Stowaway [Closed] - Printable Version

Stowaway [Closed] - Printable Version

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Stowaway [Closed] - SolitareLee - 05-25-2017

An Any Shelter AU

RE: Stowaway - SolitareLee - 05-25-2017

Bree was having a really shitty day.

Like, even for her.

She was six inches tall. Barely a hair over five pounds. Her legs were tiny.

There were wolves hunting her.

Yeah... shitty day.

There was a reasonable explanation for this. See, two days ago she had broken the face of a man who turned out to be a werewolf. This was not a first. What was a first was that he’d been like, a mafia werewolf or something, and she’d foiled a kidnapping, or a gang hit, or something, and they were coming after her. She’d realized they were following her when she left the library. She had been trying to lose them all day, not wanting to lead them back to her home. It just turned out it was very hard to lose a werewolf.

And now she was very tiny, out alone at night in the big wide world for the first time, trying to find a way that a five pound dog could hide from werewolves.

Needless to say, she failed miserably.

They caught her in an alley, which is arguably the worst place to be caught by anyone, let alone a werewolf. They knew who she was; they had to, but some of them seemed to be having issues with the idea of brutalizing and/or murdering a small, terrified, shaking dog. One kicked her, and claws dug painfully into her side as she went flying. Then an argument ensued where someone else probably pointed out he'd literally just kicked a puppy, this felt weird man.

The argument continued for a few minutes, with one of them hitting her repeatedly for emphasis on how totally okay it was, until another one grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back, giving Bree a brief respite. She glanced around desperately through eyes rapidly beginning to burn with blood, when she saw her salvation. A little hole in the chain link fence that made up the back of the alley. She scurried through like greased lightning, leaving tuffs of fur and streaks of blood behind, and took off just as fast as her tiny paws could carry her.

Which was not very fast, nor very far. Fortunately for her, this time, maybe it didn't have to be. A few twists and turns through alleys later, and she saw a large, black bag, mostly hidden behind a dumpster. Salvation? Probably not; they were werewolves and she was leaving a trail of blood. But she could feel herself getting woozy; she couldn't make it much further. And this was at least... something.

Working the zipper with her mouth was a difficult endeavor, but she managed it, and then crawled inside, shimmying to the very back of the long bag and curling up on top of something hard and uncomfortable to bleed in peace, shaking and wondering how long she had until something found her.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - saronym - 05-26-2017

Owen had left his bulky duffel down in an alley where it likely wouldn’t be bothered by anything other than, perhaps, the passing curious rodent.

Well, little did he know a nearly rodent-sized tiny dog had made home in that bag.

He was in such a hurry to flee the scene of his latest assassination that he didn’t register the extra weight in his bag. Five pounds wasn’t much, sure. But the difference of five pounds in a bag usually carried would, under normal circumstances, be noticeable.

Owen, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one approached things, didn’t register the extra weight and snatched up his bag while he made his exit from the alleyway at a full sprint. He hailed a cab and went straight to the airport.

Again, fortunately or unfortunately, Owen didn’t fly on ordinary commuter planes. He was married to a queen, and a successful assassin. Such types didn’t fly Air Pacific. Or Southwest. Or whatever the airlines were called these days. The cabbie took him to a private hangar where he would catch a private jet home to the Isles.

There was no TSA for him. No x-ray scanners. No probing hands.

He just got out of the car and onto the jet with his duffel bag. A duffel bag full of a rodent sized dog.

It was deep in the night when Owen landed in the Isles. The sleepy man, weary with the job he’d performed and the travels, found himself in the suite of rooms he and his wife occupied in the castle.

Owen let his duffel bag sink to the floor in the room dedicated to his weapons and accoutrements for his profession. He knelt and unzipped the bag. He was entirely unprepared for what he found in there.

“Julianna!” He yelled. “Dog! There’s a dog!” He rose to his feet and backed away in case the animal was rabid. It sure looked like it could be diseased.

