My Sister's Brothers (A Bennetrelli Christmas, Part One)
Title: My Sister’s Brothers
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Lyle Bennet (ensemble: all Bennets, all Petrellis)
Rating/Genre: G/gen
Summary: Claire wanted only one thing for Christmas: To bring both her families together. To Lyle’s discomfort, everyone but him seems to think that’s a great idea.
Word count: 1 718
Notes: Part one of A Bennetrelli Christmas. Up to nine more chapters, focusing on one “Bennetrelli” character each, plus eventually Elle, will (hopefully) keep coming until Christmas.
Notes 2: I’m taking some liberties with some of the events of Heroes, such as: Nathan is Nathan, Elle is alive…
It is around noon and the doorbell rings. Lyle doesn’t move from the chair in the kitchen.
“Lyle, can’t you see I’m busy?” his mother says and nods impatiently toward the front door, while she puts on the oven mitts to take the cookies out of the oven.
Lyle sighs, but goes to the door. He knows who’s out there.
All of them. All of them at once.
Yeah. When he opens the door, he finds himself standing face to face with nothing less than six Petrellis. The old woman smiles without showing her teeth, and says:
“Merry Christmas, Lyle”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Petrelli.”
“Oh, please, call me Angela. After all, we’re almost family…”
Yeah, almost, Lyle thinks, at least that’s what Claire wants. It doesn’t matter what I call her; Mrs. Petrelli is Claire’s grandmother, she doesn’t care a bit about me. Why does Claire think that she can have two families, and why does everyone seem to think it’s okay?
“Sure”, he says, “come on in. Uh, welcome… Merry Christmas…”
He quickly steps out of the way and Claire’s new family, or her first family or whatever, walks in, invades the house. The men are carrying bags - one looks like it’s loaded with wrapped gifts - and the two kids he’s supposed to treat like his little brothers or something are looking around with big eyes.
Like they haven’t been in a real house before. Well, they probably haven’t; spoiled little brats, used to all kinds of
luxury…
Lyle is more than relieved when his parents finally arrive to greet the guests so that he’s not alone with them anymore.
Tell me again why this is happening? he thinks.
“Claire?” his mother calls, “aren’t you coming down?”
Of course, Lyle thinks, this is happening because of Claire. He remembers when she came up with this idea, a couple of months ago, on an ordinary evening when they were having dinner.
“Hey guys”, she said, “I’ve been thinking… we’re not doing anything special for Christmas, are we?”
“I don’t think so”, Sandra replied, “I guess it will the same procedure as last year… why, what did you have in mind?”
Claire took a deep breath, looked very seriously at all of them, and then she said it:
“Well, I just thought that maybe we could spend Christmas with the Petrellis this year? I mean, both Nathan and Peter and… and all of them.”
Lyle stared at her in disbelief.
“All of them?” Sandra said faintly, and Lyle said:
“What for?! Why would we want to spend Christmas with them?”
“Because”, his sister said, “we’re family! I mean, of course you guys will always be my real family, but after all, they are my biological family, and I kind of like them - and I just thought it could be nice if you got to know them too.”
“It’s a beautiful thought”, their dad said gently, “but Christmas is - well, you know, they probably have their own family traditions, Claire-Bear.”
“I know”, Claire replied, with that pleading look on her face that always made Lyle roll his eyes and made their dad’s heart melt, “but can’t we at least ask them? Please? It would mean so much to me!”
“I don’t know”, their dad said, “Sandra, what do think?”
Before his mother had time to answer, Lyle said:
“I think that’s the worst idea ever! I don’t want to spend Christmas in New York with a bunch of rich crazy freaks!”
“They’re not freaks”, Claire snapped, “not more than you, anyway! Look, just because we’ve got these abilities, it doesn’t mean that we’re bad people!”
“Here’s what I think”, Lyle said and put down his fork and knife; suddenly without appetite, “why don’t you and dad go to New York, me and mom and Mr. Muggles will stay here, alone, and we’ll have a normal Christmas…”
“Hey”, Sandra said, “don’t talk like that, let’s not split up this family! We’ll all spend the holiday together, just like always, with or without the Petrelli family.”
“So it’s a really terrible idea, then?” Claire said with a deep sigh, and Lyle kicked her leg under the table, so she could get something real to look so sad about. Of course he knew that she couldn’t get hurt, so he kicked as hard as he could.
“No it’s not”, Noah said. “But your mother is right. We’re not splitting up… and we’re not going to New York either. But I’ll tell you what; we can tell the Petrellis that they’re welcome to come to us if they want to. Would that be OK with you, Lyle? Sandra?”
