read something today about w/hitaker and s/antos having a cat, started thinking about that but with the addition of cat allergy g/arcia, and came to my senses again 8 hours later with this fic having sprung forth fully formed like athena from zeus's head if athena were 2.2k of deeply amateurish and self-indulgent writing. bon appetit 👍
Despite having had a late night, Dennis wakes with the sun. Old habits and so on. There’s music still humming faintly from his headphones where they lie teetering on the edge of his bed; he must have taken them off sometime last night, not that he remembers, having fallen asleep with his music still playing to muffle the noises coming through the other side of his woefully thin bedroom wall. Now, thankfully, it’s all quiet in the apartment, except for Trinity’s distant snoring. She refuses to admit that she snores, and gets so defensive when he mentions it that he’s given up saying anything. Still, he has it on good authority that it’s the original reason (before it became a biological necessity, but we’ll get to that later) why Garcia has been sleeping on the couch afterwards on the nights when she comes over. Anticipating that to be the case this morning (Garcia leaves early, but Dennis wakes up even earlier), he throws on a t-shirt and combs his hair before heading for the kitchen, so as to stave off any comments in the event of an encounter with the surgeon. That one traitorous floorboard creaks loudly under his socked foot, and Trinity’s door swings open. Dennis freezes, deer-in-headlights, an apology already on his lips for disturbing his roommate’s notoriously light sleep, then deflates with the realization that, nevermind, it’s just the cat.
The cat in question was a stray which, after Dennis had snuck food to it every morning for almost a month, decided to move in when he accidentally left the front door open for too long one day, and yowled so furiously when he tried to remove it from the apartment that he had no choice but to beg Trinity to let it stay. Trinity had protested at length before relenting; now, it sleeps on her pillow every night. (When Dennis pointed out the irony there, she noncommittally threatened to kick him out and let the cat have his room instead). In spite of being thick as thieves with Trinity, the cat still recognizes Dennis as the one to ask for food, which is why at present it tumbles through the apartment after him, rubbing its face on his ankle and purring up a storm, in anticipation of breakfast being delivered. By the time Dennis’s brief journey to the kitchen concludes, though, the cat is nowhere to be found, presence signified only by a muffled thump from the next room over. Poking his head around the corner, Dennis confirms his suspicions with a feeling torn between laughter and dread. The early-dawn light hardly illuminates the living room, but it’s enough to cast a clear picture of Garcia sprawled on their couch, mouth half-open in sleep, long legs hanging over the edge of one armrest, and the cat resting proudly on her torso, purring as it begins kneading on Garcia’s collarbone.
Here, then, is the proverbial sitcom freeze-frame. Yeah, that’s me, I bet you’re probably wondering… Dennis half-snickers to himself. See, the thing is, now that the cat is a permanent tenant, it’s had the opportunity to get to know all their most frequent guests, and of the (admittedly short) list, Garcia is far and away the cat’s favorite person. But this feeling is absolutely not mutual, because Garcia, as it turns out, has a particularly intense cat allergy. (Dennis and Trinity found that out the hard way. …Don’t ask.) In spite of this, the cat was not deterred, and would find its way back into Garcia’s company no matter how many times Dennis and Trinity might try to quarantine it in one of their bedrooms for the sake of their guest’s health and for the prevention of further complaints from the neighbors about the noise (Garcia had a hell of a sneeze, and when she really got going it was not pretty. Again, don't ask). Now, the cat has clearly taken advantage of the fact that Garcia is sleeping too deeply to shoo it away, and looks supremely pleased with itself as it licks one paw and sniffs at Garcia’s chin. Dennis widens his eyes at it, channeling the full force of his authority to try to urge the cat away. The cat, on account of, well, being a cat, does not take the hint. Instead, its purrs intensify, rumbling in what Dennis imagines is surely a self-satisfied way.
