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sheena-is-a-punk-rocker · 5 months

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Sometimes a family is a girl, her pet rat, a traumatized soldier, and his feral girlfriend

Got a prompt over on AO3 that was basically just Sebastian being Rick's lil buddy and it turned into Rick and Harley accidentally adopting Cleo and Sebastian.

Rick jolts awake at the sound of a soft knock on the front door. He can just make it out over the sound of the torrential downpour that’s going on outside. The knock gets louder. Harley stirs beside him but doesn’t wake.

As a precaution, he grabs her baseball bat from the corner of their room and goes to answer the door. He cracks it open, bat hidden behind the door, and is shocked at what he sees.

Ratcatcher Two is standing out in the hallway, soaked to the bone and shivering. She’s got Sebastian the rat cradled in her hands.

Before he can say anything, Harley comes up and wraps her arms around him from behind. “Who’s at the door, baby?” she asks sleepily.

“Uh… It’s Cleo and Sebastian.”

“Hmm?” It takes a second for her brain to catch up but suddenly she’s wide awake and shoving him aside. “Oh my god! Get inside, hun, you must be freezing!”

Cleo sniffs and tells them, “I had to leave my living situation—it was becoming dangerous. We didn’t know where else to go. Sebastian figured out where you lived a while ago, Colonel Flag, since you saved him from Peacemaker.”

Sebastian waves from his spot in Cleo’s hands and Rick awkwardly waves back. It’s true that they’d saved each other back in Corto Maltese but it still feels weird to be waving at a rat.

He can hear water running and then Harley’s back. “C’mon, sweetie, let’s get ya into the shower so you can warm up. Towels are on top of the toilet and I got dry clothes for ya when ya get out.”

Once Cleo silently slips into the bathroom, she turns to Rick and says, “Baby, I love you but you’re absolutely useless right now.”

“Right, sorry. Lemme get the couch set up for her.”

Harley helps him wrangle a fitted sheet over the couch and stack several blankets and a pillow on top of it. Once that’s done he goes into the kitchen to make some quick breakfast sandwiches—his specialty. He even makes a tiny one for Sebastian.

He brings them out to the living room and he sees Cleo sitting on the couch with Harley. She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy pajama bottoms. He can hear her saying, “I had to get out of there. We were fine until it started raining and we couldn’t find anywhere dry to sleep.”

“Well you’re stayin’ here as long as ya need to.”

He sets the sandwiches on the coffee table and Sebastian immediately starts eating his but Cleo looks wary. “C’mon, eat up. You must be starving.”

She reaches for the sandwich and takes a small bite. “Thank you, Colonel Flag.”

“Please call me Rick.”

He goes to the bathroom to clean up the wet towels and hang up Cleo’s soaked clothes, figuring that she doesn’t want an audience while she eats.

Harley’s tucking her into bed on the couch when he gets back, Sebastian fast asleep on the pillow next to her head.

She creeps back over to him, flicking the lamp off and bathing the apartment in darkness. They stand there and watch the pair for a second. She leans against his side and sighs, “Can we keep her?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, we can keep her. C’mon, let’s go to bed, Harls.”

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Cleo awakens slowly from the best sleep she’s ever experienced. It takes her a second to recognize her surroundings but then she remembers last night. She stumbles towards the sound of voices and the smell of bacon.

“Sometimes I wish I had two of ya,” she hears Harley say.

As she walks into the kitchen she vaguely registers the couple wrapped up in each other’s arms as Harley sips from a coffee mug. “Why do you want two Colonel Flags?” she asks sleepily.

Harley promptly spits her coffee all over Colonel Flag, which immediately wakes Cleo up. Had she said something wrong? He’s now blushing furiously, which just confuses her more.

“I’ll tell ya when you’re older,” Harley manages to wheeze out once she’s done coughing.

Oh. Oh! That explains a lot.

Colonel Flag excuses himself so he can change his shirt and Harley busies herself with getting a plate down from the cupboard and loading it up with scrambled eggs and bacon. She sets it on the table and says, “Dig in!”

Colonel Flag comes back with a dry shirt on and says, “Okay, so we’re all just gonna forget the last two minutes and focus on finding Ratcatcher Two here a place to live.”

“Oh. No, that’s okay, Sebastian and I will be okay on the streets again.” It’s really all she’s ever known besides the four walls of a prison cell.

“Fuck that!” Harley says. “Sweetie, we can’t in good conscience just let ya be homeless again.”

“Why?”

