. Do you think it could be suspicious?"

"Might be. She's still missing, so it's a good place to start."

Connor nodded, checking his watch quickly before hoping off of Gavin's desk. "The autopsy report won't be in until 4 at the earliest, so we can stop by Amber's school for questions then be at the crime scene by noon?" Connor rocked back on the heels of his feet, oozing excitement at the prospect of questioning people and Gavin pressed his lips tight together to keep himself from smiling because it was absolutely adorable to watch.

Had Hank started out this way? Excited about stupid shit like asking people questions? Gavin always remember Hank as more annoyed than anything, like it was a chore to deal with people. Connor seemed genuinely optimistic about heading to the school, like they might actually find something out. "Sounds good to me." It was enthusiasm that was easily contagious.

°°°§°°°

Connor leaned against the passenger side door, staring ahead as Gavin drove, biting at his thumb nail, and Gavin kept glancing over. He was more aware of what Connor was doing than what the car was doing at this point. Gavin had just let his partner in on his thoughts about who their perp was, or wasn't, which turned into an explanation on how the werewolf registry worked, which ended with Gavin having to explain the finer details of the laws behind the registry.

"I had no idea this even existed. Everyone has to do it?"

Honestly Gavin couldn't help but smile just a little. His window was open, and the breeze kept Connors scent at bay, which made it easier to think straight, but he was still finding it easy to get lost in just the small wiffs he got. Besides that, the other Detective was turning out to be interesting to talk to, if you ignored the shitty topic. Connor was an empathic person, and it was intriguing to see him react to the things he felt were wrong - like this registry shit. "That's the point of a fucking law, Connor."

"I know that." Connor shot him an annoyed look from the passengers seat which only made Gavin smile a little more. "I'm just saying, that doesn't seem fair at all."

It wasn't Gavin's job to decide what was fair or not, so he shrugged. He'd bitched enough about the unfairness of the registry to his brother a long time ago and frankly didn't have the energy for it anymore. "Fair or not, it helps. The Turner's aren't on that list so unless they're living illegally, then it's safe to assume they didn't kill each other."

Connor was quiet, staring out the side window, and only looked over when he noticed Gavin glancing his way. "Are you on it?" Gavin gave him a pointed look that was more than answer enough and Connor frowned at his own question as if realizing how dumb it was. "Right. Illegal not to be. But the DPD doesn't enforce that law?"

"No, the Pack does that. The fines are pretty fucking hefty if they don't." Gavin shrugged, turning into the large parking lot of the school, the hand not on the steering wheel scratched at his chin. "It's the same as signing for your kids birth certificate. Gets done right away and you don't have to think about it afterwards. Not quite the same when you're not bred but." he shrugged again.

"What does that mean?"

Gavin parked in the first empty spot he found and shut off the engine, pulling his keys from the ignition before looking fully at Connor. "Turned versus bred? Look, Connor. Can we not?" Gavin waved a hand at the school building, hoping that his partner caught his meaning. Talking about this kind of stuff wasn't something Gavin was comfortable doing, not even with his own family. Especially not with Connor. "This shits way more important right now." and with that Gavin left the car, shutting the door and he was halfway to the schools entrance by the time Connor caught up with him.

"Detective-" Connor fell into a steady pace just just to his right. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry. I've just never-"

The wind shifted as they took the stairs up to the front entrance and Gavin almost tripped up them, the full unfiltered force of Connors scent hitting him like a wall. Gavin's sudden stop caught Connor off guard and he had to side step to avoid bumping into Gavin, who shook his head, physically trying to repel the fucking rediculous disorientation that had settled like a fog on his brain.

"Detective -?"

"Just stop fucking talking."

Thankfully, Anderson Jr kept his mouth shut for a bit and Gavin managed to right himself and get a few deep breaths of fresh air before continuing into the school. They followed the signage to the front office, and found it empty besides a middle aged woman who Gavin figured was the secretary. She kept her straw blond hair up in a tight bun and reaked of floral perfume. It was so thick that Gavin coughed before he could stop himself, and even Connor wiggled his nose at the smell of it. Didn't schools have a no smell policy?

At the very least, the woman's heavy perfume overpowered Connors sweet scent, though Gavin was having a hard time focusing through this smell too for different reasons. "Excuse me," Gavin unclipped his badge and held it up for the woman to see. "is there anyone we can talk to about a student here?" he tried to wiggle his nose inconspicuously because that perfume was fucking God awful and it felt like it was burning the inside of his nasal passage.

The woman frowned, eyeing the badge for a moment, then the two of them skeptically before she finally nodded. "Of course. I'll call Principal
Cohen."

"Thanks." Gavin nodded before stepping out of the room with Connor on his heels, badge returning to the spot in his jeans.

It took an agonizing ten minutes before anyone remotely looking like the principal showed up, and what annoyed Gavin the most was that there was no apology, like they deserved to wait. The old man, greying hair combed over to try and cover an obvious bald spot, extended his hand to both Connor and Gavin, and this time it was Connor who presented his badge, only to have it scrutinized by the Principal as if he'd seen too many of them before and rarely were they real. The old man turned it over a few times over his palm, looking for something that might give away it's fakness.

When he found nothing, he handed Connor back the badge, looking between them before settling his eyes in Connor. "Alright, Detectives, what can I do for you?"

"We have a few questions about a student of yours that we believe is missing."

That seemed to catch the man's interest, and Gavin watched the look of surprise cross his face. "One of our student? Alright, alright. Why don't we head to my office and I can pull up our student files." He lead the way, back into the office and passed the woman who needed to lay off her perfume, and into an adjacent room. He shut the door tight when both detectives were inside and took a seat behind the desk. Connor sat in one of the offered chairs, and Gavin chose to stand.

He hated schools like this.

"Whats the students name?"

Gavin wiggled his nose, trying for the second time today to get the floral perfume scent out of his nose. "Amber Turner."

The principal hummed, typing at his computer before he finally frowned, "Are you positive that's the students name?"

Connor glanced back towards Gavin, who stepped closer to the desk. "Why?"

"Amber Turner was marked present in class today."

Chapter Text

Gavin's back hit the wall and he crossed his arms, fingers tapping against the sleeve of his jacket anxiously. What was Amber doing at school? That didn't make any sense, unless the Divorced parents idea was actually true. Nothing in their files had said anything about them even filing for it, but maybe they hadn't gotten that far. None of the neighbours that officers had spoken with last night had said anything about marital issues, and you'd think that would be important to tell police on site for a murder. Gavin frowned.

"Are you sure this is the right girl?" Connor spoke up from his chair, glancing back at Gavin for just a second before looking towards Cohen. "Do you have other Amber's registered at this school?"

Nodding his head a couple of times, the older man's fingers pressed a few keys on his keyboard. "There are seven Amber's attending, but only one Amber Turner. So unless you've got the name wrong, this is the girl you're looking for. May I ask why you're interested in her, Detectives?"

Gavin watched Connor frown as he pulled himself up off his chair slowly and he smiled politely. "I do apologise but we can't divulge that information at this time. Can you give us a few minutes?" Cohen nodded and Connor went for the door, and Gavin tracked him the entire four steps it took to get a cross the office without moving. Once Connor pulled open the door, Gavin finally moved and slip through it right behind his partner and followed him the entire way out to the front steps of the school.

Once out in the open air, Gavin started to pace across the top of the steps, one hand rubbing at the base of his neck, his mind coming up with a million and one things that he needed to focus on. "This is fucked." He could feel Connor staring at him, but there was no way he could stop moving right now.

"Could she not know what happened?"

"How?" the hand at Gavin's neck moved up the back of his head scratching through his hair. "Where was she? Staying with a relative? Family friends? That's really fucking convinient." Gavin managed to stop moving and glanced towards his partner, watching Connor tap a finger to his lips. "You think... Maybe... "

Connor nodded, catching onto what Gavin was trying to get at. "If she was staying with another family member, or family friends, that re-opens the idea that either Wallace or Holly killed the other." despite that, Connor frowned like he didn't quite like his own theory, especially knowing what Gavin had said earlier about neither adult being listed as a werewolf. "It doesn't quite make enough sense though. Maybe it was a relative who attacked them?"

Gavin made a noise kin to an annoyed growl, arms crossing tight over his chest. "We're missing something." no matter what the current evidence said, he still didn't think either Wallace or Holly was the murderer. It didn't fit with what he'd found out about them already. Yeah, one of them could have been an illegal werewolf, and the stories the on-scene neighbours had told last night could have been lies, but his gut didn't think so. They were still missing too many peices. He huffed, finally. "Let's go talk to the girl."

"Wait-" before Gavin could even reach for the door handle, Connor was pulling him back by the arm. "Should we talk to her? What would we ask her? She's six, if we start interrogating her about her parents, that's bound to upset her."

"Yeah, and?" Gavin shook off Connors arm and waited for him to keep going. Proximity was still a nagging issue for him, and Connor being close enough to grab him, meant Connor was close enough to smell. The trouble was, Gavin wanted to scent Connor, and right this second he wanted to do it more than he wanted to progress with this investigation. Taking a subtle step away from his partner only helped marginally.

"We're police officers, Gavin." Connor sighed, biting his lip. "Shes old enough to put two and two together if we interrogate her."

Gavin swallowed hard, paying way too much attention to that little act of frustration. Connor tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth, accented by the sweet natural scent, and Gavin was gone. "And."

"And." Connor shrugged, sounding mildly annoyed but Gavin didn't honestly care right now. "She's six years old we need to be creative." Connor moved, stepping towards the steps of the school and away form the door and it was far enough away that Gavin could breath again.

He blinked, one hand coming up quick to rub at his eyes. Why was Connor so fucking distracting? This was so fucking unfair. "You want to pretend we're fucking guidance councilors or something?" he grabbed the door handle and held it open for his partner, ushering him inside before anything else happened. Inside the air was stale and filled with the smell of bleach and other cheap cleaning supplies, and so many different kid smells that it was easier to ignore Connor. He did leaned in as subtly as possible when Connor walked by him to get through the door, just so he could get a hint of that scent, missing it already. It was like a double edged sword; Gavin couldn't get enough of it, and couldn't focus with it.

"Maybe not an outright lie." Connor was still talking when Gavin finally managed to follow after him. "A white lie, maybe?"

"How about we just ask her who dropped her off this morning? Principal McDick can even ask for us."

Connor stopped at the door to the office, turning around just so he could display how unimpressed he was with Gavin's choice of words. "You shouldn't call people names."

"Is it a fucken good idea or not?" it was hard not to smile when Connor being visibly upset was pretty cute.

Connor couldn't say it was a bad idea though, so they moved into the office. Gavin inhaled as deep and subtly as he could when they passed by the secretary, hoping that the burning flower musk would at least numb his nose for a few minutes.

Principal Cohen was right where they'd left him and smiled when the two Detectives came back. Connor sat back down in his chair from earlier and explained their plan to talk to Amber through him. Cohen agreed to it. It was simple; get the girl into the office, question her on her mode of transportation in the morning and then let her go. They could do whatever information gathering afterwards but at least they'd have a direction to go in while they waited for the autopsy report to come in.

Amber came in about 6 minutes after she'd been called in. She was a cute little brunette with a long braid and a striped blue jumper, pretty much exactly as she looked in the pictures Gavin had seen in her home. She looked nervous, especially when she spotted Gavin and Connor standing in the room, but when Principal Cohen cleared his throat her focus shifted to him and she seemed to relax.

"Am I in trouble?" he voice was small and about as worried as a six year old could get.

"Absolutely not, Amber." Cohen pointed a hand towards Gavin and Connor, trying to make it less awkward that they were there. "We're just doing a random survey. You take the bus to school and back home, right?"

Again, Amber looked from the Principal to Gavin, then Connor, and she seemed to squirm a little under the pressure, eyes dropping to the ground. "Yes."

That's when Gavin shifted his weight. That was a lie and Cohen didn't catch it. The old man continued none the wiser, asking questions and Amber answering pleasantly. She seemed less nervous when they weren't talking about rides to and from school. When he looked at Connor, his partner was watching the conversation and didn't seem aware of the fib, which meant no one was going to call the girl out except him.

"Amber." Gavin pushed off the wall, not taking his eyes off of the girl as he moved. Three steps and he was close enough that he could crouch beside her. This low to the ground he was about as tall as she was and a lot less threatening than if he was standing up. "Who dropped you off this morning?"

The girl fidgited a little with her hands, frowning, and both Connor and Cohen were quiet. "I'm really not supposed to tell. I made a promise." Amber's smile said she was sorry, and it was adorable but Gavin couldn't help feeling bad for her knowing what he did about he new family situation.

"You know," Gavin paused, looking back at Connor just to make sure his partner was okay with the plan change before turning back to the girl. "sometimes promises should be broken because the person you made them with is in trouble and needs help."

"Is my daddy in trouble?"

Gavin smiled just a bit. "I don't know, what do you think? You're a pretty smart girl." This is what he was looking for.

Amber squirmed on the spot before nodding her head. "Yeah... I think maybe. Mommy said he's not allowed to come here but he still does." the girl frowned, looking up from the floor. "But I like it when I can see daddy."

"Did your daddy braid your hair this morning?" she nodded, shy smile turning instantly into a proud one as she nodded. Gavin grinned. "It's really pretty, can I fix it? It's coming undone a bit."

The girl looked horrified for a second and she turned around real quick, scooting backwards on her heels so that Gavin had access to her hair so he could fix it. He tugged at the end, redoing the elastic and lifted the tip of her braid to his nose for a second, getting in a couple good little sniffs before letting her go.

"All done. It's just as pretty as before. Thank you so much for your help Amber, maybe Principal Cohen can walk you back to class?"

Gavin stood up, glancing at Cohen, who's demeanor had changed in less than a second and not for the better. He didn't move to do as Gavin had asked, and honestly that was more annoying than seeing the guys trust die instantly because Gavin wasn't as human as the guy had expected.

"Cohen." Gavin actually had to snap his fingers to get the man's attention, and thankfully he finally moved, ushering the little girl out of the office. Gavin dropped into one of the two chairs set in front of the principals desk, and waited for Cohen and Amber to be gone completely before he finally sighed, nose twitching.

"It was subtle, but kind of not." Connor sat in the second chair, eyes still on the closed office door. "Did you catch that? Daddy isn't Wallace Turner."

"Daddy isn't human, either. It was really faint but I could smell him on her." Gavin's fingers drummed against the arm of the chair, eyes focused on the far wall. The scent of another werewolf was just different enough from that of a human that he could easily tell apart werewolves from the rest of humanity. He couldn't explain what it was that was different, it wasn't like wolves smelt like wet dog or anything, his brain just knew the smell.

If Amber's real dad was a werewolf, and he wasn't allowed to see her anymore, well. That was their whole case right there. "So Daddy werewolf gets upset over custody of his daughter, goes fucking mental, and, what? Kills mommy? Step dad?"

"There hasn't been a second body. If he's still taking Amber to school like normal, maybe there's a chance that Holly's still alive?"

Gavin refocused on Connor before nodding just a little. "Yeah, maybe. You think Daddy's name is on Amber's birth certificate? Hospital records?" they were getting somewhere now. Gavin pulled himself up off the chair, just itching to get out if this fucking school. "Let's go find out."

"Hey," Connor followed suit and stood, "Did you have to get that close to sniff her?"

"What?"

Connor nodded towards the door. "With Amber. It wasn't weird or anything, I'm just curious. How close do you have to be to sniff people out?"

Here we go again. Gavin tried to swallow his sigh, because he really didn't want to be annoyed with Connor, because this stuff wasn't common knowledge. Gavin just hated talking about it. "I can scent you from across the room." but that was mainly because he'd started actively searching for Connors scent when he wasn't focusing. "Amber's been at school for at least an hour, her dad's scent in her hair was faint to begin with so yeah, I had to get in pretty close to get it."

They left the Pricipals office before Cohen made it back and Connor let the secretary know that they'd be returning shortly, and to pass the message along. Once they were both outside the office, heading for the main exit and Gavin's car, Connor spoke up again.

"What does she smell like?"

"A disaster."

Connor laughed unexpectedly before clearing his throat. "Its the perfume, isn't it? How about Cohen?"

Gavin held the door open, practically pushing Connor outside just to keep him moving. "Too much aftershave. Do you really want to know these things?"

Despite Gavin's hostility, Connor was smiling like he was genuinely interested, and if that was the case Gavin would keep answering, even if he thought it was stupid.

"So, how do I smell?"

Except that question. Gavin hesitated on the last step. He should have expected that one, but for whatever reason he hadn't and he wasn't sure how to answer. He couldn't say 'like heaven.' because that was too incriminating. He'd already taken too long trying to figure out an answer, because Connor had turned to look at him curiously.

"Uh... You know... Like shit I guess. Can we stop?"

"Like shit?" Connor repeated, not quite sounding offended but more like he didn't believe the answer. "Really?"

Gavin tried to ignore him, dropping into the drivers seat when he got to his car and quickly finding his tablet as soon as the door was shut. "Yeah, so can we stop fucking around and work?" Tablet in hand, he glanced at Connor who was trying his best not to smile. The little shit. "What?"

Connor shrugged, pretending he was oblivious and had no idea that Gavin was annoyed with him, but he couldn't hide the smile twitching at the corner of his lips. "It's nothing, I just realized that my partner is afraid to admit that I smell good."

"What-" Gavin wanted to deny every bit of that sentence, even if it was true. "I never even - no." he could feel himself going red the further he dug this hole of his. "You got weird fucken flowery shampoo and it's just fucken strange alright? I haven't figured it out yet, so stop fucking harassing me about it."

And beside him, Connor was practically in stitches laughing, bent over and holding onto the dashboard with one hand, the other curled around his stomach. It was hard to stay mad, yeah, but Gavin was gonna make a show of it for as long as he could. Connor turned finally, laughter gone, but he was still grinning. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Do you need a minute to compose yourself?"

Gavin growled without meaning to, and instead of being surprised, startled or concerned, Connor smiled wider if that was even possible. "You're being a fucking shithead, Anderson. Can we work now? Please?" he was practically begging, which was so below him but at this point in time Gavin had little other choice besides maybe mauling his partner.

"Absolutely, Detective Reed. Let's get back to work."

Shaking his head, Gavin logged onto his tablet and started searching the database for birth records. When he found it, he held the device out so Connor could see it as well. "Born Amber Lynne Morgan. Blah blah blah, adopted by Wallace Turner on April 24th 2036."

"Tyler Morgan, here." Connor tapped the tablet where it had the birth parents listed. "It doesn't say anything about him being a werewolf anywhere on this file though." Connors eyes scanned the digital document again, searching for keywords but didn't come up with anything that remotely stated a race other than Caucasian.

"It wouldn't." Gavin passed the tablet over so Connor could keep looking through the file, and pulled out his phone from his back pocket, lifting his butt up off the seat so he could grab it. It was a quick couple taps before the registry pulled up and even faster for Tyler's name to populate. "This is it. The official documents of one Tyler Montgomery Morgan, werewolf. Bred to two registered werewolves, Liv and Alexander, living in the Boston area. Tyler joined the Detroit pack in 2017, and has been living in the Detroit area ever since."

Connor tossed the tablet up into the dash and took Gavin's phone from him so he could look over the paragraphs of information listed about Tyler. His brow furrowed, eyes scanning every word. "This is... A lot of information, Gavin."

"Mmhm."

"Is this typical?" Connors frown deepend. "It even lists all of his work history." after a moment, those concerned brown eyes blinked up at him. "Gavin, we don't even keep records this detailed on criminals."

"Well." Gavin reached for his phone, only to have Connor hold it out of his reach, so he dropped his arm back down to the arm rest. "That's life. We have a name and a face now, so we know who to look for. If-" he hesitated. "Connor what are you doing?"

"Nothing." that's what he said, but Connors fingers were typing and Gavin wasn't an idiot.

"You can't just look me up without permission."

"Gavin Daniel Reed." Connors eyes scanned over the screen, effectively ignoring his partner. "Turned at age 7 during an accidental altercation during school-"

"Connor."

Quiet.

Connor glanced up from the phone, like he'd suddenly realized that it was actually not okay to pry like this. "Okay, I'm sorry." he handed the phone over with a sigh "Name and a face. If Tyler dropped Amber off this morning, he'll be back to get her when schools over. We can grab him when he shows up."

That was the plan in not so many words, but it was a lot more delicate than just grabbing someone off the street like they would any other criminal, or murderer. "Keep in mind that he can actually fucken tear you apart without even thinking about it. There's a lot we don't actually know about this asshole, like the full extent of what he can do." and the last thing Gavin wanted was to have to explain to Hank that he'd let his kid get torn up by a feral werewolf.

"What do you mean? I thought werewolves could only change from human to wolf and back again."

More question. It was like every time Gavin opened his mouth, Connor had sixteen questions about what he'd just said. It wasn't his fault, but still. It reminded Gavin way too much of growing up with his half brother. "Yeah, and like everything in nature it isn't that simple. A wolf didn't tear apart that body last night, something else did, so Tyler can do something I can't, so be fucking careful."

Connors fingers tapped against the door for a couple seconds before he reached for the tablet he'd tossed up on the dash, holding the screen towards Gavin. He unlocked it, and watched Connor scroll though Amber's file again. Gavin leaned forward a bit so he could see the contents of the tablet, breathing in deep through his nose as subtly as possible. Fuck, he really could not get enough of that scent.

"Do you think we need backup?"

"No." Gavin shook his head to try and focus, leaning back into the drivers seat, staring out the front window at the school. "Normally yeah, but I have a weird feeling about this." When school was done for the day this whole parking space would be full of cars and parents and kids, it was going to be hectic and if they didn't manage to subdue Tyler right away, well. There'd be a lot of collateral around. Backup would be nice but Gavin really wanted to bring Tyler in alive. "Most cops tend to shoot first when they're dealing with us, especially when we're angry and Tyler's gonna be pissed I bet."

The glove compartment snapped open, nabbing Gavin's attention. Connor pushed it shut after returning the tablet to its spot before opening his door and climbing out of the car. "Well. Lets let Principal Cohen know we have a plan."

Gavin groaned but followed his partner out of the car.

As expected, Cohen was an asshole and garnering any sort of cooperation from him this time around was like pulling teeth out of an angry crocodile. Gavin bowed out of the meeting early, because it was better to leave than actually maim the the fuckwad like he wanted to do. Three cigarettes later and Connor finally stepped out of the school, looking less than impressed with the entire scenario.

"And?"

The shrug he got didn't instill any confidence. Gavin watched Connor sit at the top of the stairs with a sigh. He'd been out there almost an hour already, what was a few more minutes of waiting while his partner got his thoughts together?

"Well." finally, Connor leaned back, looking up to where Gavin was still standing above him. "He really doesn't like you. He thinks that trying to arrest Tyler on school property is dangerous and he doesn't want us here engangering everyone."

"His objections are duly noted."

"His objections are valid, Gavin. I think we need backup, so that we can at least keep civilians out of the way if things go wrong."

Connor meant well, but he had no fucking idea what he was dealing with right now. "And what? Line up a couple cruisers down the street and invite this asshole for a sit-down so we can chat over fucking tea? No."

"Gavin-"

"-No. I'm not trying to be a dick, or overbearing, or whatever. I get what you're saying, all those concerns are real, but if you get more people here, shits gonna hit the fan so fast. More is not good." Gavin took a long drag of his smoke, thankful that the nicotine was at least semi distracting him from how good Connor smelled. It made it easier to say no. "Listen. Trust me when I say this is safer."

It was hard to put that kind of trust in someone else, especially when you didn't understand the entire situation, but Connor eventually nodded. "Okay. We do it your way." and that was a weight off Gavin's chest. He snuffed the last dregs of his cigarette out against the side of the building and tossed the butt into the garden beside the stairs, before lending a hand to Connor, pulling his partner up off the ground.

"So I was thinking, we can split up, cover more-" he tugged, but Connor didn't let go of his hand. "What?" he remained trapped despite trying to pull away again.

"This is so convenient. It's like your body temperature is higher." there was an intense brightness to Connors brown eyes, an intrigue that made Gavin swallow hard, caught completely off guard. Gavin was suddenly very aware of the proximity between them and how easy it would be to move just a step closer and burry his nose into the crook of Connors neck and really inhale everything he was, feel how soft his skin was against Gavin's own, how fucking delightful it would be to trace the curve of Connors neck with his nose barely touching-

"Anderson fucking let go."

The urgency was a surprise to them both, and Connor instantly released his grip on Gavin's hand and Gavin immediately took the stairs two at a time until he was at his car, and paced around it. He shook out his hand, trying to get rid of the tingling, the leftover feeling of where Connor had touched him and for fucks sake this was absolute fucking bullshit. He dug around his jacket pocket, found his pack of cigarettes and lit one as soon as he could get his lighter to work, and tried his damndest to ignore the footsteps coming up behind him.

Before Connor could say anything, Gavin spoke up. "I'm fine." he wasn't. Gavin took a long drag of his smoke and of course, of fucking course, it wasn't doing anything to override the the fucking need circling his head. Distract. Distract.

"Listen." work. "We'll split up so we can cover more ground and keep an eye on the whole parking lot. If he's coming to get Amber he'll have to come this way so we'll see him for sure. If we're lucky we can get this done before anyone notices."

"Alright."

There were a few hours before the school day was over and Gavin was glad when Connor volunteered to go get them coffee. He didn't want to leave the school, in case Tyler showed up early to sign Amber out of class, and the time alone was much needed. By the time Connor made it back, Gavin had himself sorted out and wasn't feeling as high-strung as before, and the coffee helped even more. He couldn't figure out why Connor smelt so good to him, when no one else had ever had that effect before. He'd scented his fair share of werewolves and humans during his life and no one even came close to Connor. It was honestly driving him crazy.

At the very least, it was getting easier to think through the haze of Connors lavender and honey scent. Always a positive side.

The first couple of cars started pulling into the school parking lot at quarter to 3 and Connor took that as his cue to head across the lot so he could keep an eye on things from that angle.

3 o'clock and the parking lot was full of soccer moms and diligent dads waiting for their spawn, and Gavin managed to spot Amber in the crowd of kids, waiting expectantly for her dad. Something felt off about the whole thing, and he wasn't sure why that was. Too many people? There were a lot more parents here than he'd anticipated, and so many kids walking around, bumping past him. Amber was still looking over the crowd, rocking back and forth on her heels, but she didn't move from that spot.

The hairs on the back of Gavin's neck stood on end, a group of teenagers laughing obnoxiously to his left and the wind shifted and he caught the same scent he'd gotten from Amber's hair. Every muscle tensed as he turned around and sure enough, across the street on the sidewalk standing still in a crowd of people was Tyler Morgan, taller than most of the people around him, thin and lanky despite his age. Tyler's focus wasn't on Gavin though, even though he should have been able to scent him easily from his position downwind. Tyler was focused instead on Connor, who was still watching Amber in the crowd and hadn't noticed anything wrong.

What the fuck was he doing? For someone who was only there to pick up his kid, the guy seemed mighty fucken distracted.

Tyler took a step forward, nostrils flaring like he was inhaling and- oh fuck he was scenting Connor. Did he- then it wasn't just Gavin who smelt that. Connor smelt good to other werewolves? Wait a fucking minute, Tyler was scenting Connor.

The growl that rolled from Gavin's chest was threatening, and instantly Tyler shifted his focus from Connor to him. A couple of people close enough to hear it sidestepped him, but Gavin barely noticed, focused on the wolf across the street. No fucking way anyone was going to get their nose anywhere near Connor. Tyler bared his teeth for all of two seconds before he hesitated and Gavin couldn't explain the look that had suddenly crossed his face. Fear? There wasn't time to decide what it was, because the guy turned on his heel and booked it down the street.

Chase initiated. Gavin bolted down the street after Tyler, forgetting that he had a partner and that he should maybe have said something before running off, but there wasn't any time. It was hard enough to keep up because the sidewalks were busy this time of day and while Tyler had no qualms with shoving people out of his way, Gavin was trying to weave between confused people. Tyler turned, jumping into the street and narrowly avoiding a truck, and Gavin followed without thinking. As soon as he was in the street a car screeched to a stop and he barely avoided the front end of the blue sedan, and a white SUV after that. By the time he got to the other side of the busy street, Gavin had lost sight of Tyler, which was only a minor issue. Though faint, Tyler's scent was still traceable.

Gavin ducked out of the flow of foot traffic and onto a less busy side street, and yeah, he could definetly smell the guy here, it was just a matter of where he was hiding. He pulled his gun from his side holster, stepping forward carefully. Tyler was here somewhere, and there was definitely enough spots in the street for him to hide.

A growl, from somewhere ahead of him. Fuck, the asshole had better not be shifting. "Tyler Morgan. If you shift that'll be an extra couple charges you don't need. Get out here, it's over." Gavin clicked off the safety on his Glock just in case and kept stepping forward, one foot carefully in front of the other. "Seriously, Tyler. I'm your only chance here. Anyone else'll put you down. Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Think about that little girl of yours."

A couple rounded the corner into the street and they froze as soon as they spotted Gavin, and he focused on them. They started backtracking without needing to be prompted. The split second that Gavin was distracted was all Tyler needed, and he came out from between a building at Gavins left and before he could react, he was dropped onto his back, hard enough to have the air knocked right outta his lungs. Tyler was holding him down with his one hand, all claws and fur and muscle and Gavin had lost track of his gun somewhere between when he was standing and now and he couldn't breath let alone think. He had both his hands holding onto Tyler's one, and he still could barely hold him back.

Tyler's clawed hands puahed down against Gavin's grip, claw tips grazing Gavin's throat and no matter hote hard he pushed, it wasn't making a difference. What the fuck was this guy on? Tyler was on top of him in a way that Gavin couldn't kick him off, he was pinned down completely and it didn't make sense because this was too much. The arm trying to get at his throat rippled, furr spouting across skin as it shifted and Gavin lost a little more of his grip, feeling the consequences as Tyler's claws scratched through a couple layers of skin at the side of his throat.

Gritting his teeth, Gavin pushed, he just needed to get this asshole off of him, he just needed to get a bit of leverage but Tyler was using one hand to keep him down and no matter how much he struggle, Gavin didn't gain an inch. He felt the claws cut deeper and he couldn't move.

Gunshot.

Gavin's ears rang with it, but the weight on top of him was gone and he could breath again. Shock spiralled through him and for a second he didn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears or see anything but the cloudy sky above him. He layed in the middle of the street flat on his back, breathing heavy. What the fuck was that. What the fuck what the fuck. When he sat up it was so suddenly that it made his head spin.

"Gavin? Gavin!" Connor crouched donw beside him, glock still held tight in his hand. "Are you okay?"

Connor had fired the shot, but there wasn't any blood. "Yeah, yeah I'm fucking fine." when Connor grabbed for him, Gavin shoved him away. He needed to breath and his partner wasn't helping.

Tyler had gotten away from them. But that wasn't what Gavin was worried about.

Partial shifting shouldn't exist. How the hell had Tyler managed to do it?

Chapter Text

"Look. I know it's a bullshit complaint, but I have to act on it."

"You're damn right it's bullshit! As fucken if, I knew that guy was a fucking weasel. I didn't do anything weird, alright? That Principal's just a fucking racist dick."

Gavin cursed, a few extra slurs slipping from his lips in an angry whisper while he rubbed a hand over his face. Sitting across the desk from Captain Fowler, with Connor sitting nearby on the second chair in the office, and Gavin wasn't yelling like usual. He was mad, yeah, for obvious reason, but not enough to have a yelling match with the Captain. Even he could admit that Connors overwhelming scent was keeping him calmer than normal through this whole mess. It would have been unsettling if the smell hadn't already placate him so completely.

They had barely gotten into the precinct before getting hauled into Fowlers glass box for a lecture and it had happened so fast that Gavin hadn't even had a chance to clean himself up yet: there was still a bit of dried blood on his neck from his fight barely an hour earlier with Tyler Morgan and his claws, let alone the dirt he'd picked up while rolling on the ground.

Fowler sighed. They'd had this talk before and they'd have it again before too long and nothing was going to change. They both knew that yet here they were. "I know, it's a prejudice, but if people are uncomfortable with the police department and how we do our jobs, we have to do something about it."

"Yeah." Gavin practically snarled "like have this stupid conversation over and over. I didn't fucking do anything and that guys just an asshole. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I'm tryin' to do my fuckin' job, and these idiots are just getting in the way because they don't like this one thing that I can't fucking control." he wasn't even going to start in on the age old argument about how his people needed to feel safe with the police department too, and letting assholes like Principle Dickhead go off for no reason didn't keep a good balance.

Thankfully Fowler didn't flinch at Gavin's aggressive posturing, he'd seen it so many times before to know the empty threat that it was. He was still unimpressed though and it showed in his frown. "Did you even bother to think what it would look like when you straight on started sniffing a little girl?"

"I didn't-" putting it that way made the situation sound a lot worse than it actually had been, no wonder the Captain was pissed. "I mean, I did, but it was barely a sniff, like the ends of her hair-"

"We have dogs for that, Reed. Use them"

"Why waste the fucking time when I can do it?"

Fowler reached up, scrubbing his eyes with his thumbs like it would take away the pain caused by this conversation. "Because then we get complaints like this one and I have to have this conversation with you, again. Can you please just follow protocol just once? The rules, Reed. Rules you should have followed before also trying to apprehend a suspect on your own when you know our protocols specifically state that you need backup."

Gavin hesitated. It was true, he should have called it in, Connor had even reiterated that they should have radioed for backup but Gavin hadn't done it because he knew what would have happened if he had: They'd be down a suspect with no answers. "It would have-"

"-Would have what? Please, explain that to me." Fowler waited, but Gavin couldn't find the words to explain it. At least not in a way that the Captain would have liked.

He'd told Connor the truth earlier. Adding more people to the fray would have ended in someone getting hurt, or a dead suspect. Knowing what he did now about Tyler and his ability to do things that shouldn't be possible, Gavin was that much more certain that backup would have been a bad idea. That same prejudice that Principal Cohen had was shared by a lot of police officers Gavin worked with, and they wouldn't have hesitated to shoot at the first sign of teeth.

"It would have ended badly." there just wasn't any other way to explain it.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are we talking about the same case? Because, it did end badly. Your murder suspect got away. Care to elaborate on how that happened?"

Gavin leaned back in his seat, arms crossed defensively. "He got nasty, took me by surprise and then got away. Ain't nothing else to it."

With a sigh, Fowler shifted his glance to Connor who visibly squirmed under the stare. He was a new addition to the 7th precinct and hadn't had time to build up immunities to Fowler glare yet. "Well? I assigned you to this idiot to keep him from doing stupid things, Anderson, and he's still doing them. Why is that?"

"His-" Connor frowned, avoiding direct eye contact with the Captain for the moment while he continued to squirm under Fowler's scrutiny. "the reasoning behind all of his argument were sound and I didn't see any problems going along with them. We didn't know what Tyler could do at the time however, so we were a little under prepared for the scuffle. No one was injured, except a few scratches on Detective Reed. Had there been more officers on scene, it would have been-"

This time, Fowler just rolled his eyes, interrupting Connors vocal report of their situation with a wave of his hand, which shut up Anderson Jr. pretty quickly. "-Perfect. Get out, both of you." clearly Fowler was done with them; patience exhausted.

Gavin was standing before Fowler finished his sentence and he was out the door seconds later, not willing to wait around in case the Captain had more to add to his lecture. He loved his job, he really did. Gavin couldn't see himself doing anything else besides this with his life and he'd worked extremely hard to get where he was, fought through all kinds of racism, prejudices, you name it, and he absolutely hated defending his decisions like that. Hated having to choose between his job and what he was. Hated having to justify why normal policing methods wouldn't work in certain situations that involved werewolves. That last one was also extremely annoying, especially when he had to do it over and over and over again with Fowler. Same old song and dance. They were arguments that got them nowhere except more annoyed with each other.

Gavin owed Jeffery Fowler a lot, because he'd been the only cop in Detroit willing to hire a werewolf right out of the academy during a time when it was totally legal to discriminate against them, but damn did he hate the guy sometimes.

Gavin rounded a corner, only vaguely paying attention to who was around him as he walked, one hand rubbing up the side of his neck as he made his way to the bathroom. It was starting to itch and he just wanted to get cleaned off enough so he could push through the rest of the day, only to get hauled backwards by his arm. Hank pulled him to a full stop, and before Gavin could manage a growl in response to being manhandled unexpectedly, the old man was swearing at him.

"What the fuck were you doing?" there wasn't concern in Hank's voice perse, but he was definetly curious. "Fucking hell, Reed." Hank's curiosity had lasted all of 2.5 seconds before it registered that Gavin wasn't just dirty from rolling on the ground, but that some of the dirt was blood. "Are you-?"

"It's none of your fucking business, old man." Gavin yanked his arm out of Hank's hold, barely managed to take a step towards the restroom before he smelt Connor, and his partner was coming around the corner moments later. Hank quickly turned his attention on Connor.

"Are you fighting fucking werewolves, Connor?" the Lieutenant was pissed by the sounds of it and Gavin could only roll his eyes. Hank was overreacting just a bit. Besides, Connor hadn't fought anything yet, and if Gavin could help it he wouldn't ever.

It was only when his partner didn't flinch as the Lieutenant was yelling at him did Gavin remember that this was a family thing. He'd forgotten the old man was... Actually Connors old man. Gavin hesitated, deciding to hold off on the bathroom for the time being. He dropped back against the wall instead of continuing down the hall and listened.

Connor took Hanks anger in strides. "We aren't fighting anyone, Lieutenant. We're looking for a suspect-"

"-Dont give me that bullshit, Connor." Hank thrusted a finger angrily towards Gavin. "That's blood."

"Well, yes-"

"If it makes you feel fucking better, it's my own."

Hank turned his glare on Gavin "It doesn't. I can't fucking believe this. I knew it was a bad idea." As soon as Hank started moving, Connor reached out to grab his arm, stopping the Lieutenant after his first step.

His partners expression went from mildly annoyed by the argument to desperate in a split second and it wasn't what Gavin expected to see and his gut twisted uncomfortably at the sight. His fingers curled against the wall and Gavin resisted the need to speak up any more than he already had and interupt the family squabble. There was something in Connors scent that had changed subtly, and it was just enough to make Gavin uneasy as he watched.

"Hank don't."

But Hank wasn't having any of it. "I'm not going to stand around and let you chase after feral mutts just because you want to prove yourself, Connor." Hank shook his arm out of Connors hold but didn't continue down the hallway. "What'd you shoot at? I saw the discharge paperwork come in for your gun."

"Nothing. It was a warning shot."

Hank was quiet a minute and both Andersons stared at each other, waiting for the other to break first. It was making Gavin nervous, until Connor finally broke the silence.

"I understand where you're coming from, Lieutenant, but you need to trust me. You promised me that you'd let me do my job if I took this position. You promised that working in the same precinct wouldn't be an issue. Chasing after a suspect and getting into altercations are very real aspects of this job that you need to acknowledge and let me do."

"But-"

"Dad."

Even Gavin knew enough to know that that was it, Hank had just been worn down so quickly by his own son. It was barely a few seconds later before the defeated sigh came, and Hank finally nodded, giving up his argument. "Okay." but before Connor could celebrate the win, Hank cleared his throat, a bit of his fight back in his voice. "For now. If it gets too dangerous-" the old man glanced towards Gavin like this was his fault and the warning was meant for him. "-I'm pulling the plug."

"Define 'too dangerous'-" Gavin started to ask, and was cut off when Connor pulled him away from the wall and started pushing him down the hallway, effectively cutting off any reply Hank could make.

"Never mind, Detective. Let's not question the Lieutenants leniency for the time being."

The restroom door shut tight behind them and Connor sighed heavily, running a hand up through his hair while Gavin moved to the sink to do what he'd originally intended. He shucked off his jacket and tossed it up beside the sink and listened, waiting for Connor to speak up because he knew his partner was itching to say something. He turned the water on and started rubbing his wet hands over his neck, scrubbing to get some of the more stubborn spots out.

It was only a few moments before Connor finally spoke up. "I apologize for that. It was uncalled for."

"What was? Hank being worried about you?" Gavin hadn't expected an apology of all the possible things his partner could have said, and he waved it off easily. "S'far as I can tell it's fucken normal so, whatever."

"No, I mean..." Connor hesitated and Gavin shut the water off, turning to watch the uncomfortable squirming that Connor was doing. When his partner noticed that Gavin was watching him, his eyes dropped to the ground. "The slurrs."

