InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Just one, I'm a few"

Lyle Bennet (notlarry) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2011-03-28 00:29:00

Entry tags:

claire winchester, lyle bennet

WHO: Lyle Bennet & Claire Winchester
WHAT: Video store inventory, siblingish chatter, and the discovery of where Claire's ability vanished to.
WHERE: The Video Store
WHEN: Evening
RATING: PG
STATUS: In Progress

Popcorn, soda, and candy, Lyle had pretty much loaded himself down with whatever treats he could find in his apartment that wouldn't knock down on the store's stock in order to last them for whenever the Chinese food inevitably wore off. It always seemed to at the worst possible moments, and it was never gradual either. It always went from completely full to suddenly starving. So Lyle was making sure that he was prepared. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to have things ready in case anything in the new shipment actually proved to be interesting. Even if Claire was really picky about what she let him watch, she'd caved last time to a well placed set of puppy dog eyes and a little pout and whimper. If it had worked then, it should work again.

Pushing open the door of the video store with his shoulder and back, his hands having been far too laden to manage with the door, he flashed his sister a bright smile as he held up the bags, "I come bearing gifts of sweet and salty treats. For later, that is," He said, moving to set them back behind the front desk and then turned to lock the door and flip the sign to closed as he had last time. The shop was a mess when they were doing inventory, and they certainly wouldn't want anyone to walk in on the chaos and actually attempt to find something during that time.

"So. What does this place have in story this time?" Lyle asked, beaming as he clapped his hands together. "Who gets to be newly proven fictional?"

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goallbuffyonus
2011-03-28 07:33 am UTC (link)

Claire was sitting on the floor of the shop, DVD cases stacked in careful piles around her. She had just finished sorting through the titles starting with S - had actually just finished reminding herself that Sanctuary came before Supernatural in the alphabet, in fact - when Lyle stepped inside. With a grin she stood, stepping over a pile of cases and pulling the inventory list from her pocket.

"With all of the crazy going on, I haven't paid much attention to who might be new and on the list, so by all means," she said, handled the list over for him to look at. Yes, she was funny about what shows she let him watch. Yes, she tended to guard the DVDs on that list with her life whenever they arrived. However she was in a good mood, so far Lyle had done a great job at not geeking out at anyone, so she saw no harm in letting him see the newest haul for himself.

Minus one episode of Supernatural, that is. She had given Crowley the episode containing his death last night and, frankly, was glad to have it out of her shop. It had taken everything she had just to sit through the entire thing. Although she did feel better by reminding herself that, at the very least, if Samuel Campbell ever showed his face in Colligo, she would know exactly where he stood when it came to his grandsons.

And would probably do everything in her power to make sure the sonofabitch never so much as laid eyes on her children.

Not wanting to ruin her good mood thinking about a man who wasn't even a current threat, Claire refocused on Lyle. Or, more importantly, the bags of goodies he'd brought with him. Much like when they were younger, she made no attempt to hide her curiosity as she peered into each bag, grinning broadly at what she found. "Oh!" she added, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Chinese is over there." She nodded toward a rather large paper bag on the nearby counter.

"Do you want to eat first then work or multi-task like it's actually cool?"

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notlarry
2011-03-28 08:30 am UTC (link)

"Multi-task like a boss, of course. Why would you even have to ask?" Lyle asked with a bit of a pshaw in his voice as he crossed over to the bag of Chinese food. At college, the first time that Lyle had ordered Chinese for himself, it had taken him a moment after getting it back to his dorm to realize that he lacked the necessary plates and forks that his mother had always insisted that they use whenever eating the takeout. The revelation that he could eat it out of the box without being fussed over had been a major one, one of the first realizations that he was away from his family and on his own. It had been bitter sweet then, freeing but lonely, but here, it was simply freeing. It was ridiculously, really, that he'd stayed behind in California simply because he'd wanted to get away from Claire's crazy for awhile only to find out that while he was there, he really missed it.

At least, until she was leaping off of Ferris Wheels on the ten o'clock news. Then he'd remembered why he'd stayed behind in the first place.

