Leave the room for five minutes, and this is what happened.

The shifter stood in the doorway to the common room. Stood, and stared, with his hands in his pockets. He'd just gotten back from an impromptu tour of the building. It had started in his room: his room, where he'd apparently misplaced his aspirin. Or had he even been keeping aspirin here? That was the downfall of having so many abodes—where he'd left what could get a little blurry. Especially when he had an ice pick in his parietal lobe, trying to cut out cubes for some nice summer lemonade. There had then been a rummaging through neighboring rooms—Isabel seemed to still be in hers, so he steered clear, but the Abyssi rooms had been fair game. Unfortunately he'd gone through Venus' first, and that had hurt his head in whole new ways. Next was the infirmary: but the infirmary liked to get all examiney, and Calley did not like the prodding and the questions.

So maybe it was more like twenty minutes. Leave a room for twenty minutes, and this is what happened.

Clearly it was the Sanctuary's fault. He'd been doing fine all winter, living at the Mansion, even with classes and certain roommates to consider. But leave a room for twenty-ish minutes, maybe more like thirty, at the Sanctuary... and come back to headache fodder.

There was a lizard. A blue, yellow, and overly violet little lizard with charming bug eyes. Pawing through his things—his private things, thank you, that he had left in a public place for only about thirty minutes—pawing, with weird lizard glove-hands, while wearing its scaly birthday suit. To put that concisely: there was a naked lizard going through his things.

The shifter stood in the doorway to the common room. Stood, and stared, with his hands in his pockets, and tried to be as polite and non-vexed as was mutantly possible.

"Hey, buddy? That's my awkwardly feminine knitting basket. If you don't mind."

Complete with nearly finished scarf, in highly fashionable colors. Colors that just about matched Violet McClubHand, here.

That thought. Did not help his head.

She'd never thought of making clothes before. It just hadn't occurred to her that they could be made. Well, of course she knew that someone had to make the clothes but Dahlia had never considered that a person could do so themselves. So she was enthralled by the basket of yarn with the partial scarf because who knew you could make these things yourself?! And the yarn was so interesting. There were all sorts of colors in the basket. Red, blue, purple, why she even thought she saw some pink! Of course clumsy chameleon hands weren't good for picking through small, delicate bits of yarn. So maybe a couple of threads got tangled. And a needle was several feet away on the floor. And there was some yarn knotted around one of her horns.

It was this perfect recipe for chaos that Calley walked in to. And spoke. To Dahlia. Who was not expecting any company at all. Needless to say Dahlia jumped, accidentally bringing the basket with her. Yarn flew every which way. Dahlia became perfectly entangled and hit the floor with a thump.

"Owww, Sorry mister. I was just curious."

A rather large dash of red blotted out the violet that had been decorating her skin.

All that, and it changed colors, too.

"Wow," the brown-haired Italian said, looking down at a lizard that was probably seeing him upside-down. Who knew, though, with those eyes. "Just... wow."

He walked a small half-circle around the kid, taking in the scene. Knitting needle over by the magazines; yarn balls in all directions, their threads tracing accusing lines back to the red-covered body on the floor. The scarf itself—the scarf he'd been working on since he'd finished up his Christmas projects—was tied up in its own strings, and impaled on one of the kid's horns.

Once more, for good measure:

"Wow. You know, only gifted and talented lizard boys can make knitting look like the scene of a murder. Your parents must be very proud. What are they, anyway--a snake-skin purse and the paint aisle at Home Depot?"

One eye was fixed on the brown haired boy. The other was darting here and there, staring at the mess she'd made. Oh she was so horrible! It would take forever to get everything straightened up and put back in the basket and she shouldn't have touched it. She was so bad. Just rotten. To top it all the lovely scarf was now impaled on one of her horns and was probably ruined. He'd have to scrap it and knit it again and it would never be the same! The guy kept saying wow. He was probably amazed at just how awful she was and how she could possibly make such a mess.

In a way she was right, though Dahlia didn't notice that as she sniffled and tried very very hard not to cry.

"I'm not a boy! And my parents hate me!"

And then she started to cry. Loudly. He thought she was a boy! Dahlia knew she'd been cursed! Knew it! Whatever she had done must of been really horrible. Well, whatever she'd done that hadn't included a knitting massacre.

"Yeah. No kidding. I can't say I'm particularly fond of you right now, eit—"

Wait. Back up. There had been a first sentence, before that second one, and the significance had just hit him. Not a boy. Which meant...

"Seriously?" The young man blinked, in the sort of taken aback surprise that cannot be faked.

It took him the span of one more blink to realize that was possibly the worst thing he could have said.

And now it was crying. Sobbing, in fact. On the ground. At his feet. As people walked by in the hallway and sort of peered in. Oh hey, folks, here's a grown man picking on the little lizard kid. Probably new to the Sanctuary, from an abusive home, the full works. Yeah. That looked great.

