yougetup | (no subject)

Entry tags:

cassie,
noah

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Miles has never tried to take a cat for a walk before, but now he's realizing there's a reason people don't do it that often.

He's felt bad that Snowflake is mostly an inside cat. They live in an apartment, and he and Jess are barely home these days-- he's got school and Spider-Man stuff, she's got Spider-Woman stuff and Freeze-lady girlfriend stuff-- so the cat's on her own a lot of the time too.

So Miles had gotten the idea to buy a harness and try to take his cat, Snowflake for a walk.

Getting her into it had been one battle, and he's got scratches all over his arms from it. Getting her to actually walk is something else.

Standing outside of The Bramford Building, he's holding Snowflake's leash, but the cat has defiantly flattened herself against the sidewalk, refusing to move at all.

"Oh, come on, you're always meowing at the door like you wanna go out," Miles says, "Now we're out."

In response, Snowflake just looks up at Miles pathetically.

I wonder if I can get my money back for the harness if it's already got cat hair on it.

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I wasn't so sure about what I was seeing. I recognized the boy, at least. He was always so sweet to me when he saw me. He looked . . . really adorable struggling with that poor cat. I blushed at the thought and took in the situation. He really needed help.

"Um, hey," I said, stepping closer. "Not a lot of people really . . . walk cats. And you definitely should be easing her into it." I approached a little shyly. "Sorry, I don't— I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all. Miles, right?"

This is so not the way I wanted to talk to Cassie again. Thanks a lot, Snowflake.

"Uh yeah, it's Miles," he says, feeling a little sad that he has to remind her. But it's not Cassie's fault that the thing that brings people to Darrow and takes them away did it to her twice.

"And I don't get it. She's walked on a leash before, but now she's making a big deal out of it."

"Maybe she's just nervous," I said easily. I crouched and reached my hand out slowly. "Hey, baby kitty," I said, lilting my voice up a bit to sound less threatening. "Hey, honey." I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and wiggled my fingers a little.

Almost right away, Snowflake stops lying flat on the sidewalk, instead walking right over to Cassie and rubbing herself against her legs. Miles can only stand dumbfounded for the moment.

"Uh..."

It makes sense. She was always more Cassie's cat than she was mine.

I smiled and scritched behind the cat's ear, then reached to feel the harness. "Oh, it's too tight," I said. "See?" I could just get one finger under the strap that was around the cat's foreleg. "You should be able to get two fingers under here." I shifted closer and felt for the slider, then shifted the strap until it settled more comfortably under in the fold of her foreleg and body.

"She must have put on a little weight since the last time she wore it," I reasoned. I didn't want to accuse this boy of making it too tight on her; he seemed too sweet to do something like that on purpose.

"Yeah, it's been kind of a while," Miles says, and he's pretty sure Cassie was probably the last one to give this a shot. It's not that Miles didn't want to, but things got pretty busy between school and Slothburger and Spider-Man stuff. It's a good thing that cats can mostly look after themselves, actually.

"Sorry, I completely didn't realize. You don't think it was hurting her or anything, do you?"

"Nah, it was just a little uncomfortable," I assured. "Kinda like wearing shoes that are a size small?" I gently rubbed the cat's belly where the strap had been, and I smiled when I felt her begin purring. "She's so cute. What's her name?"

"Snowflake," Miles says, and he tries not to let it show, how weird it is that he's got to remind Cassie of the cat's name, "She was a stray we found in the snow."

The word 'we' slips out so casually that Miles doesn't even realize he's said it until the word is already out of his mouth.

I looked up at him, surprised. "We did?" I asked. "You and me? Or. Or, the me that was here before." Part of me still wasn't convinced that it had been me, but everyone I've spoken to has known just enough to keep me uncertain.

"Uh. Yeah," Miles says, wincing.

Stupid. I hope this doesn't make her feel weird about this whole thing. I mean, it's gotta be completely weird anyway, right? But now I'm just making it worse.

"When you were here before. The... the other you. Snowflake was more your cat than mine."

That explained why the cat had such a good reaction to me, I guess. "She's awfully cute," I said. "And you . . . after I left, you looked after her?" That was very sweet of him, I thought. I couldn't help the small smile on my face.

This is completely weird, but she's being cool about it.

"I couldn't just let her end up homeless," Miles says, "She was really rough-looking when we found her; I don't think she'd want to go back to that."

And Miles wouldn't want that for Snowflake either.

Noah has been doing a little better lately, but he still feels lost, kind of listless, and he's been taking a lot of long walks just to force himself to get out of Hywel every now and then. He's on one now, and just passing Barry's building, when he sees an adorable cat.

A boy is trying to walk her, but she doesn't look the least bit interested. Noah hasn't met the cat's guardian, so he approaches shyly. Smiling to himself, he crouches down and holds his hand out toward the cat, making a soft cat calling sound with his tongue.

"She's pretty," he says to the boy, smiling up at him.

At this point, Miles wishes there was some kind of way that this could not be happening. That he'd already picked the cat up, decided to give up, and no one would ever see him standing there with Snowflake pretending to go limp inside her harness.

But it's too late for that now.

"Um, thanks," Miles says, "I don't think she really wants to go for a walk, though."

Are you supposed to say thank you to something like that? It's not like I made her a pretty cat or anything. Man, why couldn't i have found a stray dog that day? Or a bird? Though, I guess walking a bird would be even harder than this.

"I think cats like to be their own masters," Noah says with a small, wry smile. He'd never actually tried to walk a cat before, but sometimes they'd put little clothes on the cats at Un Chat Gris and a lot of the cats would then lay down and refuse to move.

"Did you just get her?"

