Doreen & Callie: Gone Feral

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Callie stumbles on Doreen, who is stuck in a feral state of mind. ((Thanks to Red for socking Doreen's dad))

It was getting late. Even the mantra 'four hours ahead' wasn't doing anything anymore. Doreen was on the floor, back to the bed, tail underneath it. Monkey Joe was sniffing at the Superman figure Julian had given her early in the morning. She had been trying off and on to reach her Dad somehow. Cell phone, work phone, even having a ghastly conversation with his secretary at one point to the effect of 'stop calling here.'

Doreen took a deep breath. Persistence often paid off in the end. She missed her Dad so much, the last two years watching things just fall apart had taken their toll. It was almost like mourning the dead. She flipped open the cell phone, biting her lower lip as she slowly dialed the numbers again. She had to dial slowly, her claws so thick that it was easy to get one or two extras in there.

Tenth... maybe twentieth... time was the charm, right? Doreen hoped so as she put the phone to her ear and waited. Pick up... please pick up, Daddy... It was her birthday, after all. He couldn't have forgotten.

Michael Green was a very busy man. Business was booming even as his family life - such as it was - disintegrated out from under him. He was drinking too much, he knew that, but some nights it was the only thing that got him through the night. But today he was waiting on a call from a very important client so when his Blackberry chirped he did something he normally never, ever did.

He answered it without checking the Caller ID.

"Green." he said, short and to the point.

Doreen had to hold back a squeak when he answered. Just the sound of his voice perked her up, "Hi Daddy, it's me!" she said excitedly. She didn't care his voice was short when he answered. The fact of the matter was he HAD answered. That meant he must've wanted to talk to her all along and had just really been busy.

"How're you?"

He stared at his Blackberry as if it had just grown fangs and was preparing to bite him. One part of him wanted to talk to his daughter, catch up with her and her life, see what was going on and be her father again. But then there was the part that went to the FoH meetings organized by John down in Marketing, the part that reminded him that his little girl was now a fucking squirrel-girl-thing and not even human anymore. He remembered what happened to San Diego, and then New York again. Sure, they liked to claim SD was some sort of natural disaster, but the Friends of Humanity knew the truth, and they got the word out as best they could against all the pro-mutant forces out there. He took a deep breath and almost started to speak before his thumb stabbed the disconnect button.

"Daddy?" Doreen stopped for a moment when the line disconnected. Her first thought was that the call had dropped it had sounded like he was going to say something and then stopped. So she redialed.

It rolled to voice mail.

Doreen dialed it again.

Voice mail. Again.

She wasn't stupid. She knew what was going on here. Shaking, she tried to dial once more, her claws fudged the numbers three times so she had to keep starting over. When that call rolled to voice mail she lost it. Tears that she had been holding back were now streaming down her face.

Ryan said Mom and Dad wanted her to stay here. And while she knew what Mom thought, having talked to her yesterday, now Dad was hanging up on her. She wasn't stupid, like the kids back home loved to claim. She knew what just happened. She threw the phone against the wall, hard, where it broke with a crack and fell to the floor, Monkey Joe jumping out of the way as she curled up into a ball and started shaking there on the floor. She had just wanted to talk to him.

Just hear his voice.

It was her birthday, after all! She didn't need expensive presents or big parties or lots of cake or dances, like some of the girls back home would have. Or a car in the driveway, the staple of every Beverly Hills sixteenth birthday. She just wanted to have her Dad tell her happy birthday. Everything from today, the bad stuff that she had just bottled up compressed and then let go.

She was trapped in a big place that did not smell like home. Doreen panicked, but it was the panic of a human girl. She had to get out of here. This place smelled weird and was small. She jumped up and angry, pushed things over. There was a soft place that smelled like she slept there that she didn't like either and she tore at it with her claws. There were inedible plants in silly things that she broke setting the dirt free.

She needed to get out of here. Every part of her body screamed it. She wasn't supposed to be inside. Out.

She needed out. She needed to get far, far away from whatever was wrong here.

