Work Text:
I. Do I love you?
It was a typical early October morning, cloudy and gray. A light drizzle turned the autumn air cool and clingy, while brightly hued leaves danced and tumbled in the breeze like confetti at a ticker-tape parade. Given the time of year, the weather was not unusual in the slightest.
But seeing Mittens walking alone in such a setting, grumbling irritably to herself? Since she was mostly an indoor cat these days, only venturing out of doors accompanied by Bolt or Penny -- yes, that was unusual.
“Ugh,” she thought. “That dumb pooch! That clueless, stupid, fat-headed pooch! What’s wrong with him lately? He makes Sheldon Cooper look like a socially aware being.”
The litany of gripes Mittens nursed against her sweetie had mushroomed exponentially over the past couple weeks. There was the time Bolt had hopped up onto the couch next to her to watch television, tromping on her foot while turning in a circle to make himself comfortable before settling in. There was the time Bolt had rolled on top of her in the middle of the night while sleeping next to her, waking the cat out of an especially agreeable dream -- abruptly transforming Mittens’s cozy reverie about wrestling with a ball of yarn into one where she was being smothered by it. And there was the time Bolt had torn her favorite catnip mouse to shreds, only realizing too late that it wasn’t an actual rodent intruder.
While the shepherd had offered a perfunctory apology each time (and Mittens had forgiven him in turn), it still represented a worrisome pattern of thoughtlessness. None of the infractions had weighed heavily on the cat, but the sum of them was starting to add up to what she felt was a lack of respect and concern for her and her things. Still, if this was Bolt at his worst, it wasn’t the end of the world.
This morning, however, saw the final insult land squarely in Mittens’s stomach like a sucker punch. Bolt had groggily stumbled into the kitchen and mistakenly polished off the bowl of tuna Penny had left the cat before leaving for school. With Penny’s mom off to the city attending a lecture comparing the works of outsider artists Grandma Moses, Henry Darger, and James Hampton, this meant Mittens would have nothing to eat until her bedtime treats. She replayed the ensuing heated argument in her mind, complete with all its attendant angst.
“Uhhh -- hey, babe,” Bolt had confessed to the cat with a guilty look on his face. “I kinda sorta did a dumb thing just now… ”
Mittens had rolled her eyes in mock disdain. “Don’t tell me, I’m keen to guess. You left Penny’s mom a little present on the rug for her to clean up, I take it?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Bolt had said. “I was half asleep when I went downstairs for breakfast, and I’m pretty sure I ate your food by mistake. Either that, or Penny bought me that weird seafood medley meal by mistake again.”
“WHAT!” Mittens had yowled furiously, shooting the dog a glare that could have melted solid steel. “You realize Penny and her mom will think that I ate it, and I’m gonna go hungry all day? And in case you’re wondering, I can’t run the can opener without thumbs! Believe me, I’ve tried to before.”
Bolt had been taken aback by the cat’s atypically vehement tone. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about it now. If you want, you can eat my kibble instead.”
“You kiddin’?” Mittens had shouted. “That stuff tastes like recycled cardboard. How you can stand to chow down on that garbage is totally beyond me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my food!” the shepherd had barked irritably.
“Nothing wrong?” the cat had interrupted. Mittens had hopped up onto the counter and pointed at the bag of chow. “Have you even read the label on this thing?” She had peered at the fine print. “Contains corn derivatives, modified wheat gluten, beef and/or pork and/or chicken and/or unidentified meat by-products, BHA, BHT, Brown Dye #3, Dimenhydrenate (to suppress gag reflex), emulsified meat fats. May contain trace amounts of actual meat.”
“That’s all… technically food.” Bolt had countered. “Can I help it if you don’t appreciate the finer things in life? Besides, it looks like you’ve been getting a tad chubby lately. You might want to consider going on a fast today. Maybe lay off the late-night cat treat munch for a couple days, while you’re at it.”
