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andrasteMy longest Yuletide Madness story. And, in fact, the longest thing I wrote for Yuletide this year. (There was just no way that Documentation was going to be longer than it was, given the format.)
On Christmas Eve, I sat down and watched Singin' In The Rain, because what better way to celebrate than to sit down to the greatest musical ever brought to screen? (Especially since I'd done my annual rewatch of Die Hard the night before.) I had vague plans to maybe write a drabble or something for Yuletide Madness. On Christmas night, I sat down to put a few thoughts to keyboard and when I looked up there were five hundred words on the screen. I wrote and posted the whole thing over the course of about four hours, which would have been great if it hadn't resulted in my being awake until THREE IN THE GODDAMN MORNING.
A lot of people responded to this with 'your Cosmo voice is great!' which is just as well since I cannot get him to shut up. I think there may be more stories from me in this fandom eventually, since I have spent the time since Christmas telling certain imaginary people that my kitchen table is not an appropriate location for tap-dancing.
Anyway, I've loved this film since I was about nine. Don/Kathy/Cosmo was my OT3 long before I knew what an OT3 was. I think it shows.
Summary: By the time The Duelling Cavalier was previewed, Cosmo and Kathy were the best of friends. This is how.
Contains: Nothing more salacious than the film, really.
Relationships: If these three had Facebook, there would be liberal use of the 'it's complicated' option.
When he starts looking for her, Cosmo Brown knows three things about Kathy Selden:
1. She's brunette, around 5'2” and pretty cute for a girl. (That might count as three things on its own, but it's not a lot to go on when you're trying to find one dancer that you only got a brief look at.)
2. Don Lockwood is hopelessly in love with her.
3. She hit Lina Lamont in the face with a cake.
The third thing is the reason Cosmo is half in love with her himself. Anyone with comic timing that perfect is someone he just has to get to know. Besides, in more than twenty years, he's never seen Don fret like this over anything.
There are places that Cosmo can go that a star like Don Lockwood can't, and after a month he's pretty sure he's been to all of them. Apparently Miss Selden really is a nice girl, though, because she isn't in any of the seedier burlesque shows. When Cosmo gets despondent and sick of the sight of sequins, he props up his favourite bar. It's not exactly the best place to find a woman, but a guy needs to keep his spirits up somehow.
“Why the long face, Cos?”
He resists the obvious feed line. “I'm looking for a girl.” The bartender raises an eyebrow in such a way that Cosmo feels the need to elaborate a little. “Not for me. It's Don. He's in love. Say, you don't know any girls who make their living jumping out of cakes, do you?”
The bartender shakes his head. “Not a lot of call for that here. You don't think it's a little counter-productive for you to find girls for Don Lockwood?”
Cosmo never admits to anything, just gives the bartender a grin. Privately, he thinks Don just needs to find this Kathy and sweep her off her feet so he can get her out of his system. If he has to search every leotard in Hollywood to find her then that's what he'll do.
***
The day after Cosmo finds Kathy, she invites him to lunch.
“I have to thank you,” she says, smiling shyly, “for telling Don where I was. Even though I really wanted to smack you at first.”
“Hey, it was nothing. What am I here for, if not to find things Don Lockwood has lost? Ties, hats, girls ...” Kathy's smile falters a little and Cosmo kicks himself mentally. There's no need to be mean. “Hey, I should tell you about the time he lost his violin ...”
By the time their food arrives, Kathy has tears of laughter streaming down her face and Cosmo has realised that she's the person he's been saving all these stories for. Somehow, in the course of one evening of cake-related hijinks and a single date, Kathy has caught sight of the Don he knows. She seems delighted to hear about his embarrassing origins.
“That can't be true!” she howls, “you actually got run out of town by a mob?”
“I swear it, on my mother's grave!” Cosmo's mother is, as far as he knows, alive and well. The part about the mob is still true, although he may have added the pitchforks and torches for effect.
Kathy wipes the tears out of her eyes and picks up a fork. “You have more stories like that?”