“Julianna!” He’d keep calling until she came to him.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - megs - 05-26-2017

The yelling was not the homecoming that Julianna had imagined. She actually had something all planned out. Something quiet and charming and romantic, but once again Owen had come home and snuck right past her while she worked in her office. She still had yet to figure out how he managed it. Her ears twitched as she pushed away from her desk and hurried towards their rooms.

Perfectly, she heard him say that there was a dog. Which made no sense, but certainly explained the yelling. Owen and animals did not often intermingle.

He kept yelling for her so she quickened her pace, following the sound of his voice to the room he’d turned into an armory. She didn’t quiet enter, stopping just outside the door. The guns and et cetera housed inside the room made her uncomfortable.

“What do you mean there’s a dog?”

Julianna took a tentative steps towards him and the bag and the supposed dog. Her tail curled towards her spine as she attempted to peer over his shoulder.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - SolitareLee - 05-27-2017

Bree had fallen into a sort of daze, probably due to the fact she was laying in a pool of her own blood. And small dogs did not, as a general rule, have a great deal of blood to spare. She was aware of someone picking up the bag, but she stayed silent on purpose. Whoever it was, they would take her somewhere else, away from the werewolves. She would be safe.

And then she heard the sound of a plane taking off and had reconsidered all of her life choices, but by then, she was too tired and too scared to make a fuss. She resolved to wait, wait until the bag was by itself and she could sneak out, or until she burst out of it wholesale as a large, naked woman, at which point the jig was extremely up.

That was the plan. At some point, probably on the plane, she'd passed out a little. She woke up now, because there was screaming. She shifted, then whined in pain as she immediately remembered why unconsciousness had seemed like such a great idea. She looked up; the bag had been unzipped entirely. She was in a room, with a strange man, presumably the owner of the very suspicious alley bag who got in planes without having to pass through security. It was filled with guns. He was very tall, although everyone seemed tall to her right now, and very scary, although everyone seemed scary to her right now.

And he was yelling at her.

She let out a pained little whine, and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to stand. He was yelling for someone, that was a good sign, because it meant there were other people here, and maybe one of them would like dogs and not be like a suspicious probably-assassin.

A woman entered, cautiously, hiding behind him--did they think she was diseased?--and she had to be the "Juliana" he was screaming for. Women loved tiny dogs, right? Right? She let out a pained whimper, the loudest she could muster, going for absolute patheticness. Because while she normally had a lot of pride, she was lying in a tiny pool of puppy blood, so fuck pride, in general.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - saronym - 06-01-2017

Owen could feel his wife cowering at his back. Maybe he had made too much of an outcry about the pathetic little thing. But here they were. He stepped to the side so as to open up Julianna’s line of sight.

“That dog.”

He pointed with his index finger to the wounded animal attempting to stand.

“I have no idea how it got in here. In my bag.”

He shoved his hand into his pocket, reaching for his phone. He opened an internet browser and started typing out a search for the number for the local animal control agency.

“I’ll call animal control. It could be rabid.”

He moved back in front of Julianna to block the doorway and presumably protect his wife from the possibly rabid canine. "I could also put it down," he offered looking up from his phone. It seemed those were the two options: call an animal enforcement agency or put the animal down.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - megs - 06-01-2017

When Owen moved Julianna could see the animal better. It was smaller than she was imagining, given the fuss he had made about it. An almost involuntary coo of sympathy sounded behind her lips, following the canine’s pained noises. She gaped at him when he offered to put the animal down with a cool air of indifference.

“It’s so little,” Jules said, halfway to a whine as she moved around her husband who had blocked her sight again. To her, it didn’t seem rabid, just hurt. When it came to animals Owen had a penchant for over reaction. “I think it crawled into your bag for safety.”

A small towel appeared in her hand, plucked from a lingering shadow, to protect her hands and her clothing from the blood as she best down and scooped up the animal. “Call Cain instead.” The dog didn’t fidget or protest, either too weak or not nearly as dangerous as Owen seemed to think.

“He’ll know what to do.” It wasn’t a suggestion or a question. She was simply telling her husband what she was going to do next and he could either tag along for the ride or leave her to do as she would on her own.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-04-2017

Bree decided very quickly that she did not much care for Mr. Assassin at all. Because his options appeared to be Animal Control--SHE WAS A DOG, NOT A RACCOON--and just straight up murdering her. Why did he think she was rabid?! She was clearly just a dog that had been severely injured, what the fuck!

