Lint

For those of you unfamiliar with the Christian religion, Lent is the forty-day period before Easter, excluding Sundays. It begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. In the year 2005, those dates are February 9th, and March 26th, respectively. Generally, those who observe Lent will abstain from a particular vice (cigarettes, alcohol) or something they find enjoyable (chocolate, television) as a sign of repentance of their sins.

Maybe Jim should give up Wonderburger, and Blair his algae shakes and they can just lick whipped cream and chocolate sauce off each other's bodies for six weeks, hmm-)

The phone ringing tore Jim away from his glaring match with his computer. It had been making that inaudible-to-everyone-but-Sentinels noise that he knew preceded the Blue Screen of Death and he had been hoping to stare it down.

As his eyes flickered momentarily from the computer to the ringing phone and back again, he grimaced as he noted the color change on his monitor.

No such luck.

Heaving a sigh, he reached out with his left hand to reboot his computer while his right snagged the phone from its cradle. "Ellison!" he barked into the phone, his characteristic gruffness being compounded by his anger at his rebellious piece of hard- and software.

"Jim?" came the tentative answer of his partner's voice.

Purposely trying to rein in his ire, Jim said warmly, "Hey, Chief. What's up?"

Anxiety forgotten as quickly as it had come – Blair was familiar with his partner's mercurial moods – Blair asked, "Jim, have you seen Felicity?"

Jim blinked. "Chief, I'm at the station. What would Felicity be doing here?" he asked reasonably, with not a little sarcasm in his voice.

"Because I can't find her anywhere, and I thought maybe she snuck out the door while we were…er…'saying goodbye' and hid in your truck," Blair replied.

Jim's cheeks warmed as he remember that enthusiastic kiss – and grope. As the heat in his face died down, a light bulb went on in his mind. He was reluctant to say it, but he had an idea of where she might have gone. "I haven't seen her anywhere, Chief, but if the door was left open…" and now that he thought back, it had been, "maybe she snuck downstairs."

"To the laundry room," Blair pronounced with thinly-veiled dread.

"Why don't you go check?" Jim suggested. "I'll hold on 'till you get back."

Blair sighed over the line. "Be right back, man." There was a clatter and Blair set the phone's handset on something – extending his hearing and correlating all the echoes as he had when he was blind, Jim was almost certain it was the kitchen island – and then the clatter of him heading down the stairs carried to him.

Reeling in his hearing back to normal volume, Jim settled in to wait, hoping against hope Blair wouldn't find Felicity in the laundry room. It wasn't that he wanted her to be lost, but if she was in the laundry room…

Damnit. It was a double-edged sword. A lose-lose situation. Either way, they were screwed.

Only a few minutes later, Blair was back on the phone, breathing heavily as if he'd run up the stairs.

Or just climbed up them with Felicity in his arms, Jim thought, knowing that Felicity was a rather heavy feline.

"You found her, I take it?" Jim asked dryly when the sound of a loud, plaintive 'Meerow!' echoed tinnily across the line.

"Yeah, I did," Blair replied grimly.

"What happened?" Jim asked.

"Miss Marks from 109 left her laundry in the dryer – with the drier door open – while she went to get her mail. Apparently Felicity snuck into it," Blair explained. "Not only does the poor girl have fur on all her clothing, but now Felicity is the proud possessor of a nice thick coat of lint," Blair said, disgust clear in his voice.

Jim sighed. "Damn. I was hoping she hadn't managed to get into one of the driers."

"Me, too. It's going to take forever to comb out her fur," Blair lamented, which Jim knew well. When they'd taken Felicity to get her spayed, it had been discovered that she wasn't just a marmalade-colored tabby. She did, in fact, have a large helping of Maine Coon in her ancestry; possibly one of her parents was a purebred. This hadn't become a problem until the winter, when her coat had grown out several inches longer and had almost tripled its thickness. In order to prevent hairballs and excessive shedding – Hah! was Jim's opinion on that last – they had to brush her fur twice a week. It could take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour depending on how tangled her fur was.

Lint only compounded the problem.

"Sorry I can't be there to help you, Chief," Jim told his lover, trying to his best to sound sincere. Combing lint out of Felicity's fur was extremely hard on his senses and he would cheerfully take a forty-eight hour long stakeout over having to complete the chore.

"No, you're not," Blair griped, and slammed down the phone.

Jim winced. Hanging up the phone with a sigh – he knew that it would take a lot of cuddling to get Blair out of his funk of being forced to tackle Felicity's fur single-handedly – Jim turned back to his just-restarted computer only to find his boss staring at him from over the monitor.

"Who is Felicity?" Simon asked, idly fiddling with an unlit cigar in his hands. "And what was she doing inside a clothes drier?"

"Felicity is our cat," Jim replied with an air of suppressed irritation. He frowned as Simon appeared curious, then remembered that he and Sandburg had never actually mentioned her.

"Really? How long've you had her?" Simon asked with interest.

"About nine months," Jim replied.

One eyebrow rising into his nonexistent hairline, Simon said innocently, "Reeeaaally now? And you didn't think to tell your friends about your newest roommate?" He gave his detective a pointed glare.

Jim grimaced. "Don't start with me, Simon; I'm not in the mood."

Megan had been watching the whole exchange from her desk next and now found she could stay a silent observer no longer. "Oh?" she piped up. "My granny always said that happiness was a warm cat in your lap."

Jim snorted. Maybe so, but… "And frustration is a Maine Coon who loves taking naps in the clothes drier," he shot back.

Simon and Megan looked uncomprehending. "Drier lint," Jim explained succinctly. Comprehension dawned like twin sunrises on the faces of his two friends. "Yeah, it takes forever to comb it out of her fur," he elucidated, unconsciously using Blair's' words from his earlier phone call. "I've told Sandburg not to let her anywhere near the laundry room," he added, exasperation clear in his voice. "But I've been thinking we should have named her Houdini, she's such a good escape artist."

"This is the reason why I'm glad Daryl only wanted pet fish," Simon said, a mirthful smile on his face. "No problems other than making sure they're fed regularly. No muss, no fuss."

"All cats aren't that high maintenance," Megan told them.

Jim raised a brow. "Really?" Not that they'd be trading Felicity in for a newer model or anything, but…

She grinned cheekily. "Nope, the Sphinx breed is hairless."

Jim rolled his eyes and groaned. "Might as well get a Chihuahua."

"But they don't purr," Megan argued.

"Neither would I if I was naked all the time," Jim volleyed back. "Poor cats must freeze their tails off."

Simon snorted and shook his head. Catching sight of the bullpen's calendar out of the corner of his eye, he chuckled as he noted that tomorrow was the second Wednesday in February. Gesturing towards the all-purpose timekeeper, Simon said, "Guess we should hope Felicity isn't Jewish like Sandburg."

"Why?" Megan and Jim asked in unison.

"That way maybe Felicity will give up sleeping the clothes drier for 'Lent', eh?" Simon offered, his booming laugh echoing through the bullpen.

Megan groaned at the bad pun. Jim just rolled his eyes.

"Maybe you should give up trying to make jokes, Simon," the Sentinel told his boss.

"Hmmph! See if I give you any time off for good behavior…" Simon grumbled as he headed back to his office.

Under his breath, Jim said, "Noooo problem. As long as Blair's combing out her fur, I don't want to be home."

Megan just shook her head at the follies of men and went back to work.