“Oh, all my good stories have Don in them. All the bad ones, too.” Kathy is smart as a whip, but she's practically a babe in arms. And if Cosmo doesn't tell her the hilarious truth about her high-flying new beau, who will?
“So it's true you've known each other since you were kids?”
“Completely true. If you ever break his heart, I'll have to challenge you to a duel. And I look terrible in those powdered wigs.”
“Pistols at dawn, then?”
She sparkles like a diamond. Cosmo is suddenly hoping that Don won't get her out of his system, because Cosmo sort of wants to keep her.
***
Don has been seeing Kathy for five whole weeks, and Cosmo is driving him home from the lot. The shoot on The Dueling Cavalier ran for nineteen hours and they're exhausted, but Don still has that schoolboy grin on him after kissing her goodbye.
“I'm going to marry her,” he says.
“I assume you don't mean that Lina's finally getting her way.”
This is the point where Cosmo should tell Don he's crazy, that he hardly knows this girl and he's too old and too famous for her. The truth is, he thinks it's a great idea.
“I love her Cosmo. I can't imagine what I did without her all this time.”
Cosmo opens his mouth to reply 'me, mostly' but then he realises that Don is actually asking for his permission. None of Don's girlfriends have ever lived in his house, and if a few of them have caught Cosmo eating breakfast in Don's kitchen it's always been easy to laugh it off. Nobody pays attention to the piano player. But they wouldn't be able to hide from Kathy even if they wanted to. Suddenly, he doesn't know what to say, so he keeps his eyes on the road. He has never once said that he loves Don, but if he's being asked to step aside gracefully and take his bow he's worried that he's going to make a pratfall out of it.
“She really likes you,” Don adds.
“Miss Selden has almost impeccable taste,” he says. “You're the only blemish in her otherwise perfect copybook. She's far too good for you, but I don't think she's noticed.”
“Believe me, I know. Every day I wake up worrying that she'll figure it out.”
“Just so you know, if you ever get divorced, she gets me in the settlement.”
Don's laugh sounds relieved, and Cosmo lets his hands unclench from the steering wheel.
***
He's going over Would You? with Kathy for what feels like the millionth time (because it's not like she can really rehearse with Don) when she brings it up.
“I think Don's going to ask me to marry him,” she says, slumping down on the piano stool next to him.
“I think I've already had this conversation,” Cosomo says, turning the song into the Wedding March with a grin. “Not that I want to give away the ending.”
“I'm not sure I should be picking out dresses yet,” she says with a frown.
“You are going to say yes, right? Because I meant it about the duel.”
“Yes! I mean, I'm just not sure I should. I love Don, but this is all so sudden, and there are so many things going on. I can't even tell my parents we're seeing each other or it'll be all over the tabloids. Besides ...” she gives Cosmo a pleading look, and he realises that he's being asked for permission again. Apparently he's a lot more obvious than he thinks he is.
“Kathy, I can say with some authority that you're the best thing that's ever happened to Don. And if you don't marry him, you'd better marry me instead.”
Kathy laughs and kisses him on the cheek and Cosmo pretends to swoon so that she laughs more. Unfortunately, it doesn't distract her completely. “I just wouldn't want-”
He puts his hand over hers to cut her off. “Kathy, you are not standing in the way of my happiness. Unless you dump Don, in which case I may have to throw myself off the Golden Gate Bridge just so I don't have to hear about it. Do you have any idea how much he moped during that month when he couldn't find you?”
Kathy smiles. “Well, we certainly can't have you dying tragically just when your career is really taking off.”
“I don't know,” Cosmo says. “Being struck down in my prime could be the best move I ever make.” He starts playing Mozart's unfinished Requiem Mass and Kathy punches him in the arm.
***
He walks in behind them at the premier of Singin' in the Rain. The crowd screams for Lockwood and Selden as loud as they did for Lockwood and Lamont, even though they've lost the alliteration. The general public still have no idea who Cosmo is, but his name is there in big letters in the credits.
He sits at the end of the row, with Kathy next to him and Don next to her. In the dark, one of her hand finds its way into his. He has no idea how this is going to work, but Cosmo has always been pretty good at improvising.
