Featuring "Caledonia" by Dougie MacLean, a song introduced to me by tundrageist. Technically that song wasn't written until the 70s but eh, I figure a little anachronism never hurt anyone in the Cats fandom.


Skimbleshanks' dextrous fingers perched lightly atop the piano keys, making contact with them as if with a feather. On his shoulders were another set of feather-fingers, tucked underneath the shoulders of his vest and fiddling playfully with his suspenders - Munkustrap's fingers, distinguished by paw pads roughened ever so slightly from years of tireless work.

He turned his head and gave the silvery fingers a ginger kiss, the fuzz of the delicate joints brushing smoothly against his lips. "I can't play if you're fiddling with my suspenders, love."

"Who said you had to play anything?" Munkustrap rested his chin between Skimbleshanks' ears, delighted at the chance to be the taller of the two for once. He slid is paw down his husband's arm, feeling beneath his paw every crease in Skimbleshanks' shirt, every sinewy but strong muscle beneath the cool cotton, until he reached his wrist and interlocked their fingers atop the ivory keys. "Your voice is music enough."

"Oh, psh," Skimbleshanks scoffed lightly. "You're the one with the voice of an angel, not me. You've had formal training."

Munkustrap wrapped a gentle arm around Skimbleshanks' neck, shaking his head into the cinnamon-striped head-fur. "I didn't have your family to teach me,"he breathed, inhaling deeply the scent of wood varnish and tea which Skimbleshanks carried with himself everywhere.

"My family?" Skimbleshanks' mind flashed back to the scene a year before, when he and Munkustrap had gone to Glasgow to celebrate Hogmanay with his family - sitting in the parlor at midnight, listening to his mother and father and brothers crooning Auld Lang Syne, tipsier than he'd have preferred to see them and smiling like idiots because of it. "You can't be serious."

"But I am, dearest." Munkustrap tightened his embrace, burying his nose deep in Skimbleshanks' fur, and squeezed their fingers together more tightly. "There's something special about the way your family sings, the way you sing. It's folk music; there's a connection there, to something greater. All I sing is showtunes." he sighed, a sigh sighed by only those who are truly, wholly happy. "You know, Skimble, our song is one of yours."

"Our song?" Skimble allowed his shoulders to slump a little, relaxing into Munkustrap's strong arms. "Which one?"

"You know, ours." Munkustrap stood up ever so softly. "Our song. The one we danced to at our wedding. The one little Jemmy sang for us."

"Oh...that one." Skimbleshanks' voice trailed off, his mind suddenly flooded by wonderful memories. Standing there in his family's estate gardens under that white tent; fairy lights sparkling in the corners of his eyes; Munkustrap's paws firmly, gently on his shoulders; his own paws fingering the ridge of his husband's spine, feeling the rise and fall of his back as he breathed in and breathed out. "Yes, love, of course I remember."

"Good. Didn't think it would be like you to forget." Munkustrap relaxed back into their closeness, once more interlocking their fingers and nuzzling his nose between Skimbleshanks' ears.

"I wouldn't forget for the world."

Their golden wedding bands brushed against each other with their fingers laced. Skimbleshanks could still feel the rush of joy in his chest as Munkustrap had taken his paw, fingers trembling with giddy nervousness, and placed the ring on his finger. And Munkustrap, too, could remember those slender, ginger fingers placing a ring on his paw, other paw on his wrist to keep them both steadied upright.

Those same sinewy fingers perched atop the piano keys now, right over a C major chord. That, Munkustrap knew, was the same chord their song started with. And he didn't need to hear it aloud to strike a tuning note in his head.

"I don't know if you can see the changes that have come over me. In these last few days I've been afraid that I might drift away." The first verse was considered his, and he sang it ever so softly, warm baritone voice filling the room despite its hushed tone. "So I've been telling old stories, singing songs that make me think about where I came from, and that's the reasons why I seem so far away today."

Skimbleshanks laughed quietly, sentimentally, ears perking up at the liquid gold that was his husband's voice singing into his head-fur. Not too far from their nieces voice, a liquid gold of its own but a couple octaves higher; how he remembered her singing, the same song, the same words, as he and Munkustrap stood paw-in-paw, swaying wistfully to the music.

