tampered | bang bang that awful sound; log : on-going

bang bang that awful sound; log : on-going

When; December 4, 2008; evening
Rating; PG?
Characters; Eden (

adamantined)
Summary; Sometimes you just need a little Audrey Hepburn and a few tubs of cookie dough to make it through the holidays. Warning: retarded girls ahead.
Log;

What they don't tell you is that shopping is exhausting. Or maybe they do tell you and you just never listen. It's so insubstantial anyway, hardly anything of importance: you go out, you look at some shoes, you eat a pretzel at Auntie Anne's and then you buy a couple dresses and some shining blue eyeshadow and call it a day. There's ice cream to be picked up on the way back to the apartments, even if it's in the thirties, and some fumble or other because someone's dropped their phone in a puddle while they were laughing. But pretty soon everyone is inside where it's warm and heeled boots can be taken off and sweatshirts can get pulled on underneath knit blankets.

At least here they can. In Texas, the weather is different enough that the blanket at least wouldn't be part of the equation. And she would be sitting at the counter, talking to her mother, and waiting for her father to get home while throwing rolled up wads of note cards at the back of Lyle's head. Instead, Claire has hollowed out a little spot in the corner of Eden's couch with a blanket and a bowl of ice cream. If she looks awkward, she doesn't feel it. In fact she's kind of completely at ease, if not tired. Because what they don't tell you is that shopping is exhausting.

Claire knows they're probably going to broach an awkward conversation or two before she has to go home at eleven, but those can wait until they crop up on their own. Right now, her mind is still stuck on DRESSES as she waits for Eden to put the movie on. "What's this about again?" she asks, through a garbled mouthful of ice cream. "Pants?"

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There are a lot of things that Eden's thankful for in the City, but the Bennet family is undoubtedly on the top of that list. They're the closest thing that Eden's ever had to a family, over a period of six short months, happily extended—hopefully many times over, the selfish half of Eden's mind thinks. It gives her life a sense of normalcy, in getting to ask Noah permission to go on a date, or planning a simple shopping trip with Claire to the mall. Curses are the least of any of their worries—they're underwhelming, at best, when compared to Kirby Plaza and the Company and everything else that has wrapped around their lives in the past years.

And yes, shopping is exhausting, deceptively so. Even if your mind is the type to be stubborn like Eden's, convinced that no amount of distraction will keep her mind off of Mohinder and how much she'd love to punch him in the nose. Perhaps that much is true, that distraction can't pull her away, but when one's knees are weak and thighs are aching, it becomes a matter of pulling together enough energy to even think.

Eden digs into the pint of ice cream, relishing the taste. Not too rich after all.

"Not exactly," she laughs, shaking her spoon in front of her. "It's about fashion and learning to... pull away from stereotypes, I guess. But Audrey Hepburn wears some pretty chic outfits in it, if you ask me."

"Chic involving dresses?" Claire asks, unfolding and refolding her legs so that the blood flows right and she's less sandwiched into the corner. The blanket slips a bit and she just lets it pool in her lap, balancing her bowl on her knee as she raises her arms high above her head and stretches. Before the bowl can slip, she pulls it back and takes another mouthful of ice cream.

At least this time she has the decency to swallow. "I think that's gonna be my new project or something," she goes on, looking over at Eden briefly before facing forward and watching the television again.

She starts to say something about maybe Mohinder not minding seeing Eden's knees once and a while but cuts herself off almost immediately by taking another bite of ice cream. In the silence that follows, barely a second long, she tries to think of something to say and only comes up with: "Turning you into a chic Audrey Hepburn with dresses. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it."

"Chic involving dresses... after she's hired for a fashion magazine, anyway," Eden laughs, nestling herself among the pillows and taking another bite of ice cream. "But keep in mind that this was filmed decades ago, so chic back then is a little different than chic today. I like to think that I've adapted Jo Stockton's personal style to match the 21st century. Black and more black with accents of white and brown. Timeless."

Meanwhile, the movie turns to Miss Prescott, although intent on proving Eden's point wrong, and her fascination with the color pink.

"But I'll happily oblige if you think that you can transform me into any type of Audrey Hepburn. It'll be like the evolution of Eliza Doolittle." Briefly, Eden takes on a very unnatural British accent. "Ought I speak more properly as well?"

