Home Lives:
A Case Study

Oneshot Summary: The Obsession Cat. A look into an hour with the frightening owner of the young Rum Tum Tugger fangirl Etcetera. pre-/during-/post-musical (doesn't matter)

Story Type: Family, Humor, "Romance" (not really XP)

Next Chapter: Victoria (Story Type: Family, Hurt/Comfort, Suspense, Tragedy)

Pairings: Canon (including one-sided) (possibly temporarily), I.E. MunkustrapDemeter AND OTHERS. Also look out for: TuggerBombalurina, SkimbleshanksJennyanydots, CoricopatTantomile, and whatever else pops up. I'll take your opinions into concideration. ^.^

Disclaimer: I don't own the "CATS" movie. If I owned the "CATS" movie, Mistoffelees would have a longer dance number and Gus would have been the one to go to the Heavyside Layer instead of Grizabella (after all, the poor man/cat IS older and probably deserved it more...). Go away now while I mourn this horrible loss.

Notes/Warnings (you only have to read what's bolded/italicized/underlined if you want):
Nothing other than foul language and not-quite-stalking. No, Etcetera, don't tackle Tugger! He's busy-...too late. -.-;;;;
Now enough with the boring stuff; let's start the story! :D Yay!

Etcetera:
A Similar Counterpart

(1)-

Tugger: And there's no-doin' anything-

Abou-wow-wowwowwow, wooooooooowwww!

Etcetera: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Tugger: -rolls eyes- -stuffs tail into Etcetera's mouth-

About it.-(1)

As anyone can assure you, there was no bigger Rum Tum Tugger fangirl than the adorable and exhasperating kitten Etcetera. She had been obsessed with the elder Jellicle for as long as anyone could remember, following him with hearts in her eyes whenever they were both at the Junkyard at the same time (which was happening less and less often as Tugger became more and more annoyed). No one quite knew why with the notable exceptions of Mistoffelees (who seemed deeply amused), Munkustrap (who beamed proudly, even though he didn't answer), Tugger (who made a face and muttered about mistakes), and Etcetera herself (who squee'd and promptly zoned out into her own little world).

But that was pretty much the only mystery when it came to Etcetera.

While most Jellicles were tight-lipped about their lives when it came to humans, Etcetera always jumped to the occasion when anyone showed even mild interest. She would rave for hours about her adorable human and how the two were perfect for each other, about all the little facts of her human that were boring to anyone but Etcetera, about how the the human had sworn on her pride to take Etcetera to the first concert she ever went to. All in all, while most cats were offended by questions on their homelives, Etcetera was more than happy to answer anything-asked or not-if only for the chance to ramble with a reason.

The only thing about her owner that Etcetera didn't see the need to tell anyone was about how, er, "eccentric" she was...

"-I know, right? But seriously, if John really loves her like he claims, he'd come crawling back on his hands and knees. Buy her dinner or something and beg for forgiveness. Hehe, wouldn't that be just sooooo romantic? Yeah, totally! Awww, now I want my boyfriend to cheet on me so that I can tell everyone how sweet his make-up attempts are..."

This was the conversation that Etcetera walked in on one afternoon before mewing as loudly as she could. Her owner, Sarah, abruptly stopped talking into the phone as her eyes lit up almost comically.

"Call ya back, Amy," she said simply before hanging up. She grinned at the cat in the doorway. "Heeeeey, Duchess! C'mere!"

Obediently, Etcetera bounded into the room and into her owner's lap, purring innocently as she arched her back against Sarah's hand in an attempt to be pet. Sarah complied with a sly grin.

"Y'know, you've been out more and more lately, Duchess, hun. Wanna tell me why?" Etcetera mewed again and Sarah squealed loudly, abruptly taking Etcetera around her middle and lifting the Jellicle to face-level. "Ooooh! You found your very own Thomas, didn't you! The butler became jealous I spend so much attention to you and stole you and-err-your three favorite stuffed animals away and Thomas found you and helped you and the stuffed animals get back and he fell in love with you along the way and oooh, it's so ROMANTIC!"

Etcetera gave a slow blink. "Mew/Huh?"

"Now don't you dare try to make me think otherwise," Sarah said with false sternness, setting down Etcetera and leaning forward so they were still looking each other in the face. "That's why I named ya Duchess, y'know, because I was hoping you'd find love just like the one in that Disney movie! So." A too-bright-to-be-a-smirk-but-not-quite-a-grin crossed Sarah's fourteen-year-old features. "Who's the lucky Tom? Is it that nice-looking orange cat that came by the other day? He looks a bit old for you-but he was so cute! Ahaha..."

A feeling of horror overcame Etcetera at the thought. Sure, Skimbleshanks was nice and all, but he was totally too old for her! And, like, he was already mated! Well, that wasn't really much of a problem (Jellicles could mate to as many cats as wanted so long as everyone involved was alright with it), but she was as much a romantic as her owner and refused to mate to anyone but her love-Rum Tum Tugger. She supposed she wouldn't mind if he wanted to keep Bombalurina as a sex toy, but Etcetera would be his one TRUE love if it was the last thing she did!

Meanwhile these rambling thoughts went through Etcetera's head, Sarah was babbling as well.

"He even looks like the Thomas in the movie! Of course, you have too much gold fur to be concidered looking like Duchess, but who needs details?" the human wondered aloud. When she noticed her cat hadn't even mewed, Sarah blinked slowly. "Er-Duchess? Duchess?" A pause. "...you know I was joking, right; like I always am when I talk about the 'Perfect Romance'?"

But Etcetera was too far gone in her delusions of Tugger to hear.

Etcetera:
Epilog

Seven years later, Sarah and her cat, Duchess, were in collage when she met a nice young man by the name of Dylan who was a business major and started a three-year romance that ended in their marrage. Duchess was at the wedding with a few of her cat friends (including the orange cat Sarah had noticed a years ago, much to the bride's amusement), but disappeared shortly afterward.

Sarah gave herself a year of mourning before a black and cream cat caught her attention and she bought it from a Petland, naming the cat-Belle. She had no way of knowing that the cat was Duchess' older sister (better known as Electra, for those of you reading) and that Duchess was always watching over her eccentric owner. Too bad she, unlike her owner, never grew out of her romantic phase...

PS from Authoress: -frowns up at writing- Not too happy with how this one turned out, but I vowed to myself that I would post any chapters I wrote, whether I liked them or not. I just wanted to let everyone know that this is below my normal bar of acceptability (WAY below it) and that next chapter will be better, so don't give up on me just yet! :O And I'm sorry about the lack of updates, but I've had some familial problems and personal issues to deal with, so we're lucky anything was posted at all, to be honest. Please bear with me; I don't really want to worry you all, but there might not be an update for a while. Sorry! :'((((

Later! -MKL, signing out.