☁ fill these spaces up with days

[forksextras]

Who | Claire Bennet Butler (autophoenix ), Jessica Stanley (yournewbff ), Various Forksians (forksextras ), Lyle Bennet Butler (itsnotlarry ), and Edward Cullen (likealocalgod )
What | The first day of Claire's new life at Forks High.
Where | Forks High School;  Unnamed Twilight/Heroes verse
When | Post S1-Heroes
How | An amorphous road of prose, commentspam, and action-spam, winding merrily from one to

Comments

[autophoenix]

All things considered, it could have been worse.

You know, in the way that it occurred to Claire that it could, quite possibly, be Alaska. Or Antarctica. Iceland, maybe -- or Greenland. Which one was the one with the ice again? Everything about the school reeked of the fact that there were probably 35 kids total in her junior class, from the too-cold breeze from the air conditioning (who needed air conditioning in Washington?) and the fact that kids were, for some reason, wearing shorts and t-shirts while it was 52 outside, to the fact that there was one Spanish teacher in the entire school.

Under the radar was an understatement. What happened to New Mexico? Wasn't that witness protection central? Warm, dry witness protection central? Needless to say, Lyle's scoffing fit was pretty much the best expression of how Claire was feeling for the time being, but at least she was doing better at hiding it. Maybe when they got home, she'd find the time to complain, but for now, she just forced a none-too-convincing smile and

[itsnotlarry]

Lyle's wet sneakers squeaked across the floors as he felt himself suddenly yanked backwards by his sister's iron grip on his backpack. He turned a fixedly annoyed look back on her, prepared to be reamed out for who knew what. Exasperation didn't quite cover it.

And there she went, off on an entitled tirade, about what she needed, like she just expected everyone to fall all over themselves backwards to give it to her if she added in a pretty please at the end.

His annoyance morphed into a glare, as he jerked her off even as she began to move her hand from him, and took a step back.

"You mean you need to make sure I can cover your butt?" he shot back. He couldn't believe her : acting like he was incapable of maintaining this stupid simple cover. It was just like Claire to assume that everybody else in the world was an idiot. Took one to know one.

"Relax, I'm not the one who's going to do something weird and get us kicked out of here." It was a daring thing to say in the middle of school, and the look he gave her told her

[autophoenix]

Of course he was going to turn it into her being selfish again. Everything was going back to that lately even though this whole stupid mess wasn't even her fault. She didn't even do anything. The situation sucked, sure, but that didn't mean Lyle needed to demonize Claire over it. She scowled bitterly as he responded, remaining quiet as she could so that he didn't think she was trying to steamroll him or something.

Unfortunately, remaining quiet could only last for so long before he took it too far with his mutters of butt-covering and weirdness. Okay. There was only so much of that she could stand for. Being discreet meant Lyle wasn't allowed to dangle that over her like it were a threat he could actually follow through. Noah would never stand for Lyle actually pretending he'd say something too forthcoming if he knew, and at this rate, Claire had half mind to tell him.

"Would you keep it down? I'd like to make it through a week of school before you turn me into a social pariah, you little brat." She reached out and

[autophoenix]

First class. Fighting with her pocket to convince it to free her schedule, Claire found she was due in U.S. History. Yay. On the bright side, at least that had to be the same from state to state, right? Right. Focus on the positives, Claire

[forksextras]

The lecture was over things that had already been covered at Claire's last school, which was promising for her prospective grade in the class, but far less promising for the concept of learning anything interesting while she was in it. Everyone else scribbled notes, or at least did a fair job of pretending to

[autophoenix]

When Mr. Matthews announced five minutes of free time at the end, Claire's initial reaction was abject horror. Socializing. Just about the last thing she ever wanted to imagine doing right now. She'd come to school today prepared to sit in the ladies' room locked in a stall to eat her lunch to avoid just this kind of pressure. Between the fact that the entire class appeared fixated in that hokey, small-town way that she'd always thought that Odessa was bad about and the fact that she was at least sixty percent sure the girls to her right were talking about her, she was trying her best to disappear into her seat

[forksextras]

♪ [The girls behind the Alpha Blonde exchange glances and giggles, but she keeps up her smile, which seems to widen. Like a shark. Who... had its teeth whitened professionally.]

Don't worry, we see the sun a few days a year.

[autophoenix]

[ She'll take it at face value, because Claire's learned that that's the best way to handle these things. ]

That's the best news I've heard all day. I was beginning to doubt it. I mean, as soon as we got into town, it was ... pretty hard to believe. [ Awkward smile. ] So, I'm guessing you've lived here for a while.

[forksextras]

Actually, my family moved here from Seattle. [Do you hear that sense of entitlement in there? Obviously ~Seattle~ is one fucking ritzy place, the way she makes it sound.] But I've been here about five years.

What about you? Where'd you fly in from?

[autophoenix]

[ Not. Texas. She has no connection to Claire Bennet or Union Wells or any of that. Most unextraordinary state she could think of. ]

... Florida. It's not much better than here or Seattle, really, it's pretty much just ... crocodiles and old people. [ God, she wished she was in Florida. ]

We actually landed in Seattle. Our plane, I mean. Since you know. Forks is kind of ... sin airport. [ Right. Spanish probably wasn't as easy to come by here. ] Err ... lacking. In airports, I mean. But, you knew that already.

[forksextras]

[Lauren sees how you lumped here and Seattle together and she is not amused. Her smile slips a fraction. Especially when you throw in your random hoity toity Spanish.

You know a town is classy when Spanish is a hoity toity foreign language.]

But I mean they have a lot of beaches down there right? All kinds of hunks.

Did you have a boyfriend back in Florida, Claire? I bet you were pretty pissed off about moving here, huh?

[autophoenix]

Boyfriend? [ Well, she had boys she liked in Odessa. But neither of those worked out particularly well. After a hesitant pause, she shook her head slowly. ] No, not really.

Moving did kind of suck, though. [ Read: really suck. But, she's experienced in woman traps. ] Coming in halfway through the semester and losing all my friends? Not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. [ Okay, Sylar potentially deserved it, actually. ] But, you know, my whole family's pretty optimistic about it. I think we'll fit in okay if we just give it a chance.

[forksextras]

[Lauren sees your pause and files that one away.]

So why'd you move anyway? [Glittering eyes seek out any hint of scandal in your body language, Claire.]

[autophoenix]

[ She has practiced this lie so many times it hurts her heart. She just looks bored with the whole story, though. } My dad needed to move. For work. They needed more people for the Port Angeles branch or something stupid like that. You'd think we'd be lucky enough to stay in the city, but apparently that's no environment to raise children in or ... whatever.

[forksextras]

Sometimes they have muggings there and everything.

So what does your dad do, exactly?

[autophoenix]

[ This face. She just stares for a long time before forcing a smile and trying to look amused by this fact. Was she supposed to be excited about muggings? Why was this girl making it sound like a good thing? ]

... Awesome. [ Quick topic change. Away from awesome muggings. ] He works in paper. Yeah, it's totally boring, I know, but it was pretty helpful while I was in cheerleading. [ Shit. Way to go, Claire. NO CHEERLEADING. Rule number one.

Whatever, this school probably doesn't even have a spirit squad. ]