“You… you literally told me you got threatened with a knife yesterday, hun.”

“Oh well we’re not gonna go back there obviously.”

She’d been squatting at the old orphanage with a group of homeless teenagers and that had been working out fine for the last month. That is, until things turned violent when one of them got too high and had a bad trip.

She doesn’t argue this time when Harley insists that she needs to be off the streets and that she thinks there’s a few units available in their building.

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Cleo trails behind the couple as they make their way down to the leasing office. Her heart is pounding and she’s trying to keep her breakfast down. She already knows she can’t afford a place in this building—she doesn’t even have a job. She’s been resorting to petty theft to stay afloat but hasn’t tried anything big like a bank robbery again. The last thing she wants is to get thrown in jail again.

The property manager—a balding man in an ill-fitting suit—eyes the three of them as they approach. Cleo hangs back in the corner while Colonel Flag and Harley stand there imposingly.

“So, here’s the deal,” Harley begins. “Our friend Cleo here is lookin’ for a place to live. Got any openings?”

He snorts. “Sure, but I highly doubt she can afford them.”

She can feel her face heating. He’s certainly not wrong. She clutches Sebastian tighter, who squeaks at her soothingly.

“How much?”

“Fifteen hundred.”

“Nah, that ain’t gonna work. Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna rent a place to her for three hundred a month, no more than that.”

“Do you know how much money I’d lose if I did that? I’m already renting to you two assholes practically for free!”

“Ya say that like I’m supposed to give a shit. Listen, we’re the reason you don’t have more supervillains crawlin’ all over this place but if that won’t persuade you, I got a baseball bat with your name on it.”

The property manager pales and manages to stammer out, “Ah, I think I do actually have a unit. But, uh, it won’t be available ‘til next month.”

“Perfect!” Harley chirps. She turns to Cleo and throws her arm around her shoulders. “Looks like you’re stayin’ with us for a couple weeks!”

As they’re leaving the property manager’s office, Harley remarks, “Ya know, I think that License to Kill shirt I got ya for your birthday really helped our case.”

Colonel Flag sighs and says, “Harls, we really need to do laundry.”

“Not it!”

The couple continues to bicker about whose turn it is to do laundry as they make their way back to the apartment.

“I could do it,” Cleo pipes up from behind them. It’s the least she can do to thank them.

They immediately stop arguing and turn to look back at her. In unison, they say, “Abso-fucking-lutely not.”

Harley elaborates, “You’re our guest, hun. We’re not gonna make ya do chores. Especially because it’s his turn to do laundry!”

Colonel Flag pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “Harls, we’ve been over this. I gave you a break last week because you were hungover. It’s your turn!”

“Most of it is your laundry anyway!” Harley whines.

“Because you keep stealing my shirts!”

“… Okay, ya got me there.”

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Cleo wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when she knocked on Colonel Flag’s door. She wasn’t entirely surprised to see him living with Harley Quinn, after their epic love confession in the ruins of Jotunheim. What she was surprised to see was just how domestic the couple’s life had become.

Over the next few weeks she listens to them bicker like an old married couple about some of the stupidest things but she also sees the way Harley comes up behind Colonel Flag for a hug every night while he cooks dinner, and how she’s always making sure he’s taken his meds at bedtime, and the way he carries Harley to the couch when she’s complaining of cramps and just wants to lay on the couch and eat raw cookie dough all day.

He’s even carried Cleo to the couch once when she embarrassingly fell asleep at the breakfast table—she really doesn’t function well early in the morning.

She’d woken up with her head on Harley’s lap and the TV volume on low.

“Mornin’, sweetie! Sleep well?” she’d chirped, just as Colonel Flag was carrying her abandoned breakfast plate over to the coffee table.

Having been homeless or in prison her whole life, she essentially needs a crash course in being a functioning adult in society. She’s never opened up a bank account, learned how to cook, or had a job.

The first order of business is opening up a bank account, which Harley helps her do. Ten thousand dollars magically appear in said bank account the next day and Cleo doesn’t question it. It’ll give her a nest egg to live off of until she figures out the whole job situation—if she even wants one, Harley comments. Being a criminal is a perfectly respectable career, in her opinion. Cleo needs to think on it.

While Harley is dragging her all over Gotham to various stores so she can buy things for her new apartment and clothes and other necessities, Sebastian is having the time of his life with Colonel Flag. It warms her heart to see them interact. Sebastian helps with the cooking and every Friday they watch football together.