His mother looked at him, and then at Claire, and then at her husband. Please say no! he thought, and he knew that Claire was thinking please say yes.
“Well”, she said hesitantly, “I guess that would be all right… don’t you think so, Lyle? Your sister is right; they’re good people, really. They’ve been very nice to her, you know.”
So he was defeated.
“Fine”, he grunted, “whatever.”
Claire shrieked with joy, jumped up and down and hugged them all tightly as if nothing in the world could have made her happier.
Lyle had hoped, until the point of no return, that they wouldn’t come, but now they are there.
A hoard of elephants, in the shape of his sister, comes down the stairs, and she beams with joy at the sight of the strangers that are her biological family.
“Peter!” she cries, and attacks the younger man with a big hug, that doesn’t seem to take him by surprise. He just
laughs and hugs her right back and almost lifts her from the floor.
“Hey”, he says, “it’s my favorite cheerleader!”
“I hope so”, she replies, “but I haven’t been doing much of that lately…”
“Doesn’t matter”, Peter says as he puts her down, “once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader. Save one, and you’ll save the word, right?”
“Yeah, you’re totally my hero.”
“Good to see you, Claire”, Nathan Petrelli says, and Claire turns away from Peter.
Lyle has seen that guy on TV a couple of times, and it feels just surreal to see him in his home; and with an almost awkward smile the man pats Claire on the shoulder, then he squeezes it, and looks like he’s considering a hug, and then he steps back.
“You too”, Claire says, and reaches up to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks for coming.”
That man is her real father, Lyle thinks, and the thought just doesn’t make sense to him. He knows it all, all right; all the facts, and it isn’t that hard to understand, but all the same it feels just weird. Claire has two dads. But not like that, like one of his friends in school, no, not at all. It’s like she has two different identities, and suddenly they’re both coming together right under his nose. He prefers not to think about what she can do, but he knows that all of them can do weird things…
“Claire-Bear”, their dad says, “are you going to let your guests stand out here all weekend?”
“Of course not”, she says quickly, “come on, you guys!”
She leads the way into the living room, and the younger Petrelli woman starts talking about the Christmas tree and how beautiful it is.
“It’s so pretty”, Claire agrees, “I’m glad you like it, Heidi. And I’m so glad you wanted to come with the kids, I really want to get to know them better.”
Heidi smiles at her sons, who are standing close to her, not holding her hands, but they look like they want to.
“Hey, did you hear that? Your big sister wants to get to know you better, isn’t that great!”
“Yeah, I really do. And do you know who this is?”
Claire looks at Lyle, grabs his elbow and pulls him closer.
“This is my brother, Lyle.”
He remembers to be polite, says hi and reaches out his hand to Heidi Petrelli, who takes it and smiles warmly at him. In the corner of eye, he sees that his parents are talking to the other grownups. His mother is holding a plate of cookies, and Peter is taking one.
“So which one of you is Simon and which one is Monty?” Lyle asks.
“I’m Simon”, says the older boy, “so if Claire’s your sister, does that mean that you’re our brother, too?”
“Not really”, their mutual sister says, “you see, you and me, we don’t have the same mom, but we have the same dad. But Nathan is not Lyle’s dad. Lyle and I grew up in the same family, and that’s why he’s my brother.”
It’s obvious that the kids don’t really understand, and, Lyle thinks, who can blame them?
“Bennet”, Nathan Petrelli says and looks at the tree, “the star up there is slanting… do you want me to put it
straight?”
Before Lyle’s dad has answered, Nathan floats up in the air, and the boys starts laughing when he’s hovering a few inches above the floor - and then he quickly adjusts the slanting star in the top of the big Christmas tree.
“Do it again, dad!” the boys shout, but Nathan firmly shakes his head.
“No, that’s enough”, he says. “I’m not your plaything, I’m not doing this just for fun, you know.”
“So did you fly all the way here from New York?” Lyle asks, trying to hide how freakish and yet fascinating he thinks it is to see a man do something like that.
“Lyle!” his mother says reproaching.
“We all flew in an airplane, yes.” Nathan looks at Sandra. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bennet, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”
“Oh no”, she replies quickly, but she is a little pale, “not at all, it’s all right!”
Oh my god, Lyle thinks, this is going to be the longest and weirdest Christmas ever.
“So I have an X-box”, he says to the boys, “do you want to play?”
“Yeah!” they say in chorus, “Mom, can we play?”
Heidi says that it’s all right, and although Lyle feels a little bad about leaving his mom with these people, he’s relieved to get out of sight, and he takes his sister’s brothers to his room.