As he watches, Garcia stirs, one long-fingered hand reaching up to clumsily swipe at the underside of her nose. The cat leans forward and licks her palm. Dennis watches as Garcia’s face scrunches in discomfort, as her eyebrows pinch together, her nose scrunches, and her eyes slide open sleepily - and that’s the moment he decides to take his leave from the fallout that’s about to ensue, before she can latch onto him as a target. He ducks back into the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge as quietly as possible for a carton of eggs. As he slides a frying pan onto the stovetop, he can’t help but overhear Garcia yelping out a hushed but aggravated “fuck!” and the cat chirping an answering mewl. Then, a muffled noise he can’t quite identify, Garcia swearing again, the cat yowling indignantly, and, just as he cracks the last of 3 eggs into his frying pan, Garcia insistently hissing, “Whitaker!” Feeling very Alan-Grant-hiding-from-T-Rex, Dennis freezes in place, still holding a dripping eggshell, like if he stays still Garcia will forget he’s there. Garcia isn’t fooled, nor does the ongoing commotion in the living room seem to have stopped. “Whitaker, get in here or I’ll-” With an irritated huff, Dennis abandons his eggs to scramble for the living room before he has to find out what Garcia is going to do to him if he doesn’t.
As he skids to a halt, socks carrying him too far across the tiles, the aforementioned surgeon turns her head to fix him with a baleful stare. She’s still sprawled on the couch, arms extended straight upwards to hold the cat in the air, struggling to pry it away from herself. The cat, for its part, has its claws hooked firmly in the fabric of Garcia’s shirt and is mewling angrily and fighting to maintain its hold. Garcia sniffs sharply, and opens her mouth to snap at Dennis, but the impending acidic sentence never makes its way past her lips as her expression suddenly crumples and she relinquishes her hold on the cat to slam both arms into an interlocked hold over her face, shoulders shaking with the effort of restraining a barely-contained “hHH’MFFSHh!” into the crooks of her elbows. The force with which she crunches forward jostles the cat in its re-assumed position on her torso. It squawks out an offended meow. After a shuddering second, Garcia emerges and tips her head backwards again to glare at Dennis, like somehow this is his fault. “Will you,” she snarls, nostrils flaring, “get this thing off me?” The cat blinks up at Dennis innocently, purring again.
There’s something in Garcia’s tone, though, an undertone of urgency coloring the annoyance in her voice, that gives him pause. Begrudgingly, he flashes back to the previous night, to Trinity insisting they keep the cat in one of their bedrooms while Garcia is over for “dinner” (really, a movie that Garcia and Santos will give up on partway through in order to get to… other things), and Garcia shaking her head and claiming that she’s had allergy meds already, it’s fine, she “took the 24-hour kind this morning”. Which. “This morning”, meaning yesterday morning, meaning it’s been at least the 24 hours, meaning - “hHAH’EHSHHh’Ue!” Garcia isn’t fast enough to cover that one. Dennis flinches at the harsh sound, crossing his fingers that it isn’t loud enough to wake Trinity up. A dry cough follows, and Garcia’s still breathing unsteadily when she repeats, “Whitaker- come get your fucking caHhHt!- ngh, g-get your- hH! Fuck… snf! Get your cat off of me- h’Hh!-ETSCH’HhGH!” Any attempt at decorum unfortunately abandoned in the immediacy of her histamine-fueled haze, Garcia releases the sneeze uncovered, though at least she bites down on it in an attempt at restraint on the tail end. Sniffling, she scrubs a hand over her face with itchy intensity. Dennis wonders, idly, if she realizes that that’s probably making things worse, after having handled the cat earlier.
Pretty much the second Garcia has recovered, she starts trying to extricate the cat again. The cat, again, begins yowling unhappily. Garcia shoots Dennis a pointed, demanding glance over her shoulder. Her eyes are getting red, her nose getting even more so. Dennis freezes, deer-in-headlights again, thinking longingly of the eggs he still hasn’t been able to start cooking. His stomach is grumbling for breakfast, and that alone has his goodwill waning. Then, too, he starts thinking about his roommate, lucky enough to be sleeping through this, and the way her face had dropped in disappointment when Garcia texted her last-second to cancel again last weekend. And, well. He shrugs, obfuscating, somewhat helplessly. Garcia’s eyes narrow. “Uh, I’m… cooking,” Dennis excuses, pointing a thumb back over his shoulder into the kitchen. And he disappears hastily, turning on the stovetop burner under his still-waiting frying pan and grabbing a spatula to the tune of Garcia’s hissed-out “motherfucker!” drifting over from the other room.