The End
On Christmas Eve, I sat down and watched Singin' In The Rain, because what better way to celebrate than to sit down to the greatest musical ever brought to screen? (Especially since I'd done my annual rewatch of Die Hard the night before.) I had vague plans to maybe write a drabble or something for Yuletide Madness. On Christmas night, I sat down to put a few thoughts to keyboard and when I looked up there were five hundred words on the screen. I wrote and posted the whole thing over the course of about four hours, which would have been great if it hadn't resulted in my being awake until THREE IN THE GODDAMN MORNING.
A lot of people responded to this with 'your Cosmo voice is great!' which is just as well since I cannot get him to shut up. I think there may be more stories from me in this fandom eventually, since I have spent the time since Christmas telling certain imaginary people that my kitchen table is not an appropriate location for tap-dancing.
Anyway, I've loved this film since I was about nine. Don/Kathy/Cosmo was my OT3 long before I knew what an OT3 was. I think it shows.
Summary: By the time The Duelling Cavalier was previewed, Cosmo and Kathy were the best of friends. This is how.
Contains: Nothing more salacious than the film, really.
Relationships: If these three had Facebook, there would be liberal use of the 'it's complicated' option.
When he starts looking for her, Cosmo Brown knows three things about Kathy Selden:
1. She's brunette, around 5'2” and pretty cute for a girl. (That might count as three things on its own, but it's not a lot to go on when you're trying to find one dancer that you only got a brief look at.)
2. Don Lockwood is hopelessly in love with her.
3. She hit Lina Lamont in the face with a cake.
The third thing is the reason Cosmo is half in love with her himself. Anyone with comic timing that perfect is someone he just has to get to know. Besides, in more than twenty years, he's never seen Don fret like this over anything.
There are places that Cosmo can go that a star like Don Lockwood can't, and after a month he's pretty sure he's been to all of them. Apparently Miss Selden really is a nice girl, though, because she isn't in any of the seedier burlesque shows. When Cosmo gets despondent and sick of the sight of sequins, he props up his favourite bar. It's not exactly the best place to find a woman, but a guy needs to keep his spirits up somehow.
“Why the long face, Cos?”
He resists the obvious feed line. “I'm looking for a girl.” The bartender raises an eyebrow in such a way that Cosmo feels the need to elaborate a little. “Not for me. It's Don. He's in love. Say, you don't know any girls who make their living jumping out of cakes, do you?”
The bartender shakes his head. “Not a lot of call for that here. You don't think it's a little counter-productive for you to find girls for Don Lockwood?”
Cosmo never admits to anything, just gives the bartender a grin. Privately, he thinks Don just needs to find this Kathy and sweep her off her feet so he can get her out of his system. If he has to search every leotard in Hollywood to find her then that's what he'll do.
***
The day after Cosmo finds Kathy, she invites him to lunch.
“I have to thank you,” she says, smiling shyly, “for telling Don where I was. Even though I really wanted to smack you at first.”
“Hey, it was nothing. What am I here for, if not to find things Don Lockwood has lost? Ties, hats, girls ...” Kathy's smile falters a little and Cosmo kicks himself mentally. There's no need to be mean. “Hey, I should tell you about the time he lost his violin ...”
By the time their food arrives, Kathy has tears of laughter streaming down her face and Cosmo has realised that she's the person he's been saving all these stories for. Somehow, in the course of one evening of cake-related hijinks and a single date, Kathy has caught sight of the Don he knows. She seems delighted to hear about his embarrassing origins.
“That can't be true!” she howls, “you actually got run out of town by a mob?”
“I swear it, on my mother's grave!” Cosmo's mother is, as far as he knows, alive and well. The part about the mob is still true, although he may have added the pitchforks and torches for effect.
Kathy wipes the tears out of her eyes and picks up a fork. “You have more stories like that?”
“Oh, all my good stories have Don in them. All the bad ones, too.” Kathy is smart as a whip, but she's practically a babe in arms. And if Cosmo doesn't tell her the hilarious truth about her high-flying new beau, who will?
