(no subject)

[yougetup]

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.

Comments

[theunderdog]

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?"

[yougetup]

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."

[theunderdog]

"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."

[yougetup]

"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."

[theunderdog]

"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."