Contrary to popular belief, Claire isn't much of a girl for pink. Maybe it was the combination of too much red and white, never really diluted down to make pink but the red was always enough. She used to like pink, when she was little: pinks and periwinkles and lavenders and anything pale and soft. But she's more moving up Eden's alley now. She likes black and white and browns. Even if she still likes bright blues and yellows and oranges.

But that is all beside the point, the point is movies and ice cream and Eden. Claire actually does have a comment about the blacks and browns thing - you aren't supposed to mix those, you know - only it never gets out for her laughing.

"That was terrible," Claire says, a little bit of ice cream running down her chin. She swipes at it immediately and rolls her eyes. "You're never allowed to do that again." Her attention moves back toward the movie, although she is still eying Eden. Eventually she says. "Or you have to speak like that all the time."

Maybe mixing brown and black is making a fashion statement. Who knows?

But Eden laughs with, just because her accent probably is that bad, and the only real accent that Eden can deal with is either Midwestern or Texan. Nothing beyond the borders. For a moment, she considers mentioning that she could always study abroad, get that degree in some faraway country like Germany or Italy just for the hell of it.

And then she remembers, and covers it with another bite of ice cream. Convenient, this stuff.

Huh. She's never thought of it before, but she'll never leave the country, unless you count the City. And that's an odd, sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach.

"I'm sure that I could learn to speak like that all the time if I spent more time around the wizards," Eden notes, gesturing with her spoon. "Regulus, Severus, and Remus. Why do all of them seem to have "us" names, anyway? Except for Ron."

Edited 2008-12-06 04:33 (UTC)

Claire shrugs, though she's smiling. She's found herself doing that a lot when she thinks of Regulus, and it makes her feel young and stupid and like she's the type of girl who can draw mermaids in the margins of her notebook paper and not have to suffer any consequences because of it. The other two names invoke different reactions, though they're completely different from each other in how they make her feel.

She laughs again, though. Which is good! It's been a long time since she laughed so much in one setting over something small and silly, and she's glad that Eden is the one to get it out of her. Considering the way that she felt toward the other woman when she arrived in the City, Claire is glad that things are changing, molding back into the way that they used to be between them. They were never extremely close, but Claire had called Eden once or twice in their history to complain about something stupid or unfair, and she was always glad to have her around, even more glad in this moment.

"You know, I think they had another guy from their world whose name was Harry," she says, scraping the bottom of her bowl and glancing at the television. "Maybe parents stopped hopping on the Latin train and tried to be more mainstream. For what it's worth, though," and here her voice is loud as she demonstrates a point, "I hang out with Regulus all the time and I still sound like a dork when I try to be British."

It's not because she sometimes has a small drawl. Not at all.

It's one of those things to ponder, the fact that there's so much being put at peace posthumously, things that would have Eden lingering around if ghosts and their whispers really did exist. Six months is a significant amount of time, as far as Eden can remember, for relationships and friendships to build in high school, and that's what had happened, after the first time Noah brought Eden to the house. To this day, Eden feels that there was a bit of an ulterior motive in it. To make Eden attached to this particular client, in a way that she'd never been allowed to attach herself to anyone else, even Mohinder, when she'd simply lived next door. The trust was breached, but here, where the Company isn't really a factor, it's being mended again.

She wonders if Claire'll remember, whenever she leaves the City. Wonders if Eden herself will remember, if she fades away from this place as well.

"I guess Harry's a pretty common name. Princess Diana's second son, at that, so maybe British people happen to be fond of the name," Eden wonders, staring vaguely in the direction of the television without really registering anything. "And I think that while hanging out with Regulus, perhaps there are other distractions that keep you from treading on the path to true Britishisms."

Her lips curve in a grin.

Her bowl is empty. Unfortunately, Claire wishes that she had more in it so that she would have a reason to look down and scrape her spoon across the bottom. She does it anyway, back and forth, short, fast strokes, like she's trying to force something off the porcelain. There is a smile on her face that tries very hard to make itself bigger, but Claire is polite enough to hold it back, keep it in check, because she knows whatever was or is going on with Eden and Mohinder is currently in a bad spot, and she doesn't want to rub it in.