She was already hunting wildly for vents or small areas she could use to escape. Fortunately, Julianna seemed to be less sociopathic as a whole and swept forward to have a slightly more reasonable reaction to a small, injured puppy. A "so tiny so cute!" reaction. She didn't know objectively, but she liked to think she was maybe a little cute like this. These two were the first outside her family--and a handful of werewolves, she supposed--to see her like this. One vote for immediate murder was not confidence inspiring.

Julianna swept forward and wrapped her in a towel almost before Bree could really register what was happening. Where had that towel even come from? Still, this was a good sign. Being wrapped up felt weird, and being carried felt even weirder, but she wasn't being shot, soooo...

She didn't really have the strength or desire to move much, and lay placid in the towel. Her main reaction was to look up at the woman with wide, hopefully cute, multicolored puppy eyes and let out a plaintive little whine. Being cute was not Bree's forte, but she had a pretty strong racial bonus when six inches tall and fluffy. She figured. From media, which told her that tiny dogs were in fact beloved by women everywhere.

Hopefully this Cain was a doctor or something. Someone with access to bandages. And not someone who owned a dog shelter or something.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - saronym - 06-11-2017

Owen had his instructions from Julianna. He sidled out of the doorway into the hall to let his wife tend to the canine as she saw fit. When she fetched a towel, he assumed she saw fit to coddle the thing.

Great.

He was thinking of the various ways to warn his wife to not allow herself to get attached while he dialed his son. He was not on the market for a pet of the ridiculously tiny canine variety.

“Cain so we have a dog situation over here.” He said from the hallway in greeting to his son. “I don’t know what breed it is….It’s hurt or diseased. What should we do? There’s blood....I don't know what happened, I opened up my duffel and there it was....” Owen sighed while his son spoke on the other line. Owen peaked into the room. He held the phone away from his face while he informed Julianna of Cain’s advice.

“He says we should bring it in. There’s nothing he can do over the phone. He said he can admit the dog to the animal hospital and run some tests.” Owen paused to listen to Cain on the other line. Then pulled the phone away again. “Is there a tag? Cain says they can also check for a microchip and find the owners.”

Owen closed the conversation with Cain and then jingled the keys in his pocket. “Guess we’re going for a ride.” He didn’t sound to pleased about it.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - megs - 06-11-2017

Julianna’s ears fell towards the crown of her head as she held the bundled and injured pup against her chest. She mumbled soft promises that things would be okay, and that Cain would help; telling poor creature that there was no need to be afraid and to hang on. Jules promised to take care of it. She waited for Owen to finish on the phone with Cain, grateful that he was going along with her desire to find help for the canine.

Her ears pushed to attention, and her tail flickered at her knees as she registered his tone. She pouted at him, green eyes lined in dark lashes rolled upwards to look at him. She was already getting her way, but she still felt the need to plead with him to bend to her whims.

She followed him to the car with the quick steps required to keep up with his long legs. Usually he doctored his pace to match her, but he was annoyed so she was on her own. She was careful not to jostle the dog too much as she settled into the vehicle.

The drive to the animal hospital was mostly silence. Owen dropped her off in the front and drove off to park. Julianna rushed her way into the hospital, asking for her son in a way that was almost a demand, she didn’t know how hurt the dog was and was worried about wasting anymore time.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-11-2017

Okay, this was good. This was a good sign. The woman, at least, clearly intended to help, even if her, uh... husband? Maybe? was less enthused about the situation. Maybe he wasn't a dog person. Or maybe, she thought dourly, he was just a good judge of character.

Still, Julianna's reassuring words brought her some comfort. It sounded like Cain was, in fact, a doctor of some kind--probably a vet, or at least someone who they had confidence in. It might get kind of catastrophic around sunrise, but she was more concerned with living to see sunrise at this point. She was bundled off into a car--she drifted in and out of consciousness until a more significant shifting--Julianna standing up--roused her back to full awareness once more.

