Fic: The Cat in the Box (Robert-centric)
"The Cat in the Box"
Words: 3895
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Rating: PG(13?) for semi-dark moments
Status: Complete (oneshot)
Summary: Some things are supposed to make sense. Some things never will. And that's okay.
Notes: Robert-centric; POST-CANON; I don't know why, but I felt like I needed to do this. Maybe it's because I love cats. Maybe it's because I love Robert. Or maybe the OP had me at "cray-cray." Just be forewarned that there are some pretty serious moments in this. I have no idea why it turned out so long (that's what she said).
Prompt: Robert is all cray-cray from the Inception.
And then he finds a cat.
And the cat is his only way of becoming 'him' again.
idk, I just need more Robert/Cillian and cats.
---
It doesn’t quite seem possible-too obvious, too cliché. The cat in the box, and the rain, sheeting down so hard that Robert can hardly see the hotel as the cab finally pulls to a stop by the main doors.
Robert is tired-exhausted-and all Browning has wanted to discuss on the ride over is plans. What needs to be done; what hasn’t been done? What has been done that should not have been done? And something about it all is still too soon. It has not yet been a month since his father’s death, but the world keeps revolving without a second thought, without one small pause.
But Browning is not completely unsympathetic. Before Robert exits the cab, he does clasp his hand on Robert’s shoulder and ask how Robert is feeling, and it is the same question that his godfather has asked him everyday since his father’s death. Every time, Robert can only reply, “I don’t know,” and he knows this is better, far better than trying to articulate how messed up and lost he feels.
He doesn’t open his umbrella when he steps out of the cab, so it’s a wonder he even sees the small, soggy box tucked under the crimson awning. Curiosity makes him glance inside, and there, pushed into a folded corner, is a small ball of gray fur with pointed ears. Robert pulls the box further under the awning, but it seems a worthless action at this point; the box is soaked and ready to fall apart as it is.
It is with a tired sigh that he scoops the kitten into his hand, surprised at its small size, before trudging into the hotel foyer.
-
The receptionist gives him a strange look when Robert places the kitten on the counter. “Can you take care of this?” Robert asks, checking his watch in the hope that this will become someone else’s problem. He has enough problems as it is.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fischer,” says the young man. The black, embossed letters on his nametag say “CHRIS.” He looks nervous, as if Robert is about to fire him for his words. “But…But I can’t take care of it. It’s company policy. Some guests have allergies, so it can’t stay here.”
By now, the kitten has uncurled, shaking its head and blinking sleepily into the bright lights. Robert looks up from it with a quizzical expression that says this should not be his problem. “Well, what am I supposed to do with it?”
“You could take it up to your room,” suggests Chris, indicating toward the elevator. “If nothing else, you could drop it by the shelter tomorrow. It’s not too far.”
Robert sighs, swinging his suitcase by his side and rubbing his temple. The small cat turns and looks at him, cocking its head to the side.
It is with no amount of excitement that Robert brings the cat to his room.
-
Robert doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of cats.
Growing up, his father vehemently stressed that there were to be no pets whatsoever in the house, aside from hunting dogs. That meant that he grew accustomed to his father’s reproachful looks whenever he brought home a stray frog, bunny, or cat, and to his father’s bellowing voice as he asked why Robert never listened to him. Robert learned very quickly never to disappoint his father.
So he has no idea where to even begin with the kitten. What he does know is that he’s pretty sure he is allergic to it.
The moment he steps into the apartment, he sneezes, and that sneeze is to become one of many. The sound scares the cat, which springs from his arms and disappears under one of the sofas in the living room. The drapes are drawn and the room is dark. He can barely see the picture of him and his father.
Robert already has a bad feeling about this. Particularly when he slides his hand under the couch, yelling a string of obscenities as the cat scratches him.
“Fine! Just stay under there, then!” he shouts, standing and going to the bathroom. He is usually a quiet person, but he has been yelling a lot recently. He frowns at the three, glaring-red stripes that span across three of his fingers, and it hurts more than he expects it to.
Running his hands under the cool water provides momentary relief, and soon, he is pressing the water on his face, taking long, deep breaths as he looks at his reflection in the mirror.
He looks tired. He feels exhausted.
He will get rid of the cat tomorrow.
-
When Robert wakes up, he takes a shower and brews a half-pot of coffee. On his way to get dressed, his eyes catch sight of the living room. His briefcase is still open on the coffee table where he left it, but all of the documents that were once inside are now…outside.
Rubbing his eyes, Robert hopes he is seeing things. As luck would have it, he is not. The floor is covered in white leaflets-agreements, files, papers strewn, covering every possible inch of the floor. Documents and files that were once neatly organized and are now an indistinguishable mess.