Claire doesn't actually have anything to say to that, though, not without feeling foolish or feeling like she's needling someone else's wound. She likes Regulus, she likes talking about Regulus, and she will go on and on about it if someone doesn't stop her. In the long run, it's just easier not to.

"If that were true," she starts, then stops herself again, inwardly rolling her eyes at her caution. Claire Bennet is capable of speaking her mind, and she's not entirely sure why she's been holding back on doing it so much around people lately. "It's not like that. I mean, it is like that, but it's not like that." The whole conversation just makes her feel half-sick and awkward, so she changes the topic, in a way. "That'd explain why you don't sound like Mohinder."

She's still trying not to rub it in, but it was on her tongue and now there's no taking it back. This is a conversation Eden needs to have anyway.

From one stomach to the other, the feeling of unease settles on Eden's chest, and she scoops more ice cream into Claire's bowl, because her throat's closing up slightly and she can't nearly finish all of that ice cream anyway. Nevertheless, she laughs it off, like a good defense mechanism would, except it doesn't quite hold before the edge of bitterness wiggles in. Why she doesn't sound like Mohinder indeed.

"I once remarked on his accent," she begins, slowly, measured words. "I am rather fond of it, after all. It's easy on the ears. And then he went on to talk about how his accent was a reminder of how the country was, for a long period of time, under British control and so all that his accent proved was that they used to be under the rule of a country that cared not for India's native culture and did their best to Westernize it."

Recalling this conversation just makes Eden's lips set even more. Almost everything that she says has her tripping in front of him. It never happened before, and she can't figure out why. Because she wasn't herself? Because she hid her time in the Company?

Tch.

"I've a date with Tybalt Capulet in the coming week, so I'm not so sure that's true anyway."

Her eyes focus on the television just in time to watch Audrey mention empathicalism. Ironic.

"I think that's a girl thing," Claire replies, not actually eating this new addition of ice cream but stirring it around in her bowl until it's melted and soupy. The movie holds her interest at random times but not enough to make her look up enough to know exactly what is going on. "Put a guy with an accent in front of a girl, and she's probably gonna find something she likes about him."

Claire sets the bowl on the table next to her and pulls her blanket up and over her chest. She suddenly feels a lot colder than she did a moment ago but not in a way that is necessarily unpleasant. She just wants to be warmer, curled up and in a ball and safe here like she is at home.

The name Tybalt wakes her up a little, though. "Really?" she asks, not necessarily skeptical but just surprised.

"Maybe," Eden concedes, finishing the last bite of ice cream and noting that with it, she's probably crossed her threshold of ice cream tolerance and won't be eating it for the next month. "I do hope I wasn't quite that shallow, but there's no denying that it's a plus. And his hair. I thought that his hair was rather cute, the first time I met him."

Eden peers over at Claire, curling up, a small part of her worrying and hoping that she isn't weirding the girl out or anything along those lines. Eden places the empty carton of ice cream on the same table, falls back into the couch, hugs one of the pillows to her chest.

"And yeah, really. You don't think it's too much, do you? It's just lunch, and the guy's from the 1800s so it's not like he's going to expect anything too soon," Eden reasons, almost as though making excuses for herself. "I don't think Mohinder's going to talk to me anyway, not unless I offer him an apology, and I'm not exactly... inclined to."

"Don't apologize to Mohinder," she spits before she can stop herself, and maybe there's a little bit of her own disdain and frustration with him mixed in her advice, and maybe her advice isn't really advice at all but a poorly hidden show of personal taste, and maybe she was biased, and maybe she was only sixteen, and maybe none of it really mattered at all. "He's being a jerk, and you deserve to go on a date."

As if that clarifies everything he has been.

"But I don't think it's too much, no. I've only spoken to him once, but he was alright. He's a little... out there, but it's kind of cool. I think it'll be more fun than what you've dealt with recently, anyway."

"He's definitely a little out there, but we had an interesting conversation about names. Not to mention that he insisted on me getting my recent guardian's permission for the date, which meant a phone call with your father, and..."

Telling Claire that her father thinks Eden is a girl who likes to taste all sorts of food before settling is a bad idea, huh?

"I don't know, it was just a nice feeling. Your dad mentioned the possibility of threatening him with a shotgun."

