Callie & Doreen

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Doreen finally has a run in with her roommate after pretty much avoiding everyone.

Doreen had to go back in for various things. First off, she wasn’t going to go to the bathroom in the woods, so she did wander inside in the mornings. She also used that time to shower, though washing her hair was becoming harder. Not just that sleeping outside could leave it tangled and full of twigs, but the fact that her claws were getting longer.

She dressed carefully, trying not to rip any of the clothing she was putting on and then sat down on her bed to stare at her hands. Maybe she had to file them down, just a little, before grabbing some breakfast and fleeing the smell that permeated the girls’ rooms. Yvette, smelling… wrong. Her toe claws she’d have to do some too, as they were almost starting to curl under.

With a sigh she pulled a file out of her desk and gave Monkey Joe some caramel corn to munch on as she set to work filing her claws, starting with her feet.

"Hey sunshine! Haven't seen you much lately." Callie emerged from the bathroom drying her hair in a towel. The perfumed scent of lilacs trailed behind in her wake as she crossed the bedroom, gave Monkey Joe a quick pat on the head, and sat on her bed. She spent a few more moments bent over, her hair flipped over, toweling off her mane of red hair. She sat up and asked, "so what have you been up?"

“Hm?” Doreen asked, looking up. The scent of lilacs wasn’t over powering, but it was nice, “Oh, I’ve just been hanging around outside and stuff,” she said, checking her right foot before picking up and starting on filing her left, “It’s really great, having so many trees around.”

"I can imagine," Callie replied as she reached for the lotion on her nightstand and began rubbing it into her legs. "I've been working in the garden, and it's nice but you can always use a break. You know, air conditioning, protection from the UVA, UVB rays. All that good stuff."

“I tan and I can swim in the pool or the lake if I get too hot,” Doreen returned. Indeed she was a healthy brown at the moment, “How’s the garden looking?”

"Just be careful," the lotion was placed in its proper place. "Tanning can be dangerous. I'll save you the skin cancer lecture but yeah." Callie stood up and crossed over to her dresser, picking up her comb and running it through her damp hair. "The garden's looking really good. I was thinking about asking if we could start a vegetable garden."

“I’m not like the girls back home. I just tan when I’m outside, I don’t go to a salon to do it. Those machines they have are scary and they smell bad,” Doreen said, working on a stubborn toe-claw, “And you should. It’d be so tasty. I like fresh tomatoes, think we could have those?”

She thought about this for a moment as she worked on a particularly nasty knot in her hair. "Well it's a little late in the season, but I guess I could use my powers," she decided. "But still, direct sunlight can be just as damaging, especially when you're doing it as frequently as you do." Okay, so she was lecturing a little. "I have sunblock. And I promise it doesn't smell nasty."

“It’s okay, really. I’m mostly in the shade. And I come inside to get food and stuff, so I’m not always in the sun. And if you can grow them, I promise you the squirrels here won’t touch any of your vegetables,” Doreen said looking over at Callie and smiling. “I will though. I love tomatoes, and cucumbers are good too. I just can’t have much lettuce and stuff, which is too bad.”

"Okay good." She really wasn't feeling this whole lecturing thing, even when it was for someone's own good. "And I'll see what I can do about the vegetables. Maybe get some fruit in next year? Strawberries or melons or whatnot." This was a much safer topic than the dangers of the sun. "What do you think about that?"

“That’d be so great,” Doreen said, examining her feet-claws, “I love strawberries!”

Callie smiled. "Me too Dori. So Yvette's off her inhibitor. That's exciting."

Doreen blinked. The rooms up here still smelled wrong, but maybe Yvette hadn’t been back yet or it would just take awhile for the scent to go away, “She is? When?”

"Today." Callie set down the comb and picked up her hair clip to pull her hair up out of her face. "I saw her walking around earlier all red and normal." Normal for her anyways, she hadn't known Yvette to be anything but red, except for when they fell into Arcade's lair and now.

“Oh. Well, that’s great. That means she’s pretty much all better now, right?” Doreen said, her finger claws forgotten for the moment.

"Well it means that her stitches are out," Callie explained moving towards Dori. "But there's still the possibility of her body rejecting the organ, which hopefully won't happen."

“Yeah, but there’s medication for that though,” Doreen said. Medication that could indeed change someone’s scent but it wouldn’t be as weird as the inhibitor, she hoped, “I mean, unless she can’t take medication.”

She shrugged. "I don't know Dori. I'm not a doctor." Callie paused. "Are you okay?"

“…Yeah. I’m totally okay. I just needed to file down my toe claws a bit because they were growing all curvy and it was kind of annoying,” she explained, “I should file down my fingers too, but they’re not that bad. So maybe I’ll just let them be.”

"Okay," she wasn't going to push it. "You just seem distant. And we're living together, so if something affects you, it affects me."

“But it shouldn’t, you know. I mean, I’m just enjoying the time I’m spending outside. You don’t get to do that much in L.A. You can ask Julian, he knows,” Doreen pointed out, “Everything’s all buildings, traffic and smog back home. This place is heaven compared to that. Everything smells like it’s supposed to, mostly.”

"Mostly?" Callie raised an eyebrow. "What doesn't smell like it's supposed to? I know for a fact we don't use pesticides or anything."

“Um… well, there are a few people here that don’t smell like people. Like that green-haired girl, she smells like garbage, kinda,” Doreen said, hoping that would explain it.

"That's because she eats toxic chemicals," Callie laughed. "What do other people smell like? What do I smell like?"

“She does? Eww,” Doreen said, “Well, you smell like plants, whatever one you spend the most time around. Right now you really smell like lilacs. Even when you haven’t been working in the garden, you sort of carry it around with you.”

Callie lifted her arm up to sniff her clean skin. To her, it smelled like her lilac soap, which made sense. "Hmmm interesting."

“I guess so. But it’s just normal to me. I know what everyone smells like here, pretty much. I mean, I can’t track people or anything because it’s all sort of tied together, but I know if someone’s been somewhere,” Doreen said happily. “And I can smell food no matter where I am in the mansion.”

"I've noticed that," teased Callie. She put a hand on her stomach as it gurgled out of hunger. "And speaking of food. I'm starving. Care to join me in the kitchen?"

“Sure, Monkey Joe and I are a bit hungry. But I’m not going to waste the whole day inside,” she said brightly, “Do you want to take the food out to the tree house? We can have a picnic, I’ve been doing that a lot and it’s a lot of fun.”

"Sure. That'll be fun."