"Oh and let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time. Caledonia you're calling me and now I'm going home. For if I should become a stranger, you know that it would make me more than sad. Caledonia's been everything I've ever had."

"See? I told you you're the one with the voice of an angel." Skimbleshanks tilted up his head to see Munkustrap's face, but the silver tabby pulled away and crossed the room just before their eyes could meet. "...Where are you going?"

Naturally, Skimbleshanks stood and followed, crossing the room to meet his husband, brow furrowed at the thought that he could be upset about something - wasn't uncommon for him, unfortunately. But blue eyes flashed back to meet green, and Munkustrap smiled his dizzy, giddy smile and slipped his paws back under Skimbleshanks' vest and suspenders.

"I knew you'd get up if I did that," he whispered, laughing teasingly.

"Do what?" Skimbleshanks' apprehension melted, feeling his husband's calloused paws through the cotton of his shirt.

"Get up." Munkustrap reached up and plucked Skimbleshanks' spectacles from his nose, placing them ever so gently in his vest pocket. "And dance with me."

"Dance?"

"Mmm-hmm."

Munkustrap leaned into Skimbleshanks' shoulder, reaching out his arms and wrapping them soundly around his neck, resting his cheek right in the space beneath his husband's jaw. He swayed lightly, fluffy tail metronoming back and forth to the beat of some imaginary music, kept in time by the tick-tocking of Skimbleshanks' pocket watch in his vest. Lanky legs unprepared and tail clumsily sweeping the floor, Skimbleshanks neary started to fall, but caught himself upright just as his knees buckled, grabbing onto Munkustrap's waist to regain his balance. His paws rested perfeclty there, fingers brushing against the bony, muscular curve of the silver tabby's spine as they both settled into liquid swaying.

"Oh, and I have moved and kept on moving, proved the points that I needed proving, lost the friends that I needed losing, found others on the way." Skimbleshanks closed his eyes and sang his verse, thumbing through the silvery blur of head-fuzz buried in his shoulder. "Oh, and I have tried and kept on trying. Stolen dreams, yes, there's no denying I have travelled hard with conscience flying somewhere with the wind."He tightened his grip, lacing his fingers under Munkustrap's ribcage, the position a fond, fragrant flower of a memory. How convenient that the parlor lights were dimmed, twinkling in the corners of his eyes like dainty fairy lights.

"Oh, and let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time. Caledonia you're calling me and now I'm going home." Their tails brushed together absentmindedly, reminding each other again of the beauty that came in being lost in the other's presence. "For if I should become a stranger, you know that it would make me more than sad. Caledonia's been everything I've ever had."

Munkustrap laughed into the coarse tweed of Skimbleshanks' vest. "What do you suppose Tugger would think if he saw us standing here dancing like this?"

"Oh, Bast." Skimbleshanks thought back to their wedding with a hearty laugh, how the look on Tugger's face during their first dance had been a mixture of tipsy, tearful happiness and sheer confusion. "He'd probably think we're crazy, that this is our preferred way of being intimate with one another."

"We are crazy." Munkustrap stood upright, locking his gaze with his husband's. "And I couldn't be more proud of it."

"Now I'm sitting here before the fire, the empty room, the forest choir, the flames that couldn't get any higher, well, they've withered, now they've gone." Munkustrap joined his husband in singing, picking up a harmony line he snatched out of thin air. "But I'm steady thinking. My way is clear and I know what I will do tomorrow. When the hands have shaken and the kisses flow, well I will disappear."

Disappear. That got Skimbleshanks thinking. He had work tonight.

But he didn't have to leave until half past ten, and a glance at the old grandfather clock in the corner told him he had another half hour to spare.

Plenty of time.

"Oh, and let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time. Caledonia you're calling me and now I'm going home. For if I should become a stranger, you know that it would make me more than sad. Caledonia's been everything I've ever had."

"You're everything that I've ever had." Munkustrap's voice was hardly a whisper as tiptoed up to place a kiss between Skimbleshanks' eyes.

"And you to me." Skimbleshanks mirrored the gesture, brushing the little cowlick of fur on Munkustrap's forehead to the side before kissing him soundly.

Their swaying stopped, and the wrapping of their arms solidified into a tight embrace, holding all of Caledonia in its warm touches. Munkustrap had been right - the piano music was useless. The only music they needed was each other.