Work Text:
The naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have three different names.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names,
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But the cat himself knows, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name.
“The Naming of Cats”, T.S. Elliot
- - - - -
A man, if he is privileged enough, only has to go by one name his entire life. He is born, screaming and wriggling and wet with blood, and his mother gives him his first name. Then, before he is even aware his fingers were made for grasping, and thus have the capacity for stealing, he takes his father’s name for his own. He makes his way through life, going by that name and that name alone until he himself is no longer alone. Where once he took, he now gives. His name is offered up freely and willingly to a wife, and then, with time he hopes, a child. But he is mistaken. He thinks he gives his name to his son under no conditions, but the boy, like all boys, is born with the same grasping fingers, and the same instinct for thievery. Like his father, he takes the name that never truly belonged to either of them in the first place.
The universe - or God, or whatever other deity that serves domain over this newly infinite multiverse - in all of their wisdom and bad humor, had decided that Doctor Octopus would not, in fact, be a privileged man.
He remembered having a name once, a real name, just like any other man; a name that meant wealth and prosperity - a name his mother had given him whenever she bothered to call him anything besides a thinly veiled insult. He laughed now under his breath at the irony. He’d had that promised success - the power of the sun, in the palm of his hand - only for it to slip through his fingers as easily as she had. He shook his head, trying in vain to clear the white noise from between his ears. It didn’t matter anymore. There was no real need to hold onto that name anymore, but there was a part of him still that stubbornly, privately, clung to it like a lifeline. Now, he had more names than he knew what to do with.
Each of his mechanical arms - his tentacles, he thought with a grimace - had names, obviously; Larry, Harry, Moe, and of course, the lovely Flo. He didn’t even bother to try to hide from the other three that she was his favorite anymore. It wasn’t like his thoughts were his own anyway. Most of what he thought, they heard. Most of what they said, he thought. Had he been the one to name them, or had they stolen their own names from his memories when they gained sentience? He didn’t have the answers and doubted they would ever tell him the truth, but figured that as extensions of himself, they were owed more than to just be referred to as his arms. Or were they? Did he really think that?
There was also his newest name, the one given to him by the press, but could be principally traced back to J. Jonah Jameson and his staff of pencil-pushing bootlickers. He had decided long ago that he disliked this name the most, but infuriatingly it seemed to be the one that most of the humans he had left behind delighted in calling him - guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs… What are the odds ? That’s all it was to them, just one big, fat, never-ending joke; a delightful paradox for them to scoff at over their morning paper and coffee. His life had ended, his sun snuffed out, and they were laughing at him. What were the odds, indeed?
But, it could all be over soon. He wouldn’t have to be “Doc Ock” anymore.
He could be Otto Octavius again.
“Oh! Will these humiliations never cease!?”
Or not.
Like a scruffed kitten, Doc Ock was hoisted, kicking and hissing, high up into the air by his own traitorous appendages. Their voices screeched directly into his brainstem, pleading with him desperately, imploring him endlessly to put a stop to all of this once and for all
Let us stay ! Larry squealed.
Don’t make us go ! Harry screamed.
You’re nothing without us ! Moe squawked.
Get him to stay away ! Flo shrieked.
“You!” Doc jeered at their insistence, spitting venom over his shoulder as best he could towards not-his Peter. “Keep your little science fair project away from me!” Had he been in his right mind, he would have taken the time to see the device that Peter had brought for him, the new-and-improved inhibitor chip he now carried in his gloved hands like some delicate, precious thing. In his right mind, the good doctor might have been able to observe the thought and ingenuity that had clearly gone into the so-called “science fair project”. In his right mind, he might have actually thought to praise the boy for his technological engineering savvy.
But, as everyone else gathered could see - May, and Dillon, and Marko, and Osborn - he wasn’t in his right mind. Most of them weren’t. They hadn’t been in a long time, and therein lay the problem that not-his Peter had set himself to remedy for the past several hours.
“Have faith,” a voice soothed from below, familiar in its sound but at the same time uncharacteristically gentle and kind in its tone. “It’ll work.”
In a distant, foggy part of his frontal cortex, he remembered Norman Osborn. He remembered the man he used to be, the friend he used to be. Somewhere, faintly, he remembered loving him, but couldn’t recall how. Had he just been cherished as a friend, or had he been something more, had they been something more? Even now despite the uncertainty, he couldn’t remember if they had ever really known how to define that which was between them.
And then Osborn had died. He remembered reading about his death in the papers. He might have even been sad at first, but more so had he been angered by the discovery of who he really was, what he really was. The tentacles latched onto that anger, bringing it boiling to the surface alongside the indignation he felt at being another layer removed from the control of his own body that he so desperately wished for.
“Says the reckless fool who turned himself into a monster!” he spat in return, struggling further and harder as he was raised higher and higher, the voices shrieking louder and louder.
Oh yes, he remembered Norman Osborn. He remembered his smug face, his devil-may-care attitude, and how he never seemed to have to work for anything. The voices gave him the insults as ammunition. All that was left for him to do was to fire them off; the proverbial bullets loaded into the weapon that was his mind - put the arms up! All of them ! He knew the words would hurt. He wanted the words to hurt, and the satisfaction he felt at the bewildered expression that crossed Osborn’s face only confirmed in his own mind that he too must have been a bad person, even before the fusion reactor turned him into yet another monster.
He snarled as not-his Peter’s hand gripped hard into his curls, tugging with an unnatural strength to hold his stubborn, thrashing head still. Had his-Peter been that strong? “I swear,” he growled, because that was all that was left that he could do, “When I get out of this, we’re going to rip you a new… a-a new… Oh, Christ , now what!?”
Where once there had been people, people in a living room, a living room with windows, windows that overlooked a sparkling cityscape, they had all quickly been replaced with nothing. Not darkness, not even the absence of something - that would imply the existence of anything in the first place. This was simply, absolutely, nothing.
In the realm of songs and symphonies, there exists such a thing as a climax, a crescendo; the striking of a match that burns its brightest the moment before being suddenly and unceremoniously snuffed out. It’s the point towards which the band has been clawing to reach, to see all of its hard work paid back in kind as the music swells and the audience’s hearts quicken in anticipation. When nothingness had fallen upon him, so with it went the music, and the Doctor had the sense that he had just been fully and thoroughly, suddenly and unceremoniously, snuffed out.
Hypothesis? Not-his Peter had killed him.
Great.
No, no that couldn’t possibly be right. After all, if he had actually been killed, his mind stilling as his brain died, he wouldn’t even be able to formulate the thought that not-his Peter had killed him, right? So he wasn’t dead exactly, that much he was certain of, but he didn’t think he was quite alive either.
There he went, thinking again.
He could, however, and for the first time in a long time, be confident in the fact that he was the one thinking. Just like with the music, with everything and anything, the voices in his head had ceased as well. But where the tentacles had been loud, the nothing that followed was earsplitting. The space left over in his mind thundered with the sound of the silence around him; it roared with the ba-bump of his blood being pumped through his still-beating heart. His thoughts were his own burden now to bear, but so with it came the guilt, the regret, the loss; and no arms left to carry it all with. Atlas is dethroned from his seat supporting the heavens by a once-good Doctor shouldering the impossible weight of his own thoughts.
He covered his ears, wincing in pain as he tried in a misguided attempt to keep his brain from melting out of his skull. He had gotten his mind back, just to lose it all over again. The irony would be delicious if he had any sense for it.