Popping open each of the containers to see what was actually on the menu tonight, Lyle grabbed one of the small containers of sticky rice for himself as he plopped down cross legged in front of the DVD piles and grabbed a small stack of unused movie posters from underneath one of the tables in lay out the food on. Turning the list over in his hand, Lyle screwed up his features in confusion, "What the hell is The Cape? That sounds so lame."

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goallbuffyonus
2011-03-28 08:52 am UTC (link)

Snagging her container of shrimp lo mein, Claire sat down beside her brother. She had missed him a lot more than she would have thought possible while she'd been in Colligo and, really, even before that when dealing with the insanity of her life back home. Although he had always been an annoying, pesky brother, she had never really realized how calming an influence he could be when she really needed it. She knew it wasn't intentional on his part, of course, but was simply his personality serving as a balance to her own, but the intentions didn't matter. She had realized he was just as important in her life as their parents and was determined to make up for all of the times she'd been truly crappy to him just because he had been normal while she hadn't.

Of course, the best way to make such a thing up to someone was probably not through Chinese food and a veritable all-nighter in a video store, but she was starting small. Bonding was important. So was not losing your mind when stocking DVDs. This way, she was able to get the best of both worlds. Plus free snacks when the Chinese food wore off somewhere around ten or so.

Snorting at his question, she finished chewing her mouthful of food before shaking her head. "It sounds like the name of a really unoriginal comic," she replied, leaning over a bit to glance at the list as well. "No clue what it really is, though." Sitting up straight again, Claire put her food down and reached for the DVDs bearing the name The Cape.

She studied the cover for a second before casting a sideways grin at her brother. "Want to check it out?" she asked.

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notlarry
2011-03-28 09:30 am UTC (link)

Lyle tilted his head to the side to eye the back cover and made a wincing air whistle through his teeth, "Ouch. Only ten episodes. It must be really bad," He said before getting an absolutely delighted grin on his face. "That means we have to." Bad television was always so much better than good television simply because it gave you something to laugh at. Especially when a show that shouldn't tried to take itself too seriously. But he supposed they would soon enough see exactly what the fault was with this thing.

Snagging the container of kung po chicken and a set of chopsticks, Lyle dug into his own food while going over the rest of the list. "How much are we going to have to throw in the do not rent or watch ever pile, eh?" He asked, taking a bite of his food and chewed thoughtfully. "At least stuff from our world seems to have stopped coming in. No more life secrets to keep stuffed away."

Not that they probably had any secrets after Claire had thrown herself off that Ferris Wheel. But it was impossible say. It all seemed to just...stop there. Like that was the last important thing that had happened in their lives. It was a bit disconcerting for everything they knew to suddenly stop so abruptly. But surely there was a good reason for it. Maybe they just...really wouldn't have liked what came next.

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goallbuffyonus
2011-03-29 01:30 am UTC (link)

Ten episodes? That was it? Yikes. Claire winced a bit in sympathy for whoever had decided to produce such a bombshell. Flipping the case over, she glanced at the information on the back then tossed Lyle a grin and rose to her feet.

Crossing to the DVD player, Claire put the disk in and snagged the remote for the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the store. She snorted at Lyle's first question, nodding in agreement as his second. "Yeah," she answered as she made her way back to their makeshift dinner area. "I still think that's both good and bad, really. I mean, okay. So I did a header off the Ferris Wheel. But you're living proof that something comes next. Why not show it?"

It didn't make sense to her. Granted, Claire had never entertained the thought that maybe they just weren't that popular of a show. Or that maybe they had had a good run of it and the creators had realized it was time to stop while they were on top. No, as far as she was concerned, the fictional glimpse into her real life should have been more than entertaining and definitely shouldn't have caused interest to wane right when she'd done what was probably the dumbest thing she'd ever done.

Picking up her container of food again, Claire took a bite then glanced at the ever growing pile of DVDs around them. "We're looking at about fifty percent or so we'll have to store in the back, from what I can tell," she answered, glancing sideways at her brother with a touch of a grimace. "Not counting the ones that are so obscure we won't know them just by name." Which was another reason, truth be told, that Claire paid as much attention to the network as she did. It was a lot easier to know who was 'fictional' and who wasn't, at a glance, if you kept abreast of the new arrivals.

