I'm back! This is the sequel to They Just Are. It's best you read that first. I'm attempting to answer your questions and tie up some… stuff. This is written like the final chapter of They Just Are. This is a flashback.
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Holy shit. It just hit me. I flippin' killed Tugger.
When did this happen?
How could he let it come to this? It was all too painful for him. The Tugger wondered whom he got it from as he sat in his hospital bed, looking out the window with half-lidded eyes. He didn't know exactly what it was—some disease with a terribly long name. Whatever it was, it hurt, but the Maine coon had no desire to treat it.
Tears stood in the Tugger's eyes and Demeter, Bombalurina and Munkustrap sauntered into his room, a bouquet in Bombalurina's paws. She looked beautiful, but her outfit was depressing—black and lacy—like she was going to a funeral. He would be soon, but he wasn't dead yet.
For a moment, it was like the sun-bathed old days. Noisy laughter and dirty jokes (some even from Munkustrap, who wasn't always as responsible as he let off) were shared and danced in the air, until the tears came and spilled.
He couldn't help it. He didn't want this to happen. The Rum Tum Tugger didn't want to die yet. But he was going to. It was terrible. And then Bombalurina started crying, and Munkustrap cried (little did the silver tom know that he'd be crying a lot in the future), and even Demeter let a few tears lose.
This wasn't like the old days at all. There was no warmth, no laughter, simply hugs and tears and sniffling. They couldn't leave him, so they didn't.
The tears stopped, and no one said a word. The toms and queens simply held hands, like Bombalurina, Demeter, and the other queens did when they were kittens and trying to summon the Everlasting Cat at sleepovers. Only, the Everlasting Cat couldn't save them now, no matter what magical incantations they recited or songs they sang.
And just as the Tugger was ready to crack a smile, the doctor came in with horrid news.
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Two more months.
He couldn't help but scream. Shriek, shout, cry, and pull his fur out. No! No! No! He was lying, the damn doctor, Tugger wasn't dying, he wasn't in the hospital, he was a kitten, running around with his friends, not even knowing was "sex" was.
The other cats watched in horror as their brother, brother-in-law, or potential made lost it. It was heartbreaking. Bombalurina was sure her heart really did shatter—what else could the pain in her chest mean? Angina?
It was silent for hours. Bombalurina, Munkustrap, and Demeter knew they couldn't leave him, not like this. Half asleep, tears rimming his red eyes. He looked small and frail, like a sickly kitten, instead of a large, terminally ill tom.
The sisters shared a look, Demeter's icy blue eyes saying she and Munkustrap had to leave, lest Alonzo (who would visit tomorrow) get bored or Jemima begin to worry. The gold queen had to ignore her older sister's trembling lips and puffy eyes, looking down as she stood up, gathering her cardigan. Munkustrap rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, and Demeter glanced at him, quickly regretting it. His eyes were raw, puffy and pink, his eyelashes-tear spiked, chapped lips curled up in a forced smile. Her mate was crumbling.
Little did Demeter know that this moment would become a déjà vu.
As the wooden door clicked shut, Tugger scooted over, a lazy half-smile on his features. He patted the space next to him, his other hand propping up his head. It was like the old times between them, before all of this.
Bombalurina slid off her shoes and laid in the hospital bed—but she would pretend it wasn't a hospital bed, act as if it was her bed, or Tugger's bed, and they were just going to bed and not grasping on to any time they had left together.
The scarlet queen would find herself falling asleep with tears slipping down her face.
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One month.
He has left the hospital to live his last few months to the fullest, even if it's only one month now. He's at the bar, talking to queens who he won't sleep with while Mistoffelees (you didn't think they'd lose touch, did you…?) sat at the other side of the bar, like the Tugger's chaperone.
The conjurer's eyebrows pushed together as laughter erupted from the Maine coon's bevy of queens. It irritated him that Tugger wouldn't get treatment—no, it didn't just irritate him, it made him seethe and above all, want to cry. He would be losing his best friend any day now. If only Tugger had listened to Old Deuteronomy's warnings, or Munkustrap's warnings, or at least anyone's warning.
Tugger believed himself to be immortal. Everyone else did, too.
No one could imagine that their Rum Tum Tugger was dying, dying a slow and painful death. Tears pricked at Mistoffelees's eyes but he wiped them away, and drowned them in a swig of some sweet drink and obviously gay cat he didn't know gave him. It was dumb, accepting a drink from a stranger but he didn't care. His mind was focused elsewhere, focused on his dying friend.
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Two weeks.
The Tugger clutches his drink (lemonade this time) drink tightly, eyes widened. He swallows hard. Squeezes his eyes shut, so tightly that a painful tear slips out. The cats are starting to realize that something is wrong. He's less curious, disobliging,
alive.
