A/N: This is my response to the Improv Challenge posted in the QD section of YTDAW. It has absolutely nothing to do with any of my other fics. While I know it's a tad bit out of character, I hope you'll enjoy!
The cat stared at Grissom with an evil glare. Stretching his paws while slowly licking its whiskers.
"Are you sure?" Grissom asked.
"Look at how cute he is!"
"I'm really not a cat person." He kept staring at the cat, and the cat kept staring back.
"Just think of him as a very big and hairy bug."
"Not really helping."
The cat looked murderous to him, like he was watching his every move.
"We could give him a general name, like 'Peter',"
"You're kidding right?" Grissom raised a brow.
Half an hour later, Grissom found himself walking out of the pet shop, cat included. When exactly did he concede to this madness?
A low hiss escaped from the cat-carrier.
"Aww... He's afraid! It's okay baby, we're going home now!"
Grissom opened the door of the Denali to be the perfect gentleman to the woman in his life.
"Thank you," she said, looking up at him.
She had the most wonderful eyes. Deep and dark and open and honest. He could stare in them forever, as he now often did.
Times had been different. There had been moments when he denied himself the permission to look in them, afraid there would be no turning back. He had been correct. The instant he stared down into those beautiful deep pools of brown he was lost and he hadn't been able to find the way back ever since.
Not that he wanted to, he was now perfectly comfortable ambling around in the unknown world of love. There had been some disadvantages though, and one of them was now seated in the front seat of his Denali, being cradled by the woman he thought he'd never have to share.
"How do you like Michael?" she asked as soon as he had taken his place behind the steering-wheel.
"Who is Michael?" he answered with evident confusion.
He followed her gaze that was now lovingly fixated on the Cyprian tom cat.
"Oh the cat! Michael? Sure,"
And so it was.
Grissom still was not overly exited by the invasion of his private space. It had been hard for him to open his doors to the loads of furniture Sara had either brought with her or had ordered, but letting the cat take up space in the house was a whole different slice of pizza.
"Hey honey?" he said, "How about some pizza?"
"Sure," Sara answered with a smile.
They drove home, their home, that they had shared for a year now. The cat was a mutual anniversary gift. Of course Grissom could have thought of a few other things to give Sara but seeing her this happy was making his day.
"I always wanted to have a cat," she had said, "because my parents wouldn't allow me to have one. There was not enough money. Well, there was, but not for me."
Grissom distinctly remembered the look on Sara's face when she told him that. The hurt was always there, never fading, something in her eyes which surfaced on certain occasions; an abuse case, an aggressive suspect, a memory.
He looked at her, taking in every inch of her features and studying it carefully. She was so beautiful and yet she didn't have a clue. The ignorance made her that much prettier. It took away all the arrogance most beautiful women seemed to have these days, Catherine being the perfect example. The combination of vulnerability and toughness is what attracted him to Sara in the first place.
She turned her head towards him. "Hi," she spoke softly.
"Hi." He couldn't help smiling.
"What were you thinking about?" she inquired.
"You and how much I love you."
He shut off the engine and leaned towards her. His thumb softly caressed her right cheek while he stared down her brown gates right into her soul. There he was, falling again, losing a grip on reality.
He gave her a soft kiss on the lips. Michael growled.
"I have a feeling he doesn't like me," Grissom said while peering into the cat carrier suspiciously.
"He will, just give it time."
Grissom nodded and opened his door. "I will."
After they released Michael next to his brand new litter box -"That way he'll know where it is."- and watching him discover the place for a while the subject got back to pizza.
"I'll have a medium crunchy thin crust with mushrooms, seafood and cheddar of course," Sara decided.
"Make that a large and I'm in."
Grissom had become used to her vegetarian habits and was now even content with not eating meat every day.
Grissom sat down on the couch while Sara ordered when he suddenly heard some sort of crunchy sound. He looked around to see Michael sharpen his nails on the couch.
"Oh no you don't!" Grissom said, while trying to remove a certain cat's claws from his couch.
Before he knew it the couch was no longer the problem. Michael was lunging for him, mouth agape, teeth bared, claws stretched to the max and a rabid madness showing in his eyes. Grissom fought the cat off, being victorious at the third try. The battle left him with scratches on his hands and face.