The sounds of struggle continue. Dennis prods the eggs with the spatula as they begin cooking. Over the sound of cooking oil starting to sizzle, he catches the background noise of Garcia fighting back another sneeze, which nevertheless bursts out forcefully. Another follows, roughly squashed into an elbow in a futile and painful-sounding attempt at stifling: “hEHh-’AHTSH-MMFgH!” Garcia groans in discomfort. “Bless you,” Dennis says absently, manners winning out over pettiness. “Save it,” Garcia snaps, clearing her throat ticklishly, then sniffling, the sound rough enough that Dennis cringes even from the other room. It’s quiet for a long moment, save for the cat purring distantly, which Dennis takes to mean that Garcia has given up trying to escape. Then, a sudden ragged gasp. “Fucking- h’Hh… n-not- h’AHh! again-” Garcia chokes out, a flurry of increasingly-pitchy hitching breaths telegraphing to Dennis that she’s fighting tooth and nail against an irrepressible itch. She makes it about ten seconds. Then, “iHh-H’ATSCH’IEUh! hIH’TSHHH’UHh! hH’AHSHH’Y’Ue!” The volume and the forceful physicality of the whole affair has the cat meowing in offense again. Dennis kind of shares the sentiment.
“ngh… fuck!” Garcia spits out, as close to a whimper as it’s possible to attribute to the surgeon in good conscience. Almost immediately, her breaths start tripping over themselves in miserably vocal fashion again. “hHHh-! e’hHh… nHh…” This one is drawn-out, taking its sweet time; never a good sign with Garcia. Dennis covers one ear with his free hand in preemptive defense. Meanwhile, Garcia’s torment crescendos with a final desperate hitch catching upwards into a throat-scraping, utterly uncontained “hEH’YESCHHh’EUHh!” that has Dennis’s lip curling in distaste at the audible spraying wetness of it. This time, the volume proves to be too much; the floorboard next to Trinity’s door creaks. Trinity shuffles out into the open, half-asleep, hair mussed and pajamas rumpled, taking in the scene (Dennis, back to affecting nonchalance, eggs sizzling in the frying pan; the cat, mewling indignantly about its continued disturbance; Garcia, gasping for breath, eyes and nose streaming) through bleary, heavy-lidded eyes. “What’s goin’ on- oh, shit.”
At the sight and sound of Trinity, the cat finally leaps down from its perch and makes a beeline into her waiting arms. Garcia heaves a sigh of relief - very, very short-lived relief, as that sigh turns into a gasp which turns into- “H’ASCHH’SHHh’Uh!” “...Bless. Huckleberry, what did you do?” Trinity demands, depositing the cat back onto the ground gently. Dennis whirls around, affronted. “Me?! I didn’t-” “EH’ZSHHh’UE!” Garcia groans through her teeth. Trinity grimaces and pushes past Dennis to reach the roll of paper towels they keep on the kitchen counter, pulling off at least five and crumpling them in her hand as she pads into the living room. “Bless again. Uh, here-” There’s a rustling. Garcia blows her nose, loudly, and chokes on the end of it, bursting into a ticklish coughing fit that inevitably turns into a gasped series of hitching breaths. “hH- h’EHHDJSH’HH’Eh!” Trinity bursts back into the kitchen, cat in her arms once more, mouthing ‘yikes’. Dennis widens his eyes in sheepish commiseration, quickly stepping away from the stove to pull a plate out of one of their cabinets, then sliding his (at long last, finished) eggs smoothly out of the frying pan and onto the plate. The cat, catching on, leans forward in Trinity’s hold to sniff at the food which, surely, must be meant for it. Trinity seizes the opportunity to hold the cat out for Dennis to take, dashing back into the other room before he has a chance to protest.
Preoccupied with trying to keep the cat from eating his breakfast, Dennis only distantly registers the hushed conversation happening in the next room over. In between trying to wrangle the squirming ball of fur, though, he does catch the sound of the front door slamming shut urgently, then the echo of a desperately violent sneeze loud enough to be audible from the hallway. He cringes. Trinity returns, wearing a matching expression, arms crossed. “You,” she chastises the cat, which meows softly, innocent as anything, “are more trouble than you’re worth.” The cat blinks, unaffected. Then, sensing an opportunity, it leaps right out of a distracted Dennis’s arms in a feat of athleticism, lands squarely on the countertop, and starts feasting on his unattended plate of eggs.