"What the..." Clay stopped in the doorway eyes wide in bemusement as his normally placid sniper rolled around on the rug rubbing his face against his flailing teammate's chest.

"Colonel! Get him off me!" Jensen wailed.

Clay frowned. "Cougar! Get the hell off Jensen... now!"

Cougar glanced over at their CO and yawned, his whiskers spreading and fangs glistening, then he turned back and placed broad paws on Jensen's shoulders to hold him down and rubbed his chin along Jake's jawline. His golden eyes blinked languidly as the tech squawked and pushed futilely against his bulk. Lowering his head he sniffed delicately then lapped the soft skin of Jake's neck.

Jensen gave a squeak of alarm. "Ouch, ouch-that tongue is rough, Claaaa-aaay-"

Taking the collar of Jensen's shirt between his teeth he tugged at it until with a quiet rip it tore. Cougar purred as the fabric fluttered to the floor and bit by bit he shredded the tech's shirt until he was bare chested and the warmth of his body was radiating against Cougar's belly.

Jensen put his hand right in front of Cougar's muzzle, bumping his nose sharply, as if he thought he was banging a shark on the nose.

*Not* how you handle a big cat in a mood.

Clay took a step forward, alarmed.

The sniper just snorted, chuffed happily at the pushy hand, and rubbed against his fingers.

Cougar's purring was so ridiculously loud Clay could hear it from across the room. But when the big cat dropped his head and began to nuzzle Jensen in a more intimate manner Clay knew it was time to put a stop to things before he saw something that would require a scrub brush and massive amounts of bleach to get out of his mind.

Clay stomped forward and pushed on Cougar's shoulder trying to get him to move but the big cat just tucked his ears and hunched down with a quiet sneer at the Colonel's efforts.

Clay stopped and eyed him with suspicion. "Jensen, what the hell did you give him?!"

"Me? Why do you think I gave him anything?!"

"Man, it reeks of nip in here," Roque's voice growled as he came out of the kitchen scratching his nose. "Hate that damn stink."

Clay turned to his SIC when he appeared in the doorway. "What did you say?"

Roque frowned. "I said the fucking kitchen stinks of nip." He paused at the confused look on the Colonel's face. "Catnip, Clay. Somebody laced the fucking brownies with catnip and from the looks of it, our dumbass sniper damn near ate the whole batch himself." Roque folded his arms, shook his head, and spoke at the catpile on the floor. "I warned ya didn't I, Cougar? And now look at ya, rolling around like some damn fool kitten."

He turned back to Clay, "Other night I had that little 'come-to-Jesus' talk with the boys about sniffing shit, sign off on that workshop stuff the General wanted from us. Talk about reverse psychology, you tell him 'don't!' and that dumbass sniper will go off and do the opposite. 'Oh no, I'll never hurt anybody'," Roque twisted his voice to mimic the sniper's Tex-mex accent.
He huffed as Cougar snuffled Jake's neck and went back to licking the tech while he tried to squirm away. "He's got some idea he's better 'n that and he can take anything we throw at him and still run the show, cool as he always is, like his cat's got nothin' to say about it."

Roque rolled his eyes as Cougar chirped happily and rubbed his head along Jake's jaw again. "Ain't so cool now, huh, Cougar? I warned all you guys that it's not just all these new stinkweed strains of medical marijuana they've started breeding stronger than when you was a kitten. But nooo, you're too fuckin' stubborn to listen."

He crouched down to peer into the sniper's eyes. "Huh. Man, lookit those pupils, he's stoned as a mackerel tabby. Don't piss him off, Jensen, he'll bite ya as soon as look at ya."

Cougar flattened his ears and bristled his whiskers forward at Roque, though he didn't actually open his mouth and outright hiss at the LT. Instead, he rolled his head down into Jensen's bare shoulder and nudged his nose into the tech's collarbone, muttering high little noises down in his throat, pawing gently at Jake's arm while keeping his claws sheathed...almost kittenish in his antics.

And Jake bought it, fell for his act hook, line and sinker. "Ah, now, c'mon, sniperkitty, calm down, it's all right," Jake said, and brought his hands around to Cougar's back.

Cougar chuffed at him happily when Jensen ran his fingers through the fur of Cougar's ruff, along his cheeks and behind his ears, scratching with his full strength against Cougar's neck, as Cougar leaned into it harder. The sniper's eyes practically rolled up into his head with ecstasy, and that really wasn't a reassuring sight. Drunk Cougar never got this out of it before he turned into a brawler as bad as anything Roque had ever pulled, and he'd never let them see him toke out, although there were some ugly stories.

As a cat, Cougar never let anybody pet his neck or play with his ears or pretend he had any of the sweet spots of a regular housecat. Oh no. But now Cougar made some strange groaning noises and high little yelps, twisting around to present other parts of his head, until he'd fallen off Jake and was laying on his back, chin up under Jake's hands, paws flopping in the air. Jake could have tried to get up and run away, but he made no effort to get off the floor. He just kept scrubbing off wads of shed fur, while Cougar twisted around in undignified postures, enjoying himself.

"Dumbass," Roque said.

Clay drew back a little, reluctant to watch, and even more reluctant to leave Jensen to the mercies of a sniper who was so completely off the leash and out of it. He glanced over at Roque, "Go get Cougar's hairbrush. Give to Jake. He can use that to get Cougar to calm down, and maybe get him to sleep it off."

"Tell you what, I'm getting a camera too," Roque said, and turned down the hallway.

Clay grinned at him. "I like that plan."

"That's cause you're evil like me," Roque yelled back from the bedrooms.

Clay looked at the cat on the floor, who had rolled onto his other side and was kneading his claws into the side of sofa, tearing shreds of fabric off the arm, while Jensen scratched up and down the cat's spine.

"Yeah, that's good," Jake said, grinning. "What, right there? Or there? You wanna get brushed now, huh? C'mon, Cougs, talk to me. Tell me what you want."

And the cat made odd wailing noises, turning his head just as if he was talking. And then Cougar looked directly at Clay and chuffed at him. He bristled up his whiskers and grinned, and that was it. Cougar was squinting up his eyes in that sneaky sly look he got when he was getting away with shit and he knew it, and Clay knew it, and there was nothing Clay could do about it. "Rowww owww row oww," he yowled at Jensen.

"Outstanding," Clay said dryly.