That... Gavin could only stare for a minuted while his brain processed that bit of information. Honestly he hadn't even registered that Hank had used shitty terms until it was mentioned just now, because he was so used to hearing that kind of shit. It was the first time anyone had ever apologized to him for it. Well, anyone besides his brother. "It's fine. I don't know how it was in the 6th but up here in the 7th this shit is pretty normal."

"It shouldn't be."

"Listen." he couldn't help but sigh, scratching his nose with a finger. "Andersons got his fuckin' reasons, whatever they are. Everyone always has their reasons." Gavin grabbed his jacket from beside the sink and started trying to shake it out, brushing the dirt off the sleeves. "You'll get used to it." satisfied that he'd gotten enough dirt off his jacket he tugged it on and moved, holding the door open for Connor. "Use that brain of yours for actual detective work and stop worrying about shit that isn't going to change for another twenty years, alright? We're trying to chase down a murderer."

It took a few seconds but Connor finally nodded, and when he stepped passed Gavin to go through the door, Gavin leaned forward just enough, nostrils flaring as he inhaled as subtly as possible. It was stupid. The longer he spent around Connor the easier it was to think through his partners overwhelming scent, but at the same time, it was as if he needed to feel intoxicated by it. It was a dangerous slope he was decending, but every time he sniffed, it was fucking worth it.

"Detective?" Connor paused, already halfway down the hall when he realized he wasn't being followed, and looking back he found Gavin standing in the bathroom doorway still holding the door open.

Gavin coughed. "Coming." and he followed behind Anderson Jr., trying to figure out why he enjoyed torturing himself like this.

Once at Gavin's desk, Connor hopped up onto it like he had earlier that morning while Gavin clicked at the keyboard, logging into his system. He had a few new emails waiting for him but only one that he was interested in. "Autopsy reports in." double clicking the file, Gavin looked it over quickly for the specific details he was most interested in, like who their victim was.

"I had a feeling it was Wallace." Connor mumbled, reading from his spot on the desk beside Gavin and his quiet sigh didn't go unnoticed.

The report identified the body as that of Wallace Turner, and Gavin had to admit that he'd seen this coming too. Knowing now that Tyler was a werewolf, that he'd had a kid with Holly, then was rejected by her and watched her essentially restart her life with Wallace... If Tyler was mentally unwell, it might explain the aggressive actions. Kind of. It was normal for werewolves to get possessive, but not murder people horribly in weird ritualistic ways kind of possessive. Then again, maybe it had something to do with why he could do a partial shift? They had an identity for their body, but it had only opened up more questions. There was still a possibility that Holly was alive too, though for how much longer? The department had handed Amber over to child services after Tyler had gotten away and that might just send Tyler into a rage, especially considering how much effort he'd put into keeping the girl on a schedule. It depended on how bad Tyler's mental stability currently was, and Gavin guessed that it was pretty low. He hoped he was wrong for Holly's sake.

"Gavin?"

"Hmm?" Gavin flicked his eyes away from the screen and the report and focused on Connor, who was a lot closer than he'd been moments ago. He realized after a second that he'd unconsciously been leaning into Connors personal space while he'd been lost in his own thoughts and he wheeled his chair back to get as much space between them as fast as possible before he was up and moving without giving Connor time to react. "Address. House. Let's go."

"Detecti- wait!" Connor only caught up to Gavin in the parking lot and he looked more than a little annoyed. "Could you please stop making decisions without consulting me? I'm not just a tag-along, we're supposed to be partners."

Stopping at his car, Gavin lean against the door and watch Connor as he made his way to the passenger side. Frankly there was too much swirling around his head to put into words that made sense, and most of his thoughts had shifted from chasing a murderer to why the fuck he was so unconsciously drawn to Connor. There had to be a better explanation besides scent. "Alright, alright. There's an address on Tyler's file, I want to check it out."

Connor pulled his door open and dropped into the car and Gavin followed his lead, hesitating with his keys for a moment while they sat, fingers drumming against the steering wheel.

"Are you worried about Holly? Do you think she could still be alive?"

"Yeah. Maybe." Gavin rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, still not starting the car. Might as well try and organize some of his thoughts. "I just... My gut tells me that she's still alive, that this was his twisted fucking way of proving something. He kept Amber in school, kept her on a schedule. She didn't know anything was wrong. It's like, hell, I don't know, he was trying to make a point."

"You mean..." Connor was quiet for a minute, like he was trying to wrap his head around the idea Gavin had tossed out there. "As if he was trying to show Holly that he could be a good father."

"Yeah." Gavin had both hands drumming against the steering wheel again, eyes focused out the front window. Tiny little theories were blooming in his head, but none of them were based on anything but a little hunch he had. "If we knew why she'd left him to begin with, it might make a bit more sense why he's gone ballistic."

The leather of the seat squeeked as Connor shifted on the spot and Gavin noticed him frowning. "Would that have anything to do with it? Most people just ask for partial custody and leave it alone. Not murder their competition."

Gavin cleared his throat, momentarily distracted by how good Connor looked when he was concentrating. "Most people aren't werewolves. We aah... Well, not 'We' as a whole. Bred wolves feel it a bit stronger I think, but." Gavin shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal but he couldn't find the words to actually say it right away. It was a bit... awkward. "You know. We can get kind of possessive."

Connor shifted in his seat again, this time so he could full on look at Gavin from the passengers side of the car and Gavin swallowed a groan but couldn't hide his eye roll. Of course Connor would be interested in that. He could feel the stare as the wheels in Connor head turned trying to figure this one out.

"Really. Is this like a mate thing or-"

"No. No its not - this isn't - that's stupid bullshit fiction. What are you, 12 reading weird fucken romance books? God can we not get into this? It's just a thing, it's nothing crazy, and I'm gonna start driving now."

"Detective," You could hear the amusment in Connors voice as he leaned against the passengers door, just watching, eyes bright. "do you even know where we're going?"

Gavin stopped the car as soon as it started moving because no. He had a home address for Tyler Morgan, but he hadn't looked at it yet, because he'd been distracted. Connor held out his hand and Gavin handed him his unlocked phone with another annoyed eye roll and Connor kept smiling while he looked up the information. Cheeky shit little shit.

°°°°°°

The address they pulled up to was a three story house that had been split into three apartments. The house itself looked a bit on the rough side, as if regular upkeep wasn't something the landlords understood. The siding was faded, the paint around the windows was chipping and the screen door stood open, swinging whenever a strong breeze brushed through the porch. There was a staircase off to the side that lead up to the top floor apartment, and a second door on the porch that probably lead to the second floor, but they were interested in apartment One, which looked like it took up the full main floor of the house.

The steps up to the porch creaked at the sudden weight of two people, and Gavin pushed the broken screen door out of his way as they approached the door. They didn't have a warrent yet, but Connor had sent in the paperwork on their way over. It would take time to get, but Gavin was hoping there was someone around who'd just let them in without the paperwork. Though, judging by the neighbourhood, it was a good guess that they wouldn't be getting anywhere without an official warrant.

"Can I help you folks?" the voice came from the other end of the porch, and Gavin followed Connor around the corner to where an old woman was sitting comfortably in a decaying wooden porch swing, a thick wool blanket on her lap. She didn't look at them, just kept watching the slow traffic go by.

She smelt old; musty, like moth balls, stale fabric softener and dust and there wasn't anything threatening about her at all from what Gavin could tell, except that she lived here, with an obviously troubled werewolf.

Connor smiled at her in that none threatening, pleasant way of his that had people trusting him immediately. "Hello. We're looking for a Mr. Tyler Morgan. Does he live here?"

"Yes. He's a good boy. Helps me with my groceries." finally, the woman glanced their way, her eyes looking between them before they settled on Connor. "At least he used to. How much trouble has he gotten himself into?"

"Enough." Connors smile turned a little sheepish, like he was embarrassed to admit that to the old woman.

She sighed, like the news wasn't surprising to her. "It's too bad. Tyler was always good to me when I needed help and most don't bother with an old woman, you know? He was quiet, and kept to himself mostly. Something was always bothering him though, and I never knew what because he never complained." shaking her head a little, Gavin watched the woman slowly pull herself out of the swing, wincing when her knees bent and cracked but she managed without help. "Do you boys have a warrant?"

Gavin raised an eyebrow, but he wasn't going to ask her how she knew they were cops. "Do we need one?"

"I suppose not." the woman slowly meandered up to them, both her hands reaching out when she was close enough to them, grabbing onto Connors left hand, and barely brushing her fingers against Gavin's right before pulling her hand away. She kept a tight grip on Connors hand, but made a point of looking Gavin over a bit better than she had before. "Hm. You might just find something. He was like you, you know. Never said it to me but I could tell."

Gavin couldn't help but frown, watching the old woman walk with Connor towards the door to apartment One, not letting the young detective go while they moved. There weren't too many people that could tell the difference between humans and werewolves just by touch. It was easy enough to do as Connor had figured out earlier that day, but not many people made the connection. Body temperature wasn't exactly something people noticed.

He followed behind, curious why this old lady could pick out a werewolf by touch. She was old enough that she should have some strong prejudices against them, or she was too old to really care anymore. It didn't matter really, and it had nothing to do with their investigation, but it didn't stop Gavin from being curious.

By the time they reached the door to apartment One, the woman had just finished telling Connor how Tyler hadn't just helped her get groceries, but about how he was always around to help her fix things around the house. She made Tyler out to be a decent guy, which was a contrast to the image of him they were trying to piece together.

"Did he ever bring around a little girl?"

"Little Amber? She's such a sweet child." the woman leaned forward, one hand reaching out for the letter flap in the door and sure enough, there was a magnetic key box stuck to the inside of the flap. "She isn't involved in this, is she? Why, Tyler tried so hard for that girl. He never said anything to me but I've seen my fair share of problems to know what was going on."

Connor helped her with the box when she handed it to him, and for a brief moment he made eye contact with Gavin. "What was your name, mrs...?"

"Ethel Gaunt. Most just call me Nana Edie."

"Well, it's a pleasure, Nana Edie. We appreciate your help here." Connor passed the key to the old woman when he finally got it out of the box and they both watched while she worked at unlocking the door. "What sort of problems did you think Tyler was having?"

She pushed open the door and it creaked loudly, like it hadn't been opened in a while, but she didn't take a step into the apartment. "You know. Woman problems. Little Amber's mom. She was causing trouble for poor Tyler, taking his time with Amber away from him. He loves that girl too much to have to go through that." sighing, like just the thought was exhausting, Nana Edie waved towards the open door, finally letting go of Connors hand. "It's all yours."

The old woman stepped aside, giving Gavin room to poke his head just inside the threshold of the door and what met him was a stale smell, as if the door and windows hadn't been opened in a while. "When was the last time Tyler showed up here?" it didn't smell like the guy had been around for a while, or at least, stayed long enough to want to air out the place. With a nose as acute as a werewolfs, Gavin doubted Tyler could sit comfortably with the house smelling like this for more than an hour.

"Oh..." she was quiet for a second, thinking over the question or counting back the days. "probably a few days at the least. Maybe a week. He always stops by when he's home but the last little while he hasn't."

Gavin nodded, pulling Connor back by the arm before his partner could step inside the apartment without him. "Thank you, Mrs. Gaunt." he watched the old woman nod as she left, already heading back down the porch to her swing. Finally, he let go of Connor and followed him inside one step at a time.

It was dark in the apartment, windows covered in thick blankets to keep the light out and most of the bulbs in the various light fixtures had been taken out. Gavin tried a few of the switches on the wall until finally one worked, a faint light coming from the kitchen. He followed behind Connor as they headed to the kitchen, and still the house just smelled stale. There wasn't anything sinister in the smell, it wasn't even bad perse just... Irritating to his nose. Connor had his phone out, using it as a flashlight as they moved through the house, but there wasn't much to see. Whatever furniture was inside the apartment was old and well used but clean - a couch up against the wall, kitchen table and a few chairs. An old tv on a dresser and a few pillows piled on the floor. There were dishes in the sink, but they weren't dirty.

Tyler had definitely been around recently, and although the house was worn down and his stuff was old and used, he kept the place clean and organized.

"He was trying."

"Mmhmm." Gavin stopped his searching when he spied a calendar nailed to the kitchen wall. It was on this month, and the days up to a few days ago were exed out. It had notes written in a lot of the slots; Moon phases for the month, specific days for grocery shopping. It looked like Amber had a school play at the end of the month and Tyler had made a point of circling the date a few times so he wouldn't forget. He'd put a note for the 25th about a pack meeting, which only made Gavin frown. He went to those, too, but couldn't remember seeing Tyler there.

"What?" Connor sided up to him, looking over the calendar before he took a photo with his phone. "this doesn't fit. He seems like a normal guy." Connor used his phone to lift up the current calendar page so they could peak at next month and as expected, there were things written there too. Plans and promises Tyler had made. Specific days where he'd planned to visit Amber after school, and those days coincided with the absenteeism records in Amber's files, if Gavin was remembering the dates right. Visiting Amber at school was a ritual for Tyler. "I don't think he planned for this to happen."

"Yeah, but you saw Wallace's body. You don't just do that. It isn't a spur of the moment kind of thing." again, they were missing something huge because Connor was right. From what they'd seen in the house, Tyler didn't seem like he was planning on murdering anyone. "But. he did keep going as if nothing fucking happened. This 'normal life' here could just be a part of his crazy delusion, you know?"

Connor nodded, shining his light on the rest of the kitchen, brown eyes scrutinizing the dark shadows in the room. "That's true. Do you smell anything?"

Gavin huffed bitterly at the question. "I'm not supposed to do that. That's what we got fucken dogs for."

"Unfortunately," Connor sighed, clearly annoyed with that answer, which just made Gavin smile. "we don't have the luxury of having a k-9 officer with us so I defer to your other senses."

"Nothing." Gavin was still smiling. "It's stale, dusty. I don't even smell him, meaning he hasn't been here for at least a day or two." he wandered over to the fridge and nudged open the door with his boot but even the fridge was void of anything. Nothing inside was rotting or smelled expired. There was a loaf of bread, some butter, a jug of juice, some ketchup in the door. "Nothing at all."

Connor hummed, starting out of the kitchen into the rest of the apartment while Gavin turned his attention to the pantry and broom closet, careful not to touch anything. Both were about as empty as he expected and from the frustrated sigh behind him Connor wasn't having better luck.

"What about the basement? I saw windows when we were coming up to the place."

"Might as well have a look." what did they have to lose anyway except their time. It was a matter of finding the right door - the first one Gavin opened lead to the bathroom, and he almost missed it, half closing the door at the sight of the clean, bleach smelling room before he hesitated.

Opening the door again, Gavin stood in front of the small sink, medicine cabinet half open but he was more interested in the half full garbage bin between the sink and toilet. Using the sleeve of his jacket as a make-shift glove, Gavin pulled a wrapped syringe out of the trash. It hadn't been opened or used, the needle hadn't even been attached yet. Gavin hadn't seen anything that you'd need a needle for anywhere in the house, and there wasn't anything in Tyler's medical history that required any sort of injection. So what did Tyler need a needle for?

"Connor?"

Gavin's stomach rolled uncomfortably all of a sudden and the tiny hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. He had a really bad feeling about this.

"Found it! Are you coming?"

Dropping the syringe in the sink, Gavin was out of the bathroom as quick as he could go and he was down the hall, barely making it in time to grab onto Connors arm and drag him backwards before his partner fell forward down the stairs that weren't there. It was a split second before Connor sagged back against Gavin, laughing nervously, completely aware of what could have just happened to him had he taken that step forward. "The stairs-"

Whatever Connor was saying, Gavin wasn't listening anymore. His nose had found its way into Connors hair before he even realized he was doing it; he couldn't stop himself from taking advantage of their sudden proximity. The weight of Connor leaning against him felt good and right and Gavin was tracing his nose up behind Connors ear, back up into his hair and inhaling deep that intoxicating mix of honey and the lavender soap Connor used. There was so much depth to such a simple smell and no matter how close he got he couldn't pin point every inch of scent that touched his nose. It was absolutely overpowering this close, and it made Gavin's knees weak, his chest ache, and his jeans tighter than they should be. It has hard to explain the jumbled mix of things that swarmed his head when he had his nose burried in Connors hair like this.

It was only when Connor froze up did it click into Gavin's brain just what he was doing.

What the fuck was he doing.

Chapter Text

Gavin took an immediate step backwards, brain running a mile a minute trying to figure out not just what the fuck he was doing right now, but what he was supposed to say to explain himself for doing the weird shit he was doing. He had absolutely no words, which was really fucking frustrating. Even with a few paces between them now, Connor didn't move an inch from where he stood - a common reaction when faced with a wild animal and it set Gavin off.

"Be more fucken careful! What the fuck would I tell Anderson if I had to bring your ass back to the station with a concussion, or worse? He already hates my fucken guts, don't give him more reason to." Gavin huffed; irritated, annoyed. All of the above and mostly centered on himself and it was fuel enough to keep ranting, masking just how uncomfortable he suddenly was in his own skin. "Look with your god damn eyes, Connor. Fuck."

"Yeah. Yes. Sorry I didn't think-" Connor stuttered, trying to come up with something to say in his defence but he was moving, stepping farther away from the edge where the staircase should have started, his hands fidgeting with his cellphone. "I didn't think an entire set of stairs would be missing."

Gavin snorted. He needed a minute to get ahold of himself before he did something stupid, again, and observing the darkness in the basement was a good enough opportunity to not only catch his breath, but focus his thoughts. Gavin leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and used the flashlight on hisown phone to peer down into the dark basement. Breath in slowly, and not through the nose.

There wasn't much to see from up where he stood on the main floor, and just like the rest of the apartment, flicking the lightswitch on the wall beside the door didn't work. The bulbs had probably been removed to keep the place dark just like the living room and kitchen, though Gavin had no idea why that was. If they wanted to figure out what was down there, they'd have to find a way to actually get down an entire flight of missing stairs, and even then, not knowing what state the basement was in was dangerous.

"What do you think?" Gavin's voice was less hostile this time, mostly because he felt a little bad about snapping at Connor for something the other Detective hadn't done.

Connor looked as if he'd recovered enough from the near tumble and he stepped up to the edge of the doorway, peering down into the basement the same way Gavin had just done and even with both lights shining down, there wasn't much to see. "We have to get down there. I'll call-"

"-Wait, wait." Gavin instantly bristled.

"I'm going to call for backup." Connor practically over enunciated his words to get his point across and he didn't leave room to argue. "We've gotten in trouble once already today because of this exact reason, Detective."

That wasn't going to work and even as final as Connors statement was, Gavin was gonna argue anyways. "You're jumping the gun. We don't even know what's down there yet. Could be nothing, then what? We look like idiots."

Connor pointed his phone down at the gaping dark hole that was the basement like he was trying to make a point. "And if we jump down there and can't get back up? I doubt there's a secondary entrance to the building in the basement, and I certainly can't scale walls."

"Well, I can't fuckin' scale walls either. Detective, but." how did you explain gut feelings without sounding absolutely fucken crazy? "Just trust me."

"I trusted you three hours ago and all it got me was a lecture on my first day about how I shouldn't trust you."

"But was I wrong?"

Gavin waited while Connor stared him down for a full minute before he finally sighed. "No. You were not." this time, Connor groaned as if he was coming to the realization that saying no to Gavin and his 'good' ideas was an almost impossible feat. "Why do I keep doing this to myself." Connor mumbled, before waving his phone towards the basement again. "How do you suggest we get down there? Safely, Detective."

"Jump." Obviously.

"Gavin."

Except Gavin wasn't listening anymore. He shoved his phone into his back pocket for the time being and stood straight in the doorway peering down into the blackness. It probably wasn't his best idea ever, but there was definetly something in the basement even if he had no reason to believe that except a gut feeling. Who took a full flight of stairs out unless they were trying to hide something? It just didn't make sense. Standard ceiling heights were about eight feet, and Gavin could drop down pretty easily all things considered.

"It isn't that far down." Gavin crouched in the doorway, like he was waiting for the darkness to open up, nostrils flaring as he took a few deep inhales. If he ignored Connors scent, which was pretty fucking difficult to do, there was a stale undertone to the air coming out of the basement and... Something really faint. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was but it didn't trigger any kind of warning bells in his head. "Doesn't really smell dangerous down there either." and without waiting for Connor to reply or approve, Gavin dropping down into the basement, all or nothing, and his boots hit the cement floor hard.

He couldn't see shit until he'd managed to get his phone out of his pocket and lit up the area, and even then there wasn't much to see.

"Gavin! Are you-"

"-It's fine, Connor." the light from Gavin's phone bounced off the bare stone walls of the basement, but there were no signs of life that Gavin could see. Empty shelves against one wall that had only accumulated spider webs over time and not much else. A thick layer of dust covered pretty much anything that had a surface. "Are you coming down here or what?"

A couple indistinct mumbles from the main floor had Gavin grinning before the telltale thud of a second pair of shoes hitting the hard ground. Gavin continued to circle the room slowly, frustration building quickly. Why was the basement empty? Why go to this much trouble to get rid of a full flight of stairs only to have nothing to hide?

Laying in a pile against one wall was the wood that had been the staircase. Dust and spider webs had made a home in the crevices, and the blanket of dust was enough evidence to say that the stairs had been removed a while ago and not touched since. This explained why no one had noticed the basement remodeling, Tyler hadn't gotten rid of the garbage wood. The question was, why all the fuss for nothing? Stale wood, dust, it wasn't even damp in the basement. He had to be missing something.

"Gavin."

Connor was across the basement, his phone flashlight focused on the wall and as Gavin approached, he understood why. There was a hole in the cement wall, and it was a big one. You could crawl into it, just barely by the looks of it. "Shit." Gavin knelt down in front of it, though not too close. The hole was... It had to be man made, there was no other way a hole this big and deep could get dug through stone and concrete without tools, but the claw scratches smoothing out the round edges of the hole told a different story. It looked like it had been dug out with big paws, and the tunnel went way past the foundation and out under the yard. There were old red stains against the cement too, like whoever did this (as if he didn't already know who) had hurt themselves a lot while doing it.

"What is that?"

Gavin didn't want to get any closer to the opening to see what was further inside, but he could take a wild guess. This was some kind of a burrow. There was the faintest breeze coming through it too, carrying not just Tyler's scent, but something that tickled Gavin's nose in a way that made him extremely uncomfortable. It was all so faint though, hours old at least. Tyler had been here today, but wasn't anymore. A breeze also meant that there was a way topside from inside this tunnel.

"It's..." he had to get in there, and just the thought made Gavin nervous. "a nest. A burrow." which was completely unnerving. "We don't..." he jestured towards the mess in the wall. "Do this. This is some insane fucking shit." Gavin rubbed at his jaw, hairs at the back of his neck standing on end. What the fuck.

Did this have something to do with the syringe he'd found in the bathroom? Was it just some weird drug hallucinations that were making Tyler act like this? Gavin eyed the hole, the edges, the claw marks, the dirt and grass he could only barely see on the ground just inside the tunnel. No. This was long term, not some drug induced hysteria. Gavin had no fucking idea what this was.

Connors voice started him. "I'm calling this in."

"Connor, wait."

"Give me one good reason why I should. This is serious, Gavin."

Gavin finally pulled himself up off the ground, glancing back at his partner through the dark. Connor was not happy and Gavin didn't need proper lighting to tell. He wasn't exactly annoyed, but definetly not happy with their current situation, and why should he be? They were trapped in a basement with no obvious way out, with a weird hole in the wall that could mean pretty much anything. Whatever it was, there was no explanation available and that was scary shit.

"I fucking know, okay? I want to go in there."

"Are you serious?" The annoyed look on Connors face shifted so fast into confusion, then worry. "Of course you're serious. Why wouldn't you be. Its a big ominous hole in the wall, there could be anything in there so obviously the first thing you should do is go inside." Connors hands reached up and he started rubbing circles against his temples. "This is what we have dogs for, Gavin."

"A dog won't be able to tell you what it smells. Come on, Connor. Trust me."

Connor huffed, crossing his arms tight over his chest before finally nodding. "Again, I feel like I'm going to regret it, but okay. You win. How-" and before Connor could get another word in, Gavin tossed his jacket at him and the younger detective barely managed to catch it. "What-"

"What?" Gavin un-clipped his shoulder-holster and shucked it off his shoulders, handing it over to his partner along with his badge, and Connor grabbed it from him obediently. "I'm not fucking crawling into that hole like this." he'd thought that would have been obvious. Gavin was halfway through pulling off his shirt when he paused to look at Connor, who'd been unusually quiet for the last few seconds. "What did you think I meant?"

"Detective." like opening the flood gates on a dam, Connor was suddenly quite aware of what exactly Gavin was doing and his protests echoed through the empty basement loudly. "You can't. Shifting in public is illegal! What are you even- you're going to get us both fired."

Even in the dark it was plain as day to see that Connor was suddenly very uncomfortable, and Gavin found it highly amusing. He wasn't sure what exactly was flustering his partner more - the fact that Gavin was getting undressed, or that he was breaking the law. Sort of. Not really. "Last I checked a basement wasn't considered 'public'."

"This isn't your basement its a crime scene?" the flustered shrill of Connors voice just made Gavin laugh as he unbuckled his belt. "You're seriously doing this."

"Turn around if it bothers you."

"Bothers me? What bothers me is that you're willingly going to crawl into a hole where I can't help if you need it, and you won't even be able to tell me if you need help."

"Accurate." Gavin rolled his shoulders, anticipation buzzing through his system at just the idea of shifting.

"Tyler's already taken you down once, Gavin. What if he's in there hiding? What if-"

Gavin's wallet smacked Connor dead center on his forehead before falling into the growing pile of clothes he was holding. It served as an acceptable way to shut his partner up. "Could you not remind me? Fucken trust me a little here; the tunnels empty. The only thing I might run into are dust mites and fleas, which in my fucking opinion are worse."

He kicked off his boots and pulled off his socks and when he looked up from hiding his socks in his boots, Connor had turned around completely, staring at the far wall which earned a short laugh from Gavin. He added the last bits of clothing to the pile Connor was still holding. "It'll be fine, Con." and he headed to the opposite corner of the basement, just to keep some courtesy distance between them.

Shifting didn't take very long, maybe a full minute if you were slow and all it took was one concentrated desire to change. It was something that got easier, something that hurt less the more you did it and most did the shift a lot. Your body got used to rearranging its bones and organs, and registered less of the pain as time went on. The cracking and whining and uncomfortable groaning still made even the toughest men flinch - that was something Gavin had never gotten used to. It sounded sloppy to his own ears, the grinding of his own bones as they adjusted just under the skin. The stretching, snapping, and itching and it felt all wrong for a long few seconds before everything started settling back into place, dark brown fur coating him from head to tail.

It was over almost just as fast as it had started and Gavin shook out his newly grown fur, trying to get everything to settle a bit more comfortably. He stretched out his forepaws, nails scratching against the cement floor as he yawned wide, trying to loosen out his suddenly stiff jaw.

"Gavin?" Connor hissed quietly, like he was afraid to raise his voice. It must have gotten too quiet because the other Detective had turned around, trying to see into the dark around him, arms too full of clothes to allow him to grab his phone for a light.

Flicking his ears forward, Gavin glance left and right, eyeing the corners of the basement he hadn't really been able to see before. The darkness didn't bother him so much like this, and while he might not be able to see in full colour, at least he could see. When Connor shifted uncomfortably where he stood, Gavin's tail started swaying back and forth unprompted and he took the few steps towards his partner, eager to greet him all over again. If it was possible, Connor smelt even better now than he had before and whatever qualms Gavin had about sniffing him were gone.

By the time Gavin had crossed the basement, Connor was kneeling, his armfull of clothes resting on his knees. He smiled and met Gavin half way with one hand, scratching it through the thick fur of his head as soon as his partner was close enough to touch, a soft laugh sounding through the quiet basement. "Well aren't you something else." Whatever argument or reservations the young detective had, they were momentarily forgotten and Gavin was thankful for that because Connors fingers in his fur felt really fucken nice, nice enough that he didn't even notice the satisfied groan that rolled out of him when his partner hit that one spot under his cheeks.

Connor scratched his hand up and over the wolf's head and ears and farther down his back. Gavin stepped forward and almost knocked Connor onto his ass just trying to get his nose into every available peice of his partner. Even as a wolf with its better sense of smell he couldn't even begin to comprehend the complexity of this rediculous scent. Gavin huffed, his nose up underneath his partners jacket, nudging at his ribs, his stomach, he wasn't even sure what he was scenting at this point, just that it all smelled so much of Connor and he loved it.

"Oh hey- enough of that!" Connor started pushing at the big wolf head as soon as Gavin's nose started dipping too low, forcing the Detective back and for a second, Gavin was confused. "Come on," Connor pushed Gavins muzzle away again as soon as he started trying to weasle his way back under his coat earning a whine from the Detective. "didn't you have something stupid and dangerous to do?"

Both of Gavin's ears perked up at the reminder of why he had even shifted in the first place and he straightened up with a loud huff, focusing on the back wall and the gaping hole there. Right, he'd almost forgotten about that. Connor had stood up by then, and Gavin glanced up at his partner before stepping carefully towards the hole.

The scents coming out of the tunnel though still faint, where much stronger like this, and there was enough to confirm that yeah, Tyler had definitely been here earlier. His scent was so ingrained into the dirt of the tunnel to also confirm that he spent a lot of time in there. The traces of blood around the edges of the tunnel didn't have a sent to them, which told Gavin that they'd dried a while ago, probably months. Whatever Tyler was doing to himself, he'd been doing for a long time. Inside, there wasn't anything wary to see at first glance. Dirt, sticks and leaves, and when he inhalled deep his ears flattened back against his head. Ugh, that was almost like throwing pepper at a dogs nose. Gavin snorted, his brain working through all the scents he knew to try and pinpoint what it was, but nothing came to mind. It was strong, distracting, and tinted in fear,

"Be careful, Gavin."

A rumbled growl rolled from his chest at Connors words, tired of hearing them. Of course he was going to be fucking careful. Despite popular belief he did not, in fact, have a death wish, he just made rash, stupid decisions. He lowered himself to the ground slowly and started crawling forward into the hole. There wasn't much in the tunnel; it was wide enough that although tight, Gavin had no problems squeezing his body through. The tunnel itself was well used, the smooth dirt walls said as much. Someone came in and out of here often enough to smooth out the tunnel naturally.

Every inch of movement got him closer to something - a den? Gavin had no idea, but he did know that that smell he couldn't figure out was getting stronger and it burned his nose in a way that was familiar but not. It was distracting, made him want to investigate it.

A few more wiggles and the tunnel widened out into a bigger hole - the actual den. Blankets and other soft things lined the floor, clothing and dirty pillows scattered around, and there was a basket of food in one corner, fresh enough to have been brought here within the last day or so. Was Tyler living in this tiny cramped little hole? As a wolf, Gavin could move around enough inside the den that it didn't bother him very much, but as a person, it would get really claustrophobic really quick. He couldn't imagine living inside such a cramped space, even if he had no other choice.

God, and what was that smell it was fucking everywhere and it was so strong and it-

Gavin froze, nostrils flaring before his nose touched the blankets on the ground, inhaling. He knew this. It was strong, tickled his brain in a way that was distracting but also intriguing. This was Connor. Well. Not Connor, but the same basic idea. She had different undertones, but the raw scent had the same properties as Connors scent did.

Holly Turner had the same overwhelming scent pattern that Connor did, and now that he knew it, Gavin could smell it everywhere in this little hole. She'd been here since the murder, that much was certain. Tyler had trapped her here, but why? There wasn't any blood around, which meant that she wasn't hurt, at least, not while she'd been trapped in here. There was enough dirt around the den to insulate the sound if Holly had tried screaming for help, no one would have heard her. Panic had settled into Gavin's gut at the very idea that Holly and Connor had such a similar scent, and after today, Tyler knew that Connor smelt the same. Was it just a fluke that Holly shared the same kind of intense smell, or was that the point? Was Holly's scent the reason Tyler had gone fucking insane? Did it have something to do with it? Whatever the case was, Gavin had to get them both out of this building as soon as fucking possible.

He'd gotten enough information from this hole for now anyway, and honestly he was starting to feel a bit sick sitting in the den like he was. Gavin crawled his way back through the tunnel slowly and with a huff, pulled his hunches free and gave himself a good shake to get the dirt and shit out of his fur. God it felt like he could breath again.

As soon as he was done shaking out his coat, Gavin felt a hand digging into his fur and he watched Connor as he used his only free hand to feel over Gavin's body like he was looking for wounds he couldn't see in the darkness of the basement. "Are you okay? Did you find anything? That was two minutes are you sure you got what you needed?" Connors hand stopped at his partners head, scratching up behind his ears and Gavin's tongue lolled out of his maw, fully enjoying the treatment after what he'd just been through. "You like that, huh?" he didn't know if Connor wanted any answers, or if he was just asking to ask, but Gavin groaned anyway, half growling at the effect all this attention was having on him.

The last person who'd really given him this much attention while he'd been shifted had been his brother as kids, and damn, Gavin honestly hadn't remembered what he was missing. Feeling Connors fingers scratching deep into his thick coat had to be the equivalent of some kinda spa massage or something, it was amazing.

Connors hand left the spot behind his ears and he rubbed down Gavin's forehead and snout, pausing a moment and Gavin felt his partners fingers tracing down the pink scar across his muzzle. He watched for a few seconds before Connor pulled his hand away completely and Gavin was surprised at how disappointed that made him.

"Well? Do you plan to stay like that for the rest of the night, Detective?"

Huffing, Gavin stretched out his forepaws again before he dug his nose through the pile of clothes Connor was still holding, grabbing a mouthfull of his pants before heading off into the darkness. Shifting back was just as quick and painful as the first time, just as uncomfortable, except Gavin felt completely exhausted when it was done. He burned through a lot of energy shifting back and forth like that, especially in such a short amount of time. The basement was pitch black to his human eyes, and when he grabbed for his pants he put his hand right into a giant glob of drool, and no amount of cursing made it better. Fucking nasty, even if it was his own.

"Detective?"

"Yeah yeah, gimme a sec." Gavin dressed in the first two layers, finally stepping back towards Connor while adjusting his belt. His boots should be nearby somewhere... It was quiet in the basement while Gavin searched for his boots, the light from the phone he'd left in his back pocket not doing much to help. He stopped when he found them, pulling on his socks one by one, then his boots, and the entire time Connor kept quiet, waiting. Gavin was doing it on purpose - he was trying to organize his thoughts enough to explain them, figure out what exactly he should omit from his explanation. Sometimes, it was hard to translate some of his own thoughts from wolf to human, and vice versa, so the extra couple of seconds helped.

"So?" Connor sounded anxious, eager when he finally spoke. "what did you find?"

With his boots on, Gavin stepped up to his partner and started picking at his clothes, tugging his shirt on first. "Well. He's been using that hole for at least a few months. It's definitely a den, which is really fucken unnerving. We're not animals, even the worst of us." Gavin paused from clipping on his shoulder holster, "there was an empty syringe in the bathroom, but I didn't find any traces of medicine or drugs in the den, and there wasn't anything else in the bathroom."

Connor handed him his wallet, frowning through the darkness. "Could this be some kind of high?" he held out the last item of clothing and Gavin took it, shrugging on his jacket. "Something new?"

"I don't think so. That kind of... I don't know, that doesn't fucking fit with what we've figure out so far. He's all over the God damn crazy map."

"Yes, but -"

"It isn't a fucking drug, Connor. I'd be able to smell it somewhere."

"Alright. What else?"

Gavin hesitated, glancing back towards the hole in the wall. The panic he'd felt while inside the den when he'd realized that their missing woman had the same smell as Connor came rushing back. It was a fluke, it had to be. What was he supposed to tell Connor?

"Gavin?"

"He had Holly trapped in there since the murder, maybe before that, and he moved her not even two hours ago."

"Alive...?"

"She was while she was in there. He didn't hurt her, at least there wasn't any traces of blood, but still. That's some kinda mental fucking trauma to go through." no, he'd avoid talking about Connors scent for now. Gavin wasn't even sure how he'd explain it to him, let alone how he'd react to it. Until they found Holly, Gavin doubted Connor would be in any kind of actual danger anyway. After all, this was all personal for Tyler, and Connor had no personal connection to him that Gavin knew of- Connor would have mentioned it when they'd been looking up Tyler's file. "Anyways, let's get out of here."

"And how do we do that?"

Gavin moved, taking the few steps to stand were the stairs would have been and stared up at the open door above them. "Well." really, it wasn't that high up. "I'll boost you up."

Connor laughed, shaking his head. "Of course."

Thing was, Connor didn't sound like he believed him. "I'm serious. Come here, I'll give you a lift, and then you can help pull me up."

"That's your big plan?"

"Connor we can't fit through the fucking basement windows, so what do you think? What's your brilliant idea to get us outta here?"

"Backup. They'll bring a ladder."

Gavin rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to stay down in the dark waiting for someone to come save him. The last thing he needed was to give more fuel to Lt. Asshole on just how fucking incompetent he was. "Just get the fuck over here before I decide to leave you behind." He watched Connor hesitate, but it wasn't long until he gave in.

Hoisting Connor up to the first floor from the basement wasnt as easy as Gavin had originally thought. It wasn't that Connor was heavy, it was just that... Well, he was heavy. He'd managed to get his partner up far enough so that he could grab the floor of the doorway, and started a slow shimmy forward. Gavin stood up on his toes, trying to push him up farther, both hands on an ass that he didn't expect to touch so soon. And fuck if Connor didn't have a nice ass. After a bit of struggling, Connor was up and standing and Gavin was out of breath. He really didn't have the energy for this kind of shit right now, right after his shift. Fuck. Who's idea was this?

"Okay," Gavin huffed, reaching up with one arm. "help pull me up."

Chapter Text

Being in the office so early was like a double edged sword - both good and bad. Gavin preferred the early morning hours because there were so few officers at the precinct it made it easy to work without being distracted, while also having all the tools he needed within reach. It was like working from home, if he could take his computer with him. It was, unfortunately, the early hours of the morning and not many people were awake and working unless they had to be, so now that Gavin needed approval, he had to wait for it and because this case was at a standstill there wasn't much else to do but wait.

The red tape wrapped around anything that so much as uttered the word werewolf was stupid. You couldn't breathe unless you had pack permission to do so, and that permission didn't come easy. Main reason why it was Gavin that dealt with all cases involving werewolves (at this precinct anyways) was because he was hard headed enough to push his way through the bullshit and get the job done. It still took time though, and Gavin hated that.

By the time he heard the distinct sound of Hank's old rust bucket, Gavin was already annoyed. He hadn't gotten an email back from the Beta he'd been keeping in touch with, and he needed that permission before he could carry on with the investigation into Tyler Morgan. Not that Gavin would sit on his thumbs fucking waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to do his job. Results usually spoke louder.

He was up off his chair before Hank and Connor had even made it into the precinct, grabbing Connor's arm before he could get any further than the door. "We gotta go."

Hank had stopped a few steps ahead of them, listening, but Gavin didn't care. Him and Connor were supposed to be partners, and he was allowed to talk to his partner even if Hank didn't approve of it.

When Connor just looked confused by the statement, Gavin reluctantly clarified. "This case? We have places to be."

"I realize that," Connor shook his arm out of Gavins hold. "I just don't know what places you're talking about," Con paused, as if he realized something and his tone of voice changed just enough for Gavin's ears to pick up. Excitement. "unless you had a breakthrough in the middle of the night?"

"Boston." it was hard not to smile at the fact that he'd been the one to shift Connors mood like that, and thankfully Gavin didn't have a tail because it would have been wagging like a fucken traitor.

That one word and Connors brown eyes seemed to brighten. "Tyler's parents."

"Boston's over 10 hours away, Reed. Did you get this cleared with Fowler?" Hank was always a stickler for going through the proper channels, even when it wasn't any of his fucking business.

Gavin managed to mumble "I'm not a fucking idiot." as he left through the door Hank had just come from. It had taken a lot of self control not to snarl at just the implication that Hank thought Gavin didn't know how to do his job. He'd been working at the precinct for years already! He wasn't some rookie cop who didn't know how to file his paperwork properly-

He didn't respond to Hank's question, opting to leave the precinct before he snapped.

The passenger door opened before Gavin even had the drivers side open and he didn't need to look to know it was Connor. Connors scent still overpowered all other scents, and Gavin still found himself wanting to drown in it. It was easier to ignore now, kind of but he really didn't want to ignore it.

