Fic: Five Reality Shows that Sylaire Never Participated In
Title: Five Reality Shows that Sylaire Never Participated In
Author: cameroncrazed
Characters: Sylar/Claire, some real people, some original characters
Rating: PG-13 (I use bad words, oh noes!)
Category: humor
Summary: A series of 5 drabbles from 100-474 words that explore (and lampoon) a variety of reality-based TV shows that Sylar and Claire never starred in.
Disclaimer: "Heroes" - characters and concepts - do not belong to me. Obviously. I also don't own anything else you might recognize. A giant thank-you to ladyanne525 for betaing and convincing me that I was not, in fact, going insane. And for naming the cows, I almost forgot about that. :)
1. Teen Mom (100 word drabble)
Claire blankly stares at the camera. Her hair hangs in unwashed tangles around her face, and her clothes are covered in baby vomit.
"It's not so bad." Her tone is completely flat, her words sounding like they've been rehearsed. She bounces the baby on her lap, and the pink-blanketed infant begins wailing. "I love being a single teenaged mother. It's not that bad. Really. I don't even care that I haven't seen Gabriela's dad since she was conceived."
- - - - - - - - - -
"Shit." Sylar looks at her, then at the brunette baby she's holding, then turns off the TV before transporting to Costa Verde.
2. Nanny 911 (150 word drabble)
"...help us, Supernanny!" Sylar and Claire plead.
Jo rewatches the video as the children set fire to the kitchen table and swing from the chandeliers as the parents focus on the camera. They certainly do need her help!
- - - - - - - - - -
"Noah needs the naughty chair now. He's been very bad." Jo explains to Sylar as she sits Noah on the chair.
"He wasn't that bad!" Sylar tries to interfere. "That was minor."
"Minor?" Jo clearly sees why the children are uncontrollable - the parents can't even identify bad behavior. "He stole a car, robbed a bank, and assaulted a policeman. He's five. He shows all the tendencies of a psychopath!"
"Did you hear that, Claire?" Sylar yells into the kitchen, patting Noah on the head. "She said he's just like me!"
Jo calmly grabs her things, heading out the door. Some families are too dysfunctional, and she knows the Grays are beyond helping.
3. Amazing Race (200 word drabble)
"Why aren't you finished with this already?" Sylar yells at Claire.
"I'm trying," Claire screams back. "It would be easier if you would just go away! And stop yelling at me!"
"MOOOOO." The cow effing hates it when the loud, inept bipedals come into the barn with their annoying buzzing microwhatsits and privacy-encroaching moving picture machines and unclean, frigid hands. She kicks the blonde bipedal trying to milk her, and then laughs in a very bovine way when the annoying one starts crying. The dark-haired male bipedal begins cursing. Belle's glad her granddam isn't around, Memaw Daisy would have made her eat sour thorns if she'd said those sorts of words.
"But baby, if you don't milk the goddamn cow already, we're going to be eliminated!"
"I don't fucking care anymore, honey!" Claire yells back. "Just take care of the people in front of us, and it doesn't even matter!"
If Belle could milk herself, she would, just to get the annoying ones to go away already. Maybe if she concentrates really hard… whoops.
Claire starts crying even harder. "Sylar, I can't do this. The cow just crapped on me. I want to go home. I hate the Amazing Race!"
4. Survivor (250 word drabble)
Most of the miserable tribe huddles together.
The host just looks at them, visibly surprised. "Let me get this straight. We're only on day three but you're ready to vote for the winner of the game?"
They stare at the couple sitting apart from them, and whimper. "Yes, Jeff."
"Well, this has never happened in one of our previous forty seasons before, but okay." Jeff shakes his head, still confused as to what had happened at camp to lead to this. "Bob, you're up first."
Bob's knees clang together as he walks to the voting area. With one last terrified look behind him, he scribbles something on a piece of paper, then faints from sheer fear.
- - - - - - - - - -
"The votes have been cast. Who will be our ultimate Survivor?" Jeff grins as he starts pulling votes out and reading them, but the grin quickly fades as he starts calling out the votes. "Again, we have a first. Every single castaway has voted for two contestants." He turns to address someone off camera. "Is that even allowed?"
The producer nods, then points towards the couple sitting apart and makes some frantic hand gestures. He holds out a finger, then slides it across his neck in an obvious pantomime, then points at one of the two winners.
Jeff gets the message. "There you have it folks, our Survivor winners - Claire and Sylar." He throws down the votes and starts to walk away, muttering all the while, "I'm getting too old for this shit."