She would have loved it though. Her . That woman he’d cherished long ago but didn’t have the strength to keep. She would have read about it somewhere - in a book, a poem… Hell, maybe even in the Bugle - and she would have thought about it: dissected it, looked further into it than any reasonable person would have ever dared to see. Then, at the end of a long day, she would have told him about it. She would have waved her hands excitedly as she recounted him with this horribly tragic figure and explained to him what was so horribly tragic about them. He would have listened and smiled at her enthusiasm, her energy, her light as warm as the sun… He wouldn’t have understood at all what she was getting at, he’d just never had the mind for that sort of right-brained logic and reasoning, but that was the beauty of her. Of them. They never needed to understand each other in order to understand each other. They just needed to be; the sun and the moon, ebb and flow, roses and thorns…
Rosie and-
“ Otto !”
- - - - -
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake,
And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.
Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats--
But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.
For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime;
Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.
And whenever he joins his friends at their club
(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)
He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,
With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.
For he once was a Star of the highest degree--
He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.
And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,
Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.
But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
"I have played," so he says, "every possible part,
And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.
I'd extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag,
And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.
I knew how to act with my back and my tail;
With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail.
I'd a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts,
Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.
I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell;
When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.
In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,
And I once understudied Dick Whittington's Cat.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."
Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin,
He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne.
At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat,
When some actor suggested the need for a cat.
He once played a Tiger--could do it again--
Which an Indian Colonel purused down a drain.
And he thinks that he still can, much better than most,
Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the Ghost.
And he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire,
To rescue a child when a house was on fire.
And he says: "Now then kittens, they do not get trained
As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.
They never get drilled in a regular troupe,
And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop."
And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,
"Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was.
These modern productions are all very well,
But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,
That moment of mystery
When I made history
As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."
“Gus: The Theatre Cat”, T.S. Elliot
- - - - -
“Otto!”
A hand snapped in front of his face, calling him back to the present.
There were a lot of places in which Otto Octavius felt that he didn’t truly belong. As a child, he was an outcast, largely ignored by his peers at school and outright loathed by his parents at home. Even at Columbia, he sometimes felt like an imposter. After all, as his father so often loved reminding him, he was just a poor kid from Schenectady, skirting by on the God-given grace of his brain and getting a full ride to one of the best physics programs in New York. What did he know about pulling himself up by his bootstraps? What did he know about real work?
But here? Now? Standing in front of his dorm room’s mirror? In the nicest tuxedo he could afford? With Norman Osborn cinching a bottle green cummerbund way too tightly around his waist?
“Osborn, I feel like an idiot.”
“Nonsense,” Norman teased, a wiry grin splitting his face into a too-wide smirk. “You’re the smartest man I know.”
From the other side of the room, Curt loudly and exaggeratedly cleared his throat. Otto chuckled warmly at the reflection of his roommate’s sour expression, currently staring daggers into the back of their heads over the top of his copy of Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body. “Well, obviously besides you, Connors,” he said, smiling as Curt nodded, seemingly very pleased with himself, before returning his attention to his textbook. Otto shook his head fondly, sighing as his eyes landed back on his appearance. He continued; “But I feel like an idiot.”
It wasn’t that he looked bad per se. On the contrary, it was Otto’s honest and humble opinion that he did clean up nicely. He had meticulously pressed his black suit pants only an hour before, their sleek lines and creases, combined with his freshly buffed and polished Oxfords, did much in the way of making him look and feel taller. The cummerbund helped as well, the pressure around his middle grounding in its security and reminding him to stand up straight, as opposed to his usual, defensive slouch. In the top corner of the mirror, wedged carefully between the dirty glass - they really needed to clean that eventually - and the cheap plastic frame were two tickets for the nosebleed section of the Winter Garden Theatre. He had been saving for weeks to be able to afford them, and even longer to work up the courage to ask Rosie Murphy to go with him. Tonight was going to be perfect for her, which would be easy because she was already perfect. His dress shirt was neat, and his hair combed, but still, he felt foolish and uncomfortable in his skin. He fought the urge to squirm as Norman slung a tie the same verdant shade as his belt around his neck and began gathering the fabric into a neat and pretty bow.
Norman scoffed dismissively at his friend’s antsy fidgeting. “The only idiots you’re going to encounter tonight, my friend, are going to be those on the stage. You know I heard from my father that they’re going to be wearing ridiculous costumes, making themselves up to look like real, honest-to-God cats!” he cringed openly at the very idea, mockingly shuddering his shoulders as if a sharp, icy bolt of fear had worked its way up his spine. “It makes you wonder where we went wrong for art to stoop so low.”
“Am I not doing the same, though?” Otto asked, face suddenly growing hot underneath Norman’s scrutiny and the seemingly endless layers of his tuxedo. “Here I am, putting on this ridiculous costume of my own, about to put on the performance of a lifetime for the girl of my dreams. I mean isn’t this all… a bit much?”
“‘A bit much!?’” Norman exclaimed loudly, incredulous at the insinuation. Too much was never enough, after all - especially when it came to the seemingly Herculean task of getting his friends laid. “You’re going to Broadway! Bitches love Broadway.”
“Hey!” Otto warned, slapping Norman’s hands away from his neck in irritation. “You may be able to get away with that sort of talk with your little flings, but it won’t slide with me. Not when it comes to Rosie Murphy. She’s classy, she’s passionate, and she’s incredibly intelligent! She’s not a ‘bitch’, and I won’t tolerate you referring to her as such!”
A tense quiet descended upon the room like a thick shroud as the two young men stared each other down. Curt gently set his Gray’s Anatomy down on his desk, hesitantly prepared to break up another fight. That’s how it was with Norman and Otto; two sides of the same coin, the best of friends and the worst of enemies, always hot and cold and ready to snap at the vaguest brush of each other’s buttons. It wasn’t that they didn’t adore each other, Curt knew that at least to be true, but if power loved a vacuum then ego absolutely loathed company.
“Also,” he piped up, desperate to break apart the confrontation before it could escalate any further. “Isn’t the play literally called ‘Cats’? Why wouldn’t they be dressed up as cats?”
A second passed, then another, before Norman laughed with a breathy exhale. “Jeez, tough crowd,” he scoffed, returning his deft fingers to the task of tightening off Otto’s emerald bowtie. “You’re fuckin’ touchy tonight, Octavius. It’s not your time of the month, is it?” His piercing blue eyes darted up to Otto’s in a challenge, daring him to say something, to return the jab with a barb of his own. He deflated a bit when Otto didn’t take the bain, remaining absolute and returning Norman’s stare with one of his own, one that demanded an apology - or at least the closest thing that Norman could muster. “Fine, I won’t call Rose a bitch, but I’d be lying if I said she doesn’t seem uptight. I mean, really Otto? An English lit major? Wouldn’t you be happier with someone a little bit… closer to home?”
Curt froze in his chair, eyes darting back and forth between the two. The true meaning of Norman’s words wasn’t lost to him, but when it came to Otto they fell deaf on very red, very irritated ears. “Osborn…” he warned, leaning forward and raising his eyebrows knowingly.
“I’m just saying,” Norman said, his voice and shoulders pitching defensively upwards, “Otto deserves- you deserve an equal! Someone who’s going to challenge you and keep your intellect sharp like the weapon it is!”
“Let me tell you something, Norman,” Otto uttered, pulling away with a huff and turning to fidget with his tie in the mirror. “It’s just like you said, I deserve someone who’s going to make me happy. Rosie is a delightful woman, and yes she is an English lit major, and I know that drives you up the wall, but she does, in fact, make me happy.”
With an air of finality, he yanked his suit coat over his shoulders and plucked the tickets carefully from their perch. “You’re a good man, Norman Osborn,” Otto said over his shoulder as he made his way to the door, tucking the tickets protectively into his chest pocket. “But you can be a real ass sometimes. Oh, and before I forget, you just used a simile. You would know what that was if you gave a damn to learn something about anything outside of your narrow worldview. If you brush up on your studies, maybe you and Rosie could be on the same level someday!”