It was quiet for a minute as Gavin turned the car on and started out of the parking lot. Two red lights before he finally gave into the silence and sighed. "Yeah, so can you send Fowler an email letting him know what we're doing?" he saw Connors head shake from the corner of his eye. "I didn't fucking forget I just... Had other things on my mind. We should be back by tonight, anyway, and I already got the flights booked, and as soon as Allen emails me back it'll be cleared with the pack. Both packs."

"Allen?"

"One of our Beta's. Glorified assistant managers, really but I can't do anything unless one of them says I fucking can."

Connor nodded, using his phone to send off an email to Fowler while Gavin drove and the car was quiet again. It was a bit of a drive to the airport and Connor decided to fill the silence by doing research, specifically on Tyler Morgan's parents and family. Liv and Alexander Morgan were in their early seventies, both alive and in reasonably good health. They'd been living in the same home for years, had regular attendance at pack functions and overall seemed like good people enjoying their retirement. Tyler was an only child, with a few cousins living in and around Boston, and from what they'd read, Tyler was the first Morgan in a long time to move away from the Boston pack.

As they moved through the airport, Gavin could tell that Connor was on the phone with Hank, not quite arguing but what did he know about their conversations. Gavin was too busy trying to get them to that last minute flight he'd book at 5am that morning to really be listening as Connor once again sighed, clearly annoyed. Not that he was paying any attention at all.

"I swear, Hank, if you ask me again why the Boston PD can't do this - I know you're worried, but you don't need to be. I know. I understand. We should be back by dinner time. Yes, I know Niles is coming over tonight. Yes, I know Seth wanted my help cooking. Hank, I'll be fine you won't even know I'm gone."

Right, so Gavin was paying too much attention to what was being said and couldn't help being annoyed for Connor. Hank could really be a fucking nuisance sometimes, but really Gavin supposed any good parent would be worried about their kids. Except that Connor was a fucking Detective, and not a child.

Gavin had his shoes, belt and everything else in a bin ready to pass through the security checkpoint, and Connor was still on his fucking cellphone until Gavin pulled it from his hand. "We're trying to catch a fucking plane, call back when we land. He's not a fucking child." and without missing a beat, or waiting to hear the yell from Hank, Gavin hit the end button and tossed Connors phone into his bin. Connor was not impressed by the action, it was plain to see by the look on his face, but he didn't say anything about it. Not yet anyways - Gavin was expecting to get an ear full later.

"He was being really fucking annoying." Gavin only said that to try and redeem himself a little, considering he had to be spending the full day with Connor. Didn't make sense to have the guy mad at him. "We're going to Boston, what the fuck is going to happen in Boston?"

"I doubt anything will happen, but he still worries."

"Worries too fucking much. You're an adult, capable of making big adult decisions without daddy hanging around to decide if they were the damn right ones."

Gavin huffed, annoyed all over again and passed through the metal detector, confirming with the security guard on the other side that all his sidearm paperwork was in order. Connor came through after him, doing the same with the security officer before he started picking his things out of the bins and putting them back on.

"You're right, you know, but Hank is Hank."

"Hank is just paranoid because he really fucking hates me."

This time Connor sighed. "He doesn't hate you. He… Just has a hard time trusting…" he trailed off, and Gavin knew why. Con didn't want to say the word 'Werewolf' out loud.

Truthfully, Gavin was grateful for that. "I get it." Everyone always had a reason.

He didn't have much time to dwell on it, because the whole plastic bin started to vibrate as his own cellphone rang. Gavin grabbed it, answering with a gruff "Reed."

°Are you on your way to Boston?°

"Bout fucking time you got back to me." He recognized the Beta's voice without needing an introduction. He tucked the phone between his shoulder and cheek so he could simultaneously weave his belt through his pants after pulling it from the bin. "Just passed through security. Everything kosher on your end?"

°Cleared your arrival with one of Boston's Beta's. They're going to let the Morgan's know you're stopping by. Are you bringing your partner?°

"Yeah." Gavin couldn't help but sigh heavily, replacing his badge, wallet and keys into their respective pockets. "Hey, do I gotta pay respects? You know I hate that bullshit."

°It's fine. Boston wants Tyler in custody as quickly as we do, so they don't want to waste your time with any formalities while you're there.°

"Finally." Gavin had started walking, glancing back after a moment to make sure Connor was following him. "Alright. Thanks. Look, am I going to get reimbursed for the-"

°-Goodbye, Gavin.°

The phone went dead and Gavin shook his head. What a fucking dick.

They got an update on Amber just after the plan had taken off; she was in foster care for now. Child services were still trying to sort out relatives and who had legal rights to care for the girl now that her parents were… Well, currently both unavailable. It was good to know that the kid at least had a safe place to sleep until this mess got sorted out. She was too young to really understand what was going on but… Well kids weren't stupid. Amber would figure it out.

After exhausting conversation about the girl, Connor started quizzing him with stupid questions. It was a light conversation, and Gavin actually found himself enjoying it. He'd never admit it out loud, but having someone genuinely interested enough to ask you questions was a nice change.

"What's it like when you're all… Furry?"

"What do you mean 'what's it like'?"

Connor shrugged in the seat next to him. "I don't know. Yesterday in the basement, you were…" he hesitated, fingers drumming against the armrest, face set in a frown. That, Gavin was coming to understand, was Connors thinking face. "I can't really explain it. But you weren't 100% you. Or maybe, more you?" it was almost a question.

Gavin couldn't help but laugh. "What?"

"It was like, you weren't being defensive anymore. That's the best way to describe it."

"I'm not fucking defensive." even he knew that was a lie. "Alright maybe a bit. It's hard to focus on that kind of thing when your… Like that." Gavin took a minute to look around, see who was around them. The plane wasn't full, and there was a bit of space between him and Connor and the next person, and no one looked like they were paying any real attention to him. Everything around him smelled normal enough, the sharp scent of cleaner clung to the seats, and the most personal scents were locked up in the overhead, just out of reach of Gavins sensitive nose. The most prevalent scent was Connor. "I don't really know how to explain it. Wolf brain thinks on a different level, it's hard to uh… it's kinda like speaking another language. Takes a minute to translate back and forth and some things get lost in the translation."

"Really." Connor shifted in his seat, and when Gavin glanced at him the younger detective had turned just enough in his seat that he could full on look at Gavin beside him.

"... What?" Now Gavin was getting nervous. Suspicious even. What had he done yesterday while he'd been shifted? Had he done anything weird? God, he'd probably done something embarrassing without realizing it. Worse than the stairs sniff that he hoped Connor had forgotten about. "You're making me fucking nervous now."

Connor chuckled, a light laugh that had Gavin's heart beating a bit harder than normal for absolutely no reason. "You just seemed really distracted."

"Distracted?" he was really fucking distracted right now.

"Yes. There was lots of sniffing."

"I don't sniff."

Connor laughed again, and Gavin almost forgot they were on an airplane with people around. He really liked the way Connor paughed. "I remember you telling me you hadn't figured out my smell yet, but at the same time you could instantly tell me something about how a stranger smelled. I'm starting to think that you actually like the way I smell."

"I don't-!" Gavin's voice was six octaves too loud and someone a few rows up glances up the isle towards him, and Gavin could swear he felt his ears heat up with a kind of embarrassment he hadn't felt in a long fucking time. Clearing his throat, Gavin closed his eyes and tried again. "I don't. Okay? It's more complicated than that. You…'' How did he explain Connors scent when he didn't even understand it? "It's complicated. I don't fucking know okay?"

"Alright." thank fucking God Connor decided to let it drop. Maybe he caught on to how uncomfortable the conversation was making Gavin, maybe it was another reason, but it was over. "So, another question."

Fuck. "Seriously? Is this fucking 20 questions with Gavin Reed?"

For a second, Connor hesitated. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's just that… With Hank's extreme prejudice, I haven't been exposed to much of the… Culture, or basic knowledge really, and if we're supposed to work this case together, I'd honestly like to know a bit more. We're partners, and that might extend past this case."

"I mean…" honestly how did you argue with that kind of logic? "You could google it."

Connor rolled his eyes. "Never mind."

It was fairly quiet the rest of the flight, not that it was a long one. Gavin thought for a minute that maybe he should have let Connor ask whatever questions he wanted to ask - he was probably a better source than google was, everything considered, but as much as he liked the attention (specifically, from his partner and no one else) Gavin also hated the topic. Maybe he’d let his partner ask another question on the flight back to Detroit, that wouldn't be so bad.

Hank called again while they were walking through the Boston airport and as annoyed as that made Gavin, he let Connor talk while he booked a rental car for them and looked up the Morgan's address on his phone's GPS. It was probably an hour drive from the airport with traffic - not that Gavin knew what Boston traffic was like, but it was only 10am so maybe they’d missed the morning rush traffic. Inside the car, Connor spent the time rereading the information listed on the Registry about the Morgan’s family history.

“This is a typical werewolf family, right?”

Gavin glanced towards his partner a second before looking back towards the road. “I guess so.” He’d read the file too, early this morning after he’d made the decision to head to Boston to talk to them, and it seemed about right that they were a typical family dynamic for werewolf standards, but honestly Gavin didn't have anything to base that from. “It kind of depends on what you define typical as. From what I can tell, you have some families that are really fucking traditional, and others that kind of.. Shied away from a lot of wolf customs? And then you got families like mine where they’re 100% human, and you're the weird one.” He spared another second away from the road so he could look at Connor again. “From what I read I think the Morgans are more human traditional, and less wolf. You get what I mean?”

Connor nodded, brown eyes fixed on the tablet he was reading before he glanced up with a frown. “Your family thought you were weird?”

Gavin huffed. “I mean, I guess so? Kinda fucken weird to have your kid suddenly be able to change into a full blown fucken wolf when he's having a bad time.”

Whatever it was that Connor was thinking, he didn’t say anything and went back to looking over the file on the tablet, and Gavin was grateful for that. He really didn't want to talk about his own family dynamic, not that it was exactly awful, but still.

“All this shit really means is that we won't have much issue talking with them. They won't actually hate either of us, which’ll make it real easy.”

Connor looked confused, but there wasn't any time to elaborate on that because the street changed, and Gavin pulled the car to a stop on the curb in front of a rather nice looking 60’s style bungalow with a new roof and a bright yellow front door. The property looked well maintained from the yard to the actual house. The garden below the front window looked freshly tended and the flowery welcome sign on the porch was inviting. It was extremely domestic, and age appropriate. It was easy to tell that a retired couple lived here.

“Well I feel fucking underdressed.” He really did. Leather jacket, grey shirt he’d grabbed from his closet at 4 that morning, and jeans. The house looked better than Gavin did.

“You do look a bit scruffy.”

“Fuck right off.”

Up the walkway to the front of the house, and it took 2 knocks before the yellow front door opened up and there stood exactly what you’d expect from a 60’s housewife living in today's era. Liv Morgan was all coiffed dyed blond hair, hazel eyes with a healthy build and she eyed Gavin up and down for a moment before recognition hit. “Ah. The Detectives from Detroit.”

Gavin nodded, holding out his hand for her out of respect. “Detective Gavin Reed and -” Not that she was paying attention to him anymore, Liv was trying her best to look around him to where Connor was standing. She didn't even seem to notice his hand so he dropped it back to his side. “-My partner, Detective Connor Anderson.”

“Ah.” She pulled open the screen door, without taking her eyes off of Connor and Gavin's metaphorical hackles prickled up “Come in, Detectives. My husband is in the sitting room.” After a moment, Liv must have realized she’d been staring and her eyes finally moved from Connor back to Gavin. “Forgive me. My name is Liv Morgan, Tyler’s mother. Please, come in.” she moved aside, giving them enough room to actually move into the foyer.

As soon as Gavin made enough room for Connor to follow him inside, Liv reached for the brunette, barely touching his arm before pulling it away as quickly as she could.

Gavin swallowed an aggressive growl. “Hey, Lady-”

“-I apologize. I just…” she looked frustrated “Detective Anderson you have a very intriguing scent, did you know? It reminds me of Holly’s scent. Different, but very similar.”

Connor didn’t know how to react to that kind of information, and he stood rigid in the doorway while Gavin panicked quietly where he stood a foot away. It was hereditary, the scent thing, being able to pinpoint the specifics of certain scents, it had to be. Just like how some people thought cilantro tasted like soap. It made sense that if Tyler could smell it, so would one or both of his parents. Good to know, but fuck. Gavin had specifically been trying not to let Connor know about that.

“Pardon?” It was the only word that Connor managed to say and Liv looked torn about the question.

“Some people have a gene that makes their scent sweeter than most. Not everyone can scent it, however. It isn't important, forgive me for being so forward but sometimes it can be overwhelming.” The older woman smiled a little and left the foyer, leading the way to what Gavin assumed was the sitting room that her husband was waiting in.

Gavin focused on the floor, toeing off his shoes, avoiding direct eye contact with Connor until the other Detective grabbed his arm before he could head into the house.

“Is that true?”

“Not right now, Connor.” This wasn’t exactly the right place for that conversation, not that Gavin wanted to have it at all. Not that he’d even really understood the exact science of why Connor had such a good smell. He shook off Connors hand on his arm and followed after Liv.

Mr Morgan was sitting at the table in the sitting room - more of a sun room if Gavin thought about it, and Mrs Morgan offered the two Detectives a seat at the table. She disappeared for a minute as Gavin introduced himself and Connor to Alexander, coming back with a tray of cups and tea and various fixings for the drinks. It would have been a nice gesture if she’d stop staring at Connor. Mr Morgan cleared his throat, taking a cup and pouring himself some of the hot liquid.

“I’m told that you both are here to talk about our son?” It was a genuine question from the old man, meaning no one one had told them about the Detroit investigation yet. Fucking great.

Gavin spared a glance at Connor, who looked slightly uncomfortable, probably because he’d come to the same conclusion about what the family had been told.

“Yeah, this is probably going to come as a surprise but-” Gavin launched into the abridged version of the investigation so far, only citing the information that was relevant. He didn't want to get into all of the details, that wasn’t something a parent really needed to hear.

When Gavin finished talking, Connor added a more empathic response “-I know it sounds unreal, but we could really use your cooperation right now. Finding your son as soon as possible might just save Holly’s life.”

Both Liv and Alexander looked as if they’d been hit by a bus. It was genuine shock that you couldn’t just fake. No one ever expected this kind of news, especially when it involved a close family member. Liv stood up suddenly, a hand covering her mouth and she excused herself from the table quickly, disappearing into another room. Connor went to stand up, but Gavin stopped him.

“I’m sorry, the news is… surprising.”

“That’s understandable.”

Alexander fidgeted with the cup of tea he had just poured a few moments ago, staring at the steaming liquid inside it. “Tyler was a good son. He was never the smartest kid in school, but you always knew he tried. He was a kind young man, too soft sometimes and I gave him a hard time because of it.”

“We’ve heard a similar story from his neighbour in Detroit.” Connor tried his best to smile at the old man. “That's why we need to understand what happened. Can you tell us about Tyler and Holly?”

Gavin sat back and listened, letting Connor take the lead in the questioning like he’d done at the school. It helped that Connor was more of a people person than Gavin was.

“Holly was a sweet person.” Liv had come out of the side room with a box of kleenex, quickly taking her seat next to her husband and apologizing for her momentary disappearance. “Tyler loved her, but as sweet as she was, she had opinions and prejudices against us. Tyler didn't like it, but he made us promise not to tell her what we were. He was afraid she’d leave him if she found out.”

An irritated grunt came from Mr Morgan. “It isn't right to hide like that, I told him that over and over again. We are what we are and we should be proud of that!”

“But she was such a sweetheart!”

The two went back and forth like that, and Gavin squirmed a bit in his seat. The Morgans were proud of what they were, of their heritage, which was the complete opposite of how Gavin felt about it. Hearing other werewolves talk about being proud made him uncomfortable in his own skin. It was such a contrast to his own upbringing.

“How long were they together?”

“About two years.” Liv nodded to herself, as if confirming that timeline.”Tyler kept it a secret for that long. We played along, even after little Amber was born. I-” she stumbled over her words. “You said that she's safe? Amber is okay?”

Connor nodded. “She's in a Foster home right now, while they figure out who has legal rights to her. She’ll be safe.”

Liv sighed, eyes closing. “Thank you. We haven't seen her since Holly left. Even when they moved to Detroit, we could visit, and they came here. But not after - after she found out.”

Gavin glanced up from the spot on the table he’d been staring at. “How did she find out?”

Both Liv and Alexander shrugged in different ways. “I don't know. He never explained it, just that she had.”

“If he’d said something earlier, he would have avoided the whole ordeal!”

“Alexander Morgan!”

Mr Morgan's fist slammed into the table, rattling the china. “I don't care how much you liked her, Liv! She had vile opinions that had no place in this house! Tyler was a fool for staying with her, and their falling out was inevitable! Tyler was a love-sick fool, and in his foolishness, he brought a child into the world, a child that did not deserve the aftermath of her parents’ parting!”

Liv was quiet, grabbing a tissue from the box she’d brought into the room. She dabbed her eyes a little, but it was Alexander who continued. “When Holly found out that Tyler had been hiding what he was, as far as I understand it, she left him, taking Amber with her, and cut contact with him. As I’ve said, she was extremely hateful towards werewolves.”

“What’d he do after that?” Gavin leaned forward in his chair, watching the older couple. He didn't know if what they were telling him would end up being relevant, but he had a feeling it would.

It was Liv who answered this time, dabbing at her wet eyes with the corner of the tissue. “As you would expect. He tried to win her back. Tyler loved her, he was so love sick when she left him. His heart broke every day he was separated from his family, but Holly wouldn't budge in her opinions. I… I knew he was spiraling. He suddenly hated being a wolf. Hated it. It wasn't enough to hide it anymore, he wanted to get rid of it. We’d always taught him to be proud of who he was, all his life and it was so easy to break him of that. He stopped calling us oh… about seven or eight months ago? And even before that we barely heard from him.”

“Get rid of it?” Connor sounded confused by that, and in all honesty so was Gavin.

“Get rid of it. You know, undo it.” Alexander waved off the question.

Gavin frowned. “You can't just undo it like it's a disease.”

“You think we don't know that?” Mr Morgan snapped, before wincing and schooling his temper. “Tyler wasn't all there when he was talking about it, but he kept saying he would figure out a way to do it, and that when he got rid of his sickness he would be able to be a family again. He called it a sickness.” It looked as if the word physically hurt the old man.

“The last time I spoke with him, I tried telling him that a friend of mine had told me Holly had gotten married, but he wouldn't listen. I was scared, I was worried, but I didn't know what to do so I let him hang up and I tried to forget about it.”

Gavin leaned back in his chair, one hand scratching through his hair. There were a lot of things running through his head, a lot of feelings, and he couldn't piece them together right away. As ridiculous as it sounded, maybe Tyler had found a way to essentially ’get rid of it’? Or… found something that had gone horribly wrong because as far as Gavin knew, Tyler hadn’t fucken gotten rid of anything. The hand in his hair dropped to his neck and he rubbed the spot where Tyler’s claws had pierced his skin during their fight days ago.

It just made Gavin wonder what the fuck Tyler had found, and what the fuck it had done to him.

Chapter Text

They'd exhausted all possible lines of questioning and still hadn't come up with anything more than another person to talk to. Granted, Gavin was starting to piece together the kind of broken man that Tyler had become, but it wasn't exactly helpful to their investigation. Not yet anyways. Until they had Tyler Morgan in their custody, it didn't really matter what kind of psychological issues he had.

He'd asked Liv and Alexander about Tyler's shifting; if there had ever been anything odd about how he'd done it- how comfortable Tyler was when he did it, anything that would explain the fact that Tyler could do the impossible and partially shift. If anyone would know, it would be his parents. That idea, however, came up empty because as far as his parents knew, Tyler didn't have any special control over his shifts, he did it like normal. Mrs Morgan even went as far as to say that Tyler hated the pain of shifting so he didn't do it often at all, which was strange on its own. Gavin was a werewolf, he understood just as well as the next one that yeah, shifting was uncomfortable and he'd rather not experience the pain, but he couldn't not do it. It was part of who he was, and if he avoided shifting for too long his body reacted badly. He needed to stretch his legs metaphorically speaking. It hurt to avoid shifting as much as it hurt to shift. It was an interesting piece of information, but not very important to their case right now. Just like every other piece of information they'd been gathering today.

The Morgan's could only give Gavin one name, and it really didn't sound like a promising lead. An old friend of Tyler's that still lived in Boston; they'd grown up together, gone to the same schools, and Gavin had a gut feeling that this would be a dead end. Once Tyler had started getting fanatical about his werewolfism being a disease, he'd all but cut ties with his parents, so it made sense that he'd cut ties with his friends too.

Gavin took another long drag of his cigarette, leaning against the car in the cool Boston air while he waited for Connor. The younger detective was finishing up, saying his thank yous to the family and leaving his card behind in case they remembered any extra information. It was the kind of shit Gavin hated doing and he was glad to let Con do it. The nicotine didn't exactly help to calm his vibrating nerves, or the incessant nagging at the back of his head that this was taking too long, that he was missing something, that the information he wanted was here, but he was too blind to see it.

What the fuck was he missing?

Connor knocked on the hood of the car, startling Gavin out of his thoughts. He hadn't noticed him even come up to the rental. "We good?" when Connor nodded, Gavin flicked the cigarette butt onto the street and ducked into the front seat of the car, not quite ready to start the car just yet. He gripped at the steering wheel with both hands, staring out the front window. His mind was still swirling with unanswered questions, trying to piece together the bits of information they did have, and coming up with nothing. It took 30 seconds before Gavin had to roll down the window a bit in order to concentrate without drowning in Connors scent.

"Were you going to tell me that I smelled different?"

Gavin winced at the question he'd known was coming. "Look, I'm sorry alright? I was…” Gavin hesitated, trying to think of how exactly to say it without sounding… <>weird. “trying to figure out how to bring it up." From the corner of his eye, Gavin saw Connor nod at that, and they were quiet for another couple seconds.

"Is there anything else I should know about?" Connor really did not sound happy.

Leaning back in the seat, Gavin huffed, running his fingers over the bridge of his nose and the scar there. "I don't know. I don't think it's as big a fucken deal as it sounds like. Yeah, Holly does smell a lot like you. Like... Both your scents are strong and overpowering, but in a completely different way." He really couldn't stress that enough. As similar as they were, they were very different. "I could smell her in that burrow under the house, took me a second to figure out why it was so familiar and I'll bet money that Tyler can smell it too, just like his mom can."

Connor was quiet for a moment and Gavin tried to not make it obvious that he was watching him, like he'd been scolded. He knew it hadn't been a good idea to keep that a secret, but he really didn't fucking know how to bring it up.

"Do you think the way we smell drove him crazy?"

Gavin grunted, reaching forward to finally start the car with a turn of the key. He shook his head, not believing that for a second. "No. I've been hanging around you for days and it gets easier to deal with." Sort of. Kind of. Gavin really wasn't going to go crazy because he spent time with Connor. Well he might but it wouldn't be because of Connors scent. It was just… a bonus. There were a lot of other things about Connor that would drive Gavin crazy way before his scent did. Like his constant questions. The way he tilted his head a little when he was curious about something… Y'know, just to name a few things. "It might have been what drew him to her in the beginning, but it definitely didn't make him kill Wallace Turner. It didn't make him do some weird ritual shit with the body, and it really fucking didn't help him partially shift in that alley."

"Okay," Connor sighed deep, "that's good. I didn't really want to chance you going crazy like that too." he leaned his elbow against the passenger side door and Gavin could feel the brunette watching him. It was kind of unnerving, like he could just feel all the unanswered questions that were just waiting to be asked. If he thought this conversation was over, he was very wrong. "What did you mean when you said overwhelming?"

Fuck. "It's…" Gavin's fingers tapped against the steering wheel anxiously while he tried to think of something to say. "It's… exactly that. Overwhelming. Y’know... It's all I can fucking smell. When I told you I can smell you from across the room I meant it. It makes it hard to focus, or smell anything else. Fuck, I don't know. It's not so bad anymore alright? That's all that matters." He gave the window beside him a light tap with his knuckles, to show off how it was open a bit. "This helps."

Connor opened his mouth to ask another question, but Gavin managed to cut him off before he got a word out. "Seriously, let's stop right there. I can't answer anything else I've reached my damn limit."

The car went quiet again and Gavin could have sworn that Connor looked like he was deciding if he wanted to change topics or not, before finally, "Okay, so what did you think of all of that in the house?"

Thank fucking god for the change in subjects. Gavin could focus on the case and not the way Connor smelled, or having to talk about it. "They didn't tell us much about where he could fucking be, just what his damn problems are. I haven't really decided whether it was a waste of time yet."

Connor nodded his agreement, a short sigh on his lips. "Are you absolutely sure it wasn't Holly's smell that drove Tyler crazy? If she left him-"

"-Connor.” Gavin barked the interruption, annoyed. “I said no. If they were together two fucking years, he'd be practically immune to her scent. It's not fucking witchcraft okay? It's like…” How did he explain it in better terms? “really liking pasta, like just fucking loving it, but after you eat it every day for a year you kind of get over it. Y’know? We've been partners for what, three days? I can barely even smell you anymore." that was an obvious fucking lie because Gavin could still smell Connor and it was still such a tantalizing, overwhelming, complicated scent and he could actually just get lost in it if he let himself. But he knew right down to his core that scent was not the reason for this.

"Is that why you're keeping the window open? Because you can barely smell me?"

"Fuck off, Anderson."

Connor huffed in a very frustrated sounding way. “So what do we have then, if it has nothing to do with her smell?”

“An obsessed guy who finds out his ex got hitched, and… Decides to kill the new husband.”

“An obsessed guy who really hated what he was, who decides to kill his ex’s new husband and take her hostage.”

Connor had a good point there. Liv and Alexander really seemed to think that Tyler had really started hating what he’d been born as: a werewolf. Gavin wasn't exactly a fan of the whole werewolf thing either but he’d learned to live with it a long time ago. He didn't exactly hate himself because of it, even if he hid what he was from everyone. He only lied about it because he didn't want to alienate himself from the few people he considered friends, and that wasn't his fault, it was because people could be absolute fucking asshole and he was fine with it.

“Look, I know you said before that this had nothing to do with drugs, but, if Tyler was this obsessed with finding a way to get rid of his… werewolf-ism, do you think maybe he found something?”

The tapping against the steering wheel quickened as Gavin thought about that. Maybe Connor was onto something. He'd found that syringe in Tyler's bathroom, maybe it was more relevant than he'd originally thought?

“There are tons of drugs out there.” Connor continued, shifting in his seat so he could properly stare at Gavin as he spoke. “Who’s to say that someone hasn’t figured out how to… to suppress or…make it look like the werewolf part of you is gone? It wouldn't even have to be a new drug, right? Maybe there's something out there that just reacts to you guys differently than it reacts to us?”

It made a lot of fucking sense. Gavin knew there wasn’t a drug out there that could actually get rid of the werewolf thing, it was impossible because the change from human to werewolf didn't just give you heightened senses, it changed the makeup of your internal systems, allowed them to be molded and remolded to adjust to the shift. It was impossible to reverse that change, but, something to suppress the werewolf genes?

“Gavin?” Connor sounded curious, like he knew that Gavin was thinking.

He nodded, finally. “If he did find something, it fucked him up a lot more than being a werewolf did.” The partial shifting, the crazy fucking burrow under the house, the obsession with Holly and Amber. They might all be interconnected, like some bad side effect if he was taking some kind of drug. If Tyler had found something, it really hadn't gone according to plan if Gavin was any judge of these things.

The only problem was, if something like that did exist, why didn't he know about it? Did the pack know something he didn't? If they did, why the fuck hadn't they told him about it? How was he supposed to fucking do his job if they kept secrets like this?

His phone was dialing before Connor could ask about it, and Gavin held up a hand to stop any questions while he listened to it ring. It was only a few rings before there was an answer on the other end.

°Gavin? Hows Boston?°

“Listen.” He didn't have time for pleasantries. “You know if there's some kinda drug on the market that suppresses werewolf genes?”

°What?° It sounded like Allen was shuffling paperwork around on his desk. It was barely noon, so the guy was probably still at work. °I don't remember hearing anything about something like that.°

“Can you find out?”

°I can look into it. Why though? Did you find anything?°

Gavin shook his head, even though the Beta couldn't see him do it. “Nothing yet, just a lot of ideas and questions. Look, can you just fucken look into it and get back to me? It's important.”

°Alright, I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything.°

“Thanks.” Gavin hung up his phone and tossed it up onto the dash for now, scratching a hand through his hair now that it was free. Connor was waiting quietly for him to say something, so with a sigh, Gavin explained. “If there's a drug out there that can do that, I sure as shit dont know about it. Allen says he doesn't know either, but if he finds anything-”

The phone he’d just tossed up onto the dash started vibrating with a call. Already? It’d been like two fucking seconds. He grabbed his phone and answered it before it hit the third vibration, tapping the speaker button so Connor could be privy to the info. “Hello?”

°I didn't think of it before but I have heard something about that kind of drug. The pack did a big inquiry on it a while ago but I wasn't involved so that's why it didn’t come to me right away. I’m sending you the files I could get my hands on in such short notice, and I’ll send you whatever else I can find. It's definitely a suppressant, almost like a tranquilizer but it's extremely volatile. I think it puts the prominent werewolf genes to sleep, making them dormant for a while.°

“Fuck.”

°Its not a good drug, Gavin.°

“It never fucken is.” How come he hadn't known about this? It seemed like kind of need to know fucking information.

°There isn't a dealer in Detroit that sells it, if you were wondering, or in the outlying areas so we didn't think it’d be a big deal. Since we monitor wolves coming in and out of our territory, we’d know if any red flags came up. That's why it's not on our radar, or yours, Gavin-°

Gavin took the phone off speaker quickly and held it up to his ear, a low growl evident in his voice as he hissed, "Thats a pretty fucking big deal to just cut me out of the loop. How the fuck do I do my job when you fucks are keeping this kind of information secret? There's a fucking drug out there that puts the wolf to sleep? I'd like to know about that kind of shit before I run into it on the Goddamn street!"

°Watch your tone with me, Reed. Like I said it isn't a player in Detroit so we didn't think it was necessary to keep you in the loop. If and when it came up - like now- we'd let you know. Settle down.°

It took a moment, a few deep breaths before Gavin pulled the phone away from his ear and hit the speaker button again. “So then let me take a fucking guess: There's a dealer in Boston.”

°Yes. I’ll make a call and get someone from the Boston pack to call you, they’ll have more information on it since they deal with it more than we do.°

“Thanks.”

Gavin barely had the phone hung up before Connor was talking, “If there's a dealer in Boston, it makes sense that Tyler would know about them. He’s from here, why wouldn't he?” Connor grabbed Gavin’s tablet when he handed it over, the information Allen had just sent him open to be read. “His parents said they haven't actually seen Tyler in a while, and I believe them, so…”

“Then maybe his friend’s seen him.” Connor gave a nod, peering over towards him like Gavin couldn't see him looking. Connor had questions, because Connor always had questions, but for now he held his tongue and Gavin was grateful. He didn't know if he had the patience right now to answer them, and the last thing he wanted to do was snap at Connor because he was pissed off. So, Gavin added the new address into his GPS and pulled off the curb in front of the Morgans house. It looked like they were going to have to spend a bit more time in Boston than they’d originally planned.

Chapter Text

Visiting that childhood ‘friend’ had ended up being about as much of a bust as Gavin had expected. As it turned out, the guy hadn’t spoken to Tyler Morgan in over 3 years, and he hadn’t thought too highly of Tyler’s idea of pretending he was ’normal’. From what the guy had told Gavin, they’d argued about it a few times before deciding that cutting ties was the safer option for all parties involved. Seeing as this Friend had a wife and a few kids of his own, all of them properly registered without a hitch in their files, Gavin didn't think he was lying about this. They politely excused themselves, backtracking to the rental with about just as much information as they’d started with.

All they seemed to be finding in Boston were dead leads, dead ends, a lot of wasted time and unanswered questions. Gavin’s head dropped back against the headrest of his seat and he sighed, closing his eyes. He was absolutely fucking annoyed by how unlucky they were right now. He really had to be missing something, because this was impossible.

They’d gotten a call on the drive over from the Boston pack: one of their Beta’s who had the free time to help out. Except they didn’t have the time, not today anyway, leaving Gavin and Connor with the frustrating option of having to stay overnight until someone from the pack could get in touch with them tomorrow.

“Look, you can take that flight back to Detroit tonight and I can deal with this pack bullshit tomorrow on my own. It isn't a big deal, I’ll email you everything I get from them.” it wasn't fair to drag Connor around chasing information like this, especially when it involved pack shit. That was a Gavin thing, and he could handle it alone. He really didn't want to babysit Connor while he was simultaneously trying to navigate an entirely new Pack with all new politics and just, damn.

Connor was quiet. Gavin assumed he was thinking over the idea of going back to Detroit so he waited, opening the driver's side window the whole way before finding his pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. He lit one, sighing into the first puff when Connor started talking, just not to him.

“Hi, Hank-”

Gavin turned his head, cigarette hanging from his lips and sure enough there was Connor, on the phone.

“-We have to stay overnight. I know what I promised, but you know how it is. We have a few leads but can’t do anything about them until tomorrow. I know. Yes. I'm sorry, you’ll just have to let Seth know that I can’t help. Well, perhaps he shouldn't have chosen something so difficult to cook-”

Connor rolled his eyes and Gavin could tell he was getting annoyed now by the conversation. He was talking to Hank but about who? Gavin had to admit that he didn't actually know much about the Andersons. Yeah, he knew Hank, sort of. If working in the same Precinct counted, but besides that Gavin didn't know much. Hell, he'd been surprised when he'd found out that Connor was Hank's son. He had no idea who this other person - Seth - was. A brother? Cousin?

Wait. Did Connor just imply that they both had to stay overnight? Damnit.

“Maybe he can ask Niles for help, he's better at cooking than I am. Okay I really have to go, Hank. Yes. Yes. Yes I know. Stop worrying, I’ll be fine. I promise. Alright goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight Hank.”

Connor ended the call with a quick swipe of his finger before Hank could say something to prolong the conversation, and when he turned his attention back towards Gavin, Gavin was glaring at him. “What? I'm not going back to Detroit-”

“Well I think you really should fucking go back to Detroit." Gavin took a much needed drag if his cigarette, taking a second to knock some ashes out the window. "I said I could deal with this bullshit on my own-”

“Gavin thats unfair." Connor frowned. "Why would I leave you here to do the rest of the work on your own? I can help-”

Gavin snarled, biting the end of the cigarette butt before tossing the rest of it out the open window. Annoyance bubbled through his chest at just the idea that Connor thought he could help. Did he not realize how much of a hindrance he’d end up being if he tagged along? Especially when it involved an entirely different pack that Gavin wasn’t used to? He was trying to protect this dumbass! “I swear to god, Connor, when I tell you I can do this on my fucking own-”

“-Did you just snarl at me?”

That stopped whatever argument Gavin had lined up next, because that was so not the thing to focus on here. “What?”

Connor glared at him. Glared at him! He looked downright sour. “You snarled. Is that supposed to be a threat?" Okay, maybe offended was the better term for how Connor was reacting. It was still the wrong thing to focus on.

"I'm just trying to make you understand-"

"-So you're posturing."

"What?"

“Can we just agree to disagree and get over this, because I’m not going back to Detroit until this is finished. End of story, and no amount of werewolf posturing is going to make me change my mind. You can growl at me all you want, Detective Reed but I'm not changing my mind.”

Connor being a stubborn little shit was about as equally annoying and it was cute, and Gavin was actually very frustrated about that. Fuck, how was he supposed to argue with Connor when he was thinking like that? Another growl rumbled from his chest. “Fine. Whatever, you win.” There was a part of him that was extremely pleased with the fact that Connor wouldn't stand down when Gavin pushed him. He could feel his wolf practically thumping his tail - and that part of himself was promptly ignored because now was definitely not the time for that.

Still annoyed, Connor’s arms crossed over his chest and he kept glaring at Gavin from the passenger's seat. “It isn’t supposed to be a win. We’re partners. As much as you might hate it, it’s still a fact and I’d rather not spend all night fighting with you about it.”

Ah God Damnit. He wasn’t… fighting Connor because he was Gavin's unwanted partner, he was… He was just trying to keep the dumbass safe, because Connor didn't know how to properly navigate werewolf culture and the smell thing was like an entirely new playing field that Gavin wasn't even sure how to work around yet. It was complicated and confusing and yeah maybe Gavin was trying to baby Connor a little bit but what was he supposed to do? Throw the guy to literal wolves and see what happened? Hank would fucking kill him! Not to mention the very idea of having other werewolves sniffing around Connor did not make him feel good. Christ, he'd had a problem with a 70yr old woman sniffing around him, what would Gavin end up doing if young and spry werewolves decided Connor was a fucking treat? “Alright, alright. I’m sorry okay?” He brought a hand up, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn't mean to… to growl at you. I was just... Not happy.”

“Obviously.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. Why was Connor so damn cheeky? “I mean it. I don't actually have a problem with you being my partner.”

Connor’s sigh snagged Gavin’s full attention again. The brown haired detective with the doe brown eyes still had his arms crossed, still visibly irritated, but he was winding down. Gavin's apology seemed to work. “Can we have this conversation in a more comfortable spot?”

"Right." The rental probably wasn't the best place to have any sort of conversation, and it was getting late enough. Gavin was getting hungry, and he'd really enjoy being able to stretch out somewhere. "That guy sent a reservation for the night…” Gavin found his phone again, clicked on his emails, and sure enough he had a new email from Emile of the Boston pack, and it had booking information for a place to stay overnight, and an address that Gavin typed into his GPS. It wasn't too far from where they were, and it looked like there were a few takeout places along the way.

It was a quiet ride, both of them deciding quickly on Thai take out to bring to the hotel. It was even quieter during the drive from the take out place to the hotel, and Gavin tried to ignore how the smell of food made his stomach grumble.

Connor stood back when they entered the lobby and let Gavin handle the booking information, which made sense because Gavin had all the information on his phone. There weren't any problems at the front desk, and without any baggage to bring up besides their food, it was only a few minutes until they were inside the room. A room with a single bed, and a couch.

Gavin sighed loudly, exasperated because he'd been hoping to have a good nights sleep tonight. Why he’d expected more from a pack that wasn't his own, Gavin had no idea, but he shouldn't have been surprised. At least it was warm inside, and the roof wasn’t leaking, and it didn't smell weird. Small blessings.

“They really went all out for us.” Connors words mimicked what Gavin had been thinking, and he just snorted in agreement.

Without a word, Gavin shucked off his jacket and tossed it onto the couch, dropping down beside it, both hands scratching through his hair. “Don’t know why I expected anything else. I guess I'll take the couch.” Wasn't as if he slept well at night anyways.

The room was quiet, save for the ruffling of the paper bag as Connor unpacked their food and Gavin tried not to think about how he was going to survive in a room with Connor all goddamn night. He dragged himself up off the couch after a minute to check and see if the window opened. When it barely opened a crack, Gavin sighed. It was fine, this was just a test to see how much willpower he had. What was the worst that could happen.

Gavin heard a thump from across the room, glancing back to see that Connor had dropped heavily onto the end of the bed, holding a box of noodles but not opening it. “What?”

“If you don’t have an issue with us being partners, then what is it?” Connor didn't give him time to respond, “Is it because most of this is pack stuff, and me being human, you think I'll mess it up?"

Hit the nail right on the fucking head. “Well..." how to say this without sounding like an asshole. "Yeah." Gavin went for the side table, grabbing the box of Thai noodles he'd ordered before going back to the couch. It smelled so good and his stomach rumbled at just the idea of eating.

“Then teach me what to do.”

Gavin swallowed the growl he felt coming by stuffing a coil of noodles into his mouth with his fork. Teaching Connor about the ins and outs of pack culture was maybe a good idea, but it didn't sit well with Gavin. Getting Connor more involved with werewolves was such a bad idea. Hank wouldn't like it for one, and Gavin was trying very hard not to piss the guy off too much. For two… Yeah Gavin still really didn't like the idea of other werewolves getting comfortable around Connor. "It isn't that easy."

“Why?” Connor sighed, getting up off the couch noodles still in hand, and started pacing the floor. “I'm sure that if you took the time to actually try and teach me I’d-"

Gavin set his meal on the windowsill before he hit the side of the couch with the bottom of his boot, pushing it back across the carpet by about a foot where it clattered loudly against the end table, effectively cutting off whatever Connor had to say next. The other detective was momentarily startled and Gavin used that surprise to his advantage, stalking up to him in a few strides, a deep, low growl rolling from his chest. Connor might have been a bit taller than Gavin was, but that didn’t make a difference right now, practically nose to nose like they were, and Gavin glared.