It was an animal hospital, she realized quickly as Julianna rushed in the front door with Bree still bundled up in a towel in her arms. Bree appreciated her sense of urgency. She couldn't tell how badly she was actually injured, but she suspected she'd lost a lot of blood and might have some broken ribs or something. Experience told her that serious injuries didn't just magically go away when she transformed. She'd need help, now. And then probably help later. But honestly she'd settle for just help now. She was tired, and it had stopped hurting as much. She wanted to go to sleep. She was pretty sure all of these things were bad signs.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - saronym - 06-11-2017

Owen met Julianna in the lobby just after a vet tech collected the wounded canine from Julianna and transported her back into an examination room. Given what was apparently an emergent looking situation, the tech advised Julianna and Owen to wait outside the room to give them space to work on the animal. While they waited Owen continued to give his wife warning looks. "It's probably micro-chipped." He added without saying what they both knew he was thinking. We do not need a dog. Do not get attached. That is someone's pet already.

The little bleeding dog was soon deposited on a shining chrome examination table in a brightly lit triage room. Moments later the vet in question - Cain - rushed in. He was identified as a doctor by the white lab coat he wore with his name and credentials embroidered on the left breast over the pocket. Beneath the lab coat he wore plain black scrubs in preparation for possible messy situations. While at work, Cain didn’t have many options for covering his lynx features. His coat was tailored with a slit to allow his tail comfort to move around and feline ears were on display atop his head.

Cain snatched a couple of latex gloves from a box and pulled them on while he surveyed his patient. “Teacup breed eh?” He asked the tech who nodded and postulated on the mix being Chorkie. “Yup. Let’s see what we got here.” Cain agreed with that assessment and began taking some basic vitals.

He peered into the dog’s pupils with a bright light, flicking it across the animal’s field of vision a couple of times. He rattled off the stats he collected to the tech who took notes for him. “Pupils are sluggish. Shallow resps. He - uh - this is a she has some puncture wounds,” his free hand made a claw like shape, “here along the rib cage. Four total.” Gloved fingers probed at the wounds causing fresh blood to ooze out. He held his hand out for gauze which the tech handed him and he pressed gently to stop the bleeding he’d aggravated in his exam.

“Let’s get her set up for IV fluids, stat. Let’s get some x-rays of the chest.” He trailed off as his fingers gently explored the belly of the dog. “I want an ultrasound too.”

After he gave all of his instructions, the tech gathered the supplies they needed to set the IV. However it was discovered that the electric shaver was missing. Cain scolded the tech who dashed out of the room in search of the tool she had forgotten.

“Something fucked you up good, huh? ‘Nother dog maybe? Big one?” He asked the dog in a voice that was soothing despite the expletive.

Cain was left applying pressure to the wounds and considering setting the IV by himself since the tech wasn’t returning fast enough for him. Sterility be damned, this was an emergency. His fingers felt expertly along the left foreleg feeling for the vein he would stick there. The dog didn’t need to be held down. She was docile and lethargic. He rubbed a quick bit of disinfectant to the area and restrained the leg while gentle pressure while he located the vein.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - megs - 06-12-2017

Julianna held the bloodied towel against her chest. They had taken the dog, but not the article. Her ears were pinned backwards as she hovered just outside the doors that led back and into the examination rooms. Her tail was still, dropped towards the floor and slightly curled upwards. She didn’t look up at her husband when he spoke, but her ears twitched once to acknowledge she had heard her him. A worried frown marred her brow.

“You’re probably right,” she mumbled. She cleared her throat and moved away from the doors, folding the towel into her lap as she dropped into a chair. Julianna knew what he was actually trying to say to her. The same thing he always said whenever she came across some sort of animal. He didn't share her natural attraction to furry and needy things.

She forced a smile at her husband, trying and failing to imply that she was totally not attached to the dog; that she wasn't secretly hoping that it didn't belong to anyone.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - SolitareLee - 06-12-2017

Bree was vaguely aware of being handed off, mostly because the light, slightly floral scent of Julianna faded quickly, replaced by the bitter sterility of a hospital. She was placed down on something hard, and kind of cold, even to her. She'd never actually been to a vet before. Were she in better condition, she'd be mortified at the concept. But right now she was just relieved.

