Dori & Logan: Popping Claws

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

An accident and an encounter with Logan in the woods lead to an unexpected complication when a hidden facet of Doreen's mutation makes itself known.

Since the divorce was finalized and with everything else happening Doreen sought solace outside. It was spurred on by knowing the days would be getting shorter and shorter. And colder. It would snow in a matter of weeks. Of course, running through the woods and jumping from tree to tree presented it's own set of hazards.

How she had ended up with her foot stuck the way it was and her ankle abused and twisted she didn't quite remember. Doreen had landed fine, it was the ground that hadn't agreed with her. And as easy as she could cut through thin wood, the thick branches of the trees were something else. They had claw marks on the now, but she couldn't bend over and chew her way out of here.

Monkey Joe hovered around, panicked in his own right, not quite sure what he could do to help. In fact a lot of squirrels were around, chattering, panicking, offering advice and generally not being much help at all. Doreen was almost sobbing. Why did this stuff keep happening to her?

Logan couldn't have possibly answered that question even if he knew of its existence. Instead, he was walking outside, enjoying a smoke and getting away from the stinks of life in the Mansion. The cooling air felt good, the scents on the breeze natural and wild.

Doreen caught his scent, and that of the cigar, and instead of relief washing over her panic did instead. Of all the people to be out and about right now, why did it have to be him? Panic motivated her to claw and pull at the roots even more, not caring how much nose she was making. The goal here was to simply get away. And that was all she wanted.

Trying to get any of the local squirrels to help out was like pulling teeth right now. They simply were watching. A large group of them now had gathered around. Asking if they could help her hide just resulted in her getting a bunch of sticks and leaves dropped on her and Monkey Joe swearing. And the scent coming closer.

Doreen pulled at the roots, "Come on... come on..."

Logan wandered over towards the ruckus, mostly curious now. Doreen, he thought her name was. The Squirrel Girl. He made sure to give her plenty of head's up of his approach before he came into her sight. "Howdy," he said in a friendly tone. "Stuck?"

Doreen almost lost it right there. She couldn't even gather the wits she needed to speak for a couple moments, "Yes... no... um..." somehow she didn't think telling him to 'get away' or 'stay back' would make enough of a message. As it was, Doreen was frazzled and her tail puffed out even more at his approach. She tried to back up and twisted her ankle even more, yelping.

"Cripes, kid, settle down," he said, staying just outside of her reach. "I can getcha out in a few minutes," he observed, taking a drag on his smoke. "Or I can leave ya here, go get someone else to dig you out," he offered.

Doreen had to think about it for a minute. She had already been scrambling with everything for awhile and she really didn't want to be stuck out here anymore. And she could bolt once he got her free. If she could keep herself calm that long.

She thought about it.

"Help please?" she managed to squeak. Not even Monkey Joe was making any false moves around this guy. All the other squirrels had vanished.

"Suit yourself," he said, keeping his cigar stuck between his teeth while he popped his claws on one hand. "Just ... hold still," he said between clenched teeth as he studied the log. Tough wood, it'd likely take him a while to saw through it with blunt force. He had to find the best spots to make the right cuts to give her room to get her foot out without damaging her any more than was necessary.

She flinched when the claws popped. Doreen was still terrified and the smell of blood and metal didn't help the equation any as she leaned back as far as she possibly could from him. Her hands hurt so bad, which she attributed to trying to claw her way through the log and the fact that her knuckles had been itching lately. Doreen was shaking badly too and swallowed.

At first, she didn't even register the scent of her own blood or even feel pain.

Logan smelled the blood moments after it got exposed to air. He immediately rehomed his own claws and stepped well back. "Calm down, kid," he said carefully. "Nobody's gonna hurt you," he said.

It was then that Doreen actually felt pain. She couldn't really describe it, having nothing to compare it too, but it felt like something had ripped right through the skin of each of her fingers. And Monkey Joe was going nuts. She tried to take a deep breath and looked down at her hands and then back up, "I'm bleeding," she said dumbly. Unable to really understand why, or calm herself down to the point to try to figure this out one step at a time.