It took a second, a minute, an hour, Gavin wasn’t paying attention to the time, just the way Connor’s adams apple bobbed nervously when he swallowed and the way his breath had hitched when Gavin had gotten too close. Connors sweet scent was mixing with the Pad Thai he was holding, and Gavin grabbed the box, sliding it onto the bed before grabbing a fistful of the front of his shirt, dragging Connor forward a few more inches until their noses were practically touching. "Listen to me. Werewolves can be fucking assholes. If you think humans are the only racists, you've got another thing coming. I don't want to teach you how to mingle with them, because I don't want you to fucking mingle with them. How are you going to react the first time one of them does this to you?"

He was a threat now, and Connor was coming to understand that.

Gavin 1, Con 0.

Connor swallowed, and Gavin was extremely aware of the action, and how close he was, and how good Connor smelt and - "I'll deal with them the same way I'm dealing with you right now, Detective." Connor sounded calm, confident even despite his vulnerable position right at that moment and -

Gavin let go of Connors shirt and glanced down between them, the barrel of Connors Glock pressed snug against his side. Gavin hadn't even felt Connor pull it from his side holster. The safety was on, but that wasn't the point. Fuck.

"You're forgetting that if and when I end up getting involved in pack business, I won't be some tourist gawking at everything I see. I'm a Detective, and we're working a case. I'm not some naive kid, Gavin. I'm not helpless."

There was absolutely nothing that Gavin could say to counter that statement. It was a convincing argument. Fuck. He finally took a step back, raising both hands up, giving up the fight completely. "Okay. You're not helpless. Jesus christ, Connor." it would have been a lie if he'd said that Connor standing up to him like that, pulling a gun on him just to make a point, wasn't hot. Because God damn, it was hot

After a moment, Connor returned his Glock to its holster at his side before dropping onto the side of the bed, clumsily catching the box of noodles that almost tipped over. "This trust thing we have going between us is a two way street, Gavin. I trust you, I've shown that to you. I trusted you when I knew better, and then I trusted you again just because you asked. Now you need to trust me a little. Trust that I know what I'm doing, and that I can handle this."

The thing was, Gavin did trust Connor. He didn't fucking know why, but he did. Connor with his genuine enthusiasm, with his thousand honest questions and his unwavering, unprompted acceptance. Connor was a real fucking good person, and that goodness didn't only extend to his own kind - it extended to everyone. Why wouldn't Gavin want to protect that? Keep him safe and secure and-

Aaah Damnit.

He dropped onto the couch, leaning back against it with both his hands rubbing over his face as if he could scrub away his own thoughts and instincts. "Okay fine. Fuck. We'll do the pack stuff together and I'll try and teach you."

"Thank you." to say Connor sounded pleased with himself was an understatement, but at least he wasn't mad anymore.

If Gavin thought the excitement of tonight was over though, he was wrong. They were stuck in a hotel together, and Gavin was a fool for thinking it would just be work. He'd barely managed to grab his box of Thai peanut basil noodle stuff from the windowsill before Connor started in on him.

"So." Con paused, distracted momentarily by a bite of his own noodles, and continued as soon as he was done swallowing. "I never realised before but your canines are pointy." another pause where he tilted his head just a little in thought. "More than normal, anyway."

"You figure that out before or after you pulled a gun on me?"

Connor rolled his eyes before leveling Gavin with a look. The kind of look that clearly said he was overreacting. "Drama queen. The safety was on, it wasn't as if I'd actually shoot you. But yes, after." He stirred his pad Thai with his chopsticks, studying Gavin. "I've been wondering about some things-"

"-Wait a minute, are we doing fucking 20 questions again?" Connor's shrug was answer enough: what else were they supposed to do? Yeah, they had paperwork and files to read but they also needed a break. Honestly Gavin might have preferred the paperwork over this. Maybe. "Fine, then we're gonna do this fair 'cause it's been real fucking one sided."

It was genuine surprise that crossed Connors face, but only for a split second before he nodded, smiling lightly at the prospect of being asked questions, instead of asking them. "Okay. That sounds fair."

"Who were you talking about when you were on the phone with Lieutenant Dad?"

The surprise came back to Connor's face before it shifted into confusion. He hadn't expected that line of questioning. Was that more personal than allowed? Were there even rules to this game?

"You mean Seth and Niles?" Gavin nodded, and Connor stirred his noodles some more. "They're my brothers."

"Huh. You learn something new every fucken day. I had no idea Hank had kids before you showed up." not that Gavin had ever really paid that much attention to Hank before. He'd never needed, or wanted, to know before. And honestly he didn't care that Hank had kids, he cared that Connor had brothers. It was different. "Tell me about them." Again, he didn't care about these brothers, but he wanted to hear Connor talk about something.

There was a couple seconds of quiet while Connor thought about what to say. "Niles is in the FBI, and Seth works as a barista. He… never really liked police work, in any sort of capacity." Connor took another coil of noodles into his mouth before laughing just a little. "Seth's definitely the black sheep. We're triplets, bu-"

"-You're what?"

"Triplets, Gavin, like, three at once?"

Gavin waved off the explanation with his fork. "I know what triplets are, christ. There's actually three of you? Three?" Three identical Connors running around Detroit, holy shit. Gavin's brain didn't know how to process that, because wow. That was two too many in his humble fucking opinion.

"Sort of. Seth and I look identical, but Niles is a bit off. Blue eyes, taller." He made a gesture with his chopsticks like he was trying to describe his brothers height. "but besides looks we're pretty different. Seth is a sourpuss. He's always complaining and angry about something. I'm honestly surprised he works at a cafe, because he hates people. Like a lot."

"Huh." Gavin took another bite, quietly wondering if Seth and Niles had the same kind of scent that Connor did. Wouldn't that be fucking wild. Three of them. What the hell. "Didn't know Hank had it in him. So what happened t-"

"No!" Connor stabbing his chopsticks in the air in Gavin's direction, stopping whatever question that he had started asking. "That was a question, so it's my turn now. You said we were playing fair." Gavin replied by taking another mouthful of noodles. "What happened to you? I mean, how did you end up like-like this?" and Connor motioned to Gavin's entire self, sitting on the couch as he was.

"Like what? An asshole? Fucken rude."

"No. A werewolf."

"So you didn't actually go back and read my file. I'm impressed, Anderson." Connor rolled his eyes again, forcing Gavin to laugh a little. He was really starting to like that semi annoyed reaction Connor seemed to only direct at him, and Hank sometimes. "You can read it, I don't care."

Connor shook his head, setting aside the probably empty Thai box before readjusting himself to sit cross legged on the bed facing Gavin across the room on the couch. "If I wanted to read it, I'd have asked to read it. Tell me about it."

Silence while Gavin studied Connors face. His serious expression, how focused his brown eyes were on him, the unwavering eye contact. If Gavin had a tail right now, it would have been wagging like a traitor. It'd be an outright lie to say that he didn't enjoy being scrutinized by the younger Detective, especially like this. It was honest curiosity. "I was six-ish. Got in a fight with some kid and he bit me. Then I almost died and here we are."

The look he got was almost deadly on its own. "You're an asshole, all right. What happened to being 'fair'?"

Gavin's smile was involuntary, and he made sure to finish the last bit of his basil peanut noodles before he said anything else, watching how annoyed Connor got the longer he took. He reached across the couch and slid the empty noodle box onto the side table before stretching out. "That's it though. Not much else to say about it. Kids can't normally bite and turn, but I'm a genius and I pick the real winners. What did they tell us… I guess the kid had started developing earlier than usual, so when the shithead bit me, well. That's it." Gavin scratched a hand up the back of his head, suddenly self conscious about the whole thing. "Pretty sure I did almost fucken die. It's a rough process to go through at any age and I wasn't exactly the strongest kid, sick n'shit all the time."

"How does that work? The turning process? How do bites even work? How did your family react?"

"Jesus christ, slow down."

"I'm just asking because I don't know."

Gavin sighed, but he wasn't annoyed, not really. Not yet. "I don't know how it works, not really. It's like a venom, I think. Like snakes." He made fangs with his fingers just to really hammer home the point. "I don't fucking know though so you'll have to play 20 questions with an actual doctor. And it's illegal to turn people, even before packs went public. Why are you so curious about this? You want me to bite you, Con?" Gavin huffed a laugh, because it was supposed to be funny; a joke, but it lasted half a second because Connors face lit up like a fucken Christmas tree at the suggestion and suddenly Gavin was very aware of what he'd just said. "Fuck-I mean-"

"N-no! Absolutely not! Why would you even suggest that? Don't mistake my curiosity for anything other than what it is!" Despite practically yelling that, Connors cheeks stayed a bright red, the colour rising to his ears and down his neck. He refused to make eye contact with Gavin, looking anywhere but directly at him, which honestly made it ten times worse. Con was embarrassed? Was that what was happening? Gavin did not know how to process that. No. Absolutely fucken not. Who the fuck made comments about biting people? What the fuck was wrong with him?

"Like I said," Gavin cleared his throat, getting up off the couch to find where he'd left his phone and tablet. "it's illegal anyways." it was all he could think to say at the moment, and it was a really dumb thing to say honestly. Why did he have to reiterate that it was illegal? Why was he still talking about this? What the fuck was he supposed to say? When he found his devices on the dresser near the hotel door, he tossed the tablet onto the bed for Connor to use. "Uh… Anyways, that's fucking enough of that." He dropped heavily back into the couch, scrolling through his phone. "The files Allen sent on that drug are in my email, you can check them out there." work was always a good distraction. Because he really didn't need to spend the night over analyzing the exact reason why that statement had made Connor flush instead of making him mad, or uncomfortable, or literally any other emotion.

He didn't need to spend the night admitting that God damn, seeing the colour bloom across nearly all of Connor's face did things to him that Connor's sweet scent never could. Fuck he was in so much fucking trouble and just starting to realize exactly just how much.

"Okay."

The room went quiet, and Gavin read the same paragraph four different times and he hadn't retained any of the information. He glanced up every few seconds to see what Connor was doing, and his partner seemed focused on what he was reading, too focused to notice that Gavin was watching him. Was he distracted? Fuck yeah. And he was mad about it too because he needed to concentrate on this. He needed to work but all he was thinking about was Connor, red faced and awkward, and wondering about the exact reason why he'd reacted like he had.

Fuck.

Gavin pulled himself off the couch after another few minutes of trying to read this shit and failing miserably, grabbing his jacket off the back of the couch. "I'm going for a walk." He answered the question before Connor could even ask, and was out the door and heading for the lobby without waiting for any kind of reply. He really did need a breath of fresh air, to get his head back in the game so he could focus on this case. He needed to know as much about this fucking drug as he could know before tomorrow.

He was lighting a cigarette as soon as he was outside, dialing a familiar number after stuffing the half full pack of smokes into his pocket, and waited for the ringing to stop. It did after a few rings.

°Heeey Gav, how was Boston?°

Tina always sounded happy when he called, even now when he hadn't paid attention to the time at all and it was late enough. "Still fucken here, actually. That's why I'm calling."

°Aaaaaah° she laughed, but still seemed to know what was on his mind, sometimes even when he didn't. °You want me to stop by your place in the morning?°

"Could you? Should be heading home tomorrow, but I didn't plan on tonight and Gil-"

°It's fine, it's on my way to work anyway.° She paused and the line went quiet and Gavin instantly bristled, suspicious. He knew Tina and what she was like, and the kinds of questions she was likely to ask him. Questions he really didn't want to think about right now. °Soooo how's the new partner shaping up?° and there it was.

He wasn't going to bite though. He was taking this walk to get Connor out of his head, not so he could talk about him some more. Gavin took a long drag of his smoke, exhaling into the cool night air before answering. "I gotta run, Tee. Thanks for feeding the cat for me."

°Gavi-°

He hung up and stuffed the phone into his back pocket. He knew Tina enough to know that she wouldn't try and call him back. Yeah, she'd definitely grill him in person next time they worked together, but for now she'd let him have his peace and Gavin was thankful for that.

The air was crisp, cool but not quite cold yet, and the mix of nicotine and the city smells all around him helped clear his head. The stink of garbage on the street, the sewer smell drifting from every man hole on the road. The exhaust from the cars driving by, and the smells coming from every door that opened nearby. It was a toxic mix that made him want to gag, but it was normal, and it helped ground him. Helped clear his head. This wasn't Detroit, but most cities smelt similar enough. He didn't need to worry about Connor right now, he'd have time for that later, after this case was done and solved because he had a job to do, and fuck if he was going to let himself be distracted by his own partner. Even if Connor smelled so good. Even if Connor was actually kind of adorable. And badass. Like, pulling a gun on Gavin? He had a feeling that if he left Connor to his own devices the guy could actually cause some serious trouble.

Anyways, Gavin had a type, and Connor Anderson was not his type.

Maybe a little.

But he wasn't thinking about that right now. He was clearing his head and getting ready to work. Murder investigation. Mystery drug. For fucks sake focus Gavin.

By the time he made it back to the hotel room, Connor had made himself comfortable on the bed, still reading through what Gavin assumed were the files on this drug. There was no greeting, no hi's or hello's, so Gavin kicked off his boots before he stretched out on the couch, using his bunched up jacket as a pillow, and started reading everything sent through his email. Finally focused enough to understand what he was reading.

It wasn't a ton of information, just enough to get an idea on what they were dealing with. They were calling it Exo-lupinestrum-22v12, and it was definitely a tranquilizer. Didn't actually knock a werewolf out, just, destabilized their genome enough that they couldn't access their wolf parts. No serious tests had been done with it, at least the report didn't specify much of that kind of information. It did mention that the duration was never the same, it could last a few minutes, to a few hours, to days on the same dosage, depending on the wolf it was used on. There didn't seem to be a gratification, either. Besides tranq'ing the wolf, it didn't do anything to you. No high, no good feelings, no tripping. Which meant there was zero reason to distribute this shit in the streets. Addicts needed something; a feeling, a mood, anything to keep them coming back and this thing had none of that. No wonder Detroit was so confident it wasn't being sold on their streets. There was no reason to buy it.

Unless you were Tyler Morgan and had some serious self esteem issues.

"I don't get it." It was the first sound between them in an hour and Connor looked up from what he was reading across the room. "Why is there even a black market for this shit? It doesn't do anything." Gavin was almost angry, annoyed more or less. This felt like a goddamn waste of time. Allen had said it was volatile, but there wasn't any actual evidence to say that, unless you took Tyler's psychosis into consideration, and they still weren't sure if that was actually connected to the drug or not. Not to mention that nothing in these reports mentioned any kind of side effect that they'd been seeing on Tyler. The only volatile thing about it that was actually recorded is how different the duration time was.

Connor slid the tablet onto the side table, before slowly getting up off the bed. "It does." He started picking up the empty dinner boxes, tidying a little, purposely making Gavin wait for him to continue. Purposely make Gavin think for a second, but he didn't get what Connor was hinting at. "It doesn't need to actually incapacitate you to make you useless."

Gavin bristled at the word useless. "What do you mean?"

Connor sighed "Sometimes you really make me wonder how you managed to make Detective…" He dropped the trash into the small garbage bin before he sat back down on the side of the bed, ignoring the glare Gavin was giving him. "What I mean to say, is that, if you're not a werewolf, what are you?"

"A regular guy, I guess. Why?"

"Yes." Connor nodded. "No heightened sense of smell, or hearing, or any of that. No more werewolf strength or stamina. No shifting. All of what makes you, you, is gone. Do you know how to be a regular person?"

And Gavin frowned, only kind of following Connors train of thought. "Of fucken course I do." it wasn't that hard to be normal. Besides, there was more to being Gavin Reed than just being a damn werewolf.

"How much information do you get from smell alone? Think about it. When you're sitting in the precinct, or in a park, or right now. How much of what you know is based on smell?"

He rubbed the edge of his cellphone with a finger, thinking. Connor kind of had a point there but Gavin wasn't quite ready to tell him that. So he got a lot of information from his nose, and maybe he was automatically one up on most humans because yes, he was a werewolf, but... Take that away and he'd still be able to think and move and react and know. "So, let's say Exo's actually worth the trouble of getting your hands on. Who'd buy it?"

"I don't know. It's a liquid, and needs to be injected into the bloodstream so that severely limits its uses. I suppose it could be weaponized but… Since we don't even know how quickly it takes effect… There's just so much we don't know."

"Right? So again, who'd buy it, or sell it?"

"I'm really not sure."

Gavin's head hit the back of the couch and he groaned loudly, annoyed beyond description. This was so damn stupid. Neither of them had actually figured anything out after all this time, and it was literally driving Gavin up the wall not knowing. "I really fucking hope tomorrow isn't a bust. If this Emile asshole can't tell us more than this I'm going to be fucking livid."

It was quiet again, and Gavin glanced towards the brunette across the room. "Hey." When Con looked at him, Gavin hesitated. "You don't… seriously think the only thing that makes me, me, is being a werewolf, do you?"

Connor looked honestly surprised for a second before he frowned. He shook his head a little from side to side. "No. I was just trying to make a point. You're a lot of things, and only a few of those things have anything to do with being a werewolf."

Chapter Text

It was well passed eight am when Connor finally caught some movement from the couch, and he shifted just enough in his sitting position so he was facing the Detective as he started to wake up. Connor himself had been awake for at least an hour, but he hadn't gotten up save for a quick trip to the restroom. There was nothing else more interesting in that hotel room than the man sleeping on the couch beside him.

A couch that had, at some point during the night, been pushed right up against the side of the bed. Gavin's feet hung off one end, a deep snore coming from the Detective. That was interesting, considering that in the few days Connor had gotten to know his partner, Gavin had shown signs of being an awful sleeper - dark circles under his eyes, sour moods, and terrible working hours. At this time on a normal weekday Gavin would have already been at the precinct a few hours - Connor had actually checked the timelogs to confirm that suspicion. That wasn't even taking into consideration the sheer amount of people that had laughed while telling him 'Reed? He doesn't fucking sleep that guy.'

Deduction: Gavin Reed may have some type of insomnia.

Which... Was not apparent this morning. They'd called it quits around 11pm the night before and tucked into their separate bed spaces to sleep. As uncomfortable as the single bed was, Connor had fallen asleep easily. He'd been tired, to the extent that he hadn't woken up when the furniture had decided to move around the room. It was intriguing, watching Gavin so deep asleep that he hadn't even heard Connor get up earlier - and in such an unfamiliar place. It was counter to what Connor thought he knew about his partner. He really would have thought Gavin would have had more trouble sleeping in the hotel room; an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar city, in comparison to his sleeping habits at home in a familiar place. Connor thought that Gavin would have been on edge, awake at every sound… Especially considering what he was and those heightened senses.

Something had changed, as evidenced by the relocation of the couch and the deep breathing coming from his partner. Connor was here. Connor and his scent. He'd tried to smell himself earlier, maybe catch a whiff of whatever Gavin complained about so much but he didn't smell anything. Nothing different anyways. Connor smelt like he always had, minus the familiar smell of his shampoo, but whatever he smelt like to Gavin, it was enough for him to feel comfortable around.

Connor still wasn't quite sure how he felt about this new revelation in regards to his own scent, but it wasn't as though there was anything he could do about it. Not to mention he'd been alive for twenty five years and was only now finding out about this special scent thing. Meaning… He either didn't meet many werewolves, or not many werewolves could smell him that way. That was interesting enough because in the last week he'd met three who could. His thoughts shifted to his brothers, slightly concerned. They were brothers by blood, so it made sense that something genetic like this could affect them as well. Had Niles or Seth mentioned anything like this before? Connor didn't think so, but how often did he really listen when Seth was complaining to him?

A groan from the couch distracted Connor from his thoughts, and he watched the Detective stretch his arms up over his head, face grimacing - probably due to how uncomfortable the couch was, and the predictable body aches brought on by sleeping on it. For a moment, Gavin looked rested, and slightly confused. As if he didn't quite understand what had just happened to him. Over 5 hours of sleep? Absolutely shocking.

"Good morning, Detective." Connor smiled down at his partner from his sitting position in the bed, tablet in his lap, and for a long moment Gavin just stared at him. Connor could see the gears of his mind start to work through the slowly clearing sleep haze.

Whatever was going on in Gavin's mind, it was comical to watch and made the last hour of waiting for him to wake up all the more worth it. At least six different emotions worked their way across his face in the span of seconds, and by the end of it Gavin had fallen back off the couch, his back flat against the floor.

"What-"

A tiny voice inside Connor's mind told him to leave this alone for now, and as much as he wanted to question the couch, the inconsistent sleeping hours, the fact that he was very certain that all of this most definitely had something to do with Connor's scent, he let it go. Instead, he pressed the side button on the tablet to put it to sleep and set the device aside. "The hotel doesn't have a continental breakfast, so if we want to eat well have to stop somewhere. Emile sent an email to you twenty minutes ago saying that he'd be free around 10, so we have a few hours to find something to eat."

Gavin managed to get himself up off the ground, and Connor tried to be subtle in watching him move across the room and firmly barricade himself in the restroom. He couldn't do anything but sigh, once again left with his own thoughts.

Connor stretched, getting up off the bed quietly before pushing the couch back to where it should be in the room. He heard the shower start in the bathroom, and tried to busy himself with tidying the small room - not that it needed to be cleaned much at all, he just needed something to do. Even with something to busy himself with, Connor found himself once again hyper focusing on the scent thing. He felt like he needed to know more, he wasn't exactly comfortable knowing that he smelled similar to Holly Turner, but honestly he was more worried about Seth and Niles right now and couldn't stop thinking about what their schedules would be like today and where they would be. They were in Detroit with a deranged werewolf, and didn't know it. Should he call Hank and warn him?

That didn't seem like a good idea. It would only serve to agitate Hank more than he already was, and seeing how he didn't actually know if either of his brothers had this same scent thing, he could accidentally set Hank off needlessly and honestly that wouldn't be good for anyone. Maybe he could have Gavin try and scent his brothers somehow just to be safe?

Then what?

Then there was also the issue of Gavin Reed himself. The grumpy, easily flustered, interesting Detective was a problem on his own. Or rather, his over-protectiveness was the problem. Gavin very easily got annoyed with Hank for being protective of Connor, but then Gavin would turn around and get protective himself, probably without realizing it. Connor was good at reading people, and Gavin was like an open book. He could put money on it being a werewolf thing, seeing as Gavin had already mentioned werewolves being… possessive. But why with Connor? Was it the smell thing? Because they were partners?

Connor fluffed the pillow on the bed again, probably for the thirty-seventh time. It was absolutely because of the smell Connor had and it explained other behaviours too. The awkward sniffing? Not just at Tyler Morgan's house, either. Connor wasn't stupid, or oblivious to his surroundings. Yes, he'd almost fallen down those none existent steps in Tyler's basement, but besides that mishap, he for sure did notice Gavin making a point of scenting him when he thought he could get away with it. Why hadn't Connor said anything about it?

The big questions. Connor wasn't sure, exactly, but it didn't bother him. Hank would probably get mad and tell him that it should absolutely bother him, and that Gavin needed to learn boundaries and stop being so damn weird but… Connor didn't think it was weird? It was probably very normal for Gavin. Scent was probably very important in werewolf culture, everything considered, and if Connor thought it was weird, how did he hope to learn the ins and outs of pack culture?

Connor gave up fluffing the pillow and hugged it to his chest instead, frowning. He'd been very confident yesterday, but today, not so much. Having the time to think and process everything… he might be fine with Gavin poking his nose around - Gavin was a Detroit PD Detective, and Connor trusted him. Would he be this confident if it was someone else's nose? He tried to think of that situation yesterday at Tyler's house, when Gavin had pulled him back from stepping off the edge into the basement. The way Gavin had had his nose in his hair, breathing against the back of his neck.

Awkward, yes, startled, yes.

He shivered without meaning to and tossed the pillow towards the head of the bed. No, he really couldn't imagine that sort of situation with anyone else without it feeling wrong in many ways.

"Are you ready? I'm starving."

Connor startled, not having heard the shower shut off or anything other kind of movement behind him. He gathered up the extra bits - the tablet and his phone, and anything else they wouldn't want to leave behind, and followed Gavin out of the room.

°°°°°°°¬¬°°°°°°°

They ate quietly in the rental after finding a quick place to pick up food. It wasn't the best breakfast, Connor would have preferred to sit and eat inside rather than the car, but he wasn't going to argue this. Instead, he was focused on his phone, and the annoyed messages he'd gotten from Seth all of last night and this morning. His brother had even sent pictures of his failed attempt at a meal, which Connor found highly amusing. For someone who could whip up espresso creations without thinking about it, Seth was a disaster in the kitchen.

He noticed Gavin glancing over curiously from his peripheral, and decided there really was no harm in sharing. After all, Gavin had asked about his brothers last night. "Seth went ahead and tried to cook anyways-" Connor turned his phone around and showed Gavin the photo his brother had sent, very amused by the frown on his partner's face.

"What's that supposed to be?"

An understandable question, because it most certainly did not look like it was supposed to, "Butter chicken and rice."

And Gavin laughed at the revelation, taking a drink of his coffee. His phone vibrated once in its spot of the dash, and Gavin grabbed for it, swiping his thumb over the screen as Connor watched. He didn't need to ask about it, because Gavin tossed the phone at him before starting the car, switching gears and dropping his coffee in one of the cup holders.

The message was just an address and a time, and Connor punched the address into the gps on the dash of the car as Gavin pulled the car out onto the road. The location wasn't too far off from where they were.

Connor was nervous all of a sudden, he felt it building up the closer they got to their destination, bubbling up inside him in a way that made him feel sick, like he shouldn't have eaten that breakfast. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what was making him nervous either - the reason behind this meeting and their case? The fact that this was a Beta that they were meeting? Connor knew the very basics about pack hierarchy, he knew what a Beta was. This wasn't the same as meeting the Morgan's.

The car pulled into an empty parking lot and Gavin shifted it into park, pulling the keys from the ignition. He was out of the car seconds after that, even though the lot was empty, weird for this late in the morning. Connor climbed out of the car after a moment, eyeing his partner as he puffed on a cigarette. It was something Connor noticed Gavin only did when he was overwhelmed or anxious.

"Okay, so. Lesson one," Gavin moved around the car, watching him and Connor couldn't stop himself from fidgeting under the scrutiny. He was ready to learn, of course, but he was still nervous about it. Gavin stopped a pace and half away from him, snuffing out his cigarette under his boot against the pavement. "scent."

"How is that a lesson?" Connor frowned, because that wasn't exactly a lesson to learn. After days of being around Gavin, he thought understood scent very well.

Gavin's hands found their way into his jacket pocket and he shrugged at the question. "Its important." anyone could tell Gavin was nervous just by looking at him. He wasn't making eye contact, he couldn't decide if he wanted his hands in his jacket pockets or his jean pockets. It would have been endearing if Connor wasn't also just slightly less nervous about the whole situation. "You know, we get a lot of information from scent, obviously. We scent things and people without even realizing we're doing it. And you…" Gavin hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, finally making eye contact with Connor.

"Me?" Oh right. His scent. "What about my scent?"

"I'm gonna try and uh… dull it down." Gavin crossed his arms over his chest and looked away from Connor, clearly uncomfortable. "Y'know, just in case. Just for now anyways."

Connor frowned, he couldn't help himself. How would that help, exactly? "Why?"

"Do I really have to fucken… because…" Gavin looked to the side, breaking eye contact, lifting one of his hands so he could scrub it through his hair. Connor thought he saw a bit of colour cross his cheeks, too. "Because we ain't used to it yet? I don't really know how it works or who gets the full effect so until we figure it out a bit more, I think trying to suppress it when we're going to be around other werewolves sounds like a really good fucken plan."

It was a reasonable plan, and Connor certainly appreciated it. Maybe it was only because Gavin didn't want to deal with whatever situation could happen if another werewolf ended up being able to smell Connor, and if they weren't able to control themselves… Connor was thankful because he didn't exactly want to deal with that sort of situation himself, not yet at least. Once he was a bit more familiar with everything it should be fine, but right now?

If a fight happened between Gavin and this Beta, Emile, who would win? Connor trusted Gavin, but he'd seen him lose a fight once already even if that fight with Tyler had been unfair. Honestly, the idea of him being a reason for a couple of werewolves tearing into each other really didn't sit well with Connor. In fact, it made him extremely uncomfortable.

"How do we do that?"

Gavin fidgeted. He scratched his nose, combed his hair with his fingers, had both his hands in his jean pockets, then he was searching his jacket pockets until he found his cigarettes and lighting one. Gavin was very obviously nervous, but Connor wasn't sure why. After a moment he frowned, taking a long drag of his smoke before finally glancing towards Connor. He gave up whatever internal struggle he was having and shucked off the leather jacket from his shoulders.

Curious.

"Detective?"

"Here." Gavin held out the jacket, shaking it at Connor until finally Connor took it from him. What was the point of -

Oh. "You mean…"

"It makes sense in theory, so trust me a little, alright?" Gavin scratched his nose with a finger, again avoiding eye contact with Connor, his arms crossing tight over his chest. "I'm thinking if you just fucken smell like me then your own smell won't really matter, right? And no one'll bother you because of it."

It did make sense. To a degree. Connor held onto the brown leather jacket, watching his partner curiously, suspiciously, as he smoked the last bit of his cigarette. If Connors own scent was so strong, would Gavin's scent even manage to do anything? Honestly Connor didn't really think so, but he certainly wasn't the expert in this. Gavin was the werewolf, if he said it would work, then who was Connor to argue it?

Though, he couldn't help but consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, Gavin wanted Connor to smell like him for other reasons. Connor wasn't very up to date on werewolf customs or anything like that, but he did know how predatory animals tended to mark their territory. Knowing that, the curious sleeping arrangements this morning, the sneaky sniffing. It made him wonder.

With a sigh, Connor slid on Gavin's jacket.

Chapter Text

"Alright listen." Gavin waited until Connor had his jacket on, before he took the few steps forward so he was standing directly in front of his partner. He gave Con a quick once over, trying to ignorehow good he looked in his jacket. Now wasn't the time. "So like I was saying before: Scent." he leaned forward deliberately scenting Connor openly for the first time before he leaned back and crossed his arms. His partner looked surprised because this probably looked mighty fucken suspicious. It was worth it though, because Gavin's jacket smelled enough like him that it really added that extra umph to Connors scent.

"Scent." Connor repeated, even sounding suspicious of the situation.

Gavin cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm not a good teacher so bear with me. Different packs have different internal politics, and they suck, but when you start to mix them -" he uncrossed his arms and folded his fingers together, trying to show what he meant as he explained it. "it starts to get complicated. Scent is a huge part of it. If we were in Detroit, dealing with my pack, mixing up my scent with yours, besides trying to subdue your scent, would give you more of a uh…" how did he word this without blatantly using the word mine? "...'belonging' smell, and most werewolves'll leave you alone if they smell it because it pretty much tells them you belong. That you're pack. I'm gambling on werewolf brains picking up on pack before they can actually scent you. You following?"

Connor nodded slowly, and Gavin watched him do it, trying to ignore the way their scents were blending together just under his nose the longer this went on. The lavender soapy smell Connor usually smelled like had faded overnight, and without it Gavin could really smell the honey. Mix that with the ashy - musky scent Gavin had, with the leather of the coat and it was really starting to do things to him. Damn. Yeah, Connor smelled good on his own, but this? It was a whole new level of good. It was distracting, more than Connors regular scent was and Gavin was really having a hard time focusing. Yeah Connor absolutely needed to smell like this all the time, it was intoxicating.

"Gavin?"

"Mhm." He blinked, and tried to focus. "Yeah, so, fuck. Anyways." what had he been talking about? How long had he spaced out for? Fuck. Gavin pulled his hands apart and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was annoyed at himself for not being able to focus. He was supposed to be getting used to this scent, not falling into it again. Focus Gavin, fucking focus!

This time, Connor cleared his throat.

Right. "So, like I said, in theory this'll probably keep the Detroit pack off your back when we're dealing with them, and if anyone we meet ends up being able to really smell you then… hopefully my theory is right and they scent you as pack first-" they'd smell Gavin on him and had better fucking treat that as a warning to fuck off- "and whatever reaction after that should be muted."

"And with Boston?" Connor crossed his arms, the leather from the jacket squeaking just a little, but more than enough to distract Gavin from what he was thinking.

He shrugged after a few seconds. "Well, we have the same sort of smell that tells them we're a pack, just not theirs." his hand moved to scrub up into his hair. "Honestly it might just agitate this Emile guy, but we'll see. I think I've said it before but dealing with other wolf packs kind of sucks. There's a lot of posturing."

Connor opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out someone was laughing not far off and both their attention snapped to the side. There was a guy there, middle aged, his brown hair combed back neatly, and he was in a brown coat with what looked like a business suit underneath. Gavin could smell him now, but he was embarrassed it had taken him this long to figure out the guy was even there. He hadn't heard a car pull up, or any other noise besides the laugh and it had Gavin instantly bristling and stepping forward. He smelt like a wolf.

The guy, presumably Emile, waved off the hostile reaction in Gavin with a wave of his hand. "Be nice, Detective Reed." he took his time, looking between the two of them before settling his attention fully on Gavin - that was a good sign. He didn't seem at all distracted by Connor. "Are you trying to teach your human partner about werewolf packs?"

"Yeah." Gavin growled out, annoyed already. "What's it to you?"

Emile raised both hands, laughing lightly. He didn't sound angry, just maybe amused. "Now now. What were you just saying?"

Gavin didn't respond, only crossed his arms and glared. He wasn't going to humour this guy, didn't matter who he was.

Again, Emile laughed and started forwards towards the two of them. He ignored Gavin and extended a hand to Connor instead, and it took way too much restraint for Gavin not to growl at Emile again. The guy was doing it on purpose, making a show of it, touching Connor right in front of Gavin like it was his privilege.

"I am one of Boston's Beta's, Emile Lefebvre. Apologies for surprising you both, I work across the street and just managed to sneak out for this meeting." Connor took the hand in a firm handshake, and Gavin watched Emile hold on for much longer than he needed to. "He was explaining posturing, wasn't he?"

The guy sounded way too amused for Gavin's liking and somehow Gavin managed an annoyed huff rather than a full on growl. He did grab Connor's hand and rubbed the palm of it with his own, just to get that other scent off of him. He didn't care what kind of looks he was getting from Connor.

"... Detective Connor Anderson, and yes, he was." Connors voice was level and calm, which should have helped Gavin calm down a little bit, but it didn't. Still though, Connor let his hand get manhandled, and when Gavin managed to look at him, Connor just leveled him with a curious, maybe annoyed look in response and alright yeah maybe he was overreacting but Gavin didn't care. He let go of Connor's hand as soon as he was satisfied it was clean.

"Good." Emile was smiling, but he didn't say anything about the little display. "What your partner has been doing, is incorrect, but he's just sour because I caught him off guard." Gavin just rolled his eyes as Emile crossed his arms back behind his back. Gavin couldn't help but feel the stare he was getting pegged with. "To continue the explanation, packs are generally made up of four ranks these days. The Alpha, or Alpha's depending on the size of the pack, the Betas, our regular pack members, and those recently joined and on a trial period. Typically when dealing with a rank above your own, there's a certain degree of posturing involved. Detective if you would be so kind?"

Gavin hesitated. He knew he'd fucked up because he hadn't been polite when Emile had shown up, and he was getting a chance to correct his error. Emile may have sounded pleasant right now, but Gavin knew better. His experience in dealing with Detroit's Beta's had taught him that much. Werewolves could be very touchy when it involved customary greetings and whatever. So Gavin sighed and tilted his head, baring his throat to the other wolf, earning a pleased humm from the Beta.

"This," before Gavin could straighten, Emile moved, reached forward until he had a hand firmly pressed against his shoulder, his thumb pressed heavily against Gavin's throat. It didn't hurt, but it was a warning. "is a sign of respect. The neck is a weakness, and displaying it in greeting is an acknowledgment of the status of who you're greeting. In this situation, my rank vs. the Detectives rank."

Emile's hand squeezed, a silent threat if Gavin had ever felt one but he released his hold and took a step back to give them both some distance. Gavin could smell the slight change in Connor's scent - worry? And glancing towards his partner proved that to be true. Connor had a hand pressed to his side, exactly where the holster for his Glock was.

"In the case of being in different packs, ignoring the typical posturing can be dangerous." Emile smiled pleasantly at Connor, either not noticing that he was getting defensive, or not caring, before turning a glare to Gavin, and he felt the weight of it. Emile's voice dropped from pleasant to irritated. "I'm already annoyed that you're here, Gavin Reed and I'm acting on a favour that I owe one of your Beta's, so don't test me."

"Then we should get to business so we can both be on our way." Connors voice cut through the silence around them, earning a sigh and a nod from the Beta.

"Absolutely. The Exo drug, yes?"

Connor nodded, but Gavin wasn't watching him. He was running his hand over the spot on his neck where Emile had grabbed, and not taking his eyes off of the Beta. It wasn't the first time he'd annoyed a Beta like that, but at least he knew how the Detroit ones would react. Gavin really did not like this guy.

"I'm sure you were sent the preliminary reports to fuss over already. A lot of what we have on the drug is… confidential, but I've put together something a little more substantial to read over." Emile's hand disappeared into his coat pocket and he pulled out a memory stick, tossing it towards Connor. "We've been working with the Exo drug for years, trying to adapt it into practical application. It's a project solely the business of the Boston Pack and we wouldn't be telling you about it if not for this particular case."

Gavin felt Connor glance his way but he didn't take his eyes off of the Emile. "What do you mean, practical application?"

Emile shrugged. "Exactly what it sounds like. The uses for it are endless, assuming we can get it to work right. In different settings - hospitals, shelters, police departments, anywhere that might have to handle an unexpected werewolf, while also not having one on staff. It gives humans a bit more security knowing that if, say, a regular officer needed to apprehend a disorderly werewolf, they would be able to safely."

"So there is a black market for it."

"No, not at all." The Beta glanced at Connor, shaking his head. "We do have a supplier, but the cost is too high for it to be a street drug, and I'm sure you read in the initial report that there's no gratification. It wouldn't sell on the streets." Emile shrugged. "Besides, we monopolize all distribution of it, so if we were missing any, we'd know."

Gavin huffed, "Then how is Morgan getting his hands on it?"

Again, Emile shrugged, but he wasn't being indifferent. He had an annoyed scowl on his face that told Gavin he was very irritated at the idea that someone might be moving this drug right under his nose. "I'm not sure. There might be a few people outside of Boston that sell it, but we try to keep tabs on all of that."

"What about side effects?" both Gavin and Emile glanced towards Connor as he spoke, and yeah, Gavin almost forgot about that question.

"Right, when I fought with Morgan, he managed a partial shift with his arm. I don't know if he was doing it on purpose, or if it just happened, but he did it and he was ridiculously fucken strong." Emile was watching him, his previous annoyance shifting to surprise. "And then there's a fuck ton of the psychological bullshit going on with him. The den under his back yard, kidnapping his ex, not to mention the murder itself. Since you guys are testing this thing, have you seen anything like it? If he's using this I'd say he's been using it for months."

Emile didn't look happy, but his irritation wasn't directed at Gavin, or Connor for that matter. The guy crossed his arms tight over his chest and huffed in annoyance. "Allen told me about the den you found, and I've seen the crime scene photos. I agree that it's beyond the work of a normal werewolf." he hesitated. "However, when we do live tests, it's not for a prolonged period of time. The Exo drug isn't meant to be used constantly, it's meant to be a quick sedative to be used in the moment. Something to make humans less likely to pull their guns when dealing with us." Emile raised a hand, tapping a finger against his cheek. He even smelled annoyed. "It's interesting. A partial shift would be very taxing on the body. We aren't programmed to control our shifts beyond a do or don't so holding back after initiating it? It could be devastating if done on multiple occasions."

"So," Gavin huffed, one question really bothered him but it didn't really have anything to do with the case itself. "why keep this a fucking secret? Detroit barely knows anything about what you're doing. I was told you guys stopped working on it. "

"Yes, and we'd like to keep it that way. Not all packs are keen on working with humans, and a lot of them are not willing to funnel resources into something that would give humans the upper hand. More than they already have, anyway." Emile sighed, and Gavin could smell that annoyance in his scent shifting to anxiety. "The Detroit and Boston packs have similar views on this issue, which is the second reason why I'm here helping you, but there are many that would consider this type of research traitorous and would consider drastic measures to stop it." Emile dropped his hands to his sides with another heavy sigh. "If we can figure out this drug, it could potentially save a lot of werewolf lives. Like I said, it isn't meant to be permanent by any means, we aren't working on trying to make it that way either. The drug works, but the reaction time is still so unpredictable which makes it useless to use in the field."