Eden stretches, staring at the ceiling, digesting Claire's words for exactly what they're worth. More than just a sixteen-year-old's words. The words of someone who's been in these types of situations and has known Mohinder for as long as she has, if not longer.

"I don't want to apologize. He got mad at me for suggesting that we should have asked people to vacate the building, when Remy went into a coma. I just didn't know if things would react poorly, because there have been people with abilities who've caused great damage, unintentionally, when under duress," she slowly explains, hoping Claire won't think her in the wrong. "Elle, for instance. But the words that he gave me in return...

"No, I don't want to apologize, and yet, I'm a little terrified that he won't speak to me if I don't. Does that make sense? Sometimes you have to be the bigger person if you value something, or someone, that much. So I'm just... wondering what to do. I don't want to weigh you down with it, though."

"That's... Dad," Claire says, smiling a little. It's not even something that needs clarification. She definitely, definitely knows how her father is when it comes to boys - with good reason, it seems. Of course she doesn't think he would have gone for a shotgun: they're a little bit too conspicuous after all.

Claire bristles at Elle's name. She isn't sure how she feels about Elle. Part of her is disgusting and full of hatred, a slow-simmering poison that wants to crawl out and infect everything she touches. At the same time, she almost pities the other girl, sees a hundred started futures that Claire could have had but never did because her father loves her too much.

She swallows that down, buries it, says, "If he doesn't speak to you again then it's his loss. Talking to him doesn't mean automatically having to say that you're sorry. I think Mohinder is the one who needs to be the bigger person. He's acting like a jackass to everyone."

Yes, she did just say 'ass,' don't tell.

Eden notices the tension, but if Claire's big enough not to mention her dislike of Elle, then Eden should be big enough to trust Claire on that issue. All the same, she's tempted to place a hand on Claire's shoulder, tell her that she understands the dislike but that yes, there's pity. Always pity, when it comes to Elle Bishop, and that might be the hardest thing of all for the little charged agent to cope with.

Sometimes, it's easy to forget that Claire's tolerance and kindness didn't just spring out of nowhere. Noah's done a lot to cultivate it.

"I guess you're right, but all the same..." Eden's eyes widen a bit, however, at what Claire implies. "Wait, when you say everyone... has he been mean to you as well? If anything, I'd think that you're being the most tolerant of him right now."

Claire looks up, and the half-dirty look she gives Eden is very obviously not directed at the other girl but that doesn't diminish it in any capacity. She's angry, and she's had plenty of time to stew about it and get herself even more worked up. It's been lurking there under the surface and now that she's focusing on it, it's bubbling over.

"He's been a complete jerk to both me and Hiro, and I don't know why. He said something about respect and the holiday and I don't know. It's stupid. He's being stupid."

There's a part of Eden which is very bitter, practically seething, because it isn't right that Mohinder is taking out his frustrations on Claire Bennet and Hiro Nakamura. They aren't culpable for anything, not even in some strange, distant, tangential manner, and all that he's ever directed at Eden herself also seems so ridiculous now. Months at the Company have tempered her personality, and anger is so rarely felt, but at times it still appears like quicksilver, Eden's jaw setting.

Mirror images in the girls, perhaps.

"He'll come apologizing to you both, after Remy's awakened, I suspect," Eden eventually replies, looking Claire's way, having softened her expression somewhat before doing so. "People and their jobs, I swear. And Mohinder is the type to be obsessed about his work too, from what I've seen. I encouraged it at first, but if he keeps this up he's going to lose a lot of people. Friends."

The television sings about Paris.

"I'm sorry if he's channeling his anger at me and directing towards the both of you. One comment, just one comment about how I didn't see why anyone wouldn't want to expand Christmas day into an entire season, and he somehow managed to turn it into some politically incorrect statement that I was supposedly directing at him. And he feels that I haven't respected his opinion either, because I thought his father was a good man, when perhaps he wasn't so to his own son."

At this, Eden's voice eventually quiets down, the boil down to a simmer.

"I certainly hope he'll apologize to you, otherwise I might just tear a new one into him. He's been in need of more of that nose bandage accessory for a while now anyway." Eden grins a bit, leaning over and wrapping an arm around Claire's shoulder, giving her a small squeeze before she pulls back.

