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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"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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