Gavin shook his head, mildly annoyed. The Beta was right about the opinions of other packs, that's for sure. Gavin counted himself lucky that he didn't need to really work with anyone outside of Detroit besides the odd little adventure like now. But now, they had a fuck ton of information to go through, and he wasn't exactly sure if any of the answers they needed were going to be there. "Okay speculate for me then. If someone were to take Exo for months consistently, what do you think the side effects could be?"

Emile hummed, tilting his head back, but Gavin saw the slight shrug of his shoulders. "Most likely what you've already described. An onset of some sort of psychosis. Increased aggression. Though… Exo is supposed to null the gene, I don't know if it could affect a wolf to allow for a partial shift. If it could… that's dangerous. For the person and everyone else. Like I said, a partial shift would be extremely taxing on the body, to the point where it could potentially kill the person doing it just by over exhausting them if it happened more than once over a short period of time."

Fuck. "Are you positive Morgan isn't getting this from Boston?"

"Absolutely. However, I'll double check our stock and everything else, just to be safe. If I find anything I'll be sure to let you know. I'll suggest we start some long term tests as well, but that wont see results for a good long time." Emile straightened himself, adjusting his coat while eyeing the two detectives, and Gavin reacted, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other. Just in case. He still didn't trust the guy farther than he could throw him. "Besides that, is there anything else I can help you with, Detectives?"

Connor shook his head, glancing towards Gavin while he spoke. "I have no more questions, Gavin?"

"No." at least, he couldn't think of any that Emile could answer.

"Then that's everything we have for now." Connor held up the flash drive he'd been given earlier, "May we get in touch with you again if we come across anything in these documents that we might need clarified?"

"Of course." the Beta sounded too happy about that. Had it been Gavin asking he doubted he'd have gotten the same response, which just pissed Gavin off.

He watched Emile reach for his wallet, search through said wallet until he found a business card, and Gavin glared when Emile deliberately stared at him while he handed that business card to Connor, holding onto it for an extra long, obnoxious amount of time because the asshole knew Gavin was annoyed with him. What a fucking dick. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to outright growl at Emile.

"The specific line I use for Pack business is listed there, you can call at any time." Finally, Emile broke eye contact with Gavin and smiled pleasantly towards Connor and Gavin just wanted to hit him. "I hope you find him soon Detectives, before anything else happens."

"Yeah yeah, thanks." Gavin grabbed hold of Connors shoulder, pushing his partner into walking back towards their rental car without waiting another second. He heard the fading bits of a chuckle as Emile went his own way, and God damn what a smug peice of shit. Granted you had to be something if an asshole to do the Beta job, but still. "What a fucking peice of work."

Connor allowed himself to be lead for a moment or two, only glancing back once, an action that annoyed Gavin more than it should have. "I thought he was nice."

"Of course you did."

Connor didn't realize that Emile was only being nice to him because he knew it pissed Gavin off. But really, Emile could have been an asshole and that would have also still pissed him off. There was no winning in this situation.

Connor forced them to a stop, glancing at Gavin curiously, shucking off the jacket. "Did I miss something?"

Gavin sighed, letting go of Con's shoulder so he could rub a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes for a minute to try and focus. "Nothing I want to explain right now." because in all honestly the whole problem with that meeting wasn't Emile or Connor. It was Gavin. The sudden onset of these overwhelmingly territorial instincts were not something he had expected to have to deal with today and Gavin was very much rethinking the whole cover Connor in your scent thing. Who thought that was a good fucken idea? "It's fine. It went better than I thought it would."

It was quiet a minute and when Gavin opened his eyes again Connor was staring at him, like he wanted to say something. "What?"

"Nothing." Con shook his head, handing over the jacket before he started for the car again. Gavin hesitated before following him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly very antsy.

Ugh fuck, he wasn't being fair. God damn why was this so difficult? Gavin picked up the pace a bit, catching up to Connor at the car. He tossed his jacket halfway onto the roof and dug through the pockets of his jeans until he found his smokes "Alright look." he found the lighter in his other pocket, and took a long drag of his cigarette before speaking again. "Posturing; probably about just as important as scent is. There's a lot of stupid little mannerisms that mean different things depending if the situation and the people. A greeting, the slightly different way you scent someone. It's a hundred different things that build on uh… experience, I guess. "

"The throat thing?"

"Mhm." Gavin nodded. "That was one thing. Depending who you're talking to, they feel differently about every little minor thing and it's not something you know until you've dealt with them. Most Beta's are pretty stiff about being polite, but some don't really care. Allen's pretty indifferent about everything."

Connor nodded. "The one from Detroit that you deal with."

"Exactly."

"So what did Emile do to piss you off? Was it the handshake?"

Gavin hesitated, watching Conner, cigarette hanging limp from his lips. That was fucking embarrassing to remember but there wasn't any other way to explain it. "Yeah… that might have been part of it." he didn't like admitting to that outloud.

Again, Connor nodded. "And that's part of the scent thing."

"... Yeah."

Connors arms crossed tight over his chest and he glanced back up the parking lot where they'd had their meeting, and Emile was nowhere in sight. "Did it have anything to do with my smell?"

"No. I don't think he could smell it." Gavin knew that for a fact. Emile would probably have reacted much differently if he'd been able to scent Connor properly, he had no doubt about that.

"Should we have told him about Holly's scent?"

"Maybe." Gavin shrugged, flicking some ashes to the ground and taking a last drag of his cigarette. "We can always let him know later if it comes up again. I'm not too keen on having him even more interested in you though."

Connors sudden curiosity was almost tangible as soon as the words had left Gavin's mouth. "What do you mean?"

Shit. That had been the wrong thing to say despite how true it was. "You know, fuck. He's a science nerd, he'd probably want to do tests or something." Gavin waved off the question quickly, grabbing his jacket from the roof of the car. He flicked the butt of his smoke to the ground and moved around the car to the drivers side.

Chapter Text

There was too much to do now, and they didn't need to be in Boston to do any of it so they booked tickets back to Detroit and were on a plane within a few hours. The flight itself was quiet, at least between Gavin and Connor. True to his word, the documents Emile had shared with them were packed full of information and both Detectives sat side by side on the plane, pouring over Gavin's laptop and the pages and pages of information on it.

And it was a fuck ton of information. Gavin didn't quite understand some of it, but he got the gist of most of what he'd read. Enough to agree that if Boston could figure out how to fix the reaction time, this Exo drug would be extremely helpful to regular, every day people doing big important jobs. EMS teams, police officers… if a paramedic had to get involved with an injured werewolf who was thrashing around, normally that would be really fucking dangerous for anyone but another werewolf, unless said paramedic could tranquilize the werewolf and make them safe. If a beat cop had to subdue a werewolf… it would make it safer for the human trying to assist, and it would make it safer for the werewolf.

Gavin chewed on his thumb as he read, leaning into Connor beside him without thinking about it, the laptop nestled evenly between them. If you could tranquilize a werewolf and make them safe, you wouldn't have to shoot it.

"What are you thinking?" a mumbled question from beside him.

"It's a good idea. The more I read, the more I get where they're coming from." Gavin sighed, "It's safer - not because we're uh… violent or anything like that, but because shit happens." and with werewolves, basic shit happening could, would, and has been dangerous to regular people. Gavin didn't let up on his thumb biting though - something was bothering him. "But as good as it sounds, there's always a line you don't want to cross."

Connor nodded slowly at that. "I have to agree. If it was anyone but a werewolf pack researching this kind of thing, the intent would be more dubious."

"Exactly." Werewolves didn't have to worry about werewolves. At least, that was the general consensus. But just like Emile had said, not every wolf pack had the same ideals, and there were a lot of them that resented human kind for the shit they had, and still were putting werewolves through just because they exist. Who's to say one of them wouldn't take this research and take it a step farther, just so they could silence anyone who didn't share the same views.

Who's to say they hadn't already, now that Gavin was thinking about it.

"You think if this goes public, someone would try and go further with it?" Connor hesitated, thinking over his question. "There's a lot of companies out there that would love the opportunity to work with a drug like this. Companies that have resources that a pack wouldn't have."

Gavin grunted in response. Connor was right, of course, but it went beyond just human companies.

Boston had good intentions, but the world wasn't a good place and there were too many people who would take something good and twist it for their own gain. A tranquilizer could very easily become something permanent, and as much as Gavin didn't always like the wolf side of himself, it was as much a part of him as his human self. He couldn't imagine getting rid of it. Being a werewolf wasn't who he was as a person, but it was definitely part of him.

It was quiet for the rest of the flight, and Gavin wasn't happy with where his train of thoughts was taking him. He had no proof at all, just a gut feeling, and he hated it.

|||||||||°°°°°|||||||||

Gavin left Connor at his desk to compile their report, using the excuse that he had to use the bathroom so he could sneak off alone. He took the opportunity and headed towards the bigger offices in the precinct, usually reserved for different branches of the DPD. S. W. A. T. got called out at the drop of a dime, so it was lucky for Gavin to find the Beta even at the precinct. It wasn't like the Captain had a proper schedule or anything like that.

Allen barely looked up from his terminal when Gavin walked in, and Gav shut the door tight behind him for some added privacy. The S. W. A. T. Captain stayed quiet while the detective took a seat in one of the empty chairs in the room, hanging his jacket over the armrest. It was a long moment before Gavin slid a USB stick across the desk towards the Beta.

"From Boston, all about this drug."

The Captain finally stopped what he was working on and looked curiously at Gavin before picking up the stick, examining it between his fingers. "So they did know something."

Gavin huffed a laugh at that. It was an understatement if he'd ever heard one. "They wrote the fucking book on this thing. It quiets the werewolf gene for an undefined amount of time. Makes us as close to human as we'll get."

"Is it permanent?" an good question, but it was probably the most important one.

"No." but even Gavin wasn't so sure about that anymore. "Boston isn't trying to work it that way."

Allen nodded slowly at that, "Maybe someone already has." the obvious thought process, but Gavin was glad that Allen was on the same page as him when it came to this thing. "This could end up being more of a problem than it already is."

"Thats what I'm thinking. Boston was pretty possessive over this shit, so I can't imagine they're letting any of it out of their sights so someone else has to have a supply of it, and they're playing around with it. I just don't know who."

"What about Tyler Morgan?"

Of course. Gavin huffed, annoyed at just how little information he had about the guy. "Just some poor bastard who's unhappy with himself and got taken advantage of. Probably." he growled, frustration bubbling but he couldn't help but shrug. "My guess is that he was the first of many live tests. Easy to manipulate, probably more than willing to try an untested drug."

The Beta rolled the USB between his fingers with a sigh, but he nodded in agreement. "If that's the case, we have to find out who's behind this before anything worse happens. Werewolves killing humans doesn't do us any favours and it sounds like we're about to see a body count."

"Tell me about it. I still have nothing on Morgan, no one in Boston had any contact with him after he moved to Detroit, and from what I can tell, he's dropped off the map, with Holly as a hostage. We have his kid, but she doesn't know anything."

"Would he come for the girl?"

Gavin hesitated at the question, startled by it. "Like bait?" he'd already used Amber as bait for Morgan once already, he didn't feel comfortable doing it a second time. The poor girl was already going through it being dropped in the Foster care system all of a sudden.

Allen hesitated at the word 'bait', frowning. "Well, not when you say it like that." he waved a hand, like he was trying to clear the air. "What I meant was, could we use knowledge of her to lure him out of hiding."

Gavin leaned back in his chair, arms folding over his chest with a huffed sigh. Something like that might work, key word being might but they'd risk a repeat of what happened at the school, and Gavin did not need to get his ass handed to him a second time like that. "Maybe. We'd have to be ready for a fight. If he can still partial shift, that's a game changer. I'd need backup, but I don't exactly want Morgan fucking dead, you know?" he knew Allen understood what he meant. He needed backup, but not from the Police.

"We'll figure it out." the beta wolf nodded. There weren't exactly many werewolves in the precinct, Gavin and the good Captain aside, so the pack would have to supply that extra wolf power. "For now, I'll pass this USB to the pack and we'll see what we're dealing with. We trust Boston, but… something like this is monumental."

"You aren't sure how the pack will take it."

Allen nodded slowly, frowning. "Exactly. You know how we are. It's all about pride, and giving humans a tool like this won't sit well with a lot of us." sighing, Allen tossed the USB onto his desk. "I'm not even sure how I feel about it. It's too risky."

It really was a fucken dilemma. There were so many benefits with this drug, but there was so much risk, like Allen had said. Something like this was just asking to be abused. Whatever though, Gavin was just glad it wasn't his responsibility to make these kinds of decisions.

Uncrossing his arms, Gavin leaned forward in his chair, watching the Captain for a minute. He had another topic for him, but… Gavin huffed, he'd kill for a smoke right now.

Captain Ben Allen - one of five Detroit pack beta's, S. W. A. T. Captain, bred werewolf, general all around decent, if not a bit too serious, guy. He didn't hate Gavin for being the way he was like a lot of people did, and he was probably the only person who appreciated Gavin's bull headedness when it came to his work. Gavin trusted him. "Hey." He frowned, picking at the leather arm of the chair. If Gavin could talk to anyone about this, it would be the SWAT captain. "Can I ask you something, outside of this case?"

"Regarding…?" Allen finally pulled his attention away from the USB key, glancing Gavin's way curiously. Gavin didn't ask personal questions very often, so it was natural to be curious.

After a moment to collect his thoughts, Gavin tossed his leather jacket up onto a clear spot on Allen's desk - he hadn't worn it since Connor had taken it off back in Boston, and it still smelt heavily like his partner. "I wanna test something. What's this smell like to you?"

The Beta frowned, obviously confused, and the confusion shifted to mild annoyance at this waste of time question, but Gavin didn't laugh it off so he complied. With a sigh he leaned forward a bit, sniffing the air above the jacket tentatively, like he didn't know what to expect to smell. "... It smells like you and faintly of a human, one I haven't met yet. Probably your partner. Why am I doing this?"

Faintly? "You don't smell anything else?" how did he explain this without sounding absolutely fucking weird. It was obvious that Allen couldn't smell that extra bit of Connors scent, which was a blessing, sort of. It made it hard to really explain it.

"No? Should I?" Allen looked more curious, and less annoyed by the situation now that he could see how uncomfortable it was making Gavin, but he still didn't look like he understood. "Does it smell different to you?" after asking the question, Allen grabbed the sleeve of the leather jacket and lifted it closer to his nose, giving another few sniffs, but his expression didn't change.

Gavin nodded slowly. "It's hard to explain. It's… More intense than anyone usually smells. Holly - the woman Tyler Morgan is holding hostage, smells kind of the same way to me. Different than my partner, but just as intense. When we met the Morgan's, Liv- uh, Mrs. Morgan, told us that some people just have a specific gene that makes them… uh…"

Allen frowned, more than a bit curious by the conversation. "Smell good?"

"Too good, and I've never smelt it before now. Kinda makes me worried about my partner considering the similarities between his and Holly's scent, and the fact that Tyler can smell it too."

With a curious hum, Allen leaned back in his chair as he regarded the jacket laying on his desk. He glanced back up towards Gavin after a few seconds with a nod. "I'll look into it, but don't hold your breath, it might not be anything more than what the Morgan woman said. I haven't heard anything about different smell intensities, but even I don't know everything." he made a thoughtful noise. "It's interesting though, can't say I'm not curious about it."

Nodding, Gavin stood up and grabbed his jacket from the desk. "Thanks. I'll let you know if anything else comes up."

"Gavin."

"Hmm?" he stopped halfway to the door at his name, turning around. Allen was getting comfortable again, eyes focused on his terminal screen.

"The pack meet is in a week, we want you there."

Gavin sighed, catching himself before he growled out that frustration. He scratched a finger against his nose and yeah, he'd forgotten about that, not that he planned on going. It was unusual for Gavin to turn up at Pack meetings more than a few times a year, but christ, it made sense to go now. There was a very slim chance that Tyler would show up, but at this point any chance was worth the gamble. "I guess I got no choice." Still. He wasn't going to enjoy himself.

The Captain nodded, still focused on his screen and the report that was pulled up on it. "Good to hear."

The door shut tight behind him and with another heavy sigh, Gavin started back towards the precinct's main area, where he'd left his partner. Connor hadn't moved from where he sat, but he'd grabbed a second chair from an empty desk so he didn't have to sit on Gavin's actual desk to work, and he did look up curiously when Gavin came down from the hallway. You know, he didn't know if they'd actually set Connor up with a desk of his own yet, he always seemed to be at Gavin's.

"That took a while."

Gavin nodded. "Yeah. Allen was in his office so I stopped by." he dropped into the vacant chair and rolled it a little until he was in a comfortable space - not quite beside Connor, but close enough that he could lean into his partner's space if he wanted to (and he did), and definitely close enough to smell him without any trouble. There was no use pretending that his partner's scent didn't work miracles in calming him down.

"Your Beta?" Connor glanced down the Hall that Gavin had just come from even more curiously now. "He works at the precinct?"

Right, Gavin kept forgetting that Con didn't know these stupid minor details. "Yeah. S. W. A. T. Captain Allen. Don't know how he fucking does it though, always busy like that. Pretty sure most people know he's a werewolf, but not too many know he's one of our Beta's." Gavin hesitated a minute, glancing towards his partner and adding quickly before Connor could pout about it. "I woulda brought you but I didn't think he'd be in, Y'know? SWAT has weird hours sometimes."

"You dropped off that USB then?" When Gavin nodded, Connor huffed, disappointed, but not enough to argue about it. "Alright. That's good. Do you know what they're going to do with it?"

Gavin leaned back into his chair, staring at his terminal and the forms on the screen that Connor had been digitally filling out. They looked well on their way to being done which was great. Gavin didn't have the patience for that kind of tedious work right now. "Scour through them, decide if they're okay with Boston doing this kinda stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if they had a few meetings about it. Y'know, Alpha to Alpha kind of thing." he shrugged with a sigh. "Detroit and Boston are uh… pretty close so I doubt Detroit's going to do anything drastic." Then again, this whole Exo thing was pretty huge. Gavin didn't want to start thinking about it any more than he had to though, so he shifted a bit in his chair, rolling it another centimeter into Connors space. "Have you talked to Hank since we landed?"

"No," Connor shook his head. If he noticed Gavin moving, he didn't mention it. "Not yet. I'd rather hold off on another lecture for the time being."

Yeah, Gavin got it. His eye caught the half finished DPD reports on his terminal screen again, which reminded him of the rest of his own paperwork that still had to be filled out, and Gavin sighed. "Why don't you head home for the night? We can catch up on everything tomorrow."

"Come again?" Connor glared, instantly upset. "I thought we talked about this already, I'm won't be going home if there's still work to be done-"

An annoyed growl rolled from Gavin, cutting off his partner's rant, and Gavin didn't care who was around to hear it. The precinct was nearly empty right now with officers out on duty, but there was a head turn or two at the sound. "Connor, I'm fucking tired," He made a point in letting it show in his voice just how tired he felt. "It's been a long couple days. You're probably just as exhausted so fuck. Let's just go home and regroup tomorrow."

Silence, except for the sound of Connors fingers drumming against the armrest of his chair before the younger detective nodded, avoiding eye contact almost sheepishly. "Understandable. I'll finish these reports tonight and we'll meet back here for eight tomorrow morning, okay?"

With that, they both packed up their respective shit and split up. Connor had his phone or his ear, probably calling the Lieutenant, and Gavin watched him go. Tha anxiety bubbled up in his chest as he watched Connors back, and it was more than he was used to feeling. What was that? Ugh, fuck. Shaking his head, he tried to ignore the feeling, grabbing his jacket and tablet before heading for the parking lot and his car. Outside, he caught sight of Connor waiting by the main entrance to the precinct - waiting for Hank or a taxi, whatever, but Gavin stopped walking and just… watched.

Connor wasn't in distress. Connor was fine. He could definitely handle himself, and had proven that to Gavin, but a certain part of the detective's brain wasn't so sure about that. Tyler Morgan was still out there, and he'd already scented Connor, which meant he could find him again if he wanted to. Morgan had dropped Gavin in a fight pretty easily already, and if he came after Connor… What would happen? There was absolutely nothing, no evidence, no reason for Morgan to be interested in Connor. There was absolutely no solid evidence that said that Tyler Morgan cared at all about the similarities between Holly and Connor. There was no base for that kind of thought process and yet Gavin couldn't stop thinking about what if. Morgan could go through Hank without any issue, unless Hank used his gun, but.

But.

But what if Hank didn't sleep with his gun nearby, or didn't get to it in time and Gavin doubted Connor kept his Glock in anything but a locked case somewhere out of sight and not easy to get to in a crisis. They wouldn't know what was happening until it was too late and then what? Another fucking wonderful Art Nouveau piece in the middle of Hanks living room, walls painted red like what they'd seen at the Wallace's.

Shit, he was definitely spiraling.

God fuck he was going to do something absolutely bat shit stupid right now but if he went home he wouldn't be able to function past any of these thoughts and the worry.

"Right so, this whole going home thing isn't going to fucken happen."

Connor seemed surprised to hear his voice again, and turned a curious look towards him. "And what does that mean? I've already called Hank and he's on his way. Didn't you just explain exhaustion to me, Detective?"

Gavin nodded a few times as he listened, and he understood the slight frustration coming from his partner, but he huffed a nervous laugh anyway. "Yep. You might as well call him and tell him to forget about it because you can't go home."

"I can't?" Connor frowned, just so completely confused by what Gavin was saying. Yeah, sure, it was an understandable reaction. "Please, explain."

For the second time in a ten minute span, Gavin growled, frustrated, scratching at the back of his head. He was trying to push past his own embarrassment so he could actually explain this properly to his partner because Connor deserved that. He owed Connor the whole picture. "Because… Because Morgan's still running around Detroit and he fucking knows you now, by scent, and I get it, you're not stupid or incapable of handling yourself and all that shit but this asshole has a few marbles missing and I'm already fucking stressed out about it and-" and what? Was he allowed to say that he was invested in Connors well being? Did he even want to say that? Gavin was being stupidly protective and he couldn't do anything about it but react. "I might be worried."

To Gavin's relief, Connor didn't interrupt and let him explain, or try to, and once he'd gotten most of that out, there was silence between them. Gavin stared at the ground, but he could feel Connor watching him. He rubbed the back of his neck a few more times, trying to distract himself while he waited for the arguing to start because Connor had every right to call Gavin on his bullshit.

"You really are worried about this, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Gavin's arm dropped to his side. "I really don't think anything'll happen but I keep thinking about it." another exasperated growl and Gavin dropped back against the side of the precinct, patting down the front and back of his pants before he fished out a lighter and a pack of smokes that had seen better days. He lit it and took a long drag and an even heavier breath. "As much as I don't like Hank, the last thing I want is for something to happen to him at his own home."

Connor was quiet, but he'd crossed his arms tight against his chest. He was uncomfortable but Gavin wasn't sure if it was because of him or the new ideas he'd put in his partner's head. "You think Morgan would come after me, because of how I smell?"

"No. Yes. I don't think so, but I could be wrong." another puff of his smoke and the nicotine wasn't really helping, but lately, when had it helped him? "I've been wrong a lot so far. Any normal wolf with all their capacities intact wouldn't, but it's fucken obvious now that Morgan ain't a fully functioning werewolf and I don't know what that means."

"Okay. I'll talk to Hank. I'd rather not pull an all nighter at the precinct, so if that's what you're suggesting…"

Gavin hadn't thought this far ahead, and to be honest he'd figured that Connor would tell him to fuck off, that he was overreacting and then he'd head home anyways. Gavin would have slunk to his apartment and stayed up all night, trying not to think about what probably wouldn't happen. It was fucking nuts, but here he was. But, because of some lucky horseshoe he had up his ass lately, Connor had accepted his explanation and worry at face value and he'd agreed. That was, what, three or four times now that Con had gone ahead and trusted Gavin without any evidence to back him up?

He did have a point though, and Gavin didn't want to stay at the precinct all night either. "My place, then." Gavin had to shove down the feeling of his theoretical tail wagging. This was definitely not the fucking time for that.

|||||||||°°°°°|||||||||

°Explain it to me.°

"Explain what? Why I agreed?"

From the other end of the line, Hank made an annoyed sound, but managed to keep his voice level without yelling. °Your case, Connor. Walk me through it.°

At that, Connor hesitated. Out of all the scenarios that could have played out during this phone call with his adoptive father, Hank asking legitimate questions instead of huffing and puffing wasn't expected. So, in an act of good faith, Connor began explaining. The murder of Wallace Turner, the interesting situation of Amber Turner, how they'd found Tyler Morgan and the fight, to where that lead them. The discovery of Tyler's den and Holly being alive and their trip to Boston and the conversation with Emile and the Morgan's. Connor hesitated before he tried to explain the similar smells he and Holly seemed to share and how Gavin was concerned about that. Hence the change in plans for the evening.

Hank listened quietly for the entire explanation. Not a huff or a grunt or anything at all and it was honestly a breath of fresh air for Connor. The last week since transferring precinct's had been difficult, and not because of this case. Connor hated being upset with Hank, but Hank's anger towards what was going on was so potent, it wasn't easy being around him. Even Connors own temper had flared a few times and he really disliked that.

When he was finally finished explaining what he could, Hank remained silent on the other end of the phone, and Connor switched his phone to his other ear. He was still in the parking lot of the precinct, Gavin was giving him time to speak with Hank privately before they left. "It's difficult to completely understand, I really don't have all the details but I trust him."

Finally, Hank sighed but there was no acid in his voice. °It's always somethin'.°

"Hank…"

°I get it, I get it. I won't say I'm not worried about you, because I am, but…° another sigh, this time it sounded as if Hank was giving up and it made Connor smile a little. It felt like a breakthrough. °I appreciate the fact that Reeds trying to be careful. Keep your head on a swivel and don't drop your guard, you hear?°

"Of course I will. I'll let you know if anything changes."

°Yeah, you better. Tell Reed not to get carried away. We can't afford to patch him up if he bites off more than he can chew with this shit.°

Connor couldn't hide his smile this time. "Have a good night, Hank."

Chapter Text

Gavin was trying to remember how he'd left his apartment the other day before they'd gone off to Boston. He wasn't exactly messy, but his organizational skills were definitely a little chaotic. Everything had a place, but sometimes it wasn't where you thought, and it drove Tina crazy when she was over. As an example, Gavin kept his mugs in a drawer, rather than the cupboard because it was easier to store them and it made sense to him. Was he worried about Connor judging him because of these ridiculous things? More than he should be.

It wasn't like Connor would go snooping around the rooms in his house to figure out all of the stupid shit Gavin did in his own home, right? Well… that might actually be something he'd do, so the worry was for sure valid. Connor was nosey.

Was his apartment weird? He'd never really thought about it before now. He didn't think he lived in an overly weird way, like, no one could look at his home and think yeah, that's fucken weird. But he'd been like this almost thirty years now, how would he know? Had Tina mentioned anything besides his organizational skills? She didn't know what he was, so anything she noticed she'd definitely ask about. He’d never really noticed weird things about other werewolf homes, not that he’d even thought much about it, or been to many before. He was overthinking this.

"What are you doing?"

They'd been sitting in the parking lot of his building for a lot longer than Gavin had intended. He finally sighed, pushing open his door so he could climb outta the car, more annoyed than he intended to be. "Trying to remember if I left my house a fucking mess or not."

Connor laughed and when Gavin looked at him, he shook his head with a smile. “Doubtful.”

Eyeing him as they walked through the main doors of the building, Gavin frowned, repeating the word. "Doubtful?"

"Mmmhmm."

For whatever reason, Connor seemed amused, you could see it in his steps, and practically smell the amusement on him. Gavin's nose twitched as he stepped after his partner, pointing towards the stairs. The building was older, and with only three floors no one had ever thought to install an elevator. A small price to pay in Gavin's opinion.
"Are you gonna make me fucken ask?"

"I'm a detective, Gavin. You keep your desk at work very tidy. Every day since I started working with you, you place your coffee mug in the exact same spot on your desk, handle out, angled towards your terminal." they'd gotten to the first floor and Connor waited for Gavin to take the lead, and followed him up another flight before he continued. "I moved it the other day and the first thing you did was adjust it back to 'normal'. I'm sure you didn't even know you were doing it."

Of course he frowned, because he hadn't realized he'd done that, but it wasn't like he'd argue with Connor about it. He did like things in order. Or his own particular order, anyway.

They made it to the third floor and Gavin unlocked his door, letting Connor inside first so he could take a moment in the hallway, just in case. He knew he was overreacting, but he wouldn't be able to sit still if he didn't make sure it was safe. There was one other apartment up here, and Gavin could smell his neighbours in the hallway, recently, but there wasn't any other scent besides himself and Connor, and everything looked fine. His neighbours were a young couple, worked a lot, but they were nice, no kids, not loud. Ideal.

Inside, he shut the door and bolted it, just to be on the safe side. He'd already told Connor he was nervous, this was just an extension of that. If a werewolf did come after him for whatever reason, they'd be able to take the door down, but it would at least give them a few minutes. Satisfied with that, Gavin shucked off his jacket and toed off his boots.

The apartment wasn't terrible. The building was old, and you could see it in the architecture. Front door opened up into the open styled kitchen and living room, a bathroom off to the left and the bedroom straight across from where he stood, on the other side of the kitchen. High ceilings, with kind of industrial accents, and big high windows. It was pretty modern, and minimalistic. Gavin had decor, but not much of it. He liked it simple, plus if he had too much shit laying around, the cat would have a hayday knocking stuff off shelves everywhere.

Speaking of cats, it looked like Connor had found the feline in the kitchen. "It's Gilbert." he leaned against the counter and watched - Connor had the grey cat in his arms where the feline was purring up a storm, but Gil had always loved the attention. It was stupid how just watching Connor calmed down the anxiety in his chest.

"I didn't know you had animals."

"Just the one." It had been hard enough to get the one cat used to him, all things considered and Gavin couldn't imagine going through that battle all over again. "I didn't know you were an animal person, Con."

Connor snuggled into the cat some more despite it looking impossible to do, and for half a second, Gavin was extremely jealous of his own damn house cat. He still remembered all too well how it felt to have Connor scratching his hands deep into his furr. There wasn't anything holding him back from having that again, either. He was at home, which made it legal to do whatever he wanted and if he wanted to shift he could and -

Gavin frowned, stopping those thoughts before they got out of hand. What was he even fucking thinking? Shaking his head to clear his mind, he pushed off the counter and found the fridge, using it as an excuse to keep himself busy. "You want anything? Food, drink? We could order something."

"I am a bit hungry." it sounded like Connor had let the cat go, and Gilbert's lumbering form sauntered across the countertop towards Gavin and the fridge, meowing as if he was going to get some reward from the fridge. "But I don't want to impose."

"Uh huh." Gavin shut the fridge and opened the freezer, just to see what he had in there, and to let the cold air help clear his head. They'd been in the house for less than ten minutes and he'd almost lost it once already. Tonight was going to be hell.

They ended up ordering some Chinese from a local place a few blocks away. Connor had captured the cat again and was sitting in the living room on his phone, while Gavin worked around the kitchen. He said he was making coffee, but coffee didn't take this long to make. The maker had finished brewing a pot a couple minutes ago, and Gavin ignored it. He leaned against the kitchen island that seperated the kitchen from the living room and watched his partner quietly, tapping a spoon against his wrist, coffee forgotten.

This whole apartment smelled like Gavin. Occasionally, Tina would come over and upset that balance, but it was quick to go back to normal, and he was never really bothered by the upset. There wasn't anything he could do about it, and he liked having Tina over for drinks and games. Chris had come over too before, and Gavin never thought twice about how they changed the way his apartment smelled. This though? This was worse than it was this morning during that meeting, when Connor had his jacket on.

He could smell all of it now, the way Connors scent was so strong and how much it complimented his own and made it better - lighter almost, less musky and more… Lively? It smelt energetic and warm. It was so weird and so good and Gavin had never enjoyed smelling something more than this. Connor on his own was amazing, obviously, and Gavin couldn't get enough of that, but this? Them together like this? It was a kind of smell that made Gavin more comfortable than he'd felt in a while. It smelt like what he thought home was supposed to smell like.

The biggest tragedy was that Connor wouldn't ever get a chance to smell them the way they were right now.

"Hey." Gavin was moving before he'd had a chance to think about it, hopping over the back of the couch so he was sitting beside Connor, maybe a bit too close considering the size of the couch. Con didn't say anything, just looked at him, waiting for Gavin to continue, so he did. "What do I smell like to you?"

Utter confusion sparked across Connors face, he'd even stopped petting the cat sleeping in his lap, and Gavin was suddenly stupid embarrassed by that question. What the fuck did he expect as an answer?

"Uh-" even Connor seemed completely thrown off by that question and he frowned, head tilting to the side. "I don't know. Coffee and nicotine I guess, it isn't as if I can smell as acutely as you do." Connor looked thoughtful for a minute. "I doubt you subject yourself to any strong soap scents, like officer Miller seems to enjoy, so I can figure you smell like your strongest smelling habits. Why?"

It was a smart answer, Gavin had to appreciate it. Connors assessment of him was accurate enough, it would have had Gavin's tail wagging, if he had one. "No reason, just curious."

It took a second, but Connor seemed to brighten up all of a sudden and he shifted on the couch enough that he was facing Gavin, the cat still in his lap. "Are you initiating the question game, Detective?"

Gavin growled at the title. "Could you stop calling me that?"

Connor smiled a cheeky little amused smile that forced Gavin to swallow any arguments he had about answering more questions. "Of course, Gavin. Does this mean it's my turn?"

All he could do was nod, but after a few seconds Gavin leaned back, away from Connor in an attempt to clear his head from whatever mesmerizing thing Con's scent was doing to him. "Nothing weird, alright? And I get to decide when it's over." he huffed, glancing to the side so he could avoid eye contact. "I guess I owe you, since I kinda fucken forced you to come here."

"I wouldn't say 'forced' is the right word. You did ask, in a roundabout way, and I could have refused. I appreciated your honesty." Connor smiled again, softer than the last one and Gavin was absolutely smitten by it.

What was he supposed to say to that? "Ok." Gavin wasn't even going to deny it this time. If he'd been shifted, his tail would have been thumping hard against the ground, he'd probably kick Gilbert the cat out of Connors lap so he could fit himself there.

This was beneath him. Come on Gavin, he had more pride than this. He wasn't a dog, he wasn't going to roll over for the first pretty smile he saw, even if that smile smelt so good.

God damn, he was so, so weak to this man.

Connor frowned, and that in itself made Gavin focus. "Do you want me to get that?"

"Huh?" he didn't need to wait long to realize that the buzzer for the main floor was going off and he'd missed it because he'd been zoning out. Gavin shook his head, attempting to get his brain set right and he pushed up off the couch so he could answer the buzzer. It was great timing honestly, he needed a fucking break.

Grabbing the food from downstairs, unpacking it and serving it didn't take as long as he'd hoped, and they were back in the living room before Gavin had enough time to really prepare himself for an assault of questions. He wasted a couple extra minutes finally making that coffee, but once that was done he had no choice but to go back to the living room.

It was fine, it was a break from the information overload that was their case.

Gavin set his mug of coffee down on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch, again probably a bit to close to Connor, but he didn't care. He could almost touch his partner sitting this close, and he could smell him pretty well, too. It was fucking perfect. "Alright, shoot."

The thousands of questions that Gavin was expecting didn't come. Connor took a few moments to eat a few bites while he looked around the room quietly, as if he was wasting time. Or just making Gavin wait.

"What, you got nothing?"

"No," Connor shook his head, tapping his fork lightly against his bottom lip. "Just thinking of the best one to ask. Since you'll probably only let me ask two questions I want to make them count."

Shit. Connor really did have pretty lips. "You can ask three."

Connor laughed unexpectedly, turning a bit so he could full on look at Gavin curiously, using that fork to point at him "You, are being suspiciously cooperative, Detective Reed."

Suspiciously. Gavin huffed, rolling his eyes as he swatted the fork out of his face. "Yeah yeah, fucken christ just ask a question already or I might change my damn mind."

"You say that with such confidence, but you don't know what I'm going to ask." and before Gavin could say anything or argue, Connor held up his hand to quiet him down. "Can you tell me how it was growing up with your pack? You said you were turned young. How does that work, exactly? How did your family treat you?"

Gavin stared at him, not able to muster a single word and before he could even think about saying anything, Connor pulled up three fingers. "That was three questions, which you've allowed."

Of course he was right, but Gavin hadn't thought the questions would be so… Personal? That was stupid because all of Connors questions were personal to some degree. He could still say no to answering them, but did he want to? Gavin scrubbed a hand through his hair, messing it up worse than it already was. So how did he go about answering any of this?

"You gotta ask the hard stuff, christ." he took a deep breath, a failed attempt to ground himself, before leaning a shoulder against the back of the couch. "The easiest to answer is my family, I guess. It was weird, growing up. I don't remember too much of the details, because it was a fucking long time ago but my brother was always really supportive. Werewolves didn't go public until I was almost 13 so there was a lot of me doing weird shit and my mom and dad reacting to keep it a secret. I know mom hated it, she still does." Gavin pulled his hand out of his hair and rubbed his face with it, trying to focus on the questions, only to catch Connors bright smile. "What?"

"You have a brother?"

Gavin ground his teeth. "I said three questions, not four."

Instantly, Connor had both hands up in surrender, but that smile was still there. He laughed a little, obviously amused by how touchy Gavin was being about the question count. "Of course, of course. Please continue."

Gavin huffed a sigh, leaning back until he dropped backwards on the couch, staring annoyed up at the ceiling. Connor had been right though, he didn't think he'd be able to answer more than two questions despite volunteering a third. "Do you really want to know this shit?"

"I do. You could say I'm invested."

"Invested?" Gavin leaned up on his elbows so he could see his partner from where he was laying back, and the other detective was watching him. The big grey cat had replaced his plate of food, and Connor had a hand on the feline while he watched Gavin.

"Is it surprising that I'm curious about my partner? It isn't like we learn this stuff in school, so yes. I'm eager to learn."

Eager to learn.

Gavin sat up quickly, not taking his eyes off his partner as he moved. "How about we play a different game." and he kept moving once he was sitting up, leaning in distractingly close with a hand on either side of Connors lap. The cat spooked and ran off, leaving Connor to Gavin's whim, and this close? All Gavin could smell was Connor. The fact that he didn't move an inch when Gavin got in close like this? Fucking amazing. Connors scent changed too, just barely enough for Gavin to notice it, and if he hadn't been paying an insane amount of attention, he would have missed it.

"Gavin."

He couldn't breath this close to Connor.

"Yeah."

They were close enough that their noses touched.

"Your phone-"

He frowned, confused. "My what?"

"Your phone." Contrary to Gavin's frustration, Connor laughed quietly as he repeated himself, leaning back and away from Gavin, clearly amused. "It's ringing."

Sure enough, the damn thing was ringing, Gavin just hadn't heard it until now. He had half a mind to just not answer it, but Connor seemed pretty adamant that he take the call. An annoyed growl had Gavin backing off from Connors space, and it took a second to fish the phone from his pocket so he could answer it, growling out his name. “Reed.” He didn't care who was on the other line, he just wanted them to know how irritated he was at the interruption.

The first words from the other end of the line and Gavin was standing, quickly forgetting the situation he'd just been in. He used his shoulder to prop his phone to his ear so he had his hands free and moved towards the kitchen where his keys were. "Uh huh. I got it. Text me the address, we'll be there in… Wellington Ave? Ten minutes." As soon as he hung up his phone, Gavin pocketed it and went for his jacket. "There was another murder."

"Tyler?" Connor grabbed the food from the table, hiding it in the fridge for later before he chased after Gavin, who was already waiting by the door.

"Dunno yet. Same crazy shit though, from what the officer mentioned. If it's not him, then I don't know."

Three flights down and they were driving again, and just like he'd said over the phone. Ten minutes barely and they pulled against the curb of a quiet neighborhood now flashing with red and blue lights from the patrol cars lining the street. There were a dozen cops buzzing around, taping the area off, trying to keep the neighbors from being nosey, and they barely acknowledged Connor and Gavin as they approached.