The sound of a slamming door followed Otto as he left the room, followed immediately after by a few precious moments of silence. Silence, that is, until the doorknob turned over and he poked his head back in again, looking sheepishly, vaguely in Norman’s direction. “Thank you, by the way, for helping me get ready.”
Hot and cold, the best of friends and the worst of enemies .
Norman held his gaze until he left again, the door closing notably softer behind him this time. Curt puffed out his cheeks and forced out a deep, awkward breath to disrupt the stillness. “I guess it could have gone worse,” he joked half-heartedly. Norman shot him a glare. “L-look, you can’t get mad at me,” Curt sputtered, raising his hands in surrender, “I did try to warn you! And you can’t keep getting mad at him for being happy when you won’t say anything-”
“Watch me, Connors,” Norman snarled, moving quickly and frantically to gather up his belongings to leave. Curt sighed and rolled his eyes, turning back around in his chair. He listened to Norman’s agitated movements and, not knowing when to quit, threw one last quip over his shoulder before the sound of Norman’s stomping footsteps could totally fade away down the hall.
“Maybe if you ask nicely you could be their third!”
“Fuckin’ degenerate.”
- - - - -
Growltiger was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge;
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of "The Terror of the Thames."
His manners and appearance did not calculate to please;
His coat was torn and seedy, he was baggy at the knees;
One ear was somewhat missing, no need to tell you why,
And he scowled upon a hostile world from one forbidding eye.
The cottagers of Rotherhithe knew something of his fame,
At Hammersmith and Putney people shuddered at his name.
They would fortify the hen-house, lock up the silly goose,
When the rumour ran along the shore: GROWLTIGER'S ON THE LOOSE!
Woe to the weak canary, that fluttered from its cage;
Woe to the pampered Pekinese, that faced Growltiger's rage.
Woe to the bristly Bandicoot, that lurks on foreign ships,
And woe to any Cat with whom Growltiger came to grips!
But most to Cats of foreign race his hatred had been vowed;
To Cats of foreign name and race no quarter was allowed.
The Persian and the Siamese regarded him with fear--
Because it was a Siamese had mauled his missing ear.
Now on a peaceful summer night, all nature seemed at play,
The tender moon was shining bright, the barge at Molesey lay.
All in the balmy moonlight it lay rocking on the tide--
And Growltiger was disposed to show his sentimental side.
His bucko mate, Grumbuskin, long since had disappeared,
For to the Bell at Hampton he had gone to wet his beard;
And his bosun, Tumblebrutus, he too had stol'n away-
In the yard behind the Lion he was prowling for his prey.
In the forepeak of the vessel Growltiger sate alone,
Concentrating his attention on the Lady Griddlebone.
And his raffish crew were sleeping in their barrels and their bunks--
As the Siamese came creeping in their sampans and their junks.
Growltiger had no eye or ear for aught but Griddlebone,
And the Lady seemed enraptured by his manly baritone,
Disposed to relaxation, and awaiting no surprise--
But the moonlight shone reflected from a thousand bright blue eyes.
And closer still and closer the sampans circled round,
And yet from all the enemy there was not heard a sound.
The lovers sang their last duet, in danger of their lives--
For the foe was armed with toasting forks and cruel carving knives.
Then GILBERT gave the signal to his fierce Mongolian horde;
With a frightful burst of fireworks the ****** they swarmed aboard.
Abandoning their sampans, and their pullaways and junks,
They battened down the hatches on the crew within their bunks.
Then Griddlebone she gave a screech, for she was badly skeered;
I am sorry to admit it, but she quickly disappeared.
She probably escaped with ease, I'm sure she was not drowned--
But a serried ring of flashing steel Growltiger did surround.
The ruthless foe pressed forward, in stubborn rank on rank;
Growltiger to his vast surprise was forced to walk the plank.
He who a hundred victims had driven to that drop,
At the end of all his crimes was forced to go ker-flip, ker-flop.
Oh there was joy in Wapping when the news flew through the land;
At Maidenhead and Henley there was dancing on the strand.
Rats were roasted whole at Brentford, and at Victoria Dock,
And a day of celebration was commanded in Bangkok.
“Growltiger’s Last Stand”, T.S. Elliot
- - - - -
Around the time that Otto was debating himself on whether or not flowers were a stupid idea, the door to Rosie’s townhouse opened with a loud and sudden creak. The noise startled him fiercely, and he let out a horribly undignified noise in his shock. The bouquet of roses he had procured from the bodega down the street tumbled out of his hands and slapped pathetically onto the stoop.
“Hello-? Oh! Oh no, Otto!”
Looking up, Otto was greeted by the resplendent sight of Rosie as she stood in the doorway, rimmed with the warm light pouring out from her living room. She looked immaculately put together. Her hair was swept back in a familiar half-ponytail, but she had curled it at the ends, and the ringlets elegantly framed her face. He caught the briefest of glances at her mouth before she concealed her bashful giggling with her hand. She had been smiling warmly at him with rouge red lips, and he thought for a moment that she did so like he was her favorite person.
“Uhm… G-Good evening, Rosie” he stammered, crouching down at the same time as her in order to pick the bouquet up off of the stairs. The two of them kept reaching for and retracting their hands at the same time, babbling over each other as they both tried to offer up apologies and direct blame onto themselves for this flower fiasco. Eventually, Otto was able to snatch the bouquet from under her fingers, standing up quickly and breathing hard as he tried not to look too triumphant about it. He could still at least try to maintain the facade of a gentleman over that of a bumbling idiot.
One side of the arrangement had been flattened in the fall, and he cursed under his breath as he attempted to gently fluff the roses back into their former voluptuous glory. “Uhm… these are for you,” he explained, his cheeks turning red as he worked. “I, uh… I did my homework for this whole first date thing. Or at least, I tried to.” He laughed awkwardly, and held the bouquet out to her, his eyes zeroing in on one unfortunate rose that had missed during all of his pruning. If she had noticed it though, she gave no indication, instead taking them in hand and bringing them up to her nose to give them a grateful sniff.
“That’s very sweet of you,” she said gratefully, her nose scrunching up as she smelled her flowers with a smile. She pulled back to briefly admire them, before her glance shifted to look at him instead. “They’re beautiful Otto, thank you.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said suddenly, his expression and voice doing nothing to hide the awe he felt from looking at her. “I- I mean, uh, well, I guess I mean exactly what I said. You look beautiful tonight, Rosie.”
She giggled, resisting the urge to hide her blushing face within the soft petals of the roses. “Well, thank you again,” she murmured bashfully. “You look very nice yourself, Otto. Just, uh, give me just a moment to go put these in a vase, and I’ll be right back out. Okay?”
“Okay,” Otto said, waving his hand with a strained chuckle, stuffing his hands into his pockets as she retreated back into her house. When the door clicked shut, leaving him alone once more on the street, he groaned loudly in exasperation at himself. He knew he needed to calm down, to relax before he made an even bigger fool of himself.
Just breathe, Octavius , he reminded himself, his inner voice taking on a scolding tone, She’s just as nervous as you are, you dolt.
That thought alone arguably made him even more nervous. He sighed, fidgeting with the small ball of lint that was steadily forming in his pocket as he continued to wait for her.
“Doc-oc-oc-oc-oc?”
Otto paused, confusion crossing his face as he spun around. He was positive he’d heard a voice, one belonging to a young man from the sounds of it. He could have sworn he’d heard it before. Of course, when strolling around and about the Columbia University campus on a Saturday night, one was bound to hear a younger voice or two… hundred . Some of them he might have even recognized. But this voice sounded as if it was close. Behind him, yes, but even closer still. Almost as if it was tickling against his very brain stem.
