Home Lives:
A Case Study

Oneshot Summary: The Rum Tum Tugger. A look into an hour with the surprising owner and even more surprising homelife of the constantly contrary Rum Tum Tugger. pre-/during-/post-musical (it doesn't matter)

Story Type: Family, Hurt/Comfort, Tragedy

Next Chapter: Mistoffelees (Story Type: Family, Mystery)

Pairings: Canon (including one-sided) (possibly temporarily), I.E. MunkustrapDemeter AND OTHERS. Also look out for: TuggerBombalurina, SkimbleshanksJennyanydots, CoricopatTantomile, and whatever else pops up. I'll take your opinions into concideration. ^.^

Disclaimer: I don't own the "CATS" movie. If I owned the "CATS" movie, Mistoffelees would have a longer dance number and Gus would have been the one to go to the Heavyside Layer instead of Grizabella (after all, the poor man/cat IS older and probably deserved it more...). Go away now while I mourn this horrible loss.

Notes/Warnings (you only have to read what's bolded/italicized/underlined if you want):
Nothing other than an eventual post-story OC death. Oh, and slight OOC-ness. You'll see. :D
Now enough with the boring stuff; let's start the story! :D Yay!

Rum Tum Tugger:
A Curious Owner

(1)-

The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat!

And there isn't any use for you to doubt it!

For he will do as he do do;

And there's no doing anything about it!

-(1)

If there was one word to describe how Tugger was when he went to the Junkyard, it was contrary. If you wanted him to do something, it was likely he'd do the opposite; it was impossible to trick him, as well, since he had lived with Munkustrap during his kittenhood and knew when something happened.

Tugger was friends with people one moment and then enemies the next. He loved his fangirls drooling over him, but at the same time he got mad if they did so. He would chase a rat and then trade with Mungojerrie or Skimbleshanks for a bird of some sort. There were few who could tollerate being around him for more than ten minutes, noticably excepting his father Old Deuteronomy, his brother Munkustrap, his mate Bombalurina, and his close friend Mistoffelees. Even the unflappable Coricopat and Tantomile sometimes had to blast him away with some magic because they became annoyed, and despite his rather handsome (if he did say so himself) fur coat, humans often left him alone after the first time he begged to be petted only to nip at them.

There was one exception to the human rule, of course, and that was his human owner, the ever-single Ms. Dorothy Weller.

Ms. Weller was just as contrary as Tugger was, in the cat's humble opinion. She was short and thin, nearly to dangerous levels, yet she ate more than any other human Tugger had ever met. She had no luck yet always managed to win at cards with her friends (some claim she cheeted, but Tugger thought she was too honest to do such, although sometimes even he wondered...). Whenever someone said Tugger was annoying, Ms. Weller whole-heartedly agreed, but she refused to let him stay away for more than a day without locking him in for up to a week to try and make sure it never happened again. There were other contraries, of course, but those will become apparant as you proceed to read about this strange relationship.

"Tock?" called the wizened voice of Tugger's owner from deeper inside of the room when the Maine Coon walked in one day after spending the night at the Junkyard. "Is that you, dear?"

Obediently, Tugger meowed and slunk gracefully into his owner's bedroom, where she was sitting on her bed reading the magazine. A faded smile greeted his arrival.

"I thought as much. You were out all night again. I swear, sometimes I wonder if I should remove that cat door of yours to make sure you stay home when it's dark out. You know how I feel about being alone."

"C'mon, you know you love me too much to do that," Tugger chuckled/purred as he jumped on the bed and settled down next to his owner. Ms. Weller chuckled herself.

"Or maybe I should have you neutered," Ms. Weller went on as if to remind Tugger of the painful idea even as she ran her bony fingers though Tugger's soft fur. "Yes, then we won't ever need to worry about the big bad Tock reproducing and producing little devil kittens."

Tugger wasn't at all purturbed by the suggestion and merely rolled onto his back as he meowed lightly. "Bah, you know you adore me."

Ms. Weller slowly began to scratch Tugger's stomach, gazing absently at the wall with old, tired blue eyes.

"...the children want to take me to a nursing home," she said suddenly, causing Tugger's purring to abruptly stop as he stared with wide brown eyes at his owner's face. Ms. Weller didn't notice, although her hand stilled on his stomach. "They say I'm getting much too old for me to stay on my own. But most nursing homes don't allow cats for the sake of the patients."

Panic began to flood Tugger, but he found, to his shock, it wasn't so much due to the thought of having to go through the hassle of finding another home as being due to the thought of his lovable old owner being stuck all alone in a nursing home. He wondered about the strangness of that even as Ms. Weller sighed wearily.

"I don't want to go, but I'm afraid they might be right." A meow escaped Tugger's throat and he rolled onto his stomach, sitting up and gazing at his owner's eyes, much of the once bright blue hidden by a mixture of her thick reading glasses and the cataracts on them. "I'm not as young as I was when I first found you, Tock. I'm nearing seventy-five, can barely see, and these heart problems..."

Ms. Weller's voice drifted off into silence before she sucked in a shaky breath.

"I forgot to take my medicine three times this week, Tock," she whispered in a fearful voice, finally looking away from the wall. Tugger felt something in his chest ache as he saw the confusion and honest panic hidden within them. "Three times, I forgot to take the medicine that could mean the difference between life and death for me. Imagine if Sarah hadn't called me just yesterday about Alexandrea's graduation? I could have..."

Tugger remembered the last time Ms. Weller didn't take her medicine for three days straight. It had resulted in a month-long trip to the hospital and much time lying with Bombalurina in the Junkyard, his thoughts bouncing around and lacking their usual bounciness. Only Munkustrap and Mistoffelees seemed to understand what was wrong and shared knowing looks when they thought he wasn't watching.

Something wet landed on Tugger's nose and he blinked before his eyes widened when he saw the tears running down Ms. Weller's wizened face, catching the smile lines that weren't so smiling anymore.

"Oh, Tock," she sobbed suddenly, gathering Tugger to her chest and burrying her face in the fur on his neck. It wasn't often that his owner showed any kind of affection other than petting, food, and playful threats, but Tugger found himself unable to protest as she continued to pour out her heart to him. "What am I going to do? What are you going to do? You're...for nearly twenty years, you've been my only true friend, Tock. You're even older than I am in cat years...what if...how would it be if...one of us..."

It had never really occured to Tugger just how long he had been with his owner. As a Jellicle, he aged much the same as a human, even though most normal cats didn't. It never occured to Tugger how much he could be scaring Ms. Weller by simply being alive another day; by not leaving. The thought had never crossed his mind before. But now...

Tugger didn't know how he felt about this, so he simply remained still in his human's arms as she cried herself to sleep.

Rum Tum Tugger:
Epilog

Two weeks later, Ms. Weller and Tock moved in with Ms. Weller's youngest daughter, 45-year-old Sarah and her granddaughter, 25-year-old Alexandrea. After hearing her mother's worries, Sarah ahd graciously decided that it would be better for Ms. Weller to live with family rather than with strangers. Three years later, Ms. Weller died in her sleep with her old cat Tock by her side.

After the funeral, Sarah and Alexandrea never saw Tock again.