One officer pointed them in the right direction, not that Gavin needed it, he could smell the blood from the road. His nose twitched and he held a hand up so he could rub his thumb over the bridge of his nose to try and ease the discomfort. It was already having an effect on his sense of smell, Gavin couldn't smell anything right now besides the blood in the air. It was honestly so fucking strange that humans couldn't smell it until it was practically under their nose.

"What is it?"

"Just blood." Gavin waved off the confused look he got from his partner. "It's heavy. Can't smell anything else."

The cheekiest half smile crossed Connors lips at that. "Not even me?"

Gavin couldn't stop himself from smiling, but he shook his head and kept walking into the yard. The house itself didn't look like a murder had just been committed inside of it. The windows were dark, but clean and intact - no breakages that he could see. The front door stood open as officers moved in and out of the house, activity buzzing all around it. The lawn that Gavin was walking across had recently been cut, the edges of the walkways had been manicured, and the garden in the middle of the yard had a clean stone wall and it looked recently weeded. Whoever these people were, they kept a clean outside appearance, which was eerily similar to the Turner’s house.

Even the neighborhood was similar. Quiet, nosey neighbors already standing in their driveways in housecoats, watching to see what was going on as police rushed around. Good ol suburbia.

It was always so annoying, not being able to use his nose for things. It was so easy to forget just how much information he really did get from his sense of smell. Gavin wiggled his nose uncomfortably again as he came up to the front steps of the house, and an officer in blue sided past him, heading out the door. The guy looked sick, which made sense. The air was so thick with that copper tang that Gavin wouldn't be surprised by what he found inside. He didn't wait for Connor before he ducked inside the house.

The home would have been nice, had it not been coated in a layer of blood. The front door opened up into a small entryway, which let you move into the spacious living room, then probably the kitchen beyond that. It was the living room that Gavin was most interested in.

He covered his mouth and nose, just to try and give his senses a break from the smell. This much blood would make anyone feel sick, and Gavin wasn't an exception to that.

Beyond the shear amount of blood, were the bodies. unlike last time, it wasn't just a single kill. The remains of two people lay scattered in the living room, side by side, plush cream carpet soaked through with blood. Gavin stepped around a pool of blood, making his way closer to what was left of these people.

The room itself had been torn apart. Coffee table was in pieces against a wall, along with a side table that had been smashed to splinters. Lamps shattered against walls and picture frames broken on the ground, glass smeared with blood from being handled. There were bloodied handprints against the walls that turned into heavy claws digging into the drywall.

"It's less organized than before."

Connor had a point. Like the last time, the victims organs had been removed - pulled out half hazardly, almost like an afterthought. Wallace Turner's body had been cleaned out meticulously, every organ, every bone, one by one. These two victims had been emptied out quickly, their organs not displayed, but pilled beside them. Their ribs had been opened up, and snapped off, but not placed in a show. They were dropped to the side, done and over with.

"It's not Tyler." Gavin had his phone out, snapping a few pictures while he studied the two bodies in front of him. "He's devolving, sure, but this doesn't fit."

Just like the last time though, both of these bodies weren't recognizable. You could barely tell by looking at them that they had even been human before this. Gavin's stomach turned and he knelt to get a closer look at the closest corpse. The chest cavity had been cleared out of everything, one clean scoop of organs. Teeth marks on an arm, gashes and lesions across a leg.

Connor made a humming sound from across the room, and for a minute Gavin was distracted by him. His partner was crouching beside the second body, quietly observing the mess that had been a human being and Gavin could almost see the gears of his mind turning. Connor was focused and calm, despite the state of things around them and it was so fucking ridiculous how pretty he looked against a bloody background like this, even dressed in a pullover instead of the smart jackets he usually wore. Gavin breathed in slowly, so fucking disappointed that he couldn't smell Connor right now. That was the biggest tragedy of tonight.

"I'm going to look at the rest of the house."

And just like that, Connor was gone and Gavin's thoughts caught up to him. He shook his head and frowned down at the dismembered body he was standing beside. Jesus christ, what the fuck was fucking wrong with him?

Gavin spent another few minutes moving around the living room, documenting any little thing he could find, everything that was different from their first murder. There were a lot of little things, things that could be explained away pretty easily, but Gavin's gut told him they were important. He knew this wasn't Tyler's work, but so far, nothing in the house explicitly showed that. It didn't help that the longer he looked, the worse his gut feeling got. Was he missing something?

He stepped into the hallway between the living room and kitchen, and there wasn't as much blood this far into the house. The two victims were both killed in the living room then. The front door hadn't been tampered with from what he'd seen, so maybe their new murderer had gotten in through the back door?

Anxiety coiled in the pit of his stomach and Gavin scratched at his jaw, eyeing the drops of blood leading down the hallway. Some bloody claw marks against the walls, but nothing compared to the living room mess. He was trying to ignore the dark feeling in his gut, because there wasn't a reason for it. Officers were swarming the inside and outside of the house so why was he feeling so worried?

"Connor-" looking up from the scratches on the wall, Gavin cursed when he couldn't spot his partner. He still wasn't sure exactly why, but seeing Connor helped the anxiety a little, and having him out of sight like this, a mild panic was starting to rise. Gavin moved through the kitchen, spotting his partner standing at the back door. It felt like he could breathe again. "Could you not fucking run off like that?"

Connor chose to ignore that request, instead pointing towards the back of the fenced yard. Gavin eyed the fence line through the darkness, trying to make out what he was seeing. "It looks like a shed."

"Has anyone been back here yet?"

A shrug, and Connor was stepping onto the grass before Gavin could stop him, heading for the shed. Cursing quietly, Gavin followed a few steps behind, wiggling his nose in the night air to try and get rid of the blood stench with no luck. It was a clear night, with a bright, waning moon, but the light wasn't quite enough to see clearly with. Despite no one but the two of them in the backyard, he could still hear a lot of noise coming from the front of the house and the officers working there. It was distracting enough to his ears.

Gavin barely heard it, the rumble from around the shed and he frowned at the sound as they walked, not quite able to figure it out, his senses all skewed. "Con-" Gavin reached for his partner, his gut twisting almost painfully. A shadow from behind the shed - too fast and Gavin grabbed the back of his partner's sweater and pulled, the anxiety shifting to panic so quick it almost made him sick, but just where Connor had been standing that growl - that figure he'd thought he'd seen, dropped into that spot full claws and teeth and all growls. Connor dropped back, stumbling a step or two at being yanked but managed to stay on his feet, and Gavin barely had a chance to brace himself for the werewolf that ran into him barely a half a second later.

One arm out in front of him and the full force of a charging body and a set of teeth hit him, knocking him back a step, Gavin's back bumping into Connor when he lost his footing. A full row of teeth bit down hard on Gavin's forearm, easily tearing through his leather jacket. He pushed back against a half formed wolf face, still eerily half human but all gnawing fangs while his other hand gripped one of the werewolfs clawed hands. It sprouted furr up along its forearm and elbow, but the shift didn't go much farther than that. The clawed fingers on its restrained hand scratched against him, digging into the skin on Gavin's hand, scratching against the leather of his jacket as it pushed, earning another back step from Gavin. The werewolfs free hand reached, swiping forward around Gavin like it was trying to grab at Connor who was just out of reach behind him.

Gavin grit his teeth, trying to push back against the half formed werewolf as it partially shifted every piece of itself, its sharp teeth grinding into Gavin's arm painfully, claws scratching through his coat and making him bleed.

"Gavin!"

"Fuck-" he pushed, but the werewolf didn't budge a step, only snarled and latched on harder to Gavin's arm, still reaching and swiping for Connor, focused on its original target even though it had Gavin already in its jaws. Gavin winced through the pain in his arm. He could see those teeth clear as day through the dark, the dangerous saliva oozing from this bastard gums and what that meant for anyone else this thing decided to bite into. "Get to the house-"

"I'm not-" the panic was clear in Connors voice, and Gavin heard the safety snap from Connors gun holster a step behind him, but the last thing they needed was to shoot this wolf. They needed this suspect, it was all they had-

Gavin growled dangerously, and the werewolf switched its focus completely onto Gavin at the sound. "Connor move! He-" Gavin stepped backwards, bumping into Connor and pushing him back with him, just in time to avoid most of a swipe from that free hand, and managed to twist around enough to set the wolf off balance that it had no choice but to pull its teeth off of Gavin's arm and let his other hand go. The thing howled, enraged, and Gavin backed up another couple of steps, his free hand touching at his stomach and the blood he could feel from the claws. He backed into Connor again, forcing his partner to take another involuntary step back with him.

All Gavin had to do was stay between Connor and the werewolf thing. Easy.

"He's not right in the head, Con. He's biting to turn."

The howled scream was loud enough that there was commotion coming from the house that Gavin was trying to back them into with little success. The wolf shook off that moment of frustration and turned angry eyes on them again, but he was focused on Gavin this time. It stalked forward, mostly human in the dark, but so obviously trying to shift and failing to do it. Those eyes didn't look human anymore; crazed wasn't even the right word for it. This was something else entirely and Gavin had never seen it before. Bloodied clawed hands came up and the werewolf bared its fangs as they dripped with a mix of saliva and blood and Gavin growled right back at it. For a second, the half shifted thing hesitated.

It was obvious Gavin couldn't beat this thing like he was, and he doubted he could do it as a wolf either, not that he'd have time to shift anyways. He doubted he couldn't subdue it on his own, but who around here would even be able to help without putting themselves at risk? Even if he did manage to subdue the thing, he didn't think there was anything left of its mind judging by the way it was acting. It was all angry wounded animal behind those eyes.

"Shoot him." Gavin growled the words. He hated the idea, but they were out of options and if he didn't do something fast, there would be a lot more options in the yard for this werewolf to pick from and Gavin doubted he'd be able to keep its interest for long. Footsteps in the back behind him and shouts from officers that had gotten to the back door and stopped there. Lights from their flashlights shining into the dark of the yard and the werewolf howled again, half a human scream and bone chilling, and in that split second as the thing yelled, Gavin managed to pull off his jacket, just in time to meet the wolf as it charged again, using his jacket to catch the werewolf's head and teeth as it lashed out. It was enough of a distraction for him to grab the werewolfs wrist and the other palm with his hands, successfully stopping the things advance, if nothing else. "Connor!"

The werewolf shook its head, still only half shifted, half a muzzle but all sharp teeth, and it tore through the leather easily, biting and snapping, trying to push forward only to be pushed back and Gavin growled loud enough for his threat to be heard and understood and the wolf pushed back against him, bringing his half formed maw down on Gavin's shoulder, biting down and Gavin lost his footing, taking a step backwards.

A shout from one of the officers behind him, seconds before the loud discharge of a gun made Gavin's ears ring, and another, and another. In an instant he wasn't having to fight for ground anymore and the half shifted wolf dropped limp against him. Gavin let go, dropping the bulky frame to the side and he stumbled backwards three steps until his back was flat against Connor's chest.

Danger gone, the yard was suddenly swarming with uniformed police officers, none of which would go near the creature in the middle of the yard, Gavin or Connor. Gavin breathed heavy, watching people running around but it didn't feel like his brain was registering any of it. The only thing he could focus on was the breathing behind him, and how he could feel the erratic rise and fall of Connor's very much alive chest and that by itself was a huge comfort.

Shit.

Gavin turned around, using the arm that hadn't been used as a chew toy to grab onto Connors jaw so he could turn his partner's face in different directions, looking for wounds. His face was fine, so Gavin's attention moved down, checking for anything that could have been caused by the deranged werewolf. "Are you - ?" Connor looked physically fine and Gavin breathed again. He hurt all over, could feel blood dripping from a handful of scratches and bites, but Connor was okay. Connor was fine. Not a scratch on him.

Both of Gavin's hands fisted into the front of his partner's pullover and he tugged, leaning his forehead against Connors shoulder and he just focused on breathing. He couldn't smell him right now, shame, but just feeling Connor's breathing was comforting enough and Gavin needed it. That had been too close. Why was he so fucking dizzy? He felt heavy in every limb.

He could hear talking around him, it sounded like Connors voice, and someone else familiar to him but all he heard was the tone of voices - the words didn't register properly in his brain. His ears were still ringing loudly, he could hear his own blood pumping, the boots running against the grass as people moved around, other shouts and loud voices around him but none of it made sense to his ears. The pain registered though, and the exhaustion.

"... in… av…. avin? Gavin." he grunted at his name, feeling something slap against his cheek a little roughly. He blinked, trying to focus. The dull throb in his head sharpened and the ground spun at his feet. The sounds around him seemed to make sense to his ears again and Gavin blinked, he hadn't realized that he'd been so out of it. He finally focused on the woman standing beside him. Short, dressed in police blues, dark hair under her hat. A concerned look on her face.

"Tina?" What was she doing here? He didn't remember seeing her around the neighborhood when they'd first gotten there.

"There we go. There's a paramedic coming to look at you, but fuck, Gav. Did you just fist fight a goddamn werewolf?"

That just made him groan, he didn't need the reminder. Gavin lifted his head off of Connors shoulder with a wince - it was still pounding but worse things had happened before. "I didn't really fight him." Fucking true enough, the best he'd managed was holding him back and keeping him busy, and a lot of good that had done them. The asshole had still ended up dead. What a pain in the ass…

Gavin didn't realize that Tina was touching him until she swore, and he felt her fingers press against his arm - the one that happened to be full of werewolf saliva, before he had a chance to pull it away from her. "Don't touch it! The drools dangerous-"

"And it's all over you, Gavin!"

She reached for his bitten arm again and this time, Gavin growled at her, teeth barred and everything "I fucking mean it, Chen! Don't get it on you, else you wanna end up like-" he didn't finish that sentence.

Connor had a hand on his not bitten shoulder, and the pressure was distracting enough to calm Gavin down just enough to realize that he'd just growled at Tina. He'd known her for years and hadn't ever done that. Hadn't done anything to give himself away like that before. Gavin stared at her, about just as surprised as she was by the whole thing.

"I…"

How did he explain this? Gavin's mind raced, trying to come up with an answer but his head was still pounding and he was still physically exhausted, never mind the physical pain he was in and he didn't really know what to fucken say to her -

"Did… You just growl at me?"

Gavin winced at the question, but he didn't have a chance to argue that it was for her own good before a paramedic was pushing past her. He tried not to lean so much on Connor while the doc was looking him over, his vision blurred for a minute there until the snap of latex gloves brought him back to the now.

The paramedic frowned as they looked him over, holding out Gavin's gnawed on arm, touching a goblet of drool with their gloved finger before stepping back and pulling the gloves off both hands. "I thought we had a real injury here."

"Excuse me?" just leaning against Connor like he was, Gavin could feel his partner bristle at the medic's words and Gav would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much to do. He pressed a hand against his midsection, frowning at the wetness against his hand.

"This." The medic waved a hand flippantly towards Gavin with a scoff. "Call a vet, I don't work with animals." Before Connor could argue that statement, the paramedic sighed and pulled on Gavin's arm again, as if to show it off to anyone who'd argue. Gavin couldn't help his growl because fuck, that hurt! "Look at the lesions on his arm. Deep, but they've stopped bleeding. I don't deal with werewolves, Officer. I have enough occupational hazards as it is."

"You can't -"

Gavin push a hand against Connors chest, trying to hold the arguments back. If he let Connor go he could probably argue with this halfwit medic for the better part of the night and that wouldn't get them anywhere. "Connor." thankfully, Con backed off, but he wasn't calm by any means. The medic waved them off and left to do some 'real work', leaving the three of them alone again and Gavin huffed, leaning against Connor again for support. He was so dizzy and he didn't know why. Yeah that had been a little tough, but he'd been hurt worse before and hadn't felt like this.

"I can't believe it." Tina's voice pulled Gavin out of his hazy thinking and he blinked at her, surprised to see her there, again, like he'd forgotten she'd been there at all. What was that expression? Was she mad?

"Tina-"

"Don't 'Tina' me, you asshole. I knew you were hiding something from me I just didn't-" she stumbled over her words before shaking her head. "I'll go find an emergency kit." and she was gone before he could comment on any of it.

Fuck.

Gavin moved, or tried to, only to be pulled back against Connor and it wasn't like he had the energy or the will to argue so he let Connor keep him there, and Gavin leaned his weight against him with an exhausted sigh. It was comfortable and he needed that because this was turning into a fucking shit show of a night. It was probably a full minute before Connor moved, pulling Gavin with him towards a less busy side of the house.

As soon as they reached the spot that wasn't in the way, Connor let him go and Gavin dropped his shoulder against the siding with a grunt of pain. He leaned back and breathed, the back of his head thunking against the side of the house, and that jostled his brain way too much. Fuck why was he so exhausted?

It was eerily quiet as Gavin slid down the side of the house until he landed on his ass in the grass, and he watched Connor crouch down in front of him without a word. The guy was being too quiet, and it was really starting to worry Gavin. "What? She deserves to be mad at me. I should have told her."

Connor frowned, but didn't grace that statement with a comment. Instead, he reached, grabbing onto Gavin's bitten arm and pulled it forward carefully, a lot more gentle than the paramedic had been, stretching out the injured muscle and bone. "Does it hurt to move your arm like this?"

"No, not really." Gavin grunted, ignoring the slight pain the arm moving had actually caused, not just in his arm, but in his shoulder too. He knew the arm wasn't broken anyway. It would heal eventually.

Connor nodded, letting go of Gavin's one arm gently before copying the action with his right arm before examining the shoulder bite carefully. "How are your pain levels?"

Gavin shrugged, wincing because fuck, it actually hurt when Connor touched that shoulder. "About a 4 I guess. Hurts more when I move or when you get all pokey like that." Connor's hand pulled back and Gavin ran his right hand over the deep scratches against his stomach, still feeling the wetness around the wound and his shirt. He pulled his fingers away, huffing. He was annoyed by how wet with blood they were because he should have stopped bleeding by now so this was kind of uh… Worrying. "You're being pretty fucken quiet."

He saw Connor roll his eyes at the comment, acknowledging it as a stupid observation. "Yes. I apologize for not being more entertaining. I just watched my partner get mauled by… By something."

"Oh, he was definitely a werewolf." Gavin's laugh was dry, and it hurt his entire midsection. "Stuck in the middle somewhere." He tried not to chase that thought though, better to stay focused on something else right now. "You shot him?"

A nod and Connor sighed. He didn't sound proud of it. "Three times. You told me to."

"Overkill. Hank's gonna be pissed." again, Gavin laughed without meaning to and he winced and groaned at just how much that hurt. "Fuck."

Connor was moving before Gavin got his swearing out, pulling his sweater over his head and bunching the fabric up before pressing it against Gavin's stomach and the wound there. "Gavin." The concern was very obvious in just the name, Connor didn't need to actually say it.

"Ugh I know, it should've started healing already but it isn't." Gavin winced again at the pressure and growled, annoyed. "I've healed from worse than this." The lightheadedness and the exhaustion he was feeling was probably from the bloodloss now that he was thinking about it. Fuck.

A sigh, and not from Connor this time. Tina knelt down into the grass beside Connor, looking Gavin over with a concerned frown. She had a black tactical pouch emblazoned with a red cross in her hands, and she passed it to Connor when he reached for it. "You've really got yourself into a mess, Gav. Damn."

"Hi, Tina."

"Don't be cute, Reed. I'm pissed, but I'm not gonna ask about it right now because it looks like you need a damn hospital." She glanced at Connor, before focusing back on Gavin. "Are you gonna be alright?"

That made Gavin groan. He did not want to go to a hospital. "I'll be fine."

Another sigh, this time from Connor and he tugged at the side of Gavin's shirt to get his attention. "Off, so I can clean you up." Complying was easier said than done but Gavin grunted thought the pain of it, dropping the shirt to the side and Connor didn't waste any time dripping something wet onto his arm and Gavin snarled at how badly it stung. Connor didn't flinch at the sound, but Tina did, and it was enough to force Gavin to grind his teeth to the pain while his partner worked on first aid.

"Sorry."

Tina's back straightened, and Gavin could see how uncomfortable she was right now just by how stiffly she was kneeling there. "It's alright." she breathed, and Gavin wished he had his nose working properly right now, if only to properly scent Tina's fear. "So, what happened?" she glanced back towards the yard, and the body that was still left unattended. "No one wants to go near it, they're afraid it'll jump back to life. Is that your guy?"

Gavin shook his head with a laugh. Idiots. He knew even without being able to smell that the werewolf they'd just put down was not Tyler Morgan. Who was it? He didn't fucking know. "Nah." he winced, jaw clenching as Connor started cleaning his shoulder wound. "Pretty sure this guy was responsible for what's inside the house. Couldn't tell you why though. Or who. He was waiting by the shed."

"He jumped at me-"

"-He jumped at the first body that came close enough." Gavin was a hundred percent sure of that, without a doubt. He knew Connor was implying that their dead werewolf buddy had attacked him because of his scent, but Gavin knew better. It'd been way too easy to get the werewolf to focus on him mid fight, plus the blood stench in the air would've knocked out the guy's sense of smell just like it had Gavin's.

Even Tina sighed. "You've got a rough case. Do you know what we should do with the body?"

Good question. There was no doubt the Pack would want in on any sort of autopsy that happened. "Just to the Morgue. I'll make a few calls, get it settled." Gavin's head knocked back against the house and he sighed. So much work and he was just so tired. He winced when Connor touched around his stomach and the wound there, and Connor sighed before he had a chance to look at it himself.

"It isn't bleeding anymore." small fucken blessings.

Tina stood up after giving Gavin's leg a concerned pat. "Try not to die, Gavin. I got a lot of shit to give you when you're healthy. I'll find people to help me deal with your body and get it moved out. I'll send the reports to Connor-"

"C'mon T, send them to me-"

"-Connor because you'll probably need to be resting after this, dumbass." Gavin's growl was pitiful and this time, Tina didn't recoil from it, she just kicked him lightly in the leg to make her point. "Make sure he doesn't die, Connor, because I need to kill him myself later." She was gone before Gavin could do anything but whine.

God, he'd royally fucked up, hadn't he? This was going to change everything.

Chapter Text

How had he, Gavin Reed, found himself sitting on Hank Anderson's living room sofa in the middle of the night? Easy. Gavin couldn't say no to Connor. He'd tried, but all Connor had to do was give him this look - a mixture of annoyed and challenging, and Gavin lost every ounce of willpower to argue with him. It was just another reminder how whipped he was already. At the very least, Connor had first suggested the hospital and Gavin had snuffed that option out immediately. The Anderson house was a million fucking times better than the hospital. Gavin hated that place.

So Connor had driven them there while Gavin had tried his best not to pass out in the passenger seat because he was so fucking tired, and now they were there, and it was so God damn awkward. The whole house probably stunk like Hank, and it was kind of a blessing that Gavin's nose still wasn't working. He really wasn't looking forward to smelling Hank all night long. Fucking gross.

Gavin sat in the middle of the couch, there was a dog laying nearby that probably stunk just as bad as Hank did, and Hank himself just stood there on the other side of the room watching him: arms crossed, scowl set firm on his grumpy face. Gavin wouldn't admit to squirming under the fucking pressure of the scrutiny. Was he mad? He looked mad. Was he going to cuss Gavin out again, like back in the precinct the other day? If he was planning on it, Hank didn't make a move to do it. Gavin scratched at his arm - the one with the still not healing bite marks because it was itchy and Hank finally huffed in some kind of annoyance.

"Stop scratching your fucking arms."

Growling wasn't a deterrent for Hank either, and the old lieutenant approached despite the threat and he grabbed Gavin's bitten arm, pulling it forward for inspection. It didn't hurt as much as earlier but it was still a surprise to have Hank touching him.

"It's been what, over an hour?"

"Something like that." What was Hank doing?

"Connor wasn't kidding, you're not healing at all."

Gavin yanked his arm back with an annoyed snort. He didn't need Hank Anderson telling him what he already fucken knew. Besides, that wasn't entirely true. Gavin was healing, just at a fucken snails pace. "Thanks for the enlightening fucking observation."

What he wasn't expecting was for Hank to swat him across the top of his head. It wasn't anything awful, more like annoyed retaliation but the surprise of it served to shut Gavin up for a minute there, a hand rubbing at where Hank had bumped him, not that it had hurt.

"Christ you're still as annoying as ever." Hank was quiet long enough for Connor to walk back into the living room with some bandages in hand, more than what the first aid kit had had. "You two said that this werewolf that Reed decided to fist fight was hopped up on this bitch of a drug you're looking into?"

Connor nodded, sitting down beside his partner on the couch before reaching for Gavin's bitten arm so he could apply the bandages he couldn't before, and Gavin let him do what he wanted. They'd cleaned up the mess of drool so Gavin's wasn't worried about Connor or anyone getting infected by werewolf venom this time around.

"Yes. Moreso than we've seen up until now." Connor swiped an alcohol swab over the bite wounds as he talked, and Gavin tried hard not to wince at the sting. "Tyler wasn't nearly as… Changed when we confronted him. All things considered, he seemed much more in control than this one did."

It was quiet. Connor cleaned and rebandaged Gavin's arms while Hank stood by them and watched. Despite the location and the fact that he still wasn't able to smell at all, Gavin was enjoying this little bit of wound tending - mostly just because Connor was touching him and sitting so close. There wasn't any meaning behind it other than fixing the hurt but still. Gavin was so far down this rabbit hole it was so stupid, especially seeing how he reacted to the dumbest things. He could feel his wolf just preening at the attention, and it was disgusting.

It wasn't long before the lieutenant sighed heavily, distracting both Gavin and Connor from the bandaging. "How possible is it that this werewolf was overdosed on this drug bullshit, and it got into your system?"

Gavin focused all of his attention on Hank, not at all able to hide his surprise at that query. "What?" Did it make sense? Yes. Was it possible? Probably. The guy had quite literally drooled all over Gavin's open wounds, so it made sense that if there was enough of the EXO drug in his system that it would absorb into Gavin's system through that drool. Since they weren't sure exactly how potency worked with the drug, and how it was different for everyone that took it, it made sense that Gavin wasn't healing properly. He was feeling other effects too - the lethargy and disorientation.

"You know-"

"I get it." Gavin frowned, his brain trying to wrap around this new information he was so elegantly handed. Shit. He rolled his shoulder despite the pain from that second bite wound. The uncomfortable feeling that settled in his gut was potent enough that he could easily ignore the pain. He felt gross. He hadn't even thought of something like that happening. "I think you're right, and I really don't fucking like it." How else was he supposed to put it? Gavin acted like he hated being a werewolf sometimes, but he really didn't. He hated the politics and the prejudice and a butt load of other things about it, but he was what he was. He never thought of getting rid of it, and having that part of himself silenced without his consent was a…. Very uncomfortable feeling. "Fuck."

"You gonna be alright, Reed?" Hanks question sounded concerned, which just served to piss Gavin off more. He didn't need pity from the old man.

"Yeah I'm just fucking annoyed as hell right now." Gavin scratched at his jaw, biting back the growl that threatened to sound. He wasn't angry at Connor or Hank, it was the situation that had him pissed off. Getting mad at them wouldn't solve anything.

The look of concern from Connor wasn't helping, either. His partner looked uncomfortable sitting beside him, like he wasn't sure what he should be doing, and just seeing him like that forced Gavin's own reactions to dull almost imediatly. Placated like a pet.

Annoying. "Well whatever. I'm going fucking home."

He didn't manage to even get off the couch before Connor had a grip on his arm and was pulling him back down onto it. "Absolutely not! Since we don't know exactly what's going to happen I'd really feel better about the whole situation if you just stayed put."

"Nothings going to happen-"

"Connor he's not a damn kid-"

Even Hank echoed his objections, but Connor had put his foot down on the situation, and just seeing the determined, no nonsense scowl put both Hank and Gavin into immediate compliance. It was almost surreal just how fucking easy Connor did that. Obviously Gavin didn't stand a chance against Connor demanding things because he was undeniably whipped by this man, but for Hank to be just as easily put in his place? How had Hank survived raising him?

Gavin grumbled and Hank shook his head, but they'd both lost the will to argue. "Whatever. I'm going to bed." the old Lieutenant grumbled as he left the living room, only stopping when he got to the hallway. "Make sure you let Seth know about this so he doesn't cause a scene when he gets home."

"I will."

Hank left down the hallway, the big dumb looking dog following after him, and Gavin glared at Connor, a petulant growl rumbling from his chest. "I'm not staying here." He meant it to sound final. Decisive. Absolute. He ended up sounding like a pup arguing with his mother.

"Funny, Detective, it doesn't look like you have a choice in the matter. You refused a hospital, and your wounds are still concerning despite what you say about them. Please remember that I offered you an alternative."

"The hospital? Some fucking alternative that was!"

Before Connor could say anything else - and fuck it looked like he had a lot to say just by how he was glaring at Gavin, Hanks voice sounded from the end of the hallway "You two better not argue the entire damn night, some of us have to work in the morning."

Connor smiled at Gavin as he stood up - the most shit eating, 'I won this' smile that Gavin had ever seen. "I'll grab you some blankets and a pillow."

"Yeah yeah. Whatever." Fuck.

Left with a pile of blankets, literally two whole comforters and a pillow, Gavin stewed in his own annoyance for a bit, not willing to get even remotely comfortable on this couch, no matter how tired he felt. That lasted all of half an hour before he finally stretched out his sore limbs and buried himself under the blankets, thankful that he couldn't smell the blankets that he was wrapped in. It was an hour later and Gavin was still awake, when the front door opened and shut. The noise was followed by an annoyed curse but Gavin didn't move from under the mountain of blankets and it was less than a minute before a door shut somewhere else in the house and Gavin was again left to his own devices.

It wasn't as if he wasn't trying to sleep, because he was. Gavin was tired and he wanted to fall asleep, but like any typical night, that just wasn't the case. It wasn't a surprise. Even without his sense of smell, Gavin was trying to sleep in a place that wasn't his own. Maybe if he'd been able to smell he'd be fine - like at the hotel in Boston where all he smelt was Connor. It had felt like his wolf had stretched right out, basking in the smell. Tonight wasn't the same.

It was funny, actually, now that he was thinking about it. He hadn't been able to smell Connor at all tonight but Gavin was still so easily influenced by him. Bending to his partner's demands without a second thought. Good to know that he wasn't just being influenced by scent. Sort of good. It was kind of terrifying, actually, to realize just how badly he was gone for this dumbass.

An hour later and Gavin wrinkled his nose, the sudden stench of detergent making him frown. He took a few sniffs of the pillow before sitting up quickly, the blankets dropping half off the couch when he moved.

Oh.

Another few sniffs before he sighed. It wasn't 100% back to normal, but he could smell again. The blankets had that washed but a while ago smell to them, soapy but aged. The living room had lingering scents of Hank and Connor from earlier, and Seth who'd come in not long ago. Another few sniffs and Gavin frowned, wiggling his nose. Seth smelt like Connor did, sort of. Intense but more like coffee. Probably because he worked in a coffee shop, that's what Connor had said, right? Funny, Seth's scent was fresher, but Gavin's nose still picked out Connor's as more pleasant.

He dropped back against the couch cushions, lifting his arm up so he could peel off the bandages that had been applied only a few hours earlier. As expected, they weren't healed, but the wounds looked so much better than they had earlier. His system was kicking back into gear, finally. What little bit of that drug in his system was wearing off.

It had been a fucking eye opening experience, that's for fucking sure. He'd have to be way more fucking careful from now on.

It took about twenty minutes before Gavin was on his feet. The clocks told him it was close to 3am, still too early to go into work. Not that he wanted to, he wanted to take a shower first. He peeled off the rest of the bandages, giving his healing wounds a bit of fresh air, scratching a bit at his neck and the nearly gone bite marks there. Gavin stopped, looking through a pile of books on a shelf, and convinced himself he wasn't snooping, he was just bored, agitated, and tired.

This place smelt too much like Hank Anderson and Gavin didn't like the smell. The only saving grace was that mixed in with the prevalent smell of Hank, was Connors Good Scent, and it really did help calm his nerves. The kitchen was full of scents - Hank, Connor, Seth, and a few others that lingered, probably from the afternoon. Something else in those smells tickled his brain in a familiar sort of way, but it was too faint to really be able to figure out. At least it didn't smell malicious or anything. He'd be able to smell that kind of intent.

Gavin stopped at the start of the hallway, watching. Four doors and a closet at the end of the hall. By the smell of it, Hank's room was the first on the left, with Seth and the bathroom being the two at the end of the hall. The first door on the right oozed with Connors scent, wafting from under the door like some kind of magic. Gavin's wolf wiggled, the anxiety he'd been feeling was ebbing away with just the smell.

It was unintentional but so necessary. He dropped into a squat beside Connors door and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall. He breathed deep through his nose, letting himself take in all of that scent. It felt like every knot from muscle to nerve just automatically started to unraveled. What a fucking day. His head thunked back against the wall and he tried not to sigh at just how comfortable he felt, despite where he was. Exactly like in that hotel room in Boston, the only difference was his willingness to admit it now.

Gavin didn't hear the door open, and when Connor spoke, he didn't bother opening his eyes to look at him, or move at all. He was comfortable for the first time in hours and nothing was going to ruin that.

"You got your sense of smell back?"

"Mmmhmmm."

Connor laughed quietly at Gavin's wordless answer. "And the first thing you do is come over here and get all sniffy with my door?"

He chuffed. "Hardly." This time, Gavin did look up at his partner who was leaning against the door frame above him, arms crossed and watching. "I was snooping around first, but got fucken bored. Everything smells like Hank, it's gross."

"I bet. Did Seth wake you up when he came in?"

"Have to be sleeping to be woken up." Connor made a disapproving sound at that answer, pushing off the door frame before heading towards the living room. Gavin watched him go with a frown, trying to keep his voice down "Don't give me that attitude. It doesn't look like you were sleeping either." he pushed himself up off the ground, but before he could chase after Connor, the other man was on his way back into the hallway, arms full of blankets. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you sleep, what does it look like?"

"It looks like you just took my couch apart."

"I did." Connor stopped walking when he stepped up beside Gavin, glancing over the mound of blankets in his arms to look at Gavin's wounds - now sans bandages. "You're healing better, that's good. I was really worried."

Of course he was. Gavin nodded at the statement, watching as Connor started moving again, his eyes following the other detective until Con was gone inside his room. The door was left open, and Gavin couldn't help but frown. "What are you doing?" it was stupid to have to ask that question again but there they were.

For a second all he could hear was fingers on a keyboard before he heard Connor finally sigh. "Come in here." he sounded annoyed.

Gavin didn't need to be told twice though, following after Connor into the room. It was small, and it was dripping with Connors scent in the same way that Gavin's apartment was all him. The room itself wasn't anything special - Connor kept it clean and the only real clutter were the plants he had all around. There was a desk off to the side with some shit on it, but Connor himself was sitting on his bed, laptop in his lap. The pile of blankets had been dropped onto the floor next to the small single bed. Honestly there wasn't much room for more than what was already in there.

"Seriously, it feels like I'm trying to coax a stray cat." Connor had stopped what he was doing on the laptop so he could watch Gavin properly. "It'll help, right?" when Gavin didn't answer right away Connor motioned to the room as a whole with one hand. "All the smell in here, that's how it works, right?"

"What are you talking about?"

A sigh. "You have insomnia, yes?" before an answer could be had, Connor continued. "and this is a strange place. If you have trouble sleeping in your own home, I can't imagine you'd be able to sleep here with the strange smells and sounds."

Gavin went to say something again, only for Connor to interrupt him again. "I assumed all that from your really awful office hours. So knowing that, what happened in Boston? I almost had to wake you up."

How was he supposed to answer that? Connor even waited for him to say something this time, but Gavin didn't have anything to offer. At least nothing that Connor didn't already know by the sounds of it. "And?"

Connor shrugged, focusing on the computer in his lap. "I'm guessing for reasons related to scent, that however I smell is something that helps you relax. I've seen it a lot in the last day or so." he tapped a key a few times before finally looking back up towards Gavin. "Am I right?"

It was impossible to argue with that and he was well past the point of lying about it. Still, Gavin's wolf was wagging his tail, just pleased as shit knowing that Connor was paying enough attention to figure all of that out. With a sigh he nodded and moved into the room, sitting on the floor with his back to Connors bed so he could lean against it. "What are you working on?"

Connors fingers tapped against his keyboard a few more times. "That doesn't sound like sleeping."

"Fuck off."

"I'm trying to catalog what Officer Chen sent me so it makes some sort of sense."

That perked Gavin up. He shimmied up until he was sitting on the bed beside Connor, looking at the laptop screen. "She already sent you shit? Let me see-" he reached, only to have Connor slide the computer out of his reach.

"No."

"Connor-"

And Connor wasn't having any of that. "You could have died tonight, Gavin. Please just... Focus on recovering so I can stop worrying about you. These files will be available tomorrow and we can go over them properly together." He pulled the laptop just a bit more out of reach in case Gavin tried anything.

Gavin's growl was properly ignored.

Connor shifted a little, turning away from where Gavin sat as if to further prove his point which earned an entirely sour huff of annoyance. Gavin dropped back against the bed, legs hanging off the edge, arms crossed against his chest and closed his eyes. Fine, if he couldn't be a part of the data organization, Gavin could find other things to distract himself with.

"What are you doing?"

A sigh, but that was it. Connor kept typing without answering, which just made Gavin growl again, a deep annoyed rumble from his chest at being ignored. He may have been placated, but he could still pretend to be pissed off about it.

"Connor."

"I'm waiting for you to go to sleep."

He huffed at that response, shaking his head a little. What a bitch. It wasn't like he expected much though, Connor was the type to stick to his guns when he'd made a decision and this was no different. Gavin didn't stand a chance against that resolve. Maybe…

"Your brother smells like you do."

The sound of Connors fingers hesitated on the keys of his laptop and Gavin grinned a bit at the reaction. Success. He could almost hear Connors frown as he spoke "I thought as much. We are identical, so it makes sense." There was quiet, not even the sound of fingers against the keyboard, and when Gavin cracked an eye open to see what Connor was up to, the other detective had turned slightly so he could watch Gavin out of the corner of his eye. Almost like he was waiting for something else.

Gavin huffed, more in amusement this time because it really did look like Connor was waiting for him to elaborate on that. "Don't worry. You still smell better, Con." The sound of typing started up again and Gavin thought he heard the quietest snort from his partner, but it still made him smile.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

What woke him up wasn't the uncomfortable position he was in, or the fading scent of Connor, or the lack of his familiar apartment smells, or the lack of unbearable 'feed me' howls from his cat. It was the voices - not yelling, not too close, but definitely not talking at a respectable fucking volume. Gavin grunted, rolling over on the bed to try and ignore the noise and bury back into that faint but so calming scent and go back to sleep. The realization of what the discomfort and the sounds and smells meant hit him at the same time and he sat up pretty quickly. His sleep blurred eyes tried to make sense of where he was, a deep tired frown wrinkling his brow. Connors room, blankets, curled up on the bed.

Riiiiight.

He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned, seriously fucking tempted to just lay back down and go back to sleep, because he was still exhausted and the room smelled so good and he could easily sleep another few hours right where he was without any issues at all and that on its own was a feat. But.

But.

Gavin knew that tone of voice, even if he hadn't been able to make out the words because of the closed door. The unimpressed and irritated tone that Hanks voice took when he was quite fucken literally all of the above. Sheer annoyance forced a growl from him and Gavin pulled himself all the way up, stretching out his shoulder and arms as he moved towards the door. He wasn't sore anymore, could move without any pain, but he felt like a sack of shit. Smelled pretty rank too, if he could judge his own scent. He needed a shower more than anything, but he figured dealing with the crusty old Lieutenant was probably Priority One.

Who knew what kind of bullshit Hank was throwing at Connor, and for no reason at all.

He left Connors room, shutting the door behind him as he went, one hand scratching over his jaw. The hallway had layers of fresh smells for his nose to piece together: Hanks scent being the weakest and least desirable, followed by Connors brother Seth. He did smell like Connor, a deep, potent smell that overpowered any normal scents easily and still smelled faintly like coffee and soap, but then there was Connor. Heavy, pleasant and all consuming. Still slightly sweet, and the lavender was back, mixing in a way that just had Gavin wanting more of it.

By the time he'd stepped into the kitchen, whatever argument he'd been hearing between Connor and Hank had stopped, and Hank shot a silent glare his way that had Gavin immediately annoyed. "Fucking what?"

"Don't you damn 'what' me, Reed."