"I noticed," he said. "Sit tight, kid, we'll get you out and down to Medical," he said firmly. And then he popped his claws back out and stepped back in to find the best spot to cut away at to let her foot go free.

Things started sinking in then and it made her start to panic more in a different way, "Something's wrong with my hands! Ohmygosh, I can't move my fingers!" she couldn't think of what she had done that would've broken both her hands. "What's wrong with my hands?!" she wasn't looking down at them and didn't want to.

Logan looked over, then sheathed his clawd and grabbed her wrists so he could get a good look at things. "Claws," he said with a grunt. "Stubby ones. Looks like bone to me," he said. "Try to keep 'em outta me and outta you. They'll look it over," he said as he tapped the branch she was stuck in.

"Claws?" she squeaked, still too shocked to pull away screaming. The smell of her own blood was starting to grate on her and the panic was starting to bubble up again. She was thinking of her finger claws and didn't draw the connection for a long moment. And when she did, it didn't do anything to stop her panic.

And the pain. She was really starting to feel the pain.

"Ohgosh... we hafta get them back in. How do you get them back in?!"

"Shaddup and let me work, kid," he grumbled. Ah, that sounded promising. He popped his claws again and struck deep into the wood, only to withdraw and strike again. A few more hits like that and the wood would be weak enough so she could punch her way out.

"O...okay," she squeaked, "Owwwwwwww," she managed after that, starting to whimper. This really, really hurt. "Are you done yet?" she asked and then looked down at her hands again, at bloody spikes of bone jutting out of her knuckles and paled. Doreen moved and tried to push the ones on her left hand back in using the ground as leverage and let out a choked scream of pain.

Okay, that wasn't a good idea. 'Claws' were not going back inside.

"Quit playing with them," he advised her as he struck his claws into the branch a few more times. "Pull your leg out," he told her, resheathing his own claws. Oddly, he noticed the pain more this time than he normally did.

Doreen nodded dumbly and slowly pulled her leg out. It was scrapped up and the ankle still twisted but wasn't broken. Doreen hadn't ever broken a bone of hers. "But... they won't go back in," she managed after she got her leg out. "And I can't move my hands," forget panic, she was now on the verge of sobbing.

"Kid, just _calm down_," he said. "Medical'll getcha fixed up in no time," he said. "Can you walk?" he asked. "Or do you need a hand?"

Doreen tried to calm down, she really did. But she was shaking so hard and could still smell blood, though she knew her hands weren't gushing it, "I... I guess? A hand, maybe... I don't know. This feels really, really weird," like wrong weird.

Logan offered her his arm to take if she was so inclined. "We'll take it slow," he promised. "First stop, medical," he added. "All right?"

Doreen couldn't really move her fingers right but managed to grab hold of him without slicing his arm or anything, "Okay..." she had to look at something else besides her hands clinging to someone she was terrified of, but who wasn't nearly as scary as this. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, "Ohmygosh, that does not look good," she said, referring to the new and bloody...whatever they were.

"Just hang on, kid," Logan said, making sure he had a good grip on the girl. That achieved, he set off at as brisk of a walk as he could manage without jarring the girl too much back towards the Mansion. "Get the doc to take a look at your hands," he said. "Figure out what's up."

Doreen nodded dumbly, not wanting to look at her fingers but really not able to look away from it either. It hurt so much. And it did just look wrong, with bones sticking out and blood oozing around them. Doreen didn't heal super fast, she knew that much. So this was going to leave scars. If they could even get them to go away. What if the only way to get them off was to cut them off? That thought terrified her.

"...We're almost there, right?" she squeaked, "I don't get this, this hasn't happened before!"

"Almost there," he said agreeably. He shifted Dori so that he had a free hand to open the door with, then got her inside the mansion and into a chair - crushing her tail in the process. "Sit tight, kid. Medical's on its way," he said as he called it in.

She didn't even notice it. Doreen was too busy not looking at her bloody hands to even care about the position of her tail.