5. 51 Kids and Counting (474 words... and counting)
"So, tell us a little about the family." The disembodied voice comes from off-camera as the producer prompts Sylar and Claire.
They look at each other, smiling. He rests his arm over her shoulders, and wryly comments, "Well, I always wanted a large family."
"Wed just didn't originally plan on it being this large." Claire shrugs. "I was thinking five or six would be enough, but we started having them and... liked it."
"It sounds more intimidating than it is, having fifty-one kids." Sylar comments. "They almost pay for themselves, especially when they're young. Diapers aren't a problem when you can just turn them into gold. A few of the older ones are amazing with plants, so we grow a lot of our food. Honestly, it's just a matter of being organized." He holds up a small hand-held computer. "We keep a central database, and all we need is a quick fingerprint scan to get all the info we need - name, birthday, favorite color, food likes and dislikes, report cards, and everything else."
- - - - - - - - - -
The scene changes to Claire standing in the middle of their massive kitchen, scanning kids as they run by. She continues talking about their organizational system. "It works great! A family friend set up our computers, and it's so easy - everyone digitally checks in at curfew or when we travel. We haven't lost or forgotten a kid in years now." She tries to scan two boys, so similar that they could almost pass for identical twins - the scanner makes a happy chirping sound when she scans the first, but when she tries to scan the second, the computer buzzes loudly. "The only problem we ever have is when the neighborhood kids drop by. Our kids are in the system, but they aren't - but we really do love that there are so many other kids in the neighborhood so that they have friends from outside the family. It seems like everyone in the cul-de-sac was pregnant at the same time!"
- - - - - - - - - -
The scene switches again to the couch in the basement, and it's just Claire and Sylar again. "The pregnancies aren't even hard any more." Claire explains, and Sylar nods. "I'm only pregnant for about five months or so, since with our powers, the kids don't need to incubate longer, and Sylar's powers make it so that he can knock me up just by looking at me, so we're really efficient."
"It only took me a few weeks to learn to control that power." Sylar adds, then smiles tenderly at Claire while wriggling his eyebrows.
She giggles, then leans over the side of the couch to vomit. Wiping her mouth, she giggles again and announces "I guess we're going to have to change the title of the show to '52 kids and counting'!"
- - - - - - - - - -
Lyle switches off the TV, muttering under his breath. "Freaks."
Author: cameroncrazed
Characters: Sylar/Claire, some real people, some original characters
Rating: PG-13 (I use bad words, oh noes!)
Category: humor
Summary: A series of 5 drabbles from 100-474 words that explore (and lampoon) a variety of reality-based TV shows that Sylar and Claire never starred in.
Disclaimer: "Heroes" - characters and concepts - do not belong to me. Obviously. I also don't own anything else you might recognize. A giant thank-you to ladyanne525 for betaing and convincing me that I was not, in fact, going insane. And for naming the cows, I almost forgot about that. :)
1. Teen Mom (100 word drabble)
Claire blankly stares at the camera. Her hair hangs in unwashed tangles around her face, and her clothes are covered in baby vomit.
"It's not so bad." Her tone is completely flat, her words sounding like they've been rehearsed. She bounces the baby on her lap, and the pink-blanketed infant begins wailing. "I love being a single teenaged mother. It's not that bad. Really. I don't even care that I haven't seen Gabriela's dad since she was conceived."
- - - - - - - - - -
"Shit." Sylar looks at her, then at the brunette baby she's holding, then turns off the TV before transporting to Costa Verde.
2. Nanny 911 (150 word drabble)
"...help us, Supernanny!" Sylar and Claire plead.
Jo rewatches the video as the children set fire to the kitchen table and swing from the chandeliers as the parents focus on the camera. They certainly do need her help!
- - - - - - - - - -
"Noah needs the naughty chair now. He's been very bad." Jo explains to Sylar as she sits Noah on the chair.
"He wasn't that bad!" Sylar tries to interfere. "That was minor."
"Minor?" Jo clearly sees why the children are uncontrollable - the parents can't even identify bad behavior. "He stole a car, robbed a bank, and assaulted a policeman. He's five. He shows all the tendencies of a psychopath!"
"Did you hear that, Claire?" Sylar yells into the kitchen, patting Noah on the head. "She said he's just like me!"
Jo calmly grabs her things, heading out the door. Some families are too dysfunctional, and she knows the Grays are beyond helping.
3. Amazing Race (200 word drabble)
"Why aren't you finished with this already?" Sylar yells at Claire.
