Doreen & Logan

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

Doreen attempts to enlist all out help with her claws. Things don't go so well at all and one of them ends up leaving in a huff.

Winter sucked. Doreen, hailing from California, still didn't know what to do with long winters. The skiing vacations she used to take with her family were one thing, and she really did miss those. Monkey Joe was curled up in the bedroom with Klara and Doreen had a rare moment alone between classes.

Dori was high on one of her perches, taking in the smell of the snow and the lingering smell of smoke. Even with the smoke everything smelled so much more here than it did back home. Without the blanket of smog coating everything smells were so much richer. She could smell everyone back in the mansion. She could smell the sap in the trees. She could smell the water in the snow. There must have been some crunched berries nearby because there was a lingering sweetness in the air that made her mouth water a bit.

Her face more solemn than usual, Doreen moved to sit on the branch crouched down in a pose that could turn to jumping and running quicker than sitting down fully. She hated it when she realized there were those moments where she couldn't quite fight instinct.

In the long moment of silence where Dori was left alone with her thoughts and what she was, she was more somber than ever. Everyone else in there, most of her friends, still could be called fully human. Dori was always going to be part animal. When no one else was around, it bothered her, eating at the back of her mind.

Logan stalked up close to the deer, using every ounce of stealth and guile to get up close to the doe without spooking it. He reached out his hand to touch the animal's hindquarters and as soon as he did, the doe spooked and sped off at high speed back into the woods. Grinning, he paused to light a stogie and enjoy the harsh smoke dulling his sense of smell.

Dori watched that from her perch, the smell of smoke was unmistakable. She should really say hi, or something, a lot of the teachers after all had pointed out that Mr. Logan would be the best to work with regarding the bone knuckle spikes so they didn't end up popping again accidentally. She wasn't quite sure how to ask. After all, she had been avoiding it since she had healed up completely.

The animal in her wanted to run, but she managed slow and quiet steps towards Mr. Logan, too spooked by him to really say anything right away. It was an animal thing.

Logan knew Dori was there - hard not to, with the sheer amount of terror she kept stinking of - but he wasn't going to provoke her. Not now, hopefully not ever. Not his fault if she had a bug up her fuzzy ass. "Hey, kid." he said around his smoke as she got close enough to have a conversation with.

"Um," Doreen started, "hi," she finally managed to squeak. It was hard to speak around the lump in her throat and the urge to bolt, "Nice day out?"

"It's not bad." he said, glancing skyward for a second. "Smoke?" he asked pleasantly, offering her her choice of his cigarillos. "And how's the claws?"

"Uh... no. I'm not old enough," Doreen said. Besides, it smelled totally gross. But she wasn't going to say that, he seemed to like them so she didn't have a right to criticize it at all. "They're, uh, healed, I guess," Dori said, looking down at her hands. She wasn't wearing gloves, she couldn't with her nails the way they were. There were faint scars on her hands from where the claws came out and she could feel them just beneath the surface, but they weren't popping out randomly.

Thank God.

"Didn't ask if you were old enough, I asked if you wanted one." he said. "But suit yourself." he said, tucking the packet back into his pocket. "Got a question for you, kid." he said after a long moment. "I done something to terrify you so much?" he asked.

Doreen shook her head, "No, not really," she managed, "I... I really don't know why you're so scary - I mean why you scare me so much!" she said, the last tumbling out quickly in an effort to correct herself.

"I am scary." he admitted. "Don't usually mean to be but I'm not a nice guy." he said. "Don't know much about what I am, but I do know that." he said. "Tryin' not to antagonize you's turning out to be a little past me." he said with a shrug. "So help me out here."

"You smell kinda weird," Doreen admitted, "I think its your claws because they're metal, right? It doesn't smell right. And the way you move is also kinda scary," she admitted. Doreen shook her head, "I mean, I hope that doesn't sound mean or anything..."

Logan popped his claws on one hand so she could get a good look at them. "Yep." he said. "Metal. Guess that makes sense." he said with a shrug. "Not much I can do about the way I move - that one's on you to get over. I'm not making threatening moves towards you."

Doreen jumped when the claws were popped. The smell of blood also got to her, though with him it never seemed to hang around very long, "No, I know, but you still move like... well, I don't know, like you're stalking something."

Logan just grinned at that. "Sorry." he said, blatantly not being sorry at all.

"You're not really sorry," Doreen said, she could read his tone of voice pretty easily. She might have been good at being an airhead but it didn't mean she was stupid, "You really don't mind being scary at all, do you?" Now that was exceptionally brave of her to say, she thought.

"I've earned it." he said simply. "I don't got much, but I've got that much."

Wow, that was kind of sad that all he had was being scary. It made Dori wonder what all she had when it came down to it.

"Oh," she said and was quiet for a moment, "Everyone says I need to come to you for the claws stuff."

"Depends." he said. "You actually looking to learn something, or you only coming to me because you think you have to?" he asked her.

Doreen looked up at him. Why did he think she was coming to him, really? She didn't want the claws in her knuckles, but she had them anyway. It really wasn't fair, but she didn't want them to pop out again on their own like they had. She couldn't forget the way it felt or the way the blood had smelled.

"I don't want it to happen again," she said simply.

"Then I can't help you." he said simply. "You want to deny your claws, stick your head in the sand, pretend it never happened. Real life doesn't work like that. You want to learn how to control your claws, accept them for a part of you, then I can help." he said.

"Bu... but I'm not like you. I don't heal. There's all that blood and..." she trailed off, she didn't think saying how much it had hurt would really help her case here. She stared at the snow, her nose twitching. She could literally call up the smell of the blood if she tried and it gave her the creeps. "I really can't have them popping out all the time," she finished.

Logan glanced over at the kid. "You put holes in your ears." he commented. "Bet that hurt first-off, but you kept them in until your ears healed around the earrings and then it wasn't an issue, right?" he said. "There ya go."

Doreen gave him a confused look, "But I can't leave the claws out all the time. Then I can't move my hands or really do anything," she returned. Like she wouldn't be able to blog or read comics and eating would be really hard and it would be really painful. She didn't think she could do it, but she didn't say it like that. "I mean... it's not really the same thing," she finished, "I got my ears pierced when I was little, I don't even remember it that well."

Logan sighed. "See, you're still talking about denial. About not accepting what you are. Whole point of this school is to get folks to accept what they are without shame." he said. "You don't buy into that, take it up with the bald geek in the wheelchair." he said with a shrug.

Dori's tail bristled, "I'm not denying anything!" she returned, her fists balled up at her sides, "I know what I am! I have a tail and bucked teeth and claws instead of finger and toe nails and I can smell everyone and hear everything and while everyone else gets to look normal, I'm squirrel! I know that!"

"Looks like you got a ways to go on the acceptance front." he commented wryly. "Go talk to Chuck." he suggested as gently as he could. "Better yet, go talk to Kyle. Or Jay. You're not the only one with a physical augment that's obvious. Hear what they have to say."

Dori's tail bristled even more, until it resembled a browned bottle-brush. She resisted the urge to call him a jerk. Because that was totally what he was. What a big help THIS had been. She turned around, looked up and jumped. Back to the trees with her. The tree house wasn't that far from here.

"Fine!" she shot back. "I'll do that!"

Logan just sighed, took a deep drag off his smoke, let it go, and then reminded himself that he wasn't responsible for the damned kids. Not his job, not his responsibility.

So why did he feel like such shit?