"She's done it before," Miles says, though he leaves out the part where he's never actually been the one to walk the cat. Back when Cassie was in Darrow, before she came back a while ago, she used to do it. So Miles had figured it'd be pretty easy.

He'd thought wrong.

"I've had her for a while, though. She used to belong to a friend of mine."

Just a friend. Because I'm the idiot who never asked her out.

"Aw, maybe she's just in a grumpy mood," Noah says, scratching the kitty behind the ears before standing up. He decides not to say anything about how she's switched owners, knowing by now what that probably means. Like Bay's rats back in his bedroom at Hywel.

"I work at the cat cafe. Have you ever been there? We have all kinds of treats she might like."

"I think I've heard of it," Miles says, and he nearly tells him that he's not much of a cat person, but that seems like kind of a weird to say that when he's standing there with one on a leash.

Cassie's the cat person. I wonder if maybe I should give Snowflake back to her, even if she doesn't remember getting her in the first place. Might be kinda weird.f

"So what's the deal? It's just a restaurant with a bunch of cats? Is that sanitary?"

"Who's Cassie?" Noah asks absently, seemingly looking through the other boy. His focus snaps back at the question about the cafe, and he smiles.

"Cats are clean animals. They keep themselves clean. We try to keep them off the tables, but also we're pretty diligent about sanitizing the eating area. You can go in to pet and play with the cats, people find it relaxing. And then you can have a light meal."

He sounds like a commercial and he stops himself, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Anyway, it's cool."

Wait, what? Did I say that out loud?

"I didn't say anything about Cassie," Miles says, and he frowns, immediately suspicious. At least, he's pretty sure he didn't say anything. She's on his mind a lot, but it's not like he goes around talking about her or anything. That might be weird, considering she doesn't know him very well anymore.

Can this guy read minds or something? Does he know what I'm thinking right now? I definitely need to make sure to not think about Spider-Man stuff.

Noah opens his mouth to reply, immediately sheepish, but the words die before he has a chance to say them.

Spider-Man stuff? he almost asks, but realizes this must be another thought. Spider-Woman implied that her male counterpart was here, but Noah hasn't seen him. This boy must have, though, and maybe even his secret identity if he's trying not to think about him.

"You must have. So, what's your name?" Noah asks, overly cheerful, trying to quickly change the subject. "I'm Noah."

"Miles," he says, and extends the hand not holding onto Snowflake's leash for Noah to shake. He figures, even if the guy can read minds, he hasn't been anything but nice, so it's probably not cool to be a jerk about it. Besides, Miles has known people who didn't exactly want to have weird powers int he first place.

Because he's almost completely sure that he didn't mention Cassie.

"So do you live around here?" he asks.

"Nice to meet you." Noah shakes Miles' hand, relieved that Miles either believes him or is going along with it, and that his hands aren't cold to the touch anymore. He doesn't mind people knowing he's a ghost or anything, but he has found that it isn't the best subject for strangers.

"Not really," he answers. "I live in a factory building. But I have a couple friends who live here. Do you know Barry or Thomas?"

Brendan's first thought, seeing a cat in a harness splayed out on the sidewalk, refusing to move, is that it's too bad he doesn't have Rosie with him. Emily has just about moved past it, no longer as insistent about the idea as she was, but Rosie is still dead-set on getting a pet that isn't a goldfish. He hasn't yet decided if it would be a good idea or not. Rosie, though, would be delighted by the sight of this, and he can easily imagine her deciding just to lie down on the sidewalk beside it.

Then again, with that being the case, it may be for the best that she's not here.

Glancing up from the cat on the sidewalk, he realizes that he recognizes the kid walking it, or attempting to walk it, and he smiles in greeting as he gets closer. "Cat not being cooperative, huh?"

It's probably instinct that makes Miles think he's in trouble the second he hears Mr. Conlon's voice. He's always been a pretty good teacher, but Miles knows he's been pretty crappy about getting his homework in lately, with how busy he's been with Spider-Man stuff, so most of the time he's waiting to be yelled at for it.

Maybe I could submit something about swinging as a class project. All the time I spend using webs has gotta be worth something.

"Hi, Mr. Conlon," Miles says, "Yeah, she's... not as cool about being walked as I thought she'd be."

"Between you and me, I didn't even realize you needed to walk cats," Brendan says with a crooked smile. It probably depends on the type of cat, he'd guess, but that's not really the point. Outside of school, he doesn't want to act too much like he's just a teacher. Even in the classroom, he tries to approach his students on their level, to be someone they can talk to, but in a situation like this, it's all the more important not to just seem unapproachable, to start talking about schoolwork or the assignments Miles has missed.

At some point, if this continues, it might well be something they need to discuss, but not at a time like this, during an unsuccessful attempt at walking a cat. "Looks like maybe she'd rather just lay there, anyway."

"I think it's just apartment cats," Miles says, and he doesn't know that much about cats, but he knows that if he just let Snowflake outside without a leash, she'd probably run away and never come back.

Or maybe she'd just lie on the ground and pretend like being outside is the worst thing in the world. Miles doesn't think it's really worth it to take that chance; it'd suck if he lost Cassie's cat.

"She doesn't get out much."

"Yeah, I guess that'd make it hard to just let her out for a while," Brendan says. In a way, it's part of why he's been hesitant to get a pet for Emily and Rosie, though it seems like they're almost constantly trying to get him to do so. They have no yard that they could let a pet into, and that means a lot of time would probably have to go into taking care of it. With as busy as teaching and his daughters keep him, he doesn't want to bank on their not getting bored with a pet within a few weeks, leaving all of the work to him. "Though it doesn't look like walking her is gonna be all that easy, either."

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