"I mean it, why're you so fucking mad and loud this early in the morning?" Gavin hadn't even had a coffee, he didn't have the mental capacity to deal with Hank yet. Speaking off coffee, Gavin's nose twitched and he eyed Seth sitting at the kitchen table, and damn. Connor hadn't been kidding about them being identical. Connor had a softer face though, and better eyes, better smell, but besides the obvious little things they were practically the same. Seth had a coffee in his hands, which spurred Gavin into moving towards the counter and the coffee pot there. Fuck yes.

"Because!" Hank was shouting again, but Gavin was pouring himself a cup of coffee now and he honestly didn't care. At least Hank was yelling at him instead of at Connor. "I wake up just to find the damn couch empty? What the hell do you think yo-"

"-Sleeping, obviously."

"Under my fucking roof, Reed!"

Sugar and cream and Gavin was stirring it all together, only half listening to the angry shouts behind him. How did Hank have this kinda energy so early? "I thought that was the point. Sleep here in case I died in the middle of the night. Do you want me to apologize because I didn't?"

Hank threw up his hands, "On the damn couch!"

Gavin wasn't dumb, he knew why Hank was so pissed and it wasn't because of sleeping arrangements. It was because Connor had let a werewolf into his room, where he was assumed to be vulnerable. As if Gavin couldn't control himself. Shit, if anything Gavin was a saint and had shown remarkable control. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd had weird sleeping arrangements because of scent reasons, either. The sheer amount of times he'd barged into his brothers room at night during highschool because he was stressed. The amount of times he'd gone for group runs during pack meetings and woken up in a literal wolf pile. It kind of desensitized you to feeling embarrassed about it.

"Why are you trying to make it weird?" Gavin took a sip of his coffee, turning around so he could actually look at Hank. It was good coffee, probably because Seth had made it - the coffee maker smelt like he'd been touching it, plus it was too fancy a machine for Hank to be able to use properly. "Connor smells good and I was stressed."

From the kitchen table, Seth snorted. "Because that's not weird."

Gavin rolled his eyes at the statement, "Fucking uncultured." and he pretended not to notice the embarrassed flush that had crossed Connors nose. Ugh he was so fucking pretty when he did that.

Hank pinched the bridge of his nose, mumbling something about dying before he had a chance to retire, but the conversation was effectively over. The old man dropped into an empty chair at the table beside Seth and Gavin leaned back against the counter, definitely not admitting that this was kind of entertaining while he drank his coffee. It was a change from his usual quiet mornings in his apartment, alone.

Speaking of, he really had to fucking go home. The cat was going to start a revolution if he was gone for too much longer, and he really needed a shower, and a change of clothes. He could shower here... But then he'd have to get into the same grungy, blood and drool crusty clothes and it was already disgusting. He finished his coffee quick enough, washed the empty cup, before running into the first obstacle of the morning.

"Con, where'd you put my keys?"

That seemed to distract Connor from something he was saying to his brother - Gavin was pretty sure he'd heard Seth snigger at the nickname before Connor focused on him. "You're heading home?"

"Yep. Then you're gonna let me see those fucking files Tina sent you."

Hank rolled his eyes when Connor smiled. "Can I drive?" and before Gavin could argue the very idea that Connor was going with him, the detective was already countering the unsaid argument with a cheerful "You can read while I drive."

The shithead knew that Gavin really wanted to read those reports, not to mention the idea of having Connor back inside his apartment was very, very tempting. Gavin submitted embarrassingly fast to his partner's request. "Alright, let's go." and he tracked every step he took across the kitchen until he disapeared up the hallway presumably to collect his work things. When Connor was gone, Gavin realized that Hank was glaring at him from the kitchen table.

"What?"

It was Seth that answered instead of the old man. He might have shared Connor's pretty face, but he scowled like Hank did. "That's disgustingly obvious."

Gavin huffed, rolling his eyes. "Well aren't you a fucking charmer."

It didn't matter if Seth countered that, because Connor was back and ready, and honestly Gavin couldn't have left the Anderson house any sooner. As planned, he read while Connor drove them, and even if the information was pretty much what he'd expected, it was nice to get a recap since his memory of the house and dual murders inside were skewed by his fight with the half shifted werewolf. Once they got to the precinct, Gavin would have to upload all the photos he'd taken before the fight, too, as evidence, and then they'd have to sit around and wait for lab results on DNA tests for the victims and the dead werewolf.

If only he could make that go faster. Would Fowler put a rush on the results if they asked? He doubted it, but now that they were up to multiple murders, the Captain might be a bit more willing to help out. Three murders and a dead werewolf and this was starting to look like something high priority. Gavin didn't think Captain Fowler could ignore it, and with that wolf, the Pack would be itching for a quick resolution.

They were walking into Gavin's building when he finally did say something, and he was pretty sure Connor had already thought about it. "How likely do you think it'll be, scale of 1 to 10, that Fowler will put a rush on these results?"

"The DNA tests?" Connor hummed as he followed Gavin up the stairs until they reached the third floor. "A three, maybe? I'm still new so I'm not too sure. Most conversations I've had with the Captain have been ones where I'm in trouble for letting you do what you want." He hesitated a moment though, stepping into the third floor hallway. "Everything considered, I think it depends on how mad the Detroit Pack will be about last night. I can't imagine them being okay with us killing one of their own, even if he was... Uhm…"

That was true enough. Gavin paused at the top steps for half a second before he kept going, only the regular smells of the third floor greeting his nose when they'd entered the hall. For the record, nothing had ever happened in the hallway outside of his apartment in the four years he'd lived there but he always double checked the smells - he'd been doing that since highschool. A nervous twitch, or something.

He unlocked the door, letting Connor inside and they were instantly bombarded with howls and yowls from the grey Maine coon cat. Gilbert rushed the door, rubbing his big fluffy body against any part of them he could reach, the meowls of abandonment sounding loudly.

Connor scooped the needy cat up off the ground quickly enough. "I'll take care of him while you do your thing."

Gavin didn't need to be told twice. He left the two of them in favor of a shower and new clothes and he didn't fucking rush any of it. The shower was hot and the water felt way too fucking good, even on the parts of him that weren't quite done healing yet, like that stomach scratch. It was a fresh looking pink scar now, but still tight when he moved and itchy, and the water was soothing. He could have stayed for hours just soaking, but pushed himself out of it after a too fucking short fifteen minutes. Fresh clothes felt pretty amazing too after spending the night in the shit he'd been wearing. A shirt that wasn't full of bite holes or crusty with werewolf drool - who knew?

When he was finally done and feeling fresh, Gavin made his way into the kitchen intent on finding a snack before they left, scratching a hand through his hair to try and tame it. What he ended up doing was just leaning against the island, watching. Connor was in the living room, laying across the couch with Gilbert across his chest, both hands petting down the cat gently.

The air was the same as it'd been yesterday, so heavy and full of Gavin scent, and the way it mixed with Connors… It was still so easy to get lost in and for a minute, he did. The amount of things he'd give up just to continue what he'd almost started on that couch yesterday, and it was the thought of work that stopped him from toying with those thoughts. There was way too much to do right now, and kissing Connor wasn't a priority, even if he really fucken wanted to. He could keep him right here so his scent could permeate through the entire apartment, so that whatever Gavin touched all he'd be able to smell would be that intoxicating mix of them both. He could cover Connor in his own scent, too, so that everyone would know that -

Gavin dropped his forehead against the cold Island counter a bit too hard, a frustrated growl rolling from him, but that thought process had been successfully derailed. The leather couch squeaked as Connor moved on it. Gavin really had to stop inviting Con into his house because this was getting way too hard to resist and ignore. He was going to do something stupid soon, had already almost done something stupid.

Priorities. Focus, Gavin.

"Do you know where my wallet and phone went?" they were important tools, and had been in the pockets of the jacket the werewolf had wrecked last night. He hadn't been thinking about collecting his things at the time. Glancing up, he caught Connor watching him from the couch with the Maine Coon sitting in his lap and once again, Gavin found himself so jealous of that stupid cat.

"I left them in your car." Connor's frown was easy to spot; easy to read as concern. The question wasn't welcome though, because Gavin did not want to answer it. "Are you okay?"

Honestly what the fuck was he supposed to say to that? "Yeah." He wasn't going to voice any of his thoughts, not a chance. How did you tell your work partner that you wanted to cover them in your scent so that everyone knew that he was Gavin's? Hell he'd done it once and that had been the worst - the best - had made it so much fucking harder to ignore Connor. "Can we go?"

"Yeah, okay."

Gavin drove this time because he needed the distraction, and like Connor had said, he found his wallet and phone in the glove box of the car before they left. They were a few blocks away from the precinct when Connor frowned, staring at his phone after it had pinged loudly.

"What?"

A curious hum from Connor before he spoke. "Officer Chen wants me to distract you from going into the precinct."

That was strange. Why would Tina want to stall him? "Did she say why?" Gavin glanced away from the road for a second to look at the phone message Connor held up for him to see, which just told Con not to let Gavin inside the building. He couldn't help the huff, because why the hell would Tina want to keep him out of the building? "Is Fowler pissed?" But why would the Captain be mad?

Right, so maybe there were a few reasons for it, but they'd all been out of his control. It wasn't like Gavin had gone and done anything bad, either. He hadn't broken any rules in the last 24 hours, had he? Would Fowler have already gotten word from the Pack? That seemed weird and quick, and besides Gavin, who would have told them about the dead werewolf? It didn't make any sense.

With the car parked, Gavin stopped in front of the side door into the precinct, waiting for Connor to do something. When he didn't, he pulled open the door for him. "Not gonna stop me?"

Connor laughed at the question. "What could I do to stop you?"

Oh, Gavin could think of a few things that would keep him mighty distracted but he fucken was not about to say or think about those things. Connor walked in first and Gavin fell in behind him and he was halfway up the hallway heading towards the bullpen when the smell hit his nose.

Blood.

Not a lot and certainly not fresh, but it was enough for him to stop midstep and scent the air a bit more. Connor hesitated a few paces ahead when he realized Gavin wasn't following him anymore, and an officer sidestepped them both on his way down the hall and Gavin was positive that was the dirtiest look he'd gotten from some random officer in a real fucking long time. Yeah, okay, Gavin wasn't a likable guy, but that was old news.

Something wasn't right.

Instinct had him putting Connor behind him when he moved up the hallway, and stepping into the open desk area of the precinct, he heard Tina cuss loudly when she spotted him and the smell of blood got thicker. It wasn't human, that was a relief, sort of.

Tina pointed towards Connor, red rag in her hand dripping. "You were supposed to keep him outside! We're trying to clean it up-" she was standing about the same spot as where Gavin's desk was, with Hank beside her. Both of them looked like they were cleaning something up.

Connor didn't move when he did, but at the moment Gavin didn't care. He knew exactly what the fuck was going on, and coming up to his desk he wasn't surprised at all to find it splattered with streaks of red - left over from what Tina and Hank had yet to clean up. Animal blood by the smell of it. Old, probably from a butcher shop this morning. The words carved into and written onto the desk itself were sloppy and not very surprising.

Mutt

Furrfucker

Shitsniffer

"Leave it." He somehow managed to bite back the growl before it slipped out and Tina frowned at him and his lack of an outburst. Before she managed to say anything he cut her off with a quick wave of his hand. "Tina. It's fine." It wasn't, he knew that, but what was he supposed to do? He wasn't going to be pissed off about it because that's exactly what they wanted - to see a display that proved them right. Sure he was fucking going feral in his head, who the fuck thought they could get away with something like this? Did they not know who they were fucking with? He was going to split some fucking heads in a few hours when this died down and he already knew where to go.

Fucking amateurs. Did they think spreading around a bit of pigs blood was going to hide the evidence? What a fucking joke. Day old blood was so much less potent to his nose and it definitely didn't fucking mask the stench of three rats lingering around his desk.

"The hell it is-" Hank argued in Tina's place when she went silent, and this time, Gavin couldn't swallow his growl. The sound earned a glare from the old man, "Even I know this is juvenile."

"I said it's fucking fine." This time, Gavin couldn't bite back his anger, but it served to shut Hank up. The Lieutenant shook his head, nudging Tina with his elbow to get her attention.

"Let's go clean up a bit. Reed, I'll talk to Fowler-"

"Don't bother." Gavin dropped into his chair, small blessings that it was still clean. At some point Connor had come around and he was helping Tina with a few of the soiled rags they'd been using to try and clean up with, but Gavin refused to let them touch anything else on the desk. Let it all rot here for all he cared. He'd seen this type of racism pulled off better by fucking highschoolers.

How could he have fucken forgotten about last night? You couldn't deal with a werewolf like he had and not expected someone to figure it out. Fuck. He had spent literal years building and living this lie, and it was gone. He'd lied to his friends to keep this secret for fuck sake. Thank God Tina was a fucking Saint, but Chris? Chris had dealt with some wolf shit on his patrols more than once and Gavin really wasn't sure how the guy would handle this bit of news. He could handle dumbass officers thinking they were so creative in their shitty way of trying to bully him, but could he handle a friend acting differently?

It took a few minutes to calm down enough to manage actual thought beyond being pissed the fuck off and by then, Hank was back at his desk with Connor, and Tina was making her way over. He didn't know what she wanted him to say.

"Gavin."

He grunted in response, it was all he could manage.

"What are you going to do?"

That was a good question. They probably expected him to complain to the Captain, cry about how unfair it was, and wouldn't that spur them on? Those insignificant little bastard had forgotten the most important thing though, that werewolf or not, he was still Gavin fucking Reed and if they thought he was going to sit back and take this kind of shit from a couple of petty officers, they were dead wrong.

"I'm gonna fucking corner each on of these asshole and remind them who I am."

He didn't miss the twitch of a smile on her lips. "I take it that means you know who did it?"

Gavin grunted in response. Of fucking course he did. "And I'm going to clean my desk with their faces. Fucking idiots." Honestly. They were supposed to be police officers. They were supposed to be above this shit. Gavin had a job to do, murders to solve. Didn't these assholes have petty crimes to figure out or criminals to deal with? Jesus fucking christ.

Tina sighed, shaking her head. She knocked her fist on a clean part of his desk, vying for his attention and when he gave it to her, she leveled him with a look. "Listen. You're off the hook again, because of all this bullshit," she waved her hand over the general state of his desk as if he hadn't noticed it all yet. "but don't think we aren't having a heart to heart about your shitty secrets. Okay?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Good."

Chapter Text

It took an hour to compile and file the proper paperwork for a rush on the DNA results of the werewolf in the morgue and they did it at Connors desk. Gavin was too stubborn to clean up his own and no one had dared to ask him about it beyond the conversation he'd had with Tina earlier. Let the smell make the whole precinct smell like rot, he didn't fucking care. Not right now, anyway. The anger was still very potent, and dealing with the mess, or the people responsible, would just set him off worse than what he was already.

So he sat on Connors empty desk - there hadn't been much time for Connor to decorate it yet since he'd been working with Gavin from day one. It left a lot of space for Gavin to sit, but it was hard to focus on the work when Gavin could feel eyes watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled every twenty seconds as someone different spent a hell of a lot of time glaring at him from somewhere in the precinct.

It made him anxious. It made him constantly have to bite back a growl when someone walked too close. He was on edge, and it was hard to focus on anything except that feeling of being watched, and the protective instincts that were bubbling through his veins. He couldn't sit here waiting for test results with nothing else to do, it was going to drive him crazy.

Trying to focus on reading over witness and neighbourhood statements while being constantly aware of every single smell that came too close to Connors desk didn't make for a very productive morning. That, and the anxiety was so distracting. Connor was nearby, but not close enough by any means. He couldn't sit on the desk and be close enough, and he was too stubborn to go and grab his own chair.

The sudden sound of his cellphone was a momentary blessing - a distraction that Gavin desperately needed right now less he get up and just sit in Connors lap. He answered, holding the phone up to his ear and didn't have to say anything before the familiar voice on the other line was talking.

°I thought the point of getting you assigned to this case was to avoid unnecessary deaths?°

Gavin couldn't swallow the growl that rolled out at that question. It hadn't been their fault. "Didn't have a choice. Pretty quick to judge when you weren't fucking there."

°Who was it?°

"I don't know." Gavin shook his head, even though he knew the Beta couldn't see it. "Couldn't smell anything, and he was pretty fucking twisted up. It was weird as hell, he shifted more than Tyler did before. Scary shit."

It was quiet on the other end of the line, beside some shuffling around, probably Allen in his office, before the other wolf finally spoke. °I'll let the pack know as soon as we have more information. The DNA results?°

"Not for another few hours, maybe longer."

°Hm.° It was quiet again and Connor made a curious face at Gavin, as if asking a question - only to have Gavin wave off any concern. Finally, the SWAT Captain sighed. °It's your investigation, Reed. What do you want to do?°

"..." He sighed, hearing the unsaid questions.

By the books or not.

They could wait, and wait and wait. It could take a few hours or a few days for the information to get back to them. Did they have that much time to sit on their hands? Maybe something would come up - maybe Tyler Morgan would do something and they'd finally have a lead, but until they figured out who that werewolf was, and who those dead people were, the two of them were at a standstill. Plus, there was the fiasco of having Holly Turner still missing, presumably kidnapped…

Connor was watching him quietly, having stopped doing the paperwork shit on the terminal in front of him. Gavin would probably end up getting into trouble again if he didn't follow the rules, but when had that ever stopped him? It wasn't like he had to hide it anymore.

"Can you get us downstairs? I'll handle it."

°Give me half an hour.°

The phone clicked and Gavin slid it on the desk with a sigh. Hank was missing from his desk space nearby, but he wasn't gone completely - probably in the break room, and there wasn't anyone else nearby to overhear anything he could say, so Gavin leaned forward a little, watching his partner. "Allen's gonna get me into the morgue so we can figure out who this werewolf was."

"Alright." Connor nodded. "It makes the most sense, and I still don't agree with what the Captain said about not using you to your full potential."

What? When had Fowler ever said that?

Connor shook his head at the confused look Gavin gave him. "Do you not read between the lines? Or listen at all when people talk down to you?"

"I do. Sometimes." he still didn't know what Con was trying to get at.

"The other day when we were in the Captain's office after the school incident with Amber. Captain Fowler specifically told you that we had K9 officers to do things like smelling." Connor waited a minute, like he was giving Gavin time to remember and process that transaction of words. "I know it bothered you, because it bothered me. Why would we limit ourselves like that? If you can go sniffing around and get the same results in five minutes that a 2 day DNA test can give us, then go do it."

God, it was reasons like this that made Gavin absolutely fucking adore his partner, and he really didn't need any more reasons to fall for him more than he already had. "Yeah. Okay." He didn't know what to say besides just agreeing with Connor, and after a moment he frowned. "Fowler won't like it." He didn't think knowing that would change Connors mind, but the guy was still relatively new to the precinct and the last thing Gavin wanted to do was get his partner in more trouble.

And that just had Connor rolling his eyes. The absolute annoyance coming off of him was palpable and Gavin couldn't help but grin. "If we play our cards right," God, even Connors voice sounded annoyed as shit right now. "Captain Fowler will find out we followed a lead after the DNA results come in and we can just pretend we simply acted fast."

Gavin couldn't stop grinning. He couldn't help it, because his partner was something else. It wasn't like Connor was disrespecting the rules, it was that Connor acknowledged the rules as being dumb and adjusting accordingly. "Yeah, okay." Gavin repeated his earlier agreement with a bit more energy this time before he slipped off the desk.

They found Allen in the basement hallway, exactly where he was supposed to be. The SWAT Captain glanced their way, eyeing Gavin, before looking Connor over quickly. "You didn't say you were bringing your partner."

"Problem?"

Allen shrugged, unphased by Gavin's usual lack of manners. Instead, he reached out a hand like he was going to offer it to Connor, before pulling it back as if thinking twice about it, the smallest flare of his nose barely noticeable. "We haven't met yet. Benjamin Allen, SWAT Captain, pack Beta, I'm sure Reeds told you enough about it."

"Yes. Connor Anderson. It's good to finally meet you, Captain."

"Anderson, huh? Like the lieutenant?"

Gavin rolled his eyes. They weren't in the basement for a friendly chit chat. He was trying to ignore the anxiousness that had started to twist in his gut for no reason. He wanted to get this shit done and over with, before he got lost in his own insecurities. Gavin had seen it - how Allen had stopped himself from shaking Connors hand, and he appreciated it. It saved him from getting stupidly mad like the last time another wolf had touched Connor. Except this time he wouldn't have been just mad about it. Ben Allen was the better werewolf and Gavin knew it. That quiet, ever present raw primal instinct in the back of his mind kept reminding him. "Did you get rid of the Coroner or not?" Gavin kept his voice low, hands dug deep in the pockets of his hoodie.

Allen huffed, shaking his head at the impatient question. "Who do you think I am? We've got half an hour."

"Won't take that long."

Captain Allen moved first, pulling the heavy door to the morgue open before he paused, glancing towards Connor. "Detective Anderson." When Connor looked at the SWAT Captain curiously, Allen cleared his throat. "Stay out here." and he disappeared inside the room.

Before Connor could argue, Gavin huffed, pulling his hands from his pockets so he could cross them tight over his chest. "Yeah, it might be for the best. Shouldn't take too long." he knew his partner wasn't going to like it, but that was just the way it was gonna go today. Connor was going to be annoyed, but what the fuck was he supposed to do about it?

Gavin made sure to take a last look down the hallway just to make sure no one was around to bother Connor while he waited. It smelt and sounded very much empty besides their own smells and the lingering smell of the Coroner. Inside, the morgue was pretty much what you'd expect. A mini doctor's office fully equipped with some body sized freezers and all the equipment anyone would need for cutting dudes open. It was actually good timing on their part, seeing as the coroner hadn't gotten a chance to put the most recent corpse away yet.

Everything in the room smelled clean - bleach, antiseptics, there wasn't a trace of blood here. Cleaning products this stronge stung his nose, but they weren't blinding like blood was. Allen was heading towards the body, his nose twitching with the same reaction to the smells as Gavin was.

"I heard about the incident at your desk, Gavin."

Well fuck. Word traveled fast in this shit hole of a precinct, didn't it? "Yeah, and?" Gavin buried his hands inside the pockets of his sweater, stepping up beside the table the werewolfs body was laying on, covered by a white sheet to keep its privacy and modesty. A little late now, everything considered. "You gonna do something about it?"

That made Allen laugh as he stepped around the table to stand at the other side. "No. You dug this hole for yourself. I told you when you started that it would be worse if you hid it." He pulled at the sheet, slowly revealing the beast's head to the light. "Why would I get involved?"

Gavin rolled his eyes and tugged the sheet down the rest of the way, stopping at the waist. "I don't want you shoving your annoying nose into my business anyways."

They got a much better look at the twisted thing laying dead under the bright lights and it was still as horrific as the night before. Even worse now that Gavin could see it properly under all the fluorescents. He was human, for the most part, with coarse black furr sprouting from his limbs, claws on his hands, and a maw that was still human but distorted and half shifted up his entire face. Thick fangs in his mouth that Gavin could still feel digging into his arm and shoulder. It made it extremely hard to see any defining facial features. Three gunshot wounds to the chest and side looked like its only injury besides the fucking awful partial shifting, and the sewn up scars from the autopsy.

"This isn't something I've seen before." Allen's voice was low and focused.

"Did you think I was fucking lying?" Gavin snorted, glaring over at Captain Allen with a sharp growl that he couldn't bite back. It was stupid of him to start distrusting Gavin now, after everything.

"No, it's not that…"

Allen was focused on the body, forcing Gavin to look at it longer than he wanted to. The fight was still fresh in his mind, the accidental poisoning, too. Had it been an accident or had that been part of the plan, too?

Physically, there were no features on the body that stood out to Gavin, or Allen by the look of that frown. No physical trait to tell them who this guy had been. Not that anything left was recognizable in this twisted form. Neither of them recognized this wolf by looking at him, but they hadn't come here expecting to recognize this guy with their eyes.

Allen shook his head slowly, still focused on the corpse. "Partial shifting just isn't something feasible, so I've never had to think about what it would look like. Seeing this mess I get why it's impossible."

Gavin sighed. "It looks fucking painful." shifting already hurt more than anyone knew, but this definitely looked like a different sort of pain. Gavin huffed another loud sigh. He was done with this place, and this body. "Let's get this over with." He grabbed the corpse's wrist and lifted it up, leaning forward enough to sniff a few times. Allen was still looking the half shifted werewolf over, but copied the action with the body's other hand, frowning the same time Gavin did. His nose twitched - the werewolf had been scrubbed clean and doused with enough chemicals during the autopsy that it was hard to get a good scent.

Allen seemed to be having just as much of an issue with the scenting. "It's there, but it's faint." He mumbled with a frown, probably having come to the same conclusion that Gavin had.

Gavin dropped the corpse's wrist with a growl. He did not want to get any closer to this thing, but it didn't look like he had a fucking choice. "Shit." he took a breath, steeled his resolve, before leaning against the table and trying to scent the body closer to the neck and head. He hated it, being this close, he could smell the death underneath the cleaners but something else itched Gavin's brain at the smell. Recognition? "Wait."

When Gavin drew back, Allen leaned in and took a few sniffs before straightening up with a curious frown. "I smell it too. Who is this?" he was confused, and for good measure. There was enough recognition to hit their brains, but not enough to think of a face or a name. That was frustrating.

That tickle in his brain told him pack, which wasn't too much of a surprise considering that Tyler Morgan was also technically part of the Detroit pack. There was something else though. Something more familiar than that. Gavin took a couple more deep breaths through his nose before pulling back completely. He knew this smell, it was familiar but not something he'd scented recently. Probably not in years. Who?

He had his phone out of his pocket and was already scrolling through the registry when Allen stepped up beside him. He didn't say a word, just watched him scroll through the list of names. It didn't take long before Gavin's thumb stopped the scroll and he moved up a few names before his thumb pressed the right one.

"Jasper Hines." Allen read the name out loud with a growl.

"Shit." Came the annoyed growl from Gavin. He felt Allen take his phone and with both hands free, he pulled the sheet slowly back up to cover the body. Did this change anything in the investigation?

Allen's voice broke the silence in the morgue. "He dropped off the map five years ago. Lost his job, a divorce." The Captain's sigh was understandable. This really fucking complicated things and they both knew it. "How did we miss this?"

Nodding, Gavin took back his phone and dropped it back into his pocket. He took another look at the covered body laying on the table beside them with a frown, not sure exactly what to feel. What the hell was going on to be driving werewolves to have this kind of drastic reaction? Gavin didn't know Tyler, but he knew Jasper - both of them did. Maybe not recently, but he still knew the guy. He'd talked to him enough to understand where his head was at and Jasper had a good head on his shoulders. He was smart so what the fuck had happened to him?

"You need to figure this out, Gavin." the urgency was there in Allen's voice, but what the fuck was he supposed to do?

"I fucking know that, okay? What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" Gavin couldn't stop his growl at the implication that he wasn't trying his fucking best out there, and Allen's counter growl was maybe a bit louder, a bit bolder and it spooked the wolf inside of Gavin just enough. He bit back his irritation, shaking his head with more of a frustrated growl this time. "Don't tell your fucking brother I'm coming, alright?"

Allen sighed, shaking his head as he scratched a finger against his temple. "I'll tell him he needs to let you in to talk. This is important."

Gavin rolled his eyes. "You're fucking right it is. Jasper wasn't the kind of guy who'd take this Exo drug. He took peoples shit like the rest of us but he was so fucking proud." He went for the door, only to hesitate when Allen sighed.

"People change, Gavin."

Bullshit. Not that much.

////////°°//////// °°////////

Connor was annoyed at being left out again, but he supposed there was nothing to be done. It hadn't been Gavin who'd asked him to stay out of it, it had been the Beta; Captain Allen. Connor had no rank in the Detroit pack, or a high enough rank in the DPD to argue with that, so he'd obliged. It didn't mean he wasn't annoyed about it.

With nothing to do but wait, he leaned back against the cold basement wall with a sigh and did as he was told. He could have gone back upstairs to finish some paperwork, or gone to find Hank, but what if he missed some great revelation by not being right where Gavin had left him?

That was an irritating thought.

Was he just supposed to wait around while his partner managed to do all the work every single time something came up? Another sigh, and Connor had to remind himself again that it wasn't Gavin who'd asked him not to go into the Coroner's office, it had been the SWAT Captain. If he thought about it, he could understand why that was. It would have been a little weird to have someone watch while they scented a body.

It was barely a few minutes after the Coroner's office door had shut tight behind the two werewolves that the sound of footsteps echoed into the hallways. There were voices, muffled at first, but grew louder with each step until a group of blue clad officers rounded the corner, all three of them stopping at the end of the hallway when they spotted Connor.

Of course, Connor didn't recognize any of the officers. He hadn't had much time since his transfer to the 7th to really speak and mingle with anyone in the precinct so it wasn't a surprise. It also didn't surprise him when they whispered quietly between themselves once they'd spotted him.

Connor wasn't stupid. He was still brand new to the 7th precinct, he was young for his position, and he was partnered with a suddenly very popular Detective. As Hank had explained to him prior to meeting Gavin Reed, the Detective wasn't the most well liked because of his bull headed, ambitious attitude (putting it lightly). Pair that with being very recently outed as a werewolf… Connor was sure he knew exactly what to expect from these officers, especially with the way the one was smiling.

"Officers." Connor greeted politely with a nod of his head, hoping that they'd just go on with their business and leave him alone. It was too much to hope for.

The one officer - light brown hair under his hat, dark eyes, and a shit eating smirk stretching across his face, spoke first as they approached. "What, I didn't know you were allowed to let your dog off its leash." The two others laughed at the joke, which had Connor trying to figure out how any of these men had gotten this far in their careers. It wasn't even a good insult, if he was being critical about it.

Connor tried his best to hide the blatant irritation in his sigh. He wasn't even mad about this confrontation, he was just over it already. Annoyed that it even had to happen. "Need I remind you of the non-discrimination clause in your contracts?" It was disgusting that he had to remind Police Officers how to be decent human beings.

The officer on the left was a bit older than the other two, probably in his early 50s and sporting greying hair and age lines on his face, and he nudged his friend with his elbow when Connor spoke. "I told you. Young and pretty like that? He's definitely fucking the halfbreed."

This time, Connor couldn't hide the annoyance he felt and he rolled his eyes. There was a good chance one or all of these men were responsible for vandalizing Gavin's desk earlier. "That's very original." He was trying not to bait them, but he'd heard comments like this before. Connor had reached Detective rank quite fast in all honesty, and most people believed that he'd either done lewd favors for it, or because his father was a Police Lieutenant. Both were wrong, and the implications of either only served to make him mad. "Can I help you three with anything?"

"Come on, don't be a brat Detective Anderson." The one leading the group smiled in a way that made Connors skin crawl, and the way he looked at him from head to toe was absolutely disgusting. "We were just wondering, if you let a dog mount you for a promotion, what'll you let us do?"

There were a few options available to him at the moment. The first, he was already doing - committing to memory the badge numbers these idiots brazenly displayed clipped onto their uniform pockets so he could file an official report with Captain Fowler later. The second…. He could take care of them himself, put them in their place and send them on their way. It wouldn't be too complicated or strenuous, he wouldn't even have to hurt them. Much.

However, if Connor was being completely honest with himself right now, distracting these dirtbags until Gavin was finished in the Coroner's office was a much better idea. That way, he'd have the pleasure of watching the show. Because there would be one. Gavin had said himself, probably about a week ago, and embarrassed as sin as he said it, that werewolves were possessive. A fact that Connor had seen proven over and over again during the last few days. It wasn't even ten minutes ago that Captain Allen had refrained from shaking his hand because of that very reason.

"Excuse me?" He was going to play dumb, let them bury themselves in the hole they were digging. Connor could even sound like he was a little offended by the disgusting remark. It wasn't a lie, he was actually very offended, but as he'd mused earlier, this wasn't the first time someone had accused him of these things. "Are you disgusting like this with everyone who starts working here, or am I just lucky?"

A loud laugh from the one who hadn't spoken yet and he took a step forward, inching his way into Connors personal space. This one was a few inches shorter than the other two and probably balding judging by the lack of hair from under his hat. "C'mon Detective. Just a couple'a questions, no harm done."

Even the way they said his title was insulting. Mocking. They had absolutely zero respect for him, or his rank.

Connor felt his fists tightening at his side, but he refused to act more than he already had. The three of them were well on their way to completely boxing him in against the wall, not that he was worried about it at all. "I likely have very little choice in the matter." The response was mumbled, but he doubted very much that the three officers were even listening to him.

"There's a good sport." The man in the middle leaned forward a little, and Connor would have stepped back in reaction to the move but he was already against the wall. Trapped, or so they'd like to think. "Did Reed pick you up before or after your transfer? Makes sense he'd find a pliant bitch."

The older one laughed, adding his own bit to the conversation, not that it was adding anything at all. "Didn't think the Lieutenant had it in him to raise a dogfucker."

Connor crossed his arms, not able to hold in his frown this time at the names. How long did it take to sniff a dead body? "Have you been holding onto those insults since middle school?"

The officer in the middle - the one leading the other two, pushed a hand against the wall above Connors shoulder and leaned in close. He huffed in some kind of twisted amusement, and it took quite a bit of willpower for Connor not to react to the close proximity of the other man.

"Figured you'd have some bite, Anderson. How's it feel following a mongrel? You get a good taste of being a traitor to your own God damn race?"

Connor was a millisecond away from ending this man's whole career by putting his face through the wall - and it would have been so well deserved and satisfying to do, repercussions and all. The chance never came. The three officers were distracted by the door to the Coroner's office being pushed open suddenly and out walked Gavin followed by Captain Allen. Both of them hesitated, before a dangerous growl rumbled through the hallway. It was a half a second before Allen managed to grab hold of Gavin's forearm, holding him back when he tried to advance.

"Officers-" Allen started to say, but his words were effectively overruled by Gavin's louder growl.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

Connor would have been enjoying the display, if he wasn't so preoccupied by what he'd just witnessed. That traitor mindset these officers shared was so archaic and dangerous, especially when it was shared by members of the Police force. As unfortunate as it was, the name calling and general bad behaviour thrown at Gavin and now Connor was just that - these officers wouldn't take it further than making them uncomfortable because they didn't want to lose their jobs. The Police force was still predominantly masculine, and hazings like this happened, as unfortunate as it was. But set these men out on the streets of Detroit daily and the harm they could cause was detrimental.

The three officers took a few sudden steps back and away from him when Gavin growled his warning and Connor had no doubt that they were trying to think of a way to talk themselves out of this bit of trouble, as if they hadn't done anything wrong. Naturally, Connor really hated playing the part of damsel in distress mainly because he was far, far from being in distress, but sometimes it was worth it. He was going to have a very long talk with Captain Fowler very, very soon.

All three men stuttered out some variation of Gavin's name and title quickly, like acknowledging him would ease that tangible anger. The vicious sounding growl wasn't something they were used to hearing, it seemed. As expected, their hate didn't stem from anything other than being different. They were just angry to be angry, because there was someone new that they didn't like. As with most of the racism in the world, it shifted quickly when something better came up.

Captain Allen let go of Gavin's arm after a moment, letting him loose on the three officers, and Gavin stalked forward, every bit a predator circling his prey.

The oldest of the three officers raised both hands to try and ease that prowling wolf. "We were just having a chat, y'know. Nothing crazy."

"Yeah-yeah!" Their 'Leader' was quick to agree with that, and Connor leaned more of his weight back against the wall, watching. "He's been busy with you no one's had a chance to feel him out yet."

They really were all talk. That sharp confidence the three of them had moments earlier when they thought they'd outnumbered Connor was gone, as if it had never been there. He watched Allen move up beside him, and the Beta had his eyes on Gavin without interrupting him. Connor was sure that if his partner got too riled up, Allen would step in and stop it from escalating. It did say a lot about the guy to see him let Gavin just go off like this though. Connor figured that the SWAT Captain had his own fair share of shit to deal with.

Another growl from Gavin effectively shut up all three officers. "If my desk isn't fucking sparkling when I come in tomorrow, I'll find all three of you, and it'll be the last fucking time you're found."

Ah, that's what he'd thought. They were responsible for the mess this morning. At least one of them anyway, judging by the single look of panic crossing the shorter man's face. It didn't mean they weren't all involved in some other way, and Connor would bet money they'd all talked about it at some point between last night and this morning.

The brunette in the middle raised his hands, trying his hardest to placate a wild animal. "Reed, c'mon man, we were just trying to get a little rise outta the kid-"

"-Detective Anderson."

The man swallowed at the growled correction, and for a second Connor felt a twinge of pride hearing how firm Gavin was in making sure someone respected his rank. Oh, that was a new feeling.

"R-right, I meant Detective Anderson. We were just -"

"If I see any one of you look at Detective Anderson, walk in his general direction, or find you anywhere within 50 feet of him at any given time, I'll find you, and it'll be the last time anyone finds you." Gavin repeated his earlier threat and all three men agreed with him without any hesitation. When he was sure they understood that he meant his threats, Gavin turned away from them, moving so he was standing by Connor and Captain Allen with hands shoved deep in his pockets.

As soon as the attention on them was gone, all three officers turned and retreated down the hallway without so much as a glance back towards them, and Connor watched them until they rounded the corner back up the stairs. It was quiet between the three of them for a moment, until Connor sighed and spoke. "That was a reserved reaction." He had been expecting something a little more energetic, after all. Connor could tell that Gavin wasn't calm despite how he was acting: the little twitches of his fingers that he had tried to hide by shoving them in his pockets, how he was rolling his shoulder. There was quite a bit of anxious energy coming off of him, and Connor was very surprised by the distance he was keeping. Normally, Gavin would have been right in Connors personal space.

Gavin huffed, rolling his eyes at the sudden accusation. "And what, let this guy butt in to fucken stop me? That'd give them more fucking fuel to work with." he glanced at Allen like he was accusing him of something before his eyes settled on Connor, focused and intense. "Besides, I figure you got what you needed from them, right? It'll probably mean more if a complaint came from you."

That bubbling pride came back with a vengeance and he couldn't help the twitch of a smile. Connor did look away, completely not able to hold that kind of intense eye contact for long, especially with his partner. "Of course." Gavin just trusted him to do things. Gavin trusted him to have gotten badge numbers from all three of those men. Without having to ask or talk about it, just an automatic kind of trust in him.

Connor was giddy and it was so, so stupid.

Chapter Text

Captain Fowler hadn’t gotten back to his office yet, which left both Gavin and Connor toiling through the newfound information in relative silence. Connor was scrolling through the registry information on Jasper Hines that Gavin had passed to him, and Gavin was sitting nearby trying to decide how he was supposed to handle these upcoming visits. He'd grabbed his chair from his desk so he didn't have to sit on Connors desk this time, and his leg kicked annoyingly against the ground as he sat, way too much anxious energy inside him with no way of expelling it.

Connor shifted in his chair, and Gavin was momentarily distracted by the movement. He shifted a bit on his own chair and wheeled it a little closer to the other detective, leaning an elbow against the chair's armrest as he watched him. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” Connor mumbled quietly at the question, completely focused on the phone in his hands. His thumb brushed across the screen as he scrolled past another paragraph of information, and Gavin watched his finger move, so easily hypnotized by them.

Gavin shifted his focus from Connors fingers to his face, pushing his chair another few inches closer to his partner. “I can’t imagine those assholes were saying anything good to you, so...”

That stole Connors attention. He glanced up from the phone and eyed Gavin curiously, and it made the Detective nervous when he didn't say anything right away. “They weren’t. But it isn't like I haven't heard things like that before." Connor frowned. "Sort of.” His brow furrowed, nose scrunching a little. “I haven't been called a traitor before. That was an entirely new experience.”

“Assholes.” Gavin growled out the word, annoyed, and wheeled his chair right up against the side of Connors chair. He didn't think that was the only thing they’d said to Connor, but he didn't exactly want to ask about it. Gavin had been pretty well behaved earlier with those Jackasses but he wasn't sure he could hold himself back again if it came down to it.

“It is what it is.” Connor sighed, handing Gavin back his phone, fingers tapping at the arm of his chair. He hadn't reacted at all to Gavins close proximity, probably used to it now. “This guy here, Jasper, he sounds like he hit a wall and everything just crumbled around him, but it doesn't give a cause.”

Gavin nodded, “Yeah. Hopefully the ex-wife knows something.” He watched Connor as he got up off the chair, but didn't make a move to follow. Con was right about that. In writing, on the registry, it looked like Jasper had everything going for him. He had a good job, a family. It was more than the guy had had back when Gavin had known him.

