Hal rested his chin in one palm, crouched on the balls of his feet, "Your dad's gonna kill me."
Wally was on his hands and knees trying to entice a stray cat out from under the house with a plate of cut up chicken, "It's just a cat."
"Yeah, but he's told me a thousand times not to leave the crawlspace door open under the porch," Hal closed his eyes and strummed his fingers against his jaw as he thought about how to hide this from Barry. "And what did I do? I left the door open. Now there's a cat under there. I bet you that's what's been making all those creepy scratching noises at night."
Wally sat upright in the grass suddenly and fixed his pop with an impatient glower, "You said you couldn't hear those!"
"I lied," Hal shrugged one shoulder. "Didn't want you to be scared."
"But what if it was one of your alien bad guys or something?" Wally asked distrustfully.
"Not likely," Hal snorted. "Atrocitus would never fit under there, and Sinestro would think it beneath him. Almost all of my villains are the 'crash land into your roof with hellfire and shouting' type."
"Oh…" Wally frowned, looking a little disturbed.
"When you get older, I would suggest trying to make friends with your villains instead of antagonize them," Hal sighed. "Maybe invite them out for pizza?"
"Pop, when was the last time you slept?" Wally was giving him a look that was almost identical to Barry's raised eyebrow 'worried about your sanity' one. He continued making coaxing noises at the porch and pushing the chicken further into the crawlspace, hoping to lure the cat close enough to grab. "You're giving crazier advice than usual."
"I dunno…two days ago?" Hal had to think about it for a minute.
"How about you go take a nap and I'll – Oh! I think I see it!" Wally popped up with a wild grin, frantically waving Hal over. He vaulted over the porch railing and landed in a crouch beside his son. Hal was a bit too tall to get a good look under the house, but he tried his best to peer over Wally's shoulder. Wally was half under the porch now, "Wow…it's really tiny…"
Hal strained his eyes to make out the small shape shuffling towards them in the dark. It was kinda skinny for a cat…
The animal moved into the light, snuffling at the offered chicken, and then Hal saw the black fur and long white stripe going down its back.
"Not a cat! That is not a cat!" Hal hooked an arm around Wally's middle and dragged the boy away from the skunk fearlessly hobbling closer and closer. "Abort! Abort!"
Living so close to the woods, Wally had definitely seen skunks before, and he knew what kind of awful they were capable of. The redhead helped frantically scoot himself back, and the two of them bolted across the yard right as the stench started to hit their noses.