"You devil cat!" he shouted. "First I almost lose my hearing and now you're trying to rob me of my sight and touch!"
Sara, who had heard the commotion while calling the pizza-place with their order rushed back into the living room to see man and pet staring at each other from opposite sides of the room. You could cut the tension with a knife, hell, a spoon would probably do the trick.
The moment the cat noticed his owner he started purring and quickly made his way over to Sara, circling her legs in an attempt to convince her of his innocence.
"Gris, what did you do to the poor thing?"
"I? No! He..." Grissom managed. "He attacked me!"
"Cat's never attack without a reason! You must have done something to tick him off," Sara said while scratching the cat behind it's ears. "Look at him! There's not an evil fibre in it's being!"
"He's got you fooled Sara. That cat is either the devil, or the reincarnation of some perp I sent to death row."
"Tell me what happened," she insisted.
"He sharpened his claws on the couch and I took him off."
"And?"
"And that's it!" Grissom answered aggravated.
"Okay, let's look at the evidence here. You are all wound up, while he is relaxed as can be. You didn't want him in the first place. I think you've been trying to convince me to bring him back."
"I would never!" Grissom gawked.
"Never mind."
Not sharing another comment they waited for their pizza's to arrive; Grissom mocking on one side of the couch, Sara cuddling Michael on the other side.
'I can not believe this. That is one hypocritical cat!' Grissom thought. 'Trying to win over my lady. Well soon he won't know what hit him. I will fight for my right!'
Comfort settled once again over pizza, or at least for a moment. Grissom was about to sink his teeth into a large slice when Michael approached the scene, keen on having some dinner himself. With a fast slash of his paw he grabbed the slice of pizza from Grissom's hand who, in an attempt to get back his delicious dinner grabbed the culprit by its tail.
"Grissom! What the hell do you think you're doing!" Sara yelled, allowing the cat to get away with it.
"What?" Grissom asked bewildered.
"You never pull a cat by its tail!" she said, both eyes and mouth agape.
"He stole my pizza! I'm sure he had been setting it up ever since I proposed it."
"It's a cat Grissom and you are being paranoid!"
"But... He... He did..."
Silence set once again as both of the two CSI's refused to listen to the other's point of view.
After dinner Grissom grabbed the pizza box and walked towards the kitchen, nearly slipping on something wet.
"Sara!" he roared, "that damn cat peeed all over the kitchen floor!"
"He's new to our home, maybe he hasn't found out how to use the kitty litter yet," she shushed.
"He's after me, I'm telling you!"
"Don't be such a wuss, it's just water, ammonia and a few waste materials."
"You'd be singing a different tune if it had been you who stepped into it! I'm taking a shower." Grissom grumbled.
Sara had the night off, but he would have to be at the office in less than two hours and he wanted to be as clean as he could be before the stench of corpses messed him up all over again.
Washing the dry blood of his arms and nose and the urine of his feet he felt a lot better. When he got out of the shower however he found a certain feline on top of his carefully selected clothes. Not daring to try and get him off -after all, he had been just been cleaned up- he picked a different outfit from his closet.
The cat was eyeing him carefully when he let his towel drop.
"Oh no you don't!" Grissom shouted, while quickly pulling on some briefs and pants. "The boys are off-limits. You stay away from them or I'll make sure the vet takes yours!"
He gave Sara a quick kiss goodbye and made for the office. Driving through traffic he figured that maybe he had been a little too hard on the cat and that he should give him some time to adjust before jumping to conclusions.
Grissom was handing out assignments when Nick and Warrick blankly stared passed him. He turned around to find Sara standing in the doorway, scratches covering every inch of bare flesh. He slowly rose from his seat and walked over to her, noticing the tears in her eyes.
"He.. Uh... He is evil!" Sara said.
Blood rising in his cheeks Grissom shouted, "Michael is history!"
Grabbing Sara by her arm he paced out of the break room.
Nick and Warrick stared at each other a minute before being able to speak. Eyes widened Warrick gasped, "What was that all about?"