awanderingbard | Dresden Files: Even

Title: Even
Author: awanderingbard
Rating: PG (violence and a few bad words)
Length: 827 words
Book or TV verse: TV
Characters: Harry, Mister, passing mention of Bob
Summary: You don't mess with Harry's cat.
Author's Notes:

joonscribble asked for 'something with Mister'. This is NOT the same version of Mister I wrote about in Continuity. Consider that AU and this regular verse. :D

I found Mister in an alley near my shop, sitting on the top of a trash can. He was very thin and sad looking and as I passed him, he gave me a questioning ‘breow?’ that seemed to be politely asking for some help, though in a very dignified way. He wasn’t begging, he was just letting me know that if I wanted to lend him a hand, it wouldn’t go amiss.

So, I brought him home and looked after him while I searched for his owner. He took up residence on my couch, always on the pillow placed the highest for maximum importance and he started to put on weight and seemed to want to be my friend. When no owner appeared, I offered him a collar and a name. He accepted both by rubbing up against my legs, claiming me.

It wasn’t until later I learned he has super powers. He can discern Coke from Pepsi (and wouldn’t speak to me for a week that one time, despite my explanation that we were broke and it was on sale). He can sense danger (usually in just enough time for me to think ‘oh, the cat looks nervous’ before someone hits me with something heavy). I think that he can also walk through walls, because no matter how carefully I ensure my lab is off limits, he always ends up in there, anyway. I’m pretty sure his only purpose in there is to knock Bob’s skull off the table and then to jump through his chest and sashay out the door again.

Mister has also proven himself adept at calming down nervous clients. It is clinically proven that petting a furry animal is soothing to jangled nerves and the people who come into my office tend to be very jangled. I suppose it is a symbiotic relationship – they get a cat to pet and he gets to be loved.

In short, my cat is awesome and it’s a really stupid mistake to mess with him. Some people are stupid though.

It might have been because I hadn’t really slept in a 24 hour period, but I wasn’t really thinking when I let the guy in to my place. I figured that he was a client. I should have clued in to the fact that he didn’t want to enter until I specifically invited him, but like I said, I wasn’t at my best.

Mister was all over me right away. He jumped on my shoulders, he rammed into my legs to try to knock me down, he jumped into my desk chair and would not move and even when I picked him up, he dug his claws into the wood desperately. I was very embarrassed by it, and I turned to toss him away. When I turned back the guy’s fingers had six inch claws on them and they were inside my chest before I could react. They were ice cold and I could feel something draining inside me. My magic was being sucked into him and it hurt so badly, I couldn’t think to do anything. Then there was this flying ball of fur and it was making very angry sounds while it clawed the thing’s face. The thing staggered back, losing the connection to me and drawing the long claws from my chest.

Mister kept biting and clawing, riding the thing to the floor as though it was a wave he was surfing. He was thrown off and hit my desk, but leapt back up and jumped on the thing’s back as it tried to crawl away. Mister was furious. All his hair was on end and he rowled and roared like a lion.

The thing retreated. My cat fucking kicked a demon’s ass. He stopped his attack once the thing had crossed the threshold and raced back to where I was bleeding on the floor, slowly losing consciousness. Bob was the one who yelled at me until I crawled over to dial 911 (rotary phones are a bitch when you’re delirious, by the way), but it was Mister who sat on my chest, licking my face to keep me awake until the ambulance arrived. Whenever I started to nod off, he swapped my nose with his paw and meowed very loudly in way that said ‘idiot, I didn’t just kick ass so you can die’. So, I stayed awake. Which was good, because Mister was not about to let anyone near me and I had to call him off for the ambulance people to get to me. My cat is a ninja.

“Thanks,” I murmured to him, as they started to get me onto the stretcher. “Guess we’re even now, huh?”

He gave me a blank look. Because, you know, he was perfectly fine in that alley. He didn’t need help. He was just willing to accept it. I’m very glad he did. You don’t mess with my cat, but evidently you don’t mess with his wizard either.