Practice Makes Perfect

The air was too hot for this time of year, Mistoffelees noted when his nap on the trunk of the TSE1 quickly turned into a barbecue. Pity, he was looking forward to getting some sleep. Granted the original plan didn't exactly involve sleeping, but he would much rather that sleep deprivation than the kind he was feeling now.

Rolling onto his side he sighed. What could he have done so horribly that Munkustrap just about tore through his den to get away?

Too restless to sleep, he gave up on sleep. Maybe he should hunt down the tabby and grill him for answers. That would mean having something to say once he'd finally found him. Hey, Munk! Quick question: why won't you jump my bones already? Perhaps he should take a walk to think things over some more.

Considerably easier said than done as the clearing was infested with the Jellicles now and he could barely find the opportunity to disappear, let alone mope properly, without someone harassing him for a chat. The idea to sleep was actually a product of wanting to stay where he could easily find the tabby when he decided to confront him, and to discourage overly friendly Jellicles from wandering over.

To his sarcastic delight Munkustrap was nowhere to be seen all morning, and the others were feeling especially talkative.

He needed to find someone he wanted to distract him. Surely he smelled Tugger's scent lingering about not too long ago...

Not a whiff into his search and a painfully familiar smell wafted over to him from the tire. No doubt his target was on the move as the next breeze nearly had their whole spectrum of scents stuffed up his nose; maybe he could--

"Oh, Mistoffelees, there you are."

"Uh!" he jumped at the unnecessarily loud greeting and turned to face his visitor. "Here I am!"

Munkustrap smiled warmly from the landing just off of the car, he leaped onto the dented body beside his mate and leaned in for a quick nuzzle. Nearby some of the queens watched and giggled: for some reason nuzzling and licking had become a tremendously big deal when mates did it. Especially of the queer variety.

There was little speculation as to why Munkustrap cut the move short when Mistoffelees didn't reciprocate. It almost made him feel good to see, from the deep frown he sported, that the bigger tom was almost just as inconvenienced by their mishap as he was.

He watched the frown smooth out into a more neutral, apathetic expression. Tugger had once referred to this move as 'ironing out his Sunday best' because of the remarkable way he polished off any and all traces of emotion-- and wrinkles-- from his face. Mistoffelees made a point of challenging the impersonal tone that usually followed the shift with an arched brow.

Munkustrap clearly thought better of it. "Misto," he began with a softness that clashed with the stiffness of his jaw. "Jenny's den grew a bad leak and I need to help her fix it before dinnertime; would you mind entertaining the kits for a little while?"

Seriously? I have half a mind to-- "Yeah, no problem. I'm not doing anything anyway. One would say I could use the distraction."

It was instantaneous, the way his body bowed into a contrite and defeated little thing. Well, he wasn't little, but he sure deflated under the accusatory edge in Mistoffelees' voice to the point where any tom who has ever taken a mate could immediately empathize and forgive him his humility. The tabby idly picked as a dried mole of dirt, scratching it off the filthy, dented metal.

Still, he refused to address the two-ton elephant hanging over their heads. "I'll go fetch the kittens. We shouldn't be too long; it's not a terribly big project."

Uninterested with the sad state of Jenny's den, Mistoffelees simply nodded until he stopped talking. "I understand."

Munkustrap nodded in kind and got up to leave. He faltered a moment when he'd unwittingly leaned in to nuzzle his mate again, then pulled away to start towards Jenny's den where the kittens would be waiting for him.

Out of impulse, and because he was already tired of feeling sorry for himself, he followed Munkustrap along the wall of junk that hid the clearing from the other, more offensive junk.

Munkustrap froze at the tug on his tail, not wanting to give Mistoffelees an excuse to 'accidentally' yank it out. "What happened last night, Munk?" Mistoffelees whimpered. He kept his voice low so as to not announce to the entire junkyard that their 'sex-life' had crashed and burst into hilarious little flames before it had even been turned on. "Did I do something wrong?"

The other tom let out a deep sigh that had trailed off into a frustrated groan. He sounded terribly tired when he spoke, almost as if he'd already worn himself out having this discussion with the tux in his head, "No no, Mistoffelees, you did nothing wrong. It's nothing, trust me--"

"You don't just walk out on someone because they didn't do anything wrong and nothing happened!"

The queens that had been watching them earlier had stopped chatting almost as soon as his voice passed the appropriate hushed-arguing decibels. Now it was anyone's business and they were taking initiative to make it theirs; they whispered and gasped amongst each other with about as much subtlety as Macavity's obnoxious laugh and knack for shattering every pane of glass in the junkyard.

Dropping his voice to a harsh whisper and grabbing the tabby's wrist, he pleaded, "At least drop me a hint or something," giving his arm a quick shake.

Since saying something would be better than a blank stare, Munkustrap had to work with the nothing he had: "Misto-- Love... please."

The tux's eyes rolled back in his head; he closed his eyes against the buzzing feeling in his brain and the vision unfolded before him. Jenny had come looking for Munkustrap. He relinquished his mate with a sigh; it was bad enough he has grilling the tom, but to risk bringing Jenny into it would be incalculably worse. For both of them.

As she entered the clearing, Mistoffelees was already halfway between her and Munkustrap, bee lining for the chattering flock of kittens trailing behind her.

Jennyanydots gave him one of her 'you're a peach!' world-weary smiles she usually saved for kittens who try too hard, and the cats who agreed to watch them. She bent down (a terribly annoying side effect of being on the shorter side... and aspiring to the extreme) and gently nuzzled the top of his shoulder.

"I hope you get that leak fixed," he beamed. Taking note of, and mentally ticking off, each member of the parade at her heels. "But I reckon it won't be a problem; Munkustrap has a talent for handling broken things."