A/N: We're back.
A/N the 2nd: Dean and John had a very unusual hunting companion while Sam was at Stanford.
Disclaimer:I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, and not for profit.
So Jerry told you to come ask me about the cat, huh? Smart move. Don't think Dean would have told you about her anyway. You came to the right place.
Want me to start at the beginning? I can't, because I wasn't there. I was at Petsmart while all that was going on. One moment I was hanging up, attached to that damn cardboard tag, and the next moment this big calloused hand that smelled like gunpowder and salt picked me off the rack.
I'm a Kong rubber mouse. My ears are bright green and my tail is bright orange. My body's made of dull green thick rubber. I'm built to take a lot of abuse. The man who picked me up was dark and rough-looking, so I figured I was gonna be the chew toy for a pit bull, or some damn wolf–dog mix. Yeah, I know, that is what I was put here for, right? To get chewed on?
But it says "cat toy" on the damn label. Cat. Toy.
Humans don't read labels a lot of times.
We ended up in some motel room somewhere. There was this green-eyed human boy sitting on one of the beds. The one who bought me took this wicked sharp knife out of his his boot, cut the plastic strips holding me down to the cardboard. He flipped me up into the air.
If I had eyes I woulda closed them. Good thing I couldn't.
This cat leaped out from nowhere and caught me in mid-air.
I got batted around pretty good that first day. I mean that girl was all business. She grunted and growled, and the two humans sat there on the beds watching her. They were grinning like idiots.
The cat's name was Cujo. Big bad boy, right? Wrong. She was a skinny little thing, all gray fur and black stripes with four white feet. She looked like a little golden-eyed elf, with that pale face, that pink nose and those big ears. She didn't have a long tail. She had a crook of a tail, like a little finger. There's a name for cats like that, but I forget what the name is.
"Welcome to the family," Jerry told me later on. Guess I belonged then, huh? That was when I found out the kid's name was Dean, and the old guy was Dean's daddy, John. They were Winchesters.
Huh. You humans have way too many names.
So what did everybody in the trunk name me? "Kong", what else? It was a no-brainer.
Who named the cat Cujo? Jerry says Dean did.
Okay, I didn't realize Dean and John were hunters until later. When I saw all those weapons I figured bank robbers or something.
Well, at least there weren't any pit bulls or wolf dogs around.
From what Jerry told me, Cujo just showed up one day. She wouldn't leave, so the next day John and Dean took her along. Cats do that. A lot. They show up, stay a while, and then leave.
We went on the road after that. Up and down the East Coast, as I remember. They snuck Cujo inside those motel rooms. Credit cards were good, so Dean went out and bought her canned food and bags of that dry stuff. He bought her a water bowl, too, and a litter box with that gravel stuff. One day John went out a bought a barbequed deli chicken, and Cujo stared at him until he gave up both drumsticks. She wouldn't eat the burgers or any of that human food.
They took her to the vet for her shots one day. She didn't like that so much. When Cujo got back she flopped down on John's bed with me in her paws, and she cussed up a storm as she gnawed on my ears.
Yeah, cats cuss. Humans cuss too, but felines cuss a heck of a lot more. I learned some new profanity that day.
Dean carried her toys in his duffel, but I was out most of the time. I was her favorite toy.
Hey, it's what I was made for, right?
I've seen my share of cheap motel rooms. I remember the time Dean and John forgot about me. We were at the Holiday Inn outside Gillespie, Montana. I was on the floor underneath one of the beds. Two minutes more and that housekeeper would have tossed me in the trash. Yeah, the humans could've gone right out and bought another rubber mouse, but they didn't. They came back for me. Dean slipped me into his duffel in the trunk. Dom's a real quiet fella, even for a shotgun, but he told me that day that Winchesters don't leave anyone behind. That means a lot. Nobody likes to be thought of as disposable.
Cujo would grab me by the tail and jump onto Dean's bed at night. If Dean was cleaning weapons and the bed was filled with knives and guns and all that other stuff, she'd sit quietly on the edge of the bed and watch Dean's every move.
She owned Papa's lap. If he was sitting there writing in his journal she'd slink up there with me in her mouth, and claim her spot. He wouldn't move until she woke up.
She wasn't Dean's cat, and she wasn't John's. They both belonged to her. When John laced up his boots Cujo would be right there, stalking those shoelaces. She did the same thing with Dean. Those damn shoelaces had to be put in their place, y'know, and she taught them what their place was every single time.
It was good to hear John and Dean laugh. Not much joy in this line of work. That wears on these humans a lot. I can tell.
Cats have big mojo, one paw in Heaven, and the other in Hell. I've heard of hunters using dogs. Well, why not a cat? I never went out on those hunts, but I was there when the three of them came back, sometimes wild-eyed, slimed with mud and fugly goo.
Cujo would howl and squall while John or Dean washed her down with holy water. I know they added some protection charms to that collar around her neck. Afterwards she'd fuss and grumble as she shook off the water. The way she kept flapping her paws around trying to get them dry was really funny. Then she'd grab me and curl up on one of the beds and go to sleep.
That Bobby Singer fella? Met him once. Seems okay, for a dog human. I was out that day when John called him on that cell phone thing: "We're coming in, Singer. Uh huh. Yeah."
John grinned a little as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Damn fool wants to see Cujo."
Cujo lay on the floor at Dean's feet. She was rabbitkicking the hell out of me, but I didn't feel anything. Dean laughed. "I bet he does."
The way I heard it, nobody believed that the Winchesters were hunting with a cat. The day we rolled into Singer Salvage, well, I wish you coulda been there.
John and Dean swaggered in like they owned the place.
Cujo did too.
We had a good time while it lasted, but everything ends. Remember I told you that cats leave?
Cujo left eight months later.
I was tucked away in Dean's duffel that day. That night I noticed Cujo wasn't there anymore. John sat down on his bed. Dean took me out of the duffel, and I could feel the sadness in his skin as he held me. He just sat there on his bed, staring down at me.
"She found her real family after all this time," John said quietly. "We had to let her go, son."
Dean just nodded. He held me in his hand as he fell asleep that night. Slipped me into his jacket pocket, carried me around for weeks after that.
I've got my own private place in that secret compartment in the trunk now. I know Dean hasn't told his brother about Cujo: that's why he stashed me there. Kid might act all macho and stuff, but he's private, too. I get that.
I'm not lonely. I get in on all the conversations. Couldn't stand Frances, and that's all I'm gonna say on that subject. I get along pretty good with everybody.
It's not the years, it's the mileage that gets you. Don't remember where I heard that one…maybe from one'a those movies that Dean likes to watch so much. I think it's true, though. I got off pretty easy. Both my ears are pretty well gnawed on, and yeah, that piece of silver duct tape around my tail isn't just for decoration. Cujo nearly chewed my damn tail off.
I've been scratched, rabbit-kicked and cuffed around. I held up pretty well, but…
Sometimes I miss all that.
I wasn't the only toy John and Dean bought for Cujo during all that time, but I'm the only one Dean kept.
A/N: "It's not the years, it's the mileage" – said by Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And: Cujo was apparently a Manx cat.
The last word: Black Horse and the Cherry Tree will resume this week. Also a canonSPN/Black Horse two-parter Appointment With Samirah, Battle:LA/SPN but I have promises to keep, and others.