“FAT?” Mittens had shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Are you seriously saying I’m FAT? I’ll have you know that at my yearly physical a couple weeks ago, Dr. Burkitt said I’m at a perfectly normal weight, thank you very much!”
“Uh oh,” Bolt had thought in a panic, though of course Mittens didn’t realize it at the time. “Shouldn’t have said that. I’ve seen enough classic sitcoms to know it’s a bad idea to tell your sweetie she’s packing on the pounds. They get real sensitive about that sort of thing.”
“You’re just used to seein’ me thin as a chopstick,” the cat had continued heatedly. “When you’re livin’ on the street and starvin’ all the time, that’s a given. It’s taken me a while to reach and maintain a more normal weight, and you scarfin’ down my chow ain’t gonna help me sustain it!”
“Okay, okay, okay! For the love of dog, stop yelling at me!” Bolt had snapped. “I already said I was sorry!”
Mittens by this time had burst into tears. “Well, ‘sorry’ has fewer calories than a breath mint, and it sure ain’t gonna fill my empty stomach. You don’t care about me at all -- you’re always takin’ me for granted. And you think an offhand apology is gonna make things all better? Well, I assure you, it won’t! Seriously, try thinkin’ about someone else for once.”
The little shepherd had frowned in frustration. “That’s not fair! Not fair at all! I’ve spent my entire life thinking of everyone else but myself. Dogs do that all the time -- or hadn’t you noticed?”
But by this time Mittens had dashed away towards the doggy door, her mood a thoroughly sour mix of fury and sadness.
II. I Wonder
“Serves me right,” Mittens thought sullenly. “I knew it wouldn’t always be a bed of roses when I fell in love with Bolt. He’s got more eccentricities than Kansas has tornadoes -- and that’s above and beyond his strictly canine-based craziness.” She shook her head. “What in dog’s name was I thinking, takin’ a mutt for a sweetheart? There must’ve been a couple cats I coulda settled down with way back when.”
Mittens stopped and went through her mental archive of past Manhattan-based lovers, but many of the examples she came up with made her cringe, while others simply elicited slumming reminders of quickies and one-night stands well worth forgetting. “Oh… I dunno,” she eventually thought. “How about Bill? Me and him were actually an item for three or four days, if I remember correctly. Really weird guy, though.”
She remembered him telling her all kinds of wild stories, each one stranger than the last. He claimed to be the illegitimate son of Garfield. He said his first owner was someone named Fat Freddie, but he had moved out on his own so he could run for President -- twice -- as part of the fringe Meadow Party ticket.
He’d had a stint as a televangelist, crusading to rein in penguin lust, but left the calling to form a hair-metal (or as he put it, “hairball-metal”) band called Billy and the Boingers, filling the role of Lead Tongue soloist and background “vocals.” He had purportedly donated three of his nine lives to charity. He had acquired and then supposedly shaken a crippling addiction to freebasing Tender Vittles.
He was a strange mix of loquacious and taciturn, at times babbling like a rushing brook, other times reduced to “Ack -- thppt!” and nothing else. He was ugly, scruffy, smelly, and stupid, but at least he was hot in the sack.
She and Bill had been inseparable for the first three days they knew each other. That changed on the morning of Day Four, however, when the pair had stopped to listen to music coming from a vintage clothing and knick-knack store in Greenwich Village. The shop was playing the original Laura Nyro version of “Wedding Bell Blues,” which Mittens discovered she liked as much as its later cover by The Fifth Dimension she was familiar with. But when she sang along with that part of the verse that implored “Kisses and love won’t carry me/’Til you marry me, Bill,” her paramour froze like a naked mole rat at the North Pole.
Later that afternoon, Bill had made an unexpected dash towards an open limousine door and stealthily snuck inside. Mittens immediately recognized the scowling, pudgy, orange-haired owner of the car as a self-important local business tycoon with a penchant for firing people. She never saw Bill again after that.