“Baby, we’re gonna borrow the d-bag truck. Where’re the keys?”

“Stop calling it that,” Colonel Flag deadpans, without even taking his eyes off the TV. He rummages around in his pocket and tosses the keys over his shoulder, Harley catching them easily.

“Why do you call it a d-bag truck?” Cleo asks as they make their way to the building’s parking garage.

The car they stop in front of is a massive black pickup truck, and suddenly the moniker makes sense.

They come home from furniture shopping three hours later to find the boys sulking.

“Did your sportsball team win?” Harley asks.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Sebastian squeaks indignantly in agreement.

It’s with a mixture of sadness and hope that she receives the keys to her new apartment on the first of the next month. This place has become home for her. She’s never felt safer or more cared for than she has in the last few weeks. She’ll miss watching movies on the couch with Harley and watching Colonel Flag and Sebastian cooking together. She’ll even miss the couple’s constant bickering about who’s responsible for doing laundry (somehow the answer always seems to be neither of them).

The sadness doesn’t last long though. She’s been moved in for two days when the couple shows up on her front doorstep, inviting her over for family dinner, as Harley puts it.

She ends up at their place every Tuesday and Saturday night for dinner going forward.

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good-night-doll · 2 years

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Meeting Cleo Cazo~

:The wretched stench of the unknown causes you to investigate your cell neighbours case. With the help of her small rodent friend, you forget about the purpose of your initial interaction.

Word count: 536

Warnings: None

(I have yet to proof read so be aware, thanks!)

The wretched stench of the unknown pours into your cell, invading your senses and ruining your mood. This has been going on for weeks now and it's been putting you off of your food, giving you troubles sleeping and even some instances where you've vomited over the foul smell. It's grown old.

Slamming your tight fists into the small table top, you push back the cheap chair provided by the prison, the metal legs scraping deviously against the hardened floor. Your mind was full of sour thoughts as you approached the wall where a small hole gives you access to the cell beyond the rusted thick bars.

"Excuse me?" Your voice reaps with a bitter undertone as your eyes come to rest on the prisoner. Her orange jumpsuit makes her obnoxiously bright as her short grubby hair slides off of the crook of her tanned neck.

"I said excuse me?" The foreign girl groans, her head twisting as her hands ball into fists, her bedsheets draping from her grasp. "Yes? Hello?"

"What?" She mumbles into her food stained pillow, her voice barely making sense.

"What's that smell?" You stupidly sniffle, recoiling in disgust.

"What?" She asks again, turning her head to the small bared hole you're positioned at. Her eyes are hooded from the afternoon sleep.

"Come here" you demand, tching with an unnecessary eye roll.

Slowly, the teenage girl flops out of bed, hair dishevelled and dry lips parted with heavy sighs for breaths. Her cheeks are missing their vein of life like her emerald eyes. Her feet uncaringly drag against the floor, hands slapping against her eyes to rub away the drowsy state of mind.

"What?" She repeats herself for a third time, causing your jaw to clamp as your teeth agonisingly grind against one another. Through gritted teeth, you speak again "What is that smell?" your voice leaking with a more assertive growl.

"Oh- that's Sebastian's food" she gives you a small smile, eyes flicking down to something on the floor- the source of the stench. "He's a picky eater"

"Sebastian?" You tilt your head, looking around her sketch covered cell for a roommate. A single picture of a man and a younger girl is stuck beside the window.

"Sebastian" she copies your single worded sentence nonchalantly, bopping down to come back up with a small rodent gripping her hand. His fur covered body is embraced in a small red utility jacket as he looks at you, whiskers twitching as his nose dances. "I think he likes you" her small smile widens, eyes glancing back to you.

"Uh-huh" you step back, the rat smelling like its moulding supper. "Nice to meet you too, Sebastian" the animal squeaks back, standing on his hind legs as he offers you an open hand..?

The girl brings him up to the thick bars, his little clawed hand stretching as far as it can. "You can't leave him hanging" cautiously, your hand reaches to the rodents', his small claws tickling your skin as he tries to shake the tip of your middle finger.

"I'm Cleo" you look back at the girl- Cleo- to see her staring at you with a new found sparkle in her eyes.

"I-I'm Y/n…"

#ratcatcher 2 #cleo cazo #dc universe #Sebastian #Sebastian the rat #dc #cleo #prison interaction #ratcatcher 2 x reader #reader insert #cleo x reader #cleo cazo x reader #dc imagine #imagine #suicide squad

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