A Mother`s Duties
Disclaimer: I don`t own Cats- I`m just a fan.
My first completed Cats fanfic! (Just some fluff though…) I`m new to the fandom, and since I first saw the musical at a local high school, I`ve wanted to write something for it. To be honest- I was a little reluctant about writing something for this fandom, as my experience with cats, in general, has been limited due to my mother`s extreme allergies and I`m also a dog-person. Huh, who would have thought? A Cats-loving dog person.
I loved the musical and I also loved the widely-accepted fan idea of Macavity, Munkustrap, and Rum Tum Tugger being brothers with Grizabella being their mother. Poor Griz, that`s quite a variety of personalities she would have to deal with between a psychopathic criminal, a control freak, and a play boy.
Anyway, read and review! (And I`m willing to take someideas for new fics. I`ll do slash.)
-Lucky Duck
The storm had passed finally. After two straight days of pouring, the clouds decided to give up on soaking everything and decided to take a welcome pause in the weather. The humans in the city were certainly glad that the bloody rain had given way, but possibly the most relieve were then more furry residents of the city- particularly the cats, who all despised getting wet.
Although the rain had ceased, it didn`t mean the heat and humidity hadn`t done the same. With the summer in full-swing, there came the uncomfortable, humid nights that hung heavily over the junkyard. A lot of the Jellicles were sick with the heat. Nobody, however, found the heat more unbearable than Grizabella the Glamour Cat.
She had two very young and very rambunctious kittens to watch over now, and another one on the way in the very near future. Looking over her children- two sons, Macavity and Munkustrap, who both seemed to have the favorite pastime to be as annoying as possible as they ran helter-skelter over the junkyard- was already a laborious task and wore her down. Now, being pregnant and overheated, it was a struggle keep both of them in line.
Thank goodness for Jennyanydots, her older sister, for accepting her plea to watch the kittens for a while as Grizabella rested in the den. The Gumbie Cat already had two kittens of her own to keep an eye on- the twins Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who also loved to get into their own fair share of trouble on their own. Of course, Jenny had always loved taking care of young kittens, even when she was one herself (Grizabella, on the other hand, had most of her affairs doing with her own image and with toms.) Jenny had gladly agreed to have some more little ones to look after.
Now, Grizabella lay sprawled out on her prized satin cushion- the one Deuteronomy had managed to find for her as a gift when they first became mates.
The whole den, like the cushion, was extravagant with all of the little glamorous trinkets and odds and ends she had managed to scrounge over the years. Luxurious pieces of fabric and pillows adorned the floor and walls of the den-an abandoned bureau- and jewelry that had been (accidently) thrown out by humans or stolen from them by other Jellicle cats made the den ornate. Most of the items had been gifts or tokens of admiration from toms before she became Deuteronomy`s mate. Many of her courtships with those toms didn`t last very long, but she did like to keep their gifts as memorabilia of sorts rather than give them back to them. Besides, it was her Everlasting Cat-given beauty that made them give her the gifts- why shouldn`t she keep them?
Of course, she didn`t feel as pretty now and that was part of her reason for not leaving the den as often anymore. This had happened before she had birthed both Macavity and Munkustrap, too.
She drew a breath, savoring the moment. Silence, just how she liked it. Her eyes fluttered closed as she was just falling into a hazy slumber and-
"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!"
Trying to mask her groan, Grizabella, with some difficulty because of her much more rounded shape, sat up on the cushion to see that her current youngest was scampering away from his older brother, who followed at a slower pace- the youngest`s face and paws filthy and his voice upset.
Before the Glamour Cat had even began her usual, "What happened this time?" Munkustrap had blurted out, "Macavity pushed me into a mud puddle!"
"No, I didn`t!" Macavity said. The older kitten looked to his mother, his face devoid of any possible guilt. "I was looking for Jerrie`s mouse-toy. He said he lost it by the tire, where we were playing yesterday." Grizabella`s oldest always seemed to have a different sort of alibi or excuse for anytime Munkustrap blamed something on him.
"Liar!" Munkustrap argued.
"You`re the liar! And you`re just trying to make me look bad in front of mum!"
"I am not! I`m telling the truth!"
"You`re just trying to make her feel sorry for her because when the new kitten comes, it`s going to get all the attention!"
"That`s ridiculous! Mummy`ll love me no matter what!"
