#fusion!au

Dan watches as the fusion whaps a pencil around the table, eyes blown wide like they’ve gotten into someone’s coke stash. The pencil gets too far, and they climb up on the table to chase it, only to be distracted by a shiny red wrapper. Impromptu toy now forgotten, they sit on the table, picking up the candy bar and looking it over.

It takes a moment to process the words, and then they look up and around. “Dan, Dan, Dan. Dan.”

The taller man comes over, eyebrow raised. “What is it?”

They hold out the bar, looking serious. “Me.”

“You… you want this Kit-Kat?”

They shake their head, pointing at the wrapper again. “Me.”

Dan thinks about it, and the lightbulb might be dimmed by his crazy hair, but it goes off somewhere in that jungle. “Oh… you want this to be your name?”

A vigorous nod.

“You want to be called Kit-Kat?”

Now they shake their head. “Kit. Kit. Me.”

“I get it. You’re a cat, called Kit.”

They smile, dropping the candy bar now that its purpose is served. “Kit!”

“Alright, Kit it is then.” Dan can’t help but match Kit’s goofy grin.

Brian looks up at them, turning back to his Google search on getting the fusion apart. He speaks under his breath, not wanting to upset either of them. “Don’t name them… you’ll get attached…”

“I read somewhere that it was supposed to help.”

Dan smiles sheepishly at Brian, who is, in turn, passing him a disappointed frown.

Kit was laying on his stomach on the floor, pupils blown and chest basically vibrating with a constant purr.

Dan had given him cat nip, found tucked away for safe keeping in Arin’s office. Out of curiosity, he let Kit have his way with a small amount.

“You get to fix this, I’ll keep looking for an actual solution,” Brian sighs, pulling out his phone again to search for anything at all that would separate the two.

Dan giggles at the sight of Kit nuzzling into the carpet, walking over to examine the situation.

Kit rolls over and focuses on Dan, immediately breaking into a lazy, toothy grin. “Dan.”

“Hey, buddy. How are you doing?” Dan asks, leaning over Kit.

Kit reaches up and swats at some curls that had fallen in Dan’s face, not even registering that he had been asked a question.

Dan simply laughs again and pets Kit around his ears. The fusion’s arms suddenly relax, and he pushes up into Dan’s hand, purring louder than ever.

Dan feels his heart swell.

Oh no.

It’s the sound of speaking, or rather, rapping, that brings Dan to Arin’s office door, leaning on the frame. He’d set Kit up in here to watch videos, keep him distracted while he and Brian go about continuing to look for a solution to pull Arin and Ross apart. Headphones weren’t really an option with the fusion’s ears on top of their head instead of at the side, so the speakers were set on low. He could hear a few NSP songs going, and honestly found that to be cute, followed by the beginnings of Hero of Rhyme, and then—

Rapping.

He’s watching them now, bouncing with the beat and throwing lines one after the other just like Arin would. Dan would have thought the limited vocabulary they seemed to possess would have prevented this, but here they were, absolutely thrashing it. The song ends and the cat calms, finally noticing Dan.

If they didn’t have fur, the blush would be super bright, but it’s obvious enough from their body language. “Dan. Long?”

“No, I haven’t been here too long… but you did really good.” Dan’s proud of his fluency in Kit’s very simple speech patterns.

“Thanks…” They look down, rubbing a paw in the carpet. At some point they ditched Arin’s sweatshirt, leaving them in just Ross’ jeans. Their chest isn’t visibly toned, but there’s definitely muscle hiding under the fur. It’s got Dan a bit red himself, as strange as the thought of looking both at his coworker and his boyfriend in the same body is.

“Why’d you take your shirt off, Kit?”

“Warm.”

“Do you want to wear one of Arin’s tank tops instead? I brought some with me, I told him he’d fry in the sweatshirt…”

“Please.”

Dan smiles, heading to his desk to grab his bag. Kit pads after him, brushing their hand over Brian’s head on the way by and earning a bit of a smile from the older man. Dan passes them a teal tank, and they pull it on. It’s far baggier on them than it is on Arin, but they don’t seem to care, starting up a soft purr. “Dan smell.”

“You want me to smell it?” Okay, maybe not that fluent.

“No, no… smell, you.”

Brian rolls his eyes, pushing away the tail batting his face. “No, it smells like you. Probably cause it was in your bag.”

“Oh. That makes much more sense.”

Kit giggles, lightly poking Dan’s shoulder. “Tag! Seek!” Then they’re running off, bounding down the hall to hide. The taller man can’t stand for such injustice, chasing after them.

Brian sighs, continuing to read. “Dorks.”

Dan gets to the kitchen area and looks around. He’d seen Kit’s tail disappear around the corner, and he didn’t hear any footsteps running away, so he had to be here somewhere, right? Searching the obvious hiding spots reveals nothing, and he stands by the table to think on it.

It takes him longer than he’d like to admit that he’d completely forgotten Kit was mostly a cat and could likely squeeze into far more ingenious places. Plus, just because he couldn’t speak well didn’t mean the fusion wasn’t smart as dicks. It warrants rechecking everywhere he’d just been, and even some places he hadn’t thought of before. It’s not until he catches a glimpse of a tail in his periphery that he thinks to look up, looking right at a complete Cheshire Cat style grin as Kit watches him from the rafters above. Of course, they were a cat and could totally jump stupid high.

“Alright, get down here. Don’t need you falling off, fuzzball.” Dan shakes his head, pulling a stepladder over to help them down. They don’t seem to need it, though, simply jumping down with a solid thump. “Showoff.”

They grin at him, running over and pecking his cheek. “You hide!”

That fluttering starts up in his chest all over again, and Dan knows Brian’s gonna have him in hot water for this one….

For now, he could at least humor the fusion, giving a shaky grin and going to hide. And also hide his feelings.

Because he couldn’t be in love with Arin, and falling for Arin fused with Ross, especially not when they needed to come apart, so they could continue with their jobs.

This is a whole mess, and it’s not getting any better….

Kit stared at the screen, ears perking and twitching as the pronunciation of the word “hewwo” was played once more by Brian.

Kit’s tongue poked out just barely past his lips, giving him a playful look. He suddenly reached out for Brian’s phone, trying to take it and find something more interesting to watch.

Brian reeled back. “Not until you say it. Hewwo,” he urges, then facepalms at Kit’s blank, confused expression.

Later that day, Dan is sitting on the couch, reading a new novel he had picked up with Kit laid over in his lap, purring softly like the motor of a car.

Kit reaches out for Dan’s hand, and presses it to himself, begging for pets wordlessly.

Dan chuckles and runs his fingers through the soft fur, feeling his heart grow about four times its size like the Grinch. He feels like his ribs will give way at any second and Kit would be able to play with his heart which was currently, full of adoration.

Kit suddenly sits up and looks Dan in the eyes, holding onto his shoulders and shaking him, as if he didn’t already have his attention.

“What is it? Are you okay?” Dan asks, folding the corner of the page he left off on and closing the book for him to pick up later. He hesitantly places his hands on Kit’s waist, his fingers sinking into the plush fur poking out of his too large clothing. He exhales, letting his short-circuiting brain focus once again on Kit’s matter at hand. Or rather, paw.

“Hewwo.” Kit states, search Dan’s face for any reaction.

Dan is stunned for a second.

Oh fuck, that was cute.

Dan then begins to shake with laughter, much to Kit’s confusion. However, Kit loves the tingly, light sound of Dan’s laugh and continues.

“Hewwo. Hewwo?” Kit breaks into a grin, a low purr rising in the back of his throat as he spoke.

Brian rubs his face from the hall, walking away from the scene that he had just witnessed.