neighbors | solangelo au

1.7

Nico couldn't help but think that this was the weirdest thing he'd ever done. I mean, I'm about to try to keep a crazy cat dude from calling the police on a felon, technically, with the help of the aforementioned felon and my best friend, who I met like six weeks ago, he thought.

Regardless, he continued down the sidewalk at Will's side and tried not to feel disappointed that Brian wasn't a theif. Maybe Nico would to learn to live with him, metaphorically, of course. Hopefully.

He was pondering the horror of having to live with shady Brian (which was actually a great name for him: Shady Brian) when Will brought to their attention how weird they looked. If a neighbor looked out the window at that time, they'd have seen Zoe who was in all black and had the crazy cat man's trashy diamond cat collar around her wrist like a costume jewelry bracelet and was holding a duffel bag she'd grabbed from Shady Brian's van earlier that looked like the sort of thing a bomber would use if they were trying to, say, blow up an airport or the wall of a safe (Nico didn't doubt for one second that she'd do either of those things), Nico, who was frowning so hard about Shady Brian that his chin was beginning to hurt, and Will, who had managed to look confused, worried, and exasperated at the same time. "Uh, Zoe, maybe you should put that away?" Will gestured to the collar-turned-bracelet.

"Why bother? There's no one out here," she said, spreading her arms as if presenting the empty street to them.

"Still," Will said, wincing as a diamond caught the sunlight and reflected it into his eyes. "We never know."

"Plus, it's fucking ugly," Nico added.

"Hey, I spent like fifteen minutes stealing this piece of shit," Zoe said indignantly. "Have some courtesy."

"It only took you fifteen minutes to break in?" Nico replied incredulously.

"Nico, I think you're missing the point..." Will said.

"The alarm system is literal trash," Zoe replied. "Also, yeah, Will has a point."

Which, Nico figured, didn't mean much coming from Zoe, considering she literally committed a felony because she was bored, and Nico figured if he hadn't been hella pissed that Shady Brian wasn't actually a criminal, he might actually care about the morality of the situation but he was a teenager and made bad decisions and gave zero shits so he ignored both of them and lead the way up the stairs of the crazy cat guy's front porch.

Nico rung the doorbell and felt Will shift uncomfortably next to him. Zoe was leaning against the wall next to the door, spinning the stolen property around her index finger.

Crazy cat guy opened the door and furrowed his eyebrows at them. Nico grabbed Zoe's arm and pulled her over to stand in front of them. She had the good sense to stop playing with the cat collar and held it out to him. "Um, I came to return this."

The guy stared at her open palm for a good four seconds, then darted his own hand out quickly to take his shitty pet merchandise. "What?"

"I, um, I was the one who broke in and took the cat collar," Zoe said with a hint of pride in her voice, appearing thoroughly unapologetic.

The guy turned his gaze to Nico and Will, looking both confused and offended at the same time. "Were you two in cahoots with her?"

Who the hell uses the word "cahoots" anymore? Nico thought, while Will said "Uh, no." Nico was tempted to add that he'd never steal something that ugly, but suppressed the urge to be a smartass.

"Ahh..." Crazy cat guy didn't seem to know what to do.

"So are you gonna press charges?" Zoe asked hopefully.