The cat broke into laughter. “Aw, c’mon -- who am I kiddin’? He was a total loser, just like all those other creeps back in New York. I can rationalize it all I want, but when you come right down to it, Bolt is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” She paused to lament her now-lost bowl of tuna. “Well, maybe second-best thing. It’s a tight margin for error.”
The gray clouds thickened as Mittens gazed up to the sky. “Looks like it’s gonna rain in earnest soon. Maybe I should go talk things out with him. Hope we can get past all this nonsense.”
III. Baby, I Love You
Bolt watched his feline sweetheart storm out the doggy door in a huff and immediately began feeling guilty. Despite being in a stable and satisfying relationship, the pair sometimes had disagreements, even the occasional minor tiff. Bigger fights like this were unusual, though, and the dog couldn’t remember their having had one this intense before. As was typical of his canine nature, the shepherd’s instincts were to find some way to mend fences, to play the peacemaker and make things right again.
After heading into the study and putting on a CD of Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hits, Bolt sat back and scratched an ear with his right hind leg, trying to figure out where things had gone wrong as the song “Rainy Day People” played in the background. “One thing’s for sure,” he said to himself. “I definitely shouldn’t have eaten Mittens’s breakfast. She’s told me all kinds of horror stories about going hungry when she lived on the street. Fortunately, she hasn’t wanted for anything since she moved in, and that goes double for a good square meal. Well… with the notable exception of this morning,” he added with a hangdog tone.
The little shepherd sighed wearily before continuing. “I still think she’s packed on more pounds than usual lately, but hey, facts are facts. If Dr. Burkitt says her weight is normal, I can’t argue with that. Also, she’s got a point -- a ‘healthy weight’ isn’t ‘fat’, and it’s unfair to compare her now to the starving waif she was when we first met. Everyone changes, and this is a really good change for her.”
As the CD moved on to “(That’s What You Get) For Lovin’ Me,” Bolt grumbled and frowned. Much as he enjoyed Gordon Lightfoot’s work, the lyrics for that pair of songs were just a little too tart and cynical for him right now. He switched over to a collection of tunes by Carly Simon, with the first up being “(Lovin’ You’s) The Right Thing to Do.” The dog nodded with satisfaction. “Yeah -- that suits my mood a whole lot better. I’ll stick with this.”
Bolt stood up and began walking around the house, trying to figure out how best to put together a grand gesture of apology. He first saw the extra-large bouquet of red roses Penny’s mom had bought to brighten up the living room a couple days ago. He hoped to scrounge up a big box of cat treats at his second stop, which he found within easy reach, sitting on a lower shelf of the kitchen pantry. His next destination was the dining room closet, where much to his surprise and pleasure, there was a large stash of candles sitting on sturdy little metal stands as well as a small torch lighter. From the bottom drawer in Penny’s bedroom bureau, he rooted out his old baseball jersey and cap, something Mittens found to be especially sexy on him. The shepherd’s final destination was back to the study, where he loped over to the CD rack and began combing through its contents. “Hope I won’t have any trouble finding the perfect song to play for Mittens when she returns,” he said.
The strummed opening chords to Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” floated through the speakers. “Better hurry up,” he continued. “I’ve got a few things to do, and hopefully she’ll be back anytime now.”
IV. Be My Baby
Mittens arrived at the farmhouse porch just as the rain began falling in earnest. She didn’t enjoy being wet, and she knew she’d gotten lucky on that score.
“Wonder what Bolt’s been up to all this time?” she thought. “Here’s hopin’ he feels bad about what happened earlier. I know I do.” She chuckled. “Besides, when you stick your foot that far into your mouth, it can take a good while to pull it back out again. At least I’m not mad at him right now -- a good walk and a lot of thinkin’ works wonders. Always helps me put things in perspective.”
The cat grinned. “And for all Bolt’s faults, one of his better qualities is that he doesn’t usually hold a grudge. I’ve always liked that about him. He may have a temper… ,” she thought and then stopped herself quickly. “Well, ‘temper’ might be a bit of an overstatement. Let’s just say he gets himself all worked-up and dramatic over the darnedest things sometimes, but he usually gets over it pretty quick.”