For Grizabella, she found it hard to love the both of them when they were arguing like this. She sighed, giving a quick prayer to the Everlasting Cat to give her patience to sort out this argument, before she even dared to intervene with the fight. "Kits! Stop fighting!"She ordered them. Amazingly, this time they snapped out, knowing how irritable she had been as of lately.
"Did you leave Aunt Jenny?" Grizabella asked her sons.
Munkustrap, the responsible, honest one of the two, answered the truth. "Well, I didn`t. But I saw that Macavity had wandered off and I needed to see what he was doing. And then, when I came up to him, he somehow pushed me down in the mud left over from the storm."
"Does she know where you are?" was Grizabella`s second question.
"No, because we came straight here," Munkustrap told his mother, shaking his head.
"Macavity."She looked to her oldest and motioned back through the exit of the den with a nod in the general direction. "Get back to Aunt Jenny. I need to clean up your brother and then I`ll deal with you."
With a grumble, Macavity obediently left the den under his mother`s watchful glare. When he had left, Grizabella turned her attention to her silver tabby son and motioned for him to come closer to her, but careful not to get too close to her cushion, in fear the mud would ruin it.
"Why do you and your brother have to do this to each other?" She mumbled more to herself than to her son as she dutifully began to lick the mud off her boy- an unpleasant, motherly task, but one that needed done.
The Everlasting Cat had to bless her with two kittens who were opposites. Munkustrap was responsible, helpful, considerate, but he was too uptight, a perfectionist while he was still young. Grizabella thought the blame was on the responsibility that would come with being a son of the Jellicle leader. One day, either Macavity or Munkustrap would become the Protector of the Jellicle tribe when they were old enough , the one who would narrate the story of the Pekes and the Pollicles every Jellicle Ball, and most importantly, second-in command with important decisions made about the welfare of the entire tribe.
Macavity, on the other hand, was wild and untamable. He liked chaos, unlike Munkustrap who could only see that their world needed to be orderly as possible. It didn`t help that along with his desire for chaos, Macavity was also kind of – the only word Grizabella could really use to describe it was special. Since his youngest days, it seemed like Macavity happened to posses as certain magical abilities that sometimes would baffle Grizabella. One of the most recent times he displayed this odd behavior was when he had set fire to a can lying around on the ground- without any other aid. It just happened… one moment the can was normal and the next, it was light up with a blaze.
Deuteronomy and a lot of the elders in the tribe insisted that these behaviors and abilities were gifts, and when Macavity was old enough and had been disciplined well enough, he could do wonders with them. But gifts or not, it didn`t mean that they didn`t freak Grizabella out.
"I don`t do it to him," Munkustrap said, as Grizabella took one of his paws into her`s and started to lick away the mud. "Why does he do it to me?"
"Because he`s your brother, that`s why," Grizabella told him, in between a lick ,a twitch of a smile on her lips as she remember what it was like when she and Jenny were kits. They had their own fair share of disputes (though, she hardly remember any of them), and, like almost all sisters, had loved to pull each other`s tail, both literally and figuratively.
Munkustrap groaned and said, "I hope, when our little brother-"
"Sister," Grizabella pointedly corrected. She was positive, or at least hoped with all her might, this kitten was going to be a queen. She already had two sons yanking each other's fur out and she sure as Heaviside didn`t need another one to only add to the struggle.
"When Macavity and I`s , err, sister, comes we won`t fight as much" Munkustrap resumed.
"I hope so, too," the mother told her son, resuming her the remainder of her licking. Having licked both of her sons clean many a time, and quiet frequently she might add, she was extremely efficient and quick to clean Munkustrap up. She finished her work in no time.
"There," she said gently, with a sigh as she was glad that this ordeal was over with. She stood up, off her cushion. "You`re clean. Now, go play with your cousins and brother and don`t bother any of the elders instead. You`re a kitten and your should act more like it. And don`t get filthy this time."
Munkustrap nodded, understanding his mother`s direction. Before he left, he wrapped his arms around what his short stature could grab of his mother in a hug. "Love you, Mummy," he murmured, nuzzling his head softly against the fur of her leg.
Grizabella smiled faintly, rubbing her hand through the collection of fur atop her son`s head. "Go on," she said, giving a gentle nudge to unlatch from her leg and leave the den. He obeyed her. She watched him from the exit of her den, as she headed back to what she could see of her sister in the clearing of the Junkyard, coaxing down Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer from their perch on a discarded refrigerator.
Once she knew her kit was in safe hands with her sister, Grizabella walked back to her cushion and resumed her resting. She was finally alone, and she was sure she wouldn`t want it any other way.