Claire toys with the frayed ends of the blanket, feeling a little bad that she's let all that out both on Eden and over Mohinder's head and feeling nothing at all. Why should she feel bad that people know Mohinder is being a tool? Why should she care that he's digging himself deeper and deeper with the people who try and try to care about him?

She doesn't know, so she doesn't care. It's easy to slip back into that gossip girl role, the kind of person she was before Zach and everything else at school made her see things through different glasses.

"I don't know if it's got to do with you entirely," she reassures Eden, and she really isn't sure that's the reason. Some people just get crabby around the holidays. Mohinder is downright vindictive, though, and the last time he had acted that way, she'd told him to shut up. And he did apologize. "I'm sure your conversation had something to do with it, but I'm sure my conversation with him didn't help."

She leans into Eden momentarily, grinning, too, and then says, "I hope he apologizes to you first. Or I might tear him a new one."

Had Eden some insight into Claire's thoughts, she'd explain that it's different. Different when someone's wronged you first, because then it's less a matter of gossip and more a matter of how much you'll really cope with before it's too much and you snap. Sometimes this type of gossip is fine, even necessary, whether as a warning or just to keep one's head screwed on the right way. She doesn't remember much, oh she doesn't remember much, because these are things that Eden's traded away to the deities, but where the memories are gone, the sentiment remains. Where details are hazy, Eden has the records, recounts of how her stepmother pressed and Eden snapped with all of the weight of her DNA behind her.

In these cases, best not to take too much on one's shoulders. It's different than what Jackie did.

"I'm sure that you were just trying to knock some sense into him," Eden laughs, toying with her oversized sweater, shaking her head. "Mohinder tends not to be fond of things like that. Although who knows? Maybe it'll be so much more effective if he was literally knocked here and there a bit. If you do tear him one, you'll have to recount it to me in great detail, you know."

"I don't know," Claire begins, rolling her neck to look over at Eden with a smug smile. "The last time he was in a weird mood - even though it was different than the one he's in now - I told him to shut up and he shut up, and he apologized the next day."

She looks down at her fingernails, and the bright blue polish is starting to chip so she picks at it a little bit. "I don't really want to talk to him, which kind of puts a lid on the whole tearing him a new one thing." Claire isn't sure how she's going to suffer taking care of Remy in the same apartment that Mohinder lives in, but she can suck it up and play cards with Hiro, who Mohinder's also been something of a jerk to.

"Well, I'm tempted to buy him a pair of socks like he wanted and lace them with itching powder. So I can't say that I've got any moral high ground over you," Eden replies, a hint of amusement in her voice, but it's barely there.

Eden applied nail polish as well, recently. Clear polish. Harder to tell when it chips.

"Don't talk to him if it makes you feel uncomfortable, Claire. Eventually, things will ease up, and he'll come to you like a puppy with its tail between its legs. So many things that you've tolerated for him. His temper, and. Well, he told me about the incident with the gun." She pauses, here, wondering if she's breached a bad topic. "Besides, at least you won't be the only one left with him in the apartment while you're taking care of Remy. At the very least, I think the ducks are always there."

"I don't know if that would help," Claire says, trying to stay serious, but she's laughing, picturing Mohinder trying to contain himself with his feet itching too much to stand up. "I think that might make him a little more irritable. Besides, if you're going all out, you might as well go big. I'll get Hiro to put it in his pants."

She's not serious. Maybe. Everyone in the world hopes, at least.

"It makes me feel bad not talking to him, but..." She trails off, remembering back so long ago, how Mohinder hadn't been himself, Tavi being there. Claire hadn't been mad or even upset. She had only been concerned for Mohinder. "That wasn't his fault. Something was happening at the time. He wasn't normal."

There's a quiet moment in which Claire takes herself back to that moment, in the apartment. How still everything had been and how afraid she had been only because someone else had known her secret, because it meant that Tavi was in danger. Or had been. She never knew about Sylar anymore. He confused her more than she was willing to admit. "I've been bringing Dinosaur with me," she goes on, softly, "whenever it's just me and Remy. I brought Mr. Muggles once but he peed in the corner and I had to clean it up aaaand I never brought him back because Mohinder already thinks Mr. Muggles hates him enough."

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bang bang that awful sound; log : on-going

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