“So it's true you've known each other since you were kids?”
“Completely true. If you ever break his heart, I'll have to challenge you to a duel. And I look terrible in those powdered wigs.”
“Pistols at dawn, then?”
She sparkles like a diamond. Cosmo is suddenly hoping that Don won't get her out of his system, because Cosmo sort of wants to keep her.
***
Don has been seeing Kathy for five whole weeks, and Cosmo is driving him home from the lot. The shoot on The Dueling Cavalier ran for nineteen hours and they're exhausted, but Don still has that schoolboy grin on him after kissing her goodbye.
“I'm going to marry her,” he says.
“I assume you don't mean that Lina's finally getting her way.”
This is the point where Cosmo should tell Don he's crazy, that he hardly knows this girl and he's too old and too famous for her. The truth is, he thinks it's a great idea.
“I love her Cosmo. I can't imagine what I did without her all this time.”
Cosmo opens his mouth to reply 'me, mostly' but then he realises that Don is actually asking for his permission. None of Don's girlfriends have ever lived in his house, and if a few of them have caught Cosmo eating breakfast in Don's kitchen it's always been easy to laugh it off. Nobody pays attention to the piano player. But they wouldn't be able to hide from Kathy even if they wanted to. Suddenly, he doesn't know what to say, so he keeps his eyes on the road. He has never once said that he loves Don, but if he's being asked to step aside gracefully and take his bow he's worried that he's going to make a pratfall out of it.
“She really likes you,” Don adds.
“Miss Selden has almost impeccable taste,” he says. “You're the only blemish in her otherwise perfect copybook. She's far too good for you, but I don't think she's noticed.”
“Believe me, I know. Every day I wake up worrying that she'll figure it out.”
“Just so you know, if you ever get divorced, she gets me in the settlement.”
Don's laugh sounds relieved, and Cosmo lets his hands unclench from the steering wheel.
***
He's going over Would You? with Kathy for what feels like the millionth time (because it's not like she can really rehearse with Don) when she brings it up.
“I think Don's going to ask me to marry him,” she says, slumping down on the piano stool next to him.
“I think I've already had this conversation,” Cosomo says, turning the song into the Wedding March with a grin. “Not that I want to give away the ending.”
“I'm not sure I should be picking out dresses yet,” she says with a frown.
“You are going to say yes, right? Because I meant it about the duel.”
“Yes! I mean, I'm just not sure I should. I love Don, but this is all so sudden, and there are so many things going on. I can't even tell my parents we're seeing each other or it'll be all over the tabloids. Besides ...” she gives Cosmo a pleading look, and he realises that he's being asked for permission again. Apparently he's a lot more obvious than he thinks he is.
“Kathy, I can say with some authority that you're the best thing that's ever happened to Don. And if you don't marry him, you'd better marry me instead.”
Kathy laughs and kisses him on the cheek and Cosmo pretends to swoon so that she laughs more. Unfortunately, it doesn't distract her completely. “I just wouldn't want-”
He puts his hand over hers to cut her off. “Kathy, you are not standing in the way of my happiness. Unless you dump Don, in which case I may have to throw myself off the Golden Gate Bridge just so I don't have to hear about it. Do you have any idea how much he moped during that month when he couldn't find you?”
Kathy smiles. “Well, we certainly can't have you dying tragically just when your career is really taking off.”
“I don't know,” Cosmo says. “Being struck down in my prime could be the best move I ever make.” He starts playing Mozart's unfinished Requiem Mass and Kathy punches him in the arm.
***
He walks in behind them at the premier of Singin' in the Rain. The crowd screams for Lockwood and Selden as loud as they did for Lockwood and Lamont, even though they've lost the alliteration. The general public still have no idea who Cosmo is, but his name is there in big letters in the credits.
He sits at the end of the row, with Kathy next to him and Don next to her. In the dark, one of her hand finds its way into his. He has no idea how this is going to work, but Cosmo has always been pretty good at improvising.
The End