Robert feels the sudden urge to laugh. Or cry. And suddenly he is on the brink of doing both, before he quickly rubs his eyes and takes a few shallow breaths, composing himself.
“Okay,” he whispers, pulling out his phone.
He doesn’t tell Browning about the cat, but thankfully his godfather doesn’t expect an excuse for why he won’t be coming into work that morning. Which is good. Because Robert doesn’t quite know why himself, and there seems to be a lot that he doesn’t know, lately.
-
Robert is minutes away from calling Animal Control. The cat is perched atop a bookshelf, gazing down at him with something that is starting to look more and more like a grin. He considers shaking the bookshelf, before deciding that the order of his books is too much of a sacrifice. His books seem to be the only things that make sense anymore.
When he approaches Chris for his input, the young receptionist disappears behind the counter, pulling out a litter box filled with a half-empty bag of cat food, treats, and a carton of cat litter.
There is a half-confused, half-hesitant smile on Robert’s face as he asks, “What’s all this?”
Chris’s smile is far from reassuring. “Well, Mr. Fischer, it’s some stuff I had left over from when I had my own cat. It’s been a while since he ran away, and I figured you could use it.”
“But...I’m getting rid of the cat.”
“Oh, yes, I know. But until you do, I hoped that this might be of some use. Unless…you’ve already found someone to take it?”
Robert sets his jaw. “Not yet.”
“Well, then…Please make use of it.”
-
Robert sets the litter box in a corner and grabs two bowls from the cupboard. In one, he pours water, and in the other, he shakes out cat food. The rattling sound of the chow on the porcelain surface of the bowl sends the cat speeding out from underneath a chair. It is a blur of gray motion, stopping only once it spots Robert a few feet away.
“Go on,” Robert says with a sigh of defeat. “Eat.”
He feels a small sense of accomplishment when the cat pads over to the bowl, whiskers shifting as it smells the food and begins crunching away. The sound reminds Robert that he has not yet eaten anything that day, and that it has been a while since he has had anything of substance. Food has become a necessity, and nothing more. An afterthought-like everything else.
There is something not quite right-something about his mind, his thoughts. Something that has been wrong for some time now. He feels…violated in some way, as if he has been tinkered with, as if his thoughts aren’t stable-or even his own. He second-guesses himself all the time, much more than he ever has in the past, and there is just something mind-bendingly off about everything.
Only, he doesn’t know what it is, and he can’t tell anyone. Browning would only recommend him to counseling, and he has wasted enough time on that already. He can tell no one.
He has only himself.
-
There is something weird about changing in front of the cat.
Robert comes to this conclusion at the end of the week, when he drags himself into his room and the cat follows him all the way to the bedroom where he strips down to his boxers, and then nothing else-all the while, the cat staring at him from her place by the door.
By now, Robert knows the kitten is a female. Chris took one look at it, lifting it up into the air, and confirmed this.
Maybe that’s what it is. Or maybe, it’s just those golden-green eyes, which follow Robert wherever he goes, when he comes home, and when he leaves, glowing in the corner of the room on the nights when he wakes up in the middle of the night, inexplicably, out of some unremembered dream.
The cat is there, too, when he comes home, utterly exhausted, Browning’s voice ringing in his ears, asking him what needs to be done, Robert? What are you going to do? And there are decisions to be made, too many decisions, momentous, life-changing decisions about the company and whether or not it should be divided. Because this sounds right, only Robert is not so sure, and everyone is looking at him for an answer, because they expect him to know. Only, Robert does not know.
He looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and thinks that his father would have known, that there would have been no question, no uncertainty, none of this flailing back and forth between yes and no, and that is what really does it, that is what makes Robert break down, his shoulders shaking and heaving as he doubles over, clutching at his face, his hair, at anything he can hold onto.
And then he takes a few deep breaths, composing himself. Just breathe, he thinks. Breathe. “I can do this,” he says, struggling to keep his voice level as he looks up at the mirror again. Another trembling sob threatens to take over, and he presses his fingers to his eyes, breathing in, and then out. “No, I’m okay,” he mutters. Opening his eyes, he looks at himself again. “I’m okay…I’m okay…”
His eyes are drawn to the cat, which sits close by, curled on the toilet tank. She is watching him silently, her tail flicking back and forth.
“What are you looking at?” Robert asks. There is no anger in his voice.
-
It takes Robert a few weeks to get used to the unusual idiosyncrasies of cats.
“Cat,” as he has started calling her, rubs up against his leg whenever he comes home, but when Robert bends down to pet her, she darts away.