He shook his head in an attempt to rid his brain of the bewilderment he felt, before wincing harder in pain as an ache started to set in.
Damn it all , he thought, cursing himself and rubbing furiously away the tightness in the back of his neck. Not now…
“Otto?” Rosie asked when she opened the door again, inching closer to him as she made her way out onto the avenue’s sidewalk. “Is everything alright?” He couldn’t help but to hear the worry in her voice right now, but he couldn’t bring himself to respond to it yet in order to persuade her of his being okay.
Connors had been on his case for ages now about this; Always scolding him about his poor posture, warning him that being hunched over science books during all hours of the day would bring these types of horrendous tension headaches upon him. Like he was one to talk, the hypocritical bookworm. That would be his luck though, Otto supposed. He finally asked Rosie out on a date, slaving away as a student lab assistant to save up both his money and his courage, only to be struck down in the eleventh hour with a sudden migraine. Osborn would never let him live it down, and Connors would become even more smug in his lectures.
Should have listened… listened… listened… listened… listened…
He grunted once more, folding his fingers at the nape of his neck and squeezing his eyes shut as the pressure began to mount. He’d gotten these types of migraines before, but never this bad. The pain wasn’t just a sore muscle ache. It felt closer to a vice-like grip, slowly squeezing around his brain.
No , Otto thought, damn near insisted to himself. This is not how tonight is supposed to go.
“Doc-oc-oc-oc-oc!”
The voice echoed once more in Otto’s head, immediately and painfully shooting daggers to the back- no wait, the front- still no, every surface of his brain. He grunted, his knees buckling beneath him as he reached up to press his hands into the sides of his head. His ears were ringing, why wouldn’t they stop ringing - ing- ing- ing- ing ? There were eyes on him, not just the eyes of the passerby on the street, but eyes he couldn’t see. Eyes that were lingering, waiting with bated breath. Eyes watching, arms slipping, head lolling, voices-
“Otto?!” Rosie gasped, her eyebrows knitting together in concern as she dove to try and catch him. She laid her hands carefully, steadily onto his shoulders, grounding him back to the present and away from the tinning sound currently bouncing around slower and slower between his temples. “Are you okay?! What’s wrong? What happened?”
Definitely not a tension headache … he thought, panting through his gritted teeth. What in the Hell was happening to him tonight? Of all nights ?
Otto winced again, waving her off dismissively until his facade of nonchalance was betrayed with a pained noise. “I-I’m okay,” he tried to chuckle, to lie, to put her at ease. He squinted, attempting to wrest away the last remnants of his sudden headache before the wave of nausea could force him to void the contents of his stomach. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, not sounding at all convincing. “F-For some reason, my head just started… pounding something fierce. B-But I’m okay now! It's… almost mostly better.”
Rosie bit her lip in consideration, her hand moving from one of his shoulders to the center of his back and rubbing gently. “We…Otto, we don’t have to go to the show,” she said, her voice low to not trigger another migraine. Poor, sweet, Rosie, she doesn’t know it’s not her fault… not her fault… not her fault… not her fault… not her fault… “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a musical before, but they can tend to get very loud and very overstimulating at times. If your head is hurting now-” Poor, sweet, Rosie …
“I-I’m fine!” Otto snapped, wincing at his tone and forcing himself to stand up straight, even though it made his eyes dizzy. Eyes watching, arms slipping- “Please, don’t worry about me, Rosie. See? It’s all better now! I-I’m all better now...” Better now… better now… better now-
She looked up at him, her eyes cataloging his every move and her face twisting with doubt. He mustered up the courage to reach over and drape his hand over hers, giving it a comforting pat or two before he was ready to make eye contact with her.
“Rosie…” he began, swallowing hard and trying to push through his words before he tripped over them. “I… I have been looking forward to this night for a very long time, longer even than I can tell you without really and truly embarrassing myself, and I know you have been too. I wouldn’t dream of you missing this on my account.”
Otto straightened up again, tugging at his jacket as he coughed in an attempt to clear his throat. “See? Right as rain,” He assured, avoiding her eyes by looking up and down the avenue. He caught the eye of a vacant taxi cruising slowly in their direction, and quickly flagged it down. He held the door open for her, holding a hand out expectantly in her direction.
“Well, only if you’re sure,” she conceded with a sigh, taking his hand and scooting into the backseat. He could tell she wasn’t convinced, not fully, but he could live with that if she would just give him this one chance here and now. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose in an attempt to alleviate the worse of the pangs. After a moment or two of forcing it away, the pain slowly, albeit reluctantly, began to subside to a manageable tolerance. The grip loosened, before eventually relinquishing its hold entirely.
He would not allow something as miniscule as not firing on all cylinders be what ruined it. For him, or for Rosie. He’d worked too hard, and spent enough time waiting. Tonight was their night.
He stepped into the cab behind her, meeting the driver’s eyes through the rearview mirror. With one final breath, and one last nervous glance exchanged with Rosie, Otto nodded in self-assurance.
“Winter Garden Theatre, please.”
- - - - -
She haunted many a low resort
Near the grimy road of Tottenham Court;
She flitted about the No Man's Land
From The Rising Sun to The Friend at Hand.
And the postman sighed, as he scratched his head:
"You'd really ha' thought she'd ought to be dead
And who would ever suppose that that
Was Grizabella, the Glamour Cat!"
“Grizabella, the Glamour Cat”, T.S. Elliot
- - - - -
The queue had already stretched around the block by the time their taxi was able to drop them off. Lines upon lines of eager people stood and waited out in the brisk autumn air for the lobby to open, and Rosie and Otto found themselves smack dab at the back. The nerves had started to settle back in as he saw just how many people were there and only continued to grow the longer they stood in line.
“I… have a confession to make, Rosie,” Otto said, leaning over slightly for her to hear him over the hustle and bustle of passing traffic and theatre patrons on 51st Street. “I have zero idea of what it is exactly that I’m walking into here. I’m a little out of my element.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much,” she chuckled, her eyes crinkling in amusement at his obvious discomfort. “I promise there’s not much to it. It’s no different than going to the movies, just with… you know, a stage instead of a screen. You just have to sit there and enjoy yourself for a few hours.” One of her hands came up to pat reassuringly against the front of his lapel, and her face split into a playful grin as he tried to pretend that it didn’t affect him. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine, Otto, and who knows… maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.”
He gave a doubtful hum, not intending for it to come across as condescending as it probably sounded. “I’m not so sure,” he admitted with a nervous laugh. “Norman told me the actors are going to be in cat costumes. I’m willing to keep an open mind, but you have to admit it’s a little bizarre, no?”
“Ah, impromptu lesson number one,” she said, rounding on him with a sly smirk. As the line slowly began to move, she walked backward along the sidewalk with her eyes locked firmly on his. “Everything’s a little bizarre on the surface. If we never looked further than right in front of our faces, we wouldn’t have English Lit to begin with.”
Photo Credit: jo-v-ie
She smiled wider as if she had just let him in on one hell of an inside joke, one that unfortunately went right over Otto’s head. He had suddenly found himself unable to form thoughts as he watched the lights of the marquee perfectly halo Rosie’s auburn hair in a ring of golden light. Those mischievous lights even taunted him further by dancing in her eyes, making them visibly shine and glimmer in a way that showed everyone what he already knew; she was radiant, inside and out.
“In fact, if you think about it, we probably wouldn’t even be on this date if it wasn’t for the art of looking way too into things that seem innocuous on the surface,” Rosie continued after a moment, turning back around to loop her arm around Otto’s. “So, I’m of the mindset that you really should be thanking T.S. Elliot for being a little bizarre and writing poems about feline society, and Andrew Lloyd for being a little more bizarre and turning those poems into songs.”