Someone was going to come in and punch him if he didn't shut her up fix her soon.

"Hey, hey, don't cry," the shifter said, crouching down to get at... creepy poltergeist eye level. Where they supposed to roll around like that, or did he break that, too?

"Sorry, I was just teasing. I knew you were a girl. Of course I did." Sincere cats were sincere. "I just didn't want to... ruin... the... surprise. Of..." Sincere cats never audibly grasped at straws. Or scarves, which they plucked off of lizard boy girl horns and held up in front of themselves like a shield. "This! Which I was making for you. Because I've, ah, I've... I've seen you around a few times, and I thought, a pretty girl like that needs some cool clothes. See? It's, ah... it's in your colors, and everything. But it wasn't done yet, so I didn't want to give away the surprise. Except that now you're... crying... so..."

So. That. Please stop.

It didn't quite register with Dahlia, as sad as she was, that the person that knelt down beside her was the same person that had insulted her. The same person that had only moments before copped to not liking her at all and then questioned her gender again! She was too busy crying to notice so when the nicer voice appeared, and it took her a moment to register it because it was hard to hear over her own crying, she made a grab for it and clung to the person. She'd always preferred having someone to hug when she needed a cry. Maybe if she was able to wear clothes then the boy would have known she was a girl. But she couldn't and that was horrible.

But the nice voice was talking again so Dahlia tried not to cry so loudly so that she could properly hear him. It was the boy she realized and he was explaining that he totally knew she was a girl and that he was teasing. It wasn't very nice teasing. Pranks were more fun and less hurtful. However at that moment he waved the scarf in front of her face. He'd been knitting it...for...her. All at once she ceased sniffling and hugged the boy tightly. He was making her a scarf! That was just so nice and thoughtful. Sure he'd said some not so nice things but that was obviously just a misunderstanding because no one that mean would make her a scarf! She squealed happily as she hugged they very nice boy.

"Oh thank you thank you thank you!"

The lizard-mitts? They had claws. Sharp little non-retractable claws. His T-shirt was no match, and his bare arms even less so. Also, T-shirts? Not the most tear-absorbent. So here he was, getting stabbed and soaked—

And happy lizards were even stronger. This hug. He would be feeling this hug tomorrow, all up and down his rib cage.

"It was," he gasped, "the least I could do. Do you want to," he actually felt a little creak, right there, as he tried to draw in breath, "try it on?"

Try it on, using your hands, which could then detach themselves from him. A real win-win.

Dahlia just hugged the boy tighter.

"But it isn't finished! I'll wait until it's finished."

It wouldn't be fair to him for her to try it on until it was finished. No matter how much she wanted too...

Fashion feint: fail.

There were definitely still people walking by and staring in, but now they had annoyingly amused looks on their faces. There would be no help from that quarter. If she was a fine and upstanding feline, he could just distract her vice grip with their ready supply of yarn, but he didn't think lizards worked that way.

What did you do with a lizard? Especially one who was imitating a python...

Make small talk? Appreciate the airflow you had left?

"So, I know I've seen you around, but I've never caught your name. Mine's," inhale: slow and steady wins the oxygenation, "Calley. You're, ah. You're quite strong. Does that come with being a... oh! A chameleon." The color-changing, the weird eyes, the horns, the mitts: she totally was. Cool.

The kind of coolness he felt could be more properly appreciated from a distance.

The fact that she hadn't introduced herself didn't occur to Dahlia until Calley was kind enough to mention it. At which point she turned a bit more red and let go.

"Oh sorry! I'm Dahlia. Nice to meetcha Calley!"

It was nice to meet him, now that he wasn't the mean boy that assumed she was a boy as well. Dahlia was totally willing to overlook that because he was so nice. Unless he got mean again but Dahlia really hoped he wouldn't!

"Sorry sorry, I...uh...got kinda excited. I hug awful hard when I'm excited."

It was true. Mom had always said she was really strong! Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't but she did give good hugs. Dahlia's eyes began to dart around and she started picking up the yarn and untangling what she could.

"Here, lemme help clean this up since it was kinda my fault."

The lizard: it could take a hint. This was a good thing, for his overall lung capacity. Calley massaged his chest lightly in her wake.

"Dahlia? Well, Dahlia, if you ever get kidnapped, just give the guy a hug."

He joined her in picking things up, and putting them back in the basket. While he certainly appreciated her efforts to help, he thought it wise to get as many of the yarn balls as he could before her chameleon hands tried to help untangle them. This level of tangling hadn't happened in a simple basket drop, and it certainly hadn't been like this when he'd left the basket sitting on the couch a half hour ago, so something had gotten it messed up in the meantime. Not to point fingers; thick, awkward, clawed fingers.