With a slight shrug, she turned her attention briefly to the television as the show began to start. Yes, they needed to work, but Claire was curious to find out not only just how bad this show happened to be but also if anyone currently in the city happened to be on it.

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notlarry
2011-03-29 04:37 pm UTC (link)

Lyle shrugged at Claire's question. He didn't have any clue. Lyle had seen the beginnings of the situation that had been developing, even if they hadn't shown it here. He knew that life had gone on from the point that the fictionalization of it stopped, but he only only speculate on why they didn't go forward. "Maybe the network didn't think massive political debates was going to make good TV. Or maybe showing the United States in an uproar about certain individuals because of characteristics that they couldn't change just struck a little too close to home, and they figured no one would really appreciate having their own hypocrisy shoved in their face. Hard to say," Lyle said, shrugging again.

Taking another bite, Lyle chewed until a thought came to mind that prompted him to speak even before he'd finished, "Or maybe the government came in and shut it down because they had more than enough footage to point to for plausible deniability should anyone ever try and say that there actually are people with abilities in their world?"

Hey, Lyle wouldn't have been surprised what lengths people would go to considering what his father had done in order to keep it a secret from his family. He still didn't remember the things that he'd been told had been wiped from his memory after they went on the run. Even if he did think that it would certainly have been a much, much better way to find out what his sister could do instead of watching her get shot, die, come back to life, and then get turned into nuclear fried Skeletor as their house was destroyed.

Flicking his gaze back to the screen, Lyle frowned slightly at the blissful family scene that graced it, "I think I've seen that guy," He said before taking another bit of his food and shaking his head as the scene switched. "Chess? Orwell? So this is one of those ridiculous codename superhero shows, then?"

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goallbuffyonus
2011-03-29 10:25 pm UTC (link)

Claire thought about what Lyle had said and, although she wasn't sure what the right answer was and knew they'd probably never figure it out, she found herself leaning toward his third suggestion. Which, of course, was the least likely of all of the suggestions and she had a feeling only someone raised by Noah Bennet would really consider it at all.

With a bemused shake of her head, Claire dropped her attention to her container of food and picked at it with her chopsticks. "It's pretty bad that my first thought is 'well, Dad would've definitely had something like that shut down, so that's probably what happened', huh?" she questioned with a shake of her head. Her attention snapped from her food, to him, to the television when he said he thought he'd recognized the guy.

Brow furrowing, she stared at the screen for a few seconds longer before shaking her head. The... cop, apparently, didn't look too familiar to her, but she couldn't swear she hadn't seen him before either. Snorting at her brother's commentary, she continued to divide her attention from the show, her food, and the rest of the new arrivals they still had to sort through.

"Maybe it's some kind of Batman ripoff, or something," she offered after a second, frowning thoughtfully as she looked back at the screen in time to see the guy (definitely a cop, she noted) heading into the police precinct. "But if someone doesn't die or something doesn't blow up in the next five minutes, I think we know why it got canceled so early."

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notlarry
2011-03-31 05:23 am UTC (link)

"I bet you five bucks both happen," Lyle said, a slight grin on his features. He knew the formula of these sort of things. A new police chief being introduced after they'd been warned of a murderous masked villain being loose in the city? Oh, that man was going to die, and he was likely going to die in the most elaborate and messy way possible. Shoveling another bit of kung po into his mouth, Lyle gestured at the TV, "Pretty black girl and the police chief, probably," He murmured through a mouthful of food. "Pretty black girls never last long on these things. Especially cop pretty black girls."

Which was a horrible thing to say despite how true it really was. Even in their reality, really.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem very Batman-y. I mean, look, there's sunshine. Gotham City is never sunny. It's always bleak night were evil-doers lurk in the shadows, not..." Lyle blinked at the TV, lifting an eyebrow and smirking. "Not in SUVs in the middle of a giant crowd, apparently. Five bucks, pay up."

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