Otto couldn’t help but hold onto Rosie’s every word the same way she held onto his arm. He was content and comfortable listening to her speak. He might have even considered calling himself reverent as he watched her passion come to life beneath the theatre lights.
“Oh yes, well, when I see them next I’ll be sure to let them know,” he responded with just the right amount of snark to still be considered lighthearted. Rosie let her jaw hang open in feigned offense and laughed, unable to hide the way the corners of her lips were still turned upward in delight.
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she teased back, slapping his arm good-naturedly with a scoff.
The line grew shorter and shorter as the minutes seemed to quickly tick by. Eventually they made it to the front of the line and face-to-face with a young usher, maybe around their age give or take a few years, who looked like he did not want to be there. At all. Yet, he took their tickets all the same, and pointed out the directions they would need to take to reach their seats up in the mezzanine.
“You know, you guys are lucky,” the usher said, his voice resting firmly up in his nose as he tore the ends of their tickets. He shot a pointed look over their shoulders at the empty lobby behind them, where two more employees were beginning the process to close the doors. “Five more minutes and I wouldn’t have been able to let you in. Theatre rules, you know. Apparently it ‘ruins the illusion’.”
“We’ll be sure to keep that in mind for next time,” Rosie responded with a well-mannered chuckle. Otto nodded along in kind, albeit absent-mindedly, reaching out to take the stubs from the usher on their way over to the staircase leading up to their seats. It wasn’t until they were about halfway up the landing that it finally dawned on him what exactly she had just said.
“Hold on a second,” he said, pausing a few stairs behind her. He looked up at her, his cheeks turning pink. “You said, ‘Next time’.”
“Oh, did I?” Rosie asked, grinning playfully down at him. The look in her eyes gave everything away. She’d been waiting for him to call her out on it, and she was incredibly satisfied with herself when he finally said something. Not that she’d ever let him know that, of course. “I suppose I did. Come on now, no lollygagging. I can hear the orchestra warming up!”
With that Rosie set off again, climbing up, up, up with Otto following close behind, his cheeks still warm but his heart beating just a little bit faster.
- - - - -
The wave of the conductor’s arm was the only warning Otto received before the auditorium was blasted with the sounds of a whimsical and mysterious overture. He listened with a surprisingly attentive ear to the changes the music went through, from grating and strange to boisterous and triumphant. Eventually, he allowed himself to nod along with the beat of the song, humming delicately to himself as he began to pick up on the patterns and melodies before they were abruptly switched up for a new measure.
He and Rosie sat in their assigned seats, both with their hands folded politely in their laps and giving extra care to dare not cross the no man’s land that was their shared armrest. He felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth, and he fought to keep his lips pressed into a thin, aloof line. He desperately wanted to reach for her hand, to take it in his own and perhaps go so far as to caress her knuckles with his thumb. He was itching for it, his fingers twitching minutely in his own grasp. He briefly entertained the idea that she might be having the same internal conflict, but couldn’t bear the idea of assuming wrong.
It wasn’t long until his assumption was proven correct, however, as Rosie delicately reached her arm into his space, looping through his with an unspoken grace despite her own nerves. At the same time, a littling tune built up from the orchestra pit as an honest-to-God cat-clad actress emerged from the rubble heap that was the set. She peered out from a comically large sewage tunnel before dancing onto the stage in a skittish and playful routine. She was gradually joined as the music dictated it by another actor, and then two, three, five, fifteen, thirty… an entire troupe of humanoid cats frolicking onto the stage.
Otto found himself tilting over to lean his shoulder into Rosie’s, the flat press of their arms together more than anything he thought he could ask for. Crossing both of their faces were content, shy smiles, although neither would have noticed as they kept their faces turned bashfully forward; A move that was equal parts born out of intimidation of each other and fascination of the display before them.
As the actors performed their feats of acrobatics and danced across the stage beneath them, Otto couldn’t help but begin to enjoy himself. After the initial shock he felt at witnessing what exactly Osborn had been describing mere hours ago, he realized it was surprisingly easy to suspend his sense of disbelief. Rosie had encouraged him to look deeper, to focus more on what was being said rather than what was being seen…
…Maybe this would be harder than he thought.
Did he understand a single thing that was happening? No, of course not. But he was trying regardless, and he was still able to appreciate it for what it was on the surface level; An impressive feat of production and entertainment. He could already imagine the sick satisfaction he’d feel at rubbing it in Norman Osborn’s face that what he’d seen was, in fact, art. Even better still, it was art that he got to enjoy with his beautiful wife-
Wait…wife? Otto pondered with a start, wondering from where on Earth he’d pulled that notion. Rosie was lovely, of course, and he knew already that he was quite fond of her company. There was no doubt about any of that, but she wasn’t even his girlfriend…
“There's a man over there with a look of surprise!” one of the actors sang, gesturing with his head up into the rafters of the mezzanine and seeming to call the attention of the others on stage. Some kinked their heads to and fro, trying to locate this mystery man in the audience while others snapped to attention right as the man spoke. Otto smiled privately to himself, amused by their mannerisms until they all at once seemed to turn their faces to stare directly in his direction. Even further than that, they all seemed to be looking at him… into his eyes.
Rosie squeezed his arm tighter, and he felt her vibrate with excitement as she tried to hold her delighted squeal in. Otto, on the other hand, fought the urge to sink further into his seat. They were breaking the fourth wall for him, and he decided quite quickly that he didn’t like it all that much. It was too many eyes on him all at once, and it felt uncanny… unnatural.
“As much as to say well now how about that?” the first actor continued, staring intently at Otto under the weight of his brow.
“Do I actually see with my own very eyes a man who's not heard of a Jellicle cat?” a second actor crooned, quickly rushing up to join the first in staring him down from across the theatre. The ensemble continued with their song, moving about the stage in an eerie sort of organized chaos, and Otto took the opportunity to lean over.
“Rosie, did you put them up to that?” he asked, an edge to his voice. He knew it was an unlikely possibility, but it was the only theory he could formulate in the face of the impossible.
“Oh, I’m sure they’re not looking just at you, Otto,” she dismissed, her eyes trained forward as the Jellicles slunk into their positions for the next number. “It just feels that way. You know, the illusion and all of that. I’m sure they just pick a seat during rehearsals.”
And what was he supposed to feel in the face of that reasoning besides acceptance? He tilted his head in acknowledgment, trying to relax. Of course , he thought, why wouldn’t that be the case ? The odds were hardly astronomical, and stranger things happened every day. He was just a random target, and the way they glowered at him with such malicious glee… that was simply acting. Very good acting , admittedly, but acting nonetheless.
Right?
“The naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have three different names…”
Otto froze in his seat, his spine stiffening against the chill that wormed under his skin. The haunting, monotonous chanting of the actors on stage. He’d heard this before… this song, this poem, these words… he knew them, but he didn’t know from where. Chasing the memory sent his head back into a throbbing spiral. He groaned loudly in pain before he could stop it, which garnered him a few harsh shushes from a few rows behind him.
The Jellicles continued their mantra, their voices growing in tandem with the crescendo of the orchestra and the pounding of his skull. Try as he did to shut it all out, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the stage. As they recited their lines, the chorus of their voices layering in a discordant melody over each other, their eyes shifted to something less human, less feline even, to something more mechanical. A harsh, red glow slowly began to emanate from their gazes, now undeniably glaring accusatorially up at him.
“When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:...”
“Doc-oc-oc-oc-oc!?”
That voice again, that young man’s voice… So familiar, yet so foreign to him. Who did it belong to? Why did it keep calling him “Doc”?