Mittens poked her head into the doggy door and glanced around cautiously. She heard distant music, but otherwise the house seemed quiet. When she stepped inside, she spotted a red rose petal on the floor -- then another, and another, and yet another. In fact, there was a whole trail of little crimson blossoms leading around the corner. The cat wondered what this was all about as she followed them one by one, finally arriving at the closed door to the study.
“Hey, Bolt,” she asked as she curiously pushed the door open. “You in here?”
What Mittens saw and heard next melted her heart with joy. She first noticed the song quietly undulating in the background, a singer-songwriter selection but not one by Gordon Lightfoot, Carly Simon, or even Laura Nyro. It was “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce, which was the perfect tune for the occasion. The singer here pensively wishes he could collect up all the time and experiences he has undergone thus far just so he can relive them with a loved one. Yet he laments that there never seems to be enough time available once you find said person. It’s arguably one of the most romantic and lovely songs of the 1970s, if not of all time.
The study was darkened, with curtains drawn and lit by a bevy of candles scattered about the room. The trail of rose petals led off to the corner, where she saw Bolt lying face up and propped against the wall. He was wearing his baseball jersey and cap, and a warm smile crossed his muzzle. To his right, spelled out in cat treats, was the phrase “I’m sorry.”
A tear rolled down Mittens’s face as she ran over to the dog and lay on his chest, hugging him tight. “Aw, lamb chop -- that’s so sweet of you. Thank you so much.” She rolled off Bolt and snuggled next to his left side, putting a paw on his chest. “So, we’re good?”
“Yeah. We’re good,” the little shepherd assured her. “We did and said some things we shouldn’t have, but that’s all behind us.” He smiled. “Glad to know you liked what I did here.”
Mittens nodded. “I could tell you went to a lot of trouble, and I really appreciate the effort. Must have taken you quite a while to pick those petals off, never mind lighting all those candles. Between you and me, we haven’t got a thumb to spare.”
“I managed it okay, though,” Bolt said earnestly. “I just put the flowers on the floor and kinda rolled them around with my paw. Given that they’re a couple days old, the petals surprisingly loosened up fairly easily. As for getting those candles lit, let’s just say that little electric torch over there really is a magic wand, in its way.”
The cat pointed at the message spelled in treats and laughed. “So, I take it you’ve changed your mind about how chubby I’ve gotten these days?”
Bolt wrinkled his nose in embarrassment. “Yup -- that crack was definitely out of line. I guess I’m just so used to seeing you as rail-thin that your being at normal weight doesn’t seem to register for me. It’s all good, no worries.” His smile turned more mischievous. “So, you still like me in my baseball uniform, eh?”
“Mrrrrrow!” purred Mittens seductively. “I don’t know what it is about that outfit, but it definitely gets the old lust flowing hot and heavy in my gut when you’re wearing it.”
“Ask and you shall receive,” chuckled Bolt. “C’mere, hot stuff… ”
V. Walking in the Rain
About half an hour later, Bolt went around the room blowing out the candles and pulling open the curtains with his teeth while Mittens munched on cat treats. “They’re right, you know,” she said with a sly grin. “Make-up sex really is great, isn’t it?”
“No argument here,” the dog agreed as he sauntered over to give her a lick on the cheek. “So, whatcha feel like doing now? Have to admit, it’s gonna be tough to top what we just did.”
An impish look crossed Mittens’s face. “Believe it or not, I thought we might go for a walk,” she said.
The little shepherd looked out the window at the misty falling drizzle. “But… but… you don’t like getting wet, do you? I’m surprised.”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m feeling all Ronettes-song romantic, and taking a lovey-dovey stroll in the rain feels like just the thing right now.”
“Okay -- you’re calling the shots on this one, babe. Let’s go,” laughed Bolt as they slowly headed for the doggy door.