Snitches The Cat Au - Blog Posts

dreamofarunawayland

3 weeks ago

SNITCHES THE CAT SEQUEL pt1 and masterpost

Part Two/Part Three/ Part Four/ Part Five/ Part Six/ Part Seven/ Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven

Part One

“This you?”

Danny pushed the newspaper down without looking at it, revealing Sam’s shitty grin. “That lost cat is not me, no.” He rolled his eyes. They had been showing him lost pet ads ever since he got back from Gotham. “Isn’t that joke getting old, guys?” He kicked his way further into a slouch in the booth as Tucker came back with refilled drinks.

Tucker laughed, and then there was a silence. “Danny? Are you sure this isn’t you, man?” He sounded uncertain.

He felt his jaw twitch and he had to tell his friend off. “Is it that funny that there’s a sad kid out there? Honestly, guys-” Danny opened his eyes fully to roll them and then saw the lost pet ad being brandished in his face. He blinked at it. His brain did a full reboot and he reached out to take the paper.

It looked like him, sleeping on the cushion in the batcave. Had they gotten that photo from the security footage? “It’s me.” His voice came out way too high.

Danny pulled the paper over in disbelief and realized that it was a two page ad. “Oh wow,” he said faintly. There he was, leaping across the kitchen. And there, that must have been taken by Damian when he fell asleep on the bed. There was a cat toy partially in the frame.

Sam’s snorting laughter cut off. “Uh.” She kicked him lightly under the table. “Is.. Is that little kid going to be okay?” She asked in a small voice. She sounded like she felt bad for poking fun.

Danny felt guilty. He stared at the evidence that Robin was missing his cat terribly and felt like the biggest jackass possible. “Should I go back?” he wondered. He squirmed, pulling a foot up onto the bench to perch on. “I mean… How long does a cat live? A few years?”

“Try about twenty,” Tucker said flatly. “I feel bad too, man, but you can’t defer admission that long.”

“Though Snitches was clearly not a little kitten, so you could really just give it a couple years,” Sam mused. Both boys stared at her. She blinked. “Not that I’m suggesting you do that!” She waved her hands at them. “The longer you stay with him, the harder he’s going to take it when his pet ‘dies’,” she said with finger quotes. “You did the right thing by leaving as soon as you could.”

“Maybe we could answer it, do a photoshoot, tell him that Danny was your cat or something and he’s come home,” Tucker mused. “He’d be sad that he couldn’t have the cat, but surely it would be better than worrying the cat died, right?”

“What are you losers talking about?” Star said, giving their booth a wide berth. “You’re not hurting cats now, are you, weirdos?” She eyed them like they were gross. “It would figure.”

“Fuck off,” Sam said pleasantly. All three of them gave Star a rude gesture in unison, just like they had practiced. “That shit’s uncalled for.”

Star sniffled and turned away on her heel, cheer skirt flouncing behind her. A few moments later she clearly reached her table because the sounds of popular kid conversation got a lot louder.

“She should be a reporter,” Sam said darkly. “I would love for her to get sued for slander.” She snapped open her clutch and began applying even more black eyeliner, as if that would differentiate her from the other girls in the restaurant.

Tucker groaned and pulled his hat down over his eyes in despair. “That’s gonna be a bad rumor,” he complained.

Danny couldn’t find it in him to care as much as he usually would. He was still stuck on the fact that Damian had put an ad in the Illinois Times. “Do you think he realized that Snitches got on a highway bus to Illinois?” he hissed, now aware that other people might be listening in. “How would he know that?”

Sam frowned. Tucker lifted his head and pulled out his phone to search. “That’s a good question,” he said to himself. He hit buttons rapidly. “Uh, same ad is in…” He trailed off. “Hold up, hold up, lemme search this backwards…” Whatever he saw had him raise his eyebrows high, look at Danny in disbelief, and then shake his head slightly. “You must be a really good cat. I'm kind of jealous.”

“What?” Danny hissed. “Just tell me.”

“Hey, hey, paws off.” Tucker moved his device further away. “Uh, this poor kid- well.” He paused. “Poor is the wrong word. He’s put ads in newspapers all the way up to Ontario and down to… Well, in Mexico at least.”

Danny and Sam stared at him in disbelief. “You’re fucking with us,” Sam said after a long moment.

Tucker silently shook his head. “There’s a nationwide Greg’s list ad,” he said grimly. “20 dollars an hour to print and staple missing cat photos to telephone poles. And a private detective’s agency on the case, asking for witnesses to come forward.”

Danny put his head in his hands. “I have to go back,” he said, haunted by the responsibility. “I can’t let him be this sad.”

“Danny, no.” Tucker said. Sam nodded her agreement.

“…Yeah, that’s crazy,” he said unconvincingly. He gave a fake laugh. “He’ll get over it.” Danny stared into his drink, watching bubbles. Robin was not going to get over it. That kid loved hard.

“I could use 20 dollars an hour,” Tucker said in a thoughtful tone.

“No,” Sam said flatly.

Tucker shrugged, smiling slightly. “I wonder how much I’d get for bringing you back.” He shrugged theatrically. “You could send me to college, man! Don’t you want me to go to college?”

“No…” Danny said weakly. “I… Is that fraud?” Still. Money would be nice.

“Guys, no.” Sam knocked them both in the head with the pile of napkins. “You can’t do that to this little kid. He’s clearly not well.”

“Exactly,” Tucker argued passionately. “Imagine how happy he would be to get his cat back! We could reunite him with his pet!”

It was tempting. He felt, like, so bad about how sad Robin was. The little guy had been so proud of his pet. Danny could spare a few years to make a little kid happy, right? It was kind of greedy otherwise.

Danny stared at the bubbles in his drink again, really thinking it over. “I think I would have to fight crime with him,” he said dully. “That’s a minus.”

“Danny?” Sam rapped the table with her fingers. He looked up to see her pointed eyebrow raise. “What are you talking about?”

He hunched his shoulders up. “Nothing, nothing,” he lied hastily. He forgot they didn’t know. He couldn’t dox someone’s crime fighting identity, though, it would be really unfair.

“You could buy me a house,” Tucker wheedled. Sam hit him.