Whenever Robert is reading reports and replying to the tedious amount of emails he receives daily, it is not long before the cat hops onto the arm of one of the nearby couches and begins the extensive process of cleaning herself. This results in hair everywhere, from the couch arm, to Robert’s pant legs, to wherever else the cat happens to spend an extended amount of time, which almost always happens to be some form of expensive furniture. And when he puts lip balm on, as he does every night before bed, there is soon to be fur on his lips, too, that he can never seem to get rid of.
And there are hairballs. Because the cat is a longhaired breed, there are many-a-hairball for Robert to deal with, except that Robert is never ever prepared to deal with them. The first time it happened, he wasn’t sure what was going on and started dry-heaving once he saw the result. It pretty much becomes a given that hairballs will soon be followed by Robert pressing a fist to his mouth and struggling not to throw up.
(And at some point, which he is unable to pinpoint, he has stopped sneezing the moment he walks in the door.)
And there is the destructive behavior. Robert is not exactly elated when he comes home one evening to find the cat clawing her way up the velvet drapes.
“Cat!” he yells, but this only makes her travel upward faster. She doesn’t come down until the following morning, and even then, once she sees Robert, she scurries back over, pawing her way up the fabric.
So, Robert has the drapes removed. The suite is flooded with light that makes it look like another place entirely.
When Robert comes home now, it always takes him a moment to realize that he has not come to the wrong room.
-
The cat is not the only one who develops strange habits.
She is no longer small enough to fit in his hand. She has become an armful, and the playful nature she gains with age seems to rub off on Robert just a little.
One night, the cat is playing with dust sparkles in the air as they catch the light, digging her paws into the corner of the couch as if they go into hiding there, and suddenly, Robert cannot help himself. He edges his finger over the top of a pillow, only to drag it back quickly when the cat catches sight of it. Her pupils dilate wildly as she sidles up to the pillow. Robert is about to do it again, before reason steps in and he stops himself with short, bemused chuckle.
And there is also the fact that Robert has begun talking to the cat on a regular basis, whether it is to ask what she’s gotten into while he’s been gone or a quick greeting whenever they happen to cross paths, which is quite often, actually. And while this could be considered strange, it can’t be any weirder than his godfather talking to his junk as he takes a piss.
One morning, as Robert eats a bowl of cereal-(he has upgraded from the standard cup of yogurt every few hours)-and the cat hops onto the table and just stares at him, Robert finds himself staring back, his lips itching to smile around his spoon even though it still feels wrong to smile.
“Cat,” he says, and the cat’s ears twitch. “Cat,” he says again, laying his spoon down. The cat tilts her head until Robert pushes his leftover milk over toward her. Then she’s a mass of appreciative purrs. “Hey,” Robert says, tilting his own head in a like fashion as he watches her, “…do you know your name?”
He’s suddenly laughing at himself.
At work, people begin telling him that he looks different-better, somehow.
Robert begins to wonder if maybe they’re right.
-
One morning, when Robert exits his room, the cat gets out. She slips past his leg and disappears down the hall in a flourish of gray. And then she’s gone.
Robert begins to call her, but then he realizes that this is probably for the best, that he should have already gotten rid of the cat weeks ago.
He goes to work.
Browning tells him again about the decisions, endless decisions, and timelines, deadlines, all the things which Robert needs to keep in mind-all the things which are already swirling in his mind along with everything else. Because Robert knows. He knows he has decisions to make, he’s just afraid of making them. He doesn’t want to make the wrong one.
Casually dismissing the Board, he’s aware of the inquisitive stares he receives, but he’s not quite ready. But now, he’s sure of what he has to do. He knows. But knowing and doing are two separate things with an infinite amount of space between them.
It’s strange not to be greeted at the door when he comes home, or to be bothered as he brushes his teeth that night with the expectation that he’s going to be removing the cat from the counter an endless amount of times. He peeks out the door, but there is nothing in either direction, so he goes to bed.
The apartment feels empty. Robert is alone.
-
“I need time,” Robert stresses, pressing his fingers into his temple.
“I know that, Robert,” Browning replies. His tone is supportive. “I know it’s still hard for you-your father’s death-“
Robert has raised a hand, meaning, simply, Stop. He is pinching his nose to stop himself from crying.
Browning watches him, his eyebrows knitting together. “I’m only trying to help you,” he says, placing a hand on Robert’s back shortly, before exiting the office.
Robert is able to hold everything in until he gets home, and then he lets it all just go.