A painful cough shakes his body, and the Tugger feels like his organs are ripping from their places. He's glad he's alone, unless someone would worry (he didn't know they knew). The doctor lied, he tells himself over and over again. The tom refuses to believe something is wrong with him, even if he's reminded every day.
The kits visit him at his house later that day, and he wants nothing more than to cry. But he'd worry them, and the Rum Tum Tugger hates (hated) worrying people. He's worried them all his life, and for a little while he'll stop and care.
"Hey Tugger!" Etcetera says, and Tugger can immediately sense a change in her. Instead of screaming, she is calm (almost). Instead of tackling him, she simply sits down next to him. She knows something's up.
Victoria gives him well-practiced sad eyes. Her blue eyes are the color of sadness, and Tugger simply can't look at them. Jemima, his niece, can't help but begin to cry as they try to hold a comedic conversation. Tears flow from her big brown eyes, falling from her chin to her dress.
Tugger has cried a lot lately.
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.
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One more day.
Tugger goes back to the hospital for his assumed last day. They stick him with tubes and throw him in a gown that shows his bum when he stands up—but the Maine coon won't be standing for a while. He just wants to sleep.
There's no turning back—there never was.
Before his leave, Tugger makes sure to say goodbye to every single cat. The sky is gloomy, and the clouds look like they're holding back tears of their own. Weeps, some quiet, some loud, can be heard around the Junkyard. Even Munkustrap was crying, but he wouldn't let anyone see him till he was done (but Munkustrap had many more tears to shed).
Bombalurina's heels click as her feet pound into the hospital tile. He footsteps are heavy, but quick. She wants to keel over and sob, but that can wait. The red queen mentally prepares herself for whatever might happen next, prepares herself to see Tugger's weak state. She promises herself to stay strong, to hold her tears till the Tugger's eyes shut for good.
"Hey, babe," Bombalurina tries to keep her voice steady as she slowly opens the door to Tugger's hospital room. She has to steal herself as her eyes rest on the tom in question—frail, sickly, and still gorgeous. It's wrong, terribly wrong. Everything is wrong, and Bombalurina simply wants to be there when the Rum Tum Tugger puts his next foot in the grave. But she won't cry, no she won't, until she wakes up and Tugger never does.
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.
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They're shaken.
Understanding what has happened is difficult for everyone. He's gone for good. That's him in the casket with the red and white flowers, that's him Old Deuteronomy is talking about. The Leader has to hold back his tears, and he does for so long that his eyes look like slimy orbs. And then he can't hold them in anymore—tears flow down as slide against a face wrinkled from years of smiling.
All is silent when Bombalurina approaches the casket. She looks beautiful, but old. Her eyes are darkened from a lack of sleep, figure hidden with a shapeless black dress. Her tail swings slowly, and her mouth is frozen in a small "o," like it just hit her that Tugger is gone—but over and over again, and harder every time.
When she peers into the coffin and sees her potential-husband (if it wasn't for Pouncival… no, never mind, I can't blame the kit.), eyes shut and fingers laced, like he's peacefully sleeping, she breaks down. Loud sobs rack her body, and she falls, her nails painfully digging into the side of the casket. She looks tiny, alone, broken. The red queen's cries sound like painful, throaty screams that will ring through the cats' heads for weeks. Demeter rushes towards her destroyed sister, wrapping her arms around her tentatively, like if she hugged Bombalurina too tightly, she would shatter and Demeter would lose her sibling, too.
Demeter strains not to look at Bombalurina's face (Munkustrap's broken face was already etched into her mind—she was crazy enough already) as the two slowly rise, the latter holding her head in her hands. The scarlet queen's sobs have quieted, but her shoulders still shake violently.
As the group stands outside, waiting for the Tugger's ebony casket to be lowered into the Earth, Bombalurina rests her head in the crook of Demeter's neck. She cannot watch them toss her love into the ground and bury him, she can't accept that he's
dead.
Munkustrap clutches his hat as he watches cats he doesn't know bury the casket, never to be brought up again. He wants to wish his brother safe passage to the Heaviside Layer, but he knows Heaviside doesn't exist, and the Rum Tum Tugger is simply sleeping, never to wake up.
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The Rum Tum Tugger was a curious cat.
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I liked the beginning, but not the end. I was tired, and I wanted to post this.
One question down—What were Tugger's thoughts before he died?
Next end tied: Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer's lives in jail, and what happened just before they were jailed.
Request things! Mourning, pairing stuff (I plan on doing Etcy/Mistoffelees)… I'll try to answer any questions you have with a… story.
