Logan & Dori

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Eating lunch outside and in the trees, Dori meets someone she's actually been trying to avoid.

Doreen ate lunch outside whenever she could manage it. Right now she was near the top of one of the taller trees, a peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk in one of those little bottles. She had to be careful with milk so it wouldn't upset her stomach. Doreen figured she'd have to go to soy eventually, but she felt like spoiling herself a bit.

After all, she had a very sucky birthday so she might as well make it up. She broke off some of the bread for Monkey Joe and ate a bit more and just watched the ground, watching for people who would come and go. Her perch was awesome for that. She could watch anyone come out and leave, and most of the time they wouldn't even get wind of her and her leafy perch. She could generally smell people too, before she saw them, so that also made it a fun game of testing her senses up high where almost no one could get her.

Logan took his outside whenever possible as well, mostly because the air stank less than it did in the Mansion proper. Kids were kids, people were people, and eventually they all crawled up his nose and wouldn't leave. So he wandered outside with a beer and a quarter of a nice thick roast beef sub with a ton of horseradish to enjoy a little sun, clear his nose of the stink of living in proximity to people. The radish on his sandwich was also doing a number on his nostrils. He welcomed the pain because it also did a good job of scrubbing out all the cruds.

As he walked he glanced up towards the treeline and spotted the new kid - the busy tail gave it away - eating her pedestrian lunch and feeding a squirrel. "Howdy." he said, trying to be friendly.

Doreen almost dropped her sandwich, she had been spotted! And by someone she had actually been trying to avoid. She was sure he was a nice guy and everything, but he raised every hair on her body. Literally. Her tail puffed out to about three times its size and she fought her fist instinct which was to turn and bolt far, far away. I'm safe in my tree, Doreen reminded herself, even if the tree really isn't mine, it's everyone's...

"Hi..." she squeaked, waving a clawed hand. She could smell his food from up here and another part of her wanted to go down there and steal it. Though that whispering voice in the back of her head told her that would be certain death. Monkey Joe protested loudly as Doreen slowly, slowly started down a bit, just to get a closer look. Though every muscle was ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. "What're you eating...?" she squeaked a bit louder than before.

"Roast beef." he said, eying his sandwich. "Want some?" he asked, trying to hold very still. Kid was spooked, that much was obvious even before the spike of fear-smell. "And relax, kid. I'm not going to hurt you." he said as reassuringly as he could.

She crept down a little lower, "I can't eat much meat," she said a little bit louder than the last time. It was a bit closer to a normal voice, or as normal as Doreen's voice ever got. Monkey Joe was freaking out from his perch above them when she finally made it only two branches above him. The smell of food didn't override danger, and her every move was slow and measured as she walked forward on the branch, "But I can have a little... if it's okay, I mean..." she didn't think she could make herself get much closer than this if she tried. She was only about five feet above him and it was like her senses went into overdrive. Like, subconsciously, Doreen's mind was plotting her escape from every possible angle.

"I offered." he said with a shrug, holding his sandwich above his head out towards her. "It's not bad. Someone got a good cut of beef from one of the local deals." he said. "Nice and rare." he added, before realizing that that might not be the most glowing endorsement for her ever. "It's good." he finished up with.

"Okay," Doreen said, grabbing it from his hand and making it two more branches up in a heart beat. She was still trying to get the frizzing of her tail under control. She sniffed the meat a couple of times, it was undercooked but that didn't mean it was bad. It just meant it would fill up her meat intake for the week. Monkey Joe ventured down a bit, not going down any farther than the branch above her and Doreen looked up and shook her head. [You wouldn't like this.] she clicked at him and he sulked.

He really was getting fat, Doreen mused in the one moment she could take to do that. Then it was turning her attention back to the guy who puffed up her tail. From her safe height, of course, "I'm Doreen," she managed, against every warning nerve in her body, "What's your name?"

"Logan." he said, reaching in his pocket for a cigar. "Smoke?" he asked, not caring if she was a newly-sixteen-year-old girl or not.

"Eww, no!" Doreen squeaked and walked a bit farther out on the branch, so she sat almost right above him. Her tail curling comfortably against her back, still ready for action. "Those things smell terrible," she said. Say nothing of what they did to your health. When your mom was a nurse you heard these things all the time. And when you went to school in a school full of rich kids that didn't care you were used to smelling all sorts of smoke on them. "But... I mean, you can, because its yours and all," Doreen said, hoping she didn't make him mad with the smelling terrible statement.

Logan chuckled at that. "I heal, kid. These things don't bother me at all." he said. And the stink was part of the pleasure of the smoke. But he tucked his cigars back into his pocket and stuck one in his mouth but he didn't light it. "Probably shouldn't be smoking anyway. I hear they're bad for you." he said with a grin.

"Well that is what everyone says," Doreen said with a sage nod, "My mom would skin me if I started smoking," she said. And though it wasn't a literal skinning, the urge to have at least one parent not hate her was more than enough to scare her off the thought of smoking. "Cigars are supposed to be for something special too, like if you close a deal or wrap up on a project or something," she said from her perch. Though with her Dad the Special Occasion Scotch had become the Every Night Without Fail Scotch, so she supposed the rules must be bendable.

And not being an adult she figured she must not know all of them yet. Her tail twitched, reminding her of the fact that she shouldn't be feeling safe around this guy, but it was hard not to. Doreen did like people after all. She'd just stay high enough away that nothing could happen and maybe he'd ignore her tail being puffed up.

"But your rules might be different," she said.