"I'm trying," Claire screams back. "It would be easier if you would just go away! And stop yelling at me!"
"MOOOOO." The cow effing hates it when the loud, inept bipedals come into the barn with their annoying buzzing microwhatsits and privacy-encroaching moving picture machines and unclean, frigid hands. She kicks the blonde bipedal trying to milk her, and then laughs in a very bovine way when the annoying one starts crying. The dark-haired male bipedal begins cursing. Belle's glad her granddam isn't around, Memaw Daisy would have made her eat sour thorns if she'd said those sorts of words.
"But baby, if you don't milk the goddamn cow already, we're going to be eliminated!"
"I don't fucking care anymore, honey!" Claire yells back. "Just take care of the people in front of us, and it doesn't even matter!"
If Belle could milk herself, she would, just to get the annoying ones to go away already. Maybe if she concentrates really hard… whoops.
Claire starts crying even harder. "Sylar, I can't do this. The cow just crapped on me. I want to go home. I hate the Amazing Race!"
4. Survivor (250 word drabble)
Most of the miserable tribe huddles together.
The host just looks at them, visibly surprised. "Let me get this straight. We're only on day three but you're ready to vote for the winner of the game?"
They stare at the couple sitting apart from them, and whimper. "Yes, Jeff."
"Well, this has never happened in one of our previous forty seasons before, but okay." Jeff shakes his head, still confused as to what had happened at camp to lead to this. "Bob, you're up first."
Bob's knees clang together as he walks to the voting area. With one last terrified look behind him, he scribbles something on a piece of paper, then faints from sheer fear.
- - - - - - - - - -
"The votes have been cast. Who will be our ultimate Survivor?" Jeff grins as he starts pulling votes out and reading them, but the grin quickly fades as he starts calling out the votes. "Again, we have a first. Every single castaway has voted for two contestants." He turns to address someone off camera. "Is that even allowed?"
The producer nods, then points towards the couple sitting apart and makes some frantic hand gestures. He holds out a finger, then slides it across his neck in an obvious pantomime, then points at one of the two winners.
Jeff gets the message. "There you have it folks, our Survivor winners - Claire and Sylar." He throws down the votes and starts to walk away, muttering all the while, "I'm getting too old for this shit."
5. 51 Kids and Counting (474 words... and counting)
"So, tell us a little about the family." The disembodied voice comes from off-camera as the producer prompts Sylar and Claire.
They look at each other, smiling. He rests his arm over her shoulders, and wryly comments, "Well, I always wanted a large family."
"Wed just didn't originally plan on it being this large." Claire shrugs. "I was thinking five or six would be enough, but we started having them and... liked it."
"It sounds more intimidating than it is, having fifty-one kids." Sylar comments. "They almost pay for themselves, especially when they're young. Diapers aren't a problem when you can just turn them into gold. A few of the older ones are amazing with plants, so we grow a lot of our food. Honestly, it's just a matter of being organized." He holds up a small hand-held computer. "We keep a central database, and all we need is a quick fingerprint scan to get all the info we need - name, birthday, favorite color, food likes and dislikes, report cards, and everything else."
- - - - - - - - - -
The scene changes to Claire standing in the middle of their massive kitchen, scanning kids as they run by. She continues talking about their organizational system. "It works great! A family friend set up our computers, and it's so easy - everyone digitally checks in at curfew or when we travel. We haven't lost or forgotten a kid in years now." She tries to scan two boys, so similar that they could almost pass for identical twins - the scanner makes a happy chirping sound when she scans the first, but when she tries to scan the second, the computer buzzes loudly. "The only problem we ever have is when the neighborhood kids drop by. Our kids are in the system, but they aren't - but we really do love that there are so many other kids in the neighborhood so that they have friends from outside the family. It seems like everyone in the cul-de-sac was pregnant at the same time!"
- - - - - - - - - -
The scene switches again to the couch in the basement, and it's just Claire and Sylar again. "The pregnancies aren't even hard any more." Claire explains, and Sylar nods. "I'm only pregnant for about five months or so, since with our powers, the kids don't need to incubate longer, and Sylar's powers make it so that he can knock me up just by looking at me, so we're really efficient."
"It only took me a few weeks to learn to control that power." Sylar adds, then smiles tenderly at Claire while wriggling his eyebrows.
She giggles, then leans over the side of the couch to vomit. Wiping her mouth, she giggles again and announces "I guess we're going to have to change the title of the show to '52 kids and counting'!"
- - - - - - - - - -
Lyle switches off the TV, muttering under his breath. "Freaks."