He throws his suitcase across the room, and that feels good enough for only so long, before he swipes his arms across the counter, sending files and scotch glasses careening off the edge. That shattering sound is what he needs-the sound that matches what he feels inside, everyday, every morning when he wakes up with the bleary realization that he must face yet another day. Another day without his father. Another day on his own.
His prescription is still in the medicine cabinet, untouched. “Take one pill maximum each night at bedtime,” the print on the label says. And also: “DO NOT EXCEED THE MAXIMUM DOSAGE.”
Robert turns the bottle in his hand, the pills clinking pleasantly as he does so. The label blurs as tears run down his cheeks, endlessly, and Robert pops the top off, letting it plunk onto the cold tile.
When he looks up at his broken-down reflection, he does not expect to find the cat there, watching him, her head tilted to the side as her tail flicks erratically from her place on the toilet seat.
“What are you doing here?” he whispers, idly aware of the fact that in his frustration, he has left the front door open. The cat continues to stare at him, until Robert cannot take it because it’s one more thing looking at him for all the answers, and he finds himself yelling, “What are you looking at?” as he hurls the bottle toward the feline. The bottle misses by a long shot; the cat has anticipated the movement and ducks out of the bathroom before the orange bottle even leaves Robert’s hands.
Now, there are only pills-pills everywhere. And silence. And Robert, who slinks to the floor, crying. His face is in his hands, and he’s an absolute mess, and he can’t help but find it a little bit funny, in an entirely embittered way, that he is the one in charge of such an important decision. He wishes his father were there so that he wouldn’t even have to make the decision, but he knows that this is not possible, that it never will be. His father is gone. He is in charge now.
When the cat rubs against his leg, it startles him. Looking up, he sees that she is kneading her front paws against his knees, looking into his face with golden-green eyes. Robert reaches out to pet her, and she lets him, nuzzling into the touch, and when Robert picks her up, she lets him do that too, snuggling into his arms, and suddenly everything feels a little less wrong, a little more right.
Someone’s voice trails in from the hall, asking if everything is okay.
He knows what he has to do. In truth, he has known for a while. It is simply a matter of doing it. Even so, there is something heartbreaking about dissolving his father’s company, even if it is something his father wanted him to do.
“Everything’s fine,” he says.
-
Robert realizes the next morning where the cat had gone. The evidence, a dead mouse, is right inside the front door when he leaves for work. (This engenders another round of dry heaves.) Downstairs, Chris tells him that it’s not uncommon for cats to bring their owners presents-“if they like you enough.”
This makes Robert smile, despite himself.
At the office, he tells Browning his idea, and the words tumble out of his mouth faster than he can stop them, until he has nothing left to say, and it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted from his chest. Browning is silent for a few minutes afterward, and then he clasps Robert’s shoulder and gives him a nod.
“This is going to take some time and energy, Robert,” he says, “I know you know this. But if it’s what you want, then it’s what we’re going to do.”
A little bit more about the world starts to make sense.
As he oversees the preparations that are made in the coming days, he is no longer plagued by what he needs to do, by what must be done. He is simply himself, offering his own opinion when he can and seeking the advice of others in matters he is unsure of. When asked to attend a small get-together after work, he agrees.
He feels included-not like someone standing on the edge.
At home, he is back to eating three meals a day. Three substantial meals. He makes a sandwich after work, finding himself extremely hungry, and piles on the turkey and Swiss cheese. When he switches on the television, he realizes that he has left his glass of water on the counter, and when he returns from retrieving it, the meat has disappeared from between his bread slices. Robert is confused, until he sees the cat’s tail poking out from under the coffee table, and he chuckles a little, sitting back in his chair with a sigh.
A few moments later, the cat pops her head up again, biting into the Swiss and taking off down the hall.
“You forgot the bread,” he calls after her, sarcastically.
-
Every day, before he goes out the door, Robert glances at the photo of him and his father, the one with the paper windmill. The one which is framed and sits on an oak table in the front hall.
Browning glances at it as he walks in, before his eyes are drawn to the rest of the place. “Looks different,” he says, nodding his head agreeably.
Robert directs him to a couch in the front room, where they both take a seat to discuss one of the many business propositions that have started taking up most of their time. The cat hops into his lap, and Robert reaches over for the proposal, all the while Browning watching him.
“You, too,” the old man says. “You look…different, Robert-better. Just…better. How do you feel?”
Robert turns to face him, a small smile tugging at his lips that for once doesn’t feel terribly wrong. “Better,” he says, scratching the cat between the ears as a pleasant expression colors his face. There are many things to do, and they will get done. “I feel much better.”
-------
A/N: I soooo wanted to throw in a WILSON!Robert moment (“Castaway” reference) when the cat ran out the door. But I restrained myself.
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