"How long have you been at the Sanctuary, Dahlia? You, ah, don't seem like the usual Sanctuary type. Are you still in school?"

He didn't know what was his first hint: the crying, or the absolutely no inclination to try and maim him when he'd caused the crying.

And she turned even more red. The blue and yellow were nearly gone now.

"But why would I hug someone mean?"

It was an honest question. Mean people didn't deserve hugs. Dahlia grabbed a couple more balls of yarn as she thought about it. Her hands were perfect for gripping things and the yarn, though awkwardly shaped, had enough give to ensure she had no trouble returning it to the basket.

The bright embarrassed red shifted to a dark blue as Calley asked how long she'd been there and mentioned that she didn't really seem to belong there.

"Not long, a few months maybe. I ran away from home after...this happened. Kaitlyn was nice enough to help me out and bring me here. It's better than the streets."

She took a moment to grab more yarn and fake a smile before she answered Calley's other question.

"And nope! No school for me. Why should I go back? I bet most schools wouldn't let someone like me in any way."

About as far from a little girl as possible she might look, but flushing red still seemed to be flushing red, even if it was a full-body effect with her.

Speaking of which: the girl really did need some clothes. Because she'd just been hugging him, while stark naked. And while all the reptile skin and color-changing and preternatural rib-cracking grip had distracted him, but it was certainly hitting him now: he'd been getting cuddled. By a naked girl. Who wasn't in school, but definitely sounded like she should be. Girl didn't need a scarf, she needed a tabbard.

"So how old are you, anyway?" Calley asked, laying down on the floor so he could fish out a yarn ball that had voyaged all the way under the couch. Reach for it... reach for it... Gah! All his fingers did was send it rolling out the other side. Calley stood up, and walked around the couch: a little punt sent the ball rolling towards Dahlia's lap.

"I'm in school," he said, draping his arms over the couch back. "Senior year, now. I wish I'd just gone to it when I was your age—it's a lot easier. You pretty much need school for everything, unless you want to be a drug dealer or a mutant thug that goes around beating up the normals." Not that that wasn't a valid career path, around here. But like he'd said: she didn't strike him as the Sanctuary type. "If you're worried about people staring, just go to the Mansion. It's a school for mutants. It's where I—wait. Where did that other knitting needle go?"

Seriously. Hard to knit, with just the one. She had better find it, or no lizard scarf for her.

A couple more yarn balls, one in the hand and one that the tail had awkwardly curled around another. They both went in the basket as the other hand plucked strands of yarn off of her body here and there. It was awfully messy stuff, despite being so colorful and nifty. She'd stick to making jewelry. Calley's question about her age caused one eye to swivel toward him.

"13, why?"

The other eye was fixated on a rogue ball of yarn that kept getting away as she tried to grab it. Hands and feet made for gripping or no it was difficult to wrangle a ball of yarn that didn't want to be wrangled! The mention of future careers stalled her chase of the errant fibers.

"But...that sounds mean."

And Dahlia frowned, as well as a chameleon could. The mention of the mansion had her rolling both of her very agile eyes.

"What's the point in going to a mutant school if they can't do anything about this?"

Instead of using a hand, Dahlia motioned to herself with her tail. She was getting better at using it for things, though it wasn't very useful and probably would never be. That pesky ball of yarn was found and on her way back to the basket to drop it in she accidentally kicked the second needle out of its hiding spot.

"You mean this?" she said, waving the other needle about.

Something about a thirteen year old lizard waving a large knitting needle around didn't strike him as the safest thing in the world. "Yeah, that. Why don't you just set that down, in the basket, right there. "

He put his hands on the back of the couch, and vaulted lightly down so his butt bounced on the cushions. Somewhere in the process, he acquired black cat ears, and the long soft tail to match. Said tail curled lightly in the air near his shoulders as he raised a casual eyebrow.

"You mean, do something about stuff like this?" Just as fast, the ears and tail were gone. But semi-retractable claws remained, on the hands whose nails he was casually picking clean.

"Maybe they can. But if you'd rather shake down humans for their money while their little pink normal-looking kids cry in the background, that's up to you. Personal preference. Far be it for me to naysay any young chameleon girl's aspirations to join the mutant mafia and break kneecaps with her lovely prehensile tail. It's just like giving a hug that ends in a crack, right?" He looked up from his hands, and flashed a smile. Pick, pick. These were going to be the cleanest claws ever.

"On the other hand, if you'd rather be a scientist or a doctor or a teacher or some kind of benefits-the-world sort of person," yeah: boring, right? "I guess I could put in a good word for you over at the Mansion. Don't know. Might be a little hard, since you've been living here for months. You've probably already punched a puppy, or something villainous. Hard to go straight, once you start punching puppies."

Yep. He blew on his claws, admiring them in all their felinious beauty.