The vet rushed in--she knew he was a doctor, because he was wearing a lab coat. That was all the reasoning she needed right then. She peered up. Surely her vision wasn't so blurry already? It looked for all the world like he had ears. Like, ears like hers. Maybe even bigger? She shook her head, and squinted up again. He was outlined by light as he leaned over her. Yeah. Those were... definitely ears. They were moving. Alright. Okay. So she was hallucinating, great.

Cat ears notwithstanding, her would-be-savior seemed extremely competent. Thank god. She let out a whine of pain as he pushed against her side, examining what she suspected to be the worst of her injuries. That was certainly where it fucking hurt. X-rays, IVs, ultrasounds... those were words Bree knew. She was in good hands. She relaxed slightly against the table, taking a moment to count her fucking blessings that she'd climbed into that lunatic's duffel bag.

She let out a tired 'whuff' in response to his question. Yeah, you could say that. A really, really big dog. It had, in fact, fucked her up good. But it was okay, because she was here now, with a giant catboy veterinarian. ...Hopefully the ears were the only thing she was hallucinating and this wasn't just like a weird fever dream or something. She'd just assume it was real and go from there. That had always worked out for her in the past.

She eyed the needle in his hand with one blue eye. It looked ominous, but tiny. It felt large in comparison to her, but in his hands, it seemed practically like a toy. She held her leg very still while he worked, wanting to help him help her in whatever limited way she could.

RE: Stowaway [Closed] - saronym - 06-14-2017

Owen took his seat next to Julianna, knowing that if that dog came back as having no known owner that he would soon be an (unwilling and unproud) pet owner. They both knew it. He threaded his arm around Julianna’s shoulders and pulled her under the protective custody of his one-armed embrace.

“We’ll just see.” He said, not wanting to seem too much a hard-ass even while he hoped they were in the clear.

“Let me take that to the car for you.” He offered of the soiled towel she was holding in her lap. “Do you want something to drink? We might be here a while.”

___

Cain indeed proceeded to set the IV without waiting for his assistant to return with the shaver. It was his professional medical opinion that expediency was needed more than sterility when the dog seemed to be fading towards the twilight side of consciousness. The IV was set and the little dog was being pumped with fluids.

Cain paged his assistant to bring the portable ultrasound instead of the shaver and to let the radiology tech know they would be coming in a few minutes for a series. Both tests went as planned and found both good things and bad things.

“No internal bleeding but she has -” he was holding an x-ray up to the light to show his assistant, “two fractured ribs. Here” he pointed with his index finger while the assistant nodded along, “and there.” The glossy film was tossed into the file. “We can leave those be - but!” he held off in finishing his thought while he gave the heart and lungs another listen through his stethoscope. “Let’s give a little something for pain.”

Grey eyes rolled towards the ceiling and his lips moved as he made the dosing calculations in his head. “Point two five milligrams of Morphine slow IV push. And let’s see if she has a chip and get some bandages on those wounds.” The tech moved as if to draw up the medication but Cain stopped her. “Actually did that second round of blood draws come back?”

The tech was dispatched to find out the fate of the labs while Cain administered pain medications, applied gauzy bandages to the wounds, and learned that indeed the animal was not chipped. “Well fuck.” He cursed in disbelief. He would have figured that a teacup breed like this one surely had some old lady somewhere looking for her. But no tags no chip was odd. “Who do you belong to?” He asked to the now (safely) drugged dog while he pulled off latex gloves. He scratched idly behind the dog's ears for a moment. It seemed like a sweet dog, and now somewhat sedated, he couldn't help but give it a comforting pet.

After a moment, Cain turned away to finished taking notes in the chart. He snorted at the delayed thought that came to him, “I guess you belong to my mom now.” The idea of his mother owning a tiny dog and how much that would annoy his stubborn father brought Cain an endless amount of amusement and he chuckled to himself while he made his notes.