Jasper in highschool hadn't come from a good family. He was a bred werewolf, but his parents were rough, old school in a way. He'd dealt with a lot of shit. Gavin figured this whole life ehed had before it fell apart had been something Jasper had worked really hard to get for himself. It was annoying not to know what had happened to him.

There was a moment where neither of them said anything, Gavin just stared ahead trying to get a hold of his own uncomfortable thoughts, before Connor finally cleared his throat.

“Detective?”

Shit. Right. They had to move. “Yeah, ‘m comin’.” He pulled himself outta his chair as he mumbled, but once he was standing, he couldn't bring his feet to move.

"Is everything alright?" Connor looked concerned, before he frowned, almost like he'd picked up on the nervous energy from Gavin. "What aren't you telling me?"

At the question, Gavin huffed. He shook his head and pushed past Connor, heading for the parking lot. "Nothing." it wouldn't even come up, and hopefully this Darcy chick would tell them something useful so they wouldn't have to go bother Marco. Gavin pushed down the anxiety that was starting to coil in the pit of his stomach at the very idea.

The drive was quiet, and the house they pulled up to was a bit fancier than Gavin had anticipated. Jasper hadn’t come from a wealthy family, so he either married rich or his job had paid well. They did know that the Ex-Wife, Darcy Moore after the divorce had been finalized, hadn’t moved out - she’d taken the house and full custody of their single child. A girl named Hayden who'd just turned nine a few months ago. It didn't look like Darcy had remarried either. That was different than Tyler Morgan and his relationship with Holly Turner.

Everything was different in this situation, and the similarities were so vague they couldn't even be counted as similarities. It was really fucking frustrating.

Jasper had married a werewolf - had a werewolf daughter. He’d come from a werewolf family, had werewolf friends. Why would he want to take a drug that temporarily neutralized the werewolf in him? The job loss had been for a reason completely unrelated to what he was, too. If it had been prejudice the registry would have highlighted it. It didn't make any sense.

They were headed up the walkway when Connor tugged on Gavin's arm, pulling him to a complete stop a few feet away from the front door. Gavin glanced at him curiously, and the brown eyes staring at him were suspicious. "What?"

"Are you sure you're telling me everything?"

Gavin hesitated, frowning. "You don't trust me?" But fuck, that was the wrong thing to say. "I mean, if there was anything fucking important to know I'd tell you, alright?" the fact that he'd known Jasper years ago wasn't actually important. It didn't change anything in regards to the investigation. The only thing it did was make Gavin really damn uncomfortable because he'd fucking ordered the guy killed. Connor might have shot him, but Gavin had been the deciding factor in his death.

Connor watched him carefully for another few seconds before he finally let Gavin's arm go and they took the last few steps up towards the front door. Gavin reached out and banged his fist against the fancy maroon door, and they waited. Gavin bumped his shoulder against Connors, trying to ease his partner's anxiousness. He could smell it, had been smelling it for the last few minutes. Connor didn't trust him right now and Gavin didn't blame him.

It wasn't long before a woman answered the door - slim, pretty face, long blond done up in a purposely messy bun. Exactly the type he remembered Jasper liking in Highschool. At least some things didn't really change. Darcy looked them both over quickly before she focused on Gavin, her nose flaring a little as she scented the air around them. It was subtle but easy to pick up if you knew what to look for. “Can I help you?” Her voice had a nice ring to it, and she smelled faintly of flowers - more natural than regular perfume and easier on Gavin’s nose. Probably something handmade.

“Detective Reed," Gavin flashed his badge for her to see before nodding towards Connor. "This is my partner Detective Anderson. We’re here to talk to you about Jasper Hines.”

Darcy looked between them again before she sighed, and Gavin could hear the annoyed growl that she tried to swallow. “What’s he done now?” She looked at Connor again, her nose twitching again before her face twisted into an annoyed frown to match that growl. “Is this pack or police business?”

"Can we come inside?” Connor asked in that extremely nice, likable way, trying to smile pleasantly at her. Most people swooned for Connor when he was trying to be that under assuming, pretty detective that cared, but Darcy wasn't having it from him.

Another sigh from the woman, but she moved aside and motioned them into the house with her hand. Apparently, she didn't like them sweet and pretty, which fit if she'd willingly married Jasper. “I'd rather you didn't, but I doubt I have a choice.” she stared at Gavin as she said that, before shutting the door as soon as they were inside. She didn’t bother saying anything to them, just left down the hallway assuming that the detectives would follow her. Gavin toed off his boots, giving Connor an annoyed glance before they followed after her. The kid wasn't anywhere in sight, but Gavin did smell her faintly, like she'd been there earlier in the day. Was it a school day?

The house itself was clean, smelled heavily of Darcy and cooking, and the faint traces of Hayden but no one else. Not recently anyway. There were fresh flowers on a few tables that added a nice natural smell to the house. It was a good vibe, if not maybe a little too clean, too immaculate. Darcy seemed like the type of mom that didn't like the guest areas of the house to look lived in. Gavin had experience with that type of mom.

Once they were in the living room area of the house, Darcy turned to face them both, arms crossed uncomfortably across her chest. She didn't move to sit down, and she definitely didn't offer either of them a seat. She did look worried though, or what Gavin received as worry. Her scent hadn't changed much. “So? What's he done? Why is the pack involved?”

Connor cleared his throat, drawing the woman's attention. "You seem very certain that Mr. Hines has done something wrong here. Is there a reason for that?"

She shook her head, focusing back on Gavin after barely regarding Connor for more than a couple seconds. She stared at Gavin for a long time before frowninh and her brown eyes flicked back towards Connor. "Why else would you be here? Detective Anderson isn't… pack," her nose twitched again like she was trying to scent him better. "Not really, anyway, so it's a police issue, right? Just tell me what you need from me, I have to be at the school in an hour.”

Well, she was certainly something, but she wasn't stupid. Darcy was definitely a thinker, and she'd picked up on the scents Gavin was trying to leave on Connor and it was working exactly like he thought it would. “Have you had any contact with Jasper recently? Has he been around at all? Maybe to see Hayden? Ask you for any favours? Money?”

“No.” She scoffed at that, an angry growl rising from her chest at the implications and she glared at Gavin for even suggesting these things. “He hasn't been here. He knows I'd kill him if I smelled him in the neighbourhood. My daughter hasn't seen him either, I’d be able to smell him on her. Anything else, Detectives?”

“Christ.” Gavin huffed a laugh at the sheer venom that coated her words. She fucking hated this dude and you could practically taste it in the air. She was out here living her best life without her dick of an ex husband and they'd just ruined it for her by just mentioning his name. “The fuck did Jasper do to you?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed on him suspiciously, another growl spilling from her lips. “You sound like you know him.” she sighed though, rolling her eyes and not bothering to wait for an answer. “That idiot thought he could cheat on me with some harlot he worked with. Disgusting. I refuse to be played, Detectives, so I took everything from him - his job, his house, and his daughter."

Yep. She definitely seemed like the scorned woman type. Werewolf women were ferocious when they needed to be, and Gavin wasn't sure what could have been going on for Jasper to think that he could cover up an affair. With their noses? She'd be able to tell before he was even in the house. "That tracks. He was always a fucking idiot."

Connor's fingers twitched, but he kept quiet, letting Darcy scoff loudly. She tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind an ear. "I still wonder why I ever thought marrying him was a good idea. So what did he do? You never told me."

Gavin watched her closely before he spoke. "He died."

That made her stop. She stared at him for a long moment before glancing towards Connor, surprise clear on her face. Reflected in her eyes. When neither offered up any more information, she shifted her stare back to Gavin with a frown. "How?"

"We think he committed a couple murders last night. When we showed up he attacked. He was taking some kinda drug that let him do a partial shift and it probably drove him insane." It was probably too much information to tell her, but she did deserve to know.

"Partial-" She frowned, like she didn't quite understand the word. "You don't know for sure?" When Gavin shook his head, Darcy cursed, shaking her head. She dropped down onto the white antique loveseat, lifting a decorative tissue box that was sitting on the dark wood coffee table. Under the box was a pack of cigarettes and a decorative ashtray that didn't look used at all. She grabbed for the smokes, her hands shaking. "What an idiot." she managed to mumble, biting down on a cigarette before looking for a lighter.

Gavin glanced at Connor, who was watching her closely, before he pulled his own lighter from his pocket and offered it to her.

"Thank you."

"Mrs. Moore-" Connor started but she waved him off quickly with her lit cigarette.

"Just Darcy, please."

"Darcy." Connor corrected himself at her request before he continued. "The kind of drug your ex husband was using works like a werewolf tranquilizer. We think that prolonged use causes a kind of psychosis. Would he have any reason to want to put the wolf to sleep?"

She shook her head a few times, taking a long puff of her smoke before exhaling deeply. Gavin's nose twitched, the smell of the menthol bothering his nose in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time. This whole visit was bringing up bad memories. It was the same brand of cigarettes that he used to steal from his step mother when he was a teenager.

Darcy handed over the lighter, letting Gavin take it from her before she spoke again. "I don't think so? I haven't spoken to him in years. He didn't even send letters to Hayden, so I don't know what he's been up to, but when we were together there wasn't anything.” she frowned, taking another puff, staring off across the room in thought. “I can't think of anything at all. Besides the shit he tried to pull, there wasn't anything wrong with him. He was an idiot, but he wasn't crazy.”

Gavin could tell, just by the way she was talking about him, that Darcy didn't hate Jasper. She was understandably mad about what had happened - werewolves got possessive and to be betrayed like that? It left scars, but she had a kid to raise and no time to deal with that kind of bullshit. Jasper had always been good at bullshit, too. “What about the woman he was cheating on you with?”

A sour laugh from her and Darcy shook her head, finally focusing back on the two of them. She took another puff of her cigarette before speaking. “I doubt she’d know anything. She was an intern, a young little thing." she paused, thinking about it a moment before her focus drifted to Connor. "Human, too. She was probably only hoping for a paid position with the company. Doubt you’d get anywhere with her, if she even remembered it. I think they let her go after they fired Jasper. A scandal didn't make the company look good."

That fucking sucked. Gavin scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to think of what else he could ask her that might lead them to more information. “You sure you got nothing else on him? Friends? Hangout?”

“I'm sorry, Detective. Whatever friends he had, sided with me in the divorce. He was a loner, worked a lot. When he wasn't home, he was at the office.” she looked between them, snuffing out the cigarette in the marble ashtray set on the tabletop. “I hope I’m not your only lead.”

Gavin sighed. “It's alright. If you remember anything at all you know how to get a hold of me.”

“I do.” She stood up, pressing down the creases in her skirt before taking a step forward towards the two of them. “I never wanted him dead, Detectives. Especially not in any kind of pain or torment. He was a piece of shit, but he didn't deserve to die.”

She followed them to the door, holding it open for the two of them. Gavin pulled on his boots and stepped outside, Connor a step behind him. “Thanks, Darcy.”

“Good luck, Detectives. Thank you for sharing.”

The door shut and the walk down the path towards the road was quiet. The car doors slammed shut and even afterwards, Connor was silent for a long moment afterwards, until, “Honestly, I'm beginning to think you just enjoy making me look like an idiot.”

“Connor-”

“-This is the second time some type of information bomb has been dropped on me while in the middle of an interview with someone involved in this case, Gavin. The second time.” He paused, taking a breath before leaning back in the passenger's seat. Connor raised both his hands and ran them through his hair, messing it up in a frustrated sort of way. “You tell me to trust you? It's starting to sound like a joke at this point."

Gavin tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, watching his partner, unable to clearly think of a proper thing to say. Connor had every right to be mad at him, but hurt? He sounded hurt and Gavin didn't know how to handle that. “It wasn't important."

"No?" Connor shifted in his seat so he could focus all of his annoyed attention on Gavin, and Gavin squirmed under the look. "It wasn't important to know that you knew the werewolf that almost killed us last night? You knew the werewolf that left two mutilated bodies in a house for us to find? The twisted thing in the morgue that almost killed you was a friend of yours?"

What the fuck did he say to that? "It's not… I didn't think…"

"Clearly, you didn't." Connor rubbed his forehead with a hand - mad, annoyed, irritated, all of the above, it was so potent in his scent. "I knew it, too. I knew you weren't telling me something. I asked and you still didn't tell me."

"I didn't -"

"Clearly." Connor sighed, eyes closed for a moment before he straightened in his seat, crossing his arms. “Explain it to me now.”

Gavin didn't hesitate. "We went to high school. Lost touch after. It was extra shitty for us, werewolves had just gotten outed so there was a lot going on. I don't like thinking about it."

Connor nodded slowly, but it was still a few seconds before he said anything, and honestly the silence was making Gavin nervous. "Can you try and tell me these things beforehand? Even if you think it isn't important?”

"Yeah. Okay."

Silence in the car again. It felt like Connor was still mad, and Gavin didn't know what to say to fix it. There probably wasn't anything he could say at this point that would make the other detective less angry anyway, since Gavin had already fucked up. But, thankfully, it didn't last long and Connor was sighing again.

"I don't think she was lying about any of that." The subject change was an actual blessing. “She seemed pretty sincere. Understandably furious with her ex husband, but not enough to actually hurt him."

“Yeah.”

Connor huffed, and the sound pulled Gavin’s attention. He looked less mad, but still annoyed, arms still crossed, eyes closed again. His scent was still tinted with something sour and Gavin really didn't like it. “She didn't give us anything though. We’ve got nothing to go on, again.”

Gavin scratched at the back of his neck and growled. He didn't want to bring this shit up, but having Connor pissed at him was even worse than the idea of having to talk to Marco, so.

“There were three of us. In high school. Jasper got along better with Marco than he did with me. Jasper and I fought a lot, we were friends out of obligation, but Marco got along with him for real.” He grit his teeth, reaching over with one hand towards the glove box and pulling out his tablet, and a pack of cigarettes. He unlocked the tablet with his thumb and tossed the open registry to Connor so he could look it up. “Marco Allen. He probably kept in contact with Jasper.”

Connor was watching him, but Gavin was trying to focus on the empty street ahead while he fished out a cigarette from the pack, lighting it quickly and bringing it to his lips.

“Allen?”

“Yep.” He took a drag before he waved the smoke towards the tablet, hopefully urging Connor on so he could get the information they needed. "Haven't talked to him in years so I need an address." Gavin smoked his cigarette, keeping an eye on Connor in his peripheral as he scrolled through the information provided by the registry. After a minute, Connor pushed an address into the GPS system and leaned back into his seat, pulling on his seat belt.

“He’s SWAT Captain Allen’s brother.”

“Yep. We grew up together.”

“Does he know we're going to visit his brother?”

Gavin nodded, clicking in his seat belt before putting the car into drive. “He knew we had to as soon as we figured out it was Jasper.”

It was quiet again in the car as they drove, the address was across town and the Detroit traffic was getting heavy this time of the day. Gavin lit another cigarette, fingers tapping against the steering wheel in an attempt to get rid of the anxious energy he was holding onto. He couldn't tell if it was just because he was uncomfortable, or if it was because the moon was almost full. Honestly it might have been a combination of the two things. It fucking sucked.

“Look - “

And he hesitated. Gavin didn't know exactly what he wanted to say, he just knew he wanted to warn Connor about what was coming. It was going to be some kinda shit storm, and despite not wanting to talk about it, he didn't want Connor walking into it unprepared. Allen had probably warned his brother like he’d said he would, so Marco was probably stewing, ready to give hell as soon as he opened the front door.

“Gavin?”

Gavin growled, annoyed at the situation. Annoyed at his lack of ability to just say things. “He’s probably going to be a bitch.” His fingers tapped against the steering wheel a bit more aggressively at just the thought, and he flicked the butt of his smoke out the window, the nicotine having done nothing to calm his nerves. “Just so you’re aware.”

“You haven’t been in contact with this person in years, how can you be so sure? Maybe he’ll surprise you.” Connor sounded so sure of that. Always the optimist, even when it came to people he didn't fucken know. It was a golden quality, honestly, and Gavin wished he had half of Connors faith in people.

He laughed bitterly, glancing over at his partner for a moment before shaking his head and focusing back on the road. ”Yeah. Doubtful.” He didn’t know how to bring up the other stuff, so he didn’t.

It was another twenty or so minutes of driving before they pulled up in front of a decent looking apartment building. Maybe a bit higher end than the one Gavin lived in, but not fancy enough to have a doorman or anything like that. It was the kind of building that you had to be buzzed into - the kind with cameras at the front that all tenants could access. Gavin shuffled uncomfortably on his feet, both hands dug into his sweater pockets as they waited for their buzz to be answered, and it felt like it was taking forever.

Finally, the speakers lit up and a voice came through. “Gavin Fucking Reed.”

“Open the door, Marco.”

Silence followed for almost too long, before a bitter laugh sounded through the speakers. “You’re lucky Ben ordered me to let you in.” and before anything could be said, the doors buzzed loudly and the speaker shut off.

Connor glanced at him, but he didn't say anything, not until they were both inside the lobby and the front door had been shut firmly behind them. "You weren't kidding about him." They stopped in front of the elevator, Connor hitting the call button. "Are you going to tell me why, or do I get the pleasure of guessing and finding out later?"

That earned an annoyed growl, but Connor had a point. It would be extra shitty of him to keep quiet about it now. Especially since there was a huge chance that Marco was going to be a dick about it, considering the few words already spoken. With a sigh, Gavin rubbed a hand through his hair. "He's my ex."

"Ah. The puzzle comes together."

"Fuck off, Connor."

The elevator dinged, doors pulling open and Gavin shoved Connor into it, stepping in beside him and hitting the sixth floor button maybe a bit too hard. The doors shut slowly and Gavin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to manage that nervous energy while also trying to ignore the side glances from the annoying Detective Anderson. He was trying to be subtle, as if Gavin couldn't see him looking.

"Was it recent?"

There it was, the start of the questions. "No." and after a few agonizing seconds of absolutely no follow up questions like he expected there to be, Gavin glanced towards his partner, more curious than anything at this point. "Why?"

Connor only shrugged, focused on the elevator door ahead of them, and their reflections in the silver metallic of the door. "I'm only curious. It sounds recent."

Gavin grunted at that, and managed to nod. "We hold onto this shit." As was made obvious by one Darcy Moore not an hour earlier.

The elevator dinged, saving him from any other questions that Connor might have had, and he made a point of pushing his partner out the door - he wasn't actually trying to be mean, he just had no other way of getting his scent on Connor. It was stupid, especially considering who they were going to talk to, but Gavin wanted it to be clear.

The door they were looking for wasn’t too far down the hall, and Gavin knocked lightly on it. It took almost too long before they heard any sort of movement on the other side, which was annoying enough if it wasn't already paired with the smell that just surrounded the door itself. Gavin scrunched his nose.

It wasn't bad - it was familiar, which was the problem. It was annoying on principle, even after so many years. It was also the fact that having Connors scent, and Marco’s scent at the same time, in the same place, just agitated every nerve Gavin had. He hated it, it wasn't a good mix.

All they needed was a location, and then they could go. They didn't need any unnecessary conversation or whatever. An address. Half an address would work. A general location in the city would be alright.

The door half opened and Marco shuffled out of the apartment, closing the door behind him. Marco and his mop of brown hair was still a few inches shorter than Gavin, blue eyes glaring holes into him before he shifted his glare to Connor, nose twitching.

“I guess we can't come in.” Gavin’s grumble was unintentional, his annoyance evident in just the sound of his voice.

Marco growled at that, not even trying to stop himself from doing it, and only momentarily glanced at Gavin before he focused back on Connor. "I don't want you stinking up my place.” Marco wasn't subtle about looking Connor over, like he was appraising him, nose twitching.

The rumbled growl from Gavin was almost a challenge, and it drew Marco's attention pretty quickly. “I’ll make it fast."

“Please do.”

“When was the last time you talked to Jasper?”

Marco hesitated, surprised by the question. He frowned, but not angrily. He was confused. “Jasper?” The confusion shifted to something kin to concern, and worry, and Gavin had to bite back a growl. Marco knew something. Gavin fucking knew that look. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“Why do you think something happened?”

Marco stepped forward, an aggressive, challenging growl rumbling out of him as he pushed into Gavins space, sharp canines visible as he snarled. “Why the fuck are you here then, Detective? I’m not an idiot. A Beta orders me to open the door for you? We’re not just having a fucking chit chat. What happened to Jasper?”

Gavin didn't flinch, or move out of the way when Marco invaded his space with his challenge, but he did growl back as a warning, glaring at the other wolf, not about to back down from that challenge. “When was he here last, Marco?”

Low growling between them, neither willing to back down but eventually, Marco did. He bit back his growl and took a step backwards until his back hit the door behind him, arms coming up to cross over his chest. He looked away from both of the detectives before he sighed. “It's been about a month since I've seen him. He shows up every so often for a day or two before taking off again. He hasn't been in a good place since Darcy kicked him out.”

The implication that there was more between them was there and it had Gavin growling again out of possessive habit and Marco laughed at the sound before glaring bitterly at him. “Fuck you, Gavin.” He shook his head, sparing a glance towards Connor, nose flaring as he looked the other Detective over again. “You have no fucking right to judge me.” Gavin didn't miss the bitterness in his words.

“Alright, let's all calm down, please.” Connor grabbed onto Gavin’s sweater sleeve and pulled him back and away from where Marco was standing, putting a marginal amount of distance between them. Gavin didn't protest at being pushed around, but he did rumble in annoyance, as if everyone needed to know that he wasn't happy. “I’m sorry about him.”

Marco was quiet but with Gavin out of the immediate area, he seemed to calm down a bit. “Whatever. Is someone going to tell me what happened to Jasper?”

Connor spared a glance towards Gavin, and when he didn't speak, Connor sighed. “He was killed last night.”

“He - What?”

Gavin wasn't asking the questions, but he could listen to the answers. Marco sounded surprised by the news, like he hadn't expected it - just like Darcy had earlier. Gavin watched him from where he was standing behind Connor now, and Marco looked confused, his arms were tight over his chest. He wasn't looking at Connor, just staring at the ground like he was trying to figure out what had happened.

“Since he has no current address listed, we’re trying to find out where he’s been staying so we can try and understand what happened.”

“He doesn't -” Marco frowned at the carpet, only glancing back up towards Connor after a minute, shaking his head. “He doesn't have an address. What happened to him? He’s been a mess, sure, but-” Whatever he was going to say next, it didn't come.

Connor glanced back at him, and Gavin took the look as a request to take over, so he did. He sighed, reaching a hand up to scratch at the side of his face. “He was on something. Twisted him up. He killed a couple people, went for Connor. It wasn't pretty.”

“He killed - Jasper killed someone?”

Gavin nodded slowly at the question, but refused to elaborate on the details. Knowing what had probably been going on between them, learning anymore details wouldn't be helpful. “Was he taking anything?”

Marco shook his head a few times, sliding down the door until he was sitting on the carpeted floor outside of his apartment. “No. No?” He sounded confused, like he was doubting his own memory of things. “I don't think so. I would’ve smelled it, right?”

“It's different, doesn't really smell.” Gavin started to take a step, but stopped himself, shoving his hands into his pockets instead. “It's a tranquilizer. Knocks out the wolf, leaves you all human. Why would he use something like that?”

“He wouldn’t.” Marco shook his head a few more times before looking up at the two detectives with a frown. His eyes flicked between them before settling on Gavin. “You knew Jasper, he was proud. Even after Darcy kicked him out and he lost everything. I tried my best to help him get back on his feet, but he hated the idea of accepting any help."

Well that wasn't the kind of thing they needed to hear, but it was true to what Gavin remembered. Pride just made things even more fucking difficult though, because if Jasper hadn’t been taking Exo on purpose, who was feeding it to him? “Marco, where did he go when he wasn't here?”

It was quiet for a long time, Marco stared ahead, not focused on anything, but he spoke up eventually, voice quiet. “There's a transient camp downtown in an old subway tunnel. I go there sometimes when I haven't heard from him in a while. They might know something.”

That was more information than they’d had before coming here. If Jasper had been living in the camp, he might still have shit there that they could look through. If someone was slipping him this drug in secret, there might still be traces of it there. It was a helluva lot more information than they’d had before.

“Gavin.”

He hesitated a second before mumbling out a short “Yeah?”

“Dont fucking come back here.”

Chapter Text

Gavin didn't want anyone to tell, he was fine and it was embarrassing and he really did not want to get in trouble, but no matter how hard he insisted that no one needed to tell his mom, the teachers ignored him and went and called her anyway. The school nurse wouldn't leave him alone, even if Gavin was fine noa and wasn't crying like the other boy, and he begrudgingly let her check on him over and over again just because it made her feel better. She's made sure he'd sucked in a good puff from his inhaler earlier because breathing had been hard for a bit, but he was fine now! She'd even fixed his glasses so he could wear them again.

When his step-mom finally showed up, she was already angry and Gavin stayed quiet as she fussed around him. She yelled at just about everyone in the room except Gavin which was a surprise and she examined the bite mark on his arm a couple of times but never actually spoke to him and the entire time Gavin tried his best to stay quiet. He didn't want her to be any madder than she already was, especially at him, especially because he'd dropped his glasses during the fight and they were a bit broken, even if the nurse fixed them. She was always telling him to be careful with them.

"It's just absolutely absurd that you can leave children alone long enough for this to even happen! He's seven! What the hell are your teachers getting paid to do besides watch their God damn classrooms??"

Gvain wanted to say that it wasn't Miss Marley's fault, that she'd been distracted by another kid, that it wasn't even the other boys fault because Gavin had started it, but he really, really didn't want to make his step mom any more mad than she was so he kept his mouth shut tight and waited for the yelling to be done.

There was more talking between the adults and Gavin didn't pay any attention to it, until suddenly he was being guided off his chair by the arm. "Gavin."

Oh no. "Y-yeah?"

His step-mom tugged at his arm. "Yes." she repeated the correct word that he should be using and Gavin frowned. He didn't like how that sounded.

"Yes." he repeated it anyways.

"Tell me what happened."

He didn't want to though, especially not to her, but she was staring down at him, holding his arm and demanding an answer and Gavin had to look away. The office window looked out to the seating area and the other boy, Marco, was sitting there with his mom, and he was still crying. At least Marco's mom looked like she was worried about him, even if it was Gavin that had the set of bleeding teeth marks in his arm.

"Marco bit me." There. That was a good enough explanation.

"There has to be a reason why he bit you. What did you do?"

Oh. Well at least she expected it to already be his fault, so she wouldn't be surprised then. Gavin focused on the floor and tried to pull his arm out of his step mom's hand but she didn't let him go. "I pushed him."

"And why would you do that?"

Gavin shrugged. He didn't want to say anything about how the other boy was just annoying, how he was weird and did strange things and Gavin though he was so interesting but instead of making friends he just pushed him around instead. Marco cried really easily and Gavin really hated crying. "I-" he frowned, glaring at the floor. "I don't know."

The disappointment was there in the sighs and Gavin tried his best to tune out the talking around him. He just wanted to go home and hide in his room.

"We're very sorry about this, Mrs. Kamski. Hopefully you don't want to take this any further, do you? They're just children-

"No. No it's fine. Come along, Gavin." she tugged Gavin's arm again and he followed her out through the door, barely keeping up with her fast pace.

/////

And then Gavin got sick.

Elijah leaned against the bed, moving the icepack back to Gavin's forehead, touching his cheek with the back of his other hand, like their mom did, before Gavin managed to squirm out of reach with a grunt. They both frowned, equally annoyed with each other and it was Eli who decided to talk first.

"Are you gonna die, Gav?"

"Eli what the heck!" Gavin squeaked, because he really felt like he was dying, and actually dying was a really scary thought. He was sick a lot, sure, but this time it felt worse. Like he'd never been this sick before. Gavin reached out with one hand and weakly shoved his stupid brother in the shoulder. "You can't just say that!" he couldn't stop himself from sniffing loudly, but he wasn't going to cry.

The fever was on day three and Gavin only felt worse and worse, and he hadn't left his bed in what felt like a whole day. It felt like his body was an oven and it was cooking all of his insides, like his lungs, liver and heart. The worst part was that he was so weak, and he couldn't eat at all, and none of the medicine his step mom or his dad gave him were working like they normally did. What if he really was dying? What if this time he wouldn't get better like normal?

Elijah frowned, looking his little brother over and leaning against the bottom bunk. "I think you might be."

Whatever Gavin was going to say to his dumb brother was cut short when the bedroom door opened and his step mom came into the room. She shooed away Eli pretty quickly and sat at the edge of Gavin's bed, reaching a hand out so she could press the back of it against his cheek. Elijah peeked around the half closed door, watching carefully.

"How are you feeling, Gavin?"

"Eli said I'm dying." was all he could croak out, sniffing again, and okay maybe he was crying but he'd deny it until his last dying breath, which might end up being really soon.

His mom rolled her eyes, frowning at the door that had just shut as Elijah retreated. She pulled the ice pack off his forehead and set it aside on the end table before running her hand through Gavin's wet bangs. "You aren't dying, sweetheart, but we are going to take you to the hospital, alright? Just to check with the doctors. Come on."

Gavin didn't fight her when she helped him sit up, and only groaned a little bit when he had to stand up on his own. It felt like his legs just weren't strong enough to hold up the rest of his body and Gav was dizzy now that he was standing up and it wasn't a good feeling. Before he could fall over or sit back down, his step mom hoisted him up so he didn't have to walk and Gavin clung to her neck. She picked the glasses off the end table and they left for the car.

/////

The hospital was a familiar place. Gavin got sick more than normal and they always ended up here, and Gavin really hated it. He didn't hate the Doctors or the ladies that saw him before the doctors, he just hated the place. It was for sick people, and Gavin hated being sick all the time.

The lady, his mom called her a nurse, she tried to make him feel better, but Gavin was too hot, too boiling to laugh when she made a funny joke. It felt like someone was using his head as a drumset, and his glasses were too tight and they made him too dizzy to wear. The doctor came eventually and by then Gavin was burning up to the point were he felt cold and he cuddled under his step moms sweater, shivering. He didn't remember much after that, just the bumpy ride down that one road when they headed home.

He was back in his bed and took some medicine without fussing too much, and curled under his blankets and you know, he kinda wished Eli was right. If he was dead then he wouldn't feel this bad, would he? What a scary thought. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

The bed moved, and when Gavin opened his eyes he tried his best to smile at his dad even if it didn't work so well. "Am I gonna be okay, Dad?" it really wasn't like this was the first time he'd ever been sick, but he was still scared. It really did feel like his body was boiling and that he just might die. Somehow, that felt worse than any other time he'd been sick before.

The old man laughed, ruffling Gavin's hair in his big hand. "You're going to be fine. You know why?"

Gavin made a face at the touch to his head and huffed, but he still wanted to know what his dad was getting at. "Why?"

His dad took his hand away from Gavin's hair and patted his cheek a little. "Because you're a Reed. Your mom was a pretty strong lady, you know? And you're going to grow up to be a pretty strong guy. Look at you." Gavin groaned at the words, because even at 7 years old, hearing that from your dad was embarrassing, but it just made the old man laugh. "What, you don't believe me?"

"No."

Another laugh, and his dad shook his head at the almost annoyed sounding answer coming from such a small boy. "Just you wait and see. Are you hungry?"

He wasn't. His stomach felt like it was doing tumbles around all the fever pain in his body, and warm soup really didn't feel like a good idea. "Can i have some ice cream?" maybe that would help cool him down a little. And honestly, Gavin was sick enough that he knew he could milk his parents for the kinds of things he wouldn't normally be allowed to have.

"For you buddy? Absolutely."

/////

Gavin sat up in his bed, squinting at the sun coming through the window. He pat down the side table until he found his glasses and slid them onto his nose before blinking the rest of the room into less of a fuzzy picture. He wasn't… He wasn't hot anymore, he didn't hurt, he was kinda hungry actually. Had he actually died or was he better now?

It was weird. He felt weird. He lifted his arms up and stretched them out in front of himself, flexing his fingers a little, testing them. Oh. It didn't hurt to move at all, and he didn't feel tired either.

The room was quiet - but it had been pretty quiet for the last week since Eli had been moved to a different room so he wouldn't bother Gavin while he'd been sick. Gavin actually missed his brother, but he'd never say that to his face. He couldn't hear anything in the hallway as he climbed out of his bed and tip tied to the door, and peaking outside confirmed that yup. No one was out there either.

Gavin moved his bare feet across the floor, walking down the hallway quietly, poking his head into each room he passed just in case someone was hiding in there. Nothing. He didn't find anyone until he'd made it all the way downstairs and almost ran into his step mom when she came outta the kitchen.

"Gavin! Why are you out of bed?"

"I'm fine!"

She hummed, kneeling down in front of his and pressed a manicured hand to his forehead. Gavin went cross-eyed trying to watch her do that - her nails were bright red and he liked the colour. She hummed again, pressing the back of her hand back against his forehead to double check. "You don't feel like you have a fever anymore. Neil, come out here."

It wasn't more than a minute before Gavin's dad was coming outta the kitchen too, and he crouched beside his step mom and did the same thing with his hand. It was annoying at this point and Gavin tried to push that hand away from his face. The struggle skewered his glasses on his nose, almost knocking them off.

"I'm fine!" He said it again, more forcefully this time because he didn't need to be treated like a baby just because he'd been a little sick. "Jeez, you can stop touching me!"

"Mind your manners, Gavin." she tugged the arm of his shirt to make her point before standing up, heels clicking as she stepped back. "He needs a bath."

Oh, her heels were the same red that her nails were. That was pretty. "I don't need a bath." maybe he did, a little bit.

"Sorry squirt. You definitely do need a bath. I'm glad you're feeling better though, are you hungry?" his dad stood up too, still watching him from that high up though.

Gavin's stomach chose that moment to growl. He was SO hungry! Instead of answering, he just nodded his head enthusiastically, and when both his parents headed back into the kitchen, Gavin eagerly followed after them.

Sitting at the dining room table was Elijah, and his older brother perked up and waved when he spotted Gavin coming into the room with the adults, but Gavin was focused on the breakfast foods laid out on the table in typical buffet style. He hopped up onto the chair that he usually sat at, and started reaching for food without waiting. His tummy grumbled again and the first bite of bacon was so gooood, he actually groaned.

/////

It was about five days after he'd gotten better, Gavin sat at his desk at school, trying to listen to his teacher. Trying, because he was distracted. It wasn't his fault though, because his glasses were just getting so annoying. He didn't even want to wear them to school today but his stepmom had made him, and they still sat on his nose, annoying, and Gavin could barely see what was in front of him even if he squinted.

Stubbornness kept him from taking them off, because he'd been told to keep them on and he didn't want anyone to yell at him because of it. But it was distracting and his eyes were starting to hurt because he was trying to focus too hard. He made it until lunch time before he caved and pulled his glasses off, throwing them into his school bag.

Gavin pressed the palms of his hands into his eyeballs, trying to force them to feel better and when he moved his hands and blinked a few times, the room came into view and it wasn't too fuzzyy at all and he sighed. At least he could see the whiteboard now. It was pretty weird though, because it was always the opposite.

/////

Two days later and he spent all of recess playing tag with a few of the other boys and when the bell rang he was breathing hard but it wasn't a struggle like he was used to, it was thrilling. His teacher had to chase him around the school yard right after that, trying to use that inhaler on him but Gavin wasn't having a hard time breathing at all and it was the first time since he could remember where he was actually having fun running around like that. He couldn't stop laughing when he finally made it into the school with Miss Marley still trying to catch him, inhaler in hand.

////

The day after that, Gavin couldn't sleep in his bed. It stunk like fake flowers and perfume and he hated it, it was so distracting and awful and he couldn't sleep while he was smelling it. The guest room was even worse smelling, kinda like mothballs though which was even grosser smelling than the fake flower perfume in his sheets. So Gavin barged into the new room Elijah was in now and he sighed at the smell of it. This was so much better.

"Wha'd'you want, Gav?" Elijah's sleepy voice sounded from under his blankets, barely awake.

"Move over." Gavin kicked the bed and waited a minute before he shoved his brother when he didn't move. "Let me sleep in here okay?"

Elijah groaned, completely annoyed but when he was shoved he just rolled over, making room on his bed for Gavin to climb up into. "What's wrong with your room." it was too late into the night to really argue about it besides the basics anyway.

"It smells bad, I dunno." Gavin wiggled, pulling a pillow out from under Eli's head so he could use it.

"Ugh." Elijah lifted his head and turned to glare at Gavin as he moved and stole blankets, too. "You didn't wet the bed, did you?"

"EW!" Gavin swung the pillow he was trying to get comfortable with around and smacked his brother in the face with it. "I don't do that, gross!" he pushed the pillow back into place and dropped his face on it, turning away from his stupid brother. "It just smells gross, ok? It smells better in here."

Elijah only sighed, no energy left to argue anymore than he already had so he got comfortable again and went to sleep without another word. Gavin was fine with it, he hadn't come in here to talk anyways. He was telling the truth though, Elijah's room smelt nice, and it made him feel comfortable and it didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

/////

The whole class was outside for extra play, because it was almost the end of the year and they'd been doing very well with their assignments and stuff, so Miss Marley wanted to reward them with some extra outside time in the spring sun. Gavin was laying on his back in a particularly fresh patch of grass, basking in the sun rays, enjoying the smell of the grass in his nose and the dandelions just nearby and he could sniff a bit and smell the stream a bit beyond the fence of the school yard.

If he closed his eyes and really focused he could hear a bit of rustling in the bushes by the stream, probably a rabbit, or maybe a deer. His nose told him it was definitely a rabbit and that made him grin. Rabbits were cute.

"Hey, Gavin."

Gavin wrinkled his nose and frowned. He didn't need to open his eyes to know that it was Marco talking to him. The other boy didn't smell the same as the rest of his class, and Gavin still didn't quite know why. He was definitely getting used to all the smells, was getting good at recognising them when they hit his nose - but he still didn't know why he was suddenly really good at sniffing. No one really believed him either when he mentioned it. Stupid.

"Wha'd you want?"

"My uh…" it sounded like Marco was shuffling his feet, and Gavin cracked an eye open to see and he definitely was scuffing the ground with his shoes, arms crossed, and looking at the grass instead of at Gavin himself. "My mom wants me to ask you some questions."

That was weird. "Okay." Gavin sat up, a poof of pollen following him up and he had to rub his nose a bit before he sneezed. "Why?"

Marco just shrugged. "Dunno. But you have to answer them okay?"

Gavin huffed and rolled his eyes, but nodded. "Fine." he still hadn't really forgiven Marco for getting him sick like that so he almost died, because it had /definitely/ been Marcos stupid bite that gave him the fever, even if Elijah told him he was being dumb about it. When the other boy stayed quiet, Gavin snapped at him "Well? Hurry up I was in the middle of something!" he thought he heard himself growl, but that was silly. He wasn't a lion.

The boy winced and nodded. "She uh. She wanted me to ask if you feel okay. If you feel different or something."

Like damn, what was that supposed to mean? "Yeah, I really don't like you anymore because you tried to kill me."

"I - I didn't!"

"You did! I got so sick after our fight! Like what the heck you don't just bite people Marco that's cheating!"

Marco sighed and dropped into sitting on the ground nearby, poking at a bright yellow flower trying to grow through the grass. "I know you're right. I'm really sorry. I've been getting into a lot of trouble because of that."

"Good." The guy really should get into so much trouble because Gavin almost died. "I kinda feel weird, but no one really believes me."

"Really?"

Gavin nodded, but he wasn't sure why he was still talking to Marco. Maybe because he smelt different than the other kids, and it was kinda like with Eli where Gavin just really didn't mind the smell at all. "I don't need my glasses anymore, and I don't need my inhaler when I run around. That's different, right?"

"Yeah. I think so. Miss Marley still doesn't like it when you play tag though."

That made Gavin laugh. "Nope." He picked at the grass around him for a minute before frowning at the other boy. "Hey. How come you smell different than everyone else?"

That question, Gavin noticed, made Marco uncomfortable and he wiggled on the ground a little before scratching at his head. "My mom says I'm not supposed to talk about it with anyone outside the pack."

Pack? "Pack of what? Candy?" What a weird thing to talk about. "What, like the pack of cigarettes my stepmom smokes?"

Marco frowned, shaking his head and standing up. "Never mind. I gotta go." and he didn't even wait, just bolted back into the school yard and as far away as he could get from where Gavin was sitting.

What a dumb kid. Gavin rolled his eyes and dropped back down into the grass. He sniffed the air, frowning when he couldn't smell that rabbit anymore. Stupid Marco had been too loud and scared it away. Ugh. Another reason to really hate that guy.