The knob on the door turned slowly as Callie struggled to muster up the energy to open the door. Her arms and back were burdened with books, making it extremely difficult to perform this even simplest of tasks. A joyous mental whoop was awarded when the door to her bedroom was finally opened, and quickly disappeared as Callie stood in shock and horror at what she saw before her.

Her room was a complete and utter mess.

Some of the pots for the plants were broken, the plants tipped over and the dirt on the floor. Doreen’s bedding had been shredded and she Doreen stood by the window scratching at it desperately like she couldn’t quite figure out how to get it open. The noises she was making were not what normally came from a human girl.

Her first instinct was to search for Monkey Joe, she knew it was only a matter of time before the wild creature began reacting on his base instincts. But as she gazed around the room from the vantage of the doorway two very important facts presented themselves. The first was that the magnitude of this damage was too much for such a little creature to accomplish (even given the worst case scenario). And the second was that the squirrel in question had made its way to her feet, and was shaking and looking up at her with a gaze of concern ('Do squirrels know what it means to be concerned,' she wondered) and fear.

The distinct clicking noises coming from her roommate were concerning in their own right, adding a third variable to the equation.

Slowly, Callie crouched down and gently set her books on the floor. Her eyes were glued to Doreen as she watched the younger girl scratch at their window. Did she make this mess,' Callie wondered. For while Doreen was not a clean-freak like her, this was far worse than usual. In the way that a white out is worse than a few scattered snowflakes.

She afforded a quick glance to Monkey Joe, who was still staring at her with that same expression and decided that in fact squirrels, or at least this squirrel, knew what it meant to be concerned. Her hands now free, Callie gently scooped the trembling creature up and brought him close to her chest. While one hand supported her roommate's pet, the other petting his back in an attempt to calm him down. "It'll be okay," she whispered to him, wondering when had she changed from being completely freaked out by the animal to being able to pick him up as she was currently doing.

"Doreen," she asked softly, her voice heavy with the shared concern that she and Monkey Joe were feeling. Not wanting to scare the already high-strung girl, Callie made sure her steps into the room were slow and even. "Doreen are you okay?"

Doreen turned around, her hair wild, and though she looked like she might have been crying there weren’t any tears left in her eyes. She saw her friend on the shoulder of a pink tall person. She knew the smell but it wasn’t clicking with her right now. She flattened herself back against the wall, clicking and squeaking. The sounds the pink person was making not making any sense at all.

Monkey Joe made a sound that Doreen knew was worry but she couldn’t figure out why her friend was worried. Her must’ve wanted outside too, because the other stuff he was saying was making no sense to her.

The lack of recognition and understanding in Doreen's eyes did nothing to ebb Callie's distress over the situation. This wasn't the sweet bubbly girl she was used to at all. Something inside Doreen had snapped, it appeared.

"Doreen, it's me, Callie, your roommate," she said in her most calming tone. "Doreen what's wrong?"

It was gibberish to Doreen who looked back at the window. She wondered if she could break whatever it was that had kept her locked in here. She kept clicking and squeaking at her friend. Monkey Joe told her that she needed to calm down she shook her head and started scratching frantically at the window, her claws leaving marks on the glass. She didn’t remember just what had happened here, she only knew that she needed out.

With the way the feral girl was behaving, Callie decided it would be too risky to venture any closer. "Doreen. You need to calm down. Okay? Take a deep breath. You're okay."

Doreen turned back around slowly and her eyes didn’t focus on either the pink, somewhat safe smelling girl or her friend but on the open door behind them. She jumped, covered the distance in a single bound and then started out the door and down the hall. She could smell the outside air. There was an open window nearby. She’d be able to get out there.
Okay this. This was not good. It was the complete opposite of good. Callie knew that she would never be able to catch Doreen, at least not in this state. There was nothing she herself, nor the crying squirrel on her shoulder, could do. So she decided to do the smart, responsible thing.

She was going to find an RA. Someone who she figured would know better than she how to handle her roommate.

"Come on Monkey Joe," she said to the animal. "Let's go find Jan, or Dani, or Tommy. Don't worry. Doreen will be fine."