The shrieking sound of metal roared over the no longer decipherable speech of the men and women on stage. The set, with its twisted infrastructure of junkyard refuse, began to shift and shake. From the corner of his eyes, Otto saw no one reacting the way they should. From the still-monologuing actors on the stage to the indifferent viewer on the balcony, no one seemed to react at all. Everything was motionless as if the world itself had frozen to a standstill, leaving only him to bear witness to the sight of massive mechanical arms rising from the desiccated and gnarled materials of the set.
“ Otto ,” Rosie whispered, her voice suddenly eerily calm and insistent and cutting through everything else. He breathed out shakily, looking over at her with large, terrified eyes. Like everyone else, she looked completely unfazed. Unlike everyone else, she was looking up at him with the calmest expression he had ever seen on any person dead or alive. “You’re okay, Otto. Nothing can hurt you here. You have to trust me.”
“Wh-what?” he asked, blinking slowly as his expression morphed to reflect his confusion. “What did you just say?”
The crowd erupted into applause, startling him nearly out of his seat. The arms were gone, the set was back into its regular state of disarray, and the show had moved on. A lone dancer in white stood in the center of the stage, going about her routine with an ease and comfort that could only be achieved through regular practice and extreme discipline. Her eyes were, thankfully, no longer scarlet and menacing.
“I said, ‘You’re crying’,” Rosie replied, her eyebrows knitting together as she gripped tighter on his arm. She tried to joke, to tease, but it did very little to hide the worry lurking underneath. “I know that the theatre can be a very emotional space, but are… are you okay? Is it your head?”
“I-I’m fine,” he lied, breathing heavily as he sagged back into his seat. “It… it wasn’t my head that time.” He quickly rubbed his face with his hands, trying to calm his racing heart after everything he had just seen, or not seen, or whatever the Hell had just happened.
Something was definitely wrong. Headaches were one thing, but these intense hallucinations were quite the other. Stubbornly though, he couldn’t bear to leave, to let Rosie know what was going through his mind both literally and figuratively. So, he did as he had done all night… he shook his head, and he carried on much to Rosie’s chagrin.
She reached down to the floor, grabbing her purse by the straps and pulling adamantly on his arm. “Come on,” she began quietly and with no room for argument, tugging once more. “You’re not fine. I’m taking you back.”
“No!” Otto hissed, yanking his arm away from her before gripping the sleeve of her shirt and hauling her back into her seat. “Rosie, please-”
“Give me a reason, then,” she pushed back, her eyes locked onto his and searching his face frantically as if it might offer any clues or explanations to his state tonight.
Otto gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing fruitlessly as he tried to give her the answers she wanted. He knew what the truth was, and could feel it slipping off of the tip of his tongue before he could stop it.
“I don’t know what’s happening, but something… something awful is going to happen after tonight,” he confessed without knowing how or why or what it was exactly that he was confessing. “I-I don’t know when or where, but I know it’s coming and I’m… I’m afraid.”
His admission hung heavily between them despite the gentle, hushed tones of their voices. Her expression softened as she regarded him, and her shoulders lifted as she sighed. Without thinking he reached for her hand, gripping it tightly in his own and squeezing it in an attempt to quell the tremor in his fingers. “I just want to stay here. With you. I want to hold off on this night ending for as long as I possibly can. Whatever’s coming I’ll handle tomorrow, but tonight… Tonight all I want is to pretend it’s just you and me and nothing else happening. Please, Rosie. I won’t ask you for anything else as long as I live.”
Otto could see the way she fought with herself the longer he spoke. For Rosie it wasn’t about the show anymore, it was about him and his well being, and he hated that he’d forced her to worry about him like this. He gripped her hand tighter, silently beseeching her to pretend with him for a few hours more that everything was okay.
“...Okay, Otto,” she agreed after several moments of silence and staring, the only sounds between them being the sounds of the musical proceeding with indifference to the personal affairs of its patrons. Rosie sat her purse back down before quietly hugging onto Otto’s arm once more, her auburn head coming to lay with finality against his shoulder. “Okay…”
A sense of calm settled over him at last, a relieved and grateful exhale escaping through his nose as he returned the gesture. His cheek rested against the soft tresses of her hair. For the first time that night and perhaps even longer still, he felt completely and utterly at ease. The two of them resumed watching the show, tranquility slowly settling over them as they joined back into the rhythm of the story.
“...just before dawn
Through a silence you feel could cut with a knife
Announces the Cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle life
For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer
Full of wonders one Jellicle only will see
And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare
Who will it be? Who will it be?”
- - - - -
The rest of the show passed without too much trouble. No more migraines sprung up, thank goodness, although there were a few points where the volume of the music certainly caused Otto’s ears to ring uncomfortably. Rosie kept a firm hold of him the entire time, almost as if she was afraid of letting him float away from her. To be honest, he was greatly appreciative of that, as it was a quickly materializing fear of his own the longer the performance persisted.
Afterwards, once they had descended back down the stairs, out past the young usher waving them goodbye, and arrived back on the street under the heavenly light of the marquee, Rosie insisted on coffee and pancakes. She seemed to be upholding her end of the bargain, content to pretend to ignore the strange aches and pains that had plagued Otto all night. He, once more, was greatly appreciative of her for even agreeing to that in the first place.
“I think I’ve had enough of fancy tonight, Otto,” she confessed as the two walked side-by-side, hand-in-hand up Broadway. The sound of the still bustling streets were not enough to mask the faint, uneven click of Rosie’s heels against the pavement. The city truly never slept, but he could physically feel how tired her gait was starting to get. “There’s a little diner over on 55th that I think would be perfect for our intents and purposes.”
“And what intents and purposes would those be, Rosie?”
“Ah, that would be impromptu lesson number two. There is nothing more sacred than the late night Socratic seminar.”
That was how they found themselves mere hours later, sequestered somewhat privately into a window-side booth. Long-finished plates of dinner breakfast stood neatly stacked at the edge of their table, and freshly topped-off mugs of coffee were clutched for comforting warmth between both of their fingers.
“If I’m honest, it all felt very morbid,” Otto confessed, carefully rolling his cup back and forth sheepishly between his hands. “I tried to do what you said and look beyond, but all I ended up seeing was a bunch of cats trying to commit suicide.”
They had been going over the play and their thoughts on the play for a while now, with Rosie expounding on each of the songs and characters and Otto doing his best to try and keep up. At his comment, she giggled and tilted her head back and forth as if she was mulling the idea over in her mind.
“Well, I guess you’re not wrong ,” she chuckled, leaning back in the booth in consideration. “Part of me wonders if that was the point though; The morbidity, and our discomfort with it.”
“Yeah, but…” he began, trailing off as he tried to search for the critical thinking skills he’d long hidden away behind scientific theories and mathematical formulas. “I guess I just don’t understand why they’d be competing to die. Especially when they all seem to be living it up. That one train cat seemed pretty thrilled with his life, so why would he want a different one? It’s all very…”
“Culty?”
“I was going to say nonsensical, but now that you’ve mentioned it… Yeah, actually.”
“Well, that’s religion for you,” Rosie ruminated, an ironic grin crossing her face. “Human belief systems are already full of inconsistencies and contradictions, so when you take into consideration what a feline theocracy would look like, I suppose it’s not so surprising that very little of it would make sense from our perspective.”
“Wait, back up,” he snickered, her analysis taking him a bit by surprise, “A feline theocracy ?”
“Otto, who did you think Old Deuteronomy was if not a religious figurehead?” she asked, her tone leading, as if that conclusion were so obvious to him; Which, after a moment of contemplation, he supposed it was. He smirked, silently admitting defeat as he went to take another drink of his coffee.
