Doreen & Pixie, Monkey Joe & Julian

[x-squirrel.livejournal.com]

While having a fight with Monkey Joe, Megan and Pixie start to talk, and the subject turns to games...

Pixie was sitting yoga-style on the squishy couch in the dorm's common room, shoes and usual black hoodie nowhere to be found, humming quietly to herself while she watched The Animal Planet and played with a pack of cards she'd found. Dad used to always play Solitaire in the evenings, she remembered, but she was having trouble remembering the rules. The cards were scattered about on a coffee table in a way that didn't completely make sense for Solitaire.

The situation wasn’t really helped when Monkey Joe ran out of his room like he had the fires of hell on his heels and dive bombed into the middle of the pile of cards. He was followed by Doreen, who didn’t look very happy at her friend, likely because he was carrying something small, heart shaped locket in his mouth and making wild clicking noises.

“You give that back!” proceeded Dori also landing on the pile of cards, scattering them instantly. Monkey Joe jumped out of her range, on to some high shelving, using Pixie’s head as a springboard. Once up there he made a litany of angry sounding clicks and squeaks, highlighted with excited tail motions and jumping.

Doreen listened to this, “Yeah, well, I don’t care what you think. You get down there and give it back!” she returned, Monkey Joe already making a dash for the cracked open main door to the suite. Dori wasn’t able to beat him out, but opened the door wide and hanging out of it, “Yeah, run off! We’ll see who has any candy left in the treat drawer when he gets back!”

"Wow, what was that?" Pixie asked, rubbing her head. It didn't hurt--she was merely a little stunned. "I mean, Monkey Joe, obviously. But... are you guys fighting?"

The cards before her were scattered out of their neat rows, some now showing their faces when they were previously overturned. "Ooo, a seven," she said softly, placing down the Six of Hearts she was holding. It didn't matter to her that it was a Seven of Diamonds.

Doreen stalked back in a plopped down on the couch, “That jerk took a locket of mine,” she said, like she was talking about a person and not a pet, because he was a person to her. Or people like, anyway.

"Oh, that's rude," said Pixie, frowning. Monkey Joe seemed sort of people-like to her, too. "What are you going to do? Do you think he'll bring it back eventually?"

Doreen’s tail fluffed out, “He’ll come back. And if he doesn’t bring the locket back, he’ll be sleeping outside for a week.”

"Hmmm, it must be very important to you. I have some of my mum's jewelry. Most of it is pretty hideous. I was going to take it apart for the beads, to make awesome new jewelry out of it, but so far I haven't been able to bring myself to do it."

“My Dad gave it to me. Before he became kind of not so cool anymore,” Doreen said. It was the closest she’d ever come to outright calling him a jerk.

Pixie gave up on her Solitaire mess, and started sweeping them up into a single pile.

"Oh..." Pixie had met Dori's mom, and grandpa too, and of course had wondered about her dad. She couldn't imagine him being uncool, not with how kind and loving Dori's mom and grandpa were. "He's not cool with mutants? ...Er, sorry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Dori sighed, “No, it’s okay. Really. My Dad used to be a really cool guy… it’s just… he’s scared, I think.”

"Oh... Do you think that adults are... more scared about life than kids are? Even though they have more control?"

“Maybe. Adults are weird that way,” Doreen said with a shrug.

Pixie shuffled the deck a couple times. The motion was chunky, not smooth. A few cards popped out, and she gave up.

"Do you want to do something?" she suggested brightly.

“Like what?” Doreen asked, perking up a bit. “I like games. Do you play D&D?”

"D&D? What is that? It sounds familiar... But I haven't played it."

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Doreen said happily, “A role playing game.”

"Oh, sounds interesting. Sure, I'll play."

“Really?! Awesome! I’ll find the rule book!” Doreen said, scampering back to her room.

"I hope there's lots of dragons," said Megan happily, thinking of the McFarlane dragons that looked so cool in the comic shop window.

Meanwhile...

Of course, Julian’s door wasn’t open. It figured. Monkey Joe dropped the locket, the cold metal didn’t exactly taste good, and looked down at it. He was going to open it up, destroy the picture inside and return it to Dori where she could put in it the picture of some human who didn’t suck so much or a really good friend.

A really good friend like him. He was way better than all her human friends.

He just had to get the stupid thing open. He scratched it. Repeatedly. Maybe like with a nut he’d eventually get to the inside.

Julian had been walking with his eyes down at the notes he'd taken in class several weeks before. He heard the squeaking and spotted Monkey Joe just before stumbling over the rodent. "Oh, hey, Em-Jay. What's up?" The young, ex-scion, looked around before asking, "Where's Dori?"

Monkey Joe’s answer was to pick the locket up and start climbing up to look for a place on Julian’s shoulder. Dori was angry. But she’d see that he was totally right. Monkey Joe had faith in that. He carried the locket in his teeth.

"What do you have there," Julian took the locket from his mouth and examined the trinket.

It was obviously a locket. Stupid human. Of course, humans were generally giant, dense people who didn’t know what way was up, so he forgave Julian. Also, because there was chocolate nearby. He simply squeaked his answer. The locket was Dori’s.

"Did you get this from, Dori?" he asked, turning over the small heart shaped necklace. Julian looked around again for his friend before opening the locket a crack.

Inside the locket was a picture of Victor. Who was stupid and green and not here. Dori was also not around at the moment, so Monkey Joe settled on Julian’s shoulder.

"Huh," Julian said, looking down at the tattered picture. "So that's why she was so upset when Vic left." Julian shut the locket again.

Monkey Joe made a dive for the picture while the locket was open and missed, landing on the floor with an angry, squeaking, thud.

"Whoa! You okay?" Julian asked, kneeling down.

Monkey Joe pawed and scratched at the locket, trying to get it back open while making angry squeaking noises.

Julian pulled the locket up off the ground and the angry squirrel along with it. "Dude, what've you got against this thing?"

The angry squirrel swore at the Stupid Human. It should’ve been obvious. He kept trying to reach the locket.

"I'll just hold onto that then...." Shaking the rodent off, Julian put the locket in his pocket.

No! Monkey Joe did what was like a ferret war dance, clicking and squeaking frantically. Didn’t this human get it? Didn’t he understand?

Julian did not, in fact, understand and simply walked over to his dresser to grab the one of the last of the Snicker's bars left in his stash. Holding out the treat, he hoped to appease the rodent.

Monkey Joe looked back and forth between the treat and Julian’s pocket, unsure exactly which one he wanted more. On one hand, his mission. On the other… CHOCOLATE.

Confused, Julian waged the bar of chocolate, caramel and nuts closer to the small creature. "It's okay, I won't tell Dori," he said with a smile.

Monkey Joe responded by running and starting up Julian’s pants leg. Intent on the pocket.

"Whoa! Hey, no!" Julian shouted, shaking the rodent off and dropping the candy-bar.

Monkey Joe kept trying to get to the pocket. He had priorities .

Julian grabbed the scrambling squirrel by the scruff and held him away from his body at arms length.

Which didn’t stop Monkey Joe from flailing. Surrender the goods, Mortal!

Frustrated, the young teek constructed a glowing hamster ball around the squirrel and floated it behind him carefully, while pulling out his cell phone to text Dori. Someone needed to get Monkey Joe under control.