“I mean, think about it,” Rosie continued, her train of thought beginning to roll down the hill and gaining momentum the more she spoke. “From what I gather, he’s the closest thing these cats seem to have to a God. He’s ancient, seemingly incomprehensibly so. He’s this aspirational and paternal being that is widely respected and adored as being the wisest among them.
“The Jellicles trust him above all else with the very decision that will determine their fates. He promises the chance at a better life after death, and when tasked with that decision he grants it to Grizabella ! Of all choices, he picks one of the few cats who everyone universally disregards and despises, and says, ‘You are deserving of a better life’. I mean, don’t you just find that beautiful?” Rosie sighed wistfully, leaning forward across the table and gesturing wildly, enthusiastically as she spoke. She paused, her voice trailing off as she watched Otto’s shoulders shake, his mouth pressing into a thinly curved line to suppress his giggling. She gasped, feigning offense, as she reached over to playfully smack at his shoulder. “You jerk! You’re teasing me!”
“I am not!” Otto said, teasingly, raising his hands in defense against Rosie’s formidable assault, which had now escalated to include the flopping, pitiful slap of her laminated menu. The corner advertised a breakfast special consisting of two thick slices of Texas-style toast, a heaping helping of scrambled eggs, and well beyond the recommended daily serving of bacon; the plastic edge nearly caught him in the carotid - it was just like Curt had said, a high cholesterol diet would one day kill him. “You’ve got to at least explain it to me before you kill me, Rose!”
She sat back with an overly exaggerated huff, a barely concealed smile tugging at the corners of her lips. He could see the gears turning behind her eyes and got to experience what it was to witness her mulling things over in her head. It truly was a wonder to watch her think.
“It’s the idea that the most wretched among us are the most deserving of forgiveness,” Rosie decided confidently after a moment, her eyes raising to meet him in a challenge from across the table. “It’s the idea that redemption comes to those who suffer for it, and not just those who really, really want it. You see, Grizabella as a character is immensely interesting from the observer’s point of view. We know that she’s a former glamor cat, that she’s fallen from grace for some reason or another, and that the other Jellicles don’t seem to like her very much because of it. In spite of all of that, we know that there’s no real reason for them to be excluding her from the ball, besides the fact that they seem to not trust her based solely on her age and appearance.
“And then, we sit and we watch everyone else’s story, and it’s like you said! They all have great lives! Great, and very personally fulfilling lives! There’s no explanation for why they should be the Jellicle choice other than the fact that they want it. But we see Grizabella, and we just know, from her very first appearance, that she needs it. Doesn’t that give you a sense of comfort? That a God - or the universe, or whatever other deity is serving domain over this world of ours - can look past what a person has or hasn’t done and still see them at their very core as still deserving of redemption?”
“That’s what you got from that?” Otto chuckled doubtfully, but not derogatorily. Or at least, not trying to be. Rosie blushed at his teasing, her shoulders coming up quickly to hide the way her ears were going exceedingly red. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she rolled her eyes.
“Oh, never mind,” she sighed loudly, sagging back into the booth in faux defeat. Her body language conveyed the very image of exasperation, but the way her eyes twinkled at him with such fondness and warmth dissuaded all of his fears. “Someday, somehow, I promise you that I’ll make you get what I’m talking about, but I guess that day isn’t today. That’s okay, though. I’ve got a lot of work yet to do with you, Otto Octavius… and I already know it’s not going to be easy.”
Otto guffawed, nearly snorting his coffee up into his nose before quickly catching himself.
Something about the way she said that… the way she had already seemed to choose him the way he chose her. She sounded so confident, so sure of the fact that they would be in each other’s lives for a long time yet. When she spoke, it was easy for him to just listen, even when he couldn’t or wouldn’t have understood what she was getting at. When she spoke, he was able to convince himself so easily that they’d be able to make whatever lie between them work; to know deep down that they would never need to understand each other in order to understand each other.
“In all seriousness though, I… I do think it’s beautiful,” Otto admitted after a moment of comfortable silence between the two of them, looking deep into the dark reflection of his coffee. “I’ve never had much of an affinity for pretty words and prose. It’s just the way my brain is wired, I suppose. I find comfort in what I can definitively see and quantify; in the objective world. It’s simply my own failings as a man of science. You're able to peel back the veil of the human experience in a way I’ve never been able to, and you’re able to see in a further spectrum of reality than I am capable of. I do apologize if I’ve come across as obtuse tonight. I must seem like such an uncultured oaf in your eyes…”
“Oh no! No, Otto, no,” Rosie said quickly, reaching out to grip his hand tightly across the diner table. Her thumb traced delicately across the ridge of his knuckles, and the way her eyes bore into his so intensely caused his face to flush a bright, vermillion red. “Otto, please look at me, darling. You’re wonderful. You’re lovely. You want to help people, and I mean really, truly help people. We may see the world differently, but I think that’s beautiful too! I don’t know a single thing about the theory of relativity or uncertainty principles the way you do. You talk about being able to peel back the veil, but I think that’s a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. To think, this entire time I’ve been worried that I must sound so unintelligent to you.”
“Unintelligent!?” Otto scoffed, sounding outraged and incensed that the thought would ever dare to cross her mind. “Rosie, you’re the smartest person I know!”
There was a moment of silence, a moment where the two of them stayed locked in this embrace. This unwavering grip of each other’s hands and unrelenting exchange of glances. Neither of them seemed willing to back down, adoringly stubborn in their insistence of the other’s superior intelligence.
“Maybe we could chalk this night up to the both of us being the smartest idiots at Columbia,” Rosie settled on eventually, beaming as she offered up her compromise. Otto smiled back, laughing in relief as he raised his own coffee cup high in the air between them.
“A toast then,” he boasted, chest puffed and shoulders squared back, “To being the smartest idiots at Columbia.”
Their cups clacked together pleasantly, the barely perceptible noise ringing through the… suddenly very empty diner. Otto looked around warily, slowly lowering his cup. Where did everyone go? He wondered, alarm settling in his gut. Am I having another episode?
He turned to look back at Rosie, his eyes scanning her up and down with a vague sense of suspicion. Something had changed suddenly in the way she looked at him over the rim of her cup. She sipped delicately at her still-warm decaf, but the mischievous twinkle that danced deeply within her still-warm brown eyes had faded away ever so slightly. They still shined, she would always shine to him, but they hardened, shifted in a way that was less teasing and more aware, more knowing. There was a secret hidden in those eyes; a secret she held closely, but that Otto had an inclination he was about to be gifted.
“I… think I’m missing something, clearly,” Otto chuckled cautiously, setting his cup down with the faint clink of porcelain against porcelain.
“I remember sitting at a table with you once before,” she explained quietly, her eyes sliding over to look out of the window where the lights of the street had faded into nothing but an inky blackness. A nothingness. “I remember you pontificating on the mysteries of the universe… the mysteries of T.S. Elliot. You said once that you had ‘no idea what he was talking about’, but I always had the feeling you weren’t being one hundred percent honest.”
“I… I don’t recall saying that to you-”
“-yet?” Rosie asked, finishing his sentence for him while taking another drink. “No, no you haven’t told me that yet. Here and now, you still think I’m talking crazy and feeding you nonsense, but you still sat here and nodded along. You always made me feel smart, but now I know that you always thought I was smart. Just like I always knew you knew more than you were letting on.”
Otto stood up quickly as a horrid chill worked its way down his spine. The moment he exited the booth, the surrounding diner began to fade away until there was nothing left but, well, nothing . Nothing except for him and Rosie, still sitting at their table, still with that same knowing and unfazed expression on her face. She leaned leisurely forward, unrushed as she propped her elbows on the tabletop. Her face began to change. Not into anything grotesque, and he breathed a small sigh of relief as her eyes thankfully stayed that same deep shade of brown. When she smiled, the lines on her face deepened as a lifetime of laughter and deep thoughts yet to be experienced gradually returned to her face.
“R-Rosie…?” Otto gasped, the realization of what was happening finally settling over him. The migraines… the hallucinations…
“Hi, Otto,” Rosie replied warmly, standing up from the booth. The bench and the table vanished like dust in the nonexistent wind the moment it lost contact with her. Taking a few steps forward, she began to stalk around him calmly, as if she were on a Sunday stroll through Central Park.
He’d never left the horrid sunken place that not-his Peter had sent him to. He’d stayed put, and she had come to him. This wasn’t the Rosie of his youth. This was the Rosie he had offered his name to, freely and willingly. This was his Rosie. This was his wife.
“This wasn’t a memory,” He wagered a guess, watching her intently as she continued to pace around him. “This was a vigil.”
Photo Credit: hootdraws
“Oh, no honey,” she corrected, reaching a hand out and trailing it delicately over the inert mechanical arms that had reappeared on his back. He felt heavier as he noticed their presence, even more so that he normally would have had they been wriggling and active. Instead, they hung limp and useless off of him, dead weight for the first time since their inception. “No, you’d have to be dead for this to be a vigil. You’re still very much alive, but your brain… it had to take a little bit of a break when Peter overrode your old inhibitor chip.”
“So… you’re not real then?” he asked, unable to keep the note of disappointment out of his voice. The conclusion was inevitable, but it still stung to take. “None of this was? It was just my brain, what, rebooting?”
“You tell me,” Rosie whispered, coming to a stand-still in front of him. “Do I feel real?”
She took his hand in her own, bringing it to rest against her cheek. His palm tingled as a sharp cold spread up his arm the longer it stayed in contact with her skin. She didn’t feel like Rosie, but… she did feel real.
He shuddered, hesitantly cupping her other cheek with his other hand and holding her close as he inspected her. He couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. His brain refused to accept the impossibility of it all; But she did, in fact, feel real , and he felt like he could finally take a full breath for the first time since he lost her. With a whimper, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead flat against hers. His thumbs caressed the frigid skin under her eyes, following the lines left behind from a few too many late nights with a good book. The details that had been lost to him for so long came back in stunning clarity the longer he held her: her eyes that seemed black in certain lights, the sparse gray hairs that she had once tried to hide but that he’d insisted on worshiping, the way her lips weren’t quite symmetrical but had still kissed him breathless every time.
Tears pricked at his eyes, speckling against his glasses as he searched her face in an attempt to desperately recommit it to his memory. “R-Rosie,” he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of his grief. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t know-”
He didn’t know so many things. Too many things, one might argue. He didn’t know his calculations had been so wrong. He didn’t know that the power would spike so catastrophically, and that the fusion reactor would spiral so far out of control. He didn’t know she would stay behind to save him, although he really should have known better than to ever doubt her. He should have known better for all of it, and he should have done more to protect her from himself.
“Who would know, Otto?” Rosie asked, genuinely meaning it. No one ever sees a tragedy coming until it’s too late. It’s just a fact of life, albeit one that becomes exponentially easier to accept once you can no longer be affected by it. She smiled up at him, sighing in heavy melancholy as she gently removed his hands from her face. He stubbornly fought to keep his hold on her. “I need you to listen to me. We don’t have much time left-”
“Wh-what? No!” he protested, shaking his head furiously as the dread he felt at her words settled in. He felt like he would sink right through the floor, if there was one. “No, Rosie, you can’t leave yet! Please, it’s too soon-”
“It isn’t,” she said plainly, her grip firm and resolute on his wrists. “We’ve had all night together, dear. Everything happens in the time it’s supposed to. Then it ends. I have so much to tell you before you go back, so please. Let me say what I came here to say…”
“Rosie… I-I killed you,” Otto cried, his tears stubbornly clinging to his face. “It was all my fault, I should have-”
“None of that is important anymore,” she claimed, shushing him with a faint, reverberating whisper. Rosie reached up, brushing his hair back off of his forehead and away from his eyes as she continued. “You have to move on, and stop blaming yourself for what happened. You’re so, so incredibly lucky to be getting this second chance, but if you can’t step away from the past you’ll just keep dooming yourself in the future. No one killed me, Otto. I stayed behind for you, and I just died. It could have happened to anyone. I could have run with the rest, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I made a choice, and I chose to not abandon you when you needed me most. I could be given that same decision to make a thousand times over, and I’d still do the same because I love you. If it’s anyone's fault it’s my own. But it’s not anyone’s, and it’s nothing I can bring myself to regret. We all die, Otto.”
“Then why can’t I go with you now?”
“Because it’s not your time,” Rosie declared. Her tone left no room for argument, even though he still wanted to. “You have to go back. You have to make things right with Peter.”
“But, that’s not my Peter,” Otto pointed out, confused once more. What more could he possibly owe this kid besides a new tie?
“I know,” Rosie said with a sly and self-satisfied smirk. There she went, knowing more than him again. “I didn’t stutter, did I?”
Her eyes crinkled once more as that mischievous twinkle of hers returned, and the crows' feet scrunching up in the corners were so heartbreakingly familiar to him that he thought it might kill him all over again.
“You told me once that you loved that boy,” she went on, turning and taking a step away from him. And then another… and another. “I believed it then and I still believe it now. He may look different, he may be different, but is he not the same boy? The one that dined at our table and talked with you for hours about your work? The one who gave you this second chance you’re still so hesitant to take?”
“Rosie-” Otto breathed, his hand shooting out to reach for her the further away she got. The brush of his fingers over the back of her coat put a bittersweet punctuation on their reunion. He knew she wasn’t coming back, and that he was. He knew it wasn’t fair, and he hated it. “How do you know I’m not going to mess it up again?”
“I just do,” Rosie said, turning to look at him one last time over her shoulder. She gave him one more smile, one so full of warmth and love that he actually believed her for a minute. That was before her grin turned into something a little less innocent. “You know, this universe’s May is very pretty.”
Otto allowed the heat to creep back into his face at her words, and he laughed as a few stray tears spilling out over his cheeks. He opened his mouth to stammer, to object to her playful insinuation, before all of the breath felt like it was instantly sucked from his body. Suddenly, there was nothing left of the nothing, as Otto Octavius went up, up, up past the Russell Hotel.
Up, up, up, up to the Heaviside Layer.
- - - - -
“Doctor Octavius-!?”
Otto awoke, panting and with a start, his eyes darting to and fro as he tried to make sense of the surroundings he suddenly found himself thrust back into.
He was back… back in the condominium of miracles. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious for, but he was still strung up from the second story landing; like a prize, taxidermied buck with everyone standing around gawking at him. Regardless of his continued compromised position however, he was back. Back with not-his Peter and with May. Back with Dillon, and Marko, and Osborn. Notably, however, he was back and it was silent .
The arms… Their voices…
“It’s so quiet,” he mused, mostly to himself he thought, until he noticed May and Osborn exchange anxious glances before they looked back up at him in tandem. They were waiting to see if it worked, all of them were. He waited for a moment or so and listened carefully for the grating sounds of screeching to assail his innermost thoughts once more in mocking protestation. “Those voices inside my head…” They were gone. Finally gone. But that wasn’t what mattered most to Otto at that moment in time.
He searched his memories, afraid for a moment for the faces that remained blurred. But then, a steady clarity. Auburn hair catching the passing city lights, brown eyes alight with mischief, kind lips curling effortlessly around the smartest damn thing he’s ever heard.
The voices were gone, but the memories had remained. Rosie… She was still here. She was still with him. He still had her.
And he still had T.S. Elliot.